Junk l*j 1898.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



dence, they had better appeal," but no appeal was taken, 

 and this ended the sale of antelope. 



Now let n8 see what ovir statute says about "water- 

 fowl." Paragraph I. of Game Law says: "It shall be un- 

 lawful to hunt, kill, trap, ensnare, qr otherwise destroy 

 any wild goose, duck, brant, rail or other waterfowl," 

 etc., etc. 



I find that as early as 1555 Belon made a system of 

 classification of birds, placing them in four groups, first, 

 birds of prey; second, game and poultry birds; third, 

 waders and swimmers: fourth, perching birds. This 

 order seems to have been followed by nearly all writers 

 on ornithology since. Ducks, geese, brant, rail, snipe, 

 woodcocks and plover do not sit on trees. A few years 

 ago Rev. W. Hincks, F, L. S., professor of natural his- 

 tory of University College, Toronto, Canada, published 

 in Western Journal of Canada, No. 11, a catalogue of 

 birds of America, in which he calls snipe waders, be- 

 longing to the Gralla? family. 



According to all authors I have examined I find waders 

 have always retained their place before and next to 

 swimmers. I do not find a single authority to support 

 the statements made by Mr. Bond, viz.: "Any bird that 

 makeB its home on land, though it frequents wet, marshy 

 land in search of food, is not a waterfowl in any sense of 

 the term. Hence, snipe are not waterfowl." 



Let ud look at an Illinois authority. Soon after the 

 organization of the State Geological Society in Spring- 

 field years ago, the members of the corps were instructed 

 to take notes of fact3 of natural history within the limits 

 of the State for the information of the people. Mr. 

 Henry Bretton, assistant geologist, furnished a list of 

 the birds of our State and their classification, as follows: 

 First, Rapaces, hawks, owls, etc., twenty kinds. Order 

 2, Passeres Psiitacidce, one hundred and twenty kinds, 

 including the pigeon, dove, etc., etc. Order 3, Gallince, 

 turkeys, quail, ruffed grouse and pinnated grouse. 

 Order 4, Grallatores, waders, or stilted birds, cranes, 

 storks, plover and snipe; in aJl five families. Order 5, 

 Natatores, swimmers, ducks and geese. There were in 

 all kinds one hundred and eighty-four in number. He 

 gives Class No. IV., "water birds," "Grallce," waders— 

 forty-four families, including the genus Scolapax, snipe. 

 Webster says: "Waterfowl— -A bird that frequents the 

 water or lives about rivers, lakes, or on or near the sea. 

 An aquatic fowl. Of aquatic fowls some are waders or 

 furnished with long legs, and others are swimmers and 

 are furnished with web feet." 



Worcester's D.crionary says: "Waterfowl— A fowl that 

 lives on or frequents the water." 



Century Dictionary of the Eaglish Language says: 

 "Water bird — An aquatic, as distinguished from a terres- 

 trial or aerial bird; in the plural the grallatorial and 

 natatorial or wading and swimming birds." 



Mr. Bond says that a few years ago a friend of his was 

 arrested and tried before a justice for killing snipe before 

 Sept. 15, and was fined ijSBO (my recollection is that he 

 sent him $20 as a gift to defend this suit, and that this 

 man shipped his snipe to him). Believing his friend had 

 been robbed without authority of law, he wrote to Hon. 

 L. B. Crooker of Mendofca, who drafted and secured the 

 passage of our present law, as to his understanding of the 

 law. Mr. Crooker replied that the migration of snipe was 

 so irregular and uncertain that it was thought best not to 

 give them any protection, and so they were omitted. 

 Now, this is pretty severe on the poor snipe! Because he 

 does not come here at a regular time and stay around to 

 be banged at, or decides to take other routes north or 

 south, all protection is withdrawn. 



When Mr. Crooker wrote in the law, "Goose, duck, 

 brant, rail and other waterfowl," he evidently did not 

 know what "waterfowl" included. Well, he is not the 

 first law-maker who has made laws which reached fur- 

 ther than was intended. Laws must be interpreted aB 

 they read when they read plainly. 



Mr. Bond also says that Col. C. E. Felton and Wolfred 

 N. Low, ex-presidents of the State's Sportsmen's Associa- 

 tion, were consulted, and they agreed that snipe were not 

 waterfowl. Mr. Low told me the other day that he did 

 think snipe were waterfowl, but he couldn't cite any 

 authority for his opinion, and I don't suppose Col. Felton 

 is any expert either on the subject. His other authority, 

 Dr. Yorke, I do not know, and I cannot find any works 

 on "Snipe or Waterfowl" written by him. 



Mr. Bmd's advice to dealers on South Water street to 

 make a test case, I am sure does not meet with any 

 favor. The dealers have agreed not to offer snipe until 

 Oct. 1, and have shown a sincere desire to obey the laws. 

 The principal ones and others have promised me their 

 assistance in enforcing them. 



It is a shame that at this time the cold storage-houses 

 throughout the country contain tens of thousands of 

 game birds which could not be disposed of during the 

 open season. These birds should have been allowed to 

 live and breed, and not have been destroyed and carried 

 for months until they could be sold. The Supreme Court 

 of Illinois has handed down two grand decisions which 

 completely settled two "test" cases in regard to our game 

 laws. 



Now, if Mr. Bond wants a "best" case all by himself, 

 he can be accommodated at any time by giving the game 

 warden a short notice to that effect. 



I find that honorable sportsmen and dealers want our 

 game and birds preserved, and do not try to detect de- 

 fects in the laws. M. R. Bortree, Game Warden. 



Chicago, June 9. 



The Old Gun. in the Cupboard. 



I have not had a gun to my face in a dozen years. My 

 old-fashioned Parker stands in the cupboard and two 

 buckshot cartridges on the dressing case for midnight 

 emergencies, with the hope that I shall have no such use 

 for it. I was a fair shot among the chickens and quail 

 thirty aud odd years ago back in Illinois, but I judge 

 from Mr. Hough's writing that the good old time has de- 

 parted. I think that next winter I shall go down on the 

 Gulf for several months loafing, maybe I'll take the old 

 gun along; we have had some pleasant days together, and 

 yet I'm afraid it will make my head ache. Still a gun is 

 companionable in the woods. I can however always do 

 a great deal of fishing aud hunting without the death 

 dealing tools. — Colorado. 



A New Vermont League. 

 Col. Edward B. Sawyer writes from Hyde Park. V 

 J 6, to Fish Commissioner John W. Titcomb: 



league was formed here June 4, called the Lamoille 

 County Fish and Game League, as a branch of the State 

 league, with a membership of twenty, which will be rap- 

 idly increased. The officers elected were Col. Edward B. 

 Sawyer, President; Capt. Jonas V. Stevens, of Eden, and 

 Charles H. Sterns, of Johnson, Vice-Presidents; Capt. 

 Smith B. Waite, Secretary, and Ned L. Noyes, Clerk and 

 Treasurer, with an executive committee of one in each 

 town in the county, together with the president and sec- 

 retary. Recent outrages here have aroused a spirit of 

 determination to enforce the laws. All the members are 

 eager to study and learn the law. 



WHEN M1NEESOTA GAME WAS PLENTY 



In a recent number of Forest and Stream there ap- 

 peared an interesting letter written by Rev. Myron Cooley, 

 of this village, says the Detroit (Minn.) Record, in which 

 he recited his experiences with rod and reel in the lakes 

 surrounding Detroit. Mr. Cooley has published, many 

 such letters, and as he is equally as handy with his pen 

 as he is with his split bamboo with an elegant five pound 

 bass at the end of his line, his letters have attracted the 

 attention of anglers throughout the country, and in fact 

 I hey have been no small factor in spreading the fame of 

 Detroit as the fisherman's paradise. His last letter was 

 read by Mr. Edmund Norton, one of the contractors who 

 built the Northern Pacific Railroad from the Pelican 

 River to the Red River Valley, and last week Mr. Cooley 

 received the following, which is so full of pertinent 

 points relative to the early days in the neighborhood of 

 Detroit that he has kindly permitted us to publish it. 



Mr. Norton's letter runs: "I have occasionally read your 

 letters in the Forest and Stream, and with pleasure, as 

 you are located at a point that has many pleasant remem- 

 brances for me. Perhaps it may interest you to know 

 something of your neighborhood 21 years ago. In 1871 

 my brother and myself had a contract on the N. P. R. R. 

 and did all the grading from section 1723, which was the 

 bridge over the inlet to Detroit Lake, westward to the 

 Red River valley, or to a point about 15 miles east of the 

 Red River. We took a large outfit into the country on 

 wagons via Sauk Centre, Alexandria, Ottertail and 

 Detroit Lake, and worked about 500 men and 100 teams 

 from April 15th to about Nov. 1st of that year. We had 

 several camps at various points on the work, our head- 

 quarters camp, shops, etc., being located at the big out 

 five miles west of Detroit Lake— Oak Lake it was called 

 then. * * * 



As to game — it was a paradise. How I would enjoy a 

 month of similar conditions now ! In their seasons there 

 was no limit to pigeons, ducks, partridges and sharptail 

 grouse. The latter, especially, were so plenty in August 

 that I could have filled a wagon with them driving over 

 ten miles of the prairie road. And what splendid birds 

 they were! No finer ever wore feathers. Li July I 

 counted 27 broods of young ducks on one small pond 

 about S miles west of you, but there were no geese or 

 chickens there then; they never went further than the 

 stubble fields. On the Gager farm I shot 27 chickens one 

 morning. I never saw or heard of a deer in the country, 

 though foxes were plenty, and occasionally a bear. Elk 

 were plenty along the valley of the Jim River and some 

 buffalo remained this side of the Missouri. 



' 'In your last letter, to Forest and Stream you speak of 

 catching bass in Floyd Lake. I did some pretty tall fish- 

 ing there myself, and think I pulled the first spoon ever 

 thrown in the lake. An old Frenchman with an Indian 

 wife lived near by and I borrowed his birch bark one day 

 and after about filling it with 3 to 61b. bass, I succeeded 

 in capsizing it in about 20ft. of water and like 'Abner 

 Dean of Angel' the subsequent proceedings interested me 

 no more. I have seen a dozen of our men pitching all 

 kinds of fish with shovels and pitchforks out of the stream 

 near the bridge that crosses the inlet at your place. This 

 was during the running season, the latter part of April. 

 In the tamarack swamp about half a mile west of Detroit 

 I shot over fifty pigeons and nine partridges inside of an 

 hour, and no doubt could have kept up the gait all day, 

 but I was too busy that summer to waste much time in 

 pleasure." 



GAME WARDEN DARLING. 



Lowell, Me., June 9.— Editor Forest and Stream: 

 There has been much newspaper talk about the notorious 

 outlaw and poacher's accepting the office of State fish 

 and game warden; and it was a surprise to many that 

 our Fish and Game Commissioners ever should have 

 offered me the office. But there was one thing that they 

 knew; and that was that if I would fight as hard for 

 them as I had for myself I would be valuable to the 

 State. 



Since I have been appointed I have been experiment- 

 ing. I have talked with many of the hunters, guides, 

 lumbermen, poachers, etc., and have tried to persuade 

 them not to kill our fish and game in close time. I have 

 assured them that I did not accept the office for the 

 money that I expected to get from them, but to try and 

 preserve the game and have the State pay me. But I 

 would tell them that I meant to watch them as close as I 

 could, and to have spotters on the lookout, and if I 

 caught them I should not let them pass without trouble, 

 I occasionally found parties violating the law in a small 

 way, who were ignorant of what they were doing, and 

 would tell them of it and let them go; and some of the 

 country I went over the third time, and found that just 

 my talk and traveling through the hunting regions had 

 had a good effect. I took my snowshoe3 and struck 

 through the woods, and parties did not know that I was 

 in the country many times until I would open their camp 

 doors. I was treated kindly, and was not afraid to go 

 there the second time. 



I once seized a cow moose hide that had the hair shaved 

 off, and was tied up in a bag and snugly rolled up in a 

 tent aud tied on to a hunter's sled, marked and sent out 

 of the woods on tote teams, and then forty miles on 

 stage. I was at the stage stopping -place, and had just 

 got there. The moment I saw the hunter's sled I eme'lled 

 a mouse, overhauled the tent and found the hide. The 

 driver seemed much surprised, for he did not know that 

 he was transporting a moose hide. I told him that it was 

 all right on his part, but I wanted to know where it came 

 from; he told me. The party were some one hundred 

 miles away on a winter's hunt, I wrote them a letter 

 and sent back to them, telling them what I had found, 

 and that I should see them after they returned home and 



perhaps before, and that it depended on what they were 

 or did do the rest of the winter how I should settle with 

 them when I found them. This letter was to give them 

 to understand that if they did not kill any more moose I 

 would be easy with them. I afterward went to the 

 headwaters of the Arroostook River, and visited a log- 

 ging camp where those same hunters had stopped part of 

 the time; but they were not there then. They had a 

 long line of traps and it took them a week or ten days to 

 go the rounds. I could not learn of their killing any 

 more moose. I shall see them as soon as I can leave my 

 other business; and I have other cases to settle in their 

 locality. 



My intention was to be as easy with the violators at first 

 as the law would allow, and after that to load with a full 

 charge. I found that the poachers were more shy of me 

 than they were of the rest of the wardens; they said 

 that I had been an old hand at the business, and knew 

 their tricks; and that they did not know from which di- 

 rection to look out for me. As soon as my appointment 

 was in the papers I received a letter from an old guide at 

 Moosehead Lake, asking me what I meant by accepting 

 the office and if I meant business, "for," he wrote, "we 

 well know that if you do, you will get some of us." 



I can see that a warden to do business right wants to 

 put his whole time to the work; then he can lay his plans 

 and more effectually carry them out. There is one thing 

 certain: so far as I know there never was a winter when 

 game was as plenty as now, but what more game was 

 killed than last winter? One reason was that the snow 

 in many localities was too shallow to catch the game, but 

 in localities where it was deep there was very little hunt- 

 ing. The lumbermen are more shy, and would rather 

 buy beef than run the risk. Bat now the time has ar- 

 rived when the summer hunters should be looked after, 

 I have just come down from Nicatowis Lake with a 

 party, and we saw there several deer feeding about the 

 shores, and the tracks were plenty everywhere we went. 



No guide-books and maps of our eastern country have 

 ever been published; and one is much needed, for we 

 have as good a locality for deer-bunting and fishing and 

 other small game as there is in Maine, and as good local- 

 ities for club preserves, and they could be had if applied 

 for by the right or good, reliable parties. 



J. Darling. 



THE CALIFORNIA BEAR SUPPLY. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



In your issue of the 12th inst., I notice that Mr. "Pod- 

 gers" is pining for a "bear story," and out of respect for 

 the modesty of his desires, in his seeming preference for 

 game that was "not caught," and as that is just the kind 

 of bear story material that I happen to have on hand , I 

 long to send him consolation. It may relieve the aching 

 void in his soul to know that Mr. Bruin still lives among 

 the California foot-hills, and like a Wyoming "rustler," 

 gains a subsistence by foraging upon the honest stock- 

 raisers of the adjacent valleys. 



Bear killers, too, are thick; a fact that was satisfactorily 

 demonstrated one day last week by the lively stampede 

 of the citizens of this locality, when it was reported that 

 a bear had invaded one of the sheep ranches and carried 

 off a poisoned sheep that had been prepared for thieving 

 coyotes. A lively scrimmage was anticipat ed , and nearly 

 every man in the township shouldered his trusty rifle 

 and struck for the trail. They followed it, too, close on 

 the heels of the retreating intruder, until the tracks van- 

 ished in a thicket of manzanita, when not a bear killer 

 could be prevailed upon to advance a step further. Could 

 it have been done en masse, it might have been accom- 

 plished; but this was impossible, and the undertaking 

 looked a little too personal. No one coveted a single- 

 handed encounter. Then they took the back track, ex- 

 amined the footprints, dwelt long upon the patches of 

 torn up earth where bruin had paused in his flight to 

 commune with the internal commotion which the poi- 

 soned carcass of the stolen sheep had aroused within 

 him; and all agreed that he must be a monster which no 

 ordinary bpar slayer would be safe in tackling. 



At this juncture, some one proposed sending for the 

 California champion, Billy Hamilton, of Sacramento, 

 and a message was accordingly sent forthwith. And the 

 answer came, "Billy not at home. Hunting bear in the 

 tules." The disappointment to the assembled forces was 

 intense, and they beat a hasty retreat. Thus ended the 

 chase, for the present; but if bruin remains at large, and 

 your bear stories get low, please notify me and I'll try to 

 keep your correspondent, Mr. P., informed. 



Under the circumstances, I can safely contract to fur- 

 nish weekly bear stories, of this kind, just as long as our 

 present force of bear-slayers holds out, and Mr. Hamilton 

 remains in the tuleB, 



Quail are quite numerous at present, and are remark- 

 ably tame. Nearly every day we see a pair strutting about 

 our grounds and helping themselves to wheat where the 

 chickens have been fed. The turtle-doves are with us 

 once more, and their soft, sweet cooing can be heard at 

 any hour of the day. 



This morning a beautiful golden oriole came to our 

 back porch and breakfasted off the scattered crumbs, 

 and the robins, linnets and canaries, nesting in the trees 

 about the house, keep up a continual melody. 



A number of deer have been seen in our neighborhood 

 recently, but they are perfectly safe at f 500 per head. A 

 large coon was shot within our inclosure the other day. 



I have just returned from a trip through Nevada, Utah, 

 and Wyoming, and although I kept a close lookout for 

 game of all kinds, I failed to spy anything shootable, 

 save a thousand or two wild ducks along the northern 

 shore of Salt Lake; unless, perhaps, the captured cattle- 

 men confined at Fort Russell, They, no doubt, would be 

 considered game by the Johnson county "rustlers," were 

 they to get in range. 



At Cheyenne I was informed that prairie chickens are 

 plentiful a few miles in the country. Marion. 



G e ys euvilTjE, Cal., May 26. 



Antelope and Deer of America. By J. D. Caton, 

 Price $2.50. Wing and Glass Ball Shooting with the 

 Rifle. By W. C. Bliss. Price 50 cents. Rifle, Rod and 

 Gun ill California, By T. S. Van Dyke. Price $1.50. 

 Shore Birds. Price 15 cents. Woodcraft. By <l Ness- 

 nmkS Price si. Trajectories of Hunting Rifles. Price 

 50 cents Wild Fowl Shooting; see advertisement. 



