UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH Uarlington JVleinorial J-/ibrary A/ r ^ The Celebrated Sporting Works OP ROBERT B. ROOSEVELT. I. The Game Fish of the North 11. Superior Fishing. III. The Game Birds of the North. *^* An published uniform with this volume, handsomely bound in cloth, price $2.00. Sent free by mail on receipt of price, BY Carleton, Pablislier, New Tork. THE GAME-BIRDS COASTS AW LAKES OF THE NORTHERN STATES OF AMERICA. A FULL ACCOUNT OP THE SPORTING ALONG OUR SEA- SHORES AND INLAND WATERS, WITH A COM- PARISON OF THE MERITS OP BREECH- LOADERS AND MUZZLE- LOADERS. By ROBERT B. ROOSEVELT, AUTHOR OF " THE GAME-FISH OF NORTH AMERICA," " SDPERIOR FISHING," "COONTRT LIFE," ETC., ETC. « NEW YORK : Carleton, Ftihlisher^ 413 Broadway. M DCCO LXVI. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by GEO. W. CAELETON, In the Clerk's OflSce of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. The New Yoek Printing Compant, 81, 83, and 85 Centre Street, Nbw Yoek. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Game of Ancient and Modern Days. — Its Protection and Importance. — The proper Shooting Seasons. — The Im- policy of using Batteries and Pivot-Guns 1 CHAPTER II. Guns and Gunnery. — Breech-loaders compared with Muz- zle-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 rv. 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 Charac- teristics. — A Complete Account of each Yariety 140 VI CONTENTS, PAGE CHAPTER VI. Montauk Point. — American Golden Plover or Frost-Bird. -—A True Story of Three Thousand in a Flock. — Lester's "^avern. — Good Eating, Fine Fishing, and Splendid Shooting. — The Nepeague Beach If 8 CHAPTER VII. Rail and Rail-Shooting. — Seasons, Localities, and Incidents of Sport. — Use of Breech-loader or Muzzle-loader. — Equipment 190 CHAPTER VIIL 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 Fisliing. — The Closing Scenes , 219 CHAPTER X. Suggestions to Sportsmen. — A Definition of the Term. — Crack Shots. — The Art of Shooting. — The Art of not Shootuig 211 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, wei*e 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 arti- ficers 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 terra game, therefore, had an early significance and positive application, but was con- fined to the creatures pursued in one or the other of these two modes. The gun was first used for the shooting of feather- ed game in the early part of the eighteenth century ; it soon became the favorite implement of the sports- man, and was brought into use, not only against the 8 GAME AND ITS PROTECTION. 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 fal- con strike his prey far up in the heavens, he follows his high-bred setters, till their wonderful natural in- stinct betrays to him the presence of the game. Where he once rode after the yelping pack, sound- ing 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 — prefer- ring the excitement of ball-room flirtations to out- door sports and pleasures, take no part in the pur- suits of the chase. Together with the change in the mode of captur- ing 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 par- tridge—which is at least doubtful I Migratory birds were not included in the sacred list, and the quail in England, as the woodcock and snipe of both GAME AND ITS PROTECTION. 9 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 ui 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, gi'eatly 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 rufied 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 sufier- ance than by right, and partly from his gastronomic 1* 10 GAME AND ITS PROTECTION. ' 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 wander- ing from place to place in search of food, and col- lecting 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 enlight- enment 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 care- GAME AND ITS PROTECTION. 11 ful 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 hang- ing 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-set- tled portions of the counti'y loud complaints of their attacks. Peach-trees perish ; cherries are no longer the beautiful fruit they once were ; apples are dis- figured, 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 destroy- ing and multiplyhig; until the tree that at first 12 GAME AND ITS PKOTECTION. gave evidence of hardiness and promise of long utility to man, pauses in its growth, becomes deli- cate, 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 deni- zens 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 in- vented so effectual as the natural course — the res- toration 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 cor- ner 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 GAME AND ITS PROTECTION. 13 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 wood- peckers, the tiny wrens, the graceful swallows and noisy martins, are sacred to the sportsman, and con- stitute one great division of the creatures that he desires to protect. It is true that enthusiastic for- eigners, 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 wood- peckers ; but let no ignorant reader confound such persons with sportsmen. Their satisfaction in slay- ing 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 them- selves 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, en- deavours 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 14 GAME AND ITS PROTECTION. community have done more to repress this wanton- ness 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 consider- able loss to themselves. For while the poacher, taking the chance of a legal conviction as an acci- dent 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 sj)ortsmen's asso- ciations. The absurd prejudice that has originated from confounding them with a very different class GAME AND ITS PROTECTION". 15 of the community should be overcome, and their eiforts to have good laws passed, and to make them eflfectual, 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 irre- pressible 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 other- wise 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 ne- 16 GAME AND ITS PROTECTION. cessary — that illegal profits will not equal legal punishments ; but their customers should also dis- courage, by withdrawing their patronage, conduct that is so injurious to the pubhc interests. Wood- cock would not be shot in spring, nor quail in sum- mer, unless the demand for them were sufiiciently great to pay both the expense of capture and the danger of exposure ; and, with a diminution of pur- chasers, will be an increased diminution of the num- ber of birds improperly killed. Birds and fish, except in their proper seasons, are always tasteless, and often unhealthy food. A set- ting 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 scrupu- lous are filling their bags daily, or when in the wilder sections of country there is no one to com- plain 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 abun- dant 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 GAME AND ITS PROTECTION. 17 the provocation, the true sportsman will never for- get 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 abun- dant, 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, agamst 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 kUled 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 rufied and pin 18 GAME AND ITS PROTECTION. nated grouse, from September fii-st — and quail from November first — to the same period, both days in- clusive ; for wood-duck from August first till they migrate southward. It is desirable to fix upon an- niversaries or days that are easily remembered. Woodcock are often young and weak in early sum- mer, 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 consider- ate 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 GAME AND ITS PROTECTION. 19 bring up the rear. From July, when the yellow- legs and dowitchers abound ; throughout August, in which montli 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 Octo- ber, 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 bay- man finds his sport in perfection. Many of the upland birds are disapjiearing ; 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 enterpris- ing farmer ; the rufied grouse disappears with the receding forest, and the prairie chicken with the cultivation of the open land. But although innu- merable 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 20 GAME AND ITS PROTECTION. 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 abun- dance 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 suiFer 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 dis- turbed on their feeding-grounds by murderous dis- charges 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 pre- sent 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. GAME AND ITS PROTECTION. 21 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 hes on his back in a species of coffin simkto the level of the water, with his decoys near by ; and whenever a flock approaches, he rises to a sitting posture and tires. 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 weari- some; and when they are abundant the excitement, united to the awkwardness of position, often leads to terrible accidents. " Cribbed, cabined, and con- fined," the duck-shooter lies for weary hours ex- posed 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, accus- tomed 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. 22 GAME AND ITS PROTECTION. 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 perfec- tion, 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 Avarned 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 dis- continuing 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 '^ GAME AND ITS PROTECTION. 23 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 satis- fied from what cause it arises ; but as the immediate losses from a change would foil upon themselves heavily at first, they shrink from decided action. If, however, the birds are to be retained, and pre- vented from gradually withdrawing, year after year, until they shall desert us in toto, the use of the bat- tery 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 innume- rable 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 sports- man, 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 moon- light night on the Chesapeake, the poaching mur- derer, 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 : 24 GAME AND ITS PROTECTION. and often brings upon the criminal detection and punishment. To avoid this the pivot-shooter wUl sometimes, as soon as he has fired, throw his gun overboard with a buoy attached to it, and if pur- sued, pretend he has used nothing but his small fowling-piece. The practice of pivot-shooting, how- ever, has almost ceased, never having been exten- sively adopted ; and has nothing whatever sports- manlike 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 ex- citement 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 ex- hilaration 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 in- dulge 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 de- pends upon their regular flights for his success. It is not often very remunei'ative, but is uncommonly attractive, and is only condemned with great re- luctance on proof of its injurious results. GAME AND ITS PROTECTION. 25 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 wlio has learnt nanght 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 philoso^^hy. Then the true sportsman will visit his favorite tavern, located conveniently at the edge of the salt meadows, cer- tain, in the pioper season, of having fair sport ; and the willing bay-man will again reap rich and per- manent 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 inha- bitants lose a valuable custom in consequence ; and although, by selecting a propitious occasion, the market-man sometimes still kills a great numbn-, he 2 26 GAME AND ITS PROTECTION. experiences a vast ranjority 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. CHAPTER II. GUNNERY — MUZ2XE-L0ADEKS AND BREECH-LOADERS. To the young sportsman, armod with the finest of implements, and trusthig much to them for his suc- cess, it is a matter of mortification and surprise how well a bad gun will shoot in good hands ; never- theless, no true sportsman ever lived but, if he were able by any self-denial to scrape the means together, would purchase a valuable and necessarily expensive fowling-piece. Not only is a well made and handsomely finished gun safer and lighter than a cheap aifair manufactured for the wholesale trade ; not only does it ordinarily carry closer and recoil less ; but it needs fewer repairs, lasts infinitely longer, and is always a matter of pride and delight to its owner. Many guns of inferior workmanship throw shot as strongly as those turned out by the best makers — although this is not the fact in general — but greater weight has to be given to insure tolerable safety, and the locks, if not the barrels, are sure to give out in a few years ; whereas the high-priced article will be as perfect at the end of a dozen years — which have accustomed its owner to its easy, rapid, and eifective management — as it was in the begin- ning, and will endure until failing sight, wasting 28 MUZZLE-LOADERS AND BREECH-LOADERS. disease, or accumulating years, shall compel its trans- fer into younger hands. Unless a man has continual ])ractice, or is an ex- cellent shot, it is a serious imdertaking to change his gun and accustom himself to another, which, although apparently identical in weight and shape, \vill inevitably differ in some slight point that will be sufficient to destroy, for a time, accuracy in aim and prompt execution in cover. Some persons re- quire months to acquii'e the effective use of a new gun under difficult circumstances; and in those dense thickets M'here so much of our shooting is done, and where it is by instinct founded ujjon long habit that the sportsman is enabled at all to kill his game, and where he cannot indulge in the de- liberate care that more open shooting allows — this deficiency will be most painfully apparent. For such persons to purchase a new piece, is equi- valent to throwing away the sport of an entire sum- mer or fall, and when we consider that few of us can expect to average more than forty summers or falls, the loss of one-fortieth part of life's enjoyment is no trivial deprivation. A very cheap gun is dangerous; but it is not ex- pected that any person reading these lines will trust his life with an instrument that common sense tells him is manufactured to kill at both ends. A gun of moderate price, that is, about one hundred dollars, is as safe as the most expensive — the iron is not so tough, but more of it is used ; but in a short time the barrels will wear away ; the locks, losing their MUZZLE-LOADERS AND BREECH-LOADERS. 29 original quick spring and shnrp click, will become dull and weak, till they will scarcely discharge the cap ; and the stock, warping with the weather, will exhibit yawning fissures between itself and the iron lock-plates or false breech. In lightness, however, is the great superiority of the highly wrought implement ; and in hard tramp- ing through a dense swamp of a hot July day, or deep wading in a soft snipe-meadow, or in a wearisome trudge over hill and dale after Novem- ber quail, a pound will make itself felt in the addi- tional weight of the fowling-piece, and not only so, but a light gun can be handled more readily. In open shooting, especially for the wild fowl of our bays and coasts, mere weight is a positive advan- tage ; but in the tangled thickets, where birds flash out of sight like gleams of party-colored light, and the instantaneous use of the piece can alone secure success, a light gun is an absolute necessity. Moreover, on certain occasions, when the barrels are exposed to an extraordinary strain, when the piece built for light charges and upland shooting is used temporarily upon the larger game of the coasts or woods, and the two and a half drachms of powder and ounce of fine shot are replaced by a dozen buck- shot, or an ounce and a half of No, 3 driven by five drachms of powder — then it is pleasant to feel that the iron is of the utmost possible tenacity and the workmanship in every way fixultless. A learned dissertation on the science of gun- nery is neither appropriate to the occasion nor 30 MUZZLE-LOADERS AND BREECH-LOADERS. possible to the author, and would probably prove as little entertaining as instructive to the reader. The majority of purcliasers cannot ibrm an exact opinion relative to the merits of a gun prej^ared with the utmost skill and ingenuity to deceive them, and must rely mainly on the word of the seller or reputation of the maker. There is something, to be sure, in the smooth working of the locks, and still more in the perfect fitting of the stock ; but after all, even to the experienced sportsman, there is little difference in appearance between the Sham- damn and the purest laminated steel. American importers have a peculiarly moral and resf)ectable habit of vending German guns stamped with the names of English makers, and pacify their consciences with the idea that the manufactures of Germany are not inferior to those of England; but they would give more satisfaction to tlie public and more ease to their consciences by proving this in open contest, and establislung the reputation of the German makers, than by appro- priating the names and reputations that good work has made famous. So far is this deception carried, that some houses even order from the Bel- gian manufacturers a certain number, nominall}^, of each of the leading gun-makers. It may be that there is little real difference, although on the con- tinental guns you sometimes pay for useless orna- ment, money that should have been expended where it would tell, on locks and barrels ; but the mode of proceeding is certainly not creditable. MUZZLK-LOADERS AND BREECn-LOADERS. 81 lu a highly finished article the locks usually work with a smooth oiliuess that can be clistiiiguishe