176 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[July 31, 1909. 
Woodchuck Ways. 
Little Falls, N. Y„ July 24 —Editor Foiest 
and Stream: George Green, of Little Falls, 
while on his vacation, spent part of his time 
near Syracuse hunting woodchucks. Wood¬ 
chucks are thicker than ever before, so far as 
remembered, and cabbage growers are hard beset 
by them. As fast as the sprouts show up, the 
rodents chank them short, like rabbits. Many 
expedients to rid the fields of the pests are 
being resorted to, including traps, rifles, poison, 
filling the holes with gas. Success is only par¬ 
tial, however, and the death of one chuck but 
brings another to the field. Green, with a .303 
caliber rifle, killed ten of them in one day. 
If woodchucks were better eating, the fun 
of hunting them would appeal to many riflemen. 
A few woodsmen spend their spare time, after 
haying, hunting woodchucks, which are then 
visible from afar in the cropped meadows. Two 
men killed dozens of the animals near North- 
wood. They saved the skins and tried out the 
fat, but for what purpose the oil and skins were 
used I never learned. The hunters were secre¬ 
tive regarding their success and profits, but I 
suspect that the oil has a market. 
A young woodchuck is fair eating, parboiled 
and then roasted or fried. It is not so good as 
young porcupine—a fine delicacy, by the way 
and hares are still better. 
Most boys begin their hunting in the Adiron- 
dacks by shooting woodchucks. In pastures 
they make good boy game, but the long ranges 
in meadows are too much for the average boy 
out with his first rifle. I have seen a boy shoot 
a woodchuck running with a .32, however. Of- 
times woodsmen gather along a fence, after the 
fields are mowed, and practice on woodchucks 
scattered across the flats anywhere within half 
a mile. In these days of low trajectory, a wood¬ 
chuck is not safe if it is in sight. 
Green told of seeing a woodchuck sitting be¬ 
side a rock nearly two hundred paces distant. 
He shot and the animal raced away from the 
hole ten or twelve feet and turned to look back. 
A second shot hit it. The first bullet had 
gouged out the stone a few inches from the 
’chuck’s head, driving it from its hole. Com¬ 
monly, an alarmed woodchuck dives into its 
hole. They run in, turn around and come back, 
crouching close to the entrance to listen. I have 
run up and stood over the mouth of a hole, and 
killed several as they returned. 
Hunting woodchucks requires a skill and prac¬ 
tice of its own. There are fool woodchucks 
which anyone can kill—commonly young ones; 
and wise old woodchucks which survive the fusi- 
lades and traps of several years. Some permit 
one to walk up within a few rods, while 
others run at first sight of a head peering over 
a fence thirty rods distant. The hearing of the 
woodchuck is very acute, and when one has 
escaped a few bullets it dives for shelter at the 
sound of footsteps. 
The punishment a woodchuck will take is al¬ 
ways mentioned by woodsmen when discussing 
the effect of bullets. I have seen a woodchuck 
shot through with a .45-90 bullet run a rod and 
escape in a hole, although its lungs were cut 
out. Shot lengthwise and crosswise with .32s, 
they escape frequently, and yet they often wilt 
in their tracks when struck by BB shot. 
There is a mystery, to me, in the BB cap. 
I have killed woodchucks, porcupines, red squir¬ 
rels and many birds with this cartridge, and it 
seems the BB cap is more deadly than, say, the 
.22 short, long, or long-rifle; that is, the game 
dies more quickly. Robert N. Mitchell of the 
Hatchie Coon Club in Arkansas told about kill¬ 
ing many animals with the BB, and he said 
that his experience was this charge was more 
sudden at short range than the heavy charges. 
A woodchuck shot in the body with a BB some¬ 
times seems paralyzed, while a long-rifle bullet 
in the same place lets it get to its hole. Only 
bullets in the head or back can be depended 
on to stop woodchucks instantly. 
The hunter finds several types of woodchucks. 
I remember woodchucks which always whistled 
when alarmed. For twelve or fifteen years this 
family lived in holes on the Waghorn place. 
Whenever one approached the startled animal 
would whistle shrilly. There was another fam¬ 
ily near the Bousefield pasture whose members 
commonly climbed trees. The mother had a 
lookout on a butternut tree limb about five feet 
from the ground. I think they sometimes fed 
on leaves. Roughly, boys divide the woodchucks 
into three classes, meadow, pasture and black. 
The latter are almost invariably found in second 
growth or in the woods. They are a smaller, 
warier animal, apparently. Of a hundred wood¬ 
chucks killed, only one or two would be black. 
I have seen them along stony brooks in the big 
woods oftener than anywhere else. I have also 
seen the red woodchuck twenty miles back in 
the timber. 
Like rabbits and hares, woodchucks have years 
when they are ‘‘everywhere,” and then follow 
years of scarcity. Waves of animal life sweep 
across the foothills of the Adirondacks from 
time to time. Sometimes chipmunks appear in 
thousands, then rabbits, woodchucks, foxes, musk¬ 
rats, etc. I have seen the woods so bare of 
rabbits that one might tramp for twenty miles 
straight away and not see more than two rabbit 
tracks; again, every swamp and hill has the 
tracks, and rabbits are under half the brush 
heaps. So with, woodchucks. For a few years 
they are hardly noticeable anywhere, then, some 
summer, when the grass is mowed the meadows 
are alive with them. Raymond S. Spears. 
Game Refuges in Louisiana. 
New Orleans, July 24 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: The State Game Commission has se¬ 
cured two tracts of ground in Washington par¬ 
ish between Zona and Jenkins and running 
through to Peral River, to be used as a preserve. 
The first tract is four miles long and three miles 
wide and the second tract fifteen miles long and 
three miles wide. It will embrace about 20,000 
acres and is ideally located as a game preserve, 
being composed of lowlands, marshes and hills. 
It is proposed by the Commission to stock this 
preserve with at least fifty mountain deer from 
North Carolina and fifty domesticated turkey 
hens. It is also the intention of the Commis¬ 
sion to supply the preserve on the border lines 
of Webster and Bossier Parishes with turkeys 
and deer. The game preserve in Bossier and 
Webster aggregates about 8,000 acres. 
Inspector W. J. Thompson of the Commission 
will leave shortly for Kansas where he will pur¬ 
chase several dozen pairs of prairie chickens 
which will be brought to Louisiana and distrib¬ 
uted in the various parishes of this State. Mr. 
Thompson will also make arrangements to se¬ 
cure a number of California quail and try the 
experiment of raising them in Louisiana. It is 
thought this species will thrive in this State. 
The Commission will purchase about 100 deer 
and the same number of domestic turkey hens 
for the preserves mentioned. 
President Miller is attending the convention of 
the American Fisheries Society in Toledo, Ohio. 
He will invite the convention to hold its next 
meeting in New Orleans. Mayor Behrman and 
the Progressive Union of New Orleans have 
joined Mr. Miller in extending the invitation. 
If the association comes to New Orleans Mr. 
Miller will ask the authorities in Washington to 
send its splendid exhibit of fish to this city at 
that time. If this feature is added there is no 
doubt that hundreds of people will be attracted 
to New Orleans. 
The Game Commission has received the blank 
forms for non-resident hunting licenses. The 
price of these licenses is $25, while the resident 
license is $1. The Commission has recommended 
to the Legislature that the non-resident license 
be reduced to $15. The dove season opens in 
Louisiana September 1. 
President Frank M. Miller and Attorney Amos 
L. Ponder of the Game Commission have just 
returned from an extended speaking tour of 
several parishes of the State. Mr. Miller gave , 
his illustrated lecture at night and Mr. Ponder j 
spoke in the day. They report a very satisfac- i 
tory trip and were received by large numbers 
and gladly heard. They spoke on the value of 
the birds to the crops and the country generally 
and the objects and purposes of the Game Com¬ 
mission. A large number of people in the coun¬ 
try do not understand the purposes of the Game 
Commission and there is yet some dissatisfac¬ 
tion. A few of the members of the Farmers’ 
Union at Denham Springs a day or two ago 
adopted resolutions condemning the Game Com¬ 
mission as being undemocratic and that the con¬ 
trol of the game laws should be in the hands 
of the police juries of each parish. The reso¬ 
lutions state that it is wrong to charge the peo¬ 
ple $1 to hunt wild birds and the resolution 
closes by petitioning the Legislature to repeal 
the law creating the State Game Commission. 1 
In other sections quite a few of the members 
of the Farmers’ Union are in sympathy with the 
commission, as they believe the protection of 
birds means the destruction to a great extent of 
the boll weevil. 
The commission has decided to purchase two 
additional motor boats to be used by wardens 
in Vermilion and Caddo parishes. Four excel¬ 
lent boats are in commission at the present time. 
These draw very little water and can be navi¬ 
gated in shallow streams and marshes. It is the 
intention of the commission to name a number 
of additional game wardens by October 1 and 
to enforce the various game and fish laws rig¬ 
idly. It is expected that fully 100,000 hunting 
licenses will be issued this year, an increase of 
about 15,000 over 1908. F. G. G. 
All the game laws of the United States and 
Canada, revised to date and now in force, are 
given in the Game Laws in Brief. See adv. 
