Jan. 29, 1898.1 
S3 
save the real sportsman's worst enemies it is hoped and 
bcHeved that these are the only enemies, open or hidden, 
that the League will have. As the aims of the League 
are all on the lines of game protection and true sport, 
it seems to me that every sportsman will feel inclined 
to lend his aid and support to an organization that will 
strive mightily to check the extermination of game birds, 
animals and fishes in the woods and fields and waters 
of our land; that -will fight the market-hunter and the 
ganie hog with all the forces it can bring to its aid; that 
will assist in .sustaining good laws and in substituting 
others for those that are not good, and that in every 
reasonable way will endeavor to ci"eate a wide and gen- 
eral sentiment in favor of broad and humane sports- 
manship. If these principles are worth fighting for, then 
I can sec no reason why the great army of men who love 
the song of the robin and the thrush, who delight to see 
the leaping trout or salmon, who fee) their blood stir 
at the rise of the quail or grouse, and who hope for many 
years to come to find the deer and moose in the forest, 
should not extend the hand of good fellowship to the 
League of American Sportsmeft. AUTiiUR F. Rick. 
The Plumed Knight of the Forest* 
JfOR MY LlTTtE HUNTRESS FRIISND, ALICK." 
Pgr a Christmas present I send you the caudal ap- 
pendage of the Plumed Knight of the Virginia: forest — • 
the rutted grouse— with us, the pheasant, hie is a proud 
and lordly fellow, indeed. 
Let's go to see him in his winter home. Well, the 
earth has been covered for a long while with a deep 
snow, but the sun has been shining warm ail day, and 
he is out hunting his 4 o'cloclc dinner. He has been 
making his home during the storm in yon dense laurel 
thicket at the foot of the mountain, just across the creek. 
It hasn't been cold enough to freeze over the channel of 
the creek, but it is trickling along its icy banks, and the 
laurel boughs have icicles frozen on them and are bent, 
dipping into the water, tipping, tipping, glistening in the 
current as it flows. High over this knight's somber tent- 
ing ground stands thick the hemlock, its branches droop- 
ing with the weight o£ snow,' a bunch of feathery white 
now falls, and the boughs spring to their wonted places. 
A red bird sits on the lithe, green limbs, amid the snow, 
swinging and shaking it off for fun. 
On this side of the brook there stands a thick clump 
of grapevines, matted with green briers; high up, here 
and there, hang sparse bunches of wild grapes, sweetened 
by the frost; a great, round holly bush is standing neai- 
by, full of red berries creeping out through the lieecy 
snow, among the green leaves which mantle the graceful 
little tree. 
The sun has been sihining full on a fallen tree, stretched 
on the ground near by, and has left bare the moss, grown 
just a little green under the snow. Long winter ferns 
are clinging round about the mossy trunk. 
Something like an old "frog stool" on the log suddenly 
gets alive. It dresses at once in gaudy habiliments. By 
magic its graceful neck now takes on a gorgeous ruft, 
sleek and glossy; his helmet crest is high; proudly 
his tail spreads; see how lordly he steps, his head twist- 
ing from side to side to look at us Avith both eyes, and 
' as he steps his tail dips, expands and lessens. Suddenly 
; Jie folds back his ruff, closes his tail, ducks his head, and 
; as quick as a flash he thunders through the hemlock 
.boughs, scattering a storm of snow as he bolts a hole 
.through them, to his home in the jungle. This is the 
■ "plumed knight" of the mountain and mossy dell, a 
vweird, wild, phantom bird. 
Though he flew, still he is a brave, game little forester, 
Searing no mortal enemy of his ilk; but he has heard the 
rattle of shot. This time he was mistaken, Alice; we 
iittst went to -see him dine, as we did the pretty Dirds on 
Indian River. 
But, Alice, even boys are sometimes cruel enough tO' 
shoot this haughty little lord of the woods. See yon 
thick-timbered ridge? About the top of that he often 
makes his autumn home. 
It is October, and jack frost has been painting land- 
scape scenes. With one stroke of his brush he has made 
the beech leaves beautifully golden; the shapeiy gum, 
burning scarlet; the oak, green and golden. He has 
left untouched, as an ornate frame, the glistening green 
of the laurel and the serpentine arms of the arbor vitae 
creeping about the cliffs. The silken, oily leaves of the 
hickory cover the ground, save the few that linger to play 
with the breezes; then, growing weary, float twisting to 
.rest forever upon the earth. The shades of the evening- 
are stealing darkly eastward over the ravines; the very 
stillness is appalling. 
This plumed commiander of the flock has wandered 
away from his comrades in search of nuts and red dog- 
wood berries; he is lost and lonely, and he wishes to 
. aiiarshal his clan. A bare old chestnut log lies yonder. 
AVith wdiat strutting pride he mounts this rustic plat- 
iform and begins his drum-beat. 
There is a boy hunter who has been lazily basking in 
the sunshine, lounging on the moss and leaves, dreaming 
and musing in the glorious autumn silence, building just 
such air castles as only a boy can build. Beside him lies 
harmlessly the single-barrel shotgun, which he has been 
even too lazy to load. He now hears the drum-beat of 
llie little commander. Pidling his cap closely about his 
head, the boy hunter is alert, and like a shadow disap- 
pears in the forest. Now he waits to again hear the 
beat, and he steals to near the little drummer. He, too,, 
is on the watch; his ruff is on, his wings are ready; he 
croaks a little and darts along the log; again he stops. 
MortaUy shot, be pitches from the log into a heap of 
liglit leaves hard by, and fighting death as bravely as 
he lived, he dies in the circle which he has made bare by 
the beating of his wings. 
This, dear Alice, is the deed of the innocent boy who 
a moment ago was dreaming like an angel. 
But, little girl, men are only grown-up boys, especially 
tliose who linger much about the fields and forests. They, 
too, must play in turn the poet and the savage. 
* The above was written to tlie little daughter of a Florida 
hunting chum of mine, she herself having often bravely ridden with 
VIS deer hunting. I thought maybe some other little hunters might 
ft'isb to u-.id it. 
It is now late in November. The pictures of Jack 
Frost have been defaced by the driving rain and sleet, 
and the giants of the forest have stripped their tawdry 
garments to fight the winter storms. How defiant is the 
stalwart oak and poplar! How ghostly white are the 
bleached cliffs! 
There is a calm day, damp and the fog swings about 
the ravines. Yonder, above the first brushy foothills of 
the mountain, there is some level ground, cushioned with 
the parlor carpet of the forest (leaves and ferns and 
moss), through which is peeping the red "mountain tea" 
berry. The plumed knight of the forest has assctnbled 
his neighbors to dine there to-day, and the uninvited 
guest must array himself in the dress suit of the hunter 
to meet them. Brown corduroy trousers; canvas leggitis, 
buckled from the close-fitting gaiter to the knee; new, 
neat-fitting canvas hunting coat, allowing to be seen but 
little of the plaid blouse shirt waist beneath; soft, light 
hat; the double-barreled shotgun his only ornament; 
his sole companion is a pointer, clean-muscled, as sinewy 
and as eager as a racehorse. With a high and cautious 
head, this unerring dog leads his master among the un- 
suspecting revelers of the berry patch; thundering, the 
plumed knight leads the way toward the jungle, but 
smokeless and vicious cracks the ornament of this in- 
truder, and the brave leader falls, helplessly beating the 
e^arth; shrouds hitnself in his own gaudy plumes, and 
•dies. Alice, dear, I plead guilty to all this, both as man 
:and boy. Samuel Cecil Graham. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
^'Chicago, 111., Jan. 22. — The bill introduced in the U. 
.'S. Senate on Jan. r8 by Senator Teller, regulating inter- 
:state traffic in wild game, is the second measure of the 
Idnd emanating from the West, the other having received 
;mention in these columns some months ago, when it 
•was placed in the hands of Congressman White, of Chi- 
cago. The Teller bill originally included in its purposes 
lon'ly three Western States, but seems now to have been 
^enlai-ged and extended. It proposes practically the same 
(catti;s£ as that earlier mentioned, to make it unlawful for 
;any ocummon carrier to ship game from one State to an- 
(Other .contrary to the laws of the State from which 
shipped, .all such traffic being put in the control of the 
Interstate Oommerce Commission. This would make 
ithe law-b.r<i>.i,king game handlers fight the strong U. S. 
ilaws instead idf .the weak State laws, which thus far have 
meyer been foii'ivd successful in checking illegal game 
:shipping to any serijous extent. What will be the success 
^of the bill in Congfie^s remains to be seen. 
Another old _at\d itjju,ph mooted question comes up 
;again in Colorado in ttoig iqvirrent court records in the case 
>af hotel-keeper ,F. W, l3:ailey, of Denver, earlier men- 
-.tianed. Mr. .Bailey is ^IbojtVjto test the constitutionality 
I of the law -which, forbids 'JiiOtels sto sell game in the close 
season. .Mr. Bailey gr^eioysly admits that the State 
:rnay .estabUsh a close' -seasaij for the killing of its own 
'game, but claims that Jt;ha:S ao jurisdiction over game 
brought in from outside the.Stjate. Let.ine hasten to say 
to Mr. Bailey that he is quiite right iri' bis independent 
:and manly position that any law W.hich, doesn't suit him 
must be unconstitutional. Yet it is too bad for him that 
several other supreme courts have already passed on this 
very question, and have had the audacity to declare that 
a law with a loop-hole wider than itself would i^qt be 
very much of a law. 
In the matter of additional rabbits I note that the 
farmers of Calloway county. Mo., got out their guns one 
day last week and killed 1,637 cottontail rabbits for 
charity. The Alton road carried the rabbits free to the 
St. Louis- Provident Association; the local organized 
charities and transfer companies also jgave their service's 
free. The worthy poor may have rabbits at St. Louis for 
tlie asking. The rabbit has proved to be a great game 
ibird this winter. Thus I observe that Sumner coiinty, 
Kan.,, has repealed its 3 cents bounty on jack rabbit 
scalps, after paying for 187,000 scalps. Jt .wa.s suspecteji 
tTiat some of these came from other counties. Such are 
the possibilities of the jack rabbit industry that even the 
the judges on the bench forsake judicial honors for the 
commerce of the gun. At lea-st Judge Hedge, of Hoxie, 
Kan., has resigned his office. ITe said he could make 
more hunting rabbits. But then ihis salar}- was only $25 
a y^ear, and he couldn't live on that. 
How they are beginning to shake things up in game 
law circles. Last week I noted the big seizure made in 
St. Paul of game boxed f. o. b. for Chicago. Now the 
American Express Co. is made defendant in a suit 
ilarought at Shell Lake, Wis., for carrying game to St. 
Paul last November, where said game was seized by 
Warden Fullerton. It looks as though a poor express 
company couldn't get a place to lay its head. With the 
individual violator it sometimes fares likewise. Witness 
the 'Case of Allen Ferris, of Christian county, 111., who 
was last week fined $3,000 on 500 counts in a case of 
illegal .quail. 
They are in trouble over their game' law out in Ne- 
teissika,, one construction having it that a common car- 
rier may not handle game even within the confines of 
that State, and another holding that the penalities applies 
only to game received for shipment to points outside of 
the State. The attorney-general holds the latter opin- 
ion. 
The decision of the Nebraska attorney-general brings 
to mind the comment made in these columns last week 
on the concessions made by the Illinois State Fish Com- 
mission to the market fishers of this city and of the Il- 
linois River. Members of that board are friends of 
mine, and Forest and Stream could certainly never 
be accused of hostility to the Illinois Commission. What 
I would like to ask is therefore put in a friendly way, 
and it is this: Why was not the ruling on the construc- 
tion of the Illinois fish law handed down by our State's 
attorney and not by the Fish Commission? And if a 
State's attorney were asked whether a i^in. mesh were 
a 2in. mesh, what could he say? If he were asked if a 
short-sized fish illegally sold would be illegal on Tuesday 
and not illegal on Monday, what could he say? And if 
the State's attorney could only give one answer, how can 
the Fish Commission give a different one? I wish 
some one would explain this to me, but I will admit it 
might be difficult for me to see it. TJierfe k only one 
uniform game law, and that is a law which sits on rich 
and poor alike, 'and which has no loop-hole wider than 
itself. Let me suggest that the construction of this law 
be carried to its proper branch, and that the deputy 
wardens be turned loose to look for cases, and plenty 
cf them. So shall it rain ttpon the just and the unjust.. 
Speaking of uniform game laws, the matter of the 
convention of wardens here. Feb. 7, still progresses. 
Michigan will send to this convention four commission- 
ers: Senator John L. Beston. of Columbiaville; Repre- 
sentative F. B. Chamberlain, of fronton; State Warden 
Chase S. Osborne and Commissioner Horace L. Davis, 
of Grand Rapids. 
Among doings of Western sportsmen's organizations 
this week may be chronicled the proposal of the Hunt- 
ington, Ind., sportsmen to .stock adjacent farm lands 
with the Mongolian phea.sant. I observe that the stock- 
holders of the Fekin and Spring Lake Hunting and 
Fishing Club are going to lose their club grounds to 
the bondholders of the project. The club was in debt 
$10,000, but held some 6,000 acres of land, which is 
worth perhaps $30,000 to $45.000— a very ample security. 
I have shot over that country. It was once a notable 
sporting region, and has many attractions .still. 
The game bird, the fish and tlie dog are all objects of 
the care of the strong protective association at Grand 
Rapids, Mich. This week it held a banquet at which 
many prominent State officials attended. A bench show 
and an occasional trip of investigation into illegal fish- 
ing and shooting are among other good deeds of this 
useful body. 
At the annual election of the Duck Island Gun Club, 
held at Peoria, Jan. 18, the following officers were 
elected: President, W. PI. Shaw; Vice-President. J. B. 
Mosbv: Secretary, D. W. Voorhees; Treasurer, W. C. 
Bush; Directors ch osen were: John B. Mosbv, Cincin- 
nati; W. L. Shepherd, Chicago; W. C. Bush, Peoria; D. 
W. Voorhees, Peoria, and W. H. Shaw, Canton. 
At this meeting the Duck Island Gun Club took action 
on one point alone which would stamp them sportsmen. 
It resolved to prohibit the sale of .game killed on the 
Duck Island Club marshes. No club which allows the 
sale of game by any of its members or any of its servants 
can be called abreast with modern sportsmanship. The 
affairs of this repi'esentativc shooting- body are in fine 
condition. The grounds are among the best in the State 
for duck shooting. The stage of water on the marsh 
is regulated by a ditch which leads frotn the main river 
above Copperas Creek Dam. The marshes along the 
Illinois River were once among the famous wildfowl 
countries of the West, but long ago it became apparent 
that the only way of retaining any of this shooting was 
by means of establishing preserves. The Duck Island 
Club has its cake, with peaches and cream on the side, 
and it does not mean to eat it all at once. 
The weather in this part of the world continues ex- 
ceptionally mild. It is snowing hard to-day, but we 
have had no winter to speak of in Chicago thus far, and 
if the present open weather continues we shall hear of 
the spring shooters beginning their pleasant occupation 
inside of thirty days. It is the provincial fashion of a 
great many Northern men, some of them very good 
business men, to imagine that the sporting season closes 
when winter shuts down in the North. In realitj' there 
is no stoppage of the sporting 3^ear in the United States. 
Just now they are having the finest sort of duck shoot- 
ing on the marshes of the San Francisco gun clubs out 
in California. Points near Mt. Eden and Alviso, the 
,'grounds of the Empire Club, the Ferris inarshes and the 
'Suisun slotighs are all spoken of as offering good sport. 
In southern California the season for snipe and ducks 
is in full swing. In Texas the snipe and duck shooting 
is at its best, and the same may be said of Louisiana. 
In both the latter States, and in Mississippi, Arkansas,' 
MissoUitii "Tennessee, and indeed the whole group of 
Southern States the quail season is at its height. Yet 
sometimes' a dealer in sporting goods ' says to me that 
he thinks li.e will not advertise after the "close of the sea- 
son." Does such a dealer think that the shooters of all 
these warmer regions do not need outfitting as well as 
those of the Noifh? Or does he suppose that all these 
shooters do not include Forest .\nd Stream as a part 
of their outfit? A fish line sold at $1 is sold as well in 
the winter as in the summer if the dealer gets his $1, 
and the in.an who jvants it will buy it then just as quickly 
as though he live.d north of the Ohio River. It pays to 
advertise in Forest and Stream, and to advertise there 
all the time. - 
Club Organizations, 
The Evansville, Ind., Hunting and Fishing Club has 
been organized with capital stock of $5,000 and the fol- 
lowing officers: President, Henry Stockfleth; Vice- 
President, Charles Melzer; Secretary and Treasurer, 
Alfred Greene. 
The Reelfoot Outing Club, of Louisville, Ky., was or- 
ganized Jan. 10, with a capital stock of $10,000. The 
iiicorporators are Messrs. Llewellyn Smith. M. E. Tay- 
lor, Charles T. Ballard and W. E. Chess. The club will 
buy land around Reelfoot Lake, in Tennessee, and main- 
tain hunting and fishing headquarters. 
Elk and Oxen, 
\ Mr. J. B. Mathers, of Glenboro, Manitoba, recently 
purchased a magnificent elk's head from a farmer, who 
killed it near the Riding Mountains. The faritier heard 
his oxen bellowing in the night, and going out, found 
that they were attacked by this big elk, which he 
promptly shot. The elk was apparently feeling proud 
over the fact that oxen did not have horns as long as his 
own. As usual, pride went before a fall. 
Chippewa WoU Drive. 
The Qiippewa tribe of Wisconsin held its annual wplf 
drive New Year's Daj^ and the drive is said to have 
cleaned up eighty-nine wolves and four l3mxes. 
English Partridges. 
Henry Moore, of Corinth, Miss., has brought with 
him from England a number of English partridges, which 
he has turned down on his farm near Corinth. He 
