Letters

Hawks and Huns
I thoroughly enjoyed Clair Kofoed’s recent piece on the sometimes-peculiar behavior of Hungarian partridge (“Havoc with Huns,” July/August), especially when under heavy hunting pressure.
A few years ago two friends and I were bird hunting in late September near Big Timber, Montana. As we were coming to the end of a large harvested wheatfield, my English setter became very birdy; unfortunately, the birds were running ahead and flushed wild, out of range, toward the foothills of the snow-capped Crazy Mountains. As we watched them sail away, the wall of black dots made a sudden vertical nosedive instead of the graceful dive we had witnessed Huns making in the past. The reason for this odd maneuver? Two large hawks had appeared over the hill, and now they were hovering over the site where the birds had landed.
After a few minutes, we reached the site. The hawks were still hovering above, and my setter went on rock-solid point. Nothing flushed. To our amazement, as we walked around, we could see the Huns under the sagebrush, totally frozen. We tried kicking the bushes, but the birds would not budge. Obviously, they had decided to take their chances with us instead of risking flight and capture by their avian predators. After a few nerve-racking moments, the hawks disappeared and the covey exploded in all directions, giving us the opportunity to take a few birds, including a memorable right-and-left double.
Over the years we have used the “hovering hawk” sign to locate Huns while bird hunting in the West, with good success.
G.C. Soteropoulos, M.D.
McLean, Virginia

The Origin of Huns
In his recent article “Havoc with Huns,” Clair Kofoed states that the first release of Hungarian partridge in North America was by Richard Bache, who stocked his plantation on the Delaware River, in New Jersey. I believe it was pheasants he stocked there. During the Revolution, Bache was, I believe, the US ambassador to China and he had pheasants shipped to his estate in New Jersey (didn’t take). There have been a few more attempts made in the East—another in New Jersey and one in Maryland—but they haven’t taken either. The only successful one was in 1880 in the Willamette Valley, Oregon. I also believe the Hungarian partridge came to this country in the early 19th Century.
J. David Williamson
Hamburg, Pennsylvania

Clair Kofoed responds:
I have no reason to doubt my source of the first Hungarian partridge introduction, Dr. John Charles Phillips, in his book, Wild Birds Introduced or Transplanted into North America (Smithsonian, 1928). Phillips was a prominent ornithologist with impeccable credentials who traveled the world collecting specimens for Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology. Of one thing you are correct, though: Phillips lists other unsuccessful partridge introductions up and down the East Coast from Virginia to Maine and almost everywhere in between.
I cannot find documentation to support your idea that Richard Bache was the ambassador to China. He served as Comptroller of the Postal Service from 1775 to 1776 and replaced Benjamin Franklin as Postmaster General from 1776 to 1782. After that he served as director of Robert Morris Bank of North America and retired to his farm, “Settle,” on the banks of the Delaware River, where he died at age 74 on July 29, 1811.
You might be confusing Bache with US Consul General to China Owen Nickerson Denny, who shipped 60 ring-necked pheasants (along with smaller numbers of “Mongolian sand grouse”!) aboard the ship Otago from Shanghai to Port Townsend, Washington, where they arrived on March 13, 1881. It is not certain if these birds survived their release on the lower Columbia River, but later birds sent by Denny in 1883 and 1884 did. They then spread throughout Oregon’s Willamette Valley to become the first successful pheasant introduction in North America.
According to conservationist William L. Finlay in his book Life Histories of North American Game Birds, 1,522 gray partridge were released in the Willamette Valley in 1913 and ’14, but they did not “increase and thrive.” However, they “multiplied quite rapidly all throughout the northeastern part of Oregon and especially the southeastern part of Washington.”
It’s widely accepted that the first successful North American release of gray partridge took place just south of Calgary, Alberta, where in 1908 about 70 pairs were liberated by sportsmen with, according to Dr. John Phillips, “remarkable success.”
Thank you for your interest and giving me the chance to re-research a topic I thoroughly enjoy.

A .410 Test?
I read with enthusiasm and interest Silvio Calabi’s feature on the .410 (“The 67 Gauge,” Sept/Oct ’07), and I do appreciate the opinions of others regarding this instrument’s use as a hunting gun. Mr. Roster (Shot Talk, July/August) has done an excellent job of mediating and exposing the facts of this most misunderstood firearm.
Personally, my shotgun of choice for all species, from the perdiz of South America to all manner of fowl in the US, including quail, doves and blue-winged teal in Texas to decoying Canada geese on the prairies, is a 1963 Browning Superposed in .410. I remember one eventful day in September when my gunning partner and I harvested eight bluewings with 10 shots (Bismuth of course) outside Eagle Lake, Texas.
With all deference to “experts” such as Michael McIntosh, Mr. Roster has summed up the controversy beyond further challenge, and I quote: “... then the 3" .410 can again do it if you have the shooting skill.” And “The great onus then falls on the hunter to exercise self-restraint in shooting within the inherent limitations and ballistic realities of today’s .410 ammunition.”
Mr. McIntosh seems to speak for the American hunters who feel that 3-1/2" loads of Hevi-Shot and so on and 12-gauges bored Cylinder/Cylinder with 3" loads are what is necessary for waterfowl and upland game.
Thank you, Mr. Roster, for unfortunately pointing out that most hunters today probably fire less than 100 rounds a season and, like Mr. McIntosh states, have no business handling a “piss-ant cartridge that should have been the first one declared outside the law” (Shooting, March/April). Perhaps we need a national firearms test employing the use of the .410 along with other gauges that, if failed, prohibits the “sport” from obtaining a license. This interesting proposition might lead to the elimination of “sky-busters,” game-birds unfit to eat that a bird dog would not pick up, more “clean” kills, and fewer cripples. My, my, where would all the sports go?
Richard Kowallik
Via e-mail

Crying Wolf About Woodcock?
I’ve read numerous articles and letters over the past year discussing the decline of woodcock populations. My brother, Tim, and I have been hunting the same part of the Upper Midwest (sorry, you’ll get no geographic details from me) for the past 15 to 20 years. The past four to five years we’ve seen a significant increase in woodcock during our annual grouse hunts.
I’m sure you’ll find this difficult to believe, but last year in one 80-acre clear-cut, my brother and I shot our six-bird limit and my setter, Leddy, pointed 17 more birds before we got her back into the truck! It got to the point where the birds were so numerous they became a nuisance.
Although that experience was a bit unusual, we’ve seen large populations of the birds —more than in the past—all across the region we hunt.
My advice is either change your hunting location or buy a setter!
Jeff Sauter
Via e-mail