FOREST AND STREAM 
45 
Gunning on the South Shore 
Relating Queer Antics of a Wounded Goose 
By Sandy Griswold. 
A reader of Forest and Stream, ’way down on 
the South Shore, and who should know as much 
about the subject as I do, writes me to know what 
I think about this, and sends the following clip¬ 
ping : 
“A couple of Patchogue, who were down the 
old south bay gunning last spring, 1913, had a 
strange experience with a wounded goose. A 
flock came along and when fired upon, one of the 
birds was hit and dropped several feet. The 
others in the flock swooped down also and 
formed a support under the wounded goose. As 
the geese went from sight the companions could 
be seen flying beneath the injured one to keep it 
from dropping to the earth. 
“Other hunters report similar circumstances. 
An instance is given where a bird was wounded 
and its companions were seen to apparently carry 
it along for half a mile. The goose was then per¬ 
mitted to fall, and when the hunters reached the 
long distance traveler it was dead. 
“The specimen was a male, and while looking 
at the bird the hunters noticed that one of the 
flock turned back and flew about over where the 
wounded one had fallen. The bird high in the 
air was a female and evidently came back 
through sympathy for its departed mate.” 
My Patchogue correspondent, who, by the way, 
is a former Council Bluffs, la., sportsman, com¬ 
pliments me by adding that he enjoys my ducking 
stories better than those of any writer he had 
ever been familiar with, not even Joe Lang, of 
sacred memory. He says that the article pub¬ 
lished under my name in the Forest and Stream 
a year or so ago, about the mystery of the wedge- 
shape flight of the wild geese, was the most in¬ 
teresting article he ever read, and I guess that is 
“purty” pleasing news, anyway. 
In answering Mr. Swanson’s query as to the 
credibility of the above incident, I would say that 
I have frequently seen wild geese return to a 
wounded companion, who was still able to keep 
in the air, and fly alongside of it as if trying to 
encourage the afflicted bird to keep up its effort 
for life, but have never known of any real as¬ 
sistance they were enabled to extend, other than 
by the effect of their presence, in sustaining the 
wounded one on in its hopeless flight. It is also 
a common thing to see several members of a flock 
return to a fallen one and light close by it, some¬ 
thing that few of the ducks will do. The green 
wing teal, however, will almost invariably swoop 
down along after a falling bird, and sometimes 
light near it, but I have never known of any 
species of birds to lend an unfortunate comrade 
any real bodily aid. As this South Bay story 
does not allege that any of the geese actually 
assisted their wounded member to keep in the 
air, save by flying beneath it, I am not inclined to 
discredit the story. The fact is, I recall a very 
similar incident of my own observation, although 
the birds were sandhill cranes instead of geese 
or ducks. It was nearly twenty years ago, when 
the old Merganzer Club—which name the Charles 
Metz Shooting Lodge, up i.i the Cherry county, 
retains to this day, Mr. Metz having been one of 
the charter members of said organization, along 
with T. J. Foley, the late George Scribner, Billy 
Marsh and myself—was camped on a knoll on the 
broad plains just east of the Lake Creek marshes 
on the Pine Ridge Indian reservation. 
It was at the close of a raw, cold day in the 
latter part of October, and Tom Foley and I had 
a blind in the midst of the high tides about half 
way between the south shore and the island, a 
small dry area in the middle of the big morass, 
and we were having a great time with the mal¬ 
lards, as a beautiful flight was on, the birds 
stringing in from their feeding grounds off over 
the low hills to the west, to the open stretches 
in the marsh to roost, by the thousands. 
We had seen many sandhill crane that fall, but 
up to the day in question none of the party had 
succeeded in killing one, although all of us had 
made repeated efforts in quest of this distinction. 
Tom and I had noticed a few small bunches of 
these big birds winging their leisurely way over 
the marsh early in the afternoon, high up in the 
air, going south, and the weather having turned 
bitter cold, Tom said they were leaving the coun¬ 
try, and that we would see them no more. 
But along in the gloom of early evening, as we 
were beating about in the tali reeds, hunting crip¬ 
ples and gathering our dead birds, we were sud¬ 
denly brought to an abrupt standstill by the cry 
of the crane. 
“Down!” cried Tom, “there come three sand¬ 
hills, Sandy, right behind from the south. We’ll 
get a shot sure.” 
And we did. 
Squatting in the low flags, I turned and saw 
three cranes rapidly approaching on those appar¬ 
ently slow, flapping wings of theirs. They were 
not high, in good gunshot, and coming straight 
at us, single file. 
“Take the leader, Sandy,” whispered Tom, as 
the birds were right upon us, and I followed di¬ 
rections, leading the old gray pilot a couple of 
yards and giving 'him both barrels in quick suc¬ 
cession, the reports of Tom’s gun following mine 
so closely that they all seemed to blend into one. 
But no crane fell. A few tufts of feathers 
floated in the darkening air as the birds, halloo¬ 
ing hoarsely, maintained their steady flight on 
over the marsh, but before either Tom or I had 
time to indulge in any oratorical orchids, we saw 
one of the birds lurch violently sidewise, and 
then, with wildly beating pinions, began to de¬ 
scend. But he had not fallen more than half a 
dozen yards when the other two crane, calling 
solicitiously, wheeled and came back to him with 
great speed, and while one flew low at one side 
and partly beneath the doomed bird, the other 
kept above him right at his beak’s end, calling 
loudly, half coaxing, half mandatory it seemed, 
but it was no use. The luckless bird was hard 
hit and although he struggled valiantly on for 
a hundred yards or more, his weakened wings 
finally wilted, his long neck folded and with a 
despairing cry he whirled end over end. down 
into the marsh among the cark tules. Both of 
the uninjured crane followed him close to the 
weed tops, then with a last croaking farewell 
they again climbed up into the air and, clamor¬ 
ing raucously at intervals, winnowed off over 
the dark morass and vanished in the thickening 
gloom. 
Oh, yes, we got the crane, after a long and 
arduous search, and he was stone dead when we 
found him. Old Abner had him roasted brown 
as a berry for dinner the next night, and say, it 
was a great feast indeed. Poor old Abner, he 
was one of the victims of the terrible cyclone that 
devastated this city on March 23rd, one year ago. 
OHIO FISHING NOTES. 
Good fishing is promised this season on the 
Muskingum River, the stream the northwest 
territory pioneers surnamed the Hudson of the 
West when they floated down its winding course 
in birchbarks and planted a flag at Marietta, 0 ., 
in 'the long ago. 
In the days of the pioneers there must have 
been splendid fishing here, but in those days so 
far as history tells us, they knew nothing of the 
fish hog with his traps, seines and set nets. The 
game hog menace is one reason why the fishing 
has not been what it should be in the Muskin¬ 
gum for so many years. That’s the reason why 
Marietta fishermen contemplate the organization 
of a Sportsmen’s Club with the idea in view of 
waging war upon the “bristled fellows” who 
have apparently forgotten what a fish hook is 
made for. 
A few days before the government fisheries 
plant at Put-in-Bay burned out, a government 
man brought 300.000 fry to a point on the Mus¬ 
kingum river a mile north of the city and liber¬ 
ated them. It is understood that local sports¬ 
men secured these fry with the understanding 
that the proposed protective organization be ef¬ 
fected without delay. A meeting for the pur¬ 
pose, it is expected, will be called wi'thin a week. 
Some nice catches have been made during the 
past week at Devol’s Dam, one mile up. The 
water is passing over a narrow section of the 
dam and in the water under the falls, bass, sal¬ 
mon and muscallonge play and chase minnows. 
Chubs from nearby creeks are attracting the bass 
and the salmon, but it takes a red-tailed sucker 
not less than eight inches long to tempt the 
sly old “musky.” He is the biggest and gamest 
fish in these waters. To see a local fisherman 
bent on having a warm tussle with a muscal¬ 
longe start out for a day’s fishing, one would 
suppose he had in view a trip to one of the lakes 
to the north of the state. One cannot expect to 
hold a muscallonge with anything short in 
strength of a hangman’s rope, and as for rod 
and hook they must be the heaviest one can 
buy. Besides a substantial landing net, the wise 
boys take along a gaff for emergency cases. 
The Muskingum has a reputation for its big 
muscallonge, and sportsmen from a distance fre¬ 
quently come here for their annual outings. The 
biggest catch of the season was made the other 
day, a muscallonge weighing 23 pounds. 
C. S. ICRIGBAUM. 
When your advertisement appears in Forest 
and Stream, we deliver your sales’ matter to the 
sportsmen of America, who, at the outset, are 
favorably disposed to patronize their own pub¬ 
lication. 
