University of Virginia Library

WOODCOCK FIRE-HUNTING.

One of the most beautiful and “legitimate” amusements
of gentlemen, is woodcock shooting. In the “backwoods,”
where game of every kind is plentiful, it is pursued
as often as a necessary of life, as for the gratification
afforded by the sport.

Persons living in the hotbeds of civilization, but
who yet retain enough of the old leaven of the wild man,
to love to destroy the birds of the air, and the beasts of
the field, are obliged to eke out the excitements of the
field by conventional rules, which prescribe the manner
of killing, the weapon to be used, and the kind of dog
to be employed;—and the sportsman who is most correct
in all these named particulars, is deservedly a “celebrity”
in his day and generation.

No sport is more properly guarded and understood
by amateur hunters than woodcock shooting, and no
sport is more esteemed. Therefore, it was that the announcement
that there was a section of the United

States where the game bird was hunted by torchlight,
and killed “without the benefit of clergy,” created the
same sensation among the “legitimists,” as is felt at Saint
Germain's, because there is “no Bourbon on the throne”
—a thrill of horror pervaded the hearts of many who
could believe such a thing possible—while the more
“strait laced” and deeply conscientious, disbelieved
entirely, and pronounced the report too incredible
for any thing but a “hoax.” Yet, woodcock fire-hunting
is a fact, although most circumscribed in its geographical
limits, the reasons for which, will appear in the attempt
at a description of the sport.

Woodcock fire-hunting is almost entirely confined to
a narrow strip of country running from the mouth of the
Mississippi, up the river about three hundred miles. This
narrow strip of country is the rich and thickly settled land
that borders on the river, and which varies from one to
three miles in width; it is in fact nothing but the ridge
or high ground that separates the Mississippi from the
interminable swamps, that compose so great a portion of
the State of Louisiana.

The habits of the woodcock make it entirely a nocturnal
bird; it retires into these swamps that border its
feeding grounds during the day, and is perfectly safe
from interruption; hidden among the tangled vines,
cane-brakes, and boggy land, it consults alike its pleasure
and safety; finds convenient places for its nests, and
raises its young, with the assurance of being undisturbed.

As a matter of course they increase rapidly, until
these solitudes become alive with their simple murmuring
note; and when evening sets in, they fill the high
land which we have described, in numbers which can
scarcely be imagined by any one except an eye-witness.

Another cause, probably, of their being so numerous
in this section of the country may be owing to their migratory
habits, as the bird is seen as far north as the
river St. Lawrence in summer, and we presume that these
very birds return for their winter residence in Louisiana
in the very months when “fire-hunting” is practised,
which is in the latter part of December, January, and
the first part of February.

Yet, a resident in the vicinity or among the haunts
of these birds, may live a life through, and make day
hunting a business, yet be unconscious that woodcock
inhabit his path; so much is this the case, that I do
not know of the birds ever being hunted, in the common
and universal way, in the places where fire-hunting them
is practised.

This novel sport, we presume, originated among the
descendants of the French, who originally settled on the
whole tract of country bordering on the Mississippi, as
high up as it favors this kind of sport. Here it is, that
“Beccasse” forms a common dish when in season, in
which the poor and the wealthy indulge as a luxury, too
common to be a variety, and too excellent not to be always
welcome.

With these preliminaries let us prepare for the
sport.

Provide yourself with a short double-barrelled fowling-piece
of small bore; let your ammunition be first-rate,
and have something the size of a small thimble wherewith
to measure out your load of mustard shot. Let
your powder be in a small flask, but keep your shot loose
with your measure, in the right side pocket of your
shooting jacket—and, astonished sportsman! leave thy
noble brace of dogs shut up in their kennels; for we
would hunt woodcock, incredible as it may seem, without
them.

In the place of the dogs we will put a stout negro,
who understands his business, burdened with what resembles
an old fashioned warming-pan, but the bottom,
instead of the top, pierced with holes; in this pan are
small splinters of pine knot, and we denominate this, the
Torch. Then put on the broad-brimmed palmetto hat,
so that it will shade your eyes, and keep them from
alarming the birds. Now, follow me down into any of
the old fields that lie between the river and the swamp,
while the ladies can stand upon spacious galleries that
surround the house, and tell by the quick report of
guns our success; the streaming light from “the torch,”
will, to them, from the distance, look like an ignis fatuus
dancing the cachuca in the old field.

It is in the middle of January, the night is a favorable
one, the weather rather warm, the thermometer says

“temperate,” and the fog rolls off the cold water into
the river like steam; old “fire-hunter” says, “this is
just the night.”

Whiz—whiz—hallo! What's here? Sambo strike
a light, and hoist it over your head. Now, friend, place
yourself behind the torch, on the left, both of us in the
rear to court the shade. Now, torch-bearer, lead on.
Whiz—bang—whiz, bang—two woodcock in a minute.
Bang, bang. Heavens, this is murder! Don't load too
heavy—let your charges be mere squibs, and murder
away,—the sport is fairly up.

The birds show plainly from three to ten paces all
around you, and you can generally catch them on the
ground, but as they rise slowly and perpendicularly
from the glare of the light, with a flickering motion,
you can bring them down before they start off like arrows
into the surrounding darkness. Thank the stars
they do not fly many paces before they again alight, so
that you can follow the same bird or birds until every one
is destroyed. Bang, bang—how exciting—don't the birds
look beautiful as they stream up into the light; the
slight reddish tinge of their head and breast shining for
an instant in the glare of the torch like fire.

Ha! see that stream of gold, bang—and we have a
meadow-lark, the bright yellow of its breast being more
beautiful than the dull colors of the woodcock. And I
see, friend, you have bagged a quail or two. Well,
such things occasionally happen. Two hours sport, and

we have killed between us nearly thirty birds. With
old hunters the average is always more, and a whole
night's labor, if successful, is often rewarded with a
round hundred.

Practice and experience, as a matter of course, have
much to do with success in this sport, but less than in
any other; for we have known tyros, on one or two occasions,
to do very well with clubs; while the negroes
have thrashed them down by “baskets-full” with whips
made of bundles of young cane, the birds being so thick
that some could be brought down even in this way, while
endeavoring, in their confusion, to get out of the glare
of the torch.

This fact, and the quantity of birds killed, attest to
the extraordinary numbers that inhabit this particular
section of country.

Let the birds, however, be less numerous than we
have described, and they are on some days more plentiful
than on others, and one who is a good shot, in the ordinary
way of hunting the bird, has only to overcome his
astonishment, and we will add, horror, at the mode in
which he sees his favorite game killed, to be a perfect
master of woodcock fire-hunting under all circumstances.
It is common with those who are fond of sport, and
have some sentiment about them, never to fire until the
bird rises, and then to bring down a bird with each
barrel.

This requires quick shooting, as the torch only sheds

an available light in a circle of about twenty yards in
diameter. Parties are frequently made up who hunt
during a given number of hours, and the destruction of
the birds on these occasions is almost beyond belief.

These parties afford rare sport, and are often kept
up all night.

When this is the case, the sportsman not unfrequently
sleeps to so late an hour in the day that he has
only time to rise, sip a cup of strong coffee, and leisurely
dress for dinner, when it is announced as ready, and
woodcock, plentiful to wasting, are smoking on the board
before him.

Such a dinner, the dullest intellect can imagine, is a
repast both for sense and soul,—for woodcock and wit
are synonymous.