136 NYROCA VALISINERIA 



The famous fresh- and brackish-water bays of the upper Chesapeake, from 

 Havre de Grace to Baltimore, as well as the lower James River were once the 

 greatest wintering grounds of the Canvas-back on the Atlantic coast, and up to 

 twenty-five or thirty years ago they seem in that favored region to have exceeded 

 any other species in numbers. The tremendous persecution which went on there 

 both by night and by day in waters that were easily accessible for shooting, 

 resulted in a steady diminution, which began long before the time of Wilson and 

 Audubon. 



Still in the fifties they must have been very numerous if one can judge anything 

 from reading E. J. Lewis's (1855) account. At that time the modern battery had 

 just been introduced, resulting rather commonly in bags of 100 Canvas-backs in a 

 day. There is mention of 187 ducks killed in a day and during the season of 1846-47 

 one gunner is said to have killed 7000 Canvas-backs! During the Civil War the 

 ducks got a much-needed rest and then in the late sixties and seventies the shooting 

 was still splendid and the popularity of the many famous old clubs was at its zenith. 

 Then from about 1880 a change came. But the climax was reached in the early nine- 

 ties when the river mouths were silted up by floods. In recent years I understand 

 that as a result of carefully restricted shooting there has been some increase of diving 

 ducks there. Within the last twenty-five years I have known of great bags of 

 Canvas-backs being occasionally taken in Currituck, from 40 or 50 to around a 

 hundred, but such days are very exceptional indeed. Anything over 12 or 15 of 

 these fine birds was always considered good. 



Reliable figures are lacking for the Back Bay of Virginia and Currituck Sound, 

 because relatively few Canvas-backs were ever shot by visiting sportsmen at the 

 shooting clubs. Nine-tenths of them were secured by market gunners, shooting from 

 bush blinds and batteries in the open sound. When all the markets for ducks were 

 closed by Federal Law in 1918 it seemed as if the diving ducks, and especially the 

 Canvas-backs, would have a rest, because only resident shooters were allowed to take 

 birds from a battery. But the local market shooters, being thrown out of work, have 

 succeeded in having the law modified and now make a business of taking out hun- 

 dreds of sportsmen. Meanwhile non-residents bought cottages, took out residence 

 papers and began to beat the law in this way. And now, sad to relate, the batteries 

 are steadily on the increase and the diving ducks are more harassed than ever. The 

 only bright spot in their existence is the fact that most of the visiting sportsmen are 

 not over-destructive to the ducks. But even this picture has its lugubrious side, for 

 the pampered city sportsman soon tires of his cramped position in the battery and 

 ends by ordering the ex-market gunner to help pad his slender bag. It is difficult 

 to see what the final result will be. Battery shooting ought to be limited to waters of 

 great size such as Pamlico. But if this were done the local shooter could get scarcely 

 any ducks, as the clubs control all the marshes and points. I think the only solution 



