26 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Jan. 14, 1892. 



WINTER SPORTS IN NORTH CAROLINA. 



LETTER, IV. 

 On Roanoke Island. 



IN all niy life I never saw such a congregation of 

 geese, clucks and swans as gathered on the edges of 

 mid-channel ih Roanoke Sound during the mild warm 

 days of Christmas week. Sometimes the fowl were 

 down at the south end of the island, off Spence Daniells's 

 place, and anon along the "Reef," near the north end. 

 But wherever they were there was a hubbub, and for 

 several consecutive days they picked and plumed them- 

 selves until their discarded down and feathers appeared 

 in little windrows of flotsam all along the handwash on 

 the shore. A stiff northeast wind which had prevailed 

 for several previous days had blown the -water all off the 

 shoals, so that, barring the channel aforesaid, a man 

 could wade nearly the whole two miles across to Nag's 

 Head, on the outer beach ; and he would have to wade 

 that far to get to the ducks. Nag's Head is a noted sum- 

 mer watering place, lying nearly opposite the town of 

 Manteo; and Manteo is the capital of Dare county, located 

 on the east side of Roanake Island, named for an Indian 

 chief who once controlled the little realm; a bit of his- 

 tory in a nutshell. 



Southerly winds, it seems, invariably drive the water 

 into the sounds, and as the wildfowl have io go to 

 the bottom, in order to feed off the favorite tape- 

 weed and celery, they naturally "use" nearer the shore 

 when the so-called tides are high. This habit, or neces- 

 sity, of course gives the sportsmen his opportuity. He 

 can either sail for them over a twelve-mile course, in 

 from 3 to oft. of water, tacking off shore and on in quest 

 of stray bunches, and looking into the creeks and chan- 

 nels which divide the sedge grass islands, or he can 

 shoot from points and blinds. The latter have to be 

 located with good judgment at various distances from 

 the shore, so as to be within reach of the fowl at the 

 varying stages of water, Dauiells has his brush piles a 

 full mile out from the land, so that the gunners sit on 

 their little isolated hummocks, or board platforms, sur- 

 rounded by a veritable waste of waters, though by no 

 means off soundings. Caught in a driving storm, I fancy 

 they would feel much like wayfarers lost on a Dakota 

 prairie. 



A noted gunner by the name of Midgett had three or 

 four blinds abreast of the Reef, ten miles further up 

 stream, north, and on one particular Sunday during the 

 Christmastide I started to speak of, the ducks and geese 

 were paddling all around the outermost one and trying 

 to climb into it. Residents of Roanoke Island are a de- 

 vout and church-going people and Midgett never shoots 

 on the Sabbath. Hence their temerity. The chances 

 are that on any other day in the week there would have 

 been none there. 



Verily, it was a sight to behold. The water was pep- 

 pered black and white with the motly throng. Full fed 

 and elated, they seemed to enjoy the perfect immunity 

 of the hour. They would quack and honk and cackle 

 and call to each other, and whoop like Sioux Indians at 

 a sun dance. They would mock and make mouths to- 

 ward Midgett, and swim about, heads up, with the most 

 consummate bravado. Such consequential poses and at- 

 titudes were never attempted by the most fantastic barn- 

 yard fowls. These were mostly surf ducks and geese. 

 Further out there were thousands of swans whose 

 plumage flashed with dazzling whiteness in the sun, 

 looking like floating fields of ice, or surf upon the yellow 

 bpach. Sometimes large masses would rise and float 

 away in mid-air like fleecy clouds and then settle down 

 in a distant place. With a field glass every movement 

 could be distinctly discerned, Perched upon the apex of 

 a sand dune which had been formed in the margin of the 

 pine forest which skirted the shore, I found an excellent 

 point of vantage. The day was perfectly calm, and the 

 lense brought the large birds right up to my eye. It 

 seemed as if I could reach out my hand and take one, 

 but alas, the power which could lessen the distance could 

 not lengthen my arm, and so I had to content myself 

 with merely estimating the price which the entire lot 

 would bring in the Fulton Market if I had them at my 

 disposal. 



I had tested the wariness of this aquatic assemblage on 

 the day before, when friend Evans, of the Tranquil 

 House (good name), at Manteo, had contrived to work 

 his sailing skilf over to the channel, across the flats, 

 where we blazed away at the "whiteness" with Winches- 

 ter rifles at 500yds, range. At the successive reports of 

 the discharge you should, have beheld the entire mass of 

 swans, acres upon acres of them, rise majestically and 

 noiselessly, like unnumbered seraphim, and float away 

 into space with the sun of glory glowing from their 

 pure white radiant wings. The sight was grand. It was 

 a revelation which St. John himself might have envied. 

 We might have got nearer, perhaps, had not the skiff 

 grounded in ?in. of water. Whereupon we incontinently 

 lightened ship by getting out and wading, taking good 

 care lest the nimble craft should slip away from us, and 

 leave us in the midst of that broad but shallow sound, 

 wrecked and afoot, a mile away from land, with all the 

 life-saving stations out of sight on the weatherly side of 

 the beach. 



On that hapless cruise we fished up one solitary surf duck 

 or scoter, which we stopped on its hasty flight. We also 

 crippled a waterwitch or diedapper, which got away from 

 U3 by persistent diving, in spite of several ounces of No. 

 4 shot which we threw into the water all around him. 

 We fired about twenty-four shots and, as Asa said, got a 

 duck with every shot, though we apparently missed the 

 bird. 



Everything got up wild and flew a mile, for the wind 

 was blowing stiff; and if we had only been at Spence 

 Daniell's on that day we would have loaded the skiff with 

 brant and ducks, for your Mr. William Dormon, the 

 sporting house keeper at Broad Channel, Jamaica Bay, 

 was down there and brought in 57 head, chiefly brant, 

 though he had a pair of fine geese and a few redheads. 

 He is a patient, painstaking and persevering sportsman, 

 and by biding his time took in his little diwy of birds, 

 though he had to wait ten days, I believe. One cannot 

 come down here to these banks and get his checks cashed 

 at eight. Geese and ducks are uncertain fowl, and de- 



cline to make appointments with gunners, and the liveliest 

 of live geese stools will fail to bring them to terms, unless 

 they are in the humor and the wind and tide serve. 



A party of four gentlemen from Bordentown, New 

 Jersey, whom I met at Mr. Daniell's place on Dec. 22, 

 were more fortunate. They were Messrs. George W. 

 Scott, B. W. Jobes, J. L. Van Zandt and Sam H. Turner. 

 They were on the ground four days, and put in only one 

 day's fair shooting, gathering 22 black brant, and a mis- 

 cellaneous lot of shore birds and upland specimens, in- 

 cluding 8 brace of Wilson snipe, some doves and meadow 

 larks, a yellowhammer, a marshhen, a bluepeter, a double 

 rail, and a gray squirrel, showing that they were not only 

 persevering and industrious, but able to live off the 

 country. When not afloat after sea fowl they took turn 

 about on shore, 



I did not get a veritable canvasback and but few red- 

 heads during my week's visit to Roanoke Island. Geese, 

 swans, scoters and black brant were the conspicuous 

 types present. At times canvasbacks are plenty. There 

 is no doubt about there being an abundance of geese at 

 all times, for I have not only the testimony of Mr. Dan- 

 iells's written rocord, but ocular demonstration in the 

 shape of numerous feather beds with which his house is 

 furnished. Two winters ago he killed 1,600 geese and 40 

 swans, besides ducks and brant, In a single season he 

 sold $80 worth of goose feathers at 50 cents per pound, 

 four geese to the pound of feathers. Black brant at this 

 season are even more numerous than Canada geese, and 

 much easier to kill. They are about half the size of 

 geese, having bJack legs, bill neck and head, with cheeks 

 splashed with white; breasts white, with white lines 

 across the larger wing plumes. Female head much the 

 smallest. There are also the bald or white brant, identi- 

 cal with the snow goose. 



And I may also give you right here a complete enumer- 

 ration of all the waterfowl which are common to this 

 section, so far as persistent inquiry has discovered, and 

 will mention in passing that I find Trumbull's "Names 

 and Portraits of Birds" of great service in comparative 

 identification, for it is altogether inclusive and quite in- 

 fallible. Of ducks there are the shuffler or broadbill 

 (Aythya affinis), the coot or scoter, mallard, black duck, 

 sprigtail, baldface or widgeon (Anas americayta), blue 

 and green-winged teals, water-witch or Scotch dipper 

 (Charitonetta albeola), which is identical with the bu ffle- 

 head; the paddy or ruddy duck (Erismaiura rubida), 

 bearer of sixty-eight local synonymes according to Trum- 

 bull, and known also in this section as lightwood knot; 

 spoonbill {Spatula clypeata). redhead, canvasback, bull- 

 neck or scaup {Aythya marila nearetiea); hairyhead or 

 hooded merganser, south-southerly or old squaw {Clan- 

 gula hyemalis), woodduck or summer duck, shelldrake; 

 whiffler or golden eye (Glaueionetta clan gala amerieana), 

 and booby {Oidemia amerieana). Besides these there are 

 the king rail, clapper rail, and sora, which are known as 

 single rail, double rail and coot respectively, the blue- 

 peter or crow duck {Fidica amerieana), marsh hen (Gal- 

 linula galatea), loon, cormorant or nigger goose, grey- 

 backs or dovvitchers, English snipe, willet, curlew, yellow 

 shank, plover, beach robin or knot {Tringa, eanut'iiH). oys- 

 ter birds, bitterns, blue herons and scroggin or white 

 heron, blue herons, all of which are found along the 

 marshes and beaches which border the sounds. 



Manifestly there are water fowl here in unusual vari- 

 ety, all of which, excepting the Anatida? and Anserinee, 

 are available to the general sportsman by the usual 

 methods. But there is a law of the State which bears 

 oppressively upon non-residents, as respects ducks and 

 geese, for it forbids their shooting from their own blinds. 

 An alien must own or control eighty acres of land within 

 the State to entitle him to shoot for market or to put up 

 blinds or to carry game out of the State. It is a well- 

 meant law, but it hits hardest where it is not deserved. 

 Under its provisions there is absolutely no place on Roa- 

 noke Island, excepting at Daniells's, where non-residents 

 have anytliing but a meagre show. It is true that there 

 are islands and points of marsh abreast of Manteo where 

 a gunner can sometimes put out stools or live geese de- 

 coys with some success, and the house of Evans has at 

 least one fine goose to its score, shot by "We, TJs & Co.," 

 during my visit there. I am not sure but that I might 

 have obtained permission to shoot from Mr. Midgett's 

 blinds, but I didn't ask it, and he seems to have a monop- 

 oly of the "Reef." It is a pity that circumstances are so 

 adverse at Manteo, for it is a lovely place, all new since 

 1871, and ornate with green, red and white paint, and 

 many local attractions which do not appear at any other 

 part of the island. Evans keeps an excellent hostelry, 

 with boats and teams on livery, and is always ready to 

 oblige. But he is handicapped by the law, and there is 

 no resource for the sportsman who wants to be sure of 

 game except to go to Daniells's place, Daniells is hospitable 

 but rough. His table is good, his beds soft, and he has 

 every appliance for shooting in the shape of boats, blinds 

 and decoys both dead and alive. He also keeps a store 

 and post-office (called Wanchese Post-Office), and runs a 

 terrapin farm. Mr. Herbert A. Weeks, of 74 Murray 

 street, New York, has a very fine house a few rods dis- 

 tant, which is perhaps the best on the island. It is said 

 to have recently passed into the hands of a club. If so, 

 some one is going to have rare accommodation and fine 

 sport. 



This southernmost point of Roanoke Island lies right 

 abreast of Oregon Inlet and Bodie's Island Light, and is 

 accessible to the best fishing on the coast. Quantities of 

 fish are shipped to market from this place the full year 

 round, but the two best seasons occur in the fall and 

 spring. The ichthyc fauna of this section is as various as 

 its avifauna, for many Northern and Southern species 

 meet and lap at the Hatteras line, and counter currents 

 from the atretics and the tropics beset the cape. 



Fishermen of this section claim that their sailing skiffs, 

 shad boats and kunners are the most weatherly craft in 

 the world. Certainly I have never seen better behaved 

 boats in a seaway nor craft that will stand right up to 

 business, with or without ballast. These little vessels 

 and the dead-rise skiffs are all built and rigged on the 

 same general pattern; that is, they are keel boats, with 

 sharp stem and square stern, mast stepped two-fifths of 

 length abaft the forefoot, and rigged with a spritsail and 

 jib without bowsprit, a centerboard, rudder, transom, 

 thwarts and small deck forward. Most of them carry an 

 immense topsail in fair weather. The island mails, all 

 but one, are carried in kunners (vulgate for canoe) navi- 

 gated by negroes. Manteo is a distributing post office. 

 A small schooner first brings the mail from Elizabeth . 



City, making two trips a week, distance 50 miles, fare 75 

 cents — cheap enough. Sometimes the trip will take 

 twenty- four hours, and once it was made in four hours and 

 a half. The average time, Capt. Daniels says, is six hours. 

 Routes and distances hence are as follows; Canoe to East 

 Lake, 25 miles; canoe to Kinnikeet, via Chicamacomico, 

 55 miles; canoe to Powell's Point, via Kitty Hawk, 25 

 miles; canoe to Stumpy Point, via Man's Harbor, 25 miles; 

 wagon to Wanchese, 8 miles. Kitty Hawk and Kinni- 

 keet are on the beach, the two others are on the main- 

 land. 



The prevalent impression in respect to the "bankers" 

 and the pointers is that they are unkempt, unlettered 

 and forlorn, but I find them to be up to the average New 

 Englander in intelligence, and much resembling them in 

 many characteristics. They have churches and schools, 

 neat houses and the latest fashions, procured from visit- 

 ors or by excursions to the towns. The keepers and 

 crews of the numerous life-saving stations along the 

 beach all wear uniforms, and look as officially correct as 

 car conductors and letter carriers in the cities, and their 

 houses are supplied with books and papers twice a week. 

 1 do not find idiosyncracies enough among these several 

 classes of people to make a sensational letter of. Each 

 station's outfit comprises a keeper and seven men and the 

 stations are six miles apart. Pea Island Station, Capt. 

 Richard Etheridge, is manned exclusively by negroes, 

 who have proved their efficiency on several occasions. 

 Horses and mules are employed to haul apparatus to the 

 locality of wrecks, and the supply schooner was engaged 

 in making her periodical rounds with hay and feed while 

 I was there. 



It does not take a visitor many days to do Roanoke 

 Island thoroughly. It is 12 miles long by 24 wide, on 

 the average about the size of Manhattan Island, and a 

 very excellent turnpike bisects it the whole distance. 

 Lateral roads run off at frequent intervals to farms and 

 plantations. The population is said to be 1 ,200, of whom 

 about one-half are colored. Most of the negroes occupy a 

 single settlement on the west side, opposite Manteo, 

 which is called California. It supports three churches 

 and a schoolhouse, all neatly painted and in good repair. 

 The whites have also three churches, a Methodist, Bap- 

 tist and Disciples, one located at Manteo and the others 

 at either end of the island. There are four district 

 schools. At Manteo is a court house and several large 

 stores and ship chandleries. The local curiosities are 

 old Fort Raleigh, the Federal headquarters, the sand 

 hills, the old windmill, the Confederate fort and battery 

 and the old scuppernong grapevine, which covers a half 

 acre of ground and makes five barrels of wine. I found 

 some Hoboken people and an old gentleman from Balti- 

 more passing the winter at Manteo. A citizen of Syra- 

 cuse was visiting near by. 



The sandhills are the most interesting features of 

 Roanoke Island. They have already buried a hundred 

 acres of pine forest sixty feet deep and are gradu- 

 ally encroaching upon the public highway and the farms. 

 The tops of many scores of trees are seen protruding 

 above the surface. The wind blows the sand about at its 

 caprice like drifting snow, and the formations are very 

 similar to snowdrifts. In some places the superficial 

 lighter materials have been blown from the head 

 of the beach, leaving the stiffer and more compact 

 clays standing in fantastic shapes like the buttes seen in 

 the semi-arid plains of the Southwest. The effect is very 

 weird and impressive. Standing upon the summit of the 

 loftiest dune, with a tangle of briers and vines envelop- 

 ing my outlook, and gullies opening on either side, I look 

 across the broad expanse of the Sound to the sandy 

 counterpart on the beach beyond, where the yellow dunes 

 rise fully 150 feet in places, and stretch away off to the 

 far distant horizon where the tall shaft of Bodie's Island 

 Light looms up faintly. 



The most conspicuous object opposite is the Nag's Head 

 Hotel, surrounded by its summer cottages, all now empty. 

 There is very little vegetation over there now, though it 

 was a beautiful place before the war. The sand has 

 shifted much since then. The old buildings were burned; 

 the forests have been covered; and tbp hotel, which used 

 to stand on a hillside, with lawn and flowers around it, is 

 now set on piles, at the margin of the beach, so : as to 

 ef cape the remorseless sweep of the ever moving sand. 

 Many buildings, it is said, lie beneath the dunes. It ia a 

 pleasant sail over to Nag's Head in summer time, and 

 there are always excursion parties from Wag's Head to the 

 buried forests of Roanoke, But at present all is solitude. 

 While I stand and gaze I see no human being in sight. 

 The flats are bare for a mile out, A solitary fishing stage, 

 perched on high piles, stands a few rods from shore. Some 

 old fishing boats, sink- boxes and battered decoys are 

 hauled upon the sand, with here and there chance bits of 

 anchor rope, old nets and broken oars. Three or four 

 rickety cows are pick in g over the flotsam on the beach, 

 and a dozen restless sandpipers are running along the 

 margin. 



My next move will be a break for the main road, 

 through the forest of the old Chief Weapomiock. There 

 are no red men thereabouts at present, but I am told that 

 in summer any one might know by the moccasin tracks 

 in the swamp that this was once an Indian country, « 



Charles Hallock. 



The Audubon Monument. — Audubon Monument Com- 

 mittee, Columbia College, New York City, Jan. ti.— 

 Editor Forest and Stream: After five years of work the 

 committee still need $3,000 to complete t he amount neces- 

 sary for the erection of the proposed monument. Many 

 of the largest subscriptions have been made conditional on 

 the amount of $10,000 beiug raised, and these we shall 

 lose if the whole amount is not subscribed. As the 

 amount is so nearly raised we beg to ask through your 

 columns further subscriptions. The influence of your 

 journal toward that end would be valuable and highly 

 appreciated.— Thos. Egleston, Chairman. 



The California Academy of Sciences has elected the 

 following officers for 1892: President, H. W. Harkneas; 

 First Vice-President, H. H. Behr; Second Vice-President. 

 J. G. Cooper: Corresponding Secretary, Frederick Gutz- 

 kow; Recording Seerorary, J. R, Scuoham: Treasurer, L. 

 H. Foote, Librarian, 'Carlos Troyer; Director of Museum, 

 J. Z. Davis. Trustee: W. C. Burnett, Chas. F. Crocker, 

 D.E Hayes.E. J, Molera, Geo, C, Perkins. AdolphSutro, 

 John Taylor, 



