The Corn on the Cobb
Editor Forest and Stream:
From an article in your issue of March 23, on Shooting at Cobb's Island, I make the following extracts:
I. "On this sand-bank the snipe were feeding in countless numbers. * * * Creeping up on our hands and knees to within forty yards, we sighted along the fluttering mosaic looking floor and pulled trigger. Two long swaths of dead and dying marked the track of the shot. For every one killed there are two wounded, and we have a lively chase in the water after them, for the tide is rising and the crippled birds can swim like a duck, and they soon reach deep water and are safe from us. * * * We gather up the dead and pile them in great heaps."
II. "They * * * commenced to shoot the brant in the night time with the aid of lights and reflectors. Whole flocks can be slaughtered in that way. * * * A discharge of a heavy gun, and dozens are killed at a shot, many more are wounded, and the others, bewildered and scared, fly aimlessly about, and in the morning migrate to distant parts."
III. "Is there any fate too severe for such miscreants? Oh! that they could only be caught and tried by a jury of sportsmen. I wot well what the verdict would be."
To which of these two classes of hunters -- the "snipers" described in the first quotation, or the "branters" spoken of in the second, will the condemnation implied in the third best apply?
H. J. U.
BATAVIA, Ohio, March 26.
I have read with a great deal of interest the arguments on the grouse shooting question, "Wing Shooting vs. Treeing," and begin to wonder what kind of shooting is necessary to transform a sportsman into a pot-hunter or butcher. In the last number (March 23), is an account of some shooting done at Cobb's Island, telling how snipe were "mown down" on a sandbar, and for every one killed there are two wounded, to be caught by seahawks; how the dead are piled in great heaps (too numerous to count, I suppose). Then follows an account of how some "vile wretches shoot brant at night with a light," to the great disgust of sportsmen. In my estimation there is small choice; but I may not be a sportsman consequently ignorant of what real sport is. I have shot ruffed grouse from trees, but did it with a .32 calibre rifle. Shot them in the head or made a clean miss; none wounded to die at leisure. Called it sport, too. From some of the arguments used in the articles referred to ("Wing Shooting vs. Treeing"), I must be a pot-hunter, but still believe I am no worse than some of the sportsmen. I am responsible for the lives of a few ruffed grouse and squirrels every year, but never scattered feathers as the writer of that Cobb's Island article did. Would rather be excused.
F. U. R.
APPLETON, Wis.