A Maryland Game Country

STOCKTON, Worcester County, Md., Dec. 8. -- The farmers in this section top and blade all their corn, then husk it from the standing stalks; as a result lots of shattered grains fall around each hill, and the ground where the corn is thrown in a pile is literally covered. The quail soon found this out and abandoned the stubbles and waste land for the cornfields; they run out from the woods and thickets, fill themselves in less than a half hour and then go back to the woods until evening. Our shooting here this season has all been done in the woods, and although we put up from six to fourteen coveys every day, the best bag yet in a morning has been fourteen birds to one gun. There is no pot-shooting in this; all depends on the stanchness of your dog and your skill in handling your gun. Nearly all who have tried it here express themselves better pleased with their good shooting than they would be with twice the number of birds killed in the open stubble.

Geese are very plentiful, are in splendid order and unusually large for young birds, weighing from 9 to 11 1/2lbs. Brant are here in good numbers, but are decoying poorly; the bunches appear to be more than half old birds. They turn and circle around often a dozen times before giving you any chance at all, and by night your throat is all cracked up calling. We have had such a warm, calm fall that the redheads have not yet come to the shoals; they appear to be still in the fresh-water bays and rivers. Bluebills, whistlers and other small ducks are here in numbers and are making fair shooting.

I have never seen Cooper's hawk and the sharp-shinned hawk as plentiful as they have been here this season, and I think this is one reason the birds held so close to the thickets. I would not like to say how many have been killed since the season opened, for the number runs over 100 in this neighborhood alone, and still you can see them beating the edges of the woods and thickets.

There has been an unusual number of woodcock here this fall, but as yet no jacksnipe on the marshes.

O. D. FOULKS.