7, _el eee 
‘ 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
325 
quickly again we entered the timber, and most of the time 
were riding in the shade. 
There were in the party two strangers, and just about the 
time one of them began to ‘wonder where all these chickens 
are that they talk so much about,” and the other, who 
was from Illinois, informed hitn that “these fellers don’t 
know oothing about chicken huntin’, there’s no use of lookin’ 
fur em in timber,” Prince suddenly began to act as if tired, 
. His rolling gallop settled to a walk and he moved listlessly 
abont as though he had understood the remark of the gentle- 
man from Illinois, and \ecome discouraged. In a minute 
more his legs became decidedly draggy, but animation 
sparkled in his aged eye, and there was a visible twitching 
in the shiny skin of his dark nose as he bore it upraised 
against the wind. His tail sympathized strongly with his 
legs and its motion became slower and slower as he moved 
up a gentle slope. Reaching its top he stood for a moment 
with every muscle of his body quiet, and with but a faint 
motion of his head as he raised his nose a little and snuffed 
the incoming breeze. 
Thump, bump, plump came the sound of boots on ground 
as half a dozen men with as many varieties of guns, jumped, 
tumbled and scrambled out of the wagons, accompanied by 
the dull rip of decayed broadcloth as several pounds of shot 
jn the pockets of an ancient black coat, whose occupant had 
executed a lofty spring over the wagon wheel struck the 
ground at about the same time his boots reached it. But 
Prince without deigning a glance at the anxious party be- 
hind moved on down the other side of the slope. Some fifty 
yards down the slope he came to a standstill and remained 
so long and with tail so rigid that the Squire ordered the two 
strangers up to the center to take first shot, Frank on a 
slope nearly two hundred yards away was standing like a 
sculptured dog, smelling nothing himself, but indorsing 
Prince with a point that rivaled the firmness even of his. 
But suddenly Prince’s tail began to waver and he moyed 
slowly ahead, On he went some twenty yards, crawling 
with head up and stern down, more like an alligator than a 
dog. Frank, whose confidence was beginning to relax at 
this, moved up somewhat faster, but before he had advanced 
fifty yards he stopped as suddenly as if be had struck a stone 
wall; for Prince had suddenly stopped and crouched still 
lower than before with head turned a little to one side. There 
was evidently game within a few yards of him. Yet all was 
still as death in the grass at which he was so wildly staring. 
The call of Bob White rang from the fallen treetop on the 
next slope, the jingling note of the bluejay and the bark of 
the squirrel came from distant trees. The bright plumage 
of the red-headed woodpecker flashed overhead, wild pigeons 
and doyes shot through the opevings of the grove; and ona 
rosin weed ahead was the little prairie sparrow that so often 
deceives good dogs. Behind the dog the two strangers were 
craning and twisting their necks trying to see something in 
the grass where the dog was looking; and it was evident 
enough that neither had ever before hunted chickens, 
although the Illinois gentleman had aired his experience in 
that line quite liberally on the way out from town. Being 
told to walk in ahead of the dog, they moved cautiously 
ahead of him, keeping a sharp eye upon the grass. When 
they got about ten paces ahead of him one of the gentlemen, 
who was clutching his gun with trembling hands and looking 
some twenty yards further ahead, was startled by the sudden 
burst from almost beneath his feet of ahuge brown and gray 
bird with a, heavy 0-b-)-b-b-b-b-b of wing. It seemed to him 
nearly as big as an open umberella as he pointed his gun, as 
he thought, fairly at the middle of its back and fired before 
it Was six feet from the ground. His amazement asthe bird 
wenl on with unrufiled feathers was equaled only by that of 
his companion, who, in a spirit of delightful confidence, 
undertook, a second afterward, to show him how to hit it. 
His fire streamed harmlessly beside the bird, followed by 
the second barre] of No, 1 which tunnelled the smoke of the 
other, and bang went the second barrel of No, 2, to the serious 
detriment of a caterpillar’s nest on a scrub oak that the bird 
had just passed. Chickens were in those days so plentiful 
that, we rarely fired at the old hen—generally the first that 
rises—pbut took only the more tender young ones. But he of 
the ancient broadcloth could not resist the temptation to 
show the strangers how to shoot, and as the old hen whizzed 
by Lim, now under full headway, he wheeled and fired. But 
his equilibrium being disturbed by the necessity of now 
carryiug both powder and shot in one coat tail, he shot too 
far behind and only cut a few feathers from the bird’s tail. 
All this happened in about three seconds, and even before 
if, was quite completed, two birds a little smaller and grayer 
and of slower wing than the first one, but still very large, 
and both making with their wings plenty of noise, started 
from the grass with a kuk, kuk, kuk, kuk, followed by three 
more before the two had got under full headway. The first 
two sank at the reports of a gun from each side, and two of 
the other three wilted like wet rags as the fire streamed from 
two more, The other went on for a yard or two, with an- 
other guo barking vainly inits rear, then turned asomer- 
saulfin air as two more barrels rang out almost together. 
Just then three more birds rose one after the other, followed 
by two more and these by three more, all in quick succession, 
while the whole party (who were then using muzzleloading 
guns) stood vainly trying to loadin time for a shot at the 
Jast one. 
The birds that escaped lit in some prairie grass about two 
hundred yards away. When we got there the action of the 
dogs changed at once, Instead of the racing gallop they had 
before taken when hunting a covey, each now took a slow 
trot to and fro, with nose high above the grass and eayerly 
scenting the breeze. Frank suddenly stopped and wheeling 
half around in his tracks, settled down to the stiffpess of an 
icicle, with head low down and tail upraised, and eyes 
wildly staring at a bunch of ferns. Prince saw bim from a 
distance, and instead of indorsing from where he stood 
Frank's draft: upon the confidence of the party (in those days 
there was not a dog in Wabasha trained to ‘‘back” another 
at sight), came down to investigate for himself. But before 
he got half way to where Frank was he stopped as suddenly 
as Frank had done before, and with nose turned a little one 
side stood as firm as the other dog. 
Hach of the strangers was now assigned to a dog, with the 
request to ‘‘take first shot and be sure and hit something.” 
This injunction almost destroyed their last chance of success. 
Trying to fan into a blaze the embers of hope, each advanced 
smiling toadog. As the first one took the third step ahead 
of Frank a bird burst from the grass scarcely a yard from 
his feet. He forgot the resolution he had just made to be 
coo! and tale deliberate aim, and before he knew what he 
was about his gun belched fierce thunder over the bird’s 
head before it was a yard from where it started. As it 
turned oyer in the air at the report of the Squire’s gun, he 
shot his second barrel high above it as it was falling, and 
air 
with empty gun in hand saw another rise from a few feet 
further on and go whirling down at the soundof the Squire’s 
second barrel, ; 
Stranger No. 2 stepped ahead of Prince, but nothing 
moved except Prince, who moved up a step as the man went 
abead of him. No. 2 walked around several feet ahead of 
Prince and kicked in the grass, but still nothing moved but 
Prince, who came up another step or two and looked almost 
downward into a bunch of ferns and grass, The stranger 
walked up and pnshed the ferns aside with his hand, when 
b-b-b-b-b-b came a bird out under his very nose. Prince could 
not resist the temptation, and, with a jump, pulled some 
feathers from its tail; but on it went all the more easily ap- 
parently for their loss. His assistant tried with his first 
barrel to extract the rest, but failed, and with the second 
poured to one side of it a stream of fire, a stray shot from 
which broke the tip of its wing, and it settled fluttering into 
the grass. He and Prince both made arush for it, with 
Prince ahead, and in a moment the crackling of its rump 
was heard beneath the veteran’s teeth. The Squire ran in 
and kicked him off, declaring, like every other man who 
ever owned a dog having a bad trick, that it was the first 
time in his life he had ever known him to do such a thing. 
The uproar started two more birds from the grass, one of 
which, at the pop of some cheap gun in the rear, went down 
in a disorderly array of legs, neck and flying feathers, while 
the other one got away from some gun that roared so close 
to my ear that I forgot to shoot at it. 
in this way bird after bird was pointed by the dogs, ran 
the gauntlet of the strangers’ guns and came down before 
the reserve of natives who were keeping vigilant watch over 
the interests of the larder, until the last one of this covey 
was secured. Two of the party then went with the ladies 
to prepare the dinner, while the rest of us continued to hunt, 
When we returned we found the cloth spread beneath some 
treesupona high point that jutted out into the Zumbro 
valley, and laden with such delicacies as Western ladies 
know right well how to prepare for such occasions, and the 
chickens were broiling upon split sticks leaning over a bed 
of hot oaken coals. Nearly five hundred fect below us and 
over a mile wide the valley of the Zumbro wound from the 
distant prairie to the Mississippi, through hills almost blue 
with softness and intensity of color. The golden haze poured 
into them by the strong sunlight, cast over the whole valley 
such a dreamy air that the dark green thickets that grew 
far below along the water seemed as though they must be 
the lotus. Here and there a huge crag stood like an ancient 
castle upon some high projecting point; but such were rare, 
and a deep carpet of grass ferns and flowers overlay both hill 
and dale. Down the center of the valley swept the dark 
waters of the swift Zumbro, now through deep green meadows, 
now through great groves of stately timber. Here and there 
along the borders lay the farm of some new settler, but nearly 
all was as wild as when the Dacotahs ruled the land. Into it 
from the right came the meandering valley of Trout Brook, 
with the silvery thread of the stream shining in serpentine 
mazes, as it wound through groves of wild plums, crab- 
apple and thickets of hazel, or between deep grassy banks 
and areades of willow and alder. Even so far away its 
waters looked so clear and cold that fancy could almost see 
the flash of the trout and feel upon the rod the power of its 
rush. Into these larger yalleys broke from the prairie a hun: 
dred smaller ones, all robed from top to bottom in grass ferns 
and flowers with scattered birch, maple and oak: in some 
the trees forming iittle groves in the lowest part; in others 
forming them at the top where they wound out into the 
high rolling plain above. Far away in the west we caught 
glimpses of yellow stubbles, and on the breeze was borne fhe 
clatter of the renper and the hum of the thresher. Away 
into the south flowed the Mississippi, bright in the noonday 
sun as a stream of quicksilver, for miles down the long lines 
of green bluffs still gleaming when the lofty bluffs were 
hazy with distance. There were its timbered islands all 
green with an almost tropical luxuriance; its great sand bars 
lying bare to the sun; its huge rafts of lamber covering acres 
of space; the puffing steamer trailing its long sooty banner 
against the sky, and glimmering amid the great green forests 
of its bottom lands were the quiet lakes where in autumn 
the rush of wildfowls’ wings almost dethrones one’s judg- 
ment, 
The dinner and the cigars disposed of, we started out to 
hunt some stubbles that we had passed in the morning, be- 
cause it was then too late to find grouse on them; but now it 
was nearly time for them to run out from the grass for their 
evening meal. Right well Prince knew what now was 
wanted of him. Atthe first stubble, an eighty-acre field 
half a mile long and one-fourth wide, he ran directly to the 
leeward side and took a sidling trot up the edge close to the 
prairie grass, with head high up and nose turned toward the 
center of the stubble. He seemed to think he could hunt 
the whole stubble in that way; and had it been an hour or 
two later, with a little damper breeze, he could haye done so. 
As it was, he overestimated his abilities, and passed a covey 
just coming out of the grass on the opposite side; and 
scarcely a hundred yards above where our wagons entered 
the middle of the stubble. 
But Frank, who was cavorting about up the center line of 
the stubble, suddenly caught their scent, and with a sudden 
half wheel pointed long enough to empty the wagons of 
every mun who had agun. Then he started toward the 
grass on a half trot, which quickly settled to a walk, that to 
a crawl, and the crawl] toa firm point. Ten, twenty, fifty, 
nearly one hundred yards, we walked ahead of him, but 
there he stood, refusing to budge an inch; and just as some 
one intimated that he was fibbing, an old hen burst with a 
roar almost from beneath my feet. Two full-grown young 
ones followed on the right; then two more on the left; then 
two or three more infront; then four or five more here, there 
and all around. There was then no such thing as first shot 
for any one. Courtesy went to the winds, and the guns 
spouted fire across comipanions’ noses, over their heads, aud 
by their ears. After the first shot I dropped flat on the 
ground so as to give my friends a chance, not likiny to stand 
in the way of their pleasure. In about five seconds twelve 
barrels were emptied and seyen chickens lay in a semi-circle 
around us, while five or six more flew off unharmed and 
vanished over a rise of ground two hundred yards away; 
and Frank came trotting up, wagging his tail, and looking 
the most satisfied of all the party. 
Scarcely had the rattle of our guns died away when Prince 
was discovered nearly four hundred yards away, backed up 
against the edge of the prairie grass, immovable asthe Sphinx 
and gazing as calmly out upon the desert of stubble. He 
did not even turn his head to see what we were doing, but 
stood there the very incarnation of dignity until we had 
picked up the fallen birds, loaded our gums, and come up to 
him, Then he moved slowly ahead, stopping every twenty 
feet and sniffing daintily at the breeze. It was evidently a 
long point, much longer than Frank had made. Step by 
step he took us more than half way across the stubble, and 
there refused to go further. Nearly forty yards ahead of 
him we went, when a full-grown grouse bustled out of the 
stubble and went away unshot at, 
“An old cock,” said some one, as nothing more rose, But 
Prince still kept his point with that marvelous instinct by 
which a dog knows whether all the birds have risen or not, 
and as we began to stir about to look for more, two young — 
chickens rose from very near the center of the party, and in 
front of one of the strangers who was looking directly down 
upon the place where they were. He singed the tail feathers 
of one with his frst barrel, and my ear still rings from the 
roar of his second, as he nearly blew my head off, as the bird 
passed me, At the reports more birds rose all around, some 
eyen behind us, upon which gome one must have nearly 
trodden, and again confusion reigned supreme, 
We drove over three more stubbles and found in all eight 
coveys upon them. We followed none of them up into the 
grass, but took only what fell upon the stubble. And when 
in the cool of the evening we started down the coulée to town, 
we had a string of birds such as it now requires money, time 
and patience to get anywhere, and ina few years will be 
unattainable at any price. 
A HAWK AND ITS QUARRY. 
N the first day of the open season last summer a party of 
us saw a curious sight, while out for woodcock, in 
Berkshire county, Mass. We had had varying but ample 
success since our start at sunrise, and therefore felt no 
chagrin when a fine woodcock, which was started wild by 
the dogs in some alders by the roadside, flew off over the 
bushes without even drawing one shot from any of our eight 
barrels. The bird was marked down closely, we placed 
ourselves about his cover and sent in the dogs. As before 
he rose wild, but swung around in Jong range of all of us, 
drawing three shots. Each of us hit him, yet he held up 
and flew heavily across the road, over a pasture and far up 
the mountain side, where he plunged through the tops of 
some neglected and untrimmed apple trees toward the ground, 
We followed him up the rocky hill, which was especially 
rough and ragged, where, in some period of the early pros- 
perity of the county, marble had been taken out, and the 
debris of mining and blasting had been left and strewn 
about, Two of us pushed through the briers toward the 
place where our woodcock had fallen, and on the edge of a 
deep cut in the rock were startled by the commotion and 
flutter of a rising bird. ‘The gleam of flying feathers drew a 
shot from our best marksman. ‘‘Was that our woodcock?” 
said those behind, in umazement, for we expected to find a 
dead bird only. ‘No, I fired ata hawk,” said he. ‘Well, 
did you hit him?” said one of us indifferently. ‘‘I suppose 
so,” he continued, ‘‘for I saw something drop.” ‘‘No, you 
didn’t kill him, I think,” said the one who had pushed 
through the briers with him, ‘‘for I saw the hawk fly out 
afterward.” ‘‘Well, let him go,” said he, and we continued 
our search for the woodcock. But we were unable to find 
him, and finally went on. ‘ 
During the day we made a fine bag of eleven, and had 
besides two partridges, which, having been wing-broken by 
shooters out of season, were pointed a long time by the dogs 
before we guessed what was the matter, and were finally 
by us put out of misery. At dinner, while reviewing the 
day, our minds went back to the lost woodeock, We all 
thought it strange that neither we nor the dogs could find 
him. ‘‘And then that hawk, too,” said our best shot, ‘‘?’m 
sure ] hit him, and I saw something fall when 1 fired.’’ 
“Well,” assented the one who had seen the hawk last, ‘‘I 
saw something fall, but I supposed that what I saw was a 
bunch of feathers from the hawk. Could it be possible that 
what we saw drop was our woodcock?” It was thought 
worth while to look the matter up, and we went out of our 
way and again up the mountain to determine whether it 
could be so. We did not find the mangled body of our 
woodcock, but we can say that we found under the place 
where the hawk was shot the feathers of both lying about; 
and who shall dispute our belief that the hawk was in the 
act of carrying off the little game bird when that shot was 
fired? None of our party will so dispute it, for we think 
still that had the hawk been killed we should have bagged 
both hawk and woodecock. GL) DW es 
PHILADELPHIA NOTES. 
RESIDENT WM. EISENBROW, of the West Jersey 
Game Protective Society, says that his organization 
did not make the arrests of the gunners who were ‘‘taken in” 
last week for violating the Sunday law at the Pea Shore, N. 
J. The West Jersey Game Protective Society has no agents 
on duty on Sunday, and the persons who have heen prevent- 
ing Sunday shooting did so by reason of a law passed in 
1884 empowering fish wardens to enforce game or gunning 
laws ou the Sabbath. 
Some brant have arrived on Barnegat and Tuckerton Bays, 
but not many; those that have come haye many young ones 
among the flocks; few have been killed. I have never found 
Barnegat Bay as good as Tuckerton Bay for brant shooting. 
At Tuckerton the shooting places lie more directly on the 
line of flight of the fowl, and the best duck shooting points 
are at some distance from the first mentioned points, where 
both geese and brant are mostly killed, whereas at Barnegat 
there are no points at which a display of duck decoys will 
not at favorable times attract. ‘ 
Capt. Bond, who, in my mind, is as practical a brant 
shooter as follows heavy-fowl gunning on the New Jersey 
coast, has offen told me this, and my experience at Tucker- 
ton, N. J., verifies his statement. The Bunches and Goose 
Bar in Tuckerton Bay are without doubt the best brant 
shooting points on the New Jersey coast, wherever this 
species of the Anser tribe is present, and does not migrate 
further south, At Barnegat the duck shooting is generally 
better, especially early in the season, but heavens, the num- 
ber of gunners there are legion. 
The weather has not been cold enough to bring very many 
canvas-back ducks to the flats at Havre de Grace. Red- 
heads are in great majority there. I am inclined to think 
the change of weather which is now brewing will bring with 
it a flight of the former. 
Quail shooting is not as good as it was expected to be in 
Maryland and Delaware, owing to the dry and warm 
weather. There are coveys enough, but they keep indoors, 
z, é,, in the swamps, and have hardly begun to use the stub- 
bles to feed, 
Quail are selling in Philadelphia at $2 and $3 per dozen, 
and are termed at these rates birds that are much shot and 
