FROM THE GAME FIELDS. 



20I 



apple, off-hand and quickly, at the risk of 

 overshooting by not properly allowing 

 for the trajectory at the short range. The 

 next shot will be at one standing erect 50 

 or 75 yards away. Here, if one is not care- 

 ful, he will worse than miss by shooting at 

 the middle of the animal, striking below a 

 vital spot and only making an injury which 

 will cause a slow death, the woodchuck 

 meantime getting into his burrow. The 

 next opportunity for a shot will be at some 

 distance too great to guess accurately, any- 

 where from 150 to 200 yards, up a hill or 

 across a gully, and to complicate matters 

 your game has seen you and is half con- 

 cealed at the entrance of the hole. In this 

 case the shot must be placed so as to kill 

 him instantly or he will be lost. One shot 

 will be with the wind, another against it, 

 the next with the light behind you, another 

 with the sun in your eyes, and so on; 2 

 successive shots rarely being made under 

 similar conditions. 



In most cases a slight miscalculation of 

 distance would result in a miss, or worse, 

 an animal only maimed. In long shots, too, 

 windage must be considered. 



For sport the best time to hunt these an- 

 imals is from the first of August till late 

 in September, or until they hibernate. By 

 this season the young are enough sophis- 

 ticated to make it some sport to get them, 

 and such fields as they will be found in will 

 have been cropped. The chucks come out 

 to feed soon after sunrise while the grass is 

 yet moist from dew, and again late in the 

 afternoon, more than at any other time of 

 day; but some will be out at almost any 

 hour, if not frequently disturbed. A sharp 

 shower followed by bright sunshine will 

 bring them out in force at any hour. At 

 such times they will not stay in their bur- 

 rows more than a few minutes even if 

 driven in. But let one which has had his 

 fill be frightened, and no more will be seen 

 of him till the next day. 



The woodchuck has one habit which 

 strongly suggests his kinship to the whist- 

 ling marmot of the West. As is generally 

 understood, the marmot received his de- 

 scriptive name from his habit of whistling. 

 It may not be so well known that the wood- 

 chuck of the Eastern States has a similar 

 habit, though practiced under slightly dif- 

 ferent circumstances. 



In the middle of summer it is not uncom- 

 mon, where the woodchuck is numerous, 

 to- hear, just before dusk, its sharp, chuck- 

 ling whistle at intervals of 2 or 3 minutes. 

 But unlike the marmot this call is never 

 given by the woodchuck unless he is well 

 concealed. The call begins with an ex- 

 tremely shrill short whistle, followed by one 

 of lower pitch given with a sort of chuck- 

 ling sound and a diminuendo ending. It is 

 rarely, if ever, heard except just at dusk 

 and then in the concealment of briers or 

 other cover right at the mouth of the bur- 



row. What purpose is served by this prac- 

 tice I have never been able to determine. 



Often when surprised some distance from 

 the burrow and chased in either by a man 

 or dog, a woodchuck, just as he goes into 

 the ground, will utter a shrill whistle which 

 is an abbreviation of the call above de- 

 scribed. It has a saucy sound, and almost 

 suggests a challenge to the pursuer; but is 

 more an alarm call, than anything else. 



In hunting these little animals there is 

 ample opportunity for the display of marks- 

 manship of a high order. To make such 

 shots as will kill them where they stand, 

 will tax the skill even of an expert target 

 shooter. To be sure, the range is not often 

 200 yards, but the unknown and constantly 

 varying distances and conditions more than 

 offset the shortened range. 



The selection of a rifle to hunt them with 

 depends on what else, if anything, the 

 shooter purposes doing with it. Were I 

 selecting a rifle for this shooting alone, I 

 should get a Stevens .32-40, of the Schuetz- 

 en pattern, 10 to 12 pounds in weight, or in 

 other words, the finest target rifle made, 

 suitable for any range up to 300 yards. 

 This rifle can be depended on to keep its 

 shots within a 2>Y\ inch circle at 200 yards. 

 If I wanted something nearer an all-round 

 gun, I should get a .30-30 or a .32-40 Mar- 

 lin repeater, with special smokeless steel 

 barrel and fitted with Lyman sights. Either 

 of these latter guns, with properly reloaded 

 cartridges, would suffice for any game 

 from squirrels to bear or moose. 



After getting an outfit for shooting, be 

 careful how you shoot and where, and then 

 hunt more with the camera than with the 

 rifle, leaving some game for those who may 

 come after you. 



A GOOD PLACE TO LIVE. 



We have good shooting here. Our main 

 sport is on Chinese pheasants, which were 

 plentiful the past season. A friend and I 

 were out the first day of the open season, 

 and got 20 each, which is the limit. In 3 

 hours we saw at least 500 birds and flushed 

 bevies of from 6 to 75. They soon scatter 

 and are then not so easy to get. A pheasant 

 with a broken wing can outrun the average 

 foot racer, with an even start. They are at 

 times hard for a dog to work. The dog 

 will make a point and instead of putting the 

 bird up, will have to take the trail again; 

 sometimes repeating that a dozen times be- 

 fore getting the bird up. 



Beside the Chinese pheasant, we have 

 blue grouse and ruffed grouse. Quails are 

 found, morning and evening, in the grain 

 fields close to the timber. In the heat of the 

 day they stay along the streams, in the 

 willows. The season closes December 1st, 

 on these birds. We have fairly good shoot- 

 ing on geese, ducks and jack snipes, all 

 through the winter. From May 1 to about 



