894 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
The Motor Car Quail Hunters. 
Los Angeles, Cal., Nov. 28. —Editor Forest 
and Stream: The quail ©utlook at present is 
distinctly bad, and the conditions of opening 
day have obtained ever since, particularly as 
regards the behavior of the birds. Last winter 
was hardly what could be called a dry season, 
although below the average. However, the 
birds evidently figured it as such, and in 
nearly all sections curtailed their breeding op¬ 
erations, as is their wont in summers following 
winters of light rain. As a result, hunters re¬ 
port bags made up largely of old cocks and 
lesser proportion of hens, with harrdly any 
young quail at all. 
The older birds having gone through a 
season of education, are able to baffle the 
hunters. This, coupled with their comparative 
scarcity, has made quail hunting difficult. 
When found, the birds immediately strike for 
the high brush, or nearest steep hills, where 
it is little use to go after them, and it is un¬ 
usually difficult to get enough shooting at them 
to make the bands scatter, so individual birds 
will lie. Without this, no great sport can be 
had. Were it possible to so frame a game law 
that it would automatically close the season 
after summers when the birds have not bred, 
I would warmly favor so doing. After the 
first week, the average hunter could form an 
excellent idea of the need of such measures, 
and I believe that if a poll were taken of the 
gunners to-day, a majority would be willing 
to stand aside and let the breeding stock alone, 
provided their more hoggish brethren were 
compelled to do the same thing. It is the 
shooting off of breeding stock after these dry 
winters that sets back the quail supply. Some¬ 
times it takes three or four years for the birds 
to get up to average plenty again. Last year 
they were in good supply. 
Aside from vermin, perhaps the greatest 
menace to the quail supply is the automobile. 
The wealthy class, which does the most shoot¬ 
ing, now finds places formerly remote, easily 
accessible by motor car as the result of two 
or three hours' driving. As far as San Diego 
county, and north to Antelope Valley, compris¬ 
ing a circle some two hundred miles in diame¬ 
ter, whose central point is this city, has been 
made tributary to the local quail shooter. 
Furthermore, the method in vogue with some 
of these gentry is not only questionable, but 
fatal to the sport. It was a wonder for some 
time how a party of fellows, known to be in¬ 
nocent of wing shooting skill, could go out for 
a day and return with the tonneau of their 
car paved with quail, all reporting—and ap¬ 
parently having—the limit. One good shot 
often helps by running out the score of others, 
but without the aforesaid good shot, the prob¬ 
lem was puzzling indeed. Flere is the answer: 
Most of the quail shooting is done in sandy, 
rocky washes, dry except just after heavy 
rains. These generally wash down more or 
less brush, which lodges against the scattered 
chaparral and makes good cover. Each spring 
a road is made up of these washes by traffic, 
enduring until the next washout. The sand 
usually is passable enough, even for a machine. 
In Mint Canon, fifty miles north of town, is a 
stretch of such road, probably eighteen miles 
long, running through as good quail country 
as we have, and for ten miles either side is 
more of the same sort. Given a big machine 
for one factor, a cargo of apoplectic fat fel¬ 
lows to whom a hike would be as the signing 
of a death warrant, for another, and limit bags 
as the result, we have a pretty problem to 
work out in figuring how the gentlemen got it. 
But the modus operandi is childishly simple, 
on the demonstrated theory that a quail is 
always on the wrong side of a road from the 
one he wants to be on when anything goes by. 
Perched alongside the driver is a gunner 
loaded for business. The machine proceeds 
along leisurely, making considerable racket. 
Enter a flock of quail, tripping daintily across 
the road ahead of the car, in curious amaze¬ 
ment; the unit breaks into bombardment, a 
hurried stop is made, ten or a dozen of the 
pot-shot slain retrieved, and the rest of the 
band, scared or wounded, scurries to cover. 
Instead of following up the band and taking 
their shooting out of it, the auto party passes 
on to rout and terrorize perhaps ten more like 
bands, which speedily learn that salvation lies 
in running. The legitimate hunter thus has 
his troubles getting more than one or two 
shots next time, and these actions by auto 
parties are the cause of so many reports of 
nice bands found and flushed, but never 
located again. 
I would not cast a slur on all automobile 
hunters, or even the majority, but altogether 
too many go about the game in this way. 
There are plenty of sportsmen who use the 
auto as a convenient and rapid conveyance, 
however, and hunt after the fashion of the 
white man. 
The State Fish Commission has developed 
an experimental turn of mind, which, I am 
afraid, is apt to cost the taxpayers, the license 
tax payers in particular, a pretty penny before 
practical methods prevail; but at last the Com¬ 
mission has determined upon what may prove 
an excellent thing, provided it is efficiently ad¬ 
ministered. The scheme is nothing less than 
establishing a State game farm, which is to be 
done on a forty-acre lot near Hanford. It is 
proposed to raise and liberate both domestic 
and alien birds; the usual amount of time is 
to be wasted on Hungarian partridges and 
Mexican tame turkeys, but some is promised 
the propagation of native and proved species. 
The red-headed Gambel’s variety of quail 
(partridge) from Arizona will be tried also. 
Edwin L. Hedderly. 
Grouse in Canada. 
Milton, Out., Nov. 20.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: Partridges were as scarce in Ontario 
last year as they were elsewhere. The condi¬ 
tions last spring were favorable for breeding, 
and not only in the older parts of the Province, 
1 ut in the wilds of northern Ontario the birds 
are undoubtedly more plentiful now though less 
numerous than they were a few years ago. 
In order to save them from extinction the 
Government passed an order in council protect¬ 
ing them until Sept. 5, 1909, and farmers in 
many places are helping by having their woods 
posted. \\ ith a favorable showing next year 
there should be plenty of birds in the fall. 
W. P. 
[Dec. 5, 1908 
Connecticut Woodcock Flight. 
Essex, Conn., Nov. 22.— Editor Forest a 
Stream: There has been a flight of woodcoi 
in this locality, the tike of which has not c 
curred in years. In almost any likely spot, pi 
ferably some sunny, birch-clad hillside, bir 
liave been found in good numbers by the hu 
ters and large bags—too large in many cases, 
have been the result. 
I have heard of two hunters in a certain se 
tion of the State that killed nearly a hundr 
birds on a very small tract of land. While 
cannot vouch for the truth of this, I can, ho! 
ever, vouch for the truth of the following: 
In a certain tract of woods lying between Sa 
brook and Westbrook I know of one hunt 
killing twenty-four birds on Saturday, the 141 
and of two hunters killing fourteen in the sar 
tract on the following Monday. In the sou 
Lynn woods, where there is usually good co 
shooting, hunters have been having most e 
cellent luck. 
Even here at Essex, where we never find mai 
woodcock, sportsmen have been getting ever 
where from two to ten per day. Usually the 
birds shun this locality in their flight, althou< 
there are certain favored sections where 
times they may be found almost any year. 
The birds were late in arriving this ye; 
probably on account of the warmth of the se 
son. 
While a good many observers throughout tl 
country and even throughout the State spe; 
disparagingly of the increase of ruffed grous 
I still stick to the assertion I made some tin 
ago, viz.: that while grouse are not exceptio 
ally numerous they are much more plentif 
than they were a year ago. I know of a ce 
tain piece of woods—not very large—where 
can put up in an hour’s time eight or ten grou 
at least. Geo. W. Comstock. 
An Albino Buck. 
Dr. John H. Carmichael, of this city, wl 
has just returned from a hunting trip in tl 
Maine woods, is waiting for the head and antle 
of a beautiful white buck which he shot durir 
his stay down East, says the Springfield (Mass 
Republican. Dr. Carmichael was successful 
securing the two deer which is the quota a 
lowed each hunter that enters the Maine fores 
each year. The other was a good sized buc 
of the ordinary type. Both were shot in tl 
Aroostook county region. Dr. Carmichael w; 
one of a party of half a dozen hunters, each c 
whom made good bags during the trip. 
The doctor stated that hunting in Maine tb 
year is harder than is usually the case, becam 
of the fact that the lack of rain has left tl 
leaves dry, and the noise of a party in th 
woods is hardly conducive to successful huntins: 
Throughout the sections where the forest fmj 
have spread recently no deer are to be found' 
having been driven further back into the wood 
Dr. Carmichael says that during the trip he she | 
at every kind of game, partridges, muskrat 
hedgehogs, etc., and that he missed but threj 
shots on the hunt. The white buck bore a hand! 
some spread of antlers. In all *Dr. Carmichael 
caught sight of only three deer, two of whic 
he bagged. Only four or five white bucks hav| 
been seen in the woods this year. 
