Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1897. 
Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. I 
Six Months, $2. ( 
( VOL. XLVIX.-No. 18. 
( No. 346 Broadway, Nirw York. 
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which may he furnished us for that purpose. 
I am happy to know that this unsportsmanlike 
habit of catching to count is now deemed more 
honored in the breach than in the observance, 
thanks to the admonitions of the public press and 
the better education of the present generation of 
anglers. George Dawson* 
A BETTER WAY. 
"We print a suggestion coming from the Tennessee moun- 
tains that a certain tract of country there, which is highly 
desirable for game preserve purposes and can be had at a 
cheap figure, should be taken up by a club for private use. 
There is a better way. Such tracts of wild land in Tennes- 
see and elsewhere might well be acquired by the State and 
set apart as permanent possessions of the people. Why 
should all the good hunting country on this continent pass 
into private control? It is true that for the most part we 
have let lawlessness and wanton waste run their course 
and work their curse, until there is, as a rule, not much 
game-stocked territory left to convert into public hunting 
preserves. But there is vastly more remaining to-day 
than there will be five years hence; and the time to under- 
take the permanent keeping of this territory is now. The 
sportsmen of Tennessee will be doing the graceful thing 
for themselves and for the generations of sportsmen who 
are coming after them, if they shall persuade the Legisla- 
ture to set about this reservation of available wild lands 
for public use. There are good precedents. In 1895 the 
Michigan Legislature enacted: 
"fhat all that part of Lake Erie lying adjacent to the surveyed 
lands of Monroe and Wayne counties and any submerged lands 
witbin the surveyed lines of said counties and connected with 
Lake Erie and Detroit River, providing such surveyed lands are 
owned by the State of Michigan, shall be and hereby are set apart 
and dedicated for a pubhc shooting or hunting ground for the benefit 
and enjoyment of the people of the S ate of Michigan, for a distance 
extending one mile into said Lake Erie, the eastern line of the sub- 
merged lands and waters hereby reserved being one mile distant 
from the surve.yed lines of the east side of said coun ies and parallel 
thereto: Provided, that this reservation and dedication shall not in- 
terfere with, or detract from, aoj' rights or privileges as to fishing 
now enjoyed by any person or the public. 
New York has noble possessions in the Adirondacks and 
the Catskills, set apart by constitutional mandate, now en- 
joyed every year by thousands of her citizens, and destined 
for the perpetual enjoyment of succeeding generations. 
Minnesota has her public parks, Ontario hers; why not 
Tennessee her own as well? 
As a rule, in such affairs we are not much concerned for 
posterity; the general sentiment is as that of the man who 
did not see why he should do anything for posterity, since 
posterity had never done anything for him. The truth is, 
however, that in doing wisely for those who are to follow 
us we are doing not less wisely for ourselves. In other 
words, if we do something for posterity, posterity surely does 
something for ns. As with the individual, well -planned 
and well-directed liberality expands and ennobles the 
nature of the giver, and as one in providing for the future 
of his family finds in that provision his own present and 
abiding satisfaction, so a town, a county, a State, may gain 
the reward of enhanced civic pride and stimulated public 
spirit through its consciousness of a generous policy for 
the future. No man, no community, no commonwealth, 
can live for to-day alone, not even with respect to the re- 
sources of the streams and the woodlands. "We are bound 
to have regard for the rights of others in the future; to 
bequeath to them not wantonly and hopelessly impaired 
the stores of nature's bounty which it is ours to enjoy. 
The whole duty of man in this matter of game and fish 
protection is summed up in the remark made by a father 
who in advocating a law for the protection of deer in the 
North "Woods said, referring to his infant boy: "I want 
him when a man to have as good hunting as I have had 
myself." If that were the governing motive with indi- 
viduals and communities, who can question that the prac- 
tical results of such a policy would prove as beneficent for 
the present as for the future? 
THE ORICKEN ON TEE PUPPY'S NEOK. 
One way to cure a puppy of killing chickens is to tie 
about his neck the chicken he has done to death and 
compel him to wear it as a token of disgrace, until the 
ignominy, of which a dog may be acutely conscious, shall 
have wrought in him repentance and a change of heart. 
The plan works admirably with the puppy, but that is be- 
cause he is only a dog and lacks human sense. If he knew 
aa much as a man he would make headlong for the nearest 
studio to have himself and the hen photographed. 
That is what the score fisherman does. "When he has 
caught as many as he can lug alone or with the guide's as- 
sistance, he poses before the camera, and then if any 
doubter refuses to believe his fish story, he triumphantly 
produces the photograph to prove that he was as mighty a 
fish-killer as claimed. Next to the astonishing satisfaction 
some fishermen find in killing for count, is, this astonish- 
ing custom of having themselves photographed in flagrante 
delictu, as it were. 
The ennobling influences of fiold sports are much talked 
of and written about, and correctly so. One of the enno- 
bling elements in the sports of shooting and fishing is a 
willingness to stop when one has taken his fair share. 
But there is nothing elevating in the bloodthirsty gluttony 
of the "fish-hog" or "game-hog" — detestable names for de- 
testable beasts. On the contrary, the indulgence of bes- 
tial proclivities in this direction degrades. The brute 
who kills a bushel of fish to be dumped on the bank, or a 
midsummer deer to rot in the woods, comes home not a 
nobler but a coarser man than he went out. 
There are anglers and there is angling. Eishing for 
count is not angling, nor are such fishermen anglers. Is 
it not high time that the distinctions were more clearly 
realized and the lines more sharply drawn and discrim- 
inatingly observed; and that the fisherman who has him- 
self photographed with his fish and then consigns them 
to the compost heap were relegated in public estimation 
to the limbo of the puppy with the hen about its neck? 
SNAP SHOTS. 
From Arkansas comes a tragic tale of robbery and love 
wild turkey hunting and fate. "Will Dalton, of Hoxie, 
was under indictment for robbing Sam Mattox. But that 
"Will on his part had no hard feeling against Sam was 
shown by his marrying Sam's daughter. In keeping with, 
all precedents, this should have adjusted family differences 
and disposed of the indictment, as in the "Arkansas Idyl'' 
sung by Nessmuk, the feud of the Likenses and the Siin- 
monses was ended when Yancey led Martha to the altar: 
"The tribe of Simmons all came up -the Likenses were there. 
The neighbors swore they ne'er before had teen a bride so fair. 
Ma'am Likens, primed with applejack, went halticg through a reel. 
While Granny Simmons in her chair kept time with toe and heel. 
They smoked the fragrant cob of peace, they drank their toddy hoi ; 
They swore an everlasting truce and sealed it on the spot." 
There was no such happy ending of the Hoxie affair; the 
indictment still held, and the case was to have come up at 
the current term o^ court. But other fate was in store for 
"Will Dalton. The other day he went into the woods hunt- 
ing for squirrels and wild turkeys. A small boy went 
with him. The small boy came back, but Dalton did not 
return. He had been attacked by wolves and devoured, 
boots, clothes, gun and all. That was the story told by 
the boy. The dispatch adds that Dalton's widow is wear- 
ing mourning. Let us trust that she may be comforted, for 
one of these days her husband will grow homesick and 
restore himself to her. 
In India the destruction of human life by wild ani- 
mals continues with little abatement, as shown by the 
Government statistics collected annually. The figures for 
1896 have just been published; they show that 295 persons 
were killed by tigers, leopards, and other beasts of prey, 
and 1,869 died from the effects of serpent bites. Addison 
has a quaint fable of the lion and the man: "The man 
walking up with that noble animal showed him, in the 
ostentation of human superiority, a sign of a man killing 
a lion. Upon which the lion said very justly : "We lions 
are none of us painters, else we could show a hundred men 
killed by lions for one lion killed by a man," 
However the conflict may have fared between man and 
animals in other lands, there is on our own continent no 
creature that could make the boast of the lion in the fable. 
Of bear, wolves, panthers and venomous snakes, more have 
been killed by man than have slain human kind. The 
savage American with his crude weapons could cope with 
his animal foes; and equipped with perfected modern arms 
civilized man is as secure of life and limb in the haunts of 
wild beasts as in city streets and home life. "We hear of 
the perils of hunting, but a New York physician was re- 
cently killed playing blind-man's-bluff, and wives are 
solicitous for their sportsmen husbands, while a woman 
died the other day from the effects of a bargain-counter 
crush. Provided no indictment is hanging over him, the 
average wild-turkey hunter, even in a wolf country, ia 
what insurance men would class as a good risk. 
Writing from Kentucky, Hayseed asks advice as to how 
he may stop the illegal hunting which is destroying the 
game supply. If Hayseed can discover one other citizen 
like-minded with himself, and they two a third, a begin* 
ning will have been made. A combination of the citizens 
of a town or a county in an association pledged to observe 
the laws themselves, and to uphold the enforcement of the 
law as to others, will accomplish wonders, and in default 
of a warden system , is the only way open. An individual 
is practically powerless; he cannot stand out alone against 
his neighbors; whereas the union of few or many, banded 
together for the purpose of enforcing the game laws, re- 
lieves each member of an unwelcome share of responsi- 
bility and commands respect and deference. Let some 
attorney— if himself a sportsman so much the better — be 
engaged as the counsel of the association; give him the 
evidence of law-breaking; let him in his official capacity 
bring the suits and conduct the cases. By prompt and 
vigorous action show that there is an earnest determina- 
tion that the game laws shall be respected and obeyed. 
This is one way; it has worked well elsewhere, it will in 
Kentucky. "We have sent Hayseed a copy of suitable con- 
stitution for a protection club, and will gladly supply any 
others who may wish thejn. 
President Gavitt, of the New York Association for the> 
Protection of Fish and Game, has done well to call a spe* 
cial meeting for Oct. 14 to arrange for an earlier conven- 
tion day than the usual one in January. There is no good 
reason why the annual work of the Association should 
not be put under way in ample season to undertake its ap- 
plication to the Legislature in the beginning of the session. 
"We publish President Gavitt's call on another page; every 
sportsmen's club in the State of New York should be re- 
presented at the October gathering. The Association ia 
concerned for the good of all; it can secure that good only 
by the active participation and cooperation of all. The 
membership ought to be doubled; and it would be if 
sportsmen generally realized the strength of union. 
In this latitude, and the breeding habits of ruffed grouse 
being as they are, an open partridge season beginning 
Aug. 16 is entirely too early. The year's birds are then 
immature, and not conditioned. The opening day should 
be set much later. 
The Canadian correspondent who writes of the destruc- 
tion of song bird eggs, evidently misunderstood the recent 
suggestion in these columns that the way to protect native 
birds' eggs by tariff would be to admit eggs free, thus per- 
mitting foreign eggs to compete with the American-laid 
product. To state the principle of such a system was not 
to advocate its adoption. Moreover, the sale of eggs "for 
mere fanciful purposes," the existence of which traffic we 
questioned, does not include the egg gathering for "scien- 
tific purposes," since the tariff act particularly exempts that 
industry from prohibition. The remedy for song bird 
egg destruction by collectors is to be found in a more 
adequate enforcement of the laws already on the statute 
books. 
From many quarters and points widely separated come 
reports of an abounding stock of quail this season. The 
birds nested under favorable conditions and the food sup- 
ply has been generous. The quail shooting of 1897 prom- 
ises to be all that one might wish for. He is wise who 
makes provision for "getting away" when the season shall 
come. 
