KICKING UP RABBITS 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream: 
H UNTING rabbits with a dog re- 
minds me somewhat of a photo- 
graph I saw several years ago of the 
Kaiser of Germany standing beside a 
row of about twenty deer killed by him 
on his private hunting preserve. It 
seems that he had had a platform built 
in the middle of the forest, where he 
would sit, with his rifle resting on the 
rail. His servants, after he was com- 
fortably fixed, would then go out in a 
great body and drive the deer past his 
platform, so that he could pick them off 
as fast as he could pull the trigger. 
What sense of elation, or personal ac- 
complishment, can there be over ruthless 
slaughter of that kind? What amount 
of fairness is there in potting them by 
the tens and twenties as they frantically 
dash by? 
And so, -with such an example in mind 
I would suggest that the rabbit hunter 
apply it to himself when he contemplates 
a hunt for the elusive cottontail. Let 
him be his own dog and root the rabbits 
out of the brush and briars himself. A 
good rabbit dog is, without doubt, a real 
treasure, but city dwellers are usually 
not situated so as to own one; my desire 
being therefore to stress the advantages 
of a dogless gunning expedition. Play- 
ing dog one’s-self is exhilirating as well 
as holding a tang of the unexpected, for 
you do not know 7 at just what moment 
something is going to jump up in front 
of you. I had the surprise of my life, 
on entering a scrub-patch one morning, 
to have two quail whizz up in .front of 
me, when I had expected to “jump” a 
rabbit. Startled for a second, I could 
not bring myself to shoot. Quickly 
whirling around, however. I fired at the 
one which had flown to the right — they 
having started off in opposite directions 
— but apparently missed him. Later on, 
as I was crossing a small creek further 
up, I found him lying on the creek-bank, 
with his feet curled up, and his breast to 
the sky. Only one pellet had struck him, 
piercing his neck. 
It is all too true that in hunting with- 
out a dog your game-bag will not be 
quite so full, but you will enjoy the keen 
satisfaction of knowing that your day’s 
“kill” is the sole result of your own dig- 
ging. And who wants to be a game hog 
anywny? I venture to say that two- 
thirds, yes a larger percentage than 
that, of the men, and the women, too, 
who indulge in this sport, do so for the 
pleasure of getting next to nature, and 
of being out in the open, as much as 
for the well-filled game-bag itself. 
Instead of posting yourself on an old 
tree-stump, and letting the dog round 
the rabbits up, one by one, and chase 
them by for you to knock over, w 7 hy not 
LETTE1S, 
QUESTIONS 
AND ANSWERS 
look for them in the little gulleys and 
runs in the fields when the sun is shin- 
ing warmly, or shake them out of brush 
piles and briar-patches in the bottom- 
lands, when it is chilly? 
It takes some l'eal concentrated effort 
to work your way through a briar- 
patch, and anyone who has ever done it, 
will certainly agree with me. I have 
crawled through on my hands and knees, 
dragging my gun along, had my hat 
hooked off, my coat tangled up, my 
trousers ripped, and had a dickens of a 
time getting my gun to my shoulder in 
time to shoot a rabbit I had “jumped.” 
Sometimes one would leap up and dash 
through the briars, merely giving me, 
for my trouble, a view of a little white 
stubby tail bobbing as he hurried off. 
Don’t be chagrined or out-of-sorts if, 
after you have wriggled your way into 
a patch of briars, you have two or three 
big fat fellows get up and go before 
you can get your gun up. You can pret- 
ty well gamble that they won’t go far 
from that particular briar-patch if it is 
early in the season and they have not 
been shot at much. I went out last year 
with a couple of country boys, who could 
go through a briar-patch certainly as 
well as any dog. They seemed to liter- 
ally shed briars. And when they were 
through combing the brush you can bet 
that all the rabbits had either been 
shot, or had moved to other parts. 
Don’t forget that in every little brush- 
pile might lurk a cottontail taking a 
quiet nap. Shake it with your foot and 
be ready to fire quickly should he ap 
pear. I have had two jump out, one 
after another, and killed them both, 
only to have a third scoot by, bobbing 
his tail in the thin morning air, before 
I could reload. 
Some people might ask what pleas- 
ure is there in going to all this trouble, 
when it would be so much more com- 
fortable to let the dog do it. It is a 
question of each to his like, but every- 
one w r ill have to admit that in doing so, 
the game is given a fair chance, there- 
by promoting conservation. It may be 
found a rather slow process, where 
game is scarce, yet how 7 many times 
have you gone fishing and returned 
home empty-handed but satisfied that 
you had done your best. In this meth- 
od of hunting you more than once see 
one “setting.” Don’t blaze aw r ay at 
him. Nine times out of ten you will 
mutilate him so that he is unfit for use. 
Make a little noise, throw a pebble or 
two at him, and then when he starts 
away let him have it. A true sports- 
man will always do this. As a sugges- 
tion, it will be found particularly ad- 
vantageous to remove the entrails from 
your game as soon after shooting as is 
convenient. This should be done for a 
number of reasons, but principally be- 
cause it relieves an astonishing weight 
from your coat-pocket. 
After tramping over the fields and 
through the bottomlands, there is no 
doubt but that you have gotten a full 
day’s exercise, and as you discuss the 
happenings and laugh over the humor- 
ous incidents of the day, there can be 
nothing more satisfying than to know 
that you are taking home a bunch of 
eight or ten rabbits that you, alone, and 
not the dog, have earned. 
Harold B. Atkinson, 
Washington, D. C. 
THE WOODCOCK’S WHISTLE 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream : 
I READ some letters on the Wood- 
cock’s Whistle in Forest and Stream 
some months ago which interested me 
greatly. Mr. J. N. Dinsmore, of Kan- 
sas City, is right in saying that the 
whistle comes from the bird’s throat. 
Back in the seventies I was shooting 
woodcock one day over a field with a 
Spaniel dog, the best retriever I ever 
owned or saw. 
He flushed a woodcock in an alder 
swamp.' I fired and the bird fell close 
to the dog. I had poured a charge of 
pow 7 der in the empty barrel (the gun 
was a muzzle loader) when I heard the 
whistle of a woodcock and the next 
instant the dog came out of the brush 
with the bird in his mouth still -whis- 
tling. 
The dog brought the bird to me and 
I saw he had a broken wing, other- 
wise he was unhurt, although badly 
frightened. 
I held him in both hands, his wings 
pinioned to his side, and he whistled a 
number of times. While holding him 
so it was plain that the whistle came 
from his throat. 
A number of years later I had a sim- 
ilar experience. It was late in Octo- 
ber; heavy frosts had striped the leaves 
from the trees and the flight birds 
were dropping in and were fairly plen- 
tiful. 
The dog, a pointer, was working an 
alder run along the banks of a stream 
while I walked on the outside ready 
for a shot. 
Suddenly the dog halted for an in- 
stant, then walked carefully a few 
steps and came to a point. A brace of 
