466 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[July 10, 1884. 



dress it for several days and having heard that a decapitated 

 turtle would live nine days, I concluded to demonstrate the 

 truth of the assertion. Strange to say the turtle on April 8 

 •was still alive. I found attached to the turtle many leaches 

 which I removed carefully and put in a glass jar of water. 

 Some of them have brought forth young which are growing 

 rapidly. Think they bring forth their young alive. Have any 

 of the readers of Forest and Stream ever noticed the manner 

 in which the turtles dig the hole on hard ground in which 

 they deposit their eggs? If so let them tell their observations 

 and we will compare notes. I was presented on April 1 with 

 a 'fine swan (ffygrms amencamts) that was killed March 81, 

 on Cedar Point Marsh, which 1 have mounted and added to 

 my collection. Many thanks to the donor, Mr. Theodore 

 Wells.— M. M. Benschoter (Berlin Heights, Ohio). 



Albino Woodcock. — The Baltimore (Md.) Sun of July 1 

 reports that "Mr. Rodman Cole, of thus city, killed a re- 

 markable bird near Tolchester last week. He was after 

 woodcock, and a pure white bird, with the flight and twitter 

 peculiar to these birds, flew up and he brought it down. It 

 was a true albino woodcock, of large size and absolutely 

 spotless. He is having it stuffed and mounted." In the first 

 volume of this journal (Forest and Stream, I., p. 371) 

 was recorded the capture of a snow-white woodcock, at Mil- 

 ton, Mass. In Vol. XII., p. 146, was record of a specimen 

 taken at Augusta, Ga., pure white, save slieht brown ring 

 about the neck. Others have been recorded since then. 



Robins and Fruit. — Editor Forest and Stream,: Cannot 

 some suggestion be made in the columns of your valuable 

 paper by which the killing of so valuable a bird as the robin 

 may be 'avoided by the farmers who grow small fruits and 

 berries? A bird so useful should be' protected (and is by 

 law) from destruction, although but few persons outside of 

 the naturalists fully appreciate the fact. Something of the 

 nature of a "scarecrow" might be used instead of a charge 

 of shot, if farmers would only make the attempt. — Mohican. 



Albino Robin.— Editor Forest and Stream: I was interested 

 in a recent note on an albino robin, as I have one, nicely put 

 up, that I shot last fall while out partridge shooting. I first 

 saw him flying in company with other robins. I followed 

 them quite a distance and finally succeeded in bringing him 

 down and found him to be surely a robin, but almost entirely 

 white with pink eyes. I had the bird put up and he is a fine 

 specimen.— F. N.*M. (Forestville, Conn.). 



\m\* B%$ dt fd 



DAYS WITH THE PRAIRIE CHICKENS. 



THE prairie chicken season is coming around again, and 

 I take it that you may like to hear something of the fun 

 we had with the birds on the prairie last fall. I was out 

 the three opening days with my old shooting "pardner" and 

 two other gentlemen, and w r e had a splendid time. We left 

 here with a three-seated wagon and a driver on the afternoon 

 of Aug. 14, and drove to the house of a farmer friend, who 

 lives about twenty-five miles from here. That has been our 

 headquarters for a number of years. We arrived there late 

 in the afternoon, and after breakfast the next morning we 

 got loaded up and pulled out for the prairie. Both rigs took 

 the same general direction and agreed on a place 10 meet for 

 dinner. I took time by the forelock and put the basket con- 

 taining the company's dinner in the wagon I was going in 

 (in case of emergency). We had four dogs, two old ones 

 and two puppies who were on their first trip. We divided 

 them up so as to give an old dog to each rig, my friend, 

 R. M. Palmer, with whom I usually shoot, was in the other 

 wagon, as he and I owned the two old dogs, and we had to 

 separate them so that all parties would have an equal show. 

 My partner the first day was Mr. Prentice, of this place. 

 Most of our shooting was done over my old pointer, Don, 

 who did not act a bit good and flushed very many birds be- 

 fore we could get a shot. I felt like excusing some reckless- 

 ness on the part of the old villain, as it was his first trip of 

 the season, but I made up my mind that if he did not re- 

 form I should cut a bean pole and go at him. We did not 

 find as many birds as some previous years, but found enough 

 to have a good time. To make a long story short, when we 

 got to the house at night our bag was twenty-seven birds 

 and the other party led us, having forty-five. After supper 

 we drew the birds and stuffed them with hay and hung them 

 where they would get cool, and the next morning packed 

 them and sent them to a railroad station eight miles away 

 and shipped them home and had them distributed among 

 our friends. 



The next day was very hot and we did not do much ; the 

 dogs could not do much either, and we all lay in the shade 

 from 10 o'clock until 4 in the afternoon. The total bag for 

 that day was, if I remember right, about thirty-five birds, 

 which were disposed of in the same way as the others. The 

 next day I had a change of partners, and had for my com- 

 panion Mr. Sunderland, of Freeport, 111., who was here on 

 a visit, and he was one of the most companionable men I 

 have ever shot with, a rattling good shot (much better than 

 myself) and full of fun. We had a circus of our own all 

 day. It was a model day for chicken shooting— cool and 

 cloudy, with a dash of rain, just enough to moisten things 

 up — so that the dogs could show what was in them. My old 

 dog redeemed his character and worked as well as a man 

 could ask. 



We found more birds than on either of the previous days, 

 and we managed to get them down in pretty good shape. 

 One part of the day's picnic was this: the old dog commenced 

 to wriggle himself in a way that showed me he was in the 

 vicinity of chickens, so we got out of the wagon and went 

 over to where he was. By the time we got there he had be- 

 gun trailing, and from his action I knew the hens were run- 

 ning. In the damp grass we could see a lot of parallel lines, 

 showing that it was a covey. The scent was hot, and the 

 old dog was going along, his belly almost touching the grass, 

 and putting every foot down as if he was walking on some- 

 thing that was going to break with him. He went along 

 this way for some distance and finally began to straighten 

 out.but just before he did so, he turned his head a little to 

 see if we were on deck, and said just as plain as if he hud 

 spoke right out, "Here they are, boys. I've done my part 

 of the business; come and do yours."' I told him to go on, 

 and he made a few quick steps and the air was full of 

 chickens. "We got our work in" on them and "downed" 

 four. The rest ot the covey flew over the pratriej we could 

 see them until they went over a hill, it was a rolling prairie. 



We saw them go over one swell but did not see them go 

 over the next one, so we decided that they were somewhere 

 between the two. We got into the wagon and drove over 

 there, perhaps a quarter of a mile, and after plugging around 

 for quite a while we found them; and my companion, Mr. 

 S., nearly stepped on one, which caused the bird to get up, 

 and about the time he got up he got down again. We were 

 right amoug them, and they began to get up all around about 

 as fast as we could attend to to them." We had seven birds 

 down before we picked up one, and after we had got them 

 picked up two more flipped up, where we had been tramp- 

 ing and shooting all this time, and we gathered them in. 

 There were two of the covey left, for seed, one getting up 

 out of range, the other while both guns were empty. This 

 gave us nine birds, and the four we got the first raise made 

 thirteen from that covey. You can imagine it was quite 

 rich while it lasted. We did not strike any more bonanzas 

 of that kind, but had a most beautiful day all day, and when 

 we got through at night had forty-tour birds. 



The other boys did not have as good luck in finding birds 

 that day as we did. They brought in about twenty-five. 

 Our host had brought a big" piece of ice back with him wnen 

 he came from town, so we drew the birds and packed them 

 in ice, and the next morning decided to pull out for home, 

 as the dogs were getting lame and we were somewhat stiff 

 ourselves. The first two days had been very hard on the 

 canine part of the company. • It was quite warm, and there 

 had not been any rain for a long time and the grass and 

 stubble were harsh and wore their feet more than hunting 

 twice the length of time usually would. It being their first 

 trip, too, they were not in as good order as later in the 

 season. 



The place where we hunted is in the midst of the best 

 chicken country I know of, and where we stopped is a cap- 

 ital place to stay. We of course always pay them, but they 

 have always been very kind and did a great many things 

 that they never got any pay for. I have put in the openiner 

 days of the season there for a number of years, and always 

 had a big time. 



It was a good thing we decided to go home as we did, as 

 it turned out to be a very hot day, and we could not have 

 done anything if we had tried. We were from 9 o'clock 

 until 3 in the afternoon getting home, and our team were 

 nearly played out before we arrived. We got all of our 

 birds' home in good shape and did not lose one. 



This was the longest hunt of the season with me. I was 

 out for two days after that and out for a day a number of 

 times, and had varying success, once being completely 

 "skunked." It is becoming so in this part of the country 

 that a man cannot go out for a day and do much. Every- 

 body that can lift a gun shoots, and the game within easy 

 distance from town is soon killed off. I did not shoot any 

 ducks to speak of this fall, although there was the best duci£ 

 shooting here they have had for a number of years. 



E. L. J., Jr. 



Aubert Lea, Minn. 



THE GAME OF DES ARC. 



"V^EARS ago Arkansas ceased to be spoken of as desirable 

 X hunting range, but the renowned "Traveller's" State 

 still offers some attractions to the lovers of gunning and 

 angling, though the "perfect glory" of other days has de- 

 parted forever. There are but few localities in the South and 

 West of which the same cannot be said. 



Large game of the dangerous class is very scarce. I heard 

 last season of but four panthers being killed in this section 

 of country. They had taken refuge from the Cache River 

 overflow in an overhanging oak, and were discovered and 

 killed by a settler named York, after a hard fight with one 

 of them, which followed him through the shallow water and 

 overtook the dugout in spite of York's frantic efforts with 

 the paddle. 



Bear are very seldom seen in this region, though they arc 

 scattered through the entire lowlands, if one may judge 

 from the numerous tracks found in the vicinity of the 

 tangled canebrakes. Good bear dogs would no doubt stir 

 up "their game in a few hours; without dogs it is useless to 

 think of hunting them ; and even when brought to bay, it is 

 doubtful if the hunter could reach his dogs, through the 

 matted cane, vines and briers, in time to save them from 

 destruction. Bruin is never found here in the open woods 

 of the uplands. 



Deer are still quite plentiful, and I suppose they will 

 remain so for a century to come. It is simply impossible to 

 completely exterminate them, as the vast swamplands to the 

 eastward "serve as a perfect reservoir of all kinds of game, 

 from whence we have a new supply as often as the old one 

 is exhausted. Last Sunday I rode down to the bayou to note 

 the stage of the waters, and while seated beneath the shade 

 of a tree, two deer came down to the water's edge near me, 

 and swam calmly across, remaining in rifle range for ten or 

 fifteen minutes. It was truly a tantalizing sight. 



The gobbling season for turkeys lasted fully two months 

 this spring. Each morning the "king" of game birds sang 

 his glad welcome to the glorious dawn, and every broken 

 remnant of a firearm was brought into requisition. The 

 slaughter was something simply enormous. Most of those 

 killed were gobblers— old ones— from eighteen to thirty 

 pounds weight. The young gobblers seemed immunity 

 from danger by wisely abstaining from the garrulous habits 

 of their elders, together with the hens, rendered by nature 

 incapable of the amount of chin-music generally expected 

 from females as a class. 



The favorite sport just now is spearing and shooting fish. 

 Owing to the late and continuous overflow of the spring, the 

 buffalo were unusually late in beginning to "float" and 

 "suck" at saplings and floating straws, and very few were 

 killed until the first of this month. It is splendid sport for 

 a short time, but the fish are so numerous that it gets rather 

 monotonous to me after a while. For choice I prefer to 

 throw the. iron into the lazy gars, that lie as straight and 

 inert, as a stick on the surface of the bayou, and are appar- 

 ently transformed into sections of doubled -triggered chain 

 lightning as soon as they feel the stroke. Two weeks ago I 

 saw a choice article of this description. It was fully eight 

 feet in length, and would have weighed probably 150 pounds. 

 He was lying fair twenty feet from the boat, but the youth 

 who was paddling squarely refused to go an inch closer, as 

 he hardly fancied the idea of "fastening on to him." I 

 dipped the boat nearly full of water in a vain attempt to 

 reach the giant with an eight-foot gig-handle and ten feet of 

 cord, and my bad luck probably saved me a nice wetting, 

 for he would certainly have "died game." 



Black bass are just begining to raise at bait. I think 

 Bayou Des Arc will fully equal Reel foot Lake for the game 

 fish of the South. 



Of small game we have an abundance. Squirrels are so 



plentiful that they attract but little notice. Quail, or part- 

 ridge, as the natives call them, are whistling in every thicket, 

 and follow the furrows in a stone's throw of the plowman. 

 Rabbits and turtle doves are called game in some sections; 

 here we rarely waste a shot on them. Duck shooting is 

 splendid every fall. One of my neighbors killed and sold 

 over one thousand mallards in the months of November and 

 December last. 



I might go ahead and say more in praise of this region as 

 a happy hunting ground, but I can better express my opinion 

 by remarking that this point is my choice for a permanent 

 location, after shooting over the best grounds in the pine 

 swamps and on the frontier prairies of the Lone Star State 



S. D. B. 



Des Aec, Prairie County, Ark., June 9, 1884. 



TWO-EYED SHOOTING. 



I SHOOT with a rifle, shotgun or revolver. I raise my 

 gun to my right shoulder, and close my left eye to aim. 

 I hold a pistol in my right hand, close my left eye, and fire 

 the moment my eye catches the sight as I raise the pistol to 

 coincide with the line from my eye to the object. I have 

 shot nickels out of split sticks at thirty steps with my pistol 

 four times out of five repeatedly; have shot the spots out of 

 the five of clubs, and fired my sixth shot into the spot on the 

 ace of clubs at the same distance; have shot glass balls in 

 the air, and killed a deer by shooting it through the heart at 

 fifty yards, measured. 



1 use an old-style Smith & Wesson in shot, square handle, 

 six-inch barrel, ' .32-caliber, long cylinder, but for several 

 years have shot nothing but .82 ex. short; rim fire. I believe 

 all other .82-caliber cartridges too heavy for pistols. I use a 

 .38-caliber repeating rifle; have never had a shell stick in 

 the field, nor do 1 believe any other man ever had if his ex- 

 tractor was right. After repeated loading into and pumping 

 out Of the magazine the bullet is often driven further into 

 the shell than it was origiually, and if pure lead is flattened 

 at the point, and a very quick motion of the lever will cause 

 either this flattened bullet or the edge of the shell to catch 

 on the upper edge of the barrel, particularly if the gun be 

 held with muzzle down. Scarcely any ipse dixit would make 

 me believe that a properly loaded new cartridge ever did 

 stick or could be stuck in a repeater. 



I use a Clark & Sn eider double gun, 12-gauge hammer 

 gun, have broken eighteen glass balls out of possible twenty, 

 thrown from a rotating trap, double, eighteen feet from me, 

 trap behind a heavy blanket for a curtain. I used No. 10 

 shot, one ounce, three and a fourth drams "sea-shooting" 

 powder. 



In regard to glass balls breaking from one or two pellets: 

 I was shooting last summer at glass balls with a Stevens 

 gallery rifle .22-caliber, balls pitched into the air by a friend. 

 During the shooting I knocked both sides out of each of two 

 amber balls, leaving in each case a circular ring of glass, 

 surmounted by the neck of the ball, I have these balls yet, 

 I preserved them because 1 deemed the circumstance rather 

 unique. 



The first person of whom I ever knew shooting "with 

 both eyes open" was my grandfather, who was born in 1790 

 and died in 1863. His shooting was done with the flint- 

 locks and the old percussion locks, and the crooked-stocked 

 "five-foot rifles'' of the days gone by. Of course you know 

 that in those days two hundred yards was a cruel dis- 

 tance, but I have often heard the circumstance mentioned 

 by others of grandfather's killing a crow when it was 310 

 steps from where he stood to the foot of the tree on which 

 the crow sat. He was an unerring shot and gave me my 

 first lessons with a rifle. I may add that he shot "cross fire," 

 that is, he raised his gun to his left shoulder, though right- 

 handed, and I have never seen a cross fire shot who was not 

 a marksman. What do your readers say to this? 



A friend of mine, a Methodist Episcopal minister, was the 

 next and only other "two-eyed shot" I have ever known. 

 He uses a repeating rifle, and is, perhaps, better known than 

 any other amateur in this section, but he should rather be 

 called an expert. He differs from my grandfather in his ex- 

 planation of "two-eyed shooting. " Grandfather has often 

 told me that it ' 'made no difference to him about the sights 

 on his gun, and he didn't believe he ever saw them.'' My 

 clerical friend says he "sees the sights," and the rear sight 

 on his gun is a very fine one graduated to 1,000 yards; so 

 fine, that I cannot '"catch a quick bead" through it. In 

 proof that he does see the sights, I know that on one occa- 

 sion he missed twelve consecutive balls pitched by me; he 

 then tried at a stationary target six steps away, and found 

 that the rear sight nad been moved. This is strong evidence, 

 but 1 do not believe any two-eyed shot sees the sights. 1 be- 

 lieve they shoot, as bowmen do, by instinct. 



I would much like to see something from your readers on 

 cross-fired shooting. Amateur. 



Somerset, Pa. 



A MAINE DEER CASE. 



C CONCERNING game protection, in some sections of 

 J Maine, matters are not just as they should be. Deer 

 have greatly increased under tbe fostering care of the law. 

 They are frequently seen in the open land where formerly 

 they were very rare, and in the lake region they are getting 

 to be quite abundant. But the vacationist who would be a 

 sportsman is interested. When he goes to tbe Androscog- 

 gin or the Moosehead Lakes to spend his few weeeks from 

 school or business, he takes his rifle or shotgun with him, 

 For what? He knows that there is not a single species of 

 tranie in that whole State that is not protected by law, and 

 the man who kills it is liable to arrest and punishment^ Just 

 such sportsmen are causing- the friends of game protection a 

 great deal cf trouble. They demoralize the lowest and worst 

 class of the guides with their money. They care nothing 

 for the future of the game; they are not citizens of the State; 

 their only object is to kill a deer or a moose, and come home 

 to be regarded as a great hunter by their friends. Generally 

 their friends understand them, however, and knowing them 

 to be only lazy dudes, mistrust that the game was killed or 

 thrown iii their way by some guide. 



An actual case in point will best illustrate. A Sunday or 

 two ae;o a two-year-old buck swam out upon Rangeley Lake 

 in plain sight of the Mountain View House. A vacationist 

 he don't deserve the naaie of a sportsman — named Ham- 

 mond, from Boston or New Haven— the registers disagree, 

 but he is not worthy of either city— ordered a guide to 

 paddle him out after the deer. The guide's muscles soon 

 brought the valiant hunter up with the poor, frightened 

 creature, when, having no gun, the deer's brains were beaten 

 out with a paddle and his throat cut. To the great discredit 

 of all present the miserable law breaker and deer thief was 



