JDI.T 34, 1897.1 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
67 
be seen, instead of nearly a dozen, as might have been the 
case at one time. 
We all felt yery badly that McChesney had not killed 
his ram that day, but figured that it must have been most 
unusual good fortune had he done so, and remarked that 
the hunt was just beginning and that we were sure to get 
all the game we wanted without any trouble. At this Mc- 
Chesney was visibly consoled. He resented vigorously 
any intimation that his umbrella had anything to do with 
bis killing a sheep, though 0-to-kd-mi seemed sensible of 
some evil influence which had worked against them. 
I asked O-to-ko-mi if he liked the big rifle (the .45-70) 
which I had given him instead of the .30-30, and he replied 
with a smile and a movement of his right hand, palm 
down, straight out in front of him, which in sign language 
is to say, "It is good, it is all right." But he shrugged his 
shoulder and looked unresponsive when I told him that I 
had found the little rifle all right, too. He never would 
carry that gun again, though he seemed pleased when I 
told him that I, too, had had trouble with the sight, and 
had so missed some shots with it. 
Meat In Camp. 
O-to-ko-mi had brought down some ribs from his sheep 
and we made a fine roast of a side of ribs, spreading the 
side apart with a pointed stick, which was hung by the 
middle to a rope, suspended from a cross-pole above the 
fire. Here the rib roast sputtered and crackled and grew 
brown and aggravatingly good to look upon, slowly getting 
itself cooked as it spun around on the twisting rope, while 
we were getting the cofi"ee and tea ready, and while Billy 
was engineering his inevitable pot of ten thousand joys. 
Thus we soon forgot our aches and pains and sore spots 
and grew very cheerful and communicative. McChesney 
was highly pleased with his abilitv to keep up on this 
hunt. "If any one back home had told me I could do a 
day of such work as I have done to-day, I should have 
thought him joking," said he. "We must have gone fifteen 
or twenty miles, I should think, over country I did not 
know human beings could cross. After we left you we did 
not need to use the snowshoes much longer, for we got to 
bare ground. Then we climbed up to hard snow, some of 
the time having to dig footholds with the heels of our 
snowshoes. When we got up on the top of the mountain 
the wind had the anow packed into ice, and it was cold, 
awfaUy, bitterly cold. That Indian, there, is made of iron, 
and he can't get tired. He'll go anywhere, and he has 
fairly walked the legs off of ns to-day. He's a corker to 
climb, I want to tell you." 
Asked if he was tired, O-to-ko-mi thoughtfully rubbed 
his legs a little but shook his head. He is indeed a man 
of iron, and I imagine few men are his betters in the 
mountains. If he wanted to get out and extend himself 
he could have gone clean away from any of our party. 
Hunter Powell had had a shot at a sheep that day, but 
failed to score. He too was like O-to-ko-mi about the 
fire, silent, but with eyes fixed firmly on the rib-roast 
which was swinging above the blaze of the lodge fire. "I 
have eaten skunk," said he at one time, "an' I'm hungry 
enough to eat it now. I want to say that skunk is all right 
if you can't get anything better, though I don't believe but 
what this here roast ia a little better." 
How the Bannocks Get Bighorns. 
Powell told us that he at one time lived over in the 
country of the Bannock Indians, and said that those In- 
dians were very fond of sheep hunting and very successful 
at it. They use dogs in their hunting, taking advantage of 
the fact that the sheep, when pursued by dogs, make a 
stand and turn heads out to fight the dogs, so giving the 
hunters a chance to slip up on them. It was said even to- 
day the Bannocks sometimes use their old weapons, the 
bow and arrow, in killing sheep thus with dogs, preferring 
the bow and arrow to the rifle, as making no noise. 
Sometimes they have killed nearly all of a bunch of sheep 
thus bayed up by dogs, shooting them down with arrows 
from a point not far away. The bighorn, usually an ani- 
mal of great speed and resource, seems to lose its head 
entirely when pursued by a dog. This fact is well known 
by local hunters. Schultz said that the dog Patti, owned 
by Scott, the trapper, would stop any sheep which it once 
sighted, and that Scott could take this one dog and kill a 
sheep without much trouble any time he wanted meat. I 
fancy this would be a very practical method for getting 
meat, but not one to be used by asportsman after a trophy, 
whose greatest value would lie in the fact that it had been 
gained by hard work and honest stalking. 
Bad for Rheumatism. 
That night Billy Jackson began to complain of his 
rheumatism. It was a poor place for one troubled with 
such a complaint. I speak of the lodge as warm, and so 
it is by comparison; but no one should take this to mean 
an absolute and comfortable or even warmth, and one is 
more or less underdone all the time, though his system in 
time comes to adjust itseli to that tact if the man be in 
good health. For a rheumatic complaint the constant 
cold drafts cannot be the best thing in the world. We 
rubbed Billy with some liniment, and he arranged his 
sleeping bag the best he could to cut off the cutting wind, 
which was coming in under the lodge at his back. The 
night was coming on bitterly cold, so cold that we thought 
the thermometer wouH go to 20° below before morning. 
We went to bed with all om- clothing on, piling on top 
of us all the extra coats, bags, and odds and ends on which 
we could lay our hands. The lodge was shaking and groan- 
ing in a bitter wind, which came howling down out of the 
caiions above us. The last word heard from O-to-ko-mi 
as he went into seclusion under his blankets was some- 
thing like a wail of prophecy. 
"Ai-so-pom-stan," muttered O-to-ko-mi. "Ai-so-pom- 
stan!" And when laughingly questioned about it he ex- 
pressed his firm belief that the old cow moose was plenty 
angry at us. E. Bovon. 
laca BoYCE BiiiLDiNO. Chicago. 
An old-time Loii Mayor of London, whose sporting 
experience was limned, rode forth one day to join the city 
hunt in the fields about Maryleboue. Placed by his escort 
under a tree, his Lordship heard the hounds give tongue in 
the distance, and the sounds grew louder and louder, till one 
of the city scouts shouted out: "The hare comes this way, 
my Lord. " The Lord Mayor rose to the occasion, and drawl 
ing his sword he exclaimed heroically : "Let him come! I 
thank my G-od I fear him not I"— Household WorcU. 
'unie ^ag nnd ^utu 
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE? 
Vinton, la. — Editor Forest and Stream: Is it possible that 
the time has come when our songbirds, such as the meadow- 
lark, robin, blackbird and bobolink, are being looked upon 
as game? Fashion has caused several kinds of our birds of 
plumage to become scarce. Sportsmanship is fast driving 
the remnant of the grouse family into the last corner. Spec- 
imens of the big game are being placed in private reserves to 
prevent their total extinction, and our lakes and rivers with- 
in the easy reach of civilization are kept stocked with fish 
only by artificial means, and the strong arm of the law 
backed up with close watchfulness and vigilance. Who is 
responsible? 
We read the report of a sporting club on the Pacific Coast 
in which is stated the number of robins killed. A man in 
New England— a resident of a city— places the responaiblity 
for the scarcity of some of our birds of plumage on the 
country girls, and does it in a slurring way. And again, we 
learn that at one place, in one day, nearly 2,000 bobolinks 
were shot — and not by country boys to decorate their sisters' 
hats, but by ciij gunners, for sport. Mr. Hough says it is 
reported that single sportsmen have shot as high as 500 
mourning doves in one day, and a party of sportsmen shot 
12,000 in a few days. These birds are not killed for decora- 
tive purposes, for the pot or the market, for when the sports- 
men have left the field where they have been shooting, the 
negroes pick up hundreds of wounded and dead birds. 
The reason why hunters are shooting songbirds for game, 
is the scarcity of larger game. But again, who is respon- 
sible? 
A gentleman in Charlestown, N. H., says in Fokest and 
Stream that "it is the cursed country boys." I believe the 
gentleman had been trout fishing, and had had poor success. 
After this I read in the same paper that a Jersey City man 
caught between 300 and 400 trout in one day. And a man 
in Pennsylvania said that there had been fine trout fishing 
around the city he lived in, and the fishermen had great 
sport; but to get any more trout fishing they had to go fifteen 
miles into the country, as they had been all caught out nearer 
by. Then.'among other pleasant things that I read was how 
a merchant's boy had shot 2,700 grouse in northwestern 
Nebraska last fall, and that he had not shot near as many as 
he usually shot, because his father could not spare him from 
the store. Yet no emption of indignation arose from the 
New Hampshire hills. 
A writer says (if I remember correctiv) that railroad offi- 
cials 8ay_ that their roads carried 8,000 deer hunters into 
Wisconsin last fall from Indiana and Ohio. I do not think 
that the railroad officials knew of all the deer hunters that 
went over their hues. Add to this army of well-equipped 
men all those that no doubt went into the same State from 
other directions, and all shooting at every deer that came 
within range, and how long could one expect the supply to 
hold out, even though the resident countrymen killed none 
at all? 
If one of these many sportsmen was a countryman, and he 
will be kind enough to write me how he happened to be able 
to take a trip o\ that kind last fall, he will oblige me greatly. 
Three or four years ago deer were as scarce in Maine as 
they are now in Wisconsin or Michigan, but after the 
amount of game that non-residents could take out of the 
State was limited, and officers were appointed to see that the 
laws were enforced, deer have become more rlentv than they 
have been known to be before. Does anyone suppose that 
the backwoodsmen of Maine do not use as much venison, 
either legally or otherwise, as they ever did? if so why 
should there be such an increase of game, unless it is that the 
visiting sportsmen are held in check, and we do not have to 
be told what class of people they belong to? If one can see 
the name of one countryman among the many sportsmen 
that have been mentioned by Special as having gone into the 
Maine woods in a season, he can see what I have been unable 
to discover. 
Tet there are those who would have us believe that it is the 
country boys, with their horse pistols and flint-lock guns, who 
are swiping the game from off the face of the earth. It ia 
not a countryman, but a resident of Boston that we heard of 
last winter as hiding from the Maine authorities for having 
killed a moose last summer. What class of people are pay- 
ing, l&OO apiece for buffalo heads, thereby tempting the 
poachers that five around the Yellowstone Park to extermi- 
nate the few that remain. Are those people countrymen? 
I saw in Fobest mv> Stream that a party of Chicago 
sportsmen who had been hunting in Colorado last season, 
had brojjght home with them about thirty deer and elk 
heads. "I have a good many times wondered how large the 
party of sportsmen was, and whether they left a trail of 
stench through those mountains. Did they use the carcases 
for bear bait? Did they pack out a carload of meat and 
take it to Chicago and pass it around among their friends? 
How much game did they kill besides what they took heads 
from? 
From the shores of the Pacific to the marshes of the At- 
lantic we continually read of hunters shooting from fifty to 
150 ducks or geese or other game in one day, and sometimes 
the names of our best-known sportsmen are connected with 
the shooting. To do this it seems to me one would have to 
begin early, take advantage of every chance to shoot, and 
stick to it as long as there was a streak of daylight. What 
more could a countryman do? 
After the meadow lark, robin, blackbird and bobolink are 
gone, then sportsmen will turn to the oriole, yellowbird and 
song sparrow for amusement, and soon the days of the 
chickadee, the hummingbird and the butterfly will be num- 
bered. At this stage of the game it is supposed that sports- 
men will pause and take breath before reaching out for the 
horsefly and beetle. When this period of sport is well 
advanced we will still have left the pismhe and gnat, and so 
the boom of the gun will go merrily on. I regret to see the 
tendency growing to shoot song and dooryard birds for sport. 
When T shoot a song bhd it will be when I am both hungry 
and penniless, for I swear to high heaven I shall never shoot 
one for sport. 
We have seen the game birds of our prairies become 
scarce and almost extinct in places. What is the trouble? 
Not the laws, but sportsmanship. It is the bad, deplorable 
and criminal condition of sportsmanship that is to blame, 
and nothing else. Game laws are made to protect and per- 
petuate the game ; good sportsmanship would accomphsh this 
without the enactment of statutes. It cannot be laid to the 
market shooter, because there are 1,000 sportsmen to one 
market hunter, and, with a few exceptions, both will shoot as 
long as they can see. The market shooter is a sportsman 
who hunts for pleasure and disposes of his game for profit. 
The day has come when this is bad sportsmanship, because 
the traffic in game is one cause that is threatening the anni- 
hilation of the game that is left. But the market hunter is 
just as good, as manly and honorable as a sportsman who will 
kill game illegally or dispose of his game to the market 
hunter. Both are better than the sportsman who will kill 
game when he knows that it cannot be used. 
I believe in game protection, and that there should be 
more stringent laws, until sportsmanship shall have reached 
a higher level. I believe that there should be no tiafflc in 
game. Not that I would deprive any one of the right to use 
it, but because this would close one channel through which 
game interests aie passing to their destruction, I believe in 
private reserves. Not that I would place privileges in the 
hands of a few, but because it gives more protection to game 
during the breeding season. And I believe that the farmer, 
who sees game grow on his land, and feed more or less on 
the fruits of his labor, should be given the same privileges, 
decent usage and respect that are accorded to the club man. 
I believe it is as "mean," "narrow-minded," "penurious," 
and as "churlish" for one as for the other to refuse sporting 
privileges to others. I believe it shows one to be ill-bred^ 
uncivil and as being low down in the heel as to common 
decency and the higher traits of manhood to ridicule and 
apply slanderous epithets to a class of people that one has 
been asking favors and privileges of. 
A New York Sun correspondent, writing from .Jackson- 
ville, Fla., says: "Twenty years ago the beautiful trees of 
Jacksonville were alive with mockingbirds, whose incom- 
parable songs made the mornings and afternoons vocal with 
music. Every tree seemed to hold one or more songsters. 
But now no note of a mockingbird is ever heard, and no 
mockingbird is ever seen." 
As to the snowy heron, a Chicago paper says: "Twenty 
years ago these birds were abundant in the South. Now 
they are the rarest of their family. Professional plume 
hunters, who formerly had plenty to do at home, now go to 
every part of the world in search of herons. They get up 
expeditions to go up the Orinoco and Amazon, and the birds 
have been exterminated on the coast of Yucatan." 
No one section or class of people is responsible for the con- 
dition that the wild animal and bird life is in to-day. Do 
you not think, my brother sportsmen, that it is quite neces- 
sary to give our guns more rest, and give more attention to 
the preservation and welfare of the wild life around us, and 
to spend less time in trying to destroy the life of something 
and more time in trying to raise the standard of sportsman- 
ship, for this is where the trouble is? 
1 can look back to my early childhood days and see myself 
wading in the little brook with others, and either catching 
fishes with our straw hats or picking the sweet flag buds, 
and I well remember the interest we took in the blackbirds 
that were frightened from their nests, and sat close by swing- 
ing on the flag or cat-tail leaves, and how cautiously we 
would peek into the nests, but never disturb them. We 
would watch the bobolinks as they soared upward, fluttering 
and singing as only a bobohnk can. 
I have just received a letter from a brother living in Mas- 
sachusetts on the old homestead, at the foot of the hills that 
overlook the Connecticut River to the east, and almost in the 
southern shadow of Mt. Tom. Not far from the homestead 
is a cemetery ; my father and his ancestors are sleeping there, 
and my mother and her ancestors are sleeping there. 
The family has scattered from the homestead, one 
brother living alone with his St. Bernard dog, his cats 
and cattle is left. It is from him that the letter "came, and 
this is what touched me: "I read your piece in the paper 
about saving the birds. That's right. If the landowners do 
not protect the birds they will be destroyed. The farms would 
be very desolate without their songs and winsome ways. 
Some kinds are most gone from here. No yellowbirds; very 
few bluebirds. We used to watch longingly for the blue- 
birds in spring; when we saw and heard them on the old 
cow and the old elm it seemed like the dawning of hope." 
And so it did, after a cheerless winter of cold weather and 
snowdrifts. The old elm was set out in the spring of 1751 
by a member of the fourth generation back, and it is one of 
the largest trees in the State. The old cow was a weather- 
vane on the big red barn. 
How about the birds at my present home? No robin 
made its nest in my dooryard during the oast summer. No 
plover alighting with shrill notes and uplifted wings were 
seen in my meadows. The meadowlarks that used to be 
here in flocks v?ere scarce, and when the frosts of fall cov- 
ered the ground, and but few summer birds remained, if the 
clear notes of the lark were heard it was a treat indeed. Two 
or three bobolinks were seen while taking their musical 
flight, and the sweet song of the brown thrush was heard 
less common than before. 
It looks as though the pismire age is approaching— almost 
in sight; but if it must come, I hope we will not see sports- 
men blowing whole nests of them out of the ground, and at 
the same time abusing the farmers because there are not 
more pismires for them to shoot. Mount Tom. 
A MISSISSIPPI TURKEY HUNT. 
On Nov. 4, 1896, I met, by arrangement, some former 
companions in our annual hunts, at our camp in Greene 
county. Miss., for an eight days' hunt for deer and turkeys. 
The party was made up of Sage, Dr. Inge and Ervin, of 
Mobile, Ala. ; Pickett. Howze, Danny, Brown and the writer, 
from Scranton and Moss Point, Miss. Our wagon, with 
the provisions for the hunt, had preceded us, with our colored 
cook, Haywood. We were joined by our driver, Henry 
Bush and Pomp Denham, our handy man, both coJorecl. 
The location of our hunting grounds was about forty-five 
miles from the seacoast, on the headwaters of the Pascagoula 
River. We were all in camp by 1 o'clock, and a good'' din- 
ner was spread before us, and soon made us happy in our 
reunion. 
A silver-mounted hickory walking cane was to be given 
to the one scoring the first kill on turkeys. The time for the 
hunt to commence was 3 o'clock. Each man took his route 
lor the hunting ground. 
As the san sank to rest beneath the bank of dark-green 
pines, shedding its bright rays upon the many-colored 
autumn leaves, enlivened by the voices of hundreds of the 
forest creatures, the scene made a picture beautiful to be- 
hold. 
I heard the call of a turkey, but he passed and went to 
where Ervin was located, who bagged the bird and won the 
cane. 
By nightfall all were in camp except Ervin; he got lost, 
and we had to hunt him up. The result of the evening's 
