40 



RECREATION. 



work should refuse to resign, he would be 

 deposed and publicly expelled from the 

 club. 



It is to be hoped that the Beaver Dam 

 club will dispense with Mr. Butcherwerk's 

 services at an early date. If it should 

 not, it will be regarded as in a measure 

 condoning his offense. The club can 

 not afford to let this disgraceful piece 

 of butchery go unpunished. If I remember 

 correctly, the club has a provision in its by- 

 laws allowing any member to kill 50 ducks 

 a day. This is all wrong, and I said so edi- 

 torially some 2 or 3 years ago. Thousands 

 of other men have said so when hearing of 

 this rule. That any member of this 

 club, and more particularly the president 

 thereof, should so utterly ignore all mod- 

 ern rules of decency and sportsmanship as 

 to kill 134 ducks in a day is unpardonable. 

 Let us see what the Beaver Dam club will 

 do with Mr. J. G. Dirtywerk. — Editor. 



FAVORS HOUNDING. 



Lake Pleasant, N. Y. 

 Editor Recreation : 



In my opinion, still hunting, whether of 

 deer or birds, falls little short of murder. 

 Thousands of deer are wounded by still 

 hunters and linger for days or weeks until 

 death ends their misery. Deer should be 

 put on the alert, as we put up birds. You 

 would scorn to prowl through the woods 

 and shoot a grouse on a limb or a wood- 

 cock on the ground. You want your pointer 

 with you to give these feathered friends a 

 chance for life and to find for you those you 

 wound or kill. 



I am opposed to the killing of does at 

 any time or by any method. 



Deer were increasing rapidly in this lo- 

 cality under the old law, but we can see a 

 marked decrease in the last 2 years. They 

 are much tamer since hounding was stopped 

 and therefore are more easily killed. 



I am a woodcock and grouse shooter. I 

 use a 20-gauge gun and keep as fine a pair 

 of pointers as there is in the State. No 

 man enjoys the woods and hunting more 

 than I do ; yet if I were compelled to hunt 

 woodcock and grouse without my dogs I 

 should hang up my shot gun, as I did my 

 rifle when the no-hounding law went into 

 effect. 



The last deer I killed I still hunted. I 

 found him after a long and tedious stalk, 

 auietly feeding on the margin of a stream. 

 There he stood, without a suspicion of dan- 

 ger and without a chance for his life. Even 

 as I fired I was ashamed of myself and 

 when his brief struggle was over I would 

 have given my best rifle to bring the poor 

 animal back to life. I vowed I would 

 never kill another deer by still hunting, 

 and though that was 12 years ago I have 

 kept my word. 



What is the difference between that kind 

 of murder and killing a deer at a salt lick? 

 What is the difference whether the deer is 

 feeding on salt or on lily pads? You will 

 say the salt is put out to entice deer to a 

 certain spot. I grant it; but how about 

 the man who knows where the lily pads 

 are and when deer are likely to feed on 

 them? Wherein is he better than the man 

 who kills deer at a salt lick? The hunter 

 goes where he is likely to find deer, and 

 the deer goes where he is likely to find food. 

 Between them still hunting becomes the 

 easiest and most certain method of deer 

 killing. 



I know whereof I speak. I have lived in 

 the forest 12 years continuously, never tak- 

 ing more than a month each winter in New 

 York city. There are lots of wild deer on 

 my place. I frequently see them from my 

 porches and often hunt them in my woods, 

 but never with any thought of killing them. 



My plan to maintain the supply of deer in 

 the Adirondacks would be to forbid the 

 killing of does at any time, make the open 

 season on bucks September 1st to November 

 1st, and permit hunting with dogs. If the 

 season was long there would be only a few 

 hunters at a time in the woods, thus giving 

 the deer more chance to escape. 



Some hunters will ask, "How can we 

 know whether we are shooting at a buck or 

 a doe when we can see only a small part 

 of the animal through the brush ?" How 

 can those men know whether they are shoot- 

 ing at a fawn or even a man? Cases of 

 accidental shooting were rare in hounding 

 days ; now they are common. A still 

 hunter here last fall saw the tan leggings 

 of a fellow hunter. He fired at them and 

 shot his friend through the leg. Then he 

 fired twice after the victim fell and the 

 leggings had disappeared, fortunately 

 missing both times. 



If a man can not see a deer plainly 

 enough to distinguish whether it has horns 

 or not he has no right to shoot. Three 

 men in this vicinity had hairbreadth es- 

 capes from still hunters last fall. 



Stop all still hunting, and by that I mean 

 stop jacking, floating, stalking, watching at 

 salt licks and crust hunting. Then give the 

 hunter his dogs and a chance to kill a buck 

 and get it. 



When the guides hunted with dogs there 

 were but 10 or 12 men here who were 

 deer hunters. They had to keep their dogs 

 the year around for a few weeks' hunt- 

 ing and only a few could afford to do that. 

 Now nearly every man and boy in the 

 community is a still hunter and guide. 

 Anyone can learn a small section of the 

 forest, build a bark camp, buy a rifle and 

 boat and call himself a guide. All manage 

 to kill deer, and all use every device known 

 to the Indian and to the pot hunter. We 



