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(Continued from page 576.) 
the axe of the lumberman-politician; and who 
can delight in a hard tramp over trails, only 
evident to the keen eye of the experienced woods¬ 
men, and along which the stopping places are 
unannounced save by the buzzing of the wind 
through the 'balsam grove and the gurgle of the 
mountain brook—such a man, our true sports¬ 
man, to whom it is said the game rightfully be¬ 
longs, can pack bis packbasket and load his 
canoe with a feeling of content and a presenti¬ 
ment (all sportsmen have presentiments) that 
he has but to exercise those powers and gifts 
bestowed upon him by nature, and he will realize 
those keen enjoyments and extravagant gratifica¬ 
tions suffered only to the favored caste. 
There are places in the recesses of our north¬ 
ern forests today sufficiently secluded and in- 
excessible to afford rare sport to those who can 
“rough it” in the proper sense of the expression, 
and from the very nature of their situation and 
surroundings are secure from the demoralizing 
effects of overwhelming numbers of the ordinary 
amateurs and the professional hunters; and there 
will always be as good hunting in these places 
as there is now and has been till the axe of the 
lumberman begins to fell the enclosing forests. 
Take care of the woods, and the game will take 
care of itself. 
BIRD DOGS AND THEIR HABITS. 
(Continued from page 567.) 
Finally the dog backed away from his point and 
barked. Whereupon his master turned and scold¬ 
ed him, saying “Why didn’t you do that before?” 
Quite a number of dogs have learned to back 
out of a point and bark to attract their master’s 
attention when they have been hidden by the 
bushes, but this is a rare accomplishment and 
may be said to be the 33rd degree of bird sense, 
Knowing what a keen sense of smell a dog 
has it is still almost impossible to realize that a 
good dog will go careering through the thick 
bushes on a full run and stop, almost as if he 
was shot on a dead point over a single bird ; 
hidden perhaps under a tangle of vines. While 
hunting once, just after a snowstorm, my pointer 
after trailing a bird for some distance dropped 
on a point. I kicked into the snow but no bird 
got up, so the dog poked his nose under the 
snow and handed the bird to me. A short time 
after that he caught a bird on the wing just 
as it left the ground. Once while riding with 
a friend, a rabbit jumped up from the edge of 
the road and he fired at it saying that he felt 
sure he had hit it but we rode on. A short dis¬ 
tance further his dog pointed a covey of birds 
and we fired at them as they rose. While pick¬ 
ing up the dead birds the dog disappeared. He 
was at last seen some distance off on a hill in 
the cotton field, through which we had passed 
apparently digging in the ground. When we got 
to him we saw a mound of earth and under the 
mound the rabbit was found, completely covered 
up. The dog had evidently intended to go back 
for him at some future time, as he was not al¬ 
lowed to hunt rabbits when we were out after 
birds. The bird sense in a dog is so extraordinary 
that at times it is almost incredible, and the 
hunter is actually humiliated when he finds that 
he has misjudged the intelligence and faithful¬ 
ness of his dog. I felt this, on one occasion 
while hunting with a companion. There were 
five dogs, all of whom, rushed down the road 
except one small pointer. I knew the sterling 
qualities of this little dog. What a fine nose 
he had, and how certain he was to have birds 
when he pointed. So I stopped and called my 
friend back with the other dogs. The little 
pointer went about twenty steps from the road 
and pointed a beautiful covey of birds. We both 
fired into the covey as they rose, and each 
claimed a bird, but only one could be found, 
gave that to him, and turned to look for the little 
dog but the ground had been very much torn up 
by phosphate diggers and he was nowhere to be 
seen. I hunted and called for him until I got 
tired, and started to go back to my horse which 
I had left hitched some distance behind me. On 
my way back I almost stepped on little “Don,” 
who I found on a dead point over a wounded 
bird. 
He had found the bird which one of us 
had wounded and such a look he gave us as 
much as to say, “Don’t you suppose I know my 
business? What do you think I have been doing 
here all this time?” I almost took off my hat 
to him and concluded that he was worth at 
least five times as much as the other dogs, be¬ 
cause none of them noticed the covey at all and 
had it not been for him we would not have 
gotten a feather. In every pack the dogs them¬ 
selves learn to pay more respect to the lead dog 
and follow him when he opens. A common dog 
or a noted liar might yelp his insides out and 
receive not the least attention from any other 
dog. 
Bird dogs are usually profoundly jealous of 
each other, and for this reason they are generally 
hunted in pairs because it stimulates their ambi¬ 
tion to make greater effort to locate the birds 
first, and therefore when hunting the single birds 
it is generally necessary to leash one dog so 
that they will not rush in and flush the birds 
too fast for the gunner. Dogs will generally hunt 
much better for their master than for any one 
else, and especially if the gunner is a good shot. 
It is said that dogs have been known to leave 
the hunt and go home if several birds are missed 
in succession. When hunting in pairs bird dogs 
usually back each other up when a point is made, 
but very often their eagerness is so great, that 
they will rush in and put their noses right along¬ 
side of each other. 
One of the most beautiful sights I ever saw 
occurred late one afternoon. As we were return¬ 
ing home a covey of birds was found in an open 
field where they had gone to roost. There were 
five dogs and they completely surrounded the 
birds each with his nose almost on the ground 
and the birds were sitting unmolested between 
them, in a circle as they always do looking like 
a small mosaic in brown. 
EARLY RECORDS OF THE WILD TURKEY. 
(In The Auk for October .) 
The hunting and trapping of this wary bird 
has furnished the literature of out-of-door maga¬ 
zines many an interesting column in the last 
forty years, a period following the range (250 
years) of the subsequent notes. These represent 
most of the present day methods of capture and 
cover a wide stretch of country as well as range 
of time. Of the general wariness of the species 
(Michaux, 1 . c., pp. 216, 217) writes as follows: 
“The wild turkies, which began to be very scarce 
in the southern states, are plentiful in those to 
the westward. In the most uninhabited parts 
they are so tame as to be easily killed with a 
pistol-shot. In the east, on the contrary, and 
particularly in the neighborhood of the seaports, 
they cannot be approached without difficulty; 
they are not alarmed by a noise, but they have 
a very quick sight, and as soon as they discover 
the hunter, fly away with such rapidity, that it 
takes a dog several minutes to come up with 
them; and when they see themselves on the point 
of being caught, they escape by taking to flight. 
The wild turkies generally remain in the swamps, 
and by the sides of rivers and creeks, and only 
come out in the morning and evening. They 
perch on the tops of the highest trees, where, 
notwithstanding their bulk, it is not always easy 
to see them. When they have not been fright¬ 
ened, they return to the same trees for several 
weeks in succession.” And, of the turkey on 
the southwestern prairies or plains near the 
Upper Red River, Long says, “We daily saw— 
turkies; but these animals had acquired all the 
vigilance which results from the habit of being 
often hunted, and the entire want of thick 
