Oct. 17, 1896.] 
FOREST AND STREAM 
SOB 
useful in New England or similar sections in respect to 
cover, for there is much of the country in the South, 
open and cover, which everywhere affords a bountiful 
food supply, and therefore the birds are to be found in 
the most unexpected places, the cover and cultivated fields 
not aiding the hunter's judgment to the degree that they 
do in New England shooting. In the latter place there are 
comparatively few areas in which the birds can get both 
food and cover together, or even food alone, and the 
sportsman soon learns to distiguish the favorable places; 
in the South there is food in abundance everywhere, in 
cover and open. There are vast fields, some of which are 
overgrown with sedge grass, others with weeds, with 
fields of cotton and corn interspersed, any part of which 
is a fit habitat for the birds; thus the dog working out 
such ground in the South can beat out all parts of it with 
probable success. In the more open grounds of the South 
the dog can be seen at long distances, so that a wide 
range is not detrimental in that respect, providing that 
the dog is really working to the gun and not self-hunting 
or semi-self -hunting. 
As to the manner in which the dog should hunt, no 
hard and fast rule can be laid down which would apply 
to all sections. Whatever may be the habitat of the 
quail, it learns to make the most of its surroundings in 
promoting its own safety and interests. It learns whether 
it is better to fly or run in evading its pursuer, and the 
best strategy to attain that end. If good cover is con- 
veniently near it may trust to its wings at once for safety, 
and to its legs and wings if followed into the cover. 
If the country is open or with narrow and insufficient 
cover, as in parts of Louisiana and other sections where 
the ground is thoroughly cultivated, it trusts a great deal 
to its legs and cunning devices. In working on such 
birds the dog must learn to govern his work by the circum- 
stances of it. He might be an excellent performer on 
quail in the North and a poor one in the South, or he 
might be a good one in Mississippi and a poor one in 
Louisiana, though the presumption is that if he was good 
in one section he would soon be so in any other after the 
necessary experience. 
Dogs In Louisiana. 
Many of the plantations of Louisiana are drained by 
open ditches running parallel at reasonably equal dis- 
tances from each other, though the distances may vary 
greatly one field with another, and may be 50 or 200yd8. 
more or less apart, while other ditches of like arrange- 
ment intersect them at right angles; thus a plantation 
may be cut up with more or less regularity into small 
squares surrounded by ditches. Some plantations may 
be irregularly ditched, while others with a fair degree of 
watershed may not be ditched at all. The heavy rains 
round the banks of the ditch and its bottom, and a fringe 
of weeds and brush thick and thin in places string along 
the banks and make a fairly good shelter for the quail. 
On the squares are grown cotton, or corn, or nothing, as 
the case may be, though if not cultivated there is always 
certain to be a good crop of weeds. There is always 
plenty of quail food. When flushed in such places, the 
quail may fly a few yards to the first ditch, or may cross 
over two or three ditches before finding a place to its liking. 
As mentioned elsewhere, the state of the weather may 
greatly affect its habits. Then the bevy having gone to 
the ditch for safety, the dog to be useful must have great 
superiority in reading in the ditch or in the open. When 
in the ditch, the birds run swiftly along the bottom. It is 
almost impossible at first to induce the dog to go into the 
ditch, or being in it is impossible to make him remain 
therein, though it may not be over a foot deep and dry 
at that. He will cross out from one side to the other, 
missing the scent and accomplishing nothing useful. He 
does not know what is required of him. But once he 
catches the idea he soon improves on it, following care- 
fully along the bottom of the ditch and pointing the scat- 
tered birds here and there every few yards apart in ones 
and twos, the shooter having a good opportunity from his 
position on the outside to kUl as the birds whir out. The 
shooting is not so easy as one might imagine. Sometimes 
the birds run swiftly several hundred yards or more in 
the ditch and may then cut across to other ditches, giving 
work which may try the most experienced dogs in follow- 
ing the puzzling trail. If the birds happen to be near a 
cotton or corn field, where the ground is bare and no 
ditches for concealment, they may run so fast and far 
that the dog may never get near enough to them to secure 
a point, and the shooter who is inexperienced in this 
work will think that his dog is surely deceiving him. 
When near the woods or switch cane the birds often take 
shelter therein, and when in the latter it is well to give up 
further pursuit of them. 
In the sugar coimtry, where there may be cornfields 
here and there among the broad levels of the sugar cane, 
the character of the shooting again changes. Many birds 
will be found in and around the cornfields, and then it is 
very pretty shooting. It may not be amiss to mention, 
for the benefit of those who shoot about sugar cane fields 
for the first time, that they should keep their dogs out of 
such fields as much as possible. The cane in harvesting 
being cut diagonally across with a knife, the stump has 
an edge which wiU cut a dog's foot almost as a knife 
would, and it is a common matter for a dog to split his 
toes or heel if run in a sugar field, with the result of a 
crippled dog and no more work for the time being. 
Winter Shooting In the Souths 
In Mississippi in the midwinter season the birds stay in 
the woods mostly. Good shooting may be had in the 
S6uth from the middle of November to the first of March, 
though many of the Southern States have a much longer 
open season, but the dense cover and warm weather 
make a natural limitation to the sport. The weather is 
mild, the birds are strong and the sport is at its best in 
the winter months of the South. 
Guns for Quail Sliooting. 
Quail shooting is close shooting as to the ranges at 
which the birds are killed. Most birds are killed within 
25yd8., some much nearer than that distance. A gun 
weighing from 6^^ to T^lbs. is of ample weight, and the 
13-bore is most commonly used, though the 16 and 30- 
bores are excellent and preferred by many sportsmen, 
and of course the smaller bores may be much lighter than 
the 13-bore. The 16 and 20-bores being smaller, their kill- 
ing circle is less, though they shoot with quite as much 
force as the 13-bore. Closer holding is required to shoot 
them well. Whichever is used, the gun should be a 
cylinder. There is no need of a choke-bore in quail 
shooting. Some shooters use a .44cal. shotgun. 
It is an extremely difficult matter to induce the aver- 
age shooter to use a cylinder-bore gim. Its use seems to 
be construed as reflecting on his ability to shoot a close 
gun instead of being accepted as a matter concerning the 
gun fit for that particular kind of game. It requires time 
to effect a cure in the use of choke-bores in quail shoot- 
ing. One has to treat indulgently the emotional attacks, 
sentimental and practical, which appertain to shooting, 
from the romance of it which requires that the landscape 
be bathed in mellow sunlight, the prairie bespangled with 
flowers, the breezes laden with the fragrance of the wild 
woods, the -glories of nature coloring all, to the attacks 
in the practical details which require the closest of guns 
in shooting quail and woodcock, the heaviest of loads 
when the lightest are better and what common sense 
dictate, or that a point, be it ever so well done and so 
accurate withal, is sporting heresy unless made by a 
black, white and tan dog. The sportsman should go 
forth equipped for his sport according to its needs and 
not to the whimsicalities of senseless fashion. He should 
not take a full-choked gun in cover nor a cylinder-bore 
gun to shoot ducks. There should be intelligent adjust- 
ment of means to ends. Industry and skill and wood- 
craft should not be balked by inappropriate theories and 
weapons. 
The foregoing is written of the quail as it refers 
to man's pleasure afield with dog and gun. It 
naturally is not fearful of man and rather prefers to 
dwell near his haunts, not from an affection for him, but 
from the fact that near the cultivated sections there is 
always more food to be found than in the imcultivated. 
The matter of providing food for itself and its young is 
quite as constant and insistent in the life of the quail as it 
is in the life of man. 
It often nests close by the cultivated fields. Its cheery, 
ventriloquous whistle reiterating its favorite utterance 
"Bob White" may be heard about the farms here and 
there particularly m the morning hours, and the name 
"Bob White" has come into use to designate the bird it- 
self. Sometimes the call is uttered with a short intro- 
ductory note, and these, with a few alarm calls, or calls 
of inquiry when the birds have become scattered, seem to 
be about all the calls these birds have. 
In many parts of the South, where the birds are in 
greater abundance, their sweet notes may be heard in' 
many directions in the early morning and evening hours, 
and work great harm to it, for the shooter hears them 
and thereby learns of the whereabouts of all the birds in 
his neighborhood and "locates" the haimts of every bevy. 
In the fall the notes of the quail often serve to inform the 
sportsman as to the best course for the morning's hunt. 
In the South it is called "partridge." 
In the fall when the shooting opens the quail soon 
learns of its danger, and its habits thereupon change 
quickly to conform to a life of greater safety, comprom- 
ising on the dangers, the food supply and the thickets as 
places of refuge from danger, for the quail will run many 
risks to be near an abundance of food. However, when 
danger is impending it avoids the open much more than 
when danger is not, and is more alert, quicker to suspect 
mankind and quicker to take alarm. 
When spring returns the birds seem to lose their fears 
of man, and they breed with little reference to conceal- 
ment from him. Then: confidence is unimpaired till fall 
approaches, when there is a repetition of all the fears and 
troubles and dangers of the preceding years. 
He who can average three kills out of five shots is an 
excellent marksman. The shooter may make a run of 
ten or twenty straight kills, but there are soon sure to 
come misses if he does not pick his shots, and in winter 
the shooting is much more difficult than in the fall. Of 
course the man who never misses might do better, but 
the man who never misses is of the parlor and not of the 
field. , B. Watees. 
ARKANSAS GAME. 
Little Eock, Ark., Oct. 5.— One by one the bars of re- 
striction have been taken down, until now it is lawful to 
shoot all kinds of game in the State, with the exception 
of pinnated grouse, which are protected. 
Aug. 1 it became lawful to shoot deer, and from then 
until Feb. 1 deer may be hunted without restriction. 
Notwithstanding that opening day was an extremely hot 
one— the thermometer registering 103° in the shade— a 
number of parties were out. Encouraging reports con- 
cerning the deer come from all parts of the State, and 
though the weather has up to the present time been very 
unfavorable for hunting, quite a number of deer have 
been shot by local hunters, and our commission mer- 
chants have also received quite a number. Friday I saw 
a consignment of six that came from Winchester, Drew 
county, a little station on the Pine Bluff branch of the 
Iron Mountain road. 
Sept. 1 the opening season on turkey began, and f6r 
the next eight months a war of extermination will be 
waged on this noblest of game birds; a season entirely too 
long by three months. If the bird was only given a 
chance to mature he could manage very well to hold his 
own with the majority of hunters; in fact, better than 
any of our other game. With the exception of gobbling 
time in the spring it takes a skillful and crafty hunter to 
meet with anything like success when in quest of this 
bird. In gobbling time he who is well up in the art of 
calling will find it no difficult task to lure the then bent 
on love-making gobbler to destruction, and it is at this 
season of the year that most of our turkeys are shot. This 
bird, I am pleased to say, is reported in increased num- 
bers from all parts of the State, and not a few have 
already been shot, 
Oct. 1, the opening day on quail, dawned bright and 
clear, just as every shooter desired; but the breeze that 
had been blowing from the north was succeeded by a 
calm, and the sun shone down with a summer fierceness 
that soon took all the hunt out of man and dog, and also 
added to the difficulty of finding birds. For in such 
weather they only remain in the opening for a short time, 
going into the woods and thickets, where they remain 
until about 5 o'clock in the evening, when they again 
come out into the opening to feed and roost. This they 
continue to do diiring the hot days of early fall, but on 
cloudy days they generally are to be found in the open- 
ings all day, while later on in the season just the reverse 
is the case. For when the weather gets cold and it is clear 
they always seek the sunshine, while in cloudy weather 
they take to the woods or just skirt them. 
Though the conditions were altogether unfavorable to 
success, I could not resist the temptation to at least naake 
one effort for a quail supper. Having some six weeks 
previous found four coveys in a little pasture just below 
the city, I thought I would have no difficulty in bagging 
a half dozen, which was all I desired. A start was made 
at 7 o'clock, and when I arrived at my little pasture you 
can judge of my inward disgust when I found that some 
of my friends had already preceded me, and were work- 
ing over the field with their dogs, but without success. 
Not satisfied with their showing, I made my dog work 
carefully over the whole field again, and also the adjoin- 
ing woods, but all to no avail; several other fields were 
hunted over with like results, and while the dog several 
times showed signs of game nothing was found until 
about 10 o'clock, when he found two scattering birds in 
some high ragweeds. These proved to be very strong 
and entirely too swift for me, so I quit in disgust, as it 
now was very warm. I never saw so many shooters out 
as on this day, yet a careful inquiry failed to find any 
one who had met with anything like success; sixteen 
birds to two guns was the best bag I heard of, and that 
was the result of a hard day's hunt. Though the open 
season has just begun, the netter is already plying his 
vocation. 
To-day the sportsmen of the city were treated to the 
disgraceful spectacle of a whole bevy of quail being dis- 
played in a show window of one of our restaurants. That 
these birds were netted is beyond the shadow of a doubt, 
for in this season of plenty it would be next to impossible 
to catch them in a trap. The most aggravating part of 
the whole matter is that the sportsmen are powerless to 
take any action against it. Under our existing statute it 
is legal to trap quail on one's own premises, and further- 
more to shoot them at any season if in the act of destroy- 
ing fruit or grain. This perhaps was the transgression, 
these birds were guilty of ; very likely digging up the 
farmers' sweet potatoes. As the burden of proof is on 
the prosecutor, it is impossible to convict any one for 
trapping or netting quail, no matter where they are 
caught. 
Nor is this the only thing the sportsman has to contend 
with here. From all reports it is very evident that quail 
have been shot for a month or more past. Six weeks ago 
there were numbers of coveys to be found in the fields 
on the outskirts of the city, then nearly grown. Yet of 
aU of the coveys that had been located by the sportsmen 
at that time few were to be found on the 1st, and these 
only in broken and depleted number, while from their 
extreme wildness it was apparent that they had been 
hunted. To-day I was told by a gentleman whose integ- 
rity cannot be questioned, that on Sept. 26 he saw a man 
walk up one of our main streets, right in the heart of the 
business center, with five quail, which were displayed in 
full view. Yet no one had the courage to arrest him, and 
if any of the officers saw him they evidently did not 
understand or did not want to do their duty. What's 
everybody's duty is nobody's. Despite these discouraging 
circumstances I still believe this will be one of the best 
quail seasons we have had for a long time, though to get 
good shooting one will have to go to a less populated dis- 
trict. The vegetation is quite rank and there is plenty of 
cover, so that a fair estimate of our quail cannot be made 
until we have had several frosts, which will enable one to 
go thoroughly over the ground. This will likely not 
occur before November. 
The prospect for good duck shooting is not brilliant. 
Wood duck shooting in this vicinity has been a failure, 
and really so all over the State, with a few exceptions. 
The slaughter of this beautiful bird began as early as 
June, when the early brood was scarcely able to fly. It 
was at this time that the market hunters on the Sunk 
Lands in the northeastern part of the State, near Para- 
gould, Greene county, resumed operations, and this will - 
continue into May next year. Nothing like the usual 
bags were made here this year. Some of our local shoot- 
