CHAPTER III. 



CURRITUCK MARSHES. 



Duck shooting has held its own better than any 

 other kind of sport in the States east of the Missis- 

 sippi. Ruffed grouse have almost disappeared, wood- 

 cock have grown scarcer and scarcer, English-snipe 

 visit us less abundantly, while the bay-birds have 

 nearly ceased to be in sections where they were once 

 overwhelmingly abundant, but it is possible still, on 

 Lake Erie, along the coast, and at many inland places 

 to make a fair, if not, as often happens, an ex- 

 cellent bag, of ducks. But the best place, one where 

 the birds seem to exist in their original abundance, 

 and where magnificent shooting is still to be liad, is 

 on the eastern shore of North-Carolina. Of this 

 favored locality Currituck is the most famous. So 

 celebrated is this county that the entire marshes, 

 the duck-haunted lowlands, have been purchased, 

 and to-day there is absolutely no free shooting to be 

 had. A stranger is as thoroughly debarred as if he 

 were in the most barren portion of our land. No 

 one is allowed to shoot from a battery unless he is a 

 native, and to get a chance to go out at all after the 

 innumerable flocks of wild-fowl that temptingly 

 cover the water, the visitor must belong to one of 

 the numerous sporting clubs which have so wisely 

 and assiduously secured all the shooting grounds, and 



