■DEr;. t6, 1899.1 
FOREST AND STREAM. 1 
;4 8d 
Our destination was announced to be Grassmere, which 
is up north of Saginaw, on that strip of land which is 
known as the Thumb. Grassmere is the next station 
but one to the end of the road. The terminus is Bad 
Axe. Everybody in the world has heard of Bad Axe, 
though perhaps not everybody knows where it is. It 
lies about five miles from Grassmere, and Grassmere is 
about five miles from Bad Axe. And there you are. 
We ran north, parallel to the Saginaw Bay shore line, 
then the railroad for some reason changed its mind and 
went wandering ofif to the east, and finally it got tired 
and stopped, as above mentioned, at Bad Axe. We 
discovered the country to be partially farmed, the great 
industry being that of raising sugar beets, though we saw 
occasional stubble fields, and once in a while a strip of 
corn. Once this Saginaw Thumb was the wildest part 
of Michigan, and it is here that the last elk in Michigan 
were killed, as reported some years ago in these columns. 
Some of the heaviest pine forests of the State once 
grew here, and there are still large swamps and thickets 
where big game might live. The last deer in this part 
of the State, mentioned as being killed recently, was 
shot two years ago. Wild turkeys were seen ten years 
ago. This region in general resembles most of that 
slashed -over pine and hardwood country over which 
the more modern struggle at agriculture has been going 
on for the last score or so of years. The small game 
clings to such country in fairly good numbers, its 
abundance of course varying with the severity of the 
season. 
We tumbled off the car at Grassmere at something 
like 10 o'clock in the morning. The clouds had broken 
away and the rain had ceased, so that we were after 
all favored with very decent shooting weather. Mr. 
Humphrey and Mr. McCarty started out in something 
the same line across country; Mr. Briggs and Dr. 
■Cross paired off, and so did Mr. Harvey and Mr. George 
Moreley. Jack Moreley shot alone. Mr. Mershon and 
I went down the track a couple of miles with the de- 
parting train, which was obligingly stopped by Train- 
master Wallace for us. We found ourselves in a very 
good looking partridge country. I did not fancy it 
much for quail, yet the first game we made was a nice 
bevy of quail, which went up in a heavy popple thicket 
ahead of the dogs, without giving us any show for a 
shot. At the same time a cock partridge went up and 
sailed off unsaluted through the thick cover. Following 
on, the dogs located some of these scattered birds, and 
getting a close shot at a cross-flying bird, I stopped 
him for first blood, Mr. Mershon drawing a difficult 
twister, which he could not find. I then missed a long 
shot and killed another, which rose ahead of the dogs. 
We saw at once that Ave were going to have hard shoot- 
ing, for the birds were very wild and unsettled on ac- 
count of the storm. We lost a lot of time in the early 
part of the day working in this same bit of woods, 
but failed to do much with the scattered quail. Mr. 
Mershon was very much afraid that the new dog Queen 
would not turn out well, but after a while, when we 
struck in attiong the partridges, she surprised us very 
much by taking to these strange birds with perfect 
kindness, and indeed fairly beat the old veteran Bob in 
the number of points on partridges which she got during 
the day. As between the two, Bob acted like a perfect 
gentleman, but Queen seemed to have a very poor idea 
of the etiquette of the field. She would run in ahead of 
the old man when she saw him working out a partridge 
trail, and deliberately stea.] his point, to all of which he 
submitted' with the best good humor in the world. A 
very wise and level-headed old dog is Bob, and we 
found him more comfortable to shoot over than Queen, 
for the latter was so fast she was continually runnmg 
away and getting lost. One time Bob started down a 
little draw on what we thought was a partridge trail. 
1 called him a little to one side to go after some quail 
which I heard whistling, and meantime Queen jumped 
in and pointed the partridge which Bob had been work- 
ing out. Mr. Mershon killed this bird m handsome 
shape, and we went on after the quail. Once again 
Queen pointed, but the quail was in such heavy cover 
that Mr. Mershon failed to stop it. Still again Ave lost 
her and after a long time found her pointing steady at 
the'foot of a big stump. We came up carefully, one on 
each side of the stump, and at length Mr. Mershon said 
to me. 'T can see it, and it is a partridge! We were 
then not more than 8 or lo feet from the bird, and as 
Mr. Mershon pointed at it it stood up with its crest 
erected as though it were angry. The next instant it 
hurst up and awav with terrific speed, and we both shot 
into it, so that nothing was left but a crumpled mass of 
feathers of what had been one of the proudest and strong- 
est of game birds. . , t., 
This happened at about i o'clock. Then we put up 
another bevv of quail, out of which Mr. Mershon got a 
bird, though the rise was in such cover that 1 did not 
get to shoot. We crossed the railroad now and got into 
some lovely looking partridge ground. Queen worked 
out an old cock a trifle fast, and I missed on a long rise. 
A few moments later Mr. Mershon lalled a very ong 
shot through heavy cover. He always takes any kind 
of a chance at a bird, and is the best partridge shot I 
was ever out with. He saw this bird go ^P^^" =^1^^, P"! 
in Bob at about the place he thought it fell. Bob took 
the trail, and at length found the bird nearly ^oo/aMs 
away It had come down wing-tipped, and the old dog 
brought it in alive and unhurt, a piece of work which 
added still more laurels to his reputation as a premier 
retriever We now went about and headed toward home, 
and passing the edge of a little thicket a grouse sprang 
fullv 30 yards ahead, and Mr. Mershon cut it down at 
the -first shot, one of the prettiest snapshots I ever ^aw 
Taking an old road, we headed through a heavy bit- 
of cover in the dusk of the evening, and a few moments 
later lost the best chance we had during the day. ihere 
was a sort of double trail through the woods, with a 
fdnge of heavy cover between the Paths. As we went 
along one trail four grouse went out of the other one 
after the other and had we been 20 feet closer we would 
•fSl likelihood have killed all four. We fo Wed these 
birds into a dense thicket, and just about dark one rose 
high over the cover and came directly toward us. Mr 
Mershon loosened a handful of feathers, but the bird d d 
not ^top and I killed it an instant later. Counting up 
Sur entire bag for the day, we found that we had five 
partridges and five quail, of which most of the birds 
were in Mr. Mershon's pocket, about the usual ratio 
between him and the average fellow citizen who thinks 
he can shoot partridges. 
When we got back to the car that night we found that 
no one had had any special luck, our own bag being 
high for the day, though every one had quail and nearly 
every one had partridges. Jack Morley, who is a very 
good shot, had rather an unlucky day, and could only 
show four quail as the net results. It is one of Mr. 
Morley's misfortunes that he ahvays gets lost when he 
goes out hunting, and his comrades bante.ringly asked 
him how many times he was lost during the day. 
"Onlv once," he replied. And a moment later he 
added, thoughtfully, "and that was all the time." 
Jack Morley, like every other Michigan man, goes 
deer hunting now and then, and following the ordinary 
pine woods custom he usually takes a compass and a 
map. One day he was out hunting, and as usual was 
lost, when he met a homesteader of whom he inquired 
the way to camp. 
"Where is your camp located?" said the native. 
"It's somewhere down in the woods here," said Jack; 
"but the woods all look alike to me. Oh, I remember 
where it is; it's on .section 37- The boys told me if T 
got lost to remember that the camp was on section 37, 
and then I could always get back easily enough. Now 
which way is section 37 from here?" , ^ , 
The woodsman scratched his head. "Blamed if I know, 
stranger," he said. "It must be in some other township than 
this. We ain't got but .36 sections in this here township." 
It was not until Mr. Morley had gotten back to camp 
that he began to realize that there are never more than 
36 sections in anv township! From that time to this, he 
has always gone by the name of Section Thirty-seven. 
A comparison of notes for the first day, or, rather, 
half day, of shooting showed that something like fifty 
or sixty partridges had been put up, but not very many 
bevies of quail. Mr. Harvey and Mr. George Morley 
found more quail than anybody, but had bad luck han- 
dling them. Air. Humphrey and Mr. McCarty came m 
with a nice lot of birds between them, and Mr Briggs 
and Dr Cross, who took it easy and did not go far from 
the car, killed more quail than any of us, although they 
saw no partridges. , . , , , 
That night for dinner we had a big fat turkey gobbler, 
roasted, and Jake and Harry never covered themselves 
with greater glory than on this occasion. If the Saginaw 
Crowd was ever hungrier than it was that night, it is 
something that ought not to be written down. After 
dinner every one put on easy clothes and slippers, and 
the rest of the time until bedtime was spent m chasing 
Jack Morley's dog out of the sleeping berths, into which 
he had a great passion for climbing. 
"That dog of aiine," said Jack, "is a warm personal 
friend of all mv boys, and if he ain't too good to sleep 
with my family he is about good enough for you. Let 
him alone; he is onlv trying all the berths to see which 
one 1"^ mine. It's a heap better to have him get in where 
he has ■sheets than to make him sleep on the plush 
seats and get short pointer hairs into the upholstery. 
There seemed to be very little answer to this ^argument 
Everybodv went to bed at about 12 or 10 clock and 
slept so s6undly that it was impossible to tell who during 
the night was most favored with the attentions of Mr. 
Morley's impartial dog. 
Quail in Iflinoia. 
Our quail season has little more than a week yet to 
run in Illinois, and I imagine that our shooters wi 1 
experience a genuine regret when the end comes, for such 
a quail season we have not had for very many years. 
Nearly every one who has been out has met with more 
than average success. The bags for last Aveek have been 
much smaller than they were earlier m the season and 
this is owing to the fact that Bob White m the middle of 
December is a remarkably tough and hard flymg bird. 
To-day No. 0 shot is too light a charge to use on quail, 
and No. 8 is very much better. One shooter tells me that 
he uses No. 8 in the right barrel and No. 73^ m the left 
Dr Miller, one of the most successful quail shots that 
we" have here, tells me that he uses No. 7 shot on quail 
the season through. I think No 7 unnecessarily large 
myself, but after all, the main thing is to hold on the 
bird. One thing is sure, nearly all our shooters who came 
in this week agreed as to the extremely high velocity and 
flat trajectory of the quail. 
It mav be interesting to know a few of the better 
points f6r quail in this State, more especially for service 
next season. Of course it is to be remembered that 
Illinois runs a long way to the south of Chicago, and 
its lower extremity is practically in southern country 
The best of the quail country is in the southern halt ot 
the State Anywhere south of the Big Four Railroad, or 
down the Illinois Central as far as 200 miles, brings one 
to a grand natiual quail country. Effingham is a good 
place to go, ahhough it is a country of market-shooters. 
To the «outh of Effingham there is fine quail ground. One 
should go out into the country eight or ten miles. 
Dieterich, 111., is a good point to remember. l\vo guns 
came back from there this week with 300 quail. East of 
Dieterich and near Greenup, there is a quail country 
which is spoken of very highly indeed by some Of our nxost 
successful shooters. . •, ^• 
Shelbv county, III., is one of the great quail counties, 
and one is pretty safe to go there for a hunt m any 
ordinary season. It is here that my mformant told me 
he once killed forty-five quail between 10 0 clock and I 
o'clock of the same day. •, ■ r „ . 
Vandalia, 111., is another very good quail point, though 
here one meets a rather more difficult shooting country 
than the cleanly farmed regions above mentioned. The 
shooting at Vandalia partakes more of the thicket and 
brush cover in which Bob White is very much at home 
with himself. Bicknell, the old field trial point, is in a 
good quail country also, and I remember once to have 
put up seventeen bevies there in a part of a day. 
Neoga, about 175 miles southward in Illinois, is a very 
good place to remember, and has been the scene of some 
very heavy bags this year. , . , , -• 
Bloomington, 111., is reporting some fair bags of quail 
of late, but I do not think this point is quite far enough 
to the south, nor is it quite so good a natural quail region 
as other points, a bit lower down in the State. 
Ia(fiana QuaiU 
Winamac, Monterey, Servia, Huntington, Ora, Newton, 
and Rochester, are all good Indiana points to bear in 
mind for quail. These have all reported good returns 
this year, though not so good for the last week as 
earlier, no doubt, for reasons above suggested. In Ohio 
the quail crop has not been so good this year as it was 
last, and this I believe to be true also of Michigan, 
The banner States for this section were Illinois and In- 
diana. 
Movements of WestetQ Spoftsmen* 
Mr. H. G. McCartney, of this city, owner of the cele- 
brated Kabekona camp of Minnesota, is just back from a 
stay of several weeks at Hot Springs, Ark. Mr. McCart- 
ney did not get time to go out shooting while at Hot 
Springs, and I understand that no stranger ever does 
get time to do anything there except take baths and sign 
checks, but he now and then took a little horseback ride 
out into the country, and thus saw something of the 
region. Sometimes he saw deer, and on one day met 
five nice ones in a bunch near the road, but he neither 
saw nor heard of any wild turkeys, and did not learn of 
any very good quail country near town. He says that the 
season had been very dry, so that hunting over the dead 
leaves in the woods was next to an impossibility so far as 
any success was concerned. On the whole, he did not 
think the Arkansas season a howling success, but he 
speaks with respect of the baths, the air and the scenery, 
to say nothing of the bills of the doctors, hotels, and 
everybody else. It was on this trip that Mr. McCartney 
witnessed the Bald Knob squatter type at its best, and he 
states that he never saw any beings which could be called 
just the counterpart of these. He often met them moving, 
with team, cows, dogs, squirrel rifles and all, just as my 
friend Irwin and I saw them sometimes moving on be- 
low Little Rock. Where they are going no man knoweth, 
but they have to move. 
Mr. Walter Dupee, of this city, is figuring on a nice 
little quail shoot in lower Illinois before the close of the 
season, going in opposite St. Louis, 
Mr. W. P. Mussey, of this city, was at Bloomington for 
two days with the quail this week, shooting with Messrs. 
Tart Radburn and Luke Kohler, of that city. They had 
some fine sport on fast birds in timber, getting forty-five 
in two days. 
Mr. Charles Christadoro, of St. Paul, was in Chicago 
yesterday for a stay, all too brief, on his way between this 
city and the seaport town known as New York. 
Col. C. E. Felton, of Chicago, goes this week to Mat- 
toon, 111., for a wrestle with the quail. I should have 
much more confidence of his getting a mess of birds if I 
were going along myself. The Colonel's system is all 
right on pigeons, but a quail always goes out just before 
you call "pull," and before the proper preliminaries have 
been satisfactorily completed. I take this method of 
accepting Col. Felton's challenge to a race on live quail, 
with no strings upon the same, this being a matter^ which 
has been pending for some years. I have been waiting for 
him to get so old I could beat him, but he is getting 
younger all the time", so we might as well have the race 
now as to wait twenty years or so more. 
By the way, I should say that Col. Felton is one of the 
original and continuous kickers against the non-resident 
license idea. He shot out in Dakota, in Bonhomme 
county, S. D., this fall, on prairie chickens, and took out 
license No. i in that county. He offers to wager that out 
of 500 shooters in that county, his license will appear as 
not only the first, but the only one to be taken out, it thus 
shining' like a good deed in a naug'nty world. Col. Felton 
never breaks a game law, but he keeps some Of 'em only 
with the severest mental reservations and the conviction 
in his soul that he could make a much better law himself. 
Mr. O. von Lengerke, of this city, makes his weekly 
quail shoot this time at Winamac, Ind. The latter is a 
most weird locality, and known the world over as the 
region in which is located the Pink Mink marsh, upon 
which many fateful things have happened in days gone 
by. 
Dr. Cross, one of the "Saginaw Crowd" with whom I 
had so enjoyable a sojourn a couple of weeks ago, is to- 
day in Chicago, and will soon be on his way West to his 
home in Stockton, Cal. . , 
Mr. Frank Parmalee, of Omaha, the well-known repre- 
sentative of the Remington gun, was in Chicago for a 
short time yesterday, on his way to New York. Mr. 
Parmalee says he will be back before long, but has not 
time now even to talk shoot. 
Mr. A. W. Adams, president of the Eureka Gun Club, 
is a little late this year in starting on his customary 
Southern trip. He ponders Florida, but Florida is not 
very popular among Chicago shooters, and I presume 
Mr. Adams will turn up this winter in Texas as usual. 
Mr. F. E. Adams and Mr. J. L. White, of this city, took 
out some beagles and had a nice rabbit hunt this week at 
Sylvia, Ind. They got a couple of dozen rabbits and 
saw a good many quail. 
Messrs. John Waddell and D. G. Henry, of Grand 
Rapids, Mich., both men with much trout in their his- 
tory, are expected here in Chicago next Tuesday, to at- 
tend the informal dinner of the Chicago Fly-Casting Club, 
which promises to be a very pleasant little affair. The 
programme will include the presentation of the season 
prizes, and will consist besides largely of reminiscences of 
life piscatorial as experienced by members of the club and 
their friends. It seems to me that these meetings ought 
to be kept up and expanded into something of a permanent 
nature, akin to the meetings of the angling societies of 
England, whose pleasant doings we see recounted in the 
sporting press of that country. 
Minnesota Park Matters, 
Col. Cooper has returned from Washington, and to say 
that his enthusiasm remains unquenched in the matter of 
his Minesota park is to express the case but weakly. 
Whereas formerly he bubbled, he now boils with en- 
thusiasm, and it is of the sort which dieth not until it hath" 
attained. He says with positiveness that the proper bill 
will be introduced in Congress this session, and meantime 
the Nelson-Olcott dead and down timber act suspended. 
T make bold, to say that when this bill does come up in 
Congress there will be a lot of fun, as well as some 
hard arguments connected with the presentation of the 
