October, 1919 
FOREST AND STREA.AI 
539 
conclusion and that subsequent writers 
have religiously copied this without test- 
ing its truth. I have seen hundreds of 
both black and white species and watched 
them for hours at a time from close quar- 
ters and through field glasses, but never 
witnessed such a proceeding In point of 
fact the rhino deposits his dung in rather 
a singular manner. He is very fond 
of using the same paths and in all rhino 
country these well beaten tracks may 
be seen. At intervals along the main 
routes one notices little sidings which 
they use as retiring places and they al- 
most always return to one or the other 
of the places. They back in stern first, 
deposit their dung on the great pile al- 
ready there and then go through a per- 
functory scratching up of earth, by exe- 
cuting a back shuffle with the hind legs. 
Thus each of the little sidings to the 
main track are marked by furrows, or 
scratches on the soil appearing all around. 
Another point on which different 
writers are at variance is as to the range 
of vision. From many encounters with 
rhino I am convinced that they are as 
short-sighted as elephant and cannot see 
well beyond twenty yards or so, there- 
fore that they cannot see, or charge the 
hunter on sight, from distances of one, 
two and three hundred yards, a perform- 
ance they have often been credited with. 
Either they have got the hunter’s wind, 
or have been alarmed by birds and are 
running away blindly in whichever di- 
rection seems best. The rhino’s hearing 
is only mediocre but its scenting powers 
are very good. A rhino will often charge 
on scent but also, owing to its habit of 
rushing blindly in any direction when 
alarmed, it is often accused of charges 
which it never intended. For instance, 
the hunter is approaching a rhino from 
downwind. The rhino has no notice of 
his approach until it is warned by birds. 
It then gets up and looks earnestly in 
several directions, seeing nothing but 
perhaps bluffing the hunter that he has 
been observed Then it decides on run- 
ning away, it puts down its head and 
gallops off downwind, puffing loudly, and 
passes close to the hunter. 
There is a very flat and large tick, 
about the size of a dime, with bright red 
markings. This tick, known as the rhino 
tick, is peculiar to rhino and its presence 
on the grass is indicative that these 
animals are, or have been, in the locality. 
The rhino is generally infested with these 
and other ticks and, on opening up the 
intestines, they are generally found to 
contain thousands of large maggots — 
circumstances which afford a sufficient 
excuse for his occasional fits of irra- 
tability and rather unseemly conduct. 
THREE TYPES OF CRIPPLED BIRDS 
A LITTLE MORE CARE ON THE PART OF THE -HUNTER IN FOLLOWING UP SHOTS 
WOULD HELP GREATLY IN THE CONSERVATIONIOF ONE OF OUR FINEST GAME BIRDS 
By J. ARTHUR DUNN 
L ast season I went quail hunting 
with two rabbit hunters. Perhaps 
this statement isn’t quite clear. I 
mean this: Two of my friends are fond 
of rabbit shooting and, at the same time, 
take quail hunting as a sort of side issue. 
They occasionally ask me to go with 
them and, although the rabbits don’t in- 
terest me much, yet for the sake of com- 
panionship I go with them and try for 
quail; while they spend most of their 
time with the cotton-tails. I have long 
hunted quail without a dog, using only 
my own native whistle; so there is no 
fear that my friends will spoil a quail 
dog through rabbit shooting. 
Shortly after we had come into the 
fields and had separated, I flushed a 
covey of birds. * They scattered nicely 
and I was getting some good results when 
my friends came upon me. They saw me 
working with a lone bird which had gone 
to a point considerably removed from 
the general expanse where the majority 
of the flock had stopped. The quail arose 
at my feet and I shot at him only once 
with my double-barreled gun He didn’t 
stop. However, I shouted to my friends: 
“I got him!” 
Imagine my state of mind when those 
rabbit hunters hooted at me ! They 
could see the bird flying, by this time 
fully two hundred yards away. Of course 
they thought it strange that I should 
claim a monopoly on that bird. 
The quail went perhaps fifty yards 
farther and went down I marked him 
carefully by a tree and by an unusually 
high weed in the weed patch. 
“Come, go with me,” I said to them. 
They did; and I introduced them, with- 
in four or five minutes time, to a per- 
fectly good dead quail. 
The fact that they didn’t know I had 
hit that bird made me think that pos- 
sibly the subject I have chosen might be 
one of interest to inexperienced quail 
hunters as well as to those who have 
found out for themselves what I am here 
setting down. 
I want almost to say that more dead 
and crippled birds are left in the field 
than are taken out. That statement may 
be a bit too strong. But undoubtedly 
there are a great many birds left, which, 
in my humble opinion, would fill the bags 
of hunters almost as full as those which, 
at the crack of the gun, fall stone dead. 
And in this day of scarcity of game, it 
behooves us to conserve to the extent of 
using these cripples. 
T here are three distinct types of 
crippled birds. There is the wing- 
cripple, the brain-cripple, and the 
bowel-cripple. Each of these three types 
shows unmistakable peculiarities at the 
crack of the gun. It is important for 
the quail hunter who wishes to conserve, 
or even to keep within the limit observed 
in most states, to be familiar with these 
cripples. 
The cripple most easily detected is the 
winged bird. He goes down at once, of 
course, with a peculiar side slant due to 
one wing doing full duty while the other 
is not working With a dog, he is easy 
to find; without a dog easy to catch, if 
speed and caution are observed. How- 
ever, even with a dog, I have known 
these cripples to be lost. 
When a winged quail goes down he 
hides himself, almost always under the 
first cover. He doesn’t run far. If the 
hunter watches where he falls and goes 
immediately and quietly to the spot, he 
will, in eight cases out of ten, have no 
trouble in finding him. But if he delays 
going, because of other birds, he may 
lose the crippled bird; if he makes a 
great splutter and hustle he may alarm 
the bird and confuse the dog so that the 
bird may be lost or great delay in catch- 
ing him may be caused. In hunting for 
five years exclusively without a dog, the 
writer has lost but few of these winged 
birds. 
The quail shot through the head, the 
second type of cripple I have named, is 
easily bagged if he is watched. Almost 
invariably, at the explosion of the gun, 
he rises high. He may fly straight up in 
the air for fifty yards or so, or he may 
fly high up and soar, gradually coming to 
the ground from a high point. He will 
not be stone dead when you pick him up; 
but he is past going before he hits the 
ground. When you get your hands on 
him, and you can in most cases easily do 
so, for he is usually blinded, hold him 
tight; for he may, after his rest, take 
another high flight. 
The most common cripple and the one 
most often abandoned is the quail which 
has been shot through the bowels. As 
soon as he is hit, he gives a peculiar 
twist of the hind part of his anatomy and, 
almost invariably, drops both legs 
After he has done this he may fly fifty 
yards or he may stretch it out to a thou- 
sand. Rest assured he’ll go just as far 
from his foe as he possibly can. But 
when he drops he is as dead as he’ll ever 
be. For the reason that quail thus hit 
fly so far, the hunter of little experience 
will conclude a miss; just as my friends 
did when shot only once at the bird I 
mentioned at the beginning. 
A bit more of patience in working with 
these types will be no small item in the 
conservation of one of our finest birds. 
And not only that; many a hunter will 
go home with a much fatter hunting-coat. 
