456 FOREST AND STREAM October, 1921 
GUNS AND SNIPE 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream : 
I N your August issue there was an in- 
teresting article on the progress of 
the shotgun by E. Newitt. I have 
handled hundreds of guns from 8 to 20 
bore during my thirty-eight years shoot- 
ing, and have found that after all very 
little progress has been made. 
About ten years ago, by happy chance, 
I got a 28-inch barrel gun, 12 bore, 6 [4 
lb., which was made by W. Ford of 15 
St. Mary’s Row, Birmingham. He was 
a complete stranger to me and I was 
astonished at the shooting and killing 
qualities of the gun. Although I have 
not the smallest interest in the above 
maker, I think it only fair to let my 
brother shooters know that he is a first- 
class man for game and clay pigeon 
guns. He now is building chamberless 
guns on Dr. Heath’s system in 12, 16 
and 20 bores; he also turns out amaz- 
ingly good guns for wild fowl and all- 
round work. 
In my younger days I had a mania 
for making guns go as far as possible. 
I tried Eley’s wire cartridges in all bores 
excent the 8. They shot splendidly on 
flocks, but were not reliable on single 
birds. I tried home-made concentrators, 
i. e., paper shells, that fitted inside cart- 
ridge shells. In these paper ones I put 
in shot and stopped both edges with gum. 
After putting them in the cartridges 
with a wad on top and a turn over, I 
found them stunners for wild snipe, 
using No. 8. Once I was out of No. 8 
and had to use No. 9. I shot ducks and 
hares at distances that No. 4 shot would 
kill in ordinary loads. I never tried 
these in choke bores. 
I wonder if anyone over your side 
ever used tallow in cartridges to make 
long shots. An old shooter in County 
Galway swore by them. He told me he 
shot a seal dead at sixty yards with one 
loaded with B. B. shot. He simply 
poured melted tallow from an ordinary 
candle over the shot and then wadded 
and crimped the shell. He shot them 
in his Greener gun, which was full- 
choked; a gun that throws 240 or 200 
pellets of No. 6 shot within the 30-inch 
circle. This is far too many for or- 
dinary game shooting. I like 150 with 
right barrel, and 180 with left. The 200 
or 240 would smash a bird into rags at 
ordinary distances, but these patterns 
are all right for clays and ducks. 
After reading your charming papers 
I am sorely puzzled about snipe out 
your way. Do you call the ordinary 
snipe, seen in Ireland and the British 
Isles, Jack snipe? Here we call Jack 
snipe the small ones with short bills 
which I never shoot except by accident, 
as they are not worth a shot. 
What is Wilson snipe? Have we any 
over here? What are yellow-legs ? Our 
snipe have bluish yellow legs. 
Green plovers, alias lapwing peewits, 
are getting very scarce here now. I used 
to see fifty flocks within short distances 
of each other near here a few years ago; 
now a meager flock only haunts these 
places. Ptarmigan, Ireland. 
HE bird known in America as snipe, 
Wilson’s snipe, English snipe, Jack 
snipe or upland snipe is a race of the 
species called snipe in the British Isles, 
or a distinct species closely related 
thereto. There is no American bird cor- 
responding to the European Jack snipe. 
In America the names Jack curlew and 
Jack are also in general use for a rela- 
tive of the European wliimbrel, but 
ivithout white over the tail. Here the 
names snipe and bay snipe are also 
loosely used to include tattlers, stints 
and even plover. The yellowlegs are 
tattlers related to European red-shank 
and green-shank with bright yellow in- 
stead of red or green legs. They nest 
in the north and are found in the United 
States during spring and fall migrations, 
wintering from our southern coasts 
south to southern South America . — 
[Editors.] 
EXPENSIVE FISHING 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream; 
O UT in California, near San Bern- 
ardino, is Lake Hemet, owned by 
the Lake Hemet Water Company. It 
is a beautiful body of fine water and 
it has long had a reputation to stir 
the heart of any fisherman, a reputa- 
tion for harboring large schools of per- 
fectly marvelous trout. Around the 
lake is an impassable barb wire fence, 
put up, of course, by the watchful 
company. There is a gate, glory be, 
and through this any fisherman carry- 
ing a license from the county may pass 
and fish to his heart’s content for the 
sum of $ 5 . But what is such a sum 
to any real fisherman? 
The first day of the season, this 
year, so the company’s gatekeeper de- 
clares, just 300 eager sportsmen passed, 
each leaving the required $ 5 . 
When twilight came, the gatekeeper 
reports, the 300 returned, and as each 
passed through to liberty he was ques- 
tioned as to the number of his catch. 
This is the tragedy: The 300 had 
caught just eight trout. Not very large 
ones, either. Three hundred into 1,500 
goes how many times? And eight into 
300 ? Easy to figure that the little 
beauties had cost a trifle less than $200 
each. Real sport, wasn’t it? 
Charles Dillon, Wash., D. C. 
THE PASSING OF THE 
MUSTANG 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream: 
I T is with a pang of regret that the 
lover of all that characterized the 
old-time West learns that the decree has 
gone forth that the few remaining herds 
of wild horses, which still roam the high 
ranges of northern New Mexico and 
Arizona, southern Utah and Wyoming, 
must be exterminated. Stockmen have 
declared that these relics of the great 
mustang herds of long ago have become 
a menace to domestic stock by reason of 
the fact that all that are left are what 
are known as “culls.” During the war 
expert riders penetrated into the fast- 
nesses of their retreats and chose from 
among the wild horses the best and most 
desirable of them which were captured, 
“broken” and “gentled” and sent to 
Europe, to meet death on the bullet- 
ploughed fields of France. 
This small, scrubby stock, now classed 
as undesirable and a pest on the range, 
is descended from a long and proud line 
of ancestors whose history is as thrilling 
and romantic as any the West has to 
offer. Their forebears were none other 
than the fine Arabian steeds brought to 
America by the early Spanish explor- 
ers; this ancestry explains the marked 
Arabian features which the present-day 
ranch broncho sometimes exhibits. Many 
of these fine, high-bred horses were cap- 
tured by the Indians, and in time those 
that did not escape were turned loose 
on the ranges, where they multiplied 
rapidly. It was the descendant of this 
wild Arabian, the “mustang,” roaming 
in vast herds all over the western plains 
that gave to the Apaches their wonderful 
mounts. In later years the mustang was 
bred in captivity, and the admixture of 
its blood with that of horses from the 
eastern United States produced the hardy 
little animal, the “bronco” cow-pony, 
whose endurance and intelligence are 
famous. 
The case against the wild cousins of 
the bronc is that they consume fodder 
that is badly needed in dry seasons, break 
down fences, lure valuable animals from 
ranches, and are dangerous to human 
life. They are proud, fierce and unap- 
proachable, and if they have lost some of 
