The Quest of 
Agile Grays 
By ROBERT PAGE LINCOLN 
and you take an interest in vari- 
ous sports, each as it applies to the 
season as it comes along, you will of 
course make friends with men who are 
favorable to following up the sport of 
each season. However, it is a pleasure 
to follow the gamut of these outdoor 
pastimes taking an active part in the 
fishing game during the summer and 
fall and at the same time having your 
try at the hunting game. But it so 
happens that some are excellent hunters 
but have scarcely any longing for the 
fishing game; indeed they will pass 
fishing by with a wave of the hand, 
turn a deaf ear to the “yard-long” 
stories of the disciples of Walton, but 
let the autumnal winds begin to blow 
and let there be the hint of frost in 
the air; let the leaves commence turn- 
ing golden and yellow; let the corn- 
shocks begin to dot the fields and at once 
their interest is strictly on the alert. 
Their trigger fingers get to itching and 
they have all the longings to be out and 
doing that attacks the early spring 
worm fisher about the time the streams 
are breaking up in March. 
I you are an active outdoor man 
AKE for example the squirrel hunter 
who makes it a point every year 
to go forth with his .22 caliber gun and 
do things that would make his shotgun 
loving brothers open their eyes should 
they ever see his prowess featured. He 
will wait until the leaves have fallen 
or have mostly eddied to the earth and 
then he is in his element. It may not 
be until the month of December that 
the squirrel hunter has his best shoot- 
LR 
<p) \\\ 







Ly 
ing. When, then, there come some fine 
days and the squirrels are out in force 
the hunting in the hardwood covers is 
certainly the best. 
Here in Minnesota we often run 
across good gray squirrel shooting and 
in those places where they occur in 
something like oldtime abundance, one 
surely has the “time of his life.”’” There 
are forms of hunting that seem to ap- 
peal to certain natures as I have stated; 
other forms making not the semblance 
of an impression. To me there is 
nothing equal to the still-hunting form 
and to stalk the agile gray squirrel in 
its oak-wood habitat I may say appeals 
to me more strongly than any other 
feature of the shooting game. I believe 
also that it demands every bit of good 
eyesight, an alertness, keenness that is 
out of the ordinary. 
5 QUIRREL hunting is not for the 
blundering individual who will 
not “navigate” through the covers with- 
out any sense of hunting instinct and 
who thinks that by luck and luck alone 
will he find the game that he is after. 
In squirrel hunting the man with the 
gun often finds that the squirrel is his 
better nine times out of ten, in outright 
cunning; that is to say he will outwit 
his stalker by keeping himself well hid- 
den, although the hunter may be stand- 
ing not thirty to fifty feet away from 
him. The ability of the squirrel to do 
this has of course long saved it from 
possible extinction at the hands of man, 
his worst enemy and most persistent 
pursuer. In the case of the gray squir- 
rel there may be an exception for the 



SSS 
) WINNS 
NORV y / AiNy' Ne 
SENNA ARN rm 
a 


) 
\ 
iN 








Detailing Some of the 
Pleasures of 
Squirrel Hunting During the Later 
Autumn Days 
Decoration by W. J. Schaldach 
red squirrel is its deadly foe. 
seem news to many. 
less, a truth. 
This may 
It is, neverthe- 
OME years ago I made an investi- 
gation into the matter and as a re- 
sult killed many gray squirrels pur- 
posely for examination. Most of the 
old buck grays were unsexed, that is 
to say, deprived of means of procrea- 
tion. This is so manifestly the work of 
the “reds” which are so swift and 
which follow the more clumsy grays, 
nipping them behind. Thus in an al- 
most fiendish manner they gain the 
end which is simply the termination of 
the race of grays. Years ago in a 
certain woods I killed out all the reds 
and the result is now that the grays are 
found there in great numbers, the males 
having reproductive powers, being able 
to continue their kind. It would be a 
means to an end were all reds found in 
close proximity to grays killed out as 
it would surely mean a great increase 
among the latter. Here in Minnesota 
we treat red squirrels, as in New York 
state, no less than vermin, but during 
squirrel hunting time they all go into 
the hunting coat pocket, for some of 
them have most succulent and appetiz- 
ing “drum-sticks.” 
M* squirrel hunting chum is Charlie. 
Let it be sufficient unto itself that 
he is just Charlie. He would rather 
hunt squirrels than anything that I 
know of and as one of those who has 
made himself an expert in his favorite 
sport, he is very nearly without a peer. 
For so it is with squirrel hunting that 
Page 662 
