Feb. 26, 1885.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



SB 



"Winter Birds on tite Hudson.— Anuandale, Dutchess 

 Co., N. Y., Feb. 19.— The winter here this year has been 

 quite severe. The Hudson River has been closed several 

 weeks and nearly two feet of snow covers the ground. The 

 cold weather has been the means of driving away many 

 birds that generally remain with us more or less through, this 

 season of 'the year. For some time the only birds I have 

 seen have been the following: Bieus pubeso&iA (downy wood- 

 pecker), Sitta carolinenm (nuthatch), Parus atrkapitlus 

 (chickadee), Jvneo hyemailis (snowbird), Cyanoa'tta cristata 

 (bluejay). Vorrus frugivorua (common crow), Ohrysomitris 

 tristia (yellowbird), 'sop. I might add the Tuinunmlv-s spctr- 

 teiius (sparrow hawk). These, with the exception of the 

 crow, yellowbird and sparrow hawk, come daily to my win- 

 dow for food. — A. T. Gesner. 



Turkeys and Rabbits. —Cortland.— A friend of mine 

 relates the foliowing : Last fall his attention was called to 

 Hie strange actions of his flock of turkeys concentrated at 

 one place in an adjoining field. Their craning necks and 

 peculiar notes suggested an intruder. My friend arriving 

 himself with a stick, thinking perhaps, the enemy might be 

 a snake, made his way to the field. The turkeys had formed 

 a hollow square about their prisoner, which proved to be 

 nothing more formidable than a gray rabbit, frightened to 

 such a degree it dared not move and was easily captured. 

 The guard then broke ranks to forage the fields for smaller 

 game. It seems strange so timid an animal would allow it- 

 self to be made a prisoner in that manucr, when in the 

 beginning its freedom might have been gained by a retreat 

 in any direction. — Mia. 



A Tame Ruffed Grouse. — New Hamburg, N. Y., Feb. 

 10.— It has generally been supposed that the ruffed grouse 

 cannot be tamed. Usually the birds, being so wild, refuse 

 food and die of starvation, or dash themselves against the 

 side of the cage on the approach of any person. I have had, 

 however, a ruffed grouse under my observation for the past 

 two years, a hen bird, so tame that it comes when called and 

 eats out of its owner's hand. It is a fair-sized, handsome 

 bird, in full plumage, and has always been healthy. Any 

 one can see this bird by calling on Mr. Leonard Carpenter, 

 on Main street, Poughkeepsie. He is a sportsman and natur- 

 alist, who has a fine collection of hawks, owls, crows, 

 raccoons, prairie dogs, squirrels, and four California quail 

 and six Bob Whites, ail alive.— W. 



Quebec, Feb, 5. — Some members of the Turdus canaden- 

 sis family, familiarly known as the Canadian robin, were 

 heard yesterday singing among what in season are desig- 

 nated by a local poet ""the green woods of St. Foye," two 

 miles southwest of this city. Although harbingers of spring 

 they will have to hold a second meeting, as another snow 

 squall has set in from the eastward and the weather is intol- 

 erably cold ; the mercury being apparently under contract 

 not to rise above zero Fahrenheit. — H. H. Y, 



fag m\d 



EFFECTS OF DEER HOUNDING. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



I have been reading your editorials, and the numerous 

 communications from correspondents which have appeared 

 in late issues of your journal, on the subject of hounding 

 deer, and while I am and have been for thirty-five years 

 a deer bounder in practice, and have killed a great many 

 before the dogs, yet I am constrained to say that I indorse 

 every word you have said in opposition to the custom. I 

 shall not undertake to justify myself on any higher ground 

 than that everybody does it in our country. What I purpose 

 in this communication, is not to excuse my own deer hound- 

 ing for doing what I do not approve of, but to give you 

 facts in regard to my observation and experience in the 

 matter, and the conclusions which. I think these facts 

 warrant me in coming to. 



I reside in what is known as the Shenandoah Valley. 

 The western boundary of this beautiful valley is a range of 

 mountains known as the North Mountains. Just west of 

 this is another parallel range known as the Shenandoah 

 Mountains, and so on, with range after range, running 

 parallel to each other, until you reach the main Alleghany 

 range. These ranges extend, under different names, all the 

 way from Pennsylvania to Alabama. 



The ranges which are covered by my experience are the 

 North and the Shenandoah. In these mountains, just before 

 the war, there were many localities in which deer were very 

 abundant, when a still-hunter, on a good day, could easily 

 kill from one to five deer. The population was sparse and 

 there were thousands of acres of virgin forest, undisturbed 

 save by .the stealthy tread of the hunter or the more vigorous 

 bound of the timid deer. The most prolific section in point 

 of game was one about twenty-five miles in a straight line 

 northwest of this city, and commonly known as White Oak 

 Lick. This was a large area of country drained, by the 

 waters of the North Fork of the Shenandoah River, one of 

 the loveliest and most fruitful trout streams (when I first 

 knew it) that I ever saw ©r heard of. In this vast basin of 

 several thousand acres there lived, in 1860, but one family 

 of people. The father, James Todd, I have years ago given 

 you a biography of. He was the greatest hunter I ever 

 knew, or ever read of, besides being a man of many 

 marked peculiarities. Here on this beautiful stream, ten 

 miles from his nearest neighbor, this man lived, and 

 supported his family of seven or eight children almost 

 entirely by his rifle. When 1 first visited this part of these 

 mountains, it was to fish for trout. It was in the pleasant 

 June days of 1862, during the "late unpleasantness." It 

 was apparent that the deer were abundant then because their 

 tracks could be seen all along the margin of the stream in 

 great profusion, and it was not an infrequent thing to see a 

 deer in the cool pools standing listlessly there, up to his 

 neck in the water, as a protection against the excessive heat 

 and the annoying flies. 



Immediately after the war a company or club of gentlemen 

 from Eastern Virginia got a foothold in this region by 

 purchasing several hundred acres of this wild land; and 

 another family moved into it. Every fall these gentlemen, 

 to the number of twenty or thirty, would come, with from 

 forty to sixty foxhounds, and remain from ten days to a 

 fortnight, and during that time kill from twenty-five to 

 forty deer. But the number secured was hardly equal to 

 the number wounded, caught by the dogs and eaten, and 

 those run out into the settlements aad caught or killed by 



the farmers. But this was not all, the deer were broken up 

 in their haunts and i^-iven off, many of them never to 

 return, and so, in eight or ten years of this sort of warfare, 

 from being a country in which deer were abundant, it has 

 become a hard matter for the last year or two, to make a 

 start of one after hours of hard driving. 



Old Mr. Todd protested against the invasion of the 

 hounders, and finally lost his life at the hands of the dog 

 men in a quarrel growing out of an accusation made against 

 him by one of them of killing their dogs, Whether guilty or 

 innocent I do not know, but I know that if he had been 

 protected by law agaiust the hounding of deer, he would 

 have been spared much longer as a useful citizen, and the 

 country in which he lived would to-day be full of that noble 

 game. 



With these facts fresh in my own knowledge, what is the 

 correct conclusion? The country is the same, the surround- 

 ings are just as they were twenty years ago, but the decl- 

 are gone, and there is but one cause to assign, viz. : hounding. 



In many States a premium is offered for the killing of 

 wolves, because of the destructiveness of these animals to 

 sheep and deer, and yet the hound, which is but the 

 educated wolf, is protected and encouraged to commit 

 slaughter upon the deer. I remember once to have shot a 

 fine buck in front of a noted hound belonging to a friend of 

 mine. The deer had hardly fallen until this dog was upon 

 him. When I went up to tlie deer, the dog with his hair 

 turned on end assaulted me, and I had to knock him over 

 the head with the butt of my gun before I could approach 

 the game, 1 never saw such ferocity exhibited by ;i dog in 

 my life. The wolf in his native element could not have 

 been more so, and my experience has been that a thorough- 

 bred foxhound, when aroused, is one of the most ferocious 

 beasts in the woi Id; they will attack any tiling, and woe to 

 the deer that is pursued by them. For if the hunter does 

 not kill him on the "stand," the dogs certainly will. I have 

 grown too old to still-hunt, and I do not expect the 

 Legislature of my own State to prohibit hounding by statute, 

 but if my voice could be heard, it would do so, and if there 

 is the slightest chance for it to be done in your State I wish 

 you God speed in the enterprise you have embarked in. 



The section I have given the history of is no exception. 

 There were many other points in these ranges of mountains 

 that were full of deer twenty years ago and the same thing 

 has happened there; the deer have been hounded out until 

 one is now a rarity. There are none left for private hunters 

 or dog men, while the range and the forest remains just as 

 they were. Last fall I went to a range further west than 

 the Shenandoah range, with a party of friends. We had 

 about ten dogs and killed about ten deer in three days. In 

 the immediate vicinity of where we hunted were three 

 gentlemen who kept packs of hounds, and I was informed 

 at the close of the season by one of them, that not less than 

 an average of forty deer had been killed before each pack 

 this past fall. This did not include many wounded and 

 destroyed that the hunters never heard of. 



Is it any wonder that the hardy mountaineers whose sport 

 and in many cases living depends upon the game around 

 them, should resort to the rifle and to poison, to rid 

 themselves of the hound pest? I do not approve of such 

 methods. I think a determined effort on their part to have 

 the law interpose to protect them is much the better plan; 

 but one can hardly blame these people for taking matters in 

 their own hands as long as the law does not protect them. 

 Many dogs are poisoned and shot in our State and West 

 Virginia by the still-hunters, but the doing of this is attended 

 with much, danger, and has brought death to several men 

 who have resorted to it. Still, I believe if it were systema- 

 tically and persistently done for four or five years, it would 

 effectually break up the habit of hounding, and the deer 

 would soon recover the waste which hounding has occasioned. 

 Keep on in the good work; and if you can't stop hounding 

 by law, at least legalize the shooting or poisoning of the 

 hound by the guides and natives, and l will guarantee that 

 they will stop it. Whaok. 



Staunton, Va. 



BATTERY-SHOOTING. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



In your issue of the 12th inst. you call for sinkbox experi- 

 ence. Five or six years ago a friend, with whom I have had 

 many a good day in the stubble, wanted me to join him in a 

 day's shoot on the Susquehanna Flats. Now as to an enthu- 

 siastic sportsman. I am of the kind of whom you wrote 

 sometime since: "Give me gun and day, and I will make 

 the weather." I well remember saying to my friend on the 

 way down that I felt pretty certain that I could stop an iu- 

 comer, even if I had never been in a box. I could drop a 

 quail reasonably well, and concluded it would be almost in- 

 excusable to miss so much larger a mark. In fact I got 

 quite confident, too much so, as the sequel will show. My 

 friend gave a quiet assent to all my convictions, and waited. 



There were four of us in the party, shooting from a double 

 box. The captain of our craft told us he would put us on 

 canvasback bottom, and as the flight was good we would 

 likely have a good day's shoot. We lay about midway be- 

 tween Furnace Creek and the mouth of North East, and the 

 day was all that could be desired; just enough wind to occa- 

 sionally put a little spray over us, without giving us too 

 much of a ducking, My friend arranged that I should go 

 in the box with him on the first lay. We crossed the line 

 then at 8 o'clock, not as now at 5, which is entirely too late, 

 particularly in the spring. 



I shall never forget the morning, as I have never siuce 

 seen so glorious an opening day. From the first dawning 

 until near sunrise the heavens seemed aglow ; at one period 

 attaining almost a scarlet, gradually fading as the sun neared 

 the horizon. We lay facing the east nearly, giving us a full 

 view of the glorious display. Imagine the'eonditions; lying 

 prone on the back, the body below the surface of the water, 

 head raised just enough to bring the eyes on a level with the 

 same, the muzzle of the gun just over the edge of the box, 

 barrel clasped with left hand, right hand lying loosely over 

 trigger guard, your box rising and falling with the lightly 

 disturbed waters, your three to four hundred decoys dancing, 

 prancing, and you can almost imagine, making love motions 

 to each other. The faint light in the east makes it just pos- 

 sible to discern the long lines of early risers that have come 

 up off of the bay, or across Spesutia Island, from the Bush 

 or Gunpowder rivers, for a feast that is nectar; and a ban- 

 queting hall containing such an abundance as they know not 

 of elsewhere in all their wanderings. Oh! they are right 

 royal feeders, and wild celery is the champagne of the feast. 

 I have frequently heard men say, "it is a wonder tney come," 

 with all the pounding and hammering they get from the earli- 

 est day till night from batteries, and oh, pestilence 1 the in- 

 numerable bushwhackers, it is a wonder that they return, 



not only on shooting days, but even on off days. But they 

 do return, they have been to the feast, and they like it. They 

 do return, but they return wiser if not better birds. And 

 this is the head and front of the defense of battery -shooting; 

 without this it would mean extermination, swift and sure, 

 and no lover of the sport would uphold it for a moment. 



On such a morning as I have described they came at any 

 rate, and we lay scanning the heavens above and the waters 

 below. Now look in any direction as far sis the eye can 

 reach, the whole heavens seems alive with innumerable lines 

 and bunches of ducks, flyinsr to and from every point of the 

 compass. You see none on the water yet, they are taking 

 an airing and surveying the feeding grounds. This lasts but 

 a few minutes, when my companion calls, "Mark front." I 

 forget the flight above and the beautifully painted horizon in 

 an instant. 



Looking as directed, I sec approaching, with neck ex- 

 tended, head low, wings spread and perfectly motionless, 

 three birds, apparently going to strike us fairly in the face. 

 They are surely ours now, I think; there can be no possible 

 escape. I rise, so do the birds, in fact, I thought afterward 

 they got up before I did, I am sure they got up too soon 

 for me that moruing. I held on fairly with each barrel; they 

 did not drop a feather. I theu gave attention to my com- 

 panion. To my surprise he bad not risen. I thought, 

 "Well, old boy, you have it on me now, but you won't 

 catch me again." "Those were cans," he said, and that was 

 all he said. I was hardly down when "mark front" came 

 from my neighbor again. This time I am well settled in my 

 determination to show him I know something. On they come 

 just as the others, only a pair of them this time, 'it is a 

 beautiful dart, but 1 am getting anxious; they are surely 

 near enough— yes, I am certain of it, and I defy them to get 

 away this time. I can't help it; I must surely have them 

 now; and I had — but it was the same way I had the others. 



It was too bad, but I had learned the lesson my friend had 

 set me in his mind last evening. Like many others, I was 

 killing my ducks on the way to the shooting ground. 1 

 asked him very humbly if he would please tell me why I 

 missed the last shots, for I was still iu doubt as to all the 

 facts. This was his answer: "When you got up the birds 

 were at least a hundred yards off, and never were nearer 

 eighty yards. It is the old story of a beginner at box-shoot- 

 ing, but you shot so well on the train down last evening, I 

 thought you might kill at least one in four. 1 will tell you 

 when to get up next time." 



Well, when the next pair came in I thought he might 

 never give the word. On and on they came, long after I 

 thought them close in. He said as he rose, "You take the 

 right and I will attend to the left." By this time they were 

 fairly over the decoys, flight stopped, feet extended, •breast 

 and whole front thrown fairly up, making a mark that does 

 not require an expert to hit. The result was a pair of canvas- 

 backs. I did not need further coaching for that kind of 

 darting. But, although I have shot every fall aud spring 

 since, I cannot always judge the distance of quartering birds 

 not darting. 



We occupied the box on this first lay a little more than 

 an hour aud a half, boating 28 birds, 19 of which were can- 

 vasbacks. The day's shoot was near 60, 37 of which were 

 canvasbacks. I have never since killed anywhere near so 

 many "cans" on a single trip, although last fall I shot four 

 days. Three years ago I was with the same party. On a 

 first day's shoot we boated 91 birds, mostly redheads. We 

 killed many more, losing them to poachers/who were out in 

 numbers. Laws passed since then have broken this up pretty 

 thoroughly, and very few ducks are lost. I was on the 

 grounds last fall for the first day's shoot. The day opened 

 as favorably as could be desired, but we got but few ducks. 

 This was not for lack of numbers, as they were there in tens 

 of thousands, but they did not dart to decoys. 



My experience from first to last is that they are less and 

 less easily decoyed. The reason is apparent. As between 

 box-shooting and bushwhacking, the latter is doing much 

 the greater amouut of harm, owing, perhaps mainly, to ex- 

 cess in numbers. I say let there be less of both, that we 

 may have better results. Either let the number be less or 

 fewer days, say one or two days in a week. D. B. 



SMALL-BORE SHOTGUNS. 



Editoi' Forest and Stream: 



I noticed an article in a late number of Forest and 

 Strea.m advocating the use of small-bore shotguns in prefer- 

 ence to larger bores, and I am pleased to see that this sub- 

 ject is being discussed, for I, like the writer of the article 1 

 refer to, am a strong believer in small-bores. 



Until recently I thought there was nothing equal to a 

 heavy 10-gauge gun for duck shooting and have owned two 

 first-class guns of that bore, made by W. W. Greener of 

 Birmingham, England, both of which did excellent work. 



Within the last two years, however, my opinion has 

 changed, and I am now a strong advocate of small-bores, 

 The gun I use is a hammerless 20-gauge, thirty- iuch barrels, 

 full choke, weight eight pounds. This gun is chambered to 

 take a three-inch metal shell, and is built entirely after my 

 own idea of what a small-bore should be, and although I 

 say it myself, it comes up to my expectations in every way. 



My reason for having it built so heavy and chambered 

 especially for a three-inch metal shell is as follows: By 

 usiug a 16-gauge wadding which fits the shell snug, I «an 

 burn more powder than can be burnt in an ordinary 20-bore 

 of lighter weight, and the gun is heavy enough to overcome 

 any extra recoil. I can get both better penetration and 

 pattern in proportion with about half the load required for 

 10-gauge guns, and I have no headache or sore shoulder after 

 a heavy day's shooting. 



The loads I generally use areas follows: 3i drams powder 

 with f ounce No. 7 Chicago chilled shot, and 2\ drams 

 powder with 1} ounces No. 4 shot. With the former charge 

 in the barrel fired first, ducks can be shot clean at from 45 

 to 50 yards, and with the latter load it is the shooter's own 

 fault if he does not bring the game to bag at 60 yards, or 

 even a longer distance. Doubtless some believers iu large- 

 bores will say that di drams of powder cannot be burnt in a 

 20-gauge gun without spoiling the pattern. I will grant 

 that this charge of "fine-grain powder" cannot be used with- 

 out scattering too much at 40 yards, but I overcome the 

 difficulty in this way : I first put in 2| drams of coarse 

 powder, then 1 dram"of best quality fine-grain powder, with 

 one card wad, one pink edge, one thick felt, and one leather 

 wad (punched out of harness leather) between powder and 

 shot, and a thin, stiff card wad over the shot. I use 16- 

 gauge wadding altogether, with the exception of the leather 

 wad immediately under the shot, which is the same gauge 

 as the diameter of the bore of gun at the muzzle. I have 

 found that unless the wad next to the shot fits the muzzle of 



