9 6 



RECREATION 



The Washington girls are not built of the 

 kind of timber that jumps on a chair and 

 screams at sight of a mouse. On January 

 13th, of this year, a man working for Fred. 

 Phillips, a rancher, two miles from North- 

 port, Wash., ran to the house from the creek 

 bottom, where he was chopping, and reported 

 that the dog had treed a big cougar. Mr. 

 Phillips was not at home, but his daughters, 

 Faye and Florence, aged seventeen and nine- 

 teen, seized the rifles 'and ran to the spot. 



The "cougar" proved to be a large Canada 

 lynx. He was perched high up in the tree 

 and glared savagely down on his feminine 

 adversaries. 



The young ladies drew a steady bead and 

 at the crack of the rifles the animal bounded 

 into the air and lit within a few feet of the 

 girls who, with the nerve of the frontier, 

 stood their ground and reloaded their rifles. 

 The dog sprang at the lynx, but badly wound' 

 ed as it was, it soon gave the dog the worst 

 of it. The girls, though expert shots, dared 

 not fire at the lynx for fear of killing the 

 dog, as the movements of the battling ani- 

 mals were so rapid. At last a yell of agony 

 from the family pet was too much for the 

 girls to stand and they rushed to the rescue ; 

 one caught the dog by the hind legs and by 

 main strength pulled him away from the 

 infuriated cat, while the other sent a bullet 

 through the brain of the lynx. 



J. A. Nash, Spokane, Wash. 



SINGLE-DAY TRIPS. 



Editor" Recreation: 



Dear Sir : Well, we have had articles on 

 camping out galore. Now, I have a gospel 

 to preach. It is on the necessity of spend- 

 ing single days, when one can not get more 

 time, in the wilds of nature, all the Sundays 

 and other holidays during the warm season 

 of the year, and some of the time also when 

 it is not very warm. 



The fore part of the day in the wilds is 

 far more cheerful and profitable than the lat- 

 ter part. Those who do not get out until two 

 p. m. or later, walk around for an hour or 

 two, become warm with the exercise, and 

 then it is time to return home, which they do 

 on a trolley car. The cool atmosphere of 

 the evening chills them and they are ex- 

 posed to colds and rheumatism ; then they 

 are so disgusted with the outing that they 

 feel inclined to "swear off." It is often de- 

 sirable to go out as early as sunrise or 

 earlier, taking lunch along for breakfast. 

 Naturalists often find it desirable to take 

 along enough for noonday meals which en- 

 ables them to spend the whole day. 



Against the numerous articles needed for 

 a camping outfit, I have learned by experience 

 that for a single day's outing in the study 

 of nature, one can seem almost to take noth- 



ing along and yet have all he needs. Often I 

 have appeared at the rendezvous when friends 

 would ask me whether I was taking along 

 anything at all, yet I would have with me a 

 good field-glass, a pocket lens, manuals for 

 both birds and plants, lunch and tackle for 

 repairs in case of little accidents. 



No indoor exercise in the world can be a 

 substitute for fresh air and sunshine ; and 

 these things are needed far more than any- 

 thing else by all those who are confined to 

 indoor work of any kind. 



Ewing Summers, Washington, D. C. 



"BORROWING" ON FAST FLYING FOWL. 



Editor Recreation: 



Every man who has shot wild fowl knows 

 that it sometimes takes a good, smart shot 

 to stop them. A mallard, or a teal, with half 

 a gale under its pinion feathers, can travel 

 at a pace that makes the fastest express slow 

 by comparison, but some recent experiments 

 carried out by a Scotch sportsman are, never- 

 theless, astonishing. By a clever system of 

 signals and timing, he ascertained that mal- 

 lard occasionally reach a speed of 190 miles 

 an hour, and teal 144 miles under identical 

 conditions. In a flat calm, wild duck did 

 sixty miles an hour, and ten and a half in 

 the teeth of a gale. 



As wild fowl are much the same wherever 

 found, there can be no doubt American birds 

 attain similar speeds. Granting this, let us 

 consider the practical side of the question. 

 Supp( 'ng, a man facing north and shooting 

 at a duck flying to the eastward, at a pace 

 equal to 190 miles an hour, the bird being 

 exactly forty yards distant when the trigger 

 was pressed ; we shall find that the shooter 

 must swing to a point almost twenty-eight 

 feet in front of the bird in order to center it 

 with the charge, almost but not quite, for 

 so violent a gale as must blow to help a duck 

 to this speed, would inevitably carry the 

 charge of shot several feet to leeward. 



This allowance is calculated upon the sup- 

 position that trigger pull, fall of striker, pas- 

 sage of charge up gun barrel, and shot flight 

 over forty yards, take one-tenth of a second, 

 which is true with a very narrow margin of 

 error. 



To give this allowance, the muzzle of a gun 

 with thirty inch barrels and ordinary length 

 stock, should be swung just ten and one- 

 fourth inches. 



In a flat calm an allowance of nine feet 

 should be made, with a swing- of three and 

 one-half inches. 



If the birds are flying in the teeth of a 

 heavy gale an eighteen inch lead would per 

 haps be sufficient, but it would be better to 

 allow more, even up to five feet, to compen- 

 sate for short drift. 



Jas. Westlake, Norcross, Ga. 



