FOREST \AND /.'STREAM? 



07 



■ 1 'i aix,-, Mass.— At Hu 



President Haves. .1 27, roasted 'quails 



1 ini list m ol the Btatutc, which 



1 killing of any garni between ! tar I and fo 



' 'i' 1 1 . nnfl affixing a pen 1 for every such bird 



■session, ltmv cum minor oJIenders 

 lavv with any consistency be punished when it is 

 PiolaletJ with imp unity in the presence nf the Inchest function- 

 ary of the land,? S, C, 0. 



[Out readers will remember we called attention to the laic 

 ■ ■ ihlt at i i i id -I during the close season. 



Why do not those gentlemen prosecute ? Certainly a convic- 

 tion under such circumstances would haveamort 

 J, ible,] 



Mr Gami! ProtuotioS IS New MEXICO.— ^?e have received a 

 eppy Of the following order, which sufficiently explains itself: 



HBADQUAMeUS Fiikt SSIJJEn, N. M.. June 311, 1S77, 



1 ir.Miinr i .-\ym.1i a view to preserve, protect nud increase the game 



f March, April, May, June, July ami 



August are hereby declared close months fur game of air kinds upon 

 nun. fluting the six meoitJis specllled above of eueh yciir 

 the killiug and capturing by any moans of all kinds 01 | 

 liUillcd. I'lsliing Willi neniR or net will not be allowed. I 

 hook and line, or irot line, or In any manner excepting hy Heine or net 



'■• .1.1, ueed. 



observance of tlio foregoing Is enjoined upon all peraonB 

 upon this reservation. W». O. roav, 



First Lient.. Fifteenth Infantry Com. Post. 



- W'c are pleased to learn that the Philadelphia Sportsmen's 



Club will hereafter take an interest in the preservation of fish 



in lhe Delaware and assist, the West-Jersey Game Protective 



1 enforcing the law. Theclub employs defectives 



ill the winter 10 ferret out dealers who violate the game laws. 



—'I 'he eitfeens of Mohawk Valley, Oregon, Lave, as a meas- 

 ure lor the much needed protect ion for deer, published a card 

 prohibiting all deer bounding on their premises, and denounc- 

 ing it in the vicinity. 



— ft. V. Pierce, Esq., President of therjew York Stale Sports- 

 men's Association, has issued a warning to sportsmen and deal- 

 ers in game throughout, the Stale to observe the game law as it 

 now stands amended, which prohibits the shooting of wood- 

 cock (except, On Long Island), until August. 1st. 



—The Seneca Gun Club i,,, sheen Organized a! Seneca Falls, 

 with the following well-], ai 1 ..■ 11 gent li ai n as Officers-: 



:. leal, Horace Sjlsby; Vice-President, James P. Law, 

 ■■■rotary, J. T. Miller, Jr. ; Treasurer, Milton Hong, 

 Executive Committee, John G. Hosier. Homeyu P. Lathrop 

 and Millard Ten Eyck. 



—The- Hudson Piver Association for the Protection of Chime 

 ami Fish, Of which Mr. John 1!. Wiltsie, of Ncwbnrgh, is 

 President, have issued a placard, giving in convenient form a 

 digest of the New York game laws, seasons, etc. A copy will 

 lie sent on application to the President. Inclose postage stamp. 



— A meeting of the South Brooklyn Sportsmen's Club was 

 held on the 2lilh of June, and the following gentleman were 

 elected as officers of the club: Geo. E. Lloyd, Pres.: John 

 Bowie, Jr., Vice-Pres. ; Paul A. Bassiuger, Sec; Aaron 

 Wittmau, Tress.: Jacob Wallers, Sergeant at Arms. Also a, 

 vole of thanks was given the late President, Mr. Gus Boyseu, 

 lor his great, interest ami untiring efforts for the success of the 

 club. 



VrStfMKlA. — NorfoVc, July 0. — In your issue of 5th inst., 

 yotl entirely misquote the game law of Virginia, as passed at 

 the last session of the legislature. As your error may lead 

 some of your readers inlo trouble, I hand you herewith a cor- 

 n 1 iopj of our laws pertaining to game and fish, as issued 

 by our State, association for the. protection of fish and game. 



Very truly yours, S. It, White, 



Pres't. Norfolk Game Protective Ass'n. 



[Then why in thunder don't your local papers print thelaw 

 tight ? We copied it from one of them.] 



— Ossiumg writes from Sing Sing : "Your correspondent, 



Of,* says, in your, issue of June 14.: 'I fervently trust the 



v.Tsinon of Michigan and other places where wild 



I ■:'■■:■! . i I :-: V'.'i ■ ■. ..'II; leef-Vv, i. ' i '-,1 i', ,\ .; ■! ! ' VI I i< ',-■ I 1 I g , ] i Hi. ., IV il I 1 10 cliii- 



nently successful in putting a stop to the barbarous practice.' 

 I echo that sentiment cordially, as 1 would any other that 

 tends to prevent the destruction of game wantonly or out, of 

 season: but I am afraid that success'! u t bat direction will be 

 impossible so long as influential sportsmen and 'gome | 

 lectors ' favor the practice— nay more, send agents to the nest- 

 ing grounds with instructions to procure birds at any cost, and 

 in any quantity, because the great society of Sportsmen and 

 1 game proteotors ' ol New York want an almost unlimited 

 number to kill at the Sportsmen's -\vs.„i;ei,.ns when they meet 

 for thy purpose of having a grand good lime, and devising 

 methods for the more; efficient protection of game.' 



'•These same most enthusiastic protectors are doubtless highly 

 delighted when they read in their Journal 'devoted to protection 

 of game and the inculcation of a healthy interest, in outdoor 

 recreation ' such welcome intelligence as this: "J'hr associa- 

 tion bave quite a number of parties out (after pig on I « tio are 

 using due diligence, anil encouraging news was received from 

 Wisconsin iL:. iiv/itac ],i._.-:,i , , .... i i„ s nl, but touk to flight 



When they do Settle, for bhe purpose of laying I. heir eggs and 



raising their brood of young, how these 'parties' will' scuop 



'' and wbat glorious fun those refined and intelligent 



1 1 'l ! '.. i ii Shooting them! "What nice medals 



some of them will win and with what 'honor' some of them 

 il , v, led! Funny, isn't it, that the masses don't, take 



:, ore activi interest in the work of protecting game when 



••ldoni think much ol pot urotei ... rule, butthereare 

 people who are more blamable than the} -gentlemen sports- 

 men who have time and means to visit the most game ahound- 



.-, i. i; ii "iii all the modem appliances of sport, and de- 



,!'.., l.i. v, I, fjCCaUSfi they eaiue for that purpose v.. . I t|i 



band ' 'mi they have anv use for ; they do 



|i] ... , , , . i , 



extenuating circumstances which excuse the latter. A pot - 

 hunter is a poor man who makes use of all he kills, perchance 

 clothing and educating a, family, and what would 

 n men do who have those nice game dinners which 

 we now and then read of in your columns, unless there were 

 tome pot-hunters V Even though he does not live up 10 the 

 spirit, of the law, or 'hasn't a soul large enough to nil lie in 

 the hull of a mustard seed,' lie isn't, a willful waster. This is 

 v. .i v defense ol poUhuutingi but to show • that*sometinies the 



very ones who are loudest, in denouncing this evil commit a 

 greater one themselves. 



" To my mind, much more deserving the censure of true, 

 sportsmen are they who shoot birds upon their nests, who go to 

 Uangeley Lake and kill hundreds of trout, more than they can 

 possibly use and throw them away; who shoot deer because 

 they are so abundant and leave their carcasses to pollute the 

 air of a sportsman's paradise; who lie in a blind, sum as death, 

 refusing all chaiices for win- shots at single birds, till the 



v nl are I. addled by the acre within easy reach of the armory 

 with Which they are provided, and then blaze away, making 

 nil heals the recollection of the oldest, pot-hunter, 

 and then sigh that tbey did not provide themselves with a 

 Eev iv ire guns. 



•'A trim sportsman, we, believe, is one who, while he cn- 



'■' S to the utmost the pleasures of rod and gnu, would do 

 nothing to make bun a despoiler ; one who feels no pleasure 

 in waging a war of extermination- in short,, a man wdio be- 

 lieves that all find's creatures were intended for man's use and 

 benefit, and who uses them as a being endowed with intelli- 

 gence and reason should." 



Game Laws.— Alfred Perry, a wealthy resident of Redficld, 

 Oswego county, N. Y\, has been in the habit Of inviting 

 friends to visit "bis pli 

 claiming that the Sta 

 Oswego county fo: I 

 forced. The Salmon 

 bring the gentlet 

 ft is understood thai 

 carried to the Suprei 



W'kst Hop.otuw, jN 

 fulgurates our shoot ii 

 slaughter! When si 

 which poor Frank F( 



stands It 



August, when the lawful time to sboot 

 woodcock are just beginning to moult, 

 weak if not weaker than early in July, 

 whether they are slaughtered" on the 41 

 ot August, for slaughter iii. v i is Qi 



i,iu the entire broods in a i is la1 d iwt 



Salmon River to fish for trout, 

 vrukibitimr the capture of trout iu 

 nis is invalid and cannot, be en- 

 Club, of Pulaski, determined to 

 ... Qtt red suit agaiosl him. 

 ver the result, tlie case is to be 

 l for final adjudication. 



Justus" writes: July Fourth in- 

 n—the opening of the woodcock 



in- idiedr This isa question 



has already asked, and is yet tin- 

 ned to better it. but as the law 

 m b; lore. On the 1st of 



' ye 



Of the 



win 



•ell gr. 



on the 1st 



rood of to 



,'oodcock. 

 and up to 

 :. yet they 

 era. The 

 altered all 



-. I have yet 

 • New Jersey. 

 petition to be 

 the signature 

 lUghoat New 

 isoii extended 

 the idea of one 



Although the birds were pit 

 the last week in June on their 

 are not there now on account 

 grounds arc rather wet, and so the wooden 

 over the country, as they lind feeding g 

 cornfields and hundreds of other odd plaei 

 to hear of a heavy bag iu cither Long Isl 

 Thelloboken sportsmen are going to lire] 

 handed to the next legislature, which will 

 of a great many influential citizens. Clul 

 Jersey r should do the same and have the cl< 

 to the 1st of October. I here like to menl 

 of our leading sportsmen, that it would be the best law to 

 have the close season of all game, as quail, ruffed grouse, wood- 

 cock and rabbits from Dec. 15 to Oct. 15. The latter date is 

 late enough for the first brood of quail and grouse, and it is 

 no use whatever to legislate for the second or a lale brood of 

 quail, as you will often find birds on the 15th of November 

 not bigger than sparrows. 



fSTow is the time to act. United we might accomplish much 

 before another slaughtering period begins with tbe next 4th 

 of July. Justus. 



Texas.— ttwjw-s Christy June 29. — Deer skins are coining 

 in now by the hundred, the carcasses being left on tbe prairie 

 as food for the vultures. Men arc shooting youDg turkeys 

 and half grown quail every day ; but there is no way of stop- 

 ping it, without, a law. We have plenty of game now, and we 

 ought, to have pleuty alwui/s, and now : is the time to com- 

 mence to protect them. 1 believe the Forest and Stkeam 

 jlsd Rod akd Gun will do more to educate the lovers of the 

 gun and rod up to a noble, generous and manly practice of the 

 same than anv other agent. Then we can get a game law 

 through the Legislature; now the people laugh at it, "The 

 idea," they say, "of a law that shall provide wheu a man 

 shall go shooting !" 



NOTES OF THE U. S. GEOLOGICAL 

 SURVEY— No. 1. 



RAWLINS is a little station on the Union Pacific Railway, 

 two hundred miles west of Cheyenne, deriving its chief 

 importance from the fact that, the railway has a. round-house 

 and some shops here, and that it is the supplying point for fb e 

 Snake River mines in northern Colorado and the shipping sta- 

 tion of the ranchmen whose cattle range through the valleys of 

 Snake, While, Green and minor rivers in northwestern Colo- 

 rado andtlieadjiieenl parts of Utah and Wyoming. Seventy-live 

 or a hundred thousand head will probably be shipped this sum- 

 mer eastward from this point, for which three, or four cents a 

 pound will be received, cash down. The ''round-up," as the 

 collection of each man's cattle out of the wide-spread, miscel- 

 laneous herd is called, is now taking place. Some of these 

 White Kiver cattle will no doubt be found to have strayed half 

 way across the plains, three or four hundred miles frornhotne. 

 This point is on the very dividing ridge between the drain- 

 age of the Atlantic and Pacific, albeit in a valley, and lhe alti- 

 tude of the town is about eight thousand feel. But one would 



, i ii . know himself lobe so high, and least of all imagine 



I hat he was in the very heart of the Rocky Mountains, seeing 

 about, him only drab stretches of rolling sage-brush plains, un- 

 i li H on some higher point he could See beyond, where 

 ••—The snownioniiiiuns lift tlieir vim. I] 

 Ami sapphire ernsviis nl splendor. Inr ami tush, 

 lino the air around him." 

 Thisgrowfh of sage-brush and grease-wood clothes the bills 

 iuasofi bluish dies.s, warm and misty in tlte sunlight, and pur- 

 ple in i In- shad. The bare spots on the hillsides, between the 



i ' ' I.T.U 



the solid blue of the. far mountains, orested with a silver snow- 

 line. Some of the lithographic illustrations in the Pacific Rail- 

 road Reports, volume xii., 1 think, give an excellent idea, of 

 what Iscc from my tent door. A closer view of the sage-brush 

 discloses a scene altogether unlovely. The bushes are barkless 

 and ragged, the Stems split all into shreds as though dead for 

 ten years, and it, is a wonder that any sap can find its way 

 through to nourish the dense growth of dusty gray foliage and 

 scraggy twigs which surmoimts the rough stems. The grease- 

 wood is even worse to bundle than this shag hark stuff, for its 

 twigs are thickly covered with thorns and prickles. Frequently 

 one has nothing else to burn for days together, and bleeding 

 hands bear witness to the pain with which ij is gathered ; but 

 it burn, well, Hie wood having an oily quality which makes a, 

 lev, bright, blaze. ]f you can stand the pungent, medicinal odor 

 of sage, there is no more enjoyable tire out, of the, pine woods. 

 These plants cover the dry and desolate regions, their tap roots 

 sometrmes penetrating thirty feet to find moisture, and between 

 them the white alkali dust is poorly concealed under bulfalo- 

 gi'.iss. bmstles and caoti; but many flowers of delicate pattern 

 and brilliant hues are to be found everywhere. the Ordera 

 Oomfrasitm and Legumtnosm are most numcromly represented. 

 Along the banks of the few creeks there is even some sort of 

 turf, green as emerald after a shower, hut soon becoming sere 

 under the blazing sun which shines unclouded during most, of 

 the short summer. This season, however, has been unusually 

 late, the climate resembling I hat very graphic description of 

 Baker's Park given by a San Juan miner whosuid that there 

 they had a "nine month's winter, and three months damned 

 lutein the fall!" But the sun shines now, and we are happy. 

 During a ten-day's stay here I have thus had an opportunity 

 to see something of the animal life of the sage-brush, although 

 not, to study it in the least. 



The antelopes are now moving about rather than seeking the 

 pastures. Tbe does are seeking retired spots in which to bring 

 forth their little oncs.or, with young fawns, are slowly proceed- 

 ing to their summer haunts, while the bucks are going about 

 pretty much by themselves. We see their pretty heads and 

 white rumps above the sage-brush, and usually it is not, dim - 

 cult, to get, a shot at them. We have had pror.g-horn steaks 

 every day. They are mostly fat and tender al this season, hut 

 tlio hair is just, being shed and their hides arc of no use. They 

 OK comparatively worthless at all limes, being worth less than 

 forty cents in Cheyenne. 



Black-tailed d.-er and their fawns are also about, and our 

 hunter, the famous "Mountain Hurry" Yourit, has kept our 

 table supplied with this also. Over on Separation Mountain, 

 yesterday, I saw hundreds of fresh tracks of deer and also of 

 elk, which are still plentiful all through here. Both animals 

 keep in the little gulches rcachingup and down thesides of tbe 

 mountains, where tin: pretty quaking aspen forever trembles 

 its green and silvery leaves, and a rank vegetation of rose 

 boshes, alders and service berries, with flowors between, are 

 kept bright by the rills front the snow banks wdiich lie all sum- 

 mer under the brow T of the mountain. Afterward when wo 

 had proved the elk-tracks to lead out of the place on a gallop, 

 as though he had been frightened, looking down into the val- 

 ley from tbe top we saw three men acting strangely, and up- 

 on looking closer, with our field glasses, saw that they were 

 staggering off under as much as each could carry of elk flesh. 

 They were at least six- miles from anywhere, so that by the time 

 they got to the settlement they must have thought their game 

 dearly earned. I hear llmt several bands of elk were seen from 

 the railroad traiu early yesterday morning just below here, and 

 along the open country north of here they arc said to be abun- 

 dant. 



Besides the antelope and sage-hares the only game wdiich can 

 properly he said to be common hereabouts is the sage-cock (Cen- 

 troccrm urophasianw), of which one may kick up a hundred in 

 two hours. 



The sage-fowl are our American representatives of the Old 

 World pheasants, and the only bird in this country properly 

 entitled to the name of " pheasint," notwithstanding that the 

 grouse get. it so widely. You find them everywhere on the 

 sage uplands, and their nests are easily discovered, particularly 

 when tbe mother-bird is sitting, for then she will not rise from 

 her eggs, which are laid in a rude nest on the ground, until you 

 have well nigh stepped upon her. T have seen one sit as quietly as 

 a stone, while I rode by within twenty feel, trusting that her 

 gray-and-black dun-colored plumage would conceal her by 

 blending with lhe ground and the bluish Stems of the bushes. 



every instant and fry to lead me from her treasures by tricks 

 and manoeuvres. The eggs are as large as a domestic hen's, and 

 are marked very much like those of the turkey. There arc 

 from twelve to twenty in the nest, and hunters here are of the 

 opinion that I wo hens. at. least, often lay in the same nest, The 

 young are drab, spotted with brown, and have a, peep like a 

 barnyard chick. As soon as tbey are born they know how to 

 behave and understand the mother's language, running and 

 hilling iu perfect stillness unlit they are assured of safety by 

 the parent's voice. At such times, if yon arc quick enough to 

 to catch sight of one of the little ones, you may go and pick it 

 up without its trying to escape, or struggling in your baud. 

 The young are hatched durning the first half of June: 



At, Ibis season it is usual lo see many sage-fowls together, 

 and the small flocks will usually consist of those of a single sex. 

 Sometimes, though, forty or fifty will be flushed at, once, but 

 hi the fall they congregate into large II, . I 



It has been said that this bird rises from liieground with 

 ; v , I | , fcl 11 ',..,, 



