
Oct. 12, 1907.) 
FOREST AND STREAM. 


Duck Shooting in Brazil. 
R10 DE JANEIRO, Brazil, Sept. 11.—Editor Forest 
and Stream: One day in June, feeling that I 
»would like to leave Rio for an outing, I tele- 
;}graphed the proprietor of the small hotel at 
| 
; Porto das Caixas, that I would be there at 
{6 o'clock. I knew he would have dinner ready 
jfor me, and have Manoel, the half-Indian 
jguide, to take me to the marshes early next 
jMmorning. 
| Porto das Caixas is two hours from Rio de 
Janeiro, and was once an important village, be- 
jing the shipping point for merchandise from the 
interior to Rio, but the railroad running through 
it has caused it to be almost depopulated, so 
nearly all the houses are deserted. It is in the 
jmidst of large swamps and is very unhealthy, 
jbut is a typical place for ducks and snipe. 
; My half-Indian guide knew every inch of the 
ground for miles around. He was a splendid 
jman with a boat, a good shot, and thoroughly 
janreliable when he did not take an interest in 
he person he was guiding. I had been there 
30 often that I knew all the best places, and 
ilways made my plans the evening before where 
{ should go the next morning. 
On this trip I decided to go to the Campo da 
cruz, where I knew the large black ducks 
vould be feeding. This duck is called here 
‘pato” (Anas moschitus). It looks black at a 
listance, but upon close examination, it is a 
eautiful bronze green, white tips on the wings 
jind some white feathers on head and _ neck. 
\Vhen the male grows older more white appears; 
jn fact, the old ones appear almost white when 
lying. The largest ones weigh more than ten 
pounds. Very often they alight on trees, 
| specially the dead branches, to see if there is 
anger before settling down to feed. The 
latives told me they often roost in trees, but I 
jiave only seen them early in the morning rise 
rom the shallow lakes, which shows plainly it 
3 their custom to spend the night in such places, 
|\“hey breed in the swamps, the season being 
November and December. By May they are 
jul grown, when the best shooting is had. They 
ire not fish ducks, but feed on the plants and 
‘eeds which abound in the marshes. They are 
jelicious eating when properly prepared. This duck 
sccurs all over Brazil. He is certainly a game 
jird. It is almost impossible to get them if not 
jilled stone dead. On account of the grass and 
ees in the marshes it is almost impossible to 
nd a wounded one without a dog. I have 
jever used a dog, as they suffer so much in 
jlis hot climate, it seems too cruel. 
, 1 arose at 3 o’clock, had breakfast of black 
pans—Feijoado, the Brazilian national dish— 
(zgs and strong black coffee, and started to 
ach the shooting ground by daybreak. When 
je arrived, I took a stand in a clump of bushes 
jt the center of the best feeding grounds. 
j‘anoel, the guide, was distant about two hun- 
ved yards on a small spot of dry land, claiming 
{Ss feet were cold and he did not like to stand 
4 the water on account of his rheumatism. It 
Jas very misty, and about sunrise the first duck 
ume silently over, as these ducks make no 
ise. I killed it dead and it fell about twenty 
jet from me and floated on its back in the 
jiter. He was an old one and weighed about 
#1 pounds. 
¢On account of the heavy mist, I did not see 
je second duck which came over until too late. 
,¢ disappeared behind the trees too quickly for 
ishot. I now kept on my ground, and after 
juiting about thirty minutes, I saw a fine fel- 
év headed straight for me. I kept perfectly 
{ll until he was witin twenty yards of me, when 
igave him a charge of No. 6 which dropped 
jn almost at my feet. This one was not as 
¢ge as the first, weighing only about eight 
funds. 
gl now waited for some time, and as the flight 
‘S Over, decided to finish the morning by 
o0ting a few teal and snipe. The Brazilian 
1 is a beautiful little duck and resembles our 
\e-winged teal. They of course fly in flocks 
1 go like bullets. One must hold far ahead 
H get them. Two flocks came over. I suc- 
ded in getting five, when I began on the 
pe. 



The snipe are very much like our jacks, but 
fly a little straighter. Still I did not get them 
every shot, but with No. 9’s I made a pretty 
good record, killing eighteen. 
he sun was now getting warm, so I returned 
to the hotel, and after a good bath and some 
dinner, left by the train which put me in Rio 
at 7 o'clock P. M. One of my friends met me 
and I enjoyed the day’s shooting again, telling 
him how each bird was killed, with a good excuse 
of course for all the misses. 
F. B. Gorpon. 

The California Season. 
SAN Francisco, Oct. 1.—Editor Forest and 
Stream: The California State Board of Fish 
and Game Commissioners has arranged for 500 
pairs of grouse from an importer at Philadel- 
phia. These birds will be turned loose in favored 
locations in California, 
F. Jackson, president of the Tamalpais Gun 
Club, of San Rafael, killed a 175-pound buck 
on Sept. 9, after the animal had made a four- 
mile swim in an effort to escape. The deer was 
started not far from Bolinas, and at once took 
to the water, swimming straight into the Pacific 
ocean for a distance guessed by the hunter at 
two miles. It then turned and landed at Lime 
Point where Mr. Jackson was waiting for it. 
The R. N. C. Duck Club has been organized 
at Oxnard, Cal., and has secured a shooting pond 
sixteen acres in extent near that place. The 
officers of the club are: Geo. P. Austin, Presi- 
dent, and R. N. Haydon, Secretary. 
The Santa Cruz Rod and Gun Club, of Santa 
Cruz, Cal., has leased duck preserves at the 
Elk Horn Slough. The preserves are two miles 
long and are opposite the grounds of the Empire 
Gun Club of San Francisco. 
Hunters, returning from the Klamath region 
along the California-Oregon boundary, report 
that deer hunters are meeting with good suc- 
cess this season, and that quail, squirrels and 
bear are plentiful and ducks are numerous along 
the banks of the Klamath. Gus. A. Russ, of San 
Francisco, and E. McCoty, of Sacramento, who 
are now on the Klamath, have each a buck to 
their credit, and F. S. Judah and H. G. Elliott, 
of San Francisco, have returned to Klamath 
Springs from a trip into the wilds with three 
bucks, the largest of which reached 200 pounds. 
Ane baeB: 
Enemies of Game. 
Qu’AppELLE, Sasx., Canada, Oct. 1.—Editor 
Forest and Stream: The bird crop this year is 
as poor as the grain crop. Last year at this 
same place it was an easy task for a decent shot 
to get a bag of either chickens (sharp tail 
grouse) or ducks, but the late cold spring and 
wet weather in nesting time changed all that, and 
all feathered game has grown wonderfully less. 
A dozen years ago I went to Moose Jaw, eighty 
miles west of here, and came out with three 
barrels of goose bodies with the heads, wings and 
legs cut off. They were regarded as a pest then 
and any farmer was pleased to have a hunter 
shoot them. Mr. H. O. Wilbur and myself got 
all these geese in five flights and as many more 
which we gave away to the people. Where are 
they now? There were countless thousands of 
them. You can get about enough ducks. We 
did not shoot ducks then, and about one chicken 
apiece at a table and a few extra ones for a 
friend if you are a shot and have someone along 
that can pilot you. The cause of it is the plow 
and the settler who buys no meat, but shoots it 
from the front door from early spring to freez- 
ing up time; and the wolf, which has become 
so bold he comes right into town and robs hen 
roosts. The same story that was told in Illinois, 
Iowa, Minnesota and the Dakotas. 
Pink Ence. 
BREAKFAST IN CAMP 
is nothing without coffee, and coffee is nothing 
without Cream. Ordinarily cream is out of the 
question nine times out of ten, but Borden’s 
Peerless Brand Evaporated Milk takes its place 
perfectly and keeps indefinitely until opened. It 
is unsweetened and has the natural cream flavor 
and color.—Adv, 

The Gun Trade. 
THE gun trade section of the London 
Chamber of Commerce appointed a committee 
to report on the state of the gun trade, and 
that report has now been printed and presented, 
together with the figures and data on which it 
is based, and it is now under consideration of 
the members. The County Gentleman makes 
extracts from the report, and says: 
We do not believe much in Proof House re- 
turns as proving anything beyond the weapons 
themselves. The London Proof House author- 
ities publish no figures at all relating to their 
work, and the absence of them in any record 
of gun work for this country takes much away 
from the value of returns from Birmingham, 
which only apply to an unknown proportion of 
the whole British trade in guns. So far as they 
go, however, it is interesting to learn from the 
figures given that in 1905 the proofs at Birming- 
ham of breechloading double guns and rifles 
fell to 66,881, or little more than half the num- 
ber of 1897, when it. reached 118,947. In the 
same period the total of all classes of arms has 
fallen from 402,115 to 337,457, a decline of 64,658. 
In the last five years breechloaders have fallen 
from 96,841 of I901 to 66,881 for 1905. It 1s 
satisfactory, however, to record the fact that 
the figures for 1906 show a substantial recovery 
from the returns of 1905, the total proofs show- 
ing a rise of 33,061, or from 337,457 in 1905 to 
370,518 for 1906. It seems to be admitted that 
there has been a decrease in the figures of the 
London Proof House, though no returns have 
been published. On the other hand, the 
turns from the Liége Proof House for 
show the highest figures yet recorded, 
for arms of all 
being 722,986. 
The committee further report a decrease in 
the export as well as in the home trade in fire- 
arms, which latter they attribute to the mone- 
tary exhaustion and heavy taxation due to the 
Boer war and the counter-attraction of motor- 
ing and golf, though these causes cannot prop- 
erly be put forward to account for the decrease 
in the export trade in firearms so out of har- 
mony with the expansion of the whole trade of 
the country. Almost all the German foreign 
trade consists of military Mauser rifles. By 
their export the trade of Germany almost 
equalled that of Belgium, seven million Mauser 
rifles having been manufactured in Germany in 
the short space of three years (1903-1905). T'he 
German government, it is further reported, re- 
gards the manufacture of fire arms as a na- 
tional industry, and has diplomatically assisted 
their manufacturers in obtaining orders from 
foreign governments. This is also the attitude 
adopted by the Belgian government, the United 
States of America being the largest foreizn 
purchaser of Belgian arms. From further tables 
published, it is rather interesting to learn that 
for firearms the best customer of the United 
Kingdom has been Australia, with Africa sec- 
ond and India third; that the best customer to 
America has also been Australia, with the 
United Kingdom second and Germany third; 
while the best customer of Belgium has been 
the United States, with Australia a close sec- 
ond, France a close third, and Germany fourth. 
Gun licenses, which had risen from 161,692 in 
1895 to 230,006 in 1902, had fallen in 1904 to 
223,861, and from such knowledge of to005 and 
1906 as is available, there is good ‘reason to 
suppose that the number of usets of guns in 
this country had decreased by 10,000 at least be- 
low the figures of 1902. We need not trouble 
our readers with the many voluminous tables 
which bear out the results which we have here 
summarized. 
From what has been stated it can easily- be 
seen that the British gun trade at the present 
moment is not in a very healthy and flourishing 
condition, and that our former supremacy in 
the making of the world’s firearms is being 
wrested from us year after year by the: manu- 
facturers of Belgium and America. This is a 
matter of interest to British sportsmen as well 
as to British manufacturers, and we need make 
no apology for commenting on it in 
(Continued on page 595.) 
re- 
1905 
2,682,111 
kinds, that for double guns alone 
these 












































































































