46S 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Degms, 1900. 
sibly be pushed the wrong way. The gunner will do 
well to look at his safety catcli now and then and see 
that the word "Safe" or the letter S is exposed or to 
ftel ihe catch with his thumb, for a shifting of the gun 
from one hand to the other, or the pressure of a twig 
at just tlie right spot, may possibly push the safety catch 
forward so that it is no longer eftective. Ihis matter 
of watching or feeling the catch will after a while be- - 
come as iuitomatic as is your walking, and will not 
trouble you in the least. 
Tlie danger of an accidental discharge with a hammer 
gun is much greater. Of course you will n'ever carry 
your gun at lull cock unless you are just about to 
shoot, or are anticipating the rising of a bird close be- 
fore j-ou. If the birds get up and go away without your 
firing, or if you fail to start them and expect to go on, 
lower both hammers of your gun to half cock. The ham- 
mers should always be at half cock, except when you are 
in inuncdiate expectation of a shot. 
Even when I am in the duck blind, with the loaded 
gun resting on the gun sticks before me and a possibility 
of a ducl\ or a flock of them swinging in at any moment 
from an unexpected direction, I keep my hammer gun 
at half cock. It requires but the smallest fraction of a 
second to cock both barrels or to push the safety button 
or calch forward, and while of course it is possible that 
once in a long-time you may miss a shot by failing to 
have the gun cocked, siill it is better to da that than to 
take the least risk. The matter is altogether one of 
habit, and you can teach yourself to do one thing as 
easily as the other. 
Fin^tts Off Trigger. 
I advise you — even when you are in immediate ex- 
pectation of a shot — not to have your fingers on the 
trigger of your gun, and I especially advise you never 
to' walk along carrying your gun at full cock and with 
yowr fingers on the trigger. If you are a nervous boy 
or in any degree excitable the fluttering up of a little 
sparrow from the grass before you may cause your 
muscles to twitch, and you may pull of? one or both bar- 
rels of your gun. And while, if you are holding the gun 
properly and with the muzzle pointing well upward, you 
will not kill or wound any one. still you are likely to give 
your companion a start that he may not recover from 
during the day, and if you should do this once, and your 
companion should be an older ^lan, he may perhaps not 
feel \cry much like going out with you on another oc- 
casion. 
It may often happen as you are going along with your 
fingers on the trigger of your gun, that you will step into 
a hole or catch your foot against a root or brier or tus- 
sock of grass and so stumble. and when you do this you are 
\ery likely without intending to do it to pull the trigger 
of your gun. 
This very thing happened not long ago to a small 
nephew of mine, who twice in one day discharged his 
gun from just such a cause He was expecting birds 
to get up, and was holding his gun in the proper position 
— the one recommended in a previous talk. The charge, 
th.erefore. went harmlessly into the air. but if he had 
Lccn carelessly holding the muzzle low down and some 
one had been walking by his side he might easily enough 
have shot his companion. During the act of raising the 
gun to your shoulder there is ample time for you to slip 
your hand a little forward along the grip and to put your 
fingers on the trigger, taking care alwavs that you do 
this very lightly, so as not to discharge the gun before 
you arc ready. That is a blunder very often made by 
shooters of all ages and degrees of experience, but it is 
none the less a blunder and one that is always regretted. 
Bcsitles-the ordinary accidents which may occur from 
nervousness or carelessness, there are of course others 
which result from the unusual situatio»*» in which the 
gunner often finds himself. I spoke to you a short time 
ago about what you should do if. in climbing a fence, 
a rotten rail broke under your foot, and here is some- 
thing which happened in the summer of 1899, which re- 
sulted from a boy's having- his gun at full cock and his 
finger on the trigs-er: Two young fellows were out 
shootmg beach birds on Long Island, and having oc- 
casion to cross a marsh were going along one behind 
the other, jumning from tussock to tussock. They were 
prepared to shoot at anything that misrht appear, avd 
the lead ng bov— at least— had his o-un at full cock. As 
lis feet reached the tu.isock for which he had sprun^^ he 
lost his balance and fell over backward. His gun was 
discharged as he fell, and the charge of shot tore its 
way through the thip-h of the lad behind him. Fortunate- 
ly the wound, though very severe, was on the outer side 
ct the thigh, and no bone or large artery was injured 
T he boy recoyrred. This, however, is an example of 
the sort of thing that may hapnen to a boy who 
through mere isrnorance and thoughtlessness, forgets the 
safety of his snroting companion in his eagjsrness to 
get a shot at a bird. 
Of course, it seems to you that vou would never let 
your gun eo off when not intending to but the in- 
Yo untary discharge of his weanon has hapnened to manv 
older persons and in fact I fancv it would be hard to 
find a man who has never had his gun go ofl^ acci- 
dentally If you ask men of experience, thev will almost 
all of them tell you that this hanpened to them and 
will explain to you how it happened, and usually that it 
was due to ihe-r own carelessness. 
_ men you stand ready to shoot, with your eun held 
in the rropr^r positron and both barrels at full cock 
still grasD your ,nm by the grip close back of the 
trigger giiard. and do not let your fingers touch the 
tr-rrn-ers. As you throw your gun to your shouMer xm, 
will have nlenty of t-me to crook your fins^Pr about the 
Sf^'^-'-i^M'-T ^^^^s ""tf vou catch 
the_ sight, lliere is no tmie los^ if vou follow this 
advice, ami there is certairlv something gained in safetv 
One of the first things thnt vour instructor will say to 
you IS. Ho not tindpr any circumstances point your pun 
at anv livmg thmcr that vrn arp r^t T>reoared to fire at " 
IhK IS the unvarving ruie of all shootpr.. and it can 
ll^r. Iv be_ repeated to you too often. Onlv yerv small 
d I drPn.- uhots .rd onls poi-t weapons at their f, lends 
\Mth the idpri of fnHitomn^ them. A ro,,.,.v?prable pro- 
port um, of 1 hose who do this mo.st foolish thing succee.1 
HI killing their brothers, sisters, children and wives X 
take it that you boys are far to© sensible ever to think 
of doing such a crazy thing as that, and that it is really 
not necessary to tell you this, and yet it is one of the 
things that must be repeated over and over again. 
See Your Game Plainly. 
Another unvarying rule rs, never fire your gun at any- 
thing on the ground that you cannot see distinctly. If 
you shoot through a thin piece of brush at some brown 
object which you think may be game moving on the 
far side, you may wound a person walking there. If in 
the Adirondacks you see something move in the bushes 
and fire at it under the impression that it is a deer, you 
may do what others do every year — kill your guide or 
your uncle or your father or your brother. It would be 
better to lose many, many shots than ever take a risk 
of this kind. 
I here will be occasions when you will fire through the 
bushes at something 20 or 30 feet above the ground that 
you cannot distinctly see; a partridge may sprmg up and 
whir off through the trees, and you w.h fire through the 
branches in the direction in which he is going, or a 
woodcock may hop up and twist around behind a tall 
conical cedar, and you will fire through that and kill him. 
Ihis, however, is a very different thing from shooting at 
something on the ground which you cannot clearly see, 
and I should be glad if I should ever learn that one of 
you boys d.d not shoot at a rabbit along a hedge row 
because you thought it possible that there might be 
some one on the other side. 
I am sure that you have had good enough bringing up 
to know that one of the first characteristics of a well- 
bred person is to think about other people and their 
safety and comfort quite as much as about his own. If you 
will carry into the field with you this same feeling, it will 
keep you from doing many things that may be dangerous 
to your neighbors, and it will a^so make you good com- 
pany in the field and a desirable assoc'ale wherever you 
may. be. I shall have a good deal to say to you about this 
matticr and your intercourse with your shooting com- 
panions when we ^et a little further along. I do not 
suppose that it will be possible for me to say anything 
to you that will change your natural characteristics, but 
1 do want to give you the best advice that I can. and to 
help you not only to be safe companions in the field, 
good shots, successful sportsmen, good dog handlers, buf 
also to be manly, straightforward and square; in a word, 
to be that which in old times all men were anxious to 
be — gentlemen. A boy or a man should not have one set 
of manners for his family and a different set for people 
with whom he is but slightly acquainted, nor one set for 
the house and school and another set for the field: he 
should be the same wherever he is, and that same should 
always be his best. W. G. De Groot, 
Weights of Game. 
Bedford, Pa.. Dec. 7. — Editor Forest mid Stream: ^ My 
favorite sport is ruffed grouse, qua 1. woodcock and jack- 
snipe shooting over a well-trained setter. Thi; bein^^ the 
case naturally I have been much in ercted in the corre- 
spondence which you have been publishing recent'y re'at- 
ing to the weights of sorrfe of these birds, and fo send 
you the weights of several ruffed grouse vir'^ich I hnve 
killed. Last Wednesday I k'lled a grouse w'^ich we'ghed 
27 ounces, and yesterdav one which weighed 2^ otm::es. 
La=t fall I killed one which weighed 26V2 ounces. I abo 
killed a very large one last fall which weighed 22 o'lnces 
after it had been drawn, the tail also having been nulled 
out by the dog catching i". I was sorry I was net ab'e to 
get the full weight of this bird, as he was evie'ent'y a 
patriarch. The above weights were taken on p'l'^tal scales, 
and so are exact. An old hunter who has k lied a great 
many hundreds of ruffed grouse told me that the largest 
he had ever seen weighed 2 pounds. 
A bunch of twenty-eight quail which a friend and I 
killed last week weighed a little over 12 ounces, which 
would make the average weight about 7 ounces. 
What has become of our old friend T. S. Hammond? 
I always enjoyed his articles in Forest and Strexm ex- 
ceedingly and have missed them very much. I very m'Kh 
wish that he could be induced to write a book cn ruffed 
grouse, quail and woodcock shooting. With best wishes 
for your paper, S. R. L. 
Toronto. Dec. 6. — Editor Forest and Stream; In your 
issue of Saturdav la.st (Dec. i) you ask gunners to note 
the weight of wild fowl that may come under their mtice. 
I quite agree with you that the weight of game birds is 
generally overestimated, even among hunters that are 
otherwise well posted on the hab'ts and modes of killing 
game. To illustrate this I will relate an instance that 
occurred on Saturday afternoon (Dec. i). The Stan'ey 
Gun Club hold their weeklv shoots on grounds ad- 
jacent to the marsh near Toronto Bay. and in the 
afternoon a gunner came along with a black duck wh'ch 
he had just shot. I happened to remark that I was going 
to send the weight of some ducks to your paper, and a 
gues<-ing competition wa« started, as to the weight of the 
black duck (a female in fair condition and good plumage, 
as nu'ght be expected so late in the season). Nine or ten 
members of the club thought the duck would weigh from 
2'i4 to 4 pounds. It was accurately weighed at a grocery 
store and found to weigh 2 pounds 4 ounces. Two friends 
of mine put in a couple of weeks on Lake Erie, z^'^ I 
weighed some of the canvasbacks they brought back. The 
heaviest male weighed 3 pounds 2 ounces; the lighte'^t 
female 2 pounds to otmces. I al'^o weighed a pair of red- 
heads, the male of which weighed 2 pounds 9 ounces, while 
the female turned the scale at 2 pounds 4 ounces. All of 
the"^e ducks were in splendid condit'on. 
Of crur=e the wpight of the =ame snecies of ducks will 
vary greatly in different localities. I have ki^l^d l°sser 
scauPs (or little bhich'll) at the mouth of the Red River 
on Lake Winnipeg that weighed 2 pounds 3 ounces (''n 
fflct thev were ,so fat t^pv were scarce'y ab'e to flv"). w':'''e 
ducks of ihe same kind shot near Toronto generally 
we'?h about a pound and, a half. On Toronto Btv they 
are hunted a good deal, while on Lake Winnipeg th-'y are 
scnrcelv molp'"tP(l. which. T Stmn"''(J "'"'opntc for *1t' 
difference. On pa^^sing a store to-dflv (Dec. 5") I noticed 
several black duck= and mallards hnns'nar u" that '■•ad 
Just arrived from St. Cl&ir Flats, and among the nu?nbcr 
an unusually large black duck, which, out of curiosity, I 
had weighed, when u turned the scale, at .3 pounds 6 
ounces — quite a difference from the on^ killed in i'orvyUto 
Marsh. J no. Town send. 
New York, Dec. 8. — Editor Forest and Stream: Here 
are some records of Long Island quail, the we.ghts being 
vouched for by M-r. Dan Youngs, postmaster of bouih 
jamesport, L. i., who weighed them on the po._tal scales 
in his office the same afternoon that they were shut by 
Mr. W. D. Vandenhove and Col, Frank Hallock : 
Sex. Weight. " - Age. 
Ounces. 
Cock 6}i This year's bir:1. 
Cock 7 This 3 ear's bird. 
Cock 6}i Old bi.d. 
Cock... Old bird. 
Cock 634 , Old bud. 
Cock 7 Old bird. 
Hen 7 Ihis year's bird. 
Hen 7'/2 This jear s bird. 
Hen 7 'i his ytar s bird. 
Hen 7 1 his year's bird. 
Hen 6^. This year s b^rd. 
Hen 6}i .Old b.rd. 
Hen 714 O.d b rd. 
Hen .....7 Old bird. 
Hen .7 Old bird. 
Hen 7^----. .....Old bird. 
Hen.. 7^ Olcl bird. 
Hen 7^ Old lird. 
Hen r'A Old b rd. 
Hen 714 .....Old bird. 
Note. — The last five birds all hens, were shot out of one 
flock of old birds that had apparently never separat^id 
since last season. Edwarj Banics. 
Gallatin, Tcnn.. Dec. 4. — adi'.or Forest and Stream: 
On Thanksgiving Day I weighed my bag of twen'y-th 
quail and found that they weighed 8 pounds gVz oun:e--, a.'i 
average of 6 ounces. 1 failed to weigh any of th.se biids 
individually, but do not think that the.-.e birds were as 
large as they sometimes grow here. I noticed one' ^ rd .n 
the loc that was not grown. - . ' 
I would like to ask if any of your readers have paid 
attention to the relative numbers of malts and fema.es 
among the quail they have ki'led. Will G. Harris. 
St. Augustine, Fla. — tuaor Forest and Stream: A 
New Jersey correspondent in Forest and Strea.m says 
his quail weigh 8 ounces. Another writes me from ip 
Jersey that he has weighed several and lound them be- 
tween 8 and 10 ounces. Now I am sa isfied that the 
Florida quail have not arrived at that d.grce of pon- 
derosity a tained by those at the North, and can liere- 
after sleep the sleep of the satisfied ju'^t. I have thoug'it 
ever since I've been here that the Florida quail were 
diininitive specimens; Didymus. 
Elmwood, Conn.. Dec 1. — Editor Forest an'i Strea^-n: 
Find inclo'-'ed the weight of some Connecticut birds shot 
Oct. 29: Quail, cocks 6^4. 5% ^H- IVa'^ hen. d''^ ounce'. 
Woodcock, s^/i- and 5^ ounces. Cock ruled prou e. 25''2 
ounces. I hope to be able to send you some fix we'ghrs 
during the winter, and if nothing prevents will send you 
some more bird weights another sea'^-'n. 
Samuel T. Colt. 
Bargain Day oa Staten Island. 
Princess Bay, N. Y. — Editor Forest and Stream: In 
Forest and Stream of th's week I read "Ont Day and 
Another" with much interest, and I am prompted by it to 
send you these notes from the Staten Island S.ar of this 
week. One written by A Bird Saver, run- : 
"The wanton destruction of song birds cn Staten Island 
during the period of fall migration is appalling. Hardly 
a day passes during this season but that our fore'ts teem 
with huntsmen, who by clever devices frequently elude the 
most careful vigilance of th*^ author t'e-. Gun= ayl am- 
munition come and go with one detachment while an- 
other carries away the game concealed undernea n toad- 
stools, mushrooms or autumm flowers, wrapped up in 
new-'paoers. While much effective work is being done 
through the earnest efforts of our gamo protectors who 
this fall have made several arrests and secured several 
hundred birds, yet much more stringent measures must 
be adopted if the lives of our feaJiered friends are to be 
preserved. The penalties imposed by general law are 
severe, and our charter affords ample means of pro'ect on 
cn paper; yet despite these safeguards, through the in- 
d fference of the public, the leniency of our courts, and the 
scarcity of officials, thousands of our sweetest songsters 
are shot every year. In two packages of d^ad birds re- 
cently brought to me for identification I found several 
junccs. chickadees, wooelpeckers, cedar waxwings, robins, 
bluebirds and hermit thrushes. These latter three groups 
are decidedly musical, the hermit thrush be'ng the most . 
exquisite songster that reaches northern latitudes. If, 
through the columns of the press, you can use any in- 
fluence toward the mitigation of this barbarous cruelty, 
you will insure the gratitude of all who appreciate the 
work of nature's valuable scavengers; who love her most 
enchanting musicians — the birds." 
The other is a local item which reports that "Michael 
Genoio, an I alian barber of Manhattan who was arrested 
on Nov. 30 by Game Protector Edgar Hicks for having 
in his possession thirty-five song birds, was fined $25 , 
with the alternative of twenty days in jail. The fine was 
paid." 
You will observe that A Bird Saver writes a very clever 
article, full of common sense, whereas the other article 
marked .shows a'mos-t total disregard for law, ccm'ng from 
a source from "'hich v,'e w.-iuVl natura'lv exnert differ- 
ent results. If Michael Genoio had received t'-e fu'l b^ne'"t 
of the law his fines would have amounted to $^75, and w'th 
the rer^i't^p.s ?t acherl for breaking the law. $60 more, 
he would. then have suffered. b'U a= i'- w^'^. he had a g'-od 
day's .sport,, and. in all probability Mr. Edc^^r H'cks wns 
ant of oncl-pt for rn^king the arrest. That "guinea" 
rnii'-t have thought Ue had struck bargain day on St-i'cn 
Island. - ■ *4* 
t 
