54 
Forest and Stre 
WINTER IN OUR GAME COVERS 
AN APPEAL TO HUNTERS WHO ONLY SEE QUAIL 
AND GROUSE OVER THE RIB OF A GUN IN AUTUMN 
By W. J. SCHALDACH 
O CTOBER! What a wealth of 
meaning this magic word holds 
for those chosen ones who know 
the ways of fields and covers! 
Now the summer’s heat has abated, 
and in its place there is a cool freshness 
in the air that makes the outdoorsman 
restless. It is, in a measure, comparable 
to the “spring fever” that assails a man 
in April and makes him think of flics 
and leaders instead of interest and dis¬ 
counts. 
At last the magic day has arrived 
and instead of the irksome trip to the 
office, Nimrod finds himself and his 
eager setter on a gently sloping upland. 
The air is filled with the tang of frost 
and everywhere is living, blazing, 
glorious color. At the foot of the slope, 
a long swale of silver birches winds its 
way through a rocky valley covered 
with waving fox-grass, and here and 
there dwarf cedars and hawthorne 
bushes dot the hillsides, making ideal 
cover for quail and pheasant. A quarter 
of a mile away the birches merge into a 
splendid forest of beech and maple with 
rough scrub oaks and chestnuts every¬ 
where in evidence. There are lovely 
wooded hillsides and stonewalls and 
swamps and, in short, everything that is 
needed to be a perfect abiding place for 
that most perfect of game birds—the 
ruffed grouse. 
Our sportsman stands at a veritable 
gateway to romance. Here he may en¬ 
joy one of the purest 
forms of pleasure and 
contentment that is 
given one worthy of 
bearing the name 
appointments as only a man and dog 
can, while we note the changes that a 
month can bring. 
October’s glory has been usurped now 
by a sterner November. The leaves 
have gradually given away to the in¬ 
fluence of frost and rain and wind and 
have covered the forest floor with a rich 
l!lllll!l!!!!mil!!l!l!!il!il!!ll!ill: 
■ID 
If the man who enjoys good shoot¬ 
ing in the fall would give a little of 
his time during the cold days of 
winter and care for his feathered 
friends he could do a lot toward in¬ 
creasing the number of game birds 
in his own territory and help to 
furnish better sport for himself and 
his fellow sportsman. 
“gentleman.’ 
We will leave him 
and his splendid dog, 
however, on that col¬ 
orful New England 
hillside to find their 
covies and singles 
and to share in each 
other’s joys and dis- 
while good old Duke slept with his n 
between his paws, dreaming of count: 
covies of quail, grouse by the dozen 
whole squads and columns of ringfl 
pheasants. Outside the wind hov 
around the cornice of the house, the 
grew chill and snow came down, dri 
by a northeast gale. It was a typ 
November squall such as betokened 
early winter and sometimes a hard 
Nimrod went duck hunting twice i 
ing the month of December, and by- 
time the weather had become quite 
After Christmas he gave not a thoi 
to guns or shooting; the remaii 
leisure time was devoted to the sp 
trout fishing. 
carpet of brow’n. The air, too, has 
taken on a feeling of bleakness, while 
above, steel gray clouds scudding across 
n grayer sky give promise of the winter 
to & come. The shooting season is draw¬ 
ing to a close and it is well; the last 
trip Nimrod took wasn’t like the Oc¬ 
tober day when the sassafras and sumac 
were gold and scarlet in hue. They 
were quite bare now and the beech and 
maple cover was merely a mass of 
gaunt branches with bare moss-covered 
rocks prominent everywhere. Duke 
tried as hard as he might, creeping along 
like the cautious old fellow he was, but 
not a single close point could he get 
The fantailed rascal would roar out a 
hundred yards ahead and not a shot did 
his master get. Bob-white, too was 
nowhere to be found and his long-tailed, 
many-hued imported cousin, the pheas¬ 
ant, simply would not behave but in¬ 
sisted on running instead of lying to 
point as behooves a well-bred game bird. 
“Well, Old Timer,” said the man to the 
dog, “it’s time we put the double gun in 
the cabinet and quit for this year. It’s 
less than a month 'til Christmas, and 
you and I have taken 
our share of birds. ’ 
Accordingly, that 
night the field gun 
was very carefully 
greased, the stock 
was well polished and 
the little piece put in 
the case beside a 
t liydeui small-bore rifle and a 
brand new restocked 
Springfield. Nimrod 
pulled an easy chair 
up to the fire and was 
'vfcLscfiALDACH soon absorbed in his 
J ANUARY came in on the wing 
one of the worst snow storms ■ 
decade. The white flakes fell ste; 
for a week, then one day the wea 
changed and the country was swep 
rain and hail, followed by bitter 
weather. If Nimrod (who, of co ! 
represents all true lovers of dog 
gun) had gone to the birch swale 
leads into the beech and maple gr 
cover that morning, he would 
looked upon an entirely different . i 
than that which he beheld back in 
tober, when a genial sun spreac 
warmth upon an autumnal landscap' 
Now everywhere is ice and snow 
bare rocks. The woods seem singu 
devoid of bird life. Here, a few ju 
hop upon a bare rock; there, a hun 
yards away in an old oak stub, s 
rather disgruntled looking crow, 
downy woodpecker explores the int 
cies of the bark of an old stiff), set 
what food he may find after the st 
Then, too, there are bird forms 
tracks in the snow and signs that 
unfamiliar. Two hundred yards a' 
a large hawk is soaring gracefully 
scribing large circles as he hovers 
•d n ri 
the lower end of the birch swale 
careful inspection through the gl 
proves him to be a large nor 
goshawk, one of the great falcons 
merciless enemy to game of all 
Even now he is watching, with his 
far-seeing eyes, for the telltale n 
ment in the foxgrass that will reve; 
position of pheasant or quail or ha 
Bad weather and poor hunting c 
tions have driven him and, per 
scores of others of his species, to 
down gradually from the North cor 
which is his habitat, into a milde 
mate, where he may feast on game 
tically unmolested. Along with th 
vasion of vandals from the nortl 
sure to come a horde of snowy owl 
great diurnal hunters with far-rea 
black eyes. No solemn-eyed syml 
wisdom, who sits in a great oak tr 
day and hunts field mice by nig 
