Oct. 8, 18&1.1 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



2^9 



AMONG THE CURRITUCK BAY BIRDS.-I. 



WHEN getting teady for my regular summer bay 

 bird trip — the North Carolina Sound— I looked 

 around for a good quartette. As the world goes, one 

 learns many things, and for a hunting party "us four 

 and no more" is the exact number that will give the 

 greatest mutual benefit. Four can pair off, four can 

 separate equally, leaviiig no man like the fifth spoke of 

 a wheel useless and alone. Four can make a full whist 

 hand, or "seven-up"; four is the sportsman number as 

 potent as the magic nine of the Chaldeans. 



After an experience of a score or more of years spent 

 in hunting, mine may be of some use to tyros, or old 

 sportsmen, too, for that matter, who contemplate making 

 up hunting parties, especially as the autumn quail shoot- 

 ing and winter duck hunting is approaching. 



It is a matter of indifference to me whether my com- 

 panions are good shots or not, actual shooting is but a 

 fraction of time spent on the trip, and it is good comrade- 

 ship that makes the sporting nomadism a success. 



There are certain types of men that should be avoided 

 like poison on such expe- 

 ditions. There is the good 

 shot, selfish and opinion- 

 ated, who can talk nothing 

 but "shop" all the time. 

 No matter what subject is 

 broached, he turns the con- 

 versation to his own ex- 

 ploits, his sole object is to 

 make others feel small, he 

 never loses an opportunity 

 to boast of his prowess, 

 and in field, thicket, sea- 

 meadow or river, he invar- 

 iably chooses the best loca- 

 tion or occupies the best 

 blind, and like a bantam 

 rooster, he is in a continual 

 crow. Such a person can 

 run up the score, but can 

 add nothing to the enjoy- 

 ment of the party. Then 

 there is the envious man 

 who wants the best of 

 everything, and as envy 

 and suspicion go together, 

 he imagines that every one 

 is leagued against him, and 

 upon the slightest run of 

 bad luck he announces his 

 intention of breaking up 

 the party and striking for 

 home. 



Who has not met the 

 penurious man who_ treats 

 a pleasure trip as if it were 

 purely a business trans- 

 action, and haggles over 

 every expenditure like an 

 old customer in a pawn- 

 broker's shop. "Sundries" 

 haunt his waking hours, 

 and drift through all his 

 dreams. If he would, oh, 

 if he would only keep it to 

 himself, but he does not. 

 No man will stand impo- 

 sition, but there is a wide 

 difference between extras 

 and robbery. 



Then the kicker — we all 

 know what he is — but as 

 he often affords food for 

 mirth, and as the kicking 

 comes as often from hered- 

 ity, as untoward circum- 

 stance we can pass him by. 



Lastly comes the chronic 

 gi-umbler — worse than all 

 the others combined. Just 

 as a pinch of assafoetida 

 can poison the whole at- 

 mosphere around, so can 

 the grumbler diffuse mis- 

 ery and discontent to all 

 brought within the bound- 

 ary of his malign influence. 

 He is an annoyance, a 

 grievance, nuisance, vexa- 

 tion, bore, and a general 

 sickener. If there is on a 

 hunting excursion a greater 

 thorn in one's flesh I have 

 never met it. The grum- 

 bler settles down to work 

 soon after the voyage com- 

 mences, nothing suits him, 



it is worry, bother, plague, baiting and badgering. He 

 is a kill-joy, a veritable prophylactic snag and sawyer to 

 your pleasure boat floating down the stream. 



Now the crowd I invited to my CuiTituck Club were 

 men of different metal. Everybody in Washington 

 knows Captain Burgess. A fellow of infinite wit, and 

 like Falstaff, the cause of wit in others; well in the 

 forties he is the image of Fritz, when Emmett of genial 

 memory was at his best, and had he taken to the stage in 

 his youth he would have made his mark. Cap, as he is 

 called, is fond of all kinds of game and is as much at 

 home bluffing on a bob-tail flush as blazing away at the 

 birds from sink-box or blind. Mac was a tyro but will- 

 ing to rough it, and except when his liver is out of order, 

 takes alike with a frolic welcome "the sunshine and the 

 storm." York, the youngest of the lot, is an ardent 

 sportsman, a quick, sure shot, and his capacity to rough 

 it is second to none. 



Now for the outfit — a party going on a hunt is almost 

 sure to take much more than they need, I gave each 

 man a list for a week or ten days' absence, they were 

 simply to go in light marching order, with no wagon 

 train. One old suit of clothes for hunting to be worn 

 there and back, a change of underclothing, India rubber 

 boots or old shoes, oi!-cloth, 500 shells, a mosquito net, 

 and old kid gloves with the fingers cut off, both to pro- 

 tect head and hands from the pestiferous mosquitoes, an 

 old slouch hat, that was all, of course each man clubbed 



in for liquids. Reaching Norfolk, I ordered one ton of 

 ice to be forwarded to the club via the steamer, to pre- 

 serve the birds. Then we took the cars to Virginia 

 Beach, and meeting Captain Drinkwater's team, we 

 drove along the beach for thirty miles to our destination. 

 The tide being high it was an all day journey, for instead 

 of fast trotting along the smooth velvet beach, we had to 

 plough through eight inches of sand, and an ox team 

 would have been as serviceable under the circumstances 

 as a pair of fleet goers. 



The Currituck Inlet Club was founded some five or six 

 years ago by a small and select party of Norfolk gentle- 

 men, who kept the membership down to one dozen. 

 Afterward the club was enlarged to twenty, and then to 

 thirty, the initiation fee was increased, and certificates of 

 stock issued, though there were no printed constitution 

 and by-laws. 



The place was famous for its sea meadows, and has 

 been celebrated for a century or more as the finest place 

 for bay bird shooting on the Atlantic coast. The ocean 

 on one side and Currituck Sound on the other; the club's 

 meadows were about a mile wide and a couple of miles 



AMONG- THE WILDFOWI..— YI. 



Dead fop. a Dfcat — At Sixty Miles an Hour. 



in length. The grass is short and thick, with here and 

 there shallow ponds that are filled with water except in a 

 drought. These basins are the great reservoirs for the 

 yellow shanks, graybacks, grass plovers, mostly, which 

 arrive in May, disappear in June, and then return in the 

 latter part of July and remain until some time in October. 



While epicures and gourmands consider these birds 

 most excellent in delicacy and fiavor, yet few ever reach 

 market, for these snipe are safe from the pot-hunter, for 

 one reason, their flesh is so fat and tender, that they spoil 

 in a few hours on a hot day, and they must be placed on 

 ice shortly after they are shot, and kept there until 

 they are served, else decomposition is sure to follow. Of 

 course market gunners can not afford to bring ice such a 

 distance even had they a refrigerator to hold it, and 

 packing contrivances to ship them, hence, though the 

 birds command a fancy price, and are in great numbers, 

 none of the natives nor gunners care to waste their am- 

 munition except to supply their own table. 



This leaves the clubmen a fine show, and as few of 

 them ever come down during the summer there is choice 

 shooting for those who care to risk the positive discom- 

 forts of torrid weather, swarms of mosquitoes, and the 

 absence of all fresh fruits and vegetables, for this pure 

 sandy soil produces nothing, neither orchard nor garden 

 stuff. Even the milk is canned. 



The glory of this club is in its snipe shooting, the duck- 

 ing privileges are far from choice, and cannot be com- 



pared with the adjacent clubs; this being the case it is in 

 the interest of the club to guard zealously its rights and 

 privileges. How this is done I will presently show. 



The regularly appointed keeper of the club is C. S. 

 White, or Shant White, as he is called. His brother 

 Leon once lived on the lands of the Swan Island Club, 

 but was forced by that organization to leave the place, 

 and owning a marsh and piece of ground on the lands of 

 the CuiTituck Inlet Club he erected his dwelling. Mac 

 and I stopped at Shant White's, while Cap and York re- 

 mained at Leon White's, about 100yds. distant. 



Approaching the keeper's house we found him stretched 

 upon a shucked pallet in the yard playing with his baby, 

 A big pan filled with lightwood knots was burning 

 brightly, and though the flames attracted the mosquitoes 

 from far and near, yet the pungent, resinous smoke kept 

 them at bay. These smudges are the favorite method 

 employed by the islanders to get some rest and comfort 

 in the early part of the summer nights; they retire early 

 and get up late. Twelve hours good solid sleep, with a 

 half dozen naps during the day are suflicient to keep 

 them alive. About sunrise we started for the shooting 

 grounds about a mile away, 

 a team carrying our guns 

 and shells. The mosqui- 

 toes were out in force 

 •and literally covered our 

 bodies; but with the nets 

 covering our heads, the 

 gloves our hands, we bid 

 defiance to them, 



"Skeeters is bad certain," 

 remarked Shant, clutching 

 a handful off his neck and 

 crushing them in his palm. 

 "They will carry me off, 

 wagon and all, ef they 

 keeps on this way; almost 

 drain my blood," 



"What blood can they 

 get out of you, Shant? teil 

 us that," remarked Cap, 



"They ain't after my 

 blood," said the driver; 

 "but after the supper I ate 

 last night, I reckon, and 

 then they will suck my 

 bones ef I let 'em." Then 

 he got down, broke off a 

 bunch of bushes and fought 

 them as if a swarm of ire- 

 ful yellow jackets were on 

 the warpath. 



Fortunately for the sports- 

 men, the beams of a hot 

 sun, or a stiff breeze causes 

 these pests to sink out of 

 sight, and but for this wise 

 provision of nature such a 

 thing as hunting bay birds 

 on the North Carolina 

 coast would be an im- 

 possibility. I have had 

 some hard experiences in 

 my life with these insects. 

 I have fought the Jersey 

 mosquitoes, off the coast, 

 battled with them in the 

 Florida everglades, and suf- 

 fered torments from them 

 in the swamps of Cape 

 Charles, but for persist- 

 ency, bloodthirstiness and 

 relentless persecution, I 

 give to the North Carolina 

 coast mosquito the palm. 

 They seem to me larger 

 than any other species I 

 ever met, and as these shal- 

 low pools on the sea mea- 

 dows are their breeding 

 places, they literally are 

 in swarms. In the drive 

 through the bushes they 

 covered horse, cart and oc- 

 cupants, and not until we 

 got out in the open and 

 caught the strong wind 

 from the ocean did they 

 leave us. 



We occupied blinds a 

 couple of htuidred yards or 

 so apart. A few bushes 

 stuck in the ground, a small 

 box to sit upon, a couple of 

 dozen tin decoys stuck in 

 the shallow ponds, and we 

 were ready for work. The 

 cart put back to the house, 

 Shant telling us he would call about 10 o'clock. All 

 around were the flying birds, and at once the snipe began 

 circling over the decoys, and each gun was ringing out 

 in the morning air. I alone had taken a trained setter to 

 the club, who crouched in the blind awaiting my signal 

 to bring the killed and wounded birds. The bay birds 

 here rarely fly in flocks, and consequently all our shots 

 were singles and killed flying. The birds seemed to de- 

 tect the cheat as they approached near the decoys, and 

 invariably shied off", thus bringing the gunner's skill in 

 fuU play. I suppose we averaged a shot every two 

 minutes, though of course not regularly. Sometimes we 

 would fire so fast but for our thick gloves we could not 

 have held the heated barrels, then a lull would come of 

 a minute or two. For over one hour I made preparations 

 to light my pipe, but before I could succeed 1 would have 

 to stop to shoot, and my friend and comforter was taken 

 up and thrown hastily aside a dozen times because the 

 birds came so fast. 



There was no necessity for calling them, they would 

 head for the decoys of their own accord, and it required 

 at times some fancy shooting. It was comparatively 

 easy when they circled or beat against the wind, but 

 when they darted by, borne on the pinions of the breeze, 

 they went like a rocket, and one had to sling the muzzle 

 of his gun fully five or six feet in front to knock them 

 over. Alex. Huntee, 



[TO BE CONCLUDED.] 



