JJUWbLAJ AUb ^xUJLLAJl. 



^W 



amount of coolness is used as in our last war), the more acci- 

 i I he more liability of kitting' an enemy. 

 Toshowmy earnestness and belief ii i is, made 



solely with a purpose to make the manual of "Perry'i 

 Book " unassailable, I hereby claim that 1 can make mure 

 points in a given time from the back position with a military 

 rifle, at any or all ranges, including the time of assuming 

 from, than any two-armed man 

 can from the front position, and 1 do not claim to be even an 

 average shot. My suggestion for such a match would be to 

 commence at 300 yards, and Are 7 and 10 shots at all ranges 

 up to and including 1,000 yards. I offer this test in What 1 

 believe to be the interest of science, and although I am willing 

 toaccepl as competitors, money and bluff are 



not ingredients of my purpose. Rifle to be any adopted mili- 

 tary, not a repeater : place, Creedmoor. lime, one mouth 

 notice. In case of more than one acceptance, General Win- 

 gate to choose my competitor at being the best representative 

 of the prone position. Edwin A. Perry. 



0mnq $ag m& $vm» 



MAY IS A CLOSE MONTH FOR GAME. 



Lyman's Gdn Sight.— Mr. WlL Lyman, of Middlefield, 

 Conn., has just devised a farther improvement in his patent 

 rear sight for sporting and target rifles. The new feature is 

 the adjustable peep-sight, the size of which may be altered at 

 the option of the shooter. The use of the Lyman sight pos- 

 sesses peculiar advantages for quick aim, shooting at moving 

 objects and night shooting. 



The " Average " Si-oktsman.— A correspondent urges that 

 the hammerless gun will be a very dangerous weapon in the 

 hands of the "average" sportsman. If by that, term he 

 means the careless sportsman, who lodges his shot in his own 

 and other people's legs, we fully agree in the opinion. The 

 weapon is dangerous when handled by such a person. He 

 has no business with anything at all except a dummy. But 

 the " average " sportsman is not careless with his firearms. If 

 he were, we should hear of a great many more amputated 

 limbs than we do now. The foolish sportsman Seligbteth the 

 heart of the surgeon. 



A Handsome Catalogue.— The most elaborate catalogue 

 of fire-arms ever published in this country has just been is- 

 sued by Mr. H. O. Squires, No. 1 Cortlandt street, New York. 

 It is a pamphlet of some seventy pages, with handsomely il- 

 luminated cover, and is profusely illustrated with cuts of 

 the various guns, rifles, etc., in Mr. Squires' stock. Special 

 attention is devoted to the choice imported breech-loaders and 

 the hammerless gun, the construction of the latter being fully 

 illustrated. Practical directions are given for the selection 

 of fire-arms, and sensible rules laid down to be observed in 

 the care and use of the same. Several pages are devoted to 

 a description of the various processes in the manufacture of 

 a Sne gun. To the wonderful store of valuable information 

 which Mr. Squires has compressed into bio catalogue, he has 

 added a judicious selection of reading matter pertaining to 

 field sports. The pamphlet should be in the hands of every 

 man who already owns a gun or contemplates purchasing 

 one. It is sent upon receipt of twenty -five cents. 



AMERiOAK GTJ3TB.— One of the most striking proofs of the 

 estimation in which American-made guns are now held is 

 shown in the selection by Mr. Schuyler, the senior partner in 

 the house of Schuyler, Hartley <.% Graham, of a Parker gun 

 for use on a recent Western trip. There were two sets of bar- 

 rels, one of Damascus and the other of laminated steel. The 

 13 gauge pair weighed 7|lhs. and the 10 gauge S.Ubs. The 

 guns were made, lock, stocks and barrels, at the works of Par- 

 ker Bros., at West Meriden, Conn. Not an once of the ma- 

 terial was imported either in the Taw or semi finished state. 

 The value of the piece was $400 and no finer bit of workman- 

 ship could have been produced in any of the Birmingham 



Look to the Cam? Fire. — Unless some measures are de 

 vised to check the decrease of timber, the forestry question 

 will soon be one of grave importance to the United States. 

 The annual rate of decrease of forest lands in this country is 

 about 8,500 square miles. Besides, the legitimate drains 

 made by the timber industry, wood for fuel, etc., a large per- 

 centage of this decrease is caused by the great conflagrations 

 which sweep over vast areas each spring and fall. These 

 fires often start from the camp fire of the careless hunter or 

 fisherman. Sportsmen should use all possible precaution, es- 

 pecially at this season of the year. Care should be taken to 

 render spreading impossible, and every spark should be care- 

 fully extinguished before the spot is deserted. It does not 

 savor of the eternal fitness of things that a land-owner should 

 be burned out of thousands of dollars worth of timber by the 

 shiftlessness of an unthinking trespasser upon his domain. 

 Put out your camp fire. 



—Several members of the Canadian Artillery and School of 

 Guunery have recently organized a gun club at Kingston, 

 Ontario. The officers for the year are Lieut. Col. Van Btran- 

 benzie, President ; Dr. Maokea?,ie, Viee-President; Major J. 

 E. Holmes, Secretory and Treasurer. 



Massachusetts —Mr, Wm, R. Shaefer, of 61 Elm street, 



Boston, has u-. i » on exhibition at his store. They 



were all captured in one den. 



Long Islahd— Canarsie, May 3.— Friend and self left 

 Brooklyn at 11 i\ :i. on the 30th instant; reached a small 

 island about 1:15 a. m . iT Canarsie, and slept until 3:40 a. m., 

 ai which hour the ducks began to fly. Put out stools and shot 

 until 6 :30 a. m. , when we packed up and *w York 



for business, Bagged six ducks and two winter yellow-leg 

 snipe. Trip cost seventy-five cents each. W. L. H, 



The fowl have nearly all left the 

 waters of eastern Long Island, and for EU 



:: Peconic and Gardiner Bays scarcely 

 be seen. Isaac. 



AbKAKSAS — Jttcksonporti April 20.— The past winter's 

 sport in this region was a failure. Dry and cold weather kept 



the geese and" ducks moving: very few stopping with us. 



rains have been so late mat. we have L 

 shooting worth mentioning. A sufficient number of quail have 

 been saved to insure good shooting next fall ; wild turkeys 

 are breeding iu the woods in rather unusual numbers, and the 

 season so far is favorable. A number of " smart Alecks " 

 think it is nice to call up gobblers at. this season and murder 

 them. If they had as much sense as the average turkey the 

 latter would soon be exterminated 5 but so far in the trial of 

 wits the bird is ahead of the beast. In fact, a well-educated 

 wild turkey is a " mighty smart bird." May his tribe in- 

 crease. 



lo-v/s.—Pomeroy, April 30.— I have just returned from a 

 trip to Dubuque and other eastern points ; met a cordial re- 

 ception from all resident sportsmen ; did some shooting at the 

 aide in the different matches at that place the top 

 score of 27 straight, most of which were at 21 yards rise. The 

 35th found ine facing the traps at Ford Dodge, in company 

 with your old-time correspondent, " Wahkonza." We shot a 

 match at 20 single rises apiece ; score, 20 to 17, in favor of 

 your kumble servant. By way of revenge, the Doctcr decided 

 beat me on my own ground on game. So, half-past 

 eight Monday morning found us in the field near this place, in- 

 tent upon slaughtering the snipe. By ten o'clock the Doctor 

 had 25 and I had 23, so I gave it up, and we ceased to count sep- 

 arately. By eleven o'clock we had GO together, and by a little 

 after twelve we went home, tired, satisfied and happy. There 

 are plenty of all kinds of waders here this spring, also plenty 

 of golden plover, curlew, etc. Ducks are all nesting. As 

 the most of the prairie near here was burned off last fall, 

 there will be very few prairie chickens' eggs destroyed by that 

 means this season, and as a very large breeding stock is left 

 in the country, it i3 safe to suppose that we will have an extra 

 number to shoot .from this fall. When any of my .East em 

 friends may favor us with a call, they will not fail to meet 

 with a cordial reception and most excellent sport. 



Abe Dacotah. 



A Poor PiuoE to Camp.— Last week Wm. Lallance and Geo. 

 Rhodes, who were on a hunting and fishing trip, crawled into 

 the drum house of the coal works of New Haven, near Porne- 

 roy, Ohio, to sleep. The house caught fire and was burned 

 to the ground, the sleeping men being consumed in the flames. 

 Their bodies were found charred beyond recognition. 



PIN-ATE-D TURKEY. 



Clabbmont, Minn., April 23, 1879. 

 Editor Forest and Stream : 



I inclose herewith a brass pin or wire, which was taken 

 from the gizzard of a wild turkey, shot last year near Fort 

 Ogden, Florida. I am at a loss to determine what the article 

 is. It is evidently not complete in itself, but a part of some- 

 thing else. Can you shed any light upon the subject ? 



G. H. HOUGHTON. 



This pin or wire is two and one-half inches long, as large 

 around as an ordinary knitting-needle, and has a head one- 

 eighth of an inch in diameter. Having in our boyhood seen 

 in our Grandfather's Revolutionary trappings something like 

 this, we bethought us that it might be some part of the old- 

 time soldier's outfit. We accordingly sent the letter and the 

 pin to Maj. H. W. Merrill, who, our readers will recollect, 

 served in the Florida wars, and in response we received the 

 following letter : 



New Roohelle, April 30, 1879. 

 Editor Forest and Stream : 



I have examined the pin you sent me, and pronounce it a 

 "priming wire," used to open the touch-hole of the old-fash- 

 ion flint-lock musket, etc. It ou will see that it has been used 

 evidently for that purpose, for the point of the pin is yet dark 

 and corroded from the effects of the powder and gas. The 

 vents of these guns were large, you will recollect, 1 

 has a reamer at the end to cut out the dirt, etc. It was sus- 

 pended to a string of wire I think. H. W. Mebrii/l. 



And thereby hangs a tale, if only any one could be found 

 to unfold it ; a woof of poesy and romance, if only some one 

 could weave it. 



Away back in the days of Osceola and Coacoochee, a sentry 

 pacing at dead of night beneath the stars, startled by the 

 sudden shriek of owl or foe, dropped this shining pin. 



Peace came. The camp which had resounded with the 

 reveille, the clash of arms and all the pomp and circumstance 

 of war, now deserted and silent, lapsed into its primitive wild- 

 ness ; the turtle-doves billed and cooed, and the spotted, large- 

 eyed fawn sought its grateful shade unabashed. 



But the pin lay glittering in the sun. Then it was that a 

 wild turkey beheld the bright bauble, and— death loves a 

 shining mark— scooped it up. Setting at naught the classic 

 precedent of the rooster in the famous story of "The Dia- 

 mond, the Cock and the Kernel of Corn," this Meleugris gallo- 

 pavo no sooner saw the jewel than he took it in. 



And now behold him peregrinating through the wilderness, 

 an animated pin-cushion, a peripatetic, bipedal, flre-water- 

 and-burglar-proof Safe Deposit. Did he not perchance throw 

 his shoulders back and expand his chest— or, more precisely, 

 his gizzard— and strut about in the proud consciousness that 

 his was the only old original Floridian Pin-a-fore f Or, per- 

 haps, a gaunt phantom of the Red Man's hopeless cause, did 

 he suffer those forty years of pain, his breast— we mean giz- 

 zard— fired by the memory of the dusky old King Payne? 

 Or, again, did he regard the bit of copper in his keeping, i. e., 

 gizzard, a sacred trust not lightly to be surrendered ? and did 

 he go stalking all those years through swamp and hammock 

 and piny barren hunting for a white man at whose feet he 

 might lay it down with his own life ? 



We pin our faith to this last : it is the only one worthy of 

 the noble bird which Ben Franklin said ought to have been 

 honored instead of the eagle as the national emblem of our 



Moreover, we have the pin; a pin is three-i 

 of a pint ; a pint is four-fifths of a point!; and that is a point 

 Or. Stick a pin there. 



We regret that we have not more minute particulars re- 

 garding the outward appearance of this bird when shot. Was 

 neryhue of his plumage especially fine ? Was there 

 any unusual nv ti ithout to indicate the copper 



mine within ? Were the pin feathers remarkable in any way? 

 These points, important as they arc In a scientific, view, it is 

 now too late to determine. One fact in natural history is es- 

 d: a wild turkey can live at least forty years— if 

 properly spitted. 



The skin, too, should have been preserved. A bird that 

 made such heroic, efforts to mount itself before death, should 

 certainly have been mounted by others after death. 



Several of the Seminole War veterans are among our sub- 

 scribers. If the soldier who lost that priming wire should 

 chance to see this paragraph he may recover his property by 

 proving ownership and paying pin-money. What if he 

 should prove to be the forty-ninth cousin of the man that shot 

 the turkey ! Wonderful, wonderful ! 



For Forest and Stream and Hod and Uim. 

 WHEN TO HUNT TURKEYS. 



Willis, Texas, March 4, 1879. 



THERE appears to be great diversity of opinion with re. 

 I 1 the time and season in which the " wild tur- 

 key " (M. gallopavo) should be hunted. I have no experience, 

 except in the extreme southern States, between— say 33 deg. 

 and 39 deg. N. latitude from Florida to west of the Colorado' 

 River, in Texas. Within these limits, and from the closest: 

 observation, 1 find the general characteristics and habitat of 

 the turkey all the same. Further west, on the Concho, Pecan 

 Bayou and other streams, is another variety of turkey— the 

 Mexican, 1 presume— and I only know this from bones that 

 have heeu seDt me by friends out there, being much smaller 

 and shorter than those in our kind here and in the States 

 east of the Mississippi. In our variety the male, or "gob- 

 bler," when at the ago of four years and upward, and in good 

 order, weighs from 201bs. to 261bs., but specimens of the lat- 

 ter weight are exceedingly are • Sllbs. a big average. The 

 hens under like conditions will register lllbs. to 141bs. The 

 tuft or beard of the "gobbler" attains alength of ten to thir- 

 teen inches, and never grows shorter or sheds out. 



Sportsmen hunt them in various ways— various according- 

 to the geographical and climatic conditions of the country 

 wfiere found. On the streams west of the Brazos River 

 this State, where tl :re is but a narrow strip of timber of 

 short growth on either side, some hunt them by riding onhorse- 

 back ; some on either side, and with dogs drive the turkeys 

 into the trees and shoot them out with shotguns, six-shooters 

 or rifles, as the taste of the hunter may BUggest, thereby of- 

 ten killing what their horses or wagons can carry. East of 

 this iu i exas, and in the older States, they are hunted during 

 the fall and winter months by some with dogs to tree thenf, 

 and are thus shot, principally with rifles; some hunt them 



Iking, or still hunting, in the day time, on their feeding- 

 grounds, and when fired into and flushed they are then sought 

 out and shot iu the trees where they have taken refuge ; or 

 the hunter sits down by a tree or old log and yelps or calls 

 them up and shoots them. Another, and the most exciting 

 and interesting method, is in the gobbling season, in Febru- 

 ary, .March and April. But I would get excited over this, and 

 want to say too much about it. They are hunted at this' sea- 

 son by creeping to the tree where one is gobbling, before it is 

 yet daylight, and shooting him off his perch ; or one may 

 sit down behind an old log or in front of a tree, and " yelp'' 

 aa he is gobbling and strutting. But to do this suc- 

 cessfully requires a great deal of experience, combined with 

 an uncompromising patience, a thorough knowledge of all 

 the characteristics of the bird, his whims, his hopes, his fears 

 and his eternally vigilant eye ; lor ose glance of that button 

 on your cap, or the wiggle of your finger to disturb that nios- 



i your nose, is enough. Put ! put ! and a mile is be- 

 tween him and you instanter. You can go there again the 

 next morning ; he will be within a few hundred yards of the 

 same place. Try and call him up again ; you will have bet- 

 ter luck next time. Your cap snaps ! There — he's gone 

 again ! Throw that old gun away and get a breech-loader. 

 Try him the next morning. He will persist in coming until 

 you kill him, at this season — sometimes. 



In the spring, or gobbling season, is the time that turkeys 

 are mostly hunted here and east of this, all through the tirfl 

 bered portions of the country, as the old gobblers are mostly 

 sought after, the hens seldom being killed by sportsmen 

 And it is only at this season that the old gobblers can be found 

 easily, as th&y are as shy as wolves, and go in separate flocks 

 by themselves, and seldom associate with the hens at all. The 

 young gobblers go in gangs with the hens from the time they 

 are hatched until the gobbling of the old males begins in the 

 BPring, at which time they scatter off by one3 and twos by 

 themselves, leaving the hens entirely, from fear of the older 

 birds, Of whom they have a mortal dread. The old birds 

 now become bellicose toward each other, have a few fights 

 and separate one from the other till the gobbling season is 

 over. Audubon says "they kill one another." I Gave never 

 seen one thus killed, or even hurt, only a few spur pricks 

 about the breast and back, and scratches or pecks and wrings 



n.e head. They do not pair. One day he is polyga- 

 mous, the next a widower or bachelor, and that is why 1 in- 

 sist that it is not necessary to prohibit shooting turkeys here 



e 15th or last of April, because the old gobblers are 

 the only specimens or individuals that we do shoot, and one 

 , or attend to all the hens within two 

 miles of him anyhow, and we never more than decimate the old 

 males iu any one locality ; so the stock thereby is not materi- 

 ally impaired. If you make a law to close ou turkeys the 

 1st of January or February we would never kill another tur- 

 key, and I would leave a State in which there was such a 

 law. 



The time for shooting turkeys is peculiarly different from 

 that of any other game bird we have. It is not a game like 

 the quail, grouse, woodcock or snipe, that you can" use dogs 

 on, and spring from covert and shoot at pleasure. The pecu- 

 liar modes of hunting them in the different parts of our State 



