202 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Oct. 8, 1885. 



Address all comviunications to the Forest and Stream Fublish- 

 mg Co. 



MORNING. 

 'T^HE morning v^&kes on the woods and lakes, 



And the mavis a matin sings, 

 The camp-fire wanes, and the tent is struck. 

 And the boat by the landing swings. 



A thought I give to the friends who live, 



Another to those who've gone. 

 Whose oars now wimple the stream of Life, 



That flows by the Father's throne. 



There's a sword and wreath, with a grave beneath, 



By Nashua's placid flow. 

 And the legend graved on the marble tells 



That the soldier lies below. 



And one sleeps well, 'neath the ocean swell, 



On the stormy coast of Maine, 

 His requiem timed by the sounding surge, 



And the roar of the hurricane. 



They 'camped far back, on the misty track 



Of the Horse, and the Rider pale ; 

 While I, for a century's half, and more, 



Have traveled the weary trail. 



Ah. well ! On the lake may the wavelets break, 



But Higher the stream runs fast; 

 And I poise my paddle, and head the prow 



For the foam-wreaths whirling past. 



And away we gUde on the swirling tide,. 



Sun-flecked with its silver gleam. 

 The thrush still sings, but his voice is lost 



In the sound of the rushing stream. 



The scarlet tints of the tanagers glint, 



Where the cardinal's spikelets grow; 

 And mock the hues of their glowing plumes, 



In the hmpid stream below. 



And the wood duck springs on his shining wings, 



From his perch o'er the rushes brown, 

 By a pool thick-strewn with the bright- hued leaves. 



That the ash trees flutter down. 



To the left— or right of each foam-flash white. 



No rock may our progress stay ; 

 For eye and keel, and the nerves of steel 



Shall win in the race this day. 



And swift as the glance of the Tartar's lance. 



Through the flash of the flying spray. 

 With never a shock from shoal or rock. 



The good boat speeds her way. 



There's a short, sharp bend, where the cliffs ascend. 



And hang with a beetUng frown 

 O'er the bounding rush of the churning foam, 



Where the strong stream plunges down. 



And the graybeard sire hath a glance of fire. 



As he bends to the swing and sway. 

 With a cheer for his old foam-riders bold, 



Who would fain be here this day. K. 

 Sew. 14, 1885. 



EN KLAPJAGT OVER DANSKE FJELDE. 



THE gray baze of a November morning made a mono- 

 chrome with the gray walls and paved streets of Den 

 mark's capital, as Dr. Warming and I with our guns and 

 canvas suits and big boots, stepped into our carriage in Vester- 

 brogade and rattled off past the early milkman with his 

 bumping, thumping cans, and past the homeward bound 

 sporting man, who "was damp and limp from long exposure 

 to night air. 



Uncas. the setter, we had left whining and barking and 

 pawing at tbe door, and my heart went out in pity for the 

 poor fellow as my mind reverted to earlier days and a little 

 red school house beneath the butternut trees in a small Con- 

 necticut village. A loose clap-boarded, lichen-blotched 

 school house in which I myself could have whined and 

 barked and pawed at the door when the gentians by the 

 brookside were nodding toward the muskrat tracks in the 

 sand, and when the ruffed grouse In freedom walked and 

 flew whither they would in the gay-colored breezy autumn 

 forest. Yes! I could sympathize with Uncas now. We 

 were going on a drive hunt, and knew that the ambitious 

 setter could not resist the temptation to follow if a slick- 

 limbed hare should shake its tail in his face and challenge 

 him for a run. 1 had hunted deer in the Royal Forest, had 

 shot partridges on the private estates of wealthy landowners, 

 and in fact had enjoyed every luxury in the way of shooting 

 which my Danish friends could furnish, with the exception 

 of the drive hunt which had been arranged for the day of 

 which I write. „ , 



We reached the suburbs of Copenhagen and smelled the 

 rich salt air from the reedy marshes just as the haze in the 

 east began to grow coppery, and the peeps of the small birds 

 fluttering from the hedges by the wayside told of the begin- 

 ning of their day. Flocks of sparrows were already feeding 

 in the stubble, and their chirrups sounded clear and loud 

 through the crisp morning air. The white frost on the 

 fences sparkled on the eastern side of the way, and the 

 heavy-framed laborers with wooden shoes, carrying agricul- 

 tural implements on their shoulders, bowed to us as they 

 passed on their way to work. Broad meadows stretched out 

 to the right and to the left. Fields of wheat stubble, of green 

 and gray turnips and of black cabbage dotted the hillsides. 

 Here and there stood a dark Norway spruce tree or a clump 

 of beech trees. The air felt just as Pennsylvania air feels, 

 and the groups of apple and pear and cherry trees might 

 just as well have been standing in somebody's back yard in 

 Massachusetts ; but nevertheless there was a something dif- 

 ferent, an indescribable foreignness about the scenery which 

 impressed me constantly and pleasantly. 



My enthusiastic companion, who spoke no English and 

 whom I constantly admonished to speak slowly, would 

 gtart off on an enraptured strain about prospects every few 

 minutes, in the same way as Sam and 1 encourage each 

 other when the ruffed grouse at home are ripe and the chest- 

 nuts shine in plump brownness through the yellow and 

 crumply leaves under foot. Thistles and plantain and clover 



*A clapping hunt over Danish fields. 



grew 'with familiar grasses along the road, and shocks of 

 corn were waiting to be husked. A little way ahead a hi^h 

 thatched windmill swung its long arms slowly around in 

 the light breeze, and over the top of a hill to the right the 

 ends of another windmill's arms appeared and disappeared 

 at regular intervals. Every now and then a big white and 

 black magpie slid from a tree overhead as we jogged along, 

 or a flock of lead-colored crows {Cormis co-mix) changed fence 

 posts and cawed a salute. Over the bay long lines of geese 

 were cleaving the air with measured wing strokes, and an 

 occasional mallard or snipe settled in among the feathery- 

 topped rushes near us. 



The sun was beginning to soften the air of the perfect 

 autumn morning when we espied the group of jolly Danes 

 who were waiting at the place of rendezvous. There were 

 Ole Larsen and Lars Olesen, and Neils Holmsen and Holm 

 Nielsen, and Asmus Rasmussen and Rasmus Asmussen, and 

 Ask Bjoerken, and Axel Hagerup and Olof Qvist, Hjelt 

 Raavad, and Sell Maag and Hj'almer Bjoernsen, and a lot of 

 others whose names have in some unaccountable way slipped 

 my mind. They say that when two Danes go off for a walk 

 they sometimes get so mixed up that it lakes weeks to find 

 out which one is the other. 



Twenty or thirty flaxen-haired, strong-hmbed boys wear- 

 ing home-made clothes and heavy wooden shoes, carried 

 wooden clappers and old tin pails and other racket-producing 

 implements. The noise part of the hunt was to be left to 

 the responsibility of the boys, and never was responsibility 

 carried more lightly. There were hunting suits of corduroy, 

 and hunting suits of canvas, and hunting suits of business 

 suits there. There were English guns with shoulder straps, 

 and Belgian guns with shoulder straps, and American guns 

 with shoulder straps ; and all these straps wrinkled the coats 

 of their respective owners as the hunters stood about chat- 

 ting in Danish and preparing for the start. Many of the 

 men spoke German and French, and it was surprising to find 

 that many who had had little opportunity to speak English 

 were able to carry on conversation in that tongue. 



A few minutes were spent ia making arrangements, and 

 then we formed in a line out across the fields, the hunters 

 about two gunshots apart and the boys sandwiched in be- 

 tween. There we stood in picturesque style, the fox-tail 

 grass and the red-flowered wild poppies and the seedy pig 

 weeds glistening about our feet with melting frost, while 

 every one impatiently awaited the signal to start. Suddenly 

 a bugle blast rang out along the line, and at the same instant 

 the boys began a lively clapping and clattering, and the 

 shooters shouted in glee to each other, as with cocked guns 

 and accelerated heart beats we began a military march 

 towai-d the horizon. 



From under the very feet of Stjerne on my left an enor- 

 mous hare bounds out like a jackass struck by a locomotive, 

 and with ears laid back and short tail bobbing begins to 

 measure off the ground in rods. A No. 10 roar calls out for 

 him to halt, and through the smoke we see the hare tumbling 

 and rolling and kicking sand and grass into the air. A boy 

 runs forward, and grabbing the heavy animal by its hind 

 legs throws it over his shoulder and huiTies back to the line. 

 A hare weighs as much as a shotgun, but no boy ever felt 

 too tired to carry one of them. Another flash further down 

 the line, and another an instant later, excite the boys to the 

 developing of an unbelievable degree of noisiness. 



There goes a hare which was not hit and three dogs start 

 for him at once. Over the meadow they go at a tremendous 

 pace, the hare apparently hardly touching the ground witlihis 

 feet, but in a brown and white line of waving motion lead- 

 ing the canines easily. Were he to keep straight on at this 

 rate he would be in Chicago in time for lunch, but playful 

 in his fleetness he turns, and circling back runs almost up to 

 Hvide, who strikes him in the forequarter with a stray shot. 

 Off he scurries, handicapped, with one of the dogs close at 

 his heels; but it seems as though a bar of steel prevented the 

 dog from gaining the last necessary foot of distance, while 

 the hare bounds up and down so fast that I wonder why he 

 don't shake his head off or fray the end of his tail. Hares 

 are put together with flail strings, and this one does not even 

 shake an ear loose. The shooters hold their breaths m 

 interested expectancy. Suddenly the hare doubles, and the 

 dog in the funniest kind of a way runs sprawling several 

 yards past before he can acquire the saw-horse stiff-legged- 

 ness which he requires for slopping. Another dog sprmgs 

 open-mouthed on the hare, but he opens his mouth too widely 

 or something of the sort, because the hare seemed to pop 

 right through him and come out smiling. The third dog 

 joins the first one, and together they dash furiously through 

 the grass and out across the ploughed field. The hare misses 

 his footing and a gleam of white belly fur appears for an 

 instant as he rolls on a furrow. The dogs make a dive for 

 him, but they are too simultaneous and stand themselves up 

 like three muskets on an armory floor. Tbe hare has all of 

 the room and time that he wants, and leaves the dogs stand- 

 ing as pigeon-toed and discouraged as a man with a "busted ' 

 collar-button on a hot evening at the theater. A puff of 

 smoke and a loud bang are followed by a reaping of grass 

 leaves about the hare, and the dogs have an opportunity to 

 "quit their fooling." It seems as much a pity to let oft" that 

 hare's stored-up energy as it does to let off the steam from 

 an engine at the end of a day's work, but the thing is done, 

 and the hare ought to be glad of it, because he must have 

 been getting pretty tired. 



As we Btart on again Bjoernstjerne quickly jumps around 

 and fires into the turnip leaves through which we have just 

 passed, bagging a hare and half a dozen turnips, but letting 

 a boy get off as a fast driver to the right without firing at 

 him Notwithstanding the noise and disturbance the hare 

 had lain so close that he was passed unobserved and might 

 have escaped if he had allowed us to do the departing in- 

 stead of trying to do it all himself. Ploughed land seems to 

 pan out the best for hares, and every few minutes one goes 

 bounding out from a furrow and vaulting from one hummock 

 to another. Occasionally one will jump wild but the dogs 

 usually manage to get him back to one of the hare receivers 

 and he is reUeved of future care. All at once the clappers 

 stop their racket and every one looks to see what game is 

 coming. A couple of big wood pigeons are bearing for us 

 bow on. Nearer they come and larger they grow, until it is 

 too late for them to pass— put their tails as hard to port as 

 they may. Their white-lined wings go with misty fastness 

 and they spring away from each other overhead. Three or 

 four guns belch forth rolling volumes of smoke, and the 

 hurtling storm of lead perforates atmosphere and pigeons 

 alike Down come both birds together, twisting and whirl- 

 ing and losing downy feathers as they fall. Little straw- 

 colored Harald runs out and brings in the biggest bird, wip- 

 ing the blood from its bill with his finger and then wiping 

 his finger on his pantaloons— just as he does with his own 

 chubby nose. He is anxious to carry the bird and I tell him 



that he must be very careful with it. Such tender careful- 

 ness as he displays one seldom sees in a boy, and when he is 

 trudging through a wet spot he holds the bird over his head 

 where the saw grass won't mu.ss it, until tripping up on a 

 willow root the poor little fellow snaps shut like a jackknife 

 and pokes the pigeon so deep down in the mud with one 

 knee that the saw grass turns green with envy. 



Here comes a short-eared owl from the marsh. Swinging 

 along with soft noiseless flip flops he skims the perfumed air 

 from the aster tops, and carelessly wafts himself into our 

 dangerous midst. The opportunity is too good an one for 

 Svensen to resist, and borne down with disappointment and 

 No. 4 shot, the owl bites the dust and the dog's ear. 



The clappers are again quiet as a mallard duck flying high 

 passes over the line on his way to some small inland pond 

 which he knows about. Half 'a pound of shot goes up after 

 him, but he points his bill toward heaven and chews the air 

 up finer than ever with his stout whistling pinions. So far 

 as I know, he is going up there alive. Hardly has the smoke 

 stopped sifting through the poplar sprouts ahead before a 

 pair of pretty little blue doves dart past like arrows. One, 

 two, three shots and one dove is down ; four, five, six, seven 

 shots and the second one tumbles into the clover. How 

 smooth their feathers are, and what delicately moulded heads 

 and dainty red feet they have! 



"Smukke dove! Saa lille og nydelig, "f says big Walde- 

 mar, as be brings one in in his hand. 



It doesn't take long for the sun to reach tbe noon mark in 

 Danish November, and it gets there before one really feels 

 that Phcebus dare stand up straight. A wagon which has 

 been following us slowly through the meadows now drives 

 up and the hunters and boys brush each others' ears with 

 their elbows as they help themselves to the hunks of cheese 

 and bottles of beer and boiled eggs, and other luxuries which 

 the wagon contains. 



A small ravine, on whose grassy banks the Vikings prob- 

 ably sat on 'grasshoppers and sharp stubble just as we do 

 to-day, runs through the fields near our halting place. We 

 pull the crooked, stiff hares out straight, smooth their fur, 

 and lay them in heaps by our sides. We toss lunch tidbits 

 to the dogs, light pipes and cigars, kick our heels into the 

 sod, fire egg-shells at the boys, and joke and laugh until the 

 uneasy members of the party suggest that we be off again. 

 The dogs notice the first movement, and in exuberant spirits 

 leap over their masters and over each other, and bark in 

 good plain English. This time the line of march extends 

 down toward the sea. More hares spring up and die, ephem- 

 erally. Another short-eared owl and another pair of doves 

 find that our influence was more reaching than they had 

 thought. We are approaching a series of sand knolls which 

 are covered with tall, dry, sparsely growing grass. The 

 clappers remain quiet. A" word of "caution is passed along 

 the line. 



Hardly have our feet begun to crunch the loose sand when 

 a covey of twenty partridges bursts out of the grass with an 

 explosive rush of wings, and spreading their ruddy tails 

 widely, and crying quirlp-quirlp, quirlp-quirlp, in shrill, 

 quail-like tones' they lengthen out into a straggling flock 

 and head for the marsh. Poulsen, who is nearest to the 

 birds, coolly winds up one of them with each barrel, but 

 Iversen, who tries to kill the whole bevy at once, fails to get 

 any of it. Two men off on the left pick out four passing 

 birds, and the rest of the partridges, after a rapid flight of a 

 few hundred yards, sail off on curved wings and scatter 

 singly among the tussocks of grass. A bird which stayed 

 behind flies up almost at my feet with a startling whirr, but 

 he joins the minor part of the flock and helps make it the 

 major part. The scattered partridges lie in a territory which 

 belongs to a distant part of our fine, but we observe that the 

 care of the bhds can be safely left to the men who are burn- 

 ing powder down there. 



The sand knolls crossed, we reach the marsh, but on we 

 go through the sloppy reeds and splashy grass holes as 

 though we were on a board floor. In goes little Ivan just 

 ahead of me, splattering the water with heavy shoes, and 

 sprinkling it over his fox skin cap and home-made blue 

 blouse. In go Bjoerken and Jansen and Raavad. Out go a 

 snipe and a fox and a duck. Snipe jump up on all sides and 

 zig-zag off "skaiching" huskily, just as they do when Culver 

 and 1 flush them from the soft ground of a New Jersey 

 swamp lot. 



The marshes here look very much like our own marshes at 

 home, and any one not a botanist would have difficulty in 

 determining from the surroundings whether he were in New 

 Jersey or in this far north Sjaelland. The ducks are rather 

 wild and they usually manage to get out of the way of our 

 noisy party before we get within range of them. Now and 

 then a single mallard will lie concealed under the fallen 

 sedge until we are close upon him, and then with loud quacks 

 and swishing wings he tries to escape. He is a doomed and 

 boomed bird, every time. 



The daylight is fading rapidly, and by 4 o'clock it will be 

 too dark to shoot. Working back toward the hills in broken 

 line we pass the house of a p'easant family and my friend Dr. 

 Warming and I stop for a moment to see the place. The one- 

 story house with whitewashed stone and mortar walls is built 

 to surround a square court yard. A single large gateway 

 leads through the south wall of the building into this court, 

 in the middle of which latter a high wooden pump is sur- 

 rounded by ducks and geese and chickens. The court is 

 cobblestoned, and pretty green algfe run off along the damp 

 crevices between the stones. Several doors open into this 

 central yard. The few small windows are set deeply in the 

 walls of the house. The high-peaked roof of two-foot thick 

 straw thatching is covered with broad patches of rich green 

 moss. Part of the house is the barn, as Mike would say, and 

 the horses, cows, wagons, poultry and family all go and 

 come through the opening in the south wall of the building. 

 Two or three dark Norway spruce trees spread their bottle- 

 green branches over the house, and the contrast with the 

 whitewashed walls is a striking one. Several lead-colored 

 crows flew up on the thirty-foot-high straw stack by the 

 barn as we approached and they now sat cawing at us within 

 easy stone shot. 



We are greeted by the children, who pull off their caps 

 poUtely and then rattle their wood shoes on the cobbles as 

 they run off to their mammas in the doorways. Strong, 

 handsome, yellow-haired children, with bright faces and 

 clear gray eyes. I looked in at a school window one day 

 and the whole room seemed to be lighted up with a mellow 

 glow of yellow hair. All Danish children have to be .strong. 

 The weak ones die off when they begin to learn the language, 

 and, like Connecticut River shad, only the most robust are 

 able to surmount the difficulties which beset their way. 

 Doctor and I, on invitation, step into a simply-f urmshed 



tPretty dove! So little and cunning. 



