Birds that hunt and are hunted; (1905) (14563530518)

Identifier: birdsthathuntar00blan (find matches)
Title: Birds that hunt and are hunted;
Year: 1905 (1900s)
Authors: Blanchan, Neltje, 1865-1918
Subjects: Birds
Publisher: New York, Doubleday, Page & company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress



Text Appearing Before Image:
ange—North America; nests regularly from Minnesota north-ward, and casually as far as Texas, but not on the Atlanticcoast. Winters in the United States, from southern statesto the Gulf; also in Guatemala, Cuba, and northern SouthAmerica. Season—Spring and autumn visitor, and winter resident, Octoberto April. The baldpates, keeping just in advance of the teeth of winterwith the large army of other ducks that come flying out of thenorth in wedge-shaped battalions when the first ice begins toform, break their long journey to the Gulf states and the tropicsby a prolonged feast in the wild rice, sedges, and celery in north-ern waters, both inland and along the coast. A warm receptionof hot shot usually awaits them all along the line, for when celery-fed or fattened on rice their flesh can scarcely be distinguishedfrom that of the canvasback duck, and sportsmen and pot-huntersexhaust all known devices to lure them within gun-range. Thegentleman hidden behind blinds on the duck-shores of
Text Appearing After Image:
o River and Pond Ducks Maryland and the sloughs of the interior, and with a flockof wooden decoys floating near by; or the nefarious market-gunner in his sink boat, and with a dazzling reflector behindthe naphtha lamp on the front of his scow, bag by fair meansand foul immense numbers of baldpates every season; yet soprolific is the bird, and so widely distributed over this continent,that there still remain widgeons to shoot. That is the fact onemust marvel at when one gazes on the results of a singlenights slaughtering in the Chesapeake country. The pot hunterwho uses a reflector to fascinate the flocks of ducks that, beddedfor the night, swim blindly up to the sides of the boat, movingsilently among them, often kills from twenty to thirty at a shot.True sportsmen must soon awaken to the necessity for stoppingthis wholesale murdering of our finest game birds. Whew, whew, whew—a shrilly feeble whistle, precisely suchas the young puddle duck of the barnyard makes in his earliestvocal