468 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Jan. 7, 1886. 



DEER IN THE ADIRONDACKS- 



Editor Forest and Si/ream: 



I was prlad to learn by your correspondent "Muaset" of 

 the workinsr of the hounding law in some parts of the Adir- 

 ondacks. Perhaps ray own observations will be of interest 

 to you. I have recently returned from a five months' stay in 

 Essex county. When I arrived there in June, as it was 

 known that 1 had advocated the law, T was attacked on all 

 sides by the owners of dogs. Their ideas on the subject were 

 arnTising at times and often exasperating. They seemed to 

 think tbat the law was framed especially to deprive them of 

 their rights and said that hounding could not be stopped, and 

 if it was they would crust-hunt every deer in the woods; 

 that if any one should dare send detectives into the woods, 

 they (the detectives) would be shot on sight, and it was not 

 long after that the story was reported, with every detail, 

 of the shooting of the game constable from Malone for hav- 

 ing killed a dog near the Saranac. A few weeks later we 

 were told of the detection of his murderer. 



At the Saranac much the same story went the rounds, but 

 was located in the Eaquotte country. But through the sum- 

 mer the doss were kept tied up much more than usual, and 

 until late in the fall no hunting was done. Then one or two 

 small parties sent the dogs into the woods before daylight 

 and later in the day started out still-hunting. 



Late in the season hounding was practiced more openly. 

 Uut the slight observance of the law that there has been, 

 showed how much good will be accomplished if it is strictly 

 enforced. The deer were much tamer this fall than usual 

 and fed nearer the clearings. And the men who took ad- 

 vantage of the early snow, and went out still-hunting, were 

 very successful. 



I think there will be a strong effort to have the bill re- 

 pealed this winter. The dog men urge, and I think justly, 

 that floating is doing quite as much harm as the hounds. I 

 think the law should be amended to stop night-hunting, and 

 perhaps restrict all deer hunting to two or three months 

 of the year. 



1 think there is no question but that jack-hunting is doing 

 great harm, from the fact that many deer are wounded, and 

 get off to die in the woois, and many does are killed, leav- 

 ing fawns, that either die, or suffer so much for the proper 

 nourishment, that they are never of much account. The 

 law against bounding or jack-hunting will never be properly 

 enforced until detectives are sent into the woods to make 

 complaint against the violators of it, for the inhabitants 

 do not like to get their neighbors into trouble. And if we 

 have societies for the protection of game, that are in earnest, 

 they should see that the law is enforced. 



R. M. Shttrtleff. 



New York, Dec. 24. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



Tours of the 11th just received. In answer I can say that 

 the law was strenuoiisly lived up to in and around the Fulton 

 Chain, with a few exceptions around Raquette Lake. Still, 

 I regret to say, the deer have received a severer blow than 

 usual, and if the slaughter of 1885 was to continue for ten 

 years it would annihilate them. Fully two-thirds of the 

 deer killed this season were killed in November and shipped 

 to market. Of course it is much greater on account of the 

 Pennsylvania prohibitory law. which sends many of their 

 professional pot-hunters to this region, some of whom kill 

 twenty and thirty per man and some even more. Now, the 

 only way to prevent this and preserve the deer is to shorten 

 our season to Oct. 15, as the warm weather previous to tbat 

 date would be sufficient protection against any more being 

 killed than would be consumed on the spot. Of course the 

 pot-hunters and those who buy and sell venison would 

 "kick;" still, I go for the greater good to the greater number, 

 and above all to make the deer in the Adirondacks a per- 

 petual supply. It is a mistake that the guides are killing off 

 the deer for market, as a canvass would show that at least 

 two-lhirds of them would favor a short season from Aug. 1 

 to Oct. 15, with no other clause than a fine for killing or 

 having a doe or fawn for the next three years at least, and 

 better to make it five. E. L. Sheppard. 



BooNBVJjiLB, Dec. 24. 



AN OFFICIAL SLAUGHTER. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



Seated under a graceftilly curving pair of elk antlers, a 

 trophy of a fall bunt in the mountains of Wyoming, with a 

 pair of twelve-pointed antlers of a mule deer — commonly 

 called blacktail — trophy of the same hunt, suspended on 

 the wall to the right, and one of eight points on the left, 

 and a pair of horned owls looking grimly down from their 

 rustic perches in front, while a forty mile blizzard from the 

 west is sending the snow whirling in millions of frozen pel- 

 lets pounding against the window panes without, the writer 

 proposes to teU, in brief, the Forest and Stream some- 

 thing about a law-breaking, game-murdering hunt indulged 

 in not lona: ago by a sleek, lusty old gentleman (!) not un- 

 known to fame as a hunter, pioneer, author and an officer 

 of prominence in the army in the late war, but whose name 

 for shame shall not be told. He was accompanied by sev- 

 eral friends, a detachment of U. S. soldiers, about a dozen 

 citizen teamsters and packers in Government employ, and 

 three guides employed and paid by himself, so it is said. 

 For transportation, he had several Government teams and a 

 pack train of mules, and was further supplied at public ex- 

 pense with tents and other camp equipage. 



It is not necessary to trace in words the trail made by this 

 hero in going to his bunting grounds; it is sufficient to say it 

 was well marked with a varied assortment of empty bottles, 

 cans, boxes, etc., showing that "victuals varied well in taste 

 and other junkets," were liberally used. 1 will pass quickly 

 over the trail from Rock Creek station, TJ. P. Railway, 

 thence acrass the Medicine Bow Plains in a northwest di- 

 rection to his camp in the Caspar Mountains, located at a 

 point about sixty miles west and a little south of the now 

 rapidly vanishing military landmark known as Fort Fetter- 

 man. The canap was in a little valley, surrounded by 

 mountains extending miles in all directions, whose summits 

 and rugged slopes are crowned and adorned with hundreds 

 of beautiful park-like openings, forests and evergreens and 

 patches of the Populus tremula. Here, in season and out of 

 season, for days and weeks, this poacher and his unchris- 

 tian crowd radiated from the camp in all directions, killing 

 elk by the score, deer and antelope by dozens, and, in nearly 

 all cases leaving the flesh to rot where the murdered ani- 

 mals fell and died to pollute with its decaying taint the 

 crisp mouutain air as a reminder of their unsportsmanlike 

 and unholy work, and the bones to bleach in everlasting 

 monumental pules in memory of the outrages they thus per- 

 petrated. Over sixty elk, and about seventy-five deer and 



antelope were killed by this doughty hero and his followers. 

 Some of the elk were killed for their antlers, some for their 

 tusks, but most of them, as well as nearly all of the deer 

 and antelope, were shot down in a spirit of unadulterated 

 cussedness, pure and simple. 1 leave comments to abler 

 and more worthy hands, adding here the hope that some 

 one will hold this gentleman up to the public gaze and con- 

 tempt for the unparalleled meanness he displayed in thus 

 wantonly killing and murdering more than one hundred elk, 

 deer and antelope. Who will rise to the occasion ? Where 

 is Captain "Nessmuk"? A. P. 



DEER NOTES. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



It was about one week since one Lua Leopold was out 

 hunting deer (out of season) when he saw something move 

 which he shot and killed. That something proved to be a 

 man who was at work for his bread. I am told this same 

 Leopold shot an ox not long since in the same way. I think 

 he should be punished the same as though he killed the 

 man willfully, as he was engaged in an unlawful act at the 

 time (aside from shooting the man). 



I see that "California" says deer range from 100 to 850 

 pounds in the Upper Peninsula, and that he bagged a deer 

 that weighed 200 pounds. I will foot it twenty-five miles to 

 see one that turns honest scales at 350 pounds. The doe he 

 killed was sixty pounds heavier than I ever saw. i. e., with 

 insides taken out. Your con-espondent falls into an error 

 when he gives the name of the river as Manistique where it 

 enters into Lake Michigan. The name of the river is 

 Monistique. The town at the mouth (through a mistake 

 at Lansing) is Manistique, It is only an a or o. Blank. 



EscANABA, Mich., Dec. 25. 



TURKEY HUNTING IN VIRGINIA. 



WEARIED with the cares of the work day world, I 

 gladly accepted the invitation of the Judicial Mind 

 (of whose prowess anent the red drum at Anglesea, N. J., I 

 have, hitherto, enlightened your readers) for a few days' 

 shooting down in Old Virginia. We took the ordinary 

 chances for discomfort in bowling over bad roads, where the 

 trains seem to emulate the Georgia conductor's deflnitioQ of 

 a tri-weekly train, when he said, "We try half the week to 

 reach Squedunk, and the other half of the week we try to 

 get back again." Our point of departure was a station on 

 one of Mahone's many raUroads, where the Virginia localities, 

 contending for the name of the railw.ay station, some "mute 

 inglorious Milton" cut short the Gordian knot by calling the 

 stopping place for the steam horse Disputanta, and so the 

 station is called even unto this day, I could take a page in 

 Forest and Stream to do justice to the generous, whole- 

 souled hospitality of our Virginia friends, whose latch strings, 

 figuratively speaking, hung on the outer wall. The country 

 for miles around Disputanta resembles the pine woods 

 between May's Landing and Millville, New Jersey. The 

 farmhouses are a mile apart, and the deer frequently invade 

 the farmers' turnip patches, and with wild turkeys frequent in 

 the cypress swamps whence the cunning hunter calls the wily 

 turkey with a call made out of a three-inch piece of dogwood 

 in which is inserted a piece of turkey wing. 



My friend, Tobe Hodge, of whose sketches of hunting and 

 fishing in West Virginia the literary world will say, with 

 Father Paul, esto perpetua, wisely and truthfully hits off the 

 sportsman's rabies in his "Fishing in Elk River." He says: 

 "When a man once has absorbed into his system a love 

 for fishing or hunting, he is under the influence of an invis- 

 ible power, greater than that of vaccine matter or the virus 

 of rabies. The sporting fever is the veritable malady of St. 

 Vitus, holding its victim forever on the go, as game seasons 

 come, and so long as back and legs, eye and ear can wrestle 

 with Time's infirmitifs. * * * The gold seeker stakes 

 his claim, the wild-catting oil borer boards up his lot, the 

 inventor patents his invention, and the author copyrights his 

 brainfruit, but the s^wrtsman crazily tells all he knows. 

 'That's us." "Then! I never knew before what impulsive 

 power it was which caused me to shake with the spirit of 

 cacoetJm scribendi as soon as I caught a big fish or bagged a 

 score of squirrels. 



This is not a paper on deer or squirrels else I would tell 

 you how six deer were killed in two days, while the rabbits 

 and long-tailed rodents were too thick for a Virginia hunter 

 to waste his ammunition on. Judge Miller, almost born at 

 old Cape May, with a rod and reel in one hand and a shot- 

 gun in the other, had come to old Vu'ginia for two weeks' 

 sport. 



He was anxious to begin with the wild turkey, and Craf- 

 ford, one of the best shots in all the country round, assured 

 him that about nine miles from Disputanta was a cypress 

 swamp where the turkey "yelped" in comparative seclusion, 

 almost unmolested by the busy farmers in that locality. So, 

 on a bright November morning the Judicial Mind gathered 

 his traps (duffle "Nessmuk" calls it) and, with Crafford, 

 jolted over the bad roads till they struck the latitude of the 

 cypress swamp. The turkey hunter of Virginia believes in 

 a good setter dog as the proper accompaniment to every suc- 

 cessful turkey shoot, and no sooner had we hitched our team 

 than we let the "courser" loose. He soon had a flock of 

 turkeys on the wing. ,The Judicial Mind looked sadly as 

 they flew into the swamp swift as greased lightning, and 

 said, "That cooks our goose." 



"You just wait," replied Crafford confidently, "and you'll 

 soon be a hearin' something." 



Nobody knew better than this "Old Virginia Never-tire" 

 hunter of thirty years' practice that there is nothing a wild 

 turkey is so likely to do as to come out at the same hole he 

 goes in at; i, e , if you scare up a flock of turkeys, build 

 your blind and call in your dog, and then skillfully souiid 

 your turkey call, and ten to one you will bag two or three in 

 less than aii hour. Well, I was only a looker-on in Vienna, 

 and I had the laudable curiosity to see how the Judicial 

 Mind would work on the turkey call. I had heard him call 

 the "list" in court, with judicial severity. 



The blind was hastily put up by piling up logs about three 

 feet high and covering these with brush, then Crafford gave 

 them three or four calls. No answer. We lighted our 

 sweet-briar pipes and talked deer fifteen minutes, while the 

 gray squirrel was nimbly skipping above us, with a semi- 

 occasional and rasping bark, as if to proclaim his proprietary 

 rights in that ante-bellum forest. But when one goes for 

 turkey, rabbits and squirrels don't count. 



The Judicial Mind had exchanged his pipe for a ten-cent 

 Havana, when Crafford gave another yelp or call, which 

 was answered by a rousing big gobbler apparently half a 

 mile away in the bowels of the swamp. 



"Get ready, quick!" whispered Crafford; "don't you yer 

 him?" 



One more soft call, as if the amorous hen turkey sighed, 

 like Cleopatra, for her lord (and gobbler of the forest) 

 Antony, and the big gobbler himself came running toward 

 our improvised blind as a Philadelphia lawyer would run 

 with the devil after him. 



"Now," softly said the old sportsman, "no time to lose!" 



There stood a magnificent he-turkey, with neck glistening 

 in the sun like the sheen of the minarets of an Oriental 

 temple (metaphors come free in the woods). As to the 

 judicial Miller, as the darkies say, "What make his eyes 

 shine so?" He looked as glad with excitement as the robber 

 chieftain Hernani when he scooped his Donna Zanthe from 

 the arms of the fiery Don Carlos, in Hugo's drama. 



But swifter than I am telling all this to the Forest and 

 Stream Judge Miller had drawn a bead on the gobbler and 

 he bit the dust eo instanti, head and neck riddled with double 

 BBs, for he was not twenty steps away from the blind. 

 Swift as the wind the setter sprang over the log barrier and 

 had the turkey by the neck. 



It was the work of a moment to drag our ti-ophy inside of 

 the blind and prepare for offensive action against the rest of 

 the flock. This time it was a hen-turkey which, wearying 

 of solitude, answered Crafford's seductive call, only to be 

 bowled over ten steps off. 



This satisfied us for the day, and, with dog and guns, we 

 were soon jogging along belund a pair of mules toward 

 Disputanta, where, as the "looming bastions fringed with 

 fire" slowly followed to rest the sinking sun in the pillared 

 firmament, we sat down at Crafford's table, and if it did not 

 groan, we did from too much fat venison, fried chicken, 

 Virginia hoe cake and stewed rabbit, cooked with the deli- 

 cacy which distinguishes Delmonico's French cooks. I may 

 tell yon more about this paradise for hunters. J. M. S. 



THOSE CITY FELLOWS. 



Mr Editor 



Some gentlemen have been to home with our folks and 

 they left your paper and as I see such a lot of letters about 

 shootin I calculated I would right your paper one as how 

 we have such a right smart lot of game hereabouts but not 

 so plenty as used to be I reckon for pap says that there was 

 a time when a heap of deer could be killed hereabouts I 

 reckon them must been mighty good times besides these for 

 we dont find nothing with four legs bigger then a fox and 

 mighty scerce they be to, but we get right smart of rabbits 

 and possom, but we dont hunt rabljits the way the city fel- 

 lows do because we cant get many that way, they had nice 

 dogs but they did not do much good because they wouldent 

 run after them, they would only stand and look at them 

 when they would jump up the same as they would when 

 phesents and partriges would be near them, I never took a 

 liken to a dog that wouldent go after rabbits, but the gentle- 

 men said that was the way for them kind of dogs to hunt 

 and they said as how we ortento hunt with feritts but if we 

 dident we wouldent get much more than the city fellows 

 with there new kind of guns as paps g\m is a mighty good 

 gun but only shoots one bulit, and when we told them as 

 how we always went after birds without a dog they dident 

 think we could get so many but you see they dident know 

 we took paps gun, and they take there dogs and always have 

 to shoot when the birds fly, but we have a better way than 

 that we always slip up to them and shoot them before they 

 fly away but we never get more than one at a time with paps 

 gun and 1 guess them fellows when they went home wished 

 theyd taken our pattern for I herd one say to totber that 

 fine dogs and guns and fixins wouldent get right smart of 

 game, but I always like the fellows that comes from the city 

 as they be mighty clever and by all the rabbits and birds our 

 boys shoot and give us right smart for them to, and we 

 always like to show these feUows were to find the rabbits 

 and birds but somehow rother they don't get many and so 

 we sell them ours, but city men be not all alike for last year 

 there come a little fellow with a kind of fancy cloths and 

 sort of red face with red hair on the sides and with 3 dogs 

 same coler and when I asked him if he wanted me to show 

 him were the game was he said he guessed not and he went 

 by his self and come back to home with such a lot of birds 

 as I says to myself he must have had as good a gun as paps, 

 anyhow I kinder thought he wasent a regular city fellow 

 and asked him bout it and he said he used to be a game- 

 keeper for lord somebody in England, anyhow I dont want 

 to see any more little fellows bout here with face and hair 

 and wiskers and dogs all alike, I vrish all the gentlemen as 

 comes this way would bring your paper with them Yours 

 truly Hezekiah Wilson. 



BuTLEE County, Pa. 



PHILADELPHIA NOTES. 



IT is told by Ed Lynch, who shoots for the Maxwell's 

 Point Ducking Club, that on one occasion, having two 

 New York gentlemen with him and succeeding in taking 

 in a large flock of canvasbacks and redheads, the result of 

 the combined fire of the three guns made such slaughter and 

 so much blood was visible on the water after the discharge 

 that one of the sportsmen could not stand the sight of it and 

 fainted dead away and did not recover for fifteen minutes. 

 Much is learned in talking with such men as Lynch and 

 McComar. Lynch tells me "never undertake to crawl on a 

 flock of ducks when the wind is off shore; it is no use and 

 can't be done." Both McComar and Lynch state that duck- 

 shooting from points where artificial points have been built 

 out is not so good as that from points where only the natural 

 extension into the water is relied upon. Tub shooting is 

 doing as much damage as the battery shooting. The Dela- 

 ware still seems favored with both mallard and black ducks, 

 and not a day passes but reports come from below that they 

 are plentiful. 



The snow in the interior parts of the State has entirely 

 disappeared, and at no time since winter set in has there 

 been a damagins: crust. Ver^ few quail have been killed in 

 our State this winter, and it is hoped the season may coa- 

 tinue open to aid their increase. 



Rabbits have been unusually plentiful in Pennsylvania 

 this year, and more black bears have been killed in Pike 

 and Sullivan counties than at any time for many years. 



On Dec. 39 one of the largest fox-chases, as to number of 

 horsemen and dogs, took place at Lionvilie, in Uwchland 

 township of Chester county, the occasion being what is 

 called a bog hunt. The fox was dropped at 3 o'clock, and a 

 few minutes later over two hundred hounds and over one 

 hundred horsemen set out in vigorous pursuit. Among t^ie 

 riders were two old hunters from Charlestown, John Kf^b- 

 ler and Charles Fetters, aged respectively eighty and ei,«^ity- 



