588 
FOREST AND STREAM 
where wherein I had been for years. Both Fred 
and I were joined in the set determination that 
woodcock must be had; each had a fixed delight 
represented in a future where taxidermist art 
would be exemplified in several stuffed wood¬ 
cock—and they were rare enough. Time was 
when you could go out pretty near anywhere 
and brush out. your cork-screw flighters, but 
not in the present civilization-ridden days. To 
now and then pick up your brace or four is to 
introduce yourself to the lists of the doubly 
fortunate. 
'Wonderful feathered minion—the woodcock. 
I hardly know of a winged bird that stimulates 
in me such a spirit of pausing alertness, and 
trembling soul-satisfaction. When the bushes 
and trees have been denuded of their vegetation, 
or partially so, how vastly delightful to wander 
in low-wooded wastes, double-gun at the ready, 
senses never so carefully adjusted, while one 
waits for the moment when up will rise that 
swift-flying haunter of the silences. It is a 
quest that has a hundredfold attraction; and 
more so, when, all unaided, by dog or mate, 
the still-hunter prepares his own way and se¬ 
cures his game through his own alert, fastidious¬ 
ness of care. 
The woodcock has been proclaimed the prince 
of all game birds—and where is the man who 
would go against this opinion. Perhaps it is 
because of its rarity that this opinion, now, more 
than ever, exists; and the man who can go 
out and bring in a few of these splendid birds 
may have more of entire satisfaction than will 
have a big game hunter who has come back with 
the limit from the wilds of Newfoundland. It 
takes a quick eye, and the limit of keenness 
to get him on the wing. He will rise low, and 
then is the time the Number Sixes ought i 
do their duty. 
To hunt for woodcock is a pleasant enough 
stimulation to all the expectations and anticipa¬ 
tions enacted in one’s hunting interior. The 
very quietude of autumn helps to make one 
alive and quick at appreciation of this singular 
sport. Woodcock hunting remains the princely 
art; and to obtain them, even in the smallest 
of measure is to assure profound exhileration 
and satisfaction. 
I chose that day a route I had previously 
mapped out: that lying along the creek. Wood¬ 
cock love to linger along marshy, wooded places, 
and in their flight will often alight in the center 
of a wood where they can easily be hunted, 
but who shall mention of the success attainable, 
for they rise even at one’s feet, and away they 
go. It seems a crime to hunt them with dogs; 
but it is done- Should not man, then—man the 
prime destroyer—hunt them upon his own native 
skill, using ingenuity and all the arts of intelli¬ 
gent cunning to bring them to bag. Most cer¬ 
tainly! 
Fred nailed the right shore; I had the left. 
It was yet quite early then, but we were equal 
to it. What with the sun beaming fresh and 
vivid out of spotless heavens, and the atmos¬ 
phere never so tingling in its health-imparting 
youthfulness, we were in the mid-center of 
contentment. Fred scored one; it was a fine 
specimen of a Wilson snipe, caught out of the 
air by a close-patterned handful of stinging 
“chilled.” I discovered in the due course of my 
meandering, a pot-hole. Ah, I knew them from 
experience. Did I not in my youth kill my first 
woodcock in just such a pot-hole. This espe¬ 
cial pot-hole was skirted by a barrier of tall 
rushes and swamp-grass. I neared; still neared, 
and as though to answer the instinctive thoughts 
that had run through my consciousness, up rose 
a finely-plumaged prince. Up, and a turn; but 
the gun, already almost at shoulder, got the 
level of that quixotic flight and the thunder 
broke from the muzzle. A clean kill! 
“Now, Fred,“ I commented, holding up the 
prime trophy, with a trembling of limb that 
strangely shook me; “this trip is a success, if 
but for this. Let it be said that I have now 
succeeded beyond name. Fred, just look at this. 
I got a woodcock•” 
“Oh, isn’t that a dandy,” admired Fred, com¬ 
ing down to the shore. “Wrap him up carefully 
in the handkerchief. That fellow has simply 
got to be stuffed. Is he bad hit?” 
“Yuh can’t see where I hit,” I said, examin¬ 
ing his body. “It was well off at forty yards, 
wasn’t it- And not a feather seemed ruffled. 
Say, I feel like going home right away to have 
him mounted. Think how wonderfully lifelike 
he will look when Long gets through with him.” 
“Well, I should say,” was Fred’s response. 
“That in itself ought to be an inspiration to 
your work. By the Lord, it’s worth more than 
a nugget. I simply got to get one like it.” 
A prim, plump, delicately, artistically-colored 
bird is the woodcock; and with his long curiosity- 
arousing bill, he makes a picture never to be 
forgotten. It is the smoothness of this perfectly- 
feathered array that falls pleasing to the in¬ 
quisitive sense, but far and above all are those 
transparent, human-innocent eyes, black as the 
sable wing of Night; and filled with a pathetic 
sweetness of expression that sends through one 
a quiver of awe, especially so when in death 
they glaze over with a misty film that adds but 
to their distinctly appealing gaze. But enough! 
The hunt progressed with interest. Several 
other jack-snipe fell to the detonations of Fred’s 
Thunder-stick; but not a one fluttered wings 
on my side. But gaining a more open piece of 
lowland, creeping away from the brush, there 
I found a chance to drop a few of the fine- 
limbed pipers. Also be it said that I made some 
very blundering misses. But the shots that were 
effective filled me with enough pleasure. 
Fred eventually got his woodcock. Rarely it 
seems do they come in doubles; or perhaps with 
me it has been that way. Secluded fellows, si¬ 
lence-loving they are; and by their very apart¬ 
ness, and lonesomeness do they convey the total 
impression of rarity. 
I had lost Fred from sight in among an ap¬ 
parently impossible tangle of brush; when of a 
sudden, and startlingly so, his gun thundered 
again. Followed a crash, and then the first re¬ 
sounding laugh broke the stillness. I waited, 
and presently Fred came out bearing his prize— 
a woodcock. We were even; and like myself 
his specimen was not hit bad. One pellet hi 
stifled its life’s light. 
One singular event occurred. We routed out 
several mallards and teal, but though we both 
tried our hands at it, we found that small shot 
are not meant for ducks- Speedily changing to 
“fours” we made our way up the creek, noting 
where they had swept to water. It was a long, 
tedious hike; but in the end I got near enough 
to locate them. They rose with a flutter, and 
a threshing of water; and instantly I sank to 
concealment, lying low. Up, and away they 
sped; then, as is the manner of ducks they came 
back. Not one limb stirring, I lay there. On 
and on they swept—there were four. And 
straight for me they came, seeming to swoop 
lower as they arrived. 
Up then I rose, and as they sped to the right 
I gave them the right barrel, and followed it 
with an instant left. One halted in mid-air and 
toppled, coming down with a thud to the ground. 
Crippled: but I finished him to due satisfaction. 
Fred later caught one dead and a cripple which 
he did not get. 
Mallard, woodcock, and snipe; all these were 
ably represented in the morning’s kill. Recog¬ 
nizing our limit, and remembering that we were 
far from gourmands we called a halt; and that 
noon ate our dinner where a spring plunged 
down to meet the leaf-strewn creek. 
That night, with elaborate care, we “skun 
out” our woodcock; and laid them away for 
further notice —for the future! 
THE APPEAL FOR STATEWIDE ORGANI¬ 
ZATION. 
The Missouri Fish and Game League can only 
become influential and useful by the participation 
of sportsmen throughout the state in its organ¬ 
ization and work. We must stand together. 
There is no other means of getting what we 
want. The League needs now a branch organ¬ 
ization in every county in the state. Its by-laws 
provide for the affiliation of such a branch upon 
payment of $5 annually, regardless of the mem¬ 
bership. Any sportsmen’s club in Missouri may 
affiliate with the League upon the same basis 
and receives its news and announcements month¬ 
ly in the Sportsman’s Guide. If you would like 
to see such an organized work as we have out¬ 
lined done in Missouri, will you not organize 
a branch of the League in your community? It 
will come ultimately—why not now? In every 
state which has adequate protection of fish and 
game the sportsmen are organized in exactly 
the way it ‘is proposed to organize them in Mis¬ 
souri. It is a big work, but it can be done. 
There comes a time when the destruction of 
fish and game, and the violation of law arouse 
the sportsmen of every state from apathy and 
indifference to these things. That time will 
come in Missouri. It is here now. 
The League voted $25 at its- September meet¬ 
ing to the Sixteenth Congressional District Game 
and Fish Protective Association at Rolla, Mo. 
That organization has been doing good work. 
It has offered rewards for the conviction of 
persons violating the game and fish laws, and 
the money sent by the League went to it in re¬ 
sponse to an appeal for assistance in paying 
these rewards. At the same meeting the League 
offered a reward of $25 for the first conviction 
for selling game in the City of St. Louis, the 
reward to be paid to the person furnishing the 
evidence by means of which the conviction is 
made. 
Do you believe in this practical work? If you 
do, send your name and your dollar to Mr. J. 
R. Hickman, Secretary of the League, 1010, 
Chemical Building, St. Louis, Mo. 
Across the Dakota line in Canada, not very 
many grouse or ducks; quite a few geese. 
