70 
FOREST AND STREAM 
had adequate experience of both methods. 
In my experience many calling parties re¬ 
turn without their moose. I do not refer 
to a few choice regions of New Bruns¬ 
wick, which are like stocked preserves, but 
to the whole great territory where moose 
live, south of Alaska. 
Mr. C. S. Bird repeats the tale of the 
ease with which a mere tyro can call up 
a moose, and tells of a bull that invaded 
his camp at the sound of a tin pan. I know 
of several such instances. A bull in the 
mating-season is very curious, and likes 
to investigate things, particularly the fan¬ 
cied challenge of a rival bull. It will be 
noted that these calls “into camp” are sel¬ 
dom to imitations of the cow call. 
Mr. Bird says that the bull is “half 
crazed by sex passion.” This is, with very 
few exceptions, a great exaggeration. Per¬ 
haps you will allow me to repeat here a 
few passages which I published some years 
ago. I wrote then : 
“The bull moose, far from being so 
blinded by passion as to be unsuspicious, 
is never in the whole course of his ex¬ 
istence so absolutely suspiciou's and on his 
guard as when he approaches either a cow 
or a caller in the mating-season. Unques¬ 
tionably he is eager for the tryst, once in 
a blue moon blindly so, but his every sense 
is alert, for his instinct, and often his ex¬ 
perience, tells him that many a danger 
lurks. His eyes, his ears, and most of 
all his abnormal nose, are never so keenly 
at work. Let the slightest breath of air 
be stirring and he will never come to the 
call except from the leeward, circling the 
locality of the call if necessary, and his 
coming will depend entirely upon the scent 
his delicate nostrils receive. If a cow is 
calling he will come; if a man, never. 
Would this be the case if he were the 
passion-blinded, unsuspecting beast the ‘fair 
and square still-hunters’ would make him? 
“It will be said that the caller plies his 
trade only in a calm, when the chief de¬ 
fensive weapon of the bull is powerless. 
Admitted; but does the still-hunter take 
no such advantage of his quarry?” 
Listen to Theodore S. Van Dyke: “There 
are some days,” says this classic authority 
on still-hunting, “when you might almost 
as well stay at home. Such are the still, 
warm days of autumn, when you can hear 
a squirrel scamper over the dead leaves 
a hundred yards away. * * * Such are 
the days when the snow is crusty and stiff, 
or grinds under your feet; * * * in 
short, all days when you cannot walk with¬ 
out making a noise, etc. * * * Against 
a strong wind they cannot smell you and 
cannot hear you as well as usual.” 
T HIS was written of deer-hunting, and 
moose have bigger and better noses 
and ears than deer. Does the good 
still-hunter of moose go forth in any 
weather save that of his own choosing? 
Never. He chooses a windy day, and one 
on which neither too much dryness nor 
crusty snow will cause noisy walking, and 
he approaches his quarry carefully from 
the leeward side or across the wind. (Right 
here I would like to record that nineteen 
out of twenty magazine stories of success¬ 
ful still-hunts give no details at all of any 
skill in approaching the quarry. The he¬ 
roes merely go forth to a likely place, and 
suddenly they see a moose, mostly no doubt 
owing to the leafless landscape! And yet 
these men get credit from the “sportsmen !”) 
In still-hunting time the storm and stress 
period of the great beasts’ early life has 
ended; they have yarded and are either 
lying down, quietly and peacefully resting, 
or as peacefully browsing on the young 
trees, in either case as unsuspicious as a 
moose ever is. 
The moose lies down with eyes and nose 
to leeward, and throws up his big ears to 
catch any sound borne to him by the wind 
blowing from backward. He feels himself 
secure, for he is quite at home, and. not 
going out of his way to “look for trouble” 
as when he went courting. On this ac¬ 
count any hostile sound comes as a sur¬ 
prise and he is not especially on his guard; 
for which reason, as above said, when he 
is shot it is nearly always from ambush 
and without warning. Or he is startled 
and is shot running off. 
Shot down in cold blood when he is not 
on his guard, or fooled by skill and ad¬ 
vantage taken of his natural feelings, in a 
season when he is most nervous and on 
his guard—take your choice, but do not 
tell me that still-hunting is more sports¬ 
manlike than calling! 
Getting to the calling-place on a freezing 
morning before sunrise, and waiting there 
quietly a long time is not the least strenu¬ 
ous of sports, but if strenuosity is your 
standard, then playing a trout on a four- 
once rod is disgraceful, while hawling ten- 
pound pollock into a dory in a storm off 
the banks is worthy of a gold medal! 
One more ethical inconsistency of the 
“sportsmen”: Did it ever occur to you 
that you never hear from these gentlemen 
any protest against the hunting of deer 
in the mating-season? 
Methods alone do not make or unmake 
sportsmen, any more than does the weapon. 
I do not like automatic rifles—perhaps a 
prejudice on my part—but an automatic 
rifle does not mean a bad sportsman, though 
an automatic reel used in trouting does, 
for it lessens the chance of the fish, while 
making it easier for the angler. 
Now out of all this I get the following: 
No man who criticizes a moose-caller has 
the slightest right to condone the user of a 
bird-dog or the deer-hunter, for consistency 
is still a jewel! 
O Sportsmanship, how much cant and 
rhetoric have been shed in thy name! 
There is no time here to compare the 
actual merits, strenuosity and display of 
skill required in the two methods of hunt¬ 
ing moose. On the whole many years of 
both tell me that calling leads in every 
field except that of hard physical exertion. 
And calling is very apt to bring in still¬ 
hunting, as in the case when a bull will 
not come to the call. In fact, this is one 
of the most fascinating features of the 
calling game. 
When the bull runs out to meet the dead¬ 
ly shot without any hesitation, as does 
happen, though very, very seldom, the good 
hunter feels a bit humiliated and baffled of 
his sport. And still-hunting in calling time 
takes place, not in a forest denuded of 
leaves and open, but in the thickest jungles 
and swamps, when you may be within 
twenty yards of your quarry and yet not 
get a shot. 
This joy of being really cheek-by-jowl 
with a big bull and even exchanging grunts 
with him without alarming him—tell me, 
is this not sport and the most exciting 
sport? Believe me, that it is! 
One sees that, like all good questions, 
this is a very debatable one. Only it seems 
to me that most people are too apt to at¬ 
tack the methods of others without proper 
thought or experience. The great thing 
we need in a democracy, next to self- 
control, is charity. 
I do not wish to appear the enemy of 
sportsmanship. But we need to standard¬ 
ize it, and sunder it from tradition and 
cant. You may look down on a less skill¬ 
ful person because he cannot shoot his 
bird on the wing, but do not call him no 
sportsman. On the contrary what shall we 
say of those who go shooting in places 
where there are hundreds of head of game 
in sight at one time, and like it? I can 
imagine the joy of a faunal naturalist under 
such circumstances, but I cannot imagine 
a true sportsman even taking his rifle from 
its case. 
