3T4 
[March ii, 1911. 
toward the railroad. While standing there, 
Beppo came up in the lead with a large hound, 
as big as a sheep, and looking like one who 
was traveling a good distance in the rear. For 
Beppo could run the fastest and would crawl 
under the briers just as a rabbit would do, while 
the big dog had to jump upon them and beat 
them down in order to get through. This 
proved a great advantage to Beppo, and as I 
heard him a good way ahead, I determined to 
scoot up the highway as fast as possible and 
then cut into the scrub oaks beyond, where I 
could hear Beppo following, and so get a shot 
before darkness set in, or the rabbit was holed 
up. I ran rapidly up the road till I came op¬ 
posite the point whence Beppo’s chiding could 
be heard, and cut in to find a spot where the 
rabbit might be likely to come; but I had 
gone in but a few rods when I saw Joe, my 
companion, who already had secured a position 
such as I wanted. 
I soon heard Joe shoot, and listening, learned 
that the dog had got by him and was coming 
toward me in full cry. I threw up my gun, and 
in a moment the rabbit darted by, shot into the 
undergrowth as I fired at him, and upon going 
in, had the satisfaction of finding Beppo stand¬ 
ing over his quarry, wagging his tail with in¬ 
tense satisfaction. Moquis. 
Quail Shipment Stopped. 
Oklahoma City, Okla., Feb. 25. —Editor 
Forest and Stream: I inclose you a clipping 
from a morning paper relative to the seizure by 
officers of a big shipment of quail from a town 
near here: 
“Enid, Okla., Feb. 18.—Three hundred and 
ninety crates of contraband quail were seized 
here to-night by Game Warden Harry Eggleston 
and Sheriff Hume, en route to Chicago. The 
car was shipped from Okeene, twenty miles 
south of here, and contained 9,000 birds. It is 
the biggest shipment captured in Oklahoma in 
five years, and arrests are sure to follow.” 
The shipment was made from Okeene, the 
same point where a similar seizure was made 
a few years ago. Since the law of Oklahoma 
makes it illegal to ship game out of the State, 
even in the open season, and also makes it 
illegal for railroad and express companies to 
handle it, it will be interesting to know what 
the penalties meted out to all concerned will be. 
It is to be hoped that full justice will be done 
to all. W. T. Whiteford. 
Accomplish Nothing. 
Hendersonville, N. C., March 2. — Editor 
Forest and Stream: The representative (Ewart) 
from our county has introduced a bill closing 
the season for partridge (quail) shooting ex¬ 
cept January and February. This is one of a 
lot of foolish bills offered this season. I have 
written him requesting him to drop it and aid 
in the passage of the Willard bill. 
These birds should be protected in January 
and February; and as there will be no money 
with which to carry out Mr. Ewart’s county 
law, the pothunters will have shot up the coveys 
by Jan. 1, the remainder to be turned over to 
the sportsmen of this county, and also of those 
other counties that have then closed the season 
to the gun. These county game laws accom¬ 
plish nothing. Ernest L. Ewbank. 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
Middle Texas in Winter. 
Abilene, Tex., March 2 —Editor Forest and 
Stream: In the course of a journey through 
the Southern States I have found the idea of 
game protection to be more and more in favor 
and better carried out. The one regret is that 
in so many of the States this sentiment did not 
take hold of the people years ago. When I 
was a small boy and made my first visit to 
Florida, the variety and quantity of game were 
astonishing. All classes of hunters joined in 
the work of destruction. Along the Florida 
coast shooting is now largely prohibited and at 
Palm Beach and Rockledge the ducks fairly 
swarm and are so gentle that they will take 
food thrown to them. 
This season has been a good one for game 
in all parts of the South; in North Carolina it 
has been unusually good. Currituck Sound will 
always remain the paradise of canvasback and 
redhead ducks, because of the abundance of 
wild celery in the shallow water. Years ago the 
section around Galveston, Texas, was notable 
for ducks, but its importance is now lessened by 
reason of settlement, while Currituck Sound 
remains almost as primitive as it was a century 
ago. 
In Mexico I made a special visit to a hacienda 
containing 1,000,000 acres, on which there are 
three dams, which impound large areas of water 
for irrigation. On all of these farms there are 
thousand of ducks, among them a few canvas- 
backs and redheads and a great many mallards. 
Five kinds of ducks were observed in one pond, 
and also a number of very large gulls, which go 
to the ponds and tanks, in Mexico, Texas and 
Oklahoma. 
The manager of the ranch said that the ducks 
give a great deal of trouble when the rice is 
ripe, and that a score of men with guns had to 
be employed to keep the ducks away from the 
rice. The ducks were seen not only in the 
ponds, but also in the fields, among the rice 
stubble, and there were strings of them in the 
air, passing and repassing all day long. 
One of the odd sights on this great Mexican 
estate was a number of herons, large, dull- 
brown in color and extremely gentle, which 
stood very near the roadway, looking intently 
at our automobile, but showing no fear of it. 
The Mexicans consider these birds excellent for 
food and call them grullas, their word for crane. 
I have seen these birds in captivity in Cuba, 
often in company with domestic fowls. 
Abilene is in the high hill country of middle- 
west Texas. All the way from this point far 
down to Mexico, very little rain has fallen for 
three years past, and there has been one of the 
longest and severest drouths on record. At 
one point on the Rio Grande River only five 
inches fell in 1910 and the river is so shallow 
that boys are wading across it, and this must 
make it easy to get arms over the border to 
the insurrectos. The drouth in the Abilene sec¬ 
tion was so severe that almost all the ponds 
and streams went dry and only one stream near 
here is running. Large-mouth black bass, white 
perch and other fish grow to large size and 
thrive amazingly. 
There is fishing all winter, which does not 
seem like winter except for an occasional 
“norther.” I asked the head of the weather 
bureau here why it is so difficult to make an 
accurate prediction well ahead of time. His 
reply was that the true reason is the scarcity 
of weather stations south and west of Texas. 
The States in the East get reports from all the 
Western and Southern country, but here a 
vast region is almost totally uncovered as to 
stations and reports. 
The fruit trees are now in full bloom, the 
temperature ranges around 70 degrees every 
day, except perhaps a half-dozen during the 
winter, and the air is dry. The one thing 
talked about and hoped for is rain. With rain, 
the country is like a garden; without it, it be¬ 
comes a half-desert and crops and trees are 
simply withered by the dryness. 
Yesterday I indulged in three kinds of hunt¬ 
ing. Prairie-dogs’ holes are on every side 
where the ground is a little high; never in the 
low valleys or in the very high and rocky hills. 
Some people have an idea that if one of these 
prairie-dogs is shot while partly in his hole or 
burrow, which always slants downward and 
extends far into the ground, he can not be re¬ 
trieved, but this is not true. At the first shot 
I killed one in just that position, and at the 
next shot killed one a foot from its hole, dis¬ 
proving another popular idea that when shot 
they will drag themselves to the hole and enter 
it. They are utterly useless, it seems, as to 
flesh or fur, and upon one of the specimens 
killed were found a great number of large fleas. 
Later on an automobile tour was taken in 
quest of ducks. Pond after pond was visited 
and then a stretch of what in wet weather is a 
fine creek, the water now standing in pools, was 
searched for a mile, but without a sign of a 
duck, though it is generally a wonderful place 
for them. So beautiful is the valley through 
which this stream runs, so green the grass and 
so regular the arrangement of the mesquite 
trees, that it looks exactly like a beautiful or¬ 
chard. It does bear a bean, of which horses 
and cattle are fond, but otherwise it is a pitiful 
sort of a tree, even under the most favorable 
conditions, the younger trees being set with 
terrible thorns, which make a bad wound. In 
fact, the whole vegetable world here is like a 
living hedge. On the ground the prickly-pear 
and the ball cactus, like a human head set with 
a thorn for every hair, menace the traveling 
foot, and all kinds of taller cactus, some set 
now with rich red pears, gives variety and 
color to the landscape. Though no ducks were 
found, a couple of jack rabbits were seen. This 
rabbit is built to outrun the wolves and coyotes, 
which are so numerous that a few nights ago, 
not far from the city, as the auto was coming 
along, a big wolf ran alongside and snarled 
defiance. 
People in the East who are familiar with the 
cottontail think he can run, but when they see 
a jack rabbit move, they will realize what speed 
is. He does not seem to run, but glide. From 
behind a clump of thorns one of these jacks 
scudded, but a charge of No. 6 shot from a 
16-gauge gun knocked him out. The jack is 
very much like the prairie-dog, for nobody 
wants to eat him and his skin does not seem 
to be in request. I would like to know what 
a North Carolina darkey and his hounds would 
think of a jack rabbit. The ears of this big 
jack were cut off, to be sent as a gift to Gov¬ 
ernor Kitchin, of Nbrth Carolina, who spent 
a year in his young manhood in Texas. 
