My least favorite book about market hunting?and maybe about hunting in general?was written about that activity in Illinois. Now, my very favorite book on the market hunting also centers on Illinois. ?

The former, falsely titled The Last of the Market Hunters, surfaced in 1996 and is the story of one particularly criminal gunner who plied his nefarious trade along the Illinois River during the 1920s and for decades afterward. This guy wasn't a market hunter; he was a poacher who delighted in killing (mainly ducks) too much too often for fun and profit. The author of this drivel attempted to lead readers to think the pot shooter reformed before he died?absolute bunk. Ironically, the book featured spot art by T. M. Shortt, used without permission (poached) from the original edition of Ducks, Geese and Swans of North America.

The latter book is The Shadow of a Gun, by H. Clay Merritt. Within the same covers, it is one of the most intriguing and perplexing books of my experience. Originally published in 1904, it chronicles Merritt's move to northcentral Illinois in the mid-1850s and his subsequent and mostly lucrative experiences as a market hunter and game marketer for half a century.

In the mid- and late 1800s in the Upper Midwest, game thrived along the watercourses, in wetlands, on prairies and around the few and small croplands. Merritt was one of the first and ultimately one of very few who persevered to turn the bounty into profit. He did so by overcoming the foremost obstacle to marketing wild game?he learned how to "refrigerate" (ice down and pack) birds adequately, by the box, barrel or ice cream can, until they could reach eastern destinations. There was genius in the trial-and-error methodology, achieved by not a little spoilage. ?

The game, mainly prairie chickens, golden plovers and grass plovers (upland sandpipers), jack (common) snipe, sand snipe (spotted sandpipers, I think) and woodcock (but so too, ruffed grouse, rabbits, bobwhite quail, passenger pigeons, muskrat and ducks) were killed by Merritt and his contractors in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska, and in numbers nearly incomprehensible. Even so, the bag limit of the day amounted to what could be transported back to camp or home. Merritt shipped mostly by the hundreds and thousands. When possible, quarry was taken in number by ground or water "sluicing," but the accounts of particular hunts, recorded meticulously, indicate that Merritt and his colleagues were capable wingshooters.

For me, one of the more interesting aspects of the book is the documentation of prices of birds by species and date (both year and season). Merritt was a businessman first and foremost, and his record keeping was thorough. It might seem to readers so matter of fact did the author report his transactions season after season, year after year, that the taking of game was somewhat hardship free and akin to "shooting fish in a barrel." Not so. Gathering enough of the right game at the right time and get it to fickle markets was no small chore from the edge of civilization. On the other hand, most people today probably think that gunners of yesteryear were simply commercial mercenaries for whom there was no sense of sport in the taking or thrill of the chase. Merritt reported otherwise.
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The Shadow of a Gun was written in three sections. The first details Merritt's history and business; it concludes with some fascinating and insightful turn-of-the-last-century views on the future of market hunting, wildlife and sport hunting. ?

The second section addresses "Game Birds of the Middle West," and the telling of animal characteristics and behaviors is worth reading twice. This section concludes with the author's views on and experiences with game laws and their enforcement. It starts: "The game laws are popularly supposed to be passed for the protection of game. When they accomplish that purpose they are to be commended, but in most cases they lose that distinctive quality and are made for the protection of sportsmen." Then, it gets interesting.

Section three is a lengthy and numbing recitation of the evolution of the gun. Surely unlike most other market hunters, Merritt graduated from a Massachusetts college with a classical education before turning his sight and gun sights to Illinois. In small doses during sections one and two, he either launched into some lengthy, obscure and adjective-riddled reference to Roman mythology or he waxed Timothy Leary rhapsodic, forcing the reader to jump paragraphs, if not pages. "The sun declined. For a while it shot out shafts of heat and light, till, tired of its unequal fight with spectres, it sank into its chambers. And there was heard the soft notes of viols as of an angel band disenthralled of pain or passion, sweeping the tender chord with the skill of artists and no human love, not the deepest enchantment of woman, could reach the sublime heights which their melody created." Sorry, but you needed proof. Except for these awkward flights of Massachusetts education, the prose in the first two sections is reasonably straightforward. His description of settlement conditions in Illinois in the mid-1800s, for example, is concise and vivid. Unless you are intrigued by what seems like an hour-by hour-history of firearms, by the Greek fire after Zenobia and by the assertion that the gun is the "palladian of liberty," section three is forgettable. ?

Perplexing section three aside, this is a terrific book. It is an exceptionally informative and entertaining history and historical perspective of wildlife at the time of settlement in middle America. ?

Only 13 copies of the original printing of The Shadow of a Gun are known to exist. Thanks to Kessinger Publishing (http://www.kessinger.net) of Whitefish, Montana, this important work is again available in soft cover, for $37.95, or for $28.94 on http://www.Amazon.com.