258 THE WILDERNESS HUNTER. 



beside the deer ; to kill a wary old gobbler 

 with the small-bore rifle, by fair still-hunting, 

 is a triumph for the best sportsman. Swans, 

 geese, and sandhill cranes likewise may some- 

 times 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 valleys live the beautiful plumed quails, 

 and who does not know their 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 least of 

 all for the sluggish pickerel, and his big 

 brother of the Great Lakes, the muscallonge. 



Yet the sport yielded by rod and smooth- 

 bore is really less closely kin to the strong 

 pleasures so beloved by the hunter who trusts 

 in horse and rifle than are certain other out- 

 door pastimes, of the rougher and hardier kind. 



