188 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
[Sept. 8, 1900. 
Chicfceos Raise Two Broods. 
Of course, we all know that the quail will very often 
rear two broods in one season, though usually this occurs 
far to the south of this latitude. It is not of common 
knowledge, however, that the prairie chicken ever raises 
a double brood in the same year. Indeed, in all my life 
time of acquaintance with this bird, I never heard it 
even mentioned that it ever did such a thing. M. F. 
Kennedy, of St. Paul, tells me that he once knew it to 
happen, more than a dozen years ago, but never but that 
once. This year, the "double clutch" is again not only a 
possibility, but an actual fact. The report comes in from 
different localities, notably from the neighborhood of 
Bird Island, where it is proved beyond a peradventure. 
What this means for the current and the future chicken 
crop of the State may easily be figured. I do not hear 
that the birds bred twice in Dakota, but there is as much 
reason to suppose it there as here, subject to exceptional 
local conditions. This does not mean the not extraordi- 
nary instance of a second laying after the first nest has 
been destroyed by accident, but the successful rearing of 
two full broods of young. In very many instances double 
coveys have been seen this summer, the young birds of 
two sizes, but all under care of one hen. The old bird 
seems to keep the two coveys under charge, the same as 
she does one. The first brood at this time may be very 
likely almost full grown. 
What to Use. 
A writer in the current issue of a New York magazine 
states that in the month of September drams of 
powder and a load of No. 8 shot is about the right thing 
for prairie chickens (perhaps for a i6-gauge). I remem- 
ber that two years ago in the Red River Valley of 
Minnesota I was out on Sept. i with some gentlemen 
who found it difficult to stop the wilder birds with No. 
6, and one shooter was using 5's. Fred Merrill, with 
whom and his brother, Dick, I shot at Stuart, Minn., a 
few years ago, used No. 4, and excused this rather unusual 
choice of a load by saying that he did not like them to 
get up and go away out of range. It is 'not necessary to 
state "that no shooters now use so light a load as that 
mentioned, which is below the proper quail load for any- 
thing but a i6-gauge. The average gun used by the 
shooters of this country is the 12-gauge, and the load is 
ordinarily No. 7 at this date, with 3 drams or more of 
stiff nitro. These big birds are getting fast and strong 
very rapidly. They cannot be handled now as they could 
in July and August. It is wonderful how quickly they 
get educated after the full forces of the shooters. 
Points. 
There are different points which seem to be commonly 
accepted as good ones for chickens this fall. Minnesota 
men, of course, patronize home chickens a little bit 
more than they would were there no gun license in 
North Dakota. Crookston, Minn. ; Hallock, Minn. : Litch- 
field, Minn,; Bird Island, Minn,; A¥indham, Minn,; 
Heron Lake, Minn.; Avoca, Minn., are all points which 
are spoken of very well to-day by those with whom I 
have been talking. South Dakota is alive with birds this 
fall, they say, Webster or Preston will be good to re- 
member there, or almost any place well out on the new 
line of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway. New 
roads mean good shooting for a year or so. 
Out here, upon the edge of the actual shooting grounds. 
we_ are in closer touch with the shooting game than in 
Chicago, but by this time to-morrow there will be a good 
lot of Chicago men through here on their way out for 
a share of the fun in what is no doubt to be the best 
season known in the Northwest for many a long year. 
„ E. Hough. 
Hartford Building, Chicago, III, 
Maine Guides. 
Boston, Sept. 3— The celebrated Snowman case is 
to be tried again at the September" term of the Supreme 
Court at Farmington, Me. It will be remembered that 
Elmer Snowman, of Rangeley, one of the older and best 
known guides of that region, believing that the guide 
law of that State infringes upon his constitutional rights 
as a citizen, has declined to take out the requisite license: 
that he has once or twice been prosecuted and brought 
before the courts for guiding without a license, and been 
beaten and fined by the lower courts. Last year his case 
was carried up on the question of constitutionality of the 
guide license law. The Law Court, after retaining its 
decision for many months, decided that the law is con- 
stitutional, but sustained exceptions preferred by Snow- 
man's counsel. These exceptions related chiefly to the 
judge's charge to the jury, and their being sustained gives 
Snowman a chance for a new trial. Snowman is an un- 
married man, with no one to look out for but himself, and 
hence his brother guides look upon him as just the one 
to carry their case through the courts. How well they 
love the guide law is shown in the fact that almost the 
entire cost of Snowman's defense and carrying the case 
up to the full bench has been paid out of a fund con- 
tributed by the guides themselves. The cost of the 
coming new trial will also be paid by them. The guides all 
over the State are deeply interested. In a newspaper in- 
terview Snowman is reported to have stated that there 
is still $250 at Moosehead, contributed by his brother 
guides, that has not yet been touched. The feeling is so 
intense at Rangeley that it has been carried even into the 
school question, and the teacher of the high school has 
been ousted because he was favorable to the side of the 
Fish and Game Commissioners and the local game war- 
den. The guides are reported to have turned out in a 
body for the purpose of defeating the warden faction, at a 
secent town meeting. A well-known Rangeley guide said 
to me the other day, "I wonder that Commissioner Carle- 
ton has so little tact and is so stubborn concerning the 
guide license law. He makes enemies of the guides in that 
way, where they should be his friends. The guide law, as 
I understand it, amounts to little or nothing to the State. 
Though the Commission taxes every mother's son of us $r 
a year, the License Bureau, that has had to be established 
at the State House, has cost for clerk hire, etc., about all 
the license fees have come to. If he bad given us some 
sort of a law that would have helped us, a law whereby 
we could have entered into some sort of a competition as 
to our ability, and then have rewarded the best and 
most experienced of us with a State license and a badge, 
we would have gladly paid even $5 for the same. But, as 
it is, any boy who can row a boat, and some who can't, can 
get a license, and is just as good as the best and most 
experienced of us under the law. I have a case in mind 
now where last year the brother of a gentleman in Bos- 
ton took out a license, just to evade the law requiring 
that non-resident sportsmen hunting in Maine must be in 
chrage of a registered guide. The brother is a Maine 
lumberman, and did not even accompany the hunting 
party of his brother, only to show them where to camp, 
going back to his mill at once," 
The case mentioned by the guide above is not the only 
one, I know of a Boston party fitting out to hunt deer 
in Maine, and they don't intend to employ a guide at 
$2.50 per day. The brother of one of the party lives in 
Maine. He has already taken out a guide's license, 
although he has not yet guided a single daj^ He will 
accompany his brother's party on their hunting trip. 
Sept. I opens the season in Maine, when sportsmen 
may lawfully take a single deer for camp purposes, by 
taking out a $6 license. But the deer may not be 
transported from the State. Still, "the antlers will be 
left to be transported later." A Bangor report says that 
this is the second year of the September license law, and 
by the Commissioners it is regarded as a success ; since no 
more deer are killed than before the law's passage, the 
State receives something for its game. Last year nearly 
3,000 licenses were issued, for which it is estimated that 
about $16,000 was received by the State, while not more 
than one man in four killed a deer. This law applies to 
the counties of Oxford, Franklin, Somerset, Piscataquis, 
Penobscot, Aroostook, Hancock and Washington. 
Special. 
Meadow Hens Plentiful, 
QUEENSWATER, L. I., Sept. 3. — The meadow hen shoot- 
ing has never been better than it has been since the open 
season began on Aug. 16. The birds are found on the 
flats along the edge of the meadows and abound the 
salt ponds. They are easily shot and a good bag may be 
obtained in a few hours. 
The Rise of Don Antonio. 
He was a very superior person, this Don Antonio 
Oromo, and interest in him was accentuated by certain 
legendary waiths, possibly of the imagination, that drifted 
in and out and were common talk about the gayly deco- 
rated boat stands of Santa Catalina. Don Antonio cer- 
tainly never claimed to be a descendant of Montezuma, or 
that his ancestor was a grea;t captain of Viscaino's 
fleet, which visited the island in 1602; in fact, nothing 
could be traced to him except a statement that his grand- 
father once owned the island and traded the property, 
now worth millions, for a white horse; why white no one 
knew. I had fished with him as the guest of a friend on 
divers occasions, and the only words he uttered were, "Si, 
seiior," in a mellifluous voice in response to the stern 
demand for more chum when, possibly, he had fallen 
asleep. Yet despite this, Don Antonio had "an ancestral 
reputation," which a certain manner, suggestive of 
romance, lent color to. No one had ever heard of him as 
a boatman or fisherman; indeed, a Mexican rival in the 
gaffing line, of no particular ancestry, laughed loud and 
long when he learned that Tony was going to row during 
the tournament season. 
"What, him !" said Nicola. "He never see a gaff in he 
life. He fish? Why, he don' know a tuna from a skip- 
jack. He mak' me tired, he do, there's a fac'. Tony 
rowin'? Eh! who say he's a don? He better be up 
Middle Ranch grubbin' cactus; there's wha' he b'long." 
Don Antonio must have heard these and other criticisms, 
but he said nothing, and whether deep down in his Aztec 
heart he was determining to give back these taunts, blow 
for blow, no one could tell; but the fact remains that he 
was another example of what opportunity will do for 
latent genius. He was bom to fame, and at the end of the 
season, not long after the mid-summer solstice, still silent 
and imperturbable, he stood, a prominent figure in one 
of the greatest feats in the world of angling, overshadow- 
ing and silencing all his critics among the boatmen, 
gaffers and chummers of the island. 
It came about as follows : The tuna season at the 
island closes for some mysterious reason on or about Aug. 
I, though specimens have been reluctantly caught in the 
middle of that month, and their high and lofty tumbling 
may be witnessed far into the fall. The ending of this 
season of muscular conclusions with the greatest of 
game fishes finds a small army of expert anglers, who 
delight in the excitement of this big game, with summer 
but partly gone and the tuna retired from the field, its 
season being May, June and July. It is now that the 
resources of nature, so far as they relate to big game at 
the southern California islands, become apparent, and 
instead of putting away the split bamboo and green-heart 
rods and big tima reels, the angler, who perhaps wears 
the blue button of the Tuna Club, turns to the black sea 
bass, that giant of the tribe, that is peculiar to the 
Kurisiwo, where it flows by the kelp-Hned shores of 
southern California. A fierce war has always waged in 
the vale, of Avalon, where it open? into the summer sea, 
over the respective qualities of this bass ponderous enough 
to be the Atlas of the fishes and 
"'Sustain the spacious heBvens" 
of the sea. 
A few choice spirits, doughty knights of the rod — and 
I will not gainsay their skill and prowess — bear the 
standard of this fish on their escutcheons and claim that 
it is the hardest fighting game of these waters, the 
superior of the tana or any of the gstet conquestadores 
of the angling arena. In the Tuna Club they have their 
black sea bass cups on which their winning names and the 
ponderous weights of their catches are engraved; their 
linked gold badges, worn proudly at annual banquets, and 
like all minorities, they claim the world as ,theirs. As 
each season larger fishes in both classes — tuna and black 
sea bass — are caught, the tension becomes more acute. 
The boatmen side with their employers, and so by virtue 
of his patron, perhaps Don Antonio became an advocate 
of the big bass and in his way fought its battles with 
the tuna gaffers, and bore their gibes and scorn with 
easy philosophy. "Los paises del sol dilatan el alma," he 
once_ retorted to his disputant, whereby 'Don Antonio 
implied that those born in this land of the sundown sea, as 
Joaquin Miller has it, haA^e so much expansion of the 
soul that such things do not worry them; and so he met 
the knights of the tuna, held his peace, and blew the blue 
smoke of his cigarettes out over the vermilion-tinted 
waters of Avalon. 
If one were to take a small -mouth black bass, build it 
up until it was 6 feet long and stuff it until it weighed 
anywhere from 200 to 500 pounds, some conception of 
the appearance of the black sea bass (Stereolepis gigas) 
of Santa Catalina and southern California in general 
might 'be formed. It is a perfect bass in form and feature. 
Its eyes are blue; its upper surface tinted old mahogany, 
and its under surface gray — a mighty creature of solemn 
mien. 
"Deep in a cavern dwells the drowsy god 
Whose gloomy mansion nor the rising sun, 
Nor setting, visits, nor the lightsome noon: 
But lazy vapors round the region B.y, 
Perpetual twilight, and a doubtful sky." 
Ovid might well have had the great bass in mind when 
descanting upon the Home of the god of sleep, as while 
the tuna frequents the high sea, now blazing its way into 
the sunlight, the black sea bass lives in the canopied 
forests of kelp, whose long green leaves form caves and 
retreats of fantastic shape ever changing with the cur- 
rent, that sweeps along the rocky coast in whimsical and 
erratic measure. 
It has been my fortune to take many of these fishes 
weighing from 100 to 347 pounds with a small hand line, 
to have lost many with the rod, and once to have been 
fairly beaten in a short rod trial of twenty-two minutes. 
Taking the fish on the hand line (though I would not 
be understood as commending it) is not without its excite- 
ment, as my capture of a 247-pound specimen off the rocks 
may illustrate. We rowed around the south end of the 
island, passing t-he long Pebble Beach, by the sea lion 
rookery, whose inmates stared at iis lazily, roaring and 
barking hoarsely by the Sphinx's head that gazes eternally 
into the west, where 
"Tempestuous Corus rears his dreadful head," 
then turned to the northwest and over the long ground 
swells, moved up the island to the restless kelp beds — ^the 
home of the bass. The shore here is precipitous and 
wild; beaten by the winds of centuries, and colored with 
all the tints that mark the simsets of this isle of summer. 
There is no shore line in rough weather; the pitiless sea 
piles in, buffeting the very base of lofty mountains, and is 
tossed high in the air in white flocculent masses amid the 
booming and crash of contact with seen and unseen rocks. 
Directly back of Avalon, a half-mile off shore, in 60 
or 70 feet of water, lies a vast submarine forest of kelp 
for which the bass invariably make when hooked inshore. 
Within 100 feet of the surf is another kelp bed, whose 
leaves lie along the surface and repel the waves — the feed- 
ing and spawning ground of the fish. In one of the little 
bays formed by the kelp, we anchored, hauling aboard 
one of the. great leaves for the purpose, that could be 
tossed over at short notice. It is a sport in which the 
angler must at times let patience possess his soul ; and 1 
have sat for hours feeling the throbbing line without a 
strike; but this is the exception. 
Our line, baited with a 7-pound whitefish, was tossed 
OA^er and allowed to sink within 4 feet of the bottom, and 
with a turn about the rowlock, we waited, fishing be- 
times for sheepshead with the rod, a gamy creature 
ranging up to 15 pounds. 
So engrossed were we in this sport, taking the big 
banded fellows as fast as they could be fairly and honestly 
played, that the object of ouf trip was all but for- 
gotten. But suddenly the sheepshead ceased biting, there 
was an omiiious pause; it was either sharks or bass. I 
reeled m my line and took the bass line in hand. The 
current was running to the south, and played upon the 
line with a gentle musical rhythm. Now a mar\^lous 
jellyfish fouled it and was rent asunder, or a mysteriotts 
olive-green kelp frond swept along like' a living thing, its 
dim shape faintly outlined against the blue. Th& ocean 
was as smooth as glass, the wind gods were resting, and 
the only break on the clear surface'was the fins of yellow- 
tail, that glistened in the sunlight as they patrolled the 
kelp, or the fairy sails of the siK'er and blue velella as 
it rose and fell — an idle ship, on a windless sea. Suddenly 
I felt the line tauten ,as though the coming flood had 
increased in intensity. How it thriftfed and imparted to 
the nerves a tingling sensation ! Greater and greater came 
the tension. I dropped the leaf anchor oyer and paid out 
a foot, now two, very slcwvly, now gradually increasing 
until the line was gliding ©ver the side like a livitig thing. 
The boat, fhat by actual test " weighed but 125 pounds, 
whirled gently around, then having given the unknown 10 
feet of line, I stood up and struck home. Down on my 
knees, almost overboard, I went, jerked by the fierce 
response, and through my unyielding hands hissed the 
line, churning and ciJtting the water, slicing it into great 
crystal sheets. 
I had the coil amidships,- and it fairly leaped into the 
air as the fish made its rush. 30, 50, 100 feet. I seized a 
coil and braced back. Nearly elbow-deep went my arms 
in the water; down went thCi^oat, my companion jumping 
to the bow to offset i(* down until the water was 
dancing at the rail ; down until the man in the bow seemed 
to be up in the air ; down so deep that my face was so near 
the surface that I could hear the mysterious crackling 
sound against the keel. I was about to give way to this 
doughty plunger when he turned. I sprang to my feet and 
took in the line. In a great circle he surged around 
