FROM THE GAME FIELDS. 



299 



Quails are fairly abundant, and would 

 have been unusually plentiful had it not 

 been for a queer throat disease that at- 

 tacked them, early in the spring, and then 

 suddenly disappeared; some were also killed, 

 with their broods, by heavy floods. The 

 hunters here go to Kentucky and Illinois 

 for quails, although we have some at home. 

 It is only across the river to Kentucky, and 

 7 miles to Illinois. 



Now Mr. Editor, you have the truth — 

 blaze away! And if you hit a tender spot 

 in my " high minded sportsmen's " con- 

 science again, I will " bob up serenely " 

 and let you know; because I did not know 

 I was a " game hog." I suppose " a game 

 nog " might grunt around the classic shades 

 of Posey county 40 years, and not know it, 

 unless some one from the effete East should 

 happen to mention it to him. Meantime, 

 if you happen to hear of a man or several 

 of them, with the " sinews of war," who 

 would like to invest in about 1,000 or more 

 acres of fine hunting land, with a lake in it, 

 where there are jack snipe, wood-cock, 

 squirrels, ducks, geese, quails, etc., that 

 have been hunted too much, and that have 

 never known protection, but that can be 

 easily and inexpensively restocked; men 

 who would take your humble servant, the 

 " game hog," in with them, not as an ob- 

 ject of charity, but as a capital furnishing 

 partner, kindly let me know, and I will for- 

 give you the hard things you have said of 

 an old subscriber. Seth Leavenworth. 



Mr. Leavenworth has certainly made a 

 frank and manly defense of his action. I 

 believe his statements are true, and if my 

 friend Mr. Roche had given all the facts re- 

 garding this shooting, that Mr. Leaven- 

 worth now gives, I should not have made 

 the criticisms on Mr. Leavenworth's action, 

 which I did make in August Recreation. 

 It alters the status of the case materially to 

 learn that Mrs. Leavenworth accompanied 

 her husband on all these shooting trips, and 

 that she did her full share of the killing. 

 Three hundred squirrels for 2 guns, in 6 

 months' shooting, is not excessive, as I 

 set forth in the article referred to. Further- 

 more I did not apply any epithets to Mr. 

 Leavenworth or to the other men men- 

 tioned, as Mr. Leavenworth says I did. He 

 should turn to my criticism and read it 

 again. He will find it mild and dignified, 

 even though severe. — Editor. 



DEER IN VERMONT. 



Boston, Mass. 



Editor Recreation: During 20 years of 

 protection, under the well-enforced game 

 ,aws ot the State, deer have so increased in 

 number, in Vermont, as to become a posi- 

 tive nuisance to farmers in the mountainous 

 sections. 



In order to protect their crops they found 



it necessary, last fall, to appeal to the Stale 

 Legislature for relief, and on the last night 

 of the session a law was passed by which, 

 on the first day of October next, the first 

 deer legally killed since late in the seven- 

 ties may fall a victim to the hunter's rifle. 

 By virtue of this statute October in each 

 year, beginning this year, will be an open 

 month for shooting, throughout the whole 

 State. The law provides that only deer with 

 antlers may be shot and that 2 may be 

 taken by any one person, in the course of a 

 season. It prohibits the use of dogs, salt 

 licks, jack-lights, crusting and traps, and 

 allows one deer, and the head and hoofs of 

 another, to be taken from the State, when 

 accompanied by the captor. The first pro- 

 vision is intended to protect does and 

 young bucks. 



In Essex and Orleans counties, deer are 

 said to be most numerous, although they 

 are to be found in numbers in nearly every 

 county of the State, excepting possibly 

 those bordering the upper part of Lakj 

 Champlain where there have been fewer op- 

 portunities for them to multiply. They 

 have long been regarded as too friendly to 

 the farmer, in the mountain regions of Rut- 

 land, Windsor, Lamoille, Caledonia and 

 Orange counties, and some mighty inter- 

 esting stories are to be heard, at the coun- 

 try stores and taverns, of their tameness, 

 their pranks with cattle and their utter dis- 

 regard of danger. 



It is told for the truth, and need not be 

 doubted, that along the line of the Central 

 Vermont railroad, deer are frequently seen 

 on the tracks, and in more than one in- 

 stance engineers have slowed their trains to 

 avoid killing them. 



In several sections among the foothills of 

 the Green mountains, deer herded with the 

 cattle in the mountain pastures, last sum- 

 mer, and when the herds were driven home 

 for the winter the deer followed, hovering 

 around the farm-buildings, and, in some 

 instances, even entering the barn yards and 

 feeding with sheep and cattle. About a 

 month ago, while mending a fence, J. H. 

 Hoadley, a well known farmer of Wood- 

 stock, one of the principal towns of Wind- 

 sor county, found a fawn lying in the brush, 

 shivering with the cold. The mother deer 

 had left it, and after waiting 3 hours Mr. 

 Hoadley picked it up, carried it home, and 

 wrote to the State game commissioner, who 

 directed him to care for it. The little fel- 

 low plays about the house, sleeps in a rock- 

 ing chair; seems to enjoy the society of 

 human beings, and laps their hands, ex- 

 hibiting all the apparent effection of an in- 

 telligent dog. The kind hearted farmer 

 would like to keep the little fellow for a pet, 

 but the law will not allow it; and as soon 

 as it is able to care for itself, the fawn must 

 be liberated. 



Right in the heart of the Green moun- 

 tains, in Rutland county, is the little village 



