APril 28, 1892. J 



FOREST AND STREAM, 



THE " M ANTON " OF MEMORY. 



IT stirs the blood of an old man'6 heart and makes the 

 pukes fly*' to read one of Mr. E. Hough's "Chicago 

 and the West'' letters, especially if the old fossil aforesaid 

 has been practically cooped up all winter, and is half dead 

 Cor want of air and exercise. Just think of it, I haven't 

 pointed my gun at a prairie chickenfor more than twenty 

 years, though back in the fifties it didn't take me long to 

 kdl all I could carry. Then in tne sixties they were 

 practically wiped out in that region — not by me, however. 

 And now comes iur. Hough with his "immortal snaps" 

 and tells how there be a place where the toot of the pin- 

 nated grouse still is heard. If I thoughtl could get there 

 I don't know but I would apply for admission. I possess 

 some of the necessarv qualifications, being able to prove 

 that I have read the Forest and Stream for at least six 

 months, and that I indorse its doctrines, and don't get 

 drunk. 



I don't know that I should care to bother much with 

 bears, deer and such to any extent, for they are apt to be 

 hilled at a distance from camp, and I have vivid recol- 

 lections of the inconveniences attending the carrying of 

 the carcass of an animal of this sort across the shoulders. 

 The handiest deer hunt I have ever had was when I stood 

 alongside my wood shed, shot the deer, and wheeled it 

 home on a wheelbarrow. Ah, well— that was long ago. 



Like "Von W." and "Awahsoose," 1 have hunted with 

 t he flint lock in my boyhood, not to any great extent, 

 however, for there were percussion guns, if one could only 

 get hold of them, and I preferred these. There was a 

 wonderful difference in flintlock guns with respect to the 

 time which elapsed between the pull of the trigger and 

 the explosion. The best lock filers,-like Manton, would 

 produce a weapon which, when primed with the best 

 English glass gunpowder would "go" nearly as quick as a 

 percussion, while a common musket with cheap powder 

 would use up (so it sometimes seemed) the best part of a 

 half day in getting rid of its charge. I agree with some 

 of your correspondents that there was never a more ele- 

 gant weapon framed than the old Manton flintlock double- 

 barrel, and 1 can't get used to the locks of a hammerless. 

 "Poor old fellow," says the man in the club window. 

 Not so, my boy. I admit the excellence of these weapons, 

 but to me there is too much of a sameness about the out- 

 line—nothing to attract the eye. It's like a noseless man, 

 a hornless cow, a Gordon setter with his tail chopped off 

 close up to the handle. Kelpie. 



A TRIP TO THE " NATION." 



MILWAUKEE, Wis., April SO. — Last week, while 

 transacting some business with Mr. Rockwell, Gen. 

 Roadmaster of the M. K. & T. Ry., at Sedalia, Mo., some 

 one mentioned snipe shooting, at which I, of course, 

 pricked up my ears and was all attention. "Why, do 

 you like snipe shooting?" asked Mr. Rockwell. "Try me 

 "just once," said I.. "Well, I don't get time to shoot, but 

 my nhief clerk, Mr. Scott is a good one and he can go." 

 Mr. Scott came over and we were introduced, and Mr. 

 Rockwell said, "You two are to report at Pryor Creek, 

 Ind. Ter., to-morrow morning, prepared to shoot snipe. 

 You are to go at it in earnest. Scott wipes everybody's 

 eye around here, and if you keep up with him one day 

 your credit will be established among the Sedalia shoot- 

 ers." So 6:15 P. M. found us in the south-bound sleeper, 

 and there were three of us, for Scott had brought along 

 his friend, the Rev. Mr. Stevenson, a most agreeable 

 companion, but not so well versed in field sports as Scott 

 or myself. S.evenson wanted some points on duck 

 shooting, and asked Scott how much he ought to lead a 

 teal flying with a gale of wind, three feet above the 

 water and forty yards away. "In my shooting," said 

 Scott, "it don't make any difference whether I lead one 

 foot, or twenty feet." Stevenson looked surprised and 

 asked why it made no differense. "Because I never kill 

 the teal anyway." Stevenson said this had been his 

 experience and he wasglad to find he was not the only 

 man lanae on ducks. -During the evening, a good many 

 things pertaining to natural history and shooting were 

 discussed, and Scott's conversation showed such 

 accurate knowledge on the subject, that I sized him up 

 as a hard man to beat in the field. 



At five olclock next morning the porter called us up 

 for Pryor's Creek. The weather was cool and cloudy, 

 with some wind and threatening rain, "If the weather 

 stays cloudy and windy, the birds will be wild," said 

 Scott. " Well, let's have breakfast first and birds after- 

 wards," suggested Stevenson. After a pretty solid 

 break! ast, we put on shooting clothes and were ready. 

 The liveryman was on hand with a very good outfit, and 

 in thirty minutes we were on the marsh. Each man 

 took his own course, and found birds fairly plenty, but 

 very wild— very few but what got up forty to sixty yards 

 away. At first I let them all go, thinking to find some 

 soon that would lie better, but as Scott's gun was heard 

 every few minutes and the birds were all wild, something 

 had to be done, and I began to shoot. In less than an 

 hour I had mtd twenty-five shells and brought ten birds 

 to the wagon. Scott came up at the same time with 

 thirteen birds. ' Pretty even thing," said Scott. "Yes, 

 but a little the most evenness on your side." We didn't 

 stop to talk, but got more shells and went at it again. 

 At noon we came to the wagon with a total count of 

 twenty-six for Seott and twenty-eight for myself, but I 

 did not feel like crowing: the contest was not over yet, 

 and Scott was a hard man to beat. Stevenson came up 

 with ten, and was the happy man of the lot, for he had 

 never shot at a snipe before. Driving to some dry ground 

 we took out the lunch and sent the team to town for 

 more cartridges. After fully satisfying our appetite and 

 taking a rest on the dry grass, the sport was renewed. 

 An hour later Stevenson came to us saying he had shot a 

 fine duck, but got over his boot tops in the water getting 

 it out of the pond. He said he thought it was amuscovy 

 duck, but was not certain. He said it had dark feet, a 

 white beak, and slaty black plumage. "Let me see it," 

 said Scott. He'produced it, and S.'ott said, "That is a 

 mud hen; they're not worth two cents a ton." With a 

 most comical look of disgu t, Stevenson dropped the bird, 

 turned his back on us, and hunted snipe. 



Wnen we came to the wagon at z:60 we were tired 

 enough and had birds to quit, but we counted so near 

 even birds that neither of us wanted to stop. 



At 3:15 we came to the wagon again, and Scott said, 

 "I've got enough. L? 's count birds and quit." As my 

 legs were heavy as lea .. and every shot felt as if it were 

 jerking my head off, I a eed, and very gladly too. We 



counted fifty-nine snipe each, and Scott led by one duck. 

 Stevenson counted twenty-three snipe and a rail. One 

 hundred amd forty -three in all. Scott used a ten -gauge 

 Parker, loaded with 4|lrs. powder, i£oz. No. 8. I used 

 a twelve-gauge Lefever, 3drs. powder, lcz No. 8 shot. 

 We had put in six solid hours walking at a lively pace 

 over soft ground, with eyes and muscles on the alert all 

 the time. 



The cushions on the wagon seat felt very comfortable 

 as we sat down to ride home. So did the smooth road, 

 as we rolled rapidly toward town. Stevenson remarked 

 that he was like an umbrella, because he was used up. 

 Scott asked if an umbrella was more likely to be used up 

 than anything eLe. Stevenson said of course it was, 

 because it was never used any other way. Considering 

 how tired they were, they were a very good-humored 

 crowd, and as they sat down to the landlady's dish of 

 stewed chicken, Scott remarked that "biled hen" was 

 universally respected, and particularly so on the present 

 occasion. 



On the return trip the writer stopped at Port Scott, 

 Kas., and spent an afternoon with Ed. Penniman and 

 Doc Hutton, two as thorough sportsmen as ever pulled a 

 trigger. The snipe were scarce and the wind very high, 

 so we counted only twenty-seven, but the social qualities 

 of Ed. and Doc. make a trip with them a success regard- 

 less of the game bagged. I have recently been through 

 Indiana. Illinois, Missouri, eastern Kansas, and part of 

 Indian Territory, and found sportsmen unanimous in 

 the opinion that there were a great many quail left for 

 seed. Perhaps in my next I may have something to say 

 about duck shooting in eastern Wisconsin, but not very 

 much, as mallard, teal, wood duck and snipe are, in this 

 State, protected from spring shooters. I'm afraid though 

 that a good many of the shooters can't tell the difference 

 between a mallard and a bluebill. O. H. Hampton. 



Milwaukee, April 30. 



CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 



[From a Staff Correspondent.'] 



C CHICAGO, III., April 23.— Something more yet about 

 ) my game pocket of mysterious sort. Mr. W. O. H., 

 of Philadelphia— those aren't the right initials, but will 

 do— was out there last fall and in regard to the sport 

 writes as follows: 



"In regard to the game pocket, would say that there is 

 a variety, but for moose and elk I would not recommend 

 it. Mr. F. is a clever fellow and will make sportsmen 

 very welcome, and he furnishes a very excellent table. 

 For chicken shooting I think the place cannot be sur- 

 passed. I shall 'give nothing away' in print." 



It would appear that when the grand annual drawing 

 for this spot takes place next August somebody will get a 

 capital prize. 



The same gentleman above referred to is pursui»g his 

 quest for an elk, and has be^n referred to J. W. Scbultz, 

 of Piegan, Mont,, and to S. N. Leek, of Jickson's Hole, 

 Wyoming, via Kaintuck. Idaho, as good big-game guides. 

 He and his friends inchne to the latter locality. They 

 should bear in mind the Wyoming non-resident law. 



The duck season being now closed, the attention of 

 such shooters as care to shoot this season has been turned 

 to the snipe and plover question. We have had heavy, 

 cold rains, and the whole country hereabout remains 

 sodden and half frozen. The cornfields are lakes and the 

 marshes ice ponds. The season is twenty days late at 

 least. Under the circumstances the snipe are scattered 

 far and wide, and a good bag depends upon the mere 

 chance of finding a little pocket of them, which is about 

 as apt to be one place as another. Dr. Swartz and a 

 friend, of Crown Point, Ind,, got sixty-five near Fuller's 

 Island, on the Kankakee, one day last week, but many 

 hunters have plodded the same ground in vain. The 

 market shooters tell me that they think the last flight 

 of jacksnipe is now up as high as middle Indiana and 

 Illinois. The flight of golden plover has not yet left 

 Texas in bulk. There has been no plover shooting worth 

 mentioning. Italian Joe, probably the most skillful 

 plover hunter in the world, has been down at Wolcott, 

 Ind. , shooting for the market for three weeks, and his 

 highest bag up to the first of this week was seventeen 

 birds in a clay. On Monday he bagged twenty-nine. On 

 that day a heavy flight of new birds came in over the 

 country, high and prospecting, but a cold northeaster 

 drove them back. To-day is the first decent day for 

 weeks, and if it stays warm we shall soon have what is 

 left of the snipe and plover flight, which will come with 

 a rush. The best flight of these birds came in the latter 

 part of March. 



Two gentlemen of Chicago made the perilous trip down 

 into Indiana this week, to see Italian Joe shoot-a de plov? 

 They found that good-natured citizen rather discouraged 

 about the game outlook, and specifically grieved because ! 

 he had not annihilated a little bunch of birds which had 

 happened to swing in over his decoys that morning. "I 

 malie-a de two dam bad-a shot," said Joe. By night time, 

 however, says my informant, Joe's light-hearted nature 

 had asserted itself, and he kept the party at the little 

 farmhouse in a roar. 



"I give-a you de imitate de Italian-a op'," said Joe, 

 picking up the house cat, which happened to pass by. 

 Then holding the cat's ears tightly together between his 

 fingers, and keeping clear of her claws, he grasped her 

 tail with the other hand, and turned it rapidly, d la hand 

 organ. The result was most astonishing. As he timed 

 the ear-pinching and tail turning well together, the dif- 

 ferent altitudes of the feline's vocal product appeared to 

 be the result of the revolutions of her tail. It takes an 

 artist to perform in this manner, and I imagine few would 

 care to try it. But Italian Joe is an artist, and to see his 

 plover eaine during the day, and his "Italian-a op'" at 

 nigh 1 -, is a ecale of privilege accorded to but few. 



There are at Wolcott, Chalmers and Reynolds, three 

 little Indiana towns near each other, down the Monon 

 road, probably 150 to 200 men who shoot for the market 

 more or less extensively, some of them altogethf r. Mr. 

 G Beard, of San Pierre, Ind., buys their game for hh 

 freezer. The price for plover and jack snipe just now is 

 11 cents per bird, cash every evening at any one of these 

 towns. 



Mr. O. H. Hampton, of the Atlantic Dynamite Co., 

 New York, and a well known correspondent of Forest 

 and Stream, passed through this city hurriedly this 

 week. 



I regret to state that as the hunting season falls off the 

 usual signs of increasing dissoluteness in morals comes 



on apace among our shooters. In short, the lying season 

 has just begun, and remarkable occurrences are so com- 

 mon aa not to be remarkable. Mr. E. Bingham lately 

 made a singular shot with a rifle, killing a muskrat, a 

 mallard duck and a prairie chicken at the same shot with 

 a single ball. He shot at the rat, and the rest was acci- 

 dental. Prof. R. A. Turtle lately hooked a large bass, 

 which sprang bodily from the water, grasped the line 

 about 10ft. up firmly in its iron jaws and bit it off clean, 

 thus escaping. Any one knowing the size of line with 

 which this gentleman fishes will not question the size of 

 the bass. That earnest young sportsman. Mr. Harry 

 Dole, lately shot at seven dead mud turtles which some 

 one had arranged on a log, and killed them all. At a 

 sitting shot M«\ Dole is said to have few equals and no 

 superiors. Wild tales, these from the Kankakee — but, 

 did any one say Kankakee? "Talking about the Kanka- 

 kee," said Mr. Eddie Price, the oldest inhabitant of 

 Chicago or Illinois, "you fellows don't know anything 

 about the Kankakee. Why, I was here in the early days 



before the Kankakee River was finished. One dav ." 



But then, if I should tell that story of Eddie Price's there 

 wouldn't a soul believe it. E. Hough. 



GUIDES AND GUIDED. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



In reply to C. Askins, one of the St. Louis party, it's 

 useless to go over the ground in detail, as Mr, Askins and 

 I can't agree in all details. While he is a fine shot and 

 could no doubt kill a deer at any reasonable distance, 

 were his "tired feelings" not an uusurmountable barrier. 

 Mr. Weaver is no doubt a fine field shot and a tireless 

 hunter, perhaps a good deer hunter in the Uzirks; but he 

 don't know the first rudiments of still-hunting in swamp- 

 lands, and I would like to see the man who could teach 

 him in his estimation. The party was instructed to bunt 

 for deer between Mingo and Cypress creeks, a triangular 

 piece of ground. From the railroad to the forks of the 

 creeks is five miles, and two miles wide. They were told 

 that the bears had been killed out before they went in, 

 nine having been killed in four miles of camp, and also 

 that the turkey were gone. They also knew the guide 

 was not a resident of that country before they arrived 

 there. The number of "buckshot seared veterans" can be. 

 estimated by the following. A party of three two days 

 after the departure of the St. Louis party in one day killed 

 three deer and wounded the fourth so bad that it died on 

 the Mingo at the old salt works, and was found by me a 

 day or two afterward. Two more were killed by their 

 driver a week or so afterward on the same grotmds. 

 And another "went hence" under the fire of th- "relic" 

 in hands of the writer with a charge of No. 5s. This party 

 was of local sportsmen of course, but it shows that the 

 "vets" were on smaller space than Mi'. Askins represented. 

 The bunt was a failure beyond all doubt, but was it 

 caused by the guide's inability to hit a deer with a gun 

 that shot 3ft. to the right, or was it by Weaver's "mad 

 longing" for the cane brake beyond Glazs Creek (which 

 was swimming when they left, and for two weeks after- 

 ward)? It is needless to multiply words about the matter. 

 The biggest fish is never caught through no fault of the 

 fisherman, The average sportsman knows that he would 

 have killed the deer if — . The readers can decide between 

 us. Harry Esslinger. 



Willow Springs, Mo. 



SAGINAW GAME PROTECTION SOCIETY. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



The Saginaw Game Protection Society is on deck and 

 doing good work. The Bjard of Supervisors have never 

 paid our deputy warden a salary; in fact, a member of 

 the committee having this in cnarge is a noted sympa- 

 thizer of the violators of the game law. This man is 

 always holding offi -e— has been poormaster of this city, 

 alderman and supervisor, and, I believe, is to-day the 

 Deputy Internal Revenue Collector. Yet he openly 

 boasted when our petition requesting that the Board of 

 Supervisors fix a salary for our deputy game warden, was 

 in the hands of his committee, that he had shot deer out 

 of season; that he believed that the game laws were a 

 detriment to the people; that he did not propose to live 

 up to them; that he would not do anything to aid to bring 

 violators to justice. By this sort of influence the effort 

 was killed, and our Association has borne the burden of 

 expense in a good many ways. At the present time 

 Deputy Warden Ostrander has nineteen men bound over 

 for trial for violation of the game laws. Saturday he 

 made one arrest for unlawful shooting of quail. He is at 

 it all the time and is a most efficient officer, and it is a 

 shame that in a civilized country the Board of Supervis- 

 ors, whose duty it is to fix the salary of the State Game 

 Warden, repeatedly have refused to do anything in this 

 direction. W. B. Mershon. 



East Saginaw, Mich., April 21. 



Passahaqtjoddy Tndians and Deer — Portland, Me,, 

 April al. — the law court in the case <<i State of Maine vs. 

 Peter Newell, an indictment for killing deer in close 

 time, has just been decided that the claim of the Passa- 

 maquoddy Indians to the right to kill deer at any season 

 by virtue of an ancient treaty is unfounded. The 

 court saye: 1. The Indians resident within this State 

 are not "Indian Tnbss" within the treaty making powers 

 of the Federal Government. 2. Nor are they in political 

 life or teriitory the successors of any of the various 

 "Eastern Tribes of Indians" with whom treaties were 

 made by the crown or the colonies in colonial times, and 

 hence they cannot effectually claim any privilege? or ex- 

 emptions under sucn treaties. 3. While they have a 

 partial organization for tenure of property and local mat- 

 ter?, they have now no separate political organization 

 and are subject as individuals to all the laws of the State. 



Arkansas Turkeys.— Little Rock, Ark., April 10. — 

 The recent heavy rains and high water all over this sec- 

 tion will prevent any fishing for some time to come. The 

 "sign being right," fine gobbler shooting may be enjoyed 

 during the month of April. I saw a beaiuiful gobbler 

 yesterday weighing billed in Ferguson Bottom, six 



miles from this city. We have a great many xurkeya in 

 this part of the State, and several of our shooter* are get- 

 ting ready for their annual gobbler hunt.— A^.kaxsas. 



