April 1, 1894.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



291 



There were several other landings made that night, and 

 ;hanks to our friend with the loud voice we saw them all. 



The next morning we were within a couple of miles of 

 ;he bay and we saw ducks flying in every direction, but 

 ;here were no large flocks. After breakfast we went up 

 x> the pilot house, where we spent most of our time, and. 

 saw the pilot kdl a gull with a ,45cal. Winchester at what 

 le called 200yds. The only kinds of duck we saw during 

 ihe whole trip werej the southerlands, whistlewings, 

 water witches and teal. The pilot said he had only seen 

 >ne small flock of canvasbacks this year. At a landing 

 svhich we made shortly before lunch we saw a man bring 

 iboard quite a string of gray squirrels; some of them had 

 ails ten inches long. In th« string was a red-headed 

 ivoodpecker. The market-hunters of this region send 

 ;heir strings of game up to Washington by the steamer, 

 ffld we got a very fair idea of varieties and quantity of 

 ;he game of this section by seeing what the men brought 

 iboard. At the same landing we notpd a pair of coons 

 j,nd a wild turkey. At other places rabbits, woodcock, 

 mail, possums and, I am sorry to say, larks and sparrows 

 ivere brought on board. These sparrows are shipped to 

 Washington under the name of "reedbirds." There were 

 llso strings of miscellaneous small birds that should never 

 lave been shot. A great many fish are brought to Wash- 

 ngton by this steamer. The pilot said quail shooting was 

 jood here, so that the people around the mouth of the 

 Patomac have no cause to complain about their land 

 ;anie, but they have good reason to protest against the 

 mooting of the much-diminished numbers of ducks. 



The steamer's business is at the river landings, and up 

 ill the narrow creeks and bays putting into it, and after 

 sitting in the pilot house in an inky black night and see- 

 ng the pilots feel their way through the winding channel 

 jf the creeks, unaided by buoys, search lights, or light- 

 louses, one comes to the belief that river pilots must have 

 some sense not possessed by ordinary mortals. In most 

 if the channels the boat's keel was so near the bottom, 

 ihat the wake was all muddy and the speed was greatly 

 •educed by the suction caused by the closeness of the 

 middy bottom. On several occasions the channel was so 

 larrow that the waves of the wake broke in 6in. of water 

 }ut 15 or 20ft. off on either side of the boat, and it was 

 aot uncommon to feel her keel grating on the bottom as 

 she passed over some hump in the channel. 



Among the creeks ami bays we visited were Nomini 

 Ireek, St. Clements Bay, Smith's Creek and Coan River. 

 Is we were coming out of Coan River, bound for St. 

 jeorge's Island, we saw the President coming home from 

 i shooting trip on board of the U. S. buoy tender Violet. 

 3he turned around after a duck and gave us a chance to 

 patch up with her a little, so we had an exciting race up 

 river. As the Violet is a small boat, the Arro wsmith beat. 



We spent a whole day on the lower river, and a most 

 5njoyable day it was. W. B. H. 



Washington, D. 0. 



RHODE ISLAND QUAIL. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



I read with interest the article last week in regard to 

 the transportation of quail for the purpose of restocking 

 depleted covers. Our little State was given more space 

 than any of the others, but the same as all of the other 

 communications on the subject the results of the experi- 

 ment were mere conjecture. It would be gratifying to 

 all persons interested in the work of transplanting quail to 

 have some tangible facts in regard to the success of their 

 efforts. Our State is the most thickly populated of any in 

 the Union, and still there is an abundance of cover left 

 wherein game may find refuge. The expansion of civili- 

 sation has not decreased the range for game as the open 

 land is for the most part under a state of cultivation and 

 affords better cover for quail every year. The larger 

 game has departed to be sure and no reference is made in 

 the game laws for the protection of deer. Two weeks 

 ago one was killed in Exeter, and several have been seen 

 in the southern part of the State this winter. Last week 

 the blood in the veins of the old hunters became almost 

 congealed when they heard of a big bear in Exeter, and a 

 stage of rejuvenation commenced. The bear is still at 

 large. 



But as to the quail. Our winters are somewhat 

 tempered from what they were years ago, but occasionally 

 we have an old timer and then the crop of quail becomes 

 blighted and shooting the following season is poor. 

 Under the circumstances we are obliged to rely upon 

 this gamy little bird for our sport. To let nature take its 

 course would be a slow means of replenishing the supply* 

 so after the severe storms of a year ago the sportsmen de- 

 cided to assist nature in order to insure some sport during 

 the last decade of the vanishing century. Under the 

 auspices of the State Game Association, subscription 

 papers were started and a goodly amount was raised. 

 Orders were placed for birds early in the fall and during 

 the winter they have been filled, a few birds being sent 

 on at a time. The money now has all been expended and 

 we believe that we shall profit by the work that has been 

 ao well inaugurated. Since last December, 121 dozen birds 

 have been received from the South through the State 

 Association. As many more have been purchased by 

 private parties for preserves. It has been surprising to 

 see the interest that has been aroused in the movement 

 by persons who never saw a quail. They have handed in 

 contributions and many of them have even done better 

 than some of the hunters. 



I have occupied a position in this work that has brought 

 me in close touch with the association and have had 

 under my personal supervision the handling of a great 

 many of the birds. This enables me to speak with a cer- 

 tain degree of know.'edge. The experiment was a costly 

 one and we have profited by it. We have to-day after a 

 most severe winter a supply of birds in our woods that 

 has not been equalled for years. Some are native, most 

 axe Southern birds. We have lost some of the birds that 

 were liberated, but we have saved many. The exact 

 mumber it is impossible to tell. Our work has been done 

 in a most systematic manner and so well pleased are we 

 with the result that we shall repeat the work not as an 

 experiment next winter. We lost some birds. That was 

 to be expected. Next year we will lose few. Why? This 

 year has been one of experiment. We have tried every 

 means that was suggested for the preservation of the 

 birds and know what can be done with every conceivable 

 pen and method, while the birds are kept in confinement 

 and know what to expect and how to treat birds that are 

 liberated. Our experience has cost us considerable and 

 it would take too much space to relate it, but I shall en. 



deavor to place it before the sportsmen of the country in 

 pamphlet form if it can be clone at a reasonable cost. It 

 would be the means of saving sportsmen a great many 

 dollars. Nearly every week we hear from the birds that 

 were liberated early in the winter before we had had any 

 snow, and we know for a fact that a large ma jority of the 

 birds we put out have survived the severe storms. 



You quoted in your last issue a letter that appeared in 

 the Providence Journal, from a Warwick farmer with 

 comments from a sportsman. I inclose a clipping from 

 the same paper that I furnished in regard to the matter. 



"In an open letter to the Journal, a farmer from the 

 town of Warwick has considerable fault to find with the 

 sportsmen. The latter speaks in bitter terms about the 

 way the farmers are treated by the hunters, and the only 

 thing to be regretted is that the letter is full of truths. 

 There are a great many persons who go into the woods 

 who are anything but sportsmen. They do not recognize 

 the rights of the farmers, and are nothing more than 

 armed marauders. They trample down gardens and 

 meadows, steal fruit and kill fowl, and, if remonstrated 

 with, insult the farmer. It is this class of men who have 

 no regard for the laws of the State, either those pertain- 

 ing to the killing of game, or the rights of individuals, 

 that make the average farmer the enemy to a man who 

 carries a gun and owns a bird dog. The farmers are not 

 to blame for the way they treat the hunters, for they 

 have been forced to use them as they do for protection to 

 themselves and their property. A farmer who is treated 

 as a man is easily managed, and will have no objections 

 to gentlemen hunting on his land. The Connecticut law 

 that makes every farmer a constable on his own land is a 

 pretty good law, and would be appreciated by the gentle- 

 men hunters of this State as well as by the farmers. The 

 hunters cannot expect to shoot on private land if the 

 owners object, and if the owners are not treated properly 

 they are bound to object." 



While the farmer may have carried matters a little too 

 far by killing off the game, it must be remembered that 

 he has some rights that must be recognized. Few people 

 recognize what the farmers of this busy State have to 

 contend with from the hunters. Every water privilege 

 in the State is occupied by a mill or factory making these 

 plantations a hive of industry. The operatives are 

 numerous and the State is crowded with mills and large 

 corporations, and these operatives find that they can get 

 into the country by walking a very short distance. This 

 brings the farms into close communication with the mill 

 villages, and the people fairly overrun the farms on 

 Sundays and Saturday afternoons. Many of them carry 

 guns but they are not figured as a factor in the depletion 

 of game. They do, however, impose upon the farmers, 

 and for this reason many of the farmers believe that 

 every man who carries a gun is an enemy to him and a 

 source of danger to his property. S.'H. Roberts. 



owing to the painstaking efforts of the industrious mar- 

 ket suppliers. Our Fish and Game Club is making great 

 effort to restock the streams, and we have put in a great 

 many thousands of the fry of brook and rainbow trout; 

 but we have much to contend with in illegal fishing. 

 Stopping the sale of game would also stop about 90 per 

 cent, of illegal fishing and shooting here. C. F. E. 



Ellicott City, Md. — I am with Forest and Stream in 

 its broad policy, vote first, last and all the time for the 

 plank, "no game to be sold." Samuel J. Fort, M.D. 



STOP THE SALE OF GAME. 



A Platform Piank.— The sale of game should be forbidden at all 

 times,— Forest and Stream, Feb. 10. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



No doubt Brother D. L.'s position against the prohibi- 

 tion of game marketing is well taken, but it does go 

 mightily against the grain of resident sportsmen when 

 such a pestiferous fellow as we have here in a neighboring 

 township ranges with his spaniels through all the best 

 shooting grounds of the region in the first days of the open 

 season, or a little before, and gets the cream of the 

 partridge shooting, just for the money he can get out of 

 it. The resident sportsmen are farmers, mechanics and 

 professional men, who can get but now and then a day's 

 shooting, while this fellow can use all days for this pur- 

 pose. Though he is suspected of sending many of his 

 birds out of the State, they go ostensibly to Burlington 

 market, and so the non-exportation law does not reach 

 him. If farmers post their lands they cannot watch them, 

 nor afford to have them watched, and this man, who dis- 

 regards all laws that he can safely violate or evade, does 

 not care a snap of his finger for a posting notice. An 

 entire prohibition of game selling would put an end to his 

 evil practices. Yet in some respects his ways are no worse 

 than those of another man that I know of, a non-resident 

 who leases an extensive tract of marsh to the exclusion of 

 all residents, kills four times as many ducks as he can 

 use, and leaves half of them to lie and rot. Surely they 

 might better be sold than wasted, as Mr. De L. says, and 

 eaten or in some way made useful, which is the legitimate 

 end of all game. 



But, after all, what does it matter? Do we not remem- 

 ber "Nessmuk's" prophetic words, "The game must go," 

 and going it is, inevitably, beyond the reach of us ordi- 

 nary mortals, into the control of the rich, who will share 

 it only with their rich friends. This lapse into Old World 

 aristocratic custom goes sorely against the republican 

 grain, but it must be endured , and really, it is the only 

 hope of game preservation, for the guns of the multitude 

 are too many for the wood folk. Either way, it is not of 

 much consequence to us old fellows, who have had our 

 day, but we cannot help being sorry for our boys, who 

 will have no shooting but at lifeless targets, unless by luck 

 or crookedness they acquire riches. 



Concerning the destruction of game by predatory ani- 

 mals, I can bear witness that 45 years ago there were a 

 dozen foxes, raccoons, skunks, mink, hawks of all kinds 

 and the larger owls, where there is one now, and I am 

 quite safe in saying that there were at the same time 

 twenty to one of the present number of ruffed grouse, 

 twice as many woodcock in their more restricted haunts, 

 and innumerable ducks, where now can be found only 

 individuals or scattered flocks. Nature rarely disturbs 

 her own balance, but civilized man is continually inter- 

 fering with it. He is the arch-enemy of the game, cir- 

 cumscribing its ranges, and waging an incessant warfare 

 against it with constantly improved devices for rapid 

 destruction. AWAHSOOSE. 



Ferrisburgh, Vt. 



Titcsvtlle, Pa., March 27. — Editor Forest and Stream: 

 May the day be near at hand when the solid plank in our 

 platform for the suppression of traffic in game, which you 

 are so ably advocating, becomes an effective law in every 

 State and Territory. It will be the last and only law 

 needed for the protection of game outside of an observ- 

 ance of the breeding and spawning seasons. 



Until within the last two or three years fishing and 

 shooting has been excellent about here, but now the 

 streams and woods are nearly depleted of game, largely 



The Chatham Reunion. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



The Chatham Fish and Game Protective Association of 

 Chatham, N. J. , celebrated the fourth year of their exist- 

 ence as a corporate body by a most elaborate game dinner 

 on Wednesday evening, March 28. The affair will long 

 be remembered by those who participated as one of the 

 greatest treats ever given by the association. 



The dinner was served in the club house at Chatham, so 

 well known to passengers on the D., L. & W. R.R., and 

 was most enjoyable in every detail. It has for some time 

 been the wish of a large proportion of the rnernb rs to 

 afford an opportunity to discuss the qestions that have 

 arisen from time to time concerning the work undertaken 

 by the club, and this was the indirect cause that led to 

 the filling effect commented upon late in the evening by 

 the members. The participants included a large number 

 of the members of the association residing in Morristown, 

 Madison, Orange and Newark. 



The president, Mr. E. L. Phillips, acted as toastmaster 

 and delivered the address of welcome, which was enthusi- 

 astically received. The Rev. Dr. J. Clement French of 

 Newark responded to the toast "The Forest and Stream," 

 in a most eloquent and humorous manner. 



Mr. Wm. Elder, the ex-secretary and treasurer, followed 

 Dr. French with a very interesting history of the Associa- 

 tion and its work, and expressed the wish generally echoed 

 by members, that the Association will in the near future 

 be a power felt throughout the State for the protection of 

 our game and enforcement of our game laws. 



This was followed by Mr. J. H. Hardin, who responded 

 to the toast, "Our Game Laws, "in a very humorous demon- 

 stration of how it was sad but true that our members 

 found it more to their interest to know nothing whatever 

 on this subject. The respect with which these statutes 

 are treated in our vicinity now, however, would suggest 

 that somebody knew something about them. 



The toast, "The Ladies," was responded to by Mr. John 

 Jephson, and most nobly were they treated at his hands. 

 After Mr. Jephson's toast a general discussion of subjects 

 of interest was indulged in, and the party broke up with 

 a feeling that the evening was all too short to thoroughly 

 enjoy the affair. 



It has been the practice of the Association for three 

 years past to buy and liberate early every spring sev- 

 eral hundred quail on their preserve, which includes a 

 large proportion of the "great swamp" of Morris county, 

 N. J., and some of the finest shooting ground in the Pas- 

 saic Valley. 



Some very fine shooting has been afforded to the mem- 

 bers as the result of this and the farmers in the whole 

 northern end of the State have commented on the num- 

 ber of quail on their grounds of late, having scattered 

 from the club preserve. 



A pheasantry is now under consideration and the club 

 hop.. j s within a few years to afford its members the 

 pleasure of shooting on its preserve this most royal of 

 game buds. A Member. 



An Incident with the Grays. 



While on a still-hunt for gray squirrels one day last 

 fall I did something that pleased me so much that I 

 want to tell of it. I had just brought a gray to bag and 

 stood reloading when I saw another run up a tall maple 

 further down in the woods. I got down there as quietly 

 as possible, when I discovered a hole in the tree about 50ft. 

 from the ground. I made up my mind to wait for "his 

 nibs," so seated myself comfortably on a large boulder 

 with a good view of the hole. Presently a little black 

 nose was poked out and a pair of bright eyes examined 

 the situation and disappeared immediately. I "froze" to 

 that boulder, my gun at a ready, and for about five min- 

 utes watched this game of "Now you see it and now you 

 don't." Of course 1 couldn't shoot for he would only drop 

 back into the hole and be lost. 



At this juncture,with a noise like a young freight train, 

 a big gray came tearing down from the top of the same 

 tree. He did not see me till he got right beside the hole, 

 and then he brought up with a jerk that must have dis- 

 turbed his internal machinery. My first impulse was to 

 "unhook" on him, but it flashed through my mind that 

 such action would insure the one in the hole staying there, 

 and if I did not fire I might get a chance at both. Almost 

 immediately the first squirrel jumped out, and the pair, 

 one on each side, started up the tree. With as pretty a 

 right and left as I ever made I tumbled twj grays in the 

 autumn leaves. I felt so much elated at the way I had 

 outwitted the wily fellows that I laughed outright, which 

 frightened the red squirrel on the dead linib of the old 

 hemlock so that he beat a hasty retreat to the dense foli- 

 age of its top. W. W. B. 



Vermont. ' 



That Mudhen Tournament. 



Los Angeles, March 20. — Editor Forest and Stream: 

 The '-mudhen tournament" has come and gone, and as a 

 result there are just 409 fewer mudhens in Los Angeles 

 county. About twenty-five sportsmen participated in 

 the shoot, and the three highest scores were 65, 63 and 4e5, 

 made by Mr. Nottman, Mr. George Shields and Mr. Ed. 

 Tufts. 



The shoot did not take place on the grounds of the 

 Long Beach Gun Club, as announced, because, owing to 

 a scarcity of water, the mudhens had all left, or mayhap 

 it was because they had a foreboding of coming evil. So 

 it was held on the grounds of the Cerritos Gun Club, a 

 small but aristocratic club of five members. And so 

 closed a successful season, and for a time the guns will 

 repose idly in their cases, except for an occasional turn at 

 the traps, until the coming of next season shall call them 

 forth again. 



And by the way, I am on that plank t Forest and 

 Stream started the wedge, and it rests with the sports- 

 I men of America to drive it home, Culpepper, 



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