Deo. U, 1890. j 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



418 



with entire concession of high character to the personnel 

 of the Commission, 



A broader view may suggest organic defects in our Fish 

 Commission, which niust disappoint any hopes of effective 

 protective service from it. Is it overloaded with the 

 work of propagation and distribution? Is the personnel 

 of any commission, charged with such duties, as the 

 principal end of their organization, likely to possess 

 gratifications and experience in so opposite and foreign 

 direction as the practical enforcement of the game laws? 

 It is significant that at the last meeting of the Codifica- 

 tion Commission, at Albany, a very decided expression 

 was given to the necessity for a new Commission. 



But, as to the crisis: It will be met by steps in advance. 

 The. history of game and fish culture, and protection, in 

 the State makes that a safe prediction. No sentiment of 

 economic reform has a more flattering history, nor a 

 steadier development, in its first ten years. Its first 

 authoritative expression was in the town game constable. 

 The game constable was a failure, and worse. It was an 

 attempt to set the dog on his master. Public sentiment 

 soon resented the burlesque and created the game 

 protector. 



Results have been admirable. The source of his au- 

 thority, his statutory line of duties and bis responsibility 

 to supervisors make him in the public judgment stand 

 the representative of the impersonal authority of the law 

 always respected by the best citizens. Hence the moral 

 support at his back. 



Legislation has steadily advanced. Don't mistake this 

 fact. The Curtis non-hounding law was not a protection- 

 ist triumph, but a tentative effort, shorn of a section (in 

 the bill), compelling accomplices in the crime to testify 

 against each other. So made impossible of enforcement 

 the doggers cared nothing for it. 



The triumph came after, when, the following session, 

 they mustered for a repeal. Protection lost nothing by 

 the repeal, but gained everything in the record the 

 hounders made for themselves and their cause. 'That 

 record is the first and last attempted justification of the 

 iseof dogs in deer "protection." 



1 Gentlemen — to mention names would belittle contro- 

 versy — aired ideas and preferences in the press and 

 •n pamphlet too ridiculous for serious refutation and 

 now treated with utter contempt. Remember that with 

 ihe repeal came shortening of the open season. This was 

 m advance. Other restrictions have been enacted and 

 more are demanded by the popular sense, notably the 

 hortening of the open season and prohibition of water 

 -daughter, 'Tis gratifying to notice that "firm advocate 

 ,>f deer-hounding," the gentleman from Albany, yielding 

 o prohibition. 



So far as appears, not a voice was raised at Albany 

 against water-slaughter. You should know the pain 

 ;iven the stalwart protective sentiment by your utter- 

 ,nces in "On a Runway, or in the Water?" Did Forest 

 ^nd Stream ever before disparage protective effort by 

 even a seeming concession to the morbid tastes of its 

 worst enemy ? 



I hate implication, and to make a clean breast of it, ask 

 what does this mean: "With such a law" (a law against 

 water-slaughter) "one of two results would follow. The 

 statute would be a dead letter, or if enforced, the hotel 

 men would quickly cry out for its repeal. A large por- 

 tion of their patrons, for whom the landlords wish to 

 preserve the privilege of hounding, are, as we have said, 

 wholly incapable of killing a deer any where else than in 

 the water. If the privilege of water-killing is taken 

 away from them, that will in effect be taking away the 

 privilege of hounding. This class will no longer frequent 

 fche Adirondacks, * * * and his allies will again 

 appear at Albany asking permission for their guests to 

 kill game in the water." 



Add to this your suggestion of their "hundred thou- 

 sand dollar" interest in the matter, and that hotel men 

 with accruing "board bills" will "see to it that a non- 

 hounding law shall not be enacted" and point and pur- 

 pose can hardly be mistaken. The italicising i3 not in 

 the original. 



What! abandon Adirondack deer to be made merchan- 

 dise of? Egad, do not sportsmen guests who pay "board 

 tills" there have their surfeit of "mountain mutton," in 

 season and out? Would you have the game absolutely 

 sold out to them on the hoof by men who don't own it, 

 with every circumstance of cruelty and brutality in its 

 lestruction, guaranteed in the contract? 



Zounds! Think of this, with all the revolting history of 

 water-slaughter, and blood yet boiling at the atrocities of 

 that Chateaugay Lake horror, that illustration of depraved 

 md debauched tastes in the supreme act of their gratifi- 

 sation. You applied to that infamv the epithet "brutal," 

 md I would have you recant that cruelty to animals. 

 3all the creature who perpetrated it a brute, at the ex- 

 pense of apologizing to the swine that lifts a snout from 

 ;he gutter and challenges you with a grunt. 



But, solicitous for the gratification of the hotel man 

 md his guest, is there no manly way of its accomplish- 

 nent? And if there is, should exceptions be made to 

 >ther than manly and sportsmanlike tastes and practices? 



Your familiarity with the Adirondacks (?) tells you 

 ihat shooting "on a runway" is just as feasible there as 

 'in the South and other sections." The runways are 

 well defined, and practical knowledge of them is illus- 

 trated in the tactics of the guide when he appoints the 

 vatchers to their stations. He knows where the game 

 vili take the water no better than he does the route it 

 vill take to get there. Occupation of the runway involves 



fothing more than a short walk up the hill, along the 

 ozy margin of. he brook, or to the ridge dividing 

 narshes, or leading to the water. Would this be too 

 evere a strain, perhaps the "faithful guide" could ex- 

 emporize a sedan that would discount exertion and 

 ifford the luxury of a nap, betimes. 

 Does your solicitude still insist the sportsman has not 

 the skill to hold a rifle true on a bounding buck?" Ha! 

 et me confess you. Did not a tinge of pride and posses- 

 ion thrill your nerves, and flash along the steel when 

 rou penned that sentence; and that, too, without a par- 

 icle of alleged contempt, for 'tis to be born so, you 

 enow. Perhaps the scatter gun, with splutter of buck- 

 hot, may help the difficulty. It is in great and growing 

 lemand just now. 



It is admitted, gladly, that with best facilities, and 

 7-enue and luck, the runway is not so fatal as the water. 

 from a protective standpoint, that's its recommendation; 

 rom a sportsman's, that's its glory. There, in the battle, 

 »rain= against speed and instinct, chances are nearly 



equal, and with every clean miss a sportsman sends his 

 hearty greeting. Prohibit water-slaughter and shorten 

 the period for dogs, is the sentiment asking recognition. 

 The dead letter threat is ungracious in advance. As a 

 prophesy it assists its own accomplishment. With proper 

 administrative provisions, restraining laws would be liv- 

 ing letters against the water dogs. 



Fish protection, in its advancement, excites a round of 

 gratuiation everywhere. It has passed the crisis of every 

 nascent reform, and confronts now only the abuses inci- 

 dent to healthy progress. Following the banishment of 

 nets comes the abuse of night-lines or set-lines, traversing 

 the waters in every direction. The supplemental use of nets, 

 so safely practiced by the night-line watchers, day and 

 night, insure destruction unlimited. Angling with book 

 and line "held in the hand" is a restriction now confined 

 to Jefferson county and to Lake George. It ought to be 

 general, and night-lines and set-lines prohibited. And 

 may not an angler right here confess that organized pro- 

 tective sentiment requires hygienic treatment? One of 

 its early struggles was to subvert the parent, that selfish- 

 ness is its active principle. There was excuse, if not 

 some justification for it. 



Professed protectionists indulged (indulge) so ostenta- 

 tioiis display of fin and fur and feathers as justifies the 

 belief of reckless slaughter and wanton waste. Hog ex- 

 presses the reprobation of sportsmanlike and manly sen- 

 timent, but what does hog caro for that? He has an ally, 

 and a helpful one, and his ravenous greed has no bettor 

 ambition than to adorn, in name and figure, the "biggest 

 string" in the shop window of the tackle dealer. Waste 

 exposes quantities of our best game fishes, dead and 

 stinking, along our water courses; snobbery having all to 

 do with it. How long will it be before public sentiment 

 will restore netting as a sovereign remedy? 



Notwithstanding the best conception, and the clearest 

 and most direct expression the codifiers may give protec- 

 tive statutes, their efficiency must depend upon their 

 administration being made possible. The State officials, 

 limited in number, have been unable, with the best sup- 

 port given them by local organizations and sentiment, to 

 bring to justice but a small percentage of the most noto- 

 rious offenders. 



Deer-doggers and netters in organized gangs concert 

 secrecy in their movements with every facility in the 

 woods and on unfrequented waters and with unlawful 

 spoil in their possession confront the officers of the law 

 with mendacity and defiance. Conviction would be 

 easy could proof be obtained. There is no lack of wit- 

 nesses could they be made to testify. Why can they not 

 be? Simply because the Legislature has not secured 

 their constitutional immunity against self-crimination 

 by a provision that shall exclude the use of an accom- 

 plice's testimony in any action or proceeding against 

 himself. A provision compelling accomplices to testify 

 is familiar in criminal statutes — always with the saving 

 clause, to be sure — and the reasons that justify it in other 

 cases make it a necessity in offenses against the game 

 laws. It is a necessity that - cannot be ignored without 

 bringing protective legislation into contempt and so par- 

 alyzing effort to enforce it. Will not the Codification 

 Commission realize the necessity and meet the demand? 



Now, to recapitulate, it is submitted that, 



First — Dogging deer should be prohibited, or if that is 

 now premature, prohibit water butchery by the severest 

 penalties, and shorten to a minimum the open season for 

 the dogs. And herein, as absolutely essential to practical 

 results, make the use or presence of any dog or bitch, of 

 a breed or kind used in the pursuit of deer, in any terri- 

 tory inhabited by any wild deer, in the close season, a 

 misdemeanor by the owner, harborer, or person, or per- 

 sons in possession of such dog or bitch. 



Second— Prohibit any angling, except by hook and line 

 held in the hand, and prohibit the use of night lines and 

 set lines. 



Third — Abolish spring shooting of ducks and water- 

 fowl. 



Fourth — Provide that accomplices shall be witnesses 

 against each other as follows: No person other than a 

 defendant shall be excused from testifying as a witness 

 in any criminal or civil action or proceeding, under any 

 of the statutes or laws of this State, designed for the pro- 

 pogation, preservation or protection of game or fish, on 

 the ground that such testimony would criminate, or tend 

 to criminate or convict, or tend to convict, such witness 

 of a crime or misdemeanor, or prove, or tend to prove, 

 any act or omission by such witness, to which a penalty 

 is attached by law, but no testimony to be given by any 

 such witness shall be used against such witness in any 

 civil or criminal action or proceeding. 



Fifth — Muzzle the fish-hog. Saint Lawrence. 



Ogdensbttrg, N. Y., Deo. 5. 



"Vermont Interests,— Rutland, Vt., Dec. 8.— Editor 

 Forest and Stream: At the last session of the Legislature 

 much was accomplished in the interests of fish and game 

 protection. In fact, there was an unusual number of 

 sportsmen among its members. The deer law was amended 

 (Act 54) to read: "A person who, prior to the first day of 

 November, 1900, pursues, takes or kills, within the State, 

 a wild deer, or has in his possession a wild deer or part 

 thereof so taken or killed, shall be fined one hundred dol- 

 lars, and the possession of the meat or hide or any part 

 of a wild deer shall be presumptive evidence that the 

 person having it in his possession is guilty of a violation 

 of this section." The law protecting deer previously ex- 

 tended to Nov. 30, '90, and the fine was $50 instead of 

 $100 as above. It is a matter of great satisfaction to a 

 large majority of the fishermen of Vermont that the so- 

 called "Gin," law for the protection of trout was not 

 repealad, and that the close season on trout was changed 

 back to Sept. 1 and May 1. The law which provided that 

 no person should use a dog in hunting the ruffed grouse 

 or partridge has practically been a dead letter, but sports- 

 men are pleased that this clause was stricken out by the 

 last Legislature.— Wheelock. 



Worcester, Mass., Dec. 6.— The association of gentle- 

 men who have for a few years had a meet each year for 

 the purpose of hunting the fox, have now- formally or- 

 ganized as the Worcester Fur Company and elected offi- 

 cers as follows: President, A. B F. Kenney; Vice-Presi- 

 dents, Hon. John R, Thayer and N. S. Harrington; Sec- 

 retary and Treasurer, Elisha S. Knowles; Committee on 

 Constitution and By-Laws— C. H. Howe, A. H, Perry, 

 John R. Thaver; Executive Committee- -W„ % Dean, E. 

 F. Snow, O. E. H, Higgins. 



CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 



CHICAGO, 111., Dec. 3.— As was anticipated, the 

 present cold wave has driven the ducks down from 

 the North in great numbers, and such marshes in this sec- 

 tion as have any feed have birds on them now. Ed 

 Howard is in town to day, and says the mallards are not 

 at Fox Lake and have not been there this fall. No ducks 

 of any consequence at Fox Lake except a lot of green- 

 wing teal a few days ago. There were three or four 

 bunches of those, 400 or 500 in a bunch. Below here, 

 however, at Cumberland , Water Valley and other points 

 on the Kankakee, the birds have been in for a few days 

 in large numbers. There were thousands of mallards on 

 the marsh between Cumberland and Water Valley last 

 Sunday and Monday, and probably on Tuesday, but no 

 bags were made. The birds are very crafty, and do not 

 come in on the marsh till after dark. They go out early 

 in the morning to feed, just where, no one knows, but as 

 the flight is nearly all mallard and greenwing teal it is 

 no doubt the case that the birds have some distant fields 

 located, where they hold up all day and only attempt the 

 dangerous marsh at night. The only shooting possible is 

 just at dusk or dark, when they come in. At this sort of 

 work Charlie Gammon got a little over a dozen birds dur- 

 ing his short visit at Cumberland Club. 



Henry Ehlers went down to the Diana Club, at Thayer, 

 early this week in response to a telegram notifying him 

 of the abundance of mallards. I hear to-day that he 

 killed 26 rabbits in the woods around Thayer,' and from 

 this infer that the mallard shooting was not good. 



C. S. Burton announces his intention of going rabbit 

 hunting next Saturday, in company with a friend or two, 

 to some point in Illinois, about 100 miles from here, where 

 somebody or other killed 119 rabbits in one day two or 

 three years ago. It is one of these places where you get 

 there about 2 o'clock in the night, and have to get up at 

 about 3 o'clock the next morning to ca tch the train back, 

 and 1 19 rabbits guaranteed wouldn't tempt just every- 

 body to make the trip. 



It was Charley Burton, by the way, who first told me 

 about the Fuller Island rabbit story, which is attracting 

 some attention here this week. He said two shooters, 

 whose names he did not know, had been down to Fuller 

 Island— but I suppose everybody knows that Fuller Island 

 is about six miles north of Shelby, Ind., in the middle of 

 the Kankakee marsh. Good snipe shooting on the edge 

 of the marsh about there, in the right season, and good 

 duck shooting all around it, in ordinary duck weather. 

 The island itself is a high timbered ridge, with plenty of 

 short cover, and is much affected by camping parties of 

 hunters. It has a house or two on it. There are a few 

 ruffed grouse there, and a good many rabbits. The marsh 

 runs around the island for miles in every direction. Well, 

 Charlie Burton told me that somebody told him that two 

 shooters were down at Fuller Island last week, and they 

 couldn't get any ducks, so they thought they would try 

 for rabbits. A farmer near by said he would fire the 

 weeds and rushes on his field, at the upper end of the 

 island, and if they would stand at the lower end. of the 

 field, where the rabbits would run out, they could shoot 

 them as they ran out. So they did this, and the two men, 

 names not known, shot and shot and shot, and the rab- 

 bits came out so fast they just couldn't kill them all, but 

 they got two wagon loads. If I didn't believe this, I 

 could ask Abe Kleinman. It was Abe's story. So I saw ' 

 Abe and told him about the story, and told him Charlie 

 had credited the bag to two guns. 



"Did he tell you that?" said Abe. "Well, he's all off. 

 There was more'n two guns, I don't know just how many, 

 and they burned off a whole lot of the marsh above the 

 island, and not just one little field. But that story about 

 their killing two wagonloads of rabbits is all wrong. 

 They killed a blame sight more'n that. If you want the 

 exact truth, I'll tell you. The fact is, they sent up to the 

 farm for teams, and they hauled off two wagonloads of 

 rabbits; but I never said that was all they killed, I don't- 

 care who told you so. They Killed thousands of them. 

 The rabbits came out of that marsh in flocks, so thick 

 they often killed five or six at one shot. Dick Turtle told 

 me about it, and he said be heard it over to Hank Smith's. 

 It ain't my story, but if you're going to say anything 

 about it, you want to get it right, and I never told Charlie 

 Burton nor anybody else that thev only killed two wagon- 

 loads. I said that they hauled off two wagonloads." 



So I went over to Hank Smith's, and Hank was there, 

 and I said. "Hank, how about this Fuller Island rabbit 

 story?" 



"Oh," said Hank, "yes, I believe some of the boys did 

 get a few. Dick Turtle was saying somebody was telling 

 him about it, I don't know just who. I don't remember 

 who was in the gang that did the shooting, either, but 

 there were seventeen of them in all, and they set the 

 marsh afire for ten miles around. Every rabbit on that 

 whole marsh started straight for Fuller Island. They 

 came out of that marsh like flies. There was a roaring 

 sea of flame came down the marsh, and before it was a 

 gray wall of nearly solid, rabbit. The fellows kept on 

 shooting till the fire drove them into the sand hills, and 

 the rabbits were so thick that one follow killed thirteen 

 at one shot. They gathered up two wagonloads of them. 

 I believe Dick Turtle said Abe Kleinman told him about 

 it." 



This is the Fuller Island rabbit story or a part of it. It 

 didn't seem best to attempt to run it down any closer, 

 for I should not like to get hold of a story which bore 

 on the face of it marks of improbability. " As it is, the 

 unit of measure, viz., two wagonloads of rabbits, seems 

 to be adhered to so closely as to entitle the story to belief 

 as it stands. Of course all that business about the roll- 

 ing sea of flame and the madly bounding forms of the 

 terror-stricken game fleeing beiore it could be worked up 

 into a great picture, and some people would seize the 

 chance to exaggerate and color Hank Smith's description 

 into a picturesque but unfaithful account; but I wouldn't 

 do that, so I stopped following the Fuller Island rabbit 

 story any further. 



After this rabbit battue the event of next greatest im- 

 portance for the current week seems to be Charlie Gam- 

 mon's quail hunt, which certainly is a rather remarkable 

 affair in some ways. Charlie Gammon and Harry Love- 

 day, and Mr. Robbins and Mr. Smith started for'Pekin, 

 III., where the latter said quail were a nuisance, The 

 train that was carrying them ran out on to a bridge, 

 somewhere above Streator, on the Santa Fe, and the 

 engineer learned just in time that the bridge was on fire. 

 They put the fire out with dinner pails and things, but 



