Aug. 6, 1904.] 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
113 
cleans the interior of his tube, which is called wiping it, 
places a ball in the- palm of his hand, pouring as much 
powder from his horn upon it as will cover it. _ This 
quantity is supposed to be sufficient for any distance 
within a hundred yards. A shot which comes very close 
to the nail is considered as that of an indifferent marks- 
man; the bending of the nail is, of course, somewhat bet- 
ter ; but nothing less than hitting it right on the head is 
satisfactory. Well, kind reader, one out of three shots 
generally hits the nail, and should the shooters amount to 
half a dozen, two nails ate frequently needed before each 
Can have a shot. Those who drive the nail have a further 
trial aniolig themselves, and the two best shots out of 
these generally settle the affair, when all the sportsmen 
adjourn to some house and spend an hour or two in 
friendly Intercourse, appointing, before they part, a day 
fof another trial. This is technically termed driving the 
nail. .' ... ' 
Barking of Squirrels is delightful sport* and, in my 
opinion, requires a greater degree of accuracy than any 
other. I first witnessed this manner of procuring squirrels 
while near the town of Frankfort. The performer was 
the celebrated Daniel Boone. We walked out together 
and followed the rocky margins of the Kentucky River 
until we reached a piece of flat land thickly covered with 
black walnuts, oaks, and hickories. As the general mast 
was a good one that year, squirrels were seen gamboling 
on every tree around us. My companion, a stout, hale, 
and athletic man, dressed in a homespun hunting-shirt, 
bare legged and moccasined, carried a long and heavy 
rifle, which, as he was loading it, he said had proved 
efficient in all his former undertakings, and which he 
hoped would not fail on thi# occasion, as he felt proud to 
show me his skill. The gun was wiped, _ the powder 
measured, the ball patched with 600 thread linen, and the 
charge sent home with a hickory rod. We moved not a 
step from the place, for the squirrels were so numerous 
that it was unnecessary to go after them. Boone pointed 
to ohe. of these animals which had observed us, and was 
crouching on, a branch about fifty paces, distant, and bade 
rtie mafic Well the spot, where the bail should hit. He 
raised his piece gradually, until the bead, (that beilig the 
name given by the Kentuckians to the sight) of tile bah-el 
was brought on a line with the spot which he intended to 
bit. The whip-like report resounded through the woods 
and along the hills in repeated echoes. Judge of my sur- 
prise when I perceived that the ball had hit the piece of 
the bark immediately beneath the squirrel and shivered 
it into splinters, the concussion produced by which had 
killed The animal and sent it whirling through the air, 
as if it had been blown up by the explosion of a powder 
magazine. Bcone kept up his firing, and before many 
hours had elapsed we had procured as many squirrels as 
we wished; for you must know, kind reader, that to load 
a rifle required only a moment, and that if it is wiped 
once after each shot it will do duly for hours. Since 
that first interview with out veteran Boone, I have seen 
many other individuals perform the same feat. 
The snuffing of a candie. with a ball I .first had an op- 
portunity of seeing near the banks, of Green Rivet", riot 
far from a. large pigeon^roost to which I had previously 
made a visit. I heard many reports, of guns during the 
early part of a dark night, and knowing ttiem to be those 
of rifles, I went toward the spot to ascertain the cause. 
On reaching the place I was welcomed by a dozen of tall, 
stout men, who told me they were exercising for the pur- 
pose of enabling them to shoot under night at the re- 
flected light from the eyes of a deer or wolf by torchlight, 
of which I shall give you an account somewhere else. _ A 
fire was blazing near, the smoke of which rose curling 
among the thick foliage of the trees. At a distance which 
rendered it scarcely distinguishable, stood a burning can- 
dle, as if intended for an offering to the goddess of night, 
but which in reality was only fifty yards from the spot on 
which we all stood. One man was withing a few yards 
of it, to watch the effects of the shots as well as to light 
the candle should it chance to go out, or to replace it 
should the shot cut it across. Each marksman shot in his 
turn. . Some never hit either the snuff or the candle, and 
were congratulated with a laugh, while others actually 
snuffed the candle without putting it out, and were 
recompensed for their dexterity by numerous hurrahs. 
One of them, who was particularly expert, was very for- 
tunate, and snuffed the candle three times out of seven, 
while all the other shots either put out the Candle or cut 
it immediately under the light. 
Of the feats performed by the Kentuckians with the 
rifle, I could say more than might be expedient on the 
present occasion. In every peopled portion of the State 
it is rare to meet one without a gun of that description, 
as well as a tomahawk. By way of recreation they often 
cut off a piece of the bark of a tree, making a target of it, 
using a little powder wetted with water or saliva for the 
bullseye, and shoot into the mark all the balls they have 
about them, picking them out of the wood again. 
After what I have said, you may easily imagine with 
what ease a Kentuckian procures game, or despatches an 
enemy, more especially when I tell you that every one 
in the State is accustomed to handle the rifle from the 
time when he is able to shoulder it until near the close of 
his career. That murderous weapon is the means of pro- 
curing them subsistence during all their wild and exten- 
sive rambles, and is the source of their principal sports 
and pleasures. 
Squirrel Barking. 
East Leake, Va. — Editor Forest and Stream: I no- 
ticed the article in the last number of the Forest and 
Stream (July 16) by Rifleman relative to the so-called 
squirrel barking, and also the editorial comment, wherein 
it appears a scpetic has arisen in an endeavor to dethrone 
this, one of our dearest traditions. I desire to contribute 
the following as at least showing that it can be done, 
and I have no doubt that expert riflemen could become 
so adept at the art as to accomplish it quite often. For 
the uninitiated, I would say that barking consists in hit- 
ting the bark of the tree with the bullet right under the 
squirrel and killing him by concussion. 
It is, perhaps, proper to premise that I was not an eye- 
witness to the following episode, but that my uncle was 
an actor in the scene, and that both he and my brother, 
who was present at the lime, vouch for it as absolutely 
aulheutk-. 
My uncle is a rifle shot of no little local celebrity, and 
as true a sportsman as ever threw out a fishing line or 
fired a gun. Some years ago he and my brother were out 
squirrel hunting together. Hickory nuts were plentiful 
that year, and anyone at all conversant with the habits 
of the game knows that a squirrel always did have a 
partiality for a hickory nut. In fact, whatever is a good 
mast year is a good squirrel year. Consequently the 
huntsmen had got a goodly bag when toward evening 
they had turned their footsteps homeward. On their 
way back they were passing through a group of walnuts, 
oaks, and hickory nuts that skirted a little ravine, when 
suddenly a squirrel ran up on the side of a tree about 
twenty-five yards away and stopped. My uncle whispered 
to my brother that he was going to shoot at the bark of 
the tree immediately underneath the squirrel, took good 
aim, and fired. At the crack of the rifle the squirrel 
tumbled. The two men picked him up and examined 
him thoroughly, and nowhere on him was found a single 
scratch, but high up on the tree was a white patch where 
the bullet had torn away a piece of the bark. They 
brought the squirrel home and skinned him in order to 
inspect him further, and, after a careful scrutiny, they 
detected right over his heart a slight bruise, the merest 
shadow of a blue spot. 
Now, being fully cognizant of the extraordinary vitality 
of this little animal, I submit that, in the language of 
the doctors, he died "not from mortification, but from 
shock!" I submit, further, as to the traditions, myth 
busters don't always bust them 1 Oranoake. 
Little Rock, Ark., July 23.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: I observe with interest a controversy between 
correspondents of your paper with regard to barking 
squirrels. Like Captain Kelly, I am disposed to in- 
credulity as to much that is published of the experiences 
of sportsmen in the current periodicals. And yet, when 
I reflect, I know that such an attitude is unfair, for in 
my own hunting, snooting, and fishing experiences, from 
the Atlantic Coast to the Rockies and the Lakes to the 
Gulf, I have had the average sportsman's share of the 
improbable and sporadic events which occur in the con- 
duct of game and guns, dogs and men, tackle and fish. I 
am more disposed to believe the tales of accomplishments 
by experienced sportsmen, well equipped as to tackle or 
gun, than to beiieVe the rather fabulous traditions of the 
prowess of old mountaineers with flint-locks, or rustic 
youths with green poles and bent pins. I have knocked 
about considerably in the by-ways of this land without 
noting any remarkable accomplishment by the latter class, 
except that I have witnesseed the mountaineer take a 
bigger drink of whiskey from a sportsman's flask than 
the owner could choke down, and the youth with the 
green pole is a catfish annihilator, but I have not seen him 
toting home any fine strings of mountain trout or bass. 
But the object of this communication is to relate my own 
prowess as a squirrel barker. 
About four years ago I was a guest at Big Lake Club, 
about twelve miles east of this place, and went one morn- 
ing very early across to the vast forest on the south side 
of the lake to still-hunt deer. (All but pot-hunters and 
negroes have stopped hounding deer in this community.) 
I was afmed with a .30-30 Winchester, smokeless powder, 
and soft-nosed bullets. Squirrels were abundant along 
the shores of the lake, and upon my return late in the 
afternoon from an unsuccessful deer hunt, I observed 
what appeared to be a whole family of squirrels in the 
top of a very tall cypress. I had no ammunition fit, but 
commenced to cannonade the top of the cypress tree with 
my dum-dum bullets and smokeless powder and high 
power rifle. Like the fabled rifle shots of old, I aimed 
at the squirrel's eyes, but did not hit any of them in the 
head or anywhere else ; and yet, in the course of about 
a dozen shots, five squirrels fell dead from that tree. 
When a shot would strike a limb or the body of the tree 
under a squirrel he would let go all holds, bounce off 
about a foot, and come .tumbling. It was my first obser- 
vation of barking. I had not even heard the. term before 
taking the squirrels to the club house and showing them 
to the gentlemen there, Mr. Julius Mons and Colonel 
Rottaken, both experienced sportsmen of this place. 
Colonel Rottaken said that he had often killed squirrels 
in such a manner, and I have no doubt of it. I tried the 
trick on a fox squirrel when deer hunting in the Mau- 
melle Mountains, west of here about forty miles, shortly 
afterwards ; but unfortunately the shot hit the poor squir- 
rel in the middle and "hari-karied" him. 
While reminiscing I am tempted to tell of an almost 
unbelievable experience with a nice, fat, five-point buck 
on the occasion of that trip. It is altogether a tale of 
poor marksmanship on my part and suicidal conduct on 
the part of the buck. I' will reserve the yarn until some 
of your contributors lay down some hard and fast rules 
as to what a deer will do when an excited man is pump- 
ing at him with a Winchester. H. M. Armistead. 
Tarpon Springs, Fla., July 28— Editor Forest and 
Stream: I was lately talking with your old correspond- 
ent, Tarpon, who, like myself, is an old-time rifleman, and 
we agreed that squirrels can be barked. With your per- 
mission, I would like to ask the unbeliever if it ever oc- 
curred to him that before doubting the word of Audubon, 
he should have placed himself in the position occupied by 
Daniel Boone when he barked the squirrels? 
The rifle used by Boone on the occasion referred to was 
doubtless much the same as those we carried fifty or sixty 
years ago, except that it had a flint-lock, which we did 
not often use, though they were not uncommon in the 
forties. It had an even twist, carried a round ball, and 
was generally fired with a comparatively light charge of 
powder. Conical balls, if known at all, which I doubt, 
were certainly not in general use, and the impact of a 
round ball, sent from such a rifle as I have described, 
would manifestly be totally different from that of a coni- 
cal missile, when discharged from a modern high power 
weapon. The next time that Mr. Kelly wants to test the 
validity of this particular assertion, let him hunt up an 
old-fashioned muzzleloading rifle — there are a few _ left 
yet, though he might have to learn from some old-timer 
just how to load it — and see if the round ball does not 
tell a very different story. 
About sixty years ago strong exception was taken by a 
southern writer in the Spirit of the Times to the statement 
that a fairly good target could be made at three hundred, 
yards. That seems odd now, but this view of the effective 
range of a rifle was, I think, very generally accepted. 
Nowadays, a ball drives through a soldier, and if it was 
sent from the military rifles in common use, the man may 
not know that he has been hit. This was not the case in 
the old days. 
Among other things which I have learned in the course 
of a tolerably long life, is that it is rarely given to any — 
be he sportsman or otherwise — to know it all. When I 
was a little boy I used to like to mold bullets for fun. 
They looked so bright and pretty. It is not very long 
since somebody asked the editor what sort of a thing a 
bullet-mold might be, and if' it resembled a nut-cracker? 
Even our poor friend, O. O. S., did not like to believe 
that brook trout could be taken by the hand, though I 
told him that it was a fact. And this again reminds me 
that once, up in Portland, Oregon, Mr. J. Roberts Meade 
told. me of his first meeting with O. O. S. It was in camp, 
in some out-of-the-way place, and Meade had turned in, 
tired, when two men came to the door, also tired, and 
wanted something to eat and a chance to bunk down some- 
where. Of course they were taken in, and the bacon set 
a-sizzling, and as soon as possible they fell to. Meade 
didn't pay much attention until one of the strangers 
dropped a word which he at once recognized, and sat up 
in his blankets. "Look here," said Meade, "are you O. 
O. S. ?" The stranger looked up and nodded. "Because 
if you are, you can have my bunk, and my rifle, and my 
boat, and any other blasted old thing I've got in this 
camp." It was O. O. S., sure enough, and you may be 
assured that he was made most welcome. 
I had intended to speak of some other matters, but will 
defer it until next time. Kelpie. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
As I never barked a squirrel in my life, those killed by 
me in my youth having been brought to bag by means of 
a muzzleloading shotgun, it may be out of place for me 
to add my bark to the rest in connection with this con- 
troversy. Suffice it to say that Mr. Audubon's simple 
statement is sufficient for me. 
The shooting of squirrels anywhere else than through 
the head "reminds me." 
It was in Kentucky. A modern "side shoot" had been 
organized (the morality of which I need not go into 
here), the various birds and qudrupeds being marked up 
with number values to be taken into account at the final 
round up. It was stipulated that squirrels should count 
only when shot with a rifle. 
It was a close contest, and when the game was being 
scored and valued at the end of the day, all kinds of 
feathered and furred specimens were brought forth from 
the game bags of the contestants, but for some reason 
there had been an absolute dearth of squirrels until the 
last man arrived, who saved the day by producing one. 
Offhand it looked as if his would be the winning side, 
when one of the committeemen demanded to see the 
squirrel. An examination showed that it had been igno- 
miniously shot through the body instead of through the 
head, and a howl of derision going up, that settled it. 
There was no cne who dared to defend the shooting of a 
squirrel through the body, and judgment was given 
accordingly. 
The illustration of Davy Crockett's rifle reminds me of 
an incident which happened a year or two ago in New 
York. I was passing along West Forty-second street on 
my way to meet a train.. I had no time to spare. Passing 
a second-hand store I noticed the proprietor in the door- 
way taking the lid from a home-made box, hewn roughly 
out of chestnut, and taking therefrom a magnificent speci- 
men in the shape of a (Kentucky) rifle. One glance 
satisfied me as to its genuineness. I asked the price of it, 
told the man I'd take it, got the man to say he would keep 
it for me, and I hurried to my train, and when I came 
back the next day the rifle was gone. Evidently someone 
had come in, and the proprietor asking more than he 
asked me, soid it. Of course the fault all was with my- 
self, but trains have a way of not waiting for people, and 
I lost my prize because of that. It was a relic that one 
could hang above the mantelpiece and study with pleasure, 
and conjure up things that it did in days that have gone. 
Charles Cristadoro. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
"The sun do move." The umpire decides that the evi- 
dence of squirrel barking is conclusive and the question 
is settled. Yet I may be permitted to remind my critics 
that my doubts were not of the markmanship required 
in the feat, but of the effect of shock upon the squirrel. 
Perhaps the breed of gray squirrels I and others 
whom I know experimented on is tougher than the breed 
that so many of your correspondents say they have seen 
killed by transmitted shock. 
It appears that Rifleman is something of a skeptic him- 
self, even though he does accept some authorities on 
faith. He does not believe it possible to shoot accurately 
with a revolver, and he doubts my account of the shoot- 
ing of a squirrel with .44 bullets. 
I protest mildly against his statement of my argument. 
He sets up a man of straw, knocks it down triumphantly, 
and claims to have demolished me. Let me state it: 
Audubon says he saw squirrels killed by the shock of 
bullets which didn't touch them. I have seen squirrels 
unharmed by the shock of bullets imparted under exactly 
identical conditions. Therefore I doubt that squirrels 
readily succumb to such injuries, and also doubt the ac- 
curacy of Audubon's description. Incidentally the ap- 
parent discrepancy in the Boone-Audubon dates has not 
been cleared up. . 
The debate between us comes down simply to this : 
Rifleman accepts testimony which I do not consider con- 
clusive evidence, and I know to be true certain things 
which cannot be proved to his satisfaction. Further ar- 
gument would not lead to any conclusion. 
The discussion has elicited much valuable information, 
however, on the subject of squirrel barking. 
In Indiana the squirrel must be on a carefully selected 
limb, neither too large nor too small, and the bullet must 
be placed exactly under his throat. All the conditions be- 
ing favorable, the squirrel dies suddenly of goitre or 
mumps or quinsy. . 
The Illinois squirrel must be maneuvered into just the 
right position, hugging closely the bole or a vertical limb 
