464 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Dbo, 12, 1896. 
TOStilt Is obtained of tbeir live weight. I will add that T 
have ehot others whioh I judged to equal, if notexceed, 
the weights priven. I relate what hsppened a long while 
ago, and perhaps the species nowadays are hunted out 
ere they get their growth; or, as I think, the old ones are 
becoming too wary to show up in the open. . AUiEGASH, 
Linnsean Society of New Tork. 
At a meetinc of the Society the following papers were 
preBentrd: ''An Ornithological Recomaisspnce in Mex- 
-co," by Mr. Frank M. Chapman ; "The A Ifred MarshPlI Col- 
lection of Birds' Skins and Birds' Eggs." by Mr. L. S Fos- 
ter: "Remarks on the Ruby-crowned Kinglet," by Mr. E. 
I. Haines. 
^mjje md 0mh 
LETTERS OF SPORTSMEN FRIENDS. 
I.— From Jack In Saratoga, N. Y., to S. in 
Alma, Mich. 
Saratoga, N. Y., Nov. 8.— My Dear S.: It is raining 
to-day here, but J hope that a thousand miles away on 
the banks of the O'^dar the sun is shining brightly and 
the soft haze of an Indian summer fills all the landscape, 
and agreeable to promise I will put in an hour in p-iving 
you a little sketch of the '96 Tip to E^isex county. A" my 
last reported, t 8p«nt Oct 16 and 17 shooting near War- 
rensburgh with Mr. C ; the bag was thirty-one, of which 
twenty-two were woodcock and the balance grouse. 
The morning of the 19fch ult. dawned bright, clear and 
beautiful, with a crisp frostinesa in the air which made 
both us and the woodcock think of warmer climes. The 
setter Tick and the pointpr Pete wpre securely chained to 
the step"! pipes in the Adirondack Railroad baggage car, 
our dufiie piled up out of the way, and then with pipes 
alight we stowed ourselves away in the smoker and the 
'96 trip was on. 
Up we went through the valley where the great Hudson 
has its rise, watching the changine color on the mountain 
sides now splendid in rainbow tints of October; watching 
the bright, limpid water as it bubbled and gurgled over 
and around the rocks and boulders, glistening and gleam- 
ing in the warm sunshine; noting a deep pool here, swift 
swirl there, and wondering if a gamy black bass wasn't 
waiting for the "flowers that bloom in the spring," and 
the deceptive fly that comes dangling along about that 
time. And so we sp^d on; our aathmatic old pngine 
finally pulled us into North Creek on time, and the Doctor, 
dogs and I sought the hospitable door of the Adirondack 
Inn to regale the inner man and wait for the stage. A 
hearty dinner on my part and sundry dainty nibbhngs by 
the Doctor, another whiff before a blazing, old-fashioned 
fireplace, and at 3:80 the stage pulled up at the door and 
off we started over the old familiar road to the Powers 
mansion. We waved our hand to the big rock which 
marks the grave of a good dog, passed the bald, high hill, 
of which Fred tells his usual lie about the deer being 
driven over the sheer front by dogs, on through the glory 
of the mountains in October, and in two hours were say- 
ing "How d' do" to the Powers family. Then we got into 
our shooting togs as soon as possible and started for the 
little run down by the schoolhouse to pick up the two or 
three woodcock that always make it their abiding place. 
For the first time on record we drew it blank and got 
back to dinner at 6 P. M. with nothing but shells in our 
pockets. To eat and then to sleep was the programme. 
The Doctor was out first in the morning; he hadn't 
killed thirty odd birds within a few days, and hence his 
index finger itched mor-^ than mine. He went to the 
window and looked out; I watched him out of the corner 
of my eye, but gave no sign that I was not peacefully 
Bleeping, as the chill href zq of the early dawn gently and 
gracefully waved the skirts of his night robe. He drew 
aside the curtains and looked long and looked earnestly, 
and then looked again and groaned deep and loud and 
prolongpd. Then I asked him if it rained. And he re- 
plied with certain unnecessary embellishments that it 
snowed; and it kept on, and we were snowed in for the 
day. Toward evening it grew warmer, rained, and at 
night not a trace of snow was left, and the whole valley 
was bathed in a white mist as the moon rolled over the 
hills, and we retired, feeling confident we should pull 
triergera on the morrow. 
Next morning about 8 o'clock our old guide Fred dropped 
in ready for us, having one of his mountain-climbing 
trips planned, but was promptly vetoed, and I announced 
as the programme: "East Side, and woodcock." So we 
started down through the "Corners," across the bridge, 
and along the route you know so well, and "broke in" at 
a little clump of cedar, where you and I have shot (at) 
many a swift-flying grouse. As I went down into the 
brush, leaving the Doctor on the edge, I was startled by 
a sharp quit, quit, and up in my very face flushed a 
grouse. Both bird and man were rattled, but as he topped 
the brush I saw him at the end of my gun, and with the 
snap of the nitro he curled up, keeled over and bumped 
the earth, my bird. As the gun cracked another started, 
and I snapped the left at him, but missed; and out he 
went to Doctor and Fred. Bang! bangi bangl went their 
guns, and on, on, on went the bird to covers that we knew 
not of. A little further and Tick throws up his head and 
I>oint8 etanchly, and I see a woodcock flush a short dis- 
tance from the other dog. Hp flushes so lazily that I do 
not shoot, but watch him for 10yds., when he alights on 
the mud in plain sight of myself and Tick. The dog 
stirs not, but the cook runs behind a stump, and, disap- 
pearing, flushes wild unseen by me; but Fred, he of the 
eagle eye, has seen the sneak, and marks him down across 
the river. Down to the bridge we go, and up the other 
side. Tick, who is galloping ahead, stops so suddenly 
that he stands cross-legged, and as I step quickly in front 
of him out "boils" a grouse and starts straiorhtaway, but 
he goes not far before the gun cracks, his feathers drift 
on the lazy air, and directly I am shaking him by the 
legs, arranging his brown plumage before consigning 
him to the bat;. 
A little further and Tick stops, significant that the 
woodcock is in danger; and he is, for going quartering 
away I pick him out of the air with the secrnd barrel. 
Then where we go through the bars up to East Side I 
put two out to my companions, but they don't SBom to 
care much about killing feathered game anyway} and 
here we are at the place where onr guns cracked so often 
and merrilv four years ago; the spot where I misfied more 
woodcock in the shortest time in my sportiner history; the 
spot where Rowdy r^n amuck. How he did enjoy him- 
self that eveningi What cared he for the Doctor, labor- 
ing, sweating, yelling behind him; here wer^ birds galore 
and his nose was full of them, and if the Lord's willing 
and lightning don't strike him the air will soon be full of 
them ; and it was so. How he did nut them upt It gives 
me pleasure to shoot woodcock, but it would have given 
me more to have peppered the dog that day; and while T 
missed the cock right and left, I hf ve always felt confi- 
dent that I would not have missed Rowdy were the range 
never so long. 
But here we are again, and the plan of campaign i« 
quicVly laid to hunt the piece on parallel lines a hundred 
yards apart. Tick creeps and crawls through the entire 
pieco. but not a feather shows. I'm not satisfipid, although 
the Doctor says he hasn't seen a sign of a bird; I begin 
again on the edge, and in two minutes Tick is stiff. Take 
your time, gentlemen, the dog will not move: no rushing 
or chpiing by him. I look carefully ahead, and there 
about 30ft. away sits our long-billed friend. "I see hira." 
said I. "Shoot him," says Fred. "Not on your life." 
The Doctor ban put his gun to his shoulder d la trap. 
"None of that. Doctor; down with that gun." And he 
obeys. As the bird jumps and swings away on whistling 
wings, I make my usual break and shoot before the bird 
has reached his flying level and befrre I've really sighted 
him. pnd so I miss, and so does the Doctor; but in an in- 
stant I catch him over the left barrel and he wilts in mid 
air 
We stopped right there and I reminded the Doctor that 
his dog had passed wi^hii 30ft. of the bird; that when 
you hunt cofjk you must, d la Pettit. "pound the ground," 
get yourself or dog into every likely corner, and wound 
up the lecture bv aseertine my belief that there were 
more birds awaiting the diligent hunter in that same 
cover; and there were, for we started six more and 
bagged them all before 11 o'clock. Then the rain took an 
inning and we crpwied under a bridge to "wT.it till the 
clouds roll by." We waited and waited, but finally erave 
it up and started slowly toward the "mansion," working 
likely edges as we went along, and picked up two more 
grouse before reaching that hospitable shelter. And so 
ended the first day. You have my postals stating later 
results. 
It always did me good to see the Doctor kill a grouse 
and watch the race between him and Pete to see which 
would have the first bite. His dog was fairly stanch on 
point, but an inveterate shot breaker. At the crack of 
the gun the dog immediately "lit out" in the direction of 
the bird; if it was killed and the dog preceded the Doctor 
to the remains the bird was hash instanter. So when the 
Doctor shot and killed he immediatelv dropped his gun 
and had a "free-for-all" race, with Pete usually in the 
lead and the air ringing witli shouts of "Here, Pete, 
Pete," which would have a tendency to slow him up, but 
never so as to give the Doctor a clear lead. Even now I 
wake up in the right and laugh at the recollection. If 
his gun cracked I could always tell the result by the noise, 
and knew the race was on. Tick is tireless, steady and 
stanch, and goes at woodcock like an old hand, I don't 
think your Tony is any better. Enough for this time. 
More anon. Jack. 
11.— From S. in Alma, IVIIcli., to Jacic in 
Saratoga, N. Y. 
Alma, Mich. , Nov. 16. — Dear Jack : I have read your long 
and very gratifying letter relating the course of the hunt 
and the details of the hag for one day in the old familiar 
glades and swales of Essex; and I assure you it brought 
back the familiar scenes vividly to mind and I could fol- 
low your track like that of a rabbit in the snow. I pic- 
ture to myself the start in at the cedars, the whir of the 
grouse that bit the dust at the crack of the gun; the 
woodcock flitting across the river, onlv to be followed 
and brought to bag; and then the crawling through the 
hars when you go up to the East Side woodcock covers. 
Yes, I remember that day four years ago, when I thought 
Lexington or Waterloo was on again; when it was a 
question which scared the most cock, the guns ot- Rowdy, 
for neither one hurt them much. There I lay on an old 
fallen tree while the fun was fast and furious, until, un- 
able to stand it longer, I dragged my weary limbs up the 
height and finally reached the scene of action in time to 
be told that the birds had probably all been driven into 
the next county. Lucky I was not there that soft autumn 
evening, for Fred would have had more birds to carry in 
than he was accustomed tol 
I will try and give you a little bit of our experience 
the only day the sun came out while I was shooting. 
Cedar Lpke is about twenty miles west of Alma on the D. 
L. & N. Ry,, not a regular station, but trains stop when 
flagged. I knew one Nelson who used to do a rushing 
business there when lumbering was at its height in this 
and neighboring counties; he made a lot of money, but, as 
is sometimes the case, he indorsed very freely for 
others, and one morning woke up to find that, instead of 
being worth an hundred thousand, he was nearly if not 
quite on bis uppers. Out of the wreck he saved 1,000 
acres of stump lands, two or three store buildings, barns, 
etc., on which Mr. Wright holds a mortgage, and which 
we are now foreclosing; but we all hope he will save 300 
or 300 acres with his stores, bams, etc., so as to have 
enough to grub a living from the rest of his days. He 
lives upstairs over a store in one of the buildings, and has 
plenty of room, there being a parlor, sitting room, dininer 
room, kitchen and four bedrooms. I had a bedroom off 
the sitting room, and as his furniture is the remains of 
Frosperous days, Sharp was as "pnug as a bug in a rug," 
had a big vacant room down stall's, with a stove in it, 
in which I kept the dogs, cleaned the guns, strung up the 
birds, and did the hundred and one little things incident 
to a shooting trip which one doesn't like to take into the 
living rooms of a cultured family, 
The place appears to be called Cedar Lake because 
there are no cedars around what once might have been a 
lake, but is now reduced to a mere pond not over ten 
acres in extent. But there are some rare good shooting 
grounds about there, and from their nature and extent 
will be practically inexhaustible if the dose season is ob- 
served. There are rniles of such half-dry swamps as you 
occapionally run across in Essex, and scrub oak uplands 
■&B far as the eye can reach. If we had enjoyed such 
weather as yesterday and to-dajj I should have had a very 
different report to make of the trip. As it is, I'm glad 
you didn't come, for without good weather an outing ia 
only half an»outing. 
There was one day I would have given all my old shoes 
to have had you along with your trigger finger in line, 
but aside from that day the birds lay humped up in dense 
cover or lay perdu under old roots and logs. It was a 
lowering morning when we started about 9 o'clock and 
struck into a piece of swampy woods a quarter mile from 
our stopping place. Soon Belze made game and' directly 
was pointing stanchly toward an old tree top lying in tall, 
rank swamn grass, the ideal place for grouse on a cloudy 
morning. I stepped in ahead and away went a bird, but 
not a fair phot; away went another and I threw away an 
ounce of No, Ss, and at the crack of the gun up jumped 
two more from the opposite side, but at a distance of 
40yd8. they swung into view ard I laid the gun on the 
tail of one and he wilted like a flower in the frost; as I 
was slipping in shells off whirred two more and I gave 
them a salute at long range, but not with fatal effect. 
Then both Belze and I woke up to the fact that such 
rhances are not lying around for anything with a gun to 
find, and realized that our nerves were at high tension. 
By this time Knapp swung around with Tony, but the 
game was all awing and none left for his deliberate but 
deadly fire, It had rained the night before, and as the 
birds had flown toward the wet part of the swamp we 
concluded to swing on out into the open side hill adjoin- 
ing and see if the quail were breakfasting. Tony was 
sent out to scour the field, while I kept Belze at my heel 
with some difficulty. I was just about to start down 
along the edge of the swamp when I noticed Tony stop 
STiddenly, turn half around with a step or two and stop. 
He was a>"^ut as far from us as the D. & H. station is 
from the Worden, but he held his point, stanchly while 
we came up and walked ifi ahead, Belze in the meantime 
backing in good style, Up go the bevy of quail and I 
drop one. while for a wonder Knapp misses clean. 
We follow them back to the edge of the swamp, but at 
the sound of our approach up they jump without waiting 
for the dogs to stand them, and make off for the swamp. 
Knapo drops one, and at long range I drop another. I 
pee him tumble into some alders, and go to pick him up. 
Belze whisks around a minute or two and then points him . 
Just as I stoop to pick him up he darts from under my 
hand and runs faster than you would think poesible, and 
dives into a hole under a half-decayed stump. We rip up 
a root of it, but cannot stir the main portion; and although 
both dogs have to be palled away, we have to pull our- 
selves away and leave the little Robert to eke out a flight- 
leas existence. Passing on. we come to a lad cutting up 
a tree at the edge of a cornfield, and ask him if there are 
any birds thereabouts? He replies, "Haven't seen any 
this year." However, within a gunshot of where he is 
working we find another bevy, which flush wild and 
pitch into the swamp. I note where they stop, and find 
them again in some willows; just the ideal place for wood- 
cock if it were not so late. As they rise wild I get in both 
barrels: one at random with the usual result, but the 
other held well on an outlying single that flushes after 
the rest and he falls almost at Knapp's feet. They have 
gone now where only a bird can go, and so we pass on to 
an old logging road and start in after ruffed grouse. We 
haven't gone far before both dogs make game, and draw 
up side by side. Ah, Jack, old boy! An' you should have 
seen th^m then I Tony with his head thrown up to a high' 
point, Belze half crouching and rigid in true pointer style, 
and a blanket would have covered them both. 
The picture was so admirable that for the moment we 
forgot the birds, till a rush and a whir as two grouse went 
away through the trees brought us to a sense of duty. 
Knapp miss°d, but I had a more open shot and scored a- 
clean kill. Another bird flushed out of sight, and directly 
another tried to top a little second-growth pine, but just 
as his barred breast showed plainly against the living: 
green my gun cracked, and down he came. Going for- 
ward to pick him up, he proved to be only wing-tipped,, 
and there he strutted away with wings drooping and taiB 
spread for all the world like a turkey cock. It was a 
picture that I lingered to enjoy, the dog all the time 
trembling from stem to stern, his jaws closing convul- 
sively, until finally I told him to fetch, which he did in 
good style, although the bu-d would have run off again 
had I not taken him from the dog's mouth before he 
dropped him. , ■, j. ■,. 
It was now about noon, and so we concluded to discuss 
lunch. Now comes a wrinkle worth noting, and which 
we never enjoyed in the Adirondacks. A fire is built 
sheltered from the wind, and as soon as the bed of coals 
begins to form we out sticks about 6ft. long, and putting 
our buttered bread on the forked end toast it to the 
queen's taste. Knapp has already dressed a couple of 
quail, and they are soon basting and broiling on a spit, 
and there you have quail on toast, hot and savory, m 
the deep of the woods at a time when salt.horse would be 
savory; and of course the birds were simply de- 
licious. No more cold snacks for me. On a crisp, 
cool day, with an appetite to match, you have no 
idea how grateful to an empty stomach i3 a piece of 
hot toast and a steaming bird. Occasionally we 
would shoot a rabbit and roast him on the spit, i. e., hm 
hind' quarters, for the noontide repast In addition to the 
epicurean feature it well repays in recuperation and the 
zest with which one takes up the afternoon shooting, to 
have a good rest at the middle of the day and a ten-mm - 
ute snooze in the sunshine on a full stomach. One day I 
heard the whistle of wings so familiar when woodcocks 
spring, and dirpctly Belze was standing prettily beside a 
little stream. Up went Mr, Bird and up went the gun, 
and down he came. I made him grace the piec» of toast 
at noontime, and a bird never tasted better. Take my 
advice, old friend, and hereafter don't gobble or gulp 
down a few mouthfuls of cold bread and meat at noon 
and then haste on to the hunt. The bag will be heavier 
and you will enjoy grassing them much more if you duph- 
cate the above-mentioned delightful experience. 
I was leisurely picking a bird bone, with my back against 
p, log, when a white weasel scurried along a log about 
30ft. distant and was lost in the forest. These little fel- 
lows are very rare and bring a high price, but we con- 
cluded to let him scurry. Knapp then picked up his gun 
and said : "While you are picking your teeth 1 11 go back 
into the woods a piece and swing around to you again in 
a few minutes " As I sat there enjoying the sunshine, so 
rare in those days, I heard his gun crack; he called out 
"Markl" and grasping mv gim, I saw a grouse with wings 
set sailing toward me. She was just touching the tojp of 
