64 The Water-fowl Family 



headquarters for most of the sportsmen, and the 

 famous locations for shooting were Carroll's Island, 

 Spesutia Island, Maxwell's Point, and Benjies. 

 Formerly the eastern shores of Chesapeake Bay, 

 from the Sassafras River, through Pocomoke 

 Sound, and down the Bay, and on the western 

 side from Baltimore to the James River, were 

 favorite resorts. What stories of ducks and 

 duck-shooting could these places tell ! Wild fowl 

 up to 1860 had not been much hunted in this 

 country, and during the Civil War were unmo- 

 lested. From 1865 began their destruction, which 

 has been steadily increasing since, with a result 

 inevitable. In twenty-five years the greatest nat- 

 ural home in the world for wild ducks has been 

 nearly devastated of its tenants. The past few 

 years have shown some betterment in the shoot- 

 ing there, and, with care, it may still improve, but 

 the vast hordes of the past will not return. Inland 

 bodies of water, extending through the Middle 

 West to the mountains, tell the same story. What 

 sights were once seen on the sloughs of Indiana, 

 Illinois, and Minnesota! Now, in many places, 

 the numbers left, an insignificant remnant, bear 

 evidence of the past. After the large game had 

 been destroyed and driven off, the small game 

 was taken up, and the past twenty years have 

 decimated the wild fowl almost beyond concep- 

 tion. Practically unprotected, shot from their first 



