Feb. 28, 1903.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
171 
wide expanse of scattered farms, extensive marshes and 
uncleared woodlands. One of his earliest memories 
is the immense flights of wild pigeons which annually 
visited the neighborhood. Though these came in im- 
mense compact masses, they soon broke up into numer- 
ous large clumps, which spread all over the surround- 
ing country. These, agoin, divided into smaller flocks 
in search of food, until evGsy county in the Province 
had its quota of wild pigeons in great numbers, as long 
as the wild berries, acorns and beech nuts supplied 
them with food. But, so far as the writer is aware, 
they never nested nor reared their j^oung in New 
Brunswick, nor did they depart in flights large enough 
to attract attention. The number trapped, shot or 
otherwise killed in the Provinces was infinitesimal 
compared with the vast numbers that were scattered 
over every place where clearings and settlements had 
been made. In short, the wild pigeon was as great 
a puzzle and reproach to Ornithologists as the salmon 
family is to Icthyologists. 
In his boyhood fowling-pieces were ratti in agricul- 
tural regions. Old army muskets were almost the only 
fire-arms possessed by farmers. Double-barreled guns 
were shows and the percussion lock had not then 
evolved; old flint and steel locks were the only ones 
known among even the most advanced sportsmen of 
those days. The mode of taking wild pigeons was very 
primitive and economical; but, at the same time, very 
effectual. The haunts of the birds were always in 
woods near to cultivated fields, and the few trees left 
in the.se fields were generally crowded with birds. 
Passing flocks resorted to them as resting places, and 
large numbers were taken in the primitive traps that 
supplied the place of powder and shot. A square 
about ten feet long by eight wide, and fourteen inches 
deep, was dug in the neighborhood of these trees or of 
the borderinpr woodland, the bottom beaten hard and 
smooth. This excavation was covered by a light frame 
of^ four small, straight saplings of spruce or ifir, halved 
at the corners and strongly nailed. A lighter pole 
stretched across the middle and strongly secured by 
nails, gave the strength required. This frame was made 
eight or ten inches longer and broader than the hole 
it covered, and stretched over it was a piece of net- 
ting; or sometimes light laths, about two inches 
apart, took the place of netting, if this last was 
not easily obtainable. Some wheat, oats, corn or 
buckwheat was then scattered liberally over the 
bottom of the excavation; one edge of the frame 
was raised about four feet by a light prop, to 
which was fastened a strong cord extending to a 
brush covert some roo j^ards distant. The Sportsman 
had not long to wait before the hole was full of 
pigeons; a smart jerk released the prop, and the frame 
fell before the birds could escape. The meshes or 
slats were full of extruding necks; a slight twist of 
each caused a speedy and painless death. Though 
seemingly cruel, this mode of capture was really more 
humane than shooting among a flock, since only those 
killed could be secured, while all the wounded escaped 
to die a lingering and painful death. The netter pur- 
sued his game only when it was needed for food, and 
a single spring of his trap often procured more birds 
than he awd his neighbors needed for the time. 
****** 
Not until his fourteenth year did the Octogenarian 
bccotne the proud possessor of a single-barreled flint- 
lock gun. In the few years that had elapsed since his 
boyhood, the flights of pigeons had become much 
smaller and more scattered; but they were still numer- 
ous enough to offer fine shooting to the ambitious 
.schoolboy, and were not beneath the attention of older 
sportsmen. Meantime, the Sackville home had been 
changed for one on the banks of the Miramichi. This 
bustling town was a great change from the quiet agri- 
cultural village; the numerous ships in the river, some 
discharging their coal ballast, others taking in cargoes 
of square timber to the chanties of the sailors with 
the chorus, "O, heave cheerily, men"; the busy ship- 
yards lining the shores to Chatham; the sawmills that 
were just being introduced in the North; all combined 
to make Miramichi, next to St. John, the most stirring 
place in the Province. The lumbering business was 
then in its most TJi"osperous days in the northern coun- 
ties; sawmills and deals were then almost unknown. 
Square timber— pine and birch — was the great export, 
while shipbuilding was the great mechanical industry 
on the Miramichi. The three great commercial houses 
which controlled, if they did not monopolize, business 
in the northern counties, built their ships; loaded them 
with pine timber; sailed them to England and sold both 
ships and cargoes at a large profit. Then was seen 
what is now only a memory in the minds of the few 
Octogenarians still left in the United States and 
Canada — large rafts, often an. acre in extent, of the 
finest "puukin pine," with small villages on thera, 
floating their way down all the large rivers of North 
America. This side the Rocky Mountains such pine is 
now seldom seen; the supply, both in the United States 
and Canada grows less j^ear by year, and the great 
steam sawmills will soon exhaust what little is left. 
None of the present generation and but few of the 
p^ast, ever saw a "stick of square timber"; while the 
use of the broad-ax is a lost art among lumbermen. 
It was quite an art, which involved some science, to 
line out and hew a large pine tree so as to keep the 
most cubic feet possible in the square logs. The deft 
use of the broad-ax was not acquired without much 
practice, while some never could acquire the Icnack of 
"hewmg to the line." When the pioneer steam sawmill 
was erected in Newcastle, the first use of it was to 
square the huge pine logs with saws instead of axes. 
With two saws in the gate the sides were dressed in 
less time than it took the hewer to place his log on 
skids, while _ the slabs furnished fuel which the axes 
v.^asted. This innovation and improvement aroused all 
the conservatism of beery-brained British prejudice. 
The first cargo of saw-dressed timber, both pine and 
birch, though of superior quality, depreciated in price, 
because the accustomed marks of the broad-ax were 
absent. The saving of labor was so great that the 
shipper was loath to revert to the ax, when the in- 
genious Yankee foreman of the mill passed the saw- 
dressed logs to another carriage and by means of ^ 
huge plane, worked by steam power, imitated on each 
of the four sides the marks of the broad-ax, and thus 
removed the stupid objection of the British purchaser. 
Unfortunately, this conservatism _ and senseless preju- 
dice have since cost Great Britain her manufacturing 
supremacy. Instead of adopting the labor-saving 
machinery and machine tools which American ingenu- 
ity and enterprise have since invented and utilized, the 
British workman has shown the caliber of his beer- 
soaked brain by smashing the ingenious and beautiful 
automatic machines that have enabled American work- 
men to quadruple the output of their labor. Even 
now trades-union rules allow an English mechanic to 
operate only a single machine tool, while the Ameri- 
can workman attends to three or four, according to 
the work he is doing. The consequence is that all those 
articles which, in the writer's boyhood, were staple 
manufactures of Great Britain, and for which she had 
then a virtual monopoly, are now made in the United 
States, and are underselling the English manufacturer 
in his home and Colonial markets. 
But to return from this long digression. In this 
favored locality, on the banks of the Miramichi, there 
were great facilities for hunting, shooting and fishing. 
Moose and caribou were seldom disturbed, except by 
Indians, who were then more numerous than they are 
at present. The great river and its tributary streams 
and lakes were then full of the finest salmon, bass and 
trout, while extensive marshes, within easy walking 
distance of the town, abounded with ducks, curlew, 
plover and snipe. The coverts in the neighborhood of 
these marshes were alive with woodcock and the woods 
with ruffed grouse, still erroneously called partridge, 
both in Canada and the United States. The few sports- 
men then in the town were merchants or professional 
men, whose youth had been passed in England, Ireland 
and Scotland, who brought with them to the wilds of 
NeAv Brunswick that love of sport which distinguishes 
the Briton Avherever he is found. The facilities offered 
by the numerous timber-ships, which generally made 
two round voyages during the season, enabled sports- 
men to get good dogs, and the towns of Chatham and 
Newcastle had the best breeds of pointers and spaniels 
then in America. The marshes, with their plover and 
snipe, afforded fine ground for the former, while the 
coverts and woods amply repaid in woodcock and 
grouse, the active ranging of the busy spaniel. 
With what pleasure does the writer recall his first 
exploits with his old single-barrel flint-lock gun! With- 
in a mile of the town was a large extent of scrubby land 
on which the wild blueberry grew in profusion. From 
the time these ripened until frost set in, this "barren" 
was the feeding-place of the small flocks of wild 
pigeons which then annually visited the northern parts 
of the Province. A few dead trees, mementoes of the 
great fire, still stood scattered over this tract, offering 
good resting-places for the birds. Concealed within 
shooting distance of these trees, to bag a dozen or two 
of pigeons in an afternoon, was simply a matter of 
patience, and no better practice could a youthful gun- 
ner ask than these stupid birds aft'orded. Of the 
marshes, his recollections are not so satisfactory. 
Stands of Plover and whisps of Snipe were easily found, 
but shooting on the wing is an accomplishment not 
speedily acquired by schoolboys with single-barreled 
guns. With what admiration and envy did he see good 
Dr. Benson with his double-barreled "Joe Manton," 
send in his beautiful pointer to flush a whisp of snipe, 
knock down one with each barrel, and "hie on" the dog 
to find the stragglers, which his educated eye had 
marked down hundreds of yards up wind! Better suc- 
cess attended the writer's youthful efforts with a stand 
of plover; there is generally a considerable number 
and they offer a better mark to the novice than do the 
four or five snipe usualljr found in a whisp. After the 
pigeons had departed, the broods of grouse were well- 
grown in September, and as each brood generally keeps 
together until disturbed and scattered by the gunner, 
the novice can have no better sport; nor, indeed, can 
the veteran sportsman, who confines himself to shoot- 
ing on the wing. But truth must be told! The ruffed 
grouse is too good a bird for the cuisine to be left be- 
hind when it can be bagged. The writer has yet to 
find the sportsman who turned his back on a brood of 
grouse because they were treed by his dog before he 
got in a shot. For himself, he freely confesses that if 
he ever left a grouse outside his bag, the reason was 
he failed in his efforts to get it inside. 
Like all other things, this school-boy life came to 
an end. The pleasant pastimes of boyhood had to give 
place to the sterner duties of life, and so the scene 
changed from the banks of Miramichi to the busy and 
crowded streets of the city. The tastes for fishing and 
shooting still clung to the apprentice, whose greatest 
grief was that he had little time to indulge them. 
Still, all his holidays were spent in exploring the 
marshes and lakes within walking distance of the city 
of St. John. About two miles distant were the marshes 
of Little River and Red Head, which at that time were 
the resort of ducks, plover and snipe; while the bor- 
dering woods afforded fine co-\ierts for hares, woodcock 
and grouse, and offered good sport to the few citizens 
who then sought their recreation with rod and gun. 
To my great surprise I found that the small towns of 
Chatham and New Castle had more sportsmen and 
better bred and trained Pointers and Spaniels than the 
Capital of the Province. The few that were owned in 
the city came from Plalifax, or were brought from Eng- 
land by Officers of the Garrison, and no efforts 
seemed to be made to keep the breeds pure. An Eng- 
lish setter was unknown in New Brunswick in those 
days, and the few owned in Halifax were kept more 
for show than for service. The absence of q^nil and 
partridge in the Maritime Provinces accounts in great 
measure for the neglect of this finest of field aogs. 
The stronger and more hardy Pointer was better fitted 
for the marshes and the Spaniel for the coverts of 
grouse and woodcock. Of late j^ears a few dogs of 
undoubted good breeding have been brought from Eng- 
land and the United States: the late Bench Shows in 
the city had prize-winners in Pointers, Setters, Span- 
iels and Cockers. The abundance of quail on the 
stubble and of pinnated grouse on the prairies of the 
y^ited States, d^nd the recent importation and naturali- 
zation of the English pheasant and parfftidWe? iW the? 
public and private reserves of the Middle arid! VVesterni 
States, have made English and Irish Setters Mk^onte' 
field-dogs in America. But the Octogenarian I'^etej 
to learn that, with English birds, has been impOi'J*d^ 
the pervdrted English idea of Sport. If this vitiattjf 
taste spreads beyond the small circle of multi-million- 
aires to which, fortunately, it is at present confined, 
there will Soon be no use for fickl-dog.s in the States; . 
nor, indeed, for the genuine Sportsman either. Since 
this deplorable change in tlie Englishman's idea of sport, 
an equally lamentable degene'rat-iott has taken place in 
English breeds of Sporting Dogs. Foxhounds, Grey- 
hounds and Beagles are still carefully l5red and trained, 
each for his particular work; but PoiMM".?, Setters, 
Spaniels and Cockers are now bred more i&r sk&w 
than for service. Every few years a new fad is start©"d!_, 
and a new strain with a new color is the sine que noH 
of dog-fanciers. Gordon Setters., Clurtfeer Spaniels>. 
Black Cockers, must now have "black ancj tan" mark-- 
ings or they are taboo at the bench shows. E-ven the- 
old gray and rusty Scotch Collie has been niacin? t-ake^ 
on the fashionable black and tan trimmings; but, "*'ith' 
the change of his coat, the writer is credibly miorill^h 
he has lost much of that instinct and keen intelligence' 
which made him invaluable as a sheep and cattle dog. 
Thank good St. Hubert, the old liver-hued Pointer 
has remained true to his colors, his instincts and his 
training; as has the Irish Setter, which, so far, abso- 
lutely refuses to be black'd and tan'd, and whose purest 
strain still shows the bright bay eoat and feathers which 
mark the breed. But, alas! Even these fine dogs are 
now bred more for show than use, and their training 
is a matter of less importance than their marks and 
points, for which they take prizes at Bench ShoW^ 
without the slightest regard to their usefulness in the' 
field. Gillies on the moor have replaced the old Point-^' 
ers; beaters at the battues now do the work of the old' 
Spaniels; stalkers on the hills have banished the old' 
Deerhounds, and only the Setter is now used hy 
Sportsmen of the old school for Quail on the stubble 
and for Partridge among the turnips; and even he must 
be of the fashionable black and taU, or the still more 
recent Belton blue. The old strain of Spanish Pointer 
still resists all efforts to give him a black and tan or 
Belton blue coat, though he has been bred through 
all gradations of liver and white, bfoWn and orange, 
But Setters and Spaniels have been differentiated into 
as many colors as there are strains. Among Setters 
at Bench Shows we now see the old English WaCk 
and white Setter bred into all black, all white, himU 
and tan, and blue Belton, and all these claim prize?,- 
not for their qualities in the field, but simply for their 
"marks." But for the great triumph of fin de Steele' 
fancy breeding we must look among the SpS'tTisla. A- 
description of the last Bench Show held in New Yoff-f; 
is now before the writer. Among the Spaniels sihwii 
were: "English Water Spaniels, Irish Water Spani^iis.^ 
Clumber Spaniels, Sussex Spaniels, Norfolk Spaniel.s, 
Black Field Spaniels, Blenheim Spaniels and Cockers." 
Of all these Octogenarian has seen only the Old Eng- 
lish, the Irish Water, and the Clumber Spaniels; the 
latter a short, thick, clumsy brute that showed his 
mongrel origin in every point. What he was ever bred 
for, or of what earthly use he can be, when the old, 
purely bred English dog can be had is, to quote 
Dundreary, "One of these things that no flah can 
understand." In this Show were entered Retrievers^ 
Curley Coated Black Retrievers, Flat or Wavy-Coated 
Retrievers, Black-and-Tan Retrievers and Other Re- 
tricvers." Whether these were all distinct breeds from 
different stocks, or merely different strains from the 
same stocks, or from what stocks the race of Retriev- 
ers comes (if there really is -such a race) the Octoge- 
narian confesses his dense ignorance. But he begs 
leave of all and sundry to record his belief that, while 
Pointers, Setters and Spaniels can be as easily broken 
to retrieve as any other breed of Retrievers, the pres- 
ence of the latter, either in the open or in covert, is 
only a useless nuisance to the gunner. But what mj*y 
we not look for when the fin de Steele woman enters hef 
horses for the blue ribbon of the turf; her dogs for the 
first prize at the bench show, and strives with male 
sportsmen (?) for the honor of being "first gun" at 
English and American battues, where the quality of the 
Sport is measured entirely by the weight of the Bag? 
***** ^; 
When the writer was in Minnesota some 30 years 
ago, he had the pleasure, new to him, of shooting 
pinnated grouse (or prairie chickens, as they were 
there called) over a couple of finely bred and highly 
trained Pointers, If not the best part of this fine sport, 
to the writer a very large part of it, was to watch the 
natural sagacity of the dogs, improved by fine training. 
They showed almost human intelligence in their quar- 
tering of the ground and working in concert. To see 
one come to point as soon as the other found, and hold 
It until the birds were flushed, was, to this writer's 
notions, the highest kind of sport the gun can give its 
votary, and the Octogenarian recalls with delight the 
finest gunning he has ever had the good fortune to en- 
jo}-, since, in his early manhood, he tried to shoot 
Snipe over the best Setter that ever ranged the marshes 
of Hampton and Gagetown. The few gunners now liv- 
ing, who have seen the late Col.'Otty's "Nell" at work 
in Red Head or Hampton Marshes, will appreciate the 
added sport a good dog gives to mere shooting, Nell 
was old, but her wonderful sense of smell had suft'ered 
no dullness from age. She was still strong and active 
and though totally deaf, her phenomenal sagacity made 
up for this loss, which she seemed perfectly to under- 
stand. She never ranged out of sight, and while her 
nose was for the birds, her eye was always on her mas- 
ter, whose every sign and gesture was watched for, 
understood, and instantly obeyed. She had been 
trained in England; her education was perfect and her 
almost human intelligence left little for her master 
to do but make two signals, one "to heel," the other 
"hie on." Her "down charge," her "point" and her 
"draw" were pictures. She would stand at point, 
rigid as stone, until waved on, and she seemed to re- 
gret a missed bird more than her master. Of the few 
who saw Nell at work, still fewer remain; of those 
who have shot over her, besides the writer, only Dr. 
