July 8, 1911.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
45 
way along out of the intricate maze of this great 
“mash,” and Felice would have finished our 
whiskey in anxious anticipation of our return. 
Later on we allowed Salvatoro to take his gun 
for the evening flighting, and, sitting back to back 
in the punt, hauled up on a ciump of reeds, we 
imitated his distress whenever we fired and fai.ed 
to stop the low-flying duck and teal. This pan¬ 
tomime had the desired effect. He kept his 
peace the following d^y, and preserved a digni¬ 
fied silence which increased our own skill amaz¬ 
ingly. 
All the pensioners, pricked fowl and cripples 
find their way out to the edges of the Pontana 
if their strength enables them to get there, when 
they pick up a living in the open water and 
paddle in to the long rushes when danger is at 
hand. The best sport we had was obtained by 
wading slowly and silently round these bays. 
Most of the snipe, driven by flood out of their 
proper feeding grounds, sought a resting place 
on the dry tufts of rushes sticking up here and 
there from deep water. The noise made by our 
splashing caused them to rise very wild, but 
wheeling round high overhead they would re¬ 
turn head to wind to drop in again, and a 
rocketing shot thus afforded us many an easy 
chance. One evening at sunset, in less than half 
an hour and ciose by the farm, we ki led in five 
successive shots along the edges of the reeds a 
pochard, a jack snipe, a pintail, a teal and a 
full snipe, and gathered all but the last, which 
was dropped into thick brushwood in the dark 
and was not recovered until daybreak next 
morning. 
A nice strip of snipe land lies between the 
Pontana and the sea, just inside the long stretch 
of sand dunes that extend to Catania City, 
visible to the north. Poached by the feet of 
horses and not flooded out, as was the neighbor¬ 
ing Pontana, birds lay well in the lupin covert 
and rose fairly within shot. Wading for hours 
in deep water just verging on freezing point be¬ 
comes tiresome and monotonous, to say nothing 
of the discomfort of such labor for small re¬ 
sult. Having postponed our departure on the 
bare chance of a change of weather, it was hard 
lines that a sharp frost and easterly wind should 
have set in the very day before we left, giving 
a sample of what the sport should have been in 
these marshes in really rough weather. 
What can be more exhilarating to a keen hand 
than to judge the speed of the fowl with nicety 
and precision in the still hours of the gloam¬ 
ing, and bring down mallard, widgeon, pintail, 
pochard, teal, shoveller and snipe out of the 
sky into the silent pool below? This sport ap¬ 
peals to one’s fancy more than any other form 
of shooting. There is just that soupgon of wild 
solitude about the surroundings, that sensation 
of satisfaction and expectancy, when birds can 
be heard and not seen, tinged with the weird 
uncertainty of the sport that keeps the blood in 
a glow throughout the coldest night and renders 
it one of the most charming and attractive sports 
that a man can indulge in. Garganey or gad- 
wall we never saw. Sheldrake prefer foul feed¬ 
ing on the shore to the sw r eet waters or an in¬ 
land lagoon like the Pontana. Geese only seek 
refuge there in February. 
Though the charges are extortionate, the peo¬ 
ple thieves and robbers of the first order, yet 
the place is worthy of its hire in stormy cold 
weather, and we cannot do better than advise 
those weary of the dissipations of a Malta sea¬ 
son to go and try it. If the sport at Pontana 
is unsatisfactory, guns can be sent back by the 
guide to Syracuse, and a trip up Mount Etna, 
Monte Rossa, or even on to Taormina, Girgenti, 
or Palermo will well repay the sightseer. The 
scenery of Sicily^ is unsurpassed, and is too well 
known to be damned with faint praise in this 
account of it. There is no sport elsewhere on 
the is'and. The great Baviere beyond Lentini, 
to the west of the line, is too open and too deep 
for sport. The marshes at Syracuse have been 
all recently drained, so no time need be wasted 
there. Lemon groves, lava streams and unclean 
villages are the leading marks left on our 
memory. But the ancient associations—histori¬ 
cal, mythological and legendary — are still the 
greatest treasure possessed by the picturesque 
peasantry of this modern Trinacria. 
Our total bag for five days (two guns) was 
ninety-five head—mallard, widgeon, teal, shovel¬ 
ler, scoter, pintail, pochard, coot, waterhen, pur¬ 
ple gallinule, snipe, jacksnipe, plover (golden, 
gray and green), pigeon, redshank and rabbit.— 
The Field. 
ONE WAY TO HUNT BEARS. 
There are three ways for a tenderfoot to go 
hunting in the Rockies. The first is to hire one 
or several professional guides, whose advertise¬ 
ments you can find in the sporting papers. They 
will furnish horses and dogs and take care of 
the commissary department, and all you have to 
do is do as they tell you and shoot straight, and 
you whl get the game. To keep such an outfit 
wiil cost about $25 a day. 
The second way is to get acquainted with 
native ' hunters, and after having established 
friendly relations in the usual way, propose a 
hunting trip, the expense of which you will bear. 
It will not amount to a tenth of the cost that 
hiring a professional would involve. 
The third and cheapest way is to find Out 
where the game is and to go there on your own 
hook and profit by experience. That is the best 
way and the most entertaining. 
Last year a party of three went bear hunting 
in the La Plata Mountains. They camped along 
a beautiful trout brook in a canon and found 
fresh bear signs the first day, bears having 
killed two cows about three miles from the camp. 
They built a blind on a convenient spot from 
where they could assassinate bruin at his supper, 
and waited patiently for a whole week for his 
appearance. Do not imagine that the waiting 
was tedious. The scenery was unsurpassably 
magnificent; in front was one of those parks 
for which Colorado is famous, and beyond, ten 
miles away, were the cliffs of Mancos. Behind 
the camp was a mass of fresh green trees 
through whose tops could be seen the blue sky 
embroidered with the ragged silver peaks of La 
Plata Mountains, tinted golden and pink like a 
Marechal Niel rose by the setting sun. 
“Here he comes!” whispers a member of the 
party, but it sounds like the trumpet of judg¬ 
ment day. 
All three get ready for action as the big brown 
bear comes lumbering down the slight incline to¬ 
ward the carcass about seventy-five yards away. 
A whispered one, two, three; the hunters fire like 
one man, and the bear as if shot from a cata¬ 
pult disappears in the bushes. 
A minute later they find him there dead. He 
looks the size of a St. Bernard dog now, while 
a minute ago he looked as big as a horse, but 
he weighs a good 400 pounds. So the hunters 
tumble back to camp down the steep side of the 
canon as happy as mortals can be.—The Sun. 
REFORESTATION IN GERMAN CHINA. 
Tsingtau is an example of the possibilities of 
afforestation. Its growing forests and experi¬ 
mental gardens are an oasis in China. 
Consul J. C. McNally, of Tsingtau, says that 
during 1911 it is planned to reforest the 
“Wushan,” an adjoining mountain; 28,900 pounds 
of oak seed will be planted. In the near future 
2,600 pounds of acacia seeds and 20,000 saplings 
of mulberry bushes will be distributed through¬ 
out the various villages in the Kiaochow region 
to encourage the reforesting of surrounding hills. 
Each village will be supplied with several hun¬ 
dred saplings for boundary lines between lands, 
the object being to encourage the silk industry. 
Later on young silkworms raised at Litsun 
(Kiaochow) last year will be distributed for fur¬ 
ther experiments. 
CAUGHT 1,000-POUND STURGEON. 
Clyde Leiser recently captured a record-break¬ 
ing sturgeon in the Columbia River. The fish 
weighed 1,000 pounds and measured ten feet and 
five inches in length. 
Leiser landed the sturgeon single handed. The 
season opened at noon recently and the big one 
was the fisherman's first catch. The fish fought 
for several hours. Tt is said to be the largest 
sturgeon caught in the Columbia since pioneer 
days.—Portland Oregonian. 
11 Dealers 
San Francisco, Cal 
Agent* 
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Book Exchange. 
Advertisements of old books which are out of print, 
or of second-hand books, for sale, exchange or wanted, 
will be inserted in Forest and Stream at 20 cents a line. 
There are about 7 words to the line, and 14 agate line* 
to the inch. 
YACHT AND IlOAT SAILING— By the late Dixon 
Kemp; 10th edition; published 1904. We have a copy in 
fairly good condition, published at $12, which we will 
sell for $9.00. 
Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
WANTED.—A good copy in original binding of “Wah 
to Yah; or the Taos Trail,” by L. H. Garrard, Cin¬ 
cinnati. 1850. Address, with description and price: 
A. READER, care Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
SPOUT INDEED —By Thomas Martindale, with illus¬ 
trations from photographs by the author. Price, $1.25. 
Address X. Y., care Forest and Stream. 
OUR FANCY PIGEONS, and Rambling Notes of a 
Naturalist. By Geo. Ure. Published 1886. Cover soiled. 
Price, $1.25. Sale price, 60 cents. Address Box 27, care 
Forest and Stream Pub. Co. 
THE BOY DUCK HUNTERS— By Frank E. Kellogg. 
Illustrated by J. W. Kennedy, and reproductions of 
Audubon plates, published 1900. In good condition. 
Price, $1.00. Address “Z.,” care Forest and Stream 
Pub. Co. 
WANTED. 
Coues’ Furbearing Animals, Washington, D. C. 
Caton’s Antelope and Deer of America. 
Schultz —My Life as an Indian. 
Apply, with price, W. G. D., care Forest and Stream 
Publishing Company. 
A few shop-worn, soiled cover and slightly 
damaged books. 
Regular Sale 
Price. Price 
Gun and Its Development —Greener, 8th ed.4.00 3.00 
Indian Club Swinging —Miller. 1.00 .6{ 
Man from Corpus Christ!. 1.50 .75 
Supplement to Small Yachts. 4.00 1.9C 
Modern Dogs (Terrier)—By Rawdon B. Lee 
1896 edition . 5.00 3.55 
Modern Dogs (Non-Sporting)—By Rawdon 
B. Lee. 1894 edition. 5.00 3.5C 
Modern Dogs (Sporting)—By Rawdon B. 
Lee. 1893 edition. 5.00 3.5( 
FOREST AND STREAM PUBLISHING CO. 
127 Franklin St., New York. 
Manual of the Canvas Canoe 
By F. R. WEBB 
In a thoroughly interesting and readily understood 
manner it tells how to build cruise and live in a canvas 
canoe. Contents—Practical Construction, Cost, Specifica¬ 
tions, Plans and Patterns, Putting on the Canvas, Paint¬ 
ing, Finishing, Camp Equipment, Camp Cookery, Cruis¬ 
ing and Camping, Plans and Working Drawings. Cloth, 
illustrated. Postpaid, $1.25. 
FOREST AND STREAM PUBLISHING CO. 
Canvas Canoes and How to Build Them 
By PARKER B. FIELD 
The book gives very precise instructions by which a 
man with ordinary mechanical bent may build a service¬ 
able canoe at slight cost—a plan and all working direc¬ 
tions. Paper, 50 cents. 
FOREST AND STREAM PUBLISHING CO. 
