NEW YORK THURSDAY! FEBRUARY 20, 1879. 



For Fortat and Stream ami Hod and Gun. 

 TIGER HUNT1HG IN INDIA WITH 

 ELEPHANTS. 



VI7.E oroas'd a brawling mountain torrent, tar 

 "' From our Indian camp. The red, angry glare 

 Of crimson sunset shimmered through tne clouds 

 Of tlnst that flll'd the air with their flail, coppery hues, 

 Presaging the near coming of a storm. 



We pasa'd the border- forest's gloomy bolt, 



tehlnrt which, tier on tier, the mighty range 



Of the majestic Himalayas tower'd in ulr, 



Tin their snow-clad summits seemed to pierce the sky ; 



Had naaVd thro' villajes in dense mango groves— 



Past temples, shadow'd by great, tamarind trees j 



Past vast borders, all flll'd with din and dust ; 



Fast, the low country, covered with green crops ; 



Past patches of rice stubbie, with 06089 grass between, 



Whence rose the partridge, plover and the quail. 



And florican and pea-fowl In dens 3 nocks ; 



Past groves of feathery bamboo and the palm, 



And plum; plalntulns that conceal the huts, 



'Midst aloe-hedges festoon 'd with gay vines. 



There were few song-birds Bitting tbro' the gloom 

 Of wood arcades, to make them musical. 

 The songle»s horn-bill darts from tree to tree ; 

 The big woodpecker taps the hollow log, 

 With gorgeous plumage glistening in the sun j 

 Frights of green parrots scream above your head ; 

 The golden oriole and the bulbul make 

 Their feeble chirrup, while at limes resound 

 The melancholy hoot of blinking owl, 

 Or the golden pigeon's soft and mnrmurong 000. 



There, on the borders of the jungle wild, 



The hunters pause ere they invade its depths. 

 'Twas a dark, deep, impenetrable swamp, 

 Thick with tall reeds and wild vines interlac'd— 

 Homes of the savage creatures of the waste— 

 Tne tiger's haunt, fierce monarch of the woods ! 

 Here ranged the brown hog-deer In browzlng herds, 

 The wild pig and the boar, with gnashing tasks. 

 Here tramped the hlac-lc rhinoceros on his way. 

 And wallowed the big buffaloes at will. 

 The jackals rais'd at night their fearful howl, 

 While overhead great Hooks of vultures eoar'd. 



And here the hunting elephants are rang'd 

 la line continuous, ready for the charge ; 

 RMch bears a howdah on his towering back, 

 Whereon the hunter with his rifle sits, 

 To stop the royal game with fatal aim. 

 Soon the long line advances thro' the wood, 

 Trampling the bonding branches and the reeds, 

 While loud the native beaters sound their drums, 

 And kindle into flames the jangle grass- 

 Kindle acacia shrubs and thorny bush. 

 80 they press on, a wall of dame behind, 

 While fast before them flies the frantic game. 

 At length a tiger bounds away in fright, 

 And fast the goaded elephant pursues. 

 As fast lie tears thro' tangled jungles green, 

 Lite great ship surging thro' the ocean tides. 

 The Muhouta rain their blows upon his head, 

 The spearmen prick him with their lances keen ; 

 While on thro' bu*h and brake, thro' thorny scrub— 

 Thrnugh stream, and down precipitous ravine 

 The headlong chase is nrg'd. till brought to bay, 

 The tiger falls beneath th' unerring shot. 

 .shelter Island, Jan. Isaac M'JLellan. 



For Forest and Stream and Rod and Bun. 



fintei[ Sports ix\ <§mt 



§0" §*l 



fUQO 



By T. S. Van Dyke. 



XN midwinter our field sports are really at their height ■ 

 for, although the law has shut off hunting deer, yet it is 

 Open for everything else, and everything else is then in 

 prime. At no other time is our gamy little quail so spry, 

 so saucy, so swift or wing, and at no other time are boi.h 

 gj'Ound and Weather in such floe condition for a cotillion 

 with him as in those months when our Eastern friends con- 

 sign their guns to oil, flannel and inglorious quiet, while the 

 old dogs hug the rug by the fire and hunt again in happy 

 dreams, and poor Bob White, starved out by deep snows" 

 huddles up among his suffering brethren arid resigns his 

 little life to Ihe merciless frost king, or still more heartless 

 pot hunters. 

 Bdb White was my first love, and three years of time and 



thousands of weary miles of space have not yet in the least 

 divorced us ; yet the sport to be had here with our little blue 

 heauty of the jaunty plume is scarcely inferior to the pleas- 

 ures of Bob's company when we consider the difference of 

 the surroundiugs. Deep, indeed, are the joys of the buck- 

 wheat stubble, the briar wood and tangled swamps, even 

 with benumbed fingers, chattering teeth or wet feet, so long 

 as we can catch even an occasional glimpse of Bob's whirring 

 wing ; yet, on the whole, give me an hour among the roar- 

 ing myriads of a California canon, with the spangled green 

 carpet, genial sun and flowery hills of San Diego for a back- 

 ground. Instead of the long and weary tramp so often neces- 

 sary to a satisfactory interview with my old friend Bob, we 

 have only to cauter or drive a short diatance up some canon 

 radiant with life and beauty, where soon the rich mellow 

 ca-loi-o, ca-loi-o, ca-loi-o of the calling quail, or his sharp 

 twit, twit, twit of alarm breaks on your ear, and in a few 

 moments, or seconds, perhaps, you "see hundreds of dark 

 flashes of energy and life darting here and there through the 

 bushes. Leaving your coat and other sudorific unnecessaries 

 in the wagon or on the horse, in a few moments you have 

 the whole air about you full of dark streaks of whizzing 

 swiftness. Then begins a time that in the whole line of 

 shot-gun shooting has no superior. To have from one to a 

 dozen or fifteen birds rising at once, on all sides and at all 

 distances, from live to fifteen yards, with mere rising at the 

 crack of your guu, and still more as you load, a wild med- 

 ley of buzzing, pitching, squealing, wheeling and darting in 

 almost every direction and from almost every bush, while 

 your gun barrels burn your hand from the rapid fire, and 

 your quickest motions cannot cram in cartridges fast enough; 

 this is the very ecstasy of shooting. 



This, too, is the time that tries the tyro's nerves almost as 

 much as when, before the clamorous hounds, the buck, wilh 

 crashing bound, first comes within sound and sight. Ye 

 gttnmahers who want opinions on your guns; ye cartridge 

 makers, ye shot makers, ye powder makers and all who 

 make sporting material, who would like to know their de- 

 merits, ye should stand awhile within earshot of a greeny, 

 who thinks he can shoot a little, when he tackles a flock of 

 California quails. To me few things are more exquisitely 

 ludicrous than such a one, with face dripping with perspira- 

 tion, hands and knees quivering with haste, and enveloped 

 in a cloud of smoke through which birds are scudding like 

 meteors, expressing: himself upon the various causes of his 

 failure to tranquilize a bird. 



Such sport as this may be had within fifteen minutes' 

 fmore otten five minutes') canter of almost any ranch house 

 in the county. To the moderate shooter a single flock -will 

 afford many days or even weeks of good sport. I have shot 

 all the winter on only three flocks, and expect them to last 

 me all through the rest of it. All these are within five hun- 

 dred yards of the house. Out of one of these I have already 

 shot about two hundred birds, and yet it looks just as big as 

 ever. 



But variety is the spice of field life, and here, too, we 

 have it. Along the base of the low hills that rise from the 

 plains in the patches of weeds and grass that cover the plan 

 itself, in the weedy meadows or the clumps of prickly pear, 

 you may often at every few rods see the little cottontail 

 whirl away through the brush in a zigzag flash of white; or 

 the large hare, perhaps, springs from his form and glides 

 away with arrowy rush. Here you may have snap shooting 

 almost as difficult as the thickest of Eastern covert shooting, 

 and carry home a load of game— unlike the Eastern hare, 

 barely endurable even when well cooked— but game equal 

 in flavor to anything we have, if one can only forget that he 

 has ever before tasted rabbit and be uninfluenced by the fact 

 that it is cheap and plenty. Or, if you prefer it, you may 

 mount a good gravel scratcher and see the lithe greyhounds 

 stretched out like telescopes, hug the flower-spangled sod 

 of the plain, while Ihe hare, a few yards ahead, lets out an 

 extra length as they gain on him, lays down his ears for 

 business and skims with airy foot the turf. 



Or, when you tire of hare hunting, you may ride to the 

 small ponds or lagoons along the river bottoms, where you 

 shall hear the welcome quaack, quaack, quaack that used to 

 delight your soul of yore, and see again the old mallard with 

 head and neck of burnished green, spring aloft with ob- 

 streperous wing. There, too, the widgeon, spoonbill, sprig- 

 tail, blue-winged, green-winged, and cinnamon teal, and 

 sometimes the splendid redhead, or more splendid canvas- 

 back, -will vary the scene with their rushing wings and 

 splashing tumble. There, too, you may see the old Canada 

 goose, with his rich-toned honk, come sliding down from 

 on high with neck outstretched and rigid win:;, only, per- 

 haps, to sheer neatly oil as his watchful eye catches your 

 crouching form among the weeds. But wait until old 

 Phcebus has unhitched his wain and Dian runs the evening 

 train, and then you may stand on a pass between the lagoou 

 and the plain and stay his wandering wing. Or even by day, 

 when he is feeding on the plain, you may, with a good horse, 

 walk carelessly up to him in a slanting course, and, when 

 directly to windward, suddenly turn und come thundering 

 down upon his ranks ; while he, compelled to rise against 

 the wind, finds his accurate knowledge of the range of a gun 

 at last a. delusion and a snore. 



Though geographically included within the game laws of 

 the State, San Diego is nevertheless considered by herself as 

 an independent colony in this respect, and makes her own 

 laws. Far be it from me to advocate any infraction of game 

 laws, and personally I have no occasion to break them ; brat 

 circumstances surely alter cases, and where there are no 

 market shooters or pot hunters, and a ton of game to everj 

 settler, laws made for the Vicinity of San Francisco or other 

 markets cannot be expected to command literal obedience. 

 Hence it is a part of the ,un written code of this counly that 

 at no time of the year is a buck privileged to bite a settler, 

 and, if in such attempt the buck should foil, it is his own 

 fault. It is also the unanimous opinion of the people that 

 at no time of the year, especially at the only time when he 

 is really fat, has any buck a right lo pack off a hundred and 

 fifty odd pounds of veDison while the setlier, whose vine- 

 yards and fruit trees he has destroyed, has to repair the wear 

 and tear of his fleshy tabernacle 'on bread and honey with 

 perhaps the luxury of beans for a variety. As they are quite 

 harmless, and ia a very respectable business, the does are, 

 however, treated with great respect throughout one-half the 

 year. 



Ascending into the mountains, which we may do to an 

 elevation of about three thousand feet before it begins to gel, 

 cold, we shall find in the oak-filled canons the large moun- 

 tain pigeon, a bird less swift of wing than the passenger 

 pigeon, but surpassing him in beauty of plumage and wari- 

 ness. Driven from their home in the high mountains by 

 snow, these pigeons are often found iu large numbers in the 

 lower valley. Last week, on a little stroll of only half a 

 mile, I took in seventeen of them in a very short time. It 

 was mostly sitting shooting from high trees, hut I be steallhy 

 caution necessary to get a shot, the bustling fluster with 

 which they come down, the bright glossy lavender plumage 

 of the head and neck, with a white collar around the latter, 

 and the weight of a goodly bunch, gives it a veiy strong 

 smack of game shooting, after all. 



About this elevation, too, we begin to meet, the large and 

 beautiful mountain quail with his two long plumes of silken 

 black, his plaintive quit, quit, queeah, queeah, and his mild 

 simplicity, as wilh inquiring gaze he cocks his head from 

 side to side to examine you with a queeah, queeah of curi- 

 osity, and hops up on a stone, perhaps to take better in- 

 spection. 



The sea coast, too, affords in places good sport, though 

 most of the wild fowl, except the black brant, come inland ; 

 but for the climate seeker the coast is by no means equal to 

 the interior. Though it is mere summer compared with 

 New York, San Francisco or even the boasted Santa Barbara, 

 it is still winter compared with parts of the interior, although 

 at night it may be warmer. Nowhere, perhaps, has nature 

 played such curious freaks as in the climate of San Diego 

 Co. Within thirty miles of where I write is winter equal to 

 that of New York, and here the trees are full of ripe 

 oranges. In one valley the frosts bite with as icy teeth as in 

 many parts of the East, while in another, only a mile away, 

 perhaps, and with scarcely any apparent difference of ele- 

 vation or situation, tobacco and tomatoes stand as rankly 

 green as in the noon of summer. 



I could not but contrast the present winter in the South 

 with winter here. Like the rest of the State, we have had 

 the coldest weather for twenty years, and it has wrought sad 

 hovoc among the young orange trees. Yet, all the cold we 

 have had has been only at night, and on the coldest of ths 

 days I hunted quail iu what would be called East a summer 

 dress. Owing to the dry air the nights are often cold here ■ 

 but the very same cause which allows a rapid radiation of 

 heat by night makes it heat up ten or fifteen degrees an hour 

 after sunrise. We often go out dooreherein the morning to 

 get warmer. This is the "only kind of cold we know here. 

 The lowest midday temperature I have ever seen here was 

 fifty-five, and it very surely stops short of sixty, though it 

 may have been to twenty-eight before sunrise. The average 

 winter temperature is about forty or forty-five before sun- 

 rise, fifty-five by nine o'clock, and sixty-five to seventy from 

 eleven till four. I saw an account of a gentleman in Texas 

 waiting about a month for a chance to go out on a hunt 

 Though painfully sensitive to cold, I have, never yet staid 

 in a day here on that account, and the thickest dress I have 

 ever worn for hunting is two pair of duck pants, a flannel 

 shirt and a single duck jacket, though an extra coat is often 

 necessary for riding. Though our rainy season is half over, 

 I have staid in only six days for rain, and all these days 

 were days of warm, soft showers. 



In my last article on San Diego appears a mistake either of 

 my manuscript or the compositor. I meant to say that no 

 one should come to California wilh any expectation of making 

 a living out of the country at once by either menial or man 

 ual work. The omission of at once made the sentence ab- 

 surd. Ab it stands above it is true, though I suppose it ia 

 very improper for a Calif o'rhian to admit it. Thanks to 

 Nordhoff and other lofty scribblers, who, not content with 

 dipping their quills in the rainbow, tore up the whole arch 

 by the roots and splashed it bodily all over their pages, Cali- 

 fornia has long been overrun with geese who left good nest 

 eggs at home and came here, without money enough to re- 

 turn, in confident expectation of finding a paradise.. Bi £ 

 the competitions of these there, is that of the vanguard of the 

 great Asiatic horde, who must not be kept back, because we 

 made a treaty once, but more especially because God hae 



