Apeil 11, 1896,] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
298 
The Bluebirds* Coming'. 
Lake Cbamplain, April 3.— Editor Forest and Stream: 
At this point (latitude 44° 30') the welcome bluebird came 
on March 31. On April 1 1 saw the robin. Will some 
one please enlighten me with regard to the robins I soe in 
flocks during the coldest months of the winter. In 
December, January and February I saw flocks of the red- 
breasts, which in every respect resemble the robin of the 
spring, unless it is their breasts may not be as brilliant. 
Pine grossbeaks and snow buntings have been abun- 
dant, and in March large flocks of what I think must be 
rpdpolls come for the seeds we scatter for them about the 
house. We tried the experiment of nailing beef suet to 
the tree near the house to attract the chickadees, wood- 
peckers, etc., but on account of the heavy snows of the 
latter part of March the crows became very tame and 
came right up to the house and stole it. 
I would very much like to know whether the little 
birds of which I speak are redpolls. The top of the head 
of each is dark red, backs darkish, breast ashy, and in 
many the breast is suffused with pink-like blood. Indi- 
viduals among them are much lighter in plumage than 
the rest. Who knows? 
To-day I saw a flock of a kind of grackle, or blackbird. 
They are not as large as the crow blackbird, but have the 
same note, viz., Ora-hee! ora-hee! and they differed from 
familiar grackle in being white at the bend of the wing, 
and I thought once I caught a glimpse of red too, but 
the white was very decided. They kept in compact 
flocks. Will not some correspondent tell us the proper 
names of the birds described? The redpolls are about 5in. 
long and the grackle 7in. C. D. B. 
Westfield, Mass., April 2.— I would like to hear some- 
thing more about the bluebirds. Last year during the 
whole season I Baw about thirty-five of our "bluejackets." 
This year I have already seen a score of times that num- 
ber — in fact, nearly as many as usual. A. S. R. 
Providence, R. I., April 3.— Seeing that so great inter- 
est is being taken in regard to the bluebirds, I want to add 
my mice. I saw my first pair this year to-day, and al- 
though it was cold and squally they seemed to be in the 
best condition. G-, c. 
Wild Pigeons in Massachusetts. 
Ashbuenham, Mass., March 30.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: A week ago I wrote you a line saying I had jut t 
seen the first bluebirds since 1894. I to-day saw what I 
have seen but once for fifteen years— I have seen a flock 
of wild pigeons. I stopped at an old house to get shelter 
from a smart shower and heard the old familiar prate cf 
the pigeon, which used to be so plenty. As soon as it 
slacked up a bit I went to look them up and found a little 
bunch of seven in some hemlock trees. They were not i t 
all afraid, and I walked directly under them and wi s 
near enough to see that five were females and two old 
red-breasted cocks. The brakeman on the branch road in 
this town said he also saw quite a flock in some pine tret s 
near the road to-day. H. C. Newell. 
Red Pine Squirrel in Southern Indiana. 
Thornton, Ind.— Seeing in almost every number of 
your grand old paper something in regard to freaks in ani- 
mals and birds in their migratory movements, reminds me 
that on last Christmas Day— Dec. 25, 1895— there was 
brought to me by a farmer a red or Northern pine squirrel, 
tha firBt and only one ever known to have been seen in this 
part of the country or nearer than a point eighty miles 
north of this. The person who killed the squirrel had no 
idea what kind it was and many were the suggestions 
offered by those who saw the specimen, many thinking it a 
cross of the fox and gray squirrel, and various other com- 
binations. The quail and rabbit crop has been very short 
here the past season. C. E. Tribbett. 
Big-Horn Head Imbedded in a Tree. 
Bozeman, Mont., March 10.— Editor Forest and Stream: 
I send you photos of a big-horn head imbedded in a large 
green, quaking asp tree, found on Porcupine Creek— trib- 
utary of upper West Gallatin River— Gallatin county, 
Mont. The tree was near a rocky ledge or wall. As you 
will notice on the photo, the skull is completely imbedded. 
Oae horn slipped off the bone while it was being packed 
out of the mountains, the other horn is perfect. How 
did this big-horn head get imbedded in the quaking asp 
tree? Probably some of the readers of Forest and 
Stream can solve this question. Aug. Gottschalck. 
The Iiinnsean Society of New York. 
Regular meetings of the society will be held at the 
American Museum of Natural History, Seventy-seventh 
street and Eighth avenue, on Tuesday evenings, April 14 
and 28, at 8 o'clock. April 14— J. A. Allen, "Remarks on 
a Fish-eating Rodent from Peru." April 28— R. L. Dit- 
rnare, "The Sea Snakes (Hydrophidee)." 
Walter W. Granger, Sec'y. 
American Museum ob- Natural History. 
It is reported that Col. Buffalo Bill Cody has at his 
ranch in Nebraska a carload of buffalo which will not 
go with the show, but will be kept there for breeding 
purposes. 
Adirondack Deer Hounding. 
The New York Fisheries, Game and Forest Commission 
has indorsed the Malby bills prohibiting hounding and 
jacking, in the following resolution: 
Resolved, That the Commission of Fisheries, Game and 
Forests approve of the Malby bills prohibiting the hound- 
ing and jacking of deer, and are satisfied that unless the 
Legislature takes immediate action against the cruel and 
inhuman slaughter, there will be no deer left in a few 
years to be hunted. Statistics at hand show that during 
the year 1895 5,000 deer were killed in the Adirondack 
region. 
The Forest and Stream is put to press each week on Tuesday 
porrespondenee intended for publication should reach v$ at th 
oUst bv' t Me* iay andasimuJt earlier a* vraotioable 
j§zg mtd 0mu 
THE CLUBMEN AT HOME. 
In the area of a score of miles on the North Carolina 
coast where Currituck Sound is separated from the Atlan- 
tic by a narrow strip of land, there are more sporting 
club houses than in any one other spot on earth. Most of 
the resorts are not only handsome structures outwardly, 
but inwardly are the very abode of luxury. 
There are five great sounds which run parallel to the 
ocean and were at one time a part of the Atlantic, but a 
sandy bar was thrown up for nearly a hundred miles that 
varies from a few hundred yards to a couple of miles in 
breadth. In this long stretch of water, running from 
Virginia Beach to Cape Henry, the ocean only succeeds in 
two places in forcing its way through the sandy barrier, 
one at Roanoke Inlet and the other ten miles south at 
New Inlet. 
This makes the waters of the southern sounds of 
Albemarle, Roanoke and Pamilo brackish during the 
heavy rains and salt in the droughts. The northern 
sound is Currituck and here the water is fresh, and that 
delicate marine plant, the wild celery, grows in its 
greatest profusion. This plant is the favorite food of that 
king of waterfowl, the canvasback, and his cousin, the 
redhead. In their autumn migrations from the regions 
of the far north, vast flocks of wild ducks following the 
trend of the Atlantic coast stop at Currituck Sound and 
spend the fall and winter months in what is probably the 
finest feeding ground on the North American continent. 
The vast profusion of wildfowl which annually crowd 
this section is almost incredible. Every foot of marsh, 
point and island in Currituck is owned by sporting syndi- 
cates, amateur or professional gunners, and the price of 
some of these choice spots prove them as valuable as town 
lots. 
All the clubs are close corporations, the number is lim- 
ited and it is exceedingly difficult to obtain admittance. 
MOUNTAIN sheep horns imbedded in a tree. 
A sportsman may have to wait years before his time 
comes, and then a single black ball will reject him. The 
sporting members of these clubs are like the office-holders, 
"few die and none resign." It is related of a New 
Yorker that he waited ten years before there was a 
vacancy in a certain well-known club, and during his 
first visit to Currituck his gun went off prematurely and 
crippled two of his friends for life. On the mantel of 
the Culane Club house is a placard announcing that the 
period of probation shall be ninety-nine years. 
Currituck Sound is a trifle over fifty miles long and 
varies in width from three to ten miles, in depth it is 
from 1 to 5ft. It is interspersed with islands, sandbanks 
and marshes, which are covered with coarse grass and 
reeds. Any part of land that runs sheer into the open 
water is called a point, and here the blinds are built and 
decoyB placed. 
The slaughter of wildfowl by every species of weapon 
by day and by night bade fair to exterminate the game, 
and the Legislature passed stringent protective laws. If 
they were observed the game supply would be kept up 
indefinitely. Under the enactment there are two rest 
days in every week. Outside of the marshes and inside 
the sounds the shooting is free to the natives, but only 
battery shooting is allowed. All big guns, sneak boats 
and rifles are tabooed. Only the natives who gun for the 
market use the battery. 
The rougher the weather the better the shooting. In 
calm days the fowl do not fly; they congregate and feed 
and are so wary it is impossible to approach them. The oc- 
cupant of the blind can smoke and read his novel without 
any fear of interruption. When a driving wind is blow- 
ing then the club man's hopes are high. It means a day 
of hardships, for it is intensely cold sitting in these ex- 
posed blinds despite the warm raiment worn. Most of 
the sportsman's attire consists of two pair of undercloth- 
ing, corduroy pants, India rubber boots coming to the 
thigh, cardigan jacket, hunting coat and another over 
that. Every club has its tame decoys and water dogs. 
These latter generally consist of mongrels crossed with 
Chesapeake Bay dogs. The finest retrievers I ever saw 
was this cross with the Irish setter. These dogs soon 
learn their business and become perfectly trained, and 
enjoy the sport as well as their masters. They crouch at 
the gunner's feet until the gun is fired, then rise on their 
hindlegs and glance over the blind, then dash first after 
the cripples, and will follow them everywhere. They 
seem impervious to cold and will doze tranquilly after 
their rush in the water, though their hair is frozen solid. 
Ttie kind of shooting varies in the sound. Some of the 
club preserves are famous for being the haunt of the 
canvasback. A noted place for this sport is the Ragged 
Islands on Back Bay adjoining Currituck; from fifty to 
seventy-five a day have been killed. This club was formed 
by Norfolk, Va., sportsmen two or three years ago, but a 
Northern syndicate now controls it. 
The oldest and a "three- tailed bashaw" among the clubs 
is the "Currituck."* James Watson Webb, of New 
York, and his confreres are the members. The house is 
built on a sand dune a couple of hundred yards from the 
ocean beach. The interior arrangements of the club are 
more like a modern hotel. The membership is limited to 
twenty-five and each has his private apartment, his 
locker, guide, boat and dog. The sitting room has a good 
miscellaneous library; a vast fireplace, capable of holding 
a quarter of a cord of wood, is one of the attractions. One 
can imagine what a comfort this roaring crackling flame 
must be on a wild, stormy night, when the storm king 
has marshalled his forces and Boreas as advance guard 
is sweeping across the ocean and storming across the 
sound. 
The club owns several thousand acres of marsh, islands 
and estuaries, and for common duck it is the best in Cur- 
rituck. The canvasback and redhead are rarely seen in 
the marshes. These species feed in the open sound on the 
roots of the wild celery, which only the canvasback are 
strong enough to pull up. The other varieties of wild- 
fowl, such as the shoveller, black duck, pintail and mal- 
lard, are found in marshes which consist of stretches— 
sometimes of vast area, interspersed with ponds — through 
which streams of sluggish water cross and recross each 
other. The ground in fine weather is generally firm and 
is used for grazing cattle, but is covered with such a 
tangle of vines, grass and reeds as to make walking im- 
possible. In the dusk of evening all the wildfowl wing 
their way to these sheltered ponds, where they pass the 
night, and return to their favorite haunts before the 
break of day. Anyone paddling up these creeks in the 
night can hear all around him the whistling of wings and 
splashing of the water aa these birds disturbed in their 
slumbers fly a few yards and then settle down again. 
It is here that the pot-hunters get in their work, and 
they have done more to drive the game away than all 
other agencies combined. It is a well-known fact that no 
matter how persistently wildfowl are hunted in the day , 
if the feeding grounds are good they will remain in the 
same locality all the season, only getting more wary and 
timid; but if they are fired upon in the night, they wil ] 
rise high in the air and leave the section for good and 
all. 
The poachers steal up in a sneakboat in the night with 
a swivel gun, some 10ft. long, loaded with ilb. of powder 
and some 20oz. of shot, and slaughter the ducks by the 
hundreds. If they are closely pressed they throw the 
guns overboard, first taking the precaution to tie a cork or 
a piece of marked wood to identify the spot. Thus it is 
almost impossible to take them red-handed. Then, again, 
they build great fires on the edge of the estuaries and fire 
into the ricks of bewildered waterfowl. This night shoot- 
ing is carried on regularly, despite every precaution, and 
if a club man has no luck and wants to carry home a 
string of ducks, some of the guides can always supply 
him— from a friend, of course. 
Many club men prefer marsh shooting to blind shoot- 
ing. It is infinitely more comfortable, for the cutting 
winds which come sweeping across the ocean are stayed 
by the high grass. In fact, there is no real hardship 
in sitting by decoys in a snug grass blind; though the 
wind may be blowing a hurricane outside, nothing but 
an occasional gust reaches the sportsman, who can smoke 
his pipe in peace without having the bowl emptied by 
furious blasts. 
It is here that the club man uses live decoys, which are 
common mallard and barnyard ducks. These birds are 
kept in an inclosure half in and half out of the water, and 
when anchored a leather loop is attached to one leg, to 
which is fastened a stout twine with a pound weight at 
the other end. This is lowered gently into the water and 
the decoy is soon diving after his feed. They will hear 
the calls of the wild duck when inaudible to the gunners. 
These birds seem to delight in luring their wild brethren 
to the death, and so well trained are they that often when 
returning to the club house after a day's shoot I would 
not take the trouble to place them in the coop, but 
would merely unfasten the gyves and they would swim 
contentedly alongside the boat, gabbling and quacking as 
noisy as a gang of children released from school. 
The Lighthouse Club is another old organization, which 
dates back, to the antebellum day 8. All the old members 
have passed away. It is composed of Boston and New 
York men, elderly, portly and fond of good living as well 
as fine shooting. The building is like a huge barn, and a 
lofty mountain of sand threatens in the near future to 
bury it out of sight. Mr. Brumsley, keeper of the club, 
tells me that the shooting has fallen off of late years be- 
cause of the persistent killing of the game by lawless 
market gunners, but this tale is duplicated by every 
keeper on the coast. 
In looking over the record book of this club I find that 
eighty redheads was the largest scored for one day's 
shooting. 
Probably the most exclusive sporting club in America 
is the Pamunky, named after that tribe of Indians. It is 
on an island of some four or five acres sitting out in the 
middle of the sound. To an antiquary this spot would be 
full of interest, for it is of artificial formation, and is 
composed entirely of oyster shells. As these bivalves do 
not grow in the immediate vicinity, they must have been 
brought in canoes, and the spot must have been chosen 
for festivals and pow-wows. This little island, resting 
like a jewel in the waters of Currituck, is as lovely a spot 
as ever nature formed or poet dreamed. The whole area 
is covered with a mass of tropical vegetation, and there 
are many big trees of distorted appearance, whose gnarled 
and rough limbs give evidence of great age. 
The house is a low, flat, old-fashioned affair, in keeping 
with the surroundings. Four members constitute the 
club. This property is valued at $100,000, the shares are 
* To this club I had the honor of conducting ex-President Harrison 
in the spring of 1892. It was an instance of the pure democracy of 
the American republic. Here was the head of the Government leav 
ing his home, accompanied only by a colored valet, visiting a club the 
members of which were politically opposed to him, and thr .wini? the 
cares and restraints of his office behind him, mingling on terms of 
perfect comradeship with the clubmen— who treated him exactlv as 
one of themselves, neither better nor worse. The ex-President is an 
ardent sportsman; he used to be at his blind betore the dawn of dav 
and would remain there by himself until too dark to see the ducks' 
and there wag no better whig shot in the dub than he. uu <- s s, 
