Читать книгу Jack Miner and the Birds, and Some Things I Know about Nature - Jack Miner - Страница 8

Table of Contents

As quail and grouse were so very plentiful and good warm clothes were scarce, the second fall we were here my brother and I started to hunt for the market. This caused us to study the nature of game. I soon found myself practising the call of Bob White. I would call early in the morning, when the country was silent, and listen to the echo come back from the woods, until I could call Bob right up to me from as far as he could hear the faintest sound of my imitative note. Yes, many a time during the nesting season have I called five or six male birds up near where I was sitting, then see them have a scrap. I tell you they are gamey little fellows. And what fun it was to be back in the field, hid in a bunch of goldenrod, with my old slouch hat tucked in my pants pocket, allowing my long hair and freckles to blend with the surroundings, and watch these plump little beauties come together in battle, sometimes striking each other so hard they would go fully six feet in the air and come down facing each other. I have had them so close I could almost feel the breath of their wings; and possibly three or four rods away was another one, picking the earth sidewise, apparently challenging the fourth who was sitting on a stump as if he were refereeing.

I tell you, life in the country was so sweet to me I would have agreed to stay here longer than it would take a raft of detectives to find my great-grandmother’s pewter spoon.

But the grouse was a hard fellow to call. This, however, did not prevent our success; for as soon as we got one we would examine its crop and find out just what it was feeding on; if it contained buds, then what kind they were, etc. And you could rest assured that ninety per cent. of the grouse in that country were feeding on this same variety of food. Then as we would walk through the woods with the dogs at our heels and our faces as nearly on the tops of our heads as possible, the grouse became very easy. I have shot five out of the tiptop of a cotton-wood tree where nine out of ten men would never think of looking. But if the crop contained seeds from the ground, the dogs were put to work where these seeds grew. As practice makes perfect, we soon became expert shots and the result was we left a bloody trail behind us.

We would walk miles away in the morning and start in so as to be near home at night with our heavy loads. Once or twice a week we would box our game up, and when the road was fit we would wheel it on a wheel-barrow up to the old stage line.

For at least five miles around, these birds appeared to fear us, and fly and scream as though Satan himself was after them. Brother and I often remarked: “Why did they just fly over the fence from the farmer, and ten minutes later, when we arrived, fly a mile or more from us?”

During the summer months these same birds seemed quite tame; in fact, they did not seem to be a bit more frightened of us than they were of the other residents of the country.

However, we soon found that every grain of sport had vanished, and we were in a financial business. So, speaking from actual experience, I know that market hunting is not sport; that it is murder in the first degree, and no principled sportsman will practise it. For one successful market-hunter will deprive twenty-five real sportsmen of their enjoyable recreation and outing.

I am pleased to say that we two boys soon outgrew this murderous practice, and hunted for pleasure only. And as we kept two well-trained dogs, many pleasant hours’ recreation have we enjoyed with some of the best gentlemen this earth can produce, returning home with an appetite for anything and stomachs that would almost digest railroad iron; then about nine p.m. we would roll in and sleep a hole right down through the bed.

Next morning, when you awake after such an experience, you will usually find your eyes are open, and more in focus.