[Nov, 8, 1902. 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
371 
shot struck him at the back edge of the right shoulder, 
passed through the hxngs to the opposite shoulder and 
lodged against the skin. There was one, or perhaps two. 
bullet holes further back through the carcass. The shot 
-which I fired for the front of the hindquarters was 
placed a little too far to the right, and struck directly 
on the hip joint. I never in my life saw a worse case of 
bone smashing than the soft-nose did there. The joint 
and hip bone for a space of about a foot were literally 
crushed into fragments. Even Henry had to admit that 
this bone was pretty badly mussed up, and he said he had " 
never seen the interior of a moose much worse dis- 
organized. The water of the paunch had escaped into the 
abdominal cavity, the lungs were shot up, and in fact 
there was nothing good about the works of that moose 
when we got through with him. 
Just to show that he had an argument left in the box. 
Henry said, "If that moose had been in the fall in the 
ruun'ng season, when they are fuller of vitality, he would 
have skipped away with that hole through his paunch and 
never have minded it. and we should have lost him sure." 
Perhaps. I don't know. I only know that this moose 
was stopped with- the first shot of a .30-40, and that de- 
livered almost by chance in a part of the body where 
the old black powder loads woidd not have stopped an 
antelope. I have rarely seen game dropped absolutely 
dead, and shall always be satisfied to stop my game this 
close. I think the destructive effects of the .30-40 when 
•shot through the paimch of an animal depend very much 
upon the amoimt of water there happens to be in the 
paunch at the time, the explosive quality being much 
greater in soft or moist tissue or in water. This moose 
had his paunch filled with a most astonishing quantity of 
garden truck, apparently a Avash tub full of bark and 
buds which he had chewed up. The bullet passing through 
this mass of food had carried a tremendous shock. I am 
not ready to say that my rifle is the best one on earth, and 
I realize the good judgment and far ^wider experience 
which friends of the big bores have, but it still remains 
a puzzle to me how any one can shoot a moose a half- 
dozen times with the .30-40 and not get him — that is to 
say, provided he shoots him in the hollow of the body, or 
It'deed shoots him in any way but the most rankly tender- 
foot fashion. I don't know about the other small bores, 
but I am speaking now only of the .30-40 rifle which I 
used. Henry admitted that he had never seen the .30-40 
used before, or I so understood him. I am still won- 
dering whether he would rather have seen my moose get 
away than to have him killed with a small-bore ! It was 
]>retty roiigh on Henry, when you come to think of it — 
to go down into his country on long snowshoes, on rub- 
ber shoes, with a small-bore rifle, and to kill the tanie 
moose which had been making all these tracks around his 
cabin ! 
"I guess I have about put you out of business," said I 
to Henry, as we finally talked the matter over. "I guess 
so," sai^ he, grinning. "I will have to go out of the 
moose business now sure, but I have got my pet caribou 
left yet to fall back on." 
Henry told me that when he saw this moose first it had 
the end of its muzzle stuck out in front of a bunch of 
trees and he could not see the rest of its head. It was 
eating at the time, and he could see its jaws mov- 
ing, a fact to which we no doubt owed our shot. _ When 
a moose is chewing anything its sense of hearing is prac- 
tically suspended for the time, and a feeding moose is 
easier to approach than one lying in its bed. This old 
fellow was standing above us, which is certainly the best 
place from a moose point of view ; the wind was blowing 
directly from us to him, which was another point in his 
favor, and moreover, we had passed entirely by him and 
below him on the hillside. Just how on earth it hap- 
pened that we could get a shot under such conditions, let 
htm explain who can. Henry told me that this was an 
old moose and very poor, and probably thick-witted. ''I 
don't think he would have wintered through anyhow, if 
you hadn't shot him," said Henry, grinning. It's aston- 
ishing how these big-bore men hang to their convictions. 
Henry and I went back to the water hole to boil the 
kettle after killing our moose, and after opening the 
rarcass and preparing it to keep over night. It came on 
to snow good and hard now, and the mountains were 
wrapped in a blinding blanket of falling white, so that 
Flenry had to get out his compass several times. We got 
home in good season that evening, and had a mild sort 
of jubilation at the camp, making it as pronounced as we 
dared in view of the fact that our moose had no horns. 
"Well," said Adam, "I'm mighty glad that you got 
your moose, but I would have been just a little gladder 
if you had killed him north of the divide, and a heap 
gladder yet if you had killed one with horns on." 
I explained to Adam that it was my practice always 
to kill moose close to the trail and without any antlers, so 
that it didn't make hard sledding to get the trophy out to 
the settlements. We brought out our meat and hide and 
scalp the next morning, and this ended our hunting opera- 
tions. 
Henry finished his season with just one last half-day, of 
which he wrote me after I returned home. He says: 
"I went out along my trapping trail and got up to a 
bunch of five moose. I emptied the old tomato can. at 
what I thought was the biggest moose of the lot, and 
when I got up to him I found that he had only one 
horn!"' 
I heard that one or two other parties who were in 
earlier than ourselves killed moose with one horn or 
none at all. Henry told us that the moose which made 
the big sign at his Christmas camp, the same one which 
Adam and I followed in the rain, had only one horn, for 
he had seen him the morning when he went up to that 
camp. Adam and I were then sure that the big cow 
v;hich we had seen on- the Moose Brook trail was a bull 
which had shed its horns. That was two weeks before 
the date on which I killed my moose. We felt quite sure 
that the thaws and soft spells had the effect of making 
the moose shed their horns unusually early. Perhaps one- 
quarter of them had shed by Dec. 15. Both Adam and 
Henry foimd in this a good argument for setting forward 
dale of openin_g[ the season of moose to Dec. i instead 
Dec. 15. and closing it Dec. 15 instead of Jan. i. 
He would have been a poor sportsman who, after a trip 
like mine, would have felt that he had any complaint^ 
even if he could sing with the poet, "'How sharper than a 
serpent's tooth it is to have a hornless moose." 
Perhaps I ought .not to have felt so cheerful about it, but 
I really felt satisfied in every regard with my trip, 
although I could not say that I wanted to start for home. 
It was a bright and sparkling winter morning when at 
last we said good-by to Henry and his son-in-law, Albert, 
at the Indian Lake camp, leaving them to attend to their 
trapping operations while Adam, Charlie and myself 
started for om long trail of forty miles or so to the settle- 
ments. We had two toboggans pretty heavily loaded, so 
Henry advised us not to undertake any short cut across 
the hills to the Richards lumber camp, seven miles dis- 
tant, where we hoped to find a tote team going down 
the road to the railroad. It was twenty miles around by 
the Crooked Dead Water trail, but we had a chance of 
catching a team at one of the two or three lumber camps 
which we should pass. We got into the first of these 
camps at about 10 o'clock in the morning and stopped for 
tea and pie. We made the next, one and a half miles, in 
jig time, coming to Dan Kelly's camp, and ate some more 
])ie and tea, this making the third meal of the morning. 
Still we found no team, and as we were in a desperate 
hurry to get out to the settlements, we pushed on down 
the road, crossing the terrible climb of the County Line 
Mountain, around the head of Renous Lake, and so at 
ROUTE OF THE EXPEDITION. 
length reached the next camp, known as the Lynch camp, 
about six miles from Kelly's, and twelve to fifteen miles 
from Henry's Indian Lake camp. Here we had some 
more pie and tea and things. We still had at least nine 
miles to go to make the Richards camp, where the tote 
teams started for the settlements nearly every day. We 
tried to hire a team at Lynch's camp, but the owner of the 
team was away and no one would let us have it. After 
we got down the road a piece we met the owner, and he 
gave us a lift, which seemed very gratifying to us at 
the time, although we would have gone through to 
Rodgers' at any rate, for our blood was now up and we 
were hitting the tr^iil for all there was in us. We were 
now in fine shape, physically, barring Adam's bad cough. 
We spent a pleasant night at the Richards' camn, and 
m.et there Ed. Norrand, a guide who was driving a tote 
team, with whom we arranged to take our stuff down the 
road the following morning. That day was the hardest 
of the whole trip, for it came off very cold, and we were 
traveling over the hardest road the eye of mortal man 
ever saw. Of course we could not sit in the sleigh very 
'long in such weather, but walked a good part of the way. 
It was nearly dark when at last we came to the open 
ridge known as "The Clearing." Here the storm was 
blowing a regular blizzard, and the snow was drifting 
badly, and it seemed that we would certainly freeze beferc 
we could make the lights of the Holtz farmhouse, W'here 
we intended to pass the night. We did make it at last, 
however, and by 9 o'clock found ourselves once more 
under shelter, warm and comfortable. Thence it was 
only nine miles to the railroad, and we made Boiestown 
the next morning in easy time for the train, reaching 
Fredericton at i o'clock of that same day. Here we had 
to do considerable in the way of explanations. B.llj' 
Chestnut said he hardly expected we would get any 
moose, for the weather had been bad, and nearly every 
party who had gone out had complained of the snow- 
shoeing. He himself had made a nine-day trip, but did not 
get a shot. I was told at Fredericton that no sportsman 
had ever made the trip south across the divide from the 
Tobique and down the Miramiehi, so that I presume on 
the whole my trip was to be called about as eventful as 
that custorriarily made by visitors to New Brunswick, 
It was a great pleasure to spend some time with Mr. 
W. P. FleweHing, Deputy Surveyor General, at the Crown 
Lands Office, examining the splendid collections in natural 
history, etc., which are to be seen in that department of 
the Governmental offices. There is a grand collection of 
New Bruswick animals here, as well as a great many 
photographs, maps, views, etc., taken in all parts of the 
Province. I don't know whether it is generally known, 
yet is the case, that the splendid George A. Boardmau 
collection, which was the object of tlie loving care of that 
well-known naturalist, passed into the hands of the New 
Brunswick Government shortly after the death of Mr. 
Boardman. The birds and gnimals of this collection cover 
a wide part of the fauna of North America and are beau- 
tifully mounted and preserved. I felt under very many 
obligations to Hon. W. A. Dunn, Surveyor General, and 
his obliging lieutenant, Mr. Flewelling, who did every- 
thing possible to make my stay pleasant and placed every 
source of information at my disposal. Mr. Flewelling 
was so good as to make me a map of the whole section of 
New Brunswick traversed by our party. He explained 
to me that the lines of the survey run across the country 
east, west and north and south, a distance of five miles 
apart. The surveyors do not in all cases know what 
there may be in such a square of five miles, the interior 
of which they do not always visit. We had crossed two 
or three blocks of this sort, which have not as yet been 
fully mapped, and Henrj', Adam and myself were there- 
fore able to offer some suggestions in regard to the loca- 
tion of_ lakes, streams, etc., which we^ had met in our 
wanderings. We put in three new lakes, arranged a few 
streams, and reset a mountain or two, all of which shows 
that old New Brunswick still is new and has news in it. 
Mr. Albert Everett, our host at Windsor Hall, called a 
little meeting of sportsmen for the evening of the day 
on which we arrived in Fredericton., There were present 
at this enjoyable little banquet the following gentlemen: 
F. B. Edgecombe, President of the Board of Trade; C, 
Fred Chestnut, President of the Tourist Association ; W. 
P. Flewelling, Deputy Surveyor General: W. T. Chest- 
nut, H. B. Atherton, George W. Hoegg, A. A. Tweed- 
dale, H. R. Babbitt, A. A. Shute, William Walker, H. G. 
Chestnut, Adam Moore, Charles Cremin, John Macpher- 
son, R. P. Allen, E. J. Payson, and others. 
It was like pulling teeth to say good-by to big Adam 
Moore and Charlie Cremin. Every fellow who reads the 
Forest and Stream knows how much he gets attached to 
friends of the out of doors. They are the best sort. So 
perhaps the least said the better. I can quite agree with 
Mr. L. I. Flower, of Central Cambridge, N. B. (who 
waited eight days at Fredericton to meet our party when 
it returned, and who was originally to have gone in with 
us. Mr. Flower left for home the very morning of the 
day on which we arrived, hence I had to meet him only 
by correspondence). "You are right in what you say," 
said he; "your Uncle Adam Moore is no ordinary man. 
His level-headedness and common sense are qualities 
many a man might envy, and as to his physical endur- 
ance — don't mention it." 
Adam and I finally managed to break away from the 
blandishments of Fredericton, and start for our little 
journey to Chicago. This was my first experience in 
hunting east of the State of Michigan. I have never 
been in any country where there is so much game to the 
square mile as there is in New Brunswick. I have never 
been in any country where a man gets a better run for 
his money, nor where he comes away with a greater 
consciousness of having received perfectly square and 
honorable treatment in every regard. I fear we may no 
longer hope for the old days of freedom and abundance in 
American big game. Under these changed conditions and 
under the modern limitations, I . do not believe the su- 
perior, if, indeed, the equal, of New Brunswick exists as 
a hunting country in any region accessible to the sports- 
men of the United States and Canada. My own hunt was 
not made exclusively for the purpose of killing game, but 
for investigation, and it gave perhaps unusual facilities for 
learning in regard to the abundance of game. I want 
to say that the game is there, and the guides are there, 
and if you don't get game, it is not their fault, but your 
own, or that of the weather. We had unusually bad 
weather during our trip, or I presume I might have writ- 
ten a much bloodier story — might perhaps have told a 
story of a better trophy. December is the hardest month 
in the year, for a moose hunt, but I certainly could not 
ask a better time than I had. Adam says we are going 
to do it all over again some time. "I am thinking up some 
other fool trip for you and myself to go on two or three 
years from now," said he. "We'll start across the country 
to the north somewhere, and come oi\t by way of Labra- 
dor or Hudson Bay, or some other place in foreign parts." 
Dear old Adam, and dear old Henry I That's the way 
one feels about it. May they live forever, kings in their 
wilderness kingdoms. It will long be one of my pleasant 
memories that I was along when the trail blazed between 
their principalities. E. Hough. 
Hartford Building, Chicago, 111. 
New Jefscy^s Game Birds. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
In preparing a report on the game birds of New Jersey 
for the Fish and Game Commissioners of that State, I 
should be exceedingly glad to receive from sportsmen 
and others information in regard to New Jersey's game 
birds. For example, it is desired to know the compara- 
tive abundance or rarity of game birds at stated localities. 
Where, for instance, is the ruft'ed grouse or partridge 
present or absent in New Jersey? What is the distribu- 
tion, in summer, of the wood duck in New Jersey? At 
what times do the summer resident game birds nest? 
Do they rear one or two broods? What are the times of 
arrival and departure of the migratory species — the snipes, 
plovers and ducks? What are the local names of game 
birds in New Jersey? This last is a matter of especial 
importance. By game birds, it may be added, is meant 
the ducks, geese, swans, rails, coots, gallinules, woodcock, 
snipes, plovers, curlews and other shore birds, partridge, 
quail, dove and reed bird. I trirst that sportsmen will aid 
me in this matter. Frank M. Chapman, 
American MvsEi'M OF Nau mai. Hit^ORT, New Voik City, fe^ 
