May, 1918 
FOREST AND STREAM 
295 
Jlgllllll 
[Readers of Forest and Stream are invited to use these columns to express their opinions 
on various subjects, although their views may not coincide with those of the Editors.] 
A JOHNSTON LAKE WOLF HUNT 
Editor Forest and Stream : 
Hunting, fishing and trapping are at 
least interesting to the majority of people, 
especially so in the United States and 
Canada. 
The writer enjoys, beyond words to de¬ 
scribe, fishing of all kinds; shooting the 
grouse, prairie chicken and wild duck in 
North Dakota, and stalking the deer in the 
Northern Minnesota woods, but never un¬ 
til the fall of 1916 had I the opportunity, 
pleasure and experience, of hunting wolves 
in Southern Saskatchewan with an auto¬ 
mobile. 
Some sixty miles southwest of Moose- 
jaw, Canada, is Lake Johnston, a body of 
water twenty miles long and six in width. 
Near this lake is the small new town of 
Mossbank, a most thriving and prosperous 
village. The lake is surrounded by hills 
and along the edge of the lake large 
quantities of brush and bull rushes grow. 
In the early fall on and near this lake is 
a splendid place to hunt the wild duck and 
the Canada goose, many of which are 
wounded and carry out into the middle 
of the lake out of reach of the hunter. 
These afterwards die and are carried to 
the shores by the waves and become food 
for the wolves. 
After eating a most hearty breakfast at 
Madam D-’s Restaurant, Ed. Brink and 
myself started in a small car for a wolf 
hunt on the lake. Ed. at the wheel and 
myself handling the rifle. The lake was 
frozen over and was perfectly safe to go 
any where on it with the car. Patches of 
snow to a depth of several inches covered 
most of the ice. We started up the lake 
close to the east shore and had not gone 
over a half mile before out jumped, from 
the rushes, a large prairie wolf about three 
hundred yards from the car, and headed 
for the center of the lake. At once Ed 
advanced the spark and gave the thirty 
more gas and in a few seconds Mr. Wolf 
saw that we were after him, in earnest, 
for the ca» was going at thirty-five miles 
and as fast as the wolf could navigate. 
In a few moments we were close to 
him and as he glanced back at us his fiery 
eyes and protruding tongue seemed to say: 
“You are the victors, what kind of a ma¬ 
chine is that.’ - We followed him for about 
five miles letting him keep about one hun¬ 
dred yards ahead of the car and as he was 
about ready to give up the fight Ed. gave 
the word and the rifle ended his life. 
This is the most exciting sport to be im¬ 
agined.' We succeeded in getting three 
wolves that morning. A farmer living 
near the lake informed me that he had 
killed twenty-four wolves in like manner 
up to that time that season, each of which 
is worth about $8.00 for the fur and 
bounty. 
We found that the male wolf could not 
run as fast as the female by several miles 
an hour. The best speed a male could 
make was about thirty-five miles, he being 
much heavier and fatter than the female. 
It seems that when a dog starts a wolf 
in the hills it always makes for the lake, 
as there it can soon out distance the dog. 
After a half a day spent in the chase 
in weather 20° below zero we were ready 
to enjoy dinner again. Thus ended a most 
exciting and pleasant half day’s hunt. 
C. R. Verry, Canada. 
RUFFED GROUSE IN MICHIGAN 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Can you not start an inquiry through 
Forest and Stream that will bring out 
something definite and positive as to the 
cause of what seems to be almost an ex¬ 
termination of the Ruffed Grouse. Begin¬ 
ning with the shooting season of 1916, it 
was noticed that the grouse were very, 
very scarce, and in 1917 they were almost 
gone. No one should have shot them, but 
here in Michigan the authorities did not 
see fit to close the season, so a good many 
went afield for them during October and 
early November, but after many days 
hunting I heard of no one getting more 
than one or two. Very few of our Sagi¬ 
naw sportsmen went after them at all; they 
respected the necessity for saving what 
few there were for seed. 
Now the upper peninsula of Michigan, 
as you probably know, used to be literally 
alive with Ruffed Grouse. Three years 
ago anyone could have gone along the road 
with an automobile, in October, and gotten 
their legal limit of six birds, shooting them 
right from the automobile in an hour’s 
time. Thev could have done this most 
anywhere. In fact, a good many who were 
not sportsmen but were simply after meat, 
did it, and for some reason or other the 
Ruffed Grouse went automobile crazy. But 
there were lots of birds anyhow up there. 
We used to shoot them from the old horse 
and wagon. Of course, a law was passed 
stopping the shooting of them from an 
automobile, but I do not know whether it 
has done any good or not, and I do not 
know whether the shooting of the Ruffed 
Grouse had anything to do with its scarc¬ 
ity. There must be some grouse disease 
that cleaned them out in Minnesota, Wis¬ 
consin and Michigan, and I do not know 
how far east of here. We ought to find 
out what it is. 
It would be good work for the Biolog¬ 
ical Survey to definitely determine this 
cause; to see if it cannot be prevented in 
the future. Yours truly, 
W. B. Mershon, Michigan. 
[The matter of ruffed grouse has al¬ 
ready been taken up with Mr. Nelson, of 
the Biological Survey. 
From all reports there is a disease among 
the grouse from Maine t@ Minnesota. Mr. 
Frank I. Brown, of the Pennsylvania Rail¬ 
road, Fort Wayne, Indiana, informed us 
recently that the grouse were similarly af¬ 
fected about fifteen years ago. Editors.] 
OLD-TIMERS AND OLD RIFLES 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
The following description of a couple 
of rather curious rifles of the early years 
of the nineteenth century, owned by two 
celebrated hunters and trappers, “Nat” 
Foster and “Nick” Stoner, was taken from 
Jeptha R. Simms’ “Trappers of New 
York,” published early in 1847 or there¬ 
abouts and revamped and reprinted in 1871. 
’‘Foster and Stoner had each a rifle at 
one time made after the same pattern, by 
Willis Avery, of Salisbury, and called 
double shotters. They were made with a 
single barrel with two locks, one placed 
above the other far enough to admit of 
two charges, and have the upper charge of 
powder rest upon the lower bullet. The 
locks were for percussion pills, and when 
the pick which crushed the pill at the first 
lock was down, there was no danger to 
be apprehended in firing the lower charge. 
These rifles cost about seventy dollars 
each. That of Stoner was borne by a 
soldier into the late Florida War.” 
I do not remember having seen mention 
of these rifles in Forest and Stream , there¬ 
fore am sending this excerpt which may 
interest some of your readers. 
M. Schenck, New r York. 
