286 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
C April 13, igoi. 
f r»prietoT9 of shooting resorts will find it profitable to advertise 
theai in Forest and Stream. 
Black Duck on the North Shore* 
The well-known ring of the alarm clock wakes us. It 
is II P. M., and we have been snoozing for some hours. 
We get up, yawning and reluctant, for it is February, and 
somehow ducks don't seem as important as they did 
over the pipes a while ago. 
Stepping outside the door, we find ourselves in the 
full beauty of a midwinter moon, lighting up for miles 
the long stretches of ice-coated marsh and glistening 
tidal creeks. There is hardly a breath of wind, the tide 
is nearly full, and altogether the prospect for a success- 
ful night in the float is so good that we take heart and 
disregard the warning mercury, which has dropped to 
12 degrees. 
In a few moments we have assembled our outfit, •on- 
sisting of two horse blankets, a skulling oar and an 
8-gauge and 12-gauge gun. Observe that the 8 has an 
enormous drop, and when we come to "take a sitting 
shot while lying nearly flat the advantage of this is 
readily seen. 
Dressed in white from head to waist, we hasten to the 
float, which is lying well above the water mark on the 
great blocks of ice along the shore. It is painted as 
white as its surroundings, and when seen from the front 
looks almost exactly like the ice itself. 
We embark with as little noise as possible, for there 
is no telling how near the crafty old black ducks may be 
lurking. I take my place in the bow, lying flat on my 
back, with my head elevated just enough to enable me 
to see ov^er the rail. T. is furnishing the means of pro- 
pulsion. His feet are on each side of my head, and he, 
too, is flat on his back. I wrap a blanket carefully about 
my feet, cock the 8-gauge and lay it across me with the 
stock almost in shooting position and the muzzle in 
tlie bow. 
Once off, I have a chance to recall the fascination of a 
winter night in the marsh. The clear air, the silent and 
mysterious motion, and the Arctic surroundings, are 
such a change from the city I have left only twenty-five 
miles away that it seems hard to realize it is the same 
world. We glide ahead just as the ice cakes are floating 
up the creeks, only we gain on these and slip by them 
silently. To the east the snow-covered dunes of Plum 
Island loom like a mountain range along the horizon 
and shut out the ocean, while on either side the frozen 
creek banks rise strangely tall and shine like marble. 
Nothing can be heard save an occasional gurgle as the 
ripple from the passing float strikes the hollowed edges 
of the ice. But what is that whitish mass ahead? It 
is slush ice forming, and we can do nothing but try to 
make through it. With a slight hissing sound the bow 
of our craft pushes in, and a quack, a roar of wings, a 
dozen shadows in the air bring me up like a jack-in-the- 
box. A warning from T. and I lie flat again, for the 
ducks are too far, and we never take a shot unless it 
is a good one, for the noise will stir up many birds 
which otherwise might give us a chance. 
We push through the slush, and soon see three ducks 
in a sCreak of white water ahead. They must be over 
200 yards away, but so wonderful is the light that they 
loom as big as geese. Now the utmost science of the 
skuller is brought into play. We creep ahead without the 
slightest ripple or sound, our bow pointed exactly at the 
ducks, whichever way they swim. The moon is ahead, 
there is floating ice enough to make our deception per- 
fect, and we are pretty sure to get a shot. I have pulled 
my hands from under the . blanket, and now they are 
freezing against the cold steel. In a few moments I feel 
they will be too cold to pull the trigger. Fifty yards! 
My eyes are glued to the water, and when I see one 
long neck stretch up I know I must shoot, and do it 
quickly. I push the butt under my arm, rise very slowly 
f©r a few inches, and then catching two together, pull 
on them and see only one rise. 
By the way. it is very strange how plainly you can 
often see these ducks a long way off, and then when it 
comes time to shoot and you raise your gun all trace ot 
them vanishes, or at best a shadowy sort of blur re- 
mains. ... u A 
We pick up our pair, one of which gives us a chase, and 
then skull still further northward. We see ducks con- 
tinually and hear now an^ then the whistle of wings 
as a bunch changes its feeding grounds, but something 
always prevents our getting near enough for a shot. 
Perhaps the moon or wind is wrong, or perhaps the 
birds are sitting where it is impossible to skull a float, 
or again the surroundings may be so dark that the shy 
old fellows stretch their long necks at fully 150 yards, and 
then with a parting quack disappear in the gloom. _ 
We are now ascending the Rowley River against a 
searching westerly breeze which has just risen and is 
fast penetrating to the innermost parts of my body. 1 he 
beauty of the night fails to impress me any jnore, and 
all mv senses are on the alert for ducks. Another hour 
of this and even the ducks will fail to interest as I he 
shivering in the bow, counting the minutes till we can 
reach the stove side. ^1. • „ -k^^i, 
A whisper from T., and as I peep over the ice bank 
to our right I catch sight of a black mass on the thatch. 
They are ducks, a large bunch, and carefully the float is 
worked up till its side touches the bank. We discuss the 
advisability of a shot, for it is a long way. and then i 
decide to trv it. Carefully slipping m a BB sheU, i 
point the gun, elevate it some inches, and shoot, stopping 
°"we'disembark. pull the float across a piece of mud, 
and while T. paddles after the duck I dance frantically 
up arid down the bank in a vain attempt to start the 
^^°B°y this" fime the tide is ebbing fast and we drift 
toward home, keeping along close to the mnA hznks 
which, newly arisen from the water, and scraped clean 
by passing ice. offer a good feeding ground. A pair 
whirl up not 15 yards from the bow, but before I have 
brought the gun to bear on them they are 80 yards away 
and I lie down, muttering a few adjectives. Buz! Whiz! 
and two more shadows are hurled into the sky. This 
time I am a httle better, and in the blur of the distance 
I can just see a falling shape. I get out on to the marsh 
and look around everywhere, and after narrowly escaping 
a ducking in a salt hole, I see about 2 inches of the tail 
of my bird projecting above the snow. 
Our cruise is again continued with varying success. 
We hear the wheezing of drakes and soft chatter of 
ducks, and soon see a bunch of nearly one hundred 
lying like a great black raft ahead of us. Just as we 
think we may get a shot the ever troublesome slush ice 
intervenes, and with a roar the flock rises like a great 
fan, shooting into the sky. 
I succeed in making another wing shot on a single, 
and then as we swing round the corner of a high mud 
bank I catch sight of a small flock just in time to pull 
on them before they scatter. We pick up four ducks, and 
well satisfied give it up for the night, and start for home. 
I seize an extra paddle, and soon the exercise has warmed 
me so that when at last our bow grates on the pebbles 
I can scarcely believe that I have been suffering from 
cold. 
We find it is 3 :30 A. M. We have been out four and a 
half hours, and have eight black ducks to show for it. 
Not a large bag, but one to be proud of when it is taken 
into account that of all the wildfowl race the old blacks 
that use off the New England coast in winter have de- 
veloped the highest intellect. From constant persecu- 
tion, these birds have become practically nocturnal, 
spending the day in the open ocean and resorting to the 
creeks and marshes after dark, or in daytime only under 
great stress of weather. 
The time-honored custom of "creeking" after sunset, 
which is practiced almost everywhere along the shore, is 
not nearly so successful as it used to be, and the above 
is a sport which has been to me one of the most ex- 
citing forms of duck shooting. Floating at night is 
sometimes quite successful; at other times only fairly so, 
and more often not successful at all. It can only be 
used on calm, bright nights, so that sometimes during 
a whole moon there may be only one or two really 
favorable opportunities. " J. C. Phillips. 
New Jersey Deer and Flickers. 
Mr. Charles A. Shriner, ex-game protector of New 
Jersey, writes in the Paterson Chronicle of the game 
law blundering by the last Legislature : 
Croake James in his "Curiosities of Law and Lawyers" 
quotes a high English authority as saying that laws would 
be a great deal better if lawyers had no hand in framing 
them. If the same authority had lived in New Jersey at 
the present day there is no doubt that he would have 
amended his remark by advising the people of thi.s State 
in future to elect none but farmers and blacksmiths to 
the Legislature of New Jersey. Lawyers are supposed to 
know a great deal about law, but they evidently never 
passed through a school in which the framing of laws 
was taught. Only a few pages of the laws passed by the 
last Legislature have been printed, but there is already 
enough to indicate the methods pursued in making these 
laws. A glance at one kind of laws, those pertaining to 
fish and game, will show some amusing errors. 
Deer have never been extinct in the southern tier of 
counties in this State, and by reason of legislation and 
enforcing the laws the deer were permitted to exist. In 
order to keep up the breed, the laws provided that they 
should not be killed excepting for ten days in each year, 
from Oct. 25 to Nov. 5, or some such period. For a num- 
ber of years between fifty or sixty deer annually were 
killed until two j'ears ago, when the Legislature passed a 
law providing that no deer should be killed for three 
years. This law was enforced for two years, and recently 
a complaint was heard from some deer hunters that the 
deer had increased in such numbers that a limited amount 
of gunning would do no harm. The State Board of Fish 
and Game Commissioners accordingly provided in their 
bill that deer might be killed every Wednesday in Novein- 
ber, a law something similar to that which obtains in 
Long Island. In the last clause of the b-11, of course, there 
was a repeal of the law prohibiting the killing of deer 
for three years. The bill passed the House as drafted by 
the Commission, the assemblymen believing that the Com- 
missioners ought to know what was wanted. But the 
Senators had to do some tinkering. It was there argued 
that if the law were left as it was the deer would increase 
a great deal more and that there would be glorious sport 
if the hunters would wait only another year. So the section 
permitting the killing of deer in November was stricken 
out. but the Senators forgot to strike out the clause re- 
pealing the three-year limit law. Of course any black- 
smith or farmer would have seen the result, that by such 
legislation all protection would be removed from deer, but 
the wise lawyers in the Senate and those in the House, for 
the amended bill passed the House, fajled to see it and so 
New Jersey now enjoys the unenviable distinction of 
being the only State in the Union which does not protect 
deer. 
Another section in the same law is calculated to excite 
laughter at the ignorance of the lawyers. Some one 
wanted to shoot flickers and so amended the section pro- 
viding for open and close seasons by declarng that flickers 
might be shot in September and October, but neglected to 
impose any penalty for shooting these birds at any other 
time of the year. Of course, any farmer or blacksmith 
would have known that permittijig the killing of flickers 
in September or October would mean license to all the 
pot-hunters and bird-killers to pursue their alleged sport 
and that every other kind of game would also be killed 
oflf. but the wise lawyers did not see this. Any farmer 
or blacksmith would also have known that the bird known 
as flicker devotes his whole life to killing the insects and 
that there is perhaps no bird more deserving of livmg 
than the flicker. But this is not the end of this chapter. 
In the very next section the law just pas.sed imposes a 
penalty of $20 for every woodpecker killed or had in 
possession. Now a flicker is a woodpecker every day in 
the year, the word "flicker" being merely a provincial 
term common to the southern part of the State, where ^he 
bird is also frequently called a clape. So in one section 
of a law killing flickers is made legitimate and in the next 
a crime. But this is not all. Immediately after the pas- 
sage of this bill the Legislature passed Senator Cross' 
bird act, which is a very extreme measure. It mentions a 
number of game birds and then declares that no person 
shall ever kill or have in possession any other bird or part 
thereof. The act is aimed at the women who insist on 
adorning themselves with the feathers of birds. ^ So the 
Legislature provided that the murderous bird-killers might 
go on, but that the women who wear feathers shall be 
subjected to the rigors of the law. Of course any black- 
smith or farmer would have known better, but unfortu- 
nately the Legislature was composed principally of 
lawyers. 
Then the Legislature provided that $750 should be ai 
once spent in improving the sturgeon fishing in the De!a 
ware, but not a cent was appropriated for that purpose. 
In this way the laws might be dissected, showing somi- 
astounding ignorance or carelessness. Such might be 
expected from the Governor who signed the bills and thus 
made them laws, but it is certainly a pity that there was 
not at least one farmer or blacksmith in the Legislature 
to teach a little law to the lawyers. 
Perils of Fashion. 
Under this heading the London St. James Gazette re- 
cently printed these remarks : "An incident pregnant with 
moral lessons for society leaders has occurred to a young 
lady in Berlin, who wore a fox's head at the end of her 
boa. A dog. which seemed strangely well informed for a 
German dog was seized with the delusion that he was 'up 
against a good thing,' got into full cry at once, and, after 
an exciting run, made a good kill of the dead fox, the 
young lady being so much mauled that she was nearly jn 
at her own death. At the flower garden period of mil- 
linery not long ago cab horses used constantly to browse 
on fashionable hats in Bond street, with the intention of 
stealing a march on the cab proprietor and securing un- 
authorized fodder. Some day a lady wear'ng an up-to- 
date farmyard bonnet in the country will get shot by a 
sportsman who mistakes her mounted collection of poultry 
for a covey of birds. Conversely, a newly arrived Yeo- 
man at the Cape is said to have mistaken a sleeping 
ostrich for a tree the other day, and tried to pick the 
feathers of it. The shrub, when awakened, nearly mur- 
dered him." 
Almost precisely ' what the Gazette predicted actually 
occurred not long ago in Colorado, as was noticed at the 
time. A man, who was wearing his sweetheart's feather- 
trimmed hat to shade his eyes while focusing a camera, 
was shot in the head and killed by a gunner who saw 
the hat moving over a bank behind which the couple were 
concealed from him, and took it for a bird. It might be 
advanced as an argument against the authenticity of this 
statement that the feather trimming worn on women's hats 
within the last few years resembles no bird that ever was 
on land or sea, but this is really no argument at all, since 
there are gunners who would rather than not shoot at an 
unrecognizable object in the hope that it may prove either 
some rare species never seen before in his locality, or the 
last individual of some extinct and vanishing form. 
There are some who would rather shoot the last dodo, 
great auk, pied duck, wild pigeon or buffalo than kill 
many canvasbacks or lions, so singular a thing is that 
human nature which we all share. 
There has been much discussion as to whether these 
shootings of human beings for game should be classed as 
accidents. In this particular case it was so considered, for 
the General Acc'dent Assurance Compan- of Perth. Scot- 
land, paid the heirs of the man who \vas killed the amount 
of the insurance that he was carrying. 
Spring Shooting. 
Toronto, Ont., April 2.— Editor Forest and Stream: 
The good work of education — thanks to Forest and 
Stream — in game and fish protection matters is becoming 
a live issue. The prospect of inducing spring shooters 
to repent of their unwise and destructive system and con- 
form to the laws of nature and common sense is be- 
coming more hopeful. AH that is required for the con- 
version of reasonable advocates of shooting birds when 
breeding— if there are any such — is for them to let the 
birds pass to the breeding grounds unmolested for a season 
or two. I often wish your versatile Western corre- 
spondent would refrain from reporting the doings of those 
who glory in their shame by making public the amount 
of birds shot by them, full of eggs and unfit for food. 
When reading these reports I am apt to become very un- 
charitable, and conclude that it would be in the interest of 
the public at large and certainly to the benefit of pos- 
terity if a special gun were invented for spring shooters 
that would have a simultaneous discharge from both ends. 
There is no possible excuse for such vandalism now. 
Many years ago we were met with the excuse that spring 
shooting was done for practice. This was before the 
advent of glass balls and clay targets, which for some 
years has enabled shooters to have all the practice they 
require during nature's close season for game. 
There is at the present time far more urgency in having 
spring shooting abolished than heretofore, in consequence 
of the immense increase of wing shots the trap shooting 
has developed. 
It is a fair inference, if we desire to perpetuate the 
love of manly field sports and a fair supply of game that we. 
must meet the constantly increasing destructive facilities 
with corresponding legislative restrictions. How can 
this be accomplished ? By having wise and well-considered 
laws enacted and honestly enforced in the interest of the 
general public irrespective of party exigency. No matter 
how perfect game .laws may be. there will always be a 
number of chronic grumblers, men who have such an 
exaggerated opinion of their own abilit"es that they fondly 
believe that if the work of creating this world of ours 
had been left to them they could have made a better job 
of it. This class are sometimes annoying, but not dan- 
gerous ; the' result of their efforts are similar to those of 
pig-shearing — more noise than wool. 
There has been cons'derable discussion during the past 
year of gun licenses. Such action would be unpopular in 
consequence of guns being private property. But game 
being the property of the State, there should be few ob- 
lections to a reasonable general Hcense fee, covering the 
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