268 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Oct. 23, 1890 



carinated tree, snake (ITcrpctodryos carinatvs). Presented— One 

 gray i'ox (Canin rUryiniaitw*), two red foxes (Canis vulpr.s fulvus), 

 one gray squirrel (Sciurus carnlinciiMii), one opossum (Didclphys 



virgiuiana), one wooriclmck (Arctomys monax). one prairie dog 

 {Cynmncs littlovicimrtts), one wn'te-th mated canucin (CcbuS capu- 

 cuitis). one Alerian's opossum (Didelpliyn dorsigera), one raccoon 

 (Pfa&yon totor), fifty-tour reed birds (Tinliclionyx orazicorus), one 

 nonpareil (Cyamtsynzn ciris), one song sparrow {Mrlonpiza melndta), 

 ono yellow bird {Ohry&OfAitri^ Matte), one grent-bornpd owl (Btt7x» 

 vU'uinitniuii), four handed ratflesnakes (Crotaius liorridus), three 

 common hog nosed snakes {Httn-ndon jtlatyrliiiius), one copper- 

 head (Aneislrodon cuntortrix), one Matcy's garter snake ( fitticem'a 

 marciana). one alligator (Alligator viissisxi i.nnniais), four painted 

 terrapins (Chryscmys picta), four musk turtles ( .4 ro moo ft efj/8 odor- 



atjts), and one diamond-bucked terrapin (Matacoelcmmys )«d nutria). 

 Born— One Indiau antelope (4?ite/ope ccrvieapra). three ground 

 rattlesnakes (Crolalopliorus miliarias). Sixteen DeKay's snakes 

 {Storerla dekayi), nine garter snakes (Eutccnia. sirtalis), twenty 

 brown water 'snakes (Tropidonotiis taxtepilotus), ten Cyclop's 

 water snakt-R {Traptdonot its ci/dopeum), and thirty slow worms 

 (4f?ffuis froilUis). 



Jpaij am/ <|fwf + 



THE RUFFED GROUSE. 



WHO that has heard, the somber shades of the dense 

 pine forest throb beneath the strokes of his hoarse 

 resounding wing, or in the autumn woods has seen him 

 flash for an instant amid the hues of crimson and gold, 

 or seen him pierce like a shaft of light the dark green of 

 the cat-brier swamp, can ever forget the ruffed grouse? 

 What sportsman can forget the feelings with which he 

 has heard his drum-beat echo from the dark mountain 

 side, or through the bursting woods of spring, or in those 

 soft, still autumn days when the leaves are falling 

 through the mellow haze of Indian summer, or, as some- 

 times heard, in the noon of night in the depths of the 

 forest primeval? Few pictures hang more bright in the 

 inner chamber of the sportsman's soul than the broad, 

 fan-like tail spread along his path as he treads the trail 

 of the deer, or its broad bands shining on the carpet of 

 checkered leaves or sweeping over the mossy carpet 

 of wintergreen, or vanishing in the heavy green of the 

 laurel brake. 



Not even the ma jestic woodcock with his solemn dignity, 

 not even Bob White with his sweet, graceful ways and 

 artless beauty, not even the brilliant, but erratic, little 

 genius of the boggy meadow, not even the noble turkey 

 with his beamy bronze and bearded breast, can raise 

 such tender memories as this grouse. For all these must 

 be sought, and often sought in vain, in their native haunts. 

 But the ruffed grouse is a more familiar spirit, and many 

 a time plays across the sportsman's path when wandering 

 over the sapling-clad slope where the autumn woodcock 

 lies in the full bloom of life and fatness, or when he 

 is following Bob White throtigh the hazel thicket, or 

 when roaming from pond to pond in search of ducks 

 among the vine-clad arbors of the river bottom. And 

 often the hunter of the deer sees him strut before him as 

 he sits resting on a fallen log, and often when on the trail 

 of the deer in winter sees him shake the snow from his 

 lightning wing, as, bursting from its cover, the bird goes 

 whizzing away amid the snow-draped trees. 



Versifiers like to rant of the majesty of the eagle. But 

 the majesty of this most majestic of game birds is not 

 like his. It is not the majesty of a great clumsy thief, 

 with no redeeming qualities but size. No Viking he of 

 the bright blue sea above. His nobility is not that of an 

 old Danish sea king, but that of inborn grace, dignity and 

 beauty, an overpowering individuality that impresses it- 

 self on the dullest lump of pot-hunting clay. 



Few of those who most love this noble bird have ever 

 seen him in the simplicity of youth, before he has left his 

 mother's side and gone forth to roam alone the spangled 

 shades of the rugged mountain side or the sombre shrub- 

 bery of the tangled glen. For his hearthstone is too often 

 in the dense mass of summer's wealth, and few are the 

 eyes that can follow him into the deep, dark brake or 

 into the shaggy covering of the mountain's breast until 

 autumn's frosts have tattered their gay banners and 

 trailed their green glory in the dust. 



For certainty of finding this grouse at home in his early 

 days with comfort in hunting him few places have ever 

 reached the bluff regions of the Upper Mississippi. Here 

 this grouse lived and loved and stayed until long after 

 the autumn leaves were scattered on a thousand winds; 

 and even after the deep snows of winter fell upon his 

 early playground many a one remained instpad of seek- 

 ing the covers of the bottom lands. Here he may be found 

 while the trees still stand in the full green of summer and 

 before any hue of death has touched their shining heads. 

 Years ago these bluffs were studded from base to crest 

 with large oak trees scattered more or less along the 

 slopes, and more abundant and dense of foliage around 

 the sides and heads of the numerous ravines. Where 

 they happened to fall the rich verdure of the white birch 

 generally filled their places, and in the bottoms of the 

 ravines and along the base of the slopes the crab apple 

 and wild plum and scrub oak formed abundant cover. 

 Everywhere along the hills the ground below the trees 

 was densely carpeted with green, upon which the sun- 

 light filtered in a thousand shades through the openings 

 in the leaves above. And yet the walking was always 

 good and the view was generally free in all directions 

 beneath. 



It was on one of the fairest of days in August, 1867, 

 that with a friend and two dogs I first roamed these 

 pleasant shades and found my old friend in a new kind 

 of home. From nearly the foot of the bluff -i where the 

 outer guard of soft maple and white oak saplings began 

 to encroach on the black oak of the hills to very near the 

 top, where the birch was flying its bright green flag from 

 its snowy staff, the dogs were soon racing to and fro, 

 while we were strolling along behind them half way up 

 the hillside. We soon came to a shallow ravine where 

 the ferns and the prairie grass that covered the ground 

 where taller and greener, and the shade of the black oak 

 and maple was deeper and cooler than on the rest of the 

 hillside. The elder dog, named Jack, had hunted such 

 ground before and seemed to know all about such places, 

 and at once started up the leeward side of the ravine with 

 slow and cautious trot, while the younger, named Frank, 

 seemed to have an intuition that the other dog knew 

 more than he did and slowed down his pace to about the 

 same. And soon Jack's trot subsided to a walk as his 

 nose caught the faint breeze that played over the shady 

 side of the hollow, and his tail slackened its lashing mo- 

 tion and settled to a slow wavy swing. Quietly he moved 

 along, with nose upraised, just above the deep green of 



the ferns and prairie grass, and the bright golden hue of 

 the lady-slippers and the carmine of the wild peas, rais- 

 ing it from time to time still higher with inquiring sniff 

 and swinging steadily off to leeward, so as to keep the 

 breeze fairly in his nose all the time. And soon the old 

 dog's tail began to straighten and the joints of his legs to 

 stiffen, and he turned his head slowly from side to side 

 and snuffed the air more cautiously as he moved more 

 and more slowly along. And all the time Frank coming 

 Up the other slope, some hundred yards away, with eyes 

 fixed intently upon Jack, imitated all his movements, 

 even more strongly than if he had smelt something him- 

 self instead of taking Jack's word for it. 



Suddenly Jack stops, and as suddenly Frank does the 

 same, and at the same instant a line of mingled white, 

 black and gray, with roaring wings enveloping the whole 

 in a haze of brown, bursts from the rank ferns some ten 

 yards ahead of the dog and darts like an arrow through 

 the green arcade. 



Bang-whang go two barrels of the guns, almost to- 

 gether, a feather parts from the long outspread fan behind 

 the booming wings, and in a second more the brown streak 

 fades among the distant trees, 



B'bbbbbbb goes another from almost the same place, 

 almost before the first one is out of sight, and bang goes 

 one barrel of each gun exactly together, and a cloud of 

 feathers floats from the downward whirling bird, while, 

 with boisterous bbbbbbbb, seven or eight more birds rise 

 curling, flashing, darting and whizzing from the ferns in 

 all directions. 



But Jack seems to have no anxiety about the birds that 

 have fallen, and after going cautiously a few steps for- 

 ward stops again with slowly waving tail. Carefully he 

 moves along, sniffing daintily at the air on high, and 

 swinging off occasionally to one side so as to catch the full 

 breeze, then, as he advances a few paces beyond where 

 the other birds had risen, his ;limbs and tail gradually 

 stiffen until he again becomes quite rigid, with Frank 

 on the other side of the ravine imitating all his motions 

 almost as accurately as if the two were connected by an 

 electric wire. 



As we come up to him he suddenly relaxes, moves off a 

 few yards to one side again, and then with nose high 

 upraised and body sunk low in the grass he crawls for- 

 ward a few feet, more in shape like an alligator than a 

 dog, and then comes again to a standstill. As we advance 

 a little in front of the dog, three grouse burst roaring 

 from the ferns some twenty feet ahead of us, and dart 

 away in different directions. One whirls downward out 

 of a cloud of feathers; another changes his course at the 

 report of another gun and mounts sky ward through the 

 treetops; the third, dashing the sunshine from his glisten- 

 ing wings, scuds away through an open place, with the 

 guns belching flame and smoke vainly at the place he had 

 just left; while the one that had mounted above the trees, 

 poising for a second aloft, closes his wings and descends 

 with a heavy r thump to earth. 



The fallen birds retrieved, we went on to find the scat- 

 tered birds. Some three hundred yards we wandered 

 along, and suddenly Frank began to dawdle in his pace. 

 With gently oscillating tail he sniffed inquisitively at the 

 breeze that swept up the hillside from the long ravine be- 

 low. To our senses it was laden with the fragrance of 

 ferns and wild buckwheat and wild peas and white 

 clover, with wild rose and mint; but the dog smelt some- 

 thing more, for he suddenly stopped with the quickness 

 of thought, and at the same instant a grouse broke with 

 uproarious wing from the deep, green cover some fifteen 

 feet from his nose. Two charges of shot shivered the 

 blended white and green of the birch behind which he 

 disappeared , the air throbbed no more beneath the beat 

 of his hoarse wings, and a faint nebula of fine feathers 

 drifted into sight on one side of the tree. 



Hp and down the hill again both dogs were soon beat- 

 ing the ground. In about five minutes Jack, coming 

 down the hill on a gentle canter, dropped into the grass 

 as suddenly as if shot and lay there with only the tip of 

 his nose visible above the ferns. As we came to him a 

 bird rose like a rocket only a yard from the dog and 

 whizzed away upward as if bound for the stars. My 

 friend's first barrel decimated the banded feathers of its 

 broad, outspread tail, and he caught it with his second 

 barrel as it was speeding its bob-tailed career high among 

 the branches of the old oak trees. As it fell another 

 bustled with riotous hubbub almost from the same spot 

 from which the last one rose, and, wheeling with its 

 breast mottled with black and white in full view, cleft 

 the breeze so fast that the shot from my gun was held 

 back by the resistance of the air waves. At least that 

 was my theory then, and it ought to suffice at this lapse 

 of time. 



Some ten minutes passed away and we found Frank 

 anchored apparently to a stump in a little ravine far up 

 the hillside, with Jack indorsing his draft on our con- 

 fidence with his most statuesque attitude, some 30yds. 

 behind him. The birch was waving in the breeze above 

 him, and the feras were swaying gently below his nose, 

 the raspberries and blackberries were still bright on the 

 bushes in the ravine, and the young oaks were as green 

 as in the spring, but other sign of life there was none. 

 We threw stones in ahead of the dog but nothing moved. 

 We tried to urge the dog to flush them, but he would not 

 budge. At the risk of losing a shot I went in, for the 

 ravine was deep and steep-sided. A few feet ahead of 

 the dog I slipped and fell, and in a twinkling the sky 

 above me seemed alive with roaring wings and meteors 

 of white and black and brown mixed in a whirl that 

 made the air tremble more than even the thunder of my 

 companion's gun which was spouting flame and smoke 

 above my head. When I recovered myself I found that 

 four birds had made all the uproar and that my friend 

 had pacified two of them. 



The grouse were now so scattered that it was better to 

 search for a new flock than to try to find the single birds 

 that had flown far up and down the hillsides. So we 

 moved along several hundred yards until we came to a 

 broad-bottomed ravine. Along the hills near its head the 

 oaks stood larger and closer than before, the ferns were 

 brighter, longer and greener, the birches were taller and 

 rnaples and aspens were jostling them aside A soft fra- 

 grance as of wild honey and thyme haunted the dark, 

 cool shades and everything hinted strongly of the favorite 

 home of the ruffed grouse. 



Old Jack at once took the hint, and with gingerly 

 tread went marching up the bottom of the ravine with 

 nose aloft and slowly undulating tail. Though he had 

 yet smelt nothing, the spirit of the place whispered 



i "grouse" so strongly that his fancy kept him on a half 

 i point from the start, just as many a good old dog's im- 

 agination makes him change his pace the instant he en- 

 ters a dark, damp swamp where everything breathes the 

 magic word, "woodcock." And even Frank seemed en- 

 thralled by the cool, green, silent shade and threaded the 

 birchen bowers and the beds of fern with more than 

 usual care. 



But Jack went far up the hill several times and came 

 trudging back looking somewhat dispirited, and Frank, 

 after snaking his way as often up and down through the 

 ferns, seemed as badly muddled; yet both seemed to 

 think there must be game there. We passed around the 

 head of the ravine, over ground that seemed specially 

 made for grouse to spend the day in, but they seemed to 

 have that provoking trait that game often exhibit, of 

 ignoring the fine places you pick out for it and preferring 

 to make its own selection. Further down the ravine, 

 below where the Fcrub-oaks, and maples, and aspens broke 

 into the heavier black oak that robed most of the hills, 

 and where the bottom widened out into a little valley, lay 

 a long thicket of crabapple and wild plum, edged with 

 black haw and hazel, where it broke into the oak and 

 maple of the hills. Knowing that the birds ranged low 

 as well as high along these hills, we went to it. The dogs 

 soon disappeared within the dense, green shrubbery, and 

 naught was heard of them in a minute more but the light 

 rustle of their feet. And but another minute seemed to 

 pass away before that too ceased. 



Leaving my friend on the outside where he would be 

 apt to get a shot at anything that came out, I went into 

 the thicket. There stood Jack bent like a bow with tail 

 and jowl nearly parallel, as he had evidently thrown him- 

 self with a sudden whirl upon striking the scent from one 

 side. And a few yards behind him, half hidden in the deep 

 green, stood Frank, with the solemnity of a tombstone on 

 a winter night. As I stepped behind Jack there was a 

 bewildering burst of uproarious wings and a dozen or 

 more birds went darkling through the green, some wheel- 

 ing out of the top, some scudding straightaway, some 

 darting low toward the edges. Quick as a flash I dropped 

 on one knee and sent a charge of shot through the leaves 

 where one's fan-like tail was vanishing on a sharp curve 

 as I raised the gun. But by the time the shot reached 

 there it was gone. And by the time I discovered it was 

 gone the rest were all gone. But dimly through an open- 

 ing I could see my friend on the hillside with half a dozen 

 grouse swiftly driving toward him. One went past him 

 like an arrow feathered with white and brown, and was 

 gone before be could raise his gun. Another whirling 

 into sight above the brush with its full white breast 

 broadly mottled with black brightly flashing in the sun, 

 just a trifle too late for me to shoot at, went spinning by 

 him with unruffled feather at the report of his gun. And 

 then five or six more went roaring past him and above 

 and behind him, while he, in confusion, shifting his gun 

 first from one side to the other, and hardly knowing what 

 to shoot at, let them all go past and stood as if looking for 

 more to come. T. S. Van Dyke. 

 San Diego, California. 



SNIPE AT CURRITUCK. 



YOHR readers may be j.nterested in an account of two 

 days of sport on the coast of North Carolina at Cur- 

 rituck Inlet, the game sought being of the snipe family, 

 consisting of willet, yellow-shanks and graybacke, or to 

 use a name common to the locality, bay birds. 



During the latter part of August on a Saturday evening, 

 about 5:30 o'clock, friend H. and myself took a steamer 

 at the foot of Seventh street, Washington, bound for Nor- 

 folk, Virginia. My gun was a 12-gauge Parker, and I 

 carried about 400 rounds of shells loaded with No. 8, a 

 favorite size with me. H. carried two guns, 10 and 16 

 gauge, 600 rounds of shells, also loaded with No. 8s, and 

 a seven months old setter which had been thoroughly 

 broken, or rather trained, to retrieve. In the morning 

 bright and early, about six o'clock, we found ourselves a 

 few miles this side of Old Point, and greatly to our dis- 

 appointment, because, had the boat been running on its 

 usual time we should have been within a short distance 

 of Norfolk. This delay defeated our plans and made it 

 impossible to catch the 10 A. M. train at Norfork for Vir- 

 ginia Beach, and thus compelled us to wait over until 

 3:30 in the afternoon. We were, of course, much worried, 

 as we had previously telegraphed for a conveyance to 

 carry us down the beach to our destination, a distance of 

 29 miles, and also expected to meet some friends at the 

 Beach Hotel who were to accompany us. However, as 

 luck would have it, our friends had arranged matters for 

 us, evidently unticipating our trouble, and upon arriving 

 at the beach we found a two horse team and driver at 

 our disposal, and got under way at exactly 4:30 o'clock. 



The drive along the shore of the Atlantic was one of 

 the most interesting features of the trip, and, had I been 

 unsuccessful in procuring game, I should doubtless have 

 felt compensated for the trouble and expense incident 

 thereto. The weather was delightful. The surf in itself 

 was a magnificent sight, and we found much interest in 

 viewing numerous wrecks which had accumulated on the 

 shore for years, some of recent date. One in particular, 

 a large three-masted schooner, hailing from Boston, I 

 think the name was Mary Pool, we learned had gone 

 ashore last October, and had been thrown so far up that 

 no tide since had been of sufficient height to carry her 

 off. The crew were still on board, and had succeeded in 

 getting her eighty feet nearer the water during a period 

 of ten months. By the way, I saw in a newspaper a few 

 days ago that she was afloat and had been towed to Nor- 

 folk. 



Nightfall found us within a few miles of our destina- 

 tion. A little rapid driving over sand hills brought us to 

 the coveted spot, a small frame house, containing six 

 rooms, situated about a mile from the ocean and within a 

 few minutes' walk of the inlet, 



The hour fixed for getting up in the morning was four 

 o'clock, rather early I must admit, but as we were anxious 

 to be on the hunting grounds by five, we found it none 

 too soon. Being equipped for bringing to bag a goodly 

 number of birds, all jumped into a two seated wagon, 

 the party consisting of four, White, Taylor, Hunter 

 and myself: and after about ten minutes' ride, found our- 

 selves upon the marshes, but not in the humor one would 

 suppose an occasion of this kind would produce. 



Although the morning was cool, bright and clear, and 

 our expectations for a good day's sport unbounded, we 

 were worked up to almost fever heat and feeling some- 

 what sore, and all owing to the detestable mosquito. 



