June 30, 1894,] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



the shot struck the spot aimed at, yet many fell short, and 

 after my birds had turned over and were apparently stone 

 dead, I had seen the water around and beyond the bird 

 plowed up by what seemed to me to be straggling shot. 

 The majority were of the opinion, however, that I was 

 mistaken or that my shot were mixed. 



The stranger listened to the discussion with a good deal 

 of interest and then told us of an experience which he 

 had that seemed to settle the matter to the entire satisfac- 

 tion of us all. Said he. "I ain't no huntin' man, never 

 went huntin' in my life till las' winter. But one day I 

 was settin' on a store porch in a. little country village in 

 southwest Virginia, an' a fellow that I kn'owed purty 

 well, he put at me to go bird huntin' with him. I told 

 him I knowed nothin' 'bout shootin' an' that I could kill 

 as many birds with a rock as I could with a gun, but it 

 "peared like he had done set his heart on my goin' with 

 him; so to keep the peace I tuk the gun an' went 'long. 

 The first covey o' birds we skeered up went into a 

 clump o' bushes, an' he says to me, says he, 'Now you go 

 right into the left an' I'll go to the right.' We hadn't 

 gone more 'n 30yds. in the bushes 'fore I heared a bir-d 

 fly, an' he was a pint 'n straight at him. I never dreamed 

 that the feller was a gwinter shoot, 'cause I thought sholy 

 he could see as big a thing as me right befo' 'im, but he 

 blazed away, and I'll be blanked if he didn't jes' fill me 

 with shot. There 's two shot now in my chin (here jes' 

 feel 'em), two in my eyebrows (feel o' them, too), two 

 went through my right ear, an' there 's no less 'n twenty- 

 five in the top o' my head that went through my hat. 

 When I felt 'em hit me, I jes' hollered out, 'John, what 

 in th' devil are you doin'? You've shot me!' Jes' as that 

 las' word 'me' come out o' my mouth two mo' shot come 

 'long an' went right into th' root o' my tongue. Now, 

 whar did them shot come f 'om?" 



Upon being told that there was but one shot fired, and 

 that the ammunition was from the Chamberlin Co., and 

 No. 8 shot, it was unanimously decided that "experience 

 was the best teacher" and that we would take his word 

 for it that they do not travel alike, and that we thought 

 as he did about going hunting again — the next time we 

 were asked to go out we would stay at home. 



Richmond, Va. POLK MlLLER. 



f*g mti 



CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 



[From a Staff Correspondent.] 

 Uncertain Laws. 



The other morning Col. Felton asked me if I "took out 

 a license when I was shooting down in Arkansas." I told 

 him I did not. In the Game Laws in Brief I find no 

 reference to a license. Mr. Jas. Irwin and other Little 

 Rock sportsmen informed me and have since repeated it 

 that none was required. I know many outside shooters 

 who never heard of any license in Arkansas, except, I be- 

 lieve, for the shooting and shipping of ducks. So near 

 as I can learn, no license for non-residents is required. 

 The usual non-resident State law is a spiteful local affair, 

 and if observed wbuld cut off the sporting public from 

 the best grounds of the country. I am not sure that the 

 sporting press wants to work this hardship, though it 

 certainly favors the observation of natural game laws 

 once passed. How about Arkansas?* 



Another State of doubtful laws is Wisconsin. Col. 

 Felton said to me the same morning of the above con- 

 versation that he '^.ad left the Horicon Club, of Wiscon- 

 sin, because he could not bring his ducks out of the State 

 and he didn't like to break the law." Yet thousands of 

 ducks have been brought from the Horicon marsh by the 

 dub men and put in cold storage in Chicago. And now 

 comes the warden of Wisconsin and says there is no law 

 against shipping or carrying ducks out of the .State, and 

 that the export law applies only to venison. The Game 

 Laws in Brief does not state that it is against the Wis- 

 consin law even to ship venison. How about Wisconsin? 



In fact, the game laws of this country are in a terrible 

 jumble. It is too much to ask of one to keep them all 

 straight in his head, and for one I do not pretend to do 

 it. Whenever I go into a new State or section for sport 

 I always look up the laws in the Brief, after which noth- 

 ing. But how about these things? If I am shy a license 

 down in Arkansas I want to take it out. Above all, I 

 want to know, you know, how we are going to know 

 about all these things. For my part, I am willing to 

 stand on the accuracy of the Game Laws in Brief. Ac- 

 cording to this the Horicon men may bring their ducks 

 to Chicago, and the Chicago man may shoot in Arkansas; 

 two points worth remembering. 



Friendly Woodcock. 



Hon. J. GK Smith, of Algona, la., writes as follows under 

 date of June 4, about an interesting bit of woodcock his- 

 tory; "Last evening, about eight o'clock, Mr. Warren, of 

 the Upper Des Moines of this place, was sitting on his 

 front porch when an old woodcock and three young ones, 

 the young ones about half grown, came walking up the 

 cross street and crossed our main street in front of his 

 house. They were walking along like an old hen and 

 chickens. To make sure that they were woodcock Mr. 

 Warren caught one of the young ones. He let the young 

 bird go again, and the old bird and the young one3 com- 

 menced to make a squeaking noise and soon came together 

 and went over the hill down into the river bottom. They 

 did not seem to be at all alarmed, and were about as tame 

 as a hen and chickens. The old bird flew a short distance 

 when he went near her. It seems somewhat strange that 

 a woodcock should come into the center of the town with 

 her young, a town of about 3,500 inhabitants. Mr. Warren 

 tells me he could easily have caught the whole brood. 

 We are having very dry weather and the old bird was 

 without a doubt looking for food." E. Hough. 



909 Security Building, Chicago. 



*There is no non-resident law in Arkansas, nor any non-export law 

 in Wisconsin. Whenever such restrictions prevail they are clearly 

 stated in the Brief. -En. 



Communications for publication relating to business 

 should be. addressed to the Forest and Stream Pub. Co. If 

 .addressed to an individual they will be subject to delay in 

 .,hat indi{%'duaVts absence. 



To Loot the National Park. 



Pending in Congress is an apparently innocent measure 

 "to establish the boundaries of the Yellowstone National 

 Park and for other purposes." It is the "for other pur- 

 poses" that concerns every American who is opposed to 

 the spoliation of the domain. 



The ostensible purpose of the land grabbers is railroad 

 improvement. Members of Congress are now being im- 

 portuned with memorials setting forth the crying need of 

 new lines and the evils of the Yellowstone as a bar to 

 intercommunication. Thus arguments are found for 

 tapping the Northern Pacific Railroad so as to carry a 

 branch down into the Park itself and through the Valley 

 of the Yellowstone, one of the few grandly picturesque 

 regions left in the wor-ld . This railroad extension would 

 then be carried up and around into Montana, with the 

 result of cutting off a vast region from the Park itself. 

 This region is then, by a supplementary act, to pass into 

 the hands of the land speculators, and the Yellowstone 

 would become a matter of history only. 



The hollowness of the pretenses of- the schemers is 

 evident from the fact that the subject of railroad facili- 

 ties with reference to the Yellowstone Park has long 

 since been attended to. There exists now a "panhandle" 

 through which a right of way could be had for a line of 

 rails through the Big Horn and thence to Montana, 

 thereby affording not only means of communication, but 

 even cheaper transportation, besides saving the Park 

 itself intact. 



Chairman Faulkner, of the Senate Committee on Terri- 

 tories, together with his colleagues, Hill, White (Califor- 

 nia), Piatt, Davis, Carey, Hainsborough, Call and Shoup, 

 have all been approached in the interest of the land grab- 

 bers with arguments tending to show that the main utility 

 of the Park is to keep numbers of hotel men prosperous. 

 Of course, the hotel men do not like to see the beauties of 

 the Yellowstone pass away, and it seems to be an interest- 

 ing question as to which class of men will have most influ- 

 ence. But the real opposition is not solely from these 

 hotel managers, as is claimed by the speculators. Natur- 

 alists, tourists and citizens generally are becoming inter- 

 ested, and it is probable that should the real situation 

 become known the land lobbyists would fail in their 

 efforts. 



It is likely that, when the significance of the land grab- 

 bing bill becomes known to the scientific societies through- 

 out the country, there will be concerted action for the 

 prevention of the impending spoliation. But if enough 

 members of Congress cannot be interested, it looks as if 

 the American people will soon cease to be the possessors 

 of a tract of Which the value is beyond estimate. — Phila- 

 delphia Press. 



Grassy Lake Hunting Club. 



Little Eock, Ark., June 15.— We have added another 

 game preserve to the rapidly increasing list. The Grassy 

 Lake Hunting Club was organized here a short time ago, 

 with W. H. Crokson President, and D. A. Gray Secretary. 

 I was elected attorney and am living in the hope of a 

 princely salary thereto attached sometime in the future. 

 We have bought 640 acres of duck marsh, including Big 

 Grassy Lake, Little Grassy Lake and part of Clear Lake, 

 and Messrs. Gibb and Breysacher, architects, are drawing 

 plans for the club house. We have secured one of the 

 aest marshes in the State, and while it is probably possible 

 to kill 1,000 ducks a day on it for awhile, we do not pro- 

 pose to have any hogs in our crowd. We have by severe 

 penalties limited the score to twenty-five ducks and two 

 geese a day. We propose to inclose our land, plant it 

 with wild rice, which will be an experiment as none has 

 ever succeeded here; and we think we will have the 

 finest game preserve in the State. 



Fishing is said to be very good in Clear Lake and in 

 parts of Big Grassy, but I have never tried it. The club 

 aouse will be situated on a hill some little distance from 

 the marsh, so as to be free from malaria. 



The season has been very dry and the waters are very 

 low. As a consequence, fishing has been better than it 

 generally is in the spring. Some of our streams have 

 been badly trapped and netted. It is impossible to secure 

 any convictions under our fish law, for it is so loose that 

 about all a court can do with it is to decide under which 

 exception an offender shall be discharged. May be when 

 all the fish are gone from the streams we will get a better 

 one. J. M. Rose. 



Deer in the Green Mountains. 



Rutland, Vt., June 18.— Editor Forest and Stream: I 

 have noticed from time to time accounts of the deer now 

 growing so plentiful in our mountains, but I have seen no 

 account of how they came here. 



Fifty years and more ago deer were a-plenty on the east 

 side of Lake Champlain, and on the west side in the 

 famed Adirondack wilderness; but over-hunting, espe- 

 cially in the wrong season, crusting and other objection- 

 able modes did their perfect work, and the deer disap- 

 peared from all parts of the State except in the extreme 

 northeast section, where they were able to maintain them- 

 selves in that denser wooded and less thickly settled sec- 

 tion. The last deer which the writer recollects as having 

 been killed in this section was about 1843, and it was con- 

 sidered a miracle almost then. 



About fifteen years ago one of the keepers at the Danne- 

 mora State Prison advertised a herd of deer for sale, and a 

 number of the citizens, sportsmen and others, of this 

 place, conceived the idea of buying them with the intent 

 of .turning them loose in the mountains, to see if the State 

 could be restocked. Most of the money, several hundred 

 dobars, was raised here, but some was contributed from 

 other sections. In all about 17 deer were obtained, and in 

 April were turned loose to take their chances. A close 

 season of five years was < rdered by the Legislature, and 

 the law was re-enacted from time to time till lb90, when 

 it was altered to ten years, extending to 1900. 



The experiment has been very satisfactory; the deer 

 have inci eased even beyond our expectations, and I verily 

 believe that there are as many deer in a tract of country 

 fifty miles long and ten miles wide in the center of the 

 State, as there are on any corresponding tract in the 

 Adirom acks. 



The citizens generally have taken great interest in the 

 venture, and, so far as I know, very few indeed have been 

 killed ; personally I know of but two, and one of those I 

 have reason to believe was not killed intentionally. A 

 liberal reward was effered for information leading to con- 

 viction, but we have never been called upon but once; 

 three years ago a deer was deliberately killed at 8 ^o'clock 



one Sunday morning, and at 9 o'clock on Monday morn- 

 ing the offender commenced working a three months' 

 sentence in the State workhouse. Not one of the contrib- 

 utors to the original fund ever expected to kill a deer in 

 our State of Vermont, or wanted to; it was all for the 

 benefit of posterity, but we vowed to fight tooth and nail 

 before every legislature to keep the law in. Every year 

 some fellow who never paid a dollar of the expense, but 

 who has seen, or heard of a deer, is up with a bill for an 

 open season. They cannot wait. If they could have their 

 way, deer would be as scarce here in two years as they 

 were before this stocking was attempted. 



If I could have my way, none should be killed before 

 1910, but I presume we cannot stand, the pressure after 

 1900, and shall have to allow a short open season. 



Verde Mont. 



Bear and Mountain Lion. 



The following extract from a private letter recently re- 

 ceived by a member of Forest and Stream's staff gives 

 some notion of the interest which attends one form of 

 spring bear hunting in the Rocky Mountains. The writer 

 says: 



"I have been hunting bear and traveled on an average 

 twenty-five miles a day since April 15. Of course, you 

 will ask, what success? Well, I have killed four bears 

 and five lions since April 15, and I have chased about a 

 dozen bears off this part of the continent. I am hunting 

 with dogs, and while they are dead medicine on a lion, 

 they don't take kindly to rare bear. They have stopped 

 two that I have killed and may improve, but just now I 

 can't blow on them to any great extent. 



"All the bear I have killed are black, and they were 

 bred for speed and endurance rather than for fighting 

 qualities. When you follow a bear for forty miles, and 

 then pack the green hide on your back fifteen more to 

 camp, and travel over down timber and often on snow- 

 shoes, you can form some idea of the sport I have had. 



"But the season is over and I am again a quiet granger. 

 The grass is gresn; horses are fat; mosquitoes and flies 

 are plenty and the weather is warm. I sympathize with 

 a man who in the pursuit of fame and fortune shuts him- 

 self up in a great city and lives like a Christian. I be- 

 lieve though that we are all more or less savages, and 

 while we may live it down for a while nature will finally 

 get the better of judgment, and sooner or later you will 

 have to take to the mountains. I am sorry to learn that 

 you gave out and went South for change and rest. You 

 should have come West, and run lions on snowshoes. 

 You would have found plenty of change, but very little rest. 



"I am making arrangements for a hunt this fall on a 

 large scale. I shall look for bear and trap martin. Could 

 you not join me during October, November and Decem- 

 ber? This work does not require any great mental ex- 

 ertion and it is a little more than self-supporting. We 

 won't get rich, but appetite! you can get a wealth of 

 that." 



Illinois Game Notes. 



Jerseyville, 111., June 18,— I have inquired of a num- 

 ber of farmers from all sections of Jersey county in re- 

 gard to quail; tlnoy all ropnrh nltl onoa !n a!>aii<3au u c ImO 



no young ones have been seen yet. As we have had a 

 very dry season so far, there is every prospect of an 

 abundant supply of birds next fall. 



J. M. Page, editor of the Jersey County Democrat, and 

 a member of our shooting and fishing club,. has received 

 an offer from Mr. A. B. Harding, an employe of the Santa 

 Fe Railroad at Canadian Texas, to ship him a brood of 

 Mexican topknot quail. Mr. J. T. Grimes, residing two 

 miles west of this city and owning several hundred acres 

 of good quail ground, has kindly offered to look after 

 them and see that they are protected on his land. The 

 question is, will they thrive so far north of their native 

 home? 



Squirrels are reported numerous in the timber a few 

 miles west. It is lawful to shoot squirrels in Illinois after 

 June 1, and the law has been generally observed here. 

 My son Walter has been out three times with his .22 

 Stevens and has bagged twenty- three, all young, about 

 two-thirds grown. 



Considerable sport is had here with the .22, shooting 

 young rabbits along the roadsides from a buggy. The 

 rabbits come out of the fields in the evening to play and 

 wallow in the dust and are then an easy mark. 



I am afraid that trap shooting has seen its best days 

 here unless new life can be infused into it. Our club 

 members seem to have lost all interest, yet we have some 

 good shots among them. L. S. Hansell. 



Indians Abated, But Elk Runners at Large. Z 



CoRA,Wyo., June 12. — Editor Forest a?id Stream: The 

 Upper Green River, Star Valley and Jackson's Hole people 

 have cause to rejoice over the fact that the Fort Hall and 

 Shoshone Indians are to be kept on their reservations in 

 the future. The settlers have worked hard and persist- 

 ently for this result and have justly earned a victory, 

 through their representatives at Washington. I am in 

 receipt of letters from the district attorneys of Fremont 

 and Uinta counties in which they say they have positive 

 assurance that we will be troubled no more with their 

 depredations. At the same time they ordered the con- 

 stables in the several precincts to arrest all roving bands 

 of Indians and bring them to the county seats for prose- 

 cution. 



Elk, antelope and deer are quite plentiful and are not 

 being molested while rearing their young this year. 



Now, if "Mountaineer" will push his plan of stopping 

 the capture of elk during the winter and spring months 

 and have that become a law I think he will be the means 

 of preventing the destruction of thousands of elk that are 

 now being run by grain-fed horses until many drop dead. 

 It is estimated by men who are in a position to know 

 that not one out of ten so captured survive to reach the 

 corrall. Iba Dodge. 



[We should like the facts and statistics of this live elk 

 capturing business.] 



CHAINED 



to Business? 

 Can't go Shooting? 

 Do the next best thing- 

 Read the 



Forest and Stream. 



