THE LEAGUE OF AMERICAN SPORTSMEN. 



47 1 



my strength v. ill permil me. 1 ' ■' 



result ifl thai to day the L'-;i^ne li;r. ^,ooo 



members and Recreation has an actual 

 paid circulation of 65,000 copies a month. 

 It is safe to ■ that each copy is 1 ead 



; people. Thai means 325,000 readers 

 , month, I hi ■<■ heai d from probably 

 100,000 of tli'-.': people to the effect that 

 tli'-y have been completely reformed by its 

 teachings; thai while they were formerly 

 ganr: butchers they are no.w temperate, up- 

 to-date sportsmen and gentlemen. Read in 

 April ;jik1 May Reci'I-.a'i fo:; reports of the 



annual meeting of the League, held in Feb 

 ruary last. '1 hen tell me whether, in jroui 

 judgment , il has paid for the friend 1 of 

 game protection to stick ai it ; or whether it 

 would have been better for all to have done 

 as you have done gel disgusted ai the end 

 of a year and quit because they could not 

 reform the world in that length of time. 



GOOD WORK I'.' PENNSYLVANIA. 

 Hollidaysburg, J J a. 

 Editor Recreai jo.v: 



'I :,", years ago I joined the L. A. S. and 

 at once began active •//ork in this place 

 and vicinity to save the game, as little 

 or no attention was then paid to the game 

 laws 1 tried to get all our sportsmen 

 into the League. I was not successful, 

 but that did not discourage me. I kept 

 on working. 1 persuaded my bosom 

 friend and hunting companion, Mr. William 

 Gardner, to become a member of the 

 League, and we hav< been working ever 

 since to protect the game here. 



Last tall Mr. Dan Duncan, a well 

 known sportsman, joined the League. 

 Wo v members got down to work in 

 earnest a U w we< ks before the opening 

 of the shooting season, as large numbers 

 oi squirrels were migrating to this section 

 of the country and were being killed by 

 the pot hunters. A number of League 

 posters were procured and we posted 



th< hi throughout the game ■■<■< tions of 

 Blair county. We spent all our spare 

 time traveling through the woods and 

 fields putting up these notices, some oi 

 which were torn down, but were replaced 

 by us with new ones. These notices 

 stirred up the whole county, and caused 

 the majority of the illegal hunters to stop 

 their nefarious work immediately. One 

 place along the foot of Brush mountain 

 inhabited by a large colony of grey 

 squirrels. That section was posted thor- 

 oughly. Wla-n a hunter went that way 

 he saw the warning pieces of muslin 

 staring him in the face in all directions 

 and hastily passed on, We saved nearly 

 all these squirrels, as a good farmer friend 

 of ours told us la-, did not hear a gun fired 

 after the place was posted. Posters were 



to places where we could 

 ourselves ai.d were put up by friends. 

 ext Step ■ ' oil cot a fund to pay 



a! officers to ferret out the violator', 

 of the game la We circulated a sub- 



scription paper for this purpose among the 

 sportsmen and secured agoodly sum. 'J he 

 tabic, under the new laws are re- 

 quired to act as den-; and 

 have the authority to arrest without a 

 warrant; also to search any person they 

 suspect of having game '\ he ■ • of 4 

 constables //ere secured and we agreed to 

 pay them $2 a day for every day they 

 out, whether they er< cc< »ful or not. 

 They knew that for (:very successful 

 prosecution they would receive $10 re- 

 el from the State and one-half the 

 tines. They were, therefore, anxiott 



go. If they did not catch anyone they 

 lid still yet the $2, which would pay 

 them for their trouble. '1 hey scoured 

 the county thoroughly and searched 

 ral suspected persons but found no 

 ';. One officer chased two men with 

 . for about an hour over the moun- 

 tains but could not catch them. All this 

 caused much excitement and although no 

 arrets /.ere made the desired effect was 

 ained. Little or no hunting was done 

 until the opening oi the season Oct. 15th. 

 We asked the judge oi the county to 

 advise the constables to perform their 

 dutie . as < x officio game and fire wardens; 

 and he did so in open court when the 

 constables assembled to make their re- 

 turns. 



A farmer in the Eastern part of the 

 county, last September made complaint 

 against a man by the name of Estep, 

 whom he charged with shooting a turkey 

 out of sea/.oii. The constable arrested 

 the wrong man, a brother of Estep. The 

 vas dismissed and the guilty man has 

 not yet been arrested. 



A few days after the season closed last 

 month we were informed that wild turkeys 

 were being killed from blinds in the Loop, 

 a section of mountainous country where 

 turkeys always gather in the winter, as 

 they can find plenty of [<■<■(] there and are 

 //ell protected from the storms; this Loop 

 being a long basin, hemmed in by high 

 mountains. We S< t to work at once to 

 gain all the information possible, and 

 asked Constable James Stanley, one of the 

 officers whom we had hind earlier in the 

 fall, to give the matter bis attention. He 

 went to work at once. With our assist- 

 ant e he discovered the names of the men 

 who were killing the turkeys and secured 

 a number of excellent witnesses, some of 

 whom had seen the pot hunters at the 

 blinds, and others who had seen them shoot 

 birds. The constable made information the 

 against the offenders last Monday and 

 each gave bail to the amount of $300 for 



