Masch 16, lg»8.i 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



JACK RABBIT SOUP AND SAUSAGES. 



Taylor Co., Tex., Feb. 25. — ^Forest and Stream of the 

 9th has many hard thmgs to say of the jack rabbit which 

 I cannot concur in. He is derided as a poor culinaiy arti- 

 cle. Now I ]jnow that in the hands of a good cook he 

 puts up an excellent soup, and as a sausage meat he is en- 

 titled to high rank. I did not know of these good quali- 

 ties of his tiU I stopped a few years ago with an English 

 family in Texas, who made me acquainted with them. 

 Since then, whencTer I shoot a jack rabbit in the season 

 of frost, he promptly appears on my table as soup or sau- 

 sage, and I have never lieard any one speak of hun when 

 thus served except in praise. If our California friends, 

 who seem to be so mxxch pestered by him, avUI turn him 

 to account in these ways, I dare say they will complain of 

 him no more. 



Nor is he looked upon by oxxr farmei-a aa a pest. He will 

 forage upon our gardens if we let him, and so will any 

 other sort of hare or rabbit, but if he does any injury to 

 our field croi^s it is so immaterial no one notices it. I will 

 except only the sweet potatoes, of the vine of which he is 

 so fond he wiU eat them aU if allowed. He will also 

 gi'ubble in the ground to fetch up the potatoes. Evidently, 

 when he gets into a sweet potato patch he thinks he is in 

 glory. But a watchful dog about the premises will soon 

 make him shy of it. As for scare-crows, which some 

 farmers put out, he quickly learns they are but harmless 

 Quaker guns, and so desi>ises them. 



In this country we have a great variety and abundance 

 of rich native grasses, and these and the sugary mesquite 

 bean so content the jack he is under little temptation to 

 maraud, except as to the esculent mentioned. A patch 

 of sweet potatoes seems almost irresistible to him, as the 

 watermelon patch is to the average small boy or negro. 

 Some of my neighbors tell me he also has a keen liking 

 for the peanut, so that lie will encamp upon a crop of 

 them continually if permitted, eating both vine and pods, 

 but as I have not yet grown these things I cannot say of 

 my own knowledge. For my part, I am wHUng to give 

 him a liberal share of my potatoes for his sonp and sau- 

 sages. Can an animal feeding on such good food be 

 otherwise than good to eat? But perhaps in other regions 

 he may not have so good fare. 



While on this line of thought I am tempted to remark 

 that I believe there are very few soi'ts of creatures which 

 in the hands of an adroit cook would fail to put up a good 

 dish. I am tempted to except only animals of the dog 

 family. I was once with a party of men who, being 

 almost perished from hunger, attempted to eat a wolf 

 which one of them had shot, but it was a failure. And 

 yet we are told the Chinese consider fat puppies a great 

 delicacy. I have been told by several old soldiers that 

 they ate rats and mule meat at Vicksburg, and found both 

 very tolerable eating. The subject is interesting, and as 

 the world's population is thought by some to be growuig 

 faster than the food supply, it may be profitable to discuss 

 it. I should like to see it undertaken in the columns of 

 Forest and Stream. 



I read with dehght Mr. A.. N. Cheney's letter in Forest 

 AJsD Stream of the 16th, quoting from Homer as to 

 angling in his days, some twenty-three hundred years 

 ago. I hope that Mr. Cheney and other writers will con- 

 tinue the entertaining work of examining into the classic 

 authors, not only as to fishing, but hunting also. It will 

 prove exquisite work, in which I would delight to take a 

 share, but unfortunately cannot. Among other mis- 

 fortunes that have befallen me in late years was the 

 almost total destruction of my valued library, so that I 

 am disarmed for literary work in that field and almost 

 any other. But I remember a verse in the first ode of 

 Horace which comes well in point: 



Manet sub Jove frigido, 

 Venator, tenerse conjugis immemor: 



which may be freely translated thus: "The young hunter 

 in the eager pursuit of his game, stays out aU night in the 

 cold, unmindful of his tender wife sleeping in her com- 

 fortable bed." But I dare say she was not sleeping very 

 soundly; rather that, like Tam O'Shanter's wife, she was 

 "nursing her wrath to keep it warm" for the young fellow 

 when he should retm-n to her side. N. A. T. 



A SOUTHERN GAME COUNTRY. 



Vicksburg, Miss. — In a recent issue of your paper is an 

 account of a dinner given in New York city by the Megan- 

 tic Club of Boston. It contains a statement that the club's 

 property consists of 160,000 acres or 250 square miles of 

 territor)'-. This is a vast extent of land for one club to 

 own, and it must be a large organization of wealthy mem- 

 bers to control such vast possessions. 



In reading yoiu- paper closely for years past, I have 

 often been astonished at the great expense gone to by 

 wealthy and influential clubs in becoming i^ossessed of 

 desirable tracts for sporting purposps and in improving 

 them. Mr. Hough's letters concerning the Chicago and 

 Detroit clubs particidarly impressed me on this point. 



In the South as yet, we have found no need for such 

 organizations, and we have not the wealth to indulge in 

 such expenditm-es if we did have need to. I think ovx 

 game here is far more abundant and accessible than in 

 the North and West, and it is rare that the lands are 

 posted or that objection is made by the land owners to a 

 sportsman going on the property and killing all he can. 

 In fact most of the best hunting territory — excpi)t for 

 quail shooting, is on the wild lands away from civilization 

 and beyond the scrutiny of the owners. It is simply more 

 a question of transportation than anything else. 



I think Tilr. Warner and I have just about as good a 

 preserve as tlie Megantic or any other club, in our httle 

 launch, the Rambler, which enables us to take in 250 

 square miles or more of territory if we want to. But the 

 fact is we don't need so much ground as that by a long 

 shot to hunt over. For duck shooting we have the Mis- 

 sissippi River bai's as well as near tributary streams, which 

 gives us all and more shooting than we have time to at- 

 tend to. We always have some sport and often it is very 

 fine, and we have never had occasion to go over 40 miles 

 from Vicksbm-g. We have no faU nor spring shooting as 

 fm-ther north of here, but om's is an aU winter shoot, the 

 ducks coming down here in November and remaining 

 until the middle of March. 



For turkey we go into the wild lands above here, 

 though this noble bird is to be found on all sides of us, 

 where there is an abmidance of heavy timber. We have 

 never yet drawn a bkuik when we have tiied for them. 

 "Old ^sometimes our luck has been rare, I know of no 



finer sport than this game afl'ords. It is still fairly plenti- 

 fid, though less so than formerly when the encroach- 

 ments of civilization were not so great. We have never 

 had occasion to go over seventy-five miles to get aU the 

 sport we wanted, and often a much less distance sufficed. 

 You might well say that our former launch, the Green- 

 wing, has actually roosted among the wary old gobblers, 

 and by the time this letter is in print we exxject our new 

 boat to be doing something in the same line. 



Deer and bear are also plentiful in certain localities, and 

 it is no ti-ick with a sportsman experienced in kOling this 

 large game to get an animal almost any day he desires. 

 On our hunts after turkey we sometimes get among them 

 to a limited extent, but aa a rule we devote but little time 

 in pm'suit of either kind, as we are not proficient in pui- 

 suit of such game. 



Some of these days, the regions further north having 

 become exhausted in game, the valuable lands of the 

 South will be sought after by the wealthy clubs, who wUl 

 find ample time and means to come this far for sport. 

 And I believe such an advent is not altogether undesira- 

 ble, as it will tend to presei-ve the game by eliminating 

 from lands acquired by such clubs the market-hvmter and 

 the sportsman who shoots to excess. Only recently rep- 

 resentatives from two widely separated organizations, one 

 in Cincinnati, the other in Detroit, have been here making 

 mquiries for a hunting and fishing preserve. What these 

 clubs want is here, and can be had for the money. 



And yet when they do come and buy there are certain 

 spots that we know of which we hope will not be included 

 in the preserve, for we want to shoot there a few years 

 longer. We are not through with those rare regions yet, 

 and want to try our hand a few seasons more before the 

 favored spots are scooped in by the magnates. However, 

 there are so many desirable tracts, and in such widely 

 different localities that it will likely be a long time before 

 an outsider who is fairly familiar with the territory will 

 be shut out so he cannot get a day of good sport when he 

 wa.nts it. So, let the clubs come along, erect their barriers 

 and protect their game where it would soon become abim- 

 dant under proper care and afford fine sport to its mem- 

 bers. We wordd try to get om- share by dodging around 

 on unspoken territory, and we thuik we could get it. 



W. L. P. 



CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 



[Pi-om a Staff Coi-respondent.] 



Chicago, 111., March 11.— High water in the spring 

 usually makes good fishing later. On this basis we should 

 have good fishing about Chicago this summer, for the 

 spring floods are unusually high. The Rock, Fox, Kan- 

 kakee and Illinois rivers are all booming this week. The 

 snow which killed the quails will in liquid form transport 

 fish to the anglei-s. Such are the compensations of 

 nature, which is said never to make a mistake. 



Sport n now betwixt and between in Chicago. Fishing 

 is not yet, nor are the ducks yet up for those who wish to 

 shoot ducks. The yearly awakening of the sporting- 

 fever is ah-eady visible, however, and much talk is 

 ctu-rent. 



The dullest season in the sporting year at Chicago is 

 probably the thirty days last past. The shooters have 

 then let go of the fall and not yet taken hold of the 

 spring. It is not really dull here even then, for at almost 

 every week of the year some one is coming in or going- 

 out for sport in a country not bound by the Chicago 

 cHmate, Many Chicago men go South in the winter. 

 Apropos of this I may state that this season's Chicago 

 travel to Florida is greater than was ever known before. 

 Mr, Hirth, who presides over the tackle department of 

 Spalding's, told me this week that he had sold twice as 

 many tarpon outfits this winter as in any other year dur- 

 ing the same season. 



Too Many Notes. 



The only trouble about a Southern trip is that one 

 takes so many notes that he can never in the world 

 get caught up with his writmg. The South is all a new 

 world to the Northerner, and he is apt to bring away 

 from it, after his first triii, a memory as jumbled as his 

 notes. I am not sure that jumbled recollections are not 

 as good as any. 



I remember that when BiUy Young had come to an- 

 chor in front of Stephenson's house, on Galveston Bay, 

 we had to lighter our baggage across the tide flats with 

 a big scow. The young man who poled the scow out to 

 the schooner had on small-heeled boots and a noble pair 

 of spurs. This seemed to me strange and I made a note 

 of it. There was a strip of mud between the landing 

 and the house. Young Wilcox put my heavy trunk on 

 a sledge, hitched a lariot to the sledge, took a turn of 

 the rope about the pommel of his saddle, mounted his 

 jjony and hauled the whole outfit across the mud with- 

 out soiling the heels of his boots. Thus it may be seen 

 that spurs may sometimes be useful to sailors. It all 

 depends on the country. 



Horses of the South. 



The horses which we used on the sea prairie were the 

 regular Texas ponies. They were patient, plucky brutes, 

 wliich took the knee-deep plodding over the wet ground 

 philosophically, and always took us home safely, no 

 matter how dark the night or how great the distance. 

 After dark the marsh co^^ntry was baddish looking, and 

 the trail was winding enough, but the ponies always knew 

 the way home. 



In Louisiana we experimented with the 'Cajun ponies, 

 which I believe to be the smallest, most iU-conditioned, 

 most despondent horses of the earth. Tete Rouge and 

 Pinto were the names the Chief bestowed upon our 

 mounts. Tete Rouge was a brilliant sorrel red, mane and 

 all, whence his name. He was the tiniest, scrubbiest, 

 dirtiest, sorriest hoi-ae that ever was, and no man could 

 look at the rejjroach in his eye without a blush of shame 

 at the thought of asking him to carry anything more 

 than his own load of grief. Yet Tete Rouge was a good 

 hunting pony, because his disposition was always the 

 same, and he would stay where you put him. He was 

 tired, very tired. He didn't cai-e whether school kept or 

 not. It made him groan to step over a cotton row, and 

 at a ditch he made only the feeblest bluff at a jump, wait- 

 ing calmly Avith his feet ia the middle of the ditch until I 

 got off and lifted him over. It was no use swearing at 

 Tete Rouge. He didn't care a cent what you said about 

 him. He wfis totally, absolutely, depravedly tired. I 

 wanted to make a picture of Tete Rouges but he was 



lying down at the time, and I couldn't get him to stand 

 up. 



Nearly all the qxvail hunting in Louisiana is done horse- 

 back. When the dogs find a bevy the shooters dismount 

 and tie up. In Mississippi also they hunt in this way,' and 

 in the fearfully rough coimtry about New Albany I found 

 a horse the greatest luxury possible to have. Indeed, he is 

 a poor man who hunts much afoot in the South. The 

 horses of northern Mississippi we found to be the best we 

 had met. They showed the blood of near-by Kentucky and 

 Teimessee. Shooting, even with so good a mount be- 

 tween times, is hard work in so hiUy a country as upper 

 Mississippi, but the birds were abundant and flew- strong as 

 grouse. It may be remembered that in the Southern field 

 trials at New Albany the party put up twenty-nine bevies 

 the first day out. 



The Best Rats. 

 I wonder if eveiybody knows where the best muskrat 

 fur comes from? In the South my market-hunting 

 friends told me that the Kankakee and Illinois River rats 

 bring four cents a skin more than any other kind. 



Photographing a Skunk. 

 In all the great FOREST and Stream collection of ama- 

 teur photographs, I presume there is not one showing a 

 skvmk on the point of going into battle. My notes tell me 

 that in the South I tried to photograph a skunk. In short, 

 I tried several times, and got up within 10ft. of him, too, 

 in spite of his threatening attitude. Unfortunately the 

 fight was dim, and I find among my negatives only a 

 series of blurs at the place where I hoped to have a nice 

 study in black and white. Thus often we risk much for 

 no result. 



Texas Terrapins. 



Galveston Bay, so my notes say, was once a great 

 ground for terrapins. They would come out on the reefs 

 in numbers, and made a great som-ce of revenue to the 

 fishers, or rather, the hunters. After the terrapins be- 

 came scarcer the marketmen hunted them with dogs, 

 walking along near the shores on the flatlands of the 

 shore or islands. The dogs used became unerring in their 

 work. A terrapin when surprised near the water wiU. 

 make for the water. The dog would in some cases put his 

 paw on the terrapin and hold it. Others Avould only point 

 it, and a few would bring it in the mouth to the master. 

 Persistent foUowing at afl seasons has nearly exhausted 

 the terrapin supply of this great bay. Both bird dogs and 

 curs were used in hunting terrapins. 



Terrapin and canvasback seem to go together naturally. 

 I have already spoken of the great numbers of canvasbacks 

 on Galveston Bay. Oysters also there are, and red fish, 

 and all tilings truly desirable. 



The Great Northwest. 



The unselfish and disinterested pride of a man in his 

 own dogs sometimes leads him to do very useful things. 

 I do not doubt that Mr. Thos. Johnson, of Winnipeg, who 

 sends me the following clipping from an article by Mr. J. 

 A. McCaul in the Western World, thinks honestly that the 

 reference to his dogs is the most valuable news tliat could 

 come from Alberta. In his estimate of news he is both 

 right and wrong. Those who know aught of the doggy 

 world know that 2Ir. Johnson has good dogs, but they 

 might not all know so mucli about the game with which 

 he is so familiar from his experience in the country. This 

 is how Mr. Johnson is doubly kind. The article reads: 



Southern Alberta may fairly be called a sportsman's paradise, not 

 one for pot-hunters or lovers'of slaughtering large bags. The variety 

 of game and scenery, glorious weather during the snooting reason, 

 the successful handUng of the dogs, gim, the rod and flies give a pecu-' 

 liar pleasure and zest to the ti-ue sportsmen that is not to be compai-ed 

 to the mere slaughter of game so commonlj' called sport by some 

 would-be sportsmen. Here we have to be our own guides, tent 

 pitchers, etc., etc., in turn, handle our own dogs and learn as best we 

 may how to take the wary grizzly, deer, duclr, trout, salmon or what- 

 ever it may be. 



As for grizzlies, cinnamon (brown) or black bears, elk, deer, sheep 

 and goat, fairlj- good shooting can be had in this district by a little 

 roughing it and mountain cUmbing. One cannot sit by the eamis-fire 

 and talk grizzly, etc., but must turn out and do some work for his 

 sport, and witli the right kind of men good enough sport to satisfy 

 any one can be obtained in the Rockies which bound us on the west. 



The swan, goose, duck and grouse shooting is good, and well up to 

 the average of any country I know of. The varieties of swan bagged 

 here are: The whistling swan (Ofer columbianus), the trumpeter 

 swan {Oler buccinator). Of the goose tribe large bags are made, the 

 chief varieties being blue- winged goose (Chen ccerulescens), often mis- 

 taken here for the swan goose (_Chen hyperboyeus), botk of which 

 appear in large numbei-s in the fall, and are easily bagged from Oct. 1 ; 

 but all the varieties of the white goose are known here as "wavies," 

 so called by the Indians '-wevois" (Glien hyperboreus nivalis), not- 

 withstanding their classiflcatiou in the books. To the sportsman the 

 Canada goose (Berniclu caiindensis) and Bernicla hutcliinsi, the 

 smaller goose, afford the most sport, being much more wary uad shy, 

 but with the use of sheet iron decoys affording grand sport and good 

 hard shooting. 



The duck tfibe is well represented and very large bags can be made 

 by one \f ho understandeth their peculiar ways. Of this tribe I may 

 mention as common varieties tlie mallard, the gadwaU (seldom seen), 

 the pintail. American widgeon, teal (greenwing), and the: river 

 ducks, canvasback, redhead, bluebiU (large and small), golden eye 

 (Barrow 's) and the smaller one, buffleheads, with a scattering of 

 blue-wdnged teal, harlequin, ruddy ducks and some hybrids. In 

 grouse we have plenty of the pintail, wliich affords the chief field 

 sport on the prairies in the eai'ly fall and in cover in the winter, the 

 blue grouse, found chiefly in the mountains (except perhaps before 

 Sept. '15, when the old and yauug ones come down to the prairie), 

 with an occasional willow grouse and ptarmigan thi'own in. In the 

 plover and snipe line we have little t;o speak of. A few AVilson snipe 

 are bagged, but as yet very fe-^v, and as for woodcock one unfortunate 

 only has been blown our way. 



The class of dogs in the country are good, including the Laverack 

 and Llewellyn strains, mostly from the kennels of Mr. Thos. Jphnson, 

 of Winnipeg, who, I beUeve, !; ii-- rl i n jud of some fine ones we have 

 turned out. the work here r i . j i ed, nose and staunchness, 

 which we aim to bi'eed ui the j i - . . _ - : e. 



And last, but not least, I may ,a.v tunL the trout fishing in this dis- 

 trict is unsurpassed. Simply magnuicent tiy-flshing can be had, the 

 writer of this article having seen more than one day"s trout fishing re- 

 sult in an average of over lib. each, some fish (bull trout) reaching 

 6113S. and others (brook trout) tipping the scale at .31bs. Good trawl- 

 ing for lake trout and pike jnay also be obtained, and here the dis- 

 ciples of Izaak Walton can certainly revel. 



Manitoba's Hibernating Animals^ 



It is the same gentleman wdio sends me an interesting 

 clipping, uncredited, on the hibernating animals of ' an- 

 other section of the great Northwest, of which rnany of 

 us know so little, and as lie says nothing therein of hiber- 

 nating dog's, I shall this time visit him with no slings and 

 arrows. This reads: ' - - 



There are in Manitoba six species of animals that hibernate, or spend 

 the winter in a dormant condition; these are the bear, badger, porcu- 

 jjine, raccoon, slcunk and ground hog. It is a remarlvuble pi-ovision of 

 nature that h'f e can be sustained %vithout food during a long winter. 

 It will he noticed that all these animals become exceedingl}' fat as the 

 winter approaches, and from that fat nourishment is, in some way, 

 derived during the long season of sleep and iuactivitj', for when spring 

 arrives the amnials are always lean and hungry. In this country there 

 are no rocks aiaoug which caves can be discovered, and no large, liol- 

 ow trees, so the bear has much difficulty in finding a proper den. in 



