188- 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
IMaech 6, 1891. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
Game Law Matters. 
Chicago, III., Feb 27.— To-day I met Mr. H, D. Nidiolls 
on the street and interviewed him in a doorway. Mr. 
Nicholls is a member of the Cumberland Gun Club, a sports- 
man well known in the city and recently elected to the - 
State Legislature. Asked as to the prospects of a sports- 
men's game law this season, he said that there was never a 
better chance for one, as all the various opposing elements 
were in a fair state of reconciliation for the time being. "It 
all rests with the sportsmen of the State, and more espe- 
cially of the city of Chicago," said Mr. NichoUs, "as to what 
the future of a good game bill may be. If you men here in 
Chicago will agree as to what you want I think it not too 
much to say that there is a good opportunity to get the measure 
through at the Legislature. If there is any strong game dealer 
lobby at the Capital this year, I have not seen or heard of it. 
As to the game warden, I don't know who will be put up 
for that oiiice ; but I am assured that Gov. Tanner (our new 
Governor) will listen very attentively to what the sportsmen 
may have to say, as he realizes that they have studied this 
situation carefully and have the facts better in hand than 
anyone can have to whom the subject is entirely new. It 
seems that there is some divergency of belief among the Chi- 
cago sportsmen as to what the desirable features of a new 
bill should be, but if there should ever seem to be a consen- 
sus of opinion on these subjects, I can only say that I will 
do all in my power to further the measm-e agreed upon. 
There seems "to be a better understanding of these matters in 
the Legislature now than there was a few years ago, and I 
think we have more than a fighting chance "to get a rational 
game law enacted." 
What the [State of Wisconsin will do at this session of the 
Legislature is still a problem. All sorts of weird proppsi- 
tiona are before the lawinakers, There is a bill up which 
would put a $30 license on all non-resident deer hunters, and 
a license of $25 on all hunters pursuing anything else but 
deer. This is not yet in a forward condition, but there is a 
strong feeling for a non-resident licenise act similar to that 
enacted by Michigan. Spring shooting is decried by certain 
sections ot the State, but there is every probability that Wis- 
consin will hold to the childish, dog-in-the-manger position 
of allowing certain forms of spring shooting so long as 
Ilhnois does so. Should this be the case, it is altogether likely 
that many years will elapse before Wisconsin stops spring 
shooting, bo the gentlemen of that State reflect upon the dif- 
ference in climatic conditions between the southern end of Illi- 
nois and the middle portion of Wisconsin, for instance? It 
will be a work of many years before the country precincts 
of southern Illinois will agree to a spring shooting law. Is 
it for that reason rational that the men of Wisconsin should 
deprive each other of their own shooting by the wasteful 
methods of shooting breeding birds in the springtime? This 
does not seem wise. The Wisconsin men should remember 
that the sportsmen of Illinois are not the ones who oppose 
most strenuously the passage of a spring shooting law, but 
that it is the shooters who are less entitled to the claim of 
sportsmanship. It does not appear rational for them to in- 
jure each other in their own State for the sake of waging 
war against men who do properly classify with themselves. 
The sportsmen of Wisconsin have for some time had far 
greater weight in the State Legislature than have the sportsmen 
of Illinois. They should remember their good fortune in 
this matter and not seek to wage retaliatory war 
against the sportsmen of Illinois, who are not the 
ones really to blame for the state of affairs, and 
who certainly are not to be accused of the geographical 
arrangement of the State, with its hundreds of miles of north 
and south extent, covering a variation of thirty days in 
shooting seasons, on more birds than one. The sportsmen 
of Chicago are always looked up to in the matter of game 
laws, and are criticised for not securing better laws, but do 
all the critics know the conditions under which the efforts 
at better laws are made by the Chicago men? They have to 
fight the whole lower end of this State, which is solidly 
arrayed against Chicago and the upper part of the State, and 
moreover they are obliged to fight the game dealers, those 
heathen near at home who constitute the chief menace 
to the Illinois game and the game of every Western 
State. Is it logical or right that the sportsmen of 
Wisconsin should "retaliate" against the sportsmen of 
tipper Illinois? If Wisconsin had Chicago and "Egypt" 
on her hands, both at the same time, she might know 
grief. If she had a great game market, such as Chicago, 
Boston or New York, within her confines, she might 
better understand the difliculty of attaining what she knew 
was a desirable game law. The thing for Wisconsin to do 
is to pass just as strict a game law as she can get through, 
and not to make it any easier on account of vphat Illinois 
does or does not do. This is business, and business for her 
own men, who are the ones most benefited. There does not 
exist upon the statute books of the last State of the Union, 
not even among all the mass of freaks and absurdities of 
game law legislation, a more absurd and more puerile law 
than that which says Wisconsin will stop all spring shooting 
as soon as Illinois does. This is empnatically cutting ofi: 
one's nose to spite one's face. 
Ducks Coming: in. 
The question of spring shooting will come up for individ- 
ual settlement very soon now for this season. The ducks 
have made their appearance in this latitude already. At 
Swan Lake Club they were observed in some numbers this 
week, and they have also been seen on the Kankakee in some 
numbers. A few parties have gone out for an early scout, 
and within the week, if the weather should remain mild, 
there will bemany guns taken from their cases. A friend of 
mine says a game hog is the man who kills the game one 
wants to kill himself, and a spring shooter isa manVho does 
what we would all like to Qo ourselves. How about this 
cynical look at good old human nature? 
Shot in the Field. 
Mr. Harvey McMurchy, of the Hunter Arms Co., is in 
Chicago this week, having thus got this far north from the 
San Antonio Midwinter shoot. It is now thought that Mr. 
McMurchy will not be forced to suffer amputation of the leg 
which be had frozen in the Sunny South last month. While 
at San Antonio Mr. McMurchy and Mr. C. E. Willard 
dropped down to the gulf coast for a little shoot at ducks, 
quail, etc. At Rockport they met a friend, Mr. Suydam, 
late of Denver, who has discovered Rockport to be the place 
he long has sought, and who has settled there for a life of 
ease and healthfulness. Mr. Suydam took out the 
two Northern men and gave them a rar« touch 
o£ sport which extended through duck and goose 
shooting, quail shooting, doTe shooting, and angling for 
redfish at Aransas Pass, in all of which branches of 
activity they were very successful. Finally they went out 
for a quail shoot on the Coleman-Fulton Pasture Co.'s ranch, 
being joined in this by still another Northern man, an Ohio 
gentleman who is spending the winter in this Southern para- 
dise. The latter gentleman proved a little bit excitable, and 
found occasion during the first fifteen minutes of the hunt 
to shoot a load of bird shot into the front part of Mr. Mc- 
Murchy's form. The main portion of the charge, which was 
fired at a very close range, fortunately struck in the ground 
close at Mr. McMurchy's feet. A few pellets of shot dented 
his gun stock and a few struck him on the arm, penetrating 
his heavy corduroy shooting coat. Of these a portion 
went in to the bone of the elbow, but were extracted on the 
spot without trouble. One or two other pellets are carried 
as souvenirs of the occasion. It was very fortunate that the 
charge ot shot did not strike Mr. McMurchy in the face, for 
had that been the case his eyes must surely have gone It 
is perhaps unnecessary to make comment upon an incident 
of this Mod. 
Personal. 
Mr. A. Hirth, mentioned earlier as forced to leave his 
Avork at the tackle counter of Spalding's by reason of seri- 
ous illness, is still a very sick man, though he has struggled 
down on two different occasions to his place at the store. 
Mr. Hirth is much pulled down, and will need many weeks 
of rest and recuperation before he will be himself again. 
There is no man in this city who could take his place, for 
his personal hold on the high-class tackle and gun trade of 
this city is something no other salesman of the West has 
ever approached. Both customers and friends, therefore, 
wish his speedy return to the place he has hardly left for a 
number of years preceding. 
Mr. Thos. H. Keller, of the Peters Cartridge Co., Cincin- 
nati, is in Chicago tJiis week, working on East after his 
Southern trip. Mr. KeUer expects to save two or three of 
the fingers on the hand which was frozen during the blizzard 
in the Sunny South. He stopped for a look in at the Hot 
Springs, Ark., trap tournament, and then went out into 
Iowa for a business run. 
Mr. Harry McKinney, of Janesville, Wis., one of the best 
canrasback shots around Lake Koshkonong, was in Chicago 
for a short time this week and called at this oflice for the 
purpose of offering confirmation of facts stated in regard to 
the artesian canvaaback well on the Bingham homestead. 
Dull Times. 
There is general talk among the gun men and other travel- 
ing men that times were never so dull all over the country as 
they are this season. Gun stocks are allowed to run lower 
than ever was known, and all similar lines of sporting goods 
are equally inactive. It is hoped that warm weather may 
liven things up a bit and relieve the traveling representatives 
somewhat of the blue feeling they now experience. 
Good Otter Season. 
I have word from Fay L. Buck, a hustling young trapper 
of Manitowish, Wis., that the present winter has been a 
very good one for fur in bis country. He says he trapped 
one month before Christmas and caught four beautiful otter, 
but has done no trapping since Christmas. Had he not been 
taken sick and laid up he thinks he could have caught at 
least a dozen otter this winter, for he has never seen them 
so plentiful as they were early in the winter. Fay is now 
running his line again and expects soon to have a little ship- 
ment of fur on hand. 
Western Game Law Views. 
At first sight it seems a far ciy from Congress to Chicago, 
but really there was a bit of Congressional action recently 
which has a certain significance to Chicago men who have 
kept track of the game law movements of the day. Men- 
tion has been made in these columns of the proposed Baird 
amendment to the interstate commerce laws regulating the 
traflic in game so that it shall be unlawful for one State to 
receive game which wag unlawful in the State from which 
it came,"with other and further restrictions not at this time 
needful to recapitulate. In the .debate on the oleomargarine 
bill in the House on -Tan. 14 some features came up which 
are almost identical with those involved in the Baird amend- 
ment. The oleo bill was finally passed, 126 to 96. 
"The bill saj's that all articles known as oleomargarine, 
butterine, imitation butter, or cheese not made exclusively of 
pure, unadulterated milk or cream, upon arrival within the 
liinits of a State or Territory shall be subject to the opera- 
tion and efliect of the laws of such State or Territory in the 
same manner as though such articles had been produced in 
the State or Territory, and shall not be exempt by reason 
Of being introduced in original packages or otherwise." 
If Congress can do thus with the product of a State, why 
can it not do so with another? Why will these provisions 
not extend handsomely to the shipments of game made from 
one State to another? That is interstate commerce, and 
there is a good deal to it. Is it necessarily folly to suppose 
that a like amendment cannot be made to the interstate 
commerce laws as regarding game? 
A Cry from Minnesota. 
There comes to this office of Forest and Stream a letter 
from Mr, G. W. Millhouse, of Minnesota, which properly 
belongs in the editorial rooms of Forest and Stream, but 
which I take great pleasure in stealing. It is one of the 
strongest proofs yet offered of the wisdom of Forest and 
Stream's editorial platform plank, now famous; "Stop the 
sale of game." It is an easy promise that the paper will do 
anything it can in furtherance of Mr, Millhouse's plans, and 
anyone who can help in this pioneer Western movement for 
the estabhshment of the "plank" will be doing good for 
sport in one of the few remaining Western States which 
have any game left. Mr. Millhouse's letter follows: "Rqad- 
ing the Forest and Stream, I have become convinced that 
the only solution to the question of saving our game was 
your idea of stopping the sale of the same at any and all 
times, and any and all kinds of game; I firmly believe it and 
have been talking to Senator H. J. Miller, of this place, 
relative to the introduction of a bill to prohibit the sale of 
game in Minnesota. 
"During the session of 1895 and 1896 he sounded some of 
the senators upon this subject and found quite an opposition 
from those districts in the northern part of the State where 
a great many of the poorer class reside, because they can 
partially subsist on the money obtained from the sale of the 
State's ducks, chickens, quaU, partridges, etc. Now Sen- 
ator Miller is strictly in line in this matter, he is himself an 
ardent and fair sportsman and believes this thing shoul'd be 
brought about. He has asked me to prepare argument in 
favor of this measure, and I, fearing that I cannot get all 
the reasons why in the best possible manner, turn to you, 
whom I know to be deeply interested, and ask that you pre- 
pare and send to me your very best effort to bring the North- 
ern senators in line, and your strongest plea for the pas'^age 
of this act. Will you help us? " G. W, Millhoufe,"' 
Planting Cottontails. 
Mr. L Kennedy, of Janesville, Wis., who deals in furs and 
that sort of thing, writes me that he has just received an or- 
der from Winters & Suess, of Negaunee,'Mich,, for 200 live 
cottontail rabbits, which are to be turned loose in the Michi- 
gan forests. Mr. Kennedy says he will send some rabbit?, 
but hardly expects to fill the entire order. He says: "I have 
twenty cottontail rabbits in brush houses made for them. 
They are not inclosed by tight fences, but still they do not 
leave. I feed them corn and clover hay, and they seem sat- 
isfied where they are." 
This is the first time I have ever heard of shipping cotton- 
tails for the purpose of putting them down as game. The 
winters in upper Michigan are very severe, and the big hares 
do better than the cottontail, but perhaps the little fellows 
will thrive in the Negaunee region, E. Hough. 
1208 BoYCE BuiLDiNO, Chicago. !. 
A MARYLAND WEEK. 
Philadelphia. — Editor Forest and Stream.' In January I 
made a trip to Stockton, Md., where I was the guest of Mr. 
0. D. Foulks, and enjoyed a week of quail shooting far 
superior to what one could expect in these daysof depleted 
covers. There were birds everywhere, and good-sized 
coveys at that, but they were not "easy" — quite the con- 
trary, being large, strong, educated birds— seldom found in 
the open, and when so found taking to the densest cover 
at once, making the shooting of the most difficult order 
and testing the dog's nose and bird-sense to the fullest 
extent, all of which is the very acme of sport to one who 
goes for sport alone. The pot-hunter could hardly earn 
enough to pay for his shells in this country, as it is a suc- 
cession of marsh, cornfield, rank sedge, cat-brier thickets, 
woods, and all that affords the quail the safest cover and a 
natural preserve. Nothing will prove disastrous to the 
birds here except the hardest of winters. 
The people so far have been very generous in allowing 
sportsmen to shoot over their grounds; but how long this 
may continue is a matter of conjecture, though as a class i 
they are the most generous, frank and unselfish people it 
has been my fortune to meet. 
I enjoyed some of the finest shooting of my life over my i 
pointer puppy Sam — now fourteen months old— a thor- , 
oughbred, and the gamest puppy I ever saw afield. Mr. F. 
raised and trained fiim for me as a personal favor, and with 
such success that the pup found all our coveys, all singles — 
and some in places where it looked impossible — and re- 
trieved every bird shot; dead, wing-tipped or apparently 
lost, it made no difference, he found every one. He 
hunted day in and day out and made a jiractically errorless ■ 
record. Needless to say, I now envy no man his field trial 
winner nor his meat dog. Mr. F. does not train dogs for the 
public, but he could do so with credit and profit to himself. 
Mr. F.'s house faces Assateagne Bay, famous for geeise, 
brant and ducks, and where I have enjoyed many days of 
good duck shooting, as all the facilities are at hand for 
that sport in the way of sink box, decoys, blinds, etc.; but ■ 
the wildfowl .shooting has been poor this winter, for what ; 
I'eason none of the old gunners seem able to tell. Can it t 
be that ducks are getting scarce? We were out one day ' 
and killed four, but could have done much better had it i 
not been for the drifting ice. The bay is planted with the ■ 
choicest of salt oysters, a goodly portion of which belong 
to my genial friend and thorough sportsman, Mr. Alfred 
Child, so that the best the bay afforded was none too good I 
for us. Home comforts in the leisure hours, with a friendly 'j 
acquaintance with all the neighbors, helped to pass all too . 
quickly the bachelor's vacation — a week, that will live long 
in memory as a time of pure and unalloyed pleasure, due 
to the untiring efforts of Mr. Foulks and his interesting 
family. And, best of all, I have the invitation to 'come 
again." That is luek good enougli to report to Forest li 
AND Stream. Bachelor. | 
Florida Hunting and Fishing^. 
PuNTA GoRDA, Fla. , Feb. 16.— Mr. Chas. A. Dean, of 
Boston, who has been cruising along the Florida West Coast 
in his launch Myakka, with headquarters at Hotel Punta 
Gorda, returned Jast night from a short hunting trip near 
Myakka. He came back with a snake story which I think 
will interest readers of Forest and Stream. Just about 
noon, after a morning of fine sport, he raised a covey of quail. 
He wounded one, and his dog, a young pointer, followed the 
flock. Immediately after he heard a rattler, aad soon saw 
the snake in a clump of bushes. It had been hunting too, 
and had its fangs fastened in one of the quail. Mr. Dean 
tried to call off his dog, but Jack was after quail. He ran 
in and pulled the bird right out of the snake's mouth, As 
soon as he could get a chance, and while it was coiling for 
another spring, Mr. Dean blew off the reptile's head. Later 
in the day he shot another rattler, even larger than the first. 
Ml'. Dean usually carries with him materials for treating 
snake-biies by hypodermic injection. This day he had left 
his outfit at the hotel, and those were the first rattlesnakes 
he has run across this season. 
Mr. Dean reports the game and fish as very plentiful along 
the West Coast this season. He and the other hunters keep 
the hotel larder well stocked with these delicacies, which are 
served at their tables nearly every night. As one Nimrod 
remarked, "That is half the fun of hunting from the Punta 
Gorda." 
Mr. D. H. Moore and wife, of Ohio, got back the other 
day from a week's camping under the Florida pines. They 
were out in one or two severe rain storms. The last night 
for a little while it blew a regular gale, so that Mr. Moore 
and the two guides were obliged to hold on to the tent in 
order to keep it over Mrs. Moore. In the morning they 
found themselves in the midst of a veritable lake, and water 
within Sin. of the bottom of their cots. It quickly drained 
off, however, so they were able to get out without any 
difficulty. But this was only an incident and an experience. 
Both Mr. and Mrs. Moore thoroughly enjoyed their camp- 
ing out, and only regretted that business called them home 
so soon. They brought in one deer, nine wild turkey 
gobblers and quaU by the dozen. B. M. D, 
