THE Chesapeake has conferred upon Baltimore the title of the "gastronomic capital" of the country. The fish, the game and the reptiles of its generous waters, and the traditions of the Maryland kitchen, have made Baltimore a Mecca toward which the eyes of all American bon-vivants are turned with a veneration that dyspepsia cannot impair. Places have their dishes and exult in them. New England points with pride to an unsullied record of pumpkin-pies. New Orleans has its pompano,

VOL. XV.-I.

and boasts it much as Greenwich does its white-bait. In San Francisco you win the confidence of the Californian by praising his little coppery oysters and saying that they remind you of "Ostend penn'orths or Dublin's Burton-Bindins, and that after all the true taste of the "natives" is only acquired in waters where there is an excess of copper in suspension. At Norfolk the sacred dish that is offered upon the altar of hospitality is the hog-fish. The modest New Yorker, in the acerbity of the lenten [Copyright, Scribner & Co., 1877. All rights reserved.]

season, asks his foreign friend if he ever saw anything like "our shad." In Albany you partake of "beef" sliced from a Hud

AB OVO-A BRITISH SUBJECT.

son River sturgeon; a fish of which cutlets from the shoulders are served in San Francisco to excellent purpose as filets de sole. Chicago has been heard to speak of whitefish. In Calcutta one inwardly consumes with curry. Bird's-nest soup, made from the gelatinous and insipid secretion of the seaswallow, is the dish of honor at Shanghai. But Baltimore rests not its reputation upon the precarious tenure of a single dish; it sits in complacent contemplation of the unrivaled variety of its local market and calmly forbids comparison. While the Chesapeake continues to give it its terrapins, its canvas-backs, its oysters and its fish, this may be done with safety; and among the pleasantest recollec tions that a stranger may have shall be those of a Maryland kitchen in the " season." Visitors from the mother-country seldom overlook it and they have recorded their sentiments ever since the old colonial days. In these days of rapid transit it were strange if our trans-Atlantic cousins did not know more about it; and Liverpool receives many a crate of canvas-backs, many a barrel of choice oysters, and many a can of terrapin, cunningly packed in Baltimore. There have recently been dinners given in London and Paris at which every article of food upon the table came from America.

The shores within reach of Baltimore are of considerable extent and are for the most part owned by wealthy citizens. In winter they are known as "ducking-shores," in summer as "fishing-shores." Some are leased to "clubs" just as trout and salmon rivers are in England and Scotland and Norway, but a majority are private property and are carefully guarded. The ducks of the Chesapeake are the same birds that are seen in Hudson's Bay and on the northern lakes. They follow the edge of the winter along the Atlantic coast, and the water they prefer to feed in is that in which ice is about to form or from which it has just disappeared. Nowhere are they so good

for the table as in the Chesapeake. Elsewhere they are tough or fishy, but the great vegetable beds of its shallows, and the quantity of wild celery that they contain, impart to their flesh its greatest delicacy and best flavor. In the matter of variety they are known as canvas-backs, red-heads, bald-pates black-heads and mallards. There are numbers of smaller ducks with arbitrary names depending apparently very much upon the locality and its peculiar ornithological bent. In the way of larger birds there are swans and geese. Their numbers are inconceivable, but they are very wild and hard to approach. Both, for the table, are as fine in their way as any game bird that flies.

There are various ways of shooting the ducks of the Chesapeake and its broad affluent, the Susquehanna. Gentlemen for the most part shoot from "blinds" and use decoys; while market gunners use the "sink-boat" or the "night reflector." "Blinds" are any sort of artificial concealment placed at an advantageous point upon the shore. They generally consist of a seat in a sort of box or shelter some four feet deep, and capable of containing three or four persons and a couple of dogs. They are thoroughly covered up with pine branches, and young pine-trees, and communicate with the shore by a path similarly sheltered. The water in front is comparatively shallow, and, if it

contain beds of wild celery on the bottom, is sure to be a feeding ground for the ducks. About thirty yards from the "blind" are anchored a fleet of perhaps a hundred and fifty decoys. They are wooden ducks roughly carved and painted, but devised with a strict regard for variety and sex. At a little distance they are calculated to deceive any eye, and they certainly have a great

W.M.L DIVING FOR CELERYNO. 1.

about it. The "night reflector" is quite as bad. It consists of a large reflector behind a common naphtha lamp and mounted upon the bow of a boat. The latter is rowed out into the stream where the ducks are "bedded" for the night, and the birds, fascinated by the light, swim to it from every side and bob against the boat in helpless confusion. The number of birds secured depends only on the caliber of the gun. From twenty to thirty ducks to each shot fired is a common experience. The hunter who uses one of these reflectors may succeed in getting into half a dozen "beds" in a night. Another thing he sometimes succeeds in is getting a charge of shot in his body from some indignant sportsman on shore. If a rifle is handy and any one chances to be up and about at the hour, no

shore on Bush River. The last mile or so was through the "woods" over a comparatively new road with water on each side of it, the surrounding ground being evidently in a marshy condition. The undergrowth was very thick and young, as if it were taking the place of a forest recently destroyed by fire. There were, however, plenty of tall gum-trees, chestnuts and pines, and it was, as B. enthusiastically described it, while pointing to the track of an animal in the road, a splendid spot for 'coons and 'possums. We drew out shortly into a clearing, on the other side of which was a house and some out-buildings, the only habitation in sight or within a considerable distance. The barking of innumerable dogs welcomed. our approach, and, as we pulled up in front of the door, the river, about four hundred

yards in width, came into view just in the rear. It was evidently the establishment of a plain, comfortable farmer, whose guardianship of the ducking and fishing doubtless greatly diminished the annual rental to the owner. Our "traps" were soon inside and the horses stabled. We had one large room containing six small and well-kept beds, and at one end a capacious fire-place, on which a great pile of hickory logs was burning and diffusing a genial glow and the not disagreeable odor of a wood fire. On the ceiling were fishing-rods, nets, and tackle of every description; while around the walls were gun-racks, clothing, and hunting paraphernalia in profusion. At seven o'clock a substantial and well-cooked dinner or supper was served in the adjoining kitchen, to which our farmer sat down with us. The conversation related chiefly to some recent incidents of 'coon-hunting, and a discussion as to the probable direction of the wind in the morning. Apprehensions of a north-west wind were expressed, but the general idea was that it would blow up from the south-west with snow or rain, in

the kitchen. A hasty dowse of water with an eighth of an inch of ice on its surface, and a liberal "nip" of whisky,-the latter insisted upon for sanitary reasons of obscure origin but evidently great weight, and we sat down. Either there was something in the air or the spirits were at the bottom of it, but at any rate the heavy supper of the previous evening seemed entirely forgotten and the quantity of breakfast consumed was amazing. We were out in the sharp, frosty air and bright moonlight at a quarter to four o'clock, excellently fortified to meet the demands of the day and the rigor of the weather.

It was but a few yards from the house to the water, and we had a row of a mile and a half to the "blind." We got into a good, steady, flat-bottomed boat, in which two dogs, whom no one had called, took their places in perfunctory and solemn fashion, and we shoved off, while about a dozen hounds and yard-dogs howled a muffled and anxious adieu from the bank. The moon hung low near the tree-tops, the river was dark and its outlines black and

gloom to find the occasion and seeing nothing but the impenetrable shadows and the undefined depths of the dark shore. "Hist!" said B. "There is where they are," and taking his gun between his knees he pulled a few strong, quiet strokes again. In a moment there was a most astonishing and startling noise, and I saw, about five hundred yards to the right, a long line of bright silver break upon the water. Thousands of ducks that had made a great "bed" in the creek during the night had been startled and were taking wing simultaneously, and the noise made by their splashing as they rose was tremendous. Presently, as the last duck lifted into the air, it ceased and all was as silent as before. Not a duck could be seen, but my two friends had their guns cocked and were apparently listening intently. In a minute I heard a curious whistling sound. It grew louder and seemed to approach, but I could see nothing whatever. As I looked, both my companions brought up their guns and fired both barrels almost simultaneously overhead. "Hush!" said B. "Listen carefully. Mark one! Mark two! Mark three!"

I heard the splashes, and as the birds falling broke the water it faintly caught up the moonlight and we could see three ducks struggling not one hundred yards off; at the same moment both dogs, without an order from any one, disappeared overboard. "How did you know where to fire?" I asked.

"You are not used to it yet," replied B. "When you are you'll see ducks easily enough on the darkest night."

were thousands of them in the air and the whistling sound was made by their wings. In the meantime both dogs came up to the side to be taken in. Each had a red-head in his mouth; the third bird having died, could not be detected in the darkness and was abandoned.

A further pull of some ten minutes brought us to the blind, inside of which we found Joe, the darkey who had put out the decoys during the night. He was fast asleep in the straw, though the thermometer was below freezing-point. He took our boat and rowed it away out of sight around the nearest point, and then returning, lay down by the dogs and went asleep again. We seated ourselves to wait for day-break and ducks, and I endeavored to persuade myself that I was not cold. My companions spoke in hushed ecstasy of the south-west wind that blew up the river as the moon went down. It struck me as the coldest wind I had ever known, and I drew my hands up my sleeves and made a manful effort to keep my teeth from chattering. A gray light stole across the eastern sky and I began to see the canards riding at anchor in front of our blind. I was undeniably cold, and it was all I could do to keep from confessing to myself that I felt miserable. Besides, my companions had been whispering dismal experiences of whole days in blinds without a solitary shot, and I began to despise the whole business. The blind became a dry goods box in a bush, and the decoys an unblushing and unworthy device, and I could have readily proclaimed the whole thing unsportsmanlike and disgraceful, had