WESTERN FIELD SPOETS IN EARLY DAYS. 265 



species of geese and twenty of ducks, besides a swan 

 and a pelican all killed by myself and friends. We 

 used no blinds or decoys, but paddled our own canoes, 

 and the old muzzle-loaders would bring a bag of from 

 twenty to fifty ducks in a day to each gun. I brought 

 with me, from Boston, a female pup of the short-haired 

 Newfoundland breed, which I imported from St. Johns, 

 and a remarkable retriever she proved to be. The first 

 time I took her out, though she had never heard a gun 

 fired, when I killed a duck, and it fell into the river, Fan 

 brought it out as handsomely as an old dog could have 

 retrieved it. After that, no wounded ducks could escape 

 her, she swam so fast and dived so deep; but she 

 sometimes failed to distinguish between wild and tame 

 fowls, and always wanted to bring me the ducks and 

 geese belonging to the Irish folks along the river. 



In the woods and groves, ruffed grouse were to be 

 found abundantly. I have seen a bag of at least thirty 

 of them brought by two sportsmen from the Des Plaines 

 timber, the result of one day's sport, which is more than 

 we could ever get in my youth in New England. 



In the winter came deer-hunting, and the whole coun- 

 try was full of them. A party of four or five hunters 

 would, in a two days' hunt, get ten or fifteen deer. About 

 1842, 1 remember a circular drive, where 100 men or more, 

 and a mixed pack of dogs, surrounded Blue Island, and 

 drove probably fifty deer into town as far as Thirtieth 

 Street. Most of them, however, broke through the ring 

 and escaped; perhaps six or eight were killed. One win- 

 ter's day I was out on the prairie south of the town, in a 

 sleigh, with a friend who drove a pair of thorough-bred 

 sorrels; along came a buck, pursued by a brace of deer- 

 hounds then in use, powerful and fieet dogs, a cross 

 between the English greyhound and the bull-dog. My 

 friend put his horses on the run, and we kept up with the 



