276 



RECREATION. 



SOME PERTINENT QUESTIONS. 



I think it would be a good plan to give 

 some account in Recreation of the amount 

 of game m Eastern markets, and where 

 shipped from, etc. Game dealers are sel- 

 dom exposed in this matter and they dis- 

 like it exceedingly. A game dealer here 

 says to-day, that immense quantities of 

 quails and prairie chicken are coming from 

 the South, through St. Louis, which is one 

 of the worst game markets of the country. 



I am informed that no game of any ac- 

 count is now being sent to New York, from 

 Chicago. 



Prairie chickens have been received here 

 in large numbers, from Nebraska and 

 South Dakota and immense quantities of 

 venison from Wisconsin. Very little game 

 is now coming from Minnesota. 



Market hunters from St. Louis made a 

 fearful raid on Wisconsin ruffed grouse last 

 fall. One man killed and marketed over 

 1,500. It is said politics arc to blame for 

 the officers not doing their duty up there. 

 Immense quantities of game have been ille- 

 gally shipped from Milwaukee, where the 

 present state game warden, Ellarson, lives. 



Ask the state sportsmen's association, of 

 Texas, what they are going to do about 

 stopping the shipment of ducks and geese. 

 M. R. Bortree, Chicago, 111. 



ANSWER. 



So far as I can learn very littfe game is 

 being offered for sale in New York, con- 

 trary to law. You know the history of the 

 Delmonico case regarding the sale of veni- 

 son. We are watching the dealers, the ho- 

 tels, and restaurants closely. I am person- 

 ally making another tour of the uptown 

 hotels and cafes, trying to buy ruffed 

 grouse, quail or woodcock. The legal sea- 

 son for selling these in this state closed De- 

 cember 31st and thus farT have been able 

 to buy but one bird. That was a quail and 

 a case is now pending against the manager 

 of the Holland House where I bought the 

 bird. 



We are crowding the work of the League 

 in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania dili- 

 gently, and hope within another year to be 

 able to close the markets in Boston and 

 Philadelphia, when the legal season for 

 killing game in those states closes. 



The President of the New York Game 

 Dealers' Association called on me the other 

 day and asked me to consent, on behalf of 

 the League, to the passage of a law at Al- 

 bany extending the privileges of dealers. I 

 told him emphatically the League would 

 never consent to this; but that it would 

 fight his Association from now till dooms- 

 day rather than have any such privilege 

 again extended to the dealers. Pie argued 

 that the game was being killed in the West 

 and shipped to Boston. Philadelphia and 

 other Eastern states, where the sale of it is 

 allowed all through the winter, and that 



the game dealers of New York should have 

 equal privileges with those of the other 2 

 cities. I told him we were striving to cor- 

 rect the abuses prevailing there now, and 

 that we hoped to suceeed in the near future; 

 that in the interest of the Western and 

 Southern states, we should endeavor to cur- 

 tail the traffic in game so far as possible, in 

 all the Eastern states. 



I have personally put more than $1,000 

 of good money into this League work, 

 within the past year, and have devoted to it 

 at least 50 pages of space in Recreation 

 which, at my advertising rates, is worth 

 $100 a page. I am devoting at least one 

 half my time to the League work and the 15 

 employes in my office are required to de- 

 vote at least half their time to this work. I 

 do not expect to ever get a dollar of this 

 money back; but I do feel that the Western 

 sportsmen should aid me in this work more 

 generously than they are doing. Some of 

 them are working with us manfully and 

 diligemly, but the great mass of them, while 

 patting us on the back, refuse to even send 

 in a dollar for membership in the League. 

 I wish you and your friends would go to 

 work and show the Chicago sportsmen 

 something of what the League is doing for 

 them, in shutting off the traffic in game. 

 Try to make them see their duty in this 

 matter, to the extent of at least becoming 

 members of the League. — Editor. 



HE CONFESSES AND BOASTS. 



Coronado, Cal. 



Editor Recreation: Your favor of the 

 28th at hand. One of my friends also re- 

 ceived a similar letter, but having heard that 

 you called people game hogs who secure 

 any unusually large bags of game, it was re- 

 ferred to me. I think the personnel of our 

 party, wherever known, would refute any 

 such accusation; so I do not hesitate to tell 

 you a few of the facts. 



The Water Company, of which I am 

 President, has a reservoir in which the 

 water has stood at about the same level for 

 2 years. Pepper grass and moss grew in it 

 to a great extent in the upper, shallow end, 

 and considerable at the lower end. The 

 mud-hens came in by the thousand, early 

 in September, and began to eat it. We 

 tried every possible way to kill them off 

 and save the feed for the ducks, which we 

 intended to shoot from blinds. The ducks 

 came in in such quantities (especially rud- 

 dy-ducks) that after they got a taste of the 

 feed you could not drive them away. It re- 

 sulted, therefore, in our endeavoring to get 

 rid of the mud-hens; we got enough boats 

 to spread across the lake, leaving about 80 

 yards between the boats. The lake is long 

 and narrow, and we would paddle from one 

 end of it to the other. When half way 

 along, the ducks and mud-hens would think 

 they were being cornered and fly between 



