70 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Jtjly 28, 1893. 



CALIFORNIA SONG BIRDS, 



OAKLAND, Cal., July 10. — Editor Forest and Stream: 

 To the native son of this State, to one who believes in 

 California first and hiraself second, nothing ia more soul- 

 inspiring, nothing more nearly approaches the sublime in 

 literature than an adverse criticism of the climate of this 

 glorious commonwealth by tixp man who lives where he 

 dare not go out of his house in wiuter without gloves on 

 his hands, flaps on his ears and a 50 pound overcoat on 

 his back: and dare not go out in summer without a sun- 

 shade over his hat and a piece of ice under it. 



Thus '-Didymus," of Summit, N. J., in Forest and 

 Stream for Oct. 1, 1891: "During certain seasons" in 

 Cilifornia "every spear of grass, every weed dries np for 

 want of water, and every insect dies for want of grass 

 and weeds; and how, under such conditions, little birds 

 can live I can't imagine. They require water very often, 

 and Californians expect too much if they suppose the lit- 

 tle musicians are going to entertain them with no grain, 

 grass seeds or insects to live on and not a drop of water 

 to wet their whistles with." 



Shades of the Argonauts! Does man say this and live 

 unhaunted? "Not a drop of water to wet their whistle 

 with!" What. Mr. "Didymus,'" do you think we wet our 

 whistles with — whisky? In this city, only a month ago, 

 two temperance advocates secured total abstinence 

 pledges from 4,000 people. Poor, ignorant fools; what 

 will not be their sufferings before next rainy season! 

 True, there are a few desert spots in California. But 

 gather them all in one piece, place it at one end of the 

 State, and cut that end oif. Why, ifc would never be 

 missed from the map; it would not be so much as a dog's 

 ear on a quarto page. It might be a little larger than 

 New Jersey, but would be considerably smaller than a 

 reasonable-sized wheat farm. And who ever thought of 

 distributing song-birds in a desert? Who would there 

 hear the music but an occasional lost prospector who 

 would give all the singing of all the birds that ever ex- 

 isted from the beginning of time until now for one small 

 drop of watei? 



Mr. "Didymus," you err. Have you ever visited this 

 State, or do you rely upon the vague hearsay of some- 

 body who was told by somebody, who also was told by 

 somebody, ad infinitum, that such is the case? Take 

 your map of California, "Didymus," and I will give you 

 a lesson in geography. Do you see that line of moun- 

 tains near the ocean? That is the Coast Kange. And do 

 you see that other line jjarallel to the first, but further 

 east? That is the Sierra Nevada Eange. Here you will 

 find many peaks perpetually covered with snow. Be- 

 tween these two ridges are the Sacramento and San Joa- 

 quin valleys, through which flow two large navigable 

 rivers. These rivers are fed by iunumerable smaller 

 streams, which drain nearly the whole interior of the 

 State. Now, when a bird, no matter where he may be 

 (except in a cage), feels in a convivial mood and asks his 

 neighbor to smile, within a few minutes' flight the two 

 can always find flowing water with which to drink each 

 other's health. Again, "the birds that wanton in the 

 air" can here riot on. luscious, juicy fruits of many vari- 

 eties the whole year through, which, Mr, "Didymus," is 

 more than you can do in New Jersey. Further, as the 

 combined eft'orts of the population of all the planets can 

 not make free birds stay where there is neither food nor 

 water, your warning is unnecessary. 



As to the seeds and insects dying, we have not so 

 good luck. If such were the fact, and the injurious 

 weeds and bugs would die, then indeed would this be 

 Paradise, 



But one word more and I shall be through. The irri- 

 gation district, when compared to the size of California, 

 is very small; and while the conditions of plant life and 

 in consequence insect life have been materially changed, 

 the State as a whole has been unaffected. N. S. G. W. 



'iitnie md 0nri. 



Neil) Editions: The Gun and its Development, $'2,50. 

 The Modern Shotgun, $1. For sale at this office. 



STOCKING MASSACHUSETTS COVERS. 



To the Sportsmen of Massachusetts: 



The undersigned, a committee appointed by the Massa- 

 chusetts Fish and (lame Protective Association for the 

 purpose of increasing the game supply in this State, 

 present these facts to you. AVe have loosed alive in 

 Massachusetts during the three years of our work the 

 following: 



Sjg pinnated grouse (Cupidonia cupido). 



Ii6 sliarp-taii grouse iredkecetes pliasianelliis, var. colum- 

 bianus). 



1 030 Bob White quail (OrUix viryinianm). 



320 '^amhel's partride-" (Loplwrtyx (jamheli). 



20 plump.d partridge {Oreoriyx pictus). 



87 Norttiern hares (Lcpiw amer-icamis, var. virginianils). 



A total of 1,918 head of game. 



Evidence in abundance shows conclusively that the 

 undertaking is already successful, and from the Berk- 

 shire Hills to Provincetown, from Haverhill to Fair- 

 haven, we hear that the game loosed has survived our 

 winters, has bred and has increased. 



The work has been done and paid for (save by the aid 

 of a few donations from other generous and public- 

 spirited gentlemen) by the members of the Massachusetts 

 Fish and Grame Protective Association — a private club of 

 sportsmen, for the public good alone. We are now at 

 tue openmg of another season's work, having learned 

 how and where to procure game valuable to our State 

 and how to care for it when procured; and it is our pur- 

 pose to loose in different parts of the State during the 

 coming season some 3.000 head of hardy game birds, 

 three-fourths of which are already ordered and will 

 soon begin to arrive. We have some money left; this 

 we shall use, and we want much more for the' same good 

 purpose, and it seems to us that there are many sports- 

 men who would gladly embrace this opportunity to add 

 their contributions for increasing the order (as funds are 

 provided for those already ordered). 



Ours is a labor of love, for we pay no salaries, no office 

 rent, neither is it merged with other moneys nor used for 

 paying club expenses; all money at the command of this 

 committee is spent for game, and the more money the 

 greater the result may be. The opportunity is beyond 



our means, and we ask that every Massachusetts sports- 

 man make our cause his and help us in this work. 



Each year witnesses the retreat still further west of the 

 pinnated and the sharp tail grouse, and every year brings 

 more Western sportsmen to our Eastern country for the 

 I deer and moose formerly to be found near their own 

 home. The deer and moose have gone, the grouse are 

 going fast. Pinnated grouse were found when the Pil- 

 grims landed in the old Bay Scale, and it may be no idle 

 dream that an httndrpd years hence pilgrims from the 

 West may come to find them here again. 



Massachusetts is the only State east of the Alleghanies 

 where it can be said the pinnated and sharp-tail grouse 

 exist. Now, they do exist here, they thrive and may be- 

 come a common game bird if sportsmen do their part to 

 help. 



Ahiv is the time. Help us now.' A few years lience will 

 be too late, and the time will be past when it may be pos- 

 sible to do the work we are now accomplishing. Some 

 have given to the cause a single dollar, some one hun- 

 dred. Give us what you can, and join with the moral aid 

 already profliered the financial help which will bring full 

 success. 



Edward E. Hardy, Sears Building, Boston, is treasurer 

 of the committee, and due acknowledgment will be made 

 to each contribution. John Fottler, Jr., 



Edward E, Hardy, 

 Heinrt J. Thayer, 

 Edavard Brooks, 

 Outram Bangs, 

 Committee on Acclimatization. 



Mr. Richard O, Harding, well known to the readers of 

 the Forest and Stream as the secretary of the Massa- 

 chusetts Fish and Game Protective Association, has just 

 returned from spending a most delightful day at the ex- 

 tensive game preserve of Mr. B. C. Corey, of Hyanie. As 

 everybody acquainted with the place is aware, the game 

 preserve of this gentleman is on an island, connected 

 with the mainland by a bridge, Mr. Harding says that 

 the center of the island is a perfect forest, where even 

 deer can find sufficient cover to flourish in and remain as 

 wild as the deer of Maine or the Adirondacks. Around 

 the woods and on the borders of the sea the ground is 

 cultivated with several varieties of grain in order to ftxr- 

 nish the game birds with good and sufficient food. In 

 the winter considerable fodder is supplied to the deer in 

 the case of very deep and continued snows. The deer 

 are prevented from leaving the island on the sides next 

 to the mainland by a high fence. Even to Mr. Corey 

 these deer are very wild and almost unnumbered. One 

 day last winter he put out food that he was aware that 

 the deer would come to, and then by climbing a high 

 tree, he was able to count ninety-three of these beautiful 

 creatures or to satisfy himself that there were that num- 

 ber in the preserve, 



Aa for quail, he has a great abundance, the result of 

 stocking, some of the stock for which he obtained through 

 the Fish and Game Protective Association. Mr, Corey 

 and Mr. Harding drove and walked over a part of the 

 preserve. They became aware that they were near to 

 a body of quail, when by a detour near the covey they 

 were able to see nearly half a hundred of them as they 

 flew away. The chicks were evidently two-thirds grown 

 as they flew with the old birds without difficulty so far as 

 seen, Mr, Corey is satisfied with his success in restock- 

 ing with quail, but with pinnated grouse he is not at 

 all satisfied. He put out last year all the birds of this 

 variety he obtained from the Association. These birds 

 he saw for a whUe but soon they all disappeared, and 

 no signs of them have been discovered since, 

 unless,, indeed, a very long-distance sign is 

 to be counted. It will be remembered that a 

 pinnated grouse, in an exhausted condition, was found 

 in the vicinity of Saguin Island, near the mouth of the 

 Kennebec River, in Maine, last winter. It is siiggeated 

 that this may have been one of Mr, Corey's birds, or at 

 least it must have been from the birds put out somewhere 

 in Massachusetts, since there are no pinnated grouse in 

 Maine. Mr. Harding expresses the opinion, coming from 

 Mr, Corey, that the pinnated grouse is too migratory in 

 its habits to ever be a success in restocking the game 

 resorts of Massachusetts. Mr. Corey has two or three 

 golden pheasants at his preserve, but with these beautiftil 

 birds he has not made a success in general stocking. Some 

 chicks have been hatched either artificially or by the old 

 birds in confinement, but they have not done well, and 

 have scarcely reached maturity in a semi wild state. 



The quail put out in Franklin Park, Boston's great 

 pleasure ground, are evidently there still, and in all 

 probability they tiave bred. They have been out over 

 one winter, and one of the drivers of the public car- 

 riages tells me that he has seen and heard them many 

 times. As to what numbers he is not quite sure, but he 

 is inclined to think that there is quite a covey in the 

 vicinity of Scarborough Hill, 



The open season on shore birds is at hand in Massachu- 

 setts, but what with the intensely hot weather and the 

 flood of other summer attractions the gunnerp have not 

 given them much attention yet. Special. 



ROD AND GUN AND CAMERA. 



As a recognition of the important place of amateur photography 

 in its relation to sports of the field and prairie and mountain and 

 forest and stream, the Forest akd Stheam offers a series of 

 prizes for meritorious work with the camera. The conditions 

 under which these prizes will he give i are in brief as here set 

 forth: 



There will be ten prizes, as follow:: First $35. Second §30 

 Third $15. Fourth $10. Six of f 5 each. 



The competition will be open to amateurs only. 



The subjects must relate to Foeert and Stbeam's field— game 

 and fish (alive or dead;, a>iootiDg and fishing, the camp, campers 

 and camp life, sportsman travel by land or water. 



There is no restriction as to the time when the pictures may 

 have been or may be made— whether in 1802 or in previous years. 



Pictures will be received up to Dec. 31, of this year. 



All work mnst be original; that is to say, it must not have been 

 submitted in any other competition, nor have been published. 



There are no restrictions as to make or style of camera, nor as 

 to size of plate. 



Photographs must be marked only with initials or & pseudonym 

 for identiflcatinn. Wi'heach photograph should be given name 

 of sender, title of view, locality, date, and name of camTa. 



The photographs shall be the property of the Forest and 

 Stkeam. This applies only to the particular prints teat us. 



ANOTHER DAY WITH THE GROUSE. 



WiLLiAMSBURO, Ind,, July 17.— Among the mail re- 

 ceived this mommg was the Forest and Stream, con- 

 taining: Dr. Morri-i's 'A DAy with the Grouse." Aa u&ual,, 

 Forest and Stream received the first notice, and thei 

 duocor'e article happened to be the first one read, and the 

 last one for to-day, too, for I felt it to be a suflicient feast 

 for one day. So graphic and so true are his descriptionsi 

 that one who has been there felt that he was there again, 

 and living over again, one of those hapjiy days. Beforei 

 a fourth of the article was read I forgot that I was only'i 

 reading, and became one of the doctor's party and as full 

 of enjoympnt as any of them. When, at last, the day 

 was over, the paper dropped from my hands and I sat a 

 while, living over the days when a favorite brother (now 

 gone to join the silent majority) and I with strong limbs 

 that laughed at the idea of getting tired; well trained 

 dogs who only lived to serve us, and good guns that we' 

 knew how to use, tramped the gray fields and the brown 

 carpeted woods. There were many of those days, many, 

 of thetn, too, that did not bring heavy bags, but 

 none that did not bring keen enjoyment, both at the. 

 time and when remembered. One day in particular 

 was brought to view by the doctor's "day," and as it is 

 the day of days in my shooting memories, perhaps it may' 

 be worth relating. 



It was late in iSTovember when Brother Dave returned 

 from the West, and we were reunited after a long part- 

 ing. He had great stories to tell of shooting and fishing 

 in the wildest parts of the Rockies. ''But,'" said he, 

 "there was none of it so good as the old times with you, 

 and I now suggest that we have just one more day with 

 the Jay county 'pheasants.' We will go on this' after- 

 noon's train, have Dick drive us to the west end of the": 

 big woods early in the morning, and then we will bunt" 

 back toward town." 



A forty-mile ride landed us at Briant, just at dark,;' 

 Dick was at the station, and gave us a hearty welcome, 

 and said he had a hot supper waiting for us. After ' 

 supper we told him we wanted to be set down at the west, 

 end of the big woods a little before sun-up. Next morn-' 

 ing at 5 o'clock he announced that breakfast was ready 

 and the team harnessed, and in thirty minuter more we 

 were on the road. A faint gray tinged the eastern sky. - 

 The dead weeds and grass and the rail fences werei 

 silvered with frost. From a weed field near by came th&j 

 plaintive calls of a covey of quail, scattered during the! 

 night by some owl or mink. Two or three owls were'j 

 hooting in the woods, and a belated rabbit hopped across! 

 the road. In the south was a bank of fog, and all the air; 

 was hazy with smoke and tinged with the smell of burn-| 

 ing brush and smoldering logs. 



The sun was just in sight when we climbed the fence 

 into a ijasture lot dotted with clumps of hazel brush and 

 littered with logs and piles of brush. The dogs jumped 

 over the fence, but did not take a step. Both pointed thei 

 instant they struck the ground. "Must be quail," said 

 Dave. "It isn't likely pheasants would be out here so- 

 early." 



Just then five grouse thundered out from the further^ 

 side of a clump of hazel brush. Four shots that woke thei 

 echoes far and wide — one bird down, another going oS, 

 hard hit and the other three out of sight in the woods; allj 

 m a very few seconds. 



The next performance was by a man who mounted a 

 stump a hundred yards away and launched at us a string* 

 of expletives that showed long practice in that line. The 

 expletives were sandwiched with commands to "get out: 

 of there," threats of prosecution, death to the dogs andj 

 personal violence to ourselves. Dave remarked thatii 

 "that fellow must be feeling pretty lively, but was tooi; 

 talky to do anything else. At any rate he will have toJ 

 come over here before we pay any attention to him. I ' 

 marked th« crippled bird, did you mark any of the.! 

 others?" "Yes," said I, "two of them." Dan proposed , 

 that we get the crippled one and then hunt for the others. I 

 The bird was found without any trouble. It was able to^ 

 fly but an easy shot finished it. We next went to the.;! 

 place the birds flew from and I got the bearings by which i 

 the two birds had been marked. One of them was found 

 after thirty minuteb' search and got away, followed by, 

 two loads of shot. We concluded that the other one^ 

 must have gone into a tree, and as it is next to impossi-, 

 ble to find one of these birds in a tree, unless the exact ' 

 tree is known, we gave it up. 



The next find was foixr birds that were wallowing 

 in the dust on the sunny side of a log. They flushed wild' 

 from me but one dropped to my second barrel. Dave was 

 forty years away but got a shot at one flying past him. 

 It towered straight up above the tall trees, but recovered, 

 and flew away. We followed and it got up wild from 

 the dogs. A second time it rose wild but did not fly so 

 far. This time the dogs pointed in an open place, with 

 nothing on the ground but dead leaves, beaten flat by the 

 rains, ^ 



"Now he is our bird," said Dave. "We will get him, 

 sure. The bird is not 30lt. from old Dick's nose," Slowly 

 we approached the dogs, every inch of us on the alert, at 

 every step expecting the swift flight that would try our j 

 qtiickness. Step by step, till we i-eached the dogs. No 

 bird flew. There was nothing to hide a humming bird, 

 much less a grouse, I said I didn't think there was any 

 bird there, "Yes, there is," said Dave. "Old Dick don't' 

 do that way for nothing. Catch it, Dick," D ck walked 

 10ft. further and stopped. "There it is," said Dave, "3ft, 

 from Dick's nose." It was dead; lying breast down and 

 wings outspread, its plumage harmonizing so closely , 

 with the dead brown leaves that it seemed a part of them. 

 We found that but one shot had hit it, but that was in the 

 neck at the base of the bill, breaking no bones but cutting 

 a vein that bled it to death. 



From here we crossed an open space grown up with ; 

 wef ds and bushep, the dogs flushing one bird that went 

 into the woods, flying along a place that had been cleared 

 of timber and a rail fence built. As I was some distance 

 nearer to the fence than Dave, I went after the bird, and 

 presently looking back saw him following. Forty rods 

 down the fence I walked almost right on the bii d. It 

 rose within 4ft. of me and flew back between me and a ■ 

 tree, so close that 1 struck at it with my gun. Thi'! de- 

 layed my shooting, and by the time I had turned and was 

 about to pull the trigger I remembered that Dave was back 

 there, but immediately noted that the bird was 12ft. high 

 and Dave would be safe. By this time the bird was under 

 full headway, but the shot was a good one. The bird 

 folded its wing and fell dead without a struggle. Dave 

 stepped oub of a fence corner and said, "When your gun 



