DEATH ON DUCKS 



extremity of Long Island, Montauk 

 Point, is but one hundred and twenty 

 miles from New York. So that dis- 

 tances are short, and seem doubly so 

 when covered in the parlor car of an 

 express train. 



It has always surprised me to find 

 such wild and desolate regions as ex- 

 ist in eastern Long Island so near the 

 great city. How many know that the 

 Great South Beach, as well as many 

 large tracts of scrub land simply swarm 

 with foxes ? Why, there is better fox 

 shooting on the island than perhaps 

 anywhere else in Eastern America. 

 Quail, unfortunately are, at present ex- 

 tremely scarce. The winter of 1904- 

 1905 was terribly hard on them, and 

 the bevies that were left are small and 

 scarce. It was a pity that additional 

 protection could not have been given 

 the birds this winter. It seems a shame 

 to add to the dangers these brave little 

 fellows have to face, and against the 

 spirit of fair play. What between 

 semi-Arctic winters, swarms of foxes, 

 and hordes of itinerant shooters, the 



fate of the Long Island quail is not a 

 happy one. The island is almost the 

 extreme eastern limit of the quail's 

 range, and I have no doubt that, since 

 the earliest times, the bird has been al- 

 ternately fairly abundant or verging on 

 extinction. Only in the old days, 

 when the Montauk and other Indians 

 occupied the island, they no doubt kept 

 the foxes down by trapping, and, prob- 

 ably, did not bother themselves about 

 hunting such a small creature as the 

 quail, so that the bird had only the cli- 

 mate to contend against. 



A very considerable portion of Long 

 Island is taken up by preserves owned 

 by individual sportsmen, or by shooting 

 clubs ; and I think that within the next 

 ten years these preserve areas will be 

 largely extended, though, at a little later 

 period, land will become too valuable to 

 be retained for such a purpose, and 

 then dwellings will usurp the places 

 now vacant. 



Let us consider, first, the wild fowl 

 shooting as it exists in the Great South 

 Bay, and other sheltered waters. At 



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