PLOVEE-SHOOTING. 207 



But in order to be thus successful, you must be an 

 expert plover-shooter, and to be an expert, you must be 

 able to call the birds. You may buy a plover-call, and 

 from it produce a fairly accurate note; but the trouble 

 about this is that you can not hear it at any great dis- 

 tance, which latter is just what you want. The best 

 market-shooters do not use any call, but put their fingers 

 in their mouths and give a shrill whistle. I do not think 

 I exaggerate when I say that a flock of plover can thus 

 be called nearly a mile down-wind. The note is a keen 

 "whit! wheet-wheet! whit!" repeated at about equal 

 intervals. It can only be gained by constant practice in 

 the field, and the proficiency with which one can execute 

 the call is about the measure of his success at golden 

 plover shooting. 



There lives in Chicago an Italian about forty years of 

 age, who keeps a little fruit-store on Wabash Avenue, 

 and is known in the game market and among Chicago 

 shooters as "Italian Joe,'' or sometimes as " Plover Joe." 

 He hunts for the market, and except a little shooting 

 at woodcock, he never hunts anything but plover. He 

 shoots over decoys, and is possessed of a rare judgment, 

 which makes him invariably successful. He is the best 

 plover- hunter of Chicago, and I presume there is not one 

 in the United States who could surpass him. His whistle 

 is the most perfect imitation of the golden plover's call- 

 note I ever heard. Back in the rear of his little shop, on 

 a warm summer day, he repeated the plover-call again 

 and again as we sat talking, and the loud, clear note 

 rang out through the open door, and pierced the jumbled 

 din of the noisy street, till people turned and listened. 

 Then Joe's eyes grew far-away in their look, and, as the 

 rumble of the city claimed its own, I presume Joe 

 dreamed of unsmoked skies and fields well paved with 

 green. 



