Oct. 1§, 1896.] 
FORjfeSt AND STREAM, 
28^ 
fast and make a pot-pie for dinner after missing half we 
shoot at. 
One afternoon recently there were two doves sitting on 
the ground when I walked up to the tank. I walked 
them up at about SOyds., killing the first neatly and miss- 
ing the second, Then one came flying in pretty well up, 
and I dropped him. While Hector, my pointer, was re- 
trieving it, I killed another. I began to think I had 
caught the sleight and couldn't miss them, but about that 
time they came in as fast as I could load, and I would be 
ashamed to say exactly how many I missed in succession. 
At this stage of the game 1 read myself a lecture about 
getting rattledj and firmly vowed 1 would lead the next 
bird 6ft. at least. In a few minutes here came one up 
high. I followed it with the gun until as near as it 
would be> then pulled ahead anywhere from 4 to 8ft., 
and down he came, without a flutter, at about 50 or 
60yd8. The next two were killed and then it was dark. 
£i. It. Ej. 
MEN I HAVE HUNTED WITH. 
It is impossible to refrain any longer keeping pen from 
paper or withholding the manuscript in which I was 
compelled to relieve my desire to acknowledge the enjoy- 
ment of your (our) contributors. But our boy Fred has 
upset all my balance. I find that I knew Fred many, 
many years, although I never saw him or his name until 
it appeared in Forest ajnd Stream. But just as truly he 
has been with me on stream, in forest and field for more 
than half a century ; and no doubt with a hoSt Of fisher- 
men» hunters and nature's hoblemen, ivho weire just aS 
Unconscious of his identity as myself. 
Sis gentle description of old-time friends, I fear, is 
unique, but a contrast, a moral and conclusion may be 
permissible, possibly instructive. 
Upon one occasion a gunner, going a few feet away 
through an open wood, put up a quail, which circled in 
front and around me. While I was holding, until the 
bird passed a big tree, the report of my companion's gun 
seemed to have destroyed the drum of my ear, upon which 
I placed my hand, almost discharging and dropping my 
own gun. When I had recovered from the shock, I said, 
as quietly as possible: "Never do that again, for you will 
more probably kill your companion than the bird, which 
would be his shot both from courtesy and safety, isfever 
forget either rule." 
On another occasion I had out a young, partly trained 
setter, which started and ran after a rabbit past my com- 
panion, placing the three in line. Up went the gun. I 
yelled: "Don't shoot! don't! don't!" The gun and rabbit 
went off, the dog howled, and both men made an end of 
the bunt and my comradeship). They had ho ^elf-fe" 
etraint, and something else, in the field at least. Thank 
heaven, they were exceptions also. 
Moral: Hunt, shoot, fish and boat only with sportsmen. 
Conclusion: That the definition of "A True Sports- 
man" was not made very lucid in the discussion of the 
Forest AND Stream fraternity; also, that our Fred, boy 
and man, has delineated the true sportsman so distinctly 
that every boy and man who has the elements in his soul 
recognizes the ideal and living picture. From Old Port 
up, every one of Fred's friends — our friends now-^have 
stamped all over them gentle boy or matt. 
No doubt Gen, Miller would have captured that giant 
' ttegro quietly if he could have done so; but as the giant 
was neither born nor schooled to gentle ways, and Mat 
had to capture, he took him "on the wing, on the ground 
(mostly, I suppose) or any way." The giant appears quite 
gentle when Fred introduces him to the company of 
Forest ajsto Stream, He had one schooling from a mas- 
tejr. 
The deduction is, that a gentleman is not necessarily a 
sportsman. That a true sportsman must be a gentleman, 
unpolished as Old Port or refined to the utmost delicacy 
in courtly manners. The gentle manhood permeates every 
descendant of the gentle Izaak, and every good hunter 
was certainly a fisherman before "Johnny got his gun." 
Pkhnsylvania, JUOTATA. 
BOSTON AND MAINE* 
Boston, Oct. 1. — Never has the opening of the big gkme 
season in Maine started with so much enthusiasm as it 
has to-day. the old hunters are about all going, and the 
hoViceS all want to go. Every man I have met on the 
streets to-day at all interested in shooting has remarked, 
"Thought you were down in Maine; when are you going? 
I want to go; shall go on the first snow," etc., etc. The 
railways are all making great calculations on the shooting 
travel, and they are likely to realize much. The news- 
Sapers are full of hunting reports and reports of game, 
[any of these reports are unreasonable and absurd in the 
extreme. A dispatch from Bangor the day before the 
open season gave an account of a big bull moose that 
tackled the engine on the Bangor & Aroostook road and 
was killed. The trains frequently kill deer, if these re- 
ports are to be believed. 
In one day this week the Boston & Maine sold twenty- 
five tickets to sportsmen at its office on Washington 
street, and other days the sales have been very large. The 
sportsmen seem generally to expect tracking snows,' 
which sometimes come in October. In the region of the 
White Mountains snows have already fallen, but it is too 
early to count on snow for tracking. Mr. R. D. Jones, of 
the Boston & Maine ofiioe, starts Friday for the Penob- 
scott region on a hunting trip. His wife will go with him. 
A deer and a moose or two are expected, Mx, A. H. Proc- 
tor has recently returned from his fall fishing trip to the 
Rangeleys, 
Oet. 5.— Mr. and Mrs, F, H, Talcott have just returned 
from a fishing trip to Eustis, Me., where they visited Big 
Spencer and other lakes and ponds. They had good luck 
with trout while the season lasted. Mr. A. F. Breed was 
at the Rangeleys in company with Mr. Abel H. Proctor, 
mentioned in my former letter. Ssnator W. P. Frye and 
Mrs. Frye have paid their beautiful camp on Cupsuptic 
Lake their usual fall visit. The Senator tells a friend 
that the fishing at the Rangeleys is doomed. He finds it 
especially hard to get even a few trout, where in former 
years they were abundant. The fishing cannot stand the 
strain of the past three or four years, especially the last 
year. "Whoever lives ten years will see the Rangeleys 
worse played out for trout fishing than are the Adiron- 
dacks to-day." Such are the ideas of a man who has vis- 
ited the same camp in the Rangeleys almost every season 
for twenty or thirty years. Logislgition sljiould take a 
strong hand bef ore it ie too late. 
1 have it from undeniable sources that partridges are 
positively scarce in Androscoggin and Oxford counties in 
Maine. Lewiston and Auburn gunners, even with the 
help of some of the best dogs in the country, have had 
very little success with partridges, while as for woodcock 
the season was a failure. Reports also indicate a scarcity 
of partridges in Penobscot county. 
The Maine woods are full of hunters, and therein lies 
the terror. A gentleman remarked in the office of the 
Boston & Maine Railroad the other day, as he purchased 
his ticket for a hunting trip; "If I had not arranged with 
a party to go, I would not go one inch. I am positively 
afraid of my life. There are too many green gunners in 
the woods; they shoot at everything that moves. I dread 
some terrible accident. Our party is made up of men 
who will not shoot till they are sure of what they are fir- 
ing at; biit not so with the greenhorns that are rushing to 
the Maine woods." I learn that more Maine people will 
hunt mooBP, deer and caribou this year than ever before, 
and hence the sportsmen from outside the State will meet 
with greater competition. Special, 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
Good Times Now. 
Chicaoo, Oct. 3. — ^There are good times now. The 
jacksnipe have come in all over this country in good 
numbers, and the weather is such that it is likely they 
will stay and otfer two or three Weeks of good shooting. 
All the wet sloughs just west of the city are oifering good 
fun, and the wet ground near Auburn Park has held a lot 
of birds latelyj thoUgh this fact is not widely kiiown. In 
the Fox Lake region of uppet Illinois the birds have come 
in a very good flight. But it is along the good did Kan- 
kakee that they are most abundant, and there the boys 
have been having great sport for two Weeks, and will 
have for two weeks more. ^ This is the best year on the 
Kankakee there has been for a long time, both fof ducks 
and snipe. The water is extremely high, and this has 
drawn the birds in something like the old numbers. 
Water Valley, Koutts, Momence, Davis, and other points 
on the river have yielded fine bags. Last week the Crown 
Point, Ind,, shooters, among them Mr, Morton, county 
clerk for that county, had very nice pport on the marsh 
below Fuller's Island, above Water Valley and Shelby. 
Here there was a large section of the marsh burned out, 
so that a series of pond holes and mud banks were formed, 
at which the birds came in regularly, so that bags of a 
couple of dozen to the gun daily was about a fair size. 
On last Wednesday, however, there came a very heavy 
tain which lasted tWo days and cotnpletely flooded the 
entire country. Acting on Mr. Morton's advice, I ran down 
to Shelby to have a look at this Fuller's Islafiid country, 
but f oimd it all afloat and out of the question for shooting 
anything but ducks or snipe with legs 8ft. long. I there- 
fore went on north to the edge of the marah, and hete 
blundered into a little patch where there were about fifty 
snipe monkeying around, biting the dust. Here I had a 
bit of good shooting, and killed a dozen in as many min- 
utes, the bag netting up about twenty-five fine jacks for 
the day to my own gun, though the shooting did not last 
long. At one time I had five birds down before I had 
time to pick up any of them. This little bit of high 
gtoUnd was alttiost the only place where I could find any 
number of birds, thodgh they were widely scattered over 
a strip of country three miles across, a few here and there. 
The wet weather had entirely unsettled them, and it was 
too soon after the rain to get them located anywhere sat- 
isfactorily. 
Billy Mussey has been having very fine jack shooting 
at the old reliable Maksawba Club. In two trips to that 
ground (near Davis, Ind.) he brought back ninety-seven 
birds, averaging I presume a couple of dozen on each day 
of actual shooting. Billy had solemnly promised to go 
shooting with me next week, but sneaked off the day I 
had sneaked off. I am sorry he proved untrue to me, and 
shall rebuke him when becomes back, but I don't believe 
he will have any more birds than I got on my little lone- 
some shoot. We have got plenty of meat hung up in this 
office fot a while now, anyhow till next week, and by 
that time Billy will want to gd again. Billy tells me that 
John Watson, Roll Organ, L, U. Brown, Mike Petrie and 
others shooting at Maksawba the past week have had fine 
fun, killing all the birds they cared to get. Mr. Mussey 
himself was lucky enough to kill a fine specimen of a bird 
rarely seen in this country, the robin-breasted snipe. 
The heavy rains of this week will not hurt the snipe 
shooting, for though the marsh is very wet, the bulk of 
the surface water will soon run down and the feeding 
grounds will be in great shape. I would advise a look at 
Momence this week, and can say that Water Valley coun- 
try, especially around Fuller's Island and the edge of the 
marsh near the Monon tracks, will in all probability be 
good, at least they were good this week. It is not desira- 
ble to hunt near the town of Shelby, as that region has 
had too much water over it lately and will not soon be 
dry enough to make feeding grounds. The famous strip 
of marsh near Koutte should be in good shape this week. 
There are a great many rail (the leaser rail) all over the 
wet marsh of the Kankakee, these birds being away out 
haif a mile into the country further than they have been 
seen for years, and over jacksnipe ground, which of 
course is no longer good jacksnipe ground when it is wet 
enough for rail. The shooters of Chicago are lucky just 
now. 
In Dakota. 
Mr. F. R Bisaell, secretary of the Illinois State Sports- 
men's Association, has gone to Dakota for a long shoot- 
ing trip, Mr. Bissell is the kind of man everyone wishes 
to have a good time when he goes shooting. 
From Cincinnati. 
I missed a visit I did not willingly let go this week 
when I. failed to meet two friends who called on their 
way from Cincinnati, none less than Col. Bill Peabody 
and Bob Barton, whom I have tried to tell people all 
about in the story of a certain ti'ip to Texas a couple of 
years ago. The city of Cincinnati, I must critically ad- 
mit, may not be able to furnish quite as high a grade of 
choice breakfast bacon as Chicago, but s^e does raise 
some mighty nice men, 
Squirrels Ate the Cow, 
I am grieved to see in the daily dispatches the news 
that the squirrels are so thick in the neighborhood of 
Vanoebiwg, Ky. , that they are killing off the cattle. The 
dispatch in this case is as below, and l have no doubt itiei 
true if the facts are stated correctly. But methinks thia 
story would sit more seemly did it come from the weird 
region of the Maksawba Club grounds, where white 
blackbirds, pink muskrats and the like are betimes 
discovered in the act of unusual and extraordinary per- 
formance. The details read as follows: 
"Vanckburg, Ky,, Sept. 37,— [Special.]— John S. Parks^ 
of Triplet, heard a piteous lowing of his fine Jersey cow 
in the field near his house this morning. He went out 
and found it literally covered with squirrels, which wete 
biting and gashing it. The cow died an hour later from 
loss of blood." 
Preserved* 
Mr. Ferd W. Peck, of Chicago, is reported as adding 
largely to his already eltensive holdings of shore property 
on Lake Koshkonong, Wis. , where he has for some years 
had a fine summer home. Lake Koshkonong is justly 
famous for its canvasback ducks, than which none of th6 
United States are more delicate of flavor. It is a wild 
celery lake and will hold these birds so long as any con-' 
tinue to cross on this line of migration. E. HouGS. 
1306 BoYCB Building, Chicago. 
Reed Birds and Mud Hens in New Jersey. 
The reed bird, which is the bobolink of the North and 
the rice bird of the South, comes to the tide meadows of 
New Jersey about Sept. 1, clad in his yellow and brown 
livery, to fatten on the seeds of the wild oats which ripen 
at that season. The bird is of the si2!e and general ap- 
peafance of the English sparfow. and takes on fat at a 
wonderful rate, and is considered a great table delicacy. 
There is no sport in shooting it. Now and then a rail 
bird shooter will waste a load on a passing reed bird, bnt 
it is the prey of the market gunner only. It is never 
found on salt marshes. It ia most abundant in Salem 
county, there are a few in Cumberland, none in Cape 
May, In Salem, the shooter during the summer builds a 
blind near the tide meadows and plants lines of millet 
radiating outward like a star. When the season begins 
the shooter enters his blind and waits until a line of 
millet is covered with reed birds, when he fires a big gun 
loaded with dust shot, and then picks up a hundred or 
more birds, brings them to his blind, cleans them, ties 
them in bunches of a dozen each, and waits for his millet 
to attract more birds, and so continues during the day 
until he has made $10 to $15. 
This scientific destruction of the re^d bird is confined to 
Salem county. Cumberland county is where the rail are 
most abundant. 
The mud hen, clapper rail (Rallus crepitans) or salt- 
water marsh hen, is as large as a small chicken; in count- 
less numbers it covers the salt marshes along the coast; 
nests in May and June, and has its young fuU grown and 
ready for autumn migration when the first hard frost 
comes. 
There are always high tides late in September which 
are taken advantage of by numerous shooters- The mud 
hens are driven up upon sandbanks and drift stuff and 
the gunner is pushed up to them. If shot on the wing 
they are taken singly, but often a half dozen or more are 
killed sitting on the drifting dead reeds. It is contempt- 
ible "sport." The young birds are good to eat, and secur- 
ing them is on a level with reed bird shooting, but the 
old birds are sedgy and worthless. I don't think any 
tears should be shed over the demise of the mud hen, 
He is not a game bird, he is not good to eat, and he can 
be secured with an oar or stick almost as well as with a 
gun; he is not pretty nor musical. 
There were very large bags made a day or two this 
season. At Anglesea more than 1 ,000 were killed at a 
single tide. One gentleman got 147 and ran out of car- 
tridges. F. S. J. G. 
Uniform Game Seasons. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
In reading an article relative to the New Jersey game 
law in a recent issue of Forest and Stream, my attention 
was directed to that which I have always held to be the 
keynote of the whole business of preserving a reasonable 
game supply, viz., prohibit the killing of game of any 
kind except from Sept. 1 to Dec. 31 of each year; this done, 
you will have to a great extent solved the problem of 
game preservation in this State. Within the limits 
named, open seasons for the several sorts of game may 
be fixed, as for instance: deer, from Sept. 15 to Nov. 1; 
quail, from Nov. 1 to Dec. 35; grouse, from Sept. 15 to 
Dec. 31, and so on; but have all close on or before Dec. 31. 
So long as the open seasons lap over each other, as 
under the provisions of the existing law, we have practi- 
cally for the law breakers a season of "excuse for hunt- 
ing" extending from Aug. 15, and in some localities even 
from July 1, to May 1 following. While it is possible 
that no special harm would arise from extending the duck 
season on Long Island to March 1, there is certainly no 
excuse for any provision of law that permits any kind of 
upland shooting except from Sept. 1 to Dec. 31. 
While the law of excuse continues to exist game will be 
illegally killed by the pot-hunter and the amateur sports- 
man, honest perhaps under ordinary circumstances, but 
whose desire to kill something gets the better of his judg- 
ment when prohibited game gets in the line of sight. 
There is no possible sense in having a series of open sea- 
sons slipping over one another like the points of a telescope 
and extending through the entire year; three months is an 
amply sufficient season for any and all legitimate shooting, 
and ought to be long enough to satisfy even the game hog. 
In conclusion permit me to add a plank to the platform; 
"Prohibit the killing of any sort of game in the Northern 
States except between Sept. 1 and Dec. 31." S. 
Tboy, N. Y. 
Mississippi Game Notes. 
Blue Mountain, Miss.— We have not had enoiigh rain 
in this immediate section to run in a ditch since the mid- 
dle of May, consequently our crops are very short, not a 
half crop of cotton, something over a half crop of corn, 
sweet potatoes almost a failure, peas no good, and hay 
one-fifth of a crop. I do not know of anything that is 
plentiful but quail. The dry season just suited themi 
There are some squirrels, but there will be less in two 
weeks, for there is but little mast, and in that time they- 
will have eaten up all there is. There are but few wild 
turkeys here, and the few there are get killed before they 
are well feathered. There are no (j^cks. S. N. R. * 
