Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-05-10
STALKING WILD An1mALs.
Infinite Patience and knowledge Of
Animals Required.

From the Los Angeles Times.
He who is past master of the art Of meet
ing bird or mammal upon its own ground.
each after its own fashion, need never be
shy Of game. though his outfit be old and
wild life In his region scarce. But stalk
ing does not mean lying in wait all night
at some water hole for deer or wildcat or
lion, nor yet the immolating of ones self
in a blind of tules surrounded by wooden
ducks. Stalking in an open country is In
estimably harder than the same kind Of
sport as followed by our granddaddies IN
the heavily wooded slopes of the Adir0n-
daclks and later by our fathers in the
Rockies, and even the nearer Sierras Hunt
ing of this kind requires infinite patience
life of the hunters country, and was the
main standby of the Indian before the COM
ing Of the white man brought to his use the
shotgun and the rife.
In stalking coyotes, the returns from
which. in this section, will be one or more
good hides and days sport, strike out
in the early dawn OF q mid-winter day. on
foot, for coyote will not notice a man on
foot when he would run like scared deer
from the same man on a horse. In the
early dawn all the little wolves win be
coming up the draws and dry washes from
the barnyards. where they put in the night.
So 1t Is wandering along the foothills down
one little valley and up the next. that the
stalker should go, eyes and ears open, his
whole body ready to freeze into fence
post or crooked stump at the instant
sight of game. Then softly running low in
the shadow of a bank of the shallow wash,
lodging imaginary hounds In every clump
Of bush, comes the wild gray dog Of the
foothills: Then. Il ever. the hunters mus
cles stiffen. he tries to keep the coyote IN
eye without letting the animal see him.
Slowly. as the wind might raise the limb
of young tree, the rifle comes to shoulder
but the coyote sees and Is on. splitting the
he seems to melt into the landscape: unless
one keeps his eye on the gray dog he 10 apt
to lose his chance. II the eye Is good and
the arm quick the 25-20s crack win be fol-
lowed by the sudden leap and fall Of the
coyote. whose fur at this time Of tho year
IL thick and long and brighter colored than
II will be later. Oftentimes a good stalker
even mediocre rifle shot. can In this way
pick up two or three nice skins on a fosgy
morning. when the aniamls hunt later in
the lOwlands than on clear mornings.
Another favortte way to hunt these wolves
IL by hiding at the edge OF q little pool or
spring IN the early mornings az coyotes al
most always stop for drlnk, before going
to ''roost' after nights bunting. The
writer has killed a coyote iii this manner
that had for months outrin the dogs of
men who owned the dogs,uftil he came
to be sort Of Jonah to all the hunting
grounds of that section.
But probably the most sdlincult OF all
HohAOihA6 8aAaiC dtilIIldi6 co 8(dlk IL any
one of our deer The large Virginia deer il
particularly unaccomn1t{daung beast In
this regard. seldom fre9denting country
free enough from underbriHsh 70 afford good
But the king Of staikerS II Ybe man who
can set out on fogey nioflitiE, and. heat
ing up and down the caHy6fas 81 the lower
hills, bring in a bob cat!s or AL animals
not even man excepted. the Tat tribe are
the most expert hunters 4In3I ytheir whole
system Is based on stalking #fom the lion
stealing up on the eland In dthe African
glade to the lynx creeping 1thr6ueh the piny
woods TO seize sleeping Rfouse the game
Is the same. always patient following al
ways waiting for time when the blow
cannot fail. Hunters from the Canadian
forests tell of being followed by great tuft-
cared lynx. trailing like shadows from tree
to tree, ever following. never offering to
attack, but merely sneakirix along behind
from very Unborn love of that style Of hunt
ing. The wolf tribe hunting in packs sell
dom exceed by speed what the cats capture
by stalking.
The hardest thing for the stalker to grasp
at first fs the fact that Unless q hunted
animal catches his pursuer'e eve in seven
cases out OF ten he will not see the hum
ter at all, and tho greatest art OF the hui
man hunter IL to be able to sac without
being seen. which is. after all. much like
the precept OF the old merchant that ito do
without being done ID the cardinal point Of