Feb. 6, 1897.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
107 
Maine Guide Licenses. 
It seems that Fish and Game Cotnmissioner Carlton, of 
Maine, is disposed to modify his guide license hill a good 
deal, and that the pressure has been so great against it 
that he has come out in the newspapers in defense of it. 
He says, over his own signature, in one of the papers, that 
he is willing to waive the matter of license fees if the 
guides will pay for their own badges. He also declared 
that the bill is not framed to interfere with the friend or 
farmer who presumes to accompany a sportsman on a fish- 
ing or shooting trip. He says that steamboat captains, into 
whose hands the hunters andfishermen visiting Maine trust 
their lives, have to have a license, then why should not 
guides who take care of the same sportsmen in the woods 
be licensed? He does not say that lie would license every 
railway engineer, fireman, conductor or brakeman for the 
same reason. Neither does he propose that stage, buck- 
board or carriage drivers should be licensed by the State. 
Yet they all presume to take care of the visiting hunters 
and fishermen. His principal line of defense for his bill 
is that it is impossible to stop summer shooting with the 
means now provided, and that licensed guides will do it. 
He does not say where the cook or the hired man leaves 
off and where the guide begins. He is very fair about the 
matter and invites a full hearing at Augusta on Wednes- 
day, Feb. 3. The railroads in that State have generally 
granted half fares to that hearing, and it promises to be 
one of great interest. The best sportsmen with whom I 
have talked agree that there can be no real objection to 
empowering the best of the guides to enforce the tish and 
game laws, but that a general license law for all guides or 
persons working for sportsmen would be a great failure. 
They also say that some law that will prevent the guides 
from shooting game for sportsmen, and to sell to them, will 
save more game than is killed by summer shooting. 
Special. 
Where the Wild Horse is a Nuisance. 
Wild horses are getting to be quite numerous again on 
the flats in the Texas Panhandle and in Beaver county. 
They are very troublesome, as they lead away the horses 
belonging to the cow men and grangers, and when a do- 
mesticated horse once gets with a wild bunch it is an all 
day's job, and sometimes it takes several days, to catch 
him. The laziest old crowbait alive, or the gentlest family 
horse, after associating for a few days with these mustangs, 
seems to forget his raising; all the old-time wildness of his 
forefathers seems to crop out in him, and although formerly 
he may have allowed himself to be caught anywhere, he 
will not then permit a man to get within half a mile of 
him. About the only way to recover a horse of this kind 
is to run the entire bunch down and corral them, or rope 
the ones wanted. Nearly all our stockmen have lost horses 
in this manner, and the mustang, instead of being looked 
upon with respect and with covetous eyes, as in the past 
is now considered an intruder and a pest, and is shot down 
whenever opportunity offers. Since horses became so 
cheap there is no object in catching mustangs, and this 
once valuable representative of the best friend of man is 
now classed in the same category as the coyote and other 
"varmints." — Beaver {Okla/toma) 'Herald. 
Thinks it not of Vital Interest. 
Boston, Jan. 26. — Editor Forest and Slreara: Inquiry and 
replies as to "Who Owns the Game Killed by the Guide " 
in your late issues, cannot be to most of your readers 'a 
matter of vital interest. 
To those others we might suggest the usefulness of the 
guide in preventing them from losing their way; in taking 
them to correct grounds, that they may not waste their 
vacation in tramping a country where no game is to be 
found; in teaching them the habits of the birds and in 
handling the dogs; in showing them where they may not 
correctly use the gun, and explain how it happens that the 
birds get away so often; in assisting them in many ways 
as carrying the lunch and the extra shells, in marking the' 
dead birds and the live ones. 
So that perchance those others will reach that point 
where, when the guide turns up with his gun, either the 
guide or his gun remains in camp, and it won't matter 
much which. Special Hackle. 
Bears Killed in Maine in! 1896. 
Bethel, Me., Jan. 23. — Editor Forestiand Stream: I have 
received letters from the treasurers of ten towns bordering 
on the unbroken forests of northern Oxford county, reply- 
ing to my inquiries as to how many bounties they had 
paid on bears the past season, and find they aggregate 
fifty-one killed. Bethel is the banner town, having se- 
sured fourteen. Newry killed ten, and Gilead eight, and 
Eoxbury seven. 
H. T. Stiles, of West Bethel, shot six running loose in 
the woods, they being the most killed by any one man in 
these parts. Two years ago there were eighty killed in 
these towns; last year only a few. J. G. Rich. 
Deer in Southern New Hampshire. 
Manchester, N. H., Jan. 29. — The Legislature is now in 
session. We hope to see a bill passed to prevent killing 
deer in the southern counties. There have been quite a 
number seen in the city limits, and some have been killed 
very near here. We have a large amount of second growth 
of hardwood, miles in extent, that is good cover for deer- 
and in a few yeara they would be quite plenty if they 
could have full protection. Jug the man that kills a deer 
near here within the next five to ten years. H. 
Sportsman (to Soobson, who hasn't brought down a 
single bird all day) — "Dj you know Lord Peckham?" 
Snobson — ' Oh, dear, yes; I've often shot at his house." 
Sportsman — "Ever hit il?' — Punch. 
Farmer — "You've shot my cow!" 
Dooley — "Ba gobbs, an' I told ther grocer mon as plain 
a3 cud be to give me bu-r r d shotl" — Puck. 
The Forest akd Stream is put to press each week on 
Tuesday. Correspondence intended for publicatton 
should reach us at the latest hy Monday, and o« much 
tariitr tu prcuttoable. 
"That reminds me." 
The Most Peculiar Thing he had ever Noticed. 
A coerespondent who wrote from Currituck, N. C, the 
other day, tells of the untoward fortune of duck shooting 
there during his stay, and winds up with a good story: 
"I have been most of the time aggravated almost beyond 
endurance by the wildfowl. We have had nothing but 
summer weather, warm and lazy-like; there are plenty of 
birds, but they would not decoy well, but congregate in 
large rafts in the middle of the Sound, every unce in a 
while rising in vast clouds, and such honking and quack- 
ing you have never heard. As I am writing I can hear 
them at it; sounds like a half dozen country schools let 
loose for recess at the one time. Within the last three 
days we have had some cold, stormy weather, consequently 
more birds and better prospects. I noticed particularly one 
large flight of sprigs with a few bunches of redheads. 
There are a great many swans here, and from the house 
one can at any time see a thousand of them sitting on the 
bar less than a mile away, looking for all the world like a 
big snow bank. 
"One of White's guides, a nephew, told me a story the 
other day while in the blind that deserves a place in your 
'That Reminds Me' column. I wish you could hear the 
native twang with which the story was told. I had asked 
him what was the most pecuHar thing he had ever noticed 
while gunning. 'Wal, I'll tell yer. We was a-setting out 
in the Sound a-shooting and I noticed a canvasback a- 
comin' from the no'th right smart, and then I seed another 
canvasback comin' from the south and he was flying right 
peart. The sun was a-shinin' just so as one bird never 
noticed the other, and pretty soon they come together 
crash and fell in the water. I went and picked them up, 
both stone dead. They was both split open clean from 
their bills down their breasts, and that's gospel truth.' 
"I suggested that the medal at Washington was his if he 
would only claim it, but as the idea seemed to kind of hurt 
his feelings I have not pressed it too much." 
W. E. Sawyer. 
§m mid $iv^r S^tfing. ' 
Proprietors of fishing resorts vrill find it lyrofitahle to advertise 
them in Forest and Stream, 
THE MASSACHUSETTS ASSOCIATION. 
Boston, Feb. 1. — Editor Forest and Stream: ^ Ihe mem- 
bers and guests of this Association, 180 of them> assembled 
at the Copley Square Hotel last Saturday* even;ng to d.s- 
cuss a good dinner (tickets $3), review the work of the 
year and enjoy an evening of right down good-fellowship 
— all of which they did in a large degree. Col. Eockwell 
presided and the special guests were Governor Wolcott; 
Hon. Winslow Warren, Collector of the Port; Judge Edgar 
Aldrich, of the TJ. S. District Court; E. B. Haskell, Esq.; 
Hon. Hubert Williams, Fish Commissioner of Connecticut; 
A. W. Robinson, president of the Megantic Club, and Geo. 
H, Lyman, Jr. Others present wetre ex-President B. C. 
Clark, ex-President Geo. W. Wiggin, Hon. W. F. Ray, J. G 
Ray, Hon. J. Q. A. Field, Wm. H. Sweatt, A. D. Thayer, 
Charles Stewart, Dr. J. T. Stetson, J. Russell Reed, Waldron 
Bates, J. S. Duncklee, Sidney Chase, E. T. Barker, William 
Almy, Geo. O. Sears, W. F. Almy, Rollin Jones, John N. 
Roberts, Chas. G. Gibson, E. E. Small, Sidney Chase, Alex- 
ander Pope, N. L. Martin, Dr. W. J. Brigham, E. C. Nor- 
ton, Dr. G. H. Payne, Secretary Kimball, H. D. Litchfield, 
W. B. Hastings, H. F. Coleman, Benj. F. Stevens, A. R. 
Brown H. G. Kyser, S. W. Rich, C. M. BI^Ke, Hon. Robt. 
S. Gray, E. E. Allen, W. B. Kehoe, J. Payson Bradley, C. 
F. Munroe, Chas. A. Allen, Warren Hapgood, J. N. Aker- 
man, Hon. A. B. R. Sprague, Mayor of Worcester; B, V. 
Howe, Dr. E. W. Branigan, A. A. Glasier, John E. Hall, 
Thomas Hall, C. M. Bryant, Dr. Robert M. Read, L. W. 
Sumner, W- K. Churchill, Wm. C. Thairlwall, Wm. F. 
Bacon, Edward E. Hardy, Loring Crocker, Dr. J. W. Ball, 
Henry J. Thayer, Dr. W. H. Tobey, E. P. Wilbur, C. W. 
Dimick, Chas. F. Proctor, S. A. Lincoln, Chas. S. Lewis, 
Geo. Rimbach and Walter M. Brackett. The dining hall 
was very elaborately decorated, the walls being hung with 
handsome skins, while fine heads of moose, deer and cari- 
bou were very much in evidence. The dinner was an 
excellent one and was made Up largely of the most tempt- 
ing specimens of fish and game. Tom Henry's orchestra 
played and the company joined in singing several of the 
popular songs of the day. When cigars were reached 
President Rockwell opened the speech making. 
Col. Rockwell's Address. 
Although this is not an occasion for "business" in the 
ordinary sense of the word, but is for other purposes, use- 
ful in their way — and well understood by you — yet follow- 
ing the established and appropriate custom, I shall very 
briefiy pass in review the events of the past in which this 
Association has had an agency or exerted an influence. 
The story of 1896 is short, but important. There were pre- 
sented to the Legislature several measures which engaged 
the attention of your oflicers,and were watched with their 
usual assiduity and circumspection, especially by your 
president, Mr. Clark, your counsel, Mr. Reed, and your 
secretary, Mr. Kimball. Two only were of such impor- 
tance, in respect to the general policy of our laws, as to 
require mention. In neither case, I am glad to say, was 
any injurious enactment secured; and the defeat of the 
propositions was exactly in line with the purpose of this 
Association as avowed, and, as I believe, consistently main- 
tained — to serve the interest of the community as a whole, 
as distinguished from private interests, whether of the 
mercantile sort or of the kind imputed to amateur sports- 
men. The two matters to which I allude were the propo- 
sitions to reduce the length limit of lobsters, and to permit 
the sale of game at all seasons of the year irrespective of 
the legality of its possession. Neither of these matters 
need to be argued here. You thoroughly understand the 
pernicious nature of both propositions. Notwithstanding 
that the Legislature was induced by the pressure of private 
interests to approve the short lobster bill, that bill &iled 
to become a law through the wisdom and .firmness of the 
executive, Acting Governor Wolcott. 
We trust the lobster question is not to be reopened at 
present. It has been with us for twenty years; and though 
the benefits of restrictive legislation have been amply de- 
monstrated, I personally believe much larger and more 
beneficial results might be obtained by increasing the 
present restrictions. It is, however, agreed that it would 
be unwise to seek for any such legislation at present. 
The scheme of the game dealers to open the doors to the 
practically unrestricted sale of game in Massachusetts at 
all seasons, whether illegally exported from other States 
or not, was successfully resisted. It would seem that it 
ought to be impossible to revive it, in view of the strin- 
gency of ihe laws of other States, even of those having a 
much larger commercial interest than Massachusetts in the 
disposal of game. 
Massachusetts law already gives the dealer privileges un- 
known to the other States, and to extend them cannot flail 
to work disastrously. 
Carrying our retrospect hack over the twenty-two years 
of our existence, we are able to take satisfaction in the 
measure of good work done, and of evil successfully re- 
sisted. As a few of the elders will remen^ber, this Associa- 
tion was first called the "Anglers' Association." It was 
formed by a coterie who had in view at the time a very 
limited field of labor as compared with that which we now 
cover. The objects named in their charter were simply 
and only "the securing and enforcing proper restrictions 
upon the taking and killing of fish, shellfish and bi\^lves, 
and the promotion of fishciflture." Their first campaign 
was devoted to nothing more nor less than the protection 
of the smelt fishery. That fishery was in danger of exter- 
mination so far as Massachusetts was concerned, but the 
Anglers succeeded in saving it, and to-day the smelt is 
found in our waters in profusion. The community, which 
prizes this fish so highly, certainly owes to our predecessors 
a meed of gratitude for their disinterested labors in this 
case. In succeeding years came beneficial action as to trout 
and lobsters; and later still came the change to our present 
title, and the enlarged field of labor and increased scope of 
usefulness as to game. 
It is needless to parade those details which would cover 
the statistics of the work which has been done, or to esti- 
mate the value of the faithful and zealous labor of those 
who have had your cause in hand, to say nothing of your 
constant support and help as a body, and of the consider- 
able sums of money expended. To sum up results would 
be to say that conditions as to the laws and their enforce- 
ment are greatly improved; and that the public sentiment, 
which must make the present laws and their enforcement 
realize their full fruits, and make possible further advances 
in the same direction, has been educated to the point where 
we can confidently appeal to it in support of any wise and 
conservative measures. 
While we hope and believe that during the current year 
it will be expedient to rest contented upon the ground we 
now hold, it is certain that the work of this Association is 
not done. Even the Massachusetts Fish and Game Com- 
mission, which is generally deemed a pretty conservative 
body, have pointed out in their recent report evils to be 
remedied and objects to be gained in the line of our 
policy. 
Our Association has been the subject of various criti- 
cisms, which, if I were to place in groups, I should say 
were, first, that we have done too much, and second, that 
we hiive done too little. From my knowledge of the his- 
tory of the Association from the start, I am able to state 
my belief that the first criticism is unfounded, and if there 
is any ground for the second, it is not because the oflicers 
for the time being have refrained from attempting to gain 
an advanced position when there was any decent prospect 
of success. As to the execution of the laws, if, as some be- 
lieve, more energy would be useful, I express my belief 
that that is not properly our field. The policy of the State 
is so thoroughly settled, and the public sentiment is so far 
crystallized in its support, that it appears to me that police 
duty should be done by the constituted authorities, with 
only such auxiliary aid/rom us as any body of good citizens 
should give in like cases. 
This leads me to say in conclusion, that I hope and be- 
lieve one great result has been accomplished, or so nearly 
accomplished that we can rely upon its helpfulness in our 
future work, and that is, that we have attained that strong 
position as a moral force in the community for which 
we have striven during all these years. I had occa- 
sion to say at the recent dinner of the Megantie 
Club, when we were alluded to as a "sister organization,'' 
that while I recognized the family relation and was proud 
to acknowledge it, I considered the relation something dif- 
ferent; that is to say, that their organization — one of the 
best, most useful of its kind, and collaterally giving assis- 
tance to our work — was essentially a private organization, 
with private interests predominating, and general interests 
subordinate thereto; while we have no private interests to 
serve, except as they are incidental to a few iadividuals. 
We have suffered sometimes defeat, and manj' times delay, 
in our public work from the imputation of selfish motives. 
We were said to be a club of sportsmen, working for laws 
and restrictions for our personal benefit. It has b«en idle 
for us to protest to the contrary, or to point out the fruits of 
our labors in measures manifestly in the general interest. 
To-day, however, I believe a better understanding exists, 
and while we could hardly be credited with pure altruism, 
we may claim to be esteemed for what we have done and 
what we are. It should certainly be our aim in the future 
to establish ourselves in a position to confidently anticipate 
the public support; to make for ourselves the reputation of 
laboring for results which have no taint of self-interest, but 
are absolutely consistent with a sound and permanent pub- 
lic policy; 
Gov. Wolcott was received with great enthusiasm, as he 
has a very warm place in the hearts of the members of the 
Association. He spoke feelingly of the objects of the men 
who had made the Association a power in the matter of 
fish and game protection, and he had no doubt that it 
would continue in the good work. Hon. Winslow Warren, 
collector of the port, followed with an entertaining talk, 
taking occasion to refer to the arbitration treaty, and 
claimed for Massachusetts a large share of credit in that 
most beneficent work. E. B. Haskell, Esq., the well-known 
editor and proprietor, with President Rockwell, of Ellerton 
Lodge at the Rangeleys, made a humorous speech from 
the fishearman'a side. At this point Mr. Warren Hapgood 
