IB 111$ iHgSM ? Y: : ' LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. f J7/,< (| opntiglit |' E17 > UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. | •MPION WIN F AMEF Field, Coyer, and Trap Shooting. ey y ADAM II. BOGARDUS, Champion Wing Shot of America. EMBRACING HINTS FOR SKILLED MARKSMEN ; INSTRUCTIONS FOR YOUNG SPORTSMEN ; HAUNTS AND HABITS OF GAME BIRDS ; FLIGHT AND RESORTS OF WATER FOWL : BREEDING AND BREAKING OF DOGS. EDITED BY CHARLES J. FOSTER. f 3&!NG1($& New York : J. B. FORD & COMPANY 18*74. SK * Kntercd, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by J. B. FORD & CO., In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington, D. C. JOHN ROSS AND COMPANY, PRINTERS, 27 ROSE STREET, NEW YORK. TO THE f&on. Joiju 1£. Jfyatkttt, Recorder of Xew York, A GENTLEMAN RENOWNED ALIKE FOR PROFI- CIENCY IN FIELD SPORTS, AND FOR LEARNING, WISDOM, AND IMPARTIALITY ON THE BENCH, THI 8 BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR AND THE EDITOR. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. General Introductory Remarks. Great Increase of Field Shooting— Delights of the Sport— Expe- rience in the Field— Beginning in Albany County, New York, at Ruffed Grouse and "Woodcock — Removal to Sangamon River, Illi- nois — Great Abundance of Game— Numerous Deer — Removal to Elkhart, Logan County — Vast Numbers of Pinnated Grouse — Gillott's Grove— Osage Orange Hedges and Quail— Pinnated Grouse shot too early — Diminution of Breeding Places — Migration of the Grouse late in Fall— Ducks and Geese in Corn-Fields —Nesting Places of Grouse and of Quail— Evil of Prairie- Burning late in Spring— Snipe, Golden Plover, and Upland Plover —The American Hare or Rabbit— Hawks after Game— The "Win- nebago Swamp Breeding-place of Ducks and Crane— "Wolves in the Swamp— A "Wolf-Hunt in Gillott's Grove — Eagles and Foxes, etc., 13-34 CHAPTER II. Guns and Their Proper Charges. Skill and Ingenuity of Gunmakers— Improvements and Inventions of Late Years — Vast Advantage from the Breech-Loader — Safest and best of Guns — Proved by Experience — Close Hard Shooting — Convenience — Safety and Rapidity of Loading — Certainty in Wet Weather — Comparative Cost of Breech-Loaders — Metallic Car- tridge-Cases — Size of Guns — Advantage of Weight— The Suitable Stock— Proper Filling of Cartridges— Trials of Guns — Breech- Loader en*. Muzzle-Loader— Loading of Cartridges— Quantity of Powder— Sizes of Shot for Different Game— Dead-Shot Powder— Tatham's Shot— Disadvantage of very Large Shot, . . 35-5J 4 CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. Pinnated Grouse Shooting. Abundance in the Prairie States— Of Service to the Farmer- Grouse Polygamous— Booing ' of the Cocks in Spring— Nesting- time and Nests— Rapid Growth of the Young Birds— Supposed Hybrids— Grouse Shooting in August too Early— The Easiest there is — The Corn-Fields the only Protection— Grouse found at Morning in Stubbles— In Clear Weather no Shooting in the Middle of the Day— On Damp, Cloudy Days Grouse in Stubbles all Day — On Clear Days Shoot again towards Evening — Grouse in Pasture-Land — Shooting in McLean County— Beware of Shoot- ing too Quick— Mr. Sullivant's Great Farm— Water for Men and Dogs must be Carried, 55-71 CHAPTER IV. Late Pinnated Grouse Shooting. The Middle of the Day the best Time— Good Shooting in Corn after the Frosts— Wheat Sowed in Corn-Fields— No Shooting on Cloudy Days — November Shooting Best — Grouse in Sod Corn— A Day in Champagne County — Grouse will not Lie on Damp, Cloudy Days — Indian Summer a Good Time — The Prairies in Spring — On Bright Mornings in Winter — Scene near Chatsworth, Iroquois County, on a December Morning— Necessity of Silence in Late Grouse Shooting— A Trip to Christian County, , , . 73-88 CHAPTER V. Quail Shooting in the West. Abundance of Quail in the Western States— Increase in the Prairie States— Osage Orange Hedges a Great Cause— Afford Nesting Places, Protect from Hawks, and Shelter in Severe Weather- Nesting Places and Nests— The Quail Hawk— Beginning of tho Shooting— Best Shooting after the Frosts in November and De- cember—Up at Early Morning— Fine, Clear Days Best— Lie well when Scattered— Pack late in Fall— Run in Damp and Wet Weather— Netting now Unlawful— Quail Shooting on Salt Creek, Sangamon River— Quail not Difficult to Shoot— Missed through Haste— Shooting on Shoal Creek, Missouri— Quail in Hedges- Quail in tho South, 89-l f 6 CONTENTS, 5 CHAPTER VI. Ruffed Grouse Shooting. Distribution and Habits of the Birds— Found in Wild, Lonely Places — Favorite Food of Ruffed Grouse — Beauty and Pride of the Bird — The Drumming of the Male— Deceptiveness of the Sound— Macdonald's Drummer-Boy — Much Drumming Before Rain— Nest of the Ruffed Grouse— The Young on the Cass River, Michigan— "Wolves at the Camp on the Cass— The Chippewa Indians— Wildness of Ruffed Grouse— The First I ever Shot- Ruffed Grouse hard to Shoot Flying— Goes for Densest Part of the Thicket— May be Shot over Setters, .... 107-120 CHAPTER VII. Shooting the Woodcock. Arrival in Spring— The Breeding Season— Nest of the Woodcock— A Woodcock in Confinement — Voracity in Feeding — Young Full Grown in July— Solitary Birds after Separation of Brood— Noc- turnal in Habit — Supposed Second Migration — Laboring Flight in Summer — Difficult to shoot — Density of Foliage — Snap Shooting- Swift and Twisting Flight in Autumn — Bottoms and Islands of the Mississippi River — Woodcock on the Illinois River— Scarcer in general in the West than in the Atlantic States — Fall Wood- cock Shooting, 121-133 CHAPTER VIII. The Snipe and Snipe Shooting. Breeds North of Virginia, but only sparsely in the United States- Arrives at Columbus, Kentucky, early in March — Never appears before the Frost out of Ground — Nearly a Month Later in Illinois than in Kentucky— The Spring Shooting Best— Snipe Wild at First Arrival— Get Fat and Lazy— Snipe Shooting on the Sanga- mon— Snipe very Abundant in the West— Should be Beat for Down-Wind— No Need for Dog on Good Snipe Ground — Difficult to Shoot in Corn-Fields— Shooting on the Bottoms— Easy to Kill when Fat — A Proposed Match— In Snipe Shooting much Walking Required— Snipe Shooting along Sloughs and Swales— Hovering of Snipe-Tho Fall Snipe Shooting, 133-148 CONTENTS. CHAPTER IX. Golden Plover, Curlew, Gray Plover. Arrival of Golden Plover and Curlew— First Seen on Burnt Prairies —Plover liko Bare Earth and Pastures— Golden Plover and Cur- lew in Flocks Together— They Follow the Plough— Lying Down for Plover— Plover Shooting from a Buggy— The Method of It- How to Shoot Plover on Foot— Plover Circle Round the Wounded —An Afternoon's Shooting near Elkhart — Plover Shooting in Christian County— Golden Plover Scattered— Fast Flyers and Good Practice — The Upland or Gray Plover— Last of Spring Migrants— Breeds in Illinois, Iowa, etc. — Ready to Pair when It Arrives— Should not be Shot in the Spring— Nest of the Upland Plover — Difficult to Shoot in Autumn — Horse and Buggy Needed —Flight of Upland Plover— Sand Snipe and Grass Snipe, . 149-167 CHAPTER X. Wild Ducks and Western Duck Shooting. Tho Prime Western Ducks— Beauty of the Wood Duck— Its Rapid Flight — The Mallard— Its Excellence and Beauty— Comparison with Canvas-Back— Mallards' Nests— The Flappers— Ducks begin to Arrive by Middle of February— Habits of Mallards and Pintails — Their Vast Numbers— Remain Four or Five Weeks— Coming of Ducks in the Fall— Vast Numbers— When Cold Sets In— Heard in the Air all Night — Duck Shooting in the Corn-Fields— Color of Clothes Important— Ducks TVary and Far-Sighted— Method of Shooting, , 168-182 CHAPTER XI. Ducks and Western Duck Shooting. Cold Work in Hard Weather— The Illinois River— Tho Western Corn-Fields — Shooting in Them in Fall — Osage Orange Hedges- Flight of Ducks in Wet, Windy Weather— In Clear Weather- Ducks in Flight seem Neare-r than They Are— Shooting at Prairie Ponds and Sloughs — Live Decoys Best — Dead Duck Decoys bet- ter than Wooden — Method of Setting Dead Mallards as Decoys — Duck Shooting in tho Winnebago Swamp— Duck Shooting in Ford County— Mr. M. Sullivant's Great Farm— Duck Shooting en tho Sangamon— Shooting from the Timber— Ninety-fivo Mallards with No. 9 Shot — Water Fowl Peek Timber in Hard, Windy Weather, 1BS-19T COXTENP '.. 7 CHAPTER XII. Wild Geese, Cranes, and Swans. The Canada Goose and Brant Goose— Mexican Geese— Hutchinson's Goose— The White-Fronted Goose — The Snow Goose— Migration of Wild Geese— Flight of Wild Geese— Habits of the Geese— First of the Spring Migrants — Geese on Pasture-Lands — The Bert Shooting Places — Means of Concealment— Shooting on the Pas- tures from a Buggy — Long Shots at Geese — The Fall Geese — In Wheat-Fields and Shocked Corn— The Roosting Places— Times when Geese Resort to Timber — A Flock on the Ice — Getting into the River — The Ague, and a Remedy — Shooting Brant and Mexican Geese — Great Packs of Mexican Geese — The Cranes of the West — The Sand-Hill Crane — Its High Flight in Spring— Feeding on Corn in Fall — The Large White Crane — Wounded Cranes Fight Hard — Flesh of Cranes when Hung — Pelicans and Swans on the Mississippi, 198-222 CHAPTER XIII. Wild Turkey and Deer Shooting. Excellenco and Beauty of the Wild Turkey— Its Haunts and Habits —Methods of Shooting Turkeys— The Wild Turkey's Nest— Track- ing Turkeys in Snow— Shooting in Thick Snow-Storms— Shooting at Crossing Places — Tracking Turkeys on the Sangamon — Lost in the Timber— A Walk Home of Thirteen Miles— The Great Gobbler of the Sangamon— Turkey Shooting on Shoal Creek— The Cold Nights in Camp — Eleven Turkeys to One Gun in Half a Bay — After a Wounded Deer — Camping Out without a Tent— A Heavy Thunder-Storm on Delavan Prairie — Deer Shooting in the West — Haunts and Habits — My First Deer— Deer Shooting on Horse- back, 223-250 CHAPTER XIV. The Art of Shooting on the Wing. Tho Art Easily Acquired — Boys Should begin to Shoot Early — No Danger of Accidents — Loading Guns — Large Shot and Too Much Shot Mischievous — Guns for Boys — Handling the Gun — Loading the Gun— Light Loads at First — Shooting at a Target — No Shoot- ing at Sitting Birds — Shooting Larks and Blackbirds— How to Aim— Shooting at Toung Grouse— The Causes of Missing— How to Aim at Crossing Birds— Long Shots — The Shot Towers at New York— Tho Cartridge Company of Bridgeport, , , 261-275 8 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XV. Sporting Dogs— Breeding and Breaking. Setters and Pointers— Advantages and Drawbacks of Each— The Sharpness of Prairie Grass — Cockle-Burrs in Setters' Coats — Set- ters Retrieve Well in Water— Cross-Bred Dogs— How to Breed Them— Their Stoutness in the Field— No Timid Dogs Among Them— History of Fanny, Daughter of a Pointer Dog and Setter Bitch— An English Pointer not to be Called Off— He Points at Grouse all Night — Best Age for Breaking Dogs — Method of Break- ing — The Setter, Jack — Dick, Son of a Pointer Dog and Setter Bitch — Miles Johnson as a Breaker, ..... 276-299 CHAPTER XVI. Pigeon Shooting. My Beginning at Pigeons— Match ' against Staunton— Against A. Kleinman — Championship of Illinois — Match to Shoot from Buggy —Match at Five Hundred — Match to Fall One Hundred Consecu- tively — Match against Mr. King— Match against Doxis— Sweep- stakes at Chicago— Match against J. Kleinman— Match with Ira Paine — Championship and Other Matches — Matches with A. Kleinman — Match against Four Marksmen — Advice to Members of Shooting Club — Suggestion for New Rule— H and T Traps- Scores of Championship Matches— Scores of Exhibition and Other Matches— Conditions and Rules of Champion Badges and Medals —Rules of Pigeon Shooting, ...... 300-343 PREFACE BY THE EDITOR. In the following work, Captain Bogardus has placed before his readers all the knowledge of the haunts and habits of game-birds, and of the art of shooting on the wing, which twenty -five years' almost constant pursuit has enabled him to attain. It is conveyed plainly and briefly, but fully and without the slightest reserve or qualification. It was deemed that this full communication of all he knew on these subjects was due to his readers, when he resolved to appear before the public as the author of a book. Few men have had an ex- perience as varied and as large ; none, I verily believe, have attained as much knowledge of game, or as much skill with the gun* Of late years, at many places where his skill was displayed, he was often urged to embody what he knew of game and of the art of shooting in a book, in order that sportsmen whose other avocations prevented them from paying very great and prolonged attention to those subjects, might reap the benefit of his experience. With a view 10 PREFACE LSV THE EDITOR. to comply with these requests, he came to New York, and proposed to me that 1 should assist him in the necessary composition of the work. Perceiving the vast fund of practical knowledge he had amassed, and knowing that the hook would form a most valuable contribution to sport- ing literature, I gladly acceded to his proposal, and the result of our combined and conscientious labors is now before the public. I believe this is the first work of the kind that was ever undertaken by a thoroughly prac- tical man, and strictly confined to the knowledge and information derived from his own observa- tion. It would have been very easy to make the book twice as large as it is, by copying, with or without credit, as is the custom, long extracts and descriptions from the standard authors of natural history in this country, but to what useful end ? These matters have been copied by one author after another about a dozen times already, and readers have been so provoked by the everlasting repetition of Latin names for familiar birds, that many must have been on the point of pitching the pedantic copy-books into the fire. In this work another method has been followed altogether, TTore are the observa- PREFACE DY THE EDITOR. H tions and accumulated knowledge of a man who has been practically engaged in the pursuit of game in a thoroughly sportsmanlike manner for twenty -five years. For much the greater part of that period, Captain Bogardus has maintained and brought up his respectable and interesting family, almost solely by his gun. From that fact, I concluded that his was the knowledge and experience which would be valuable and instructive to sportsmen, young and old, and interesting to the general public. The former do not want to listen to people who know no more than they know them- selves. The latter do not want to peruse the work of a man on any subject if he never rises above mediocrity, while they gladly welcome the book of one who has proved himself a master of his art. ^Because Captain Bogardus had been able to live for many years solely by his gun, lie was of all men best qualified to enlighten old sportsmen, and instruct the young in regard to the habits and haunts of game and the art of shooting. It has often been said that pinnated grouse could not be killed by the gun in the months of November and Pooembor. because thev were so J2 PREFACE BY THE EDITOR. wild, and this alleged fact was made the excuse for the trapping and netting by which the markets of the great cities are mainly supplied with that bird in those months. Hardly one out of twenty then offered for sale has been shot. But Captain Bogardus proves that this is either pure inven- tion of the netters and trappers, or due to the imagination of those whose skill with the gun being small, and whose knowledge of the habits of the game being scanty, have failed to kill any at such times themselves. He tells us how he killed them with the gun, and how you can kill them if you follow his instructions. It will be seen by this work that Captain Bo- gardus has been a sportsman of the most resolute and persistent character. No difficulty deterred him, no fatigue subdued him, no misfortune dis- heartened him, when he was out with his dogs and his gun. He has also been a man of the closest observation and of much reflection. Hence his philosophy on the habits of birds of pursuit by the sportsman, and in regard to the art and principles of shooting, will be found especially valuable and interesting. CHARLES J. FOSTER. Field, Cover, and Trap Shooting. CHAPTER I. GENERAL INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. Within a comparatively recent period the num- bers of those who follow the delightful and healthful sports of the field have increased almost beyond calculation in this country, and they are still ra- pidly augmenting. Among all those sports there is none so easy of attainment, and certainly none so invigorating, useful, and enjoyable, as the pur- suit of game-birds, waterfowl, etc., over dogs, or, at flight time, in the neighborhood of the haunts of O 7 o the latter. The vast extent and variety of our territory — woodland interspersed among prairie, pas- ture, and cultivated farms — the great abundance of game to be met with by those who know when and where to seek for it, and the many kinds to be found in these favorite haunts at the proper seasons, afford such excellent and varied shooting as may hardly be experienced if sought for anywhere 13 14 FIELD SHOOTINU. else. The art of shooting swift-flying birds on the wing is of comparatively recent origin in this country. Years ago but few people followed it, and they had mostly acquired their skill in Europe before they came here. The quickness and art necessary for even moderate success were almost comparatively unknown in the regions where such game most abounded, and they were in a great measure deemed worthless, of no more practical use than the curious tricks of a juggler. This was not unnatural. The backwoodsmen, and those set- tlers who had made lodgments in the immense prairies of the Western States, could kill a buck with the rifle, or knock over a fat turkey with the same arm ; and those who had old-fashioned smooth- bores seldom shot with anything less than buck- shot, or the largest sizes of other shot. Hence they looked with a sort of lazy curiosity akin to contempt upon the doings of the men who, with good guns and small shot, killed " little birds," as quail, plover, woodcock, snipe, etc., were denomi- nated. The use of the setter and pointer wph j>ractically unknown. The game was considered to be a trifling matter, not worth the powder and shot expended upon it. The latter were somewhat dear, and monev was verv scarce. Tho hunters GENERAL INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 15 and Indian:-; called tin' shot-gun l>y the derisive term " sipiaw gun," and wondered that grown men should delight in its use. All that is now greatly changed. Thousands every year enjoy sport of the highest order, and fill their bags in the most artistic man- ner, in many parts of the country where shooting on the wins: v '"^ s formerly unknown. Shooting of this sort once enjoyed is never willingly relinquished altogether. Those who arc able to afford the cost and spare, the time from their avocations in the great cities impatiently count the days which must intervene before the time comes for them to jump aboard the train with their guns and their sporting paraphernalia, bound to the shooting-grounds — the places where game is to be found in abundance. Arrived in these sections, and meeting with old friends, the harassed and weak grow vigorous again, and the strong become stronger. The consciousness of skill, the confidence begotten of success, give such a spring to the mind and nerves, and inflame the ardor of pursuit to such a degree, that the fatigues of the excursion arc scarcely perceived, and its privations, if such they may be called, arc laughed at and merrily endured till speedily forgotten. The habits of the various kinds of game are a subject of gteat interest and observation. The fine and h) J 1KI.D KIlOOTINU. o»iger instinct of the clogs, their great sagacity, en- durance, and patience, are remarked "with pride and admiration. The features of the varied landscapes — hill and vale, woodland and riverside, vast prairies with groves and fringes of timber on the branches of winding and meandering streams, broad fields of land, now in pasture, now covered with brown stubble, now waved over by the green flags of the corn, tall, strong, and a place of refuge for quail, grouse, etc. — afford constant pleasure to the sports- man. And after the labors and sports of the day are done, the camp-fire beneath the trees, on the banks of a stream or the margin of a little lake, is a place of calm recreation and repose. You may hear the call of the night-birds, and the low, sup- pressed noises of the nocturnal animals afoot after their prey, but neither the hoot of the owl nor the howl of the wolf will drive slumber from the pillow of brush upon which you rest. The night brings enjoyment almost as pleasant as that which was the recompense of the exertions of the day. Having followed shooting for twenty-five years, mostly all through the different seasons, and some- times camped out as much as three months at a time, never sleeping in a house during that period, I believe I have a sound and extensive practical GENERAL INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 17 knowledge of the matters upon Which this Look is to treat. I am no scientific naturalist, and what I know has not been derived from books. I cannot give the. Latin names of birds of game, waterfowl, snipe, woodcock, etc., and if I could you would not care about them, because the constant repetition of them makes no impression at all upon the sportsman. To him the quail is simply a quail, the pinnated grouse (commonly called prairie chicken) is a grouse, and no Latin is required to make him understand what you mean by a snipe or a woodcock. I cannot set down the sci- entific names by which naturalists distinguish the birds of which I shall treat, but I know their haunts and habits, and I can tell you when and where to seek them, and how to kill them in a sportsmanlike and satisfactory manner. I was born in Albany County, New York, and began to shoot at fifteen years of age. I was then a tall, strong lad, and have since grown into a large, powerful, sinewy, and muscular man. I have always enjoyed fine health, had great strength ahii endurance, and been capable of much exertion and exposure. When I began to shoot, there was a. good deal of game in Albany County, and it .T\ different, ar; will be specially noticed further on. A cloudy day, cool air, the dogs feeling and working "well, plenty of grouse in the stubbles, and the sportsman out of the glaring sunshine and able to shoot deliberately and well, make great enjoyment and a good bag. On the clear days, when the grouse have left the stubbles for the prairie-grass and corn, instead of shooting all the time until you are tired, as 3-011 will be before night, until you have been seasoned and got into hard condition of muscle and wind, lay off in some house, or your camp, or in your wagon in the shade, if you can find it, until about four or half- past four o'clock in the afternoon. Then it will be time to begin to beat the stubbles again. The grouse will have come, or will be coming, on to them again from the resorts in which they spent the hot hours of the day ; and you and your dogs, being refreshed and rested, will be in good fettle for the sport. The sun will get low, and finally go down over the distant swells of land to the westward ; the dew will begin, insensibly to you, to fall ; the dogs will find the birds easily, they will lie well, and you may shoot as long as you can see in the twilight. In some parts of Illinois, Iowa, and other PINNATED-GROUSE SHOOTING. 05 \\ t'stern States there are very extensive ranges of pasture-land, on which great herds of cattle, many from Texas, are fattened. These lands have not been broken up by the plough at any time, but, being regularly depastured, have lost much of the prairie character. They remain, however, good resorts for grouse, and the shooting over them is some of the best to be had. The grouse bred on them probably never see a stubble-field, at least until after late in the fall of their first year. Their habits are the same as those of the birds which are found near the arable corn, wheat, and oat lands. In the morning they will be found on the ridges and knolls where the grass is short. In the heat of the day they retire into the long grass which abounds in low, moist places. In the evening they return to the knolls and ridges again. These pastures are sometimes of the extent of two thousand acres or more, and the shooting on them is second to none in those States. Yet they arc comparatively little shot over, especially in the early part of the season. As a rule, it is believed the grouse are more abundant where the land is varied and stubbles, pieces of prairie, corn-fields, and patches of 'beans arc found in the immediate neighborhood 66 FIELD SHOOTING. of each other. For this reason most of' the sportsmen, especially those of the towns near at hand, or from the more distant cities, who shoot mostly in the early part of the season, go to them, and do not attempt the wide pastures. But give me the sport on the latter, and let me be- gin about the middle of September, when most of the grouse bred on them are full-grown, strong birds, coming down with a thump seem- ingly hard enough to make a hole in the ground when killed clean and well. The grouse in these places commonly lie first-rate to the dog, and get up by twos and threes, so that a good shot has a chance to bring to bag many of the covey, and those he cannot shoot at the first rise may be easily marked down. In 1872 Miles Johnson of New Jersey was shooting with me in McLean County, Illinois. We camped near Bell- flower, and had a man for camp-keeper while Miles and I shot. We were out ten days, and in that time bagged six hundred grouse, shooting only mornings and evenings. As I have said be- fore, and wish to impress particularly upon my readers for their information and advantage, it is of no use to trv for grouse in the middle of the day, when the weather is clear, in the early part riNJCATED-GKOUSE SHOOTING. 67 of the fall. The best day Miles Johnson and I had that lime was in one of the great pastures 1 have alluded to above. It eontaincd from tiw to ten thousand acres. We went into it early in the morning, and came out about eleven o'clock in the forenoon with eighty full-grown grouse. That was a capital morning's sport, no doubt, but I have often had as good. While we were at the camp near Bellflower we were visited by Johnson's friend, Mr. Eldridge of New Jersey. With him came Dr. Goodbreak of Clinton, Illinois. The doctor is an army surgeon and an ardent and excellent sportsman. They shot with us two days, using muzzle-loaders ; but when Dr. Goodbreak had seen the execution I did with my breech-loader, sometimes getting two or three nice shots while one was loading, and often killing a long way off, he was satisfied as to which was the best style of gun, and sent an order for a breech-loader to cost three hundred and fifty dollars. After being there ten days Miles Johnson left for home. I remained at the camp, and in a while A. Leslie and H. Robinson of Elkhart came up and shot with me. It was then getting late in the fall, and we had excellent success. The grouse Mere wild and very fast on the wing. They were 68 FIELD SHOOTING. strong, and it took good shooting and hard hit- tins to brine: them to the bag. I killed from ten brace to twenty brace a day, and averaged about fifteen brace. My companions together did not secure as many. In shooting grouse on the pas- tures, and indeed anywhere, you should beware of shooting too soon. M»any more birds are missed at short than at long shots, in my opin- ion. The sudden, loud whirr made by the rising of the grouse when it gets up startles young sportsmen, and some nervous, excitable old ones too. The shot is hastily delivered, while the bird is so near that the charge has not distance enough to diverge and spread in, and the game is often missed. If the shooter had waited for steady sight of the bird along the rib, which is not to be a slow, pottering aim, it would have been often brought down. In McLean County, Ford County, and the others of the tier on that line, there is as good grouse-shooting as any I know of anywhere in Illinois. They are in the section of country lying southwest of Chicago, and a line drawn from that city to St. Louis in Missouri would pass through them. As good places as any to get off the railroad at are Bellfiower in McLean County, and Gibson in Ford County. PIXN'ATED-G ROUSE SHOOTING. 09 Twelve miles from Gibson is the great farm of Mr. Michael Sullivant, formerly of Columbus, Ohio. He has a tract of land containing forty- live thousand acres. It is a splendid place to shoot, and real sportsmen are made welcome by the owner. I was there last spring after brant and ducks, and made heavy bags. I saw at that time large numbers of grouse — a powerful breed- ing-stock. In shooting over the great pastures I have men- tioned particular care must be taken not to go near the herds of cattle. They are pretty wild, and the coming near them of dogs makes them excited. hi the first place, the farmers do not like to have dogs taken near their cattle, and every good sportsman should carefully avoid do- ing anything which may annoy the owners' of the land on which he may be. I can always get along pleasantly with the owners of the land, and so may any one else who will use them well and refrain from damage. In the second place, if shooting parties go near the great herds of cat- tle with their dogs, the bullocks will come for the latter at a run in a big drove, the fright- ened dogs will run to their masters, and before the men can get out of the way of the furious 70 FIELD SHOOTING. rush they may be knocked down, trampled over by scores of hoofs, and very likely killed. When shooting in these vast pastures, I take care to give the herds a wide berth, and keep well away from them. Even then they will sometimes begin to move towards the dogs, in which case I put the setters or pointers, as the case may be, into the buggy as soon as possible, and drive off out of the sight of the herd. In shooting grouse in Illinois, Iowa, and the other prairie States, the sportsman should take water in his buggy or wagon for himself and his dogs. The prairies arc very spacious, the water-courses wide apart, the droughts sometimes Ions? and severe. If he thinks to find water in natural places for him- self and his dogs, which need it oftener and more than he, they will be very thirsty before he reaches any. If he comes to a house at such times, he will find that water is the most scarce and precious thing about the place. The well is all but dry. The farmer's horses are on short allowance. His milch cows arc stinted, and stand lowing round the empty trough at the well half the night long. The people sometimes, in very dry seasons, have to haul water from a distance, us their own wells become dry, and their cattle PINWATED-OKOUSB SIIOOTINO. 71 and horses must be provided for. In this state of affairs it cannot be expected that the people Will furnish half a bucket of water for a stranger or two and the dogs. Therefore when you start out from house or camp, take in your buggy or wagon a five-gallon jug of water as a thing of prime necessity. CHAPTER IV. LATE PINNATED-GROUSE SHOOTING. Jn the preceding chapter I have described the places and times to seek the pinnated grouse in the earlier part of the shooting season, and pointed out the methods of hunting for them by means of which satisfactory success is most likely to be ob- tained. "We now come to the latter part of the season, the months of October and November, with that of December ; for the resolute and hardy sportsmen who care nothing for cold and wet may sometimes prefer a bag of winter grouse to one of duck or brant. In the month of October the prairies have become brown, and later on the corn will have been wilted by the early frosts, if it has not been already. Some of the best shooting of the year, to my mind the very best, is now before the s]3ortsman ; but it needs work, and young beginners will not find the grouse so easy to kill as they were in August and Septem- ber. In the early part of the season the best shooting hours were early and late in the day. 72 LATE PINNATED-GROUSE SHOOTING. 73 Now it is the reverse ; the middle of the day is the proper time. When I first came to Illinois, the grouse in October and later were mostly found in the prairie-grass. There has now been a change in their habits, and they seem to like best to lie in corn. I suppose the reason was that as prairies were much broken up, and the quantity of land in corn rapidly increased, the grouse found out that the lying in the corn was excellent, and the habit was soon formed. In the corn there is a great plenty of various kinds of food. The ground is mellow and affords excellent dusting places. In the West wheat is often sowed while the corn is still standing, being put in with a cultivator-plough. These wheat-fields in the corn are favorite places with the grouse, and 1 have many a time killed eighteen or twenty in one such field. Also, when wheat is sowed out upon the prairie, grouse will go to those fields at early morning. When the sun gets high, they will go into the prairie-grass, round the edges of the young wheat, and lie there all the middle of the day. Then there is nice shooting. At four or five o'clock, towards evening, the birds will go out upon the young wheat-fields again. This is in clear weather. On cloudy days the grouse stay 74 FIELD SHOOTING. on the wheat, the bare places of the prairie, and on ploughed land all day, and it is of no use to go after them. You may just as well stay in your tent or house as go after grouse, for you cannot get near them. If there are quail in the neighborhood, you may have sport with them. In only one way can grouse be shot late in the fall in cloudy, overcast weather, and it is hardly worth while to employ that. You may drive up in a buggy, as we do in plover-shooting, and so get near enough, but it is more trouble than the game you will kill is worth, and I never do it. I may say here that those who go out shoot- ing in the prairie States need to have a wagon or buggy with them. It may be done without, but the work is very severe. The prairies are very wide, and it is a good way from one favorable point to another. When I first went to Illinois, seventeen years ago, I used to start out in the morning, on foot, and shoot all day. I used no dog at all then, and had but a poor, light gun, which did but little execution, though I shot middling well. When I had got about seven or eight grouse, I used to hide them and mark the place, to be taken up on my way back. With this gun I speak of and common pow~ LATE PINNATED-GROUSE SHOOTING. 75 dor I have often shot away a pound of the latter to get twenty-five or thirty birds. I fol- lowed, in those days, the example of other people, and used shot several sizes larger than was necessary or proper. At that date we used No. 1 or No. 2 in October and November, and I believe I was one of the first to discover that with No. G, from a good gun, with a strong charge of powder, the biggest cock-grouse that ever flew could be brought to the bag. At the end of my day's shooting at that period I used to have to carry twenty-five or thirty grouse as well as the gun for four or five miles, sometimes further. This was no small matter. The October shooting of grouse, good as that is, may be excelled, according to my notions, by that in November. They generally lie in the corn among the tumble-weed, so called from its growing up and rolling over so as to form snug cover ; and they are especially fond of lying in the sod-corn, which is that grown upon the land the first crop after the prairie is broken up. This sod-corn does not grow up tall, as the corn on older-tilled land does. In November the blades of the corn are hanging down, wilted by the frost. The stalks are shrunk. The dogs can 76 FIELD SHOOTING. work in it, and you can see to shoot in it. But it takes good shooting to make good bags. The birds are now at full growth and strength. They have in all probability flown the gauntlet of many guns, and the weaker ones have been thinned out of the packs. But on clear days they lie well to the dogs, and, being swift and strong on the wing, when they rise the sport afforded is capital. One of the best days I ever had was in November, near Farmer City, Cham- pagne County, Illinois. I was accompanied by Mr. Nathan Doxie, of Geneseo, a keen sports- man and good shot. At that time he shot with a muzzle-loader, while I used a breech-loader. It was a clear, bright day, warm for the time of year. We beat the sod-corn, of which there was a great deal in the neighborhood, and, when the birds flew out into the adjoining prairie, we could mark them down. Our bag was a very heavy one. I killed fifty-seven grouse and Mr. Doxie knocked over eighteen, making seventy- five fine fat birds in all. Mr. Doxie said it was the first time he had ever been beaten in the field. There was another person shooting near us all day, but he did next to nothing, killing but five grouse, as I remember. I have shot LATE PINNATED-GROUSE SHOOTING. 77 with many men in the month of November, and good shots too, but never one that I did not beat. Three times in the course of my experience in field-shooting I have killed ten grouse with two barrels. Once in Menard County, near Salt Creek, late in November, I came upon a plank fence in a light snow-storm. It happened that there was a grapevine growing thickly over part of the fence, and, getting this between me and the birds, I secured a pretty close shot. They were scattered along the fence for a distance of about ten yards. With the first barrel I killed nine, and with the other one. Another time I got a shot at a lot near a fence, and killed ten with two barrels. And once in Logan County -I got within shot of about twenty birds which wero in short grass, and killed ten with both barrels. Such shots as these are very seldom to be got. A man may shoot half a lifetime and never meet with one. I have often, in the early part of the season, killed a grouse with each barrel out of a pack which rose near me, and then slipped in another cartridge, and killed a third. But this is only to be done when they are lazy and flv slowlv, and it cannot be done then unless 78 FIELD SHOOTING. the shooter is very quick. Some men say that I am slow because I will not shoot until I have sighted the bird; but I think these sort of field- shots and my time-matches at pigeons are suffi- cient to prove the contrary. I believe I am as quick as anybody 1 ever met, but I will not lire at random, and I advise the reader never ta do so. Late in the fall, when grouse get up a little wild, and fly swiftly, it takes good shooting and hard hitting to kill them. Sometimes in No- vember, on a clear day and rather warm, they lie close, and get up one after the other after the first of the pack have gone. There are always some lying scattered from the body of the pack, and as one falls down, fluttering its wings, another will rise, sometimes two. On such occasions the immense superiority of the breech- loader over the old sort of gun becomes mani- fest. I have been at such a time shooting with a man Who used a muzzle-loader, and have actually stood in my tracks and shot six grouse while he. was loading his gun. The grouse will sometimes lie so close on a clear day in Novem- ber that they will remain hidden until you are within ten yards of them, and then get up with a tremendous whirr of wings. It is things of LATE PINNATED-GROUPE SHOOTING. 79 this sort that sportsmen will be glad to know and what 1 state is drawn from experience solely At the same season of the year, if the weather is cloudy and damp, the birds arc so wild that you cannot get near them ; and to try is to lose your time and labor for nothing. The Indian Summer is a good time for shooting grouse, and very pleasant for the sportsman. The sun has not the scorching power which you feel in August and the early part of September ; but it is warm, the air soft and still, and not very hazy — rather like thin, white smoke scattered from a great distance. The birds feel comfortable in the dead grass of the prairie or among the sod-corn. They are fat and lazy, and hate to get up until compelled to do so. Any clear, warm day late in October or in November is just as good as an Indian Summer day. At this season it is useless to go out before the dew is off the grass; whereas in the earlier part of the shooting the more you get into the thick of it at early morn- ing, the better for you. The prairies are hand- some in the fall of the vear, but not so beautiful as in the spring, when the grass is about six inches high and full of wild flowers. The wea- ther is fine, the air pleasant and fragrant. The 80 FIELD SHOOTING. cock-grouse which have flown out of the bottoms at early day are heard booing on the knolls and ridges. Hawks of various kinds, large and small, are wheeling about overhead, and far away, high up in the distance, you may see the great eagle cir- cling and sailing round about with motionless wings. But of all the sights I have seen on the prairies, the finest, the most striking and glorious, have been on bright, frosty mornings in December, or later on in the winter sometimes. On such a morning, while the frost still hangs on the grass, the prairie looks like a wide sea covered with sprays . of diamonds. The most beautiful sight I ever saw in my life was on a prairie at Oliver's Grove, near Chatsworth, Iroquois County, Illinois. We went in the night to Chatsworth, where there was no house then, intending to hunt turkeys at Oliver's Grove at early morning. As there was no house at Chatsworth Station, we stayed in the car till daylight. It was a bright, clear morning in December, and the sun, just risen, lit up all the prairie with its horizontal, glancing rays. Every blade of grass on the prairie, every tree in distant grove, glistened and sparkled like diamonds in strong light. Away in the distance, five hun- dred yards out upon the prairie, there stood two LATE PINNATED-GROUSE SHOOTING. 81 deer, motionless and beautiful, we might almost have thought lifeless, they looked so strange in that wonderful scene ; only we could see the breath streaming from their nostrils into the cold, frosty air. For dazzling radiance and strange beauty, I never before saw such a prospect, and may per- haps never see quite the like again. After a while the deer walked leisurely of£ into the long grass and brush near the slough to lie down in cover. The game we came for were not to be found, and when we discovered this we turned to leave. I said to my partner, " We have been disappointed in our hunt, but in coming on it we got a glori- ous and beautiful sight — one not to be forgotten as long as we may live." He was a very practical sort of man, and replied, "I had a good deal sooner have got a dozen fat turkeys." On our way back to Onarga across country we had to walk fourteen miles. There were many buckwheat-stubble patches along the prairie in our way, and we took them on our road to walk up the grouse. "We did not diverge to the right or left to follow those which went away, but, keeping right ahead, got about twenty brace by the time we reached Onarga. Although there were no 82 FIELD SHOOTING. turkeys about Oliver's Grove just then, it was a good place for them, and from what I saw there must have been lots of deer in the neighborhood. In regard to grouse-shooting late in the fall of the year, there is one thing which should be par- ticularly observed. It is the necessity of silence. There should be very little or no talk indulged in between those who are on the beat. In the earlier part of the season it does not much matter what talk there is, though I am one of those who can stand a good deal of silence, when hunting, at any time; but late in the fall talking makes the grouse get up out of distance. They will rise at the sound of the human voice at that season of the year sooner than they will at the crack of the gun. If two men go along talking and gabbling, as I have seen and heard them do, the grouse will nearly all rise out of shot, while they would have lain long enough to have afforded many fair shots if silence had been preserved. In order not to be obliged to talk and call to my dogs at such times, I have them broken to hunt to the whistle and the motion of the hand. I have had some dogs that would hunt all day and never make it necessary to speak to them. I have been out with men who would talk in spite of remonstrances LATE PINNATED-GROUSE SHOOTING. 83 against it. Either they did not believe it would scare up the birds, or it was not in their power to keep silent for half an hour at a time. There are, indeed, some people who never seem to bo silent except when asleep, and very likely not then if dreams come over them. On these talk- ing occasions late in the fall I have always noticed that we got very few grouse. Sometimes when I have believed a pack of grouse to be all up, I have spoken a word or two to one of the dogs, when two or three more birds have risen right away. Another thing to be noted is this : when you are shooting grouse late in the fall, and the dog brings in a wounded one which nutters his wings, all the others within hearing will get up. That sound sets them on the wing as a man's voice does, when they lie close at the loud report of the gun. I am not able to explain w r hy this is, but so it is. There are many facts in nature in regard to the habits of game which the sportsman must accept, though he cannot arrive at the reason of them. At one time in Illinois there was a difference as to the period at which grouse-shooting should cease. It was left to the counties. In Logan Countv and some others it was fixed for the first 84 FIELD SHOOTING. of January. In other counties where the grouse abounded to the degree that the farmers thought they consumed too much of the crop, there was no close-time in January, February, and March. I do not think grouse ever do any appreciable damage to the crops. What grain they eat would be otherwise wasted. They may, however, do some little harm by consuming seed-wheat just after the sowing. They bite off and eat the blades of young wheat, but that often does more good than harm, and farmers sometimes turn calves into young wheat-fields to feed it off. The biting off done by grouse in the earlier stages has a tendency to make it stool well, I think. It is cer- tain that the pinnated grouse does the farmer good by consuming grasshoppers and other insects which are troublesome and destructive. The law of Illi- nois in regard to shooting grouse is now uniform all over the State. The shooting ceases on the fifteenth day of January. Thus the shooting lasts five months. I am in favor of lopping off fifteen days at the commencement, making it September 1 instead of August 15, and another fifteen days at the end, making it cease on the first of January. It would then last four months. But the duration of the shooting-time is- not of so LATE PINNATED-GROUSE SHOOTING. 85 much importance as many people think. More are taken by trapping late in the season. To see the huge loads of grouse sent by railway to Chicago and on for the Eastern market, one would be at first inclined to suppose that the species must soon be extirpated ; but this is an error. With good breed- ing-places and a fine spring the number of grouse produced is incalculable. No amount of fair shooting makes much impression on game in a good game country. In places where the game is sparse, as it appears to me to be in the Atlantic and Eastern States, save water-fowl on the sea-board, many guns may shoot so close that the proper head for a breeding-stock will not be left. It is altogether different with us. I went once to Christian County, Illinois, and shot round about the little town of Assumption from February 1 to May 20, the latter part of the time being on snipe. The game of all sorts was amazingly abundant. There was a great plenty of grouse and quail, and the number of ducks and geese was almost past belief. It is a varied sort of coun- try with a good deal of low, wet ground, much prairie and much corn-land, and a great deal of hazel-brush along the creeks and on the edges of the groves of timber. It is a splendid country for 80 FIELD SHOOTING. game. I killed six thousand head of all sorts while there — the most part, of course, being duck, snipe, and golden plover. The grouse were extremely abundant in the spring about there. At early morning the cock-grouse could be heard booming all over, like the constant lowing of an immense herd of cattle distributed in a great pasture. It is hardly necessary to say that the booming of the grouse is not like the lowing of bullocks; what 1 mean is that the booming on every side pervaded the space all around. Christian County is about thirty miles southeast of Springfield, and is on the Illinois Cen- tral Railroad. At this time I hold the best place for sport of all sorts in the field to be in the tier of counties which includes Ford, Piatt, McLean, and Champagne Counties, as well as Christian County. Late in the fall, however, good grouse- shooting is to be met with all over the State, un- less it be down southwest in Egypt, where there is but little prairie-land. As I have stated, great numbers of grouse are bred in the wide prai- ries which are still unbroken, and late in the fall these grouse pack and distribute themselves over the other parts of the State in vast numbers, feeding in corn-fields and wheat, oat, and buckwheat stubbles. Where I livo the grouse arc nearly as LATE PINNATED-GROUSE SHOOTING. 87 abundant in the latter part of the fall now as they were seventeen years ago. Perhaps I might say quite as abundant ; but there is not anything like as many young grouse to be found in that neighborhood in August and September as there used to be. As long as the breeding-places re- main it is safe to conclude that there will never be a scarcity of grouse in Illinois and the other prairie States. But though they arc nearly as numerous, they are more difficult to kill than for- merly. The young birds find the great corn-fields a place of safe refuge ; and when the packs come in from the great prairies late in the fall, they are Avild and swift. To get good sport the observa- tions I have made as to weather, the best hours of the day at the different seasons, and so on, should be carefully heeded. The burning of pieces of prairie late in the spring should be avoided, and it can easily be done. Let the grass be burnt the preceding fall, or, which is perhaps still more desira- ble, early in the spring. In the latter case the grass would have ' sprung up in places high enough to hold the nests before the hen-birds wanted to form them, besides which there are always many places untouched by the fire, and these spots would be chosen by the grouse to make their nests in. By 88 FIELD SHOOTING. leaving the grass unburnt through the winter the birds would be afforded a protection in that season against their enemies — the various sorts of hawks, which are very numerous in the prairie States. The great source of mischief is the burning of the grass after the nests are made. I hope the farm- ers will follow my suggestions on this point. They are commonly ready to oblige sportsmen, and the latter should avoid anything which may cause an- noyance while in pursuit of game. CHAPTER V. QUAIL-SHOOTING IN THE WEST. The beautiful little game-bird of which I am now about to write is well known in almost all pacts of the country. It is a welcome visitor about the homesteads of the farmer in the win- ter season, and makes pleasant the fields and brakes in spring and summer. Quail are now very abundant in the Western States, much more so, I believe, than in those of the Atlantic sea- board, although they are found in considerable numbers in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. They are much more nu- merous now in Illinois and the other prairie States than they were formerly. I think the cul- tivation of the land and the growth of Osage orange hedges have brought about the increase. The hedges furnish excellent nesting-places, and are also of great use to the quail as places of refuge and security when pursued by hawks. The latter are very hard on quail. Quail like the neighborhood of cultivated land, and where they 89 90 FIELD SHOOTING. are not much shot at they will get so tame as to come right up to the house and barn. They used to have a very hard time of it in Illinois in severe winters. There was no protection from hawks, by which they were constantly harried and destroyed ; and there being next to no cover, they used to be frozen to death in bevies. When the snow melted, the skeletons and feathers would be found in groups of eight or ten. The hedges now afford very great protection in severe wea- ther, and preserve the lives of thousands which would otherwise certainly perish of cold and starvation in their absence. They break the force of the wind, and furnish snug-lying places for the birds in hard weather. In soft snow quail com- monly manage to do very well in the open. When pursued by hawks at such times, they dart under the snow, and lie safely hid from their voracious enemies. I have seen them do this hundreds of times, and have rejoiced at their escape from the talons of the swift and perse- vering foe. In two or three instances I have walked up and caught the quail which had thus dashed into the yielding snow by hand. The quail is a very interesting bird about breeding- time, and the soft, whistling note of the cock is QUAIL-SHOOTING IN THE WEST. 91 one of the pleasantest things that strike the ear in the fields in spring-time. They pair with us about the first of May. I have seen them together in bevies as late as, or later than, the middle of April. They build their nests along the hedges and near old fences overgrown with brush and brambles. They resort but little to the groves of timber for breeding purposes, avoiding them, I think, on account of egg-sucking vermin, such as skunks and crows. Crows are bold, cunning, and persistent robbers of the nests of other birds. Minks catch the old hens on the nest, and raccoons do the same. But the most destructive and inveterate enemy the quail has is the little hawk, called with us the quail-hawk. This little bird of prey is but a trifle larger than a quail himself, but it is very fierce and strong, swift on the wing, and darts upon its prey with electric speed. The nest of the quail is round, nicely constructed of small twigs, and lined with dead grass. I have seen statements to the effect that they are covered over on the top. I have found hundreds of them, and never saw one that was. The. hen lays from twelve to fifteen eggs, but two hens sometimes lay in one nest, and I have seen one in which there were no less than thirty eggs. The hen- 93 FIELD SHOOTING. quail does not seem to be very particular at times about having a nest of her own. I have known them to lay in the nests of pinnated grouse, and in those of barn-door fowl which had made their nests in hedges or bunches in weeds in fence-corners. It is always easy to learn when quail are breeding in the neighborhood, for at such times as the hen is laying or sitting the cock perches on a fence, a stump, or an old cormstock, and whistles for joy. The note seems to express great satisfaction and de- light. The young quail are no sooner hatched than they are active and ready to follow their mother. The latter is very watchful, attentive, and devoted, ready to risk her own life to afford a chance of safety to her offspring. If a man or a dog approaches the whereabouts of her young brood, the mother simulates lameness, and flutters about as if in a crippled condition, to lead the intruder another way. The early broods come off about the middle of June, when, the spring being for- ward, the birds have paired early. I saw young quail and young grouse this year myself in the middle of June. It is my impression that when the season is early and other circumstances favor- able, the hen-quail raises two broods. I have often seen early broods under the care of the QUAIL-SHOOTING IN THE WEST. 93 cock, and I think the hen was then sitting again. Furthermore, later in the year bevies of quail will be found in which there are manifestly birds of two sizes besides the old ones. These bevies must be made up of young quail of different ages. I am not certain as to the hen bringing forth a second brood while the first is under the care of the cock, but I state the facts I have seen for what they are worth. There is nothing improba- ble, to my mind, in the raising of two broods a year. The hen-quail is very prolific of eggs; food is abundant and stimulating at the breed- ing season ; the weather is commonly steadily fine when the first brood is brought off, and the cock-bird is abundantly able to take care of it. In the State of Illinois quail-shooting begins on the first of October. I think the law ought to be changed so that it should not commence before the fifteenth of October. On the first of October some birds are full grown, but it is otherwise with the great majority of the young birds. Quail are a little slower in growth than pinnated grouse, and it is not before the fif- teenth of October that most of the birds are large, strong, and swift of wing. In Ohio, Indi- ana, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and other 94 FIELD SHOOTING. wheat-growing States, there is very fine quail- shooting sooner in the season than there is in Illinois. With us the best shooting cannot be enjoyed until late in the fall. Before that time the immense corn-fields enable the quail to get the best of the sportsman. As soon as a bevy is flushed away it goes for the corn, which is thick, broad in the blade, and very high. 1 stand six feet in height, and I have seen stalks of Illinois corn so tall that I could but just reach the lowest ears upon them. There is no making headway and filling the bag in such fields as these ; and the moment the quail arc flushed on the wheat and oat stubbles away they go for the corn. You may give them up as soon as they reach this tall, thick, and dense cover. If you make an attempt at them in it, they will not rise above the tops, so that you cannot see to shoot ; besides which, the thickest spread of the broad blades is just about as high as your head, and above it. It is not until good, sharp frosts have well wilted the blades and caused them to hang down lifeless along the stalk that there is a good chance at the quail in such places. As long as the leaves wave crisp in the autumn wind the quail may defy the shooter. Therefore QUAIL-SHOOTIUG IN THE WEST. 95 the best of the shooting is in November and De- cember. Yon must be up by dawn of day, and scatter the hoar frost or the sparkling dew as you g& to your chosen grounds. In a country where there are many stubbles, many corn-fields, and much hazel-brush the quail delight, and there, on such a morning, as soon as the sun has risen over the swells of the prairies to the eastward, they will be found in abundance. They roost along the margins of sloughs in long grass, in stubbles where the rag-weed is thick and strong, in patches of brush, and along hedge-rows. Where there arc corn-fields along the margin of sloughs, the quail are fond of roosting in the edges of the corn. As soon as the sun touches the frost on the corn and grass and the weeds of the overgrown stubbles, the quail begin to run from their roost- ing-places. At the early hours, when they are first on the move, is the best time for the dogs to find them, as the scent is then very good. When they arc really plentiful, they may be easily found in any weather, but most easily on a fine, clear day, early in the crisp, cool air of the bright, frosty morning. When a bevy is flushed in such weather as this, they scatter at once, and when they pitch down they lie there hid under the first bunch of 06 FIELD SHOOTING. grass or weed or any other bit of cover they can find for the purpose of concealment. With good dogs you can then take them one after the other. When a bevy has been flushed, and the birds have scattered about and pitched down in this way, I have often killed from six to ten before picking any up. I was once shooting in Mason County, Illinois, late in the fall, and flushed a very large bevy of quail from a wheat-stubble. They scat- tered and flew over into a piece of prairie-grass, where they pitched down. I knew they would lie very close, and so they did. They got up one and two at a time, and out of the Levy I accounted there and then for seven brace and a half. Quail pack late in the fall, and in Mason County at that time there were bevies of thirty or forty in num- ber. In damp or wet weather quail act in a dif- ferent manner when flushed and scattered. At such times, instead of lying where they pitch down, they run a long distance. And then when the dog has winded them, and is about to point, or has pointed, they start and run on again. Under such circumstances it is difficult to make a good bag. It was mainly in such weather that the net- ting of quail was carried on. This bad practice is now unlawful. I saw great numbers caught with QUAIL-SHOOTING IN THE WEST. 97 nets in Missouri. AYhole bevies were taken at one fell swoop, the quail being driven into the wings of the net by men on horseback. It is a very good thing that this destructive practice has been prohibited by law, and is now wholly done away with. As long as it was lawful the farmers on whose land it was practised did not like to interfere ; but now they do interfere, and netting in Illinois and Missouri has practically ceased and come to an end. When it was lawful, two netters were harder on the quail than about two hundred shooters, although at that time some of the latter who were apt to miss a bird on the wing would lire at bevies of quail on the ground. This is not a practice to be followed. I have taken two or three raking shots at grouse sitting on fences in my time, but the opportunity was so rare and the temptation so great that it was just then irresistible. The best quail-shooting I ever had was in the Sangamon River country, about where Salt Creek falls into it. There is upon Salt Creek and the Sangamon a great deal of bottom-land with much hazel-brush and considerable timber. There are also plenty of corn-fields. The shooting there is much varied. There arc vast numbers of quail, a 98 FIELD SHOOTING. great many grouse, and at the right times snipe and duck are to be found in amazing numbers. When I used to go out in that neighborhood for the purpose of shooting, quail especially, I used to get from twenty to thirty brace a day for many days in succession. Varied shooting, however, is more satisfactory sport to me, and 1 used to make very heavy bags of grouse, quail, and some duck — mallards and teal. It is a great place for mal- lards ; some of them stop all summer and breed there, and some stop all winter, for there arc parts of the river which hardly ever freeze over. Quail arc more abundant about there now than they were at the time I speak of, and there are quite as many grouse ; but they are both more difficult to kill than they used to be in the earlier part of the season. The corn-fields have increased so that they are now many and vast, and this ' serves as a defence fur the birds. There are more quail in that country this year than there ever were before. There are now, however, plenty of quail all over Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri. In the southwest of Illinois, the region called Egypt, there is a great deal of brush interspersed with prairie, firm-lands, and groves of timber, and there quail may be found in great abundance. But QUAIL-SHOOTING IN THE WEST. 99 grouse are not as plentiful there as in the interior counties of the State. Some people think the quail a hard bird to shoot, but it is not. It flies swift Lut straight, and is commonly missed by reason of the shooter being too much in a hurry where it is not brought to bag. Because the flight of the bird when flushed is rapid, men think it necessary to shoot very quick, and pull the trigger without sighting the mark truly. This is an error to which three out of four misses are owing. Let the bird be well sighted along the rib before the trigger is pulled, and, no matter how fast he goes, the shot will overtake and stop him. Quail will not carry off a great many shot. There is no necessity for hurry in shooting, and this will be made manifest to sportsmen if they will sometimes step the ground from where they fired to the dead bird. They will find that in nine cases out of ten it was not as far off as they believed it to be when they fired at it. Many of those thought to be as much as forty yards off when the trigger was pulled will be found dead at thirty yards, and some at five-and-twenty. This shows that there is commonly plenty of time to get well on the bird before shooting, instead of blazing away on the 100 FIELD SHOOTING. instant at random. I have shot thousands on thou- sands myself, and know that my misses were com- monly caused by being in too much of a hurry to fire. When I have missed with the first and killed •with the second barrel, I have considered it a plain proof that I ought to have let another second elapse before firing the first barrel ; for if a bird, flying hi the open straight away, or quartering, is well sighted with a good gun pro- perly charged, it is next kin to a miracle for it to escape. After good experience I resolved to take more time in quail-shooting, and I have found the practice answer. I can now kill nearly every quail 1 shoot at within fair distance. Quail generally lie close to the dog when they will lie at all well, and do not get up until the shooter is near them. The experience of sportsmen will confirm this, and it will show that there is no reason whatever for shooting in a hurried man- ner, but very strong reasons for guarding against it. By taking time you not only get the bird well sighted, but the extra distance it has gone gives the shot so much more chance to spread, and thus increases the chance to kill. A few years ago, after the close of the war, I went, in the middle of January, on a shooting QUAIL-SHOOTING IN Till: WEST. 101 excursion to Lynn County, Missouri. I hunted on Shoal Creek, in the neighborhood of Cameron, a place about fifty miles cast of St. Joseph, on the Missouri River. It was a good place for game There were quail, pinnated grouse, some ruffed grouse, turkeys and deer in large numbers, f killed many turkeys and a few deer: but of these I shall give some account further on, under the proper heads. The country is wild and broken, with much brush and timber, and abounds in gullies, dee}) hollows, and steep ravines. The bevies, when flushed, would frequently fly for the thickets and gullies, and then it was difficult shooting. Sometimes, however, they would scat- ter and drop in the grass of the pieces of prairie, and then I had beautiful sport, killing from twenty to thirty brace a day. The pinnated grouse were not numerous about there, but the ruffed grouse were in fair numbers for them. Iowa is a good State for quail. There are more groves of timber and more brush there than in Illinois, but the latter is much the best State for pinnated grouse, and the growing up of the Osage orange hedges has supplied in many parts the want of brush, and thus increased the head of quail. When (lushed in the open, the birds very 102 FIELD SHOOTING. often go for the hedges, and then a great deal may be done with a gun on each side of the hedge while the dogs are beating it. One man cannot do much with the quail when they take this refuge. Some of these hedges are eight or ten feet high; others have been so trimmed as to be four feet through and thick of growth. With a man on each side of the hedge there is very pretty shooting. If you arc out without a companion, and the quail take to the hedges, you may trust one side to an old, well-trained dog, and take the other yourself. Always send the dog to the lee side. If you have a companion, and he leaves to you the choice of sides, as most men will do, not knowing that it makes any differ- ence, always take the windward side. By so doing you will get three or four shots to your com- panion's one when the wind is blowing athwart, c? nearly athwart, the hedge. The reason is very simple, though seldom thought of. The dog to lee- ward winds the quail in the hedge, and, as a mat- ter of course, puts them out on the windward side ; while the scent is blown away from the dog on your side. I have been out with men who did not understand this, and they would say, " Cap- tain, what the d — 1 makes almost all the quail fly QUAIL-SHOOTING IS THE WEST. 103 out on your side of the hedge 1 " Half the suc- cess of sporting, outside of being a good shot, depends upon the knowledge of such things as this. There is another matter to be mentioned here. The best dogs in the world arc sometimes unable to find and put up all the birds in a bevy of quail. I have often been out with men who had first-rate dogs, and have, to their amazement, given them absolute and irrefragable proof of this fact. They have been not a little annoyed at first when they saw me put up quail Which their dogs had been unable to find iifter the bevy was gone. But it was no fault of the dogs, nor were they unable to detect the quail because the latter withheld their scent, as some have argued they have power to do. I do not believe they possess any such power. It is not a question of no scent, but of too much. The bevy have been lying there and running all over the ground, so that it is covered and tainted with scent to such a degree that the noses of the dogs become full of it, and that is why they cannot find and put up one or two birds which lie close in their hiding-places and decline to move. I will now relate a notable instance of this sort of thing which occurred last fall. It was near Selma, 104 FIE!.!) SHOOTING. Alabama, in the neighborhood of which city I was shooting with a gentleman named Ellis and Mr. Jacobs, a gunsmith. On the day in question Mr. Jacobs did not take the field, and Mr. Ellis and I were alone. lie had a brace of splendid set- ters, a black and a red. For one of the dogs he had paid two hundred and. fifty dollars, and he would not have taken five hundred for the brace. They had fine noses and were splendid workers. In the course of our sport we found a bevy of quail in old grass at the edge of a bit of prairie which had once been ploughed up, and was now an old garden all overgrown with weed:; and briers. The quail ran in the grass, but finally got up together. Mr. Ellis killed two and I killed two. A few went away, and were marked down at some distance. Mr. Ellis believed they were all gone. The dogs beat the ground tho- roughly, and could find no more. I said that 1 believed there might be more, upon which Mr. Ellis made his dogs try it again, and then eon- fidently pronounced that there could not be an- other quail there. I said, " I still think there may be quail here and I will show you how to make them rise if there arc any." With that I imitated the kind of whistling noise made by the old quail Ql UL-61 THE WEST. L05 ;i she has young i . Up got one, and Mr. Ellis killed it; away went another, and I stopped it. Mr. Ellis was greatly astonished, and did not know what to make of it. I explained the matter, telling him that it" the dogs had been taken off to another part of the field, and kept there long enough for the old scent to have exhaled from the ground and passed away, they would hive found the two quail readily enough whoa brought back to the place. The ground was so saturated with scent that the dogs could not distinguish that of the remaining birds, and could not put them up with- out stumbling right on them. 1 have often seen the same tiling happen with a close-lying lot of pinnated grouse in long prairie-grass. 1 do not believe in the theory advanced by some that quail or any other game-bird can withhold their scent so a3 to prevent a good dog from winding them when lie comes near. 1 had fair sport in the South last fall, principally at quail, round the cotton-fields, but there seemed to be a scarcity of game. There was not one quail to a hundred which would have been found in good situations in Illinois. I was in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee, and nowhere was game in what we should call fair plenty in the West. At Paris, Tennessee, they 100 FIELD SHOOTING. held the erroneous opinion that a pigeon-shooter could not be a good field shot. They said they had a man who could beat any pigeon-shooter in the field. 1 told them to send for him, as I was willing to shoot against him for a hundred dollars, fifty shots each, to be taken alternately. They would not make the match. In Mississippi I shot with Mr. Galbraith. The birds were scarce and wild. There were more about Selma than any other place I was at. So far as my experience went, the shoot- ing was nothing to that which may be had in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, Min- nesota, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, etc. There were as fine a lot of gentlemen in the South as I have ever met, and they were good shots and keen sportsmen. CHAPTER VI. 11UFFED-GROUSE SHOOTING. Hitherto we have been concerned with the sport to be had in pursuit of game-birds, pinnated grouse, and quail, which are found in the neighborhood of cultivated farms, and, as regards the latter, often in the immediate vicinity of the habitations of man. Wo now come to one whose favorite haunts are wild, solitary places not frequently intruded upon, and almost always lying remote from thickly- settled sections of country. The ruffed grouse is a very handsome bird, and in situations where it is seldom shot at it seems to take a sort of pride in exhibiting its beauty in a stately and graceful manner. It weighs about a pound and a half; is plump on the breast; and its flesh, white, juicy, and delicate, is delicious eating. It is usually half spoiled in city restaurants by splitting and broiling. It ought to be roasted and served with bread-sauce. The ruffed grouse is extensively distributed from east to west, but is nowhere found in any great lor 108 FTEL ) r.IIOOTIN'G. abundance. Its habits arc not nearly so gregarious aa those of the pinnated grouse, and no such multitudes are to be found anywhere of ruffed grouse as may often be met with of the former species in Iho great prairie States. The ruffed grouse is but seldom found in coveys, though sometimes a brood of full-grown birds are found still together i:i some lonely nook among the woodlands, or in a solitary, sheltered spot in severe winter weather. It is generally found singly or in pairs, and loves sylvan solitudes, steep hillsides, wooded dells, and the neighborhood of gullies and ravines. The rougher and more broken the country, the better the ruffed grouse like it, provided it is well timbered with the trees and well covered with the shrubs upon whose buds the birds mainly feed. It is, however, often met with in the deep, heavily-timbered bottom-lands of the northwest part of Michigan. The buds of birch, beecfc, and laurel (so-called) arc the favorite food of this bird in winter and spring. In summer it no doubt feeds largely on berries and insects. I do not think it ever visits the stubble-lands to pick up wheat and buckwheat, though there are some such bits of stubble in the very heart of the woods in which it is constantly but thinly RUFFED-QROUSE SHOOTING. 10S found. In the New England States it is met with* and is sparsely distributed in New York and New Jersey. In some of the wild, half- mountainous tracts of New Jersey, where the undergrowth consists largely of laurel, it is more abundant. It is also frequently met with in West Virginia. In Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illi- nois, Missouri, and Iowa the ruffed grouse is also found; but so far as my knowledge and experience go, it is most abundant of all in some parts of Wisconsin and the northwest part of the lower peninsula of Michigan. It is said tliat the buds of the laurel and some of the lxrries upon which the ruffed grouse feed have a tendency to make the flesh poisonous. I can- not confirm the theory, though I have eaten many a grouse whose crop was full of the buds in question when drawn. In general appearance it lias some resemblance to the pinnated grouse, but is a smaller bird, with a long, square tail, very full feathered, which it carries over the fallen leaves and mossy sward among the timber with a conscious pride and a swelling, strutting gait in places where it is little disturbed. It is, in fact, a beautiful ornament to the romantic soli- tudes and deep, heavy woods which it inhabits. 110 FTELD SHOOTING. In places where it is seldom shot at, the bird, at the approach of man, instead of taking wing, often spreads its tail, ruffles up the feathers of the neck, and struts off with the proud air of the true cock of the woods. In the spring of the year, at the approach of breeding-time, and at other seasons just before stormy, rainy weather, the male bird drums at dawn of day". It may sometimes, too, be heard performing this singu- lar feat in the night, and on a sultry afternoon when a thunder-storm is brewing. The drumming is usually made on an old log, and each male bird seems to have his favorite place for the joyous performance. Pie begins by lowering his wings as he w r alks to and fro on the log, then making some hard strokes at intervals, and finally so increasing the swiftness of the movement that the sound is like the rapid roll of a snare-drum muffled by a position in the depths of the woods. The sound is very deceptive as to the place of the bird. He may be comparatively near, while his drumming really seems like muttered thunder a long way off". On the other hand, the hearer sometimes supposes the hidden drummer to be close at hand when he is at a very considerable distance. In wild situations, near lonely preci- RUFFED-GROUSE SHOOTING. 1 1 1 pices, the beating of the rufFecl grouse upon his log may remind one of Macdonald's phantom drummer, whose story was beautifully and forcibly told in verse by General William H. Lytic, who fell, covered with glory and renown, at Chickainauga : 4< And still belated peasants tell How, near that Alpine height, They hear a drum roll loud and clear On many a storm-vexed night. This story of the olden time With sad eyes they repeat, And whisper by whose ghostly hands The spirit-drum is beat." • I have often seen the tops of old logs divested of their mosses and worn smooth by the constant drumming of the cock ruffed grouse, and have stood within thirty yards and seen the bird per- form the operation. Just before rain the grouse drum frequently, and the repetition of this sound from various quarters in the daytime is a pretty certain indication of the near approach of wet weather. The female builds in the Western States about the first of May. The nest is formed of leaves and dead grass, and is built in 112 FIELD SHOOTIfffJ. a secluded place at the root of a tree or stump, or by the side of an old, mossy log over- grown with blackberry briers. The hen lays from twelve to fifteen eggs, and when first hatched the chicks are the most beautiful, cunning, and alert little things that can be seen any- where. The editor of this work had an excellent opportunity for observing them and their watchful, devoted mothers on one well-remembered occa- sion. Nearly thirty years ago he was upon an exploring expedition in the northwest part of the lower peninsula of Michigan. The country was then very thinly settled about there. A few men had with much labor hewn out little clear- ings in the heavy-timbered woods in places on the banks of rivers, but the great industry was log- ging in the pine-woods, splitting shingles, and fishing dui-iug the spring freshets, when the low- lands and wet prairies were literally covered with pickerel. The ridges were thickly timbered with beech and maple where not covered with pine, and the bottom-lands were clothed with gigantic oak, black-walnut, basswood, hickory, and butternut trees. It was a country watered by a network of rivers, which united to form the Saginaw, soon after which junction the latter fell i;r FFED-GROUSE SHOOTING. I lo into the bay of the same name in Lake Huron. We started in canoes, well provided with provi- sions, arms, and ammunition, and paddled for the mouth of the Cass. It was in June, and the young flappers (wild ducks) were swarming in the rivers. Above the Lend of the Cass we made our first eamp. The region was then very wild. Deer abounded, and the wolves howled hideously around the camp at night. We treed two or three wild-eats, and shot them with rifles. We had no shot-guns. A band of Chip- pewa Indians were encamped near us. The men of the tribe lived by hunting and fishing with the spear. The women and girls made money by gathering cranberries in the marshes when the wild fruit was ripe* These Indians assured us that a few elk were still left in the great woods which here surrounded our party, and they said that in the fall there were lots of bears. It was just the hatching-time of the ruffed grouse, which we found numerous in the bottoms amon£ the heavy timber. They had seldom been mo- lested, and were not very shy, but rather bold and fearless. One day we cut down a butternut- tree, wanting it to make a temporary bridge across a creek, and, having lopped the top, went \ 114 FIELD SHOOTTNG. to our tent to dinner. On our return we came upon a hen-grouse with a brood of young newly hatched. Uttering a cry, she scuffled and fluttered about at our feet with the most motherly cour- age and devotion, behaving as if she were wounded, in order to draw us off. But we had seen her young ones run under the leaves of the fallen butternut-tree, and caught two or three of them. They were beautiful downy little things, and watched us intently with their bright eyes. The mother, stimulated by alarm, remained near us while we held her young after the others had scuffled off, and we had the pleasure of placing the little things on the ground again, and seeing them hide in the cover. We walked away to a distance, and soon heard the mother calling her brood of little ones to the shelter of her protec- tion. The yor.ng arc very quick and cunning at concealment. As soon as they hear the mother's warning cry they dart into cover, and, if there is no other at hand, they will seize a leaf with bill and feet, and turn over so that it may conceal them. While the party remained above the bend* of the Cass river there came up a tremendous thunder-storm, followed by a cold wind from Lake Huron. Previous to the storm the cock ruffed ' RUFFED-GROUSE SHOOTING. 115 grouse could be heard drumming in all directions. I; is a flat, alluvial country, much of the bottom- land being overflowed early in spring, as all the wet prairies thereabouts are ; but, nevertheless, these bottoms abounded with grouse in the breed- ing-season. The ruffed grouse can seldom be relied upon to fill the game-bag alone ; for the most part it is sparsely and thinly distributed over the regions it inhabits, though in some secluded spots where they have not been disturbed a good number may sometimes be killed in the fall before the broods have dispersed. It is as wild in disposition as any- bird that flics. The young of the pinnated grouse may be brought up in confinement, but I do not think those of the ruffed grouse can be reared in the same way. I began to shoot ruffed grouse, when still a boy, in the neighborhood of Burnvillc, Albany County, New York, in company with a man named Paul Hochstosser. He was a hunter by calling, and a good one, well versed in the woodcraft of the region, and the best shot with the double-barrelled gun then in those parts. The first bird I ever killed was a ruffed grouse perched in a hemlock-tree. He was on an arm close to the trunk of the tree, bolt upright, with 11G FIELD SHOOTING. his neck stretched up. This is their habit when they take to trees, and they are not easily distin- guished from knots. 1 knew their habits, and had good eyes. That day I had played truant from school, and, taking my father's old firelock, I went out to hunt. The greater part of the day was gone before 1 got one of the birds I saw in a proper sitting position. However, there he was at last, and as I was too small to hold the musket out and take aim from the shoulder alone, I steadied it against the bole of another tree. Bang she went, and down came the grouse, but only winged. There was snow on the ground, and, boy- like, 1 dropped the old musket into it, and went for the wounded grouse. The ground was a steep hillside, the bird fluttered down it, and I went after, tumbling and rolling for as much as a hun- dred yards. But I secured it at last, and thinking it was glory enough for one day, as the saying is, I recovered the old musket and returned home. The truancy was condoned because of the bird. After that I hunted every time I could get a chance to do so. I soon got hold of a simde-bar- relied gun with a percussion-lock, and by perse- verance for some time learned to shoot on the wing. Paul was a great woodcock-shooter, and UUFFED-OROU3E BHOOTINO. 117 we sometimes shot i:i company. In going after ruffed grouse in those days we used to take a small spaniel dog, which would flush them out of the brush, and cause them to take to the trees. They arc not easy to distinguish, as 1 said before, when on the tree, from their sitting upright close to the trunk, their plumage being somewhat the color of the bark. This habit must be remem- bered by the sportsman when he believes the bird i; treed, but is unable to make him out. When several have taken to the same tree, shoot the one which sits lowest first, and the others will not take wing. If the upper one i3 shot, its fall starts the others off. More ruffed grouse are shot sit- ting than flying. It iz a very hard bird to shoot on the wing — hard to hit and hard to kill. Other birds, when flushed in woodland, fly for the openings in the trees; the ruffed grouse, on the contrary, plunges right into the densest part of the thicket. The man who commonly kills the ruffed grouse ho shoots at on the wing is fit to hold his own at any sort of shooting on the wing. The bird com- monly rises in difficult ground with a whirr like the sudden roar of a waterfall, and goes away lectric pa(-o for the thickest part of the brake. The birds were scarce in Albany County, New 118 PLEL1) SHOOTING. York. The most I ever killed in a day there was six. In Cook County, Illinois, I have killed fifteen in a day. In Missouri, on Shoal Creek, when I was hunting turkeys, I found raffed grouse in fair numbers, considering the nature and habits of the bird, and killed forty or fifty in the three week:; I stayed there. Of all the places I know, the ruffed grouse are most plentiful in the timber-lands of Wisconsin and Minnesota and the upper part of Michigan. But it is a bird of very secluded habits, and when settlements have become thick and much of the timber has been cleared off, it disappears. A well-w r atered timber country, witli plenty of thick underbrush among rifts and gullies, is the place to look for it as a com- mon rule, though they arc also found in the great woods of heavy-timbered bottom-land. In looking for ruffed grouse especially I use No. 8 shot, and, if I found them while turkey-shooting, I changed the cartridge. I do not use spaniels now, but shoot ruffed grouse over setters. They will lie pretty Avell to the dogs sometimes, and where not shot at will sometimes strut off in front of him in plain sight. When shot at much and wild, the ruffed grouse must be pointed by the dog from a considerable distance. It will not let him get close, and as coon as the KUFFED-G ROUSE SHOOTING. Ill) setter moves a stop forward the grouse springs up and goes away like a bullet for the thickest part of the cover. I have seen stories in print of ruffed grouse taking to water, of its being caught and let go, and then caught again. I do not be- lieve one word of such things. The man who invented them can know but little of the nature and habits of this very wild bird. In the deep snows of winter the ruffed grouse roost under the snow. They dart at it with great speed, and make a sort of burrow beneath the surface. At other times they roost on the ground. When out coon-hunting at night, I have often put them up from their roosts on the ground. It has been maintained that they sometimes roost in trees ; and as they certainly take to trees readily enough when flushed by a barking dog, and feed on the buds of trees, it seems reasonable to believe that they may sometimes roost in them. On the other hand, many men of experience declare that they never roost in trees. I have often seen them in trees very early in the morning, but it was out at the ends of the branches, feeding on the young buds. I will not positively affirm that the ruffed grouse never roosts in trees, but I think it never does so when it can help it. In very severe weather, 120 FIELD SHOOTING. when the crust upon the snow is too strong to he pierced, the bird may seek shelter under the thick boughs of pines, and close to the trunk on the leeward side. It can stand a great deal of cold, and, unlike some other birds, can always find its food — the buds and tender twigs of trees and shrubs — in the hardest weather. The sports- man who goes into the places the ruffed grouse frequents will see some of the most picturesque scenes and romantic landscapes that the country affords. Hills and ravines, secluded woodland dells, the foliage rich and ripe with the deep tints of autumn, will meet his eye, while the music of mountain-brooks and the roar of waterfalls will fill his ears. CHAPTER VII. SHOOTING THE WOODCOCK. In the estimation of sportsmen in this country, as well as in Europe, the woodcock is regarded as one of the very highest game-birds. To make a good bag of woodcock is a feat to be proud of. The bird is generally scarce, even on the best ground, and in its most favorite haunts it is difficult to find and kill, and is one of the richest morsels on the table that the woods and fields supply. The woodcock of America slightly differs from that of Europe in size and markings, but the variations are of no moment to the sports- man. Upon this continent the woodcock winters in the Southern States, and in regions still further south, and comes north in spring, remaining till the ground freezes late in the fall. The bird breeds in Canada and Nova Scotia, as well as in northern and middle States of the Union, East and West ; and it sometimes rears two broods in a season. This is not, however, commonly the case, but it is certain that when the old 121 122 FIELD SHOOTING. birds have lost their nests or their young through floods in the breeding-time, they rear a late brood. The woodcock arrives north in March, and generally builds in April. Much depends, however, upon the earliness or lateness of the spring, which sometimes varies nearly a month. Its nest has been found in March in very early situations, but it is believed that in such cases they were those of old birds which had passed a mild winter in some chosen, sheltered spot, and never gone south at all. It is reasonable that after having made its migra- tion from the far south to the latitude of New York, Illinois, Michigan, and Canada, the birds would require some weeks for restoration before laying their eggs. The nest is made on the ground, in a piece of woods or brushy swamp, and is composed of grass and leaves. The hen lays four, sometimes five eggs, and the young run as soon as hatched ; the little ones arc active and rather cunning at hiding, though not to such an extent as the chicks of the ruffed grouse. The woodcock displays the same care and manifests as much devotion to her young as the ruffed grouse, and employs the same expe- dient of simulating lameness to draw off an in- SHOOTING THE WOODCOCK. ] \>;J truclcr from their neighborhood. The hen-wood- cock is a tame bird when sitting, and will not leave her nest for any light reason. When I was a boy, they used to build in a swamp on my father's larrn in Albany County, New York, where I have more than once crawled up and caught the old bird in my hand, and released her after looking at her eggs. This would not induce her to forsake her nest, and in this she differs from some other wild birds. Wild ducks are not easily driven from their nests, and, after being disturbed once or twice, will still return again. The English pheasant, if once flushed directly off her eggs, always forsakes them. I never saw more than five eggs in a woodcock's nest, and usually there are but four. It has been stated that a woodcock's nest, with eight full-fledged young ones, was found on the banks of Loch Lomond, in Scotland. I believe these were the young of some other bird, if eight were found, for the story is almost absurd on its face. Young woodcocks, full-fledged, are n£ver found in a nest. The young, when first hatched, might be, but they are then covered with dowle, and not with feathers. The wood- cock has been kept in confinement, and proved 124 FIELD SHOOTING. itself to be a voracious feeder. It was no small trouble to keep it supplied with worms. It bored in to the earth given to it, and was always ready for food. The digestion of the woodcock is very rapid. This accounts for the fact that birds which arrive poor speedily get condition in good ground. For the procurement of its food, for which it bores in soft, moist ground, fat, loamy soils, and rich vegetable mould, it has a long, slender bill, very sensitive, and a long, prehensile tongue with barbs on the end. The young grow rapidly where the lying is good and the food plentiful. In favorable seasons they have attained their growth by the fourth of July, when the shoot- ing commences. But in some places, in some years, they are not above two-thirds grown at that date. I saw woodcock at Boston this year in the middle of July not two-thirds grown, and it was a pity they had been shot. After the broods have once dispersed, the woodcock is a solitary bird. It is true that a number of them may sometimes be found in the same swale, " cripple," or piece of woodland, but that is because the lying of the place suits them, and the boring is good, worms and the larvre of insects SHOOTING THE WOODCOCK. 125 being abundant in the soil. The woodcock does not frequent sandy, thirsty soils, nor gravelly ground, nor sour, wet meadows. It wants warmth and richness, as well as plenty of moisture. The bird is nocturnal in its habits, and its great eye, placed far backwards and upwards in its large head, enables it to see by night and in the gloom of the thick coverts in which it lies by day. It never flics by day, unless disturbed, and seldom feeds in the daytime, unless it be on rare occa- sions in the thick shade of some moist and closely- overgrown spot in its cover. Late in the evening, when it is nearly dark, the woodcock leave the cover, and betake themselves to wet, rich places to bore for their food. It used to be a popular notion that woodcock and snipe ate nothing, and lived merely by what was called suction ; whereas they are both voracious feeders and like the richest quality of food — namely, the plump worms and insects to be found in fat soils. After indus- triously spending the night in finding food to satisfy his enormous appetite, the woodcock re- turns just before dawn of day to the thick brake or close overgrown " cripple,"' in which he lies while the daylight lasts. AY here there is good lying and good feeding ground, woodcock may be 120 FIELD SHOOTING. found in the season, and in spots where one bird has been shot it is common for another to take its place in a day or two. Where such birds come from, and why they did not come before the place was tcnantless, is not known. Although in some sort methodical in its ways and habits, the woodcock often seems to be r erratic in its comings and goings to and from certahi localities. Some days the birds will be found plentiful, for them, in certain ground. On another day, without any obvious reason for their absence, not one can be puf up in the same piece. The weather or some other cause un- known has induced them to make a local change, and this has sometimes been magnified, I think, into a second migration or a permanent removal to the uplands and bluffs. I do not believe that there is any second migration northwards of the woodcock after breeding-time ; nor do I believe that the birds go to the uplands and bluffs, and stay there until the beginning of October. It is not true that no woodcock are to be found in their usual haunts in September. I have found and shot them myself in that month in fair num- bers. It is true that there arc not as many as there were in July, and for the very SHOOTING THE WOODCOCK. 127 good reason that vast numbers have been shot, while those which arc left have become nioro wild and wary. Another reason for the seeming absence of birds, except here and there, is simply this : with us, grouse-shooting in the latter part of August and September is so much easier, and affords so much greater chance of success, that very few go after woodcock in those months, and the birds have it all to themselves in woody swales, tangled thickets, and the islands over- grown with the willow and the alder, until October brings down the great division of birds bred to the northward of the United States. Early in the season and during the hot weather the woodcock is a lazy bird, and seems to labor in its flight. It is not, however, easy to kill on that account, for when it rises, often very close to you, it goes up among the thick foliage, right on end, as it were, to the top of the cover, and then, after flying horizontally for about twenty yards, it suddenly flops down again. When it does this after being shot at, men often think they have killed it, while in truth not a feather has been touched. The thickness of the covert in full leaf prevents the shooter from having any- thing but a glimpse of the bird, and he must 128 FIELD SHOOTING. make a snap-shot at where intuition tells him I he woodcock ought to be. Besides this difficulty, the upward flight is calculated to distract the aim, even when the bird is not absolutely concealed by the density of the foliage. Commonly it is flip-flap of the wing, and the woodcock has gone away, often not seen by the sportsman at all. In some places it is practicable to send the dog in to beat the thicket while you remain on the edge to shoot as the cock fly. Where the brush is short this may be done, and, if there are many birds, the sport will be good. Three years ago I had some nice shooting by following this me- thod on Rock River, Illinois. When the cover is large, and the timber and saplings are twenty feet high, the above-mentioned plan will not work. You must go in then with the dogs, and take your chance of snap-shots. Later in the year the woodcock is sometimes found in more open pieces of timber — that is, in places where the under- brush is not so very thick. But it is still a pretty hard bird to shoot, for now it flies like a bullet, and zigzags and twists about among the close-standing stems, going for an opening through which to make a straight flight. The woodcock flushed in cover always goes for an SHOOTING THE WOODCOCK. 129 opening; the ruffed grouse never does, but sets sail for the closest and densest part. Now, when the woodcock is going swift and twisting among the stems of the saplings, lie is very easy to miss, and sportsmen who make good bags of cock in the prime of the fall season have a right to be proud of their exploits. This sort of shooting is much more pleasant than that to be followed in the tangled " cripples " of New Jersey, all over- grown with cat-briers and thick brush, with no good footing where you are, and no possibility of knowing where you will be next. In Albany County, New York, we used to use cocking-spaniels when woodcock-shooting. I have had none of that breed in the West, and now employ setters. They are bolder and better in forcing their way in rough places than pointers. The thin skins of the latter get all cut and torn, and their feet give out. But the best dogs 1 have ever had for general sport, take one sort of shooting with an- other, have been cross-bred between the setter and the pointer. For work these beat any pure- bred dog I ever owned, and, I may add, ever saw. But concerning this I shall treat further on. A great many woodcock may be found about Lockport, Illinois, forty miles southwest of Chi- 130 FIELD SHOOTING. cago, but the brush is so thick in the swamps in summer and early fall that the shooting is diffi- cult. There are a few on the Sangamon, but only a few. On the bottoms and islands of the upper Mississippi River, right down to St. Louis, many woodcock may be found. The bottoms and islands are rich alluvial mould, and the wood- cock finds himself well placed in them for cover, for food and breeding-places. The brush com- monly grows down to the water's edge, and old logs lie among the bushes. The woodcock also frequents the thickets on the edges of the bayous and sloughs, and, when the bottoms have been overflowed, the birds use them as soon as the water has receded. During the floods they shift their places, and lie further from the rivers, but in the same sort of ground as before. In New York they were sometimes found in wet corn-fields adjacent to cover, but I do not think they ever are in the West. On the Illinois River, about Pekin, Peoria, and Havana, there is fair woodcock-shooting ; but the bird is scarce every- where in the West, compared with other sorts of game. Indeed, the woodcock is not only rela- tively scarce in the Yv^est, but, as I think, abso- lutely scarcer than in the Atlantic States. There SHOOTING THE WOODCOCK. 131 is not in the prairie States so much of the sort of ground the woodcock likes as there is further east. I do, indeed, know of plenty of ground \:\ Central Illinois which one would think just suit- able for woodcock, but, owing to some reason which I have never been able to discover, the birds are not found there. A stray one or two may be picked up occasionally, but they arc never there in any number. I suppose it to be owing to some peculiarity in the soil. These neighborhoods have much of the right kind of food, and snipe abound near them ; but for some reason the woodcock does not like them. About the middle of October there is a great increase in the number of woodcock in the bottoms and islands of the Mississippi and Illinois rivers. Flights of those bred further north then arrive, and they stay until driven away by sharp frosts. When they first arrive from the North, the leaves are still thick, but the white frosts, which arc quite insufficient to freeze the ground and drive the woodcock south, wilt the leaves, and then the shooting is pleasant and good. Generally speaking, the woodcock remain well along through November, and some seasons they have not all gone by the 1st of December. They like the 132 . FIELD SHOOTING. neighborhood of little streams which trickle through brush and among timber. The most I ever killed in a day was fifteen couple. I have heard men boast of having killed fifty couple in a day; but if they did it, the birds must have been vastly more abundant than I ever saw them anywhere. The woodcock is easily killed when you can get an open shot ; but that is rather seldom, except at the last of the season and in such small patches cf short brush as I mentioned above. A wood- cock, when winged, docs not run off as quail do. The birds have t\v< sorts of flight In one it goes laboring and slow, just over the tops of the branches, to which height it has risen almost per- pendicularly, and then it soon flops down again. Its other mode of flight is swiftly away among the stems of the trees, darting here and there until it has found its opening, along which it goes like a bullet. I was told in the South that it is very plentiful along the edges of the bayous in the winter there. The negroes go out by night in boats with torches, and, paddling along, the woodcock on the muddy margin are knocked down with sticks. I heard of this, but never saw it, and merely tell the tale as it was told to me. CHAPTER VIII. THE SNIPE AND SNIPE-SHOOTING. This well-known and excellent little bird of passage is to be found all over the country, in suitable ground, at the times of the spring and fall migrations. It winters about the wet rice- iields of the Southern States, and comes north in the spring, going to its breeding-grounds, which are mainly in higher latitudes than the United States. It is true that a few remain all summer in the Eastern States, and also in those to the westward, and rear broods of young; but by far the larger number continue towards the north, pausing about a month in the middle latitudes. It does not breed south of Virginia. In Kentucky, Indiana, and Michigan some snipe arc bred in the sedges of the wet prairies and about the edges of the wild rice-swamps. In Illinois a few nests are made about the Calumet, and some in the great Winnebago Swamp, which is part pool, and a great deal of high gras; marsh. About Co- lumbus, Kentucky, the first (lights of spring snipe 133 134 FIELD SHOOTING. arrive on the river-bottoms by the first of March in an early spring, but much depends upon the forwardness of the season and the state of the weather. The snipe need not be looked for until the frost is quite out of the ground, no matter how genial and pleasant the days may be. The reason seems to be plain. As long as there is frost in the ground the worms and larvae of in- sects upon which snipe feed are underneath the frozen strata, and cannot be found in the soft mud of the surface. In Illinois and Northern Indiana the frost holds in the ground much longer than in South- ern Kentucky. It penetrates a good deal deeper, and the spring is more backward than in the last- named region. Hence the snipe do not come to the Calumet, the Winnebago Swamp, the Sanga- mon, and the other favorite haunts which it fre- quents in Illinois, until nearly a month after they have appeared at Columbus. When they first arrive, the birds are thin and wild, and do not lie well. In a short time, however, they get very fat and become lazy. I find that in New Jersey the fall snipe-shooting is the best, and that the birds tarry so short a time in the spring that sometimes there is scarcely any spring snipe-shcot- ing at all. Now, with us the reverse of this is THE SNIPE AND SNIPE-SHOOTING. 135 the case. The snipe stay much longer in the spring in the Western States than they do in the fall, and they distribute themselves more over the face of the country. In the autumn migration they keep more to the lines of the great rivers, and stay but a short time. One reason, no doubt, is that in the spring there is much more wet ground, such as suits the snipe. In the fall many places in which the birds lie thick in April are quite dry, and no longer suitable as feeding- places. The snipe likes wet places even more than the woodcock. His favorite resorts are wet bogs, splashy places in grassy meadows, the rich, moist ground of river-bottoms, and the margins of grassy sloughs and bayous — " By the rushy, fringed bank, Where grow the willow and the ozier dank ! " The best snipe-shooting with us is in the spring of the year, though very good sport may be had in the fall. In the spring I have sometimes killed from twenty-five to fifty couple a day for many days together. When the birds first come, they are poor and wild, and the shooting is difficult ; but a little time spent upon the rich bottom-land, which swarms with worms and other food, puts them 186 FIELD SHOOTING. in flesh. They are able to indulge their sharp and almost insatiable appetite, and soon grow fat. 1 shot snipe several spring seasons in company with R. M. Patchen, of Atlanta, Logan County, Illinois. Our favorite ground was the Salt Creek bottoms on the Sangamon, and I doubt whether there is any better ground in the world. We have killed as many as three hundred and forty in a day, and our bag was seldom as small as seventy-five couple at the right time. The ground we shot over was the grassy, sedgy bottoms along Salt Creek, near where it falls into Sangamon River, and across the latter stream along the bottoms in Mason County. The shooting there begins about the first of April. In many places the bot- toms at that time of the year have been recently overflowed, and a scum of mud and slop is left, in which the snipe seem to delight. Snipe are vastly more abundant in the West, in the proper snipe-ground, than they are in the East. I find that in New Jersey and Pennsylvania snipe-shooters think they have had an average fair day's sport if they have killed about eight couple. Now, we should not think we had been shooting at all if we killed no more than that number. THE SNTP.E AXD SNIPE-SHOOTTXG. 137 A great many people go up-wind when after snipe, believing that it gives a much better chance to the dogs. I always go down-wind, and use no dog at all, except for retrieving purposes. There is no need to use a dog to find snipe on good snipe-ground at the proper times and seasons. The bird always rises against the wind, and (lies up-wind or across it, making zigzags when he first gets under way. Now, if you are to wind- ward of the bird when it rises, it is nearly cer- tain to give you a side shot. As I remarked before, when they first come from the south in the spring, the snipe are wild. Their numbers are very large, but the ground is nearly bare, the grass having but just started. Four or five will get up together, and sometimes as many as twenty, all uttering the shrill squeak which they make on taking wing. The rich bottoms, low, marshy ground around sloughs, and wet corn-fields, arc good places to look for snipe. As they eat the plump worms and other rich food which they find in abundance in the loamy soils and black, vege- table deposits, the snipe become fat, and then they lie close and well. 1 never found any diffi- culty in shooting them then. Later on in the season still they get very fat, and will hardly rise 138 FIELD SHOOTING. at all, save when put up by a noise like that of their own squeak. That is the only way to make them rise, and their flight is lazy and slow. Those which remain after the first of May are then so fat that they can hardly fly at all, and when they are picked at this time they look like a lump of fat bacon. When not over-fat, snipe fly swift. They hang on the wind for an instant, and then dart away zigzag up-wind or across the wind. I have several times killed two with one barrel, and on one occasion I killed three. It was in Logan County, as I was walking along the bank of a little slough. The three snipe got up in line, the nearest within twenty yards, and they all three fell to the right barrel. When they first come in the spring, it is difficult to shoot snipe in the corn-fields. They dodge about among the stalks, and rarely rise over the tops of them. A man who kills three out of four in the corn-fields at that time is a good shot. In shooting over the bottom-land it is best for two guns to be in company, and to walk down-wind some thirty or forty yards apart. Nearly all the birds may then be got. The shooters will be nearly certain to kill all the birds that rise between them, if they are good shots. In shooting at snipe it is a great THE SNIPE AND SNIFE-SIIOOTING. 139 error to shoot too quick. The snipe, at first getting on the wing, twists and wires in and out in his flight. If shot at then, it may be killed, but is more likely to be missed. By waiting until it has gone a rod or two you may get a much easier shot. The flight of the bird is then straight, and, though it presents but a small mark, there is no real difficulty in hitting it. Side shots are the best of all for , a good shot. Be- ginners are somewhat apt to shoot behind the bird. The right time to pull the trigger is just as the snipe begins the direct flight. It is not a hard bird to kill on the bottoms, even while somewhat wild, if you can shoot well and go the right way about your beat, which is down- wind. Afterwards, when they have got fat, it is as easy to kill as any bird I know of. In talking with General Strong, who is a good sportsman and fine shot, and other gentlemen of Chicago, about snipe-shooting, I found it was their impression that it was a hard bird to shoot. Now, I knew well that, taken in the right way, at the right time, it was a very easy bird to kill ; and I offered to back myself to shoot and bfg a hundred snipe in a hundred consecutive shots. If 1 missed one shot out of the one hun- 140 FIELD SHOOTING. clred, I was to be the loser. I was Willing to put up the money, and to take General Strong him- self as referee to see that I did it. They, how- ever, declined to make the wager. If it had been accepted, 1 should have chosen the Salt Creek and Sangamon bottoms for the ground, and taken the last week in April for the period. The birds are then flit and lazy, and I am confident that 1 could have done the feat. I should not, as a matter of course, have bound myself to do it within a certain time, because it is not possible to say when you can find birds thick on the ground. The snipe is somewhat erratic in his habits, and change of weather causes them to change their ground. If I had found snipe on that ground as thick as I have sometimes done, 1 believe I should have killed the one hundred, without a miss, in one day. I should not have taken any but fair chances, and I. should not have let fair f/hots go unimproved. In order to perform a feat of this kind a man must have several essential qualifications. He must be a dead-shot. He must have the best of nerve, and never be flurried in the least. With such a man, and a gun of ten bore, charged with five drams of powder and an ounce and a quarter of No. 12 THE SNIPE AND SNIPE-SHOOTING. 141 shot, the snipe rising near at hand will have but a very small chance of getting away. But as one miss will lose the wager, it is abso lutely necessary that the shooter should know when he is holding his gun so that it is virtu ally certain he will kill. If I had got the match, 1 should have used no dog to shoot over, hut should have walked the bottoms, going down wind, and should have chirped the snipe up with their own cry. I have often killed thirty with out a miss, when shooting for no wager, and taking every bird that rose within fair distance, as they got up anywhere. These things may seem strange to many sportsmen, especially those who arc mostly conversant with places where game is scarce and, being much disturbed and shot at, quite wild. But different localities and very different circumstances must be allowed for. I state nothing which is not true, and nothing but what I can support by good testimony — that of men who know the ground, and are acquainted with many of the anecdotes and feats 1 relate. In general snipe-shooting a man who lulls two out of four is accounted a good shot, and this is generally done by beating up-wind. Now, if such a man will try my plan and beat down 142 FIELD SHOOTING. wind, having no dog save one to retrieve dead birds, he will find he can do much better. He will kill a great many more of the birds he shoots at. I have been snipe-shooting with men who called themselves good shots, and 1 have seen them miss full half of the birds they shot at. They almost always fired too quick, while the snipe was making his darts here and there before going off straight As a general rule, you must be willing and able to do a great deal of walking wiien snipe-shooting, if you would make a large bag. When I first shot snipe on Salt Creek bottoms, it was with a muzzle-loader, and I had no horse and buggy. With a horse and buggy to go to the ground and carry the bulk of the ammunition all day, and with a breech-loader, 1 could have killed three or four hundred snipe a day. 1 could do so now if I could walk all day, as I could then , but since I was shot in the thigh my endurance in walking, especially on wet, slippery ground, is not as great as it formerly was. I could once walk from dawn of day till dark, only stopping to eat and drink, and could tire the best man I ever had in company in a long day's tramp after game. It was upon that and upon knowledge and judgment, largely dc- THE SNIPE AND SNIPE-SHOOTING. 143 rived from experience, as to the likeliest places to find game, and how it would behave when found, that I relied in challenging any man in the world in field-shooting in the West. 1 counted upon these things as much as I did upon my ability as a marksman. My challenge stood three years, and had publicity through the sporting news- papers. There was plenty of talk about taking it up, but no one ever did so. I hear from time to time about some man who is said by some other man to be the best general field-shot in the Western country. This best general field-shot is commonly some man who was never heard of before by me or by anybody else outside of his own small neighborhood. I believe I know as many of the real dead-shots of the "West as any man in that section, and yet some one is mentioned as the best of all, of whom 1 never heard before. These foolish opinions and hollow reputations are commonly held and manufactured by those who have •taken up the absurd notion that a man who is a good trap-shooter at pigeons cannot be a good field-shot. Now, the reverse of this is commonly the case. The best shots I have known at pigeons have been good shots in the field, but many men who d<> well enough in the field fail at pigeons. 144 FIELD SHOOTING. In snipe- shooting in the West along sloughs or wet swales, in the prairie or corn-fields, there should be two guns in company, one on each side of the slough or swale. Your companion will com- monly be willing that you shall take either side you choose, as few men know that it makes any difference. But it makes a very material differ- ence when the wind is blowing across, or nearly across, the slough, and if you take the windward side you will have the most shots. I have always done so, and have often killed two or three snipe to one killed by my companion. The reason is simply this . the snipe fly up-wind, and those which rise on the leeward side of the slough cross it to windward, while none of those which get up on the latter side fly to leeward. When the snipe first come on in the spring, it is often primarily discovered by a certain habit they have of hovering in the air of nights, and making a kind of humming noise with their wings, as they fall from a height! I have often been out duck-shooting at night at that season of the year, and, hearing this noise in the air, have become aware that the snipe had arrived from the south. Before they leave for the north to breed they often do the same thing by day, and it is only when in the THE SNIPE AND SNIPE-SHOOTING. 145 mood for this that snipe are on the wing by day, except when put up. When hovering, the snipe poise themselves in the air at a considerable height, and, suddenly dropping or darting away, make this noise with their wings; then they make another hover, and then another dart. AY hen in this humor, the snipe will not lie to dogs nor to be walked up within shot, and no sport is to be had. They usually do it on still, cloudy days. I have seen statements to the effect that at such times snipe will alight on fences, stumps, and the topmost boughs of trees. I can only say, touching these statements, that my experience is all the other way. I have been many years in a part of the country where the snipe are found in amazing abundance every spring and fall ; I have seen them hovering hundreds of times, when hundreds of them were at it in the air ; but I never saw one alight on a tree or a fence or on anything but the ground. I have, I think, been a close observer of the habits of such game-birds as frequented ^Illinois. My living depended on it, in some de- gree. This thing, however, I never saw a snipe do, and I feel quite certain that snipe in Illinois never do it. I do not say that the authors of the statements in question have made wilful misrepre- 146 FIELD SHOOTING. sentations, but I do say that they may have been mistaken, and that the birds which alighted on trees while the snipe were hovering and bleating were not snipe. It is the easiest thing in the world to see snipe hovering in the spring in places where they abound. Take a day in April when the sun is not bright and there is a hazy atmosphere. On such a day the snipe arc at it nearly all day long. There will be first one and then another going through with this performance, and you may sometimes hear three or four at it at once, though not very close together. I have never met a man who had seen, or pretended to have seen, a snipe alight on a tree or fence at this or any other time. Snipe begin to arrive with us in the fall, about the middle of October, but they do not come down from the north in large numbers so early as that date. At the last of October they are commonly plentiful, but are not found in the places where they were so abundant in the spring. In the fall there are not one-fourth as many in the^ bottoms of Salt Creek and the Sangamon as there are in April. Neither are they so well distribut- ed over the country along the sloughs. In go- ing south they keep more to the lines of the big THE SNIPE AND SNIPE-SHOOTING. 147 rivers, and perhaps many of them keep more to the eastward in their southern migration than they do in coming north. I am inclined to think that this last must he the case, for the birds are not anything like as numerous in the fall, when the broods come, as they were in the spring, when the snipe went north to breed. The best fall snipe-shooting with us is along the bottoms of the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, and about the marshes of the great Winnebago Swamp. Here the sportsman may have good shooting until late in the fall — I may say, in some seasons, until the beginning of winter, for the snipe do not leave altogether until the ground is frozen. When that happens, they go southwards. In Illinois there is some marshy ground which the snipe do not like. Most of the land in that State, being rich loam or vegetable alluvial, suits them well ; but in some places there is sand or gravel as well as much moisture, and neither of these does the snipe seem to like. I suppose the favorite food in these soils is scarce, and in all probability the birds do not like to bore in gritty ground. A few may be found scattered in wet places on such soils, but at the same time they lie in thousands along the loamy bottoms and in the marshes. In these 148 FTELD STTOOTTNO. latter the soil is usually vegetable mould, the rich, black deposit commonly called swamp-muck. In this the snipe delights above all. Snipe afford a vast amount of sport, but the sport itself de- mands for its proper pursuit very considerable endurance and hardihood. The snipe-shooter must expect to be wet and to be fatigued, but he may also count upon making a good bag. It is one of the most delicious birds that flies, certainly second to none but the upland-plover and one or two sorts of duck. Many think it second to none whatever, and I doubt if it is when in prime order and properly cooked and served. In places where snipe are not plentiful it is no doubt advisable to use a dos; to beat the meadows and marshes, and point them ; but such is not the case where 1 have been accustomed to shoot. CHAPTER IX. GOLDEN PLOVER, CURLEW, GRxVY PLOVER. In the West we have in the spring and fall great numbers of the golden plover — a beautiful bird, testing the skill and patience of the sports- man, and one that is very delicate and rich eating on the table. It is stated, in some books I have looked into, that the golden plover is essentially a shore bird. This is a great error, if the same species is meant, for it visits Illinois and Iowa, and I doubt not the country further west, in prodigious numbers. It is called the golden plover from being speckled with yellow on the back of the head and neck. Its principal colors are not at all like gold ; and when the birds are seen in flocks on the grass-lands they love to frequent, the golden spots cannot be distinguished. It is a handsome bird, graceful in shape, and quite plump. The golden plover is not quite as large as a quail, but almost, when fat. The male is dark in color, with white spots on the breast, and narrow white streaks on the cheeks. The 149 150 FIELD SHOOTING. female is gray, and a little smaller than the male. This bird winters in the south, principally upon the great grassy ranges of Texas and Northern Mexico. It arrives in the prairie States about ten days after the snipe, commonly about the tenth of April; but much depends on the forwardness or backwardness of the spring. With us there is a variation of some three weeks between a very forward spring and one that is very late. The golden plover forms one of the most numerous bodies of the great mi- gratory hordes which come north at the end of the winter. They come in flocks, some of the latter, on their arrival, being as many as three or four hundred in number. At their first coming they dre to be found on the burnt prairies, and soon after they will be seen in ploughed fields and on bare pastures. They also frequent young wheat which is then fairly started, and in those spots where the plant has been drowned out or killed by the frost these birds are sure to be found. They like the bare earth and the close-eaten pastures, especially those in certain localities. From high knolls, where the grass has been eaten off' short, they can sometimes be hardly driven away. In sheep pastures the plover GOLDEN PLOVER, CURLEW, GRAY PLOVER. 151 are usually found at the proper season ; for the sheep is a close feeder, and likes to range on knolls and hills. Along with the golden plover, and apparently intimately associated with them and forming part of the flocks, comes the cur- lew, another handsome and delicious bird. It is a little larger than the golden plover, stouter in build, and gray in color. In size and shape the curlew resembles a well-grown woodcock, but with longer wings and a thimier head. It has a bill about two inches long, curved in shape, and is not so high on the leg as its companion, the golden plover. They may be easily distinguished from each other when the flock is on the ground, and also when in flight. The curlew affords as good sport to the shooter as the plover, and the epi- cure, who really knows how good it is, esteems it as a dish dainty and delicate as the golden plover itself, though, perhaps, not quite so delicious as the gray or upland plover, of which I shall treat further on. In the curlew there is no apparent difference between the male and female. In some flocks it will be found to be nearly as numerous as the plover, while in others the latter are in a large majority. When in the spring ploughing the rich soil of our prairie States is turned up, a vast 152 FIELD SHOOTING. number of fat worms are thrown to the surface. To pick up and feed upon these, the golden plover and curlew will be seen following the ploughman along the farrow. Sometimes they fly a little ahead of the plough and team, some- times abreast of them, and all the time some are wheeling and curling round and dropping in the furrow which has just been made. At such times these birds occasionally become so bold and tame that they come quite close to the horses, and I have known some to be knocked down and killed by the driving-boys with their whips. As a matter of course, this is rather uncommon ; but their boldness and tameness, when ploughing is going on, is in strong contrast to their timidity and wariness on other occasions. They seem to be sagacious enough to know that where the men and teams are ploughing there can be no shooting, and they take advantage of that fact. The best places for shooting golden plover and curlew in the earlier part of their stay with us are the burnt ground of the prairies, where the grass is beginning to quicken, and those close- eaten and bare spots in the pastures of which I have made mention. It will be best, when going for these birds, to take a dog to bring in wounded GOLDEN PLOVER, CURLEW, GRAY PLOVER. 1 ~)o ones. At their first arrival the flocks of plover and curlew are rather wild and difficult to get at. In their sojourn on, and long flights from, the plains of Texas across Arkansas, and along the Mississippi River to Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, and Kansas, they have not been accustomed to the neighborhood of men, and at first they are shy. But if not shot at and frequently disturbed, they soon get tame, and may be approached. But some knowledge of their habits and some craft are always requisite in order to get good chances at these shifty and cunning birds. On some days the flocks will be much on the wing, flying from one field to another, and all going in one direction, as wild pigeons do. At such times the shooter may take a stand in the line of flight, and get fair shooting all day as the flocks go over. It is not necessary to hide altogether ; in fact, in these localities — the burnt prairies and great pas- tures — there is seldom the means to do so; but it is often desirable to lie down. Here again it must be observed that it is of no use to lie down in clothes strongly in contrast as to color with the ground or grass. The golden plover and curlew are low-flying birds, and, when lying down in about the line of flight, the shooter may 154 TIELD SHOOTING. sometimes get a side shot at a large, close flock, and kill eight or ten with his two barrels. Some- times the birds skim on not above four or five feet from the ground. At other times they fly pretty high, but within fair shot; and when one- barrel of the gun is discharged, the whole flock will come swooping down towards the earth, as if the shot had killed them all. In that case it is very difficult to put in the second barrel with good effect. When they fly low and present side shots is the most favorable time to pepper them. At the shooting on the pastures where the birds have made their temporary home it will sometimes be found that the golden plover and curlew are not flying in flocks in one direction in such a manner that you can select a place in the line of flight. It is then best to go with a horse and buggy. The horse should be a steady one, so as to stand fire, and should also be capable of going at a good rate, as speed is one of the elements of success in driving for plover. The birds will be seen flying about in various directions over the wide pasture, and settled in bunches on it. When put on the wing at such times, they always settle in a cluster nearly close together, and put up their head as though taking GOLDEN PLOVER, CURLEW, GRAY PLOVER. 155 a survey of the ground. When they do this at a proper distance, the horse must be put to a swift trot in such a direction as you would take if going past the plover on your own sharp business. Judge the ground and estimate the distance, so that when you are abreast of the flock it will be within shot. The birds, in such a case, will not rise until the horse stops, and sometimes, if the shooter is quick and prompt, he may get a crack at them with one barrel just as they are upon the point of leaving the ground, and before they are actually on the wing. When a shot can be got while they are thus huddled together, many may be killed. There is no scruple about shooting at these birds in this manner among sportsmen, but few have the art and promptness to manage it. The horse must be fast. He must trot up at a swift pace. You must judge the distance nicely, for you cannot swerve out of the line and in upon the birds with- out causing them to take wing. Finally, the horse must be one that will obey a light touch of the rein, and stop rather suddenly without a jerk. When shooting plover on foot at such times as they are acting after the habit described above, the sportsman must follow the same plan in 15(3 FIELD shooting;. principle. Instead of driving up, as if going by, he must run fast, as if intending to jDass, and must not incline his course in towards the flock. These "birds seem to act as if they reasoned and arrived at certain conclusions. These conclusions ■would be correct enough if the craft of the man "were not exerted to deceive them by false appear- ances. When the shooter is abreast of the flock, he must come to a stop, and, making a quarter- whirl, fire quickly. He must be quick, for the moment he stops in his forward course up gets the flock. I never knew a man who would not thus circumvent and shoot among a flock of golden plover and curlew in this manner, if he had the skill to achieve an opportunity to do so. I have heard men say they never killed any plover except on. the wing. I can readily believe it ; and will add, very few in any way. All I can say is that I should not like to be the plover when these parties had a chance to put in a barrel under such circumstances as those above described. The horse and buggy is the easiest way to go to work, and that itself is somewhat difficult. The man who undertakes to run up must be swift of foot, good in the wind, and so steady of nerve that he will not be flustered and his hand will not shake GOLDEN PLOVER, CURLEW, GRAY PLOVER. 157 when he stops suddenly and whirls to shoot. When, by a shot at the flock on the wing, two or three of the plover or curlew are crippled, the others will circle round them, and often offer chances for capital shots. The breech-loading gun is in- valuable in such circumstances as these. On one such occasion I remember having killed forty-two golden plover and curlew, all shot on the wing, before I picked up one of them. Many a time 1 have killed as many as fourteen or fifteen without lifting a bird, there being opportunities to load and fire again and again while the plover swept and circled over the dead and wounded of their own flock. Sometimes the flocks of golden plover and curlew are so numerous in a neighborhood, so largo in extent, and fly in such a way, that a great number may be killed in a short time. I remem- ber one such time well. It is now twelve years ago, and at that period there was a great deal of unbroken prairie in the neighborhood of Elkhart. I started out after dinner from that place, and drove two miles into the prairie. It had just been burned over, and large flocks of plover and curlew were coming in one after the other. That after- noon I killed two ' hundred and sixty-four plover and curlew, and got back to Elkhart at sundown. 158 FIELD SHOOTING. I got a few sitting shots on that occasion, but the vast majority of the birds were killed on the wing, while ■ circling round their wounded com- panions. This was done with a muzzle-loader. "With a good breech-loader and plenty of cart- ridges I believe I could have killed five hundred birds that afternoon. Much of the prairie about there, which was then unbroken, has been broken up, and is now wheat, corn, and oat land. The golden plover and curlew are not as numerous in that neighborhood now as they were then. Still, there are plenty of them in the right season of the year. Of late years I have generally killed from fifty to two hundred plover and curlew a day when out after them especially. This means golden plover, as I never shoot the gray or grass plover in the spring, for a reason I shall presently advance. My bag has seldom been less than fifty, and not often as high as two hundred, and I have commonly shot right along during the season, pre- ferring to do so rather than to go after snipe to the Sangamon and Salt Creek bottoms. The golden plover and curlew are highly esteemed by the high-livers of the cities. There is a constant demand for them at Chicago, and good prices are obtained when they first come in. GOLDEN PLOVER, CURLEW, GRAY PLOVER. 15!> Golden plover and curlew may be found almost anywhere in the prairie States in April. As I stated briefly in the chapters on pinnated grouse, I once went on a three months' shooting-excursion to Christian County, Illinois, starting about the first of February. My shooting companion was a hunter named Joe Phillips, and we had for camp-keeper a lively, jovial fellow named Ben Powell. The. latter has acted as camp-keeper for me many years. We pitched our tent about a couple of miles from the town of Assumption, and the report was soon spread in that primitive Western village that we were a band of gipsies. One evening a bevy of brown, blushing girls ar- rived at the camp and demanded information as to where the gipsy women were.. They wanted to have their fortunes told, and could hardly be persuaded that we were simply hunters and of the same race of people as themselves. After- wards some of the men of the village came, and, in conversation with Powell during the absence of Phillips and myself, boasted of a great shot they had among them. The people of the region were almost all agriculturists and herdsmen, and as for shooting game on the wing, they hardly knew what it was. The man, who had settled 100 FIELD SHOOTING. among them from a distance, professed himself a great pigeon-shot. Powell listened to the wonders this man could perform, and then enquired whether they would like to back him to shoot pigeons against one of the field-shooters of our party. They said they would, and the preliminaries of a match were arranged, in which Powell was to put up our team of ponies and wagon against a hundred dollars cash on the other side. But the .match was not confirmed ; for while the discussion was still going on Phillips, and I returned to camp from our hunt, and this broke it off. One of the Assumption men had seen me before somewhere, and had heard my shooting well spoken of. lie caused his townsmen to draw back. I have no idea that the man they spoke of was much of a shot. lie very likely could not kill sixty birds in a hundred at eighteen yards rise. During the time we shot in Christian County Phillips and 1 kept separate accounts of the game we killed. In the three months I killed with my own gun over six thousand head of game-birds. They included pinnated grouse, brant, geese, ducks, cranes, golden plover and curlew, snipe, and a few sand-snipe. The largest number were golden plo- ver and curlew, and the next on the list was snipe. GOLDEN PLOVER, CURLEW, GRAY PLOVER. 161 On that occasion, in one afternoon, I killed sev- enty-nine clucks, brant, and Canada geese; and Phillips made a good bag the same day. It sometimes Dills out so that waterfowl or other birds of pursuit are so numerous and act in such a way that a very large number may be killed. These occasions do not happen, however, very often. After the golden plover and curlew have re- mained with us some time in the spring, they are no longer seen in large flocks, but are found scattered and distributed over the country in small companies numbering from three or four to twelve. Early in the morning these companies are found on the bare pastures. By eight or nine in the morning they will have gone to the arable land, and are following the plough in the furrow. After they have partially dispersed in this manner they fly very fast, and then they are exceedingly good practice for the skilful shooter. The man who can make nearly certain of his single plover, flying swift, as they do, after the large flocks have broken up and scattered, is a good man at any kind of shooting. I prefer it to any other kind of practice. Before shooting against Abraham Kleinman for the championship 1G2 FIELD SHOOTING. badge of the United States, at one hundred pigeons each, I took two weeks' practice at plo- ver. They were then scattered, and 1 shot at none but single birds. The practice was of much ser- vice, as the plover flew very swift and did not present a large mark. From what I could do with them in the field I was satisfied I should win the match, and it so turned out. I killed the whole of the hundred pigeons in the match ; ninety-three of them were scored to me, and the other seven fell dead out of bounds. From the time the great flocks of plover scatter, which is sometimes as early as the twentieth of April, practice at single, fast-flying birds, such as I have mentioned, may be had until they go north to their breeding-grounds in the higher latitudes. We now come to the upland or highland, grass, gray, or whistling plover, which, according to scientific naturalists, is no plover at all, strictly speaking, but a bird of similar habits and ap- pearance, called Bartram's tatler. As it is known among sportsmen as a plover only, I shall call it one. This bird is a little larger than the golden plover, and a little longer in the leg; it is also more upright and has a longer neck than the other. Its color is gray. It is a very GOLDEN PLOVER, CURLEW, GRAY PLOVER. 1G3 handsome bird, and neither the woods, the fields, nor the waters of the American continent supply a more delicious repast than is afforded by a dish of these rich and delicate birds. They winter upon the great plains of Mexico and Texas, upon both banks of the Rio Grande, and are in large numbers, though not so numerous as the golden plover and curlew. The upland plover is the last of the spring migrants from the south, and when it is seen with us we may safely predict that there will be no more cold weather. Its arrival in the prairie States is generally ten days later than that of the first of the united flocks of golden plover and cur- lew. While it lingers longer in the south than they, there is a corresponding difference in the limits of its visits to the north. They go on to higher latitudes to breed, after having stayed about a month with us. The upland plover breeds with us, though many, no doubt, go far north of Illinois to do so. Indeed, it is found in the summer in Minnesota, and Manitoba, in the British Territory. The upland plover makes a soft, whistling noise when put up, reminding one of Burns's ■ ' Full-toned plover gray, Wild whistling o'er the hill." 164 FIELD SHOOTING. It is a dodging, cunning bird, but, when it first arrives in the latter part of April, it is very tame and very easily shot. I never shoot it at that season, and no one ought to do so ; for the birds are ready to pair as soon as they reach their breeding-grounds on our prairies. It builds in the grass of the prairie pastures, on the ground, its nest being made of dead grass, and commonly under a tussock. The eggs are a pale, bluish green, freckled with brown, and I do not think the. hen usually lays more than three. I have a sort of remembrance that I have seen nests with four eggs in them, but I made no notes of them at the time, and am not quite certain. The young birds grow fast, and get fat on abun- dance of grasshoppers and other insects which swarm in the hot months with us. About the first of Sej^tember the upland plover, young and old, are fine, plump birds, and are far more diffi- cult to shoot than the breeding-birds were when they reached the Western States in the spring. In the fall they are wild and wary, full of craft and cunning, and hardly to be approached by a man on foot, especially if he has a gun. Almost the only way to get near enough to them to shoot is by means of a horse and buggy. GOLDEN PLOVER, CURLEW, GRAY PLOVER. 1G5 They arc to be found in scattered group.-;, we may say thin flocks, on pastures and meadows that have been mowee[. The upland plover in its flight takes much more open order than the golden plover and cifrlew, though still keeping a sort of companionship, and it docs not settle in clusters, as is the habit of those birds. They run, scattering about over the pastures and mea- dows, catching grasshoppers and such like insects, and, when put up, they fly off swift, in open or- der, well spread out. The sportsman who is after them with the horse and buggy must pursue the same tactics as those mentioned in reference to shooting golden plover and curlew in the spring. The horse must go fast, and the man must shoot the moment he stops. I never try to step to, the ground, hut shoot from the buggy. It is best to have a companion when after these wild and wary birds. While one men lies down in a selected spot, the other drives round to the far side of the birds, and gets his shot if he can. Whether he does or not, the plover will be apt to fly over the man lying down. This is the only system which promises any success for men who are alter upland plover on foot in the fall of the year. It is of no use chasing after them 106 FIELD SHOOTING. over the meadows and pastures, in hopes to get near enough for a shot. Sand-snipe and grass snipe (so-called in the West) are not snipe, but some sorts of tatlers or sand-pipers. They resemble the plover, but are smaller, being only about the size of a true snipe. The sand-snipe has a whitish breast; the grass-snipe is a gray bird. They come about the same time as golden plover and curlew, and in pretty large flocks. In dry seasons these flocks appear to unite, two or three making but one, and then they are in very large numbers together. They are nice, plump birds, as good to cat as plover, and easy to get at. However, good as they are, few people shoot them, and it is easy enough to get within range of a flock of them. They frequent marshy ground, such as the true snipe likes. Unlike the latter, however, they fly in flocks, and settle down, clustered together, on the muddy edges of sloughs and little water-holes, which they see while crossing the prairie on the wing. Once, when I was out shooting golden plo- ver and curlew, 1 saw a great flock of these smaller birds in a marshy spot near a little j>ond. 1 thought they were plover, but as I neared them the flock rose, and then I saw it Mas a vast col- UOLDKN l'LOVKR, CURLEW, GRAY PLOVER. 167 lection of sand-snipe. It was a dry season, and, as is then their wont, they had gathered into great flocks. They flew around, and finally settled again. I do not usually trouble myself with this bird, for nobody seems to care about it, although it is as good eating as the snipe itself, for all the long bill of the latter; but as I had come down to them, 1 concluded to take a crack at the flock. It was certainly as much as five hundred in num- ber. So I let fly with one barrel charged with No. 10, and, making a raking shot over the ground, killed fifty-four. If game were scarce with us, as it is in some parts, sand-snipe and grass-snipe would be held in esteem, CHAPTER X. WILD DUCKS AND WESTERN DUCK-SHOOTING. The best of the ducks which are found in the Western States are Canvas-backs, Redheads, Mal- lards, Pintails, Blue-bells, Blue and Green winged Teal, Widgeon, and Black Ducks. There are also Wood-ducks, which, though most beautiful in plu- mage, are not very fine on the table. Some are, however, shot for the sake of their feathers, which are exported to England, where the brilliant hues of part of their plumage are used in the manu- facture of artificial flies for salmon and trout fish- ing. And besides the species mentioned above, there are two or three ducks of other sorts, which, being scarce and comparatively worthless, are of no account to the sportsman, and need not be further alluded to in this work. The wood-duck breeds in Illinois and the other Western States along the rivers and creeks, and always in or on the edge of timber. It is rather numerous along the Sangamon and the shores of Salt Creek. They make their nests in hollows of trees, and are the 163 AVILD DUCKS AND WESTERN DUCK-SHOOTING. 1(59 only kind of ducks which, to my knowledge, ever alight in trees. It is very beautiful, having gor- geous plumage, with a topknot on the head. The female hatches from eight to twelve young in a brood, and carries them off one by one to the water. The wood-duck is short, small, and stout, weighing about a pound and a half, and is not much prized for the table. It is very swift in flight, and can go through timber like a wild pigeon or a ruffed grouse. Of the ducks to be found with us, the most numerous, and perhaps the best, is the mallard. I consider it quite equal to the canvas-back in juiciness and flavor, and also to the redhead or pochard. Jt is true that so much has been writ- ten and said about the unrivalled excellence of the canvas-back that it may seem heretical to main- tain that the mallard is as good. Such, however, is my own conviction; and though some say that the canvas-backs of the West have not the pecu- liar flavor of those procured on the sea-coast in shallow waters, others, whose experience of them in both localities is large, say this is an error, arising from prejudice and imagination. The edi- tor of this work states some facts which go to fortify me in my opinion. lie says that when 170 FIELD SHOOTING. Senator Pugh was in Washington, representing the State of Ohio, this question of the superiority of the canvas-backs of the East over those which had fed and got fat on the wild rice and wild celery of the West was mooted at a supper in which canvas-backs were the chief dish. All those practically unacquainted with the Western ducks laughed at the notion that they could compare in excellence with those of Maryland. Mr. Pugh was rather deaf, as he always has been, but he seems to have heard the observations in question, though he did not contradict them then. He wrote, however, to a friend of his, then collector at San- dusky, on the shallow bay of that name in Lake Erie, a noted resort for Western wild fowl, re- questing him to send to Washington a few couple of fat canvas-backs. In due time they arrived, and the gentlemen of the party who had met before were invited by the senator to supper. He had procured some fine canvas-backs from Baltimore, and he took good care his guests K should know it. But before the ducks were cooked those from Ohio were substituted for those of the Patapsco. They were served up, eaten with groat relish, and the usual paeans of praise, and not, a man at the table except Senator Pugh WILD DUCKS AN'l) Wi:sTERNT DUCK-SIIOOTINO, 171 knew that they had feasted on Western ducks until told so the next day. Even then they were hardly convinced. Another matter in this connec- tion is that the very able and well-informed author, Dr. Sharpless, of Philadelphia, stated that he could never distinguish much difference in flavor between canvas-backs and redheads, and that many of the latter were sold as canvas-backs and eaten as such by those who professed to know all about the divine flavor. The editor of this work has often received canvas-back ducks from Mr. Saliagnac, of Philadelphia, who rents shootings on the coast. The canvas-backs sent to him by that gentleman were in truth very excellent, but neither he nor any one else who partook of them thought them superior to some mallards which had been killed in a wheat-stubble in Iowa, and were sent on as a present by Mr. James Bruce, of Keokuk, now of St. Louis, Missouri. Moreover, Mr. Saliagnac himself, great sportsman and en- thusiastic admirer of canvas-backs as he is, told the editor that his breed of tame ducks, the large, white upland Muscovy, were just about as fine eating as canvas-backs when fattened and killed at the right time, and cooked in the same way. Of course all this will be hooted at by those 172 FIELD BIIOOTING, who have made the wonderful, exquisite, unparal- leled excellence of the canvas-back a matter of superstition. It is indeed as excellent as any duck, and for luscious richness the ducks at least equal any other description of bird. The canvas- back is a great deal better in proportion to the praises heaped upon it than the brook-trout is ; for whatever sport they may give to the angler, the " speckled beauties " are nothing like as good to eat as many other fish not thought much of. [Fashion, however, goes a great way in these mat- ters, and few are as candid as the Irishman, who, having gone some distance in a sedan-chair with- out a seat, replied, in answer to the question how he liked it : " Faith, but for the name of the thing I might as well have walked ! " The mallards winter in the south for the most part, though a few remain on the Sangamon all the cold season, unless the weather is very in- tense and the frost so long continued and rigid as to freeze up all the springy pools of th&t river. When they come north in the spring, a few remain with us and make their nests in the Winnebago Swamp and the bottoms of the San- gamon River and Salt Creek. But the vast ma- WILD DUCKS AND WESTERN DUCK-SHOOTINQ. 173 jority, after remaining with ns some time, go still further north to breed and rear their young. Their northern limit is in a very high latitude. The mallard is the most beautiful of all ducks, except the wood-duck, and naturalists are agreed that the common breeds of domesticated ducks have sprung from the former. It crosses readily enough with tame ducks, to my knowledge, and the produce of the cross are prolific, though wild and apt to go away with the wild mallards in the fall. The mallards with us make their nests about the middle of April in an average season. When out snipe-shooting about the 1st of May, I have found mallards' nests already containing seven or eight eggs. The nests are built near the water in some secluded marsh or lonely swamp, on tussocks of grass near the edges of sloughs, and m wet river-bottoms. And some- times I have found the nest of the mallard on the margin of a pond in the prairie or the pasture fields. The nest is nicely made of dry grass and sedge, and by the time the female is ready to sit it is lined with soft, loose feathers, just as the nest of the tame duck is. The es^s are from twelve to sixteen in number, in color of a greenish blue cast, and very much like those 174 FIELD SHOOTING. of the tame clucks which lay greenish blue eggs. The eggs of some sorts of tame clucks are a shining white, as if glazed. The broods of young mallards, the flappers, are first seen about the 10th of June. There are commonly from eight to twelve in a brood. The little things are active and cunning from the first. If they are pursued, they dart swiftly under water, and, swimming beneath to the bank, just put their bills above the surface and lie quiet. When they are some- what bigger, they go out upon the margins of the streams and ponds, and hide in the grass. About the middle of October the young mal- lards are full grown and well feathered so as to be able to flv fast and far. The drake is a little larger than the cluck, and a large one will weigh nearly three pounds. Widgeon and the two kinds of teal also breed with us to some extent, but their nests are seldom found. In the Winnebago Swamp there are a few nests of the broadbill or spoonbill. The pintail does not breed with us, and 1 believe not on this side of the arctic regions. If the winter is broken, the ducks begin to arrive from the south by the middle of Feb- ruary, and in an early spring they are found in WILD DUCKS AND WESTERN DUCK-SHOOTING. 175 thousands by tho 1st of March. When they first come to the prairie States in the spring, they are in poor condition, but after feeding about tho corn-fields a short time they become plump and fat. Ducks, wild and tame alike, are great feed- ers, and will be found eating in the evening long after other birds have gone to roost. The mallards and pintails fly from their roosting- places on the water to the fields at early morn- ing, and on wet, cloudy days remain in the corn-fields all day. They are so numerous that the fields appear at such times to have ducks scattered all over them. On clear days they do not remain in the fields on the feed all day, but return to their haunts on the water about nine or ten o'clock. In the afternoon they fly to the corn-fields again about three or four o'clock, when they first come from the south; but after being with us some time their evening flight to the fields is not made till sundown, and some- times not till it is nearly dark. The mallards are then paired off, but not so the pintails. When not in the corn-fields, both kinds are about rivers and ponds. The blue-winged teal and the green-winged, with the widsreon, use more about sloughs and 17(> fip:ld choctist;. streams. They do not come into the corn-fields much, and are shot along rivers and creeks. I have, however, seen these small ducks flying to the corn-fields when it was nearly dark. At times, when ponds in corn-fields are enlarged by rains, and the low j)laces in the fields are overflowed, many teal resort to them. From such places, at break of day, I have often put up hundreds of teal and hundreds of other kinds of ducks. A great many teal and small ducks, such as blue- bills, are shot on the Calumet River, and Abe Kleinman gets his full share of them. Mallards, canvas-backs, and red-heads are sometimes shot there too, but the smaller ducks are those which commonly prevail. The spring ducks remain with us from four to five weeks, but after the great multitudes have gone north some straggling parties still remain. Mallards pair by the middle of March, and the teal next. The other kinds of ducks are later, and I do not think they have paired up to the time of their leaving our lati- tudes for the higher ones in which they breed in most cases. About the last of September the ducks begin to arrive from their breeding-grounds in the far north. Some are seen before 1hat time, but they WILD DUCKS AND WESTERN DUCK-SHOOTING. 177 are those which have stopped with us to breed, and the broods they have produced. There is no great abundance from the arrivals until pretty sharp frosts have set in, which is generally about the middle of October, but some seasons not till later. Still the main body seems to hold off, and it is not until cold weather has set in fairly that the ducks come in vast numbers. Then they may be heard all night flying to the south- ward in large flocks, and a great many alight and tarry by the way. Sometimes the whole country appears to swarm with them. In places on the prairies and the great pastures where corn in the ear is dumped down by wagon- loads to feed bullocks, I have seen acres thickly covered with Canada geese, brant geese, mallards, and pintails. As a rule, shooting is not allowed in such places, because it scares the cattle ; but the owners and herdsmen have some- times shifted their droves to another place, in order to give me a chance to shoot the wild fowl congregated thereabouts. Then I have had grand spots. The fall ducks remain until the country is mostly frozen up ; and in an open fall they are with us in large numbers until nearly Christmas. ITS FIELD SHOOTIXG. Some mallards stay on the Sangamon all the winter, unless the season happens to be particu- larly severe and the cold very steady and in- tense. When the fall ducks arrive, they are in fine condition, having fed on the wild rice of the north, and the young mallards are delicious eating at that time. I know of nothing better, and of hardly anything else as good. Duck-shooting is often rough, wet work. About the rivers and sloughs it is necessary to be more or less in the water, unless the shooter has a boat; besides which, the ducks secured are necessarily wet and draggled. Shooting ducks in the corn-fields, as they come to feed, is differ- ent. The shooter can usually manage to keep tolerably dry, and the ducks shot fall on the ground instead of in the water. But even then it requires considerable fortitude and much skill and patience. People who want to sit by the fire on cold, wet days, when the wind blows strong and keen, are not cut out for duck- shooters. When I go out for duck-shooting on their feeding-grounds, I first ascertain by observa- tion the fields they are flying to and from, and the places they cross the bounds at. Ducks are like sheep in some respects. Whore one flock flics WILD DUCKS AND WESTERN DUCK-SHOOTING. 179 the others follow, keeping the same general route, unless they see something to make them swerve from it. 1 then select the best spot I can find to lie down in — that is, the one most screened from ob- servation and beneath the line of flight. A rub- ber blanket being spread, down I go on my back, in clothes the color of the grass or ground I lie on. This is an essential point. It is useless to expect the ducks to continue their flight over an object in dark clothes lying upon faded grass, or over a man in light clothes lying upon black ground. My shooting suit is corduroy, with a cap of the same ; and as it is about the color of the grass, corn- stalks, and weeds late in the fall, it answers very well. If the shooter has no corduroy clothes, let him wear a linen duster over his dark clothes. The latter may do very well for a patch of black ground in a corn-field, or a dark ground at a crossing-place ; but usually corduroy can be made to suit anywhere by a little care in selection, because dead grass and weeds nearly everywhere prevail. A man in dark clothes by a pond in the prairie would not get a duck in a day, no matter how numerous they might be in the neighborhood. Ducks are wary birds and very far-sighted. But some men seem to believe that 180 FIELD SHOOTING. the ducks are as foolish and as thoughtless as themselves. They post themselves in places where the color of their clothes is in strong contrast with everything else around ; and when the ducks sheer off wide as soon as they see them, the shooters in question blaze away out of distance, and never touch a feather. I have been out with men under circumstances in which they said that the ducks all came to me as if they knew me. The simple cause of it was that I lay down in a suit of • corduroy, and they were stretched out in clothes black enough for a funeral. If a man going to shoot ducks on the prairie, by the ponds and sloughs, has no corduroy clothes and no duster, let him go to the grocery- store and get a coffee-sack or two to make a smock. That material is just the right color. In regard to corn-fields, it must be noted that the ducks appear to frequent those most in which the stalks are broken down. In these no blind can be made. If one is made, the ducks will not come near it. The shooter must be down on his back, his feet towards the quarter from which the ducks are coming, and wait until they get over him. In a field where the corn-stalks are still standing a thin blind may be made of them, but WILD DUCKS AND WESTERN DUCK-SHOOTING. 181 more ducks, other things being equal, will be killed in the broken-down corn without a blind than in the other with one. When the shooter sees the ducks coming, he must not move himself, nor must he move his gun, which young beginners always have a strong inclination to do. If the man moves, the ducks approaching in the air see his movement. If the gun is moved, they catch the glance of the light upon it in time to sheer off' and balk the idle discharge of the too im- patient shooter. When the ducks are seen com ing, the man on the ground should lie quite still until they are over him, or almost over him. He should then rise quickly to a sitting posture, at which they will check their forward flight, and tower up into the air. That is the right time to shoot — I may say the only time, in this descrip- tion of the sport, in which there is a real good chance of killing. He who is trying for ducks in this way must not expect to be able to get on his feet to shoot. If he tries to do so, he will kill no ducks. He who cannot rise to a sitting posture from his back and shoot that way must wait for the ducks on his hands and knees, and shoot kneeling. It does not much matter which of those modes is adopted — although lying on the 182 FIELD SHOOTING. back is the best of the two — but it is essential that the shooter should make no move until the ducks are nearly over him. It is also abso- lutely necessary that his clothes should be of the color of the ground he lies on, for otherwise the ducks never will be over him. I have killed many thousands, and consider these to be the great points upon which the sport depends. When there is snow on the ground, the overdress of the shooter should be white, or nearly white, and a white handkerchief should be tied over his cap. At times when there is snow on the ground the ducks resort largely to the corn-fields, and the sport in them at such times is usually very good, provided the shooters carry it on in the right way. CHAPTER XI. DUCKS AND WESTERN DUCK-SHOOTING. In the spring of the year, after the ducks have come from their wintering-places, there is often some very cold weather, and, though all but the running streams are frozen over, the wild fowl never go back again, if they can possibly avoid it. Their instinct is very strong against turning to the southward at that season of the year. At such times, and at any other times, when the ice is thick, a good blind may be built of it near the open water, and much sport may be had. The shooter must of course expect to be cold, and he will be very cold while waiting for ducks in hard weather, especially when he waits a long time in vam. But the coming in of the ducks in good nights raises the spirits, stimulates the circulation of the blood, and revives the warmth of the body. I have sometimes got so cold that I could hardly charge my muzzle-loading gun ; but good sport soon changed that. The shooting along the Illi- 183 184 FIELD SHOOTING. nois River is very good indeed, and there are more canvas-backs and red-heads there than there are about the Sangamon or in the neighborhood of Elkhart; but my favorite among ducks, whether for sport or the table, is the plump, heavy, beauti- ful mallard. As I remarked before in alluding to the color of the duck-shooter's clothes, ducks know a good deal more than some of the men who go after them. You may see some of the latter select for their shooting-place a corn-field in which the stalks are all broken down, and there they go to work and build a standing blind of the stalks. " In vain is the net of the fowler spread in sight of the bird." The ducks have probably flown over that field dozens of times, and notic- ing this blind — a thing there new and strange — they sheer off from it instead of flying on to go over it or near it, and the man inside of it gets no shots within killing distance. When I see that a man has built a blind in such a place, I just take advantage of his ignorance and folly by going and lying down some hundred and fifty or two hundred yards on one side of it. All the ducks that sheer off from it on that side I get a shot at. In this way I have often DUCES AND WESTERN DUCK-SHOOTING. 185 killed twenty or thirty, while the man in the blind never got a duck. Sometimes the man in the blind seeing this would make shots out of all distance, more for the purpose of scaring the ducks from me than with any hope of bringing them down himself. When that has been the case, I have left him to his own devices, and gone to another part of the field altogether. It is necessary to remark for the information of Eastern readers that the corn-fields of Illinois are commonly very large, and not like the small enclosures of the Atlantic States. The former sometimes con- tain as much as a thousand acres without any intervening fence. Production on this great scale tends to keep game plentiful in two or three ways. The farm-houses are far apart, which is one thing. As long as the corn-stalks are stand- ing green these fields afford capital cover for pinnated grouse and quail, as remarked hereto- fore. Another thing is that they afford abundance of food for grouse, quail, turkeys, geese, ducks, etc. Some parts of the summer the birds get a plentiful supply of insects in the corn. In the fall of the year and winter, and in the following spring, the grouse, geese, and ducks feed largely on the corn itself, there being always some scat- 186 FIELD SHOOTING. tered about, even in the fields from which the ears have been hauled off. Duck-shooting in the corn-fields in the fall is fine, pleasant sport. At that season many of the stalks are still standing, and plenty of places may be found to hide. Besides, the ducks are not then very wild, and the majority of them are young birds which, not having been shot at a- great deal, are not as wary as the old stagers, who remember the shooting on their passage north in the spring. An excellent place at this time of the year is on the windward side of an Osage orange hedge, near where they cross on their way to feed. When the w T ind is blow- ing against them, ducks fly low. With the wind nearly dead ahead of them, the shooter on the windward side of the hedge will get plenty of shots at low-flying ducks as they come over, and need not take the trouble to lie down in the corn at those times. Rainy, misty, windy wea- ther is the best of weather for this method. On such days the ducks are flying low and going into and out of the corn-fields all day. In clear weather they fly higher, but still low in their evening flights, coming out to feed. Sometimes the flocks will be seen high in the air, as if DUCKS AND WESTERN DUCK-SHOOTING. 187 setting out on a long migratory flight ; but com- ing over a corn-field, they will sail around, shut their 'wings, and come sloping to the ground. Ducks generally sweep round in a circle before settling down. A pond or little slough in a corn-field is a capital place to lie for ducks. The shooter must lie down on the bank, as in other places. I have killed from three to four dozen ducks in an evening's shooting in a corn- field, and that often. One thing I have noticed which will be of great importance to beginners in duck-shooting. It is that they always seem to be nearer than they really are when in flight. Allowance must be made by the shooter for this deceptiveness of appearance as to distance. When I have killed a duck, I have often been surprised to find how far it fell from me. One that seemed to be but thirty yards off would turn out to be forty-five. It was not the momen- tum of flight after being hit that could account for this, as such ducks had commonly stopped in their forward progress, and were towering up when shot at. Ducks also seem to be lower than they really are when seen in flight, and this is especi- ally the case in some sorts of weather. In some states of the atmosphere they will seem to be 188 FIELD SHOOTING. much nearer than at other times when the dis- tance is actually the same. In nine cases out of ten, when a man shoots at ducks flying over him, they are higher in the air than he believes them to be. I have often seen men fire at ducks which "were so high and so far off that tho flock -would not change its direction at the re- port, and just kept on, seemingly looking down contemptuously on the foolish shooter. In the spring of the year and late in fall, when the ducks are heavily feathered, a side shot is best for penetration, as it may take effect under the wing*. When shooting from a blind, it is best to let the ducks pass a little before firing. When the shooter is lying on the ground, the turn made by the ducks as they tower up gives better chance of penetration; but the grand secret of penetration is a hard-hitting gun of good weight and calibre, and plenty of powder. In the prairies there are many ponds and sloughs, and the waters are generally well up in them when the prime of the time for shooting ducks comes in the spring and fall. At such places it is advisable to use decoys, and with these well set out a man may shoot on and off all clay when the ducks are flying about. Wooden DUCKS AND WESTERN DUCK-SHOOTING. 189 decoys, painted to represent ducks, are used by many people, but I prefer something different, more natural than the joiner and painter can turn out. I have killed hundreds of dozens of ducks shooting over decoys, and the best I ever used were tame ducks of the color of the mallard. Three of these, a drake and two ducks, I used to fit with a piece of leather on the leg, and a string five or six yards long for each. I then staked them out in shallow water, so that they could not come nearer than four or five feet of the bank, and lay down. They were, in my opinion, much better than any dead decoy, whe- ther duck or wood. After being used as decoys for some time these ducks seemed to under- stand what was required of them, and to enter into the business with interest. They would swim about and play, and I had one pair that would call to the wild mallards w r hen they saw them going over. The next best thing to these tame live decoys for the waters of which I am writing is the dead mallard itself. As soon as I got a couple, when not employing the tame ducks, I put them out, and sometimes I have had as many as fif- teen dead ducks out as decoys together. Sue- 190 FIELD SHOOTING. cess greatly depends upon the way in which they are- set out ; though set out in the most artful and natural manner, they are not as effectual as tame ducks of the mallard color, because these last swim about, and the ducks flying above see them in motion. I have sometimes killed as many as seventy or eighty ducks in a day's shooting with decoys of dead ducks. My method of setting them out was as follows : Having killed the duck and got him on the bank, take a stick, or, on the prairie where there are no sticks, a reed, or the stalk of a strong weed, which is there big and stiff. Sharpen one end to a point, which insert under the skin of the duck's breast and along up the neck, just beneath the skin, into the head. Do this so that the head holds a natural position to the body, and the neck is not awry. Then wade out and plant the other end of the stick in the mud over which there is a foot of water or a little more. The body of the duck must then rest on the water, as that of a live duck does, and, after having smoothed the feathers nicely, the shooter returns to his lying-down place on the bank. It is best to keep on setting these dead decoys until you have seven or eight out ; and if you largely in- DUCKS AND WESTERN DUCK-SHOOTING. 191 crease the number, it will be simply all the bet- ter. I make no blind by the pond or slough, but lie on the grass, unless there is brush or a growth of willow to hide in. Neither do I ever wait for the ducks to settle, but shoot while they are still on the wing. One day at Skunk's Island, in the great Winnebago Swamp, I killed a hun- dred and thirty ducks over dead-duck decoys set out after the plan I have described, and in that clay's shooting I never hid at all. I sat on a muskrat-house all the time, sometimes, however, lying down. It made no difference whether I lay or sat, for the ducks were flvino; thick, and in the humor to " come and be killed," as the old song has it, which says : " Old Mother Bond got up in a rage, Her pockets full of onions, her lap full of sage ; And she went to the pond, did old Mother Bond, Crying, 'Dill, dill, dill! dill, dill, dill! Come and be killed ! The guests are all met, their bellies must be filled.' " On the occasion to which I have alluded I was out of ammunition before night. It was late in the fall, when large flocks fly, and two or three ducks may sometimes be killed by one barrel. 102 FIELD SHOOTING. The j:)lace called the Inlet, at the east end of the swamp, some miles from Skunk's Island, is famous ground for ducks. The Winnebago Swamp is very extensive. What ii called the Outlet runs into Green Eiver, all along which stream there is very good duck-shooting. In the big pastures, which arc sometimes four or five miles long and one or two miles wide, there arc often jDonds at which the bullocks being fatted for market drink. At these ponds great shooting over decoys is often to be had. On Mr. Sullivant's great farm in Ford County there are many ponds and many extensive corn-fields, and 1 found last spring that the shoot- ing of ge'ese, ducks, and crane there was very good — so good that I mentally resolved to go there again next season. In two days' shooting, morn- ings and evenings, not over decoys, but as the wild fowl came to and went out of the corn-fields, I killed sixty-five mallards and pintails, mostly mallards, five brant geese, twenty sand-hill crane, and three large white crane. Yet I was told that the ducks and brant had mostly all gone north before 1 was there, and that they had been much more abundant than they were in the two days 1 shot. Mr. Sullivant's foreman saw my ducks and cranes at the station, and made his remarks DUCKS AND WESTERN DUCK-SHOOTING. 193 to this effect : " They said that as you were a pigeon-shooter, you would not be successful in the field. I have, however, seen no such lot as that at any time this season, and yet the ducks are now scarce to what they have been." This farm of Mr. Michael Sullivant's is the largest in Illinois, I think, and 1 am convinced that it is one of the best neighborhoods in the State for game. From what I saw, pinnated grouse abound, there are lots of quail, and in the mi- gratory seasons great flocks cf ducks, geese, brant, and cranes. The estate was purchased by Mr. Sullivant some years ago, when it was mostly un- broken prairie. It is eight miles square, contains about forty-four thousand acres, and twenty-six thousand acres of it have already been brought under cultivation. Twenty thousand acres of it were in corn last year, and I dare say more will be this year, while three thousand acres were in smaller grain, and three thousand in meadow-grass. Mr. Sullivant, the owner and farmer of this ex- tensive and fertile tract, was formerly the largest landowner in Franklin County, Ohio, and very likely is so still. His father was one of the first settlers near Columbus, the capital of Ohio: in fact, he lived just west of the Scioto River, op- 194 FIELD SHOOTING. positc where the State House now stands, before there was a house in Columbus at all; and his younger sons, Joseph and William, still reside in that city. The Illinois proprietor is the eldest son of the old pioneer. The family is famous for culture, enterprise, and the uncommon personal beauty of its members. They are a tall, power- ful, handsome race ; and probably in all the vast regions of the "West not a tribe excels this family, in all its branches, in stature, symmetry, strength, and beauty. Upon this Illinois farm there are three hundred miles of Osage orange hedges, which are yet young. Let the sportsmen remember what has been said of the hedges as affording nesting- places for game-birds, protection against hawks, and facilities for shooters, and they may conceive what these three hundred miles of hedges will do when they have grown tall and thick. Now to come back to the ducks. On the large streams, such as the Mississippi and Illinois rivers, it is commonly necessary for the duck-shooter to use a boat, and it is hardly practicable to use any but decoys of wood, painted to represent the sort of ducks expected. Upon these rivers I have killed canvas-backs, red-heads, mallards, and some few black or dusky ducks. DUCKS AND WESTERN DUOK-SIIOOTING. 195 I have not been out much on these large rivers, however, but have shot more in the corn-fields, on the sloughs and ponds about the prairies, in and about the Great Winnebago Swamp, and on the Sangamon and Salt Creek. Sometimes when a man is out after other sorts of shooting, espe- cially snipe, he will find that the ducks are in such numbers, and flying in such a way, that he may abandon his intended pursuit, and turn his attention to them. His shot will be smaller on such occasions than he would have* chosen for ducks ; but with plenty of powder to drive them at high velocities, he will get penetration, and bring the wild fowl down. Once upon Salt Creek, near where it fills into the Sangamon, I was out after snipe, and noticed that the mallards were flying in such a way as to afford a fine chance. 1 had nothing but No. 9 shot, but de- termined to try what could be done. This was in 1868. The edge of the creek was well timbered, and, choosing my post, I seated myself on a log among the trees and brush. There was a light snow on the bottoms some three inches deep, and the snipe had to get near the margins of the streams to feed. I could have killed a good bag of them, but the ducks offered a chance 196 FIELD SHOOTING. much too tempting to be neglected. 1 could not forego the opportunity, and sitting upon that log, and shooting as they flew until all my ammuni- tion was expended, I killed and secured ninety- five mallards. Some few, which fell on the other side of the creek, I did not get. With plenty of cartridges and a breech-loader I believe 1 could have killed two hundred ducks. They were all mallards. The date was April 7. Most of the mallards flew in pairs, and their route was towards the north. 1 have no doubt they were beginning their migratory flight from our neighborhood to the high latitudes. In hard, severe weather, when the wind is strong and keen-cutting, it is to be noted that ducks and other water-fowl are apt to seek the protection of the timber. At such times they will be found in creeks whose banks are well wooded, and about ponds hi the timber. In these places the shooter need not go to the trouble of build- ing a blind. There are in such situations so many old logs, stumps, etc., that if he sits down in clothes of the proper color, the ducks will not make him out in time to change the di- rection of their course in flight. Thus on the great day at Skunk's Island, in the Winnebago DUCKS AND WESTERN DUCK-SIIOOTIXG. U>? Swamp, and on that of Salt Creek, I had no blind, and did not hide myself in any particular manner. In the first case I sat on a muskrat house all the time ; in the second I was seated on an old log while all the shooting was done. It is, however, necessary that the shooter should keep still ; for the ducks will see any movement a long way off, and they know that stumps of trees and the like do not move. In cold weather, when the ducks seek the timber for shelter, they fly very fast ; he who can kill three out of every four shots he makes is a good marksman, and will have all the duck's he will want to carry far on his back. CHAPTER XII. WILD GEESE, CRANES, AND SWANS. Among the wild geese to be found in the spring and fall in the States of the great Mississippi Valley, there are at least two varieties which are common in the same seasons on the seaboard of the Atlantic States. These are the Canada goose, the common wild goose, known almost every- where, and the brant goose. But besides these, we have in the "Western States "yjast numbers of small geese of other varieties, which we commonly call Mexican geese. As many as three of these differ in their plumage, and, though found in the same flocks apparently, are no doubt the following : Hutchinson's Goose, the White -Fronted Goose, and the Snow Goose. As mentioned above, they are only known by Western sportsmen as Mexican geese. We have, then, five or six varieties of wild geese in Illinois, Iowa, etc. Of these the Canada goose is the largest and finest, and it used to be much the most numerous. It is a 198 WILD GEESE, CRANES, AND SWANS. 190 handsome bird, weighing when fat from ten to fourteen pounds. It winters in the south, and on its passage towards the north does not stay with us a great while, though a few remain all the summer, and I have seen the nest of this goose in the Winnebago Swamp. Their great breeding- grounds are far to the north of any of the habi- tations of white men, or even of Indians. They have been seen above the latitude of eighty north, and were even then flying on towards the pole. In those solitary regions, during the brief arctic summer, the several kinds of wild geese rear their young in vast numbers, and, when in the fall they set out upon their southerly migration, they fly in innumerable nones. They usually fly high, and, though their flight seems to be labored, it is very swift for so heavy a bird. In foggy weather their flight is low, and they appear to be confused, as if uncertain of the proper route. They intermix freely with tame geese, and the cross is much esteemed for its size and excellence on the table. Canada geese are rather easily domesticated, but even then the instinct of migration northward in spring is so strong that they get uneasy. Some- times when not pinioned they rise into the air and join flocks going over, and sometimes they 200 FIELD SHOOTING. wander off and are shot as wild geese. A cross of the Canada goose no doubt improves the do- mestic goose in beauty and flavor, if not in size, and it is easy to procure it by means of wound- ed ganders, pinioned and turned down with the tame geese. The Canada goose is not so abundant in Illinois in the migratory seasons as it used to be. When I first settled in that State, there were vast flocks of these geese all over the country in the spring and late in the fall. In the daytime they were mostly in the sloughs and bottoms, and there they roosted at night, but they came out mornings and evenings to feed. They arc very fond of corn, and consume large quantities of it. xhe reason why they are now less abundant in Illinois is the thicker settlement of the country. The main column of the Canada geese now take a more westerly route towards the south, crossing Minnesota, Kan- sas, Nebraska, Iowa, and the country up the Mis- souri River. But there are a great many in Illi- nois still at the right times of the year. The Canada goose comes earliest of all the great tribes which migrate from the south in the spring, and, considering that most of them have to fly over a space covering more than fifty degrees of WILD GEESE, CRANES, AN'li SWANS. 201 latitude before they reach their breeding-places, it may be supposed they cannot stop very long with us in their vernal flights. As to the few which remain all the winter on the Sangamon River and in other wild places where there may be open water, they are too insignificant to count for much. The Canada geese come in their great flocks in February, with the first freshet or open weather, and remain till the middle of March, as a rule, while a few linger along until April comes. They come before any of the ducks, and they go on north before them. The Winnebago Swamp is a great resort for the wild geese. Formerly they used to breed there in considerable numbers, but of late years their nests in that quarter have been few. They may, however, still be found by those who penetrate into the marshy recess they choose for their breeding-places. When the wild geese arrive in the spring, they are commonly lean, but, after having fed on corn for a little space, they gain flesh and become in good order. A favorite resort of theirs in the spring is the great pasture-lands. Upon these thousands of bullocks have been fed all winter on corn in the car. Bullocks are wasteful feeders, and much corn lies shelled around. This the geese 202 FIELD SHOOTIN0. pick up and fatten upon. In such places the flocks alight in the middle of the wide pastures, and arc very hard to get at. Oftentimes the first notice we have of the arrival of the wild geese is their hoarse call in the air, as they fly by night. When great flocks of the various kinds of wild geese are coming north in spring, or going south at the near approach of winter, they may he heard calling to and answering each other nearly all night long. The Sangamon used to he a capital place for wild geese, and there is still good shooting there. The best situation for the shooter is behind a. hedge or in a bunch of weeds at a fence near their crossing-places as they go to feed. It is best when they arc flying to windward. The wild geese have. regular crossing-places, and these may be easily ascertained by watching the flights of the flocks. The shooter must go to his station very early i:i the morning, before thev begin to flv. They fly very parly, especially if the weather is warm and pleasant. In cold, windy weather they arc later. Commonly they are on the wing about break of day, and I have seen them flying when it was still so near dark that 1 could hardly tell whether a flock was Canada geese, brant geese, or the so- called Mexican geese. When the wild geese come WILD REESE, CRAKES, AND SWANS. over their crossing-places well in the air, the shooter must find some means of concealment. If there is no hedge under which to crouch down, lie must lie on the dead grass or in the weeds, with clothes of the proper color to deceive the geese and elude the watchful eyes of their leaders. The weeds are often three feet high and thick, and in these cover for the shooter may be found. He must keep quite still until the geese, windward bound, are right over him. If he does not do so, his movement will be seen, he will hear the cry which gave notice to the sleeping Romans of the stealthy footsteps of the Gauls, and he will find, whether he shoots or not, that the geese have saved the Capital. On windy mornings wild geese fly very low, often not more than fifteen or twenty feet from the ground. In calm, clear weather they are much higher. Nothing can be done at the hedges and fences in such weather, and the shooter must then go to the corn-fields where they feed. A field in which the corn is cut up and shocked affords a promising chance. The shooter may build a little house of corn-stalks like a shock, in the row of shocks, and get inside of it. Some men get behind a corn-shock, but the plan is not a good one. In circling round the field one of the 'i'.'l FIELD SHOOTING-. geeso sees him, and iho other3 keep away, sheer off wide. The little blind made like a shock of corn is best, but it must be made ready in the daytime, or in the night season before the geese have begun to fly. In wet, misty weather the wild geese remain about the corn-fields all day, and then from a blind properly made the very best shooting may be had. I have killed eleven Canada geese before breakfast in one of Mr. Gillott's corn-fields, not more than a mile and a half from Elkhart. 1 went out to the field on horseback, and tethered my horse to a fence. In windy weather the best shooting is at the crossing-places, and the shooter must choose his place and method according to the weather. On the large pastures the best plan is to use a horse and buggy. The wild geese may be seen sitting in the pastures and in the prairie when they are a long way off. The shooter must drive briskly on, as if he was going past them, on the wind- ward side, gradually drawing nearer, but never heading directly towards them. If he does the latter, the flock will fly, although he may be as much as two hundred yards from them. When the shooter is opposite the geese, he pulls up the horse with one hand, drops the reins, and raises WILD GEESE, CRANES, AND SWANS. 20S his gun. Tho geese start to fly, but they cannot rise down-wind, and, getting up against it, as they must do, they come towards the gun. Then is the time to fire ; but beware of 'miscalculating the distance. Geese look very large on the prairie. \ have seen men shoot at geese, believing them to be within killing distance, when they were certainly not less than two hundred yards away. I have also seen them fired at in flight when they were so high in the air that they passed without no- ticing the shot. Yet a goose may be killed at a great distance with large shot if it happens to be hit in a vital part. I once killed one at a hundred and nineteen yards with a BB cartridge. The ground was measured, as I knew it was a very long shot. It was a chance shot. I had driven on the flock two or three times, and had been unable to get within distance. I drove for them again, and, seeing that they were just going to fly, I pulled up and let go one barrel just as they rose. Of late years I have killed as many by driving for them with a smart horse as in any other way. When shooting in this method, I once killed five geese with the two barrels, and have often killed from ten to fifteen a day from the buggy. The greatest number T ever killed in a day 206 FIELD SHOOTING. was twenty-three. That was in a corn-field where the corn was in shock, and I shot from such a blind as I have described above. It was near Elkhart, and on one of those wet, misty days in the spring on which the Canada geese are flying about and feed- ing all day. I generally use No. 1 shot for geese. It is quite large enough with plenty of powder to drive it home. In shooting geese from a blind the shooter must keep quite still until they are near enough. When he has killed, he must pick up the goose and return to his blind. When young wheat is among the corn-shocks, the small grain having been sown the previous fall, it is a favorite resort for wild geese. A live de- coy — a wild goose that was winged, and which has been saved for the purpose — may be staked out in the field, and the geese will come down to it. In the fields of early spring wheat, where there arc no corn-shocks, there are sometimes many geese. They eat off the green plants, and the farmers, thinking them an intolerable nuisance, used to put up scare- crows, as people do in some parts to keep away swamp blackbirds and crows from young springing corn. In such a wheat-field the shooter may dig a hole, and, smoothing over the ground, get into it and wait for the geese. If it is too wet for thai. WILD GEESE, CRANES, AND SWANS. 207 he may sink a largo barrel or small hogshead, and from that get very nice shooting. From a barrel placed in a marsh known to be a good resort for geese, much shooting may be had all the spring season, but it must be planted there before the wild geese have come from the south. It is better than boat-shooting, and perhaps better than any other plan, taking the spring season all through. When a hole is dug in a wheat-field to which the wild geese have taken, it should be made soon after their arrival ; and when they get used to it, much nice shooting may be had there. But the best shooting at Canada geese, and the best geese for the table, are in the fall of the ' year, when the young geese come on from the far northern regions in which they have been bred. Their arrival is not looked for until we have had some stiff frost, and that is usually about the first of November. The corn is then just being cut up, and the fall wheat is well out of the ground. At first the wild geese go upon the young wheat, and they eat it off close sometimes. When the corn has been shocked and left on the fields, they go into that. The various kinds of wild geese, ducks, and cranes consume a great deal of corn. In some wet places I have known them to eat a 208 FIELD STIOOTIXG. third of the crop. Later on in the winter the wild geese do not go into the standing corn, as wild, ducks do. The former are equally wary and more shy, and they will not go into places where there seems to be afforded a chance to crawl on them. In regard to their roosting-places wild geese are cunning and secretive. They mostly choose for their sleeping-places large, wet marshes and the margins of ponds in big bottoms, where there is open water. AY hen there is ice in the marshes and on the ponds, they roost on that. These roosting-places are generally far aw r ay from the settlements, and in places that are almost in- accessible. A few flocks still roost near the ponds in the Salt Creek and Sangamon bottoms. These bottoms are more than a mile wide in some places, and the bottoms of the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers arc wider still. Crane Lake in Mason County, a wild, marshy place, is a favorite roost - ing-placc for wild geese. When a roosting-placc has been found, capital success may be looked for. It can seldom bo found except by watching the flights of wild geese nights and mornings, having a good knowledge of the country, and using proper judgment. The shooter goes to it at sundown, and, lying down in WILD GEESE, CRANES, AND SWANS. 209 the grass with clothes of the proper hue, waits for geese. They come in late in the evening, and keep coming, flock after flock, until nine or ten at night, and sometimes until eleven. On Mr. Sulli- v ant's tract, in Ford County, before they are much shot at, the wild geese roost about the ponds in the prairie ; but when they have been disturbed there a few times, they go further off to wild places in the extensive swamps. Wild geese do not frequent timber-land, except when the weather is very cold and blustering, or when there is a fall of snow. At those times they go into the timber along creeks and rivers, and may be found there. Some years ago I and three others found out that there was a small roosting-place on the Sangamon River just below the mouth of Salt Creek. There came a sudden, frost and intense cold weather, with some snow. We knew that at such a time the river would bo frozen over near the place the geese frequented, and that they would roost on the ice. At break of day we got up, and drove in a sleigh three miles to where we knew the wild ■ geese would be found. In such weather they do not fly before nine or ten o'< Lock in the morning. The river was low, and 210' FIELD SHOOTING. before we got to the bank we could hear the flock of geese, on the ice below, chattering in the cold. There was heavy timber on both banks, and we crept up in it on our side until we were within about forty yards of the pack of geese on the ice below. As we raised ourselves up, the wild fowl started to fly, and we put in the dis- charge from our eight barrels as they were rising, and killed ten. Our guns were muzzle- loaders. If they had been breech-loaders, we could have charged and shot again, as the geese seemed bewildered for a little while, and did not fly straight away. Now began my bad luck. The wild geese, as a matter of course, fell on the ice. It was what is called slush ice, which is none of the strongest, but weak and treacherous even when thick. Mj companions were afraid to go. out for the dead geese, and I had to go, though the heaviest man of the party. It is my habit, when out shooting, hardly ever to let my gun be out of my hands, and it was now lucky that in going on the ice for these geese 1 carried it with me. I had brought some of the geese to the bank, and gene out for the balance. The furthest two I got, raid was just stooping to pick up the last when in I wont. "WILD GEESE, CRANES, AND SWANS. 211 I had gone in a sort of air-hole, which, being covered with broken ice and snow, I had not perceived. The river was twenty feet deep, and I came near being drowned. However, by means of the gun in one hand and the three geese in the other, I got such a spread on the ice that I did not go clean under. Two of my com- panions were so scared by the suddenness of the occurrence and the danger of the situation that they could do nothing. The other got an old ten-foot rail, and, shoving it to me, enabled me to struggle to the bank, gun, geese, and all. The cold was so intense that my clothes were all frozen stiff the minute after I was out of the water. It was three miles to a house and a stove, and before we got there I was like a solid six-foot chunk of ice. I then got on dry clothes, wrap- ped myself in a blanket, took a seat by the fire, and drank half a pint of strong whiskey, neat. I was soon all right again; but when the blood began to circulate in the numbed parts, the pain was intense for the time. I did not even take cold from that ducking. Being much in the water, however, in the West- ern country, entails something Avorsc than a cold, if not worse than rheumatism. I mean the ague. 212 FIELD SHOOTING. When I first went to Illinois, I shot many geese; and if one fell in a pond or slough, I waded in waist-deep to bring it out. The old settlers used to tell me that it was a had practice; hut I had never been sick in my life to any degree of importance, and had no fears. But after being there a year, out in all sorts of weather, and often in and out of the water two or three times a day, I caught the ague, and had it eleven months. It was not the mild ague, such as pre- vails to some extent on the Atlantic coast of the Northern States, but the powerful Western ague, which shakes a man so that his bones al- most rattle as well as his teeth. In the course of the eleven months it was broken up several times, but always came back again. Now, there are a great many infallible remedies for the ague. I took about a score of them, but didn't get well. At last, however, I got hold of the real thing. It cured me, and much experience of it since fbt sixteen years has convinced me that it is the best thing in the world to cure the complaint. It is not a patent medicine. The editor of this book, to whom I am relating my experience, and who had experience of the shakes himself in Michigan from July to Christmas, says he wishes WILD GEESE, CRANES, AND SWANS. 2J3 it was, as we could get five hundred dollars, in that case, for this notice of it. It is simply lemon-juice and Holland gin. Squeeze the juice of five or six lemons into a quart of gin, and take a good dram of it three times a day. It is not only pleasant, but effectual, and it will cure as well as prevent the ague. At the same time avoid getting wet as much as possible, especially in the ponds and sloughs. Shooting brant geese is " much the same in method as shooting Canada geese. They are about half the size of the latter, and very good eat- ing. There is this difference in their habits : the brant do not go so much into fields where the corn is shocked, but use more where it is not cut up, but the stalks are much broken down. In the early spring a man may see acres of such corn-fields covered with brant. To shoot them there he must lie down as I have directed for duck- shooting in the like places. "With the brant, at least in close proximity, will be found what we call Mexican geese. They are about the same size as the brant, and though there are at least four kinds, to judge by the plumage and mark- ings, they are in flocks all mixed up together. Sometimes there will be half a dozen brant in a 2i4 FIELD SHOOTING. flock of these mixed Mexicans. The latter are more numerous now than either Canada geese or brant. They have increased in number of late years, not only relatively, but absolutely. Just before they go off northwards in the spring the mixed flocks of these geese pack together on the prairies and on rather elevated spots until there are three or four thousand in a body. They leave in these great packs. "When they have gathered, and are preparing to' ret out on their long flight they may be seen to rise and circle round so as to cast a shadow on the ground like a cloud. These geese fly by night. They always seem to arrive in the night, and they leave by night. They utter a different cry from Canada geese and from brant, and are much more noisy than either. AY hen, in their flight through the air, they go over, or nearly over, the lights of a town or village, they make a great row. On the table they are plump and nice, as good as brant, but to my thinking not as good as the Canada goose. That i ! the king of the wild geese ; more juicy than any other, as well as twice the size. The great mixed flocks of Mexican geese present a mottled appearance when clearly seen. Some are pale blue in color, some grizzly gray, some have white WILD GEESE, CRAKES, AND SWANS, 215 hcach and necks, some arc all white except the ends of the wings, which in them are black. If any naturalist of New York, Boston, or Phila- delphia would like to have a specimen of each of these geese, 1 can send them. There arc two kinds of cranes plentiful in Illi- nois in the spring and fall of the year. The most abundant is the sand-hill crane, a well-known bird. "With a body as large as that of a goose, he stands upon long legs, so that he is four, and a half or five feet high. They winter in the south, and go to high northern latitudes to breed. A few nests are made in the Winnebago Swamp, but only a few. They do not resort about water much, although they choose their roosting-place near it. In the spring they are first seen very high in the air, circling round and uttering loud cries, so high up as hardly to be perceived. In my opinion, they fly higher than any other bird, not even excepting eagles and vultures. When the cry of the crane is heard coming out of the sky, as it were, people know that winter is quite over, and that warm weather is going to come in shortly. When seen sitting on the prairie in flocks, they look like sheep at a distance. They arrive with us according to the season, 2 1 6 Fl ELD SHOOT125 G . usually about the tenth of March, and stay a month. Like the wild geese and ducks, cranes frequent the corn-fields for the purpose of feeding. The few nests made in Illinois contain but two eggs, and Do " one of the old birds is always on the watch near them. They return in the fall about the same time as the wild geese, but do not then fly so high as in the spring; perhaps it is because many of them are young birds. In the fall they are first seen out on the prairie, and a very unwelcome sight it is to the farmer; for they are very hard on his crop of corn, much of which is then cut up and shocked in the fields. Boys are employed to keep them away. I have often seen large pieces of corn-land in shock when all the cars on the outside had been shelled and eaten, not a kernel left.' They stay as long as the wild geese, which is until real hard weather sets in. Cranes are easy birds to shoot when you can get a fair shot at them, but they are wary and shy, keeping a good lookout all the time. It is of no use to lie down in corn for them. They can see further and better than any other bird I know. The immense height at which they fly in the spring has convinced me of this. To shoot them, when they have been shot at and made shy and wary, one of two methods must be fol- WILD GEESE, CRANES, AND SWANS. 217 lowed. By watching their flights to and from corn-fields their crossing-places may he found. At one of these the shooter must post himself under an Osage orange hedge on the windward side. Then he must wait for a lot to come over. In windy weather and going to windward they fly low and slow, and are very easily hit. But it takes hard hitting to kill them, as they are thickly feathered. When going for cranes, I use No. 1 or No. 2 shot in my cartridges with strong charge of powder. Some think heavier shot neces- sary, but I know they are not. At Mr. Sullivant's farm in Ford County, last spring, I shot twenty sand-hill cranes and three of the large • white variety. I had no larger shot than No. G, having gone without expectation of getting any shooting except at ducks, mallards, and pintails. There were, however, large numbers of cranes, and I -found out that they roosted near ponds in the neighboring prairie. I knew then that I could get close shots when they came at dusk. Loading my cartridges for that shooting with six drama of powder and an ounce of shot, and taking post near the edge of the pond, which was from one to two acres in extent, I waited for their coming. The first evening I killed seven sand-hill cranes 218 FIELD SHOOTING. and tlio three large white ones, and the next night thirteen of the sand-hills. The large white crane is bigger than the sand-hill, and sometimes attains the enormous weight of thirty pounds ; that is, ho weighs as much as two good turkeys. It is pure white, except the ends of the wings, which arc black. The largest of the three I killed was a magnificent specimen. He measured seven feet eight inches across the wings, stood five feet ten inches high, and weighed thirty pounds. I gave it to Mr. Gillott, of the great farm near Elkhart, and he had a description of it published in the Lincoln, Logan County, paper, headed, " Captain Bogardus's Mammoth Crane." It is hard to get within shot of the white crane. They are seldom killed, except near the ponds, when they come to roost at night. It has a very keen as well as far sight, and nothing but the fact that it is almost dark when they come * to the roosting-place enables the shooter to get a chance at them. A crane of either kind winged will make a desperate fight, and is a dangerous custo- mer for the unwary to deal with. If man or dog comes within striking distance, the crane aims at the eye with his sharp-pointed bill, some six inches long. The bird will drive his bill into a dog as WILD GEESE, CRANES, AND SWANS. *219 if it were a dagger. I have had a dog that had never seen crane before go in to catch one that was winged, but he came out again after getting one stroke. The white crane is not nearly as numerous as the sand-hill. Its habits are the same, but there are only from eight to twelve in a flock. I never saw a nest of this crane, and believe it never builds in Illinois. Both the cranes are fine eating. The meat is dark, and the breast, when well hung and properly cooked, is as fine as the best venison. At one time 1 thought they were good for nothing, but a circumstance happened which changed my opinion altogether. I was out shooting pinnated grouse late in the fall with a companion, and we camped, or rather took shelter, slept, and cooked in a herds- man's hut which had been deserted. The cattle had been driven away, and the hut was tenant- less. It was on the Delavan prairie. I killed a sand-hill crane, and hung it on the fence by the hut. It remained there eight or nine days and as many frosty nights. We had good sport, plenty to eat, and forgot all about the crane. But on the evening of one day, on which we had sent all our game away in the afternoon, it was found that by an oversight we had reserved none 220 FIELD SHOOTING. for our suppers and breakfasts. I then remembered the crane, and going to the fence I picked the breast, and cut it off in slices or steaks. These we fried in butter. There was a prairie road or track running by the hut. It was commonly but little used, but on this occasion, while the steaks were being cooked, a man and a woman came by in a buggy. As she caught the rich flavor from the hot pan, the woman said, "Those men must have something very good to eat." She was right. When we came to our crane-steaks, we both thought we had never eaten anything so good in our lives. It is true that the frosty air of the prairie late in the fall sharpens the appetite, and true that we were hungry, and hunters at that; but it is also true that the steaks were delicious eating. The meat was rich and juicy, and it had been frozen and thawed a sufficient number of times to make it very tender. Since then, if a crane was within shot, I have never let him get away, if I could help it. The flesh of the white crane is quite as good as that of the sand-hill kind. Cranes need to be hun^ for a lonsj time be- fore being cooked, and almost all game is the better for being hung, if the weather is cool or WILD GEESE, CRANES, A.ND 8WA1 "J-M cold. Perhaps snipe and woodcock may he excep- tions. You can hardly hang pinnated grouse too long when they keep sweet. I have eaten them a month after they were killed in the winter, and none could be finer. Quail are all the better for being hung. So are Canada geese and other wild geese, together with mallard ducks and wild tur- keys. Of course young grouse shot in August or the warm days of September cannot be hung, and they are very good eating when cooked fresh, but not better than winter grouse hung; a long time, stuffed, roasted, and eaten with bread-sauce, made gravy, and hot, mealy potatoes. A few pelicans are shot along the upper part of the Mississippi River* Occasionally a small flight of swans come over Central Illinois, and sometimes they alight in the Winnebago Swamp or the Sangamon bottoms ; but these occurrences are rare. My brother once killed three late in the fall on the Sangamon bottom. They were going south, and alighted at a pond where he was lying for geese at roosting-time. At a place in the Winnebago Swamp called Swan Lake they sometimes alight on their passage. I have never killed one. Going down the Mississippi hist win- ter, I saw, from the steamboat, many swans in 222 FIELD SHOOTING. the bayous and on the sand-islands. At New Orleans I was told by Mr. Charleville, the gun- smith, that there was a fine place for shooting all sorts of wild fowl below the city, called The Dump. I saw plenty of mallards, there called French ducks, in the market. CHAPTER X11I. WILD TURKEY AND DEER SHOOTING. Of all the feathered game that runs and flies, the wild turkey of America is the noblest and most beautiful of which I ever heard. In one sense the ostrich of the Arabian desert or the emu of the Australian plains might be deemed an exception. They, however, do not fly; and though their size, plumage, and fleetness invest them with a sort of grandeur, and their feathers are valuable as ornaments for the head-dresses of ladies, they are neither so beautiful nor so useful and excellent as food as the wild turkey. In- deed, the flesh of the latter is hardly surpassed by anything in succulence, richness of flavor, and nutri- ment, and it is vastly superior to that of any tame turkey that ever was fed and roasted or boiled. It is well known that the tame turkey is de- scended from the wild turkey of America. Before the discovery of this continent the bird was un- known in Europe, and had never been seen in Turkey in Asia. It may be easily domesticated. 223 224 FIELD SHOOTING. and a cross of the wild gobbler with tame hen- turkeys always improves the flock in size and excellence. At one time the wild turkey was plentiful all over this country, from Texas to Canada, and from the eastern seaboard to the peaks of the Eocky Mountains, in such localities as furnished it with its favorite sorts of food and afforded the cover in which it delights. Now, however, it is hardly to be met with to the eastward of West Virginia, and it cannot be said to be still abun- dant in Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, etc. In those States wild turkeys were once very plentiful, and a considerable number are still to be found in a few localities in each. In Iowa, Mis- souri, etc., there are more wild turkeys now than in the States first mentioned. One would suppose there must still be a few in the western parts of New York and Pennsylvania, but I am not certain that there are. TI13 wild turkey is a bird of the forest rather than of the prairies or the plains. It makes its haunts in timber-land, large pieces of woods, and groves, and betakes itself to thick brush and the neighborhood of impassable swamps to breed. It comes out, however, at night or at earliest dawn, WILD TURKEY A.ND DEER SHOOTING. ^i^ and feeds in the corn and wheat fields in the fall, and many broods are sometimes seen together in a pack a hundred strong, led by old gobblers. In the beech and maple woods it feeds upon beech- nuts with great relish, and, indeed, its principal food in winter is the berries of the bushes and the "mast" of various trees. The wild turkey, though so gregarious, is shy and a wary, fast- running bird, hardly ever taking to the wing if it can avoid doing so. When closely pursued by a dog or impeded by deep snow, it is com- pelled to flight. It is found in Illinois in the timber and thick brush to be met with on the banks of rivers and creeks. The wild turkeys used to be very numer- ous in and about the bottoms of the Sangamon River. I have killed a great many there myself, one of which was a famous gobbler of twenty- seven pounds weight and magnificent plumage. They are now scarce, difficult to find, and hard to kill. Following turkevs on their tracks in snow, which has been my usual method of hunting them, is hard work. In the great woods of the forest countries the favorite method is to find the flock, scatter it all around by means of a dog, and then in ambush imitate the call of the turkevs 220 FIELD SHOOTING. until they come near enough to be shot with a rifle. There used to be many turkeys in the tim- ber at Lake Yort, some seven or eight miles from Elkhart, and a few may be found there yet. In the woodlands of North Missouri the wild turkey is still rather abundant, and it will be found wherever there is timber and brush all through Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, the Indian Territory, and down through Texas. Wild turkeys are also found in Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. They do best in warm weather, though they arc furnished with a full coat of feathers, and can stand the cold of our northwest- ern States and Canada. I have often found the wild turkey's nest. It is made in the timber, among thick brush, and very often by the side of an old log. When the hen wild turkey leaves her nest, she covers it up with leaves, just as the tame hen-turkey will do when she has made a nest under a hedge or in the brambles near a fence. Some years ago, when wild turkeys abounded more than they do now, great numbers of their eggs were taken from their nests and hatched under hens. The young ones thus obtained were very WILD TURKEY AND DEER SHOOTING. '2'1 1 much like young tame turkeys in their habits until late in the fall. Then, from roosting in trees and rambling about, they often left the tame turkeys, and went off with the wild ones. In secluded places the wild turkeys often mingle with tame flocks. The gobblers are not pugna- cious with each other, though they will fight with game-cocks, and sometimes, by superior weight and strength, worry out and kill the best. Formerly I used to shoot turkeys in the old method of calling them up, after having scat- tered them, to an ambush, and using a small- bore rifle or a shot-gun loaded with buckshot or with BB cartridge. That plan answers best when the turkeys are young. Latterly I have waited for turkey-shooting until the winter weather had well set in, and gone only when there was snow on the ground. The method is to find the tracks of a flock in the snow, and follow them up. Turkeys in snow, with a man following in their track, soon begin to tire a little, if the snow is damp and no crust on the top of it. After some time the hunter, who must be a good walker and capable of standing much fatigue, will see where one of the turkeys has diverged from the route of the flock. Following the track 238 FIELD CIIO . ! of the single turkey, it will be found that after having gone a little way, commonly not more than two hundred yards, and often less, it has squatted under thick brush or in the top of a fallen tree. As he draws near, it will start to run or to fly, and it must then be shot. In this sport I use No.'l shot, which is quite big enough. A turkey going to fly is compelled to run eight or ten feet in order to get headway before rising from the ground, and 1 have often shot them in the head before they could take wing. After having killed his turkey, the hunter must take up the track of the flock again, and go on after it until he sees that another has diverged. As I remarked before, it is much the best to follow this sport when the snow is damp, for the turkeys then tire the sooner, and are more inclined to hide and squat. No dog is to be used. He would be worse than useless. Another good time for turkey- shooting is when it is snowing hard. That, of course, is no good time for tracking; but while the snow is falling fast, the wild turkeys sit around in thick brush or in the thick top of a fallen tree. They are then easily approached ; but the hunter must know the country well, and be familiar with WILD TURKEY AND DEER SHOOTING. 229 the places where the flocks habitually resort. If the hunter does not know the country well, and is after turkeys in a thick snow-storm, instead of finding them, he will be likely enough to get lost himself. When a flock of wild turkeys is being followed by tracking, they often take wing ; and there,' of course, their tracks end. But they generally fly straight ahead, and the hunter may usually hit their new tracks after they have alighted and gone on again on foot. Although they fly straight, they do not travel straight when on foot, but sometimes wind in and out very much. Com- monly their tracks will be found again within three or four hundred yards of where they took wing. The hunter will see where they made the quick run before rising. By that he may judge very nearly the direction of their flight, and fol- low it. When there are creeks and ravines which tur- keys must cross on the wing, they almost always go over at the same places. In such a case as a creek running across a narrow belt of timber, or a ravine intersecting it, advantage may be taken of this habit of the turkeys. There must be two hunters. One must post himself at the crossing 280 FIELD SHOOTING. under cover, and the other go three or four miles up, and drive the wood down to it. If there are any turkeys in the upper part of the timber, the man at the crossing will be certain to have a good shot or two. When I first lived in Illinois, I used to hunt turkevs a good deal on the Sangamon, in the right kind of weather, generally preferring soft snow or a fast-falling snow-storm. I generally killed some turkeys — some days only two, on others three, four, five, and six, and a few times as many as seven. One day I was tracking turkeys in only about three inches of snow. They did not tire, but travelled fast, and some- times took flight, so that following them was a weary business. I had been after them nearly all day, and was nearly " tuckered out." I had often been in sight of them, but never near enough for a shot. But as evening drew on apace, and roosting-time approached, the turkeys began to call. They had travelled all day, and were glad to halt where they were. By wait- ing and stalking between calls I shot four. They weighed from twelve to eighteen pounds each, and I had to carry them and my gun three miles to get to a house. It was a very WILD TURKEY AND DEER SHOOTING. 231 hard day's work, and nothing but downright perseverance enabled me to get any turkeys at all on that occasion. When the going is good, a flock of turkeys will beat a man by endurance. They are great ramblers in the daytime, but nearly always come back to the same roosting- place at night. On another occasion I was out after turkeys on the Sangamon on a thick, snowy day — just the sort of day for a man to get lost in tim- ber and a wild, broken country. I then lived seven miles from Petersburg, and in following the turkeys round bluffs and across barrens on the edge of the timber I was several times in sight of that place. Still the tracks went on winding about until they led to a place where there seemed to be some every way. There were others besides myself hunting turkeys in that timber, and we sometimes took the tracks ahead of each other. It was then snowing rather fast, and of course the tracks were all fresh. The flock I was on tired in the after- noon, and I killed two about four o'clock. I then found I was lost. It was still snowing, and night was coming on. The first thing to be done was to keep on as fast as I could in 232 FIELD 3H00TINO. one direction, so as to get out of the timber. The turkeys I had killed were very large ones — twenty pounds each. However, I trudged along through the snow, and at last got clear of the woods, and found out where I was. It was not, however, as I had expected, between Petersburg and where I lived, but at Indian Point, from which I had a walk of thirteen miles home. I do not think I ever was more tired than I was that night when I reached home. Travelling in snow is not easy walking, and tracking turkeys in it is emphatically hard work. I went out one day to hunt wild turkeys near the mouth of Salt Creek in seven or eight inches of wet snow, the weather being mild and the frost giving, so that the snow packed. I came upon the tracks of a flock of turkeys, and, after fol- lowing them for some time, I killed two. Tak- ing up the main trail again, I noticed the track of one very large turkey, a real great gobbler. 1 had heard other men speak of having been on the track of a very large turkey about there, but none of them had ever been able to come up with him, though they had killed others out of the Sock he led. I now determined to do my best to get him, and resolved not to go off after stragglers, WILD TURKEY AND DEER SHOOTING. 233 unless he left the route of the flock himself. 1 followed the track, winding through brush, and sometimes went across very rough ground — over which the turkeys flew — for as much as ten miles ; but in the timber of the bottom I was unable to come up to the gobbler. The other turkeys in the flock appeared to have straggled off, and the old, wily gobbler, often hunted and very fast, and strong as well as large, was alone. At last he left the bottoms, and the trail led up into bluffs and ravines where the brush was very thick and the snow in places quite deep. I think many men would have given it up then, for the ground was extremely difficult to enter into after the ten-mile tramp from where I had struck the trail first, but I determined to persevere. In fact, I had now strong hopes of getting the turkey, being convinced that he would not have entered this ground if he had not been, tired. After go- ing some distance among the bluffs and thickets of the ravines, the gobbler squatted under an old tree-top. He would be dead beat and want rest sorely before he would do that, I knew ; still, I looked for him to appear at any moment from some such place, and kept my gun ready, both locks cocked. He would get wind again while I 234 FIELD SHOOTING. was coming up on his track, and be ready for a quick bolt. As 1 advanced on the trail, I heaid a movement among the top brush of a fallen tree, and out went the turkey. lie was probably sixty yards away from me when I saw him so as to shoot, but I took a long shot, and hit him hard with the right barrel, following it with the left instanter to make sure work. I think the first barrel would have been enough, but I was very anxious to get him ; and as I knew that if he was only winged he would run until he dropped dead, I gave him the second barrel. He was the most splendid specimen of the wild tur- key I ever saw, and I have seen a great many, lie weighed twenty-seven pounds, was quite fat, and the beard — the tuft of hair which hangs from the breast — was eight inches long. The beauty of his plumage on the neck, wings, and breast is indescribable. It glittered with a score of hues of metallic lustre — gold, green, purple, brown, etc. — and these tints cast rays like those which flash from the feathers of the humming-bird. It was in the belt of timber in which this gobbler was found that I then lived. On two occasions there I shot at a turkey on the wing with a rifle, when out after deer, and killed. WILD TURKEY AND DEER SHOOTING. 235 When turkeys are too wild to bo shot with a shot-gun, it is of little use to track them at all. Resort must then he had to the method of calling them up, and here the rifle may bo used. Except for very long shots, however, the shot- gun is as good as the rifle, even when the tur- keys are called up within distance of the shooter, and in one important matter better — there are two barrels to one, and a miss may be mended with the second. The best day of turkey-shooting I ever had was in Missouri, on Shoal Creek, not a great distance from the town of St. Jo, on the Missouri River. I went to that quarter on a regular shooting expedition, prepared to stay some time. John D. Lindsay, an old hunter, went first in order to look about the neighborhood around St. Jo, and ascertain what the prospects were. He wrote to me that there were plenty of wild turkeys, deer, and other game in the region round about Cameron, Lynn County, and desired me to join him. I lost no time in doing so, and was accompanied by Colonel Roberts, w r ho wanted to camp out. "We took- my tent. Arriving at Cameron in the morning, I hired a team. We took the tent and other things out to a suitable spot about three or four miles from 236 FIELD SHOOTING* the town, and there prepared to camp. We pitch- ed our tent on a creek bottom, near enough to the bank to make it handy to get water, and at the foot of a hill covered with scrub-oak. In selecting a place for a camp in cold weather the main things to look after are shelter from the northwest winds and close prox- imity to wood and water. I had no camp-stove then, and it was necessary to keep up a big. fire near the mouth of the tent all night, so that plenty of wood was required. The country for miles around was successive hills and hollows, with scrub-timber in places and much brush, called barrens. Having pitched the tent and plied our axes for wood, Lindsay and 1 left Colonel* Roberts to put things to rights, took our guns, and went to look about a little. In less than half an hour 1 killed two turkeys. This was a good beginning. We returned to the tent, where Colonel Roberts speedily distinguished himself as a capital cook. Having picked and cleaned a turkey, he desired me to put up two short stakes with forks at the upper ends pretty close to the fire, while Lind- say was required to furnish a thin, straight stick. With this last the colonel spitted the turkey, and WILD TURKEY AND DEER SHOOTING. 237 the ends of the spit being laid in the crutches of the uprights, the bird could, be turned slowly before the fire with little trouble. A pan placed beneath caught the gravy and dripping, and with this the turkey was basted from time to time. It was a most excellent roast, and a wild turkey cooked in this way before a big, quick fire beats one that is baked in an oven all hollow. We feasted well that evening, but in the night we rather suffered, as I shall relate. We had to rely on a large fire in front of the tent for warmth, as I had then no tent-stove. Of late years I have always been provided with a small, cheap stove and pipe, which could be put up inside. The tent being then closed all round, and a small fire kept up in the stove with hard wood, it is as warm inside as in a house. Such a plan is much better for convenience and com- fort than my old system. The fire in front of the tent has to be eight or ten feet off, for fear that the canvas may take fire if it is nearer, and on a cold night it does not do much good. In Missouri at that time the nights were very cold. We had to lie with our heads under the blankets to keep our ears from being frozen. In the morning our boots were as stiff as if they had 233 FIELD SHOOTING. been made of iron instead of leather. We hunted every day with more or less success. In a few days there came a fresh fall of snow, some seven or eight inches, and Lindsay and I went out prepared to take advantage of it. We breakfasted at break of day, and set out for Shoal Creek, which was three miles distant. It quit snowing as soon as it got to be daylight, so that when Ave reached the banks of the creek the tracks, if any were found, would be fresh. About eight o'clock in the morning we came upon the trail of a large flock of turkeys. They had begun to move about as soon as it left off snowing, and there must have been from thirty-five to forty, perhaps more than forty, in the flock. After fol- lowing the track for a while I got sight of the flock, crept up within distance, and killed two, one with each barrel. The turkeys thereupon scattered and flew, and some passing near Lind- say, he killed one on the wing. Neither of us shot with a rifle. Those turkeys had not been shot at much, and they were nothing like as wild as those of Illinois. It was the best turkey-shoot- ing I ever saw. We followed up the main body, and every now and then I would go after a strag- gler who had left it, and shoot him as he left ■WILD TURKEY AND DEER SHOOTING. 239 his squatting-place. At noon I had killed cloven turkeys and Lindsay three. I got the most shots, as I went after the stragglers, while he kept on the track of the flock. The turkeys Aveighed from ten to eighteen pounds each. They were not quite so fat as our Illinois turkeys commonly are, but their flavor was delicious, and their flesh very ten- der and juicy — just what that of a wild turkey in perfection is. We placed our turkeys safe hung in a tree, and, going to a house, got dinner, arranging with the man that he should take us and our game to our camp in the evening with his wagon and team. Deer were plentiful thereabout. In the afternoon I shot at a big buck with turkey- shot, and hit him hard. He bled freely as he ran, and we followed on his trail. That pre- vented us from getting any more turkeys that day. We kept on the buck's track for a long distance, hoping to get another shot at him. We could not do so, however, and the trail finally led to a place where there had been such a number of deer that day that their tracks were all mixed up. We saw three going over the brow of a hill, but they were far out of shot. So we concluded to give up further exer- 240 FIELD SHOOTING. tions, and, returning to the house, we found the man and his team ready. On our road to camp we took up our turkeys, and ended a busy day -with a capital supper by the blazing fire. It was the best day's turkey-shooting I ever had, and we could have got more of them if we had not been led off on a fruitless chase after the deer. With breech-loading guns and buckshot cartridges in the left barrels for deer, we could have got several fat ones, as well as the tur- keys. In the three weeks we were in camp at Shoal Creek we shot between fifty and sixty turkeys, not going for them especially, except on favorable days, when fresh snow had fallen. Our sport in this neighborhood was good in every respect, but in one regard we had great discomfort. The weather was hard, and wc were very cold at night. Young sportsmen will sometimes read descriptions in which the writers say that they slept out all night without a tent, the thermometer below zero, and that wrapped in their blankets, with their feet to the fire, they were very comfortable. In my opinion this is all humbug. I have been out many a night, but it was in moderately warm weather. WILD TURKEY AND DEER SHOOTING. 241 The thing to be most apprehensive about then is a thunder-storm. I was once caught in one. in the middle of the night, early in the fall, on the Delavan Prairie, which is in Logan County, sixteen miles from Elkhart. The unbroken prairie was then eight or ten miles in extent. In fact, there was no cultivated land on it, except near the strips of timber by which it was bounded. I went out in a buggy, and alone, to shoot pinnated grouse in the evening, and though I meant to stay on the prairie all night, and shoot again in the morning, I took no tent. A blanket to lay on the ground under the buggy, and another to cover me, were deemed sufficient. I shot until dark over two good dogs, and had fine sport. I then drove to a part of the prairie where men had been cutting grass for fodder, and left it in cocks, and pulled up there for the night. I tied the horse to the wheel, gave him a feed of corn in the bottom of the buggy, watered him, and tossed him down a lot of the new-made prairie-hay. The scent of it pervaded the air of the space all around, and was very sweet and grateful. I got my own cold supper, and. lying down under the buggy with the dogs 242 FIELD SHOOTING. near me, 1 soon fell asleep. It was a still night, no air stirring even on the open prairie "where I was when I went to rest. But about one o'clock there arose a strong wind, the forerunner of a mighty storm. Awakened by the change in the weather, I got up, and, looking to windward, saw an immense black cloud looming high up towards the zenith, and coming on at a rapid rate towards the prairie. Knowing very well what it meant, and seeing the forked lightning already darting down from it, while the rumble of the distant thunder overbore the rushing of the wind, I piled up a lot of hay around the buggy to windward, and got under it again. I had not been there many minutes when the storm burst with fearful fury, seemingly right over my head. Then came lightning, thunder, and torrents of rain altogether, as it were. The light- ning was so vivid and so rapid that the horse got scared and trembled, the dogs cowered and crept closer to me, and I was much alarmed. The lightning ran round the tires of the wheels, so that the wagon seemed to be shod with fire. It lit up the prairie at every flash, and the flashes were almost continuous, so that I could see white houses Ave or six miles off as plain, or WILD TURKEY AND DKKH CIIOGTIKG. "24 J plainer, than I could by day. The thunder-claps were so heavy that it appeared as if they would split my head open. For more than an hour the storm kept on. Then it abated almost as suddenly as ib came, and I soon went to sleep again. This was the heaviest thunder-storm I ever experienced. 1 Avas more in fear during that hour than 1 ever was before, or than I have been since. What with the horse and the dogs and myself altogether in a group, the bright tires of the wheels, and the steel locks and barrels of my gun, the danger must have been great. But, blessed be God, it was averted ! In the morning the dogs rose refreshed, as I did myself. They worked well. The scent lay thick on the wet ground, and I never shot better. 1 killed forty-three grouse before the sun got very high in the forenoon, and returned home with a large bag of very fine birds. When men camp out with a tent without a stove, and they keep a large fire in front of the tent, as they will be sure to do in cold weather, there is considerable danger that their canvas may take fire. I have had three tents burned up. A change of wind during the night may blow glowing embers right up to the canvas, and set 244 FIELD SHOOTING. fire to it, if no one is awake to look after it. And twice my tent caught fire in the daytime, "when we thought there was no danger, and went off hunting wifh no one left at camp. Therefore I say to every one who means to camp out on sporting excursions, get a nice little stove. The cost is small, the comfort large, and, except through gross carelessness, there can he no danger what- ever. To give a description of the common deer of this country would be mere folly and imperti- nence. It is often supposed that it likes best to range in the vast forests, but I believe that to be a mistake. Deer are most fond of a country in which there are belts of timber-land and brush interspersed with prairies and savannas. Much of that part of Illinois where I lived at first is somewhat of that character. When I first went to the State, deer were exceedingly plentiful. I have myself seen as many as thirty in a herd, and men who had lived a long time in that part of Illinois, when I went to reside there, told me they had seen herds which could not have contained less than seventy-five. In the cold weather the deer went to the timber for shelter. In the warm weather they did not go much to the woodland WILD TURKEY AND DEER SHOOTING. 245 to pass the heat of the day, as one might have well supposed they would, but they spent some hours before and after noonday lying in the long grass of the prairie near sloughs, where it grows particularly rank and tall. Deer have much decreased in number in that part of Illinois of late years, though* they may still be met with occasionally, and shot by a man who knows how to go about it. In the earlier times of my residence in the State they used to feed upon the young wheat, where fall wheat had been sowed out upon the prairie. At about sun- rise they might be seen feeding in these fields, and looking like so many calves. When it was broad daylight, they retired to the long grass near the sloughs, or to thick brush in the woodland, or to patches of high weeds, and there they would lie until cveninsr. There are some deer in Ford County vet. Three or four were killed there last winter — two of them on Mr. Sullivant's farm. Another was chased right through the town of Gibson, and killed below it. At Oliver's Grove, in Iroquois County, there used to be large numbers of deer, and some may be found there yet. In the southern part of Illinois, down toward and in the district called Egypt, deer are found in 240 FIELD SHOOTING fair numbers. But the best place near Illinois in which to hunt them is the northern part of Mis- souri. Deer are numerous in parts of Kansas, and about Omaha, Nebraska, there are many to be found. This last-named city is a good point for sport- ing tourists ; various descriptions of game abound, and the shooting club includes many excellent sportsmen and gentlemen among its members. The best place in the city to obtain information as to localities and to meet sportsmen is the store of Mr. D. C. Sutphen, gunmaker and dealer. And a very good place to stop at, as I found by personal experience, is the Grand Central Hotel. Wild turkeys, deer, pinnated grouse, wild geese, ducks, etc., may be shot in the vicinity of Omaha. The first deer I ever killed was in Woodford County, Illinois. I was out with an old hunter, who set me to follow the track of the herd, and took post himself at a runway, where he thought he should be sure to get a good shot. But it did not so fall out. I followed a herd of five or six for about three miles, and on coming to the top of a hill I saw a deer in the val- ley below, standing on the edge of the slope, with its side to me. He wao about two hun- WILD TURKEY AND DEEtt SHOOTING. 247 dred yards off, but I determined to have a crack at him, and, throwing my rifle up, 1 took aim just behind the lower part of the shoulder. Mine was an old-fashioned, long, hunting-rifle, with steel barrel, carrying a ball forty to the pound. At the shot the deer made a buck-jump full ten feet into the air, and bounded away. I thought 1 had missed him, but my partner, on coming to the spot where he had stood, and looking narrowly around, thought not, and determined to follow his tracks. The fact was, as he told mc soon afterwards, that he saw a tinge of blood upon the snow on the other side of the place where the deer had stood when I shot at him, and concluded that the ball had gone through him. He soon found that the deer straddled In his tracks and spread his hoofs, and then he knew he was badly wounded. The buck was found dead two hundred yards from where he was when 1 shot at him. The ball had gone clean through him, and also through his heart, after which he ran two hundred yards. I did not hunt deer much at that time, but I was soon a good shot with the rifle, and have killed a running deer with it. I afterwards became acquainted with a man 248 FIELD &HOOTIXO. named Wilcox, who was the greatest deer-hunter in Illinois. He had a system of his own, and a very successful system it certainly was, as he managed it. He hunted on horseback, and his weapon was a heavy double-barrelled shot-gun, with strong charges of powder and buckshot. Late in the fall, when the sloughs were low and held but little water, he used to ride down the middle of them. AY hen a deer got up from among the long grass on cither side, Wilcox fired from the back of the horse, and knocked the buck or doe over. I soon found that was the best way, and adopted it myself, but I never had as much success at it as W T ilcox did. The trouble was that 1 could neither get a really steady horse under fire nor shoot very well on horseback *at that time. The horse Wilcox used in his hunts had been accustomed to it so long that he knew just what was wanted, and when the reins were dropped he stood like a rock until the gun w r ent off. When deer are lying down, ib is much easier to approach their lair, so as to get a shot on their rising, on horseback than on foot. It is now obso- lete in our part of Illinois, as there are no deer to shoot; but I should think it might be followed WILD TURKEY AND DEER SHOOTING. '249 to advantage in Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas, where there are still plenty. It should also be tried in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, etc. Even in barrens and timber-land it would be better to hunt deer in this way than to still hunt for them on foot, if the ground is prac- ticable for a horse. In some rugged places a horse cannot go ; and in wet marshes, morasses, and shaking bogs a horse with a man on his back would sink in and be unable to struggle out. In Missouri deer are generally driven with hounds, and shot at crossing-places and runways. There are also many killed by still hunting. To have any chance of success in deer-hunt- ing, it is necessary that the sportsman should know the lay of the country and the places in which they are likely to be found. A stranger to the neighborhood had better get an old hunter to go out with him for a few days. A know- ledge of their habits in the different localities is required, and it would take a long time to learn these if they were not imparted by some one who knows them. The deer are now wild aiu} shy in most places. They have a keen nose, and can scent a man to windward before he can see them, which makes it requisite to hunt up-wind. 250 FIELD SHOOTING. Some deer are shot at salt-licks, to which they resort at night, and I believe the practice of fire- hunting is sometimes followed in the south. It is not pursued in the West. CHAPTER XIV. THE ART OF SHOOTING ON THE WING. The practical art of shooting birds on the wing, valuable accomplishment as it is, delightful in itself, and highly conducive to health and strength by leading to vigorous exercise in the fields, is readily acquired. Any one who is well enough to walk abroad and carry a gun may attain fair pro- ficiency in it; for those whose nervous tempera- ment prevents this are few indeed, and need not be taken into account. Some men, indeed, have a natural gift, by means of which, with the great practice such gift and its corresponding inclination are sure to induce, they become dead shots, the masters of the art of shooting. Still, there are very few who may not become good shots if they follow proper methods and practice much in pur- suance of wise instructions. To begin at an early age is a good thing. Many boys can shoot as well as men, allowing for the smaller practice and shorter experience they have had. The parents of some youths are disinclined to let them have 251 252 FIELD SIIOOT1.XG. guns for fear of accidents, but there is no ground for apprehension on this point. The handling of the gun prevents accidents with guns, instead of causing them. In those cases we hear of in which thoughtless persons shoot their friends accidentally, it will be found in nineteen cases out of twenty that the gun was not in the hands of a boy or young man who shoots in the field, but in those of one who only knows a gun by sight, and is wholly unacquainted with the proper management of it. It is a million to one that a boy who shoots, or is learning to shoot, will never shoot one of his sisters or friends. Such things are only done by those who have nothing to do with firearms in their proper places. The latter have an idea that they will kill, but they hardly know how. On the other hand, the shooter sees execution done by his gun on birds, and, knowing that there is death in the barrel, never fools about with it, letting the muzzle cover people. Therefore I say that wher- ever there is convenience for it parents should let their sons learn to shoot, and they need not be afraid to do so because their boys are com- paratively young. There is no more danger of a gun, to himself or other persons, in the hands of u boy of fourteen years of age, than there is of THE ART OF SHOOTING ON THE WING. 253 one in the hands of a young man of twenty who is equally new to the practice of shooting. The boys must begin some time, if they are to shoot at all, and to put it off reminds one of the mother who declared that her son must not go into the water until he had learned to swim. I now purpose to give such brief instructions to beginners in shooting and young sportsmen, together with hints which may be taken advan- tage of by marksmen of experience, as I believe will be useful. Two of the things essential to success in the field are the loading of the gun for the different varieties of game, and its hand- ling when game is found and takes wing. It is a common error to use shot of a size larger than necessary, and very often there is too much of it. A timid man is afraid to put in plenty of pow- der, of which there can hardly be too much as long as the gun will burn it, and he increases the charge of shot under the strange delusion that he thus compensates for the deficiency of the explosive part of the charge. A gun badly loaded is like a bad watch — it deceives and mor- tifies its owner. The choice of guns has been already alluded to, and, I repeat, beware of choosing one that is 2<> 1 FIELD SHOOTING. very light. In a gun of more weight the capa- city of shooting strong charges with ease and comfort, and of killing more game, altogether out- weighs the carrying of an extra pound or pound and a half. Boys, it is true, must have light guns, and there are very nice, safe, good-shoot- ing guns made for boys. In choosing one for your son or nephew, however, do not choose a light gun of those made for boys. It is not to be a sort of handsome toy-gun, but a serviceable arti- cle, such as will inspire the boy with the confi- dence which begets success and leads to skill, by hitting and killing whenever it is held right. The light single-barrelled guns made for boys do not amount to much. It will be better, in buying a gun for a youth who has not had one before, to pay more money and purchase a breech-loader, sin- gle-barrel if he is young and not strong, but a double-barrel if he is fifteen years old and fairly robust. Generally the height of the youth is not to be taken into account in this matter. Many boys who are not tall for their age have more strength and endurance than those who are. A breech-loader is much more easily loaded and a great deal safer than a muzzle-loader, as regards accidents, in the hands of either man or bov. THE ART OF SHOOTING ON THE WING. 255 The gun being provided, the youth to whom it belongs is to handle it, and practise the handling of it, just as if it was loaded, until he brings it up to his shoulder clean and well, and feels as well able to manage it nicely and quickly as he is to handle his bat at base-ball or cricket. In this practice with the gun he is to be careful that he never lets the muzzle look towards a person. It is to be a cardinal principle that the gun in his hands, whether charged or not, shall never point towards man or boy, woman or girl, in the field, or the house, or anywhere else. When the youth handles the gun well unloaded, the next thing is to load. Young sportsmen in embryo must begin with light charges. For a breech-loader he may use the metal cases for his cartridges, or the paper cases if he does not want to use the case more than once. The gun-maker will show him how to load them, and until he can do it properly himself he had better get it done by a friend who understands it. He will learn to do it very easily. At first the cartridges for the youth or young man must be loaded lightly ; for if they are not, and his gun should kick, he may become afraid of it, shut both his eyes when he pulls 256 FIELD SH00TTNO. trigger, hold it unsteadily, and tall into such habits as may prevent him from ever becoming a good shot. He •will already have learned to stand upright, with his left foot in advance, and his right a little back to brace the body when he brings his gun up as if to deliver fire. With cartridges loaded with three or three and a half drachms of powder and an ounce of shot, No. 8 or No. 9, the youth is to go into a field, yard, or any safe place, and put up a target of paper a foot square against a building, a wall, a tree, or a board. He may then retire twenty yards, load his gun, take aim right along the rib of a double-barrel, along the top of the barrel and sight if single, and as soon as he has taken aim pull the trigger. 1 think a boy will usually get a quicker and better sight with a double- barrel gun than with a single-barrel. In taking aim the youth will naturally shut his left eye, and this is proper. I have heard men say that it is best to shoot without shutting one eye. For my part 1 cannot see it. One eye is cer- tainly quite as good as two when it is taking aim along the gun at the object, and I believe a good deal better. In snap-shooting both eyes are often open when the fire is delivered, but even in THE ART OF SHOOTTNG ON THE WING. S57 that most good shots instinctively shut the left eye at the instant of firing. The youth must load again after his shot, and then go up to the target to see how many shot he put into it, change the paper, and try again. The main points are to get good, quick aim, and then fire on the instant, with the gun firmly held and well "braced against the shoulder. But the gun is not to be fired in a hurried, nap-ha- zard sort of way without a sight being obtained at all. When the object is once sighted, the shooter is to fire, and not delay the discharge under the notion that he can do better. The first sight is the best. With practice and the con- sumption of a little powder and shot the youth will soon become familiar with the shooting of his gun, and learn to bring it up, take aim, and fire without any pause between those operations. He will then find that he can hit the target every time with the centre of the charge; and as this is the way to kill, he is now to begin at birds. Boys have a hankering after shooting at sitting birds. This is not to be indulged in. The target is better practice than sitting birds, because if the youthful shooter goes after the latter he will ramble about half a day without getting as 258 FIELD SHOOTING. many shots in distance as he can make at the target in a quarter of an hour. Therefore, when the young shooter begins at birds, it is to be at birds on the wing — slow-flying birds, such as meadow-larks, swamp blackbirds, and the like. The young shooter will be able to get within twenty yards of larks. When the bird gets up, bring the gun to the shoulder, take quick aim, and fire. There is to be no dwelling on the aim, which is to be point blank at a bird going straight away from the gun, just as the sight was plump on the target. By going into the meadows and fields where swamp blackbirds fly up and down, the young sportsman may stand and shoot at them as they go by. These will be cross-shots — or side shots, as I call them, be- cause, the side of the bird is presented to the gun. One bird must always be selected for the shot, when there is a flock, or several birds arc fly- ing near together; and as the course of the bird is across the line of fire, allowance must be made for that fact. The aim must be a little ahead of the flying bird. At short distances and at slow-flying birds a little is enough, but there should be some allowance made. For these birds at short distances No. 10 shot will be largo THE ART OF SHOOTING ON THE WING. 259 enough. When longer shots are in order for the improving shooter, No. 8 may be used ; and as he Avill now have acquired confidence in himself and his gun, more powder may be employed. After a while he will learn the quantity of powder with which his gun shoots best with ease and comfort to himself in delivering fire. At first the young shooter at birds on the wing may expect misses, perhaps a good many of them, but he need not be disheartened. When he misses, let him consider and hit upon the pro- bable cause of the miss. It may be that he shot too high or too low, or behind the bird — which is very likely if it was a cross-shot — or he may have shot in a hurried, flustered way without taking aim. To whatever cause he thinks the miss may have been owing, let him resolve to guard against it another time. 1 wish to impress upon the young shooter that missing within easy distance is not a matter of chance. Under such circumstances there is always a cause why the miss was not a hit, and it is desirable that he who has made it should find out the cause and be prepared to prevent it. If he does this, he will steadily improve in his shooting, and may probably become in time a u crack shot," which 2G0 FIELD SHOOTING. signifies one of the best. Going on missing time after time, without stopping to consider why the bird was missed, will not do. When a bird is going straight away from the gun, the miss of the beginner is commonly ow- ing to under-shooting. His line of fire, straight ahead, is apt to be correct, but he often shoots too low. Let him remember that a bird getting up near him and flying away is almost always rising for some distance. If the young shooter gets sight of the bird, he is certain not to shoot too high, and he may shoot too low ; therefore keep the gun up, and if you see a feather of the bird in sighting along the ridge, crack away. You will be nearly certain to bring it down. Misses at birds which present side shots, and fly across the line of fire, are usually owing to shoot- ing behind the bird. The young shooter, as 1 observed before, must allow for the forward motion of the bird he aims at ; and if at short distances, at larks and swamp blackbirds, he shoots ten or twelve inches ahead of the bird, he will be sure to hit it, provided the gun had the right elevation. When the young shooter, after having missed two or three side shots, thinks it was owing to THE ART OF SHOOTING ON THE WING. 261 his shooting behind his birds, he must deter- mine to hold ahead of the next that crosses. It is two to one that he will bring that one down, although he is but a beginner. The ne- cessity of aiming ahead of crossing birds is often not thoroughly understood even by adult sports- men whose practice has been large ; and the dis- tance at which it is proper to hold at a fast-flying bird crossing a long shot off is almost universally under-estimated. The gun at the shoulder must move with the bird until aim is taken the proper distance ahead of it. Then shoot instantly. The young shooter must practise all he can, neglecting no opportunity. When by proper instructions he has been taught what he is to do and how he is to do it, practice is the thing through w r hich he will improve and perhaps become a first-rate shot. When he has been well entered at larks, swamp blackbirds, swallows and the like, he will be fit to go out with a companion, an old sportsman who knows how to manage dogs ; if convenient, after game- birds. Pinnated grouse, the young ones at the early part of the season, afford the very best practice for the beginners who have had some shooting 262 FIELD SHOOTING. at larks and blackbirds. If the commencement of the shooting season is changed by law from the fifteenth of August to the first of September, as I hope it will be, the young birds will still be sufficiently easy for the youthful sportsman. As it is now, they might be a little difficult on and after the first of September ; for having been shot at almost incessantly for the last sixteen days in August, they have become rather wild, and the feeble ones have all been killed. I am sa- tisfied that if the grouse season opened on the first of September, I could take a youth who had practised at larks and blackbirds, as above described, and had never seen a live grouse in his life, and so instruct him in the field by precept and example that his shooting should improve right along, so that late in October and November, he should often succeed in stop- ping grouse, when, according to some who call themselves sportsmen, they are so wild and diffi- cult that they can't be killed with the gun at all. But as the young sportsmen of the East have no chance at the grouse of Illinois, Iowa, etc., and quail and snipe arc too difficult to afford fair practice for beginners, I should recommend the youthful gunners to try their hands at the THE ART OF SHOOTING ON THE WING. 2(33 migratory thrushes, called robins. These birds flock together in the fall before they go south, and fly up and down rows of trees in fields, or along fences, from, tree to tree, in lanes, and about by- roads. They will afford good practice. The be- ginner need not be deterred from shooting at them by the name " robin/' because these birds are no more robins than woodcocks are. All three have red breasts, and so has the bullfinch. The young shooter, as a matter of course, will not shoot at these handsome birds when they are about gentlemen's lawns, where they ornament the smooth-shorn turf and embel- lish the shrubbery. The time for action at them is when they flock preparatory to migration, when they will be found in such places as have been mentioned. The young sportsman may often be able to get shots at these birds sitting, but he should not take them. His main object is to learn to shoot well at birds on the wing, and to this end three so killed are of more account than three dozen shot sitting on tree-tops and on the boughs of scrub pines and cedars. A. boy who can bring down one-third of the larks and blackbirds he shoots at, and can stop a swallow once out of three or four times when 2(54 FIELD GITOOTIXG. they are flying low and darting a little, as they generally do before rain, is sufficiently advanced to go into the field after game. Once there, the same principles apply to him as ought to govern older marksmen, but do not always do so. During the first part of my residence in Illinois, although T was a good shot, as twenty brace of quail may serve to prove, I was nothing like as good as I have since become. Years of experience, shooting many months in each year, and nearly every day except Sundays, with much thought over the principles of shooting as an art, have en- abled me to arrive at as much certainty as men attain to. It may seem like boasting, but never- theless I declare my conviction that I can shoot game-birds on the wing, in the field, as well as any man who lives or- ever did live. I have had a challenge out for three years, offering to shoot against any man in the world, Yv'estern field- shooting, and another offering to shoot against any man in the world at pigeons. The challenge for field-shooting has now been withdrawn, in con- sequence of the accident which befell me in 1872, when I was shot clean through the right thigh by my own gun when the muzzle touched me. It occurred in the way I shall now relate. THE ART OF SHOOTING ON THE WING. 265 I was engaged in shooting pinnated grouse in December, in the neighborhood of Elkhart. On the ninth of that month, when starting at break of day, I drove to Mr. Gillott's pastures in my buggy, and got there before it was quite light. I opened the gate, went into the pas- ture, and, getting into the buggy again, prepared for shooting. The birds at that time were quite wild, and it was necessary to shoot them from the buggy. My gun lay upon my knees, both barrels cocked. As I was stooping over to draw the blanket upon my knees, the right fore-wheel of the buggy fell into a deep rut. The gun canted, and before I could catch it the butt hit the hind wheel, and the right barrel went off, making a hole through my thigh. The gun was loaded with five drams of powder and an ounce of No. 6 shot. It was a terrible wound, but happily most of the shot missed the thigh- bone. Some, however, hit it, but did not break it. They are in my thigh now. I drove home, was laid up four months, and am now well again. But the wound has had the following effect : I cannot walk as long as I used to do before I re- ceived it. It is also very painful at times, so much so that I almost fear it is going to break 206* FIELD SHOOTING. out again. Now, under this altered state of things, it would hardly do for me to shoot against any man in the world, and see who could kill the most game in a week, say ; but I will even now shoot against any man in the world, for a reasonable number of hours on a reasonable num- ber of days, and take shot about, as game offers, one man to follow the shot of the other. I shall now relate the methods I have finally adopted. To young sportsmen what I shall ad- vance will certainly be instructive and useful, and I think many old ones may gather things from it which will be of service to them. One- half the shots made at birds in the field are at birds which fly across the shooter, presenting side shots, or go quartering off from him, so that their course forms an obtuse angle with the line of fire. Most of the misses which occur in shooting at such birds are owing to the failure of the shooter to hold forward enough so that the centre of the charge will be upon the bird when the shot reaches him. The centre of the flight of shot should reach the line of his flight just where he will be when the line of the shot intersects his line of flight, not where he was when the aim was made. The fur- ther the bird is from the shooter, the faster he is THE ART OF SHOOTING ON" THE WING. 2f)7 going, and the nearer his line of flight is at fight angles with the line of the gun, the more the shooter must hold ahead of him to kill. I have had this very thoroughly impressed upon me sinee I" have been a pigeon-shooter. When a man is in the field killing plenty of birds, and game is abundant, he does not pause to consider how it was he missed this bird or that. lie pushes on to where his dogs have made another point. But when a man misses once or twice in ten birds from the traps, and there are five hundred or a thousand dollars depending upon his gun, he is apt to cogitate over the reasons of these things. I had already noticed that in field-shooting more of the birds got away crippled from side shots than from other kinds. The reason, I concluded, was simply this : the gun was not held quite for- ward enough, and, instead of being in the line of the centre of the charge, the bird was merely struck by one or two of the shot on the outer edge of the flight. If he was flying to the left, nothing but the outer shot on the left side would hit him ; and if to the right, nothing but the straggling outside shot on the right. I began to hold more forward at crossing birds, and then I found that instead of being hit and getting away crippled, the birds 2ti$ FIELD SHOOTING. covered by the centre of the flying charge, or thereabout, were cut down dead. In pigeon-shooting 1 soon made this principle a matter of nice calculation. Many may think that at only twenty-one yards from the trap there is no need for the practical application of this prin- ciple; but'l know there is. At easy, slow- flying "birds, going right or left from the trap, I hold three or four inches ahead of the bird. It is well known by those who attend the great pigeon- shooting tournaments and matches that I generally kill all such birds, while some other men, who are very good shots, often miss them. The reason is plain to my mind : they shoot a little behind the bird. At a fast-flying crossing bird I hold from eight to ten inches ahead; at a quartering bird from three to four inches. At a bird which goes straight away close to the ground I hold right on, well covered, because he is rapidly advancing. At one going straight away and rising I shoot high, because he is rising, and if you hold right on to him you are apt to under-shoot ; and though you may wound him, he will be likely to get out of bounds. At an incoming bird I shoot right at the head, and 1 rarely fail to kill. Incoming birds are often missed from under-shootinc The hard. THE ART OF SHOOTING ON THE WING. 269 est of all birds are those which go straight away from the trap in the line of the shooter, at a very swift rate, and close to the ground. Such birds get hard hit, but they often get out of bounds. They present a very small mark ; their wings are closed, perhaps, when the shot reaches where they are, the charge scatters, and their heads are covered by their bodies for the most part. In field-shooting it is very necessary to apply the foregoing principles, because the bird shot at will often be forty yards off, and perhaps more. At a pinnated grouse going straight away the shooter should aim right on. When a side shot is presented, and the bird is going at a middling rate, thirty yards off, aim from ten to twelve inches ahead of it. Quartering shots must be judged of according to distance and rate of flight ; taking my pigeon-shooting experience as a standard and guide, and remembering that late in the fall, when grouse rise far off and fly fast, the shooter must hold further ahead of crossing and quartering birds. Some think that the barrels of a double-bar- relled gun shoot a little in — that is, the right barrel shoots a little to the left, and the left barrel a little to the right. If some guns do this, 270 FIELD SHOOTING. they ought not to perform so. Good guns do not. I would not have a gun which shot in. It is wrong in principle. At a quail flying fast across at twenty yards hold twelve inches ahead of the bird. Some- times in quail-shooting a bevy put up by an- other sportsman near at hand will come by a shooter, crossing at immense speed thirty or forty yards off, perhaps more. In such a case hold three feet ahead of the bird you shoot at. 1 have often done so, and killed him. At ruffed grouse and woodcock in cover, and at pinnated grouse and quail in corn, snap-shots must be made. The sportsman must shoot at the glimpse of the bird, and, if he sees that it is crossing, a little in advance of it. A little will do in most cases, because the birds are hardly seen far oft' in thick cover or in corn. For snap-shooting of this sort a good-fitting gun is an absolute neces- sity, so that when it is tossed up it will come slap to the shoulder. In duck-shooting, at the morning flights, when they are overhead and from thirty to forty yards in the air, hold from fifteen inches to two feet ahead of the bird you aim at, according to the rapidity at which it is moving. Great judgment THE ART OF SHOOTINe; ON' THE WINQ. *2T 1 is to be exercised, and much practice U neces* aapy to attain it. There is always a certain space of time between the aim and the arrival of the shot at the mark ; and if the mark is moving across the muzzle of the gun, allowance must be made for it. Birds overhead are always crossing the muzzle of the gun, unless they sec the shooter and tower up. After the taking of the aim, though ever so little after, the trigger has to be pulled, the hammer has to fall, the powder has to be ignited, and the shot to be propelled to the object shot at. Now, I often noticed that in shooting at the leading duck -of a flock pass- ing overhead which did not see me, and tower, I missed the one 1 shot at, and killed another one two feet behind the one which led the van and was aimed at. This made me resolve to hold more forward than I had been doing. Pintails and teal fly faster than mallards, and a little more allowance in taking aim will be good. I have seen a pintail killed Avhich was three feet behind the duck shot at, and this more than once. Wild geese and crane are slow flyers, and at these all that is necessary is to aim at the head, be- hind which there is the large body. But in shoot- ing at wild geese and crane with large shot, and 27'2 FIELD SHOOTING. making a long shot, the shooter had better hold a little forward of the head of the bird. In windy weather the shot deflects somewhat from the straight course, and flies off a little to leeward. Al- lowance must be made for this, especially by those who use light charges of powder. As to distance, there is this to be observed : al- though wild geese and ducks arc almost always further off than they are supposed to be, they will be killed easily enough with a good gun and a proper charge, provided the gun is held right. I have often killed ducks and brant geese which were sixty yards off, and a few which were not less than a hundred. But there is no certainty of killing birds at more than forty yards, owing to the spread of the shot as it flies in diverging lines from the muzzle of the gun; and twice as many are killed at twenty-five yards and under as there are at over that distance. I have heard men boast of killing all the pinnated grouse they shot at within a hundred yards, and I immediately con- cluded that this might be true if they never shot grouse at any distance. It is like the story of the man who declared that his horse could run less than a mile a minute, whereupon an Irish jockey exclaimed: "That's a d — d lie!" THE ART OF SHOOTING ON TFIE WING. '2~3 1 did once kill a pinnated grouse at ninety- live yards, but it was by a chance shot. I and Miles Johnson, of New Jersey, were shooting in McLean County with No. 7 shot. A pack of grouse got up together, of which he killed two and I killed two. One of the others circled round a long way off, and I slipped in another cartridge. The bird presented a long side shot, flying fast. I held as much as six feet ahead of him, and let fly. One of the shot happened to hit him in the head, and down he came with a heavy thud. Johnson stepped the ground from where 1 fired, and made it ninety-five yards to the dead grouse. It must have been as far off when the single shot killed it, for it fell perpen- dicularly, there being next to no wind. It was all a matter of chance. I had no expectation of killing the bird when I fired, and might shoot fifty times under the like circumstances without killing once. I have recently visited the shot-tower of Tatham Brothers, and that of Thos. Otis Le Eoy & Co. The shot made at these towers is excellent. The latter is made according to the American stand- ard adopted by the New York Sportsman's As< sociation, which is as follows ; £74 FIELD SHOOTING. Scale. Diameter in inches .Numbei Number of Pellets to an ounce. -21_ 100 . TT . 32 .2 0. 100 . T . 38 _L9. 1 o u . BBB . 44 . BB 49 .11- 1 on . B 58 .1 BL l on . 1 69 _±5_ J 00 . 2 82 .14. j oo . 3 . 98 rVo . 4 121 .Li. I oo . 5 149 -11. 100 . G 209 .10- 1 . 7 . 278 10 . 8 375 _?_ i u u . 9 560 _7_ 1 00 . . 10 . 822 ] Do . . 11 . 982 6 . . 12 . 1,778 In reference to cartridge-cases, which I have had occasion to mention often, I shall here quote from the circular of the Union Metallic Cartridge Company, Bridgeport, Conn., for the information of sportsmen : "Special attention is called to the Sturtevant Patent Movable Anvil. By the use of these anvils in metallic shells certainty of fire is se- cured, and the exploded caps are easily pushed THE ART OF SHOOTING ON THE WING. "To oft' without the necessity of any special instru- ment. The rod which is used for pressing down the wads in loading the shells will also answer for pushing off the exploded caps. These shells are intended to use the breech-loading shell-caps of our own make, or the English caps, such as used in Eley's paper shells, but in case of ne- cessity the ordinary < G. D.' caps may be used. These shells are made to fit the standard gauges used by the principal gun-makers of England, are sure to lit the chambers of the guns, and will stand reloading a great many times. "The Sturtevant patent shells can be purchased' of or ordered from any dealer in ammunition. Also metallic shells for shot-guns having the Berdan patent anvils, Nos. 1 and 2, and both metallic and paper shells with the Hobbs and Orcutt patent primers, which have the anvils secured in the caps," CHAPTER XV. SPORTING DOGS BREEDING AND BREAKING. In my time I have bred and broken many clogs for the sports of the field, and always with a view to simple utility in the field. I think I have had some of the best dogs that a man ever shot over, and my system of breaking has always answered my purpose well ; but I do not pretend to be a dog-breaker ia regard to the particulars which many sportsmen hold to be necessary, but which I do not regard as essential in the light of my own experience. Therefore what I am about to say on this point is more for those who keep a dog or two of their own than for adepts in breaking dogs, or gentlemen who can afford to pay high prices in order to secure the results of high education in their pointers and setters. 1 propose to state on this subject what I know, and to mention some few facts in regard to dogs which I have bred, broken, and shot over which may serve to point the matter. For the prairie country, where, as 1 believe, the £76 SPORTIN'G DOGS BREEDING AND BREAKING. 277 best shooting within a thousand miles of the Atlantic seaboard is to be had, the setter is probably to be preferred. There are, however, several weighty matters which tell in favor of the pointer. The latter stands heat better than the setter, and there are many hot days in September, and even in October. Some think the pointer stands thirst better than the setter, but the truth is that both want water every hour and a half or two hours. The defects of the pointer for the prairie are his thin skin and tender feet. In the fall of the year the prairie-grass has a beard which cut s into skin or leather. Shoot in a pair of new boots, and the toes will be cut through in about ten days or a fortnight, or in less time, if you go into the dry grass much while the leather is still wet. Consequently, as the skin of the pointer is not protected by a thick coat of wiry hair, like that of the best and hardiest setters, it is cut on the legs, flanks, sides, and the inside of the thighs. The feet are also cut and lamed. On the other hand, the long, thick coat of the setter gets full of cockle-burrs in those old field; in which game is often found, and they cause him a vast amount of trouble and annoy ance. About one-fourth of the time in such fields the 2<5 FIELD SHOOTING. setter is trying to free himself from the burrs, and at night, if they are not carefully picked out of his coat by his master, he gets no rest, and is nearly useless the next day. Sportsmen who shoot over setters should always take care that they are freed from burrs in the evening. If they do not, their doers will be miserable all night, and not fit for use in the morning, when the prime of the sport is to be had. I have had capital setters, and I must say that I have had and seen pointers in the field which were equally good, subject to the drawbacks I have mentioned above in regard to each. Good dojjs of both kinds have fine scenting: powers, and the setters, so far as my experience goes, are as much under control as pointers when worked by men who know their business. Set- ters take to retrieving in water much better than pointers, and on the whole, as I remarked before, the setter is the best dog for our part of the country. When the skin of the pointer is cut by the prairie-grass and rough weeds, and the tops of his toes are raw, he comes out in the morning so stiff and sore that he is hardly able to hobble along at first. The dog's ambition car- riro him on, however, and he ^et^ morn linibor SPORTING DOGS BREEDING AND BREAKING. $70 after a while. But even then the flies settle on the sores and annoy him very much. Vrhen Miles Johnson came out to Illinois to shoot with me, he had four as nice pointers as I ever saw, while I had one cross-bred dog between the pointer and the setter which he said did not look to be worth ten dollars. But the pointers, though used by turns, soon got sore, and, in order to make frequent changes, he had to take them out when they were hardly fit to go. My cross- bred dog, on the contrary, was at work every day and never tired, so that Miles said many gentlemen in the East, if they saw his style of hunting, his stauifchness, and the game and bottom he dis- played, would give five hundred dollars for him. *I have bred and used cross-bred dogs for years, and for the Western country, all sorts of work in the field or cover, long days and many days in succession, I hold them to be the best of dogs. I like to put a pointer-dog, well bred and good in the field, to a setter-bitch of the same excel- lent qualities, or a setter-dog to a pointer-bitch ; it mak^s no difference, that I could ever see, which side the pointer-blood was, though some have a theory that it does. Nor does it matter what the colors cf the parents are. From a black setter-dog and 280 FIELD SHOOTIKft. a white pointer-bitch I bred a litter of liver- colored pups which became first-rate dogs. Some of the cross-bred dogs take after the setter, and some after the pointer, in shape and coat, in the same litter. On the whole, I prefer those which follow the pointer. They have a short but thick coat and a tough skin, while the hair is not long enough to catch hold of the cockle-burrs. Both kinds are hearty, strong dogs, with good constitutions and capable of great endurance. As a rule, they are inclined to be headstrong and are difficult to break, but when they are broken and have learned their business they make first-rate dogs and hardly ever tire. Those cross-bred dogs which take after the pointer look like pointers, and many men think they are pointers ; but they have much better feet, and their legs and bodies are covered and well pro- tected by thick but short hair. I have found them good, tough dogs, capable of standing more hard work than cither pointers or setters, as a rule. Those which take after the setter have more power than setters, and great bone and substance. Their hair is not as long as the setter's, but it is thicker. Both kinds are as good for water SPORTING DOGS BREEDING AND BREAKING. 2&.1 and cold weather as need be. They have had plenty of both in my service, and I know the fact. Another thing is that a timid dog is a rare exception among these cross-bred dogs. A timid dog gives immense trouble to breakers, and is, to my thinking, little better than a nuisance. A man must have great patience and forbearance to make much of timid dogs. If he corrects their faults, they are cowed at once, and slink behind his heels. The cross-bred dog, bold, high- headed, and eager, will run riot at first, but they can be educated and made to understand and perform their duties. They will stand punish- ment, and, in fact, cannot be broken without it : but when they are once well broken, they never forget what they have been taught to do or what to refrain from doing. As before remarked, I prefer those which follow the pointer in shape and coat, but I have had some Avhich took after the setter, and were as nearly perfect as dogs could be. I think the best dog I ever had was one of these : at any rate she was esteemed by me as worth her weight in gold. Fanny was the produce of a pure-bred lemon and white setter-bitch, and a pure-bred liver- X>S\> FIELD SHOOTINTt. colored pointer-dog. She took after her mother in shape and coat, but was larger and stronger, and was liver and white in color. She was of good size and strong. Her coat was thick and not as long as her mother's, and she had hut a little feather on the legs. She had splen- did scenting powers, was easily broken, was good for every sort of shooting, and the best retriever I ever saw. In retrieving pinnated grouse or quail, if she came upon the scent of other birds Avhile bringing in the game, she would point and stand staunch with the dead one in her mouth, or even with a winged one that was fluttering. It is thought by some that a dog ought not to do this. I know that very few will do it with the winged bird, but I like it. Fanny would work from daybreak until dark, and willingly. I shot over her seven seasons, and never knew her to " refuse " but twice, and on one of these occasions it was my fault, not hers. I killed thousands of birds over her, and broke many young dogs in her company. As a re- triever of water-fowl I never saw her equal. She would cheerfully go in and bring ducks out of the water when ice froze in her hair as soon as she landed. It was in such weather that I SPORTING DOGS BREEDING- AND BREAKING. 283 fell into a great error, and caused her to refuse her work one time. One very cold day I was shooting ducks on Salt Creek, and creeping up got a shot at a flock of mallards sitting on the water. It was a very large flock. One barrel was fired while they were on the water, the other as they rose. Eight were killed and five others winged. Fanny retrieved the dead ones, while the wounded swam to the other side of the creek and hid on the bank. She went to the other side, but the ice had now formed in her coat, and, being very cold, she sat down. I called her over to me and corrected her, after which • she crossed and recrossed three times, and brought three more. She then wanted to give it up, and I had half a mind to let her do so ; but there were two more ducks wounded, and if not brought they would die of slow starvation, so I required her to fetch them, which she did. It was a very hard task in such cold weather, and 1 was sorry to punish her ; but it shows what this sort of dog can do when an emergency requires much strength and endurance. She was a very sagacious and affec- tionate bitch, and a great favorite in the house at ' home. It is not good for a dog to be long in the water 284 FIELD SHOOTING. in very cold weather. Fetching out one or two , ducks does no harm, and good ones like it ; but to be long in the water at such times is very try- ing. I never afterwards suffered Fanny to do more in that line than she could perform without injury. Sometimes when going pinnated-grouse shoot- ing, and passing along in my wagon early in the morning, I would have a chance to shoot one. On these occasions she would jump out, retrieve it, and jump back into the wagon with the bird in her mouth. If I drove for grouse in ploughed . land or in grass-fields that had been mowed, with Fanny in the back of the wagon, she would, on seeing the birds, point from the wagon, and maintain her point all the while as I drove on to get within shot. One time, when going out for grouse to the Delavan Prairie, Fanny went into a corn-field at the edge of the timber, and I, paying no attention, drove on. Finding that she was not following, I pulled up, after having ( gone a considerable distance, and whistled for her. She stayed a long time, but came at last, bring- • ing with her a wild turkey three parts grown. 1 had recently had her out when turkey-shoot- ing, and she was the best dog I ever saw to SPORTING DOGS BREEDING AND BREAKING. 285 point a "wild turkey. I heave no doubt she stood at that turkey a long time, and only went in to catch it herself when called off. She could soon understand what I was after. If rabbit-shooting, she would stand and retrieve them, and, if not, she would not notice them. Once, shooting pinnated grouse when . they were wild, I found there was a flock on a fence two or three hundred yards off. I had a muzzle-loader, and hanging my shot-belt and powder-flask on the fence, I crawled up so as to be within shot when the grouse flew. I killed one, and winged another with the second barrel. In retrieving the wounded one Fanny winded a bevy of quail, and stood hard with the winged grouse fluttering in her mouth. The quail were twenty yards off from her in some corn, but nevertheless she stood hard and fast with the grouse fluttering in her mouth, while 1 went bad: two hundred yards for the powder and shot, loaded, and returned. I then took the grouse from her, whereupon she flushed the quail, and I killed a brace. This was one of the greatest things I have ever known a dog to do. The grouse was alive and fluttering; with a dead bird in her mouth the performance would not have been so very remarka- ble. 28(3 FIELD SHOOTING. Fanny knew no fancy tricks, and would not fetch and carry out of the field. I have never taught my dogs out of the field. In the field no dog ever beat her. Her quick perception and sense were extraordinary. She seemed to under- stand what was wanted. If ducks in a pond were to be crawled up to, she would lie down as I started, and stay there until she heard the crack of the gun. If I laid anything down and told her to watch it, she always remained until I returned. If I had stayed away all day, or two days for that matter, she would not have left her post. I have known dogs that could not be called off a point; but they were those which had been broken not to flush their game, leaving that to the shooter. An English gentleman came to Elk- hart from St. Louis, with whom I went shooting nearly every day during his visit. He had a pair of splendid pointers, as fine as I ever saw — large, strong dogs with long heads. One of them was black, the other red. AY hen the black dog would get on a point in corn, he would not leave it until either his master or some other man flushed the birds. The consequence was that we often had to go in and find him, and I have fre- quently been half an hour in searching for him. SPORTING DOGS BREEDING AND BREAKING. 287 That style of breaking may suit England well enough — no doubt it does ; but in the prairie States it does not answer the purpose. The red dog was not so obstinately staunch. After standing his birds a good while he would flush them himself, and then come in sight of us. One day I was prevented from shooting, and the gentleman came back at night without the black dog. He had lost him at dusk in a piece of prairie where the grass was tall. I saw the gentleman that night, and told him my opinion was that his pointer was in that piece of prairie, standing birds. At break of day the sportsman went out to the place, and there he found the dog, not standing up on his point — he was too tired for that — but sitting on his haunches. The grouse still lay to him, and the gentleman flushed it and shot it. This was his report to me. I saw him come in the previous night without the black dog, I saw him bring him home in the next forenoon, and I have no reason to doubt his veracity. My famous Fanny died at work, as I may say. I was out with her one afternoon when there was good shooting, and finding that she did not want to continue at work, I put her into my wagon, and drove home. She did not appear to 288 FIELD SHOOTING. be in pain; but as she had been in apparent good health in the morning, and had hunted with alacrity all the forenoon, I did not know what to make of it. She seemed to lose her strength, and yet I could not see any signs of her having been bitten by a poisonous snake or the like. In fact, I did not believe that she was seriously ill, and, having made up her bed nicely, I concluded she would be better in the morning. But that night she died, at nine o'clock. Fifteen minutes before her death she got up on her legs and looked at me very ear- nestly, as though she wanted to make me under- stand something. She then lay down again, and in fifteen minutes died easily. I had never left her after I brought her home, and her death was the cause of much grief in the family. It was al- most as if we had lost one of the children. I do not know what her ailment was, but believe that she had an internal abscess, the bursting of which caused her death. The best age to begin the breaking of a dog is about a year, in my judgment. At eight or nine months old it is well enough to take a puppy out to the field in a wagon, and let it work a little with an old dog. Care must be taken that young ones do not work much in the hot sun, SPORTING DOGS BREEDING AND BREAKING. 289 for if they do thcro is an end to all reasonable hopes of their usefulness. They are spoiled for ever. What they are taught about a house or a yard is merely mechanical, in my opinion, and of very little service afterwards in the field. The field, where there are birds, is the place to break dogs, and puppies are too playful and too soft for the real breaking. At about a year old the dog is of an age to understand what is wanted of him in a short time, and also fit to endure the correc- tion which will be required to make him avoid faults. It is better to begin with the young one in company with an old, staunch dog, as young dogs are imitative. Some come to a point the first time they get on birds, but some do not, although their power of scenting may be very good. Some, when the old one points, run in, flush the birds, and then chase them. Many men think this grievous, but I invariably look upon it as a sign that the dog will make a good one, if properly handled and treated. Eagerness in the young dog "indicates that the hunting instinct is strong, and then it only remains necessary to develop and govern it in the proper way. Some young dogs point larks and other little birds, and some men abhor this, 290 FIELD SHOOTING. but I like it. It indicates a good nose and the instinct to stand at point when the dog finds, and these are two of the main qualities upon "which the future excellence of the youngster will depend. The best dogs I have ever had would point little birds around our house when puppies. The in- stinct of a young, unbroken dog does not instruct him as to what is game and what is not. They learn that in breaking and in after-use. When a young dog runs in eagerly, there is no need to be h.arsh with him at first. It will be very easy to break him of that, and to make him comprehend that he is not to repeat it. My plan is to get young dogs eager after game, and then instruct them as to the method by which it is to be pursued and killed. Therefore I let them run in and chase a few times. The worst dogs to break are timid ones, which do not take much notice of birds, and are easily cowed. With these the utmost care and patience are required. With eager dogrs after a little while I endeavor to make them understand that they are not to run in when the old dog points, but to back him. If they run in, then 1 whip them a little. If they persist in doing so after that correction, I take another method. Severe whipping does not answer the SPORTING DOGS BREEDING AND BREAKING. 201 purpose for which it is intended. After being whipped once, the dog runs off when he finds he is likely to be whipped again. By the time he is caught and whipped again he has forgotten all about the original fault. Now, there is an effec- tual way to punish a fault at almost the moment of its commission, and thus to cure him of it without half the punishment of severe whipping. I load one barrel with very small shot, No. 10. "When the dog has had one or two warnings, and rushes in again as the old dog stands at point, I call " steady " in a loud, authoritative tone of voice. Then if he keeps on, flushes the birds, and chases them, I just give him some of the No. 10 on the quarters. He will be at a good distance off, and the small shot will sting him sharply through his hair, but will not penetrate his tough skin. The dog knows in a moment what this is for. One lesson is generally enough, and the second is always effectual. A man might almost flay the hide off of some bold, headstrong dog with whips without breaking the dog to good purpose. My method obviates the necessity for a great deal of punishment with the whip, and is not really severe. A dog, however, should never be shot at with larger shot than No. 10, 292 FIELD SHOOTING. and never when he is not at the very least forty yards from the gun. If a timid dog runs in and chases birds after they are flushed, let him do so for days without whipping him or shooting at him. The thing for him is encouragement to pursue game in any manner at first ; and if he is whipped, he slinks "behind his master's heels. Therefore his con- fidence must be increased and his instinct to hunt somewhat developed before he is taken in hand for his faults. On the other hand, the bold, headstrong dog, not easily cowed, may be quickly brought to terms. I do not teach my dogs to drop to shot, or down-charge, but I educate them to stand where they are when the gun is fired until told to go on. I can see no use in their dropping. The man remains stand- ing, why not the dog? And besides, in hot weather, where the grass is long and the weeds tall and thick, it is injurious to the dog to lie down, because he gets less air than he does on his legs. I think dropping to shot and down- charging better dispensed with in these days of breech-loaders; still, I do not mean to set up as an authority on dog-breaking — I simply give the results of my own experience and observations. SPORTING DOGS BREEDING AND BREAKING. 29'j One of the best dogs I ever owned was a red setter, named Jack, a large, strong, npheaded dog. I bred him myself, and sold him when a pup to a butcher. With plenty to cat and no- thing to do he grew up big, and was always fat. - The butcher had him until he was two years old, and thought a good deal of him, though he never used him in the field or any- where else, except as a watch-dog and to follow his meat-wagon. The butcher died when Jack was two years old, and I bought him of the widow. He was entirely unbroken when I took him out with a steady old dog. The latter got a point, and thereupon Jack ran in, flushed the birds, and chased them. After he had gone forty or fifty yards I hallooed at him, but he did not notice it. I. knew what he would do, as his parents were both high-headed, bold-rang- ing dogs, and he was given to riotous frolicking and full of pluck. I had loaded both barrels of my gun expressly for his benefit, and now shot at him. The distance was rather long, but he was well stung. Nevertheless, he did not mind it, and kept on. Thereupon I let him have the other barrel, upon which he came back. At the next point at pinnated grouse in prairie-grass 294 FIELD SHOOTING. Jack ran in again. I hallooed, but he kept on, and again I shot at him ; then he came back. Once again he started to run in, but upon my hallooing " Steady ! " he halted, and backed the point of the old dog. This "was the first point he ever made in his life, and he hardly knew whether it was right or not. I went up and petted him, upon which he give indications that he understood what he was wanted to do. From that out he backed the old dog well. He was a little eager afterwards, but upon the whole 1 consider him to have been the easiest-broken dog that I ever handled. He took to retrieving, and was a rare good one at it; in duck-shooting, one of the best I ever had. In retrieving ducks he went at a gallop, swam as fast as he could, and brought in the dead at his best pace. There was no loafing about or slow walking with the duck in his mouth in his way of doing the work. A slow retriever fov ducks is not good. While he is fooling about a flock or two of ducks, seeing him, sheer off, and the shooter loses chances which he might improve. When retrieving grouse or quail, Jack would point live birds with a dead one in his mouth. He was very eager to SPORTING DOGS BREEDING AND BREAKING. \M>5 have the gun kill, and at length appeared to think that I must have killed something every time I fired a shot. This uncommon eagerness and resolution of his gave rise to a ludicrous incident. I was going with another man to shoot grouse late in the fall, and we had Jack and two other dogs in the wagon. A flock of brant were upon the prairie, and though they rose far off, we fired, but did not kill. Jack jumped out, and seemed to think it impossible that there was nothing killed or wounded. About that part of the prairie there were some poor, lean sheep suffering from foot-rot. Upon one of the smallest of these little sheep Jack seized, and began hauling it towards the wagon. I thought my partner would almost die of laugh- ing. I made Jack leave the sheep and come into the wagon again. I afterwards sold this dog to Benjamin McQueston, a gentleman who then lived at Spring- field, Illinois, but who now lives somewhere in Kansas, where he still has Jack. I ought not to have parted with the dog, but Mr. McQueston was very anxious to get him, and paid a good price, for our part of the country. The way of it was this : Four of us, including the gentleman 296 FIELD SHOOTING. mentioned, had been out shopting, and were re- turning along the road with a wagon and team. Jack had performed a good day's work, but was still full of spirit and vigor, anxious to hunt. As we drove along, he jumped on a rail-fence to leap down into the field on the other side, and right there he winded a bevy of quail. With his fore-feet on the top rail and his hind ones on the second Jack came to a dead point, and made as pretty a one as was possible in the position. Thereupon Mr. McQueston resolved to have him, if I could be prevailed upon to sell. There is not a dog in the country 1 would prefer to Jack to breed from. The best dog I have now is Dick, eight years old and cross-bred, being the produce of a setter-bitch and a pointer-dog. His color is red, and he takes after the setter, but has thicker and shorter hair. He is a capital worker, and an excellent dog for finding game. I did not breed him myself, but I broke him, he being two years old when I got him. He had been used in the field a little, but was worse than if he had never been out at all. I found -him a high-headed, eager, headstrong dog, such as I always think will make a good one. I brought him into the SPORTING DOGS BREEDING AND BREAKING. 297 proper way of working by stinging him v\ T ith shot once or twice when he was going on wrong. lie is now an excellent dog. I do not teach my dogs to retrieve, but let them take it up of their own accord from seeing my old dogs do it. About half learn to retrieve in that way. They could all be taught to do so easily enough. The most thorough dog-breaker 1 know is Miles Johnson, of Yardville, New Jersey. He has a capital place to keep dogs, and is a perfect master of the art of breaking them, retrieving, and everything else which may be thought desirable. I recently saw at his place a liver and white setter which he has broken to do almost anything. This is the most perfectly-educated sporting dog I ever saw; and if gentlemen want their dogs educated in this way, Johnson is the man to do it. My method is very serviceable, and includes all that I deem essential, but many would want more to be done with them. There is one thing sportsmen should always persevere in, and that is, making the dog perform what lie undertakes to make him do. I never let a dog evade doing what 1 have set out to make him do. Your dogs must be made to understand clearly that you are the master, and that your will i ; to rule their in- 298 FIELD SIIOOTIXtt. clinations. When Fanny was young and a pretty good dog, retrieving grouse very nicely, on one hot morning she refused to find and bring in a grouse I had shot. She ran for the corn, where- upon I fired over her and stung her with two or three straggling shot. She kept on, however, and bolted for home, some four miles distant. I knew that would never do, and, jumping into my buggy, I drove off and got there before she did. When she came jogging on, she seemed astounded at see- ing me there. I gave her a few cuts with the whip, and took her back to the place where she had misbehaved, upon which she found the dead bird, and brought it in. If I had passed that over, she w T ould have gone off again on some day when she was more inclined for rest than work. When a dog runs off instead of doing what he is required to do, bring him back to the same place, no mat- ter at what trouble, and compel him to perform it. If young sportsmen neglect this, and go on their way rather than lose a little time, their dogs will find it Out, and do pretty much as they like. It is this which causes many dogs which have really been well broken to turn out to be rascals in their, owners' hands. Cross-bred dogs are seldom good beyond the SPORTING DOGS BREEDING AND BREAKING. 299 first cross, though some bred from mine and the Scotch sheep-dog have turned out very well. But the sheep-dog has a fine nose and amazing sagacity, with a grand capacity to receive education and retain its fruits. The first dogs I shot over were cocking-spaniels, and I do not believe they had any breaking at all. I recently visited the neighborhood in which 1 learned to shoot on the wing, and the fine farm of Mr. Jeremiah Rundell, at Stockport, on the Hudson River, over which I used to shoot. With him and his family I ate some splendid apples, the produce of an orchard whose trees I helped to plant eighteen years ago. CHAPTER XVI. PIGEON-SHOOTKTG. I begast to shoot pigeons in 1868, when I had been a field-shot for more than eighteen years. 1 had often been invited to go and witness contests of the kind, but cared nothing for them, and up to 1868 had never seen a pigeon-trap. The first public pigeon-shooting into which I entered was a series of sweepstakes at St. Louis. I had some success; so much, in fact, that R. M. Patchen, who was with me, forthwith made a match, in which I was to shoot against Gough Stanton of Detroit for $200 a side. Expenses were to be paid to whomever travelled to the other, and he came to Elkhart. The match was fifty birds each. He brought with him a plunge trap, the first I had ever seen of that character. However, I con- sented to the use of it, and won by killing forty- six to his forty. I was then just about as good a shot at pigeons as I am now, except that I was anxious about the money, and sometimes missed owing to that. 200 Tli8 Champion MedaL PIGEON-SHOOTING. 301 I next shot against Abraham Kleinman. John Thomson, a stockman of Elkhart, made the match on my part. It was for $200 a side, fifty birds each from a spring-trap. There was a dispute about the quantity of shot to be used, he con- tending that it was to be limited to an ounce. We made a sort of compromise, by which I was to pull my own trap, while he was allowed a man to pull for him. The match was trap and handle for each other. He had an old trapper named Farnsworth to do this on his part, while my man, as afterwards appeared, did not know an old bird from a young one. Before we began I offered to bet that I killed forty-six out of fifty. This wager was eagerly accepted by Farnsworth, who wanted to bet a larger sum on the point. Kleinman killed forty-nine and I killed forty-six. I told Kleinman that I could and would beat him before long, and went home to practise in the field. I challenged him for the championship of Illinois, and we shot for $200 a side, at fifty single birds and twenty- five pairs of double birds each — the single birds ground-trap, the doubles plunge-traps. Of the single birds 1 killed forty-three to Klein- man's forty-two. At the doubles we killed forty- 302 TRAP SHOOTING. three each. It was at Chicago in 1868. Soon after I shot with another man two or three times, and won ; but I shall not mention his name in this book, for Sufficient reasons. The next match I took up with Abraham Kleinman was rather singular in character. It was at single and double birds. I was to shoot from a buggy at twenty-one yards, the horse to be on a trot or run when the trap was pulled. Kleinman shot from the ground at twenty- five yards. I won it. I afterwards shot two other matches on these conditions, one with King at Springfield, and one with Henry Conderman at Decatur. Of these I lost one, and won the other. My shooting from a buggy at plover, grouse, and geese had made me very quick and effective. In the spring of 1869 R. M. Patchen made a match, in which I was backed to kill five Jiun- dred pigeons in six hundred and forty-five min- utes, with one gun, at Chicago. 1 was to load my own gun, and the stakes were $1,000 a side. There were heavy outside bets that I could not do it. I won the match, however, in eight hours forty-eight minutes, and thus had one hour fifty-seven minutes to spare. In the third hundred pigeons PIGEON-SHOOTING. 803 1 killed seventy-five in consecutive shots. In the last one hundred and five birds I scored one hundred ; and in the seventh hour killed ninety- five. I shot with a muzzle-loader. It was twenty- one yards rise and fifty bounds. Before this match came off I had, in practice, killed five hundred birds in five hours and seven minutes; but then I used two guns, and had a man to clean them, though I loaded them myself. I missed thirty-four out of the whole number shot at. I was next matched to kill a hundred consecu- tive birds at Chicago in July, 1869; $1,000 to $100 that I could not do it, and three matches to be shot if I failed in the first and second. In the first I had killed thirty when the lock of my gun broke, and being obliged to borrow one which was a poor article, I lost. On the 21st of the month I tried it again, and won. At De- troit in the same season I undertook to kill forty birds in forty minutes, to load my own gun, and gather my own birds. I killed fifty- three in twenty minutes forty seconds, and won. In the fall of 1SG9 I shot a match for $1,000 a side against King at Chicago. It was fifty single birds and fifty pairs of double birds, mak- 304 TRAP SHOOTING. ing one hundred and fifty each, plunge-traps, twenty-one yards rise. I killed all my single birds. Mr. King killed forty-one of his. I killed eighty-five of my double birds, Mr. King seventy- five of his. . I shot and won a great many matches which I need not mention here. In 1870, Mr. Nathan Doxie challenged any man in Illinois to go to his place and shoot against him for $100 at twenty-five birds. 1 went there and killed twen- ty-two to his twenty-one. At the Chicago tourna- ment I killed ten straight at twenty-one yards, as did several others. Under the conditions we went back to twenty-six yards to shoot the ties off at five birds each. Mr. G. K. Fayette, of Toledo, Ohio, and I tied four times more at this distance, killing all our birds. I then killed five more, making twenty-five consecutive birds at twenty-six yards. Mr. Fayette killed four of his last five, but missed the fifth, so I won. Later on I shot against Mr. J. J. Kleinman, of Chicago, at five traps, fifty birds, mine at twenty-eight yards rise, his at twenty-five. I won, and in the course of the match killed thirty-three consecu- tive birds. At Detroit, in the fall of 1870, I shot my PIGEON-SHOOTING. 305 first match with Ira Paine, of New York, for $500 a side. It was a hundred birds each, twen- ty-one yards rise, eighty bounds, half from ground- traps, half from plunge- traps. We shot from the ground-traps first. When we had each shot at seventy birds, I was seven ahead, and night was coming on, so Paine gave it up. At that time he held the champion badge, and exhibited it to us at Detroit, whereupon Doxie told him to make much of it, for that I would go to New York to shoot for it and bring it away. 1 soon after challenged for it, and on the twenty-fifth of January, 1871, we shot for it at the house and grounds formerly kept by Hiram Woodruff, on Long Island. Paine killed eighty-eight birds to my eighty-five, and retained the badge. I used a breech-loader in that match. We then agreed to shoot at one hundred birds each, ground-traps, for six consecutive days, the stake each day $500, and either party refusing to go on to the end of the sixth match to forfeit $100. On the first day I killed eighty to Paine's sixty-two, and then he paid forfeit rather than go on ; but he backed John Taylor against me at fifteen single birds and ten pairs of double birds, twenty-one yards rise, one ounce of shot. I killed fourteen of the 306 TRAP SHOOTING. single birds; Mr. Taylor killed nine. 1 shot at eight pairs of double birds, and killed twelve j he at nine pairs, and killed ten, and then gave up. . On that same visit to New York 1 was backed to kill forty -five out of fifty, with leave to place the trap as 1 pleased. The arrangement of the trap was objected to by Mr. Robinson's umpire, because it was so contrived that it would open towards the shooter first. The referee decided that the trap could not be so placed, and I turned the trap and missed six out of ten, and lost. Thereupon Mr. De Forrest offered to bet $250 that 1 could not kill forty-five out of fifty, and fix the trap my own way. It was not a bad bet on his part, for the difference in the mode of fixing the ground-trap is not a great advantage to the shooter, and Mr. Robinson had brought clipping-birds for me to shoot at. How- ever, I scored forty-six, and won. At Lincoln, Illinois, I shot against Abraham Kleinman at one hundred birds each, one ounce of shot, and each of us killed eighty-eight. We had not birds there to shoot the tie off, so we adjourned to meet at Chicago, where he killed ninety-one and I killed ninety, losing by one bird. l'IGEON-SHOOTING. 307 "With Ira Paine I have shot ten matches and won eight. One other match I shall mention here because of its novelty. At Chicago I shot against four of the best marksmen in Illinois. The gentlemen opposed to me were Abraham Kleinman, Abner Price, D. T. Elston, and Benjamin Burton. They were selected to shoot in company at fifty birds each, all they scored to form an aggregate, while I was to shoot at two hundred birds. I won the match by killing one hundred and seventy-eight birds, while the four who contested it with me shot exceedingly well themselves by scoring one hundred and seventy-six. It is proper that I should give here a few hints to the members of new shooting-clubs, and to some of those who belong to older institu- tions, in order that they may not be placed under disadvantages when they enter upon con- tests of a public nature. Since I began to shoot pigeons I have travelled a great deal, shot a great deal, and observed the performances of all sorts of men. The one great thing for new clubs to observe is this : that in their shooting at home, whether for practice or in contests with each other, they should follow the rules 308 TRAP SHOOTING. of pigeon-shooting, and not go on under loose, lax methods. It is essential that the rule as to holding the gun should be habitually complied with — that is, the butt must be kept below the elbow of the shooter until the bird is on the wing. It is just as easy to conform to this rule as not, provided it is done habitually and constantly, and it will save a great deal of trouble when public matches or sweepstakes are engaged in. If it is not regarded at home in their own clubs, the shooters will be certain to have birds decided lost which they have killed, when shoot- ing elsewhere, by reason of breach of this rule. "When several men are shooting at home, that is the place to learn to shoot according to the rules. If they are disregarded, the club and its chosen marksmen will pay the penalty of their neglect another day, when there will be a smart to it. Therefore I say it is better for members of these clubs to pay for a few birds at home, by enforcement of the rules, than to be beaten elsewhere through having dead birds challenged for improper holding of the gun. I have acted as referee many times, and have seen numbers of birds killed in such a manner that if an P1GE0X-SII00TING. 309 appeal had been made, I should have been com- pelled to decide against the shooters for having brought up the gun to the shoulder too soon. It is better to get used to holding the gun well down. When the habit is formed, a man can shoot as well that way as the other, and then he will not be bothered and confused by being challenged under the rule in a strange place. Conform to the rules at home, and it will be easy to observe them abroad. Shooters need not suppose that they will not be enforced in other places because they have been accustomed to disregard them at home. When I first commenced pigeon-shooting, I lost a match in consequence of having two birds decided against me for holding the gun above the elbow before the pigeons flew. Since then I have always been careful to hold the gun well down, in practice as well as in matches and sweepstakes. Another thing to be noted is this : in club-shooting, where eight or ten of the members contend, the birds should be assorted — the old ones put into one basket and the young ones into another; and then they should be ap- portioned to the shooters equally. When the old <>ncs and the voim^ are all mixed up. there olO TRAP SHOOTING. is an element of chance brought in. One man may happen to get nearly all fast, driving birds, and another all slow, easy ones. Now, that is not the way to find out the best shooters. The more the element of chance is admitted, the less likely skill with the gun is to win. A fast, driving bird is killed, but gets out of bounds. A slow one is not hit half as well, but drops inside, and is scored. But the man who lost his bird really made the best shot. Tf I had to make rules to govern pigeon- shooting, I should establish a new principle by sweeping away an old but mischievous rule. I would adopt the Prairie Club rules of twenty-one yards rise for single birds, and eighteen for double birds ; but I would do away the boundary limit altogether. If the shooter recovered his bird within three minutes, he should count it, subject, of course, to the rules as to mode of recovery. When a man makes a splendid shot at a fast, driving bird, and it falls dead just out of bounds, it is decided against him by the arbitrary nature of the rule merely, and not by the principles of rea- son and sense. I have no individual interest to promote by suggesting this change. I find my- self excluded from about nine out of every ten PIGEON-SHOOTING. 311 public contests by reason of my alleged superi- ority, and really see but little or nothing left for me to do save defend the championship. Therefore what I advance is prompted solely by considerations for the sport, for the benefit of the clubs, and for the advancement and reward of real skill. There is no other way of absolutely determining which man is the best shot on the day of the contest. I have often killed birds which fell just out of bounds, riddled through and through with shot, and 1 have seen other men do the same. Birds hit like this, with seven or eight shot in each, were lost by a few feet, some- times by a few inches, and I contend that this tape-line rule is against sense, and productive of mischief. I have seen hundreds of birds lost under the operation of it which were as well hit as any birds could be, so far as the skill of the marks- man can go. On the other hand, 1 have seen easy, slow-going birds, just hit with one or two pellets in the wing, recovered amongst much clap- ping of hands and shouting by those who thought they were applauding marksmanship. Recently the Buffalo gentlemen, in shooting for the Dean Richmond Cup, had their chance jeopard- ed at one time through three of Mr. NeweH's 812 TRAP SHOOTING. birds, fast, driving ones, falling out of bounds, though hit clean and Well. And in my opinion he made as good shots at them as at any that he scored, if not better. Every pigeon-shooter of large experience knows that matches are some- times lost by the man "who shoots best, because of his hard luck in having birds fall dead just out of bounds. Now, there ought to be as little chance for luck in contests of this nature as may be possible to contrive. I have many times killed every bird I shot at, but some fell out of bounds. Now, if shooting is the thing to be tested, 1 had as much right to these, which were killed by the gun, as to those which fell inside. At Omaha, last June, I shot at fifty birds, twenty singles and fifteen pairs of doubles. I killed all the single birds, but lost one by rea- son of its falling a little out of bounds. I scored alt the double birds, thus making forty-nine out of fifty, and if it had not been for the senseless, arbitrary rule in question, 1 should have scored all the fifty. The fair way to shoot pigeons, whether in clubs, matches, or sweepstakes, is from H and T traps, no matter whether ground, plunge, or spring traps. In matches, the birds being in the traps, and the PIQEOX-SHOOTING. 313 shooter ready, the referee tosses up a coin. If it comes head, the shooter takes the H trap and his opponent the other. If it comes tail, the effect is the reverse. In club-shooting and in sweepstakes as many wads are numbered as there are shooters. The referee places these in his pocket, and after shaking them up pulls one out. The man whose number on the list corresponds to the number on the wad takes the bird in the trap. That wad is then transferred to the other pocket. After the shot another wad is drawn, and so on until all have shot, when the wads will all be in one pocket, and the same thing is to be done until the shooting is at an end. By this means all trickery and favoritism in selecting birds for certain of the shooters is made impossible. I shall now append the scores of the nine championship matches by which the possession of the badge has been determined. The rules under which it was held and shot for will be given here- after. It was required to be held for two years against all comers before it became the property of the holder. I have held it over three years now, having put it up again last spring, when John J. Kleinman shot against me for it at Joliet. Illinois. 314 TRAP SHOOTING. It was first shot for at Mark Rock, Rhode Island, at thirty -five birds each ; entries : Miles L. Johnson of New Jersey, Edward Tinker of Rhode Island, Perry Aldridge of Rhode Island, Ira A. Paine of New York, J. R. Brown of Buffalo, and John Taylor of New Jersey. It came off April 7, 1870, and was won by Johnson, the score being as follows : Johnson— 1 1011111110111111111011111 11111111 1—32. Taylor— 1100111111101111110111111 11111111 1—30. Tinker— 11111011101111111011010111 11111111 1—30. Paine— 1 11110011011011110110111111 111111 1—28. Brown— 1 1101111111110111111000110 01111011 1—27. Aldridge— 1 111101110101001111111111 110111011 0—27. Paine challenged Johnson, the holder of the badge, and they shot at one hundred birds at Fleetwood Park, New York, September 28, 1870. Paine won as follows : Paine— 1 11111111011111110110001111 111111110111111011111111110111111 011111111101111101111101111111101 1 1011 1—85. pig e< > nt-shooting . ."j 1 5 Johnson— 1 101001111111100100001111 111111010001110110111111111111110 000111111111111101111110111111111 111110 11 0—77. Tinker challenged Paine, and they shot at Fleet- wood Park, October 29, 1870. Paine won as fol- lows : Paine— 1 11111101111111111111100111 111111111111111111111111100111110 110110111111101101111011101110111 11110 1 1— 8G. Tinker— 1 1011111101111110001101111 110101010110111111111101111111111 1111100110 11101111111111011111111 1101111 0—81. A. H. Bogardus of Illinois challenged Paine, and they shot at Hiram Woodruff's old place on Long Island, January 25, 1871, when Paine won as follows : Paine— 1 111111 '110 11 111011111111111 1111111111111111111110110011111 11 111001101011111111111111011011101 1 1 1 1 1 1 1—88. BOGAIIDUS— 1 111111110011111111111101 111010110111110101110111111111111 1 110 11011111110111111110111011111 11111011 1—85. 316 TRAP SHOOTING. Bogardus challenged Paine, and they shot at Fleetwood Park, May 23, 1871, when Bogardus won as follows (besides, he killed seven which fell out of hounds) : Bogakdus— 1 111111101111111101111111 111111111111011111101111011101111 101111110110011111111111111010111 10111111 1—87. Paine— 1 11011111111111111111111110 101101111111111110100110111011011 010111111111111101111111111111011 1 1 1 1 1 1 1— 86. Paine challenged Bogardus, and they shot at Dexter Park, Chicago, July 29, 1871. Bogardus won as follows : Bogahdus— 1 111111110111 i 11111101111 1 11111111111111110111111111111011 1 11101101111111111101111111111111 11101110 1—91. Paine— 1 11111111101111111111111011 111111111101110101101110111111111 1111111111111001111111111111111 &l 1110 11 1—89. Abraham Kleinman of Illinois challenged Bo- gardus, and they shot at Dexter Park, Chicago, April 6, 1872, when Bogardus won as follows: riGEON-SHOOTIXG. *s± i BOGARDUS— 1 111101111111111011111111 111101111111111111101111111111011 111111111111101111111111111111111 11111110 1—93. Kledsman — 1 11111111111011111111110 111111111111111111111111101111111 111110111110111111011101111111110 111011011 0—89. [These are the official aggregates of the match, but not of the details, which could not be ob- tained.] Abraham Kleinman challenged Bogardus again, and they shot at Dexter Park, Chicago, in Sep- tember, 1872, when Bogardus won as follows : Bogardus— 1 101101111111111011110101 111101101111111101101011111111001 111111111111111111111111111010111 11101111 1—85. Kleinman — 1 11111110110111101111011 111001111111110110 111111111111111 110111110011111101111111111111110 111101011 0—81. Tinker of Rhode Island challenged Bogardus, and they shot May 15, 1873, • at Dexter Park, Chicago, where Bogardus won as follows : 318 TRAP SHOOTlNd. BOGARDTJS— 1 110111011110111111111111 111111111111111111111111101111101 111110010111111011111110111101111 01111111 0—87. Tinker— 1 1110111111111111111111111 011111100111111110101111111111011 111001111111010100111111111110101 11110 11 1—85. Bogardus having now held the badge over two years, it became his property. He put it up again under the rules which are inserted hereafter. John J. Kleinman, of Chicago, entered to contend for it, and Bogardus and he shot at Joliet on the twentieth of March, when Bogardus Avon. It remains with Bogardus, and will be open to chal- lenge up to twentieth of March, 187G. The scores of a few of my best matches, other than for the championship, are given below, and also some of my time matches : Bogardus against King at Chicago, Dexter Park, 1869, single birds, fifty each, and fifty pairs of double birds each, $1,000 a side, twenty-one yards rise. This was the first match in which Bogardus shot with a breech-loader. It was one of the best scores he ever made, all at 21 yards. PIGEON-SHOOTING. 319 SINGLE BIRDS. BOGARDUS— 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 111111111111111111 1 11111 1—50 out Of 50. King— 1 111111100101111101111100 101 1111111010111111111 1—41 out of 50. DOUBLE BIRDS. BOGARDUS— 11 11 11 11 11 10 11 11 11 10 11 10 11 11 10 11 11 11 11 11 10 11 11 11 01 10 11 11 01 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 10 11 10 10 10 10 10 11 10 11 11 11—85. King— 10 11 11 11 10 11 11 11 10 11 00 10 11 10 11 10 11 11 11 10 11 10 01 10 11 11 11 11 11 10 11 11 11 00 00 11 11 10 10 11 11 11 10 10 00 10 11 11 10 11—75. The following is the score of the match against time, shot at Dexter Park, Chicago, May 15, 1869, in which I undertook fo kill five hundred pigeons in ten hours and forty-five minutes with one gun, and load my own gun. 1 did it in eight hours and forty-eight minutes, with 1J- of shot, ground trap. First Hundred — 1 11111010Q01111011111 111101011101110100111110011101111 11110000101011101001101111011111 111011111011110100111101111110111 111110101111011 1—136 shot at ; 36 missed. Second Hundred— 1 0111010110110101111 1 11110101101111111111111011001011 101111101101110111101101111111110 111110100101011010001101101011110 111111110101101110 0—138 shot at ; 38 missed. £20 trap shooting. Third Hundred— 11010101011010111010 100111111001111111111111111111111 111111111111111111111111111111111 llllil 1111 111111111 10111 11 1—114 shot at ; 14 missed. Fourth Hundred— 1 1111111101111011111 110111111111101110101111111110111 1001110 11111111111111111111111111 11111011111111111011111111 — 112 shot at ; 12 missed. Fifth Hundred— 1 11011111111111111110 111111111111111111111111111111111 111111111111011111111111111111111 1 1111110 111111011 1—105 shot at ; 5 missed. Time— 8h. 48m. Score of the match to kill one hundred birds in one hundred successive shots, and load as I pleased, shot at Dexter Park, Chicago, July 21, 1869 : 111111111111111111111111111111111 111111111111111111111111111111111 1111111111111111111111111111111111 Below will be found the scores of a few exhi- bition matches shot by me within a year. At Jerseyville, Illinois, 1873, to kill fifty birds in eight minutes : 111111111111111111111011111111111 11111111111111111111 1—53 out of 54. Time of shooting — 4m. 45s. riGEOX-SHOOTINO. 3€1 Captain A. II. Bogardus, match at Paris, Ky., April 14, 1874, to kill fifty pigeons in eight min- utes : 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 10 10 10 11 11 11 11 10 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 00 11 11 11 00 11 11 11 10 10 — Killed, 58; misses, 10 ; number shot at, 68 ; time of shooting, 7m. Match at Stamford, Conn., 1874, to kill thirty- eight out of fifty birds, two traps forty yards apart, to be pulled at the same time, and the shooter to stand between the traps. Ira Paine trapped the birds : 10 11 10 11 10 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 10 11— Killed 38 out of 42. Match at Omaha, purse of 8150, same condi- tions as at Stamford; shot June 19, 1874: 11 11 11 11 10 11 11 11 10 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 10 11 10 11 10— Killed 39 out of 44. Score made by me on the same day in a sweep- stakes : Single Birds— 1111111111101111111 1—19 killed, 1 missed. Double Bhids— 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11—30 killed. Aggregate — 49 out of 50. 323 TRAP SHOOTING. Match at Washington, D. C., July 20, 1874, on the grounds of the Shooting Club. Colonel Alex- ander pulled the traps, which were forty yards apart : 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 10 11 11 11—29 out of 30. In this match at Washington I shot with the Orange powder of Laflin & Rand, New York, No. 7 Lic;htnin$* and found it strong and clean, and better than any I ever used before. I shot at one bird full seventy-five yards off, let go by an outsider, and killed it dead. It is coarse- grained, burns even, does not recoil much, and shoots strong. CHALLENGES FOR FIELD AND TRAP SHOOTING. The following challenges, made by me, and published in the sporting papers, were not ac- cepted : (From the Chicago Tribune.) A CHALLENGE. I hereby challenge any man in America to shoot a pigeon match, fifty single and fifty double rises, for from $500 to $5,000 a side, accord- ing to the rules of the New York Sportsmen's Association ; 1 to use my breech-loading shot-gun, riOEON-SIIOOTIXG, 328 and my opponent to use any breech-loading gun of any manufacture he may choose. The match to be shot in Chicago. Man and money ready at my place of business, No. 72 Madison Street, Chicago. A. II. Bogardus. Chicago, Sept. 10, 1869. CHALLENGE FOB FIELD SHOOTING. To the Editor of the Chicago Tribune : I hereby challenge any man in America to shoot prairie-chickens against me, in the field, during the month of November, to shoot for one or two weeks, on the same ground, for a stake of from $100 to $500 a side. The man who kills the most during the time specified to take all the game and the stakes. A. H. Bogardus. Chicago, Sept. 22, 1869. challenges for field and pigeon shooting. Editors Turf, Field, and Farm : I notice in your issue of the 3d inst. an ac- ceptance of my challenge, which was issued last October. This is the first I have ever seen of it, and that time has gone by ; and if Mr. Murphy wished to shoot -with mo, ho could 324 TRAP SHOOTING. have easily dropped me a few lines, and I would have hunted with him. But all I can say now is (to Mr. Murphy or any other man living), that I will make a match to shoot in the field for two or four weeks next November ; the kind of game to be prairie-chickens, the hunting to take place on strange ground to both parties, and the stakes from $500 to $2,000 a side, to hunt through the day-time and sleep at night, and not to take any advantage of the game ; and also, if the party who accepts this challenge choose, that every bird has got to be killed on the Wing; and if either party kill birds sitting, to count three against him. Now, if Mr. Murphy and his friends think that I am playing a game at bluff, let them send a forfeit to the Turf, Field, and Farm, and I will cover it. The match to come off in November next in Illinois, Iowa, Minne- sota, or Kansas, or any other place where we can find plenty of chickens. The man who wins to take the proceeds of all chickens shot by both parties. Yours very truly, A. II. BoGARDUS. N.B. — 1 hereby challenge any man in the world PIGEON-SIIOOTIXG. 325 to shoot a match at pigeons, one hundred single and fifty double rises, for a stake of SI, 000 to 8"2,000 a side ; the birds to be put into one basket or box, and trap and handle out of same lot of birds, or from H and T traps, one or one and a half ounce shot. Will give or take expenses. A. H. B. Elkhart, III., May 8, 1872. Hides governing the Badge held by the Cham- pion Pigeon- Shooter of America. We, the undersigned, contestants for the badge of the championship of America, given by the Ehode Island Sportsman's Club, do hereby pledge ourselves and agree to the following rules and regulations, whenever and wherever said badge is contested for: 1. The winner of the badge shall give a satisfactory guarantee to the officers of the Rhode Island Sports- man's Club for the safety thereof, in the shape of a responsible surety. 2. The winner shall pledge himself to shoot any challenger for a sum not less than $500 a side, within four months of the date of said challenge, under penalty of forfeiting the badge. 320 THAT ;-:ilOUTlN(;. 3. An)' party challenging the holder of this badge shall make a deposit of $250 as a forfeit for a match of $500 a side, in the hands of the editor of the Spirit of the Times, to be covered by the challenged party with an equal amount. The balance of the money, $250 a side, shall be deposited in the hands of the said editor of the Sjiirit of the Times, or some party ap- pointed by him, three days before the match is shot ; said match then becoming play or pay. In case of the holder not complying with the foregoing conditions, he shall forfeit the badge to the party challenging. 4. Every contestant for this match shall pledge himself to contend for the same under the rules of the Rhode Island Sportsman's Club governing pigeon-shooting. 5. All matches for this badge shall be at one hundred single birds each, II and T ground-traps. G. In all matches in which this badge is con- tested for, the referee shall be an officer in the Rhode Island Sportsman's Club, or a party ap- proved by them. 7. The holder of the badge shall name the place where the same shall be contested for, which shall be also satisfactory to the referee. PIQEON-SHOOTING. o*2T 8. Each contestant in any match for this badge shall provide not less than one hundred and ten birds for the match, and the birds shall be taken out of one contestant's basket or box till the same is exhausted, and then the other con- testant's basket or box shall be used out of till that is exhausted, and so on alternately through the match. 9. Having tossed for first shot and trap, the second party shooting shall take the bird in the remaining trap, and so on through the match. 10. The party holding this badge for two years against all contestants, it shall become his personal property. Rules of the Rhode Island Spoilsman's Club for Trap Shooting. 1. Traps, Rise and Bounds. — All matches shall be shot from H and T ground-traps, the choice of which the referee shall decide by toss. The boundaries shall be eighty yards for single birds, and one hundred yards for double birds; which, in single-bird shooting, shall be measured from a point equidistant from, and in a direct 328 TRAP SHOOTING. lino between the two traps ; in double-bird shoot- ing, from a point equidistant from, and in direct line between, the centre traps. 2. Placing- the Traps. — In single-bird shooting the distance between the traps shall be four yards ; in double-bird shooting, as four traps are used, the H and T traps shall be set alternately, and two yards apart. 3. Scoring. — After the party is at the score .and ready to shoot, he shall take the bird or birds, unless barred by the referee. The party at the score must not leave it to shoot, and must hold the butt of his gun below his elbow until the bird or birds rise ; and in case of infraction of this provision, the bird or birds shall be scored as missed. 4. Rising of Birds. — All birds must be on the wing when shot at; all contingencies of misfire, non-explosion of cap, gun not cocked, etc., etc., are at the risk of the party shooting. 5. Recovering Birds. — It shall be optional with the party shooting to recover his own birds, or appoint a person for that purpose. In all cases the birds shall be gathered by hand, without the use of extraneous means, within three minutes from the time it alights, or be PIGEON-SHOOTING. 329 scored a miss. A bird once out of bounds shall be scored a miss. 0. Loading. — The charge of shot shall not ex- ceed one ounce and a half. All guns shall be loaded from the same charger, except in case of breech-loaders, when the referee may open one or more cartridges to ascertain if the charge of shot is correct. Any party infringing this rule shall lose the match. 7. Ties. — In case of a tie at single birds, the distance shall be increased five varcls, and shall be shot off at five birds each. In case of a second tie, the distance shall be again increased five yards, and this distance shall be maintained till the match is decided. The ties in double-bird shooting shall be shot off at twenty-one yards, with- out any increase, at five double rises. 8. Judges and Referee. — Two judges and a referee shall be appointed before the shooting commences. The referee's decision shall be final. He shall have power to call " No bird," in case any birds fail to fly, and may allow a contestant another bird, in case the latter shall have been balked or interfered with, or may for any reason satisfactory to the referee be entitled to it. In case of any unnecessary delay on the part 330 TRAP SHOOTING. of either of the contestants, the referee shall or- der the party so delaying to the score, and, in case of his failing to comply within five minutes, said party shall lose the match. If a bird should fly towards parties within the bounds, in such a manner that to shoot at it would endanger any person, another bird will be allowed ; and if a bird is shot at by any person besides the party at the score, the referee shall decide how it shall be scored, or whether a new bird shall be allowed. Mules governing the Badge held by the Champion Pigeon- Shooter of America. We, the undersigned, contestants for the Badge of the Championship of America, given by Cap- tain A. II. Bogardus, do hereby pledge ourselves and agree to the following rules and regulations, whenever and wherever said badsje is contested for: 1. The winner of the badge shall give a satis- factory guarantee to Captain A. II. Bogardus for the safety thereof, in the shape of a responsible surety. 2. The winner shall pledge himself to shoot PIGEOX-SliOOTlNG. 331 any challenger, for a sum not less than 8250 a side, within two months of the date of said chal- lenge, under penalty of forfeiting said badge. 3. Any party challenging the holder of this badge shall make a deposit of $125, as a forfeit for a match of $250 a side, in the hands of the editor of the Spirit of the Times, to be covered by the challenged party with an equal amount. The balance of the money, $125 a side, shall be deposited in the hands of the editor of the Spirit of the Times, or some other party, mutually agreed upon by both parties, three days before the match is shot ; the match then becomes play or pay. In case of the holder not complying with the foregoing conditions, he shall forfeit the badge to the party challenging. 4. Every contestant for this badge shall pledge himself to contend for the same under the rules of the Prairie Shooting Club of Chicago, with the exception that the single birds must be shot from ground-traps. 5. All matches for this badge shall be at one hundred pigeons, fifty single and twenty -five double rises, from IT and T traps — the single from ground-traps and the double from plunge-traps. (3. The holder of this badge shall name the 332 TRAP SHOOTING . place where the same shall be contested for, and each contestant shall furnish one hundred and ten pigeons for the match, and the pigeons shall be taken out of the same basket or box until the same is exhausted, and so on through the match. 7. Having tossed for first shot and trap, the second party shooting shall take the bird or birds in the remaining trap or traps, and so on through the match. 8. The party holding this badge for two years against all comers, it shall become his personal property. Entries for the badge will be $50, and the winner of the badge to receive half the money, and the other half to go to the second best. The first match to take place the 20th day of March, 1874. The National Champion Badge. Donated by Louis L. Zorillard, Esq., and In- stituted by the " Spirit of the Times." The holder of this badge shall leave a re- sponsible security in the office of Wilkes's Spirit of the Times, for the forthcoming of the same whenever called for. PIGEON-SHOOTING. 3o3 He shall shoot as often as once in three months, it' challenged, for not less than $500 a side — that is to say, in one week from the time of the decision of any match the winner 0f the badge may be challenged again — and he shall shoot within three months from the date of the challenge. Tie shall have the naming of the place and time of shooting, subject to the approval of the editor of the Spirit of the Times. In all cases he shall cover the money of the challenging party within one month, and name time and place of shooting, or, in failing to do so. shall forfeit the badge to the party challenging. Any party holding the badge for two years, it shall become his personal property. Any party challenging for this badge shall de- posit $250 in the hands of the editor of the Spirit of the Times as one-half forfeit. All the money from both parties to be up in said office one week previous to date of shooting, when the match becomes play or pay. Either party may compel the other to go to the score not later than one o'clock p.m. The rm tehes for this badge shall be shot ac- cording to the English rules, as modified and pub- 334 TRAP SIlOOTINtt. lished below, at fifty single birds each, each party to bring not less than seventy birds on the ground. Either party may trap and handle his quota of birds, or furnish a substitute. The party commencing to trap shall continue until the match is half out, that is to say, until twenty-five birds each have been shot at, when the opposite party shall commence and trap an equal number. It shall be decided by "toss" which party commences trapping. The referee, in all cases, unless amicably and mutually agreed upon, to be appointed by the editor of the Spirit of the Times. In case of a tie, the parties shall shoot at five birds each ; in case of a second, they shall shoot at five more, and so on until the match is decided, the condition covering trapping to apply the same as in the match. Rules of the National Championship Badge. Rule 1. The gun must not be carried to the shoulder until the bird is on the wing. Rule 2. A misfire shall be at the risk of the shooter. PIGEON-SHOOTING. 335 Rule 3. If a person pulls the trap without notice from the shooter, he has the option to take the bird or not. Rule 4. If on the trap being pulled the bird does not rise, it is at the option of the shooter to take it or not; but if not, he must declare it by saving " No bird."' Rule 5. Each bird must be recovered within the boundary, eighty yards, within three minutes, if required by any party interested, or it must be scored lost. If a bird is challenged to show shot-mark, it must be handed to the referee for his decision. Rule 6. If a bird that has been shot parches or settles on the top of the fence or on any of the buildings higher than the fence, it is to be scored a lost bird. Rule 7. Or if a bird perches or settles on the top of a fence, or on any of the buildings higher than the fence, and then falls dead to the ground, it is a lost bird. Rule 8. If a bird once out of the grounds should return and fall dead within the boundary, it must be scored a lost bird. Rule 0. If the shooter advances to the trap and orders it to be pulled, and docs not shoot 386 TRAP SHOOTING. at the bird, or his gun is not properly loaded, or does not go off, the bird is to be scored lost. Rule 10. Should a bird that has been shot be flying away, and a "scout" fires and brings the bird down within the boundary, the referee may, if satisfied the bird would not have fallen by the gun of the shooter, order it to be scored a lost bird ; or, if satisfied the bird Mould have fallen, may order it to be scored a dead bird ; or, if in doubt on the subject, he may order the shooter to shoot at another bird. Rule 11. A bird shot on the ground with the first barrel is " no bird " ; but it may be shot on the ground with second barrel if it has been fired at with the first barrel while on the wing. Rule \2. The shooter is bound at any time to gather his bird, or depute some person to do so, when called on by his opponent; but in so doing he must not be assisted by any other person, or use any description of implement. Should the shooter be any way brUed by his opponent, or by any of the party shooting, he can claim another bird, with the sanction of the referee. Rule 13. Shooting shall be from five traps. PIGEON-SHOOTING. o-'JT If more than one trap is pulled, so that more than one bird is on the wins: or at large at the same time, the shooter has the option of shoot- ing or not ; if he kills, the bird must be scored : but should he miss, it shall be a lost bird. Rule 14. The shooter cannot leave, the shoot- ing-mark under any pretence to follow up any bird that will not rise, but is walking away from the trap after it is pulled ; and, having once left the mark after shooting at the bird, cannot re- turn to shoot at it again under any circumstan- ces. The amount of shot for each barrel shall not exceed one ounce and a quarter. Any shooter found to have a larger quantity in his gun, or who discharges his gun after his load is challeng- ed, shall be at once disqualified. The five ground traps shall be placed five yards apart, under the direction of the referee, thirty yards rise, and the use of both barrels is allowed. Rule 15. Each shooter shall pull the traps for his opponent, or shall nominate a man to do so. The puller shall in all cases pull fairly, and without delay ; and if the referee shall be satisfied that the trap was not pulled fairly, and without resort to any kind of baffling device, he shall 838 TRAP SHOOTING. order the bird to be scored for the shooter, though not killed within bounds. The trap to be pulled to be decided by tossing a die by the referee, or by such other means as shall be just and satisfactory. Rule 16. Each shooter shall come to the score on being called by the referee, and each may claim an intermission of fifteen minutes once during the match. Rule 17. The boundary shall be measured from the centre of the middle trap. Hides of the Prairie Shooting Club of Chicago. [As Amended March 10, 1874.] Rule 1. Traps, Rise and Boundaries. — All matches shall be shot from II and T plunge or lever traps, the choice of which the referee shall decide by toss. The boundaries shall be eighty yards for single birds, and one hundred yards for double birds, which shall be measured from a point equidistant from, and in a direct line be- tween, the two traps, or, when more than two traps are used, in a direct line between the centre traps. The rise for single birds shall be twenty - one yards, and for double birds eighteen yards. PIGEON-SHOOTING. d#V Rule '2. Distance between Traps. — In single- bird shooting, the distance between the traps shall be live yards ; in double-bird shooting, when four traps are used, they shall be two and a half yards apart. Rule 3. Judges and Referee. — Two judges and a referee shall be appointed before the shooting commences, and the referee's decision shall be final. He may allow a contestant another bird in case the latter shall have been balked or inter- fered with, if he thinks the party entitled to it. Rule 4. Birds and Decision. — If a bird shall fly towards parties within the bounds, in such a maimer that to shoot at it would endanger any person, another bird shall be allowed ; and, if a bird is shot at within the bounds by any person besides the party at the score, the referee shall decide how it shall be scored, or whether another bird shall be allowed. Rule 5. Position at the Score. — After the shooter has taken his stand at the score, he shall not level his gun or raise the butt above his elbow until the bird is on the wing. Should he infringe on this rule, the bird or birds shall be scored as lost, whether killed or not. Rule 0. Release of Birds. — The shooter, when :J40 TRAP SHOOTING. ready, to say •• pull," and the puller to obey such signal, and pull the trap or traps fairly and evenly, and release the bird or birds instanter. If the trap be pulled or the birds released before the signal is given by the shooter, he shall have the option of calling "No bird" and refusing to shoot; but if he shoots, the bird shall be deemed a fair one, and scored for or against him, as the case may be. Rule 7. Rise and Call of Birds. — All birds must be on the wing when shot at, or will be scored as lost birds. If the bird does not rise immediately after the trap is pulled, the shooter shall have the option of calling " No bird"; and if he shoots at it on its afterward rising, it will be considered " a lost bird."' Rule 8. Gathering JBirds. — It shall be optional with the party shooting to gather his own birds or appoint a person to do so for him. In all cases the bird must be gathered by hand, without any forcible means, within three minutes from the time it alights, or be scored as lost. All "birds" must show shot-marks if challenged. A bird once out of bounds shall be scored as lost. Rule 9. Misfires. — ■ Should' a gun miss fire or fail to discharge from any cause, it shall score PIGEON-SHOOTING. 341 as a lost bird, unless the referee finds, upon ex- amination, that the gun "was properly loaded, and the misfire unavoidable, in which case he shall allow another bird. Rule 10. Birds on the Wing. — In double shooting, both birds must be on the wing when the first is shot at. If but one bird flies, and one barrel is fired or snapped, the birds shall not be scored, whether killed or missed, but the party shooting shall have two more birds : or, if both birds fly and are killed with one barrel, he must shoot at two other birds. Rule 11. Size of Gun. — The shooter shall not be allowed to use a gun of larger calibre than that known as No. 10. Rule 12. Charge of Shot. — There shall be no restriction as to size of shot used or charge of powder, but the charge of shot shall be not to exceed the regular Dixon Measure, No. 1106 or No. 1107, 1|- oz. by measure struck off. Rule 13. Penalty for Overloading. — The Club shall provide a standard shot measure, and all guns shall be loaded from the same, except in case of breech-loaders, when the referee may open one or more cartridges, to ascertain if the charge of shot is not above the standard. Any person 342 TRAP SHOOTING. found infringing on this rule shall be barred from further participation in the match. Kule 14. Ties and Distances. — In case of ties at single birds, the distance shall be increased five yards. In case of second tie, the distance shall be increased five yards further, and this distance sliall be maintained until the match is decided, and shall be shot off' at five single birds. The ties on double-bird shooting shall be shot off at twenty-one yards at five double rises. Kule 15. Ties. — At a shooting match, all tics shall be shot off on the same grounds immediately after the match, if they can be concluded before sunset. In case they cannot be concluded by sun- set, they shall be concluded on the following day, unless otherwise directed by the judges or referee. This, however, shall not prevent the ties from dividing the prizes, if they may all agree .to do so. Should one refuse to divide, then it must be shot off. Any one of the ties being absent thirty minutes after the time agreed upon to shoot them off shall forfeit his right to contest for the prize. Eule 16. Bribing and Penalty. — Any com- petitor or other person bribing, or attempting to bribe, the trapper or puller, or attempting to PIGEON-SHOOTING. 343 obtain an unfair advantage in any manner what- soever, to be disqualified from shooting or sharing in the results of the match. Rult^ 17. To prevent Accidents. — The shooter, if he use a breech-loader, shall not put the cart- ridge in his gun until called to the score. If he use a muzzle-loader, he shall leave it uncapped until % called. Rule 18. Challenging and Penalties. — Any person participating in a match shall have the privilege of challenging a competitor as to charge of shot used, and the referee shall make such challenged party draw his charges and have them examined ; and, if found to exceed the limit fixed by rule, he shall forfeit his right to participate in the match, or share in the same in any way. If he fires his gun after being challenged, and be- fore the charge has been examined by the referee, he shall suffer the same penalty as for overloading. Rule 19. Time at Score. — Each participant in a shooting match shall hold himself in readiness, and come to the score prepared to shoot when his name is called by the scorer. If lie be longer than five minutes, it shall be discretionary with the referee whether to allow him to shoot or not in the match. WM. READ & SONS, 13 FANEUIL HALL SQUARE, BOSTON, Importers of MASS. & Dealers in Breech and Muzzle-Loading Guns. W. C. Scott & Son's, Westley Richard's, Greener's, Webley's, Moore's and others. Also, Remington's, Whitney's, and other American makes. Maynard's, Ballard's, Remington's, Steven's, and other Sporting Rifles. Agents for W. C. SCOTT & SON'S BREECH-LOADERS. Every size of these celebrated Breech-Loading Guns constantly in stock— 14, 12, 10, 8, and 4 bores— or imported to special order, if desired. Scott's Illustrated Book on Breech-Loaders, bound in morocco, 25 cts. by mail. Bussey's Patent Cyro-Pigeon Trap for Shooting Practice. Also, Fine Trout and Salmon Rods, Flies, Reels, and every article in Fishing Tackle. Send for Circulars. JOSEPH BUTLER & CO., 179 E. MADISON STREET, CHICAGO, Winners of the Chicago Gun Trial of 1874, at Dexter Park, under the auspices of the Illinois State Sportsmen's Association. Messrs. BTJTLER & CO. respectfully invite the attention of the Sportsmen to the report of the Gun Trial, from which it will be seen that guns of their own manufacture, and those rebored by them, ex- celled both in pattern and penetration those of any other maker. Messrs. BTJTLER & CO. make a specialty of reboring guns to shoot properly, and that the enviable reputation they have achieved for this class of work is deserved, the following extracts from the above report clearly prove : " Three highest averages for Pattern, Daniel T. Elston, owner,— 191, 1-6. Rebored by J. Butler & Co. Manufactured by J. Butler & Co., owners,— 181, 3-6. Manufactured by J. Butler & Co., owners,— 180, 4-6." Ereech- Loaders of their own manufacture are warranted un- excelled by those of any other maker. Each and every part of the gun is carefully examined by Mr. BUTLER before leaving the store. Repairing of all kinds neatly done. We keep in stock every quality of W. C. Scott & Son's Breech-Loaders, winners of the Gun Trial of 1873, in New York. W. W. Greener's and other celebrated makers kept in stock. Gun material of all kinds, Powder, Shot, and Caps, Ely's Ammunition and Metalic Co.'s Shells and Caps, Berdan Shells, and Draper & Co.'s Shells, &c, &c. A full stock of J. B. McHarg & Co.'s and Bradford & Anthony's Fishing Tackle, consisting of Bamboo Rods, Bass and Trout Rods, Reels, Spoon Bait, Flies, Silkworm Gut, Plated Linen and Silk Lines, Gut and Gimp Fish Hooks, and everything in the line. Sportsmen visiting the West will find every requi- site for a complete outfit. Parties from the East can have Shells loaded to order on short notice, and shipped to any parts of the States. A full stock kept constantly on hand. Ground and Plunge Traps. TO SPORTSMEN d s DROP SHOT. » wm/. Compared with any other, will be found Cleaner, Heavier, and more Uniform. ^v^f^'jOte ^ A WEEKLY JOURNAL (OF SIXTEEN PAGES), DEVOTED TO FIELD SPORTS, gradual Natural Ipstorg, Fish Culture, Protection of Game, Preservation of Forests, YACHTING, BOATING, AND ALL OUT-DOOR RECREATION & STUDY. IT IS THE OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE AMERICAN FISH CULTURISTS' ASSOCIATION, Is the only Journal published in this country that fully supplies the wants and meets the necessities of the Gentleman Sportsman. SEND FOR SPECIMEN COPY. TERMS, $5 A YEAR, Address : Forest and Stream Publishing Company, 17 CHATHAM ST. (City Hall Square), NEW YORK. 125 SOUTH THIRD ST., PHILADELPHIA. 124 DEARBORN ST., CHICAGO. 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Officially adopted" by the Boards of Education in the cities of New York, Brooklyn, and Jersey City, for use in the Public Schools ; and in Private Schools throughout the State. 27 Park Place, and 24 & 26 Murray Street, New York. Works Published by J. B. Ford &> Co. LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN ON VARIOUS IMPORTANT SUBJECTS. NEW EDITION, WITH ADDITIONAL LECTURES. By HENRY WARD BEECHER. Uniform Edition of the Author's Works. I vol. i2mo. Cloth, $i 50. This was Mr. Beecher's first book, and is known all over the world. The present edition is enriched by the addition of several new lectures, and some reminiscences of the origin of the book by Mr. Beecher. The book should have a place in every family. It can scarcely fail to interest every intelligent reader, nor to benefit every young man who reads it. 14 The subjects are all practical, and presented with characteristic impress- lveness." — Albany Evening' Journal. 44 Wise and elevating in tone, pervaded by earnestness, and well fitted for its mission to improve and benefit the youth of the land.' — Boston Commonwealth. 44 These lectures are written with, all the vigor of style and beauty of lan- guage which characterize everything from the pen of this remarkable man They are a series of fearless disserta- tions upon every-day subjects, conveyed with a power of eloquence and a prac- tical illustration so unique as to be oftentimes startling to the reader of ordinary discourses of the kind."— Philadelphia Inquirer. MOTHERLY TALKS WITH YOUNG HOUSEKEEPERS. . By MRS. H. W. BEECHER. WITH CARBON-PHOTOGRAPHIC PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR. I vol. I2mo. $2. Mrs. Beecher's notion of woman's sphere is, that, whatever ex- ceptional women may be able to accomplish by reason of peculiar circumstances and talents, the place of labor and achievement for most women, and for all married women and mothers, is Home. This book, composed of brief and pithy articles on almost every conceivable point of duty, is an admirable monitor for young wives, and a mine of good sense and information for growing maidens. make agreeable, well-regulated, and happy homes." — Boston Glo&e. '* What she has to say she says so well, with such good sense, ripe judg- ment, and such a mother-warmth of heart, that sh« cannot fail to help the class for whom she writes, and guide them into good and useful paths."— Presbyterian. 11 An admirable corrective to ignorance in the household." — N. Y. Tribune. 4k A useful and entertaining work, crammed with friendly and admirable monitions and instruction for young housekeepers." — Philadelph ia Even- ing Herald. This book is exactly what its title sets forth — a kind and motherly way of helping the young and inexperienced 27 Park Places and 24 6° 26 Murray Street, New York. Works Published by J. B. Ford &* Co. WINNING SOULS. SKETCHES AND INCIDENTS DURING FORTY YEARS OF PASTORAL WORK. By REV. S. B. HALLIDAY. I vol. 121T10. Cloth, $1. The author of this volume for some time past has been, and now is, engaged as assistant in the pastoral labors of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn /Rev. H. W. Beecher's), where, in visiting among the sick, the poor, and the afflicted of that large parish, he is continually en- countering new and interesting phases of heart-life. These simple records of scenes among his earlier labors possess a peculiar interest. " Full of valuable suggestions to min- isters in the department of active duty." — Methodist Recorder. " The book^is tenderly written, and many of its pathetic scenes will be read with moistened eyes. We commend the book to pastors an4 people." — Boston Christian Era. NORWOOD : Or, Village Life in New England. A Novel. By HENRY WARD BEECHER. Uniform Edition of the Author's Works. I vol. l2mo. Illustrated. Cloth, $2.00. This is Mr. Beecher's only novel, and it affords a most remarkable illustration of his versatility. Full of exquisite descriptions of scenery and delineations of social and domestic life, exceedingly graphic and trustworthy in detail, and abounding in passages of genial humor and kindly wisdom, it is altogether one of the most enjoyable novels ever published. It is fragrant with the genuine raciness of the New England soil. PLEASANT TALK ABOUT FRUITS, FLOWERS, AND FARMING. NEW EDITION, WITH MUCH ADDITIONAL MATTER. By HENRY WARD BEECHER. Uniform Edition of the Author's Works. 1 vol. i2mo. Cloth, $2. 00. This volume, when it was first given to the public some years ago, was most favorably received, both in this country and in England. The present edition contains many recent additions to the original book, dealing with both the poetical and the practical side of garden- ing and farming, the whole making a volume of rare interest and value. 27 Park Place, and 24 e° 26 Murray Street, New York. "PARKER" THE PIONEER GUN H^- Still Ahead!! -« EVERY FIRST PRIZE FOR TRAP SHOOTING At the last convention of the NEW YORK STATE ASSOCIATION . WON WITH "THE PARKER"! -4+- Messrs. Newell and Hambleton, winners of the only prize given for " making the largest score in the three regular shoots," Both Shot The Parker Gun ! ! Two of the three winners of the Grand Stace Prize, " The Dean Richmond Cup," IFSHOT THE PARKER G-TJ:N"!!.» Medals aud Diplomas awarded THE PARKER GUN, When placed on exhibition in COMPETITION OPEN TO THE WORLD. . MEDAL AND DIPLOMA Prom the American Institute— 1869. SILVER MEDAL Texas State Fair, 1871. SILVER MEDAL Texas State Pair, 1873. SILVER MEDAL Mechanics and Agricultural Fair Association of Louisiana— 1872. DIPLOMA From the Vermont State Agricultural Society— 1868. DIPLOMA From the New Hampshire State Agricultural Society— 1868. DIPLOMA From the New Haven County (Conn.) Agricultural Society— 1867. DIPLOMA From the Sardis (Mass.) Agricultural and Mechanical Society, 1870. DIPLOMA From the Connecticut Valley Agricultural Association— 1870. DIPLOMA Agricultural and Mechanical Association of West Alabama— 1871. DIPL OMA Adams County (Miss.) Agricultural and Mechanical Association— 1872. FIRST PREMIUM At the Delaware County (Iowa) Fair— 1871. Send for Reduced Price List, May 1st, 1874. Prices, $45, $50, $60, $65, $75. $80, $100, $105, $150, $200,$350. Rebounding-Locks included. PARKER BROTHERS, West Meriden, Conn. ORANGE SPORTING POWDER, MANUFACTURED BY LAFLIN & RAND POWDER COMPANY, N" E TV Y O Tt IK. ORANGE LIGHTNING POWDER. This is the strongest and cleanest powder made. Nos. 1 to 7. Packed only in sealed 1 lb. canisters. The coarser sizes are especially recom- mended to owners of breech-loading guns, giving great penetration with very slight recoil. For trap shooting use No. 5 in guns of 12 gauge, and No. 6 in those of 10 gauge. ORANGE DUCKING POWDER. A very strong, clean powder, good for all shooting. Nos. 1 to 5. Especially adapted to killing ducks and geese at long range, and less liable to be affected by dampness than other brands. Packed in 6X lb. kegs, in 5 lb. canisters, and 1 lb. canisters. AUDUBON. This is a very quick, clean powder for woodcock and quail shooting. Nos. 1 to 4. Packed in 12M lb. kegs, 6% lb. kegs, and in 1 lb. canisters. ORANGE RIFLE POWDER. This is more generally used for field shooting than any of the other brands, being less costly than the higher grades, and giving nearly the same results in the field. No powder made of this grade will show such cleanliness as Orange Rifle. Packed in 25 lb. kegs, 12>£ lb. kegs, 6M lb. kegs, and in 1 lb. can- isters. Sizes, F, FF, FFF. All the above kinds of powder will give greater penetration and leave less residuum in the gun than any other brands known. The LAFLIN AND RAND POWDER COMPANY are engaged in the manufacture of Gunpowder for sporting and also for mining pur- poses on the largest scale, having their factories at many different points. Sporting powder is, however, made by them only in the State of New York, taking its name from the old Orange Mills in Orange Co. Their mills have the most approved methods and perfect appoint- ments, and the product is shipped to their magazines in all parts of the country, and to foreign ports. The reputation of the Orange Powder, established many years since, will be carefully guarded. Branches of the house are established at St. Louis, Chicago, Du- buque, Buffalo, and Baltimore, besides agencies in all the principal towns and cities. USE THE OEANGE POWDER REMINGTONS' Double- Barreled, Breech -Loading Shot Gun, Whitmore's Patents. August 8, 1871* April 16, 1872. We are now prepared to furnish our Improved Double-Barrel- ed Breech-Lo ading Shot Gun, which we reco mmend as the best ever offered the American sports- man, combining all the most de- sirable features of the best En- glish double guns, together with some valuable improvements not found in any other. In the prod uction of these guns no expense or trouble has been spared. In order to suit the require- ments of our different customers, we make three styles of gun, dif- fering only in tlxe finish and kind of barrels and stocks, which we offer at the full owing prices: Plain Walnut Stock, De- carbonized Steel Bar- rels, $45 00 Fancy Stock, Twist Barrels, 60 00 Extra Finish Stock, Da- mascus or other Fancy Twist Barrels, En- graved Lock Plate, - - 75 00 In all of these guns only the best materials and workmanship are employed. In order to enable us to offer a thoroughly w ell made and relia- ble gun at the low price of $45, we have omitted all ornamentation of either the stock or metal work, leaving both tip and butt stock plain. . . Length of barrel, 28. 30 inches. Bore, 10, 13 gauge. Weight: 28 inches No. 12 gauge, 8X lbs. : No. 10 gauge, 8H lbs. 30 inches, No. 13 gauge, 8% lbs.; No. 10 gauge, 8)£ lta. ^™ In fixing upon the model of our gun, we have chosen what we think best adapted to meet the wants of the public. We cannot vary, in any particular, from the dimensions and weight before mentioned, or in the style of fin- ish. Send for illustrated Cata- logue and priee-list. Address E. REMINGTON & SONS, 281 and 283 Broadway, N. Y. MANUFACTORY : IEION, Herkimer Co., N. Y. P. O. BOX, 3994. w » THE F I E L D, 55 A JOURNAL FOR THE SPORTSMEN OF TO-DAY. IPioblisliea. EVEEY SJ^TTJJRJDJ^Y MORNING AT 179 EAST MADISON STREET, CHICAGO. o Terms op Subscription : Payable in advance. Yearly, $4.00 ; half-yearly, |2.00. Foreign and Canadian Subscription, post free— yearly, 18s. ; half-yearly, 9s. Single copies, 10 cents. a^HE FIELD is a complete weekly review of the higher branches of . sport— Shooting-, Fishing, Racing- and Trotting-, Yachting and Rowing, Base Ball, Cricket, Billiards, and General Sporting News, Music and the Drama. THE FIELD will be found in keeping with the times on all subjects pertaining to honorable sport, and will, under no circumstances, admit to its columns anything tending in anywise to demoralize or degrade public sentiment. THE FIELD being the only Sporting Journal published west of New York, and the recognized authority among the sportsmen of the "West and South, among whom it enjoys a large and increasing patronage, possesses superior advantages as an advertising medium, which will be appreciated by those desiring to make their business known in the United States. Agents tor Great Britain.— Messrs. Kirby & Endean, 190 Oxford Street, London. NOTICE TO THE TRADE. News Agents desirous of being supplied with THE FIELD are re- quested to apply to the publishers, 179 East Madison Street, from whom only it can be obtained. F. J. ABBEY & CO., MANUFACTURERS AND IMPORTERS OP Breech and Muzzle-Loading Guns RIFLES AND PISTOLS. Dealers in Fishing Tackle and General Sporting Goods. *** Bad Shooting Guns made to shoot well. SHELLS LOADED TO ORDER. 43 S. CLARK STREET, CHICAGO, HI. JOSEPH TONK8, GUN MANUFACTURER, 45 & 49 Union St., and 1 Marshall St., Boston. IMPORTER AND DEALER IN GUNS, RIFLES, REVOLVERS & CUTLERY, Parker Breech-Loading SIiot-Gwn. <•» Breech-Loading- Shot-Guns of celebrated Ensrlish makers. Paper and Metallic Shells for Shot-Guns of all kinds. Metallic Cartridges for Rifles, Revolvers and Pistols. Caps, Wads, Powder, Sbot, &c, &c. Pocket Cutlery, Razors, Scissors, &c. Air-Guns and Cap Rifles for Saloons and Fairs. Fire Arms Repaired. SPOETSMEN'S DEPOT. JOHN KRIDER, CORNER SECOND & WALNUT STREETS, PHILADELPHIA, IMPORTER, MANUFACTURER AND DEALER IN" GUNS, RIFLES, PISTOLS AND FISHING TACKLE OF ALL. KINDS. i 4* He invites all Sportsmen and dealers in his line to examine his stock of Flies and Spliced Bamboo Rods, which are the best in this country. We make Flies of all kinds to order, or rods of any style. Has constantly on hand a full assortment of Rods, Hooks, Lines, Baits, Reels, Hooks, Salmon Flies, Waterproof Silk Lines, Silk and Hair Trout Lines, &c. Perch Snoods, China and Grass Lines. Also, a large lot of Cane Reeds, Bamboo and Japan. A_. PETEEMAN, MANUFACTURER OF FINE BREECH & MUZZLE-LOADING GUNS TO ORDER. A Full Assortment of Sportsmen's Implements and Fi siting Tackle. No. 131 WALNUT STREET, PHILADELPHIA. PIGEONJTRAPS. "H" and "T" PLUNGE TRAPS. Common Traps . . . (per pair) $15.00 Patent Self -Closing Traps " 25.00 A pair of these Traps sent by freight or ex- press on receipt of price. W. F. PARKER, West Meriden, Conn. AMERICAN STANDARD. Patent Sifted Eagle Brand OF CHILLED DROP SHOT, AS ADOPTED BY THE New York State Sportsmen's Association. Thos. Otis Le Roy & Co. ^CLterct STxot ctrtd L&clcL TVbr?c&, 261 and 263 Water St., NEW YORK, SOLE MANUFACTURERS. SCHOVERLING & DALY, 84 & 86 CHAMBER STREET, NEW YORK, MANUFACTURERS OF THE CHARLES DALY BREECH - LOADING GUNS. These Guns are pronounced by every dealer and sports- man who* has handled them to be the finest finished and closest and strongest shooting Chins in the market. The barrels are of beautiful pattern and finish, and the locks and mountings of the best quality. For sale by all the first-class Gun Dealers at our prices : Side Snap Action $100.00 to $110.00 Top Snap Action, Double Bolt 130.00 " 175.00 Pistol Grip Stocks (extra) 10.00 — Extra Close and Hard Shooting: guaranteed for 12.00 extra. Agents for WM. JPOWJ2ZZ & SONS. WM, POWELL & SONS' BREECH-LOADERS Have acquired, during the past few years, the first place in the estimation of English sportsmen ; as they come into use in this country, they are coming to be known as the best gun made in England. 1 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS i mil ill IlillHl 111 003 224 806 8 ■Hi