238 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[April It, 1889. 



they move about very actively. Feb. 3 of this year [1884] 

 I found literally millions of them hopping over the dead 

 grass in the meadows, as restlessly as though it were 

 August. The ground was frozen and the sunlight had 

 merely dried and warmed the tangled mat of dead grass 

 upon the surface. At various points 1 found the open- 

 ings of tunnels, which I took to be the pathways of the 

 crepuscular shrews — shy little creatures, that toward 

 sunset come to the surface, and forage during the twi- 

 light." 



jAinong the ancient Egyptians, shrews were among 

 those animals considered by them to be sacred; they 

 figured them upon their monuments, and large numbers 

 of mummified specimens were preserved with their 

 bodies, where we now often come across them when 

 such remains are unwrapped for investigation. Later 

 than this, however, the writers of old record the fact 

 that these "shrew-mice" were regarded with no little 

 superstitious dread and fear; Pliny states that its bite is 

 venomous, and even Aristotle has it that the bite of a 

 shrew-mouse is fatal to all beasts of burden, invariably 

 so if the shrew be pregnant at the time she inflicts the 

 wound. These notions and many similar nonsensical 

 ones prevailed even in England down to a very late day. 



In number the Soricidse include far more than half ,the 

 known species of Insectivora of the world's fauna, and 

 then distribution is almost as equally extensive. Some 

 are characterized in having bright red or crimson teeth, 

 while in others they are white or brown. The upper 

 front incisors are always large, and moreover possess 

 in many instances a posterior basal cusp, Canines are 

 present, but can only be distinguished with certainty by 

 taking into consideration the location they occupy with 

 reference to the bones of the face. The lower jaw always 

 contains twelve teeth in shrews, and its incisors are 

 much depressed, so as to be nearly horizontal in position. 

 Water shrews, as a rule, have webbed feet, and, as their 

 name indicates, are amphibious. In some the tail is 

 short, in some it is angular, and in most species sparsely 

 covered with hairs, terminating in a "pencil" at its tip, 

 [to be concluded ] 



Long Island Birds. — The April Aak, just out, contains 

 two interesting papers on Long Island birds. The first is 

 by that promising young ornithologist Basil Hicks 

 Dutcher, who seems to be following in the footsteps of 

 his father. Mr. William Dutcher, whose investigations 

 into the bird lite of Long Island are so well known, Mr. 

 Basil Dutcher's paper treats of the birds of Little Gull 

 Island, which is situated near Fisher's Island, at the east 

 end of Long Island Sound. Twenty-three species of birds 

 were observed here. The island is a breeding ground for 

 the common and, perhaps, other terns. Jaegers (S. pom- 

 arinus and stercorariusj occur there and constantly per- 

 secute the terns. Mr. William Dutcher's paper deals 

 with Long Island birds in general, and contains notes on 

 seventeen species. Mention is made of an interesting 

 hybrid between a black duck (A obscura) and a mallard 

 (A. boschas) killed near Amity ville, Suffolk county, in 

 March. 1888, by Andrew Chichester, a South Bay gunner. 

 There are interesting notes on two species of petrel, two 

 phalaropes and other birds, 



A Rare Little Whale. — On March 28 the life-saving 

 crew at Atlantic City, N. J., captured one of the most in- 

 teresting cetaceans found in the Atlantic, a small whale 

 or bottle-nosed porpoise, Mesoplodon soiverbiensis, about 

 13ft. long. The whale was stranded in shallow water 

 inside of the bar, and was brought ashore after it had 

 been harpooned. Notice of its capture was telegraphed 

 to the National Museum, and, after having been ex- 

 hibited in Atlantic City for a few days, the animal was 

 forwarded to Washington, where it attracted much at- 

 tention on account of its great rarity. The whale has 

 been photographed, and will next go into the hands of 

 the modeler, who will make plaster molds of both sides; 

 finally the osteologist will prepare a skeleton for the com- 

 parative anatomy section. The United States Life-Sav- 

 ing Service is always active in aiding scientific research 

 by contibutions similar to the above. 



0mne j§Hg and %nx[. 



SPRING SHOOTING NEAR ST. LOUIS. 



ST. LOUIS, Mo., April 6.— Editor Forest and Stream: 

 Snipe are now plentiful in this immediate vicinity, 

 and the sportsmen of this city are devoting much time 

 to the pursuit of them with varying success. A few 

 were to be found around about here three weeks ago, but 

 not until the past week were they what might be called 

 plentiful as they are just at present. 



Wet Prairie, which is located in the State of Illinois, 

 about 20 miles above this city, is a famous place for the 

 shooting of longbills, and many of our local nimrods have 

 paid the marshes up there a visit during the past week 

 with satisfactory results. Perhaps the most famous 

 snipe grounds in this vicinity are those situated in St. 

 Charles and Pike counties, Mo., and lying between the 

 St, Louis, Keokuk and Northwestern Railway and the 

 Mississippi River. Extending for 20 miles, with now and 

 then a spur of timter to break the monotory of things, 

 this prairie is the largest and by far the most visited by 

 local sportsmen of any in this part of the country. In 

 the country referred to there are located no less than 

 four preserves controlled by gentlemen who reside in 

 this city. They are all inclosed within a lawful wire 

 fence and each club has a handsome and commodious 

 club house for the accommodation of its members. 



The latest of the clubs to locate a preserve in this 

 prairie is the Dameron Hunting and Fishing Club, which 

 is destined in a very short time to be the representative 

 club of its kind in this locality. When the club first took 

 possession of its leasehold, it had about 4,000 acres of 

 snipe and ducking grounds, but in the short space of a 

 month the officers of the club have seemed control of 

 several small pieces of property lying adjoining its 

 holdings until now fully 6,000 acres are held by it. 



Bluewing duck are very plentiful with us at present 

 and several good bags of them are reported by parties 

 who have been out. The larger clucks, such as mallards, 

 blackjacks, sprigs and others have made themselves ex- 

 tremely scarce and it is reasonable to suppose that they 

 have hied themselves to their northern breeding haunts 

 for the season, Unser Fritz. 



CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 



CHICAGO, 111., April 2.— Glory awaits that sporting 

 paper which shall head and lead to a successful issue 

 a movement looking toward the establishment of a uni- 

 form, or nearly uniform, game law for the different 

 States, or for all those States containing the prominent 

 game markets; and all that ignominy which attaches to 

 unsuccessful effort lurks on the path of sporting press and 

 sportsmen if some such measure be not inaugurated. 

 The lessous which lead to such a conclusion are becoming 

 too plain to be rnuch longer mistaken. It grows too obvi- 

 ous that, while protection doubtless does protect where 

 applied and where applicable, it certainly does not pro- 

 tect where no pretense is made of its being applicable. 

 In other words, no matter how well I house up my pigs 

 from my garden, I do not protect my garden if my neigh- 

 bor, protecting his own garden, yet looses his swine upon 

 my plantings. I satisfy a moral obligation by fencing in 

 my pigs, but I do not save my garden. The moral is, not 

 that I shall loose my pigs upon his garden and my own, 

 but that I shall set about inducing my neighbors to pro- 

 tect all gardens, theirs and my own, promising to do as 

 much for them; and thus to begin a general amnesty and 

 mutual armistice, whereunder swine in general shall be 

 kept from gardens in general at least during set seasons 

 of the year. 



This simple proposition, easy as it is, has not been 

 grasped by sportsmen as yet, even as a proposition, and 

 it is probable that the carrying it out to its conclusion has 

 in it too much difficulty to allow hope of its ever being 

 done by sportsmen. We sportsmen have always been 

 too busy talking to do very much. Doubtless a project 

 involving so much actual accomplishment as an inter- 

 active game law will always seem to sportsmen a task 

 too great to do more than look at, sigh over and talk 

 about. Meantime the game will go, unless the game 

 dealers conclude to do something. The game dealers 

 are pretty good business men, and they might accomplish 

 something if they started in. They may start in some 

 day. They would be willing to-day, perhaps, to start in 

 with the sportsmen, but the sportsmen will not have it 

 that way. The sportsmen know it all, and besides they 

 are afraid of a law, and don't want a law that will 

 actually protect the game. The sportsman is looking for 

 a law which will protect the game and yet allow Mm — 

 and no one else — to kill it all. The man who has such a 

 law can get a job with the sportsman class. As a sports- 

 man, I admire myself for the delightful simplicity in 

 which, upon this point, we all think alike. 



Recent talks with Chicago game dealers have furnished 

 the main motive for such ideas as the above, and have 

 furnished also some further facts which I do not see 

 much quoted, and which I believe will be news to many 

 sportsmen readers. A prominent South Water street 

 man said to me, in the course of an extended and re- 

 peated conversation: 



"You sportsmen are not fair in your estimate of the 

 game dealers, because you do not know all the facts. 

 You are not effective in your attempts at legislation, 

 equally because you do not know the facts. I presume 

 you think that if you frame a protective law for Illinois 

 — which you won't — you will have done your duty. As a 

 matter of fact, what will you have done? Very little. 

 There was not $500 worth of Illinois game sold on South 

 Water street in 1888. You may be sure there was plenty 

 of game from other States sold. If you shut down on us 

 with a law to prevent our handling game at the seasons 

 of the year when game is naturally sought by buyers, 

 what do you really accomplish ? You protect the $500 

 worth of Illinois game, and you lose for this one firm 

 alone— if we choose to respect the law — more than $10,000 

 of business. You don't see how? Well, I'll tell you. 

 We don't handle very much game in comparison to 

 our poultry trade. We make our money off the poultry 

 trade, not off the game, and very often handle the latter 

 mainly as an accommodation to the customer. Suppose a 

 small local buyer in Missouri has half a carload, or a car- 

 load of poultry and a few dozens of mallard ducks which 

 he has bought from local hunters. Almost all local hunt- 

 ers sell to the local buyer now; they don't kill enough to 

 ship in large lots for themselves. Very well; my Missouri 

 man wants to ship his mallards along with his poultry, 

 so that he can get the benefit of the car rate. It wouldn't 

 pay him to fool with so small a matter as a separate ship- 

 ment for a few dozen ducks. He sends them right along 

 to me. They reach me in the off-season, which you fel- 

 lows have in your wisdom established. The ducks were 

 killed legally in Missouri, but they are not legally killed 

 when they reach Illinois. I write back to my customer, 

 who may be a plain man, and one who don't have much 

 theory about him. I say, 'Dear Sir: Your hens are all 

 right, but I must dr aw the line at the ducks. Do you 

 want to get me arrested by the Blinois State Sportsmen's 

 Assassination?' He writes back, 'Dear Sir: I do not want 

 to get you into trouble, and so will ship my ducks, and 

 also, of course, my hens, to Boston. Yours truly.' That 

 means good-bye. 



"Now what am I to do in a case like that? I have got 

 to buy that man's ducks, or lose his trade. That's busi- 

 ness; and that's fact. No theory about this. It's just 

 cold hard dollars to me, one way or the other. It isn't 

 the ducks I care for; it's the poultry. The game question 

 don't mean anything to you. It's a question of fun, not 

 money. But don't you see, it may draw me into a ques- 

 tion of bread and butter. My trade doesn't lie in Illinois 

 alone, I buy all through the West, and no matter what 

 the local law is here or there, all those shippers expect 

 me to take their ducks. 



"Very good. I do buy their ducks. I have bought 

 carloads of ducks at a figure above the market price, and 

 have sent them through on East to a legal market, selling 

 them there at an actual loss. I am obliged to do this, in 

 order to hold my trade. I do it constantly. Other 

 dealers do it also. In buying thus, I must either pass the 

 carload lot, untouched, on to New York or Boston, or I 

 must unload it here. What shall I do with the stuff if I 

 unload it here out of season? Sell it openly, or freeze it 

 down secretly? 



"Now, here are three alternatives: I may ship through 

 to the East, or I may sell game here illegally, or I may 

 freeze it down and hold it till the open season of Illinois. 

 I must take one or the other of these, or leave the poul- 

 try and produce trade which makes my living, and which, 

 indeed, makes the living of this street. Even if I accept 

 one of these courses , and pay above market price, I lose 



money. But, to hold my trade, I do accept one of these 

 courses. Permit me to ask you, has your close law ini] 

 Illinois saved one head of game? A little in Illinois, per-J 

 haps, but elsewhere not a head. The game is killed and| 

 sold just the same. The conflict in the game laws in the 

 different States leaves some game market open all the 

 time ; if one big market East is open legally, it forces all 

 these big Western markets to remain practically openi 

 illegally. The game will be killed and shipped to any of 

 these markets so long as one of the lot is open legally. 

 That is not the theory of it, but you can bet your lifetime 

 is the practice of it, and always will be. 



"Can you blame us for not respecting laws that are 

 made without respect to us, and which affect business in- 

 terests amounting to hundreds of times the actual value, 

 of the game concerned? Blame us or not, the matter iF' 

 practically in our hands. We are doing something. Yob; 

 are talking, 



"I am sure that game dealers do not wish to violate 

 the laws. They make little by it, so far as the actual 

 value of the game itself is concerned, and they would!] 

 make as much under a uniform inter-State law. That is? 

 what the game dealers would like to see— a law with 

 some signs of uniformity in all the different States. You 

 will pardon me when I say to you, my dear sir, thai 

 until such a time does come to pass, all your big hurrah 

 about game protection will not amount to a hill of beans. 

 I am here on the street. I have heard much talk or 

 game legislation, but I observe that hundreds of thousi 

 ands of Western ducks are annuallv rolled in and out ot 

 South Water street wagons. What does the talk amoun 

 to? Nothing. What would a good law in one Statt 

 amount to? Only to that much. It would be a step ir 

 the right direction, but it would not be effective. Ii 

 framed with special view toward protecting only the 

 game of that one State, and with no view to a widei 

 significance, it would be a stumbling block rather thai 

 a step toward actual game protection. If any genera, 

 game law could be proposed it would have to be somd 

 giving and some taking. Some States would have td 

 sacrifice part of their close season, and some game birdfi 

 might have to be sacrificed in the compromise. Fo? 

 instance, I believe I should be willing to throw open th< 

 year round to shoot snipe and woodcock, in order to gair 

 concessions for more important, more generally plenti 

 ful, less erratic and more regular game birds, such as; 

 ducks and prairie chickens. The diminution of the snipe 

 and woodcock would not even then be an extermination; 

 while for the other birds it might nearly amount to that 

 To-day the actual amount of shooting at woodcock, foi: 

 instance, is not in proportion to the amount of legislai 

 tion on it. 



"The game, Ave say, belongs to the people. The sports* 

 men wish to prove that they alone are 'the people.' Eacl 

 State thinks that its inhabitants are 'the people.' As e 

 matter of fact, the game — wild, winged, migratory 

 changeable — belongs to the people of the United States 

 Class legislation or State legislation does not really pro 

 tect it, as I should think any sensible man could now see 

 Class must consult class and State must yield to StattB 

 before our game will ever be protected. There must b< 

 a foundation for any law before it can be respected. Le 

 the foundation of a game law be laid in common senst 

 and upon the basis of commercial necessities; on sucl 

 wide bearings it might be supported, not upon the selfisl 

 preferences of a few. 



"You think that the different Legislatures could nevej 

 be induced to make enactments of substantial agreements 

 on the game question ? You think that no formulation o 

 the general good sense could be had? You think thai 

 committees from the sportsmen's State organization! 

 could not meet in a national assembly and agree upon a 

 compromise game law, whose general features should b< 

 the game for the different States ? You don't think anj 

 such law could be devised ? Come around again and I'll 

 show you if it couldn't. You don't think all this coulcl 

 be done? Young man, do you think that big stone buildiB 

 ing over there could be picked up and walked arouncB 

 these streets? Well, it has been, I don't suppose yoi| 

 sportsmen could do any such work as that, but I know 

 the game dealers could if thev wanted to. Do that, ant 

 you have done something. The game can be protectee 

 and preserved in that way. It cannot in any other way." 



My straight-talking friend has sense in his head. Ht 

 has said something to think about. So, I say, glory, 

 awaits the paper that heads a successful movement oi 

 the sort he suggests. The movement is not altogethe; 

 new, but it has never been successful. We have most 

 of us found our glory in talking about it, and saying ii 

 couldn't be done. That is far easier. 



April 8.— Cedar Lake, just over the Indiana line or 

 the Monon route, was reported full of swans anc 

 geese yesterday. One Monon conductor got a foui 

 days' lay-off to go after them. He took a rifle in pref 

 erence to a shotgun. The geese sometimes drop intr 

 this lake so exhausted that they can hardly fly, and can 

 then be successfully worked with a boat in the oper 

 water. One man last fall got nearly an entire flock then 

 with a rifle. 



Mr. Sam Booth, under secret advice from Alex T. 

 Loyd, started yesterday for a certain cornfield in a sor^ 

 of terra incognita about twelve miles below- Grand Calu- 

 met Heights Club. Large numbers of geese were usin^ 

 on the cornfield. This is singular, when it is rernetn 

 bered that the spot is only about thirty-five miles fron 

 the city. 



Mr. Jesse Cummings killed nineteen ducks at Engiisl 

 Lake Monday; Mr. John Gillespie got thirty; another 

 man, not of the club, got forty-one. Messrs. Edwards 

 Floyd, Cummings, Cox, Barrell, Sibley, McKay and Hay 

 den are all still down at English Lake. Mr. Ab. Prict 

 has had about the best fun at that marsh. He bagged' 

 sixty-eight in a half-day shoot last Friday. Widgeons, 

 pintails and spoonbills have constituted the majority ol 

 English Lake bags as yet, though Mr. Price says the mal- 

 lards were in on the pucker-brush ponds last Monday ir! 

 such numbers that they had fairly torn up the country ir 

 their feeding. 



Mr. E. C. Cook says he never saw so much game at any 

 time in his life as he did last Thursday on the marsh oi 

 the Kankakee Land and Cattle Company Club, near Rose- 

 lawn. He got 50 ducks. Mr. Weddicomb on Wednes- 

 day got 107. All this lower Kankakee country has beei 

 alive with game. The Diana and Water Valley club' 

 have had good fun, George Kleinman has gone down td 

 the Diana Club with Louis Hausler. The Cumberland. 



