Feb. 18, 1886. J 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



69 



THE ADIRONDACK DEER. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



Among the devices adopted last fall by pot-hunters, wish- 

 ing to evade the anit-houndinglaw, was a ruse which worked 

 successfully wherever resorted to, for the game protectors 

 did not learn of the dodge until after the hunters had left 

 the woods or ceased shooting. I will cite a case by way of 

 illustration: A party of hunters, sis or eight in number, 

 entered the wilderness and encamped on Moose River. They 

 devoted their time to sitting on the runways, ostensibly 

 watching for any deer which might, of its own free will, 

 wander their way. Under ordinary circumstances, as every 

 hunter knows full well, such a proceedins; would be sheer 

 folly, for the chances of getting a deer in this manner are 

 very slight indeed, especially at the season of the year when 

 this party was on the warpath. That the hunters knew 

 what they were about was demonstrated by the fact that 

 from one to half a dozen deer could be taken by them in a 

 day. At first their success appeared to be due to chance, 

 but the seldom varying good fortune attending their silent 

 vigils led other sportsmen who had unsuccessfully tried the 

 same method of hunting to suspect something "rotten in Den- 

 mark." When questioned closely the hunters said that it 

 was almost an every day occurrence for one or more "strange 

 dogs" to run deer into the stream, and the party depended on 

 the so-called chance visitations for its supply of venison. 



To experienced woodsmen the story looked decidedly thin, 

 but it was not until after the hunters left the woods that the 

 truth of the matter came out. The facts as stated by one 

 who knows are these: Before entering the woods the hunters 

 sent a guide with three or four hounds on ahead of them, 

 with the understanding that he should occupy a shanty half 

 a mile distant from the stream and never, under any circum- 

 stances, appear at tlie other camp. He was instructed to 

 keep away from the other members of the party as far as 

 possible while in the woods, and was to receive orders from 

 one of the hunters who would stealthily visit his quarters 

 about sundown and map out the work for the next day. 

 His duties were to care for the dogs at his lodge during the 

 night and to put them out after deer in the morning for the 

 benefit of the hunters on the river. It was the understanding 

 that the dogs should be started on fresh tracks only iu order 

 that the run might be brief and the chances of detection 

 correspondingly lessened. In case a stranger happened 

 along and saw or heard a hound in pursuit of a deer all 

 hands were expected to swear that it was a stray one. A dog 

 was never to be allowed to stay at the main camp. 



The ruse worked well last fall, but the game protectors are 

 better posted now and will be on the lookout for such chaps 

 next season. 



This is one of the many dodges resorted to by pot-hunters 

 to obtain a supply of deer for the market, and there is no 

 doubt but that hundreds were killed in this manner last year. 

 It is a conceded fact that hounds could be heard running iu 

 the woods every day last fall, in the vicinity of lakes or large 

 streams, but it was an extremely difficult matter to find a 

 man who would confess to owning one. 



The opposers of the anti-hounding act are strictly non- 

 committal on this subject, as they are seeking to make' it ap- 

 pear that the still-hunters killed all the deer. I am indebted 

 to one of this class, however, for the facts concerning the 

 ruse adopted in the Moose River region. Portsa. 



TJtioa, N. Y., Feb. 12. 



[From the New York Times, Feb. 14.] 

 It is not necessary, however, to share the acrimony of the 

 contest in order to arrive at an impression with regard to its 

 merits. Nor is it necessary to go into the incidental ques- 

 tions as to the comparative demerits of "dogging" and "jack- 

 ing." It may be proper, however, to explain for the benefit 

 of those who know nothing about the subject that dogging 

 or hounding deer has very little likeness to the stag bunt, 

 as described and depicted by romantic writers and painters, 

 in which the mounted hunters as well as the hounds pursue 

 the quarry. As practiced in the Adirondacks, it is not even 

 the form of sport in which the hunter establishes himself at 

 a stand where the lay of the land makes it likely that a 

 hunted deer will pass him and take a shot at him as he goes 

 by. The dogs run the deer to a lake, on the surface of which 

 the hunter is afloat, and when the deer takes the water he 

 lias no chance for his life, because his speed is destroyed 

 when he takes to swimming. On shore, if a bad marksman 

 misses him he goes free for that time. But on the water the 

 bad marksman has as many shots as he chooses to take at an 

 animal that can neither fight nor run There are even stories 

 of guides paddling alongside the swimming deer and holding 

 him by the tail the while the adventurous sportsman beats 

 out the victim's brains with a club. 



It will be admitted that there is nothing inspiriting or 

 picturesque about this method of destroying deer. Those 

 who practice it declare that those who object to it are pot- 

 hunters, while those who oppose itinsist that its practitioners 

 are inspired either by the hope of gain or by the love of mere 

 slaughter. Mere slaughter is not "sport" in any sense that 

 entitles the sportsman to any consideration from the Legis- 

 lature, or from anybody else. 



The question, however, is not to be settled according to 

 the dictates of good taste in sporting matters. The preser- 

 vation of wild animals, birds and fishes, if they are not 

 noxious or dangerous, and the prevention of unnecessary 

 cruelty are the only considerations that justify the passage of 

 game laws. The tourist who desires to kill deer by way of 

 resting his intellect from the cares of business, and the pot- 

 hunter, for whom the tourist entertains a fine scorn and who 

 shoots for market, are entitled to equal consideration. The 

 question is, or should be, what legislation is desirable in 

 order to prevent the extirpation of deer in the Adhondocks 

 as moose and beaver have already been extirpated ? 



From this point of view the main objection to be found to 

 the law of last year is that it does not go far enough. Hound- 

 ing is objectionable to those who wish to preserve deer, 

 because it is too nearly "a sure thing." The very first 

 requisite is that no more deer shall be shot than are needed 

 for the consumption of those who shoot them. If this plain 

 rule was enforced a short season of hounding might possibly 

 be allowed — say the ten days that are now permitted in Suf- 

 folk county. But the taking of venison out of the Adiron- 

 dacks for market ought to be strictly prohibited, and the pro- 

 hibition could be enforced only by prescribing penalties for 

 taking it out for any purpose whatever. The Adirondacks 

 now contribute but a small fraction to our supply of venison, 

 though this fraction is important in its relation to the num- 

 ber of deer still surviving in the Adirondacks. It would per- 

 haps be necessary to prohibit the killing of deer altogether 

 for a term of years, though such a prohibition would be 



opposed, by tbe residents of tbe region, whose support it is, 



of course, desirable to enlist, and whose support would be 

 enlisted if they were convinced that their own ultimate in- 

 terests required a restriction to be put upon deer shooting. 



The State has two interests in the Adirondacks. One — 

 the most important — is to prevent the wanton destruction of 

 timber, and the other to prevent the wanton destruction of 

 game. When the timber is all cut and the game all exter- 

 minated the region will be almost entirely worthless. It will 

 be difficult to attain either object so long as the lauds are 

 held by private owners. The oftener the question comes up 

 and the more it is discussed, the clearer it appears that the 

 acquisition of the tract for a State park is the ultimate solu- 

 tion of the problems that arise with regard to its treatment 

 by the Legislature. 



[From the New York Evening Post, Feb. IS.] 

 Dr. Samuel B. Ward, who is President Cleveland's camp- 

 ing companion in the Adirondacks, has written an argument 

 in favor of the repeal of the anti deer hounding law by the 

 New York Legislature. Forest and Stream takes up this 

 argument and disposes of it very effectively, going so far as 

 to charge, point by point, that Dr. Ward's statements are 

 "misleading and deceptive." 



[From the New York Sun, Feb. 14.] 

 The Adirondack woods should be preserved, and so should 

 the Adirondack deer. To that end the present law forbid- 

 ding the hounding of deer should stand. 



The following was published in the Times of Feb. 14: 

 "I am very sorry to see the stand your paper takes on the 

 deer hounding question. I, for one, wish to be put down as 

 a sportsman that does not favor the hounding of deer. I 

 am an old sportsman and know a great many who are 

 opposed to changing the law. In fact I am happy to say 

 that I do not knowa a single genuine sportsman that favors 

 driving deer in that manner. What sport there is in hound- 

 ing a deer to the water and then either clubbing him to 

 death or blowing him full of buckshot while the guides hold 

 him by the tail, I fail to see. As a member of the Society 

 for the Protection of Game of this city, I wish to correct 

 the statement you make, that we favor a change of the law. 

 I was present at the meeting when this was brought up, and 

 we were decidedly opposed to it and sent a resolution to 

 that effect to the Governor at hi3 request, Hounded venison 

 is not fit to eat; it soon turns black and will often cause sick- 

 ness. Would you like to eat beef that had been driven for 

 hours before being killed ? 1 do not understand why, if so 

 many more deer were killed under the new law, these people 

 wish it changed. I should like to see a law passed forbid- 

 ding the use of shotguns in deer hunting. Many deer are 

 wounded that escape to die, where if a rifle was used they 

 would either be kifled or missed. Cockney sportsmen need 

 hounds and clubs and buckshot, to kill deer, and do so kill 

 them out of mere wanton love of killing, leaving them to 

 rot where they fall. True sportsmen can kill them, at least 

 enough for food, without these aids. — W. Holberton (New 

 York, Feb. 8)." 



In a misleading and deceptive pamphlet recently sent to 

 the Legislature by the deer bounders were the following 

 statements : 



"I have talked with Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Henry Bergh, 

 who neither of them fully understood the case last year, and 

 I do not think they would object this year to the modifica- 

 cation of the law that I propose. " 



"I have also seen Mr. Henry Bergh, and I think he is con- 

 vinced now that hounding is not as cruel as he supposed. 



Very truly yours, x • John T. Denny." 



Mr. Denny's evident purpose was to put Mr. Henry Bergh 

 into the position of an advocate of deer hounding. What 

 Mr. Bergh really thinks of deer houndiug in the Adirondacks 

 is shown in the" following letter: 



The American Society for the ] 

 Prevention op Cruelty to Animals, I 

 Headquarters, 4th Ave., cor. 23d St. ( 

 New York, Feb. 12, 1886. J 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



I am in receipt of two letters from you in relation to the 

 houndiug of deer. You therein refer to a pamphlet which 

 has been sent to the Legislature — and which I have not seen 

 — citing me as being in favor of the cruel and unsportsman 

 like practice. How such an inference could be drawn from 

 any conversation I ever held with any one on the subject is 

 astonishing. 



To do so would be to approve of fox hunting, rat baiting, 

 pigeon trap-shooting, prize poultry killing and the like and 

 would bear about the same relation to legitimate sportsman- 

 ship as standing a cow up in a field and firing at it. In the 

 deer hounding case the men are technically the sportsmen, 

 but the dogs are the real hunters. 



Viewed from a sanitary standpoint, there cannot, logically, 

 be two opinions as to the damage done to the flesh of the ani- 

 mal at the time of its death. It is universally admitted that 

 the flesh of fish is surely deteriorated by every minute of 

 captivity even before it is killed; and experienced fishermen 

 who care to preserve its quality speedily kill the creature by 

 a blow on the head with a stick or club. Lobsters, with 

 wooden plugs driven into their claws, experience a similar 

 deterioration. Inflammation is occasioned, suppuration 

 ensues, and the matter, having no means of escape, is taken 

 up into the circulation and is absorbed. It is an undeniable 

 law of nature that the treatment of an animal at or previous 

 to its killing is imparted for good or evil to its blood and 

 tissues. Can there exist a doubt that the abuse which cattle 

 receive during their long voyages by rail is imparted to their 

 flesh, and may not many of the diseases we suffer from be 

 the consequence of such abuse? Half-starved, thirsting, and 

 terrified by blows and shouting, its blood boiling with fever, 

 the creature is driven to the slaughter house and killed, and 

 the next day, perhaps, its flesh is put upon the table for con- 

 sumption. Something equivalent to mind in man exists in 

 the brute economy. Anger, terror and every extraordinary 

 emotion is liable to poison the milk of female animals to such 

 a degree as to instantly kill the infant that partakes of it. 



I have briefly referred to these physiological phenomena in 

 illustration of the danger, as well as" inhumanity, of prolong- 

 ing the tortures of deer hunting in the manner proposed by 

 the bill presented to the Legislature. 



I congratulate the public, as well as the animal creation, 

 that there is a paper so widely circulating as the Forest 

 and Stream to stand sentinel over the extravagant practices 

 of thoughtless a.nd misguided sportsmen. 

 ' Aensy Bergs, President, 



THAT MISLEADING DOCUMENT. 



Editor Forest and, Stream: 



My attention nas been called to an article in your issue of 

 Feb. 11, entitled, "A Misleading Document," which is itself 

 so full of misleading statements, that I must ask a little space, 

 in common fairness, to reply. If we must differ in opinion 

 as to the propriety of houndiug deer, let us do so honestly 

 and honorably. I am willing to grant that you really believe 

 that to take deer by hounding is a very destructive and un- 

 sportsmanlike method of so doing, and am entirely willing 

 to listen to any arguments that you may bring forward in 

 support of your views, always remembering that misrepre- 

 sentation and abuse do not constitute argument. Please be- 

 lieve in return that I, in common with a great many others, 

 find more pleasure in taking advantage of the instinct which 

 the Creator has implanted in dogs in following deer, than in 

 any other mode of hunting them, and also that I honestly 

 believe that the majority of men who are familiar with the 

 Adirondack region, know that it is the least destructive 

 method at present in use. 



Now as to your objections to the pamphlet referred to : 



1. You charge that the circular of inquiry was addressed 

 only to those persons "who were known or believed to be ad- 

 vocates of deer hounding " This I deny squarely. When 

 the circulars were sent out I was as ignorant as you are to- 

 day of the sentiments on this subject of much more than one- 

 half of those to whom they were addressed, and I also knew 

 that some to whom they were mailed, like Mr. C. E. Fenton, 

 at Number Four, were opposed to hounding. I confess that 

 I was amazed at the almost entire unanimity of the replies— 

 that those who lived in the woods or visited them every year 

 and thereby became familiar with the results of the various 

 modes of hunting deer, all favored hounding with the excep- 

 tion of some in the Beaver River country. Having come to 

 the conclusion that it was wise to make an effort to have the 

 anti-hounding law of last year repealed, and having been 

 credibly informed that you had already declined to publish 

 letters on that side of the question, we thought that it was 

 entirely safe to trust you to lay before the Legislature all the 

 letters and arguments that were necessary to a full under- 

 standing of your side of the question. 



The Eastern New York Fish and Game Protective Associ- 

 ation are responsible for the pamphlet to just exactly the 

 extent stated in the opening paragraph. The meeting was 

 regularly called by the secretary and what occurred is dis- 

 tinctly reported. 



2. You ask why we did not publish a letter from Mr. A. 

 C. Clifton, addressed to the Glens Falls Republican. Our 

 reason for not publishing it was that we had never chanced 

 to see it. Besides, while I have no doubt that Mr. Clifton's 

 pathetic report of a very sad incident is entirely true, I re- 

 spectfully submit that such occurrences are far too rare to 

 be used as a legitimate argument against hounding, and 

 this exact occurrence might just as well have taken place by 

 the accident of a dog's getting loose without his ever having 

 been intentionally put on the track of a deer at all. In fact 

 there is not a particle of evidence that this dog had been 

 "put out" that day. We might just as well refuse to ever 

 read another newspaper because typographical blunders 

 occasionally lead to entire misstatements. You would not 

 expect a reply to your courteous characterization of the facts 

 which we present as "false and preposterous" or "the perver- 

 sion and suppression of truth." 



3. You find fault with the sentence which reads 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." Well, we will admit that that statement is a 

 little sweeping; but we were thinking when it was written 

 only of those who replied to our circular or who kill enough 

 deer every year to have some tangible effect on the number 

 left. You have named a half dozen gentlemen who are also 

 opposed to hounding, and give a quotation from Gen. Sher- 

 man, for whom, as well as the others, I have the greatest 

 possible respect. You make Gen. Sherman say that "the 

 number of deer wantonly killed by hounding by far exceeds 

 those killed out of season, and the. slaughter of the animals 

 for mere sport is an evil which demands prompt attention." 

 I have been in the Adirondacks every summer for several 

 years, and have talked with hundreds of others who have 

 been there longer than I have, and unhesitatingly state that 

 Gen. Sherman is in error as far as tbe region at large is con- 

 cerned. No doubt Gen. Sherman was so informed, and be- 

 lieved at the time he wrote the sentence quoted; the state- 

 ment may have been true in some particular season, in some 

 small district of the "Woods. But I repeat that as applied to 

 the Adirondacks in general, the statement is erroneous. Why 

 did you not also include Gen. Curtis among the anti- 

 bounders? His great personal familiarity with the subject 

 under discussion led him to state before the Governor last 

 year, in my presence, that summer visitors to the North 

 Woods ought to get all the sport they wanted by still-hunt- 

 ing. I asked him if he meant in August and September, and 

 he replied yes. In response to further inquiries he said that 

 he had never killed a deer in his life, and knew nothing 

 about the subject except what he was told. Evidently a 

 man who honestly proposes to us to still-hunt in August does 

 not know much about the woods. 



4. While it is undoubtedly true that it is occasionally possi- 

 ble to row close enough to a deer to kill him with a revolver, 

 yet it is to my personal knowledge also true that many deer 

 escape after being driven to water by dogs, and that to get 

 them many long and difficult shots have to be made. I 

 also think that you understate the number of deer killed on 

 runways. If you think it possible to enforce it, I should be 

 very glad to see a law passed forbidding the killing of any 

 deer while swimming in the water. 



5. I assure you that you are mistaken when you say that 

 nine hundred" out of every thousand Adirondack tourists 

 would gladly see the hounds kept out. Perhaps the hotel 

 keepers and guides in the North Woods do not know as well 

 as you do on what they depend for a living, but if you will 

 read a letter in the Essex County Republican of Feb. 11, from 

 Capt. James H. Pierce, of Bloomingdale, you will see what 

 he thinks about it, and his opinion is precisely that of the 

 large majority of hotel proprietors and guides. There are 

 plenty ot gentlemen in your own New York Fish and Game 

 Protective Association who were "last year iu favor of a 

 non-hounding law, and are now opposed to it,". and I could 

 easily meet your challenge by naming a half dozen of my 

 personal acquaintance; but I do not propose to subject others 

 to the annoyance ©f being misrepresented and abused as I 

 have been. 



6. in reply to your sixth objection I can only reiterate 

 t what I said before, that the evidence from my correspondents, 



taken by chance from Stoddard's Guide Book, is clear and 

 I distinct that- tbe number of deer in the North Woods in- 



