458 
FOREST AND STREAM 
me as had been his custom for several 
years. At that time, I believe, within 
easy reach of Saginaw, there existed the 
best ruffed grouse shooting that ever ex- 
isted. The doctor had a rather snub- 
nosed black-and-white pointer that he 
called Vie, an excellent dog, and both 
master and dog understood each other 
thoroughly. I had a good-sized Gordon 
setter, Bob by name, the second one I 
had owned of that same name. He was 
a great "meat dog,” to use an expression 
of Emerson Hough's. I think Hough 
hunted over him once. I know he used 
to come to Saginaw and go partridge 
shooting with me in those days, but I 
have had a lot of mighty good partridge 
dogs and it sometimes is difficult for 
memory to recall their sequence. 
This time Dr. Sumner and I went to 
Merrill, a little town on the railroad 
twelve or fifteen miles west of Saginaw. 
There we got a wagon and were driven 
nearly six or seven miles to Fountain’s. 
Madam Fountain was the director of the 
Fountain household, for Monsieur was 
very passive, a docile husband and a 
plodding farmer. They had two spare 
rooms off the parlor and I had put 
up there before. They did not regu- 
larly take in strangers, but I and my 
guests were always welcome. Maybe it 
was because I appreciated the buckwheat 
cakes and fried fresh pork, preserves, 
pies and biscuits that Madam Fountain 
made with so little effort. It seemed to 
me that after hunting a day or two to 
get up on a cold morning and have those 
rich, luscious brown buckwheat cakes 
and plenty of brown gravy from fried 
fresh pork was just about as near the 
heavenly cafeteria as I hope to get. 
Doctor and I arrived at Fountain’s 
about noon and were cordially welcomed. 
After stowing our stuff away and getting 
into our hunting-clothes, it was rather 
late for a start, but the shooting-ground 
was not far away. In those days there 
were lots of quail in this part of Michi- 
gan. Why they have gone I cannot ima- 
gine. There is just as much good quail 
ground, food and cover, but they used 
to be in unlimited numbers. The best 
quail shoot I have ever had was right 
here in Saginaw in those days, and I 
have hunted in the Carolinas, Missis- 
sippi, and favored quail country. 
Well, the picking up of this old kodak 
picture resulted in a letter to and one 
from Dr. Sumner, and he has refreshed 
my memory relative to the score of that 
brief trip. In those days there was no 
hag limit. We walked out from Foun- 
tain’s farmhouse probably about two 
o’clock in the afternoon, and as this was 
toward the end of November, the days 
were short and darkness came early, so 
we probably had to be back again by 
pretty nearly four o’clock. We had 
eight partridge and thirteen quail. The 
next morning we started early; came in 
in time, however, to get our team at 
about five o’clock, getting us back at 
Merrill for the train, which to my recol- 
lection left there about eight in the eve- 
ning. So that one day’s shoot resulted in 
eighteen ruffed grouse and thirty-two 
quail. Of this day’s bag Dr. Sumner 
writes: “You had eleven partridge and 
October, 1921 i 
I had seven and we each had sixteen 
quail.” 
I once had this same old Bob with me 
when I was hunting up in Clare County. 
I was alone, the rest of the party having 
hunted in another direction and we were 
to meet at Cornwall’s farm at three 
o'clock in the afternoon for the drive 
back to our car, which was side-tracked 
at Harrison. Bob had had a lot of ex- 
perience on partridge, was a pretty cun- 
ning old fellow and a good retriever — no 
crippled birds ever got away from him. 
I hunted the slope of an old pine ridge 
that skirted the swamp for a long dis- 
tance. There were clover patches on 
this ridge and the grouse were out feed- 
ing. The old dog did his work well and 
I shot well, and when I got back to the 
team at three o’clock I had fifteen grouse 
and three quail. 
But what impressed this on my mind 
and the reason for telling it is the fact 
that Bob made a point and I flushed a 
bird and killed it. He did not move and 
the second one got up and I killed it. He 
walled his eyes around at me and 
grinned and pointed around in a slightly 
different direction to let me know there 
were still more birds there. I took a 
step over a log and two birds got up 
and I got a double. One of these flopped 
in plain sight of old Bob just like a 
chicken with its, head cut off. He moved 
a few steps ahead and the last birds got 
up. I have forgotten how many there 
were. At any rate, I missed with one 
barrel and killed with the other. So I 
had five birds down before retrieving 
and practically without Bob breaking a 
point. 
The cutting off of the partridge cover 
and the work of the market hunter 
thinned out the partridge badly. The 
cold winters must have gotten the quail. 
They are very plentiful this year but 
they are not allowed to be shot in Michi- 
gan. Another year and a severe winter 
will thin them out again. It surely is not 
the gun that has done it or is doing it. 
A moderate amount of quail shooting I 
believe in, when we have a bad year for 
breeding close the season, when they are 
plentiful allow them to be shot moder- 
ately. 
We are going to have a lot of ruffed 
grouse this year but no more of the large 
bags. Five a day, ten in possession and 
twenty-five for the season is what the 
Michigan law says nowadays, and it is 
a good law. yy M . B. Mershon, Mich. 
THE RADIOLITE BAIT 
of the zmdespread interest shown in this 
contrivance by our readers it might be 
well to state that while the idea of im- 
prisoning hre-flys in a vial and using 
their phosphorescent qualities as a lure 
for fish is a novel one, the principle 
involved is not altogether new. 
For some time the well-known fishing 
tackle house of Abbey and Imbrie has 
been featuring a radiolite bait. It is 
called the ‘ Glowbody” minnow and is 
zi 'ell worth investigating by the prospec- 
tive bass fisherman . — [Editors.] 
