408 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
tNoV. 22, 1903. 
pear. I have noticed that Lake Washington is ahnost 
destitute of mud hens until about Sept. i, when they com- 
mence to appear, as if by magic. 
In times past I have condemned hunters for shooting 
the mud hen on the ground that it was a harmless thing, 
even if it were a nuisance. I was surprised to see a state- 
ment recently in the New York Sun to the effect that 
ducks usually gave up feeding grounds to the mud hen. 
On further investigation, however, I discovered that Let- 
fingwell. who is a most conservative authority on wild- 
fowl shooting, took the position that mud hens kept duck.s 
away from decoys, or, as they say out in the Pacific North- 
west, "boosters." 
While it is ne\'er too late to learw, I must confess that 
] had never noticed that the mud hen interfered with duck 
shooting, and I have often seen good-sized flocks of ducks 
floating about in the water with large gatherings of mud 
hen.s. I should be pleased to hear from hunters of this 
section v/hat their observations have been on this point. 
C. B. Yandell, who has hunted both in the South, Middle 
West and Pacific Northwest, .-^aid that while he had not 
given the subject special attention, yet he was surprised 
to hear that the mud hen was injurious to duck shooting. 
More nnid hens are eaten now in this part of the coun- 
try than ever before, which T take to be a certain sign that 
duck shooting is not tlie .sport it used to be. To those who 
cnjov this bird I willingly grant mv share. I have tried to 
eat Ibc mud ben, but found the game too strong for me 
every time. The taste is a combination of mud and fish 
and it will ,-iny with you indefinitely. .The impression left 
is almost e.-erlasting. However. Captain A. R. Leake, 
who used to run the Eagle Boat House on Lake Wash- 
ington, confi.dentlv informed me that he would just as 
soon eat a good fat _ mud hen as the best red-head that 
ever ducked eighty times before the weary hunter finally 
landed him. 
"This prejudice against mud hen," .said the captain, "is 
ail bosh. Why I can cook a mud hen so you couldn't tell 
it from the finest duck that ever flopped a wing, or wiped 
the eyes of a hunter." 
i a.sked the cantain liow he cooked the bird, and he said 
that he cooked it until all the strong flavor was cooked 
out of it. These directions were rather indefinite, but I 
passed them over to my hunting companion, L. F. Mur- 
dock, who can cook anvtbing in the catalogue from a dish 
. of mush to a Delmonico dinner. He was verv skeptical, 
but said he would make one last effort to see if there was 
anj'thing in the captain's contention. He kept that lone 
rnud hen in w;ater over night, he parboiled that ooor fowl, 
he cooked it in water dosed with soda, he stuffed it with 
garlic and everything else known to the cuHnarv art in 
hope of beating that fish and mud taste, but when the 
dinner came I canitulated — mud hen is too strong for 
me. But it furnishes great sport for the bovs on Lake 
Washington. • Portus' B.\xter. 
But then what's the use of preaching, like Coal Oil 
Johnny, we take up our morning paper and go all 
through it again. Chari.es Cristadoro. 
Deer and Humans. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
The story is told, I think, of Coal Oil Johnny or some 
other lightning high roller spendthrift, when, after 
having gotten ihrough with buying hotels and giving 
them away and chartering special trains and yachts and 
other things, on once more donning his overalls and 
with pick and shovel working in the ditch, a lawyer came 
along and notified him that an uncle in Ireland had just 
died and left him a million.^ With a look of despair on 
his face Coal Oil Johnny exclaimed: "My God! Mu.st 
I go through all this thing again?" 
_ And so with the deer-shooting season, it's on again and 
it's up to the reader of the morning paper to once more 
go through the daily accidental killings. And despite 
all the warnings and preachings, the same crowd, with 
numerous additions, are trapsing into the woods armed 
with their small caliber rifles and their pockets filled 
with steel jacketed smokeless ammunition. There is 
about as much sense in taking such rifles and ammuni- 
tion into the thickly grown woods of Minnesota and 
Wisconsin as there would be in using a Catling gun 
wherewith to hunt cottontails in the brush. 
Certainly deer hunting has its joys and pleasures, for 
during these_ beautiful autumn days perhaps no places 
are more iuAnting than the forests and the clearings, yet 
one takes one's life in hand when entering the forests 
during the open season for moose and «leer. And curi- 
ous to relate, the aim of the "thought-it-was" hunter 
IS sn absokitely deadly on human beings, horses and 
cattle, while when shooting at the real thing the emp- 
tied magazine and a circle of spent shells is the only 
thing to show. 
It may be an inconsequential thing to accidentally 
shoot a fellow hunter in the woods, nothing further 
coming from it than appearing before a coroner's jury 
and being exonerated, but not so as to killing stock. 
Two Nimrods saw something brown through the brush 
and blazed away in their excitement, pumping their 
magazines empty and sending every bullet home. Has- 
tening toward their prostrate game, they found stretched 
nut upon the ground a heavv draft horse, such as is used 
in lumber camps, breathing his last, his side showing 
where every ball had entered. And attracted by the 
fusilade the camp boss appeared on the scene and de- 
manded a quick settlement then and there. Between 
the two hunters $100 in ready cash was raised and 
handed over, and the trio marched to camp and then 
and there notes— demand— were signed for $150 more, 
and the hunters went back home to think it over and 
raise the stuff. 
Who ever heard of a hunter being fined for killing 
another hunter accidentally in the woods? And the moral 
;stands-that it is cheaper to kill a human being in the 
woods than the stock of the farmer or camp owner. 
A report comes in of a mother, with a babe, stand- 
ing m the doorway of her cabin in the clearing hear- 
ing something whiz past her face and feeling the child 
shiver, she looks down to see the child lifeless in her 
arms. Simply a case of a steel jacketed bullet "fetch- 
ing up somewhere." 
A traveling man reported to me an incident of eight 
men going into the woods deer hunting, and when they 
returned the party brought home three dead conVfides 
gnd two deer, Thi§ was voycbed for as fapt, 
The Elk I Did Not Get. 
We had talked of little but bull elk for three months. 
We had studied every available map of the Northwest. 
We had finally agreed as to the place, and our dreams 
were soon to be realized. 
We arrived at Athens, Mont., about midnight, Oct. 2O, 
1901. Our luggage was hastily hurried from the car, and 
with a hearty "good luck" from the train crew they were 
off, the colored lights disappearing around a curve into 
the darkness, and we were alone, A hasty examination 
of our surroundings disclosed the fact that Athens con- 
sisted of a board with that name painted thereon, nailed 
upon a post, and a deserted pump house. We soon had 
our luggage together beside the latter, built a fire, and 
after a lunch of coffee, canned beans and hardtack, rolled 
ourselves in our blankets to be lulled to sleep by the 
autumn wind whispering through the pines. 
Next morning our guide, with whom Nve had made 
previous arrangements, appeared bright and early, and by 
4 o'clock that afternoon had reached our destination on 
the shores of beautiful Lake Ashley, and felt that we had 
made no mistake in the selection of our hunting grounds. 
After a supper of mountain trout, flapjacks and coffee, we 
lit our pipes and sat around the camp-fire, our guide 
entertaining us with stories of his early days in Mon- 
tana. He related how he had seen deer come and browse 
from the branches of the identical tree from which he 
had been chopping wood ; how he had shot and killed an 
immense silver-tip. the largest known to have been killed 
in Flathead Valley: how he had been attacked by a moun- 
tain lion, which drove him to a small cave in the rocks, 
W'here it held him a prisoner all that night and greater 
part of the next dav. he defending himself with a club, 
with which he finalh', driven desperate by hunger and 
thirst, dispatched the beast. He told us of a band of 
Indians that had run down a large herd of elk. aided by 
the deep snow, and had killed them all, some thirty in 
number, on the identical place where we were now 
camped. Ftitl of these stories of the chase, we rollei ' 
ourselves in our blankets and long after my companion; 
were a.sleep, I lay there, listening to the many sounds 
that came from the forest. A soliatry bobcat screeched 
from his stronghold in the cliffs over the lake, and I 
thought it the most dismal sound I had ever heard. Now 
ray attention was attracted by the little stream, the outlet 
of the lake, babbling over its rocky bottom, and my mind 
went back to school days at the thought of the little poem : 
"^Ten may come, and men may go, 
lUit I go on forever." 
But listen ! What is this sound I hear? Is it the sound 
of some great animal trampling in the mucky banks, or is 
it the wind. The sound grow's louder and more distinct. 
Yes. .surely this must be some animal, perchance an elk. 
cooling his burning hoofs in the cool stream after many a 
mile of travel through the uplands in quest of food. I 
grasped my rifle and crept forth. 
The great hunter's moon had just arose above the 
horizon, and there before me. his great massive antlers 
dimlv outlined in the moonlight, stood the one object of 
which I had thought, talked, yes, even dreamed about: a 
beautiful bull elk. How my eyes feasted on his beautiful 
form. I could see him more distinctly now; could even 
count the points on the coveted antlers that would soon 
be mine. one. two, three, four, five, six, seven — seven 
pomts. I had honed for eight, but would surely be con- 
tent with these. I raised my rifle and taking steady aim 
at the massive shoulder, fired — 
"Goll ding it all. ain't you fellers ever going to git up?" 
shouted our guide. "Breakfast ready and waiting." 
I sat uo and looked about me in amazement. There was 
the guide bustling about camp gettine: breakfast, my 
partner just emerging from bis nilc of blankets, but my 
elk had disappeared into the depths of d.reamland. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST* 
Good Duck Shooting. 
Chicago, 111.. Nov. 14.^ — The good duck shooting which 
began ten days ago has continued with us throughout 
the week up to this time, so that on the whole we may call 
the fall duck shooting here above the average in excel- 
ence. In the nast week some very _good bags have been 
made at all of the remaining onen 'waters of thi;? State, 
and nearly all of the better ducking clubs have been add- 
ing- good scores to their game records. 
Day before yesterday was well nis-h a record breaker in 
the wav of an exodus of duck shooters. Reports came 
down from Fox Lake the day previous to the effect that a 
heavy flight of birds was in on that rowntry, and on the 
dav mentioned it is stated that more than .30 shooters lefi 
Chicago for that district. One can nearly always count 
upon plentv of company if he goes to Fox Lake, Grass 
returned, but wa^ having aood snort at last accounts. 
Lake, or any of the marshes in that vicihitv, but the man 
who wns up there yesterdav would probably have been 
luckv he came back without having his sk''n full of 
shot. Some stories of good bags come from Fox Lake, 
but when these are sifted down it is found that the mud 
hen makes a lare-e factor. Yet thev undoubtedly had a big 
flie-ht of mallards in over that country for the past week, 
and a few of these have been killed. 
Mr. W. L. Wells, mentioned last week as starting for a 
durkintr trin. had only one dav's shootinsf. but got 14 fine 
nifllards, His companion, Mr. Robert Stites. has not yet 
Mr. Eddie Pope came in from New Bo.ston with the re- 
port that the warm weather hnd continued in that vicinitv 
nnd that no o-r^at number of birdq had been seen near thp 
river in the Mississippi vallev. He ."^av that the mallards 
arp in but that thev stick to th^ cornfields and will n'^t 
take to the overflows in the timb''r land until rough 
weather or a snowstorm drl^-es them in for shelter. 
Mr, T. Clarkf. fleeted last week a member of the 
Tol1e=ton ^'ub le^t *bis week for Hie^f. han"-"- hunt'n"' 
erounds. ''^Tr. C. S. Dennis went with htm. A/Tr. Dennis 
one da" this wf>ek ran down to th" club, wh'ch is onlv 
abgut 38| miles frqm the center Chicafo, He go there 
about noon, had lunch and by 3:30 bad knocked down 18 
fat mallards. 
Mr. Geo. Adams, also of the Tolleston Club, reported 
that he got his limit of 24 birds before 11:30 o'clock of 
the morning he was down. 
Mr. Geo. Marshall, formerly a prominent member of the 
Calumet Heights Club, was down at Water Valley, Ind., 
one day this week and killed 19 mallards before 3 :3o 
o'clock. 
All along the Kankakee marshes the sport has been very 
good, the best, perhaps, which has been known for many 
years. The weather has been just severe enough, cold 1 
storms alternating with warm days, so that the flight is 
in on this country, but not yet driven toward the south. 
At this writing the temperature is rapidly dropping and 
we may expect the coldest weather which we have had yet J 
this fall, all of which may tend to give us even better 
duck shooting than we have had for a few days, barring 
an absolute freeze up. j 
Mayor Harrison, of Chicago, left early in the week for ! 
Swan Lake Club, and is supposed to be meeting go@d il 
sport, although no word ha.s come up from him since his 
departure. 
Mr. Hempstead Washburne leaves this afternoon for a 
trip to Tolleston Club. 
sr. — The Quail Crop. 
Nothing very startling comes in regarding the extent of 
the quail crop. There are some birds, but there is no such 
startling aggregate as was the case two years ago this 
fall. Several shooters have gone down to that once fa- ■ 
mous point, Neoga, on the Illinois Central in this State. 
There is a dog trainer there by the name of iCun^ who 
works dogs for Some of the Chicago shooters, hence this 
point IS very well known. Mr. C. H. Bonnell, of this city, 
returned from this point a few days ago and reported that 
while^ they found some birds, the crop was nothing 
startling. J\Ir. J. L. Jones, of this city, who was shooting 
in the same vicinity, had not been heard of at last ac- 
counts. Mr. Harry Raymond and his friend, Mr. Blair, 
also went in at Neoga this week and are thought to be 
sharing on about the .same basis in the quail shooting of 
that vicinity. 
Mr. E. Ellicott, city electrician of Chicago, left this 
afternoon for Custer, this State, where he meets Bill 
Haske I, also a member of the Wishininne Club Mr 
Has;kell says that there are ducks and quail in abundance 
at Luster. Mr. Ellicott takes with him his two setters, 
which I saw this afternoon and which I must sav are 
two of the handsomest bird dogs I have seen in a' long 
while. He should have good sport in view of the nature 
01 his rolling stodt. 
The Deer Season. 
The deer season is now in full swing in our north 
woods, and It is to be supposed that the usual number of 
deer are being killed. The shortness of the reason and 
the growing observation of the game laws still assure us 
some deer in Wisconsin and Michigan 
The usual number of fatalities are beginning to be an- 
nounced from the deer hunting country, the names of the 
victims of shooting accidents being, in most cases, sup- 
pressed. Another proof of the haste and carelessness of 
a certain class of deer shooters is to be found in reports 
of several horses which have been killed by fools with 
guns. In Ontanog^n County, Mich., a lumberman by the 
name of Duquette lost a horse .aid to be worth $2=50 He 
made the men who shot the h irse settle up with him in 
full before they left the neighborhood 
At Otsego. Mich Henry Shoulders was riding through 
? s'mv'. °" ' ^^;t^te '^°'-s<^- .A shooter by the'' name of 
fired «f it .! ^7 ''^'r g^°>"&.th'-ou.gh the woods and 
It Jffi u . ^""'l- °" suposition that it was a wolf. 
It IS difficult to understand why a peaceable white horse 
should look like a wolf, but, at any rate, Myers shotThe 
horse in the head happily mi.ssing the rider The horse 
his miSe "^^''■^ P^^^' Shoulders $100 gr 
Still another story of a similar nature is told regardinir 
a Republic, Mich., man, who also had his horse killed 
tinder bur,. It ,s getting to be nearly as dangerous to ^ o 
deer hunting, or even not to go deer huntinf up in tWs 
country as ,t is t^ ^o into a%itched ba tie^' When a 
u Iter can come back and tell how many horses he had 
killed under hirn. he is, in a fashion, getting into the class 
of George Washington, General Grant, ete^ There seems 
Stlffi^e^arf^f ■ ''^"^^'^3' f^'' -™inal carelessness 
;Too Much Venison. 
.'\ Davenport, la man by the name of Davis undertook 
toifirf ^'T Wisconsin by way of St. Paul. He had 
-wo H. ' "'"''T h'"^' the law allowing but 
Paulb?th7.^hl''"''';^ ^"x^ ^'•^"^ the train a^t S t . 
i^u rS) wardens of that city, but making a strong 
o re ury'etc'"b?^' ^^f"' prominence. his^ertaTnty 
to return, etc.. he was allowed to go on his way to Iowa 
leaving his venison behind him. There war a consiVler' 
ab e stir over the matter at the time, but owing to tSe fect 
that he IS now out of the jurisdiction of Warden Bovd the 
matt^er seems to be at an end at this writing The Davis 
.ncident may give warning to other shooter.f who propose 
breaking the Minnesota game laws because they don't hao 
pen to suit their convenience. St. Paul is getLg to be a 
he "fair r^f 'fZ ^''J'H''' ^"^ bfen alf through 
ht tall. To be hauled off of a train en route home to 
have one s game confiscated and to linger for a few davs 
m the custody of the Minnesota law officers is no Sv 
l^l^Jt t^fe^S^eC"^^'"^- ^^^^^^ 
ai^ r -^^illioD aires and Dwcfes. 
Speaking of St." Paul, another little case comes to mind 
.Showing that one cannot with impunitj^ always break State 
aws even though rich. There are a couple of shooters 
by the name of Thompson who go out into North Da- 
kota from St. Paul, wealthy men and apparently caring 
lor ht le but shootmg. I always thought that a man who 
was nlaced where he didn't have to work ought to work 
a little bit, anyhow ; but that's neither here nor there and 
this particular phase of the Messrs. Thomp.sons' sphere in 
ife does not concern us. The important thing is that they 
kept on shipping ducks out of North Dakota into St. Paul, 
ohyjously with tti? iin<ierjitanding of .some one at th§ 
