FROM THE GAME FIELDS. 



385 



fall, and again during the past summer, and 

 were slaughtering hundreds of deer, for 

 their hides alone. A band of 19 elk shared 

 the same fate. Dietrick ordered the Ind- 

 ians out; but they laughed at him, and said, 

 " Go see Agent. Me got pass," which they 

 produced. 



The other night Billy Kirkham, of Ban- 

 ner, heard a noise, outside his cabin, and 

 rising up in bed saw a big lynx sitting in 

 the window. He reached for his rifle, fired 

 at it and now its hide adorns the wall of his 

 cabin. The beast had torn up a good deer 

 skin before climbing up to the window. 



The other day while Superintendent 

 Rogers, of the Banner mines, was out 

 grouse shooting he met a brown bear with 

 2 cubs. He said the old girl sat on her 

 haunches and warbled to him, and he did 

 not wait to encore her, as he had only No. 

 6 shot in his cartridges. 



Horace Johnson, who traps on the Mid- 

 dle Fork of Salmon river, caught last season 

 12 bear, 9 beaver, 7 foxes, 27 martins, 23 

 mink, 1 wolverine and numerous lynxes and 

 mountain lions. 



Bear valley is the nesting place of hun- 

 dreds of sand hill cranes. 



M. W. Miner, Banner, Idaho. 



KILLING FOR THE NEIGHBORS. 



I find your letter of 5th on my desk, on 

 my return from a week with the rod; and 

 if you had seen me getting off the train, 

 I know you would have handed me your 

 card with your favorite roast — " Hog," 

 written on it; for I had a beautiful bunch 

 of them. You may rest assured none of 

 them went to waste, or to the market; for 

 there are 14 judges here^ beside more than 

 1,000 attorneys, all of whom have a fish and 

 game tooth when they learn I am among 

 them. 



Our party brought back more than 300 

 ducks last fall, from the Illinois river, and 

 for an hour or more the court house was 

 actually deserted. 



Chas. L. Lundy, Cincinnati, O. 



ANSWER. 



In my judgment a man is not justified in 

 taking a big lot of fish or game, simply 

 because he can give it away. If such a 

 code of ethics were established among 

 shooters, there would be no limit to the 

 amount of fish or game a man might de- 

 stroy, under this pretext. You could ship 

 a car load of ducks or fish into our city, 

 and give them away in an hour. You 

 could, no doubt, even give them to your 

 friends; yet this would not be justifiable. 



If you agree with me that it would not, 

 then where can we draw the line? An 

 unwritten law, among the best class of 

 sportsmen, is that a man shall kill only for 



camp use, and for his own table, at home. 

 If your friends want game, let them go and 

 kill it, as you have done. If they are not 

 sportsmen, let them buy their game. If 

 they cannot do this, let them eat beefsteak, 

 or bacon. 



I am in favor of going still farther, and 

 of prohibiting, by law, the sale of game at 

 all times, and under all circumstances. I 

 claim that a man who has not the skill or 

 the energy to go afield and kill his game, 

 or take his fish, in a sportsmanlike way, 

 should do without. I am aware these are 

 advanced views, and that thousands of men 

 are not yet up to them; but we must come 

 to this plan eventually, or submit to the 

 entire extermination of game and game 

 fishes. — Editor. 



PHEASANT PROPAGATION. 



I have noted many interesting articles in 

 Recreation, relating to various kinds of 

 game, but comparatively little concerning 

 the propagation of pheasants, in which at 

 present I am interested. I succeeded in 

 raising 41 birds out of 45 hatched; only one 

 dying from any apparent disease. The other 

 4 were killed by the mother hens. I have 5 

 more hens than cocks — an exceptionally 

 good proportion, for pheasants. 



I have raised 7 Mongolians, 4 of them 

 hens. I shall keep 2 pairs of these as breed- 

 ers for another year. They are the best 

 birds for this part of the country, being 

 more hardy than the English birds. 



My intention is to liberate all but a few 

 of my birds, in the spring. Our game club 

 here has quite an extensive preserve, on 

 which no one is allowed to shoot, thus as- 

 suring the birds a safe retreat and breeding- 

 ground, at all seasons of the year. Our 

 game laws prohibit the shooting of pheas- 

 ants, until 1900. 



Pot hunting is the curse of the country. 

 Some men here kill as many as 500 birds 

 in a single season. There is small induce- 

 ment to restock the woods with birds that 

 will be more eagerly sought than our native 

 game birds. Other experiments in pheas- 

 ant raising have been made in various parts 

 of the State, and in the Berkshire hills; but 

 indifferent success is reported. I am in- 

 clined to attribute this to improper atten- 

 tion and unskilled care of the young birds. 



On my annual trip to the Adirondacks, 

 this fall, I shall take a few pairs of my Eng- 

 lish birds, to have them liberated in the 

 spring, about 7 miles from Nc^th creek. I 

 expect to do the same each year for some 

 years to come. 



These birds will be, I think, the first to be 

 turned out in that great preserve. I can see 

 no reason why they should not flourish, and 

 eventually make excellent shooting for vis- 

 iting sportsmen. 



Dr. H. L. Ross, Canaan, Conn. 



