to 8, 1889.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



470 



the strength of the wounded mother. She struggled to keep her 

 feet and fell the hungry fawn still holding to the dying doe, 

 taking the stored supply and each drop secreted until the unyield- 

 ing breast had no more. 



"She had the previous day run the gauntlet of the hunters' 

 rifles and escaped the dogs by pluuging into the lake, an asylum 

 her instinct taught her to seek for safety against her natural 

 enemy, the wolf, or his tamed cousin, the dog, not less ferocious 

 when excited in the chase than the unpitying wolf. 



"The passing scene recalled a picture by Aristides, and 1 came 

 to better understand and appreciate its sentiment, while before I 

 had simply regarded its figures and coloring— the one represent- 

 ing a mother dying from a wound in her breast and holding back 

 her child lest it should suck blood instead of milk. I addressed 

 the language of the epigram, of which that picture is the subiect, 

 to tbe helpless fawn: 



"Suck, little wretch, while yet thy mother lives, 

 Suck the last drop her fainting bosom gives; 

 She dies; her tenderness survives her breath, 

 And her fond love is provident in death." 



"The fawn was carried to my own broken home, and in a park 

 nearby it lived and grew a pet, not only of my motherless baby 

 girl, but of all who came there and learned Its history." 



"Well," said the hunter, "if 1 had known what a chicken heart 

 you had, I should have been ashamed to come to the army in your 

 company. This is no place for you. Such milk sops should be 

 kept on a farm, feeding chickens and ducks. You are a coward, 

 and, I believe, the rascal who shot the hounds. I have a notion to 



Funch your head for it anyway. You would not dare resent it if 

 did." 



"But you wmi't," said several of the men. 



"I will, if you will stand back and give me a chance." 



"Let's give them a chance, boys," said cne, "I'll bet the chicken 

 hearted will double him up the first round." 



"Yes," said another, "it will be worth as much to them as a 

 half hnur in squad drill." 



The huutcr Pepped up to t he surveyor and asked if he was will- 

 ing to show bis mettle. 



The surveyor calmly replied that he had no desire to get into a 

 broil; that he had never struck a person in anger, and had never 

 met a man who really wanted to strike him. "Your language 

 shows that you have not the sentiments of a gentleman." 



The soldier who wanted to see a substitute for squad drill, said: 

 "It is working, hoys. Stand back! Give 'ra a chance. I'll go two 

 to one on the chicken; he's same, I'll bet." 



I had heard enouah, aud, passing out from under the tree, 

 walked, up to the angry men and said; "You will not settle the 

 question at issue by blows. You have an unfavorable opinion of 

 each other, and each forms his estimate of the other by a difler- 

 ent standard. You will have an opportunity, perhaps earlier thai 

 you think, of exhibiting tbe qualities which will bring you the 

 commendation, or contempt, of your fellows. When you have 

 been tried in the ordeal of battle, you may, with more confidence 

 than now. speak of the courage of each other." 



The tattoo sounded, and, as "tbe men fell in for roll-call, I went 

 to my quartets with a fixed estimate of the qualities of these new 

 men. 



The following day was a memorable one for my command. 

 They were never before so hotly ei gaged, nor had the brigade 

 ever lost so large a number in killed and wounded. 



The engagement lasted into the night, and not until morning 

 did I learn that the braggart hunter skulked from the line before 

 the engagement commenced. When found hiding by one of the 

 corps staff and told that he would be shot for leaving the ranks, 

 he went into a fit, and after being carefully examined by the sur- 

 geons, was discharged as amoral and physical coward. 



The "chicken hearted" surveyor was one of the first to volun- 

 teer for a most hazardous undertaking, and. without flinching, 

 manfully performed his whole duty. In the last charge he re- 

 ceived a serious wound, from which he suffered uncomplainingly 

 many weeks in General Hospital, and was finally discharged, 

 maimed for life, a true illustration of the saying "the gentlest are 

 the bravest." 



The Federal administration, "in grateful recognition of his ser- 

 vices," gave him an appointment his early education well quali- 

 fied him to fill, in the Granite Building on Wall and William, 

 wbere he is still employed, unless a recent victim of "offensive 

 partisanship." 



in his dining-room and library combined, in a humble house in 

 South Brookhn, are suspended on the south wall a Springfield 

 musket aud the accoutrements of an infantry soldier; on a table 

 iu the north end a surveyor's compass, the needle pointing, "by 

 the mark," due north, and hanging on the wall over it, a pencil 

 sketch, entitled "The Dead Doe and her Hapless Fawn." Under- 

 neath it are the lines translated by Webb, above quoted. 



At his Christmas dinner, to which many luxuries have been 

 added by The Memorial Committee, will be seated two persons, 

 one a young woman, the baby girl of 1863, the other a man in the 

 fifties^ an empty sleeve pinned to his breast beneath a Grand Army 

 badge, and, if vou listen, you w>U hear words of thanksgiving and 

 praise, "That the nation lives, that Fraternity, Charity and Loy- 

 alty bind its defenders as comrades," and that "God will bless 

 them, every one.'J_ ^ 



THE CONNECTICUT GROUSE SNARER. 



Editor Fo?-est and Stream: 



Justice Alonsso C4. Case, of Simsbury, Conn., gives to the public 

 his reasons for tbe release of the grouse-sirangling Goddard, and 

 intimates with some warmth that he held the scales of justice 

 with an all-wool bandage about his eyes and true deliverance 

 made between the State of Connecticut and the prisoner at the 

 bar. 



In Justice Case's published opinion he savs: "We took the 

 ground (after taking legal advice) that, if it was lawful for a per- 

 son to suare on his own land, he coald give another permission to 

 do the same, and that verbal permission (if proved) was as good as 

 though it were written." 



We take tbe ground that Goddard, tbe grouse snarer, was not 

 tbe "owner or occupant under lease" of the land where he stran- 

 gled the ruffed grouse for which he was prosecuted. 



Section 2,545 of the General Statutes says: "Every person, not 

 the owner or occupant under lease of the land upon which said 

 birds shall have been taken, nor a member of the family of such 

 owner or occupant, who shall sell or exchange, or offer to expose 

 for sale or exchange, any partridge, quail or woodcock, which 

 have been taken or killed by traps, snares, nets or similar device, 

 stall be fiued not more than S10 for each bird so sold, or ex- 

 changed, or offered, or exposed for sale or exchange." 



The defendant Goddard claimed he had a verbal parol license 

 or permission to snare grouse on the land of McLaughlin. (Mc- 

 Laughlin denied this until brought into court, and then appar- 

 ently to shield Goddard claimed to have given him permission); 

 was he then an occupant of the land under a lease within the 

 meaning of the statute? Justice Case answers the question in 

 the affirmative by saying that a lease is a lease, a sound statement 

 in law or logic, but one that manifestly has no bearing upon the 

 disputed point. 



The question is not: Is a lease a lease? but is a verbal license 

 —permission to do a particular act upon the land of another — 

 in any sense a lease of such land ? In a case in the Uth volume, 

 Massachusetts reports, page 537, Chief Justice Parker says: 



"A license is technically an authority given to do some act or 

 series of acts on the land of another without passiug any estate in 

 that land, such as a license to hunt on another's laud or cut trees. 

 A license amounts to nothing more than an excuse for the act 

 which would otherwise be a trespass." 



Chief Justice Williams, in the 11th volume of the Connecticut 

 reports, pp, SNH581, quotes and approves the Massachusetts case, 

 and saye: 



"Permission to go upon the land of another to build or do parti- 

 cular acts is a inere excuse, and conveys no interest in the laud." 



Is then a man who 1ms a verbal permission to go upon the land 

 of another to do a particular act, such as a license to hunt, cut 

 trees, erect buildings, or strangle grouse, an occupant of such 

 land under a lease ? 



Has he any interest in the land or leasehold interest whatever? 

 The Supreme Courts (not justice's courts) of Connecticut and Mas- 

 sachusetts say nol Justice Case (and his legal adviser), of Sims- 

 hurv, say contra. Again, was the vernal permission given to God- 

 dard one that would extend the right to snare to any member of 

 his family ? 



The statutes say: "That tbe occupancy of the land must be such 

 as will give the family of the occupant the right to ta&e and 

 sell," etc. Justice Case does not touch this point in his published 

 opinion (State vs. Goddard), but the facts as stated by him show 

 conclusively that Goddard's permission or license to snare was a 

 mere personal one, and this of itself ought to ha ve satisfied Justice 

 Case tnnt Goddard was not a legal lessee within the meaning of 

 th<* statute. 



The words "oceuoant of land underlease" are well chosen words 

 of grave legal import, and were evidently uced by the General 

 Assembly for the sole purpose of preventing the promiscuous 

 licensing of the professional snarer from strangling and exterm- 

 inating our king of game birds, the ruffed grouse. You will note 

 that our war is not only with the game law violators, but with 



grand jurors (grand jurors in this State outside of the cities have 

 to sign all warrants for the arrest of any one before you can get 

 the justice of tbe peace to issue a warrant for the arrest) and 

 justices of the peace et al. 



Our association was not formed to play enforce the law, but for 

 business, and we pronose to enforce the game and fish laws re- 

 gardless of these obstacles. A. C. Colmns, 



President Connecticut Association of Farmers and Sportsmen 

 for the Protection of Game and Fish. 



Habtfobd, Conn., Dec. 20. 



Forest and Stream. Box 2,832, N. Y. city, has descriptive illus- 

 trated pamphlets of YV. B. Leftingwell's book, "Wild Fowl Shoot- 

 ing." which will be mailed free on request. This book is pro- 

 nounced bv"Nanit," "Gloan," "Dick Swiveller," "Sybillene" and 

 other competent authorities to be the best treatise on tne subject 

 extant. 



"That reminds me." 



251. 



C COAHOMA and W. L. P. were shooting birds in coru- 

 J pany. A bird passing near Coahoma received his 

 kindly attention, but flew on, badly wounded, to the 

 vicinity of P., who shot it again, and secured it. Coaho 

 ma protested that P. ought not to ha ve shot the bird as it 

 was evidently falling when he fired. P. contended that 

 the bird was still in the air when he pulled trigger, and 

 that be acted properly in shooting it. While the dispute 

 was going on between them the bird became disgusted, 

 and, escaping from P.'s pocket, flew away, his flight 

 being accelerated by two ineffectual shots from Coaho- 

 ma's gun as he departed. Query: Who killed the bird? 



Coahoma. 



252. 



"It was my fortune," said Bill Davis, as we sal it) his 

 parlor, "on our way to the Big Horns hunting, to 

 see in Lower California an exhibition of throwing the 

 lasso that is rarely indulged in. We were coming up in 

 a long wagon train, going to Los Angeles, and in our 

 company were two Mexicans named Pedro and Juan, 

 though what their last names were I could never find 

 out. One evening tbe whole encampment was thrown 

 into a state of excitement by the wagon boss, who had 

 been out on a hunt, riding up and announcing that a big 

 grizzly bear bad run into a large thicket about a mile 

 from the camp; and he asked the men to come and help 

 him get the bear out. All of us caught up our guns and 

 followed him to wbere tbe bear was hidden. I didn't 

 see Juan and Pedro until nearly there, but along they 

 came riding, with not a sign of a gun, and responded 

 pleasantly to the cha fling of the rest of us. When we 

 reached the thicket of course none of us were anxious to 

 go in, as the chances of the bear getting us were greater 

 than of our getting him. The boys fooled away a little 

 while in making dashes into the bushes until I got tired 

 and thought that if the bear should come out he'd be 

 most likely to make a break for some small timber about 

 200yds. away. So over to tbe edge of this grove I went 

 and sat down at the foot of a tree on the edge. Well, 

 the bear must have gotten tired of the yelling and noise, 

 for presently I saw hiui poke his head out of the bushes 

 on tbe side toward me and opposite to the rest of the 

 men. Then bis body followed, and he set out in a slow 

 lope directly in my direction. I got all ready for him, 

 but he had hardly gotten half way, when I saw those two 

 Greasers coming after him, swinging those blamed ropes 

 of theirs. Pedro came up first, and when he was within 

 20ft. he let drive, and the noose settled right over the 

 bear's head, around his neck. The little horse planted 

 his legs firmly, and when the tug came, over went Mr. 

 Bear. Up he got, red hot; and as he lifted his paws to 

 get the loop off, Juan threw his lariat; around both of his 

 paws it went, and being tightened, there was the bear be- 

 tween two ropes, one choking him and the other holding 

 bis forelegs. As soon as the Mexicans found they had him 

 as they wanted they both jumped from their saddles, and 

 running up began kicking the bear and hitting him with 

 sticks, and up I got and walked over to see the fun. 

 When I got there I wanted to shoot the bear, but no, 

 they must torture him a little, until at last I told them to 

 kill him; and do you believe, instead of doing it in a 

 Christian manner those imps of Satan got out their 

 pocket knives and cut his throat. It wasn't my business 

 or I'd have interfered, but presently down the bear sank 

 and soon was dead. I have often heard tell of men rop- 

 ing a bear, but this was the first time I ever saw it done, 

 and the utter helplessness of that bear was funny to see. 

 He just couldn't do a blamed thing, stretched at the end 

 of those ropes. Bi. H. W. 



Dtjck Shooting at Currituck.— Messrs. W. G. and Bay- 

 ard DominicK., of the New York banking firm of Dominick 

 & Dicker man; Thomas S. Torrey, the Wall street hanker, 

 and Mr. Henry Sampson ; have just returned with a party 

 from a two-weeks' shooting trip with the Narrows Island 

 Club at Currituck, eighty miles from Norfolk, Va. The 

 gentlemen are members of the club, which consists of New 

 York and Cleveland business men. The hunters have 

 brought North with them as evidence of their prowess a line 

 lot of eauvasbacks, redheads, widgeons, wild geese, black 

 swans, and other sorts of game. Mr. H. R. Barker, who 

 was a guest of the party, said yesterday: "I never saw 

 such a place for sport in my life. There is a fine 

 club horse, which cost over $25,000, set down near 

 a tract of marsh of 1,000 acres. Currituck is a long penin- 

 sula about sixty miles northwest of Ilatteras. It is narrow 

 and flat and covered with tall reeds. The club puts in its 

 blinds at favorable points, and over forty varieties of 

 game fly over them. On fa vorable days the air is literally 

 blackened with wildfowl. Six of us bagged 120 birds the 

 first day. A. single sportsman rarely bags less than fifty 

 birds a day, and the club ships them home for distribution 

 among their friends." There are three of four other clubs 

 in the immediate vicinity of Narrows Island, composed ot 

 sportsmen from New York, Philadelphia aud Boston. The 

 season's record of these clubs reaches 3,000 birds, with seldom 

 more than five or six in the party. The season runs from 

 Nov. 10 to March 1. — Sun. 



BURLINGTON ROUTE DAILY EXCURSIONS TO THE PA- 

 CIFIC COAST, COLORADO, WYOMING AND U PAH. 

 Railroad ticket agents of the Eastern, Middle and Western 

 States will sell, on any date, via the Burlington Route from Chi- 

 cago, Peoria or St. Louis, round trip tickets at low rates to Ban 

 Francisco, L03 Angeles, San Diego, Portland, Tacouia, Seattle, 

 Vancouver or Victoria; also to Denver, Cheyenne, Colorado 

 Springs or Pueblo. For a special folder giving full particulars of 

 these excursions, call on your local ticket atrent. or address P. 8. 

 Etjstis, Gen'l Pass, and Ticket Ag't, C. B. & Q. R. R„ Chicago. 111. 

 — Adv. . 



fan nnA Mivtt 



A CHRISTMAS REMINISCENCE. 



IT was about forty years ago, the exact time will make 

 no difference to you, it might have been a year or 

 two more, certainly not less, when, by a compact made 

 some days before, John Atwood and 1 started to fish for 

 pickerel through the ice in Kinderhook Lake, something 

 less than a dozen miles below the capital of Nrw York, 

 on the eastern side of the Hudson. John was older than 

 I by two or three years, and had probably reached the 

 advanced age of fifteen, and had been my guide, philoso- 

 pher and friend from the time that I first went bird nest- 

 ing, or deceived a fish with the promise of a worm, 

 which, if it did not turn into ashes, like the apples of 

 Sodom, at least surprised the dace by having a vertebras 

 of steel, keeping the promise to his eye and palate, but 

 breaking it to his hope. John was a long-iegged boy who 

 knew the best apple tree in every orchard for miles around, 

 knew where most of the birds nested, and where tbe 

 chipmunk hid its store of nuts, and if I looked up to him 

 as a marvel of wcod-lore, a juvenile "Nessmuk," his 

 wonderful knowledge justified it, from a boy's point of 

 view. In after life John became a railroad engineer, and 

 one day I was almost prostrated to read that an engine 

 had burst its boiler, at Pougbkeepsie, and the body of 

 John Atwood had been thrown out on the ice of the Hud- 

 son River, I had not seen him for twenty years; dinner 

 did not seem as good as usual that day, anil I wondered 

 how a very early song sparrow on the garden fence could 

 have the heart to sing when John Atwood, who always 

 noted the arrival of this bird and was the first to say, "I 

 heard a song sparrow yesterday," lay cold and deaf to 

 either bird song or squirrel chatter. 



It was tbe day before Christmas when we started to 

 walk down the track of the Albany & Boston Railroad, 

 which then came into Greenbush at the lower ferry, or 

 where the south bridge now end-, and lists of needed 

 articles had been made out, amended and added to, as a 

 brilliant idea of some unthought-of luxury came up or a 

 fancied necessity was reluctantly subtracted if John said 

 that we could not carry it all. I suggested that we take 

 along some alum and salt to tan our deer skins, for I had 

 read that these articles were u*ed. John thought well of 

 this at first until it became necessary to reduce tbe weight 

 to our carrying capacity, when he said that our deer 

 skins could be brought in without tanning, and these 

 articles were stricken out. A suggestion for some anti- 

 dote for rattlesnake bite was spurned by John, who said 

 that snakes did not run in winter. Knapsacks of enam- 

 eled cloth bad been made by our own hands, and belts 

 with hatchets and hunting knives adorned our waists. 

 Tbe main object of our trip was pickerel fishing through 

 the ice, with variations of hunting the moose, elk, deer, 

 bear and other game which might be found in this wild 

 and unexplored region. Besides hooks and lines we took 

 a hundred dead minnows, for John said they would be 

 good if we could not get live ones at the lake: crackers, 

 cheese, sausage, flint and steel to use if matches were 

 damp, salt and pepper, coffee and sugar, two blankets 

 each, besides ammunition for an old flintlock horse-pistol 

 to be used on the big game, or any Indians who might 

 come near us. John said that we would not need a tent, 

 for he knew of a cave where we could live and keep warm 

 and dry. With about twenty pounds on our backs and 

 with the lightest of light hearts, we started for Kinder- 

 hook Lake. 



There had been some hard freezing weather, but the 

 morning an- was invigorating, and life seemed to be a , 

 joyous affair. A light snow a few days old did not 

 whiten the landscape to a great degree, but served to 

 emphasize tbe brown stubble, which stood in the fields, 

 and to deepen tbe brown of the woods. In my enthusi- 

 asm I had talked until I was tired, had asked John bow 

 many pickerel he thought we would get, what size they 

 would be, and if we would have to hire more than one 

 team to bring our deer home. I told him that Natty 

 Bumpo always shot a deer just behind the foreshoulder 

 with his long rifle, and John most irreverently asked, 

 "Who the devil was he?'' Silence fell upon me at this. 

 John Atwood not know the Leather Stocking! How 

 could John have so much knowledge of the woods if be 

 had not read of Deerslayer, Pathfinder, TJncas, Chingach- 

 cook, Hawk-eye and Leather Stocking? 



We trudged in silence past the Indian Orchard and 

 down through Teller s woods, when a red squirrel crossed 

 the track ahead of us and sat jerking his tail on the 

 fence as if in anger at our intrusion on his domain. 

 John believed that he could knock him off the fence 

 with the revolver, but I suggested that the shot would 

 alarm the deer, and that when we were after big game 

 we should not shoot squirrels. As we turned the curve 

 beyond I looked back and saw the little chickaree wash- 

 ing his ff.ee on the fence in nearly the same spot where 

 he defied the two mightiest hunters that walked the 

 earth, in ignorance of tbe fact that our horse pistol had 

 in it four buckshot for deer and an unknown lot of No. 

 8s for small game. The day was still and the notes of 

 the chickadees and sapsuckers were distinctly heard. Not 

 a leaf stirred, those which remained on the trees were 

 frozen fast, the snow held the ones below. It seemed that 

 we must be getting far into tbe interior of the country, but 

 John said we were not half way to the lake. My shoul- 

 ders ached from the unusual strain of a knapsack, and I 

 proposed a halt for dinner. John agreed, although be 

 said it was not 9 o'clock, so we made a fire and cooked 

 some sausage by running twigs through them and hold- 

 ing them over the coals. Then came the discovery that 

 we had no coffeepot nor cups to drink from. After all 

 our calculations we had omitted these things, without 

 which the sugar and coffee might also have been left. 

 John thought we might find a coffeepot which had bepn 

 abandoned by a camper or that one could be borrowed, 

 and we finally concluded that water was just as good as 

 coffee, and the sausage and crackers tasted the best of 

 any that we had ever known. Taking up the march we 

 reached the lake about noon. I was surprised to see 

 several farmhouses and evidences of civilization in the 

 wilderness, which I had pictured to be far from the 

 haunts of man. 



A little buugh-house attracted us, and it showed signs 

 of recent occupancy, the most valuable of which was a 

 little tin pail, just the thing for coffee, and we could 

 drink from it in turn. Cups were voted to be a luxury 

 of civilization, entirely unnecessary in camp. Trying the 



