388 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Oct. 26, 1895. 



CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 



Invitation Season. 

 Chicago, Oct. 19. — Fokest and Stream certainly owes 

 its thanks to the gentlemen who have been good enough to 

 invite its Chicago representative to quit working and go 

 shooting for the rest of the fall and winter. Dr. W. D. 

 Taylor, of Brownsville, Tenn., thinks about Nov. 1 would 

 be a good time for me to start South to live with him for 

 a few months and shoot quail. Tom Divine, at Memphis, 

 is threatening awful things for the man who does not 

 materialize at Bobo, Miss., for the big bear fiesta with 

 Capt. Bobo in camp on the Sunflower. Mr. T. H. Glover, 

 of San Marcos, Tex. — and I reckon I might as well begin 

 calling him Tom Glover, though I have never met him 

 yet — sends word that deer, turkeys and quail are waiting 

 in numbers for us in the prettiest country in the world, 

 and thinks about a month in the mountains would be 

 about the right thing. I am invited also to a Tanch near 

 the Chisos Mountains (the fantail country). Col. Pickett's 

 invitation to go with him and his friends to Texas I have 

 already had to decline. I have promised a man to go chicken 

 shooting in Illinois with him next week— and have also 

 arranged to go to Wisconsin on business the same week. 

 There are the usual number of invitations to shoot in 

 other parts of the South. Meantime l arranged away 

 last summer to go in October to New" Mexico after my 

 long-lost bear — my large, fat, cinnamon bear which I 

 have been looking for for many years, I have had my 

 rifle cleaned for this bear, and am in receipt from the 

 TJ. M. C. Co. of a big box full of several kinds of bullets 

 of a sort well calculated to muss up a bear a whole lot. I 

 have got me a spur and a hat and am all ready to go after 

 my bear, which is patiently waiting for me where I can 

 go right to him. And now does not come the friend who 

 was going with me, but says he can't go, so the hunt 

 is off. This is enough to disgust any well-meaning cinna- 

 mon bear of decent character and industrious habits. (I 

 shall get him in May, though, when the raspberries bloom 

 again.) Between now and May I have about invitations 

 enough to keep me busy, provided I also do a little work 

 occasionally. All of which shows what thoughtful and 

 intelligent labor will do for one starting out in life. 



What the Newspaper Said of Capt. Anson. 



"Anson's aim is deadly. Kills hundreds of wild ducks 

 and geese. Returns from his hunting trip and tells of the 

 number of birds he bagged in one day. Captain of the 

 Colts breaks all records as a slayer of wildfowls. Brings 

 home a wagonload of game. 



"Capt. Anson is a keen Nimrod. He turned up yester- 

 day from the wilds of North Dakota. His trophies of the 

 chase required a full-sized express wagon to hold them. 



"The only reason why Anson did not require two ex- 

 press wagons was that the slaughter grew monotonous. 

 He was sportsman enough to quit and come home. 



" 'I left Chicago Monday, Sept. 30,' he said, 'and stopped 

 over at St. Paul. There I saw Mr. Hoyt, who is writing a 

 play, "The Runaway Colt," for me. I begin to star in 

 this Nov. 11, at Syracuse, N. Y. From St. Paul I went to 

 Minot, N. D. I stayed there two days hunting. W. B. 

 Bickel, a St. Paul banker, was with me. We bagged 

 65 ducks. Then Mr. Bickel was called home by business 

 matters. I went on to Knox and hunted at Pleasant Lake 

 for a day. My bag was 50 grouse and duck. Next day I 

 went to Island Lake and stayed three days. I killed 125 

 geese, 25 cranes and 35 prairie hens, besides some ducks. 

 Then I quit shooting, the slaughter grew monotonous. I 

 was hunting for sport and not hunting for the pot. The 

 last day I hunted I killed 47 birds. I have been hunting 

 in that district for the last three years. I never shot a 

 crane there before this year. Prairie chickens are scarce 

 this season. The rains drowned all the young birds.' " — 

 Chicago Tribune. 



What the Game Laws Say to Capt. Anson. 

 "Only twenty-five birds of any variety may be killed in 

 a day or possessed at one time. Export of game forbid- 

 den."— The Game Laics in Brief. 



An Odd Old Relic. 

 The local paper of Chinook, Mont., has the following 

 brief notice regarding an Indian relic of much local 

 fame: 



"The celebrated HunkCha-ogo-unga (chief's chair), 

 once owned by Womba-dee-Kitan (Kills the Eagle), we 

 regret to say was yesterday sent East, B. G. Olson pre- 

 senting same to his Chicago friend." 



This Chicago friend is Mr. Claus Blomgren, of 175 Mon- 

 roe street, this city. To-day Mr. Blomgren said that the 

 celebrated Indian chair had arrived safely and was at his 

 residence. It is a most curious piece of Indian workman- 

 ship, meant to be a masterpiece in its way. It is made of 

 the horns of buffalo and oxen, the legs and arms or back 

 being all of horns, the seat of wood. Mr. Olson, in send- 

 ing the odd bit of Indian upholstery, says that Womba- 

 dee-Kitan, the chief who made the chair, was a Gros 

 Ventre. He made the regal divan as a sort of throne or 

 chair of state for his third and youngest wife on the oc- 

 casion of their marriage, it being used in the ceremony of 

 their bridal evening. The next day old Womba presented 

 the chair to an old Indian fighter by the name of Slippery 

 Ann as a token of his undying friendship. Bath Slippery 

 Ann and WOmba-dee have cashed in their checks, but 

 the curious old bridal seat remains to commemorate what 

 may perhaps once have been an old but is now an obscure 

 custom among the tribes. 



Poet, but not Hunter. 

 Discussion has been inaugurated in the columns of the 

 Memphis Social Graphic whether Sir Walter Scott, in his 

 "Lady of the Lake," was right in calling his hounds 

 bloodhounds, they being the ones depicted as having 

 run the great stag practically to a finish and at a 

 high speed. Mr. W. A. Wheatley, a well-known Mem- 

 phis sportsman, at some length proves Sir Walter to 

 have been perhaps poet, but not hunter, and cites thereto 

 authorities like Col. James Gordon and John Davidson, 

 both of whom know hounds and also know Scotland, who 

 agree that Sir Walter's "bloodhounds" were staghounds. 



Another Fox Lake 'Lunge. 

 Fox Lake, Illinois, is only 55 miles from Chicago, and 

 has been fished the hardest Borts of ways, summer and 

 winter, for 75 years or bo. One would hardly expect to 

 find muscallonge in such waters, nor have they often been 

 taken there in the last 25 years. Yet I have from time 



to time mentioned in the past six years instances where 

 great muscallonge have been captured in these old waters 

 — I believe not over 7 fish in 15 years. In each case the 

 fish was very large. Two years ago the last Fox Lake 

 'lunge was found by some duck hunters after the ice broke 

 up in the spring. It was in shallow water, and nearly 

 exhausted with a hook, line and tilt-up stick which it had 

 dragged away from some ice-fisher's line of sets in the 

 winter. Still another great 'lunge was found ashore, 

 choked to death by the last of a number of spoon hooks 

 it had broken off and carried away in its mouth. There 

 has not been but one 'lunge caught there in straight an- 

 gling probably in 12 years.though the waters are fished con- 

 tinually. In every case there has been something odd or 

 unusual connected with the capture. Stories have become 

 traditions about a monster 'lunge which has often been 

 seen and hooked in these waters.but these have been mostly 

 set down as fish stories. This last week an event happened 

 which proves that these stories were no doubt true. In 

 short, Fox Lake, Illinois, has broken the record for the 

 entire region on muscallonge for this year and many years 

 past. Mr. John Bysen, of 146 Sedgwick street, Chicago, 

 was the lucky angler. On Oct. 11, in Pistaqua Bay, Fox 

 Lake waters, he was trolling for pickerel, and hooked and 

 landed a muscallonge weighing 474-lbs. (attested and 

 sworn weight). The fight lasted over two hours. Mr. 

 Bysen thinks he could not have landed the fish at all had 

 it not had in its mouth, fastened crosswise by its project- 

 ing horns, a 21bs. bullhead which it had been unable to 

 swallow. He thought this choked the fish down, though, 

 oddly enough, it had not prevented it from striking at the 

 spoon. That muscallonge was out of luck in its choice of 

 food. The bullhead was removed before the fish was 

 weighed. Including the weight of the bullhead, the 

 'lunge would have gone just next to 501bs. At 47|lbs. I 

 have never personally known it equaled in the Wisconsin 

 waters, though guides there told me of one 521bs. and 

 one 551bs. 'lunge taken some years ago in Eagle chain. 

 It seems most singular that the record should be thus 

 damaged by a fish from waters which for so long have 

 been fished apparently almost to death. 



Fox Lake is in the Fox River, naturally one of the most 

 wonderful fishing streams in the country. Fox River is 

 tributary to the Mississippi chain. There are no muscal- 

 longe in any of the waters not connected with the Missis- 

 sippi River. 



"Fetch and Carry." 



There are some facts about bookmaking not known to 

 everybody. I know a man who is the author of over a 

 dozen books and he frankly admits that his publishers 

 have never sent him a check big enough to pay a year's 

 coal bill. That is how it pays to write poetry and things 

 of that sort. On the other hand, Mr. B. Waters, who 

 wrote "Modern Training, Handling and Kennel Manage- 

 ment," struck a field of usefulness and he sold several 

 thousands of that work, and would have a farm to-day if 

 he had not preferred newspaper life to farming. It pays 

 to write a book — if you write one that has a useful field 

 and if you write a good book. 



Mr. Waters has written not only one, but two good 

 books. His last one, "Fetch and Carry," has to do with 

 the matter of retrieving. There are a great many men 

 who think that field trial methods and field trial dogs do 

 not represent the end of the world for the amateur sports- 

 man, who likes to own a dog and gun. There are thou- 

 sands of men who think that a shooting dog ought to re- 

 trieve, and hundreds of men who lose half the pleasure of 

 a day's shoot if they cannot see the game brought to them 

 by the dog. Be that as it may, in regard to the shooting 

 dog being also the retriever, the mission of Mr. Waters's 

 book is none the less clear. It teaches how any man, 

 amateur or professional, can best teach any breed of dog 

 to retrieve. It discusses impartially the different breeds 

 and tells of their peculiarities. In short, it covers, in Mr. 

 Waters's lucid and able style, the whole field of retriev- 

 ing — a field on which no other book has been written by 

 anybody, and on which nobody will ever write a better. 



E. Hough. 



909 Security Building, Chicago. 



They Claim the Time Record. 



Camp Abbo, Ebeme Pond, Me.— Just after coming 

 from our successful hunt, and thinking that our time 

 for killing deer was never beaten, I write you the facts. 

 We were late in rising this morning, and by the time we 

 had finished breakfast it was going on 9:30. Chas. Mc- 

 Laughlin, of Mt. Vernon, and myself, accompanied by 

 our guide, C. K. Arbo, left in the canoe at that time, and 

 when we arrived at the opposite shore and had put the 

 boat up it was just 10 o'clock. Slinging our rifles over 

 our backs and making for the woods, we had just taken 

 about two hundred steps when three does loomed up 

 before us, and each picking his deer we let drive at 

 them. The three fell dead as if with one bullet. We 

 had shot and killed them by 10:10, mind you, all in ten 

 minutes, for which we claim the record for Maine and 

 would like to hear if the time was ever beaten. Of course 

 we have no witnesses of the shooting but ourselves, but 

 believe that our word will not be doubted when we can 

 refer you to C. Arbo, our guide. 



We have also shot since last Tuesday thirty-two par- 

 tridges and have also drying four fox skins, one quite 

 large, which we intend having put in the form of a rug. 



The country is wonderfully wild and full of game, and 

 our two weeks in Maine have been spent, we think, bet- 

 ter than ever before. P. P. Wig and. 



C. McLaughlin. 



Woodchucks in the Nutmeg State. 



Shelton, Conn., Oct. 17.— I have read your paper for 

 several years, but don't remember seeing any woodchuck 

 records. Following is a record made this summer by one 

 of Connecticut's greatest lawyers— Wm. H. Williams— in 

 less than two weeks: 105 woodchucks shot with a .32 

 rifle (I believe), telescope sights; seventeen was his best 

 record for one day. He drives anywhere from ten to 

 thirty miles per day and spends his vacation in this man- 

 ner. Can any of your readers beat this? 



Sept. 29 (two days before open season) a full-grown 

 partridge flew into our finishing room and was killed. 

 There is no place within one-half mile where he could 

 have come from, but when picked up his breast was 

 badly shot. This is the way our game laws are work- 

 ing here, although two or three parties have found out 

 how much it costs to snare partridges. F. C. W. 



IN NEW ENGLAND FIELDS. 



Boston, Mass., Oct. 19.— Massachusetts sportsmen pene- 

 trate to all parts of the world in search of pleasure, but it 

 is not often that Nicaragua is selected as a desirable place 

 to visit. H. J. Maynard, of Worcester, and his friend E, 

 M. Johnson leave in a few days for that country, intend- 

 ing to devote the next six months principally to shooting 

 and fishing. They take letters of introduction to several 

 notables there, and expect to have a great time. A 

 camera forms an important part of their equipment, and 

 no doubt they will get many interesting pictures of native 

 life in the tropics. They go first to Managua, the capital 

 city, where they will stay some weeks, leaving there to 

 make a general tour of the country in search of sport. 



The genuine and true specimen of an American sports- 

 man is nowhere better represented than in the person of 

 F. A. Larkin, of New York city, the Eastern manager of 

 the great Allis Machine Works, of Milwaukee, Wis. He 

 delights in nature as found in the woods, and on lake 

 and stream, and rarely loses an opportunity that is con- 

 sistent with business engagements .to get there. Mil- 

 waukee was formerly his home, and when living in that 

 city he numbered among his friends many kindred spirits 

 who were glad to accompany him to the woods of north- 

 ern Wisconsin in search of fish and game. Since coming 

 East to live he has always managed to get back to the old 

 haunts once or twice a year, and one of these periodical 

 visits has just been completed. With a party of eight he 

 left Milwaukee, going direct to Lake Winnebago, 124 

 miles from that city. Taking there a small steamer they 

 went up Wolf River about 160 miles, coming then to their 

 camps, which they have visited many years in succession. 

 Duck and jacksnipe furnished most of their sport, and 

 they had the best kind of shooting with this game. The 

 same party usually make a fishing trip to these waters in 

 the spring or early summer. Bait-casting for bass is the 

 method of fishing generally practiced, and there are 

 some wonderfully skillful casters among them. It is a 

 rare treat to listen to the accounts of their different trips, 

 and I doubt if a more fun-loving crowd enters the woods 

 from any section than the party in which Mr. Larkin 

 forms an important part. 



A. G. Mooney and William Clegg left Boston on Thurs- 

 day last for a two weeks' trip into the Schoodic and Sebois 

 Lake region. They will make their headquarters prin- 

 cipally at Hodgkins's camps, and will spend the time in 

 an effort to secure a full legal allowance of large game. 

 Mr. Mooney has visited this country for three successive 

 years, and has always had good luck in the past. He calls 

 it an excellent section for moose, and quotes in evidence 

 the fact that a moose of nearly l,000lbs. weight was killed 

 near the shore of Schoodic Lake but a few days ago. He 

 is in hopes to find the brother of this big fellow for a vic- 

 tim, and I trust his desire will be realized. 



Results on big game shooting in Maine are now begin- 

 ning to reach Boston in rapid order. Of course the deer 

 far outnumber all other game that has been killed, but 

 I have heard of several parties who have been fortunate 

 in getting their moose. 



A party from Lowell, Mass., consisting of Jaa. S. Han- 

 son, L. H. Morton and one other whose name I failed to 

 get, have just returned from Sourdahunk, northwest of 

 Katahdin. Quite a formidable list of game — one moose, 

 two deer, two foxes and a large number of partridges — 

 made up their record for the trip of ten days. The hunt- 

 ing grounds were reached by going in from Norcross, and 

 they are convinced that no better place can be found in 

 the State. Judging from results obtained I incline to the 

 same belief. 



Another Lowell party who have done well are Ethan A. 

 Smith and W. H. Hawes. The glory obtained by these 

 gentlemen was found around Umcolcus Lake. They went 

 into the woods from Crystal, Me. , and spent ten days in 

 the vicinity of this lake with the "Rider Haggard" name, 

 with the result of getting one moose of l,1001bs. weight 

 and a fine buck deer. To say they were pleased with their 

 trip is putting it in the mildest manner possible. 



Dr. William A. Browne, of Boston, has just returned 

 from a trip into the woods forty or fifty miles north of 

 Kineo, Maine. His desire to get a moose, expressed be- 

 fore leaving, has been gratified, and when he told me 

 that he had brought back the head and hide of an im- 

 mense big bull, killed by himself, it was easy to see that 

 the achievement gave him much gratification. He will 

 have the head mounted and the skin made into a rug, 

 and with these reminding trophies about him it will not 

 be an easy matter to forget the pleasant and exciting 

 incidents of the trip. 



One of the most prominent and genial sportsmen in the 

 towns and cities about Boston is W. P. Whitman, of 

 Campello, Mass. He is strongly attached to both fishing 

 and shooting, and much of his leisure time is devoted to 

 these pastimes. In a few days he starts for Maine, going 

 first to Machiasport on the eastern coast. From there he 

 goes into the woods, driving twenty miles to Wesley. 

 Some distance further in are three camps belonging to a 

 friend, and these are the final abiding places of Mr. 

 Whitman for the trip. His friend has always enjoyed 

 good shooting there, and he therefore has strong hopes of 

 doing as well with the big game. It is reported to be a 

 fine country for birds, and a Maynard rifle of small 

 caliber with which he delights to shoot partridges formed 

 not the least part of his equipment. He had great enjoy- 

 ment last year in western Maine in using this gun on 

 foxes, and has made so many long and successful shots 

 with it that he has an abiding faith in its accuracy. 



It is getting to be a favorite trip with many Boston 

 sportsmen to go first to the Megantic club house, then 

 down through the preserve, out via Eustis, and then to 

 one of the many sporting campB in that region for a 

 pleasant ending to the trip. E. E. Bennett and wife, and 

 James M. Burr and wife, of Boston, have just arrived 

 home from a trip of this kind and express themselves as 

 delighted with it all. After leaving the Megantic preserve 

 they went to I. W. Greene's farm on the Eustis stage 

 road, and while Btaying there had good shooting, killing 

 one deer and a good many partridges. From Greene's 

 they made a four or five days' trip to King and Bartlett, 

 unable, I presume, to resist the temptation of repeating 

 their visit of last year to this delightful place. It was 

 while on the return journey near Spencer Stream that 

 one of the ladies of this party saw the big cow moose, an 

 account of which was mentioned in Fokest and Steeam 

 of recent date. 



An English gentleman has lately returned home after 

 spending two or three weeks in the Aroostook region in 



