1 7 4 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Feb. 29, 1886, 
fines. I have always'told Mr. Baird and Mr. Bortree, who 
led the prosecution for the warden — and who deserve 
credit for doing what they did, although they might have 
done far better — that they made a mistake in not proceed- 
ing under the full cover of the statute and not simply try- 
ing to get hold of that game under a part of the statute; 
although I have no thought that they would spare Mer- 
ritt in any way if they had the engineering of the suit 
from the start, and they claim they would later have had 
him fined also. At any rate, they made no effort to have 
Merritt fined at the time. All the wild stories printed in 
a Chicago sporting sheet about the enormous fines that 
had been imposed on Merritt were canards pure and sim- 
ple and samples only of bad journalism. But now let us 
see a little further along, and perhaps we shall under- 
stand why Warden Blow just now is a trifle on the anxious 
seat over his biggest game case. It may be that he is 
hoist by his own petard. Seeing that no attempt had 
been made to fine Merritt, and having the records to show 
that the warden had gotten possession of certain illegal 
game (the lots of game, 161 birds in all, which were sent 
out by Merritt on the decoy orders which led to his arrest), 
State's Attorney Graves seems to have concluded that he 
could take a hand in this affair about as well as not. So 
last summer, as was duly recorded here, he brought 
action against Merritt exactly as the warden or whoever 
laid the plan of the original prosecution should have done. 
He secured the lowest fine, $5 for each bird, and this Col. 
Merritt paid gladly and cheerfully, it making only $805 in 
all, nothing being said about those 27,000 other birds down 
cellar in the airtight tin tanks which Col. Merritt had 
sworn to owning and having and holding. Now what is 
troubling our friends of the prosecution is this question : 
Will not that county jury next week be of the belief that 
the eminent fellow citizen, Col. Merritt, has suffered 
enough? Will they not continue to believe that all that 
money ought to be kept in the county and not allowed to 
go out, even to the extent of one-half, in the hands of 
Chicago aliens? For, be it remembered, when lawyer 
Graves gets Col. Merritt fined, instead of the warden 
doing so by his lawyers, the fine rests in the community 
and does not go to the great city of Chicago, where it is 
as likely as not to be spent for theaters, cigars, beefsteaks 
and other riotous living, and not employed in disburse- 
ments among the church contribution box, the grocery 
store and the Christmas tree, as, I am sure, the esteemed 
fellow-citizen Col. Merritt and his associates at Kewanee 
will insist in employing it since matters have turned out 
as they have. This is how lawyer Graves may have been 
a benefit to Kewanee and a detriment to Chicago. 
I trust now everyone can see how a game warden can 
become a valuable source of supply for the game trade. 
In his annual report for this year Warden Blow records 
sixty-seven arrests and sixty-two convictions. This is a 
good showing. If Warden Blow would confine his labors 
to executing the law and not attempt to select or frame 
legislation, he might come to be a very useful citizen. 
Feb. 22.— The celebrated Kewaunee freezer case, State 
of Illinois vs. H. Clay Merritt. was set for trial at Cam- 
bridge, 111., for last Thursday, Feb. 20, but at this writing 
no word has been received from the seat of war. Mr. F. 
S. Baird, of Chicago, and Mr. C, K. Ladd, of Kewaunee, 
have been retained by the directory of the Illinois State 
Sportsmen's Association as attorneys to carry on the 
prosecution against Merritt. Mr. Baird, Warden Blow, 
Deputy Warden S. L. Hough, who secured the evidence 
against Mw^itt, and Mr. M. R. Bortree all left Chicago 
for Cambridge last Wednesday evening. The case will 
be very bitterly fought; the present phase of the action 
being only that concerning the ownership of 27,000 head 
of game which Merritt has under oath admitted to be in 
his freezer. The result will be received with great in- 
t^rest. 
Feb. 24.— The sportsmen lose the Kewanee freezer case. 
Judge Bigelow admitted the record of the earlier criminal 
suit against Merritt by States Attorney Graves and held it 
res adjudicate/,. Merritt thus retains the freezer full of game. 
Warden Blow overreached himself and got nothing. The 
sportsmen will carry the case to the Appellate Court next 
October. Merritt appealed earler criminal case to Appel- 
late Court next May. The May decision will indicate 
October decision. Both parties will carry the action in 
rem, testing ownership of game, to Supreme Court next 
January. The freezer game remains in bond. States 
Attorney Graves has filed a $50,000 libel suit against 
Warden Blow and two Chicago daily newspapers who 
alleged bad motives. 
Montana Wolves, 
Chicago, 111., Feb. 22.— According to the report of the 
State treasurer of Montana, there were 13,000 coyotes and 
wolves killed during the year 1895, in the proportion of 
one wolf to eight coyotes. The wolf bounty is hence 
quite a serious thing. And there are plenty of wolves 
left. 
Running Elk. 
J. S. Vidal, prosecuting attorney of Lander, says he 
will make an example of any one who attempts to run 
down game out of season, for he declares for every calf 
elk captured and shipped East there are at least ten killed 
in the chase or die after being captured. This position is 
said to have been taken on account of recent orders re- 
ceived by professional hunters to furnish young elk and 
other game for Eastern park owners. 
Distinguished Visitors. 
The antarctic explorer, C. E. Borchgrevink, is in Chi- 
cago this week, and has delivered a lecture upon the sub- 
ject of his explorations in the region of the South Pole. 
He is fitting out another expedition, which will leave 
London next September. He will take eleven men with 
him into winter quarters on the main land of the far 
southern region, his ship returning for him in the serins- 
of 1897. * 6 
Interesting Observations on Fur. 
Chicago, 111., Feb. 25.— Some very interesting observa- 
tions on fur taking are on band at this office in a letter 
from Mr. W. T. Chestnut, of Fredericton, N. B. It 
wpuld seem that New Brunswick is very much of a fur 
country, more so than our State of Wisconsin, and one 
pould well share the wish that the Forest and Stream 
fur trip had been made to that more prolific region. I 
cannot do better than give some extracts from Mr. Chest- 
nut's letter, which are valuable and much to the point. 
Among other things he states that he has just been out on 
g. Jong trapping trip with. Mh Brjut,hwajte, an old trappe* 
of that country, and has occasion to say something about 
snowshoes. 
"Notwithstanding you got bad shoes in Montreal, we 
can supply shoes in New Brunswick that will not sag, no 
matter how wet they get. A good pair of caribou sboes 
will get tight when wet. Our country is very rough, and 
skis would not do. I have seen them used in the West. 
They are fine in open country. 
"When I went in the woods this fall, Mr. Braithwaite, 
my companion, had seven families of beaver located, and 
if you had been along you would have had a fine chance 
to see this most interesting animal. One large family in 
particular had a fine house, large dam, feed cut for win- 
ter, and the whole operation of beaver work on a large 
scale. 
"About wooden traps. All of our lines here for sable 
are set with a deadfall on top of a stump, as shown by 
Tappan Adney. Our best trappers would not use a steel 
trap for sable under any circumstances, and steel traps 
cost less than a good deadfall. One reason is that in our 
country the snow gets 5, 6 or 8ft. deep, and a trap on top 
of a stump will not get snowed under so quickly. The 
next reason is that sable caught in a deadfall bring a bet- 
ter price, as the fur is not mussed or cut, as it is when 
caught in a steel trap, as Mr. Sable is a plucky little fel- 
low and tries his best to get out. Another reason is that 
in this part of the country our moose bird or Canada jay 
would steal the bait out of your steel traps faster than you 
could bait them, and a deadfall properly made can be set 
so as to take in a sable and still keep out a moose bird. 
Fourth and last, a deadfall never misses if rightly set. 
"In your hunting country you use steel traps for sma'l 
fur and deadfalls forbears, but in ours we use deadfalls for 
small fur and steel traps for bears. 
"Joe Blair's deadfall is a good one, and there are hun- 
dreds of them in our woods; but the man that hunts bears 
for a living does not depend on a deadfall. An old coaster 
of a bear would not go near the like of that. A few years 
ago they would, but have been so much hunted that they 
are shy of them; and so it is only the back settler or the 
small trapper that uses them to any extent. Of course 
for mink we use some steel traps and for lynx steel 
traps. 
"Mr. Braithwaite has fifty steel bear traps, and I have 
known him to take thirty-three bears in one spring with 
twenty-six traps in use. He has thirteen camps and prob- 
ably 100 miles of lines. Perhaps you are aware that here 
we have the finest otter in Canada, and that is saying a 
good deal, and beaver are by no means extinct, as I have 
seen Braithwaite get fifty- two one spring not so very long 
ago. 
"Another instance is about moose. A Mr. Rich, of 
Bethel, Me., had in Forest And Stream a statement say- 
ing that moose seldom, if ever, barked a tree all around, 
not wishing to kill the tree. Here again we are at logger- 
heads. I mentioned it to Mr. Braithwaite this last hunt 
and we took particular notice of all peeled trees. When- 
ever we found one peeled all around, and there were 
many, we would call it one of Rich's trees. Our idea is 
this: if a moose is feeding along he peels the side nearest 
to him and goes on, but if he is in no rush and staying in 
one place, he will stand and peel the tree as high as he 
can and all around. We saw hundreds so done. 
"It always makes my blood boil to hear about the way 
your game is handled in the Park, and of course most 
Americans will not agree with me when I say that I think 
we could look after it better in this country than you do. 
If you had our northwest mounted police over there for a 
while you would soon get rid of the poachers. I can't 
understand how that winter, after all the trouble to get 
Howell, your people let him go. You can't walk through 
our courts like that." 
There are no two opinions in regard to the efficiency of 
the game laws of the English Provinces as compared to 
those of the United States. We have everything to learn 
here in protective matters, and will probably not learn it 
till our game is gone. In regard to the specific case of 
Howell, the Yellowstone poacher, however, the reason he 
got clear was that at the time of his arrest there was no 
law under which he could be held, A better one now 
exists for the Park, and when Idaho has one equally 
severe we shall perhaps hear less of the killing of the 
Park buffalo. 
Black Lynx and other Freaks. 
All the way from Calais, Me., Mr. Geo. A. Boardman 
writes in further comment on the fur articles in Forest 
and Stream, and adds some curious information on the 
subject of color variations in animals: 
"In your article about deadfalls and 'trade names of 
furs,' you say lynx never grow black. I thought it might 
interest you to know that they sometimes do. In my 
early visits to South Florida many years ago I used to be 
told there were black wolves and also black lynx (Lynx 
rufus). Upon my telling Prof. Baird, of the Smithsonian, 
what I had been told he wanted very much to get skins 
of each for them, which I did. I made the acquaintance 
of a gentleman naturalist by name of Tappan, whom I told 
my wants (who now, or did, a few years ago, live at 
Mandan, near Bismarck, Dakota). He collected a fine 
specimen of black lynx (rufus) in Lee county, Florida, 
and was kind enough to have it sent to the Smithsonian, 
where they have it among their specimens. It was a nice 
shiny black, and the spots on the side shine through very 
prettily. He also sent them skins of black wolves, as 
black as any bear. The bear skins were not uncommon, 
but the bear skinners used to cut off the head and tail 
often and you could not be sure what the animals were. 
"Melanism is more rare than albinism. I once got a 
black robin from the nest, kept it until it moulted in the 
fall and came out as black as a grackle. In about three 
weeks it began to turn into an albino, but as I had several 
white robins I killed it and had it mounted. It went the 
rounds of the naturalist and is now in my collection. I 
have thirty-five albino birds and some animals." 
Michigan. 
Mr. F. A. Mitchell, general passenger agent of the Man- 
istee & N. E. R. R. Co., whose residence is at Manistee, 
Michigan South Peninsula, called at this office during the 
week and afforded a chance for a good talk on game and 
fish matters in his part of the State. He says that only 
one non-resident shooting license was taken out in Michi- 
gan South Peninsula, although crowds of non-residents 
fraudulently obtained resident licenses. The result of 
the license law in Michigan seems to have been as earlier 
indicated in ft»S correspondence; the shooter who could. 
not sneak into their old grounds in Michigan went to the 
deer country of Wisconsin. It would seem that a law of 
this sort should obtain in all allied States, and not one or 
two, to actually save much game in the total killed. The 
license law of Michigan only means that more deer will 
be killed in Wisconsin, though it certainly means less 
killed in Michigan. 
Mr. Mitchell is an ardent fly-fisher, and speaks with the 
greatest enthusiasm of the sport of grayling fishing, of 
which he is especially fond. He says that the State is not 
yet quite stripped of the grayling supply, though that 
fish is by no means so abundant as it was in former years. 
California. 
Mr. E. H. Wilson, of Perris, southern California, said 
in course of a conversation at this office this week, that 
in his locality one can still find good deer shooting, and 
if lucky a chance now and then at a grizzly. The glori- 
ous climate of California, as is well known, is reputed to 
produce a bigger and tougher grizzly than any other sec- 
tion of the country can offer, and one who has been lucky 
enough to get a California bear necklace can pose indeed 
as a bad man. 
Texas. 
Mr. Guessaz writes from San Antonio conveying the sad 
news of the death of Harry Laning, a Chicago shooter of 
good acquaintance who went to San Antonio last year to 
live. Mr. Laning was in poor health for some time, and 
lately had a bad accident, falling down an elevator shaft 
and sustaining serious injuries from which he never re- 
covered. 
Mr. H. O.Wilbur, of Philadelphia, who has been spend- 
ing some time in Chicago, starts next week for a long visit 
to the duck country of Texas. He will probably go to 
Port La V aca, east of Rockport and west of Galveston. 
Progress in Gun Making. 
The rapid progress in perfection of the modern shotgun 
is well shown by a little invention which I discover to be 
in the hands of Mr. George W. La Rue, of New York city, 
who is in Chicago for a few weeks. Mr. La Rue has pat- 
ents for a new shell ejector, which he has hopes of Belling 
to some gun firm for a modest remuneration. It is a very 
plain and positive sort of thing, can be attached to any 
shotgun, and should cost, he thinks, but a trifle in addi- 
tion to the cost of a good gun. No doubt the world will 
yet see all of us fellows with single trigger hammerless 
ejectors of 31bs. weight, capable of firing a shot a second, 
and fatal at 100yds. What we will be shooting at in those 
days is another story. Rsad the answer in the stars — 
and Forest and Stream. 
Michigan. 
Chicago, 111 , Feb. 14.— Mr. Chase S. Osborn, fish and 
game warden of Michigan, is in town this week, on his 
way to Mexico with the large and influential State PreBS 
Association of which he is acting manager. Mr. Osborn 
is a bright and intelligent gentleman of fine presence and 
nervous, pleasant manners. He is a newspaper man of 
ability, owning the newspaper at Florence, Wis., and also 
the News, of Sault Ste. Marie, the leading paper of that 
city, which is his home. Mr, Osborn is the sort of warden 
of which we need more — a man of responsibility, charac- 
ter and dignity. He has cause to be proud of his work in 
Michigan protection. He says that on figuring up the re- 
sults of the year's work in protection for Maine, which is 
much vaunted these days, he finds that Michigan has 
done five times as much as Maine, though relatively little 
is heard of the latter State. Mr. Oaborn thinks that very 
few non-residents sneaked in on resident deer licenses last 
fall, and he insists that very little venison was shipped 
out of his State. 
Minnesota. 
Mr. S. F. Fullerton, "executive agent" or State warden 
for Minnesota, has destroyed 60,000ft. of illegal nets this 
season." He says that the warden of Wisconsin and him- 
self work together and are of great assistance to each 
other. Mr. Fullerton finds his greatest trouble with the 
game dealers, but hopes eventually to see the latter put 
to complete rout. 
The case of the State of Minnesota vs. ffm. Corcoran, 
mentioned as appealed in Forest and Stream of Feb. 8, 
has been passed upon by the Supreme Court of Minne- 
sota, and the result is a victory for the sportsmen and a 
defeat for the commission merchants. The Supreme 
Court holds that it is not class legislation to name commis- 
sion merchants under the restriction that they shall not 
receive any portion of j a Minnesota deer other than the 
head and horns. 
Wisconsin. 
Mr. C. Eseman, of Waupaca, Wis., says that the sports- 
men of that vicinity have practically broken up illegal 
fishing in the lakes thereabout. They confiscated one 
set line with 640 hooks. Illegal seining has been almost 
entirely stopped. 
Ice yachting has been progressing for the past week in 
great style on many of the Wisconsin lakes. On Feb. 11 
a regatta was held on Lake Winnebago in which thirty 
boats participated, hailing from Osbkosh, Neenah and 
Fond du Lac. The course was twenty-four miles in 
length, triangular in shape. The boats raced for the 
Fond du Lac silver cup. Mr. Charles Norris, of Chicago, 
judged. There were eight finishers, and Oshkosh (boat 
No. 14) won; time, 37m. 10s. Fond du Lac was second; 
time, 37m. 47s. 
Texas. 
Mr. M. B. Davis, of Waco, Texas, voices a beginning 
cry of Texas sportsmen against the destruction of Texas 
game and asks help of her sister States to change the tide 
of affairs. He complains that the Texas coast is overrun 
with Northern shooters who slaughter the wildfowl with- 
out measure or moderation on their winter resting 
grounds. Mr. Davis deplores the inefficient character of 
the Texas statutes, especially as touching upon the export 
of game. 
Mississippi. 
Mr. Noel E. Money, of Oakland, N. J., has shipped to 
Oapt. R. E. Bobo ten foxhounds, to be added to the 
famous Bobo bear pack. He will later add several of the 
rough-coated Welsh hounds, which, he thinks, will be of 
great value in the pack. 
Chicago. 
A party of distinguished gentlemen will start on next 
Friday, Feb. 21, from Chicago on a long and pleasant 
journe^ of |rest and relaxation in the Bunny Southwest 
