July 24, 1909.] 
135 
Notes on Upland Birds and Waterfowl 
Currituck, N. C., July 15 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: You have had many articles in Forest 
and Stream regarding game and its enemies, 
but one point that I have never seen mentioned 
is keeping the game at home in the breeding 
season. Perhaps if I give an account of a small 
shooting box I have in North Carolina, it will 
explain my ideas on this subject. 
When I had a large shooting box in Scotland 
some years ago, I carried on as far as I was 
able the same tactics, with the result that after 
three years I left the estate I rented, with more 
game on it than had ever been known in that 
part of Scotland. 
I bought my present home five years ago. 
The man I bought from, used it as a sporting 
resort and took in any one to shoot that would 
pay him. I know many of your readers have 
been here, and will recognize the place. It is 
not quite 200 acres on the mainland, is bounded 
on the east by Currituck Sound, and on the 
north by a river, and that is bounded by an 
island of 2,000 acres, that belongs to the farm: 
and on the south by a farm that I rent the 
shooting on for the immense sum of five dollars 
a year; and on the east by a small farm owned 
by a negro, who gives me the privilege of 
shooting whenever I like; in fact, no one ob¬ 
jects to my shooting anywhere I wish to. 
Now, when I bought this place, there were 
two small coveys of quail. Early in the season 
I shot the four old birds to prevent them stray¬ 
ing. I got a fair quantity of birds the second 
year. We had considerable snow. I was away 
tor some time and they were nearly all killed, 
no doubt shot on the ground in the snow, as 
'they were quite tame. To-day I think I have a 
pair of quail for every five acres on this place. 
I flushed four brace of birds in a ditch close 
to the house and within not more than 150 
yards, and on the fence on the other side of 
the field I could hear birds calling. My kitchen 
garden close to the house always has a pair of 
birds in it, and they also come close to the 
house. The other day I saw some young 
chickens chase them away within ten steps or 
the porch, and you cannot walk in any direc¬ 
tion and without a dog—on my place and not 
see and hear quail. 
Of course all these birds will not remain on 
"ny place all the year, but think what a harbor 
)f refuge I am able to make and at practically 
10 expense. I grow wheat, rye, barley and 
iats and plant peas in all my cornland. Last 
'ear I left about one-fourth of an acre of peas 
n two different parts of the farm, and there 
vas always a covey of quail in them or close 
hy. 
I leave a little grain when harvesting close 
0 ditches. This year I left a small piece 
‘f rye, also a little barley uncut. It was so 
oor that it was not worth saving, and yet that 
ill be a God-send to the game. 
I bought one bushel of buckwheat at a cost 
1 one dollar and twenty-five cents. Now, in 
irning round a plow in corn there is a little 
aste land at the end of the rows of corn, and 
!j fe 1 sow the buckwheat. That one bushel 
1 sow more than an acre of land, and will 
'ake feed for the birds till Christmas and 
- e P them at home. 
So far I have not seen any young quail. 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
We had very heavy rain about three weeks ago, 
but the water did not stand on the land as it 
did about this time a year ago. Last year it 
undoubtedly drowned many young birds and 
nests. 
The domestic cat is the worst of all wild 
poachers, but it destroys rats, and they are 
also great stealers of the eggs of all ground¬ 
nesting birds. I do not know how many cats 
I have around my barn, house and stables, but. 
I make it a rule to shoot every cat I find more 
than one hundred yards from the house. Cats 
and weasels are the easiest vermin to catch 
They will walk into a trap, even when not 
covered. Salt fish is a good bait for both; 
leave a dead weasel, and you will catch the 
next one that comes near. I think that in three 
years in Scotland I and my game keepers must 
have killed four hundred, and after catching 
the first one, we rebaited with dead ones at 
that trap all the season. 
Crows kill young rabbits and destroy nests. 
I find them hard to trap but easy to poison. 
If you can find a piece of woods in which they 
nest, go early in the morning, hide yourself and 
use a crow’s call. You can kill five or six 
without moving, and as soon as the young birds 
can leave that piece of woods they and their 
parents will depart. Whenever I see a crow I 
shoot at it with a rifle. My land being flat, I 
can see all over it from the house. I believe 
that snakes do much more harm than people 
think, and most of them can climb trees. Any 
animals or birds that you see other birds chase, 
you may be certain are game destroyers. Let 
a fox cross a field in the daytime, and see how 
the crows' will fly at it. I have shot many 
snakes, and should not have seen them had not 
nesting birds called my attention to them. I 
shot one on a plank fence that two mocking 
birds were flying close to and actually hitting 
it with their wings. They had a nest close by, 
and there was a blue bird in one of the posts 
of the fence, and no doubt the snake was after 
the young birds. 
As a boy I was living in a country where 
foxes are considered sacred, and it would have 
been considered a crime to kill one. Game- 
keepers were supposed to show a large head of 
game, also plenty of pheasants and, at the 
same time, their master expected a fox to be 
found whenever the hounds came to draw his 
covers. This was a hard proposition for the 
gamekeeper who hated the foxes. When he 
found a den of young ones, he would shoot 
rabbits near it, but never touch them. The old 
vixen would then take them to her young; but 
one day he would miss a pheasant off her nest 
and signs that brother fox had been there. Then 
and not till then would he lay in wait and 
watch the earth that the young foxes were in, 
and if they were big enough to live, that old 
vixen died, but he took care to leave plenty of 
dead rabbits for the young ones to eat. He 
well knew that the nesting season would be 
over long before the cubs could forage for them¬ 
selves. The gamekeeper saves his pheasants, 
but does not make sport for the foxhunters. 
We will pass over the time till the cub hunt¬ 
ing season. The master knows the hounds are 
coming to draw his covers. A big breakfast is 
prepared on the lawn for every one, and all 
kinds of good things free for all. Velveteens, 
the head gamekeeper, touches his hat to the 
master of hounds, “Yes, my lord, plenty of 
foxes in the large woods on Oak Ridge. I saw 
two old foxes at daylight yesterday morn’.” 
1 he earth stopper has been round before day¬ 
light and stopped the holes, while the foxes are 
supposed to be out foraging. But the results 
are nil. The hounds chop two foxes in the 
cover; they have never been taught by the old 
vixen to hunt for themselves, and they are fat 
and lazy and give no sport. 
But the gamekeeper in the big shoot at 
Christmas had five hundred pheasants and plenty 
of hares in the Oak Ridge covers, and as his 
master was not a foxhunter himself, nothing 
was said about dearth of old foxes on his estates, 
but that kind of a game preserver is never 
popular in a hunting country. 
I know of nothing to attract snipe and wood¬ 
cock, but by judiciously burning your marshes 
in about five and ten-acre lots, it will save 
you much walking, and woodcock are always 
fond of a cover that has holly in it; they also 
seem fond of old orchards, and more especially 
where apples are left on the ground in heaps, 
as is done in a cider country. I know that 
woodcock do not eat apples, but there you al¬ 
ways find them. 
Now we come to wildfowl, the sport that I 
enjoy above all others. I keep two ponds 
baited all the time, whether I am shooting or 
not; corn is the usual bait used, but oats, po¬ 
tatoes, rye and wheat are as good or better, 
especially for mallard and black duck; they are 
also fond of peas. I have used in small ponds 
boiled rutabaga turnips mixed with oat screen¬ 
ings, and killed many teal and mallards. 
I have no doubt that had there been black duck 
there, they would have come to it also. The 
marsh ducks only come to the ponds at sunset, 
except in bad weather, and so I have none of 
the long waiting one has in the general way 
of wildfowl shooting. I have a flat-bottomed 
skiff with gasolene engine, take three live de¬ 
coys and put them out half an hour before 
sunset, and by a little after dark am at home for 
supper. The mallard, black, and sometimes teal, 
are fat and much better table birds than those 
you kill in a battery on the Sound. Of course 
you do not get many. I kill three or four- 
thirteen the largest number; but the shooting 
only lasts half an hour or a little longer. Of 
course, when it blows a gale, you may get 
shooting all day, and perhaps get some diving 
ducks. 
I use three common mallards for decoys, and 
although I should prefer a few tame black 
ducks, I get all the ducks I want. I have had 
them for four years, and nothing flies over my 
ponds that they do not call to. You can shoot 
right over them and they do not seem to mind; 
in fact, I think they like to decoy their wild 
relations. I have often heard them call quite 
gently when ducks have alighted on the other 
side of the pond, and it is nearly dark, and the 
wild birds swim up to them; but the wild ones 
seem to know that something is wrong, and 
come in quite a suspicious way. 
I have often sat in a blind, both on water and 
land, and watched the look of surprise of wild 
birds, looking at both inanimate and live de¬ 
coys. Late in the season a canvasback will 
