INTRODUCTION. 



One of the writer's earliest sporting memories relates him to following 

 at heel of a genuine huntsman and proudly bearing the captives of his gun. 

 This was in the wilds of Southern Michigan, antedating the sorrowful 

 deportation of the Pottawattamies to the farther west, and when it was 

 everywhere daily marked by moccasinedfeet. The mentor had no dog, and 

 the agreeable duty that fell to the pupil was that of retriever. Of neces- 

 sity it would be a " still hunt," and the boy's impatient bubbling happiness 

 met many a frown of repression. It was his wonder then, as now, how the 

 skilled fowler saw game birds, turkeys, ruffed-grouse and quail on their 

 feeding-grounds, and the retriever saw nothing. The leader would make a 

 stealthy forward movement, with noiseless bough parting, and pause with 

 backward wave of commanding hand ; then a step, and as the flushed birds 

 took whirring wing, one or more would fall to unerring shot. Fine bags 

 were always made; one or two turkeys, an occasional mallard, and a 

 mixed dozen or more of prairie hens, ruffed-grouse and quail, 'with now 

 and again samples of hickory and hazel-nut fattened black, gray and fox 

 squirrels, hardly esteemed game, but royal on the broiler. 



The apprenticeship was likely to be short, in fact was so ; and 

 thereafter for a time no better schooling was attainable than that of 

 threading the silent cloisters of Nature, every faculty of soul and body 

 under tutelage, the heart not infrequently holding the hand from slaughter 

 tor pure love of the noble victim, and sympathy with its small affairs. 

 Uncle Toby's lesson had not been lost, " Pursue your way; surely this 

 woodland world is broad enough for both of us." And then, half 

 wearied by traverse of fern and leaf-cushioned hill and dale, the con- 

 venient stream would be sought, rod improvised from thicket of witch- 

 hazel, and safely pocket-kept hook and line brought into communication 

 with it. For bait a small batrachian caught in the near-by dank meadow- 

 land. A shrewd cast would be made into an eddy of the swirling 

 current, and like a flash the tautening line reveals the peril of piscine 

 hunger ; a brief contest for supremacy, and a five-pound bass or a ten- 

 pound pickerel is landed on the mossy bank. The while an envious 

 king-fisher, with sharp scream of disapproval, springs in uncertain flight 

 from an over-stream decaying limb, and a song thrush clad in sober 



[ 3 1 



