Jan. 26, 1895.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
65 
may read this who knows the locality, Tf or I see it just 
now as it was then), when I heard the lively barking of 
a little dog, two or three hundred yards off down in the 
bottoms ; and about the same time I began to hear and 
see the turkeys fly in all directions. One big fellow lit 
in the top of a tree about 150 yards away and about on 
a level with me and after tetering a little got his bal- 
ance and sat quietly. Of course I said that's my turkey, 
and getting a tree top between me and him, picking out 
the tree from which I should ring out his death knell, 
began very cautiously creeping down the hill to my 
vantage point. I knew the gobbler would be interested 
in the yelping of the little dog which kept up his yip 
yip in the opposite direction. I had reached the butt of 
the tree from which I was to shoot, about 30 yards from 
the one on which my turkey sat — had taken off my hat 
and peering cautiously out could see his head and neck 
back towards me. Oh, how I gloated over my prize, and 
how carefully I raised my gun to bear upon it. But, 
alas, just at the supreme moment I heard the crack of 
a rifle and saw the big beauty come crashing down 
through the branches striking the ground like a bag of 
meal. 
Did I go to see how big he was, or who shot him? 
No, sir ! I picked up my hat, turned my back on the 
whole business, and wended my way homewards, a 
wiser and sadder man A. 
Connecticut. 
Uncle Lee's Big Bite. 
Uncle Lee Watkins, as the boys called him, was one of the 
best fishermen that ever wet a line in Elkhorn Creek, and 
that is saying a good deal when one remembers that 
General George B. Crittenden and Hillary Bedford, and 
Dr. Will Morris and Llewellyn Halton and Todd Sulli- 
van were wont to entice the wariest bass from its pools 
and rocky shallows. Uncle Lee was one of the patient 
sort, and knowing every shelving rock and projecting 
crag beneath the surface, he was only satisfied when his 
baited hook dropped in the exact spot where he kneAV 
the fish should be. Then his favorite plan was to insert 
the end of his rod in a crevice, or push it in the soft 
bank, and lighting his pipe, await a bite. 
One day he had been wading the creek catching min- 
nows, and after baiting and casting his hook to the 
right spot, he stuck his pole in the bank and went off 
a short distance to change his wet clothes for dry ones. 
Two anglers from Frankfort — Jimmy Gibbons and Wiley 
Williams — were fishing near by and close enough to ob- 
serve events. Suddenly there came flying down the 
creek that awkward, ungainly bird called "shite -poke" 
or "water hen." Seeing Uncle Lee's rod projecting 
conveniently near the water it lit on the end, and after 
balancing itself with some difficulty and looking around, 
it walked down the rod somewhat as a boy walks a 
' ' teterplank, ' ' stepped over the rail and disappeared in 
the grass. 
Just at this moment Uncle Lee caught sight of his 
pole that continued to bob up and down from the 
"shite-poke's" balancings. "Thar's a bite," he ex- 
claimed. 
Holding up with one hand his pantaloons, not yet 
fastened, he made his way to his rod and loosening it 
from the bank waited for the line to run out. 
Gibbons and Williams, convulsed with laughter, laid 
their rods down and rolled on the ground, 
' ' Jerk him, Uncle Lee, jerk him !" exclaimed Gibbons 
as soon as be could get hit tongue. 
"Not yet, not yet," said the old man. "Wait till he 
runs a bit, ' ' 
After a five minutes' wait Uncle Lee wound in his 
line and found the bait intact. ' ' Singular, ' ' said he, 
"mighty singular— never saw anything like that before 
a big' bite and bait ain't touched." Replanting his 
rod, he proceeded with deliberation to complete his 
toilet, while the two spectators went off, leaving him. 
none the wiser. Old Sam. 
FlUXKFOBT, KY. 
Another Fisherman's Dog. 
J. M. B. 's note of a lazy man's fishing dog in your 
last issue recalls an amusing incident of last summer's 
fishing. Judge Wm. B, Guild and myself were enjoy- 
ing ourselves at that fascinating sport of snapper fishing 
at a point on Shark River where the channel sets in 
near the bank, making connection from our boat to the 
there an easy matter. Seated contentedly on the bank 
and engaged in his favorite sport of plaice fishing was 
the familiar figure of Archie Applegate, known to every- 
body as one of the most persistent fishermen in Southern 
New Jersey. By his side, and evidently as intent as 
his master, lay his dog, a nondescript mongrel, possess- 
in 0, no noticeable virtue other than the deep interest 
manifested in Archie's endeavor to secure a bite. "Say 
you fellers are in jest about the exact spot where I made 
my big haul of weakfish several years ago, ' ' he drawled 
oat. 
"Now you will hear something," exclaimed the 
Judge in an undertone, and then to encourage the 
story, "Caught them with hook and line, I suppose, 
Archie?" 
' 'Yesseir ! I had been pounding round all over the 
river the hull day and jest no luck at all and was fagged 
out and ready to go home when I chucked anchor 'bout 
where you are, and heaved my line overboard, when, 
kei slop! somethin' catched holt and lit out for the 
inlet like all possessed. After a scrimmage in which he 
jig-sawed my fingers almost off, I landed the all-firedest 
weakfish you ever see, as big as a cordwood stick ; and 
every time I baited up I got one of 'em, till the bottom 
of my boat was covered and 1 had to stand on the seat ; 
and afore that school of fish petered out I was standin' 
with one foot on each gunnel of the boat to keep from 
xnaskin' the fish. I got so tuckered out I had to take 
my boat ashore or I ootdd have sunk her right where I 
was in a few moments more. 
t ' ' How long were you making your catch, ' ' I inter- 
posed. 
' 'Jest about an hour, I think ! Jest about an hour. ' ' 
At this point his dog began to evince uneasiness by 
moving around and whining impatiently, 
"The dawg is gittin' unesay, " exclaimed Archie, 
with his indescribable drawl, "if I could hook a fiBh 
now I'd show yon a trick he learnt himsolf. Soon as 
ever I hook one and get him to the edge of the water, 
that dog will "grab hinTand pull him' back"' where he is 
safe. Then be'ir jest put his hind feet on the fish's 
head and with his paws he'll make the scales fly till the 
air looks like a March snow squall. Then he'll turn the 
fish over with his nose and dress the other side the same 
way. Why, I don't think me nor the old woman has 
had to scale a fish in five years. " 
As we raised anchor and drifted slowly away with the 
tide I turned to the Judge, who with a look of mingled 
disgust and amusement on his kindly face remarked, 
' That fellow beats Ananias. ' ' Leonard Hoxit. 
Foxes and Porcupines. 
Last Sunday Winston Harris came down to see me, 
and read Forest and Stream. After reading about the 
foxes climbing trees he said: "Of course they climbed 
trees ; thought everybody knowed that. When I was a 
boy I saw one in the fork of a swamp ellum, 'bout 60 
foot high. I wanted that fox mighty bad, but hadn't 
any axe or gun, 'n I knowed if I went after 'em the 
fox'd git down and run off, so I just out with my knife 
and cut the bark at the foot of the tree'n then peeled it 
up in long strips, 'n jerked 'em loose up at the fork, 
leaviu' the tree slick as ice. Then I went away and 
hid, aud the fox tried to climb down, but he slipped off 
and the fall killed him. " 
I showed Winston some porcupine quills and asked 
whether anybody knew what a porcupine was good for. 
" Yes, " said Winston, "they used to be mighty handy 
to pick up oider apples. There was lots of 'em round 
here in an early. day, and we had a big orchard right 
on the edge of the woods. We had a tight fence round 
it to keep the porcupines out, till we had picked the 
keepin' apples. After that we opened holes in the 
fence, and of nights the porcupine would come in and 
scrape a lot of apples together, then roll over them till 
their quills were stuck full, when they walked off. They 
looked just like a half bushel full of apples sliding along 
the ground. They took them to a big hollow log, rubbed 
them off the quills with their feet and then stored them 
in the log. When it got full we split it open and took 
the apples. Then we put the two halves of the log 
together and they would fill it up again. *' 
I asked Winston if he hadn't been drinking some of 
the oider made from those apples. 
O. H. Hampton. 
nrt{e §ag at[d §nn. 
MONGOLIAN PHEASANTS. 
The annual report of the Massachusetts Fisheries and 
Game Commissioners gives these particulars of the pro- 
posed stocking with Mongolian pheasants : 
Immediately after the passage of the resolve appropria- 
ting $150 toward the introduction of these birds, we 
opened correspondence with everyone we could find who 
had them or was supposed to have any knowledge of 
them. Porf. John Hudson of Washington State, who 
had agreed to obtain some for us, coirld not get them. 
We found one or two dealers who claimed to have them 
asking exorbitant prices, which we might have been 
tempted to pay had we not discovered at the last moment 
that they were the ordinary ring neck, a very different 
phesant front the Mongolian. Our investigations led to 
the conclusion that there were no pure Mongolian 
pheasants this side of the Rocky Mountains. 
Mr. Woodward of New York proposed to import some 
from China, and obtained orders amounting to twelve 
hundred birds, at ten dollars a pair. We put in an order 
for as many as he could spare. They were shipped and 
reached Gibraltar all right, but soon after the steamer 
encountered a cyclone, and from that time the birds 
began to die, and when New York was reached all had 
died. There are thirteen or more varieties of pheasants 
in China, and, unless some one who knows about them 
is on the ground to look after them there is no certainty 
as to what will be shipped. 
The law against exporting pheasants from Oregon is 
so severe that no express company would take them. 
We had nearly given up our efforts to obtain them this 
year, and had accepted a setting of English pheasant 
eggs from Mr. Samuel Hanson of Boston, one of the 
exectuive members of the Liberty Hill Club of Connecti- 
cut. This cub has been very successful in raising these 
birds, and we have no doubt that in some parts of the 
State they would thrive ; but they are not so prolific, 
and. are more tame and logy than the Mengolian, and. 
would therefore more easily fall a prey to the unskilled 
marksman. The experience we have had with them will 
be of advantage in rearing the Mongolian, for we are 
satisfied, after careful investigation, that the latter is 
the most desix-able, and perhaps the only variety adapted 
to our woods as a game bird. 
Finding that they could not be obtained at any price in 
sufficient numbers for stocking, our only alternatives 
were either to abandon the experiment or to provide for 
breeding them. Believing that it was for the interests 
of the State that they should be introduced, we chose 
the latter, and have constructed nine large aviaries, 
covering about two thousand square feet, vermin proof 
and securely roofed over ; a number of hatching boxes 
with small yards have been made, and about twenty-five 
bantams secured as mothers. To complete the plant 
there should be more hatching boxes, and the enclosure 
of about a quarter of an acre of grass land for the young 
birds to forage in. 
In confinement the Mongolian lays from sixty to eighty 
eggs duriing the season, and by using bantam hens as 
setters the phesants are not depended on for brooding. 
For the breeding birds we have we are indebted to the 
energy and generosity of Mr. Samuel Forehand of 
Worcester, president of the Forehand Arms Company. 
While in Oregon and Washington State last summer, 
Mr. Forehand, at the suggestion of Mr. Bufflngton, 
spent several weeks in investigating this matter, and is 
thoroughly satisfied of the importance of introducing 
them into this State, both as a game bird and as a 
source of food. 
The bird he obtained, and those he is still to receive, 
have cost him hundreds of dollars. He presented them 
to the chairman, of the commission, with the understand 
ing that, if the State saw fit to encourage their intro- 
duction, they were to be used for that purpose. 
During Mr. Forehand's stay in Oregon he formed the 
acquaintance of Judge Denny, who introduced the 
Mongolian pheasant into that State, and from letters 
received from that gentlemen since we are permitted to 
make the following extracts : 
Twenty-eight birds were sent to Oregon in 1881. Their phe- 
nomenal increase is apparent, when I tell you that the game 
warden, Mr. MeGuire, estimates the number killed last season in 
three months, in Linn county alone at thirteen thousand ; and 
that a year ago last winter, when the sleet and snow were on, 
twelve hundred dozen of these birds were sent to one dealer hi 
San Francisco. This is not only n, h'rst-c'ass gime bird, but a 
delicious morsel of foorl ; hardy, and belongs clearly to a survi- 
val of the fittest. They have, besides, proved a grent benefit to 
the farming and other agricultural pursuits in this State, in that 
they fee l on the ppsts and enemies of the crops, inchi cling 
worms, grubs, borers, flies, cutworms, codling moths, aphis, and 
other insect life, including their larv£e, without doing damage to 
agricultural and garden crops. O. N. Denny. 
We fed our young pehasants every kind of bug and 
larvae we could find, and they ate evergything except 
the potato bug. As they search the trees as well as the 
ground for their food, they may yet be found a factor in 
the destruction of the gipsy moth. 
In answer to the querv as to whether they drive out 
other game birds, Judge Denny says : " No, it is not true 
that these pheasants drive out other birds. On my farm 
the grouse and partridge are as plentiful as ever, and I 
often flush grouse and pheasants from the same cover. ' ' 
The arrangements, now nearly completed, will enable 
us to raise hundreds of pheasants for disribution all 
over the State. An excellent plan for the distribution is 
to furnish breeding birds to game clubs and public 
spirited individuals, who are willing to build aviaries 
and hatch' and liberate young pheasants on public 
grounds. If tbe young birds are allowed to go out when 
from six to eight weeks old they will return to the coop 
to feed for several weeks, thereby establishing a locality 
which otherwise they might not obtain. 
Should this plan be acceptable the commission would 
furnish breeding birds and information to such parties, 
and in this way the stocking would be greatly facili- 
tated. There would be no difficulty in finding any 
number of public spirited -persons who would be willing 
to contribute their share of the work. 
As these pheasants belong to the fields as well as to 
the woods, living in summer on grubs and injurious in- 
sects, the farmer will find it to his advantage to protect 
them. 
THE LAST DAY OF THE SEASON. 
One could scarcely say that December 31 was an ideal 
day, such as you read of, but it was the last of the In- 
diana open quail season, and that certainly covers a 
multitude of faults. 
With about five inches of snow and the thermometer 
fooling recklessly with the zero mark, the conditions 
didn't savor much of that bracing November air that 
seems so invariably connected with the quail hunt tales. 
The opportunities for a day off this season had been 
mighty few, and this last one had been longingly looked 
forward to. After discreet remarks with our farmer 
friends as to how the ' ' hunters were treating them. ' ' 
and 4 ' if they had any birds left, ' ' we thought the 
vicinity of Milroy, twelve miles north of us, held our 
best chances. 
That meant a breakfast before daylight, but we were 
equal to it, and without daring to look at the ther- 
mometer, we started — my fifteen-year-old brother and 
myself, and our much-thought-of son of Bobin Adair, 
Pedro. Pretty cold drive that. To thaw out we took a 
brisk run from our friends' barn to the woods, where 
we felt Ave would find them. A short walk there soon 
showed us that we had struck the right cover. Those 
tell-tale tracks were fresh, and we followed the trailing 
dog as closely as the thick growth would permit. 
Presently much sought whirr told us they were up. 
"Did he flush?" I thought ; but a few steps showed the. 
dog firmly pointing a tree top twenty yards ahead. 
An hour's hunt through that patch was rewarded by 
the sight of one lone bird, which flushed very wild and. 
headed for another woods three hundred yards away. 
The rest were turned to snow for all we knew. We 
concluded to hunt up the single one. especially as it 
went in about the right direction. That's where we 
struck it. 
I was on the fence trying to locate the bird when I 
saw Pedro stiffen out close to a big brush heap. I 
called Ed, and after telling him to keep cool, I kicked 
the pile and a fine covey got out instead of the single 
one we expected. Guess I needed the advice most my- 
self, for Ed. got in a cracking good double, and I had to 
be content with one. 
Those birds scattered throughout the thicket. Mean 
shooting? Well, I rather think so. About that same 
kind as when one flushes an old woodcock in late Sep- 
tember and gets a glimpse of him as he twists around a 
clump of willows. But how good you feel when you 
see the bird fall. 
The lad had two the best of me when we worked 
around toward where a corn field joined the woods. 
Here Pedro pointed, Ed. stopped and I went next to the 
fence. To my surprise three birds flushed thirty yards 
in the corn, and after an upward flight that started over 
my head, looking to me for all the world like a bumble 
bee race to a pet clover field. 
" When the little gun cracked twice and Ed. yelled^ 
"You got 'em both, " I don't think you could have 
handed me a ripe peach. The dog still held, though, 
and after a quick loading up I kicked two more up, in 
front of me. We saved them nicely — Ed. one and I the 
other. 
A hunt through the upper end of that woods found us 
two more coveys. These scattered badly, and it took 
time to get them out. Then, too, the birds always had 
a happy faculty of having a convenient clump, or tree 
top, to twist around, and they did it. But we had sport, 
and several times that brother of mine showed me that 
his first season's shooting was mighty near phenomenal. 
Nine birds in that cover was mighty good for a fifteen- 
year-old lad. 
We scored up SI birds and two rabibts. True, not a 
large bag, but a earned, on,e, ao4 the memories of a 
delightfuljlay 1 W. T, West, 
