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FOREST AND STREAM. 

The Season in New England. 
Boston, Nov. 16.—Editor Forest and Stream: 
Recently G. W. Edmonds, of Brookline, Mass., 
left for California. This is the first step in a 
long and difficult exploring trip into the moun- 
tain and desert interior ‘of Mexico in an unex- 
plored region. At Los Angeles Mr. Edmonds 
will meet two companions and the party of three 
with a complete equipment will start away at 
once. It will take twelve pack animals to carry 
the outfit, which is very thorough, as they will 
be entirely beyond any possible chance of re- 
plenishing for six months. The object of the 
trip is chiefly to observe the geological forma- 
tion of the country and to map it out. One of 
Mr. Edmonds’ companions is an old campaigner 
from New Mexico, and the other a New York 
man, All are veterans in the hardships of a new 
country. On their return, six months hence, 
much of the information gained will be given 
to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: 
whose faculty is very much interested in the ob- 
of the trip 
Hunting parties are leaving daily, many having 
been sensible enough to wait until there is a fair 
chance for tracking the game on the first snow. 
In Maine the Aroostook region seems to be the 
favorite hunting country, while in New Bruns- 
wick the Upper Mirimichi finds ready favor, par- 
icularly with those who are after moose. T. C 
Phelps with three friends departed on Nov. 4 
for a two weeks’ trip in the region about Jack- 
man, Me. Mr. E. H. Dickinson and Mr. Lycept 
lave gone to Moosehead going directly to the 
West Outlet for two weeks’ hunting. Mr. and 
Mrs. Stephen J. Johnson left on Noy. 1 for 
Patten. They will camp at Shinn Pond until after 
Thanksgiving. Arthur Monroe. and Dr. Merrill, 
of Somerville, left on Oct. 31 for a two weeks’ 
stay in the Roach River country, east of Moose- 
read Lake. 
Mr. W. B. Revere, whose departure on a moose 
hunting trip to the Mt. Katahdin country I men- 
ioned in ForEStT AND STREAM some time ago, is 
1ome again. He saw several moose, but none 
with a head attractive enough to satisfy him. 
One monster fellow was trailed for several hours, 
ut it was a hopeless task on account of the 
woods being so noisy owing to a heavy layer of 
dry leaves. Another party, who reached home 
oorly rewarded, consisted of Mr. Harry Haines, 
jects 


Chas. Locke and Judge Milton. Round Moun- 
tain Lake was the scene of their hunting. There 
were plenty of deer in sight, but none worth 
while, nearly all being does or spike bucks. 
Bene, and I. C. Paul, of Newton, and 
Thos. and W. H. Aspinwall, of Boston, have 
just returned from the neighborhood of Dana, 
Mass., where they have hunted grouse for many 
seasons. The trip proved disappointing. Covers 
that had always given them good sport in the 
past afforded only one or two birds to each man, 
and people driving about the country say they 
do not see any birds. Mr. Aspinwall saw one 
covey of quail, a rather unusual sight about 
there. The score of the entire party was only 
nine partridges in five days’ shooting. As an 
offset to this the experience of two marines from 
oote 



the Charlestown navy yard, who went up to 
Granby, Mass., for a day’s hunting, is interest- 
ing. Withont a dog they succeeded in bagging 
seven partridges. 
The widespread scarcity of the birds this year 
is the subject of general discussion, and of 
course every effort is being made to find a rea- 
son for it. No one at present is aware of the 
cause, but the opinion is growing that the ex- 
treme dryness of the summer is responsible for 
it. Plenty of evidence is at hand that the 
chicks were hatched successfully. The mystery 
is what became of them afterward. Almost en- 
tire lack of water is probably the solution. The 
opinions of men like Geo, L. Myer, of Millis, 
Mass., are valuable on a subject like this. Born 
seventy-one years ago in the vicinity of his 
present home—and still hale and hearty—he has 
hunted and trapped over the entire county side 
for years. Last summer brooks and swamps 
Which he never saw dry before were many weeks 
entirely without water, and the same conditions 
prevailed in other sections of the State. This 
looks like evidence of a positive and convincing 


A DOUBLE ON TEAL, 
Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News. 
From the 
kind and accounts—I believe—in a large meas- 
ure for the deplorable state of affairs. 
The going of the ruffed grouse seems to 
herald the coming of the woodcock. Not for 
many years have these birds been so numerous 
in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Con- 
necticut as they are this fall. Better still, it is 
believed that the main flight has not yet reached 
us. Reports from southern New Brunswick 
and Nova Scotia say, that owing to unusually 
mild weather, the birds are still there in amaz- 
ing numbers, not having started the southern 
flight as yet. To show how the birds are flood- 
ing over into Maine, Mr. Henry Reuter and 
brother have just returned from Auburn, where 
in one day they bagged forty. The best score 
for grouse that has reached me this fall was 
made last week up near Westboro, Mass. Mr. 
Geo. Massure and a friend bagged twelve birds 
out of fifteen seen. 
In and about Boston there are many sports- 
men living who have hunted in all sections of 
the country, especially in the days when hunting 
was worth while and game plentiful. Most of 
these men are to-day beyond the age of activity 
with gun or rifle, and their pleasure is now 
largely confined to retrospection, One of the 
most interesting of these gentlemen is Mr. A. 
J. Forbes, of Cambridge. In the early seventies 
the region about Boone, Ia., was his favorite 
shooting grounds, and he loves to recount to 
an interested auditor the tales of his early trips 
after mallards. On returning home in 1875 he 
brought back with him one quart of wild oats 
and sowed them on the bank of Little River, a 
stream which flows into the Connecticut near 
Middletown. From this small beginning there 
are now five hundred acres of wild oats grow- 
ing along the banks of the river, and the wild 
ducks rendezvous there in great numbers, pro- 
viding excellent sport for the gunners. 
Most convenient and accessible is the camp 
of W. C. Merrill, of Boston. It is located down 
near Duxbury, and it is therefore an easy matter 
to run down for a day’s shooting at any time. 
Last week Mr. Merrill invited his friends, 
Doctors Tuttle and Martin, Roy Faye and 
Mayor Wardwell, of Cambridge, to a couple of 
days’ shooting at the camp. The visit was 
productive of three black duck, several widgeon, 
a dozen beetle-heads and a good bag of plover. 
HACKLE. 
Boston, Nov. 16.—Editor Forest and Stream: 
Reports of very good bags are coming in from 
our shore gunners. 
The members of the Sportsmen’s Protective 
Association of Eastern Massachusetts had a meet 
for fox and rabbit hunting last Saturday. The 
combined bag was made up of six rabbits, a few 
grouse, half a dozen muskrats and a couple of| 
skunks. A jolly party gathered about the tables 
and enjoyed recounting the experiences of the 
day. 
The number of nonresidents that have taken 
out shooting licenses under the law passed last 
winter is between ninety and one hundred. 
The record of game shipments at Bangor to 
Noy. 1 shows a falling off of about twenty per 
cent. from last year, 673 deer as against 838 
last year, and 54 moose against 65 last year. 
There have been sent this year seventeen bears. 
A prominent sportsman who has been in the 
covers yearly for the last twenty years tells me 
he has hunted this year in more than half a 
dozen different towns and has killed but few 
grouse. In a certain series of covers, where 
some years he has flushed about fifty birds, he 
has this year found less than twenty. In his 
opinion ruffed grouse in the central counties are 
doomed to annihilation unless there shall be a 
closed season of one or more years. A cor- 
respondent requests that the State association | 
send out a remonstrance to all sportsmen against 
killing any more birds this year in order to pre- | 
vent the necessity of a closed period of some 
years. 
From the western part of the State an experi- 
enced hunter writes that to him the scarcity of 
partridges is no surprise. Last February a man 
brought in a grouse he had found in the high- 
way starved and frozen. Two other similar in- 
cidents occurred and the result of a canvass made 
in three towns revealed five different men who 
had picked up dead birds during that month. 
In addition to the intense cold and scarcity of 
food the latter part of winter, the hatching sea- 
son he pronounces the most trying he has ever 
known, He admits hearing, however, of several 
broods that were hatched, but after the first of 
August they seemed to disappear. He says the 
prohibiting of the shooting of partridge for a 
season would only cause a complete annihilation 
of the birds the year following the closed season. 
At the meeting of the legislative committee of 
the State association on Friday evening, President 
Dutcher, of the National Association of Audu- 
bon Societies, urged the prevention of spring 
shooting and favored the closing of the wild- 
fowl season Jan. 1. He expressed the opinion 
that shooting in the winter months will cause 
the extermination of our game birds. At that 
season many of them are already mated. , The 
Audubon societies are working in harmony with 
the sportsmen, both striving for proper protec- 
tion of game birds as well as the prevention of 
the killing of song and insectivorous birds at 


























































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