8 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



|Jan. 31, 1884. 



in my 16-bore hanimerless. Saon after arriving we got up a 

 splendid sovey, out of which we bagged six. Crossing a 

 lagoon and going down the river we" started three or four 

 others, and that night reached the house of our friend P. N. 

 8. with twenty-eight birds. Next day we bagged over forty, 

 exclusive of a woodduck and a woodcock, and would have 

 done still better but for a rain which interfered with us. 

 Owing to the fact that my dog Branch not only refused to 

 hunt where I wanted him to, and when T was somewhat im- 

 I erious in my commands actually ran from me. I saluted 

 him with a load of No. 8 shot at'less than forty yards. This 

 expedited his retreating movements somewhat, and I did not 

 have the pleasure of his company again. My friend Tom S. 

 had a bitch, however, who fully supplied his place. This 

 hitch was the. same one I bought two years ago, because she 

 was recommended as "a good retriever from land and 

 water," and whose exploits in Chatham I faintly described 

 in the Fobest and Stream. "Well, she has improved since 

 that day, and is now a very fair field dog. 



I found Branch that night about feeding time, and he 

 looked at me as if he feared T would shoot him again. His 

 fears may not be, groundless. That depends, very greatly. 

 upon whether! am simple enough to give him » chance to 

 try my patience, and if I am. whether he attempts to run off 

 from me. if he does, l.e will tret a load at very short range, 

 and there will be a dog skin for somebody. 1 very much 

 fear thatl was badly fooled in that dog. 1 have another, a 

 Lav mrk. about fourteen months old, and a black and tan pup, 

 aboutfive months old, presented to me hy my friend A. H. Gal- 

 loway, of Rockingham county. I trust these two may be 

 made of some value. In the' hands of a dog educator, no 

 doubt, they would be made so. But I am hardly patient 

 enough for that sort, of business. 



After this digression, I return to the subject to say, that 

 the day following we returned home, and on the way called 

 at the plantation where we five hunted. We soon had up 

 some birds, and after T had shot awhile, T found that my 

 shells were exhausted. Rill Wobbing had used my little 

 Webley, and had fired more than thirty times. Tom S., 

 however, who rarely hits a bird, though be is an adept on 

 rabbits, generously tendered me the use of his 12-bore, and 

 I was thus enabled to finish the hunt. We got thirty one 

 birds, and after taking ten each for ourselves, and giving 

 Tom an equal number, got in our buegies and reached home 

 that night. During the trip we killed over 100 birds, and 

 left enough to stock several thousand acres of land. 



If the weather and my business permit, I shall try that 

 section again before the season expires. It may be that I 

 shall have Mud along with me, with the gun he did not 

 swap, and I shall have some amusement. He always affords 

 it. If 1 can get him to accompany me, and then match 

 Crickett against Teceel, we shall, at least, have a jolly time, 

 and, besides, supply our hospitable friends with all the birds 

 they can eat. 



This has been written when the temperature was too low 

 for any comfort, and after thawing the ink. My hand- 

 writing, which, my Mends say. is none of the most legible, 

 I apprehend you will find trouble in reading. Wells. 



Jan. 7, 1884. ^_ 



THE GREAT LONE LAND. 



A LTHOUGH 1 have perused the columns of your valu- 

 J^JL able and entertaining paper for nearly two years, I have 

 failed to perceive any correspondence from what I consider 

 the sportsman's "Eldorado," this great Canadian Northwest. 

 Tt is universally conceded to be so by all sportsmen who have 

 visited the magnificent grounds, shot ducks and prairie 

 chickens, geese and swans, pelicans and wavys, partridges 

 and rabbits by the score. 



The city of Winnipeg is situated on the main line of the 

 Canadian Pacific Railway, at the junction of the "Rushing 

 Red" and the Assinaboine rivers, about 475 miles northwest of 

 St. Paul, Minn., where there now stands a city of gome 

 thirty or forty thousand inhabitants. Many old settlers re- 

 member when the buffalo, a race now nearly extinct in the 

 Canadian Northwest, roamed in countless hundreds; and 

 even now. in close proximity to the city, their trails, on 

 which they tramped single file during the troublesome and 

 rebellious years of our forefathers, are still distinctly visible; 

 and, should you visit the town of Calgary, on the Canadian 

 Pacific Railway, some 800 miles west of Winnipeg, you will 

 find the whitened and bleached bones of thousands of these 

 once noble and numerous animals. By the way, Mr. S. L. 

 Bedson, Warden of the Provincial Penitentiary" a splendid 

 and ardent sportsman and genial companion, is in possession 

 of a herd of some twenty-five pure, full-grown and domesti- 

 cated buffalo, which were, I believe, raised from calves cap- 

 tured by some Indian hunters while on the chase. They run 

 at large on the prairie, mingle readily, and cross with our 

 domestic cattle. 



The country here consists of level prairie, for the most 

 part, to the west intersected here and there with bluffs of 

 poplar and magnificent lakes; also, in some places, with 

 marshes, which are fairly alive with fowl, while on the 

 farms and prairies are found prairie chickens in abundance, 

 and on the bluffs rabbits without number. In the north and 

 east it is heavily wooded with fine spruce and tamarack. 

 The country east is very rocky, and contains valuable gold 

 and iron mines, also scenery which is. I believe, unrivalled. 

 The beautiful Lake of the Woods, surrounding the pretty 

 City of Rat Portage, which is fast becoming- a popular sum- 

 mer resort, will, we may rest assured, not remain long in 

 pbscutity, and the day is not far distant when people will 

 flock in thousands to this place, bathe on the magnificent 

 beaches, camp on the thousand islands and enjoy the 

 splendid trout, bass, pickerel and pike fishing of which it 

 affords an abundance. In the south the country is not so 

 heavily wooded as in the east, and at or near the Souris 

 River rich coal mines are now being developed, while rail- 

 way construction is pushed forward rapidly in order to open 

 up the country. 



It is said by sportsmen, who certainly should know, that 

 the Souris affords the best prairie clfieken, deer and elk 

 hunting they ever found. It certainly must afford the for- 

 mer, for a friend of mine, who is a very poor shot, recently 

 bagged over seventy chickens in one day's hunt. Judging 

 from this feat I should say a good sportsman could bag 

 an unlimited quantity in the same space of time. The Man- 

 itoba prairie chicken is somewhat similar in appearance, 

 though larger and has coarser feathers, than the pinnated 

 grouse. Tuey are found in countless numbers on the bare 

 prairie, rarely, if ever, seeking cover, not even in winter, 

 when they burrow in the snow and are very wild to approach, 

 but in warm weather they will permit you to approach 

 wimiu tw( nty feet of them, white they are concealed in the 

 loug grass, before rising. With a good setter they afford 



splendid sport during September, October and November, 

 and in my next 1 shall give you an account of some of my 

 hunting excursions after them and other kinds of game in 

 the "Great Lone Land." Ojibway. 



Winnipeg. Manitoba. 



"TRIAL BY JURY." 



Editor Fond and, Stream: 



In your issue of Jan. 17, an reticle appears headed "Trial 

 by Jury." A week or two before that, in a short articlethe 

 statement was made that the game laws as they stand at 

 present were better than any that were likely to be passed 

 by the Legislature at Albany. In this I fully concur, and as 

 the article "Trial by Jury"* has undoubtedly been read by 

 thousands of sportsmen in this State who recognize Forest 

 akd Stream as the standard authority in all such matters, 

 I would like, with your permission, to endeavor to show 

 that even in these cases, one of which is an extreme one, the 

 law afforded ample protection. I am not a "country 

 lawyer." but I believe that light penalties rigidly enforced 

 are better than very heavy ones. During Governor Cornell's 

 administration, as many of your readers will remember, 

 a new game law was passed by both the Assembly and 

 Senatf, and was vetoed by the Governor on the ground that, 

 as the violation of the law was only a misdemeanor, the fines 

 and punishment were excessive. 



Now. in the case of Murdoch, the plaintiff was compelled 

 to sue for trespass as the season was open, but he should 

 have accepted the defendant's offer or tender of £2 and costs, 

 which could not have been less than $1 50, his lawyer's fee 

 was at least &5, for even in the country they seldom forget 

 to charge. There, was also the loss of his day to appear for 

 trial, probably $2 more, which would make $10.50, and had 

 he went to trial without making the tender, he would have 

 been compelled to pay costs to the amount of nearly $4 in- 

 stead of $1.50. As I said before, the plaintiff should have 

 accepted the offer to settle and quietlv waited for the next 

 customer to be served the same way. He thinks he accom- 

 plished nothing: he will find that he has done more toward 

 the protection of game in his secticn than he imagines. He 

 has show-n to this man that with a jury, no doubt reluctant 

 to impose a heavy fine on a laboring 'man, they were still 

 compelled by duty and the obligation of their oath to fine 

 him. There are few people who like to be brought into 

 court with the certainty of being beaten. In regard to the 

 clergyman's case it was very simple. Instead of suing him 

 for trespass, he should have been arrested for killing game 

 out of season, the case proven, and the jury, by their oaths, 

 would have been compelled to couvict him ;' the law pres- 

 cribes the penalty, and if the magistrate refused to impose 

 it, he too became liable. John H. Davis. 



East Chester, Jan. 20. 



[In this case the plaintiff's purpose was to test the law, 

 not to punish the defendant.] . 



WINTER NOTES FROM MICHIGAN. 



POOR Bob White is having a hard row to hoe here- 

 abouts this winter. Not only has the thermometer 

 had a disgusting habit of diving down under the zero mark 

 for the last month or so. but the poor little quail have also 

 been obliged to hunt, hard for feed. The corn crop was 

 nearly a total failure last year in this State, so the birds are 

 dependent for their food upon rag weed and the grain that 

 can be picked up along the railroad tracks. The crust upon 

 the snow is a blessing to the birds just now, enabling them 

 to run across it in their search for rag weeds. As for 

 the trrain cars, wouldn't it be quite a scheme to start a 

 fashion among the bad boys of boring a hole here and there 

 in every grain car they came across'? I wish some one would 

 set the thing going. And I think the augers wouldn't cost 

 the boys much if applied for at the right place. 



A great many rabbits have been killed during the winter 

 in this vicinity. It is to be regretted that the use of ferrets 

 is becoming more and more common. How different this 

 hoggish way of hunting the rodents and that portra5 r ed by 

 "Mark" in FOREST and Stream of Jan. 17. 



Reports come down from the pineries that wolves are re- 

 markably numerous this season. In Roscommon county 

 especially they appear to have increased in numbers over 

 previous years. Talkingof wolves "reminds me" of one we 

 shot some six or eight years since. We were walking along 

 a "tote" road, when of a sudden one young hound bristled 

 up and snuffed the air excitedly. Thinking he scented a 

 deer we let him go, whereupon he bounded off eagerly and 

 fiercely, and disappeared over the side of a slight ravine. In 

 less than two minutes we heard a crackling of brush and 

 made ready to shoot the expected deer, but were surprised 

 at the sight of our heroic hound coming back to us at full 

 speed, tail between his legs, and twenty yards behind, fol- 

 lowing hard after, was a large gray wolf. And when the 

 wolf saw us for the first time not fifty yards away, what a 

 surprised and foolish-looking wolf he was. He dropped on 

 his haunches with a hang-dog, chop-fallen expression, and 

 seemed to say : "Well! WhatanassI have made of my- 

 self." He seemed to know that he was done for, and sat 

 still until a .50 -caliber ball tumbled him over. 



A new organization in Detroit is "The Michigan Gun 

 Club and Game Protective Society." The officers are as 

 follows: E. H. Gillman, President"; Al. Henkel, Vice Presi- 

 dent; II. Dunnebeck, Treasurer; B. Worcester, Secretary; 

 U. G. Chilvers, F. A. Woods, L. N. Hilsendegen and Her- 

 man Bowman, Directors. 



The Island Club, of East Saginaw, are planning to build 

 this spring a club house, to cost some $7,000, upon Herri- 

 man's Island, in Saginaw Bay. 



Fishing through the ice is now at its height upon nearly 

 all the waters of our State. At St. Clair Flats, St. Ignace 

 and, in fact, at places innumerable, immense numbers of 

 large pike and other vaiieties of the finny tribe are speared 

 daily, and is exciting and comfortable sport, sheltered as 

 most of the fishermen are in a warm, portable little house, 

 which protects tieni from wind and cold while they play 

 their decoys and spear their victims. 



Mr. J. B. Horto'n, of St. Paul, Minn., has been in Detroit 

 for a day or so showing up to sportsmen a new liammerless 

 gun, invented by Burkhard and Nozotny, of St. Paul. I 

 saw the gun taken apart and critically examined by several 

 gentlemen, and it really embraced some new principles that 

 would seem to make it a strong candidate for popular favor. 

 As yet but five or six have been made. Mr. Horton is now 

 on his way East for the purpose of introducing the gun. 



Delta, 



Detroit, Jan. 3d 



THE CHOICE OF HUNTING RIFLES. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



I have been very much interested in the ideas of my 

 brother sportsmen in regard to a .40-% repeater, and as I 

 hunt large game four months in every year with a reasona- 

 ble amount of success, I will give my opinion. I want a 

 .40-90 repeater, Winchester preferred, if it can be made so 

 that it will stand the work and be safe. 



If after a thorough test, the manufacturers think a lever 

 gun will not be safe, let them make a bolt repeater, with if 

 possible, a set trigger, and I will be willing to pay what it is 

 worth and try it. I use a .45-60 Winchester. It' is a gooa 

 gun, and I like it, but my hunting companion has got a .40- 

 70, that he uses as a .40-75— pounds in 75 grains of powder. 

 At from 75 to 125 yards I can kill as well as he can, but at 

 200 yards, more or less, I am not certain to get there, and he 

 is; and I know it is not my fault, for I have tried his gun, 

 and I can do as well as he can with it. But when it comes 

 to game on the run, I can kill more than he can, because 

 mine is a magazine and his is a single shot. Of course a .40- 

 90 will be an experiment, but I am willing to help pay for 

 it. 



In regard to sights, I have tried pretty much all the new- 

 fangled sights in the market, and have' laid them all aside. 

 and gone back to plain open ones. I have half a dozen 

 patent sights that are for sale cheap, for I shall never use 

 them again. 



I must say a few words in defense of the magazine guns, 

 Winchester especially, in reply to "W. N. B.," in your 

 issue of the 10th. 1 have carried a Winchester full of 

 cartridges as a saddle gun since 1871. Ridden always with 

 cartridges in it, and never had it to fail me but once, and 

 then I had got a .45-caliber Colt's pistol cartridge into the 

 chamber by accident. I have been in lots of tight places, 

 and my Winchester has always pulled me through— and I 

 have never had to climb a tree, just because the pump handle 

 arrangement was so speedy. W. J. Dixon. 



Cimarron, Kansas. * 



I have been accused of heresy in some points relatiug to 

 the rifle, and justly so if 1m resy be deliberately butting one's 

 head against the stone wall of popular opinion. But heresy 

 may well be pardoned if accompanied by no proselyting 

 spirit. I think that not a line of mine* can be found in 

 which I have advised bujing any particular rifle or in which 

 I have said what was the best rifle. 1 have said what I 

 preferred, but preferred only because I wanted immediate 

 results and no cripples, thereby clearly implying that other 

 rifles would be better for those who enjoy hunting up 

 wounded game. 



For several year's I have had but one opinion as to the 

 best hunting rifle, the best for general use and for average 

 results over a long reach of time. And that opinion is this: 

 That (for one who cares nothing about how many cripples 

 he makes) the rapidity of fire of the repeater overbalances 

 all its own defects and all the advantages of any other rifle. 



Few who have read what I have heretofore written would 

 suspect that nearly all the time I was writing against small- 

 bores as being cruelly wasteful of game, 1 was using a repeater 

 for small game, and sometimes (on account of its conveni- 

 ence) for deer. I have used only the Winchester models, 

 but I presume all others made on that plan are as good or 

 good enough. And looking back over the yeais that I have 

 hun1(d with and without them, I have no hesitation in say- 

 ing that, throwing the convenience of their cheap and easily 

 obtainable ammunition, their strength and perfect working 

 under the shabbiest treatment, and other points entirely out 

 of consideration, their speed of fire— in the long run— over- 

 balances all else. A few days, or even months of hunting 

 may indicate other results, and many will disagree with me 

 in this opinion. But, as Pindar well says, the rolling years 

 are the wisest witnesses. A double rifle delivers its first two 

 shots a trifle more quickly than the best repeater. But when 

 I look down the long line that stretches back into the dawn 

 of my rifle hunting, I can see hundreds of instances where 

 the third and fourth shots were worth oh ! so much, yet were 

 just a second or two too late. And many, very many times, 

 they would be too late even for a liammerless double rifle with 

 automatic ejectors. 



The ease of obtaining ammunition and the absence of all 

 "traps" commends the Winchester to me more than an- 

 other point. I don't care for killing much game, as 1 kill 

 nothing to sell or to throw away ; but in traveling about as I 

 do, it is a, great relief to have no loading tools, powder, lead, 

 ladle, etc., to carry with me. 



The question of its accuracy is readily disposed of. I shall 

 not discuss the muzzlelooding question again. I expiessly 

 stated long ago that what I said about the muzzleloader was 

 said only to induce makers to improve still further the breech- 

 loader. I think Maj. Merrill goes too far in saying that the 

 muzzleloader is the. best hunting rifle. He is driven to the 

 other extreme by that absurd, unreasoning idolatry of the 

 breechloader that denounces as an old fogy and a fool every- 

 one who does not drop on his knees and remain there in blind 

 adoration. Game is now so wild that no slowly loading rifle 

 can be the best hunting rifle, even though it be a breechloader, 

 much less if a muzzleloader. 



But there is still another point that the most devout wor- 

 shippers at the shrine of the breechloader have entirely over- 

 looked. They have been too busy in abusing as old fogies, 

 etc., men who used the breechloader all the time, and would 

 use nothing else for hunting, yet had the wicKed audacity to 

 hunt for defects in the great idol in the hope that its maker 

 might remedy them. That point is, that the Winchester, as 

 now made, will do better average shooting than any muzzle- 

 loader will do, unless the muzzleloader is in the hands of one 

 who is both careful and expert in loading it. The loading 

 of a muzzleloader, so as to insure better work than the Win- 

 chester will now do with its factory ammunition, is one of 

 the fine arts of shooting. Not only is much experiment 

 necessary to find the exact diameter of bullet and the exact 

 thickness and quality of patch— matters in which the rifle is 

 .more whimsical than an old granny — but care must be taken 

 in loading at every shot. I can make any muzzleloader 

 throw as many wild balls as any breechloader, yet any one 

 not au expert, and a keen one at that, could watch me load 

 it all day without discovering any difference in the loading. 

 This is one reason why some muzzleloaders, taken from the 

 corner where they have stood for years, to compete with the 

 modem breechloader, have failed to show the accuracy that 

 Major Merrill and others besides myself have aserilM d to the 

 muzzleloader in general. The -'fitting" has been foigotten, 

 and it would take a day or two of experiment to regain it 

 And perhaps even its importance has been forgotten or never 

 was known. 



The chances are, then fore, very great that the breech- 

 loader will excel the muzzleloader in ordinary hands. And 



