66 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[JXTLY 25, 1896. 
experts succeed in placing 10 consecutive shots into the 
34x30in. ellipse. Sights and conditions were sufficiently 
fine and favorable to call for much better shooting at 100 
and SOOyds. This claim is strengthened by the fact that 
when the distances were increased the shooting improved 
— ^the best by far was done during the contest at 800yds. 
— which goes to show that the construction of the rifle 
and the proportions of the ammunition can be held 
accountaljle for the crazy short-range work. It is a long- 
range gun that is unreliable at short distances. When 
the experts were cut down to the 100yd, range even the 
24x'30in. target was missed, and 10 consecutive shots 
were not placed in the 8xl0in. bullseyel This kind of 
ahf^oting might do on the battlefield, where it made no 
difference which man was hit, but not so for game shoot- 
ing, where it often happens that your only target is a 
small patch of black, brown, gray or white hair that your 
humane heart tells you must be hit fair or not at all. 
From the above record, which is a fairsample of theaccu- 
racy of smokeless powder rifles in general, we can arrive 
at but one conclusion: that is, the smokeless powder rifles 
do not compare in accuracy with the lowest class black 
powder sporting rifles at their ranges; and in order to 
classify these new guns we must use a larger circle, and 
that is impracticable, as the fourth class rifles strain 
reliability a trifle too much already. Shonld these mili- 
tary arms in time develop an accuracy sufficient to admit 
of their being used on large game, their want of power 
would still place them at a great disadvantage. The 
readers of the Forest and Stream have already had their 
attention called to the fact that when the soft nose bullet 
is substituted for the regular steel-jacketed projectile it 
loses over 80 per cent of its penetration and is of but 
little service for anything larger than small deer at 
broadside shots; and when we come to consider the "im- 
proved (?) smokeless powder sporting rifles" this defect is 
increased to an alarming extent, as these hunting hum- 
bugs have but a trifle over one-half the penetration of the 
military <»uns, or less than one-quarter of the power of 
the .45-75, and should be thrown entirely out of consider- 
ation when a rifle is wanted for moose or big bears. As 
my friend Brannock knows the killing power of bullets I 
was not surprised to see him brace himself to keep from 
falling in a faint when a certain barbarian rifle maker 
told us that in India his gun repeatedly killed with a 
single shot the biggest elephants found, and that it was a 
common trick among sportsmen to bag two rhinoceros 
with a single bullet, shooting them while standing end to 
end, the bullet going through both animals and killing 
them like a stroke of lightning. H. B. S. 
Norwich, Conn, 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
Forestry Commission. 
Chicago, 111., July 16 — Three members of the U. S. 
Forestry Commission were in Chicago this week on their 
way West to inspect the new forest reserves in northwest 
Montana and the forests of the Paget Sound and Oregon 
regions. The members present here were Prof. W. H. 
Brewer, of Yola Univ. ; Prof. C. H. Sargent, of Harvard, 
and Gen. H. L. Abbott, U.S.A. There are seven mem- 
bers of the commission, and two more will join the above 
mentioned later on, only five being on this tour. It is 
their duty to investigate matters at each national reserve 
and report any needed legislation for the betterment of 
the forests and streams tbereon. 
Uniformed Game Wardens. 
Mr. Michael H. Cahill, of Madison, Wis. , deserves thanks 
for an idea entitled to be called new. In a letter just at 
hand he calls attention to the need of better protection 
for the bie game of the pine woods country, where, he 
says, the local warden system is useless because no resi- 
dent dares proceed against another. Mr. Cahill thinks 
the wardens for the deer country should all be non-resi- 
dents, appointed from the southern part of the State. 
He adds: 
"All these wardens should be mounted on gond horses 
and armed with a .38cal, revolver and with a ,38cal. car- 
bine carrying a sword bayonet. The pistol cartridge should 
be shorter and carry less powder and lead than that of the 
carbine. The uniform should be of gray cloth, because 
that is best and most serviceable, and a badge made out 
of nickel should be worn with the uniform. Horses are 
cheap now, and the mounts would not cost the State so 
much as formerly," 
I do not deny that a warden made up as Mr. Cahill sug- 
gests would be a very imposing personage, perhaps more 
so than any game warden of our country has yet been , 
but I fear Mr. Cahill has not been much in the Wisconsin 
deer country, or he would realize the diflSculty of getting 
a horse — even if ridden by a man with a badge — more 
than lOft. into some of the swamp windfalls where the 
pack trails go. Mr. Cahill thinks that game protection 
should be a national matter, and says: 
"There should be a plank in the platform of all the 
political parties pledging them to the protection of the 
wild game in all our States and Territories. The People's 
p^rty meets in convention at St. Louis July 33, and the 
Democrats are in convention now at Chicago. Will you 
try to get a good plank put in the platform of these par- 
ties?" 
Unfortunately I was away fishing at the time of the 
Democratic convention, and I will be away fishing again 
at the time of the Populist convention, so a great many 
national affairs will have to go unadjusted for awhile yet; 
but I will have the planks put in four years from now — 
unless I should be out fishing again. But I think there 
ought to be a drum corps go with the brigade of mounted 
wardens. 
Alaska Aztecs. 
An item in the daily press states that horses were un- 
known in the new gold country of Alaska until the present 
season, when a mining party took some in at the expense 
of great effort. The natives of the Indian villages were 
wild with fright at seeing these new creatures, and it is 
said that even the dogs took howling to the woods in ter- 
ror at the apparition. It would seem there is some new 
country left, after all. What will the Alaskan Aztecs say 
when they see the bicycle? 
A Handsome Steal. 
Funny things sometimes happen in the newspaper busi- 
ness. Yesterday a reporter came into this office from the 
Chicago Tribune. He Ijore a clipping from a, Chicago 
evening paper purporting to tell of certain good catches 
of fish in different parts of the country, especially in Wis- 
consin. The reporter was instructed to learn whether I 
could give any information concerning those large 
catches and the addresses of the anglers named, I 
looked at the clipping of "news" items, and at 
once recognized the matter as my own, taken direct 
from the "Chicago and the West" of the current week 
of Forest and Stream. Further on came very full 
news of the salmon, trout and other fishing in Maine and 
other Eastern States. This I recognized at once as also 
taken direct from the columns of Forest and Stream. 
It was a very handsome steal, with no credit of course, 
and all handled with a lovely air of journalistic confi- 
dence only marred in respect of a place or two where the 
news editor had fallen down in his attempts to be briefer 
and wiser than the men who paid for the news. So I was 
able to give the Tribune man very good directions about 
the facts which its less conscientious contemporary had 
swiped bodily from Forest and Stream. Don't believe 
everything you see in the papers, unless it's in Forest 
AND Stream. 
In Chicago. 
Mr. C. E. Willard, of the Colt's Patent I'ire Arms Mfg. 
Co., is in Chicago this week, looking well and doing well. 
Mr. Willard was instrumental in the recent sale of about 
4,000 revolvers to the New York police force, of a new, 
small caliber model. They will probably try it on a dog, 
and they do say there are several of the "finest" who can 
hit a dog thesf^ days. 
Mr. Harry A, Loughran, of the Iroquois Gun and Rifle 
Club, of Pittsburer, Pa., is in the city for a time and called 
on Forest and Stream here, as I hope every sportsman of 
the country will when he is in Chicago, That is what the 
office is for. 
Mr, Eugene H, Lahee, late of Alton, III., a sportsman 
and rifle shot of skill, has engaged in business in Chicago, 
being now treasurer of the Indiana Steel Casting Co., of 
1121 Monadnock Block. I trust we shall now hear more 
of those once famous rifle competitions in which Mr. 
Lahee, his friend Mr. H. R. Wills, of Alton; the Chief 
with-two Stomachs, of New York, and the writer used 
formerly to engage. I still have the pewter champion- 
ship cup I won after many struggles, and I were a poor 
sort of champion if I did not put up my trophies for a few 
last final contests before retiring from the field. Will 
anny of these gentlemen step upon my coat? 
Death. 
Very shocking were the fatalities this week in the 
family of Mr. M. R. Bortree, of this city, the president of 
the National Association and well known in protective 
matters. Within twenty -four hours two of the brothers, 
Edward L., aged fifty-four, and Franklin S., aged fifty- 
seven, were taken away by sudden death. The former 
died on Saturday of cerebral hemorrhage, and the latter 
the next day of apoplexy. Both were well-known and 
respected business men, Mr, M., R. Bortree and Mr. H. 
W. Bortree remain of the family of four brothers, and 
are entitled to the sympathy of friends at such a serious 
and so sudden a loss. 
Very III. 
Mr. Chas. Kern, a prominent sportsman of Chicago, 
often president of the Audubon Gun Club, and ex-presi- 
dent of the Illinois State Sportsmen's Association, lies 
seriously ill at this writing. His many friends hope his 
ultimate recovery. E. HouGH. 
J306 BoTOis BdhjOinq, Chicago. 
DOES HOUNDING MAKE DEER SHY? 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Mr. W. W. Mosher, in your paper of July 18, says that 
"just so sure as hounding is stopped deer will be wipad 
out. Hounding keeps them wild, and not so easily 
approached by the still-hunter." 
Is this so? I have always understood, from what the 
woodsmen in the northern pirt of Herkimer county said, 
that hounding made no difference in the still-hunters' 
prospects, but if still-hunters hunt the ground over for a 
few days the deer get so wild that nothing but the hard- 
est kind of work would bring the hunter in sight and 
range of his game. Van Dyke, in his "Still- Hunter," I 
believe, says that only a stUl-hunter will make deer wild as 
regards stUl-hunters. 
I have still-hunted in the Moose River region of the 
Adirondacks the day after the hounding season closed, 
when the deer had been kept on the jump for weeks, and 
found them far easier to approach than at the beginning 
of the hounding season. The trouble with hounding is 
not that it makes the deer hard to kill, but that it renders 
them easy victims to anybody. 
When a deer is running at full speed, with a bellowing 
brute of a dog after it, it cannot exercise its faculties; it 
has no time to think, and so it rushes to the deadly foe on 
the water's edge, where it would not have gone under 
any circumstances. 
When the still-hunter puts his wits against the deer's he 
does 80 at a time when the deer is in a quiet, calculating 
mood ; but the one who kills deer before a dog requires 
about as many wits to kill a deer as an old cow does to eat 
grass. Raymond S. Spears, 
New Yohk, 
HOW TO HOLD A REVOLVER ON GAME. 
Denver, Col — Editor Forest and Stream: Among the 
mountain and plainsmen there seems to be one word of 
advice to the tenderfoot trying his first six-shooter: ."Let 
her lie loose in your hand." My 45 Colt's, double-action, 
3^in, barrel, jumps halfway to my shoulder, but the tin can 
has a hole in it all the same. The gun is held as loosely 
in the hand as possible, and the arm partly bent and as 
flexible as possible, yet the gun jumps as much as it wants 
to. No man 1 have ever seen can hold either the ,45 
Colt's or the ,44 S, & W, to place when it recoils. If the 
barrel is short enough the bullet is safely out of the barrel 
before it jumps, on the same principle as a cannon is fired. 
What our target friends say about the trigger pull is just 
as true in practical use as at the target. 
If you are hungry and want that jack rabbit for supper 
to help out the bacon, try this way: Sit down (with due 
regard to cactus), with your knees drawn up, heels to- 
gether, if comfortable, put an elbow on each knee, hold 
your six-shooter loosely in both hands, with the ball of 
^our left forefinger resting on the mil ot your right fore-. 
finger, and blaze away. If you grip your gun good and 
hard you will probably have bacon straight two times 
before dinner (beg pardon — luncheon) next day. If you 
"let her kick" you may have rabbit. 
As to shooting from horseback when on the gallop, there 
is only one way: "Throw your bullet" just as you would 
a stone — on the same principle as our shotgun friends 
sometimes shoot — snap shooting. A good shot can gallop 
along a wire fence and put a bullet into every post for six 
shots. There is no chance to aim through the sights what- 
ever. Do not look at your six-shooter; look at what you 
want to hit. Nothing but practice, practice, practice, will 
give you this art; and on acquiring it, it is as easily lost as 
it is hard to gain. It takes about as much practice to do 
this well as it does to play a violin well. It is not for tar- 
get use at all, remember, and is not as accurate as sighting 
when standing still; but for a snapshot across a table, 
from a running horse, or in a tossing boat, where an ordi- 
nary sighting shot would be useless, this way of "throwing 
the bullet" will give you "a fighting chance" to hit your 
object. Six-Shooter. 
Migration of Quail. 
Maryland shotgun sportsmen anticipate sport near 
home next fall. For three years disappointment has 
marked *^he efforts of sportsmen who have tried to find 
quail. Harsh winters and the drowning rains of spring 
have been credited with being the cause of the scarcity 
of birds. 
The absence of birds near home caused gunners to go to 
distant points, and many who went to Virginia, North 
Carolina and South Carolina found game equally scarce 
there. 
This scarcity has produced some good results, which are 
now beginning to show. Stock birds were bought in the 
far South and turned loose in Maryland, where they have 
increased and multiplied. The fact of young broods of 
quail being found several weeks earlier than usual in 
this State aroused careful attention on part of the sports* 
men who ar ? ornithologists, and they have decided that the 
early hatchings were due to the fact that the parent birds 
were natives of the South, which hatched early under the 
influence of the warm weather of last ppring. 
Mr. Joseph Newkirk, an old and experienced gunner, 
decided to test the question as to migratory habits of the 
quail. Two years ago he turned loose 200 birds at Grace's 
Quarters. Baltimore county. Quail have four toes, and 
he cut off the back toe of each one liberated. He ad- 
vertised the fact, and shortly afterward found that one of 
the old birds had been killed ten miles north of the point 
at which it was turned out. 
The questions which present themselves to periocs who 
are interested in restocking and presenving quail are many, 
and the scarcity of the gamest of birds should now bring 
the matter to notice more forcibly than it ever has been. 
Instinct would naturally cause the birds to migrate to 
the South when a severe winter comes. 
Though it was equally as cold in Maryland as it was in 
Virginia during the last four winters, the percentage of 
birds found in the autumn to the number usually found 
was greater in upper Maryland than in the lower counties 
of the State and in Virginia and in the Carolinas. — Bal- 
timore Sun. 
Maine IBig Game. 
Dead River, Me. — Thinking that perhaps a few items of 
the prospects of big game for the coming' season would be 
of interest to some of the Forest and Stream readers, I 
send the following: 
Moose are getting to be very plenty; several large bulls 
have been seen, besides numerous cows and calves. 
Deer are numerous; to see four or six at a time is noth- 
ing new this season. A drove of eleven deer were seen at 
two different times recently. 
Partridges, ducks, foxes, rabbits and squirrels are with- 
out doubt more plenty than ever recorded. 
The trout fishing in our lakes, ponds and streams is very 
good. Guides J. G. and H, E. Harlow were at Otter Pond 
last week with a party of four gentlemen, and in three 
and one-half hours' fishing they got 446 trout; average 
weight better than Jib. 
More large game was taken in this section last season 
than in the rest of the Dead River region. 
Do not think that we are away back in some almost in- 
accessible place, for we have a railroad with two trains 
per day from Boston within six miles of this great game 
region. 
If any brother sportsmen are interested in this new 
region or have any intentions of coming back here into 
Maine, we will gladly and cheerfully send them /my infor- 
mation they want of the numerous camps and hotels in 
this section. J. G. and H. E. Harlow. 
" That reminds me," 
Old Juan Gomez. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
In a recent issue allusion is made to my old friend Juan 
Gomez, of Panther, Ky., whom T first brought to the 
notice of the readers of Forest and Stream some fifteen 
years ago. Old John Gomez, as he is known on the west 
coast of Florida, is still a hale, hearty and patriarchal old 
boy, though nearly 120 years of dge. He is currently re- 
puted to have been a buccaneer in his early days. I once 
questioned him concerning this rumor, when he replied: 
"Yes, when I was a young-a man 1 was a littla wild-a. 
I s'pose-a w'at you call a pirat'; but when I got-a married 
my wife-a she no Uke-a dat pirat' biz, so I reform-a." 
"You reformed and quit such a nefarious business, 
then?" 
"Oh, yes; my wife-a no like-a dat, so I reform-a and go - 
into a respect-a biz!" 
"What business was that?" 
"I refit-a my schooner and go in de slavg-a trade!" 
J. A. Henshall. 
Tampa, July 9. 
The Forest and Stream: is put to press each week on 
Tuesday. Correnpondevce intended for publication 
should reach us at the latest by MQnd<iy^and as muGti 
eaTUer as prqt ticaUe. 
