FOREST AND STREAM. 
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The Guinea Fowl as a Game Bird. 
New York. — Editor Forest and Stream: I have read 
with considerable interest the articles which have ap- 
peared in toREST AND STREAM recently on the guinea 
hen as a game bird. Some fifteen or so years ago, while 
a resident of Baltimore, it was my custom during the open 
season to take little one-day shooting excursions to the 
stubble fields within thirty miles of the cit}', in the 
counties of Baltimore, Harford and Anne Arundel, and 
many a goodly bag of qiiail have I succeeded in shooting 
almost within sight of the City Hall. 
On one occasion I had been shooting over land be- 
longing to an acquaintance, near Back River Station, 
when along late in the afternoon my dogs worked down 
into a large alder swamp and immediately began roading 
on a hot scent, which led therh into the thickest of the 
brake, when they were soon lost to view. I followed as fast 
as possible through such difficult cover, and soon found 
both dogs on points, which they broke on my approach 
and began roading again. This sort of thing kept up 
all the way across the thicket and back again, when, be- 
coming tired of the game of "hide and go seek," I sent 
in one of the dogs to flush, and up rose five or six guinea 
hens with a mighty cackling, and before I had time to 
think I let drive both barrels and scored a beautiful 
double. When a realizing sense of my crime dawned 
upon me I took my birds to the house of the owner of 
the land, expressed my regret at killing his domestic 
fowl, gave him the game and diplomatically ofYered quid 
pro quOj which he kindly but firmly refused, and instead 
suggested that I make an efifort to exterminate the "hull 
gang" on the co-operative plan of one-half to the sports- 
man and half to the owner, to which proposition I cheer- 
fully consented. Within an hour and a half I killed nine 
more guinea hens, not one of which would permit of the 
dogs' pointing. They invariably ran, no matter how 
dense the cover. 
These guinea hens were the offshoot of domestic fowl, 
but eventually had become quite wild, and never showed 
themselves in the open, except very early in the morning 
and late in the afternoon — never going so far afield but 
that a short flight would take them to cover and security. 
I do not think the time wiU ever come in this country 
when the guinea hen will be regarded by sportsmen who 
have shot quail, woodcock, grouse and prairie chickens 
over pointers and setters as game birds. 
At my home on a cotton plantation in Lenoir county, 
N. C, we used to have flocks of guinea fowl, which in- 
variably "stole their nests," as the negroes put it. Their 
favorite nesting place was among chinquepin bushes. I 
once came across a nest which extended all the way around 
a clump of bushes fully 3 feet in diameter. There must 
have been fifty or sixty speckled guinea eggs in the cir- 
cle, and five quail eggs among them. 
The habits of guniea hens are very much hke those of 
Bob White in many respects. The scent of the human 
hand near a quail's nest will forever keep the mother 
quail, as well as her spouse, away from that desecrated 
spot. It is precisely the same with the guinea fowl. When 
it becomes necessary to remove the eggs of the guinea 
hen (which are much superior in flavor to the ordinary 
hen's eggs) from the nest, a stick must be used to roll 
the eggs out of the nest, and some distance awa3^ and 
care must be exercised that the end of the stick touch- 
ing the nest must not have come in contact with the 
hand. Noah Palmer, 
On my return from a 700-mile mute ride through Span- 
ish Honduras I find, on looking over my copies of the 
Forest and Stream, that the guinea question is being 
agitated. I may not have seen all that has been written 
on the subject, but from eleven years' constant observa- 
tion of the guinea and its habits I think I know some- 
thing about it, in Cuba, at least, and in the present days 
of game propagation they are worthy of some notice. 
They- are unquestionably from Africa; hence the name, 
guinea hen; Spanish, ga//wa de guinea, hen of Guinea. 
There are three distinct varieties, and may be more — the 
common speckled, the white and the peacock; the latter 
T have never seen outside of Cuba. The only difference 
in them is that of plumage, as they are all of the same 
size and habits, and often mix when thrown together. In 
a few instances hybrids have been produced between the 
guinea and the American chicken. In their native state 
they are most prolific birds, usually laying from twenty to 
twenty-five eggs. Their mating habits are similar to 
those of the common quail; they go in pairs as a rule, 
but occasionally an old cock will take two hens, and only 
exceptionally, three. When this happens the hens as a 
rule lay in a common nest and sit together. After hatch- 
ing they handle their broods much as the turkej' does. 
In the spring they are prone to pack, as occurs with the 
prairie chicken, and packs of 400 to 500 are not uncom- 
mon. This occurs just prior to the mating season. 
When not molested they are quite tame and spend 
most of their time in the open pasture and fields, taking 
to the shade in the middle of the day, but not to the thick- 
ets. It takes only a few days to educate a flock; and once 
educated, their habits change. They only feed then 
early in the morning and late in the evening, spending 
i I lost of their time in the most impenetrable thickets they 
can find, and becoming very hard to approach. They can 
be trapped with any kind of trap, but the same trap will 
not work on the same flock more than one time; to this 
I have never seen an exception. They are quite prone 
to roost in large trees in the open. If they have been 
molested it is impossible to approach them in one of 
these trees at any time during the night. If a pole is 
laid against the tree or a piece cut out of it they will quit 
the roost. In fact, they easily acquire as much education 
as an old turkey gobbler, who is their first cousin, and 
share with him in his one weak point. They will tree to 
a rushing, noisy dog and stay there if tlie dog keeps up 
his end in a continuous and lively manner, until you can 
pick off as many as you want, provided you stand at a 
distance and shoot a small-bore rifle; but they won't stand 
for a shotgun performance. 
They are strong of flight and can fly as far as a wild tur- 
key. The use of a dog, as in quail shooting, is of no 
use; they won't lie to a dog, and will run a mile to cover 
rather than flush, if not pushed. Of course, there are 
exceptions to all rules. I have shot guineas over a close 
point. The same thing has happened to me with tur- 
keys; but these are rare exceptions. 
Guineas can be hunted in all the ways turkeys are 
hunted, being of the same family and same general habits. 
1 have never had occasion to try callmg them, but have 
heard them call together innumerable times. If any one 
thinks it is not refined sport enough to hunt them with a 
shotgun he can try shooting them in the head with a rifle 
and report success, as their heads afe practically never 
still. 
Guineas would do well as game birds in many places 
in the South and Southwest, and they can live under 
varied surroundings if there is plenty of food. Even 
where it is quite cold they would do well with a little care. 
I know of but one effort to use them as game in the 
United States. Some eight or ten years ago the gentle- 
man who had charge of the game on Jeckel Island be- 
came quite discouraged on account of the destruction of 
his game by predatory animals, and wrote me for advice 
on the matter. I advised him to try guineas, as being 
quite capable of taking care of themselves, and upon his 
solicitation I secured forty or fifty from a dealer for him; 
but thus far I have never heard of the result. They were 
at that time having a hard time with their small game 
on the island, as they had a lot of wardens that were not 
familiar with our local predatory animals and did not 
know how to handle them. Bream. 
Among the Florida Quail. 
Tallahassee, Fla. — Thinking some of your readers 
would like to know where they can enjoy an outing and 
get away from at least a portion of the disagreeable 
Northern winter, I have laid down the gun long enough 
to write you. I left New York, scarcely knowing just 
what point to wind up at; had looked over your adver- 
tising columns of resorts^ and decided that North Caro- 
lina might have good quail shooting, but it also would 
get very frosty, and as I have spent many winters South 
I know that when it is-, c^ld it is most aWftUly cold. The 
houses are built for. hot weather; not cold, and although 
the cold does not last long it is very disagreeable while 
it does last. So, kfter weighing this matter carefully, I 
decided that Florida was none too warm in winter for me, 
and Tallahassee was selected. 
Now, many times have we gone miles— yet, hutidreds of 
them — to a certain country teeming with game and found 
the game still a little further beyond. I am pleased to 
say this was not the case here. I was not only anxious 
to find quail plenty, but having my wife with me, must 
have a comfortable place to stay, and here I found both. 
Tallahassee is a town of about 5,000 people, and as genial 
a people as live anywhere in the world. They are not all 
out for the almighty dollar, and have time to do more 
than bow and pass by. Some of the very best dogs in 
the South are owned here, and many of the shooters are 
veritable encyclopedias of bird dog pedigrees. Among 
the Northern visitors here for the sole purpose of shoot- 
ing I will mention Mr. D. Upson and brother, Mr. H. 
A. Bishop and Mr. Brown, of Cleveland; Mr. Wood and 
two sons, of Medina; Messrs. Norton, Livingston and 
Law, of New York. 
Very few Northern shooters know how the quail hunt- 
ing is done here. Every party, usually of two or three, 
starts out in a platform spring wagon with a team and 
driver, and the hunting is done from the wagon. I believe 
my shooting companion. Judge Barrett, of Walkerton, Ont, 
and myself, are the only ones here who hunt afoot. The 
term is entirely out of place — here it's a-wagon — and four, 
five and six dogs do the work. There is the covey dog; 
he is a ranger from 'way back; the Empire State express 
is not in it with this Florida covey dog. But he is 
stanch, and if you are fortunate enough to be within 
sight when he points you are lucky. If not, then your 
hunting commences, not for the birds, but for the dog. 
He is down on them, but where? Well, he is usually 
found after more or less of a search, and after flushing 
the covey this grand dog, with the speed of an ex- 
press train, and that no compressed-air whistle will call 
off a point, is caught by the neck and chained in the 
wagon; and the steady old fellow that works to command, 
hunts out his ground, points his singles and does not 
break shot, is taken out of the wagon, and the genuine 
pleasure with dog and gun begins. But it is soon over. 
Everybody gets back in the wagon, including the steady 
old dog that did the work. A whole bevy of dogs are let 
loose again; and away goes the team after them for the 
next covey. At night you have found ten, fifteen, eight- 
een, twenty coveys of quail — never mind how many you 
bagged, that's no object, and eight out of ten never 
ask you how many you got, but how many coveys did 
you raise? 
I have hunted South many years, but I have never yet 
needed this much-coveted covey dog. If I am in a quail 
country — and this is certainly an ideal one — T will pass up 
this streak of greased lightning to my Southern friends 
and use my steady working dog, with good range, that 
hunts absolutely to the gun, and I believe my bags of 
birds will show up with any man's. I have not yelled 
myself hoarse, and on covey or single, woodcock, snipe or 
grouse, he is at home, and will give you more shots and 
a more satisfactory day's sport than any combination of 
vestibule limited and local freights. 
The roads out from Tallahassee are exccDtionally good, 
and the Hvery is good and reasonable. Three dollars a 
day gets a good team, driver and spring wagon to hold 
four, with dogs, etc. The board is better than that of any 
Southern city of its size I have stopped at. You may 
come here a perfect stranger, and you will soon be made 
to feel perfectly at home, and several shooters will see 
that you are taken care of and given th? benefit of as 
good quail shooting as any one wants. The law limit 
is twenty-five quail per gun a day, and a moderate license 
of $10 for non-residents. I wish to say a word in favor 
of this license. Even.' non-resident should pay it. The 
monev goes to Mr. Barnard, the game warden, who 
uses it strictly to prosecute violators of the law and 
stop the netting and sale of birds by negroes and pot- 
hunters. It is not a political office in any sense of the 
word, and the money is legitimately used. Mr. Barnard 
does not come and say, "Ante or leave," Ibut tmsts to the 
honor of every non-resident shooter to be man enough 
to call on him before he leaves, and from the .good work 
he has already done he should be encouraged by the 
payment of this small license. I have no hesitation in 
saying that any fair shot with one or two dogs can kill 
the law limit any day, and twenty-five quail should satisfy 
any man. There are also plenty of ducks here, some 
woodcock and jacksnipe; so it is not necessary to hunt one 
kind of game continually. In my next I will tell your 
readers of Panacea Springs, another Florida resort for 
shooters, W. L. Gardiner. 
Choice of Hunting Rifles. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
So much has been written recently on sporting rifles 
of the present day that I should like to state in a few 
words my experience, which has extended over thirty-five 
years. 
In the first place. I consider a repeater an abomination, 
causing careless and poor shooting; they are also used 
at very long range, in many cases causing only wounds, 
the game going off to die. At times they get out of order 
from jarring on a pony, and other causes — not fre- 
quently, perhaps, but I know of a number of cases. 
The weapon which has served me best and given me 
the greatest satisfaction for many years is a .55S-caliber 
double express, made by a firm of makers of London, 
fully thirty years ago. Its lock is an under lever, on the 
cam principle, and it is stocked to match my fowling 
pieces. Its weight is just 8 pounds. The cam is the 
strongest mechanical device — bar a screw — and the most 
simple, requiring but one movement to open and one to 
close the barrel. 
I have used this weapon on both kinds of bear, elk and 
other large game, and have never fired it but twice — 
where I have hit my game — to kill. But then I have 
rarely used it over a distance of 100 yards, most of my 
game having been killed about that distance. Up to that 
distance it is not necessary to put up back sight, as it 
comes to the face like a shotgun, and can shoot snap 
shots with it with great accuracy. 
I have used many kinds of ball, but after much experi- 
menting the one with hollow back suits me the best, 
made with soft lead. I have used hollow pointed and 
also copper tipped bullets, but care for neither. If my 
old friend and hunting companion Ira Dodge had had 
such a weapon when he got on such friendly terms with 
a grizzly that carried off a good part of his anatomy, he 
would have been in better condition than he is to-day. 
I obtained this rifle from an English officer who had 
used it in India and Africa on various kinds of large 
game. There is verj' little recoil to this piece, but I am 
careful not to overload, and think a great deal of poor 
shooting with both rifle and shotgun is due to over- 
charging with powder. H. N. Munn. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
For thirteen years I was a subscriber and an occasional 
contributor to your paper. It is probably only owing to 
an accident that I am not still on your list. A friend 
kindly favored me with copies containing the controversy 
on hunting rifles, initiated by the late Frank Risteen, of 
Fredericton, and I find myself possessed of a desire to 
"come in." 
It seems to me that Peep Sight fails to appreciate the 
fact that_ no discussion in a paper Hke this belongs to 
any particular man or men. Any person who has any- 
thing to say on the subject in hand has a right, with the 
editor's permission, to free his mind. And I for one shall 
ask the privilege whenever I feel like it, regardless of 
Ihe fact that some one mav call it "officious intermed- 
dling." 
Peep Sight apparently forgets the axiomatic fact, that 
two men having a thorough knowledge of any subject 
may honestly disagree. Our Uncle Adam_ Moore, one 
of our intelligent and fair-minded guides, says emphatical- 
ly that the .30-40 smokeless rifle is the best moose gun 
made in America. Billy Chestnut, an amateur sportsman, 
who has killed game in every part of America except 
Alaska, says with jtist as much decision diat it is a popgtm 
beside the .50-110 Winchester express. But they both 
agree that the .40cal. English express, with its 400-grain 
bullet and 1,900 feet initial velocity, is better than either. 
And he who picks either of these up for a man with only 
a superficial knowledge of rifles will make a big mistake. 
Only a few years ago Major H. W. Merrill wrote 
columns in Forest and Stream, setting forth the superi- 
ority of the muzzleloader as a hunting weapon. Very 
few agreed with him. Yet no one seemed to consider 
his knowledge superficial. 
T first met Risteen in 1882 or '83 at a dog show in St. 
John, N. B., which I was trying to report for this paper. 
He was then a slim boy, employed on the reportorial 
staff of the St, John Sun; but he belonged to our citizen 
soldiery and knew a thing or two about rifles. We drifted 
into conversation, and I then and there showed him the 
first copy of Forest and Stream he ever saw. He com- 
menced to write for this paper about six years ago under 
the nom de plume Prowler, which went a very short dis- 
tance in covering his identity with us who had met him. 
He handled the rifle with as much skill as he did the pen. 
Besides the honors he won at the butts in military com- 
petitions, and the moose and bear for whose death he 
was responsible, he has during the last seven years still- 
hunted and killed_ no less than thirteen deer within a 
radius of three miles of Fredericton, as many as were 
killed by all the other sportsmen of that city combined. 
By his death three weeks ago New Brunswick lost its 
most talented and witty writer on topics of interest to 
the sportsman, and Forest and Stream lost a corre- 
spondent that cannot be replaced in this Province. 
The last time I met him was in July, 1899, at a small 
gathering of woodsmen at Pine Bluff Camp, Springhill. 
N. B., in honor of Sumner Crosby, the Bangor taxi- 
dermist. He and Crosby were the life of the party, and 
those who listened to the interchange of badinage be- 
tween them had no premonition of their early departure 
for the Silent Land. Yet Crosby died on the last day 
of the same year, and Risteen only survived him a few 
weeks. May the leaves of autumn fall lightly on their 
graves, and their spirits hold sweet communion on the 
Happy Hunting Grounds. L. I. Flower, 
Centsai. Cambridge, New Brunswick. 
