The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-09-13

sion ia woodchuck.
 "The Connecticut woodchuck dow is apparently cross between a shepherd | dog and common cur. He will not be | trained to hunt with hunter. He doesn't hunt from training at all, but from natural instinct and inclination. He will not follow a rabbit, and he spurns fox. I have known him to show an inclination for coons, but that was perhaps an accidental strain, for Woodchuck is his game, He knows the only way the woodchuck can be bagged with absolute certainty, and he takes untiring advantage of his knowledge. This unique dog starts out after woodchucks early in the morning. He favors localities where the woodchucks' | burrows are at the edge of stony lots, or where there are clumps of bushes near. The dog knows that anything that gets | to the mouth of a woodchuck's burrow l before the alarmed woodchuck itself does has to have the advantage in the race, and be mighty alert at that. So | he steals behind @ wall or bush as near l to burrow as he can get, and peers from behind it cautiously at the hole. | He knows when the woodchuck's s favor 1 ite feeding time is, and that the animal will surely appear when the time comes By and by the woodchuck pokes his | nose and eyes carefully to the surface of the opening Several minutes pass before the suspicious animal ventures to show itself openly. By degrees it works its way to it's feeding place in the field. An ordinary dog would rush out at the first appearance of the woodchuck, and | of course, end the hunt for the day, for the woodchuck would drop back into his hole and stay there. But the Connecti- cut woodchuck dog doesn't make any mistake like that. He waits patiently until the woodchuck has got at least as far away from thehole as he is himself. Then he charges from his hiding place, not at the woodchuck, but for the woodchuck's hole.
 ''The woodchuck has heard or seen or scented the dog the instant the dog left
 his ambush, and breaks wildly for the burrow. A woodchuck invariably goes for its hole when alarmed. no matter what may stand between itself and the hole The dog always gets there in | time to meet the game, and, although
 the woodchuck is fierce and gamy
 fighter the dog knows all it's weak points, and soon sinks his teeth through
 the rodents neck, and the fight is over.
 ''The genius of the Connecticut wood chuck dog shines in his subsequent pro-
 ceedings. He throws the woodchuck
 over his shoulder, trots home with it,
 and places it on the back stoop, calls
 his masters attention to it, and trots
 away after more woodchuck. In the 1 Connecticut towns where there is a
 bounty on woodchucks these dogs are of
 great service to their owners, as it is no
 uncommon thing for a single dog to
 capture and carry home as many as one | hundred woodchucks in a month.
 q had a greyhound once, though, that
 developed higher order of genius as a woodchuck destroyer than the best
 Connecticut woodchuck dog I ever saw.
 The woodchuck dog I referred to he-
 longed to me. His name was Buster
 and he was buster, too. The grey
 hound was year old when I got him
 and every time Buster brought a wood
 chuck in the greyhound would sniff
 about it and gaze at Buster wondering
 ly. The old woodchuck dog was ex-
 tremely patronizing to the greyhound
 for he felt his greatness. One day Bus
 ter had brought in an unusually large
 woodchuck, and the greyhound won
 dered more than ever. Not long after
 ward he was missed but he came back
 toward noon with woodchuck whict
 he laid on the stoop, to the utter and
 unconcealed amazement of Buster, who
 had been taking recuperative snooze
 gain the greyhound disappeared, ant
 came back before long with another woodchuck. That disturbed Buster SC much that he showed his teeth to the greyhound, something he had never done b efore.
 ''The old dog went out that afternoon
 though, and got a big woodchuck, ant ! that seemed to restore his equanimity
 Next day, however, he miscalculate6 the tactics of woodchuck he had tack led, at least that is what we judged, and not only did not bag his game, but came home with one of his ears torn nearly
 off his head The greyhound brough in a woodchuck soon afterward. Thi
 was more than Buster could stand. H pitched into the greyhound and gav him licking that laid him up thret days. And there and then Buster qui woodchucking. He lived two years af :, ter that, but never went out after ; woodchuck again. He found out tha : the greyhound had method that wa ! bound to knock the spots off him as , woodchucker so he had his little re venge by licking his rival, and thel
 rested on his record" In southern Pennsylvania where tn Q woot7chuck is unpleasantly abundant Q farmers have adopted novel method o killing the willy animal, and it come about as near abating the nuisance a | anything can. Bottles are filled wit powder, long fuses being inserted in tn . corks. The bottles are pushed as ia as possible into the woodchuck burroN and then the mouth of the burrow e closed and tightly tamped with dir | The fuse is ignited and the explosio that follows is severe enough to kill ev
 cry woodchuck in the burrow. Unso 3 phisticated farmers often think they SC = an easy way of getting rid of wood n chucks by closing up the burrows b u filling dirt and stones In the opening | This is labor entirely lost, for the wood Il chuck that finds himself thus made U prisoner in his home at once starts i | and digs a way out to liberty, eithe e through the obstructed opening or i u another direction.
 ', A few years ago Sussex county far = mer's genius led him to adopt an entire