78 
perience of these two men, George Parker and 
John Johnson of San Diego, was proved by 
Captain Mendez of the sloop Otila, and the news¬ 
papers on his authority reported that the two 
men had been eaten. The matter was taken up 
with the State Department and the Mexican 
Government, sent a force to the island, which 
was met by Chief Mudo, who was “seven feet 
high,” and who made the defense that the Ameri¬ 
cans had invaded his country. In a word, the 
Americans in landing had committed a capital 
crime and were shot down and doubtless eaten. 
It is difficult to imagine a more interesting 
study to the layman or ethnologist than these 
people, unique among the races of the American 
aborigines, so different in almost every sense 
Some gundogs of every variety appear to 
possess a great and inexplicable predilection for 
creatures which the sportsman does not always 
regard as game and has little desire to bag, 
especially when better game is available. In this 
way a dog is often capable of causing consider¬ 
able annoyance, and not all the correction, 
physical and verbal, lavished on it from time to 
time ever seems to succeed in inducing it to 
ignore such quarry and confine its attention to 
■what its master prefers. A writer in the 
■Sporting Times says that he owns a setter, a 
splendid dog on snipe and woodcock, and 
thoroughly dependable on a bog till it detects the 
scent of a waterhen, and that waterhen it per¬ 
sists in pursuing till the bird is eventually forced 
to take wing. At no time has a waterhen been 
shot over this dog; its attempts with such quarry 
always evoke a rating or a cut with the whip, 
and yet the lesson is never learned. The same 
thing will occur on the next occasion. 
Retrievers and Waterhens. 
There is nothing more annoying than to wing 
a duck, which falls into its natural element, and 
to find that a retriever, instead of searching for 
the duck, is engaged in a hunt after a useless 
waterhen; and yet there i§ scarcely a reader of 
this journal to whom this has not occurred. A 
winged duck must be recovered without delay 
or the chances of retrieving it become very small. 
Certainly, a waterhen brought to hand is little 
compensation for its loss. This partiality of 
dogs for waterhens can only be explained by the 
fact that the birds evidently emit a very power¬ 
ful and attractive scent, which must be of a 
very gamey nature. Many breakers often make 
the great mistake of training a youngster to re¬ 
trieve with a dead waterhen, and such lessons 
do not appear ever to be forgotten. 
Setters and Small Game. 
We have had setters which stood as staunch 
on the moors during August to titlarks as they 
ever did to grouse, and this often occurs early 
in the season with the best trained animals, al¬ 
though the latter soon get over it. We have all 
had experience of a landrail in a crop of clover, 
which draws the setters on and on till they 
finally flush a good covey out of shot. The 
landrail must possess a scent as strong as that 
of a motor-car. Rabbits, too, are frequently a 
great cause of annoyance in turnips, till they are 
FOREST AND STREAM 
that the conviction is forced upon one that 
they are different from the others; a race 
stranded at Tiburon, or brought there in the re¬ 
mote past upon which the isolation has played 
a sorry trick, making them entirely unresponsive 
to ,the advances of the Franciscans, Jesuits or 
Spanish soldiery. But the end is in sight. No 
native race has been able to stand civilization; 
the finest types of aborigines have gone down 
like cards before the tide of human progress as 
represented by American civilization. The gate 
of Sonora is open, the impedimenta of two cen¬ 
turies is removed, and the Seri, despite his isola¬ 
tion, will before the end of another half century 
be but a memory in the building up of a great 
agricultural principality. 
finally nosed into some drain or burrow. It is 
best never to shoot at a rabbit, even if it is 
forced to show, but directly the quarry is de¬ 
tected the dogs should be lifted and well ad¬ 
monished. 
When You Know Your Dogs. 
The reader who is accustomed to his dogs is 
generally able to decide when they are engaged 
on undesirabe quarry. Their movements and 
attitude when setting what is before them betray 
what is afoot, and some go about it in a shame¬ 
faced manner, as if conscious that they are 
hardly doing right. After a disappointing day, 
during which little game has been found, the 
best of dogs are given to devoting attention to 
small game, and we once saw a splendid setter 
end up a perfectly blank day by setting a frog. 
Such an occurence is more likely to call forth a 
laugh then evoke punishment. The only course 
to take is to keep dogs as closely as possible to 
legitimate game, and never shoot over them, how¬ 
ever great the temptation, anything but legitimate 
game. 
Grouse-Driving in a Gale. 
Early in November the writer took part in a 
grouse drive, which began in perfect weather, 
and before the second lot of butts were reached 
half a gale was blowing. Kills before had 
averaged about three out of five shots, but when 
wind interfered they dropped to about two in 
six shots. And yet the grouse came to the butts 
as freely as before, the only difference being 
that their pace was nearly doubled as they 
approached with the gale. The error of the 
guns evidently was that each failed to swing 
sufficiently in front, and the shot passed harm¬ 
lessly behind. It would be difficult to conjure 
up a more exacting shot than a November grouse 
flying with a gale. Should the gun not be 
correctly aligned on touching the shoulder, there 
is not time to find correct aim, as the bird has 
at once passed out of shot. The writer felt very 
proud of each grouse he brought down on that 
windy day. 
Why Did the Grouse Pack? 
During some of the drives all the ground taken 
by the drivers was visible from the butts, and 
a question arose as to whether grouse are aware 
that danger is reduced when they are able to 
pass the butts in considerable numbers. We saw 
half a dozen grouse rise at the commencement 
of a drive, and as they flew along over the 
ground others joined them till the pack had 
gathered over twenty together. With the best of 
fortune only a brace could be taken from each 
pack, and, when one was expected to kill cocks, 
that always could not be accomplished. On a 
return drive the packs were not as much in 
evidence, proving that the birds split up once 
more on having passed the butts. 
Many Runners. 
Another fact was very noticeable as regards 
this driving late in the season, and it was that if 
one knocked down a runner early in a drive 
very excellent work by the retrievers was neces¬ 
sary before the running bird could be brought to 
hand. An August grouse seldom goes far, but 
a November grouse is evidently strong on leg 
as well as on wing, and, if time allows, is able 
to get a long distance. Very wide casts by the 
retrievers were necessary, and we recovered one 
runner a good two hundred yards from where 
it was dropped, the bird still being lustily on 
its way. It requires a very hard blow to pene¬ 
trate the plumage of these fully adult grouse, 
and a big percentage were only brought to hand 
solely because wings were broken. It was cer¬ 
tainly excellent practice for the retrievers. 
About the Sport. 
November grouse-driving is very different to 
that experienced early in the season. First of 
all, it is apt to be cold, and a long wait in the 
butts is not an event to be anticipated with de¬ 
light. The outlook also is cold and dreary, the 
heather being brown and all bloom disappeared. 
The trudge to the butts is also troublesome, as 
the ground is sodden with rain, and he who 
ventures to lean on the butt and take a rest soon 
learns that he had better stand upright. The 
sport, too, is not prolonged throughout a drive, 
as the appearance of the drivers puts birds on 
wing half a mile distant, and all are soon over 
the butts. The shooting is sharp and quick while 
it lasts, and each gun has to keep on the alert or 
he will lose lots of chances. Always take a 
second gun to a November drive. 
Clever Flanking. 
It is lovely to see a November pack of grouse 
compelled by clever flanking to pass along the 
whole line of butts, and to note that each keen 
shot has selected and dropped therefrom his own 
brace of black old cocks. Such a thing does not 
often occur in November, and when it happens 
is a source of general satisfaction. The flankers 
are responsible for the most important work at 
these late season drives, as the attempts of the 
grouse to break right out are doubly persistent, 
and twice as difficult to defeat. Often they refuse 
to be denied, and go over a flanker in a stream, 
his scarlet flag meanwhile waving frantically. 
NEW OYSTERS PINK. 
Washington, D. C.—Pink oysters are the 
latest freak of nature under investigation by ex¬ 
perts of the department of agriculture. The 
rosy-hued bivalve comes from beds in Long 
Island sound, looks like a regular oyster when 
gathered, but turns up pink on the plate of the 
ultimate consumer. Frightened epicureans be¬ 
sieged the bureau of chemistry with inquiries 
and a volunteer squad found the pink oyster not 
only harmless but delicious. The chemists have 
a theory that the oysters are turned pink either 
by a wild yeast bacillus or by other micro¬ 
organisms. 
Queer Things a Gun Dog Will Do 
