May 2, 1896.] 
FOREST ANJJ STREAM. 
868 
Mr. Brackett's man may be the full equal of his master 
in the knowledge and care of pheasants, but I was igno- 
rant of the fact that when he was inspecting my place I 
was entertaining an angel unawares. I think it would 
have been in better taste if this critical person or his mas- 
ter had told me on whose behalf he came. I note that 
he does not approve of my method of feeding young birds. 
I am never over anxious to teach what has cost me time 
and money to learn to every inquisitive chance comer, 
and it is more than likely that I was not sufficiently fas- 
cinated by him to teach him "free gratis all for nothing," 
and that I took care he should gain as little information 
as possible. I may mention that it was while on a visit to 
my pheasantry that Mr. E. A. Stiles, whom Mr. Brackett 
and others quote with approval, learned about feeding 
young pheasants with custard, etc. , and he gave me the 
order of supplying English ring-necked pheasants to the 
Liberty Hill Club, of which he is manager. Moreover, it 
is the most absolute nonsense to talk of English ring- 
necked pheasants requiring different treatment from Chi- 
nese or pure English birds. In fact, if this is a sample of 
Mr. Brackett's vast knowledge of pheasant rearing, it 
shows the full value of the advice he is now so kindly 
dispensing abroad. 
Mr. Brackett remarks that as I had "handled 100,000 
English pheasants during the last twelve years" I have 
been occupied in this business, "they should have been 
enough, if worth anything, to stock the whole United 
States." First of all, I never wrote "English pheasants," 
but "pheasants of all varieties." Secondly, my letter was 
comparing the ' 'English ring-necked pheasant," a differ- 
ent bird, as I have shown, with the Chinese variety. 
Thirdly, seven of the twelve years during which I have 
interested myself with pheasants were spent in France, 
where I used to sell 70,000 eggs a year, and supplied most 
of the big preserves, including those of the president of 
that republic. 
But it is very hard to argue with Mr. Brackett, because 
he will not keep to the point, and whether from ignorance 
or perversity will insist on trying to prove me wrong by 
running down the English pheasant. Now, I have never 
recommended the English pheasant for the New England 
States, but the "English ring-necked pheasant;" and I will 
stand by all I have said, and reiterate it, that the pure 
Chinese pheasant, as produced in Oregon, cannot compare 
with the English ring-necked pheasant as an all-round 
game bird. Its wandering propensities alone are sufficient 
to show how unsuitable it is for an ordinary game pre- 
serve. I have no knowledge of Mr. Brackett's sources of 
information, but I have sent English ring-necked pheas- 
ants all over the States, and where judiciously treated 
they have thriven as well as even the Chinese pheasant 
did in Oregon. I sold one gentleman a few hundred birds 
four years ago, and in spite of making large bags among 
them every autumn, be has now between 2,000 and 3,000 
of them, owing to self -increase alone. On Long Island 
they reproduce so fast in a wild state that a few birds at 
liberty raised tenfold their number when the shooting 
season came round again. I can prove all I h, ave stated 
in favor of the English ring-necked pheasant up to the 
hilt with like instances were it necessary. In addition, 
whenever any one has gone in seriously for making a 
large game preserve and stocking it with pheasants, in 
nearly every case the birds are English ring-necked pheas- 
ants which I have supplied. Witness the successful ex- 
periment of the Ohio Game Commission with these birds, 
which I sold them. I have now one order for 500 to be 
supplied next September. Therefore absolute fact and 
proof positive completely annihilate Mr. Brackett's state- 
ments that the English ring -necked pheasant is a failure. 
But, as I say, it is so hard to know what Mr. Brackett 
means, because he will not keep himself to the point under 
discussion. I suppose he recognizes his arguments to be 
weak and his statements untenable, and so tries to evade 
the question by confusion of names, as some tish when 
cornered foul the water that they may escape in the 
opaqueness they have created. 
Now, Mr. Brackett states that out of a correspondence 
amounting to 100 letters every one of them but three 
recommended the Chinese pheasant and not the English 
ring-necked bird. I can quite believe it, because it was 
not till my arrival in this country that many people knew 
of the latter kind. It was, in fact, for the most part an 
unknown bird to local sportsmen, who had read in their 
papers wonderful accounts of the Chinese pheasant in 
Oregon. This was the only variety they had ever heard 
of and their information about it even was not very ex- 
tensive. I am glad to say that during the past few years 
I have been able to propagate quite different and truer 
ideas, and I sell now a thousand English ring-necked 
pheasants to a dozen Chinese. 
Mr. Brackett lays well deserved stress on Judge Denny's 
knowledge of the Phasianidos, and says that the judge 
had nine out of thirteen varieties, and selected the Mongo- 
lian (to continue Mr. Brackett's incorrect appellation) as 
the best all-round game bird. Very likely so, but Judge 
Denny never had the advantage of comparing the English 
ring-necked pheasant among them, because it is a cross 
bred bird first originated in England. In fact, none of 
Mr. Brackett's arguments can hold water, and force the 
conclusion that he does not know much about his subject. 
Mr. Brackett refers to the rapid increase of Chinese 
pheasants in Oregon as a proof of their superiority. All 
right. In fifteen years they have spread over that State. 
Now, the English ring-necked pheasant was scarcely in- 
troduced into the States or known of till I brought them 
forward, and that but a very few years ago, and they 
have already completely ousted the pure Chinese pheas- 
ant from the attention of all sportsmen who are stocking 
tneir preserves seriously. I have not the permission of 
my numerous clients to mention their names, nor is it 
necessary, as^investigation will prove the truth of every 
word I have written. In presence of recorded facts Mr. 
Brackett's ^arguments and statements are worthless, and 
can only mislead those who put any faith in them. 
I cannot now enter into all the subjects Mr. Brackett 
has referred to, such as prices, which vary each month 
and season; and I would like to have touched on the feed- 
ing of pheasant poults. 
To sum up, it resolves itself into this: Has Mr, Brack- 
ett the experience sufficient to warrant him in insisting 
so forcibly as he does that he is a competent judge of the 
management and habits of pheasants? He remarks that 
I have much to learn and 1 quite agree with him, and I 
hope to continue to gain kno fledge about these birds to 
my dying day. However, having gained a widely ex- 
tended reputation on the other side of the ocean, I was 
pressed to come over here to spread their culture in the 
States. I came over in '90, and in my first year penned 
250 birds. Now I find among some letters I received 
from Mr. Brackett in '94 one asking me to let him have "a 
trio of Mongolian or ring-necked pheasants, as while I have 
but little time to devote to it, I would like to experiment 
with these birds and learn what I can about them." ' I 
was unable to supply his orders, and he wrote further that 
he had "a fine brood of ring. necked pheasants hatched 
from a setting of eggs presented to" him. Therefore, be- 
fore '94 Mr. Brackett knew nothing whatever about these 
birds, and during that year his experience was gained 
with one sitting of eggs. As this season is only just com- 
mencing, it leaves but the year of '95 in which Mr. 
Brackett can have absorbed that fund of experience and 
knowledge that has raised him superior to any other 
authority, and justifies him in setting down those who 
have devoted all their time to the care of pheasants for 
many years. All my arguments are based on the opinions 
of world-wide authorities, with whom, however, I com- 
pletely coincide. In fine, I pity those who look to such a 
blind leader of the blind for safe guidance; who accept as 
of any value the dicta of a gentleman with one year's ex- 
perience, or two if we count the solitary brood in '94, 
and "having but little time to devote to them"; and who 
believe that Mr. Brackett, in spite of his position, knows 
more than the merest smattering about these birds, con- 
cerning which he lays down the law with such assurance 
after the briefest possible study of their nature and care. 
Verner de Guise. 
Mahwah, N. J. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
Big Bags of Snipe. 
Chicago, 111., April 25.— The weather hereabouts for 
the last f «w days has been of the sort that makes a man 
glad he is alive, and everybody who is anybody and who 
has had any time at all has been out of doors enjoying the 
first air it had been safe to breathe for the past six months. 
The jacksnipe have entered cheerfully into the conspiracy 
to deprive the city of its working population, and the tall 
office buildings of Chicago have been left silent and de- 
serted, the smoke curling idly up, from force of habit, 
from the thousands of chimneys overlooking streets once 
busy, but now abandoned. Of course a great many gen- 
tlemen do not believe in spring shooting, and could not 
consistently go shooting in the spring; but most of them 
reserve the great North American privilege of being con- 
sistent only when they feel like it, and so go shooting on 
the Rip Van "Winkle principle of exceptional instances. I 
am clear in my own mind about spring shooting of ducks, 
but as to so disreputable a vaurien as the jacksnipe I 
sometimes almost have my doubts practical as against 
convictions logical. This more especially when one is left 
alone in an abandoned city whose inhabitants have 
all gone out after meat, and when one is out of meat 
himself. 
Some very heavy bags of snipe have been made within 
the last few days of the snipe flight. Charlie Antoine and 
a friend, shooting on the famous grounds at Koutts, Ind., 
which I believe are the very best snipe grounds of the 
West, bagged 134 snipe in a couple of days. His partner, 
Oswald von Lengerke, a few days later bagged 115 in two 
days with the aid of a friend part of the time. At Mak- 
sawba grounds Billy Mussey and John Watsonshot leisurely 
for a couple of days and part of a third day, and got be- 
tween them 125 snipe. All these bags were along the 
Kankakee in Indiana, and were made about a week ago. 
Since then the birds have moved on north, and have spread 
all over the country immediately adjacent to this city. 
Nearly everybody who has visited the natural snipe grounds 
lying for thirty miles parallel with the city and about 
fifteen miles west, has had abundant sport. Good shoot- 
ing was had by a few near Evanston, though others who 
went out there complain the birds were not to be found. 
Far to the south of Evanston, along the Sag, some of the 
lucky ones got in a good day, though that region is 
hunted to death and is very capricious. At Fox Lake, at 
the north side of the State, very good shooting has been 
going on for four dayB — so says the deputy warden, 
who has been up there (and who, by the way, reports 
no violations of the fish or game laws to be detect- 
able this spring). Between the State line and a point 
say forty miles south of that, there are a series of 
warm hills and interlying sloughs of soft black bottom 
which have time out of mind been favorite feeding 
grounds of the snipe. Crystal Lake, Diamond Lake and 
a number of smaller bodies of water, not often heard of by 
Chicago sportsmen, all have feeders or adjacent streams 
which spread -out into high-lying sloughs among the 
farming lands, and in this strip of country, about forty 
miles square, and lying to the northwest of Chicago, is 
some of the best shooting ground of this part of the 
country, though I believe this fact is not generally known 
to our shooting public. It is not a great marsh like the 
Koutts marsh, and does not consist of any one slough or 
series of sloughs, but the shooting is to be picked out, 
little by little, here and there, over a very wide piece of 
country, so that a shooter gets a good walk or ride during 
his day's sport. 
A great many shooters do not understand the habits of 
jacksnipe, and because they often find these birds near or 
on wet marsh think they should always hunt for them 
there and nowhere else. They should stop to reflect that 
a snipe is like any other tramp, and will stay where he 
can most easily get something to eat. He eats worms, 
and worms like a warm black mud and not a cold, wet 
mud. When the marsh mud is warm and soft enough, 
the worm is fat and happy and accessible, but when the 
wet is too abundant he is absent and so is the snipe. In 
such cases the latter is very often out in the high corn- 
fields, around little soft wet places, where the worms are 
not drowned out. Hummocky meadows are for these 
obvious reasons notoriously good places for snipe, but let 
a cold rain fall, or too heavy a warm rain, and these 
meadows which were good yesterday may be deserted 
to-day. The easy variety of country offering feed has 
made this region above mentioned a sort of promised 
land for the jacksnipe, and they still hang about it, right 
upon the outskirts of Chicago, even at a day when one 
would think it absurd to expect any game at all so near a 
great city. Roughly speaking, this region is the farming 
country lying between Chicago and the Fox River, from 
Aurora on the south to the Wisconsin line on the north. 
There are a great many wet grounds in lower Wisconsin 
which look as though they should be good snipe grounds, 
but which do not carry these birds, because the water is 
supplied by cold springs. A worm does not love ice 
water. 
All along the short Fox River marshes good shooting 
haB been had this week at jacksnipe. From Libertyville 
south, and of course further to the south, along the 
Illinois River, the shooting was good earlier, though now 
it is too late at the Illinois River points. A gentleman 
lately back from Wilmington, about a hundred miles 
down in the State, reports only a half dozen birds to his 
gun during a hard day's walk. It may be held pretty 
sure that the flight of Bnipe is now working steadily on 
up, and that a few days at the outside will see the last of 
it for this section. 
Eddie Bingham, widely known as a soothsaying shooter 
in Chicago, came in from a shoot at Arlington Heights 
the first of this week, and first asking what was the 
largest bag reported to any single gun this season, calmly 
stated that he had killed ninety-two snipe himself, alone 
and unaided, with his good right arm, and all that in one 
day, in the territory immediately contiguous to Arlington 
Heights. The latter suburb being only twenty-two miles 
from the heart of the city, the above bag meant a 
phenomenal flight of jacks. I carefully investigated the 
record and found that the party who killed the- snipe 
consisted of Eddie and his friend J. E. Isgrigg, also of 
Montgomery Ward & Co., and their friend Charlie 
Klehm, of Arlington Heights, who acted as guide and 
head huntsman. The party killed nineteen jacksnipe, 
and the rest were of that small and less valued variety 
known as gray snipe, flock snipe, sand snipe, prairie 
plover, or grass plover. These accommodating little birds 
have a habit of sitting in bunches, so that a fellow can 
kill about a hundred at a shot sometimes, and I learn that 
Eddie developed a skill at pot shoots on these insects 
which did indeed lay some f oundation for his statements 
in regard to ninety -two "snipe." Charlie Klehm says 
that on sitting birds Eddie is a very steady shot. 
There are three of the Klehm brothers who live at Ar- 
lington Heights, George, Charlie and Henry, and they 
are all sportsmen and all good shots, and find time enough 
to get out over the fields occasionally. The Klehm fami- 
ly own one of the largest and finest greenhouses near 
Chicago, and grow the American Beauty roses which fel- 
lows wish they could buy for their best girls about Christ- 
mas time. The real occupation of the boys, however, 
seems to be to take Eddie Bingham out hunting, or else to 
entertain the men who come out to investigate Eddie 
Bingham's hunting stories. I had never met any of the 
family when, with a friend from the city, I called on 
them the other day, the Baid friend having borrowed my 
scatter gun to kill himself a mess of sand snipe. It was 
only the bond of sportsmanship which made the faintest 
obligation thereto, yet the Klehm boys took care of us as 
though we were lifetime friends. Charlie went out to 
show where the sand snipe abounded, and to point out 
the places where Eddie made his best shots. Then they 
kept us over night, and sent us home in the morning 
with a box full of American Beauties, and another box 
full of mushrooms, and another box full of snipe, mostly 
of the Eddie Bingham snipe, and made us feel as though 
we had met friends indeed. Once in a while one strikes 
an instance which makes him think it is a good thing to 
be a member of the human family, even if he can only be 
a sort of foster member of the Klehm family. Therefore 
I may call it well that Eddie Bingham went out there and 
became needful of investigation, and even forgive him 
for forgetting to specify the kind of snipe which consti- 
tutes his specialty. Our sand snipe, mushrooms and roses 
we divided equitably with my bank teller, who is behind 
the bars among stacks of money, chained to business and 
probably more or less hungry; so on the whole I feel sure 
Eddie's naughty deed shines somewhat in this good world 
after all. 
The Plover Flight. 
I have earlier mentioned the fact that the golden plover 
have appeared in this latitude, and the weather has been 
of a sort to bring them on in numbers, but they are not 
yet really due at their best. The plover flight appears 
here at about the time the jacksnipe leave, usually about 
May 5, and it lasts at its height only for three or four days, 
during which time very heavy shooting is often offered. 
Charlie Klehm told me he had known of 75 to 100 birds 
killed in a day by three guns on the fields to the north of 
Arlington Heights. These birds cross this region on the 
line of country lying between Gilman, Summit and Ar- 
lington Heights. We saw one flock on a field near the 
latter place, and the grass is now about of the height it 
has when they usually appear. The following week 
should see sport at the plover. The upland plover (Bar- 
tramian sandpiper) is all over the country now, and has 
been for more than a week. The farming country here- 
about now looks very green and beautiful. 
Bass Fishing. 
Bass are biting this week at McHenry, on the Fox River, 
and very probably at the points below, such as Elgin, St, 
Charles, etc., though I have no word from there. At 
Fox Lake several good catches of bass and pickerel are 
reported, but this is on the spawning beds and one does 
not hear the news so gladly. If anglers would put back 
■the gravid fish it would not work so much damage, nor 
do I think the river fishing would be so destructive as the 
spawning bed fishing in the shallow water of the lakes, 
where it is easier to locate the bass and keep on catching 
the female fish, which will snap at anything disturbing 
them on the beds. 
A Record on Swans. 
On Koshkonong Lake, in Wisconsin, recently, Ezra 
Bingham made what is no doubt the record killing on 
swans for that locality or any other in this part of the 
country. He saw four swans light out in the lake, and 
paddled out after them, with two guns. He succeeded in 
getting up close before the birds flew, and then killed the 
entire four with the four shots from his two guns. 
Away after Tarpon. 
The sport of tarpon fishing grows in favor among Chi- 
cago anglers, and each year sees an increase in the num- 
bers who go to Florida in the spring after this sort of fun. 
Among those who have made such trips this spring the 
best reports come up from Mr. Owen F. Aldis, who went 
to Punta Gorda some three weeks ago, and who has been 
having some fine sport. The tarpon is the favorite fish 
with this gentleman, who each spring makes a pilgrim- 
age to certain favorite grounds of his own on the Florida 
coast. 
