FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Jan. 8 , i 9 10 - 
other bird eaters. The old professional says 
the scarcity of woodcock is due in large meas¬ 
ure to the fire-hunting and market-killing in 
the South, and in part to the alleged increase 
of crows, hawks and other vermin in the 
covers. Of course, to his mind, professional 
hunting conserved the game through the de¬ 
struction of natural enemies of birds, of which 
professional hunters could not be classed as a 
part. Fur buyers do not agree that nnnk, 
skunks, foxes and coons are increasing; m 
fact, the catch of fur is growing smaller, in 
spite of the great increase of values and con¬ 
sequent increase in number of trappers. The 
professional answers this by saying crows, 
hawks and owls are more numerous. 
It seems to be agreed that foxes are in¬ 
creasing. The average trapper cannot catch a 
fox, and most foxes through Saratoga and 
Warren counties were killed ahead of dogs. 
These dogs in the old days were also deer¬ 
hounds. Under the law such dogs cannot be 
used in forests inhabited by deer. Deer are 
on both sides the Hudson above Glens Falls, 
consequently a foxhound cannot be used. Thus 
foxes have increased, and their tracks are, 
everywhere. With this exception, fur-bearing 
enemies of the grouse and woodcock have not 
increased. Rabbits are more numerous than 
ever, but cottontails have driven the north¬ 
ern hares out of many of their covers. If bird 
enemies of grouse and woodcock were more 
plentiful, then rabbits would also be victims. 
This year woodcock held their own. Little 
is said about the summer covers, and the hunt¬ 
ers groan because the woodcock season does 
not open till Oct. 1. This gives them only fif¬ 
teen or eighteen days’ woodcock shooting. 
They say, too, that if the woodcock season 
opens before the grouse season it is a freak 
law. A bird dog points, and whatever gets up 
is shot at. Grouse and woodcock in summer 
and early fall are found on similar ground— 
, lowland and alders and swamp. It is admitted 
that, having the law open for both birds the 
same day, is protection for grouse, which 
naturally come later to maturity. 
George Anderson, a dog trainer, bird hunter, 
trapper and gunning woodsman, says wood- 
ticks and tapeworms are the chief causes of 
grouse scarcity. He saw broods of grouse 
early last summer, numbering ten or twelve 
birds. A few weeks later the largest brood he 
saw in the woods was one of five birds not 
yet large enough to shoot. He said that it was 
not unusual to find woodticks on the necks of 
young birds in fall shooting, and such birds 
were lean and weak in proportion to the 
havoc wrought on the bird’s neck by the 
insects. 
Woodsmen think that the scarcity of birds 
is due- to the killing off of young ones by 
ticks, tapeworms and weasels, hawks, owls 
and foxes. Most of the damage is done by in¬ 
sects. The professional hunters and fisher¬ 
men are exceedingly bitter against the game 
laws, far more so than ever before, which is, 
of course, an indication of the efficiency of the 
enforcement. There is no open violation as in 
the past, and secret violation has grown so 
dangerous that the professionals say, “I used 
to hold my head up-I hunted just like a man 
-as good as anybody; but these laws make me 
look over my shoulder all the while, and when 
go out I have to sneak around, listen and look. 
I don’t feel like I used to, hunting and fishing. 
This is a marvelous change, in view of the 
talk of the same men five or six years ago. 
Then they boasted of their prowess, of fooling 
the game wardens and of the amount of game 
they killed. Probably compelling the profes¬ 
sionals to feel like sneaks will do more toward 
destroying the frightful efficiency of the mar¬ 
ket hunter class than anything else. . How 
deadly this efficiency has been may be judged 
from the weekly average of twenty-five ad¬ 
mitted on mature grouse in November and 
December. Probably 400 to 1000 birds was a 
professional’s score along the southeastern 
side of the Adirondacks a few years ago. Five 
or six professionals and a score or so of semi¬ 
professionals among farmers cleaned up whole 
towns and counties. Raymond S. Spears. 
The Saginaw Crowd Hunts Grouse. 
I have always thought that the shooting of 
ruffed grouse, or partridge, as they are com¬ 
monly called here in Michigan, constituted the 
best sport of the field and forest. It goes 
without saying that in the old days, when we 
had wild turkeys around Saginaw, that was the 
greatest fun of all, but the turkey shooting is 
a memory only, and until the last two years 
partridge shooting has been a live issue, and 
I have always had one or two of the best part¬ 
ridge dogs in the world. My old original Bob, 
a Gordon setter, and a high-bred pointer, Jack 
of Naso, were equals and hard to beat, but it 
remained for Bob the Second, who lived to the 
good, old age of seventeen years and who 
passed away two years ago. I think, to beat 
them all. He seemed to know just where to 
find the birds, just how close he could get to 
them, and just how many remained of the flock 
after the first one or two had been shot at, and 
the next boast about him was the fact that no 
better retriever ever lived. 
A bird hard hit, pitching away into a cedar 
swamp, he seemed to have the knack of mark¬ 
ing. Give him time and back he would come 
with the bird without mussing a feather. If a 
broken-winged bird started away on a dead run 
under logs or through thickets, no matter how 
dry or crackling the leaves were, the old fel¬ 
low could always decipher the intricacies of its 
route and would proudly come out to me with 
the bird in as good condition as when it struck 
the ground. 
To take Bob’s place I now have Pat, in his 
prime—about six years old—and Rex Rip-Rap, 
a pointer two-and-a-half years old. Pat is an 
Irish setter and a mighty good one; method¬ 
ical, cautious and staunch, but he does not 
retrieve like Bob used to and once in a while 
will break shot. If there is a covey of birds 
he is not apt to move until the last one has 
gotten up, or if I speak sharply to him he will 
stay there; but in the excitement I forget this 
sometimes and I don’t wonder that the dog 
partakes of the exhilaration. After all, the 
sportsman himself, as a rule, needs breaking 
and training more than the dog does. 
The forest fire of the autumn of 1908 burned 
a great many of the birds when it destroyed 
the majority of the game covers, and while we 
did find partridge after the fire that year, they 
were scarcer than ever. I think many of them 
starved to death last winter, the ground food 
being burned up and the popples killed so that 
they could not bud; but that is only a theory 
and it might or might not hold water, but, at 
any rate, inquiries made this year failed to bring 
forth information of any place wffiere a rea¬ 
sonable bag of partridges could be had. The 
old shooting ground around Merrill and Hem¬ 
lock was burned and bare. Reports from Har- 
iison, Clare, Gladwin, and all of those places 
were equally discouraging, so that a trip was 
only planned to be given up as no use at all. 
Just before the close of the season I had 
written to my friend Charley W., who was 
ranching in one of the northern counties in the 
Lower Peninsula, and asked if there were any 
birds in his locality. Charley likes company and 
is hospitable to a fault, a good shot, brought 
up amongst ruffed grouse, and, of course, 
knows what he is talking about, but I really 
think that he exaggerated a little bit just so 
that we would come up and spend Thanksgiv¬ 
ing with him. Only a remnant of the Saginaw 
crowd could go, and after we had had Thanks¬ 
giving turkey with our families, our car w f as 
hitched on to the midnight train of Thursday 
leaving for the north, and we arrived at the 
little station wdiere Charley’s ranch is situated 
at 7 o’clock Friday morning. We were urged 
to make this selection by receiving on Monday 
this telegram from Charley: “Have located 
large number of birds. Come on. Then a 
day or two following: “Room for five at the 
ranch house. Good cook. Plenty grub. . Hunt¬ 
ing for all; deer, bear, partridge. Wire if com¬ 
ing.’’ That decided us, but before we got under 
way these two letters came from Charley: 
“You better come with three or four and 
stay at ranch house. You can kill deer within 
