FOREST AND STREAM. 
[April 17, 1909. 
614 
hillside, while the kid disappeared for a moment 
and then came in sight again and began to jump 
down the hill toward its mother. Then I fired 
at it and it fell. I was sorry to kill the little 
fellow, but having killed the mother, I supposed 
there was nothing else to do.” 
“Well,” I said, “you made two pretty fair 
shots, considering that they were your first at 
goats.” 
“Yes,” he replied, “I was pretty lucky. I 
broke the old mother’s neck, evidently having 
shot too high, and the kid was dead before I 
got to it. I wish I had seen a lone male in¬ 
stead of this interesting family. The hide would 
have been better and the meat just as good.” 
“Ah,” I said, “you ought to have been with 
me. I found a good sized he-goat up on the 
head of the creek, but did not shoot at him.” 
“What did you shoot?” asked the Youngster. 
“That is a deer,” I replied, “and a very good 
fat one. I did not care greatly for goat meat 
and when I had the opportunity to kill a black- 
tail, I did so. We will get Baptiste to come up 
with a horse this afternoon and get it.” 
A little later we found ourselves in camp 
where the Youngster at once began to prepare 
his skins for drying, and I sent Baptiste off 
with a pack horse to bring in the deer. 
That night, as we sat smoking about the fire, 
the Youngster repeated his aspirations for a big 
billygoat. I thought there would be no diffi¬ 
culty about his getting that before we came in, 
for goats were abundant all through the coun¬ 
try and we would probably have plenty of op¬ 
portunities to look for them on our way back. 
For myself I was anxious to push on to the 
sheep country, having heard marvelous tales of 
the rams’ heads on the Smilkameen and the 
Methow. 
The next morning, therefore, we broke camp 
and pulled out, following up the river until we 
reached a large fork which came in from the 
east and turned up that. This valley soon be¬ 
came very narrow and indeed it was evident that 
in spring, at the time of the melting snows, the 
water covered the whole bottom, so that the 
trail was for much of the distance over water- 
worn pebbles or gravel, which might well enough 
have been the bed of a stream. Soon Bap¬ 
tiste left the bottom, following a very faint trail 
and began to climb the rounded hills, and be¬ 
fore long we were in a rolling country, travel¬ 
ing toward higher land on the divide, which ran 
down between two systems of ravines or 
gulches. The upland oVer which we passed was 
bald, supporting only a growth of low grass, 
but in the ravines on either side there was a 
thick growth of lodge pole pines. Signs of deer 
and sheep were plenty enough here and much 
of the sign was quite fresh. 
After going six or eight miles over country 
of this sort, we came to a more or less level 
mesa on which were a few pine trees, and among 
these a nice spring. The grass here was good, 
too, and altogether it seemed an excellent camp¬ 
ing spot. Behind it rose high hills and on their 
slopes was a growth of really good pine timber. 
I suspected, and Baptiste, when inquired of, con¬ 
firmed my suspicions, that these higher hills ter¬ 
minated in real mountains, among which sheep 
were to be found. I should have preferred to 
go up as high as possible with the pack train 
and to camp close to the hunting ground, but 
on the other hand to take a pack train up these 
very steep hills by any trail that Baptiste knew 
would have been very laborious, and for this 
reason the Youngster and I determined that we 
would explore on foot. 
Our hunting was somewhat delayed, however. 
The next morning when we got up a heavy fog 
lay over the hills, and a little later it began to 
rain. At first this was only a drizzle which need 
not have kept us from going out, but at length 
it turned into a hard rain which lasted all day 
and all night. None of us cared to hunt in the 
rain, and we clung close to the fire. 
Ornis. 
[to be continued.] 
The Grouse Enemy. 
ScHUYLERViLLE, N. Y., April 10.— Editor 
Forest and Stream: I have read numberless 
articles on the scarcity of ruffed grouse, and 
some wild suggestions as to how to remedy 
the same, but the writers do not seem to under¬ 
stand the subject. 
About once in six or seven years the hares 
die in the North. When this occurs, the black 
brant that arrive off Cape Hatteras in Novem¬ 
ber will all be old birds. The natives will tell 
you the eggs were eaten by the Indians north. 
About Dec. 28 (within two days of that time) 
a large blue hawk called the goshawk will 
arrive in Northern New York. He is the God- 
appointed death warrant of the ruffed grouse 
and at once gets busy. He covers a wide terri¬ 
tory and requires much food to keep him in 
that zero weather. The grouse grow scarce to 
the point of extermination, they have no holes 
to go to and the lumberman has removed their 
shelter—the pine. With the passing of the 
grouse, the hawk appears in the barnyard and 
afterward in the taxidermist’s window. Early 
in April a fraction of their numbers return 
north—for they cannot stand warm weather— 
to return the following winter and have their 
numbers still further reduced. A third winter 
there is enough food in the North, so they do 
not come till the hares die again, as the hares 
breed too fast to be exterminated by them. 
While they are with us, the foxes clean up 
the wings and bones of the grouse they eat, and 
a person seeing the tracks and feathers would 
say a fox killed the grouse, but he did not. 
I caught about thirty hawks in the winter of 
1907. About twenty had grouse in them, one 
had a gray squirrel, the rest were empty. In 
1908 I got six, but none this winter, so we are 
at the end of this visitation. There will not be 
any more poor hatching seasons till the gos¬ 
hawk comes again. 
I have often wondered that the sportsmen of 
the State did not suggest that the game 
wardens do something more practical for the 
grouse than they now do. The wardens have' 
about stopped market shooting, and the license 
has cleaned the woods of youths and foreigners. 
The shooting license law is the best thing for 
the farmers and sportsmen that could have 
happened. It cleaned up the human destroyers. 
There are only two kinds of hawks that live 
on grouse, and of the five thousand hawks that 
I have trapped in the last ten years, over half 
have been the variety that live on chicken 
grouse. 
The grouse is a fine game bird and does no 
damage, and it is too bad that he does not get 
more practical guardianship. There are three 
things that we read about. One the poor breed¬ 
ing season; there has never been a poor breed¬ 
ing season in northern New York since I lived 
here, and I do not believe there is anywhere 
else in a good grouse country. Another is the 
hard winters that are said to kill grouse. No 
winter has been hard enough to kill grouse 
here, and the weather gets to 25 degrees below 
sometimes. As to the ignorant person that 
wants to save the grouse by shortening the 
hunting season, we hear a good deal more from 
him than his intelligence warrants. It is too 
bad that the practical friends of the grouse 
could not get the game wardens interested in 
this poor bird so they would do something for 
him. They have saved him from the market hunter 
only for the benefit of the hawk. Grouse could 
be made permanently abundant at an expendi¬ 
ture of two thousand dollars a year by the 
commission. It would not be a cent a piece on 
the birds killed, and they would get it back and 
more in additional licenses. 
It is ver\t easy to trap hawks. Grouse should 
now increase very fast for two or three years. 
The bounty that the fur buyer has placed on 
ground vermin should help save a few eggs and 
nesting birds. B. 
Nebraska Game and Fish. 
The annual report of ex-Game Warden 
Geo. L. Carter says that the condition of 
the game birds throughout the State of Ne¬ 
braska has not been so flattering for a num¬ 
ber of years, with the exception of prairie 
chicken, which are on a steady decline. Un¬ 
seasonable spring weather for several seasons 
has been hard on the birds, and the big influx 
of settlers under the Kinkaid homestead law 
still harder. With the quail it is different. 
They have been steadily increasing since the 
severe winter of 1905, when they were greatly 
decimated, and if they have successfully gotten 
through the winter just closing—but they have 
not—we may expect the biggest crop the State 
has ever known next fall. The warden also re¬ 
ports unqualified success with the propagation 
of Hungarian partridges, and thinks the bird is 
here to stay. Nevertheless, the past winter has 
been severe, even on these hardy birds. 
Wildfowl, he says, with the exception of 
geese, have increased immeasurably almost, 
and under our present substantial laws, he ex¬ 
pects still greater returns in the future. Geese 
are to be found in considerable numbers only 
along the Platte and Missouri rivers. 
In the accompanying report of W. J. O’Brien, 
State Fish Commissioner, he says that over 
16,000,000 trout, walleyed pike, black bass, 
croppie, striped bass and sunfish have been 
planted in the waters of the State during the 
past biennial, and grand reports have been re¬ 
ceived of their flourishing condition everywhere. 
Although no carp have been put out, this un¬ 
desirable fish, he adds, is increasing in nearly 
all State waters. 
MOTHERS BE CAUTIOUS. 
In selecting a food for the baby don’t ex¬ 
periment. Baby can’t stand much experiment¬ 
ing. Borden’s Eagle Brand Condensed Milk 
is acted upon by the infant stomach substan¬ 
tially the same as mother’s milk. For 50 
years it has made glad mothers and started 
thousands of babies on life’s journey with 
health and happiness.— Adv. 
