so 6 
— — ^^a^^.^,:^ — :: - ^ . . .-.--^^ i ---| 7Yni ii ijf rifirii "i ■■TrinnfT 
Mr. N. G. Manson, of Weston, Mass., came out from 
his camp — Camp Leatherstocking, head of Richardson 
Lake — Oct. i. He has spent many seasons there. He 
says that he had two days of most remarkable fly-fishing 
near the close of the season — the best he ever had, in fact. 
The first day he took trout till he was tired, only stopping 
because he would kill no more than he could use. He 
says that the trout were "as nearly alike as peas, weigh- 
ing about i}i pounds each." The next day he repeated 
the sport, and now he feels well satisfied with his season's 
fishing. Special. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
Michigan Wild Man. 
Chicago, Oct. ii. — Crystal Falls, Mich., is enjoying 
the sensation of a genuine wild man. Two deer hunters 
of that town, while out hunting this week, met the 
alleged wild man in the woods near the upper waters of 
the Deer River, some fourteen miles from Crystal Falls. 
They state that they were within a few yards of the wild 
man, and tiiat the latter snarled at them, expressing an- 
noyance and rage, and at once bounded off into the 
woods, where he soon became invisible. The wild man 
carried a piece of gun barrel and a tent pole. A posse 
from Cr3^stal Falls started day before yesterday to look 
after the fugitive, who is thought to be some person 
who has been lost in the woods for some time, and has 
iience gone insane. The stranger gave utterance to one 
word repeatedh^ something sounding like "public, pub- 
lic." It was siipposed that perhaps he came from the 
town of Republic, Mich. 
Game Wardens Assaulted. 
Three Indiana wardens this week sustained rather se- 
vere injuries in the pursuit of their duties. The nien, 
Deputies Wallace Smith, Bid Dunham and Eugene Old- 
ham, were fired upon from ambush by unknown parties. 
It is supposed that their assailants were of a party of 
men who had been detected in illegal fishing in the Wa- 
bash River, some miles from Logansport, Ind. The 
deputies attempted to arrest these men, but the latter 
escaped in the night, and the shooting occurred not 
long after their escape. It is thought that the matter 
will not be allowed to end in this manner, and that ar- 
rests will follow. 
Wild Horses in Utah. 
Reports from Kanab, Utah,* of yesterday, state that 
the ranchmen of that territory have united in a big hunt 
for wild horses, duplicating a hunt of a similar nature 
which occurred some two years ago. In the former 
hunt it is stated that 300 mustangs were shot and 1,500 
captured. Twenty men, well -mounted and supplied with 
rifles, are stated to be out this week in the pursuit of 
the wild animals. The latter are thought to be injurious 
to the cattle interests, since their numbers endanger the 
stock-carrying capacity of the open range. For nearly 
half a century wild horses have been known in this part 
of the country, and of late years they have multiplied 
distinctly. The newspaper story goes on to state that 
one band of horses — about 30 in number — were driven 
over the brink of a narrow gorge, and 28 were killed by 
falling on the rocks below. It is difficult to determine 
what warrant there may be in the ruthless pursuit with 
fire arms of so noble an animal as the horse. A horse 
is valuable when alive, but worthless when dead, since 
it cannot then be deemed a trophy to which any sports- 
man may refer with pride. 
Changes in the West. 
The West certainly does present some novel changes 
in these days. Time was when the Western stage driver 
was a distinct type. To-day .the glory of that tyne would 
seem to have departed, or, rather, to have been replaced 
by a milder and more lovable effulgence. Out in South 
Dakota there is a stage line between Miller and Wes- 
sington Springs, a distance of 'some 40 miles. The stage 
on this route is driven by a girl not yet out of her teens. 
There is another young woman who drives stage from 
Miller to Howell, a distance of 20 miles. It is stated 
that these young ladies perform their duties with entire 
satisfaction to everybody concerned. Yet it shore does 
look as tho\igh South Dakota was getting some mild. 
The Duke's Bag of Ducks, 
The Duke of Cornwall, son of the King of England, 
who is now touring in America, spent Oct. 6 and 7 shoot- 
ing ducks on Lake Manitoba, N. W. T., having what 
was probably the best time he has enjoyed since he dis- 
embarked on this side of the water. The royal party 
set out from York Lodge, seven canoes in all, the Duke 
of Cornwall being in charge of John Atkinson, a well- 
known hunter, The Duke had fine sport during the 
morning, and before 10 o'clock had bagged 52 ducks. 
He expressed himself as delighted with the quality of 
the sport which he found. 
Game Costs Money in Duluth. 
Such is the vigilaiice a-nd efficiency of executive agent 
Sam FuUerton and his deputies out in Minnesota that 
the price of ducks and partridges in most of the largest 
cities has gone up very sharply. It is illegal to sell tlu's 
game, but certain lots of it, of course, are offered, not 
on the open, but on the .closed market. Several of the 
butchers and grocers of Duluth arc offering ducks and 
partridges to their solid and secret customers, but the 
latter are obliged to put up good, hard coin for tlieir 
game. The law allows a butcher to have 100 ducks or 
partridges in his possession, but not to sell them, and 
Deputy Warden Greene, of Duluth, is besieging every- 
body to bring him evidence of such sales, which are 
known to be by no means infrequent, although very dif- 
ficult to detect. One butcher is stated to have sold 72 
ducks in one day. Dealers are reported to pay as high 
as $2 a pair for ducks and $1 a pair for partridges. Noth- 
ing like these prices were ever known before, and it is, of 
course, due to the fact that the merchandise is contra- 
band and sold only under the danger of severe punish- 
ment. Meantime, more power to Sam Fullerton. 
FOREST ANJD STREAM. 
His First Prairie Chicken, 
Mr. A. Poidebard, of West Hoboken, N. J., came 
West this fall, and, in com.pany with Mr. Charles An- 
toinc, of this city, went out to South Dakota for his first 
try at a prairie chicken. It was, of course, lale in the 
year for shooting prairie chickens, since the birds were 
pretty much all ^jacked up and offered very poor sport 
to the dog, yet the Eastern gentleman and his friend 
managed during their stay to kill something like 100 
birds, mcstly by pretty long and vigorous shooting. Mr. 
Poidebard expresses liimseli as very much pleased with 
the quality of this upland sport. The two saw consider- 
able numbers of local ducks, but at the time of their re- 
turn, a few days ago, the Northern flight had not yet 
gotten into that country. They heard general reports 
of .great abundance of game, both of grouse and wild 
fowl. 
Illinois Game. 
State Warden A. J. Loveday expresses his satisfaction 
with the state of the game protection in this State so far 
as he has gone in his administration. He states that con- 
siderable niunbers of convictions have been had under 
one or other clauses of the game laws. Three hundred 
and thirty non-resident licenses have been taken out by 
shooters who wish to come into this State for their fall 
shooting. Mr. Lovejoy states that never in his experience 
have the farmers taken so general an interest in the pro- 
tection of the quail. Speaking of the much-mooted 
status of the Illinois game law, he says that he is himseli 
of the belief that quail arc protected the year round un- 
der the clause protecting "certain wild birds." He 
states, however, "T am going to allow a shooting season 
on quail from Nov. i to Dec. 20." Now let us lay aside 
the Illinois quail law, whether right or wrong, whether 
thus or so. and unite upon these dates of Nov. i to Deec. 
20. This, as has before been stated in these columns, is 
practically the poHcy agreed upon in certain parts of 
lower Illinois. The tacit agreement of the shooters and 
farmers of the country will in this way establish a com- 
plete protection for our stock of quail, no matter what 
the law may eventually seem or he proved to be. 
Goose Flight On in Dakota. 
The regular Northern flight of geese seems to be a 
few days late out in Dakota. Mr. Mark Cummins, of 
this city, is just back from a trip to Dawson, N. D., and 
he says that at the time of his departure the geese were 
.iust beginning to come down. He had excellent duck 
shooting, especially some of the magnificent pass shoot- 
ing, for which the Dawson district is so famous. One 
friend of his killed 67 ducks in one day, according to 
the story, or, perhaps, it was the party who killed 67. 
The canvasback shooting was very fine. 
The Vague Bird, 
Tht vague bird, the jacksmpe, still continues his policy 
of masterly indefiniteness. Joe Hipper, a Chicago 
shooter, yesterday killed three dozen jacks. He will not 
state vvhere he found them, but says it was in Illinois. 
A few birds have been seen in the upper part of this 
State, but the scouts who have been out for Chicago gen- 
tlemen along the Kankakee for the past week, can locate 
no satisfactory body of birds. The truth is, the Kanka- 
'kee bottoms have little water in them this fall, and the 
.shooting is not going to be very satisfactory. I do not 
think we will have very good jacksnipe shooting any- 
where in this district, "and, indeed, it is now_ nearly time 
for the cessation of that industry. 
Change of Flight. 
It is an old story, that of the ducks having changed 
their flight "further West," but this year there would 
seem to be something in it, except that the flight seems 
to have changed to the East, instead of the West. It 
surely is not following the Kankakee and Illinois River 
system this fall, and it is said that the Mississippi is quite 
low. so that the flfght is not expected to pass down the 
ancient highway of the wild fowl in any great numbers 
this fall. Upon the contrary there would seem to be 
more birds east of here, on the Great Lakes, than is 
ordinarily the case, and the wise ones say that the flight 
this fall passed to the east and not to the west of us. 
There are some birds still hanging rovmd Fox Lake. 
i)rincipally marsh ducks, although some tedheads and 
bluebilis are in now. No body of canvasbacks has yet 
appeared on Fox Lake. The present cold rain storm 
ought to bring some shooting, and the lower marshes 
of the Illinois River should have a flight now for a few 
nays. 
Many Sportsmen Lose Dogs. 
Never in the history of Chicago have so many gentle- 
men lost valuable shooting dogs through the rascality 
of alleged trainers as has been the case this fall. Mr. 
Eddy Pope, who last spring sent to a trainer at Wheat- 
field, Ind., a very valuable setter, to be boarded — -the 
dog was perfectly trained and hence valuable — wired his 
man a few days before the opening day, Sept. i. to send 
the dog up to him at once, as he wanted to take him out 
West on a shooting trip. He has never heard since from 
either dog or trainer, but inquiry develops the fact that 
the man has disappeared. It need not be said that Mr. 
Pope will never see his dOg again. 
Mr. H. A. Blair, of this city, is another man who 
trusted an Indiana trainer, sending out for handling a 
valuable pointer bitch. Just before the opening of the 
season he learned that his dog had been "poisoned." 
There were no witnesses, no proof, and. more especially, 
no dog. 
Mr. F. R. Bissell, of this city, was yet another to ven- 
ture a valuable hunting dog to the tender mercies of an 
Indiana dog trainer. What would you expect? The 
dog turned out to be a good one, but unfortunately it also 
"picked up poison somewhere," and disappeared from 
the immediate vicinity of the trainer. 
Mr. Otto C. Ely is another Chicagoan to lose a valuable 
dog. In this case there was a little variation in the story. 
Mr. Ely's dog had the misfortune to get hanged in a wire 
fence, and so lost his life. No proof. 
Mr. Mark Cummins went a little further south than 
Indiana, but found that methods were somewhat similar 
tOcr, 19, 1961. 
in that part of Tennessee where he selected his trainer. 
Mr. Cummins' dog did not get poisoned or hanged, but 
''ran away," 
Several sportsmen in Chicago have expressed them- 
selves bitterly at this sort of imposition, and it would 
seem, indeed, that there ought to be some sort of protec- 
tion for men who own valuable bird dogs. Of course 
there is no protection except in the personal character of 
the trainer. The only counsel to a sportsman is to be 
personally acquainted with the man to whom he sends his 
dog. Another good thing to remember is that cus- 
tomarily it is wisest to send a dog to a handler who has 
not more than two or three dogs to take care of. A 
trainer who has twent)- or thirty dogs in his charge cannot 
do justice to them all. In several well-known cases such a 
trainer has been known to pick but the most promising 
dog and develop it as rapidly as possible. Such a man 
knows a wealthy sportsman who needs a good shooting 
dog. He recommends such and such a dog, at a good 
figure, guaranteeing that it shall be perfectly broken. A 
trial shows that the dog is w^ell-broken. The buyer takes 
the dog and perhaps removes it many hundred miles from 
the place where it was owned. The little fact that the 
handler did not own the dog in the first place has in 
several such instances proved no obstacle to the sale. The 
owner was told that the dog had "run away" or "been 
poisoned," or otherwise made subject to a dispensation of 
Providence. 
It woifld be distinctly unjust to make sweeping charges 
against the trainers and handlers of this country, many 
of whom are men of ability, character, intelligence and in- 
tegrity, yet chapter and verse can be given in the instances 
above cited, and even these few. by no means all of simi- 
lar cases, would seem quite sufficient for grounds of un- 
easiness on the part of those sending out valuable dogs for 
training or boarding. Any trainer who sells a bird dog 
left in his charge, or who willfully allows it to become 
diseased, ought to be exposed before the sporting public 
and after that left alone severely by everybody. 
Planting Wild Rice and Celery, 
If Mr. Chas. Gilchrist, of Port Hope, Ont., will pub- 
lish, or, perhaps, republish, in the Forest and Stream 
full directions for the planting of Avild rice, he will receive 
gratitude and perhaps something else as much to his 
advantage. In conversation with several gentlemen to- 
day, some of them stated they had never been able to make 
wild rice grow, although they sowed it in shallow water, 
imitating the natural fall of the seed as closely as possible. 
One friend suggests that the plant reproduces itself not by 
the shedding of the grain, but by the dropping of the 
whole stalk down to the bottom, where it then lies in the 
mud. If some expert can give dates, methods, etc., for 
planting this beautiful and useful marsh growth, it will be 
a favor to very many sportsmen. 
Still more difficult seems the wild celery problem, and I 
know of very many clubs who have spent considerably 
money, only to meet with failure in their attempts at 
planting wild celery. Mr. Lou Clarke, of the Plibernian 
Bank, this city, has recently returned from California, and 
he says that in that coimtry .sportsmen plant wild celery 
almost as they like. They get the bulbs, or roots, and 
set them out on a dry flat, just as they would domestic 
celery. Then they throw up a likle 18-inch wall- around 
their flat so planted, turn in the water, after the ancient 
California fashion of irrigation, and, presto! they have a 
shallow duck marsh full of wild celery. Mr. Clarke says the 
operation is perfectly certain and simple. In most of the 
better known wild celery waters the plant grows at a 
depth of 6 to 8 feet, and that seems to be the favorite 
feeding depth of the canvasback, although perhaps it 
would just as soon dive in a foot of water as in 10 feet, 
provided that the plant it covets has reached full ma- 
turity and development. 
Now will certain of the wise ones share with us their 
wisdom in the matter of wild rice and wild celery? 
Poet and Sportsman. 
Mr. Ernest McGaffey, of this city, is a poet with much 
more than a local reputation. Plis "Songs of the Town" 
would entitle him to recognition had he done nothing else. 
In "Poems of Rod and Gun," Mr. McGaffey filed his 
claims to the brotherhood of sportsmen in no uncertain 
fashion. Mr. McGaffey is a lawyer and a writer. Inci- 
dentally, he this summer received, utterly without solicita- 
tion^ the appointment by the Alayor of the chairmanship 
of the Board of Public Improvements, a salaried office of 
considerable importance. His varied duties Mr. McGaffey 
has discharged honestly all summer long, and now he says 
he is going to get him down to the Okaw bottoms of 
southern Illinois the first of November, and shoot quail 
for one solid, blissful month. There are all kinds of suc- 
cesses in life, whether in poetr}^ politics or polemics, but 
I should consider that a man who finds himself able to 
go on a thirty-day quail hunt is entitled to be called a 
glittering and howling success. E. Hough. 
H.ARTFORD Building, Chicago, III. 
Ctjrrittick Game. 
Currituck, N. C, Oct. 10. — Wild ducks, widgeons, 
sprigs, black ducks, and teal have arrived in greater 
numbers than I have seen them before in many years. 
1 saw several large flocks of Canada geese on Sept. 25; 
T ha.ve not seen them so early before in twenty years. 
Currituck Sound never had such a large crop of wild 
celery before; so. altogether, our prospects for good 
sport among the water fowl are excellent. I saw Senator 
W. H. Bvay at Currituck Court House to-day; he says 
the season has been just right for quail, and they are 
abundant; his place will be open for sportsmen as usual 
this season. L. R. White, of Corrolla, has added more 
ground to his place, and will also be open on Nov. 
10, our opening day for water fowl. I understand the 
large tract of land owned by Josephus Banus (the old 
Palmer Island Club) has been leased to a new club, and 
will not be opened to the public, as last season. There 
has been a large flight of winter yellow legs during the 
past two weeks, and some fine bags have been made. 
More Anon. 
