CHAPTER I.

The

Celebrated Sporting Works

OF

ROBERT B. ROOSEVELT.

I.

The Game Fish of the North

II.

Superior Fishing.

III.

The Game Birds of the North.

⁂ _All published uniform with this volume,

handsomely bound in cloth, price $2.00.

Sent free by mail on receipt

of price_,

BY

Carleton, Publisher,

New York.

THE

GAME-BIRDS

OF THE

COASTS AND LAKES OF THE NORTHERN STATES

OF AMERICA.

A FULL ACCOUNT OF THE SPORTING ALONG OUR SEASHORES

AND INLAND WATERS, WITH A COMPARISON

OF THE MERITS OF BREECH-LOADERS

AND MUZZLE-LOADERS.

BY ROBERT B. ROOSEVELT,

AUTHOR OF “THE GAME-FISH OF NORTH AMERICA,” “SUPERIOR FISHING,”

“COUNTRY LIFE,” ETC., ETC.

NEW YORK:

_Carleton, Publisher, 413 Broadway._

M DCCC LXVI.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by

GEO. W. CARLETON,

In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the

Southern District of New York.

THE NEW YORK PRINTING COMPANY,

_81, 83, and 85 Centre Street_,

NEW YORK.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

CHAPTER I.

Game of Ancient and Modern Days.--Its Protection and Importance.--The

proper Shooting Seasons.--The Impolicy of using Batteries and

Pivot-Guns. 7

CHAPTER II.

Guns and Gunnery.--Breech-loaders compared with Muzzle-loaders.--A

Sharp Review of the “Dead Shot.”--The Field Trial. 27

CHAPTER III.

Bay-snipe Shooting.--The Birds, their Habits, Peculiarities, and

places of Resort.--Stools and Whistles.--Dress and Implements

appropriate to their pursuit.--Their Names and Mode of Capture. 66

CHAPTER IV.

The New Jersey Coast.--Jersey Girls and their pleasant ways.--The

peculiarities of Bay-snipe further elucidated.--Mosquitoes

rampant.--Good Shooting and “Fancy” Sport.--Shipwrecks and

Ghosts. 98

CHAPTER V.

Bay-Birds.--Particular Descriptions and Scientific Characteristics.--A

Complete Account of each Variety. 140

CHAPTER VI.

Montauk Point.--American Golden Plover or Frost-Bird.--A True Story

of Three Thousand in a Flock.--Lester’s Tavern.--Good Eating, Fine

Fishing, and Splendid Shooting.--The Nepeague Beach. 178

CHAPTER VII.

Rail and Rail-Shooting.--Seasons, Localities, and Incidents of

Sport.--Use of Breech-loader or Muzzle-loader.--Equipment. 190

CHAPTER VIII.

Wild-Fowl Shooting.--General Directions, from Boats, Blinds, or

Batteries.--Retrievers from Baltimore and Newfoundland.--Western

Sport.--Equipment. 205

CHAPTER IX.

Duck-Shooting on the Inland Lakes.--The Club House.--Practical Views

of Practical Men.--Moral Tales.--A Day’s Fishing.--The Closing

Scenes. 219

CHAPTER X.

Suggestions to Sportsmen.--A Definition of the Term.--Crack

Shots.--The Art of Shooting.--The Art of not Shooting. 271

CHAPTER XI.

Trap-Shooting.--Its Justification.--The Assistants.--Rules and

Regulations.--Care of Birds.--Tricks of the Trade. 288

APPENDIX.

Ornithological Descriptions of the Geese and Ducks, with Remarks and

Suggestions on their Habits.--Rules of Trap-shooting. 303

THE GAME BIRDS OF THE NORTH.

CHAPTER I.

GAME AND ITS PROTECTION.

By the ancient law of 1 and 2 William IV., chap. 32, under the

designation of game, were included “hares, pheasants, partridges,

grouse, heath or moor game, black game, and bustards.”

Hunting and hawking date back to the earliest days of knight-errantry,

when parties of cavaliers and ladies fair, mounted on their mettlesome

steeds caparisoned with all the skill of the cunning artificers of those

days, pursued certain birds of the air with the falcon, and followed the

royal stag through the well preserved and extensive forests with packs

of hounds. The term game, therefore, had an early significance and

positive application, but was confined to the creatures pursued in one

or the other of these two modes.

The gun was first used for the shooting of feathered game in the early

part of the eighteenth century; it soon became the favorite implement of

the sportsman, and was brought into use, not only against the birds,

but the beasts, of game. The huntsman no longer depends upon his brave

dog and cloth-yard shaft, but upon his own powers of endurance and of

marksmanship. Instead of watching the savage falcon strike his prey far

up in the heavens, he follows his high-bred setters, till their

wonderful natural instinct betrays to him the presence of the game.

Where he once rode after the yelping pack, sounding the merry notes of

his bugle horn, he now climbs and crawls laboriously, until he brings

the wary stag within range of the deadly rifle. No more brilliant

parties of lovely dames and gallant men, chatting merrily on the

incidents of the day, ride gaily decked steeds; no more the luxury of

the beautiful faces and pleasant companionship of the gentler sex is to

be enjoyed; the ladies of modern times--except in England, where they

occasionally follow foxes, which are rather vermin than game--preferring

the excitement of ball-room flirtations to outdoor sports and pleasures,

take no part in the pursuits of the chase.

Together with the change in the mode of capturing game, comes a

necessity for a change in its former restricted meaning. Who would think

of not including among game birds, the gamest of them all--the

magnificent woodcock; nor the stylish English snipe, nor even possibly

the brave little quail--unless he can be scientifically proved to be a

partridge--which is at least doubtful! Migratory birds were not included

in the sacred list, and the quail in England, as the woodcock and snipe

of both England and America, are migratory, although the mere temporary

character of their residence does not, in our view, at all alter the

nature of their claims. The larger European woodcock is by no means so

delicious or highly flavored a bird as our yellow-breasted, round-eyed

beauty, and is much scarcer; while the foreign quail, on the other hand,

is smaller than ours, and in southern Europe is found in vast flocks;

but both are entitled to high rank among modern sportsmen.

The term Game Birds, therefore, should be, and has been by general

consent, greatly extended in its application, and applied to all the

numerous species which, whether migratory or not, are killed not alone

for the market, but for sport; and which are followed on the stubble

fields, in brown November, with the strong-limbed and keen-nosed setter,

or shot from blind in scorching August; slain from battery in freezing

December, or chased in a boat, or misled by decoys. All wild birds that

furnish sport as well as profit are therefore game; and the gentle

dowitchers along our sea-coast, lured to the deceitful stools, are as

much entitled to the name as the stately ruffed grouse of our wild

woods, or the royal turkey of the far west.

To constitute a legitimate object of true sport, the bird must be

habitually shot on the wing, and the greater the skill required in its

capture, the higher its rank. The turkey, therefore, although frequently

killed on the wing, is more a game bird by sufferance than by right, and

partly from his gastronomic as well as from his other qualities. Under

this classification, then, we must include, not merely the ruffed and

pinnated grouse, which, although the only species in our country coming

within the ancient definition, furnish far less sport than many other

varieties, but woodcock, snipe, quail, geese, ducks, bay birds, plover,

and rail; without regard to the fact that all, except the quail, are

migratory, and most were unknown to our British ancestry. It has been

even supposed that the quail, in parts of our country free from deep

rivers and impassable barriers, are also in a measure migratory; but

this has no other foundation than their habit of wandering from place to

place in search of food, and collecting late in the season, as they will

do where they are numerous and undisturbed in large packs.

To the protection of this vast variety of game it is the sportsman’s

duty to address himself, in spite of the opposition of the market-man

and restaurateur, the mean-spirited poaching of the pot-hunter, and the

lukewarmness of the farmer. The latter can be enlisted in the cause; he

has indirectly the objects of the sportsman at heart; and with proper

enlightenment will assist, not merely to preserve his fields from

ruthless injury, but to save from destruction his friends the

song-birds.

As the true sportsman turns his attention only to legitimate sport,

destroying those birds that are but little if at all useful to the

farmer; and as at the same time, out of gratitude for the kindness with

which the latter generally receives him, he is careful never to invade

the high grass or the ripening grain--so also, from his innate love of

nature, and of everything that makes nature more beautiful, he spares

and defends the warblers of the woods and the innocent worm-devourers

that stand guardian over the trees and crops. The smaller birds destroy

immense numbers of worms; cedar-birds have been known to eat hundreds of

caterpillars, and in this city have cleared the public squares in a

morning’s visit of the disgusting measuring-worms, that were hanging by

thousands pendent from the branches. And who has not heard the

“woodpecker tapping” all day long in pursuit of his prey?

With the barbarous and senseless destruction of our small birds, the

ravages of the worms have augmented, until we hear from all the

densely-settled portions of the country loud complaints of their

attacks. Peach-trees perish; cherries are no longer the beautiful fruit

they once were; apples are disfigured, and plums have almost ceased to

exist. Worms appear upon every vegetable thing; the borers dig their way

beneath the bark of the trunk and cut long alleys through the wood;

weevils pierce the grain and eat out its pith; the leaf-eaters of

various sorts punch out the delicate membrane by individual effort; or

collecting in bodies, throw their nets, like a spider-web, over the

branches, and by combined attacks deliberately devour every leaf. While

these species are at work openly and in full sight, others are at the

roots digging and destroying and multiplying; until the tree that at

first gave evidence of hardiness and promise of long utility to man,

pauses in its growth, becomes delicate, fades, and finally dies.

The destruction of these vermicular pests is a question of life or death

to the farmer. He may attempt it either with his own labor, by tarring

his trees, fastening obstructions on the trunks, or by killing

individuals; or he may have it done for him, free of expense, by

innumerable flocks of the denizens of the air. The increase of worms

must be stopped; the means of doing so is a question of serious public

concern, and none have yet been invented so effectual as the natural

course--the restoration of the equipoise of nature. It is true that the

robin, as we call him, now and then steals a cherry, and has been blamed

as though he were nothing more than a cherry-thief; but surely we can

spare him a little fruit for his dessert, when we remember that his meal

has been composed mainly of the deadly enemies of that very fruit!

Swallows are accused of breeding lice, which, if true, would not be a

serious charge, considering that their nests are generally in the

loftiest and least accessible corner they can find; but when we consider

how many millions of noxious flies and poisonous mosquitoes they

destroy, how they hover over the swamps and meadows for this especial

purpose, and how much annoyance their labors save to human kind, we owe

them gratitude instead of abuse.

Every tribe of birds has its allotted part to play; and if destroyed,

not only will its pleasant songs and bright feathers, gleaming amid the

green leaves, be missed, but some species of bug or insect, some

disgusting caterpillar or injurious fly, will escape well merited

destruction, and increasingly visit upon man the punishment of his

cruelty and folly.

The beautiful blue-birds, the numerous woodpeckers, the tiny wrens, the

graceful swallows and noisy martins, are sacred to the sportsman, and

constitute one great division of the creatures that he desires to

protect. It is true that enthusiastic foreigners, with cast-iron guns,

are seen peering into trees and lurking through the woods, proud of a

dirty bag half filled with robins, thrushes, and woodpeckers; but let no

ignorant reader confound such persons with sportsmen. Their satisfaction

in slaying one beautiful little warbler, as full of melody as it is bare

of meat, with a deadly charge of No. 4 shot; or in chasing from tree to

tree the agile red squirrel, who, with bushy tail erect, leaps from one

limb to another, emulating the very birds themselves with his agility,

is as unsportsmanlike as to kill a cheeping quail, that, struggling from

the thick weeds in September before the pointer’s nose, with feeble

wings, skirts the low brush; or to murder the brooding woodcock, that

flutters up before the dog in June, and, with holy maternal instinct,

endeavours to lead the pursuer from her infant brood.

From such acts the veritable sportsman turns with horror; they are

cruelty--the slaughter of what is useless for food, or what, by its

death, will produce misery to others; and no persons in the community

have done more to repress this wantonness of destruction than the

Sportsmen’s Clubs. It was at their request that the killing of

song-birds was prohibited altogether; and they are the most earnest to

restrict the times of lawful sport to such periods as will not, by any

possibility, permit its being followed during the season of incubation.

Not alone by obtaining the passage of appropriate laws and their

vigorous enforcement, have these clubs effected a great reform; but by

their personal example and social influence, often, too, at considerable

loss to themselves. For while the poacher, taking the chance of a legal

conviction as an accident of business, and but a slight reduction of his

unlawful profits, anticipates the appointed time, true sportsmen,

restrained by a feeling of honor and self-respect, although they know

that the birds are being killed daily in defiance of the statute, wait

till the lawful day arrives, and thus often, especially in woodcock

shooting, sacrifice their entire season’s sport for a principle.

This honorable spirit, if encouraged and extended, is the best

protection for song-birds and game that can be had. The laws are only

necessary to deter those who are dead to honor and decency, and to fix

the proper times--which ought to be uniform throughout our entire

country. But to enforce them requires the assistance of public opinion.

Every encouragement should be given to sportsmen’s associations. The

absurd prejudice that has originated from confounding them with a very

different class of the community should be overcome, and their efforts

to have good laws passed, and to make them effectual, should be

sustained. The vulgar idea, that confounds laws for the protection of

the wild creatures of wood, meadow, lake, and stream, with the monstrous

game-laws of olden time--that made killing a hare more criminal than

killing a man--should be corrected.

In this country, where every man is expected to be a sort of

volunteer-policeman, all should unite in enforcing the laws; and then,

in spite of the irrepressible obstinacy of the German enthusiast, and

the mean cunning of the sneaking poacher, our cities would soon be rid

of the disgusting worms that make their trees hideous, our farms

protected from the devastations of the curculio, the weevil, the borer,

and the army-worm; the country would once more be populated with its

native feathered game, and our fields would resound with the glad songs

of the little birds that there build their homes.

So long as the ignorant of our _nouveaux riches_, imagining themselves

to be epicures, will pay for unseasonable game an extravagant price, so

long will unscrupulous market-men purchase, and loafing, disreputable,

tavern-haunting poachers shoot or otherwise kill their prey. It must be

made a disgrace, and if necessary punished as a crime, for any modern

Lucullus to insult his guests by presenting to them game out of season;

and eating-house keepers should not only be taught--by persistent

espionage, if necessary--that illegal profits will not equal legal

punishments; but their customers should also discourage, by withdrawing

their patronage, conduct that is so injurious to the public interests.

Woodcock would not be shot in spring, nor quail in summer, unless the

demand for them were sufficiently great to pay both the expense of

capture and the danger of exposure; and, with a diminution of

purchasers, will be an increased diminution of the number of birds

improperly killed.

Birds and fish, except in their proper seasons, are always tasteless,

and often unhealthy food. A setting quail or a spawning trout is

absolutely unfit to eat, and to do without them is no sacrifice; but for

the sportsman to restrain his ardor as the close-time draws towards an

end, and when others less scrupulous are filling their bags daily, or

when in the wilder sections of country there is no one to complain or

object, requires the heroism of self-denial. Nevertheless, the effect of

example should not be forgotten, and the duty of the true sportsman is

clear and unmistakable: he must abide by the law; or, where there is no

law, must govern himself by analogous rules.

In the wilderness, it is true, where birds are abundant to excess, he

may without blame supply his pot with cheeping grouse or wood-duck

flappers, if he can offer hunger as an excuse; but not even there,

unless driven by extremity, can he slay the parent of a brood that will

starve without parental care. In the settled regions, no matter how

great the provocation, the true sportsman will never forget the

chivalric motto, _noblesse oblige_.

The close-times of the present statutes are not altogether correct; and

in so extensive a locality as the United States, where diverse interests

are to be considered, it is nearly impracticable to make the laws

perfect. For instance, where quail are abundant, as in the South, there

is no objection to killing them during the entire month of January; but,

as at that period they are often lean and tough, and have to contend, in

the Northern States, against dangers of the elements and rapacious

vermin, with not too favorable a chance for life--it is undesirable,

where they are in the least scarce, to continue the pursuit after

December.

If it were possible to make a uniform law for the entire Union, and to

enforce it everywhere, English snipe and ducks should not be killed at

all during the spring. The latter at the time of their flight northward

are poor and fishy; but if they can be slain in New Jersey, it is hardly

worth while to protect them in New York. For every duck or snipe that

passes towards the hatching-grounds of British America in the early part

of the year, four or five return in the fall and winter. Could proper

protection, therefore, be enforced, the sport in the latter season would

be four times as great as in the former.

As matters stand, however, the seasons for killing game birds should be:

For woodcock, from July fourth to December thirty-first; for ruffed and

pin nated grouse, from September first--and quail from November

first--to the same period, both days inclusive; for wood-duck from

August first till they migrate southward. It is desirable to fix upon

anniversaries or days that are easily remembered. Woodcock are often

young and weak in early summer, and the three days gained between the

first and the fourth of July are quite an advantage. Although the first

brood of quail may be fully grown in October, a vast number of the birds

are too small, and the brush is too dense and thick before the first of

the ensuing month; whereas it is simply monstrous to slay pinnated

grouse, put up by the panting, overheated pointer from the high grass of

the western prairie, in the month of August, ere they can half fly. But

the migratory birds of the coast--the waterfowl and snipe, the waders

and plovers--may continue to be shot when they can be found, till their

rapidly diminishing numbers shall compel a more sensible and considerate

treatment.

The bay-snipe lead the advancing army of the game birds that have sought

the cool and secluded marshes of Hudson’s Bay and the Northern Ocean to

raise their young, and are hastening south from approaching cold and

darkness to more congenial climes. Next come the beautiful wood-duck,

and, almost simultaneously, the English snipe; then the swift but

diminutive teal; after him the broad-bill or the blue-bill of the west;

and then a host of other ducks, till the hardy canvas-backs and geese

bring up the rear. From July, when the yellow-legs and dowitchers

abound; throughout August, in which month the larger bay-birds are

continuously streaming by; during September, when the English snipe are

on the meadows and the wood-ducks in the lily-pad marshes of the

fresh-water lakes; in October, when the teal and blue-bills are abundant

in the great west; all through the fall and into winter, when the geese

and canvas-backs arrive, the bayman finds his sport in perfection.

Many of the upland birds are disappearing; the quail is being killed

with merciless energy, and his loved haunts of dense brush are cleared

away from year to year; the woodcock can hardly rest in peace long

enough to rear her young, and finds many of her favorite secluded spots

drained by the enterprising farmer; the ruffed grouse disappears with

the receding forest, and the prairie chicken with the cultivation of the

open land. But although innumerable ducks, snipe, and plovers are killed

every season, and by unjustifiable measures are driven from certain

localities, their vast flights throughout the whole country--amounting

to myriads in the west--are apparently as innumerable as ever.

From the first of August to the last of December they stretch athwart

the sky from the Atlantic to the Pacific; and although in localities

they may appear scarce, still constitute countless hosts. Were it

possible to stand on some peak of the Rocky Mountains, and take in at a

glance the vast stretch of heavens from ocean to ocean, with the moving

myriads of migratory flocks, the mind would be astonished; and it would

seem impossible ever to reduce their numbers. This is to a certain

degree true; for so long as the lagoons of the South shall remain

undisturbed, and the shores of the bays and rivers unoccupied to any

great extent, this abundance of the migratory birds will continue. But

when the Southern shores shall be frequented with gunners as plenteously

as those of Long Island and New Jersey, the last days of the bay-fowl

will have arrived.

At present we suffer more from improper modes of pursuit than from

absolute scarcity of game. The habit of using “batteries” in the South

Bay of Long Island, and locating them on the feeding or sanding-grounds,

has resulted in frightening away the birds. Where, a few years ago, ten

ducks stopped in the water adjoining that famous sand-pit, there can

hardly be found one at present. After being disturbed on their

feeding-grounds by murderous discharges from an unseen foe in their

midst, they become alarmed and leave the locality altogether. To be

sure, for a year or so, the number killed from that ingenious mode of

ambush will be enormous; but it is at a terrible sacrifice of the

supply, and will eventuate in ruin to those engaged in it. At present on

Long Island it is hardly possible to obtain a decent day’s sport without

using a “battery;” but in the South, along the Chesapeake and Potomac,

where the use of these inventions has never been allowed, the ducks are

as abundant as ever.

There is no meaner mode of shooting than from a battery. In attaining

destructiveness, every idea of beauty, comfort, or sportsmanship is

sacrificed. The shooter lies on his back in a species of coffin sunk to

the level of the water, with his decoys near by; and whenever a flock

approaches, he rises to a sitting posture and fires. He cannot leave his

battery nor move it, nor hardly turn round in it, and is unable to

retrieve his ducks without the aid of an assistant. It is an invention

suited solely to the market-gunner, and utterly unfitted to the

sportsman. Bad weather prevents its use altogether; and in a moderate

breeze the water is apt to break over the narrow rim and destroy the

comfort, if not absolutely endanger the safety, of the sportsman.

When ducks are scarce the confinement is wearisome; and when they are

abundant the excitement, united to the awkwardness of position, often

leads to terrible accidents. “Cribbed, cabined, and confined,” the

duck-shooter lies for weary hours exposed to the cold winds of winter,

unable to keep his blood in circulation by exercise, and is hardly

remunerated by the sport; although, if money be his object, he may be

paid by the commercial value of his game. It is this ignoble mode of

warfare that, more than anything else, has brought discredit upon

wild-fowl shooting; for the upland shooter, accustomed to the free

motion and active exertion of his favorite pursuit, naturally feels

disgusted at being thrust into a box scarcely large enough to contain

his body, and which cramps his every motion.

At the South, where the sportsman shoots from behind a blind, and calls

to his aid the courage and intelligence of his faithful “retriever” to

recover his game, the walk to and from the stand warms his blood, and he

can move around at will. In the West, where duck-shooting is to be had

in perfection, the sportsman pushes his light and narrow boat through

the weeds and lilies of the marshes, and has many a long chase after

wounded birds that will bring into play his muscles, and send the

circulation through his veins. Even in shooting through the “sneak

boxes” of Barnegat Bay, there is much exercise and a certain amount of

liberty of motion; but in the battery, a man is a mere death-dealing

machine, expected to mind neither cold nor cramp, and to demand neither

comfort nor pleasure.

One of the most necessary reforms in the game-laws would be the absolute

prohibition of the use of a battery. At the South this was done by the

good sense of the people; and many a stranger from Long Island, who was

unaware of the customs of the country, and had brought with him his

battery to teach the natives “New York tricks,” has been warned to move

his quarters by the whistle of a rifle-ball skipping across the water.

It is surprising that the gunners of the great South Bay did not long

ago discover that their interest lay in discontinuing the use of this

machine. For the first few years, perhaps, after its prohibition, they

might not have as good success; but in time the birds would resume their

old habits and renew their visits to what should be the paradise of

both ducks and sportsmen. They all know and regret the diminution of

wild fowl, and most of them are satisfied from what cause it arises; but

as the immediate losses from a change would fall upon themselves heavily

at first, they shrink from decided action.

If, however, the birds are to be retained, and prevented from gradually

withdrawing, year after year, until they shall desert us _in toto_, the

use of the battery must be prevented. When that is done, we shall soon

again have such days as we once had in and about old Raccoon Beach, when

sportsmen innumerable collected to welcome the advent of their prey;

when the tale and song filled up the long evenings, and the ducks

quacked their hosannas at early dawn; when every point was occupied by a

happy sportsman, and every boat came home loaded with game.

The use of pivot-guns is another reprehensible practice that has been so

earnestly condemned, even among market-gunners, that it has been in a

great measure abandoned. Still, however, in some quiet bay of one of the

great lakes of the West, where there is no one to observe the iniquity,

or of a moonlight night on the Chesapeake, the poaching murderer,

sculling his boat down upon an unsuspicious flock crowded together and

feeding or asleep, will discharge a pound or two of coarse shot from his

diminutive cannon; and wounding hundreds, will kill scores of ducks at

the one fatal discharge. The noise, however, reverberating over land and

water, scatters the tidings of the guilty act far and wide; and often

brings upon the criminal detection and punishment. To avoid this the

pivot-shooter will sometimes, as soon as he has fired, throw his gun

overboard with a buoy attached to it, and if pursued, pretend he has

used nothing but his small fowling-piece. The practice of

pivot-shooting, however, has almost ceased, never having been

extensively adopted; and has nothing whatever sportsmanlike about it,

being a mixture of cruelty and theft.

Another mode of pursuing ducks, which is at the same time attractive,

exciting, and injurious, is by the use of a sail-boat. Not only is there

the excitement of the pursuit, the rushing down wind with bellying sail

and hissing water--the crested waves parting at the prow and lengthening

out behind in two long lines of foam--but there is the free motion and

the pleasant breeze to stimulate the sportsman. This is really a

delightful sport, combining the excitement of shooting with the

exhilaration of sailing; but as it disturbs the flocks upon their

feeding-grounds, as it gives them no rest during the noontide hours,

when it appears that ducks--like all other sensible people--love to

indulge in a quiet nap, it eventually drives them away; and not only

makes them shy of the locality, but injures the sport of the

point-shooter, who depends upon their regular flights for his success.

It is not often very remunerative, but is uncommonly attractive, and is

only condemned with great reluctance on proof of its injurious results.

Every one--whether the gentleman who, in search of health or pleasure,

visits the muddy bays or sand-spits of our coast, or the market-gunner

who has learnt naught of useful labor for many years but to handle

skilfully his heavy double-barrel--every one, we say, who pursues

wild-fowl, whether for sport or business, is interested in enforcing

upon his friends and neighbors the necessity of discontinuing the use of

the battery and pivot-gun. Although the results of the day’s shooting

may be diminished for a time, they will both gain in the long run; and

we shall once more see the crowds of geese, brant, and ducks stretching

in interminable lines across the sky; and have them flying by the points

where we hide, or dropping to our stools near by, as plenteously every

day as we can now kill them, in exceptional cases, from the battery.

When their feeding-grounds are undisturbed, their multitudinous hosts

will again cover the waters of our bays, and hold their noisy

consultations over the many theories and crotchets which are disputed in

duck philosophy. Then the true sportsman will visit his favorite tavern,

located conveniently at the edge of the salt meadows, certain, in the

proper season, of having fair sport; and the willing bay-man will again

reap rich and permanent harvests, either for his patron or himself.

Now a good bag is so rare that gentlemen seldom go to Long Island for

duck-shooting, and the inhabitants lose a valuable custom in

consequence; and although, by selecting a propitious occasion, the

market-man sometimes still kills a great number, he experiences a vast

majority of poor days. It is, therefore, the manifest interest of both

classes to repress these unjustifiable and murderous modes of shooting,

and to encourage, by all possible means, the return of wild-fowl to

their former favorite haunts--the bays, lagoons, and inlets of our own

beloved coast.