May 26, 18»4.J 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



445 



toban to do so, as this is the only time of the year he sees 

 them. Their return ticket does not read via Manitoba." 



This letter is just exactly the argument used by the 

 spring shooters of this section in regard to ducks and 

 snipe, and it is just exactly wrong. The only right way 

 to look at spring shooting is on the basis that a bird not 

 killed is a bird saved, saved for itself and not for the 

 gun. In the past local selfishness has always meant local 

 jealousy, which has meant, and always will mean so long 

 as it exists, local shooting. Yet all shooting must be only 

 local. The American sportsman will never learn till the 

 g me is gone, that a bird killed in Manitoba or Dakota is 

 as dead as the same bird killed in Texas. That problem re- 

 mains ever too deep, and it is understood about alike, 

 from Hudson's Bay to the Gulf. 



The Wood Buffalo. 



Mr. Johnson sends a clipping from the Edmonton Bulle- 

 tin: "At the last session of the Northwest Assembly a 

 resolution was passed calling the attention of the Ottawa 

 authorities to the advisability and necessity of adopting 

 some measures for the preservation from extinction of the 

 wood buffalo still remaining in the region between the 

 Peace and Liard rivers, and between the Mackenzie River 

 and the Rocky Mountains. The Assembly did not ask for 

 legislation to protect the buffalo or any other animals in 

 the region referred to. Its references were confined 

 strictly to the buffalo, and pains were taken to show at 

 some length that legislation could not possibly meet the 

 case, as the nature of the country and surrounding cir- 

 cumstances generally would prevent any possible legisla- 

 tion from having effect. The resolution stated that the 

 buffalo could only be preserved from extinction by cap- 

 turing enough of the animals for breeding purposes and 

 keeping them in captivity. If the importance of the pre- 

 servation of the species is not sufficient to warrant the 

 expense of this method of procedure, it will be far better 

 to say so at the start and let the animals be destroyed 

 without interference of legislation, which can only be 

 vexatious to hunters and traders, and cannot in the 

 nature of things be effective in the preservation of the 

 buffalo." 



Advice to Young Men. 



Mr. Wm, T. Huxter, of Newark, N. J,, writes me as 

 below, in a way which disposes me to be fatherly: 



"Reading 'Dixie Land' in Foeest and Stream, it set me 

 thinking that you are the man who could give me a little 

 information in regard to hunting and fishing. Myself 

 and companion, both young men in the twenties, having 

 saved about $200, want to take a hunt for about two or 

 three years steady, somewhere in the Southwest; and 

 have hunted and fished all -around here within 100 miles 

 of New York city. We think we could do it with that 

 amount of money if we got the proper pointer from some 

 one who knows. At first we thought of taking a small 

 houseboat and floating down the Mississippi River, and 

 trust to luck to find some place where we could get a few 

 ducks and a little game; but reading of your trip to San 

 Antonio, it Btruck me a little better. You would favor 

 us by giving your opinion of such a trip with only $200 and 

 necessary guns, rods and rifle. We are satisfied to live on 

 duck thirty days in the month, or fish, and even crow if 

 necessary in hard luck. We are tough, and not being 

 able to stand the strain until we could scare up more 

 money, we have concluded to go next September." 



My opinion on the above is that young men in the 

 twenties who have only $900 ahead in the world have no 

 business on earth to start out on a two or three years' 

 hunting trip. That is to abandon a proper ambition in 

 life, to take to practical vagabondage or to market-hunt- 

 ing and fishing. In these three callings there are plenty 

 ahead of these young men now, and Forest and Stream 

 does not exist for the purpose of increasing eithpr of these 

 three classes. It exists for the purpose of showing young 

 men how they can take $200, go off, have a few weeks or 

 even months of sport with it, and then go back to useful 

 work the better for the trip. The houseboat idea is not 

 bad for a trip of the sort, though there are better streams 

 than the Mississippi. The Rio Grande, the Sabine, the 

 Brazos, the Nueces, are all wilder and rougher streams, 

 and in a better game country. I don't know whether 

 they could be run by houseboat or not, but they could be 

 by some boat, and the fun would be in finding out. As to 

 a place where a man can make an easy, lonfing living out 

 Of £abiag and shooting, I wouldn't tell anj bo iy of it if I 

 knew. Most of the old-time trappers, hunters and market- 

 shooters are out of a calling to-day. To work hard in the 

 busy life of the world, to be ambitious and industrious 

 and frugal, and then when the time comes to take a good 

 rest and enjoy it thoroughly — that in my belief is a better 

 ambition for our young friends than to take three years of 

 play which is not sport. For a long camp hunt or cruise 

 for sport, I could direct them to many places. 



Quail Do Pack. 



Still another reader has observed the packing of Bob 

 Wbite quail. Now I feel quite positive»as to the packing 

 of this bird which we thought we could say we saw in 

 Texas. Mr. H. L. Burdick of Orange, N. J., writes me: 



"In your article of last week's Forest and Stream 

 there was a paragraph headed 'Do Quail Pack? ' I lived 

 in western Texas for five and one-half years, on a ranch 

 situated in Concho county. Opposite the main ranch 

 house, on Kickapoo, was a half section of land, which 

 was kept under cultivation, generally sown with small 

 grains; around this farm Bob White soon made his 

 home. 



"In the fall of 1887, 1 went out to kill some quail for 

 dinner, and succeeded in finding what might be called a 

 pack of quail within 250yds. of the house. I killed eight- 

 teen of these birds, and having enough, desisted. Going 

 back to the house and putting tip my gun and leaving 

 my birds, I walked back to the spot where I had been 

 shooting. The quail did not get together until at least an 

 hour after I had stopped shooting, and then I succeeded 

 in counting forty -three in the 'pack' still. I killed several 

 quail afterward from this same aggregation, but left most 

 of these birds for seed, and hunted further from home as 

 a rule that fall. This is the only instance that I can re- 

 member, of seeing a 'pack' of Bob White. Thinking 

 that you might like to know of my experience, I venture 

 to write you." 



Newspaper Idiocy. 

 There are some good men in the newspaper business, 

 who ought to have been presidents, and there axe also 

 some idiots, who ought to have been inmates. Some of 

 these idiots are malevolent and hurtful idiots, The editor 



of the Steubenville, Ohio, Gazette is one of these. Mr. B. 

 B. Bishop, writing from Titusville, Fla., calls my atten- 

 tion to the following clippings from that journal with the 

 comment, ' 'It sems incredible in this age of enlightment, 

 and such vicious ignorance is a national calamity." The 

 Gazette in its ignorance is trying to befriend the oppressed 

 lawbreaker, and says: 



"On excellent legal authority we advise all who are 

 arrested for violation of the infamous fish and game laws, 

 which disgrace the statute book of Ohio, to plead not 

 guilty and demand the inalienable right of an American 

 citizen, trial by jury, A man who did this last year de- 

 feated the game of the paid spotters and informers, and 

 notwithstanding the law is especially made to convict, 

 others can do the same. Don't yield your rights without 

 a struggle. 



"The Gazette will agree to subscribe $10 to a fund of 

 $100 to be used to defeat the villainous fish law in any 

 case brought hereafter wherein the defendant violated 

 the law through necessity in securing fish for his own 

 use, and is unable to furnish means for legal defense." 



Now is the time to subscribe to the Gazette. 



The Iowa Law. 



1 On the other hand, the sportsmen have got too good a 

 law out in Iowa, and a local paper says: "The sportsmen 

 of the State are trying to have a reconsideration of the 

 very drastic hunters' bill which recently passed both 

 houses, or finally they will make an attempt to have the 

 Governor veto it, but in the latter effort they will hardly 

 succeed, writes a correspondent, for the Governor is not 

 very muuh in the mood of putting his individual judg- 

 ment against the judgment of the Legislature. The 

 sportsmen say that the Iowa bill is one of the most drastic 

 ever enacted in any country. They say that all Europe 

 can hardly afford a parallel. It absolutely forbids a man, 

 accompanied with a gun and a dog, to cross the lands of 

 a farmer. He must keep in the middle of the road and 

 can not climb over a fence to pick up a bird he has shot 

 on the wing and which has fallen inside, the fence. Of 

 course, he can by permission of a farmer, but otherwise 

 the rule is absolute." 



Stick to your law, you Iowa. men. Get a better law 

 when you can, but stick to this and set a good example 

 till you do. It's saving the game, or should do so, and 

 that should be' a cheerful feature of it. 



Stone Dogs. 



Mr. Wilbur Dubois of Cincinnati is nervous over an in- 

 terview which the enterprising and alert reporter got out 

 of him. It reads: 



"To a dog fancier," said Secretary Wilbur Dubois of the post office, 

 ■ no sight is prettier than to see a pointer re-enforce. A pointer, you 

 know, will stand with one foot held up and look at a bevy of quail. 

 Now when there are two or more dogs on the same trail one will, of 

 course, see the birds first. The moment one points the others, if well 

 trained, will come to a stand and remain immovable like so many 

 statues There is a legend of the Miami Valley wherein a chief is 

 stricken to stone and all who see him are likewise stricken. One by 

 one as his followers come into his presence they are transfixed to the 

 ground and all stand there till a white man enters and breaks the 

 charm. I have seen a string of half a dozen pointers come suddenly 

 to a stand as if shocked by electricity. One in particular, I remember. 

 Two dogs were after a covey of birds and one saw them and pointed 

 just as the other was about to leap from the top of a creek bank. This 

 second dog saw the point and became rigid with half his body in the 

 air and with barely enough on the ground to enable him to hold his 

 position, and there he stood till the hunters came up and relieved him." 



Mr. Dubois says he never said no such a say, but ex- 

 plains: 



"I was explaining to the reporter of a local afternoon 

 paper some time ago how one dog backs another. A 

 week or so afterward he made an heroic effort to recall the 

 conversation, with the above beautiful result. His first 

 sentence is a jewel too rare to be lost. I suppose that at 

 some period in his life he had had a shirt made with a 

 double back, or re-enforced, and from that circumstance 

 had conceived the idea that "back" and "re-enforce" were 

 synonymous. 



"Please note further, in the reporter's essay, that a dog 

 always holds one foot up, and always sees the bevy of 

 birds when he points; and, moreover, that it is a common 

 occurrence for me to see a string of half a dozen pointers 

 re-enforcing each other. 



"The legend of the petrified chief is a new one to me. 

 Is it a composite story, made up of equal psrts of Lot's 

 wife, Perseus and Medusa's head? 



"The poor dog in the last sentence, suspended between 

 heaven and earth, is a harrowing picture. I hope we got 

 up in time to rescue him. In fact, the reporter says we 

 did; and if he says so, I know it's true." 



The Daily Reporter in Chicago. 

 I think Mr. Dubois's reporter has moved to Chicago. It 

 was probably he who allowed the exuberant press agent 

 of the Prairie Gun Club to fill him up with the foolish 

 story that a flock of 1,500 wild pigeons had been discov- 

 ered in Indiana, and that the club had enterprisingly 

 caught the entire flock and would shoot them at its tour- 

 nament, soon to come — as unsportsmanlike a thing to do 

 to-day as any that could be ascribed to any club, though 

 there was no foundation for the story or for the ascrip- 

 tion. 



Diana Club. 



The Diana Shooting Club at its annual meeting at Mil- 

 waukee, May 8, at the Plankinton club rooms, elected the 

 following officers: President, George F. Peabody, of Ap- 

 pleton; Vice-President, U. A. Van Brunt, of Horicon; 

 Treasurer, H. D. Smith, of Appleton; Secretary, P, F. 

 Stone, of Chicago. The directors are the officers and J. 

 M. Yorgey, of Appleton. The club has engaged Gen. 

 Winkler to take charge of the various poaching suits. 

 Having plenty of ducks, it must also have plenty of liti- 

 gation, but the leases on the marsh remain a bulwark 

 against the poacher. 



Gone from Dixie Land. 



In the first of my late articles I described the pleasant 

 days we had in Arkansas, enjoying the hospitality of Mr. 

 Calvin Pember ton, on whose plantation near Little Rock 

 we had so happy atime. Now comes the word that Calvin 

 Pemberton has gone from Dixie Land. He died in March. 

 His State lost a gentleman and sportsman whom I re- 

 member as the most perfect host at house or in field I 

 ever met. He was a Hg-hearted man. The papers say 

 of him: "He was one of the biggest- hear ted men in Ar- 

 kansas, and though never accounted wealthy, gave liber- 

 ally to every one m need, his friends say, too much for 

 his own good. He truly loved his neighbor as himself." 

 You cannot say much more of a man than that, and you 

 cannot be much more of a man than he was. 



909 Security B(j«,ding, Chicago. E. HOUGH, 



m ut{A j§ivqr fishing. 



SOME CARP LAKE NOTES. 



(.Concluded from page USU ) 

 Of the beauties and attractive features of Robin Nest 

 Camp, and of the days of happiness we spent there, 

 "Kingfisher" has so delightfully written for Foeest and 

 Stream, accompanied with illustration from photograph 

 of the camp itself, that we only add some things that 

 doubtless escaped his memory, including a proper and 

 truthful account of that big trout matter, and of his "bull 

 episode," which I perceive he was inclined in some of its 

 personal parts to gloss over. 



And just here it may not be amiss to draw a brief 

 sketch of my three camp comrades of the Kingfisher 

 tribe, jolly good fellows, whose virtues grew brighter the 

 more they were tried in the anglers' crucible of constant 

 association in the woods and on the waters, on the 

 journey and around the camp-fire, J. M. Hickman— or 

 "Jeems Mackerel," as we familiarly called him — has been 

 long known to the readers of Forest and Stkeam, under 

 the nom de plume of "Kingfisher." His writings speak 

 for themselves, entertaining in their quaint and graphic 

 Anglo-Saxon — the home language of the woods and 

 waters — hosts of readers, and bringing back to memory 

 reminiscences sweet and treasured to those who love the 

 free air and pathless woods, the lullaby of the brooks and 

 broad vistas of the lakes. Sturdily and squarely built— 

 tough as a pine knot — with an honest face and frank 

 manners, plain and unvarnished, of modest mien and 

 genial fellowship, and a friendship that stands the test of 

 time and circumstance as well, he belongs to the race of 

 anglers of whom "Nessmuk" was a type. Ever ready to 

 lend a helping hand, an apt eye for the adaptation of 

 camp life, a skillful hand at the oars, a fearless woods- 

 man, with a grit and endurance that would make the 

 best "tired," unselfish in act, he added to it all a skill as 

 an angler that seldom found an equal. In emergencies 

 he was prompt, and what he didn't know or find out 

 about the country and inhabitants contiguous to camp, in 

 plain words, wasn't worth knowing. Where he gleaned, 

 even Ruth of old would scarcely find a straw. Aufait 

 on neighborhood matters, he swapped experience with 

 the fathers, "fish lies" with the sons, jokes with the girls, 

 drank milk and talked gossip with the mothers, and 

 bought raspberries, huckleberries and frogs from the 

 youngsters. When he left the neighborhood there was 

 mourning in the log cabins and shanties of the first 

 settlers, and the youngsters dreamed of the time when 

 "that good fisherman" would come back again. "King- 

 fisher" had only one prevailing vice — he diank too much 

 —drank water only (ale of God's brewing) dn reckless 

 quantities. Some of us, who felt the weakness of the 

 flesh came over us at times, often remonstrated with him 

 about his perverted taste, but it did no good. He was 

 joined to his idol. 



Clay Culbertson was both angler, and hunter. President 

 of the Cuvier Club, of Cincinnati, he also gave attention 

 to the study of what the boys were wont to call "his stuffed 

 birds and animals." Fond of outdoor sports, he ran the 

 rapids and fished the pools of the Nepigon, skimmed the 

 cream of Point au Pelee island when it swarmed with bass 

 -of fatherly size and athletic strength, navigated the inland 

 waters of Florida and hunted its wilds where seldom the 

 silence was broken by human voice. One time following 

 the antlered monarch of the woods, he varied the sport by 

 angling for the denizens of the Gulf, from hard-toothed 

 sheepshead to mighty tarpons and jewfish. Much of his 

 time was given to collecting specimens for the Cuvier 

 Club, from plumaged ibis to the tiny waders that ravaged 

 in the spent surf. Tiring of the larger sport, in camp his 

 hobby was to locate a spot and angle for bluegills. One 

 of the first to rise in the morning, he was usually the last 

 to rake the coals of the camp-fire together before retiring 

 at night. While the jokes and fish stories were going 

 round, his long stick kept the fire in proper burning order. 

 Vigorous in expression, forcible in judgment and opinion, 

 generous in impulse, and with memory stored with rem- 

 iniscences of former adventures, he was a welcome com- 

 panion in all the social features of camp life; or, in fact, 

 in any other place, in the city or in the woods. 



Charley b'urr was a genuine fisherman of the old school 

 — hearty and active, staunch and reliable. Fond of rod 

 and gun — as most Kentucky sportsmen are — he had im- 

 bibed a love of field, forest and stream from earliest boy- 

 hood. An excellent shot, he had pocketed many a Bob 

 White in his tramp over hill and valley. Having a keen 

 relish for camp life he gave to its necessities an added 

 experience gained in his marches under Sherman and 

 Thomas, following the old flag through Tennessee to 

 Chattanooga, then to Atlanta and later on in the march 

 to the sea. He possessed a marked store of patience and 

 perseverance, and threading the woods 'mid tangled brush 

 and fallen trees, only "Kingfisher" could keep pace with his 

 tireless steps. H« had a natural instinct for finding the 

 spots where the bass lurked most, and he handled the rod 

 with a skill and precision that seldom failed of success. 

 In making a camp bed he exhibited an artistic taste that 

 found reward in downy ease and sound slumbers. A 

 student of music and possessed of good voice, the camp 

 was often brightened with his lively songs, from "I'm 

 climbing up Zion's hill; i'mcliming — yiming — yrming" to 

 "Old Kentucky Home" and the "Frog went a-Fishing." 

 He loved a good story, enjoyed a good joke, but woe to 

 the fellow who perpetrated a "chestnut" — his memory 

 was unfailing. 



And Thurston, or "Kelpie" — the naturalist — the lover 

 of nature in her purest and best phases. Long acquainted 

 with the solemnity and silence of the deep, unbroken 

 woods and the mysteries and woods of both hidden and 

 revealed waters, he drank in deep draughts the truths 

 they disclosed, and drew lessons to weave in the warp 

 and woof of life. A patient watcher for the develop- 

 ments of scientific problems, he seldom drew too hasty 

 conclusions from insufficient premises. But, convinced, 

 he accepted the result with philosophic faith, whether it 

 accorded with his pre-existing views or not. He greatly 

 enjoyed camp-life, often "going it alone," and while more 

 disposed to be a listener to the talk of others, he was not 

 averse to entering the conversation, and when he did, he 

 usually said something worth remembering. He was in- 

 defatigable in his search for something new in the line of 

 his favorite pursuits, and would take up the cudgel of 

 scientific discussion at any time, at any place and with 



