In Wooden Nutmeg Land 
| b _With Woodcock, Quail and Ruffed Grouse 
in Connecticut Covers—A Shooting 
Story of By-Gone Years 
By L. DAWSON 
T HE present scarcity of game birds in New 
England, and indeed everywhere in the 
Eastern States, is a natural sequence of 
the constant increase of population, and the re¬ 
sulting increase of the number of people who 
carry guns. Birds are few and gunners many, 
and the seasons during which shooting is per¬ 
mitted are longer than they should be. Besides 
this, the game birds are to some extent destroyed 
by vermin, and in the breeding season are dis¬ 
turbed and kept from breeding by some domestic 
animals. The house cat and the farmer’s wan¬ 
dering dog are very destructive of game birds 
in our thickly settled States. 
A generation ago this was not nearly so much 
the case. In those days a man who knew the 
ground, and was willing to go back a few miles 
from railroads and other lines of travel, could 
get fair shooting. Nothing, to be sure, like 
what the men of the preceding generation had 
had, but shooting that would rejoice the heart 
of the gunner of to-day. 
Every autumn not so very many years ago, 
in company with a brother and a friend, I used 
to have excellent shooting among the wooded 
hills and tangled swamps of Connecticut in 
covers drained by the Housatonic River. We 
three knew well the ground over which we 
shot. We were accustomed to each others’ ways 
and we had good dogs. We made these trips two or 
three times each season and usually were gone two 
or three days. My brother and I would leave our 
country home near the shores of the Sound and 
drive north a dozen miles to the town where 
Joe lived. Usually we started about 2 o’clock 
in the morning, carrying guns, dogs and bags in 
the wagon, and reached Joe's house some time 
before daylight. There, breakfast was ready, and 
before the dawn had broken we had shifted our 
loads to his waeon and were on our way north. 
A very few miles brought us to ground where 
birds were usually found. After carefully work¬ 
ing out a piece of cover we returned to the 
wagon and went on to the next piece. We timed 
ourselves so as to reach the home of some far¬ 
mer known to us about dark, and putting the team 
in his barn enjoyed his excellent food and soon 
lay down to rest our weary bones. The cordial 
hospitality of these farmer friends never failed 
us, and each season it was a joy to meet them 
again to learn the events of their lives during 
the year, and to tell them the story of the day s 
experiences. 
It is of one of those days that I should like to 
tell you. My brother and I had left the house 
about the usual time. For the first two or three 
miles the driving was slow, for in order to make 
a cut-off we had to go through shaded wood 
roads, one or two of which led through swamps 
where it was impossible to hurry. At last, how¬ 
ever, we came out on to the broad and smooth 
turnpike and rattled along at a good rate of 
speed. Sometimes we sang over a mile or two 
of road, and then tiring of that, lighted our 
pipes and talked. The air was sharp and frosty, 
yet hardly cold, and the dogs at our feet felt 
warm and comfortable. Ihe moon had set as 
we turned up the little hill on top of which Joe’s 
house stood, and seeing the lights in the window 
we whooped to let him know that we were com¬ 
ing. In a few moments he had met us, and we 
took the horses out of the wagon and put them 
in the barn, leaving the dogs chained there. Then 
followed the delicious breakfast, and soon we 
were seated in Joe’s wagon and on our way. 
As a rule we took with us only a dog apiece. 
My brother had his old black Rex, a lumbering 
brute of great power and possessing a marvel¬ 
ous nose. I had old True, the best partridge 
dog 1 ever saw; light, active and tireless, and 
peculiar in that he never expressed any affection 
—so far as I knew—for any living thing. He 
would wag his tail a little and respond to a 
caress, but never fawned on one. If you put 
him into a wagon or railroad train or his ken¬ 
nel, he curled up and put his tail over his nose 
and went to sleep. The only thing he really 
cared for was to hunt. This morning Joe had 
taken with him his old dog, an animal that was 
snow white except for his eyes, which were 
dark brown; and a well grown pup, also white, 
but with one lemon ear. 
The first cover that we beat was a small swamp 
hole standing in a flat meadow between a large 
stream and a rocky wooded ridge which ran 
north and south. The patch held only a few 
acres, and anything driven from it would neces¬ 
sarily fly across the meadow and give a clear 
shot. Joe, who though he weighed 230 pounds, 
was an indefatigable walker, marshaled his 
forces for the attack, for he was a great hand 
to organize. He sent my brother to follow the 
edge of the swamp on the side of the ridge and 
told me to take the other edge toward the stream. 
Then he plunged into the middle of the swamp 
with his dogs, while we kept around the edges 
a little ahead of him, and keeping our dogs as 
close to us as possible. We had not gone very 
far when we all heard a partridge get up appar¬ 
ently in front of Joe, and almost at the same 
time heard his gun and the shout, ‘ Mark, 
mark!” I could see nothing, but a moment 
later my brother’s gun rang out, and from the 
talk to his dog it was evident that he had kdled 
his bird as Joe had his. 
No one of the gunners could see the other, 
but after a few words we located each other, 
and Joe went on. For a little while nothing hap¬ 
pened, and then I heard Joe talking to his dog 
and knew that the animal was making game. A 
moment later, with no warning whatever, a big 
red woodcock flipped out from among the trees 
and tried to cross me to reach the underbrush 
that grew along the stream. It was an easy and 
open shot. The bird dropped at once, old True 
trotted forward, paused on point and then picked 
up the woodcock and brought it to me, dropping 
it at my feet. 
The swamp hole that we had beaten out, 
though so small, had yet yielded us two pai- 
tridges and a woodcock, and the morning was 
still very young. As we came together in the 
meadow and then started toward the stream 
which above here was bordered on both sides 
with heavy undergrowth and young trees, Joe 
commented on this, saying: ‘Well, boys, if we 
find birds like this all day and kill them like 
this, we will have a big bag by night. 
Reaching the next patch of brush we sepa¬ 
rated, Joe to go through the midst of it with his 
two dogs, my brother to keep on the outside close 
to the river bank, while I took the other edge to 
cut off any birds that might strike for the high 
rocky ridge. Joe had hardly made more than 
a few steps into the brush when his young dog 
started a partridge which, flying straight up into 
the air, was shot at by my brother, but not killed, 
and then turning, flew r uncertainly across tow’aid 
the timbered ridge and gave me a very simple 
shot, so that I got the bird. 
And now for some time w*e moved along up 
the river valley without starting anything, but 
about the middle of the morning, as I was go¬ 
ing through some open woods, within sight of Joe, 
wdto was a gun shot and a half on my right, I 
saw a woodcock that had evidently been passed 
over by his dogs, rise silently and flying low, 
cross over and alight in front of me and a little 
to the left behind where my dog was working. 
The bird alighted on ground that was almost 
bare, ran a few steps, stopped, stood as if listen¬ 
ing, and then crouched close to' the ground. Of 
