86 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
before going; down. The Gould 8S0 passed through 
shoulder, ribs, a little point of the lung, and stopped 
against the windpipe. The piece left in is in the form of 
a crescent and weighs about lOigrs. The other bullet 
broke the bone below the shoulder blade, passed through 
ribs, heart case, ribs on the left side, and lodged under 
the skin. This butt has only 174 of the original 350grs. 
left. From the battered up condition of these bullets one 
would think tliat the projectiles had all the propelling 
power behind them they could stand. The ,45-70 seems 
preferable to the .45-90. There was a Lee-Metford sport- 
ing rifle, using the English service cartridge, owned by a 
gentleman who camped near us. I fired a shot from it 
through the shoulder of a caribou doe that had been 
dressed out. It was hard to find the holes in the skin, 
but where it entered and left the chest cavity it smashed 
the ribs about as much as a .45 would. Most of the guns 
used, however, are sealing guns or old muskets loaded 
with slugs. I am now flirting with a .50-100-450, and if 
it can be persuaded to shoot straight enough shall use it 
on caribou or other equally large game the next opportu- 
nity. It is of same pattern as the .45-70 and weighs less 
than 81ba. Stewaet. 
AN INCIDENT OF OLD BALDY. 
In Dr. J. A. Beebe's communication from Portland, 
Ore,, in the issue of July 11, is a sorrowful story regard- 
ing the destruction of deer in a certain section of the Cas- 
cade range of mountains, which recalled to mind an inci- 
dent connected with one of my own trips into the moun- 
tains northeast of Spokane, Wash., in days long gone. 
Deer were then fairly plentiful on the foothills of Old 
Baldy, some twenty miles from the bustling little vUlage 
of Spokane, but it was already growing apparent that we 
were to have trouble with hounds, and much indignation 
was expressed among the still-hunters concerning certain 
parties who had introduced a number of the slab-sided, 
howling brutes to assist the two-legged brutes in their 
butchery of the graceful creatures which they seemed 
powerless to kill by legitimate still-hunting. 
We were a jolly party of four — rifle cranks, enthusiasts 
and devoted lovers of the great primeval woods — housed 
for a time in the little circular tepee which in the years 
agone was long famous in the mountains, and which has 
overshadowed cheerier camp-fires and more square fun to 
the given surface than has any similar amount of canvUs 
ever stitched together; and as just the right depth of 
snow lay on the ground, all were jubilant. 
A single shadow drifted across our trail. Away to the 
north, on the hills which rose beyond the creek on which 
we were camped, was heard on several occasions the bay- 
ing of hounds; and threatenings dire began to be heard 
around the camp-fire. 
All my own prejudices in the matter were aroused, 
and I recollect dooming to sudden death the first hound 
that came in sight. However, the days passed and they 
troubled us not. 
The sport was grand, and the day at length arrived 
when we began dragging into camp our slaughtered 
game, preparatory to an early start for home on the mor- 
row. 
We had finished an excellent dinner, in the preparation 
of which the hunter, detailed as cook, had fairly broken 
the record, and as I rose up from the bountiful repast, at 
peace with all the world and void of malice toward any 
of God's creatiu-es, just as I turned to the fire for an ember 
with which to light my pipe, my eye fell upon a large 
black hound bitch, starved to emaciation— the very pic- 
ture of famine on its last legs— crouching and turning, in 
a deprecatory, sidewise fashion, as she slowly advanced 
toward our camp-fire. 
Here at last stood one of the culprits against which we 
had for days breathed out only threatenings and slaughter. 
Now for the vengeance long promised to this disturber of 
our peace 1 A single thing had not been reckoned on in 
our previous calculations — the appealing look with which 
the famished brute first met my astonished gaze. 
"What did I do?" 
My dear sir, what would any member of the great 
Forest and Stream family have done other than just as 
did I, when, turning to the dinner table, I took a large 
kettle which, thanks to the generous preparations of the 
cook, was still half full of bouillon, well thickened with 
bits of venison, potatoes and crusts of bread, and set out 
the whole bountiful repast for the pitiable skeleton in- 
Btanter? 
"Ain't you afraid you will kill her giving her all that 
mess at once?" asked one of the hunters. 
"She shall have one square meal if she dies for it," I 
replied. 
The plentiful ration quickly disappeared, and licking 
her sunken chops she looked roimd in search of more 
worlds to conquer. 
We really dared not give her more, and a few minutes 
later, in the bustle of preparation for another trip after 
our game still left in the woods, she disappeared. I took 
my pony and started up a long hill to the eastvvard of 
camp, on the crest of which L had cached in a thicket as 
fine a doe as had been secured in the hunt. I had not 
hung her up, for there was no convenient sapling, and as 
she was so completely hidden by the bushes, I had chanced 
leaving her on the ground. 
Nearing the top of the hill, I was hailed by one of the 
boys, who had left camp a few minutes before me, and 
who, gaining the summit of the hill lOOyds. south of me, 
called out, asking if I didn't have a deer hidden near by. 
"Certainly," I replied, "why?" 
"That black hound has just run away from those 
bushes in front of you and gone over the hill," he an- 
swered, 
I hurried on, my wrath rising. There lay my deer — 
that is, some of it. I am morally certain that that hound 
had not preceded me twenty minutes. Nearly every bit 
of one whole ham (save the bone) was gone completely. 
I stood and stared stupidly. Slowly my scattered wits 
returned, and I stepped forward to see if some other 
brute had not assisted in the wreck. Only her tracks and 
my own showed a print on the otherwise unbroken sur- 
face of white. Neither bird nor beast had shared the 
guUt of this gastronomic prodigy. 
In a somewhat varied hunting career, a few things have 
been encountered which have proved fairly paralyzing. 
When on the old buffalo range I saw where those un- 
gainly-looking creatures had clambered up the almost 
perpendicular walls of deep ravines, I concluded there 
were probably some few facts which I had not yet ac- 
quired, And now, as I stood over the mangled carcass of 
my beautiful doe, I tried to figure out where in all her 
varied anatomy this dropsical baas drum of a hound had 
stowed away something less than 871bs. of good, nutritious 
food in one short half hour. Another fact dawned at 
length upon my mental horizon: that here at length stood 
a hunter with his "dander rizl" And didn't the boys enjoy 
their smile at my expense? 
Foui'teen years have vanished sinse that day, but noth- 
ing at all resembling a black hound bitch has ever again 
appeared. 
And now, when once again the subject of deer-dogging 
is reviewed by the good doctor near the shore of the far 
Pacific, I rise to make my confession to the sportsmen of 
America, that among my other mental possessions I have 
for fourteen years carried a very deep-seated article of 
the kind which my old friend, Jim Ralph, used to style a 
"prejudyl" A single soothing reflection mitigates its 
pang: the fancy, which at times rises almost to conviction, 
that the utterly unconscionable gorge of venison must 
have, in the very nature of things, long since proved a 
Nemesis. OaiN Belknap. 
THE HUNTING RIFLE. 
A Rifle to Fit the Ability to Use it. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Mr. Cecil Clay's opinion, as an expert shot and hunter, 
cannot help but influence a good many tenderfeet who 
intend to hunt big game this fall to get a rifle that would 
be eflicient in the hands of a man like Clay, but which in 
the hands of an excitable tenderfoot will maim a good 
deal of game which will escape, but which would have 
died quickly had the rifle been of a caliber according to 
the user's skill. 
Now, Mr. Clay is a man -who can shoot a deer or rnoose 
with no more buck fever than I would have shooting a 
woodchuck; but how many of the tenderfeet will coolly 
draw down on a moose at even 40yds. and plunk it in the 
heart? If the tenderfoot hits it at all, where will the bul- 
let land? Say it hits in the paunch or in the hips. Will 
Mr. Clay say that his .44-40 200 rifle will be as deadly as a 
.45-90-fiOO or .45 70-405 under such circumstances? 
I never saw a moose nor a caribou in the woods, but I 
have killed deer with .33, .38 and .45cal. rifles. I started 
in with the .33, but when I found that expert guides, 
men who killed many deer, advocated a ,88-40, 1 used one 
of those for a while. I have followed a number of deer 
that had been wounded with .38 40 and ,44-40 rifles, but I 
never had to follow one hurt by a .45 90 a hundred yards, 
and that only when the .45 bullet hit the deer through the 
paunch. 
As for Mr. Clay's .44-40, when used on Virginia deer it 
is a sad weapon save in the hands of a Cecil Clay. A well- 
known woodsman. Will Light, whom a number of New 
Yorkers know to be a fine shot, having seen him up in 
the Adirondacks at the Bisby lakes, used a .44-40 for years. 
He killed lots of deer with it, but he tells about emptying 
the magazine full of bullets into the shoulders of a big deer 
and then the deer got up on the bank and went back in 
the woods some distance before it died. 
Fred Jones and Will Miller, of North wood, followed a 
big buck five miles, then didn't get it, one fall that I went 
into the woods vrith them. They had knocked the buck 
to its knees with their .38 and .44-cal. rifles, and both ad- 
mitted that if either had had my .45-90 the big buck's 
horns would have gone over a mantelpiece. 
It is all right for Mr. Clay lo talk about practice and 
knowing how to shoot a head of game in those parts 
where the bullet will cause the quickest death, and about 
"Mr. Rieteen and others hankering after a weapon that 
will not let game get away," but there are a whole lot of 
tenderfeet — as compared with Mr. Clay — who, when they 
hit their game, want something besides bloody leaves to 
show for it. Raymond S. Spears. 
New Yoke. 
A New Club Ground in Illinois. 
Jerseyville, 111., July 30. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
A party of gentlemen, comprising G. R. Smith, Al Tack, 
Hugh SneU, Robert and James Kirkpatrick and James 
Wedding, have leased a tract of land along the Illinois 
River in Rosedale township, Jersey county, comprising 
about 800 acres and including several small lakes and the 
slashes locally known as the Glades. 
This territory comprises some of the most noted mallard 
country in this vicinity, and the intention is to fence the 
ground and plant rice, etc., in the lakes to entice the fowl 
to remain as long as possible. 
At present, owing to the wet spring, there is so much 
water on the ground that the mosquitoes and bullfrogs 
have complete control. The lakes, of which there are 
several, generally afford good bass and croppie fishing if 
one can stand the mosquitoes and the mud, regular 
Illinois River mud. I have an idea that this mud would 
afford an opportunity for the culture of clams, and think 
I shall call the 4attention of the gentlemen to the clam 
correspondence of Messrs. Hough, Cheney, etc. 
Quail wintered well with us and indications point to a 
good supply for this fall, although many coveys will be 
late hatched. This will give the fellows who like to shoot 
half-grown birds a chance, as our excellent (?) game law 
makes the season begin Oct. 1. L. S. Hausell. 
About Summer Woodcock Shooters. 
Upper MoNTGLAiB, N. J., July 34. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: I have always been a summer woodcock shooter. I 
have always thought, and still do think, that the birds are 
all well grown by July 1, and that if the New Jersey boys 
didn't get them in July some fool legislative act would put 
off the fall shooting till after the fall flight. 
This past season I have been able to get out a good deal 
more than usual, and have observed the people who shoot 
and what they shoot a good deal more than ever before; 
and I am of the opinion that the Jersey woodcock law 
should not open before Oct. 1, and this is the reason: 
Everybody who shoots is not a gentleman. Now a gentle- 
man may be a man with $100,000 or 10 cents; but the real 
man, the real sportsman, when he goes out in July kills 
woodcock and nothing else. But there are a lot of men 
who shoot in July who kill everything that gets up; and 
I know of several broods of young partridges that would 
have made good shooting in the fall that have been killed 
as summer woodcock. Of course this is all wrong, but 
unless you stop all July shooting or have the game in- 
spectors examine the bags of such sportsmen as they may 
find in the woods, how a,re we to tell? With friends I 
put out three dozen quail in our vicinity. I have heard 
them calling all through the summer, but I presume that 
a great many of thera will be killed, cooked and eaten as 
summer woodcock. 
I say stop summer shooting. Make the law on every- 
thing in these States, New York, New Jersey, Pennsyl- 
vania, Connecticut and Rhode Island, to Oct. 1, and I am 
sure fewer small birds will be killed, less damage done 
and we who obey the laws and shoot as we live — decent- 
ly and in order — will find more game when we come to 
get a day or so in the fall. 
Another thing we want is a 30-gauge repeater for small 
game and light work. The game is so scarce in or around 
the big cities and in the East that it's a good deal of work 
and a great deal of nonsense to carry a 71b. 13 gauge 
around. Let the Winchester Co. get out a 4ilb, 30-gauge 
at the same price as their 13-gauge, lots of them, 86in. 
barrels, shotgun stock, and see if they don't sell. 
Cocker. 
Woodcock near Washington. 
The bird is as peculiar in his habits as an ortolan al- 
most. He is as nomadic as a gypsy. A swamp or a. 
marshy place in the wooded thicket may show from a 
dozen to twenty woodcock one day, when the next would 
not discover a single bird if the cover was cut down and 
raked over. Some sportsmen believe that woodcock travel 
in a circle, visiting the same places over and over again 
at intervals during the season, but there are numerous 
localities in the vicinity of Washington where they may 
be found with reasonable certainty during all the summer 
and autumn. One of the best grotmds for woodcock 
is Whistle Wing Cove, on the Potomac River, below 
Marshall Hall, The property is owned by Mr. J. E. Jones, 
and is posted, but many good shots are given the shooting 
privileges over it, and always with excellent results. 
Maj, L, L. Blake is one of the most devoted sportsmen 
when woodcock are in question, and has made some excel- 
lent bags at Whistle Wing Cove. 
On the Virginia side of the river, nearly opposite Whis- 
tle Wing Cove, and below Gunston Hall, is Pohick Creek, 
and a short ways up this stream woodcock can be found 
in plentiful numbers. Down on the Patuxent River in 
Maryland, and in the Magnolia swamps of Prince George's 
county, the birds can usually be found in numbers to as- 
sure good shots plentiful remuneration for the trouble 
they may take in getting there. Last week Mr. John 
Sydney Webb and a friend bagged twelve fine birds in 
one afternoon down on the Patuxent. Those who desire 
to hunt nearer at home can feel nearly certain of finding 
woodcock along Paint Branch, on the main line of the B. 
& O. Road. It is a good idea to leave the train at Branch- 
ville and hunt the stream up to Beltsville, a distance of 
about five miles. Out on the eastern branch, below Bla- 
densburg, there are a number of places where spring- 
heads abound under thick undergrowth, and the sport 
has been successfully prosecuted there. 
Up the Potomac one can always be certain of finding 
plenty of woodcock in the vicinity of old George Penne- 
field's place. It is a somewhat difficult place to get to, 
and the shooting there is difficult also, but woodcock 
hunters are not supposed to allow obstacles to deter them, 
and in the vicinity of Pennefield's, in the slashes that 
skirt the canal, woodcock are continually found in plen- 
tiful numbeis,— Washington Star, July 
Hounds and the Deer Supply. 
Boston, Mass., July 21.— Editor Forest and Stream: I 
noticed Mr. W. W. Mosher's article in your July 18 num- 
ber, in which he makes a statement to which I must take 
exceptions. He says, "But just so sure as hounding is 
stopped deer will be entirely wiped out. Hounding keeps 
them wild and not so easily approached by the still- 
hunter." 
Either Mr. Mosher has given the subject very little at- 
tention or he has made up his mind that he is right and 
will not change his opinion. 
Hounding certainly tends to exterminate deer wherever 
it is allowed, and if it was not for the protection that deer 
are getting on private preserves in the Adirondacks they 
would be ""practically exterminated before this time. I 
know that on my own property before I protected it (al- 
though it is situated in St. Lawrence county, where there 
is no hounding allowed) parties went in with their dogs 
and stayed there all summer and killed deer constantly, 
and the deer were practically exterminated from the 
Sroperty, but now they are becoming very plenty indeed, 
[y man saw eighteen deer in the space of t^jree days. 
In the State of Maine no hounding is allowed in any part 
of the State at any time of the year, and since hounding 
has been done away with, notwithstanding the fact that 
more hunters are going to Maine every year, the deer are 
increasing right along and there are more deer now than 
there have been in years past. If doing away with hound- 
ing exterminates deer, why are they not exterminated in 
Maine instead of increasing? 
Would a man who was trying to raise cattle and sheep 
put dogs in his pastures to worry and kill them? A man 
would be looked upon as crazy who did such a thing. 
I believe that deer should be protected and no hound- 
ing allowed at any time of the year. They will not get so 
tame that anybody can kill them who likes. When the 
deer flies have ceased to worry the deer and the weather 
has become cool and the law is off, no matter how tame 
they may be, they are perfectly able to take care of them- 
selves, and it takes a good, smart stUl-hunter to hunt a 
deer to its death. 
I hope to see the time when we will go one step further 
and not even allow hounding: for fifteen days, but pro- 
hibit hoimding in aU parts of New York State at all times. 
Frank A, Cutting. 
Maine Moose and Deer. 
KiBBY (VIA EusTis), Me., July 34. — This morning I 
started from Kibby Camp at 8 o'clock to look after my 
boat at Hurricane Pond, four miles away. When I got 
to the pond I counted four large moose and twenty deer. 
Three of the moose were bulls with nice sets of horns. 
Going and returning I saw four large flocks of birds. 
Otis R. Witham. 
The Forest and Stream is put to press each week on 
Tuesday. Correspondence intended for publication 
should reach us at the latest Tjy Monday, and as muoh 
earlier as prat ticahle. 
