A RAG OF GRAY SQUIRRELS. 
When larger game is lacking, the North 
American gray squirrel ( Sciurus carolinensis ) 
yields to no animal of its size in point of sport¬ 
ing value to those who pursue it with a small¬ 
bore rifle. The shotgun, excellent though it be 
for birds, is undesirable for killing the gray 
squirrel, which is essentially a mark for the 
more subtle weapon. In my opinion says a 
bield correspondent, a .22 caliber single-shot 
rifle, fitted with Lyman sights, and with a 
trigger pull of about 2^ pounds, is the most 
satisfactory to use, although many good squirrel 
shots prefer the clumsy .32 and a pull-off of 
factory resistance. For fine shooting with a 
light rifle, however, the trigger set can hardly 
bf- too slight, and in the hands of a careful man 
a rifle of this description is a highly accurate 
and perfectly safe weapon. 
Of late years the gray squirrel has decreased 
alarmingly in numbers throughout its range, 
and in many localities where once it abounded 
even local shooters now regard themselves as 
lucky if they find two or three in a season. 
Moreover, it is a limited migrant, moving about 
from one locality to another in obedience to the 
exigencies of its food supply. Thus a large 
area of excellent squirrel country may suddenly 
be denuded of its squirrel population, while a 
contiguous area, where these animals have not 
been seen for years, may as suddenly be over¬ 
run with them. On several occasions I have 
known this to happen with the suddenness of 
a border raid, but only once have I actually 
been a witness of a migration of sufficient mag¬ 
nitude to be instantly recognized as such. That 
day was a red-letter event in my squirrel-hunt¬ 
ing experience, for between sunrise and an al 
ft csco breakfast I had killed eleven, while four 
more found their way into my game pocket ere 
1 wended my way by devious woodland cart 
tracks back to lunch at my cousin’s country 
house on a hill overlooking the Housatonic. 
Although in. my journal the incidents of that 
day are restricted to a dozen words in my 
memory every trivial detail stands out with 
pristine vividness, possibly because otherwise 
the season proved to be a peculiarly unlucky 
one for me. I was staying with my cousin 
among the Berkshire hills until it was time 
lor us to go after moose in New Brunswick 
and on the day in question, as he had been 
called to New York to fetch his wife from the 
steamer I was left to my own bent. As' (in 
the words, though not in the strict sense of 
Don Quixote s knightly phrase') arms are the 
only things I value, the basis of my day’s work 
was already assured, but I determined on a 
little variation from the eternal round of bird 
shooting. I.found some “long rifle” cartridges 
for my cousin’s Stevens-Pope barrel, and these 
secured, with a breakfast stowed in a roomy 
pocket of my shooting coat, I swung across a 
held or two, climbed a snake fence, and entered 
the great lot,” once farming land, but now 
grown up to mixed pine and hardwood, inter¬ 
spersed with numerous birch thickets beloved 
of grouse, and with here and there patches of 
oak, hickory, and chestnut, just beginning to be 
of vast interest to squirrels. 
The sun was gilding the horizon as I entered 
the gieat lot, and only those who have had 
experience of the beauties of a perfect autumn 
morning in the New England States can appre¬ 
ciate in fancy the loveliness of the woodland 
under the early matutinal spell. Walking along 
the alder-fringed causeway between two vapor- 
shrouded swales, I turned down through a 
narrow belt of plantation pines and entered a 
chestnut grove that skirted the river. Here, 
where in the perfect calm the sudden tremor of 
a twig would have betokened animal or bird, 
not a leaf stirred; but about 200 yards away orr 
the thither side of a dry huckleberry swamp, 
thick set with clumps of stunted cedars like the 
tufted pate of a negro, I saw a commotion in 
the top of a walnut tree, and, making a careful 
approach, secured the first gray squirrel for an 
expenditure of two cartridges. My first shot 
was the clean miss of over confidence; my sec¬ 
ond, directed by a chastened spirit, passed 
BsassaaBEB 
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