March $6, 18&1.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



189 



SIX YEARS UNDER MAINE GAME LAWS. 



FORE-WORD. 



To the Gentlemen iclio visit the Maine Woods: 



When Capt. Drew, the genial ' ' Kennebecker" of the 

 Boston Journal, wrote up hia cruise to Australia, in order 

 to get as long a start as possible, he went back to his trip 

 to Trout Brook on the Passadumkeag; and so in writing 

 on game matters I have begun by telling of the region 

 round Nicatowis becaiise that is" supposed to be as far 

 away as anything can be from a wholesome love of what 

 is lawful. That I have not told you what you expected 

 to hear from that place, may have caused some specula- 

 tion, and what I shall say will perhaps cause more; but 

 whether you agree or not, hear me out. It is not an easy 

 story to tell, and it is impossible for any one person to 

 present all sides. I speak for the side which never has 

 been told and for tlie peojjle who cannot speak for them- 

 selves. If I make mistakes or misrepresentations, the 

 road is open for both their criticism and yours. I would 

 request, however, in advance, that critics sign their own 

 names and place of residence, since otherwise discussion 

 will not greatly help the matter which needs mending. 



I ask your patience. What I have to say cannot 

 be said so that all will take it kindly, and I must seem at 

 times to speak bitterly, for I speak the thoughts of my 

 people. Nevertheless, I have been at some pains to put 

 these things as mildly as possible. I have written all the 

 sketches previously published that you might be the more 

 willing to take my word for what I shall now say, thus 

 saving the bitter retort to facts, names, and dates'. And 

 I have chosen to treat it historically rather than polemi- 

 cally, because unless the statement of the facts is con- 

 vincing, no amount of argument will be. 



Those of you who have been in the country of which I 

 have written, know that I have told the truth; those who 

 have not been there but who know and love the woods, 

 can tell whether my observation is exact, my eye correct, 

 whether I know what I have claimed to know. I only 

 ask those who have credited what has been said to believe 

 what will be said. I know this a great deal better — was 

 bred up to it from childhood, have studied it these three 

 years and held my peace, have strengthened my own 

 opinions and observations with those of the best informed 

 men in the State. Now after aU that I have seen and 

 heard and written down, I prefer to let these papers on 

 game rest entirely on my own credibility. I only ask 

 you to remember that I do not always undertake to ex- 

 press my own views ; that I am not writing what ought to 

 be, but what is,- that though I may sometimes seem to 

 misstate facts, I am only undertaking to tell what is gen- 

 erally believed here, which whether true or false, influ- 

 ences public opinion; and that when our opinions differ, 

 I am talking about matters concerning which I know 

 more than most of you possibly can know. 



I shall not undertake to exhaust any subject nor to tell 

 all 1 might tell, rather to give such facts as appear to me 

 be.st to represent the subjects treated; but, if I tell some- 

 thing of deer hounding, the cause of the warden-murder, 

 the effects of the Graves case, the Jock Darling case, and 

 other much disputed mattei's, is it agreed that for the time 

 being all foregone conclusions are set aside, and these 

 subjects are looked at from the standpoint of the people 

 for whom I write? For we are at a crisis in game matters 

 here, so serious that great caution in action and full free- 

 dom of discussion are the. only means of our delivery. 

 Few dwellers in our cities and larger towns can be aware 

 just how matters stand, and it is harder yet for those out- 

 side the State to comprehend them. 



I am speaking for the farmers, lumbermen, explorers, 

 guides, hunters, and all others of the section hereafter to 

 be described who may be classed as our rural population. 

 I am addressii% those who visit the Maine woods, which 

 includes many of our own citizens with the many from 

 outside the State; but more particularly the gentlemen 

 who visit the Maine woods — a much smaller class, whom 

 it may be hard to separate from the "outsiders" and 

 "sports," so-called, for whom no great regard is professed. 

 If 1 do not seem to distinguish the two, understand now 

 for all that the present company is always excepted, and 

 that you and I are the people who never broke a game 

 law; — at least I am sure /never did, and if you have done 

 so at any time to meet your necessities for food we will not 

 quarrel over that, knowing that as we say, you did it 

 '•reasonably." I have the honor to extend you a hearty 

 welcome, irrespective of the money you have spent on the 

 guides you have hired here. If you have come and pad- 

 dled your own canoe, as some of you have, so much the 

 better. If you have not hesitated to help the guides with 

 the camp work and on the carries, it is to your credit. 

 Your welcome here never is gauged by the "money you 

 leave, for the people whom I represent above all other 

 things judge and prize a man for what he is. 



Fannie Pearson Hardy. 



I.— WHO OWNS THE DEER?— PAESIER SPEAKS. 



SOOEATES had just oome from his easy conquest over 

 Euthydemus, when Agelasus, one of the rabble, came 

 up to him. 



'•I would like to ask you some questions, Socrates," said 

 he. 



"It would be more to your advantage if I questioned 

 you, AgelfBus," returned Socrates, seating himself on a 

 curbstone; -'however, if they are profitable questions I 

 will answer them." 



"Indeed they are profitable; they concern my moral 

 duty to my neighbor and that of other men to me. I ask 

 to be instructed. I am a farmer, Socrates, and the other 

 day my goat broke her corral, so to speak, and put for 

 neighbor ^polus's garden, where she ate up all the win- 

 ter cabbages which he was intending to sell at the Pry- 

 taneum at once and a half the market price — supplying 

 government, you know; cabbages are cabbages this year, 

 and the archons have all they can do to get enough to 

 keep the visitors from Sparta in Spartan broth. It is 

 about as cheap as anything after aU, and seems palatable 

 to them." 



"It does not become such as you, Agelseus, to talk 

 politics," remarked Socrates, ''What is your point?" 

 "I want to know must I pay for those cabbages?" 

 "Certainly." 



"But I shut her up all right, and the old idiot broke out 

 ■without my connivance or cognizance, all on her own 

 hook. Am I to blame for that?" 



"Yes." 



**Then a man must pay for damage caused by his own 



"Certainly." 



"That's just what I wanted to find out. ^polus, you 

 see, keeps sheep and lets them run loose. It was only 

 yesterday that they got in among my choice tomatoes 

 and trampled them up so I must sell out the whole thing 

 to the canning factory for ketchup at a big lose. Mustn't 

 he pay mef" 



"Certainly." 



"But he won't." 



"He can be made to; the laws see that all such injuries 

 are redressed. It is the part of the good citizen " 



"It is your part to answer, Socrates; you've had your 

 play, now ante. If the laws shouldn't touch this case, 

 would I be justified in kilUng them until he took care of 

 them?" 



"No; for the law provides thattheowner must pay such 

 damages, as I have already told you, and it wiLl make 

 him care for his cattle." 



"That's just what I want to know, Socrates, for we 

 haven't got to the end of things yet. There is a herd of 

 deer which come every night and trample down my beans 

 and buckwheat. Unless that is stopped I am a ruined 

 man, I shall have to come on the town. Will the State 

 stop that, Socrates?" 



"It cannot. These are wild creatures." 



"But the State owns them?" 



"Certainly." 



"And they have come into my field and trampled down 

 my crops— my beans, too; 1 had both white and black. 

 This new ballot system, you know, requiring a fresh 

 bean at every ballot to prevent fraud was going to make 

 a big call for beans. I know of three or foxrr election 

 rings formed already to get around it, with all sorts of 

 devices for making an over-count, I was expecting to 

 make large sales. Now, will the State pay me for those 

 beans, I want to know?" 



"Of com-se not." 



"Weren't they destroyed by the deer? and doesn't the 

 State own them?" 



"Very likely, but the State will not pay." 



"Mustn't the State pay for damages caused by its 

 property?" 



"O, AgeliBus, you are a clown and a rustic, and for 

 aught I know a fool also not to imderstand that the State 

 has peculiar privileges, peculiar rights — " 



"Ha, the State! I have heard you talk about the State 

 before, Socrates, you have queer notions about the State; 

 but it seems to me that the State, which is so rich and 

 powerful, ought to be at least as honest as the private 

 citizen, and else pay damages or keep her cattle fenced 

 in. I want to know what I can d® about these deer spoil- 

 ing my field of beans." 



"If you wait till October. Agelajus, the State will allow 

 you to shoot them, three of them if you know where to 

 go and whom to go with. This should be ample pay- 

 ment." 



"It seems to me I have heard something before now 

 about a bird in the bag being worth two on the snag, and 

 meantime my crops are spoiling. That kind of business 

 won't keep a man in sandalia not to speak of chitons." 



"But the State is wise and understands — " 



"It's a poor kind of a State in my opinion, Socrates, 

 that doesn't pay any attention to us farmers. I pay my 

 taxes and I own a share in those deer if any part of the 

 State is me. Are they all to be saved for the guests from 

 Sparta so that the tavern keepers of Athens may have 

 geese to pluck? But while we are talking of these 

 matters I would like to know whether other States than 

 Attica own the game in their countries?" 



"Indeed they do, Ageleeus— Bceotia and Argolis, Phocis 

 and Arcadia, the whole of them in fact." 



"How is it, then, if our deer go into Bceotia? Or if 

 their deer come here? Or, indeed, as sometimes happens, 

 if the whole tribe migrates from one State to another? 

 Can they kill om- deer because they have strayed across 

 the boundary? You would not let me do that to my 

 neighbor's sheep. You said that he was responsible for 

 them. Do we pay the Boeotians damages? And how is 

 it if theu-8 come here? Are they subject to our laws or 

 do they still obey their own? I would like to know 

 these things, Socrates." 



"O, Agelasus, I am puzzled. I am floored. You are a 

 dolt I know, but you do ask hard questions." 



"There is one point more. If this game belongs to the 

 State and the State prescribes certain days on which it 

 may be sacrificed, as it were, I suppose that the State does 

 it impartially, so that all the citizens may have an equal 

 chance. It belongs to the State wherever it is, and at 

 these stated seasons is free to aU." 



"Certainly. The State strives above all things to be 

 impartial." 



"Then it is not permitted one man to capture and hold 

 alive any game animal^that he may keep it for his own 

 pleasure or sport, and de^jrive the other citizens of their 

 shot at it? Indeed I know it is not; for Penes, a neighbor 

 of mine, who is a poor man, caught one a week ago in- 

 tending to make a pet of it, but Thersites informed of 

 him and the ofiicers made him release it,, saying that it 

 was not legally captured," 



"I heard of that, Agelasus." 



"But Plutus and Crresus, who live near the Academe, 

 have a whole park full of them— it is what I think they 

 call a preserve— and what is more, they have special laws 

 passed prohibiting any but themselves and their friends 

 from killing the creatures, so that they are no better than 

 licensed butchers in spite of their aristocracy. But I 

 would like to know whether they really own these or 

 whether the State does, and by what rights they obtained 

 the privilege. Did they pay the State for them, or are the 

 deer sold with the land like a kind of prize package busi- 

 ness, in which they run their risks of something or 

 nothing, a prize or a blank? But if it was by the beans, 

 why should not I who am a bean grower — " 



"Keep thyself from the traders in votes and from things 

 above thy understanding," interrupted Socrates, "As for 

 these, Dolus is their lawyer and craft is in him. I con- 

 fess that I do not understand these matters. But it seems 

 to me more the part of the good citizen to cry up the 

 majesty of the State and the infallible justice of her laws 

 than it is to dabble in dirty broils about dumb animals. 

 For myself, I will return to my work of asking questions 

 and training the youth to answer me with sense and fit- 

 ness." 



"Go your own way, old Soc," replied Agelaeus. "If the 

 laws won't adjust my grievance and don't undertake to 

 be consistent, I rather think I can settle the matter my- 

 self. I pay my taxes, I vote, I serve in the militia, 1 



my duty as a citizen. If the State won't either shut up 

 her deer or else pay for the damage they do, I'll take my 

 pay in venison whenever I can get any. That's all to- 

 day, Soc." Fannie Pearson Hardy. 



IOWA GAME BIRDS. 



WINTERSET, Iowa, March IQ.— Editor Forest and 

 Stream: Twenty years ago this was an ideal 

 coimtry for feathered game. It was the natural home of 

 the prairie chicken and the quail. A country of rolling 

 prairie with dense thickets of hazel and oak along the 

 many streams, it furnished cover for untold ntimbers of 

 both chicken and quail. It was an easy matter to load 

 up a wagon with prairie chickens, even with our indiffer- 

 ent dogs and muzzleloading guns. The number of 

 chickens one could bag came near being a question of 

 how fast he could load and how well he could shoot, 

 But the pot-hunters and the market-shooters, the quail 

 netters, the excessively wet seasons that followed one an- 

 other year after year, the plowing up of the prairie grass, 

 the change from rail fences —in the corners of which 

 many a Bob White made his nest — to barb wire, the 

 heavy snows for a succession of winters, came very near 

 exterminating both chickens and quail. During the 

 whole of 1883 I saw but two quail; and a party of five of 

 us with fair dogs and guns, in a two days' hunt, bagged 

 six chickens and flushed but eight. So far as local shoot- 

 ing was concerned wing shooting became one of the lost 

 arts, the dogs were sold and the sportsmen became pur- 

 suers of rabbits, or contented themselves within taking a 

 shot at a squhrel in a treetop, or a sneak on a stray duck 

 that dropped down to take a rest in his northward flight. 

 So far had the extermination of game gone that when I 

 returned from a short residence in Nebraska and brought 

 with me a well broken setter, for two years I enjoyed the 

 distinction of owning the only bird dog in a county 

 twenty-four miles square and containing 17,000 people. 



But in 1884 Iowa went dry both climatically and legally, 

 but as a success the climate beat the prohibitory law all 

 to pieces. Ever since then the hatching seasons have 

 been nearly perfect and the game has increased wonder- 

 fully. The mild winters may have something to do with 

 it, for the cornfields were the resort of many chickens 

 driven down from the north by the heavy snows. In 

 September, 1889, with Hamilton Lee, going after a covey 

 that we supposed was the only one within a radius of four 

 miles, we flushed not one covey but three in the same 

 field. We foimd another in the field adjoining, and one 

 in every field we tried. Most of the shooting was in the 

 corn owing to the short stubble, but still we got fair bags 

 every time we went out. Last May and June were 

 almost perfect hatching months. There were no storms, 

 scarcely any rains, and the nights were warm and dry. 

 The coveys of both chickens and quail were unusually 

 large and the birds strong and vigorous. On Sept. 3, 

 Dr. Eobert Davisson and I, over the same country that in 

 1883 we found no birds, cracked the limits of the Iowa 

 law — twenty-five to the g\in — almost before we knew it, 

 flushing eight coveys in one field of cat stubble. Mr. Lee 

 and I the week following bagged fourty-four in an even- 

 ing and morning, and in October on the "Iowa Home- 

 stead farm," in Adair county. I killed twenty-two in one 

 small field in about an hour's shooting. 



The birds have come back. Of course not in such 

 numbers as they once were, but there are enough of them 

 to afford any man who likes shooting well enough to 

 wade through wet corn, tangled stubble and high rosin 

 weeds a fair day's shooting, and with the continuance of 

 such seasons as we have had they vrill become still more 

 plentiful. Along every hedge row and in every hazel 

 thicket there is a covey of quail, and the winter was mild 

 enough to let them come through fat and strong. With 

 good weather in May or June the number of Bob Wnites 

 in the fall will exceed that for many years. 



A. G. GOSHORN. 



TEXAS HUNTING AND CRUISING. 



CORPUS CHRISTI, Tex.— The country in the vicinity 

 of Corpus Christi abounds with game of every de- 

 scription; deer are frequently killed within five miles of 

 the city, and are very plentiful within a radius of fifteen 

 or twenty miles. On what is known as Flower Bluff, ten 

 miles from the city, wild hogs are numerous and afford 

 great sport to the hunter, while an occasional panther or 

 wildcat and scores of coyotes give the tenderfoot sports- 

 man many opportunities to test his nerves. 



During the winter season the small fresh-water ponds, 

 which are frequently found on the islands and sandy bot- 

 tom lands along the coast, are covered with wild ducks 

 of every deecription, while the wet prairies along the 

 coast and in the interior are the feeding places of thous- 

 ands of wild geese and brant, which make this their win- 

 ter home. The various kinds of snipe and curlews are so 

 abundant as scarcely to attract the attention of the gun- 

 ner, who generally goes for the larger game. Wild ttu-- 

 keys are very plentiful in the brush and timber along the 

 streams, while quail are so numerous that many are fre- 

 quently seen in the gardens and streets of the city. 



A glance at any good map, or at the coast charts, wiE 

 show what splendid facilities are here afforded the 

 yachtsman and canoeist, especially those who desire to 

 spend a winter vacation cruising in the Siinny South. 

 Matagorda, Lavaca, Espiritu Santo, San Antonio, Aran- 

 sas, Copano, Corpus Christi and Nueces bays, and the 

 "Laguna Madre'" form a connected system of inland (salt) 

 waters, extending along the coast for hundreds of miles, 

 teeming with fish of every description known to southern, 

 waters, including the highly-prized tarpon, while oysters 

 of the finest flavor may be had for the taking, and, as 

 the islands and shores at almost any point along these 

 waters furnish deer, turkeys and other game in abund- 

 ance, a cruise in these waters offers advantages unsur- 

 passed even by the inland waters of the Georgia and 

 Florida coast. 



Good hotels may be found at the various towns along 

 the coast, including some very fine ones at Rockport and 

 Corpus Christi, and the prices charged are moderate, so 

 that a sportsman can live well here at much lower cost 

 than at other mere frequented resorts, J. S. P. 



Illinois Geese.— Lexington, III., March 14, — The 

 eese have made their appearance. JVIr, Chas, Scrogin 

 iUed two on the 13th less than a mile from town; they 

 were fine birds. Grant Preble and I were out on the 7th 

 and bagged 128 rabbits In six hours,— W* W, G. 



