Oct. 27, 1887.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



267 



shattered shoulder was disclosed. The buck ran on three 

 legs, but although Iris track was seen frequently we w ere 

 all under the impression, "from the manner in which he 

 ran," that all four legs were in use. Clark volunteered 

 to dress the deer, which he completed in tine style. 



The day was not far advanced when we headed for 

 camp, but after a tramp of two miles through briers and 

 over rocks with the buck swinging from a pole borne on 

 our shoulders we decided to call it a day, and right well 

 we could with two noble bucks hanging against the old 

 pine beside our cabin. F. G. 



Tyuonb, Pa., Oct. 22. 



MOOSE IN MAINE. 



BOSTON. Oct. 24. —Mr. W. S. Hills, who has killed his 

 moose in Maine, has just returned from his annual 

 hunt in the upper Moosehead region. His departure was 

 mentioned some weeks ago in the Forest and Stream. 

 Mr. Hills is a believer in the protection of moose and 

 deer, but he also likes to try for one in the open season. 

 He took a friend, a Mr. Dewey, of Boston, with him. 

 Mr. Hills did not kill a moose this season himself, but his 

 friend did , though it was a small one — only a two-year- 

 old. They did not get him by the usual method of call- 

 ing in the' night time, but they happened upon him, or 

 rather they heard him in the stream at Poland Pond, near 

 one of those lakes of a hard name, and they worked up to 

 the animal and shot him. Mr. Hills himself killed a 

 caribou, a small one, though it had a pretty set of 

 antlers. He says that lie is satisfied — did not care so 

 much for killing his moose this year, but is pleased that 

 his friend succeeded. 



Mr. Hills gives rather a gloomy account of the future 

 of the moose in Maine. He believes that that noble ani- 

 mal is fast being exterminated. It is the Indian that is 

 the worst enemy of the moose. Next follows the guide 

 that traps in the woods all winter, and last comes the 

 sportsman from out of the State, who must hunt in the 

 open season or subject himself to very severe penalties. 

 The Indian and the white trapper locate themselves 

 within easy distance of the camps of the lumbermen, and 

 the morals of the lumbermen are weak enough to pur- 

 chase all the moose meat the hunter will furnish, pro- 

 vided it can be had at a low price. The Indian and the 

 trapper has the hide, and possibly the horns, and he man- 

 ages to smuggle them out of the State some way and thus 

 to sell them. Mr. Hills is positive that the destruction 

 of moose, deer and caribou by that class of men is some- 

 thing frightful for the sportsman who is fond of legiti- 

 mate moose hunting to think of. The worst hunting is 

 done on the crust late in the winter. Then the hunters 

 kill all the moose and deer they can approach, and they 

 manage to approach about every one, provided they 

 know the section well and the location of the yards. 

 Why, the officers of the law have been after an Indian 

 this very fall, known to have killed moose in close time. 

 They found him and they searched for moose meat, since 

 he had sold some to other parties only a few days before. 

 But they did not find it. They then searched his cabin 

 for hides. These they did not find, though the Indian 

 has since made his brags that there were ton moose hides 

 in the hut at the time, the results of his hunting this fall 

 and last winter. The hides were under his squaw as she 

 sat on the edge of the bed. The officers dared not molest her. 

 This Indian is already for the woods again this winter, and 

 the lumbermen buy all the moose meat he will furnish. 

 Yet he is only one of hundreds who infest that State and 

 the province of New Brunswick. The Indians are both 

 cunning and dangerous, and it takes a good deal of cour- 

 age in a game warden to attempt to bring one of them to 

 justice. Indeed they can only be restrained by enlisting 

 the lumbermen, and the lumbermen are not very likely 

 to enlist in the work of stopping their supply of cheap 

 beef. The Yankee trappers are less harmful than the In- 

 dians, but they do hunt moose in winter, and in the sum- 

 mer close season. A year ago, Mr. Hills remarks, it was 

 well known to the hunters who went into Maine for 

 moose in the upper Moosehead region that four moose had 

 been killed on a certain stream, before the law was off. 

 It was generally supposed that it had been done by a low 

 class of guides who follow trapping in the neighborhood 

 of the lumber camps in the winter, but just how they met 

 with such success was a mystery. There were the parts 

 of the moose killed, that were too heavy or too worthless 

 to be taken away. This year it has all come out just how 

 the moose were killed. The three guides were paddling 

 ""BP the stream, when they heard moose in the 

 water ahead. By carefully working their way up they 

 came within shooting distance. There were seven moose 

 -—four bulls, a cow and her two calves of the two seasons 

 previous. The bulls were evidently following the cow, it 

 being near the rutting season. The guides each shot his 

 moose at the first volley. But curious enough the cow 

 and calves did not start, and the remaining bull, now that 

 Ins rivals were down, would not desert her. One of the 

 guides, more fond of killing than the rest, shot down this 

 bull also. They now had more moose than they knew 

 what to do with, and, to cap the whole story, the cow 

 and the two calves frightened away by the last shot, soon 

 came back and stood near their fallen, companions. 

 The story goes that the giudes would not shoot these 

 moose. 



Mr. Hills believes in the protection of moose in Maine. 

 In fact he is anxious that they should be protected, in 

 order that a sport very attractive to himself shall hold 

 out. He says that he is ready personally to obey any 

 law that the State may make for the protection of her 

 game, but he believes that the enforcement of the law 

 has been going on at the little end of the trouble. It has 

 assumed a sort of a desire on the part of the Commission- 

 ers to persecute the "gentleman sportsman from Boston," 

 and to mulct him in all the damages possible. The Com- 

 missioners cannot but be aware of the wholesale slaugh- 

 ter of moose and deer that is being carried on in the win- 

 ter, yet how many cases are there on record where a 

 lumberman has ever been troubled in the taking of all 

 the moose he desired on which to feed his men? If they 

 have it has not been published in the papers. Yet the 

 sharpest wardens are stationed in the fall to watch the 

 sportsmen who come into the State and leave hundreds 

 Of dollars. If they are caught breaking the law by so 

 much as killing game on Sunday, which by an old relic 

 of blue laws is made a close time, even in the otherwise 

 open season, such sportsmen are made to pay all that 

 can be exacted of them. It is all right to enforce the 

 law with a just and even hand, but the lumberman 



and his accomplice in the crime, the winter trapper 

 and crust hunter, should each be made to feel the force 

 of the statute. That this has not yet been done is plain, 

 if the records of the game law enforcements in Maine are 

 worth anything. If the noble moose is to exist in Ma,ine, 

 this winter, hunting for the mere hides and meat must be 

 stopped. In the neighborhood of Kineo there is a notable 

 growth of the right sentiment among the guides. They 

 talk of forming a sort of society among themselves to 

 prevent the destruction of moose and deer in the close 

 time, and they are agreed that if the State will grant 

 September, or even a half of it, as open season, that they 

 will do all in their power for the enforcement of the law, 

 or at least to prevent the unlawful killing of moose, deer 

 and caribou. They begin to understand,' the more intelli- 

 gent of them, how great the value of a single moose, 

 alive in the woods, is to them, and this value they mea n 

 to follow up. This is the proper sentiment, and it is 

 possible' that a little missionary work, paid for by the 

 State, might do more good than the whole amount of 

 fight which has been put heretofore into the work of 

 game protection. The territory to be covered by the 

 fighting system is something enormous, and it would re- 

 quire a small army of officers and wardens, and even then 

 they could not enforce the law except partially. But once 

 get the ideas of the guides up to the value of these 

 animals to be hunted for by those both able and willing 

 to pay for the. sport, and the work of game protection 

 would be done. ' Game Laws. 



The Jumbo Moose. — For over ten years a moose of 

 gigantic proportions has been the wonder and the pride 

 of trappers and hunters who have lived or hunted in that 

 part of Maine known as the Seven Pond, or Dead River, 

 country, located in the northwestern part of the State 

 and along the Canadian line. In all these years this 

 moose, which finally became known as Jumbo,' has been 

 in pretty close quarters with huntsmen seeking his life, 

 but he has always succeeded in escaping from impending 

 danger. Rewards have been Offered for him, dead or 

 alive, by prominent naturalists, and stimulated by this 

 hunters have put forth extra efforts to secure him, but 

 without avail, until last Saturday, when he met his doom. 

 On that day Augustus Douglass, Albion Savage and one 

 other person, all residents of that section, were out hunt- 

 in.;;', Wnen they suddenly came upon Jumbo, quietly graz- 

 ing about fifteen rods from them. He was accompanied 

 by a cow and a young moose, and was apparently wholly 

 unaware of danger. This was an opportunity which 

 these men had been awaiting for years. Douglass was 

 armed with a .88-cal. Winchester rifle, and, taking steady 

 aim, he fired one shot, which took effect behind Jumbo's 

 shoulder. The monarch of the forest merely raised his 

 head, sniffed the air, and made no effort to get away. 

 Four more shots were rapidly fired by Douglass, and it 

 was not until the fifth shot had entered his body that he 

 yielded and fell to the ground. He was dead in a few 

 moments, and the carcass was at once conveyed to the 

 home of the hunters and found to weigh l,5001bs. The 

 body was skinned, except the head, and the hide and 

 head were shipped to E. M. Messenger, of the Bromfield 

 House, No. 55 Bromfield street, where it is now on exhibi- 

 tion. The distance from the base of the skull to the tip 

 of the nose measures 27in. ; from the burr to the tip of the 

 horns or antlers is 31-£-in., while the entire length of the 

 hom, measuring along its course, is 3ft. 2in. The widest 

 space in the palm of the horn reaches 7|in., and the ears 

 measure 12^in. The stretch of country along which this 

 moose traveled generally is along the Canada line, and 

 from this fact Jumbo was also known as "the boundary 

 line moose." — Boston Herald, Oct. 21. 



ADIRONDACK GUIDES. 



BEOOKLYN, N. Y. — Editor Forest and Stream: The 

 inclosed clipping from the Boonville Herald came 

 under my notice this morning, and having just returned 

 from the woods, know that the facts stated are only too 

 true, and as my views are so nearly in accord with those 

 expressed I could not refrain from sending the same to 

 you, hoping that you could use it or make some pointed 

 remark on the subject, or both. By so doing it will be 

 brought more to the notice of true sportsmen, and in the 

 near future I hope something may be done to do away 

 with the evil practice. C. B. P. 



The Herald says: "The capture of the four sportsmen 

 from Troy, in the region of the south branch of the Moose 

 River, is a feather in the cap of State Game Protector 

 Drew, who is to be congratulated upon his successful ef- 

 forts. That there was an open running of dogs before 

 the season opened (the crime of* which the Trojans paid 

 the penalty) there is no question, and it is to the credit of 

 Protector Drew that he kept watch of parties and was 

 rewarded by bringing them to justice. The Troy party 

 was composed of a clever lot of fellows, it is said, and 

 might have thought running dogs no worse than floating, 

 but the game laws should be observed to the letter, and it 

 is useless to the interests of game protection to permit 

 the violation of the law in one section and enforce it in 

 another. From Blue Mountain to Raquette Lake guides 

 have brought their parties to the Moose River region and 

 encouraged them in defying the law, or for a paltry sum 

 allowed them to hunt in season cr out, according to 

 methods which the law forbids. It is time a stop was 

 put to this practice and the guides and sportsmen should 

 rise up in arms against the poachers who unlawfully 

 rob the w^oods of the game that is none too plentiful. 

 If the game protectors appointed by the State cannot 

 attend to the law-breakers, it devolves upon the 

 sportsmen and guides to use every means for game 

 preservation. A few more protectors like Mr. Drew would 

 do much toward arresting guilty parties and make it so 

 warm for others that they would not dare to continue 

 their violation of the law. The place for every game pro- 

 tector during August was in the woods on duty, and if 

 such had been the case there would have been fewer dogs 

 run out of season and less violations of the law. Another 

 evil agency of game extermination is the going into the 

 woods of a lot of ignorant unprincipled persons to act as 

 guides, and who will stoop to any mean device for money. 

 They attend a lot of would-be city sportsmen and by fair 

 means or foul get their fish and venison. One of the 

 most honored sportsmen who goes to the North] Woods re- 

 cently penned the following: 'My views about the loy- 

 alty of guides have undergone a material change the past 

 year. I have heretofore defended them as a class against 

 the accusation of many good friends of the law who have 



no faith in them. I am prepared now to join the latter 

 in classing them not only as aids and abettors of poach- 

 ers, but as poachers themselves. They have become, 

 under the heavy feeding of cockney sportsmen, as ready 

 to break the law as the most unscrupulous pot-bunter, 

 when they were paid for doing it.' Such language is 

 strong, but as it relates to some of the guides of the Ad- 

 irondacks, it is too true. Would that these pernicious 

 poachers, be they guides or others, could be driven from 

 the. forest preserve. It is said that the hardest thing Mr. 

 Drew had to encounter in his recent raid was the treach- 

 ery of guides. Such guides should be scarce in the Ad- 

 irondacks, and are by their own acts killing the goose 

 that lays the golden eggs." 



A DAY IN THE WOODS. 



WHAT wonders time will work. What a change a 

 few years will make in the appearance of a place. 

 How vividly some of the "good old days" contrast with 

 sonic of the present. Almost everywhere one can note 

 the change. The finger of time or the busy hand of pro- 

 gress shows itself to the hunter and lover of the forest 

 where he was before only accustomed to find the 

 woods in her primeval state.' When one stops and com- 

 pares ten years ago with the present it comes home with 

 full force that the good old hunting times are fast disap- 

 pearing. Ten years ago the woods here were teeming 

 with game of all kinds, especially bears and deer. When 

 one went in the early morning the silence would only be 

 broken by the "music" of the hounds driving a deer to 

 the water or the sharp crack of the hunter's rifle. But 

 now? Oh, what a change I On every hand, in every one 

 of the old haunts of the hunter, your ears are filled with 

 the noise of wood choppers, the hum and sing of the saw- 

 mills, and in the distance the sharp, si n i l I whistle, of the 

 railway engines. All go to make up not the most agree- 

 able sounds in the world to the hunter when he is watch- 

 ing the banks of the river for a deer as it seeks the water. 

 Then, there was abundance of sport with comparatively 

 little labor: now, there is any amount of work with 

 sometimes but little sport. But this is digressing. I 

 must to my story of our day in the woods and what it 

 amounted to. 



The deer hunting season opened in Ontario on the 15th, 

 and on the preceding night five of us prepared to have a 

 hunt. There were Allan, Ed, Will, Fish, as we had 

 named Bill H., to distinguish him from Will, myself, and 

 Zip and Bugle, our two dogs. The morning of the 15th 

 came around, and with it, Allan's voice on the fence out- 

 side roaring in stentorian tones, "Get up you sluggards; 

 it's daylight an hour ago." At that Fish and I bounded 

 out of bed, dressed ourselves and rushed down stairs, only 

 to find Will seated by a nice hot stove, and the hour only 

 half-past four. That didn't bother us though, for we set 

 about chatting what each of us were going to do that day. 

 By and by Eel came down, looking pretty sleepy, and in- 

 timating that he wouldn't mind staying in a while 

 longer. That he couldn't do, for it was breakfast time 

 for us if we wanted to get into the woods early. That 

 finished, Allen came along and we made a start, a little 

 while before old King Sol made his appearance on the 

 horizon. Zip and Bugle seemed to know there was fun 

 ahead, for we could hardly restrain them. Allan and 

 Fish took the dogs to put out, and Will went along with 

 them to watch a runway or two, Ed and I took our boat 

 and went a couple of miles up the river. Ed stayed on 

 the left bank to watch two runways that came in on the 

 opposite side, and I took the boat and went a little further 

 up to watch a small stream and runway above. 



Now everything is settled. All the inlets are guarded. 

 All that we have to do now is for the dogs to bring the 

 deer down for us to shoot. 



The tnorning was sharp and frosty, and I whiled away 

 the time by tracing in fancy the hunting scenes I could 

 see in the wreaths of smoke as they rose up in the clear, 

 still air. This lasted until my toes began to get cold, 

 wduch necessitated my moving around somewdaat, but not 

 enough to make any noise. 



Hark! What was that? The baying of a hound, as 

 true as I live. Now the blood begins to tingle in antici- 

 pation of fun ahead. Now the hand closes with a tighter 

 grasp on the rifle. Now the eye flashes with a keener 

 light. The wreaths of curling smoke and cold toes are 

 forgotten, for the hunter's reward is almost to him. 



Oh, pshaw! The deer has circled and is going away. 

 Wait! The hounds have turned and are coming this way 

 again. Now we will have a shot anyhow. But hardly is 

 the thought formed when— bang! bang! The tongue of 

 the hound ceases, and all is still again. 



Has some one cheated us out of our game, or is the deer 

 in our party? As these meditations run through my 

 mind, crack, crack, crack, three shots, ring out sharp 

 and clear, a signal that the deer is dead and killed by one 

 of our party. 



Ed and I cross the river and push through the belt of 

 woods about a mile in width, where we come upon marks 

 that show where a deer has been dragged. This we fol- 

 low, and only catch up with the boys as they reach tho 

 house we had started from a few hours before. To Fish 

 belonged the honor of the day so far, and he bore his part 

 well, though a sly glance would once in a while find his 

 face wreathed in exultant smiles of pardonable pride, for 

 the deer was a nice buck that dressed something over 

 1501bs. We all took a hand in dragging him to the 

 station, where he was shipped off to some friends. 



This was not enough for Allen and myself, as the hands 

 of our watches only showed 9 o'clock, so Allan, Fish and 

 I started out for more glory. We all went back to the 

 same part of the woods, and after agreeing that Allan 

 and Fish were each to start a dog, I went to hunt up an 

 old shanty from which I could watch a runway. I shall 

 never forget the search I had, over hill and down dale, 

 through green woods and burnt slash I tramped, but no 

 shanty rose into view. I was getting somewhat tired of 

 that kind of work, so I perched myself up on a high log 

 to take a short rest. I had not been long there when 

 suddenly I heard the light footfalls of some animal ap- 

 proaching me. 



Now for a shot, says I. Pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat, came by the 

 sounds rustling in the leaves and the gun was already at 

 my shoulder, when Bugle rose into view instead of my 

 expected deer. This was a surprise and a disappoint- 

 ment to me, for I longed for a shot at a w hitetail. Crack! 

 went a rifle in the direction where I had left the others. 

 Crack, crack, crack went three more, the signal agreed 

 upon. Surely, said I, they cannot have another deer 



