Snipe and Doves in Nebraska. 
There are sections where certain kinds of fish 
and game are more abundant than here, but 
there is none where the variety is greater, or 
the shooting and fishing easier or better, or 
whose specially favored places are more easily 
reached. The gunners are indeed a fortunate 
lot, with a long shooting season. With the 
anglers it is somewhat different, as local waters 
are limited in extent and not particularly pro¬ 
lific of high class game fish, hence the devotees 
of this recreation must depend on more favored 
foreign waters, which luckily are near. 
However, the shooters are particularly blessed 
with unusual advantages, with an open season 
for one choice bird or another, as I before inti¬ 
mated, running almost through the entire year. 
To be sure there is a forbidden interval, be¬ 
ginning at the expiration of the spring wildfowl 
and jacksnipe shooting, and reaching only until 
July i. Thus it will be seen, with the open sea¬ 
son on these incomparable birds extending until 
May 15, the closed gap, terminating with the 
last day of June, when the upland plover and 
doves become lawful quarry, is but a compara¬ 
tively short one—forty-two days in all. 
Just now we are in the midst of possibly as 
pleasant shooting as the year affords, that upon 
the birds last mentioned. 
During the past few nights the plover—for 
which the season opened last month—have been 
arriving in good numbers and by this time the 
main issue of the birds from the north are wax¬ 
ing fat on Nebraska grasshoppers. The old 
males come down from the breeding grounds 
in the Dakotas, preceding the young birds and 
the females by several days, as if to reconnoiter 
the country and prepare for the reception of 
their mates and offspring. The old cocks are 
followed invariably by the young birds, who 
come in a body, and are followed by the old 
females. The female is the larger bird and 
weighs from seven ounces to one pound, and 
in plumage coloration is exactly like the male. 
The young furnish one of the most delicate of 
all table morsels, especially when not too fat. 
The upland plover is very abundant through¬ 
out all the plains country of Nebraska and af¬ 
fords the grandest sport of all our visiting game 
birds at a season when all others, save the dove, 
are protected. They come up from their winter 
home on the broad plateaus of Texas and 
Mexico during the latter part of March, linger 
here a day or so for rest, then continue on to 
the breeding grounds further north. Some go 
as far north as the valley of the Saskatchewan, 
but the bulk of them breed in the Dakotas, and 
not a few in the northern part of Nebraska. 
While shooting up at Pender one July several 
years ago I ran across a brood of young up¬ 
lands—little, comical, yellowish, downy balls, but 
with a speed of foot that was something re¬ 
markable. The season of nidification is com¬ 
paratively short, and about the time the golden- 
rod is pluming our broad prairies with its topaz 
shafts they return to this latitude and linger 
until the arrival of the first frost, when they 
again mount the nocturnal air and move on to 
more southern climes. From early July to the 
last of August is the shooting season on up¬ 
lands for Nebraska sportsmen. There is no 
season of the year fuller of charms than this 
and it is a grand thing, indeed, for the sports¬ 
man that he has this grand bird to lure him 
afield. 
The upland is a royal bird, and as a bonne 
bouche for the gastronome has but few equals. 
Some fancy him more than they do the delicious 
jacksnipe, and others rate him even above the 
quail. They abound here in great numbers dur¬ 
ing this brief midsummer stay, our broad hay 
fields and sunny sloping hillsides being favored. 
They are extremely shy and are found scatter- 
ingly together over the same feeding grounds, 
and when flushed each bird takes his individual 
course. 
With the close of the upland plover shooting 
the gunning for the summer months reaches its 
end, and when the delicate purple of the meadow 
beauty and the soft azure of the lobelia show 
their sweet faces beneath a clear sunlit sky, you 
will no longer listen for that plaintive whistle 
rippling across the fields or watch for that cir¬ 
cling bit of gray against the horizon and over 
the distant woods, now gradually turning to that 
yellowish hue of the waning dog days. The 
goldenrod is fading and the sumach reddening 
in the shadowy gulch and remote fence corner. 
Then is the time for patience. The uplands 
have gone, but autumn, that most jocund sea¬ 
son of all, is coming. In a few more weeks the 
woods and the fields, the crested lake and mur¬ 
muring stream will form one great hunters’ 
elysium. With the cool nights and cooler morn¬ 
ings, with the sear prairies, gray sandhills and 
gayly tinted river valleys comes the vanguard 
of those quacking hordes that will once more 
start the sportsman’s heart to beating and make 
him forget the melancholy but ever dear “tur- 
wheetle, turwheetle” of the upland plover. 
The upland plover is the most thoroughly ter¬ 
restrial of all his species and unlike its ring¬ 
necked cousin, our common killdeer, is disin¬ 
clined to frequent wet or moist places. The 
killdeer on the contrary is seldom seen any¬ 
where save along the muddy or sandy shores 
of our lakes and streams. While it is true that 
the upland plover is occasionally found in the 
haunts of the killdeer, it will never venture to 
wade in the shallows, notwithstanding the form 
and length of its legs and feet would naturally 
induce one not familiar with its habits to rank 
it with the semi-water fowl. 
It has been said that the upland plover never 
travels in large flocks, but this is erroneous, for 
the young birds always arrive here in great 
bands during the hot nights of early July, but 
on arrival immediately separate into small scat¬ 
tered flocks and indulge in their nocturnal exer¬ 
cise while resting here, singly or in twos and 
threes and sometimes a half dozen or so. 
On their first arrival from the north they are 
generally lean and scrawny, but within a week 
become so fat and succulent that you would 
hardly recognize them as the same bird. Dur¬ 
ing the first few days when they are poor they 
are much tamer than a week later, when they 
become extremely alert and difficult to stalk, bul 
this general observation is not without excep¬ 
tions and the difference I think depends on the 
frequency with which they are hunted and dis¬ 
turbed. When upon our new-plowed fields 
which they are fond of frequenting, they car 
see the sportsman a great distance, as they can 
also when they are searching for insects on 
our close cropped pasture lands. I have some¬ 
times thought that the size of the flocks depend? 
upon similar contingencies, for the bird is by 
no means fond of the sight of man. Like the 
chicken he is a pure native of the wilds. 
Some time later I will treat more fully upon 
the minor peculiarities of this precious game 
bird; just now my admonition to the sportsman 
is, get ready and go out, for the birds remain 
but a brief while longer and a few more years 
will see the last of them. The birds just nowi' 
are more apt to be found on the pasture lands 
where they settle first on their arrival. Select 
a field of as extensive area as possible and one 
where clumps of ragweed and thistles are suffi¬ 
ciently thick to furnish shade for the tired birds 
at noon day. When flushed they will mount 
high into the air or barely skim the earth sur¬ 
face, but they rarely leave the vicinity where 
they have made up their minds to feed. A few 
days later the plowed fields will be the better 
place, but just now the cut hay and grazing 
fields hold a greater charm for them. 
I he first crop of doves is now full grown and 
fairly plentiful, although immediately round 
about Omaha, say within a ten-mile radius, they 
have been pretty well killed off by that con- 1 
scienceless mob that never gives the birds a fair 
chance. The dove in this latitude breeds two 
or three times throughout the summer, and 
while the law seeks to protect them as much 
as possible it cannot do so wholly without de¬ 
priving the sportsman of all opportunity to en¬ 
joy the shooting. If a closed season was ex¬ 
tended to Aug. 30, the birds would by that time 
have partially packed and gotten largely through 
with the breeding season, although I have seen 
young doves in the nest as late as Sept. 10. The 
dove, while but recently included in our game" 
classifications, is really a delicious table bird, 
the young equaling any feathered morceau in 
the gamut of good things. 
Sandy Griswold. 
Belter Protection. 
Morgantown, W. Va., July 26.— Editor Forest 
and Stream: It might be hard to determine 
whether there is real progress being made in! 
the States as a whole, in the matter of game 
protection, since good and bad laws are being 
made each year by our State legislatures, which 
are observed or violated according to the senti¬ 
ment in different localities, but the tendency 
does seem to show some improvement in this, 
