Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1888-02-07
9aily eagle
PELICAN FISHING.
A POT HUNTER TELLS Of HlS
LUCK WITH A BLUE WHISTLER.

Made Shoveling Oysters-Nagnt hunta
After Misunderstanding Down the
Hides and Burning the Heads.
81 used to shovel oysters for about eight
months in the year." said the captain, lon
the lower Bayou La Fourche, barrel them
and send them around to New Orleans, where
they brought me from 6 to 12 bits a barrel.
The Gulf oyster, as rule, is small but they
are almost as plenty as pebbles. For fifteen
miles from the coast every little bayou in
Louisiana is ali oyster bed. Where the stream
is more than four feet deep the oysters are
taken with dredges in the usual way; but
that is such a slow process that the shallow
beds are mora favored. Here one has but
10 wade out into the water with q scoop OF
fork and shovel his dugout full in no time
OF course when they only bring % cents TO
$3.50 barrel in the New Orleans market
there is not much money il the business; but
a little money goes long way to the bayou
dweller
''While working the oyster beds was so
near the coast that / used to put in day or
two each week pelican fishing. You take
long ine-a sea grass line; rig 1t out with
about thirty hooks set in banches OF threes,
dashed back 10 back; keep the line on tbs
water by means of floats, ard bait your hooks
with fry. The pelican sails over the water,
sees the fish, swoops down and pouches fish
and hook He thinks he has got stingray
in his pouch and tries to spit it out; but 1T
won't 60 Then he makes up his mind to take
it away with him; but suddenly the line
brings him up short and he falls into the
water with a splash, when he founders
around until 1 paddle out and take him
aboard with me.
There is bunch of fine hair like feathers
in each wing Of the pelican which bring IN
their rough state thirty-ive cents bunch,
or seventy cents for each bird. When had
time 1 used to skin the whole bird, stuff him
and get from So to Sii for him.
WITH A ''BLUE WHISTLER"
"In the summer Of 1885 reached the coast
one morning at o'clock. There was high
wind and heavy swell on the water, and
hundreds of the birds were following the
waves. They fly at distance OF about
yard from the water, rising and falling with
the waves as regularly as though they were
floating upon them. When fish shows him
self the bird will drop, scoop up the victim,
sling it into its pouch and go on until it has a
load Of ten pounds or more of fish.
''Well, sir, there were so many of them that
l did not trouble to set the line, bat padded
out among them, and before the day was
done had settled thirty-eight of them, kill
ing them with a blue whistler. Ittook me all
night
What is blue whistlerg'
''You put a heavy charge of powder into
your cylinder bore shotgun, cover it with a
wad; on top of that you ram in five buckshot,
another light wad, five more buckshot, and
still five; another tight wad, and you have
blue whistler"
SIS not buckshot a big dose for birdF'
''Not for pelican. You have to take them
breast on in order not to injure the wings;
and, like the ducks breast, the pelican's front
will turn light load Of lead. Well, as l was
saying, it took me all night and most of next
day TO strip and pack the feathers; but as l
got s25 for the lot | did not begrudge the
work. But that was big day. Sometimes,
when the oysters were out of season, it seemed
as though everything went wrong. ] might
paddle around all night and never find a
gator, and keep my lines set all day without
catching n bird. Often and often l have
been so poor that l had to paddle out into a
rice field, gather a peck or so of the green
rice and eat it boiled without any other sea-
soning than pint of salt water thrown into
the pot Sometimes / could get nothing but
pelican meat 1t tastes to me like spoiled
fish, but the negroes down south like 1t.
They boil it for few hours and then bake it
with sweet potatoes as tho Kentucky negro
cooks 'possum But the black man will eat
anything While l was camped down in AS
sumption county, La, night shooting gators,
the field hands would come to my camp and
carry away every tail 1 would give them.
They cut the gator tail into strips, dry them
and sometimes eat them raw and sometimes
make soup of them.
ALLIGATOR HUNTING.
There is money in gator hunting, but,
taken altogether, it is hard work. Have You
ever padded a pirogue: The first time a man
steps into pirogue it ducks away from I'M
der him and leaves him foundering in the
water so smoothly that he can't help remem-
boring the thing. 1t is canoe followed out
of a single cypress log, and is so light that the
weight of man hardly forces it below the
surface at all 1t practically slides over the
water, and hence is the best boat made for
the shadows.
"As soon as it grew dusk would take my
rifle aud little dark lantern, which bought
after seating myself on the bottom Of the
pirogue, paddle up the bayou, flashing the
eve of my lantern upon either shore as l
passed. When the light would strike
gator it was only necessary to keep the fash
in his ewes and he was blind a bat. Not
knowing which way to move to escape the
danger, he would not move at all until | sent
Il bullet into his eye, when he would thrash
~, I. X@,. far.- ,lr
sometimes make an ugly rush toward me,
Swapping his jaws, and then suddenly drop
rlotionloSS.
..As soon as he was dead | would haul him
well ashore and keep ON up the bayou. The
gators are plenty enough III Louisiana
swamps. about as plenty as chickens in
farming country; so that it was seldom that
padded more than a mile or two without
killing half dozen Of them. As rule / did
not want more than six in night, as it is a
big piece OF work to skin an alligator, to salt
down his hide and bury his head"
''Bury his head!'
ayes. his jawhones, in order to remove the
flesh and loosen the teeth. After being taken
off. the hides are covered with coarse salt,
folded UP and thrown into barrel. They
bring from fifteen to sixty cents in the mar
kctS, and the teeth are useG for umbrella
handles sometimes bringing as much as "a
for single tooth; while the smaller ones are
turned into jewelry, and bring the hunter, in
the rough, 81 pound. New York Sun.
Food YaIue of Fish and Flesh.
According to the experiments made BY W.
q. Atwater at the Physiological institute at
Munich, Bavaria, tour pounds of the flesh OF
fish. with SIN addition Of a small quantity OF
co. fh,.nn Il