Shooting Notes
THERE is a big crop of quail and some partridges (ruffed grouse) in the vicinity of Green Pond, Morris county, N. J. The abundance of quail is due to the constant re-stocking of the preserve owned by Mr. Kinney of cigarette fame, which is located not far distant. Mr. Kinney also planted some English partridges on his place, several of which have been recently killed by local gunners.
Samuel Castles and Charles Hedden, of Newark, shot a few hours at Pine Brook, N. J., one day last week. They moved six snipe and two or three woodcock on the flats; and got several of them.
There are quite a number of quail on Bradford and Upshur Necks in Accomac county, Va., but land owners will not allow strangers the privilege of shooting, and save the birds for their friends. Before the New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Railroad made its ways down the eastern peninsula, this was the choice shooting ground of Bob Robinson and Ben West, of Brooklyn; the late Frank Palmer and the late Ben DeForest, and William Parks of this city. In those days thirty-five quail could be killed by one gun every day.
The Doughty boys on Hog Island, Va., are making preparations for a big season. There are more blinds stuck this season in the Virginia broadwaters than ever before known. Already the ducks have begun to come. Some one is baiting for black ducks in Cherry Creek Harbor, and as several strange boats have been noticed off Brant Hill, it is thought the Maryland night shooters contemplate a raid on the fowl, prior to working their way south. I have seen these fellows following their nefarious calling several times, and have seen how disastrous night shooting is in its effect to drive away fowl. The Hog Islanders are wild on the subject and threaten all sorts of things if they catch the "night shooters." It is my private opinion, publicly expressed, that they need not go far from home to catch some of the culprits who are engaged in the same low-lived business. I have seen some remarkable looking reflectors in several of the houses on the island.
It is rather unusual at this time of year to see so many jack curlew and willet as are now congregated on the bald marshes off the coast of Accomac county, Va. They make morning and evening trading flights, going north at daylight and returning about sundown. There are also some sandpipers and black-breast plover on the shoals at low tide, with which the oyster rocks are crowded at rising tides. Occasionally a flock of sickle-bill curlews string their way across the sinks to some favorite muddy creek bank in some wild and secluded marsh. As a rule the birds are wild and pay but little attention to stools. Two friends of mine have just returned from Burton's Bay, and they did not average over fifty birds a day between them. This is bad work for these marshes, and I have done much better myself in the same place in the dead of winter, when the majority of the birds had moved south. I remember seeing on Dec. 14, 1881, the day before the big freeze, more curlews and willet on Trout Channel Marsh than I have ever seen before or since in all my travels. It was too cold to lay in a battery, and I went on the marsh to walk black ducks up out of the little drains. The tide came up very high toward night and all the oyster rocks and bars were submerged. Birds coming from northern marshes began to collect on the big bald marsh in immense flocks. At last they all got together in one big gang, which, in the distance, looked like the rising of the a great sea fog. The flock was over two miles in length. Capt. John Ed. Mears, of Locust Mount, was with me, and although a gunner for many years on these waters, he never saw the like. One tail end of the flock swept by Bill Doughty, who was in his blind brant shooting, and he killed forty-four curlew out of the gang with his big 20lb. goose gun.
A little boy, name unknown, sold a woodcock to a friend of mine up in Rockland county the other day that had but one leg. People whose business it is to know where birds' legs ought to grow say the bird never had but one, the other was probably lost in the shuffle. I wanted my friend to allow me to publish his name and full particulars, but he was afraid, so he said, of having the boys down in the street get on to the story, and being called the "one-leg woodcock" by them for some time to come. This woodcock freak reminds me of the three-legged one now in possession of John Sutherland in Liberty street. It was shot some six years ago in Westchester county, N. Y. Unfortunately the bird was picked before the extra leg was discovered. It was attached to the bird near its vent. Instead of having four toes, three front ones and one hind one, as is customary with all well regulated woodcock, it had an additional toe in front. The nails on the toes of the extra leg were half an inch in length. Mr. Sutherland had the bird preserved in spirits.
The Chesapeake Bay duck shooting this season promises to be unusually good. From Havre de Grace I learn that there are a great many redheads and canvasbacks bedded on the flats. There is an abundance of feed, so that by the first of November when the season opens the lucky ones who own rigs in these waters will have some birds to shoot at. It is a great misfortune that the fine shooting of the upper Chesapeake should be so much disturbed by night gunners. In spite of what every one says to the contrary, I know there are big-guns at this time not far from Spesutia Island. It's about time the owners of the ducking shores made another raid.
It is not very often that Long Island affords good English snipe shooting, but on Saturday last a friend of mine killed eighteen birds in one cornfield adjoining Mecock Bay, near Bridgehampton.
On Friday last there was a big flight of yelpers in Shinecock Bay and Moriches; about 200 of these birds came to the Robbins in Fulton Market.
There are plenty of woodcock now in Connecticut, while the crop of grouse in Rockland and Green counties, in this State, seems to be even larger than was first anticipated.
Thousands of migratory ducks passed Barnegat Light on Sunday last bound for the waters of the sunny South.
THE WISE ACRE.
NEW YORK, Oct. 17.