Feb. 20, 1904.] 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
147 
wore tattered cotten overalls, and was barefoot. The 
boy was barefoot also, without a coat, and he was half 
white. The other man had some clothing on also, for it 
was winter and there was snow. They had an old 
smooth-bore musket or "yager," and had followed the 
bear track for three days. They had wounded, but did 
not get the bear. This was several years ago. Two of 
the Indians are dead. The bear is not known to have 
made any more tracks. 
The foregoing testimony merely goes to show that 
"Westward the course of empire takes its way," leaving 
Greece, Athens, Rome, and Essex county, New York, 
relapsing into primal isolation and solitude. With all 
respect to Mr. Brown and Essex shepherds, however, I 
would observe that I should prefer a flock of black bears 
to a Hock of sheep. There might not be so much wool 
at shearing time, but think of the bounty, Mr. Brown, 
and the bear meat and bacon, and the splendid overcoats 
and robes — think of these — and let them raise sheep in 
Wyoming and Australia and in Spain. 
This is a queer world. Our Government pays a bounty 
on sugar and all of us want to propagate beets and 
cane. The State offers a bounty on bears, and a corre- 
spondent of Forest and Stream advocates their exter- 
inination, while the editor rather sanctions the idea. 
Alas, also, that in New England and New York they want 
to hound deer, invade private domain, and kill bears 
"law or no law" if it interferes with "home rule" — Gee- 
whillikens ! In the utmost West by the sundown sea we 
have the reputation of being rather lax in loyalty to law 
and order, but the Bluenoses and Knickerbockers — AIi, 
me! Ransacker. 
Shasta Mountains, Cal.. February.' ' ' 
The Grouse. . 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
As we are all anxious to preserve the ruffed grouse, 
perhaps, it might be well to obtain the testimony of men 
of the wdods as to the relations between hawks and this 
noble bird. Personally, I have never seen a hawk en-, 
gaged in the -capture of .gronse, young or old, but have 
often caught hawks in the pursuit of smaller birds, like 
bluejays. W^hen thf, latter are escorting their broods of 
young through 'the' oaks in the fall, they are often fol- 
lowed from tree to tree by a marauder, who, when 
hungry, will easily capture a blue coat, whereupon a great 
scolding and squealing will ensuerfor a while, hni event- 
ually all will quiet down. As the' days pass the little flock- 
dwindles to a few shy ones, and brother hawk'iand 'family 
have fared sumptuously. 
As long as the jays last the half-grown grouse will be 
let alone, but after the former are scattered, and gone, 
something like a brown knot will be observed on the 
limbs, overhanging the dusting places, and: .that fine brood , 
that you- have been coaxing along with sundry sly feed- 
ings of grain will begin to decrease about one bird a. day. . 
Of course, it is weasels Ot.iojces at night, and .you. keep 
wondering.' There are. no snares, nor are:-..guns heard up; 
on the flat on the old mountainside where the two wood 
roads diverge. With an Indian's patience your amateur 
naturalist keeps haunting the locality on the sharp look- 
out for vermin. Along about nightfall little rustlings in 
the bushes and low cries tell of a movement toward the 
feeding grounds at the mountain base among the black- 
berry vines. A brave old hen proudly leads a covey of 
six short tails across the steep log road just below two 
rather large pines. The trees stand just over the dusting 
places. Well, they are safe to-day, for it is getting too 
dark for hawks, as they know very well. The watcher 
decides to return to the farmhouse one hundred yards 
distant, and steps from his screen of leaves. Like a 
dart a big object shoots down the path from the pine 
tree, and instinctively the brown barrels swing down to 
the course, and a little below. A heavy thud is the result, 
and the game keeper lifts a big hawk, his eyes glowing 
with fury on his avenging captor. 
As far as the baldhead eagle is concerned, I have 
never seen one, after anything but fish, although T have 
lived on the shore of a lake where grouse were plentiful. 
It is well known that crows destroy the upland corn 
plantmg, pulling the tender shoots and eating the seed, 
and I have ' Seen them carry off dead chipmunks and 
squirrels that had been killed and thrown away. I know 
that the" larger owls eat young crows,- for I have found 
their fea tiers and bones around and in the nests of the 
great horned owl early in the spring before leaf time. 
Once I heard an owl hoot near a pond at midnight. Sud- 
denly a crow gave a wild note of alarm, and the hooting 
ceased. _ An Indian once told me that the owl hoots to 
make his prey move uneasily, and thus betray its where- 
abouts. There is no love lost between crows and owls, 
and the former even things up by day. 
About the scarcity of grouse, up in Ticonderoga on 
the hill there was not a bird last summer, where one 
could have found twenty the year before. A few coveys 
were seen— nice birds— around the farms, and there was ^ 
much drumming on the hills back of Eagle Lake, but, to" ' 
use a local expression, "they didn't come down at all," 
and I -only saw three or four scattering old birds in the 
most likely pl'aces along the lake road where I lived dur- 
mg the summer. One solitary covey of four little fellows 
was treed by a yellow dog one night and one was carried 
home. It is my belief that hundreds of nests were 
destroyed by the ravaging forest fires in the back country, 
which killed and st:attered the birds in the fire-swept dis- 
tricts. Then, too, the entire Adirondack region was 
covered with a dense pall of smoke for days at a time, 
and this must have been pretty hard for the young birds^ 
which had been _ half frozen to death, with the cold just 
previous. 
There was a terrible . rnortality among " the beauti- .-' 
ful pike of - the lake, and, scores . of big .fellows . were - 
floating about the ..lake. Some guides, believed this was ■ 
Caused-by tb'e almost total lack of rain and the consequent ' 
stagnation of the. water in th^ still, swampy parts where ' 
the fish Uved. - ■ .. . . 
One thing is sure, there were almost no young birds 
raised up Essex county way this season. 
Once when a boy I observed two birds fighting; one, 
a large bluejay, was being worsted by a smaller chap, 
who kept hitting him vicious blows on the head, when he 
would retire to his "comer" for another round. As it 
was going to be a knock out for the big 'un pretty soon, 
I just fired and picked up a nice little hawk, one of the 
smallest I ever saw. 
A friend of mine killed a large hawk last season, and 
upon examination found in his talons a still living yel- 
low hammer. The hunter had the bird of prey and its 
captive mounted by a taxidermist. 
An old hunter up in the Adirondacks who had nothing 
to do last season but nurse a lame leg, told me that he 
had a dozen of the nicest chickens I ever saw out there 
by the woodshed, and that some crows came and stole 
them one by one, in spite of all he could do. He spoke 
with some feeling on the subject. Peter Flint. 
Shooting a Scotch Grouse Moor. 
Dawn in the Grampian Hills. Long shafts of sunlight 
change the color of the heather-clad braes and corries 
from the cold gray of the night to the warm royal purple 
of the heather bloom. The Watcher is astir early with 
his stick and spyglass, he is wandering abont on the 
high_ ground on the lookout for poachers. The "Guns" 
are in dreamland. All at once the strains of the pipes 
are heard near the castle. The lazy Guns awake, and. 
jumping into sweaters and tennis flannels, meet in the 
smoke room, a sleepy lot. A quarter of a mile run to 
the bathing pool wakes them up a bit. The bathing pool 
is a basin worn out of a huge rock by a little trout 
stream that comes down from a patch of last winter's 
snow away up on one of the ptarmigan tops. A plunge 
in the pool, a second or two under the waterfall, and 
then back to breakfast. Breakfast over, the next busi- 
ness of the morning is to cut luncheon. Cold grouse and 
graham bread are laid out on the sideboard, and every 
Gun must prepare his own sandwiches. After this a de- 
.. Jay is likely to occur while an important letter is written, 
a lost flask found, shooting leggins changed or some- 
thing, and remembering that these sportsmen have riot 
risen with the Watcher, and the sun is fast getting high, 
one is inclined to get impatient. Between half-past nine 
and ten all is ready; the party is comfortably seated in 
the wagonette, the word is given to start, and we are 
off for half an hour's drive to the place which has been 
selected as.:the beat we will shoot. At last the wagonette 
draws up before a tiny shepherd's hut, the party gets out, 
is respectfully greeted by the dogs and gillies awaiting 
them, and preparations are made for- getting to work. 
Guns are sorted out, pockets stuffed with cartridges, and 
the line formed. 
"Captain Blank," says our host, "as our most honored 
guest, will please take the left of the line?" Captain 
Blank accordingly shoots the left all day, and has the 
freedom of swinging around to his left with no danger 
of shooting a companion.' The other man takes the right. 
In the . center comes Kennedy, while Duke, Bingo or 
. Romp- go ahead. Almost out of sight in the rear, and 
. theoretically out of range, comes the rest of the party. 
The pony bearing the two baskets or paniers, one . for 
■ the luncheon and the other for dead game, the pony boy 
toTead the pony across the unbroken moorland, and one 
of the under keepers with the rest of the dogs in 
couples. "_Ho-up." The keeper throws his arm up.' Duke 
is on a point. The party halts for a second to get bear- 
ings, and then moves slowly forward. Whirr! The 
covey takes wing, guns are discharged, and possibly three 
birds are down. It is necessary to load quickly for there 
may be more and an old cock is shouting, "Go-back, Go- 
back, Go-back" from a rock ahead, which may be a sim- 
ple remonstrance or a signal to the rest of his brood. 
Whirr! Hold hard— "cheepers"— and we hold our fire, 
for cheepers are not full grown birds, and too young to 
shoot. The game that is down is found and carried in 
the keeper's hand, a head between each two fingers, and 
we go forward. In a few minutes Duke is pointing again, 
but vve only get one bird, and the rest are marked down 
across the valley to be picked up on our way home. We 
spread out and go forward, and Captain Blank walks 
into an old cock and brings him down with his second 
barrel. We work along through the purple heather with 
never a tree in sight, up hill and down into little valleys, 
across clear rnountain streams, and through ■ brown peaty 
ones flowing in small cafions which they have worn for 
themselves in the black sticky loam of the moors. The 
keeper's hands are full of birds, and he raises them above 
his head in signal to the "pony" that he is about to leave 
them on a prominent rock to be gathered up as the rear 
party comes along. At length it is time to think of the 
sandwiches we have prepared. "Where is there a good 
wefl?" says our host to the keeper in Gaelic. "Just over 
by that sheep," he responds, pointing to a flock of a 
dozen or more, and turning towards the rear party he 
puts his fingers to. his lips and gives a shrill whistle, at 
the same time waving his handkerchief to bring them 
forward. The keeper now leads us to a cold spring bub- 
bling out of the hillside, and when the pony comes up 
ulsters and mackintoshes are flung upon the heather and 
we throw ourselves down as upon a springy laed. Be- 
fore the packets of luncheon are opened, Captain Blank 
calls out, "What's the bag, keeper?" "Eleven and a half 
brace, sir, and a hare," is the reply. 
"That's not doing very well," says the Captain, "but we 
should do better after lunch," and then we fall on the 
food. After food comes smoke, and we have been 
halted about three-quarters of an hour when our host 
gets to his feet. The alert keepers who have eaten their 
luncheon according to British etiquette, thirty yards in the 
rear, sjjring to their feet and the , formation is again 
taken up, the rest of the beat covered ; birds found 
plentiful late in the evening on our return to the flat, and 
the total bag reaches twenty-six and a half brace and 
three hares before we get to the castle; not a .wonderful 
bag, but the moor is not doing so well this season as last, 
the first, hatching were killed by the late frost, and the 
second hatching by early wet weather, and so forth, we 
are told, and besides it is getting late in the season, the 
frequent rains - have- made the birds wild and strong on ' 
the wmg, but notwithstanding all these disadvantages 
the day has been a riiost enjoyable one; a small bag over 
dogs seems decidedly preferable to a larger bag made 
with driven birds. Storlax. 
All communications for Forest and Stream must he 
directed to Forest and Stream Pub. Co., New York, to 
receive attention. We have no other ofUce. 
Belgian Firearms. 
Liege, Belgium, Oct. 5, 1903.— The firearms industry 
remains in a satisfactory condition, and while the prices 
for center-fire arms has decreased a trifle, as is also the 
case with hand-made and interchangeable machine guns, 
the trade in the better grade of guns, such as the fine 
fowling gun, is in a very flourishing condition, and never 
before has this gun, as manufactured in Liege, been in 
such universal demand. 
Trade in reyolvers, which for a time had been a little 
ofr, is again picking up. The same may be said for the 
single-barreled guns, made cheap for export to the coast 
of Africa. 
The_ markets of South America seem to be in a better 
condition, and several important orders have come from 
Brazil and the Argentime Republic. 
The manufacture of firearms, complete or in part, is the 
traditional industry of this Province. Whether the peo- 
ple of Liege hold the secret of turning out a prime 
quality of gun barrel or other ■ integral part of the arm, I 
do not know, but it is an established fact that no other 
barrel of corresponding make and value can stand the 
strain of the severe test put upon it as well as the Liege 
gun barrel. Every barrel must, under the law, suecess- 
lully withstand the Government test before it is admitted 
for sale. The gun barrels are made by the workmen in 
their own homes, and are delivered to the merchants, who 
combine the parts for the markets. It is said that no 
less than 50,000 men, women, and children are engaged 
in the manufacture of gun barrels. This system of bn}- 
ing from the people lessens the responsibility of the man • 
ufacturer, for if the barrel fails to withstand the test the 
workman and not the manufacturer is the loser. The 
niaterial for manufacturing the gun barrels or other parts 
of firearms is oftentimes supplied by the manufacturer, 
v/ho sometimes gets his barrels roughly made and com- 
pletes them himself. :,; 
It is the universal understanding here that the Unitetl 
States is the best market for the cheap grade of gun^s, 
and there is a double-barreled gun called at Liege the 
"American." 
It is estimated that in the Province of Liege abotit 
150,000 pairs of gun barrels were manufactured during 
the year 1902, part of which were' sent to the United 
-States rough bored, to be finished there. .The exportation 
of gun barrels of aH grades to the United States is 
increasing. , ; ',- 
Quite a controversy is on here as to the better quality 
of gun barrel— the Damascus or the steel. The Damascus 
is manufactured only at Nessonvaux, near Liege, while 
the steel barrel is made in Liege. One argument in favor 
of the Damascus barrel is that in case of an explosion 
there is less liability of injury than with the steel bar- 
rel. Muzzleloading guns are sent in large quantities to 
South America, while the flintlock is made for export to 
Africa. .- 
The rifle barrel manufactured here is not exported to 
the United States in great quantities, on account of the 
duty thereon. 
Revolvers are turned out in great numbers, and are 
shipped to all parts of the world. It is estimated that 
600,000 were manufactured in Liege last year. 
During the six months ended August 31, 1903, there 
were exported to the United States firearms to- the value 
of $234,815.71, and gun barrels to the value of $39,012.33. 
James C. McNally^ Consul. 
Wolves and Forest Reserves. 
New York, Feb. 13. — Editor Forest and Stream: I 
have read a letter published in the last number of Forest 
AND Stream concerning "Wyoming Wolves and the 
Forest Reserve," in which it is stated that "There is no 
doubt but the reserve will become a breeding place for 
wolves, coyotes, and cougars,' thus leading to greater fric- 
tion between the reserve and the stockmen." 
There is no reason why animals of this kind should in- 
crease in consequence of these mountains having been 
taken within the Yellowstone Forest Reserve. 
Since the creation of this reserve no change has been 
made in conditions that would tend in any way to this 
result. There has been no decrease in the number of set- 
tlers, or diminution in the amount of stock ranged upon 
the reserve; the same game laws exist there as in any 
other portion of the State, and are most efficiently en- 
forced by the forest rangers, who are also State game 
wardens. Hunters and trappers desiring to capture 
mountain lion, wolves, or coyotes, are in no way inter- 
fered with, but, on the contrary, have every facility and 
opportunity for the capture of these animals upon the 
reserve as elsewhere. The State bounty paid on wolves 
applies equally to those killed on the reserve as off the 
reserve. 
The reserve officials recognize that mountain lions and 
wolves are a great menace, not only to game, but to the 
stock of the settlers, and the rangers, armed, and con- 
stantly patrolling the reserve, are instructed to destroy at 
every opportunity varmints of this kind. A number of 
wolves have already been killed by the rangers. 
A pack of dogs is now being raised for the purpose of 
hunting mountain lions upon the rieserve. 
Many reports, without foundation, have been circulated 
regarding this, as well as other conditions connected with 
the forest reserve, with intention of stirring up opposi- 
tion to the reserve. An article published in a Wyoming 
paper last year stated that a trapper named Lyons, going 
upon the reserve to hunt wolves, had been disarmed by 'A.' 
ranger. The department now has an affidavit both from 
the ranger and from Mr. Henry Lyons, stating that the 
report was absolutely false. 
Thus you see a desire to create -a prejiudice against 
forest reserves on this point is entirely unwarranted. 
.Settlers in our State, fealizing.:the necessity of timber : 
and water protection, and also realizing that the reserve 
was created and is being administered for their benefit, 
not only is all opposition disappearing, but they are ren- 
dering most valuable aid in assisting the forestry officers 
in carrying out the rules and regulations of the depart- 
ment. A. A. AndersoNj 
Special Superintendent Yellowstone Forest Reserve,^ 
