it demands a quick eye,a true aim which 
must be brought to bear on the subject 
almost as a flash if a sure kill is to be 
made. 
HARLIE has so skilled himself in 
the squirrel hunting game that he 
knows squirrel habits about as handily 
as I know the ins and outs of bass habits 
and bass fishing. And eyen then I 
wager that I can keep up my end in the 
squirrel hunting sport. But when I get 
as accurate as Charlie—well it never 
can be done. It demands years of con- 
centration on the sport and an innate 
study of it; the bowing to certain dic- 
tates; the making of as few moves as 
possible and being super-instinctive to 
the least quiver among the branches 
of a tree. Furthermore, Charlie seems 
almost to divine the presence of a squir- 
rel. You may smile but it is true. 
This is simply concentration and an 
instinctive knowledge of squirrels. 
Charlie will say with all the deductive 
ability of a still-hunting Sherlock: 
“Just take a squint at that tree over 
there. I have every reason to believe 
a squirrel is there. Don’t believe it? 
Let’s walk up on it.” 
And we walk up on it. Then we 
stand perfectly still. You let your eyes 
“cover” every nook, crevice and cranny 
on that old solomon oak, as though you 
were fair to staring a plant louse out 
of countenance that is hid under the 
bark. You would swear that no squir- 
rel is to be seen and yet Charlie will 
bring his rifle comfortably to bear, there 
will be a sharp spat as the twenty-two 
is fired and you are not astonished when 
you see a gray fall to the ground stone 
dead, hit right in the head, a clean kill 
—and Charlie always prides himself on 
his clean kills. He is a humane sports- 
man and never fires without reason to 
believe that the game is his. 
So then we find ourselves in the old 
woods at E—. Here there are rolling 
hills and oak woods, with, of course, a 
mixture of other trees, also scrub oaks 
and brush. Take it all in all it makes 
for ideal cover, is far enough from the 
beaten track to be secure from other 
hunters and with sufficient game to in- 
sure a goodly bag. It is beautiful late 
autumn weather, in the midst of the 
Indian summer season. The leaves for 
the most part have fallen from the 
soft-woods but the great intermingling 
of smaller oaks and scrubs are still 
tenaciously holding onto their dead 
leaves. 
ERE and there are clusters of 
“ leaves even on the bare trees, and 
the ground is deeply carpeted with the 
fallen ones. To make a forward step is 
to arouse a sound that is conveyed to a 
squirrel for some distance. It is a 
Page 663 
-experienced squirrel hunter 
startling warning that is almost as 
surely taken heed of as the shrill 
screech of the bluejay, said to be the 
greatest friend of the animals of the 
wild, for at its alarm note everything 
pauses, looks and listens. 
We crossed the pasture to the east; 
a climb up the slope and we struck the 
first woods, having formulated our plan 
of hunt to have its inception from the 
first woods. And so we parted com- 
pany; a moment later we were both 
making our way along the woods paths 
and now and then stepping off into the 
unknown. This was the life! There 
was a tingle in his veins; nothing short 
of exhilaration; to be back again on 
the old trails hunting for the elusive 
ones. I kept my ears trimmed down 
to catch every sound that came out 
of the woods. Crows were early 
abroad; their cawing could be heard at 
a great distance. Bluejays, too, were 
up and doing and somewhere just ahead 
of me I heard the wheezy bark of a 
gray, that is to say if you call it a 
“bark”. I have many and many a time 
tried to reconcile myself to the belief 
that the muffled “wheeze” of the gray 
squirrel is a “bark” but I never have 
been able to make any logical connec- 
tions. 
O I moved forward. Every faculty 
was on the alert. The barking of 
the squirrel could still be heard and a 
moment later there came the sound of 
another further away, ahead of me. 
They were active all right, there was 
no doubt about that. I approached 
nearer and nearer to the first one and 
I could just about make out the tree 
the fellow was in, but I could not see 
him. I paused and stood perfectly still 
without moving a limb. Silence around 
me; not a movement in the tree. Here, 
then, is where the average squirrel 
hunter unversed in the hunting of this 
clever fellow with the bushy tail makes 
a poor job of it. It is true that the 
hunter will pause for a while and give 
his surroundings the “once over” but 
seeing nothing and hearing less, he will 
at once move on. 
That is where the squirrel beats him 
to it. On the whole a gray squirrel is 
pretty well camouflaged. That is to 
say his coloration very nearly merges 
in with that of the autumnal coloring 
and the coloration of the bark of a tree, 
especially of a white or burr oak. So, 
even if a squirrel be in plain sight, 
though having the trunk of the tree for 
a background, he will not be seen. The 
remains 
standing still. In the sense of the 
word it is a slow process of “sitting it 
out” or standing it out with the slick 
fellow. This is called “freezing” or re- 
maining perfectly quiet. 
Now a squirrel can stand the sus- 
pense of another’s silence just so 
long and then he can stand it no longer. 
He will sooner or later essay a demon- 
stration among the branches and prob- 
ably a moment toward the intruder to 
see what in the world it is. This will 
betray his presence. It was just in this 
manner the present one revealed him- 
self, right there, one might say, in plain 
sight, sitting on a trunk twig facing me, 
and I had thought all along that it 
was a knot or lump on the tree if I 
gave it more than a cursory glance at 
that. He fell with a bullet through 
his head. 
Hardly had I dropped this one than 
I heard the chirr or wheeze of the 
other. I speedily bundled this one 
away in the capacious pocket of the 
light hunting coat and with all due 
speed, tripping over the leaves and 
bare places as noiselessly as possible, I 
was within earshot of that one too. 
HOWEVER this one leaped to a 
branch and while pausing to make 
another leap I got him. Clean shot 
Number 2. This, I congratulated my- 
self, was rather excellent shooting and 
I hoped that I might keep it up. But 
the next squirrel, and the next, got 
away unscathed and darted into a hole 
in a tree. This was poor generalship 
on my part I told myself for I had been 
far too hasty. The squirrel became 
suddenly frightened and would not 
pause. I should have stood still there 
and waited for the opportune moment. 
The “psychological moment’ Charlie 
would have called it. 
I heard the sharp crack of the 
“longs” from my partner’s twenty-two 
every once in a while for an hour or 
more after that, and I knew he never 
wasted shells. Charlie is one of those 
fellows who could take a little more 
than a handful of shells into the back- 
woods with him and be sure of an ani- 
mal for every shot. No experimenting 
with him. He is trained. 
I move into a beautiful little glade 
tucked away there in the woods. I have 
just topped a rise. A partridge has 
run along the ground and has mounted 
a stump. I can see him poised ready 
for the meteoric leap into the air. I 
am fixed there like a statue. Then, 
very slowly, I bring the gun up. The 
bead is finely drawn for the very base 
of the neck and I fire. 
Down he falls with much commo- 
tion. I have no sooner picked him 
up and thrust him away than I hear 
the wheeze of a gray squirrel not fifty 
feet away. I pause a moment to get 
my bearings and then, keeping a tree 
ahead of me, I tip-toe forward. Very 
(Continued on page 695) 
