Oct. 22, 1898.] 
loubtless from the English translation, which appeared 
ri 1509, with this charming prefix: 
THE BOOKES REQUEST. 
Reede over, then judge. 
Condemne not before: 
With judgment just reject, 
Or els imbrace my lore, 
Mine Author was the first 
And last, as I suppose, 
That we did assay 
These secrets to disclose, 
If ought be wrought awry, 
And seeme to thee unsounde, 
With penne I pray amende. 
And not with tongue confounde. 
Florida Turtle Eggs. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
I doubt if there is a State in the Union where every- 
hing in the shape of bird and beast is being so rapidly 
:xterminated, regardless of common sense or common 
riterests, as in Florida. Nearly every beautiful bird has 
jone, and new the turtle is following in their wake. 
There is scarcely a foot of the Florida coast that is not 
patroled nightly as long as the season lasts. Some of 
:he eggs were sent to me once, and I tried to eat them, 
tat I'd get very hungry before I'd try it again. Unless 
:he law steps in to stop this stupid war of extermination 
ilhere will soon be an end of the turtle trade; but that 
good result is hardly to be expected, for the average 
Florida legislator is about as inconsiderate as the bird 
md animal life, exterminators. 
The turtles in question weigh hundreds of pounds, and 
vhat is taken from one nest would, if left to mature, feed 
\ft army for a week; but between the bears and the 
ither fellows, these inoffensive mammoths, like their 
friends, the manatee, seem to have a limited future in 
Florida. Dipymus. 
St Augustine. 
mii# Ifag mti %nn. 
Proprietors of fishing and hunting resorts will find it profitable. 
Ilo advertise them in Forest and Stream. 
The "Briefs" Pictures. 
The illustrations in the current edition of Game Laws in Brief, 
Mr. Charles Hallock says, well represent America's wilderness 
.■-•ports. The Brief gives all the laws of the United States and 
Canada for the practical guidance of anglers and shooters. As 
an auth*rity, it has a long record of unassailed and unassailable 
accuracy. Forest and Stream Pub. Co. sends it postpaid for 25 
cents, or your dealer will supply you. 
Hunting on the Mermenteau. 
A Louisiana Outing. 
Bob and I left Chicago Saturday morning, Feb. 26, at 
an early hour, bound for the Crescent City, where we 
had planned to meet Jack on the following morning at 
the St. Charles Hotel. We awoke early Sunday morn- 
ing to find our train speeding along through a semi- 
tropical country, less than fifty miles from New Orleans. 
We met "our Jack" as per appointment, and immediate- 
ly planned to turn our backs on civilization. Our des- 
tination was among the fields and marshes of Vermillian 
Parish. We reached Jennings at an unearthly hour in 
the morning, and after a three miles' drive over rivers 
and swamps, the water in the roads frequently submerg- 
ing the hubs of our wagon, we landed at Lake Arthur, 
La., and were received by our kindly host, Mr. W. D. 
Reeves. 
After half -a day's rest and recuperation, we took a 
whirl at the quail and snipe around the hotel over a trio 
of pointers under the guidance of Mr. A. S. Pinney, to 
whom I had a letter, and with whom Jack was well 
acquainted. Allow me to take my hat off and throw a 
few bouquets to this self-same Pinney — as true-hearted 
and considerate guide as ever graced a wilderness, and 
as faithful, industrious and generous natured hunter as 
ever built a blind or bagged a bird. We called him the' 
Captain after the first day or two out with him, 
adopting the sobriquet given him by the native Creoles 
and Cadians, and he proved more than worthy of the 
title. 
That afternoon we shot ten or a dozen quail and a 
few snipe, and "the next day it rained," but we started 
out again next morning. After an hour's trot over the 
fields, we had to pile out of the wagon and send back 
after a fresh horse, our plan being to take a short cut 
to a crossroad to the north, where our driver was to 
meet us. While taking the short cut, which turned out 
to be the longest way 'round, four kildeers got up a 
little in front of me, and I made a double on two of 
them, and the other two circled around to the place of 
beginning, where out of compassion I shot them also, 
much to the disgust of the other boys, who were all 
counting on a shot at them. I was accused of "hog- 
oishness," "monopoly," "kildeer slaughter" and divers 
other crimes and misdemeanors, but as up to that time 
we had bagged no game, we left it go at that, and started 
over toward the designated rendezvous. 
We finally reached the team, and after a hearty lunch, 
eaten while we rode, we came to some quail ground and 
put the dogs out, getting up several coveys, out of which 
we' cleaned up fifteen or twenty birds, "wiping each 
other's eyes" occasionally, but each fellow getting a fair 
killing. We next struck a field of wet ground where a 
Cadian (French Creole) told us there were "plenty 
"kosh kosh' " (jacksnipe). We found them wild as 
hawks, but brought back four or five apiece to the 
wagon. So ended the second chapter. 
That evening we laid our wires to engage Capt. Dyer's 
steam launch, reported to be seaworthy, with a comfort- 
able cabin and modern appliances left out. We bought a 
week's provisions, including canned stuff and staples, 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
fresh eggs and vegetables. Capt. Pinney's good wife 
volunteered to make us plenty of fresh bread and a 
supply of doughnuts, "the kind mother used to make"; 
and we arranged for a trip down the Mermenteau River 
through Grand Lake, White Lake, Mud Lake and thence 
to the Gulf of Mexico. 
Four merry hearts throbbed joyously and exultantly 
under as many corduroy vests as we put off from the 
dock one morning, and for three hours we glided over 
the surface of the pellucid Mermenteau through a 
wonderland of moss-hung china oaks, palm trees and cac- 
tus growths, wooded islands, grassy bayous and orange 
groves, emerging into Grand Lake and thence to Shell 
Beach, the island home of John David, a genuine Creole, 
whom we found on shore to greet us — a veritable Robin- 
son Crusoe, with the man Friday left out. We stopped 
over night with David, Jack and I shooting plenty 
"kosh kosh" and supplying a fine breakfast for the 
crowd the next morning. In the course of our investi- 
gations we came across a considerable number of relics 
of Indian pottery and an old Indian grave. 
We started at about 9 o'clock in the morning, bound 
for the Gulf, and with a hasty good-bye to John David 
and his Creole children, and the ten thousand dollars 
of treasure which he was reputed to have buried on the 
island, we steamed up and entered Grand Lake with some 
misgivings, but with the stoutest of hearts. 
We proceeded without incident until we reached a 
point seven or eight miles out into Grand Lake, where 
the adventure of our lives was awaiting us. 
We had observed when we started some ominous- 
looking clouds to the eastward, which in themselves 
might have been a sufficient foreboding to a less ven- 
turesome crew, but dauntless and foolhardy as we were, 
we had put forth regardless of consequences in our 
top-heavy craft, recking not of danger or a drenching, 
resolved only to reach our Eldorado — the home of the 
ducks—the Gulf of Mexico. When we had got about 
the middle of Grand Lake, ten miles from the nearest 
shore, a wind squall struck us, the waves rose 10, 12 and 
even 15ft. above us as we lay in the trough of the sea, 
and we realized all too late that we had taken our 
lives in our hands, and were helpless. 
Every time our boat dipped we shipped two or three 
tubfuls of the wettest kind of water, and realizing our 
danger, some of us talked, others prayed, and others 
kept a golden silence; but all were scared as we had 
never been scared before, thinking of the "old folks and 
little ones at home." 
For an hour and a half or two hours — which seemed 
a century — we buffeted the waves, balancing the boat as 
best we could, the Captain giving his commands to his 
engineer to "lower the speed" and "let off steam," mean- 
while taking off his coat and getting down to. the serious 
business of saving human life, as he was then and there 
called upon to do, bidding us "balance all," like a danc- 
ing master at a cotillion, fully sensible of the responsi- 
bility resting upon him for the success of the dance. 
Add to this the fact that our engineer had inadvertent- 
ly thrown some live coals into his fuel bunkers, and pre- 
sently the soft coal ignited and we had a bonfire at sea 
— in short it was a "toss-up" among us whether we 
should burn alive or die like drowned rats in a trap; 
but presently, with the aid of a water bucket and with 
water from the lake — which was plentiful — we extin- 
guished the fire and continued our fight with the waves 
alone. 
Meanwhile our skiffs, which were towed by chains 
in the wake of our boat, became completely submerged, 
our oars and two or three buckets and other loose stuff 
were washed away, and the outlook was fearful in the 
extreme. One of the chains broke at this time, and 
our gallant Pinney, at great personal risk, and in obedi- 
ence to an order from Capt. Dyer, went aft to secure 
the boats, and succeeded in doing so after great diffi- 
culties, but to our intense satisfaction. In fact I at- 
tribute our final delivery to the fact that these sub- 
merged skiffs, bearing down on our boat, kept us 
from toppling over, for as the wind would strike the 
roof of the yacht, it would serve to upset it, and the 
extra weight supplied by these water-filled skiffs helped 
to steady our course through the angry sea. 
When at length we reached a headland where wind 
and wave alike abated, our handshake all around was 
among the best evidences of the narrowness of our 
escape. 
If, by chance, any of us could have reached this point 
or any stray bunch of dead trees without life preservers 
or with the help of God, it might have been fifteen 
months before any boat would have picked us up, for 
that part of the lake was entirely unfrequented by any 
kind of life except buzzards and bald-headed eagles, to 
whom we would have been an easy prey. 
Without further adventure we passed Mud Lake and 
Grand Cheniere, thence through to the Gulf, anchor- 
ing at the mouth of the Mermenteau, and thence pro- 
ceeding by land to Franklin's, three miles from the 
river. On the way thither the rabbits were as thick as 
cats, or as hair on a dog, and as I approached toward 
evening a bunch of prickly pears, not knowing whereat 
I kicked, I put forth my foot to flush a possible covey 
of blue quail, of which I had' read many tales, and 
ran a needle about 2in. through my rubber boot and into 
my foot, requiring a surgical operation to extract it. 
Add to this the onslaughts of countless mosquitoes, of 
which we had been forewarned, and the pangs of re- 
morseless hunger and thirst, and it is needless to say 
we hailed our advent to even a semblance of human 
habitation. 
That night, after a repast of canned stuff, water-soaked 
bread and lemon tea, a beverage as new as it was dis- 
tasteful to our Northern appetites, we were assigned to 
a room probably 20 by 30ft. in dimensions, 10 or 12ft. 
above the ground, the house being supported by piling 
as a provision against high water from the Gulf, or its 
adjacent bayous and marshes. 
Before retiring we took note of divers large brown 
and speckled hens laying eggs in as many boxes, bar- 
rels and other convenient roosts in close proximity to 
our beds, and also of sundry crevices in the flooring, 
though which, by the faint illumination of a single 
lamp, we could detect (and we assert the fact without 
the aid of imagination and "without fear of successful 
contradiction," as our good friend Fogarty would say) 
a favored few of that ignoble but democratic tribe, the 
genus hog, to whom, as it subsequently developed, was 
accorded the prerogative of assembling in delegations 
beneath our abode, without danger of interruption, let 
or hindrance. Three fellow sufferers on the nights of 
the 4th and 5th of March, respectively, A. J). 1898, will 
attest the incontrovertible fact that never in the history 
of journalism, fiction or real life had mortal suffered the 
agonies of such a baneful series of uninterrupted night- 
mares as we four endured those nights. If by any chance 
we closed our eyes in slumber, the smells that emanated 
from that hog pen awoke us, and the cries and squeaks 
and grunts and unutterable lamentations that arose at 
intervals through the night kept us awake. Add to the 
hogs the ticks and ants and mosquitoes and certain 
other infinitesimal but persistent denizens of all hen 
roosts, that infested our beds and clothes, and the reader 
can realize in some faint degree a few of the draw- 
backs to the complete and unqualified luxury of our 
abode. 
But there we were within a hundred yards of the 
beautiful Gulf of Mexico on the one hand, and miles on 
miles of marsh land on the other, the Gulf stretching 
out with ineffable beauty before us, far as the eye could 
reach and further, bordered with a peerless beach of 
myriad sands and shells of infinite shape and color; and 
the marsh denizened with wildfowl around the waning 
grasses — the Gulf the acme of an artist's dream; the 
marsh the hunters' paradise, the home of the ducks and 
the geese, the curlew and the ring-tailed marlin. 
The two days following our arrival at Franklin's 
marked an epoch in all our lives, for after our faithful 
Pinney had built us a couple of good blinds — it having 
been agreed that no gun should be fired until both blinds 
were ready — though the ducks, meanwhile, almost 
alighted on our gun barrels — none of us, I am sure, 
ever had such unrivaled duck shooting in our lives. 
Green-winged teal, mallards, widgeon, whistlers and 
pintail swooped down upon, over and around us as 
fast as we could shoot, our guns grew so hot we had to 
dip them in the bayous to keep them cool enough to 
handle. Bob and I had the best of it the first day, hav- 
ing the choice of blinds, but though Bob is a crack 
shot at the trap, and I used to make some modest pre- 
tensions to some skill in the field, the number of 
"cinches" we missed and let go was something appalling, 
although an occasional long shot or a double would 
console us into believing we weren't so bad after all. 
Without dwelling on details, four "of us in less 
than two full days killed over 350 birds, 
the great majority of them ducks or "canard," as the 
Creoles call them, but a good many curlew, plover, 
snipe and ring-tailed marlin — the latter bird being en- 
tirely new to me; it is about the size of the curlew, fly- 
ing something like a duck, generally close to the water; 
and distinguished by a semi-circular marking on the 
tail, which accounts for its name. 
About noon the second day I borrowed Bob's game 
carrier — a device for facilitating the removal of game: — 
threatening to kill a goose or break a leg. I waded 
three miles and a half toward the goose country — some 
flats adjoining Mud Lake, where we had observed some 
heavy flights and heard some vociferous "honking." On 
my approach thousands of geese and brant rose in a body 
and circled off to the south. I thought that it was all 
over; but reaching the shore of Mud Lake I noticed on 
the far side what seemed a half-mile or more of snow 
drift, but presently a white cloud arose, not of snow, but 
of solid geese and brant, and made across the lake to- 
ward my position behind a bunch of reeds. 
As they drew near me they towered out of range, which 
was most discouraging, but I lay closer under cover, and 
noticed a flock of perhaps twenty coming my way not 
over 40yds. above the water. When they were almost 
upon me the flock divided, three birds "side stepping 
to the right" on the translucent air, but as it seemed the 
next moment concluding to rejoin the flock. In doing 
so the misguided trio passed directly over me and ran 
right into a couple of charges of No. 4 shot tVom the 
old Parker hammerless, two of them out of the three 
succumbing to the effects of the fire and falling almost 
on top of me. 
I had a bowl of an old pipe in my coat without the 
stem, which I had lost, and wishing to have a quiet 
smoke of — well, you may call it self-complacency — I ex- 
tracted a quill from the wing of one of the dead birds 
and improvised a very satisfactory pipe stem out of 
it, and had my little smoke; and after securing the vic- 
tims, which weighed close to xolbs. apiece, firmly in the 
game-carrier, I started back toward our blinds. Five 
more brant flew over me on the way back too close 
for their own good, but possibly decoyed by the birds 
thrown across my shoulder. At any rate, I picked and 
shot two more out of the bunch, and then sufficiently 
burdened with the first two, and with the weight of my 
tolb. gun, heavy hip boots and corduroys, I managed to 
retrace my steps three miles or more across marsh 
land, knee deep with mud and water, to a place I named 
Welcome Ridge, where, after a brief but threatening 
interview with some long-horned Texas steers, which 
were inclined to dispute my passage, I came across Mr. 
Franklin, who was on horseback, and whom we had 
engaged by the day to keep the ducks stirred up. 
I asked him to give me a lift with the "■eese. If some 
of the birds were wild that day how should Franklin's 
Mexican pony be characterized when my four white 
iolb, pilgrims were thrown across the pommel of the 
saddle. Franklin had asked me to hold the pony while 
he loaded on the game; but I doubt if Sandow or any 
other modern Samson could have withstood the strength 
of that frightened steed when he realized that those four 
ghostly reminders were thrust upon him. He reared 
up on his hindlegs, kicked, plunged, trembled and kicked 
again, until he finally disentangled the bridle from his 
forelegs, and disengaging himself completely of his 
feathered tormentors, the head of one of which he flat- 
tened out like a pancake in a paroxysm of kicking and 
genuine horse-fright, he "lit out" into the prairies at a 
Vo Tambien gait, where after considerable maneuvering 
Franklin at last secured him. 
I finally got back with the geese to the boys, and 
after firing a few last rounds at the teal . and pin- 
tails we called a halt and took up our decoys and 
game, and two hours later, after a hearty lunch, said 
