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FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Feb. 4, 1886. 



THE TRAJECTORY TESTS. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



Notwithstanding the very considerable amount of com- 

 mendation of which you were made the recipient upon the 

 publication of the results of your rifle trials, I desire to ex- 

 press, as one of the many who have followed the reports 

 with pleasure and profit, a sense of obligation to those 

 through whose enterprise the tests were brought about. In 

 view of the excellent methods employed and the manifest 

 thoroughness which characterized the entire undertaking, it 

 is safe to predict that these tables will be recognized and 

 consulted as authority for a long time to come, forming as 

 they do, a tangible and reliable set of data for the purpose of 

 rifle makers as well rifle users. 



To the student of modern rifle lore the recorded figures 

 present occasional seeming anomalies, which perhaps the 

 knowing ones of the craft may be able to clear away. For 

 example: We are taught, theoretically, that one step toward 

 securing a low curve is accomplished by making the rifling 

 with a moderately slow twist, as such a form produces 

 favorable conditions, in connection with proper loading, 

 for a high starting speed, and still allows the use of sufficient 

 weight of bullet to be well sustained in its flight at least up 

 to the limits of the ordinary hunting distances. 



That this doctrine can not be unqualifiedly accepted is 

 aptly illustrated by a comparison of the work of the .40-60- 

 210 Winchester with that of the 40-cal. Bullard in the late 

 trials. The former is but a slight modification of the express 

 proper in the matter of degree of twist (one turn in forty 

 inches), and with its finely proportioned cartridge might, it 

 would seem, be reasonably expected to show an extremely 

 low curve, yet its bullet rises more than 11.5 inches in reach- 

 ing the target at two hundred yards, while the latter with 

 one turn in twenty inches gives a trajectory of barely 10.5 

 inches, loaded in practically the same proportion. 



I long ago imbibed the idea that a rifle to most completely 

 meet the purposes of the hunter, in all the ever varying con- 

 ditions and circumstances of his usual experience, would be 

 a weapon so made up as to blend the most valuable attri- 

 butes of both the express and long-range systems. 



I was therefore somewhat disappointed to find that my 

 pet plan would not be likely to reduce or eliminate the 

 difficulties involved in the estimation of distance and the cor- 

 responding adjustment of sights. Thus we "live and learn." 



On the whole, however, the riflemen of to-day are to be 

 congratulated upon the fine array of weapons from which to 

 select, and a gratifying fact is that in making the choice they 

 may safely be controlled by individual preference for any par- 

 ticular form of mechanism, breech action or such other mat- 

 ter of detail as strike the fancy, and take the shooting 

 qualities for granted. 



All of the standard makes are good and they must be to 

 hold their ground in the field of competition. I have recently 

 seen a number of diagrams — the careful work of Mr. E. A. 

 Leopold— illustrating the performance of the several rifles 

 engaged in the recent tests, and will say that any one must 

 indeed be hard to please who would not be satisfied after 

 seeing how the average weapon will send bullet after bullet 

 cutting so near the same plane that it speaks volumes for 

 the wonderful uniformity with which the modern rifle re- 

 sponds to proper treatment and handling on the part of the 

 marksman. W. D. Zimmerman. 



Norristo-vto, Pa., Jan. 23. 



JANUARY REFLECTIONS, 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



It seems perfectly natural, even in the absence of a written 

 law, that the sportsman should have his decided and 

 instinctive feelings as to when the season for hunting should 

 close. He has his unwritten laws, equally as sacred as his 

 duty to observe those of his legislature," How naturally this 

 seems to be the beginning of a new year. The man of busi- 

 ness, who simply makes sport a recreation, feels that the 

 time for his recreation is ended, and that it is better luck to 

 resume his serious labor with the beginning of a new year. 

 To have a good conscience, it is advisable that one should 

 consider that his sport is not contravening his legitimate 

 business; for without a good conscience, a peaceful mind and 

 a light heart, sport is not a pleasure, but becomes a sneaking, 

 time-killing occupation. We look upon the man who loves 

 field sports as being a whole-souled, brave and honorable gen- 

 tleman, for it seems that it is these qualities that plunge him 

 into a sport that creates the feeling of boundless freedom and 

 innocent unrestraint which the fields and forests themselves 

 present. It is difficult, therefore, to see how such a character 

 can do violence to his own humane ideas as to the fitness of 

 seasons. 



But stop ! I must be driven to these philosophizing ideas 

 from that tinge of regret with which I quietly lay away the 

 trusty little gun in its cushioned case. So true has been its 

 work and so" glib its mechanism, as to be treated with the 

 companionship of something animate. Then there are our 

 dog friends. We had fallen newly in love with them, and 

 they with us. At the sight of the cartridge belt, or the hunt- 

 ing leggings, or the brier-torn coat, do you remember how 

 provokingly familiar they became? Do you remember how, 

 when on Sundays we stayed at home from the office during 

 autumn weather, they hung around our chair and jealously 

 jostled each other from the rug at our feet? Now they will 

 grow more dignified and formal; salute you kindly in the 

 morning, but, like men whose connections sever, almost 

 become strangers. They become epicures, display a full 

 feather, grow fat and independent. These are the relative 

 positions of a well-regulated sportsman and his dog. 



Then I have parted with a Southwest Virginia autumn, 

 with its semi-southern beauty. The kind golden haze of its 

 sun has changed for the struggling winter glare; the second 

 growth of the green meadow swards have been made bare by 

 the grazing herds; the leafy picture that hung in the land- 

 scape is returning humbly "its tints of nature; the partridge, 

 that dreaded only the cracking shot, is battling in the frosted 

 coverts with the fox and the hawk. Many a pleasant day 

 have I spent in the field this fall. My first shooting was one 

 afternoon, about the first of September, when I bagged eight 

 woodcock along a branch, in a patch of corn, within the 

 orporate limits of our little hamlet. Then the sora soon 

 an to settle along the swamp and branches in the open 

 mi.^dows. Bags of from ten to fifteen could be made in the 

 afternoon. After a while the partridge came in.* They 

 were later of growth than usual, but soon the awkward, 

 Mi i Hii c 'se, from the tangled weeds, changed into the 

 mewJe wr and lightning dart. 



At the clos< -rf this season there is one thing that troubles 

 me, a trouble that has found the tender spot of many more 

 than myself. My old setter is failing. He is passing over 

 on the shady side, and with human tact, tries to hide it in 

 the field. As I have told you before, he claims to be no 



tancy dog, but is every inch a business dog. With every 

 point he makes his position is a surprise, one never looks 

 like the other. As the tainted air, at long range, from the 

 bevy meets him, his high point, lithe stride and stealthy step 

 is the warning. When plunging along, you would think 

 wild, and his keen nose detects the single sulking bird, he 

 will fall, spread like a feather. Poor old fellow! When he 

 grows old and crazy and useless, perhaps I'll wish I had seen 

 him fall headlong from the steep cliff, as he roaded the wild 

 pheasant through the low ivy on the mountainside, or had 

 gone under, not to rise again, as he heedlessly plunged into 

 the mad flood to bring me the duck. Then I could have re- 

 membered him as the brawny and brave youug hero, instead 

 of the lame and suffering old creature that he may be. 

 Don't you remember how we always wish we could have 

 another just like our old one? Graeme. 

 Southwest Virginia. 



THE ADIRONDACK DEER. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



In the published proceedings of the Board of Supervisors 

 of the county of Essex, assembled at Elizabethtown, I find 

 the following items : "Mr. Powers presented and moved the 

 adoption of the following resolution: Resolved, that our 

 Senator and member of Assembly are hereby instructed to 

 use all legal means to secure the repeal of Chapter 557 of the 

 Laws of 1885, entitled An act for the better preservation of 

 wild deer,' etc. A vote being had, it was carried unanimously." 



I cannot see how the honorable Board of Supervisors could 

 conscientiously place themselves on record in this light, 

 for they must know the consequences of encouraging the 

 breeding and using of hounds in a deer park or range like the 

 Adirondack wilderness, a region nearly depleted of deer 

 already. The law these gentlemen wish repealed was passed 

 expressly to preserve the Adirondack deer from extermin- 

 ation. No doubt the supervisors have been influenced by a 

 certain set of men who call themselves sportsmen; men who 

 go out to have a good time and take things easy ; men who 

 send their guides and dogs out to do the hunting while they 

 sit on some runway waiting, in the meantime solacing them- 

 selves with the contents of their pipe and bottle. Along 

 comes the frightened deer, fleeing from his worst enemy, the 

 hound, and in passing gets riddled by a handful of shot from 

 an old "scatter-gun," provided the shooter has not indulged 

 too often. 



There is another set of men who call themselves sports- 

 men — men whose strongest "holt" is the "tail-holt" — who go 

 out in a boat, and when the deer takes to the water to escape 

 the hounds, grip it by the tail and whack it over the head 

 with a club until it gives up its life. Or, perchance, the 

 oarsman will hold him steady by a grip on the tail while the 

 shooter kills him by aiming at his head only a few feet away. 

 These men then go out among civilized people and brag of 

 their prowess in deer hunting. They call themselves sports- 

 men. God save the mark ! 



There is one point in regard to hounds and deer that is not 

 sufficiently known, and that is the terrible destruction of 

 deer by hounds when running at large. Having lived in the 

 Adirondacks nearly all my life 1 think I am qualified to 

 speak in this matter, and 1 will give you some facts that have 

 come to my knowledge. Mr. Elijah Simonds, an old trapper 

 and hunter, well known in these parts, and whose word can- 

 not be impeached, tells me that about forty years ago he 

 heard reports of moose signs near Dix's Peak, and taking 

 another man and a hound with him went in there to investi- 

 gate. On the way the hound slipped away from them a 

 number of times, and he told me he counted seventeen deer 

 that he knew his hound killed in the two days they were in 

 the woods. There was a deep snow on the ground, crusted 

 enough to bear the dogs but not the deer. Speaking of dogs 

 running at large, he says, one winter two dogs, belonging to 

 a Saranac hotel keeper, went into the woods and staid two 

 months, hunting on their own hook. In going up Cold 

 Brook one-half mile he counted nine deer killed by three 

 dogs. One had got into a hole where the dogs could not get 

 at its head or throat and they had eaten off its hind parts. 

 It had just life enough to crawl up on the bank as he came 

 along. He afterward caught one of these dogs in a bear 

 trap, which took him around the head, and he was glad of 

 it. Simonds said that he had not the least doubt that those 

 dogs destroyed at least two hundred deer that winter, and he 

 believes that one hound allowed to run at large in the winter 

 will destroy more deer than all the hunters of that town kill 

 in the year by legitimate hunting. I have long been of that 

 opinion myself. Mr. Simonds said that some of the hotel- 

 keepers were mean about letting their dogs run in winter. 

 He named two on Keene Flats, and others at Saranac Lake 

 who made a practice of letting their dogs run and scout the 

 woods in winter as much as they pleased. He says it is 

 almost impossible for owners of dogs to keep them where 

 they belong, for they get uneasy toward spring and they have 

 to let them out for exercise. When let out they stay around 

 a few minutes and then start off for the woods to look for 

 deer, and they know where to look as well as we do, because 

 they have been taken there before. He says in hunting w ith 

 dogs they often kill deer in the woods that the hunters know 

 nothing about. 



This reminds me of a neighbor of mine who had a big 

 hound he used to let run loose, and when the dog came home 

 at night with bloody chops and a full belly he would knock 

 off work, take his hired man and go and look for the 

 remnant of the deer, sometimes finding it but oftener not. 

 A lumberman, an acquaintance of mine, tells me that, being 

 tired of eating salt pork, he thought he would take his dog 

 up into the woods and catch a deer, the snow being deep. 

 Although it was against the law, he thought it no harm to 

 kill one deer for his own eating, especially if it did not 

 become known. He said he came to a yard of deer and set 

 his dog on, expecting to catch one deer, but in spite of all he 



could do to stop him the little killed five before he could 



get him off. 



There is a class of irresponsible men in the Adirondacks 

 that are half lumbermen, half guides and more than half 

 poachers — I mean game law breakers; who often keep from 

 one to three hounds, and, as a rule, let them run loose. One 

 such man living near me had two young hounds nearly a 

 year old. In March, when the snow was deep and crusted, 

 these dogs, in company with an older hound, used to go off 

 in the morning and be off all day. This man, on being 

 remonstrated with and told that the dogs were destroying all 



the deer, said: "D 'em, let 'em run; it will learn 'em to 



hunt." 



A man who was drawing logs in that section told me that 

 while looking out a lumber road he found eleven dead deer 

 killed by dogs on less than two acres of ground. The deer, 

 being unable to resist or run, being hopelessly mired in the 

 stiff snow, the dogs could butcher them at their leisure. 



Samuel Dunning, an old Adirondack guide, tells me it is 

 nothing uncommon for a hound to go into the woods and be 

 gone a month, hunting on his own hook. I once went on a 

 fishing excursion to Moose Lake; went into the woods at 

 Arayyille, North Elba, and in traveling through the 

 beautiful woods, six miles or more. I was surprised at seeing 

 no deer signs, and but very few about the lake. On coming 

 out I made some inquiries at the house of Mr. Morbous, a 

 backwoods farmer. I asked if there had been much hunting 

 m that section the last year, and was told, not more than 

 usual. I also asked if there had been any stray hounds 

 around late in the winter, and he said a hound came there 

 in March; used to sleep in his hog-pen nights and went off 

 huntiag in the woods daytimes. The snow was three or four 

 feet deep, with a crust that would bear a dog, and he stayed 

 about there two or three weeks. 



_ He said, "It was a blanked good-looking hound." Just so, 

 it was a "blanked" good-looking hound, but God only knows 

 how many deer this dog slaughtered while ranging the woods, 

 far and near. He probably stopped when there wa9 no more 

 deer to be slain, and then departed to "fresh fields and 

 pastures new" to carry on his butchery. 



In fishing up some mountain brook in May, it is not very 

 pleasant to come across the body of a deer in the water, 

 driven in and killed by dogs in March or April. I have seen 

 a doe, heavy with fawn, running before a hound in May, but 

 then, "it was a blanked good-looking hound," as the man in 

 North Elba said. 



One thing is certain. Every effort to have the deer hound- 

 ing law repealed, and every vote cast for that purpose is a 

 direct effort and vote for the extermination of the deer in the 

 Adirondacks. This will take place sooner than they think 

 if the law is repealed. Look at Vermont: not a wild deer 

 known to exist, and the Green Mountain region should be a 

 well-stocked deer range, and would be at this day if Ihe 

 domestic wolves, the hounds, had not been allowed to chase, 

 worry and slaughter deer, right and left, until the last one is 

 gone. 



I saw a statement in a late number of the Forest and 

 Stream of the finding of a number of skeletons of deer sup- 

 posed to have been killed by wolves. Query— Were they 

 not killed by domestic wolves, who knows? 



Now, it is my belief, that the only way to preserve the 

 Adirondack wilderness as a well-stocked hunting grouu d for 

 the people of the State of New York, is for the Legislature to 

 define and locate the boundaries of the deer range of this 

 region, and then pass stringent laws, giving a bounty of fifty 

 dollars for the head of eveiy hound caught or found at any- 

 time within these limits, the same to be assessed on the 

 owner of the hound. Bainbridge Bishop. 



New Russia, N. Y., Jan. 26. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



As I have been in the habit of hunting deer in the 

 Adirondacks more or less every year for the last forty years, 

 1 feel that 1 have a right to have my say with the rest. A 

 proposal to amend the present game law comes from 

 Boonville and was published in the Utica Morning Herald, 

 Jan. 81, in the form of a memorial to our Legislature 

 recommending opening the season Aug. 1 and closing Oct. 

 15, and to repeal all restrictions as to the mode of hunting 

 during that time. The list of signers is headed by State 

 Game Agent Brinkerhoff, with twenty- three others, all 

 Fulton Chain hotelkeepers, guides or stage proprietors in- 

 terested in conveying people to and from the woods. The 

 memorial states that the present season has been very 

 destructive to breeders, and that four-fifths of the deer killed 

 were does and unfit for food, and asks that the halt' of 

 October and the whole of November be cut off in order to 

 stop the slaughter. Let us see where these breeders were 

 killed. Game Agent Brinkerhoff, who, I am told, ia also a 

 guide, in his report published in the Utica Morning Herald 

 Dec. 14, says that he has kept a record of the deer killed by 

 floating from Aug. 1 to Sept. 15, which was 63. Of this 

 number 38 were suckling does, 18 were yearling does, and 

 only 8 bucks in all. I give his own figures. This record 

 corresponds with that kept by him for the past seven years, 

 and gives a proportion of one buck to ten does, and most of 

 them mothers of fawns. 



Game Agent Phelps in his report says that Wm. Light and 

 Barbour, two well known Bisby guides, told him they had 

 counted this season some twenty-five or thirty carcasses of 

 deer that lay rotting near the banks of the Canishegala still - 

 water, on the south branch of Moose River. These deer, it 

 is fair to infer, were wounded in front of a jack during the 

 floating season, but had strength enough to get h shurt dis- 

 tance from the stream and were never found. Deer killed 

 by dogs or by still-hunting are seldom lost. If this is ap- 

 proximately true of two mdes of one still-water, what is 

 the grand total of the deer left to rot in the whole Adiron- 

 dacks? Besides, a large portion of venison is wasted, as the 

 weather will not permit of its being kept but a short time; 

 and deer during the floating season are always in poor con- 

 dition. In October and November, and in those months 

 only, they are at their very best. Venison can then be kept 

 quite a number of days, and my expeiience and 1 believe of 

 most hunters is, that more bucks are killed than does, at 

 least the number would be equal. 



Still, with all these facts and figures, according to their 

 own showing, these memorialists ask to cut off the half of 

 October and all of November and retain the whole of August, 

 that they may shoot the breeders and dog them ad UbUUm ; 

 that they may put money in their purses. 



I am pleased to see so few names of the many guides of the 

 North Woods appended to it. Any man or sportsman who 

 has hunted deer in October or November, who has been for- 

 tunate to kill one or two deer (and he can, if he tries), 

 will never want to sit doubled up behind a light any more in 

 August and riddle a sucking doe with buckshot at short 

 range. No more will he want to kill the poor, frightened 

 animal as he plunges, panting and red hot, into the lake or 

 stream to escape the hounds. He will be satisfied to kill his 

 deer by fair play and in a sportsmanlike manner, and will 

 never be haunted by the ghosts of the starved fawns, whose 

 mother he may have slaughtered in front of alight in August. 

 It is always wise to learn from the experience of others. In 

 Maine the law prohibits killing in August, also hounding, 

 and limits the number of deer to be killed by one person to 

 three, which has done away with market-hunting, as no 

 market-hunter will go into the woods if he can't Kill but 

 three deer. This law has been in force in that State for 

 several years and has given general satisfaction. Why not 

 go and do likewise? A Veteran. 



Holland Patent, N. 



The communication signed C. Fenton, published in our 

 last issue, should have been credited to the Lowville (N. Y 



Republican. 



