April 19, 1913 
FOREST AND STREAM 
497 
men then started to run, but the deputy, al¬ 
though seriously wounded, rose from the ground, 
pulled out his own weapon and shot both men. 
George Le Cornec has since died and his brother 
is in a serious condition. 
The “Plum Pud’n” Bird. 
One of our most peculiar birds is the 
American bittern, which is a summer visitor, 
remaining with us from April to October. This 
bird is by no means common, and if one is in 
the neighborhood, you will know it by the 
peculiar call of “pump-er-lunk, pump-er-lunk, 
pump-er-lunk,” or by its other call which re¬ 
sembles the noise made by driving a stake into 
the mud. Because of the latter call, the bittern 
is often called the stake driver, and the name 
is a good one, and because of a fancied inter¬ 
pretation of the first call, the bittern is often 
spoken of in the country as the “plum pud’n’ 
bird.’’ This cry is also referred to as the pump¬ 
ing call, because it does so nearly imitate the 
noise of an old-fashioned wooden pump when 
water comes hard. There is one more very odd 
characteristic this bittern has in uttering its cries. 
The head and neck go through such convulsions 
that one really wonders whether or not the bird 
is choking to death. One author, Bradford 
Torrey, who is one of the very few ornitholo¬ 
gists who has seen this bird when it is calling, 
says that the contortions are very suggestive of 
those of a person who is very violently seasick. 
Edward H. Forbush, in his book, “Useful 
Birds and Their Protection,” says that this 
American bittern is the most useful of the 
herons, as it frequents low fields and pastures 
and destroys many grasshoppers and other 
orthoptera. But it does this in a skulking sort 
of way, because it is one of the most shy birds 
we have, seeking cover bj' preference and not 
rising to fly in sight of anybody except when 
hard pressed. It stays in marshy grounds, seldom 
flying into trees; even its nest is built in the bog 
land. It is rather attractive in appearance, brown 
in general color, the under part of the neck being 
of mottled white and brown, while along the side 
of the neck is a distinguishing mark or streak 
of black. Many long feathers dangle, pendant 
like, from the head and neck. It is about half 
as tall as the blue heron, but more bulky and 
awkward in flight. 
Who Knows How to Make Bird Lime? 
Boston, Mass., April 7. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: Plow do you make it, or where can 
one get it? I’m peeved at some dratted British¬ 
ers — sparrows that are fussing my bluebirds and 
are impudent when I object. I want to get them 
within reach and say a few kind words to them 
myself. Don’t say, “Try bird stores and drug¬ 
gists,” for I've done that already. Nobody in 
Boston seems to know. So I turn to you. 
Doesn’t Hornaday know? When he has an ele¬ 
phant or a brass monkey to catch, or other bird 
—perhaps he is wise to this. Please ask him. 
John Preston True. 
Tell the public what you have to sell. 
They’ll buy, if you tell them why they should in 
the columns of Forest and Stream. 
Getting Out the Tackle. 
Hendersonville, N. C., April 8. —Editor 
Forest and Stream: There seems to be quite 
an improvement in our county game laws so far 
as the open season goes. Partridges (quail) 
open season, Nov. 15 to Jan. 15. In regard to 
the dog law, if I am rightly informed, dogs 
(pointers and setters) can run at large all the 
year now, as well as the hound and cur, and 
so in the eyes of the law (last year’s law) are 
raised to the latter’s level. It appears, too, that 
the tax on dogs is removed—a big mistake in 
my humble judgment. It would better have been 
doubled. It was $i for a dog and $2 for a 
bitch. Thus do we change every two years 
under our unwise county system. It is always 
likely to be one extreme or another. 
Well, we are through with dogs, rifles and 
guns, and have overhauled our fishing tackle, and 
are ready for the trout streams. In fact, last 
Thursday I drove with a friend fourteen miles 
to have a cast or so for the rainbow trout. We 
left at six in the morning and put the horse up 
at a farmhouse on the bank at Green River. 
But the wind got up before 9 a. m., at which 
hour we stepped into the water, and it was cold, 
too. I had a seven-inch trout in a few minutes, 
then never a rise again till mid-day. My good 
wife had instructed me to bring some trout 
home, and so, knowing the water was cold, I 
took some garden hackle along, also spoon, bait 
and pork rind. The rainbows refused both baits, 
and so I had the best possible excuse to return 
to my flies, and this I gladly did. 
The wind was against me as I waded up 
stream, and very difficult to place the flies just 
as I wished. Finally I started back down stream 
to join my friend for a simple lunch of sand¬ 
wiches and hot coffee—the latter in a Thermos 
jar—and I remembered reading but a few days 
before the advice of an up-to-date angler, “Never 
draw your flies up-stream against the current.” 
So just that very thing I proceeded to do, for 
had I not caught many trout that way before? 
Almost immediately I had a rise, and during 
the afternoon I added nine more rainbows to 
my creel and lost more than half a dozen more. 
They seemed to strike in a half-hearted way, not 
taking well the fly, and so were not well hooked. 
I have very often taken rainbow trout drawing 
my flies against the current when they refused 
it otherwise, but as a rule take my largest fish 
casting up-stream, and letting the flies come 
down with it. 
I suppose if a trout reasons at all, it is in 
this wise: “That is a lively insect going up¬ 
stream that way; I must have a try at it.” A 
big fellow might put it this way: “No small 
insect has the strength to go up-stream that way, 
so I will just let one of these younger fish in¬ 
vestigate it,” and so he stays under his rock, or 
the creek bank, and lets the other gain experi¬ 
ence—experience which perchance he acquired as 
a youngster which some other big fellow let him 
gain several years before. At any rate, I know 
that brook trout and rainbow trout will both 
take flies properly brought to their attention, 
drawn up-stream at times, and I have caught 
them so when the same flies were offered them 
THE LAST SWISH OF A BIG FELLOW. 
