FOREST AND STREAM 
25 
Dog: and Sn£ke* 
In August, 1844, i was. a boy of fifteen, working with my 
lather on the farm iii northern Illinois. One afternoon he 
liad just climbed on a load of straw he had been pitching 
up to me, when I heard a rattlesnake on the ground near 
by. After looking about a few minutes, we discerned 
him in the stubble, about 20 feet away, just coiling, readv 
for defense or attack. In tliose early days it was con- 
sidered almost a religious duty to dispatch every venomous 
creature of that kind, so plentiful were they on the 
prairies. I was about to get down from the load for that 
purpose, when I thought of the little dog Penny. He 
was a slender little fellow of the proverbial "yaller dog" 
species, but had a great reputation as a snake killer. So 
1 whistled for Penny, who came running, in cheerful re- 
sponse, from the house. Being directed and hissed on, he 
soon discovered the snake, still darting out his tongue and 
giving forth warning with his tail. We had a fine view 
from the load. 
Penny approached cautiously, first on this side, then on 
that, till he had gone round the snake several times, always 
finding him ready for a fatal blow in any direction. Sud- 
denly he stopped still, and turned his head to one side in 
serious contemplation. I think if he had had a finger he 
would have scratched his head just back of his right ear in 
search of an idea. After a few moments' reflection, his 
plan seemed formed. He stepped back a step or two, 
made a bound forward, toward the snake, and snapped at 
It with his teeth, coming very close to it. but not touching 
it; then bounded back as quick as a flash. The snake 
struck out his full length, and very fiercely, but he was not 
quick enough. Penny had dodged him.' ' The snake, of 
course, was now straightened out, and the dog, springing 
so quick you could hardly see him', caught it in the middle 
of the body, and, giving it one quick, violent shake, 
dropped it on the ground, completely stunned, so that it 
was only a moment's work to seize it again and shake it 
into many pieces. — Correspondence Los Angeles Times. 
— ^ — 
Proprietors of shooting resorts will find it profitable to advertise 
them ia Forest and Stream. 
As Touching the Woodchuck. 
What can the commonplace pen of a commonplace 
mortal write on such a commonplace theme as this 
that isn't known to all and several humanity already? 
What new facts are deducible? Does not every treatise 
on natural history, every encyclopedia, exhaust' the sub- 
ject in all its possible ramifications? 
Right here there impinges upon my inner conscious- 
ness a vision of my amateur gardening experience, and 
my mental economy shrieks an emphatic negative to 
those latter iriterrogatories. The books tell- of the ani- 
mal's habits, its good ones, such as building its home, 
getting its food in sequestered pasture lands, its hiberna- 
tions, etc. I had read this sort of thing and regarded 
myself fairly well versed in woodchuck and other animal 
lore. But a few weeks of actually associating with him 
taught me that the brute has heights and depths and an 
illimitable penchant for pure, unadulterated cussedness 
that I'd never so much as dreamed of, and that is not 
,so much as suggested in the books. 
"Dem 'chucks is de mos' ornerey cusses livin'," said 
Pete, my man of all work, a title never more aptly mis- 
applied, for. I think, w-ithout exception, he was the 
laziest negro who survived the disruption of the "Pecu- 
liar Institution." He had ventured this opinion one 
morning after informing me that ''de 'chuck's bin a 
samplin' de garding fer sho'." While viewing the wreck 
of several, rows of lima beans, which had been my especial 
care, and which I found had been pulled up bodily and 
left scattered on the ground, Pete resumed: ''Dey hain't 
no sorter use fer dem beans an' wouldn't eat 'em ef dey 
wuz a-starvin', but dey jess pulls ob 'em up 'cause ob de 
nacheral, low down cussidniss wots into 'em." 
Pete's tirade failed to impress me deeply at that time, 
as I was inclined to attribute the visitation to one of the 
natural drawbacks attendant on gardening that I had been 
cautioned about. But. as time wore on, and I had to con- 
template in seasonable succession the spoliation of my 
beet and onion beds, cucumber and squash vines, melons 
and, later, a fine growth of sugar corn, I not only agreed 
with Pete fuUy, but I invested my opinion with an unc- 
tion that sprang from the innermost recesses of my soul. 
It is said, and I once believed, that there are no super- 
fluities in the economy of nature, but I confess that I 
lack the perspicacity to find an essential niche for the 
woodchuck to fill. In health and full development the 
animal will yield a half pint of oil. worth in the marts 
of trade about one-twelfth of one dollar. To catch the 
"chuck and extract the oil costs not less than twelve 
times that amount. Hence it is not a glaring commer- 
cial success. Under the pseudommi of "ground hog" 
the woodchuck attains notoriety and is more talked 
about on the 2d of February than any one of its useful 
contemporaries, and he bears the questionable distinc- 
tion of figuring in the meteorology of the succeeding six 
weeks. 
To desire the extinction of the woodchuck is one thing, 
to effect it is quite another. He is endowed with talents 
in excess of many animals. As a strategist he is simply 
great. On the sunny hillside, in plain view of all that 
pass, is the earth cone designating his subterranean 
home. The harried gardener, unused to his ways and 
wiles, says to himseh': "Behold the lair of mine enemy! 
With pick and spade I will hie me thither, exhume the 
thieving rascal and do him to death." With Avillow 
branch thrust into the sinuous tunnel for a guide, the 
despoiled amateur bends to his task and digs with a zeal 
inspired by the recollection of a ruined garden. Hot. 
perspiring, Avith aching back and blistered hands, he 
finally reaches Mr. Woodchuck's nest only to find that 
the sly old rascal has utilized a blind channel of egress 
and escaped unhindered while he dug and fumed. He 
has learned something, however. 
Instances of catching the woodchuck by digging are 
now and then related at the Four-Corners Grocery, in 
which the digger took the precaution to securely plug 
the ^iccrct tunnel. But it is generally conceded along 
the countryside that the only really effective manner of 
woodchuck hunting is with a rifle that can be relied upon 
to shoot accurately at a forty-rod range; but the hunter 
must fulfill certain requirements himself in the w^ay of 
acquiring facility with the rifle, and this is no trifling 
matter. The best use to which a dog can be put in wood- 
chuck hunting is to chain him up securely at home. A 
nian, to the leeward, can approach to within shooting 
distance of a woodchuck in an open field; but a dog can 
approach from no direction without being spotted by 
the game before the dog himself is aware oi the animal's 
proximity. The 'chuck comes out of his burrow at fre- 
quent intervals during the day to get a bite of grass or 
other greens. At each alternate or third mouthful he 
rears up on his hind legs and looks into the eye of the 
wind to see if anything is coming. He seems possessed 
of a singular fatuity that there is no danger to the lee- 
\vard: hence the hunter approaching from that direc- 
tion may often get within easy shooting distance. It is 
but a matter of cool sight and steady hand then to intro- 
duce a leaden pellet along with Mr. 'Chuck's vegetable 
refection. 
I had a Flobert that I regarded as quite a fine shoot- 
ing stick, an idea acquired from the man of whom I got 
the gun. One morning, after a particularly aggravat- 
ing raid, Mr. 'Chuck seemed bent on adding- insult to 
injury by spending much time gamboling over his earth- 
works in the meadow back of the garden, and leering 
across at me. 
"Pete." I said, "I'm going to give .him a dose of 
Flobert." I caught a faint suspicion of a smile on Pete's 
face as he responded: 
"Dat ort to mek 'im t'row up de cawn 'n things 'e et 
las' night, ef so be an' you' hits 'im," with emphasis on 
"hits." 
Scorning to notice the covert slur upon my marks- 
manship I inserted a long .22 shell in the Flobert, took 
a good rest to insure my aim, and banged away. With 
a flirt of heels that raised a fog of dust, Mr. 'Chuck 
disappeared. Rushing over to the burrow expecting to 
find a dead or dying woodchuck, I confess to quite a 
disappointment on beholding a clear tunnel free from 
sanguinary obstruction, 
"Wonder if I could hit the side of a barn," I growled 
in chagrin. 
"Not 'less yo stood inside de bawn an' hed de do' 
shet." chuckled Pete, making no effort to conceal his 
merriment; "'den you wouldn't hit much wif dem cat- 
tiges." 
"What fool notion possesses you now, you gibbering 
ace of spades?" I retorted, pushing another shell into 
the rifle with which to try my skill (or lack of it) at a 
target. 
"Golly, boss, Ise jest hed t' laff; look at dem cat- 
tiges, dey's blank ez w'he dominos," and Pete fairly ex- 
ploded in a crescendo of mirth. 
Sure enough, on looking at the cartridges, I found that 
what I had supposed was a pellet of lead was simply a 
hard twisted roll of brown paper. Half a dollar in hand 
and the promise of my second best brierwood secured 
Pete's word not to relate the incident. I have alwavs 
believed that the sooty-faced rascal knew all about the 
cartridges from the first and kept quiet till I had com- 
mitted myself, for the sake of an anticipated bribe. 
"Get some hay and brush-wood and we'll smoke the 
brute out and club his head off," was my next utterance 
and Pete lost no time in doing my bidding. But the 
smoke wouldn't go into the hole. Pete blew till apo- 
plexy seemed imminent, but to no avail. 
"If we could make a draft through the burrow we'd 
have him all right." I ventured to observe. 
"Dat 'if hez done sp'iled more'n one hunter's luck," 
was Pete's astute rejoinder. "But wha's de mattah wif 
a stovepipe?" and the black face glowed with a spark 
of sense. I thought he was joking at first, but he went 
on to explain: "Jess stick 'bout two len'ts o' pipe inter 
de blin' hole an' dere'd be draf 'nuff to pull yo' hat 
t'rough." 
The idea seemed tenable and I sent Pete to the attic 
for the pipe that had done service in our parlor in the 
early spring time. We spliced three lengths and placed 
one end firmly in the escape end of the tunnel, stufiing 
the chinks with clods. There was a stiff west wind 
blowing and, on lighting a heap of straw and mulch at 
the tunnel entrance, we had the satisfaction of seeing a 
dense cloud of gray smoke pour from the pipe. 
I felt certain that no woodchuck could stand much of 
that sort of thing and confidently expected to see him 
rush out, dazed and blinded, when he would fall an easy 
prey to a club. But the fire burned out and no 'chuck 
rewarded my anticipations. We increased the fuel sup- 
ply, adding some wet hay to enhance the volume of 
smoke: but no results. 
Just then Pete, who had been crouching on the ground, 
sang out: "Shuah's I lib and breve dat hawg's digging 
away from de smoke." Following his example I listened 
with my ear to the ground and could plainly hear the 
sound of the 'chuck's paws, scratching away down in 
the depths for dear life. It was plain that, when the 
smoke penetrated his nest, instead of rushing out to be 
killed, Mr. 'Chuck had simply gone to burrowing, piling 
the earth behind him. and thus escaped suifocation. 
"He's too much for us," I remarked. 
'■Jess wait twel 'es got ober 'is scare an' has fixed up 
"is house ag'in. an' I'll show yo' how to ketch 'im." 
replied Pete, but when pressed as to ways and means he 
merely looked wise and uttered one word, 
"Turkic!" 
Several days later Pete appeared one morning with 
an ordinary speckled turtle and invited me to see him 
catch the 'chuck. 
Reaching the burrow, Pete folded a strip of asbestos 
and bound it on the turtle's back with a bit of wire. 
To this he fastened a bunch of tar-soaked oakum and set 
it on fire. The turtle proceeded to gyrate his legs and, 
when released, started off at a most prodigous pace— 
for a turtle. Pete headed the fiery traveler into the 
main entrance to Mr. 'Chuck's domains, seized a stout 
hoe's tail that he had brought with him and waited at 
the exist. "Very soon, with an introductory snort and 
a cry of terror, my garden despoiler bounded, iiito day- 
Hght, sneezing, blinking and quaking in mortal feai. 
Swish! The bolt descended and 1 felt that my garden 
was in a measure- avenged. 
"How came you to think of the scheme?" I asked 
Pete as we contemplated the woodchuck's remains. 
"Huh! Alius ketched 'em that-a-way w'ere I cum 
fruni." 
And that old black excresence on nature had witnessed 
the spoliation of my garden for six weeks and held his 
peace. S-AMUEi. Mansfizi-d Stone. 
From a Letter, 
Sev.mour, Wis,. June g. — Dear Friend: Last Tuesday 
night, June 4, after we had tlie chores all done, I was 
sitting in the house reading, and Frank and Bruce started 
to go over to our neighbor that lives on the Rice farm 
south of here. When about half way from the corner to 
the_ creek they saw a bear cross the road from the west. 
This was about 7 o'clock. You can bet they made quick 
time getting back to the house, and told me. I grabbed 
my gun and plenty of cartridges, and told Frank to go 
over to Dave Sherman's and get their Winchester — ^it is 
one that old Jim Sherman used to have. I took the Win- 
chester and Frank took my gun. I sent him down to 
watch where the bear had crossed, and' ran across to the 
upper corner of the woods — there is about twenty acres 
ill the piece. I had just got to the woods, when I saw 
him poking along up the creek in the weeds and brush. 
I held low down behind tiie fore shoulder and pulled. He 
turned a back somersault, lit on his feet and took the 
back track at thirty miles an hour. I threw^ in another 
cartridge and let him have it to help him along. The last 
I saw of him he was headed straight for Frank, I fol- 
lowed along and my dog came to me — in fact he was 
runnig all over the woods. I expected every instant to 
hear Frank open up. I went clear through to where he 
was, and he said no bear had come out there. Then I 
thought I had killed him. We yelled- to Evans to come 
with his dog to help find the bear, but he was slow 
about getting started, so I went back alone to find my 
dead bear. I went back through the south side of the 
woods, went east nearly to the creek before I found him, 
and I tell you he was awful lively for a dead bear. When 
I saw him he Avas six or eight rods from me, head up. 
looking at me. I got my gun to my face, but could not 
get down into the back sight, it was so dark. I got 
down as fine as I could and aimed at where his feet ought 
to be and let her go. Say. that bear went into the air 
about six feet and came straight at me under a full head 
of steam. He got within 50 feet of me, when I gave him 
another. It turned him so he went past me. not over 20 
feet. My dog got there just then and I set him on, and I 
guess he thought it was a sheep. He ran up and grabbed 
it in the side; it stopped the bear; he whirled around, 
made a spring into the air 5 or 6 feet and came down 
where he thought the dog was. But the dog was gone. I 
thought the dog was a goner. The bear seemed to think 
there w-as going to be trouble ; he turned over on his back, 
drew his legs up, • raised his head up as if looking for 
the dog, and as that was the chance I was looking for, I 
broke his neck, and the fun was all over. After awhile 
my hair limbered up so it was smooth again, and I would 
never have known how many shots I fired, but the folks 
counted and they say I made seven shots and hit him four 
times. 
I took him to the butcher shop and had him dressed, 
and I have the hide tacked down in the granary. It is 5 
feet long and 3 feet wide in the narrowest place. He 
weighed 83 .pounds dresed, but it was the liveliest 83 
pounds I ever ran up against. This was all done within a 
mile of the main street of the city of Seymour, Wis. 
Dttcks Breeding: on Connea«t Lake. 
The Meadville. Pa., Tribune of June 22 reports: 
The Conneaut Lake steamboat men are doing a commend- 
able act in protecting from slaughter about 100 ducks 
that have settled on the lake for a summer home, breed- 
ing there instead of going further north. As is generally 
understood, it is now illegal to shoot ducks, and when- 
ever some enthusiastic camper, sp3'ing the birds, starts 
out to shoot them, one or more steamers as promptly 
start after the shootist, with the w-arning that "If yoii 
shoot any of those ducks you'll have to settle with the 
court before you get back to cam^p.""' 
The state of affairs has become so generally well known 
about the lake that it is only an occasional over-venture- 
some new comer who now requires "going after," and 
the ducks are becoming very tame, and especially so 
since Capt. Charles Niece, a few days ago. rowed out and 
fed them about a peck of corn. A liock of about thirty of 
the birds were feeding along the west shore, and Capt. 
Niece, with his corn, rowed quietly along between the 
ducks and the shore. As he approached the birds they 
swam out a few rods, but plainly manifested an interest 
when he began throwing handfuls of the corn out on the 
water. 
As he continued to scatter the corn the captain rowed 
slowly toward the shore, and then along the shore, scat- 
tering the corn where the water was a couple of feet deep. 
In a few minutes the ducks began to swim cautiously to- 
ward the shore on an investigating tour, and it didn't 
take them long to discover that the bottom was scattered 
with corn, and then followed an exhibition of diving that 
was worth seeing. The ducks Avould go to the bottom 
where the water was fully 4 feet deep, and it wasn't long 
until every duck on the lake was participating in the 
banquet. 
The result of this and subsequent scatterings of corn 
has been to make the ducks very tame and it is an easy 
matter for one to row up w'ithin 50 feet of them, while 
they frequently follow a rowboat and swim close to the 
steamers looking for the feed which they have learned 
from experience is pretty certain to be forthcoming. 
Two families of 3'oungsters have already been brought 
out by the hopeful mothers, and it is likely that others 
will soon appear. The Conneaut Lake boatinen are elated 
over the success which has thus far rewarded their efforts 
to protect the feathered summer sojourners, and are more 
than ever determined to see to it that the birds are not 
killed. This is the first time, so far as can be learned, that 
anv number of ducks have made their summer home at the 
lake. 
