Oct. 1, 1891.J 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



205 



bridge of logs up the ravine a few rods, and then stopped 

 with bis whole body indicating the base of a great oak 

 tree half way up the bank. We could see every inch of 

 the ground "between the dog and the tree. If there was 

 a bird there it must be lying on the opposite side of the 

 oak. Exchanging a glance of silent agreement Sam and 

 I separated, he going to the right and I to the left of the 

 tree. The dog stood his ground, and we knew that the 

 bird must be lying close in front of us. And so it was, 

 apparently crouched against the opposite side of the oak, 

 for before we could reach the tree the grouse sprang as 

 if out of its very roots. One person alone would have 

 stood very little chance of getting a shot at the wily bird, 

 but it could not so easily put the trunk of the tree between 

 itself and both of us. the grouse came into view first on 

 my side, and having a fairly unimpeded shot I succeeded 

 in dropping it with my first barrel. Having bagged this 

 bird we returned to the old wood road, as the likeliest 

 place to run across others. Scarcely had we reached it 

 when up sprang a brace of birds from the tbimbleberry 

 bushes, one of which fell to Sam's quick snap shot, while 

 the other succeeded in esenping both of my barrel-' more 

 deliberately aimed. We kept on down the road, and in 

 a few minutes Don gave us another point. A small hen 

 grouse got on the wing, and as she went straightawaw 

 we both fired and dropped her stone dead. Our next iwo 

 shots were at birds flushing wild, and we failed to score. 



CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 



OPENING DAY AT HORICON.— I. 



CHICAGO, 111., Sept. 3.— Long ago something of a 

 history of the Chicago field shooting clubs was at- 

 tempted in these columns, and completed to such extent 

 as then seemed justifiable, though the story covered only 

 such clubs as had their membership exclusively or largeljp' 

 in Chicago, and such as at that time had most promi- 

 nence. Any history of Chicago enterprise, however, 

 must in these days be daily to be complete. Within two 

 years several new field clubs have been formed in Chicago, 

 and changes have occurred in others sufficient to bring 

 them within the scope of the series of articles above re- 

 ferred to. This series vrould to-day be Irighly incomplete 

 without mention of the organization generally known 

 here as the "Horicon Club," but whose real corpora* e name 

 was the ' Diana Shooting Club, of Horicon," Wis., and 

 whose membership, ouce confined largely to the latter 

 State, has now by recent changes come to he partly in this 

 city— largely, indeed, so far as the most interesting fea- 

 tures of the club f-re concerned. I have earlier men- 

 tioned the anticipated interest of "opening day" at Hori- 

 con, Sept. 1, and must beg now to blend the story of the 

 pleasant event with the more general history of this club, 

 which peems to have features as new, as distinct and as 

 interesting as any yet found among the Chicago clubs. 



Winneconne and Poygan marshes, about twenty miles 

 from Oshkosh. Poygan Lake is strung on the Wolf 

 River, which joins the northern Fox for Winnebago 

 waters. We shall not follow the rail fence any further, 

 and indeed I do not know whither it goes further, though 

 the next jump must be a lone: one, for when the northern 

 birds get in to Wirneconne Marsh ahead of a storm they 

 are very tired and hungry, and must have come a long 

 way, certainly from far above the north line of Wiscon- 

 sin, for we now have touched the last of the greater feed- 

 ing grounds. Of all these grounds, the Horicon Marsh is 

 the greatest natural breeding ground, and has been so for 

 years. Indeed, we are now upon historic country, and 

 could, if we liked, leave shooting for a time, and go into 

 history of Indian and white man not altogether without 

 pleasurable interest. 



Near the quiet little country village of Horicon, one of 

 those old, old towns that never grew, you may see to-day, 

 on the pleasant wooded bluffs which skirt the great 

 marsh, the corn hills still intact, which mark the plant- 

 ing grounds of the old Winnebago tribe, the first hunters, 

 probably, who ever tasted the inimitable possibilities of 

 that spot. Probably the Winnebagoes did little damage 

 to the fowl beyond stealing an easy livelihood out of their 

 eggs. They were lazy, like all Indians, so lazy that they 

 planted their corn in these same hills, year after year, 

 until the stalks dwindled and dwindled and hardly bore 



AMONG- THE WILDFOWL.— Y. 



"You Sox OF A OTJK," 



Then I succeeded in killing a bird which flushed from a 

 tree, and within the next twenty minutes Sara bagged 

 two birds, one skulking along the ground through a 

 thicket and another percned on the limb of a birch tree 

 and watching us with undisguised interest. 



This completed the bag for the morning. On returning 

 to the team, Sam's friend insisted that we should take 

 dinner with him, which we were nothing loth to do, as 

 our lunch, though exceedingly good as far as it went, 

 would hardly have gone far enough, I fear, for two hun- 

 gry men. In fact, we easily finished it as a kind of after 

 piece later in the afternoon. 



Driving on for a couple of miles, we were fortunate 

 enough to strike a piece of cover which contained some 

 late woodcock, undoubtedly flight birds, and bagged six 

 during the afternoon, besides two more grouse. I never 

 enjoyed more delightfiil sport than we had in that little 

 patch of birches and alders, while Don was working up 

 those November woodcock. The birds lay close, flew 

 swift as arrows when flushed, and were in prime condi- 

 tion for both gun and table. My comi^anion was not 

 used to this kind of wing shooting and only Bucceed«^d in 

 dropping one bird. But he declared that he should try 

 it again, and would beat me yet. 



As it would take me about a day to reach home by 

 rail, and as I must certainly be in my office by Saturday, 

 thfs finished the record of my little trip to the hills of 

 New Hampshire. We had not found many birds, nor 

 made large bags, but found enough game to keep things 

 interesting and had a generally good time. Mr. Trescott 

 enjoys shooting as well as any visiting sportsman, and 

 thoroughly understands the habits and tricks of the ruffed 

 grouse. I hope another season will bring the weldomi^ , 

 leisure which may be devoted to a second trip into the 

 glorious New Hampshire mountains. Paul Pastnor. 



Glodcester, Mass., Sept. 13. — The plovers came along 

 with the easterly storm of the 6th and 7th, and I have 

 been told that it was the largest flight for a number of 

 years. They did not stop here, but continued on their 

 journey southward, and two days after the storm only 

 an occasional one was to be seen on the marshes. — E. F. 

 Locke. 



I believe I have divided the Chicago clubs into the Kan- 

 kakee River, Sandhills, Illinois River and Fox Lake 

 groups, according to the sporting regions as above indi- 

 cated. We cannot class the Horicon Club under any of 

 these, and shall have to make another group for the Rock 

 River country. Properly the Blackhawk Club of Lake 

 Koshkenong would fall under this head also. The Rock 

 River flows west of the Fox River, emptying into the 

 Mississippi at Rock Island. The first great lake through 

 which it flows is Lake Koshkenong, in lower Wisconsin, 

 the famous wild celery lake which has already been de- 

 scribed. Rock River lies along what we may term the 

 celery flight of the northern wildfowl. Properly we should 

 make a separate class of the "celery clubs." Under this 

 head we should include the Fox Lake clubs, the Lake 

 Koshkenong clubs, the Nee-pe-nauk and Kaw Kaw clubs 

 of Pucka way Lake, Wis., and perhaps an Oshkosh club or 

 so, which latter we cannot call Chicago clubs and shall so 

 pass by for the present. Horicon Club lies on this flight, 

 though it has no celery feed. 



Detaila like the above will be most interesting when the 

 reader takes down a map and locates the points men- 

 tioned. A study of the question in that way will be 

 indeed interesting. It will show, among other things, 

 that the flight of the migratory fowl is by no means on a 

 straight line, either going north or coming south. It is 

 much more like the zigzag of a rail fence in its direction. 

 Suppose we start in at the celery beds and wild rice of Fox 

 Lake. The fall flight into Fox Lake comes from Pewau- 

 kee Lake, the headwaters of the Fox River, to the north- 

 east, or from Lake Koshkenong, on the Rock River, a 

 ;,xio<^ff zigzag to the northwest. From the celery and 

 carried Koshkenong, on the Rock, you must make a sharp 

 'PLevf^. in your fence northeast to Horicon Marsh, the 

 head waters of the latter stream, where there is the great- 

 est breeding ground in Wisconsin, and untold abundance 

 of wild rice, though no celery. Thence the angle of the 

 northern birds, not those bred on Horicon, bends north- 

 west again to Puckaway Lake, celery and rice. Puck- 

 away Lake is strung on the northern Fox River, which 

 flows into big Lake Winnebago, thence via the Neenah 

 River along the old Indian water trail from the Great 

 Lakes, Still ajiother angle the birds must make to get to 



an ear. Even so the tribe dwindled, and when the I)ianil 

 Club was formed the last of the few Winnebago families 

 around the great marsh faded away from the old haunts 

 and silently joined that infinitely pitiful procession of an 

 almost forgotten race. 



But now we have overshot other history more directly 

 essential to our purpose. In the earlier days white hunter 

 and Indian hunter crossed each other's trail in all this 

 country, and the smoke of the wigwam answered that 

 from the cabin of the pioneer. In those days the great 

 strip of rice and boglands was known to the latter as the 

 "Winnebago Marsh." It was then, as it is now, between 

 twelve and fifteen miles in length and six miles wide at 

 its greatest cross section. Then, also, as now, it was a 

 wilderness almost impenetrable of bayou, bog and slough, 

 covered with the densest conceivable gi-owth of rice, flag, 

 cane, grass, reed, weed and all the infinite vegetation of 

 the marsh. The banks were wide apart and gradually 

 sloping. Somewhere between the two rolling banks the 

 channel of the Rock River formulated itself. At the vil- 

 lage of Horicon it passed over and through a rocky ledge 

 where it was possible to confine its waters with a dam. 

 At this point that ancient citizen, Mr. Martin Rich, whom 

 you may see to-day in Horicon and shake by the hand as 

 I have done, built the dam for his big mill. 



"Mart" Rich's dam was built in 1845, when this region 

 was just beginning to settle up. It was a good dam. 

 You can see proof of this yet in the timbers thereof which 

 lie in ruins. It held the waters, hut it could not stnnd 

 the law. The farmers all claimed that it stepped on their 

 riparian toes. 



Naturally from the configuration of this country this 

 dam on the ledge at Horicon village backed the waters 

 far and wide over the shallow basin, through which they 

 flowed so sluggishly. The "Winnf^bago marsh" disap- 

 peared from the face of the earth, and "Lake Horicon" 

 took its place. This beautiful sheet of water, 16x6 milt's 

 in extent, filled all the b'^sin up and lay high upon the 

 sides of the timbered bluffs, as you may see hy the water 

 marks to-day. It was a fine shef-t of water. The wild- 

 fowl shooting was then simply magnificent, and the fish- 

 ing also was remarkable. In the winter the ice held 

 hundreds of fishermen's shanties. 



