The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1899-03-11
The MAINE PRAIRIE FEVER.
1T BREAKS OUT REGULARLY
EVERY SPRING.
It Attacks Only Shotgun Men, and
Several Sacramentans Are
Now Afflicted.

Judge Hughes, County Clerk Hamil-
ton and rev other knights of the
trigger are beginning to manifest signs
of the Maine Prairie fever This. is a
complaint that comes regularly once a
year. 1t always breaks out in the
month OF March,. and occurs stimuli
taneously in Sacramento, San Fran
cisco and other places.
The victim can generally be distin-
guished from other people by certain
symptoms. He is more or less restless
generally more than less), talks
goose to his friends, and several
times day casts his eyes southwest
ward toward Maine Prairie in Solano
County, and starts nervously whenever
he hears flock of geese passing over
the city.
These symptoms continue for about
two weeks, when suddenly the patient
disappears for from one to two days,
and when next seen his condition is
generally normal-he is himself again.
There is said to be but one cure for
the disease, and that is visit to the
shrine at Maine Prairie. Sometimes
two visits are necessary, but only in
aggravated cases. When ex-President
Harrison visited California some years
ago the fever attacked him, and Joe
McKenna (now on the United States
Supreme Bench) took the distinguished
visitor out to Abe Crump and Doc
Stewards shrine, or sanitarium, or
whatever it may be termed, and The
ex-President got we'll the second day.
He also got about 200 wild geese, and
that was what cured him.
Once person gets this Maine Prairie
fever he becomes peculiarly susceptible
to it, and rarely escapes an attack the
following spring. 1t never gives him
serious trouble, for like the Indian in
rattlesnake country, he knows there
is an unfailing remedy for it. Several
San Franciscans have lately had the
fever, and here is what the Post"
says of them:
SPORT AT MAINE PRAIRIE.
From the happy hunting rounds ia
vored by wild geese and the human
slayers thereof come reports of excel
lent sport.
The birds are now migrating north
ward, and the advance legions are az
irving daily at their wonted haunts in
these ATTITUDES. They remain long
enough to rest their tired pinions and
refresh the inner goose, and then such
of them as are allowed to depart re-
sumo their flight to the Land of the
Midnight Sun. Those that stay here
are too dead to fly. They have sue
cumbed to lead poison hypodermically
administered with a shotgun.
Although the migration has been in
progress about a couple of weeks, the
great body of excursionists is still
south of US. 1t is merely the tail of the
vanguard that now fiutters over Cali.
fornia and makes night vocal with
raucous serenade. The head of this
feathered panhandle-or at least those
members of it which successfully ran
the pot-hunting gauntlet extending
through three of the United States and
a portion of Canada-is now INDUCING
in self -congratulation somewhere in
Alaska, where the climatic conditions
are not conducive to goose-shooting.
These advance skirmishers will be
browsing around the North Pole before
the grand army has crossed the Cali
fornia- Oregon line.
But there are now geese enough IN
this State to keep the sportsman who
erl1ui. Attorney W. W. Foote can tell
YOU that. and if his unsupported word
is not good enough you may obtain
confederation by applying to Supreme
Judge Henshaw, Henry Forttman,
President of the Alaska Packers AS
ISOLATION, or D. D. Drysdale of the
same corporation
These four gentlemen recently re-
h1r1, on
Prairie, nine miles south of Elmira, IN
Solano County, and they brought BACK
with them something more substantial
than mere hunters yarns to prove that
they had sport and plenty of it. They
have been feeding their friends on
goose-breast, and have sufficient feath-
ers on hand TO keep an ordinary bolster
factory supplied with stuffing material
for a month.
When the party went to Elmira it
placed itself unreservedly in charge OF
..Abe" Crump and doc" Stewart, who
have made lifetime study of geese
and their legitimate slaughter. They
had holes dug in the prairie land,
wherein the sportsrnen could squat
while the decoys lured their kindred to
doom. These decoys were not the con-
yentional wooden images used in duck
shooting, but real live geese. chained
to stakes driven in the ground. They
seemed to relish the task of leading
their species to destruction. Instead
of hosting danger signals, as con
scientious geese would do, they strut
tered and uttered seductive squawks
and did everything else they could think
of TO entice the visitors from the south
within range of the waiting guns With
their aid the holders of those guns were
able to bag an average of fifty birds
-apiece every morning they hunted.
abe and "Doc' declared that this
averageAcan easily. be. doubled when
the mob arrives, about a week hence
Then it will be simply a matter OF
shooting and killing until your gun oe-
comes too warm for comfortable hand
ling.
There are three kinds of geese brows-
ing on Maine Prairie. One of these is
the succulent brant, another is the
ordinary white goose. and the third IS
a. gray goose with<yellow legs. AS the
birds have flown a long distance they
are not as plump as an epicure might
wish. but still their breasts make
delicious dish. BY the time they reach
their designation in the far North they
will be about as toothsome as canninal
would find the winner of six-day BIZ
cycle race.
Attorney Foote. and his late associ-
ates will reorganize and renew the
slaughter when the tip comes from
ABE and DOC" that the big flock is