Oct. 24, 1889. ] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



267 



Three shots at 4-foot square; oO-iueh Circle selected from 

 hest pattern. 



BIGHT BARREL. LEFT BARREL. 



1 405 pellets. 1 339 pellets. 



2 336 pellets. 2 370 pellets. 



3 400 pellets. 3 357 pellets. 



Average 380 pellets. 



Average 355 pellets. 



TEST AT 60 YARDS. 

 Five Shots per Barrel from rest at fixed 30-inch Circle. 



RIGHT BARREL. LEFT BARREL. 



Pattern. Penetration, s pellets. Pattern. Penetration, :i pellets. 



1. 50 pellets. 5 sheets. 1. 90 pellets. 7 sheets. 



2. 168 pellets. 7 sheets. 2. 99 pellets. 4 sheets. 



3. 146 pellets. 6 sheets. 3. 130 pellets. 8 sheets. 



4. 64 pellets. .. sheets. 4. 83 pellets. .. sheels. 



5. 167 pellets, 8 sheets. 5. 134 pellets. .. sheets. 



Av. 119 pellets, eja'sbeets. Av. 107 pellets. 6 sheets. 



Three shots at 4-foot square; 30-inch Circle selected, from 

 best pattern. 



RIGHT BARREL. LEFT BARREL. 



1 204 pellets. 1 153 pellets. 



2 160 pellets. 2 159 pellets. 



3 180 pellets. 3 178 pellets. 



Average 181 pellets. 



Average 163 pellets. 



NEW ENGLAND GROUSE. 



THE October shooting is upon us, and best of all, the 

 chances are good. Ruffed grouse are fairly plenty 

 in Massachusetts, and some good bags have already been 

 made, since the leaves began to fall, so as to make the 

 brush shooting more practicable, especially as the birds 

 are wilder than usual and take to wing at the first alarm. 

 Every gunner has a dog; in fact, such an animal is indis- 

 pensable to success in grouse shooting in this State. The 

 gunners say that the birds lie fairly well to the dog, but 

 they are remarkably shy when the gunner enters the 

 woods alone. Boston sportsmen have been up into New 

 Hampshire and they have brought back some fairly good 

 bags. Partridges are scarce near the settlements iu some 

 sections, but in the old woods— the dense forests— they 

 are unusuahy plenty. Bags are made of twenty a day 

 by some of the market-gunners. I am sorry to say that 

 there are still market-guuners, in spite of the game laws 

 of any State, and that the birds are coming into the Bos- 

 ton market in greater abundance than last year. They 

 are sent in to the commission dealers by the grocerymen 

 of the towns. They come in all sorts of ways. If the 

 game laws of the State prohibit their shipment, they are 

 smuggled over the line in some way, and once they get 

 into Massachusetts they are forwarded without restraint. 

 The number of birds killed in Massachusetts, near the 

 line, is a wonder. There are ten partridges killed on the 

 Massachusetts side of the line where there is one killed 

 in either Maine or New Hampshire. 



In Maine grouse are plenty, as a whole, though nearer 

 the settlements in some p&vts of the State they are very 

 scarce, as early stated in the columns of the Forest and 

 Stream. But even in these sections the birds are more 

 plenty than at first supposed, for the extreme density of 

 the foliage up to very late in summer and the early 

 autumn afforded such a shelter for them that they were 

 not seen in such numbers as has been the case since. 

 But it is in the far distant woods that the partridges are 

 unusually plenty Their tameness is also almost painful, 

 and something to make the heart of anything but the 

 pot-hunter relent — no, the market-hunter must not be 

 forgotten. But this tameness of the ruffed grouse in ihe 

 old woods of Maine is something unusual this fall. The 

 birds do not seem to fear man. To shoot them on the 

 ground is as easy as it would be to make game of the 

 farmer's poultry, and equally as sportsmanlike. Some of 

 the shooters are using rifles of small caliber and aiming 

 at their heads. One Boston gunner claims to have taken 

 five in one morning in this way as he followed up the old 

 lumber road in Kingfield, in Franklin county. A party 

 of gunners report that they shot twenty birds from a 

 wagon as they drove through a wooded section only a 

 few miles from Calais. In that section the shooting is 

 reported to be especially fine. On the Penobscot, in the 

 back towns and beyond the settlements, the partridge 

 shooting is especially good. The birds killed by the gun- 

 ners are coming into Bangor and the towns above in 

 unusual numbers. The favorite method is for the gunner 

 to follow up some old lumber or tote road as far as he can 

 and get back the same day, and if the weather is suitable 

 he is sure of some shooting. Shooting from wagons and 

 teams is also a favorite method of gunning — more popu- 

 lar than ever this fall. A horse is selected that is not 

 "gun shy," and he is driven up the mountain roads and 

 roads through the woods that are little traveled, with re- 

 sults often very satisfactory to the gunner; for he is able 

 to do a good deal of his shooting from the wagon, and 

 without the trouble of alighting. Even the teamsters 

 and the farmers have "caught on' : to this sport, and they 

 all carry their guns. The afternoon of a still, bright day 

 is the best. Then the grouse come out of the thick woods 

 into the roads to feed and to burrow in the sand. They 

 are not very coy of a team till they have been a good 

 many times shot at from a wagon; 'then they begin to 

 fear what ordinarily they would allow to come Very near 

 them, and it is an easy matter for them to skulk away 

 so quietly that the gunner is none the wiser for their 

 presence. 



It is a curious fact that these dense woods birds will 

 not lie to the dog well at all, and it is explainable only 

 on the theory that wild animals are the birds' most 

 dreaded enemy. They quickly take to the trees at the 

 first approach of a dog. A fact came under my own ob- 

 servation the other day that has since given me food for 

 thought. We were partridge hunting some six or seven 

 miles in the wood under the side of old Aziscohos, which 

 towers above Richardson Lake on one Fide and the Ma- 

 gaallway Upper Settlement on the other side. We had 

 followed up an old lumber trail a long distance, with 

 fair success in shooting, when all at once we noted that 

 every partridge quickly took wing and into the dense 

 woods so suddenly that even a wing shot was almost im- 

 possible. Suddenly I had a glimpse of a dark animal 

 some twenty rods ahead. It skulked around a stump 

 and up the fallen trunk of the tree which had grown on 

 the stump. None of us had more than a glimpse of the 

 creature, but almost instantly several partridges took 

 wing from the brush directly before where the creature 

 was creeping. These we followed up and shot They 



had each taken to high trees, where they did not seem to 

 have any fear of us. The guide saw the animal plainer 

 than any one of us, and he unhesitatingly pronounced it 

 a fisher, or as the hunters of their region term it, "a 

 fisher cat," the real name of which is the pekan, or the 

 Mustela canadensis. In hunting for the partridges which 

 had been put to flight by the fisher we noted several 

 bunches of feathers, evidences of previous feasts of 

 the animal. It was plain that the fisher was 

 creeping upon the birds, with his body as far con- 

 cealed by the brush and treetops, fallen by the lum- 

 bermen, as possible. The guide told us that formerly 

 these animals were very plenty, and that it was useless 

 to look for partridges in the old woods at that time. The 

 birds come to be very shy of any animal on the ground, 

 and hence they will not lie to the dog, as will the birds 

 near the settlements where the fisher is unknown. 



Oct. SI.— The recent beautiful October days have been 

 welcomed by the sportsman with dog and gun, and the 

 results are very satisfactory in many instances. Part- 

 ridge shooting continues good, especially so in the remote 

 districts of the New England States. But in Maine the 

 trees begin to be nearly stripped of their unusually heavy 

 burden of leaves, and the birds are more wary and diffi- 

 cult of approach. Perhaps this is well, for if the terrible 

 slaughter of the earlier fall had continued, the results 

 must have been disastrous to the stocks of birds that 

 should be left to breed. Deer shooting is good in Maine, 

 but it promises to be better as soon as the falling of the 

 leaves is entirely over. Special. 



CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 



C CHICAGO, HI., Oct. 10— Last week I said something 

 J about the Rising Sun Game Park Association, giv- 

 ing what I could learn from the literature submitted and 

 from the correspondence with the projector, Mr. Hicks. 

 It teemed probable, however, that there was some- 

 thing in the matter worth investigating, and accordingly 

 on last Thursday went out to Ashton, which is only eighty 

 milea from this city, to make such personal inquiry as 

 would compass all the facts. The result of this inquiry 

 I think worthy of notice. 



I found Mr. Hicks a very pleasant and affable man, 

 hardly showing the full tale of his more than sixty years. 

 It required but a little additional time to learn that he 

 was a man with a hobby, and a hobby that permitted 

 him no rest. He poured forth copious information about 

 the advantages of his country, and showed abundant 

 reasons why his proposed game park should be a money- 

 making project as well as a boon to sportsmen. It 

 seemed to him easy to stock a portion of said park with 

 buffalo, and he dazzled me with figures showing the im- 

 mense profit in buffalo raising, treating very lightly my 

 modest reminder of the difficulty of first obtaining his 

 buffalo, and assuming — what I don't personally for a 

 minute believe— that he knew more about where" to find 

 buffalo and how to catch them than I did. He thought 

 also that deer and antelope could be raised in great num- 

 bers in the park. Undoubtedly they could be if plenty of 

 money were expended upon the attempt, but it would be a 

 double-decade before land enough and deer enough could 

 be obtained to make hunting such game in the inclosure a 

 possibility for any right-minded sportsmen. He thought 

 wild turkeys could be bred in numbers. This is probably 

 true, but unless the adjoining four or five miles of groves 

 and timberland could be secured the turkeys would be apt 

 to wander off and be killed elsewhere. He thought that 

 the draining ditches of the former great adjacent marsh 

 could be dammed and the old marsh restored, with its 

 former wealth of wildfowl. This is probably true, for 

 this was once a wonderful marsh for ducks, geese, snipe, 

 and even last spring, when the drained marsh was wet 

 with heavy rains, there were thousands of wildfowl, and 

 the snipe shooting was fine, 100 and 200 a day being made 

 by market-shooters. Before the drains could be dammed, 

 however, it would be necessary to buy or lease on long 

 term a large acreage in the marsh, and this is not yet done. 

 Mr. Hicks thought also that trout could be raised in the 

 streams or ponds made by the cold springs of the bottom 

 lands, I do not believe this practicable, for if the marsh 

 were dammed the chief springs would be either over- 

 flowed or left with a very short stream of water between 

 them and the shallow marsh. If a large pond was 

 formed, doubtless the large-mouthed bass, native to all 

 this country, would do well in it. Large pickerel were 

 formerly taken on the marsh before the ditches were cut 

 through. Mr. Hicks thought that quail could be again 

 made plentiful in all this region, and beyond doubt this 

 could be done with careful winter care. The quail is 

 native to the region, and was once extremely abundant 

 there. It has been mainly hard winter weather that 

 killed off the quail. They can't stand the deep snows. 

 There are only a few left in the locality, but no bird 

 thrives better when ' ' planted " in large numbers. It was 

 Mr. Hicks's opinion further that prairie chickens could 

 be made as abundant as would be liked. This is also 

 doubtless true, for no country in all this State is naturally 

 so good a chicken ground. The great marsh and its 

 adjacent grain fields have always drawn the birds to- 

 gether here in large numbers, and even to-day, under the 

 close law of three years, they have increased and show 

 an abundance which is a positive delight to any lover of 

 this grand bird, whose swift destruction in this State has 

 been a disgrace to civilization. 



In America all things are possible, and I certainly 

 should not wish to be asked to set a limit for an enter- 

 prise of this kind if properly backed by money and 

 energy. Certainly, too, Forest and Stream would wish 

 the boundaries of any such project placed as wide as 

 possible, for it is all in the way of praiseworthy purpose 

 in game protection. Suppose, however, we leave at one 

 side the possibilities of this project and consider only the 

 easy xn-o Liabilities. It is beyond question true that the 

 tract of land in view could be made a grand preserve for 

 upland shooting. I do not know of any body of land so 

 desirably located of which this is in any measure so true. 

 Here, the food is naturally abundant, and the past has 

 shown that the upland birds naturally breed there in 

 great numbers. The chickens come in on this ground in 

 the late fall from all the country about, to a distance of 

 probably fifty miles, and in the spring they have every 

 requisite for a safe and roomy breeding ground. Ducks 

 also once bred there in the marsh and snipe could be 

 made to swarm there if the marsh were restored. I 

 asked Mr. Hicks how much land he had secured by way 

 of leased ehooting privileges, and he said the amount was 



now about 20,000 acres, and that other land owners were 

 willing to lease shooting privileges for little or nothing. 

 The farmers are anxious to stop the depredations of the 

 town market-hunters, which they realize to peril the ex- 

 istence of the last of the native game birds. Doubtless a 

 very large body of land could thus be easily secured in 

 the heart of what is now the best of the Illinois chicken 

 country, and about as good as any chicken country 

 further west, so far as reports for this year seem to go. 

 Should a stock company be formed, as Mr. Hicks wishes, 

 there are about 700 acres of farming land and a very 

 good commodious 6tone farmhouse ready to be turned in 

 as joint property, and as the capital grew it might be 

 applied to the purchase and lease of other land. The ques- 

 tion confronting the company would then be one of rais- 

 ing a revenue from the land sufficient to justify the pur- 

 chase of expensive farming land for a game park. 

 Mr. Hicks thinks that the revenue of the land 

 devoted to farming and grazing would pay a 

 premium on the investment. I can not see how it would 

 pay a company any more than it does the present indi- 

 vidual farmers, but it is very certain that the farming of 

 the preserved lands would not in the least interfere with 

 the raising of the game. Of course, any such scheme as 

 stocking the company for $6,000,000, or even $1,000,000, 

 makes the matter indubitably and purely visionary so 

 far as sporting purposes are concerned. There must be 

 a limited membership, or no one would care to go into an 

 association of the sort. For instance, chicken shooting 

 lasts but about 60 days of the year. Suppose there were 

 even 200 members, and suppose one half of them were 

 on hand!. What ground could stand for any time the 

 ravages of so many guns, even at a limit of say 10 birds 

 to the bag? Upon tWother hand , the holder of 100 shares 

 ought not to have a single shooting privilege not accorded 

 to the holder of a single share. No man would care to 

 belong to a handicap hunting society, and that feature 

 certainly must be cut off. It seems to me that the ques- 

 tions resolve themselves into the query whether a limited 

 number of wealthy men can be found whose resources 

 permit them to use farming land for shooting purposes, 

 and who can afford to risk the mischance of the farming 

 revenue paying them out on their investment. If such 

 a body of' men can be found, there never was so good a 

 chance to found a grand American preserve for upland 

 shooting; and if this hope is not outside the interest and 

 the accomplishment of our wealthy sportsmen, how 

 grand it would be to see this enterprise go on , and to see 

 these noble native birds preserved that other generations 

 may see them, here on what is so preeminently their na- 

 tive home! 



Doubtless many would prefer to know exactly what 

 amount of game there is now on this tract in question. 

 To learn of this accurately I started out on the morning 

 after my arrival in company with Mr. Hicks's son Wis- 

 ner, not in the least sad to think that I was to have a clay 

 of October chicken shooting, which always seemed to me 

 to be as elegant and gentlemanly a sport as any within 

 the possibility of the shooter. This transpired after a 

 night of bliss in a big feather bed, with what my old 

 cowboy friends would call "goose-h'ar pillers," and after 

 a breakfast which good Mrs. Hicks may be sure would 

 touch a tender chord in the most callous newspaper 

 bosom. We had along old Mack, a liver-colored pointer 

 who would have scored minus nothing in a bench show, 

 but whom I loved at first sight as one of the old-time 

 race of what we used to call just plain "chicken dogs." 

 Mack's legs had both been broken by a wagon, and they 

 were crooked and lumpy and a little wabbly. His head 

 was gray, his muzzle white and scarred, and his teeth 

 worn down with age and many hunts for mice among 

 the board piles. It seemed a question whether the old 

 fellow could stand a long tramp, but he showed he loved 

 a gun and was bound to go; so eff he wabbled, in stiff- 

 jointed trot or solemn, slow and wheezy gallop. Poor 

 old Mack! He is a type of chicken dogs and chicken 

 days gone by. 



"I usually find a bunch of birds on the stubble just 

 below the barn," said Wisner Hicks; and thither we 

 turned. We did not find the covey, but not a quarter of 

 a mile from the house flushed a big old cock that went 

 rocking and cackling off in spite of Wisner's long shot at 

 him. Then we turned west, crossed into some clover 

 stubble and then entered a timothy stubble. Here the 

 old dog made game, and won my heart entirely by the 

 way he handled the trail. He was eager but careful, and 

 in a moment he came down on a point which many of 

 our high flyers might well copy. It had been years since 

 I had shot a chicken, and my heart came into my mouth 

 as we stepped quickly up, knowing the birds would jump 

 wild. Then there came the same old bouncing whirr, 

 and the same old flash of gray and brown, and mechani- 

 cally I pulled down on what seemed to be the same old 

 chicken I missed when I was a boy. The 12-gauge was 

 too good this time, however. The Little puff of feathers 

 flew out, forty yards away, and down crashed Br'er 

 Chicken. Up, too, went another bird right in front of 

 me, and fell in a heap before it had started. 



"Two down!" I sang out. "Three down!" cried Wisner. 



"What? Did you shoot?" said I. And so he had, kill- 

 ing a bird to the right as I shot my first on the left, and 

 firing also into the straightaway just killed. 



We picked up two of our birds, and then hurried on to 

 the old dog, who had again pointed. A corking old bird 

 got up wild and teetering off, first one wing up and then 

 the other, as a strong chicken often will in October. I 

 held on this bird carefully, and was again surprised to 

 hear Wisner say he had also fired at it. We got it, just 

 the same, and in the same way got another that jumped 

 close in. We had now started five birds, doubled on 

 three of them, and bagged them all— for old Mack found 

 my first bud when we turned back. We felt pretty good, 

 and I began to think this wasn't such a bad world to live 

 in, after all. 



We passed over corn and stubble until nearly noon — 

 we did not start out till 10 o'clock — but saw no more 

 chickens. Wisner killed a snipe out of five that we 

 started in the bottom lands, on a wet spot near a spring. 

 After dinner we went east, and within a mile from the 

 house Wisner jumped two or three chickens and got one. 

 A half hour later I jumped two and missed the same 

 bird with both barrels most ludicrously at ten or fifteen 

 yards. Then I jumped another at long range and knocked 

 it down all right, as I also did a third bird which I was 

 nearly upon before it sprang. There was another went 

 up with it, but this flew toward Wisner and I dared not 

 shoot. He missed this at a long shot, and also another 



