April 23, 1885.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



249 



SPRING Notes.— The arrival of the spring birds is earlier 

 this year than last, March 12, I saw first robins three days 

 earlier than last year. The loth saw first bluebirds and song 

 sparrows; 18th, saw a flock of cow buntings; 26th, robins and 

 bluebirds abundant; April 4 saw purple grackle and 

 meadow larks, also observed nearly eighty wild geese flying 

 northwest; first field sparrows. April 5, saw several Phoebe 

 birds; first flock of black snowbirds, and one solitary Savan- 

 nah sparrow. Snowbirds are with ua yet.— G. A. Knapp 

 (Onondaga Hill, New York, April G). 



In spite of the decidedly wintry weather, which is here 

 still prevailing;- up to April 13, a good many of our migra- 

 tory species of birds have promptly put in their usual ap- 

 pearance. Robins, bluebirds, song sparrows and phoebe 

 birds are now frequent sights, although it is difficult to con- 

 ceive how some, of them, particularly the latter, being strictly 

 insectivorous, manage to exist. A solitary pair of the white- 

 bellied swallow was seen on April 9 hovering over the 

 shallow waters near the edge of the Niagara. A fine speci- 

 men of the fox sparrow was shot by Mr. Bergtold on April 

 5, near the Cattaraugus Creek, this being the first time that 

 this species has been obtained in this vicinity on the spring 

 migration. The specimens thus far noticed were shot in 

 former years in the early part of November, when passing 

 through 'on their fall migration. The open waters of the 

 Niagara are still literally alive with huudreds of the long- 

 tailed duck {Harelda glaciaUs), which have donned already 

 their fine dark-colored spring suits. The great northern 

 diver, better known by the name of loon, is unusually com- 

 mon this spring near the mouth of the Niagara, and four of 

 these bulky birds have thus far been taken by fishermen on 

 their night lines, which they bait with minnows, and thereby 

 capture these flying fishers which, they assert, bother them 

 greatly when they haul up their lines in the morning. That 

 winter is only slowly yielding is also manifest from the 

 occurrence of the snow bunting, which still lingers here. A 

 fine-plumaged rnale bird of that species was shot as late as 

 April 4. A Wilson's snipe has also been killed at Batavia, a 

 town forty miles east of Buffalo, on April 3, but it has been 

 thus far the only one, although no pains have been spared by 

 our ambitious local gunners to secure the customary pre- 

 mium of ammunition which is offered by our enterprising 

 gun dealer. Mr. LeValley, for the first bird of the season.— 

 C. L. (Buffalo, AprilJ^ 



An Old Squaw in Michigan. — About the end of Febru- 

 ary, Capt. Fred Johnson, of the steamer Queen of the Lakes, 

 wito, by the bye, is well known to many of your readers, 

 chanced to see a duck which Fred Thayer had shot near 

 where Calm River empties into Torch Lake, in this county. 

 It was new to Fred and also the Captain, who brought it to 

 me for identification. I found it to be a male "old squaw" or 

 "south -southerly " {Anas glaciaUs Wilson) \Hardda hyemalis]. 

 Speaking of it about that time to a neighbor, he said a boy had 

 shot or shot at one of the same kind in the mouth of the river 

 at this place at about the same time, but I could learn nothing 

 further. Fred Thayer, who shot the one brought to me, has 

 lived near the place where it was shot for many years, and 

 it was strange to him. I do not know that I have ever seen 

 one, except along the coast of New England until the present 

 occasion. There is no doubt as to identity, audi wish to know 

 if it is not unusual to find one so far inland. — Kelpie (Cen- 

 tral Lake, Mich. , April 15) [This species occurs regularly 

 on the great lakes, but is chiefly a sea-coast bird.] 



MINNESOTA DUCK SHOOTING. 



DURING the past two years I resided fifteen months in 

 the garden spot of Minnesota at Faribault, where I 

 became acquainted with many kind gentlemen sportsmen, 

 and enjoyed many pleasant shooting excursions in the sur- 

 rounding country. About the second week in November, 

 1883, it was reported among the shooting fraternity that the 

 duck shooting at the pass on Geneva "Lake, in Freeborn' 

 county, was very fine, and upon that report a party consist- 

 ing of C. W. Fitch, H, Kester, L. Newcomb and myself, 

 proceeded at once to make our arrangements for a duck 

 slaughter at that point. 



We left Faribault at 11 o'clock P. M., and arrived at the 

 "Blooming Prairie" station at 1 o'clock A. M. Before retir- 

 ing we made arrangements for a team at 6 o'clock next 

 morning to carry us twelve miles across the country to 

 Geneva Lake. 



Promptlv at the appointed time the team was at the door, 

 and you should have seen that spring wagon after we had 

 loaded in our traps, ourselves and four dogs. Was it full? 

 I do not believe a sandwich could have been put in the bed 

 or on it. It was a fine morning, clear and bright. The at- 

 mosphere was cool, dry and bracing. The roads were hard 

 and dry and in splendid condition, and the team carried us 

 over the road at a spanking pace. The country we passed 

 through was a fine rolling prairie sparsely settled. We saw 

 large flocks of ducks flying as we drove along, and now our 

 spirits rose to fever heat in anticipation. But as is often the 

 case, the anticipation of a pleasure gives more delight than 

 the realization. When about half way out to the lake, Hes- 

 ter's English setter sprang out of the wagon and was allowed 

 to run. While passing a farm house a large cur dog ran out 

 and pitched on to the setter. Of course, that raised Kester's 

 ire; besides, there was danger of the setter being badly in- 

 jured. Kester sprang out of the wagon and struck the cur 

 with his gun. The consequence was a broken gun stock. 

 Moral — Never strike anything with your gun. 



We arrived about 1 o'clock at a Mr. Holmes's, who owns 

 a large farm of some two thousand acres, lying along the 

 lake, and who (in a manner) entertains sportsmen. We made 

 arrangements for our lodging while we remained at the lake, 

 and the pleasant information was imparted to us that we 

 were at least two weeks too late, and that the majority of 

 the ducks had migrated south. Notwithstanding this news 

 we hurried down the lake shore to a point of land extending 

 out into the lake, and which almost cuts it in two, and practi- 

 cally makes two lakes with a connecting flaw of water be- 

 tween them. Over this point the ducks flv in passing from 

 one lake to the other, and at the proper season it is a capital 

 good place to shoot, and some large bags have been made 

 there. But when we arrived there, the wind had raised 

 and was blowing hard and cold, so that much of the time we 

 were obliged to keep under the sheltering banks of the lake. 

 We remained on the pass during the day, and at dark we 

 could only count eight ducks. The flight was high and 

 wild and many bad misses were scored. 



After supper we were told by Mr. Holmes that three miles 

 east of the house there was a small lake, well filled with wild 



rice, and which formed the head waters of a large creek, and 

 that he was sure we would find plenty of mallard ducks 

 there feeding on the wild rice. Being much discouraged 

 with the pass shooting, we hired Holmes's son to take Kester, 

 Newcomb and myself, with two boats, to this lake, next 

 morning, while Fitch concluded he would not risk a boat 

 ride in a rice swamp with the waves running two feet high, 

 but would get more pleasure by remaining and shooting 

 on the pass. 



At supper we found a house full. Nine sportsmen in ad- 

 dition to the family of eight. On retiring we were shown 

 beds in the garret, which contained four beds in which that 

 night slept eight men. The garret was uncoiled and un- 

 plastered, without a stove, and the sash entirely out of one 

 window, with the mercury below freezing. Newcomb is 

 one of the Aldermen of Faribault. But he swore it wan the 

 airiest bedroom he had ever occupied. To close the window 

 he hung his fur overcoat over the opening. 



We were up and off for the rice swamp by daybreak next 

 morning. When we reached the swamp we were forced to 

 wade and drag the boats quite a long distance, by hand over 

 the wild rice and rushes before we could get to open water. 

 But we finally succeeded, and got out into the center where 

 we were rewarded for our labor with about an hour's fair 

 shooting. By that, time the wind had risen again, as it had 

 done the day before, and blew a perfect gale, and it caused 

 the water to become so rough that we could not row the 

 boats against it, consequently we did not get any shooting 

 in the middle of the day. But between sundown and dark 

 we had very good sport. We would have lost more than half 

 of the ducks we shot if it had not been for ray strong Gordon 

 setter Sergei, and this trip fully demonstrated to my satisfac- 

 tion that a sportsman needs a good strong dog for a duck re- 

 triever. We had with us two cocker spaniels, and they are 

 good ones. But they are too light for duck retrieving, 

 especially among wild rice aud rushes, with a soft mud 

 bottom. 



We effected our return to Holmes's at 10 o'clock almost 

 frozen, and with twenty-eight mallards. But a hot stove 

 and a warm supper soon thawed us out; and while eating it 

 we were regaled by old Mr. Holmes with the story of the 

 "big snake" of the Geneva Lake, which Newcomb believes 

 to this day. It is the old story of the sea serpent modified 

 to suit the fresh-water lakes. 



That night the weather turned so cold that all the still 

 water was frozen over, aud nearly all the remaining ducks 

 started on their long journey to the sunny South. We tried 

 the pass again nexf morning for two hours, but I only suc- 

 ceeded in killing two ducks. At that time the livery team 

 from Blooming Prairie had arrived for us, and we packed in 

 our baggage and started for home with a bag of thirty-eight 

 ducks, consisting of canvasbacks, mallards and teal. We 

 arrived at Blooming Prairie station in time for dinner and 

 at Faribault at 4 o'clock P. M. We were too late for good 

 shooting, and we had a hard, rough trip; but it was a benefit 

 to all of us in the improvement of health, and we had much 

 sport and pleasure, if the slaughter was small, R. E. S. 



Newport, Ind. 



BATTERY-SHOOTING. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



As the question of battery-shooting has been argued by 

 "Sinkbox" and "Sagamore" through the columns of your 

 paper for some time past, I trust it will awaken enough 

 enthusiasm among all interested, either way, to give the 

 subject a fair discussion. In giving you my views, I do not 

 propose to enter upon a prolonged argument, but to state my 

 experience, gained from eight years' shooting from shore and 

 sinkbox. 1 think all shooters, or at least sportsmen, will 

 agree with me when I say that, could we obtain as good 

 shooting at wildfowl from the shore as of yore, sinkboxes 

 would immediately fall into disuse, for the work encountered 

 in putting out and taking up the sinkbox, handling the iron 

 decoys required to sink the box, and a flock of from one to 

 four hundred decoys, each with a separate string and sinker, 

 whether the day be fair or foul, is a labor which few, com- 

 pared to the great number of sportsmen, care to undertake. 

 Aside from the labor involved in shooting from a sinkbox, 

 it is far more comfortable to sit in a good blind on the shore, 

 where you are generally protected from the wind, and are 

 at least dry, than to lie, perchance, in a cramped position in 

 a sinkbox, with the sun glaring down in your eyes, or the 

 spray flying over you, while the box is jumping enough to 

 make one of the "kid glove gentry" or point-shooter seasick. 

 But, Mr. Editor, I for one, an ardent lover of the sport, pre- 

 fer all the discomfort attending a boxshooter, to sitting on 

 the shore waiting for a stray shot (for stray it certainly is 

 our days in this vicinity), and seeing the fowl by the 

 hundreds sitting or flying a half mile or more from the shore. 

 I say a "half mile or more," for it is a thing of the past to 

 find "good ducks" in our narrow waters, where they would 

 be comeatable from the shore. Many people are so apt to 

 forget that the country has advanced in the last fifty years, 

 and that wildfowl are becoming better educated and harder 

 to deceive; they now naturally look upon the land as a place 

 where an enemy may be hidden, and so seek wider waters. 



And why should they not, when where they were once 

 harassed by one gunner they have now a score to avoid ? 

 Where there was one boat fifty years ago there are fifty now, 

 and woe to the duck that is so unfortunate as to let one of 

 those fifty boats approach within gunshot, for there will 

 certainly be a seared if not a dead duck the more. Ducks 

 have changed their habits, as partridges have, and from being 

 constantly chased and driven in our narrow waters by sail- 

 boats, each one of whom carries the inevitable gun, they 

 have retreated to broader waters where they are more alone. 

 It is not the much dreaded sinkbox that has done this in all 

 cases, as I can affirm, but it is largely, if not entirely owing 

 to the above explanation, as I do not consider that shooting 

 from a sinkbox in wide waters will have the effect of driving 

 clucks from the narrow waters. My experience has been 

 mainly gained from shooting on the Chesapeake Bay and 

 tributaries, though it has been extended west of the Missis- 

 sippi. 



I am an advocate of, and believer in sinkboxes, and have 

 never yet found them to be the terrible engines of destruction 

 described by some theoretical sportsmen, especially those 

 who are the fortunate possessors of points, in waters where 

 point-shooting is yet occasionally to be had, as upon the 

 Bush, Gunpowder and a few other rivers of the Chesapeake 

 Bay. I maintain, as "Sinkboat" says, that shooting from a 

 sinkbox has no more effect in frightening the ducks than a 

 like amount of shooting from the shore. I admit that every 

 gunshot frightens the fowl, but why should it frighten them 

 more when fired from the water, say out of a box, than from 

 a carefully constructed blind on the shore? Constant shoot- 

 ing at ducks from the shore and from sailboats (the greatest 



evil, save night shooting, of all) has driven them to seek 

 wider waters, now let us see if sinkboxes will drive them 

 away from their present haunts. Happy thought, maybe 

 the sinkbox will be the means of chasing them back to their 

 "old hunting grounds," the narrow waters. 



In the days of our fathers and grandfathers, ducks were 

 plentiful in all the little streams. Thev were tame and in- 

 nocent and had not attained the wisdom of the present day, 

 so knew not the danger of flying over a poiut until educated 

 up to it by the increased number of gunners. Then it was 

 that they began to leave our narrow waters, and we saw, as 

 our fathers did, the last duck leave before the advent of a 

 sinkbox. We, who love shooting for the sport that is in it, 

 and own not a favored point, will uphold the sinkbox as our 

 point, just as long as we see no detrimental effects from its 

 use. 



Were it not for the box-shooters at Havre de Grace, the 

 point-shooters would have little sport, as was illustrated sev- 

 eral years ago, when the oyster police force went there to 

 see that the law repealing the use of boxes was obeyed. 



Where there are fifty ducks killed from one sinkbox there 

 are ten men who kill five ducks apiece from the shore, aye, 

 there are far more than five shore-shooters to each sinkbox. 

 If it is the wish of the other side to restrict the use of sink- 

 boxes, let there be at the same time restrictions laid upon 

 shore-shooters; do not make "flesh of one and fish of the 

 other," but let both share equally all advantages and disad- 

 vantages. 



What "Professional" says about sinkboats having been in 

 use on the Susquehanna Flats nearly "fifty years" and still no 

 diminution of the fowl, but on the contrary, "countless 

 thousands" still frequent the waters, and as here, are on the 

 increase, is very true. 



"J. J. B.'s" experience would appear to be confined to 

 oue locality; and I think it far more probable that the "can- 

 nonading down there from sundown to dark and after dark" 

 for twenty-five years had more to do with driving away the 

 ducks than the few (compared to the many other gunners) 

 sinkboats. And why was it that ducks left this locality be- 

 fore the advent of sinkboxes and are returning now when they 

 are used in greater numbers every year? 



It is but natural for a man who owns a point and can't 

 get good shooting to envy the man who owns a sinkbox and 

 can. 



In conclusion, let me say that I fully indorse "Sinkboat" 

 in his views and facts, for facts they are. Amateub. 



Oxford, Talbot County, Md. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



I was not aware, until I read the article in your paper in 

 favor of sinkboat shooting, that there was a man in the 

 United States who was vain enough to imagine that he could 

 persuade any of the readers of Forest and Stream to be- 

 lieve that the wholesale slaughter of ducks on the Havre de 

 Grace flats by the sinkboat-shooters has not greatly dimin- 

 ished the number of ducks and ruined the shore-shooting on 

 all the tributaries of Chesapeake Bay. 



I understand, while writing, that there was a man a few 

 years ago, in the interior of Africa, who thought the mur- 

 der of five thousand ducks a day by the sinkbox-shooters 

 would rather tend to increase than diminish the number of 

 ducks, but unfortunately for the sportsmen who indulge in 

 duck shooting from the shore, that chap has passed away. 



I have been a duck shooter for more than thirty years. I 

 have killed ducks upon nearly all the good points between 

 Havre de Grace and Carroll's Island, when canvasbacks and 

 redheads were literally swarming in Bush, Gunpowder, 

 Back River and Saltpeter; when countless millions could 

 any day be seen on the Susquehanna Flats, when a man 

 could go out any day and kill from thirty to fifty ducks, 

 when it was not an uncommon occurrence for two men to 

 kill from a point blind, over one hundred canvasbacks and 

 redheads in a day when the ducks remained upon their 

 feeding grounds until the rivers were frozen up. There were 

 a few sinkboats in operation then, but not one to every hun- 

 dred now. 



How is it now? Instead of the ducks remaining with us 

 two or three months in the fall, as they did twenty years 

 ago, most of them leave a week or two after the sinkboat- 

 shooters have opened their batteries upon them, and those 

 which do remain are so wild that they afford no shooting 

 either for the point-shooter or decoyer; and a man is doing 

 well now who can kill half a dozen ducks in a day. 



To give you some faint idea of the number of ducks killed 

 during the ducking season on the Havre de Grace flats, I 

 will give you the number killed on the first day's shootingin 

 the fall of the year, commonly called the opening day, from 

 1879 to 1883. In 1879 the sinkboat-shooters killed' on the 

 Havre de Grace flats— this is official— on the opening day 

 5,478; in 1880, 5,211; in 1881, 4,654; in 1882, 4,230; in 3883, 

 3,529. Last year's number I did not get, but I understand 

 they only killed about 2,300. Recollect this is only for one 

 day's shooting, the opening day. They had five times as 

 many sinkboxes in 1884 as they had in 1879. and yet they 

 only killed about half as many ducks, which must prove to 

 every intelligent, man that they have either been killed or 

 driven away. 



Every genuine and high-minded sportsman will indorse all 

 I have said, and every sinkboat-shooter or men who rent 

 sinkboxes and shoot for the market will deny it. It is one 

 of the few questions, Mr. Editor, that is not even debatable. 



H this thing is not stopped, it will be but a few years when 

 a man can get quite as good shooting out of a washtub i n 

 front of his door as he can at Carroll's Island or Maxwell's 

 Point. I do not propose to have any controversy with any 

 of the sinkbox-shooters, but merely state a few incontrovert- 

 ible facts that any schoolboy must know, as it is merely a 

 matter of calculation. Canvasback. 



Philadelphia, April 16. 



No New Thing.— To show that you are not the first to 

 publish "Remarkable Shots," I send you the following, both 

 of which are from "Sporting Anecdotes," by Pierce Egan. 

 New York, 1823; "An Extraordinary Shot. — A clergyman 

 in the eastern part of Sussex, a few years since, at a single 

 discharge of his gun killed a partridge, shot a man, a hog. 

 and a hog-sty, broke fourteen panes of glass, and knocked 

 down six gingerbread kings and queens that were standing 

 on the mantle-piece opposite the window. The above may 

 be depended upon as a fact ; not exaggerated, but given liter- 

 ally as it happened." "Extraordinary Snipe Shooting, — On 

 Saturday, June 10, 1818, Mr. Elliot, of Lentham, in Kent, 

 shot four snipe at one discharge. Mr. E. marked two of 

 them on a pond, and was about to shoot when they rose on 

 the wing, joined by two others. Three dropped instantly 

 into the poud and the fourth at a small distance from it!" — 

 B. A. G. (Utica, N. Y., April 11). 



