Oct. 9, 1897.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
He crawled a quarter of a mile before he was observed, and 
is now lyinff at tlie point of death. He was bitten almost 
into pieces by the beast, which he had enraged by wounding 
it in the head. The story comes by despatch from Pocatello 
to a Chicago daily. E. HotruH, 
1206 BoYCE BciiiDiNQ, Chicago. 
NOTES FROM NEW BRUNSWICK. 
Jttst one month of the legal season in this Province has 
elapsed, and already a good many of the big game hunters 
have returned frdm the wilds. 
The party consisting of Carl Pickhardt, Dr. A. Caille and 
Dr. F. Krug, with their three Maine guides, Vince McEen- 
ney, .John Francis and Michael Francis, reached Fredericton 
yesterday from the Gueggas lakes on Little Sou'west waters. 
They had been out just three weeks, and brought back the 
heads of three moose and three caribou. The moose heads 
were all good specimens, measuring respectively, 54, 48 and 
46in. Mr. Pickhardt was warm in his praise of the country, 
also of the 80 30 Winchester. 
Prof. Waite, of the University of Tennessee, knoxviHe, 
has returned from his trip on the Nor'west with Arthur 
Pringle. He shot one moose and two caribou. One of the 
caribou had exceptionally fine antlers. The Professor re- 
ports that he saw altogether on the trip thirteen moose and 
fourteen caribou. 
Fred Harris, H. P. Hunter and Ralph Johnson, of Boston, 
emerged a few days ago from the Cains River region. They 
got no moose, but bagged a bear and lynx, and narrowly 
escaped taking in another bear, 
Lieut. Hincks, of the Royal Berks Regiment, spent his 
vacation of two weeks on the Nepisiguit River. He shot 
two fine bull caribou. 
John Bodkin, of Kingsclpar, a veteran English sportsman, 
is back from a four weeks' tour of Cains River and the sou'- 
west. He brought in two caribou ; no moose. 
Henry Allen, a guide from Maine, formerly a resident of 
this Province, two weeks ago conducted a party of Law- 
rence, Mass , sportsmen into the Little River district. The 
party is still in the woods. They have sent out the carcass 
of a very large moose. 
The gentleman who went out with Tom Pringle on the 
nor'west would have slain a fine moose, but at the time the 
moose arrived omitted the formality of loading his rifle. 
George H Warrington, Cincinnati, and J. Henderson, 
New Haven, have returned from Mu-amichi Lake. They 
had no callers with them and failed to connect with a moose. 
Mr, Henderson is coming again in November and will try 
the Dungarvon. 
Local sportsmen have had more than usual luck with deer 
up to the present date. Among the fortunate are Duncan 
Glasier, George Hoeg, Wm. Walker, Georsre Worth, and 
Percy and John Powys. 
There is still some doubt as to whether the prohibition 
against the export of the "carcass or part thereof" of big 
game from Canada applies to the shipment of the green 
head. Some of the customs officers construe the section in 
one way and some in the other. The matter has been re- 
ferred to the Department at Ottawa, who have not, as far as I 
can learn, yet rendered a decision. Mr. S. L. Crosby, the 
well-known Bangor taxidermist, says if the export of green 
heads is prohibited, he is coming to Fredericton to set up a 
branch establishment. Frank H. Rcsteen. 
Frbdericton, Oct. 1. 
A Virginia Test Case. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
A recent decidon has been made in this State with refer- 
ence to the game law of the State, which is perhaps of ioter- 
est to sportsmen all over the country. 
Owing to the unusual severity of the winter of 1893-93, 
the number of birds (quail) was materially lessened, and the 
next Legislature thereafter p^assed, very wisely, a stringent 
game law prohibiting the killing of quail for two seasons 
after the passage of the act. The time limit of this act ex- 
pires on Jan. 1, 1898. 
In a section of the State where quail are now reported to 
be very plentiful, a test case was made. A prominent 
sportsman shot a bird on his own land. He was promptly 
taken before a justice of the peace and was fined $10. An 
appeal was taken to the county court. The court promptly 
discharged the accused, holding that the law is repugnant to 
the constitution of Yirginia, in so far as it undertook to pro- 
hibit a man from shooting birds on his land— for two years 
— this being an unreasonable restriction of a citizen's right. 
Prominent legal talent was displayed on both sides. 
This judicial decision is of serious import to those sports- 
men of the State who have long been striving for the in- 
creased protection of game, which, otherwise, will soon dis- 
appear. D. H. Leake. 
East Lake, Va!, Sept. 29. 
Illinois Association. 
Peokia, IW.— Editor Forest and Stream: At the first reg- 
ular meeting of the Illinois State Sportsman's Association, 
the president announced the following gentlemen as the Law 
Committee for the term of 1897 98: R. 8. Mott, chairman, 
108 La Salle street, Chicago; S M. Booth, 36 La Salle street, 
Chicago; Daniel Raum, 413 Y, M. C. A. Building, Peoria. 
Boa.d ot Directors as follows: G N. Portman, chairman, 
ViQ N. Adams street, Peoria; C J. Sammis, Peoria; Wilham 
OhI, Peoria; Charles Bartson, Peoria; R. D Clarke, Peoria. 
Roll call showed the following present: President H. H. 
Fahnestock, G. N. Portman, C. J. Sammis, William Ohl, 
Charles Bartson, R. D. Clarke and G. F. Simmons. The 
Board of Directors and oflicers held quite a lengthy discus- 
sion as to the best means of keeping up the interest of the 
Association, and to ask the assistance of the sporting papers 
in their behalf. 
The secretary was instructed to prepare a circular letter to 
send out to the clubs, urging them to join the Association, 
and assist in every way to make the twenty-fourth annual 
meeting of the Illinois State Sportsmen's AsFOciation one of 
the best it has ever had. G, P. SimmoxNs, Sec'y-Treas. 
Deer Plentiful in Muskoka. 
Toronto, Sept. 11— "The prospects for deer this fall are 
very promising," said Deputy Game Warden Lawrence, of 
Muskoka this morning. ' There never was such a good out- 
look. Never before have so many deer been seen at this 
time in the year." The Ontario Government is anticipating 
a large increase in the number of hunters in the region, ana 
has decided to increase the staff of ofladala in the district. 
Golden Plover at Barnegat. 
New Yoke, Sept. ^0.— Editor Forest and Stream: In 
response to query of Sam'l J. FortM. D., of Elliot City, Md, 
in the last issue of your valuable paper, would say that I 
shot a golden plover on the beach near Barnegat Bay inlet, 
on Sept. 20, 1897. The bird seemed very tired and was 
Undoubtedly traveling south. I had the bird mounted. 
Albert SCHovERLiNa. 
Proprietors of fishing resorts will find it profitable to ndvertiae 
them in Fose^t and StrkXm. 
The "Game Laws in Brief." 
The current edition of the Game Laws in Brief (index page dated 
Aug. 1) contains the fish and game laws for 1897, -witli a few excep- 
tions, as they will continue in force during the year. As about forty 
States and Provinces have amended their laws this year, the Brief 
has been practically done over new. Sent postpaid by the Forest 
and Stream Pub. Co. on receipt of price, 25 cents. All dealers sell it 
THEY OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN. 
There seems to be a propensity in men to tell of what 
they have done. Fishermen talk of the fish they have 
caught, the sport they have had ; hunters of the game they 
have shot, and the difficult shots they have made; scholars 
of the books they have read ; mathematicians of the prob- 
lems they have solved ; and so on through the whole range of 
human occupation and human pleasure. 
But no fisherman tells of the fish he didn't catch, of the 
sport he didn't have; no hunter of the game he didn't shoot, 
of the difficult shots he didn't make ; no scholar of the books 
he hasn't read ; no mathematician of the problems he hasn't 
solved. All our "tales told by the camp fire" may be in- 
dexed in Yirgil's line, "All of which 1 saw, much of which 
I was." 
I heard a fellow tell of shooting at a goose at 212yds., 
measured with a tape line, and shooting her square in the 
eye, with a muzzle-loading rifle, and swear he aimed at her 
eye, I'd have believed him if he hadn't put on the 13yds., 
or if he'd have made it 325yds. But that twelve has an air 
of exactitude that arouses one's incredulity. Just 36ft., you 
know. 
I heard another tell of shooting two pheasants and a wood- 
cock at one shot from a lifle with a single ball. Here the 
woodcock caused me to be a doubting Thomas. I'd have 
believed him if he'd left the woodcock out 
Last summer I heard of a fellow catching a 41b, black 
bass, a 61b. catfish, a 51b carp, and a big turtle, on a gang 
of hooks, at one and the same haul, with a Japanese 
cane pole and without a reel. I'd have believed this, for 
I'm very credulous of fishing stories; but three things were 
in the way — he didn't give the weight of the turtle, he didn't 
tell what kind of a line he had, and he was so careful to tell 
us that he had no reel. 
And so 1 might go on telling such things by the hour, but 
I don't want to do it. Life is too short, and your readers 
might think that I was drawing on my fancy for my facts. 
Let me tell you of a few things that I've failed to do, of a 
few shots I haven't made, and maybe somebody will join in 
in the same vein, and by and by you'll have a history of 
events of which we can only say, "They ought to have 
been." 
Y''ears ago, when a boy, I shot a muzzle-loading rifle, and 
was a good shot, too. One day I was out in the woods and 
saw a sitting rabbit not 30ft. away, puUed on his eye with a 
dead rest, the gun cracked and the rabbit ran as if he were 
scared to death, I had not touched hide nor hair of him. 
Why? 1 don't know ; never did know. 
Another time with the same gun and a friend who has 
long since "passed into the shadow," I was out after squir- 
rels. We had several each, and were on our way home, 
when my friends remarked: "It's your shot, and yonder's a 
crow's nest. I've often got a squirrel by shooting through a 
crow's nest; try that one." 
I glanced through the sights, the ball went true to its aim 
and passed through the nest, but no squirrel sprang from it. 
I've always thought I ought to have had that squirrel, that 
he ought to have been there, but he wasn't, nothing only an 
abandoned crow's neet, dead twigs, dried leaves, dust, 
ashes, disappointed hopes. Many a time since, when think- 
ing over some visionary scheme, I have abandoned it as only 
another old crow's nest, which didn't need the waste of a 
shot to tell me that there was no squirrel in it I was riding 
through the woods one day, not so many years ago, a Win- 
chester lying across the pommel of my saddle, a .38 Win- 
chester, with which both before and since I've broken glass 
balls from a trap, twenty straight, when a deer came bound- 
ing along, a five-spike buck, and stopped not 80yds. away, 
with its left side toward me. I think it didn't see me. I 
took up the guUj held my finger against the trigger to shut 
off its click as I cocked the weapon, aimed^fair behind the 
shoulder, as easy a shot as man ever had. The gun cracked 
and the deer ran off untouched. He should have been shot 
through the heart. Buck fever? Oh, no; I don't get it. 
I've killed too many deer even to feel joyous over seeing 
one. Why did I miss? Call up the "Angel of the Odd" 
and interrogate him; maybe he can tell you; I cannot. 
Early one morning in Missouri I was riding along a road 
over what had been"a nraiiie, when at some distance ahead 
I heard the peculiar call of the prairie chicken, and presently 
came on them sitting on the rails of a worm fence. L had a 
.33 Gin. Saaith & Wesson revolver, one of the old ' pattern 
rim-fire long with square handle, "to go at a touch." I have 
it yet, and have often before and since the time in question 
fired its six buUets into a percussion- cap box at 30yds. I 
drew the pistol and fired at not more than 20ft at the head 
of one of the birds, and missed. I discharged all the rounds 
in the weapon at that same bird, and the last shot fired at its 
body, but not a feather of the bird was touched. Who can 
account for such a thing ? I can't. 
Hunting quail once, "Bob Whites," you know, before 
brtech- loaders had become common, I was using a 10-bore 
muzzle-loader, an excellent gun, well loaded, for 1 had 
loaded it myself, with S^dr. powder and lioz. of No. 8 shot 
in each barrel. A large flock sprung up, in open ground ; I 
pulled on them with the right and then the left, and not a 
quail fell. Why did 1 miss them? I killed others that day, 
lar more difficult shots, but not one out of that flock fell at 
those two shots. 
Only last season a gray squirrel sat on a limb not 20ft, 
i-igh, and barked at me until I brought a Stevens' rifle to 
bear on him, a .25-bore, and he not 50ft. away. How could 
I miss him? The gun went off and so did the squirrel. I 
had not touched a hair of him. I don't know why I missed, 
and it will not do with me to say "Oh, you're a bad shot," 
because I know, and my friends know, that it is not the ease. 
Two or three years ago the wild geese were flying very 
low; I tried at the leader of a "drove" with a shotgun Ipaded. 
with BB's, two barrels, in still air, and not a tjuill ffoated 
down the wind, not a single "hauk" to tell that my load h&d. 
gone within many feet of the birds. There was no mis- 
judging of distance, nor of the speed of their flight. I had 
simply missed, and that's all. 
I could go on, page after page, of these experiences, but 
what's the use? Have others had similar things happen them? 
I guess so, but they don't tell them. Most men think there's 
nothing wonderful in a miss. But the man wbo knows that 
he can shoot, that the shot was "dead easyi" and so on, ndt 
only thinks, but is willing to swear, that a miss is a wonder- 
ful thing. Why shouldn't he? He knows his gun, his ami- 
munition, his distance, himself — and yet he has missed. 
Why shouldn't he think it wonderful? 
Pishing — I'm not a fisherman— never was— and yet I dis- 
tinctly remember working hard all day on the banks of a 
trout stream years and years ago, and while my brother 
caUght many, yet not a single speckled beauty rewarded my 
efforts. I never caught a trout in my life, and "my days are 
in the sere, the yellow leaf." I'm too old and too heavy to 
tramp along the streams, and that will be another of the 
things that ought to have been. We used to fish for chubs 
and suckers and sunfish and little mudcats when I was a 
boy, along in the 'SOs and early '6O3, and I was never a 
success. Fish would always take my brother's hook in pref- 
erence to mine, though he had baited them both. 
Once I remember he had been fishing alone, and on his re- 
turn told me of a wonderful chub that he'd seen in a deep 
hole and had tried to catch, but had failed, and proposed 
that we go together next day and try to get this monster 
chub, which he averred must weigh at least 501bs. Boys see 
things through magnifying glasses, you know. Next day 
we went. I can see that hole now, in my mind's eye, its 
clear waters, its grassy banks, but never more can I see it 
in fact, for it doesn't exist. It was formerly the tailrace of 
an old mill. The mill has been torn down, the race and the 
tailrace have been filled up, and where that "big hole" was, 
an embankment of the Baltimore & Ohio R. R. is, and the 
wheels of commerce run above the banks on which we lay 
that day and fished for the monster chub. My brother 
caught several big ones — about 6in. long, but they looked big 
then — but they neglected my hook, as usual, and as I looked 
listlessly down the stream I saw a big bumblebee light on a 
thistle's purple flower. I went down and got the bumblebee, 
put it on my hook, and "threw in." There was a rush, a 
swirl of the waters, as I jerked out the monster chub, and 
there was a sudden plunge as the hook lost its hold, and the 
monster chub was lost to me forever. ' You had him," said 
my brother; "but what bait had you?" "A bumblebee," I 
replied, "but I don't believe that fish weighs 501bs." 
"Yes, he does, and more too," was the reply; "why, if he 
didn't your hook would have held him. But I'm going off 
to get a bumblebee." 
1 lay on the grass and waited, for the excitement was 
gone. 1 knew that the monster chub was not for me. My 
brother returned with his bumblebee, and as he baited hia 
hook I remarked : "Now, don't try to jerk that fish out at 
once, give a smart pull, to make sure your hook's w«ll 
caught, and then you can get him, maybe." 
"If he takes my hook I'll get him," was the answer, "if 
I'm strong enough to pull him out. But I never knew a fish 
to refuse nice, fat fish worms and bite at a bumblebee. Who 
told you about the bumblebee?" 
"Nobody told me," said I, "I just saw that one I used 
hght on the thistle and concluded I'd try him for bait." 
My brother's hook struck the water, but the bee did not 
sink, as mine had, and he drew it back and again threw it 
in, suddenly an enormous fish form appeared, the bee van- 
ished between a huge pair of capacious jaws, a giant tail 
twinkled for a moment in the air as the monster chub 
headed for his favorite haunts at the bottom. I heard the 
swish of the line as my brother struck, the peculiar sound 
of a large body drawn forcibly and quickly from deep 
water, and the monster chub lay on the grass at our feet, 
the victim of my brother's arts. 1 can see that fish yet, the 
biggest chub that I ever saw, he measured 16in. from lip of 
nose to tip of tail, and when cleaned lor the table he 
weighed just 21bs. I can hear our boyish expressions of de- 
light as we surveyed his magnificent proportions,. for there 
was never any jealousy between us, the triumph of one was 
that of the other; and it is so yet, thank God, though our 
hairs are turning gray, and we are, to say the least, elderly- 
men. But the monster chub, I always thought, should 
have been mine. Don't you think so? Amateok. 
Pennsylvania. 
Delaware River Basis. 
Brooextn, N. Y. — In the last issue of Forest and 
Stream Mr. Philip F. Fulmer records a bass — presumably a 
black bass— caught in the Delaware River by Mr. J. D Jais, 
at Dingman's Ferry, Pike county. Pa , which weighed 61ba. 
13oz. So far the statement seems good and the bass was a 
good one; but when he says that the fish measured 26in., it 
seems to be a long one for the weight. As I know, big — and 
consequently old — black bass, they do not grow much in 
length, but increase greatly in depth and thickness; in fact, 
tane on Aldermanic proportions. I should think 20iD. suffi- 
cient for a fish of that weight, measuring it as anglers do, 
"over all," which is really incorrect, because the caudal flu 
has no more right to be included in the length of a fish's body 
than the dorsal and anal fins have to be reckoned in its depth. 
AH scientists measure the length of a fish only as far as its 
body extends, and that is the correct way, because the tail 
fin is not entitled to be included in the length any more than 
the other fins are part of its depth — but anglers have always 
so measured fish and probably always will so measure them. 
Taking Mr. Fulmer 's measure of 26in., as an angler'a 
measure of caudal fin and all, it seems to me that a 26in. 
black bass should weigh about 15lbs., that is, if it was as 
well-fed, deep, and had the breadth of beam of the average 
big black bass. Perhaps the figures are wrong; perhaps 
my notions of weight and proportions are wrong. Who can 
say ? Keoo-e-kat. 
Are Salt-Water An^fler's Selfish? 
Just why it is that salt-water fishermen are so quiet in 
reporting success, I have often wondered. I sometimes 
think there is something in the idea 1 once heard Prof. Baird 
advance, that constant association with salt-water fishing 
makes a man reticent on his success from seliish motirM. 
H, 
