176 
FOREST AND STREAM 
April, 1920 
the cotton one ordinarily worn. A cot- 
ton shirt, or a light khaki one is good 
enough to hunt in down there, with the 
flannel one in reserve. You want a light 
weight hat. Cut out the back half of 
the sweat band and it will stay on your 
head when a high wind blows. For un- 
derwear, very light woolens are the best, 
even down there, though you can use 
ordinary Scriven drawers in place of the 
woolen ones, but it is best to have a light 
woolen shirt under all conditions. For 
pants, get them of a good grade olive 
drab khaki, which when washed becomes 
soft and comfortable. The ordinary 
pants, or the lumberman’s style, are to 
be preferred to the riding breeches, as 
they are much easier to remove when 
wet, and are much more comfortable 
while hunting, as they do not bind at the 
knees and become uncomfortable. You 
will get wet from the waist down every 
day you hunt, so bear it in mind. 
The proper footwear, to my way of 
thinking, is the army shoe, which has 
been well broken in beforehand. Two pair 
should be taken along, one pair to hunt 
and the other to wear in and out of the 
hunting country. The pair you use for 
hunting should have a couple of slits cut 
in the uppers just above the sole .so that 
the water will be forced out of them 
when you get back on dry ground. They 
should be well greased with neatsfoot oil 
to keep them from hardening from so 
much use in water, and a few hob nails 
in the soles will not be amiss. Moccasins 
are very comfortable after a hard 
days tramp. Light wool socks are the 
best for wear down there, as elsewhere. 
Your leggings should be the army puttee 
of heavy canvas, which not only stand 
water and the wear and tear of the pal- 
mettoes exceedingly well, but can be 
dried before the fire without the risk in- 
curred of ruining them as often happens 
in drying those made of leather. 
Sand continually works into your shoes 
while wading and has a tendency to cause 
the feet to smart. This trouble is obvi- 
ated, however, by bathing in cold water 
every night and putting on dry socks. 
I know a Seminole Indian guide who 
never wears shoes when in the woods, or, 
in fact, at any time. He sometimes puts- 
on a pair of socks, if you will give them 
to him, but, otherwise, tramps all day 
long bare footed. At night when he 
comes into camp he greases his feet with 
lard, and, so far as I know, never ex- 
periences any trouble with them. 
It is a good idea to take along a light 
rain coat, or, if you choose, a good light 
weight poncho. 
C AMPING down there is not the exact 
science that it seems to be in the 
far away hunting grounds of many 
other places. However, there are two 
A day’s bag of quail 
ways of going at it even there — the right 
way and the wrong way. The right way 
is certainly preferable, for then you will 
not be handicapped by having to prepare 
your meals in a makeshift way; you will 
be enabled to get a good night’s rest, and, 
in case of bad weather, you will have 
comfortable shelter. The proper outfit, 
some common sense and you are fixed. 
While we always hope for fine weather 
when hunting, we do not always get it, 
as many of us know. Florida is no ex- 
ception to the rule, as one is as liable to 
encounter bad weather as he is good 
weather, which I happen to know from 
experience. Once, while in the Big Cy- 
press country, in the course of a single 
day, I experienced — first: sticky, sultry 
temperature, then rain, and, finally, be- 
fore it was time to turn in, a drop in tem- 
perature so great that it made flannel 
shirts and sweaters most welcome. It 
behooves the Florida hunter to be pre- 
pared to encounter anything from 90 in 
the shade to frost on the same trip. 
It behooves every hunting party to 
have a good tent along. While I have 
gone on a ten day trip with no more 
shelter than a fly tent, slept under it for 
two consecutive nights in a pouring rain 
and suffered no discomfort to speak of, 
it is best to have a better tent. 
Wall tents are undoubtedly the best 
type of shelter, but they are the heaviest 
and most bulky of the tent tribe. How- 
ever, in hunting in Florida, it should be 
borne in mind that the tent goes into the 
wagon and not on the hunter’s back, when 
packing into and out of the woods. 
Under conditions which I have experi- 
enced in Florida woods I have come to the 
conclusion that the “A” tent is about 
the best type for use there. It should be 
of 8 ounce khaki colored duck, which 
seems to give better service than the 
featherweight materials. The tent 
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 208) 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE PADDLE 
SOME OF THE MANY VARIATIONS THAT HAVE BEEN DEVELOPED SINCE MAN 
FIRST CONCEIVED THE IDEA OF USING A POLE TO PROPEL HIS CRAFT 
By JULE MARSHALL 
D ID anyone ever stop to think about 
the evolution of the canoe paddle? 
Just what ideas did the savage have 
to apply in order to hand down to us the 
neat canoe propeller that we have today? 
Undoubtedly the first craft that ever 
carried man was a raft and this he 
guided by means of a pole. This served 
the navigator well until he ventured so 
far from shore that he could no longer 
gain a purchase on the bottom. Then he 
discovered that its rounded shape availed 
him little progress as a means of propul- 
sion for his craft. It was when the idea 
evolved of flattening the below water sec- 
tion of his pole in order to gain a better 
purchase on the water that the paddle 
was born. Next he broadened the flat- 
tened section into a blade and gained a 
better hold and consequently more 
power. Keeping pace with the gradual 
changing of the craft from the water 
washed raft to the crude canoe, the pole 
dwindled in length to the proportion of 
the modern paddle. 
Then comfort asserted itself and grips 
were put on the paddles; sometimes for 
both the lower as well as the upper 
hand. Symetric balance was sought so 
that it gave the right feel while being 
swung in the air or pulled through the 
water. Weight was cut to a minimum 
and was only limited by the strength of 
the materials. 
As the canoe became a mode of travel 
and a means toward acquiring game and 
fish, the savage recognized the two prime 
requisites of speed and stealth. To gain 
these essentials, he worked out better 
proportions in the blades. He wrought 
fineness in feel and spring and size. He 
studied closer transmission of power be- 
tween the haft and the blade. He 
sharpened the lower edges of the blade 
in order to gain a quiet entry into the 
water and a lessening of the drip on the 
recovery. 
P ERHAPS the reader never thought 
there were so many variations in 
paddles as are illustrated here. 
But these are only some of the extreme 
types, there being scores of variations of 
each model shown. Still they are all 
essentially the same as our present-day 
styles with respect to blade, haft, grip 
and length. It is interesting to note 
that the paddles as illustrated were 
made in the far reaches of the globe 
and that the tribes and makers of the 
paddles had no opportunity to consult 
each other on the merits of their ideas. 
Some of the paddles have a lower 
grip that is unfamiliar to us. Un- 
doubtedly this grip was meant to pro- 
tect the lower hand from the rough 
