4 



FOREST AND STREAM, 



[Jan. S2, 1891. 



WILDFOWL IN OREGON.— 1. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



While the gunners of the Eastern, Middle and Prairie 

 States are putting their guns away, regretfully bidding 

 the wildfowl shooting of 1890 a farewell, we of the Web- 

 foot State are just beginning to load shells and whistle 

 up our dogs for ducks. 



It is true that the game is annoyingly tardy in putting 

 in an appearance this fall, but this is in consequence of 

 the unusually pleasant weather which still continues. 

 Bat they are iDeginning to arrive, and while their Eastern 

 cousins have bade you good-bye for the more genial 

 climate of the Gulf these are coming to spend the winter 

 with us. Our best shooting is generally about the holi- 

 days, but from the first of November until the following 

 April good shooting may be looked for whenever the 

 weather is favorable. Seldom do our lakes freeze over. 

 When such a misfortune does overtake the migratory 

 feathered game here they simply drop down to the tide 

 flats or go up the Willamette AT'alley to the stubble fields 

 and patiently await the "thaw." It is, however, un- 

 usually severe weather for Oregon when the mud hens 

 fail to keep a good air hole open for their lords and mas- 

 ters, the canvasbacks. By the way, a pension should be 

 > awarded the man who invents an active mud hen decoy, 

 for canvasbacks will decoy to a bunch of energetic mud 

 hens when nothing fashioned by the hand of man will 

 induce them to come down. 



Not only the woodduck, but mallard and even canvas- 

 backs hatch and rear their young about the ^assy sloughs 

 and wapato ponds along the lower Columbia on Sauvie's 

 Island. Sauvie's Island! or Sofa's Island for short, who 

 that ever hunted wildfowl in western Oregon has not 

 heard of it? The small boy's ambition and dream and the 

 duck hunter's paradise. The name is as familiar to the 

 hunters of the Northwest coast as that of Chesapeake 

 Bay is to those of the East. 



It is an island, as its name would imply, and yet not an 

 island. It is a strip of low land lying in Multnomah and 

 ibia counties, Oregon, about 17 miles long by 5 miles 



Columbia , ^ . - . 



in width, bounded on the east by the Columbia and lower 

 Willamette rivers, and otherwise an arm of the Willa- 

 mette known as the Willamette Slough, a deep, turbid 

 river itself that leaves the Willamette proper about seven 

 miles below Portland and empties into the great Colum- 

 bia at St. Helens. It is a labyrinth of slotxghs, wapato 

 ponds and small lakes, the largest. Big Sturgeon Lake, 

 being about five miles long by two in width. If ever 

 nature exerted herself to make a perfect resting and feed- 

 ing place for wildfowl it was when she got to that part of 

 her labors commonly known as Sauvie's Island. It 

 derived its name from an old French Canadian who settled 

 there in the early days of the Hudson's Bay Company 

 Hark! hark! what music? from the rampart hills, 



How like a far-off bugle, sweet aad clear. 

 It searches through the listening wilderness! 



A swan! I know it by the trumpet tone; 

 Winging her pathless way in the cool heavens. 

 Piping her midnight melody, Ehe comes. 



Every thoughtful sportsman sorrowfully recognizes the 

 fact that the days of game, whether fish, flesh or fowl, 

 are numbered. There is not much said or written about 

 it because it is a painful subject, but it is nevertheless a 

 settled fact, and, the more's the pity. Among the first 

 feathered game to disappear from the face of the earth 

 win be that most notable, majestic and beautiful of them 

 all, the American swan and his cousin, the trumpeter 

 swan. In many places where they were moderately 

 plenttfvil a quarter of a century ago they are now un- 

 known. Some people pretend, by way of explanation, 

 that they have simply changed their path of migration to 

 less settled districts, but that does not explain the fact 

 there is no place on the American continent now where 

 they are really plentiful, and these good friends of the 

 noblest of all the feathered tribe are called upon to ex- 

 plain their explanation. 



The fact is that the swan, like the bison, is a large 

 bright target, and death loves a shining mark. That 

 most graceful, most beautiful ana emblematic of royal 

 purity of all water fowl will soon be known only in 

 tradition— a tradition of those other days of hunter life 

 in the half -forgotten past. 



Many of the States have imderta,ken the enactment of 

 laws for the puotection of swan, but those laws aouom- 

 plish no good. The Oregon statutes inform us that it 

 shall be unlawful for any person between the first day of 

 May and the first day of September of each year to take, 

 kill, injure or destroy, or h4.ve in possession, sell or offer 

 for sale any wild swan, etc. That sounds like lots of 

 protection; but Great Guns! what hunter ever had the 

 opportunity to do any of those terrible things to a swan 

 in Oregon between the first day of May and the first day 

 of September. 



But let us "fiddle while Eome burns" and enjoy the fun 

 while it lasts. We may not be able to do as some of the 

 army officers of Vancouver barracks did on Green's Lake 

 several years ago- stuff pillow cases with straw and with 

 these decoys shoot thirty-five swan by moonlight in one 

 night, but we will do our best toward annihilation. 



There is m doubt that a swan is easily fooled. I know 

 hunters that can turn a swan in his flight and bring him 

 within easy range by imitating his call, and when one 

 of a band is downed, the others are easily bagged as i 

 rule. The words of Lefiingwellin "Wild Fowl Shooting- 

 coming from the Mississippi Valley are suggestive. He 

 says: "In the Western States this noble bird is almost ex- 

 tinct; they have been comparative strangers, except at 

 rare intervals. Not far in the distant past they were an- 

 nually sieen with us on the lakes and rivers and frequently 

 feeding in immense bayous." 



No doubt the swan are more plentiful west of the Cas 

 cadeKange than anywhere else on this continent. In 

 midwinter Big and Little Sturgeon lakfs, Morgan's Lake 

 Foley Lake and the Big Wilmot Lake on Sauvies Island, 

 Green's Lake in Washington (opposite Sauvie's Island) and 

 Willow Bar in the Columbia River are resorted to for feed 

 and rest by swan in considerable numbers. They belong 

 to the duck family, and as is well known, that entire 

 family is very partial to the tender, juicy, nutritious wa- 

 pato; and while the swan, like the mallard, will not dive 

 deep for food (as do the canvasbacks), they are enabled 

 by the aid of their long, muscular necks and strong bills, 

 to tear the wap 'tos out of the soft mud of their favorite 

 feed lakes, and thus satisfy their rapacious appetites. A 

 wapato lake used during a moonlit night by swan has th 

 appearance next morning of having been subsoiled by 



drove of ravenous hogs. A full-grown swan will easily 

 devour a peck of wapatos in a single night, and leave a 

 good breakfast of the smaller tubers floating in the turbid 

 waters for the widgeon. 

 One of the most beautiful of sights is to witness the 

 rrival of their spectral squadrons at Big Sturgeon Lake 

 from the north. This lake is a great resting or loafing 

 alace for all kinds of water fowl. The swans have 

 aeen pursued, abused and deviled so much that they are 

 getting educated. As the winter sets in in earnest {i. e., 

 when the rains come) the swana come trooping down 

 from the north and gather at this lake. I have often 

 watched them. The storm clouds and wind give the lake 

 gloomy appearance. You hear the distant bugle calls, 

 but so far away that the birds, notwithstanding their white- 

 ness and immense size, are not discernible. At last you 

 see a faint, wavering streak of white away in the north 

 among the clouds, more like a glance of the sun through 

 a rift in the clouds than a moving mass of life. They 

 maintain their lofty flight until over the lake, and then 

 with a grand flourish of trumpets suddenly set their 

 wings and descend straight into the center of the lake. 

 Then follows a lot of light talk and a general brushing 

 up. Soon there comes another flock in the same way. 

 As the late arrivals hear their incoming friends, they an- 

 swer, and then such whooping and trumpeting as makes 

 one's ears ring. 



So each succeeding flock is received by those already 

 arrived; and during all this time any observing person 

 can discern more m their whooping and yelling than 

 limply a disposition to make noise. 



Swan, like all other water fowl, have undoubtedly a 

 language of their own. Listen to the flute-like tones from 

 the snowy throats of the glad birds, that, possibly, have 

 not seen each other since they left that same lake on their 

 long pilgrimages to the North , telling of their wanderings, 

 their joys and sorrows among the crystal lakes around the 

 pole. When they come in or go out of a lake, it is with a 

 general hue and cry; but while resting or feeding their 

 tones are the purest, sweetest and most melodiously 

 tender imaginable. 



May not theirs be a life of love as pure and spotless as 

 their robes of white, jeweled with the most perfect grace 

 and melody. Multnomah. 

 Portland, Oregon, Nov. 18. 



CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 



CHICAGO, III, Jan. 17.— It was the misfortune of the 

 writer to miss among other good things last week 

 the big game dinner given by Billy Werner to the Pos- 

 sum Club. Report runs that this was a screaming suc- 

 cess. The tables were handsomely decorated, two pea- 

 cocks, a fine wild turkey, the nicely mounted heads of 

 a deer and an elk being among the furnishings of the 

 board. Above the antlers of the elk there towered to the 

 ceiling of the room a genuine persimmon tree, and from 

 a branch of this and suspended by his tight-curled tail 

 there hung a real possum. The menu, nicely litho- 

 graphed, set forth among other things, "Suckers from 

 the Kow River, 5 ground traps, sauce a la 448," "Klein- 

 man ducks, Elliott (in the) sauce," "chicken from Fel- 

 ton's farm — 'you may tie it, but you can't beat it'," etc., 

 etc. Toasts of the evening were "Sports of the Field," 

 Dr. N. Rowe; "Chicago Sportsmen," H. D. NichoUs; "the 

 Higher Aims of the Sportsman," Wolf red N. Low; "Trap 

 Shooting, Past, Present and Future," Chas. E. Felton; 

 'Sports in General," Harry C. Palmer; "The Anatomy of 

 the Possum," Dr. J. M. Hutchinson. The "Rod and Gun" 

 reply fell to the Forest and Stream representative, but 

 the latter was absent. The Possum Club is flourishing to 

 the point of aggressive prosperity. Mr. Werner is 

 certainly to be complimented upon the success of his 

 banquet, 



Mr, C. E. WiUard, well known among the shooters of 

 the West, has severed his relations with the Standard 

 Cartridge Co., and this week enters upon his duties as 

 agent in the West for the Colt Patent Fire Aruis Co., of 

 Hartford. Chicago will be his headquarters, and he will 

 not travel further west than Omaha. 



Mr. C. D. Gammon and Mr. Harry Loveday leave next 

 Monday for a duck shooting trip on the sunk marsh of 

 New Madrid and will shoot there till Feb. 8, when they 

 meet at Cairo the excursion of Northern shooters, now 

 arranging to shoot some matches with Southern shooters 

 at New Orleans and Pensacola. 



The removal of the great cattle herds from the Chero- 

 kee Strip, 1. T. , has c lused the invasion of lower Kansas 

 by numbers of gray wolves, which are proving destruc 

 tive to stock. 



Buffalo Jones is in the city this week. He has a new 

 overcoat. It looks like dull chinchilla, but in reality it 

 is made of buffalo cloth, woven altogether from buffalo 

 fur or wool. The coat is faced with dark buffalo fur.- 

 There is no coat like this in the world. Buffalo Jones 

 also has some photographs of members of his herd, in- 

 cluding some nice half-breeds a few months old. The 

 crosses are all doing well. The moving of part of the 

 herd to Salt Lake City was disastrous, and there are only 

 '7 full-blood calves this year against 31 last. This big 

 herd will be exhibited at the "World's Fair here in 1893. 

 Three syndicates are figuring about it now. Buffalo 

 Jones is telegraphing Buffalo Bill to-day, out at Pine 

 Ridge Agency, and they are to meet soon and talk over 

 some sort of a scheme for 1893 and the Fair. 



The Nee-pe-nauk Shooting Club met at the Grand 

 Pacific and elected the following officers for the ensuing 

 year: President, Morris Sellers; Vice-President, Edward 

 E. Flint; Treasurer, -James F. Casler; Secretary, Edward 

 J. Rowley. Directors, Morris Sellers, E. E. Flint, Ira F. 

 Younglove, Charles P. Troego and James F. Casler. 



Mr. S. N. Leek, the Rocky Motmtain guide mentioned 

 not long ago in these columns, who lives at Jackson's 

 Hole, via Kaintuck, Idaho, writes me, under date of 

 Jan. 12: "We are having a very light winter here, and 

 all kinds of game are doing well. The elk have not yet 

 been driven out of the mountains, and if we do not have 

 any heavy storms before long they will recruit up some- 

 what. Last winter was very hard on the elk. I would 

 estimate 30 or 40 per cent, of them were winter killed." 



The winter in this region continues very mild. The 

 quail will do well. 



Mr. Paul North, of the Cleveland Target Co., was in 

 the city last Saturday on a brief business trip. 



Jan. 6'.— There have cropped out the facts concerning a 

 little affair which the upper circles of Grand Calumet 

 Heights Club have for some time tried to keep suppressed. 



Indeed, up to the very last moment, the most frantic 

 efforts have been made to that effect by friends of the in- 

 terested parties, so much so that only duty to the public 

 could lead me to give the facts at all. The affair occurred 

 last fall, and the actors therein were Dr. H., a prominent 

 dentist on State street, and his friend Mr. Kossuth M. It 

 may be I ought to give the full names, but if the gentle- 

 men don't act just right about this, I can do that later 

 on, so it doesn't make much difference. Well, Dr. H. 

 and Mr. M. were going on an exploring voyage one day 

 last fall. They intended to explore the Grand Calumet 

 River, clear down to its mouth in the briny deep of Lake 

 Michigan, Of course this meant a long trip, and a long 

 trip meant abundant supplies, and that necessitated 

 crowding their boat a good deal, but by careful arrange- 

 ment they managed to get along. Thp fishing rods, and 

 the Winchester rifle and the ApoUinaris water they put 

 in the stern of the boat, and after throwing some old 

 coats and things over them they made a pretty fair seat 

 for Dr. H. , who occupied that end of the boat, It is a 

 reprehensible practice, this way of throwing guns loose 

 into a boat, and though these men may resent the cen- 

 sure, it is only just to say that the accident which ensued 

 was just what might have been expected. 



The heavily loaded boat made its way slowly down the 

 stream, Mr, M, was rowing, Dr, H. was steering and 

 paddling. The hurriedly arranged seat in the stern was 

 not altogether comfortable, but not much attention was 

 paid to this for some time. The morning wore away. A 

 point was reached five miles below the club house. 



Dr. H. became a trifle weary from his cramped position. 

 He reached behind him to arrange more comfortably the 

 articles upon which he was sitting. There was a sudden 

 lurch of the boat. And then, in that way, no one ever 

 knows just how, there occurred the accident which 

 might have been expected. These sickening accidents 

 always are occurring, but they do not seem to teach 

 more caution. 



There was a loud explosion, muSled by the covering of 

 coats, etc., which lay uppermost in the stern of the boat. 

 Dr. H. threw his hand behind him. 



"My God, I'm shot!" cried he. His face was pale from 

 the sudden shock and pain. 



"Are you hurt much, Doctor?" asked Mr. M., himself 

 pale with fright. "Where is it?" 



"Here," said Dr. H., setting his teeth firmly together 

 to control the pain, "I can feel the blood running. Pull 

 ashore. I don't know whether you can get me to the 

 club house or not. It is terrible to die here in these sand 

 hills, away from my wife and children!" 



Mr. M. pulled the boat ashore and helped his compan- 

 ion out. He was pale, but bore his suffering manfully. 

 TeiTibly careless of me!" he murmured, 

 Mr. M, removed his friend's coat and vest. The re- 

 maining garments were indeed wet as he had said. 

 "Did you— did you say blood. Doctor?" asked Mr. M. 

 "Yes," whispered Dr, H., holding up his hand, "see?" 

 But his hand was white, not redl 



A strong revulsion passed over Dr. H. He gulped a 

 little in his throat and sat up. 



"Bring that d— d gtm up hfre," he said. 

 So Mr. M. got the gun. There was no shell, empty or 

 otherwise, in the barrel. 



"Count the ApoUinaris!" hissed Dr. H. between his 

 teeth. 



So Mr. M. counted the bottles. He found one bottle 

 empty. The coats were all wet. The heat of the day, 

 the motion of the boat, or something, had caused one of 

 the bottles to "go off." On discovering this Mr. M. sat 

 right down in the mud, on the edge of the river, and 

 shouted, screamed and yelled, and rolled over and over 

 with laughter. If he had only held still. Dr. fl. would 

 have shot him, right there; but after a while he too began 

 to laugh, and soon both were helpless. 



The voyage of exploration was abandoned. Dr, H. 

 pleaded with Mr. M. for hours, and the latter promised 

 faithfully never to say a word. But you know how such 

 things are. Three weeks after this, as Dr. H. was sit- 

 ting at dinner with several members, down at the club, a 

 voice behind his chair exclaimed, "My God, I'm shot!" 

 That settled it. The worthy doctor sprang from his chair 

 as if he had reaUy been shot. Since then he has had no 



Eeace at the club, and now this is the latest and the pub- 

 c story of Dr. H.'s adventure with the Appolinaris 

 bottle. 



Jan. 19. — The late little trip to the Antioch lakes, though 

 taken for the serious purpose of finding out something 

 about the ice fisheries, was not devoid of its amusing 

 features. We numbered four, a cigar man, a newspaper 

 editor, another newspaper man, who ever since the late 

 Indian troubles has been longing to go out as a war cor- 

 respondent, and that bronzed and rugged-looking genius 

 of 108 Madison, aged anywhere from 35 to 80, who is 



generally spoken of in that establishment as "Old Man 

 Hirth." Mr. Hirth was a color-bearer in the late war, 

 but he has not been doing much fighting lately, and we 

 all sized him tip for a tenderfoot, and concluded we would 

 freeze him, lose him, and beat him shooting with his own 

 rifle. Indeed, our charitable designs in this matter went 

 so far that, upon the gentleman's expressing his willing- 

 ness to enter into a little target shooting arrangement, on 

 a jackpot basis, 5 cents a corner, we informed him cheer- 

 fully that we would by tMs means compel him to pay all 

 the expenses of the trip. We were going to have some 

 fun with the "old man." Om- buckboard ride, three 

 miles or so at midnight, was pretty tough, but somehow 

 the old color-bearer didn't seem to mind it. He was get- 

 ting along all right. It was a little cold otit on the ice the 

 next day, but the rest of us seemed to notice that more 

 than the "old man," and when we heaved the big pickerel 

 out of the hole in the ice he had more fun than anybody. 

 After shooting it full of holes with a .22 pistol, he ap- 

 propriated the fish and ever after claimed to have caught 

 ft by himself, on a pearl spoon. And then he wanted to 

 go rabbit hunting, out in the cold, cold snow, and was 

 disappointed because we wouldn't all go out and ramble 

 with him in the woods. And after that he wanted to 

 shoot at a target, 5 cents a corner, as per our first agree- 

 ment. We thought we had him then, but it was just the 

 other way, and instead of his paying our expenses we paid 

 his. Never was so disappointing a man to have fun with, 

 though he looked innocent enough, too. We didn't have 

 any fun at all with him, to speak of. He developed an 

 alarming familiarity with a good many kinds of gaits. 

 This week the cigar man is reserved and taciturn about 

 ice fishing, the newspaper editor has a tenible cold, and 

 the war correspondent is sick in bed with pneumonia; but 



