UPLAND SHOOTING. 



203 



DUCK SHOOTING, ON INLAND WATERS. 



V ^^^iH^ wimngirr iV ^ ^^ Eastern and Midland 

 >>^\^^S3hhI ^BSKmMJ^ /: States, unless on the borders of 

 the great lakes, this spoil of late 

 years can hardly be said to exist 

 at all. The birds are becoming 

 ire and wild, and, although still 

 shot in sufficient numbers by the 

 local gunners, on the streams of 

 Xfvv-.li'rsry. to su{)])ly the tlciiiand of the markets, they are not 

 found numerous enough to justify the pursuit of the sportsman. 

 FoiTTierly on the drowned lands of Orange county, on the 

 meadows of Chatham and Pine Brook, on the Passaic and its 

 tributaries, before the modern system of draining and embank- 

 ing, hundreds, nay ! thousands of acres were annually covered 

 with shallow water, at the breaking up of winter, and the inun- 

 dated flats were literally blackened with all the varieties of 

 Duck which I have heretofore enumerated, affording rare sport 

 to the gunner, and alluring gentlemen from the larger cities to 

 follow them wirh the canoe ; in a day's paddling of which, amon^r 

 the inundated groves, and over the floated meadows, it was no 

 unusual event, nor regarded in any wise as extraordinary good 

 fortune, to kill a hundred fowl and upward of the different va- 

 rieties, all of which, however, are alike in one respect, that they 

 are all delicious eating. I have myself been in the habit of con- 

 sidering the Summer Duck as the most delicate and succulent 



