io\8 
[Dec. 26, 1908. 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
climbed there on five different trips. Most of 
my time was put in about the headwaters of 
Two Medicine, Mud Creek, Park Creek and Olie 
Creek. Here is a country with high and exceed¬ 
ingly rugged mountains mostly of about 8,000 to 
10,000 feet elevation, a climate of heavy rain¬ 
fall, especially on the west side of the main 
range of the Rockies, and valleys densely tim¬ 
bered except where avalanches and snow slides 
have swept them bare. 
On the north side of the mountains there is 
plenty of snow all summer with many small and 
some fair-sized glaciers. Storm after storm 
breeds along the summits, and one is liable to 
need snowshoes in August and October. His 
horses are far safer at home. 
First of all this is a goat country, and in spite 
of considerable persecution, that most peculiar 
of our animals is still found in fair numbers 
within twenty miles of the Great Northern R. R. 
A year ago last August near the head of Park 
Creek I came across a goat lick where sixteen 
animals were “using” at one time. Afterward 
I managed to get a forty-yard shot here, with 
the camera, and obtained a negative with eight 
animals upon it. 
I think goats are holding their own, at least 
in the remote parts of the region, though they 
have decreased since my first trip on the easily 
hunted ground. 
Last year I thought that goats were acquiring 
some knowledge of man and his methods. I 
found some at least that were really shy. On 
the same trip I saw two goats and thirteen sheep 
feeding quietly together. It was probably merely 
an accident, but to me an interesting and un¬ 
usual observation. 
Sheep are certainly on the decrease and rams 
are getting very scarce. Last year only about 
sixty-six ewes and eight or nine rams were seen 
on a trip of some eight weeks, and of these 
there were just two good heads. Among the 
ewes only seven lambs were noted. This dearth 
of young might be due to any one of several 
causes. Rams are always hard to locate in the 
summer and early fall, but later on, in the rut¬ 
ting season, large heads put in an appearance; 
from where nobody seems to know. 
In winter the sheep come low down on to the 
eastern spurs of the Rockies and at times are 
easy prey for a good hunter, for their natural 
range is limited by deep snow. I think that 
some of this winter sheep ground would come 
inside the Blackfoot Reservation, though I am 
not certain as to the exact point where the line 
crosses. 
Without protection these sheep could not last 
many years, and were it not for the extremely 
difficult nature of the ground, not one would be 
left to-day. There are no sheep on the main 
range south of the Great Northern R. R. for a 
long distance and west of the main summit you 
soon lose them, so they are here confined to a 
rather small area. 
As to the elk I was greatly surprised on my 
last visit at the abundance of sign we saw, 
though only one animal was actually observed. 
From all the information I have been able to 
gather, I am inclined to think that elk have in¬ 
creased somewhat during the past ten years. 
They appear about as well able to take care of 
themselves as any animal I ever met, and they 
stand as a contrast to the semi-tame elk of Wyo¬ 
ming. 
Here in the northern mountains the wapiti has 
become a perfect recluse, the darkest spruce 
woods and alder jungles are his bed by day, and 
from them he never ventures till night. He 
wanders continually and forsakes a favored-val¬ 
ley on the slightest provocation, so that taken all 
in all he is a very difficult proposition for the 
sportsman. 
Personally, I have never seen any very large 
elk heads from this region. Follow the main 
range south of the railroad and you come to a 
better elk country with lower elevations and 
broader valleys. 
Deer are unevenly distributed over the pro¬ 
posed park region, both blacktail and whitetail,. 
and no doubt would increase somewhat with 
protection, but the main range is nothing like 
the deer country that lies to the west of it. 
There are very few deer on the eastern side 
in any region that I have visited. 
Bear of both sorts are quite numerous, though 
rarely large specimens of Ursns horribilis are 
seldom heard from now. 
Along the main range lions are not very plen¬ 
tiful, but they increase further west where the 
deer are found in numbers. 
Most of the fur-bearing animals are found in 
the forests, but with ranks sadly depleted by the 
trapper. Of the smaller mammals there are 
many species, the whistling marmot and the little 
chief hare being the most conspicuous, the for¬ 
mer growing sometimes to an astonishing size. 
The grouse family is represented by the big 
blue grouse, the Rocky Mountain ruffed grouse, 
the Franklin grouse and along the eastern edge 
of the forest, the Columbian sharp-tailed grouse. 
Above belt line you find the white-tailed ptarmi¬ 
gan, though it never seemed to me that they 
were anywhere very abundant. 
John C. Phillips. 
Twenty Bores for Duck Shooting. 
Los Angeles, Cal., Dec. 17. — Editor Forest arid 
Stream: They say here in California that all 
signs fail in a dry winter. There might with 
truth be an amendment to the adage, in effect 
that all signs of a dry winter oft-times fail. 
Up to a fortnight ago the present looked like 
a bad year for the ranchers and the sportsmen, 
for one cannot suffer without the other being 
involved also. But within the last ten days a 
soaking southeaster contributed near two inches 
of average rainfall throughout the southern end 
of the State, and materially changed the out¬ 
look. A good grain crop is assured and the duck 
hunters, who realize that a large share of the 
splendid sport enjoyed by local clubs is due 
to the great quantity of feed on the barley fields 
left after the threshing, are well pleased. 
Storms occurring on shooting days here gen¬ 
erally produce big bags. After the first fire in 
the morning the ducks strike out for sea and 
sit there until afternoon, unless the morning 
be so hot that they have to come in earlier after 
water. After moonlight nights, allowing the 
birds to stock up on grain and water, the ducks 
can hold out much longer. Sometimes they do 
not return to the ponds until sunset, and as 
most of the clubs quit shooting soon after noon, 
a poor morning’s sport is the result. Occas¬ 
ional southeasters and other windstorms make 
the ocean so choppy that the birds cannot ride 
it in comfort, and then they come trailing in¬ 
land in vast squadrons, bowing their wings and 
sailing about the ponds until the hunters below 
have filled out their limits, even to the ordinary 
shots. Such a morning was that of last Wed¬ 
nesday. Opening overcast, but quiet, with an 
ordinary supply of birds in evidence, the sport 
after the opening was slow for an hour. Then 
it came on to blow from the southeast, ever 
increasing in force, until the wind had attained 
a velocity of twenty-five or thirty miles an hour. 
The big rafts of sprigs, spoonbills, teal and 
widgeon out on the ocean moved inland, and 
from 8 o’clock onward the sport was something 
to be remembered. In several of the stands on 
our grounds, the Canvasback Land and Water 
Company, an expert shot could have killed 150 
birds during the day. 
Ed. Featherstone by chance had selected this 
as the day to try out his new twenty-gauge gun, 
a thirty-inch barrel affair, chambered for a 2/, 
inch shell. Gene Parker was shooting his twenty 
in the next blind, and both were shooting some 
of Parker’s special loaded duck shells, the con¬ 
stituency of which might be of interest to small¬ 
bore cranks elsewhere who like to do their work 
with the lightest gear consistent with effect. 
And believe me, these twenties will do the busi¬ 
ness when they are made for the work and 
loaded right. Parker uses a three-inch Leader 
or Magic case, with 2V2 drams of bulk smoke¬ 
less, a inch express, ^8 inch black-edge, and 
another ordinary black-edge, and 7 /& ounce No. 
7 chilled shot. This leaves a good crimp; the 
shells look like Roman candles or .30 caliber 
rifle ammunition. Featherstone did better work 
with the twenty than with his sixteen, and as 
soon as I can scare up one of the popguns prop¬ 
erly chambered and with the long barrel, it will 
be a twenty-bore for mine, so far as ducks are 
concerned. I flatter myself that I am a pretty 
accurate judge of distance. Time and again I 
saw these good shots double up the sprigs, 
spoonies, widgeon and teal from fifty to sixty 
yards high, and they let go all holds when the 
charges struck them, too. There was none of 
that sloppy business one sees so much of with 
a twelve-bore when the bird just catches the 
edge of the charge, and should have been missed 
by rights; in fact, would have been missed clean 
with a twenty-bore or even a sixteen. 
I was so impressed with the work of these 
twenties that I proceeded to ventilate a five 
gallon oil can with one at eight rods distance 
to see what execution the little arms would do, 
being familiar with the performance of a six¬ 
teen at these targets. They are not ideal as 
tests, as tin is not always the same thickness, 
but by using the same can, one can compare 
penetration accurately enough to see which load 
has the most force. 
The results were a great surprise to me. I 
did not believe that any twenty-bore would hold 
that big charge of shot together with such an 
amount of powder beneath it. Yet I found that 
the twenty, with No. 7 chilled, would give rather 
better patterns than the sixteen with sixes and 
put all the shot through both sides of the cans 
as against only a majority of them from the 
sixteen. To be sure the load of the twenty is, 
in proportion, equal to three drams and one 
ounce for the sixteen, while I was using only 
2 7 /i and ^ ounce, but were I loading twenty- 
bore ammunition, I certainly would try reduc¬ 
ing that shot charge and cutting out the top 
