438 



RECREATION 



be it east or west, north or south, to me is 



most interesting. From the larval dragon 

 (lies that crawl along the bottoms of reed- 

 strewn watercourses to the soaring swan, 

 snow-white against the sunset's afterglow, 

 all are beautiful to me, all well-placed in the 

 infinite plan— doubtless all useful, even 

 down to the black rattlesnake that I kill 

 without mercy. 



At one place, where a country road 

 crossed the track, there was a large band of 

 little pewits feeding — fearless little rascals, 

 smallest of all the sandpipers. We walked 

 down among them almost, my dog and I, 

 and even then they would not fly. So we 

 left them at their meal, and turned into the 

 road where the fences were farther apart, 

 and the meadow more open. Here I had 

 hopes, even, of curlew, but saw none until 

 we had traveled fully a mile, picking up a 

 solitary willet at one little pond and two 

 black-bellied sandpipers out of a band of 

 perhaps twenty. What these last were 

 doing so far from the beach, I have not yet 

 been able to figure out; evidently they had 

 stumbled by chance upon these feeding 

 grounds, and, finding them richer than the 

 tidewater flats they knew, had settled down 

 here for the night. These are, as a rule, 

 hard birds to stalk, and harder yet to kill 

 with a small load of fine shot. Their 

 feathers extend considerably beyond the 

 line of their bodies when in flight and one 

 must shoot close and hard to get them at any 

 range. Those I got — with the aid of my 

 dog, to whom be much glory — were killed 

 cleanly at at least twenty yards, not a bad 

 range when one considers the size of gun I 

 was shooting and the number of the shot — 

 chilled nines. 



There is something so very satisfactory 

 in the work of this little gun, when the man 

 behind it is feeling good, that I have never 

 been able to quite give it up, though I know 

 of my own experience that with either a 

 sixteen or a twelve I could get much more 

 game for the same amount of stalking and 

 a trifling increase in the powder and shot. 

 These things were somewhat in the nature 

 of day-dreams. Indeed, I was standing 

 there, commenting to my dog on the beau- 

 ties of the plover, when, far brought from 

 out the reaches of the southern sky, there 

 came a long, faltering call — the voice of a 



curlew band on its way into the great 

 meadows after a day on the sandy beach. 

 The curlews' call is like their flight, waver- 

 ing and uncertain, but it carries a great 

 way through the still air above the marshes; 

 it will even make itself known above the 

 roar of the breakers pounding on the uncon- 

 querable sand. To me it is sweet music, 

 sweet as the call of the quail over the sage- 

 brush flats, sweet as the whirring sound of 

 the wings of myriad doves that I have heard 

 in the good old days as I stood beneath some 

 thick-leaved oak, just on the rim of a fresh- 

 mown barley field. Ah, the dove is a wonder 

 in the air, a tester of all the skill any wing- 

 shot ever had, and yet the curlew will give 

 you just as hard a game if you try to stalk 

 him, if you give him a chance for his life — 

 and, in this day of shooters and guns, there 

 is only one way to hunt all game, furred, 

 feathered, hoofed or finned, and that is the 

 still-hunter's method. It is high time that 

 decoys and other deceits be abandoned; 

 high time that the man pit himself and his 

 skill against the bird and its cunning. And, 

 if we did that, how many of us who hunt 

 solely as a means of passing away the time 

 that lies so heavily on our hands would 

 come home with even one quail, one rabbit. 

 Not many. Would you? Possibly. Would 

 I ? Yes, for I have been at the game of the 

 Indian and the trapper, the game of stalking 

 all things wild, both with camera and gun, 

 for lo, these several years. 



But, to return to our curlew, there they 

 were, far away to the south and well up in 

 the sky, settled down into as steady a form 

 of flight as they know how to maintain. 

 Down went I, down went my dog, into a 

 tussock of rank grass at one side of the road, 

 and there we crouched, he with his nose on 

 his forepaws — how many times when hidden 

 in a cramped blind have I wished that I 

 could put my nose down on a pair of silken 

 paws as he can — and I kneeling as best 1 

 might. Would they come near? Yes, they 

 would and they did, dropping down until 

 we could hear the rush of their wings as 

 they beat through the clear, cool air. On 

 and on, low over the meadow, scarce twenty 

 yards away, directly across the road. 



Two yards ahead of the leader might 

 catch the second or third bird. I was new at 

 curlew shooting then and I thought the 



