28 
use of the second barrel, and general handiness with the 
gun. But you must not for a moment imagine that shoot- 
ing clay pigeons is anything like shooting birds in the 
field. 
If now your gun was given you for a Christmas present, 
you have a long time to wait before it is possible for you 
to use it on birds. I think it very likely that this long 
delay will seem very hard for you to bear, but from my 
point of view it is rather good for you. For, if you have 
practiced all these things that I have recommended, yoxi 
have certainly reached a point where you are entirely 
familiar with your gun ; where you have trained yourself 
to use it like a common sense man and not like a harum- 
scarum hoy, and you have acquired so much skill in shoot- 
ing it that it is altogether probable that when you go 
out, perhaps in the last days of August for the rail, you 
will render a very good account of yourself. You may 
not do this on the first day, for it is quite possible that 
the sight of actual birds getting up before you, may throw 
you quite off j'-our balance; you may become excited and 
-may waste a great deal of ammunition. If you have some 
old-time shover who has been working at this during the 
rail season for twenty-five or thirty years, he will very 
likely be greatly disgusted with your bad work and make 
it still worse by sadly informing you after every shot that 
you "Never tetched him." If you find yourself getting 
into a nervous condition of mind, I recommend to yovi 
the plan that Mr. Hammond speaks of in his excellent 
little book on shooting, with which to steady yourself. 
Take the cartridges out of j^our gun, and when a hkd 
gets up, cover him precisely as if you were going to 
shoot, and Avhen you have him covered, and not before, 
pull the trigger. Do this three or four times, and it is 
quite probable that your nerves will steady themselves, and 
that then you can put cartridges in your gun and shoot 
with a reasonable hope of bringing down your birds in 
good style. Still, not very much can be hoped for the 
first day that you go out, but the second day I shall expect 
to have you do much better, and shall hope to hear a good 
report of your doings. Remember that in rail shooting 
there is always abundant time. Some men if armed with a 
repeating gun could fire several shots at a rail before he 
gets out of range, and you have every opportunity to 
put up your gun, deliberately cover the bird and kill him. 
Indeed, if you do not take pains to be slow about shoot- 
ing, you will kill many of your birds so close to the gun 
that they will be unfit to bring on the table, being cut all 
to pieces mth shot and the flesh filled with feathers. 
But assuming that the shooting season is still a long 
way off, you must continue .your practice at flying targets 
in a variety of ways. After you have become able to hit 
potatoes when they are flying pretty fast and in all sorts 
of directions, it will be well for yoil to have some practice 
on doubles, letting your instructor toss two potatoes in the 
air at once, and trying for them with the right and the 
left barrel, and then getting him to throw two at a time in 
various directions, or at least two as nearly together as 
possible. It may be that your instructor will get a little 
tired of this active exercise, but since by this time you 
have learned enough about a gun to be trusted with it, it 
is almost certain that 5^ou can get some one of your friends 
and companions to go out with you, and, by letting him 
use the gun a part of the time, can get him to throw for 
you when you are shooting just as you throw for him 
when he is shooting. This will be good practice for 
you, too, in another way, since it will be j-our duty to 
watch this companion and see that he is holding his gun 
properly, that he never points it in any direction where 
it can do harm, that he stands as he ought and does not 
discharge his gun until liis eye is running along the bar- 
rels. Indeed, you and he, as you talk over the various in- 
cidents of the shooting, may each get new ideas, and so the 
practice will benefit both. 
All the practice that you have had, of course,^ has been 
open shooting of the plainest possible kind. This is, as it 
should be, because you must learn how to make simple 
shots before trying those that are difficult. But after you 
have had enough practice to feel reasonably confident 
about such shots as I have spoken of, let your companion 
stand behind you, throw a potato as hard as he can in any 
direction that he pleases, so that it will pass somewhere 
within the range of your sight. He may throw it directly 
to the front over your head, or quartering to either side, 
or perhaps way off to your right or to your left. You will 
have to watch the whole half of the circle, see the mark 
and shoot at it before it gets out of range. At first you 
will find this difficult, for it may call for more quickness 
than you have, but if I were you, I would not fire until 
you believe that you are going to hit the mark. Throw 
up your gmi when you see the object and try to catch it 
before it is out of range, but if you cannot do so, do not 
shoot. Very likely you will find this the most discourag- 
ing thing that you have done yet, and if it seems quite 
hopeless to you, why then you may go back to the easier 
shots at which you were successful, and by making them 
regain your confidence. Then try again these hard shots, 
concerning which you have no warning whatever. I think 
that after a little while you will succeed in making them. 
Another test of quickness is to walk along through the 
field with your companion walking behind you, and to have 
him throw a potato in any direction that he pleases, ma- 
king, just as he throws it, some sound which represents the 
whirring of a bird's wings as it rises. It is your business 
then to discover in what direction the mark is flying and 
to hit it before it gets away. Perhaps your father will 
think this practice of yours is rather expensive, for I am 
sure that by this time you must have used up several 
bushels of potatoes, but if they have taught you the les- 
sons that I hope they have, the learning has not been 
very costly. . , , ^ . , 
I have warned you not to shoot too quickly, for instead 
of your beginning to shoot quickly and afterward learning 
to aim at the mark, I want you first to learn to aim at the 
mark, and afterward to learn to shoot quickly. Keep it 
always in your mind, therefore, not to fire too quickly, but 
remember also that you cannot too quickly be ready to 
fire. In almost aU upland shooting, and especially in all 
shooting in cover, which includes much of the quail shoot- 
ing, and the sharp-tail grouse shooting, and all the shoot- 
ing' at ruffed grouse and woodcock, the great majority of 
your birds will rise within IS or 20 yards of vour feet, and 
unless you give them time to get a little further away you 
will yery lively cut them up very badly iii killing thew- 
Although there are some sections where the cover is very 
thick, and this does not apply, yet on the whole, nineteen 
times out of twenty, you will have abundant time to shoot, 
and even may have to wait for your birds, but the 
twentieth time the bird will be gone in the twinlding of 
an eye; it will appear and disappear, and if you are not 
■'as quick as a wink" in your shooting, you will lose it. 
It is for that reason that I wish you to devote your prac- 
tice chiefly to catching sight on any object quickly. When 
you can do that, you are already a good shot, and that is 
what you are trying to become, and the reason that you 
are listening to these talks. W. G, De Groot. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
End of I the Northern Season, 
Chicago, 111., Dec. 29. — The shooters in this part of 
the world are putting up their guns for the season. Of 
course, the impression is that since the season is closing 
here it is closing everywhere, though really there is no 
such thing as an absolute season in a country so large 
as this. In the .South the shooters are now having the 
cream of their year's sport, both in ttpland shooting and 
in wildfowl shooting. The Indiana law on quail is out 
next Monday, and after that there will be the customary 
inrgration of Northern shooters to the Southern fields, 
— a migration which grows annually greater in its num- 
bers, ii 
In fact, the edge of the shooting appetite is taken off 
inside the first thirty days, so far as most Northern city 
shooters are concerned. The average city man is too 
busy to go shooting vei-y often. The usual thing with 
him is to get perhaps one trip in the season, and to 
make plans for a half dozen more, which never come off. 
Thus the recently formed Jasper County Club, of this 
cit}% which had some very good grounds preserved, near 
Wheatland, Ind., can only show a total of ten days' actual 
shooting done this fall by the combined membership of 
the club. Naturally the birds Avere not very much cut 
down in that neighborhood. 
Bill, Haskell is back this week from a voyage of ex- 
ploration in Indiana, where he has been prospecting for 
grounds for another preserve that is held in view by 
some sportsmen of this city. Mr. Haskell and a local 
companion killed thirty-three quail and a number of 
rabbits. They found a piece of land which might, under 
certain circumstances, be desirable for a club property. 
Verjr fair bags of quail have been the rule up to the end 
of the season in this State and Indiana, though there 
has not been veiy much shooting for the last ten days 
by Chicago shooters. The crop of quail goes over in 
very good shape indeed. Unless we have a distinct 
change in our weather this will be an ideal winter for 
quail. Up till this time it has been more like fall than 
winter, with no snow and no bad storms. We will be 
apt to have something different from this before spring, 
but it is to be hoped that the splendid stock of quail now 
established in these two States will not be cut down by 
climatic causes. There are a good many prairie chickens 
along the Kankakee bottoms this winter, and there is 
every hope that these birds will rather increase than di- 
minish. It is all a question of observance of the law. 
In very large tracts of these two sister States there is a 
country yet wild enough to carry a good stock of game 
under any sort of reasonable shooting. 
The ducks have not yet left this country, some mallards 
still hanging along the open water wherever it can be 
found. Four flocks of geese are reported by Mr. Haskell 
as seen this week in his exploring trip. 
So far as the local shooting is concerned it is now put 
near up to molly cottontail. We cannot go snowshoeing 
around here, for we have no snow. A pack of beagles 
is a good thing to have in the family right now. 
Just south of the city, in the sand hills at the foot of 
Lake Michigan, there are a good many rabbits this year. 
A farmer near there has also located five wolves, two old 
ones and three young ones, within a few miles of New 
Buffalo. Mr. Perkins, of this city, has a tract of four 
and a half miles of lake frontage near there, his land 
running back into the sand hills. He has also three or 
four good fox hounds, and the scheme at this time is 
to wait for a good tracking snow, whereupon the farmer 
is to wire Mr. Perkins, the latter is to tell me, and we 
are to go down there and have a wolf chase. We know 
the swamp where the wolves are hiding, and if everything 
should turn out well we may get a wolf story, and maybe 
a wolf skin. Something ought to be done in the way 
of bounty to keep these animals from devastating- 
Chicago. 
Speed of Wildfowl. 
A correspondent states that he had referred to him the 
old question as to the relative speed of wildfowl. He de- 
cided that as between mallard and teal the question was 
a draw. He was perhaps right. The teal is swifter on 
an inshoot, or a dropping angle, but on a steady over- 
head flight it is perhaps no faster than the larger bird. 
The wild goose flies much faster than it seems to. It is 
popularlir supposed that the canvasback is the fastest of 
all wildfowl. It is stated that recently a gentleman who 
was flying a series of kites, found that he could tell 
something about the flights of ducks crossing his kite 
lines. He thought they averaged forty-five miles an hour. 
It has always been thought that twice that many miles 
an hour is not too much to credit to the wild duck, and I 
should think the latter figure much more accurate than 
the former. I once printed in these columns the test 
made at Grass Lake, 111., by a party of my friends. 
From the place where they were situated in their boat it 
was just a mile to a certain bridge where sonie shooters 
were stationed. A bunch of ducks crossing the bridge 
would be fired at, and the men in the boat would take 
the time of the puff of smoke. Then they would take 
the time of the same flock of ducks when they passed 
over the boat. In this way, if memory serve me, they 
figured that the ducks were making something Uke 80 or 
9P miles an hour. . ^, 
Some (Montana Bear Stories. 
Mr. G. H. Macdougall. of Butte, Mont., is good enough 
to iiven up matters with a bear story or so from his 
fl^ck of woods. It makes m§ rather ^nhanpy to read 
bear stories, since I have never yet found that grizzly 
which I lost many years ago. I presume it is the next 
best thmg to read about other fellows who have found 
their bears, Mr. Macdougall goes on to say: 
'T have a bear story for you which I think is a peach. 
To appreciate it, you should know the actor. It is so 
perfectly characteristic of him. Let me introduce to you 
my particular friend, Henry, commonly known as 'Mil- 
waukee.' His nickname gives a clue to his charatcer. 
He is a typical crazy Dutchman, bubbling over with high 
spirits and good nature, a most lovable duck, but de- 
cidedly short on prudence, or common sense, or whatever 
you like to call it. 
"Henry was hunting deer, and got some too, for he is 
a good shot and has the patience of Job, though I would 
not like to be within a mile of him when he begins 
shooting, for I am sure he shoots at everything that 
moves. However, there he was, in the mountains about 
fifty miles from here, coming home alone after a hard 
day's tramp. When about two miles from the little min- 
ing camp where he was staying, and when very tired, he 
noticed some fresh dirt piled up against some ledges of 
rock projecting from the hillside. One might have sup- 
posed he would understand that fresh dirt does not grow 
of its own accord on a wild mountain side, but the only 
thing that occured to Henry was that it was a nice, dry 
place to sit down and take a rest. He sat down accord- 
ingly, and as he sat, noticed some animal poke its head 
out of a small hole in the dirt. Thinking it was probably 
a groundliog, he threw down his rifle without getting 
up, and shot at it. It retreated into the hole with shrieks 
and howls fit to raise the dead, and out of the same 
hole, throwing the dirt in all directions, came a she bear, 
simply boiling with rage. Henry shot at her, hitting 
her a glancing blow along the skull, which only knocked 
her silly for a second and made her madder than ever. 
Except on the fresh dirt, ice and snow made the hillside 
slippery, as it had been thawing, so our bold Henry had 
to stand his ground whether or no, and so, though scared 
to death, he shot again, and by good luck hit her between 
the eyes and finished her. After a few breaths which 
nearly burst his belt, it occurred to the bright mind of 
our friend that there might be another cub in the hole, 
and with an ingenuity nearly allied to genius, he poked 
his leg down in the hole to feel around for more bear. 
He got a wipe across the shin that stripped it of legging, 
trouser leg, drawer leg and hide, and made him withdraw 
it 'some sudden.' It was followed out by a yearling cub 
the size of a good, big dbg, which Henry immediately 
killed with one shot.' Net result, three bears, a sore shin, 
and a Dutchman divided between so much delight and 
so much scare that he was unable to move on for half 
an hour. Lucky for him that the 'Dear little cherub that 
sits up aloft' was attending strictly to business that day, I 
think." 
"Relating this story to a mutual friend the other day, he 
capped it with another. This fellow is 'good Injun,' one 
of the best amateur mountaineers I ever met. He was 
hunting one evening just about sundown, when he saw 
between him and the sun on the sky line of a ridge, a 
big silver-tip. He was bothered by the sun in his eyes, 
but managed to hit the bear in the rump. Bear made a 
bee line for him, grunting every jump. Hunter stood 
partly behind a tree and pumped lead for his life, hitting 
the bear several times, but not hard enough to stop him. 
When only two or three jumps separated them, the hunter 
shot again and grabbed his knife, expecting to have a 
personal encounter in approved Daniel Boone style. But 
the bear, bewildered by its wounds, ran right by him, not 
six feet away, stmnbled over a small declivity, and kept 
a going into some brush. When the blood got back to 
my friend's face, and his heart out of his throat, he grew 
suddenly bold (reaction, I suppose), and felt like follow- 
ing the beari and finishing the argument. But he had 
another think coming, which was that he didn't want to 
follow a silver-tip into cover so near dark, or perhaps 
any other old time for that matter, so he thankfully struck 
out for camp. He and his chums looked for the bear 
next day, but never got him. This fellow is as game as 
a chicken, and might have won out if it came to grips, but 
lie thinks he will never be any nearer death until it 
actually comes, than he' was that evening." 
t':^ Meat Dogs. 
The same writer adds some feeling words about meat 
dogs that are not meat dogs. The plum idiot dog that 
can run is something which has been seen by others be- 
sides Mr. Macdougall, who says: 
"That old 'meat dog' pointer of mine picked up a coyote 
bait a year or two ago, so I am 'afoot' again. Ill health 
has prevented my getting out for a hunt since, but I am 
looking, for one of the old sort to take his place, as I 
am all right again. The last time I hunted old Sam, I 
had to break him all over again, and a nice job it was, 
though he surprised the party with his fine work after 
I had him in subjection. I don't like to hunt one of 
those rebels, no matter how good they are, but if a fellow 
happens to get one, a good stout club is the only argu- 
ment that will be listened to. I prefer one easier to 
handle, though, for I hate to have to beat a dog. The 
best dog I ever owned, or ever saw, for that matter, was 
one out of Davidson's Doll, one of the original Llewel- 
lyn cross, by a dog of his of unfashionable breeding, 
p'robably one of the old English breeds. This bitch, who 
died about 1882, could actually talk, and it didn't need a 
club to keep her in order either. She did her own hunt- 
ing, and, what is more, found the birds. I used to shack 
along on a clevi r pony anywhere she showed an inclina- 
tion to go, and the hardest work I did was to look for 
'ner a little if she didn't show up for ten minutes lor so, and 
I always got all the birds I wanted in two or "three hours. 
They don't make them that way now. The last Llewellyn 
I tri'ed to break ranged to beat the band, but was a plum 
idiot. When I left him behind after my last trip with 
him, he took up with a sheep herder, and that was about 
his gait." 
Sfiot a Horse for a Deer. 
The man behind the gun continues to do all sorts of 
fool things. It is nothing unusual to read these days 
of a man'^who accidentally shoots his friend, or some of , 
his own family. There are, however, some distinguish- 
• ing features to the story of the man who rode with a , 
friend ovit '^to the woods to hunt deer, ^4 then kUle4 
