174 
FOREST AND STREAM 
February 7, 1914. 
retrieve. It will generally be found that the tem¬ 
perament of a setter is extra good, and that he 
will take a hiding and not sulk over it. He is 
a good dog of wonderful sense, and I have found 
him 'to become quickly cognizant of anything that 
is harmful. A case in point: An English set¬ 
ter bitch I used to shoot over a great deal in 
Africa—her name was Bess—had a holy horror 
of snakes. They were mostly of the dangerous 
kind, and she knew it. There were a lot of the 
deadly puff adders about, and as soon as she got 
near one she would come back to me with an 
abject look of terror on her countenance and 
her tail between her legs. There were many 
snakes in the trees or thick thorn bushes at the 
bases of the mountains, and every now and 
then she’d glance upward, and turn back. There 
was the snake on the branch. She was also 
afraid of the African monitor, an iguana-like 
creature, and one day I found her actually hyp¬ 
notized by a snake. It was in very thick brush 
and we were after anything, guinea fowl in par¬ 
ticular. I knew there were Some partridges about 
for I had noticed droppings. It was about noon, 
and then the partridges would be dusting them¬ 
selves in the dry and sandy river bed which led 
up to the Stormberg, Cape Colony. Bess was 
lost, and I thought she was on the birds. Quietly 
I crept up to what was during the rainy season 
a rushing water course. And there was Bess 
and a snake—the snake poised and his hood out, 
cobra-fashion. They were about ten feet apart. 
The snake saw me first and turned to clear away, 
but he was stopped. Poor Bess! I’ll never for¬ 
get her-—she turned and slouched up to me with 
a look of gratitude that was almost human. She 
had got too far that time, but she was ever after 
all the more careful and would immediately si¬ 
lently warn us of anything uncanny and danger¬ 
ous of the serpent kind. 
Mr. Laverack was over seventy-three years of 
age when, in 1872, he was prevailed on to write 
something about the variety of breed of the setter 
for which he was so noted. At last the book 
was published and dedicated to “R. L. Purcell 
Llewellin, Esq., of Tregwynt, Letterstone, Pem¬ 
brokeshire, South Wales, who has endeavored, 
and stall is endeavoring, and sparing neither ex¬ 
pense or trouble, to bring perfection to the ‘set¬ 
ter.’ ” It is known everywhere that the Llewellin 
setters are more than popular in the United 
States and there must be every kind of sympathy 
existing between the owners of the setters of to¬ 
day and the good and gone sportsmen of yester¬ 
day. 
Mr. Laverack said that he had run dogs of his 
breed for three weeks daily, from 9 a. m. to 7 
p. m. So highly thought of were they by the 
Marquis of Breadalbane that every setter in his 
kennels at Taymouth Castle, Perthshire, con¬ 
sisted solely of this breed; he would have no 
other. These are Laverack’s own words. 
The strain was also at Inverary Castle, Argyle- 
shire, the seat of the late Duke of Argyle [Lave¬ 
rack wrote in 1872] and held in great estimation 
by him. At the same time there were black and 
tans (Gordons) in the kennels, but the blues were 
preferred. The late Marquis of Bute, of Roth- 
say Castle, had also the same blood as well as the 
late Duke of Northumberland, Mr. Ramsey, of 
White Hill, near Edinburgh, and others. 
“The breed was known many years ago,” says 
Laverack, “through Cumberland, Northumberland, 
and the border counties. I introduced it into 
Perthshire, Badenock, Strathspey, Caithness, the 
Isle of Ismay, and the north of Ireland, where I 
have rented shootings for the last forty-seven 
years. * * * I may say it has taken me a 
lifetime (being as I have said over seventy-three 
years of age) to retain and keep perfect this 
breed.” 
The beautiful colorization of the English set¬ 
ter has before been noticed and it will be inter¬ 
esting to read that Mr. Laverack described the 
color as follows: Color black, or blue and white 
ticked; coat long, soft and silky in texture; 
eyes, soft, mild and intelligent; of a dark hazel 
color. 
Surely there can be nothing more beautiful 
than to watch a bird dog work; and if he be a 
real one he is the soul of good nature, and al¬ 
though it must be a terrible trial for him to see 
the other dog get the point — there he is, down 
and backing with all the precision of some 
human machine trained in the hardest and strict¬ 
est school of discipline. Dogs working are won¬ 
derful creatures, and a supreme demonstration 
of what may be accomplished between man and 
his domesticated animals. What sorry fools we 
would be without a dog to find for us that which 
we would kill by the aid of the gun; and how 
well the bird dog knows that the fowling piece 
with the man behind it is the implement of de¬ 
struction and not he — the dog. 
D EER hunting in the big woods of northern 
Maine is not without its dangers. To be 
sure there are not the perils of malaria, 
poisonous insects and deadly reptiles that one 
meets in the wilds of Africa; or the dangers 
of a hand to hand encounter with the fierce 
grizzly of the Rockies, but there is a more 
subtle danger which claims a heavy toll of hu¬ 
man life each season, and that is the stray bul¬ 
let from the rifle of another hunter. Hundreds 
of fatalities have occurred during the past few 
years, and each recurring accident of this kind 
of which I read brings vividly before me an 
incident that occurred in the fall of 1912. 
It was on September 30th of that year that 
a party of four of us went into camp on the 
shore of a small pond some eighteen miles north¬ 
east of Moosehead Lake, right in the heart of 
the big game country, where we hoped to find 
deer and bear very plentiful. We were not 
disappointed in finding the game, and but for 
the incident above referred to, it would have 
been one of the best of my hunting trips. We 
did not take a guide that fall, as one of our 
party, Bob, had been at the camp three years 
before and had a fair knowledge of the sur¬ 
rounding country, and we all agreed that for 
genuine sport there is nothing like a still hunt 
alone in the big forest where one feels that he 
is “Lord of all he surveys.” 
The morning after our arrival at camp dawned 
clear and crisp, and on the low lands around 
the pond the frost showed white and glistening 
on the bay-berry and huckleberry bushes, while 
the few swamp maples that had not yet shed 
their leaves were a blaze of red and orange. 
On the densely wooded hillsides the foliage of 
the beech and birch was at its best, and though 
rather dense for good hunting it lent an added 
pleasure to the trip. 
This was the kind of autumn air that puts 
new life in one’s system, and we were all astir 
before daylight, and after a hearty breakfast 
were ready for our first day’s hunt. After some 
debate it was decided that three of us should 
start in different directions, leaving the fourth 
to remain near camp and prepare supper, as we 
each expected to return about sunset. I chose 
a course following an old tote road easterly 
along the base of a high hill, which Bob had 
It must be said that Mr. Laverack was not in¬ 
clined toward the heavy-headed dog, and of the 
heavy-headed dogs he probably referred to the 
old-fashioned Gordon setters which had big, thick 
heads, and not of that kind calculated to run 
With their heads up. They would probably take 
more after the heavier kind of hound, such as the 
bloodhound and given to slobber and dwell upon 
the scent. It will be found generally that the 
setters put down in the field trials of America to¬ 
day are less lippy than the dogs we see on the 
show benches, or rather in the judging rings. 
The field dogs have hardly the length of head, 
width, with length of skull, and the deep, scent¬ 
ing fore-face of the show setter. It may or may 
not be that a more lathy, rangy setter is required 
in this country, where game is not plentiful. 
It is quite another matter in the British Isles 
where in many instances the fields are small and 
the very wide ranging dog is not required. He 
has to beat his field, and game is more or less 
plentiful. So it can be well understood that the 
(Continued on page 170.) 
told me came out at an old logging camp some 
six miles farther in. This road followed a break 
in the forest between the growth of cedar and 
hackmatack in the swamp and the birch, beech 
and poplar farther up the hillside. 
I had walked leisurely along the trail, stop¬ 
ping at frequent intervals to examine a fresh 
deer-track, and at one place where a spring 
gushed out from beneath a huge boulder and 
formed a little “run” across the trail, I plainly 
saw the tracks of a large bear and two cubs. 
This sent a tingle of excitement through my 
veins, and I went cautiously forward, keeping 
my eyes well open and ears strained to catch 
any sight or sound of game ahead. I had 
reached a point some three miles from camp 
and was just rounding a sharp turn in the trail 
when I suddenly heard a heavy rustling and 
scratching sound as if some animal leaping over 
the leaves and rocks up the steep rocky bluff 
at my left. Instinctively I thought of the bear, 
whose tracks I had seen, and glancing up caught 
sight of a head just showing over a ledge at 
the crest of the bluff. In an instant I had 
brought my rifle to my shoulder and fired, know¬ 
ing that the animal was “game” whatever it 
was, and with a heavy thud the carcass fell 
over the ledge and rolled down half-way to 
where I stood. I was chagrined to find that my 
bear was only a big wild cat; but he was a 
beauty, and after looking him over I decided 
that it was useless to carry the heavy carcass 
back to camp, and seeing a large boulder lying 
close beside the trail that offered a good seat 
I sat down to remove his pelt, laying my rifle 
down without thinking that within the next few 
moments I would need it; perhaps the most of 
any moment in my life. 
I had nearly finished skinning the lynx when 
I heard a light rustling of the leaves farther 
up the trail, and a moment later there appeared 
about seventy-five yards away the head and 
shoulders of as fine an eight-point buck as I 
ever saw. He stepped out of the cedar growth 
and stood looking intently at me, with ears 
twitching nervously and ready in an instant to 
bound away into the brush. 
Keeping my eyes on the buck I reached for 
my rifle, but alas! it lay about six feet away 
and just beyond my reach. With one longing 
“A Close Call” 
A Story of the Maine Woods 
