July 2, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
15 
Spring Wildfowl Shooting. 
Doniphan, Mo., June 21 . —Editor Forest and 
Stream: Our ducking grounds proper extend 
for about sixty miles east to the Mississippi. 
These are the sunk lands, where Little River, 
Castor and St. Francis lose themselves in a 
wilderness of swamp lakes grown up in high 
grasses, or nigger wool swamps—possibly the 
greatest mallard feeding grounds in the United 
States where thousands of ducks are butchered 
yearly, not only in the fair flight shooting, but 
in that most destructive of all ways, by roost 
shooting. Even the hardened market hunter of 
the swamps asks protection against this method. 
How many, who have never been on a real wild 
ducking ground—where neither city man nor 
pot-hunter has any idea of limit—can realize the 
enormous quantities of wildfowl killed? I saw 
a wagon load of mallards killed by two men in 
a few hours’ shooting. They were peddled 
around the streets of Portageville at twenty-five 
cents a pair. All were killed on the Little River 
overflow. At Bakerton I saw a pile of geese ten 
feet high and almost ten feet long and as broad 
killed in a little over a day’s shooting. There 
was no market for them, and as fast as the 
women of the household picked the choice 
feathers from their breasts, they were tossed 
over the cypress picket fence to the hogs. 
Oddly enough in all my travels in that swamp 
country I have never heard one sportsman pro¬ 
test against' slaughter. The only ones I have 
really heard strongly voice their sentiments 
against it have been pot-hunters. Under the old 
law there was a limit to the number of ducks 
allowed to be killed in one day by a gunner. I 
was at Lilburn and met with a wealthy St. Louis 
sportsman, who quickly won my esteem by his 
outspoken declarations in favor of game protec¬ 
tion. At the hour of his departure I was astonished 
to find him quarreling with his guide, because the 
latter would not allow him to pack more than fifty 
ducks in his baggage. He had killed 190 ducks 
during the evening and morning shoot and 
wanted to take them all. For a little while it 
looked as if a gun fight were in prospect, but 
the city man yielded to the guide’s wishes. 
Mallards have a great fondness for their 
roosting places and no amount of bombarding 
can keep them from dropping in. As evening 
comes they pile into these swamps from the 
Mississippi, not a few at a time, but by thou¬ 
sands and thousands. The hunters take their 
stands in dugouts or more frequently stationed 
in the center of the roost with no attempt to 
hide, and bang away at the mallards as they dip 
through the cypress, overcup oak, sweet gum 
and other trees for their evening rest. So per¬ 
sistent are they in their attempts to get in at 
night that as darkness comes they will drop al¬ 
most at the hunter’s feet, swimming around in 
every direction, their noisy quacking the only 
means by which one can tell ducks were swim¬ 
wing near them. This is still a duck country, 
but gradually the feeding grounds are becom¬ 
ing scarcer. This wonderfully fertile land has 
attracted the eyes of farmer and land speculator, 
a few drainage ditches were dug, and million¬ 
aires were created almost in a night, and similar 
opportunity awaits the investor with fair amount 
of capital. So the death knell of these great 
swamp hunting grounds is being sounded. Then 
the ducks will be confined to the rivers that slug¬ 
gishly wend their way through the lands that 
were made by the earthquake of a century ago. 
As one moves west toward the hill countries, 
duck shooting becomes very ordinary. The 
streams are too swift and the feeding grounds 
poor. I have written this to enable the average 
reader to tell from whom in our State the chief 
contention in favor of spring duck shooting was 
made. This is not now so much the case since 
Mr. Tolerton has so rigidly enforced the laws 
against the sale of ducks. The market hunter 
has given up this remunerative occupation and 
appears indifferent to the protection given the 
wildfowl in the future. Only the commercial 
side appealed to him. 
Many sportsmen object to a closed season on 
ducks in spring, but I can see no logic in their 
protests. If spring duck shooting is prohibited 
in every State, I feel bold enough to predict 
that the fall shooting will improve so rapidly 
that the sport at that time will more than repay 
the loss of the few spring months. The old plea 
that ducks are migratory will have no weight 
when every State enforces a law so greatly needed. 
Protection in breeding season- is the first law 
of increase in any kind of game, and other laws 
are only secondary in importance to it. The im¬ 
pediments in the way of passing such a law can 
be overcome only by the voice of public senti¬ 
ment which Forest and Stream and other pub¬ 
lications have created among thinking sports¬ 
men. Such a reasonable law cannot fail to be 
enacted in the near future. Loch Laddie. 
Lamar, Colo., May 27 . —Editor Forest and 
Stream: In our vicinity I think the limiting 
of the bag per day really more important than 
anything else. Our law gives the limit of 
twenty-five ducks per day and possession of 
fifty at one time. I live in a duck shooters’ 
paradise. Our system of irrigation reservoirs, 
holding 168,000 acre feet of water, and our chain 
of lakes in season have thousands upon thou¬ 
sands of ducks upon them. There are countless 
numbers of ducks killed. Many parties come here 
from the cities during the entire season, and I 
have seen 500 ducks leave here in one shipment. 
Often gunners stay a week or ten days, and 
when they get fifty each they ship them to their 
friends and go on slaughtering. I can see a 
great decrease in the ducks compared with three 
years ago, and if the present laws exist, there 
will be but few ducks in five years more. I 
hope to see our next Legislature enact a law 
limiting the bag to ten per day and possession 
of only twenty-five and no shipping whatever 
allowed. I further wish to see a warden in our 
district getting sufficient salary to enable him to 
give his time to watching the hunters. Our 
present system either pays all the money to a 
few pets in Denver—which I am told is done— 
or else they have no money, for our ducks get 
absolutely no protection from a salaried warden. 
The one we have does his work only through his 
sense of patriotism and has not the time to de¬ 
vote to it. J. H. Kellogg. 
St. John’s, N. F., June 10 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: We have no regular duck or goose 
shooting as you have in some parts of the 
United States. At the time of the spring migra¬ 
tion the sportsmen are otherwise engaged and 
do not shoot regularly as they do in the fall. 
W. J. Carroll. 
Deer in Connecticut. 
Westport, Conn., June 25 . —Editor Forest and 
Stream: Deer are quite commonly reported 
throughout Fairfield county, and particularly in 
the Sound country between Bridgeport and the 
Norwalks. While usually seen singly, some¬ 
times they are in couples, and some six or 
seven weeks ago four together came through 
the pasture of the place where I am staying. 
They did not appear frightened. I halted them 
by bleating, and they stood awhile and stared 
at the house; then trotted into the edge of the 
woods, in plain sight, and fed there for a half 
hour. A week or so later a doe passed along 
within twenty steps of the kitchen window, and 
on several occasions deer have been seen on 
the farm. Tracks of their crossing are discov¬ 
erable after every rain. 
In spite of their apparent abundance they 
seem to continue a remarkable sight to the 
farmers, and the sight of a deer is still some¬ 
thing to report. I am told that until three 
years ago the oldest residents had never seen 
a deer in this vicinity. Last year a whole fam¬ 
ily—parents and children, down to the youngest 
—would run themselves breathless to verify the 
report that there was a deer in the back or¬ 
chard. Last week a doe and young fawn re¬ 
ceived the attentions of half the neighborhood. 
The mother deer did not appear the least bit 
disturbed at sight of a row of heads bobbing 
along the top of a stone wall, and it was doubt¬ 
less a pleasant experience for her frolicsome 
offspring. I have so far heard no reports of 
destructive raids by deer upon gardens and 
growing crops. The woodchucks, however, are 
death on young beans and peas, and I can not, 
for the life of me, arrange a time schedule to 
make connection with the chuck at his meals-. 
Other game is rather scarce around this sec¬ 
tion. A few rabbits—you see signs of their 
presence in the cabbage patches—lots of red 
squirrels and chipmunks, and occasionally a 
gray squirrel. I know of four cock quail in a 
radius of a mile; and the other day I saw a pair 
of Hungarian partridges. It looks as though 
the only shooting this fall would be at mi¬ 
grants, and I note that the resident hunters 
are pinning their hopes on the woodcock flight. 
I have made friends with the farm cat, a half- 
grown fluffy Angora, which doubtless should 
select more aristocratic associates. But we 
have habits in common, and when I start 
out for a ramble she is always ready to go 
along. She does not trot at my heels as any 
other cat might, but has the doglike habit of 
lagging behind and then coming at a gallop, 
tail erect, passing at full speed, and then stop¬ 
ping to hunt grasshoppers, butterflies, bugs and 
other small deer until I have progressed pretty 
well out of sight. A stone wall is her delight; 
she will take the top of the roughest at a run, 
until she finds a flat stone which seems intended 
by Dame Nature for tired cats to spread them¬ 
selves upon. Kitty Maria, etc., is a deadener 
on rats, mice and moles around the house, and 
I have reason to suspect that she could tell 
how there came to be robin feathers on the 
lawn; but she never makes bad breaks when 
in my company, perhaps knowing that I am a 
rabid bird protector. All the birds look upon 
