June 25, 1885.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



429 



ing the season wherein the killing, injuring, or pursuing is 

 herein prohibited." 



Maine. — "No person shall bill or have in possession, ex- 

 cept alive, or expose for sale, any wood duck, dusky duck 

 (commouly called black cluck), or other sen, duck, or plover, 

 between the first day of May and the first day of September, 

 or any ruffed grouse (commonly called partridge), or wood- 

 cock," between' the first day of December and the first day of 

 September following; or any quail or pinnated grouse (com- 

 monly called prairie chicken), between the first day of Janu- 

 ary and the first day of September following." 



Hew Hampshire. — "Ho person shall" (in close season 

 named) "take, kill, or destroy" (species named), "nor shall 

 within the respective times aforesaid, sell, buy, or have in 

 possession any of said birds." 



The provision in relation to animals protected instated 

 months is: "If any person shall have in possession the car- 

 case or bide, or any part thereof, of any such animal between 

 the times Within which the killing of such animals is pro- 

 hibited, it, shall be prima fa£te evidence that he has hunted 

 and killed the same contrary to law." Massachusetts. 



SOMETHING ABOUT FIELD SCORES. 



I AM glad that my letter giving some details of a Decem- 

 ber Visit to Chatham county afforded so much consola- 

 tion to your correspondent "A." P. R," of Belvidere, N. C. 

 It is not my fortune to have the honor of his acquaintance. 

 I wish it was. It would give me great pleasure to try the 

 field with one who is so expert in the use of the gun at birds. 

 I confess I cannot match the shooting which he did, nor do 

 I know any one who can. I heard recently of a man who 

 reported that he had shot fifty-four times and bagged fifty- 

 two birds. When 1 see a man do that I will believe it, but 

 never upon the unsupported testimony of the sportsman. If 

 a man will go into the field alone, and shoot only when the 

 bird is in open ground, giving the best of all chances, 

 especially early in November, when many of them can 

 barely fly, he might do it. But in December and January, 

 when birds are strong, and half the chances are in the 

 woods, no man can make such a score — provided he shoots 

 at all he sees near enough to him. I have hunted with per- 

 sons who were adepts in blowing their own trumpets, and 

 extolling their prowess, but when with me they did no better 

 than I. In open fields, when alone, and without apprehension 

 that any one is going to get in his barrel before me, I can kill 

 three-fourths, or more, of the birds I shoot at, but if I have a 

 companion, and especially one who claims well, I think I 

 am quite successful if 1 succeed in every alternate shot. 

 When I use the word kill, I mean it to include only those 

 which I put in my bag. During my last hunt, I think I 

 shot seventy-two times. 1 bagged thirty-eight birds. Per- 

 haps ten others were hit badly— but I did not get them. 

 Some persons, I learn, count all the birds which they say 

 were, struck, and doubtless they have very vivid imagina- 

 tions or extremely sharp vision, and see what ordinary mor- 

 tals could not do. 



Now, "A. F. R." must not suppose I have meant to ques- 

 tion the accuracy of his statements as to his performance. 

 Such is not meant. 1 am alluding to the boastfulness of 

 some men who live much nearer to me than Albemarle 

 Sound. It must be recollected that, as a general thing in 

 the section where I hunt, a covey found in the stubble will 

 take cover in pine thickets or in large patches of briers or 

 swamps, or thick woods with much undergrowth, and hence 

 that all the shots except those on the first rise of the birds 

 are at a great disadvantage. Of course, if a man shoots a 

 10-bore cylinder and uses 1+ ounces of No. 10 shot, he can 

 kill more birds than he can with a 14 or 16-gauge gun with 

 less than an ounce of shot. None of our sportsmen shoot 

 larger than twelves, and several have fourteens and sixteens. 

 One of our most expert sportsmen shoots with a 16-bore 

 modified choke, and. he not only gets more birds than any of 

 us, but in my opinion there are very few who can equal him 

 with any sort of weapou. He gets about two-thirds of the 

 birds at which he shoots. He recently tried his skill in com- 

 petition with some of the best shots in Virginia, and they 

 acknowledged that they knew no one who with even a 

 10 bore could get more birds than he could. When, there- 

 fore, I hear of a man who alleges his ability to kill nine out 

 of ten birds in an all-day's hunt, I can only say that if such 

 a man were put on the witness stand, and I were on the 

 jury, his testimony upon the subject matter at issue would 

 have to be strongly corroborated before it would influence 

 my judgment as to the verdict which I should render. Even 

 then 1 should place far more reliance upon the statements of 

 the corroborators. 



Several years ago one of these blatant fellows visited our 

 section of country with his dog and gun. He talked largely 

 of his skill, and affirmed that if he did not get five-sixths of 

 his birds he shouid think had done ge-whillikiu bad shooting. 

 (That was not the adjective he used as a qualifier. He took 

 that very convenient one which fits all cases and conditions, 

 whether good or ill, hot or cold, fair or foul, and to which 

 the poverty of the human intellect sometimes — nay, very 

 often, I am sorry to say — forces men to resort in order to 

 the thorough completion and rounding of a description.) He 

 went into the fields, shot twenty-five times and got five birds! 

 He never indulged in his bragging any more in our neigh- 

 borhood; but doubtless in other places, where his skill was 

 unknown, he gained the admiration of unsophisticated audi- 

 tors by his extravagant professions. 



Now, 1 make no claims to special expertness. Many 

 sportsmen can beat me, and beat me badly, particularly 

 when the day is dark. My vision is not so good as it once 

 was, nor are my limbs so agile. The right eye has lost far 

 more of its former power than the left. I keep both eyes 

 open when I shoot, and I shoot from the right shoulder. 

 The right, or weaker, eye controls the line of vision. But 

 yet I can kill and get more birds in a given number of shots 

 than many who claim far more skill than 1 do. I sincerely 

 wish that these "Big Ikes" would quit their portentousness 

 and come down to the plane of truth. 



I have little confidence in the statements often made as to 

 the capacity of guns. Distance is frequently guessed, and 

 the owner of the very remarkable gun is a full graduate with 

 the highest honors in this department of the human mind. 

 It is true a man is sometimes honest when he alleges that his 

 fowling piece will surely kilt a partridge (not a ruffed grouse) 

 at sixty yards. His ideas of distance are rather crude, and a 

 tape line would lessen it by many yards. No gun fit to be 

 taken to the field for wing-shooting (Mr. Greener to the con- 

 trary notwithstanding) can be relied upon for even forty 

 yards, as the pattern at the target will demonstrate. A very 

 large majority of birds killed on the wing are dropped at 

 less than thirty yards, and when the second barrel is used 

 and the game is off beyond forty, the chances are against the 



shooter. I have owned quite a number of guns by the best 

 makers, and among them those made by Scott, Greener, 

 Wesiley Richards, Tolley, Webley, Williams and Powell, 

 and not one of them had the power which some persons claim 

 for theirs. The fact is, I have no desire to own such 

 weapons. A full choke— indeed a fuller than choke— gun 

 which will make a pattern at forty yards of 3(50 pellets of 

 No. 7 shot, and distribute with exactness, would uot do at a 

 distance of twenty yards if the sportsman Wants game for 

 the table. Such a gun must be held with absolute precision. 

 I prefer one which will afford a little margin. Such guns 

 will serve for trap guns. But a decent sportsman would far 

 prefer to bag ten wild birds who spring from the grass he 

 knows not where, and take a line of flight he cannot foresee, 

 to breaking fifty glass balls thrown from a trap and which 

 follow a fixed law. Wells. 



Rockingham, N._U. 



SPRING GRASS PLOVER. 



DURING the beginning of the week woodcock were 

 on hand "on the sly" at some of the game dealers' 

 stands in Philadelphia; and this spring and summer quite a 

 large trade has been done in this city by poulterers in grass 

 plover aud golden plover from the West. It would seem, 

 then, as loug as such a ready sale can be had for these 

 upland birds that, as in the case of the spring flight of shore 

 birds, there will be hereafter a steady demand for them, 

 which will very soon tell upon their ranks. One game 

 dealer told me that he had received this spring hundreds of 

 them on ice from the West, and sold them almost before 

 they reached him. "1 can make more on them than I can 

 on June woodcock," he remarked, "and can get more of 

 them. " 



Now this is but one illustration of what a faulty game law 

 briugs about. Here are two varieties of game birds never 

 before killed iu the spring or sought for excepting within a 

 comparatively short time, growing into favor and demand 

 because they can be killed in the West just prior to the 

 breeding season and shipped to an Eastern market by re- 

 frigerator cars when other game is scarce and not in season. 

 We do not blame the epicure for enjoying a spring grass 

 plover or golden plover, for they are both delicious morsels, 

 but we must cry halt to the slaughter of them during their 

 vernal migration, and, to use the heading of your able 

 editorial a short time since, remark that it is indeed a 

 "spending of principal." Homo. 



BEAR DOGS. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



While we find dogs bred and trained to hunt the fox, 

 deer aud the various kinds of birds that exist on this 

 continent, we find many kinds of game which no dog of 

 any recoguized breed will follow successfully. If large 

 game had existed in Europe, especially in England, we 

 should have had a dog we could depend upon to follow a 

 bear and other similar game. I have been interested iu 

 hunting bear for the last twenty years, and have taken much 

 pains to collect information upon the subject. While the 

 hunters of Maine think a dog is of no use in hunting bear, 

 our brother huntsmen in the Southwest use them with great 

 effect, aud in the place of one or two dogs, as in Maine, they 

 use a pack. I am not prepared to say how many, I find it 

 very difficult to get information upon this subject, as the 

 most successful bear hunters cannot be induced to answer 

 letters 



I have been trying our common foxhound, and find while 

 they might make good trailing dogs, they lack the courage 

 necessary to stop a bear or drive them to tree. I am trying 

 a cross with a bull-terrier, and expect better results. It 

 seems that white dogs are much more effective in driving a 

 bear to tree than dogs of a dark color. They are said to be 

 feared by the bears. 



An old trapper informed me that he and his partner 

 trailed a bear, which had broken from the clog and escaped 

 with a trap. With two dogs they came up with the bear 

 and held him at bay until the hunters came. up. One of 

 them raised his rifle and sent a ball through bruin, back of 

 the shoulder. He fell and rolled over, dead as they supposed; 

 but in another moment he was on his feet. A second shot 

 produced a similar effect, but before the guns could be 

 reloaded, and while the knife was about to be used to cut 

 his throat, he leaped to his feet and soon disappeared with 

 both dogs hanging to his sides. In time the dogs returned 

 and were sent on again, while the hunters followed as fast 

 as possible. But the chase had to be abandoned ; the bear 

 or trap was never found. The dogs were part bull and 

 probably curs. 



Unless the bear is approached with great caution, while 

 held by dogs, the prospect of getting a shot will be very 

 poor, especially of killing the bear, as almost any amount of 

 lead may be placed beneath their hides without doing 

 execution, if fired at random, as was shown by taking 

 seventeen heavy balls, a number of nails and a jack knife 

 from a bear while skinning. This beast was killed in Rox- 

 bury, Maine. He was first fired upon in the night, and 

 left a piece of his caul as large as our hands, while crawling 

 through the brush fence. The next day he was followed by 

 a number of men who kept up a fusilade with old smooth 

 back guns as long as balls could be procured. Then they 

 used such things as happened to be in their pockets, such as 

 board nails and knives. One man took a four-bladed knife, 

 opened the blade and slipped it into his gun, ran up 

 behind the slowly retreating bear, and fired it into his hip. 

 Bruin stood the balls and nails, but this was too much for 

 his generally good and inoffensive disposition, so he turned 

 suddenly and threw the man to the ground and began to 

 bite his arm. Had it not been for one of their number rush- 

 ing up and throwing his hat in bruin's face, the man would 

 have been killed. An old hunter was sent for and succeeded 

 in killing the bear with two balls. This bear was very large, 

 weighing 400 lbs. In order to get him out to the road he 

 was roped down the river with a man astride of him. 



I have trailed brain in his wanderings after snowfall, 

 before he enters his winter home. I became interested in 

 unraveling the most intricate and strange peculiarities 

 possessed by this most hidden and eccentric of all our wild 

 animals, for bruin can do the most traveling up and down 

 inaccessible mountains, through cedar jungles, mud and 

 water, going and returning, stepping so nearly in his 

 tracks that it takes much time to find the trail, or where he 

 left his back tracks. Much intelligence is shown. The 

 place of leaving the track is chosen, so that by a long jump 

 over a log or stone the trail will be hidden. 1 have had to 

 go over the same ground several times, and not until one 

 had folllowed the trail a little distance upon each side could 

 it be found where he had left the track. I have tried to 



study the purpose of all these miles of seemingly aimless 

 wandering, when no food is looked for or taken. I think at 

 last I have become acquainted with the habits of our 

 common black bear, and should there be any interest 

 manifested upon the subject will gladly contribute my mite 

 to bring out something of interest upon this much neglected 

 subject. 



Will the readers of the Forest and Stream who have 

 any knowledge on the subject, especially as relates to the 

 use of dogs in such hunting, if any one has such dogs, tell 

 us about them? I can assure you it will be read with great 

 interest by many, to my certain knowledge,, for all of those 

 who wait' for the coming of our paper with gladness do not 

 own a fancy dog or gun, aud yet they love the deep woods, 

 and do not mind trifles. They are "deep-water fishermen" 

 so to speak, who feel that they cannot write for a paper. I 

 wish we might have a corner for such common talk, 

 just as they talk to us. Bruin. 



North Carolina Quail Law. — Editor Forest and Stream: 

 At the last session of the General Assembly of North Caro- 

 lina the following law for the protection of quail or partridge 

 in Currituck county was enacted, in order to prevent de- 

 stroying them until full grown and strong. It has hereto- 

 fore been the custom to commence shooting them about the 

 middle of October, at which time the late broods are quite 

 small and barely able to fly.— M. H. S. (Saowden, N. C). 

 An act to protect quail or partridge in Currituck county. 

 Section 2834 of the Code of North Carolina is amended by 

 adding at the end thereof the following: "And any person 

 who shall kill or shoot, trap or net any partridge or quail in 

 Currituck county between the first day of April and the first 

 day of December in each year shall be guilty of a misde- 

 meanor and fined not exceeding $10 or imprisoned not ex- 

 ceeding ten days for each offense. This act shall be in force 

 from and after its ratification." In General Assembly read 

 three times and ratified this 11th day of March, 1885. Chap- 

 ter 896, page 661, Laws 1885. 



Maryland Woodcock. — Woodcock are reported to be 

 plentiful in Maryland, and it is said that many young birds 

 were bred there. The. weather lately has been very favor- 

 able to the broods, but if a dry season continues into July, 

 tbe birds will all collect near the wet places and be the more 

 readily found and killed by the sportsman who follows sum- 

 mer shooting. Why cannot a concentrated movement be 

 made by the many game protective societies and sportsmen's 

 clubs to abolish entirely summer shooting of all kinds? I 

 doubt not but that the majority of shooting men of the 

 United States would favor it. —Homo. 



Bergen County Bird Protectors. — New York, June 

 17. — A goodly number of gentlemen, both sportsmen and 

 those interested in the protection of song birds, met at the 

 residence of W. Holberton, Hackensack, N. J., and reor- 

 ganized the old Bergen County Association for the Protec- 

 tion of Game. The following officers were elected: President, 

 W. Holberton ; Secretary and Treasurer, Edwin Ackerman, 

 The association ordered several hundred muslin posters, giv- 

 ing a synopsis of the new game laws, which will be dis- 

 tributed through the county, and vigorous measures will be 

 taken for their enforcement. 



Wolves in Maine. — A newspaper paragraph states that 

 on Thursday of last week, as Benjamin F. Pottle, of Pitts- 

 ton, Me,, was walking through a piece of woods, he was at- 

 tacked by a timber wolf that was making its way through 

 the forest. Mr. Pottle is quite an old man and lame, which 

 obliges him to carry a heavy walking-stick, and with his 

 cane he made a vigorous fight, and after quite a struggle suc- 

 ceeded in getting in a couple of blows on the head of the 

 animal that partially stunned it. By repeating the strokes 

 he succeeded in killing the animal before receiving any seri- 

 ous injury. 



Quail in Arkansas.— Little Rock, Ark., June 18.— The 

 prospects for quail are better than usual. They have wintered 

 well and all the railroads are refusing to carry them to 

 market during the close season, so they will have "a chance. 

 Heretofore numbers of professional market hunters have 

 camped on the prairies and killed them all summer for the 

 Memphis and St. Louis markets. The refusal of the rail- 

 roads to ship the game has stopped this. — Casual. 



Ruffed Grouse on Loxg Island. — A new law forbids 

 the capture of ruffed grouse, commonly called partridge, in 

 Queens and Suffolk counties, N.Y., between Jan. 1 and Nov. 1. 



wmg 



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"That reminds me." 



153. 



I WAS hunting with an army musket near Port Totten, 

 Dakota Territory, one intensely cold day in January, 

 1868, and fired at a buffalo seventy-five yards distant and 

 missed. The bullet fired from the musket I was using at 

 the time was frozen in the air twentj r -five yards from the 

 muzzle of the musket, and was thus held in suspension until 

 it was released by the heat of the sun's rays on the 20th of 

 April following, when it sped on its course and killed three 

 elk out of a band of about three thousand, thence on a mile 

 further — measured distances — and killed four jack rabbits, 

 and then striking the water of Devil's Lake, two hundred 

 and seventy-three yards f urther, the bullet cut a lateral para- 

 bolic curve and plunged into a large flock of trumpeter 

 swans and killed five of them. The bullet that did all this 

 bloody work was found in one of the swan's bellies, and 

 was recognized by peculiar marks on it, and was presented 

 to Jules Verne who, it is said, took it with him on his last 

 visit to the moon. I have always regretted parting with 

 that bullet, but I am consoled by a line from Mr. Verne, in 

 which he states he will return the bullet when he goes to 

 the moon and back on another trip, which he expects to 

 make soon by the application and aid of elictricity. If Maj. 

 Joseph Verity would like to have the bullet I will send it to 

 him as soon as Mr. Verne returns it to me. Jingo Sam. 



154. 



The highly esteemed president of our game and fish 

 protective society, proceeded to his favorite bass waters, 

 Fites Eddy, on the Susquehanna below Columbia, iast 

 Saturday, to try his luck with the fish and mine host Bostick, 

 who keeps the tavern at that point. 



Quite close to the Eddy a small stream enters the river, in 

 which a few trout still linger. This fact is known to but 

 a few, among them our E. P. before mentioned. He is 



