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RECREATION. 



as do the men who use ferrets. I trust you 

 will never be guilty of such work and that 

 you will denounce it among any of your 

 friends who may ever suggest it. — Editor. 



A reader at Middletown, N. Y., has sent 

 me a clipping from his home paper giving 

 an account of the killing of over 1,200 jack 

 rabbits at Colorado Springs, Col., and 

 wishes to have the men who did the work 

 placed in the swine corral. I may state 

 again, however, that these men have not 

 transgressed any law of sportsmanship. 



The jack rabbit is a pest to farmers and 

 gardeners in Colorado, as well as in other 

 portions of the West; hence it is the cus- 

 tom to organize large hunts or drives there, 

 and to slaughter the jack rabbits by the 

 thousands, in self defense. This is the only 

 way in which these animals can be kept 

 down to such numbers as will permit the 

 farmers to live and thrive. The jack rabbit 

 can scarcely be classed as a game animal 

 anywhere, and it is all right to kill all you 

 can of them in any of the states where they 

 are destructive to the farming interests. 



One bright fall morning M. L. Hayes 

 (we call him the Governor) and I started to 

 hunt some meat. Game was plenty back in 

 i860, so we had no trouble in finding deer 

 tracks and started to follow them. The trail 

 led down to the river bank. When we were 

 about 25 yards from the river there was a 

 rustle in the bushes and a coon ran down 

 to the bank and tried to cross the water on 

 a log which extended from one bank to the 

 other. The Governor fired, the coon 

 leaped into 'the air and fell dead on the op- 

 posite shore. We crossed the river on the 

 same log, picked up the coon and went on. 

 After following the trail for about a mile 

 we came suddenly on 5 deer feeding in a 

 little plain surrounded by brush. We 

 crawled cautiously to within 100 yards of 

 the deer, and both took aim and fired. 

 When the smoke cleared away a deer lay 

 motionless on the ground and the other 4 

 were disappearing over a neighboring 

 ridge. I missed the deer completely. The 

 Governor's rifle did the work. 



L. S. H. 



The laws of Idaho, Wyoming and Mon- 

 tana forbid the capture or keeping in cap- 

 tivity of any of the larger game animals, 

 which I consider unjust. There has been 

 a great howl against game catchers by 

 parties who were more interested in skin 

 hunting than in the preservation of game. 

 I can say, from experience, that the loss 

 will not exceed one out of 20, if the par- 

 ties authorized will take proper care of the 

 animals. Mountain sheep, deer, antelope 

 and moose should be caught while young, 

 and raised on cows' milk. They become 

 very gentle and will breed at the age of 3 



years, in captivity. Elk will thrive, caught 

 at any age. I am in favor of a law allow- 

 ing the capture and raising of all kinds of 

 wild game, and a bounty to be paid on each 

 head bred and raised in captivity, such as 

 sheep, deer, antelope, moose and elk. 



R. W. Rock, Lake, Idaho. 



Much is being said concerning the best 

 way of exterminating the wolf. Of course, 

 something should be done, but the first 

 thing is to know what to do. I am opposed 

 to poisoning them, because you do not get 

 more than half you kill, and many you do 

 secure have lain long enough to spoil their 

 hides. Hides are becoming valuable 

 enough to make it an object to save them. 

 It seems to me it would be a good plan, in 

 localities where wolves are destructive, for 

 ranchmen to club together and hire men to 

 hunt and trap them. I believe they can be 

 trapped successfully. I think they can 

 signal one to another, as I have heard them 

 give a sort of pitiful howl which would be 

 answered by others a mile or so away. I 

 doubt if coyotes do much damage to any- 

 thing but sheep. I trapped a dozen last 

 winter, and think if I were where wolves 

 were plenty I could trap some of them, too. 

 G. A. Fishel, Fairburn, S. D. 



The Topeka (Kans.) State Journal, of 

 March 13th, gives the names of 2 men who 

 must be branded as Game Hogs. They are 

 J. W. Postuter, and Ed. Dow-dan. These 

 men seem to have gone to the newspaper 

 office and boasted of having killed 300 

 ducks in 2^ days shooting, on the Salt 

 Marshes near Ellinwood. It is no doubt 

 a great source of satisfaction to see their 

 names in print, in connectibn with this rec- 

 ord of butchery, and it will also be a great 

 source of satisfaction, to all readers of Rec- 

 reation, to see them in this magazine, in 

 order that they may shun the men should 

 they ever go in that direction. 



E. A. Brininstool's article, on accidents, 

 brings to mind how near I once came to 

 shooting at a man's head. 



It was on the railroad running through 

 the valley of Wyoming county, N. Y. 

 There are high hills to the East, and flat 

 lands on the West of the track. The same 

 B. who was one of Brininstool's party was 

 my companion. While sitting beside the 

 track I noticed a dark object which I sup- 

 posed was a chuck. Guessing the dis- 

 tance to be 250 yards, I raised my peep 

 sight to the proper notch and was taking 

 aim when a man's shoulders rose above 

 a knoll behind which he had been stand- 

 ing. I was shooting a .40-70-330 Ballard, 

 and chills run down my back yet when I 

 think of what might have been the result 

 had I pulled trigger. 



F. E. Wilkinson, Buffalo, N. Y. 



