FROM THE GAME FIELDS. 



287 



and although there are seasons when I 

 can spare the time to hunt, I can not af- 

 ford to lose the time and pay the whole 

 expenses of a trip. I don't find any 

 fault with the number of deer allowed to 

 each gun. Two is enough, and I should 

 like to see the law changed so that those 

 2 must be bucks 2 years old or older ; but 

 what shall I do with even 2 deer which I 

 can neither give away, sell nor eat ? 



I like your idea of protecting squirrels. 

 I bought from a farm hand near Lansing 

 an Albino red squirrel, snow white. Is it 

 a freak of nature or a distinct breed ? It 

 is very tame and a jolly pet. 



J. M. Howe, Plainwell, Mich. 



ANSWER. 



You are mistaken in assuming that the 

 rich man can kill all the deer he wants. 

 The laws are made for the rich and for the 

 poor alike, and I would never condone any 

 discrimination in favor of either class. I 

 am a poor man myself, and I want to have 

 the same hunting privileges that million- 

 aires have. I would be perfectly willing 

 for hunters to be allowed to sell their veni- 

 son if such a privilege could be granted 

 them and not abused, but it would be. If a 

 meat dealer in your town should buy a deer 

 of you and several others from other men, 

 the chances are 10 to one he would smuggle 

 the meat out of the State in violation of 

 law, labeling it veal, mutton or anything 

 else that he saw fit. This has been tried 

 thousands of times, and the only way to 

 protect game successfully is to prohibit the 

 sale of it absolutely. 



The Albino red squirrel you mention is 

 simply a freak. Albinism occurs in nearly 

 all species of birds and animals, including 

 human beings. — Editor. 



SLAUGHTER IN THE SOUTH. 

 Recently I made a short trip through 

 Tennessee. At Medina, a small town near 

 Jackson, the people were telling of the 

 great sport to be had on an island in 

 Forked Deer river, killing robins for fun 

 and money. This island contains 75 acres 

 grown up to rushes and cane, and in this 

 place the robins flock at night to roost. 

 During their Northward flight they come 

 in thousands. In order to get them, all 

 the hunter had to do was to take a stout 

 stick and a lantern with a reflector, flash 

 the light on the birds and knock them off 

 the roosts like apples from trees, the light 

 blinding the birds so they did not know 

 where to fly. One hunter said he had made 

 $65, another $27, and several others smaller 

 sums, they finding a ready market in New 

 Orleans at 30 to 40 cents a dozen. I was 

 surprised to learn this, as I came from a 

 State where robins, as well as all other 

 song birds, are protected, The express mes- 



senger said he had shipped in one day 

 nearly half a carload of robins to New Or- 

 leans. I have seen hundreds of robins of- 

 fered for sale at the French market every 

 year. Can not something be done by the 

 true sportsmen of Louisiana and Tennes- 

 see to stop the wholesale slaughter of rob- 

 ins and meadow larks in this manner? 



Ducks seem to fare no better. Charles 

 Sayers, of New Orleans, told me he killecf, 

 in a short time, one morning at the Mis- 

 sissippi jetties, over 100 ducks ; while some 

 brothers there killed 200 to 250 a day. He 

 also said that on that morning one could 

 shoot ducks with his eyes shut. This he 

 called sport. The ducks are shipped from 

 New Orleans to all the principal cities of 

 the North, as New Orleans consumes but a 

 small portion of them. Last season ducks 

 were scarce in the North, and I do not see 

 where there is any chance for improvement 

 with this slaughter going on in the South. 

 M. L. Gaze, Fenville, Mich. 



A GRANGER SPORTSMAN. 

 Here are some extracts from the letter 

 of a Maine farmer who does not approve 

 of the great raft of twaddle which is being 

 unloaded by certain people in that State 

 about deer destroying farmers' crops : 



I am a farmer and a granger and I own nearly 

 1,000 acres of good land in one of the best sport- 

 ing sections in Central Maine. There is scarcely 

 a day that deer or moose are not seen about my 

 fields or pastures — and I say, "God bless them; 

 give us more of them, and still more stringent 

 game laws." I am not one of the "sturdy farm- 

 ers" of Androscoggin county, who are occupied 

 in anything but pastoral pursuits. I am a farmer 

 and live by the sale of my crops and stock, and 

 I resent in as strong words as any respectable 

 God-fearing man can the assertion that the old 

 Pine Tree State is in the remotest degree "drift- 

 ing into the condition of Ireland." Such balder- 

 dash makes the real farmer tire/i. If these 

 grangers who sit in city offices and write com- 

 positions on something of which they have no 

 conception would get out among the individual 

 farmers they would learn something on the other 

 side of the question. 



Last summer deer wallowed my grass and even 

 had the audacity to come into the garden and nib- 

 ble the cabbages. At least twice during the sum- 

 mer my wife went out to shoo deer from the gar- 

 den v/ith her apron. In the early autumn they 

 trampled my grain 1 somewhat, and this spring they 

 have had the cheek to drink sap from the buckets 

 in our maple orchard. But we haven't made any 

 claim for damages to the State, up to this time, 

 and do not intend to. 



Perhaps the entire damage to my farm last year, 

 if carefully estimated, might amount to $10 or 

 $20, and the 2 deer we ate last November and 

 December amply repaid this sum. I know many 

 farmers who look at the matter in the same light, 

 and who say, with me, "Give us more deer; we 

 can keep square and never violate the game laws." 



We are sorry, however, for the suffering 

 "farmers" of Androscoggin county, where deer 

 are about as plentiful as crows in Boston. It is a 

 measly shame to cut off those farmer's crops and 

 drive their boys into the professions. 



If you "sturdy farmers," who know as much 

 about farming as my horse does about heaven, 

 would get out into the fields and woods a while 

 and absorb a. little hor§e sense while getting good 



