386 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



iDec. 3, 1891. 



WINTER SPORTS IN NORTH CAROLINA. 



1AM delighted with my selection of Newbern as a 

 headquarters for my winter campaign among the 

 fish and wildfowl, and more than convinced of the 

 wisdom of my choice. Had I come here as a star invalid 

 in search of a sovereign balm and spicy breezes, the ex- 

 traordinary cold snap of the 16th to 19th would have set 

 me back discouraged. As it was, the cold wind from the 

 north-northerly and from the east-easterly, only had the 

 effect to drive the whole assembly of ducks, geese, brant, 

 swans and shore birds, which had been dallying along 

 the sedges of the River St. Lawrence and about the rice 

 lakes of Iowa and Wisconsin, down into Currituck and 

 the North Carolina sounds, and that delighted the sports- 

 men. It would seem as if everything that could fly 

 scooted before that intensely cold and bitter blast and 

 came down here into the neighboring waters. They had 

 to fly that far to find comfort and rest, nay more, they 

 found the finest food in the land, clams, fish, valisneria, 

 that succulent delight of the canvasback and redhead 

 ducks; and seeds of grass and rice from the garnered 

 fields, with sheltered coves and alternate points of land 

 to suit, and sand dunes piled upon the beaches, where 

 the gulls and petrels play bo-peep with the surf. Vast 

 flocks of crows came careering on the blast bound for the 

 upland and pine woods. Herons, gulls, terns, sandpipers 

 and cranes huddled together among the marshes, and the 

 hovering buzzards sought shelter behind the favoring lee 

 of some deserted negro quarter. Right here within the 

 city limits old Bill Taylor, a colored man, killed a blue 

 heron by Trentside, which measured 6ft. from tip to tip 

 of extended wings, and ©fleered to sell it for a quarter, 

 with no buyers. It was a beautiful specimen, which col- 

 lectors might have envied. Then the black ducks got to- 

 gether on the river, right in front of town, and a venture- 

 some sportsman picked up a few. An expert gunner 

 who did not begrudge the time might have filled a boat, 

 but Newbern is a busy community, and there are no 

 gentlemen of leisure here except those of color. It is 

 hard for the latter to get a move on themselves; but the 

 cold snap made them hustle. More than half the popula- 

 tion of Newbern is black. 



I met one of them, a middle-aged darky, on the morn- 

 ing of the seventh day, the 18th, I think, when I was try- 

 ing to warm myself by a lively constitutional before 

 breakfast: or rather, he overtook me as I walked. 1 had 

 heard him shuffling briskly behind me for a couple of 

 blocks, with that peculiar "dot and go one" gait which 

 every native recognizes; and by a forced sprint he made 

 a lap on me. 



"Right cold day, boss!" he said, forging half a length 

 ahead. 



I told him in the happy vernacular of the country that 

 it "certainly vs^as." 



"Mighty hard on us, boss," he continued, "coming so 

 sudden, and so warm the day before." 



That is what I thought to myself it must have seemed 

 to the poor people of the Northwest where the heft of the 

 blizzard struck. As it was, we in Newbern were only on 

 the outside edge: we were comfortable by comj)arison. 

 The coming of the cold wave was heralded by a dense 

 black cloud which overcast the northern hemisphere 

 about sundown. At noon, previously, the thermometer 

 had marked 71 degrees; at 8 o'clock the next morning it 

 indicated 27 degrees. And great Eolus! how the ducks 

 did drive before the stress of weather, and even now they 

 are huddling, as I have mentioned, between the mainland 

 and the outer beach. The North Carolina sounds are full 

 of them. The regular packet steamers which ply hence 

 to Norfolk and Elizabeth City bring almost daily reports 

 of them. 



But this peculiar advantage in the location of the land- 

 locked waters of this State as a winter home for wildfowl, 

 and the easy accessibility of Newbern to every important 

 oommerciai point within 200 miles, constitute but a modi- 

 cum of the reasons why it seems the most desirable head- 

 quarters on earth for the siDortsman. 



From Newbern to Morehead it is only an hour and a 

 half by rail (Southern schedule time). Beaufort, which 

 is a charming watering place with an excellent modern 

 hotel, hobnobs with Morehead; clustering islands lie 

 between. Across Bogue Sound is the outer beach, with 

 the illimitable ocean washing its seaward line. The salt 

 water flows through Bogue and Topsail inlets into the 

 Soimd, which is as prolific with fish life as Indian River 

 in Florida, and without its sand flies. Within this shel- 

 tered reach of water sailboats may travel securely and 

 indefinitely, north and south. Here the counter currents J 

 from the tropics and the arctics meet. Here all the vari- 

 eties of the fish fauna of the two antipodes cross fins. 

 Whales and hair seals disport with the angel fish and cero, 

 shad and porgies with hogfish and baracouta. All the 

 peninsula lying between Core Sound and the river Neuse 

 is cut up into estuaries and intricate channels which only 

 experienced guides can navigate intelligibly. The up- 

 lands swarm with turkey, partridge (quail), deer, bear, 

 coons, opossums, foxes, hares and squirrels, and the 

 swamps and "pocosins" with water fowl and shore 

 birds. 



From Newbern to Washington, N. C, there is steam 

 transj)ortation via Pamlico Sound and river, with duck, 

 goose and brant shooting ail the way; and from Washing- 

 ton there is rail and steamboat for fifty miles northward 

 into Albemarle Sound, which is the focus of another as 

 fine sporting ground as can be found anywhere, with no 

 end of rivers emptying into it, and bars and islands and 

 shoals choking it, and canals and railroads leading through 

 cypress swamps and grass marshes and pine forests back 

 into the more densely and more civilized parts of the 

 country. From Newbern there is also ready access by 

 steamboat with Roanoke Island, famed for sport, war, 

 colonization, and scuppernong grapes, since the first 

 advent of Sir Walter Raleigh; and three miles from the 

 northeastern selvedge of the Island is the famous water- 

 ing place hotel at Nag's Head, with sand dunes which 

 shift with every violent storm, sometimes piled to a 

 height of 200ft. , and of ten burying groves and hamlets 

 out of sight as they shift and form in cumulative drifts. 

 There is no better shooting for gesse, ducks and swans 

 than can be found at Eoanoke Island right now, and if 

 ef jQW md^g c^r^ fry itj tlie^ Jiaye only to tfk© 



the Old Dominion Canal Line or the Southern Railroad 

 at Norfolk and run down there; and they will find Spence 

 Daniells at Manteo, ready to take them out or board them 

 at very moderate prices. He has a little coterie of New 

 York, Baltimore and Norfolk friends who are always 

 regular customers in the shooting season, and some of 

 them come down in their own private launches and enjoy 

 themselves right royally. 



From Newbern there is also transportation by rail and 

 boat to Kinston, 50 miles up the Neuse River, and thence 

 to Goldsboro and the up country; and all the interme- 

 diate farms and woods are full of game in great variety. 

 Last week I saw the proprietor of a lumber camp only 

 12 miles up the Kent River, above Newbern, who is cut- 

 ting timber for the Prettyman mill, and he told me that 

 his boys got five wild turkeys one morning which they 

 had flushed and located the evening before, and they 

 were only rough log-cutters and not sportsmen at all. 

 Quail can be had for the trouble of walking them up any- 

 where outside of the city limits, and if one is going deep 

 into the woods he may as well carry heavy ammunition 

 for bears. 



Now, Mr. Editor, I have never seen any such catego- 

 rical statement printed anywhere of the attractions of 

 the Eastern Counties for sportsmen as I have just now 

 given, and mine is meagre enough, because I have to be 

 concise. Later on I shall give you much of it in detail, 

 if my health is spared and my plans do not miscarry. 

 These localities, I fancy, are not visited by strangers, 

 because the proper points of departure are not familiar 

 to the pntlic. For example, there is direct semi- weekly 

 communication from Newbern by sailing packet with 

 Hyde and Dare counties, which are so swampy, and so 

 interspersed with jungle, lake and bayous, as to be fit 

 for hardly anything but hunting. There is more game 

 in Hyde and Dare counties than there is in the whole of 

 New York State and Maine put together. The run of 90 

 miles from here to Swanquarter can ordinarily be made 

 in ten hours by boat, or one can go by land, crossing the 

 Neuse River at this- point and the Pamlico River at 

 Wakely. There are good accommodations at Swanquar- 

 ter at $1,50 per day, with no end of turkeys, quail, deer 

 and bear within gunshot. Thence there is a good wagon 

 road to Fairfield, and steamboat twice a week from there 

 to Norfolk, as your intelligent correspondents Dr, Cape- 

 hart, of Avoca, and Frank Heywood, of Norfolk, have 

 mentioned. I happen to be boarding with the gentleman 

 for whose pretty little daughter this river steamboat is 

 named. A week is ample time for a round trip, re- 

 turning from Norfolk to Newbern by the regular 

 routes. 



Ten miles across Croatan Sound fi-om Roanoke Island 

 is Stumpy Point, whose people live by fishing and hunt- 

 ing. They drink yupon tea and never shave. An im- 

 penetrable swamp cuts them off behind. The broad 

 sound lies before them. They never see strangers, and 

 the onl;r company they have is the momentary presence 

 of passmg steam craft. Perhaps I may head an expedi- 

 tion to visit this isolated community and carry them some 

 looking glasses and Yucatan gum. Capt. Southgate, of 

 the steamer Newbern, runs close by on his regular trips 

 from Norfolk, and wiU drop off passengers who have pro- 

 vided skiffs to take them ashore, and receive them aboard 

 again by appointment. 



Certainly this is the very time of year to enjoy sport in 

 this section, from this on to January, and even a month 

 later. Ordinarily, duck shooting is but cold comfort at 

 the best, for it is when the wintery blasts are keenest 

 that the duck shooter gathers his heaviest bags, and often 

 noses get blue and fingers and toes grow numb while the 

 patient sportsmen watches his stools. Yet here in No- 

 vember, and up to Christmas, yea, all winter long, there 

 are balmy days when the soft tints and the ruddy tints of 

 the morning light in themselves, and the exciting whirr 

 of rapidly succeeding flights and the splash of those that 

 pitch headlong into the waters as they settle near the 

 decoys, add a zest to the sport of duck shooting which 

 only an enthusiast can appreciate or desciibe. Here it 

 scarcely ever snows. Killing frosts, so called, seldom 

 occur. Roses persist in putting forth their blooms de- 

 spite the recent freeze, and there is winter foliage enough 

 to give the landscape an agreeable tropical cast. Blovps 

 and high winds are rare, and the lapsing days alternate 

 between light breezes and intervals of calm. The skies 

 are fickle, sometimes overcast, but bright and sunny for 

 the most part. They say the climate is more equable 

 than that of Florida. I have in mind some desirable 

 quarters for sportsmen, right on the river front, at the 

 home of the postmaster, whose sister is a professional 

 taxidermist and whose brother has a sharpie of approved 

 pattern. Chakles Hallook. 



IN MAINE WOODS.-II. 



IN CAMP, Piscataquis Coimty, Me., Oct. 26.— In a 

 recent letter I gave some personal experience in re- 

 gard to illegal game killing in this county. I know that 

 the experience of one man is not enough for the basis of 

 a thoroughly reliable generalization, but in saying that I 

 am convinced that in the southern and more settled part 

 of this county at least, the greater part of the illegal kill- 

 ing is done by the natives of the county or the State, I 

 am supported by the opinions of all whom I have asked 

 about the matter on the spot. Of instances in point I 

 could give dozens, but with some little accotmt of what 

 I have seen on this present trip I am willing to let the 

 statement stand. 



I had not visited this region for two years. I had en- 

 gaged a guide, who had bidlt a good camp on the shore 

 of one of my favorite lakes where I have camped many 

 a time, where game and fish were plenty and where here- 

 tofore I could be reasonably sure of quiet and rarely 

 a visitor. Formerly it could not be reached in less than 

 forty-eight hours from Boston and with good weather and 

 good luck at that. 



But I am saddened by many a change. This lake can 

 now be reached in twenty- four hours from Boston. A 

 steamboat now takes us swiftly over ten miles of the trip 

 where formerly we paddled our canoes. A new railroad 

 penetrates the wilderness, and mills and clusters of 

 houses have sprung up where once was only wilderness. 

 Think of it, you reader of Forest and Stream, who 

 have been so blessed as to see Onaway Lake in the olden 

 time — one of the very loveliest and most secluded sheets 

 of water in Maine. A hamlet has sprung up at its foot 

 and there the morning express train on the Canadi^JQ. 

 Paoiftc Railroad stops a»4 tJie passengers breakfast, 



It seems incredible and unbearable sacrilege, but it is 

 the actual and the irrevocable. How good a chance 

 think you there is now for caribou on Benson Bay? How 

 long will Barren Mountain and Chairback be their re- 

 treat? During the past year some one has been minutely 

 describing in letters to Forest and Stream the waters 

 about Monson; and I have trembled lest my old lakes and 

 hills should be written up; but lo! the railroad itself is 

 here, and I see that "the jig is up," I perceive that "I 

 have lived;" that already I belong to "a former genera* 

 tion." 



Well, we came to our camp. There was the dear old 

 lake; and the grand old mountains, right and left, looked 

 down on it; but the sound of many rifle shots greeted ua 

 before we emerged from the forest. To-night, including 

 our party of three, there are eleven men in the camp, and 

 ten Winchesters and a shotgun or two complete the 

 arsenal. Three deer, two of them does, were hung up; 

 and another large doe was shot the next morning— all of 

 them driven into the lake by dogs. Two dogs are in the 

 camp. 



Not one man besides myself of the whole party belongs 

 outside this county. The dogging goes on unmolested. 

 The warden was here a while ago; but he cannot be every- 

 where, you know, and his movements are as well known 

 and timed as are those of the policeman on his beat by 

 those who wish for any reasons to shun his attentions. 



A net has been set in the lake. Here is one morning's 

 haul: 34 suckers, 1 pickerel, 3 huge togue (lake trout), 1 

 muskrat and 1 loon. 



Time and agaiu since I stepped from the train have I 

 been importuned to permit the use of a dog for my bene- 

 fit. It is the very simplest thing in the world to obey or 

 to break the law. Any one can get a deer here any day 

 in twenty or thirty minutes by use of a dog. It is an 

 absolute certainty. These men will go home with their 

 deer; and their wives and children and neighbors will ad- 

 mire their prowess, but the only hardihood it required 

 was in disregai'd of the law and the only skill was that of 

 the butcher. There was not even "the music of the 

 hounds upon the hills" to enjoy or boast of. An occa- 

 sional yelp in the thicket, that was all. Any kind of a 

 cur that can follow a deer track and can bark will do. 



Now, let me freely admit that, for the poor man who 

 needs meat for his family, the killing of a deer in this 

 way is, the law aside, the surest, quickest and most 

 humane way. There is no danger of the deer going off 

 wounded to suffer and die in the woods, Tixen, too, he is 

 shot just where he is wanted and can be best handled, and 

 all the meat can be saved. This is, however, butchery, 

 the "fall meat killing," not hunting, not sport — heaven 

 save the mark! Of the matching cunning Avit^h cunning, 

 and protective instinct with skill and endurance and 

 nerve, there is nothing at all. But the men who dogged 

 the deer and set the fish net were not the needy dwellers 

 in the wilderness. They were men who were here for 

 "sport," for "a good time," and considered that in this 

 way they were having it. 



Now as to the law. Though, as I said in a previous 

 letter, I thoroughly condemn the view taken by so many 

 otherwise good men who break the game law, I can 

 thoroughly understand it. I know just what its weak 

 point is, but it is there, and I know how plausible ifc 

 appears to them. Who is "the State," any way, that it 

 should interfere with what they and their fathers before 

 them have always done? They have never seen "the 

 State." But they like to range the woods and lakes and 

 they know venison and moose meat to be good. 



To whom does the game belong if not to them who live 

 here? Why should they hold their hands in September or 

 Jamiary in order that strangers from outside of Maine 

 (here "the State" for a few naoments dimly shows its out- 

 line — when it is needed as a witness) may come in October, 

 November and December to share with them the desirable 

 things of the country? 



Then the warden! Who does not know that he is 

 merely "Bill Smith" or "Sam Brown," a fellow who has 

 himself broken the law scores of times, and has no right 

 to turn about and for the mere incentive of pay prevent 

 others from doing the same thing? No. He is the common 

 enemy, and we will outwit him every time we can and 

 make his work as difiicult as possible. Moreover, the 

 "man from outside the State" often brings money in his 

 pocket, and is willing to pay well for what we can show 

 him, and it is but natural and right that he should have a 

 set of horns to take out with him for his pains. 



Something in this way the matter appears to many of 

 these men — mingled sometimes with the feeling that the 

 law is made by men who do not know the true merits of 

 the case and more for the benefit of strangers than the 

 people who should be first consulted. AVith all this there 

 is an inability to realize that the big game of the country 

 is almost gone, and that it will vanish from these woods 

 just as surely as it has (while we were looking on and 

 before we were aware of it) vanished from areas a hundred 

 times as large, unless instant and stringent methods are 

 adopted for preserving it. 



Piscataquis county has a noble situation for preserva- 

 tion of game. The Canadian poacher does not affect the 

 southern part of the county. His operations do not, I 

 think, to any appreciable extent, affect this county, 

 unless it be in the northernmost townships. It is a great 

 county, nearly 50 miles wide from east to west and over 

 100 from north to south. It reaches from Millnocket to 

 Moosehead and contains three-fourths of the surface of 

 the latter lake. It contains Katahdin Mountain and 

 Chamberlain, Chesuncook and AUegash lakes, and hun- 

 dreds upon hundreds of other lakes, and almost all the 

 great rivers of the State head there or derive most of 

 their water from it. As a natural home for deer, caribou 

 and moose it cannot possibly be surpassed, and all these 

 animals are here. I believe Piscataquis county contains 

 at this moment the best moose ground in the United 

 States. 



But unless something is done to stay the hand of 

 slaughter this region will soon be as barren of moose as 

 is Massachusetts, Ohio or Mississippi. 



I recognize the truth of what one of yom- correspon- 

 dents said, viz., that he who points out an abuse is bound, 

 if he can, to point out the remedy. 



If be can! I have thought of it much and almost ever 

 since I began to hunt. 



It is evident that present State laws unaided will not 

 work the change. Miss Hardy, the person best informed 

 on the subject, has left no doubt of her own almost dis- 

 pairing view of it. 



One thing seems to jse evident, viz., that united aotioi' 



