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1018 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Dec. 25, 1909- 
down the canon. There is practically no travel 
on the road and everything would be safe. 
The next morning the wagon had to be tied 
up and brought in and there was no time to 
hunt The following day, however, a bright and 
early start was made, my two boys going in one 
direction and I in another. About noon all came 
in with nothing save tired limbs to show for the 
trip. The boys reported following the tracks 
of three turkeys and immediately I set out after 
them. 
After a walk of two miles I thought that a 
call might be heard, and calling at -once got an 
answer from a short distance up the creek. It 
was an easy matter to get two of them and I 
was back at the cabin inside of two hours much 
to the chagrin of the boys. Nothing more was 
killed this day and it was agreed that some 
grouse would taste pretty good. In the morn¬ 
ing one of the boys and myself started on a 
long hike for the top of the mountain, where 
usually grouse are quite plentiful, but we were 
out of luck this day, only finding two, but they 
were large enough to make up. 
On the way back to camp we struck the trail 
of a bunch of deer, and immediately took out 
after them, there being about an inch of snow. 
After following them through very thick spruce 
for quite a distance the boy concluded that he 
was hungry, and that camp would look pretty 
good to him. We started that way, but finally 
I turned back and took up the deer’s trail where 
we had left it. I had not gone over 200 yards 
'before I saw a pair of ears showing up over 
a ridge in a little opening in the timber where 
it was sunny and covered with bunch grass. I 
sat down and soon made out a doe lying in the 
open, and presently behind a juniper bush I 
made out another moving around. Presently 
it peeked out from behind the bush at me and 
then went back. The one lying down then got 
up and took a look, and then another or two 
would take a look from behind the bush. After 
each one I would think, “Now, the next one 
will be a buck.” I must have remained there 
motionless for ten minutes. Finally they started 
and crossed a small open park down to my left 
one after the other, single file and not over 
seventy-five yards from where I was in plain 
sight broadside and every last one of them a 
doe. I was much disappointed. There were 
seven in the bunch and they made a pretty sight, 
so very pretty that somehow my disappointment 
did not last long. I presume the memory of 
them will linger longer than if I had killed a 
buck, had there been one. 
As none of the others had seen a thing and 
Bill had been taken sick, we broke camp the 
next day and pulled out for Espanola. After 
hunting in this canon for ten seasons Bill and 
I agreed that we have not seen near all of it 
yet. Every trip we find new and unexplored 
pockets that we have not seen before and I pre¬ 
sume that there will be still more after we are 
through. Every trip we find balanced mas¬ 
sive rocks that we have not seen before that 
one may sway in any direction with a very 
slight touch. C. 
A Sailor of Fortune. 
A veteran of the sea—or rather of many seas 
—who lives in New York city, is Capt. B. S. 
Osbon, Secretary of the Arctic Club of America. 
On Dec. 7 last a benefit was given him by Hen¬ 
rietta Crossman and her company in the play 
"Sham” at the Academy of Music, New York. 
Captain Osbon was born in Rye, Westchester 
county, New York, in 1827, and went to sea at 
an early age. The story of many of his ad¬ 
ventures is told in his book, 1 A Sailor of 
Fortune.” He was in the Antarctic Ocean in 
the summer of 1848 on the whale ship Junior, 
and the following summer was in the Arctic 
Ocean on the same vessel. From 1849 to 1851 
he was again in the Arctic on the brig Swallow. 
His voyages cover nearly all ports and he has 
served three times in the Navy of the United 
States and in the Anglo-Chinese, Argentine and 
Mexican navies. He is believed to be the oldest 
living man who has penetrated both polar cir¬ 
cles. Captain Osbon has contributed many an 
interesting tale of adventure to the columns of 
Forest and Stream. 
Wildfowl Abundant. 
San Francisco, Cal., Dec. 4.— Editor Forest 
and Stream: The open season on bucks closed 
on the first of November and there is consider¬ 
able talk on the part of sportsmen to try to 
have the season in the future made shorter. At 
present the State season extends over a period 
of 107 days and this is considered too long, 
though it is contended that a long season is made 
necessary by the vastly different conditions ex¬ 
isting in various parts of the State. 
The heavy rains of the past two weeks have 
scattered the ducks very badly and the members 
of gun clubs are not the only ones now who 
are enabled to make bags. There is no scarcity 
of ducks on the ponds of the various preserves 
and limit bags are easily made, but the supply 
of game birds is not centered there by any 
means.’ Feed has also become very plentiful 
in all directions and the result is that the well- 
baited ponds do not allure as they did earlier 
in the season. Northern ducks have been arriv¬ 
ing in immense numbers of late, but only a few 
of them have tarried in the bay section, the 
high winds that have prevailed having driven 
them to the interior. Tulare Lake is now 
stocked as never before, and the wide expanse 
of water there forms an ideal stopping place 
for all varieties of waterfowl. There are now 
but few boats on that body of water and most 
of the hunting that is being done is from the 
fields on the shore where the birds come to feed. 
Under ordinary circumstances power boats would 
be placed in commission there and used for hunt¬ 
ing purposes, but a stop to shooting from these 
boats was made by an act of the last Legisla¬ 
ture. 
There have been heavy arrivals of canvasbacks 
from the North recently and some fine bags of 
these choice birds have been made during the 
past couple of weeks by those who have braved 
the wind and rain to visit the hunting grounds. 
The Suisun marshes are still favorite loafing 
places for the birds, and the sport there this 
year has been better than it has been for many 
seasons past. One of the enthusiasts who has 
been shooting a great deal in this section is 
Captain Du Bray who is here from the East, 
and he has been doing all of his shooting with 
a twenty-gauge gun. A. P. B. 
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. 
Locating Ruffed Grouse. 
Hendersonville, N. C., Dec. 12. — Editor Forest 
and Stream: In the issue of the 4th inst. is an 
interesting letter from “A Duffer, entitled 
“Partridges Can be Drummed.” It interests me 
because years ago I proved to my own satisfac¬ 
tion that this could be done. The ruffed grouse 
called pheasant in our North Carolina moun¬ 
tains and partridge north and east is to me the 
most interesting form of all bird life. S. 1 • 
Hammond, in his “My Friend the Partridge,” 
pretty well paints the bird as he is. 
One thing about the bird—the difficulty of 
locating it by the sound of its drumming. 
Well do I remember the first old cock I tried 
to locate in this way. More than once I crept 
in the wrong direction, only to find my ears had 
misled me. This bird drummed in the same place 
every spring and fall, and after two years of 
patient effort I bagged him. Even then I was 
aided by a rabbit, which jumped up before me 
and ran directly to where the old cock was 
standing on his log. This led me to rise and 
walk rapidly forward and so the bird did not 
run as usual, but stood there till I shot him. 
This was forty-five years ago and was the sec¬ 
ond or third of his kind that I had shot. I 
then learned that a drumming grouse always 
faces downhill and toward the direction he in¬ 
tends to fly. I also learned that the sound of a 
creeping body causes a drumming grouse quietly 
to drop off his log and run to safety while he 
takes a bold walker to be a deer or other harm¬ 
less animal feeding or passing by, and so re¬ 
mains unalarmed. 
In our woods, too, he selects an old log on 
a brushy ridge or thicket and uses this same 
log all the season. So he may always be found 
there by his mates, or for that matter his 
enemies. The latter, however, he generally 
recognizes by their approach and then he usually 
jumps down and runs to cover, especially if he 
is an old bird. 
Now, as to the location of this king of birds 
by his drumming. If one has a trained ear he 
can get his location pretty accurately if he will 
be careful to listen very intently to the “wind 
up,” as I may call it, of his drumming. 
In some woods it is all but impossible to lo¬ 
cate a bird by the first beat, but be careful to 
hear well the last beats, and if your ears are 
well trained to the sounds of the woods you 
will surely locate him. The grouse may dis¬ 
guise his drumming, too, so as to make it seem 
far away. 
I remember once locating an old cock in a 
thicket, and creeping up to perhaps sixty or 
seventy yards of his log, I lay still. I knew 
just where he was, yet could not see him. After 
quite a little time I saw him drumming, yet to 
an untrained ear the .sound would have seemed 
far away. Before he was well through I fired. 
Jumping to my feet I ran to the log only to 
find a few feathers. 
I whistled for a pair of deerhounds that I 
had, and after some minutes succeeded in call¬ 
ing them from the house a quarter of a mile 
away. The dogs were put on the old cock s 
trail and we picked him up after an exciting 
race of a quarter of a mile or more. As yet 
I have shot no grouse this season, but am 
greatly in hopes of anl introduction to some of 
them ere long now. Ernest L. Ewbank. 
