Of course with a breech-loader the charge is withdrawn, and the cleaning apparatus may be forced through every evening, although this is unnecessary, as the dirt is rather a protection; and after the cleaning, whether of the muzzle-loader or breech-loader, the barrels should be well oiled both inside and out. If, however, the gun is to be left for a long time unused and exposed to salt air, a piece of greasy rag wound upon a stick may be thrust into the barrels to the bottom, and oil should be liberally applied to the exposed parts. Moreover, the locks, however well they may fit, will be injured after a while, and should be removed and examined occasionally. The size of shot used should be changed according to the season and character of the flight; in July, when the yellow-legs and dowitchers are the principal victims, No. 8 is abundantly large; but in August, when curlews, marlin, and willets are flying, all of which are able to endure severe punishment, No. 6 is preferable. Eley’s cartridges are often useful with grass-plover, although they ball so frequently that the majority of sportsmen have lost faith in them.
Favorable seasons for snipe, when heavy or repeated rains have saturated the meadows, and filled every hollow with stagnant pools of dirty water, are also favorable for mosquitoes. Persons who suffer from the bites of this pestiferous insect—and the difference between individuals upon this subject is remarkable—should prepare themselves with mosquito-nets and ill-scented oils, as they would for a visit to the wild woods; while those who are much affected by the sun should bring unguents with which to temper its intensity and assuage the pain that its burning rays inflict.
Shoes are the proper things for the feet, as boots become heated and uncomfortable; and a brown linen jacket with white flannel pantaloons, thick enough to resist the attacks of a mosquito, and with the necessary underclothes for an exceptionally cold day, constitute the most practical rig.
If the sportsman use a muzzle-loader—which he should not do if he can afford to buy a breech-loader—he must have a loading-stick which he can extemporize from his cleaning-rod by substituting a ramrod head for the jag. This he does by simply having a piece of brass of the proper size and shape to screw into the place of the latter. He should also have two guns, or he loses the chance at the returning flock, which is the most exciting, as it is often the most successful shot.
The powder should be coarse; the large grain of the ducking-powder being alone fitted to withstand the deleterious effects of the moisture that is an invariable concomitant of the salt atmosphere of the ocean.
One great difficulty that the writer has encountered in preparing this work, is a proper selection of names—the natural history of our country is popularly so little understood; to copy English names and apply them to creatures bearing a faint resemblance in general coloring, though neither in habits nor scientific distinctions, was so natural to the first immigrants, and the introduction of a proper appellation is so nearly impossible, that the confusion in nomenclature of our birds, beasts, and fishes is hardly surprising. This confusion existing in every department of natural history—confounding fish of all varieties, leaving birds nameless, or giving them too many names—culminates among the bay-snipe.
Although the bony-fish or mossbunkers of New York become the menhaden of the Eastern States, and king-fish are transformed into barb in New Jersey, and perch become pickerel in the west—there are rarely more than two names, and every fish has some designation; but with bay-snipe, after an infinite multiplication of names for certain species, others are left entirely unnamed. Many that are frequently killed are without a popular designation, and more still are called frost-birds, and meadow-snipe, and beach-birds—names that might with justice be applied to the entire class, and which are so utterly confused, that persons from different sections of the country do not know what others are talking about. To make matters worse, the scientific gentlemen have stepped in, and after indulging in plenty of bad Latin, have added fresh English appellations, more unmeaning and less appropriate if possible than the common ones.
From this mass of incongruities the writer has endeavored, while preserving the best name, to select the one in general use, bearing in mind that names are mere substitutes, and not descriptive adjectives. The name frost-bird or frost-snipe—which belongs to entirely different creatures—is applicable to every bird that appears after a frost, and as nearly a hundred varieties are in this category, it is not distinctive; the names meadow-snipe and beach-bird are ridiculous, but the latter, being applied to an unimportant class, is allowed to stand. The snipe that is herein called a krieker, or, as it may be spelled, creaker, which utters a hoarse, creaking note, is called in various places meadow-snipe—although most of the bay-birds haunt the meadows; fat-bird, whereas others are equally fat; and short neck, in spite of the fact that its neck is longer than some species; while ornithologists call it pectoral sandpiper, probably because it has a breast. So also with the brant-bird, which is called on the coast of New Jersey horsefoot-snipe, because it feeds on the spawn of the horsefoot; notwithstanding that the yellow-legs and several others do the same. The name, however, is not satisfactory on account of its similarity to the brant or brent-goose; and probably the scientific designation, turnstone, if it were at all in common acceptation, would be better. It is to be hoped these names will at some day be harmonized by universal, consent, and these pages will at least make mutual comprehension open the way for that desirable result. The sickle-bill, jack-curlew, marlin, willet, golden-plover, yelper, dowitcher, and krieker, are excellent; and the ring-tailed marlin, black-breast plover, yellow-legs, and robin-snipe, are at least descriptive. Were these generally accepted, a simple and tolerably accurate system of nomenclature would be obtained; and it has been my effort, while placing the preferable name at the head of the description of each variety, to collate all the other names that in any section of our vast territory are applied to the same bird. In this attempt I can only be partially successful; for the ingenuity of the American people in coining new names, added to a profound ignorance of ornithology, has produced a confusion that no one man can reduce to order.
Bay-snipe, except the plovers, kriekers, and a few others, are not considered delicate eating, contracting along the salt marshes a sedgy flavor; but on the shores of the western lakes, where the fresh water appears to remove this peculiarity, the yellow-legs and yelpers—which are often found in considerable numbers, and are called by the general appellation of plovers—are almost equal in tender,
