ArRrx 3, 1885/J 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



188- 



hm* §&$ ^d §mi. 



BATTERY-SHOOTING. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



I did not think I would again be called upon to trespass 

 on your space, for it seemed to me that all had been said on 

 battery -shooting that was necessary, so far as I was con- 

 cerned, but "Sinkboat," in your last issue, asks a few ques- 

 tions which politeness to a courteous correspondent requites 

 nil' to answefj and moreover, the subject is one of such mo- 

 ment, ns to the ultimate effect on our wildfowl, if batteries 

 are not suppressed by law, that I must ask an opportunity 

 feu -a final communication. The discussion between "Sink- 

 boat" and myself seems, in certain particulars, to have be- 

 come loosed from its mooriuers. Therefore I am constrained 

 to crv "Jieivnons a has woutons." In "Sinkboat's'' first ar- 

 ticle lie raised a signal of distress for the locality, regarding 

 which he claims, and undoubtedly possesses, particular 

 knowledge, viz., Chesapeake Bay, for he said, "There is 

 too much shooting there, the ducks are harassed in every 

 way." Of course he excepted shooting from the shore, be- 

 cause he stated that boxes were adopted after shooting from 

 the shore had failed. Therefore it was a fair inference 

 that the ducks could only be harassed bv box-shooters with 

 their tenders, or persons shooting from boats of all kinds. 

 it was therefore to show him and others who might be inter- 

 ested, that batteries were the main cause of the "too much 

 shooting and the harassed birds," that I replied to his arti- 

 cle and gave the known results (no individual opinion about 

 it whatever) upon the habits of wildfowl where batteries 

 were used to accomplish their destruction in localities other 

 than his owu. 



I think I have in my various replies covered pretty gen- 

 erally his objections to my statements, but sometimes I can- 

 not but believe by the way he answers, that he must have 

 forgotten what T had written. In a question of the kind 

 under discussion, one must look upon the subject in all its 

 bearings, and because every method mentioned as objection- 

 able may not pertain to each locality, that is no reason why- 

 it should be asserted that one or any of them are not injuri- 

 ous. The waters of the Chesapeake are exceptional in many 

 ways, so far as affording feeding grounds for ducks, as well 

 as in their vast extent, and are probably hardly paralleled in 

 this country, consequently it will take longer for the injuri- 

 ous effects of the use of 'batteries to be fully appreciated 

 there than in more contracted waters. That, since the intro- 

 duction of boxes in those waters, ducks have decreased in 

 numbers generally is, I believe, acknowledged by the major- 

 ity of the sportsmen who resort there for shooting, and 

 "Sinkboat" is in error when he attributes this lessened num- 

 ber solely to the lack of food. I do not assert this without 

 having received sufficient proof iu other localities than the 

 Chesapeake, for 1 am as keenly alive to the fact that asser- 

 tion of itself proves nothing as "Sinkboat" can possibly be. 

 If he will do me the honor to carefully read what I have 

 written, 1 think he will find I have given reasons founded 

 upon my experience for the assertions 1 have made. 'T 

 speak those things which I do know, and testify of that 

 which I have seen." 1 could multiply the instances where 

 batteries have driven away the fowl, when, as in the Great 

 South Bay, the fowl so decreased after the introduction of 

 the machines, that batteries were forbidden by law, and it 

 was only through the political influence of the gunners who 

 could not shoot birds enough for market to make it profita- 

 ble, that the law was repealed. The reason advanced for 

 this action did not justify to the minds of all true sportsmen 

 the legalization of" batteries, and now on this water, duck 

 shooting, save on rare occasions, is very poor, and will 

 doubtless further degenerate while boxes are allowed. 



I have never written, as stated by "Sinkboat," that Curri- 

 tuck box -shooters fail to make a living "from the fact that 

 fowl soon learn to know the batteries, and are not killed in 

 large numbers." Alas! I wish this were true; but those gun- 

 ners' discomfiture arises from quite another source. It is 

 because the ducks are so harassed on their feeding grounds 

 that they leave the Sound for more quiet districts, and in 

 spite of "Sinkboat's" doubting nature, I have seen time and 

 time again (and so have numbers of other gentlemen I could 

 namey^the tenders of the boxes sailing over the Sound, as 

 "setters quarter a field," putting to wing every body of 

 ducks in sight. Nor was lack of food the cause of the birds' 

 disappearance, for I believe I can safely say that food is 

 always abundant at Currituck, for the Sound and the marshes 

 are so extensive that even if there should be a short supply 

 in some parts, there would be plenty in other localities. Yet 

 in spite of this the birds decrease in numbers when the bat- 

 teries get to work. "Sinkboat" must not look at this ques- 

 tion solely through the spectacles he can procure at Havre 

 de Grace. The subject is greater than the locality he shoots 

 in and wider in its application than the waters of Chesapeake 

 Bay. 



"Sinkboat" charges me with being unfair in my quotations 

 of his remarks. I was careful not to garble the meaning of 

 his sentences. That would have been foolish, and he will 

 find, if he looks over them, that the purport of what he 

 wrote was in no wise impaired by my selections. "Sink- 

 boat's" reasons for the failure of shore-shooting are sugges- 

 tive, as he says in his first article that "ducks, like other 

 things, have advanced with the times, and, as a rule, will 

 not approach the shore as they did years ago, and other 

 methods have to be adopted [to get them] by the sportsman." 

 Or in other words, "Too much shooting and 'harassed 

 birds' has made the fowl shy and unwilling to approach the 

 points. But the points can be rested and good shooting can 

 be had from them again, the birds soon recovering from their 

 fear." How is it with feeding grounds; do box-shooters ever 

 think of resting them? Suggest to such a person the pro- 

 priety of doing so, where the law does not compel him; is it 

 likely he would show much alacrity in following the sug- 

 gestion? No, indeed, for he knows that so long as the birds 

 remain in the vicinity they must go to the feeding grounds 

 or starve; so he stays there as long as any fowl remain. 



"Sinkboat" and others state in defense of box-shooting, 

 that fowl cannot always be obtained, and frequently great 

 rafts of them remain all day iu the open water out of reach. 

 Why do they stay there? It is not to feed, for the water is 

 deep, else the boxes would be there also, but because their 

 feeding grounds are occupied by batteries, and they fear to 

 approach until forced to do so by hunger, and then they do 

 go to feed despite the presence of batteries. 



"Sinkboat" is anxious to know what I meant by asking 

 him if he ever heard of riparian rights; "Well, I expect I 

 meant exactly what the question implied. In his first arti- 

 cle he made two unqualified statements, viz., that "no one 



can commit a trespass in the water," and "the water is free 

 to all," and there is nothing in the context to show that he 

 restricted his assertion to his own locality. In hi s last arti- 

 cle he states that the law, according to his belief, makes a 

 material difference in water where the tide ebbs and flows, 

 and in navigable and unnavigable water. It has been de- 

 cided in several States that where the common low prevails, 

 the proprietor of the bank of a stream owns to the thread of 

 that stream, i. e., the middle of the channel, whether navig- 

 able or not, and if he owns both banks, he controls the entire 

 stream in front of his property, and although ho cannot 

 obstruct navigation, he can, if proper notices have been 

 erected on the banks, prevent any one from shooting on 

 the waters over which he has jurisdiction. Consequently, 

 if a box-shooter or other gunner should take up his position 

 on that water, he would " be guilty of trespass. And it is 

 not to be supposed that the. same stream near its mouth, if 

 affected by the tides, would be in any way removed from the 

 operation of the law that governed it near its source, all other 

 things being eqnal. 



"Sinkboat" also asks if I indorse the sneakbox and swivel 

 gun? This is one of those lapses of memory that I have 

 mentioned, which I thought "Sinkboat" was occasionally 

 afflicted with. If he had read the next line below the one 

 sneakboats are mentioned in, he would have seen I classed 

 tbem with batteries as objectionable methods. I have never 

 referred to swivel guns, but lest "Sinkboat" may be misled 

 as to my opinion of them, I do not hesitate to say that it is 

 my profound conviction that any one who uses such a 

 weapon in any of our waters ought to be iu the penitentiary. 

 In such a place he might be made useful to the community. 

 "Sinkboat" appears to think he has made a "point" when 

 he says that I prefer to "sit iu the marsh" that "cannot 

 move" and look at battery-shooters. "Sinkboat," I fear, 

 cannot appreciate the feeling that compels me to agree with 

 his assertion, but I much prefer to "sit" and "look on" 

 rather thau indulge in a practice that although successful 

 to-day will, as is well known, fiually drive the fowl from 

 their haunts. Unintentionally and uuconsciously "Sink- 

 boat," while believing he has found a. weak point in my 

 armor, exhibits the feeling that controls and inspires all the 

 advocates of battery-shooting when he quotes, "He shows 

 the weakness of his cause; he says the marsh cannot be 

 moved and the sportsmen cannot reach the fowl. " J-u-s t s-o. 

 "Therefore we want to get in a position to reach them." 

 That sentence covers his whole grouud; it is the creed of the 

 battery -shooter. To "reach them" the box is brought out, 

 the fowl are chased from feeding ground to feeding ground, 

 until, persecuted beyond endurance and half starved, they 

 depart for other quarters. The supposed "weakness of my 

 cause" is a "strong point" that it may not be expected a 

 box-shooter can appreciate. His sole desire is to procure 

 birds. The charm of scenery, the changeful hues of au> 

 tumnal woods, the play of the breeze on the water, and the 

 many objects that brighten and enliven the landscape even 

 in winter time, have no attractions for him as he lies flat on 

 his back in his coffin-liKe shelter beneath the water; and he 

 cannot understand that any one should be willing to remain 

 on shore rather than practice a method that a great cloud of 

 witnesses can testify to be most hurtful to continued good 

 sport, and objectionable in every way. 



Now it seems that so far as "Sinkboat" and I are con- 

 cerned, this subject has been ventilated for as much as it is 

 profitable to us. He has argued from the experience he lias 

 gathered in his locality, honestly and with all courtesy. 1 

 have endeavored to show, I trust with equal consideration 

 for my correspondent, that despite the exceptional advant- 

 ages the Chesapeake waters possess, they have only partially 

 escaped the inevitable result of continued battery-shooting', 

 while other localities, partially in some, totally in others, 

 have been deprived of their fowl from the same course, it 

 is time now for us to give place to the host of sportsmen 

 throughout our land, who can bring competent testimony on 

 this question, so that, if battery-shooting is shown to be the 

 destructive and harmful thing I claim it is, then we can all 

 unite in having it suppressed by legal enactments within our 

 borders. Speak out, gentlemen. ' Saoamore. 



MASSACHUSETTS GAME PROTECTION. 



r pHE Massachusetts Fi(dr and Game Protective Association 

 JL has difficulties to contend with as well as other associations 

 which uudertake to reform men. Influenced by the market 

 interests, there is a strong impression among country people 

 not well informed, that the Fish and Game Protective Asso- 

 ciation is a society of "sporting gentlemen of leisure, who 

 want all the fish and game saved by law till they get ready 

 to catch or shoot." Marketmen, who know better, take 

 pains to spread this idea broadcast at every opportunity, till 

 it has become very difficult for those who desire laws whole- 

 some for the future of fish and game, as well as the good of 

 farmers and the owners of timber lands, to obtain legislation. 

 A greater mistake was never made. The Fish and Game 

 Protective Association is made up of hard-worked merchants 

 and professional men chiefly — men who do veiy little hunt- 

 ing or fishing in Massachusetts. Its members work and tax 

 themselves to obtain and enforce such laws as shall preserve 

 fish and game in the best manner for an increase and per- 

 petuation rather than utter extermination. Many of them, 

 who can ill afford the time, work in this direction from pure 

 love of the cause, since they never hunt or fi«h at all. Some 

 of them are earnest students of nature, and the leaping trout 

 and whirring grouse has more of interest to them than its 

 value in the stew-pan or as a mark to shoot at. But they are 

 misjudged all the same, and any action on Beacon Hill which 

 looks toward saving the deer, the trout or the partridge from 

 following the buffalo, fast to utter extermination, is looked 

 upon jealously by the "country member." He is made to 

 believe by the member who is' in league with the market 

 interest — and there are such members— that the trout and the 

 partridge are the special booty of the country boy. The 

 country member is usually the father ot the country boy, 

 and hence, any legislation which looks like favoring the Fish 

 and Game Protective Association — although so very wide of 

 that intention — is liable to be voted down. The '"country 

 member" from the backwoods of Maine has more sense. 

 He has trusted — legally voted to trust — the preservation and 

 propagation of fish and game in his State in the hands of a 

 couple of earnest, sensible commissioners. Witness the 

 result. A wonderful increase in both fish and game, 

 especially the larger game. Would the "member from 

 Cape Cod" agree to such a proposition? Not if he knows 

 himself; he has some pet theories of his own, chief among 

 which is the old one that fish and game belong to everybody, 

 and hence nobody has a right to attempt to save it. 



Some changes are being asked for in the Massachusetts fish 

 and game laws at the present session of the Legislature. 



One feature desired is a greater chance to bring conviction 

 upon the law breaker. Another is the greater protection of 

 song and shore birds, both of which are suffering severely 

 from the fashion of hat wearing. The destruction of birds 

 for millinery puposes is simply enormous, but will the Legis- 

 lature grant any help? It is uncertain. The matter is now 

 in the hands of the Committee on Agriculture. No bill has 

 yet been reported and printed. Some good measure may 

 pass, or it may go the way the excellent form of a bill did 

 last year— to defeat. But the Fish and Game Protective 

 Association is working in a different, direction. It is 

 increasing its membership rapidly, and taking new measures 

 to better inform the general public upon the question of fish 

 and game protection, Special. 



From Boston comes the news that the Legislative 

 Committee on Agriculture of the Massachusetts General 

 Court does not encourage us to hope for protection of geese 

 in spring. It is, however, possible that the Committee con- 

 templates some general game law, which will do away with 

 the destruction of geese, duck and shore bird while on their 

 way to their breeding grounds in the spring. The petition 

 is as follows : 



"To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives, 

 of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in General Court 

 assembled. The undersigned petitioners respectfully ask 

 that the statutes of the commonwealth in relation to the 

 preservation of birds, may be so amended that it shall be 

 unlawful to kill wild geese (so called), between the first day 

 of March and the first day of October, that being the period 

 during a part of which they are on their passage to their 

 breeding places at the north. Duxbury, Jan. 1, .1885." 



Signed by Horatio Chandler and fifty-eight others. 



Report of the Committee on Agriculture, leave to with- 

 draw, on the petition of Horatio Chandler and others for 

 such legislation as will prevent the killing of wild geese 

 between the first day of March and the first day of October. 

 (March 27, 1885). 



THE KILLING POWER OF BULLETS. 



THE following experiments were the initial ones of a ser- 

 ies which were instituted by an association of hunters, 

 professional and amateur, for the purpose of ascertaining the 

 comparative value of different sorts of ammunition and dif- 

 ferent styles of firearms for killing game. The trials are in- 

 tended to eventually embrace tests of accuracy, bnt for the 

 present are confined to ascertaining the penetrative power 

 of various bullets, and the size and nature of the wounds 

 they make. 



A target was constructed of material having, it was 

 judged, about as much resisting strength as the body of an elk 

 or bear. It is composed of successive thicknesses 'of planed 

 cedar boards, whereof nineteen are 16J inches thick. These 

 are a foot square, and are held together by cleats nailed 

 across the ends. Bullets are fired into the target in a direc- 

 tion perpendicular to the face, and four shots, distributed 

 symmetrically, are fired, when the target is taken to pieces 

 and the penetration ascertained. The wood being free' from 

 knots aud quite homogeneous, the results are trustworthy 

 and regular. The substance appears rather more difficult of 

 penetration than sugar pine. 



The first experiments were loosely conducted, and their 

 results are deemed not worth printing, as they were carried 

 on with the idea of determining the proper conditions under 

 which to proceed with the formal investigations which had 

 been decided upon. The first regular essays were made 

 with a Remington rifle of .44-caliber, center fire, and using 

 in each trial seventy-seven grains of powder, the normal 

 charge for the gun. The bullet was factory-made, patched, 

 hardened, and weighed 395 grains. Its penetration was 

 about fourteen and one-quarter inches. It was "upset" to 

 about three-fourths of its former length and increased to 

 about two-thirds of an inch in diameter. 



The second shot was with the same charge of powder but 

 with a 200-grain Winchester bullet, grooved, and composed 

 of soft lead. It flattened to a rough irregular form approach- 

 ing a disc, whose greatest diameter was 1- L V inches; pene- 

 tration, 9 inches. 



The third test was made with the same amount of powder 

 and with a factory -made bullet, so hard that it could scarcely 

 be chipped with 'a peuknife. Weight 520 grains; penetra- 

 tion, 18^ inches. The bullet cut a clean hole, was upset 

 scarcely at all, and very little deformed otherwise. 



The fourth and last charge consisted of 77 grains of pow- 

 der, and a round ball made from lead pipe and very soft. It 

 weighed 1S0| grains; penetration, o' inches and a fraction. 

 The bullet was flattened to a disc the size of a quarter dollar 

 and scarcely thicker. 



There is a vast difference in the size and shape of the per- 

 forations made by these four bullets, the fourth being the 

 roughest, and considering its depth the most capacious. It 

 becomes easy to understand one element of superiority pos- 

 sessed by the muzzleloading rifle, which uses the round ball. 

 An animal struck by such a ball would be lacerated worse 

 than by a much heavier cylinder conical one. Provided that 

 each of these four projectiles were given sufficient force to 

 penetrate an animal, death would" doubtless ensue more 

 quickly from the round bullet than from either of the others, 

 and judging by its behavior in wood, the long-range 520- 

 grain bullet would prove the least effective. 



We observed with interest that the holes cut by the four 

 bullets were about equal in cubical capacity. This fact was 

 ascertained by filling the cavities with plaster of paris and 

 allowing it to "set." Then splitting up the target we dis- 

 sected out the plaster cast of the bullet hole and compared 

 the four. This method is theoretically exact, since it would 

 only be necessary to weigh the material taken from each 

 hole and compare the weights. But in practice it is very 

 imperfect, inasmuch as the fibers of the wood become im- 

 bedded in the plaster and cannot be disengaged without some 

 loss of the latter, whence the accuracy of the experiment is 

 vitiated. The material we have adopted for targets is the 

 best procurable here, but as the fibers spring back after the 

 bullet has passed, afair measurement of the size of the aperture 

 cannot be well ascertained. A strictly homogeneous material 

 is needed, which would be cut away clearly by the bullet 

 and yet not afford resistance enough to break it up or distort 

 it too much. We shall feel obliged to some one who may 

 suggest a material, which can be quickly and easily procured. 



Our future experimenting is designed to include a course of 

 firing at targets of cedar covered with a thickness of bear or 

 elk skin.and including in its mass a stratum of oak or ash 

 woods to represent the skeleton of an animal, which would 

 usually act so as to divert or deform the bullet. I will com. 

 municate the results. Barron. 



Portland, Oregon, 



