In the wilderness, it is true, where birds are abundant to excess, he may without blame supply his pot with cheeping grouse or wood-duck flappers, if he can offer hunger as an excuse; but not even there, unless driven by extremity, can he slay the parent of a brood that will starve without parental care. In the settled regions, no matter how great the provocation, the true sportsman will never forget the chivalric motto, noblesse oblige.
The close-times of the present statutes are not altogether correct; and in so extensive a locality as the United States, where diverse interests are to be considered, it is nearly impracticable to make the laws perfect. For instance, where quail are abundant, as in the South, there is no objection to killing them during the entire month of January; but, as at that period they are often lean and tough, and have to contend, in the Northern States, against dangers of the elements and rapacious vermin, with not too favorable a chance for life—it is undesirable, where they are in the least scarce, to continue the pursuit after December.
If it were possible to make a uniform law for the entire Union, and to enforce it everywhere, English snipe and ducks should not be killed at all during the spring. The latter at the time of their flight northward are poor and fishy; but if they can be slain in New Jersey, it is hardly worth while to protect them in New York. For every duck or snipe that passes towards the hatching-grounds of British America in the early part of the year, four or five return in the fall and winter. Could proper protection, therefore, be enforced, the sport in the latter season would be four times as great as in the former.
As matters stand, however, the seasons for killing game birds should be: For woodcock, from July fourth to December thirty-first; for ruffed and pinnated grouse, from September first—and quail from November first—to the same period, both days inclusive; for wood-duck from August first till they migrate southward. It is desirable to fix upon anniversaries or days that are easily remembered. Woodcock are often young and weak in early summer, and the three days gained between the first and the fourth of July are quite an advantage. Although the first brood of quail may be fully grown in October, a vast number of the birds are too small, and the brush is too dense and thick before the first of the ensuing month; whereas it is simply monstrous to slay pinnated grouse, put up by the panting, overheated pointer from the high grass of the western prairie, in the month of August, ere they can half fly. But the migratory birds of the coast—the waterfowl and snipe, the waders and plovers—may continue to be shot when they can be found, till their rapidly diminishing numbers shall compel a more sensible and considerate treatment.
The bay-snipe lead the advancing army of the game birds that have sought the cool and secluded marshes of Hudson’s Bay and the Northern Ocean to raise their young, and are hastening south from approaching cold and darkness to more congenial climes. Next come the beautiful wood-duck, and, almost simultaneously, the English snipe; then the swift but diminutive teal; after him the broad-bill or the blue-bill of the west; and then a host of other ducks, till the hardy canvas-backs and geese bring up the rear. From July, when the yellow-legs and dowitchers abound; throughout August, in which month the larger bay-birds are continuously streaming by; during September, when the English snipe are on the meadows and the wood-ducks in the lily-pad marshes of the fresh-water lakes; in October, when the teal and blue-bills are abundant in the great west; all through the fall and into winter, when the geese and canvas-backs arrive, the bayman finds his sport in perfection.
Many of the upland birds are disappearing; the quail is being killed with merciless energy, and his loved haunts of dense brush are cleared away from year to year; the woodcock can hardly rest in peace long enough to rear her young, and finds many of her favorite secluded spots drained by the enterprising farmer; the ruffed grouse disappears with the receding forest, and the prairie chicken with the cultivation of the open land. But although innumerable ducks, snipe, and plovers are killed every season, and by unjustifiable measures are driven from certain localities, their vast flights throughout the whole country—amounting to myriads in the west—are apparently as innumerable as ever.
From the first of August to the last of December they stretch athwart the sky from the Atlantic to the Pacific; and although in localities they may appear scarce, still constitute countless hosts. Were it possible to stand on some peak of the Rocky Mountains, and take in at a glance the vast stretch of heavens from ocean to ocean, with the moving myriads of migratory flocks, the mind would be astonished; and it would seem impossible ever to reduce their numbers. This is to a certain degree true; for so long as the lagoons of the South shall remain undisturbed, and the shores of the bays and rivers unoccupied to any great extent, this abundance of the migratory birds will continue.
But who can tell how long this will last? The methods of destruction are being perfected, the number of destroyers is increasing, until now the reverberation of the fowling piece accompanies the water-fowl from the rocky shores of Maine to the sandy coasts of North Carolina with the unceasing roar of threatened death. Twenty years ago, and “batteries,” as they are called, the sunken floats which are the most fatal ambushes of the gunner, were almost unknown south of Havre de Grace; now they are so abundant throughout the waters of North Carolina that the migratory bird is never out of ear-shot of them during his entire journey.
It would be better for the permanence of wild-fowl shooting never to use batteries where fair sport can be obtained from points or blinds. Ducks, geese, and, above all, swans have great faith in the sharpness of their eyes and the acuteness of their noses. Dangers that they can see they are rather tempted to scorn. They learn to shun points where man may conceal his murderous propensities, and are not to be inveigled by the apparent security of the deceitful likenesses of themselves which are innocently nestling near by. They seek the safety of the open water, and feed in the narrow bays and marsh-encompassed ponds during moonlight nights, if they belong to the tribes that are compelled to gain their living by grubbing at the bottom, with heads down and tails up. And no matter how they are harried in certain places, they feel safe in others close at hand. But the battery, sunken to a level with the water and hidden by the stand of decoys around it, placed on their favorite feeding grounds and in the broad bosom of the open bays, is too much for their courage or sagacity. To see a man, a merciless and murderous mortal, arise in all his horrid aspect from the depths of the sea, from the middle of a body of their fellows, is a terror that custom never stales. After a few such experiences, they lose faith in themselves, and, if possible, take flight to safer and more propitious realms.
To those who are accustomed to it, there is no more delightful method of shooting than from a battery, but a novice will find much trouble in becoming accustomed to the confined position and the awkwardness of motion. I remember, years ago, hearing Mr. Dominy, who then kept the famous sporting hostelry at Fire Island, say that if he was to shoot on a wager for his life, he would prefer to shoot from a battery rather than in any other way. To one not used to the narrow box and constrained position, lying on one’s back does not seem to be the most cheerful manner of killing any species of game. There is everything in habit, and certainly the exhilaration of watching the approach of the birds as they come nearer and nearer, and grow larger and larger, from mere specks on the horizon to the size of broad-bills, canvas-backs, or perhaps brant or geese, is hardly to be surpassed by any kind of sport. In most of the Southern waters the destructive nature of these machines is so well recognized, that non-residents are not permitted to use them, and the natives keep this method of wild-fowling to themselves.