14 GAME BIRDS. WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



still ill existence in Maryland. Redheads rafted in Eastern 

 and Hogg bays in bodies miles in extent, probably not less 

 than fifty thousand Ducks in a mass.^ 



Robert Law of Chicago, who lived on the Chesapeake in 

 his youth, is said to have hired slaves of their owners, and fed 

 them on Canvas-backs until they rebelled and refused to be 

 punished further with Canvas-backs, or to work longer unless 

 fed on pork at least twice a day.^ 



These Ducks, so little valued then, sold at seven dollars a 

 pair in 1890, and the demand is now unlimited. 



Huntington asserts that the number of wild-fowl along 

 the Atlantic coast was almost beyond belief; that there were 

 flocks in sight following each other in quick succession for 

 days at a time, and acres of Ducks on the water. ^ 



Wild Geese were, and still are, more abundant in the 

 southwest in winter than in any other part of the continent. 

 The Snow Geese and other species once moved in such vast 

 flocks that they might be compared to a snowstorm. They 

 often destroyed large crops of winter cereals, and in Califor- 

 nia left scarcely any grain in a large district that they fre- 

 quented. It is estimated that they destroyed crops valued at 

 two hundred thousand dollars in one county of California in 

 1878, and that their depredations in other sections were as 

 great. Shooting had so little effect on their numbers that the 

 farmers gave up in despair and resorted to poison.^ 



All sorts of devices were used for killing Geese and Ducks. 

 A man has been known to kill two hundred Geese in a day by 

 stalking them under cover of a horse. By using a horse or an 

 ox for stalking purposes, and a huge gun heavily loaded, one 

 man is said to have bagged from ten to forty at each discharge, 

 and earned in one day a hundred dollars.^ 



Fifty drams of powder and a pound of shot fired from 

 a huge scatter-gun by a skilful gunner were sometimes very 

 effective. Dr. Hatch says that a citizen of Sacramento, Cal., 

 many years ago published the offer of a Panama hat, worth 



1 Grinnell, George Bird: American Duck Shooting, 1901, p. 473. 



2 Leffingwell, W. B.: Shooting on Upland, Marsh and Stream, 1890, p. 414. 

 ' Huntington, Dwight W.: Our Feathered Game, 1903, p. 141. 



■* Murphy, .lohn Mortimer: American Game Bird Shooting, 1882, p. 240. 

 5 Ibid., p. 242. 



