u 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



hate ii .I bean h ard, an I my Friends had thought we were 

 ii bear, as it is not often so many 

 I to shoot ttt a moose. jSoon the 

 . . ■,_■ under their loud i seal 

 ii.i horn of the bull, -which occupied 

 ■ni under of the day in getting ready for trans- 

 portation to Halifax, where it was subsequently handsomely 

 mounted. Merry waa our evening arourul the camp fire, us 

 our spirits ■ ii i isi d i v my mccet .. an I m '<- <p> d I i add 

 me during the time that still 

 Should be obliged to return to 



1 1 . and I may add, thai ovx expectations were not 



it two more of the great deer were killed, one falling 



to my rifle and another to that bf mj companions, but 



i i'i equaled in .size or magnitude erf antlers the one 



Which I lmve here designated as my first bull-moose, 



Zoopbxltjs. 



For Forest and Stream. 

 UP ROCK. RIVER. 



LEAYDHJ Janesville at 7 a. m.. Sept, 15th, I pulled leis- 

 m my boat up the. river, with only "Old Cap" 

 for a companion. I had made up my mind to take a trip to 

 - u Rook River, Cattish Greek, and the lakes, some- 

 thing different from my usual fall hunting trips. After 

 Madison I intended camping on fourth Lake a few 

 I., an i returning the same way I went later in the fall, 

 '.■:. ■ LnckBWer* thick.? "Doe" and I had talked of tak- 

 [or a year past, but he disappointed me; and 

 ■'i to be alone, as I have set d, 

 wall loaded with tent, guns, dog, aud 

 campmgW pull I easily, and! made good heacl- 



Lflocb of blackheads new rapidly over, but as they gotwejl 



ad Im 



iolitaiy redhead got up 

 shooting well ahead f 

 ! mi dome near losing it, as if dived 

 . and rushes near shore. I finally saw 

 •esuming my oar's, I managed to reach 



my rov. i 

 within 

 brought H Ioy I 



and hid "■: 

 it and i . 



I reek al 



Oatfiab Greek is a small stream emptying into Bock River, 

 about twelve miles from Janesville, and is the connecting 

 link and outlet of First, Second. Third, and Fourth Lakes. 

 the creek very swift, and swollen from recent rains. 

 Be i ween the mouth tend the first dam, a distance of two 

 miles by the creek, but only half that by road, are numer- 

 ous wire and board fences stretched across the creek to pre- 

 vent the stock from getting from one held into another. 

 ! in the present condition of the creek, were very hard 



3 through, as I had to break off a board or cut a wire 

 i in one hand, and with tho other hold up the boat 

 'om floating down stream. In many places I 

 had to get out. wade, and draw the boat after me. After a 

 good deal of tugging I reached the dam in about two hours. 

 At this place is a flouring mill, several houses, a church, and 

 a flaw stores, which comprise the town of Fulton. At a sort 

 of ravern I got a splendid dinner, after which I lighted my 

 pipe and strolled down to the mill to inquire the distance to 

 Stoughton, where I supposed the next dam to be. 1 found I 

 would have to carry my boat over two dams before reaching 

 Stoughton, besides running up two swift rapids; also that 

 the creel was juSI as swift and full of fences between Fulton 

 and Stoughton as between Fulton and the mouth; so 1 con- 

 clude ■ I to i ave my boat hauled to Edgerton, about four miles 

 distant, where we arrived just in time to catch the express. 

 Putting boat and everything aboard we reached? Stoughton 

 at 5 p. M., where I found tin old friend who used to five in 

 Janesville. 

 Next morning, having decided to lie over a day, a friend 



end 1 si i - stubble fields south of Stoughtqittfi 



■ • • of prairie chickens. After walking about a mile' m 

 sum ■!■ I' - - ii old, and soon found the dogs point- 



ing atanchly. We enjoyed a line day's sport. 



The next morning at daybreak we hitched the team tn 

 the lumber wagon, my friend Cork, who had arranged to go 

 on to Madison with me, taking his younger brother to drive 

 hauled the boat from the depot to First Lake, a dis- 

 of three miles by road, but about seven by the creek. 

 Arriving at First Lake about 9, we hastily launched and 

 loaded the boat. Alight wind having arisen in the meantime, 

 we "hoisted " the sail and shoved off. Passing pleasantly up 

 stream, with alternate use of sail and oars, that forms the in- 

 let of the lake, we at last entered the creek, which we found 

 mouth to be quite wide and very deep, with a fit 



current. The shores are lined f< 

 and wild rice, which, later 

 and rice bit is. 1 le creek 



I. , is very pretty and 







opening and log-house in t 



I i lays. The people liv 



the fell 



.li- 



■ i,.i resi 



with 



.f duck 



along the creek a 



all Scandinavians, and have clumsy, flat-bottomed boats 



Lin front of their houses. They fish a great deal, and 



cyfini ist | tk i '.:.- :n! ickereL I tec Led .if 



One of the . . - - jhing from 16 to 24 pounds. 



HOWOJ would make a reel hum! but they 



jonol ■■ th._- gamenef 



,. t hard for a little 



• - lake is high Iron 



! 



- fher ■ -' .''I 



D miens are killed t 



,i I'M k ah ml 11 o'cl 



In ihe spring, 

 >w, the marshy 



O give up 

 tin and melted s: 



-ed, and the fish go up the ditch- 

 n the receding of the water, and 

 il sent to market. 

 is. We reached a bridge across 

 E .Lore to in- 



istauce to .Madison ami get some apples. While 

 he was gone, I got out my rod, and endeavored to catch some 

 bass, -which 1 could see in great numbers swimrni] 

 below the boat and under the bridge; but although I tried 

 •■ . different flies and live bait they refused to 



;i'd .mJy dart -it frc r .heir biding piaces. pky 

 with the bait, and run back without riving m a. chance to 

 hook them. Cork returning, we unshipped the oars and 



Second Luke, tt ' . i o reach about din- 



ner time. A short distance above the bridge we passed a 



rty from Madison going down the reek The 



lis place is full of huge boulders, some nearly as 



■ boat, making us keep a sharp I- !-■ \i 



our running over them. About a mile above the bridge is a 

 widening of the creek, covering about ow bui 

 acres, and called. 1 think, Third .; . . teshallerv 



and jilled tt iti ras iet arid •■■ ifi a - pi m 



■ ■ ; cl i -- i ■' .i return, 



the creek about ■ 

 bridge, where we rested a little while before finishing the 



' '' - [ .ii. i 



were several Ipj l- Ihe top, 



for eroding i ■ ■-' ep live fish ' 



ad which 

 Having j ■ 



which we entered through a narrow stream between two 

 large inountls, and running our boat ml * i ibed one of 

 the mounds and got our first view a How beau- 

 tiful it looked ! The huge dome of the capitol, 1 i , 



in the distance, with the sun striking lull Upon it, Look* I 

 likea voting Sol; here and ih e;,- n ,-,i| ., -,-,. pointing heaven- 

 ward, and in the background beautiful >, ;,-:.,. 

 out from amidst grand old trees. Altogether it we I 

 long to bo remembered. 



But we were too hungry to gaze long, and soon had the 

 coffee-pot over a hot hie" filled with delicious Java, and then 

 the fried potatoes and rye bread. Dinner quickly eat- 

 en and cooking utensils packed away, we started were just 

 shoving off, when a boat rounded the point, and came to- 

 ward us rapidly, propelled by a muscular gentleman of the 

 Teutonic order. When within hailing distance I called him, 

 and found him to be a sportsman from Madison, "shooting 

 snipe." He told us that there was a wide spread on the 

 other side of the lake, through which we would find consid- 

 erable difficulty in passing unless thoroughly acquainted, 

 and that he would show us the way through ' so soon as he 

 found his "partner," who was on shore. It was indeed lucky 

 for us that we run across the Germans as we did, for it would 

 have taken us till dark to find a way through. Soon passing 

 into Third Lake we pulled until we reached Winaqna, where 

 there is a garden and summer resort. We stopped here for 

 refreshments, and then headed for Madison, about two miles 

 distant The next morning, much to our regret, Cork re- 

 turned home, leaving S. and I to go camping, which we did 

 in a few days, having a splendid time, and toward the latter 

 part good shooting. Jukiou. 



For Forest and Stream. 

 THE HUNTING FIELDS OF CENTRAL 

 VIRGINIA. 



ficieutly, wo pulled oat, aud soon reached. Second Lake, 



IT has occurred to me that a few lines from Central Yirgi- 

 nia, in reference to our forests and streams, might not be 

 uninteresting to your readers. Probably but few of them 

 have ever so much as heard of Buckingham County, and yet 

 we have here a number of gentlemen as devoted to the de- 

 lights of the forest and stream as perchance may be found 

 anywhere in America. 



Your valuable and charming paper fills a void and supplies 

 a need wo long have felt, and my only regret is that we live in 

 so benighted a region as not to have known of its existence 

 until a few months since, and I look upon the time I lost in 

 not reading it from the date of its birth as hours of sweet rest 

 and pleasure that are gone forever. 



That man who has not in his heart a secret love of the gen- 

 tle pleasures of the field and the stream, is fit for "treason, 

 stratagem, and bloody spoils. " . Who does not love the memory 

 of good old Isaac Walton ? Who does not admire 

 philosophy which enabled him to live through man 

 a terrible civil revolution, without, so far as we know, taking 

 part or parcel in it, and to which he nowhere alludes in 

 his celebrated work ? The dashing gallantry of the long 

 haired cavalier and the stern endurance of the closely shaven 

 Puritan had no ehaTins for him. He took a higher and 

 nobler view of life, and while the sabres of contending fac- 

 tions glistened in the sunlight, he pursued the even tenor of 

 his way, and studied the habits of the trout and the salmon, 

 and left on record a work which will last long after the ephe- 

 meral memories of the warriors and statesmen of his day 

 shall have been forgotten. 



But I am digressing— my object was to tell you something 

 of the fish and game of this section. And first the partridge 

 — nobody calls them quail here. As the Virginia maidens 

 are superior to all others, so are the Virginia part, 

 we had plenty of them last season. Our season, by law, opens 

 on the 15th of October, and closes on the 1st of January. I 

 am not professional enough to know what is considered first- 

 class shooting. 1 use a W. A C. Scott & Son, No. 12 breech- 

 loader, cost. $100, weight 7A- lbs., which is a good gun, but, a 

 pound too light, and I cannot quite average three out of five. 

 I sometimes make ten consecutive shots without a miss, but 

 this is a rule I often honor " more in the breach than in the 

 observance;" but I have a neighbor who would be famous 

 were his modesty not equal to his merit This gentleman, 

 Mr. A. 3. B., of Fishpond, Weldon County, uses a gun exact- 

 ly like mine, and during last season, among numberless good 

 shots, he made one worthy of special mention, and which 

 would do no discredit to Capt. Bogardus. Three birds rose 

 at the same time about twent\ yards in front of him, two in 

 a direct line the one with tile other, and the third flew at an 

 angle which at a particular moment would intersect the line 

 of the first two. At a distance of about forty yards from the 

 ,, bird hi ttred at be critical moment, and got all three, 



■ • i : . i ' i i falling at full sixty yards. To have made 

 such a conception, and to have waited and carried it out, to 

 bag threel irrda at one shot, under such circumstances, requires 

 | ve, a steady nerve, and an admirable calculation 

 of distances not often met with. Is not this good shooting 1 

 He loads almost uniformly with iij drachms of coarse powder 

 and 1 1-8 oz. No. 8 shot. The recent hard winter has not 

 perceptibly hurt the birds, and we may expect hue sport the 

 next season. It is not unusual with' us to start fifteen or 

 twenty covies of a dozen and more birds in a day's shooting. 

 The woodcock urn by no means so plentiful, and we only oc- 

 casionally start thi- i I I i ■. of our marshes are 

 filled with snipe. His zigzag flying makes him a tough cus- 

 tomer to hit, but a single shot does the work. Our woods are 

 filled with deer and turkey and pheasants, the latter not so 

 im : 'as the former, and from the 1st of November until 

 March the James Bitot affords, in favored localities, good 

 shooting for ducks and geese. 



I am tempted here to describe a deer hunt we had a short 

 time since. 



WhUe plodding away at tho dry details of the law— for you 

 must know thi ~- my profession — thestur' 



of a law student who was reading under my advice was upset 

 by the sight of a deer chase in front of my door. 

 suppose Sat he had ever bred a gun a dozen time - in his life, 

 but the sight of a noble doe bounding away with the hounds 

 in full civ was to- much for him. Instantly we had our 



!. ,,,. , - ; .' :: el i , ■.. , e I | I h« . , H 1 n 



i : ,rjci fleet one. there wai nothing for him 



but an old white-legged' wagon hart rly twenty- 



om '. ill- high. Goliah mighl have bestrode him without 

 ,. , L _ .■■ . I ■ ' s-waywevi ant, 



:. keep ahead of Old T\ b 



,, i dim .. j. ..;,.. m to the sxiort. 



made in 



having lain down from fatigue, SB ans toward 



us at full speed. She had to run a quarter of a mile to a 

 certain point at which thej the river, 



and we had to Tide about r her. The dogs 



opened in full cry and we spurred for life, i ■ i r 



her speed. I thought ■ i vat ..,-. r, and looked behind me to 

 see •' Old Whitey ""standing stotd; still, and his rider perched 

 high on Ids back levelling a long, single-barreled gun of 

 antique manufacture. In an instant he Wassurroun led J ' 

 smoke and a deafening report rent the air. I looked, and the 

 doe turned two or three double somersaults, ai I uttering a 

 shrill cry she breathed ber last. He had shol 

 through the heart. Could a , , • .-■.,. 

 the look of swoet an. i ion which lit up the 



features of her slayer while he, contempt bed tk 

 noble animal now stretched before dm on the sand, il ruM 

 have imniortalbzed him forever. But 1 am trespassing too 

 much' upon your space and will wait tor another time to toll 

 you something of the fish in our waters, and will only stop 

 long enough to say, that the silver perch, the yellow perch, 

 the Southern club, the white club, the pike, the trout, and a 

 nondescript ycloped the "Goggle Eve," form all of our game 

 fish except the blue catfish (the black bass is a recent im- 

 portation), if he may be raised to the dignity of so rsspecta- 



"it, about said species of which I trust t ■ tl D ou 



something hereafter. Bucktngham. 



<■» 



For Forest ami Stream. 

 A (SOON FIGHT IN KENTUCKY. 



WHEN the weather softens and the snow begins melt- 

 ing after a cold spell, every pedestrian about the 

 cross-roads in Mercer County keep's an eye out for coon 

 tracks, and he who chances upon the trail of a broad-footed 

 member of the ring-tailed family is a traitor if he fail to 

 follow it till no dpubt exists as to the exact tree in which his 

 coonship is ensconced, and then hastens to the store to re- 

 ■■.-- to us idlers who scrape the mud off our stogies 

 on the box of gravel, sand, shavings, chestnut and hickory 

 nut hulls— the common spittoon— in which the stove sets, 

 smoke and chew -long green tobacco," and swop yarns till 



feeding time, unless the promise of Fob 1 One of the 



faithful made his repoi t before noon on this eventful day. As 

 he came to the store to procure a set of knitting needles for the 

 ' ' old woman "—a majority of us drop in on bad days, avowedly 

 in quest of some small article badly needed at home by the 

 Madame— he crossed the frail of one ho knew tc be I ' >J 

 per, and patriotically followed its windings just thi 

 as computed by those who knew every inch of Hie groun I 

 traversed and the exact distance between the various land- 

 marks enumerated; and all that tramp over thi I I, track to 

 find the tree less than half a mile from his starting point. 



Higgins is the autocrat of the cross-roads — for he 

 store". If there is anyone variety of tho numeron 1 sport 

 which Ilig. loves best, it is a coon fight, and he is 1 1 

 puted master of ceremonies at all our battles, for he is in the 

 sportsman's seventh heaven when commanding Pd 

 coon engag- i i mi . oti •• was promptly served upon a 

 dozen owners of voting, iiv: ; I 1 hogs, and on 



who are known to always have sharp axes, were ordered to re- 

 port promptly at the designated hour, for that coon couldn't 

 rind comfortable hiding in any ordinary tree. Bumorof the 

 fun spread rapidly, and at 2 o'clock p. ai., sharp, thr a] 

 hour, about forty individuals, all sizes, ages, and colors 



! I,. 



mania is dogology coun 

 teen barking, snarling, 

 war." Obeil n it I i Eug 

 high glee, amiil a perf. 

 a mile through snow 

 tree, an old oak, which 

 of many of its fellows, 

 in attainment of circuit 



''ii 'l.i : : 



pack of four- 

 listed for the 

 lwd started m 



nght us to the 

 I 



d that forest 



that General Higgins will swing an axe 



is subject to rheumatism— and on this occ sion he selected 



his choppers and relief, and -ordered an im media! 

 with assurance that be was responsible foi a : ' 

 I' . ■. " s of tho woods. That was goods b ! - 



and they fell to lustily— four- musculai . mg chips 



in a shower. Many 'were the wittic 

 and frequent the laughter, as the 



Nn 



ibe 



a coou. 



;ot warmed up, and the 



'.would 



- universal 



i .her of our 



the hound, terrier, bench-leg, 

 grel were rein-' si n 



About the time the rebel 

 lookers-on had begun selectii 

 be safe at the time the tree fell, an indivi Ii atW I by 

 the noise our crowd made, appeared upon the scene, followed 

 by a bench-leg and an old Of a Shet- 



land pony, which he called Tiger. Lev.,.-, . tnecuati 

 terviewed as to Tige's eoon-fighting accomplishments, aud 

 unhesitatingly declared Tige to be the best coon dog in Ken- 



tucky 



at the le 

 dog that 



light/' a 

 old bhl< 



Til 



■ he 1 



id r 



r been kn 



Til 



i to 



pbslmitnf: 



lake the 36' I 



up every 



The owner was well known to every individual present, 

 and it was equally we] wr I ■' •■ i ■ i the truth 



in any trivial matter ashij anyg 



v. Tige was a stranger to all, as 



' . i. portion of 

 ... ,_ i; , , ., 4, clarations, jur Bomjmmi i leerai & it prudent 

 to appoint a 



our Son with the dogs we knew. Snob, wdiose end of the 

 double tree is alwayfl kept full.y up if not a little in advance 



; n ,,ii matt rs of sp *t, wi | pi 'hit ■■' ■ I ■' ■ 



■ ui. '..': ■- .-. -e ■ ■"- ' 



od out stepped a i i 



Tn ■ smaller oooi took 

 our* pack W I ' 



around the combatants, and 

 minutes. lelp- after yelp prod i . . • , : ; ■ , , 

 of the pack concluded tha the] ... iiae fun for him in 



lis prompt 

 withdrawal 

 back. One by on. thi fol 



■ a adopted 

 snapping r ied. The 



.-.nfire pack of fourteen we r not a dog 



could be induced to put Lin 

 s growing late, n 

 that the coo) 



