Feb. 9, 1893.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



11? 



Tiot dreamed of in the philosophy of the inhabitants. 

 They meet such days only with sin-prise, and not with 

 prepaxations. Bad weather and discomfort are unpredict- 

 able in this land of ease. No comitry Jies under the sun 

 where man may mate a Uving so easily as liere. I do not 

 think he hves upon the earth, by sweat of his brow, for I 

 see no laboj- as \s'c know it in the North. The population, 

 I am half persuaded to believe, hves upon this balmy air, 

 as does the drapery of moss upon these magnificent live 

 oaks. Most people believe the Spanish moss is a parasite 

 of the tree, but it is not. It is merely a dependent of tlie 

 air. It lives by breathing. So does the Louisianian, I 

 believe, and so does the Cajun I am sure. Acadia, we 

 have read of tliat. It is here. I have seen Evangeline 

 under a dozen bonnets to-day. Moreover, if we be more 

 modern, I liave seen tbe bridge and the bayoti where Mr. 

 Cable and Bonaventure held converse before the public 

 knew Bonaventure or others of the Cable Cajun charac- 

 ters. Alas! my Cajun of to-day is turned mai-ket-himter, 

 is a dead shot on the wing too often, and so uneducated 

 that a dollar and a half a dozen for quail seems Avealth to 

 Mm. More about the Cajuji later as we shall find tune. 



The cold snap of the middle of this month drove the 

 woodcock back into this country and some good shooting- 

 was had, (jranted a film of ice and the cock shooters 

 here look out. When the temperature rises, the birds 

 move again as far noi-th as they dare. They do not win- 

 ter on a given section as do the snipe along the Gulf coast 

 countr3^ Yet, yesterday a native hunter had a string of 

 over a dozen woodcock for sale, and the day before that 

 a gentleman got a dozen and a half near here. If the 

 shooter of this section goes shooting it is for a certainty, 

 and not for hard work and a chance, as we do North. 

 Therefore haxd hunting is unknown, and you cannot tell, 

 when you hear a discouraging report, whether to be dis- 

 couraged from a Southern or a Northern standpoint. A 

 sportsman here is used to so much better sport than we 

 have in the North country that he would hardly care for 

 shooting which to a Northern man would seem very fine. 

 I suppose that conscientious, hard work would get me a 

 good bag of woodcock here, but I do not want to work. I 

 would rather just breathe. This soft and pleasant coimtry, 

 how hard it wiU be to leave it for the blizzard and the 30° 

 below zero of which I read in the despatches of the day. 



I can not tarry to speak at this place of the visit at 

 Stephenson's Lake, on Galveston Bay, where I lay weather- 

 bound, or held rather by the lack of weather, for three 

 days. The bay was like glass and the 25 miles of dis- 

 tance might have been 1,000, for never does one go to 

 Galveston from that point except by sailboat. 



C. E. Willard, the Colts Company's Western repre- 

 sentative, was to have jnet me at Stephenson's the middle 

 of the week and, indeed, got down to Galveston on his 

 way over, but the boatmen brought him not when we 

 expected. The captain of the schooner told us that when 

 Mr. WUiard looked out over the bay a little sea was on 

 and it looked as though there might be more. Mr. Wil- 

 lard suddenly remembered that he had business at Hous- 

 ton and so would not embark. I therefore missed meet- 

 ing him in the South. I do not doubt he met magnificent 

 snipe shooting at Wimberly, or near Houston. We 

 kilied, or rather the house of hunters at Stej>henson's 

 killed, nearly 1,000 snipe in the week I was there. I 

 shot snipe three days and would not go out any more. 

 We hunted only half the day and I found it only too easy 

 to bag three or four dozen m that tbiie each day. 



The wind which frightened Mr. Willard away gave us 

 the only good day for duck shooting, although it was not 

 enough to make the canvasback work. The weather 

 ruled calm and warm. We wished for a "norther," but I 

 had to leave before we got it. Every day we could see the 

 pretty picture of the vast masses of canvasbacks feeding, 

 or rising into the air and making out into the bay to rest 

 in the sun. The long lines of the flight would wave and 

 dip, soar and drop, as the birds apparently in mere exuber- 

 ance of spirits, sportively saluted the bay as they made 

 their daily journey in and out. Meantime the himters 

 bided their time and did not distm-b the lake, waiting- till 

 a storm should make the bay too rough for a resting place, 

 and until the seeming need of daily exercise should drive 

 the birds to scm-rying trips aroimd the shores of the lake 

 and near the islands and cane points where the blinds are. 

 The hunters were impatient but the bu-ds were hapj)y, and 

 on the morning when I left they were pitchmg and 

 tumbling- about in the air, and showing us all of the won- 

 derful possibihties of the canvasback on the wing. It was 

 a gi-and picture, and one probably not to be seen any- 

 where else in the country in such perfection as here. 



Here ac Lafayette, by com-tesy of Mr. B. B. Styles, of 

 New Orleans, I met Dr. William "Clegg, a resident sj)orts- 

 man. I only wish time were longer in this world, so that 

 I could do some of the things Dr. Clegg proi>oses. For 

 one thing, we drove out to Sunset Lodge,' the shooting box 

 of Gen. F. F. Myles, and looked at the place, whose" hos- 

 pitalities my friend and I were invited to acceist. Gen. 

 Myles is also of New Orleans, bur. spends a little time oc- 

 casionally at his box here, where he formerly had kennels 

 and kept a number of his dogs. The lodge is delightfully 

 located about a mile and a half out of Lafayette, and to 

 reach it you must pass through some of the quaintest 

 scenes in the world, into a long lane of moss-draped live 

 oaks. The door yaxd is a beautiful spot, impossible to re- 

 produce in perspective, so much do the oaks, the big 

 fiecans and the fig trees stand in each other's waj^ The 

 interior of the lodge is fitted up luxuriously, and contains 

 every luxury an active or leisui ely shooter could ask. 

 Sellers, the colored servant in charge, keen vs itli tlie ard(ir 

 of the true servant, was fairly as anxious as his master 

 that we should stuy a week at least. I could only regret 

 we could not spend time for a night or even a meal. The 

 Northern man carries too mucli' of his hurry with him. 

 No one in the North knows aiiything of the pleasure of 

 life. As comment on the Southern life and Southern hos- 

 pitality, let me say that I lia^ e never met Gen. Myles at 

 aU, and only met his brother, Mr. Beverly Myles. for the 

 first time at Ne\v Orleans, .and that by accident in a meas- 

 ure. Yet l-ieie we ^vere, xirivileged to enter into all the 

 comforts of the cosiest shooting lodge in the world, and 

 to kill the last bird on the grounds if we wished and were 

 able. We do nut kjiow how to do these thmgs in the 

 North. 



Dr. Clegg and I, in lieu of a lliiht, went tr^et to the 

 residence of the village priest. Pere Forges, of whom Dr. 

 Clegg is a great favorite, though of a different religion. 

 Pere Forges is of Frencli birth, is wealthy, and is a 

 traveled and cultured man. His hobby is flowers, and he 

 has one of the most remarkable gardens in this councry, 



in all probability. All Louisi.ana is a vast conseiwatory, 

 and the gardener can do here without glass things which 

 the hot-houseman dare not attemj)t. The old^J^re has 

 over 500 varieties of roses in his garden, and in one bed he 

 sho-^^"ed us all the new varieties which came out in 1892. 

 A new rose to him is as a nesv bird to the natui alist, or a 

 new tulip to the tulip fancier of old. Here you may see 

 every rose you ever heard of and many of which you 

 never heard, from the Madame Carnot down to the wild 

 Cherokee rose, which is used here for hedges, and gi-ows 

 so luxuriantly that the State lately passed legislation to 

 suppress it. If Louisiana ever dies, it will be of a smoth- 

 ering in roses. In the good j';e?"e's garden also you may 

 see nearly every plant native to China or Japan, and he 

 says the plants of tiictsc countries nearly all do well in 

 Louisiana. The bamboo, the tea plant, the camelia, and 

 many other natives of the Orient, he showed us, flourish- 

 ing even as the green bay tree which grows by the 

 little wicket. The camphor tree he also has, and by 

 cru.sliiug the leaves you can eUcit the odor of that 

 drug. The cinchona tree also was there, and the 

 bitter quinine taste was readily apparent in the 

 leaf. The pepper tree was also in evidence, and many 

 other plants, herbs and flowers of intei-est and beauty. 

 Through aU these we wandered till we came to a shed, 

 where lives Jakie, the pet baboon, which Pere Forges de- 

 clares is the master of his establishment. To Jakie we 

 administered a banana, in return for which he made as if 

 to swallow one of Dr. Clegg's coat-tails. This part of the 

 morning was worth more than a day sjjent shooting. 

 After we had left I returned from some distance to make 

 a picture of the little white chm-ch and of the great live 

 oak, said to be the finest m the parish, -^vhich stands in 

 front of the church, and the old priest's garden. 



My friend from Clucago wires me that he has gone on 

 up to Opelousas. There I sliafl meet him this evening, 

 and we may do some shooting if we find we would rather 

 do that than just breathe. About the shooting at Galves- 

 ton I shall also have much to say later. It is becoming 

 e-vident to me that the South is the shooting country par 

 excellence. It is the best of what we now have left of 

 shooting In America. E. Hough. 



THE MAINE JACK RABBIT SCHEME. 



Fort Bid well, CaL, Jan. 2.— Editor Forest and 

 Stream: In jonr issue of Jan. 12 I read mth amazement 

 the recommendation of the Game Commissioners of 

 Maine to introduce into that State the jack rabbit of the 

 Western plains. 



As a native of that good old State, where my first love 

 for the gun was nurtured, and as one of the vast army of 

 sportsmen of this great country, I rise to sound a note of 

 warning to these estimable gentlemen, whose efficient 

 work is known from "Maine to California and from the 

 British Possessions to the Gulf of Mexico." 



Could they see the havoc wrought by these jjests in 



California they would as soon try to acclimate an army 

 of locusts, grasshoppers or ground squu-rels. Modoc 

 county, ^v'llere my home is, somewhat resemblps Maine in 

 this, that snow sometimes gets to be two or three feet 

 deep in winter and the mercury occasionally goes down 

 into the 20s below zero. 



I have seen hundreds of acres of grain not worth the 

 harvesting — completely ruined by these vermin. 



In July or August of 1886 Forest and Strea^i con- 

 tained an article written by me entitled the "Modoc 

 Rabbit Curse." I take the following quotation from it: 



"Three months ago the super\usors of Modoc county 

 offered a bounty of three cents per scalp for rabbits. At 

 the last meeting of the board the sura of $826.77 was 

 allowed on this account, representing 27,559 scalps. One 

 of the supervisoi-s told me that about 25,000 of these Avere 

 killed on a tract of land six by eight miles in extent. A 

 Mr. Nelson brought water by ditches from the river six 

 miles distant and reclaimed 2,000 acres of sage brush 

 land, on which he sowed grain and alfalfa. Tiie rabbits 

 liked the change of diet and took tlie crop. Lpon this 

 representation to the board of supervisorw they ottered the 

 above reN\-ai-d and Mr. il. hired Indians, paying them five 

 cents pel- scalp and furnishing them with ammuniti'^'n at 

 one-half cost price, one installment of which, it is said, 

 cost him upward of $280," 



It need hardly be said that this law ^^-as repealed 

 within two months of the time that letter was written, as 

 fears were entertained that if kept long in force it would 

 bankruiit the county. 



In this couuiry bimnie is the Piutes' pork barrel, and 

 constant demands are made on it, but with nQ appreciable 

 diminution of supply. 



His eating qualities are not regarded with favor by the 

 "Yanks" in any sectiun of California I liave visited, 

 though some of the foreign pojjulation l egaril him as a 

 delicacy. He is given to a parasite, a gruli .similai- to 

 those found in tlie backs of old and poor cattle in the 

 springtime. I have killed them with these big bunolie.-; 



protruding as large as robin's eggs, which is not appetiz- 

 ing to a sensitive stomach. 



Are the good people of Maine prepared to fence their 

 gardens, orchards and grain fields with woven wire fenc- 

 ing to keep this voracious brute from their Vegetables^ 

 trees and cereals? If not, make thorough ifiquiry on the 

 Pacific Coast before taking him to your bosom. Remeta- 

 ber the experience of Australia with the English rabbity 

 our own country with the English sparro-W^ alid CaUfovnia 

 with the German carp. 



Introduce the smallpox or cholera baciUus and thie 

 spectres of the departed victims might rise up and call 

 you blessed, for you would have ended their miseries at 

 once, but bring in the jack rabbit and your troubles will 

 be unending. 



Let these gentlemen invest fifty cents in a photograJ)li 

 of a rabbit drive in Fresno, Kern or Tulare coulitiea of 

 this State, show it to each member of the Maine Legisla- 

 ture, and, my word for it> there -vvpiild not be ten votes 

 cast for such a measure. ' A; C. Lowell. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



Indeed this is a great country of ours; It seems 

 destined not to be outdone by any' other country on the 

 globe. Mines of precious metals, of glittering^ costly- 

 gems, of whose existence it was thought only other 

 nations could with greatest propriety boast, have becomcj 

 or soon will become, matters of ordinary interest. And 

 New York! Some one has had the audacity, if not envy, 

 to caU it a "countrified wall flower" in comparison with 

 some other European cities. Such do not stop to think 

 that New York, Brooklyn and Jersey City are really as 

 much one city as London divided by the Thames. Wait! 

 What and if the bill should pass and the vote of the 

 people be cast to consolidate those suburbs into the city of 

 New York, Avon't om- inquisitive neighboi's across the bine 

 sea take a scpiint through their telescopes and say that 

 New Y^ork in area and population is a fair-sized village? 

 Hold on! Haven't I digressed a little? Let's see. What 

 was I going to talk about? Oh, yes, so it is — rabbits, jack 

 rabbits! I was thinking about Australia. She has 

 rabbits, a big heap of 'em. The question is, will she of 

 Lepus fame escape an overflow of bile with the informa- 

 tion that 10,000 jack rabbits were corralled and slain 

 as the result of a single battue in Cahfornia? That 

 number lay stretched upon the leporine Aceldama, a 

 photograph of which I saw several days ago, which my 

 fellow townsman, Col. Emmons, brought with him from 

 the Golden State. At a distance I took the photo to be a 

 representation of an ice gorge, but on approaching it 

 what met my astonished gaze but a sea of dead rabbits, 

 thousands in number, covering a great area so thickly 

 that a ma-n could not apparently touch them in walking 

 through them. I resolved then to send a photo of this 

 Bunker — no. Bunny battlefield for the benefit of the read- 

 ers of the Forest and Stream, when, lo! the appaUing 



word "copyrighted" stared at me from one corner of 'the 

 picture; and so I dared not risk the pleasure of imparting 

 pleasure, as I am sure it would be to those who might 

 have seen it but for that warning protest. 



More than the number I have stated have been driven 

 in at a single hunt. From two to three hundred men 

 enter upon the chase, some on foot and some on horse- 

 back. No firearms are used. Within the corral clubs are 

 used to effect the massacre. A few are eaten, the moat 

 being buried or used as fertihzer. They are slain because 

 of their destructiveness to vegetation. 



West Virgini4N. 



Is There a Limit? 



Warner, Tenn.— Editor Forest and Stream: On first 

 page of Forest and Stream of Jan. 26 you say; "The 

 Florida tourist shooting crank has as much idea of sport 

 as a kicking mule." This was good, but too brief. Jt 

 will now be of interest to hear from some of the shooters 

 (with a conscience) as to whether there is a limit to the 

 number of birds a man inay kill without forfeiting the 

 title of "a true sportsman." Isn't the so-called "sports- 

 man" who kills his sixty bii-ds in a day a greater bird- 

 destroyer than any trapper or netter of birds? J, T. P. 



North Carolina Quail. 



AvooA, N. C, Feb. 1.— Although we have had the 

 coolest weather in nearly a centui-y, and the 

 longest S]5ell known, yet the quail have suffered but a 

 Very little. I have been out working some yoimg dogs 

 for the past feAv days, and find them as numerous as ever, 

 and do not miss a bird by the cold or snow. I think dur- 

 ing the month of Fe binary and March that as good shoot- 

 ing as can be found in the State will be found here. The 

 turkeys are also numerous. We also expect a flight of 

 woodcock soon that wiU last a month or more. 



S. W. EVERITT 



A JACK RABBIT ROUNP-UP, NEAR BAKERSFIELD, CAL., SHOWING 1,940 BABBITS. 



