24 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
[July 11, 1896. 
The St. liOtds Park and Agricultural Company. 
The Sfc . Louis Park and Agricultural Company, of St, 
Louis, Mo., have a pame preserve near Springfield, Mo. 
The elk purchased from the Oaton estate were recently 
sent there, and eleven arrived in eood condition. 
The St. Louis Park and Agricultural Company is a 
regularly organized and incorporated corapanv under the 
laws of Missouri. Our property is located in Taney coun- 
ty, one of the southern counties of this State. It is on 
White River, twelve miles from Forsyth, the county 
seat, about five miles from the Arkansas line, sixty miles 
southeast of Springfield, Mo., and forfcv miles from Chad- 
wick, the nearest railroad station. We have about 5,000 
acres of fine, rolling, well timbered, watered and fertile 
land, most of which is inclosed with a close barbed-wire 
fence 13ft. high. We have also a club house, boat house 
and other necessary buildings for the care and protection 
of stock and game. At present we have the property di- 
vided into two parts, and both well stocked with elk, na- 
tive deer, red deer, fallow deer and Angora goats. Will 
add in the fall some black- tail deer. We have about sev- 
enty-five pure breed Mongolian pheasants which we prob- 
ably will turn loose in the park in the near future. We 
also have other game in abundance, such as quail and 
wild turkeys. The park is well adapted to the raising of 
game, the climate being mild and temperate, and grass 
and foliage abundant the year round, so that stock 
usually winter well without other feed than that se- 
cured in the park. Ours is a park or game preserve for 
private use only. The parties interested (six in number) 
are mostly officers of the Liggett & Myers Tobacco Co. , and 
the main oflice of the company is at St. Louis. We ex- 
pect to continue adding game and improving the property, 
and at some future day to have a preserve or property 
that will be a credit to the State and a pleasant resort for 
those interested in it. White River also furnishes good 
sport for the angler; so taking it altogether, we are well 
located, and the prospects good for ^port for years to 
come. -St. Lodis Park and Agricultural Co. 
J. P, Litton, Sec'y and Treas. 
Judge Caton's Game Park. 
The late Judee John Dean Caton was probably the 
first man in this country to bring together in one park the 
different species of American game. While deer parks 
were common before his time, especially in Virginia and 
the South, his was the first park of which we have knowl- 
edge where general stocking was attempted. Writing in 
1881 he says: 
"For many years I have kept in domestication the 
American antelope and aU of the American deer of which 
I treat (in 'Antelope and Deer of America'), except the 
moose and the two species of caribou or American rein- 
deer." 
His park at Ottawa, III., was ino1o8«d by a picket fence 
8ft. high. It was of small area as compared with some 
of the modern game parks, and probably never contained 
more than 100 animals at any one time. Previous to his 
death Judge Caton sold a number of big elk, which were 
shipped to Europe. In April of the present year the re- 
maining elk, numbering eighteen, were sold to the owner 
of a park near Springfield, Missouri. They were very 
wild, and in the effort to capture them four were killed 
and four made their escape from the park. The latter 
were recaptured at various times. The last to be taken 
was run down with hounds and gave its captors, Messrs. 
Prettyman and McDermott, of Ottawa, a very exciting 
chase, in which one hound was killed and another 
maimed for life. 
Under date of June 23 Mr. Prettyman informs us that 
he understands that eleven of the elk are alive in the pre- 
serve of the St. Louis Park and Agricultural Company, at 
Springfield, Mo. 
At Judge Caton's park there are still left thirteen com- 
mon deer. 
Stave Island in Lake Cbamplain. 
I HAVE an island (Stave) of eighty-six acres, eleven 
miles down the lake from Burlington. It is fenced with 
Page woven wire fence, 88in. high. I have pheasants, 
quail and rabbits, but no deer as yet. I expect to put a 
few deer on the island this summer, provided I can get 
them near by. Your Mr. Banks touched up Stave Island 
in writing on Vermont Fish and Game League banquet 
held here the latter part of November. '95. You may find 
something of interest in Forest and Stream of that date. 
F. H. Wells. 
Biltmore Estate. 
Mr. Vanderbilt has not yet given the matter of fish and 
game upon his estate at Biltmore much consideration. 
He will doubtless do so, however, in the near future. * * * 
Charles MoNamek. 
John E. Searles. 
Mr. John E. Searles has the nucleus of a game preserve 
on his estate at Great Hill, Mass., on Buzzard's Bay. He 
has just pm-chased six elk, and will no doubt add other 
animals in the near future. 
Petit Manan Preserve. 
The Petit Manan peninsula on the coast of Maine is now 
owned by a land company, which has a game park of 720 
acres surrounded by five miles of wire fencing. In this 
park are a number of deer as well as hares and other 
small game. 
J. H. Bass. 
Mr. John H, Bass, who lives near Fort Wayne, Ind., has 
five buffalo in an inclosure surrounded by a fence of mor- 
tised boards 8 ft. high. 
Dr. Edward Ij. Partridge. 
Dr. Edward L. Partridge, of New York, has a paddock 
containing half a dozen deer at his place on the Storm 
King, in the highlands of the Hudson River. 
D. F. Carlin. 
At Leslie, S. Dak., D. F. Carlin has a herd of twenty 
buffalo. He began in 1889 with nine buffalo. 
Other Preserves. 
Among the fenced parks may be mentioned Tuxedo 
Park and Sterling Park, both in Orange county, N. Y. 
^he former has an area of about 4,000 acres and is stocked 
with deer. The latter has never, we believe, been stocked 
with large game. Pierre Lorillard's park at Jobstowji, 
J., is at present in a run down condition. 
NATIONAL PARK POACHERS. 
As intimated in last week's Forest and Stream, two 
poachers, Tom Newcomb and June Buzzel, recently 
arrested for killing elk in the Yellowstone National Park, 
were tried before Commissioner Meldrum at the Mam- 
moth Hot Springs during the week ending June 27. 
These men were employed as scouts last autumn by Capt. 
Anderson, the Superintendent of the National Park. In 
the pursuit of their duties they naturally learned much 
about the haunts of the game in the Park, and after their 
discharge made use of this knowledge to slaughter. Hap- 
pily, they were captured, and the result of their trial was 
the imposition of a fine of $50, which each defendant 
paid. In the opinion of many persons it is time now to 
begin the imprisonment of rascals who poach on the 
Government preserves. It is very well to begin with a 
fine, but this does not put an end to the business of poach- 
ing as imnrisonment would. 
W. F. Wittich, the Butte (Mont.) taxidermist, who, it is 
alleged, has long been responsible for a great deal of the 
poaching done in the National Park, was subpoenaed last 
fall to give testimony at the trial held at the Mammoth 
Hot Springs of J. S. Courtney, on the charge of having 
killed buffalo in the National Park. 
On the advice of an attorney Wittich disregarded the 
subpoena, and recently his alleged contempt of court in 
failing to respond was brought to the attention of the 
Wyoming Federal Grand Jury, and an indictment was 
returned against Wittich. A bench warrant was accord- 
ingly issued direct to Marshal McDermott, who went to 
Butte recently and caused the arrest of Wittich. The 
prisoner was taken before United States Commissioner 
McMurphy, of Butte, and remanded without bail to ap- 
pear before Judge Knowles, of Helena. The prisoner 
was taken to Helena, and on June 26 Judge Knowles 
granted the required order and turned Wittich over to the 
custody of the Marshal, to be taken by him to Cheyenne, 
to appear before Judge Riner for contempt of court. The 
prisoner was taken to Billings, and thence by the Burling- 
ton R, R, to Cheyenne. On the way the prisoner was 
treated more like a guest than like a prisoner, and had 
everv facility offered him for escape if he wished to. 
If Wittich should be found guilty he maybe fined from 
$100 to $500, or be imprisoned for not more than five 
years, or both, in the discretion of the court. 
HOOTERS. 
Portland, Ore. , June 25. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
One of the most interesting and pleasing sovmds which 
greets the ear of the angler in early spring, as he threads 
his way along the streams in quest of trout, is the soft, 
sonorous and far-reaching whoo, whoo, whoo of the male 
grouse. No woodland note is more inspiring, and he is 
no true son of Nimrod who can refrain from a glance 
into the thick branches of the giant fir from which this 
sylvan music comes. And as perchance the author of this 
hollow, deep-toned love song may lie at length along 
some overhanging branch, not far away, it is very often 
our privilege to stand and watch his ardent wooing. At 
this season and under these conditions the big blue hooter 
of this region is oblivious to aU else except the lady of his 
choice, who sits upon her nest at no great distance from 
the tree, and will continue to hoot until shot at repeat- 
edly. 
In this manner thousands of these noble game birds are 
destroyed, the functions of breeding are interfered with, 
and the species is thus rapidly exterminated. No single 
factor has wrought more havoc among the grouse of our 
covers than the almost universal practice of shooting 
hootersi Few in this region can escape the just imputa- 
tion of guUt in this direction, though it is the farmer's 
boy who is the arch offender. With his infernal .22 he is 
out in the early spring listening for the mating song of 
our best game bird, and following up its sound, with the 
knowledge that no amount of sound will disturb the au- 
thor of tl3at note, be examines the treetops until the bird 
is located and shoots him without compunction. A true 
sportsman, having the interests of game preservation in 
view, would as soon think of killing a mother grouse over 
her covey of young. 
An unfeeling brute in human form, who has h aim ted 
our forests for five years, hunting all the time, in season 
and out, slaughtering deer with little helpless fawns, 
trapping quail, hounding deer out of season, and doing 
more to decimate our country of its native game than all 
the decent hunters in the country would in ten years, was 
last week captured in the very act of shooting a hen 
grouse upon her nest. His arrest immediately followed, 
and it is to the credit of the good sense and courage of 
the court that he received the extreme penalty of the law. 
Our Mr. McNaughton contributed very much to the suc- 
cess of this righteous prosecution, and swore out a second 
complaint against the offender for illegal deer killing. 
Judge McMurray gave him $100 fine and sixty days in the 
county jail upon each count. Every true sportsman in 
this county applauds the judgment. I have dwelt at 
some length upon this case, as it forms the initial convic- 
tion of any consequence in Pierce county. 
Hitherto our excellent game laws have been openly 
violated, and owing to the impossibility of obtaining a 
conviction in this county our most efficient and energetic 
game warden, Mr. Ed. Flannigan, resigned his office in 
disgust. We congratulate Justice McMurray upon his 
sensible decision, and sincerely trust that this may mark 
the dawn of a new era in game protection. 
I was out in the park region of the Cascades several 
days of last week, and as I traveled through a region 
which only ten years ago was the best deer country in 
the Northwest, and noted the almost total absence of this 
beautiful animal, I fell to asking the old ranchers ques- 
tions. There was only one story from all of them — vari- 
ously told, regretfully by nearly all, boastfully by some, 
but the same by all: " 'Twas the hounds that did it; they 
drove them out." 
Summer and winter, spring and fall, always and forever 
were the tireless and hungry hounds baying through the 
glens and along the corridors of these temples of the syl- 
van gods; giving no respite to the timid quarry, sparing 
neither innocent xouth nor feeble age, nor respecting the 
sacred state of motherhood. Need we wonder that a 
spot which for centuries had furnished deer meat as the 
sole food supply of thousaude of Siwashes, without visible 
diminution, has become ^ silent and uninhabited tract 
under these murderous coiid|ii|pns? 
Let us be men together^ ' a|i(J, standing niftafully to- 
gether, let us fight this worst foe to the native game, the 
hound, now, before it is too late, and our deer is a thing 
of the past. Still-hunting will not visibly affect the deer 
supply in this country in the next fifty years; the hounds 
will utterly exterminate it in the next ten. 
J. A. Bekbe, M.D. 
GROUSE NEAR BOSTON. 
Boston, June 28.— We are encouraged, Gypsey Belle and 
I, for we have seen good signs. This forenoon we took a 
short run out into the country, I on my bike and Zip 
at wheel. She is as fat as butter this summer, so we took 
it easy and at the end of a half hour's run left the wheel 
in a barn and struck into the sprouts. Here we met, by 
appointment, friends and relatives: two of the boys from 
the office with a pair of Zip's puppies. We hunted up a 
stream some distance and finally got up an old partridge. 
The pups were astonished, as neither had ever seen the 
woods before, much less a bird. After exhausting all the 
wet cover on that side of the ridge we cut across country 
to a pond to give the dogs a swim, and when they had 
been washed and rinsed we crossed the ridge to lower 
ground and turned homeward. We had scarcely entered 
the birches when Zip struck a scent and before she got it 
figured out up jumped a young partridge from some blue- 
berry bushes right at our feet and went screaming over 
the knoll. I suppose he was screaming, that's about as 
close as I can describe the noise he made. He was 
evidently a badly scared bird. Soon after this Zip came 
to a point in an opening just in front of me, and while I 
was calling up the pups the birds began to get up on all 
sides of me. The woods seemed literally to be alive with 
them and Zip never moved a step until I had counted nine 
little fellows and the old bird. We started a few of them 
a second time just to interest the puppies and then left 
them, not wishing to frighten them too badly. Now that 
is a good big bunch, not only in numbers, but in sizg. 
They were a little larger than full-grown quail and made 
a good strong flight when they , got up, 
I suppose if those pups had been in the sales list of some 
prominent kennel I should have to tell how they hunted 
on their own hook, stood their birds like veterans, etc., 
etc, ; but as neither of them could be bought for love or 
money, I may tell the simple truth, which is that they 
showed more interest in chasing each other through the 
sprouts and in trying to induce their mother to leave her 
hunting and join them than they did in hunting. But 
they had a good time, the biggest kind of a good time, 
and took hold just enough to show that it was in them. 
A brood of ten large, strong birds before July 1 would 
seem to indicate a good breeding season, and if they have 
done equally well in other places there should be some 
sport next fall. Another Sunday, if there ever comes 
another when it does not rain, I shall take the camera 
along and pay this interesting family another visit and 
try for a snap shot at a "point," Boston has a few 
charms other than baked beans and east wind, for this 
brood of birds is scarcely beyond the paved streets. 
C. Harry Morse. 
Calibers. 
NOTBING delights me more than to have an old question 
like this thrashed over in Forest and Stream. I have my- 
self settled down upon the .45-70 as the most satisfactory 
cartridge for deer shooting. It is quite possible that the 
penetration of this cartridge is insufficient for quartering 
shots at moose or grizzly bears. I have no means of trying 
that. I had a .45-90 rifle for a while, but it proved to be 
inaccurate. I found its recoil rather unpleasant also; 
twenty grains less of powder make quite a difference. A 
rifle of 7i^lb8. weight, if properly stocked (and I wouldn't 
have any thing but a skotgun butt), can be fired with 70grs. 
of powder without serious discomfort. The Marlin people 
now offer to make a light weight rifle in their '95 model 
for a very slight advance in price. The Winchester Com- 
pany charges entirely too much extra for their light '86 
model, but it is a most satisfactory weapon. 
I give it as my opinion that the common idea that the 
recoil of these light weight guns throws up the muz- 
zle enough to make them inaccurate has no foundation 
in fact. One accustomed to the 40 or 48grs. of powder of 
the .44 and .38 cals. may find the shock unpleasant and 
flinch; but if he doesn't he can put the big bullet about 
where he "p'ints." 
I may remark in conclusion that last season I shot three 
deer in about the same spot, just behind the shoulder, 
through the big arteries and lungs, and every one of them 
ran some distance — one over a 100yds. — in spite of the 
.45cal. bullets. These were Gould bullets, which I prefer; 
but tempered 1 to 16 they do not mushroom much in a deer. 
I am going to try the Weed bullet. By the way, Gould's 
"Modern American Rifles" is an interesting treatise. 
Aztec. 
Maryland Beach Birds. 
Stockton, Worcester County, Md. — Our next shooting 
here will be the summer flight of beach birds down the 
coast. The first generally make their appearance about 
the last week in July. From that time on until Septem- 
ber the flights are usually constant and sure. The dry 
weather and heavy northeast gales (without rain) ruined 
our spring yellow-shank shooting. We generally average 
from 50 to 100 a day while the flight lasts, from a week 
to ten days. This year we did not average five. 
O. D. F. 
Exercises of ye Fierlock. 
A OURIO0S relic of the manual of arms in bygone days came under 
the eyes of the writer a short time ago. It was the manuscript 
"Exercises of ye Fierlock," of Col. Stafford, the grandfather of Mr, 
Christopher E. Stafford three removed of this city. Col. Stafford has 
commissions among his papers which are still preserved. "Exer- 
cises of ye Fierlock" is written on a long strip of paper in a neat and 
at present quite legible hand. There are fifty two movements re- 
corded upon the list, with the numbers opposite. The movements may 
be illustrated from the follo^ving quotations: 
"Joyne your right hand to your fierlock, poise your fierlock, cock 
your fierlock; present; fier; half-cock your fierlock; handle your car- 
teridg; open your carteridg; prime; shut your prime; cast about to 
charge; charge with carteridg; draw forth your ramrods; put them in. 
ye barrils ; recover your ramrods ; return your ramrods ; then shoulder, 
rest, order, ground, take up, rest, club, rest, secure and shoulder your 
fier locks; rest on your arms; draw your bayonets; fix your bayonets; 
rest your bayonets ; charge ; push your bayonets ; rest your bayonets on 
ye left arm; shoulder your flerlocks; present your arms, to ye right 
four times; right about; to ye left as you ware; left four times; left 
about; right as you ware; quit your arms, fftc§ t© ye right ftbout, 
march, t^pn halt, "—JFVovtrfwe^ /owrwais ' 
