Feb. io, 1912 
FOREST AND STREAM 
177 
Chesney then introduced Mayor N. B. Rogers, 
a member of the club, who welcomed the guests. 
E. H. Bailey, Sec’y- 
The Rutland County Fish and Game League 
held its annual meeting in Rutland, Vt., on Jan. 
25, and at the banquet plates were laid for 200 
persons. Thomas H. Browne, president of the 
league, presided. Among the speakers were Dr. 
G. W. Field, State fish and game commissioner 
of Massachusetts; P. S. Farnham, of the Amer¬ 
ican Game Protective and Propagation Associa¬ 
tion; John W. Titcomb, of Lyndonville, State 
fish and game commissioner; Harry Chase, ex¬ 
county warden of Bennington; Frank E. Howe, 
speaker of the Vermont House of Representa¬ 
tives at the last Legislature; W. H. Preston, of 
Fair Haven; Frank L. Fish, of Vergennes; M. 
F. Barnes, of Chimney Point; Dr. P. M. Wil¬ 
liams, of Rutland; Fred Smith, of Addison; Rev. 
Joseph Reynolds, of Rutland, and others. 
The Cold Spring Rod and Gun Club held its 
sixth annual meeting in Wilkesbarre, Pa., on 
Jan. 16 and elected the following officers; Presi¬ 
dent, D. L. Creveling; Secretary, Wayne T. 
James; Treasurer, George T. Knoll; Trustees, 
J. P. Breidinger, Boyd Dodson and H. S. Freas. 
The club’s membership is limited to thirty-five. 
It controls a preserve of 5,000 acres in Monroe 
county. 
Confiscating^ Game. 
San Francisco, Cal., Jan. 27. —Editor Forest 
and Stream: During December thirty mountain 
lions were killed in California and $600 in boun¬ 
ties has just been paid for the scalps. Eight 
of these came from Siskiyou, five from Trinity, 
six from Humboldt, two from Tehama, and one 
each from Kern, Mariposa, Shasta, Tulare, Tuo¬ 
lumne and Butte. 
J. B. Cannon, who owns a pack of hounds at 
Two Rock, brought six coyote pelts to Santa 
Rosa to claim the bounty of $5 a scalp offered 
by the county. 
The game commission has commenced a strict 
enforcement of the law relating to the quantities 
of game that a person or firm may have in his 
or its possession, and a number of successful 
raids have been made on San Francisco business 
houses of late. A number of deputies from out¬ 
side points have been gathered here for this 
purpose and a large amount of game confiscated. 
At one market 580 ducks and 115 cottontail 
rabbits were secured. The law allows a limit 
of twenty-five ducks and fifteen cottontails. At 
another market twenty-nine ducks were secured 
and at the hotels searched quantities of game 
were seized. The confiscated game is being dis¬ 
tributed to charitable institutions. 
The commission is now winding up the distri¬ 
bution of wild turkeys raised during the past 
season, and by the close of the present month 
will have distributed about 500 of the birds in 
various sections of the State. 
It is proposed to experiment with a number of 
birds at the State Game Farm and trappers are 
now busy securing quail, sage hens and grouse. 
In addition, game birds will be brought here 
from the East. Attempts will be made to rear 
a large number of pheasants. 
Golden Gate. 
Shooting in the Hill Country. 
Hendersonville, N. C., Jan. 29. —Editor 
Forest and Stream: I wrote you in a recent 
letter of seeing a single robin. He looked very 
lonesome, but a few days later a number of 
them were to be seen all over this country. 
This year, or rather winter, has evidently been 
one the robins could not figure on. It began 
to get very cold rather late “up North,” if I 
have been reliably informed, and then very cold 
“down South” rather early, so they seem to be 
undecided as to when it is best to go. I never 
“saw the like before.” 
Last Saturday a friend and I took a tramp 
with Nellie, Jr., in search of quail, and we never 
saw one. A farmer showed us where some pot¬ 
hunters had tracked a covey in the snow and 
shot all but two of them. No doubt this has 
been done to the birds all over the country 
covered by the snow. 
Tuesday last I took a tramp of about twelve 
miles with a couple of young men from Brevard, 
Transylvania county, after my favorite bird, the 
ruffed grouse. Of course, Nellie, Jr., went 
along. We climbed and tramped the moun¬ 
tains from a little after nine till a few minutes 
after twelve o’clock and saw none. We stopped 
ten minutes for a lunch, then began again. We 
were just up under the east, or southeast of 
Cedar Rock, and turned south down the little 
creek that heads up in this little gap. Just then 
a bird flushed wild, went over this ridge east¬ 
ward, and we followed it. Twice more it got 
up and each time very wild, and I did not see it. 
So we returned to the gap and again hunted 
down stream, I on the west and the two young 
men the east side of it. After going about a 
quarter of a mile, two more grouse got up just 
across from me and in front of the young men, and 
one got a shot but failed to kill. Although I 
heard these birds, I did not see them. 
The ground was frozen on my side and the 
going rather hard, so that I held my gun, using 
my right hand to catch firm hold of the trees 
and bushes to prevent falling, my left thumb on 
safety to be quite sure it is always on till a bird 
should get up, as I never cock my gun or throw 
off the safety till my game is up, whether or not 
the dog points. This is done as the gun comes 
up to my shoulder. A little lower down the 
creek and a bird got up, again on the other 
side from me. Then after going about two hun¬ 
dred yards an old cock flushed about thirty 
yards in front of me—my first chance for the 
day. I was trying black shells with 7J^ chilled 
shot, and this bird I dropped before it was over 
forty yards away. Over and over it bounced on 
the hard ground. I called Nellie Jr., showed 
her a bunch of the feathers and told her to 
fetch, and she brought it out of the little creek 
forty feet from where it fell, a clean kill. 
Just as my bird got up one rose on the other 
side of the branch, and both the young men shot 
at it, but did not succeed in stopping it. Then 
began a slippery tramp after it; but we never 
found it, and it got so fearfully hard on my side 
that I crossed over and we began our return 
tramp till we reached a smaller stream flowing 
into the one we were on; and here we decided 
to go up it, as it was our direction home. I 
asked the boys to give me warning if one got 
up from them, and a short time after the call 
came, “Look out, look out,” and none too soon. 
This bird tried another scheme, and it was to 
circle us. It rose on the other side from me, 
and in a thicket, turned up stream, then circled 
and came back about one hundred and fifty feet 
above; and being on a steep mountainside re¬ 
quired that I twist half round to get in ahead 
of it, as it went a seventy-mile gait for the 
thickets beyond. It was a difficult shot, but 
fair aaginst the sky, and getting the right lead, 
I pressed the trigger and had the satisfaction to 
see it go over and over. This bird, though 
killed dead, bounded fully thirty yards or over 
down the mountainside, and Nellie, Jr., retrieved 
it from the stream some distance below where 
I had any idea it would be. 
This was the last bird we found. It was my 
dog’s first grouse—these two—and I feel that 
she is now in a fair way for graduation. Here¬ 
after she will know just what I want when I 
take her in the “big woods.” She is very in¬ 
telligent; in fact, animals, if properly handled, 
will respond to kind treatment and learn much 
one would hardly expect them whO' knows little 
about them. 
One year we had an inroad of cats and dogs, due 
largely to my daughter’s fondness for these ani¬ 
mals, and we had to sack a lot of cats and send 
them to town to locate themselves. The next 
morning the Thomas cat was with us for break¬ 
fast. But a very handsome and glossy black 
cat left its owner, who had just arrived from 
Birmingham, Ala., via Madden, Ga., say 500 
miles, announced himself, and was welcomed by 
our old baron cat. He stayed all summer with 
us, then quietly returned to his mistress in time 
to go back South with her. Then came the 
dogs, and we found their owners, till it came to 
a little wire terrier. I dubbed him Mickie. We 
“enjoyed” enough dogs, and sO' did not think 
we needed Mickie, so I gave him to a visitor in 
town. He kept him over night, and he (Mickie) 
climbed out through a pane of glass in the 
kitchen window and was with us for breakfast. 
Then I found another home for Mickie on the 
Flat Rock road, three miles from home. Mickie 
had a large yard with other dogs, and was kept 
in this back yard three days, and then let into 
the front yard. At once he came right on 
through town and to our home. 
I was going to Brevard, twenty-two miles 
away, the next day, so my good wife asked me 
to take Mickie along and locate him. I did so. 
I stopped at the Heming Inn, and my friend 
Heming gave Mickie to the milkman before I 
was up next morning. But the little dog was 
not at home there and joined me in Brevard at 
about nine o’clock. I theij gave him to a 
painter, who asked for him, and he took him 
into the country. The next day I came home, 
and at daylight next morning Mickie announced 
his return home with a friend of his he had 
picked up somewhere. Then we came to the 
conclusion Mickie had earned a place with us-—a 
home—and should be one of us, but not his friend. 
Two days later Mickie disappeared, and we 
have nO' idea where he went or what became of 
him. Where he came from or where he went 
to is still a mystery to us. 
I suppose he got lost and came to us, finding 
treatment or something like he was accustomed 
to, and last of all again meeting his old owner, 
I don’t know; but I do know that Mickie knew 
a thing or two—Mickie had intelligence. 
Ernest L. Ewbank. 
