

FOREST AND STREAM. ~ 
309 





string to the geese, keeping them to the raft. In order to 
secure the platform from floating off it was anchored with 
a brick at each end. At each corner of this platform three 
pairs of decoys were placed, the wild geese being on the 
platform itself, with strings leading into the blind boat. 
I now instructed Isaiah’ to take the live geese stools and 
platform in his boat, to place them about a hundred yards 
forward of some sedge grass, and to wait there until we 
came up with the blind boat. It was still pitch dark. While 
this was being done, and the tide was making up fast, 
lsaiah soon completed his task, and we rowed to where he 
was and took hold of the strings which were attached o the 
geese, which we fastened to the rollocks of the blind boat. 
Isaiah was now ordered by me to take his own boat to the 
Bay side and to scare up the geese and drive themin, I 
had hardly got through eating my breakfast before Isaiah 
had rapidly pulled around the point, and I heard him honk- 
ing away merrily, Jake playing second fiddle. The first 
gray streaks of morning commenced to show the coming 
dawn, allowing me to look over my guns and arrange the 
ammunition, which was all in good order, Iwas using my 
swamp angel, (according to the judgment of some of your 
FOREST AND STREAM Critics,) a 10-bore Snyder-Allen breech 
loader, and a muzzle loader, Greener, 8-bore. I had pre- 
pared my cartridges as follows: 5 drams of powder and an 
ounce and three quarters of single &, for the Snyder-Allen, 
and 6 drams of powder and full two ounces of 4’s for the 
Greener. There is no usc of bringing pop guns down here. 
You must load up, as geese have to be killed and killed 
dead; forif you load as for pigeons, you waste your time 
in picking up wing-tipped birds, for geese, even when 
badly wounded, can swim with the tide faster than you can 
row after them. 
Jake now commenced pulling the strings on the geese, 
imitating the ery of the live decoys, they fluttering their 
wings and making the spray fly. The decoy geese seemed 
to understand their business thoroughly, having doubtlessly 
taken advantage of Isaiah’s instruction. Presently a flock 
of five geese came up on the wird out of the sedge, where 
they had certainly been feeding,’and made directly for the 
stools. Now I wanted for once to; understand the charac- 
iter of the live decoy birds we were using, and whether the 
wild geese would really appraoch close to them, so I deter- 
mined to forego shooting the first flock and watch their 
familiarities. The new comers, they were young geese, 
absolutely alighted on the platform, and made advances to 
their captive friends, not honking, but whistling, the sound 
not resembling in the least the hiss of the tame goose. We 
were in the blind-boat, not more than thirty yards from the 
platform. They must have staid there fully three minutes, 
when all of a sudden, from some unknown cause—for we 
were in the boat hidden and perfectly still—they rose as if 
alarmed all at once, and with such a sudden jerk, using the 
platform to make their flight from, that they upset the plat- 
form and submerged for a moment our educated birds. I 
was so intent on watching the antics of the wild birds 
that I was slow in shooting. Though having shot geese in 
this neighborhood for the last fourteen years, it was the 
very first time I ever had an opportunity of noticing geese 
as closely, or of acquiring so much knowledge of their 
habits and actions. 
They must have got away fully twenty yards before I 
could get the Greener to my shoulder, and I dropped two 
and wing-tipped one which I did not recover. 
I have always observed that wild geese, when feeding, 
leave one bird on the watch, and most thoroughly does she 
perform the task. With outstretched neck, watching on 
all sides, and listening to every sound far and near, she 
keeps a wary guard. Nor does she look for a single worm 
or scollop, however famished she may be, till one of her 
companions sees fit to relieve her guard. Then the former 
sentinel sets to work at her feeding with an eagerness which 
shows that her abstinence while on duty was the result, not 
of want of appetite, but of a proper sense of the important 
trust imposed uponher. If any enemy, or the slightest 
eause of suspicion appears, the sentry utters a low croak, 
when the whole flock immediately run up to her, and after 
a short consultation, fly off, leaving the unfortunate sports- 
man to lament having shown even his head or the muzzle 
of his gun above the sea sedge grass. » 
Avout an hour afterwards—it was now high flood tide, 
anil the wind blowing dead on shore—I heard Isaiah “‘honk- 
ing,” and to my delight saw him rise and drive a flock of 
as many as two hundred geese towards our side over the 
point. Approaching our stools, they divided into two 
flozks, one going apparently to the southward and the other 
answering the ery of our live stools. Here Jake showed 
some excitement, and asked me to allow him to use my 
Greener. ‘Take anything,” I said. The geese came on 
swiftly to the stools, swept past them for a moment, then 
circled back, Jake jerking at the strings attached to the 
educated geese. The wild birds seemed to hesitate, but all 
hands honked away, and after a moment they all swooped 
down, and were just about alighting, not more than three 
feet above the stools, when Jake and myself fired off four 
barrels almost simultaneously. Eleven geese we killed 
outright, stone dead, they falling into the water with aloud 
flop; five we wing-tipped, three of which Isaiah secured in 
the pick-up boat. It took us fully two hours to gather the 
pirds, and by this time the tide had fallen so much that the 
geese, although still flying in flocks, sought other bars and 
points to alight on. Towards evening we had a few more 
shots, but nothing of special interest, and I should not 
have written this letter save to record the excellence of the 
live stools, and the fraternization of the wild geese with 
our educated ones. Very truly, fs i B, 
Total bag, three days’ shooting, 24 geese, 5 broad-bills, 
and 1 whistler. 

THE SORGHUM BAY SEA SERPENT. 
ee sUEUE ES. 
Eprror Forest anp StreaAm:— 
To gratify the imperious demand of the public, to place 
my friend Captain Porgie in a true light, and allay, if pos- 
sible, the torrent of ink shed which this remarkable case 
has produced in scientific circles, are the objects of this 
present statement. Captain Slocum W. Porgie is a modest 
man and a truthful witness, ancé his modesty and veracity 
have been shocked by the distortions and calumnies of 
friend and foe on this unpleasantly notorious affair. The 
action of certain illustrated weeklies in reprinting from an 
old portrait which had done good service before as the 
“Nathan Murderer,” and been used with success as the 
“counterfeit presentment” of a ‘‘famous Sorosis presiden- 
tess,” and labelling it nowas ‘“‘Capt Porgie, or the Demon 
Slayer of Sorghum Bay,” he looks upon as a highiy improp- 
er proceeding; nor is he less justly annoyed at the gratui- 
tous insinuations of the Popular Science Monthly and Amer- 
tcun Naturalist to the effect that he is a ‘‘hoary-headed old 
miscreant,” and a ‘‘blasphemous desperado.” He says that 
such language almost implies a reflection on his private 
character, if not a positive?misconstruction of his motives. 
For which reasons he desires to be set right before the pub- 
lic, Having ascertained that Captain Porgie was in the 
city last week with his schooner, I called at his hotel, the 
‘‘Mariner’s Haven,” and found him engaged in a little priv- 
ate business at the bar of the house. He was discussing a 
modest luncheon of lobscouse a la fewucas’le, in company with 
ahalf dozen other gentlemen of saline appearance and 
flavor. The Captain is about fifty years of age, iron-gray 
hair, a steel-blue eye, and copper-colored nose, and a de- 
cided list to starboard. 
Your correspondent opened the conversation by intro- 
ducing himself as the commissioner of ForEsT AND STREAM, 
and with the hospitable query :— 
‘Well, Captain, what’s yours?” to which fourteen entire 
strangers simultaneouily replied, ‘‘ruman’m’lasses.” 
We sought a private room, and the conversation proceed- 
ed substantially as follows: 
Capt. P.—‘'Thankee; I don’t care if I dew. That’s con- 
sarned poor liquor. Wien I was in Cuby in ’48, they was 
a Mexican feller from Seinfoogos had some pooty nice 
liquor, what he called ‘pulque.’ Ever drink pulque? Sho! 
Well, you see pulque—” 
Your correspondent gently assured his narrator that 
strict temperance principles and patriotic impulses alike 
prevented his taking an absorbing interest in the produc- 
tions, however fascinating, of a degraded foreigner; and be- 
sought the Captain to impart the true story of his adven- 
ture with the saurian of Sorghum Bay. We also, with a 
pardonable desire to impress the narrator, told him that 
our name was Cuvier, and that we thirsted for information 
of an icthyological nature. 
Captain Porgie.—‘‘Glad to make your acquaintance, Col. 
Cuvier; well, I don’t mind telling yow, sir, though I don’t 
care to speak of the circumstance to lubbers generally, after 
the way your papers sarved me. Some people don’t know 
a true story when they hear it, and some people can’t open 
their hatches without discharging a cargo of lies. But I 
ain’t that kind, sir. I’ve been a sailor, man and boy, for 
forty year, and I never told a lie, outside of a Custom house 
in my life. That’s why it gets me up when folks don’t be- 
lieve about that sarpint I saw last fourteenth of August, at 
2,10 P. M., from aboard my own schooner, the ‘Hiram A. 
Dodge,’ in Sorghum Bay, latitude 48° north,and my first 
mate drunker ’an a porpoise in the fore’sle. A good deal 
drunker, sir. Capt Rampike was with me, too. Jotham 
Rampike, ofZSculpin Centre, and was going home after 
losing his vessel and seventy barrel of mackerel, good No. 
2 mackerel, in a sou’wester off Cape Ann, with all on board 
except himself aud a nigger cook. Saved by the mercy of 
Providence, and a Calais wood boat. He was a awful 
critter. Shed say he was an eighty barreller, half an acre 
across the bows and a hundred fathom from stem to stern, 
and had flippers like a walrush. He was lying across our 
bows, about a half a cable distant. There wan’t a capfull 
of wind aloft, and the sea was as smooth as the bottom of 
a flap-jack. Rampike and me obsarved the critter clussly. 
He had amane as high as the foremast, and was covered 
with scales like a mud turkle. Rampike was an old whale- 
men and always has a harpoon round his rigging some- 
where. He wanted to sock it to him, and I let him try it 
on, though I knew it wan’t no use. Sea sarpints ain’t to 
be fit with harpoons, Mr. Cuvier, not that kind of sarpints. 
But I let Rampike have his way, for he’s a dreadful set man, 
and he driv the iron into the critter’s gills. Sarpint didn’t 
mind it no more ’an a flea, but he just histed his bowsprit 
and surweyed us all over, kinder curous like, much as to 
say, ‘I’m a noticing on you, gentlemen, and I’!] make salt 
junk on ye, bimeby.’ Pi 
Then Rampike wanted to try him on with a shark hook; 
never see sich a lubber as that Rampike, for a man who 
sailed a morphidyke brig eleven year and ought to know 
suthin. Sez I, ‘No, Rampike; I wouldn’t be a consarned 
ijit, if I could help it,’ sez I; ‘Let’s lighten ballast,’ sez I, 
and get on his weather quarter.’ So we took holt and emp- 
tied two sandbags, and I fastened a’ hank of beef to the 
kedge anchor, and then the balloon riz.” 
Cor.—‘‘The balloon, Capt. Porgie!” 
Capt. P.—“‘Sartinly; didn’t I say we throwed out ballast, 
and of course the balloon riz. Oh, you didn’t know we 
was in a ballon. Aint never been to sea? Thought not. 
Of course, allus keep a balloon aboard to rekonitre. Could 
n’t get along ’ithout ‘em no ways. Well, sir, asI said, it 
riz, and J drawed the grapnel just across the sarpint’s nose 
-an inkling that he has been zmnposed upon. 
and he snapped for it likea shark. Bolted it; went anchor 
and all. Rampike jest set on the edge of the car and 
laughed fit to bust, and all the while the sarpint kept a 
chewin’ anda chewin’; and bimeby he began to smell the 
trap and to lash the waves all around like a typhoon; and 
Rampike wanted to let drive at him with a round shot outen 
the old swivel. Never see sich a lunkhead as that Rampike. 
Whoever heerd of shootin’ sea sarpints with round shot 
outen a balloon? Sez I, ‘Capt. Rampike, I’!] manage this 
discussion, if yow please.’ And I was going to give a turn 
on the windlass and bring the critter to close quarters, get 
him yard-arm to yard-arm, as it were, when I’m blowed if 
I didn’t see the pizen reptile a swallowing that ’ere four inch 
manilla like prize candy, and stowing it away by ihe fathom 
till he was within twenty foot of our car! Rampike was 
standing there like he was struck dead, and had dropped 
the slow match into the car, and sot fire to the bottom of it. 
I see how things was placed immediate. That sarpint 
would make us sick in just four seconds and a half ’ithout 
we changed our moorings. ‘Rampike,’ sez I, ‘follow me,’ 
and I went overboard and Rampike after me just as the scaly 
critter was taking a mouthful outen the bottom of our car. 
He seen us jump, and aimed a lick at us with his tail, but 
the balloon being lightened up, went aloft like a rocket, an- 
chor, sarpint and all, and when we clomb aboard the 
schooner there was a holler in the water like as if an earth- 
quake had dropped there. We saw the balloon and the 
sarpint heading NNE, about half a mile high, and could 
hear the snake hissing and coughing and swearing like a 
volcano. And bimeby there come the all-cussedest explo- 
sioe you ever heard, and we knowed the fire had caught in 
the gas and set off the swivel, and given that reptile critter 
rather a surprise party. And that’s all,” said Capt. Porgie, 
as he shook the bottle mournfully. 
We asked the conscientious narrator had he scen any re- 
mains of the shattered saurian, 
“None to speak of,” hesaid. Folks on shore had 
spoken of gathering up barrels of scales all over the coast, 
but he, Capt. Slocum W. Porgie, ‘‘made it a pint” to not 
place too implicit confidence in the statements of shore 
folks. He had found a painful absence of veracity and an 
unscrupulous disregard of accuracy in their narrations. 
Such is the simple, straightforward story of one who has 
beheld the terrible denizen of the deep in his native element 
as well as in the less congenial sphere of upper air. The 
writer would gladly wish that he could here chronicle a fit- 
ting tribute from our savans to this gallant mariner, but to 
the disgrace of our common nature be it said, no such tes- 
timonial has been spoken of; on the contrary, bis story has 
been greeted with suspicion or open hostility by those who 
should be first to greet him with pride and respect. Only 
one public functionary in this city has treated his story with 
any show of credence. The agent of the Society for the 
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has placed sufficient faith 
in our hero’s tale to indict him for causing the death of 
this sea serpent under circumstances of peculiar cruelty. 
Capt. Porgie confesses that such persecution and contume- 
ly arealmost a source of irritation, and appeals to his fel- 
low countrymen for justice. Shall he appeal in vain? 
Joel. 
[Notwithstanding the high scientific attainments of our 
informant, and his undisputed claim to veracity, we have 
The cireum- 
stances related are plausible enough,’and the identity of 
the Sorghum Sea Serpent fully established by savans, but 
we have never known of any of this species of saurian be- 
ing found in the latitude mentioned, and more than all, 
question whether the tractile force of mere deglutition 
woule be sufficient to enable the creature to swallow 
a balloon under headway. We place little faith in 
balloons anyhow, or anything connected with them. How- 
ever, we give the story for what it is worth, ackowledging 
its value to science if true, and, if not true, consoling our- 
selves that wiser men than we have been made the victims 
of wags without conscience, who to ensure the successful 
perpetration of a hoax, are contented to pass it off on poor 
credulous marines.—Ep. F. anp 8. ] 


Nor Tnere.—The Canadian Gentleman’s Journal is anx- 
ious in regard to the whereabcuts of a large bear. We 
should most respectfully ask, if in Toronto they do as they 
are reported to have done in London, when a fashionable 
hair dresser hired the man who did no end of howling d la 
bear, a8 an advertisement for pots of bear grease? We pro- 
duce the article in question, taken from our excellent Can- 
adian contemporary :— 
‘‘Mr. Britton, butcher, of this city, has been carefully 
feeding for Christmas time a remarkably large bear with 
which he intended to create a sensation in the St. Lawrence 
Arcade. A well-known young sportsman had volunteered 
to administer a leaden pill to ‘bruin yesterday afternoon, 
and having armed himself with his caribou revolver and a 
knapsack full of penetrating arguments, proceeded to the 
scene of action. The chain to the end of which the bear 
was supposed to be attached wus lying loosely on the 
ground, and at the word—‘ All ready,’ from the ardent 
sportsman, an attendant commenced to haul at the chain, 
but no bruin appeared at the end of it. A special force of 
detectives is now engaged hunting up the missing pet. Any 
information will be thankfully received.” ‘ 
oe ee eee 
—“The double barreled gun came safely to hand, express 
paid. You put it down at $45; I have just refused $50 for 
it. Iam now going for a rifle, the kind will depend on 
my success in getting upaclub, The paper is unexcep- 
tionable, and is worth the money without the prize. How 
do you manage it, to give a really gocd paper, and such 
handsome prizes?” St. Louis, "December 22. See Prize 
List of the Forest AND STREAM, 
