270 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Sept. 28, 1895. 



ORIOLES AND BIRD SHOT. 



Englbwood, Sept. 18.— Editor Forest and Stream: "It's 

 the unexpected that happens." Who would ever have 

 thought that John Burroughs, that lover of nature, was 

 endowed by hia Creator with such a niggardly supply 

 of generosity that he could refuse an occasional grape 

 in return for the pleasure he ought to receive from 

 the songs and the beauty of the loveliest of all our 

 summer birds — the oriole? I quote from the New 

 York Tribune of this morning: "John Burroughs says 

 that the bright and beautiful oriole is an enemy of 

 the grape, consuming enormous quantities of that fruit, 

 and he has taken to shooting those ibat visit his own 

 vine and fig tree with No. 1 bird shot," etc. (I pre- 

 sume the shot part is the editor's!) Every man of in- 

 telligence knows that all our summer birds must eat to 

 live, and if they cannot find insects will live on seeds and 

 fruits. 



That beautiful little meadow songster, the bobolink, 

 after doing his meritorious work among the insects at the 

 North is slaughtered by the million because he depredates 

 among the rice fields at the South. The mockingbirds also 

 make terrible havoc among the peaches and other fruit, 

 and the market gardeners at the South say they are forced 

 to kill them in self-defense, and in these two cases the 

 slaughter may be justified. Our catbird is the most pro- 

 voking fruit destroyer in the North, and the robin is 

 nearly as bad, but they do not commence on the grape 

 until it ripens, and from that time until the crop is picked 

 they can hardly do damage enough to warrant our killing 

 them. If every bird that steals a grape or cherry now 

 and then is doomed to capital punishment for the slight 

 offense, our country will soon be like England, where 

 every boy robs every bird's nest that he finds. 



The beautiful and fascinating oriole has always been 

 my special pet, and I doubt whether any one has studied 

 his habits more closely. About the time that grapes 

 begin to ripen he begins to pack his trunks for his annual 

 winter visit to the South; but whether they go or stay it 

 matters little, for they are not only "few and far be- 

 tween," but very small, and the idea of their "consuming 

 enormous quantities of grapes" is simply preposterous. 

 He is essentially an insectivorous bird and ought to be 

 protected both by sentiment and law. Didymos. 



Adirondack Wolves and Panthers. 



Carthage, N. Y., Sept. 19.— Editor Forest and Stream: 

 In the first week in June I had a trap set for a bear. I 

 caught a wolf in the trap set for the bear; he was quite a 

 large one, and I should judge by his teeth he was quite 

 an old one. The past winter f saw tracks of several. I 

 received the bounty, $30, from St. Lawrence countv on 

 the wolf. 



In October, 1878, I met Verplank Colvin at Deer Lake, 

 now known as Lost Pond. I and my brother, John Muir, 

 got many wolves and several panthers that fall, and have 

 got one or two panthers each year for several years since; 

 sometimes caught them in traps, once six with a dog. 

 When closely pursued by a dog they will go up a tree. 

 In my opinion there are not many wolves in the Adir- 

 ondack forest now. George Muib. 



Bullfrog and Duckling. 



Rouse's Point, N. Y. — I suppose it is quite a common 

 thing to see a big duck swallow a small frog, but how 

 many readers of Forest and Stream have seen the tables 

 turned and the big frog swallow the small duck? I had 

 often read of such a thing, but didn't put much stock in 

 it, till one day this summer on going down to my boat 

 landing I spied a big bullfrog. He sat so quiet that I 

 thought I would poke him up a bit; but on reaching 

 down to him I saw that he had a young duck partially 

 down his throat, in fact, all that remained of ducky was 

 his two legs and a bit of his tail sticking out. I took hold 

 of one leg and after dancing Mr. Frog in the air awhile, 

 he let go his grip, after which I put an end to his dieting 

 on youne duck. W. McComb, Jr. 



[Why?] 



Says the Dog to Himself. 



It is unjust to whip me for not obeying when I do not 

 understand. 



It is unjust to blame me for working badly for a master 

 of whom I am afraid. 



It is not kind to feed me poorly and house me worse. 



Neglect after a hard day's work is poor return for good 

 service. 



A master who is cruel to me would be equally cruel to 

 his neighbors were they as weak and defenseless as I am. 



When necessity presses men to steal, I cannot expect to 

 be better than they when my stomach craves food. 



Prizing a dog for his commercial value is often mis- 

 taken for genuine affection. 



fag md 



CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 



The Death of George Fulton. 



St. Paul, Minn., Sept. 18.— News of the saddest sort 

 reaches me by wire from Mr. O. C. Guessaz and Mr. J. M. 

 George, of San Antonio, Tex., announcing the death of 

 Hon. George Fulton, whose funeral occurred Sept 13 

 The telegram said, "All Texas is bathed in sorrow." This 

 might well be, for Texas had no nobler nor more esteemed 

 and distinguished son. I made mention last winter of the 

 royal hospitality Mr. Fulton extended our hunting party 

 at his ranch home near the Gulf coast. Ours was but one 

 party of many whom he has thus entertained, as only he 

 could do, at his hospitable and elegant home. There will 

 be many a heartache away up in the North country as 

 well as in Texas over this news. 



Mr. Fulton was a royal man, a man with no littlenesses 

 j n his body or soul. As a ranchman he combined all the 

 dash, the courage and generosity of the old days with the 

 elegance and refinements of the present days. No North- 

 ern man I eyer met could be the host George Fulton was. 



As a man of affairs he was one of the best known in his 

 State, and already honored in political matters, he was fast 

 rising into yet greater prominence in the councils of the 

 ablest men of once the greatest of commonwealths. He 

 was barely of middle age at the time of his death, and the 

 successesof life, all the things a man likesto gather as fruit- 

 age of ambition, were justin his hands. He needed no more 

 to make him happy, however, and had he lived twice the 

 natural span he could have done no more toward being a 

 man worth admiration, a very princeamong his fellow men. 

 Mr. Fulton was one of those rare men whose presence re- 

 mains with you after you have left him. Time was a small 

 element in the friendships he inspired, and even to those 

 who knew him but for a few days he always seemed 

 near, plain, close at hand, easy to call up in clear picture. 

 For his hundreds of friends in this country, his thousands 

 of friends in the Southwest, he will long days after to-day 

 continue to remain thus clear, thus near, thus dear, and 

 all of those will know that all of this is written in genuine 

 feeling, and that it is the voice not of one man, but of very 

 many. There is no man to take the place of this shining 

 work that death loved. All we can do is just to remem- 

 ber him. 



Shake-up for "Sooners." 



From Chicago I have word by letter and daily dis- 

 patches of a great shaking up of the illegal shooters on 

 the Fox Lake chain of waters in the northern part of 

 Illinois. The Illinois duck law was up on the 15th, and 

 many dozens of shooters were out before the crack of 

 dawn to see what birds or shadows of birds they could 

 shoot at. There was a lot of shooting of this sort Satur- 

 day and Sunday, and a great deal of shooting after sun- 

 set, until it was too dark to see at all. This has for years 

 been the custom around Fox Lake, such shooters being 

 ignorant or careless of the fact that the Illinois law for- 

 bids shooting at wildfowl before sunrise or after sunset. 

 This year the State warden, either assisted or led by a big 

 force of deputies, got out into the marsh and arrested a 

 good job lot of the "sooners," thereby creating a big howl 

 around Fox Lake, Grass Lake and all that system of 

 waters. Among those taken in custody were J. Weber, 

 J. Mattern, Fred Willett, Gus. Carlson, George Keller, F. 

 W. Wagner, Geo. Mason, etc., etc. F. W. Wagner, of 

 673 Wells street, Chicago, was arrested by deputy S. L. 

 Hough, who seems to have cut a good deal of ice along in 

 this and other raids. Wagner was arrested and fined $10 

 for shooting after sunset. O. W. Richardson, a Channel 

 Lake summer cottager who does business in Chicago, had 

 the misfortune to have his boat, Katydid, a very nice 

 one, together with a good outfit, confiscated by the same 

 disrespectful hands. He thinks it real mean that this 

 should be thus. He says there were 300 guns out before 

 daybreak, and that no one knew it was wrong. He says 

 a man of his had borrowed his boat, but even that man 

 had not fired a shot. [He did not need to, under the 

 statute, for he could "pursue with intent," etc., etc., 

 and thus be guilty.] George Mason, 100 North Clinton 

 street, Chicago, president of the Excelsior Iron Works, 

 was arrested by Deputy S. L. Hough on Saturday, a day 

 before the law was out. He lamely says that it was his little 

 niece, with her "toy gun," that was the wicked one, she 

 having killed eight rail and some blackbirds. [Illegal to 

 kill blackbirds, too, George.] Mr. Mason claims that rail 

 are not waterfowl (if he will look at the law he will find 

 they are), and says he is going to engage in bitter, 

 bloody, cruel war, yes, even in Waukegan Circuit Court. 

 Still, others who do not like the indignity of being ar- 

 rested like common people threaten to prove the game 

 law unconstitutional and dead wrong. All of which is 

 good stuff for game protection. The more the matter is 

 advertised, the better for the birds. There would be fair 

 shooting even at Fox Lake to day had even so poor a law 

 as the Illinois statute been observed since its enactment, 

 As it is, continued night shooting from open water blinds, 

 shooting in and out of season, has left it so that a duck 

 had no chance to light and feed or rest. When ducks 

 cannot feed or rest, they leave. The hotel men and cot- 

 tigers who have allowed the law to go unenforced have 

 lost money and lost sport too by it. These waters are 

 naturally great ones for fowl, but they have been so har- 

 ried the only wonder is there is a bird left. 



Confiscating Guns. 



The Chicago Tribune, to which at this distance I am 

 indebted for most of my facts on the above, has one state- 

 ment which is at least curious in regard to the method of 

 punishment of some of the guilty parties in these raids. 

 It quotes Mr. R. A. Dandliker as saying: 



"I was neither arrested nor fined. My son Rudolph, 

 aged 13, and a 13-year-old friend, Edward Reber, left my 

 residence on Crab Apple Island, Fox Lake, in a boat on 

 Saturday morning to shoot rail. The game warden 

 caught them and took their guns. I went over to the 

 Columbia Club and paid $10 for each boy. They had 

 killed two rail. Warden Blow said he would straighten 

 out the matter and there was no need for us to go to 

 court." 



If Warden Blow is "straightening out" these things and 

 assessing fines himself instead of taking his prisoners 

 before a justice and having them tried in due process of 

 law and under due record of the law, he is doing some- 

 thing illegal and wrong, for which he has not warrant of 

 law nor support of sportsman sentiment. Within the 

 proper construction of the law, all sportsmen will com- 

 mend his deputy wardens and him, and wish more power 

 to their arms. It is certainly a good piece of work they 

 have been doing up Fox Lake way. 



Was a Little Slow. 



Some timid and anonymous gentleman writes me about 

 Mr. Crane's story of the Dutchman and his lost drum, 

 which was published in Forest and Stream of Sept. 14: 



"This is too bad for your friend Crane, for the story 

 appeared in the London Punch twenty-five years ago, 

 with a Scotohman as the hero, and the Lord knows from 

 whom they borrowed it. A man is pretty hard pushed 

 when he has to steal funny stories from an English 

 paper." 



That's right. But my anonymous friend has his data 

 confused. Dave Crane (I am anonymously informed) 

 wrote the story for Punch many years ago, and it took 

 the readers of that paper twenty-five years to see the 

 point; so he told it again over here. I admit this was a 

 little slow. 



The Safe is Oiled. 

 A while ago Billy Mussey went down East, to Philadel- 

 phia, and New York, and Boston, and Coney Island, and 



Scranton, and all those cities, to learn all he could about 

 fitting up and running the best kind of a billiard hall. So 

 after he had told them some things he came back home 

 and said he guessed he would have to think it out by 

 himself. He thought quite a while, and then with a 

 wild whoop he tore his old place all inside out and began 

 refurnishing it with cut glass tables, and silver cues, and 

 gold cuspidors, and everything of that kind you can 

 think of. Benches were no longer good enough, so he 

 put in about 700 jeweled chairs with silk bottoms. Every- 

 thing was new and elegant, and knowing the boys would 

 be scared to come into such a palace, Billy had an in- 

 formal opening, for ladies and gentlemen, on Thursday, 

 Sept. 12, so as to get the people sort of used to the look of 

 things. The regular opening was Saturday, Sept. 14, and 

 by this time the sportsmen of Chicago are back in the 

 home from which they were ejected when Billy tore up 

 the carpet. We all read of the "sportsmen's paradise," 

 but the Chicago shooters say that it is at 106 Madison 

 street. It is said there is not a cut glass billiard table in 

 America outside of Billy Mussey's hall. Everything is 

 new — with one exception. The old safe has not been re- 

 placed, and no improvements have been made on it, 

 except that the hinges have been oiled a little. Drop a 

 $100 in the slot, some cold day next winter, and see it 

 work. 



In the Northwest. 



Sept. 19.— Great cities these two of St. Paul and Min- 

 neapolis, and a great country this Northwest of which 

 they are the capitals. I imagine the genuine Down-East 

 man who has never been out West this far— if indeed in 

 these days of cheap and rapid travel there is any such 

 man left— would be surprised to see what a pitch of civil- 

 ization is struck here. The cities are cities in every sense 

 of the word, great and wonderful cities in a great and 

 wonderful land. Great business industries, great for- 

 tunes, great luxury, great intelligence, all are here. 

 Above all, these are great sporting towns. This is far 

 enough for one to see at his best the real support of 

 sportsmanship, the amateur sportsman, who goes into 

 sport because he likes it. I do not mean to say that the 

 amateur sportsman is not seen of equal grade in the older 

 communities further to the east, but that he is not seen 

 in anything like equal numbers. The further west you 

 go, the greater is the per cent, of amateur sportsmen to 

 the population. Here you will find a very large per cent, 

 of the business and professional men devoted to outdoor 

 field sports of some sort — to the gun, rod, sail or paddle, 

 There is no fishing country like Minnesota, and on its 

 thousands of lakes the yachts and sailboats are 

 many more than thousands. The shooting is no 

 longer what it was, but we must remember 

 that when a Minnesota man speaks of poor shooting, 

 it may be sport which to an Eastern man would 

 seem gloriously good. There are at least grouse and fowl 

 enough, so that apparently every other citizen owns dog 

 and gun, and very shrewd judges and good handlers of 

 both one will find these citizens, too. The quality of the 

 sportsmanship here is good. The breath of the city has 

 not yet overcome the fresh, free breath of the prairies. 

 These cities are on the edge of the prairies, the big West 

 toward which so many have turned. I don't know 

 whether it is the surroundings of prosperity here in the 

 cities, or whether it is the air of hope and vigor that blows 

 in from the prairies, but surely one cannot stay here long 

 without getting back many hopes and ambitions and be- 

 liefs in his ability to lick the world. With the privilege 

 of beginning over again in some of his sporting experi- 

 ences, who could not gladly settle down here, pitying the 

 staider folk of the completed East, where the fight and 

 the fun is all over, and nothing is left but to step with the 

 machine. You don't hear of men going back East in rip- 

 ples and waves and seas of emigration. The only pity is 

 that there is not a million miles of the old West of Amer- 

 ica extending on out instead of the Pacific Ocean. That 

 ocean is surely a mistake! 



But it is all too modern. My Eastern friend perhaps does 

 not believe, for instance, that he could get all the modern 

 wrinkles in sporting outfit so far West; yet he woulu be 

 in error. There is not so large nor so great a show win- 

 dow in the whole sporting goods trade in New York city 

 as that of Wm. R. Burkhard at St. Paul, and there is only 

 one (Spalding's) which approaches it in Chicago. And 

 M. F. Kennedy & Bros, are not content with one modern 

 and up-to-date sporting goods house, but have two, one 

 in each of the Twin Cities. And they invent things out 

 here, too, as see Mr. Jas. Boyd's shell box with revolving 

 top, which acts as a shell box, an ice box, a cigar box, a 

 tackle case, a lunch box and a piano stool all in one. You 

 have seen pictures of the man who wanted to be shot up 

 in the air on a spring so that he could be nearer the "sky 

 scrapers?" Well, if you touch a spring in the lid of your 

 Boyd box, the spring does shoot you up, seat and all, to a 

 position about loin, higher, so you see clear of your blind 

 and swing clear on both birds in your doubles. It is a 

 good thing. 



_But always inventions, and more inventions, and mod- 

 ern Rtores where for next to nothing you can get all sorts 

 of things to get the best of the birds with. It's a wonder 

 we have any birds at all. But who is going to invent a 

 million-multiplying, incubating machine, to give the boys 

 some birds to shoot at? 



The birds ought to be preserved, there is no doubt of it. 

 I am so firmly persuaded of that that I think I must, now 

 that I am so near to my old friend, the prairie chicken, 

 go out and kill a few of him, and smooth down his 

 feathers, and pretend to be sorry I killed him, then eat 

 him. And when I go I shall take the best sort of gun 

 and the best sort of ammunition, and I shall shoot with 

 the best sort of care. For I do not want to miss my chance 

 at pretending I am sorry. 



Chicken Grounds. 



A gentleman just down from Pembina, N. D. (Major J. 

 M. Taylor, of New York), says they had very good sport 

 at that point this week. Dr. Wm. Richeson, of St. Paul, 

 is just back from a shoot near Red Lake Falls and Car- 

 thage. I asked him what luck and he said: 



"Very poor, not much shooting. We only got 100 

 birds in four days." 



Then I asked him how many guns shot, and he said 

 two! If 1,000 guns had luck as good as that, and they 

 shot for thirty days, how many birds would it take? We 

 can no longer have the big bags of the past days. 



Dr. Richeson said that if one would take tbe spur of a 

 new road which is building northeast from Red Lake 

 Falls, and go up it along the creek bottoms for abou 



