272 The Wilderness Hunter 



If the big-game hunter, the lover of the rifle, has 

 a taste for kindred field sports with rod and shot- 

 gun, many are his chances for pleasure, though per- 

 haps of a less intense kind. The wild turkey really 

 deserves a place beside the deer; to kill a wary old 

 gobbler with the small-bore rifle, by fair still-hunt- 

 ing, is a triumph for the best sportsman. Swans, 

 geese, and sandhill cranes likewise may sometimes 

 be killed with the rifle ; but more often all three, save 

 perhaps the swan, must be shot over decoys. Then 

 there is prairie-chicken shooting on the fertile grain 

 prairies of the Middle West, from Minnesota to 

 Texas ; and killing canvas-backs from behind blinds, 

 with the help of that fearless swimmer, the Chesa- 

 peake Bay dog. In Californian mountains and val- 

 leys live the beautiful plumed quails; and who does 

 not knowtheir cousin bob- white, the bird of the farm, 

 with his cheery voice and friendly ways ? For pure 

 fun, nothing can surpass a night scramble through 

 the woods after coon and possum. 



The salmon, whether near Puget Sound or the 

 St. Lawrence, is the royal fish ; his only rival is the 

 giant of the warm Gulf waters, the silver-mailed 

 tarpon; while along the Atlantic coast the great 

 striped bass likewise yields fine sport to the men of 

 rod and reel. Every hunter of the mountains and 

 the northern woods knows the many kinds of 

 spotted trout; for the black bass he cares less; and 



