Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-09-01

wife brings up dozen or more. They are
Matched in ground nests, can run as soon as
dry and in ten days are able to fly. When
grown the birds are shy and exceeding
wary. They feed mostly in the woods and
are partial to laurel. spruce and hemIock,
upon whose buds they largely subsist. They
the wind. The shot that follows must 90
quick and true. Hardly any other game
requires SO much of eye and hand. When
treed it lies SO close as often to escape
discovery. Even the shooting of
another bird upon the same limb will not
make it stir. The same is true Of the blue
grouse or sfool-hen" of the Far West, Of
whom hunters tell that 80 may be shot out
of the same tree, if only you take the lowest
first. If one is shot from the top its fut-
tering earthward sends all the rest off on the
instant. Hunters who care more for success
than sport often hide near drumming log,
and from ambush
PICK OFF THE BIRDS
as they come. Drumming is practiced in
fall, not as an amatory exercise, but sort
of prize exhibition. While the cocks sta nd
vaingloriously pruning and rufiiing them
selves the hens scratch and wallow in the
light loose earth, pecking and picking about
in the most contepted fashion, never dream
ing of the danger close at hand, Another
unsportsmanlike fashion Of bagging them
is to lie hidden near some grapevine or
thornberry bush and pick off the birds one
after the other, as an hour or so before
nightfall they come in for supper. The
grouse is found from Newfoundland to New
Mexico, but nowhere else does he afford
such royal sport as in the wilds and steeps
Of Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
True paradise for lovers of ''the noble art
of venerie" are the, Sea Islands stretching
from Beaufort, s. c., down to the Florida
coast. Abandoned during the war, many
OF them have never been reclaimed. The
big plantation houses are rotting away, the
fields become jung1es, and the woods thickly
peopled with deer, squirrels, rabbits, wild
hogs, quail, cranes and many another bird.
Now and then a bear is seen, the shores are
lined with wild fowl the winter through
while the wastes are alive with mullet, red
snapper and other delicate fish. Yachtmen
cruising in South Atlantic waters go there
for sport and rest. Men come from up
country-from north, east and west. Jeckyl
Island, several thousand acres in extent, has
been bought by club of rich New Yorkers,
q magnificent clubhouse and hotel erected
and the whole place made sportsman's de-
light English pheasants, which have been
imported and turned loose there, are in
creasing and multiplying at gratifying
rate. All native game is carefully pro-
tected, and though the island is being
brought to park-like beauty, care is taken
to leave space and silence for the wild
things that cannot live without it. A we'll
known millionaire who is greatly interested
in the scheme sails down there in his yacht
and takes along floating stable of his own
devising, in which 20 horses with equipage
and provisions can be carried along with
all Aladdin's lamp was not pure fable. He
must have been the first man to capitalize
trust.
In many of the older Western States, the
prairie chicken has been so nearly extermi-
mated by pot and market hunters that its
shooting has been quite forbidden for term
of years. In all of them there Is long
close season. In Iowa, Kansas, Missouri
and Minnesota big bags are still made. The
birds are shot over dogs, preferably point
ers, as they can
STAND WATER MUCH BETTER
than the thick-coated settlers. Hunters ride
or drive. and think nothing" of beating
above 80 miles day. Upland or grass
plover are generally met with along with
the chicken. They go about in hocks, and
it is quite possible to drive within range,
fire both barrels Of your gun, and maybe a
spare one before they think of flying. Wild
fowl going southwark often stop to feed in
the same fields, so fairly varied bag may
be made, to say nothing of the woodcock or
snipe that abound in some of the rich river
bottoms of Indiana and the further West.
There is fair contingent of Eastern hunt
ers, but not so many as when game was
plentier and the great, wild Northwest
within a week from New York.
After all it is there a man must go for
heroic hunting. Though the buffalo is
practically extinct, the elk is yet with us all
over Montana and Washington Territory,
the fleet antelope. the black-tailed deer,
bears, the cinnamon. the grizzly, the "silver
tip" black and brown, the fierce puma or
mountain lion, the big gaunt gray wolf, the
jagusr, the ocelot, the mountain sheep and
goat. The rivers running west swarm with
salmon at spawning time and in fall the in
land waters are tenanted with wild fowl.
Game Birds too, abound, if we may trust
travellers tales. In short, there is nothing
on the earth, that may be shot, caught,
hooked or netted for sport, but is there
represented. No wonder then
that the hunters are from pretty we'll all
over the world. 1--WE have many histories,
but only one human nature" Good men
and true love the shine of a trout's back,
the ping of the bullet, the stir and futter of
glancing wings, the wild, warm thrill that
follows the successful shot, be they heather,
Greek, Hebrew or Christian. So it has been,,
so it ill be. Who can say what social and
international complications are escaped by
this outlet for humanity's murderous in
stinct M c. WILLIAMS