farm. Whatever moved him against hunting I 
do not know. He was a typical quail farmer, 
with brush fences dividing the rail enclosed fields 
of cultivated lands from the larger ones of wild 
vegetation. What a patch of dewberry, sedge 
and rag weed he had! And the birds there! 
About the time I craved liberties on his place 
I came into possession of the two prettiest Pape 
black pointers that I had ever seen, or have 
since seen. They were black as crows—big fel¬ 
lows with lots of bone and going qualities. The 
only reason I craved the farmer’s fields was be¬ 
cause he would not permit hunting. Surround¬ 
ing him on all sides I could get birds to any 
amount. It was out of sheer mischievousness 
that I asked him, as he stood near his barn, if 
I could hunt on his farm that day. 
“Shore!” he exclaimed, beaming welcome, “you 
kin hunt all y’uns wants to on my place with 
them black houns’, but nary a time with a bird 
dog.” He thought the Papes were rabbit hounds 
at that! 
Many more shots must have been fired than is 
customary on rabbits in a circumscribed little 
patch of sedge. There were three big covies 
scattered in it. Crow and the Black Devil were 
doing phenomenal work on the singles, and 1 
was shooting in form. I happened to turn and 
look back for Crow. There she was, pointing 
staunchly in an opening of the sedge, and back 
of her was the farmer, speechless with surprise. 
I was sure of immediate orders to get out. But 
he only kept looking at Crow and grinding his 
teeth. 
“Kill hit, dad blame you!” he cried at last. 
“Guess they hain’t nuthin’ to do but let a boy 
shoot that kin’ larn a dern old pair uve black 
houns’ to pint patridges 1” 
This is just an illustration of my personal be¬ 
lief that every farmer has a big open spot in 
his heart, if you only know how to reach it. 
SELF-HUNTING BIRD DOGS. 
Editor Forest and Stream : 
There is no doubt that the self-hunting dog ac¬ 
quires much bird sense in his rambles afield, but 
it is a grave question how much he benefits him¬ 
self otherwise: Under stress of the belief that 
it is doing their dogs lots of good to roam ad 
libitum, many owners permit them to indulge in 
the enjoyment of self-hunting as often as the 
dogs see fit. While the activities of the dogs 
take in everything from the minute field spar¬ 
rows to wild turkeys, they destroy lots of game. 
The lack of birds in many localities in real birdy 
countries is frequently traceable to self-hunting 
dogs. The nests of quails and meadow larks 
are destroyed; and even, if the birds have come 
into the world, the self-hunter daily proves such 
a menace, they move to other spheres. 
In many instances, however, latent bird sense 
has been brought into being through self-hunting. 
In one case a very handsome wide-going setter 
simply could not recognize the scent of quails. 
He persistently bolted right through a lying 
covey, and would scarcely give any heed to them 
when they flew. Only the sound of the wings 
appeared to attract his attention. Time and 
again he had been held with a lead right among 
birds for several minutes, and then he evinced 
that the scent of quails interested his olfactory 
organs in no way whatever. On a certain fateful 
day one of those old timers, that considered a 
day miserably spent without a self-hunt, lured 
this dog into experiencing the pastime with him. 
Day after day they repeated it. On a later date, 
as a final trial, the owner took the setter afield, 
and was much amazed to find him pointing birds 
in the manner of a dog that had performed on 
them all its life. * Bob White. 
FOREST AND STREAM 
By Marguerite P. Brewer. 
Y ES, you bet they are, especially in the St. 
Johns River, Florida, off Palatka. My ac¬ 
quaintance with the owner of this pair of 
jaws began one evening in February, 1913, and 
ended the following morning when his funeral 
took place. It all happened while on a fishing 
trip through Florida and the Gulf of Mexico. Up 
to this eventful time I had only heard of the 
St. Johns River sharks, which are one of the 
many species of blue sharks. Often the colored 
boatmen who rowed us up the river or guided 
us through the cool woods to the best fishing 
streams would spin yarns of the big sharks 
“down yonder in de riber,” but these yarns never 
made much impression upon me until one after¬ 
noon our party was caught by a squall while 
we were right in the middle of the river, on one 
of our daily trips. At this point the St. Johns 
is probably a mile wild, so the squall rudely put 
an end to our hopes of landing a Forest and 
Stream “prize beauty” that day, and forthwith 
Jake, our boatman, pulled for the shore as 
though his life depended on it. 
Evidently his life meant more to him than did 
all of ours, judging from his prayers which he 
mumbled now and then. Every few minutes he 
would drop the oars long enough to bail a few 
pailfuls of the river out of the boat, only to 
resume them when an exceptionally large wave 
would slap against the side. He was a scared 
nigger, and he was not bashful in admitting 
this fact. 
At last we reached shore, to receive numerous 
congratulations from a motley assemblage on the 
dock. Then only did I realize that we had been 
in a somewhat dangerous predicament. Of 
course silent prayers were in order from all of 
the party. The squall soon blew over but the 
waves still continued to run high, so we gave 
up all hopes of going out again, and started for 
the hotel to change to dry clothing. All this 
time Jake had been hovering around as if he 
wanted to ask us something but was afraid to 
do so. Finally he got up courage, after follow¬ 
ing us to the hotel porch, and he plucked my 
sleeve lightly. 
“Missy want to catch shark?” he said, grin¬ 
ning from ear to ear. 
“Why, Jake, can I?” I answered. “But where 
are they?” 
“In de riber, plenty of ’em. Jes bait hook an’ 
throw it out, an’ mebbe soon shark grab it. Den 
pull ’im ashore.” 
“But who pulls him in?” I asked. “My tackle 
isn’t strong enough.” 
“Oh, lawzzy, no!” grinned Jake. “All you do 
is bait up hook with beef an’ throw it in. Den 
niggers pull in shark all together when he grabs 
it.” 
It sounded very exciting so I told Jake to 
get his shark hook and line ready and I’d be 
1239 
down when the shower stopped. I only told my 
plans to one of the party, Mrs. H-, and she 
was even more excited than I was, so we hur¬ 
ried down to the dock as quickly as possible. 
Jake had resurrected an ancient piece of beef 
bone with about three pounds of raw meat on 
it. I fastened this to the hook and then threw 
it over into the current, paying out line until 
about two hundred feet was out. I must add 
that the hook measured probably six inches 
from bark to shank and was attached to the line 
by a chain like a heavy dog chain. The line 
was tarred and heavier, even than the lines our 
Jersey Coast fishermen use off shore. Once the 
bait was out we sat down to wait—after taking 
a number of half hitches around a post with 
the line. One hour passed, but nothing doing. 
Mrs. H-then grew restless and began to joke 
at the shark idea, forthwith returning to the 
hotel. But Jake was as hopeful as ever. 
On and on went the time and I had long since 
forsaken holding the line in favor of a good 
book. It was now nearly sundown, and I had 
just begun to think of dinner when the line 
pulled taut and a long dark body broke water 
and thrashed about where my bait had once 
been floating. Then it dashed out into mid¬ 
stream, Jake paying out the line foot by foot 
and snubbing him by meats of the turns around 
the post. For ten minutes this continued, then 
he was able to take in several feet, aided by 
two other colored men who had run down to 
the dock. Alternately this continued minute af¬ 
ter minute, but greatly in favor of Jake, as the 
shark was tiring fast. It was now only a hun¬ 
dred feet or so from the dock and cutting the 
water at all angles to get free from that merci¬ 
less hook. But it was of no use, the hook held 
and Jake was as strong as ever. By now the 
dock was crowded with townspeople and patrons 
from the hotel. Of course, I was the center of 
attraction along with the shark, although Jake 
was doing all the real work. At last his majesty 
was below us, only a few feet out from the dock. 
Jake then played his master card by sliding down 
one of the piles with a hand axe, the line in 
the meantime being held tight by half a dozen 
colored men. Even with the water he balanced 
himself for a second—then, as the shark darted 
closer he drove the axe into its- head. A whirl 
of bloody foam, a yell, and all was over, Jake 
climbing back up the post, his grin as broad 
as ever. 
“Pull ’im in!” he ordered to the men on the 
rope. 
With a mighty heave the prize came over 
the edge of the dock. I have fished for nearly 
every type of fish in the United States but this 
was my first shark hunt, and one to well be 
remembered. Immediately Jake set to work to 
cut the jaws 2nd cure them for me as a trophy, 
and to-day they adorn my home at Avon-by-the- 
Sea, New Jersey. From joint to joint they 
measure sixteen inches and six distinct rows 
of triangular teeth are clearly visible. Five of 
these rows seem to fold back on each other as 
though they were for reserve use. When opened 
wide these jaws could well take in the head of 
a man or even the body of a child. The shark 
measured nine feet over all, and while we didn’t 
weigh him, he must have been over three hun¬ 
dred pounds. Whether these sharks are real 
man-eaters or not I could never learn, no actual 
case ever being heard of in Palatka. They are 
unusually plentiful in Florida waters and come 
up the rivers for long distances. The shark in 
this story must have traveled over fifty miles 
inland from the sea, since this is the approximate 
distance from Jacksonville and the mouth of 
the St. Johns. 
