690 
FOREST AND STREAM 
A Real Southern Duck Shooting Story 
When getting ready for my regular bird trip— 
the North Carolina Sound—I looked around for 
a good quartette. As the world goes, one learns 
many things, and for a hunting party “us four 
and no more” is the exact number that will give 
the greatest mutual benefit. Four can pair off, 
four can separate equally, leaving no man like 
the fifth spoke of a wheel useless and alone- 
Four can make a full whist hand, or “seven-up;” 
four is the sportsman number as potent as the 
magic nine of the Chaldeans. 
After an experience of a score or more of 
years spent in hunting, mine may be of some use 
to tyros, or old sportsmen, too, for that matter, 
who contemplate making up hunting parties, es¬ 
pecially as the autumn quail shooting and winter 
duck hunting is approaching. 
It is a matter of indifference to me whether my 
companions are good shots or not, actual shoot¬ 
ing is but a fraction of time spent on the trip, and 
it is good comradeship that makes the sporting 
nomadism a success. 
There are certain types of men that should be 
avoided like poison on such expeditions. There 
is the good shot, selfish and opinionated, who can 
talk nothing but “shop” all the time. No matter 
what subject is broached, he turns the conversa¬ 
tion to his own exploits, his sole object is to 
make others feel small, he never loses an oppor¬ 
tunity to boast of his prowess, and in field, thicket, 
sea-meadow or river, he invariably chooses the 
best location or occupies the best blind, and like 
a bantam rooster, he is in a continual crow. 
Such a person can run up the score, but can add 
nothing to the enjoyment of the party- Then 
there is the envious man who wants the best of 
everything, and as envy and suspicion go to¬ 
gether, he imagines that every one is leagued 
against him, and upon the slightest run of bad 
luck he announces his intention of breaking up 
the party and striking for home. 
Who has not met the penurious man who treats 
a pleasure trip as if it were purely a business 
transaction, and haggles over every expenditure 
like an old customer in a pawn-broker’s shop. 
“Sundries” haunt his waking hours, and drift 
through all his dreams. If he would, oh, if he 
would only keep it to himself, but he does not. 
No man will stand imposition, but there is a 
wide difference between extras and robbery. 
Then the kicker—we all know what he is—-but 
as he often affords food for mirth, and as the 
kicking comes as often from heredity, as un¬ 
toward circumstance we can pass him by. 
Lastly comes the chronic grumbler—worse than 
all the others combined. Just as a pinch of as- 
safoetida can poison the whole atmosphere 
around, so can the grumbler diffuse misery and 
discontent to all brought within the boundary of 
Among the Currituck Bay Birds—I. 
By Alex Hunter. 
his malign influence. He is an annoyance, a 
grievance, nuisance, vexation, bore, and a general 
sickener. If there is on a hunting excursion a 
greater thorn in one’s flesh I have never met it- 
The grumbler settles down to work soon after 
the voyage commences, nothing suits him, it is 
worry, bother, plague, baiting and badgering. He 
is a kill-joy, a veritable prophylactic snag and 
sawyer to your pleasure boat floating down the 
stream. 
Now the crowd I invited to my Currituck Club 
were men of different metal. Everybody in Wash¬ 
ington knows Captain Burgess. A fellow of in¬ 
finite wit, and like Falstaff, the cause of wit in 
others; well in the forties he is the image of 
Fritz, when Emmett of genial memory was at 
his best, and had he taken to the stage in his 
youth he would have made his mark. Cap, as he 
is called, is fond of all kinds of game and is as 
much at home bluffing on a bob-tail flush as 
blazing away at the birds from sink-box or 
blind. Mac was a tyro but willing to rough it, 
and except when his liver is out of order, takes 
alike with a frolic welcome “the sunshine and 
the storm.” York, the youngest of the lot, is an 
ardent sportsman, a quick, sure shot, and his 
capacity to rough it is second to none. 
Now for the outfit—a party going on a hunt is 
almost sure to take much more than they need. 
I gave each man a list for a week or ten days’ 
absence, they were simply to go in light march¬ 
ing order, with no wagon train. One old suit of 
clothes for hunting to be worn there and back, a 
change of underclothing, India rubber boo^s or 
old shoes, oil-cloth, 500 shells, a mosquito net, 
and old kid gloves with the fingers cut off, both 
to protect head and hands from the pestiferous 
mosquitoes, an old slouch hat, that was all; of 
course each man clubbed in for liquids. Reach¬ 
ing Norfolk, I ordered one ton of ice to be for¬ 
warded to the club via the steamer, to preserve 
the birds. Then we took the cars to Virginia 
Beach, and meeting Captain Drinkwater’s team, 
we drove along the beach for thirty miles to our 
destination. The tide being high it was an all 
day journey, for instead of fast trotting along 
the smooth velvet beach, we had to plough 
through eight inches of sand, and an ox team 
would have been as serviceable under the cir¬ 
cumstances as a pair of fleet goers. 
The Currituck Inlet Club was founded some 
five or six years ago by a small and select party 
of Norfolk gentlemen, who kept the membership 
down to one dozen. Afterward the club was en¬ 
larged to twenty, and then to thirty, the initiation 
fee was increased, and certificates of stock issued, 
though there were no printed constitution and 
by-laws. 
The place was famous for its sea meadows, 
and has been celebrated for a century or more 
as the finest place for bay bird shooting on the 
Atlantic coast- The ocean on one side and Cur¬ 
rituck Sound on the other; the club’s meadows 
were about a mile wide and a couple of miles 
in length. The grass is short and thick, with 
here and there shallow ponds that are filled with 
water except in a drought. These basins are the 
great reservoirs for the yellow shanks, graybacks, 
grass plovers, mostly, which arrive in May, dis¬ 
appear in June, and then return in the latter part 
of July and remain until some time in October. 
While epicures and gourmands consider these 
birds most excellent in delicacy and flavor, yet 
few ever reach market, for these snipe are safe 
from the pot-hunter; for one reason, their flesh 
is so fat and tender, that they spoil in a few 
hours on a hot day, and they must be placed on 
ice shortly after they are shot, and kept there 
until they are served, else decomposition is sure 
to follow. Of course market gunners cannot 
afford to bring ice such a distance even had they 
a refrigerator to hold it, and packing contrivan¬ 
ces to ship them, hence, though the birds com¬ 
mand a fancy price, and are in great numbers, 
none of the natives nor gunners care to waste 
their ammunition except to supply their own 
table. 
This leaves the clubmen a fine show, and as 
few of them ever come down during the summer 
there is choice shooting for those who care to 
risk the positive discomforts of torrid weather, 
swarms of mosquitoes, and the absence of all 
fresh fruits and vegetables, for this pure sandy 
soil produces nothing, neither orchard nor garden 
stuff. Even the milk is canned. 
The glory of this club is in its snipe shooting, 
the ducking privileges are far from choice, and 
cannot be compared with the adjacent clubs; this 
being the case it is in the interest of the club to 
guard zealously its rights and privileges. How 
this is done I will presently show. 
The regular appointed keeper of the club was 
C. S. White, or Shant White, as he is called. 
His brother Leon once lived on the lands of the 
Swan Island Club, but was forced by that or¬ 
ganization to leave the place, and owning a marsh 
and piece of ground on the lands of the Curri¬ 
tuck Inlet Club he erected his dwelling. Mac 
and I stopped at Shant White’s, while Cap and 
York remained at Leon White’s, about 100 yards 
distant. 
Approaching the keeper’s house we found him 
stretched upon a shucked pallet in the yard play¬ 
ing with his baby. A big pan filled with light- 
wood knots was burning brightly, and though the 
flames attracted the mosquitoes from far and 
near, yet the pungent, resinous smoke kept them 
at bay. These smudges are the favorite method 
