284 
FOREST AND STREAM„ 
[Oct. 10, 1896. 
the theory of heredity, the ruffed grouse should be uni- 
formly of high capabilities, the fool birds being billed so 
promptly and thus never breeding; and indeed such capa- 
bilities they have. 
By far the greater part of the shooting is at close range, 
as it needs must be in thicket or woods, where the longest 
views are short and obstructed by trees, or ledges, or the 
hilly nature of the ground, or the xmdergrowth, and 
where in the early season the view may not be greater 
than a few yards or feet if the leaves have not fallen. It 
then is not an infrequent occurrence that the shooter will 
hear the startling whir of wings close by him, and yet 
be unable either to shoot or to mark the bird's course 
from inability to see the bird at all. The broken light of 
the woods, broken and broken again as it is through the 
irregular openings in the tree tops and branches and 
leaves interposing, with here and there shafts of clear 
light with masses of shadows interspersed everywhere, 
add a difficulty to quick and clear vision and therefore to 
the shooting, differing in this from shooting in the open. 
The successful ruffed grouse shooter must be ever 
promptly ready to shoot, and further must be quick of 
eye and motion. He must instantly decide on the man- 
ner of making the shot, taking advantage of all the few 
opportunities offered, and avoiding the obstructions which 
interpose. No studied effort at aiming is possible. Cover 
shooting of all kinds requires quick action, but ruffed 
grouse shooting requires the quickest, for of all snap 
shooting ruffed grouse shooting is the snappiest; and the 
successful shooter of that bird must excel in that kind of 
shooting, since in most cases be will have but an inatan- 
taineous glimpse of the bird in the unfavorable mixed 
lights and shadows, with a view obstructed by the cover. 
For this shooting the gun should be light, short of bar- 
rel — 26 to 28in. — and a true cylinder bore, for a choked 
gun is entirely out of place in such cover shooting, equally 
unsatisfactory when it doesn't or when it does kill, it being 
a miss in the first instance and often a badly mutilated 
bird in the second. The average shooter will find that he 
has success far below his opportunities even when equipped 
with the gun most fitting for the work. In this shoot- 
ing there is no waiting for opportunities to fit the gun. 
The successful shooter must take the shots that are offered 
and take them as they are offered, it matters not how 
difficult they appear or how brief the opportunities may 
be. He may catch but a momentary, shadowy glimpse of 
the bird as it crosses some diminutive opening, or he may 
see it for an instant in a maze of leaves and branches, or 
he may get only a partial glimpse of it and some 
moving leaves in the course of its flight, yet those are the 
opportunities which are the most numerous and which 
must be relied on for the bulk of the shooting; in short, 
that is ruffed grouse shooting. 
If he be too indolent or apathetic to be ever ready to 
shoot, or if he be too slow to take advantage of the oppor- 
tunities, his success will be but meager so far as material 
results are concerned, though he may be greatly encour- 
aged by the belief that his last ill success was due to faults 
in the bird, and if he can have another opportunity he 
will acquit himself nicely. The opportunity comes and 
bears more excuses. Once in rare whiles the shooter will 
have a good opportunity, catching the bird in some cor- 
ner so open that the advantage is with the shooter, but 
such instances are rare indeed, and by themselves would 
make but little sport. 
To be ready for the opportunities the sportsman must be 
quiet and never relax his vigilance, and his gun must be 
BO held that it can instantly be brought into position 
to shoot, and the nerves of the shooter must be 
constantly at a high tension, in readiness for the rise of 
the bird and the instantaneous shot. Every quality must 
be at a high key. The very moment that the shooter re- 
laxes his attention will seem to be the moment that the 
bird will rise, and before the sportsman can get ready the 
opportunity is gone. Thus it will be seen that no man 
who dawdles with his gun, or who ia slow in the handling 
of it, or who is noisy, can hope for any satisfactory suc- 
cess in shooting the bird of game birds, the ruffed grouse. 
On the other hand, one can be keyed up to too high a 
pitch, over-ready when the bird rises, and he giving a 
nervous start thereat, thereby does nearly as much to disar- 
range the desired results as does the more indolent brother 
who is but half ready. There are those who can never 
overcome this nervous start at the roar of this bird's 
wings, though they may be perfectly undisturbed in any 
other bird shooting, 
And the skill of the shooter, be it ever so high in 
degree, must be supplemented by the work of a quiet, 
well-trained, intelligent dog, for the shooter ia much bet- 
ter off without any dog at all than with one that is 
riotous, or one that ranges too far, or that is heedless of 
his work. Loud orders to the dog have no place in ruffed 
grouse shooting. The sportsman himself cannot observe 
too great a silence. Noise, the human voice in particulai", 
alarms and puts the birds to flight. 
The work required of the dog in this shooting is dis- 
tinctly different from that required in any other kind of 
bird shooting, except perhaps woodcock shooting, which 
in a way it resembles, though a higher degree of dog in- 
telligence and obedience are required, as the ruffed grouse 
is far more cunning and wary, 
The "partridge dog" should not work far from the gun 
in cover, and he should be silent and diligent in his quest. 
Many experienced shooters highly commend the uae of a 
small bell tied to the dog's collar, the low tinkling made 
by it constantly indicating the dog's whereabouts in the 
thick cover, and generally, when the bell stops, it indi- 
cates that the dog is not moving, and it is to be taken as 
an indication that he is on point, thus in a way keeping 
the shooter posted by ear as to his dog's doings when out 
of sight and supplementing his sight thereby. 
The rattle-headed, highly nervous dog, or the one which 
gallops swiftly and merrily about, is distinctly out of 
place in this kind of shooting. The ajsthetic shooter, 
whose dog must carry a high head and a tail lashing his 
sides merrily as he gallops and bounds about in the 
ecstacy of his enjoyment, as the dogs many times do in 
stirring tales of great work afield, would better take his 
fiery dog into the open where he can better disport him- 
self unhampered, and where his pretty ways may be ad- 
mired without any unpleasant interposition of the ruffed 
grouse. Such manner of the dog's seeking is incom- 
patible with ruffed grouse shooting, for the shooting 
should be the dominant feature, not the joyousness of the 
dog. 
I have been told of dogs which galloped with apparent 
recklessness in their quest of the ruffed grouse, going 
through the brush and dead leaves with all the noise 
which comes from such manner of going, and I have 
been assured that they were in some mystic manner very 
successful in securing points and avoiding flushes. I 
have seen many such dogs which filled all the specifica- 
tions to a nicety save the one of pointing the birds. Their 
success was chiefly in spoiling the shooting. There may 
be such reckless and useful dogs, and if so they are the 
exception, one too rare to consider as a factor in the sport. 
Moreover, the range being close, an extremely fast dog is 
not needed. One of fair gait and persisteni? industry can 
easily beat out the necessary range, and the one which 
makes his quest patiently and soberly and quietly, work- 
ing with judgment and honesty to the gun, will bring 
the shooter far more success in the results, to say nothing 
of the incomparable comfort and pleasure in shooting 
over him, 
Nine out of every ten dogs which are running with 
high head and merry action are running because they are 
in high spirits and for their own pleasure, with no 
thought of the birds or of work to the gun. When they 
come on birds, such is often a matter of chance and their 
point work is marked by constant and detrimental errors. 
This kind of dog leads hia partial master tobelieve that when 
he wears off the wildness and wire edge he will steady 
down to a useful grade of work; but often when such dog 
has worn off his exuberance he has worn off all there is 
of field performance in him, and he either loafs or does 
his work in the same slovenly manner, though, loafing, he 
does less of it. 
In shooting for sport, the shooter takes his birds on the 
wing. Of course, in shooting for market, the market 
shooter has no thought of sport or its practices. His is 
the one object to kill the bird and bring it to bag. The 
manner of it is of the least importance. His theory and 
practice are founded on commercial principles, therefore 
he shoots his birds as he can, whether they be on the 
limb of a tree, on the ground, or flying. Some hunters 
have dogs trained to seek for the birds, and finding them, 
they flush an'd follow them. When flushed by the dog, 
the birda generally take to the trees, and the dog, bark- 
ing, so engages their attention that they fall an easy 
prey to the hunter, he often bagging every bird in the 
covey under such circumstances. Often when flushed by 
the dog they fly to the tree tops immediately overhead, 
where they in fancied security calmly watch the dog. 
The shooter then drops them one by one, taking the low- 
est birds first, the falling of the lowest not disturbing the 
ones above, though if a top bird is dropped the others fly 
away forthwith. 
As to the number a shooter can kill in a day, so much 
depends on the shooter's skiU, the bird supply, and the 
local shooting conditions, that they alone determine it. 
In sorde sections of New England two or three birds at 
the end of a day of diligent effort is considered a highly 
successful result, and it is not an infrequent occurrence 
in that section that a diligent day may have no birds at 
all at its ending. In certain favored sections of New 
York, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Dakota, etc., and in the 
mountain sections where the ruffed grouse abound, stich 
a bag would be considered an absurdity if held forth as 
an index to good shooting, industry and superior re- 
sults. 
While in North Dakota recently I heard of one bag 
made to one gun in a day which was something extraor- 
dinary, it being eighty birds. They were shot at the air 
holes along the banks of the Red River after it had frozen 
over, the birds coming to those places for water. This 
was not recounted to me as a matter of sport, nor is it so 
set forth here, but it will give an idea of the abundance of 
the ruffed grouse in the sections where it is in the greats 
est abundance. 
But the sportsman who seeks the ruffed grouse for the 
true sport of it, and who brings his birds to bag in the 
manner approved hj spgrtsmaBefeip, has a mm exalted 
pleasure than comes from shooting any other game bird ; 
for, first of all, he must be skillful with the gun, and 
when he shoots at the ruffed grouse, be he ever so skill- 
ful, he can only apply such skill as he can muster in a 
moment, the opportunities of ruffed grouse shooting 
being but mere fragments of the opportunities accorded 
to shooting in the open, and when the bird is brought to 
bag it represents a toiling through brush and bramble, 
wooded hill and dale, scrambling over ledges and 
fioundering through swamps, all colored by constant 
expectancy, unavoidably lost opportunities and seeking 
to circumvent the birds by cunning woodcraft, supple- 
mented by the wonderful posters of the dog, a degree of 
cunning, skill and persistent effort, greater than that 
required in the shooting of any other bird. 
It is shooting pitched in the highest key, and that is 
why I think the shooter can justly feel a greater glow of 
pleasure when he makes a successful shot at a ruffed 
grouse, and why he loves this sport above all others, since 
it tests to the utmost his skill, his woodcraft, his patience, 
his endurance and his dog; and of the dogs, if he own a 
good one, he owns one of a thousand, B. Waters. 
DEER IN THE BLACK FOREST. 
New York, Sept. 25, — Editor Forest and Stream: My 
attention has been called to an article in Forest and 
Stream of Aug. 29 last, signed "Armin Tenner." In 
justice to my old and good friend Joe, I will give an 
account of an experience I had in Germany. 
Some years ago I was invited to join a party of gentle- 
men for a few days' shooting in the Black Forest. Our 
party was made up of English, French, Swiss, German 
and one American — your humble servant. On the morn- 
ing of the hunt, my good friend Mr. S., who was one of 
the principals of this particular preserve and my host, 
took me aside and said: "Now, on no account must you 
shoot a doe, as it would be considered a disgrace." This 
was all news to me, but I thanked him from the bottom 
of my heart for his kind warning, as up to that moment 
I did not know there even was an unwritten law against 
shooting a doe deer. 
The occasion was what they call their annual shooting. 
We had, I believe, twenty guns in all and fifty beaters; I 
know the party seemed quite a small array to me as we 
gathered together before starting out; and I began to 
wonder what would be left for another year's sport after 
we had got through. 
The beaters were sent out some miles away and were 
to beat toward us. We were stationed on runs where 
the game was most likely to break cover. For fear 
I might make a mistake, Mr. S. stationed one of the game- 
keepers by my side to prevent any such accident. We 
had been at our posts but a few moments when the fun 
began. I could hear the crack of my neighbors' guns all 
around me, but not a sign of a deer as yet had I seen. 
The moments passed, which seemed like hours, and I be- 
came very restless and impatient, and all at once from 
the thicket bounded a deer. My gun was at my shoulder 
as quickly as possible, but before I could cover the object 
my friend the gamekeeper was whispering something, 
which in the excitement of the moment I did not hear; I 
only saw that a beautiful graceful creature, with head 
erect, standing some thirty paces from me, had come to 
a full stop, seemingly unconscious of our presence. As I 
said before, I could cover my object, and was about to 
shoot, when suddenly the point ot my gun was thrown 
into the air, and away bounded the deer. My feelings 
can be better imagined than described. My pent-up 
wrath was showered upon my attendant, but it was all 
lost, as he did not speak or understand one word of 
English. 
When the round up came several beautiful deer were 
brought in and laid side by side on the grass, two beauti- 
ful does being among them ; but, thanks to my good friend 
Mr. S,, I was spared the humiliation which was heaped 
upon two unfortunate Frenchmen who had slain the two 
innocent does. 
I have related this experience, as I felt Mr. Armin Ten- 
ner was a trifle unjust — perhaps not from his standpoint, 
as he did not know the circumstances. 
Does should be protected in any country. E. A. P. 
TEXAS QUAIL, TURKEYS AND DOVES. 
Marlin, Texas, Sept, 27, — I have no doubt most of us 
enjoy everything we read in dear old Forest and Stream, 
but frequently there is an article published which strikes 
a sounding chord in our hearts more than others, 
"Sharptail Grouse Shooting," by O, H. Hampton, in 
the current issue, is one of these, in my case. It brought 
up "childhood's happy hours." Some of the first shoot- 
ing I ever did was at chickens in Sauk county. Wis. , 
seven miles from the same Wisconsin River mentioned 
by Mr. Hampton. I remember the first chicken killed by 
me as though it were yesterday. I was about ten or twelve 
years old, and the proud owner of a light, long, single- 
barreled gun, which I had "swapped" for. 
My companion, T. M. Warren, had a double-barreled 
muzzleloader which cost his father $30. We were hunt- 
ing out a strip of stubble on his father's hay marsh when 
two chickens flushed from under my feet. I shot from 
the hip, and mashed one at about 30ft., and then watched 
T. M, feather the other at about 40yd8. There was good 
shooting there in those days, and the law was religiously 
observed by the local sportsmen. 
O ving to a propitious season this year quail' are more 
plentiful in this section — near the center of the State — 
than ever known before. 
A number of wild turkeys have been killed about fifteen 
or t sventy miles from here. It has been very dry for 
several months, and little water for game to drink except 
in scnall pools along the creeks. The natives would 
watch these places and when the tiirkeys would come to 
drink they would fire into the bunch, I know of one 
nian who killed five at one shot. 
Doves have been very numerous indeed, and have 
offered some fine sport. Ou>r method is to drive to a tank 
about !8 o'clock in the evening, and shoot as the doves fly 
jn to driuk, We usually get §nougb, to broil for break' 
