At present we suffer more from improper modes of pursuit than from absolute scarcity of game. The habit of using “batteries” in the South Bay of Long Island, and locating them on the feeding or sanding-grounds, has resulted in frightening away the birds. Where, a few years ago, ten ducks stopped in the water adjoining that famous sand-pit, there can hardly be found one at present. After being disturbed on their feeding-grounds by murderous discharges from an unseen foe in their midst, they become alarmed and leave the locality altogether. To be sure, for a year or so, the number killed from that ingenious mode of ambush will be enormous; but it is at a terrible sacrifice of the supply, and will eventuate in ruin to those engaged in it. At present on Long Island it is hardly possible to obtain a decent day’s sport without using a “battery;” but in the South, along the Chesapeake and Potomac, where the use of these inventions has never been allowed, the ducks are as abundant as ever.
There is no meaner mode of shooting than from a battery. In attaining destructiveness, every idea of beauty, comfort, or sportsmanship is sacrificed. The shooter lies on his back in a species of coffin sunk to the level of the water, with his decoys near by; and whenever a flock approaches, he rises to a sitting posture and fires. He cannot leave his battery nor move it, nor hardly turn round in it, and is unable to retrieve his ducks without the aid of an assistant. It is an invention suited solely to the market-gunner, and utterly unfitted to the sportsman. Bad weather prevents its use altogether; and in a moderate breeze the water is apt to break over the narrow rim and destroy the comfort, if not absolutely endanger the safety, of the sportsman.
When ducks are scarce the confinement is wearisome; and when they are abundant the excitement, united to the awkwardness of position, often leads to terrible accidents. “Cribbed, cabined, and confined,” the duck-shooter lies for weary hours exposed to the cold winds of winter, unable to keep his blood in circulation by exercise, and is hardly remunerated by the sport; although, if money be his object, he may be paid by the commercial value of his game. It is this ignoble mode of warfare that, more than anything else, has brought discredit upon wild-fowl shooting; for the upland shooter, accustomed to the free motion and active exertion of his favorite pursuit, naturally feels disgusted at being thrust into a box scarcely large enough to contain his body, and which cramps his every motion.
At the South, where the sportsman shoots from behind a blind, and calls to his aid the courage and intelligence of his faithful “retriever” to recover his game, the walk to and from the stand warms his blood, and he can move around at will. In the West, where duck-shooting is to be had in perfection, the sportsman pushes his light and narrow boat through the weeds and lilies of the marshes, and has many a long chase after wounded birds that will bring into play his muscles, and send the circulation through his veins. Even in shooting through the “sneak boxes” of Barnegat Bay, there is much exercise and a certain amount of liberty of motion; but in the battery, a man is a mere death-dealing machine, expected to mind neither cold nor cramp, and to demand neither comfort nor pleasure.
One of the most necessary reforms in the game-laws would be the absolute prohibition of the use of a battery. At the South this was done by the good sense of the people; and many a stranger from Long Island, who was unaware of the customs of the country, and had brought with him his battery to teach the natives “New York tricks,” has been warned to move his quarters by the whistle of a rifle-ball skipping across the water. It is surprising that the gunners of the great South Bay did not long ago discover that their interest lay in discontinuing the use of this machine. For the first few years, perhaps, after its prohibition, they might not have as good success; but in time the birds would resume their old habits and renew their visits to what should be the paradise of both ducks and sportsmen. They all know and regret the diminution of wild fowl, and most of them are satisfied from what cause it arises; but as the immediate losses from a change would fall upon themselves heavily at first, they shrink from decided action.
If, however, the birds are to be retained, and prevented from gradually withdrawing, year after year, until they shall desert us in toto, the use of the battery must be prevented. When that is done, we shall soon again have such days as we once had in and about old Raccoon Beach, when sportsmen innumerable collected to welcome the advent of their prey; when the tale and song filled up the long evenings, and the ducks quacked their hosannas at early dawn; when every point was occupied by a happy sportsman, and every boat came home loaded with game.
The use of pivot-guns is another reprehensible practice that has been so earnestly condemned, even among market-gunners, that it has been in a great measure abandoned. Still, however, in some quiet bay of one of the great lakes of the West, where there is no one to observe the iniquity, or of a moonlight night on the Chesapeake, the poaching murderer, sculling his boat down upon an unsuspicious flock crowded together and feeding or asleep, will discharge a pound or two of coarse shot from his diminutive cannon; and wounding hundreds, will kill scores of ducks at the one fatal discharge. The noise, however, reverberating over land and water, scatters the tidings of the guilty act far and wide; and often brings upon the criminal detection and punishment. To avoid this the pivot-shooter will sometimes, as soon as he has fired, throw his gun overboard with a buoy attached to it, and if pursued, pretend he has used nothing but his small fowling-piece. The practice of pivot-shooting, however, has almost ceased, never having been extensively adopted; and has nothing whatever sportsmanlike about it, being a mixture of cruelty and theft.
Another mode of pursuing ducks, which is at the same time attractive, exciting, and injurious, is by the use of a sail-boat. Not only is there the excitement of the pursuit, the rushing down wind with bellying sail and hissing water—the crested waves parting at the prow and lengthening out behind in two long lines of foam—but there is the free motion and the pleasant breeze to stimulate the sportsman. This is really a delightful sport, combining the excitement of shooting with the exhilaration of sailing; but as it disturbs the flocks upon their feeding-grounds, as it gives them no rest during the noontide hours, when it appears that ducks—like all other sensible people—love to indulge in a quiet nap, it eventually drives them away; and not only makes them shy of the locality, but injures the sport of the point-shooter, who depends upon their regular flights for his success. It is not often very remunerative, but is uncommonly attractive, and is only condemned with great reluctance on proof of its injurious results.
Every one—whether the gentleman who, in search of health or pleasure, visits the muddy bays or sand-spits of our coast, or the market-gunner who has learnt naught of useful labor for many years but to handle skilfully his heavy double-barrel—every one, we say, who pursues wild-fowl, whether for sport or business, is interested in enforcing upon his friends and neighbors the necessity of discontinuing the use of the battery and pivot-gun. Although the results of the day’s shooting may be diminished for a time, they will both gain in the long run; and we shall once more see the crowds of geese, brant, and ducks stretching in interminable lines across the sky; and have them flying by the points where we hide, or dropping to our stools near by, as plenteously every day as we can now kill them, in exceptional cases, from the battery. When their feeding-grounds are undisturbed, their multitudinous hosts will again cover the waters of our bays, and hold their noisy consultations over the many theories and crotchets which are disputed in duck philosophy. Then the true sportsman will visit his favorite tavern, located conveniently at the edge of the salt meadows, certain, in the proper season, of having fair sport; and the willing bay-man will again reap rich and permanent harvests, either for his patron or himself.
Now a good bag is so rare that gentlemen seldom go to Long Island for duck-shooting, and the inhabitants lose a valuable custom in consequence; and although, by selecting a propitious occasion, the market-man sometimes still kills a great number, he experiences a vast majority of poor days. It is, therefore, the manifest interest of both classes to repress these unjustifiable and murderous modes of shooting, and to encourage, by all possible means, the return of wild-fowl to their former favorite haunts—the bays, lagoons, and inlets of our own beloved coast.