St4 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Oct. 24, 1903. 
Comrnission, and there undergo a test of mensuration 
to determine his identity. If the details that have been 
recorded in Boston shall agree with the ones ascertained 
in Augusta the commissioner may, if he is favorably im- 
pressed with the subject, issue a license on the payment 
of the license fee and the Bertillon identification bureau 
fee. 
When he shall once be in the woods with his registered 
guide and his license, the crimi — ^we mean sportsman — 
will have nothing to mar his perfect enjoyment of the 
delightful freedom of the wilderness, except that once or 
twice or thrice in a day he will be called upon to disrobe 
and submit to such application of the anthropometrical 
instruments as the canny game warden may consider ab- 
solutely essential to the making sure that he is the in- 
dividual who measures up to the figures set down in his 
certificate, and that his moles are all where they ought 
to be. 
There are men who, having gone down to Maine for 
many years without restrictions, resent the present non- 
resident exactions, and profess to feel a certain sense of 
indignity put upon them in the requirement that they 
shall give their identification points of age, height, color 
of hair and eyes and other details, for all the world as if 
they were up for pocket-picking or sneak-thieving. If 
such finicky persons really and truly want a Maine deer, 
they would do well to swallow their scruples and get 
their game to-day, before shall come the morrow of ear 
measurements and strawberry marks. 
With the Golden Plover. 
Robert E. Merrill, of the Iowa State University, 
writes me that he was much interested in the story of a 
golden plover shoot I enjoyed a number of years ago 
down at McPaul, la., and which he read in the Forest 
A3S!D Stream. Mr. Merrill is an ornithological student, 
and he writes me for information about the golden plover 
as I knew the bird some sixteen or seventeen years ago, 
its habits, and the causes of its disappearance roundabout 
here. In response I will briefly say that there have been 
more golden plover killed in this vicinity this fall than 
for the past dozen years, and some of our sportsmen 
predict that this precious little bird is about to return to 
this section, but there is no chance in the world for that. 
Out below Waterloo last Sunday, while jack shooting, 
Clarence Sobotker and Charlie Wilkins knocked five out 
of a passing flock of thirty or forty birds, and the same 
day Herbert LeaA'itt and a friend' bagged fourteen on 
Mr. Leavitt's ranch near Valley. The latter gentlemen 
were also after jacksnipe, and the golden plover came in 
by accident only. Mr. Leavitt told me yesterday that 
tliey saw at least a dozen large flocks on the occasion 
referred to, and that if they had paid as much attention 
to them as they did to the jacks that they could have 
m.ade a big kill. And for additional proof that these 
birds have been encountered here with unwonted fre- 
quency this autumn, I only have to mention that the day 
after receiving Mr. Merrill's letter of inquiry, W. B. 
Kirkuff, of Council Bluffs, walked into my office and de- 
positing a paper sack on my table, said: "Here, Saridy, 
is a bird, and we want to know what it is. I say it is a 
golden plover, but Dr. West — and he's posted, you know 
— says it is not." 
I opened the sack and found a full grovm young male 
golden plover, alive and as sprightly as if just off its 
customary feeding grounds. Nearly a week before the 
bird had been shot out of a flock of fifty or sixty, which 
George Hathaway had run across on the flats below 
the elevator on the other side of the river. He knocked 
three or four out of the passing bunch, wing-tipping the 
bird in question. Dr. West, who is certainly well versed 
in the lore of the field and stream, was most likely mis- 
led as to the identity of the bird by the fact that it was 
in its first autumnal dress, and the markings were less 
distinct than they would have been a month later. This 
bird — the one Mr. Kirkuff brought me — I took over to 
Albert McVittie's sportsman's resort on Harney street, 
and for several days it attracted much attention in his 
show-window, but latterly it refused to eat, grew mopey. 
and I took it down to taxidermist Wallace for niounting. 
As Messrs. Kirkuff and Hathaway are both readers of 
the Forest and Stream, I will again extend to them my 
thanks here. The specimen is a beautiful one, and I 
value it highly. It brings back the days of old. 
The golden plover used to spend two or three weeks in 
this section of the country, both spring and fall, in great 
numbers, and the shooting down alDOUt McPaul and Bart- 
lett and up round Herman and Bancroft was always 
great. They came here more plentifully in the fall season 
than any other, and remained here longer and afforded 
better sport for tlie gunner. In late April, in a normal 
spring season, they would come here in great flocks, re- 
m.ain but a few days, then continue on to their northern 
breeding grounds, but few of them lingering this side 
of the 46th parallel for the purposes of nidification. 
The bird was always a most interesting little fellow to 
- me, and I used to put in much time watching thern. They 
. dart around over the ground with astonishing agility, re- 
ininding one in their peculiar movements of young do- 
mestic chickens. When they first espy an approaching 
gunner they will run with considerable speed for quite a 
distance, suddenly stop as short as if they had butted into 
a stone wall, nod their heads comically and tilt their 
graceful bodies several times, vibrating peculiarly from 
side to side at the same time, and then they will away 
again. If they think they have not been discovered they 
will sometimes lie down and lie crouched close in the 
short grass until you almost kick them up. When getting 
ready to leave the country or locality, like the upland 
plover when he alights, they will lift their wings in the 
air over their bodies several times, a brief moment each 
time, and this the experienced always knew be- 
hooved prompt action on his part. When feeding on 
good grounds they will move along with the regularity 
of a column of soldiers, jerking their bulb-like heads 
from side to side, and picking at this and that tempting 
morsel with a singular bending " motion of their gold 
mottled bodies. They are always weird acting little fel- 
lows, and at times will dance and jump and stamp around 
in a limited area on our moist pasture fields for hours at 
a time to force the angleworms out of their tiny holes in 
the soft soil. In September and October they are par- 
ticularly fond of our winter wheat fields, but are fre- 
quently met with on our sunny hillsides, where the wild 
rose berry and the grasshopper flourish. Again, like 
their congeners, the uplands, they are gluttons for grass- 
hoppers and coleopterus insects of various kinds. When 
on a long pilgrimage in migrating time they fly in a 
line and with much speed, the leaders almost constantly 
sounding that sweet and musical note that belongs to no 
other little throat. When they come down here in tha 
fall, and before coming on to a field to alight, as if in an 
abandon of gladness that their journey is at an end, they 
will go through many funny evolutions and aerial reticu- 
lations, now swooping down and skimming low over the 
ground, then straight up into the air again and round 
and round, sometimes gliding through space sidewise, 
with one sloe-black eye on earth the other on sky, flying 
out and in and backward and forward in a manner 
that often tires and disgusts the waiting and impatient 
gunner. John Hardin, A. H. Penrose and Billy 
Townsend and myself killed 180 plover in one day's 
shooting down near McPaul, la., in :888, and even then 
did not consider that we had accomplished any great 
shakes. 
But to revert to the habits of the bird. When they do 
light, when arriving here in the fall, the moment their 
dark feet touch the ground is the critical moment to the 
shooter, as they are solidly congregated and closely 
bunched up, but remain so but a transitory moment. The 
very second almost that their toes touch grass or ground, 
they separate, like a dash of oil on a still pool, and_ run 
widely apart. They also remind one very much of the 
curlews in their flight, checking themselves every whip- 
stitch in their seemingly maddened rush, as if to examine 
seme object on the ground below, and all the time giving 
free vent to that singularly mellifluous cry, Cour-luee- 
ov.ee! Cour-lee-ouee-ouee ! When they get in here in 
September — that is, when they used to come — the young 
birds made capital shooting. They would swoop down 
and alight on a field, dispersing quickly and running 
about apparently without aim, but with the most amus- 
ing alacrity, and with the one, object of filling their crops 
— filling their bobbing heads. Often, when first in, they 
would be very tame, as dumb-acting as young blue-wing 
teal, and a shooter could get right on top of them before, 
with that inevitable curl-lee-ouee ! they would jump up 
into the air and scurry away. That day, down at 
McPaul, Hardin and I would walk round and round a 
flock of adolescent birds, gradually crowding them_ in 
closer and closer, until finally we would have them, wild- 
eyed and long-necked, formed into a small circular knot, 
and then — well, we don't do those things nowadays. 
But the golden plover is but a dream of the past, not- 
withstanding the unusual numbers seen this fall, and in a 
few years more will be as good as extinct. 1 forgot 
to mention that at times I have seen them wading about 
on our overflowed meadows, but, like the upland plover, 
they prefer dry ground, differing in this respect from the 
jacksnipe, yellowleg and killdeer. I have also known 
them to probe our mellow loam just as the gallinagoes 
probe it, but in the fall the dry cow-dung on our grazing 
fields is what they revel in. Here they will roll and 
scratch and pick just like barnyard fowl for hours and 
hours at a time. They are seldom found in poor condi- 
tion, and are one of the choicest table birds known in 
this paj-t of the world, and I do not believe that a pair of 
them to-day at Rector's, Sherry's or Shanley's would 
allow you much change out of a $5 William. 
To-tnorrow afternoon, together with my boy Gerard, 
Major R. Barber, of Baltimore, and Charles Miller, of 
Kansas City, I leave for the Cherry county sandhills for 
two weeks with the grouse and the wildfowl. Judge 
Ives' party, which consists of himself. Dr. Connors, M. 
A. Hall, Edward Jacobs, Frank Carpenter, E. Abra- 
hams, John A. Kuhn, and Frank Campbell, leave this 
afternoon for the Crane marshes below Ainsworth, and 
on Thursdav Charlie Metz, Dr. Downs, Billy Marsh, Pete 
Eurk, Mike Fitzgibbons, Dick Scamon, and Charlie Lewis 
go to Lake Creek, up on the Pine Ridge reservation in 
South Dakota. John and Sandy McDonald, Jim Tuthill, 
Gus Llarte, Al. Powers, John Hoye, and Fred Anderson 
also leave on the 15th for Marsh and Coyote Lake, west 
of Woodlake, while Charlie Sufkin, C. A. Bishop, Fred 
Rose, and W. D. Smith depart for the canvasback 
grounds out in Deuel county. 
Sandy Griswold. 
The Cabin Plan. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
For the benefit of my fellow nature lovers, who are 
readers of your paper, and who, like myself, are riot 
overburdened with this world's goods, I will here de- 
scribe the arrangement that I have for an outmg dur- 
ing my summer vacation, and for the past nine years 
I have spent from four to six weeks each year m that way. 
Having a tract of woodland in northeastern Connec- 
ticut, in 1894 I built a rough cabin upon it— the photo- 
graph of the cabin was reproduced in Forest and 
Stream some six years ago; also, dimensions and cost 
of material Avere given; but as many who never saw 
that paper might be interested in some such a project, 
I will again describe and give the cost of the little hut, 
as many might be pleased to call it. 
Its dimensions are 16 feet % 20, with gYz feet posts; 
frame of chestnut timber and plenty of it; covered with 
unplaned inch Avhite pine boards, and battened outside 
with 4-inch cedar poles, halved; floor of i-mch chest- 
nut boards; roof of best cedar shingles, and having a 
well-built brick chimney, which has been put up since 
photo for Forest and Stream was taken; piazza 6 
feet wide in front. The chestnut and the pine were cut 
on the premises. 
Had I bought all of the material it would have cost 
some $250, but, perhaps, one like it might cost $300 
at the present time, as builder's supplies and labor are 
dearer now. 
It is so well and strongly built that a cyclone rnight 
tumble it over and over, but never could tear it in 
pieces, and not a drop of rain gets inside. 
During each of the past four years some one of 
my children has gone there and roughed it with me, 
and each considers having an outing at the hut the 
event of his or her life; also several friends of ours 
from Asbury Park have had outings there before this 
year. This year my eldest daughter was there for six 
weeks with me, in June and July. When the season at 
the shore was nearly over my other daughter with two 
young lady friends of hers, were up there and put in 
three weeks, and after they came back my boy, with 
two other youths, went up for three weeks, and all of 
them seemed to consider it the height of enjoyment. 
Not only all of them, but several others from Asbury 
Park, are already making arrangements to have out- 
ings there another summer, and as far as healths are 
concerned, I never saw a healthier lot than they all 
were when they came back. 
Now, what I am driving at — mind, I have no ax to 
grind — is this: that a great many persons, and families, 
too, in very moderate circumstances, could have some 
such an arrangement for an outing during the whole or 
part of the summer at a very little cost. Just think of 
it, no rent to pay, no fuel to buy, taxes nominal, plenty 
of milk, eggs and vegetables to be had at first cost, 
several kinds of wild berries and lots of them to be 
had for the picking, plenty of the purest air and drink- 
ing water, and such sleeps and appetites! yes, and 
healths, too! and besides no doctor's nor druggist's 
bills to foot! 
Grub for self alone costs less than $1.50 per week, 
with others at the same rate, and we have more than 
plenty. No condiments to spur up one's appetite. 
Don't require anj'. 
Now, one could get a tract of several acres of rough 
land, or, perhaps, the whole, or a part of an aban- 
doned farm, in some satisfactory locality— say, near 
some lake or stream — for less than one would have to 
pay for a small lot in or near a city, or large village, 
and improvements — cabin, also furniture — would cost 
but a little comparatively (by the way, I made all of 
the furniture for the cabin, stove excepted, out of 
rough boards, and of different woods cut on the tract), 
and thus one of small means could enjoy nature and 
country Hfe in as great a degree as many wealthy ones do. 
The tract would also be a good game preserve or 
shooting ground, for its owner in open season. 
Why, I wouldn't exchange my annual outing time 
with rough bed and fare at the little Bresh hut on 
Oakledge tract, Avith its brooks and near-by trout 
streams'^ forest and big shade trees, and lots of other 
advantages, for twice that length of time spent at the 
best summer hotel in Long Branch, Elberon or Asbury 
Park, with the fashionable botherations, the highly sea- 
soned and fixed-up feed (with consequent medicines), 
and the airy (or stuffy?) rooms, with auto and coach 
service thrown in besides. . A. L. L. 
North Carolina Incidents and Game. 
Raleigh, N. C, Oct. 17.— Dr. J. W. McNeill and his 
son Pembroke, are both among the most ardent sports- 
men of the Cape Fear section. Their home is on Rock- 
fish Creek, near Fayetteville. A few days ago they 
went to a place on that stream to catch the yellow 
perch which so abound there, and which are so highly 
prized as a game fish and as one of the finest for the 
table. With Dr. McNeill and Pembroke was one of 
his hounds, a thoroughbred. She sat near them, look- 
ing into the water as they began to fish, but suddenly 
lifted her head, looked up into her master's face, and 
then swiftly glided off through the undergrowth. In 
a few mornents she gave tongue a quarter of a mile 
away, plainly on the track of a fox. Her chase could 
be clearly followed until she reached what is known 
as "Carver's old field." Suddenly the music of the dog 
was shut off; so quickly that at first it impressed Pem- 
broke, but the fishing became very lively and the mat- 
ter passed out of his mind, and he went home. The 
hound did not show up at dinner, nor that night, and 
Dr. McNeill began to be alarmed. Three days passed, 
but no dog appeared. Search was made all over the 
neighborhood. On the fourth morning Pembroke re- 
membered that the music of the dog had stopped about 
the Carver old field, and started off with a companion 
to make an investigation there. In a dry well, 25 feet 
deep, they found both dog and fox, alive and lively. 
The dog was on guard while the fox was intrenched 
in a little recess in the side of the well. Whenever the 
fox ventured out the dog made a dash for it. It was 
very plain when Pembroke looked down in the well 
that both the dog and fox had been stunned when they 
struck its bottom, and that the fox, recovering first, 
had scratched for himself the narrow hole in the cky 
wall of the well before the dog came to her senses. The 
hound was pulled out with a noose, the fox leaping up 
and biting and velping in a frenzy or rage as the dog 
was lifted up. Then the fox was caught in a bag, taken 
out of the well and given its liberty. It dashed away 
as if it had not missed a meal. 
In the Cape Fear section there is glorious fox hunt- 
ing, and there are some notably good packs of hounds. 
The cover is good and the record made by some of the 
old sportsmen is remarkable. The oldest of all the 
sportsmen was ex-Senator Carver, over 75 years of 
age, tall and spare, but very active. Not long ago he 
offered one of his finest hounds to any member of a 
party of his guests who would make the nearest guess 
as to the number of foxes he had captured. One man 
guessed 1,200, and another 1,260. The latter won the 
dog. Carver saying that he had captured 1,264 foxes 
in his life. He had "kept tab" on his captures. In 
this State foxes are run with large hounds, the hunters 
being on horseback, though persons very familiar with 
