Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1889-02-20
PELICAN SHOOTING.
Big Bag of Those Birds-KiIlipg q
Quarter OF a Ton at Five Shots


Probably the biggest bag of featherd
game, or rather birds, ever made in this
country was made at a lake in Dakota two
years ago by two sportsnen, who killed over
quarter of a ton of pelicans at five shots
The shooters were Frank r. Eshelman, of
Wooster, o., and Elam Wagner, son of a
Dakota settler, with whom Mr. Eshelman
was stopping while on hunting trip to the
northwest. Early one September afternoon
Mr. Eshelman and young Wagner were
crossing the prairie from mornings sport
with prairie chickens, and whea about four
miles from Lake Alice southeast of
the Sisseton Indian reservation, where
the Wagner homestead was located,
their attention was attracted by white
objects apparently dropping from the
sky over Lake Alice The sun was shining
brightly and its rays partially reflected by
The moving objects in mid air, and they
looked from that distance like large flakes of
snow dropping earthward. Young Wagner
understood the situation at a glance, know
ing that the objects were animate ones, and
That the circling settling flight downward,
unlike the sweeping fight of geese or swan,
showed them to be pelicans, and the season
for the southern flight of geese and swan was
little early. Peiicans breed somewhere up
In Manitoba, and their fall fight to the south
occasionally takes in eastern Dakota, where
they generally drop off for day or so on the
lakes in the territory.
1t appeared to Eshelman and his companion
as though the blue sky over the lake was
alive with the white objects. and from a rise
OF ground they watched the down pour of
pelicans, and gradually saw a long line of
white stretching across the surface of the
lake While feeding pelicans swim single file,
the rear ones continually flying over the ones
ahead, leap frog fashion, as the head ones
gobble up nearly all the food obtainable, so
that the rear ones would find poor picking
Young Wagner had had some experience
with pelicans on Lake Alice, and knew that
when through feeding they would congre-
gate on q sand bar known as THE Point" on
the south side of the lake Such was the
case, and an hour or so later the bar, from
shore to terminus, about 100 feet out of the
water, was covered with the big birds.
Then the two hunters, having reached home
and having anxiously waited for the pehcans
to gather on the sand bar, started for them
The bar was difficult of access the country
around being bare, and for several hundred
yards Eshelman and Wagner crawled snake
fashion through the grass. Wagner had an
old double barreled muzzle loader, and Eshel-
man had a twelve gauge breech loader Hav-
ing discarded their hunting coats and vests to
make crawling easier. Wagner had only two
loads in his gun and Eshelman had two shots
In his, besides two shells in the pocket of his
flannel shirt, all loads being BIB shot. When
within about sixty yards Of the point they
rose up. The peicans were sitting motion
less and in mopish attitudes. Fully 800 were
together on the bar, and four loads of BBs
were emptied into them. Eshelman fred the
dfth shot as the pelicans attempted to raise
and turned over five, having lost one of the
shells from his shirt pocket while ''woruing"
1t through the grass. Pelicans set SO close to-
gether that it is with difficulty that they can
raise when suddenly surprised, and they were
slow in getting away, their long wings, with
spread of eight feet or more, striking each
other.
Just tweuty-one of the flock stayed in the
bar, two cripples attempting to swim oC,
one succeeding. The other was caught by
the wing and pulled back by young Wagner,
who rushed into the water waist deep to haul
him back, making twenty-five pelicans
brought to bag by five shots The birds
weighed from fifteen TO thirty pounds, their
combined weight being about a quarter Of a
ton. 1t required wagon to haul them to
Inc nouse. Among toe iot were seVeraI olO
males, with horns" on their bills The old
ones are easily distinguished from young
ones The latter have pale greenish feet, and
the skin around the eyes bears similar color
Legs of old ones are more OF an orange or
pnkish hue; also the slin about the eyes
The large skin sacks on the lower mandibls
were empty, except marked here and there
with live leeches
AS pelican meat is not considered palatable
the feathers We're taken for bedding, and
several of the finest birds were preserved for
mounting Cor. Cincinnati Enquirer