Dec- 3, 1885.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



367 



of 71 per cent. The ammunition employed was of the Union 

 Metallic Cartridge Company's manufacture, witb a compo- 

 sition in the bullet of 1 tin to 14 lead and loaded with FG 

 powder. When opened the powder was found hard pressed 

 l>ut in fair condition, and the bullet had the regulation three 

 broad grooves. The weights of the three powder charges 

 were 73 4. 71.3 and 69 1 grains, while the corresponding 

 bullets were 404.5, 404 3 and 404.5 grains. The record at 

 the 300-yard range stood: 



Round. .50 Yards. 100 Yards. 150 Yards. 



1 8.188 in. 10.968 m. S.464 in. 



o 8.540 in. 11.937 in. 8.906 in. 



S 8.917 in. 11.760 in. 9.098 in. 



4... 8.39»in. 11.706 in. 8,867 in. 



S. 8.62.3 in. 11.938 in. 9.130 in. 



Average 8.533 iu- 11.659 in. 8.893 in- 



The 100-yard shooting of the Sharps rifle had been tried 

 on Oct. 10, about half-past 4 in the afternoon, with the wind 

 coming across the range from the 9 o'clock quarter with a 

 5 mile an hour velocity. The other observations were: 

 Barometer 30.230 inches, thermometer 64''F., wet-bulb ther- 

 mometer 56°, and a dew point of 49 with a humidity of 58 

 per cent. Again the old Sharps proved itself a tractable 

 weapon, and a single siehting shot put it on the buUseye, 

 and then the five trial shots showed the following record: 



Round. 25 Yards. m Yards. T5 Yards. 



1 1.865 in. 3.59rin. 2.S36 in. 



3. 3.067 in. 3.585 in. 3.157 m. 



3. , 3;068 in, 3.645 in. 2.138 hi. 



4 3.090 in. 3.568 in. 3.ia5in. 



5 3.312 in. 3.805 m. 3.345 in. 



Average . 2.081 iu. 2.620 iti- 2.230 io- 



DEER IN VERMONT. 



Editor Far&il and Stream: 



"Stanstead," in your issue of Nov. 3, has made reference 

 to my knowledge of something of the deer whereabouts. 

 Yes, I have seen deer in Vermont near this place, and four 

 at one look once, and at various other times the "white flag," 

 but I have not shot at one in that State. I have seen the 

 dog-chewed hides of some killed there by crust-hunters, and 

 I was told yesterday by a reliable informant in Vermont that 

 he knew of seven deer slaughtered in one yard last spring. 

 That "yard'* was only five miles from this village, and some 

 of the "things" live liere that were in at the death. There 

 are many deer there now, and some are making a feeding 

 ground of the mountain side, in view from the window in 

 front of me. They were there one week ago to-day, when I 

 saw tbeir first tracks. But man cannot be their only enemy, 

 if I am well informed of the character of the wolverines 

 some of which have a home in the rocks in that dense forest. 



North Stratford is the home of several practical jokers, 

 and one of Vermont's crust-hunters and his venison went 

 through a mock trial last spring in that place. The fellow 

 was well scared. But why should we try to enforce deer 

 laws? When will there be an open season to make a game 

 law respected. They are not increasing under a dog in the 

 manger law. An open season from Aug. 1 to Jan. i would 

 be far better in ail Now England States than any law now in 

 existence in the different States. Knowledge of the breed- 

 ing season of deer, and the character of the people who are 

 to be regulated by game laws should both be taken into con- 

 sideration; if this is done you can remove all bounties, and 

 the four-footed venison eaters will disappear. Ned N. 



CoiiEBEOOK, N. H., Nov. 33. 



DEER NEAR LAKE GEORGE. 



Editor Forest aiul Stream: 



It is the opinion of true hunters generally on the lower 

 part of the Adirondack range that the passage of the non- 

 hounding act has been accomplished just in time. If hound- 

 ing had gone on for a number of years longer the deer would 

 have been nearly if not all killed. This fall's report show 

 them to be more plenty than for a number of years. Two 

 or three instances have come to my notice when parties have 

 gone from home and back the same day and getting a deer, 

 some of them living from ten to fifteen miles from the hunt- 

 ing around. The inclosed was clipped from the Troy Times: 



"Last year Burr Phelps, of Lake George, stood In his 

 tracks and shot three large deer within ten minutes. Tues- 

 day evening last Capt. Lee Harris, Oapt. Burr Phelps and 

 Geo. B. Harris, ex deputy postmaster, left Caldwell at 6 

 o'clock in a rowboat, reaching Bolton in two hours. There 

 they remained over night. At 4 o'clock the next morning 

 they were joined by Alexander Taylor and George Granger, 

 in another rowboat. The party pulled about eight miles 

 down the lake, and by the time it was daylight the hunters 

 were ascending the mountain opposite Halfway Island. Be- 

 fore 5 o'clock P. M. they had killed four deer, all bucks, 

 and had two down to the lake. Wednesday morning they 

 got the other two down from the mountain, loaded th»m in- 

 to the small boats and palled to Bolton, where they parted 

 company with Taylor and Granger and two deer. Before 6 

 o'clock P. M. they were at home. The parties were all old 

 hunters except G. B. Harris, it being his first experience. 

 The first aud largest buck was shot by him, also the second 

 and tmallest. The first weighed more than 300 pounds. 

 The snow on top of the mountain was ten inches deep. Pour 

 beautiful bucks aud a pull of eighteen miles and return in 

 less than forty-eight hours, without a dollar's expense or the 

 aid of a dog in killing the game, is a pattern for a country 

 more frequented by deer than the Lake Greorge region. Five 

 deer were started, but one evaded the keen eyes of the party. 

 A large bear was also started by the party, but was not seen." 



The mountains about Lake George are hunted perhaps as 

 much as any part of the Adirondack chain, as they are very 

 easy of access by taking the cars to Dresden or Chubb's 

 Dock, on the Champlain division of the D. tfc H. C. road. 

 A number of fine deer have been killed on Dresden Mountain, 

 between the head waters of Lake Champlain and Lake 

 George this fall, and it is expected if the law is vigorously 

 enforced that in a few years deer will again be as plenty as 

 foxes. Now if the jack huntmg will only be stopped" we 

 shall soon enjoy the pleasures of deer hunting as our fore- 

 fathers did. The flight of ducks has been very light here 

 this fall and only a few have been bagged, but a number of 

 snipe have been shot in the village limits. Ned. 



Fair Haven. Vermont, Nov. 21. 



THE GEESE OF THE PLATTE. 



IT has been my habit to annually write an article on goose 

 hunting in the Kiver Platte. This fall I was not able to 

 accompany my friends to the grounds which have heretofore 

 furnished such fine sport, but I have kept myself posted as 

 to the doings of all the parties who have gone" up there from 

 here. A few of those who went early in the season made 

 fair bags, but all of them have been disappointed. The 

 geese have been scarce and rather wild. Along the river 

 from Kearney eastward they have appeared only in limited 

 numbers, and at Foote's, back of Kenesaw, where three 

 years ago in five days five of us bagged 313, none to speak 

 of have appeared this year. My friend Jack Lanham, who 

 is a good shot and one of the most indefatigable goose hunt- 

 ers perhaps on the continent, spent three days on the bars 

 near Gothenburg, thirty or forty miles west of Kearney, did 

 not get a single shot at geese, and one day while out in the 

 adjoining fields trying to knock over a stray chicken, some 

 one waded out and added to his misery by stealing all his 

 sheet-iron decoys. 



The geese have not appeared much around the inland 

 lakes and ponds, nor in the cornfields of the farmers, as in 

 former years; nor have many been seen in flight over this 

 region going southward. These remarks especially apply to 

 the white brant. Very few white brant have been seen at 

 all, a party of five who spent five days on the Platte saw but 

 one during that time. In other years they have been so 

 numerous that when they settled down on the little bars at 

 a dintance they resembled banks of snow. 



No one .seems to be able to account for this sudden diminu- 

 tion of wild geese along the Platte. It never occurred to me 

 it would happen during my lifetime. There are various 

 theories regarding it. One is that they have taken a different 

 line in their migration southward ; another, that as the 

 country has settled up further northward and grain has been 

 gi-own there, they sxop among the lakes in that region and 

 remain because they are not disturbed ; another, that they 

 did come down here, but as every farmer had a gun to pop 

 away at them in the fields where they went to feed, and the 

 bars in the river were covered with hunters, they hurried 

 southward to seek peace and rest; and still another that 

 through despoiling of their eggs in their nesting grounds, 

 and the spring and fall killing off the fowls by myriads of 

 hunters, their ranks have become so depleted they can no 

 longer make the big display of former years. 1 do not know, 

 I am sure. It is nevertheless a fact that it was hard work to 

 make a fair bag on the Platte this year because the geese 

 were not there. 



Pretty much the same may be said with reference to ducks. 

 Indeed, the falling off in their case has been greater than that 

 of the geese. I have not heard of a creditable bag, even by 

 the most successful hunters. If they have come this way in 

 any considerable numbers they have done so so slyly and 

 quietly that none of us have been aware of their presence. 

 We people of this part of Nebraska have begun to realize 

 that, like our more eastern friends, if we want to do much 

 successful work among the ducks we will have to seek other 

 regions for the sport. How quickly do the settlement of a 

 country and the modern gun cause the game to dissappear. 

 lONCOLN, Neb., Nov. 21. BuKK H. POLK. 



AN ILLINOIS QUAIL PRESERVE. 



AT the age of twenty-five I was much attached to this 

 world and wanted to stay awhile, but was apprehen- 

 sive of declining health. One day I called on that ardent 

 lover of field sports, the late Dr. James B. Coleman, of this 

 city. Said I, "Doctor, examine my lungs." The Doctor 

 never prescribed medicine when any other course of treat- 

 ment was practicable. After a careful examination he said, 

 "O, you are all right; only a little rundown. Buy a dog 

 and gun. Get a good dog and he will soon inspire you with 

 an insatiable desire for the field ; drink plenty of brown 

 stout, and I'll see you later on in life." 



I lost no time in procuring this outfit, and soon found my- 

 self completely absorbed in dogs and guns, and quail and 

 woodcock shooting. Heretofore I had been wholly devoted 

 to business, but the beautiful work of ray dog soon led me to 

 find easy excuses for a day or a week of shooting; and to 

 economize time in July I would often take to bed at dark and 

 be called at 3 o'clock, drive three to five miles in ihe country, 

 get a few brace of woodcock, and be at business by » o'clock. 

 A few years later my business called me frequently to Chi- 

 cago. One day 1 stepped into the oflice of the Illinois Cen- 

 tral Eailroad and bought eighty acres of land, located about 

 ten miles from Vandalia, and which had been ijreviously 

 described by a friend as having all the surroundings a quail 

 shooter could wish. for. After fencing and the erection of a 

 comfortable five-room house— this cost me about $3,000— 

 I subsequently sold this plant to a jolly old Englishman, 

 who had a wife who knew how to keep house, it being- 

 understood that my friends and I were to be "at home" there 

 a week or two each fall. Here for fifteen successive years, 

 in company with those kindred spirits ^Ir. F. W. Roebling 

 and Col. B. Ridgway, have I enjoyed quail shooting in all 

 its perfection of delight, encircled by home comforts and a 

 warm friend in every land owner, as it has been our custom 

 to keep "open house" every evening. 



Our stay there has usually been confined to about ten days 

 each season, which seemed to fully satisfy us, as we made 

 full use of every hour of daylight, barring bad weather and 

 Sundays. 



In favorable seasons the birds are very plenty in that local- 

 ity, and the shooting is mostly open. 'The country is rolling 

 and much cut up with wooded or weedy ravines, which 

 afford attractive cover for the birds and yet not difficult 

 ground for a shooter to work. Our yearly score for eight to 

 ten days shooting has run from 400 to 800 quail, woodcock 

 and prairie chickens to the three guns. The record of six 

 seasons which I now have before me shows 391 for the lowest 

 aggregate, to 837 for the highest, or an average of 594 birds 

 for each of the six seasons. The best single bag of birds 

 made by any one of us was fifty-three quail and three chick- 

 ens. The best bag of quail to a single gun was fifty -five, 

 and the best day was a total of 139 to the thi'ee guns. The 

 years in which our score was not recorded would average 

 quite as good as those enumerated, so that I estimate that in 

 the fifteen years we have bagged nearly 9,000 birds within 

 an area of five miles of that little shooting ranch. This 

 looks like big work, but I think in its execution we must 

 have strewn hill and dale with nearly 18,000 empty shells. 



I have heard of men that "kill 'em all," and are good for 

 "nine out of ten." I can beat all of those sort of fellows. 

 But my observation has been in an experience of twenty-five 

 years that a man who accepts all the chances in open or 

 cover at short or long range and bags half his shots is a hard 

 one to follow "day in and day out." 



Two years ago a young fellow, who lives on the border of 

 the timber, came over to our ranch one evening ' 'a-spark- 

 intf." We interviewed him on the quail business, and he 

 said there was "light smart of them over there." So next 

 morning we had our boy hitch up the mules and drive us 

 over, a distance of nearly five miles. When we got near 

 enough to locate his cabin, in the edge of the timber a half 

 mile distant, I said to the Colonel, "This stubble is good 

 enough for me. Let's get out and send the boy and team on 

 to the house. " We got over the fence, and before we had 

 gone fifty 3^ards our four dogs were beautifully^ posed on a 

 covey- ot birds, and when they were flushed bur guns dis- 

 turbed another covey over near the open timber, and both 

 bunches spread out nicely in the thin underbrush and among 

 the fallen treetops. So it went all day — plenty of birds and 

 just enough cover to make the shooting highly interesting. 

 At 4 o'clock one of us counted oat 55 birds and the other 

 53, total 108, or the best day to any two guns during our 

 fifteen years' experience in that locality. " Those 108 large 

 plump birds, spread out breasts up on the clean straw in the 

 bottom of our wagon, was a sight that only a sportsman can 

 properly appreciate. 



This season we shall not visit our old resort, it being re- 

 ported that the severe winter destroyed many birds. But we 

 conclude that the many score of cheap breechloading guns 

 now in the hands of young men in that vi'^inity, who were 

 "kids" fifteen years ago (when we located there), have had 

 more to do with thinning out the birds than the severe win- 

 ter. So we have aiTanged to go in quest of new grounds in 

 the "Old North State," and will leave for Salisbury. N. C, 

 in a few days. We shall move around until we find just the 

 right spot, and after tiring of quail go down to tlie coast 

 and finish up on duck and deer, of which you may hear 

 more. John TAYiiOK, 



Trehton, Nov. 25. 



IN THE CACHE RIVER BOTTOMS. 



''PHE Huntingdon Hunting Club returned home on last 

 L Monday after a two weeks' camp hunt in the Cache 

 River Bottoms, in Green county, Ark., about two hundred 

 miles distant from this place by rail. 



We left the railroad at Gainesville, Ark., whore we were 

 joined by Dr. D. K. Parsons, W. J. Parsons, the renowned 

 Captain E. E. Stubbs and Mr. James Halsey, to whom we 

 are under many obligations for courtesies shown. Our prin- 

 cipal object was to hunt deer, though we wou'd not have 

 objected to an occasional bear, wolf, etc. We were in the 

 midst of a great game country. The booty of the hunt 

 amounted to ten deer and a considerable number of squir- 

 rels. A large yellow wolf was discovered eating a dead deer 

 and fired on without effect by several of our party. Captain 

 Stubbs brought down a fine turkey on the wing with his 

 rifle, and by various feats of ability and wonder demonstrated 

 to the satisfaction of our club that he is the most skillful 

 rifle shot at moving objects in the world. Our deer hunting 

 was almost entirely without doffs, which falls short of the 

 old fashioned, glorious style of chasing the game and shoot- 

 ing it on the run. We were too early for ducks, which, up 

 to the time of our breaking camp, had only reached this 

 locality in small numbers. 



The scene of our exploits was to have been in Buffalo Isl- 

 and, in the Saint Francis bottoms, where bear are plentiful, 

 but the diflSculty of reaching that point induced us to 

 change the field of our operations. We received information 

 that in one week while we were in camp Mr. Zack Hollis, 

 who lives on Bufi:alo Island, killed six bear. The pleasure 

 of the hunt was much diminished by thf unfortunate acci- 

 dental shooting in the foot of Judge Jo. R. Hawkins by Mr. 

 Halsey a few minutes before reaching camp. Mr. Halsey 

 fired with a ride at a rabbit, which he killed; but the ball 

 bounded and lodged in the Judge's foot. The ball was ex- 

 tracted by Dr. Parsons, who was present, and the wound, 

 though severe, is now doing well. 



By the local hunters in Arkansas magazine rifles are in 

 general use, and they care but little to be nearer than 150 

 yards of a deer, and with a single shot they often despatch a 

 bear. In the St. Francis and Cache River bottoms there is 

 a vast expanse of low, level, wet land, interspersed with both 

 forest aud prairie, which in the fall season is a perfect para- 

 dise to the hunter. In this region is to be found bear, wolf, 

 panther, wildcat and deer, and among the numerous fowls 

 that are seen here may be mentioned swan, goose, duck, 

 eagle, etc , aud in the streams large quantities of fish may 

 be taken by sportsmen properly prepared with tackle. But 

 how long this state of affairs may exist is uncertain, as the 

 wilderness is dotted every few miles with the camps of 

 sportsmen, who come hundreds of miles to luxuriate in the 

 glories of this huntsman's delight. L. L. H. 



Huntingdon, Tenn., Nov. 19. 



NOTES FROM WOOD, FIELD AND SHORE. 



LARGE flocks of ffeese have been observed of late passing 

 over our village, and during j'esterday's cold northeast 

 storm I saw eight flocks passing south, numbering about 400 

 birds in all, as near as I could judge. Owing to the rain 

 they flew quite low and within easy gunshot. One of our 

 over-zealous sportsmen did fire into a flock of them, bringing 

 down a bird; but it had no sooner touched ground than it 

 took to wing again and a moment later was lost from view. 

 Partridges are not over plenty about here, and half a dozen 

 birds are called a good bag. Many of the birds are caught in 

 snares. I have run across large numbers of these snares in 

 the woods. I do not hesitate a moment in picking up all I 

 find, and wish all hunters would do likewise. Quail are 

 quite plenty, but are very shy, and lie pretty low when once 

 flushed. Quite a numoer of woodcock have been taken in 

 this section, but most of them proved very small and not 

 over fat. ' F. M. M. 



Attleboro Falls, Mass., Nov. 24. 



Woodcock in the Sno%v. —Onondaga Hill, N. Y., Nov. 

 37. — While fox hunting last Wednesday I shot a fine female 

 woodcock which the hound flushed from a little ravine out 

 in the fields, the snow being nearly a foot deep. Three 

 years ago, on Nov. 16, I killed one in the same locality. 

 The snow was then more than a foot deep. Both birds were 

 in very fine plumage, I have mounted the last one and it 

 presents a very fine appearance indeed. A short time since 

 Dorr, K. and the writer went cooning in the evening with 

 the smartest coon dog in the country. The dog treed five, 

 coons in a large swamp elm, which the writer climbed and 

 killed them with a Remington .44-caliber, a navy revolver, 

 The five coons weighed seventy pounds— quite a good haul. 

 Partridges and rabbits are unusually scarce in our locahty 

 this fall.— G. A. K. 



