March 26, 1885.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



168 



tbe formations are indescribably wonderful. Over tbe rims 

 of the basins the water gently pours until it finds its way to 

 the bottom of tbe hill, where the flow is collected and car- 

 ried off by several channels to the Gardiner River. Among 

 tbe principal springs is the Cleopatra; it is the most beauti 

 ful in the basin, arid has light blue tinted water in a white 

 basin with light yellowish red edges. A large basin sur- 

 rounds the spring'. At the east end are basins liued with 

 reddish tufted material. The greatest overflow escapes at 

 the west end, and the basins here are fringed with stalactitic 

 masses. As the water escapes it flows over a ladder, that 

 has been placed against the edge for the purpose of coating 

 articles that are hung on it. Columns of steam clouds are 

 arising and drifting to and fro with the wind of the moun- 

 tains, pregnated with a strong sulphur odor. Up the hillside 

 are terraces of extinct springs and pits. The night was cold, 

 but we. slept well and warm. Monday morning, Sept 15, I 

 kept house, as Frank went to see the springs. Tinkered 

 around iu camp, and had dinner ready as Frank returned, 

 after which 1 went once more to see the beautiful sights and 

 get some coated bpecimens as souvenirs. 



BATTERY-SHOOTING. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



Ou reading "Sagamore's" article, in your issue of March 

 12, 1 must pay him the compliment of saying that his side of 

 the argument is iu skillful hands; still his assertions, though 

 well written, are no arguments, and he is by no means fair 

 to me in selecting certain remarks in my articles without 

 giving the whole, context. Thus my conclusion was a fair 

 one that he "had drawn almost entirely on his imagination 

 for his points" wheu he described the waters being beaten 

 over by the sailboats of the tenders like dogs hunting a 

 field, such being not the method of sinkboat shooters in the 

 waters of the Chesapeake, about which vicinity I was 

 writing. His claim to a more varied experience with bat- 

 teries 1 do not dispute, as I have never used them except on 

 the Chesapeake and years ago on the Delaware River; but as 

 I have a thorough knowledge and acquaintance with their 

 use from Havre de Grace down the bay wherever used, I 

 think my experience as good as "Sagamore's," although not 

 extending over so large a territory, and you will remember 

 I have only described the uses of the battery on the Chesa- 

 peake, where I have and do maintain that it is not the de- 

 structive thing he tries to make it, although a successful way 

 of killing fowl. Of course if "Sagamore" only desires to 

 stand on the bank to look at the game without having the 

 power to kill it, that is a matter of taste on his nart, but I 

 think he will find few to follow him; for my part I would 

 rather not see fowl at all than to be unable to put myself in 

 the way of getting shooting. With all due deference to his 

 claim to superior knowledge and long-extended experience, 

 I can only state what I have before written, that what I 

 know on the subject has been gained by thirty-five years of 

 wildfowl shooting, both at deep and shoal water ducks— or 

 as I make the distinction, marsh-fowl and diving-fowl — dur- 

 ing which time my pursuit of this sport has been almost in- 

 cessant, in the season for it. I have vanity to think I know 

 something about the subject of which I write. 



In the matter of the sailboat as "tender," I think we are 

 at cross-purposes, when I state that in this vicinity (I mean 

 all over the Chesapeake) the shooter in the box is not tended 

 by a sailboat; that is, that the person retrieving for him uses 

 a rowboat. Of course tbe battery is carried from place to 

 place on a sailing craft of some kind ; that this craft does 

 sail occasionally (notwithstanding his e-x-a-c-t-1-y) to break 

 up the beds of ducks "on days when they will not fly" I 

 have never disputed^ The point is not whether they do it 

 or not, but whether it is the pernicious practice he claims it 

 to be, and whether if a pernicious practice as regards driving 

 the fowl away, whether it is necessary to box-shooting. My 

 claim is that it is not done to any extent, or rather to a harm- 

 ful extent. That the mere boat or yacht sailing over the 

 ducking ground will not frighten the fowl off their feeding 

 grounds not shot at from the sailing boat any more than the 

 numerous craft that ply over the waters in all directions 

 here in the Chesapeake, is evident from the fowl not being 

 driven by them. "Sagamore" states that he has shown the 

 sailboat to be more hurtful even than the batteries. He has 

 stated this to be tbe case, but how he has shown it to be the 

 case, meaning in his use of the word "proved," I fail to see. 



Again, "Sagamore" is unfair when he quotes me as 

 acknowledging that batteries are an evil, when I say that 

 "the over-killing of ducks out of them is an evil that soon 

 corrects itself." I say that the over-killing of ducks is an 

 evil, not that the use of the sinkboat is. He proves 

 this in his former letter, viz.: that the over-killing 

 soon corrects itself, when he cites the cause of the Currituck 

 box-shooters, who, although making large bags at first, yet 

 by his statement, fail to make a living at it, from the fact 

 that the fowl soon learn to know the batteries and are not 

 killed in large numbers. This is the case here when the 

 shooting out of boxes is good enough to satisfy amateurs, 

 but would be a very poor dependence for a living. 



"Sagamore" says that what he quotes in reference to San- 

 dusky Bay, proves that in a locality where fowl were natur- 

 ally abundant, they gradually disappeared on the introduc- 

 tion of batteries. If he has proved that by his assertion, is 

 not my statement of just the opposite effect, viz., that in the 

 waters of Eastou Bay and its tributaries and in the Chop- 

 tauk River, that the duck shooting has not been injured in 

 the least by the use of boxes, that they cannot be held ac- 

 countable in any way for the failure of the shooting from 

 the shore, as that had completely failed before boxes were 

 introduced here, entitled to equal credence? I will not be 

 ungenerous enough to those who take "Sagamore's" side to 

 claim that if any one cause could have destroyed the shoot- 

 ing from the shore here, we might accuse the point and 

 shore-shooters, for talk to any old sportsman here, and he 

 will immediately entertain one with what he used to do in 

 his young days, how he and his neighbors stood on the 

 points and killed ducks by the cart load, etc. This same 

 old sportsman will say that we have no ducks about now 

 yet when you sail him by one of our large beds of redheads, 

 he wdl declare it one of the largest rafts of clucks he ever 

 saw. 



I claim that the decrease in the numbers of our wildfowl 

 is more apparent than real; they have changed their habitat, 

 it is true; they don't go into narrow waters as they used to 

 and avoid flying over the points and bars on all possible oc- 

 casions. Geese have been growing markedly more abundant 

 m the lower Chesapeake within the last five years. This 

 past winter I have seen them by the thousands. No, "Saga- 

 more," the fact is that when we have an abundance of food 

 we have thousands of ducks, and when the food is not here 

 the ducks go to other sections. I do not mean to make the 



statement that the wildfowl are as abundant as they were 

 when the country was first setttled, but I do say that they 

 are fairly holding their own against the advance of civiliza- 

 tion and the numerous army of sportsmen. 



Now as to riparian rights, can "Sagamore" find that I 

 anywhere claim to "know all about riparian rights," although 

 as an owner of property bordering on the'water I might 

 claim without arrogance to know something about them. 

 This was the extent of my offending. I distinctly stated 

 that I was writing on the subject of battery-shooting as 

 practiced on the Chesapeake and its tributaries, iu other 

 words, where the tide ebbs and flows; my remarks were that 

 the water was "free to all," and that a "trespass (in the form 

 of battery -shooting) could not be committed on the water." 

 The law, I believe, makes a material difference in treating of 

 riparian rights in water where the tide ebbs and flows, and 

 what it terms un navigable water, where it does not. Tbe 

 cases "Sagamore" cites are famitiar to me through Forest 

 anp Stream, but do not at all apply to our tide" waters, of 

 which I was writing. I ask him again what be meant when 

 he asked me if I had ever heard of riparian rights, knowing 

 as he did, from my statement, that I was writing of shooting 

 ou tidal wators. 



should, without attributing it to the use or disuse of batter- 

 ies, and this is the fact that we have oysters while they have 

 none. The oysters involve a numerous fleet, numbered by 

 the hundreds, if not thousands, of canoes, buckeyes, sloops 

 and schoouers, which do indeed fulfill "Sagamore's" de- 

 scription of the box-shooters' tenders, every one carrying a 

 gun and shooting at everything that flies within possible or 

 impossible shooting distance. "This does indeed drive the 

 ducks and other fowl. "When this is understood, together 

 with the fact of an abundauce of food, including tbe famed 

 wild celery, of which we have little or none owing to our 

 salt water, I think it will account for the good shooting 

 from the shore which he claims to have, and which I most 

 sincerely hope he aud others will continue to enjoy. In his 

 allusion to sneakboats does "Sagamore" wish to be under- 

 stood as indorsing the sneakboat and swivel gun? 1 might 

 suppose so with equal justice, as that he should recommend 

 it to me after what I have written. 



In regard to what he says about throwing the points open 

 and "lay" days for the shore shooters, if it could be proved 

 that his manner ot shooting was as destructive to the fowl as 

 box-shooting, he would consent to it. I think I have proved 

 that the point-shooters kill more fowl than the box-shooters, 

 for what is the difference so far as the diminishing of num- 

 bers is concerned, whether fifty men kill fifty ducks off 

 points, or ten men kill the same number out of boxes, and 

 this is about the proportion that the two classes of shoot- 

 ers bear to each other, "Sagamore" mixes up assertion 

 with proof, he wishes to claim that battery -shooting is proven 

 to be the terrible thing that he asserts because he so asserts it, 

 this is no proof nor argument, and until it is proved to be an 

 "engine of destruction" that will drive the fowl away, I 

 must beg to stick to my box. I think he shows the weak- 

 ness of his cause when he says the marsh cannot be moved 

 and the sportsmen cannot reach tbe fowl j-u-s-t s-o. There- 

 fore we want to get somewhere in position to reach them. 

 You, if you prefer it, can sit in the marsh "that cannot 

 move" and look at us. 



In judging of the destructiveness of battery-shooting it 

 must be remembered that in all waters that are at all open, 

 the weather regulates their use, it being only in moderate 

 days that they can be used with success, or when tbe wind 

 is off shore, for although it is astonishing the amount of sea 

 they will live in with the "leads" turned up, yet they cannot 

 be shot out of in heavy winds to any advantage, as the splash- 

 ing and jumping of the box frightens the fowl. This it is 

 important to remember iu summing up the pros and cons on 

 the subject of battery-shooting. "Sagamore" prefers to "sit 

 in tbe marsh" where he cannot reach them every day in the 

 week, getting an occasional shot at a straggler, while I will 

 take some good day or two in that week and kill as many as 

 he does. When Saturday night comes we both have the 

 same number of ducks. If he is satisfied, I am sure I am; it 

 is only a difference of taste. I have only had two shooting 

 days out of two weeks in the lower bay in winter. 



To sum up I think batteries are right in narrow waters 

 where good shooting can be had, otherwise it is folly to use 

 batteries, not that they frighten away the fowl but that 

 where other means will answer the ends they are preferable 

 on the score of comfort, and there being less labor attached 

 to shore-shooting. But in the wide and bleak waters of the 

 Chesapeake, such as the flats and all points on the bay and 

 the large estuaries of the same, the box is the only available 

 means for the shooter who is fond of killing game and not 

 "standing in the marsh looking at it." 



If "Sagamore" could have been with me on Thursday of 

 last week in my box on one of our bleakest points that jut 

 into the bay, and helped in the beautiful swan shooting we 

 enjoyed for a few hours, I think, good sportsman as I believe 

 him to be, he would have been a convert for the time being, 

 at least, to battery-shooting. Nine beautiful swan decoyed 

 to us at different times and we got eight of them. Don't 

 call it slaughter. Remember not more than one day out of 

 the month in that locality can a box be used on account of 

 its bleak position. "Sagamore" might have killed the same 

 number of swan had he spent every hour of daylight for a 

 month on the point within a mile of us, over which the 

 swans occasionally pass. Which of us would have had the 

 better sport at the end of the month is again a matter of taste. 

 1 wish he had been in the other box with me (I was using 

 my double one), I would have had great pleasure in making 

 a convert of him for the time being. It is not the fact that 

 eight swan were killed that makes the enjoyment, but that 

 at four different times we had all the glorious excitement of 

 seeing bunches of this noble game coming slowly against the 

 fresh wind blowing up to the decoys, and being conscious 

 that a single false note in our answering call of "who, who" 

 would make the wary game turn off; the waiting for what 

 seems minutes until they are near enough, and the time does 

 seem astonishingly long; then comes the supreme moment. 

 Friend "Sagamore," it can't be had unless in a box. 



Sinkboat. 



Easton, Md. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



It is of no use for me to tackle battery-shooting after read- 

 ing "Sagamore," We have no battery-shooting in Ohio, as 

 it has long been prohibited by law, after discovering its per- 

 nicious effects where water fowl resort to feed. These bat- 

 teries arc necessarily stuck down on the very feeding grounds 

 of the birds, and if they do not come fast enough to the 



slaughter sailboats are employed to "sail them up." This 

 process leaves them no time to feed, and soon drives them 

 away to return no more that season, if ever. Passing birds 

 shot at from points on their way to aud from their feeding 

 grounds seem not to be affected in that way, but go straight 

 onward to tbeir food, and if unmolested there will continue 

 to fly back and forth time after time and year after year, 

 thus securing to the sportsmen the continuation of this 

 sport. x 



Cleveland, O. 



WILD TURKEY METHODS. 



O EVERAL weeks before we had our first snow, two men, 

 O father and son, prepared a train of com through a 

 track of woods inhabited by a few wild turkeys, one of 

 wliich was a very large gobbler. The blind consisted of 

 part of a hollow tree and a small pine, behind which both 

 hunters were concealed. After the two men were in ambush 

 for the greater part of a week, the birds advanced on the 

 train, picking up the corn while the blind was occupied. 

 The large gobbler was destined to be the victim. Turkeys 

 walked up within ten steps of the blind. Left barrel con- 

 taining buckshot missed fire. Bang! went the other barrel 

 loaded with ball. Result? Half of a tail feather. No 

 damage sustained, the frightened turkeys returned to the 

 mountain to consider for another week. 



That week sorely tried the patience of the younger hunter 

 (Age having retired in disgust) though he being one of the 

 patient kind was bound to succeed in the end. Again came 

 those silly birds, the patriarch fowl being second in order, 

 perhaps he feared to lose the other part of that tail feather. 

 Alas, it should not be the single ball this time. The single 

 old smooth-bore rang out, and a stray buckshot carried away 

 the end of one wing. The large gobbler made a few unsuc- 

 cessful jumps. Another moment and the young man was on 

 the bewildered bird. Breathing hard with excitement, he 

 drew his knife across that already red throat, almost sever- 

 ing the proud head from the shining body. The poor bird 

 was murdered. His beard measured ten inches. His plum- 

 age vied with the sheen of a humming bird. His weight 

 was twenty -two pounds; and he was sold in the market. 



A friend of dog and gun, who admired the superb coat of 

 this noblest of game birds more than its flesh in pot or pan, 

 secured it aud handed it over to a taxidermist to be mounted. 

 He expects to feast his eyes in the near future on this fine 

 bird, to enable him to dream of another turkey, the counter- 

 part of this one until next season again opens, and to indulge 

 the anticipation that he by chance may meet one some day, 

 bring bim down in an honorable way, as a sportsman ought, 

 and return home in triumph. 



About the time of the above occurrence, the writer was 

 out with several friends for deer. On the last day of the 

 hunt one of the party reported that he had started a flock of 

 turkeys in our last drive. Those turkeys were met some 

 fourteen miles from our home. In the course of a week we 

 had a favorable tracking snow, just the kind of snow I was 

 longing for. However, we can not always have it our own 

 way in this world. I could not go and was unhappy. Rain 

 followed the snow; a bad crust formed and made' hunting 

 impossible. Another light snow followed in a few days later 

 and induced me to try. The close season for deer had just 

 commenced the day of my chase, and the weather was cold 

 and windy. The summit of the mountain gained I soon 

 crossed a fresh deer track and heard two dogs on the war 

 path— this was December 17, tbe second day of close season. 

 My object being a hunt for turkeys (shooting deer out of 

 season would cause me as much satisfaction as the finding of 

 carrion), I turned down the mountain in disgust. Expecting 

 to find tracks of turkeys in the bottoms and nearthe fields, I 

 began to look there first. 



After following the lower woods for several miles, the 

 presence of a number of men getting in their fuel for the 

 winter convinced me that the looked-for birds must be higher 

 up. 1 next tried the foot of the mountain and soon found 

 two tracks, a large and a small one. The birds were feeding 

 My duds were of neutral tints, but the snow crunched badly 

 under foot, leaving me but little hope for success. Follow- 

 ing as still as possible, under these unfavorable circum- 

 stances, avoiding every little stick and brush, I noticed that 

 the birds had suddenly stopped feeding and taken a straight 

 course for the hill. Had they heard me? Arriving at a sud- 

 den rise, a small bench allowed me to make my appearance 

 very suddenly. My 10-gauge was loaded with six drams of 

 powder and one ounce of No. 1 shot. Looking about very 

 carefully, while stepping up the bench, my ears detected a 

 faint rustle. Turning my head, I observed two turkeys run- 

 ning iu different directions, some sixty yards away. A quick 

 shot at the largest was not immediately fatal, but when tak- 

 ing his last rise the gobbler succumbed to the second barrel. 

 Almost the same instant the smaller bird came sailing over 

 my head. A new cartridge was quickly inserted, aud there 

 was no time wasted in bringing up the gun— just a trifle too 

 late. A rear shot, seventy to eighty yards away, at so noble 

 a bird as a wild turkey is cruel. I did not shoot. On ex- 

 amining tbe dead bird 1 ascertained that the first shot would 

 have secured it; one pellet had gone through its gizzard and 

 clean through the body. The second barrel might have been 

 retained for the other bird, but one turkey was enough. 

 However, human nature has its weaknesses, and I could not 

 help thinking that two birds tied together would carry so 

 much easier over the shoulders. This fowl was certainly 

 earned by hard work, more work than several good turkeys 

 are worth, though I valued it more than a number of them 

 potted on a train of corn, while I myself would lie cramped 

 with agonized body and distorted face, jammed into a blind! 

 waiting for the unsuspecting victims. 



While ascending the mountain on the homestretch several 

 grouse started up wild into a strong wind which carried 

 tbem out of sight in an instant. Flocks of crossbills were 

 calling and chirping to each other, ever on the move, but 

 making short halts when scissoring out the seed from numer- 

 ous pine cones. The small woodpeckers were not missing, 

 they also had their share ot seed, occasionally takiug out the 

 chilled worm or insect from the bark, while goina; up or 

 coming down a part of a tree. A short upward swing would 

 land them near the top of another tree— all the small birds 

 wore unusually vociferous, the cold and windy weather being 

 the cause. Again I reached the top of the mountain. It 

 was now 2 o'clock, and feeling hungry I got out my 

 lunch; lo! it was hard as stone. A good fire would soon 

 make that frozpn grub 'eatable. The wind was blowing a 

 gale up there. My small camping axe (just the thing for such 

 a dilemma) attacked one of the numerous old and rich p.iue 

 logs; ten minutes later a roaring fire blazed up and I enioved 

 myself. 



Two hours later, when nearing the clearing where my 

 horse was kindly cared for, I came on fresh signs of a ruffed 



