682 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Nov. 29, 1913. 
A Morning With The Long-Bills. 
By FRANK L. BAILEY. 
T HE sun was just rising when Frank and I 
shouldered our guns, scrambled up de¬ 
coys, and. set out for Paul’s Point. It 
had rained the night before, causing us no little 
anxiety; for fear Saturday morning would be a 
failure, but the Gun Gods were with us. The 
sun never smiled forth on a more beautiful morn¬ 
ing since Frank and I had helped put the little 
town of Harpswell on the map. 
Shaking our fists at the old schoolhouse as 
we trudeged past, we soon topped the rise of 
Lawson’s Hill; and by short-cutting arrived at 
the head of Stover’s Cove. The tide was nearly 
out, and far down toward the line of low-water 
mark we could see some dozen or fifteen sand- 
peep, running nimbly about on the flats. But the 
birds held no attraction for us that morning. 
We had a new set of brightly painted plover de¬ 
coys slung over our shoulders, and it was to be 
big game 01 nothing. 
Frank was shooting an old single 10-gauge— 
I’ve forgotten the make—and I was using my 
uncle’s 10-gauge double Remington. I know it 
was a pretty good stunt for me to hold it steady 
then, at the age of fourteen. 
In a little slough at the head of the cove, 
we jumped a Wilson snipe. We didn’t know 
what it was at the time; it didn’t matter—we 
missed it. 
Arriving at the salt water pond on the point, 
we found the tide suitable, water ankle-deep near 
the edges, with the depth increasing toward the 
center. I was wearing a pair of my grandfather’s 
rubber boots, so it fell to my lot to set out the 
decoys. This I did; in about three inches of 
water. A crippled lobster trap, decorated with 
plenty of dried seaweed, served for our blind, 
and we were ready. 
Lazy-winged gulls, the forerunners of ap¬ 
proaching autumn, sailed aimlessly here and 
there, yet in the air there was no hint of the 
lurking cooler weather, and the chic little mack¬ 
erel gulls, last sojourners of the season, darted 
swiftly about, taking their last farewells of the 
lingering summer. A soft blue haze settled 
around the distant wood-crested hills and cliffs 
of Harpswell Center, and farther up the bay; 
the wooded islands proclaimed their presence by 
the merest of blue dots and specks. 
Frank started up suddenly, grasping his gun. 
There was no cause for alarm, a solitary sand¬ 
piper had spotted the decoys, and I pulled my 
companion back beside me, while we Watched 
with interest, the little fellow’s antics. He would 
dart down, almost straight at the wooden birds, 
then with a swift, graceful upward curve; would 
shoot away a few yards, only to return and re¬ 
peat the performance. This he did several times, 
all the while uttering sharp cries, until he finally 
alighted near them in shoal water, and began 
feeding. Numerous others of the little fellows 
came; until we had quite a varied collection. “All 
the better,” Frank remarked; and I agreed that 
.a little life would only add to the picture, thus 
increasing our chances. We watched the birds 
for awhile, then the clear four-note call of a 
yellow-leg came to our ears. There were four 
of them, coming with long, swinging sweeps 
from the direction of Orr’s Island. In a moment 
they were crossing the rocky ridge that bordered 
the eastern shore of the pond, then they came 
straight on over marsh and water. It needed- 
no alluring call to entice them, they had seen 
ithe decoys from the first, and midst their flutter 
of wings we gave them three guns. All came 
down, but before we could get in fresh shells, 
one of them had struggled to wing, and was half 
flying, half dragging himself across the pond. 
Frank’s old cannon roared (I never saw a gun 
that could make so much noise) and the crippled 
bird gave up the struggle. Securing the trophies, 
we returned to the blind to await further develop¬ 
ments. A lone curlew was the next visitor. 
Frank said it was a “c’lew,” and dropped him in 
the same breath. 
Ten minutes later three summer yellow-legs 
swung over the decoys; and I succeeded in stop¬ 
ping one, while Frank bowled over another, the 
third escaping us both. Things were dull for 
awhile, and I told Frank to remain at the de¬ 
coys and I’d take a turn around the marsh. I 
jumped a snipe out of one of the mud holes; 
and missed him neatly with both barrels. It 
wasn’t an easy matter to swing that heavy io-bore 
on a darting and boring snipe. I had watched my 
bird, and saw him dive into a mud hole some 
hundred yards or so further on. Nearer and 
nearer I approached until I thought I must have 
made a mistake about his location, when zip! 
out he went with a “scaip,” not four feet from 
where I stood. A “swing” isn’t of much use on 
a flying “jack,” but I suppose I must have caught 
him on just the right wabble, for he doubled up 
with a jerk; and I hunted for five minutes be¬ 
fore I found him. 
Over in the blind, Frank had become tired 
of waiting for plover, and was amusing himself 
on single ringneck and peep. I looked at my 
snipe. I wasn't quite sure whether it was a jack- 
snipe or woodcock. We didn’t know much about 
such things, but judging from the locality, I con¬ 
cluded it was the former. Suddenly I perceived 
Frank waiving his arms at me, frantically. And 
at the same moment I heard the call of a black¬ 
breasted plover. Crouching in the grass, none 
too soon, I was rewarded by seeing five birds 
coming from the direction of Stover’s woods. 
Straight over my head they flew, at a distance of 
possibly seventy yards. I felt pretty sure that I 
could pull one or two out of the bunch, but I 
knew Frank would be cross enough to wing me 
if I tried it, so I refrained. My companion in 
the blind was whistling in a manner that would 
have done credit to an artist, when the leading 
bird shot downward, and in a thrice the others 
followed. I watched them make the fatal swoop, 
then came the roar. I never counted the number 
of shot in a io-bore charge of 8s, but there must 
be a lot of them. There was just one lone bird 
in the air after Frank touched off the old “kick¬ 
er,” and he had almost more than he could lug. 
Straight across the pond he came; and I was 
just centering him, when down he went with a 
splash. I was hoping that he’d get up again, but 
he lay still. Frank had made a clean scoop. I 
waded in and picked up the bird. I could not 
find a mark on him. Frank said afterward that 
he must have been scared to death. 
About ten o’clock we went down on the flats 
and dug a few clams. Cleaning these up nicely, 
we had a lunch. Raw clams are not bad if you 
like them. We were back in the blind; possibly 
twenty minutes when a single black-breast came 
to the decoys. I was over-anxious; and spoiled 
the whole thing, missing him clean with both 
barrels. Frank tried to down him and failed. 
An hour passed, and we fell to practicing on 
single peep. Finally becoming tired of this di¬ 
version, I waded into the water and pulled up 
the decoys, and slinging them over our shoulders, 
we started homeward, hungry and happy. 
Notes of a Casual Reader. 
It was an interesting little story that came to 
Forest and Stream from California, and was 
printed in the issue of November 15, about “a 
wildcat’s faithfulness to its dead mate.” But 
when one thought it over, the facts seemed inade¬ 
quate to the sentimental theory. There were two 
cats—yes; and they were together—-yes; but what 
evidence is presented that they were sexual 
mates? For that is what the narrative implies. 
In my opinion, none at all. It is quite as likely 
the two cats were fully grown young; and .that 
the following of the blood-trail was mere animal 
curiosity, fearless because the surviving cat was 
ignorant of what had really happened, and inno¬ 
cent of acquaintance with man and his destruc¬ 
tiveness. This is poorer romance, but it is better 
natural history. 
It pained me to read in a recent issue of 
The Game Breeder, a harsh, and even ill-natured, 
notice of Dr. William T. Hornaday’s book, “Our 
Vanishing Wild Life,” dismissing it with a sneer, 
as if its whole purpose was to scold careless 
folks for leaving litter about the grounds of Zo¬ 
ological Park. That simply suggests the tu- 
qnoque retort. It may be true that Mr. Horna- 
day, in his earnestness, has been somewhat in¬ 
considerate of the demands of the game-breeders 
for an exception in their favor in the laws 
prohibiting the marketing of game; but have 
they not been rather selfishly obdurate as to 
admitting any value in the arguments on the 
other side? This game-breeding movement is 
as yet largely experimental, at least so far as 
its relations to the public and the market are 
concerned; and its attitude toward the effort to 
safeguard our wild-life—always hateful to selfish 
gunners—may be misunderstood if its spokesmen 
are not careful. 
An autumn festival in ruial Great Britain 
which it would seem might be imitated to advan¬ 
tage in this country, is the plowing-match. It 
occurs during October in all parts of the United 
Kingdom, and is looked forward to and par¬ 
ticipated in with keen relish by farmers and their 
helpers, and is reflected in a steady improvement 
in workmanship under the stimulus of rivalry 
and example. The competitions are not wholly 
restricted to plowing, but are extended to a great 
many kinds of farm operations, such as hedging, 
thatching, rick-making, straw-tying, and the like. 
There are fewer of these personal tasks of skill 
in American than in British agriculture, but 
enough lines of work to make such contests both 
enjoyable and profitable here. 
A mysterious and often fatal disease in the 
West is the spotted fever, which is especially 
prevalent in western Montana, and in some 
places, as the Bitterroot National Forest, con¬ 
stitutes a real menace to both man and beast. 
Surgeon McClintic, of the Public Health Service, 
died last year of spotted fever contracted during 
his study of the disease and its control. He and 
others discovered that it was due to germs which 
were spread by ticks known as Dermacentor 
andersoni, which seek to attach themselves to 
animals in order to suck their blood; if one of 
these has previously taken the blood of a fever¬ 
ish animal it will communicate the disease-germs 
it contains to the next animal it attacks. These 
ticks are enormously abundant in western Mon¬ 
tana, and are especially fond of clinging to do¬ 
mestic animals. The attempt is now being made 
to capture them in great quantities by pasturing 
large flocks of sheep on the National reserve. 
Thousands of ticks will attach themselves to the 
sheep, which from time to time will be with¬ 
drawn and dipped in a liquid that will kill all 
the ticks without injuring the sheep. It is ex¬ 
pected that after a time the ticks will be so re¬ 
duced in number that they will no longer be a se¬ 
rious danger to the livestock of the region and to 
their owners. BINOCULAR. 
