Arizona weekly journal-miner., 1897-12-15
AE SUNK LANDS.
A 0IOOIAy and FOrbiddAnK Territory That
 Aboands In Game.

]
 Aboands In Game.
 Thore is DO stretch of country more gloomy or desolate than that vast territory in southeast Missouri and Arkansas known as tho sunk lands The bottom seemed to have dropped out when the "big shake, [" as the natives call the earthquake of 1s11, occurred To a novice in woOdcraft or swamp navigation it Is a most hazardous undertaking to penetrate far beyond the borders of this wilderness of cypress, elbow brush and other specimens of the Iowland trees and tangled vine Ihickets. It is comparatively easy to move about when the expresses mo- nopOlize the swamp and when the season has been very dry, along in the fall, one can travel dry shod over parts of the great waste. There are numerous lakes. large and small, some of great depth. Most of these areas of open water are dotted with islands, and in many places fallen cypress trees and great black stumps make resting places for enormous turtles, snakes and other reptiles in summer, while in winter the rae coon, otter, mink and muskrat perch upon them to sun. themselves in the daytime. and at night they use the logs when in pursuit of prey.
 All throughout tho sunk land districts are islands from a half to 20 acres in dimensions. The largey ones oontnin oak, hickory and small CT growths of underbrush, but most of them Ars covered with snal! cana, on which deer that find their way into the solitudes feed and fat ten
 One of the most remarkable of these islands is known as Bone is land and covers an area of about six acres. This island is a rendezvous for professional hunters, and 1t is rarely that the buzzards are moi seen soaring above. It is desolate. forbidding place and gets its namo from the fact that it is literally GOV cred with bones of animals anu birds, from the horse down through natural history to the bones oi 1,,,l-e arH ,,..osa ne Sho Ia.@.,,. ,,,.y,o. heaps can be seen at different places These bleaching bones tell of mer- ciless slaughter of wild game foI their pelts and feathers
 It seems strange that men should ieEtroy thousands of ducks and geese just for their plumage and quills. Every year when the weath- CT is too warm to ship game three men, who make BOIe island their place of abode, kill ducks and geese, strip them of their feathers anG throw the carcasses in heaps for the buzzards to live upon.
 The beautiful wood duck, which rears its young in the great swamp district, k the first bird to be slaugh. tered. The feather hunters begin ID August to destroy these birds and never stop until they mate in the spring. Later in the season, when the big flight of wild fowl moves southward, the slaughter is some thing unprecedented.
 The birds are ''pOtted' in the night, when big guns are used that do deadly work among the f1ocks as they rest in the patches of open wa ter. Not far from Bone island there is a ridge on which many oaks grow that are prolific in acorns. There the mallards go 10 feed in countless numbers. The writer has seen Q moving mass. fully 100 feet wide and 300 yards long, of ducks in the gray of the morning, along this ridge, struggling to secure some of the acOrns that fell from the oaks. One of the hunters on the island was laying for a shot, and when his big gun sounded the pandemonium that followed was indescribable. The roar of 10000 wings and the cries of frightened, squeaking, fee ing game were absolutely startling. The hunters double gun left s kill cd and wounded mallards in the wa ter when the rest had flown. Inside of an hour the ducks had massed again, when S7 were added to the S5. Four double shots during the morning resulted in 105 ducks being killed. At night 75 more fell befor, the murderous weapon of the poi hunter.-St Louis Globe Democrat