Oct. 14, 1886.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



225 



care to put the wheelban-ow and otliei- tools in their 

 pro])er place and to 8ee that eyerything was in good order, 

 that it could not be saidtliat I had neglected anything, we 

 started, Snap leadmg the way, seemingly the happiest of 

 the three. 



Our way took US down a narrow path along a little 

 creek of clear, pure water, whose banks were fringed 

 with an intricate network of lauj-el and aider, forming 

 an almost impenetTable barriei- to a close insijection of 

 its interior, but bore and there a slight ojiening occuiTed, 

 through wiiich as we peered we could see in the deep 

 pools some monster pickerel or mullet lazily fanning him- 

 self, unaware of our presence. Now and then we would 

 see in the soft bank the track of a coon or mink, made 

 the night before in his searcli for a fish supper. Chip 

 told mc he had once seen a mink catch one of these large 

 fisli, and in the struggle he almost caught the animal 

 before it could get away. Even after its discovery of 

 him, so rapacious ■\\'as it that it would not let go its hold 

 until he had almost brokeu its back with a stick, when it 

 disajipeared quickly in tiie deep water and entered its 

 hole in the side of the bank a few feet distant. He got 

 the fish, which lay on the bottom, and which proved to 

 be a large sucker!^ and it had an ugly hole torn in its 

 belly, the air bag AA^-as broken, and one of its eyes was 

 gouged out. I witnessed a similar incident some years 

 afterward, and in tliis case, too, the fish, Avhich Avould 

 weigh about a poimd, had its belly badly torn and a deep 

 cut across the front of the head. I was sitting on a 

 stump a few feet from the bank of a small stream, AvMch 

 at that point formed a small hut deep pool, Avatching a 

 squh-rel tree. I had not moved for more than half an 

 horn, and the woods Avere oppressively still. Suddenly I 

 heard a commotion in the water, and looking down I dis- 

 covered a small mink, its Avicked little eyes shining like 

 brilliants through the water, grasping a fish as large as 

 itself. The struggle was terrific, the fish seeming to 

 have the best of it at first, but all at once its struggles 

 seemed to cease and the mink Avas commenchig to make 

 oft Avith his prize, Avhen I fli'ed and missed, but cau^sing 

 the animal to let go and sink. I could plaiidy see him 

 in the clear water making for his hole in the opposite 

 bank. The fish was not dead, but lay on the sm-face 

 badly stunned. Picking up a long stick, I reached over 

 and di-ew it to the bank and found it to be a lai'ge mullet, 

 and badly mutilated as above. I never had an oppor- 

 tunity to' Avatness a hke performance, and have often 

 wondered if instinct in the animal does not teach it to 

 sti-ike the fish in a fatal part at once to disable it and 

 prevent a struggle. 



Chip led me on to where the path struck an old Avagon 

 road crossing the creek and leading to an old grist mill a 

 short distance below. We found the busy old miller who 

 kindly loaned us an old gram bag that had been used for 

 flom- and was as white and dusty as the old miller him- 

 self. Taking the road again we followed it a half mile 

 further, when we came to an old clearing containing an 

 old deserted log house. Down thi-ough this we AA^ent, un- 

 til we came to the "holler," and in a few moments found 

 Chip's "holler log," which proved to be an old tree blown 

 over by the Avind and having a hole in its side near the 

 butt, into which the coon ran Avhen chased by Snap. The 

 hole was well "plugged." Snap had not forgotten his 

 chase of the morning, and was the first at the tree, sniff- 

 ing and barking and paAAong aAvay at the stone trying to 

 dislodge it, by which we knew the coon Avas safe. It was 

 a mystery to me how Chip intended to get the animal out 

 of his reti'eat, but Chip knew a good many tricks that I 

 did not, and commenced proceedings Avithout any hesita- 

 tion. The tree was an old dead one that had lain for 

 years, and there was scarcely any bark on its upper side. 

 Picking up a good-sized roiiud stone he began sounding 

 the trunk from the butt toward the top until, in his judg- 

 ment, he had found about where the hollow ended: then 

 gathering up leaves and sticks proceeded to build a fire 

 directly under that part of the log. Fishing a lot of 

 strong string out of his pocket and prying out the stone 

 with a stick" he tied the mouth of the bag over the hole 

 in such a way that his coonshiji would run into it if he 

 attempted to " get out. He came to Avhere I was standing 

 by the &re antl remarked, "Guess Ave got 'im noAV." We 

 ;soon had a fire that threatened to burn the tree in two in 

 :a very short time. 



Chip's judgement proA^ed to be good. The heat gener- 

 ated inside the tree soon began to make it someAvhat un- 

 comfortable for its occupant and presently we heard a 

 scratching and scrambling within which caused Chip to 

 jump for the bag ready to grab it at the proper time. I 

 picked up a stick and began pokmg the fii-e, and jabbing 

 the end against the side of the log I pimched a hole where 

 the fire had partially bmned through, which created a 

 draft draAving the smoke and heat into the hole and 

 causing the coon to make for the other end and into the 

 bag, Avhen Chip gi-abbed hold of it and held it together. 

 In his endeavor to loosen the string he slijaped and fell, 

 but grasping the bag with all his might. Just then Snap, 

 hearing the squalling and thinking his master needed his 

 assistance, made a, dash for the scene but only to be in tlie 

 way, and as fast as Chip would get uj> he would knock 

 him doA^m Chip, dog and bag rolling over and over in 

 one promiscuous heap, the coon squalling and snarhng, 

 Snap barking, and Chip shouting, "Git out, darn ye, gosh 

 hang it," made the scene so ludicrous that I could not 

 assist for laughing. When at last Chip extricated himself 

 from the mess his appearance was ludicrous in the ex- 

 treme. He Avas covered from head to foot Avith flour 

 from the bag. The coon had bitten through in several 

 places and his face and legs were red Avith blood from 

 his hands. But Cloip was plucky, and after tying the bag 

 tightly we started for home, stopping at the creek to 

 wash up and examine Chip's wounds, which we found 

 to be but a f cav scratches Avhich bled very freely. Clup 

 sold the coon to the village postmaster for twelve shillings 

 which he generously divided with me, and we had money 

 to buy powder and fish hooks and lines to last us some 

 time. J. H. B. 



MANSraELD Valley, Pa. 



Quail in a City, — ^In gardens and grounds between 

 Kennedy street and the arsenal, Hartford, Conn,, a flock 

 of quail" has been seen, seemingly almost as tame as spar- 

 rows. When distmbed thej^ Acav to neighboring grotmds 

 or yards. 



Michigan.— Grand Rapids.— C. D. Spalduig, of thefiim 

 of Hill & Co., has opened a sportsman's "wigwam," where 

 gunners and angleas are uivited to call^ 



GAME PRESERVING IN BRITAIN. 



IV,— THE GAME OF THE WOODS,— CONTINUED. 



The Blade Grouse, Black Cock, Heathfoid. 



TETRAO TETRIX is not essentially game of Iho woods 

 of Britain and in treating of it under this lioadi ng T 

 am to some extent pandering to popular fallacy. At the 

 same time it is not exclusiA'ely con lined to moorland, con- 

 sequently I have determined to treat of it here, this seem- 

 ing the most suitable moment, as it forms a link between 

 the capercaillie and the red grouse, betAveen the cock of 

 the woods and tlie cock of the moors. 



T)ie black gi-ouse is a natural inhabitant of Great 

 Britain, but does not thrive nor exist ui Ireland, it is, 

 hoAvever, very generally spread all over England, AVales 

 and Scotland, increasing alike in the area of its dispersion 

 and in numbei's as we proceed northward. Nearly every 

 Avild, rough, uncultivated or semi-cultivated tract of 

 land in Southern England boasts its stock of black grouse 

 and a very pleasant rehef they aftord to the someAvhat 

 constrained other varieties of game we possess. Such bits 

 of wild countrv crop u]i still throughout the length and 

 breadth of our" land and in some instances extend to very 

 material area as in the case of Dartmoor, Exmoor, Sedge- 

 moor, the New Forest and the moors of Yorkshire and 

 otlior connticis, so tliat this bird has every chance of main- 

 taming itself against the march of agriculture and Av^ith 

 the fostering aid of game preservation does not diminish 

 in numbers but probably annually ad<ls to them. 



The haunts of the black grouse are decidedly typical. 

 Besides the rough, heather-clad, boulder-slTeAvn moors 

 aboA^e alluded to, this game bird affects lialf cultiA^ated 

 country to a considerable extent; countiy of imeven sur- 

 face, of rocky and rough nature, where "low covers, plan- 

 tations and Avoods alternate Avith rough down and boggy 

 morass, Avh ere farming is carried on in a haphazard, old- 

 world way; AA-here, in short, the bustle of life is absent and 

 the calm of untrammeled rm-al existence left undisturbed. 

 This is the beau ideal of black-cock land, but by no 

 means a sine qua non that a district should be absolutely 

 of this description in order to include black game among 

 its bhds of sport. On tlie contrary, no bud scai'cely 

 appears to reconcile itself so easily to the inroads upon its 

 domain accomplished at the hands of farmer or land 

 grabber, provided one does not actually allow the birds to 

 suffer regular disturbance. This it cannot stand. Culti- 

 vaie up to the edge of the woodland, laui a railway near 

 its harmt, do anything you like, in fact, but don't continu- 

 ally disturb it, and it avtH remain and multiply. Were I 

 asked to describe black-game land jjar excellence, I should 

 point to some Avide, open heather, gorse and sedge-groAATi 

 upland, where dry , hard ground and low, swampy mire 

 Avere in juxtaposition, which had been planted irregularly 

 and roughly AAdth larch and fir and beech and mountain 

 ash and Avithey, and never been attended to since. I 

 have several such expanses in my mind's eye noAv, and I 

 know them to be what they ought to be, the very essence 

 of black-grouse haimt. 



But you will find them in countless other such places. 

 In rough and tumble hill districts, in Scotch glens, upon 

 the Avild weatherbeaten isles of the west of Scotland, any- 

 where in fact from the Avarm sheltered SuiTey hills Avithin 

 50 miles of London, to the most inhosintable, weather- 

 beaten, wettest expanse of Sutherlandshu-e moor. This 

 being so I am surprised and regret that it is not more 

 plentifully preserA^ed in Britain. It is A-ery unexactingas 

 regards hatmts, it is very hardy and a splendid bird' of 

 sport, but still to my thinking not appreciated at its true 

 worth nor fostered "and assisted to increase as it should 

 be. 



Its habits — particularly its routine of life, vary very 

 much from the red grouse, remarkably so considering 

 hoAv closely related are the two species. The yearly course 

 of its existence may be regarded as commencing in either 

 March or April, according to the nature of the season, 

 when the "packs" or flocks of males congregated during 

 the winter months are broken up preparatory to the 

 breeding season. Black game are polygamous and Avhen 

 the males set about- forming their matrimonial engage- 

 ments, a good deal of ill-will seems to be engendered be- 

 tween them, both over the possession of certain sites and 

 also OA'er the acquiring of certain individual females. As 

 a rule each bird selects a certain expanse affected by his 

 kind and sets himself up as a sort of cock of the walk and 

 in-oceecls to maintain his suj)remacy there against all 

 comers. Both in his courtship and in his battles for mates 

 the black cock presents a most interesting subject of study 

 and you cannot find, a more entertaining siglit in our 

 game bird life, more aiTogant and superior in prowess; 

 and the young ones Avill, unless regularly killed doAvn, 

 play the part of dog-in-the-manger to a A-ery material 

 and — as regards the increase of stock — detrimental extent. 



May is usually the month Avhen the nesting process is 

 begun. The site chosen is a well-sheltered, dry spot, 

 sometimes in a clump of high, thick-growing heather, 

 sometimes beneath an overhanging ledge of grormd, occa- 

 sionally at the base of a thick-growing tree or bush. I 

 have found them, too, upon a Ioav hedgerow, among the 

 granite stones adorning the aj)ex of a moorland hill, and 

 under the gorse bushes. From three to thirteen eggs are 

 laid, almost ahvays in the month of May, differences of 

 season, locality and cHmate notwithstanding. The Avhole 

 process of incubation, rearing, protection and providing 

 for the young is left to the females, which are very assidu- 

 ous and devoted to the wants of their progeny. Mean- 

 while the males again pack and proceed to moult — curious 

 ideas of the j)aternal duty. The young meanwhile remain 

 and pass the summer with the mother bird imtil they m oult, 

 the ncAV feathering being distinctive as regards their sex, 

 which atthe acquired, the broods are sph tup and the 

 birds pack off again in separate packs, males and females 

 apart. Sometimes these packs Avill number fifty or more, 

 at others only a fcAv head, the sexes occasionally, though 

 rarely, flocking together. The males, as a rule, form into 

 larger bodies than the females, packs of the latter rarely 

 exceeding thirty in number. A good many bhds, too, 

 pm-sue an indiAddual course of life in couples and threes, 

 and some of the old cocks get it made so Avarm for them 

 that they run a solitary show of their own. 



The daily life of the black cock seems to vrni in a not 

 uncertain groove. Ahvays an early riser, it leaves its 

 place of roost betimes and betakes itself to its feeding 

 gTOunds. I have been about the haunts of black game 

 as early as the departing darkness Avould permit, but I 

 never found them absent from their feeding places Avhich 

 they resort to immediately day breaks. The varied 

 nature of these feeding spots can be gathered from the 



list of this bii-d's food which, under varying circumstances, 

 consists of all or some of the following: The leaves, flow- 

 ers, shoots and seeds of many kinds of sedge grass and 

 sedge jilants, chickweed and ranuncule, the l)ei-ries and 

 yoimg green tips (_)f cr,3,n, caw, bear and Avliortle berries, 

 tender shoots of ling and heatlier, the soft needles and 

 shoots of fir, tlie leaves of fern arid of some feAv low 

 growing trees and sluaibs and tlie seeds and j'onng sprouts 

 of many inishes. Even now the list is incomiilete, but I 

 have mentioned a sufficient variety to show how easily 

 and diversely this bird proAddes for itself. This, of course, 

 holds good only in open Aveatlier, in Avinter time therange 

 of food is considerably reduced, and in hard weather 

 black game invariably suffers, but as a rule they are able 

 to betake themselves "to the fields of the agriculturist and 

 there find the necessities of life. Hunger is a great tamer 

 of wild birds, and soixietimes when hard weather sets in 

 early, the black game become sorely pressed, and I have 

 seen them as thick as crows in oat stubbles in Scotland. 

 Sometimes these Adsitations are phenomenal, and it has 

 become a regular and recognized practice to feed black 

 game in Avinter. 



In many respects this game bird is peculiar, almost 

 eccentric, particularly in regard to the manner in which 

 it shifts its quarter from one side of the country to an- 

 other. I do not mean from one side of England to the 

 opi^osite; but apply the word country in a local sense. 

 Neither season nor Aveather appears to" guide these move- 

 ments, but pure caprice, and I need scarcely add that it 

 is only in the rough-country districts that this occurs to 

 so marked an extent. 



Woodcock. 



America is lucky enough to offer her sportsmen so 

 much more woodcock shooting and so many more wood- 

 cock tha,t I am sure most of the readers of Forest and 

 Steeam must knoAv a good deal more about tliis game 

 bhd than 1 can tell them, so that in deaUng Avith it I will 

 confine myself to certain points only of its history such 

 as may be interesting to American sportsmen as con- 

 cerning one of then own game bnds as we have it in an 

 old-Avorld country. 



The woodcock is almost entirely a migratory bird in 

 Britain, although a certain, or rather, uncertain number 

 annually breed in these islands. Despite its migratory 

 habits though it is a true game bird and one upon which 

 we set great value — more I venture to fancy, than you 

 Americans do, judging from AA'hat I read so frequently in 

 this journal— Ave draw our main supjily of Avoodcocks 

 from Norway, SAveden, Lapland, etc., and I am inclined to 

 tliink from some portion of the shores of the Mediter- 

 ranean too. They arrive in successive flights of more or 

 less magnitude at various times at more or less regular 

 intervals from the end of September until the turn of the 

 year, and in these flights sve find a very interesting sub- 

 ject of controversy as far as I'egards the influences which 

 regulate the periods of their occurrence and also why it 

 is that om- woodcocks, although coming from eastern, 

 invariably apx^ear first upon our western shores and upon 

 the sea coast before they appear inland. Our flights 

 usually arrive, I fancy, during certain predominating de- 

 scriptions of Aveather and direction of AAdnd and are not, 

 I am couAdnced, regulated by the phases of the moon as 

 some people maintain. An easterly Avind and a moder- 

 ately bright clear sky above usually heralds their approach, 

 the females coming first and the males after them, as has 

 been the case CA^er since the fall. 



When the 'cocks first arrive they are in poor condition, 

 but soon recoA^er from the effects of then presumably 

 arduous and certainly long jom-ney. These birds provide 

 us with our main supi)ly, and Avithout tiiem we should 

 regard woodcock as a somewhat rara avis, because the 

 number of them, British born and bred, is very small; in- 

 consequential, in fact, as far as sport goes, and they also, 

 probably all, indulge in an emigration at some period of 

 the year. From the time of the arrival of the flights in 

 autumn till they again leave us, which may be from 

 April to August, the AA^oodcock frequent localities through- 

 out Britain of decidedly pronounced character. No bird 

 is more thorouglrly spread over the British isles, and yet 

 no game bird is so essentially conservative and individual 

 in its choice of haunt Avhile here. It is for the most part 

 more or less open ground, swampy in parts, wooded with 

 mixed timber of much varying age and Avithal but little 

 disturbed. I cannot set down every "Ukely place," every 

 haunt for woodcock in these lands"; it woifld be a thank- 

 less and herculean task, but I could jjoint them out to 

 you, and detail them, too, did space permit, just as Avood- 

 cock shooters can in America. The bird is doubtless of 

 identical habits in the New World as in the Old. Here 

 we regard it as a sort of eternal spoi'ting puzzle in its 

 way; we are ahvays nearing the solution, but we never 

 seem to attain it, and I am sine I cannot tell American 

 sportsmen anything about its cmious choices of haunts, 

 its pretty idiosyncracies of habit, its delightful vagaries 

 of life which they do not knoAv already. 



Suffice it for me to say, that sometimes we haA^e good 

 woodcock seasons and sometimes bad ones. Occasionally 

 they are abundant, as a rule they are reasonably plenti- 

 fid, and in some years scarce, but Ave are never without a 

 fair winter's supply, and as om- supply so our sport. We 

 cherish the Avoodcock as a great sporting luxury, we 

 value it as a priceless jewel, and we regard the sport it 

 aft'ords as facile pHncex>s among our game bhd shooting. 

 We can do nothing to mcrease its numbers here, but we 

 do a great deal to encom-age it and protect it. With no 

 wildfowl is the season more conscientiously observed, the 

 morale of sport more carefully maintained."^ 



It is therefore with feelings akin to astonishment that 

 we find a very different condition of affairs apparently 

 obtaining your side, and I have ventured, knoAving the 

 Avoodcock to be a great bird of sport in America, to try 

 and point a moral in this instance rather than detail its 

 natural history as I have done AAdth om- other game birds 

 which are put" under the process of preservation, a pro- 

 cess inapplicable to woodcock, Moorman. 



EUGLAND. 



IliLiNOis.— Forreston, Oct, 10. — Large flocks of golden 

 plover have been reported near toAvn. Our local hunters 

 still make good bags of prairie chicken; most of them are 

 killed in the cornfields. A friend brought in five yester- 

 day and three the day before, and another had the good 

 luck to secme scA-en. Jack snipe are scarce, owing to 

 dry weather, but some good bags have been made along 

 running streams. Teal are scarce, and but few mallards 

 are seen. I secured two ruffed grouse yesterday Avith a 

 Stevens rifle within a mile of toAvn. — H, A. K. 



