FOREST AND STREA 
tecting himself from cold. He does very 
well, thank you, and his ideas are often 
adopted by the less civilized with whom he 
comes in contact. 
Take, for instance, the eiderdown blanket 
or robe. This represents the very luxury 
of warmth and comfort. It puts into prac¬ 
tice what was said earlier in this article as 
to the principle of retaining heat. 
Whether it has any real eiderdown 
in its composition does not mat¬ 
ter. The main thing is warmth. 
The method of making is clear¬ 
ly indicated by the illustration. 
Canvas or waterproof cloth is 
used for the outside and kersey or 
a soft woolcloth for the inside. 
The intervening lining does the 
trick. These robes come already 
made into sleeping bags or with 
snaps with which to transform 
them into such. 
T HE Canadians favor these 
handy contrivances, using 
them for sleighs and auto¬ 
mobiles in the winter and for 
camping purposes in the summer. 
They are not overly expensive, the 
one I priced last in Ottawa having 
been quoted at $25. No doubt a 
great number have been taken by 
Canadian troops across the sea, 
and the price may go up in the fu¬ 
ture. 
Nothing but praise can be given 
the eiderdown for cold weather 
purposes. One guide who was 
with me in northern Quebec had 
been out with the survey party of 
the new Transcontinental for two 
years without having come back 
to civilization, and he used an 
eiderdown continuously. When 
the mercury sank to minus forty, 
fifty—yes, and lower, that guide 
was always comfortable after he 
went to bed. 
One of the engineers of the par¬ 
ty, in a spirit of ribaldry, had pre¬ 
sented him with several pairs 
of pajamas, and the guide had 
learned to like them. So, every 
night when he was with me, he 
peeled off and clad himself in 
those blessed sleeping garments, 
the while I was “dressing up” to 
go to bed. Whether he was com¬ 
fortable I don’t know. At any 
rate he did not freeze to death, 
for he was alive every morning. 
This story will epd as it began, 
with blankets as the theme. A 
few, a favored few, are the own¬ 
ers of a form of blanket than 
which nothing better will ever be 
made. I owe mine to a pointer 
from Emerson Hough, who knows 
all there is to learn about the out¬ 
door proposition. It seems that in 
the paper-making industry one of 
the vital requirements is an im¬ 
mense belt of woolen, which car¬ 
ries along the wet pulp or paper, 
after it has been rolled, to the succeeding 
process of manufacture. These belts, eight 
feet wide or more, have to be absolutely 
pure wool—otherwise the wet pulp would 
crumple up like a log jam. 
Once in a while they tear. That is when 
your watchful waiting wins, for you have 
previously, by divers methods of diplomacy, 
wrung a promise from the manufacturer 
or his agent to let you have a few blanket 
lengths of the material. When you get it 
you have it cleaned of paste and scoured— 
and be ye wise—see that it goes to an ar¬ 
tist. 
But when the blankets come home, as 
fleecy white as lamb’s wool, you know, as 
you stroke them, that you have something 
better than the Hudson Bay blanket— 
“inch for inch and pound for pound.” I re¬ 
call Emerson Hough’s rhapsody over his 
own blankets, and his succeeding lament 
that the better half of the Hough house¬ 
hold had agreed with him so unanimously 
that she decided they were too fine to lug 
M 7 
along on any old woods or wilderness trip. 
That reminds me. It has been evident 
for an hour that something is wrong in the 
subterranean fastnesses to which we in New 
York must pray for steam heat. The eight 
hour night law is non-operative there. The 
wind from off the Hudson is howling along 
Riverside Drive, and it is getting cold. So 
I guess I will have to quit and 
crawl in between my own fleecy 
pair—for the vote on the “too 
fine” blanket question was just as 
unanimous in New York as it was 
in Chicago. 
MOOSE CALLING. 
EW BRUNSWICK,” in 
the last issue of Forest 
and Stream, asks an in¬ 
teresting question—“Is Moose 
Calling Sportsmanlike,” and he 
says, “If a man calls his own 
moose, well and good, he deserves 
his reward.” 
I do not agree with that point of 
view. I do not think that it nec¬ 
essarily takes much skill to call a 
moose half crazed, as he often is, 
by sex passion. Within my ex¬ 
perience a bull moose has rushed 
into my camp lured by a tin pan, 
which he mistook for his mtae. It 
is often easy to lure a moose to 
the dead water and then the shoot¬ 
ing is too easy to be skillful, or 
sportsmanlike. No, moose calling 
is not much more defensible than 
jack shooting. 
On the other hand, moose hunt¬ 
ing on the snow, in November, is 
a very different matter. At that 
time the game is alert and wary. 
At that time the hunter must go 
through hardship and toil to get 
a shot. At that time wind “and 
weather often make the odds in 
favor of the game. It is exhil¬ 
arating, keen sport, with the 
chances against a killing. 
For fifteen years, in the month 
Armstrong’s Camps, head water 
of November, I have been in 
of the Tobique River, a fine 
moose and deer country, with 
snow from six to twenty-four 
inches in depth. During these 
years I have tracked a dozen 
moose to each one shot and the 
ones missed are pleasanter to re¬ 
member than the ones shot. 
Moose and deer hunting is a 
man’s sport, if done during No¬ 
vember when game has a better 
chance for its life. 
Charles Sumner Bird. 
[This question has been argued 
back and forth for many a long 
year, but, of course, is not sus¬ 
ceptible of definite decision. It is 
a matter of opinion and taste. 
Some of us will agree with “New 
Brunswick,” and others with Mr. 
Bird. We have our own opinion, 
and it is a very decided one, but 
we decline to express it. At the same time 
the subject is one in which a very large 
number of sportsmen are interested, and 
since the discussion has been opened, the 
editors trust that opinions from readers 
will be contributed. Let us hear from you, 
no matter which side you may take.— The 
Editors.] 
ESKIMO SLEEPING BAG. 
The Outside is Made of Sealskin (Atlantic). The 
Inside is Lined With Fur of the Young Caribou- 
Border of Cross Fox and Rabbit Skin—The Warm¬ 
est Sleeping Bag Known. 
