













































































































416 
FOREST AND STREAM: 

[SEPT. 14, 1907. 

Of course all laws, until 
they have had a practical test, are somewhat ex- 
perimental, yet this ‘‘optional un- 
doubtedly affords the farmer an added protec- 
tion while at the same time it relieves the 
sportsman of much trouble and annoyance, and 
at a very trifling cost. 
There is no State in the Union more favored 
with climate, water and diversity of crops as 
the home of the quail than Tennessee. If the 
non-export laws are rigidly enforced there will 
always be plenty of these beautiful and tooth- 
some birds to meet the demands of both sports- 
man and consumer. 
Che very noticeable increase of our song birds 
since the passage of the act protecting non-game 
birds (Chapter 118, Acts 1903) strongly bespeaks 
the wisdom of that measure. 
It is matter of congratulation that we have at 
last a general fish law. The full benefits of this 
long delay and much needed Jaw cannot be felt 
at once. Our beautiful streams have been so 
depleted that it will take time to restock them, 
and in this connection it is hoped that public 
sentiment will by the time the next Legislature 
convenes demand a reasonable appropriation for 
a State fish hatchery, which the department is 
authorized to establish, but for which no means 
of stock and poultry. 
, 9 
1cense 
were provided. 
lo those interested in the subject a perusal of 
the forestry law will prove instructive. The sub- 
ject is one of great importance to our State. 
’ Jt is not possible for the State warden to per- 
sonally visit every section of the State, hence 
he solicits the advice and suggestions of all 
citizens who take an interest in these matters. 


Raccoon Shooting. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Mr. Manly Hardy writes very entertainingly 
under the caption of “Canada Lynx and Wild- 
cat” in Forrest aND STREAM of July 27; and I 
am minded of personal experiences illustrative 
of the tenacity of life of the raccoon. 
It may be mentioned, by the way, as apropos 
of the wildcat discussion, that having spent much 
of my life in the woods, as a civil engineer, 
lave seen but two wildcats that presented them- 
selves to view without “outside pressure.” 
About the year 1860, while traveling through a 
Louisiana swamp on a handcar, two full-grown 
wildcats crossed the track a few yards ahead 
of the car, and disappeared in the nearby cane 
rake 
But ‘“br’er coon” and the writer have hob- 
1obbed together to some purpose on sundry oc- 
casions. In 1860, being one of a surveying 
arty, We were returning from our work one 
evening, when a was unexpectedly de- 
veloped in our midst as we walked through the 
Axes, hatchets and a Jacobstaff were 
speedily 
7coon 
woods. 
rrought into action, and the ’coon was 

cilled. One of the negioes swung him by the 
tail and we proceeded on our way. But the 
‘coon came to life, and had to be killed over 
again, which was effectively done. Again he re- 

vived and was killed a third time before we 
reached our quarters. When we arrived at the 
planter’s house where ve were lodging, this 
dead ’coon, again revived, was placed in a room 
with several healthy dogs, and in the vernacular, 
he “whipped the bunch.” The ’coon was killed 
finally, by some process not now recalled 
In 1869, while proceeding through the over- 
flow in a J.ouisiana swamp in a skiff, a ’coon 
was discovered in the fork of a tree. Vhere was 
a shot-gun in the skiff, and the obvious thing 
to be done was to bring the gun and the ’coon 
into relations with one another; there could be 
no doubt about the propriety of such action. In 
thinking about the episode immediately after 
it was over, while in a most disgusted and re- 
pentant mental frame, I could but wonder why 
I had shot the ’coon, as I had no manner of 
use for it, and the ’coon was doing no harm 
to any one. J could only account for the im- 
pulse, and the thoughtless obedience to it, as 
being due to a residuum of the savage that is 
left in us all, which is covered by a thin 
veneering of “moral advancement of the human 
race,” and which prompts us to slay the beast 

of prey whenever a helpless victim 1s offered to 
us. 
Be that as it may, the ’coon was shot and fell 
into the water, amid a tangle of vines. ‘The 
‘coon was not dead, but was swimming among 
the vines and making frantic efforts to escape 
the jaws of death. This was interpreted to 
mean a most perverse and obstinate, as well as 
wholly unjustified resistance on the part of the 
‘coon, to the will and wishes of the executioner 
and spectators, and a willful violation on the 
‘coon’s part of all the recognized canons of 
propriety on such occasions; so a pistol was 
brought into requisition and several shots fired 
at short range. One of the shots perforated 
the ’coon’s windpipe, and thereafter the con- 
flict was waged desperately with the added 
feature, which accentuated the importance of 
the whole episode, of the gurgling and strang- 
ling efforts of this obdurate beast to get his 
breath. The situation had now reached a crisis, 
and the hero of the exploit, to-wit, this scribe, 
feeling great and just exasperation at the per- 
verse conduct of the degraded beast, attacked 
him with an oar. After much floundering about 
in two or three feet of water, in a thicket of 
and with much strenuous exertion, the 
‘coon was finally overcome by blows 
oar, and reduced to a corpus delictt. 
After the battle was over and the victory 
won, the writer, with a feeling of profound 
humiliation and disgust, mentally resolved never 
again to kill any inoffensive member of nature's 
great family of free but helpless children. 
Some forty years ago I was squirrel hunting 
with a Kentucky rifle and descried a ’coon 
climbing up a large white oak tree, sixty or 
seventy feet from the ground. 
Being almost directly under the animal, a 
bullet fired at him went diagonally through the 
body, trom the rear part of the left side to the 
forward part of the right side, where it came 
out. The animal had a clear fall to the ground 
and rebounded two or three feet when he struck, 
But “he lit a-runnin’,”’ with the hunter in hot 
pursuit. When the latter approached too close, 
the ’coon about faced and made a counter 
charge which occasioned a temporary retreat, 
after which the chase was renewed. I then 
found it expedient to reload my rifle, which was 
done while the pursuit was kept up. After 
proceeding about a quarter-mile through the 
woods, the ’coon reached a large pile of drift 
logs and a mortal shot fired as he was about to 
vines, 
measly 
with the 
escape But this ’coon, and another killed 
about the same time by a shot in the head, 
were not wasted, as they were turned over to 
some highly appreciative sons of Africa who 
were working in a nearby field, and they doubt- 
less cut a conspicuous figure in the cuisine 
d’Afrique of the negro quarters. 
Throughout the domain of nature it is ap- 
parent that aJl creatures are destined to be 
killed and devoured by the next higher in the 
scale, in accordance with the law of their being. 
So, from an objective view point, man is only 
performing his part along with the other beasts 
and birds of prey, and the victims have no just 
grievance. 
Economically considered, the destructive 
waste of many creatures that are obviously use- 
ful, is harmful to human interests; while the 
killing of many others whose usefulness may be 
obscured in the relations of cause and effect, 
must bring evil effects in its train 
COAHOMA., 

M. J. Billmyer. 
Captain M,. J. Br.tmMyer, of Shepherdstown. 
W. Va., died Ang. 31, aged seventy-three years 
He was an ardent sportsman and held Forest 
AND STREAM in high esteem. During the Civil 
War he served as captain of Company F, First 
Virginia Cavalry, and after the war returned to 
his farm near Shepherdstown, where he resided 
until his death. 
He had many pleasant recollections to relate 
of days afield with gun and dog. Being an ex- 
cellent shot he took much pride in exhibiting 
the cups he had won at the traps and followed 
the scores of other marksmen with interest. He 
contributed numerous articles to the Sportsmen’s 
journals. 

Difficult Quail Shooting. 
[iditor Forest and Stream: 
My shooting companion George and I took a 
little trip out on the island to have a couple of 
days with the quail. We were invited by the 
Smith brothers of Dick’s Hills, who told us 
that there were plenty of quail around their 
place, so one November day Gus Smith met us 
at the railroad station and drove to his house, 
two miles north. After breakfast Gus said his 
brother Joe would pilot us around where the 
birds were as he was supposed to be the better 
acquainted with .bird shooting. 
Joe said he knew a bunch of birds that he 
had started five or six mornings in succession 
while hunting rabbits, so | said, “Let’s go there 
ATSha 

The place was a small piece of low woods 
with plenty of underbrush, long grass and briers. 
George's dog, Don, a red Irish setter, started 
in ahead. We had not gone forty yards when I 
flushed eight or ten birds, and [ dropped one. 
We worked in the direction the birds went. Joe 
said he never could find them when he got them 
up and after spending some time in vain we 
gave it up. 
George took me to one side and said, “Tom, 
did you notice how Joe gets behind us every 
now and then?” and said he was gun shy, hav- 
ing been peppered two or three times by green 
shooters, and he wanted to know what kind of 
shooters we were. He found out later that he 
had nothing to fear, when he saw George bowl 
over a rabbit. 
We now hunted for another bunch Joe knew 
of and as the dog got in a large rye stubble he 
commenced to make game, and a single bird got 
up about fifty yards away and Joe started a 
single bird but missed. 
Next morning there was quite a heavy white 
frost, and later we started for the place where 
we lost the birds the first day. Joe stood on 
the outside to see where they went, while George 
and I went in. Suddenly Don stopped and the 
birds flushed about fifty yards ahead of us. One 
turned to the right. We both fired at the same 
time, and each said, “I got him.” After Don 
retrieved the bird we joined Joe, who said the 
birds had not gone out of the woods. All he 
had seen was a rabbit come out and run up to 
the end and turn in again out of range. He 
thought that was what we had shot at until I 
showed him the quail. We hunted the piece of 
woods up and down till I thought the birds 
had really gone out, when Joe, who was stand- 
ing about thirty yards from me, flushed a bird 
which started straight away, giving him a splen- 
did open shot, but he must have been rattled 
and missed clean. We kicked around the grass 
and brush half an hour, starting another bird 
which got behind a cedar before we could get 
a shot. They stuck so tight in the grass that 
we could not get them up unless we almost 
stepped on them. 
Turning toward the house I suggested trying 
ground alongside of a piece of woods. As soon 
as Don struck the field he started to make game, 
turned short and stopped. I happened to be 
ahead of the others when two birds flushed in 
front of the dog. I dropped one and was abcut 
to pull on the other when about a dozen more 
got up to the left, and as they were much nearer 
than the others they drew my aim, but were in 
the woods before I got a shot at them. George 
crippled one which we could not find. 
The birds went through the woods into the 
valley and while looking for them Don came 
to a point. George ordered him on and he 
jumped into the brush, bringing out a.crippled 
bird which George claimed to be the one he 
shot, so I said the rest of them could not be 
far off as this one followed the bunch as far 
as it could. I started off in a direct line ahead 
of this bird, then walked up three more and 
killed them. George killed a rabbit in the brush 
which was the largest I ever saw. 
After dinner we packed up and Joe drove us 
to the station. On the road we met a party of 
rabbit shooters who said they had three, the 
dogs were giving tongue on another and they 
were stationed along the road waitine for it 
to come out. Tuos. SHort. 



