406 
. 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
— 
; . 
(Dee, 18, 1884, 
both down, if we hold well on, for it takes a hard hit to stop 
& fat plover. ‘Almo’s” No, 10 shot at a bundred yards 
won't doit. We will now keep along on the top of this ridge, 
for the plover is to be found on the highest parts of the 
prairie where the grass is short, closely cropped by the cat- 
tle. Here his foodis most plenty and most easily found. 
When the season is very dry, however, they will be found 
more plenty on the lower flat places and along the coulées, 
where there is water. If you have a well-trained retriever 
he will bring the birds to .you, rear up on the wheel and 
deliver the bird to you without your rising from your seat 
in the buggy. But mark south! Right down there, a bun- 
dred yards away, a half dozen lit. Now drive down as 
before and we will bag a brace. When these are finished 
plenty of others will be found to keep up the fun until noon. 
Then we drive to some friendly shade and eat our lunch, and 
lie on the velvet grass an hour or two, when we feel like 
going at the sport again. Having obtained all we wish, and 
to spare, we drive home in the cool of the evening, where 
ae arrive fresh and not worn out with hard tramping all 
day. 
While the plover season lasts they are very abundant gen- 
erally, and one gun often brings seventy-five or one hundred 
in a day’s shooting. About the middle or 20th of September 
the birds move on to Mexico. and I know not how much 
further they go south for winter quarters. By the time they 
are gone Bob White begins to get ripe for the gun, and so the 
sport goes on, 
Asa game country, I think Southwestern Louisiana is 
hard to beat. As to its fishing advantages, I think it is about 
the same as on the western coast of Florida, 
PAPABOTTE. 
PARISH OF VERMILION, La,, Sept. 1, 1884, 
DEER IN THE ADIRONDACKS. 
Haditoy Forest and Stream. 
I will contribute my mite to the hounding question. I am 
of the opinion that it should be prohibited. I have hunted 
deer in the Adirondacks in various ways for several years. 
During most of this time I have been accustomed to visit a 
locality where hounding was unknown, and | have found 
deer plenty and approachable, so that one need have no 
trouble in getting a shot at any time. Moreover, all of our 
party are of the opinion that the deer haye increased and 
multiplied, 
This year our party divided; one went to the old region, 
was out for deer tive times, and killed four; the rest thought 
we would go further into the woods, so we pushed on till 
we reached what we supposed were almost unvisited wilds, 
but alas! we found that sportsmen from the ‘‘other side” 
visited the region all the year. around. We found on the 
mountains and in the deep, almost impassable valleys, 
plenty of sign—enough to convince us that we were in a 
aradise of deer—but we could not get one, We iried still- 
mnting and floating, rifle and shotgun, but to no effect. 
Three weeks we were there, surrounded by deer, but we 
neyer pulled a trigger on one. During all this time, though 
we worked faithfully and well, we saw only three deer, and 
they far out of ranze—were impossible to approach, One 
day a party from the other side arrived. They- prought a 
hound. They put him out, and in a very fey minutes he 
had a deer in the lake, in a few more thé venison was in 
the larder. No trouble about it, they could get all they 
warltea ana atore too. 
Then we asked some questions, and found that the way to 
et a deer was to bring a dog; that early in the season, be- 
ore they were hounded, there had been plenty of them at 
the lake shores every day, but since the hounding began 
they had become so wild that without a dog no one but a 
yery skillful woodsman could get a shot. 
This was the unanimous testimony of the guides we met 
(four of them), and they were as intelligent a lot of guides 
as it was ever my fortune to meet, and, moreover, were the 
very men (some of them) who brought in the dogs. 
This is about all. I won’t draw conclusions, but I will 
add, I have not the least doubt that during the same three 
weeks we could have killed, on our old grounds, at least 
a dozen deer, had we been so disposed; but here we did not 
get a single shot. Teh ashe 
Drica, N. ¥., Dee. 12, 
PHILADELPHIA NOTES. 
AN open winter in 1884 and 1885, following this very 
favorable breeding season the quail have had this year, 
would in a very great measure increase the supply of coveys 
for the shooting of next year. Owing to the great dryness of 
October, November and a part of the present month, com- 
paratively few quail have been found and killed, and the 
supply as the year closes is much greater than it was at the 
‘end of 1880. It is hoped, therefore, that the present propt- 
tious season and open weather may continue. 
Should there be heavy falls of snow and crusts on the sur- 
face, all the good that has happened to Bob White will end 
in disaster. Itis too early yet to surmise, but there are indi- 
cations that we may have an open winter. We certainly can- 
not have a long one. 
Should our game protective societies wish quail for re- 
stocking: depopulated sections, I have learned of a section of 
country where they can be purchased at very low figures, and 
would advise a correspondence with Mr. John §. Boyd, 
Morganton, N. C., who tells me he can buy them at a cent 
or two apiece, from the natives around him who take them 
in nets. No birds have been ever shipped from Morgantoa, 
N, C. to the North, and the country people donot know they 
are in demand for the purpose of planting; so it would be 
necessary to give directions how they should be cooped, etc. 
About Morganton it is quite mountainous, and this region 
yet contains many wild turkeys. 
Deer also abound in the spur of the Blue Ridge, which 
crosses North Carolina at this point of the State from north- 
east to southwest; but the ‘accommodations for man and 
beast” are villainous, and unless one can put up with the 
yery roughest fare, it would not be advisable to select this 
country for a shooting ground. Hounds for driving deer 
would have to be taken along, as I am told there are none 
there. ‘‘Driving’ is allowed, but from the absence of hounds, 
still-hunting is practiced. There are few negroes in the 
region (a fact which speaks volumes for the presence of 
much game), and the poor whites are all kept busy at the 
gold mines of this section, where they eke out a meagre 
living of forty to sixty cents per day washing the scarcely 
paying earth for ‘‘gold flour.” > Tat 
Around Morganton is a region which, if may be_safely 
said, few if any city sportsmen have yet reached. How to 
get there I did not ask, but it is eight or ten miles from a 
railroad, = 
The snow geese in Delaware Bay got a shaking up last 
week by some oystermen, who made two shots into a flock 
with a big shoulder gun, and killed fifteen or twenty. These 
fowl were sold in Philadelphia and brought good prices. 
There are many sooty-plumaged birds in the flocks this year, 
showing that there are more than a usual quantity of young 
ones in the number, and it may be that for this season our 
friends the oystermen were allowed to get nearer than is gen- 
erally the case to the flocks, Homo, 
THE MAINE GAME LAWS. 
Fiditor Forest and. Stream: 
Judging from the communications of ‘‘Special” and ‘‘Old 
Tug” in your columns, the impression seems to be general 
that the game laws of this State forbid the carrying of veni- 
son out of it. This is the reverse of the truth. There is not 
one word in our statutes prohibiting the free transportation 
of the carcasses of moose, caribou, or deer, anywhere 
during the open season, provided the number is limited to 
one, two and three respectively of the animals named, 
found in possession of any one person. During the close 
seasons persons having any of the above named carcasses, or 
any portion of them in their possession, shall not bedebarred 
from furnishing proof that they were lawfully killed during 
the open season. But if more than the specified number are 
found, at any time, it shall be deemed proof of guilt. This 
latter restriction, the railroad and express companies hold, 
prevents them from carrying more than the limited number 
named during any one season; and they consequently refuse 
to take them. From this circumstance has arisen the wide 
misapprehension which exists in regard to our game laws, 
In regard to the time that does drop their fawns, my ob- 
servations correspond with those of your natural history 
editor. I have seen fawns in the middle of May, and haye 
picked them up, a few hours old, the first week in June. I 
believe that nineteen-twentieths of them are dropped within 
the period named, Asfor the time that does leave their 
hiding places—which “‘Old Tug” has correctly stated, and 
which he holds is inconsistent with the period named for 
dropping their fawns—he should know that does leave their 
retreats at the close, and not at the beginning of the rutting 
season, So also in regard to the fawn’s attachment to its 
mother, late in the season. Every experienced hunter 
knows that the fawns remain with their dam throughout 
the entire winter; that during all this period she shows the 
utmost care and affection for them; that even when cruelly 
chased with dogs, in March, she wiii return to her fawns, if 
left alive, as soon-as she recavers power to do so. When the 
time arrives, the following spring, for her to drop her next 
fawns, and not til] then, she secretes herself from her off- 
spring, now 2 year old. Even this is notinyariable; young 
does, which seldom have but one fawn at the time they are 
one year old, will frequently allow it (if a female) to remain 
in (aeir company during the second parturition; and then, 
if nothing prevents, they willremain together throughout 
the season, and yard in company the following winter, 
As for the period during which the fawns are nursed by 
their dams—all your correspondents seem to take the ground 
that they cannot support themselves until they are weaned; 
but this is wide of the mark. Any farmer would laugh to 
be told that his Jambs could not take care of themselves 
until weaned by the ewes, for he would know that they could 
readily do so weeks before that time; and the same is true 
with regard tofawns. Let me relate a case in point. Once 
while walking through a small patch of new burnt land sur- 
rounded by green timber, I heard the piteous bleating of a 
pair of fawns concealed in a green copse close to the burnt 
land. By cautious stalking, I succeeded in getting a full 
view of them, This was the last week in July, and I judged 
them to be about two months old, altogether too old to at- 
tempt to catch. Their continuous bleating was very painful 
to hear, and I could guess at the cause of their bereavement. 
Within a mile of where I stood was a large natural meadow, 
a famed resort for deer throughout the summer, Some reck- 
less hunter, who cared not for age or sex, as long as he could 
gratify his killing propensities, had doubtless shot the untor- 
tunate dam there the evening before, where she had gone for 
nutritious food, after concealing her fawns. Some lumber- 
ing operations took me by that place many times during the 
next two months. I found that the little fawns had adopted 
the little burnt clearing for their feeding ground, it being 
filled with the tenderest of herbage, which had sprung up 
after the fire. I had carefully kept the knowledge of their 
existence a secret, for bitter experience has taught me 
to distrust the whole human family where deer 
are concerned. I had taken a lively interest in 
the fate of the little orphans, and although I car- 
ried my rife by them often in the month of October, I 
never dreamed of using it on them. The second week in 
November, while trying to follow the tracks of a big buck 
not far from the fawns’ retreat, a light flurry of snow having 
fallen the night before, I caught sight of a patch of blue 
coat, and fired on the instant. A single small-sized fawn 
bounded off through the woods like a rubber ball, and I felt 
a presentiment that I should find the other dead. And sure 
enough, on going up I found that I had slain one of my 
pets. He was in good condition, but very much under-sized, 
and although apparently in his blue coat, a row of spots 
could still be seen along each side of the spine. Two weeks 
afterward by a singular fatality [shot the mate, just at dusk, 
when traveling rapidly along an old logging road, two 
miles from there, mistaking ii in the fading light for a very 
large deer, I judge from the above facts that fawns become 
self-sustaining when quite young; but it must not be in- 
ferred from this that I am in favor of shooting nursing does, 
nor of adding the month of September to the open season, 
to which I am earnestly opposed, believing that too much 
venison rots in the woods during the hot weather already, 
without adding to the facilities for killing. 
I abominate jack-shooting, and consider it, as far as sport 
is concerned, about equal to going to an abbattoir and 
shooting the builocks penned up for slaughter, Killing deer 
in the water comes under the same head; but shooting them 
on their runways, with mellow-throated hounds in full cry, 
is royal sport, : ; 
My idea of a game law is this; Deer, from Oct. 1 till Dee. 
15, moose till Jan, 1, and caribou till Feb. 1. I have valid 
reasons to support it; but this communication is already too 
long. . PENOBSCOT. 
Messrs. E. M. Stilwell and Henry O. Stanley, Fish and 
Game Commissioners of Maine, have presented their annual 
report. The portion relating to game is as follows: 
Th presenting this, our annual report, we have the plea- 
sure to record continued success in our work and most grati-! 
fying ten in the public estimate of its benefit to the 
State, From the varie opinions and criticisms upon the 
laws passed for our department by the last Legislature, dif- 
fering, as they necessarily must, according to the diversified 
interests of their authors, one great and important fact is 
deduced, that the object aimed at by the Legislature has 
been attained in a most marked increase in the game of the 
State, and an equally marked decrease in its exportation. To 
entirely guard one’s house when a neighbor State allows laws 
to be enacted to encourage theft by bribes of purchase of 
stolen property is difficult. Maine has so framed her own 
laws as to protect her sister States, even to game that is not 
indigenous to her own soil. Prairie fowl and quail can find 
no market here during the close time of those birds in their 
respective breeding places or States, Black salmon reeking 
with slime, that an Indian’s dog would reject, were cut up 
and offered for sale in Quincy Market, Boston, in October. 
The work of the last two years has been effective, Tt has 
demanded all our time, and heen limited only by our means, 
There is no law that our Legislature will enact that resolute 
men cannot enforce. The laws are framed by representa- 
tives who have the confidence of their fellow citizens, they 
are elected for the express purpose of making and correct- 
ing our laws. How can we judge but by the demonstration 
of positive enforcement of the wisdom or efficacy of those 
Jaws? We can unmake or repeal as easily as enact. The 
error of the past has been in resting satisfied with putting 
good Jaws upon our statute books, anticipating that citizens » 
whose time is required for the support of their families, 
would jeopardize their means of subsistence, incur animosi- 
ties, by voluntarily enforcing laws that were abandoned 
without a definite executive so soon as set up by the printer. 
It should be the special duty of some one designated dis- 
tinctly by the Legislature to enforce every law, and proper 
provision should be made for it. Do our moral guides, the 
ministers of the gospel, serve without pay? Will simple 
philanthropy support a special constable or a fish and game 
warden better than a minister of the gospel? 
Under the able management of our distinguished prede- 
cessor, Mr, Atkins, sustained and advanced by the succeed- 
ing Commissioners to the best of their ability and power, fish- 
culture and protection has become a great and popular inter- 
esi, and adds millions of dollars annually to the earnings of 
the people. The care of the game, enforcing such laws as 
enable the farmer to increase and derive profit from his 
domestic stock; the care of the fish, in extending kindred 
laws protecting them while breeding and so long as they are 
unfit for food, has lengthened out the season of attraction to 
our visitors and added other millions, distributed among our 
people through our railroads, our livery stables, our stages, 
our steamboats, our villages, our hotels and our lakeside 
homes, 
The Department of Fish and Game has developed and 
grown so rapidly, that its crude and careless organization, 
devised ata time when it was new and but little understood, 
is entirely Inadequate to its present requirements. 
now become one of the most important interests of our Com- 
monwealth—of more value to the people, we may say, than 
Tt has 
any other, for the simple reason that its earnings, instead of 
filling the coffers of one individual or corporate company, is 
divided equally among the whole people, from Georgia to 
Maine, or from any point from whence the travel starts to 
the great summer resorts of our beautiful home. Public 
journals of our sister States already speak of Maine as being 
the only future hope of the lover of field sports; the only 
protected field where the destruction that has made desolate 
the Western plains and now threatens the Government Re- 
serve of Yellowstone Park, bids fair, by the enforcement of 
our timely laws, to be checked. It has eyen been suggested 
that the United States Government give her aid in presery- 
ing Maine as an attractive home and refuge for our native 
wild game and fishes. 
When the law was passed for biennial sessions. of our Leg- 
islature, a corresponding change was not made for rendering 
the reports from the different departments of our State 
Government, Hence our last year’s report records the expe- 
rience of but one year’s working of the new game laws passed 
at the last session, as well as but one year’s record of the 
transactions of the Commisioners. This places us under the 
necessity of repeating so much of last year’s experiences as 
is substantiated by the occurrences of the present. No 
better comment can be rendered to the new game Jaws than 
the fact of the steady increase of the game of the State. 
This has arisen as much from the sanctuary afforded by the 
enforcement of the law against the use of dogs in hunt- 
ing, as from the natural increase by breeding. Many hundred 
head of game have undoubtedly migrated into the State, 
simply for the shelter it has afforded from continual hunting 
and hounding. Even if all the moose, caribou and deer 
could be confined to the boundaries of the State by impass- 
able barriers, the simple fact of hounding would aifect their 
fecundity, All the severity of remark that the Commission- 
ers felt warranted in uttering last year in relation to the acts 
of summer visitors, has been more than borne out, more than 
confirmed by the experiences of the year. Subornation of 
poor, ignorant Indian guides by whiskey and money, to con- 
ceal and bring out in the period of legal hunting, trophies of 
game killed in close time, where the Indians were hired to 
lie, and ready even to commit perjury, when the names’ of 
the real owners and killers of the property were borne upon 
the property seized. We again repeat, the meanness and 
intamy of the acts seem to be in almost direct ratio to social 
position, education and profession. Allow us here to quote 
these few lines from Forest AND STREAM: 
PROFESSIONAL MEN AND GAME. 
Tt is a most mortifying and disheartenIng factthat among the sum- 
mer yisitors in the Maine woods detected in breaking the game laws 
there are many individuals of high professional standing, men who 
occupy a recognized place in the community where they live, persons 
ol infiverice, leading citizens. They are the persons whom we should 
expect to be most careful of their good fame, soiicitous to conduct 
themselves as gentlemen and law-respecting citizens; wary of giving 
offense by a bad example, But if, on the contrary, such men of 
learning, culture and influence persist in ignoring both the irreyo- 
cable laws of natureand the explicit statutes of the State, what are we 
to expect from others in humbler walks of lite? 
The game of Maine, fish, fur and feather, has been placed 
by the government of the State in charge ot the Commis- 
sioners. Understanding the habits of their charge, they have 
asked and received from their Legislature such Jaws as a 
judicious farmer enforces for the most profitable manage- 
ment of his breeding stock, and are absclutely essential to 
their preservation. The Commissioners have the will to 
enforce our laws to the bitter end upon all offenders, but 
have not the power, both from restricted means and from 
other causes of which we propose to speak. The efficacy of 
alllaws in correcting the habits of a people is dependent 
upon the facilities of enforcement afforded by speedy and 
prompt justice. All new laws, as we have before stated, 
