466 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
a 
[Jan, 8, 1885 
Legislature of the State of New York pass a law prohibiting 
hounding, and I don’t know of a guide in the woods who 
would not assist in its enforcement; and if enforced along 
with the other Jaws now on the statute books of the State on 
that subject, in less than five years there would be four deer 
where there is one now, and in less than ten, twenty would 
stand in their tracks. f 
I say enforce the present law, for in many localities where 
IT am acquainted the bulk of all the deer that are not killed 
before the dog, are killed in June and July, and that, too, 
not by visiting sportsmen, but by people living in the sur- 
rounding towns. Stop this and drive out the dogs, and deer 
would he plenty enough, 
Much has been said about floating, but I haye never seen 
anything to warrant the belief that that is a very destruc- 
tive method of hunting if practiced only after Aug. 1. In 
the first place, the average tourist doesn’t care for a great 
while to undergo the fatigue necessary in order to get a shot; 
and in the second place, if he does, after he gets it the 
chances are at least stx to one that he will score a clean miss. 
Then, too, there is another fact which seems to be lost sight 
of almost altogether by all who have expressed views upon 
the subject—very few of the deer so killed are does; certainly 
not one in ten if the shooting is done in August, and not a 
much larger percentage in September. 
The reason for this is perfectly obyious, While caring for 
their young the does are more than usually cautious and 
withdraw to some little swamp hoie or bog, where there is 
no danger of being interrupted either by their natural foes 
or the big bucks, who ought to be their friends, but with 
whom they they are not on the best of terms at that time. 
These then haye a monopoly of the open streams and lakes 
where the floating is done. 
A word as to the Maine question. In common with 
hundreds of others who take but one vacation in the summer 
I don’t go there any more. Not because fish are not plenty 
and deer too, but because I can’t get both on the same trip 
without breaking the law. Would I go there if the law were 
changed so as to allow both in September ? Certainly. And 
s0 would my many friends. Would we kill off all of the 
deer? Ithink not, but if we are so very destructive and 
deadly, take off the last month on the present Jaw, for I 
Enow that I pay more for every deer I kill to the inhabitants 
of the State where it falls, three times over, than they can 
realize ovt of one slain by themselves. Should I slay the 
maternal doe with her udder distended with milk and her 
little ones bleating in their starvation upon the adjacent hill 
side? In my judgment for ten years we might float up and 
down the best of her rivers for each night of our annual 
two weeks of summer outing, and never paddle our boat over 
a drop of water that had at any time during the two months 
immediately preceding wet a single teat which was moist 
from the mouth of its owner’s offspring, unless perhaps some 
maternal muskrat had postponed her family cares some 
mouths later than she ought to haye done. 
This would be especially true in the early part of the 
month, for the nearer you hunt to the time now allowed 
by Jaw in the State of Maine the greater your chance to kill 
the future hundreds with the single shot from your rifle. 
But the nearer you get to Oct. 1, the better your chances 
of counting the does among your slain, for there comes a 
time when her maternal cares cease to be the pleasure to her 
that they once were. The gentle tender-mouthed fawn of 
early June has grown into the sharp-teethed aggressive 
youngster of September, 
She dissolves the partnership between them not before his 
appetite for the good things of this life has increased rather 
than grown less with the added weeks. 
He isn’t contented now to remain behind some old log, 
where in the early summer she Jeft him covered up in the 
bushes while she took the hasty meal which the thick grass 
of the bog, near which she always locates at that time, 
affords; but he follows after her, and the moment she at- 
tempts to lower her head for a bite, he attacks the receptaele 
from which he formerly fed so peaceably with teeth like 
chopping-knives and butts from his head like unto those 
delivered in olden times from the classic battering-ram, 
Does she admire this kind of attention? If you could see 
the way in which she retaliates by wheeling right about face 
and rolling him oyer on his back in the bushes with a 
yicious butt from her hard pate, you would hardly think 
so. After a little of this kind of intercourse she tolerates 
him, certainly if he will keep a respectful distance and give 
up a mill diet, but she ceases to be filled with that high 
solicitude for his welfare which controlled her every step in 
July, and she too then takes herself to the country about 
the open rivers and fords, whose tender feed has been mo- 
nopolized up to this time by the yearlings and bucks, 
The time when she ordinarily does this is not far from the 
commencement of the open season as it now exists in Maine, 
and from this time on, either with the hounds, or later on 
the snow, hides without horns will be in the great majority 
in the hunters’ camps. 
It is the death of does that lessens the future supply, and 
whether she falls in June or December the result is at the 
worst only different by one or two deer the less or more. So 
long as a time is chosen to hunt, in which the bulk of deer 
killed are does, and so long as you employ methods which 
will bring them rather than bucks to your rifle, so long will 
the deer find themselves waging an unequal struggle for ex- 
istenece with the daily increasing army of hunters, 
If your doe is shot in August, howeyer, I doubt if in the 
vast majority of cases you haye done any more harm than 
the same shot would have caused in November. It is true 
thal the chances will be that the fawn is suckling, but he 
doesn’t die because compelled to shift for himself at the age 
which he will then have reached, Deer are like our domes- 
tic cattle in this respect. Both will allow their young to 
suckle just as long as it can be done without too much pain 
and discomfort to themselves, and this will be long after the 
youngsters are able to live without it. 
The calf will willingly follow the cow for four and even 
five months before she will wean it herself; but nobody 
thinks of accusing the farmer of infanticide when, at the ex- 
piration of three weeks, he steals half of the milk, and at 
the end of six takes the mother away entirely, Jeaying the 
younger chip of the old block toa couple of days of bleat- 
ing and his own resources in the future for a means of pick- 
ing up a living. The calf don’t die by any means unless the 
butcher gets hold of him, and neither will the fawn after the 
same length of time. 
He will perhaps be a trifle smaller the next spring than he 
otherwise would have been at that time, and the hunter will 
perhaps have a trifle less fat to pick from the bones of the 
tuother when he chances to catch her at that time than he 
would have had if he had waited until November, but what 
there is of it will be worth three times the like amount taken 
| from her hide during the latter month after she has been run 
j to her death by the hounds, or even after she bad spent a 
week leading the bucks a chase up and down the hillsides. 
Now I say in conclusion, if your object is to protect the 
deer, make the open season two months, and let those two 
be August and September, and keep out the dogs. Then 
you will kill bucks almost entirely, You will attract the 
tourist who is ordinarily not very dangerous to the game, but 
generally free with his money. You will destroy the market 
to a large extent, as it will be too warm a good share of the 
time when you get out of the woods to ship your meat, and 
you will give the local hunters just the same show in the 
woods that others who live a little further away have,” 
instead of leaving to them almost alone the month of Novem- 
ber with its deadly tracking snows. Not that I don’t for 
my own part enjoy the excitement of the particular style of 
hunting then in vogue, but in common with the bulk of others 
living out of the woods, I can’t be there often at that time, 
and the month is practically left to the market-hunter, who 
spares neither age nor sex. 
Horns with him don’t count, meat is all that he cares for, 
and he is much more apt to outwit the fawn or mother 
doe in this style of hunting than he is to get a shot at the 
wary old buck. This in my judgment is the conclusion of 
the whole matter, that system of hunting and that season in 
which to do it that bring down the smallest number of does 
among the slain is the only one which the advocates for game 
protection ought to demand. . 
The countries across the water understand this and do 
what we cannot enforce—legislation which spares the females. 
All that we can do is to fix upon an open season when the 
chances are against the bucks and forbid asystem of hunting 
which carries the balance the other way. 
August and September are the months when does are least 
likely to be found, unless the dogs are used. So I say give 
us these two months and keep out the dogs. If the reform 
is a little too sweeping and can’t be carried out in the cut- 
ting off of the last two months, leave the law as it now is in 
the Adirondacks in respect to time, and even then with the 
hounds out and Aug. 1 observed as the time to commence 
hunting, I think the deer will not materially decrease in 
numbers for a long time to come. THREE-BARRELS, 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
During the past three years, I have spent my summer 
vacation in the same locality on a certain watershed in John 
Brown’s tract. And after the four or five weeks of freedom 
from desk, dust and digesis, I have never failed to return 
with a feeling of profound gratitude that this beautiful 
region, with all its possibilities, Las yet been spared to those 
whose spirits so frequently rebel against the everlasting 
brick and mortar. Three times 1 have built my little shanty 
and prepared my camp fire, in perfect confidence that sooner 
or later a good fat saddle should be hanging hard by. But 
in view of what I heard and saw (as Well as what I didn’t 
see) last August, together with the supine indifference of 
the law makers at Albany as to the fish, flesh and feather 
in the woods, it was with but comparatively slight regret 
that I readin a letter from my guide two days ago: “Our 
friend Babcock has torn down our shanty, to build him one 
further up, in drivin’ time.” 
reusons thereof: 
Two years ago, in the region of which [ speak, deer were 
fairly plentiful. One year later, I counted thirteen deer in 
four weeks, during the month of August, and. killed enough 
to supply four hungry men, During the same month of the 
present year I saw only three deer and as many fawns—of 
which latter I shall speak again—although my opportunities 
for seeing game were much better during this season than 
during that of the year before. Of the many different parties 
with whom | conversed in the woods, none had secured 
more than a single deer up to the 15th of August; only one 
man had had a daylight shot; all reported venison to be very 
scarce; all agreed that ‘‘ hounding ” did most of the work—- 
and anything that remained was cared for by the jack in 
June and July. 
The daughter ef one of my guides—an intelligent young 
girl—told me last June that she had ‘' kept count up to four 
And these are a few of the 
hundrd deer that were killed ahead of the dogs on 
River in the fall of 1883. One gentleman (?) who some 
weeks before had descanted in glowing terms 10 a friend of 
mine on the beauties of nature and the primeval forest, and 
the shame and outrage of desecrating it with axe and rail- 
road, had passed out with thirteen noble animals in a wagon. 
They were sold in a market at the place where he lived on 
an income of three or four thousand a year. 
Scarcely half a mile from my camp is the shanty ofan old 
hunter who pusses fully one half of his time in the woods. 
His forte is still-hunting, which he considers to be the only 
satisfactory way of killing a deer. When I reached my 
little paradise [ found him on the ground, but although a 
week had passed since his coming, he had not seen a deer. 
He remained four weeks in camp, and during that time saw 
one deer, which was crouching in the water, half dead with 
fatigue (dogs), After an exciting tussel the deer escaped 
him! Last year on the same ground he killed two or three 
in as many weeks, without any difficulty. This time he 
wes glad to share my buck, in order to take a little jerked 
meat *' to the children.” 
One afternoon my guide and I paid a visit to old C, H., 
who has lived in the wilderness over sixty years. <A skillful 
hunter and thorough woodsman, he is in every way compe- 
tent to speak intelligently upon the question in interest. In 
answer to my inquiries he made the following statements: 
‘Prom ten to fifteen years ago, you could come up here 
and kill your venison by daylight with arifle; now you 
must either hunt at night, carly in the summer, or haye a 
dog, if you want meat, Six years ago, when I first built 
this shanty, you could walk out uny evening and see eight or 
ten deer on this ‘burning; this season I saw only one deer 
in three weeks. There is not one deer now to ten that there 
were six years ago, and it is only by chance now that a deer 
is killed in the open season without dogs, or at least a jack. 
What has done it? Well, the dogs mostly. One party up 
here last fall killed some forty deer, They had a lot of dogs, 
and brought in three or four deer—mostly yearlings—every 
day. If they keep on hounding at this rate, three years more 
at most, will kill every deer in the woods,” 
These are the words and ideas of a man whois, and always 
has been, on the ground, and has watched the progress of 
this thing all his life. 
weight? 
One morning while I was on the river within a quarter of 
a mile of my camp, two beautiful fawns stepped out of the 
woods and down to the water just below where we were 
casting. Under Charlie’s skillful management of the paddle, 
Are not his opinions entitled to 
touched them with my fly-rod. They were well grown— 
dropped in April, as Charlie thought—and apparently well 
able to care for themselves if they had a fair chance, For 
five minutes we watched them, and as the timid little things 
curiously turned their great liquid eyes upon us, and halt in 
fear, half in frolic, stamped the mud with their small hoofs, 
every now and then moving away a few steps, but invariably 
turning back for another look, | wondered if there could 
be found a man who, in my place, would have taken advan- 
tage of their innocence, and cut them down as they stood 
there. A sudden clap of the hands, a flash from two little 
white tails, a twinkle of small hoofs, and they were sone, 
A. day or two later, while enjoying our post-prandial loaf, 
we heard a dog running in the woods to the east, and in a 
few moments I saw a deer coming down the river. Just 
before we had noticed a boat, containing two men, below 
the bend, and putting two and two together, we made up 
our minds that the little deer—it was a fawn, somewhat 
smaller than the two we had seen—should escape. When it 
came opposite our landing, I stepped down to the shore, 
shouting and waving my hat, whereupon it made for the 
opposite bank, and creeping half way out of the water, 
crouched beneath a small shrub, The river was only thirty 
feet wide, and I could plainly see that the little thing was 
tired out. A plunge in the water above announced that the 
enemy was at hand. The animal could not stir, however, 
until, in desperation, I jumped into the boat and pushed out 
into the river, when it crawled up the bank and disappeared 
in the woods, When the dog came down 1 caught and tied 
her. In the course of the day a message came from below: 
“The old dog has broken loose; please send her home.” 
This was on the 12th of August, 
One week later, after a few days’ absence from camp, I 
returned with my wife, to initiate her into the delichts of 
perfect freedom. From the still-hunter I learned that a 
party of five who had been camping on a small pond in the 
vicinity had killed two spotted fawns, and a third had been 
killed in the river—all driven in by dogs. When I thought 
of the tired. creature whose life 1 had saved, and of the 
beautiful picture of ten days before, which I had fondly 
hoped to conjure up again for the delectation of the little 
enthusiast who was then with me, and then thought of 
these slaughtered innocents—hunted to death by five brawny 
men and as many yelling, cluh-nosed degs—I[ prayed for 
vengeance upon both kinds of brutes. 
On the second day we took a long journey through a lovely 
chain of lakes, to a spot where a white woman had neyer 
been before. Crossing a carry some four miles from camp, 
we stumbled upon a large fawn lying in the trail, with its 
legs tied. It was pitiful to witness its struggles when we 
approached, and the tears which dropped from its eyes were 
not the only ones which fell that day. ‘Dogs again,” I mut- 
tered, and just then came the report of a gun, When we 
reached the landing we found four men, two huge dogs, and 
a magnificent buck, which latter, after a long and gallant 
race for life, had at last met an ignominious death in the 
water. 
“Charlie,” said I, “how much longer will this last?” 
“QO, not long,” said he. ‘'Two or three years more and 
there won’t be any bucks left, or fawns either,” 
“*Unless—” I ventured, 
“Unless,” he replied emphatically, ‘‘dogs are shut out of 
the woods altogether—at least, for some years. Why, dogs 
are running in these woods every month in the year. One 
look a doe right through the sugar camp last April. (Nice 
thing for a doe at that time!) And it ain’t only what they 
drive in and kill, but it?s what run themselves to death in 
hot weather (they'll run ten times as far in August as they 
will in October before they take water), and what they driye 
away from sucking fawns. J picked up one little fayn on 
Burnt Creek that was just starved to death; it died in my 
arms.” 
“What is your idea of a law for protection?” said I. 
“No doggin’ to begin with, no takin’ venison out of the 
woods, a big fine for killin’ out of season, and sock it right 
to ’em for killin’ or ketchin’ a fawn.” 
‘How about the jack?” said I. i 
“Well,” said he, ‘‘the most harm done with a jack is in 
June and July, when the deer are tame, and anybody can 
kall one, with any old gun, If the dogs were out, and no 
floating done until August, there would be venison enough, 
but no shotguns ought to be allowed behind the jack.” 
Judge Caton, in his interesting work on the deer, confesses 
to a personal and repeated knowledge of floating, or “jack” 
hunting. Iam another. And I want to say right here that 
all these stories about slipping up to within six feet of a deer 
behind a fire pan, and butchering them so that they fall rishi 
into the boat, are fables to me, at least as applied to our 
Adirondack region to-day. In June or July, as Charlie in- 
timates, 3t may be possible. My experience does notinclude 
killing a deer out of season. Butin the months of August 
and September, when the nights are cold and foggy, the 
deer wary, and the lily pads so thick and tough that it re- 
quires a cunning hand at the paddle to bring the boat within 
range or sight, at least, without alarming the quarry, if is 
another matter. I know a guide who has paddled two sea- 
sons, without a deer having been killed from his boat. I 
myself have heard many more deer go out than I haye had 
an opportunity to shoot at. The last time that “I was there,” 
as Judge Caton puts it, the jack light was completely 
swallowed up in a combination of moon and fog, which 
latter came rolling up in clouds, as we approached the spot 
where two deer where feeding. The ileer that I was obliged 
to take was standing head on, and althought the moonlight 
enabled me to see his outline at six rods, 1 could not find 
the sights of my gun, 2 .40-60 Marlin, and the first shot was 
a clean miss, but the second broke him down in the midst of 
ajump, Oneineh higher and the ball would have gone 
clear. He was a fine three year old buck. 
Now if there are those who think that any tyro can kill a 
deer with a rifle al all time behind a jack, let them try it. 
After sitting for five or six hours al] cramped up in the baw 
of a boat unfil one fairly shivers with cold and fatigue, it is 
no easy matter to calculate the vital spot in an indistinct 
gray patch almost on a level with the water, cover with the 
front sight, guess at the back one—which can never be seen 
—or hold directly between two small red spots, and do exe- 
cution, especially if the deer be run upon suddenly and the 
man’s neryes tried by that startling hub-hub-hub, before 
anything can be seen. 
Still 1 confess tbat floating is held in bad repute by many, 
and although with me a fuvorite and perhaps the most ex- 
citing mode of hunting, I will cheerfully give way to the 
opinions of others and indorse a law prohibiting jack hunting 
at any time and with any weapon, if ouly the dogs too are 
eliminated. As it stands to-day, however, and speakin 
we dropped down the current until 1 could have almost '! only as to the strictly open s¢ason inregard to each, from 
