1^8 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Aug. is, 1903. 
a monotonous gap in the sport with the gun. The 
tinkling triplet of the upland plover had died away 
in the far South; the quack of the mallard and the 
auh-unk of the goose had not yet awakened the echoes 
on the marshes, and the open season on quail had not 
yet arrived, while the jacks were yet loafing in the 
well tempered airs of the Dakotas at the time this 
little mottled beauty put in an appearance. 
The golden plover used to be familiar here for only 
about three weeks of September, when the fringed 
gentian had not yet folded its azure petals, and tlie 
high yellow disks of the moccasin still lit up the slant- 
ing hillsides, the pink and white of the wild morning 
glory yet dotted the dusty prairie grasses and splotches 
of gold and scarlet were encroaching upon the water 
maple's involucrum. That was when the golden plover 
came down from the north and falling upon our 
oceans of freshly plowed ground, gorged himself to 
bursting. 
The Nebraska gunner used to call the golden plover 
prairie pigeon, and the earlier rancher knew them only 
as rain birds. Many sportsmen, too, confounded the 
bird with the dowitcher, or better still, the Eskimo cur- 
lew, which species almost invariably came down here 
together, not in intermingling flocks, but simultane- 
ously, after the newly upturned winter wheat fields had 
been soaked by the summer rains. 
I will never forget a shoot I had on golden plover 
with A. ll. Penrose, Johnny Hardin and Billy Town- 
send, all of the old shooting goods house of Penrose 
& Hardin, down near McPaul, over the river, in Sep- 
tember, 1887. With Dr. Caples, lamented, we got sta- 
tioned on the margin of a big broken field, from which 
we had jumped a slather of birds early in the morn- 
ing, and had but a short time to await their return. 
Way up in the sunlit dome they .came, sometimes in 
long, dotted lines or wedge-shaped masses, like blue- 
bills on the river, now in ragged array, again abreast 
as evenly as marching infantry. Over the distant tim- 
ber, where the cottonwood and the elm were yellowing, 
out over the intervening pastures where the rust was 
upon the cattle-cropped grass, where the bright gold 
of the yellowhammer's underwing flashed and gleamed, 
as the crimson-crested harvester hopped after the 
scurrying crickets, or when with querulous cackle he 
darted back spasmodically among the cottonwoods. 
There they come now, I really believe, anyway, when 
I close my eyes it seems so — a long line of softly 
trilling whistlers, a line of swiftly cleaving wisps of 
gray and white and black, tinged with a golden bronze, 
and it matters not how they come, high up in the 
hazy winds, or low along the ground; their sweet little 
voices are always in the air, and how murderous man 
could empty volleys' of shot into their ranks is some- 
thing really to marvel at. But we did it, that September 
day, over and over again, and thought nothing of it, 
save to glory in the bag we were piling up. 
There was not much need of a blind in shooting 
■plover in those days, a few stalks of the sunflower 
stuck in the yielding soil, a bunch of tumble weed or 
low place in the ground, for in answer to their call, 
which is easily imitated, they would come on in to us 
with a rush. Hardin and I were at the lower end of 
the field and both hid behind a single bush of redden 
sumach, which John had cut with his jackknife and 
stuck in the soft ground. In two hours' shooting we 
killed more birds than can be killed to-day in any 
region in the world in a week. Penrose and Townsend 
also had the same kind, although they were way across 
at the head of the big field and seldom got a crack 
at the same flocks that came in to us. 
Hallowed September day, will thy like ever re- 
turn? When and where can I once again see such a 
flying medley of black and gray, and brown and gold 
and white, jet black feet and bills, and tawny tails 
barred with ash? Where and when will my strained 
hearing once more catch that sweet tremolo, so plain- 
tive and mournfully soft? 
It will soon be September again down there at Mc- 
Paul — and the early autumn sun will shine as sooth- 
ingly from the smoky sky as it did on that day six- 
teen years ago; bright will be the gold of the flicker's 
•-wing, aiid the lapis lazuli of the lingering lobelia and 
the yellow disk and purplish rays of the aster will 
shine across the jet of the winter wheat, on whose 
borders the fluffy golden rod tinges the gray rag weed 
just as it did sixteen years ago; but there will be no 
long lines of brown and white and black, with flashes 
of bronze and gold, no soft, sweet and tingling unison 
of speckled throats, no lovely little feathered meteors 
0.1 the hazy atmosphere over cottonwoods' top, over 
the close browsed pastures and odorous upturned 
loam. The golden rod, the poppy, the gentian and 
niiOcGasin will be there, but no golden plover. 
Sandv Griswold. 
Samoa *Uma. 
Samoa 'Uma; Where Life is Different. By Llewella 
Pierce Churchill. New York : Forest and Stream 
Publishing Co., $1.00. 
It is not the usual picture of Samoa which one finds 
in these pages. Mrs. Churchill is convinced that the 
islands were never worth the price "always exacted from 
every one who sought to do some good for the island 
kingdom." The Samoans "are greedy and grasping, 
, puffed up with a sense of their own importance, untruth- 
ful and never to be relied upon," and the privations and 
discomforts of living in the islands are, to a European or 
American, well-nigh insupportable. The author has had 
ample opportunity to study the matter. She knows her 
subject; she is a keen observer, and her views are entitled 
to respect. Despite her unfavorable depiction of Saraoan 
life and character, she has written a most readable book. 
Gossipy and familiar in diction, it is yet thoughtful and 
instructive in substance, and it furnishes a most vivid, 
if not wholly satisfying, picture of the archipdago. It is 
not easy to lay down the book once one has feirly started 
^n its perusal. — New York Indejpentjeojt. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
The Fall Shooting Season. 
Chicago, 111., Aug. 8. — Inquiries begin to come to 
hand for shooting localities for ducks and chickens this 
fall. I last week mentioned in these columns those 
counties in Minnesota which bid fair to be most at- 
tractive to the prairie chicken shooter. In addition to 
this district in Minnesota, there will be a very consid- 
erable shooting area in both the Dakotas this season. 
It is true these Western States are settling up very 
much, but when all is said and done, there is a lot of 
open country still left in North and South Dakota. It 
is hard to patrol and protect these great open stretches, 
and without question the game laws are not and can- 
not be fully enforced all over so great a stretch of 
country; yet none the less the sentiment in favor of the 
laws has notably increased within the last few years, 
and the enforcement in the way of seizures, confisca- 
tion, etc., in some of the shipping centers has done 
very much_ toward teaching the useful fact that the 
game law is not intended as an absolute dead letter. 
Therefore, so far from the prairie chicken being an 
extinct game bird, it is the case that there will be very 
good shooting indeed over a large stretch of country 
in Minnesota and in the Dakotas, preferably from 50 
to 100 miles west of the eastern line of the latter 
States. 
In. Illinois we are in the doldrums. Our trapshoot- 
ing is a thing of the past. We have a close season of 
years on the prairie chicken, and the Illinois law makes 
it necessary for every fellow to go and see the man 
before he can take out his gun. This is a state of af- 
fairs a bit annoying and not altogether welcome to a 
great many of our shooters. Welcome or not, how- 
ever, we have to take our medicine; and if we don't 
want to wait for the quail season or don't want to pay 
a resident license, we can pay a non-resident license in 
some other State, of a good deal more formidable 
proportions, and take our chances with the increasing 
tide of sportsmen's traffic which goes into the North- 
west. 
Wisconsin is a State which should not be overlooked 
by the prairie chicken shooter. Berlin, Babcock, 
Necedah, Horicon and a great many points in the 
lower or prairie part of the State to the west of the 
above-named localities, will turn out a few days' .shoot- 
ing. Waushara county ought not to be overlooked. 
Wild Rose, Wautoma, Princeton and other points 
which can be reached easily, touch the country lying 
to the east of these localities between the Northwestern 
and the Wisconsin Central railroads. This is a sandy, 
rolling country, not A'ery closely farmed, with some 
marshes and a considerable growth of buckwheat. I 
don't think this district is as good as that around Bab- 
cock and Necedah, but know of one man who killed 
between 150 and 200 chickens and grouse last fall in 
Waushara county. 
Indiana can be marked off the map as a chicken 
country, pure and simple, and its stiff license law would 
bar most Chicago shooters, even were there very many 
prairie chickens left in that State. Iowa has some 
birds in the northwestern portions, but it is believed 
from general reports that the wet weather has rather 
damaged the chicken crop in northern Iowa and south- 
ern Minnesota. 
It is a little early yet to talk about the quail crop. 
Last year reports were decidedly discouraging in the 
upper parts of Illinois, and it is not the case that any 
large breeding stock went over. If the prevailing wet 
weather has made it hard for the quails as well as the 
prairie chickens, then it would seem that we are not to 
have a very keen season in quail shooting this coming 
fall. Quails, however, do not drown out as readily as 
the prairie chickens, and, moreover, they have a myste- 
rious way of disappearing and increasing without any 
apparent reason therefor; so that, perhaps, after all, 
we may see Bob White with us again this autumn. 
Tamarack Lake District, 
A friend of mine much interested in duck shooting, 
got some advice from Warden Matthews at St. Paul 
last week which may be useful to others who would 
like to know where they can get fairly good duck 
shooting this fall. Mr. Matthews gave Tamarack Lake, 
in Otter Tail county, as a likely tip, qualifying it with 
the remark, whose justice will be appreciated by all 
duck shooters, that it is impossible to tell exactly when 
the ducks will be found in any given locality or in what 
numbers. 
Nine years ago Tamarack Lake was one of the best 
jnallard waters in the Northwest, and numbers of Chi- 
cagoans made annUal expeditions to its shores, the 
drive from Detroit being then something like twenty 
miles or twenty-five miles. The shooting there was 
ruined by two market shooters by the names of Griggs 
and Penniman, who hammered that district meixilessly 
for a season or more. These men, according to my 
friend, who formerly shot there, had eighteen blinds in 
different parts of the lake. These blinds were built 
snugly with rushes, and were entirely covered over. 
When the shooters were operating in the blind they 
had out a large flock of decoys, and each man usually 
had a couple of guns. As the blind was covered over, 
the shooting was usually done after the birds had 
bunched in the water or just above the decoys. My in- 
formant, who was shooting with friends in Big Rice 
Lake, a few miles away, said that he could hear the 
boom-boom! of the market shooters' guns nearly all 
day long. They killed a great many thousands of 
dozens of mallards, so many that they had a team con- 
tinually on the road taking out their shipments. These 
market shooters both very famous in their way, and 
perhaps both good fellows enough in their way, though 
their lights did not lead them as ours do, formerly shot 
at Preston Lake, South Dakota, once also a very fa- 
mous ducking ground. They went back to the Preston 
Lake country after leaving Tamarack Lake, in Minne- 
sota. They killed so enormous an amount of ducks 
at Tamarack Lake that citizens of Detroit, under the 
Jleadership of a newspaper man, whose name, I think. 
was Hamilton, invited them to leave the country, and 
couched the invitation in such terms that the shooters 
concluded it wise to depart. Of course this sort of 
slaughter would be impossible under the 25-birds'-a-day 
clause of the Minnesota law; but the above is not a bad 
sort_ of tip as a method of solving the problem of ex- 
cessive shooting. At any rate, that is the way it was 
solved on this once famous mallard water some years 
ago. 
Following up the Otter Tail, above Tamarack Lake, 
one_ comes to Flat Lake, which, in the opinion of the 
Indians, a few years ago, was better than Tamarack 
Lake. My friend, Mr. Wells, of this city, who was 
formerly familiar with that district, says that it is as 
good a place for a fall trip as any he ever saw. If it 
be the case, as Mr. Matthews now thinks, that this lake 
is taking on some of its old abundance in wild fowl, it 
is questionable whether a better locality could be found 
for a ducking trip, and one ought to be reasonably 
sure, at any time after the northern flight is down, of 
getting his legal or personal limit without much 
trouble. 
There is good shooting in the Mille Lacs region, also 
of Minnesota, and there is good duck shooting to be 
had out of Bemidji. I heard of one party who killed 
a couple of thousand ducks in the Mille Lacs district 
last fall. 
All in all there is no occasion for the sportsmen of 
the Middle West to despair. There will be as many 
birds, both ducks and chickens, in Minnesota, the 
Dakotas and Wisconsin this fall as there were last 
year. Granted a good chicken dog and a couple of 
weeks of time, one ought to be able to make a trip 
very much worth while. 
Ask the Warden. 
There is _ one phase of the work of a State game 
warden which, it seems to me, might well be empha- 
sized, and which I have never seen mentioned in any 
quarter. The State game warden, by virtue of his posi- 
tion is, or ought to be, the very man best posted on 
the game supply. If he doesn't know where the shoot- 
ing is, then he isn't the kind of game warden he ought 
to be. If he does know, and if he is a sportsman, as 
a game warden ought to be, then he ought not to be 
unwilling to tell fellow sportsmen where the good 
shooting places are. If he represents a State which has 
a non-resident license law, he would seem to be all 
the more bound by several motives, to make public such 
information upon request. Naturally he wants to col- 
lect non-resident licenses to help him in his own State 
work. He can collect all the more of these if he can 
give some fair assurance to non-residents that their 
visits to the shooting country will not be in vain. 
Heretofore sportsmen have looked very largely to the 
sportsmen's papers for tips of shooting localities, etc. 
The papers do their best, but after all they are not 
wholly infallible and cannot, by the nature of their 
calling, be so well posted upon all localities as is the 
man at the center of shooting affairs in any given State. 
Time and again I send inquiries to Executive Agent 
Sam F. FuUerton, at St. Paul, Minn., because I know 
him to be thoroughly well posted in all the shooting 
and fishing localities of his State, and have never 
found him otherwise than ready to give assistance by 
way of detailed information. This entails extra work 
on the official, but it is work which, it seems to me, is 
not wholly in vain. The non-resident who goes into 
another State to shoot ought not to feel a grudge 
against that State, or the warden of that State, be- 
cause he pays for the privilege of shooting. He ought 
not to pass the warden b}'. In a great many instances 
it would be of decided benefit if, when he put up his 
money he established nice personal relations with the 
very man in the whole State who could be most imme- 
diately useful to him by his advice. Maybe I am mak- 
ing Sam Fullerton and other able and obliging State 
wardens a lot of trouble by this suggestion, but at the 
same time I do think that this is something which 
might well be remembered by the State warden of any 
State whose abundance of game invites non-resident 
sportsmen's travel. 
Speaking of Licenses. 
Speaking of licenses, it was an odd thing that hap- 
pened down at Ottawa, III., a few days ago. A young 
man of the town of Noble was contemplating marriage 
with a young lady of that neighborhood and ap- 
proached the clerk with the purpose of securing the 
necessary license. At that moment the aforesaid clerk 
was making out a hunting license for an applicant. As 
the bashful bridegroom was somewhat rattled anyhow, 
he did not specify just what kind of a license he wanted, 
and the clerk made him out a hunting license on gen- 
eral principles. This the applicant thrust into his pocket 
and hastened awy. The arrangements proceeded as 
usual in such circumstances, up to the time when the 
clergyman demanded the license. When he told the 
bridegroom^ that a hunting license would not do under 
such conditions there was something of a situation. 
Gtizziies, 
A hurried letter from Jack Monroe, just out of the 
mountains from a bear hunt with the party of Mr. 
Pinchot, states that they were fortunate in getting two 
or three nice grizzlies in at their baits, and I infer that 
the trip was a pleasant one and successful, as is usually 
the case when one goes out with Jack Monroe. 
Old-Time Duck Shooter. 
Mr. J. Swam, of Saperton, B. C, writes : "In reading 
the Forest and Stream I frequently come across remarks 
about old age preventing some of us from enjoying our- 
selves afield as we formerly did, so I thought I would for- 
ward to you the accompanying description of an awful 
example which may be held out before the boys." The 
awful example is_ mentioned in a newspaper clipping from 
Lundyville, Manitoba, in the following terms : 
"The oldest man in Manitoba, John McNabb, of this 
place, celebrated his one hundred and second birthday to- 
day, and is looking forward eagerly to the fall, when he 
expects to enjoy his cuftomary sport of duck hunting. 
