864 
FOREST AND STREAM 
[Oct. 29, 1904- 
Days with the Wildfowl— IV, 
Gerard and I cuddled down close together in the tall, 
vellow grass, and while we kept well hidden the 
approaching line of birds did not give me a shot. As 
they neared the ridge on which we were crouching they 
went up into the air just as if some one had told them 
that it would be a good place to give a wide berth and 
they passed on over us way out of range. By the dark 
streak made by their hooded heads the glistening 
white of their bellies and the peculiarly sibilant noise 
of their short, sharp wings, I knew what they were just 
as well as I would if they had passed within a couple 
of yards of me. , , • 
"Canvasback!" I ejaculated m response to the kid s 
inquiring look, as the long line of royal birds, rapidly 
merged into a mere thread in the hazy perspective over 
"Doggone it! That's just our luck" and Gerard 
kicked spitefully at a clump of soap weed; if they had 
been spoonbills or ruddies, I suppose you could have 
knocked them down with the end of your gun „ 
•'Why, that is always the way, Gerard, with the ducks 
I replied smiling at the boy's acerbity. it is the 
canvasback and the redhead and the mallard I that tantal- 
ize you the most. They are the biggest the best a id 
the wariest of all, the most desirable and consequently 
the hardest to get. It is these high-class buds that 
always fool you, it seems, but you have no trouble with 
the widgeon, spoonbills, butterballs, and smaller fry. 
When lying in a blind you seldom miss one of these 
birds, and, in fact, your ' doubles are frequent but it 
is the canvasback, the redhead and the mallard on 
which you always miss, or nearly so and you are not 
The first young hunter who has learned this disappoint- 
ing lesson. You see, if diamonds were as plentiful as 
beans, no one would wear them. However, I don t 
think we have done so badly. We've killed our share 
of the canvas and more mallards, by a long shot, 
than any pair in the party. So we ve no kick coming. 
We were now slowly puffing up, through the grass 
and sand, the most , commanding ridge of the range, 
through whose ragged formations were cleft the pass, 
or palses, in which we had already done such marvel- 
ous shooting, and in which we intended to shoot that 
eV I?wfs quite a laborious climb, laden as we were and 
on reaching a sort of a circular bench when about 
half way up, we halted to recuperate, and as we stood 
there a reticulation of tiny tracks and trails in the 
golden sands attracted Gerard's attention, and falling 
on his knees he bent over to examine them, calling me 
to come and look. - , '• v l-< • 
"The jumping mouse." I remarked, after scrutiniz- 
ing the lace-like trails and convolutions at our feet 
and lounging down beside the boy, I told him about 
t li c tit * 
"These sandhills are full of these mice, Gerard; in 
fact, all the sandhills, where there is plenty of soap- 
weed are They seem to haunt the habitat of the cactus, 
and are really a curious and interesting little animal. 
"Once, way back in 1893, the Barrister and 1 at- 
tended one of their dancing parties, one moonlight 
night, in the hills, back of Raccoon Lake, up north of 
Anse Newberry's. They are great dancers especially 
on warm moonlight nights, when it is too bright tor 
the prairie owl and the coyote is not abroad . 
"Don't go, Pop, tell me about them; you ve got me 
interested now, and I want to know about them, and 
Babe grabbed hold of the tail of my hunting coat and. 
pulled me back as I attempted to rise 
"Well— but we don't want to stay here too long, tor 
see the birds are moving pretty lively off there over 
lower Hackberry, and they'll soon be crossing these 
hills These jumping mice, dear, are found all over the 
world almost and in Europe, Asia and Africa; they are 
called jerboas, and in those countries they are somewhat 
larger than our jumping mouse of these sandhills, lhey 
have attracted much attention of those given to observ- 
ing our smaller animals. The mouse, or mice, that 
made these tracks can be taken as a type of this whole 
group as it exists everywhere. It is about two or three 
inches long, and has a tail fully two inches longer than 
the body. Its forelegs are but a half an inch m length; 
the hindlegs two inches. When about to spring it 
raises its body by means of the hinder extremeties and 
supports itself at the same time upon the base of its 
tail while the forefeet are so closely pressed to its 
breast as to be scarcely visible. It then leaps into the 
air and alights on its four feet, but instantaneously 
erecting itself it makes another spring, and so on m 
such rapid succession as to appear as flying rather than 
runnins-. It is gregarious— that is, living 111 colonies 
like prairie dogs— and builds its castle under these 
yucca clumps with its sharp little teeth and nails, 
"When not in motion this mouse might very readily 
be mistaken for the common field mouse, as its general 
aspect is very similar. But to be disabused of this idea 
all you have to do is to attempt to capture one of them. 
The force and celerity of its leaps will soon carry it out 
of harm's way, and you will be astonished at seeing so 
small a creature, with such, little effort, eluding you by 
covering five or six feet of ground at every spring. 
When he is pursued by one or two persons and is per- 
mitted to advance in one direction, its movements look 
more like those of a bird than they do of an animal, so 
high does it leap in the air and so great is the dis- 
, tance it measures at every bound, and so light and 
quick is its ascent and descent. _ This cunning little 
quadruped does not move exclusively in this manner, 
though, Gerard, for if he did he couldn't weave such 
a net-work of tracks and trails as these round about us 
here. He is capable of running on all his feet with con- 
siderable speed, and it is 'enough to excite the wonder 
of any one or puzzle them to capture it." 
"Do they come out of their castles in the winter time, 
too?" 
"No. When the cool weather, comes on, and when 
the frost suggests an arctic wave, they go into their 
winter quarters where they lie in a torpid state until 
the last of April or first of May. They are dug up 
sometimes in the winter from a depth of two or three 
feet, I have been told, and are found in a ball of some 
substance like clay about an inch thick and so coiled 
into a globular form as to conceal the figure of the 
animal entirely. But I have never seen an instance of the 
kind and take little stock in it." 
"Nor I. I don't see how they could curl up in this 
shell of mud, then block up their holes and bury them- 
selves down in the sand two or three feet." 
"No, they couldn't. But all the nests I have ever 
seen were made of long, flexible strands of grass, and 
so neatly interwoven that no trace of an opening could 
be found, and how the little fellow contrives to make 
even such a snuggery as this, is almost as great a 
mystery as the clay shell. But we'll come out some day 
■ — if we can take the time — and dig one of the little 
rascals out and look over his fortress at our leisure. 
See here, the trail leads right up to this clump of soap- 
weed, then round it, back and forth, several times, and 
finally disappears underneath this big spike-like leaf; 
and if a coyote essayed to follow he'd certainly get his 
nose well pricked. They are wonderfully ingenious in 
constructing their houses, Babe, and do so with the 
one idea of safety from their foes — coyotes, skunks, 
coons, hawks, owls and snakes. The interior is a per- 
fect maze of corridors, chambers, rooms, halls, passage- 
ways and galleries, but we'll come out, perhaps to- 
morrow, and look over one together." 
"But it will be a shame to spoil their home," and the 
boy looked, deprecatingly, up into my face. 
"Yes, that's so, but we can't let any little sentiment of 
that kind interfere with us if we want to learn the 
mysteries of nature. And then, the family we rout 
will soon find other lodgings. What about that dancing 
party? Well, Bill and I "were coming into camp one 
bright, moonlight evening, after a „day's mallard shoot 
up Hay Creek, and as we were resting by the wayside 
in the hills, where the moonlight poured down in a 
yellow flood, we saw, off about fifteen yards from where 
we were reclining, some dozen or so of these jumping 
mice in one of their nocturnal frolics. They were as 
funny as they were interesting, and seemed to be go- 
ing through the evolutions of some sort of a quadrille, 
whirling around in a circle on their long hindlegs, 
crossing and recrossing on all fours, and occasionally 
leaping high into the moonlit air and over each other 
like frogs in a mill-pond, and all the time keeping time 
to their comical caperings with fine little squeaks and 
squeals. Bill and I watched them closely for quite a 
long time; in fact, until all of a sudden, as if they had 
become aware of some dangerous presence or caught 
a taint in the air that told them of some lurking foe — 
a prowling coyote or hovering night-bird maybe, or it 
might have been Bill and myself — they vanished like 
snuffing out a candle. Anyway, there was a sudden, 
an unusual loud chorus of their tiny voices, a wild 
scampering, jumping and scrambling, and, as if by 
magic, every little cavorting rodent disappeared as thor- 
oughly as if they had been absorbed in the moonshine. 
The Barrister and I. lingered and watched, loth to leave 
a scene so weird, but the little fairies did not come forth 
again, or emit even the slightest sound to indicate 
whence they had gone, and feeling as though we had 
witnessed a revelry of the little, gnomes which the 
Rosicrucians told us of 100 years ago, we gathered up 
our tired forms and our load of dead ducks and labored 
on down to our camp back of Newberry's old sod home. 
But we will learn more about the jumping mice, Gerard, 
before we go home, so let's hurry on now up into the 
pass, the birds will soon be moving in earnest, and we 
do not want to miss any of the flight." 
A few moments later and we were toiling up the 
famous old pass and, finally, all out of breath and puf- 
fing like steam engines, reached the top of the range, 
and the picture that burst upon us was even more en- 
trancing than ever. The broken country to the north 
and west, with its sandhills rolling like the waves of a 
golden sea, clear to the reedy shores of Trout Lake, 
and the placid stretch of blue water to the south. 
Clear Lake and its outlying companions never looked 
more picturesque than it did then in the waning light 
of that October afternoon. But the lad and I were not 
given much time to admire the grand but lonely scene, 
for we had hardly caught our breath, when there was 
a confused stir over Trout Lake and we saw the birds 
arising in clouds, and a few minutes subsequent they 
were streaming our way, and the evening's shiot was on. 
But why enumerate the events of that night. They 
were pretty much the same as those of our previous 
great experience up there, and it will be sufficient to 
add that we killed all the birds we could carry and 
more, too. We went through the same trials of chasing 
cripples, the ecstasy of knocking one with each barrel 
out of this or that whizzing bunch, time and time again; 
got a shot, but they were too high, at a flock of five 
passing Canadas; and then as the sun, like a ball of 
fire, sank behind the dark rim of the distant western 
hills, we were treated to a veritable serenade by the 
coyotes, their greeting to the dawn of night. Off on a 
neighboring hillside,' say a quarter of a mile away, we 
saw two of these little frowsy nomads of the plains, 
and while one busied himself digging at some object 
in the sand, like a dog digs at the entrance of a. rabbit's 
burrow, the other squatted on his haunches and gave 
us samples of all the latest songs he had learned and, 
though chill and creepy and weird as all our surround- 
ings were growing, Gerard and I enjoyed it beyond 
measure. 
And such was our daily life in the sandhills, and while 
I have said nothing of the badger we saw, the autumn 
thunder storm we were, caught in, the big pelican's bat- 
tle with the red-tail hawk, the midnight intrusion of a 
skunk, the blue-gilled sunfish and the sport they gave 
us on Dewey Lake, the cowboy's story of the haunted 
ranch, about our numerous haps and mishaps, and our 
happy hours in the old sod hostelry, our experience 
with the grouse on. our way to Valentine, in the 
Niobrara valley, and many other little incidents, I have 
told you enough to give you an idea of the glories and 
benefits and profits of a two weeks' sojourn in the heart 
of the tenebrious but always interesting sandhills. 
There, often have I thought, I would live always in 
that fresh, free region; that lonely but tranquil realm 
of content, where honor's measure is not taken by 
success; where pretension does not tread on merit; 
where genius is not a jest, goodness not a seeming and 
devotion not a sham. Sandy Griswold. 
Omaha. 
The Equity of the Game Laws. 
BY A. CONVERT. * 
Game laws, like other laws, are made for a definite pur- 
pose, and that purpose is a wise one. So much contro- 
versy and discussion have arisen over the present game 
laws of this State, and so many widely divergent views 
are expressed, that one who is neither a hunter nor a 
fisherman may be permitted to present what may be called 
a disinterested or non-partisan view of the question, espe- 
cially as close contact with friends on both sides has 
given the writer an opportunity to hear each side of the 
story, and to study the effect of our present game and 
fish Jaws. 
It is unnecessary to discuss or even dwell upon the 
legal status of such laws, when before us is the record of 
thirty-eight States of the Union prohibiting the sale of 
game. Supreme Courts have pronounced them constitu- 
tional, wise, and just laws; our highest legal tribunal, 
the United States Supreme Court, adding its opinion to 
the credit side of such laws, as if to make "assurance 
doubly sure;" so it leaves only the equity side of the 
question to be considered. In other words, are these laws 
fair? Are they based upon the great American principle 
of giving the greatest good to the greatest number? It 
is charged that they are tainted with that which is so 
abhorrent to every American mind— "class legislation;" 
that is, legislation against the masses and for the benefit 
of the wealthy, the "favored few." 
This is the indictment that rolls so glibly from the lips 
of the favor-hunting politician, and that flows so freely 
from the pens of many of our newspaper writers. It is 
the stock-in-trade argument of many attorneys when "ex- 
tenuating circumstances" are scarce, and it becomes neces- 
sary to give the imagination free rein. Occasionally a 
Supreme Judge justifies his dissenting opinion by reason- 
ing from such a view-point. Occasionally there is found 
one, like the late United States Supreme Justice Field, 
of sufficient mental vigor and moral courage to see and 
admit the error of his reasoning. He is quoted, since a 
dissenting opinion written by him in the famous case of 
Geer vs. Connecticut is the Rock of Ages to which other 
dissenters pin their faith, unaware, perhaps, that Justice 
Field, 111 a conversation two years later with his friend 
E. S. Pillsbury, the well-known attorney of San Fran- 
cisco, stated that he was "convinced that the doctrine laid 
down by him in the Geer case was not good law, and 
that he regretted that he had ever written that dissenting 
opinion." 
No one who has given the subject a moment's serious 
consideration can fail to see the need of placing restric- 
tions on the taking of wild game, both as to numbers and 
as to the length of the season in which they can be taken. 
The difference arises chiefly as to the degree of restriction, 
and there are inequalities no doubt. Our Legislature is 
confronted with a serious problem when it undertakes the 
enactment of game laws. Our State is so large and so 
diversified, the conditions according to localities so vary-, 
ing as to breeding seasons, that a general law— the only 
remedy at its hands— cannot fit each section to its satis- 
faction. When a constitutional amendment is added 
which will permit of dividing the State into game dis- 
tricts, then legislation for the different districts can be 
enacted. At present the Legislature has as difficult a task 
as. has the Federal Congress in passing a tariff bill that 
will suit to its satisfaction every State in the Union. 
Under present circumstances it does the best it can.- 
Many of those who criticise the restrictions do it 
thoughtlessly, not realizing that as civilization pushes out 
and extends its borders, taking up the wild lands, in ex- 
actly the same proportion are the breeding ground and 
habitat of the wild game reduced ; that the wild bird flies 
no faster, has no better means of defense than it had two 
hundred years ago, while man has increased his efficiency 
to kill and take a thousandfold, advancing successively 
from the bow and arrow to a muzzleloading gun, then to 
the rapid-firing breechloader with smokeless powder and 
belt full of cartridges, until finally there has been evolved 
the "Game Hog,". Should there be any question about 
the wisdom of, and necessity for, these restrictions? 
The charge is directly made that our legislators were 
guilty of framing laws in favor of the wealthy, the 
"favored few ;" in other words, were either so base or so 
ignorant that they passed the present game laws ; and the 
cry was taken up, and is being industriously and persist- 
*C. A. Vogelsang in Western Field. 
