tteo. 31, 1895.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



637 



and successfully stalk them in the month of November, 

 will be willing to take them wherever he can get them, 

 and I say he is entitled to them, at least he would be in 

 this part of the country. 



Along this summer I was anticipating some great par- 

 tridge hunting, as one of my travelers told me he could 

 get me a good bird dog. About the first of September he 

 advised me he had shipped me a dandy. Newt happened 

 to be in Montreal that day, and coming down a little 

 early to take the train noticed some excitement around 

 the express car, and on inquiry found that a dog had 

 chewed his way out of the crate and escaped. Some one 

 suggested to the messenger that he pick up some cur and 

 put it in, as the consignee would never know the differ- 

 ence; but Newt, knowing I expected a dog, asked him 

 who it was consigned to in Granby, and learning it was 

 for me, told them he was the owner and that they had 

 better catch the right dog, as the one shipped was a very 

 valuable one. 



It appears the dog ate his way out of the crate, the car 

 being one of those compartment ones with express one 

 end, mail in the center and baggage at the other end. 



When the dog got out of his crate he simply walked 

 through the place where the stove is in winter, and out 

 through the mail car, the door of which stood open. 



The American Express Co. would not settle, claiming 

 the dog was at owner's risk from death or escape; but 1 

 contend there is no receipt that will exonerate any com- 

 mon carrier from negligence, which in this case is simply 

 proved, as they locked the express car door and left the 

 stove hole open. Considering the number of partridges I 

 might have shot bad the dog reached me, I have sued 

 them for only $50, which I think is cheap. 



I wrote my traveler I would have to have another dog, 

 but it took him till about two weeks ago to find one. He 

 wired me one day to look for a dog by that express, writ- 

 ing later that, although the dog was not handsome, the 

 man he secured him from vouched for him as a first-class 

 bird dog. 



He safely arrived, and seemed much pleased to see me 

 when I opened the crate, much more pleased to see me 

 than I was to see him, as I had very grave doubts of his 

 being a bird dog, in my opinion not being the right breed. 

 However the next afternoon I took him out a little ways 

 from the village where I knew there was a stray bird, but 

 on entering the woods he did not appear to want to leave 

 my heels, acting as if he was afraid he would get lost in 

 the woods. I urged him on in English, French, Spanish 

 and tried it in German, but he would just sit down at my 

 heels and look around innocently. 



I did not know but that he was fooling with me, that 

 he knew there were no birds there; thought I was trying 

 to fool him, 'cause, don't you see, he came to me highly 

 recommended. 



I never had a hunting dog, and thought perhaps I did 

 not know how to handle him. I have read in Forest and 

 Stream of handlers getting big pay, of getting ahead of 

 the judges at times, so they must be smart kind of people, 

 and I concluded I would have to hire a handler. I 

 started along through the woods, thinking that perhaps if 

 I put up a bird he might then show some interest and 

 show me how to do it, but unfortunately I could not find 

 a bird. 



Getting further into the woods, I heard a blue jay call, 

 and that being the only thing I had heard or seen I 

 thought I would try a shot at it and see if the dog was 

 gun shy, or what he would have to say when he heard 

 the noise. 



The blue jay finally appeared in a beech a long distance 

 off, but not caring whether I hit him or not I blazed at 

 him, carefully watching the dog, who was not at all gun 

 shy, but sat down near me, seeming to wonder what I was 

 doing. The jay flew to another tree and, offering a bet- 

 ter shot, I took careful aim and downed him. I was a 

 little surprised at it myself, so long a shot, but the dog 

 did not seem a bit surprised at anything. I thought I 

 noticed a little disdainful curl of his upper lip, as much 

 as to say, you must be a healthy partridge man, but at 

 any rate I would go over and see if I had hit that bird. I 

 paced it off and found it was forty -five paces to the tree 

 he was in, and looking a little further along saw Mr. Jay. 



The dog had wandered away about 15ft. from me while 

 I was pacing this off, but all the time was looking back 

 wistfully. 



Finally he seemed to think I would stay there a little 

 while, so he ran along on a log quite briskly. Then I 

 says to myself he is going to hunt. I brought my gun up 

 ready, not knowing whether he was a pointer or setter, 

 but he soon stopped up, sniffing around, leisurely, and I 

 spied a squirrel going up a tree, coming to the conclusion 

 that that was what he was after. 



I came back from there, when my office boy asked if 

 he was a good dog. I said I did not think so, that during 

 the whole time I was out he never even whined. The boy 

 wanted to know if that was not a sign of a good bird 

 dog. The boy is English, the terrier is Irish. 



The next day I took him out again, and thinking that 

 the woods were strange to him the day before took 

 him back to the same place so he would not be lonesome. 

 But he stayed right at my heels. I told him to go ahead 

 a bit, to hunt, to get a move on, but he would not. I 

 fancied I smelt a partridge near there and tried to coax 

 him to it with a stick, but he would not, would just lie 

 down and I could lay down the stick (in view;) didn't 

 even whine. 



Along a little further I was on the top of a steep ridge 

 and thought there was a partridge in the little valley, and 

 asked the dog to go down and flush him so I could pull 

 him down, see that bunch of feathers float away as he 

 raised up over the other ridge, etc., but the dog would 

 not. I took him by the cuff of the neck and threw him 

 down there, but he would not go any further; as soon as 

 I moved away he was quickly at my heels. 



Coming along an old road I asked him to go over by 

 some hemlocks about 10ft. away, but he would not, so I 

 sat down to cogitate, trying to think of all I had read in 

 Forest and Stream about handling dogs, but somehow 

 did not seem able to find any rule to apply to this breed of 

 a dog. 



After sitting there a few minutes the dog thought he 

 might stretch his legs, so he moved over toward that 

 bunch of hemlocks standing on a piece of ledge, the roots 

 of the trees coming from under it. He looked back at me 

 to see if I was still there, then started cautiously to go in, 

 when out went a partridge with an awful noise. The 

 dog stepped back and looked at me as much as to say, 

 ♦'What was that?" I sat there looking at the dog and 



wondered if he was pointing, but did not see him get 

 rigid at all; his eyes did not get glassy, nor did he seem all 

 of a tremble — nothing like what I had ever read of. I 

 went in after that partridge and when I got where I 

 thought she was I asked the dog to go ahead, but he 

 would not. I stopped, reached back and pulled the dog 

 in front of me, rubbed his ears, as I had seen them do with 

 roosters down in Texas to make them fight, but the dog 

 would not. I tried to push him along, but just then the 

 partridge went up and the dog got under my feet, nearly 

 tripping me down the hill. 



From there we started home, and when we reached the 

 clearing he seemed to be more at home, and run around 

 a bit. 



I noticed him go over behind a ledge, putting a hem- 

 lock between us, and thinking he might have gone over 

 there to have a laugh at me all to himself I went to 

 investigate; but all he was doing was trying to dig out a 

 chipmunk. 



When I got home I sat down and wrote the former 

 owner, asking him if he was trying to play a joke on my 

 traveler. If the cigars I had sent him were so bad that in 

 revenge he was sending me a "sooner" dog, telling him 

 he would not hunt partridges for me; if he would for him 

 I would return him, but if he did not want him I would 

 on the next occasion promptly shoot him. By the next 

 mail I had a reply apologizing, saying a friend of his had 

 left him there to keep, saying he was a good partridge 

 dog, and that was all he knew about it. 



I thought I would give the dog one more chance, so 

 took him out for a long walk and managed to put up 

 some partridges quite close, but somehow the dog never 

 seemed to be looking that way, or did not hear them. I 

 put him on the "spoor" (?) of the bird, but he did not seem 

 to be able to follow the trail. 



Finally, as I was coming home through the woods, I 

 stopped at a place where I knew there was a bird and 

 looked cautiously around. While peering through the 

 hemlocks I caught a shadow over my head, and looking 

 up saw the partridge sailing from afar toward me at a 

 ninety-mile-an-hour gait. I thought of the picture "Stop- 

 ping an Incomer," but before I could bring my gun up 

 she had settled down in a little cedar swale. 



I went in after her, the dog following around, but he 

 did not seem to like it and was always making for a log 

 to walk on, as he did not seem to want to get his feet wet. 



I stopped often, looking under the trees, around old 

 stumps and knolls for the bird, and finally the dog find- 

 ing I was on a dry place came up to me and sat down. 

 While contemplating his beauty, he looking straight up 

 at me, the partridge went out of a tree not over 6ft. from 

 my head. 



It took me by surprise, but the dog did not seem at all 

 anxious, except he wanted me to get out of that swamp. 



That was the last straw. I looked him over carefully, 

 considered the ground, whether it would make a good 

 graveyard for dogs, and came to the conclusion every- 

 thing was favorable. 



I had made up my mind to shoot the dog. I put in a 

 BB cartridge and asked the dog to move off a little, but 

 he would not. 



I found him a dry spot to stand on and moved off into 

 the water, but he would not. It took me about five min- 

 utes to get him in the proper position, then I fired. The 

 dog was no more. He came to a dead point, became 

 quite rigid, but the bird had gone, been flushed some 

 time before. He still lies up there if the foxes have not 

 found him, and I am still open for a bird dog. 



J. Bruce Payne. 



BOSTON SPORTSMEN. 



The dinner committee of the Megantic Club have fixed 

 on Saturday evening, Jan. 11, as the date for the coming 

 annual club banquet, and the Copley Square Hotel, in 

 Boston, as the place. It is the intention of the managers 

 to excel, if possible, all previous efforts on this gala occa- 

 sion, and the club members are promised a royal good 

 time and a gorgeous repast. These occasions serve to 

 unite old friends and to renew acquaintances formed, in 

 many instances, in the woods and by the stream, and as 

 such are a valuable arrangement toward increasing the 

 club's prosperity and quickening interest in its affairs. 

 With a full membership of 300, which they now have, the 

 committee expect a large attendance, and no doubt their 

 expectations will be realized. 



Asportsman friend, too modest to have his name men- 

 tioned, has just returned to Boston with a record of large 

 game unsurpassed by any one of whom I have heard this 

 season, A bull moose, a bull caribou and two buck deer, 

 the full allowance by law to one individual, are the spoils 

 of his trip, and each and all were killed by himself. He 

 went into the woods with one guide, and being confident 

 of his ability to kill all the game wanted, the guide left his 

 gun behind. This method, followed by sportsmen gener- 

 ally, would in many cases largely reduce the amount of 

 big game killed, for without doubt many large animals 

 are brought home as the sportsman's prize which were 

 really killed by tbe unerring aim of a competent guide. 

 The northern Aroostook wilderness was the region in 

 which my friend found his good luck, and although he 

 has visited in the past nearly all the other good hunting 

 sections of Maine bethinks this country excels them all. 



The frigid weather of the past week has put the final 

 touch on the shore bird shooting along the Massachusetts 

 coast. Several Boston sportsmen returned the first of the 

 week, and one party, consisting of Moses Bamber, Charles 

 Stimpson and Fred Hersey, express regret that they 

 could not have stayed over to get the flight borne in by 

 the heavy northeast gales of the past few days. They 

 have been down to South Orleans, near Chatham, for two 

 weeks, and killed about forty black ducks, sheldrakes and 

 whistlers. The weather was warm and clear, with bright 

 moonlight nights— too nice altogether for the best results. 

 Quail shooting was quite good and they saw a number of 

 partridges, but did not get any of the latter, as they were 

 very wild. On Thanksgiving Day they attended an old- 

 fashioned rooster shoot. The plan was for each man to 

 shoot at a small paper 60yds. distant with No. 8 shot. He 

 who put the most pellets in it captured a bird. One of 

 the natives appeared on the scene with a whole arsenal 

 of guns, determined to sweep the deck. He had four 

 in all, the largest being and old 4-bore single gun. His 

 great preparations yielded him but three birds, much to 

 his chagrin. Two flocks of geese were seen by my 

 friends, one of about fifty birds and the other sev- 

 enty-five. Strange to say, these birds seldom light in the 



fall in this vicinity, but almost invariably do so in the 

 spring. Another party of Boston sportsmen who have 

 lately visited the Cape are Eben A. Tnacher, C. W. Gam- 

 mons, Lindsey N. Oliver and J. Howard Edwards. They 

 enjoyed good coot and sheldrake shooting down at Sandy 

 Neck, near Barnstable, and considering the lateness of 

 the season did extremely Veil. 



The Cedar Beach Gun Club, of Boston, are mourning 

 the loss of their shooting grounds down on the south 

 shore. The property has been taken for a part of the new 

 boulevard which is to be built through that section, and 

 the gun club people are now looking for other quarters, 

 They have in view several good locations on the north 

 shore, but have not yet decided just where to pitch their 

 tent. They were well pleased with the old place, and I 

 hope will find another equally as good. Thomas Sedg- 

 wick Steele, the sportsman artist, spent a short time in 

 Boston this week, visiting among old friends who like 

 him are lovers of the rod and gun. He is enthusiastic 

 over an European trip which he has lately completed, 

 having been as far south as Egypt and north to that land 

 of beauty surrounding the North Cape, the northern limit 

 of Norway. Mr. Steele is the artist who painted the well- 

 known picture, "Two at a Cast," and also other paintings 

 of almost equal note. 



A Boston sportsman who has been shooting in northern 

 Maine returns quite convinced that the reports published 

 in many papers during the past three months, stating 

 that the game laws in that State were being properly en- 

 forced, are far from true. He says that illegal shooting 

 of game as regards quantity allowed to each individual is 

 constantly going on, while the killing of moose for their 

 hides by Canadians who cross the border for that purpose 

 is a very common occurrence. More game wardens is the 

 only remedy he can suggest, and I think Forest and 

 Stream's many readers who are interested in the preserva- 

 tion of game in Maine will agree with him on that point. 



Hackle. 



Boston, Dec. 13. — The weather has lately been some- 

 what in favor of the big game hunters. Snow has been 

 universal in New England for a week, and it was not fol- 

 lowed by rain and crust. The number of hunters absent 

 from Boston and vicinity has dwindled to a few, and tbe 

 success of most of these is yet to be heard from. T. C. 

 Smith writes to a friend here from Kenebago that he has 

 taken the biggest buck he ever saw. F. E. Newell is 

 back from Green Lake, Washington county, Me. , with a 

 deer, the first one he has ever killed. F. E. Whiting, one 

 of the junior proprietors of the Boston Herald, is back 

 from the camps of the Inglewood Club, in New Bruns- 

 wick. He was accompanied by his friend, Mr. Jewett. 

 They found deer tracks in plenty at the preserve, but the 

 snow was wet and crusted and not favorable for deer 

 hunting, and deer hunting was accordingly abandoned 

 for duck shooting at the head of the bay. They had ex- 

 cellent success with coot, butterbills and numerous other 

 ducks. 



Mr. E. Frank Lewis, of Lawrence, is again out of the 

 woods — from his second deer hunting trip this fall. This 

 time there is a buck to his credit, though his first trip was 

 not a success. He was with a party of friends, including 

 F. W. Sprague and Col. L. W. Walsh, Byron Horn and 

 Mr. Nelson. They went to Lee and from that point to 

 townships No. 3 and No. 4, and were quartered at Camp 

 Homer. They had snow, enough of it, only 15in. falling 

 to their credit, and the most of it wet and hung to the 

 trees. But they brought out two bucks and a doe, poor 

 as the shooting was. 



A Boston traveling salesman, who has his eye out for 

 things as they are and is considerably interested in big 

 game, says that he has been on the Bangor & Aroostook 

 Railroad a good deal this fall and has been noting the 

 shipments of moose, deer and caribou. The weight of 

 the moose shipped has particularly attracted his attention. 

 He reads in the Bangor papers that Mr. So-and-So has 

 killed a big moose weighing 1.000 or l,1001bs. He sees the 

 big moose of Mr. So-and-So on the train and in the hands 

 of the express company, where it is carefully labeled as 

 weighing 5001bs. He says that he has not seen a moose 

 being shipped this fall that has been marked as weighing 

 over 7001bs. , and but one of that weight. The express 

 company is presumed to weigh the animals carefully and 

 to carry them by weight. His idea is that the average 

 weight of the moose carried out this season over that road 

 is not above 4501bs. Let some one who has an exact 

 record speak up. 



The pleasures of hunting are not all of shooting. The 

 camera is playing a most important part in the hunter's 

 outfit. There is many a hunter to-day who would as soon 

 be in the woods without bis gun as without his camera. 

 Mr. Geo. T. Freeman, a Boston gentleman exceedingly 

 fond of both fishing and hunting, has lately added the 

 camera to his outing kit. His success has been remark- 

 able, for the reason that he has gone into the matter in a 

 painstaking manner. His annual trip to Anisquam after 

 coot this fall w*s fairly successful. The pictures he took 

 and the snap shots he made are truly worth looking at in 

 every case, besides including one or two gems, represent- 

 ing himself and his friends, C. W. Whittemore and Bart. 

 Hill, all in "oilskins" and "tarpaulins." Thenative guide 

 or boatman also forms a character study. Mr. Freeman 

 thinks that the ducks slain were a small part of that hunt- 

 ing trip compared with the pictures. 



I came across a gunner yesterday who had six black 

 ducks and one hooded merganser, which had been killed 

 at Scituate, he said. He also remarked that the shooting 

 was holding out remarkably late there. His idea was 

 that there would be still another flight of ducks there as 

 soon as the weather "softened" again. He says that he 

 has hunted in that section for years, but has never known 

 the ducks to remain so late. Special. 



We are advised that the Forest and Stream's state- 

 ment last week that Dr. Bishop had killed a moose in 

 Maine this year was an error, as he killed no moose. 

 Also that in the hunting regions of the State snow has 

 been on the ground continuously since the middle of 

 November. 



Game Laws in Brief. 



The Game Laws in Brief, current edition, sold everywhere, has 

 new game and fish laws for more than thirty of the States. It covers 

 the entire country, is carefully prepared, and gives all that Bhooteri 

 and anglers require. See advertisement. 



