Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-11-16

An Early morning scene at the Mouth OF
the Susquehanna in Maryland-Not a
Shot is Fired Before O'Clock in the
Morning.
New York Trlbune.l
1t is little before o'clock in the morn
Ing, an early winter morning, at the mouth
of the Susquehanna. The postofice nearest
is Havre de Grace, Md. Peace and quiet
reign on land and water, save for the rustic
and chatter of the wild fowl. And what a
host of wild fowl, to be sureI Red-heads
and broad-bills and teal; marsh-fowl and
brant and canvas-backs. Some swim In
well-ordered hotillas on the open water
Some are diving and dredging in the mud
near the shore. Some are flying overhead
in msrshalled lines. Some are busy amid
the grasses and sedges that fringe the banks.
Some are seeking the aromatic wild celery
beds and gorging themselves upon the sue
culent herbage. These last are the canvas
backs, the epicures among birds and the
favorite prey Of epicures among beings of a
higher order.
There is little to be heard but the multi
tudinous clamor of the birds and the faint
splashing of the waves, sounding eerie
enough in the half-light of early morning.
Dut uOm anu bucu LucEc ~ Tue IdluI6SE UP
of a muffied paddle, or the splash OF an un-
wary foot. For the last half hour gray fig
ures have been gliding hitherward through
dusk and mist, booted to the hips and pirt
about with cartridge belts and crowned with
caps or helmets; bearing long, double-bar-
relied guns and stealing across the meadows
and through the tall grasses to the waterside
as though preparing an ambush for deadly
foe. One by one they sink into places OF
safe hiding, and as the hour OF draws near
all have vanished from sight, behind the
grass and sedge, or plated wattles. OF
painted screens.
Crack goes gun away off yonder, or
that grassy point that juts into the stream
1t is fred by some one whose watch is a
! trife fast. for it still lacks a minute of the
hour OF 8. But while the faint smoke
wreaths are yet curling upward, crack
crackl from 100 neighboring ambuscades,
like prodlgiously multiplied echoes of the
| first shot. The grasses seem splitting jets of
fame, and the retreating mists of morning
are chased skyward by spirals of pale blue
smoke, and 1000 startled wings flap in
mid-air, and many fowl falls whirIing
from the flight amid scattering feathers and
drifting down, and there are tramplings of
feet in the shallow water and the spIashing
of muff1ed oars, and sea and shore are echo
lug W 4,UVV ucdulI bnOls, AuO the O2y s
great slaughter has begun.
This is the daily scene during the season
prescribed by law from the 1st OF November
to the LIST of April. The law does not permit
shooting before o'clock in the morning.
But every true sportsman seeks to begin
promptly at that hour. So, whether the
night be fine or rain or snow be falling,
they turn out before daylight and forsake
their comfortable beds for the wet and the
cold of the river and bay. And when
they return home at the end of the
day it is their pride to bear upon
their backs or piled high in their
boats huge masses OF black and green and
brown and red, the feathered trophies of the
hunt. Not always, however, does the largest
pile of slaughtered fowls cause the greatest
satisfaction. There is law of quality as
we'll as OF quantity here as elsewhere. A
brace of the shy and comparatively scarce
canvas-backs will furnish better cause 70!
pride than half dozen of the commoner
and coarser redheads. Those sportsmen
who have an eye to distinction, therefore,
seek the wild celery fields and let the grass
feeding fiocks alone. Every year the wild
celery becomes less abundant, and in equal
ratio the birds that feed upon it and incor-
porate its spicy flavor into their own flesh
become less plentiful. But the focks OF
plebian fowl know NO diminution. Nc
matter how great the slaughter this year,
next year will see the cunning as profitable
as ever.