Forest and Stream, 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Terms, $4 a "Yeah. 10 Cts. a Copt. 
Slx Months, $2. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1897. 
J VOL. XLIX.— No. 24. 
( No. 346 Bkoadwat, New York, 
NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS. 
Subscribers are asked to note on the wrapper the 
date of expiration of subscription ; and to remit 
promptly for renewal, that delays may be avoided. 
For prospectus and advertising rates see page iii. 
A STATE DEER PARK FOR LONG ISLAND. 
On Long Island, within sixty miles of New York city, is 
one of the most wonderful natural deer preserves in this 
country. Here, in spite of pursuit which has been con- 
tinuous since the settlement of the country, and in spite of 
the proximity of the largest city of the continent, with its 
hosts of sportsmen and market hunters, the native stock 
of deer has persisted and remains to-day in a supply which 
is on the increase. 
That under existing conditions the stock should multi- 
ply is not remarkable, for these conditions are favorable to 
that result. The game is protected all the year through 
with the exception only of four days, the Wednesdays of 
November. Adjoining the open deer range a,re the fenced 
grounds of the South Side Sportsmen's Club and other pre- 
serves; and when the shooting begins on the opening day 
the deer flee for refuge into these protected harbors of. 
refuge, crowding in through some of the gates "like 
a flock of sheep," as eye-witnesses have described 
it. Thus, while in a single day, as this year, a hundred 
deer may be killed by the army of sportsmen who turn 
out for the first Wednesday, large numbers escape to the 
park shelters, where they are shut in. The following 
Wednesdays show decreased scores. The entire number 
killed in the four days of last month was estimated at 
from 175 to 200. 
The number killed in 1897 was practically that of 1896, 
while the stock of game, according to the testimony of 
those who are informed, was larger this year than last. 
Persons familiar with Long Island know from observation 
that the deer have increased within the last fifteen years, 
and that the present rate of increase is steady and continu- 
ous. The explanation of this is found in the two facts: 
The first is that the hunting season is so short that it does 
not permit destruction which can effect a diminution of 
the supply to offset the increase. The second fact is that 
the deer are in a state of semi-domesticity, which is highly 
favorable to fertility, so that they are breeding as domes- 
tic stock do in security and tranquility. The open season 
of four days, separated by week intervals, is not so alarm- 
ing as to disturb the game and make it wild. The hunt- 
ing din and fusillade through November are as purely 
incidental in their bearing on the wUdness of the game as 
is the incursion of the small boy in the chicken yard to 
run down a rooster for Sunday's dinner. Before the sur- 
prised and terrified deer begin to suspect what it means 
for them the campaign is over. 
Under existing conditions, then, the maintenance of the 
Long Island deer stock is assured. Nevertheless there is 
heard annually the cry that the supply is being extermi- 
nated. This perhaps is not to be wondered at when one 
is confronted by a total of 100 deer killed in a single day. 
The facts, however, show, as we have said, that, notwith- 
standing the army of gunners who make up the skirmish 
lines in November, the deer actually are in numbers more 
than before. Moved by the reports of a highly sensational 
nature which the daily papers have given from time of 
the Long Island hunting, various well-meaning individ- 
uals have suggested that all the wild deer country should 
be taken up by private individuals, and converted into a 
great preserve, to the end of "saving the deer;" and 
names of prominent land owners on the Island and 
others have been mentioned as having such an 
enterprise in view. Of this it is to be said 
that there is no necessity of any such undertaking for the 
sake of "saving the deer," nor would there beany justice in 
inclosing those remaining lands now open to the public 
and shutting the people out from the privilege of deer 
hunting. The deer in the country which is still open to 
the public belong to the public, so far as hunting privileges 
are concerned, and there would be no justice nor anything 
other than selfish aggrandizement to justify one person or 
a number of persons in fencing the deer land. A very 
large number of people are interested in Long Island deer 
hunting, and interested equally in degree with those who 
have preserves or who could afford to take up new pre- 
serves. 
It may be, however, that the Long Island deer, being 
partially a domestic animal, might properly be treated as 
each in some way to make the surplus stock of advantage 
to the State at large. If any new deer preserves are to be 
established on Long Island they should be provided by 
the State Fish and Game Commission for the purpose of 
increasing the game supply of the Catskills and other re- 
gions which the Commissioners are endeavoring to re- 
stock. Then when the season opens, and deer rush like 
sheep through preserve gates, they could be taken by the 
Commission for breeding purposes or for immediate trans- 
portation to Sullivan county, the Catskill Mountains and 
elsewhere. Such a State park could be established with- 
out in any serious degree restricting the hunting privileges 
now enjoyed by the public. It would give a wise solution 
of the Long Island deer problem. 
FIELD TRIAL TRANSITIONS. 
Professionalism in sport is business in sport. When 
professionalism has insidiously incorporated itself as a 
part of legitimate sport, it has always proved to be detri- 
mental and sometimes ruinous to it. 
However cunningly professionalism may be colored as a 
part of sport or cloaked to conceal its rapacity, it has but 
one earnest purpose in its efforts: the purpose of money 
getting. It is the business of making the most money out 
of the men who foster and follow sport for the pleasure 
of it. 
As a business necessity, the professional devotes his 
whole time, or a large part of it, to perfecting himself in 
his specialty, so that he may so excel the sportsmen in 
skill that his own business success, once he is able to par- 
ticipate, is assured. To the men who seek sport as a 
diversion from the mental and physical labors of business 
routine, the highest attainable degree of skill in sport is 
neither a necessity nor a possibility. A reasonable pro- 
ficiency is sufficient to insure a reasonable degree of suc- 
cess in the moments the sportsman can spare from 
business. 
While all professionals in sport seek to make the pleas- 
ure of others their own capital in business, there is a wide 
difference in them individually. A few are conservative 
and moderate in their money seeking, while others have 
a rapacity which would hardly be satisfied if it absorbed 
everything. 
Professionalism in its own sphere has its own mission. 
It accomplishes much as a useful accession to sport, but it 
is not the sport itself, nor does it emanate from the class 
which makes sport an institution. And yet there are few 
institutions of sport which are not followed as a business 
by some professionals. No apparent harm may follow, as 
nearly all branches of sport have sufficient vitality to sus- 
tain a certain degree of parasitic drain without visible 
signs of harm from it. 
Probably no form of legitimate sport has been so per- 
sistently preyed upon by an element of professionalism as 
has that of the dog and gun. Field trials in particular are 
a lesson in the rapacity of an element of professionalism , 
ever hungry and unsatisfied, and in the harm of it when 
it has its way unchecked. The first field trials, inaugu- 
rated in the 70s, were symbolical of true sport, of a spirit 
of friendly emulation among men who loved the pleasure 
of sportsmanship for its own sake. From this as a start- 
ing point there were rapid transitional stages from pleas- 
ure to business. There was a transition from cups to cash 
prizes; from trophies which commemorate a victory and 
perpetuate a glory, to cash which represents the profit of 
the moment. It is a significant period in spoit when the 
winner demands cash for his victory in the same manner 
that the tradesman demands cash for his wares, or the 
laborer pay for his services. 
In the late SOs thousands of dollars were offered each 
year in prizes at the field trials, and nearly every field 
trial interest became commercial. Judges were paid large 
sums for their services, and many times they were pro- 
fessionals in the business. The professional secretary 
later dawned upon the scene. For the service of doing 
the clerical work of a club, a mere incident of business, he 
demanded and received as much as some men reciive for 
a year's salary for constant work. 
The trials then consumed weeks of wearisome time in 
their running. It was laborious sport with an entire 
commercial significance. Out of this evolved the "field 
trial dog," a wild creature, in most instances half broken 
or less, and always much given to hunting for his own 
pleasure, as is the way of such dogs. The dog which 
would work reasonably well to the gun belonged, in the 
jargon of the cult, to the class of "plug shooting dogs." 
The distinction served a good commercial purpose in 
parading that no one could hope to own anything really 
"high class" unless it had on it the field-trial stamp of 
approval. No dog which worked pleasantly to the gun 
could ever hope to be "high-class." The boom in prices 
followed. There was much studying and mixing of pedi- 
grees, and learned disquisitions on breeding by men who 
had become breeders and sportsmen on the previous day. 
The mushroom hordes who embraced sport as a busi- 
ness proposition abandoned it after the boom collapsed — 
as all booms in time do — but there was much money 
made, nevertheless, by a few who were more skillful in 
pedigree twaddle with its commercial bearing than were 
others. Puppies with any satisfactory claim to fashion- 
able breeding sold from |50 to $250 when a few weeks old. 
Trained dogs of like kind sold from several hundred to a 
thousand or two thousand dollars. 
Still professionalism was unsatisfied. It advised or dic- 
tated as it could in the matter of grounds, of the selection 
of judges, of the amount of prizes, and it was particularly 
conspicuous in the columns of the sporting press other 
than Forest and Stream. There were malignant contro- 
versies and columns of advertising vented in weekly 
series. Yet it was still unsatisfied. It invaded the club 
membership itself. Every interest of the sport was then 
directly under the professional influence. Field trials 
began to decline. 
There were but two clubs which closed their member- 
ship doors to professionals; those were the Eastern Field 
Trial Club and the Northwestern Field Trials Club. Many 
clubs have had their rise, progress and decline since those 
clubs were formed. As professionalism entered the clubs 
their non-professional members dropped out or their inter- 
est became dormant. They could find spart for them- 
selves, sport free from parasites. In nearly all the clubs 
in which professionals secured membership the non-profe£- 
sional members withdrew to such an extent that the club 
was in the hands of professionals, and prestige and patron- 
age were largely lost. 
There came a time when the evil began its own cure. 
A strong sentiment has grown against the professional 
club member, the professional secretary, the professional 
breeder, who endeavor to foist themselves on sportsmen as 
the true article of sportsmanship, though always talking 
shop. Professionalism, with its tentacles in every branch 
of field trial interest where money could be gathered, 
nearly strangled it. 
Professionalism in its place we recognize as of sterling 
worth, but professionalism as a parasitical industry we are 
opposed to. It is gratifying to note that the prospect for 
the proper regulation of professionalism in sport, whether 
at the trap, bench show or field trial, is now more promis- 
ing than it has been in many years past. 
Frequent allusions have recently been made iu the daily 
press to the project said lo have been set on foot in Tunis 
for breeding egrets in confinement, the intention being to rob 
these birds of their plumes during the breeding set son, much 
as ostriches are deprived of their feathers. A writer named 
Jules Forest is quoted as having written to the Retue Sckn- 
tifique^ of Paris, an account of this project, in which the sup- 
posed breeder inclosed a considerable area of ground with a 
wall and covered the space with wire netting. Young egrtts 
are said to have been procured in 1895 and in 1896, the rum- 
her of adult birds is said to liave been 400. It Mould seem 
that the birds started in at once to make the merchant's 
fortune, and were working hard for it. 
The birds are said to be fed on horse and mule meat, 
worn out animals being purchased at the cost of a very few 
francs each. The breeding mothers are said to he supplied 
with small minnows. 
The distant location of this "heron farm," and the fact 
that their breeding in confinement would be opposed to 
much that we imagine we know about the heron's life his- 
tory, warrants the public in waiticg for something a little 
more definite about this project before accepting these news- 
paptr statements as true. 
Read that account of the St. Louis game market and ot 
the industrious hunters who supply it. The story is one 
which has all the more interest because it is written with- 
out prejudice. The statistics are instructive, and not less 
so the frank avowals of St. Louis dealers that their hired 
hunters begin their campaigns long before one close sea- 
son has expired and extend them long after another close 
season has be.^un. 
