Jan. 26, 1895.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
67 
o tarpon fishermen in respect to their favorite fish. It 
si commonly supposed that the tarpon frequents deep 
water. Captain Jacquet assured jtne that they had been 
often seen in the lake in shoal water not over a foot or 
two deep— great fellows, too. Several times they have 
been caught in the big seines only to break through to 
the great damage of the seine, or they escaped by leap- 
ing high over the seine. Only once did they succeed in 
capturing one, a big fellow 7 ft 9 in. long. Once they 
got a whole school in the net, fourteen in all. They 
escaped by jumping high over the net. Two nearly 
struck Mr. Jacquet, and one barely missed his son. The 
coast along Louisiana and Mississippi thereabouts 
abounds with them. One incident was most melancholy 
in its ending. The captain related the circumstances. 
A party of three young men were fishing from a boat 
near shore on the Gulf coast. Bait running short, two 
volunteered to seek bait ashore while the other one fished. 
After being put ashore they noticed that their compa- 
nion had fastened a big fish. They encouraged him to 
hold on. Suddenly a big tarpon jumped out of the 
water straight at the lone fisherman, struck him in the 
chest with his head, smashing his chest in and killed 
him instantly. 
Captain Jacquet scoffs at the idea of the tarpon being 
strictly a deep water fish. Mr. Cardona informed me 
they are abundant off Biloxi in the Gulf waters. 
New Obeea.ns, La., Jan. 11. B. Wateks. 
THE CANVAS-BACK DUCK SUPPLY. 
The author of an interesting and brightly written 
article on "The Ducks of the Chesapeake," in the 
January number of Lippincott's Magazine, predicts 
deploringly the extermination in fifty years, ' ' of that 
finest of wild fowl in the world"— the canvasback 
He gives in circumstantial detail the premises from 
which he draws such conclusions. The present writer 
sympathizing deeply— as will all sportsmen— with him 
in his anxieties in this matter, proposes to examine into 
his premises to see whether they really afford grounds 
for his gloomy inference. 
To do so it will be convenient to quote ^entire, from 
page 81 of the number, 3 his paragraph in that behalf, 
marking alphabetically,' 1 : in the order of their occur- 
rence, the basic propositions therein. He says : 
(a)" The breeding places of the Chesapeake ducks are 
in Canada, (b) where they are being destroyed in vast 
numbers by the cutting away of the forests which shel- 
ter the lakes and pools where they harbor, (c)Jand by 
the use and sale of their eggs, (cc) Thousands of these 
eggs are annually marketed, and by these methods, 
rather than by the numbers actually shot, they have 
been greatly diminished. This condition of things 
seems to be beyond remedy, since a State cannot make 
a treaty with a foreign power, and the general govern- 
ment is not likely to interfere on behalf of what is prac- 
tically a Maryland industry, or to (d) provide such com- 
pensation as Canada might see fit to ask if a proposal was 
made to her to protect the ducks in their native habitat. 
So the prospect is that fifty years will see the extermi- 
nation of the finest wild fowl in the world, and one of 
the most prized delicacies of the table. ' ' 
From his context it is to be presumed that by ' ' Ches- 
apeake ducks," at the beginning of the paragraph, he 
means specially the canvasback, and possibly also 
intends to include the redheads, though the closing 
phrase "one of the most prized delicacies of the table" 
would seem to confine the application of the paragraph 
to the canvasback, certainly excludes the other common 
or inferior ducks. With this preliminary clearing of 
terms we will take up the lettered propositions. 
(a) Canada extending conventionally to the apex, at 
the North Pole, of a weage shaped slice of the terres- 
trial orange, the birds leaving the United States and 
going northward in spring, and returning thereto in 
winter only, may safely be affirmed to have their breeding 
grounds in Canada somewhere. We may therefore pass 
( a) as being correct. 
(b) That they are being destroyed m vast 
numbers by ' ' cutting away of Canadian forests which 
shelter lakes and pools where they harbor"— meaning by 
"harbor" live and breed— is news indeed to the present 
writer, who has spent nearly forty years in outdoor life 
in Canadian forests and prairie, from the Gulf of St. 
Lawrence to the Pacific Ocean, and has been observing 
and shooting wild fowl and other game ev6ry year of 
that time ; and news to scores of shooting men in Can- 
ada of similar experience. 
It would astonish such to meet one man, white or red, 
who could say he had ever seen a canvasback, or red- 
head either, nesting in lake or pool in the Canadian 
forests, whether of those forests that are being cleared 
away in the progress of settlement, or even in what 
could properly be. called Canadian woods beyond settle- 
ments. Far to the north, where the forest dwindles 
down to scrub birch, spruce and willow, is, in my 
opinion, the summer habitation ofthe canvasback and 
red-heads that fly northwards along the Atlantic coast in 
spring from Chesapeake and other southern waters of 
that coast. But as, at the farthest north I have been 
(some hundreds of miles north of any Canadian settle- 
ments, and on waters of Hudson Bay) they arrived in 
autumn flying southward, i. e., from farther north. 
I arfirm no personal knowledge of their breeding 
ground, and would have to refer inquiries to the 
Esquimax as probably knowing more about it. 
(c) The Esquimax aforesaid may "use" and "sell 
their eggs," and (cc) for aught I personally know to 
the contrary, have markets where "thousands" of these 
eggs are annually disposed of, but, as the transactions 
would by the circumstances necessarily be of similarly 
profitable nature to those that occurred between the two 
small boys who tried to make a fortune by swapping 
knives all day while confined by rain to the barn, I fear 
that the industry would, notwithstanding the complete 
protection it must enjoy in that region, soon' die a nat- 
ural death. 
(d) On this score Chesapeake sportsmen need not be 
stimulated by the Lippincott author to take any dip- 
lomatic action towards inducing Canada to legislate in 
protection of wild fowl. 
They may, after perusal of that author's remarks, be 
surprised to learn that no State in the Union has more 
rigid laws protecting wild fowl and their eggs than 
those in force and strictly administered in Canada. The 
game laws of some of the States are, or were, I should 
judge, more lax than those of Canada, if personal ex- 
perience, when South, of what I could shoot and when 
— on authority of hospitable and kindly local sportsmen 
— is to count. 
The summing up, therefore, is that if the extermina- 
tion within fifty years hence of the Chesapeake canvas- 
back hinges— as affirmed by the author quoted — on the 
methods of its destruction practised in Canada, indi- 
cated by him, the sportsmen and epicures of the United 
States, and elsewhere, may consider the time limit of 
such extermination as indefinitely extended. 
Montreal. Cotjbeuk des Bois. 
TEXAS AND THE S OUTHWEST. 
A Pot Shot. 
The Corpus Christi correspondent of the San Antonio 
Express is again suffering from an attack of drawing 
the long bow, or he has accidentally stumped his toe 
against a full grown truth. He says, January 12, that 
Ed. Grant, pot hunter and ragtag and bobtail par ex- 
cellence, killed 60 ducks in two shots while hunting on 
Mustang Island. 
The most abominable thing on earth to my thinking 
is a pot hunter that kills for profit. I have met market 
hunters, lots of them. Some were very|oad, but I have 
met some of whom a good word might be spoken. This 
was a fair man. He paid his debts and always killed 
his birds on the wing, and his neighbors never knew 
him to pot anything. But here is a fair sample of the 
coast pot hunter, and he has killed sixty ducks. The 
daily press, always anxious to record great deeds and 
daring feats, puts a three-story heading over it and 
says to the world that Ed Grant has killed 60 ducks in 
two shots. Corpus Christi should hide these things. 
The fair little town should know that she loses caste 
when she announces to the world that such a thing 
exists as "Ed Grant. " 
But while I am under jjthe'pot hunting heading, let 
me say a few words aboutfthecity high-toned gun club 
men whom I saw "potting" a few weeks ago on a 
favorite duck shooting resort. There was a pair of 
them — and a precious pair they were — and they went 
hunting on the premises of one of nature's noblemen 
without even indulging in the courtesy to ask his per- 
mission to do so. 
For at least half an hour the pair were heard across 
the lake. They were endeavoring to hire the privilege 
of shooting from a pot hunter's blind and over his 
decoys. The P. H. wanted $2. They offered $1, and 
spent an hour trying to jew down the price. They 
finally offered $1. 50, which was reluctantly accepted. 
Ah ! They are off ! They reach the blind and the busi- 
ness begins. 
About the first thing that comes along is a nice bunch 
of blue bills. They pass over the flight shooters, a pair 
of birds are killed and the birds fly down to the occu- 
pants of the pot hunter's blind, and as they hover over 
the decoys the precious pair empty their guns at them. 
Presently a pair alights and the birds swim amidst the 
decoys when the murderous discharge cuts them down. 
Can the pot hunter do worse ? 
He does not shoot nitro-powder, and he lets the ducks 
gather in larger numbers than the city club pot hunters 
do, but are they any better than he is? Guess not. I 
should have said two pairs, instead of a precious pair in 
the beginning of this narrative, for besides the pair 
spoken of there were two others. They were said to be 
Chesapeake Bay retrievers. One thing is certain, how- 
ever. Their education had been sadly neglected as far 
as water was concerned. It was great fun to see the 
owner of one of these dogs giving him a lesson in 
retrieving. The owner undoubtedly thought it strange 
when the animal resented having a blue bill stuffed 
down his throat and his middle pounded on as if it were 
a drum. Suffice it to say that the dog didn't retrieve 
worth a cent, and its owner returned to the blind to 
"pot" some more ducks. 
There are pot hunters and then some — we'll let it 
go at that. 
The Gun Was all Right. 
Last week one of our popular gun stores was visited 
by a farmer of Teutonic persuasion. He was grisly 
with whiskers and his embonpoint gorgeous. He 
wanted a gun— a cheap one He was shown several 
modern engines of game destruction, but the prices 
were all out of reach of his finances. He didn't like the 
place. He couldn't do well there. 
The gun store man happened to think of an old Zulu 
gun which had been exchanged for a more modem arm, 
and desiring to rid himself of it offered it to the old 
farmer for $2. The price was all right and as the hay- 
seed clutched the 15 pound hammer and raised, a wide- 
spread look of satisfaction settled on his complacent 
features as gracefully as a belated green head drops his 
legs in a puddle at nightfall. He blew in the muzzle 
and got red in the face. With a look of withering scorn 
he handed the gun back to the store man remarking 
that the gun wouldn't shoot. It was stopped up. 
"Oh, that's all right, " replied the merchant as he 
place a big new hat cap on the nipple. It is a little 
dusty on the inside. This will blow it out. ' ' 
I should think it did. When the smoke cleared away the 
horrified gun man found that the hidden load had 
ruined about 10,000 much advertised top wads, blown 
out of existence a whole row of petmecky cleaners, to 
say nothing of the hole in the wall and the fine of $10 
which he had to pay in the morning. 
The farmer was the first to recover his equilibrium. 
His extended hand contained $2, which he gave to the 
dealer. Then he grabbed the Zulu and waddled out 
with the air of a farmer fully convinced that the gun 
could shoot. 
Pneumonia Killing Fish. 
About two months ago the Crystal Ice Factory, located 
on the upper part of the San Antonio River, had its 
ammonia vats cleaned out and the contents emptied 
in the river. The experiment killed thousands of fish 
and wagonloads of the stupefied denizens of the deep 
were carted away. 
Mr. Lanning, a visitor from Chicago, who is a devoted 
disciple of Isaak Walton, procured a boat near the Lone 
Star brewery, where the water is deep and blue, and 
tried the depths for black bass. 
As he floated down the stream he passed a fair speci- 
men of the broad -jawed loafing-fishing "nigger" and 
asked him, "What luck?" 
"Lor', massa. Ise jest been fishin' hyar fo' mo' den 
fo' hours an' nevah did get a bite. Eyah sence the 
Crystal ice factory put dat noomonia in de water day 
ain't bin no fish in de ribbah, sah. " 
En Route to the Coast. 
Jolly Charley Willard of the Colts Firearms Com- 
pany, accompanied by Messrs. Marvin Hughitt and Mark 
Cummings of Chicago, passed through San Antonio in 
a private car en route to the coast, on the 14th. They 
go to Rockport, from where they will sail for Kemp's 
place, where they are sure to find plenty of canvasbacks 
and red heads. 
Messrs. Ernest Stevens and A. C. Guessay of San 
Antonio will join Colonel Sam Allen and his two sons 
at Houston for a week's frolic on the Galveston Bay. 
This is an annual party which never kills much game, 
but, oh ! how they live and how much fun they seem 
able to pound out of life. That's just the party Hough 
would like. They'll do well 
Dog Stories. 
I don't like to inflict them on an unoffending people, 
but there is a man in San Antonio who always bores me 
by relating some impossibility performed by his old 
dog. I have warned him repeatedly not to do it again, 
but he gathers himself together, takes a fresh hold and 
then gracefully slides to second. Here is one of them : 
Scene, depot. Train coming at full speed. Dog on 
track, tail up toward the train. Doesn't wag his tail 
sufficient to flag the train. No time to lose. Remem- 
bers the dog obeys every command. ' ' Charge ! ' ' the 
owner suddenly commands and the ever faithful pedi- 
gree-as-long-as-your-leg- Llewelyn setter "charges" be- 
tween two rails. Train thunders over dog, passes, and mas- 
ter and dog are merged into one crying, suffocating mass. 
Texas Field. 
Coupes Chkisti. 
NEBRASKA'S GAME FIELDS. 
Omaha, Neb., Jan. 19. — The committee consisting of 
J. B. Miekle, Frank Parmelee and Fred Montmorency 
appointed at the general sportsmen's meeting some three 
weeks ago to go to Lincoln and see about getting the 
new game and fish laws in the hands of interested 
members, report that they were cordially received, and 
have even reason to hope for a favorable consideration 
of the matter in hand. The bill providing for the pro- 
tection of game and fish was entrusted to Representative 
W. H. Harrison of Grand Island, one of the most promi- 
nent and enthusiastic sportsmen in Nebraska ; the bill 
providing for a State game warden to Representatives 
Hargrave of Sutton, another old sportsman, and the bill 
providing for a license for non-resident sportsmen to 
Representative Crow of this city, which is guarantee 
enough that it will not be neglected. 
The wild fowl shooters are becoming apprehensive 
that the coming spring will afford but meager sport in 
this line. Most all of the most famous feeding grounds 
last fall were baked as hard as cement, and the shooting 
was the poorest known for years on this account, and as 
up to date we have had absolutely no rain or snow here 
this winter the shooters are making up their minds for 
another disappointment. The fight of the wild fowl 
last fall was all down the Mississippi Valley, hundreds 
of miles east of here, and if the same conditions prevail 
this spring they will assuredly return north by the same 
route. Last March I spent two weeks at Goose Lake, 
four hundred miles west of here. The water averaged, 
ten feet all over the lake and our bag reached over a 
half hundred canvasbacks and redheads. I put in 
another two weeks at the same place last October. The 
water was not a foot deep in the deepest place, and our 
bag summed up 26 canvasback and probably 150 mixed. 
The Sandhills people, however, claim that their lakes 
are not dependent upon rain and. snow for their supply 
of water, but upon the countless springs with which the 
hills in a lake country are filled. They claim that after 
a long summer, and with no extra rain or snow falls dur- 
ing the following winter, the lakes will be recharged 
through February and March from this source to their 
normal depth. I take little stock in this, however, and 
still it may be true. I heard just this week from both 
of my favorite haunts, and in neither was there any 
more water than there was in October. 
If the ducks and geese were scarce in the sandhills 
this fall there was one beautiful game bird that wasn't, 
and that was the avocet. One afternoon in the upper 
shallows on Blue Lake, which is one of a chain on one 
which I do a great deal of shooting fall and spring, I 
saw them by the thousands and tens of thousands. 
They were feeding upon the tiny mollusks with which 
these waters teem ; and the whole upper end of the lake, 
possible two or three hundred acres, was dotted with 
them as thickly as you ever saw sea gulls. I got a good 
position in the reeds, and in one hour's shoot killed 
something like seventy birds. 
The first shot put them in noisy flight, but they 
decoyed well to the dead and wounded, kept circling, 
and for the period mentioned furnished unexampled 
sport. The avocet, as is generally known, belongs to 
the grallatorial family. It has a long bill turned up at 
the end like a sickle bill curlew. It also has very long 
wings and exhibits a general white color, but the back 
and wings of the male are a deep velvety black, while 
those of the female are a brownish-black. 
They are extremey plentiful in the Sandhill lake 
country, and are a capital table bird, especially if 
skinned before baking or broiling. Unless this pre- 
caution is taken or unless the bird has been killed and 
neatly chessed for many days it is quite apt to be a trifle 
strong for epicurean taste. 
Geogre Strong, while rabbit hunting west of Bellevue 
Friday killed a handsome specimen of the Artie owl, 
also a garter snake, and with the thermometer at the 
freezing point at that, Sandy G-kiswoed, 
