The Marietta journal. [volume] (Marietta, Ga.) 1866-1909, 1897-06-24
THE SUNK LANDS.
A Gloomy and Foibidding Territory That
Abounds In Game.

| A Gloomy and Eolbidding Territory That
Abounds In Game.
There is no stretch of country.
more gloomy or desolate than that
East territory in southeast Missouri
Arkansas known as the sunk
The bottom seemed to have
out when the "big shake"
patives call the earthquake
occurred. To a novice in
Il or swamp navigation it
T. = hazardous Undertaking to
e tar beyond the borders of
derness of cypress, elbow
nd other specimens of the
trees end tangled vine
1t is comparatively easy to
out when the Expresses mo-
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 wateriare dotted with
ISLANDS, and in many places fallen
eylress trees and great black stumps
make resting places for enormous
Prtles, snakes and other reptiles in
MINER, while. in winter the rae
bon, otter, mink and muskrat perch
pon them to sun themselves in the
fiEaae and at night they use the
pa "a pursuit of prey.
throughout the sunk land
H. are Islands from a half to
9 IN dimensions. The larger
pntain oak, hickory and small
Wths of underbrush, but most
lem are covered with small
on which deer that find their
into the solitudes feed and fat
ne OF the most remarkable of
Use islands is known as Bone is
land and covers an area of about six
acres. This island is a rendezvous
for professional hunters, and it is
rarely that the buzzards are not
seen soaring above. 1t is desolate,
forbidding place and gets'its name
from the fact that it is literally COW
cred with bones of animals and
birds, from the horse down through
natural history to the bones of
ducks and geese. Of the latter great
heaps can be seen at different places.
These bleaching bones tell of mer-
CHESS slaughter of wild game for
their pelts and feathers.
1t seems strange that men should
destroy thousands of ducks and
geese just for their plumage and
quilts. Every year when the wealth
er is too warm to ship game three
men, who make Bone island their
place of abode, kill ducks and geese,
strip them of their feathers and
throw the carcasses in heaps for the
buzzards to live upon.
The beautiful wood duck, which
rears its young in the greaU swamp
district, is the first bird to be slaugh-
tered. The feather hunters begin in
August to destroy these birds and
never stop until they mate in the
spring. Later in the season, when
the big fight of wild fowl moves
southwark, the slaughter is some
thing unprecedented.
The birds are "potted" in the
night, when big guns are used that
do deadly work among the ,flocks as
they rest in the patches of open wa
ter. Not far from Bone island there
is ridge on which many oaks grow
that are prolific in acorns. There
the mallards go to feed in countless
numbers. The writer has seen a
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 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 IS kill
ed and wounded mallards in the wa
ter when the rest had flown. Inside
of an hour the ducks had massed
again, when AZ were added to the
IS. Four double shots during the
morning resulted in 105 ducks being
killed. At night rs more fell before
the murderous weapon of the pot
hunter.-St. Louis Globe Democrat.
Cooking Hfnts