Feb. 11, 1886. J 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



49 



to this are not worth mentioning. The dog will run an old 

 doe with young as eagerly as a buck in the short blue, 

 Hounding enables the rich sportsman to monopolize as large 

 a tract of country as he pleases. Hounding does not favor 

 sharp shooting nor quick shooting. The deer is not killed on 

 the full jump, but on the full swim. Hounding makes all 

 other methods practically impossible, by driving the deer 

 from tbeir watering places, and making them too shy for 

 successful still-hunting. Hounding allows the sportsman 

 little exercise of skill, as the deer is shot ih the water at 

 short range; the skill is on the part of the guide, who works 

 not for fun but $2,50 per dav. 



Now the question comes, If this method of taking deer is 

 unfair and ought to be unlawful, what methods are fair? 

 I claim that floating gives many more chances to the deer 

 than hounding. He who thinks that to kill a deer by means 

 of a j ; ick light is the same thing as seeing him, has had no 

 experience with the "lanthorn" in the North Woods. Deer 

 come to know the meaning of the light very quickly, and 

 often all the intimation the hunter has of the presence of 

 game is a vicious snort and the musical thump, thump of 

 vanishing hoofs in the darkness. To carry a lamp on one's 

 head, sit still, aim the gun accurately enough while trying to 

 keep the equilibrium in a frail boat or log canoe, and shoot a 

 deer, knowing full well that what is done must be done 

 quickly; all these factors supply an element of uncertainty 

 to the problem which the man in the boat bounding over the 

 waves after a deer run to water by dogs never has to take into 

 account. There is something so weird and strangely bewitch- 

 ing about a mountain lake or river at night, that for me, at 

 least, there is pleasure even in drifting over the placid sur- 

 face, propelled, as it were, by an unseen, intangible force; 

 and then to add to this, which, if you please, you may call 

 nonsense, the thought that the snapping of a twig, a vague 

 shape undefined in the darkness, may mean game, bring in 

 those elements which always constitute sport, or uncertainty, 

 skill, excitement, fairness. 



Does any one object to my plea for floating? Very well. 

 To please him, I'll not float; but he must be fair now, and 

 to please me, he must not hound, I should be perfectly will- 

 ing to pay the price of not floating, if by statute law the 

 cowardly, destructive practice of dogging deer could be for- 

 ever stopped in our glorious Adirondacks. 



The only time a dog is in order is to catch a wounded 

 deer. In such a case I would use and have used a dog. In 

 no other case would I attempt to justify the practice. St. 

 Lawrence county forbids hounding within her borders, but 

 the law is practically a dead letter. Boundaries are not well 

 defined in the. great woods. I am glad for so much, how- 

 ever; but I for one who love hunting for its own sake, and 

 find in the grand old woods my best recreation, hope that the 

 present Legislature will maintain inviolate the law against 

 hounding. NiTRA-\r. 



Gouvernkur, St. Lawrence County, N. Y. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



Last month in the northern part of Oneida county I met 

 a number of sportsmen, and found by conversing with them 

 that nine out of ten were opposed to turning the dogs loose 

 again. If the Boonville Herald would print the whole of 

 the correspondence sent to it instead of suppressing a large 

 part, as they have done, then perhaps there would not be as 

 many supporters of dogging as there are now. I think most 

 of the cry for dogs we see in the Boonville Herald is self-in- 

 terest. The owners of teams who carry the dog-hunting 

 deer-slayers live in Boonville. All supplies that are not 

 taken with parties from home are bought in Boonville. Some 

 of the guides live there, and most of the hotels on the Fulton 

 Chain get their supplies in Boonville. Is it anything strange 

 then that the Boonville Herald and most of the people of the 

 place should be in favor of dogging deer, when it brings so 

 many sportsmen their way, besides all the pot-hunters? If 

 more men went still-hunting than dogging deer, 1 have no 

 doubt the same Herald would be as anxious for the law to 

 remain as it is as any one. There is no doubt but self-interest 

 has a great deal to do with the stand the Herald takes on the 

 dog law. I am willing to admit self-interest has a bearing 

 with all of us, and in many cases too much. The sooner 

 our lawmakers make laws to protect the game regardless of 

 self-interest the better. Gall off the dogs. C. D. F. 



Little Falls, N. Y., Feb. 4. 



Marketing Michigan Venkon. — The Marquette, Mich.. 

 Mining Journal has already called to the attention of sports- 

 men and others interested iu the preservation of the game in 

 this peninsula, the urgent need of a more vigilant enforce- 

 ment of the laws, and of further protection for the deer in 

 our forests. The figures then given were surprising to many, 

 who had not supposed that such a wholesale slaughter of 

 deer was going on, and the figures given related only to the 

 single station of Munising, on the D., M. & M., at that. A 

 letter written to a prominent sportsman of Marquette now 

 lies before the writer; it gives the number of pounds of 

 venison saddles shipped from the station of Floeter, on the 

 fX, M. &M., during the open season, from Aug. 15 to Nov. 

 15, and also estimates the amount, not included in the ship- 

 ments, cousumed in camp and other places. There was ship- 

 ped from Floeter in the interval mentioned 66,840 pounds of 

 venison, saddles only, while the number of pounds consumed 

 in the vicinity is thought to be about 14,000. This means 

 that in the vicinity of Floeter alone between Aug. 15 aud 

 Nov. 15, about 1,150 deer were killed; estimating the aver- 

 age weight of a saddle as 70 pounds it would give 1,147 

 killed, of which record was kept. It does not require much 

 intellectual effort for one to decide from the above showing 

 that soon, and very soon at this rate, our boasted hunting 

 will be a thing of the past. Such has been the experience in 

 other favorite haunts of game where such indiscriminate 

 slaughter has been practiced, and such will be the result here 

 unless steps are speedily taken to check the evil. There are 

 enough prominent sportsmen in Marquette to whom the 

 matter is of great moment, to have it in their power to bring 

 about a change for the better, if they would but combine and 

 make an effort in that direction. Violations of the game 

 laws are common ana notorious here, but the reporter has 

 yet to hear of any one being prosecuted and compelled to pay 

 the penalty for his infringement of the statutes. Is the object 

 not of sufficient importance to warrant prompt action on the 

 part of those who wish to protect the game hereabouts? The 

 Mining Journal thinks that it is, and trusts that local sports- 

 men will organize at once and check the evil. 



THE TRAJECTORY TEST. 

 q^HE full report of the Fohest and Stbeam's trajectory test of hunt- 

 -*- ing rifles has been issued in pamphlet form. For sale at this 

 office, or sent post-paid. Price 50 ceDts, 



A MISLEADING DOCUMENT. 



'HE members of the Legislature at Albany have received 

 copies of a pamphlet entitled, "The Preservation of 



Deer in Our Northern Woods." It purports to be sent to 

 them by the Eastern New York Fish and Game Protective 

 Association. The introduction embodying the argument is 

 by Dr. Samuel B. Ward, the president of that association. 

 We print this argument in full: 



At a meeting of the Eastern New York Fish and Game Protective 

 Association, held on Jan. 13, 188(5, the President stated that soon after 

 the organization of the Association the attention of the Executive 

 Committee haa been called to the present condition of the law in this 

 State concerning the preservation of the deer in the Adirondack 

 region, aud thai he had been directed to correspond with well-kn»wn 

 residents of the North Woods and others— those who were most iu 

 terested in the success of that district of the State, and knew most 

 about it— and ascertain what their views were on this subject. A 

 part of the lett ,ers, extracts of letters aud documents which follow, 

 were received in reply. It is to be regretted that lack of space pre- 

 vents the publication of them all in full. 



Concerning the number of deer iu the Woods now, as compared 

 with five and ten years ago, two or three correspondents think that 

 it may have diminished; the very large majority think they have 

 decidedly increased iu number. In other words, it is clear that the 

 provisions of the law of lb79 were, on the whole, wise .and good, and 

 resulted in permitting the deer to increase and multiply. Neverthe- 

 less there were many who thought that it would be a great improve- 

 ment to forbid entirely the sending of deer to market, and not a 

 siugle correspondent objected to this addition to the law. Those who 

 objected to the hounding of deer at any season based their opposition 

 on the fact that so many of these creatures were killed late in the 

 season for market, and it is believed that the proposed law, which 

 will be found further on, will fully meet this objection. 



As to the most sportsmanlike manner of hunting deer, opinions 

 were nearly equally divided between hounding and still-hunting, with 

 a small preponderance in favor of the former method. Those who 

 objected to hounding did so on the ground that when the deer was 

 once in the water he had no chance to get away. In the first place, 

 many deer do get away afcer the dog has driven them to water. And 

 it is very difficult to understand how the deer has any better chance 

 against the still-hunter, when the latter, treading three or four inches 

 of snow with the noiseless tread of moccasined feet, and cultivating 

 all the virtues that adorn the sneak thief and assassin, deliberately 

 puts a bullet through his unwary victim before he is apprised of 

 the least danger. The letters will show that if the deer are not 

 made shy by the pursuit of dogs, of whose approach they have am- 

 ple warning, one still-hunter can kill more deer in a season than 

 two or three guides with dogs. If the deer have been hounded dur- 

 ing the proper season, still-hunting; cannot of course be so success- 

 ful. The experience of the autumn of 1885 shows that the still-hunters 

 so glutted the market as to bring the price of venison down to ten 

 cents, and in come localities to four cents a pound, when hounding 

 was forbidden. 



As to jack-hunting, not a single correspondent had anything to say 

 iu its favor. The objectors to it were very numerous: first, because 

 mauy deer are wounded and drag themselves off in the woods to die 

 for every one that is recovered and used; and, second, because it is 

 very difficult for the huuter to tell whether he is shooting at a buck, 

 a doe or a fawn. Certainly no one can claim that it is sportsmanlike 

 to be noiselessly paddled up within a few feet of an unsuspecting doe 

 or fawn and blaze away, very m uch at random, with a double-barreled 

 shotgun, loaded with buckshot. 



With one single exception the correspondents were all in favor of 

 rescinding the law of last year and of permitting the hounding of 

 deer for a proper length of time, about the duration of whicn there 

 was some difference of opinion. Those who preferred only a short 

 season for the use of dogs, assigned as a reason that so many deer 

 were killed for market in this way late in the autumn, the proposed 

 manner of meeting which has already been stated. 



The Executive Committee having attentively considered all the 

 suggestions made in the various communications received, instructed 

 tbeir counsel to draw up a bill to be introduced into the Legislature 

 at as early a date as practicable, which should embody the views of 

 as many intelligent and interested persons, and antagonize as few as 

 possible. 



The law of 1879 has proved a success after five years' trial: nearly 

 everybody was satisfied with it and the deer had increased under itin 

 almost all sections of the Woods; where they had diminished it was 

 due to hunting for market. A large number of persons thought that 

 the season was too long and, therefore, the proposed new law closes it 

 two weeks earlier than did the law of 1879, and it is believed that no 

 one will suffer any serious injury or inconvenience thereby. In all 

 other respects the dates of the law of 1879 are adhered to. 



The provision that no deer shall be sent to market from the Adiron- 

 dacks was considered an absolute necessity by almost everybody who 

 knew anything about the matter. The hotel keepers and the guides 

 understand that the preservation of the game is in their interest as 

 much as in that of any one else— that the tourists and sportsmen who 

 go there virtually support the region. Not one in twenty of thelatter 

 class is a still-hunter, or has the leisure to go there at the season when 

 still-hunting is a possibility; ninety-nine one-hundredths of them find 

 more sport in hounding than in any other method of hunting. To per- 

 mit hounding will attract visitors; to forbid it will drive them else 

 where. The testimony is universal that each deer killed byasummer 

 visitor leaves in the Woods from a hundred and fifty to three hundred 

 dollars; and that the number killed by them, in any and every way, 

 amounts to nothing at all compared with the number hitherto killed 

 for maruet, and which yield to the owner some seven or eight dollars 

 apiece at the outside. To prevent the sending of venison to market 

 from this region is a hardship to those only who do not live in the 

 Woods; and it will be very little injury to them since it is estimated 

 that in the large cities of this State not less than ninety per cent, of 

 the venison comes from outside the State. If as many deer are 

 killed annually in the future as were the past fall, under the anti- 

 hoi.nding law, in five or ten years the deer in the Adirondactcs will 

 become as scarce as the moose row are, the region will offer no at- 

 tractions to sportsmen, the octupj,Jon of the hotel-keepers and 

 guides will be gone, and the city Vi ill be no better off than under the 

 proposed law. 



The talk about its being unsportsmanlike to follow deer with 

 hounds, bred and trained for the purpose, is all nonsense. In all ages 

 of the world, in all countries and climes, from time immemorial, it 

 has always been, as it still is, the most exhilarating, exciting and 

 sportsmanlike manner of hunting deer. It is one of the least destruc 

 tive methods- very few deer, if any, are wounded and lost; and in 

 this State it is objected to only oy those pot-hunters and still-hunters 

 who desire to kill the most deer in the shortest possible time, for the 

 few paltry dollars that their flesh and hides may bring. 



Samuel B. Ward. 



Albany, N. Y., Jan. 25, 1886. 



The remainder of the document consists of letters giving 

 the views of a number of advocates of hounding. These 

 views are stated to be "virtually epitomized in the above re- 

 marks" by Dr. Ward. 



This pamphlet goes to the Legislature with the sanction of 

 the Eastern New York Fish and Game Protective Associa- 

 tion. It is put out as the result of an investigation under- 

 taken by that society. When an association professedly 

 working for right game protection institutes an inquiry into 

 a subject of such grave concern as Adirondack deer hound- 

 ing, it is bound by the professions of its title to conduct that 

 inquiry fairly, without prejudice, and thoroughly, When 

 it makes a statement based on the result of that inquiry 

 and intended to influence legislation in the direction of 

 right game protection, that statement should be fair, 

 unwarped by prejudice, and candid, giving the truth, 

 and basing arguments and conclusions on well determined 

 facts. The document now before us is not fair. It is not 

 unprejudiced. It is not candid. It conceals the truth. 

 It suppresses the facts. Its arguments are based on mis- 

 representations. It is not a safe guide for legislation in the 

 interest of game protection. 



1. It is misleading and deceptive because it purports to be 

 the result of an honest inquiry by a game society. As a 

 matter of fact, it is a collection of arguments gathered by 



deer bounders to bolster up deer hounding. The president 

 states that he was directed to correspond with well-known 

 residents and others interested in the North Woods. By the 

 further statement that with "one single exception," his cor- 

 respondents were all iu favor of rescinding the law of last 

 year, he virtually confesses that only those persons were 

 written to who were known or believed to be advocates of 

 deer bounding. The "one single exception" was a mistake 

 on his part; he had misjudged his man. The officers of the 

 association, themselves deer bounders, instead of conducting 

 an impartial canvas to truly determine public sentiment, 

 constituted themselves a partisan committee to drum up am- 

 munition for their cause. Mr. W. W. Byington, the asso- 

 ciation's secretary, wrote some of these letters of inquiry, 

 and one of the published replies comes from the Boonville 

 Herald editor, a pronounced advocate of dogging deer. This 

 is the way the reply begins: "Yours at hand. I am exceed- 

 ingly pleased to find that our ideas are alike ob the deer- 

 hounding law." Had Messrs. Ward and Byington, as pri- 

 vate individuals, gathered this material for their purpose and 

 presented it to the Legislature on their own responsibility, 

 that would have been perfectly proper; but to presume to 

 offer it on the pretense of its being a game society's public- 

 spirited action is a different thing altogether. If the East- 

 ern New York Association was not organized by active deer 

 bounders for the express purpose of conjuring with its name 

 at Albany to help their cause, the members owe to the public 

 a disclaimer of this pamphlet sent in the society's name to 

 the Legislature. 



2. The document is misleading and deceptive because it 

 pretends to represent public sentiment. After such a one- 

 sided inquiry as this was, the result of necessity cannot in 

 any way reflect public, opinion. The compilers of the 

 pamphlet studiously avoid giving the side (which in point 

 of number and character is by far the most worthy of being 

 heard) opposed to their own private dogging interests. They 

 suppress the other side entirely, even when pretending to 

 give the views elicited by others. For example, on page 14 

 they profess to give the views contained in the correspond- 

 ence published in the Glens Falls Republican. But among 

 the diverse views expressed there, they select and print only 

 two letters, one written by S. J. Palmer, of Indian Lake, 

 who wants the deer hounding law repealed because certain 

 lawless ruffians in his neighborhood persist in slaughtering 

 deer with hounds; and another from Oliver St. Marie, a store 

 keeper of the same place, who trades supplies to these deer 

 butchers in exchange for deer pelts. Now, if these pamphlet 

 compilers who pose as game protectionists, honestly intended 

 to give the Legislature a fair statement of public feeling on 

 this question, why did they not print the letter from A. C. 

 Clifton, of Hague, published in the Bepubtican of Jan. 8. 

 Mr. Clifton wrote : 



"Moose and beaver were natives of the Adirondacks and no voice 

 was raised to prevent their destruction. Our rivers swarmed with 

 salmon and they too have disappeared. Deer and trout are sure to 

 follow them, but by judicious management the day of their dis- 

 appearance may be long delayed. One thing, however, is certain, 

 we must give up the deer or the dogs at once. Of all tbe methods of 

 deer bunting the use of hounds is the most destructive and inhuman. 

 Crust hunting is but little less so when practiced, which is not once 

 where dogs are used a hundred times. A hunter who is so disposed 

 can use his dogs and kill deer any day in the year. The c.-ust 

 hunters' time is limited to a very few weeks, and the fact that the 

 game at that season is worthless and unfit for food, is in itself a 

 great protection. He who must float for skin-poor does, can do so 

 only in dy time. For a certainty the dog is always resorted to. 

 When his owner has no use for him he hunts for bis own amust- mont, 

 and, left to run at large, ill cared for and ill fed, he takes to the deer 

 yards and the destruction is completed. 1 have said that the practice 

 is inhuman, and to sustain the assertion will give you one instance 

 amnng many in my personal experience upon which the charge is 

 1 ased. 



"I ,vas hunting with a party at the head of the Boreas River. Re - 

 turning late one day from starting dogs, while crossing a neck of the 

 big swamp at the upper end of Saddlebag Pond, I heard a deer bleat- 

 ing loud aud often, I made my way to the spot, which proved to be 

 in a brook filled at that place with windfall and floodwood. Here 

 was a tired-out deer, tangled in a mass of vines and brushwood, and 

 one of the largest hounds I ever saw was eating from the quivering 

 flanks of the living animal. As I approached, the dog (a strange 

 one) made a vicious spring at me. I kicked him off and he returned 

 to his ghoulish meal. The pitiful cries of the deer, and the savage 

 demonstration of the hound toward myself, decided me at once , 

 and I sent a bullet through his head. I cut away the brush with my 

 sheath knife and approached the deer, a beautiful doe, which made 

 no effort to escape, but looked up in my face with its beautiful, 

 pleading, almost human eyes, as if to thank me for the relief from 

 torture that had come too late to save its life. Had it been possible 

 for the deer to live no hand of mine would have been raised against it. 

 but an examination pioved that it was injured past all hope of re- 

 covery and I shot it'dead in its tracks. This is not an isolated case, but 

 one of many I have seen, and such as are daily happening where 

 dogs are used. 



"The lines of the territory inhabited by deer are ever contracting, 

 and are already nearly beyond our county limits. The present law 

 enforced to the letter, as it will be unless the courts refuse to do 

 tbeir duty, we regard as the last chance for deer on the barren and 

 useless mountains which occupy the northern portion of Warren 

 county." 



This eagerness with which everything in favor of hound- 

 ing — no matter how false or preposterous it is — is seized by the 

 pamphlet compilers, and the equal zeal with which they seek 

 to conceal the actual sentiment of the great majority of in- 

 telligent and unselfish citizens, lay bare the covert purpose 

 of the society's officers and stamp the document as untrust- 

 worthy, even though it bears the pretentious sanction of a 

 "game protective association." No honest attempt at wise 

 game protection ever yet demanded such perversion and 

 suppression of truth to accomplish its ends — and never 

 will. 



3. The pamphlet is further misleading and deceptive when 

 it states that hounding "is objected to only by those pot- 

 hunters and still-hunters who desire to kill the most deer in 

 the shortest possible time." The truth is that the most 

 intelligent and public-spirited sportsmen recoguized the im- 

 perative necessity of a law against hounding, worked to 

 secure it, have been hearty in their support of it, and now 

 demand that it be retained. To cite a few names— Hon. O. 

 B. Matteson, of Wilmurt Lake, wrote to Governor Hill hu$ 



