FOREST AND STREAM. 
[May 22, 1909. 
814 
tion to hazard the perils which they face cheer¬ 
fully every day of their lives led me to accept 
their voices as sufficient evidence of their pres¬ 
ence on the range. They said they were there 
and they ought to know. 
So much for game birds and ainmals. The 
sociability of the ordinary robin and its confi¬ 
dence in the friendliness of its human neighbors 
was illustrated some seven years ago when a 
robin, with the widest conceivable range of avail¬ 
able building sites freely open to her, proceeded 
to build her nest on the mouthpiece of the speak¬ 
ing tube leading to the 50-yard target pit at 
Walnut Hill. This speaking tube is near the 
middle of the firing line, shooting positions for 
six men being immediately at the right of it, 
and positions for eight more at the left. The 
mouthpiece is less than five feet from the ground 
and it is in frequent use on shooting days. The 
robin complacently built her nest, laid her eggs 
and then proceeded to “set,” indifferent to the 
noise about her, and to the frequent interrup¬ 
tions in the performance of her work on a 
living incubator. There was much pistol and 
revolver shooting that summer, but the mother 
robin would attend faithfully to her duties, leav¬ 
ing the nest, to be sure, when shooting was in 
close proximity, but always watching for oppor¬ 
tunities to return. In due season her brood of 
young robins pecked their way out of the little 
blue eggs, and then watched the shooting on 
succeeding days with wide open eyes until they 
were big enough to fly and to affect to be fright¬ 
ened by the noise of firearms. 
The nest was within four inches of the face 
of anyone using the speaking tube. Nests have 
been repeatedly built and used by the robins in 
the past half dozen years on the framing tim¬ 
bers supporting the roof which protects the 
pistol and revolver shooters from the weather 
when engaged in practice. One nest and frag¬ 
ments of another are still there, though I think 
untenanted this year. The nest on the speak¬ 
ing tube, however, was the most obtrusive ever 
built on the range, and showed the greatest in¬ 
difference to the presence of humans. 
S. Merrill. 
Quail Notes. 
Raleigh, N. C., May 15.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: The game warden here says Wake 
county, of which Raleigh is the county seat, now 
has the best game laws in the State. It stops 
all hunting between March i and Nov. i. He 
says he cannot learn of a single violation in the 
county. Every deputy sheriff has promised to 
look after his own township and report viola¬ 
tions of the law. In four counties a new law 
prohibits the running at large of bird dogs in 
the breeding season. 
The State museum has received as a gift a 
quail net. In former days vast numbers of these 
birds were taken with these nets, the use of 
which has for a long time been forbidden. Once 
they were used all over the country. They con¬ 
sist of a funnel, with wings, and the birds were 
driven into them by people on horseback, damp 
days being usually chosen for this purpose. The 
former owner declared that he thought the net 
more merciful than the gun, because only one 
covey might be found and driven into it, while 
a good dog would find practically every bird in 
a large area. As a matter of fact nett-ng meant 
practically extermination. Fred A. Old.s. 
The .Grouse Enemy. 
Sandy Hook, Conn., May 10. —Editor Forest 
and Stream: I plead guilty to being one of 
those ignorant persons that wants to save the 
grouse by shortening the hunting season and 
cutting down the limit to kill during the season. 
Your Schuylerville correspondent in the issue of 
April 17 says we hear a good deal more from 
these persons than their intelligence warrants. 
But I wish to inquire of our friend if he does 
not think that shortening the season to hunt 
will have a tendency to save the grouse? 
Further, I am not quite satisfied with his ex¬ 
planation of this six- or seven-year wonder, the 
goshawk, how he goes and comes and how he 
slaughters and disposes of his dead. Our 
neighbor does not want the sportsman to say 
anything about cutting short the hunting sea¬ 
son to save the grouse, but believes they should 
do everything to destroy the hawks, foxes and 
enemies of that kind. But has our neighbor 
considered that years ago, when the- grouse 
were plentiful, we had just as many hawks, 
foxes and such enemies as we have now? 
Who is it then that kills the grouse?. It is 
the man that carries the gun and other traps, 
and I am one of them, and have been for over 
fifty years. Although ignorant in this matter, 
I know wli.creof I speak. I can remember 
when, on an average, through the State of Con¬ 
necticut there were not three men in a town 
who could kill a grouse on the wing. We had 
plenty of hawks and foxes—more than we have 
now—and grouse, so to speak, as plentiful as 
sparrows. I admit the hawks and foxes kill a 
good many grouse, but mankind is responsible 
for the lion’s share of the destruction. I have 
past the three-score-and-ten year mark, and I 
plead guilty to doing some of it myself and 
hope to do a little more before I leave for the 
happy hunting ground; but I sincerely hope the 
law will restrict ns, that the birds may in¬ 
crease in spite of us. I wish to say to our 
neighbor who worries so about the hawks and 
foxes, and I admit again that they do a great 
deal of damage; but I will wager that there are 
plenty of shooters in every town that kill more 
birds than all the hawks and foxes put together. 
In all my experience, extending back for over 
fifty years, hunting foxes and through the 
woods and timber, I never have seen in any 
one season where there have been fifteen 
grouse killed by hawks or foxes—not one- 
quarter' as many as lots of the shooters kill. 
Imagine 20,000 people taking out licenses in this 
little State! .Suppose they kill ten grouse each. 
Just see what that would amount to in one sea¬ 
son, too; more than the total killed by all their 
other enemies in ten years, in my belief. Sup¬ 
pose mankind—the greatest enemy of the 
grouse by ten-fold—should adopt the plan of 
leaving the season as it is, or lengthening it, 
would not that be going into partnership with 
the other worst enemies of the grouse and ere 
long annihilate them? 
Our friend also speaks as one having author¬ 
ity. v.'hen he says there never has been a poor 
breeding season in New York, and be does not 
believe there has been anywhere else. Now. I 
personally know of several nests that did not 
hatch nn egg here in Connecticut two years 
ago (1007) and the season was so cold and wet 
it killed a great many of the young that did hatch. 
Now, gentlemen and fellow sportsmen (in- 
' eluding our friend from Schuylerville), I say, 
without fear of contradiction, that there is no 
better way to propagate and protect the 
noblest of all game birds, the grouse or par¬ 
tridge, and at the same time to give the sports¬ 
men some pleasure to shoot, than by establish¬ 
ing State game preserves where 'the birds may 
live and breed unmolested by mankind. At the 
same time the shooting season should be 
shortened and the number of birds to be killed 
during the season reduced, so as to give the 
birds 60 per cent, of the increase and to the 
sportsman 40 per cent, then the birds are 
bound to increase; and when the birds increase, 
the sportsman’s pleasure also increases. Even 
the pot-hunter is happy. E. T.aylor. 
Olamon, Me., May 11.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: I am much interested in B.’s article 
about ruffed grouse. I agree that the goshawks 
are great destroyers of grouse, for I have seen 
too many signs of their evil work to believe 
otherwise. 
One particular case recurs to me. My brother 
and "I were in the woods near Milan, N. H., 
and saw a goshawk in pursuit of a grouse which, 
when closely pressed, dove into the deep snow 
and thus, escaped. We took the grouse out of 
the snow, and it crouched down in our hands, 
seemingly in great terror, and refused to fly. 
We put it back'in the snow, but the next morn¬ 
ing it was dead, and a careful examination 
showed no visible cause of death. Was it a 
case of fright? If not, will some reader of 
this paper tell me the cause? 
The goshawk reaches Northern New England 
as early as November. I have often seen them 
during that month and caught one in White- 
field, N. H., on the 28th of last November. 
The majority of all the grouse shot during 
the season of 1907 were old birds, and we have 
heard the same reports other years. Now, if 
the goshawks go north in early spring, as he 
claims, how does B. account for the scarcity of 
young birds if there are no poor hatching sea¬ 
sons? 
I always* notice that we have more young birds 
in a season preceded by a warm, dry spring 
than by a cold, wet one. 
I think grouse can stand our coldest weather 
and I have seen it 46 degrees below zero. As 
soon as the snow gets of sufficient depth it 
dives into it for warmth and is often entrapped 
by crust and perishes. 
It is this habit of lodging in the snow that 
enables the fox to accomplish his murderous 
work, and I believe ho catches a greater number 
than most of his friends are willing to believe. 
I have seen where hundreds of grouse were 
surprised and killed before they could leave their 
beds in the snow, and I recall one case where 
two were killed in less than twenty-five feet of 
each other. The evidence in the above cases 
convicted foxes with the killing, not of just eat¬ 
ing a few wings, etc., left by goshawks. 
Grouse wintered well last winter and I am 
in hopes to see them quite plenty next season. 
W. H. Y. 
All the game laws of the United States and 
Canada, revised to date and now in force, are 
piver in the Game Laws in Brief. See adv. 
