With the Ducks on Currituck Sound. 
Each year at the approach of cold weather, 
some millions of bustling, active beings start 
from the homes where they have spent the sum¬ 
mer, and, in search of food or in fear of win¬ 
ter’s cold, take their way southward, some to go 
only a few hundred miles and others as far as 
the Great Pampas of South America. Then it 
is that flocks of warblers and sparrows loiter 
along hedgerows and go slowly through the 
changing woods; that blackbirds and bobolinks, 
one by one, or in little companies, journey south¬ 
ward; that he who is late at night abroad may 
hear falling from the air above the voices of 
passing flocks of migrant birds and that great 
companies of ducks and clamorous wedges of 
geese cleave the air—all on their way to their 
winter resting places. 
Usually about Christmas time I try to follow 
the birds south, if only for a little while, and I 
seek out that great winter home of the wildfowl, 
Currituck Sound. There in winter are wonderful 
gatherings of birds—a plentitude of wildfowl such 
as few of us ever see. It is not the only place 
where such hordes congregate, for something 
similar may be witnessed on the Great South 
Bay in Long Island—up to the time when its 
waters are closed by ice—or in Barnegat Bay 
on the New Jersey coast, or on the Chesapeake 
and its tributary waters, or again in Back Bay, 
in Pamlico, Albemarle and Core sounds, and in 
other waters further to the southward. 
The broad waters of Currituck Sound are often 
almost black with geese, among which swarm 
hundreds of snowy swans, and canvasbacks, red¬ 
heads and little broadbills are there in flocks so 
numerous that when they take wing the sound is 
like a great rushing wind; while close companies 
of coots—mudhens or bluepeters—often call down 
from the sky above great flocks of ducks which 
alight among them. The broad, low marshes 
which stand only a few inches above the water’s 
level are cut up by a multitude of narrow leads 
and dotted with many shallow ponds, and in 
these waters grow the succulent grasses which 
furnish food and fatness to thousands upon thou¬ 
sands of mallards, blackducks, widgeon, teal and 
pintails. Here may be had great duck shooting 
by him who goes at the proper time, finds fitting 
weather and is able to hold on the swift darting 
birds that may stoop to his decoys. 
Most of the land bordering the waters where 
these birds feed is owned by private individuals 
or by clubs who permit no trespassing on their 
lands. The dwellers along the shore win a 
large part of their winter livelihood by killing 
wildfowl, which they sell to the buyers on the 
mainland, and which at last find their way to 
the great markets of Baltimore, Washington, 
Philadelphia, New York and other cities. Natur¬ 
ally they object to the shooting of these birds on 
their land by anyone except themselves. The 
clubs which own or lease land may number from 
five to fifty individuals, each of whom perhaps 
goes down once or twice a year for a few days 
or a few weeks. These clubs have bought land 
and put up buildings. They protect their prop¬ 
erty, for of course they wish to have the shoot¬ 
ing for themselves. Of free shooting there is 
practically none along Currituck Sound. 
Not very long ago, with a friend, I spent a 
week or two at one of the clubs on the sound 
and had some shooting, and what was pleasanter 
even than the shooting, we saw a multitude of 
fowl and were convinced from what we saw that 
at least in this particular region wildfowl are as 
abundant now as they were ten years ago. 
The journey to Norfolk is not a long one, and 
from Norfolk one may take a branch of the Nor¬ 
folk & Southern Railway to Munden Point, 
whence he must go by boat. A venerable 
steamer known as the Comet—perhaps because 
of the speed at which it travels, which is about 
four miles an hour when there is no wind, much 
less when the wind is adverse—goes down the 
sound twenty-five or thirty miles and makes a 
number of landings at places where there is good 
shooting. We were fortunate enough to be able 
to move somewhat more rapidly, taking a motor 
boat which swiftly carried us to our destination. 
The sail—if it may so be called—was through a 
raging snowstorm, and the wind was favorable. 
There was little motion to the boat, a comfort¬ 
able and warm cabin in which to sit, something 
of interest to be seen in the various flocks of 
fowl disturbed by the boat’s passage, and at the 
end of it all, a comfortable house. Those whom 
we found at the house and the record of the 
past week's shooting indicated that there might 
be good sport for the newcomers; but that very 
night the weather cleared, the mercury fell and 
the next morning, when in the darksome hour 
before the dawn, we were roused for breakfast, 
we learned that all the ponds and little leads 
were frozen over by a thin skim of ice. 
Later, after the sun had risen and we had 
gone down to the boat house, our feet making 
black tracks in the white hoar-frost that covered 
walk and dock, we could see something of how 
considerable an area of ground had been closed 
to the wildfowl. While we stood there looking 
and talking, there arose from a great cove to 
the westward a tremendous clamor of geese, 
mingled with the high-pitched notes of uneasi¬ 
ness uttered by the swans, and presently we could 
hear the sound of wings beating water, and then 
over the tall cane that shut out the view of the 
cove were seen rising thousands of geese, and 
a little later perhaps two hundred swans. All 
the birds were calling to each other in warning 
or encouragement, and their cries, softened by 
the distance, were musical and altogether charm¬ 
ing. Among the geese, but gradually separating 
themselves from their larger companions, were 
hundreds of ducks which, singly or in small com¬ 
panies, took their ways north or south or east, 
scattering out no doubt to look for a place where 
the day might be spent in luxurious ease. For 
a long time after this we could see the lines of 
geese criscrossing the sky here and there, and 
could hear their mellow honkings growing fainter 
and fainter in the distance. 
That day we did little. Some members of the 
club went to a neighboring pond, and there, 
breaking an air hole, put out their decoys, and 
toward the end of the day had good shooting, 
getting twenty-five or thirty ducks. We had 
drawn the last choice of points, and on such a 
day, when ice covered everything, advantageous 
points to choose from were few; so, going along 
the bank of a narrow channel not far from the 
house we tied out a few decoys and sat there 
during most of the day. Up and down this 
channel through the day were trading a few lit¬ 
tle broadbills, and occasionally one of these would 
fly over our decoys, or would even attempt to 
alight near them. Now a broadbill on the wing 
is no laggard. If a gunner hopes to shoot one 
as it flies by, he must be ready to seize the 
proper moment; if he hesitates he is lost; the 
broadbill is far beyond shot and the opportunity 
may not soon come again. 
These birds remind me of those concerning 
which many many years ago a contributor of 
Forest and Stream wrote, saying that it took 
two men to shoot a butterball, one to say, “There 
he comes,” the other to say, “There he goes.” 
The situation was a puzzling one for two pre¬ 
tended gunners of whom one had not had a 
duck gun in his hands for four or five years, 
and the other had never before held one. When 
these swiftly-moving broadbills appeared within 
range, there was usually a crashing of artillery 
which would have gladdened the heart of a car¬ 
tridge manufacturer had he been within hear¬ 
ing. Nevertheless, occasionally a bird dropped, 
and it seemed to me that the younger and less 
experienced of the two men in the blind accom¬ 
plished much more execution than the elder. As 
the sun rose higher, the day grew warmer and 
the ice melted, but fewer ducks appeared, and 
toward evening we returned to the house with 
the extremely modest bag of eight birds. 
That night it again grew colder and the waters 
having been chilled by the frost and snow of 
the day before, they froze still harder, and next 
morning we were still confined to the grounds 
immediately about the house. Again my friend 
and I tied out on this little channel, but in a 
different place, where in the early morning a 
flock of forty or fifty broadbills were seen swim¬ 
ming and feeding. During the day a number of 
these unwarily put themselves within range of 
the heavy guns, and although the greater por¬ 
tion of them escaped unscathed, yet now and 
then one of them yielded up his life, and the 
opinion was expressed that perhaps the gunners 
were beginning to get on to the ducks’ “curves.” 
That afternoon, when we took our decoys from 
the water, the score of the day before had been 
increased by 50 per cent, and our bag numbered 
twelve. 
The following day was Saturday, a lay day, 
so-called, on which no shooting is done, while 
on Sunday, of course, no one shoots. The birds 
therefore had two days of rest. Both days were 
warm, with moderate southerly breezes; the ice 
melted and there seemed some prospect that on 
Monday we might venture further afield. And 
so it proved. 
