7 
“Jan. 8, 1885.) 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
465 
Game Bag ayd Gur. 
SOME REMARKABLE SHOTS. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Most of your readers have probably heard the yarn, among 
many miraculous stories, related bya certain hunter, how he 
had shot a deer through the foot and heart with a single 
bullet from his rifle. 
to know how such a thing could be possible. The hunter 
turned to his old servant and said, “Pompey, -do you 
remember how I made that shot?’ ‘‘Yes, massa, de deer 
was scratching his ear. But for heaven’s sake put your 
bullet holes a little closer together de next time,” he added 
in an undertone. «I record a shot quite as remarkable, but 
requiring no such ingenious explanation. I once shot a 
four-prong buck in the right hind leg, about six inches 
above the foot, and the ball Jodged under the left ear, close 
i0 the skin. The deer was in air, jumping a pile of brush 
with outstretched limbs, while I was kneeling and below the 
maik. The ball struck the bind Jeg, entering the flesh close 
to the joint, passing through the ham, the entire body, and 
lodging as I have said. The deer showed no signs of being 
hit, and it required another shot fifteen minutes later to 
bring him to bag, SYCAMORE. 
BALTIMORE. 
Editor Korest and Stream: 
At the age of thirteen I “treed” with a cur a red squirrel 
in a tall tree in the “open,” which I wished to kill with a 
flint cavalry pistol, the property of the State of Vermont. 
Holding the arm, loaded with shot, in one hand, 1 threw a 
stone into the tree wilh tie other, The red sprang from 
the treetop, and I fired. The pistol recoiled againt my 
head, felling me to the ground. Things seemed to have 
turned to smoke. Recovering soon I found a large gray 
squirrel on the ground, killed by that shot, and saw the cur 
chasing the red, which was on a distant stone fence. 
Though bleeding, I was happy over my surcess, and 
confident that I should by practice become a crack shot, 
ATHEN. 
Fiditor Forest and Stream: 
I was hunting ruffed grouse, The foliage was very thick. 
My setter ran a gray squirrel up a densely thick foliaged 
maple tree, The squirrel sat on alimbin plain sight. I 
fired at him, and down he came dead, While [ was slipping 
another shell in my gun, another gray squirrel fell dead -at 
my feet. At another time I drove a black squirrel up a 
very dense foliaged tree. I could not see the squirrel any- 
where in the tree, so 1 got right under the tree, and shot 
almozt straight up even with the body of the tree, to see if 
T couldn’t drive him out. Imagine my surprise when two 
fat black squirrels fell almost on tome. One was dead, the 
other wounded,—I. 5. W. 
Hiditor Forest and Stream: 
This occurrence actually happened. Two friends of mine 
were hunting woodcock on the west bank of the Hudson. 
One was in a vale while the other worked along the ridge. 
The former fiushed a longbill which, as it Hew directly 
toward No. 2, he did noi fire at. No. 2 raised his gun when 
the bird was very near to him, so as to take it when it went 
past. The woodcock struck the muzzle of his gun and 
dropped dead at his feet, his may seem to be a remarkable 
story, but is perfectly reliable in every respect. 
Nicur Hawk, 
Hupson, N, Y. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
A friend of mine was hunting squirrels one day this fall, 
and saw a black squirrel feeding in the top of a hickory tree. 
He pulled up his gun and fired, and down came a gray squir- 
rel. Somewhat surprised he picked it up to see if it had 
turned white from fright, and ag he stood, a large black 
squirrel fell at his feet. PARK, 
. Aruns, Pa. 
Biditor Forest and Stream: 
Here is another ‘‘Remarkable Shot” for your columns, and 
may they continue to come, as they are quite interesting read- 
ing. 
Some years ago, when shooting from a blind on Hanlon’s 
Point, Toronto Island, I saw a flock of merganser or sawbill 
ducks flying about in the bay. Shortly they took a turn and 
came directly toward me, lighting among my decoys. Not 
caring much whether I shot such ducks or not, | watched 
them fora time, but several coming together in a bunch, I 
could not resist the temptation for a pot shot, so turned loose 
my right hand barrel among them, and when the smoke 
cleared away there were six lying on the water to all appear- 
ances dead. One that had been off to my right was a little 
tardy in getting away, flew across in front of me, and it be- 
ing a nice shot. I gave him the other barrel, bringing it 
down; but immediately on striking the water it dove, as did 
all the other dead (?) ones, and | never as much as saw a 
feather again. Me. 
Hditor Forest and Strean: 
I went one evening in October from Terre Haute, Ind., to 
Charleston, Ill, to spend a day quail shooting, my father-in- 
law of sacred memory saying as | started: “‘Send me some 
quail, old boy.” Next morning early I set out with a young 
pointer. There was a fresh two inches of snow on the 
ground, and [had hardly reached the first fields when my 
dog came toa pretty point at a small bush covered with 
snow. Peering cautiously ahead, I caught sight of one quail 
sitting on a twig just over a bunch of dead leaves. Af the 
same moment I'saw a town dog, a setter that followed every 
man who carried a guu, coming blunderingly up to my dog. 
Fearing he would make him break his point, | fired at the 
sitting quail, and lo! the two dogs plunged into the bush 
and brought out thirteen quail, which went by the 9 o'clock 
express to Terre Haute, and were served up for dinner that 
ay. 
At another time, while hunting ducks in the Wabash bot- 
toms, I shot at a sandhill crane at the end of a small pond, 
where [had erept behind a log, when to my great surprise, 
Isaw a white crane tumble at the further end of the pond, 
200 yards away, Both were killed. 
Once while standing in a marsh under the cover of some 
dead trees, near the Kankakee River in Northern Indiana, I 
drew on a mallard that came sailing by, and fired. At the 
same instant a flock of blue-winged teal came from the 
opposite direction, passing at the exact line of aim, and I 
got four of them, also the mallard. The same day I fired 
ata duck that rose from the swampy shore of a bayou, and 
His incredulous listeners demanded. 
besides getting that, killed two woodducks that were sitting 
on the branch of a fallen tree that lay in the water a few 
yards beyond. 
Once while hunting quailin a cornfield where the stalks 
were still standing, I fired at a covey that rose near the fence, 
and to my great alarm shot a tramp who was sunning him- 
self in a corner. Inasmuch as I used No. 10 shot there was 
no great damage done, but I apologized and gave him a quar- 
ter, whereupon he said I could blaze away again for another 
contribution of that nature. J.C. B. 
WASHINGTON Curry. 
Hiitor Forest and Stream: : 
A foot of light snow had fallen in the night—the first In 
the season—but the ponds were all frozen over. I started in 
the morning on a three mile tramp to Metalluk Pond, to 
tend otter and lynx traps, and took my gun along. Arriving 
at the outlet of the pond which ran through an open bog, I 
found there were open places in the brook, and ona has- 
sock near the water I saw asingle black duck. I crept 
within range, under cover of the short brush, and fired No. 
6 shot from a muzzleloader and saw three ducks fly away. I 
made up my mind I had missed my bird, but what was my 
surprise on going to the spot to find five large black ducks 
dead on the other side of the hassock. On a critical exam- 
ination I found I had undershot the bird aimed at, and the 
shot going through the snow, struck the main flock, which 
were huddled together in an open hole beyond. J, G.R 
Boras, Me, 
ILLINOIS NOTES. 
eke has been a flock of geese hanging about since 
October, flying into and out of Lake Michigan to and 
from their feeding grounds on the prairie twice a day, but 
about two weeks ago they left for the south, and since then 
the weather las tarned very cold. Indeed, up to that time 
the farmers were plowing, but all the plowing that is being 
done now is with a snow plow, 
One miid winter a flock of sixty geese remained here until 
spring, and perhaps these are theix descendants or the old 
flock, for I don’t know how long they live. I wonder if the 
waterfowl, like some fishes, return year by year to the old 
nesting places. It has long been my belief, and that they 
pursue the same route going and coming, and have the same 
resting places and feeding grounds, only changing them for 
cause, and that wilh great reluctance. No doubt they take 
up the same old winter quarters south year by year. But 
how do they find their way, tlying, as they do, mostly at 
night, and how do they know the old places? What we are 
pleased to call instinct in the lower animals is certainly a 
wouderful thing. 
Rabbit shooting is good, or rather was until it became too 
cold for the comfort of the shooter; but there are few part- 
ridges and no quail, Foxes are numerous and troublesome 
to the farmers, and I propose to make a raid on them when 
this weather lets up. 
A party of seven have just returned from Northern Michi- 
gan, bringing home twenty-one deer. One gentleman was 
so unfortuntte as to get lost in a cedar swamp, where he 
spent torty-cight hours without food and came near perish- 
ing with the cold. Isn’t it funny how a man will get rat- 
tled sometimes and forget whether it is the blue or the bright 
end of his compass needle that points north? 
I expect to read old ‘‘Nessmuk’s” obituary notice in some 
Florida newspaper before spring. He can rustle around in 
a canoe made of chair splints if he wauts to, but you bet I 
don’t want any of itin mine. A good sneakbox, with air- 
tight compartments in each end, will do me. 
Two or three of your correspondents want to make us 
come down to small-bore guns, but a 10-gauge will answer 
my turn. The smallest bore ] ever owned was a 14, and it 
was a good shooter, but I prefer a 10, and one that weighs 
10dJbs, at that, and then I am ready for anything that comes 
along—4 drams of powdsr and 1 ounce of shot for wood- 
cock, snipe, etc., 44 and 14 for grouse, and 44 and 14 for 
ducks and geese. One of my friends—until he had used 
shells of my loading—claimed my charges were too light. 
There is powder and powder, 
For cleaning a gun I use no water, either hot or cold, but 
two parts of olive or cottonseed oil and one of kerosene. If 
this mixture is used and the gun kept in adry place, the 
barrels will show no rust or “measles,” and will be as bright 
in ten years as the day they left the maker’s hands. 
Harry Hunter. 
HIGHLAND PARK, UI., Christmas, 
NOTES FROM GEORGIA. 
Qe to a very open season and drouth of nearly one 
hundred days’ duration, we had a very fair supply of 
quail, many coyeys being very late, Everything was so 
parched up, and frost falling so late, the birds were mostly 
fully grown before many of them could be killed. Idid not 
attempt any shooting till after Oct. 15, and have had some 
very fair sport. I have been eight times with company, and 
killed respectively 7, 45, 25, 32, 26, 29, 14 and 28, Out of 
this number I secured 188, or two-thirds of the birds. A 
brother sportsman says l always select the poorest shots to 
take along with me, so that I can come out ahead, I enjoy 
hunting with a congenial companion and generally give my 
friends the advantage in the shooting, but must admit, that 
those with whom | have shot this fall can’t shoot as well as 
I. J usually bag, on the average, half of my shots, and as 
we have so much brush shooting in our section we think this 
very good shooting. I have had two other shoots besides 
the ones mentioned, hunting alone. 
J have a very finely bred young setter, Irish and Laverack, 
aud took him out for the first time in company with my old 
dog. The youngster ranges well and will make a very fine 
dog if properly handled, but is a little gunshy, though I 
think he will get over that. Greatly to my disappointment, 
I had to send him in the country in charge of a friend who 
could break him for me, I killed only seven birds on the 
aforesaid hunt. On December 91 took the 7 A. M. train, 
rau over to first station in an adjoining county, and walked 
six miles to Clinton to spend the night with my brother 
(Judge R. J.), who lives at the homestead, the place of my 
birth. The Judge has had the misfortune, in the last several 
years, to lose two fine dogs, one by poisoning, a red Irish 
abd the other Gordon and Irish, and as finea brace of sct- 
ters as I have ever shot over. The last named was hanged 
by jumping over a picket fence, having on a block at tle 
lime, ‘Ihe loss of these dogs has had a very unhappy effect 
ou my brother, and he is temporarily off on possessing one 
of the canine family. I had a quiet walk over to Clinton, 
and bagged twenty-one quail, killing my last five shots in 
sight of the Judge’s home. I had sent some shells ahead of 
‘me and family were looking for me. 
After avery pleasant evening with the family I retired, 
and getting an early breakfast, I took a buggy, drove part 
of the way to second station on railroad, by agreement with 
my eldest brother, sent the buggy to station after him, and 
awaited his coming. We entered the fields about 9 o’clock 
and walked through the country by circuitous route to the 
station, having had a very pleasant day, and bagging twenty- 
seven quail, one woodcock, one lark and two rabbits. Brother 
killed only six quail and the lark, the rest falling to me, 
Brother has not shot any birds in ten years until this fall, 
and being rusty, together with having a very close-shooting 
gun, it is natural that he should not shoot as well asI. My 
friend and partner in business killed recently one wild tur- 
key across the river and in hearing of our city clock (the 
wind being favorable), and having baited the turkeys regu- 
larly for a week afterward, went early one morning in com- 
pany with a friend, and succeeded in killing four more. It 
seems strange that we should have turkeys so near us, but 
below the city the swamps are extensive, and afford a safe 
retreat for most of the year. We anticipate some more shoot- 
ing during the season, and will likely take a duck hunt down 
the Oconee. 1. J 
Macon, Ga. 
A SHOT FROM EVERY HILLTOP. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
The sporting season has fully opened here in Western 
Texas, and our markets are being continually supplied with 
an endless variety of wild game. The country tributary to 
Colorado City (the queen city of the West), and great graz- 
ing belt of West Texas, abounds in wild gume, and the 
sportsman finds this a rich field for those in search of pleas- 
ure. 
Of the feathered tribe we have in great abundance the wild 
turkey, duck, goose, Bob White and Mexican quail, prairie 
snipe, plover, curlew and Mexican pea fowl, besides innum- 
erable birds of smaller yaricty; in fact, everything the sports- 
man could wish, Of the animal kingdom we find in easy 
access of our cily, deer, antelope, jack rabbit, badger, beaver, 
wildcat, catamount, Mexican lion, cougar, panther, coyote 
loafer wolf, and black bear. One hundred miles north of 
this city on the plains may be found in great numbers the 
buffalo, and the buffalo hunters keep the murket well sup- 
plied with juicy steaks. 
Hunting parties are very numerous this season, and the 
supply of game, such as birds, antelope and deer, are greater 
than usuaJ. In addition to our market supply, from fifty to 
seventy-five antelope are shipped Hast by express from this 
place. For the pleasure seeker who delights in roaming over 
the many hills and valleys, getting a shot from every hilltop, 
we know of no country in America offering so many good 
inducements as the country about here. Pro 
CoLoRAbDo Crty, Mitchell County, Texas. 
ADIRONDACK DEER HUNTING. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
You ask ought deer hounding to be forbidden throughout 
the entire Adirondack region. In my opinion it both ought 
to be and can be done; and if done now future generations 
will be able to shoot deer in those woods. 
If, however, the passage and enforcement of such a law is 
long delayed, the men who come after us will find nothing 
left in thatterritory which may be called game larger than a 
hedge-hog. 
Since 1865 I have made whenever possible annual trips to 
some part of the mountains, varying my journeys from Aug. 
1 to Dec. 1, and I am obliged to note each year that the deer 
are steadily growing less in numbers. ; 
It is not that the hounds drive them away or worry the © 
bulk of them to death, though they kill more than many 
people will believe, but those hunting with the dogs shoot 
them, 
I personaly know a goodly number of guides in one sec- 
tion, and they are by all odds the best of those living there, 
who just as soon as it grows cold enough to ship the meat, 
take their dogs and start for the woods, and there they stay 
just as long as a hound can run, and the worst of it all is 
that as long as they stay they will average a deer killed a 
day for each man of the crowd, and often do much better 
than that. The number of the deer killed also is not the 
only bad feature about it, The proportion of does to the 
bucks among those killed in this way is more than double 
that of a hke number killed in any other, and more than ten 
times greater than that killed in the manner some of your 
readers seem to despise—floating. Any hunter is well aware 
of this fact, and when you commence as they now do, Aug. 
1, with their hounds, aoes and fawns are peculiarly liable 
to suffer. 
Tsay Aug. 1, for each year of late I have found dogs in 
the woods on that date, put out, not, of course, then for the 
benefit of the market-hunter, but to help out the tourist 
who has not patience, skill, or eyesight enough to kill one 
by floating, but thinks he can succeed in his high ambition 
if he can have his game driven into some pond and be him- 
self paddled up to within fifteen feet of the head of his poor 
victim, whose agonizing struggle for life under such circum- 
stances has always, when I have witnessed it, chilled my 
ambition to kill so effectually, as to destroy all pleasure in 
such so-called hunting. : 
Add to all this the fact that the meat after you get it in 
this way is, in most cases, unfit to eat, and it would seem 
to me that you have reasons enough why hounding should 
be stopped. There would be less difficulty in enforcing a 
statute which should have this for its object, than in causing 
peopie to live up to any other game law. 
In St. Lawrence county, as far as J have been able to 
learn, there are no dogs used and the local law on that sub- 
ject is universally respected. Yet in a trip through that 
section of the country three years ago, during the second 
week in August, | found plenty of evidences of the presence 
of successful hunting parties fully two months before my 
advent upon the streams and ponds which I visited, and 
learned from the natives whom I met that at least one 
hundred deer had been killed in the vicinity during June 
and July, and I have often heard peopleliving there speak of 
having been in the woods as early as the middle of May, 
and at that time no man comes out without bringing meat. 
In fact it is the only time when some of them are able to 
kill a deer at all, unless it be when the dogs are on hand, 
I have talked with many guides about the matter, and 
they all agree in wishing there-was not a dog in the woods, 
but excuse themselves for using them by suyinog that if they 
don’t Some one else will, and they might as well take the 
deer while they are going; and going they are. Let the 
