454 
FOREST AND STREAM 
August, 1920 
ptwy 
Make the Vision 
Come True 
D REAMS of bringing down .big 
game are reasonably certain to 
come true this vacation if your rifle 
is equipped with 
LYMAN SIGHTS 
The Lyman principle of 
rear aperture sighting 
makes quick, accurate 
shooting easy. Lyman 
Combination Rear Sights 
and Lyman Receiver Sights 
are made for all American 
and most foreign rifles. If 
your dealer can’t supply 
you, give us his name, the 
make, model and caliber of 
your rifle, and the sights 
you want. Write for our 
Free Book on sights, shoot- 
ing, care of guns, etc. 
Lyman Gun Sight 
Corporation 
110 West Street 
No. 1A Combination Middlefield, Conn. 
Rear Sight $5.50 
PAT. 
I APPLIED' 
MADE EM 
The Wilbur shotgun peep sight will revolutionize 
wing shooting; no excuse for missing; game birds or 
clay b rds. Patented and perfected by an old trap 
and field shooter. Teaches the art of wing shooting; 
will increase the score of the trap shooter; corrects 
the faults of old shooters: shows how to lead your 
birds; compels proper handling of gun: puts the 
shooter down on his gun where he belongs; proves 
the correct fitting of your gun. 
Made of blued steel, clamps instantly and rigidly 
on breech of barrels. Fast enough for use in snap 
shooting. Has two openings with center post for 
alignment with ordinary sight at end of barrels. 
Any object seen by the shooter through this sight 
when trigger is pulled, is DEAD — as such object 
must be at the time in shot pattern when gun is 
discharged. On quartering birds lead is shown ab- 
solutely — NO GUESS WORK. 
MADE IN i2 and 20 -GAUGE ONLY. Not made 
for single-barrel or pump guns. 
Price, postpaid. $2.50, with full instructions in 
the art of wing shooting. 
Write for “Treatise Wing Shooting Made Easy.” 
WILBUR GUN SIGHT 
116 West 39th St, Room 140, New York City, N. Y. 
ROBERT H. ROCKWELL 
1440 E. 63rd St. Brooklyn, N. Y. 
Further we came to an old beaver dam, 
one of the prettiest sites I have ever 
seen chosen by these wise folk of the 
wilds, — a picture of such artistic beauty 
that I took it, even though the beavers 
were not at home. 
Scarcely had we topped the rise be- 
yond the old dam when Charlie touched 
me cautiously on the arm and stopped. 
There was a young bull standing watch- 
ing us from the trail, a three-year-old 
according to Charlie’s judgment. And 
we tried to stalk it in the open, — for it 
saw us both clearly. But when about 
fifty yards away, off it went through the 
scrub growth and into the forest. 
It was there we had another illustra- 
tion of the grasshopper legs of the 
moose and their use. He went through 
that scrub just as a horse would through 
tall grasses, — and with scarcely more 
noise. Antlers thrown slightly back, so 
as not to catch in the branches, legs 
lifting and falling with the odd motion 
that does not drag hoof or hock, but lifts 
like a backhanded goose step, he went 
through that heartbreaking growth with 
no apparent trouble at all. 
T HEN we traveled north again. 
Charlie was looking for big game, 
and so did not see the junco even 
as it whipped beneath his feet, but I 
stopped, and looking where the tiny gray 
mite had risen, found a cosey, moss-cov- 
ered nest with five young ones, right in 
the trail. Surely bird never had a more 
cosey home, for the moss there was lit- 
erally two feet thick. But when we 
passed that way again, Charlie walked 
right to the spot I could not find, and 
turning the moss aside disclosed an 
empty nest. Something — fox or fowl or 
mink — had taken the whole brood of 
blind and big-mouthed babies. 
On again we wound through that won- 
derful forest, picking lmscious raspber- 
ries by the wayside, till we neared the 
lick. Then began an amazing experi- 
ence, at least to me, — for remember, this 
was my first vision of an actual deer 
lick. We were in a perfect network of 
game trails worn sometimes a foot deep 
and all centering on the lick. Trees 
were antler-scraped, black mould was 
packed as closely as a barn yard by the 
thousand dainty hoof beats. Bark was 
cut and worn from the ruddy roots of 
the firs. Deer droppings were every- 
where; and in the broader places, as 
though they disdained to follow in the 
narrow trail, were huge hoofprints of 
moose, the dew claw clearly marked, — 
and from time to time the toeing-in 
track of a bear. 
Stopping some two hundred yards from 
the lick, we rested our baggage and axe, 
without which Charlie never travelled, 
got ready the camera, and then crept 
forward with infinite pains, up-wind, 
toward a shallow swamp pond with a 
rough bank of small stone, sloping im- 
perceptibly in parts to the forest and in 
others coming right down to the pool 
grass-covered and snag-littered. 
Then we saw them , — thirteen deer and 
two moose all within one hundred feet 
of the camera! 
Just turn that over in your mind, 
lover of sport; and remember this was 
not a preserve, and was not stocked at 
all, save by Mother Nature. It was the 
natural wilds and every animal there 
was a child of that natural wild. Can 
you wonder that both my guide and I 
lay chests down for half an hour drink- 
ing in the scene. From where we were 
that August day I counted three big 
bucks, two spike horns, four fawns, and 
four does all grouped around the edge 
of the lick where it came down to the 
pool, and around the bend, a three year 
moose bull and a small cow. 
• We watched the deer mainly, for they 
were clear of any brush from our side, 
Though they were in the shadow of the 
forest. The full grown deer were for 
the most part staid and steady, but the 
young ones butted and played with great 
zest, though in almost perfect silence. 
The game of “Butt, butt, who’s got the 
butt on” seemed the favorite one. There 
was, however, no clashing of horns or 
heads as in the case of wild goats and 
sheep. It was a rather gentle game 
though the nubs on the spike horns may 
have tickled a wee bit. Then the younger 
ones shoved and capered, but always in 
lemarkable silence. 
I crept up to within fifty feet. Then 
some of the bucks stood at attention, 
whistling, while others went on drinking 
after an uneasy pause. 
Somehow I couldn’t get them in focus 
at all. I lifted the camera and aimed by 
feeling, from behind the thin screen of 
alders. Then I stepped right out in the 
open and walked toward them pulling 
the trigger and turning the films as I 
went, but none of them came out clearly. 
Of course, that spoiled the fun. The 
deer stood a second or so, petrified in 
astonishment; then with a wild, though 
still silent scrambling and leaping, away 
they went into the forest, leaving me 
staring at the scene and wondering if 
it had been real. 
Then a tremendous splashing made me 
spin around, — the panic had just per- 
colated to the slower moose, and with 
giant heaves and reaches they were 
struggling through the morass to dis- 
appear into the silent woods after one 
or two heavy thumps and smashes. 
W E now had the lick to ourselves, 
and I went back to Charlie. We 
ate our lunch in the deep woods, 
then went around the lick to the place 
where the deer were standing. 
I simply give it for what it is worth; 
perhaps what follows is worthless: for I 
have never seen any other lick. But 
there was only one plaee where the 
ground was hard. This was of loam 
thickly studded with fist-size stones of 
glacial rounding. The rest of the banks 
were mud and swamp with, in places, 
the forest growing down to the edge. 
And the favorite place was the stony 
bank, so far as the deer were concerned, 
while the muddy place and in the shallow, 
brackish water was the favorite place 
for the moose. I never saw a deer licking 
in the water, that is, standing in the 
water, and I never saw a moose licking 
on the bank, and we were there four 
different times. 
Now I proposed investigating. And 
this is what I found. There was no 
taste of salt in either the water or the 
(continued on page 458) 
