Mabch 6, 1897.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
185 
gmqe §iiq md §nm 
A BIT OF GOOD COVER. 
Given a bright, beautiful morning in late October, a fair 
retriever and plenty of time to accept the invitation that 
smiling nature held out^ and a sportsman ought to have 
been happy. This waa my opportunity in October, 1896, 
and I proceeded to improve the situation. I had looked 
in vain for cock in some favorite haunts, and had about 
abandoned hope of finding any until the fall tiight, which 
in this locality, the Western Keserve, Ohio, does not usu- 
ally take place until about Nov. 1, It was Nov. 3, 1 think, 
when T shot the first flight birds in '96. I had in mind a 
rough bit of second growth, perhaps eight acres in extent, 
where I had shot quail late in the season, but never had 
visited it early enough for woodcock. This ground was 
about three miles from the house, so I went up by way of 
the river bank, thinking I might pot up a stray duck, in 
which surmise I was disappointed, however. Occasion- 
ally a gray coat could be heard barking in the tall oaks, 
but I was not out for squirrels that day and did not molest 
them. 
After about an hour's tramp the ground was reached, 
and I thought my pointer Ace looked ruefully at me after 
surveying the almost impenetrable thickets of scrub oak 
and blackberry bushes, several feet higherthan one's head. 
In fact it was about the toughest cover I ever tried to hunt, 
and especially tough for a short-haired pointer. The long 
bushes had a very frequent and loving way of twining 
themselves about my neck at critical moments or leaving 
a bloody trail across my ungloved right hand. About two 
minutes after striking the cover Ace had a point, and as I 
urged him on a grouse rose clucking and perched on a limb 
over my head. I watched her a few moments, then flushed 
and was compelled to watch her go away unharmed (as 
the Ohio law of '96, while not prohibiting the shooting of 
grouse at this time, did forbid their possession before Nov. 
10), We (Ace and I) then worked down the west side, 
where the ground seemed moist and suitable for cock, but 
not a bird did we find here. We then tuT'ned back and 
went up on the slope, where the ground was as hard and 
dry as a bone. This seemed to promise better, however, 
for Ace soon had a point in the thick bushes. I tried to 
urge him on to flush, but he would not budge, and I had 
I to smash into the tangle myself, flushing a pair of cocks 
that went out on the other side unseen. I had their gen- 
eral direction, however, and soon had one in mj'^ pocket, 
but his companion gave las a longer chase. I finally flushed 
him from a brush heap covered with bushes and he joined 
his companion in my coat. 
The next bird went out up the further side of a thicket 
without giving opportunity for a start. I marked him 
down in some ferns in short brush, and it was an easy mat- 
ter to add him to the bag. I then called the dog and went 
over to the east side, where the brush was thicker if pos- 
sible, but briers were less numerous. Ace soon discovered 
a taint in the air that interested him, and after roadinc 
some distance stiffened to a point. On walking in ahead 
of him a large bevy of half-grown quail rose, flying but a 
short distance, however. I let him work up a few singles 
to see if he possessed his good quail nose still, but he 
seemed thoroughly disgusted with me for not improving 
the many chances to break the law. After having our fun 
with the quail we started for the low fence running east 
and west and dividing the patch in two parts. Before 
reaching it I bagged another bird which rose wild and 
tried to get away over the tops of the trees. After crossing 
the fence we worked without reward for some time. I was 
following down the side of a small swale, keeping Ace on 
the other side. Einally I flushed a wild bird on my side, 
which went on ahead and crossed the swale, where I 
thought I marked him down in a jungle, I should call it. 
This was one of the worst places "in the cover, and about 
the only way I could get through was to hold my gun above 
my head and push my way through like a snow plow in a 
drift. There was no such thing possible as a cautious ap- 
proach, and I soon saw a brown body in the air, hustling 
for the woods on the west side. I did not "raise my gun," 
but lowered it from above my head and pulled both bar- 
rels in quick succession, but seemed to accomplish nothing 
but to accelerate the speed of the bird, which I watched 
out. of sight. This I thought was the bird previously 
marked down, but it proved not to be, for I had taken but 
a few steps (or pushes) when the bird rose within easy 
shot and was gathered with his friends. I then coaxed 
Ace into the bushes and got out where I could see a little 
better, soon walking up a bird which gave me a straight- 
away shot which was duly improved. Just as this bird 
fell, another flushed by Ace attempted to cross in front of 
me, but was stopped with the remaining shell. In trying 
to mark down both birds as they fell I was a little uncer- 
tain of either, and they gave us a weary hunt before both 
were located. Ace did his best, but it is hard for a pointer 
to work in briers that a rhinoceros would shun. This 
seemed to be the end of birds in this vicinity, and as I was 
due at home at an early hour that day, concluded to take a 
look for ttie bird that escaped and then strike for home. 
The search was unsuccessful and I was soon homeward 
bound, promising myself an early return. 
A few days later this promise was fulfilled, and we 
started in on the east side this time, getting a point on a 
pair of grouse almost as soon as we reached the grounds. I 
was obliged to let them fly away unharmed, but promised 
them my attention later in the season. Ace worked the 
ground thoroughly for a long time with no sign of birds 
when finally I heard the tamiliar whistle behind me and 
turned to see a cock heading for the fence and giving me a 
good cross shot. I swung in a little ahead of him and at 
the crack of the gun saw the top of a small tree topple over 
and thought the bird was lost. I was happily disappointed 
however, as Ace soon came trotting out with the bii'd. ' 
This reminds me of a day with grouse this fall, when I 
did not get the bird, or rather birds. I started' in with 
three shots at grouse, and each time cut oft' a small tree in 
line with the birds, and they all got away. But that is 
another story. This solitary bird was all we could raise 
on the north Bide of the farm, so we crossed, and soon Ace 
had a point in the thickest kind of a brier patch. I tried 
to make him flush the bu-d, but he was immovable, and I 
had to crawl in ahead of him. The bh-d rose right at my 
feet and went back over my head too close to shoot even 
if I carried one of those 20in. "bell-muzzles" which' seem 
growing in favor with meat hunters of late. There was no 
such thing as marking down a bii'd in this cover, but I fol- 
lowed the direction of his flight. He rose wild the next 
time, and I scored a clean miss, but bagged him when he 
rose again. I put up another while going back where this 
one started, and bagged him with the second barrel. We 
found another up the swale that cunningly waited until I 
had passed him and then tried liard to get awa}"" behind 
me, but was a little too slow in his movements. Soon after 
Ace flushed one in some ferus at my right. I dropped him, 
but needed the second barrel to do it. He was only wing- 
tipped and fell in a villainous patch of briers, where, after 
a long, unsuccessful search, we wei-e obliged to leave him. 
I secured one more down in the woods, and then think- 
ing the ground all worked over, started for home. The 
only neglected spot was in the N.E. corner, and cover 
there was so light it did not seem thick enough to hide a 
quail. We swung around that way, however, on our way 
out, and were rewarded by bagging three woodcock in 
about as many minutes. This made eight this day, and 
seven the day before, which with the one lost was a total of 
sixteen for small cover of seven or eight acres. This may 
not be many when cock are thick, but was the best patch 
I had found in many moons. 
Why cannot we have a little more grouse and cock shoot- 
ing in our favorite paper, Foeest and Stream? Rise up, 
brother sportsmen, and give us your experience. 
Adikondack. 
CAN HOWL TO FOOL A WOLF AND 
A WOMAN. 
Washington State, January 2*7.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: While mining on the Clearwater in 1868, one Sun- 
day morning about the first of May I took my revolver and 
went over to the cabin of my partners, and proposed to go 
up on to tbe hills and kill some grouse. They got their re- 
volvers and we started. 
Here the blue grouse come every spring to raise their 
young, and as they were so plentiful, we did aot consider 
that spring shooting was so bad as we do now. 
While going up the hiU we saw where a very big wolf 
had gone along very recently, and it bad kept in the trail 
until we came to where the trail forked. It had taken the 
trail leading up the river. We stopped for a few minutes, 
and while we were standing there speculating on what the 
wolf could be doing there that time of the year we were 
startled by its howling. It was not very far away. I shall 
not attempt to describe the feehngs of other people, but 
when that dismal wail broke out it made me shiver from 
head lo foot. When the echo had died away I mocked it, 
and the echo of my howl had not ceased before the wolf 
answered me, this time with renewed vigor. Then I again 
answered it. 
I said to the boys that if we would wait here a little while 
the wolf would come. They ridiculed the idea, and we 
started up the ridge after grouse. Soon I flushed one, 
which went up into a big fir, and we were trying to locate 
it when we were startled by the wolf's howling back to our 
left. It had come to find its mate. We ran up on to a 
small mound and sat down, and I howled— but low, fearing 
that the wolf might be able to detect the fraud. This time 
it did not answer, but in a few minutes we saw it coming, 
trotting through the small brush on the ridge. It came to 
where there was an old pine lying on the ground with the 
limbs rotted off, jumped on to the top and trotted down to 
near the root, and stopped and looked toward us. It had 
hardly come to a stand when I shot at it, and at the crack 
of my revolver it tumbled off from the log. We ran up to 
where it was, and as soon as it found it could not get away 
it sulked, wolf like. The boys finished it with their revol- 
vers. We took the skin, and although it was not fiist-rate 
it would make a tolerably fair rug. On cutting the wolf 
open, we found several large pieces of venison that showed 
but little signs of digestion. 
About a year after that time, going from Mount Idaho one 
iDorning, I had gone but a short distance when I saw where 
a very big wolf had come into the trail and had kept down 
the way I had to go for about a mile, then it had gone down 
into the fir thicket at the head of the canon. Here my trail 
kept to the left, and when I got around halfway of the 
thicket I stopped my cavuse and howled, just to see if I 
could get an answer. The echo had not died away before 
the answer came, and such a howl! While I knew I was 
perfectly safe, there was that same feeling of dread that 
always passes through my frame whenever I hear a wolf 
howl, no matter where I am, and I started on and had- come 
out on to the ridge in the open timber and was intendino- to 
howl again when I reached the divide; but just before I^'o-ot 
to the divide my horse threw his head around and looked 
back, I stopped him, and turning around in the saddle I 
saw a very big gray wolf not more than 150yds. behind me 
When I stopped it stopped too. 
I started on; then it gave a howl, and I answered it rather 
-low. On looking around I saw it coming, but it was very 
suspicious. Down on my trafl there was a small branch to 
cross, and if I could get the wolf to follow me as far as that 
I could get close enough to shoot with a certainty of killing 
it. Every little while it would howl and I would answer it 
low. When I came to cross the branch it was about 300yds 
behind me. When I got out of the brush and just over the 
turn of the hill I jumped off and ran back to within about 
20yds. of where the trail came up out of the brush, and to 
one side, and here I sat down and waited. I did not have 
very long to wait when the wolf came out of the brush and 
stopped and looked ahead in the direction the trail went 
I had my revolver ready, and it Had hardly come to a 
stand when I fired. At the crack of the revolver it fell 
tried to rise, but could not, I had shot it through the heart' 
I ran up and shot it through the head, and then went back 
and brought my horse and skinned the wolf. 
One day a short time after this, when I had gone after our 
express, a big wolf came on to the opposite side of the river 
near the house and howled. The boys thought it was I and 
called to me to come on, that I could not fool them ' My 
wife said she knew that was a wolf. Her brother-in law 
asked her if she had ever heard Lew call a wolf "No " 
said she. ''Then," said he, "you can't tell." After dinner 
the boys went to work, and they saw where a big wolf had 
been along on the ditch; so when they came over that night 
she laughed at them about my howhng. When I came home 
she told me that she knew it was a wolf. A few days after 
that, while up on the ditch, I gave two howls just to see if 
she really could teU the difference. When we came over to 
our dmner the women wanted to know if we had heard the 
wolf howhng up on the hill. I asked my wife if it was 
really a wolf. "Yes, indeed it was," said she "Then" 
said I, "madam, you cannot tell the voice of the bio- yfon 
from that of Lew Wilmot. " 
FOR SUNDAY'S DINNER. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
After numbers of sportsmen have read in your good paper 
so many stories about hunters getting big game, such as 
moose, bears and deer, and of others getting big bags of 
quail, partridges, ducks and geese, an account of such a lit- 
tle event as a squirrel shoot must seem to them rather small 
potatoes; yet still there may be some who, like myself, don't 
often have a chance to get a whack at anything big in the 
line of game, that might be a trifle interested in an account 
of a New Jersey squirrel hunt, so for such I have written 
up the following: 
One warm, still day in the latter part of last November I 
shouldered my rifle and struck off out west of Asbury Park 
some four miles distant and came to a big tract of swampy 
land covered with a heavy growth of pines, with a few 
large chestnut and oak trees scattered among them. 
Not seeing any signs of squirrels there, I kept on through 
the woods about half a mile further and came to a shght 
knoll in the swamp heavily timbered with oak, chestnut and 
a few hickories, the knoll surrounded with many large gum 
trees with considerable underbrush among them; a good 
place for grays, thought I. While stealthily going along, all 
at once I heard one jumping among the leaves and soon saw 
it as it ran up the trunk of a big tree and stopped 6 or 8ft. 
from the ground. 
Taking deliberate aim, I made a good shot and it dropped. 
Before I had time to gather the game, I heard the hmbs rat- 
tie up in a tree at quite a distance away and saw another 
squirrel among the branches, running for all it was worth. 
Taking a shot at it, I made a clean miss. Then going on, I 
came to two bed trees standing some distance apart. Taking 
a position among the bushes so as to watch both trees, I 
waited perhaps twenty minutes or so, when all at once three 
big fellows put in an appearance on a gum tree about lOOyds. 
away— too far for me to be sure of a hit; so I waited a little 
while longer, thinking that perhaps at least one of them 
might come near enough so that I could bag him. Just then 
out came a big fellow from one of the holes I was watching 
and sat on a limb, making a splendid mark against the blue 
sky. It was a lovely shot, being just about the right dis- 
tance away, and one that I was not long in taking. Having 
neatly dropped that squirrel and put it in my pocket with 
the other, I took a look after the three, but of course found 
them missing. Then I sat down behind a big tree at a good 
shooting distance from where they were seen and waited a 
half hour or so, when on looking from behind my tree I saw 
one running on a limb of the gum. Carefully bringing my 
rifle to bear on him, I waited until the squirrel just stopped 
a moment, then pulled trigger and he tumbled, and he 
proved to be by far the largest one that I ever saw. 
Having now three squirrels, all big fellows, enough for a 
first-class stew for Sunday's dinner, I concluded to put in a 
little time tramping through the woods, and if possible 
locating some other bed trees and places where the grays 
would most likely be found, so as to know where to strike 
for should I go in that vicinity on another hunt. 
After stroUing around for a while I found another place 
that looked rather promising; so seating myself on a partly 
decayed log, 1 watched and waited for a few moments, when 
along the ground came a squirrel and began to dig among the 
leaves at about the right distance for another splendid shot, 
which I deliberately took and got the game, thus raaking 
four big ones gotten with five shots. With the game in the 
pockets of my hunting coat, I started for home, and arrived 
there before night— in time to dress the game for Sunday's 
dinner — after having run the gauntlet of guying from my 
acquaintances, just the same way that nearly every hunter 
does while coming home and carrying game through a 
thickly settled place, something like this: "Lyon, how much 
did you give apiece for them squirrels?" "Say, which mar- 
ket did you buy them at?" "Did somebody give them to 
you or did you find them dead?" "Have they many more 
where you bought them?" and such like. Fellow hunters, 
we have all been there. On arriving home 1 felt as well 
pleased as if I had shot a much larger number. 
By the way, my squirrel rifle is a Winchester single shot, 
No. 3, weighing S^lbs., .33ca]., rim-fire, long, with knife- 
blade and buckhorn or Eocky Mountain sights. I like a 
heavy rifle much better than a light one— seems as if one can 
hold it much steadier. The .33cal. is large enough for small 
game like squirrels at oven quite a long distance away, be- 
sides, the ball doesn't tear the game like one of a larger 
caliber. I have also another rifle of the same pattern for 
target shooting, having Lyman sights, and takes a much 
larger cartridge. a. L. L, 
Rhode Island Ducking. 
Providenob, K. I., Feb. 22.— Editor Forest and Stream: 
Samuel Hollaway, of Wakefield, caught a black bass in 
Worden's Lake through the ice last Wednesday that weighed 
511 bs. 
According to the annual report of the Park Commissioners 
of this city, there have been presented to the menagerie at 
Koger Williams Park during 1896 one American white rab- 
bit, four opossums, one steel-gray pony, one black goat, and 
a pair of moose. The last-named animals were captured in 
their native wilds. 
Last Thursday Judge Bliss, Senator David S, Ray and 
Henry J. Pickersgill, of East Providence, went to the reser- 
voir in Swansea to fish for pickerel, and succeeded in cap- 
turing but eight, but they were very large. Recently in the 
same pond Leon Donance, of East Providence, captured six 
pickerel which weighed 191bs. 
Capt. George H. Covo and Solomon H. Tyler, of Warren, 
made a successful duck-hunting trip to Rumstick Point 
Thursday morning and secured a large bag of black ducks. 
Capt. Covo employs live decoys, which he secures to the 
rocks by a string about loft, in length, which aflows- them 
to swim about the rock. The decoys, by thek lively quack- 
ing and constant motions in and out of the water, attract the 
wild birds, which are shot from a boat on the shore covered 
with white canvas, resembling the snow-covered shore. 
Thursday morning an event occurred which is seldom expe- 
rienced by a sportsman. Tyler had just tethered a decoy to 
the rock on the Point when a live diick alighted on the rock 
by his side, so close that he could have killed it with a club, 
and then deliberately waddled down the side of the rock and 
was slowly swimming away when it was shot by Capt. Covo. 
Hundreds of the birds passed the Point Thursday morninc-- 
from all directions, attracted by the loud and constant quack" 
ing of the decoys, which are necessary aids in the prosecu- 
tion of the sport. The decoys espy the wild bhds a long 
distance off, and attract them by a continuous and vocifer- 
ous quacking, seemhigly knowing the object of their work. 
W, H. M. 
