A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun, 
Terms, ?4 A Yeah. 10 Cts. a Copt. 
Six Months, $2. 
1 NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JANUARY 2 8, 1896 
{ 
VOL. XLVI.— No. 4. 
No. 318 Broadway, New Yobk. 
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ADIRONDACK DEER. 
The recent official report on the destruction of deer in 
the Adirondack region last season is, we believe, the first 
attempt ever made to enumerate the deer killed during a 
given period in any one quarter of the country. It is not 
likely that the numbers reported are exact — possibly they 
are not even approximate — but we may feel assured that 
they are not overstated. Very likely the deer killed may 
have been many more than the number given. It is cer- 
tain that they were not less. 
Of the 5,000 deer reported killed more than half were 
females, and of these females it is altogether probable 
that four-fifths or more than 2,000 were breeders, which 
next year would have produced between 3,000 and 4,000 
young. This gives a suggestion of what the deer supply 
in this region might become if the practice of killing 
female deer were entirely given up. Such a change in 
hunting methods in the Adirondacks would preserve the 
deer there for all time and would insure their existence 
in numbers quite up to the winter food supply of the 
region. 
This report, together with Gov. Morton's remarks on 
the importance of preserving deer in the Adirondacks 
and the . action of the State Association, have called re- 
newed attention to this matter, and several bills looking 
to the preservation of the deer supply have been intro- 
duced in the New York Legislature. These bills cover the 
practices of hounding, jacking or fire-hunting and water 
killing. 
The bill to forbid the killing of deer in the water, in- 
troduced in the Assembly by Mr. Husted, while praise- 
worthy in its motive, is loosely drawn, and even if it 
should become law is practically impossible of enforce- 
ment. It would be unfortunate to have this bill passed, 
for to enact game laws which cannot be enforced is only 
to bring such laws and the whole subject of game pro- 
tection into public contempt. Water killing is not a 
practice that appeals to sportsmen. A deer may indeed 
be killed in the water by a good sportsman who is in 
need of meat, but he would not regard such killing as 
sport, any more than he would consider it sport to chop 
off a chicken's head or to slip a noose over the neck of a 
gentle grouse which he might find sitting on the lower 
limb of a tree near the trail. The true way to put an end 
to water killing is to remove the cause that obliges the 
deer to take the water. If an end were put to hounding 
there would be no more of the water butchery of which 
we hear so much. 
Jack-lighting is justly objected to on grounds of human- 
ity, both because it is practiced at a season when the 
fawns, being still dependent on the mother for nourish- 
ment, must starve to death if she is killed, and because 
of the large proportion of wounded deer which escape 
under cover of darkness and are not found at all, or if 
found later, are useless to the slayer, because the meat is 
spoiled. The practice is one which should be abolished, 
and he who should jack deer would carry with him n 
weapon more dangerous than a camera and some flash- 
light powder. 
It iB objected that, if water killing and jacking are put 
an end to, deer killing in the Adirondacks will cease for 
the general public; in other words, that few or no deer 
would be killed except by expert sportsmen. For a year 
or two something like this might ;be true; but by the end 
of that time the deer would have so increased that suc- 
cessful still-hunting would then be possible by persons 
whose experience in this pursuit was very limited. On 
Dr. Webb's preserve, where[neither jacking nor hounding 
takes place, it is an every-day matter for his guests— many 
of whom have never before hunted deer — to start out on 
foot and successfully still-hunt these animals. It cannot 
be doubted that if an adequate system of game protection 
were in force throughout the Adirondack region the deer 
would become so abundant that there would be enough 
for all, and that even tyros could without difficulty kill 
them by legitimate methods. 
The two bills introduced in the Senate by Mr. Malby 
and in the Assembly by Mr. W. Cary Sanger, if passed 
and properly enforced, would do much to preserve the 
Adirondack deer, and the results of such preservation 
would soon be evident in an increased supply of these ani- 
mals, which would bring joy to the heart of the hotel 
keeper, summer visitor, guide and hunter. We should be 
glad to see added to these, or to any other bills with a 
like purpose, a further provision that no deer without 
horns shall be killed at any time; for we believe that in 
the preservation of the females of any of our big game 
animals is to be found the means of indefinitely prolong- 
ing the existence of that species in any locality. 
READ HISTORY. 
We have from time to time taken occasion to point out 
the reasons why the recurring scheme of a national game 
and fish protective association must inevitably prove 
futile. In doing this we have stated principles, and have 
not made any personal comment upon the individuals 
promoting the associations. For the most part we be- 
lieve that they have been well-meaning enough, though 
mistaken. The national association project is something 
that appeals to those who do not closely and carefully 
consider the actual practicability of securing the results 
sought to be obtained. The present association is, if we 
mistake not, the fifth of the kind we have had in this 
country within the last twenty years. One trouble with 
the promoters of the scheme at this late day is that they 
refuse to read history and to be taught by its lessons. 
The correspondent in Iowa who sends us this week an 
elaborate plan for a new association, or for the modifica- 
tion of the one which already more or less exists, would 
find in the story of the associations which have gone 
before and are now of blessed memory abundant teach- 
ings of experience to prove the impracticability of such 
an organization as he proposes. 
The same principle of human nature applies here as 
with the victims of the perpetual motion delusions. 
When a man once gets wheels in his head and dreams 
^hat he can discover perpetual motion, he shuts his eyes 
and his ears to the principles of physics and the teachings 
of experience only, and abandons his search for the impos- 
sible when life itself gives out. It seems to be asking too 
much of human nature to expect that the repeated fail- 
ures of this national association project, each successive 
failure being due to the inherent principles involved, 
should have in them any deterrent influence upon the new 
victims of the delusion. 
We need not rehearse the principles, which must now 
be familiar. The chief ^reason why the national scheme 
is futile is found in the fact that the delegates to such a 
body' represent no solidarity. They are commissioned 
with power by nobody having any power to commission. 
They meet in convention and adopt resolutions to do things 
which they have no power to do and which no one can 
give them the power to do. The scheme appeals to per- 
sons who recognize the perplexity and complexity of their 
own local game [protection problems and who are im- 
pelled by a vague conviction that if they t can only unload 
their troubles upon a national association they will have 
solved all these local difficulties. When the delegates get 
through with their convention and its resolutions they 
go home, but they return with no more power to protect 
their own game than they had before, and the local situa- 
tion remains precisely,, as it was before the national asso- 
ciation held its convention and spoke its speeches and 
adopted its resolutions, and as it would remain after 365 
conventions a year. 
We question very seriously whether it is possible for a 
national association in these days to adopt a more high 
sounding platform or more resonant resolves than the 
platforms and the resolutions of the national associations 
which have gone before; and there is no reason for be- 
lieving that talk at a national convention, though as cheap 
as ever, will accomplish a whit more now than it could 
then. 
The influence which a national association would be 
likely to have through its appointment, in different 
States, of gentlemen whose amiability prompts them to 
permit themselves to be named as Vice-Presidents of the 
National Game, Bird and Fish Protective Association is 
well enough shown in the case of New York State. The 
Vice-President for New York of the National Game, Bird 
and Fish Protective Association is, if we mistake not, Hon. 
Robert B. Roosevelt. Mr. Roosevelt is an accomplished 
sportsman, an author of some charming books on fishing 
and shooting, one of the most felicitious of after-dinner 
speakers in a city renowned for the plenitude of its post- 
prandial oratory, a delightful raconteur and a politician 
of influence. As president, whether of the Holland Society 
or of the New York (City) Association for the Protection of 
Fish and Game, he sheds luster upon each in turn; but his 
incumbency of the office of Vice-President for New York 
of the National Game, Bird and Fish Protective Associ- 
ation has absolutely no more effect upon game legisla- 
tion or gamejprotection in this State than it has upon the 
water supply in the canals of Mars. 
What we are all of us concerned to know, in respect to 
our own several States, is how to care for our own game in- 
terests. Until we shall have solved that ever present prob- 
lem, we cannot afford to throw away effort in trying to 
take care of the whole blessed country, no matter how 
enticing and powerful may be the notion of a nationa 
association. 
Read history. Profit by the experience of the past. 
Don't dream that you have a brand new scheme when it 
is one which has been tried and discarded. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
The annual grinding of the grist of game legislation 
has begun at Albany in full force. Last week we noted 
the bill which embodies the recommendations of the 
senate committee with reference to the St. Lawrence 
River waters, and we specified the numerous amendments 
recommended by the State Association. In addition to 
these, measures have been introduced to forbid the hound- 
ing of deer at any time; to prohibit the use of jack lights 
for killing deer at any time; to forbid the killing of any 
deer while swimming; to exempt certain portions of Lake 
Erie from the law relative to nets; to provide a penalty 
of $35 for killing minks, coons, skunks, muskrats or foxes 
in Wayne county from May 1 to Oct. 31, except k that foxes 
may be caught in October; to permit bass fishing in Ot- 
sego Lake from Jan. 1 to Oct. 31; to forbid the hunting 
of rabbits in Ulster county, except from March 1 to Sept. 
30; to permit the killing of rabbits in Chemung county 
between March 1 and Sept. 13; to make the open season 
for woodcock and partridge from Sept. 1 to Nov. 1, with 
possession from Nov. 1 to Sept. 1 . 
And so it goes. The outlook is for a greater infliction 
than ever of local laws and exemptions of certain waters 
from general statutes. The local bills should not have 
any attention whatever from the Legislature. This 
entire branch of legislation should be intrusted to a com- 
mi (i (i j- ] mting the Senate and Assembly Commit- 
tees, the Fish Commission, the Chief Protector and the 
New York State Association. If the two Committees 
would agree to refer proposed legislation to a conference 
made up as suggested and would defer to the decision 
arrived at by such a conference we would be saved much 
foolish legislation, and the time of the committees and of 
the Legislature would be economized with advantage to 
itself and to the State. What we need in New York 
more than anything else is a game and fish code, 
good, bad or indifferent, unchangeable for a period of 
fifty years. We shall never have a law which will be 
given the respect of the community so long as this annual 
wholesale doctoring shall be permitted. 
City- Attorney F. A. Williams, of Denver, has sent to 
Congressman Shafroth a bill, printed elsewhere, to forbid 
inter-state commerce in game. Is it true that the Inter- 
state commerce provision of the Constitution interferes 
with a State's control of game shipments ? The Minne- 
sota law and others have been upheld by the Supreme 
Courts, and the lesson to be drawn from them appears to 
be that the laws are quite efficient if applied. Mr. Wil- 
liams' proposed law raises an interesting question as to 
the province of Congress in such matters. 
