534 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[April 2, 1910. 
of Aylmer Lake, Mackenzie district. Among the 
mammals were barren ground caribou, muskox, 
lynx, wolf and other smaller animals. 
* The third article of this bulletin enumerates 
thirteen species of mammals from Palawan 
Island, Philippine Islands. 
In the proceedings of the Biological Society of 
Washington, issued March 23, 1910, is a paper 
by Arthur H. Howell, giving “Notes on the 
Mammals of the Middle Mississippi Valley with 
Description of a New Wood Rat.” For the 
most part the large mammals appear to have 
been killed off from this region, yet a few 
wolves are reported about Cushing Lake, Mo., 
and a coyote to have been killed near Kansas, 
Ill. A long way east for this little fellow. 
The Central Park Baltie. 
New York City, March 19. —Editor Forest and 
Stream: The Baltimore oriole which I reported 
as having been seen in Central Park on Feb. 13 
last is still living there and in excellent condi¬ 
tion, having been seen on Feb. 20 and again to¬ 
day when I observed it eating suet. This case 
is a most interesting one to me and shows the 
power of birds to adapt themselves to the most 
trying circumstances, as we have had several 
severe snow storms and much cold weather since 
this bird was first observed. I am puzzled to 
know whether this bird has actually wintered 
here, and if so how he has survived. 
Elmer Russell Gregor. 
Duck Shooting in Broadwater Bay. 
As regularly as the old year grows into the 
new, father and I drive to the ferry on New 
Year’s eve in time to catch the Norfolk Express. 
The cab is always quite filled with our travel¬ 
ing bags, a bundle of toys for Conover’s chil¬ 
dren, and our guns—old friends by this time— 
and rejoicing in as affectionate nicknames as 
ever pet dog or cat had. Father took his trusty 
ten-gauge hammer gun that can throw shot 
harder and further than any other gun I have 
ever seen, and I took both my ten-gauge and 
my heavy eight-bore, an excellent gun. 
The porter called us at 5 o’clock. At Nassa- 
wadox Station at a quarter after five next morn¬ 
ing we found a man waiting to drive us the 
three miles to Conover’s house, where we were 
warmly welcomed. There was a blazing fire in 
the best room and we warmed ourselves while 
Conover and his son loaded our things on the 
launch and got on board the supplies needed at 
the guning house on the marsh. When all was 
ready we were given a cup of good hot coffee, 
which was very grateful on that cold morning, 
and then we boarded the launch and set off 
down the creek. 
Red Bank Creek winds in and out through 
the marshy meadows and around patches of 
wooded high land, doubling on itself twice be¬ 
tween Marionville and Upshur’s Neck, where it 
empties into Broadwater Bay. The land south 
of the creek is known as Fowling Point, and it 
is between this land and the marshy islands 
some four miles to the east that the famous 
feeding grounds of the ducks lie. At high tide 
this is covered with five to seven feet of water, 
and at low tide the great expanse is almost bare, 
except for The Sink, a favorite feeding ground. 
Conover’s gunning house is built upon piles 
driven in the meadow on one of the islands to 
the east of The Sink and consists of two large 
double rooms, a dining room, a kitchen and a 
loft where the guides sleep. At low water it is 
necessary to follow the Great Machipongo Chan¬ 
nel twelve miles around the flats, but we crossed 
the flats at high water, arriving in less than an 
hour. 
Conover waited on father, as they say down 
there, and his son, Dave, on me, and we started 
through the creek on our way to the blinds 
which dotted The Sink. Dave rowed me past 
several of the nearest blinds to one in the mid¬ 
dle of the Sink, and here we put out our decoys 
to the windward of the blind and shoved our 
boat in among the boughs. In the bottom of 
the boat, pushed under the stern, we carried a 
large bough and this we placed at the stern for 
the two-fold purpose of hiding the boat and 
keeping it from being washed out of the blind 
by the waves. 
These blinds are built with long cedar boughs 
stuck in the mud at low tide in the form of a 
triangle, the exact size and shape of the gun¬ 
ning boats, and they come up above ordinary 
high tide high enough to be readily seen, but 
not enough to afford any cover to a man in a 
boat. As the tide rises and falls from five to 
six feet, they are made as low as possible so 
that they will not loom up so high when the 
tide is low, and they do not cover the boat until 
the tide has gone down nearly two feet. All 
the shooting here is done either on the rising 
or falling tide, for at high and low water the 
birds go out to the deep water of the main bay 
and remain there until they can feed again in 
the Sink. This causes two flights during each 
tide, one in and one out, giving four chances at 
them each day. When we shoved into the blind 
I was much worried by the scantiness of our 
cover, but Dave assured me that we would be 
able to hide by the time the birds began to fly, 
and afterward I found he was right. 
My first shot was at a bunch of geese which 
came flying straight over us high up in the air. 
My old eight-bore spoke to them with a charge 
of BB’s from the left barrel, and two came 
tumbling down. We picked up our birds just in 
time, for a flock of brant rose out in the chan¬ 
nel and came toward us, Dave and I calling to 
them with all our skill. They saw our decoys, 
circled and set their wings, giving me a splend:d 
shot. I got a double with each barrel of my 
ten-bore and another .with my eight. 
It was rather amusing, the changes in position 
as the tide went out. First we moved from the 
bottom of the boat to the boxes, then to the 
gunwales, then we put the boxes on the deck 
and finally ended by standing on these in a vain 
effort to shoot over the blind. When the tide 
is so low that you cannot reach over the wall 
of boughs to shoot, it is necessary to thrust the 
gun out between the branches, and I defy any 
man to keep his temper as miss after miss fol¬ 
lows his best efforts to shoot straight. Under 
these circumstances it is impossible to follow 
a bird with the gun, and in order to get the lead 
necessary to kill a fast flying one, one must 
bring the gun down through the boughs at the 
point one thinks the charge will intercept the bird. 
In this way I made one good shot at an old 
black duck coming down before the wind about 
fifteen feet above the water and forty yards 
away, traveling at the rate of sixty miles an 
hour. That bird must have run into the center 
of the charge, for he was struck so hard that 
he turned over and over in the air. People who 
have never known the enjoyment of sport with 
the gun often wonder at the vividness with 
which events stand out in the memory of the 
true sportsman. If any such benighted one had 
killed that black duck as I did that morning it 
would have afforded them great satisfaction to 
live that event over again in their minds; not 
once, but hundreds of times. 
It was after 1 o’clock when we took up our 
decoys and set out for home. When father and 
Conover joined us we compared notes and I 
found that father had killed more ducks, but 
had not had a shot at geese. 
After lunch Dave and I went out to a blind 
to the east of the house where he thought we 
might get a'chance at the broadbill as they flew 
by on the way to the Cobbs Island Bay. The 
tide was so low that we had to do all our shoot¬ 
ing through the Loughs, but nevertheless we 
brought home twenty-six. There was not a 
breath of wind stirring and the surface of the 
water was like a sheet of glass and we con¬ 
gratulated ourselves upon the ease with which 
we would be able to get any birds we crippled. 
But we counted our chickens too soon, for it 
happened that the first flock I got a shot at 
went so wide that I only killed one dead and 
crippled four more. We marked them down on 
the water about sixty yards away from the blind 
and pushed out as quickly as possible. In the 
short space of time it took us to do this all four 
birds disappeared, and we never saw any of 
them again, although we hunted around for a 
quarter of an hour. I have often seen crippled 
birds exercisq wonderful ingenuity in escaping, 
but those four broadbills were certainly past 
