Oct. 9, 1909 ] 
FOREST AND STREAM 
0 i o 
have against them is to keep their flocks 
guarded by huge and ferocious wolf hounds, 
which in turn form a danger to travelers. 
Hyenas frequent various parts of Asia Minor, 
and of all the wild animals which abound in the 
country, the hyena is the one most hated and 
feared by the Turkish peasantry. The vil’agers, 
as a rule, bury their dead at no great depth. The 
prowling hyena in his nightly depredations 
easily penetrates the thin covering of earth and 
stone. The jackal in many respects is almost 
as bad, and by some considered to be a greater 
Hunting the ’Chuck. 
Hunting the woodchuck ranks high as a sport 
among those who have skill in the use of the 
rifle and the camera. Perhaps I should have 
placed the camera first; snap shooting the 
’chuck with the camera is the higher form of 
sport, but this is indulged in by a small 
minority, only those who have taken the sec¬ 
ond degree. The first degree ’chuck hunter is 
the man or woman who shoots woodchucks with 
the rifle; the man who slaughters them with 
many of the shots must be made at from 150 
to 200 yards, and at these distances the high 
grade medium power telescope is almost a neces¬ 
sity for really satisfactory work. I would 
recommend a glass of five to ten diameters 
magnifying power. This for shooting off-hand 
or from a rest, or in any position which can 
be taken in the field, excepting the back posi¬ 
tion. I have killed ’chucks at 150 yards, shoot¬ 
ing down moderately steep grades from the back 
position and using a “snapshot” telescope of three 
power with tube seven-eighths of an inch diameter. 
TELE-PHOTOGRAPHS OF VERMONT WOODCHUCKS. 
Mr. Leopold scored three ’chucks with the rifle to every one with the camera. 
marauder than the hyena. They are to be found 
in large numbers in the plain of the Maeander. 
In some parts of the country leopards, wild cats, 
and the lynx are also to be found in some num¬ 
bers. 
Grouse in Ontario. 
Milton, Ont., Oct. 1 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: Here in our province of Ontario ruffed 
grouse shooting has been nominally prohibited 
until next September by a Government order in 
council. From what I can hear the birds did 
well last spring and are to be found in large flocks. 
The order will be a dead letter because the 
Government provides no machinery for its en¬ 
forcement. In this county, for instance, though 
grouse and other game are to be found in many 
places, there is not a single deputy game war¬ 
den. The Government receives a large amount 
each year for resident and non-resident hunting 
licenses, but does not set the whole of it apart 
as it should for game protection. It spends a 
comparatively small amount in that way. There 
is constant law breaking, but prosecutions or' 
convictions are seldom reported. W. P. 
the scatter gun has no standing among sports¬ 
men ’chuck hunters. 
The most modern weapon for this kind of 
shooting is a small-bore smokeless rifle, using 
a bullet with a hollow soft point, the cylindrical 
portion and base being protected by a jacket of 
copper or cupro-nickel. I prefer the .257 cali¬ 
ber, considering it the smallest that is thor¬ 
oughly reliable for several reasons, the .226 
being too small and the .285 or 7mm. larger than 
necessary for the work in hand. 
The woodchuck is a small animal, the average 
weight of an adult being about eight pounds, 
and as the average distance at which they are 
shot with the rifle in most localities is about 100 
yards, it naturally follows that the rifle and 
ammunition should be the most accurate obtain¬ 
able; it should belong to the class generally 
designated as “target” rifles; it should be equip¬ 
ped with set trigger and telescopic sight. 
The telescope should be of as high a grade 
as the sportsman thinks he can afford to buy. 
The best are worth all they cost to the man who 
can afford to use one. If the shots were all 
made at very short distances, a low grade tele¬ 
scope would answer the purpose fairly well, but 
Many of the best ’chuck hunters do almost 
all of their shooting from a portable rest which 
they carry with them. These men naturally 
select medium or moderately high power tele¬ 
scopic sights. For rest shooting, with a good 
light, a magnification of twelve diameters is not 
too much. This would apply more particularly 
to a telescope of seven-eighths inch outside diam¬ 
eter, having a clear aperture of three-fourths of 
an inch. If the telescope is smaller, having a 
clear aperture approximating five-eighths of an 
inch, a power of eight or nine diameters would 
be quite high enough and many would prefer 
a lower power on account of the brighter illumi¬ 
nation, making shooting more comfortable on 
dark days and late in the evening when the 
shooting for ’chucks is always the best. 
With a really good telescopic sight the shoot¬ 
ing may be continued until 7 o’clock in the 
evening in the middle of May in the latitude of 
central New York. The best time to start for 
this section is about May 10. At this time the 
young grass has commenced to grow, but is 
not yet tall enough to hide the ’chucks, which 
can be seen at a long distance and are corres¬ 
pondingly wild, for a ’chuck estimates his safety 
