4 
SILKEN WINGS AND MERRY WHISTLE 
AN ADVENTURE'WITH DOG AND SHOTGUN 
INTO THE HISTORIC GATEWAY OF CHAMPLAIN 
By Fred O. Copeland. 
T HE northern land of romance, the 
valley of Lake Champlain, the Adiron- 
dacks and the Green Mountains of 
Vermont, affords both the local and visit¬ 
ing sportsman a happy hunting ground 
rivaling that eagerly looked forward to by 
the Iroquois, its first owners. On its hills 
and in its valleys the ruffed grouse and 
woodcock equal in their beautiful markings 
the matchless beauty of their surroundings 
and from these miles of hillsides the covert 
hunter may, while at his after-luncheon 
pipe, look off on old Fort Ticonderoga, 
Fort Frederick or Fort Amherst basking 
under a halo of more than two and one half 
centuries; more than two hundred and fifty 
annual autumn flights of woodcock or 
generations of partridges as the sportsman 
might wish to measure time. 
With no intent to detract from or be¬ 
little the use of the setter or pointer in 
hunting ruffed grouse or woodcock, much 
may be said in favor of hunting them 
“Injin” style—a la Iroquois, if you please— 
provided it be in these old districts where 
the partridge at least has had a thorough 
schooling in the use of the shotgun dating 
from flintlock days, when the officers of 
that famous French regiment, La Reine, 
in barracks at Fort Ticonderoga, and in a 
later day the Green Mountain Boys, may 
have taken toll from the covies, fully aware 
of the delicious white breast of this royal 
game bird. 
As for the grouse there can be no doubt 
but that he is hunted more in this manner 
than with the use of dogs, for but few 
sportsmen are so favorably situated as to 
be able to keep a setter or pointer ten 
months that they may hunt them the other 
two. Few, indeed, who have owned and 
trained bird dogs, are unaware of the hap¬ 
piness that comes to the dog owner, but 
they must also be mindful of a certain 
charm that comes to the lonely hunter, 
lonely inasmuch as he depends on his 
woodcraft to spell success. 
In fact, for the upland gunner satisfac¬ 
tion reaches the superlative when an ex¬ 
perienced ruffed grouse of several autumns’ 
seasoning is out-generaled. Although the 
novice rarely sees a grouse until it is on 
wing, each season sees his powers of ob¬ 
servation develop until the motionless head 
of a partridge is not infrequently seen 
above a swell of the forest floor or the 
whole bird picked out from its hastily 
sought lookout in an apple tree, an alder, 
or, if in the last light of an afterglow of 
a late fall evening, high up in a paper 
birch, “budding.” 
Forewarned is forearmed and, as in the 
case of a “point,” when the rise is forced 
the gun is ready. Whether the bird is 
killed, winged or missed, the experience 
that training brings marks down the dead 
or injured bird or judges the distance and 
cover from which a second rise may be 
had. 
Given a familiar arc of cover, the habits 
of the grouse may be carefully learned. 
The haphazard hunter will have spasmodic 
success; the knowing gunner few days- 
without reward. With this thought in 
mind, a note book, taking the form of a 
diary, kept with an eye to the seasonable¬ 
ness of the fall week, the cover in which 
the birds are found and whether its chang¬ 
ing character is attracting or repelling 
game and also whether food or other at¬ 
traction enticed the bird to its charms, will, 
if averaged for a number of years and its 
teaching accepted, produce results from the 
blackberry patch of September, the apple 
orchard of October and the spruce fringe 
of November. 
A S a hint as to what woodcraft means, 
the story of how a partridge eats an 
apple has been chosen. Not unlike 
those who hunt him the partridge will, if 
given a chance, select the fruit from cer¬ 
tain apple trees even though it is the seed 
he most desires. When fruit is plentiful 
and every tree in an orchard neighboring 
his cover bears fruit he will choose the 
apples under perhaps two trees out of ten 
