The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-04-16
SHAKING WILD ANIMALS.

i He who is past master of the art of
 meeting bird or mammal upon it's own
 ground, each after it's own fashion,
 need never be shy of game, though
 his outfit be old and wild life in his
 region scarce. But stalking 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 jules surrounded by wooden
 ducks. Stalking in an open country is | inestimably harder than the same kind
 of sport as followed by our granddad-
 dies in the heavily wooded slopes of the
 Adirondacks and later by our fathers in
 the Rockies. and even the nearer
 Sterras. Hunting of this kind requires | infinite patience and not a little know
 ledge of the animal life of the hunters
 country. and was the main standby be-
 fore the coming of the white man
 brought to- his use the shotgun and the rifle
 | In stalking coyotes, the returns from
 which, in this section, will be one or
 more good hides and a days sport,
 strike out in the early dawn of mid winter day, on foot, for coyote will
 not notice a man on fot when he would
 run like a scared deer from the same
 man-on horse. In the early dawn all
 the little wolves will be coming up the,
 draws and dry washes from the barn yards where they have 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 a fence post or crooked
 stump at the instant sight of game.
 Then softly low in the shadow of | bank of the shallow wash, lodging im-
 aginary hounds in every clump of bush, comes the wild gray dog of the foothills.
 Then if ever, the hunters muscles stiffen. he tries to keep the coyote in
 eye without letting the animal see him. Slowly, as the wind might raise the l limb Of young tree the rifle comes to shoulder. but the coyote sees and is off,
 splitting the morning air like a gray cloud. All at once he seems to melt in- 1 to the landscape. unless one keeps his
 eye on the gray dog he is apt to lose his
 chance. If the eye is good and the arm
 quick the 26-20's crack will be followed by the sudden leap and fall of the coy
 ote, whose fur at this time of the year
 is thick and long and brighter colored
 than 1t will be later. Oftentimes a. good stalker. even mediocre rifle shot can
 in this way pick up two or three nice skins on g. foggy morning, when the
 animals hunt later in the lowlands than
 on clear mornings.
 ! Another savorite way to hunt these
 wolves is iby hiding at the edge of It, | tie pool or spring in the early moring,
 as coyotes almost always stop for
 drink before going to "roost" after a nights hunting. The writer has killed a coyote in this manner that had for months outrun the dogs of about half countr mad outgeneralled the men sort of Jonah to all the hunting grounds Of that section.
 But probably the most difficult of all California game animals to stalk is any one of our deer. The large Virginia deer is particularly accommodating beast in this regard seldom frequenting coupntry free enough from underbrush to afford good stalking.
 Bit the king of stalkers is the man who can get out on a. foggy morning, and, beating up and down the canyons e the lower hills, bring in bob cat. Of all animals, not even man excepted the cat tribe are the most expert hunters. and their whole system is
 based on stalking. From the lion to the lynx creeping through the piny woods to seize a sleeping grouse the same, always patient following, always waiting for time when the blow can- not fail. Hunters from the Canadian forests tell of being followed by great tuft-eared tynx, trailing like shodows from tree to tree, ever following, never offering to attack, but merely sneaking along behind from very inborn love of that style of hunting. The wolf tribe hunting in packs seldom exceed by speed what the cat capture stalking. The hardest thing for the stalker to grask at is the fact that unless hunt ed animal catches his pursuers eye in seven cases out of ten he will not see the hunter at all, and the greatest art of the human hunter is to be able to see without being seen, which is, after all much like the precept of the old mer- chant that Ito do without being done is the cardinal point of success.-From the Los Angles Times.