496 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Sept. 26, 1908. 
a warm bath, a real treat after a long day's 
walking and wading. Dinner, game of all sorts 
with the best of all sauces, a good appetite, 
then to bed, sleeping too soundly to dream 
even of one of the best day’s wildfowl shooting 
I ever had in India or anywhere else; though 
the duck were quite a small item compared to 
what one sometimes gets, it was the variety 
of the bag which added so to the pleasure of 
the day. Bar-headed and gray were the two 
kinds of geese, while among the duck were 
pintail, gadwall, shoveller, spotted-bill, tufted, 
white-eyed pochard, common and blue-winged 
teal, one or two widgeon and red-crested pochard 
—a most varied lot, though gadwall and white- 
eyes were the most plentiful. Every species 
of wader and aquatic bird swarmed, the country 
seemed alive with them, from the gigantic 
Sams crane and huge storks down to the most 
tiny sandpiper; the few “various” I shot were 
coots, for the benefit of my coolies, who ate them. 
I walked to some distant jheels, did a long 
day around their edges, getting very fair sport, 
then back to near camp for the evening flight. 
The only thing available in the shape of a boat 
was a tiny and very leaky dugout, a mere cockle¬ 
shell, just big enough to sit in. This I poled out 
and fixed in a tuft of reeds—there was very little 
cover—at the mouth of an inlet from the main 
jheel, and just after sunset had a pretty lively 
few minutes, the duck flighting in considerable 
numbers, but very difficult to shoot from my 
rather insecure position. Moreover, it was im¬ 
possible to pick up all which fell. However, I 
bagged ten, including a couple of nukta, or comb 
duck, really a small species of goose. 
A very similar day’s sport was had at another 
time, except that I stalked and shot a black 
buck on an open plain, an easy broadside shot 
at about 150 yards, and the .500 Express dropped 
it where it stood. 
Again I walked around the jheels. returning 
in time for the ducks in the evening. Bag: 
Black buck, 1; geese, 1; duck, 18; teal, 12; 
snipe, 44; quail, 3; various, 6. Total, 82. Ibis 
ended my shooting for the time being; three 
most enjoyable days in all. 
During January and February I twice visited 
these happy hunting grounds and each time 
bad excellent sport, on the last occasion varying 
the bag with a couple of black buck. I had 
taken out an Arabian pony with me, and was 
riding home in the evening, when, right out in 
the middle of an open plain, I saw a solitary 
black buck with a very fair head. My camp 
was about a mile away, so leaving my men to 
watch in case the buck moved, I galloped home 
for a rifle, was soon back and found that the 
plain was absolutely devoid of cover, flat as a 
pancake, and the buck very alert. The sight 
of a white man on foot would probably have 
started him at once, so I decided to stalk under 
cover of my pony, the syce leading him casu¬ 
ally along, so as to pass within shot, while I 
crouched by his side, my concealment being 
aided by a rug thrown carelessly over the saddle 
and hanging loose. At first all went well, but 
this was a new game for the pony, and it did 
not understand nor like it, especially as I had 
to keep close up against its side. Finally, just 
as I was within shot the rug flapped or some¬ 
thing annoyed my horse, for he gave a sudden 
and most energetic cow-kick, caught me fairly 
on the seat of my breeks and shot me sprawling 
into the open, himself plunging all over the 
place. Of course the buck was on its legs in 
a second, staring at this strange apparition, and 
gave me a difficult end-on shot at about 200 yards. 
Smack went the bullet, smashing the near 
shoulder, and I made sure I had him, but after 
running round and round for a few seconds, 
away he went at a tremendous pace on three legs. 
Into the saddle, and rifle in hand, after him 
I raced, and a real fast twenty minutes he gave 
me till he got among the cultivation and was 
lost among the high crops. Bad luck; another 
five minutes in the open and I would have 
killed him; besides one hates to lose wounded 
animals, though on this occasion I have no 
doubt the natives profited by my loss, for sev¬ 
eral had collected while I was hunting about, 
and with the prospect of a good feed of meat, 
they doubtless scoured every hole and corner 
till they found the animal, probably lying dead. 
W. R. Gilbert. 
Game in Niagara County. 
Olcott Beach, N. Y., Sept. 18 .—Editor Forest 
and Stream: The hunters’ license has taken 
effect, in Niagara county at least. County Clerk 
Walsh and City Clerk Burnett, of Lockport, each 
issued thirty-three licenses (a coincidence) and 
as there are two other cities and a dozen or more 
towns, to hear from, the number will foot up 
to quite an amount. But the hunters’ license is 
not the only thing that took effect on Wednes¬ 
day the 16th. Hunters going out that day found 
many farms posted where they had freely 
hunted all their lives. One farm in particular 
about a mile west of this place—which takes all 
of the east side of Hopkins Creek, a famous 
resort for ducks—was found to have no less than 
twenty-two posters on it. 
The son-in-law of the owner of the farm, who 
has a little camp on the banks of the creek and 
Lake Ontario, was there on Wednesday after¬ 
noon. Said he: 
“I soon heard ducks and finally saw ten or 
twelve across the creek in a space thirty feet 
square having the best time in the world, splash¬ 
ing each other, playing tag, etc. Finally four 
of them left the bunch and swam right across in 
front of me and I then saw they were wood- 
ducks, beauties, in easy range, but I did not shoot 
them. 
“Soon a flock of ducks came and circled. I 
lost sight of them and finally heard quacking, 
worked along the bank and Sport ran ahead 
and flushed three. When I got to the scene two 
more jumped up and I got one, a female pintail. 
The last thing before I came away a flock of 
a dozen ducks lit in front of me. It was dusky, 
but I singled one out and shot, and when I 
picked it up found it was a male. 
“I was awakened early Sunday morning by 
a racket outside cam 1 ! and Sport barking. I went 
out and what do you think I saw? A big gray 
squirrel in a tree over the shanty. This was the 
first squirrel I had seen around here for fifteen 
/ears.” 
I have not seen a gray or black squirrel in 
Niagara county for more than twenty years. 
I go to Theresa, Jefferson county, to-morrow 
for my regular hunting trip, expect to be away 
until early in November. When I applied for 
my hunter’s license the city clerk said that I was 
the oldest (seventy-five years) that had applied. 
J. L. Davison. 
Hungarian Partridges in California. 
Santa Monica, Cal., Sept. 19. — Editor Forest 
and Stream: Within five years the new crop of 
'Hungarian partridges will be ready for the 
gun of the sportsman, if the present behavior 
of the recently liberated game birds is any 
criterion. From all over the State, wherever 
a “plant” of the partridges has been made, 
reports come that the birds are fast becoming 
acclimated and accustomed to their surround¬ 
ings; that they are taking readily to the wild 
food the countryside offers. In the northern 
portion of the State they have begun to pair 
off and nest in May, a certain proof of their 
ability to thrive and increase under climatic 
conditions prevailing in southern California. 
The Hungarian partridges liberated by the 
State Fish Commissioners nearest to Los An¬ 
geles are in the hills and fields of the Malibu 
ranch, back of this city. Deputy Commis¬ 
sioner H. I. Pritchard, of Santa Monica, took 
charge of the ten pairs when they arrived here 
from San Francisco, April 16, kept them 
cooped up on the Malibu for two weeks while 
he studied their habits, food tastes and meth¬ 
ods of roosting; then he allowed them to shift 
for themselves. 
The birds are still under close observation, 
and a watch will be kept over them until 
they have increased sufficiently to place them 
on an equal footing with their kin, the native 
mountain, valley and desert quail. 
The game birds commonly called quail are 
represented in California by three species— 
the valley quail, the mountain quail, and Gam- 
bel’s or the desert quail, which has been in¬ 
troduced on the coast from Arizona and 
New Mexico. Attempts to introduce Bob 
White into California from the East have uni¬ 
formly met with failure. The lack of moisture 
during the long dry summers prevented their 
increase, and trials at breeding them have been 
all but given up. 
When the new hunting license law placed 
adequate funds in the hands of the State Game 
and Fish Commission, its chief deputy looked 
about for new game birds to add to the de¬ 
creasing native stock, and his attention was 
called to the Hungarian partridge by the suc¬ 
cess of attempts which were being made to 
raise the birds on a ranch near Sacramento. 
After thorough investigation, 2000 of the birds 
were ordered from Europe and liberated 
throughout the State in January. A second 
shipment of an equal number was lost when 
the ship carrying them from Hamburg caught 
fire on the high seas. A thousand birds, sent 
over in March, however, went part way in 
replacing those that were lost. 
The Hungarian partridge is larger than its 
native relatives, exceeding in size even the 
mountain quail. In many respects its habits 
are like those of the valley quail, in whose 
range it has been released. While the valley 
quail can and does exist in chaparral covered 
districts, it prefers cultivated fields, following 
the settler rather than disappearing before his 
advance into uncultivated regions. This 
habit alone endears it to the heart of the aver¬ 
age sportsman, for it makes the work of the 
dog much easier, once a covey of the birds is 
located. It feeds on all kinds of grain, weed, 
and flower seeds, and will even vary its diet 
