414 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Dec. 11, 1890. 



Now it was different. The males would not gobble. 

 We had been among turkeys all day and not a gobble 

 was heard. The flood, which was so very high on their 

 feeding grounds, ami bourlv but slowly rising higher, bad 

 taken all the amorous spirit out of them. We felt sure 

 not a gobble would "open up" at the crack of day m the 

 morning, so we determined for once to resort to this more 

 unsportsmanlike wav of taking game while at roost. 



L. said two turkeys— a hen and a gobbler— had gone to 

 roost just back of camp but a short distance; in fact, the 

 camp-fire was within their view. 



We waited some time for the moon to come up over the 

 treetops, so as to have plenty of light. We then tried our 

 sights at sundry dark objects, such as gray moss, bunches 

 of mistletoe, etc., L with his shotgun and I with my 

 rifle, to make sure we could see to get good aim. Then 

 we left the comfortable fire and walked as indicated by 

 L., rapidly at first, slowly when near, and finally resorted 

 to a creep, when L. whispered that the turkeys were 

 somewhere '■there," pointing to indicate direction. He 

 then lingered behind and left me to locate. By this time 

 we had reached water probably a foot deep, and it was 

 possible to move about with the least bit of noise. It was 

 not long ere a dark object with familiar form was found. 

 This was observed with the telescope and identified as 

 one of L.'s turkeys. It was doubled up in a knot on a 

 limb half way up a medium-sized tree. A low whistle 

 and a motion soon brought L. noiselessly to my side, who 

 indorsed the location as correct. 



"Where is the other?" in a whisper. 



"Over there probably in that tree with the heavy 

 moss." 



"You remain here to shoot this, while I search for the 

 mate. When I locate I will give a low whistle, and you 

 answer to indicate that you have heard, then at the crack 

 of my rifle put in your work quick. Can you kill it from 

 here?" 



"I think so." 



I then went slowly and carefully searched the mossy 

 tree, but could not make out a turkey in the hundred 

 forms in its wide-spreading branches; still, he might yet 

 be there securely concealed in a cluster of limbs or behind 

 a heavy bunch of pendant moss, I could not tell. I moved 

 on silently to search other trees. Once 1 thought I had 

 * him, but my useful sight told better than my eyes. On 

 moving further — 



Ah! there he goes. Zounds on the luck! So he was in 

 the old mossy tree after ail. 



Bang! and down comes L.'s turkey. It was done quicker 

 than telling it. We returned to camp and talked the 

 matter over. It was a new experience and the last one 

 of its kind. We had enjoyed it only after a fashion. We 

 preferred to do 'em up in daylight. 



We went to bed and slept. W. L. P. 



MAINE DEER DOGGING. 



IT is not a pleasing duty to complain. Indeed I have 

 had the facts that I am about to state in possession 

 for some time, and have questioned the matter a good 

 deal as to whether it were best that they should ever be- 

 come public property, by inserting them in the Forest 

 and Stream:, where they are sure to be seen by every 

 live sportsman who takes any interest in the literature 

 that pertains to his beloved pastime. I have held the 

 facts mentioned below in hand till after the shooting 

 season on Maine deer was well advanced, for the reason 

 that it was best for the few deer left that it should be so. 

 The outrageous killing of deer in that State out of season, 

 that has been going on all summer, might have been told 

 of early in the summer, or at least a part of it, but it is 

 better that such facts should have been kept back, for the 

 reason that if it had been generally known that sports- 

 men could go down into Maine and hunt deer without 

 molestation in July and August, it might have induced 

 many to have tried to take part in such hunting who 

 would have otherwise staid at home, and hence a few 

 more of the deer have been saved. But the Maine Legis- 

 lature convenes in a very short time, and it is possible 

 that if the real facts of the case are made known, it may 

 lead that body to grant such legislation as shall enable 

 the Commissioners to make at least some show of enforc- 

 ing the deer law. The last Legislature to convene in 

 that State took away all the fines that had formerly gone 

 in part to the game wardens and gave it to the counties, 

 and, worse than this, it left the Commissioners with no 

 money to pay the wardens for enforcing the law. What 

 has been the result? Why, simply that the law has not 

 been enforced. Hunters who were so disposed have 

 hunted deer in almost any locality in Maine, in the close 

 season of this year, without fear of arrest. More than 

 half a dozen improved jack lamps came under my notice 

 as being made and taken down into Maine, some of them 

 In July and nearly ail were taken down before the end of 

 August. 



I have it from good authority that some fifteen deer 

 were killed in the neighborhood of the Richardson and 

 Beaver ponds at the Rangeleys and twice as many at 

 Cupsuptic and Kennebago before the beginning of Octo- 

 ber. It also comes from good authority that hunting 

 was carried on at these ponds and lakes almost every 

 night in July and August when the weather was suit- 

 able. Deer were plenty around these waters in the early 

 summer, but by the end of the close season they had 

 nearly all been killed. Then, as if to render the case still 

 more aggravated a pair of hounds were running deer into 

 these waters several Sundays in succession late in August 

 and in September. The dogs were owned over in the 

 Magalloway settlement and were kept for hounding deer. 

 They are doubtless there now in spite of anything that the 

 Maine game law has done. Indeed they were hounding 

 deer on the west side of Aziscohos last year, but this sea- 

 son they have run deer over on to the east side and into 

 the Beaver and Richardson ponds, where deer-doggers 

 have killed them. I understand also that there has been 

 an arrangement with certain parties all summer that a 

 pair of hounds were in readiness for dogging deer, owned 

 in the Magalloway settlement, and that hunters had only 

 to engage the dogs beforehand and that they would be 

 put out and taken care of, the hunters only had to shoot the 

 deer. Again I am told hounds have been taken into the 

 woods by way of Upton, then taken in charge by guides 

 and let loose at the right spot for dogging deer, the 

 hunters to come to a point designated by some other 

 route. The deer could be dogged and the huntera not be 

 mistrusted at all. Yet none of this shameful work has 

 been done in such a way that a warden at all fit for the 



office could not have caught the hunters and destroyed 

 the dogs. , . , „ 



Then the dogging of deer in the open season is not all. 

 Fox hunting has all at once assumed remarkable propor- 

 tions in Maine. Indeed the fox hunting is really excel- 

 lent, but nine out of every ten of the hounds employed 

 are good for running deer. The hunters have taken nu- 

 merous bands of foxhounds into the Maine woods and 

 have come out with a certain number of foxes and a deer 

 or two apiece. Those who know say that these deer 

 have been hounded, run to the water, where the hunters 

 have shot them. Deer have already come back to Boston 

 in the possession of the fox-hunting parties who have 

 gone into Maine with their dogs. It is very safe to con- 

 clude that a good deal of deer hounding is being done m 

 Maine this fall under the name of fox hunting. 



If the legislators of Maine have any hope of saving the 

 deer in that State they will have to devise some form of 

 statute that will prevent fox hunting parties from hound- 

 ing deer. Either the dog law will have to be changed or 

 fox hounding will have to ba forbidden. If the sentiment 

 among the guides was only as good in regard to keeping 

 the deer law as it is in regard to the trout law, there 

 would be but little trouble. Why, some of the very 

 guides that have assisted parties in getting deer this sum- 

 mer in close time, are strenuous for the enforcement of 

 the trout laws— nay are members of a prominent fish 

 propagating and protective association. They thoroughly 

 believe in the protection of trout and landlocked salmon, 

 but they will guide a man to jack a deer in July or 

 August. The Legislature of Maine refused to add Septem- 

 tember to the open season on moose, deer and caribou at 

 its last session, though the addition was recommended by 

 the Commissioners, and ever since this refusal the deer 

 law has been very unpopular with the majority of the 

 guides. They argue that the deer are not of any benefit 

 to them, since the sportsmen are all gone before the 

 open season comes. The granting of September as an 

 open month will be received in the light of a beneficence 

 that is just and reasonable, and the gift will redound to 

 the benefit of the giver, so far as the guides are concerned. 



The deer have suffered in Maine this season by this 

 shooting in the close time, and, worst of all, the hound- 

 ing mentioned, to an extent that it will take some years 

 to recuperate — years of protection. Why, venison has 

 been served on many of the camp tables in the backwoods 

 camps— I might enumerate the camps, if it would do any 

 good — in the close season. Deer were plenty early in the 

 summer, and the tables were served in more cases than 

 one dozen, to say the least. Sportsmen visiting these 

 camps, ostensibly" for fishing, have, if they have expressed 

 a desire to do so] been quickly initiated into the mysteries 

 of jack-shooting deer, and the deer, provided it is not a 

 nursing doe, has been served on the table. A doe, too 

 thin to be taken back to camp, was killed in August on 

 the shores of a pond well known to me, and the shooters, 

 being a little ashamed of their hunting, buried the deer 

 in the sand on the shore. Later the foxes dug out the 

 carcass and fed upon it for some weeks. A gentleman, 

 who spent several weeks at Kennebago this summer, says 

 that while he had no desire to hunt deer himself in the 

 close season, he was greatly surprised at the boldness with 

 which the guides and hunters got ready their jacks and 

 started off deer hunting. This gentleman got back to 

 business in Boston before the 20th of September. Nobody 

 seemed to think that anything out of the way was being 

 done. If deer were killed, they w T ere not kept out of 



sight, unless they were does in a state which would make 

 the hunters ashamed to show what they had done. One 

 case is mentioned where two does were killed in the 

 same night, before the hunter got ' 'his buck" that he was 

 not ashamed to. take back to camp. 



In the above statements I have made known only what 

 I have the best of reasons for believing are facts, and I 

 have written what I have only that the fish and game 

 interest may be alarmed at what is going on in Maine. I 

 candidly believe that there are not half as many deer in 

 Maine as a year ago. This inside news of killing deer in 

 close time does not come all from one section of the State, 

 and in many cases it comes to me from the hunters who 

 have taken part in the shooting. The harm is done. The 

 deer season is about over, and there is nothing to be done 

 now but for the Maine Legislature to make such laws as 

 shall tend to give the Commission some chance to enforce 

 the law. If only July can be thoroughly protected as a 

 close month, it will be much better than what has been 

 going on the past season, only thoroughly enforce the law 

 on the months that are closed by the statutes. 1 hate to 

 speak disrespectfully of my native State, but I have often 

 thought that if Maine had even considerably less of law, 

 with a little law thoroughly enforced, it would be better 

 for all interested. If the deer of that State can be 

 thoroughly protected from crust and deep-snow hunting 

 and then through May, June, July and August, there will 

 be fair hunting for all in the open season. But right here 

 let me add, in connection with the able editorial published 

 not long ago in the Forest and Stream, that it is mighty 

 discouraging to the honest hunter, who desires to kill 

 game in open season, to visit his favorite hunting grounds, 

 as early as he can legally do so, only to find that the 

 illegal shooters have completely obliterated the game or 

 hounded it away. Such were my feelings when I made 

 my annual trip to the wilds of Maine this fall. Where 

 deer were plenty in May, there were none to be seen or 

 tracked in early October. If game laws exist at all, then 

 let us have them enforced thoroughly. So long as it is a 

 penal offense to kill game out of season, the question of 

 morality falls before the fact that the other fellow is 

 breaking the law unmolested on the very ground that you 

 are only waiting for the open season to hunt over. I will 

 do anything reasonable for the honest enforcement of the 

 game laws of Maine, but if such openhanded breaking of 

 these laws is to go on, right under the very noses |of 

 the wardens, as was the case during the close time of last 

 summer, I am afraid than I am no friend of such laws. 



Maine venison is also coming into the Boston market 

 in spite of the non-export game law of that State. The 

 old barrel game is again being played this year. It con- 

 sists simply in cutting the legs off a back-half of venison 

 in such a way that the whole, with the hide, will go 

 into a barrel. The barrel is then securely headed and 

 sent to a receiver here, generally some well-known com- 

 mission dealer. I saw the other day a barrel unheaded 

 at one of these commission houses. There were pulled 

 out the back-half of a big deer, together with the hide. 

 Excelsior was used for packing, and out of the excelsior 

 were pulled four partridges. A buyer was quickly on 



hand and soon bid 14 cents for the deer and 50 cents each 

 for the partridges. The salesman owned to me that the 

 deer was from Maine, and I know from as good author- 

 ity as my own eyes that deer and partridges are con- 

 stantly being received by this house and others from 

 Maine. The barrels and boxes come by both steamer 

 and rail. Special, 

 Boston. 



THE ALL-AROUND GUN, 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



Mr. Cleveland's article is very interesting and inform- 

 ing as showing the inventive genius of Dr. Maynard, but 

 I do not think his interchangeable gun fills the "aching 

 void" as well as a "three barrel," because the greater 

 number of effective different loads you have at instant 

 command, the more nearly your weapon approaches the 

 ideal "all-around" gun. If it were not for the weight, a 

 double rifle combined with double shot would more per- 

 fectly equip a man than a "three barrel." But there is a 

 limit to effective weight. The auxiliary rifle barrel came 

 into the world with a hurrah, and was thought to have 

 solved the whole problem, but the hurrah is now very 

 faint. The auxiliary sportsman soon found out that he 

 didn't want his rifle barrel at home or in a leather case 

 dangling round his spine when it was needed in front 

 pointed at game. If he kept it in his shotgun the very 

 barrel he wanted very badly for shot was the one filled 

 with the rifle, and he couldn't carry it in his teeth very 

 handily. This interchangeable business is all very well 

 to practice at home or on paper. Your interchangeable 

 gun only affords two shots in the field the best way you 

 can fix it, unless you can slow up your deer or grouse 

 until you can unlimber your other barrel. I'm not argu- 

 ing that more than two shots are necessary in nine out of 

 ten cases, only imagining a case, and the need of an "all- 

 around" gun is purely imaginary in greater proportion 

 than that, 



And herein lies the reason that these perfect all-around 

 guns are not more largely manufactured. There is no 

 demand for them. There is really no need which will 

 warrant their manufacture in sufficient quantities to pay. 

 This appears to me a better reason than Mr. Cleveland's 

 viz.: "The willingness of the great mass of our people 

 to take an inferior stibstitute at less price." Though that 

 is true, take the country over and ninety-nine shooters 

 use a shotgun where one uses a rifle. If a man lives in a 

 deer or bear country he chooses a repeater, if he wants 

 more than one shot, not a double rifle or interchangeable 

 gun. If he lives in a bird countiy and wants a rifle now i 

 and then when he is after birds, he wants that rifle 

 always at hand where he can "turn loose" without any 

 foolishness, and he can't have it with double shot, other 

 than in a three barrel. The weight is within bounds and 

 accuracy is sufficient. Half a dozen rifle cartridges don't 

 occupy much room, you've got combination a-plenty, and 

 your gun is all there every time. If there is ever oeca- i 

 sion to shoot more than twice, then three beats two, don't- 

 it? O, O. S. 



VlNELAND, N. 



NEW YORK FISH AND GAME INTERESTS! 



Forest and Stream: 



Salutations! 'Tis long since I've been inside youri 

 portals. 



But nothing obliterates the memory of past services, 

 nor the gratitude grown of troubles, and trials, and 

 triumphs, in a beloved cause. "The past at least is 

 secure," and we cling to it. Be there apathy, defection; 

 treason, tbey are but incidents in an advance, and we 

 cling the closer. 



There's a crisis in game and fish protection," said a 

 Stalwart to me just now. 

 St. Lawrence: A crisis? Please explain. 

 Stalwart: Hasn't Forest and Stream struck its 

 colors to the netter and dogger? 

 St. Lawrence: And, if so, a crisis, say you? 

 Stalwart: Haven't you read the last two editorials! 

 "Serious Charges," and "On a Runway or in the Water?' 



So much of the colloquy, in indication that tongues 

 and brains are busy with the situation. 



And it is a crisis, in full proportions, made as are mi 

 crises, by clashing interests and authority. 



The commission indirectly charged with the enfon 

 ment of laws protective of game and fish, split. What ii 

 the significance of it? With the general conceptions oi 

 the relationships between market interests, and protec:| 

 tion interests, and with reported incidents attendant 

 upon the event, or preliminary, there results uneasiness 

 and distrust. Demoralization in the service is accepted 

 by protective sentiment, as the logic of the fact, and 'tif 

 said either protection, or the commission's relation to it 

 must go. 



Quite natural, such sentiments. By common under 

 standing and concurrence of protective sentiment, th 

 market-hunter and the market-fisherman are the aetive 

 combative forces that threaten the extinction of garni 

 and fish. The market — the complement of these destruens 

 tive agencies — is the receptacle into which, through th 

 tortuous channels of fraud and deceit, the contrabani 

 spoils of poacher and netter find safe conduct, and sc, 

 profitable investment. 



Now, with a marketman at the head of a commissio; 

 charged with a vigorous enforcement of protective f 

 and game laws, must not demoralization in the serv. 

 follow? Is it so? 



We speak not of persons, but of things. No aspersio: 

 of "character," no question of integrity, is made, l! 

 would be beside the matters, and so, fol-de-rol— as mu< 

 an injustice to gentlemen officials as irrelevant to a propi 

 understanding of official fitness. It will occur to mar 

 thinking people that interest is the crucial test of fitnesi 

 Somehow that has got into the big popular craniun 

 Old-fashioned folk always query how men can hold th, 

 balance even between the conflicting claims of publi 

 and private interest. At the suggestion of interest doc 

 not the judge step down from the bench? How rnuch- 

 or how little — "character" would retain him there? anj 

 how such action conciliates a public sense that pervade 

 like an instinct. It is a decent thing to do. 



Now is there not absolute parity in the public relatioi 

 ships of all public functionaries? And will Forest an 

 Stream explain how, putting that and that together, 't: 

 possible to avoid painful impressions of inefficiency in tl 

 administration of fish and game protective laws? Thei 

 is no essence of distrust or reserve in this request, belief 

 there is not. We covet explanation and understanding- 



