226 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
[Marcpi ig, iM- 
and Fisheries some years ago held the opinion that the 
farmer is justified — notwithstanding the game law — ^to 
kill the deer when he finds them depredating his crops; 
but the present incumbent of the oihce does not adhere 
to that reasonable argument. 
The Long Island Railroad Co. and all available forces 
are in combine to build up the country, and it does not 
demand a very keen prophet to predict that the time 
cannot be far off when the deer wall shy at the presence 
of man and retire to the thicket. 
Why, then, in view of the time near at hand when the 
deer will inevitably be doomed, owing to the circum- 
stance that the present law already hiu'ts so fearfully 
the farmer, will a certain clique be allowed to propose 
such a rigorous game law to the detriment of their neigh- 
bors? Let the law alone as it stands at present. 
Carl Munkelwitz. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST, 
California Quail, 
Chicago. TIL, Feb. 26.— Mr. L. J. Marks, of Chicago, 
w^ho is spending a. part of the winter at Coronado Beach, 
Cal., writes informingly in regard to the wonderful num- 
bers of quail which still exist in parts of that far South- 
western country, which have not yet been depleted by 
the market hunter or the seeker for a record. He says: 
"Coronado boasts with good reason of her ideal lo- 
cation, well nigh perfect climate, and superbly appoint- 
ed mammoth hostelrj'; and now she comes to the front 
with a good claim to the somewhat hackneyed title of 
'a Areritable paradise for sportsmen.' 
"In witness whereof, Messrs. Dupee, Lester and Tur- 
ner, of Chicago, who are wintering here, brought in, 
as the result of a three days' shoot across the line in 
Lower California, only a few hours distant from this 
hotel, between 800 and 1,000 quail. 'Life was too short,' 
they said, for an exact count, so after counting up to 
800 they quit and threw in a bushel or so for good meas- 
ure. The birds were exhibited last evening on the floor 
of the great lounging room of the Coronado, and they 
naturally attracted much attention. There appeared to 
be four or five bushels of them, and the lucky, sun- 
browned hunters were the recipients of many congratu- 
lations. 
"Bill Denton, a noted hunter hereabouts, acted as 
guide and purveyor, and had arranged a very comforta- 
ble camp for the party near Carisso. Most of the shoot- 
ing was done in two days, on account of a drizzly rain 
which fell almost continuously the second day out. But 
one dog was used, a very indifferent red Irish setter, 
whose sole business it was to retrieve the birds, the 
hunters themselves flushing the game, Avhich sometimes 
got up in flocks like blackbirds, numbering anywhere 
frorn a hundred to a thousand. On account of their sur- 
prising swiftness in running, a great number of wounded 
birds were unfortunately lost. In order to get a bird 
in bag it must be either killed outright or have at least 
one leg and one wing broken. 
"The party contemplates another trip soon, with two 
or three good dogs, well able to retrieve the winged 
and slightly wounded, so that another record may be 
anticipated in the near future. Lest any should be dis- 
posed to condemn such wholesale killing, it may be said 
that the birds are in such countless numbers, and so 
little hunted, in the region visited that they are esteemed 
a pest by the few settlers there; and it must be remem- 
bered, too, that the bag above referred to would furnish 
about one quail for each of the guests now sheltered 
under the roof of the great hotel." 
Draining of ToIIestoa Marsh. 
Chicago, 111., March 12. — 'It is reported from Indiana 
that the Supreme Court of that State has instructed for 
the letting of the contracts on the big drain known as 
the Jarneke ditch, which would pass across the famous 
ToUeston marsh, and drain it quite dry in the course 
of a few years. The ditch would carry the water into 
the Grand Calumet River. The Tolleston Club has 
been fighting this case. It is not the policy of this club 
to give out much talk about its plans, and it never pays 
attention to mere daily newspaper talk. I have earlier 
stated that the eventual decision of the Tolleston litiga- 
tion will rest with the Supreme Court of the United 
States, to which appeal has been taken. It iS possible 
that the club will find legal measures to stay the ditch- 
ing machine until after the high tribunal of the land has 
said they cannot own what the United States have pat- 
ented to them. There is at present current in the daily 
press the usual review of fatalities on and around this 
marsh. The local feeling against this quiet and con- 
servative body of sportsmen has always been intense, 
and stories of all sorts are started about the club. We 
may safely say that when we see the Tolleston marsh 
dry it will be time enough to say it has been drained, 
and not before. 
Later.— President E. F. Daniels, of the Tolleston Club, 
has been interviewed, and brands the published informa- 
tion as inaccurate, as usual. He says the proposed ditch 
will not touch the club grounds at all. What the club 
objects to is an assessment of $15,000 on its land to help 
pay for a work that will be of no benefit whatever to the 
club. 
North Dakota "Wardcnship. 
The question of the State game wardenship for North 
Dakota for the new term is not yet decided. The present 
incumbent, Mr. George H. Bowers, has done good work 
and shown himself entirely worthy of reappointment. He 
is very apt to get the office, as he is a popular man, and 
his work has been generally appreciated. Other appli- 
cants for the place are C. K. Bassett, an editor, of 
Valley City, and Clarence A. Hale, of Grand Forks. 
Arrests in Montana. 
James Bussear was arrested at Gardiner, Mont,, near 
the Park line, last week. Bussear had been killing elk. 
He was taken to Livingston and tried before Justice 
Rose, who bound him over to appear before the Dis- 
trict Court next term. 
It would seem that finally a partial check at tdast is 
to be given the elk butchers who have been operating 
this winter along the upper Sun River. Constable Zim- 
mers, of Augusta, last week brought into Helena for 
confinement Joseph Chase and Charles Dando, who 
were arrested by Deputy Christian and posse at their 
camp, where full proof was discovered of the fact that 
they had been doing a wholesale business in skin 
hunting. Justice Meyer at Augusta bound these two 
men over to the District Court. There has been a great 
deal of this wholesale slaughter in the Sun River coun- 
try. Warrants are out for two prominent citizens — W. 
K. Floweree, State Senator from Teton county, and Dr. 
Winslow, Superintendent of the Fort Shaw Indian 
School. They, it is alleged, were up in that country 
after Jan. i, and brought out a four-horse load of elk 
and mountain sheep. Evidence is at hand for other 
parties, and warrants will probably be issued, 
Mongolian Pheasants in Texas. 
Messrs. Albert and Ed Steves and Gus Critzer, of San 
Antonio, Tex., have for two or three years been the 
owners of a small supply of mongolian pheasants, which 
they imported at considerable expense. The birds have 
done fairly well, and their owners this week were to 
have turned twenty-five of them loose in the mountains 
some sixty miles northwest of San Antonio. The birds 
will be liberated in a spot some twenty or thirty miles 
distant from any settlement, and in a country where 
they ought to thrive. At New Braunfels, Tex., the city 
marshal has been for some time experimenting with 
these birds, and he Avill soon set loose fifteen of them in 
Comal county, about thirty miles northeast of San An- 
tonio. The Texans confidently expect that this stock 
will do as much for itself as did the fifteen birds origi- 
nally planted in the State of Oregon by Judge Denny. 
The Spring Flight. 
The north-bound ducks are now well up in the North. 
I hear of increasingly good bags on the Platte River in 
Nebraska. The flight along the Missouri River is re- 
ported good. At Mud Lake, near St. Joseph, Mo., Pat 
Kane, chief of the fire department, with two friends killed 
128 ducks one day last week. Along the Illinois River 
the birds have come in in good numbers, especially 
around Browning and points in the lower part of the 
State. The shooters say that the birds are not feeding 
along the river, but going out over the country, the 
mallards feeding on the. old corn fields. Along the Kan- 
kakee River in Indiana the shooting has been heavy on 
a iew occasions, at water holes in the ice, where the 
birds circled and tried to. get into the water. 
A Good Thing, 
Dispatches this week from Ohio say that the State 
Legislature has passed a law giving wardens the right 
to open packages of illegal game offered for transporta- 
tion, and to confiscate same, giving all such game when 
found to charitable institutions. This latter part of the 
measure is certainly unqualifiedly good. There never 
was a more risky clause put in a game law than that 
allowing a warden a part of the money he can get out 
of confiscated game. Witness the many instances of 
abuse in this State in earlier years, for instance the Ke- 
wanee fiasco, where no attempt was made to fine the 
man Merritt for a crime, the energies of the warden 
and his assistants being confined to attempts to get at 
the great amount of game, which could be sold under 
the Illinois law at auction, the warden keeping half the 
funds so acquired. It is of no practical use to take away 
game from a dealer who holds it illegally and then put 
it up at auction and let that dealer buy it in and get a 
legal title to illegal game. This leaves one of the fatal 
loopholes which vitiate so many laws. I presume the 
original purpose in such statutes was to provide some 
means by which the game warden might be able to 
create a revenue for himself by his own exertions. There 
is no doubt that the sale of confiscated game is a very 
considerable source of revenue in this State, for Warden 
Loveday has often told me so. Yet I imagine that he 
would just as leave turn this contraband game over to 
the homes of the friendless as to sell it over again to 
dealers, provided that he himself were paid as much 
from some other source as he could get from this odd 
marketing of game declared illegal by the law .and yet 
sanctioned by the law. The man who handles illegal 
game is just as much a criminal as a burglar. When we 
catch a burglar we do not try to punish him, or to pay 
ourselves for catching him, by a division of the plunder 
he has stolen. We clap the criminal in jail and give the 
property back to the owner. Clap the illicit game dealer 
in jail too, and give the game back to its owner, the 
State, which has to feed the inmates supported by its 
charity. If this isn't good sense, I am off my trolley. 
Cipher Correspondence. 
I have at hand a letter handed me by Warden Loveday,. 
which letter was written by one purporting to be F. 
T. Hart, of Cainsville, Mo., to E. A. Gaensslen, a com- 
mission merchant of this cit3^ The letter is so badly 
written that it might classify as a cipher dispatch, and 
it may be that the writer wishes it had been still more 
illegible and undecipherable. It goes on to saj^: "jenuar- 
ry the 28 mr, ganslen i hav Bin sicK for fower weeks 
SinCe i saw your agent, i am gittin game rite now i have 
som gees i will sent them in now mr i will do business 
with you i will sent you som eggs, how long can you 
Handel Birds privetly mr send priCes onCe a Aveak is 
anuf." 
This is the way the game comes, "privetly," some- 
times. Inclosed with the letter was a shipping tag 
marked "Birds 78, mink i." It is a bit rude of Warden 
Loveday to thus make public a gentleman's private cor- 
respondence, when it has such obvious need of being 
conducted "privetly." E. Hough. 
1206 BoYCE Building, Chicago, 111. 
Messfs. Sclioverling-^ Daly & Gales^ Removal, 
On or about April 10 Messrs, Sclioverling, Daly & 
Gales will remove to No. 325 Broadway for a tem- 
porary occupancy until the completion of the new store 
which is to be built for them at Nos. 302 and 304 Broad- 
Way. 
St* Louis Notes* 
St. Louis, Mo,, March 12. — ^There is probably no bet- 
ter game and fish preserve in the United States than is 
comprised in what is known as the "Sunk Lands" of 
southeast Missouri and northeast Arkansas. This region 
is heavily timbered, full of lakes and streams, and a vast 
portion of it is subject to annual overflow, so that the 
whole region is kept well watered. Through this region 
flow the Little and St. Francis rivers, which the United 
States Fish Commissioner's report states contain a great- 
er A^ariety of fish life than any other river system in the 
country. 
This section has been the paradise of the market 
hunter and fisherman, and a 'large portion of the supplies 
which come to the large cities along the river have been 
from this region, Arkansas has a game law prohibiting 
shipments out of that State of any game or fish, but it 
has not been closely enforced. Recently, however, in- 
structions have been giA^en by the State officers asking 
county oiKcials everyAvhere to be on the watch and to 
prevent any shipment of game or fish out of the State. 
While this has been aimed, no doubt, at the visiting 
sportsmen from other. States, it will prove a mighty good 
thing if the officers will stop the market shipments of the 
native hunter as well. 
The club Avhich has long been knoAvn as the Moredock 
Lake Hunting and Fishing Club will now locate on the 
Castor River in southeast Missouri, and hope to haA'-e a 
.game warden appointed in that section who will co- 
operate Avith the Avarden at New Madrid and prevent 
illegal netting. The famous Moredock Lake, lying south- 
east of St. Louis about twenty-one miles in Illinois, 
has again been leased by a new club, and we understand 
the club has the consent of the surrounding farmers to 
dam up the outlet of the lake, Avhich will make it again 
famous as one of the best fishing resorts in this section 
of the country. The drainage laAV of Illinois has 
been the means of destroying many excellent fishing 
preseiwes Avithou^ any corresponding benefit in the way 
of reclaimed lands. 
The game commission houses and restaurants, and 
others interested in the preserving of game by the cold 
storage process, Avill have a meeting to devise a law for 
the better protection of the game of this State. We all 
know what kind of a law these gentlemen desire, and it 
is to be regretted that the genuine sportsmen do not 
haA^e the same influence in legislation as do these Ado- 
lators of the game laws of the States. It is to be hoped 
that some steps will be taken to defeat the purposes of 
these commission men. 
Although it has been a very open and mild winter, our 
fish market has had very few fresh run fish, but the 
supply has been mostly from cold storage refrigerators. 
Whether the enforcement of the game laAVS has had 
anything to do with the scarcity of fresh fish is unde- 
termined; but certain it is, however, that the ncAv game 
Avarden of this State has made many convictions in the 
southeast part of Missouri, where the market fishing is 
carried on. 
The King's Lake Club have had their share of trou- 
bles, and as is frequently the case the former keeper 
has purchased some adjoining property, and is doing 
Avhat he can to take away members from the old con-, 
cern. This lake has of recent years been of little account 
for fishing purposes, but duck shooting has been fairly 
good during the season. At present ducks are quite 
abundant along the river and fine shooting is reported 
from the preserves up the river, and also on the Illinois 
side, in the sloughs. There are few ducks, however, to 
be seen in the market. It has been a very easy winter 
on quail, there having been but little snow, and the 
thermometer not once dropping to the zero point in 
this section of the country. The birds have come 
through the Avinter in excellent condition, and there 
should be a great increase in the supply. Aberdeen. 
Enemies of Gi'otjse* 
I was glad to see Mr. Stark's article on foxes and 
grouse. Experiences differ somewhat. As I never use 
a dog for any kind of game, I ha\'e killed but few foxes; 
but I have several times seen where they had caught 
them while under the snow. I have also seen a fox with 
a rabbit in his mouth. I have known a fox with a fore- 
leg broken by a shot that day to kill and bury a rabbit. 
I once surprised a female fox in June Avhich had a large 
woodchuck in her mouth, Avhich she was carrying to her 
young. The Avoodchuck also was a female, and Avas 
nursing young. 
While foxes kill more or less partridges and rabbits, 
they do not kill nearly as many as wildcats. I have 
known a single wildcat to destroy entirely all the rabbits 
in a large swamp in one winter. In December the rab- 
bits Avere very plenty, and in a late snoAV in April not a 
single track could be found; but I saw a good many 
places AAdicre rabbits had been eaten. I also in the 
Avinter saAV where he had crept to and killed a grouse. 
In this vicinity we have never had any snaring, and 
very little market hunting. A fcAV grouse are sold, but 
it is very rarely any one tries to hunt for the sake of any 
profit; but the grouse haA'e steadily decreased, and we 
cannot have one-fourth here of what Mr. Stark reports. 
Horned and barred owls used to destroy a great many. 
Contrary to the common belief, both hunt in the day- 
time as well as in the night, and I have seen both Avith 
grouse they had just killed in broad daylight. As the 
larger groAvth has been" cut off, the owls have grown 
more scarce, but the grouse have an enemy left worse 
than both owls and foxes. The goshawks stay here all 
the year round. They nest here, and a pair of them \Adll 
kill a large part of the game in several miles square 
in a year, besides killing many domestic foAvl and rab- 
bits. Besides killing to_ eat they sometimes wantonly 
destroy for the fun of killing, just as city sportsmen often 
do. One of my men in going to camp one night in 
winter saw seven ^grouse budding. In going to his 
Avork in the morning he found the remains of five lying 
on the snow, and saw the hawk which had killed them, 
They Avill very quickly run a grouse doAvn on the wing, 
I have seen one doing this. I think that the larger part 
of the grouse which they get they take on the Aving, 
Mr. Stark speaks of foxes usually being fat. I had a 
gfoshawk brought to me last Aveek which was on the " 
