AMERICAN 



SPORTSMAN'S JOURNAL. 



Terms, Fonr Dollars a Year. I 

 Tea Cents a Copy. ( 



NEW YORxC, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1877- 



/ Volume 9.— No. 11, 

 INo. Ill Fuhon St., N. ¥. 



FAREWELL. 



O TJMMER is fading ; the broad leaves that grew 



k-' So freshly green when June wag young, are failing 



Arid all the whisper-hanmed forest through 



The restless birds In satldeued tones are calling 

 Prom rujtlinj; hazel copse ai;d (angled dell, 

 •'Farewe 1, sweet summer, 

 Fragrant, fruity summer, 

 Sweet farewell ! " 



Upon the windy hill, in many a field, 



The honey bees hum slow above the clover, 

 Gleaning the latest sweets its bl«om may yield ; 

 And, knowing that tneir harvest time la over, 

 Sing, half a lullaby and half a knell, 



'• Farewell, sweet summer, 

 Honey-laden summer, 

 Sweet farewell ! " 



The little brook that babbles 'mid the ferns, 



O'er twisted roots and sandy shallows playing, 

 Seems fain to linger in its eddied turns, 



And with a plaintive, purring voice is saying, 

 Sadder and sweeter than my song can tell, 

 "Farewell, sweet summer, 

 W^rm aud dreamy summer, 

 Sweet farewell !' 



The Dtfnl breeze sweeps down the winding lane 

 With gold and crimson leaves before it flying ; 

 Its gusty laughter has no sign of pain, 



But in the lulls it sinks to gentle sighing, 

 And mourns the summer's early broken spell. 

 "Farewell, sweet summer, 

 Ecsy, blooming summer, 

 Sweet farewell!" 



So bird, and bee, and brook, and breeze make moan, 



With melancholy song their loss complaining : 

 I, too, must join them, as I walk alone 



Among the sights and sounds of summer's waning ; 

 I, too, have loved the season passing well- 

 So, farewell summer, 

 Fair, but faded, summer, 

 Sweet farewell 



George Arnold. 



For Forest and Stream. 



fuml ^hootiqg. 



WHEN dying nature, like the dolphin, begins to array 

 herself in her brightest colors, memory plays over 

 by-gone scenes of happy autumn days, and there comes steal- 

 ing over us an intense and irresistible yearning for the field. 

 Our brute friends feel it too. Old Jack no longer casts a 

 sleepy eye upon us and taps out a lazy -welcome with his tail 

 on the stoop as we come out. He sits up in monumental im- 

 portance, watches us with a deep whine of anxiety, cocks his 

 head on one side and the other, as his glistening eye tries to 

 fathom our intentions, and when he sees us take down the 

 gun or the old shooting coat he races, barks, dances and near- 

 ly jumps over our head with joy. 



I imagine that the longed-for first of November is at last at 

 hand. By sunrise we are in the field. The morning is 

 bright, fresh and frosty, and our nerves all tingle with happy 

 anticipations as we enter a buckwheat stubble bordering a 

 piece of tangled wood. The moment we cross the fence the 

 dogs strike for the leeward side of the field, and take a slow 

 canter back and forth, crossing each other's path at almost 

 regular intervals so as to pass within scent of every particle 

 of ground, but moving »teadily ahead. Their eyes flash with 

 excitement, and the tips of their tails lashing rapidly from side 

 to side. Bee them slacken occasionally to a trot and then 

 to a walk aB they fancy they smell something suspicious, and 

 give a sniff of extra caution as they approach a clump of bri- 

 ars or patch of weeds. 



Jack suddenly stops in full career, raises his nose and falls 

 into a slow walk. His tail, sinpathizing with its corporeal at- 

 tachment, slackens alao to a alow, wavy motion. Now he 

 stops a moment, takes a few delicate sniffs of the spicy breeze, 

 looks cautiously about him and then at us with an expression 

 which says as plainly as could human tongue, "0. K." 

 Meanwhile Dash is at the other end of the field, tearing about 

 like a lunatic on the fresh trail of that prince of nuisances, 

 the detestable little cotton-tailed hare. When they will often 

 make a fool of an old and sober dog what else can be expected 



of a young one on the first day of his second season ? An 

 affectionate fondling with a very impressive pocket biack 

 snake restores him to his senses, and he begins to watch Jack 

 with intense interest and almost imitates his motions as he 

 once more moves slowly on. 



Jack stops again. This time lie drops his head, raises one 

 foot and stops Ihe light, wavy motion of his tail, which now 

 becomes stiff and straight as a ramrod, but quivers faintly at 

 the tip with excitement. Da-h stanls a few yards behind 

 looking on with gently swaying tail and sparkliug eye, but 

 with no other sign of life. All around us is still as death, ex- 

 cept the autumn breeze sighiag along the ground, the patter 

 of nut shells which the squirrels fling from the old yellow 

 hickory in the wood, the piping of the robin, squeal of the 

 highholder in the old red gum tree, or the melancholy cry of 

 the bobolink in his altered coat, bidding farewell to his sum- 

 mer home. Few moments of our weary lives are more de- 

 lightful than this, with evyry neive strung to its utmost ten- 

 sion, we are excited in spite of _ our long experience and our 

 pulse bounds in spite of our effort to be cool and collected. 

 But oh, shame ! Our thoughts are earthly and sensuous. 

 We want meat, " and think only of our tooth and the market 

 value of our birds !" Alas ! how 



" One by one, in turn, some grand mistake 

 Casts off its bright skin yearly like the snake." 



But a few months ago we cherished the fond delusion that we 

 were gentlemen enjoying one of the divinest of earthly pleas- 

 ures. But we awoke from our pleasant dream to find our- 

 selves ruthlessly consigned to the vulgar herd of meat hunters 

 by that immortal hand that, disdaining the butcher's weapon, 

 slays with the long bow in true godlike style, woodpeckers 

 when " young and fat " and "juicy and sweet," poor little 

 larks for their " exquisitely en joyable " thighs and un weaned 

 squirrels for their ' ' deliciously toothsome " flesh. 



As we slowly advance, fourteen or fifteen quail suddenly 

 spring from a few feet ahead of Jack with simultaneous burst 

 and spin like bullets for the brush. Quick as a flash 

 your eye settles upon a single one ; the gun comes to your 

 shoulder ; you catch a dim glimpse of the barrel lying in the 

 bird's direction ; in a twinkling there is a shock, a report, 

 smoke, feathers flying, something whirling downward. The 

 gun shifted and another bird comes down, bouncing along the 

 ground within ten paces of the first one. And all done in a 

 second ! As handsome a double shot as ever was made. I 

 tried the same thing ; but my two went buzzing away to the 

 woods without leaving a feather floating on the air. 



The dogs remain in their tracks until we load, when we 

 send one for the dead birds and then move on to the woods 

 where our little friends disappeared. On arriving there Dash 

 comes to a point. Just ahead of him, from under a knot of 

 tangled cat briars, darts a brown, whizzing streak and vanishes 

 in the thicket. But your eye catches his direction ; the gun 

 comes like a flash to the same line ; the charge sweeps through 

 to the green briars and dead leaves, and a dull, heavy fall is 

 heard. A fine snap shot that — not done, as some suppose, 

 without any aim, but by an aim, dim and indistinct indeed, 

 and quick as thought, but still an aim ; a shot requiring the 

 highest perfection of both natural and acquired skill. But 

 no ; we are again mistaken, for the lord of the mighty bow 

 has made the discovery— back seats, Newton, Galileo, Colum- 

 bus and others— that any fool must necessarily hit a quail 

 every time with a wholesale murder dispensary that covers 

 the enormous space of two feet. 



Dash brings the bird, and we move on. The dogs beat the 

 ground closely over and over again, but can find nothing 

 more. Can we have mistaken the place, or have the rest gone 

 further on ? No, they are probably here, but holding their 

 seent. There ia but one way to beat them on this trick— to 

 wait. We will spend about half an hour among the saplings 

 down by the little spring run after woodcock. We do so, 

 and bag five full-grown, Btrong-winged, whizzing beauties 

 that make us feel ashamed for having killed those feeble little 

 wretches last summer. 



As we approach a thicket along the brook Dash begins to 

 draw ; and before he can get close enough for a point out 

 bursts two splendid ruffed grouse. Their hoarse, roaring. 

 wings carry them like arrows from our sight before we get 

 our guns fairly raised. We catch the.ir coura . however, and 

 follow them. Soon Jack draws. Lively now! Have your 

 gun at the hip and your finger on the trigger. Up they spring 



like a flash about twelve yards from us. Both guns crack to- 

 gether, and down comts one within ten feet of the place from 

 which he sprung. The other darts ahead some two hundred 

 yards and lights in a tree, a thing they sometimes do even 

 when not chased or barked at. 



Going up to the tree we discover him standing erect and 

 still as a statue near the trunk on a limb about ten feet above 

 us. What a thrill such a chance would send through the 

 gastronomic appointments of the great modern revolutionist! 

 Imagine the wild tumult of tender emotions in his salivary 

 glands as he draws the weapon of the gods at the "rich, white, 

 tender, sweet, lucious, toothsome, delicious, etc.," breast, 

 and with marvellous skill pot-shoots him with an arrow at ten 

 feet distance ! Well, let us try him with the unscientific 

 blunderbuss that must necessarily kill in the hands of any 

 bungler. I shy a piece of dead.stick at him accompanied with 

 an imitation of his noisy flight. Off he goes with a down- 

 ward curving rush like the swoop of a falcon. Bang, whang, 

 whang, bang, go our four-barrels, and through the smoke and 

 flying leaves we catch a glimpse of a dim streak fading away 

 in the distance without even a feather for a souvenior. 



But it is now time to return to our quail. We will try and 

 make a sure thing of it now. Stopping about one hundred 

 yards from where we think they are, we sit down and I com- 

 mence the "Autumn call," or more properly, perhaps, the 

 female's call. After giving it a few times at intervals of 

 three or rour minutes between every three or four notes, we 

 suddenly hear, right from the place we hunted so closely, the 

 tender, sweet "Kloi — ee— ee, kloi— ee— ee, kloi— ee— ee.' 

 Our answer is soon followed by another and soon by severa 

 more from the same direction. They are moving now, and 

 we will try them in a few moments. 



We do so ; and in less than two minutes both dogs are 

 pointing on ground they hunted so carefully about an hour 

 ago. Dash has his head low down" and turned toward a 

 clump of dead grass and briars, while Jack is a few yards off, 

 all screwed up in a heap as if on a fall and he had struck an 

 invisible stump and stuck fast to it. Let's attend to Dash 

 first, and you take the shot. Nothing stirs as you walk in 

 ahead of him; but he moves in a step closer, and crawls 

 around to the other side, faintly wagging his tail, crouching 

 low and trembling all over with excitement. You give a kick 

 at the clump ; but all is still again except Dash, who this 

 time crawls up until his nose is within six inches of it, and 

 looks nearly crazy with expectation. Another vigorous kick, 

 and Dash, unable to contain himself any longer, jumps in at 

 the same time. Out comes a quail from between his fore paws, 

 twists around your head and buzzes away behind you. But 

 just as he vanishes behind a thick little scrub oak your shot 

 shivers its dead leaves and down he comes. 



After Dash brings it we go to Jack who is still keeping his 

 point with the serene composure of a two-pound bull frog on 

 a sunny mud bank. Dash backs him at once. Away go two 

 birds almost from under Jack's nose. No wonder the old 

 chap stopped so quickly. One falls to each gun. On order- 

 ing Jack to bring them he does not move, but only turns his 

 head slightly. 



" What, still another there?" 



It looks like it, certainly. Most any good steady dog will do 

 that sometimes. On kicking around in the direction of Jack's 

 nose another starts from the dead leaves almost under our 

 feet, and wheels quickly upward to the left, while three bar- 

 rels harmlessly turned the thick brush behind him. The rest 

 of the birds are soon found. As they have all been moving, 

 a little the dogs fiud them at once. While hunting up the 

 last Dash strikes a trail which, from his actions, is evidently 

 that of another bevy that have run in from the stubble where 

 we found the first. On he goes, followed cautiously by Jack, 

 now winding around fallen tree tops, now crawling through 

 cat briars without a whimper, now faster, now slower, now 

 stopping, now creeping on again. On he goes, one hundred 

 yards, two hundred yards, a long trail, but a fresh one. A 

 ruffed grouse bursts with a shivering rush from before him, 

 but he pays it no attention. A dirty little hare flirts up from 

 behind a stump in his path, and makes him give an involun- 

 tary start, but with a wistful look in the direction of the little 

 woolly-tail he moves straight ahead. On he goes, scarcely 

 moving now, step by step he crawls, with the stealth of the 

 midnight thief, down toward the brook. 

 Hello ! there they are about thirty yards ahead on that lit- 



