SHOTGUN ACCURACY 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream : 
I NOTE in the September number of 
your magazine that Mr. L. Mitchell 
Henry, of New York, has honored your 
anonymous correspondent “ Gaucho ” — 
“ the man from Patagonia who knows 
more about Bolas than shotguns, etc., 
etc.” — so while I quite freely admit the 
utter hopelessness of prolonging the 
agony by further correspondence on shot- 
guns with Mr. Henry still I beg permis- 
sion in their further defense to state 
as follows: 
In your issue for May, 1919, Mr. 
Henry broadly and flatly asserts that 
“Double guns do not shoot true to the 
line of aim along the rib,” and in sup- 
port of this misleading, inaccurate state- 
ment goes on to give your readers the 
reason for having come to such a wild 
and absolutely untenable conclusion. 
As I understand the case it resolves 
itself into this — i. e., is Mr. Henry just- 
ified in making the unqualified statement 
that double shotguns do not shoot 
straight, or on the other hand am I cor- 
rect in maintaining, that any and every 
perfect shotgun must shoot to the centre 
from both barrels in order to rank as a 
first class fowling piece? 
Mr. Henry seems to lay particular 
stress on having been fitted and meas- 
ured by foreign gunsmiths, also to hav- 
ing shot a great deal of game abroad, 
and while such experiences may add a 
superficial depth of glamour to the gen- 
eral tone of a magazine article, yet it 
is palpably irrelevant to the case in 
point, and, incidentally, I might mention 
that we have in this country many men 
who have never seen a try-gun, or an 
animated gun fitter, yet at any kind 
of shooting with rifle, pistol or shotgun, 
easily stand on a par with any the world 
over. Perhaps Mr. Henry does not know 
that, so I mention it enpassant as it 
were, as an humble offset to what he is 
pleased to attribute to my knowledge of 
“Bolas.” 
Mr. Henry admits having tried an al- 
leged fine gun the left barrel of which 
at forty yards put the centre of the 
charge over two feet to the right, also 
resents my stating that to correct the 
shooting of an offshooting barrel — cast- 
ing “off” or “on” the stock is “too gro- 
tesque to merit serious consideration.” 
Has any practical sportsman ever heard 
of casting off the stock of a gun to rec- 
tify, mind you, the shooting of one of its 
barrels? How about the other barrel? 
Perhaps Mr. Henry has his gun stocks 
hinged at the grip, so that he may wig- 
gle-waggle them according to the way he 
desires them to shoot. (Hapny thought 
that!!!) 
To sum up the whole question, I will 
ask Mr. Henry to produce one single 
first class double gun-maker and ask him 
whether all of his guns shoot off centre 
— also to come out publicly and state that 
casting the stock “off” or “on” to rectify 
a defective shooting barrel is not too 
grotesque and absurd to merit serious 
consideration. 
Hoping Mr. Henry will pardon the 
nom de plume which I have used for 
almost forty years in writing to Amer- 
ica’s foremost sporting papers, and by 
which I am far more widely known 
than under my name, I again respect- 
fully subscribe myself, 
Gaucho. 
CONCERNING THE COTTONTAIL 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream : 
H aving found quite a little differ- 
ence of opinion among our local 
hunters regarding the habits of our 
Iowa wild rabbits or commonly called 
cottontails, I am writing to ask if you 
will kindly answer the following ques- 
tions through the columns of your paper: 
1. About what month do they usually 
start to breed? 
2. Where do they usually make their 
nests — in grass or brush, on high ground 
or in holes in the ground? Concerning 
this latter place, there has been some 
heavy argument. 
3. About how many litters of young 
do they have in one season? 
4. How old are the young before they 
are out and scurrying about for food? 
5. Just what causes the grub or hard 
knot sometimes found near the skin of 
our cottontails in the breeding season 
and nearly always found in Jack Rabbits 
at any season? 
E. E. W., DesMoines, la. 
Our correspondent has asked several 
questions about the natural history of 
cottontail rabbits tvhich we' will attempt 
to answer in so far as our available in^ 
fromation goes, with the idea that read- 
ers of Forest and Stream may be able 
to add to our knowledge of the subject. 
There are a number of races and spe- 
cies of cottaintails found in the United 
States, all very much alike and with sim- 
ilar habits. Technically they are all 
small hares and differ from the European 
ra.bbit, which is a burrowing animal, in 
that they make their, nest in grass or. 
brush on the surface of the ground. It ia 
true that cottontails sometimes enter bur- 
rows, and it would not surprise us to 
hear of a nest being found below ground, 
but so far we know of no such case. One 
first sees young cottontails out and scur- 
rying about, scarcely as large as a man’s 
fist, the beginning of May, and they are 
probably bom in April. The chances are 
that there is, at least sometimes, a second 
brood, but the very small ones are gen- 
erally seen only in the spring. A grub 
found under the skin of rabbits, especial- 
ly jack rabbits, but also cottontails, is 
the larva or maggot of a peculiar fly. 
One need not go so far from the For- 
est and Stream office as Iowa to find 
things about rabbits which are not well 
known. On Long Island, New York, 
there occur two distinct species of cot- 
tontails, but ^ve do not know whether 
both are generally distributed, whether 
one is more partial to woodland, and 
which is the more common. The skulls 
of the two are sufficiently unlike to be 
told apart, and if sportsmen who kill rab- 
bits on Long Island the present open sea- 
son ivill send their heads to the Natural 
History Editor of Forest and Stream, 
American Museum of Natural History, 
New York, vjith a statement of the exact 
locality and type of country where they 
were killed, ive ivill thereby get some in- 
teresting scientific information . — [Edit- 
ors.] 
LEAD POISONING IN 
WATERFOWL 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream : 
A FEW days ago I was handed copy 
of a professional paper of the De- 
partment of Agriculture, Bulletin No. 
793, contributed by the Bureau of Bi- 
ological Survey, and dated July 31, 1919. 
Its title is “Lead Poisoning in Water- 
fowl,” by Alexander Wetmore, Assistant 
Biologist. 
As I read over the pamphlet’s 12 pages 
its contents seemed familiar and a little 
effort of memory recalled an article in 
Forest and Stream of twenty or twenty- 
five years ago and then a book, American 
Duck Shooting. In the book I found 
copied the earlier account from Forest 
and Stream, which contains essentially 
all that the Biological Survey pamphlet 
has, though Mr. Wetmore has spread out 
his information very thin, taking a dozen 
pages to express what might have been 
said as well — or better— in four. 
Mr. Wetmore appears to regard him- 
self as the discoverer of these mysteries, 
though he gives credit to Mr. Bowles and 
Mr. McAtee for accounts of the trouble 
published in the Auk in 1008. Mr. Wet- 
more may not have known of the rather 
detailed account of lead poisoning given 
in Forest and Stream— perhaps in 1894 
