18 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Jan. i, 1910. 
the usual batch of resolutions, and that is 
about all they do. I do not think you ever 
saw a high protective tariff advocate but would 
help his wife smuggle in a few dresses from 
Paris, or try to sneak in a fur overcoat with¬ 
out paying the duty if he happened to be in 
Montreal or Quebec, where he found one that 
was cheap. It is a good deal the same with 
the game laws; people will join all sorts of 
civic associations and preach the observance 
of law and order, and then think it is some¬ 
thing smart when they tell what a good din¬ 
ner they had with game or fish that they know 
is contraband. 
I had a call from Billy Held the other night. 
He was just back from his annual partridge 
hunting expedition up North. I understood 
him to say that he stopped with his brother, 
who has a farm in Gladwin county, and that 
near the house was a patch of brush land 
rather recent growth; it was not very thick and 
only about shoulder high. His brother in¬ 
formed him that there were a few partridge in 
that thin brush. There was a slight snow on 
the ground and he went out to investigate, and 
sure enough found the tracks and put up three 
birds, but concluded that he would not shoot 
them as they were near the house and would 
make good breeders, and there should be some 
seed left for the future. A few days afterward 
in coming from the same cover, he came upon 
the feathers and remains of a partridge and 
tracks in the snow of a larger bird. A little 
later on he discovered a great horned owl, and 
at once concluded that he had done the mis¬ 
chief. He tried his best to shoot him, and 
after finding the second bird a day or two 
later with the same tracks around it, tried to 
trap the owl. He had not eaten the entire car¬ 
cass of this second partridge, so he placed it 
on a nearby stump along with the trap, but 
the owl did not go near it, but instead, the 
very next day got the third and last partridge. 
This illustrates the necessity for a change of 
front in the game warden’s department; in¬ 
stead of being simply policemen to arrest vio¬ 
lators of the game and fish laws, the deputy 
warden should be educated in the art of ex¬ 
terminating vermin, and should be kept em¬ 
ployed during the off season when they do not 
have to watch for game violators, in exter¬ 
minating vermin and educating farmers and 
residents of the rural districts to help in this 
work, to plant clover as feed in the game 
covers and feed the quail in severe weather. 
The State of Michigan should have a dozen 
or more refuges in which game can be reared 
in nature’s way. W. B. Mershon. 
Luring Ruffed Grouse. 
Jersey City, N. J., Dec. 24. —Editor Forest and 
Stream: In your issue of Dec. 4 I note “A 
Duffer’s” article relative to the drumming in 
of partridge. 
One October, about ten years ago, I stopped 
for a two weeks’ hunt with Israel Barnhardt, 
Lew Beach, Sullivan county, New York. Dur¬ 
ing my stay we killed thirty partridges. Two 
years later I was with him again, this time for 
three weeks, again getting thirty partridges, and 
out of the sixty birds all told taken on those 
two trips at least twenty of them were’killed 
by drumming them in. Mr. Barnhardt claims 
he has killed birds in that way for many years; 
as far back as twenty years ago friends of mine 
saw him drum in partridge. 
At the time of which I write our hunting was 
done mostly with a dog, but during our ram¬ 
bles, if Mr. Barnhardt saw what he knew to be 
a log used for drumming, he would call a halt, 
he and I would conceal ourselves as well as 
possible near the log, and the dog, knowing just 
what was expected of him, would lie down near 
his master and to all appearances never move a 
muscle. Everything being arranged to his satis¬ 
faction, Mr. Barnhardt would start to drum in 
his bird and his method was as follows: He 
would squat down on his knees and with his 
left hand draw his canvas hunting coat tightly 
over his left breast, then with his clenched right 
hand he would strike his left breast and send 
out a perfect imitation of a partridge drum¬ 
ming. He would imitate the drum entirely in 
this manner. I cannot remember killing any but 
cock birds when using this “call.” At no time 
did we hear any birds come in; we had to de¬ 
pend entirely on our eyes, for the birds never 
made a sound that I could hear. 
Mr. Barnhardt’s opinion as to why the birds 
answer this “call” is that a certain male bird 
“keeps” in that piece of wood and when he 
hears another cock drum in his domain he comes 
to give fight, and if possible to drive the in¬ 
truder away. ' 
Some birds would come in almost on a run, 
with neck feathers puffed out, their wing tips 
dragging and tail feathers fan-shaped. Others 
would stalk along very slowly, head erect, stop¬ 
ping quite often as if to listen, but at no time 
did I see a bird come along on the bare ground 
if there was a log, rock or stick big enough on 
the ground to walk on. 
On more than one occasion after drumming 
as often as we thought necessary we would get 
up only to flush the bird within easy range. So 
slow and quietly was he coming that we, sitting 
back to back in order to watch all sides, never 
saw or heard him, and sometimes the bird would 
be within fifty feet of us and at times in fairly 
open timber. Otto Keim. 
A North Carolina Law. 
Greensboro, N. C., Dec. 24 .—Editor Forest 
and Stream: The attorney-general of North 
Carolina has recently given this office an opin¬ 
ion regarding the new game laws to the effect 
that a non-resident holding a hunter’s license, 
whether State or county, is permitted to take 
fifty quail in a season from the State on his 
license, and also that the county license now re¬ 
quired in a number of counties is not valid in 
any county other than in the county where it is 
issued. This does not, however, apply to the 
State license, issued under the Audubon law, it, 
as heretofore, being good in a large number of 
counties. 
Reports from the various parts of the State 
indicate a much larger number of quail this sea¬ 
son than last. In some sections they are ap¬ 
parently as abundant as formerly. 
Wildfowl shooting in the eastern part of the 
State has been good. • Lesser scaup ducks were 
especially abundant in the earlier part of the 
season, it being reported that a single pair of 
local hunters killed as many as 400 in one day. 
T. Gilbert Pearson, Sec’y. 
West Virginia Shooting. 
Morgantown, W. Va., Dec. 20. —Editor For¬ 
est and Stream: The close of the hunting sea¬ 
son shows the smallest amount of game killed 
and the best prospects for an increase in the 
supply of game which this part of West Vir¬ 
ginia has seen for many years. There are 
several reasons for this. 
The non-trespass law, passed by our last 
Legislature, requiring all persons to have a 
written permit from the owners of land to be 
hunted on, has greatly reduced the amount of 
hunting done. 
The resident license law, passed at the same 
time, has somewhat reduced the number of 
hunters. 
The law prohibiting the killing of any deer 
except bucks with horns, has probably reduced 
the number of deer killed by at least 60 per 
cent., as fully two-thirds of all deer killed 
heretofore- have been does or fawns. 
But the greatest saving of game, and that 
of most lasting benefit, is a result of the very 
good law prohibiting the sale of any kind of 
game. 
Grouse have been scarce for some years, 
but no matter how scarce they were, they have 
always been found hanging in the markets 
heretofore, killed in some manner by the resi¬ 
dents of localities where they were to be 
found, because of the high prices offered for 
them. That incentive for killing them being 
removed, they will be little sought after by 
the class of people who have always furnished 
them for the market. Probably on account of 
the unusual abundance of wild grapes this 
year they are not congregated in certain 
places, as is sometimes the case, but are 
evenly distributed over a large territory. This, 
with their scarcity, has made the hunting of 
them this season so unproductive of sport that 
scarcely any hunting for them has been done 
by sportsmen, and good results will surely 
follow. Also the entire absence of snow, with 
dry weather prevailing all through the season, 
has made successful hunting almost impos¬ 
sible. 
The nonresident law has borne hardly on 
those of us who like to take our camp outfit 
on our backs and hike away out into the big 
woods where the big game lives, but we are 
trying to look smiling. 
The gray squirrel is still with us in numbers 
sufficient to make the hunting of them inter¬ 
esting to those who enjoy that kind of hunting, 
and I wish to subscribe myself as being par¬ 
tial to that kind of hunting, preferring it to 
any other small game hunting. 
Recently a number of incidents have come 
under my observation, which I wish might 
have been seen by those who in time past have 
produced arguments to prove that all creatures 
learn to do things by example from those of 
their kind rather than by instinct. 
The past summer a male chicken was taken 
into a home in the central section of this town 
when very small and kept as a pet, where it 
was not within sight or sound of any other 
chickens. When it reached the age to be con¬ 
scious of its sex, I one day saw it when it 
had found a morsel of food, pick it up, drop 
it and then utter the call given by a rooster 
when calling for his brood of hens when he 
