60 
FOREST AND STREAM 
February, 1922 j ! 
HUNTING SONG BIRDS IN OHIO! 
I I 
NEITHER IMMEMORIAL CUSTOM NOR THE LEARNING OF ORNI- ji 
THOLOGISTS MAY REPUDIATE A DEFINITION CREATED BY LAW 
Y esterday Nimrod and I took 
a song bird hunt. In the State, 
whose cradles rock either a presi- 
dent or a politician, an anomaly 
in the game law circumvents the hunter. 
Darwin quotes Professor Owen to the 
effect that there is no greater anomaly 
in nature than a bird that cannot fly. 
Darwin, however, never suspected that, 
in their wisdom, the statesmen of Ohio 
would define quail to be non-game birds, 
and classify them with the robin, the 
warbler, the wren, the bluebird, and the 
humming bird; but this is just what Ohio 
has done. Neither immemorial custom 
and usage, nor the learning of orni- 
thologists and other scientists, may re- 
pudiate a definition created by law. If a 
statute enacts that quail are not game 
birds, and lists them with the song birds; 
then, quail are not game. That is all 
there is to it. State’s rights in enacting 
game laws are supreme so long as the 
game is non-migratory. And, as a Buck- 
eye, I am now merely a song bird sports- 
man, and this hunt was in song bird 
fashion. 
N imrod, a sportsman of the old 
school, prior to the song bird era, 
always kept two hunting dogs, a pointer 
for the stubble and dry uplands and a 
setter for the briars and well-watered 
places. Now, however, he keeps but one 
dog and does that only “lest we forget.” 
Our outfit for the hunt was selected with 
great care. Nimrod shouldered a 
twenty-two caliber rifle, mounted with 
a telescope sight, 
while I was armed 
with a camera, 
equipped with a 
Protar lense. I got 
more shots than did 
Nimrod. But all 
things considered, we 
spent a delightful 
afternoon; and had 
it not been for 
Ohio’s venture into 
the definition busi- 
ness, we s h o u 1 d 
have returned to our 
homes without a 
sense of something 
lacking. 
Quail were plen- 
tiful, the coveys had 
settled down for 
the winter into good 
cover, where there 
was an abundance 
of weed seeds for 
them to feed upon, 
and where nearby woodlands offered 
shelter from predacious foes. Nimrod had 
been over the ground many times; he 
knew' the location of every covey and the 
number of birds each contained. His 
setter (of Gladstone strain) worked ad- 
By HENRY BAN NON 
mirably. She pointed with her head high, 
foreleg up, and gave proof of sensitive 
nose and head full of bird sense. My 
camera shots were at from six to ten 
feet and she dropped at the shot. Nim- 
rod assured me that she is an excellent 
retriever, and I accepted his ipse dixit 
on faith ; it might have been otherwise 
w'ere Nimrod an angler. So staunch was 
his dog that when she pointed in a loca- 
tion where the sun was not right for 
the camera, Nimrod, like Abraham of 
old, gathered her unto his bosom, carried 
her to a favorable spot, put her down, 
the dog meanw'hile remaining on the 
point. 
O UR wanderings took us to a level 
field of forty acres, sown with al- 
falfa. In the center of this field Nimrod 
had set a post, the top of which was 
about the height of a horse’s withers. 
Training his binoculars on the post, Nim- 
rod announced though there was no open 
season for song birds, there was an open 
season for predacious birds ; and that he 
had his game. We approached the post 
and there found a sharp-shinned hawk 
securely caught in a No. 1 Oneida trap. 
This tyrant (so Audubon characterizes 
him) hunts bobwhite in season and out 
of season. However, he can be caught 
easily through the simple process of set- 
ting a trap on a post in the middle of a 
large field. No bait is required. The 
hawk encircles the field in search of food, 
discovers the post, alights upon the trap, 
the jaws spring, and he is held fast. 
The lure is the predilection of a hawk 
to alight upon a perch so located that he 
may observe danger before it gets within 
gunshot, and that he may discover quail 
and other birds before they are aware of 
him. “All right, Mr. Hawk,” said Nim- 
rod, “if I may not hunt quail, neither i 
may you.” And thereupon he killed the 
destroyer of more quail annually than | 
are killed by any fair sportsman. 
I wonder, not how many, but whether 
any of the landowners in the General 
Assembly of Ohio, who defined quail as 
non-game birds and placed them in the 
humming bird class, has taken the pains 
to put out, and keep set, traps for de- 
stroying this most persistent enemy of I 
quail. 
W E continued on our way through 
the stubble fields, along the edges 
of the standing corn, across the wood- 
lands, and by the waters of an historic 
river. Not only were several coveys of 
quail flushed, but an occasional ring-neck I 
pheasant arose in awkward flight, utter- 
ing a discordant cry out of harmony with ' 
the serenity of the Indian summer day. 
As quail were plentiful, so were their 
natural enemies ; and our setter started 
a red fox from the timber that lines the 
river. Nimrod will never be content un- 
til he kills that fox ; and many were the 
plans laid that day for Reynard’s undo- 
ing. However, the slaying of the fox ■ 
must be kept a secret lest Nimrod lose 
caste with the Ancient Association of 
Eox Hunters. 
We wended our way to a narrow field, ; 
between river and hill, through which, 1 
for many years have passed coveys of f 
quail at evening from their feeding ; 
ground in the corn to their nocturnal ' 
refuge beneath the underbrush. Al- , 
though we did not 
locate a covey, we 
did locate some- 
thing; and that 
something was 
worth while slaying. , 
A big, sleek cat was 
prowling about the > 
field. This species of 
cat is usually spoken 
of by song-bird 
hunters as a house- 
cat. Such designa- 
tion is, however, a 
misnomer; for here 
was a cat far from , 
any house, and bent 
upon a mission that 
boded no good to 
song birds, includ- 
ing bobwhites. The . 
cat saw Nimrod 
about the time that 
Nimrod saw the cat. i: 
You should h a V e I 
seen that cat slink > 
into a little furrow ; and you should have 
seen Nimrod bring the telescope of his 
twenty-two to his eye. A sharp report 
echoed from the hill and the cat sank 
quietly to rest. A perfect shot at forty- 
five yards. 
The dog still thought that quail were game birds 
