Jan. 12, 1895.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
27 
and will keep the dogsjrunning] all day|if£soinebody 
don't get a crack at him. " 
Back we went again, and when onr fingers T grew^stiff 
with the cold gun barrels and arms cramped^ from" the 
constrained position of " ready, ' 'onr ears were gladdened 
by the faint sound of old Trim's whining yelp, echoed 
by Rover and thej bark] of Stub. They were circling 
towards B. , and in*a few moments later came the heavy 
bang 1 bang I from his gun. We knew that meant 
business. 
We then headed toward the house, when the dogs 
started another gray, and there was more lively music 
and the usual excitement. Then striking into the cart 
path towards the barns we walked slowly along, each 
telling of what he had seen, why he had missed, etc. 
Up at the big house a good old fashioned dinner was 
waiting, and three hungry fellows were soon storing 
away the good folk's eatables. Tode. 
Rhode Island. 
CENTRAL NEW YORK NOTES. 
Ithaoa, N. Y., Jan. 3. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
Perhaps it may be nothing out of the common for wild 
geese to remain on Northern lakes during the entire 
winter, but prior to last winter I don't happen to know 
of a flock of these wary birds wintering on Cayuga 
Lake. Stroud Bush of Lansing tells me that a flock 
containing at the beginning of winter nineteen geese, 
passed the entire winter of '93 and '94 along the east 
shore of the lake some eight or ten miles north of 
Ithaca. The birds made daily trips to the bleak, wind- 
swept buckwheat fields of South Lansing for several 
months without mishap, but finally a couple of gunners 
chanced that way and secured five of the gray honkers. 
The remaining fourteen birds lingered until the soft 
south winds brought a cheering message from warmer 
climes, when they wheeled into line and joined the 
northern flight. 
So far as such papers as the Blmira Sunday Telegram 
represent public opinion, the presumption may be 
accepted in good faith that a good many wild fowl 
gunners located adjacent to Cayuga Lake are bound to 
have spring shooting on ducks if possible. The fact that 
the open season on these birds expires the last day of 
February is gall and wormwood to the gentlemen 
afflicted with microbe of discontent. They claim it to 
be an impossible feat to score decently on ducks during 
the full flight owing to certain local drawbacks which 
are not sufficiently noteworthy to call for discussion 
here, and consequently they clamor for the right to 
shoot the lean and cadaverous birds on their northward 
journey. I haven't any smypathy for this class of 
shooters. Their contention finds its inception in the 
slaughter yard and reads like the wail of the market 
shooter. March 1 to September 1 as a close season on 
ducks for the seven central New York counties is good 
and effective enough to be left severely alone. Prithee, 
gentlemen, let it stand shorn of not a single vestige 
of protective benefits. 
Anent the question of the increase of the quail supply 
arising from a protracted close season, I am pleased to 
say that so far as Tompkins County is concerned the 
prolonged close season is a saving factor. There is not 
merely a perceptible increase, but, according to John 
McCormick, a thoroughly well posted sportsman, there 
is a pronounced and clearly defined increase. Up the 
valley south of Ithaca farmers report quail more numer- 
ours than for years past. Finding the birds protected 
by an adequate enactment the farmers have adopted the 
praotice of feeding the birds when necessary, and the 
supply has steadily increased. From the western part 
of the country I have lately received encouraging 
reports, so that I am glad to pin my faith to the bene- 
ficial results brought about through an extended close 
season. The stock of quail in Tompkins County at one 
of me so nearly resembled the little end of nothing 
-Vvjhittled down to a point and the width of a hair 
punched out, that it affords me a lot of pleasure to 
report the above satisfactory condition of affairs. 
M. Child. 
QUAIL IN MICHIGAN. 
Holland, .Mich., Jan. 1. — Editor Forest and Stream; 
I notice some of our Michigan sportsmen are again 
agitating making a close season on quail for a term of 
years. I cannot see that this will secure the desired 
result. True, quail are scarce in one State, but what 
is the cause ? I think all must admit that overshooting 
is not the cause. Bob White is fully able to take care 
of himself with the average gunner. 
As I understand game protection, the idea is to so 
limit the taking of the game that there will be enough 
for an occasional shooting and to leave enough for f uture 
breeding, that those who come after us may have a taste 
of the sport. 
Now, as to the cause of the present scarcity. I sub- 
mit that '.it was the severe winter of 1892-93. During 
that winter I was afield twice each week with my 
pointer to see how the birds were getting along. From 
December 15 (when the season closed) to Jan. 10, I 
found large numbers of birds, some bevies which had 
apparently not been shot at. Then we had the severe 
cold and deep snows which covered the field. After 
that I saw very few quail and no evidence of illegal 
/shooting. Many fanners and others reported having 
found entire bevies under brush piles, frozen to death 
'Surely overshooting is not the cause of the scarcity. 
It is true that we had fine shooting after the three 
years' close season which expired four years ago. But 
during those three years we had no winter so severe as 
that of '92 and '93. If we had there would have been 
no more quail than we have to-day. 
Suppose we do make a close season for, sa3 r , f our years, 
and the first three winters are mild. There will, no 
doubt, be an increase of birds. Then suppose the fourth 
year we have a severe winter. The result will be the 
same as- in '93 — no birds. Have we benefited ourselves 
or the quail by that close season? It is plain to every- 
one that we might just as well have a little shooting 
each year, and would have just as many birds left in 
the covert in the end. 
If it is deemed necessary to givejthe quail more pro- 
tection I would ifavoi-jmakingg the open seasom shorter, 
limiting it to the month of November, for a instance. 
Usually we have no snow in that month, the birds are 
full grown, as they are not in October, and those who 
find "sport" in raking a bevy on the ground get no 
chance. 
Fellow sportsmen, we should pay more7[attention to 
enforcing the laws we have. We all do a great deal of 
talking aobut what laws we would like, and how much 
better if it were this way or that. This is all right in 
its way, but how many of us are doing anything toward 
real, practical protection? Our Game Protective Asso- 
ciation here is doing much toward protecting the game 
and fish. Some of the oldest and worst offendeis have 
been caught and punished. One man paid $50 fine for 
killing four quail and three partridge. Do you not 
think he will have more respect for the game laws here- 
after? 
For the various kinds of game the season should be as 
nearly uniform, as to date, as possible to make protec- 
tion easier. Quail and ruffled groose the month of 
November ; woodcock, Sept. 1 to Dec. 1. Ducks, geese, 
snipe, plover, rail and all the different shore birds, Sept. 
1 to Jan. 1. Deer to be killed only by still hunting, 
and then only bucks. 
Forbid the sale of game. 
Make good appropriations for enfocrcing the laws. 
Prohibit the use of ferrets in hunting rabbits. 
Personally, I do not care much for ' ' Molly Cotton- 
tail, ' ' but many do. Then it is a good thing for the 
birds to have rabbits plentiful, for. many hunt birds 
when there are no rabbits. Make a close season on 
rabbits, say, from Jan. 1 to Sept. 1, and there will be 
no excuse to be afield with a gun after Jan. 1. 
Arthur G-. Badmgartel. 
TEXAS AND THE SOUTHWEST. 
An Exaggeration. 
A San Antonio paper spreads itself in a grandiloquent 
effort to advertise Mr. Joe George, postmaster of that 
city, as having killed 200 ducks in one day on the coast 
on the 31st ult. 
There is nothing very remarkable in the report, be- 
cause such exaggerations are in perfect accord with the 
usual manner in which such alleged killings are chroni- 
cled. As a matter of fact, Mr. George brought exactly 
75 birds with him, the result of three guns for two days 
at Gum Holllow — no more, no less. The shooting was 
honest, straight flight shooting, and every bird was 
earned. This is written in order to take the sting out 
of anything which might emanate from the slanderous 
pen of the few individuals in this city who never go 
hunting, but sit in their offices and endeavor to injure 
the good reputation of sportsmen whose success afield is 
roughly exaggerated by a well meaning but erratic local 
press. 
* * * 
News comes from Galveston that his Excellency, Gov- 
ernor Hogg, accompanied by the erstwhile banker but 
now the close associate of market hunters and canvas- 
back butchers, and a few others were caught in the 
norther of last week upon their return from Lake Sur- 
prise, Moody's rice duck preserve, where the market 
hunters had loaded them down with game. The party 
was driven upon the shoals, the boat run aground 
and partially filled with water. They passed the entire 
night in this pitiable plight, and were rescued in the 
morning by a passing oyster sloop. ' ' By Gatlins, we 
had a narrow escape ! ' ' 
* * * 
From along the line of the Arkansas Pass Railway to 
the coast comes the word that the quail have been 
returning to their old haunts this winter. There is fine 
shooting at Marcellina, Floresville and all the way down 
to Sniton. There is also some very good turkey shoot- 
ing at the last named place. 
* * * - m 
One of the most noted duck hunters in San Antonio 
tells this. He is a crack shot with the gun and a straight 
one with his tongue, and the story will pass for the 
exact truth. 
The scene is laid on one of General Felton's dams, 
built at heavy expense to hold sweet water for cattle 
raising purposes. The blue bills, canvasbacks and 
redheads feeding on the bay become very thirsty, their 
coppers become very hot and they go to the sweet water 
pond to slack their thirst. On this occasion our friend 
the duck hunter was perched on the dam in question 
along with his hunting partner. On their left were two 
fair samples of the coast butcher, armed with a villain- 
ous face and a ten gauge Richards or Moore gun that 
had seen long service in the bottom of a duck hunting 
sloop, in the chambers of which reposed two large 
Peters Prize shells ( 5 drams of powder and God knows 
how much shot). 
A flock of blue bills came skipping by and the coast- 
hunter shook the dam with a double detonation without 
any other result than making the birds scatter a little. 
Our hunters neatly dropped a bird each, and as they 
slipped another shell in place of the empty one the C. 
H. deliberately picked up one of the dead birds and 
resumed his place on the dam. The robbery was so 
flagrant and plain that notwithstanding the fact that a 
blue bill does not "cut very much ice" in point of 
value, it aroused the ire of our Nimrods. But the C. 
H. stood pat and refused to believe that he had not 
killed the bird and resumed his ten gauge pounding, 
shooting at the rate of 20 shots per dead bird. 
One of our Nimrods then took a stand a little closer to 
the C H. , and directly a pair of swifters came whizzing 
toward the dam. Two ten gauge loads were belched at 
the birds with no result ; two little reports and one bird 
fell dead and the other winged. 
"Did you kill either of these birds, Mr. Hunter?" 
derisively inquired he of the little gun. 
' ' Naw ! I know when I kill a duck, ' ' said the ten 
ganger. 
' ' Thanks, ' ' replied the small gun. ' ' I thought that 
you had hit one hard and that the bird simply died 
when I fired. ' ' 
A look of withering scorn was shot, coast fashion, at 
the small fry and then he squatted as a single blue bill 
came right at him. He aimed a long time, but when the 
bird came within 30 yards, the little gun had him, and 
the dead bird cameyikejajbullet, and] had not the C. H. 
dodged it would have plinked him, right in the middle. 
As he arose and shouldered his fusee he remarked ; 
"Guess youse fellers think youse mighty smart. But 
eff you wait till termorrer I'll bring brother Bill and 
he'll make ye tired shootin' ducks. " 
As he left a pair of redheads flew over him, but he 
did not even look up. He trundled his gun in a two- 
wheeled cart, cut his yellow dog across the back with a 
whip and he was off. Texas Field. 
_ BOSTON AND MAINE. 
One of the best hunting parties of the season left Bos- 
ton on Thursday, Dec. 27 for the Maine woods. This 
party was made up of something like a dozen of the 
family and guests of J. Parker Whitney. In the party 
were Mr. Whitney, wife and daughter and two sons ; 
Mr. Gilbert E. Jones of New York, wife and son ; Miss 
Dillon, daughter of Judge Dillon of Colorado, and Mr. 
George F. Whitney, nephew of Mr. Whitney, and a 
Harvard sophomore. Mr. Jones was one of the former 
owners of the New York Times, and Mr. Whitney is 
well known for his articles last year on the taking of 
salmon from the waters of the Pacific coast by trolling. 
Mr. Whitney has, in fact, conferred a boon upon fisher- 
man, for the reason that he is the originator of taking 
out salmon in that way. Other articles have appeared 
from Mr. Whitney's pen, and more partitculaly on the 
trout of the Rangeleys. The party went directly to 
Mr. Whitney's beautiful camps at Mosquito Brook, Lake 
Molechunkamunk, and will remain till near the middle 
of the month. But they are up there without roads, 
and much will depend .upon the state of the weather. 
The ladies and baggage will be taken in and out by 
teams on the ice, but the boys propose to make at least 
one trip, some 20 miles, through the woods. Mr. 
Whitney remarked that they had seen enough of warm 
weather in California and New Mexico, where he has 
een of late, and that they were going into the woods 
for some Maine cold weather that is genuine. Hunt- 
ing, snowshoeing with toboggan slides and possible ice 
boats, will make up the sports of the day. Mr. Whit- 
ney's daughter Helen was born at the camp at Mosquito 
Brook, and Mr. Whitney fondly considers the camp his 
home, though owning thousands of acres and almost 
entire blocks in the cities of the Pacific coast. He went 
to Maine first in his boyhood, with nothing but the 
most primitive camping outfits, but he has clung to the 
spot ever since, beautifying it and -visiting it nearly 
every year, and sometimes spending a good part of the 
year there. He is a sportsman of long experience, and 
an observer of the habits of fish and game. He never 
allows the killing of game or the taking of fish out of 
season. 
The members of the Ragged Island Club, with club 
house and headquarters at the upper end of Currituc 
Sound, are evidently enjoying duck shooting this win- 
ter. Mr. Walter L. Hill is just back from his annual 
shooting trip^to that piappy spot, where he goes as the 
guest of Mr. C. A. Woodward, one of the prime movers 
of the club, and for some time its president. The shoot 
was a very enjoyable one, as it always is to Mr. Hill, 
than whom there is not a more active business man in 
Boston, nor one who better loves his annual fishing and 
shooting trips. He still hopes to introduce Mr. Wood- 
ward to Maine trout fishing, and probaby deer hunting. 
On this trip the ducks were plenty. The preventing of 
night shooting, once suggested in The Forest and 
Stream, after talking with Mr. Hill and the "rest days" 
— three in a week— on which no shooting is done, are 
among the good works of the Ragged Island and other 
clubs on the sound. On this trip Mr. Hill shot canvas- 
backs, black ducks, red heads, ruddy ducks, mallards, 
and almost every other sort of a duck, as well as geese> 
Last, but not among the warmest of his receptions, he 
got into the water. 
• Mr. G. L. Wakefield, a Harvard student, is just back 
from a Maine hunting trip, where he took two deer. 
On Saturday evening he gave a venison supper to his 
many friends at his home in Wakefield. 
Dr. Heber Bishop is back in Boston again, after 
another successful moose hunt in Maine. On the last 
days of tne season the doctor killed an enormous bull, 
weighing some 1,400 pounds, and one of the largest he 
has ever taken. He went in via King and Bartlett, and 
around into the Moose River region. He also took fa 
handsome caribou. 
Captain Fred C. Barker was in Boston the other day 
on a hurried trip. Later in the season he hopes to 
spend some time in Boston, and possibly New York. 
He is greatly pleased with the increase in big game 
that is noted, around the Rangeleys. He has had many 
years of experience as a guide, and later as a steamboat 
proprietor on those lakes, and the increase in deer is 
almost a surprise to him. No amount of fair hunting, 
in his opinion, can destroy them nor prevent a healthy 
increase. In proof that he is right he quotes from the 
Forest and Stream in several recent articles. He believes 
that there are good and sufficient laws enough in 
Maine, if they are enforced, and thinks that it would 
be a stumbling block to enact some of the laws proposed. 
The railroad through from Rumford Falls to Bemis is 
being pushed. It is graded as far as Houghtons, in 
Byron, and some nine miles from Bemis. But Captain 
B. scarcely expects it to be pushed on to his place for a 
year at least, though|it will make a complete change in 
the routes of hunting and fishing travel to the Rangeleys. 
There is a great deal of interest among Boston sports- 
men as to what is to be done in the Maine Legisature in 
regard to fish and game. What may be done in Massa- 
chusetts cuts a very small figure beside the interest in 
regard to Maine. A number of gentlemen are in corres- 
pondence with prominent fish and game protectors in 
Maine. Mr. David H. Blanchard of Boston has pre- 
pared a letter of recommendation and forwarded it to 
the commissioners and the Maine Game and Fish Pro- 
tective Club. The letter recommends the greater con- 
servation of moose, urging that the killing of cow and 
calf moose be prohibited at all times ; recommending 
the cutting down of the number of deer a hunter may 
take to two, and one caribou or one bull moose ; that 
the close time on partridges be continued till October 1, 
when it shall be legal to hunt all game, and commenc- 
ing the close time on moose, caribou and deer 'to Decern- 
