THE OREGON SPORTSMAN 



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warden, or state game commissioners, once a month, detailing the amount 

 of work they have done and the number of game destroyers they have put 

 out of business. 



If the predatory animals are well kept down in any locality the increase 

 in game birds will be very noticeable, and it is much better to save the 

 birds from destruction than to spend a similar amount of time and money 

 in prosecuting men after the game has been unlawfully killed. We do not 

 say that the men who violate the law by shooting out of season, by killing 

 in excess of the bag limit established by law, or by unlawfully marketing 

 game birds, should not be prosecuted and punished, for we believe they 

 should, and that their punishment should be as great as the law permits; but 

 we do say that time and money spent in destroying the enemies of game is 

 more judiciously expended than that spent in prosecutions of violators of 

 the law. 



By going over his territory frequently during the closed season in 

 search of vermin, the deputy warden learns where many birds are nesting 

 and knowing this he is better able to give them the protection they need. 

 If he finds the nest of a prairie chicken, quail or duck that is not as 

 well hidden as it might be, he can, in a very few minutes, place a little 

 brush or an armful or two of weeds or grass in front of the less protected 

 portion and thus aid the bird in its work of successful incubation, for the 

 more securely a bird is hidden the less is the liability of her being dis- 

 covered by her enemies, and the more certain she is of bringing forth a 

 good brood of young. 



In Europe, on the big shootings there, where thousands of birds are 

 reared every season, the game keeper and his assistants devote a great 

 deal of their time during the propagating and rearing season to keeping 

 down the vermin that prey upon the birds, and if this work is resorted to 

 there and has been found to be profitable, it ought to be a good idea to 

 try it thoroughly in this country. 



TIMBER WOLF TRAPPED. 



Mr. Ben S. Patton, deputy game warden at Estacada, Oregon, reports 

 the trapping of another timber wolf on the 6th of June on the upper 

 Clackamas River. This was a female, that evidently had a litter of pups. 

 She was gray in color and of medium size. Mr. Patton writes as follows: 



1 ' The way we came to get this animal, Hugh Mendenhall killed a 

 bear at this place a short time before, between the Clackamas and Colliwash 

 Rivers. He skinned it and left the carcass. A few days after that he 

 had occasion to go by this place again when he noticed that a lot of wolves 

 had been there and eaten every scrap of the bear, even chewing up or 

 packing off all the bones. He came down and told me of the occurrence and 

 we gathered up nine traps, four of which were bear traps, and took them in 

 and set them around the spot and left a lot of fish heads scattered around on 

 the ground. In a few days we had a wolf." 



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