Oot. 16, 1884.] 
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FOREST AND STREAM. 
227 
for the place. It is quite possible that the communication of | after harvest. So you see J had several, to me, very plaus- 
“L.” comes from a similar source. Finally, if “L.” or any 
other man will furnish me the name of any guide who 
“urged” him to come up in the woods and shoot deer in 
June, I will haye that man watched, and if the guide or the 
principal shall engage in any such dastardly enterprise, he 
will be shown tbat the protectors are neither dead nor asleep, 
P Ricuarp U, SHmrman, Commissioner of Fisheries. 
Saranac Lake, N. Y-, Oct. 12, 
THE OLD DOG’S REVENGE. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
The ruff'd grouse shooting about here is prettty fair for 
this time of the year. 1 have alwaysfound the first two 
weeks in October to be rather a poor time to make a good 
bag, the birds being scattered badly. A month or so later I 
can find a great many birds where now they are scarce. 
The woodcock shooting has been poor, owing to extreme 
dry weather. A day or two ago I found eight very fine 
birds in one cover. <A cold storm would bring on quite a 
number of birds. 
Yesterday a friend came out here with a couple of young 
dogs, and as I wished to see them work I left my old dog at 
home. We had fair luck, hagging fourteen grouse. At 
night my old dog would not take the slightest notice of me, 
and I was told that he had been very uneasy all day. I left 
five grouse on the piazza that night and at 6 the next morn- 
ing they were still there, at half-past 6 they were all gone, 
and no one knew anything about them. I noticed that the 
old dog’s nose was covered with sand, and I at once sus- 
pected that in order to get even with me for leaving him at 
home he had carried off the birds, I tried to make him 
fetch them, but couldn’t (I can send him half a mile after 
anything I have left). 1 looked about every where, and finally 
found one bird carefully buried in the garden, but no signs 
of the others. Now had these birds been killed over my 
dog they might have been left on the piazza a week and he 
would never touch them. Hereafter I shall have to take 
better care of my birds or else take the old dog with me. 
C. M. STARK, 
Dunbarton, N. H., Oct. 11, 1884. 
FOOD OF RUFFED GROUSE. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Isee that it is suggested to examine the crop of ruffed 
grouse. I have always been in the habit of doing so, and 
find it of great assistance in finding birds, forif you find 
certain leayes in ibe crop you can tell where to look for the 
birds. I have tried the same thing with trout when fishing 
some of our mountain ponds. Most of the birds we killed 
yesterday had been feeding on apples and beach leaves. I 
have found, later in the season, nearly a pint of apple tree 
leaves in a grouse’s crop, at least when they were taken out 
there seemed nearly a hat full. This season I hope to bag 
from 250 to 300 grouse, which, I think, is enough to satisfy 
most any one who isnot amarket shooter. C. M. Srarx, 
Dunparton, N. H. 
Fititor Forest and Stream: 
Last week f killed two ruffed grouse, and was led to ex- 
amine their crops out of curiosity as to their food, knowing 
that there were no beechnuts this season. One of the crops 
was filled with green leaves, mostly birch and raspberry, 
nothing else being found. The other was filled with the 
same with the addition of some hard white substances, which 
I took to be ground nuts. 
Shooting is better here than for many years. Woodcock 
have bred here this season in goodly numbers, the first ever 
known in this vicinity except scatteringly for a year or two. 
Have had yery fair sport with them. Sportsmen here are 
just beginning to find that more sport can be had with the 
erouse over a good setter than with the little barking cur 
that has always been used until this year, and will, I think, 
tesult in making game less wild and scarce, as the barking 
dog, in my opinion, scares away more birds than the sports- 
man and gun, K, 
LANCASTER, N. H. 
BREEDING OF QUAIL. 
Liditor Forest and Stream: 
I find in my rambles about the field, and also by reports 
from others, that nearly all ofthe early coveys were destroyed 
by the heavy rain of the early summer, and most of the 
young birds at this writing are not more than half grown, 
in many instances too small to fly. While crossing a field, 
in which peas had been planted, 1 saw a rather unusual 
“medley,” some two weeks since. My young dog being 
with me began ranging over the field, ae soon came to a 
“stand.” Upon going up, I saw the old birds running hither 
and thither, as is usual with them, when the young are very 
small, I called the dog off and turned to leave them un- 
molested, when at my feet rose three or four birds nearly 
grown, then up went a few about half grown, while some, 
too small to fly, were running in the grass, and all these with 
only one pair of ‘old ones.” I baye frequently seen two 
different sizes in one covey, but this is my first experience 
with three. Feige at 
BELyIDERE, N. C. 
Bditor Forest and Stream: 
_l was born and raised in old Virginia, midway between 
the Blueridge and Chesapeake Bay—one of the best quail 
sections in this State. And being descended from parents 
whose fathers and grandfathers, on both side for many gen- 
erations, were fond of horses and hounds, guns and pointers, 
it is natural that 1 should have inherited’ a fondness for field 
sports, In my boyhood days the quail, oz as we term them 
here, the partridge (and if I mistake not the correct name of 
this gamy little birdis Ortya virginianus), was an cspecial 
fayorite with me, and I studied iis habits very closely, aud 
have continued so to do for more than fifty years. You re- 
member the oid saw, ‘‘Wise men often change their opinions, 
fools and idiots never,” Prior to this season, 1884, 1 was in 
the habit of accounting for the late broods of partridges so 
often met with in the months of August and September, and 
sometinies even as late as October, upon the assumption that 
the parent birds had been robbed of their eggs by some bad 
boy or their first nesting place so molested that the birds 
leftit entirely and made a new nest, and that this might 
happen more than once to the same pair of birds. Again I 
thought the June rains, which are very copious during cer- 
tain seasons, might have drowned the first brood or that 
‘some old sow had eaten them, for it is a fact well known to 
he farmers that there is no better way to insure a scarcity 
Mf partridges than to turn stock hogs into the stubble fields 
ible theories for accounting for those late broods, which the 
advocates of two broods said were the second broods. 
Now for facts. During the month of May last, two pairs 
of partridges nested near my house, and in due course of 
time hatched out their broods. Ifrequently saw both of 
these broods; a pair of old birds (cock and hen) being found 
with each brood until about the 10th of August, when flush- 
ing one of these broods | noticed the absence of the hen bird. 
A few days later I flushed what I thought then and still 
think was the same brood, with the same result, that is, 
there were twelve or fourteen young birds and only one old 
bird, and that the cock. This set me to thinking, and I 
feared some villainous hawk had caught the mother bird, 
but I went up to the house and brought my setter out and 
made him find the other brood for me, With these I also 
found a cock bird but no hen. I did this at intervals of a 
few days for more than two weeks, and in all this time did 
not find either of the hen birds, always a cock with each 
brood. But a little Jater on I one day accidentally stumbled 
upon a flock of wee little birds witha hen bird but no cock 
in charge of them. I thought these events over a good deal, 
and now light began to dawn upon me, so I again took m 
setter out and hunted this field carefully with this result; 
found two broods of partridges nearly grown, each in charge 
of a cock bird but no hen, and two broods of very young 
partridges not yet able to fly, each in charge of a hen bird 
but no cock. Now sum up four old birds, two cocks and 
two hens in stubble field near my residence, four broods of 
young partridges, two of them evidently hatched about the 
first of June, and two late in August. T. E. Eras. 
Norroway C. H., Va., Sept. 29, 
Winprow1i on Lone Isuanp.—Center Moriches, Oct. 10. 
—The excessive warm weather for the past ten days has 
given but very poor shooting to sportsmen in this point of 
the Great South Bay. The ayerage bag to one gun has 
hardly ever exceeded three ducks in one day. Wednesday 
night the wind freshened and blew a gale from the north, 
which resulted in bringing into the bay Jarge numbers of 
coots, broadbills, some redheads, with an occasional teal 
and black duck, The shooting at the Narrows to-day was 
exceptionally good at our point. At 11 A. M. we counted 
to the three guns, 41 coots, 7 redheads, 5 winter teal, and 1 
black duck. This is the first real good bag that has been 
made since the season opened on the Ist, The bag to eleven 
guns on five points on the ist inst,, summed up only twenty- 
seven birds, of which nine were ‘‘boobies.” In the memory 
of ‘‘the oldest inhabitant” so poor an opening of the duck 
season has not been known, to my knowledge it has not been 
so unfavorable in eight years. The frost of last night was 
the first of the fall season and its results were seen in the im- 
proved state of affairsin to-day’s shoot. Yellowleg snipe 
are very scarce and equally wild. Plover appear only at 
intervals of a week orso. Wilson snipe are quite plenty on 
the flats and need only a few frosty nights to bring them in 
numbers. ‘They are unusually tame this season, as many as 
five being bagged in an hour’s tramp during the midday 
hours. Geese have put in an appearance, five being bagged 
from one point on ihe 8th. They appear to be travelers and 
are well disposed to remain in this locality,—H. W. Hunr- 
INGTON. 
Norte Caronimns.—In your issue of 2d inst., I see that 
you give the open season for quail, turkey, etc., in North 
Carolina, as beginning Oct. 1, and closing March 15. By 
reference to the code of North Corolina, 1883, Vol. IL., Sec. 
2,884, you will find that none of the birds named can be shot 
before Oct. 15, the season closing April1. Sec, 2,835 further 
makes it @ misdemeanor to ship any quail or partridge out 
of the State, whether dead or alive, said misdemeanor being 
punished by ‘‘a fine not exceeding $50 and imprisonment 
not to exceed 80 days for each offense.” Sec. 2,836 pro- 
vides that any one taking or destroying any eggs of partridge 
or quail, shall be fined not to exceed $50 ne imprisonment 
not more than 30 days. Thus you see we have very ‘‘whole- 
some and stringent” laws for the protection of our quail, and 
I take particular pains that they be ‘known and respected” 
in this lecality. Many quail have been sayed during the 
past summer by a few ‘‘timely remarks” from me to those 
who sometimes destroy them for ‘‘pulling up corn and peas” 
during the planting season. The extension of the close sea- 
son until Oct. 15 will ore peculiarly beneficial during the 
present year.—A. F, R. 
TRAPPERS TRAPPED.—Stony Point, N. ¥., Oct. 13.— 
Editor Horest and Stream: I applied to Mr. Matthew Ken- 
nedy, of Hudson, as the proper person, and he responded at 
once in propria persona, and proceeded with such energy 
and activity in the discharge of his duties that inside of 
forty-eight hours he had secured 83 partridges, 5 rabbits and 
3 quailin possession of the trappers and their marketing 
agent. He also secured full and complete evidence against 
nearly every person engaged in trapping in this vicinity, and 
as you can imagine, the utmost cousternation now exists in 
the gang of offenders. Between the 1st of October and the 
10th (the day of Mr. Kennedy’s raid) these scoundrels had 
sent to market over 2,000 trapped birds, which would prob- 
ably aggregate in weight fully 14 tons, and it seems to me 
high time the business was brought toan end. Our moun- 
tains are full of partridges, and offer splendid shooting if 
these ‘‘pot-hunting hogs” can be properly disposed of. 
Thanks to Mr Kennedy’s activity, it looks as if there was 
“rough water” ahead for them if they coutioue the business. 
Quail shooting promises better than for years past. Woud- 
cock are fairly abundant. Rabbits about as plentiful as 
usual. —JUSTICE, 
TENNESSEE GAME Notrs.—Nashville, Tenn., Oct. 11.— 
Quail are said to be more abundant this than any year within 
the past ten. Thaye gotten this information from reliable 
parties and personal observation. Near Madison station 
Felix Mitchell reports knowing of fifteen or twenty coveys, 
varying in number from twenty-five to fifty birds. In Sum 
ner county the plaintive song of ‘‘Bob White” is heard at 
every turo. Dr. Gooch says that in Rutherford county 
there are millions of them. In the mountains bear, deer 
and turkeys have increased considerably the past season. 
Any one desiring s month's sport in the field can find 
no better locality than this to enjoy it in. There are 
a great many good dogs in the country, and our gun- 
smiths keep on hand the most approyed ammunition, so all 
that the hunter need bring alongis his gun. Now is the 
time for fox hunting, aud every night scores of packs of 
hounds are out after them. Within a radius of ten miles of 
Nashville there is as perfect fox chasing to he had as can be 
met with upon the giobe,—J. D. H. 
A Wonperrur Huntixe Cat.—Greenland, N. H., Oct. 
18.—Daniel Mahonney, of Grevnland, N. H., is the happy 
possessor of a remarkable feline of the Maltese variety, The 
owner of tHis cat is a hunter of local celebrity, and in his 
gubning excursions is usually accompanied by this cat; in 
fact, she cannot be induced to remain at home unless force 
is employed. Always on the alert for game, she either poises 
on her master’s shoulder or the gunwale of the boat. When 
on the water she watches eyery movement of her owner, 
seems to be perfectly at home, and is not afraid to wet her 
feet nor even to plunge overboard to secure the bird that has 
been shot. When on land, ber place of observation is usu- 
ally the right shoulder of ber owner. She watches with a 
great deal of eagerness the aiming of the gun (never disturbed 
by its discharge), and springs at once for the game, securing 
it and bringing it in like a well trained dog. Although very 
much atiached to her uwner, she readily makes friends with 
any person who Carries a gun, and is anxious to accompany 
them to the woods or streams. She is very jealous of ali 
dogs and will not allow them to accompany her, but displays 
her antipathy to them at once, if one happens to be bold 
enough to attempt such an intrusion.—W. O. J. 
CoLorabo.—Deer are reported very plentiful on the Grand 
and Hagle riversin Eagle and and Garfield counties. Hunt- 
ing parties return to Leadville with wagons loaded, and are 
obliged to leaye many carcasses behind for lack of transpor- 
tation. In the carcass the deer bring 7 to 8} cents in Lead- 
ville. Elk are coming down from the mountains and afford 
excellent sport. The same region abounds with grouse, and 
rabbits are so thick in the cedar patches that itis difficult to 
avoid them. All ‘“‘pot-hunters” are not steeped in sin. One 
of them who ‘‘went in” Jately came across a party of ama- 
teurs hounding deer. He up with his old muzzleloader and 
knocked over the dogs, giving the astonished city sports 
some choice objurgations with a strong Western flavor, 
Trout fishing in Twin Lakes, in Lake county, and in all the 
rivers in the northwestern part of the State is simply im- 
mense, The weather in this region is now a delightful fall, 
but winter may set in any day.—U. P. K. 
SULLIVAN County.—Woodbourne, Sullivan County, N. 
Y., Oct. 8.—Hdttor Forest and Sreeam: We have very fine 
partridge and woodcock shooting here this season. The 
birds are more abundant than they have been before in sey- 
eral years, Foxes and wildcats are too numerous to men- 
tion, I would advise sportsmen who like good shooting to 
come to Woodbourne, but none of those who like to sit on 
the fence and have the game come up to them, We haven’t 
any of that kind of game here, and we don’t like lazy sports- 
men, If they hunt with meI will make it lively for the 
boys. The best shooting will be for four or five weeks to 
come.—ELI GARRITT. 
Guns mn RAILROAD StTatTions.—Hxeter, N. H., Oct. 6.— 
For the benefit of my fellow sportsmen, I would suggest that 
a gun left in charge of baggage masters ut railroad stations 
is liable to be stolen. For the past ten or twelve years I have 
been in the habit of leaving my gun at the station not 
checked, for the simple reason that they would not check it; 
they assuring me that it would be all right. JI am now con- 
vinced by the loss of a valuable gun that a mistake has been 
made somewhere or somehow, and it this statement would 
tend to the exercise of more caution on the part of my 
brother sportsmen, I shall be only too glad.—Dr. ©. H. 
GERRISH, 
New Bronswick WiLDFrowb.—Richibucto, N. B., Oct. 
10.—A few wild geese were seen here on the 18th of Septem- 
ber. They are now quite abundant; and a few have been 
killed. Black ducks are more plentiful than for several 
years. I was shown a wild goose (alive) a few days since, 
which is quite a curiosity here. The top of the head is 
quite white, owing to the intermixture of white feathers, 
None of the gunners here have ever before seen a goose 
marked in that manner. A few brant have come, and the 
prospect for shooting is fairly good.—C. H. C. 
TureE Moosz.—Mr. C. Blakeslee, of Ives, Blakeslee & 
Co,, this city, recently returned from the Connecticut Lakes, 
New Hampshire. He stopped at Uncle Tim Chester’s, on 
Second Lake, and reports good success with large game. 
Théfe have been something like a hundred visitors there this 
year, and five moose haye been killed. Of these Mr. Blakes- 
Jee brought down three; the first, a cow, estimated by Ned 
Norton to weigh 1,000 pounds, another of 350 to 400 pounds, 
and a bull of same weight. The fishing bas not been quite 
so good this season as in some former years. 
Manpison, New Jersey.—Have not heard of any snipe be- 
ing killed yet on our meadows. Very few woodcock haye 
been seen since the opening, Oct. 1, Itis too warm yet for 
flight birds. Saw a flock of 17 teal ducks on Passaic River 
Tuesday. A great many of the trees, especially the maples, 
have donned their fall coat, making the swamp louk ex- 
tremely pretty.—16-Borz, 
SEDALIA, Mo., Oct. 6.—Our prospect for game is not very 
flattering in this locality. Quail are reasonably plenty, but 
the undergrowth is simply immense. Our law on quail is 
not off until the 15th inst., and quail are already migrating. 
No duck as yet. Squirrels reported plenty, but hard 10 find. 
All large game has entirely disappeared with exception of 
small flocks of wild turkeys in two or three localities in our 
county.—OccIDENT. 
OnTARIO.—B; lleville.—There is a good supply of game in 
this neighborhood this season; deer are numerous, the num- 
ber of ducks is not quite up to former years, but partridges 
are very plentiful. Moose deer seem to be working down 
from the north. Two were shot last season, and eight haye 
already been killed this year by the Indians near Baptiste’s 
Lake. 
A Sign rrom Ataska.—Sitka, Alaska, Sept. 5.—Geese 
were seen going south Aug. 24 this year, earlier by six weeks 
than last year. Teal and mallards are abundant in the lakes 
about here. The day before we saw so many geese migrating 
we had a hail squall for a few moments; probably this ac- 
counts for it —W. 
Musxkrcon, Mich., Oct. 6.—There has been good duck 
shooting here this fall, that is, lots of shooting and few 
ducks. Grouse are reported very plenty, but have heard of 
but few being shot yet.—A. P. 8. 
“SPortTsMAN” is informed that an anonymous charge can- 
not be printed. 
