4° 



RECREATION. 



pangs of regret over the great cost of the 

 tiny victory. But, thank the Lord! they 

 were not that kind of men, and instead the 

 pictures they made will give lasting unal- 

 loyed pleasure to themselves and to the hun- 

 dreds of thousands of others who will hence- 

 forth see them. 



More power to the League and the New 

 Sportsman! 



Ernest Seton Thompson, New York City. 



Dear Recreation: The inspiring evi- 

 dence in your November number, of an able 

 bodied hunter preferring the snap shot pho- 

 tograph of a living Bob White on its nest, to 

 the carcass of the bird filled with shot, marks 

 an era in the evolution of man that Darwin 

 himself could scarcely have predicted from 

 the sportsmen of his recent day. The beast 

 in "man dies a slow death, but it is dying. 

 Even Bob White has advanced his moral 

 status from that of his polygamous, selfish 

 kin, the true quail of Europe; and is among 

 the most loyal of mates and tirelessly de- 

 voted of parents. Certain virtues are time 

 honored by men and beasts alike; but that 

 there is more actual pleasure in preserving 

 the lives of creatures it has been our wont 

 to destroy, than in sacrificing them to our 

 pride of marksmanship or the gratification 

 of our stomachs, is a new idea, rooted in 

 men only who have outgrown the domina- 

 tion of the brute within. 



Only the sportsman who has never tried 

 to photograph a living, wild bird at close 

 range, imagines it is a greater test of skillful 

 marksmanship to shoot one. Only the man 

 who possesses some such permanent and 

 charming trophy of the chase as this picture 

 of a setting Bob White exhibited by Mr. 

 Keyes, can appreciate the truth of his 

 statement, " I must confess that this hunt 

 with a camera afforded me more pleasure 

 than any shooting I ever did." By compari- 

 son of a pure pleasure like this the idea of 

 that quail on toast becomes as sickening as 

 a quail diet after 10 days. 



Neltje Blanchan. 



A WILDCAT'S VISIT. 



Priest Rapids, Wash. 



Editor Recreation: A little adventure re- 

 cently befell us here on the Columbia river. 

 We had bought a quarter of fresh beef, and 

 had it hung by a chain on the back porch. 

 About 3 o'clock the next morning I was 

 awakened by hearing the chain rattle. Look- 

 ing through a small window that opened on 

 the porch I could see, by the bright moon- 

 light, a large wildcat. It had been trying 

 to get at the meat. I got my shotgun, but 

 the noise I made frightened the animal and 

 it fled. I placed my gun near and returned 

 to bed. 



Our cellar opens by a trap door on the 

 porch, and in it my little girl had shut her 

 favorite kitten, lest it should disappear as 



had others of our cats. At 5 o'clock I was- 

 again aroused by a terrific growling, spit- 

 ting, and caterwauling. Cautiously opening 

 the window, I looked out. Within 6 feet of 

 me was the wildcat, smelling, scratching 

 and growling, at a small crack in the cellar 

 door. Beneath the door the little kitten 

 was challenging, with its loudest voice, the 

 huge cat to mortal combat. 



Cocking my gun, and getting the muzzle 

 through the opening, I fired. Through the 

 smoke I could see the cat roll over to the 

 left, and then, with a prodigious leap, it dis- 

 appeared. Thinking I had missed it, I went 

 back to bed. 



After breakfast, I found some hair and 

 a little blood in the snow, which was about 

 2 inches deep. I followed the tracks about 

 300 yards to an almost perpendicular bluff 

 of rocks, up which the cat had seemingly 

 gone. I made a wide detour and coming 

 to the edge of the bluff I discovered him 

 lying on a projecting point. A load of 

 BB's in the face settled him. He fell 150 

 feet and my boy picked him up dead. He 

 weighed 25 pounds, besides a chunk that 

 was missing from his right shoulder, where 

 my first shot had shattered it. He had a 

 beautiful skin, though it was considerably 

 damaged by shot. I have no doubt it was 

 he or some of his kind that killed our other 

 cats. H. Parrish. 



HEART, BRAIN, AND BACKBONE SHOTS. 



Philadelphia, Pa. 



Editor Recreation: In May Recrea- 

 tion, F. W. M. calls me to account for my 

 opinion expressed in a previous number. 

 During the controversy last summer con- 

 cerning " heart shots," I related 2 instances 

 where I had shot mule deer, through 

 the heart. In both cases they ran quite a 

 distance before falling; and I claimed it was 

 necessary to strike the brain or backbone to 

 drop them in their tracks. 



F. W. M. takes exception to this and cites 

 3 cases in his experience to prove backbone 

 and brain shots are not the only ones in- 

 stantly fatal. I trust he will pardon me if I 

 say he is not well up in anatomy. In his 

 first case he shot a doe through the neck. 

 Second: He shot a buck in the nose and 

 the bullet went through the neck. Third: 

 He shot a buck through the heart and the 

 bullet also passed through the neck of a doe. 

 He found the doe lying where she had 

 stood, and the buck some little distance off. 



All this only proves my statement. F. 

 W. M. probably does not know that, in all 

 animals and birds, the vertebra or back- 

 bone, runs from the head to the hips. In 

 shooting his 3 victims through the neck he 

 fractured the vertebra without knowing it. 

 I consider a shot through the middle of the 

 neck as fatal. 



I did make a shot, some years ago, that 

 dropped a deer dead in his tracks. At least 

 he was dead when I got to him, 5 minutes 



