May i8, 1901.] 
FOREST AMxJ STREAM. 
387 
Shooting on Spring Island. 
New York, — Editor Forest and Stream: Having had 
several hunting trips South the past winter after quail, my 
experience on Spring Island was so unique and in such 
strong comparison with the shooting in other parts of 
the South, that I am tempted to write of it. 
I have never hunted in western North Carolina or in 
Virginia, and, in fact, my quail shooting heretofore in 
the South has been near the coast, in either Nortlr Caro- 
lina, some fifteen or twenty miles from New Bern, or in 
South Carolina around Georgetown, so that I cannot say 
that all quail shooting in the South is on similar terri- 
tory to that with which I am famiUar, but the country in 
the vicinities I have mentioned is flat, and one is about 
half the time traveling over low, wet ground, and is very 
often compelled to walk a log to cross the branches and 
flooded places, and the quail almost invariably fly into 
practically inaccessible thickets. 
The branches in eastern North and South Carolina are 
very heavily grown up with bushes, brambles, briers and 
stuff that a dog can scarcely penetrate, so that the quail 
fly into these inaccessible places. And then, although 
quail are considered plentiful, and on favorable days you 
can often raise anywhere from ten to perhaps twenty and 
even at times twenty-five coveys, there Will be periods of 
hours at a time during the day or even almost an entire 
day, when it seems impossible to find birds. For instance, 
recently at Georgetown, S. C, I hunted with three mag- 
nificent dogs over a country where quail were undoubtedly 
abundant, and where my companions had often found, at 
other times, large numbers of coveys. For hours during 
this day We were unsuccessful, and when we began to find 
birds along toward night, I was too exhausted from my 
many miles of tramping to do any satisfactory shooting. 
I mention all this in order to draw comparison with 
Spring Island. As the guest of Colonel Martin, I shot on 
Spring Island, and have never seen as fine a place for 
hunting. It is where a woman could shoot with perfect 
comfort, so dry and clean, no fences and few if any 
briers. 
Without exaggeration you can hunt this island over 
with slippers on and not get your feet wet. There are no 
marshy spots and the streams are all narrow and spanned 
"with ease. Then the island has been in such a state of 
ciiltivatton and so thoroughly cleared^ up, that impene- 
trable places a'ong streams such as you find on the main- 
land, do not exist on Spring Island. Of course, there 
are bushes and thick places, but none that are not easily 
p'eiietrated and in which good shooting camiot be done, 
and when we flushed a covey, instead of flying into a 
tangled growth where' it was hopeless to follow, they 
would invariably light on high ground, affording the very 
prettiest kind of shooting. It was a constant marvel to 
me, the ease with which we found the birds after flushing 
a covey, and the open, fine shooting they afifordedr 
As to quantities, I have never seen the like, and I 
do not believe there is another place in our country that 
can approach it; just one covey after another in rapid 
succession. There are certainly A^ast numbers of quail on 
this island, and although Colonel Martin said 6,000 birds 
had been killed this season up to March i, we were con- 
tinually shooting into coveys that I could not discover 
had ever been shot at before. And rabbits were constantly 
found — more than I have ever seen before in my life. It 
must be largely owing to the fact that there are no foxes 
or skunks on the island. 
By the way, there is a well-known shooter in South 
Carolina, whose name, if I should give it to you. many 
would know and whose scores on quail are wholly beyond 
ray comprehension. He claimed, and was not disputed 
by those who know him, to have killed fifty-four quail 
with fifty-six shells. He shoots with a Winchester pump 
'gun, and it is a common occurrence for him to shoot 
three, four and five quail on a rise, and to kill twenty and 
twenty-five quail without a miss is nothing for him to 
comment on. I understand he does not ppck his shots, but 
takes everything as it comes. 
Whether or not an outdoor life would ever get my 
nerves in shape where I could kill as many as eight out of 
ten I do not know. I would like to have a year of 
leisure and such hfe, in order to see what it would do 
for me. As it is, I shoot at everytliing in sight, and 
manage to get my share of the bag, although I never have 
had the courage to keep account of the shells that I use. 
Cdctrtlandt Babcock. 
IC A, A. 
New York, May 8. — The first meeting of the Ticon- 
deroga Gun Club, motto, K. W. Y. A. A. (Know What 
You Aim At), organized to prevent the danger incident 
to hunting in the Adirondacks and to promote kindly 
and fraternal relatiojis between ^ountry and city sports- 
men, was held in this city tb-day. The following ticket 
was elected: Ingle Carpenter, President; Edward M. 
Bliven, First Vice-President ; Frank Hooper, Second Vice- 
President; Peter Flint, Secretar}', 150 Nassau street, New 
York city; George Ketchum, Assistant Secretary; Paris 
Scott Russell, Treasurer. 
Board of Directors to act for the first year: Ingle 
Carpenter, Peter Flint, George Ketchum, Edward M. 
Bliven, Paris Scott Russell, Carlos C. Alden, Edmund O. 
Luthy, Alexander H. Weed, George Farrington, Frank 
Hooper. W. Bradford Smith, Cass Pease and Sidney M. 
Rawson. 
The club has secured an option on a tract of land situ- 
ated near the bridge on Eagle Lake, Ticonderoga, con- 
taining upward of twenty-five acres, with about one-half 
mile of water front. The club house to be erected soon 
will stand upon the old trails to Goose Neck and Bear 
ponds, "and near to the stage and telephone lines from 
Ticonderoga to Schroon. 
The President announced the following committees: 
By-Laws— Messrs. Alden, Flint and F. H. Russell. Mem- 
bership—Messrs, Alden, F. H. Russell, Flint. A. R. Weed 
and Frank Hooper. Site and Club House — Messrs. Luthy, 
Pease and F. H. Russell. Peter Flint, Sec'y- 
Clara— "I gee Cynthia has decorated her room with 
guns, pistols, swords, and the like." Cora — "Yes; she 
always has been a great girl for having arras around her." 
?— Yonkers Statesman. 
Quail on Toast* 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
The article in your issue of this week (copied from the 
Milwaukee Sentinel), which refers to quail on toast and 
says that Wisconsin pigeons are commonly served on 
toast as quail, is amusing and quite suggestive. 
Did you ever know an old sportsman who has had the 
quail of his own shooting slowly broiled over a bed of 
coals and basted with butter until it was a morsel fit for a 
king, to munch a piece of pungent brown toast as he ate 
his bird, and thus neutralize or destroy its delicacy of 
flavor ? 
Those of us who shot quail thirty or forty years ago 
and often broiled our own birds over a bed of hickory 
coals, never permitted the delicious flavor of our game 
to be affected by anything, and least of all by brown and 
perhaps bitter toast. 
But some years ago some chef in a hotel or cook in 
some restaurant invented this dish as a commercial neces- 
sity for the reason that quail had become an article of 
commerce. Many were slaughtered in large quantities 
at the West and were permitted to freeze and thaw and 
freeze until when they were put upon the market for sale 
they were very often stale and practically tasteless, and 
here came in the fine work of the chef. If he could make 
quail on toast a fashionable dish he could serve his State 
birds, and even "Wisconsin pigeons," simply observing the 
rule that the more stale the bird the more brown must 
be the toast. X. 
Long Island Bay Bitd Season* 
The list of bay bird shooting points givfeli in our last 
issue was inadvertently printed without reference to sea- 
son, and Long Island points were included as if shooting 
there was now permissible. The season for bay birds on 
Long Island will not open until July i. 
— ® — 
Proprietors of fishingr resorts will find it profitable to advertise 
them in Forest and Stream. 
The Sabbath Day on the BeaverfcilL 
Editor Forest and Stream : 
I have in mind your suggestion that I should give some 
reminiscences in regard to the Beaverkill, but the days or 
v,-eeks which I spent on that stream were mostly from 
1857 to early in the seventies, and he must have a good 
memory who can recollect the incidents of the trips he 
made forty years ago — and yet it is difficult to see how 
any one could ever forget how he Avas impressed with 
the religious sentiments of all those living there, how 
universally they regarded the Sabbath as a day of ab- 
solute rest and as a holy day. 
I never knew or heard of a native fishing on the Sab- 
bath; and if any one visiting this stream dared to defy 
this unwritten law he was waited upon by a committee 
and ordered to leave and never return. 
This was the sentiment on other streams as well. About 
1864 a companion of mine, against my earnest protest, 
fished the Rondout on the Sabbath, and on the next morn- 
ing he was ordered home and told that if he ever returned 
he would be mobbed. The anglers who visited the 
Beaverkill were gentlemen; they recognized the courtesies 
extended to them under which they were permitted to 
fish on private property. They appreciated the deep 
religious sentiment of the inhabitants, and I never knew 
of an angler who did not, out of respect to this senti- 
m.ent, regard the Sabbath as a day of rest and quiet what- 
ever his own views may have been, and thus it was that 
the Sabbaths were in fact the most delightful days spent by 
those who used to make their home at Murdock's cottage. 
Two miles below Murdock's there was a little hamlet 
consisting principally of a church, an old graveyard, a 
grocery, blacksmith shop and cobbler's shop. At this 
point a small stream joined the Beaverkill from the 
east, with the charming name of Shin Creek, and those 
who fished this stream with its ragged edges and narrow 
gorges and came in with sore ankles, have always recog- 
nized this name, which was adopted by the Post OflSce 
Department as exceedingly appropriate. 
The church at this place was built in the forties or 
early fifties by the joint contribution of several denomina- 
tions, and when some minister did not happen to be on 
the stream to take charge of the service, it was usually 
conducted by a Methodist minister, who preached some 
six or eight miles elsewhere in the morning, and then 
afterward walked to Shin Creek to conduct the service 
there in the afternoon. His yearly stipend for this double 
service was $200; and yet there are those who claim that 
these men are in the business only for the money that 
there is in it. 
The anglers in those days esteemed it a privilege as 
well as a pleasure to contribute from year to year some- 
thing for the purpose of keeping this church in proper 
paint and repair, and also to quietly add to the collec- 
tion_ taken on every Sabbath day for the benefit of the 
minister. 
But this is really preliniinary to what I started out to 
write. 
On the Sabbath, day every one attended the services in 
this little church, rain or shine, often riding ten miles 
or more from up the stream, for this was the only 
church between the head of the Beaverkill and a place 
ten miles below it. It was always full. 
There was a person then living in the neighborhood 
by the name of Hotchkiss, long since gone to his rest, and 
by comm.on consent he led the music. He ahvays came 
in his shirt sleeves when the day was warm, and when 
the hymns were given out he usually stood at the front 
seat, threw his foot over the back, and after listening to 
bis music fork started the tune, which on almost every 
Sabbath was either "China" or "Mear" and sometimes 
both. 
I have heard the best church music in this country, but 
I have never heard anything which seemed to bring every 
person who joined in these services nearer to the Heavenly 
Throne of God than these simple services in this little 
church in which every one joined, many of them with 
tears in their eyes. 
It is hardly necessary to say that the rest of the ser- 
vice was equally fervent and uplifting. The minister who 
for $200 a year would travel eight or ten miles every 
Sabbath, winter and summer, conduct two services and 
visit the sick and bury the dead, in two congregations, was 
necessarily filled with the spirit of his Master. His ser- 
mons may not have been very deep, but he always tried to 
impress upon his hearers the necessity of a holier and a 
higher life, and to urge them to follow as their pattern 
life that of the Master he came to present to them. 
And these services and teachings bore rich fruit. The 
Sabbath was always observed as a day of holiness and 
rest, and what is more, these services made their visible 
impress upon the daily lives of all who lived upon this 
stream. J. S. Van Cleef. 
The Cabin by the Lake. 
On tlie outskirts of a small town in Massachusetts, 
about fifty miles west of Boston, in the basin of the 
high plateau land, is a lake about one and a half miles 
in length and about a mile in width, in the middle. 
Tlie lake is fed entirely by springs, and the water is 
clear as crystal. The average depth of the lake is 60 feet, 
but the township being more desirous of a few dollars 
than a beautiful spot provided wholly by nature sold the 
water right to a manufacturing company about a dozen 
miles away. They put in a dam at the foot of the lake 
and dredged out the bottom so they could draw it as low 
as they wished. Owing to the dry season the last two 
years the lake has been kept very low. The lake was sur- 
rounded by magnificent groves, mostly chestnut, oak and 
pine, but these have been cut off to a great extent, and 
the beauty of the lake is greatly marred. 
I am interested in the welfare of this lake, because a 
friend and myself have a camp there. It is a little cabin 
12 feet wide by 20 feet long, made of rough pine boards 
and sheathed inside and out with ordinary sheathing paper 
to make it airtight as well as waterproof. On the roof we 
put first a layer of this sheathing paper, then over that 
a layer of tar paper. This has proved to be waterproof, 
and it has stood some severe tests. Every year we go 
over the roof with a coat of tar to preserve the paper, 
and in this way it will lasf for six or seven years. The 
expense of a camp like this is very small, and the 
amount of enjoyment derived is beyond expression. We 
bought second-hand lumber, several pieces 6 by 6 inches, 
which we used as stringers, laid on a foundation of stones 
from the shore of the lake. We used 2 by 4s for the 
flooring timbers and all the rest of the frame work, and 
then boarded up with the rough boards. One roll of 
sheathing paper was enough for the whole of the sides 
and roof and roof of the piazza. Tar paper is only 3 feet 
wide, so we lapped it over enough to use five .strips, each 
21 feet long. We covered the paper with sheathing 
strips — strips about half an inch thick and an inch wide — 
putting them on within a foot of each other to prevent 
any possibility of the wind getting under it and stripping 
- it off. The whole camp, all told, not including our time, 
which we did not value very highly, cost us $9.75 — $5 
for the lumber and the rest for the sheathing paper, 
nails and carting of our fixings to the lake. 
We take great pride in the location of this camp. It 
is situated on a rising plot of ground, about 200 feet from 
the lake, and just north of the middle. It is one of the 
few spots where a view of the whole lake is obtained. In 
front of the cabin, about 50 feet toward the lake, is a 
huge maple, whose spreading branches afford a cool 
shade the entire day. Many a day have we lain under 
its branches reading, smoking or rigging some new 
kind of fishing tackle, not realizing that it was a hot day 
until some of our friends drove down from town, six 
miles away, and told us it was one of the hottest days 
of the season, and that they had come down to spend 
the day where it was cool. 
We have a piazza on the front side of the building 
fitted with all kinds of rustic contrivances for comfort — 
chairs with cushions made of gunnysacks stuffed with 
pine needles and long backs in which one can recline in 
comfort; settees made of the same material and fitted 
with head rests at one end. Here we sit on balmy sum- 
mer evenings, when we do not feel in a mood for fishing, 
and sing college songs and all the popular airs of the 
day, much to our own enjoyment, though some of the 
harmony might not please the ears of a trained musician. 
Under the cabin we dug a hole about 4 feet square and 
about the same depth, and stoned up the sides and the 
bottom, using a sort of clay found in some portions of 
the lake, which, when dry, is as hard as rock. This is 
our cellar, and things keep cool and fresh in there in the 
hottest kind of weather. Water kept in this cellar over 
night is plenty cool enough for drinking. We have two 
stone jars, which we keep filled with water all the time, 
so that we have plenty of cold drinking water. 
When the lake is up to its high water mark, the fishing 
is very good for perch, pickerel and bullheads, but when 
it is low we have to resort to all kinds of strategy to 
get what fish we want. We have always managed to get 
all the fish we wanted for food, however, and to give our 
friends an occasional fish fry; and what more does one 
want? I love to tinker around, rigging all sorts of new 
contrivances to tempt the unwilling fish, and so far have 
always succeeded. 
Last summer the lake had been down very low for 
two years, and the fishing was exceedingly poor. I was 
sitting under the big maple one day racking my brain for 
a scheme to get a mess of bullheads, for when bullheads 
are tken from a clear lake like this they form a very 
delicate morsel of food, and are in great demand by the 
summer boarders. I happened to think of a scheme I had 
read of somewhere but had never had occasion to try, 
and I set about testing it immediately. I took a clear 
glass bottle, filled it half-full of angle worms and corked 
it up. I then took a boat and went to a place that I had 
marked as being a good fishing ground for bullheads, 
and tying a weight to the bottle sank it and anchored it 
there about 3 feet from the bottom. The second even- 
ing, just at dusk, I rowed to the place where the bottle 
was, and anchoring right over it began to fish, using 
angle worms for bait It was barely ten minutes before 
the sport began, and it was very lively while it lasted. 
