Sept. 8, tgoo.J 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
18 7 
on the geese that they killed during the migrations and 
dried or smoked. Gunning for the market occupies many 
men during the winter, and the occasional great rewards 
received for a day's work in the blind or the battery lead 
many to make a serious business of it, though it is quite 
certain that, taking the season through, the work will 
not pay ordinary day's wages to the man who guns. 
Nevertheless, we knew of a gunner who in January, looo. 
killed $130 worth of birds in a day, and of another who 
in February, 1899, killed $206 worth in one day. It must 
be remembered that this gunning is going on during the 
whole winter all over the South every day except Sun- 
day. The number of birds killed must be very great and 
must far exceed those hatched and reared each year. 
Moose Hunting. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
The season is fast approaching which brings to mind 
sweet recollections of past vacations in the wilderness, 
spent in pleasant company, during the most beautiful time 
of the year. It also rekindles in the heart of him who 
is a lover of rod and rifle that irresistible desire to go 
back to lake and river, mountain and valley, buckboard 
and tote road, tent and camp-fire. The nearest thing to 
the actual enjoyment of a hunting or fishing trip that 
the city man can get is the pleasure of reading the ex- 
periences of other sportsmen in Forest akd Stream. 
Though some of them are highly colored, they are, never- 
theless, very interesting. Some are more than interesting 
■ — they are surprising, as is the one entitled "Mr. Mu- 
late's Big Moose," Forest and Stream, Nov. 4, 1899. I 
quote this from it: "Your correspondent knows of a 
resident of New York city who has just returned from 
Canada with the heads of three large bulls," etc, In what 
part of Canada, I would like to know, can any one 
legally kill or have in possession at one time three bull 
moose? 
Mr. Noah Palmer's article on "Moose Calling" in the 
number for Jan. 27, 1900, was very interesting to me, 
particularly as his experience accords with my own re- 
garding the abilities of guides in "calling" moose. My 
experience, extending over a period of nearly twenty 
years, leads me to believe that there is not one guide in 
fifty who can "call" moose, and I have studied the art for 
many years, and have "called" many moose ; still, I am 
sure there is much for me to learn. My studies have been 
made with Indian hunters of the largest experience, and 
much has been learned by listening to the vocal pyro- 
technics of the moose ladies themselves, and sometimes 
at close quarters, I cannot help believing that the number 
of moose killed by calling is very small, and that there is 
httle danger of their extermination from the practice. 
Regarding the propriety of "calling" moose, I cannot 
agree with Mr. Alden Sampson, Forest and Stream, Jan. 
20, 1900. "Calling" is just as sportsmanlike as "sneaking" 
upon them, which any one can do when the conditions are 
favorable on the snow. To "call" successfully, the hunter 
must have patience, be willing to -suffer loss of sleep, cold 
and discomfort ; he must be able to so control his nervous 
system that he can defy "buck fever" when a moose is 
approaching. To call successfully, the hunter needs a 
musical ear, and a musical memory, and even then it is 
difficult to remember and reproduce the call and whin- 
ing of the female moose. Many men can make sounds 
that will elicit an answer from a bull under certain con- 
ditions, but it requires skill and experience in the art to 
make him come into the open, or into the water. There 
are times when moose, like other animals, will come, ap- 
parently through curiosity, to almost any sound. I have 
known a moose to come to the sound of the axe while my 
guide was felling a tree. Caribou are inquisitive, and 
will come to investigate a noise, just as deer will some- 
times return after being unsuccessfully shot at to see what 
it was that frightened them. 
If moose calling be practiced at night, a moonlit one and 
absence of wind are essential. It is almost useless to 
shoot at these animals, however close you may be to 
them, on a dark night, and if there be any wind they are 
almost sure to get one's scent and run away. Moose 
do not always come "straight as an arrow" to the "call," 
They will sometimes mistake the direction from which the 
sound comes, as did one which I called on Oct. ll, 1896, 
on a bog in Maine. 
A few minutes before 6 o'clock that evening, in com- 
pany with my guide, the ground was reached where we 
intended to camp until morning, but as it was so calm 
and still, and we had yet a little daylight, the guide pre- 
vailed upon me to call. An answer came before I had 
time to remove the horn from my lips. The moose, ac- 
companied by a cow, which tried to stop him by whining 
and a short call, came to the head of the bog and passed 
down behind the bushes almost to the lower end of 
it, about half a mile, "grunting as he went. 
When I found that he had mistaken my position, I 
wanted to call again, but the Indian said. "No ; he find us ; 
he find us." It was rapidly growing dark, and at last the 
moose stopped grunting. I called again. He answered 
and came back toward us, but it was so dark when he 
reached the base of the knoll upon which we had taken 
our position that we could not see him. He and the 
cow could be heard tramping around near us, and break- 
ing sticks for some time afterward, then wind and rain 
came and they moved away, apparently without scent- 
ing us. 
It is rather remarkable how moose sometimes act when 
shot at in the night time. Ten years ago I shot a very 
large bull on a clear moonlight night; he was standing 80 
yards away in a shallow lake facing me. Two bullets 
from a .45-70 Winchester rifle were placed in his chest, 
and he came straight for the canoe;, hut dropped 30 yards 
from it. 
Three years ago I called a moose for a friend. The 
animal came to a stand about 15 to 20 yards from us on 
the edge of a lake; he was looking toward us as we 
approached in a canoe. At the fir.?t shot he made three 
leaps straight for the canoe, and one more leap, it seemed, 
would have landed him on top of us. but he suddenly 
changed his direction, went by the canoe, and came to a 
full stop in the water a few yards to the right of us. With 
his broad side in view, one shot from a .30-40 Winchester 
dropped him immediately, hut he was almost as quickly 
on his feet again, when a second "pitt him out." Why 
the two moose should have come sti"aight toward the 
canoe I cannot explain, except that becoming rattled 
they simply jumped in the direction in which they were 
headed. I don't think it was for the purpose of attacking 
the canoe. 
Much has been written in your journal about the 
relative merits of the various rifles used in moose hunting. 
It seems to me that the man behind the gun is a greater 
factor in determining success or failure than the weapon 
used. 
Almost any of the ordinary calibers are good enough 
for moose if steadily aimed at the right part of the animal. 
The .30-40, .40-65, .45-70, .38-56 are all good enough for 
the distance within which game animals are usually shot — 
viz., 150 yards. I prefer the .30-40. 
Now about the reports and advertisements from the 
big-gate regions. Why do not the reporters from these 
places tell us about a few of the unsuccessful parties who 
have hunted there? I hunted nearly six weeks in New 
Brunswick last fall and saw only one fair head in all 
that time, and saw the tracks of Only two large moose, 
I went into the Province again on snow in December, and 
found an abundance of small tracks, and this in a region 
that has a reputation for moose. I met the late S. L. 
Crosby, of Bangor, returning from the left-hand branch 
of the Tobique last fall; he told me he had seen twelve 
moose on his trip, only one of them a bull, which he 
shot, and it had a very good head. Last year I saw three 
heads on a train coming from New Brunswick. One of 
them had a fair set of antlers and the other two w^ere the 
heads of j'oung moose, having two to four points on a 
side, but they were all reported as fine heads (to Forest 
AND Stream, I think). 
In New Brunswick one misses the deer. At the rate 
caribou are being killed there, it probably won't be long 
before a close time will have to be called upon them. New 
Brunswick has shortened the season for moose and cari- 
bou. The season now opens on Sept. 15 instead of Sept. 
I, and the license fee, which was $20, is now $30. This 
looks as if the Provincial authorities believe that the 
game is disappearing too rapidly and too cheaply. 
I have met more hunting parties on my trips to the 
Province than on similar trips in Maine. I have hunted 
in the Miramichi, Tobique and the Canaan River regions 
of New Brunswick, and very extensively in the best 
regions for game in Maine, where I secured some fine 
moose heads. I should reply if questioned about the 
game countries as follows : Maine and New Brunswick 
are about equal for moose, mostly cows and calves. Deer 
are wonderfully abundant in Maine, and only fairly 
plentiful in parts of New Brunswick. Caribou seem 
plentiful in some parts of New Brunswick. Some ten 
years ago I hunted in Nova Scotia, and moose were more 
abundant there than in any country I had ever visited, and 
from what I hear about the Province I am inclined to 
think they are still plentiful there, 
I think the game interests of Maine and New Bruns- 
wick are being more efficiently guarded than ever be- 
fore, and still there are men -who, when an opportunity 
offers, kill more moose and caribou than the laws allow — 
in other words, take what does not belong to them and 
therefore must belong to some one else, or to the State, 
for the State inflicts the punishment.' I am wondering 
whether larceny W'Ould be too hard a name to apply to this 
oft'ense. The railroad, the pulp mill and the forest fire 
are fast robbing the north %voods of their beauty and 
attractiveness, and the time is coming when something 
will have to be done to save the woods, in order to 
preserve the water sheds, for 'tis well known that cut- 
ting away the timber causes the streams to dry up. 
Sportsmen should do all they can to prevent forest 
fires, while they are powerless to help in other ways. 
Camper Out. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST* 
Opening of the Shooting Season. 
Chicago, 111., Sept. i. — To-day is opening day for the 
West. All the city is on foot, on horseback, or on wheels, 
and is moving out into the fields and marshes. Not 
for a half-dozen 3'ears has the outpour of city shooters 
been so great as it is this week, and not for very many 
years have the prospects been so good that those w^ho 
go out will get something to show for their pains. It 
may be stated with every confidence that this is a good 
game year, not only for Illinois, but for the entire 
Northwest. It is something of a surprise to discover 
that, in this time of threatened extinction of the prairie 
chicken, the latter bird is by no means a thing of the 
past tense, but is strictly within the plans of the shooters 
of to-day. So far from the chicken being exterminated, 
even in Illinois, it is more abundant this fall than it has 
been since the first year following the three years close 
season we once had' in this State. With changed habits, 
and shorn of many of its erstwhile lovable characteristics, 
it is true, yet none the less as big and brown and comely 
as ever, this old-time Illinois product is to be found in 
numbers enough to entitle it to a front rank position in 
the possibilities of the week current. By the middle of 
the month there may not be so many birds, and they will 
know more than they do to-day. but to-morrow, and for 
the next week or so, there will be many a man who will 
get good chicken shooting, and get it without going to 
Dakota or Minnesota. 
_ Reports continue to point to La Salle and De Kalb coun- 
ties as the best chicken grounds for this State, though, of 
course, this by no means covers the situation for so large 
a bit of country as the big State of Illinois, The southern 
half of the State, naturally a better breeding ground and 
at least shot no harder than the northern end, has per- 
haps a better stock than the average of the upper part 
of the State, but in that lower country it is practically 
all corn, and the shooting must be expected to be mostly 
an evening hour along the edges of the corn and sutbble. 
At least so advises me my friend, Warren Powel, who 
says he can show me some chickens, but only a half-hour 
before dark each day. In mid-day the birds "hole up" 
in the wide cornfields, and are almost impossible to work 
to any advantage to the dog. 
I hear there are some chickens out at Waterman, west 
of Chicago, a local warden saying that he knows of eight 
coveys there upon which he can put his hand without ariy 
trouble as soon as it becomes legal to do so. This tip 
is to be used by two or three shooters, who will probably 
go out there to-night. Others are going to De Kalb 
county, among these Oswald von Lengerke, who will try 
it at JVIinooka first to see yyhai validity there is in a strong 
tip he has from that town, where a local shooter advises 
him he is sure of sport this week. At this point last fall 
one shooter killed 200 prairie chickens in thirty days 
to his own gun, which is extraordinarily good for this 
State in these days. He said he never had any trouble in 
getting a dozen birds a day, not hunting very hard at that, 
and he thinks there are more bigSs there now than there 
were last year. 
Lee county has a lot of birds this fall, but that is a 
hard place to break into, the farmers having a number 
of associations for the prevention of outside hunters 
coming in on their grounds. It was in this county that the 
old Rising Sun Game Park was formed, of which I wrote 
some years ago, at which time a friend and myself had 
very nice shooting near Ash ton, in Lee county. The big 
grouse have always hung around those old-time feeding 
and breeding grounds, and without doubt many of the 
boys at Ashton, Lee Center, Amboy and other local 
points, to say nothing of the few Chicago shooters who 
have the entree there, will get a grand bit of sport there. 
Docks. 
The chickens will not be the only birds to occupy the 
attention of the men who are starting out this week-end, 
for September also opens the duck season for the North- 
west, It is pleasant to be able to say that this year is a 
good wet one on the old-time Horicon Marsh, and the 
club men who have fought the bitter fight for those pre- 
serves will have a substantial reward this fall, if they 
can keep the bandits at arm's length. There is a nice 
stage of water, and water is all that was ever needed 
there to assure good sport. • A few of the Chicago con- 
tingent are going up to Horicon to-day, though others 
think it still too warm for a duck shoot, and will wait 
until a cooler 'time comes. The bulk of the Northern 
flight will not come down for thirty, forty or sixty 
days, of course, and any shooting on the Wisconsin 
marshes in September is on local birds. 
It used to be the case that we could get some fun along 
the good old Kankakee on Sept, i, on the wood ducks and 
teal which breed there, I have recorded bags of two or 
thi-ee dozen birds to the gun on the Kankakee on open- 
ing day, within the last five years, and this all served_ to 
keep up the reputation of the stream, though the shooting 
rarely lasted for more than a week on these local-bred 
birds. This fall, I am sorry to say, the crop of local 
teal or wood ducks does not seem to amount to much. 
There may still be a few plover hanging around. After 
a while there will be a few jacksnipe, but not very many 
in any likelihood, and perhaps in October a scant and 
hurried flight of Northern ducks, but the ruining of the 
Kankakee progresses so steadily that it is hardly fair to 
tout that region as a burning success any more, or at 
least not for this particular fall. 
Quail. 
One thing is sure beyond the remotest peradventure, and 
that is that we are going to have more quail this fall in 
Illinois and Indiana than we ever had, or at least more 
than is remembered by any of our shooters. Ducks will 
be a poor or a patchy crop. Chickens will be a better 
ci"op than the average by a long way. The quail crop 
will break the records. This bird seems to be the sal- 
vation for our Western sport. There is no finer sport on 
earth than Bob White affords, so that our local men may 
feel quite happy at the prospect of the season. 
Extraordinary News from Northwestern Game Fields. 
St, Paul, Minn,, Aug. 31. — This entire city is up and 
moving awa3^ The streets are crowded with hunters, and 
many a wagon goes by with a dog tied to the tail gate 
and a portable boat in the wagon bed or trundling on a 
truck behind. It is said that the exodus of chicken 
shooters and duck shooters was never so great as it is 
to-day. It is a pleasure to be directly upon the spot at 
the opening of the season, when the opening really means 
something by way of game. The men here are very 
businesslike in their outfit, and there are a hundred 
perfectly lovely dogs to be seen about the stores, the 
streets and the depots. (I have counted sixty-five bird 
dogs in this town at odd moments to-day, some of 
them very likely lookers.) Roger Kennedy bought him 
a new dog by mail this week, and got him this morning by 
express. He was in luck, for the dog is a beauty, with as 
handsome a marking and as good a set of running gear 
as I have seen for a long time. He has a head big as a 
tin kettle, but he isn't meant for the bench, and I 
prophesy he is a bird dog, without ever having seen 
him work. You can pretty nearly tell whether a dog has 
sense by the way he acts. 
Locai gun stores say there will be from 200 to 500 
shooters leave this city to-night on the way to the chicken 
fields, among these a few Eastern parties, one from 
Massachusetts, who have gone, and left no names behind 
them. The counters of the gun stores are crowded by all 
sorts of men and all sorts of dogs, and all in all, this is 
the loveliest shooting spectacle I have seen for many a 
day in the old Northwest, toward which the thoughts of 
our upland shooters turn so instinctively these days. 
Lots of Birds. 
There are lots of birds, thousands of birds, birds almost 
everywhere. This is what every shooter you meet here 
tells you to-day. This statement applies for Minnesota, 
North and South Dakota. There has not been for ten 
years so grand a crop of birds, and perhaps not for 
twenty years have so many young birds been produced 
in proportion to the breeding stock left over. The con- 
ditions have been simply perfect, not only for breed- 
ing, but for the shooting, now that the shooting season 
is here. At first the weather Avas phenomenally dry, hence 
just right for the domestic plans of the grouse. Then 
there was a dry summer, though not too dry for good 
feed. Lastly, within the past thirty days, there hz\c 
been copious rains over much of the Northwest, so that 
it is sure the dogs will be able to run without any trouble. 
The heart of the chicken shooter has much license to be 
glad. 
