July 13, 1912 
FOREST AND STREAM 
41 
the combustible remains of the pseudo corpse 
lay in smoldering ashes. 
Not infrequently the doomed sportsman as¬ 
sists at his own execution, and he is seldom seen 
in the field thereafter. He knows he is a marked 
man and the first train available generally hur¬ 
ries him back to town. 
A day that will ever remain a vivid memory 
to me was that memorable May 4th, on which 
Scorzone established his extraordinary record of 
342 birds, probably the greatest flight day ever 
witnessed in Central Italy. 
To an ugly night of storm followed a dawn 
wet, chilly and blowy. We rose as usual at 
break of day, but one look outside was enough 
to send us back to bed. Even enthusiasm has 
its limitations. We had not been long under 
covers, however, when the sound of shooting 
toward Nettuno began to reach us, and it soon 
became so insistent that it caused us to dress 
hastily and prepare for the fray. 
The morning was gray and dark. A blus¬ 
tering wind blew in angry puffs from the south 
and rain fell in torrents. It was the very nega¬ 
tion of a pass day. Nevertheless we had hardly 
poked our noses outside the door when a regu¬ 
lar cloud of birds, several hundred in all, prob¬ 
ably swept by with the speed of a cyclone and 
were soon lost in the mist. 
With a concerted movement every gun w'as 
broken and shells inserted, but even before we 
had had time to look, another big flock whizzed 
by, and from that moment until nightfall the 
barrels of our shooting pieces hardly had chance 
to grow cold. 
It was not sport; it was plain butchery. Yet 
such an opportunity occurs but once in a life 
time, and the man must be forgiven who, in the 
craze of attaining a record, loses for a while all 
sense of moderation and kills for the sake of 
number. It is wrong; it is most reprehensible, 
but it is human nature. 
That day I saw more than one. whose fine 
sportsmanship was a byword, go stark mad with 
fever of slaughter. The spirit of rivalry seemed 
paramount in every breast. It was bitter com¬ 
petition instead of sport. 
Drenched to the skin, unmindful of hunger, 
fatigue and discomfort, everyone hunted from 
dawn to dusk. We four tramped all day in a 
circle, with the lodge as our meeting point, but 
we paused there only long enough to leave our 
birds, change dogs, get more cartridges and gulp 
down a glass of wine. 
At night came the reaction. Famished, ex¬ 
hausted and aching in every bone we sat down 
to survey the day’s catch, and gazing on the 
mound of dead, now an ugly mess of wet feath¬ 
ers, gore and sand, we felt the blush of shame 
rise to our temples. But it was done; the kill 
had passed into history; it was too late to regret. 
And this was the one and only black mark 
of the season. Usually there was no attempt 
to excel; on the contrary I have often seen an 
old-timer insist on giving first shot to a less ex¬ 
perienced companion whenever chance permitted. 
Bags ranging from ten to thirty birds were 
the rule throughout May, but four or five times 
over fifty went to every gun. 
Alarmists are constantly crying out that the 
European quail is being decimated by the spring 
shooting in Italy, and that it will soon become 
extinct. But there is no immediate danger of 
it. The wise action of the authorities in for¬ 
bidding the use of nets, one prevalent from 
Tuscany to Sicily, and in confining the shooting 
to one kilometer from shore, has done much to 
preserve the specie, and the supply does not seem 
to diminish very rapidly. Doubtless good sport 
will be enjoyed by Italians at the seaside for 
many years to come. 
Dog Sledding in the Wilds 
By ARTHUR SANTMIER 
A Missionary’s Trip in Mid-Winter—The Traits of the Dogs—Equipment—An Indian Feast 
W ITH a jingle of the bells, the crack of 
the whip and the explosive command, 
“Marche Bob,’’ we were off on the trip 
to faraway Norway House. It was in the depths 
of a sub-arctic winter and Norway House lay 
distant 200 miles. At the time I was laboring 
as a missionary at God’s Lake, a remote post 
of the great Hudson’s Bay region. Owing to an 
early freeze-up, my goods had been delayed at 
the foot of Lake Winnipeg, and this rendered 
necessary the long trip by dog train. 
The dog is the beast of burden of the North. 
Where no horse could go, and where no other 
draught animal could survive, the faithful dog 
does double duty as a hauling dog and as a 
companion to man. Travelers are wont to say 
that the dog is by far the best company one 
could well have. He is loving, patient, uncom¬ 
plaining and faithful unto death. 
The sled dog is a mixture of several breeds. 
He has at last become a mongrel. He pulls well, 
endures starvation without complaint, is unmer¬ 
cifully beaten and otherwise abused by. his In¬ 
dian master, and finally when his services are no 
longer required, he is turned loose to shift for 
himself. In company with three or four of his 
kindred he is harnessed to a flat sled or toboggan 
and together they haul a load of three or four 
hundred pounds twenty-five to sixty miles a 
day, depending upon the condition of the trail, 
the state of the weather and the degree of 
strength of the dogs. 
On this journey I had a team of four, a set 
Photographs by the Author. 
of “web’’ harness and a very poor sled. My 
leader, “Bob,” was a large, black dog of great 
intelligence and strength. His comrade of simi¬ 
lar build and color was named “Cariboo.” Cari¬ 
boo was a first-class sled dog, but a constant 
fighter. He was either being lamed or laming 
some other dog at every opportunity. “Carlo” 
was a runaway. He was a long-haired red or 
yellow animal with small body and heavy fur. 
He did not haul well and had to be watched all 
the time to prevent his running away. “Cubre” 
was a “Husky” or Eskimo puppy, but ten months 
of age and gave promise of a brilliant future as 
sled dogs go. 
I started alone, but found that I might have 
company if I so desired, for an Indian by the 
name of Namavgoose was going as far. as Ox¬ 
ford House with a boy to run ahead of the dogs. 
FEEDING THE DOGS. 
