170 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



FMarcii 89, 1888. 



Forked River— 50 onlea from Philadelphia 'via Phila- 

 delphia and Long Branch Railroad] - miles from Now 

 York city via Central New Jersey Railroad. Forman 



Mathis has facilities For the an nrnodation of several 



parties, having yacl nl [gunning bouse on Great 



' . megat Ray. Kati S8i day. Anthony Par* 

 k.T. Capt. Tom Potter, Theodore Predmore I I 

 per day and board. 



available points in Bai ■ '• 

 are resorted ko from ibis place 



lUw na.t, — 55 miles from Philadelphia via Philadelphia 

 and. Long Branch Railroad— change care ai Tom's River; 

 — miles from New York City via (Vutr.d New Jersey Rail 

 road, loim.l. Potter, Win. Potter-, Kphmim Potter, How- 

 ard Poller (bav amining); George K. North, Lewis 3. North, 

 .liiljn R. North (inland gunning). Rates -$2 per day, with 



\adn sl per day and board 



Well-known available gOnninc points in Baflaegal Ray. 

 accessible fi n Bayville, are: Cedar Creek Point, Greal 



Bedge, Mood : lick Point, and points north of Seaside Park. 



AN ADIRONDACK DEER COUNTRY. 



HAVING taken uiueb internal in the columns- of your 

 widely circulated and able journal. I am led to believe 

 that perhaps Some Of your readers would take pleasure iu a 

 short aocouul of this comparatively unknown and therefore 

 un visited portion of the world-famed Adirondack region. 



Within ten miles of Paul Smith's fashionable quarters, it 

 is seldom vi-ii< d bj hi- guests, although for the purposes of 

 sport and health h is at least, the equal of that region. A 

 belt of thick lores! separates the Upper St. Regis waters from 

 the Lower. St. Regis Falls is the last post-office on the north 

 side of this belt, and Paul Smith's the last, postofflce on the 

 south side. The distance between the two post-offices is about 



thirty miles, and no roadway connects them, The land- 

 scape on the Lower St. Regis, strange' to say. is more pie- 

 . , than upon the Upper and higher portions, the 

 sc.il more fertile, the geological formation being different. 

 The air i- of* I still equally bracing, and frigs are 



i There are no chilly winds at any time; balsam and 



prevail. 

 But what will most interest your leader- is the abundance 

 of deer, bear and fur-hearing animals. Fishing is good, In 

 ! can say having been through the Adiron- 



m i very yeaa I Sfl I , thai I never saw 



,, - plenty anywhere a- bete, except in 1868, atWind- 



and thai neighborb. 1. 



: "' just passed more than two mouths in this region 



, nol killed any deer a- 9 matter of com- i il -. to 



" ' have I taken, an} pains to meet them, my pleas- 

 ure Consisting in trapping smaller animals. Vet in iih walks 

 DVer Borne thousands Of acres of laud 1 have nowhere been 

 able to go a mile without seeing runways wilich n e ■•' 



i ii Mi. Erom barns to water troughs in depth and 

 frequent use, I have Been i* propria persona no less than 

 twenty -even deer walking or running during the last three 

 week.-. One Was so DoJd as to run at me attempting tobuck 

 and Strike nie wilh his fore legs. He was seized behind by 

 ('has. A. Merrill and his legs lassoed, after which he showed 

 UO fear but chased our dog and would nol run away all hough 



,1 '.|, ; :;i ticksssnd even kicked, him. 'This vas 

 seven miles tcom any house and the deer was nntamcti. At 



length we set the ilog upon him and he was persuaded to 

 move oil. There were six deer with this remarkable buck 

 at first, most of them does. They all ran off except the 

 buck described so soon as they descried us, but not with 



great speed. 



1 do not think I exaggerate in saying that between this 

 place and Paul Smith's there are two thousand deer. 



The law is enforced apparently, although, of course, there 

 ;m: infractions. X. 



Bllil Mot NTAJN.near St. Regis Falls, Franklin Co.,U v., •■Hovh 14. 



A TEXAS SCAMPER. 



TUB morning of the 14th of March being favorable, we 

 mounted our Texas ponies, sounded the horn, and with 

 three stanch hounds, lour pups and one car, all eager for 

 the fray, started, for a chase. We struck out through scat- 

 tering timber and brush, and had not e one far before the 

 hounds struck a trail, and right, merrily they ran, iu full cry 

 for something over a mile, when they came to bay. The 

 hog (musk or Mexican) had sought refuge under some roots 

 in the head of a ravine. We arrived jus; in time to see him 



I i and catch a venturous young hound; but Flora, 



ever on the alert, Hew to the rescue, ami having relieved the 

 puppy, was as quick to get out of the way herself. At this 

 juncture a well-directed charge of duek'shot from a No, 12 

 bore rolled the hog over on the spot. When we examined 

 Our dogs we found two of the puppies and the cur badly 

 cut. The wagon being near «t hand we took the wounded 

 'ii and started them back to the ranch. 



By the rime we had disposed of our wounded dogs. Flora 

 hiid hunted up a wildcat trail, ft was but the work of a 

 few minutes to set the rest of the pack wilh her. They had 

 it, around through the brush or ehapparal for a time, when 

 they treed, but "when we came up we found that the cat 

 bad tricked them. I scolded them soundly, ard after eir- 

 eound they struck him off. Through brush, oyer 

 hill and across hollow we had it, the hounds sometime tniss- 

 i in i i u going howling with beadsup. We 



were having good sport, but alas; we now found that our 

 eat bad quit our irrounds and was making for some brushy 

 hills in a neighbor's country, which was separated from our 

 own by a wire fence, with no gate for several miles. Not 

 to be outdone, we dismounted, threw off coat, leggings, etc,, 

 and Started in pursuit. Our hunt was now reduced to three 

 hounds, two lads and myself (the last individual being none 

 too active or light for such a phase). 



Bj the time we reached the hills the hounds had got him 

 up to a certainty, and were rattling him around tit a lively 

 rate. He finally concluded he would be safer up a tree; so 

 Up AC went; but as we were approaching (to the delight of 

 lie leaped out and off lie bounded, with Ranger 

 and Flora at ins heels. (We thought strange Our other dig 



was not there.) Butthecal vii o, mpelled totake to 



ree. We approached cautiously, and. seeing him 

 standing on a limb, let 11 \ at his head. He sprang into the 

 iu mii,,;ir down among the dogs, but getting away from 



them, mad'- another I ree a few rods off. ;md there, under 

 tood our lifhei di >g, t Mil ( ap. On looking 



in there was our oal with bloodshot eyes, panting and 

 bleeding, and to our surprise another one also, one of the 

 largi the Two wildcats up one tree was 



rather a rarity for even our eonnliy. We gave cat number 



two a broadside ami he tell dead. We then tumbled out 

 number one. and the boys having taken the sculp of each. 

 we journeyed back to our horses, feeling that we had been 

 paid for our walk. Smalt. Shot. 



Bbeville, Texas. March 111. 



A New Gun-Wad.— Mr. Edmond Redmond, of Roch- 

 ester, New York, has added to his "diving decoy" another 

 invention, for which he has just been granted a patent. 

 This is a gun-wad, which may 'be made of shell metal or wire 

 cloth, the two forms being shown iu the illustrations, in 

 his patent specification Mr. Redmond says: "Tin- object of 

 my invention is to provide a gun-wad that will reduce recoil, 

 prevent leading in a gun barrel, prevent the bulging of acar- 

 tridge shell, and, when paper shells are used, obviate crimp- 

 ing or grooving the loaded shell and allow the- hot fobeseen 

 in the cartridge. Heretofore the shot in cartridges have been 

 retained in position bv a wad. which was held in the car- 

 tridge shell by Friction with the wall of the shell or by hav- 

 ing the earlridL'e shell pressed in against the external side 

 of the wad. My invention consists of a disk, the edge 

 of which is serrated and its -hottest diameter 

 perforated. The disk or wad is preferably cut out 



£ 



of sheel metal or wire-cloth. When the wad is to be 

 employed over the shot it should be a little larger in great- 

 est diameter than the interior of the shell, so that it will 

 catch iu the wall of the shell when pressed home against the 

 shot. If found desirable, the wad for use on the -hot could 

 be made concavo-convex, so that when pressed Bat against 

 tin- shot in the shell its edge would be extended laterally and 

 , :, II wall deeper than an originally flat wad 

 would. In making the wad it should be finished with a 

 sharp edge on one side and a blunt one on the other, and in 

 loading the cartridge the rouuded edge or convex side of the 

 wad to be used over the shot should enter the shell first. 

 The sharp edge of the projections on the wad will then 

 catch in the shell-wall when pressed borne against the shot," 

 The inventor also chum- that the wire wad will act as a 

 Concentrator, the top layers of shot sinking into the inter- 

 stices of the wire and keeping together several of the layers 

 after leaving the gun. 



HoiMUNo in THE ADlKONtiACKs.— h'll't.,,- !-'„rr.,t and 



Stream; A. R. Fuller's note in February to number is to the 

 point. He met one of their best .still-hunters, who acknowl- 

 edged -that he had in rive days last fall killed nine deer." 

 He does nol state, however, how many other days he hunted 

 and did not kill any. Or were tho.se five days a'll the good 

 hunting days there was iu the month S "Rill Danforth, 

 when last heard from, had not scored even one, although he 

 had been out a number of days." Probably about all the 

 good still-hunting days there was in the month of November 

 last. Now. that was' about my fix. I. too, was up there ail 

 through the month waiting for some of those good days to 

 come, But the leaves v. ere dry and husky, with no snow 

 till the latter part of the mouth. Then came three or four 

 payable days for still-hunting, in which 1 succeeded iu kill- 

 ing a couple to take hack home, just sufficient to take off the 

 curse. Rut on my way into the woods I met a couple of 

 hunters returning. They had been out for a week with 

 hounds and had succeeded in capturing nine deer, six of 

 them bucks. That was better luck than Mr. Fuller had, in 

 one sense, and worse in another, as 1 would not have given 

 a dollar for the whole lot, the weather being too warm for 

 them to keep, even had 1 expressed them home. The law 

 as it now stands is against the .still-hunter, as there are but 

 few days usually in the month of November when a man 

 can hum successfully. Secondly, he wants cold weather so 

 to ki p the few he does kill. But the party Unit goes to 

 hound can operate at any and all times, rain or shine, wet 

 or dry. Now- the still-hunter is the best game constable 

 those WOOdjB ever had, and the only one that will stop 

 hounding at any season of the year. Mark thai .—Cap Lock 

 (Frewsburg, K". Y.j. [The publication of the foregoing 

 note has been unintentionally delayed. As litis been an- 

 nounced in these columns, the present bill at Albany will, if 

 passed prohibit hounding entirely throughout the- State.] 



That TocetH Woodcock.— Worcester, Mass.. March 24.— 

 There has been a good deal of discussion among the local 

 hunter-, during the week, and various opinions expiessed as 

 to the cause of the remarkable vitality exhibited in the 

 woodcock referred toby "Philohela Minor" in the FOREST 

 ami si 'ream of the 13th inst. One member of the Sports- 

 man's Cluh thought, the bird had been shot at so often by 

 members of the Woodland Club that it could not realize 

 thai it had come to bag. (Of course this gentleman was no t 

 one of the team that shot a match al Spiinfield on the 30th 

 of August, last, as per report Springfield ItijinMiron.) An- 

 other gentleman essayed lite opinion thai the bird was born 

 with an "air-space" in the brain, so that when the wire 

 entered the skull this safety valve proved ellicaeious as a 

 lite preserver. We have not given the matter much 

 thought, but possibly it was one of those instances where 

 life is prolonged by a determinate will: the bird not, know- 

 ing into whose hands it had fallen, it hated to give up, lest 

 it might be consigned to the Boston market, and the pro- 

 ceeds of sale of its little body invested in ammunition to be 

 used in the extermination of its, species; but then we don't 

 know anything about it. It certainly was a— Raka Avis. 



The Game in the Park.— We have received a letter 

 from .Mr. P. II. Conger, Superintendent of the Yellowstone 

 National Park, written from the Mammoth Hot Springs, 

 under dale of March 15. We extract the following in refer- 

 ence to the game: "Iu the early part of the. winter, and 

 before the Secretary issued hi- order of entire prohibition, 

 there were some few elk and Borne other game killed within 

 the border- of the Park; but since the receipt of s :i id order 



ai these headquarters all hunting here bo far as I am able to 

 find out, ha- been suspended entirely. The winter here has 

 been comparatifcly mild, although the snow has- fallen to a 

 great depth on the mountains, and all of the large game litis 

 been driven to a tower altitude. Ear below this Park: yet 

 every newspaper scribbler in the whole country charges all 

 the game that he may hear of being captured anywhere to 

 having been killed iu this Park. The weather b 

 lightful for the season, the thermometer often marking 70 

 above at midday, and the snow- are fast dieappearinL'." 



California Gamk Laws.— The following synopsis of the 

 new California game law is given by the Sacramento Bee: 

 Section 1, It, is a misdemeanor to kill quails, grouse and 

 rail, or have them in possession between March 1 and Octo- 

 ber 1. It is a misdemeanor to kill doves between January 1 

 and June 1, ft is a misdemeanor to kill male deer, moun- 

 tain sheep, or elk between November 1 and July 1 fol- 

 lowing: and female deer and fawns shall not be killed at 

 any season. No deer shall he killed for any purpose other 

 than food. Sec. 3. Netting or trapping of quails and grouse 

 is made a misdemeanor, Sec. 8. The taking of trout by any 

 means other than hook and line is a misdemeanor, as is also 

 the use of explosives to capture fish of any kind. Sec. 4. ft 

 shall be unlawful to take salmon during the month of Au- 

 gust and at all times between sunrise on Saturday and noon 

 of the day following. The meshes of all nets used must lie 

 seven and* one-half inches longitudinally. See. 3. Il, is made 

 a misdemeanor to sel or use potmd, "web, set-net, trap, or 

 oilier lived device iu the waters of the State for taking 

 fishes. No salmon net must extend more than one third way 

 across a stream or slough. All young fishes of any species 

 taken from the water must be returned thereto. The pun- 

 ishment for a violation of (he provisions ot the law shall be 

 a fine of not less than $60, nor more than $800, or inipri-on- 

 uienl for from thirty days to six months, or both tine and 

 imprisonment; one-half to 20 to the informer and one-half 

 to the District Attorney; Ihe act, to take effect July 1. 1888. 



The M.u-iiias RtVBB Houndino.— Machias, Me., March 

 111. — Editor Fuivd and. Strt-a m: ■•Penobscot," in his article of 

 March 13, says : "1 am afraid that the claim of our honorable 

 commissioners, that the law against hounding cannot be en- 

 forced, will not hold water, from Ihe fact that t In- Game Associ- 

 ation of Machias utterly wiped out. hounding on the ■ 

 Ihe Maeliia-, River in a single season. * * *" lam satisfied 

 "Penobscot' will be pleased to have me correct bim in this 

 matter. During the season when the association determined 

 to stop hounding on the waters of the Machias River, we 

 asked help from "the State, and Mr. Stilwell responded al 

 once and gave us advice and helped pay the bills. He paid 

 all we sent. 1 think — horse-hire and per diem for game police 

 we were obliged to send into the woods. We gave our time 

 and helped the commissioners enforce the law to the best of 

 our ability with the result of stopping nearl.v all the hound- 

 ing in the county as well as on the waters of the Machias 

 River. At this time we are having a nice frolic with the 

 crust hunters, but we are the instrument iu the hands of the 

 commissioners. When we formed our association we 

 agreed that our object was to assist in the propagation and 

 protection of fish and game, and that we would work with 

 and under the direction of the commissi. 

 and dogging can be stopped, with, the nid of resid pi 

 lectionists, by the commissioners, but unless von .-an have 

 their aid, it is uphill business. Where the laws are not en- 

 forced it's the fault of the residents, not the eommissw act - 

 Try it. I will have something to say on game piOl eetioj in 

 a few weeks. — Old Tug. 



Me. March 22.— Editor 



■ i rties indicted for 



Metcalf, Frank A. Patch, 



Pel !] Deroy and John 



ed March term, 1383, 



Maim-; Indiotjcbnts. — Bangoi 

 Forest and Stream: Following 

 Ernie law violations: Robert E. 

 E. Southwood, of Boston. Mas 

 Sylvester, of Eustis, as guide", all 



for killing one moose at Chain of Ponds;, Franklin county. 

 Smith, of Worcester, indicted for ldiliug a deer at Tim 

 Ponds in Franklin county. Lemuel Eames and George 

 Enierv, of Newrv, Oxford county, indicted March term, 

 1883, for killing three deer on Bear River, in Newrv. Jos. 

 St. Oliin. guide. Dr. C. R. Porter, Albert B. Porter, Boston, 

 indicted March term. 1883, for killing one caribou on Baker 

 Pond. King and BartleU Lake. Somerset county. Dr. Clif- 

 ton E. Wing and David Hunt, of Boston, with John Philips 

 as guide, indicted March term, 1883, for killing one moose 

 On Spencer Stream, King and BartleU Lake, Somerset 

 county. Ami Davenport,~of Gardiner, indicted December 

 term, 1883, for killing two moose on King and Bartlett 

 Lake, Somerset county. Ale.— Lex Talio.ms/ 



Maine Indians jsd Deer. — Editor E.n>t mm ' Strnau: 

 In talking to-day with an old deer hunter, he says there are 

 hundreds of deer killed every year in Maine for their skins. 

 The Oldtown Indians are the guilty parties. They use the 

 skins for snow-shoes ami moccasins. The hunk-r says that 

 he has found several deer in a pile after being left by these 

 pests. The skins are cured by the Indians at their homes, 

 and the game wardens do not have any chance to lay violent 

 hands on them. There are several parlies of white men 

 who have slaughtered forty deer each the last fall in Maine. 

 We should like to induce some of them to commit suicide 

 before the coming fall— Flick Flick (Hartford, Conn.). 



Rk ui-i-Ei.D Springs, N. Y., March 23. — Seeing a notice 

 in vein- .-aiu.ible paper requesting names of mod places to 

 hunt and fish, allow me to recommend Richfield Springs. Tv 

 Y. It is a charming place, with plenty of partridge and 

 woodcock shooting. "Good accommodations can be liatl at 

 Lewis s. on Canadarago Lake, a beautiful sheet of water 

 twelve miles in extent,' abounding with bass and pike.— H. 

 F. Welcu. 



Wild PiuEONs.— Suspension Bridge, N. Y.. March 30.— 

 Wild pigeons are reported to have inade their appearance 

 in very large Quantifies in the cedar swamps, about twenty 

 miles from\Niagara Falls, Canada. — C. E. L. 



Philadelphia, March 33.— A pair or two of English 

 snipe have been seen on the Schuylkill River meadows near 

 the Cross Keys, before the present cold snap set in.— Homo. 



On Saturday, a large deer, chased by dogs, was discover 

 along the western brow of Fort Piano, facing the town. Walk! 

 and sometimes trotting, he attracted genera) attention, and e 

 cited men, women and children, who gazed up a! the king 

 forester, that seemed confused and undetide i whetherto ta 

 the corporation bv storm or retrace its course. \ M.-i.-k .-am 

 came round the point and Saw the buck about the same tic 



view of a hundred spectators. .In-i east ..|' lb, ere.-k. on a 



fronted ihe frightened 'and hotly-pursued animal bill he 

 paused not nor avoided any obstruction: and bounding 

 gardens, over a wail, aud into the Potomac, swam across, und 

 made his everla.-tiug escape in the timber skirling Qucd- 

 Point, while a host applauded in his wake.— Keyr imwu. 



