Feb. 7, 1889.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



47 



words. The constitutionality of the section claimed to 

 be violated was affirmed by the Supreme Court, so far as 

 Michigan game is concerned. 



In trials before juries there has been little disposition 

 shown on the part of jurors to acquit accused parties 

 Where the evidence has shown them to be violators. 

 There are exceptions in some counties. And invariably 

 the better sentiment of the people is in favor of the en- 

 forcement of any law that the Legislature sees tit to put 

 upon the statute books. 



It belongs to the State Board of Fish Commissioners to 

 show hoAv large, important and valuable are the food 

 product of the State. Tho game interests are equally as 

 important, and as a food product the game of this State 

 is much more important than is generally known. 



Knowing the extent of these interests, it is clear that 

 their preservation depends very largely upon the enforce- 

 ment of the laws pertaining to them. In order that the 

 people might become familiar with these laws, nearly the 

 entire edition of 10,000 copies of the game and fish com- 

 pilation has been distributed, under the supervision of 

 this department, throughout the State. In addition to 

 this, the substance of the more important laws has been 

 published in the form of notices of warning, which have 

 been generally posted. 



My visits for consultation with the deputy wardens and 

 in the general work of the department have extended to 

 all parts of the State, and I find that ignorance of these 

 laws can rarely be claimed in excuse for their violation, 

 so generally have they been published and circulated. 

 Aud I have observed an increasing interest on the part of 

 citizens generally in seeing them enforced and offenders 

 of them punished. Wm. Alden Smith, Warden. 



ADIRONDACK DEER. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



In the Jan. 24 issue of the Booneville Herald, a very 

 good newsy paper in the main but a little off on deer 

 protection, is an article recommending the careful 

 watching of our Legislature, lest they tinker with the 

 game laws and make further unwise legislation, and say- 

 ing that there is a growing sentiment among a large 

 number of sportsmen, who are looking for the best inter- 

 est of the deer, that advocates a shorter season, from 

 Aug. 15 to Oct. 5, and is also in favor of a law to prohibit 

 the killing of does. It says that by Oct. o sportsmen 

 Who take their summer vacation in the Adirondacks 

 have left, and that the deer usually killed after that time 

 are killed for market or are packed down for winter use. 

 Such a law would be almost entirely in favor of the jack 

 shooters and hot-weather hunters. I suppose they lay 

 claim to the name of sportsmen, but for my part I can 

 spc very little difference between a jack shooter of does 

 in the month of August and a club hunter in January. 

 If anything it is in f vor of the man with the club, as he 

 usu-dlv save^ and uses what he kills, and the jacker 

 wounds and leaves to tot beside our lakes and streams 

 mo'-e'h^n he lecover*, and what he does get is mostly 

 wasted on account of hot weather. Neither of them have 

 in my opinion any very great claim to the name of 

 eponsman. 



An amendment to prohibit the killing of does looks 

 very well on the f^ce of it, and might do some good late 

 in the fceaeon. With the best intentions any man in nine 

 cases out of ten in the imperfect light of a lamp and fog 

 cannot distinguish a buck from a doe, and not every man 

 would withhold a shot if he did. There is a growing and 

 almost universal sentiment among us on the borders of 

 the Adirondacks and elsewhere that prohibits the shooting 

 of all deer until some time in September. This would be 

 the most sensible and practical thing to do for the preser- 

 vation of our deer. The three-deer clause of the present 

 law shuts out the market-hunter; but if three deer are too 

 many make it two, 



Aiid we believe that any man who wili in the cool 

 weather of November by the still-hunt, giving the deer 

 fair play, pitting his own unaided skill against the acute 

 senses of the deer, with a single bullet bring him to bag, 

 will get a better piece of venison to take home to his 

 family and friends as the weather then will permit, and 

 will have much more cause to feel proud of his achieve- 

 ment, and get his deer in a more sportsmanlike manner, 

 than he would to riddle a suckling doe with buckshot at 

 short range. For this reason we say give us November 

 for an open season. Maine does it, Michigan does it, 

 Wisconsin does it, New Hampshire does it, and all are 

 apparently satisfied. 



The sentiment is also growing pretty fast that it is 

 about time that we stop legislating almost entirely in the 

 interest of the summer vacationist, and legislate more for 

 the protection of the deer. A Veteran. 



Holland Patent, Jan. 38. 



FACTORY AMMUNITION. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



I have been fitting out for turkeys, and have weighed 

 a lot of Remington bullets very accurately. If the in- 

 closed list of their weights is of any use to the Forest 

 and Stream print it. The main idea is to show the slight 

 value of home-made as compared with factory-made: 



Weights of 252 swaged bullets, factory-made. 

 Cal. .14, patched, weight 550grs.: 5S0grs. 2; 550 to 551grs. 7; 



552grs. 1.. 10 



Cal. .44, patched, weight 530grs.: 520 to 521grs. 4; 521 to 522grs. 5; 



522Kgrs. 1 10 



Cal. .40, patched, weight 370grs.: 3?0grs. 1; 368 to 369grs. 9 10 



Cal. .40, ptitched, weight 330grs.: 323 to 324grs. 3; 334 to 325grs. 5: 



338 to 329grs. 2 10 



Cal. .40, not patched, weight 265grs.: 2<33 to 204grs. 1; 265grs. 1; 



265 to 260grs. 5; 266 to 267grs. 1; 268 to 369grs. 1: 272grs. 1 . . . . 10 

 Cal. .38, not patched, weight 330grs.: 327 to 328grs. 2: 328 to 



330grs. 2, 830 to 331grs. 4; 331 to 332grs. 2 10 



Second lot: 329 to 330grs. 7; 330 to S31grs. 9; 331 to 332grs. 4 20 



Cal. .38, not patched, weight 306grs.: 304 to 306grs. 21; exact 20: 



306 to 307gvs. 38; 307 to 30Sgrs. 4; 308 to 309grs. 10; 309 to 310- 



grs. 8; 310 to 311grs. 10; 311 to 313gre. 11; 313 to 314grs. 3 120 



Cal. .38, not patched, weight 255grs.: 254 to 255grs. 3; 255grs. 8; 



255 to 256grs. 13; 253 to 257grs. 18 . 42 



Cal. .38. not patched, weight 2iogrs.: 243 to 244grs. 4; 244 to 245- 



grs. 3; 245grs. 3 10 



252 



Weight of 17 bullets, hand-made. 



255gr. mould: 271grs. 1; 271 to 279grs. 11 13 



265gr. mould: 294grs. 1; 313gvs. lfSlogi^. 1; 316gi\s. 2. ...... 5 



~17 



"Sam LoveVs Camps,," By R, E. Robinson, Now ready, 



INCIDENTS IN MY HUNTING LIFE. 



I ONCE caught a very large bear in a steel trap. He 

 carried the trap some three miles, as I estimated. 

 The trap was fastened to a heavy clog, the whole weigh- 

 ing 75 or lOOlbs. He would often get brought up in the 

 brush or small trees, and would tear and bite and twist 

 the trees like mad until he got the trap clear; then go on 

 again, sometimes taking the clog in his mouth and carry- 

 ing it a. quarter of a mile or more, making no signs on the 

 ground, so I had to strike a circle to find his path again. 

 In this way he followed until he had circled around to 

 within a quarter of a mile of where he started from, and 

 here I found him after spending the most of a day fol- 

 lowing up the signs. 



The bear was very fierce and made fearful exertion to 

 get clear, jumping toward me the length of his chain, 

 and gnashing his teeth and making mumbling, short, 

 repeating growls every moment, giving me the impres- 

 sion that, should he clear himself from the trap, I should 

 be his objective point and stand a small sight for escape 

 unless I got in a deadly shot in a hurry. 



I had with me a doublebarrel, smoothbore, muzzle- 

 loader shotgun, loaded one barrel with bullet and the 

 other with shot. I approached him with caution, not 

 liking his big growls or ursine swear words, and fired at 

 his heart the bullet when he reared to jump at me; for he 

 was so active it was difficult to draw a bead on his 

 head. The shot did not seem to affect Mm in the least, 

 and he continued his jumping. I rolled in a bullet on 

 top of the shot in the other barrel and aimed and tired 

 as before. Then I at once commenced to load both bar- 

 rels with powder and balls, and had wadded down the 

 powder and was rolling in the bullets when the bear 

 fell. After skinning him I cut him open to find out 

 where the bullets hit and found that both had passed 

 through the heart. The bear had plenty of time to reach 

 me after I fired my first shot, had he been clear of the 

 trap; and this supports my theory that the only safe 

 place to hit a bear is in the head. 



I think it depends on the state of the lungs about the 

 length of time a bear lives after a bullet pierces his 

 heart. If the breath is in, he will live until he has to 

 breathe again; if out, he cannot draw in another. 



I once found a bear dead in a trap. It was in a swamp 

 where the spruces and firs were very thick and grew very 

 slim and tall. When the bear felt the jaws of the trap 

 on his legs he tore around furiously and cleared quite a 

 piece of ground of small trees and rotten logs, and then 

 struck out climbing one of the tallest trees, breaking off 

 most of the limbs as he went up until reaching the top 

 some 50 or 60ft. when he j ust slipped the trap — which 

 was on his foreleg — over the top of the tree and let go, 

 probably thinking to rid himself of the trap. When I 

 found him he was down some 10ft. from the top, the 

 tree sticking up through the trap. I had to fell the tree 

 to get him. He weighed about 2001bs. 



I once found a bear in my trap in a cedar swamp, hung 

 up between two trees. The trap was on his forefoot and 

 he had climbed a cedar which branched apart 10 or !3ft. 

 above the ground, and he had dropped from the top into 

 the fork of the tree, the trap and clog going one side and 

 the bear the other, his hindfeet just reaching a log on 

 the ground, so he could bear his weight (no pun intended) 

 enough on the log to jump up a foot or two, then settle 

 back to the log again, but could not extricate himself. 

 In this manner I found him, and he was dancing a lively 

 jig, which he continued for a long time, giving the ap- 

 pearance of actually amusing himself in this funny 

 manner. 



Several times I have found bears in my traps, burrowed 

 under the roots of large trees, where they had dug a hole 

 under large enough to conceal themselves, and I found it 

 difficult to dispatch them and get them out. On one oc- 

 casion I came up with a bear in my trap and found him 

 lying down, his forepaws stretched out and his head rest- 

 ing on them. It was nearly dark, and I felt in a hurry 

 to kill Mm and get back to my boat before night, so I 

 aimed detween his eyes and fired. He did not movej and 

 his eyes shone as bright as ever. I waited some time for 

 some evidence of life or death, but not seeing any change 

 I cut a long pole, sharpened one end, and went to punch- 

 ing him. He did not move, so I cautiously approached 

 him and found him stone dead. J. G, R. 



Bethel, Me. 



MAN AND OTHER ANIMALS. 



BOSTON, Mass., Jan. 38.— Connected with the idea of 

 fish and game protection there are some peculiar 

 features, not the least of which are the notions of phil- 

 osophers and even profound th hikers. Mr. Edmund 

 Noble lectured on Sunday evening, in the Church of the 

 Unity, Boston, on the Rights of Animals and the Tortures 

 of Legalized Sport. The lecture was intended to reach 

 the best society of Boston, and the lecturer was intro- 

 duced by the Rev. M. J. Savage, pastor of the church, 

 and one of Boston's most popular pulpit orators. The 

 lecturer dwelt on the cruelties to animals being slaugh- 

 tered for food, and his ideas were good and true, had he 

 carried them to logical conclusion; that is, that every 

 creature slaughtered for food, or to rid it of a miserable 

 existence in old age or decrepitude, is entitled to a pain- 

 less death. But when he came to dwell upon the cruel- 

 ties of sport with line and hook it was evident that he 

 was dealing with pure sentiment. If Mr. Noble believes 

 that the trout with a hook in his jaw suffers all the pangs 

 that a human being would with a corresponding iron hook 

 in his jaw, then Mr. Noble could not be blamed for never 

 going a fishing, and it is a very commendable thing in 

 him that he dared to get up before an intelligent audience 

 and disclaim all legalized sport. But had Mr. Noble ever 

 indulged in these legalized sports he would have long ago 

 come to the conclusion that the capabilities of the trout 

 for suffering pain are not quite up to those of a human 

 being. If he had ever caught a trout with half a dozen 

 hooks in Ms jaws, with no appearance of gangrene or 

 soreness, not even enough but that the trout was as fierce 

 as in the case of the first one, he would have asked him- 

 self the question, '.'How long would a man live with six 

 iron hooks in his mouth of an inch in diameter?" A 

 little careful thought will convince anybody that the 

 capabilities of animal, fish or insect life, for suffering 

 pain are measured hy the position they occupy in the 

 order of animal existence, with the sponges as the lowest 

 individuals in the order, and human beings as the highest. 

 It should be remembered that some of the fishes are so 

 destitute of nerve or of feeling, that they may even be 



frozen solid into the ice in winter, and yet on the thaw- 

 ing of the ice in the spring, the fish swims away as though 

 nothing had happened. 



Again the lecturer declares that all laws for the pro- 

 tection of fish and game, all "close time for brutes" he 

 puts it, "are but means for the multiplication of victims.'" 

 The lordly moose and the fleeting deer are protected by 

 our laws,'only that the hunter may have the opportunity 

 to kill. "Do we not shelter and protect tho diminutive 

 lobster that later we may boil Mm alive?" asks the lec- 

 turer. Yes, this is true, but so does the farmer rear his 

 stock, only to send it to the butcher. If such be cruelty, 

 if such be a wrong to the animals in question, then what 

 a load of sin has the farmer and the stock raiser to answer 

 for? What a brute — yes, even a murderer — must the 

 butcher be ! Even the lecturer himself may not be de- 

 void of cruelty, if he allows himself to partake of other 

 than farinaceous foods. The partaker has got some of 

 this sin of cruelty to answer for, if cruelty it be. The 

 beautiful deer may enjoy the life that nature has given 

 him, but if he falls from the bullet of the hunter, that 

 existence is instantly blotted out. There is little or no 

 pain. What might not have the end been finally, had 

 the hunter never fired the death shot ? Would that deer 

 have finally been tortured by death at the teeth of dog or 

 wolf, or would he have met his end from starvation, 

 when age had left him toothless and unable to feed upon 

 twigs in winter? 



The lecturer deplored the fact that the partridge must 

 take his chance with the shotgun of the cruel sportsman 

 under our modern civilization, but he forgot to mention 

 that the same bird, were it left to choose, would probably 

 prefer death from a well-directed charge of shot to being 

 riddled by the eagle or the hawk, or rooted out of the 

 snow in the night time hy the hungry fox. The Itcturer 

 may claim that the hunter is cruel, but in all fairness he 

 must admit that nature herself is ten times as cruel. The 

 true sportsman aims to administer instantaneous death, 

 but nature leaves the deer that happens to break a leg, 

 the partridge that happens to break a wing, to fall and 

 die of thirst, or starvation. Death comes to every form 

 of animal life, sooner or later, and the sportsman who 

 brings down the bird on the instant has committed no act 

 of cruelty. 



One day last autumn a Boston gentleman, spending his 

 vacation in the Maine woods, came upon a flock of part- 

 ridges. Two were shot, and one fell with a broken wing. 

 Hunt as thoroughly as we might, that bird could not he 

 found before nightfall, which soon came on. It was two 

 miles from camp, but the gentleman was very loth to 

 give up the search, remarking several times "I am sure 

 that that bird is hid near by somewhere, for I saw her 

 running with a broken wing." But they were obliged to 

 leave for camp. Several times the gentleman remarked 

 during the evening, "I should feel better if I knew that 

 that partridge was dead and not suffering from a broken 

 wing." In the morning it rained and snowed by turns 

 and the weather was very disagreeable, but the shotgun 

 was soon shouldered by that sportsman. He whistled to 

 his setter, and took a foot from one of the grouse killed 

 the day before in his pocket. Reaching the scene of the 

 shooting of the day before, the foot was given to the dog 

 to smell, and in a few minutes he came to a point in a 

 little thicket. No bird could be flushed, however, but on 

 approaching the wounded partridge of the day before 

 ran out and was immediately shot. The gentleman 

 coolly pocketed the bird with the expression that he was 

 satisfied. There was now no* wounded partridge to 

 haunt his reverie by the camp-fire. 



The Church of Unity lecturer objected, or seemed to 

 object, that our choicest table fish, under modern civil- 

 ization, are sheltered during the breeding season, in 

 order that they may bring forth more victims for the 

 hook and the line; it were better perhaps that the female 

 fish were early destroyed, thus thousands of fish would 

 never be brought forth, only to meet the hook and after- 

 ward the frying-pan. Such nonsense reminds one of an 

 eccentric character that was once well known in Boston. 

 He never married, because he was a great enemy to pain 

 and misery, and he desired no cMldren to be born to him, 

 only to inherit pain and miserv. Later in life he would 

 always lament the birth of a child to any of his friends 

 in this wise, "Oh, misery, pain and misery! Poor, poor 

 little thing! Born to suffer pain and misery ! Nothing 

 but misery, misery !" * Speciax. 



Majucktinu Mountain Sueep.— Editor Forest and 

 Stream: In the Kansas City Star of Jan. 36 appeared this 

 notice: "D. Mogg has on exhibition at his butcher shop, 

 119 West Ninth street, a fine specimen of Rocky Mountain 

 sheep, shot by Mr. Al Knollin, sheep buyer for Swift & 

 Co. The animal is said to be the first one of its kind 

 shown in the Kansas City markets." This was most start- 

 ling to me, knowing" full well the recent action of the 

 Colorado and Montana legislatures regarding game, 

 especially the former, by which the Rocky Mountain 

 sheep are protected eight years from 1887. I can readily 

 excuse the sportsman who is far from market, no fresh 

 meat, and a band of sheep or any other game within 

 reach of his rifle, but when such flagrant usage is made 

 of rifle and opportunity, I am excusable for "cussin'." 

 The idea! Killing a sheep for market! — that species of 

 game so nearly extinct, so nearly a thing of the past, 

 game of the. sort which men go hundreds of miles to look 

 at, much less kill — and here it is offered for sale in a 

 butcher's shop hundreds of miles from its native heath. 

 With all due respect for Mr. Mogg, I shall endeavor to 

 trace this matter to a head, and, if possible to effect a 

 conviction, it will be done. There is no danger of the 

 killer or shipper seeing this article: such men as pot and 

 market hunters rarely can read, let alone become sub- 

 scribers io periodicals; but for the sake of doing with 

 others as I would have them do to me, and protect me 

 should such things occur under their pwn eye, I shall 

 most certainly sift this matter to the bottom, — TlLE. 



To Destroy Skunk's Odor.— Huntington, Mass., Jan. 

 31. — Richard Gear Hobbs, in your last issue, asks how to 

 destroy the horrible smell of the skunk, so he may skin 

 them. If near swift-running water in brook or river, 

 after killing the animal take a stout cord or wire, attach 

 one end to the skunk's biudleg and the other end to a 

 pole, then put the skunk in. the rapid stream so the water 

 will cover him for 48 hours; he will then find no scent 

 upon the fur. The two scent bags or sacks lying at root 

 of tail each side of vent should be removed before trying 

 to skin the animal,— H, W. M, 



