Florida and the Game Water-Birds of the Atlantic Coast and the Lakes of the United States / With a full account of the sporting along our sea-shores and inland waters, and remarks on breech-loaders and hammerless guns

by Robert Barnwell Roosevelt

A good dog must have intuitive quickness of thought and judgment; he must know enough to lie perfectly motionless when a flock is approaching; he must understand how to retrieve his birds judiciously, bringing the cripples first; he must have perseverance, endurance, and great personal vigor. A duck is cunning, and to outwit its many artifices and evasions the retriever must have greater shrewdness; it can skulk, and hide, and swim, and sneak, and he must have the patience to follow it, and the strength to capture it. Wonderful stories are told of the many exhibitions of what seems much like human reason, evinced by some of the celebrated retrievers.

But probably the rarest quality for a dog or man to possess, and the most necessary to both, if they would excel in field sports, is the power of self-restraint. To ask an animal, trembling all over with delirious excitement, to lie down and remain perfectly motionless during those most trying moments when the ducks are approaching and being killed, is to demand of him a self-control greater than would be often found in his master. Yet upon this quality in the dog depends the entire question of his value or worthlessness; if he makes the slightest motion, the quick eyes of the birds are sure to discern it; and if he bounces up at the first discharge, he will certainly destroy his master’s chance of using his second barrel, and perhaps upset him over the side of the boat.

It is to avoid the sharp eyes of the ducks that a black color for the dog has been condemned. Amid the yellow and brown reeds of the marshes, or upon the reflective surface of the open water, black, from its capacity for absorbing the rays of light, is visible at an immense distance. Yellow, brown, or grey are the best shades; and any color is preferable to black. Red is selected by the Southerners for their tolling dogs, but this is with the purpose of making them attractive.

Many persons conceive that a dark coat is warmer for an animal than white, an idea that is carried into practice in the ordinary winter dress of human beings; but it is refuted not only by the simplest principles of science, but by the natural covering of the animals that inhabit the cold climes of the north. The polar bear is clothed in white, while the southern bear is of a deep black; and many of the animals and some birds that pass the winter in the arctic regions, change their dress in winter from dark to grey or pure white.

Undoubtedly with a retriever the first point is to consider his protection against cold; plunging as he does at short intervals into water at a low temperature, and exposed when emerging to the still colder blasts of Æolus, he must be rendered comfortable as far as possible at the sacrifice of every other consideration. This is attained by the thickness more than the color of his coat; and the writer has always fancied, whether correctly or not, that curly hair is warmer than straight hair.

The matted coat of the Newfoundland dogs—the smaller breed being preferable by reason of size—is extremely warm, and where its color is modified by judicious crossing, is all that can be desired; while the instinctive intelligence, the devotion, faithfulness, docility, and interest in the sport, of these admirable animals, fit them in an extraordinary degree for wild-fowl shooting. Coming from the north and accustomed to playing in the water, they can, without danger, face the element in its coldest state; and whether it be to chase a stick thrown into the waves by their youthful human playmates, or to recover ducks shot by their sporting owner, they take naturally to all aquatic amusements.

Nevertheless, as has been heretofore remarked, although it is well to have a slight strain of the Newfoundland, no distinct breed is necessary to make a good retriever. Our ordinary setters are sometimes unsurpassable for the purpose; and any tractable dog, if well trained, will answer in a measure.

How different it is to stand in the narrow skiff among the tall reeds at early dawn, with the eager and expectant, though humble, associate, crouched in the bottom upon his especial mat, and there in the increasing light that paints the east with many changing hues, to single out the best chances from the passing flocks, and have your skill doubly enhanced by the intelligent cooperation of your companion; than to lie, cramped, cold, and suffering, all through the weary hours, stretched at full length upon your back with eyes staring up to Heaven and straining to catch a glimpse of the horizon over your beard or forehead; and occasionally to rise to an equally constrained posture that is neither sitting nor lying, and do your best to discharge your gun with some judgment at a passing flock of fowl! Who can hesitate in selecting the mode in which he will pursue the sport of wild-fowl shooting? Most of the favorite varieties of ducks, including many that are known among ornithologists as sea-ducks, fuligulæ, are found in the many scattered ponds, the shallow marshes, or the extensive inland seas of the great west; while the swans and geese are shot, the former along the larger rivers and lakes, and the latter in the corn-fields. It is true that the enormous flocks that collect in the lagoons and bays of the South are rarely seen; but the flight of small bodies or single birds is more continuous, and probably the total number even larger.

It is impossible to particularize localities as pre-eminent for this sport where so many are good; and the swamps, rivers, lakes, cultivated fields, and even open prairies of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Iowa, Nebraska, Dakota, Colorado, Minnesota, and Wyoming, and the Western country generally, abound in their seasons with various descriptions of wild-fowl. An English sportsman, who had spent many years in the West, gave it as his opinion that the best place for all varieties of sport in the world was Southern Minnesota.

Although the use of a light skiff is always desirable and adds enormously to the comfort of the shooter, circumstances will often arise that will deprive him of its use; and in such case he has no better resource than to don his long wading boots, and tramp through the shallow water until he comes to a favorable spot, perhaps the deserted house of a family of beavers; and there, perched upon its summit and concealed by the surrounding reeds, to resign himself to the inevitable inconveniences of his position. When his feet grow cold in spite of their india-rubber casing, and his muscles weary for want of rest, he will long for the dry skiff; and when he comes to “back” his load of game—consisting, if he is successful, of geese, canvas-backs, red-heads, mallards, blue-bills, widgeons, and perhaps a swan—across the muddy flats a mile or two to dry land, he will long for it still more intensely.