[Dec. 3, 1898. 
mt\t mt& $nn. 
Proprietors of fishing and hunting resorts will find it profitable 
to advertise them in Forest and Strbam. 
The "Briefs" Pictures. 
The illustrations' m the current edition of Game Laws in Brief, 
Mr. Charles Hallock says, well represent America's wilderness 
sports. The Brief gives all the laws of the United States and 
Canada for the practical guidance of anglers and shooters. As 
an authsrity, 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. 
The Grouse of School-house Run. 
This is the way we bagged him: 
Jack and the Colonel, Doctor and I were beating the 
hills and vales of Essex county, New York, what time 
the October flight of cock was due, having been lured 
there by word from our old guide that grouse were in 
fair numbers, waiting to be shot "on the wing, on the 
head, on the tail, any way to get 'em." For several 
days we drove from cover to cover, shooting over the 
likely places with indifferent success, and finally landed 
under the hospitable roof of the widow Wall, in Olm- 
steadville, where a week was spent hunting the sur- 
rounding hills. For some unknown reason the expected 
flight did not materialize, and so far as ascertained 
philohela has whistled a swift au revoir to his usual 
haunts in the Eastern States on his journey to the 
south land this year. 
One crisp morning we started out to beat a long, nar- 
row patch of alders, through which ran a little rivulet — 
an ideal place for woodcock — and where a day or two be- 
fore, when hunting without a gun, a few birds had been 
started, among them a grouse "as big as an owl," 
On the way over the hill Fred pointed out a pre- 
cipitous mountain side rising sheer 500ft., over which, 
once upon a time, three deer were driven, one of them 
in his downward flight striking a treetop and was torn 
literally in two, and a part left hanging in the tree. We 
gave him a long, stony stare and trudged on. Five years 
ago it was one deer dashed to a shapeless mass. For 
modern embellishments to ancient history, commend me 
to an Adirondack guide. 
As morning mists wreathe about his native hills, trans- 
forming them to shapes that loom up imposing and fan- 
tastic, so his imagination playing about the simple event 
of, yesterday produces it to-day impressive, to-morrow 
grotesque and startling. He is a romancer accomplished 
and cheerful, furnishing with elaborate detail the event 
that never happened as a sauce piquante for the noon- 
day lunch by the brookside. At such times we couldn't 
keep house without him, and we love to linger in 
his shadow while the tide of years or the advance of 
civilization makes it beautifully less. 
The drumming of a grouse from a bunch of spruce 
led to a council of war, which resulted in our stalking 
him to his death. Then through a clump of alders, where 
Jack picked off another over a staunch point, on to a 
dense cover, where three grouse flushed all around the 
Doctor, causing such uncertainty in his trigger finger 
that both barrels of that priceless Greener discharged 
at once; a.nd when he tried to shoot one of them that 
treed, the nitro powder just dribbled the shot on the 
leaves before him. When birds are scarce, such trifling 
incidents are trying even to one of the Doctor's self- 
poise; and especially so when the reputation of a much- 
lauded sportsman's equipment is at stake. We con- 
soled him in the manner common to sportsmen, but 
there are times when human sympathy availeth not. 
Beating along a hillside of scrub pines, a grouse 
flushed wild, and going fleet as a shadow for the cover 
below was cut down at long range by the Colonel's little 
Parker. Then the dogs scrapped a little for the honor 
of retrieving after such a rattling shot, and between 
them delivered the bird sans tail. 
Passing around a swamp, we found some fresh bear 
tracks, and when Fred suggested looking around a little 
the Colonel declared he hadn't lost any bear, and the rest 
glanced furtively about for a roost in a stout sapling. 
There appearing no appetite for fur, the hunt for feathers 
was continued. 
Reaching "schoolhouse run" we arranged to hunt it 
four abreast, about 20yds. apart, Jack with peerless Tick 
on the left, then Colonel with Shooting Star, Doctor with 
old Jaroff, and the Scribe with Pepper on the right. Ad- 
vancing, a cock was sprung at the left of the line and 
swung ahead into the alders. Again Tick pointed, and 
again Jack and the Colonel paid their leaden respects to 
those whistling wings, which would have gone away un- 
harmed had not the Doctor made a long, clean kill, 
thereby turning the tables on the left of the line, which, 
en passant, had been a trifle hilarious over his double- 
trigger and nitro powder act. Going on, the Colonel 
drifted about 100yds. behind the scribe, and from a 
thicket too dense to afford a shot flushed the big 
grouse. With a startling whirr away he went rush- 
ing up through the brush, heedless of leaves and twigs, 
and making more noise than seemed possible for one 
pair of wings. I heard him coming and turned around 
just in time to see him break cover, about 70yds. away 
at the other end of a narrow opening, and come toward 
me like a rocket, mounting higher every instant. Quick 
as thought the gun was thrown on him, and as he loomed 
over the sights he looked indeed "as big as an owl." 
I felt rather than saw Pepper expectant a few" yards 
away. At the crack of the nitro the grouse came swift- 
ly on, but describing an arc toward the earth ; went by 
me like a flash, struck the ground with resounding 
thump, and such force as to burst his crop and lay 
there fluttering and beating the air in his "last strong 
agony.'* 
Pepper broke the spell by picking him up — after two 
or three attempts — and brought him in as proudly as 
though he were entirely responsible for the whole affair. 
A bouncing bird indeed, and as I shook into place the 
ruffled plumage it dawned on me that in my hand was the 
coveted prize — the big grouse of schoolhouse run. With 
breast beautifully barred, tail a royal fan, wings strong 
from long flights and the love-beats of many spring- 
times, ruff to rival the boa of any belle, he was easily 
lord of the glade. Then quoth the Colonel, as he 
balanced him on his palm: 
"I never saw but one larger, and that was in a museum; 
this is a 300Z. bird." 
"Nay, nay, Colonel, 300Z. would break the record for 
these hills; let us call it 26!" 
"Thirty ounces at least; not one less. I'll bank on 
my judgment." 
Evening coming on, we took a turn along a hillside, 
hoping to start a white grouse the guide had seen (?) ; 
failing in that, we set our faces toward the glimmering 
light above the river, where awaited us a game dinner, 
followed by the usual siesta and story telling, and then 
sweet sleep and pleasant dreams. 
The Colonel was right. Two different scales told the 
same tale — 310Z. plump. If you think that not remark- 
able, please weigh the next big one you shoot, and drop 
a line to Alma. 
Alma, Mich., Nov. 18. 
A Day with the Birds in Prince 
Edward Island. 
Three youths sat planning a shooting trip in a coun- 
try "place" in Prince Edward Island. One of these 
youths was a visitor. His voice was seldom lifted in the 
council of war, for lately arrived, the places discussed 
and their relative merits were unknown to him, So he 
listened while the others reviewed the pros and cons of 
this pond and that, and became excited, as was natural, as 
he heard the others tell of the ducks that had been seen 
upon these ponds, and the snipe that had been put up in 
the marshes surrounding them. 
After due deliberation, and a careful comparison with 
the others, one pond was selected as presenting most 
attractions to the three in the smoking room, and it 
was moved, seconded and carried ttnanimously — the 
mover and seconder not voting — that preparations be 
made, and the three depart for two days' shooting on the 
morrow. 
Now, the carrying out of this resolution was so very 
enjoyable that he who was the visitor begs leave to re- 
count the experience. 
A problem presented itself at the outset. The three 
were after black ducks. The pond was large, therefore 
decoys were an essential to the success of the expedition, 
and the party possessed none presentable. True it was 
that a flock of wooden ducks were produced — stiff and 
angular affairs — resembling nothing so much as a small 
boy's wooden horse with legs and tail amputated, but 
the three knew the wary, sharp-eyed black duck too well 
to believe that for one moment he would be deluded by 
such poor imitations of his kind. 
Frank said: "Why not press some barnyard ducks 
into our service." He imagined, he added, that a search 
among the surrounding farms would produce enough 
tame ducks resembling sufficiently closely the wild ones 
to make a presentable flock of decoys. 
So the three knocked together, in anticipation, a 
rough duck coop, and started in the search. They found 
many farms containing, among the other poultry, the 
birds they sought. In each case., after an explanation, 
the farmer himself, or his wife, or his boy, would collect 
the stock of ducks, and cause them to waddle past— I 
cannot say march past — for inspection. Very much like 
judges in a dog show, the three would single out the 
best one or two and examine them, allowing the others 
to paddle back demurely to the puddle from whence thev 
came. The three rented the selected ducks at so much 
per. head. 
It was curious, and not in the least flattering, that 
each farmer, after looking the youths up and down, asked 
them what price they would agree to pay if his birds 
were shot. From six flocks fourteen ducks were chosen 
that resembled more or less their wild brethren. Cer- 
tainly some had white rings around their necks, all had 
yellow bills and legs, but it was argued that when a 
duck came near enough to remark these discrepancies 
it would be from the duck's good luck and gunners* bad 
shooting if he ever went away again. 
The pond — their destination — was long and narrow, 
running parallel to the sea, and separated from it by a 
low sand strip. So narrow was the strip and so flat that 
the breakers from the ocean nearly found their way into 
the pond, as they chased each other across this bar of 
sand. This little lake was the source of a stream that 
ran a mile through flat and marshy land before it found 
the sea. 
Curlew, snipe and plover of all kinds found the food 
they liked best up and down the length of this stream — 
but more of this later. 
Across a bay of the ocean, and through the creek up 
to the pond, the three brought their low, green, flat- 
bottomed boat, and the ducks poked their heads through 
the slats of their coop, and quacked lustily to see around 
them so much water and such good feeding. The only 
watch said it was 4 o'clock when camp was made and a 
meal eaten. They always ate — those three — after a hard 
piece of work, quite independently of the hour of the 
day, and without the least reference to the" time elapsed 
since last "grub." 
The day seemed rather too bright for cluck shooting; so 
Frank, taking the tin plover decoys, started off down 
the edge of the stream in search of a suitable place to 
await the evening flight of shore birds. 
The "Doctor" (a brand new title, as was proved by a 
crisp sheet of parchment, with a great deal of Latin 
thereon, bearing the date — in Roman numerals, of course 
— of 1898) and his friend, the visitor, commenced very 
leisurely to get ready the decoy lines and anchors. While 
thus engaged, their eyes swept from time to time the 
horizon, as one will when duck shooting, and they both 
perceived at the same instant a long black line, like the 
waving tail of a kite, off in the direction of the stream 
and high in air. Frank had seen this too, and the two 
at camp watched him a quarter of a mile away settle 
slowly into the long, rank grass. 
As it approached the water, the flock of ducks — for, of 
course, it was ducks — descended until 40yds. over the 
stream, then followed it up until it had passed directly 
over the concealed hunter's head. It looked well to see 
two ducks — like tiny black specks — fall from the line at 
the white puff of smoke from Frank's gun. This little 
incident stimulated, naturally, the energy of the other 
two shooters. It was not long before they had the punt 
completely hidden in a point of bullrushes that extended 
out into the pond, and the decoys pluming themselves 
and swimming as far as their lines would permit in the 
still water. 
Everything was quite ready for it, when a single duck 
came hurling along, low over the water, like some huge 
bumblebee. It curved its wings almost into a semi- 
circle as it neared the decoys, then fell among them, to 
the Doctor's gun, on its back. 
The two friends waited long after picking up the 
single bird ere the first flock came in from the sea. Well 
hidden in their bullrush blind, the two could watch it 
coming. The flock was passing to the left when their 
leader heard the decoys — and just here let me say, in 
justice to them, that whatever the decoys may have 
lacked in personal appearance, however much their pro- 
truding crops may have differed from the rounded grace 
of the black duck's breast, or their yellows bills from 
his dark green one, they certainly made up for these de- 
ficiencies and differences in the strength and persistence 
of their calling. Did sand lark or crane pass within 
vision the flock ceased not to quack and call out a lusty 
invitation, until the bird had quite disappeared. They 
wheeled — this flock of wild ducks — and a moment aftc* 
the two in the green punt heard the water hiss as the 
ducks skimmed into its surface. They jumped up, the 
Doctor and his friend and the ducks. The two former 
fired four barrels — bang-bang, bang-bang — but alas, that 
it must be recorded, not one duck wavered in its flight. 
They looked at each other — the Doctor and the visitor. 
There are times when words are hopelessly inadequate — 
and yet, perhaps, unnecessary to express one's feelings — 
this was one of those times. The Doctor simply looked 
the disgust he felt for his friend, and his friend, I hope, 
did not altogether betray the scorn he felt toward the 
Doctor at that moment. Here had been thirty big black 
ducks — the air was full of them — and two men had ex- 
ploded four cartridges into their very midst — so to speak 
— and yet there they were off in the distance, not one of 
them the worse, and it was but poor consolation to 
know that they had been very badly frightened. 
The visitor had not recovered from his disgust when 
a single duck passed close to his end of the punt. It 
was one of those ducks that seem suddenly to spring into 
an existence. Have you never, brother sportsman, stood 
up very cautiously in your blind, and swept with eye the 
whole expanse of sky and water, convinced, after a 
careful and thorough search, that no duck is flying with- 
in the mile, and then, just as you settle down again into 
your blind, have you never heard, brother sportsman, the 
whistle of wings as a duck shoots past you — 30yds. away? 
This was one of those phantom birds. The visitor fired 
at its retreating form. The duck mounted in air. The 
visitor fired again — the duck mounted higher as he scut- 
tled along under forced draught. Some moments had 
passed before the visitor dared turn his eyes to meet 
those of his friend, and he smiled very sheepishly in- 
deed as he made the weak apology, I hardly likad to 
shoot that bird; he seemed to have something on his 
mind." The Doctor muttered something to the effect 
that the duck certainly had nothing more now oh his 
mind — or anywhere else — than he had before the two 
shots. 
Another duck passed the same end of the punt. After 
a long time had been expended in finding its dead body — 
for it fell behind them, among the rushes — it was becom- 
ing too dark to shoot, and the two took up the decoys 
and returned to camp. 
Frank was already there. He showed about ten 
birds — yellowlegs, curlew, a black-breasted plover, and 
the two ducks that had been shot in the beginning. 
Old Sol had just got out of bed and was opening 
slowly, one by one. the shutters of his room away off 
in the east, when the two who had been together in 
the green punt left Frank asleep, and paddled down to 
the far end of the pond. There was little clear water 
here — all wild rice and reeds and bog. 
They placed the decoys in a little piece of open water, 
but the ducks were not flying well, and what few did 
pass regarded not the decoys, nor their calling. 
A green-winged teal planted himself suddenly among 
the decoys. He looked inquiringly as a man's head and 
shoulders issued from the reeds, then pelted away as fast 
as his little wings would carry him. He fell into a 
very thick bit of marsh, and the two shooters had a 
long search. Later they watched a single duck circle 
round and round the foot of the marsh, and finally, after 
so many circles that one became quite giddy following 
it with the eye, settled' in the very thickest place. The 
two in the punt waited a few moments longer, and 
then, because no more birds were moving, poled the 
punt into the thick rushes in search of the single duck. 
A snipe rose from somewhere, and crossed in front of 
the punt's nose. The visitor shot it, and at report of gun 
the black duck got up almost, it seemed, from under the 
punt. It dropped dead when the Doctor fired. While 
retrieving this bird, another rose from one side, and fled 
away, quacking with" fear. It. fell at 40yds. to the Doc- 
' tor's other barrel. They retrieved the game, pushed, 
paddled, poled and pulled the punt through the liquid 
'mud, that pouted and swelled in front of the boat as it 
reluctantly yielded a way. 
The ducks seemed all to have settled in the little 
pond in the midst of the marsh, so the two paddled 
slowly around its edge. They had not gone many yards 
before four ducks- got up — and now the two shooters 
wiped out the disgrace of the night before — for after four 
reports not a duck was left in air. 
And so they went on all that morning, every few 
moments a single duck or a "double" would be frightened 
into flight. Sometimes they were killed, sometimes they 
escaped. 
At lunch time the" two friends placed the dead on their 
backs upon the seats of the punt, smoothed down the 
ruffled feathers of their glossy breasts, and counted them 
— fourteen black ducks and a teal. 
Is there anything that makes one more absolutely and 
more sublimely contented than to gaze upon a good bag 
of one's own shooting? You find yourself, do you not, 
