84 
AM. 
§mtie mid §mu 
When the Ducks Flew. 
The North Carolina game law provides that no gun- 
ner for wildfowl shall leave his landing before snnnse in 
the mnrning, and this provision is fairly w^ell observed. 
The old law permitted him to start at any hour, but pro- 
vided that he should not begin to shoot before sunrise. 
The existing statute is much better than the earlier one. 
By it the birds are not driven from their feeding groands 
while it is still dark, but have an opportunity to see clearly 
the approaching boats, and are spared the alarm of beijg 
stolen up on in the darkness. I believe that now, in the 
slightly shorter gunning hours, quite as many shots are 
to be had as came to a man when the shooting lasted 
actually from sunrise to sunset, and that birds disturbed 
from their feeding and roosting grounds after the sun 
has risen come back there more readily and more gently 
than they did when they were routed out in the twilight of 
early dawn by some alarm which they did not understand. 
The distance to the Point where we were to shoot that 
morning was not great, and twenty minutes after we had 
left the boat house dock the prow of the skift shivered the 
thin skim of ice at the marsh where the blind was to be 
made. The night had been cold, and the decoys and 
trtmk of the centerboard and the deck of the skiff were 
all white with hoar frost, so. that as I made my way from 
the stern, where I had been sitting, to the prow, which 
lay against the marsh, I walked with considerable care, to 
avoid slipping and falling. Standing in the marsh, I took 
the guns and other things which were to go ashore, and 
set them down within the blind, while Willoughby pushed 
off the boat and shoved along close to the shore, brealdng 
through the thin ice, and thus setting free a large cake, 
which he then pushed out into the tideway, so that the 
current should carry it off. Then he shoved out 30 or 40 
feet from the marsh, and thrusting his shoving oar into 
the mud and making fast his painter to it, he began to 
toss out the decoys. Of these there wsre about sixty, 
most of them carved and painted to represent canvasbacks 
and redheads. Besides these there were a few common 
ducks — that is to say, blackheads, mallards and black 
ducks. Soon they were strung along from a point some- 
what south of the blind to another nearly due east of it. 
Furthest of all, to the southward, and so furthest to lee- 
ward, were two wooden goose decoys, which would be 
useful in case a single goose, or a little bunch of two or 
three, flew near, and which are quite as effective as can- 
vasback decoys in attracting these birds. Canvasbacks 
will decoy to geese about as readily as to birds of their 
own kind, and often the gunner who wishes to draw in a 
bunch of canvasbacks will honk like a goose, instead of 
giving the canvasback call. 
While we were tying out, many birds were seen flying 
up and down the Sound. They were chiefly high travel- 
ing, trading birds, and came mainly from the north, yet 
there were not a few bunches which came up from the 
south, apparently looking for open water, and besides 
these there was moi'e or less of a flight of restless bunches 
from the various air holes and open places in the Sound. 
Near the point, and just outside of the sheet of ice 
which had projected from it, the boat had disturbed 200 
or 300 ducks and a raft of 500 or 600 hundred blue peters. 
These had all flown away, but had not gone more than 300 
or 400 yards before alighting in the lead of open water 
which stretched away to the southward along the marsh, 
where the}'' formed a compact raft. The wind was very 
light, but what there was of it came from the north. The 
sun had risen behind a bank of thin, streaky clouds, but 
had now climbed above them and was shining directly 
in our eyes. 
Will had shoved the boat along tlie marsh to the south- 
ward, and in behind a point of sedge, where it was out of 
sight, and soon I heard him coming crashing through the 
sedge toward me. I had tried to plant my gun sticks in 
the ground, as usual, but the frozen surface was too hard, 
and I was obliged to lean the guns up against the face of 
the blind, which was thick enough to bear their weight. 
When we had settled in the blind, I said to Will, "I 
don't believe there'll be m.uch of a fly to-day; it is too 
still and bright." 
"No," said he, "I don't believe there'll be much shoot- 
ing; but whatever there is we ought to get here. I no- 
ticed all day yesterday that the birds were leading up 
through the Narrows, and if they keep that up to-day 
we'll have shots at some of them." 
"Yes," I answered, "I think we will get some shots, but 
it's too still to do much. If there were a good wind from 
the north or northwest the birds would fly low enough to 
give us shooting. As it is, they will all go high." 
We were discussing the matter in this way, and not 
keeping a very good lookout, when suddenly Will said, 
"There's a bird in the decoys." 
The sun blinded me, and its reflection on the water 
made it impossible to see the bird; but a moment later 
it swam up to windward of the decoys, and I saw that it 
was a female redhead, and killed it on the water. Two or 
three minutes later a pair of blackheads came swinging 
down the wind from behind us, and passed over our heads 
so swiftly and so high up that before I had thrown the gun 
to my shoulder they were far out of range. A few minutes 
after this the regular sound of wood rubbing against wood 
told us that another boat was coming, and presently t'"o 
very small skiffs, each holding two men, and piled \ngh 
with pine boughs, passed down the Narrows, and outside 
of our decoys, and continued southward through the open - 
water to a point about 500 yards below us, where one 
stopped and began to erect a bush blind, and put out de- 
coys, while the other kept on still further to the south- 
ward, and at length made another blind. This was some- 
what unfortunate for us, since all the birds coming up 
from the southward would be likely to lead along this 
open water, and would thus be attracted by the decoys of 
the bush blinders, and either shot or frightened off before 
they came to our stand. Before the bush blinders had 
tied out. however, we saw flying toward, us, high in air, 
four widgeons, and Will called vigorously to them, with 
thin, plaintive whistling. They took a turn high over our 
deco}-s. but did not come within shot, and then flew away 
toward one of the air holes. Before they had gone very 
far, however, one of the birds left the bunch, turned 
back, and came toward us, still high up, and when well 
outside the decoys, set his wings in that beautiful curv^e 
which means that the bird intends to alight, and in grace- 
ful sweeps dropped down toward the stools. The shot was 
an easy one. While he was still outside the decoys, I put 
the gun on him, dropping it low enough to catch him as 
he sank toward the water, and pulling the trigger, saw the 
beautiful bird turn over, and with trailing wings, fall, back 
downward on the water. 
"Good," said Will; "■rni glad you caught him; I'd 
rather have one of those widgeons, so far as my eating 
goes, than any canvasback that ever flew." 
"Yes," I said, "they are beautiful birds, and just as 
good as the canvasback to eat. In fact, I do not believe 
tiiat there is a man living who can tell the difference be- 
cween a canvasback and a widgeon; and there is no reason 
why .there should be any difference between them; they 
live the same life and eat the same food, and their flesh 
should have the same flavor." 
Hardly had the widgeon been killed Avhen we saw a 
large number of birds flying up toward us from the south, 
and for a moment we were uncertain what they were; but 
a side whirl of the flock, giving a view of some them in 
profile, showed that they were blue peters, that had been 
disturbed by one of the other boats. With them were a 
few ruddies and a half dozen little pied-billed grebes. 
The peters alighted at quite a distance from the decoys — 
almost against the ice on the other side of the channel — 
but the ruddies flew in among t!ie decoj^s, and tlien, 
checking themselves suddenly, came down on to the water 
with loud splashings, and, indeed, one of them stopped 
himself so suddenly that he turned a somersault and fell 
in the water on his back. They began to dive and to 
feed, paying no attention either to the decoys or to us. 
standing in plain view in the blind. 
Presently the ruddies, which down here are called 
boobies, all swam away, but the little grebes which had 
come with them stayed. Some of them seemed to be 
quite suspicious. At times a head shaped much like that 
of a little chicken would appear above the water amid the 
decoys, all the rest of the body being hidden. After look- 
ing about for a moment or two the head would disappear 
under water, and presently the bird would come to the 
surface in another place, and swim about unconcernedly. 
After a few moments all the grebes swam off to the edge 
of some thin ice near the marsh and crept out on it, for 
a little while sitting there quite motionless, looking about. 
Then they seemed to want to rise on the wing, and took 
long runs over the smooth ice, flapping hard with their 
wings and running with their legs, occasionally rising a 
few inches above the ice; then suddenly they ceased at- 
tempting to fly, came down on the ice again and slid a 
long way. In this way they moved backward and for- 
ward over the ice for some time, none of them succeed- 
ing in flying. At length all tumbled into the water again, 
and presently swam away. 
Meantime, our neighbors in the bush blinds were having 
a little shooting. Now and then two or three birds would 
come up from the south, and, attracted by the decoys, 
would swing over once or twice, high np, and then, pitch- 
ing down toward the stools, we would see one suddenly 
close his wings and fall to the water, and an instant after 
the dull boom of a gun would be heard. Two or three 
times we were frightened out of our wits by the rushing 
sound of the wings of blackheads, which swept in over 
the stools from behind us, appearing only to disappear as 
speedily. A fcAv canvasbacks flew over far beyond gun- 
shot, but nothing worth shooting at came within range. 
It was a dry time. Toward the middle of the morning, 
however, a large bunch of trading birds was seen coming 
from the south — canvasbacks, we thought — and just be- 
fore they got over us I fired two barrels, one loaded with 
No. 4 shot, the other with B's, and two birds dropped out 
of the high-flying flock. They were a pair of redheads. 
It was nearly noon when Charlie, the watchman, came 
down to the blind and sat with us for a little while. About 
this time a few canvasbacks began to fly in from one of 
the air holes to the east, leading up over the Narrows and 
some of them came within gunshot. I fired at them a 
great many times, but was always too slow. After a little 
I could clearly see why I was missing my birds, though I 
did not seem' to be able to correct my evident blunders. 
The trouble was that I Avaited for the bird to come 
within gunshot before getting up to shoot; then when I 
rose to put the gun on him, I was so slow about it that 
before I could shoot the duck was over my head, and I 
was obliged to turn around and shoot at it going away, 
with the restilt that I shot behind almost every time. The 
day being almost a flat calm, the birds flew high and very 
fast, and shooting at best was difficult. I tried to correct 
my errors by getting up sooner, so that I might have 
time to shoot at the bird before it had reached me, yet 
not so soon as to frighten it in to changing its course. 
I learned that day that a canvasback is not easily to be 
turned aside when he has made up his mind to go in a 
certain direction. He does not "flare," as does a black 
duck or a mallard, but keeps steadily onward, and it is 
jnly necessary to shoot far enough before him to allow 
far the swiftness of his flight. A sudden change in its 
direction is not to be feared. 
So far the shooting had not been good. It was about 
noon and we had six birds. After a time Charlie said: 
"There's an air hole in back of Sedge Island, and yester- 
day there were a lot of canvasbacks using there. I've 
seen them flying in and out all the morning. I believe 
I'll go up there and see if I can't break a way through the 
ice, so that we can get a boat in to the air hole; and it 
we can do that you'll have some shooting this evening. 
In there the3''ll come to the stools; out here they won't, 
unless the wind blows." 
He started off to make his experiment, and for an hour 
or more we sat in the blind, getting two or three more 
shots at high-flying birds, with no result. 
At the end of this time, however, we heard the sound of 
oars approaching. The boat proved to be a messenger 
from Charlie, saying that he had broken his way in, all 
but about 20 feet, and that if we would come and help 
him he thought he could make the rest of the way very 
easily. We therefore took up at once, and loading the 
things into the boat, rowed up through the Narrows to 
the ed.sre of the ice which covered the waters of the Ham- 
mock Cove. Here we met Charlie, and entered the nar- 
row lane of water where he had broken the ice away, and 
soon were within 30 or 40 yards of Sedge Island. Both 
men then got in the skiff, and after a few moments of la- 
borious pushing, -sometim.e5 through and sometimes o-el 
the ice, the skiff entered the open water and passed around 
behind Sedge Island. 
Sitting here were 300 or 400 ducks, which took wuig 
as the skiff appeared. We tied out not far from where 
most of the canvasbacks had been sitting, and made a lit- 
tle blind of sedge on the open, grassy marsh. Soon after 
the boats had been hidden, one of the men spied an old 
black duck high in the air, and calling to it, it began 10 
lower its flight, and then to drop straight down, and was 
about to alight among the decoys when I killed it. A lit- 
tle later a single redhead came in, and was killed over the 
decoys. Then some of the canvasbacks began to return, 
and these being high-flying birds, I missed as badly as I 
had those earlier in the day; but two of them, hit too far 
behind, flew several hundred yards and fell in the distant 
marsh, where it was impossible to recover them. 
Between 3:30 and 4 no birds flew, but just about 4 
o'clock a bmich of redheads came in, swung over the 
stools and came up again, and as they lowered I killed 
two of the five. The other three swung out and came 
around again with extraordinary gentleness, and again 
when they came within shot I killed two more. The sur- 
viving bird seemed to want to come back to the decoys, 
but finally gave it up and flew away toward the Sound. 
These redheads were followed by three canvasbacks, 
which came down to the stools, and of which I killed one 
each with right and left barrel. .'-Vt this time to the north 
of us there were a number of birds flying, and we were 
watching them so intently that three canvasbacks, whicli 
came in from the south, very low, were not perceived 
until the rustle of their wings immediateli'^ over our heads 
made us turn to look, and by the time we had located the 
birds they were too far away to shoot. 
From 4:30 to 5 the birds came in singly or by twos and 
threes, and were evidently those that had been driven 
away when we had first come in here. They were deter- 
mined to alight. They came in, pointing directly for the 
place, and seeing the decoys, set their wings a long way 
off, and flying with lightninglike speed, checked them- 
selves immediately over the stools, ready to drop into the 
water. Here for the last ten or twelve minutes of the 
day, I had wonderfully good shooting, and shot fairly 
well, Idiling most of my birds. All those that came in 
at this time were canvasbacks. and it was certainly a beau- 
tiful sight to see these birds rush forward out of the sky, 
constantly growing larger and larger, at length setting 
their wings until they had lowered themselves to within 
6 or 8 feeet of the water, then checking themselves and 
throwing up their great heads into the air, and then often 
to see them, struck by a full charge, turn over and drop 
among the decoys. 
When the sun set, and we began to gather up our pos- 
sessions, I found that we had thirty-eight birds, of which 
twenty-two were canvasbacks, six redheads, and the rest 
common ducks, blackheads, mallards, black ducks, and a 
ringneck or two. 
The afternoon had been one of great shooting, and if 
1 had been able to hit the birds, the bag would have been 
a large one. However, I had enough, and I returned to 
the house that night well satisfied Avith the size of my bag, 
if not with the way in which I had obtained it. Yo. 
Moose Calling:. 
New York, Jan. 22. — Editor Forest and Stream: Re- 
specting Mr. Alden Sampson's interesting letter on tnoose 
calling, on which subject Forest and Stream invites a 
free expression of opinion upon the part of its readers, let 
me point out that the practice of the art, if it be un- 
desirable, can best be prevented by one of the plans sug- 
gested in the last paragraph of Mr. Sampson's letter, 
namely, "by extending the close season for moose until 
Nov, I," but probably not at all by Mr. Sampson's last 
and alternative proposition, which is to "make moose 
calling illegal at all times." 
Now as to calling a bull moose so late in the season as 
after Nov. i, it is likely the results of repeated efforts 
would prove so barren that the average hunter would soon 
abandon this style of getting his moose for more profit- 
able methods, such as still-hunting, for instance, always 
the ideal method of capturing big game. By Nov. i 
the rutting season is well on the wane, nor is the buU 
then the same fierce and reckless creature inflamed with 
passion such as he was in September. He is apt then to 
pay but little attention to the voice of the siren. His 
honeymoon by Nov. i is well on the wane ; he has settled 
down to the hum-drum of married life; nay, he may then 
have even reached the stage when the idea of separation 
has seriously occurred, not only to his spouse, but to his 
lordship himself, particularly if by this date a heavy 
snow fall has occurred. 
But if the open season for moose includes the rutting 
season, it is certain no laws against the practice would 
be thoroughly effective, for the reason that in the deep 
recesses of the wilderness no proof of the illegal act 
could possibly be obtained, and because the practice would 
accordingly be freely indulged in by the certain proportion 
of hunters, who seem to care more for the mere success 
of capturing game than for its lawful and sportsmanlike 
method of capture. W. N. Amory. 
Mechanicville, N. Y. — Editor Forest and Stream: Mr. 
Alden Sampson's article on "Moose Calling" in your issue 
of Jan. 20, brings up a question vital to all lovers of big- 
game hunting, and one that should receive prompt and 
energetic action by the guardians of the fast-disappearing 
moose. Any one Avho has had the thrilling and never- 
to-be-forgotten experience of hearing a big bull grunting, 
crashing and OA-^erturning eA'erything in his path, making 
the solemn forest resound with his mad, jealous march, 
and has killed the foolish monarch under such circum- 
stances, must have had to a greater or less degree — de- 
pending on his ideal of sportsmanship — a feeling of re- 
gret and remorse of having taken so great an advantage 
of. and used so unsportsmanlike a method of outAvitting a 
fool. -And he who has Avounded to death and lost in the 
night one of these great beasts, must share Avith the 
writer a verj' miserable recollection of such an unsatis- 
factory and unsportsmanlike method of hunting. 
The moose at his best, Avhen not blinded by passion, is 
not such a sagacious or Avary animal as some of the 
smaller of the deer famUy. In the spring, summer and 
