CURRITUCK MARSHES. 117 



most of which are so particular that they exchide in- 

 vited guests. 



But if you are one of the favored shareholders you 

 can have a glorious time. Fifty ducks a day to each 

 gun is no unusual average, and while a hundred 

 is a large bag, a hundred and fifty is nothing uncom- 

 mon, and as many as two hundred and fifty have 

 been killed by a sportsman and his gunner in a single 

 day. Moreover the birds are of the best possible 

 kind ; there are canvas-backs in the open water, red- 

 heads in still greater abundance, and broad-bills or 

 blue-bills so plenty that they arc rarely shot at, 

 while in the pond holes black-ducks, mallards, and 

 widgeons abound. These are all well-fed and fat, 

 and such a thing as a poor duck is unknown. The 

 law wisely forbids shooting before sunrise or after 

 sunset, and the club members are wise enough to 

 keep the law, knowing as they do that one gun fired 

 after sunset is more injurious than a dozen during 

 the day, so that the ducks do not seem to diminish 

 but rather to increase and multiply, and as fine a day's 

 sport has been liad by the members of the club dur- 

 ing the past few years as at any time in the history 

 of the country. A result partly due to breech-load- 

 ers perhaps, while from a battery it is nothing un- 

 usual to kill a hundred brace of red-heads or canvas- 

 backs, and some times twice as many. 



This favored spot is, as it ought to be, of no easy 

 access. The sportsmen must first go to Norfolk and 

 thence take either the little steamboat Cygnet, en- 

 deared to so many of us by the^ memory of pleasant 



