THE GIFT OF 
 
 FLORENCE V. V. DICKEY 
 
 TO THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 THE DONALD R. DICKEY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 OF VERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY
 

 
 KRIDER'S 
 
 SPORTING ANECDOTES, 
 
 ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE IIABITS OK 
 
 CERTAIN VARIETIES 
 
 AMERICAN GAME 
 
 EDITED BY H. MILNOR KLAPP 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 A. MART, LATE CAREY & HART, 
 
 I 2 fi CHESTNUT STREET.
 
 Knu-red according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by 
 
 JOHN KRIDER, 
 
 the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Eastern 
 District of Pennsylvania. 
 
 j u. JUNES, PIUXTEH. 
 3 A Carter's Alley.
 
 3J3 
 
 TO 
 
 THE SPORTSMEN 
 
 AMERICA, 
 
 THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 
 
 BY THE A U Til OK 
 
 535174
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 In offering these unpretending pages to the 
 public, it is simply the wish of the author and 
 his editor to draw its attention more particu- 
 larly to American field sports, and the reader 
 will soon find, that, avoiding the tedium of a 
 regular treatise or manual, we speak right on, 
 with the hope to interest and amuse. If suc- 
 cessful in this, our point is gained.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAUL 
 
 Familiar Introductory remarks on the character of the Dog, 5 
 
 Snipe Shooting, - 40 
 
 Woodcock Shooting, 73 
 
 The Rice Bunting or Reed Bird, &c., - 113 
 
 The Grass Plover, - 118 
 
 The Bull-headed or Golden Plover, 123 
 
 Rail Shooting, 12( 
 
 Partridge Shooting, - loT 
 
 Duck Shooting, 218 
 
 Canvass-Back Duck, - - 21'.* 
 
 Red-headed Duck, - 221 
 
 American Widgeon, 222 
 
 Scaup Duck, 22") 
 
 Canada Goose, - 254 
 
 Pigeon-Match Shooting, 272 
 
 Field Dogs, - - 27*
 
 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 FAMILIAR INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ON THE 
 CHARACTER OF THE DOG. 
 
 IT has always seemed to us a thing worthy of 
 note that the dog alone, of the entire brute crea- 
 tion, should especially attach himself to man. 
 Many instances are, indeed, upon record where 
 animals of a different species have manifested an 
 extraordinary affection for particular individuals. 
 Among the Arabs, by whom the animal is hu- 
 manely treated, the horse stands pre-eminent in 
 this respect; and who has not read of the Cos- 
 sack's steed, which 
 
 " Obeyed his voice and came to call, 
 And knew him in the midst of all, 
 Though thousands were around, and night, 
 Without a star, pursued her flight." 
 
 This, which would seem sufficiently poetic 
 as related of the horse, is literally a matter of 
 fact with the dog, whom Byron, as every one 
 knows, has selected, in more instances than
 
 6 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 one, to satirize mankind. However, misan- 
 thropy apart, in sober prose it cannot be denied, 
 that from the moment Dash opens his eyes 
 on external things, he recognizes the presence 
 of man, and soon follows his footsteps as the 
 humblest and most devoted of his servitors. 
 Nay, many a sportsman has noticed the puppies 
 of a litter, not yet arrived at the momentous ninth 
 day, strive to lick the hand which caressed them, 
 and watched the superannuated pointer leave his 
 bed in the shade, and still cheerily constant to 
 his text, totter on to the field at the heels of his 
 master. Perhaps the reader has often been 
 amused, in the street, when observing the air of 
 grave importance with which one dog, after a 
 brief colloquy with another, will hurry on to join 
 his owner. There is something actually distress- 
 ing, too, in the anxiety manifested in the looks, 
 voice and actions of a lost dog. Superstition, as 
 usual, has appropriated to herself the prolonged 
 and melancholy howl, with which he' seems to 
 abandon himself to despair, when his search has 
 proved unavailing, and night, in a strange place, 
 settles down at last upon his houseless head. On 
 such occasions he will often seat himself on his 
 haunches beneath the nearest window, and, point- 
 ing his nose towards heaven, appal the ears of
 
 CHARACTER OF THE DOG. 7 
 
 the inmates with his boding and ill-omened cry. 
 One may readily imagine the effect produced in 
 the sick chamber, or at the family fire-side, by 
 these disheartening sounds. If, like the wander- 
 ing harper, he intends his distracting discord as 
 an appeal to the sympathies of the good people 
 within, it is almost superfluous to say that his 
 expectations are illy repaid, since we have no 
 doubt that the reader will agree with us that there 
 hardly exists, within the range of the census, that 
 super-excellent Samaritan, who has ever opened 
 his heart or his doors to a stray cur. The 
 cry, however, like that of the famishing wolf, 
 appears to be a mere ebullition of despair. Some 
 dogs, however, whose dispositions, we are inclined 
 to think, are slightly tinged with romance, are 
 much in the habit of serenading " the refulgent 
 queen of night," in this interesting way. In 
 general, though, be it said, the dog's star is his 
 master's eye, and he wisely leaves the celestial 
 orbs to poets, lovers and astronomers, as those 
 whom they most concern. We have never heard 
 that the dog of our North American Indian dif- 
 fers at all from his civilized brother in this last 
 respect, although, in accordance with the untu- 
 tored creed of his master, he might, with great 
 consistency, cast an occasional glance towards the
 
 8 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 happy hunting grounds, when game was espe- 
 cially scarce in the terrestrial forests. In large 
 cities, where the dog is seldom called upon to 
 fight, or even die, for his master, with a whim- 
 sical degree of apprehension he is observant to 
 share in his every humor, whether it be to chase 
 strange cats in the garden, dive for stones in a 
 horse-bucket, point a partridge in a basket, or, 
 semper re composita, to take a strut with the dan- 
 dies on the sidewalk. But there is one thing 
 which he drops his tail against, and therein con- 
 sists his claim to gentility he has a soul above 
 work. Travellers may tell you long stories about 
 the dogs of Labrador and Newfoundland, and 
 even in our own land you may occasionally hear 
 of a butter churn, a small threshing machine, or 
 something of that sort, turned by dogs ; but take 
 our word for it, that in these very instances, 
 which they make so much noise about, the animal 
 is reduced from a state of humble companionship 
 to that of absolute slavery, and that every mo- 
 ment's labor eked out of him is through pure fear 
 of the lash. The sledge dogs, by their incessant 
 snarling and fighting in gears, sufficiently show 
 their abhorrence of the system; let but a wild 
 reindeer cross their path through the snow, and 
 off goes the entire pack in full chase, regardless
 
 CHARACTER OF THE DOG. 9 
 
 of sledge or driver, from the incumbrance of the 
 last of which they, indeed, speedily rid them- 
 selves. We have heard it acknowledged in the 
 far west, where Tray has sometimes been set to 
 churn or to spin, that, like most other unwilling 
 servitors, if not closely watched, he is seldom to 
 be found when his services are most particularly 
 required. The man who would advocate the 
 propriety of placing a dog in a cart or a tread- 
 mill, deserves to be shunned by the entire canine 
 race ; and where, we would ask, is the- Pharisee 
 of such superlative leaven as to deny all sympa- 
 thy with that scarcely less noble being, whom 
 the proudest monarchs and mightiest minds of 
 the universe, in every age, have made their com- 
 panion? 
 
 What ! force Hark, Beppo, Towser and Dash 
 not to speak of Silver, Mountain and Blanche, 
 whom Shakspeare has immortalized -force these 
 to work ! Why, what would the dogs of Egypt, 
 who once had divine honors paid to them, say to 
 this? Reflect, gentle reader, how our Leather- 
 stocking that familiar and much admired crea- 
 tion of the genius which has recently died from 
 among us reflect how he would have looked, if 
 some pumpkin-headed squatter had demanded 
 the loan of his hound, to set in a rustic tread-
 
 10 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 mill. We think we see the indignant old hunter 
 grasping "Killdeer" like a vice, as, with back- 
 woods emphasis, he tells the oaf that "the thing 
 aire out of reason and agin all natur." When 
 your dog degenerates and becomes vicious, then, 
 if you are conscientiously opposed to capital 
 punishment, condemn him, if you please, to hard 
 labor ; but while he is equal to the sample of his 
 race, ennobled as it is by the unanimous decree 
 of mankind, for your sake, as well as his own, 
 treat him. accordingly. 
 
 We will now, with the reader's permission, 
 relate an example of the curious effect which this 
 forced derogation of character, once produced <m 
 the conduct of a respectable house-dog. 
 
 A gentleman was walking along the main street 
 of the fine old borough of German town, when he 
 was met by a large dog harnessed to a sort of 
 tilbury, in which was seated a diminutive invalid, 
 the son of a storekeeper in the place. The boy 
 held the lines in his hand, with an important 
 look on his pale face ; but the aspect of the dog 
 was sulky and malapropos, as if keenly conscious 
 of his degradation. With his tail down and his 
 ears back, he moved on slowly and unwillingly 
 enough, until a setter, which was in attendance 
 upon the pedestrian, came up, and halting on the
 
 CHARACTER OF THE DOG. 11 
 
 pike, cocked his ears, perhaps with concern at 
 the pitiful condition to which the unfortunate 
 custodian of the threshold was reduced. No 
 sooner had the sullen eyes of the latter fallen 
 upon the free and life-like figure of Beppo, than, 
 uttering a savage growl, he flew from the ele- 
 vated sidew-alk full at the other's throat, pitching 
 out the invalid, overturning the Tom Thumb 
 tilbury, and scouring along the road after the 
 innocent cause of the catastrophe, who, upon 
 being thus charged, as it were, by a chariot, fled 
 as if death were at his heels. Whether, in this 
 case, the grocer's dog imagined that he detected 
 something quizzical in the expression of the set- 
 ter's face, or was merely infuriated at the diffe- 
 rence of their respective conditions at the moment, 
 is a matter of doubt. The effect produced, how- 
 ever, was solely attributable to the presence of 
 the stranger's dog, since it appeared that the boy 
 had been daily in the habit of airing himself in 
 this way for some time previous. The fugitive 
 took sanctuary with our jovial host of the But- 
 tonwood, and the assailant, it concerns us to state, 
 received a severe threshing for his indirect 
 though outrageous exertions in favor of canine 
 freedom. 
 
 Dogs have been known to form offensive and
 
 12 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 defensive alliances with each other, which, like 
 those of the princes of the earth, are liable to 
 abrupt and disagreeable conclusions. 
 
 A physician of this city had in his stable a 
 terrier, which formed a league of this kind with 
 an individual of the same stock, belonging to a 
 sugar refiner in the vicinity. The chief end of 
 this alliance, it was observed, was to mount guard 
 at a corner of the court on which the stable was 
 located, and make battle with any thing in the 
 shape of perambulating dog flesh which might 
 happen to pass that way. Now, there lived, about 
 a square above the court, a Dutch baker, who 
 possessed a large dog, which regularly attended 
 his master as he went his morning rounds, with 
 "the staff of life" on his shoulder. This was a 
 quiet, sleek, well-intentioned animal, but a few 
 months out of the days of his puppyhood. His 
 name was Tim, and we can safely aver that he 
 was a dog of repute, harboring no evil designs of 
 any kind in his head; which, to tell the truth, 
 was very far from being the case with the two 
 terriers. 
 
 Time after time had the latter assailed and 
 beaten the baker's dog, and no redress could the 
 sufferer obtain, except, perhaps, when some 
 vagrant boy, in his zeal for fair play, would shy
 
 CHARACTER OF THE DOG. 13 
 
 a stone at the heads of the two bullies. The peo- 
 ple of the neighborhood were too busy to attend 
 to the quarrels of dogs ; so that, unless the fates 
 interfered in some unforeseen way, there really 
 appeared to be no salvation for Tim, since, in the 
 ordinary course of things, there was every pros- 
 pect that the breath of life was eventually to be 
 worried out of his nostrils. 
 
 Months passed away, and the dog increased 
 in size and strength, but the evil under which he 
 had so long howled was by no means abated. So 
 far from it, indeed, that he was now obliged to 
 leave the baker every morning at the first street 
 above the court, and make the circuit of the 
 square to escape the expectant fangs of these two 
 sons of Cerberus. 
 
 We have no doubt that this troubled Tim 
 exceedingly, for a close observer of these saga- 
 cious animals will tell you, that if there is any 
 thing which a faithful dog takes a praiseworthy 
 pride in, it is in appearing to the best advantage 
 in the eyes of his master. It is but fair to state 
 that the two tyrants sometimes engaged in terri- 
 ble combats with strange dogs, and that, so far as 
 we can learn, they invariably came off victorious. 
 No doubt these desperate contests, witnessed from 
 afar, struck additional terror into the heart of 
 Tim.
 
 14 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 However, it so happened, that upon a certain 
 New Year's day, as the doctor and the sugar 
 refiner were conversing in the street, they saw 
 the baker coming towards them, with his sleek, 
 black dog behind him. The two tyrants, as 
 usual, were sitting at the corners of the court, 
 on the qui vive the bigger, w r hose name was 
 Flame, ensconced on a fire-plug, and the lesser, 
 who was called Smoke, watching under a lamp- 
 post. The name of the court, we had for- 
 gotten to state, was Concord Place, which was 
 somewhat at variance with the character of its 
 guardians, although Relief alley, a narrow pas- 
 sage directly opposite, was no misnomer, so far 
 as it is connected with the anecdote, inasmuch 
 as it had often saved Tim, at need, from the teeth 
 of his determined assailants. 
 
 "Now," said the doctor, "let us watch the 
 motions of these three dogs." 
 
 "I have often noticed them before," said the 
 other, " and the baker's will certainly leave him 
 at the next street." 
 
 But whether it was that the evil had arrived 
 at that pitch at which endurance ceases to be a 
 virtue, even in a dog, or that the day being the 
 first of the year, Tim was determined to begin it, 
 more magistri, with a new talley, is open to free
 
 CHARACTER OF THE DOG. 15 
 
 discussion; we only, as historians, faithfully 
 chronicle the fact, that, with head and tail erect, 
 deviating not a hair's breadth from his route, 
 Tim sturdily stuck at the Dutchman's heels. 
 
 The two tyrants bristled their spines, erected 
 their cropt ears, and waited for the moment to 
 pounce upon him. The baker stopped at a cus- 
 tomer's door, delivered his bread, and passed on; 
 Tim followed; Flame glanced at Smoke, and, as 
 was the rule of warfare observed by the bellige- 
 rents, the latter advanced to commence the on- 
 slaught, nothing doubting of an easy victory. 
 
 But the instant that he came sufficiently near, 
 Tim, the late meek and gentle disciple of endu- 
 rance, savagely seized him by the back, and lift- 
 ing him clear from the ground, shook him in a 
 manner which, however delightful to the doctor, 
 must have been as disagreeable as unexpected to 
 him. 
 
 11 Served him exactly right," said the sugar 
 refiner, gruffly, while the doctor cried encore ; 
 and a quick eye, accustomed to read the physi- 
 ognomies of quadrupeds, might have noticed 
 something of unpleasant surprise in the looks of 
 the chief tyrant. Nevertheless, quickly descend- 
 ing from his post of observation, he boldly ad- 
 vanced to the rescue of his comrade, who was no
 
 16 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 match for Tim, now that his ire was fully awa- 
 kened. 
 
 The beholders were now all expectation to see 
 what the baker's dog would do in this emer- 
 gency. The result was not long in doubt; for, 
 as Flame approached, Tim gave Smoke a last 
 severe shake, which effectually settled him for 
 the nonce, and meeting his chief assailant hall 
 way, grappled him with a fury, which, as he was 
 really the stronger dog of the two, landed him on 
 his back in the kennel, in a moment." Smoke, 
 beholding this with increased dismay, fled in 
 inglorious haste, through Relief alley, leaving the 
 field to the two remaining combatants, who 
 fought vigorously for a few minutes longer, the 
 one loath to lose his ancient supremacy, and the 
 other determined to provide anew for the contin- 
 gencies of the future. At length the scale ot 
 victory turned the doctor's dog cried miser ecor- 
 dia; and Tim, after fairly vanquishing the two 
 redoubtable tyrants, trotted on, like a knight- 
 errant of old, to rejoin the baker's banner. 
 
 "Now," said the doctor, "that dog has taught 
 us a lesson, which the crowned heads of Europe 
 might read with advantage." 
 
 "Yes," answered the other; and he must have 
 premeditated the action, for, to my certain know-
 
 CHARACTER OF THE DOG. 17 
 
 ledge, nothing could have previously induced 
 him to pass that court when your dog or mine 
 was in sight." 
 
 "It looks very like the reasoning power, I con- 
 fess," said the doctor; " but see, here comes your 
 dog back." 
 
 The most curious part of the affair now occur- 
 red; for as Smoke came nigh to Flame, for the 
 purpose, no doubt, of comparing injuries, the 
 latter, who was licking his wounds, instantly 
 flew upon him, and, without paying the least 
 regard to their former relations, inflicted upon 
 him a tremendous mauling. At this sight the 
 physician, unwilling to lose his professional gra- 
 vity in the street, started instanter for his office ; 
 while the sugar refiner, albeit not possessed of so 
 quick a sense of the ludicrous, retreated to a 
 counting room in a huge smoky building across 
 the way. The alliance was, however, dissolved, 
 and the two discomfitted tyrants were never seen 
 together from that instant. 
 
 In this anecdote, for the truth of which we can 
 vouch, we have strikingly displayed, first, a mu- 
 tual understanding, resulting in a regular alli- 
 ance for the purpose of aggressive warfare ; next, 
 endurance, amounting almost to abject cowardice, 
 on the part of a third dog ; then a noble resolu-
 
 18 KRIDEIVS SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 tion to resist oppression to the last; and, lastly, 
 a violent dissolution of the league, consequent 
 upon the signal defeat of the two tyrants. 
 
 We will now relate a few examples of the 
 inveterate pertinacity with which dogs that have 
 once worried sheep, seize every opportunity of 
 indulging, by stealth, in their flagitious inclina- 
 tions; of the cunning which they display in 
 endeavoring to elude detection, and of the arti- 
 fices which they make use of, to induce other 
 better disposed individuals to join them in their 
 marauding expeditions. These have been long 
 known to the world, and still furnish a favorite 
 theme, on a winter's night, at the farmer's fire- 
 side. 
 
 Not a villager but has his say on the subject ; 
 not a herdsman but can add his woful experience 
 of the slaughter. Sixty, seventy, and even a 
 hundred sheep, worried in a single night, have 
 been the astounding effects of this destructive 
 propensity. In parts of the country where large 
 flocks are raised, the dog, as representing his 
 race, figures full as often in the imagination of 
 the youthful grazier on the prongs of a good steel 
 pitchfork, as he does, when arrayed in his glory, 
 as "honest Tray" or "faithful Towser," of the 
 school book.
 
 CHARACTER OF THE DOG. 19 
 
 - Short shrift is accorded to the robber, when 
 caught red-footed and in the act, or tracked from 
 the scene of blood, through the tell-tale snow, to 
 the unconscious homestead. 
 
 Vain are the entreaties of the house-wife or 
 children, if, indeed, they find voices to plead for 
 the midnight assassin, who, apart from his secret 
 acts of villainy, may have been a very serviceable 
 animal. The master himself has little to say, 
 since slay the dog or pay for the sheep is the 
 grim alternative. The axe, the rope, or the fowl- 
 ing piece, settles the matter on the spot; while 
 the very porch, which has so long sheltered the 
 culprit, seems half aghast with silent horror. 
 
 The propensity, which is chiefly confined to 
 curs and mongrels, undoubtedly descends from 
 the wild state of the race, along with other pecu- 
 liarities of less import, common to the entire spe- 
 cies; such as making lairs in out of the way 
 places, hiding bones and surplus food in the 
 earth, taking solitary journeys at night, sometimes 
 to visit an acquaintance, but more frequently to 
 hunt up mischief. 
 
 A dog has been known to leave his home after the 
 family had retired, and go to a farm-house several 
 miles distant, to join a comrade; after some pre- 
 liminary snuffing and capering on the porch, the
 
 20 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 two have started for a third farm, six miles from 
 the first, and worried sheep. In this instance 
 each animal was found in his house before sun- 
 rise, and it was only by their tracks in the snow 
 that their misdeeds were brought home to them. 
 
 All this reminds us strongly of the wolf. The 
 following incident, said to have occurred many 
 years ago, in the state of Virginia, west of the 
 Blue Ridge, bears a still closer comparison with 
 the deeds of that wily and ferocious animal. 
 
 A storekeeper, in a village in that part of the 
 country, possessed a remarkably intelligent dog, 
 of the mixed Poodle and Newfoundland stock. 
 He was of service to his master in guarding his 
 property, and had been taught to do many useful 
 things, which had become the talk of the country 
 side. He would convey parcels home to a cus- 
 tomer, carry his master's boots to the shoemaker, 
 search diligently for any thing which had been 
 lost in the fields or the roadside, patiently watch 
 an article to which his attention had been directed, 
 and really seemed to comprehend any command 
 which was given him. 
 
 Having been well cared for, in spite of the 
 cross, he had attained an extraordinary size, and 
 was possessed of great activity for so heavy an 
 animal. His coat was coarse and heavy; and, in
 
 CHARACTER OF THE DOG. 21 
 
 allusion to its tawny color and something of mag- 
 nanimity in his looks, he was called Lion. Of a 
 mild, peaceable disposition, though brave as his 
 royal namesake, he was a favorite with all visit- 
 ors to the store, and only an object of terror and 
 dislike to thieves and marauders. His master 
 had refused large offers for him ; and at the period 
 to which we particularly refer, he was in the 
 very prime of his days. 
 
 About five miles north-west of the village and 
 three from the main road, was a track of hilly 
 land, known in the township as the Hampton 
 farm, a large portion of which was devoted to the 
 rearing of sheep. 
 
 The Hampton farm had, at different periods, 
 suffered, as was supposed, from depredations of 
 wolves, which, though becoming scarce in the 
 forests of the vicinity, were still occasionally to 
 be met with. 
 
 For more than a year not an individual had 
 been shot in the township; nevertheless, sheep 
 were still worried, from time to time, and suspi- 
 cion at last fell upon the dogs of the neighbor- 
 hood. But the strictest scrutiny failed to detect 
 a single plague spot; and, accordingly, the whole 
 corporation of curs was pronounced to be sound . 
 
 The charge then reverted to the wolves; but,
 
 22 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 though traps were set on the hills, and a watch 
 kept, no signs of a wolf could be perceived. 
 
 A few nights after vigilance had been relaxed, 
 a sheepcot was broken into, and a number of the 
 flock either slain outright or so mangled as to 
 render it necessary to put the knife to their 
 throats. 
 
 The grazier and his men were greatly enraged 
 at this, and a price of twenty dollars a large 
 sum for the neighborhood was forthwith set 
 upon the depredator's head. 
 
 From the circumstance of there being no snow 
 upon the ground at the time, it was, of course, 
 impossible to track him; but a close inspection 
 of the premises established the fact, that the ani- 
 mal was alone and of unusual size. From this 
 the conclusion was arrived at that it was a wolf, 
 which had its den at a great distance, most pro- 
 bably in the mountains at the foot of which the 
 farm was located. 
 
 Several good hunters turned out with their 
 dogs, but utterly failed to strike the trail, although 
 the search was continued for several days. At 
 last, however, it so chanced that as one of these 
 men was crossing a piece of waste land between 
 the sheephills and the main road, an hour or two 
 before dawn, he saw, by the waning light of the
 
 CHARACTER OF THE DOG. 03 
 
 moon, an animal, which he immediately conjec- 
 tured to be a wolf, rising an elevation on his left, 
 at a long, loping pace, making, it appeared, for a 
 run about two hundred yards distant. 
 
 The man stopped and cocked his rifle, but 
 having no dog with him his own having been 
 worn out with the previous day's run prudently 
 forbore to fire so long as there existed a doubt 
 of his being able to sight, a mortal part. The 
 creature passed him at full speed, directing its 
 course for the run, whither the hunter cautiously 
 followed. He soon perceived that it had broken 
 the ice, and halted in the water, and under 
 cover of inequalities in the ground, he was ena- 
 bled to steal, unperceived, within good covering 
 distance. Taking deliberate aim, he pulled the 
 trigger, and the brute, leaping up with a loud 
 yell, dropped dead on the bank. The hunter 
 carefully reloaded his rifle, loosened his knife in 
 its sheath, and, with his finger at the guard of 
 his piece, slowly advanced to the spot; when, 
 lo ! instead of a grey wolf, to his utter amaze- 
 ment, he immediately recognized, even by the 
 imperfect light, the lifeless but still quivering 
 carcass of the storekeeper's favorite dog. 
 
 After his astonishment had a little subsided, 
 he took off the scalp, and leaving the body where
 
 24 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 it fell, made the best of his way to the grazier's 
 house. 
 
 The body of the recreant, suspended by the 
 neck in a wagon, was driven in triumph down 
 to the village, and subsequent inquiries left not 
 a lingering doubt that Lion, with all his remark- 
 able qualities, was, after all, but a wolf in dog's 
 habiliments. 
 
 It was remembered that at certain periods he 
 had refused his food, and appeared sleepy and 
 cross; and, upon comparing dates, the parties 
 concerned discovered that these were the very 
 days after the havoc had been committed. 
 
 He was actually engaged in washing the blood 
 of six sheep from his body when the hunter shot 
 him ; and, upon being satisfied of this, the whole 
 village, with the bereaved storekeeper at their 
 head, while they could not help deploring the 
 end of so fine an animal, sang Te Deum over the 
 fall of so accomplished a villain. 
 
 The honest hunter received his reward, and 
 was ever afterwards known by the soubriquet of 
 " Sampson," inasmuch as it was he who slew 
 the Lion. 
 
 All half-grown puppies, from a natural fond- 
 ness for mischief, which instigates them to tear 
 a hat or a shawl to shreds, and to pursue any
 
 CHARACTER OF THE DOG. 05 
 
 object that flies from them, have a disposition to 
 chase sheep. A single timely correction is suf- 
 ficient to cure this; but when a dog once 
 indulges in sheep killing by stealth, the chain 
 becomes an imperfect check upon the habit, and 
 it is advisable, in all cases, to subject him to far- 
 mer's law. A popular English writer has said: 
 "in the human mind, ill regulated, there is a 
 dark desire for the forbidden;" the same remark, 
 in certain cases, is applicable to the dog. Among 
 all the instances which have come under our 
 notice, we remember but one in which the ani- 
 mal was influenced by necessity, and not from 
 choice. The nearer the dog approaches to purity 
 in stock, the nobler is his character, and the less 
 he is addicted to evil ways. 
 
 We have never heard the clean bred pointer 
 accused of sheep killing. The setter is not so 
 free from taint. Indeed, he has been known, in 
 one instance, at least, to forsake his professional 
 business and assail a flock of sheep, which has 
 come in his way in the course of a day's sport. 
 This dog, said to have been an imported English 
 stock, unaccountably left his master, in the 
 stubbles, and a few minutes afterwards was 
 actually seen, by the proprietor of the land, 
 throttling sheep in an adjoining field. The man
 
 26 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 set off to his house for the gun, and during his 
 absence, the dog, recalled by his master's whistle, 
 returned to his side, ranged out, and pointed ; 
 then stealing away, while the shooter was 
 charging, went back to his nefarious work, just 
 as the avenger of innocence, armed with one of 
 those long-stocked, old-fashioned pieces, which 
 so often sent death into the British ranks in the 
 days of '76, made his timely appearance upon 
 the scene. The ancient revolutioner was 
 promptly levelled, and, of course, the malefactor 
 died the death. 
 
 He was in his third year, and, as far as could 
 be ascertained, this was his first transgression. 
 
 We have heard of another case, where a set- 
 ter, suspected of a similar piece of atrocity, was 
 penned up for the night with a pugnacious old 
 ram, who, it was supposed, would not fail to kill 
 or cure him before morning. 
 
 The supposition was ill-founded, however, 
 for at daylight the patriarch of the flock was 
 found stark and stiff, with his throat terribly 
 torn, while the setter, wholly uninjured, was 
 wagging his tail to get out. 
 
 There is a loping dog, a cross between the 
 pointer and setter sometimes rough and some- 
 times smooth which we would caution our 
 young readers to have nothing to do with. There
 
 CHARACTER OF THE DOG. 27 
 
 is a taint of the hound or cur in his back stock ; 
 he has no style in his hunting, is occasionally 
 sullen and ferocious, displays comparatively 
 little affection for his master, and often proves 
 to be an inveterate sheep-killer. 
 
 Mr. Krider once owned a dog of this descrip- 
 tion, which was possessed of no good qualities, 
 except an excellent nose and great steadiness on 
 his point. He was gaunt, coarse:coated, had a 
 gloomy and reserved air, as if constantly brood- 
 ing over his misdeeds, and showed so little con- 
 cern for his master's interests as to be constantly 
 snarling and snapping at his customers. Being 
 unwilling to slay the brute, and supposing that 
 his temper was tried in the store, his owner pre- 
 sented him to one of his workmen. In a few 
 days he bit the man's wife, when his new master 
 incontinently discharged a load of buckshot in 
 his breast, and dismissed Growler to the shades 
 forever. Some time after his exit, the farmer 
 from whom he had been purchased, acknow- 
 ledged that he had strongly suspected him of 
 destroying sheep. 
 
 What a contrast to these renegades does the 
 well-known shepherd's dog of the old world 
 present ! His instinct, said to be superior to all 
 other varieties, is solely directed to the preser- 
 vation of the flock.
 
 28 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 How faithfully, how completely, he fulfils the 
 duties of a guardian, the reader is, doubtless, 
 well aware. In the vast fazendas, or cattle 
 estates, of southern Brazil, where the flocks have 
 a multitude of enemies, two dogs are considered 
 sufficient to shepherd a thousand sheep. But 
 these dogs, as soon as whelped, are suckled by 
 a ewe ; no food is given to them ; at night they 
 are shut up in the fold; during the day they 
 accompany the flock to the field ; and when full 
 grown, instinctively assume the office of its 
 guardian and protector. While the flock is 
 grazing, the vigilance of the guardian, directed 
 alike against the hordes of wild dogs, which 
 infest the plains, and the birds of prey, which 
 pick out the eyes of the lambs, is argus-eyed 
 and unceasing. When a ewe lambs in the 
 field, and the lamb is too weak to follow its 
 mother, one dog will remain for some time beside 
 it; if he finds that it is still unable to walk, as 
 evening draws near, he carefully takes it in his 
 mouth and carries it home to the fold. 
 
 They have the same wild and melancholy 
 aspect, and the same indisposition to associate 
 with strange dogs, which distinguishes the shep- 
 herd's dog of the Alps and the Pyrenees. 
 
 Here the naturalist has a grand picture for 
 contemplation and study, for here we have ex-
 
 CHARACTER OF THE DOG. 29 
 
 hibited, in a curious light, two traits which most 
 ennoble the dog fidelity and courage. No\v to 
 shift the portrait. 
 
 Some of our readers will remember to have 
 noticed, a year or two since, three dogs, without 
 masters, wandering together about the streets 
 of the city sometimes seen lying, side by side. 
 on a door step, or in the shade of a garden wall ; 
 sometimes foraging in the alleys and empty 
 market houses ; but from their deformed appear- 
 ance, constant companionship, and absolute dis- 
 connection with man, always impressing the 
 mind of the beholder with a feeling of desolation 
 strangely foreign to the scene. One, a female, 
 with a broken limb, curiously distorted, was a 
 gaunt, hollow-eyed brute, upon whose infirmi- 
 ties the others seemed to attend, as we observed 
 that she was always the first to move on after a 
 halt; another, an old mongrel mastiff, had lost 
 his upper lip, which gave him a very unsightly 
 look ; but the third was perfect in his parts a 
 meek, mild-eyed cur, who appeared to have 
 joined the two misanthropes because he had been 
 fairly forsaken by the rest of the world. 
 
 There was something strongly expressive of 
 apathetical indifference to the beings around 
 them, in the aspect of the two first. Strictly
 
 30 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 shunning the society of their race, they seemed 
 an isolated community in the midst of strangers. 
 The human voice, no matter how kindly tem- 
 pered, produced no visible effect, except to make 
 them move listlessly on. The last would acknow- 
 ledge sympathy with man, by wagging his tail 
 when spoken to ; but no artifice could induce 
 him to loiter behind, when his companions had 
 once resumed their way. 
 
 Some mysterious feeling appeared to bind 
 them inseparably together. They never dis- 
 agreed, and were always in good condition. We 
 have been assured, by a gentleman of the highest 
 respectability, that his family have repeatedly 
 seen the last, when food was offered him, quietly 
 go and deposit it at the feet of his friends. 
 
 And thus, for several successive seasons, the 
 strange trio were seen in various parts of the 
 crowded city always together, and always by 
 themselves lodging, no one cared where, and 
 eventually disappearing, no one knew how.* 
 
 * One fact, which had nearly escaped our memory, while it 
 proves that even the maternal instinct did not interfere with their 
 bond of attachment, goes to show that the fern ale must, at the period 
 referred to, have had some place of shelter. The last time we saw 
 them, her appearance indicated that she had littered but a few 
 days previous; but where her whelps were concealed, or where she 
 rejoined her companions on their daily rounds, we are unable to 
 say.
 
 CHARACTER OF THE DOG. 31 
 
 We have no comments to offer upon this sin- 
 gular alliance. Bulwer, in his " Children of 
 Night," makes Messrour, the immortal, say, 
 that in a period of five thousand years, spent in 
 the study of man, he had not yet discovered the 
 mysteries in the heart of a boor ; how then, shall 
 we attempt to pry through that impenetrable 
 veil which the Creator of all things, in his Om- 
 niscence, has placed between man made after 
 his own image, and the brutes over which he 
 has given him sway? 
 
 Dogs sometimes manifest a taste for the sweets 
 of liberty in rather a whimsical way. 
 
 A friend of ours once owned a beautiful setter, 
 who, unfortunately, preferring a wilderness to a 
 garden, uprooted rose-bushes, grubbed up gera- 
 niums, tore down grape vines, and made bone 
 depositories of strawberry beds. He was, of 
 course, put on chain. On the first opportunity 
 he disappeared, and for weeks nothing was heard 
 of his whereabouts. At last they found him in 
 the street, with a collar on his neck, bearing the 
 name and residence of a new owner. An expla- 
 nation ensued, when it was discovered that he 
 had attached himself to the person in question, 
 with whom he had been residing ever since his 
 disappearance, and in whose company he had
 
 32 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 repeatedly passed his old master's residence, 
 without manifesting the least signs of recogni- 
 tion. Indeed, from his apparent indifference to 
 all parts of the city, and his off-hand way of 
 domiciliating in his new quarters, it had been 
 supposed that he had strayed away from some 
 stranger, en route to a distant part of the 
 country. He was again chained to his old dog- 
 house, and, in the course of time, again escaped. 
 A month elapsed, and his disconsolate master, 
 while in the act of leaving Mr. Krider's store, 
 
 o 
 
 situated on the north-east corner of Second and 
 Walnut streets, between the two principle mar- 
 ket houses of the city, again encountered his 
 lost property, in excellent condition this time 
 hand and glove with a butcher's boy, who was 
 carrying home a basket of meat. 
 
 Our friend at once stopped short, planting 
 himself before the bulkhead, directly in the 
 dog's way. 
 
 The animal passed the critical spot with the 
 utmost nonchalance, and was wending his way 
 to parts unknown, when his master, provoked 
 as well as amused with the cut direct, pro- 
 nounced, in a voice of thunder, the awful word 
 "Mart!" 
 
 "I really thought," said he, in relating the anec-
 
 CHARACTER OF THE DOG. 33 
 
 dote, "the dog would have sunk down through 
 the bricks. It was laughable to notice the rueful 
 countenance of the scapegrace, as he crouched 
 on the pavement, with a slight twitch of his tail, 
 one eye fixed imploringly on me, and the other 
 turned towards the boy, over whose chubby face 
 was beginning to steal the conviction that they 
 two must part. The affair reminded me strongly, 
 at the moment, of two line's in one of Scott's 
 border ballads, which may thus be parodied : 
 
 The conscious cur fell to the ground, 
 
 And inly muttered, 'found! found! found !' " 
 
 It is now some years since Mart slipped his 
 collar in toto, for he continued in his vagrant 
 habits to the last, at one time attaching himself 
 to a rigger in Reed street, and upon another to 
 a recruiting sergeant of marines. Influenced 
 by his impatience of restraint, he may, possibly, 
 have gone off to join the Mormons. 
 
 His master, with a pertinacity almost as hu- 
 morous, insists upon it that he will yet turn up, 
 when least expected, and is yearly in the habit 
 of visiting the menagerie, in the hopes of finding 
 him attached to a caravan. 
 
 This dog was of hardy constitution, a great 
 ranger, and uniformly travelled a fast gait. 
 
 Dogs are a superstitious race. We have seen
 
 34 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 them tremble and skulk from the sight of their 
 shadows moving on the wall. Like horses, they 
 are subject to violent paroxysms of fright. We 
 have heard of a watch-dog that was frightened into 
 convulsions by the sudden apparition of a man 
 in a white coat ; and the most curious exhibition 
 of mortal fear which we ever witnessed, was 
 consequent upon the introduction of an Isle of 
 Sky dog to a hideous Paraguay ape. 
 
 Dogs dream. We have seen the animal start 
 on its legs from an uneasy slumber, and bark 
 vaguely, yet vehemently, as if at some object in 
 the shadow land. On being spoken to it ceased 
 at once, and, whining and mumbling, again ad- 
 dressed itself to sleep. No doubt can be enter- 
 tained of the fact that, in some degree, at least, 
 their " lives are two-fold," and that they some- 
 times re-enact in sleep the drama of their waking 
 hours. 
 
 A merchant of this city was possessed of a 
 poodle, which for years had been in the habit of 
 bringing him his boots at a certain hour in the 
 morning, preparatory to their usual walk to the 
 counting room. The dog usually slept at the 
 foot of the staircase, at the second landing of 
 which was an entry, leading to his master's bed- 
 chamber.
 
 CHARACTER OF THE DOG. 35 
 
 The latter was once aroused, at the dead hour 
 of night, by a strange scratching at the door, 
 which being cautiously opened, old Hugo walked 
 slowly in, with his eyes wide open and a boot in 
 his mouth. He gravely deposited this at the 
 merchant's feet and started for its fellow, but, 
 upon being called back and reproved, seemed at 
 once to comprehend his mistake. 
 
 He then took up the boot, and as the voice of 
 the watchman sounded the hour, looking ridicu- 
 lously enough, sneaked down stairs to bed again. 
 
 This is the only case of somnambulism in the 
 brute creation, which we remember to have 
 heard of. 
 
 The same person was afterwards attacked by 
 a fit of the gout, which confined him to his house 
 several weeks. 
 
 On the morning succeeding the attack the 
 boots appeared in his chamber, as usual; the 
 invalid pointed to his swollen feet, swathed in 
 flannel and resting upon pillows, whereupon the 
 .poodle, mistaking his meaning, flew furiously at 
 the bandages, and commenced tearing them off, 
 giving the unfortunate sufferer the most exquisite 
 agony in his well-meant but injudicious attempts 
 to remove the embargo on the boots. 
 
 But to come nearer home. Observe your dog
 
 36 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 when he feeds hew his tail goes and his eyes 
 pour out thankfulness ! At every mouthful he 
 looks up to show his gratitude. We will venture 
 to say that few Christians feel a livelier sense of 
 devotion at their meals. If he indulges in any 
 mirth at his dinner, it is all of a grateful order. 
 The hand which feeds him is his divinity, and, 
 of course, he looks no higher in returning his 
 thanks. 
 
 Turn now to his distant connexion, the cat. 
 How she growls, like a tiger over its prey ! Mark 
 how she gorges, only purring and looking with 
 fierce eyes for more when the last morsel is 
 finished. After that, she washes her whiskers 
 with a world-wise air, and the entire line of Adam 
 is nothing to her until she grows hungry again. 
 
 There is a deal of point, after all, in the juve- 
 nile line : 
 
 "Behold Miss Pussy! how happy she looks!" 
 
 We have a sort of reverence for the authority 
 of the little book quoted from. 
 
 It is ever associated in our mind with the per- 
 son of a deceased old lady, who, we believe, led 
 half the people in the district in which we were 
 born, through its pictured pages. 
 
 It will not do, gentle reader, to cavil at its 
 couplets. If Grimalkin is happy, as the learned
 
 CHARACTER OF THE DOG. 37 
 
 authority intimates, let us not inquire too closely 
 into the sources of her tranquility. Let us rather 
 go back to Ponto, whom we left quietly eating 
 his dinner. 
 
 Well he repays, by a lifetime of fidelity, all the 
 care which you may bestow upon him. What- 
 ever class of dogs he may belong to, according to 
 his capacity, he will studiously contribute to your 
 interests or your sports. 
 
 He is invaluable to the sportsman and the 
 agriculturist, and the careful housekeeper will 
 hardly sleep sound o' nights, unless Towser be 
 loose in the yard. 
 
 He is fond of fun, too, and really epicurean in 
 his mode of seeking comfort. Much he prizes a 
 snug, warm lodging in winter, and a perfect lux- 
 ury it is to see him enjoying a roll upon the 
 sunny sod on some cool, clear day in the fall, 
 when the north-west wind is stripping the trees, 
 and the plaintive calls of the covey, scattered, 
 perhaps, by the hawk, are heard over by the 
 stubble-field. 
 
 It is a pleasant thing, too, to see him lying 
 close in the woods, watching your eye as you 
 stand, while the last rays of the setting sun red- 
 den the solemn trunks, and still communing 
 with autumn, you feel, as it were, the breath of 
 3
 
 38 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 of winter afar off, as a chill wind sighs through 
 the fading foliage, or mournfully rustles the 
 withered leaves. Poor Ponto! though he feel 
 not the strange delight which waits upon the 
 change of season though he knows not the twi- 
 light hour, yet well it becomes him to live the 
 comrade of kings and princes, and well he de- 
 serves to be remembered by the genius which 
 hallows the scene. 
 
 Bulwer, Burns, Byron and Scott, have all 
 owned strong sympathies with the dog. 
 
 If our young friends should be fond of field 
 sports, they should never rate the value of Ponto 
 solely by his professional accomplishments of 
 finding and pointing game. As he is the zeal- 
 ous adjutor and partaker of your diversions, he 
 should also, in some measure, be your compa- 
 nion and your friend. 
 
 You may smile, but well will it be with you , 
 when the flush of youth is passed, if you do not 
 then rate his fidelity higher than the standard of 
 friendship, as it exists in the gay world. 
 
 You will find nothing superior in pathos to the 
 tales which are told of the faithfulness of the 
 dog. 
 
 It is not many months since we saw in the 
 public prints, an account of a party of hunters,
 
 CHARACTER OF THE DOG. 39 
 
 who had discovered, in the far west, the corpse 
 of an Indian, extended on the prairie, surrounded 
 by a gang of wolves, which a famishing dog still 
 kept at bay. What a picture for an artist to de- 
 lineate, and how forcibly it reminds us of the 
 touching lines of the poet ! 
 
 " And he was faithful to a corpse, 
 And kept the birds and beasts 
 Which hungered there, at bay." 
 
 When those whom you are most bound to love 
 and reverence, have passed down to the grave 
 when friends fall off, and the darker side of hu- 
 manity becomes more and more apparent, as you 
 walk through life then, and not till then, you 
 may learn to prize the fidelity of a dog. 
 
 His leaping heart is still for thine, 
 
 Without a thought of guile, 
 And in his eyes his truth doth shine, 
 
 As beauty may not smile.
 
 SNIPE SHOOTING. 
 
 WILSON'S SNIPE SCOLOPAX WILSONII. 
 
 Description. " The snipe is eleven inches 
 long, and seventeen in extent; the bill is more 
 than two and a half inches long, fluted length- 
 wise, of a brown color, and black towards the 
 tip, where it is very smooth while the bird is 
 alive, but soon after it is killed, becomes dim- 
 pled, like the end of a thimble ; crown black, 
 divided by an irregular line of pale brown; 
 another broader one, of the same tint, passes 
 over each eye ; from the bill to the eye, there is 
 a narrow, dusky line ; neck and upper part of 
 the breast pale brown, variegated with touches 
 of white and dusky ; chin, pale ; back and sca- 
 pulars, deep velvety black, the latter elegantly 
 marbled with waving lines of ferruginous, and 
 broadly edged exteriorly with white ; wings 
 plain dusky, all the feathers, as well as those of 
 the coverts, tipped with white ; shoulder of the 
 wing, deep dusky brown, exterior quill, edged 
 with white ; tail coverts long, reaching within 
 three-quarters of an inch of the tip, and of a pale
 
 SNIPE SHOOTING. 41 
 
 rust color, spotted with black; tail rounded, 
 deep black, ending in a bar of bright ferrugi- 
 nous, crossed with narrow, waving lines of 
 black, and tipped with whitish; belly, pure 
 white ; sides, barred with dusky ; legs and feet, 
 a very pale ashy green; sometimes the whole 
 thighs and sides of the vent are tarred with 
 dusky and white. The female is more obscure 
 in her colors ; the white on the belly being less 
 pure, and the black on the back not so deep." 
 
 The winter of 183- had been very severe in 
 the middle and eastern states. 
 
 In Pennsylvania it was marked by high winds, 
 heavy falls of snow, and unusually low depres- 
 sions of the mercury. 
 
 Deer, floundering in the deep drifts, were 
 killed in great numbers by the hunters of the 
 upper districts, and in the counties adjoining 
 Philadelphia the smaller varieties of game nearly 
 all perished. Grouse and hares were starved 
 out in the hills, or fell an easy prey to the foxes; 
 partridges came and fed from the threshing- 
 floors ; larks were found dead in the hay -ricks ; 
 crows alit upon the offals in the barnyard ; and 
 it became necessary to keep the poultry housed, 
 and their crops well filled, to save them from 
 the hawks, or from freezing to death on their 
 roosts.
 
 42 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 About the middle of February the severity of 
 the season abated. The mercury rose to a genial 
 mark; the sky became beautifully clear and 
 cloudless ; the ground thawed ; the snow rapidly 
 disappeared ; and in a few days the notes of the 
 song-sparrow and the blue-bird, gave cheering 
 intimations of the near approach of spring. 
 
 Some old farmers in our vicinity professed 
 little faith in the assurances of these welcome 
 visitors. Sagely shaking their heads, they hus- 
 banded their hay-stacks, as they still looked 
 askant at the hills and the blue air ; but as the 
 weather, uninfluenced by their forebodings, still 
 continued mild, we made much of every war- 
 bled note, and turned a deaf ear to the croakers, 
 willing to believe that the Solomons of meadow 
 and upland were mistaken for once. 
 
 About this period we received, through the 
 village post office, a note from an acquaintance 
 in town, with an enclosed dispatch from old 
 Pierson of the Pier, announcing, in his usual 
 emphatic way, that the meadows above and be- 
 low Pennsgrove, New Jersey, were fairly alive 
 with snipe. 
 
 We had already observed woodcock flying in 
 the evening twilight, and began to flush them, 
 by day, in a woods of some extent, where they
 
 SNIPE SHOOTING. 43 
 
 had regularly bred for many years. Although 
 then anxious to obtain a closer insight into the 
 habits of these solitary and retiring birds, which, 
 despite the observations of ornithologists, are 
 still involved in a certain degree of mystery, we, 
 of course, abandoned our investigations on the 
 receipt of this intelligence, and summoning 
 Czar, who was in fine health and spirits, doubt- 
 less anticipating work, set off at once for the 
 city, and dropped into Krider's on the morning 
 of the succeeding day. 
 
 Our arrangements were soon made, and well 
 aware that, should the wind haul to the north- 
 west, with a lowering sky, this flight of birds 
 would leave the low grounds on the river, and 
 seek shelter inland, we took the cars to Wil- 
 mington, intending to cross the Delaware to 
 Pennsgrove, if possible, on the same afternoon. 
 
 On the road down we will, with the reader's 
 permission, give a brief account of the game 
 which we were in quest of, and of the descrip- 
 tion of dog, whether rough or smooth, most to 
 be preferred in following in this exciting sport. 
 
 It may not be altogether superfluous to remind 
 the general reader, that there is but one species 
 of snipe, known to our sportsmen, which will lie 
 to, and can be hunted with dogs. This is the
 
 44 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 English snipe, once so called, but now, by gene- 
 ral consent, named after the great American 
 ornithologist who first pointed out the difference 
 between it and the European variety. This 
 difference, though apparently trifling, was suffi- 
 cient, in the judgment of Temminck, Bonaparte, 
 and other distinguished writers, to entitle it to 
 the rank of a distinct species, universally known 
 among naturalists of the present day as Wilson's 
 snipe. 
 
 The other American varieties possess nothing 
 to attract the pursuit of the sportsman, and are 
 therefore abandoned , sans ceremo?iie, to the mar- 
 ket shooter. The history of each will be found 
 well marked and interesting in its place ; but. 
 ne sutor ultra crepidam, as a sophymore would 
 say ; w r e have no room for it here. 
 
 Wilson's snipe has been so often described in 
 books, from the tip of the bill to the ends of the 
 tail feathers, and is so well known, that we 
 might almost forego the minute details of its 
 dimensions and markings. 
 
 From the uncertainty attending its move- 
 ments on the feeding grounds, the swiftness and 
 eccentricity of its flight, the exposure and hard 
 hunting required in its pursuit, the rare sport it 
 often affords when found, its game-look as it
 
 SNIPE SHOOTING. 45 
 
 springs from the marshes, and when brought to 
 bag, as well as its delicacy 011 the table, it has 
 long been an object of especial interest to the 
 keenest and most imaginative of our sportsmen. 
 We have no doubt that one thing which makes 
 snipe shooting pre-eminently attractive to some 
 sportsmen, is the delightful state of uncertainty 
 which now, more than ever, attends the pursuit 
 of this species of game. 
 
 Partridge shooting, so long upheld as the beau 
 ideal of sport, savors rather too much of the pre- 
 serves to be exactly to the taste of a thorough 
 hunter. In a country well stocked with game of 
 this kind, whenever there are stubbles, at the 
 proper time of day there you will find birds ; and 
 there is something in the half domesticated nature 
 of this familiar little member of the gallinaceous 
 order, in the loud, clear " all right" of the male, 
 the tender and anxious calls of the scattered co- 
 vey, and the extreme terror which they display 
 in hiding away from the dogs, which, after a few 
 brace are killed, half disarms many a reflective 
 sportsman. With the snipe, on the contrary, we 
 have no sympathies of this sort ; he is not one of 
 us, but, comparatively speaking, a sort of winged 
 cosmopolite ; is often wary and shy, and as soon 
 as he springs, begins to exercise his ingenuity to
 
 46 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 escape your aim now darting, like a flash, in 
 zigzag lines, and now soaring sky-high, as if to 
 top the range of your piece. 
 
 Woodcock shooting in " the cripple" always 
 reminds us of a party of madmen shouting and 
 banging away at vampire bats, in the eternal twi- 
 light of some equatorial forests. Rail shooting, if 
 practiced more than once or twice in a season, 
 becomes too tiresome and monotonous to possess 
 much interest, except for the sum total boated. 
 Duck shooting is a noble diversion; but what 
 thrill of expectation is equal to that which the 
 sportsman feels, when, after a fruitless hunt over 
 acres and acres of heavy ground, he beholds in 
 the distance the trusty and indefatigable compa- 
 nion of his toil, standing steadily to his point at 
 last or what a more game sight than the grey, 
 phantom-like look of the wandering snipe, as 
 uttering its peculiar cry, it flits over a wild marsh, 
 on a March or November day? 
 
 Being all open shooting, the shooter, of course, 
 has an opportunity of observing all the move- 
 ments of his dogs, and also of the bird after it has 
 sprung ; and on this account alone many shoot- 
 ers declare that they had rather have two days of 
 good sport at snipe, than a whole season at part- 
 ridges or rail.
 
 SNIPE SHOOTING. 47 
 
 But why are snipe uncertain in their move- 
 ments on the feeding ground ? 
 
 It is supposed to be owing, in some measure, 
 to the nature of their food, and to the enormous 
 quantity which they require, in common with 
 other birds of their genus, and also to their sus- 
 ceptibility to the influences of the weather at 
 no season of the year more subject to sudden fluc- 
 tuations of temperature than early in the spring. 
 Always feeding from choice in open marshes, 
 they may be found in sufficient numbers to afford 
 excellent sport to-day, when the weather is mo- 
 derately warm, and light clouds, borne on a brisk 
 breeze from the south-west, cast their shadows on 
 bare bog or tussock, as they drift over head. But 
 should the wind shift, and come on to blow 
 strong from the north-east, as is often the case 
 during the night, the next morning you may tra- 
 verse the marshes in vain, in the face of a lower- 
 ing sky ; the birds are off for cover ; and unless 
 you have a particular fancy to be detained three 
 or four days in a snow storm, at a country inn, 
 you had better be off, too, for you will have no 
 more shooting on that excursion. 
 
 This is very apt to occur when the birds are 
 in advance of the season, and has happened with 
 us again and again in March, and even in April.
 
 48 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 How often have shooters, knowing that birds 
 were on the meadows below, and not wishing to 
 start off on Friday or Saturday, postponed their 
 departure until the following Monday, when a 
 wet gale from the north-east has set in, and no 
 further accounts of snipe have been received 
 until the wind hauled to a more auspicious point. 
 
 Independent of this, some writers assert that 
 the snipe is, naturally, of a restless and capricious 
 disposition that conscious of his powers of 
 flight, he often whimsically takes to wing when 
 none of the foregoing causes are known to exist, 
 apparently delighting in his extent of range ; and 
 at last suddenly drops down from the field of air 
 in some new feeding ground, miles and miles 
 from the spot which he so unaccountably aban- 
 doned. 
 
 We have no serious objection to investing our 
 favorite with this etherial character, making him, 
 so to speak, a sort of "dainty ^Eriel" to his own 
 wild will ; but we suspect, nevertheless, that he 
 is not exactly like the renowned Scotch geese, 
 who liked their play better than their food. 
 
 As his powers of digestion are equally well 
 known with those of his flight, we are inclined 
 to think that he has still a wary eye to the main 
 chance, and that his eccentric coquettings w r ith
 
 SNIPE SHOOTING. 49 
 
 his feeding grounds are, in some degree, at least, 
 dependent upon an abundance or scarcity of 
 food. 
 
 Again and again has the sportsman, by chance 
 or the range and instinct of his dog, discovered 
 some choice piece of ground, of no great extent, 
 which the birds, though allowed not a moment's 
 rest, showed the greatest indisposition to leave. 
 
 We remember to have found this to be the 
 case many years ago, in a small meadow on Duck 
 Creek, immediately back of what is called Smyr- 
 na's Landing. No steamboat had ever entered 
 the creek at this period, and the place was com- 
 paratively unknown to shooters. 
 
 On the meadow referred to snipe were feeding 
 in such numbers, that had not the dog been a 
 steady old setter, his presence would have been 
 a decided disadvantage. As it was he did not 
 move five yards in advance of us, and we kept on 
 flushing and firing, until, though then an indif- 
 ferent snipe shot, we had bagged seventy-two 
 birds. When the sun sank upon our sport, the 
 ground was covered with wads as with a slight 
 sprinkling of snow. 
 
 The next morning, at the instance of the ac- 
 quaintance with whom we were sojourning, we 
 shifted the scene by shooting in the stubbles ;
 
 50 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 and upon visiting the snipe ground on the suc- 
 ceeding day, hardly a solitary individual was to 
 be found. 
 
 The signs of the aifray were there, but the 
 meadow was deserted except by a few crippled 
 birds. After securing these, all we could do was 
 to sit on a convenient stump and smile at the mo- 
 tions of Dash, who, remembering the first day's 
 shooting, could scarcely convince himself that 
 the game had flown, despite the evidence of his 
 nose. 
 
 This flight of snipe were, of course, migrating 
 southward, and having pitched into an isolated 
 spot where food was abundant, were extremely 
 loath to leave it, until their wants were satisfied 
 and their powers recruited for new efforts on the 
 wing. 
 
 It is proper to state that the place where the 
 birds were found, was composed of a few acres of 
 bare, black loam and tussocks, flanked on either 
 side by a thick woods. 
 
 Snipe are not, moreover, so extremely sensi- 
 tive to frost as the books would lead the unprac- 
 tised shooter to suppose. Any person who has 
 hunted these birds for successive seasons, will 
 tell you that he has killed snipe in considerable 
 numbers both in the spring and fall, when the
 
 SNIPE SHOOTING. 51 
 
 ice was almost thick enough to bear his tread. 
 We, ourselves, have done this more than once in 
 particular situations, at Pennsgrove and Dennis- 
 ville, New Jersey. A severe frost, sufficient, so 
 to speak, to seal the marshes hermetically, of 
 course, necessitates them to extend their flight 
 beyond the sphere of its influence, by cutting off 
 their supplies ; strong easterly blows, whether 
 wet or dry, drive them sooner to cover;* rain 
 makes them restless and indisposed to lie to the 
 dogs, and eventually forces them into the withered 
 rushes and cornfields ; but if caught by a snow 
 storm on the marshes as every old sportsman 
 knows is sometimes the case, in spite of what a 
 recent writer calls their meteorological faculties 
 they seem to lose their natural instinct, and will 
 huddle helplessly under the lee of a hill or bank, 
 in which situations seven and eight have been 
 killed by a farmer's boy at a single shot. 
 
 As regards the manner of hunting " gray 
 snipe," and their sprite-like efforts to escape when 
 flushed, we are no book-makers, and the less we 
 dilate on these subjects the better for all parties 
 concerned. 
 
 * At Mannahawkin, on the New Jersey coast, Mr. Krider has 
 found them on such occasions harboring in the "cripples."
 
 52 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 If you are naturally a sportsman, you will soon 
 learn how to approach and to kill them, albeit, 
 on the first few trials, the eccentricities which 
 they practice on the wing, and the elfish ease 
 with which they seem to evade the contents of 
 both barrels, will leave an impression on your 
 mind, which, however annoying then, becomes a 
 very pleasant and exciting reminiscence after 
 you have learned how to knock them down, right 
 and left, secundem artem. In this, gentle reader, 
 consists the gist of the secret of the true sports- 
 man's love for snipe shooting. As to exposure 
 and hard work, no man who has not a quick spirit, 
 sound health, and w r ell-strung muscles, should 
 attempt to hunt snipe. 
 
 We have known, too, a life of indolence and a 
 consequent disposition to become stout, to spoil 
 more than one keen snipe shooter. But let a man 
 not too much encumbered with infirmities of the 
 flesh by which we simply mean fat carry with 
 him to the marshes a fellow feeling for snipe, in 
 the inverse ratio to their wary and weird-like 
 propensities, and the sport then compares with 
 some other varieties presently to come under 
 notice as grouse shooting on the Scotch muirs, 
 or deer stalking on the highlands, does with 
 shooting under the escort of a game-keeper in the 
 English preserves.
 
 SNIPE SHOOTING. 53 
 
 The remark is equally true of the three ex- 
 citing diversions, that when one has enjoyed them 
 to perfection, they are apt to give him a distaste 
 for his other previously most cherished pursuits. 
 In fact, we have found the prediction strongly 
 manifested even by uneducated men of ordinary 
 capacities, who have been reared in the vicinity 
 of snipe grounds. 
 
 " Hunting quail," said an old resident of the 
 Neck, who had killed great numbers of snipe, 
 partridges and woodcock in his day, "is like 
 killing the stock on a man's farm ; but a snipe 
 was made to be sprung and shot as certainly as 
 a trigger was forged to be pulled."* 
 
 * This old man. has assured us, that he had often seen snipe rise 
 from his meadows in dense flocks, like reed birds, in September, 
 and that previous to the invention of percussion locks, he and his 
 brother had killed a market basket full in a -few hours. 
 
 He had shot snipe and woodcock in parts of the lower districts, 
 now thickly populated, and lived to see the day when ho was 
 forced to complain, that he could hardly find a dozen reed birds in 
 his own fields. Even in his latter days he was a remarkable shot, 
 discharging his piece almost at the instant on which the butt 
 touched his shoulder, and most generally with decided effect. 
 
 Though not much given to jocular remarks, he was wont to say, 
 that his dog had such an opinion of his master's shooting, that he 
 barely waited for the report before he sprang forward to retrieve 
 the bird. Old Brazier was perfectly familiar with every rood of 
 meadow or " mash" for miles and miles around, and will long be 
 remembered in the Neck, for his skill as a shot and the energetic 
 peculiarities of his disposition. 
 
 4
 
 54 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 Of all descriptions of dogs used in field shoot- 
 ing, we unreservedly advance the opinion, that a 
 swift thorough-going pointer or setter is, beyond 
 dispute, the best for snipe. 
 
 They know practically little of what they are 
 writing about, who assert, in these latter days, 
 that a slow dog is to be preferred in this species 
 of sport. We grant that the assertion may hold 
 good if intended to be applied to an old man, or 
 a fair-weather sportsman ; and in that case we 
 are not surprised, when carrying out the remark, 
 some writers tell you, sotto voce, that perhaps 
 you had better leave the dogs at home. We re- 
 gard their advice, in this particular, pretty much 
 as Dash or Czar would do, themselves, provided 
 that they could comprehend the author were the 
 last, with equal point and propriety, to advise 
 them to beware of hunting too fast, lest they 
 should over-heat their systems or founder their 
 feet that is to say, with a stare and a sniff. So 
 far from admitting them to be sportsmen, we 
 doubt if ever in their lives they "felt so much 
 cold as over shoes in snow," and are inclined to 
 conjecture that they must have been the veritable 
 Cockneys, whose dogs, after witnessing a few of 
 their exploits, left them, in unmitigated disgust, 
 and went quietly home to resume their slumbers.
 
 SNIPE SHOOTING. 55 
 
 Apropos, we remember to have not long since 
 seen, in our walk, an odd looking disciple of 
 Nimrod, in a velvet cap, shooting-jacket, and 
 horseman's boots, solemnly beating out a build- 
 ing lot on Broad street, where a little water had 
 accumulated after a rain his face set and his 
 piece at full cock tramping backwards and 
 forwards, now with the wind at his back, and 
 now quartering and evincing in these ma- 
 noeuvres a precision and tenacity of purpose, 
 which at first induced us to suspect that the 
 man was mad ; until opportunely remembering 
 the advice of these same closet shooters, and 
 having a sincere respect for genius in the germ, 
 we instantly withdrew our too curious gaze, and 
 whistling to Dash, who was also regarding the 
 embryo Nimrod with unaffected astonishment, 
 walked hastily on. 
 
 We will hazard the opinion that this disciple, 
 like his master, seldom found dogs of much ac- 
 count in snipe shooting. 
 
 But to resume for the cars have passed the 
 Lazaretto. It is not our wish to sit in judgment 
 between the pointer and the setter, respecting the 
 supposed superiority of either as snipe dogs. We 
 have shot over so many excellent animals of both 
 species, that, falling back on our sporting expe-
 
 56 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 rience, it really seems invidious to institute a 
 comparison. If required, however, to pronounce 
 an opinion, we confess a slight preference for the 
 pointer. 
 
 Our partiality is grounded solely on his supe- 
 rior steadiness and sagacity in the field, and the 
 faculty which he sometimes displays of winding 
 and leading directly on to snipe, from an asto- 
 nishing distance. 
 
 He is more staunch, and can be more fully de- 
 pended upon at a much earlier age than the set- 
 ter. When, however, a dog of the latter stock 
 has arrived at the age of five or six years, and 
 been regularly hunted every season, especially 
 by one man, and that man a sportsman, he some- 
 times becomes, so to speak, a very Napoleon 
 among snipe dogs. 
 
 All the fine qualities of the two stocks are con- 
 centrated and perfected in him ; but such dogs 
 are extremely rare. They are to be considered 
 as the product of a combination of unusually fine 
 instincts in the brute, brought out, tempered and 
 perfected by the higher intelligence of the man. 
 
 If your dog is experienced and staunch to his 
 point, as, of course, he ought to be, the faster he 
 hunts the better your prospect of finding birds. 
 When he gets in among them, he will then be- 
 come sufficiently steady.
 
 SNIPE SHOOTING. 57 
 
 As to his over-running birds, that is mere ba- 
 gatelle. Snipe have not as yet been arraigned 
 at the " Cedars" for wilfully withholding their 
 scent. 
 
 A good dog is still permitted to wind them at 
 a safe distance. Their effluvia is still allowed to 
 be strong, even by those wonder-hunting gentle- 
 men, who, absorbed by one startling idea, like 
 the traveller who saw the calf's tail protruding 
 through a knot-hole in the tan-yard fence, invoke 
 the aid of clap-trap at once, disdaining to pay the 
 least regard to any ordinary solution of the mys- 
 tery. 
 
 If, in the course of a day's sport, a few birds 
 are prematurely and unavoidably flushed, the 
 snipe shooter thinks no more of the matter, than 
 a general, after a successful engagement, does of 
 the casualties of the field. 
 
 A disposition to range is characteristic of a 
 high-bred animal ; and it is this quality, which, 
 when united to staunchness and a knowledge of 
 ground imbibed from successive seasons of field 
 practice, mainly constitutes a snipe dog. 
 
 The antiquated foolery about slow dogs, is 
 only kept up by a set of scribblers, who, while 
 cudgelling their brains to glorify American field 
 sports, ever seem pathetically to lament their ex-
 
 53 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 elusion from the English preserves. These gen- 
 tlemen, having been brought up to a tether, never 
 forget their veneration for game laws and the 
 majesty of a ring fence. Whether they are paid 
 by London gun makers to puff their work on this 
 side of the Atlantic, we know not; but one thing 
 is certain, that if you read what they write, and 
 believe, you will soon profess little faith in aught 
 connected with sporting on this side of the water. 
 
 As to their prosy and oft-repeated directions 
 how to hunt snipe, in our humble opinion they 
 are not worth a pinch of powder, except to fill a 
 page or two of twaddle. It would really be some- 
 thing new if any well-tutored dog could be pro- 
 duced, who did not know more about the matter 
 than gentlemen who affect to laud Ponto to the 
 skies in one breath, and tell you that he is not 
 worth the trouble of taking out to the field in the 
 next. 
 
 But, aliens ! The cars have stopped, and as 
 soon as possible we must be afloat. After some 
 delay, a boat and two stout oarsmen were pro- 
 cured ; the dogs, inured to all sorts of locomotion, 
 tumbled in and stowed themselves away in the 
 stern-sheets, as peacefully as lambs; and with 
 the tide swelling fast to flood, we pushed off for 
 the opposite shore.
 
 SNIPE SHOOTING. 59 
 
 Considerable time was consumed in making a 
 passage, as the river was filled with floating ice, 
 and is here, at least, twice its width at Philadel- 
 phia ; but thanks to the skill and sinewy arms 
 of the boatmen this was at last effected, without 
 shipping more water than was agreeable, except 
 to the dogs, who, however, bore the infliction with 
 exemplary patience. 
 
 Old Pierson, who had been watching the boat 
 with a glass from the balcony, met us on the pier, 
 in spite of his rheumatic limp, and in a few mo- 
 ments we were busily engaged in shifting in our 
 old comfortable room, facing the river. 
 
 A lunch was ready for us when we descended 
 in sporting trim ; but, although an hour and a 
 half amongst the ice had sharpened our appe- 
 tites, we paid but brief attention to the repast, 
 and under the auspices of our good-natured host 
 speedily set off, directing our course down to a 
 well-known meadow back of the first cove below 
 the pier. 
 
 The day was all we could ask ; the sun about 
 midway in his course ; the sky blue and clear, 
 with streaks of haze which foretold a change 
 slowly spreading in the north-east ; but feeling 
 tolerably sure of a half day's sport on the twenty- 
 first day of February, we blessed our auspicious 
 stars and strode rapidly on.
 
 60 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 The place for which we were pushing was a 
 low, marshy meadow, partly covered with rushes, 
 and lying in a sort of winding nook between the 
 Salem road and the river bank, outside of which 
 was a tide-water flat, where birds are often found 
 feeding in April on a calm day. The meadow 
 was traversed by a run of some size, and some 
 apprehensions had been expressed by T. of its 
 proving too wet, although Pierson had assured 
 us that the snow had been off the ground so long 
 that it was now in excellent order for snipe. It 
 was easy to see by the state of the ground over 
 which we passed, in making a short cut to avoid 
 a turn in the bank, that the wind and the sun 
 had been unusually active in the process of eva- 
 poration, for the season of the year, though we 
 looked in vain for the fishermen from whom our 
 host had derived his information ; the sheds be- 
 hind the bank, where they are almost always to 
 be found mending their gill-nets in the first of 
 the season, being now apparently deserted. 
 
 The tide was up over the flat, and as we halted 
 a moment on the bank and looked inland, it was 
 plain that if birds were to be found at all, it was 
 on the meadow before us. After reconnoitering 
 an instant, we crossed the ditch and separated. 
 
 A gentle breeze was blowing from the south-
 
 SNIPE SHOOTING. 61 
 
 west directly athwart our course, and Dash, our 
 friend's setter, taking- it in his nostrils, com- 
 menced to quarter his ground at a fast gallop, 
 edging more and more in the wind, while Czar, 
 after casting a jealous glance at the other's mo- 
 tions, drew up in his track and threw his nose 
 high, snuffing the air; then advancing a few 
 yards, he looked around to catch our eye, and led 
 straight at a half crouch, as was his habit when 
 winding on a strong scent. 
 
 We had watched his motions from the moment 
 we rose to the bank, and working leisurely up, 
 now felt sure that birds were within a few hun- 
 dred feet of us, as we could actually see them 
 feeding and flitting up on the meadow. 
 
 In this way, taking no notice whatever of a 
 shot from T. at an outlying bird, he continued on 
 towards the bend of the meadow, and crossing 
 the run at the old spot, halted and stood firm to 
 his point on the very edge of the rushes, which 
 covered about two acres of ground. 
 
 We waved our hand to T., who was up in a 
 moment, and for a single portentous instant, we 
 both paused, gazing with admiring eyes at the 
 striking picture before us. 
 
 The attitude of the dogs, each as he stood like 
 
 O ' 
 
 stone, was intensely apprehensive and life-like.
 
 G2 KRIDER'S SrORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 The pointer as was his wont when close on 
 his game stood with one foot raised and his 
 body half bent, the loose skin on his forehead 
 corrugated into what we are wont to call an in- 
 fallible wrinkle, beneath which his large, full 
 eyes were immovably fixed on the rushes before 
 him, with a stare half knostic, half grim, like that 
 of a priest on his tripod about to announce to 
 some trembling expectant the shadows of a pre- 
 destined doom. 
 
 The setter was a few paces behind, equally 
 firm in his posture, though his gaze was more 
 inquisitive and less concentrated, and he held his 
 head higher, as if looking over the pointer's stern. 
 They did not appear to breathe ; not a muscle of 
 their bodies moved ; the withered herbage rustled 
 softly in the wind, which played with the long 
 winter feathers of the rough dog's coat, but no 
 stone bastion could have been steadier, and the 
 very lines of his jowls were as fixed and deter- 
 minate, as the circumvallations round the ram- 
 part of some bristling fortress. 
 
 Simultaneously we made two strides into the 
 low cover; not a feather showed itself; a step 
 farther, and, uttering their peculiar alarm notes, 
 six or seven snipe sprung within as many feet of 
 us, and darted in crooked lines up the meadow;
 
 SNIPE SHOOTING. 63 
 
 the reports instantly followed ; the dogs dropped, 
 and in this way, alternately flushing and firing, 
 we beat out the rushes, and drove the remaining 
 birds into the range of meadow below. 
 
 o 
 
 Language could scarcely describe the admira- 
 ble steadiness with which the dogs moved over 
 this first portion of the ground. No two veteran 
 scouts, suspicious of an ambuscade, could have 
 shown greater wariness in the heart of an ene- 
 my's country. 
 
 They trailed through the rustling rushes as 
 gingerly as if they were treading among circum- 
 ambient steel-traps. 
 
 No new casualty in flushing or falling, no 
 proximity to living or dead birds, could draw 
 them an inch farther than prudence warranted. In 
 one instance, while Czar was on a point, a bird was 
 killed which fell plump on the old fellow's head, 
 without discomposing his equanimity in the least. 
 T. declared that he never winked. A few minutes 
 afterwards, from some peculiar movement of the 
 game, he became wedged, as it were, between 
 two snipe, and we never shall forget the sudden- 
 ness with which he dropped, the wary, wide- 
 awake look of his red muzzle, as he flattened his 
 jowls down on the moist earth, nor the cool, saga- 
 cious air with which he rose on his legs, when
 
 64 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 he heard the click of the capped gun-locks, after 
 the birds had been flushed and killed. 
 
 We now proceeded to the lower meadows, over 
 which the birds had scattered, and the excellence 
 of the dogs in finding the game, now spread over 
 a wide extent of country, was very apparent. 
 
 The superior swiftness of the setter gave him 
 at first some advantage ; but after reaching the 
 improved pasture grounds still further down, 
 where the earth was drier, the sagacity which 
 Czar showed in avoiding wide, circling and ex- 
 cursive ranges, and the faculty which he seemed 
 to possess of piloting the shooter directly to the 
 moist spots where the birds lay, gave him in the 
 end full as many points. 
 
 Upon comparing notes at sundown we found 
 that, as usual, neither of us could boast of having 
 greatly exceeded the other in the number of shots 
 bagged, which amounted in all to thirty-six 
 brace.* 
 
 The birds were small and thin, but they laid 
 
 * Early in the spring the birds frequent wet stubble-fields in 
 sheltered situations, a few miles inland from the great water 
 courses, and we have often killed numbers of them in such locali- 
 ties, when very few were to be found upon the meadows. No 
 doubt the worms work nearer to the surface in low, cultivated 
 grounds, than upon the broad, exposed surface of meadow land.
 
 SNIPE SHOOTING. 65 
 
 close to the dogs, and flew well, and, every thing 
 considered, we seldom enjoyed greater diversion 
 on many subsequent visits to these and other 
 localities. That night the wind shifted to the 
 eastward, and we reached Philadelphia at one 
 o'clock the next day, in the midst of a furious 
 snow storm. This was the first and last snipe 
 shooting we had in the month of February.* 
 
 Within the last few years these grounds, as 
 well as others above and below, on either side of 
 the Delaware, have been greatly improved. Ex- 
 tensive marshes have been drained ; sterile mea- 
 dows thrown open to the tides and afterwards 
 banked in, so that year after year there is even 
 less certainty than before of finding snipe. Still, 
 diversion is to be had by those who know the 
 grounds and study the weather, along Oldman's, 
 Salem and Allovvay's creeks, on the New Jersey 
 side, the marshes of Newport, Staunton, New 
 
 * We have long noticed that when the nights are cool, with high 
 winds from the north-west, towards the latter end of March, very 
 few birds are to be found on the marshes. The prevalence of 
 southerly winds and a hazy sky, with drizzling rain, is much more 
 favorable to their migration northward. The same remark holds 
 good in reference to the appearance of shad in the Delaware. In- 
 deed, snipe are called shad-birds by many of the fishermen, and the 
 abundance or scarcity of the one is considered highly indicative of 
 that of the other.
 
 66 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 Castle, Delaware City, Port Penn, and upon the 
 grounds on Appoquinaminky and Blackbird 
 creeks, on the Delaware side. 
 
 It is, however, now more necessary, if possible, 
 than before, that a snipe dog, to be up to his 
 work, should be perfectly steady, and possess at 
 the same time considerable power of range. 
 
 While the passion for field sports is largely on 
 the increase with us, agriculturists are improving 
 their lands on the great water courses, and mar- 
 ket shooters striving to be in advance of the 
 sportsman on all the choice grounds ; so that the 
 chances are, that, unless you go farther and spend 
 more time on your excursions, you will hardly 
 get your share of snipe shooting. 
 
 How different was the case in the days of our 
 fathers, and even within the memory of our own ! 
 Who then would have thought of going thirty or 
 forty miles from home to kill snipe ? 
 
 They were then particularly abundant in "the 
 Neck," on the marshes of the Schuylkill, and 
 along all the lesser tributaries of the Delaware. 
 
 The shooter was then sure of finding sport on 
 Sheer's or Girard's meadows, in the vicinity of 
 the " Broad Marsh," and almost at any point be- 
 tween the Navy Yard and the Lazaretto, includ- 
 ing the drifts and low islands along the Pennsyl-
 
 SNIPE SHOOTING. 67 
 
 vania shore. On the New Jersey side, Kaighn's 
 Point meadows, and those upon the Newt-own 
 Creek, were accounted good snipe grounds. Red- 
 field's flat, at the mouth of Timber Creek, and 
 low lands of Josiah Ward, lying several miles 
 higher up the stream, were specially famous. 
 
 On Eagle Point meadows snipe have been seen 
 in immense flights, and the marshes of Wood- 
 bury and Mantua creeks were also celebrated. 
 Wilson's grounds, situated on the latter stream, 
 and consisting of low tussocky pasturage, trod- 
 den up by cattle and kept sufficiently moist by 
 the spring rains, were much visited by sports- 
 men. 
 
 Clemmell and Raccoon creeks, and Raccoon 
 island, have also been in great esteem in their 
 day. On the range of meadows from Bridge- 
 port, New Jersey, down to Oldman's Creek, and 
 on all the grounds between Pennsgrove and Sa- 
 lem Creek, birds are still to be found from the 
 twentieth of March until the last of April. We 
 once killed twenty brace of very fine snipe at 
 Pennsgrove as late as the fourth of May, and in 
 March last bagged eighty-eight birds in two 
 days' shooting in the same vicinity. We repeat, 
 however, that these, as well as the most noted 
 grounds on the opposite shore, have been so
 
 63 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 drained of late years, that unless you have some 
 acquaintance with the best localities, and are 
 able to stand rough weather,* hard work, and 
 often chagrin, to boot, you had better extend 
 your excursions. 
 
 At Bridgeton, New Jersey, there are an 
 abundance of snipe, both in the spring and fall; 
 you will also have sport at Bombay Hook ; but 
 in the neighborhood of Dennisville, New Jer- 
 sey, are the best and most extensive snipe 
 grounds that we have any knowledge of. 
 
 We would advise the young shooter, if he has 
 a week to spare, to go there by all means. If 
 
 * We were shooting, in March, on the river meadows between 
 Pennsgrove and Craven's Ferry, during a gale from the south-east, 
 when an extraordinary high tide suddenly swept away about fifty 
 feet of the bank, through which the water came roaring in so fast 
 that the dogs were swimming round us, and we were actually up to 
 our waists before we could reach the fast land. The meadows were 
 submerged for miles, and numbers of sheep and hogs drowned, the 
 carcasses of which lay scattered about, while we were killing snipe 
 at low water over portions of the same ground on the next day. 
 
 On another occasion, in Robinson's meadows, on Salem Creek, 
 having found birds plentiful but very wild, we at last succeeded in 
 driving them across a ditch into a cat-tail swamp, where we had 
 them at advantage, inasmuch as the cover being high, they were 
 inclined to lie close. In the midst of our sport the tide stole a 
 march upon us, and we were forced to give over shooting and wade 
 the ditch, which we had previously crossed without much dif- 
 ficulty.
 
 SNIPE SHOOTING. 69 
 
 the journey is somewhat long and tiresome, he 
 is at least certain, at its end, to find the grounds 
 free from market shooters, who, wherever they 
 go, tend to prejudice the country people against 
 all strangers from the city. These fellows, in 
 general, regard the sportsman with an evil eye, 
 and unless closely watched are apt to play him 
 some trick. 
 
 There is a tolerable good house kept by 
 
 Wills, at the upper end of the village, and the 
 host is fond of going out with his guests. 
 
 The proper times to start are about the mid- 
 dle of March, or the last of October in the 
 fall. 
 
 At Frenchtown, Maryland, there are good 
 snipe grounds, but their extent is comparatively 
 small, and the sport is over in a few hours. Still, 
 if you have the advantage of pilotage, and are 
 on the spot early enough in the season as snipe 
 seldom remain here long in spring, preferring 
 to follow the course of rivers where the tides 
 ebb and flow you may sometimes have a suffi- 
 ciency of sport.* 
 
 * At this place Mr. Krider has seen five snipe feeding on one 
 spot, within ten feet of the road-side. Had ho been disposed, and 
 not too agreeably occupied with watching the ease and dispatch 
 with which they bored the ground with their long bills, the dex-
 
 70 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 We have nothing to say here in reference to 
 the kind of gun to be used in snipe shooting ; 
 this is left to the choice of the shooter. 
 
 As to the apparel most suitable for traversing 
 the drifts and marshes, it would be well to re- 
 member that there is a water-proof boot made 
 by a few Philadelphia artizans, which for light- 
 ness and durability exceeds any work of the 
 kind which we have ever used. They should 
 be made Jarge enough to admit two pairs of 
 stockings one pair made of lamb's wool to be 
 worn next to the skin. You will find the ad- 
 vantage of this, when riding home nine or ten 
 miles, after your day's hunt. 
 
 Snipe are found in almost every quarter of the 
 globe. The editor has seen them exposed for 
 sale alive in the market at Canton, China, and 
 killed them in the marshes of the bay of Santa 
 Catherina, on the southern coast of Brazil. 
 
 terity with which they drew out and swallowed the worms, and the 
 quantity which they caught and devoured in the space of a few 
 minutes, he might readily have killed them all at one discharge. 
 They kept so close together, were so busily intent on their opera- 
 tions, that, to an imaginative mind, they might have recalled the 
 fictitious image of so many gnomes in a mine. 
 
 After he had observed them for some minutes, they silently flew 
 and alit a few yards farther off, where the inequalities of the sur- 
 face of the ground effectually hid them from view.
 
 SNIPE SHOOTING. 71 
 
 The rice fields of Egypt swarm with them in 
 winter ; they are found in Java and Sumatra, 
 and almost all the islands of the Indian sea. 
 
 In Madagascar they are abundant; also in 
 Ceylon and Japan ; they have been killed in 
 great numbers at the Falkland Islands, and 
 other stormy and desolate solitudes of the south- 
 ern Atlantic. 
 
 They are common in the Arctic regions of 
 Siberia, and in every part of the old continent. 
 
 In North America, they are said to be abund- 
 ant in the golden regions of the Pacific, and are 
 found every where in the United States. 
 
 They afford sport to the citizens of New Or- 
 leans and Mobile, and are known all along the 
 course of " the great father of waters." 
 
 With few exceptions, they breed far to the 
 north, and in Canada, we believe, are only shot 
 in the fall, before they begin to move off to their 
 winter home in the south. 
 
 Snipe are often found in very wet situations. 
 We have sometimes flushed them late in the 
 spring from low meadows in the interior of the 
 state, which were so covered with water that the 
 ends of the blades of grass just appeared on the 
 surface. 
 
 Notwithstanding their wandering and way-
 
 72 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 ward nature, they soon become accustomed to 
 captivity. We once kept one of these birds 
 several weeks in company with a yellow shanked 
 snipe. (Scolopax Flavipedes.)
 
 WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 
 
 THE WOODCOCK SCOLOPAX MDTOK. 
 
 Description. "The male woodcock is ten 
 inches and a half long, and sixteen inches in ex- 
 tent ; bill a brownish flesh color, black towards 
 the tip, the upper mandible ending in a slight 
 knob, that projects about one-tenth of an inch 
 beyond the lower, each grooved, and, in length, 
 somewhat more than two inches and a half; 
 forehead, line over the eyes, and whole lower 
 parts reddish tawny ; sides of the neck, inclining- 
 to ash ; between the eye and bill, a slight streak 
 of dark brown ; crown, from the fore part of the 
 eye backwards, black, crossed by three narrow 
 bands of brownish white ; cheeks, marked with 
 a bar of black, variegated with light brown ; 
 edges of the back, and of the scapulars, pale 
 bluish white ; back and scapulars, deep black, 
 each feather tipped or marbled with light brown 
 and bright ferruginous, with numerous fine zig- 
 zag lines of black crossing the lighter part ; 
 quills, plain dusky brown ; tail, black, each
 
 74 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 feather marked along the outer edge with small 
 spots of pale brown, and ending in narrow tips, 
 of a pale drab color above, and silvery white be- 
 low ; lining of the wing, bright rust ; legs and 
 feet, a pale reddish flesh color; eye, very full 
 and black, seated high and very far back in the 
 head ; weight, five ounces and a half, sometimes 
 six. 
 
 "The female is twelve inches long, and eigh- 
 teen in extent ; weighs eight ounces ; and differs 
 also in having the bill very near three inches in 
 length ; the black on the head is not quite so 
 intense; and the sides under the wings are 
 slightly barred with dusky." 
 
 The Breeding Grounds. You are in the 
 country in the month of March, and chance to 
 be standing on an eminence in front of a low 
 meadow, flanked by a wood. 
 
 Although the weather has been mild for the 
 season, yet something in the prospect before 
 you, grounded upon the experience of the past, 
 inclines you to think the winter is not yet over. 
 
 The snows no longer whiten the valley ; the 
 stream has burst from its icy bounds ; but the 
 tyrant king of the north is not yet dethroned, 
 and the face of nature still wears an aspect of 
 austere and desolate gloom. No songster's note
 
 WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 75 
 
 is heard, save the single melancholy call of the 
 blue-bird,* borne from afar on the rising blast, 
 which, as it rattles the naked boughs overhead, 
 or whirls the dead leaves at your feet, imparts 
 even a touch of menace to the sere look of the 
 scene. 
 
 Perhaps while reflecting on the changes of 
 season, you are insensibly led to dwell on a ver- 
 dure which nought can restore ; or it may be 
 you are in that dreamy, short-lived mood which 
 is so apt to enfold a man's inmost spirit as he 
 watches day -light darken in the sky ; while the 
 old farmer, whose progenitors, for four genera- 
 tions, have lived and died on the place, halts at 
 your side, internally wondering what it is that 
 you see in the west, where the sun has just sunk 
 in your sight, behind some distant hill. 
 
 Suddenly you hear a discordant cry, and ob- 
 serve a bird which has just risen from the low 
 
 * This call or plaint, which is the bird's common note when 
 migrating in autumn, is also heard early in the spring, when a 
 recurrence of wintry weather drives it back to the south, from 
 whence too early it came. 
 
 The note is generally uttered high in the air, and has a very dif- 
 ferent effect upon the ear from the soft and delicate warble with 
 which every lover of spring is familiar, and which, when heard 
 amid the fragrance of May, would seem the very outpourings of a 
 gratulatory and innocent joy.
 
 76 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 grounds before you, rapidly scaling the air by a 
 series of short, spiral evolutions, until it has 
 attained a height equal, perhaps, to that of a tall 
 poplar in the vicinity ; then sailing to and fro 
 in a slow, devious circuit, it seems to survey the 
 meadow beneath, while a low, murmuring sound, 
 which has something questful in its cadence, 
 drops, as it were, on your ear from the twilight 
 sky ; listening to this, you again hear a sharp, 
 impatient "pa-a-ck" and see the bird shoot di- 
 rectly down close to the spot from whence it 
 arose, again uttering its last, harsh, guttural cry 
 as it touches the ground. 
 
 This singular flight is repeated twice or thrice, 
 at short intervals, the harsh note on the ground 
 becoming each time more significant and dis- 
 tinct. It is the love-call of the male ; the spiral 
 ascent and subsequent motions in the air are 
 the bird's mode of wooing ; and you may be sure 
 that the female is coquettishly lurking in the 
 grass close by, or, perhaps, running, with droop- 
 ing wings, to meet her destined mate as he de- 
 scends. 
 
 "Do you know what bird that is?" your 
 attendant asks, pointing toward the meadow with 
 his unshorn chin. 
 
 " Certainly," you reply ; " it is a woodcock."
 
 WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 77 
 
 " Nay," says old Barleycorn, smiling at your 
 fancied ignorance, " it is a bushschnip. I haven't 
 sawn a woodcock on these lands since I were a 
 boy." 
 
 You are only at odds about names, however, 
 the farmer fancying that you spoke of the great 
 pileated woodpecker, once common in the forests 
 of Montgomery, and, with its kingly congener, 
 the ivory-billed, long ago so admirably described 
 by Wilson ; while you, perhaps, are almost as 
 far led astray by the quaint but appropriate 
 title, which he bestows upon the bird in ques- 
 tion, and by which it was always distinguished 
 in the primitive days of his fathers. 
 
 As soon as you are set right again, he will 
 tell you that he has seen as many as five or six 
 woodcocks engaged in these serial courtships, in 
 the morning and evening twilight, at this season 
 of the year, making a curious medley of sounds 
 which, perhaps, he will describe as a mingled 
 quacking and whooping, loud enough to be dis- 
 tinctly audible on his porch, at least a hundred 
 yards distant from the meadow. On one occa- 
 sion, while he was standing at the fence, one 
 bird descended so close to another already on 
 the ground, that he saw them engage in a du- 
 etto, which lasted for several moments. They
 
 78 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 tilted and tugged with their long bills, and flap- 
 ped each other with their wings, their tail- 
 feathers stiffly erected and their plumage in- 
 verted, until the spectator, a conscientious mem- 
 ber of a society religiously opposed to all 
 species of combats, save those of flesh and spirit, 
 stepped from his place of concealment and put 
 both belligerents to flight. 
 
 A few evenings after this conversation, wea- 
 rying of your book or your pen, you look out from 
 your window upon the tranquil face of night. 
 It is a calm, clear evening ; you can just hear 
 the roar of the distant dam, and looking toward 
 the quiet meadow, see the run gleaming in the 
 moonlight, with the poplar's tall top, rising 
 straight and still as a steeple's spire, above the 
 the dark belt of woods on the back ground. 
 
 Beyond that wood is the old Dunker grave- 
 yard, where several members of the farmer's 
 family are interred ; you cannot see their tomb- 
 stones, but you know they are there, shining 
 white and still in the cold moonbeam : you look 
 aloft, where the stars are burning, and, perhaps, 
 some serious misgivings of the lonely life you 
 are leading some true notion of the vanity of 
 your earthly aims comes over you, as you think 
 of that cluster of graves before those steadfast, 
 far away lights.
 
 WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 79 
 
 At that inexplicable instant, even while your 
 mind is oppressed with its new feeling, the voice 
 of old Barleycorn is heard loudly calling for 
 you to come down. Accordingly, down you go ; 
 and before you are up to what he is after, he 
 carries you out on the porch and bids you listen. 
 For a few moments you distinguish nothing but 
 the hoarse bay of some neighbor's farm dog, 
 echoed back by your pointer in the stable, and 
 the subdued, familiar roar of the rushing wa- 
 ters ; but old Truepenny, who knows what he 
 is about, lays his hand on your arm, and then, 
 for the first time in your life, you hear those 
 mysterious and much-disputed notes, which 
 Nuttall and one or two others have described so 
 well. 
 
 Your hat and storm-jacket are on, and the old 
 man, omnipresent, leads you down to the low 
 grounds, where, careless of agues, he hides you 
 under an alder bush, and both remain quiet as 
 death. 
 
 Presently the woodcock's loud quack strikes 
 your ear, apparently within a few yards ; the 
 farmer points in the air ; you catch a fleeting 
 glimpse of the bird as he mounts, and at the 
 same moment hear a low, hurried, quavering 
 hum, which seems like an imperfect attempt at
 
 80 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 the preluding of a song ; this dies away in the 
 air over head, and in an instant after is suc- 
 ceeded by a loud, distinct melody, so earnestly 
 emitted, and of such rapid continuance, as to 
 resemble the musical gushing of water, or the 
 reedy notes of a sylvan pipe, in which some 
 wayward urchin is blowing. It is, however, the 
 strains from a feathered songster's throat, and 
 becomes more clear and sweet the lower it 
 hovers in the air around ; until ceasing abruptly 
 it is followed by the usual "pa-a-ck" uttered in 
 a much lower key than before, and with a half 
 choking but curious emphasis, as if addressed 
 in appeal to some object near. 
 
 If you choose to remain at your post for an 
 hour or more, you may hear the serenade con- 
 tinued in this way with but little remission, and 
 even see the bird on the ground within a few 
 feet of you, its tail-feathers erected, and body 
 stiffly set on its legs, as with a ludicrous and 
 inimitable appearance of conceit it jerks out the 
 strange finale to its song. 
 
 The old man assures you, on returning to the 
 house, that the hen is close by, and that the eve- 
 ning performance, which appears so unique and 
 interesting to you, is literally an old song with 
 him.
 
 WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 81 
 
 A week or two later in the season, you chance 
 to be crossing the fields, on your way to the 
 village post-office, perhaps, with some four- 
 footed companion of your sports composedly 
 coursing your heels. You are passing along the 
 skirt of a wood ; it is a balmy April day ; the 
 wind is fresh from the south, and you seem to 
 scent the odor of early violets afar off, as cloud 
 after cloud flits through the blue air : you hear 
 the short familiar notes of the song-sparrow, ear- 
 liest and sweetest warbler of his tribe, and in- 
 stead of feeling poetically inclined, ten chances 
 to one that you are thinking on another visit to 
 the snipe grounds. If so, mechanically turning 
 your head, you glance back at your familiar, 
 and lo! as if living in your very thoughts, your 
 familiar is " at a stand." 
 
 There is a knostic yet half quizzical look in- 
 volved in the wrinkles in the old Trojan's por- 
 tentous face, which makes you think that he 
 has a tom : cat or a stray fowl skulking in the 
 bush ; and feeling a slight flutter of expectancy 
 yourself, bending low, you peer curiously about, 
 until suddenly, as by a flash, your gaze is ar- 
 rested at once, and little fairy, fairy bubbles 
 float up, as it were, from your heart to your eyes, 
 as amid the thin, dry herbage at the roots of a
 
 82 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 
 
 bush, or a decayed stump, you see, within reach 
 of your hand, the woodcock brooding on her 
 nest. 
 
 By Jove ! here is a discovery. You almost 
 feel as if you had stumbled upon one of nature's 
 inscrutible secrets. 
 
 The old pointer is as steady as a statue ; the 
 wild bird seems wonderfully tame ; there is no 
 need to speak or to stir ; you may sit and gaze 
 your fill on that solitary spot. 
 
 What a rare and exquisite proof of the triumph 
 of maternal instinct is here ! 
 
 How innocently calm how replete with pa- 
 tient tranquillity, the large black eyes meet your 
 eager gaze how quiet the wild thing sits, every 
 dusky brown quill and marbled feather in its 
 place, and the long, grooved bill resting on the 
 breast ! 
 
 So full of abiding trust is the creature's cra- 
 dled look, that, lost in admiration at her appa- 
 parent unconcern, you scarcely think of the 
 eggs concealed in the nest beneath. It is as if 
 she had assumed that artless, unshrinking air 
 on purpose to beguile you of the treasures, 
 which, day and night, she so sedulously guards. 
 You may even put forth your hand and touch 
 her wing, and she will not shrink ; but if by any
 
 WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 83 
 
 species of subtlety you could place your finger 
 on the breast where the plumage is worn from 
 the skin, you might then feel a mother's heart 
 beating hurriedly within, in spite of the seat 
 maintained, the tranquil eyes, the composed and 
 unruffled plumes.* 
 
 So unstudied is the nest, composed as it is of 
 a dozen stalks of grass and a few withered leaves, 
 so fearless and full of faith to the end the atti- 
 tude of the bird, that it is long before you can 
 withdraw your eyes from the sight. 
 
 From how many hundred leagues in the far 
 south has the woodcock flown, to hatch her 
 brood at last in that chosen spot! For how 
 many days and nights by that old grey stump 
 in sun, in wind and in rain through how many 
 dangers past has she kept her post ! How 
 often has that little heart throbbed with fear as 
 the hawk stole by on her hungry flight, or the 
 stealthy fox on his midnight prowl ! How often 
 have the winds beat and the floods came, and 
 the house built by the stump withstood the 
 
 * We attempted to remove the eggs from under a sitting wood- 
 cock, when, uttering a sort of soft murmur, she fluttered off to a 
 little distance, and remained watching our motions with evident 
 anxiety. We replaced them and turned away ; she then returned 
 to the nest, and soon after hatched her brood.
 
 84 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 shock! And who so sure of his own sympa- 
 thies, as to make mock of the instinct, which, 
 until the end is wrought, mysteriously binds the 
 wing that has flown so far, to this charmed atom 
 of ground. 
 
 Now, call off your dog and go your way, 
 humbled like a child before the smallest mystery 
 of creation, yet devising, as you distinctively 
 glance at the trees, what should be done with 
 the market shooter, who, for the sake of the extra 
 shilling which game brings out of season, would 
 kill this bird on her nest. 
 
 Whether the female solely performs the duties 
 of incubation, or is assisted by the male, is not 
 for you to determine. Come to the spot at any 
 hour of the day which you please sit there 
 from sunrise until dark, you will always find 
 the same bird on the nest, and while you are on 
 the watch she will not stir. It is true the mark- 
 ings of both sexes are the same, with a very tri- 
 fling difference, and both birds have the same 
 peculiar and somewhat bizarre look, imparted by 
 the long bill, the large and singularly shaped 
 skull, and the brilliant black eyes set high and 
 far back in the head. Nevertheless, you may 
 readily distinguish the sex by the greater size of 
 the bird before you, the superior length of the
 
 WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 85 
 
 bill, as well as the black tint on the back being 
 less intense. 
 
 But although you have not been able to de- 
 tect this fact, and cannot give a decided opinion, 
 yet reasoning from analogy, and from the circum- 
 stance of the male bird having been seen in 
 close proximity, it is fair to infer that while the 
 hen is abroad in search of food, more especially 
 at night, her partner takes her place. 
 
 There is good reason to suppose, however, 
 that her absence is but short, barely long enough 
 to satisfy the cravings of nature, and that she is 
 by far the greater portion of the time on the 
 nest. 
 
 A little later in the season you are walking in 
 the same woods. In a mossy and moist spot, 
 shaded by the boughs of some gigantic tree, a 
 bird suddenly flutters up and falls within a few 
 feet to the right or left of your path. It is your 
 woodcock; but never heed her now; be not 
 duped by her innocent stratagems ; bid Ponto 
 come to a "down charge;" step carefully over 
 the ground in every direction but that in which 
 the pretended cripple would lead you : sharpen 
 your eyes until you seem to see like a fly : aha! 
 you have them now ; the rogues have chipped 
 the shell; one, two, three; arid see, covered like 
 G
 
 86 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 the rest, with a brownish white down of the 
 same hue as the withered leaf on which it skulks, 
 see here is the fourth. If you lift them gently 
 in your hand, listen to their feeble "peep! 
 peep!" touch their tender bills, and watch how 
 shrewdly each tiny urchin toddles off to hide 
 behind the tendrils of a surface root, or an empty 
 tortoise shell, you might almost take them for 
 the children of the fabled Mossmen. 
 
 And yet so helpless do they seem in that soli- 
 tary range of forest, that it appears almost a mi- 
 racle they do not fall a prey to the snake, the 
 raccoon, the opossum, and other voracious 
 prowlers of the night; But though feeble, they 
 TOW fast, and the same maternal care which 
 
 O ' 
 
 kept its vigil so long on the nest, is now equally 
 provident to supply and preserve the callow 
 brood. 
 
 A month later you are abroad again ; Ponto is 
 inclined to range out, and you to permit him ; 
 at length, after a little preliminary scouting, he 
 either draws up at the side of a rivulet, or, per- 
 haps, as if struck by a sudden reminiscence, 
 goes straight up to the foot of the great tree on 
 the same sombre spot, where the earth beneath 
 the dead leaves is still wet, although the ponds 
 and marshy nooks of the wood are beginning to
 
 WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 87 
 
 dry. As you approach, up spring the same brood, 
 now well feathered and strong, and darting 
 among the trees, pitch severally behind a bush, 
 run a few yards farther and skulk. 
 
 The two old birds are frequently found in 
 company, and here the whole family remain until 
 the increasing drought of summer drives them 
 
 O O 
 
 down to the shores of our large rivers, and the 
 " cripple shooting," as it is not inappropriately 
 called, begins. 
 
 When Frank Forrester, who sometimes belies 
 his nom de plume, tells you that the woodcock 
 regularly rears two broods in a season, he speaks 
 knowingly that which he knows not of. 
 
 We have lived for years in a part of the state 
 of Pennsylvania, where cocks have bred within 
 the memory of man, and we have paid great at- 
 tention to their habits, which are sufficiently 
 curious and interesting, albeit involved in such 
 obscurity that it behooves him who speaks of them 
 to weigh his words. In common with others 
 who have observed them as closely as their reti- 
 ring nature would permit, we are inclined to the 
 opinion that their nests are seldom seen in Penn- 
 sylvania before the fourth of April ; the period of 
 incubation is universally admitted to be twenty- 
 one days, which, allowing a month for the growth
 
 88 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 of the young birds, will bring them far into May 
 before they are fully fledged. 
 
 It is true that nests have been found in March, 
 and it is said even in February ; but these cases, 
 like the late broods in June, are merely excep- 
 tions to the general law, and are dependent upon 
 accidental circumstances. 
 
 The idea of the hen turning over the tender 
 brood to the care of the male, while she proceeds 
 to incubate a second time, is not susceptible of 
 proof, is opposed to the belief of the best ornitho- 
 logists of the country, and even to the known in- 
 stinct of the bird. In our opinion, it is one of 
 those strokes of the pen intended to startle by its 
 boldness, when the author is really as much in 
 the dark on the subject as his readers. 
 
 In the forests of Montgomery, Berks and 
 Northampton counties, we have repeatedly found 
 them feeding in detached broods two, three or 
 four young birds, fully fledged, in company with 
 the two old ones near the last of May, and in 
 the months of June and July, if the season be wet. 
 When you first approach these insulated, marshy 
 spots, the birds lie close, and if you are so disposed, 
 as the woods are pretty open and free from brush, 
 you may easily make a double shot when they 
 spring. After that it is useless to mark down
 
 WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 89 
 
 the remaining birds, as they seldom admit the dog 
 to point them a second time while under the in- 
 fluence of their first fears. 
 
 Pass on until you come to another piece of wet 
 ground, when ten chances to one your dog points 
 again, and another brood springs. It is absurd 
 for writers to tell you that young cocks in July 
 are only half-fledged, and may be knocked down 
 with a pole. When flushed on the breeding 
 ground, their first flight, though seldom pro- 
 tracted beyond one hundred yards, is sufficiently 
 agile and vigorous to puzzle aught but a good 
 shot to bring both birds down; indeed, we have 
 known a young cock, refusing to lie a second 
 time to the dog, to fly entirely through a piece of 
 wood containing many acres, and take refuge at 
 last in the middle of a rye-field. 
 
 Indeed, if for the purpose of observation and 
 inquiry, you traverse the woods at this period, 
 you will be fully satisfied of the power of their 
 flight, by watching the rapid and dexterous man- 
 ner in which they dart among the surrounding 
 tree trunks, very different from the lazy, listless 
 way in which the old birds flap over a meadow 
 in the glare of day. 
 
 In making these remarks we would by no 
 means be understood to countenance cock shoot- 
 ing at this season of the year.
 
 90 KKIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 When thus harassed, the birds leave the woods 
 and seek other quarters in the succeeding spring. 
 They formerly bred abundantly in Haycock 
 township, Bucks county; but some foolish fellow 
 from Bethlehem, having laid a wager that he 
 could kill a hundred birds in a day, in accom- 
 plishing this murderous feat, made cocks ex- 
 tremely scarce in this district for several succes- 
 sive seasons. We w r ere told by an innkeeper on 
 the old Bethlehem road, that he saw this man 
 count out ninety-six woodcock on his bar-room 
 floor. 
 
 That they are much more abundantly diffused 
 over the country, than their peculiar habits lead 
 the inhabitants to suppose, there is no manner of 
 doubt. Mr. Krider remembers well an old far- 
 mer residing near Moorestown, New Jersey, who, 
 accidentally flushing cocks in his woods, pro- 
 cured a quantity of powder and shot, and being 
 somewhat conversant in the art of pulling a trig- 
 ger, in one day killed an almost incredible num- 
 ber, which he carried to the Philadelphia market, 
 to the great astonishment of the hucksters. 
 
 The birds were in the habit of breeding in the 
 same woods, and the old fellow, well satisfied 
 with his day's work, has been on the lookout for 
 the long bills ever since; and it concerns us to 
 state, to but little purpose.
 
 WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 91 
 
 Iii the summer of 1844, while visiting the 
 breeding grounds, in company with a young 
 friend, he unfortunately shot a hen-bird, while 
 engaged in performing those little interesting 
 manoeuvres by which she hoped to decoy our 
 steps from the vicinity of her unfledged young. 
 The brood, consisting of four half-grown birds, 
 were preserved and carried to the farm-house, 
 where two of them were accidentally killed the 
 same night, A box was procured, the bottom 
 strewn with soft earth and dead leaves, strips 
 nailed across to prevent the birds from escaping, 
 and the next morning they were placed in their 
 new abode. Being very wild and their bills 
 tender, great care was required in feeding them, 
 and it was necessary to cover the slats to prevent 
 them from injuring themselves by fluttering up 
 against the top of the box. The mode of forcing 
 them to feed which we at first adopted, was to 
 take them out of the box, open the bill and place 
 the worm athwart, when, after a few ineffectual 
 attempts, the birds took them down. 
 
 This plan succeeded well for a few days, when, 
 to our suprise and gratification, one bird readily 
 took his food from our fingers, and soon became 
 so tame as to require no further handling. The 
 other fellow continued as wild as before, and after
 
 92 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 giving us a great deal of trouble, when nearly 
 full-grown accidentally received a tap on the 
 head with a finger, which, to our unfeigned re- 
 gret, killed it on the spot. 
 
 We have no objections to state, notwithstand- 
 ing the sympathy of Dr. Lewis for young cocks, 
 that, ogre-like, we did eat this bird without any 
 remorse of conscience, and found it very tender 
 and juicy. 
 
 The other bird did not appear to miss his wild 
 brother; perhaps, like bipeds without feathers, 
 he consoled his grief with the substantial reflec- 
 tion that he would now have the box and all the 
 larvae to himself. But this is scandal, for instead 
 of becoming proud and politic, he grew more gen- 
 tle and tame from day to day, and the reader has 
 no idea as he increased in grace how he gained 
 upon our affection. In truth, to speak without 
 quirk or quibble, we fairly loved that woodcock. 
 We had cause. He was certainly feeding on 
 those unpoetical gournaments, who were ulti- 
 mately destined to revel upon us, and he did this 
 three times a day, in such an easy, recherche 
 way, that we had no words to express our grati- 
 tude. The thing was too exquisite. It was re- 
 ally like carrying the war into the grim enemy's 
 country. We kept him amply supplied and he
 
 WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 93 
 
 fed equally well, when sharp set, at any period 
 of the twenty-four hours. 
 
 Often when' engaged in reading or writing at 
 night, in our little apartment, we have paused to 
 listen as we heard him moving about in his still, 
 prying way, turning over the dead leaves and 
 probing the crannies of the box in pursuit of his 
 prey. When the bars were removed, he some- 
 times flew out, and after making a survey of the 
 room to ascertain, as we supposed, if a pet 
 spaniel was present invariably took a position 
 close to our feet, which he was fond of playfully 
 striking at with his long bill. This was slightly 
 bent and protuberant at the middle of the upper 
 mandible, giving him a strange and somewhat 
 grotesque appearance. 
 
 We have often watched this bird attentively, 
 when he was engaged in feeding from surfaces 
 of different depths and consistency, which had 
 been purposely presented to him, after he was 
 full grown. When his food was merely thrown 
 out of a cup in the usual way, if not very hun- 
 gry, he would stand steadfastly eyeing the coil- 
 ing, twisting mass, waiting patiently until some 
 of its component parts had disengaged them- 
 selves, and crawled under the dead leaves or into 
 the angles or edges of the box ; then slowly in-
 
 94 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES 
 
 sorting the end of his bill into their hiding places, 
 he drew them out one by one, and, lifting them 
 gently up, swept them into his gullet by a sim- 
 ple motion of the head and neck, and an almost 
 imperceptible movement of the tongue. If his 
 appetite was keen, however, he did not stand to 
 parley, but attacked the mass pell-mell, striking 
 and devouring each worm singly with astonish- 
 ing ease and despatch, until his wants were satis- 
 fied or not a single individual remained. 
 
 Before he was fully feathered the worms could 
 easily be observed twisting in his crop, as he sat 
 dozing at his ease, like an alderman after his din- 
 ner. No doubt some of our delicate readers will 
 regard this as rather an indifferent subject of 
 remark ; but we assure them, without intending 
 in the least to crack jokes, that the sight was 
 nuts to us, and we were at a loss to invent means 
 to glorify that woodcock. 
 
 The snake-bird Plotus Melanogaster which 
 does not even eat snakes, by the way, and the 
 secretary bird, which does were mere gobbling 
 creatures of instinct compared with him. He 
 went to his feasts as scientifically and with as 
 much gusto as Lucullus himself. It really seemed 
 as if his whole tribe had owed the worms of the 
 earth an irreconcilable grudge since the days of
 
 WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 95 
 
 Adam. If so, they had no time to cry peccavi ; 
 they did not even wriggle at his bill's point ; but 
 almost seemed to glide voluntarily down his 
 throat, so quickly and evenly did they disappear. 
 Beholding this, we gave free vent to our glee, 
 and remembering a line of Lord Byron's, which 
 disagreeably intimates that man's body was made 
 "to clog the soul and feast the worm," we at once 
 came to the sage conclusion that a woodcock was 
 made for exactly an inverse purpose ; and not being 
 able to compete with his lordship's all-engrossing 
 verse, we contented ourselves with granting our 
 bird full supplies, besides decreeing him " the 
 garland of the war." And to say the truth, he 
 deserved it. He would empty a pint cup of the 
 small reptiles in tw r enty-four hours ; and as for 
 trying his ingenuity by hiding them three or 
 four inches deep in the soft, moist earth, why a 
 covey of birds feeding in the stubbles, w r ith the 
 scent blowing freely from their feathers, had 
 about as much chance of escaping from your 
 pointer's nose, as the enemy from his infallible 
 bill. 
 
 But how did he proceed to effect this, you ask; 
 what was his system of tactics ? My dear reader, 
 compose yourself and listen. 
 
 When placed upon ground thus prepared, if
 
 96 KRIDEll'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 his fast had been purposely protracted, he would 
 first industriously dibble the earth with his bill, 
 striking it rapidly a dozen times or more into the 
 cover, after the manner of a snipe ; then seating 
 himself on his breast, or more frequently stand- 
 ing in the middle of the box, he turned his large 
 full eyes intently on the holes thus bored, in a 
 very singular and knowing way. The first time 
 which we saw him in this attitude, we felt as- 
 sured of what w\is to follow, and that he was in- 
 stinctively acquainted with the habits of his prey. 
 Presently, after the lapse of a moment or two, 
 you observe his neck feathers slightly ruffle, and 
 that instant, with the quickness of thought, he 
 half turned his head, struck and devoured a worm. 
 In this manner he continued to feed, occasionally 
 shifting his ground a few steps and boring afresh, 
 until the whole space was thoroughly riddled and 
 not a single worm left. 
 
 We have observed him thus employed for more 
 than half an hour at a time, and have no doubt 
 that he was materially assisted in his operations 
 by the movements of the worms, which evidently 
 worked up towards the holes bored in the soil. 
 Whether he was guided by the sense of smell or 
 not, we are not prepared to say. In fact, some 
 experiments which were made at the time in re-
 
 WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 97 
 
 ference to this point, inclined us to think that 
 this sense was obtuse in our bird. 
 
 Mr. Bowles, an English traveller, who, many 
 years since, had the pleasure of observing wood- 
 cock feed in an aviary, supposed that they dis- 
 covered their prey by this faculty alone, because 
 he noticed that in boring they never struck their 
 bill into the earth further than the orifice of the 
 nostrils. The inference, however, is fallible, for 
 the reason that birds breathe chiefly through 
 their spiracles, and are very sensitive to the in- 
 troduction of any thing but air into them, as you 
 may easily satisfy yourself by noticing pigeons 
 and fowls when they drink, or feed upon soft 
 food. 
 
 The circumstance that the woodcock, as he 
 expresses it, " never missed its aim," is more con- 
 clusive. Microscopic dissection has revealed the 
 fact, that the bill of the bird in question is sup- 
 plied with a branch of the cranical nerves, the 
 minute filaments of which are distributed to the 
 knob at the end of the upper mandible, as in the 
 case of the snipe scolopax Wilsonii the tip of 
 whose bill after death becomes finely pitted or 
 dimpled, though in life it is very smooth; the 
 sense of hearing in birds is supposed to be much 
 more -delicate than that of smell ; the sight is the
 
 98 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 most acute of all the other faculties; and in the 
 case of the woodcock, as before remarked, the 
 eyes are unusually large and full, and set high 
 in the skull to enlarge the field of vision by the 
 reception of the faintest ray of light which may 
 enter the dark coverts in which they feed ; so 
 that if we suppose that our woodcock, while 
 standing in his striking attitude over the holes 
 he had bored when the worms were buried be- 
 yond his reach, was actually scenting their pecu- 
 liar odor, listening to their movements in the 
 earth like the woodpecker to those of the in- 
 sects which his death-taps on the surface have 
 started from the interior of the hollow limb and 
 watching for them to crawl up in his sight or 
 within the length of his bill, we then have a 
 combination of four faculties admirably adapted 
 to the support of this bird in its wild state, when, 
 from its powers of digestion and the nature of its 
 prey, it is known to require a prodigious quan- 
 tity of food. 
 
 Woodcock have been killed at all hours of the 
 day, and yet those who have examined their ali- 
 mentary parts will tell you that they rarely found 
 a worm even in their crops, and never in their 
 stomachs ; hence the old and prevalent idea that 
 they abstracted the substance of the worm by
 
 WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 99 
 
 suction. By some men of no erudition yet of 
 ordinary intelligence, this absurdity is still be- 
 lieved. 
 
 However, without wishing to detract in the 
 least from the merits of Mr. Bowies' observa- 
 tions, we will no\v relate the course of our expe- 
 riments, leaving the reader to judge of the 
 result. 
 
 We took our bird from its place of confine- 
 ment at its usual feeding time, and buried in 
 each corner of the box two large earth-worms, an 
 inch and a half deep in the soft, black loam ; he 
 was then immediately replaced, and at once be- 
 gan to bore eagerly in the middle of the box, 
 where, for the purpose of observation, his food 
 was usually placed ; it was not until he had ex- 
 plored that spot thoroughly that he changed his 
 ground, and at last discovered and drew out the 
 objects concealed. We continued the experi- 
 ment until he fell into the habit of first searching 
 the corners of the box ; we then hid a dozen 
 worms the same depth, in the same kind of soil, 
 but in the old spot; the result was the same. 
 He first went to one corner of the box, and being 
 disappointed there, bored in another, and finally 
 returned to his usual place. We intended to 
 have carried our experiments farther, but being
 
 100 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 obliged to go to the city, our stay was prolonged 
 for a fortnight, and upon our return, we found 
 the bird had died from neglect, or, as the farmer's 
 boys in whose care it was left, pertinaciously 
 asserted, from the effects of a surfeit. 
 
 Woodcock often return for successive seasons 
 to the same spots to rear their young. This fact 
 was long ago satisfactorily proved in England, 
 and in Pennsylvania nests have been found for 
 two springs in succession, beneath the same bush, 
 on a piece of slightly elevated ground sheltered 
 from the west winds by a woods. We have not the 
 least doubt of the identity of the inhabitant ; in 
 fact, this peculiarity is remarked in many other 
 migratory birds of a more familiar nature. Wil- 
 son, the father of American ornithology, whose 
 acuteness of observation was only equalled by his 
 regard for truth and his unobtrusive modesty, 
 repeatedly refers to it as not the least interesting 
 among the habits of the creatures he was called 
 upon describe. 
 
 The woodcock has been known to exhibit, 
 under certain circumstances, curious symptoms 
 of anger, somewhat similar to the pompous strut- 
 tings of the turkey. On the twenty-fifth of Au- 
 gust Mr. Krider was shooting in the mountains 
 of Bedford county, Pennsylvania, birds being
 
 WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 101 
 
 then numerous in this section of the country, 
 when a cock suddenly flew up and alit within a 
 few feet of the nose of his dog. It ran slowly 
 before the animal, dropping its wings, spreading 
 its tail, ruffling its plumage, and manifesting 
 every sign of impotent rage. Mr. Krider was so 
 surprised at these manoeuvres, never having seen 
 any thing of the kind in the woodcock before, that 
 when it sprung at last he missed it with both 
 barrels, and at the report of his piece, eight or 
 nine birds rose close to him, in a small, swampy 
 thicket where he started the first bird. From 
 the fact of this bird being of unusual size, he was 
 of opinion that it was a female. 
 
 Mr. William McGuigan also shot a bird in the 
 state of New Jersey, under similar circum- 
 stances. We saw this specimen in the Chinese 
 Museum, prepared in that gentleman's inimitable 
 way, exactly in the position in which it was 
 killed, and from a casual inspection of it, believe 
 it to be a female bird. A sporting acquaintance 
 of ours, while " cripple shooting," saw a bird, 
 which the dogs had flushed in the covert where 
 several cocks had already been started and killed, 
 alight on the bank, and perform the same eccen- 
 tric movements within a few feet of him. 
 
 In the summer of 1840, while we were con- 
 7
 
 102 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 versing with a farmer who was engaged in har- 
 rowing corn, a cock suddenly flew out of a woods 
 and alit in a furrow close to the horses, who were 
 standing still at the moment. The bird did not 
 appear to notice us, but drooping its wings and 
 inverting its feathers, stuck its bill in the ground 
 several times as in the act of boring ; before we 
 had an opportunity of noticing it further, the rat- 
 tling of the gears, caused by a movement of one 
 of the horses, startled it, and with a shrill cry it 
 flew back to the woods. Some rain had fallen 
 the night previous, and the soil was wet to the 
 depth of an inch or more ; the corn was still 
 short, and from our position on the fence we 
 could distinctly see the bird. Whether our pre- 
 sence had any thing to do with its actions we can- 
 not say ; possibly, if it had remained a few mo- 
 ments something might have followed to eluci- 
 date the mystery.* 
 
 Woodcock shooting in the immediate vicinity 
 of Philadelphia, like snipe shooting, has declined 
 within a few years and from similar causes, but 
 not to the same extent. Great numbers of birds 
 are still shot in the months of June and July 
 
 * Woodcocks are sometimes seen boring into decayed stumps for 
 wood-worms. We once saw a bird thus engaged in the crotch of a 
 lead willow tree.
 
 WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 103 
 
 along the banks of the Delaware, by those who 
 pursue this sport for pleasure or profit. It is 
 quite a frequent occurrence in favorable seasons, 
 for two or three good shots to kill from twenty to 
 thirty cocks before nine o'clock in the morning, 
 between the navy-yard and the mouth of the 
 Schuylkill, a distance of five miles. In fact, 
 to enjoy this kind of shooting at all, you must 
 be up and off long before sunrise, so as to be 
 on the ground and have your sport over be- 
 fore the heat of the day. If the weather has 
 been dry for some time previous, you may be cer- 
 tain of finding birds in " the cripples," that is, 
 if your purpose has not been forestalled by some 
 detachment of bank-shooters, who would appear 
 to have slept on their arms under the trees in 
 some adjoining meadow, so as to commence the 
 action as soon as it is light enough to shoot, The 
 vociferous clamor and continued firing of the 
 sharp-shooters, when birds are abundant, furnish 
 no bad representation of a skirmish in the gray 
 of dawn, while their flushed faces and constant 
 dodging up and down the bank (often loading as 
 they run) to keep pace with the yells of their 
 canine assistants and the shouts of their compa- 
 nions in the covert, in no wise detract from the 
 merits of the scene. It is customary for them to
 
 104 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 go in parties of four, two of whom enter " the 
 cripple" with three or four setter dogs, while one 
 of the others remains on the bank, and the other 
 takes his place on the "drift" on the outside of 
 the cripple nearest the river. 
 
 Spaniels, by the way, are held in little esteem 
 for this arduous sport, and they who use them 
 select a stock much stronger and hardier than 
 the little English cocker, which is worse than 
 useless. The last soon fag in the heavy, encum- 
 bered ground, and after a little experience in 
 what they are expected to do, learn to skulk, or 
 to answer their excited master's "hie on !" with 
 shrill, helpless cries of concern, as if to intimate 
 that they are sorry for it, but really the thing 
 will not do. Setters, being better able to stand 
 the work, on the contrary, take so kindly to it, 
 that they often give tongue on every bird, and 
 acquire a habit of flushing game, which, of course, 
 destroys their utility as field dogs. It is seldom 
 that even the best bred setter, if encouraged, sea- 
 son after season, to range and hunt out a cripple, 
 can be depended on out of it ; instances are, how- 
 ever, known, where dogs have seemed to com- 
 prehend exactly what was required of them, when 
 hunting the same description of bird in different 
 kinds of ground ; and we have heard of setters,
 
 WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 105 
 
 and more especially pointers, who, in the lan- 
 guage of the doggerel, 
 
 Would flush a woodcock in a swamp, 
 And stand it in the clear. 
 
 But these instances are rare, and if you have any 
 regard for the standing of your dog, do not suffer 
 him to enter a cripple. 
 
 However, the bank-shooters are at their sta- 
 tions; the dogs dash in, and presently you 
 hear a yell, followed by a shot, or a shout of 
 "mark! bird up!" from within, and a report or 
 two from the bank, or the outside, according to 
 the direction which the bird takes. You may 
 readily imagine what ensues, when you are told 
 that every step in the dark cover is in deep, black 
 mire, strewn with decaying drift-wood, and over- 
 grown with stunted trees, reeds and thick alder 
 bushes, and when the birds are put up rapidly, 
 the alarm-notes, firing, and yells of men and dogs 
 increase in proportion, while the affrighted ob- 
 jects of pursuit, driven from every covert by the 
 dogs, dart up and down the cripple, to fall vic- 
 tims at last to the unerring aim of the marks- 
 men. When the latter are up to their business, 
 few, indeed, escape, although it must be said that, 
 if the woodcock is naturally a stupid bird, as 
 .some people assert, cripple shooting is a rare
 
 106 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 mode of quickening his torpid faculties. Under 
 the spur of its application he sometimes betakes 
 him to the wiles of his cousin, the snipe, turning 
 and twisting on the wing so as to elude the shoot- 
 er's aim darting and flitting low round the trees 
 and bushes, so as to disappoint his most sanguine 
 calculations now springing, with a shrill cry, at 
 his very feet, and now stealing away silently, at 
 his back, until the man grows bewildered in spite 
 of himself, his dog loses heart, and the bird by 
 sheer dint of its ingenuity escapes from them 
 both. It is ludicrous, in this case, to observe the 
 manner in which either manifest their chagrin. 
 The shooter besmirched, perhaps, from top to toe, 
 his face begrimmed with powder and his eyes 
 blinded with sweat, mutters his disappointment 
 in " curses not loud but deep," while Dash, in as 
 sorry a plight, looks wearily up in his vexed 
 face, with a despondent wag of his tail, as if, 
 though loath to admit the fact, he needs must own 
 that that cock was too much for him, too. This 
 is the kind of shooting against which many 
 sportsmen, with some appearance of pique and 
 more of justice, yearly exclaim. Should the 
 weather continue dry, it lasts from early in June 
 until the birds leave the cripples to moult, in the 
 month of August.
 
 WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 107 
 
 Some of the old haunts for cock along the Dela- 
 ware, were very famous in our young days. The 
 drifts or higher portions of the flats, where the 
 refuse of the tides had collected, were sure spots, 
 especially those where the fishermen resorted to 
 dig up worms. On the Cakehouse drift fourteen 
 or fifteen birds have been killed in one morning. 
 Hay Creek cripple was considered well worth 
 hunting out, and at the name of Whitehall many 
 an old cock shooter will start as at the sound of 
 a trumpet. This was situated on Hollander's 
 Creek, and was esteemed the best place within 
 ten miles around. The drift at the head of 
 Broad Marsh, below the Point House, and all the 
 drifts and cripples along the river and the creeks 
 running into it, were, and are at the present day, 
 excellent places for cocks in dry weather. But 
 if rain falls in any considerable quantity, the 
 birds then leave these places and disperse over 
 the meadows. Strange as it may sound to the 
 sportsman, many persons who shoot are utterly 
 ignorant of this fact. Mr. Krider was once in- 
 vited by a friend to shoot cocks in the neighbor- 
 hood of Wilmington, Delaware ; the season had 
 been dry, and many birds had been killed in the 
 cripples ; but a heavy shower of rain having wet 
 the meadows and corn-fields, the party hunted in
 
 108 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 the usual places in vain, to the great annoyance 
 
 of , who, having found them abundant for 
 
 several successive days previous, could in no 
 wise account for the sudden disappearance. 
 
 " Where do you shoot snipe ?" inquired Krider, 
 after the other had completely exhausted him- 
 self and his patience in his fruitless endeavors to 
 show sport. 
 
 " In yonder meadow," answered ; " but 
 
 you will find none there at this season." 
 
 " Let us try, nevertheless," said Krider. 
 
 After much persuasion he consented to lead 
 the way, and in this meadow they killed twenty- 
 seven cocks, to the great delight and suprise of 
 
 , who was now extremely anxious to visit all 
 
 such golden spots within the compass of a day's 
 hunt. The party brought in forty-five birds at 
 night-fall, every one of which was killed in the 
 meadows. 
 
 On another occasion, in the year eighteen 
 hundred and forty-one, Mr. Krider, in company 
 with a friend, killed sixty-three birds in a range 
 of meadows and a maple swamp near Rights- 
 town, New Jersey, by ten o'clock in the morn- 
 ing, returning to Philadelphia the same day. 
 The ground at this place has been so much im- 
 proved since his visit that few birds are to be 
 found there at the present day.
 
 WOODCOCK SHOOTING. 109 
 
 At most of the places mentioned in the article 
 on snipe shooting, cocks are abundant in July if 
 the grounds be sufficiently wet ; but at Port Penn, 
 Delaware, some distance in the rear of Price's 
 hotel, there is a maple swamp, surrounded by 
 very thick tussock meadows, which was and, 
 perhaps, is still very excellent ground. On one 
 occasion, three shooters killed ninety -three birds 
 before mid-day among the tussocks and in the 
 swamp. We have at times found them abund- 
 ant in the mountainous parts of the state in Au- 
 gust, September, October; and on the tenth of 
 November, when partridge shooting, in Lehigh 
 county, we killed in the woods seventeen of the 
 finest birds which we ever saw bagged. It is 
 worthy of remark that, in the fall of 1845, we shot 
 two woodcock in a meadow, where a few moments 
 afterwards, the dogs pointed snipe. This oc- 
 curred in Montgomery county, on a small branch 
 of the Perkiomen Creek, watering a valley a short 
 distance from the little village of Salfordville. 
 While killing a few partridges for the table, we 
 unexpectedly started three cocks from among 
 some scattered bushes which bordered a small 
 run. Upon examining these, it was discovered 
 that they had not yet done moulting. A few 
 hundred yards further, six or seven snipe were
 
 110 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 sprung exactly in the place where we expected 
 to find them, and while charging, a young dog 
 in company, escaping our notice for a moment, 
 ran out and stood in a piece of sedgy ground, 
 partially covered with rank grass and rushes. 
 On our approach he was staunchly backed by 
 the old dog, and two more cocks sprung. The 
 last proved to be in the same condition as the 
 others ; but though we beat this meadow care- 
 fully and several others in the course of the 
 afternoon, we saw no more birds, nor have we 
 ever found them since in a meadow at this sea- 
 son of the year. 
 
 When hunting ruifed grouse in October, 
 among the stony hills of Montgomery and Berks, 
 we have sometimes killed cocks in small spots of 
 black marshy ground in the very midst of the 
 huge gray rocks, from some one of which a 
 spring issued. During the heat of summer we 
 have found them in dense, dry thickets and 
 copses not far from the feeding ground, and when 
 driven out into the glare of day they almost in- 
 variably pitch close to a fence, or a tree, as if 
 blinded by the light. There is a small species 
 of hawk which builds its nest in a retired part 
 of the woods, and is a great enemy to these birds 
 on the breeding ground. We have never been
 
 WOODCOCK SHOOTING. Ill 
 
 able to shoot or trap it. It has a shrill scream; 
 is between the size of a sparrow-hawk and the 
 falco columbarius, and is exceedingly watchful 
 and wary. It often visits the orchard and the 
 vicinity of the barn-yard early in the morning to 
 carry off young chickens. We have several times 
 seen it swoop down from the topmost branch of 
 a tree and seize a woodcock, and have spent 
 hours in the woods on foot and on horseback fol- 
 lowing its cry in vain endeavor to shoot it, or to 
 discover its nest. A son of the farmer informed 
 us that he had twice found the latter near the 
 top of very tall trees ; in each case the young 
 birds had flown, and the bottom of the nest was 
 covered with the bones and other remains of va- 
 rious small birds. Its cry is heard in the deepest 
 part of the woods, at all hours of the day ; its tail 
 is barred with white ; but wiiether it is the falco 
 velox of Wilson or no, we are unable to say. 
 
 We certainly never felt inclined to doubt the 
 accuracy of Audubon's remark that the wood- 
 cock never feeds on salt marshes, until last sum- 
 mer, when we were requested by one of a party 
 of four at supper, to taste a portion of a bird, 
 which we did in turn, and all agreed that it was 
 decidedly sedgy. This bird was one of eighteen 
 which had been killed in a meadow below
 
 112 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 Pennsgrove, on the previous day. by two of the 
 party present. They were served up with their 
 heads on, so that no deception could have been 
 practiced had the circumstances warranted such 
 a suspicion. Brewer has remarked that a per- 
 son, technically ignorant of ornithology, would 
 at once pick out a woodcock from a snipe, from 
 something peculiar in its appearance. Besides 
 the "plumed tibid, the tarvi are much shorter, 
 and shows that the bird is not intended to wade, 
 or to frequent very marshy situations, like the 
 snipe. The plumage of the former is also of a 
 more sombre shade." 
 
 When found in a meadow they are much 
 more easily killed than snipe, and with steady 
 dogs very few ought to escape. This bird, like 
 the snipe, has a remarkably game look ; some 
 sportsmen before consigning them to the bag, 
 display as much fondness over them as the two 
 executioners so admirably described in Quintin 
 Durward, were wont to do over their victims, 
 with this difference, that the latter spoke to liv- 
 ing and the former to dead ears.
 
 THE RICE-BUNTING, OR REED-BIRD. 
 
 EMBERIZA ORYZIVOKA. 
 
 Description. " The rice-bunting is seven and 
 a half inches long, and eleven and a half in extent. 
 His spring dress is as follows : Upper part of 
 the head, wings, tail, and sides of the neck, and 
 whole lower parts black ; the feathers frequently 
 skirted with brownish yellow, as he passes into 
 the colors of the female ; back of the head, a 
 cream color ; back, black, seamed with brown- 
 ish yellow; scapulars pure white; rump and 
 tail coverts the same ; lower part of the back, 
 bluish white ; tail, formed like those of the wood- 
 pecker genus, and often used in the same man- 
 ner, being thrown in to support it while ascend- 
 ing the stalks of the reed ; this habit of throwing 
 in the tail it retains even in the cage ; legs, a 
 brownish flesh color ; hind heel, very long; bill, 
 a bluish horn color; eye, hazel. In the month 
 of June this plumage gradually changes to a 
 brownish yellow, like that of the female, which 
 has the back streaked with brownish black;
 
 114 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 whole lower parts, dull yellow; bill, reddish 
 flesh color; legs and eyes as in the male. 
 The young birds retain the dress of the female 
 until the early part of the succeeding spring; 
 the plumage of the female undergoes no ma- 
 terial change of color." 
 
 We have nothing new to say of this well- 
 known and delicious bird. It visits this part of 
 the state early in May, when the song of the 
 males is heard in every meadow. 
 
 Such was the impression made upon us, last 
 spring, by the sweet, tinkling notes which pro- 
 ceeded from a large flock perched on a willow 
 tree, that although in search of specimens at the 
 moment, we took the gun from our shoulder 
 and forbore to shoot. The actions of the male 
 while singing reminded us somewhat of those 
 of the canary. The notes are tiny and delicate, 
 like those of a small musical-box, but extremely 
 rapid, short and varied, and very expressive of 
 an etherial lightness of spirit. If the listener 
 closes his eyes for a moment, he might almost 
 imagine the presence of some fairy beings, ca- 
 rolling in the air to the praise of the new-born 
 May. In an instant, however, the concert ceases, 
 and, opening your eyes, perhaps you see the 
 whole flock in the act of alighting on the ground.
 
 THE RICE-BUNTING, OR REED-BIRD. Ho 
 
 In a few moments they fly to the tree again, or 
 upon a rail fence, when the song is resumed 
 with the same sweet and surprising effect. 
 
 They remain but a week or two, and then 
 pass to the northward and eastward to prepare 
 their nests. When the hen is sitting, the notes 
 of the male are emitted in the air near the nest, 
 and have been pronounced to be in reality more 
 pleasing than those of the European sky -lark. 
 They have no song in the fall, merely uttering 
 their usual chink, with which almost every one 
 living in the vicinity of the city is familiar. 
 
 We killed numbers of these birds in Septem- 
 ber last, in the corn-fields of Montgomery, and 
 found many of them in very good order. The 
 same season, partridges being- very scarce, we 
 shot many of the alauda magna, or common 
 meadow-lark, which were unusually abundant, 
 and in better order than we remember to have 
 ever found them before. The young birds were, 
 in fact, hardly inferior to the partridge, and we 
 continued to supply our table with them until 
 the severe weather set in, when the flocks dis- 
 appeared. The shore or winter-lark was also 
 more common than usual in this section of the 
 country. They fly in flocks of from twenty to 
 a hundred, and have a shrill, pitiful note, some-
 
 116 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 what similar to that of the killdeer plover, but 
 much less loud and distinct. They are as large 
 and quite as plump as the reed-bird in Septem- 
 ber, and make a very agreeable variety for the 
 table. On a twenty acre rye-field, which had 
 been strewn with manure during the winter, we 
 killed sixty-three of these birds in the month of 
 January. Before the flock rises they sometimes 
 make a low, curring noise, and after having 
 been shot at, circle swiftly round the field seve- 
 ral times before they alight again. It is seldom, 
 however, that the shooter can knock down more 
 than two or three at a shot, as they fly loosely, 
 and never huddle together on the ground, ex- 
 cept when sunning themselves at noon. In a 
 state of captivity they are very wild and restless, 
 and we have never been able to preserve them 
 for any length of time. 
 
 Large flocks of the little fringilla linaria, or 
 lesser red-poll, appeared in the fields during the 
 past winter. We shot great numbers of them 
 feeding in the stubbles, especially before a 
 storm; and, as far as our experience goes, they 
 are all marked at this season with the crimson 
 patch on the crown. In. a few, the color of the 
 patch was less decided than in others ; but out 
 of hundreds which we examined, not a single
 
 THE RICE-BUNTING, OR REED-BIRD. 
 
 individual was found entirely destitute of it. 
 The rudiments of the red patch on the breast 
 and rump can always be distinguished on the 
 young males in their winter dress. In some of 
 the adults it is of a rose color, and in others of a 
 blood-red. On some occasions we found the flocks 
 dispersed in the woods, gleaning from the twigs 
 of the tallest trees, and again observed them in 
 the low meadows, where they are fond of dab- 
 bling in the runs on a warm day. Their ap- 
 pearance, however, was always uncertain, and 
 after being shot at several times, the flocks often 
 disappeared for a time from the vicinity. They 
 thrive in confinement, and have a peculiar chir- 
 rup, very different from their usual call, which 
 resembles that of the yellow-bird (fringilla tris- 
 tis) and of the canary. We sent a female red- 
 poll, which had been slightly injured on the 
 wing, to a lady in Philadelphia, where we saw 
 it in perfect health, some weeks afterwards, in a 
 cage with some canaries.
 
 THE GRASS PLOVER. 
 
 BARTRAM'S SANDPIPER PRINGA BARTRAMIA. 
 
 Description. " The grass plover is twelve 
 inches long, and twenty-one in extent; the bill 
 is an inch and a half long, slightly bent down- 
 wards, and wrinkled at the base, the upper man- 
 dible black on its ridge, the lower, as well as the 
 edge of the upper, of a fine yellow ; front, stripe 
 over the eye, neck and breast, pale ferruginous, 
 marked with small streaks of black, which, on 
 the lower part of the breast, assume the form of 
 arrow-heads; crown, black, the plumage slightly 
 skirted with whitish ; chin, orbit of the eye, 
 whole belly and vent, pure white ; hind head 
 and neck above ferruginous, minutely streaked 
 with black ; back and scapulars, black, the for- 
 mer slightly skirted with ferruginous, the latter 
 with white; tertials, black, bordered with white; 
 primaries, plain black ; shaft of the exterior 
 quill, snowy, its inner vane elegantly pectinated 
 with white; secondaries pale. brown, spotted on 
 their outer vanes with black, and tipped with
 
 THE GRASS PLOVER. 119 
 
 white ; greater coverts, dusky, edged with pale 
 ferruginous, and spotted with black; lesser co- 
 verts, pale ferruginous, each feather broadlj 
 bordered with white, within which is a concen- 
 tric semi-circle of black ; rump and tail coverts, 
 deep brown black, slightly bordered with white; 
 tail, tapering, of a pale brown orange color, beau- 
 tifully spotted with black, the middle feathers 
 centred with dusky ; legs, yellow, tinged with 
 green, the outer toe joined to the middle by a 
 membrane; lining of the wings, elegantly barred 
 with black and white ; iris of the eye, dark or 
 blue-back, very large. The male and female 
 are nearly alike. Weight upwards of three- 
 quarters of a pound." 
 
 This plump and finely marked bird appears 
 in the fields of Montgomery county, Pennsyl- 
 vania, about the middle of April, and sometimes 
 earlier. They are then in good order, not at all 
 shy at first, but after having been shot at, be- 
 come extremely vigilant and difficult to ap- 
 proach. For several weeks they frequent the 
 grass fields in companies of never more than 
 three or four, and early in May separate into 
 pairs. We have flushed the hen from her eggs, 
 deposited in a grass field, without any appear- 
 ance of a nest, on the tenth of May. In the
 
 120 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 spring and during the summer, they have a pe- 
 culiar, prolonged scream, which they emit in 
 the air, on the ground, or from a fence-rail, on 
 which last they frequently alight, stretching 
 their slender and elegantly formed necks, and 
 opening and spreading their wings. At this 
 season of the year their sharp, rolling whistle is 
 comparatively seldom heard. They run and fly 
 well, but their suspicious manner of lifting their 
 heads readily betrays them on the ground, while 
 their strange cry often leads the shooter to the 
 field which they inhabit. Mr. Jacob Beck, an 
 old sportsman, who had killed many of these 
 birds in the month of September, was totally 
 unacquainted with their common note on the 
 breeding ground, and would not believe them to 
 be the same birds, until he had examined several 
 specimens, shot in the fields of Montgomery, in 
 the neighborhood of Perkiomen Creek. They 
 feed principally upon grass-hoppers and other 
 insects. We once killed a bird early in the 
 summer which had two large gooseberries in its 
 crop. In this part of the country they are called 
 regan-fegles, or rain-birds, from the supposition 
 that their scream is ominous of wet weather. 
 They will not lie to the dogs, and must be killed 
 by stratagem. In August they begin to leave
 
 THE GRASS PLOVER. 121 
 
 the uplands with their young, though occasion- 
 ally a bird or two may be found in an old stub- 
 ble or clover-field in a remote part of the farm, 
 as late as the middle of September. They are 
 then excessively fat and very delicate eating. 
 The market shooters kill many of them in Au- 
 gust and September, on the meadows bordering 
 upon the river Delaware below the city, resort- 
 ing to many stratagems to cover their approach, 
 such as wading ditches, or secreting themselves 
 behind cattle and fences, while their compa- 
 nions steal on the birds on their hands and 
 knees. Unlike the golden plover, or bull-head 
 of the river shooters, this species is never found 
 frequenting ponds, or the banks of ditches, and 
 is never seen in large flocks in the upland 
 country, unless driven inland by storms. 
 
 The grass plover migrates in small bodies, and 
 almost every one has heard its whistle sounding 
 over the city, apparently from among the stars, 
 on a calm summer night. Both varieties some- 
 times sweep over the lower meadows in a long 
 extended line, flying low and with great swift- 
 ness. The grass plover is far superior in flavor 
 to all the other varieties, the golden plover per- 
 haps, excepted, and is much sought after by 
 epicures.
 
 122 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 We believe this bird is not found in Great 
 Britain or upon the continent, the gray plover of 
 Ireland, which bears some resemblance to it, being 
 essentially different in its markings and habits. 
 It is said to be common in some parts of the vast 
 prairies of Missouri, but we are inclined to think, 
 is nowhere very abundant. 
 
 The kildeer plover has been with us all winter. 
 We found them in companies of ten or twelve 
 feeding in the rye-fields and low meadows after 
 a thaw. They were very fat and excellent eating.
 
 THE BULL-HEADED OR GOLDEN 
 PLOVER. 
 
 CHARADEIUS PLUVIALIS. 
 
 Description. " The golden plover is ten inches 
 and a half long, and twenty-one inches in extent; 
 bill, short, of a dusky slate color ; eye, very large, 
 blue black ; nostrils, placed in a deep furrow, and 
 half covered with a prominent membrane ; whole 
 upper parts, black, thickly marked with roundish 
 spots of various tints of a golden yellow; wing 
 coverts, and hinder parts of the neck, pale brown, 
 the latter streaked with yellowish; front, broad 
 line over the eye, chin and sides, of the same 
 yellowish white, streaked with small, pointed 
 spots of brown olive; breast, gray, with olive 
 and white ; sides, under the wings, marked thickly 
 with tran verse bars of pale olive ; belly and vent, 
 white ; wing-quills, black, the middle shafts 
 marked \vith white; greater coverts black, tipped 
 with white; tail, rounded, black, barred with 
 triangular spots of golden yellow ; legs, dark 
 dusky slate; feet, three-toed, with generally the
 
 124 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 slight rudiments of a heel, the outer toe con- 
 nected, as far as the first joint, with the middle 
 one. 
 
 "The male and female differ very little in 
 color." 
 
 This is also a handsomely marked and delicate 
 bird for the table. It is, however, never seen far 
 inland in the United States, but chiefly frequents 
 the sea-coast, and the flat shores of such large 
 rivers as flow uninterruptedly into the ocean. 
 It is very common in the northern parts of 
 Europe, where it breeds on high and heathy 
 mountains. In North America it is supposed 
 to rear its young in the remote, Artie regions, 
 where the ground is more open and solitary, and 
 less covered with forests. Small flocks have, 
 occasionally, been seen for a day or two in Mont- 
 gomery county, whither they have been driven 
 by the September gales. 
 
 They are killed in September and October 
 along the Delaware and its tributaries, and 
 underline skilful guidance of Westley Stints- 
 man, the renowned paddler, we have sometimes 
 surprised and effected considerable execution 
 among flocks seated on the edges of ditches and 
 ponds on the meadows near the mouth of the 
 Schuylkill. The mode of approaching them is
 
 THE BULL-HEADED OR GOLDEN PLOVER. 125 
 
 by silently paddling up the ditches and creeks 
 in a small, railing skiff when the tide is at its 
 height. This is done to the best advantage after 
 an overflow of the meadow r s. Like the grass 
 
 o 
 
 plover, it is said to lay four eggs of a pale, olive 
 color, variegated with blackish spots. We were 
 informed by a man who has killed great numbers 
 of these birds for the market, that they some- 
 times become so sedgy as seriously to affect their 
 sale. He attributed this to some change in the 
 character of the marshes in the neighborhood of 
 Salem, Alloway's, and other creeks, where he 
 was in the habit of shooting.
 
 RAIL SHOOTING. 
 
 RAIL RALLUS CAROLINUS COMMON SORA RAIL, OR, LITTLE 
 AMERICAN WATER HEN. 
 
 Description. "The rail is nine inches long, 
 and fourteen in extent; bill, yellow, blackish 
 towards the point ; lores, front, crown, chin, and 
 stripe down the throat, black ; line over the eye, 
 cheeks and breast, fine light ash; sides of the 
 crown, neck, and upper parts generally, olive 
 brown, streaked with black, and also with long 
 lines of pure white, the feathers being centred 
 with black on an olive ground, and edged with 
 white; these touches of white are shorter near 
 the shoulder of the wing, lengthening as they de- 
 scend ; wing plain olive brown ; tertials, streaked 
 with black, and long lines of white; tail, pointed, 
 dusky olive brown, centred with black, the four 
 middle feathers bordered for half their length 
 with lines of white ; lower part of the breast 
 marked with semi-circular lines of white, on a 
 light ash ground; belly, white; sides, under the 
 wings, deep olive, barred with black, white, and
 
 RAIL SHOOTING. 127 
 
 reddish, buff; vent, brownish, buff; legs, feet, 
 and naked part of the thighs, yellowish green; 
 exterior edge of the wing, white; eyes, reddish 
 hazel. 
 
 " The females, and young of the first season, 
 have the throat white, the breast pale brown, 
 and little or no black on the head. The males 
 may always be distinguished by their ashy blue 
 breasts and black throats." 
 
 During the summer months, the flat shores of 
 the Delaware, in winter so bleak and devoid of 
 interest, present to the stranger's gaze a spectacle 
 of unwonted beauty. Standing upon the long 
 embankment which keeps off the tides from the 
 range of meadows behind him, he sees a vast, 
 waving belt or border of bright, luxuriant green, 
 extending from the base of the bank to the low- 
 water mark, and stretching along the course of 
 the river, in rich, dense array, as far as the eye 
 can reach. When the tall reeds which compose 
 this magnificent fringe, have attained their full 
 height, their vivid verdue and slender feathery 
 tops, over and among which countless flocks of 
 birds are continually rising and settling, impart 
 an almost oriental character to these alluvial 
 marshes. The effect is heightened by the com- 
 pactness with which the wild plants grow, the
 
 128 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 stifling heat which is endured among them on 
 an August or September noon, and the various 
 descriptions of animal life, with which, at this 
 season of the year, the miniature forest abounds. 
 The waters alternately leave the flats bare, 
 and cover them to the depth of four or five feet; 
 the reeds rise from the ooze by erect stems, 
 stout and strong below, and tapering away to 
 their tops which bend and bow with every pass- 
 ing breeze : upon the upper branches of these 
 panicled tops, the nutritious seeds which are the 
 bread of the wild birds of the air, are produced ; 
 yellow blossoms adorn the lower ones ; long, 
 sword-like leaves flaunt from the stems, and 
 drooping towards the water in the sultry silence 
 of noon, seem, at every cool splash, to woo the 
 embraces of the flood, or by their wild wavings 
 and rustlings in the wind, when the tide is 
 down, contribute not a little to the poetry of the 
 scene. The reeds also grow abundantly upon 
 the shore of all the tributaries of the Delaware, 
 upon its bars and low, marshy islands, and along 
 the ditches which intersect the meadows by the 
 river-side. Cattle are fond of them, and may be 
 daily seen straggling across the bank, and wad- 
 ing upon the edge of the flats, to browse upon 
 them on the flood. Many varieties of winged
 
 RAIL SHOOTING. 129 
 
 insects sport among the leaves of the reeds; 
 minks and musk-rats prowl among the interlac- 
 ing roots at low water ; the large, golden-eyed 
 frog and the snapper crawl upon the ooze ; fish 
 swarm among the stalks on the flood ; the soli- 
 tary bittern roosts all day upon the higher por- 
 tions of the flat; the marsh-wren binds its 
 curious nest to the stalks, far above the dash 
 of the stormiest tides ; the restless swallow darts 
 to and fro in pursuit of gnats and flies, or pauses 
 to perch on the fragile sprays of the panicle, 
 which its weight bows in the gale ; woodcock 
 and snipe are found in " the cripples" and upon 
 " the drifts ;" red-winged black-birds, rice-bunt- 
 ings, teal, mallard and other marsh ducks, feed 
 upon the farinaceous seeds ; and here, above 
 all, millions of the Carolina rail, or little 
 American water hen, for ^several weeks find 
 a rich repast, on their annual migration to the 
 south. 
 
 The mystery which once hung over the 
 migratory movements of the whole genus, to 
 which the bird under consideration belongs, has 
 long been dispelled by the researches of the 
 ornithologist, and now only exists in the minds 
 of those who, from want of inclination or capa- 
 city, are cut off from the use of books.
 
 130 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 Like Wilson's snipe, a few of these birds 
 breed in the Middle States. Few persons, in- 
 deed, have been fortunate enough to see the 
 nest of the Carolina rail. Mr. Krider, who for 
 several years has paid considerable attention to 
 the study of ornithology, has, however, he 
 thinks, discovered it more than once, built in a 
 bunch of coarse grass on the edge of the high 
 marshes. In looking over his rough notes, we 
 find that in the year eighteen hundred and 
 forty-five, he found a nest on the Broad Marsh 
 with the hen sitting upon it, cunningly con- 
 cealed from view by the top of a tuft of grass, 
 which was bent down and fastened to the nest. 
 She left her eggs with evident reluctance, steal- 
 ing away as it were, step by step, and constantly 
 looking back to watch the intruder's intentions. 
 We, ourselves, remember to have seen, some 
 years ago, at the house of a medical gentleman 
 of Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, a pre- 
 pared specimen of the Rallus Carolinus, with 
 her brood beside her, which the doctor assured us 
 had been caught in his meadow on the previous 
 June. We have also killed rail in the same 
 month on a farm a few miles distant from the 
 former place. It is well known, however, that 
 the main body move on far to the north, return-
 
 RAIL SHOOTING. 131 
 
 ing with their young late in the summer, when 
 on a calm, clear night, their cry may be dis- 
 tinctly heard in the air, as they pass over the 
 city to the marshes. Dennis Welsh, who for 
 many years has occupied the situation of a 
 watchman in one of the lower districts, and is 
 well known to the sporting world as the oldest 
 and perhaps the best pusher on the river, has 
 informed us that, year after year, he has never 
 failed to distinguish their voices sounding over 
 his head, while he was silently traversing his 
 beat at the dead hour of night. As these little 
 visitors have long been a source of pleasure and 
 profit to Dennis, who still prides himself on 
 never having missed a tide, when there was 
 water enough on the marsh to work his batteau, 
 there is something curious in the idea of the 
 veteran pusher mutely listening, night after 
 night, on his rounds for the decisive evidences 
 of their arrival, as if while fulfilling his functions 
 as guardian of the public rest, he was also, in 
 some sense, acting as watchman to his own 
 private interests in the fields of air. Others, 
 while fishing for eels at night on the outer edge 
 of the flats, have repeatedly been startled by 
 hearing rail alight singly in the water close to 
 them, and instantly swim in among the reeds.
 
 132 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 Remaining with us several weeks, and afford- 
 ing much sport at a season of the year when 
 there is little else to shoot, they then depart for 
 the south even more suddenly than they came, 
 and the pushing-pole and the rail-box is laid by 
 until the succeeding year. 
 
 Their course through the Southern States 
 may be traced in the same manner as their 
 advance to the north in the spring, their appear- 
 ance in the different degrees of latitude occurring 
 at regular intervals, from Hudson's bay to the 
 shores of the great gulf. The idea is even en- 
 tertained that they extend their flight to the 
 south, beyond the limits of the continent. In 
 regard to their apparent feebleness of wing, it 
 has been long observed, that although from the 
 development of their legs and feet, and the pecu- 
 liar compressed shape of their bodies, it is evi- 
 dent that they are especially formed for running 
 in thick coverts, they have nevertheless been 
 observed during the morning and evening twi- 
 light, and in rough, windy weather, to fly entirely 
 clear of cover with great freedom and swiftness. 
 Hardly an old rail shooter but has seen them 
 occasionally cross wide streams like the Dela- 
 ware, when hard pushed by the boats. Late in 
 the season, when the finer variety of the reed
 
 RAIL SHOOTING. 133 
 
 has been entirely beaten down by storms, we 
 have flushed rail which have flown away from 
 the skiff in zig-zag lines, like snipe. When the 
 reeds are in this condition, the birds may be 
 readily seen running and feeding on either side 
 of the boat, or arranging their plumage as quietly 
 as pigeons on a roof. We have often watched 
 their motions for ten minutes at a time, to the 
 great discontent of the pusher, who, like the rest 
 of his class, devoutly believed in the proverb, 
 that "a bird in the boat was worth two in the 
 reeds." On one occasion we saw a gun which 
 had been inadvertently loaded with powder and 
 wad only, discharged at a rail engaged in plum- 
 ing itself; the bird did not even discontinue 
 the business of the toilet, and was killed by the 
 second barrel without moving from its position. 
 
 In regard to the rail's being occasionally sub- 
 ject to epileptic fits, superinduced by paroxysms 
 of rage or fear, no satisfactory case of the kind 
 has ever come under the immediate notice of the 
 author or his editor. We were, however, shown 
 a bird during the past season, which was said to 
 have been shot at and apparently killed, but 
 afterwards revived and was found to be wholly 
 uninjured. It lived in good health for several 
 weeks. One of the persons in the boat which
 
 134 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 picked up this bird, was an old friend of the 
 editor's, and we are inclined to place implicit 
 faith in his report. Dennis Welsh before no- 
 ticed, also remembers two or three cases of the 
 same nature in the course of thirty years' expe- 
 rience in rail shooting. In one instance, the first 
 bird which he flushed on the tide, fell dead at 
 the simple report of the cap, the gun missing fire, 
 which incident so affected the shooter, that,- after 
 examining the bird, he directed Dennis to put 
 back for the ferry, declaring that he would shoot 
 no more. There was a high tide rising on the 
 marshes, and Welsh, who always enters deeply 
 into the sport, ventured to expostulate; the gen- 
 tleman, however, was firm in his determination 
 never to kill another rail, and after deliberately 
 destroying his box with a large stone, called for 
 his carriage and departed. 
 
 " From what I could hear," said the pusher, 
 "I believe he has never been out since." An- 
 other sage old pusher and duck paddler, who 
 had also seen rail "play the 'possum," or kick 
 the bucket outright in this mysterious way, 
 gravely advanced the opinion, that although 
 these birds had not been touched by the charges 
 aimed at their bodies, they had nevertheless 
 died, indirectly, from the effects of lead in the
 
 RAlt SHOOTING. 135 
 
 system, having been previously afflicted with 
 a species of disorder, which the learned faculty 
 call colica pictonum, produced by indulging in 
 morbid appetite for the pellets of shot, which 
 are so thickly strewn on the marshes. This, 
 the pusher thought, so debilitated their consti- 
 tutions, that the mere report of villainous salt- 
 petre, so annoying to Hotspur's human popin- 
 jay, was too much for them. 
 
 "The wital forces," said he, " couldn't stand 
 it no how; hence they eyther tuk fits straight, 
 or else straightened out in arnest." 
 
 That shot are occasionally found in the diges- 
 tive organs of water-fowl, is a fact known to 
 many sportsmen ; it is true, also, that paralysis 
 sometimes supercedes lead colic; these two 
 facts being undisputed, we leave old E.'s theory 
 to the attention of the curious without further 
 comment. There is really nothing extraordi- 
 nary in the idea, that intense apprehension 
 should produce insensibility and even death, in 
 a creature of such delicate organization as a rail, 
 and we are strongly inclined to think that Mr. 
 Orde for whom we have great respect as the 
 friend and companion of WiiSon mistook this 
 feeling in the cases which he adduced, for that 
 of rage. We have also full faith in the state-
 
 136 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 ment of our friend, and in the experience of 
 Dennis Welsh. As for the other man's theory, 
 that carries conviction off its feet ; that speaks 
 for itself. 
 
 The rail is said to be a ventriloquist; very 
 respectable authority is also adduced for that 
 assertion, and, with a simple qualification, we 
 are disposed to believe it is a fact. 
 
 The lordly lion of the desert the banded fox 
 of "the land of ice and snow" the katydids 
 which sing so merrily in the forest; the little 
 cricket which chirps away at home in the 
 porch, but cunningly creeps in towards the 
 hearth when the nights grow chill each and 
 all possess, in some degree, the power of de- 
 ceiving the ear. We have shown in a former 
 page how a dog became a somnambulist, and 
 are now ready to endorse the assertion, that the 
 whole family of the rails are travelling ventrilo- 
 quists. One thing is certain, if they are capable 
 of counterfeiting death so cleverly, and of throw- 
 ing their voices into any corner they please, 
 they are accomplished birds, and it will not 
 do to stigmatise them "ninny hammers" and 
 "simpletons" any longer; we must hasten to 
 amend that. There is more point, as well as 
 magnanimity, in bestowing upon them the
 
 EAIL SHOOTING. 137 
 
 familiar and somewhat endearing epithets of 
 ''timid little water-fowl," "shy birds," as we 
 shall see when we get further on, when rail are 
 found baffling the bewildered pusher, by hiding 
 under the submerged reeds, to escape being 
 riddled by a charge of No. 8, or diving like 
 the devil or a bay black-head, to avoid being 
 knocked on the head. 
 
 It would be well, also, to remember that two 
 different branches of the family have been 
 raised to royal dignity ; the rattus elegans 
 being styled the king-rail in America, while the 
 rallus crex, by the unanimous voice of the 
 people of Old England, savants excepted, was 
 long ago crowned king of the tetrao coturnix, 
 the wandering and warlike quail. 
 
 Rail often leave the marshes and come upon 
 the dry meadows, seldom remaining there longer 
 than an hour or two, and never wandering far 
 from their favorite haunts. While crossing a 
 hard, dry meadow, from one marsh to another, 
 on the island of Spesutia, in October last, we 
 came upon numbers of rail which refused to lie 
 for the dogs, but rose from among the thin grass 
 and flew swiftly off to the rushes, about two 
 hundred yards distant. When shot in the 
 above situations, their crops have invariably
 
 138 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 been found to contain minute fragments of 
 stone. 
 
 The disposition of the rail is strongly marked 
 by petulance and curiosity. Although by no 
 means manifesting the restless and spirit-like 
 energy which distinguishes the snipe, they are 
 far from being the stupid birds which it has 
 pleased some writers, in their infinite wisdom, 
 to represent them. Like woodcock, they often 
 display ingenuity enough to baffle the sports- 
 man, and were it not for the advantage of the 
 tides, we should have little or no diversion to 
 boast of in rail shooting. They are so inces- 
 santly harassed during their stay among us, 
 and keep so closely to their coverts at low- 
 water, that it is almost impossible to acquire 
 any intimate acquaintance with their habits. 
 From what has been observed of their domestic 
 relations, we have no doubt that in their reedy 
 homes, in warmer climes afar, they are sociabJe 
 and frolicsome birds. 
 
 When a person, totally unacquainted with the 
 habits of rail, is brought in a light skiff to the 
 very edge of the marshes, and informed that 
 myriads of the interesting birds which have so 
 long attracted the attention of the sportsman and 
 the naturalist, are at that moment sleeping, feed-
 
 RAIL SHOOTING. 139 
 
 ing, pluming, warring, idling or making love in 
 the reeds before him, seeing nothing of these, 
 and hearing only the chuck of the black-bird, and 
 musical cliinU of the rice-bunting, he naturally 
 asks for ocular proofs of the assertion, unwilling 
 to believe, 
 
 " Without the sensible and true aA'Ouch 
 Of his own eyes." 
 
 Ridiculing the idea of his inability to put them 
 up, if there, perhaps he demands to be landed 
 forthwith, and, gun in hand, eagerly pushes his 
 way among the reeds, while his more experi- 
 enced companion, chuckling to himself, quietly 
 lies on his oars to await his return. The first 
 soon looses his way in the dense, sultry covert, 
 and after some shouting and calling, at last 
 makes his appearance again in a very sorry 
 plight, covered with marsh-mud, out of breath, 
 and more disposed than ever to adhere to his 
 heresy ; declaring that while the reeds seemed 
 to be alive with other birds, he had been unable, 
 after the sharpest scrutiny, to discover even the 
 tail-feather of a single rail. Something he did 
 see once running swiftly between the reeds ; 
 but it vanished too quickly for him to say 
 whether it was a bird, or a water-rat. After en- 
 joying the joke, his friend ro\vs the skiff up one
 
 140 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 of the guts of the marsh, and concealing it among 
 the reeds, directs the other to draw and reduce 
 his charges. This being done, after bidding 
 him fix his eyes on a particular spot where the 
 tide is leaving the mud bare, he knocks quickly 
 with his brass rowlocks on the gunwale of the 
 boat. A sharp, peculiar cry, caught up and re- 
 peated from a hundred throats, is immediately 
 heard, a remarkably neat, trim looking bird in 
 a sort of quaker motley, suddenly runs out upon 
 the mud, jutting up its tail and erecting its head 
 with a curious air, as if to inquire what is 
 wanted; the gun is levelled the trigger touched, 
 and the stranger has "mudded" his first rail. 
 He springs up in his ambush in hot haste to 
 secure the prize, but his companion, repeating 
 his commands to keep quiet, knocks again. The 
 small hubbub, consisting of many and rapid re- 
 iterations of the monosyllable crek, again arises ; 
 a second bird appears on the same spot, and 
 immediately shares the fate of the first. 
 
 " Now," says the operator, who it appears 
 from the pole projecting over the stern and the 
 square tin box, carefully stowed away in the 
 bow, is to initiate his friend still deeper in the 
 mysteries of rail shooting, before the day is 
 spent, " now re-load, and when another bird
 
 RAIL SHOOTING. 141 
 
 comes out, do not shoot at him at first sight, 
 reserve your fire for a moment." 
 
 " And wherefore ?" 
 
 " You will see," is the reply. 
 
 The experiment is now repeated with similar 
 results, except that when the third rail appears, 
 after looking inquisitively round, it stoops to 
 examine its prostrate companions, and with that 
 strange misapprehension of death so often mani- 
 fested by the brute creation, begins to make war 
 upon the inanimate bodies, striking with bill 
 and heels after the manner of a game-cock. 
 Perhaps two or three come out upon the 
 mud at the same moment ; one struts around the 
 dead birds ; another offers amatory caresses ; or 
 all join in a sort of mimic battle royal, like so 
 many pullets in a barn-yard. They may be all 
 killed at a single discharge, but if unmolested 
 the contest is speedily ended by one of the party 
 whimsically running back to cover in a circuit, 
 when the rest immediately follow. 
 
 As the tide continues to recede, the rail follow 
 for the purpose of gleaning up the seeds and 
 small insects which are left behind, and many 
 birds are killed, in the way described, by per- 
 sons who station their boats in the guts, just 
 after high water. At low water not a single rail
 
 142 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES 
 
 is to be seen ; but when the next tide is risen 
 sufficiently for the boats to get upon the flats, 
 then commences a scene of life and emulation 
 of incessant loading and firing of rapid gliding 
 hither and thither among the reeds, which, if 
 ten or fifteen parties are engaged on the same 
 marshes, requires to be seen, to be fully under- 
 stood. Let us suppose that the tide, which is 
 rising fast, with a stiff breeze from the south-east, 
 is as favorable as could be wished, and that the 
 moment has arrived when the pushers, laying 
 aside their oars, prepare for business, while the 
 sportsmen opening their rail-boxes and charging 
 their guns, station themselves in a standing posi- 
 tion to shoot. The post of the pusher is in the 
 stern ; that of the shooter a little abaft the bow. 
 Each pusher is stripped to his shirt and panta- 
 loons, and holds in his sinewy hands a pine pole 
 fifteen feet long, and weighing about four pounds. 
 It is his arduous task to flush and retrieve the 
 game ; the sportsman has nothing to do but to 
 load and shoot. A square tin box, made as small 
 as is convenient, and containing in its several 
 apartments ammunition, percussion caps and wad- 
 ding, lies at the feet of the last. These boxes 
 are now both neatly and strongly made; that 
 sold by Mr. Krider during the past season was
 
 RAIL SHOOTING. 143 
 
 by far the best pattern of the kind we have seen. 
 Many rail shooters prefer using shot cartridges 
 on account of the fraction of time saved in load- 
 ing ; others and we are of the same opinion, 
 ourselves suppose that they can kill more birds 
 on a tide with loose shot, and a few, it is said, 
 have been hair-brained enough to shoot shot car- 
 tridges, made small for the bore of the gun, with 
 the charge of powder filled in. These are set 
 up in the box before them, the end of the pow- 
 der charge being left open, and they drop them 
 down the barrels, assisting their descent by a 
 stroke of the butt on the footboard of the boat, 
 when the gun becomes foul : the use of a load- 
 ing-rod is thus dispensed with altogether, and 
 an additional fraction of time saved, which, as 
 they assert, always tells when rail are thick on 
 a fly on a full tide. Many wild stories are afloat 
 respecting the wonderful facilities for rapid exe- 
 cution afforded by these cartridges; but as nei- 
 ther the editor nor the author have been tempted 
 to try them, we, of course, cannot vouch for 
 their truth. We still adhere to our loading-rods, 
 which are made several inches longer than the 
 barrels to admit the full grasp of the hand, and 
 sufficiently stout to be driven home at a single 
 effort. A common ram-rod is inadmissible into
 
 144 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 this kind of shooting, in which dexterity and 
 despatch in loading are necessary to the full en- 
 joyment of the sport. 
 
 As the different boats enter the reeds at vari- 
 ous favorable points, we will first notice that fat, 
 angry looking gentleman in the blue skiff, with 
 the one-eyed, quizzical genius at the stern. The 
 fat gentleman is a tyro, as clumsy as a cow in the 
 boat, and a very indifferent shot. He is more- 
 over exceedingly irascible and seems to suffer 
 much in his unusual position, while the blinking 
 scamp behind him is as cool as a snow-ball. 
 There has already been some sparring between 
 them respecting the 'price of the tide, and the 
 pusher, who is not without his slice of humor, 
 has made up his mind to victimize his quondam 
 employer. This is easy enough when one is in 
 his element, and the other out of it, and woe to 
 that fat gentleman who has been tempted, in an 
 evil hour, to leave trade and come out for sport ; 
 for the other, incensed at his attempt to jew him 
 down, is determined to make sport of him. 
 
 The skiff glides smoothly in among the reeds, 
 the pusher on the qui vive for mischief, while the 
 shooter maintaining his equilibrium as well as 
 he can, commends himself to his dignity and 
 keeps a sharp look out.
 
 RAIL SHOOTING. 145 
 
 " Now," says the roguish pusher, gently lift- 
 ing and inserting his pole into the mud as the 
 skiff shoots into a thick growth of reeds, " Now, 
 sir, left leg forward right leg behind stand 
 steady shoot quick load fast, and leave -the 
 rest to me. Mark !" 
 
 "Bang! bang!" 
 
 A very palpable miss each time, and the bird 
 which has risen directly in front within a few 
 feet of the boat, nutters slowly over the tops of 
 the reeds, with its legs hanging loosely down, 
 and almost instantly drops out of sight again, 
 while the unfortunate marksman, thrown vio- 
 lently from his centre of gravity by a sudden 
 treacherous movement of the skiff, stumbles for- 
 ward over his rail box, and catching at the gun- 
 wale, pitches head foremost, gun and all, over 
 the bow. 
 
 " Why bless my soul !" exclaims the villainous 
 author of the catastrophe, with a great show of 
 surprise, " I never seed the likes. Did you do 
 that on purpose, sir ? You're the very quickest 
 gentleman out of a boat, I ever pushed. You 
 hit that rail too: I seed him drop his legs." 
 
 " Go to the devil!" exclaims the fat gentleman, 
 wiping his face and clambering back into the 
 boat in high wrath.
 
 146 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 " Load up, sir, load up," answers the fellow 
 coolly ; " there is no time to tell fortunes now. 
 Look, sir, yonder comes Dennis Welsh and Bill 
 Starn pushing side by side." 
 
 I'D n Bill Starn!" mutters the other, 
 
 wiping off his gunlocks with a white handker- 
 chief. 
 
 " It's no use, sir, a breakwater wouldn't stop 
 the nigger. See how he ploughs through the 
 reeds like a steamboat. Ready, sir?" 
 
 " No, I ain't, you one-eyed scoundrel," growls 
 the tyro, fumbling at the lids of his box which 
 have been jammed into the partition by his fall. 
 
 " Well, sir, no hurry ; its my place to wait 
 upon you; if you've no pertikler rejection, I'll 
 tell you a story as how I lost my eye while 
 you're cleaning off the mash mud." 
 
 " You're an impudent son of a ," exclaims 
 
 the exasperated shooter, entirely losing sight of 
 his breeding. 
 
 "Pshaw, sir," replies the fellow, leaning on 
 his pole as coolly as before, " it's despurit hard 
 work for two dogs in one collar to pull different 
 ways. Besides the story'll make you laugh in 
 spite of yourself, and you'll be sartin to kill the 
 next bird. Once upon a time " 
 
 " I tell you what," interrupts the fat gentle-
 
 RAIL SHOOTING. 147 
 
 man, with savage deliberation, " if you tell that 
 story, I'll see you hanged before I pay you a 
 copper, sport or no sport." 
 
 " Sir," says the pusher in turn, " I hope you 
 won't be offinded, but I must tell you this much 
 of it I w r ore my eye out as the cat did her's, 
 watching the mice." 
 
 "Now," retorts the other, who has at length 
 managed to re-charge his piece, " now mind you, 
 fellow, if you give me " 
 
 " Hush !" exclaims the pusher, pointing and 
 staring in his energetic way at some object on 
 his right hand ; " shoot, sir, shoot." 
 
 The fat gentleman starts, and catching a 
 glimpse of something swimming among the 
 reeds, levels his gun and fires both barrels. 
 
 " Hurrah !" shouts the pusher, frantically be- 
 taking himself to his pole, " you've pinked him 
 you've settled his hash you've mortalized your- 
 self on this mash." 
 
 "What is it?" demands the shooter in a state 
 of great excitement. 
 
 " What is it !" repeats the pusher, with a 
 glorious assumption of scorn, as he brings the 
 stern of the skiff to the spot, and carefully lifts 
 up the object by the tail; "you isn't much 
 lamed in Natarel Histery, is you, sir?"
 
 148 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 " Why, no, not particularly," answers the 
 worthy cit, flushing still more. 
 
 " I thought not," says the pusher, shaking his 
 head and blinking awfully at the animal in his 
 hand, "well then, sir, I has to inform you that 
 you has done what no other man has parformed 
 in this here river for fifty years you has killed 
 a young otter." 
 
 " No !" exclaims the other, staring hard in his 
 turn at the rogue's face, who stands the inquir- 
 ing gaze like a monument. 
 
 " Fact, sir, and now whether you pays me for 
 this here tide's shove or no, you're sartin to 
 figure in the Daily Ledger, the Sun, and all the 
 weeklies, not to speak of the New York 
 Spurrit." 
 
 " But is this really an otter, my good fellow?" 
 says the shooter. 
 
 " Sartainly it be ; I seed many a one in the 
 far west." (The mendacious rascal had proba- 
 bly never been west of the Schuylkill in his life.) 
 "Has you any acquaintance among the horno- 
 thology chaps, sir?" Does you know any of the 
 great skin-stufTers?" 
 
 " Why, no, I can't say that I do," answered 
 the fat gentleman, regaining his complacency 
 fast.
 
 RAIL SHOOTING. 149 
 
 " It'll cost you ten dollars, at least, treating 
 the house, when we come in ; but in course you 
 won't mind that," says the pusher. 
 
 " The devil !" exclaims the shooter. 
 
 " I'll go a quart of Davy Hunter's best on it, 
 myself. Lay it up in the bow, sir, where it'll 
 have a chance to dry. If old Mr. Peale were 
 alive now, he'd ring down dollars for that ere 
 spissimin." 
 
 " I'll tell you what, my man," says the gentle- 
 man, " d 11 the birds ! I dare say that I 
 
 shouldn't kill many just put me quietly ashore 
 at the ferry, and say nothing of this to no 
 one ; I'll pay you your charge, but, mind ye, 
 do you keep mum until I'm on my way to the 
 city." 
 
 " But they'll never believe me, sir; they'se a 
 mighty suspicious set at that 'ere ferry : they'll 
 swear I'm a bigger liar than Tom Pepper," says 
 the pusher. 
 
 " But you forget the papers," says the fat 
 gentleman, chuckling. 
 
 " Right, sir, my name is Shoemaker ; I should 
 like to go in with you, if you've no express 
 rejection. I'm not 'zactly a candydate for fame, 
 but seeing my name in print, may put an extra 
 job in my way." 
 10
 
 130 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 '' We'll see we'll see," says the gentleman 
 briskly ; " put her head about." 
 
 The pusher obeys with seeming reluctance, 
 and upon arriving at the ferry, receives his hire 
 and a shilling extra to treat himself, while the 
 fat gentleman, completely hocus-pocussed, wraps 
 the mine carefully up in his handkerchief, and 
 calling for his carriage, hurries away with his 
 prize. 
 
 Let us now return to the marsh; observe that 
 tall, athletic negro who is pushing the gentleman 
 in the green skiff; see how he plies his pole like 
 a plaything, forcing the boat ahead with a' 
 velocity which bears down every thing before 
 him, while so artistically is she worked, that 
 when a bird rises her motion is as steady as that 
 of a swimming swan. His white competitor in 
 the batteau is our old acquaintance Dennis 
 Welsh ; mark how easily and smoothly he makes 
 his way among the reeds, his man standing 
 steadily as a statue. It is evident from the style 
 which these two boats are propelled, and in 
 which the shooters knock down the game, that 
 the men are all crack hands at the sport. There 
 is a marked difference, however, in the modes of 
 pushing. The black, Bill Starn, as he is called, 
 careers over the marsh, like a wild horse on a
 
 RAIL SHOOTING. 151 
 
 prairie, putting up birds on all sides and keeping 
 his man busy, while Dennis, who is at home on 
 every foot of the flat, glides along steadily and 
 evenly, flushing a bird at every boat's length, as 
 he edges gradually in towards the bank with the 
 rise of the tide. At one time four birds are on a 
 fly for each boat, nearly at the same moment ; 
 two are shot from the batteau, which, according 
 to agreement, carries but one gun, and three 
 from the skiff, which is privileged to use two. 
 These birds fall among the thickest of the reeds, 
 but being fairly hit they are all found. Bill 
 shows his teeth and rolls his eyes among the 
 reeds like a wild beast ; he sees like a hawk 
 and moves like the wind. He boats his dead 
 birds, is off again, and has two more down in a 
 moment. One of these, however, is crippled and 
 although the wild pusher strikes directly at it, 
 the bird evades the blow by disappearing under 
 water, while Bill, with a wild, African shout, 
 thrashing the reeds with his pole, continues his 
 career. Dennis follows more slowly, but as the 
 wind continues to rise with the tide, it is to be 
 seen that he keeps his man on a steadier level, 
 partly owing to the flat bottom of the batteau, 
 and partly to his long experience in pushing. 
 He flushes bird after bird as he advances, his
 
 152 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 man shooting the instant the gun touches his 
 shoulder, and invariably riddling his bird. At 
 length while the skiff is still traversing the high 
 reeds, the batteau enters a space of about a half 
 an acre, covered with a species of water-weed 
 bearing a profusion of yellow now r ers. There is 
 just water enough upon it to float the batteau 
 easily, so well has the pusher hit his time. The 
 boat first takes the edges of the space in a wide, 
 circling sweep. Not a bird rises. " Bad show, 
 Dennis," says the sportsman. But Dennis knows 
 better, and still continuing his course but con- 
 tracting its circle, the rail at last begin to show 
 themselves. Three are killed successively, and 
 two more the instant after. " Let them lie," 
 says the old stager, waxing warm and plying his 
 pole like lightening; "kill them dead, sir, and 
 they won't move." The game now rise so fast 
 from among these yellow flowers, that the 
 shooter's dexterity in loading comes first into 
 play, and, it must be acknowledged, he shows 
 himself an adept. Sixteen birds are down at 
 one time, and being killed according to the 
 pusher's instructions, he does not lose a feather. 
 In this comparatively small space of the marsh, 
 thirty-six birds are boated, not a rail being 
 missed, or pinioned, or escaping Welsh's sharp 
 eves after b?inir knocked down.
 
 RAIL SHOOTING. 153 
 
 In the mean time the skiff is nearly lost sight 
 of among at least a dozen others, which, from 
 the rapid and continued firing, appeared to be 
 having good sport. It is to be noticed, however, 
 that Bill's man begins to shoot with less certainty 
 than before, and that the second gun is less 
 frequently brought into requisition. The rail 
 also seem to display more life upon the wing; 
 they fly swifter and further. The wind has 
 increased to a half a gale, and a portion of the 
 rest of the shooters are observed to be making 
 bad work. 
 
 " The tide will be up to the top of the bank, 
 sir," says Bill, "but the daylight will hardly 
 last it out." 
 
 " Aye," answers the shooter, " we must get 
 further in : the water is driving the birds towards 
 the meadows." 
 
 At this moment a report like that of a six 
 pounder is heard among the boats, followed by a 
 dense cloud of smoke. Some shooter has blown 
 up his rail box. On goes Bill without giving 
 the accident a second thought ; but the indefati- 
 gable Dennis is there before him, and now com- 
 mences a trial of sportsmanship between the two 
 boats, which is exciting enough when viewed 
 from the bank. They are pushing side and side
 
 154 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 within fifty yards of each other, flushing and 
 dropping their game in a style not to be excelled. 
 Bill manages his boat beautifully under the cir- 
 cumstances, and his man shoots now remarkably 
 well. But his opponent is equally sure, and the 
 extraordinary rapidity with which Dennis spins 
 the batteau, as it were, on her heel, in retrieving 
 a bird which has fallen afar on either hand, 
 while the skiff is obliged to push stern foremost, 
 or to make a curve line for the same purpose, 
 gives the first a slight but decided advantage. 
 
 " Hurrah, Dennis !" shouts a fellow in a third 
 boat, as two double shots successively occur to 
 the batteau; "old Grey steel forever!" 
 
 Looking at the man we at once recognize our 
 ci-devant original who "done" with the fat gen- 
 tleman on the first of the tide. He has now 
 another jolly -look ing shooter in charge, a very 
 different person, however, for we see at once it 
 is our friend Major F. who, although last on the 
 marsh, we will wager a dozen, will not come off 
 least. A moment after two birds spring and 
 cross, and are killed from the skiff at a single 
 shot. 
 
 " Hurrah !" shouts a United States officer from 
 the fort, waving his cap, " that is what I call 
 sport."
 
 RAIL SIIOOTIXG. 155 
 
 A flock of teal, with the singular temerity 
 which sometimes marks the flight of these dainty 
 little ducks, now shoot across the meadow and 
 wheel directly over the boats. Neither shooter 
 gives the least token of their presence, and Den- 
 nis's man kills a king rail, which happened to 
 rise at the moment, as expeditiously as ever. 
 The Major being under no such restrictions does 
 not fail to salute the unexpected visitors right 
 and left, dropping three with one barrel and two 
 with the second. Well done, Major; we have 
 had a taste of your sportsmanship ; we have seen 
 a specimen of your shooting before. The con- 
 test is continued till the sun sinks on the scene, 
 and the shades of evening drive the boats from 
 the flats, just as the tide begins to fall. On 
 counting the game, it is found that one numbers 
 a hundred and four and the other ninety-seven 
 birds. It was a tight match, and the batteau 
 has beaten the skiff' by seven birds. 
 
 Such animated scenes as this, gentle reader, 
 varied by other incidents, occasionally of a serious 
 nature, occur upon the flats of the Delaware arid 
 Sclmylkill every day during the season, when 
 the state of the tide will permit. They continue 
 for four or five weeks, when the rail suddenly 
 migrate at night, and as the reed birds generally
 
 156 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 depart before, the marshes are comparatively 
 silent and deserted; the reeds wither and are 
 beaten down by the equinoctial gales, and as the 
 season advances, the flats assume their old bleak 
 and desolate aspect, relieved only by the appear- 
 ance of the crow and the wild duck, or by that 
 of some solitary snipe shooter slowly traversing 
 the drifts with his dog. 
 
 Before concluding this article, we would 
 mention that rail have been and are still hunted 
 on foot, on the flood tide. We remember re- 
 peatedly to have seen our old acquaintance, 
 Major Deadshot, wading up to his middle on 
 the Broad Marsh, with his dogs, Bob and Dash, 
 swimming around him, and upon more occa- 
 sions than one, on a scant tide, he has been 
 known to bring in more birds than "the best 
 boat." We are informed that he has killed his 
 usual quantum of rail in this way during the 
 past season, and excepting that his famous dogs 
 have gone the way of all flesh, he is still the 
 same veritable Major Deadshot, upon whom we 
 looked with undisguised reverence, when shoot- 
 ing had an undefined and mysterious fascina- 
 tion for us, in the happy days of our boyhood.
 
 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 
 
 THE AMERICAN PARTRIDGE PERDIX YIRGINIANUS. 
 
 Description. " The American partridge is nine 
 inches long, and fourteen in extent; the bill is 
 black; line over the eye, down the neck, and 
 whole chin, pure white, bounded by a band of 
 black, which descends and spreads broadly over 
 the throat ; the eye is dark hazel ; crown, neck 
 and upper parts of the breast, red brown ; sides 
 of the neck, spotted with black and white on a 
 reddish brown ground ; back, scapulars and les- 
 ser coverts, red brown, intermixed with ash, and 
 sprinkled with black; tertials, edged with yel- 
 lowish white ; wings plain dusky ; lower parts 
 of the breast and belly, pale yellowish white, 
 beautifully marked with numerous curving spots, 
 or arrowheads of black ; tail, ash, sprinkled with 
 reddish brown ; legs, very pale ash. The female 
 differs from the male in having the chin and 
 sides of the head yellowish brown." 
 
 The young broods are fit for the sport by the 
 twentieth of October, and although inferior to
 
 158 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 their parents in stratagy, fly to cover with equal 
 swiftness and less appearance of labor. They 
 are, however, incapable of sustaining long flights, 
 easier brought down, and less fleet on their legs 
 when winged. When cornered by the dog, they 
 sometimes utter a shrill squeak. They are more 
 apt to crouch at the approach of danger than the 
 old birds, and when scattered by the sportsman 
 make for the nearest shelter, where they keep 
 silent for a time, but soon show their desire to 
 re-assemble by calling and answering each other 
 from different parts of the covert. Their signal 
 notes on these occasions are soft, plaintive and 
 peculiarly expressive of anxiety. The old birds 
 fly further and deeper into the woods, preserve a 
 wary silence for many moments together, and 
 are only to be traced to their hiding places by 
 the keen nose of your four-footed advuvant. 
 
 Inasmuch as we observe the partridge invari- 
 ably taking to cover, when flushed by sportsmen 
 or pursued by birds of prey, and, in fact, passing 
 most of its time near its edge, we might at first 
 glance imagine that the same instinct would lead 
 it to select its place of repose in the deep shade 
 of the thicket. Such, however, is not the case. 
 We know that it roosts in the open fields, but 
 never in the same enclosure in which it feeds, 
 unless it be of unusual extent.
 
 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 159 
 
 After having filled their crops, towards eve- 
 ning they make a single flight from the stubbles 
 to the spot selected for the roost, on which they 
 alight in a body, nestle close, and stir not again 
 until dawn. Although frequently found in the 
 narrow strips of grass which the mowers leave 
 in a line with the fence, they are careful to avoid 
 roosting near these, and to choose, as near as 
 possible, the very centre of the field. These facts 
 are strongly illustrative of the self-preservative 
 instinct, sharpened into intelligence by the diffe- 
 rent dangers, to which, sleeping or waking, the 
 bird is continually exposed. To escape from 
 man and other enemies who pursue them by 
 day, they pitch hurriedly into bush or thicket ; 
 but when the stealthy prowlers of the wood are 
 abroad, the covey, sitting on an elevated spot 
 in the middle of the field, in a circle of less than 
 twelve inches in diameter, sleep comparatively 
 secure under the wing of night. 
 
 But there is yet another fact connected with 
 the roost, which challenges our attention. Many 
 of the feathered tribes bury their heads in their 
 plumage on the approach of evening. Even the 
 restless sea-bird, which, it has been said, never 
 sleeps, has been seen riding the wild waves with 
 its head under its wing. But the partridge after
 
 ICO KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 all its ingenious care to conceal its resting place 
 from nocturnal foes, manifests no such sense of 
 security. The roost is ranged with strict refe- 
 rence to the dangers which, in some degree, 
 menace it still. It is known that the head of 
 each bird is turned outwards, forming, so to 
 speak, a continuous ring of posts, while the tails 
 touch, so that each living segment of that little 
 circular camp of innocents, is ready to start and 
 shift for itself, at the least thrill of alarm. 
 
 There is thought to be an appreciable diffe- 
 rence in the sizes of the male and female par- 
 tridges. Occasionally an old cock bird is killed 
 whose weight is worthy of registry. In some 
 parts of upper Pennsylvania where the birds are 
 little disturbed, we have found both of unusual 
 size. During the shooting season the yearling 
 broods are readily known by their inferiority in 
 this respect, and young birds are always to be 
 distinguished from old ones by their smooth, 
 tender, light-colored legs. The legs of the old 
 birds are black and covered with scales. The 
 partridge is found in almost every section of the 
 Union, but it is principally in the Eastern and 
 Middle States, and in some sections of Maryland 
 and Virginia, that it is considered game and sys- 
 tematically hunted with dogs.
 
 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 
 
 Many of our senior readers will, doubtless, 
 remember the time, when the prospect of a day's 
 partridge shooting was sweeter to their youthful 
 fancies, than the mellifluous sound of the Ionian 
 dialect, a high standard class circular, or even a 
 July vacation. Others, again, like the editor, 
 will confess that their ardor in this species of 
 sport was never so intense, as when hunting 
 woodcocks in their marshy solitudes starting 
 before the peep of day to set decoys for the 
 wild duck, or with Ponto and Dash, after 
 breakfast, to beat up the haunts of the wild 
 and wandering snipe. It was only during the 
 last season, while shooting over the wooded 
 hills near Green Lane, in the upper part of 
 Montgomery, that we were conscious of a 
 slight thrill of jealousy, when our companion 
 unexpectedly killed, towards the close of day, 
 a brace of fine snipe on a wet stubble-field. 
 We did not dream at the moment, of encoun- 
 tering our arch favorite on the very summit 
 of a bleak ridge, on the twenty-ninth day of 
 November; arid as the shooter complacently 
 smoothed down the plumage of the birds, and 
 carefully dropped them in the innermost recess 
 of his shooting coat, the action went to our 
 heart, Truth to tell, it cost us a struggle to
 
 162 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 subdue the sinful feeling, it was so very like 
 coquetting with our first love. We had no 
 previous reason to be malcontent, having shot 
 over many points that day at partridge and 
 ruffed grouse ; nevertheless, had tve fallen in 
 with that brace of snipe as the sun went down, 
 we should have restored the gun to its case 
 with a tranquil mind; we should have ridden 
 home by the light of the moon, and blessed 
 our auspicious stars. 
 
 But, be it remembered at the outset, that we 
 profess no desire to disparage the merits of this 
 delectable sport, in which, una voce, most shooters 
 glory. It has irresistible charms for young and 
 old, and as long as King Nimrod we had nearly 
 said Ramrod has a place in the hearts of men 
 as long as Ponto and Dash can distinguish a 
 stubble-field from a stable-yard so long will 
 
 " The pointer range, and the sportsman beat;" 
 
 so long will it be considered as the beau ideal of 
 field shooting. The partridge has been so long 
 and so closely identified with scenes of rural 
 study, and rural industry, and has been so 
 minutely described, that its habits would seem 
 to be perfectly familiar to the public. Sports- 
 men differ, however, as to several points in the 
 history of its economy, and, according to Mr.
 
 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 163 
 
 Herbert, it will be long before even the question 
 of its true ornithological title is settled. "The 
 difficulty," says that gentleman, "lies not so 
 much in the delicacy of the subject itself, as in 
 the utter want of sporting authority in America 
 competent to pronounce a decree." With due 
 deference to Mr. Herbert, we would remark that 
 it is not at all likely that he, himself, will be 
 soon called to the task, since with all his research 
 and experience in the field, he has already made 
 a curious blunder of pronouncing the American 
 partridge, a quail, to which it really bears little 
 analogy, as our townsman, Dr. E. J. Lewis, of 
 Philadelphia, in his Hints to Sportsmen, page 
 forty-seven, has conclusively shown. This error 
 is more remarkable, inasmuch as however fan- 
 ciful Forrester may be in his description of the 
 modus operandi of killing a brace of wild ducks, 
 right and left, from behind a pair of fast trotting 
 nags going at speed, he is generally correct in 
 his appreciation of the habits of the bird which 
 he professes to portray. One of the mooted 
 points in the history of the partridge, is the 
 number of broods which each pair of old birds 
 produce in a season ; another relates to what 
 has been rather unadvisably called the mys- 
 terious faculty of withholding its scent, when
 
 164 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 hiding away from the dogs. The first, although 
 of some little interest to the naturalist, is of still 
 less to the sportsman, except, indeed, when a 
 scarcity of game has been experienced, as in 
 the last season, during which the gunsmiths 
 of Philadelphia sold less small shot than they 
 have done for years, and as furnishing a topic 
 for learned discussion on each annual campaign, 
 after his triumphant return from the woods and 
 stubbles. The other more nearly concerns the 
 shooter and his abettors, especially the intel- 
 lectual nose of Ponto, and is more curious in its 
 phrases, even when stript of the mystical air 
 with which some writers of the day would invest 
 it. In regard to the first point, we would ob- 
 serve, that although the partridge displays more 
 art in the process of nidification than the wood- 
 cock, yet from the comparatively late period of 
 her incubation, and from obvious causes con- 
 nected with agricultural pursuits, the nest of 
 the former is much more frequently found than 
 that of the latter bird. They are also more 
 jealous of intrusion, and more apt to abandon 
 the nest when disturbed. The mere flushing 
 her in this situation, is often resented by an 
 entire and immediate desertion of the spot, 
 which, for weeks previous, perhaps, had been
 
 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 165 
 
 the object of her especial solicitude. Should 
 the eggs be handled, it is very rare indeed that 
 the bird is again seen on the nest. It would 
 almost seem, that in the mysteries of nature's 
 ordering, the process of incubation of this fami- 
 liar bird must be carried on in entire silence 
 and solitude ; as if the little temple of woven grass 
 and leaves, not to speak profanely, were a very 
 sanctum sanctorum, not to be desecrated by 
 other eyes than those of its priestess. When, 
 however, it is once abandoned, the bird does not 
 immediately proceed to lay again, as might, at 
 first glance, be supposed. An interval of some 
 days arid even weeks may elapse, during which 
 she may be daily seen sitting listlessly on a 
 fence-rail for many moments at a time, while 
 other more fortunate mothers are already lead- 
 ing about their callow broods. The male closely 
 attends his mate, and would seem, by his silence 
 and drooping attitude, to share in her dejection 
 of spirits. At length, however, another place 
 of concealment is sought for, and another nest 
 made; should the same fate attend this which 
 befell the first, \ve have reason to believe that, 
 after a second interval, greater or less, the bird 
 will lay again, and her brood, perhaps not more 
 than one-third grown, will be found by the 
 11
 
 166 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 sportsman as late as the middle of October, or 
 even in November. In fact, so many accidental 
 irregularities occur in the period of incubation, 
 that the farmer will often tell you, that he has 
 seen broods of unfledged birds in his first crop 
 of grass, in his oats, in his wheat, in his corn 
 and, last of all, in his buckwheat. We were 
 long inclined to the popular belief, that as a 
 law of her instinct, the partridge reared two 
 broods in a season, but later observations have 
 inclined us to correct our opinion. These 
 inquiries were principally made in a section of 
 the country where we have resided for years, 
 and shot over for many successive seasons, a sec- 
 tion where partridges are comparatively scarce, 
 and which we believe, to be better suited for the 
 purposes of investigation, than a region where 
 they are unusually abundant. In the latter 
 locality, so many late broods, consequent upon 
 the irregularities we have already noticed, will 
 always be met with in the shooting season, 
 that distinct broods will be confounded together 
 by sportsmen as the progeny of one pair of old 
 birds, especially when from accident or design, 
 one or more of these coveys of young birds have 
 been deprived of the fostering care of a parent. 
 In various sections of the Middle States, especi-
 
 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 167 
 
 ally in the valleys of Pennsylvania, it is not a 
 very rare occurrence for the dogs to point two 
 and even three coveys of different sizes in the 
 same field, and the shooter, observing, perhaps, 
 but one pair of old birds rise in this promiscu- 
 ous progeny, at once jumps at his conclusion of 
 two broods in a season. It is not thus, however, 
 that assertions are to be advanced and facts 
 established in the history of a bird so jealous of 
 its more occult habits and so impatient of con- 
 finement as the partridge. Still the difficulty 
 of obtaining an amount of information which 
 may be relied on, and of keeping a continuous 
 watch upon several pair of old birds, even in a 
 part of the country where the haunts of every 
 covey, for miles around, are perfectly well 
 known, almost precludes the possibility of decid- 
 ing the question. On the whole, we are inclined 
 to think that the partridge, like the woodcock, 
 as a law of her nature, rears but one brood in 
 a year. 
 
 The cock bird relieves the hen at least once 
 during the day, and nestles close to her at night. 
 Indeed, he seldom wanders far from the nest, 
 and from the period of pairing until the young 
 birds are able to fly, is as attentive to his family 
 duties as the turtle-dove or the domstic pigeon.
 
 168 . KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 What is asserted of the English partridge, is 
 doubtless true of our own, that when once paired 
 they rarely separate. Jt is well known that the 
 partridge may be reared in the barn-yard. In 
 the fall of eighteen hundred and fifty, we saw 
 one of a brood which had been brought up in 
 this manner by a bantam hen. It was then full 
 grown and quietly feeding with the chickens. 
 The experiment has also been reversed, by 
 placing the eggs of the common hen under the 
 partridge. In this case the result was more 
 curious, as the brood of chickens thus produced 
 had all the wild habits of young partridges. In 
 commenting upon this change, Wilson, the 
 father of American ornithology, reasonably ob- 
 serves that "there is scarcely a doubt that the 
 domestic fowl might be very soon brought back 
 to its original savage state, and thereby supply 
 another additional subject for the amusement of 
 the sportsman. But," he adds, " the experi- * 
 ment, in order to secure its success, must be 
 made in a quarter of the country less exposed 
 than ours to the ravages of guns, traps, dogs, 
 and the deep snows of winter, that the new 
 tribe might have full time to become completely 
 naturalized, and well fixed in their native 
 habits." This reminds us of an adventure of a
 
 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 169 
 
 friend of ours, who, with a companion, had 
 what was termed rare sport, in hunting a brood 
 of guinea fowls, which had been hatched and 
 gone wild in the woods of New Jersey. There 
 was an abundance of brush, and the birds laid 
 well after their first fright, and were all killed 
 over points.* 
 
 In some parts of the old world where game 
 are strictly preserved, the disposition of the do- 
 mestic fowl to relapse into a wild state has often 
 been noticed. An anecdote of the kind was 
 related to us several years ago by the son of a 
 deceased oberjagermeister of the Duke of Hesse 
 D'Armstadt. A common hen had hatched out 
 a brood of twenty chicks in a remote part of the 
 park, and when discovered, both the mother 
 and her progeny, which were nearly full grown, 
 
 * We once shot for several seasons with a pet pointer, who would 
 stand any bird to which his attention was particularly directed, 
 from a small sand-piper to a tame turkey. It was very apparent, 
 however, from the comic look which his countenance assumed, that 
 Toby comprehended the matter, entering into the spirit of the 
 frolic merely in obedience to his master's whims, and that in his 
 unrestrained, sober moods, he considered such foolery as entirely 
 beneath the line of his business. To cats, indeed, he had an 
 undisguised aversion, and would hunt them through the stable- 
 yard, or stand them staunchly in the field. Nothing appeared to 
 rejoice his heart more, than to be in at the death of a vagrant cat 
 detected in a poaching expedition, and if allowed to take a morsel 
 of her hair, he asked nothing further of fate.
 
 170 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 were as wild as pheasants. They were all shot 
 over pointers by the huntsman, with the excep- 
 tion of two or three killed on the trees. It is to 
 be supposed, however, that wild chicken shoot- 
 ing would prove no better sport than knocking 
 over pinnated grouse on the prairies, which, 
 according to report, is but tame work, and 
 although the complete domestication of the par- 
 tridge would be a feather in the cap of the 
 naturalist, yet upon due consideration, the 
 sportsman will do well to leave the barn-fowl 
 in quiet possession of roost and dunghill. 
 
 Besides the shooter who annually goes out 
 to brace mind and body in this exciting sport, 
 the little partridge has many orthodox enemies, 
 so to speak. Piratical hawks are constantly 
 cruising the air round its haunts ; the fox, the 
 raccoon and the snake, each has its snatch at 
 the broods ; while the farmer's boy, with his 
 Birmingham barrel and cock-tailed cur, or his 
 deadly figure-four, betraying whole coveys, at a 
 fall, to his remorseless clutch, makes war upon 
 them early and late. Even grimalkin, when 
 tired of mousing in the barn or dining off of 
 scraps, will slyly creep away to the field or 
 thicket, to set up her failing appetite on poached 
 game. For everv arrow head on its dotted
 
 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 171 
 
 breast the partridge has its foe, to say nothing 
 of such a winter as that preceding the last. 
 Living in the country, it gives us pleasure to 
 say, that every year we do something in the 
 way of lessening its enemies, by shooting, trap- 
 ping, or breaking up the nests of hawks, hunt- 
 ing the fox and the coon, smashing the traps, 
 bamboozling the boy, and conspiring against 
 the cock-tailed cur. As to grimalkin, woe unto 
 her, should we once catch a glimpse of her 
 furred skin skulking in the hedge, or crouching 
 in the grass from the dogs. Not all the war- 
 locks in weird-land not all the carlins which 
 chased Tarn O'Shanter, could avert her doom 
 for a single instant. Bleed she must, be she 
 brindle, tortoise shell, black, white, yellow, or 
 gray, and as wise in her moods as Whittington's 
 or that of my lord Marquis of Carrabas. 
 
 " Swift from the tube the leaden vengeance flies, 
 And Ponto laughs as poaching pussy dies." 
 
 There is scarcely a season passes but we are 
 called upon to add another tail or two to the 
 talley. Last year we shot a torn among the 
 cedars on Stone Hill, grouse hunting, no doubt, 
 and on returning home were forced to inflict 
 the penalty of the law upon another, a splendid 
 fellow, the very minion of a nursery hearth-rug,
 
 172 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 the miniature Bengal tiger of an old fashioned 
 fire-fender ; but such is the perversity of feline 
 nature, twice detected in the act of stealing 
 young Shanghai chickens from the coops. On 
 another occasion, while shooting near Dennis- 
 ville, New Jersey, the dog pointed what we at 
 first supposed, from his look and attitude, to be a 
 hare. In an instant, however, moving on his 
 length, he stood stiffly. Getting sight of Miss 
 Puss stealing away through the rails of the 
 fence, we discharged one barrel at her and the 
 other at one of her intended victims as they 
 rose, and we are happy to be able to state, that 
 even-handed justice gave a tolerably fair ac- 
 count of both. The birds were dusting and 
 pruning their plumage in the bushy point of a 
 wood ; puss was evidently watching their mo- 
 tions, premeditating a glorious pounce, when 
 Ponto, winding the game, pointed her and her 
 unconscious prey at the same moment. The 
 old fellow was not at all confused by the two 
 scents, and showed his satisfaction at the result 
 by looking up in his master's face with eager 
 eyes, begging for a single shake. When gravely 
 reminded that this was decidedly out of charac- 
 ter, he solaced himself by wagging his wiry tail^ 
 while his countenance wore that knowing, imp-
 
 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 1?3 
 
 ish look, which a hard-faced urchin might be 
 supposed to assume, when rubbing his hands 
 in high glee at some unexpected piece of fun. 
 
 The fox will trail a running covey, just as a 
 wolf follows "a gang of turkies," by the scent. 
 A medical gentleman was reading under a large 
 shell-bark tree, the lower branches of which 
 formed a complete circle of shade, when he 
 observed a fox coursing like a dog in the same 
 field. After running with his nose down for 
 some moments, he suddenly sprang into the 
 hollow of a stump, out of which at the same 
 instant flew a covey of full grown partridges. 
 Reynard, however, secured one with which he 
 beat a retreat to a rocky hill in the vicinity. 
 This occurred in the month of September at 
 mid-day, and considerably astonished the doc- 
 tor. 
 
 So many useful instructions have been else- 
 where given to the young shooter, that we have 
 little to say on this score, except to beg him to 
 remember, that he has no more right to feel 
 flurried in the field, than in the drawing-room. 
 " A gentleman," says Lord Chesterfield, or 
 somebody else, " may be in haste, but he never 
 should be in a hurry." The same rule is strictly 
 applicable to sporting, and the bungler who
 
 174 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 interferes with the shots that fall to his com- 
 panion, or bangs both barrels not at selected 
 birds, nor in reality at the covey, but rather at 
 the whir of their short wings as they rise before 
 the dogs, is equally unfortunate with the man 
 who publicly commits some egregious breach of 
 the formula of common politeness. If, however, 
 as is often the case, the shooter finds himself 
 unable to control his nervousness at the critical 
 moment when the dogs are on a point, we advise 
 him to hunt a season or two with an experienced 
 sportsman, when, by observing his motions, 
 and listening to his directions in the field, he 
 will gradually get the better of his own undue 
 excitement, and kill his birds in style. We 
 have known several individuals of excitable 
 temperaments, who have been cured in this 
 way, and now shoot right and left quite as well 
 as their ci-devant tutors. A vast deal of the 
 interest which attaches itself to partridge shoot- 
 ing, depends upon the manner in which it is 
 pursued, and there is no sport which admits of 
 more system in its practice. If your dogs are 
 excellent, and your companion one whose tem- 
 per and habits in the field chime well with your 
 own, you will say, perhaps, that it is the most 
 delightful of sports. Like other varieties of
 
 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 175 
 
 shooting, it induces cheerfulness throws care 
 to the winds strengthens the body, and by 
 giving fresh tone to the mind when overtasked 
 by business, sends the sportsman back to his 
 office, or counting-room, with a new lease of 
 existence. It is the greatest possible service to 
 thousands of persons engaged in the arduous 
 pursuit of professions, which require intense 
 abstraction, and who would inevitably break down 
 if deprived of their usual relaxations in the 
 shooting seasons. " Black care," says the Latin 
 poet, "sits behind the flying horseman;" but 
 who ever heard of care striding over the fields 
 and through the woods with the sportsman ! As 
 the poet has his own world, within the mysterious 
 precincts of wliich the rest of mankind are not 
 privileged to enter, so the sportsman has his 
 separate existence which no one is permitted to 
 share, save Ponto, without whom, indeed we 
 could do nothing, and who, we are proud to say, 
 belongs to the order. Now dullards, wiseacres 
 and clodpates, stand afar off and scoff both at 
 the poet and the sportsman. " Sblood," as Hamlet 
 says, "there is something in this more than 
 natural, if philosophy could find it out." 
 
 We should like, however, in the neatest way 
 possible, being very studious to avoid giving
 
 176 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 offence, to remind the Rev. William Henry 
 Herbert and his followers we ask Forrester's 
 pardon if we have inadvertently confounded him 
 with the sporting clergy to remind these gen- 
 tlemen, we repeat, that it is not exactly in char- 
 acter to prate too much at this season about 
 "western breezes" " torrent rays of mellow, 
 liquid lustre" " gay woodlands" "wreaths of 
 purple light," &c., because, we would gently 
 insinuate, that it is by no means the dreamy 
 skies and scenic glories of an American autumn, 
 which makes it so dear to the partridge shooter, 
 with "hie-away!" and " to-ho !" on his tongue. 
 He has little leisure, we opine, to court a 
 humorous sadness in the sunlight of its golden 
 noons, while his dogs are feathering actively 
 before him, and still less to dwell with rapturous 
 melancholy on the gorgeous dyes of the forest, 
 while marking down the scattered birds in a 
 briar bush, or watching them skim away in a 
 sylvan alley. How, we would in all courtesy 
 ask, how can he stop to seek food for thought in 
 the rustle of a sere maize-leaf, when Ponto is on 
 a trail in the furrow, or how, in the name of Pan 
 and all the wood-nymphs, can he hearken to the 
 whistling of the November blast, when the seduc- 
 tive call of " Bob White," has graver charms for
 
 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 1?7 
 
 his ears, than the sweet south's sighing over- 
 tures, or all old autumn's jEolian music. 
 
 " Full of the expected sport my heart beats high, 
 As with impatient steps I haste to reach 
 The stubbles, where the scattered grain affords 
 A sweet repast to the yet heedless game. 
 Near yonder hedge-row where high grass and ferns 
 The secret hollow shade, my pointers stand, 
 How beautiful they look ! with outstretched tails, 
 With heads immovable and eyes fast fixed, 
 One fore leg raised and bent, the other firm, 
 Advancing forward, presses on the ground." 
 
 This is the language of an enthusiastic sports- 
 man, talking in blank verse, and, with the ex- 
 ception of the last line, is as it should be. He 
 says not a word, you perceive, about the beau- 
 ties of the season ; all is merged in the sporting 
 picture before him. He is an Englishman, it is 
 true, poor fellow, and the autumns of his country 
 are rather brown affairs ; but the fact is, the rise 
 and fall of empires is nought to him, at that 
 precious moment when his " pointers stand ;" 
 and it is this vivid filling up of the scene, this 
 direct and glorious presentation of itself, to the 
 utter exclusion of all other objects, together with 
 a lurking love for gunpowder, which places the 
 modern Nimrod in a charmed circle, and gives 
 its fascination to the sport. " I low beautiful 
 they look !" By the way, an excellent rule for
 
 178 KRIBER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 the nervous man is to follow the example just 
 quoted, and take a close look at the demeanor of 
 his dogs, before he proceeds to flush the game. 
 By doing this he will not only receive an edify- 
 ing hint to restrain his own ardor at the right 
 moment, and consequently learn to shoot better, 
 but also gain an insight into the hearts of his 
 canine friends which will be worth remembering. 
 Ponto is not a mere sporting implement, like the 
 gun, gentle reader; he participates in all the 
 hopes, the fears, the joys of the day, which, how- 
 ever, only stimulates him in the pursuit of game, 
 and makes him staunch and true to his point. 
 He inherits his professional qualities and dis- 
 plays them in the field at a very early age. We 
 now rejoice in a stock of pointers, the puppies 
 of which hunt, stand and back before they are 
 six months old, requiring, in fact, little training 
 except to be taught to keep steady at the report 
 of the gun, and we have seen a setter which had 
 not attained his majority by several months, to 
 astonish a number of veteran sportsmen by the 
 admirable manner in which he found and stood 
 snipe. Whether the dog returns wholly to dust 
 or no, it cannot be denied that he has a- soul for 
 sport. The question of his immortality has been 
 ably discussed in a late number of the Edin-
 
 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 179 
 
 burgh Review ; on this point we have nothing 
 to say here, except to remark en passant, that it 
 is a far pleasanter thing for us to spend two or 
 three weeks of a season, in close companionship 
 with a high-bred, intelligent, joyous-hearted ani- 
 mal, than to be shut up for the same time with 
 an austere, pedantic theologian, even though he 
 be a biped of the true Pharasaical leaven, with his 
 bond of immortality signed and sealed in his 
 pocket. But it is high time we had the reader 
 up and out. 
 
 In the first place, eight or ten hours of unbro- 
 ken rest on the night previous is very desirable 
 especially if you are in a section of the country 
 where game abound, and are disposed to keep 
 up your work. We used to be careless on this 
 point in "our salad days;" but now, although 
 we do not mind hunting from dawn until dusk, 
 we invariably retire betimes. In the w^ords of 
 the sporting song, 
 
 " It will not do .again to say, 
 
 Tho' hearts be still as light, 
 That we have hunted all the day, 
 
 And revelled all the night." 
 
 The dogs, too, must be carefully attended to. 
 Be sure that they get a good meat supper and 
 are securely lodged on clean litter, with a bucket
 
 ISO KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 of fresh water at their command. Never take a 
 dog into your room to mar your rest by shifting 
 his camp from corner to corner, or beating old 
 Nick's tattoo, with his tail under the bed. He is a 
 thousand times better off in the barn or the 
 stable, where, if you take a look at his quarters 
 before you retire, you will find him all at home, 
 buried up to the nose, perhaps, in rye straw. 
 If, however, he is an especial favorite, and you 
 have serious doubts as to the honesty of the 
 neighborhood for "train up a dog, and away he 
 goes," is a ludicrous saying which many a sports- 
 man has rued in that case if you bring him into 
 your sleeping room to make all sure, give him a 
 bed raised a foot or more above the floor, that he 
 may lie out of the draught of cold air, to which, 
 reckless of exposure as he is in the field, he is as 
 susceptible in cuUculo as an invalid. If you are 
 not careful in this respect, you will have him 
 sailing about the room, sounding every inch of 
 harbor, like a coast surveyor, and, perhaps, leap- 
 ing on the bed ; or wanting water in the course 
 of the night, he will bring down the wash-stand 
 and its appurtenances about his ears, with a 
 grand crash, or pull down your shooting 
 clothes, and hauling them out of the current of 
 air, make a dog-mat out of them until morning.
 
 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 181 
 
 We once knew a valuable pointer belonging to 
 a friend, to open the door of the chamber in 
 which he was lodged with his master, and wan- 
 dering into the entry, pitch over a part of the 
 staircase unguarded by bannisters, and lay him- 
 self up for the season. Moreover, introducing 
 dogs into the sleeping apartments of their mas- 
 ters learns them indolent habits. What will the 
 reader think of a sportsman's suddenly missing 
 his dog at the last moment, with the steamboat 
 in sight from the pier a dozen unpleasant sus- 
 picions crowding on his mind the bar-tender, 
 boots and the ostler all actively engaged on the 
 scout, and when the rascal turned up at the 
 eleventh hour, he was actually discovered by the 
 chambermaid, lovingly locked in the arms of 
 Somnus in a lodger's bed. Truly, luxury which 
 ruined the Roman empire, would soon make 
 Sybarites of Ponto and Dash, as it has of their 
 cousins, the King Charles and the Blenheim. 
 Clean rye straw in a warm stall is good enough 
 for the villains, in the frostiest night that ever 
 made Dapple cough as she chewed the cud, or 
 honest Dobbin kick at the stable door. They 
 will come out of it in the morning top side up, 
 with shining noses and sinews new strung for a 
 a hard day's hunt. 
 12 *
 
 182 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 The next morning, breakfast being over, and 
 all things in readiness for an early start, if you 
 have any distance to ride to the grounds which 
 you design to shoot over, by all means take in 
 the dogs. Apart from the looks of the thing, 
 they are liable to be lost on the road in a strange 
 neighborhood, and to be worried by country 
 curs. It is the practice of a sportsman early to 
 accustom his brace of dogs to their places under 
 his feet in a wagon, where they will soon learn 
 to lie still and mute, without discommoding each 
 other or their masters. A dog thus treated 
 enjoys a ride to and from the grounds quite as 
 much as the shooter, and most assuredly equally 
 deserves it. Several instances have come under 
 our notice, of valuable dogs which have been 
 fagged to death by the carelessness or brutality 
 of their owners, in forcing them to run for many 
 miles in warm weather after a hard hunt. Such 
 heartlessness cannot be too severely condemned, 
 and w r e will venture to say that the persons who 
 were guilty of it, never felt a single spark of the 
 generous feeling inherent in the breast of a 
 sportsman. It should be a standing rule with 
 every shooter who takes a dog into the field, that 
 when I ride my dogs ride also. We have had 
 occasion to notice in our sporting tours, a selfish
 
 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 183 
 
 indifference to the comforts of their dogs in some 
 men, otherwise keen sportsmen, and a cockney- 
 ish affectation of noli me tangere, equivalent to 
 get out, you inferior brute in others. The first 
 are those, called in the vulgar parlance pot- 
 hunters, who, after Ponto has helped to fill the 
 bag, and shown no sign of flagging while there 
 was light left to shoot over him, unceremoniously 
 
 d n the dog and deny him a passage 
 
 though ten weary miles may intervene. The 
 second are the dandy cockneys ; " the softly 
 sprighted men," who are so terribly afraid of 
 fleas that they would on no account sit in the 
 same vehicle with a dog, and who ask, in a voice 
 like the ring of a cracked glass: "How does 
 your fallow greyhound, sir ?" Of course it never 
 enters the mind of either of these worthy gentle- 
 men, that the dog, whom they neglect and de- 
 spise, is the nobler animal of the two, and that 
 they have in reality, little to offer against his 
 fidelity and devotion, except the form made after 
 the Creator's image. The intellect of the one 
 master is too obtuse, and that of the other too 
 much infused with self-conceit, to dream of such 
 a comparison. Nevertheless, they might well 
 ask themselves, as a child did of a star : "Is it 
 truer
 
 184 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 It behooves the sportsman to make sure that 
 no one but the pilot and game-bearer, who, by 
 the way, should never be permitted to take a gun 
 with him to the field, under any pretence what- 
 ever insinuates himself into the party. If it 
 originally consists of four, it must of course be 
 divided, as two men are enough to hunt in com- 
 pany over any cultivated country. It was our 
 fortune once, while shooting in an adjoining 
 state, to be joined by a party of country gentle- 
 men, to the number of six or seven, who, heaven 
 reward their kindness, though it certainly was 
 misplaced had turned out in sporting trim to 
 honor our advent. Besides Czar and Dash, we 
 received a reinforcement of two fox-hounds, one 
 terrier, one shock-dog, four nondescript curs and 
 one poodle a very respectable pack, each and 
 all in good condifion, and eager, like their mas- 
 ters, to take the field. The pointer snuffed 
 around this motley crowd with high-bred scorn, 
 and the setter, being younger, did not attempt to 
 conceal his chagrin, but bristled his back and 
 showed his white teeth at each of his strange 
 field mates in turn. However, there was nothing 
 else for it, and out we went to the stubbles at 
 seven in the morning, the curs, of course, taking 
 the lead. A covey of birds were speedily found
 
 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 185 
 
 and scattered, each man doing his best to set on 
 his brute in chase, when the hounds struck a 
 trail, and off they went, yelping to the hills, fol- 
 lowed by the terrier and the poodle, and, last of 
 all by their masters. The curs stuck closer, and 
 it speedily appeared that, living upon farms 
 adjoining each other, they were no strangers to 
 those little jealousies and petty heart-burnings, 
 which, to say the truth, are so common among 
 country folks of a certain class. 
 
 After considerable preliminary snarling and 
 wrangling, by a little judicious management the 
 feuds blazed out over the body of an innocent 
 opossum, which one of them had dragged out of 
 his hole, and to it, might and main, they went, 
 all except the shock-dog, who, belying his name, 
 stood barking, aloof. A dog fight in the country 
 when the combatants happen to be large, strong 
 animals, as was the case in this instance, is an 
 obstinately contested affair; in attempting to 
 separate the belligerents, their masters became 
 infected with the same pugnacious spirit; down 
 went guns and into the melee went the country 
 gentlemen to our great delight, each nourishing 
 a pair of fists a la Hyer; when, noticing the opos- 
 sum stealing quietly off, (his old trick,) we as 
 quietly followed his sage example, and making for
 
 186 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 the nearest road, jumped into a farmer's wagon, 
 which bore us and our four-footed friends some 
 five miles off from the scene of the fray, where 
 we found birds and had fair sport. 
 
 Having now entered the stubbles, observe the 
 
 different modes in which the dogs proceed to 
 
 traverse the ground. The morning is calm, clear 
 
 and bracing. The young dog at once dashes 
 
 out into the centre of the field, quartering his 
 
 ground as he goes, and feathering in fine style 
 
 with the hoar frost flying in his track, while the 
 
 pointer, as usual, directs his course towards the 
 
 corners, near which experience has taught him 
 
 the birds are often found. He is not mistaken, 
 
 for see close to that bunch of broom-corn, near 
 
 the south angle of the fence, he stands "fast 
 
 fixed," while the setter, beaten again in the first 
 
 point in despite of his dash, backs steadily from 
 
 the spot on which he had already detected some 
 
 faint effluvia of the feeding game. The shooters 
 
 come up at quick step, yet cautiously, each in 
 
 the attitude of a practised sportsman ; the covey 
 
 is flushed, each deliberately singles out and 
 
 knocks down his birds ; the dogs are sent to 
 
 retrieve either by the command, " seek, dead 
 
 bird," or by a simple wave of the hand; the 
 
 game is retrieved ; the guns re-loaded, and the
 
 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 187 
 
 parties proceed to follow the remainder of the 
 covey, which have flown in the direction of 
 the adjacent woods. Just upon its edge the 
 axe has been recently at work, and several 
 trees, still covered with their faded foliage, lie 
 a little to the right of the fence in a line 
 with the flight of the birds. In this cover the 
 covey has doubtless hidden, and with good 
 management a half dozen shots may be obtained 
 on the spot. " Heed ! heed! brave dogs !" See, 
 Dash has come upon a bird which has pitched 
 short of the cover under the fence, and he stops 
 short and gives the never-failing sign, while old 
 Czar, the winner of first blood, backs staunch as 
 stone. Now if your eyes be good, you may see 
 that bird lying close to the rail-post, its body 
 drawn up into the smallest compass and per- 
 fectly motionless. Its white chin has betrayed 
 it, and you can now distinguish its bright eyes 
 fixed timidly upon you. It has probably struck 
 the ground and ran a yard or two to its hiding 
 place, or the dogs might have passed it by, so 
 tightly is the plumage compressed, and the 
 wings shut down over the odoriferous glands, 
 by muscular actions induced by the influence 
 of fear. Observe how close the setter is to the 
 bird ; now just as a man holds his breath when
 
 188 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 his pursuers are near, the partridge tightens its 
 skin so as to occupy the smallest possible space, 
 and in so doing, if it lies exactly on the spot on 
 which its feet first struck, it will probably puz- 
 zle the dogs, who can detect no effluvia in the 
 air or upon the earth for obvious reasons. You 
 may easily imagine how diiferent is the case 
 when the birds have left a trail, or are feeding 
 in a body, with the scent steaming freely from 
 their feathers. The whole mystery lies in a 
 nutshell ; up whirs the bird from under your 
 feet missed clean, by Jove ! but the second 
 barrel riddles him, and he lies still short of the 
 fallen timber and close to the fence. An old 
 cock that, for a wager ; but charge your piece, 
 and let us at them, for an old snipe shooter, 
 above all things, detests burning daylight. 
 Mark how cautiously the dogs approach the 
 cover ; now Dash is pointing the dead bird : 
 "fetch! so! good dog!" you that way and I 
 this. 
 
 Both dogs point simultaneously on either side 
 of the trees; now, keep cool, and remember, 
 that, as you are shooting a sixteen guage gun 
 which throws her charge very compactly for 
 some distance, you must give your birds a fair 
 start and then kill them clean.
 
 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 189 
 
 "Whir! whir!" 
 
 "Bang! bang!" 
 
 Both birds down ; both dogs steady as statues ! 
 Now charge the empty barrel, and if a bird 
 should rise before you have capped, let it go. 
 You remember the pair of barrels which we 
 saw at Krider's last spring, the left hand one 
 rent at the middle, just where the head of the 
 rod reached, when the hasty gentleman fired at 
 the snipe. 
 
 "Ready?" 
 
 " All ready." 
 
 " Now kick the boughs on your side." 
 
 "Whir! whir! whir! whir-!" 
 
 "Bang! bang! bang! bang!" 
 
 There goes another and another, shooting 
 through the trees ; they are the last, for see the 
 dogs are off their points; those birds were killed 
 in a style which reflects credit on the art ; six 
 down ; we will charge, retrieve the dead birds, 
 and push on to a second stubble-field. 
 
 You observe how long Dash was in finding 
 this bird, although I knew the very spot where 
 it fell : he passed and re-passed within a few 
 feet of it several times before he discovered it ; 
 death having suddenly suspended all the vital 
 phenomena, the dog was in a similar position to
 
 190 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 the dead game, as if he was hunting for a live 
 bird, which, in the act of hiding away, had par- 
 tially or wholly withheld its scent. Now let us 
 away to the next field, for one half of the life of 
 sporting is in its motion. A hard hunter is most 
 invariably a fair shot; but a fair shot is not 
 always a hard hunter. 
 
 Hie on, good dogs. But, mark yonder fea- 
 thered pirate perched near the top of the tall 
 tree, on the edge of the wheat stubble. He is 
 out after game, too, for see, he has a bird in his 
 talons, and feeling perfectly secure, he is pluck- 
 ing it where he sits. Is there no way of pun- 
 ishing that fellow, and of putting a final period 
 to his depredations? Yes, by Jove, there is. 
 Here comes the farmer down the lane to water 
 his horses. 
 
 " Good morning, Adam. Do you see yonder 
 hen-harrier?" 
 
 " Ay, I sees the thief." 
 
 " Will your horses stand fire ?" 
 
 " Ay, here's old bay Charles he's twenty-six 
 next grass be danged if he doesn't stand a dis- 
 ruption of 'Suvius." 
 
 " Well then, we'll put an end to that fellow's 
 forays on your poultry -yard. Jump on Charles, 
 while I take down the bars ; now guide him so
 
 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 191 
 
 as to pass within a few rods of the tree. I will 
 walk on your off side the hawk will not move ; 
 he sees only one thing at a time, and he knows 
 there is no harm in the old horse. My friend 
 will keep the dogs with him here at the fence, 
 and if you can manage to strike up a careless 
 whistle, Adam, so much the better." 
 
 "Nay, nay," said the old man in a cracked 
 voice. " Fse done whistling this many a day 
 since my old dame died ; but, an' you like, I'll 
 
 sing. 
 
 "No, no, my good friend," I whispered as we 
 approached the tree, "that would spoil all." 
 The hawk still continued to feed, although I 
 was satisfied that he saw the horse plainly 
 enough ; once or twice he looked down upon us 
 as if in some distrust; but the farmer turned 
 the horse's head a little off from the tree, and 
 the bird quietly resumed its meal. We were 
 now close to the trunk ; Adam checked the 
 horse, and raising the gun, which I had previ- 
 ously kept out of sight as much as possible, I 
 took a quick aim and fired. The hawk dropped 
 but hung to its perch with one foot, while the 
 other still retained its prey. 
 
 " Hurrah !" exclaimed the old man, "give him 
 the other barrel," and down the plunderer came
 
 192 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 at the report, tumbling from bough to bough to 
 our feet, where he lay on his back displaying 
 his spotted belly, barred tail, and sharp talons, 
 with the remains of a hen partridge in his grip. 
 Adam jumped off his horse and examined him 
 with curious attention. 
 
 " Be danged, Mister," said he, pointing to the 
 bird's neck which was partially bare, " but his 
 head has been in one of my steel traps ; the 
 teeth caught in the bait and saved him that 
 time ; my boys found the trap sprung and the 
 feathers lying near, and right glad they'll be 
 to see the thief nailed to the side of the barn." 
 
 "Ay." said I, "we dare say, but Mr. T. and 
 I must be off;" and bidding the old man good 
 morning, we started for a neighboring copse, in 
 which we suspected the covey had flown, after 
 having been surprised and scattered by the 
 hawk. However, we hunted it through and 
 through without obtaining a single point, and 
 after trying an old stubble thickly overgrown 
 with Indian grass, were about to push on in 
 search of another covey, when, as we approached 
 a hollow in which heaps of brush had accumu- 
 lated, the old dog drew suddenly up with Dash 
 close in his rear, and, "here they are," said T., 
 measuring the distance from the tree on which
 
 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 193 
 
 the hawk was shot, with his eye. There they 
 were, sure enough, having crept to the very 
 bottom of the brush-pile through the dead twigs 
 and branches. We had nine successive shots 
 before the dogs stirred, when T. called them off, 
 declaring that he would not shoot at another 
 bird. In fact, you could hear them squeak and 
 scratch their way out at every kick which we 
 gave the pile when, in the nick of time, down 
 came a surly countryman, with a hound-cur and 
 a friend at his heels, and ordered us off. The 
 man was at first decidedly wolfish, and half in- 
 clined to create a row, but the suavity of T. and 
 the inimitable manner in which he weathered 
 upon him as soon as he found out his name, 
 claiming relationship by Adam's side, I sup- 
 pose and introducing his liquor-flask into the 
 discussion in his fine, off-hand way, put the man 
 in decent humor at last. The other fellow, how- 
 ever, fought shy. He was a shrewd, lantern- 
 jawed, cat-eyed, close-fisted clodhopper; setting 
 his cunning avaricious orbs on T.'s face, for a 
 time he listened with an occasional smirk, to his 
 rigmarole, whittling a stick the while, and turn- 
 ing up his nose at the dogs. I was inclined to 
 let him alone, thinking that he was too much for 
 me, when, after moistening his throat with such
 
 194 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 whiskey as he had never tasted before in 
 a dream, he opened his oracular jaws and 
 spake : 
 
 " Do you ever shoot gray snipe ?" said he. 
 
 "Why, -yes, sometimes in the spring of the 
 year when there is nothing else to hunt, you 
 know," answered T., while I silently pricked up 
 my ears. 
 
 "Waal," said the other, "I didn't know; 
 there's heaps on 'em on my place." 
 
 " Indeed," answered T., " try another dash of 
 that whiskey snipe are strange birds ; here to- 
 day and off to-morrow. Your land lies well, 
 Mr. Sluicedam." 
 
 " I s'pose, squire," said Mr. Sluicedam's cute 
 friend, screwing up his eyes and recovering his 
 breath after a long drink, " when you goes out 
 arter partridges, you goes out arter partridges, 
 and when you goes out arter snipe, you goes out 
 arter snipe eigh?" 
 
 " Something in that way, I confess," answered 
 T. " The fact is, you see, Mr Sluicedam, I 
 don't overlike the water myself, and my friend 
 there had as soon take a kick from a weaned colt 
 as get his feet wet. We don't get out often, but 
 when you and your friend happen to be in the 
 city, I hope you will give us a call ;" and taking
 
 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 195 
 
 his boot maker's card from his pocket he presented 
 it with his usual grace. We then prepared to 
 move on, when, in spite of a peculiar glance from 
 T.'s eye, I determined to put the question : 
 
 " Is that your land which adjoins Mr. Sluice- 
 dam's?" said I carelessly. 
 
 / 
 
 "Why, no," said he, with a grin, "it ain't, 
 by a long shot. It wouldn't be no manner of 
 use to tell you where my place be, you know, 
 since you both hate water so. Good mornin' 
 gentlemen." 
 
 " Hang the fellow !" I exclaimed. 
 
 "N'importe" said T., "I have his outlines; 
 here, hold my gun for a moment, I'll fill them 
 up while the impression is fresh." Taking pen- 
 cil and paper from his pocket, he set down on a 
 stump, and with a few bold strokes and scientific 
 dashes, executed so felicitous a caricature of 
 the countryman, that I could not but smile at 
 the likeness. " Now," said he, "we will show 
 this to our jolly host; he will recognize it at 
 once, and if we are not among our friend's gray 
 snipe to-morrow betimes, we will give him 
 liberty to call us gray geese." 
 
 " But the first shot will bring the fellow out 
 upon us," said I. 
 
 " No," said he, laughing, "for cousin Sluice-
 
 1% KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 dam let it ooze out, that his friend and his family 
 were on a visit to his place, to stay over Sun- 
 day." 
 
 "Then," said I, " he's had, confound him, 
 and I shall knock down his snipe with all the 
 greater satisfaction." 
 
 " He must live well inland," remarked T., 
 carefully putting up the portrait, " I never saw 
 him before ; and I'll wager now the birds lie in 
 some tussocky meadow, or reedy marsh, along 
 the bank of a creek." 
 
 " Or in a wet stubble-field, most likely," 
 said I. 
 
 "True," said he. "But send out the dogs, 
 let us kill partridges to-day and snipe to-morrow; 
 though how any sportsmen can compare the two 
 kinds of shooting, rather puzzles me to imagine." 
 
 In a few moments the dogs pointed in a buck- 
 wheat field, oil the edge of a corn stubble, and 
 after obtaining a double shot apiece, we fol- 
 lowed them into an orchard, where T. shot a 
 cock bird out of the low crotch of an apple tree. 
 They then pitched into a hedge along the steep 
 bank of a run, with a low, swampy meadow on 
 the further side. Here we killed them singly at 
 leisure, until we had pretty well thinned the 
 covey.
 
 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 197 
 
 It was now near noon, and after pausing to 
 refresh ourselves at a spring, we debated the 
 propriety of fleeting away an hour or two in a 
 sunny hollow out of the wind, and although the 
 vote was unanimous to keep quiet until the birds 
 had returned to the stubbles, yet such is the 
 restless desire to keep moving, which a man im- 
 bibes in the marshes, that the decision was soon 
 reversed with equal unanimity, and resuming 
 our guns, we pushed on. 
 
 We will now take occasion to observe to the 
 general reader, that at this hour of the day the 
 birds are most difficult to find, each covey hav- 
 ing retired to some out of the way part of the 
 farm which it inhabits, where it lies in a com- 
 paratively small compass, basking, pruning and 
 dusting, precisely like chickens in the barnyard 
 or garden on a sunny day, after their crops are 
 filled. 
 
 The flight of the partridge from the stubbles, 
 or the drinking-place, is generally direct to the 
 pruning place, so that the dogs can find no clue 
 to the spot, though, occasionally, a sagacious 
 animal, falling back upon his experience, will 
 lead directly to the haunt. This is either on 
 the edge of a copse of young trees, in which the 
 sun's ray penetrates under the lee of a gravelly 
 13
 
 198 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 hill in a sheltered hollow fringed with a few 
 scattered bushes, or under a large bush in a 
 boggy meadow, and we have even found them 
 in a rough, stony country, huddled in the hol- 
 low of a large stump. In stormy weather they 
 retire into the woods, in which situations we 
 have flushed them from under a thick cedar 
 bush. On the day in question, the first point 
 after we left the spring, occurred in a line of 
 thick grass close to a rail fence. The birds 
 flew from thence into an open woods, and the 
 covey being a very full one, we had considerable 
 sport in picking up the scattered birds. In hunt- 
 ing up these, T. bagged a woodcock and a ruffed 
 grouse, the first over a point by the setter, while 
 the last sprang at the report of his gun dis- 
 charged at a partridge, and was wing-tipped, at 
 a long shot, with the second barrel. 
 
 A circumstance attended the retrieving of this 
 bird, which went far to show some traits in the 
 disposition of the pointer dog, Czar. It was shot 
 from the edge of a ravine in the woods, and fell 
 among the thick brush at the bottom. I was 
 then in full sight of my companion, with Czar 
 hunting on the brink of the broken ground in ad- 
 vance. Contrary to the dog's custom and regu- 
 lar rule of training, at the report of T.'s gun, he
 
 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 199 
 
 started down the side of the ravine at a run, but 
 turned and came in at the sound of the whistle, 
 dropping his stern rather sulkily as I thought. 
 The setter was sent into the ravine, but after a 
 long hunt was unable to find the bird. I then 
 directed the pointer " to seek dead bird," but he 
 refused to go out, and showed his teeth when 
 corrected, for which he received a sound thrash- 
 ing. We then sent both dogs out again, and 
 descended into the ravine, the sides and bottom 
 of which were covered with brush. After search- 
 ing for the grouse for some moments, we gave it 
 up and climbed the opposite side. When we 
 had advanced about a hundred yards deeper 
 in the woods, Czar suddenly turned back at full 
 gallop and in a few minutes came to my side 
 with the bird fluttering in his mouth. He had, 
 no doubt, observed it fall in- the first place, as he 
 had probably seen hundreds fall before, but why 
 he should show any desire to retrieve it before 
 he was ordered, unless he had noticed that it 
 was merely winged, was the puzzle. His sulki- 
 ness and impatience of correction, both of which 
 were unusual, inclined me strongly to think that 
 this was actually the case ; and when the bird 
 was found in the manner related, my friend and 
 I were confirmed in our belief. As T. remarked
 
 200 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 at the time, it was one of those chance looks into 
 a dog's heart which a man is not favored with 
 every season. 
 
 We found four coveys before sundown, and 
 came in at night pretty well fagged, with twenty- 
 five brace and an odd bird, exclusive of the cock 
 and the grouse. On this day's excursion, on the 
 tenth of November, we did not meet with a 
 single covey of birds which were not fully 
 fledged. 
 
 The first thing now to be attended to, after 
 swallowing a glass of hot rum-punch and a 
 cracker, is to examine the dog's feet, wash them 
 with whiskey ; then see the animals well fed 
 and housed, with an abundance of water at their 
 command. The game is then to be strung and 
 hung out in a secure place, and the barrels of 
 the guns w r ashed out. This being done you 
 may then retire to your room, wash and change; 
 and, curious as it may seem to the uninitiated, 
 descend to the dining-room, a veritable novus 
 homo, a genuine new man, with an excellent 
 appetite for the substantial repast, which the 
 host is careful to prepare for the sportsman. If 
 ever a man enters into the heart of his dinner, so 
 to speak, it is after a day's hunt, when the juicy 
 tenderness of a beef-steak melts through and
 
 PAKTRIDGE SHOOTING. 201 
 
 through him, and the flavor of a wild duck, if 
 he is lucky enough to have it on the board, 
 leaves a sort of twang on the palate, which the 
 prince of gourmands might envy. We have a 
 friend who never tastes shad but once during 
 
 o 
 
 the season, and that is on his first snipe shooting 
 excursion in the spring. The remembrance of 
 that shad, taken out of the river in front of the 
 house where he generally puts up, lasts him 
 during the year, and he is always anxious to be 
 off on the succeeding spring, that he may taste 
 another. 
 
 After dinner you may have a glass of punch, 
 a chat, or a rubber of whist, if the party be large 
 enough, and then to bed. Before retiring, T. 
 showed his portrait of the countryman to our 
 host, who, after he had heard the circumstances 
 of the meeting, recognized it at once, and laugh- 
 ing heartily, readily put us on the track of the 
 snipe preserve, assuring us that the fellow was 
 one of the veriest churls and most renowned skin- 
 flints in the state. 
 
 " I can't tell exactly where snipe harbor on 
 his lands," said he, " for he lives several miles 
 inland from the shore, but it is off the road about 
 a half a mile back from the brick mill. Of 
 course, your dogs can't miss finding them, if
 
 202 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 they are there, and I hope you won't leave a 
 bird on the place. You must look out for his 
 dog if you go near the house, for they say he is 
 as savage as a Turk, and as ready to fight as 
 Paul Jones." 
 
 The next morning we were on the road by 
 sunrise, and after an hour's drive came to the 
 mill, where we had the horse put up, and started 
 over the fields at once. After some travelling 
 over very unpromising ground, we suddenly 
 came upon a sunken corn-field of black loam, 
 with the stalks left standing and a gleam of water 
 in the furrows. 
 
 " Whist !" exclaimed T., pointing to the house 
 which was within two hundred yards, "here is 
 the ground, let us lose no time." 
 
 Accordingly, we crossed the fence and entered 
 at different points, each dog drawing steadily on 
 in advance, with the scent blowing full in his 
 nostrils. In this way they worked up to the 
 game, when " Scheep ! scheep !" up flittered 
 the little gray imps, ten or twelve on a fly, and 
 down again, scarce twenty yards off, apparently 
 regardless of the reports, and showing little dis- 
 position to leave the ground. Observing this, I 
 reduced my charges, and soon found that T. 
 had done the same. And now was seen, to the
 
 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 203 
 
 very best advantage, the admirable qualities of a 
 crack snipe dog. If both animals had not been 
 under perfect command, and gun-wise in every 
 respect, the birds would have soon collected in a 
 body, and left the place for a long flight, as we 
 knew of no snipe ground, except this twenty- 
 acre field, for miles around. But by keeping a 
 few paces in front, dropping at every shot, and 
 advancing as slowly as a dead march, when they 
 heard the click of the gun-locks, while their mas- 
 ters were careful to keep perfectly silent, the 
 snipe were little alarmed, and we had half of 
 them down before they rose higher in the wind 
 than our heads, seeming, as they darted up with 
 their usual weird cry, and alit a few rods off, to 
 be too busily engaged in feeding to regard us 
 in any other light, than peevish interlopers, who 
 would persist in coming between them and their 
 gnome-like operations on the moist earth. It is 
 well known to sportsmen, especially ( to snipe 
 shooters, that the voice of a man, or the miscon- 
 duct of a half-broken dog, will do more to scare 
 game away from a feeding ground, than the 
 sound of the guns, and that if the shooters move 
 silently and slowly on, regulating their charges 
 in proportion to the extent of the cover, and the 
 proximity with which the birds spring, it is
 
 204 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 next to impossible to drive snipe, found in par- 
 ticular situations, from their feed, before their 
 numbers are pretty well thinned. In the happy 
 observance of these rules by the shooter and his 
 dogs, consists, in our opinion, the perfection of 
 the art, that the one should know how to follow 
 up his game, and the other to be either as slow as 
 a tortoise or as fleet as the wind, just as the occa- 
 sion may demand. In more than one instance 
 has the sportsman arrived on the ground, and 
 found it dried up, especially in a vast range of 
 flat meadow land ; when by sending out a fleet 
 dog he has, perhaps, seen him on a stand, or 
 marked water fly from his feet at a great dis- 
 tance; and upon coming up, lo! here is a wet 
 spot, with a cover of dead reeds, perhaps the only 
 one to be found for miles around and here he 
 has often killed from thirty to forty birds. And 
 how often, on the other hand, has the sportsman, 
 who from culpable carelessnes, or a mistaken 
 spirit of economy, is content to go out with a 
 heedless, half-broken dog, had his temper tried 
 and his day's shooting spoilt, by seeing the birds 
 driven off before he has obtained a half a dozen 
 shots. 
 
 A pottering pointer or a setter that habitually 
 rakes, or carries his nose low, no matter how
 
 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 205 
 
 staunch, he may be, is infinitely inferior to a 
 free, up-headed, thorough-broken, fast-going dog 
 of either stock, and such a dog at any time should 
 command a price, of from eighty-five to a hundred 
 dollars. But when gentlemen object, as is often 
 the case, to paying the price, after having made 
 a fair trial of the animal, it is not strange that 
 for one really good dog in our large cities, you 
 will find fifty that will break shot run in upon 
 a point prove gun-foolish in the field, and in 
 fact show nothing of the true sporting dog, ex- 
 cept his instinctive qualities of finding and point- 
 ing game. There are men of good knowledge in 
 sporting affairs, who have attempted to break 
 dogs in a proper way ; but the little encourage- 
 ment given to them by the public has thrown 
 the business almost entirely into the hands of 
 market-shooters, who, of all classes of men, prove 
 the very worst masters, into whose hands a pro- 
 mising young dog can possibly fall. However, 
 as sporting is largely on the increase among us, 
 no doubt, in the course of time, the evil will 
 remedy itself. In the meantime, never purchase 
 a dog without trying him yourself, especially if 
 he is offered at a reduced price. 
 
 We had gradually driven the remainder of 
 the birds into a part of the field nearest to the
 
 206 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 house, when, as I fired at a snipe which rose in 
 front of me, I observed the farmer's dog coming 
 down the slope at full speed, and had barely time 
 to whistle in Czar, before the enraged brute 
 dashed into a run between us, struggled through 
 its oozy sides and came at me open mouthed. I 
 presented the muzzle of the gun, which he 
 eagerly seized, trying his teeth upon it several 
 times, though I forbore to fire the remaining 
 barrel, savage as he seemed, with his fierce eyes, 
 cropt ears, broad, bull-terrier head, and jaws like 
 those of a wolf trap. I was more afraid of his 
 getting hold Czar, who had, himself, a small 
 spice of Satan in his composition, when suddenly 
 he wheeled about, keeping all the time perfectly 
 mute, save a hyena snarl, and re-crossing the run, 
 waded through the mud and leisurely ascended 
 the hill. Re-loading the empty barrel, I ad- 
 vanced still nearer the house and fired again, 
 when down came old Blucher a second time, 
 passed the stream with the same fierce pertina- 
 city, and again tries his teeth on *my stub and 
 twist. This time I could not forbear laughing 
 in his face, which made him more furious than 
 ever, though he made no attempt to get at me 
 or the dog, but contented himself with wreaking 
 his wrath on the gun-barrel, against which he
 
 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 207 
 
 appeared to have some especial pique. In a 
 minute or two he retreated as before, again tak- 
 ing his station on the summit of the hill, and ap- 
 parently keeping a sharp look-out. At the very 
 next shot, down he came the third time, when, 
 instead of forming a square to receive him, I 
 broke into an uncontrolable fit of laughter, which 
 so enraged T., who had come up in the mean- 
 time, that he levelled his piece at his head, and 
 would have put a stop to his peregrinations for- 
 ever, but for my earnest entreaties to do him no 
 harm. He soon returned to his post of observa- 
 tion, and we afterwards learned from a near 
 neighbor of the farmer's, that the mere report of 
 a gun was sufficient to arouse his fiercest ire, 
 which circumstance was attributed to his having 
 accidentally been shot a year or two before. On 
 the succeeding fall a party from the city got 
 into trouble about the same dog, one of them 
 having shot him dead, while charging him like 
 a perfect fury in a stubble-field. 
 
 Having killed thirty odd brace of snipe in the 
 corn-field, and along the run, we were returning 
 to the mill by the lane, when we encountered 
 Mr. Sluicedam's friend and his family returning 
 home from their visit, and a pretty rage the man 
 flew into when he spied the birds in the netting,
 
 208 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 for we carried game-bags in those days. He 
 checked his horse at once', and exasperated by a 
 look of triumph which I could not forbear, 
 jumped from his wagon and confronted us. 
 
 " Who gave you liberty to shoot over these 
 grounds ?" he began, while the miller who was 
 with him, also alighted, and the old lady and the 
 little ones thrust their curious faces out of the 
 vehicle, in expectation of a grand row. 
 
 " Why," says T., in his blandest way, " did 
 not you, yourself, tell us that the birds were 
 here?" 
 
 " Yes, I did," he replied, working himself up 
 as if he found it difficult to stand our friend's 
 manner and something in his eye, " but I did 
 not tell you to come after them dang it !" 
 
 " My good fellow," returned T., with greater 
 suavity than before, " when next you have 
 game on your place, if you wish to preserve them, 
 let me caution you against showing even so 
 much as their tail-coverts to an old snipe 
 shooter. Good morning !" 
 
 So saying he moved on and I followed, touch- 
 ing my hat to the dame, and leaving the two 
 countrymen standing stock still in the lane, as 
 mute as mile-stones. The next day we returned 
 to the city and have heard nothing of Mr. Sluice- 
 dam and his friend since.
 
 PARTKIDGE SHOOTING. 209 
 
 Nothing satisfactory is yet known respecting trie 
 cause which impels the partridge to shift its lo- 
 cality, for a few weeks, during what is commonly 
 called the running season. These movements oc- 
 cur in October and the first week in November, 
 generally in companies considerably exceeding 
 the usual number of the respective coveys, and 
 are observed to be directed from the north- 
 west towards the sea-board, and the low grounds 
 along the large water-courses. Possibly, they 
 may be governed by an instinctive desire for 
 some unknown species of food, only to be found 
 in these latter districts. The little travellers, 
 like the devotees of old, literally perform their 
 annual pilgrimage barefoot, merely making use 
 of their wings to cross such streams as occur in 
 their route, and running with such amazing 
 swiftness, when encountered by man, as to 
 make it difficult to overtake and flush them, 
 even with a fleet dog. We have frequently met 
 them crossing the roads in great numbers, and 
 at other times observed them running through 
 the streets of towns and villages, and even upon 
 the house-tops, before sun-rise. The same 
 periodical movements have been noticed in the 
 ruffed grouse and the wild turkey, and a few 
 years since a small flock of the latter made their
 
 210 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 appearance on the Susquehanna, as low down 
 as Port Deposit. The pilgrimage is said to ter- 
 minate in the return of the birds to their native 
 haunts, and their re-division into coveys of from 
 eight or ten to fifteen or twenty. 
 
 In regard to the companies of confirmed old 
 bachelors, asserted by Forrester to have been 
 found in the family of the American partridge, 
 it is our misfortune, claiming as we do, to be- 
 long to the distinguished fraternity, never to 
 have encountered these feathered odd-fellows. 
 In the crowded English preserves, according to 
 the statement of various old writers, such socie- 
 ties do actually exist, and these old cocks do 
 incontinently wage war upon the young ones, 
 partly for the sake of enjoying their privacy, 
 undisturbed by ridiculous affairs of gallantry, 
 which they have long ago found to be mere 
 vanity and vexation of soul, and partly from a 
 delectable spirit of moroseness which, thank 
 heaven, every bachelor beneath the stars, has 
 an undisputed right to affect, whenever he 
 sees fit. We are, certainly, much indebted 
 to Mr. Herbert's penetration in discovering 
 these little isolated communities of Benedicts, 
 which still endure in the midst of gynarchies, 
 and whose habits tally so remarkably with
 
 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 211 
 
 those of the English partridge, as described by 
 Mr. Daniel and other veteran sportsmen. Some 
 cavillers might hint that Forrester had taken 
 the British accounts and applied them in a slap- 
 dash way to the American bird ; for our own 
 part, whenever we may chance to meet the 
 odd-fellows parading in the badges of their 
 order, during the season when the rest of the 
 species are divided into pairs, and attending 
 to family duties, we shall not fail to extend the 
 right hand of fellowship towards them, in the 
 shape of one of Krider's stub and twist. Until 
 that time, not wishing to be too hasty in con- 
 clusions, we reserve our opinion. We do not, 
 however, believe that the disproportion between 
 the males and females is so great as is repre- 
 sented by some writers ; that a plurality of 
 males does exist in the broods is not denied ; 
 but we think that even the English accounts 
 are exaggerated in this respect, especially as an 
 error has seemed to have been at one time 
 prevalent in that country, in reference to the 
 markings of the male and female bird. 
 
 In its character the American partridge is 
 lively and courageous, very impatient of con- 
 finement, and attached in a remarkable degree 
 to the locality in which it is bred. Whether
 
 212 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 from old associations or something in their ap- 
 pearance and habits, there is a feeling akin to 
 sweet and innocent fellowship involved in the 
 presence of these birds on a country homestead. 
 The simplicity of their wonted, mellow call, 
 falls soothingly upon the ear in the pleasant 
 summer time, and 
 
 " When icicles hang by the \vall," 
 
 and the field is wrapped in its mantle of white, 
 one might almost imagine a religious sentiment 
 connected with their appearance in the barn- 
 yard, or the print of their tiny feet in the snow, 
 as if they were the fowls of the air mentioned 
 in Holy Writ, and as such must be fed for a 
 little season. In conclusion, we could heartily 
 wish that the few coveys which have survived 
 the severity of the winters of fifty -one and two, 
 might be allowed to recruit their diminished 
 numbers in peace, for several successive seasons. 
 We shall conclude this article with a brief 
 sketch of Hark, a celebrated setter dog, the pro- 
 perty of L. de la Cuesta, Esq., of this city. 
 This dog is of imported stock, and bears so close 
 a resemblance to an engraving of Beau in the 
 third volume of Mr. Daniel's Rural Sports of 
 England, that the likeness of one dog. taken 
 more than a half a century since, might tri-
 
 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 213 
 
 umphantly pass at the present day for that of 
 the other. 
 
 Hark was bred by a Mr. Robinson of Wil- 
 mington, Delaware, and came into his present 
 owner's possession at the age of ten months. 
 At that time he was a rough, rugged-looking 
 puppy, and first attracted notice by the steadi- 
 ness and sagacity which he displayed on the 
 snipe grounds. After purchasing him from Mr. 
 Robinson, Mr. Cuesta was induced to bestow 
 unusual attention to his training, and he sub- 
 sequently became a very superior animal. Like 
 his counterpart of old, from whom he may, 
 possibly, be descended, he was equally excel- 
 lent on all varieties of game, and as a snipe dog 
 was, perhaps, never excelled. He is of a large 
 size, very roughly coated, of a white color, the 
 ears dashed with dark red spots. In his best 
 days he was hunted with Poke, a liver-colored 
 pointer belonging to the same gentleman, and 
 also a capital field dog. As a proof of the 
 staunchness of Hark, he has been repeatedly 
 left pointing partridges, while the sportsman 
 crossed the fence to shoot over Poke, who had 
 found a second covey in an adjoining field. 
 The first dog was always discovered at his post 
 on the shooter's return. It was only necessary 
 14
 
 214 KRIDE1VS SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 for his master to speak to him in the first in- 
 stance, to ensure this, after an absence of nearly 
 an hour, and if found lying on the ground, he 
 would rise and resume his true professional 
 attitude as the parties approached. He was a 
 capital retriever and an expert swimmer. It 
 was, probably, owing to his docility in lying 
 close when so ordered, that the lives of the 
 editor and a friend were not endangered, when 
 crossing the Delaware in a skiff during a 
 south-easterly blow. Had he destroyed the 
 equilibrium of the boat, by shifting his posi- 
 tion as the water dashed over him, she must 
 have inevitably filled in the middle of the 
 river. 
 
 In hunting ruffed grouse he displayed great 
 skill and sagacity, watching and taking the 
 direction in which the pack flew, though he 
 never acquired that curious propensity which 
 we have seen manifested by some field dogs, to 
 give tongue the instant that the birds are sprung, 
 and marking the tree on which they often alight 
 at this challenge, continue the clamors at its 
 foot, until half the pack is shot down. In this 
 case the infatuation of the grouse, and its inat- 
 tention to the approach of the shooter and even 
 to the reports of his gun, are more strikingly dis-
 
 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 215 
 
 played than in any of the instances previously 
 adduced.* It is necessary, however, to have 
 very sharp eyes, or you will fail to discover the 
 birds, and to shoot the lower ones first, as the 
 rustle attending their fall through the branches 
 of the tree, breaks the force of the spell, and 
 enables the rest to escape. We have never seen 
 this mode of shooting grouse succeed, except in 
 the month of September when the birds are 
 young, though we have repeatedly been assured 
 by farmers, that they have killed old birds 
 under precisely similar circumstances. 
 
 Ruffed grouse shooting is generally laborious 
 and unsatisfactory work, though, as a variety, 
 we have sometimes enjoyed a half a day's sport 
 in the rugged hills of Bucks and Montgomery, 
 
 * They sit upon the large limbs near the trunk of the tree, turn- 
 ing their heads from side to side, precisely as the chicken has been 
 observed to do under similar circumstances, and gazing down in 
 amazement at the dog, which animal would appear to exert as 
 powerful an influence over the birds through the medium of his 
 voice, as he does over water-fowl by his antics on the shore. Had 
 these mysterious powers of fascination been observed in the cat, 
 they would have went far to establish her supposed connection 
 with witches and warlocks, the first suspicions of which, no doubt, 
 rose out of her still and wierd-like gravity of demeanor. Tray's 
 spirit, however, shines too clearly through his clay for him ever to 
 be accused of leaning to the black art.
 
 216 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 where a few broods still linger. Within our 
 recollection, however, they have entirely disap- 
 peared from sections of the country, where they 
 were once often met with. They afford more 
 sport in September, when the young birds are 
 fully grown, and in this month we have occa- 
 sionally found them in fresh buckwheat stub- 
 bles, and in plantations of young trees, in close 
 proximity to the woody and precipitous bank of 
 a stream. On the farm of an eccentric old 
 bachelor, dubbed by his neighbors in the upper 
 part of Montgomery, King John, these birds 
 once bred in undisturbed security. The old 
 fellow was peculiar in his habits, and had not 
 slept from under the roof of his homestead, for 
 fifty years. He suffered a large part of his farm 
 to lie untilled, and never allowed a gun to be 
 fired on his premises, except the venerable fowl- 
 ing piece, which, in imitation of ancient usages, 
 he regularly discharged from his kitchen door 
 at sundown, to let the wicked world within 
 hearing know, that, as usual, he was at home. 
 His house stood upon a hill, one side of which 
 was precipitous, and covered with cedars, oaks 
 and laurels; on this side, a steep and broken 
 path, known as the Devil's staircase, led down 
 to a mill-dam, on which we have occasionally
 
 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 217 
 
 shot black duck and teal, in spite of King 
 John's taboo. As to the grouse which in- 
 habited the woody side of the creek, gentle 
 reader, they went, where and how you must 
 invoke the shades of Toby and Carlo to de- 
 termine.
 
 WILD FOWL. 
 
 DUCK SHOOTING. 
 
 Proudly pre-eminent among the water-fowl of 
 the United States, for the elegance of its 
 plumage, the exquisite flavor of its flesh, and 
 the sport which it affords the shooter, stands 
 the far-famed canvass-back. Gentle reader, if 
 you have ever lain submerged in a battery on 
 Devil's Island, or in ambuscade in the narrows 
 of Spesutia, and watched them pitching, in their 
 superb way, among your decoys, or bent to your 
 oars on a blustering day, and snatched them 
 from the rough waters of the Chesapeake ; or 
 studied the markings of their winter dress, as 
 they lay upon the thw T art-board of the scow in 
 pairs of fifty at a time, and finally, if you have 
 sailed, poled or swept back to Havre de Grace 
 by the light of the moon dropped anchor and 
 gone on shore to dine upon them cooked au 
 naturel, then, perhaps, you have realized, to 
 its fullest extent, the spell contained in those 
 potent words,
 
 DUCK SHOOTING. 219 
 
 ANAS VALISIXERIA. 
 
 THE CANVASS-BACK. 
 
 Description. " The canvass-back duck is two 
 feet long and three in extent, and when in good 
 order, weighs three pounds ; the bill is large, 
 rising high in the head, three inches in length, 
 and one inch and three-eighths thick at the base, 
 of a glossy black; eye, very small; irides, dark 
 red ; cheeks and fore part of the head, blackish 
 brown ; rest of the head and greater part of the 
 neck, bright glossy reddish chestnut, ending in 
 a broad space of black that covers the upper 
 part of the breast, and spreads round to the 
 back ; back, scapulars and tertials, white, faintly 
 marked with an infinite number of transverse, 
 waving lines or points, as if done with a pencil; 
 whole lower parts of the breast, also the belly, 
 white, slightly pencilled in the same manner, 
 scarcely perceptible on the breast, pretty thick 
 towards the vent; wing-coverts, gray, with 
 numerous specks of blackish; primaries and 
 secondaries, pale slate, two or three of the latter 
 of which nearest the body are finely edged with 
 deep, velvety black, the former dusky at the 
 tips; tail, very short, pointed, consisting of
 
 220 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 fourteen feathers of a hoary brown ; vent and 
 tail-coverts black, lining of the wing, white ; 
 legs and feet, very pale ash, the latter three 
 inches in width a circumstance which partly 
 accounts for its great powers of swimming. 
 The female is somewhat less than the male, arid 
 weighs two pounds and three-quarters ; the 
 crown is blackish brown ; cheeks and throat of 
 a pale drab; neck, dull brown; breast, as far as 
 the black extends on the male, dull brown, 
 skirted in many places with pale drab; back, 
 dusky white, crossed with fine, waving lines ; 
 belly, of the same dull white, pencilled like the 
 back ; wings, feet and bill as in the male ; tail- 
 covert, dusky ; vent, white, waved with brown. 
 The windpipe of the male has a large, flattish, 
 concave labyrinth, the ridge of which is covered 
 with a thin, transparent membrane ; where the 
 trachea enters this, it is very narrow, but im- 
 mediately above swells to three times that 
 diameter. The intestines are wide, and mea- 
 sure five feet in length." 
 
 Ranking next to the canvass-back, in the 
 estimation of the sportsman and the epicure, is
 
 DUCK SHOOTING. 221 
 
 THE RED-HEADED DUCK. 
 
 ANAS FERINA. 
 
 Description. " The red-head is twenty inches 
 in length, and two feet six inches in extent; bill, 
 dark slate, sometimes black, two inches long, 
 and seven-eighths of an inch thick at the base, 
 furnished with a large, broad nail at the ex- 
 tremity; irides, flame colored; plumage of the 
 head, long, velvety, and inflated, running high 
 above the base of the bill ; head and two inches 
 of the neck, deep glossy reddish chestnut ; rest 
 of the neck and upper part of the breast, black, 
 spreading round to the back ; belly, white, be- 
 coming dusky towards the vent by closely 
 marked, undulating lines of black; back and 
 scapulars, bluish white, rendered gray by 
 numerous transverse, waving lines of black; 
 lesser wing-coverts, brownish ash, wing-quills, 
 very pale slate, dusky at the tips; lower part 
 of the back and sides under the wings, brownish 
 black, crossed with regular zigzag lines of 
 whitish ; vent, rump, tail, and tail-coverts, 
 black ; legs and feet, dark ash. 
 
 " The female has the upper part of the head 
 dusky brown, rest of the head and part of the 
 neck, a light, sooty brown ; upper part of the
 
 222 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 breast, ashy brown, broadly skirted with whit- 
 ish; back, dark ash, with little or no appear- 
 ance of white penciling ; wings, bill and feet 
 nearly alike in both sexes. The male of this 
 species has a large, flat, bony labyrinth on the 
 bottom of the wind-pipe, very much like that of 
 the canvass-back, but smaller ; over one of its 
 concave sides is spread an exceeding thin, 
 transparent skin or membrane. The intestines 
 are of great width, and measure six feet in 
 length." 
 
 After the red-head we have the bald-pate, or 
 
 AMERICAN WIDGEON. 
 
 ANAS AMERICANA. 
 
 Description, " The widgeon, or bald -pate, 
 measures twenty-two inches in length, and 
 thirty inches in extent ; the bill is of a slate 
 color; the nail, black; the front and crown, 
 cream colored, sometimes nearly w r liite, the 
 feathers inflated ; from the eye, backwards to 
 the middle of the neck behind, extends a band 
 of deep glossy green, gold, and purple ; throat, 
 chin, and sides of the neck before, as far as the 
 green extends, dull yellowish white, thickly 
 speckled with black; breast arid hind part of
 
 DUCK SHOOTING. 223 
 
 the neck, hoary bay, running in under the 
 wings, where it is crossed with fine, waving 
 lines of black; whole belly, white; vent, black; 
 back and scapulars, black, thickly and beauti- 
 fully crossed with undulating lines of vinous 
 bay ; lower part of the back, more dusky ; tail- 
 coverts, long, pointed, whitish, crossed as the 
 back; tail, pointed, brownish ash; the two 
 middle leathers an inch longer than the rest, 
 and tapering ; shoulder of the wing, brownish 
 ash ; wing-coverts immediately below, white, 
 forming a large spot; primaries, brownish ash; 
 middle secondaries, black, glossed with green, 
 forming the speculum ; tertials, black, edged 
 with white, between which, and the beauty 
 spot, several of the secondaries are white. 
 
 " The female has the whole head and neck yel- 
 lowish white, thickly speckled with black, very 
 little rufous on the breast; the back is dark 
 brown. The young males, as usual, very much 
 like the females on the first season, and do not 
 receive their full plumage until the second year. 
 They are also subject to a regular change every 
 spring and fall." 
 
 To this description of Wilson's, Brewer adds 
 the following remarks concerning the European 
 widgeon :
 
 224 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 " This species (the American) is closely al- 
 lied to the European widgeon. The} 7 seem to 
 meet each other about the Artie circle ; that of 
 the American extending beyond it, and that of 
 Europe reaching to the European verge. The 
 bird of Europe, except in the breeding season, 
 is mostly an inhabitant of the sea-shore ; during 
 a severe winter, a few stray inland to the larger 
 lakes and rivers, but as soon as a recurrence of 
 moderate weather takes place, they return to 
 their more favorite feeding grounds. In Britain 
 they are mostly migratory, and at the first com- 
 mencement of our hard weather, are found in 
 vast flocks on the flatter coasts, particularly 
 where there are beds of muscles, and other 
 shell-fish. During the day, they rest and plume 
 themselves on the higher shelves, or doze buoy- 
 ant on the waves, and only commence their 
 activity with the approach of twilight. At this 
 time they become clamorous, and rising in 
 dense flocks from their day's resort, proceed to 
 the feeding grounds, generally according with 
 the wind in the same tract. At the commence- 
 ment of winter, they are fat and delicate, much 
 sought after by sportsmen, and are killed by per- 
 sons lying in watch in the track of the known 
 flight, or what, in some parts, is called slaking.
 
 DUCK SHOOTING. 225 
 
 The most propitious night for this sport is about 
 half moon, and strong wind ; the birds then fly 
 low, and their approach is easily known by the 
 whistling of their wings, and there own shrill cry ; 
 w r hence their coast-name of Hew. 
 
 "They are subject to annual change of plum- 
 age. Mr. Ord mentions, that a few of these 
 birds breed annually in the marshes in the 
 neighborhood of Duck Creek, in the state of 
 Delaware. ATI acquaintance of the editor's 
 brought him thence, in the month of June, an 
 egg, which had been taken from a nest situated 
 in a cluster of alders." 
 
 Next to the widgeon comes the black-head, or 
 
 SCAUP DUCK. 
 
 ANAS MAKILLA. 
 
 Called the Blue-bill on the Delaware and the Black-head on the 
 Chesapeake. 
 
 Description. " This duck is nineteen inches 
 in length, and twenty-nine in extent ; bill, broad, 
 generally of a light blue, sometimes of a dusky 
 lead color; irides, reddish; head, tumid, covered 
 with plumage of a dark, glossy green, extending 
 half way down the neck ; rest of the neck and 
 breast, black, spreading round to the back ; back
 
 226 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 and scapulars, white, thickly crossed with wav- 
 ing lines of black ; lesser coverts, dusky, pow- 
 dered with veins of whitish ; primaries and ter- 
 tials, brownish black ; secondaries, white, tipped 
 with black, forming the speculum ; rump and 
 tail-coverts, black ; tail, short, rounded, and of a 
 dusky brown; belly, white, crossed near the 
 vent with waving lines of ash; legs and feet, 
 dark slate. Such is the color of the bird in its 
 perfect state. Young birds vary considerably, 
 some having the head black, mixed with gray 
 and purple, others the back dusky, with little or 
 no white, and that irregularly dispersed. The 
 female has the front and sides of the same white ; 
 head and half of the neck, blackish brown; 
 breast, spreading round the back, a dark sooty 
 brown, broadly skirted with whitish ; back, 
 black, thinly sprinkled with grains of white; 
 vent, whitish ; wings, the same as the male. 
 
 " The windpipe of the male of this species is 
 of large diameter : the labyrinth, similar to some 
 others, though not of the largest kind ; it has 
 something of the shape of a single cockle shell ; 
 its open side, or circular rim, covered with a 
 thin, transparent skin. Just before the wind- 
 pipe enters this, it lessens its diameter at least 
 two-thirds, and assumes a nattish form."
 
 DUCK SHOOTING. 227 
 
 The use of this labyrinth in the trachea of 
 this and others of the genus, is, doubtless for the 
 production of certain peculiar sounds, by which 
 the bird communicates different emotions to its 
 fellows. 
 
 The three last described ducks are all com- 
 panions of the canvass-back, and like it, feed 
 upon the same aquatic plant, a species of valisi- 
 neria, which abounds upon the submerged flats 
 at the head-waters of the Chesapeake. It grows 
 in from seven to nine feet water, has a narrow 
 blade, four or five feet in length, and a delicate, 
 semi-translucent root, like very small celery. 
 The canvass-back, which is the most expert 
 diver, tears the grass from the shoals with its 
 strong bill, eating only the root, while the others 
 regale themselves on the rejected part, or the 
 blade. They are, however, accused on good 
 evidence, of occasionally snatching the entire 
 plant from the bill of their provider, the instant 
 that it re-appears, and this species of petty larceny 
 is especially charged upon the widgeon, which, 
 besides being of a lively, mercurial disposition, 
 is known never to dive, except when dodging a 
 pursuing boat, and too much crippled to take 
 wing. The canvass-back often resents this in- 
 jury, and the feeding ground is the scene of
 
 223 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 many a squabble, precisely similar in character 
 to those which are every day witnessed among 
 our tame fowl, on the pond and in the barn- 
 yard. 
 
 All these ducks stool readily, except the wid- 
 geon, which is apt to soar and make off as it 
 nears the battery, often giving the alarm, in this 
 way, to whole flocks of other ducks, which are 
 on the fly for the decoys. On this account it is 
 rather in bad odor with the shooters of Havre 
 de Grace, who, while watching the box from the 
 scow, rarely fail to exult in the fall of a bald- 
 pate. 
 
 Canvass-backs, however, afford the best sport, 
 as they fly more compactly and dart better than 
 any other species of duck. In eluding their 
 pursuers by diving, milling round and swim- 
 ming under water, when pinioned, they are only 
 equalled by the scaup-duck, and a chase after a 
 crippled "hickory quaker" or a " bay black-head," 
 is sometimes only to be successfully ended by 
 driving them into very shoal water, where they 
 are speedily knocked in the head. 
 
 Late in the fall of the year 18 , while par- 
 tridge shooting in the neighborhood of the Chesa- 
 peake, we received an invitation from Mr. J. W. 
 McCullough, of Port Deposit, to accompany him
 
 DUCK SHOOTING. 229 
 
 on an excursion in a new scow, which he had 
 built and equipped after the most approved man- 
 ner, especially to kill ducks in the Susquehanna 
 and the upper bay. She was wall- sided and 
 flat-bottomed, forty feet long and nine feet beam. 
 She carried a jib and a lartre fore and aft main- 
 sail. A space barely sufficient for a tall man to 
 lie at length, was decked off forward, and con- 
 tained three or four bunks and a small stove, 
 besides the stooling guns, several bags of heavy 
 shot and kegs of ducking powder, not to speak 
 of a quart coffee-pot and two large baskets of 
 provender. This was the hardy duck-shooter's 
 cabin ; it was well pitched so as to be waterlight, 
 and was entered by a small scuttle with a slide ; 
 here he cooked, eat, slept, kept tally of his game, 
 manufactured the heads and necks of decoys, 
 cut his gun-wads, spun his yarns, drank his grog 
 or coffee, and kept care outside from October 
 until April, during the severest season of the 
 year. 
 
 The scow's rudder was set on a pivot so as to 
 be readily unshipped in case of necessity, or to 
 be used like the steering-oar of a whale boat, in 
 throwing her head around. She had large lee- 
 boards, which enabled her to lie very close to the 
 wind in moderate weather, though from her 
 15
 
 230 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 shape and her being all above water, she was 
 sure to make much leeway in a rough sea. 
 Going large in fair weather she sailed and steered 
 well, and in fact, was just the sort of craft which 
 is especially adapted for navigating the shoal 
 water of the upper bay. 
 
 Midships rested the battery or "sunk-box," of 
 which we shall soon have occasion to speak, and 
 piled up in great heaps abaft on either side, but 
 so as not to interfere with the motions of the 
 rudder, were the decoys or wooden ducks, each 
 having its cord, with the weight attached, wound 
 round its body, the last turn being taken round 
 the neck, regular duck-shooter fashion. They 
 had evidently seen service from their bleached 
 and weather-beaten looks. Some of them bore 
 the appearance of having been recently pretty 
 well peppered in the way of business, and par- 
 ticles of grass might still be seen adhereing to 
 the anchors and cables of a few of the upper- 
 most. The scow was furnished with raft-poles, 
 and heavy oars or sweeps to be used in forcing 
 her over the flats in a calm, and two large, 
 four-oared, flat-bottomed boats, called yawls, 
 towed astern. 
 
 At two o'clock on a cold, clear morning, we 
 set off from McCullough's hospitable roof, and
 
 DUCK SHOOTING. 231 
 
 traversing the single, straggling street, reached 
 the scow at Wilmer's wharf, where we found 
 the helmsman and the boy waiting for us on 
 board. The fastenings were cast off, and getting 
 clear of the rafts, we run up the jib, and with 
 the wind fresh from nor'-west, stood down along 
 the shore, which is bold, and could be just seen 
 from the scow, with here and there the white 
 front of a dwelling, looming up above the town 
 in the dim glimmer of the star-light. It was our 
 intention to set the battery on Devil's Island, so 
 called, though in reality it is nothing but a 
 sunken shoal, lying nearly south-west from 
 Havre de Grace, and on the western side of the 
 swash, or channel through the submerged flats. 
 These last, be it understood by the general rea- 
 der, extend for eight miles or more from the 
 mouth of the river to the island of Spesutia, and 
 are the feeding grounds on which tens of thou- 
 sands of the choicest species of ducks, are annu- 
 ally slaughtered by the market-shooters of Havre 
 de Grace. Below Spesutia the water is deeper, 
 but from the island to Havre de Grace the ship- 
 channel is, so to speak, but a mere " swash." 
 This entire ground, from the slight rise of the 
 tide, and from the fact of its being thickly 
 covered with grass, which is the food of the
 
 232 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 fowl, and serves also to break the force of the 
 seas, which roll in from the lower bay, is especi- 
 ally suited for the operations of the floating 
 batteries. 
 
 It was our good fortune to be accompanied on 
 this excursion by an old friend from the city, 
 whom we encountered at Port Deposit, and after 
 seeing the mainsail set, and the craft fairly under 
 way, steering for Havre de Grace light, we 
 retired to the cabin, to while away the time by 
 listening to the sporting experience of the owner 
 of the scow, or by chatting over adventures of 
 the past. Passing Havre de Grace, we found 
 the duck shooters of that place already on the 
 stir, and were successively hailed by Baird, 
 Holly and other famous shots, who were prepar- 
 ing to drop down to their respective anchoring 
 grounds. 
 
 Coming to, at last, just as the moon rose, we 
 dropped anchor on the shoal, and waited impa- 
 tiently until within a half an hour of daybreak, 
 when, all things else being in readiness, we 
 went to work transferring the decoys into the 
 boats, and launching the battery over the side. 
 This last was done by our united strength as 
 carefully as possible, so as to avoid shipping 
 water into the box, McCullough then stepped
 
 DUCK SHOOTING. 233 
 
 into the box, unfolded the floating wings 
 and turned up the guards ; several pigs of iron, 
 sufficiently heavy to sink the frame of the battery 
 to the water's edge, were handed in ; a board, 
 covered with a blanket, was then laid over these 
 on the bottom of the sunken box, and after re- 
 ceiving the guns and ammunition, the occupant 
 pushed off from the scow with his boat-hook, 
 while we jumped into the yawl to tow the 
 machine head to wind on the selected spot, and 
 assist in setting the stools. The former was 
 then anchored stem and stern, and by the wan- 
 ing light of the moon we proceeded to dispose the 
 decoys, in the arrangement of which McCul- 
 lough, like most expert duck-shooters, was very 
 fastidious. 
 
 They were placed so as to ride freely without 
 coming in contact with each other, principally 
 at the stern and on either hand of the side wings, 
 the perfection of the art appearing to be to avoid 
 leaving a gap in any part of the rank, and yet to 
 prevent, if possible, the ducks from falling 
 foul. A few of the lightest were placed imme- 
 diately on the wings, and several heads of de- 
 coys were firmly fixed on wooden pins on the 
 deck of the battery. The false ducks were not 
 all imitations of canvass-backs, but had red-
 
 234 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 heads, black-heads, and a few hald-pates, inter- 
 mingled with the nobler variety. The outside 
 duck at the tail of the rank was a veteran can- 
 vass-back, facetiously called the toller. 
 
 The rank being now complete and made to 
 mimic life to admiration by the action of the 
 ripples, as each duck rode knowingly to its 
 anchor, and the frame in which the box was 
 set flush with the water's edge, yet preserved 
 from filling by the floating wings fore and aft, 
 and at the sides, of course, the box being deep 
 enough to receive the body of a man laid at 
 length, must be sunk some eighteen inches be- 
 low the surface, and the shooter 'himself, in his 
 watery ambuscade, perfectly invisible to the 
 passing ducks, except from the air immediately 
 over his head. The water being moderately 
 smooth, the guards were then turned down flat 
 with the deck, and while the boats pulled back 
 to the scow, which immediately lifted her an- 
 chor, the shooter loaded his three guns, and 
 placing them in the box with their muzzles rest- 
 ing on its edge, took a last look at his decoys ; 
 then observing daylight breaking in the east, he 
 laid himself flat on his back on the board, and 
 shut out from every object and every sound, save 
 the pale, dull sky and the slight, rippling plash
 
 DUCK SHOOTING. 235 
 
 within an inch of his head, all eye and ear, 
 waited patiently for his first dart. 
 
 We had hardly anchored about a half a mile 
 higher up, so as not to interfere with the flight 
 of the game, which, as a rule, work to wind- 
 ward and of course come up to leeward of the 
 shooter, or at his feet, before we heard the faint 
 report of his gun, although it was not sufficiently 
 light to see either the ducks or the decoys from 
 the scow. 
 
 The boy continued to report shot after shot, 
 while we were engaged in eating our breakfast 
 in the cabin, and as we came out, Davis, the 
 helmsman, directed our attention to a large flock 
 of canvass-backs, some of whom he swore in his 
 emphatic way, "were going into the pot." 
 Glancing along the broad expanse of water on 
 which the sun had now risen, we plainly saw 
 the ducks sweeping swiftly up to the tail of the 
 decoys, among which the foremost had hardly 
 alighted, before you saw the dark figure of 
 McCullough rise from the water as if by magic 
 then the successive discharges, and the white 
 water occasioned by the fall of each duck, the 
 helmsman counting five down. The next instant 
 the shooter was standing up, waving his cap, 
 arid jumping into the yawl with Ben Davis, we
 
 236 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 pulled away with might and main to secure the 
 dead ducks. 
 
 Fifteen canvass-backs and three red-heads 
 were picked up, two of these, which were crip- 
 pled, being shot over, as the phrase goes, with 
 a small gun loaded with number eight. We 
 then rowed straight for the battery, in which 
 McCullough now insisted that we should take 
 our turn. There was no time to argue matters 
 with ducks on the fly ; so landing on one side of 
 the deck, while he came off at the other, we took 
 our place in some trepidation of spirit, years have 
 been intervened since we had drawn trigger on 
 wild fowl, if we except occasionally knocking 
 over a crippled sprig- tail or mallard on the snipe 
 grounds. The remembrance that our friend 
 from Philadelphia was a capital duck-shot, by 
 no means tended to allay this feeling, and it was 
 not until the sound of oars had died away on our 
 ears, and we felt ourselves, as it were, alone with 
 the decoys, which kept bobbing their heads as if 
 they were actually swallowing duck- weed with 
 the greatest possible gusto, and shifting their 
 bearings with inimitable gravity, that we re- 
 gained our wonted nerve, and made up our mind 
 to mischief. The next moment our ears were 
 saluted by the whistling of fowls' wings, and the
 
 DUCK SHOOTING. 237 
 
 patter of their feet in the act of alighting on the 
 left of the battery; seizing the small gun we sat 
 up in the box and knocked over one canvass- 
 back swimming among the stools, and a second 
 as it rose, and catching up the second gun fired 
 ineffectually at two others making off; then 
 charging the pieces, cast a glance at the dead 
 birds to ascertain the direction of their drift, and 
 sank back out of sight, without as much as look- 
 ing at the scow, feeling very certain that had 
 the presence of mind, in which we felt so assured 
 before, governed our actions, all four ducks 
 would have been at that moment floating dead 
 on the tide. In fact, gentle reader, in the unex- 
 c usable heat of the moment, a great blunder had 
 been committed in shooting at the ducks in the 
 water, when we should have first drawn trigger 
 on those yet upon the wing, but in the act of 
 dropping their sterns, to alight outside of the 
 first; when we should have used the second gun 
 on the others, which would have still been with- 
 in available distance. Had Fred been there, we 
 thought, he would have had four ducks down; 
 but, n' importe, let them come again. 
 
 But at least ten minutes of expectation elapsed 
 before another shot was obtained, during which 
 time, to recover our coolness, we watched the
 
 238 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 motion of a red-head decoy, close to the after 
 wing. A comical-looking, hard-a-weather old 
 fellow he was, with the nail of his bill shot off 
 and his head turned over his back, and there he 
 kept veering and bowing, now looking us right 
 in the eye over the edge of the wings, as he 
 topped a small surge, and now disappearing from 
 our sight again, when, all at once, a small flock 
 of black-heads appeared, setting their wings to 
 alight, as it seemed right over him, and rising 
 more coolly this time, we managed to kill three 
 out of seven and cripple down a fourth, without 
 finding occasion to use the second gun, the sur- 
 vivors going off so swiftly to our right, that they 
 were far to leeward by the time we had turned. 
 After this we had pretty shooting for about an 
 hour, when Davis came out to relieve us, Fred 
 preferring to take his turn in the afternoon, as 
 the swell was sinking fast with the wind, and in 
 a half an hour it bade fair to be calm. Accord- 
 ingly Davis had not fired more than a half a 
 dozen shots, killing a canvass-back at each dis- 
 charge, before the water was as smooth as a mill- 
 pond; our own decoys and those of one or two 
 other batteries at a still greater distance, loomed 
 up on the glassy flood as large as geese ; the 
 ducks ceased to stool, and we passed away the
 
 DUCK SHOOTING. 239 
 
 time until noon chatting, and examining the 
 game, which lay ranged in pairs on the thwart- 
 boards, or starting up as the report of Davis' gun 
 told of an occasional shot at a single duck, pass- 
 ing over his stools, on its way up or down the 
 bay. 
 
 While we were at dinner a circumstance hap- 
 pened at the battery, which almost caused Davis 
 to avow himself a believer in the doctrine of pre- 
 destination, at least as regards wild fowl shoot- 
 ing. Not having had a shot for some time, he 
 was lying at his ease with his cap drawn over 
 his eyes to defend them from the vertical rays of 
 the sun, when a swan passed slowly over his de- 
 coys, and strange to say, every gun in the battery 
 missed fire, and the noble bird continued its course 
 down the bay unharmed. 
 
 "I had drawn for his neck," said the unfortu- 
 nate duck-shooter, " and was as sure of him as I 
 was of my supper ; but the Walker caps are not 
 worth the copper they are made of any more, 
 
 and I suppose the d d bird would have gone 
 
 free, if I had fired the biggest swivel-gun on the 
 Potomac at his head, at the same distance." 
 
 " No doubt of it," said we; there is no fight- 
 ing against fate but to change the subject, were 
 you ever caught in a heavy blow in one of these 
 tubs, Ben?" "
 
 240 KRIDEE'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 " Was I?" he echoed, looking sideways at us, 
 while he kept his swarthy face turned like a 
 wall towards the box, in which Fred was now 
 lying; "you see, sir, we left Annapolis that 
 morning bound for the Potomac for a change of 
 ground ; the wind was west when we started, 
 but soon hauled to N. N. E. and then back to 
 north, blowing a regular persimmon gale. I was 
 at the helm Tom painting decoys, when the 
 sail jibed and she came head to in spite of us 
 shipped three seas in less than three minutes 
 a hogshead of water at each sea lost all the 
 decoys overboard started the sunk-box tore 
 mainsail from the gaff, and had to run into Cove 
 Point harbor, eight miles from Patuxet river, 
 where we lay snug enough until it had spit its 
 spite." 
 
 "A good harbor that?" we asked by way of 
 passing time. 
 
 " Ay," said he, " the best on the Chesapeake 
 
 a perfect basin but d n that swan and the 
 
 hen that hatched him ! I don't care for the 
 value of the bird, sir I've seen acres on acres 
 of 'em at a time, mixed in with geese, but by 
 the North Pole, it was enough to make a man 
 forswear father and mother and turn Turk to 
 lose the shot."
 
 DUCK SHOOTING. 241 
 
 " But where did you see swans by the acre?" 
 said we. 
 
 "Where?" he repeated, "why in a dozen 
 places, to be sure ; but the most I ever did see, 
 was on a sandbar, with rocks at its head, that 
 makes up and covers the mouth of the Yeoco- 
 moco river. There's two bars, by the way, both 
 making from the mainland, one up from the 
 mouth of the river, and the other down ; there's 
 not a foot of water on either bar ; you must stand 
 up between the two, or you'll stick. Both bars 
 were covered with geese and swans, and when 
 they got up a half a mile off, they made a noise 
 like all old Nick's hounds in full cry; but there 
 goes a small dart of red-heads no, they've 
 turned yes there they go there they go, 
 straight for the decoys four ducks down !" 
 
 "Ay," said McCullough, "Mr. W. shoots 
 ducks well ; I've been out with him before ; he's 
 quite as sure in the box as you or I, Ben." 
 
 " Ay," answered Ben, "it may be, in moderate 
 weather and when the ducks come well up : but 
 what would he do in the box in a heavy swell, 
 with the wind as keen as a knife, on a December 
 day?" 
 
 " Oh !" said McCullough, " that is a horse of 
 another color. The clouds are moving in the
 
 242 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 nor'-west ; \ve shall have the breeze in the old 
 quarter." 
 
 " Here it comes," said Ben, " we shall kill 
 ducks fast before sun-down." 
 
 'Whose scow is that anchored in shore in a 
 line with yon bluff, Ben?" 
 
 " Baird's, I reckon," answered Ben, " and he 
 has had shooting ; the ducks have been flying 
 that way all the morning." 
 
 The wind soon freshened, and the bay was 
 all animation again, the ducks flying in large 
 flocks, the batteries cannonading, boats plying 
 to and fro, and Fred shooting in a style not to be 
 surpassed. The puffs of smoke rising from the 
 water's edge, reminded us strongly of the hur- 
 ried glimpse which a sailor sometimes gets of a 
 white jet or spout, when he turns his head for a 
 moment, while pulling to windward in chase of 
 a gallied sperm whale ; and the sight of a dark 
 figure suddenly seen standing apparently on the 
 water a half a mile off, and then as suddenly 
 sinking again, bore some resemblance to a much 
 rarer sight, a whale's head thrust vertically out 
 of the sea, seen from the masthead at the hori- 
 zon's verge on a clear day. 
 
 In the course of the afternoon Davis and our- 
 selves had a sharp chase after a crippled duck ;
 
 DUCK SHOOTING. 243 
 
 from the trouble it gave us we both, supposed it 
 to be a canvass-back, but after being killed at 
 last by a snap shot, it proved to be a black- 
 head.* 
 
 Fred continued in the box during the whole 
 afternoon, and as far as our remembrance serves 
 us, did not miss a single duck. At sun-down we 
 pushed off from the scow to " take up." While 
 securing the decoys, a canvass-back darted twice 
 between the boats and the battery, and return- 
 ing a third time was killed by our city friend 
 who was still in the box. We have often ob- 
 served this sort of infatuation in the most wary 
 and shy of the feathered race ; time after time 
 in the falcon tribe, and even in the common 
 crow. We have shot hawks in close pursuit of 
 woodpeckers and other small birds in an open 
 field, and in one instance, after witnessing from 
 the barn-yard a very interesting chase between 
 the Falco Columbarius and a tame pigeon, 
 
 * It is remarkable that a dog accustomed to retrieving ducka 
 from the water, will give over the chase after a crippled canvass- 
 back, as soon as he perceives the object of his pursuit is able to 
 make a long stretch or two beneath the surface. Experience has 
 taught him that all his skill and sagacity are thrown away, when 
 brought into competition with this cunning and powerful duck. 
 The large channel black-heads, or those which frequent the bay, 
 are almost as long breathed and as deep divers.
 
 244 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 killed the former but a few feet behind the lat- 
 ter, which, but for the timely rescue, must 
 inevitably have become its prey.* 
 
 Taking out the dogs during the past winter, 
 they pointed a single crow, which being busily 
 engaged in digging some object from the ground, 
 allowed us to come within ten yards of it, al- 
 though we had a gun in our hands at the time, 
 which circumstance, gentle reader, while it 
 rather invalidates the popular notion that the 
 crow is able to scent powder, shows that the 
 eye of the bird was fully engaged with the ob- 
 ject on the ground, and did not in reality see us 
 or the dogs, until its attention was attracted by 
 the sound of our approach. The study of the 
 vision of birds is one of the most beautiful and 
 interesting departments of natural history ; with 
 the exception of that of flying, perhaps, the 
 
 * When we first noticed the hawk, it was some distance down 
 the wind in the act of darting upon the pigeon, which it missed. 
 The pursuit was then continued, both parties beating to windward 
 by short tacks, the pigeon occasionally putting about with great 
 adroitness when hard pressed, and gradually nearing the barn, as 
 the one redoubled its exertions to come up, and the other to escape, 
 until when fairly within shot, we decided the matter at the very 
 moment that the piratical cruiser of air was gaining on the chase, 
 as the sailors say, hand over hand. The pigeon alit upon the 
 roof of the barn, and as if sensible of its narrow escape, remained 
 perfectly quiet for a considerable time.
 
 DUCK SHOOTING. 245 
 
 most so of all to the scientific inquirer. When 
 we reflect that they do not see objects as we do, 
 but with a magnifying power, which, according 
 to the adjustment of the focus of the eye, has 
 been compared to that of the telescope or the 
 microscope, there is no doubt that in each case 
 we have related, the eye of the bird was, so to 
 speak, so filled up with the object on which its 
 vision, for the time, was earnestly bent, that it 
 saw adjoining objects but very imperfectly, just 
 as the falcon has been known to fly in full career 
 against a tree in pursuit of a partridge, and the 
 duck, after twice avoiding the men in the boats 
 near the battery, met its death, at last, over the 
 decoys which it was so desirous to join. 
 
 Taking up some two hundred decoys on a 
 cold, blustering evening, is rather tedious and 
 benumbing work to a novice. While one person 
 manages the oars, the others pick up each duck 
 singly, so as not to entangle it with its fellows, 
 and, after winding the cord round its body and 
 removing the weed from the weight, stow it away 
 in the bow or stern of the yawl. In the mean- 
 time the man in the box, laying aside his guns, 
 secures the few ducks near the wings, turns up 
 the guards, and as soon as the stools are all in 
 the boat, weighs the anchors of the battery, and 
 16
 
 246 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 is towed down to the scow. The contents of the 
 boats and the box are then passed on board, and 
 lastly the battery itself; after which sail is made 
 for home. 
 
 On reaching Havre de Grace, we went into 
 Baird's hotel, where the duck shooters of the 
 place are in the habit of congregating to talk 
 over the exploits of the day.* 
 
 These men are both fishers and fowlers, being 
 engaged during the spring and part of the sum- 
 mer, in the extensive fisheries of the Potomac 
 and Susquehanna, and returning to their more 
 congenial occupation in autumn. They are 
 generally well informed on all matters connected 
 with their business, sometimes even acute, 
 and some of them realize handsome profits in 
 their hardy and exciting pursuits. They are 
 almost universally expert shots ; indeed, it is 
 
 * While harboring in a creek on the eastern shore, on one of our 
 excursions, the necks of a fine pair of canvass-backs were eaten off 
 by a mine, although they "were the only brace in the lot, and had 
 a number of inferior ducks hung on either side of them. In fact, 
 old shooters seriously declare that this little animal, which often 
 swims off at night to the scows in search of plunder, knows the 
 flavor of a canvass-back, and will never touch a commoner kind of 
 duck when the former is to be had. Some years ago we were 
 shown in the store of Mr. Lyons, at Havre de Grace, a large pet 
 cat which was said to show the same epicurean delicacy of taste 
 when occasion offered.
 
 DUCK SHOOTING. 247 
 
 as common for a man reared on either shore to 
 shoot well, as it is for a dog in the same sections 
 to swim and dive like an otter. Many of the 
 poorer inhabitants train their large dogs not 
 only to retrieve ducks shot from the shore, but 
 also to assist in bringing in quantities of drift 
 wood, which come down the stream with " a 
 fresh." Some are said to supply themselves 
 with winter fuel in this way. We remember to 
 have watched with interest, from the Port De- 
 posit side, the efforts of a large cur dog to tow in 
 a fragment of lumber, after which an old negro 
 had sent him out into the stream. The log was 
 heavy, some distance out, and the river on the 
 rise ; for some moments the old fellow was in a 
 state of great excitement between hope and fear ; 
 but at last the faithful animal succeeded in get- 
 ting the wood into the eddy off shore, when 
 Pompey showing the remains of his teeth in a 
 tremendous grin, jumped into a shattered and 
 leaky boat, and sculled off to his aid. 
 
 The next morning we anchored the battery on 
 the eastern shore, between Havre de Grace and 
 Port, off Stump's MilL The wind was easterly ; 
 the weather cold and stormy ; and a great many 
 ducks on the fly down the river. Your ears 
 were constantly saluted with the rvhew ! whew !
 
 248 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 of the widgeon the harsh cry of the south- 
 southerly the whistling wings of the golden- 
 eye the quack of the butter-ball ; and you were 
 kept constantly on the alert, knocking over can- 
 vass-backs and red-heads, until near noon, when 
 the wind increased to a half gale, the battery 
 went adrift, the scow dragged her anchor almost 
 at the same moment, while the boat was off, 
 and for a while, we were, as sailors say, caught 
 in a h^ap. Giving up the search for the dead 
 ducks, we pulled might and main for the battery, 
 while Fred and the boy lifted the scow's anchor, 
 and hoisting the jib, ran closer in shore. On ap- 
 proaching the box, we found McCullough stand- 
 ing knee deep in water, having thrown over- 
 board all his iron, after driving down through 
 the decoys. The battery had then brought up, 
 but the waves were making a clean breach over 
 the box, and the stools were in a confused state 
 of entanglement and disarray. Some had been 
 detached from their weights and were floating 
 off, or going on to the lee shore to caulk, as Davis 
 expressed it, tumbling about on the waves as if 
 in joy of their escape ; others were foul of the 
 anchors under the frame of the battery, and the 
 rest in a cumber; while the wind blew stiffly, in 
 gusts, from the heights of the opposite shore
 
 DUCK SHOOTING. 249 
 
 the river grew every moment more rough, and 
 the tall frame of McCullough, standing ap- 
 parently on the water, and actively plying boat- 
 hook, as he grappled for the anchors, reminded 
 one strangely enough, in the midst of the scene, 
 of the picture of Washington crossing a river 
 on a raft, on his mission to Fort Le Beuf in the 
 old colonial days. Working hard, it was some 
 time before we secured the decoys and shipped 
 the battery, when after taking a bumper of good 
 old Bourbon all round, we stood over towards 
 Port, beating, scow-fashion, broadside as often 
 as bow on. We afterwards heard that Baird 
 and several other shooters below, had drifted 
 completely across the swash in their batteries 
 that morning. No serious accident happened, 
 and so far as we are informed, no case of drown- 
 ing ever occurred in the batteries on the Chesa- 
 peake. The case to which Dr. Lewis refers in 
 his article on duck shooting, was occasioned by 
 the sinking of an old yawl, loaded down to the 
 water's edge with stones, as a substitute for a 
 battery. She was struck by a sudden flaw of 
 wind, and, of course, sunk, drowning her occu- 
 pant, who either from inability to swim, or from 
 some unexplained cause, went down with her 
 in eight or nine feet of water.
 
 250 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 Formerly ducks were very abundant on the 
 western shore between Port Deposit and Havre 
 de Grace, and great numbers are still killed 
 from blinds and batteries, from the bridge, down 
 to Stump's Point at the mouth of Furnace creek. 
 The digging of the tide-water canal, however, 
 drove the ducks off the flats and marshes of the 
 western shore. Below Havre de Grace, on the 
 western side of the swash, near Donahue's bat- 
 tery, is good canvass-back and red-head ground. 
 About half a mile from the battery, to the east- 
 ward, Mr. Charles Boyd of Havre de Grace, 
 killed one hundred and sixty-three canvass- 
 backs, on the tenth day of November last, and 
 we have been assured that in the spring of 
 eighteen hundred and fifty, the same famous 
 duck-shooter killed two hundred and seventy- 
 one canvass-back, and red-heads off the mouth 
 of North-East river, three or four miles from 
 the battery. On the same day on which Boyd 
 killed his canvass-backs, near Donahue's bat- 
 tery, Mr. John Holly, another expert duck-shot, 
 belonging to the same place, killed one hundred 
 and nineteen of the same species 011 Devil's 
 Island ; and it is said that several thousand 
 ducks were brought into the town that day, by 
 the different parties engaged in shooting on the 
 flats.
 
 DUCK SHOOTING. 251 
 
 The next night we sailed for the Narrows of 
 Spesutia, where we had some good shooting 
 from the battery and from points. We were 
 here much amused with the deportment of 
 Davis, who seemed to move his eyes as on a 
 pivot, while watching for ducks behind the 
 rushes, keeping his head steadily fixed, all 
 alive as he was, espying, giving notice, and 
 knocking them down as if born to the business. 
 He was also at home in sailing and managing 
 the scow, and for picking out dead ducks from 
 the yawl in a rough sea, his eyes were not to 
 be excelled, except perhaps by those of McC. 
 who, we believe, carried a chart of each duck's 
 drift in his pocket. While harboring in one 
 of the creeks of the Narrows, we heard the 
 distant booming of the swivel guns of the 
 poachers, who "boat" the sleeping flocks by 
 moonlight, which mode of killing ducks, though 
 deservedly executed, has still a spice of adven- 
 ture in it, and is so far more defensible in our 
 eyes than the old, cold-blooded practice of 
 strangling them in the meshes of gill nets, while 
 diving for food on the shoals. 
 
 The whole accursed French system of net- 
 ting ducks, partridges, and other birds, is well 
 worthy of its inventors, and although we do not
 
 252 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 wish to be considered uncharitable, we cannot 
 avoid quoting here two lines of Byron, leaving 
 the reader to parody if he thinks proper. 
 Speaking of Sir Isaac Walton, his lordship, 
 who detested fishing, says : 
 
 "The quaint old coxcomb, in his gullet 
 
 Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it." 
 
 All varieties of the wild duck are less wary, 
 and possess less intelligence than the Canada 
 goose. They also evince much less affection 
 for each other, and we know of no instance of 
 their being domesticated, except in the case of 
 the anas sponsa, or beautiful summer duck. 
 Every fowler has noticed the sort of family in- 
 terest which exists among the members of a 
 flock of wild geese, which frequently leads them 
 to halt, follow the descent, and wait upon the 
 motions of a wounded companion. We believe 
 the same traits have been observed in the 
 American swan. Both are easily domesticated, 
 but it is remarkable that the tamed wild goose 
 and even his descendants, although herding by 
 day with the domestic goose, show a disposition 
 to sleep apart from the flock at night. We first 
 noticed this fact on the farm of Mr. Andrew 
 Lyons, of Cecil, Maryland, and were assured by 
 that gentleman, that his attention had been fre-
 
 DUCK SHOOTING. 253 
 
 quently drawn to the same peculiarity. The 
 goose is in fact the most wary of wild fowl, not 
 excepting the swan, with which they are often 
 seen associated. It is said that the latter bird 
 will sleep and feed without fear, if surrounded 
 by the former, the sentinels of which are ever 
 on the qui vive, and are regularly relieved at 
 stated periods. They are killed on our shores 
 over decoys from ambuscades, or by imitating 
 their honkings as the flocks pass overhead. 
 They are also shot in stormy weather from 
 points on the Chesapeake when the wind shuts 
 them in as they fly up and down the bay. 
 Many geese and swans have been killed in this 
 way at Richett's Point, at the mouth of Gun- 
 powder river.
 
 CANADA GOOSE. 
 
 ANAS CANADENSIS. 
 
 Description. " The length of this species is 
 three feet; extent, five feet two inches; the bill 
 is black ; irides, dark hazel ; upper half of the 
 neck, black, marked on the chin and lower part 
 of the head with a large patch of white, its dis- 
 tinguishing character; lower part of the neck 
 before, white ; back and wing-coverts, brown, 
 each feather tipped with whitish; rump and 
 tail, black; tail-coverts and vent, white; prima- 
 ries, black, reaching to the extremities of the 
 tail ; sides, pale ashy brown ; legs and feet, 
 blackish ash. The male and female are exactly 
 alike in plumage." 
 
 "The Canada goose," adds Brewer, "is easily 
 domesticated, and it is probable that most of the 
 specimens killed in Great Britain have escaped 
 from preserves; it is found, however, on the 
 Continent of Europe, and stragglers may occa- 
 sionally occur. On the beautiful piece of water 
 at Gasford House, the seat of the Earl of
 
 CANADA GOOSE. 255 
 
 Wemyss, Haddingtonshire, this and many other 
 water birds rear their young freely. I have 
 never seen any artificial piece of water, so beau- 
 tifully adapted for the domestication and intro- 
 duction of every kind of water-fowl which will 
 bear the climate of Great Britain. Of very 
 large extent, it is embossed in beautiful shrub- 
 bery, perfectly recluse, and, even in the nearly 
 constant observance of a resident family, several 
 exotic species seem to look upon it as their own. 
 The Canada and Egyptian geese both had 
 young when I visited it, and the lovely anas 
 sponsa (summer duck) seemed as healthy as in 
 her native waters." 
 
 The Potomac, however, is the grand rendezvous 
 of geese and swans, where they are often seen 
 in countless multitudes feeding or sanding on 
 the bars, and are shot from blinds and points. 
 Great numbers of ducks are also slaughtered 
 on this river by swivel guns at night. The pad- 
 dler lies flat on his breast, and the propelling of 
 the boat in this situation is laborious and dis- 
 tressing work. A duck shooter once informed 
 us, that having been paddled for some distance 
 close to an immense flock of canvass-backs, rid- 
 ing as at anchor with their heads under their 
 wings, at the mouth of a creek, he discharged
 
 256 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 his heavy gun in the midst, making tremen- 
 dous slaughter ; observing that his companion 
 did not rise from his recumbent position at the 
 report, he spoke to and touched him, but he did 
 not answer or stir ; and upon turning him up 
 and looking in his face, he perceived that he 
 was dead. The man, probably, had some 
 organic disease of the heart. 
 
 Although the men of the Chesapeake scruple 
 not to aver that we have no wild fowl shooting 
 worthy of the name, on the Delaware, for all 
 that, as we sit in our sanctum, we seem to see, 
 with prophetic eye, a host of grizzled, weather- 
 beaten faces ready to start up, amid a terrible 
 quacking and honking, to tell them a different 
 tale. In fact, it is upon the Delaware, that the 
 greatest skill and fertility of stratagem are 
 brought into play, in paddling to the best ad- 
 vantage upon the watchful mallard, (arias 
 boschas) the wary black duck, (anas obsura) 
 the shy sprig-tail, (anas acuta) the swift 
 butter-ball or buffel-headed duck, (anas albeola) 
 the lively blue-bill or scaup duck, (anas 
 marilla) the restless south-southerly, (anas 
 glacialis) the delicate little teal of either va- 
 riety, and many others. Until the sportsman 
 has laid his ear, as it \vere, to the light ripple
 
 CANADA GOOSE. 257 
 
 at the bow of his skiff, as propelled by the prac- 
 tised hand of the paddler, she goes gliding on 
 to the wary fowl, and has waited in breathless 
 suspense for the significant touch, which bids 
 him rise and deliver his tire in the midst of the 
 startled rank, and after boating the dead and 
 wounded, has re-loaded the big gun and again 
 stretched to his oars; or until he has floated 
 down in his whitened skiff among the drifting 
 ice, within raking distance of the flock, or, per- 
 haps, close to the snow-cake where the ducks 
 set huddled in the sun until he has done this, 
 he has by no means fathomed all the sweet mys- 
 teries of fowl shooting, although he may have 
 annually killed countless scores of nobler game, 
 from the floating batteries, or the famous point- 
 preserves of the Chesapeake. 
 
 How often has the fowler on the Delaware 
 had occasion to remark, that the single circum- 
 stance of the drift of the disguised skiff, being 
 greater than that of the masses of ice among 
 which it floats, has alarmed the wary geese on 
 which he was stealing with the tide, assisted by 
 an almost imperceptible motion of the paddle, 
 and how often, after having unshipped his oars, 
 arid laid himself flat on his face in his floating 
 ambuscade, has he been disappointed of a glori-
 
 253 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 ous shot, by the untimely presence of a single 
 black-duck among a flock of mallards or teal. 
 Again, on the other hand, how often, after hav- 
 ing arranged his reserved guns, and taken a last 
 look at the locks of his long torn, has he been 
 paddled by the cunning hand of a Wilson, a 
 Stinsman, an Everly or a Conner, under the 
 cover of some sinuosity in the shore, into the 
 very midst of a flock of sprig-tails, feeding on 
 the edge of a flat, at the bottom of some unfre- 
 quented cove ; and rising with mischief in his 
 heart, has poured the contents of the deadly 
 barrels in the thick of the affrighted game, 
 which, as if appalled at the sudden ap- 
 pearance of their enemy, cluster confusedly to- 
 gether as they rise : or early in October, how 
 often has he dropped down the river on some 
 clear, moonlight night, to set his stools, by the 
 first glimmer of dawn, on the upper end of Tini- 
 cum or Maiden islands, or upon Martin's or 
 Smith's bars, or some equally faA r orable spot for 
 the flight of the dusky duck, or the blue-winged 
 teal. Having hidden the skiff on the reedy 
 marsh, and heard the whir and rvhiz of passing 
 wings before it was yet sufficiently light to 
 shoot, as day breaks and the stools are more dis- 
 tinctly seen riding on the misty tide, with a
 
 CANADA GOOSE. 259 
 
 beating heart he beholds a large flock of teal 
 drop as if from the clouds among the rank, and 
 at once raking them where they sit in the 
 thickest cluster, discharges his second barrel 
 with deadly effect as they rise. After this, per- 
 haps, as the sky grows still clearer, looking 
 towards the eastern horizon, he sees just above 
 the rising sun a small black cloud no bigger 
 than his hand; as he looks it becomes appa- 
 rently larger, when not daring to move hand or 
 foot or even an eyelid, he lies close as death 
 itself; with his finger on the guard, waiting for 
 the instant to fire at the ranks of the dusky duck. 
 If the morning be still and calm they will most 
 probably soar too high for his piece; but, perhaps, 
 the winds blow a half a gale over the troubled 
 expanse of water and the decaying herbage of 
 the shore ; in that case they will stool or fly 
 low, and if he shoots at the proper moment, be 
 almost certain to pay toll. A little later in the 
 morning, while sailing up the river towards the 
 New Bar the ducks having ceased to stool 
 below the shooter espies some dark object 
 moving on the edge of the marshy shore ; ex- 
 amined with a spy-glass, it proves to be a little 
 blue-winged teal apparently playing in circles 
 on the water ; the mast is instantly struck ;
 
 260 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 upon looking again, perhaps, a second bird is 
 seen engaged in the same playful manoeuvres ; 
 and a few yards further up on the mud, close to 
 the reeds or spatter-docks, the whole flock is 
 discovered sitting in close companionship in the 
 sun. They are probably fast asleep ; the out- 
 siders carelessly swimming on the water are the 
 sentries; and to approach the flock without 
 alarming these, is the point. In this case, the 
 shooter either lands at a distance and pushes 
 the skiff before him over the flat, concealing 
 himself as much as possible behind her, and 
 thus silently and laboriously works within shot ; 
 or trusting to the skill of the paddler, he lies 
 close in the boat, which is slowly and stealthily 
 propelled in the direction of the game, until, 
 perhaps, a distance not exceeding the point 
 blank range of an ordinary fowling piece is 
 attained, and death descends in a leaden 
 shower on the sleepers, whom the sports of 
 their heedless companions have betrayed. In 
 fact, though shooting from the battery is suffi- 
 ciently exciting, when the game comes fast to 
 the decoys, it cannot compare in point of ad- 
 venture and interest with paddle shooting as 
 practised on the Delaware. 
 
 We have, indeed, spent many a joyous hour,
 
 CANADA GOOSE. 261 
 
 blazing away from the ambuscade at the noble 
 ducks of the Chesapeake ; or lying in the Sus- 
 quehanna, with Port Deposit and its heights in 
 sight, listening to the lip-lap of the slight surge 
 at our ears or, perhaps, watching the curious 
 little water- witch,* as she suddenly emerged 
 among the stools, swimming warily round and 
 round the battery, as if sent out on a reconnoi- 
 tering excursion from a rank of canvass-backs, 
 which rode the ripples at a distance off Mount 
 Ararat ;f but for all this, we shall never know 
 again the supreme delight with which we bent 
 to our oars among the drifting masses of ice and 
 snow, and listened to the " bald, disjointed chat" 
 of the paddler, on some sunny, mid-winter's 
 morn; or suspended stroke as his experienced 
 eye caught some dark object on the ice, which 
 the glass revealed to be a flock of sprig-tails 
 basking in the sun ; or examined the guns, and 
 laid us down to drift on in silent expectancy 
 only broken by the wary whispers of our com- 
 panion the caw of some hungry crow, or the 
 thump of a passing cake on the skiff's bow ; or 
 started up at his signal to deal death and con- 
 sternation among the affrighted objects of our 
 
 * Pied-bill Dob-chick Podiceps Carolinensis. 
 f A height so called near Port Deposit. 
 
 17
 
 262 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 aim, and rejoicing in the sport, boated the birds, 
 re-loaded the guns, and again stretched away to 
 the oars to keep the brisk blood in full flow : 
 gentle reader there is a rare pleasure in this, 
 which the thirst for preference, or the absorbing 
 desire of gain never can bestow a pleasure with 
 which the most successful day's shooting from 
 the battery, can never compare. Much skill and 
 presence of mind are, however, required in box- 
 shooting, and we would advise every sportsman 
 who has never been placed in this peculiar posi- 
 tion, to give it a trial for once. He need not be 
 concerned if unprovided with a life-preserver, 
 since in spite of their serious recommendation 
 by a recent writer, we assure him that the dan- 
 ger is less than that which every mortal expe- 
 riences, in crossing the Delaware in a ferry 
 boat. 
 
 To those who have leisure and a desire to 
 engage in paddle-shooting, we say go to Krider's 
 and select one of his splendid double ducking 
 guns ; purchase a good skiff w r ith her appurte- 
 nances complete ; hire an expert paddler, and 
 our word for it, you will find the sport one of the 
 most invigorating and delightful recreations in 
 the world. The agreeable change of element 
 the pleasurable thrill which almost every one
 
 CANADA GOOSE. 263 
 
 feels afloat the healthful exercise in the bracing 
 air the extent of prospect, and the lurking de- 
 sire for burning friar Bacon's astounding com- 
 pound in something of a little larger calibre than 
 your snipe gun, are amply sufficient to drive oif 
 ennui, malaise, or any other moping malady 
 with a French name, which fashionable flesh is 
 heir to. Besides this, you have the wary game 
 ahead, and that argus-eyed, grizzly-pated mortal 
 astern, with stores and stores of fowling experi- 
 ence under his wild and weather-beaten front, if 
 so you have tact enough to draw him out. It is 
 rather superfluous, to say nothing of savoring a 
 little of self-conceit, for some sporting writers of 
 the day to expatiate at such remarkable length, 
 on the dreadful hardships and direful dangers of 
 duck-shooting. . . 
 
 To listen to such hyperborean arguments as 
 " pelting rains," "driving snows," "whistling 
 winds," and "freezing waters," followed up by 
 "wardrobes of water-proof coats," "legions of 
 stout hearts," and "life preservers;" one would 
 almost suppose that they were bound on a cruise 
 to Nova Zembla, or the North Pole ; whereas all 
 this; comical parade of old winter's icy attributes 
 shrinks into mere verbiage, when compared with 
 the exulting sense of the real thing itself. Give
 
 264 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 us, gentlemen, all your experience in shooting ; 
 initiate us a little into the mystery of those fasci- 
 nating pursuits, which possess such seductive 
 charms for one-third of mankind ; but, for mercy 
 sake, do not frighten us tyros, ye old campaigners, 
 with ominous hints of undivulged but awful ex- 
 posures piteous descriptions of over-night double 
 B tricks upon travellers, the mere thoughts of 
 which are enough to make one's blood creep. 
 The truth is, there is no sport, with which we 
 are acquainted, better adapted to set up mind 
 and bod\ r , and we know of more lives than one 
 saved by paddle-shooting on the Delaware. 
 
 On the flats canvass-backs may be distin- 
 guished from other ducks by their incessant 
 diving, and in the air they are known by the 
 wedge-like shape which the flock assumes, and 
 the superior altitude of their flight to and from 
 the feeding grounds. The shooters on the 
 Chesapeake recognize them with the naked eye 
 a great distance. We were assured by a 
 veteran sportsman that, under the cover of the 
 long, thick grass which covers a large portion 
 of the island of Spesutia, he was once enabled 
 to approach, on the leeward shore, within fifty 
 yards of a large flock composed entirely of this 
 noble wild fowl. He described them as wholly
 
 CANADA GOOSE. 265 
 
 unsuspicious of his proximity on the point, 
 being constantly engaged in diving and re- 
 appearing, while the water around was mud- 
 died and strewn with blades of grass, which 
 they had torn up from the shoal. With the ex- 
 ception of an occasional squabble when one 
 individual endeavored to rob another of its prize, 
 they were very silent; but had there been a 
 number of widgeons or red-heads among them, 
 our informant supposed the harmony of the feast 
 had been more frequently disturbed. Occasion- 
 ally an old duck raised its body on the water, 
 and seemed to look warily around ; then, as 
 another came up beside it, the former took its 
 turn at diving, so that the whole flock was never 
 at one moment beneath the surface. On the in- 
 ner edge of the rank, between it and the shore, a 
 pair of little buffel-headed ducks were feeding 
 on the floating grass, but seemed careful in their 
 motions not to come in contact with the larger 
 species. 
 
 The canvass-back and the red-head breed far 
 to the north. The nest of the former, it is said, 
 has been found in upper California, and upon 
 the banks and marshes of various streams of the 
 Rocky Mountains. They appear in the Chesa- 
 peake towards the latter part of October, and
 
 266 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 about this period a few stragglers are occasionally 
 met with in the Delaware We have, ourselves, 
 been paddled within gunshot of single indivi- 
 duals of the former variety, near the old locality 
 mentioned by Wilson, between Red Bank and 
 Gloucester Point. Large numbers are killed by 
 the men of Havre de Grace on their first day's 
 excursion ; they are then, however, compara- 
 tively thin and tasteless, but soon begin to im- 
 prove in condition by feeding upon the valisi- 
 neria, which gives the true epicurean flavor to 
 their flesh. The immense multitudes, which, 
 in Wilson's time, covered acres and acres of the 
 Susquehanna, and produced a noise resembling 
 thunder as they rose in a body, are no longer 
 seen ; occasionally they are observed in the dis- 
 tance, darkening a portion of the sky, in a man- 
 ner which recalls the descriptions of departed 
 days ; but there is little doubt that from local 
 causes, the number of the choicest ducks which 
 visit these waters are decreasing year after year. 
 Among these causes may be mentioned the in- 
 troduction of steam navigation, the relative 
 changes which are taking place on the shores of 
 the river and bay, consequent upon an increase 
 of population and trade, and the annoyances to 
 which the ducks are subjected, from the opera-
 
 CANADA GOOSE. 267 
 
 tions of the batteries on the feeding grounds. 
 It is not their entire extinction as a species which 
 is to be apprehended at the present day, breed- 
 ing so prolifically as they do in the desolate and 
 solitary regions of the north ; indeed many years 
 may elapse before they are even driven from the 
 flats, on which their favorite food in such pro- 
 fusion abounds ; in the growing dislike of the 
 democracy of the land to aught in the shape of 
 restrictive game laws, it is not very probable that 
 the honorable legislators of Maryland can be 
 brought to look so far into futurity, as to provide 
 acts by which wild fowl especially canvass- 
 backs may be allowed to take their food in 
 peace ; in the meantime, gentlemen will shoot, 
 and professionals strain every nerve to keep the 
 market supplied, while posterity must look out 
 for itself; consequently, every year the firing 
 from point, blind and battery is redoubled, and 
 every year the voice of remonstrance from those 
 citizens, who would fain see something done in 
 the season, to preserve this noble American 
 duck from being driven entirely from the waters 
 of the state, becomes less and less distinct. 
 
 Shooting from the points or bars, over which 
 the ducks fly on their way to the flats, is claimed 
 by many as the only sportsmanlike and legiti-
 
 268 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 mate mode of killing canvass- backs. For our- 
 selves, the sport is not much to our taste. We 
 had much rather be paddled on the flocks, not 
 with a ton of iron in the bow. but a sizeable gun, 
 
 7 O ' 
 
 such as a man may readily handle and kill his 
 ducks with at sixty or eighty yards. But as 
 this would be equally objectionable with the 
 sunken batteries, of course it would not be tole- 
 rated if the latter were once put down. If the 
 ducks are thick on a fly and come well up to the 
 point, no doubt they afford considerable amuse- 
 ment for a short time, and require some little 
 knowledge in the art of shooting, to strike them 
 to the best effect in their rapid and rushing 
 course. The sigbt of a falling duck thus stop- 
 ped and precipitated from a vast height, is said 
 to be a fine sight, provided you are cool enough 
 to enjoy it in the thick of the thing, when no- 
 thing but loading and firing a la mode is the 
 order of the hour. 
 
 The singular process of tolling, which was the 
 most successful of all the modes of killing can- 
 vass-backs in the time of Wilson, when the 
 ducks were not only much more numerous, but 
 fed closer to the shore, is now comparatively 
 little resorted to, except on Bush and Gunpow- 
 der rivers, and only for a few weeks in the early
 
 CANADA GOOSE. 269 
 
 part of the season. The celebrated naturalist 
 just named, mentions a curious fact connected 
 with the history of this duck, which shows how 
 strong is its partiality for that particular species 
 of grass, on which it comes annually, so many 
 hundreds of leagues to feed. 
 
 " In the severe winter of seventeen hundred 
 and seventy-nine and eighty," he says, " the 
 grass, on the roots of which these birds feed, was 
 almost wholly destroyed in the James river. In 
 the month of January, the wind continued to 
 blow from W. N. W. for twenty-one days, 
 which caused such low tides in the river, that 
 the grass froze to the ice every where, and, a 
 thaw coming on suddenly, the whole was raised 
 by the roots and carried off by a fresh. The 
 next winter a few of these ducks were seen, but 
 they soon went away again; and, for many 
 years after, they continued to be scarce;. and, 
 even to the present 'day, in the opinion of 
 my informant, have never 'been as plenty as 
 before." 
 
 The canvass-back seldom wanders far along 
 the course of the rivers which empty into the 
 Chesapeake, but the red-head, although delight- 
 ing also in the head-waters of the bay, is often 
 shot a considerable distance up the Susquehanna.
 
 270 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 Freshets, to which the shallow waters of the 
 river are constantly liable, drive the ducks, for 
 the time, into the lower bay, where they feed 
 upon eel-grass, small fish, and scaup. Very 
 severe weather reduces them to great extremities, 
 by freezing the water over the flats, and cutting 
 them off from the celery grass. Advantage is 
 sometimes taken of this by the shooters, who cut 
 large holes in the ice over the shoals, and firing 
 from an ambuscade at the ducks which eagerly 
 congregate around these spots, commit terrible 
 havoc. They dart well to the decoys in a snow- 
 storm, indifferently in a calm, or when the wind 
 and tide are contrary, and always best in the 
 early part of the da}'-, and an hour or two before 
 sunset. 
 
 Their nights are much regulated by the state 
 of wind and weather, and it is said that some 
 shooters, by paying close attention to the signs, 
 will go out after sunrise, and, selecting a judicious 
 position for their batteries, often kill more ducks 
 in a few hours, than those who have been astir 
 long before the first glimmer of dawn. This is 
 remarked especially of the Boyds of Havre de 
 Grace, one brother of the two being noted for 
 his judgment in placing the box, and the other 
 for his skill in levelling the ducks. 
 
 O
 
 CANADA GOOSE. 271 
 
 It is now known that in their southern migra- 
 tions, canvass-backs, to a certain extent, follow 
 the line of the coast, having been seen in great 
 numbers, according to Dr. Lewis, as far south as 
 Galveston Bay. 
 
 About the first of April, sooner or later, ac- 
 cording to the nature of the season, the ducks 
 are observed to collect in great flocks, and after 
 sweeping round and round the feeding grounds, 
 to ascend to a vast height, and thence direct 
 their flight due north. Previous to this every 
 individual has visited the shores or bars, and 
 filled its gizzard with sand, in order, as we sup- 
 pose, to prevent a collapse of this organ during 
 their long journeys through the air. Small 
 squads of canvass-backs have been seen in the 
 vicinity of Spesutia as late as the middle of July. 
 These, of course, were composed of individuals 
 crippled by the shooters and rendered unable to 
 migrate.
 
 PIGEON-MATCH SHOOTING. 
 
 Club pigeon-matches appear to have gone out 
 of date in Philadelphia, though public and 
 private matches are still common. We hear 
 now, however, of the existence of no such clubs 
 as were accustomed, formerly to meet once a 
 week at Heft's and elsewhere. The Philadel- 
 phia Sporting Club, which was formed some 
 years ago exclusively of Krider's customers, is 
 defunct, and all attempts to revive it have as 
 yet proved ineffectual. If we ask where are the 
 hearts who once shone on the shooting ground, 
 and at the jovial board, and were the leaders 
 in many a mad prank, a voice, very like that 
 of the venerable foreman of the establishment, 
 answers hollowly as a ghost ; " some abroad 
 some in their graves some metamorphosed 
 into careful men of business some, like myself, 
 white with the frosts of years, and ' wrinkled 
 deep in time.' ' Nevertheless the old fellow, 
 who has lived to become one of the fixtures of 
 the place, is still hale and hearty, and may yet
 
 PIGEON-MATCH SHOOTING. 273 
 
 survive some of us representatives of the rising 
 generation. 
 
 Many of the private matches of the day have 
 emanated from Krider's, and at some of these 
 we have witnessed shooting, which might com- 
 pare favorably with the exploits at the Old Hats, 
 the Red House or any other ancient place of 
 meeting for the English Sporting Clubs. The 
 
 late Mr. S n was a celebrated pigeon shot. 
 
 Messrs. F. G. and C. J. Wolbert, Jr., Major Flom- 
 merfelt, Dr. Sartori, and many others are also 
 very sure. Of the professed shooters, Mr. D. 
 Wills is perhaps the best in the state, either at 
 single or double birds. The spring-trap is now 
 comparatively little used; being considered by 
 practised pigeon shooters to give the bird too 
 little chance of escape. At the public matches, 
 some of the old rules still in force are objec- 
 tionable, and often give rise to dispute. The 
 charges should always be limited to an ounce 
 and a half of shot, which throws ducking-guns 
 and demi-rakers out of play, and places all bar- 
 rels of a moderate guage on a par. The judge 
 should also examine the birds to be shot at, be- 
 fore the match begins, and reject all such as are 
 not strong and well fledged. Such as still have 
 the squab-cry should never be allowed to any
 
 274 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 shooter, good, bad, or indifferent. We have seen 
 a bird adjudged to a fellow who had over-shot it, 
 entirely because it had been gathered within the 
 bounds, solely from its inability to fly out of them. 
 It would be well if one person should have the 
 handling and gathering of the birds. He should 
 also pull the string of the trap, and should be ap- 
 pointed by the judge on the ground. The latter 
 should always ask the shooter if he is ready, 
 and upon being answered in the affirmative, 
 should, himself, give the word to the runner to 
 let the bird fly. The runner should not stir to 
 gather a bird until ordered by the judge. In a 
 doubtful case, the direct distance should be mea- 
 sured by the judge with a graduated line, and in 
 doing this he may be assisted by the person who 
 gathers the birds. No person except the arbiter 
 and the runner, should be allowed to address or 
 stand within ten feet of the shooter, after he has 
 taken his post, and, of course, the shooter should 
 heel the mark and keep the butt of his gun 
 down until the birds rise. If a bird refuses to 
 fly after a trap is sprung, the shooter should 
 wait two minutes by the watch of the judge ; he 
 should then hand his gun to the runner to shoot 
 the bird on the ground, and a second bird should 
 be placed in the trap, as soon as the same marks-
 
 PIGEON-MATCH SHOOTIXG. 275 
 
 man is prepared to shoot. No bird should be 
 placed in the trap, until it is distinctly ascer- 
 tained by the arbiter that the shooter is ready 
 to take his stand, and every bird should be 
 placed with its head from the crowd. If the 
 judge has any doubts about a bird gathered 
 within the bounds, he should examine the bird 
 himself, and give his opinion accordingly. The 
 shooters should each charge their guns under the 
 inspection of the judge, as soon as their names 
 have been called by lottery. In gathering a 
 bird, the person appointed may go outside of it, 
 but he should on no account be allowed to strike 
 it with a missle of any kind. If it should alight 
 on a tree within the bounds, he may climb the 
 tree or send up a boy for the purpose, but the 
 bird, to count on the score in favor of the shooter, 
 must be fairly gathered with the hands. If a 
 bird walk from the trap and away from the 
 shooter, within the two minutes assigned, he may 
 advance or not at the discretion of the judge, 
 who should, however, always endeavor to pre- 
 serve the relative distance of the shooter and the 
 mark. No missies should be thrown on the 
 bird's refusing to rise, except at the order of the 
 judge. His decision in all cases should be de- 
 cisive on the ground. The ties should be shot
 
 276 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 off, alternately, bird for bird, unless some previ- 
 ous arrangement should exist among the shooters. 
 All dogs and outsiders should be warned without 
 the bounds, before the shooting commences, and 
 if, in the opinion of the judge, a shooter is any 
 way interfered with, he must be allowed another 
 bird. There may be one or two judges ap- 
 pointed by the makers of the match, though it is 
 better in our opinion to have but one. Eighty 
 yards limit and twenty-one yards rise for single 
 birds, with fifteen for double, are the usual dis- 
 tances in this country, though we believe the 
 rules of the old English clubs allowed twenty 
 yards more to the bounds. It appears to us that 
 in private matches with double birds, two traps 
 should be used, placed at least five yards apart. 
 This would lessen the liability of both birds being 
 killed by one barrel, and spring-traps being used 
 in this case, and sprung precisely at the same 
 moment, would give fair double shots to each 
 shooter, and bring his skill more decidedly into 
 play, as the pith of the sport consists in the 
 strength with which the birds fly. The passen- 
 ger pigeon (Columba migratoria) has been fre- 
 quently shot from traps in this country, and when 
 not disabled by confinement, affords excellent 
 sport. It flies very swiftly, and, in general,
 
 PIGEON-MATCH SHOOTING. 277 
 
 straight from the trap, and cannot be brought 
 down unless covered immediately. They should, 
 however, be used for this purpose as soon as 
 possible after being netted, as they soon beat 
 themselves to pieces in captivity. 
 
 The English wire cartridges, which have 
 been used to a considerable extent in pigeon 
 matches abroad, have not obtained much favor 
 in this country. We have never used them 
 either in matches or in duck shooting. Shot 
 cartridges, however, are held in little esteem by 
 the duck shooters of the Chesapeake. 
 
 13
 
 FIELD DOGS. 
 
 BLENDING OF STOCKS. 
 
 We shall confine our remarks concerning the 
 mixed breed, to the pointer and setter, reserving 
 a regular treatise upon the sporting dogs of 
 America for some future occasion. We could 
 heartily wish that a period should be put to the 
 practice of crossing these two varieties, at least 
 for the present. It has so extensively prevailed 
 among us, that comparatively few dogs of pure 
 stock are now to be had, and both products of 
 the cross have degenerated to a certain extent. 
 
 For the pointer, we doubt if, as a rule, his 
 professional qualities have been improved by his 
 relationship either with the setter or the fox- 
 hound. An uncommonly fine animal does oc- 
 casionally occur, but the instances are few and 
 far between. The same remark may be made 
 of the setter. Indeed, as far as our experience 
 serves us, for one really good dog of the mixed 
 breed, we have seen, perhaps, twenty, which 
 were entirely worthless, or showed something 
 outre and malapropos in their conduct in the
 
 FIELD DOGS. 279 
 
 field. If the setter gains any thing in steadi- 
 ness by his relations-hip to the pointer, he loses 
 in beauty, range and dash; while the pointer's 
 style of quartering his ground is often lost in 
 the cross, degenerating into a loping, desultory 
 gallop, like that of a wolf. 
 
 The setter, too, loses much of his symmetry 
 and feathery elegance of form, and the pointer 
 of his clean, thorough-bred air and astute look. 
 Both are less easily subjected to discipline, and 
 less reliable than dogs of pure stock. A pro- 
 pensity to hunt in a line, to rake, and crouch 
 on their game, are also observed in the mixed 
 breed. Besides they are apt to prove wilful 
 and unsteady, especially in company with 
 strange dogs ; you will find them behaving tole- 
 rably well to-day, and as wild as runaway 
 mules to-morrow. 
 
 An acquaintance of ours has now in his pos- 
 session a smooth dog of the mixed breed, whose 
 eccentricities in the field set all calculations on 
 his day's performance at defiance. A wide 
 ranger, he is seen standing snipe at a great dis- 
 tance, sometimes steadily enough, but more fre- 
 quently doing mischief, not by actually driving 
 the game up, but by becoming restless and im- 
 patient on his point, now advancing a length or
 
 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 two as the bird moves from him, and now work- 
 ing round it, fidgeting in a -very annoying way, 
 until, ten chances to one, just as the shooter is 
 hurrying breathlessly up, the bird springs and 
 the shot is lost. Hunting always as if he were 
 running a steeple-chase, in company with other 
 dogs he often refuses to back, and has been 
 known to dash in and flush rather than play 
 second fiddle. When the spirit of evil has once 
 fairly entered into him, no severity of correc- 
 tion has the slightest effect in restraining the 
 fiend within him, and he will chase, race, yelp, 
 mouth birds, and worry cattle like a very devil 
 incarnate. And yet the very day previous, per- 
 haps, he has been moderately steady. This dog 
 is now five years old, he has been reared in the 
 country, had the advantage of being taken out 
 almost every day, and at the present time is not 
 a whit more to be relied upon. 
 
 How advantageously does the purely bred 
 pointer or setter contrast with an individual of 
 caste like the specimen just mentioned, and 
 what a deal of mischief such an animal may 
 create, even among the most staunch and 
 amenable dogs ! 
 
 As the practice is chiefly countenanced by 
 men who have dogs for sale, we would respect-
 
 FIELD DOGS. 281 
 
 fully recommend our readers, as a rule, never 
 to purchase a dog of mixed stock. The diffi- 
 culty of breaking him, united with his natural 
 wilfulness, which is never entirely subdued, 
 is one 'main reason why so many inferior dogs 
 are forced into the field. We should, always 
 remember that the nearer the animal approaches 
 to purity of blood, the nobler are its attributes. 
 The apprehension and instincts of the latter are 
 more clearly defined, and of a higher order than 
 those of the commingled breed, in which the 
 qualities of the thorough-bred pointer and setter 
 seem to be partly obliterated and partly con- 
 founded together, so to speak, in a very uncompro- 
 mising and unsatisfactory degree. But on this 
 head we have said enough for the present, and 
 with a few words on the rearing of the young 
 pointer and setter shall conclude. 
 
 Having procured a healthy puppy of either 
 stock as pure as can be obtained, send him by 
 all means to the country until he has attained 
 his majority, if the thing can be done with any 
 degree of convenience. The advantage in this 
 is manifested in the growth and good looks of 
 the animal, and his almost total exemption from 
 disease. A puppy, which is allowed to run in 
 the fields once or twice a day, to empty himself,
 
 282 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 cleanse his coat, and bite off the tops of grasses, 
 seldom suffers from distemper, and generally 
 thrives remarkably well on a less allowance of 
 feed than the city bred dog. In fact the latter 
 is often left chained, or otherwise confined to 
 the same spot, exposed to noxious animal exha- 
 lations for days and weeks together, on the sup- 
 position that as long as he is kept crammed 
 until his stomach protrudes beyond his sides 
 like a pudding-bag, nothing further is required ; 
 and when worms, the distemper, mange, con- 
 vulsions, the ricketts, or some other diabolical 
 complaint has fastened upon him, the owner 
 apostrophizes his fortune, and determines to rear 
 no more young dogs. In this last resolution 
 he is wise, and if willing to pay a fair price 
 say from seventy -five to a hundred dollars for a 
 well-broken dog, is undoubtedly a gainer in the 
 end, inasmuch as the risk and trouble attending 
 the rearing of a puppy, is well worth the diffe- 
 rence in price between the two.' When, how- 
 ever, you attempt to bring up a dog in the city, 
 the rules to be observed are few and easily. re- 
 membered. 
 
 The animal should be kept, if possible, in a 
 stable, coach-house, or some substitute for a 
 kennel, where he will not be cramped in his
 
 FIELD DOGS. 283 
 
 motions by the chain, or exposed to damp exha- 
 lations and cold draughts of air. From the 
 time he is weaned, he should be moderately fed 
 twice a day on bread and milk, broth, or stale 
 bread soaked in gravy, and occasionally with a 
 small portion of flesh, chopped fine. If you do 
 not observe this last direction, you will have 
 trouble at the outset, for a morsel that a puppy 
 will greedily bolt, often passes undigested 
 through the lower orifice of the stomach, and 
 lodging in some portion of the intestinal canal, 
 defies all attempts to dislodge it for several 
 days. During this time the dog suffers excru- 
 ciating pain, and after relief is obtained by ad- 
 ministration of active purges and clysters, his 
 constitution remains seriously affected. 
 
 Most probably, however, the first untoward 
 symptoms which are noticed are- those which 
 indicate the presence of worms' in the stomach 
 and intestines, and in these cases we have 
 found common table salt regularly administered 
 in milk, to be the most safe and effectual 
 remedy. It is also beneficial in convulsions 
 arising from distemper, or from tanial affections; 
 a small tea-spoonful introduced into the mouth 
 often having the effect of putting a period to 
 the paroxysm. The distemper shows itself by
 
 284 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 various symptoms, the first and most decisive of 
 which are a short, dry cough and a slight dis- 
 charge from the nose and eyes, conjoined with 
 the decline of appetite, loss of spirits, and indis- 
 position to move about. For an elaborate ac- 
 count of the treatment of this terrible scourge 
 to the canine race, we refer the reader to Youatt 
 and Blaine, or advise him, if convenient, to call 
 on Dr. Evans of Buckley street, Philadelphia. 
 
 Cases of common mange are to be treated 
 with preparations of sulphur, and change of 
 diet. The following formulae, copied from 
 Blaine, are said to be very effectual in the com- 
 mon varieties of mange. 
 
 " No. I. Powdered sulphur, yellow or black, 
 four ounces. Muriate of ammonia (sal ammo- 
 niac, crude), powdered, half an ounce. Aloes 
 powdered, one drachm. Venice turpentine, 
 half an ounce. Lard, or other fatty matter, 
 six ounces. Mix. 
 
 " No. II. Sulphate of zinc (white vitriol), one 
 drachm. Tobacco in powder, half an ounce. 
 Sulphur in powder, four ounces. Aloes in pow- 
 der, two drachms. Soft soap, six ounces. 
 
 " No. III. Lime water, four ounces. Decoc- 
 tion of stavesacre, two ounces. Decoction of 
 white hellebore, two ounces. Oxymuriate of
 
 FIELD DOGS. 285 
 
 quicksilver (corrosive sublimate), five grains. 
 Dissolve the corrosive sublimate in the decoctions, 
 which should be of a moderate strength ; when 
 dissolved, add two drachms of powdered .aloes, 
 to render the mixture nauseous, and prevent its 
 being licked off by the dog, which ought to be 
 carefully guarded against. The best means for 
 this purpose is a muzzle, having a very fine 
 wire capping or mouth-piece, which will effec- 
 tually prevent the dog from getting his tongue 
 to the ointment, which would prove his almost 
 certain destruction. When therefore the appli- 
 cation contains mercury, tobacco, hellebore, or 
 other active poison, it is recommended not 
 to depend wholly on the bitter of the aloes as a 
 preventive to licking, but to apply an effective 
 muzzle. Instead of muzzling, we have now 
 and then sewed him up altogether in a dress; 
 but even then he must be watched, that he does 
 not gnaw it off; if the dog be much valued, a 
 muzzle of the kind described is therefore the 
 best preventive. 
 
 "For the cure of red mange, to either of the 
 recipes, I. or II. add an ounce of strong mercu- 
 rial ointment, and use as already directed ; but 
 it will be prudent to carefully watch the dog, 
 that salivation may not come on. Should this,
 
 236 KRIDER'S SPORTING ANECDOTES. 
 
 however, unexpectedly occur, suspend the use 
 of the ointment until the salivation disappears; 
 when the treatment should be resumed and 
 persisted in until all appearances of the aifection 
 vanish." 
 
 In conclusion, it is well to remember that in 
 order that your dog may thrive, it is advisable 
 that clean water should always be within his 
 reach, and that he should be bedded every eve- 
 ning in a litter of clean straw. .

 
 JOHN KRIDER, 
 
 MANUFACTURER OF 
 
 SHOT GUNS, RIFLES AND PISTOLS, 
 
 ALSO, IMPOETER OP 
 
 GUNS AND ALL SPORTING APPARATUS, 
 F1SHIXG TACKLE ASD FIXE CUTLERY, 
 
 N. E. COKNER OF SECOND AND WALNUT STS., 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 Southern and western merchants, the city and country trade 
 in general, can be furnished with a full assortment of every 
 article in this line of business, on as reasonable terms as by any 
 other house in the city. 
 
 From long experience as a practical Gun maker, I feel myself 
 competent to furnish the trade and the sporting community with 
 
 GUNS. 
 
 . Double and single, of my own make, and imported from the 
 best London and Birmingham makers of the present day. Com- 
 mon German Guns, of all descriptions and sizes. Also, Cane 
 Guns, with and without butts. 
 
 RIFLES. 
 
 Double and single, of all descriptions and prices, steel and 
 iron barrels, and made suitable for shooting all kinds of game ; 
 manufactured and sold wholesale to country dealers and western 
 merchants.
 
 288 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 PISTOLS 
 
 Of all varieties, always on band; such as Colt's, Allen's, 
 Sprague & Marston's, Massachusetts Arms Company's, Whit- 
 ney's and English Revolving Pistols, of all sizes. Allen's sin- 
 gle barrel, self-cocking Pistols, of different sizes. Parlor, Sa- 
 loon, or Ladies' Pistols. Duelling, Armstrong and Belt Pistols 
 made to order. Repairs done to all kinds of firearms and 
 sporting apparatus, in the neatest and best style, and in the 
 quickest possible time. 
 
 POWDER FLASKS. 
 
 A first rate assortment of Hawksley's and Dixon & Son's 
 make, varying from one ounce to one pound, with and without 
 cords, patent fine proof chargers, and common and patent tops, 
 of all prices. 
 
 SHOT POUCHES 
 
 Of Hawksley's best make, Dixon & Son's patent knuckle 
 charger; also, lever chargers of different patterns and prices. 
 A large assortment of Shot Bags of various shapes and chargers, 
 of American manufacture, suitable for field sports and duck 
 shooting. 
 
 A large quantity of American and imported Game Bags, of 
 all patterns and sizes. 
 
 DRINKING- FLASKS. 
 
 Hawksley's, Dixon & Son's hog-skin covered, with and with- 
 out cups ; besides a large assortment of French and German 
 wicker-covered of a cheaper kind, from one drachm to a quart ; 
 also, a supply of patent leather Drinking Cups.
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 289 
 
 GUNPOWDER. 
 
 A large assortment of Hazard's American Sporting, Indian 
 Rifle, Kentucky Rifle ; Nos. 1, 2 and 3 Ducking Powder, put 
 up in one pound canisters, and six and a quarter pound kegs. 
 Garasche's and Dupont's Sporting Powder, of various qualities 
 and prices, put up in one pound canisters, six and a quarter, 
 twelve and a half, or twenty-five pound kegs, sold wholesale to 
 country dealers; also, Curtis & Harvey's English Diamond 
 Grain Powder, of all sizes, imported by Brough, of New York. 
 
 GUN WADS. 
 
 Eley's concaved felt, chemically prepared cloth, and metallic 
 Wads for cleansing guns ; also, Baldwin's elastic paper Wads. 
 
 SHOT 
 
 Of all sizes, from No. 12 to T ; Buckshot of all sizes ; Bullets 
 from 16 to 200, of Spark's make, always on hand, wholesale 
 and retail ; also, a constant supply of Bar Lead. 
 
 PERCUSSION CAPS 
 
 In great variety. Eley's double water-proof, metal lined, ground 
 edge, and other qualities of Eley's make. R. Walker's best 
 ground edge; also, cheaper kinds of his make. S. Walker's 
 best make. Cox's ground edge, water-proof, and all other qua- 
 lities of his make. Gardner's double water-proof, and all his 
 various kinds. French Caps; plain and split. G. D. Caps, 
 ribbed and split. S. B. Caps, plain and ribbed ; besides a large 
 assortment of American made Caps, for United States rifles and 
 muskets. 
 
 ELEY'S PATENT WIRE CARTRIDGES 
 
 Of assorted sizes of shot ; also, plain Paper Cartridges, for rail 
 and duck shooting, manufactured by myself, suitable for ail 
 guages of guns.
 
 290 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 CLEANING- RODS, with implements complete. 
 NIPPLE WRENCHES and SCREW-DRIVERS, of various 
 
 forms. 
 
 SHOT CHARGERS, both brass and steel, of different sizes. 
 DOG COLLARS, German silver, brass, steel, fancy leather, 
 
 with plates of German silver or brass, and Coupling Chains, 
 
 for pairing dogs. 
 
 DOG CHAINS, of assorted sizes. 
 DOG CALLS, of various descriptions. 
 DOG WHIPS, assorted. 
 HOLSTERS, for Colt's and Allen's revolvers. 
 GUN CASES made to order at the shortest notice. 
 RIFLE BARRELS, all lengths, weights and guages. 
 CAST-STEEL BARRELS made to order. 
 GERMAN SILVER, BRASS and MALLEABLE IRON. 
 GUN MOUNTING, in the rough or finished. 
 CAP PRIMERS, of various qualities. 
 SHOT CHARGER and POWDER FLASK SPRINGS. 
 MUSKET, RIFLE and PISTOL FLINTS. 
 HAND VICES. 
 
 WAD CUTTERS, assorted from 7 to 60. 
 BULLET MOULDS, assorted from 16 to 200. 
 GERMAN SILVER and CAST IRON SIGHTS. 
 GERMAN SILVER ORNAMENTS for shot guns, rifles and 
 
 pistols. 
 RAMROD HEADS, German silver, iron and brass, solid and 
 
 open. 
 
 GUN WORMS and RIFLE WIPERS of all kinds. 
 SCREWS suitable for all kinds of gun work. 
 TUMBLERS, TUMBLER PINS, MAIN SPRINGS, SEER 
 
 SPRINGS, SEERS, TRIGGERS, TRIGGER PLATES, 
 
 and BREAK-OFFS.
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 291 
 
 PATENT BREECHES, double and single, of different sizes. 
 
 SIDE PINS, BREECH PINS, BOLT LOOPS, WIRE 
 LOOPS, SWIVEL and BOLTS. 
 
 PLUGS and NIPPLES, finished; also, American forged 
 PLUGS. 
 
 FORGED GUN and PISTOL COCKS of every size. 
 
 PERCUSSION LOCKS of every description, for shot guns, 
 rifles and pistols. 
 
 FLINT LOCKS for common rifles. 
 
 CANE GUN PISTOLS in the rough. 
 
 GUN NIPPLES of all varieties and sizes. 
 
 OIL BOTTLES, TINDER BOXES, PORTE MONNAIES 
 and SEGAR CASES of different patterns. 
 
 PADLOCKS, assorted sizes. 
 
 CORK-SCREWS, KEY RINGS and COMPASSES of diffe- 
 rent descriptions. 
 
 CUTLERY. Rogers & Son's and Wostenholm's best Cutlery, 
 consisting of Sporting, Hunting, Pocket and Bowie Knives, 
 in great variety. Also, Razors, Scissors, &c. &c. &c. 
 
 FISHING TACKLE. 
 
 HOOKS. Genuine Limerick Salmon Hooks; best Limerick 
 Trout Hooks ; best Limerick Salmon Hooks, flatted ; best 
 Limerick River Hooks, flatted : best Limerick Hooks, bowed ; 
 genuine Virginia Hooks, all sizes ; Kirby Black Fish Hooks, 
 all sizes; Kirby Salmon Hooks; Chestertown Hooks; best 
 Kirby Hooks, bowed. 
 
 LINES. Plaited Silk Lines, Twisted Silk Lines, Silk and 
 Hair Fly Lines, Twisted Hair Lines, China Grass Lines, and 
 also a large assortment of Cotton and Linen Lines. 
 
 FISHING RODS. Walking Cane Rods, three and four joint, 
 plug end ; Walking Cane Rods, three and four joint, screw
 
 292 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 ferrule ; Walking Cane Rods, three and four joint, ash butts ; 
 Hazel Rods, three and four joint, brass ferrule, whalebone 
 tips ; Bamboo Rods, four joint, ringed ; finely mounted Trout 
 Rods, three and four joints ; Trunk Rods, five and six joints. 
 Also, a large assortment of common Rods always on hand. 
 BRASS FISHING REELS, multiplying and plain ; Fly Tackle 
 Books; Trout Baskets, best white gimp, all sizes; Bait 
 Boxes ; Ferrules, Tips and Rings, for Rods ; best quill Floats, 
 bound and unbound; Egg-shape Cork and Wood Floats; 
 large bound Floats, assorted ; Swivel and Lead Sinkers ; 
 Limerick and Kirby Hooks on gimp ; Limerick Trout Hooks 
 on single gut ; Limerick Salmon Hooks on twisted gut ; su- 
 perfine Kirby Hooks on gut ; Virginia Hooks on gimp ; Lime- 
 rick Hooks on bristles ; Kirby Hooks on hair ; fine Artificial 
 Salmon and Trout Flies; Black Fish Snoods, single and 
 double ; Artificial Minnows, of leather, tinsel and pearl ; 
 Artificial Grasshoppers, Frogs, Shrimps and Caterpillars; 
 Spoon Bait, for bay fishing; one, two, three and four hook 
 Gut, Grass and Hair Snoods ; Float and Deep-sea Lines, as- 
 sorted ; Jointed and Common Bows. ' Besides many articles 
 too numerous to mention, sold wholesale and retail, on the 
 lowest terms.
 
 0fll 
 
 Bw 
 
 |i 
 
 m