Oct. 3, 189'?.] 
FOREST AND STREAM^ 
269 
THE OPENING OF THE SEASON. 
Ddisbarton, H,, Sept. 23. — Never before ia this sec- 
tion liave the game laws of New Hampshire been so well en- 
forced as diirinsT the past close season. Much credit is due 
the Hillsboro Game and Pish Protective Association. This 
Association not only preaches protection, but its members 
are active in practicing what they preach. Cloth posters of 
good size witn the close time on different game, also oflering 
a substantial reward for information of violation of the laws, 
are freely posted in conspicuous places, and certainly in this 
vicinity they are effective. 
As usual our daily papers predicted a good supply of birds, 
and as usual such predictions remain to be verified. For my 
part I am sure the supply of birds about here is unusually 
small. 1 have hunted carefully over the best grounds I know 
and the result has been far from encouraging. I have killed 
a fair number, but they are very scarce and wild. I have 
found but one brood of six or seven. Nearly always it is a 
single old bird, occasionally two, and they get up a long dis- 
tance ahead of both gun and dog, make very long flights and 
are very hard to find a second titoe. There is plenty of food 
with miles of good cover. Living as I am in the house 
where I was born close to fifty years ago, and hunting over 
the same grounds that I have for the past thirty years, I 
think I know something about the supply. 
Twenty-five years ago a large majority, if not all, of our 
local hunters never so much as thought of shooting at a par- 
tridge on the wing, even when flushed within a few feet. 
Sitting shots on. a tree or the ground were what was wanted, 
and then such shots were quite frequent. To-day, as Frank 
Forrester in his story of the "Warwick WoodJands," and 
speaking of things there after the death of his old friend 
Tom Draw, says. "'Every man, boy and fool now owns a 
gun." In this section many of them are learning fast how to 
use it. One of my nearest ntighbors, a young man, who 
previously to this season had killed but one grouse on the 
wing, now owns a cheap single-barrel breechloader, and the 
way in which he is knocking down some of our old and wary 
grouse, hunting without a dog, would take the conceit out 
of many a swell sportsman with his high-bred dog and elab- 
orate outfit. 
In a recent editorial of Forest asid Stream, rail shooting 
of to-day is compared with that ot the past. So with our 
shooting here; what it has been it will never be again. 
Doubtless there will for years to come be some grouse in 
our covers; their wilduess will be what will save them. 
M. Stark. 
P. S. — Since writing the above on the game supply I have 
heard from two of the best gunners who hunt about. One 
hunted all day without getting a bird, and the best score of 
the other was three birds. C. M. S. 
THE SPORTSMEN'S EXPOSITIONS. 
New York, Sept. 2%.— Editor Forest and Stream: At a 
meeting of the Boaid of Directoro, held at the offices of the 
Sportsmen's Association, 377-379 Broadway, the following 
resolution was offered and unanimously adopted: 
"That the fourth annual Sportsmen's Exposition be held at 
the Madison Square Garden, New York city, from Jan. 13 to 
Jan. 32, 1898, both days inclusive, the Exposition to be 
known as the Sportsmen's Exposition and Bicycle Show, 
thereby making a special feature of bicycles, bicycle sun- 
dries, machinery, etc." 
The National Board of Trade of Cycle Manufacturers have 
olficially announced that they will not hold or sanction any 
show before June 1, 1898. We having received a number of 
applications from manufacturers of bicycles and bicycle sun- 
dries for space, which shows a desire on the part of the trade 
to exhibit In New York, our Board feels justified in adding 
bicycles and bicycle sundries to their fourth annual exhibi- 
tion. 
The great success that has attended the former Sportsmen's 
Expositions, with the additional attraction of a bicycle show, 
will undoubtedly make the 1898 Exposition the most attract- 
ive ever held in the Madison Square Garden. 
Inclosed find application blank and floor plan. Spaces 
will be allotted as applications are received. We call partic- 
ular attention to the fact that the Exposition will be open 
from Jan. 13 to 3iJ, making nine exhibition days. 
The Sportsjien's Associatiost, 
Unas. Tatham, Pres. 
Antonio Apache, the young Chiracahua Indian who re- 
cently went 1,0 the Canadian and northern Maine game coun- 
try in the interests of the New Eogland Sportsmen's Exhilii- 
tion to be held in Mechanics' Building in March next, has 
just returned to Boston. His journeyings covered a dis- 
tance of nearly a, 000 miles, and many of the Indian camps 
and settlements of New Brunswick and Canada were visited. 
Contracts were entered into which secure the personal at- 
tendance and services at the Mechauics' Building, next 
spring, of a number of Indian hunters, trappers and guide?, 
several of them to be accompanied by their families, ali 
clothed in the primitive and picturesque habiliments of the 
aborigines, and engaged in canoe building, trap making, and 
in the fashioning of the rude weapons of warfare and wood- 
craft which have, since the introduction of the white man's 
methods, become almost entirely extinct. Among the inter- 
esting specimens brought to Boston by Antonio Apache is a 
model of a primitive Indian tent, composed of birch bark, 
inclosed in a framework of saplings, open at the apex for 
light and air, and with a deer hide hanging over the en- 
trance and serving as a door. There are also birch bark 
canoes as fashioned 300 years ago, and a great variety of 
traps lor the capture of bear, otter and other animals, and a 
number of devices for the taking of game birds, all com- 
posed of saplings and logs, and rudely, yet effectively, con- 
trived. 
North Carolina Bay Birds. 
L. R. White writes from Carolla, Currituck county. N. 
C, that yellowlegs, plover and other beach game is found 
there this season in great supply. Carolla is reached by way 
of Norfolk and Virginia Beach, thence a drive of twenty 
miles to Curiituck Iniet. Or one may go by Bennet's line of 
steamboats from Norfolk to a point within four miles of 
White's. In either case one should telegraph in advance 
(Currituck Inlet office) for team or steamerT 
North Carolina. Outlook. 
Hertford, N, 0., Sept. 20.— Game prospects for this 
section very good. Deer, quail and squirrel seem plentiful 
A. F, R, 
NORTHWESTERN GAME MATTERS. 
Mushroom Heroes. 
Heroes in general are independent of all the laws of per- 
spective in that the nearer we approach them the smaller 
they appear. The romantic glamour of the distance fades 
Into nothingness when close scrutiny of them is possible. 
And heroes and mighty men are made in various ways; some 
self-made, others made by the eagei'ness of writers to pro- 
duce a story properly sensational, which will sell readily or 
bring notoriety, to which manner of hero making is supple- 
mented an aid, the credulity of the public. At least, so are 
many mighty hunters evolved from obscurity to renown. 
It is misfortune enough to learn that many of the idols of 
our school days had a liberal percentage of sawdust filling. 
With what feeling of just pride did we read in the "First 
Reader" that Gen. Israel Putnam dashed down a flight of 
steps to escape from the pursuing Britishers. Surely it was 
a brave act as boys see such things. But when it is consid- 
ered that he was badly scared; that he rode down beside the 
steps instead of on them, and that the steps were not more 
than a makeshift article at best, the deed was commonplace. 
There is not much valor in running away, nor is such act 
much of heroism. 
While in Manitoba- 1 had the pleasure of listening to words 
of value from the lips of Mr. Thomas Johnson, in respect to 
the game resources of the Northwest. To us of the States, 
British America is a vast region, made up largely of winter 
and unexplored country; in reality, it is a vast area, larger 
than the United States. A large part of the southern area is 
fertile and well adapted to agriculture. The sharptail 
grouse is found from Manitoba west to the Rocky Moun- 
tains, and north irregularly to the Arctic Circle. The giant 
moose has its habitat in the southern part of Canada, and in 
the far noi'th the musk-ox and caribou are found in great 
numbers. Bears are fairly numerous in the mountainous 
districts of the West, the big, dangerous fellows, terrific in 
appearance, so destructive in battle, and so active in pro- 
moting the sale of ink and pencils, the kind which live after 
being shot full of holes crosswise and lengthwise, or at least 
which live long enough afterward to kill the hunter with 
one stroke of a mighty paw. 
Speaking of bears, and of these same bears which have a 
Canadian habitat, reminds me of what I heard of the bear 
hunt of the Jerome Marble party which toured through that 
country a few years ago. It has also to do with heroes. 
They went west on the Canadian Pacific, and as a variety to 
the abundance of other sport, they determined to kill some 
bears. In due time they were on a bear hunt in the bear 
country. They had a half-breed who guided them, and who 
explains how the bear hunt was conducted. H6 placed a 
single hunter at each of several promising stands, while he 
with his dogs went into the cover to drive the bear toward 
them. This he did as planned, but no shot was fired. When 
he emerged he found that the party had held a council and 
had determined that the bear would come out at one certain 
stand, and as there was no use in anyone being at any other 
stand than the one the bear would choose to run through, 
they all determined to stand together and have a joint glory 
in slaying him. The bear ran through elsewhere. The 
guide's advice availed naught. They were so sure of the 
stand each time, and were all so well agreed in banding to- 
gether, so that they might share the honors equally, that 
they shot no bear. It was an unselfishness rarely manifested. 
And yet the half-breed hunter would go in after the bear 
with nothing but a knife, and he has fought bears with that 
weapon alone. He has a great contempt for bears, and 
therefore the killing of one does not make the bear-killer a 
hero. 
While the killing of the bear is the masterpiece of the ten- 
derfoot, it is a commonplace incident of the professional 
hunter. So go many bear heroes, if they have been mistaken 
in the true inwardness of bear slaughter. 
The land of the musk ox is another land full of dangers 
and terrors— a land where the dark days are very long and 
cold and full of hardship; where civilization is unknown, 
and wherein for a tenderfoot man to venture bespoke for 
him a brave turn for desperate adventure. To succeed in the 
journey, it was necessary that the man be physically strong, 
vigorous, untiring. There were the deep snows and fierce 
cold of the long Arctic winter; the difficulty of securing 
food, and no companionship save that of the wild Indians. 
It was a land which made heroes. 
There have, nevertheless, been different kinds of heroes 
who have penetrated the wilderness far toward the Arctic 
Circle, and of these, one was Warburton Pike, who, with in- 
credible hardship and misfit supplies, went into the very 
home of the musk ox and killed some of them, and in proof 
of his indomitable perseverance under such hardships, he 
brought out a skin of the musk ox. His trip lasted several 
months, and he nearly lost his life. He wrote a book about it. 
There are few men who would care to be so great a hero for 
a musk-ox skin. Considering the months of travel, the hor- 
rible tortures from flies and mosquitoes, the suffering from 
cold, the journeys through snow and ice, the suft'ering caused 
from insufficient food, the discouragements caused by dis- 
contented Indian guides, and the many weeks consumed in 
the quest, few men would care to undergo such labor and 
suffering even for two musk-ox skins. Now, when 1 read 
Mr. Pike's book, I thought that he had about the only 
musk-ox skin extant, and that to secure one was much like 
an expedition after the golden fleece, but while in Manitoba 
I learned that musk-ox skins are a regular article of com- 
merce, and that the Hudson Bay trappers go forth into the 
wUderness after musk-ox and other skins with as much 
sang froid as a farmer goes forth in the morning to plant 
corn. Mr. Pike's story was simply the story of the tender- 
foot, who, in the blissful confidence which is peculiar to the 
novice, went forth poorly equipped, with insufficient knowl- 
edge of woodcraft, and conducted the matter with all the 
crudity and inefficiency which are so common to the efforts 
of novices. His book recounts the dangers and hardships he 
encountered in a land where men set forth without a 
thought of the dangers and hardships he met, and if they 
were asked to write a book on the same dangers and hard- 
ships, it is safe to say they would know of none to write of. 
It is a strange land to strangers, but well known to its 
dwellers. 
The whole northern country is not an unknown land to 
the professional trappers and hunters. The Hudson Bay 
Co. has many posts and supply stations in different parts of 
the Northwest, and it employs thousands of men. The route 
through the Peace River Region is said to be an excellent 
one to the Yukon. There is a water route all the way. The 
trappers and hunters have worked in that vast region 
through many decades. Gold is found in most of the streams 
from the southern part of western British .America up to 
the Yukon. 
There is great difficulty in prospecting, owing to the heavy 
growth of moss, which is often several inches in depth, 
and which so completely covers the ground that it is con- 
cealed from view. The flies and mosquitoes in summer are 
described as inflicting torture beyond the powers of words 
to describe. They swarm in clouds even in the daytime and 
completely cover an exposed spot of man or beast. The flies 
are ever hungry and unsatisfied. The torture they inflict 
is maddening. Strange as it seems to people whose 
ideas of the North are associated with snow, ice and 
severe cold, the summers are very hot, the ther- 
mometer often ranging in the 90'3. The summers are 
short, however, and in winter no prospecting can be done,' 
Although the gold of the Northwest has been known to 
many Canadians for many years, not many of them wanted 
it badly enough to face the ha^^lBhips and privaitions neces- 
sarily encountered in securing it. Even gold may cost too 
much. Still, the digging of gold in that country is not en- 
tirely ignored. 
Mr. G. B. Borradaile, secretary of the Manitoba Field 
Trials Club, has been over a great deal of the Peace River 
and Makenzie River country; and along the banks of rivers 
where the diiferent strata were exposed, gold signs were 
found frequently. 
Trout for the Workmen. 
The Canadian Pacific is building some new road in the 
western part of the Dominion, near the mountains, and so 
abundant are the trout in some of the mountain streams 
that but a few moments are required to catch enough for a 
meal. Mr. Thomas Johnson, who has traveled thousands of 
miles in that region in the past summer, told of an instance 
where at one camp a nearby stream contained trout in such 
abundance that enough for food purposes could be caught 
within 100 or 200yds. up or down stream near the camp. 
These nuggets of the fisherman are free to all comets, at 
present at least. 
The Non-Resldent License. 
It has been held that a non-resident license law, in respedt 
to the killing of game, had in it much that was selfish and 
little of the broad generosity which goes with sportsman- 
ship. This would be true beyond question were each State 
well supplied with game, and therefore if each could recipro- 
cally meet the obligations of sportsmanship as they pertain 
to the matter. But some States have been wasteful of the 
abundance of game within their borders, and stingy iii 
measures of protection. Some of the people slaughtered to 
gratify a love for killing or for count, ^ome slaughtered for 
market, some in moderation, but the sum total of unlicensed 
slaughter and neglected protection is the extermination or 
great decrease of game in certain sections. In. discussing 
this phase of the subject with Mr. Bowers, Game Warden 
of North Dakota, he made the very good point that if it was 
selfish to adopt a non-resident game law, it was still more 
selfish on the part of sportsmen to leave their own State going 
to another State which had protected its game, and there 
kill to their satisfaction. In other words, the man who goes 
forth to kill game has his own selfish purpose in action, too. 
As a result of the North Dakota resident and non-resident 
license law, the ducks have bred and multiplied in North 
Dakota beyond anything known of a like kind within recent 
years. The license is a perfect bar to the swarms of non- 
resident shooters who invaded the State during the open sea- 
son, though it admits such shooters as conform to the re- 
quirements of the license law. In this way the State is re- 
imbursed in a measure for the expenses incurred in protect- 
ing the game, while permitting the non-resident to have the 
same shooting privileges as are conferred on residents by 
the laws of the ytate. The fact that the game has so won- 
derfullv multiplied is a demonstration of the beneficence of 
the license required of residents and non-residents, and the 
fact that so many non-residents take out a license proves 
that they appreciate the privileges and gain thereby secured, 
B. Waters. 
The Pennsylvania Game ■ Seasons. 
Stevtsssvxlle, Pa , Sept. 20. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
I inclose clipping from a local paper, which please publishin 
Forest and Streaji for the edification of those who so 
.strongly favored the present law. It is taken from the 
Tunkhannock JRepublican: "Under the new game law squir- 
rels, pheasants and quail cannot be lawfully killed until Oct. 
16, and from that time only untU Dec. 15, inclusive. The 
change in the season for hunting squirrels is most obnoxious 
to sportsmen living in the rural districts, and is the united 
work of city game associations, who are making a vigorous 
effort to preserve game for their sport only. The only retal- 
iation the farmer has in such case is to post notices which 
will keep that class of sportsmen off their premises when the 
season does open. When a game law of this kind is 
passed by the Legislature it simply becomes a matter 
of very little account among the country people, and there- 
fore is violated in every direction, and who will prosecute? 
It is best to make game laws which best suit the sections in 
which the game lives, not to suit the cities in which the so- 
called sportsmen live. The greater trouble in this section 
has always been from sportsmen coming from the seat of 
those great game associations ol great pretensions, We do 
not by any means recommend a violation of the game laws, 
but we do recommend that those who are responsible for the 
present laws be made to do thek hunting among themselves, 
where the great and only benefit is to be derived from such 
laws." 
Game, especially ruffed grouse, quail and woodcock, is re- 
ported pleniy, but the law is a dead letter, and one-half the 
supply will be killed oft' by poachers before the season opens. 
W. W. Mc. 
New Tork State Association for the Protection 
of Fish and Game. 
Lyons, N. Y., Sept. 8 — To tlie MeirAerg of {he Association: 
Agreeably to Sec, 5, Article VII., of the constitution of this 
Association, there will be a meeting of the executive com- 
mittee thereof, Thursday, Oct. 14, at 1 o'clock P. M., at the 
Yates Hotel, in the city of Syracuse. All clubs are requested 
to send a delegate to this meeting, as under the constitution 
the executive committee shall consist of such delegates. 
The meeting is called for the purpose of deciding the 
advisability of making the call for the annual meeting of the 
Association earlier than January next; also for the transac- 
tion of such other business as may come before the com- 
mittee, f^o many requests have been made in relation to a 
change in holding our annual meeting, that I feel it highly 
important that the matter have prompt consideration. 
The committee on by-laws, and also the joint committee 
on reorganization of protection and trap-shooting branches, 
are requested to meet with us at that time. Respectfully, 
Ernest G. Godld, Sec'y. W. S. Gavitt, Pres. 
Iowa Prairie Chickens. 
Charles City, la., Sept. 24. — Three hundred prairie 
chickens would be a fair count of these birds bagged by 
local gunners since Sept. 1, twenty-five, twenty six and 
seven being the beat scores. Better results are always had 
here in October, when killing frosts expose their snug hiding 
places among the corn. Vane Simmonds. 
CHAINED 
N .to Business? ® 
W Can't go Shooting? 
M Do Che next tjest things 
Read U»e 
w E^oresi «AA Streams 
