The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1902-09-27


ness of one who sought me only be-
cause he thought me an heiress.-A.
r. e. ~, in NewtoUn (Pa.) Enter
b,tse.
SLAUGHTER OF w00DC0CK.
The woodcock escaped from the
wet south, where it made its winter
home, is busy now preparing to raise
brood. 1t builds a home rapidly,
lays rapidly and matches rapidly. The
chicks are out of the shell in June or
a little before, and big enough to
shoot in middle July, though in many
states it is unlawful to take them be-
fore September.
The bird is a fair target on the
wing, the cover in which it abides
aids its escape and the man who puts
half-dozen in his bag earns them.
There is form of murder to which
it is subjected in the south, however,
that lacks all of the elements of sport
and is peculiarly fatal. II is practic-
ed usually by negro market hunters
and is responsible for the deaths of
thousands in a season, states the New
York San.
The woodcock, being to great ex-
tent a night feeder, patronizes the
big cottonfelds which have been strip
ped of their bolls and are bare of
grass, having on them only the slen-
der dark stalks which bore the lint.
The ground between these rows of
stalks is always soft, having been
broken up and pulverized during the
year, and the bird finds it easy to
send its bill down in search of worms.
It flies out to the hol1ows and
swamps between sunser and eignr
O'Clock at night, settling thickly in
the cottonfelds, and there it feeds
and sleeps until daybreak, when it
returns to covert. The woodcock
has a round, large, black eye, set
near the top of the head. This eye
is the most conspicuous thing about
it and may be "shined" as readily as
the eye of 'possum or coon.
The negro after woodcock goes
into the field bearing a brazier set on
a long pole, which he carries over his
left shoulder. His companion, for
he always has one, bears an old mus
ket or cheap single-barrelled gun,
muzzle loading.
The brazier is filled with lighted
pine knots which drip pitch in a
stream and send red glare over an
acre or so. The men go slowly down
the rows, looking keenly to the right
and left.
They are able to see distinctly for
ten yards. They are not looking for
the brown bodies of the birds which
blend with the earth, but for the pin
head of brilliance which will denote
the eye and shines steadily.
The woodcock with three inches of
its bill in the ground squatted with
its breast to earth, sees the light, but
will not fly from it. Like the eye of
the owl, its eye is blinded by the
glare and it sits still.
When the negroes have located the
eye they have the bird. They ap-
proach within ten feet of it and its
outlines are distinct. The one with
the musket levels it, there is slight
Swapping report, about as loud as that
made by the explosion of an ordinary
percussion cap, and woodcock dut-
tering on the ground with its long
bill in air.
The load used in this shooting is
composed of less than a drachm Of
black powder, some brown paper for
wadding and an eighth of an ounce of
No. 10 shot. 1t is much smaller than
the load used for rail, and is econom-
icai, which is one reason why the
negro likes it.
The number of birds killed in this
way is enormous. Two negroes trav-
ersing a field of a hundred acres from
nine O'Clock until two in the morning
will often bag from so to 60 wood
cock, and quit then only because they
are sleepy, not because there are no
more birds.
They have no game bags or hunt
ing coats, so the birds as slain are
strung by the necks upon heavy
twine which has a little crossbar of
wood at one end of it and big nee
die used for sewing cotton bagging at
the other. When the hunt is over
the game carrier ties the two ends of
the string together and sings the
loop about his neck.
The birds are for sale to the house
wives of country towns, or to the
stewards of passing steamboats,, and
bring FIVE cents apiece. AS a we'll
grown woodcock will weigh nearly a
pound it is pretty cheap meat, cheap
er, even, than domestic chicken.
KIND LADY-"Poor fellow, have