28 



FOREST AND STREAM, 



[Feb. 3, 



A TALK ON THE GAME LAWS. 



THE law for the preservation and protection of singing 

 and insectivorous birds is time, soon producing 

 gratifying and palpable results. These birds are largely 

 on the increase, to the great benefit of the agriculturist, 

 and comfort and delight of all the people who desire to 

 see our woods and fields populous with birds. The invest- 

 ment of the commission with the authority to issue per- 

 mits for the killing of these birds has resulted in the 

 restriction of the permits to a minimum, only fourteen 

 having been issued in the commonwealth the present 

 year, and those only to people, entirely trustworthy, 

 and who do not abuse the privilege. If the farmer, 

 whom the living birds benefit, and the women of the 

 State will cooperate with us — the oue in observing 

 and protecting the birds, and the other in refraining 

 from making bird plumage an article of ornament 

 and apparel — our birds will in a few years appear 

 in their oldtime numbers and usefulness. The English 

 sparrow is a nuisance. It is a destroyer of the young and 

 the eggs of our native birds, and a grain-eater more than 

 an insect destroyer. Until it is banished our native birds 

 will be driven from many of their haunts. We recom- 

 mend the killing of this bird at all seasons. It is good for 

 the table and for that alone. 



The matter of the preservation of game birds and ani- 

 mals, the times, seasons and methods of killing, has be- 

 come, in a degree, an embarrassing question for the Legis- 

 lature. The necessity for positive and effective protection 

 is not fully appreciated by the majority of the people. 

 The notion that the right to kill at all seasons and places 

 is inherent in each individual because of our democratic 

 institutions, and under the claim that this is a free coun- 

 try, is altogether too prevalent. With this assumption 

 runs another equally untenable— that the game and the 

 fish belong to the owner of the land upon which either 

 game or fish chance to be. The preservation of our game 

 involves two considerations, the healthful recreation of 

 its pursuit by many of our people and its value as an 

 article of food and merchandise. So few people compar- 

 atively— by reason of indifference and of imperfect knowl- 

 edge of our game resources, and its great importance to a 

 large class of people— understand this subject, that an 

 intelligent and dispassionate hearing by a Legislature is 

 very difficult to obtain. Excellent, well-meaning men 

 will perhaps thoughtlessly pass the subject of game and 

 fish protection by, as a matter unworthy serious consider- 

 ation, when matters of much less practical but more 

 familiar import receive proper attention. 



When it is considered that large portions of the land of 

 the commonwealth and of all New England are being 

 relegated to renewed forests, abandoned by the farmer 

 for obvious reasons, it should be remembered that these 

 lands may be made populous and productive with hun- 

 dreds of thousands of the he3t game birds in the world, 

 the ruffed grouse, the woodcock and the quail, by a proper 

 and symmetrical system of protective law. and with little 

 or no expense to the commonwealth. The game birds of 

 New England, even with our rigorous climate, will sur- 

 vive and populate our covers in spite of our dense popu- 

 lation; will nourish and increase even in the contest with 

 improved firearms, and the multiplying army of men who 

 seek at proper times the fields and woods for health and 

 recreation; will thrive against all climatic contingencies 

 and all appliances, except the insidious and silent snare 

 and trap. 



The American people are wasteful of wild life. The 

 buffalo, antelope and elk of the great Western plains and 

 mountains are nearly exterminated by a remorseless hum 

 for hides, and by wanton sport; so great has been the de- 

 crease of these great herds of noble game that national 

 attention has been arrested by the facts, and now Congress 

 has established by law a great territorial asylum of refuge 

 and protection for the remnants of the once great droves 

 and herds of the finest and best game of the world. Even 

 the enormous productiveness of the sea is already so im- 

 ired by the depredations of man in search of the food 

 hes that artificial means of propagation are resorted to 

 to make good the alarming deficiency. The horned and 

 hoofed game is nearly gone from Massachusetts. A few 

 mild-eyed and apprehensive deer haunt the pine woods of 

 the Cape, but are barred from roaming beyond their little 

 limit by an inclosing wall of populous towns and villages. 

 The commonwealth has thrown about these few remain- 

 ing cervidas the protection of its statute. Why V Because 

 it is desirable and wise that there should be saved from 

 slaughter these few remaming individuals of a once pro- 

 lific family. 



Why not now protect the game birds whose habitat is 

 broader than that of the deer, whose numbers may be 

 made to multiply simply by the moral and t':e legal power 

 of a protecting statute, until the by-places of the com- 

 monwealth shall be made preserves of pleasure and profit 

 to many of our people? It is desirable that the land- 

 owner should be interested in this laudable direction. 

 There is no reason why a person not a land-owner, yet 

 desiring the advantages of the pursuit of game, should be 

 at issue with the land-owner. Their interests are the 

 same. It is natural that the land-owner should desire 

 the original use and pursuit of the game upon his land, 

 and that he should protect himself and his property from 

 the depredations of irresponsible persons, who would de- 

 vastate his land of the game to make merchandise of it 

 without his consent. Let the land-owner and the true 

 sportsman consult and act together, first for the preserva- 

 tion of the game, then there will naturally follow mutual 

 methods for its protection. There is no natural antag- 

 onism between the farmer or the land-owner, and the 

 decent man who desires to hunt for game in a legitimate 

 and proper way. Mischievous persons have for years, 

 with more or less success, sought to imbue the 'land- 

 owners with the idea, that all efforts within and without 

 the Legislature to save the game by the abolition of snares 

 and traps, and by the imposition of close seasons, are 

 trespasses upon their exclusive and original rights — that 

 the city sportsman desires to rob the farmer and farmer's 

 boy for his own selfish emolument and jtleasure. This is 

 untrue. The man who desires a close season for breeding 

 and growing game, is analogous to the farmer who would 

 refrain from butchering his cow heavy with calf, or his 

 mother hen while brooding her chicks. He is in line and 

 in sympathy with n ature and n atural laws. Nature main- 

 tains her close time by depriving the fawn and the feath- 

 ered ground game of scent in then- breeding season; she 

 protects the hare crouching in her fragile form in the 

 same way. We must follow nature in this fine if we 

 would preserve her bounty, 



It is true that the snare and the trap bring more game 

 to market and with less effort than does legitimate and 

 manly pursuit. Like usurious interest, the snare and the 

 trap work night and dav, constantly and industriously 

 eating away the principal, destroying the stock. If our 

 game is to be treated purely as a matter of present com- 

 modity without thought for the future or care for the 

 preservation of a natural product that once exhausted 

 cannot be restored, then let the snaring and trapping of 

 game go on, ground game once exhausted cannot be re- 

 placed by artificial propagation as the fishes can. Its 

 breeding is slow and in small numbers. The onlv hope is 

 in present preservation. To the man who clamors for 

 the right to snare and trap on his own land, the reply is 

 that the prevention thereof is for the good of the whole. 

 The holder of the land does not own the. game, but he has 

 the right while it remains on his lands to its first pursuit, 

 or to permit or debar the public from its pursuit if he de- 

 sires. He should be content with this. Sunday shooting 

 and fishing, in the country especially, is an annoyance to 

 the farmer and laud-holder whose lands are trespassed 

 upon, and to all la w-abiding people. If the loca l officials 

 would properly enforce the Sunday law in this particular, 

 much undeserved censure upon citizens who desire and 

 do hunt and fish at proper times would be removed, as 

 well as much criticism of the restrictive game and fish 

 laws. 



Nearly every State and Territory is awake to the neces- 

 sity of the proper protection of its game and fish. Many 

 of them have established statutes forbidding the trans- 

 portation of killed game beyond their own jurisdiction, 

 statutes known as non- exportation laws. Massachusetts 

 lags. First in intelligence and quick in the recognition 

 and adoption of methods of advancement in all desirable 

 things, the old commonwealth is the least efficient of a ll 

 the States in this matter we have discussed. We believe 

 the Legislature has only to learn the facts, and appreciate, 

 even m a degree what we urge, when it will devise a 

 symmetrical and effective law for the protection of our 

 game.— Com, E. H. Lathrop, in Massachusetts Report 



THE CHICAGO GAME DEALERS. 



CHICAGO, Jan. 28.— Editor Forest and Stream: I in- 

 close you letter from game dealers here addressed 

 to our game yvarden, in which they promise to obey the 

 laws from Feb. 1, when the close season begins. This is 

 a hopeful sign of reform on the part of this class of 

 merchants. I am not aware that they have ever before 

 made a public statement of such honorable intentions. 



"Chicago, Jan. 27.— Mr. W. C. Minier, Game Warden, 

 Chicago. — DEAR Sir: 'We, the undersigned game re- 

 ceiveis and dealers of the city of Chicago, recognizing 

 that our Legislature has given 'us a, just, fair and genei> 

 ous law, corresponding with that in force in the main 

 markets of the country, and desiring to show our appre- 

 ciation of this treatment, hereby announce that we. and 

 all others that we can in any' manner influence, will 

 strictly obey the letter and spirit of the game law, and 

 will do all that we possibly can in every' respect *° U P" 

 hold it, and will aid you in everv possible manner in the 

 performance of your duty in' seeing the lay obeyed. 

 Barnett Bros.. Ed. Goodale & Sou, Ballon & Shirley'. D. 

 W. I'earch & Co.. H. L. Brown & Son. T. D. Randall Ac 

 Co., Fred M. Smith. Lynch Bros.. H. A. Sloan, G. S. 

 Sloan, J. B. Brosseau, Addison Miller & Co.. Bond <v; 

 Whitcomb, Suits & Fagen, J. N. Adams." 



The complaint has been made in the West for years, 

 that the Boston, New York and other Eastern markets 

 have been kept open nearly the year round for our prairie 

 chickens, grouse and quail. The effect has been to make 

 our Western game dealers very restless when they see the 

 Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Dakota and Minnesota 'trappers 

 sending their birds through to Eastern markets in Janu- 

 ary, February, March and April: and this has been one of 

 their excuses heretofore for not obeying the laws. Can- 

 not the dealers and sportsmen in the East come to some 

 understanding and cease handling game after, say. Feb. 

 1 of each year? M, R. BOttTRBE, 



SHOOTING NOTES. 



X\! HEN the great area of snow which now covers the 

 > » country begins to melt away, people will begin to 

 sum up the great destruction of game that it has' occa- 

 sioned. 1 have, had several letters from sections where 1 

 shoot, and there is but one opinion expressed, that the 

 quail have had a most terrible set back. I n the exposed 

 prairie lands of southern Illinois, the birds have perished 

 in great numbers. One friend writes me: "I took my 

 hound dog down to the edge of the woods which run 

 alongside the Wabash River, expecting to start a fox that 

 has been bothering my chickens. On my way I found 

 seven bevies of quail in the main ditch. They were 

 squatting on the crust snow and only several of the birds 

 could fly, and those not over 6ft. I caught half a dozen, 

 and found that balls of ice as large a.s a hickory nut com- 

 pletely covered their feet. The birds could not run. yvere 

 very weak and were dying. I went back to the house 

 and got a basket and picked up 57 birds, there were some 

 twenty odd birds dead. I put the birds in a warm garret 

 room with some water and feed, first dipping the ice- 

 covered feet in warm water to thaw them out. I could 

 think of no other way of getting the ice off without in- 

 juring the feet. All but eleven of the birds have died; 

 and only three of these are able to run about in a frisky 

 way. No more quail shooting here for some years." 



It is acknowledged that it takes pretty cold weather to 

 bother the partridges (ruffed grouse), but up in the Cat- 

 skill Mountain region Jack Frost &nd his brother the 

 Blizzard have been knocking them. In Ulster county 

 one farmer picked up three birds in his apple orchard, 

 where they had flown to bud. He says his attention was 

 first called to them by seeing a partridge fall dead out of 

 a tree. He plowed through the sandy snow to where it 

 was, and in looking around found two others. All the 

 birds had their feet badly frozen. 



The hunting in western Texas, Mexico and Arizona has 

 been fine this winter. The market at El Paso is full of 

 elk, antelope and white-tail and mule-deer. There are 

 no bear around. They smelt the cold weather coming 

 and dug for their holes to suck their paws. It is strange, 

 but nevertheless a fact, that none of the old hunters have 

 seen any bears this winter. 



Col. J. Fisher Satterthwaite, with Col. Head and party 

 went out from Deming on a big hunt. They had besides 

 their horses a four-mule wagon filled with grub and bait. 



There was to be no roughing it on this trip, so they tool 1 

 along a French cook and assistant. They froze «U 

 French cook the third day after striking snow. TfflSI 

 route was through the Animos Valley, on the lineflH 

 Aiizona and New Mexico, southwest into the Sien-aSB 

 Old Mexico. The shooting in the Sierras was very ffaaSj 

 The antelope were very tame. The party killed all $1 

 big game it could use, besides turkeys, ducks and f<va 

 quail. The latter were knocked over with sticks. ™ 

 weather was terribly cold, and no end of ice and snowH 

 the mountains. 



Jack Bridges, one of the best known big game huntaj$ 

 and long range shots in the West, and who was oneflH 

 Custer's scouts at one time, has gone to trap and shQi*|( 

 around Fort Davis, Texas. There is plenty of water theS 

 and game is said to be abundant, 



An act has been introduced into the New Jersey Leg® 

 lature prohibiting the killing of deer in New Jersey M 

 two years. Senator Gardner, of Atlantic county, saj® 

 "There are not over fifteen deer left in South Jersey, an$ 

 if the law is not passed the deer will be exterminatedfi 

 This season hundreds of hunters flocked to South Jersrff 

 during the deer season, and the deer got thinned ofl 

 Since the law closed some hunters have kept right on. \ 



Nrw York, Jon. m. The Wise Acre, 



AN AFTERNOON WITH THE QUAIL,' 



ONE afternoon in the early part of Noyernber, "8Tm 

 had just finished my dinner when my friend C. pdS 

 posed that we should spend an afternoon'with the quam 

 I readily agreed, and after getting a few shells readyS 

 brought my gun and my favorite setters, a, bitch puppy, 

 Berry, that I was handling for a Boston gentleman, arid 

 my own pet bitch, Beauty. Some people who hsm 

 never used blue bloods, may think a. blue blood cantwfll 

 bold out for a day's hunt— I should like to have sum] 

 doubters come and spend a week with me, and I yyffl 

 snow them one that can hold out for ten days and newffl 

 flag. I have hunted her for several seasons since I boug^l 

 her and have never seen one to excel her in all my shoot- 

 ing, though I have used Irish, Gordon and native' setters, ■ 

 and all kinds of pointers, tut she is good enough for me, 1 

 and she is blue blood and not for sale. We had not goo*' I 

 far from the house when we came to a nice field that had ' 

 lain out, and yvas covered with weeds and stubble. We • 

 next crossed a cornfield into an old oat patch, when, whfflj 

 the dogs were running at full speed, Berry dropped tow 

 point; I called to Beauty and she came around, and as we i 

 walked up to Berry I flushed the birds. I brought ojifl] 

 down with my right barrel, and one with my left. makuM 

 a nice double. My friend C. scored a clean miss, as nsuS : 

 as he is no shot at all, but enjovs the sport of seeing thp I 

 dogs work. We tried to mark the birds, but they w&M 

 into such a thick piece of wood that we gave, them fflB 

 and went on to look for another cove v. 



We crossed an old strayv field into another lay out tflj 

 joined an oat patch. As Beauty yvas coming down wijfflj 

 beside a ditch, she ran into a nice covey. We mark™! 

 them down beside the ditch about a hundred yards aw*riW 

 After giving them time to settle, so that they wqmH 

 throw off their soent -freely, we started for therm When I 

 we got near them Beauty and Berry both pointed ai tbfi 1 

 same moment. I walked up and two birds rose. 1 downfeij 

 them both. I sent the dogs in to find the dead biroM 

 when they flushed another one, and I downed it? VI 

 bagged those three, and on looking around I saw Bella I 

 was on another bird, making a beautiful point. I flush^SJ 

 it and it came to my bag also, and 1 went only a lew . 

 steps when Beauty made another point, Berry 'backrMl 

 her ricely. 1 flushed ; it swung under a limb and I scor™ 

 a clean miss. After getting in some more beantifi4"| 

 points, and bagging a few more birds I left that eovejpij 

 as I had just about finished it, having got ten birds. ]H 

 then went on to another covey that I had been into bp- I 

 fore, and there I got a few more. I had the covey brqflj 

 down in a straw field that had a few scattering pinesffl 

 it. The birds got up tolerably well, and I accounted fan 

 seven of them to the delight of a farmer who came to m 

 the "bird dogs" hunt, as he called them, he never hav^B 

 seen one point before. 



After getting up all of the covey we could, we started; 

 for home. Going back to the covey we left on am 

 ditch. 1 bagged two more. After a brisk walk af twen® 

 minutes we arrived at home, anil counting up our batf i 

 I found I had killed nineteen birds out of twenty-thrj*- 

 shots: my friend C. one. A nice afternoon's sport, and*, 

 good bag of birds for my friends. Tyrone. 1 



Rich Squar/h, N, C. 



MY KIT. 



WHILE much has been written on guns', "holding fl 

 vs. holding ahead," etc., which has been of inter* j 

 est and profit to your many readers, I have often wond- 

 ered at the apparent lack of' t attention given to the shoot- 

 er's kit. We all know what an important matter is in* i 

 eluded in this small yvord, and it is to induce other sports- 

 men of wider experience than mine to give their con^B 

 buttons to the kit that these lines are written. 



In our bird shooting one may strike any kind of weath»J 

 or range of temperature, and it is necessary to be pre* ] 

 pared for comfortable work under all circumstances. I j 

 find a corduroy vest, pants and jacket with a canvas 

 skeleton coat and pantaloons make the best all-rouni 

 combination for my purpose. I wear the canvas pants, 

 yvith skeleton coat over a drill shirt in very warm weather, 

 introducing corduroy piece-meal as the cold increasqK 

 In extreme exposure I use a very heavy woolen guernsey 

 under my vest and outside my pants, sailor fashion* 

 This, with heavy underwear, makes an almost impene- 

 trable barrier to Jack Frosty 



I use the corduroy jacket with a skeleton coat over it 

 for a shell and game carrier in preference to the reguHSt 

 corduroy coat, because when riding in a narrow buggy 

 or sitting down to lunch at a farmhouse, I have, tof 

 comfort, often taken off my coat, at the expense of ]m 

 savere cold. Now I take off my skeleton coat with shelffi 

 and birds in it when I come to the wagon or go into a 

 farmhouse, and the relief from its weight, even for the 

 few noments given to lunch and a smoke, is quite 

 item in a hard day's tramp. Then again, a corduiM 

 coat soon becomes foul, but by the use of the jacket an^ 

 skeleton coat you can renew the latter as often as be- 

 comes necessary at small expense, while the jacket used 

 alone is just the thing for trap shooting. I use Upthe- 



