Oct. 3, 1897.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
267 
Bateman are excellent hunters, and Mr. Bishop is acquainted 
with other good men whom he is in position to engage on 
short notice. I think 1 would about as soon take my 
chances on the ujDper Nepisiguit for numerous and various 
animals of the game persuasion as any place on earth. 
Moose and caribou are abundant, deer are fairly numerous, 
and bears roam over the blueberry hills in Sejjtember and 
beg to be taken into camp. There is fine trout fishing to be 
had on almost any of the rivers and many of the lakes of 
New Brunswick, but none of them can beat the Nepisiguit. 
Eestigocche RrvER. — I am densely ignorant of the game 
features of this river, except that many American sportsmen 
are heading that way this fall, and that moose are said to be 
very plentiful on the Kedgwick, one of its branches. I know 
nothing about Ihe guides in the locality, but I should think 
Albert Mott, M. P. P., of Camp'oellton though a lawyer and 
a politician, would reply to all inquiries in a truthful manner. 
ToBiQUE RrvER — The lakes at the head of this beautiful 
river are well supplied with game of every sort. It is in all 
respects an ideal hunting and camping region. Mr. T. F. 
Allen, of the Tobique Salmon- Club, Andover, Victoria 
county, will supply all required information. Some of the 
Indian guides at the mouth of the Tobique are flrst-class 
men. If white men are preferred, I can certify to Asa and 
Robert Maston, of Sisson Ridge, Yictorla county, as being 
hunters of skill and experience. 
Madawaska RrvER akd Sqtjatook LaSes. — Though I 
have written one or two guide-books about this noted fishing 
and hunting region, 1 know, if anything, even less about it 
than the Restigouche. I can conscientiously recommend S. 
J. Raymond, or Milton Dayton, of Edmundston, as being the 
proprietors of mental refrigerators from which the frozen 
truth can always be supplied. 
It has been stated hy one of the Bangor papers that a 
license fee of $20 is exacted from all Maine guides who came 
to hunt in New Hrunswick. This is not the case Canada 
has no alien labor laws of any description, ^nd the American 
guide engaged in this Province has precisely the same privi- 
leges as the local men. He is not obliged to take out a 
license. Of course, if he shoots a moose or caribou he is 
liable to the same fine that would apply to any other un- 
licensed individual. 
It has also been stated that American sportsmen hunting 
in New Brunswick would not be allowed to take the heads 
of any game they might kill out of the Province in the green 
state, but that they would have to be mounted here before 
they could be shipped. There is no law. Dominion or 
Provincial, containing any such provision. There is a law 
prohibiting the shipping of game, but this does not apply to 
heads or_ other trophies, and has never been construed to 
refer to the case of sportsmen taking out the meat of game 
they had killed. 
Forest and Stream Is seldom wide of the mark, even in 
the line of prophecy, where so much allowance must be made 
for windage. When it predicted that, owing to the restrict- 
ive character of the New York and Maine game laws, there 
would be an exodus of American sportsmen to the Provinces 
this fall, it hit the target very close to the middle. Local 
sportsmen are divided in sentiment as to the advisability of 
encouraging this invasion of canvasback foreigners, and fear 
that the game will become extinct. I do not share in this 
view, for it is only the thoroughbred that -will come to New 
Brunswick for the second trip. It is no place for the tender- 
foot. There are no hotels nor steamers on the big lakes— 
only the loon and the lean to. Frank H. Risteen. 
rREDERIOTON, Sept. 11. 
ZIGZAG EXPERIENCES. 
II.— A Phantom Woodcock. 
Rising high above its fellows. Mount Wachusett overlooks 
central aud eastern Massachusetts, and nothing intervenes 
to break the vision- to the Atlantic Ocean, which maybe 
seen of a clear day more than fifty miles away. 
Radiating from its sides like so o'any pulsating arteries 
instinct with life and running to all points of the compass, 
are several purling trout brooks, which reward the knowl- 
edge and skill of the angler with many a goodly creel of 
gamy trout. 
Those flowing to the south and east, seeking light of the 
rising sun, join their forces and swell in volume, making the 
rivers known as the Quiuapoxetand Stillriver. the confluence 
of which at Oakdale is the bu-thplace of the gentle Nashua. 
Along these brooks and adjacent hillsides are many excel- 
lent woodcock runs and coverts for ruffed grouse. 
Mast grows in great abundance— blackberries, blueberries, 
grapes, chestnuts— and few sportsmen in the crisp days 
of autumn have better opportunities for enjoyment with 
gun and dog than those whose good fortune it is to know 
and pursue the wary game birds in these favorite haunts. 
Boston is not a prohibition city, and yet singular as it may 
seem, she is seeking for more water. Already her scientific 
men and engineers are at work binding the waters of the 
Nashua near its source by a mighty dam, which is bound to 
take its place among the triumphs of engineering, and which 
is destined to be one of the wonders of the world. 
Aheady our favorite woodcock ground at Sawyer's Mills is 
a thing of the past; but blotted out as it is, it will live long 
in memory as one of the best woodcock runs in which I evpr 
fired a gun. Here the river recedes from a sloping hillside 
on the north and west and makes an intervale of some fifty 
or seventy-five acres in extent, which is overgrown with a 
dense growth of black alders. 
The soil is that moist, black, light sandy marl that PMo- 
Ma minor loves, and having natural protection from the 
vicissitudes of New Eagland weather and the advantage of 
the sun's warmest rays in early spring, no better breeding 
grounds can be found. 
Here it was in the callow days of youth that I shot and 
killed my first woodcock— the first bird that I ever fired a 
shot at on the wing. It was an unexpected, but most suc- 
cessful shot, and one that I will always remember with 
pleasure. 
But that is another story. 
It is of another occasion and another experience that I am 
to write. On this same ground, some years after, I had a 
very singular experience bordering on the marvelous. 
In company with two friends we drove to a nearby farm- 
house and put our team in the barn. 
We were soon in our favorite haunt^ which was now so 
dense in many places that to work it out thoroughly our pro- 
gress was necessarily very slow. Many times the dogs could 
not be seen 20!t away, and often it was impossible to shoot 
when the bird was flushed. 
We had made several snap shots, and were surprised, un- 
der such chcumstances, to score some very creditable kills. 
My dog came to a stanch point but a few feet away, and. 
trying to get into a position where I could shoot with a fair 
prospect of succcs?, the bird flushed, and without being able 
to get my gun to my shoulder I fired. Judge of my suipiise 
to see feathers falling gently among the limbs, and working 
my way to the spot I found awing as completely severed 
from the body as if done with a butcher's cleaver. 
My dog trailed the bird a little distance and pointed where 
he secreted himself, under some dead brush and roots. 
Drawing him forth I found a wing gone, but not another 
shot had touched him. 
My companions joining me soon after, we smoothed his 
plumage and admired his beauty. One of them suggested 
putting him out of misery at once in a humane manner, and 
taking from his pocket utility box a large, chisel-pointed 
sewing machine needle, he forced it into the base of the skull 
and then gave it a rotary motion. A few severe spasms, 
ending in gentle tremors, resulted, when he became limp in 
apparent death. 
Depositing him in my game pocket, we separated and re- 
sumed the quest. Meeting again after the lapse of a couple 
of hours, we sat down for a little rest, when I felt a flutter- 
ing in my game pocket. Taking out one, two, three birds, 
stone dead, the fourth, my wingless bird, was as active as if 
the needle of my companion had never made an exploring 
expedition to the base of his brain. Companion No. 3 now 
had his innings. 
"If you are going to kill a bird," said he, "there is but one 
sure way to do it, and that is Ibis way," taking the bird and 
crushing its skull between his teeth. More spasms, tremors 
and twitchings resulted, and all again was quiet. Again we 
parted to meet again at the barn at 13 o'clock to eat our 
lunch and take a little midday rest. 
I shot another brace, and arriving at the barn before my 
friends I noticed more evidence of life in my pocket, and 
thinking it must be one of the last lot of birds shot pro- 
ceeded to investigate. Judge of my surprise when I found 
that it proceeded from my wingless friend. There, thought 
I, you may talk of the humane method and the sure method, 
I will kill the poor fellow as I have seen fanciers kill 
chickens, who make certain work of it by wringing their 
necks. 
Grasping him firmly by his bill, I proceeded to wring him 
round and round until it seemed that there was not left an 
unbroken cervical vertebra in his neck and so I gave him 
another quietus. Returning all to pocket, I told my com- 
panions on arrival of my experience, whereat they marveled 
much, and said he must have borne a charmed life, and so 
he has since been known as the phantom woodcock. 
We spent the afternoon in other covers, and added to our 
store; but more and more was I surprised on my return home 
to find evidence of life in that self-same bird, nor did it cease 
until his beauty for the table was destroyed by decapitation. 
Geo. McAleer. 
WoBCESTBR, Mass. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
Indian Market Hunters Stopped In Minnesota. 
{Exclusive in Forest and Stream.) 
"St. Paul, Minn., Sept. 22.— E Hough: Have just heard 
from our attorney, Byrnes. He has got the order signed 
in regard to the Indians. We think it is the best thing 
that ever happened for the game interests of Minnesota. 
"Sam F. Fullerton." 
In the above brief telegram is embodied one of the 
naost important bits of news that has ever occurred in the 
history of game protection. It means the culmination of 
careful plans which have been long meditated and quietly 
pursued by the hustling agent of the Minnesota Fish and 
Game Commission. This success was only possible after a 
visit to the President of the United States by the attorney 
of the Commission. 
This is the first time the President has ever in the 
history of the United States interfered in a case of State 
game protection. Congratulations are due to Warden 
Fullerton, to the attorney, Mr. T. E. Byrnes, and to all 
concerned. It is not without a certain pride that Forest 
and Stream may claim the honor of giving the first publi- 
cation to this news. 
I touched on this question last week in copy sent in from 
St. Paul under the head ''An Important Case," taking up 
briefly the matter of game destruction by Indians who 
leave their reservation, kiU game, bring it back to the 
reservation and sell it to the traders. It was then stated 
that the State Commission was about to take the ground 
that all game taken by Indians ofi" their reservations would 
be followed and taken into control as part of the property 
of the State, as soon as was found again outside the reser- 
vation limits. It was then explained that so much game 
has been killed by all sorts of persons, and sold to the 
Indian traders for later shipment, that the entire law was 
in danger of practical nullification, the reservation being 
made a "fence" for enormous quantities of game, illegal 
and otherwise, all of which, under cover of this Indian 
exemption act, has been shipped fairly in train loads to 
the markets of the East. 
Agent Fullerton has'long been watching this drain upon 
the resources of the State, and has determined to stop it 
at any cost, seeing the inevitable result must otherwise 
soon be the extinction over large parts of the State of its 
most valuable game. As stated in last week's Forest and 
Stream, he some time ago, through one of his deputies, 
seized a lot of this game (420 par^'ridges, 630 prairie 
chickens) which had been shipped by Julia Selkirk, Indian 
trader at White Earth reservation. 'The latter sued for the 
recovery of this game, and so the whole question came 
into direct issue. As stated last week, Attorney Byrnes 
for the Commission, at once went into the archives and 
dug up the Indian treaty and looked into the precedents, 
and reported that he thought he could win the case. This, 
however, was not enough. The conditions remained the 
same. The markets were behind this illicit trade, and the 
law was sure to be broken again. It needed a decisive 
change in the conditions. The tap root of the evil needed 
to be cut ofi'. 
In his contest in this matter Agent Fullerton had a most 
valuable ally in the attorney who has so long been his 
competent and successful adviser. Mr. T. E. Byrnes, of 
St. Paul, "Tim" Byrnes as he is popularly called, is one of 
the powers in Minnesota politics, and though stUl a young 
man, one of such force that his name is likely to be heard 
of even more prominently in the future. It was deter- 
mined to take advantage of Mr. Byrnes's acquaintance 
with authorities even higher than those of the State of 
Minnesota. 
Last week I was in the office of Mr. Fullerton, in St. 
Paul, and there met again Mr. Byrnes. After a time Mr. 
Fullerton turned around to his desk and wrote a check 
and handed it to Mr. Byrnes, who folded it into some 
other papers, and after a whUe went out with us, carelessly 
slapping the folded papers on the rail of the stairway as 
we went down. In some way or other I felt that there was 
some news about that check, though of course it was not 
any business of mine to ask about it. Perhaps there ia 
something in the stories of mental impressions. _ At any 
rate, pretty soon Mr. Fullerton came over and Baid to me 
in a low tone of voice: 
'•'I have just given Byrnes a check to pay his expenses to 
Washington . He is going to see President McKinley, and 
try to get an order for the Indian Department to take action 
on this question of market shooting on and around the reser- 
vations of Minnesota. As it is, we have no game law if 
this thing can go on, of wagon-loads of game being taken in 
from all over the country, unloaded at the traders' stores, 
and then shipped out as special-privilege property. If we 
get this order signed, there will be an end to this Indian 
market shooting, and this hiding of game dealers and their 
men under the skirts of the Indian reservation. No In- 
dian will be allowed thus, to bring game on the reserva- 
tion. The business of market shooting at the reservations 
will be brought to a sudden close, and the Indian will be 
no better in the eye of the game laws than a white man, 
and a reservation no better than a white man's settlement. 
Reduced to that footing, we can handle this trade, and we 
can save tons of game each year." 
When Mr. Fullerton told me this, of course I hoped that 
he and his attorney would meet success. Then I made 
him solemnly promise that no one should get on to this 
except Forest and Stream, and that he would wire as soon 
as he learned of the result of Mr. Byrnes's trip to Wash- 
ington. 
This latter he has done, and so all sportsmen interested 
in the game resources of the grand State of Minnesota 
may now feel assured that they, and not the marketmen 
of Chicago and the Eastern cities, will have the benefit of 
many thousands of head of game each year which will no 
longer be stolen from the State. The figures of the de- 
struction of grouse and chickens and ducks for the markets 
would be something appalling were they set out in black 
and white. Perhaps now the native game birds may 
slowly come back over large tracts from which they have 
recently practically disappeared, ground through the mills 
of one of the most insatiate agencies of the game trade 
now in existence in the West. 
The benefit of this order from the President is some- 
thing which may prove to be fairly incalculable. It solves 
one of the most serious questions of protection in Minne- 
sota. It is a further proof, if such be needed^ of the 
sagacity and energy or the agent of the commission of 
Minnesota, and it is a sure index of a still tighter drawing 
of the meshes of the law around those persons who have 
long fattened privately on public property. 
We have long turned to Minnesota for examples of 
good work in protective matters, and we may now expect 
this State to become still more "airtight" in regard to the 
illegal handling of fish and game. The dealers are look- 
ing to Minnesota for much of their supplies, which they 
openly or covertly, brazenly or sneakingly, have so long 
been stealing from that State. Let them bestir themselves 
now, for much of their trade will meet immediate and ex- 
tensive curtailment. 
"Stop the sale of game," says Forest and Stream. 
"Stop the sale of game," says President McKinley. 
It is stopping gradually all over the country. 
Illinois CFilcken Crop not Extra. 
From all information obtainable, the chicken crop in 
Illinois is not extra, as indeed it could hardly be especteid 
to be. The main wonder is that there should be any of 
these birds left in so old-settled a State. The best bag of 
which I personallj'- have heard was that recorded last 
week of the Paterson party at Pontiac. No doubt many 
other bags were made at points lower down in the State, 
but while good shooting for a few days may have been had 
by a favored few in certain localities, one could hardly 
classify Illinois as a chicken State this yeai', or speak of 
good chicken shooting there with anything but surprise. 
At the famous old chicken grounds west of the city a hun- 
dred miles or so, there were a good many birds killed, and 
on the grounds of the Rising Sun farmers' league, there 
are no doubt very many birds left over for future breed- 
ing, but this is not country to which any htinter can be 
referred as open country. If he gets in by special virtue, 
it is good fortune. Lee county was once a great chicken 
region, and the birds hang on there yet astonishingly well. 
Without question, Illinois is one of the worst sooner States 
in the Union, especially in the lower part of the State, the 
theory of the residents being that the shooters of the big 
cities have not so much right to the birds as they them- 
selves have. There is justification in this belief, perhaps, 
from their standpoint, though we of the cities don't see it' 
just that way. While we have no great or regular shoot- 
ing on chickens, it is only fair to say that the birds seem 
about as numerous this year as they were last. Really, 
we need a close season for a term of years again, to give 
the prairie chicken another chance to recover in numbers. 
Even yet we feel the beneficial effects of our last close term 
of three years, long ago as that was. 
Wisconsin Chickens. 
Wisconsin showed up unexpectedly well as a chicken 
country this season, and I presume more birds were killed 
there than in Illinois, though the latter has more country 
suitable as habitat for the bird. A little known feature 
about Wisconsin is that she has some rattling fine sharp- 
tail shooting, pretty well up in the State. I lived here in 
Chicago for live years before I ever heard of that. Try 
Hancock, on the Wisconsin Central. That was good this 
fall. What it may be next fall I should not like to guar- 
antee, but it is worth remembering. 
Lonif Trippers. 
A great many men nowadays take long trips out into 
the remaining good shooting country, staying for a couple 
of weeks or more out in Minnesota, Dakota, etc. Thus, 
Mr. W. B. Mershon, of Saginaw, Mich., writes me that on 
Oct. 5 he will be in Chicago with his special crew, the 
Saginaw Crowd, en route for Dawson, N. D., for a good 
hunt. Of this party I heard when at Dawson last week, 
and was told there that they are first to stop for a duck 
shoot, then to go on out to the Missouri bottoms for a deer 
hunt, then to come back and meet the goose flight at 
