266 
Forest and Stream, 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
Items on Spring Shooting, 
ing and fishing ground. The Coui't says that the State 
holds its inland lakes in trust for the benefit of the 
public, and not as an absolute proprietor, and has no 
right to give thern away for private use. 
Didn't Know It. 
The State of Wisconsin is having a little wrestle- with 
an express company which has been handling game can- 
trarjr to the law. The express company set up the 
claim that it didn't know what it was receiving for ship- 
ment, and ought not to be penalized for its ignorance. 
The result would not, according to the laws of evi- 
dence, long remain in _ doubt. The common law hath 
never, from the time of William Tell -and Gessler down, 
taken compassion upon the man who, having blown 
down his gun and thereby lost his countenance,- hath 
sought to palliate the fact by the assertion that ;he didn't 
know it was loaded. All guns, and all laws, should be 
regarded as loaded. 
Mixed. 
We have once or twice, tried here in Chicago to safely 
bed the lion and the lamb by calling conventions . of 
mixed nature,, wherein the sportsmen and game dealers 
met to try to agree upon some course of action which 
should prove of mutual benefit. Tliese affairs have all, 
without exception, proved to be of mutual benefit — to 
the game dealers. The latter were always willing to com- 
bine with the sportsmen whenever the sportsmen were 
willing to allow the dealers to do just as they liked in 
selling and shipping game. In view of the results here 
I am disposed to view with considerable distrust the 
attempt in a similar line which was this week made at 
St. Louis. It is stated that too commission men, game 
dealers and officers of hunting and gun clubs met at 
Mathis' Hall. Messrs. P. M. Kiely, of P. M. Kiely 
Co.; Nat Wetzel, of the Western Game and Poultry 
Co., and Frank H. Miller, of Trescher & Miller, all 
heavy game handlers, addressed the meeting, urging 
united action in the interest not only of the trade, but 
also of the sport. Mr. Kiely took the chair, and Mr. 
Dennis acted as secretary. 
"The consensus of opinion in the large gathering was 
that some action should be taken for the forming of a 
permanent organization, to be empowered later on to 
approach the coming revision session of the Legislature 
for needed changes in the State laws. It was decided 
to form a permanent organization with'the following offi- 
cers: P. M. Kiely, President; Nat Wetzel, Secretary; 
Fred Hager, First Vice-President; Frank H. Miller, 
Second Vice-President; Otto Vqelker, Treasurer. The 
chairman then, on motion, appointed a committee on 
constitution and by-laws, composed of Nat Wetzel, J. 
B. Retallack, David Unger. H. Landauer and George 
]. Hageman. It was decided to name the new organiza- 
tion the Commission Merchants and Game Dealers' As- 
sociation of Missouri. 
"Secretary Wetzel was instructed to put himself in 
communication with the organized bodies throughout the 
State interested in the protection- and preservation of 
game, both as a commercial commodity and a sport, 
with the view of securing opinions to aid the new As- 
sociation in its work. 
•'The next meeting will be held on Monday, April 4." 
There is a contradiction in terms in the above real or 
pretended eagerness to leai-n what organized bodies think 
about the question of game for commercial purposes 
and for sport. There is no body of modern sportsmen 
to-day who believe that sport and commerce mix, Jf 
th€ real sportsmen of St. Louis are really interested in 
this movement, the best thing they can do is to rid them- 
selves of the game dealers: and not be mi.sled by any 
talk of compromifle. It will be the old story. Far bet- 
ter in principle, and even to-day equally effective in 
practice, is it to come out flat for the Forest and 
Stre.\m plank, "Stop the Sale of Game." Then the 
sportsmen need fear no entangling alliances, which have 
but one end, and which are instituted but for one pur- 
pose. Shooting for sport and shooting for the market 
never chd and never can go together. Laws for the deal- 
er and for the sportsman never did and never will go to- 
gether. Why try the impossible? Stop the "conces- 
sions." Block up the loopholes' Come out and fight, 
and if you get licked, at least do yourself the honor of 
being lidced in good company. 
As Others See Us. 
The following letter has. been received at this office of 
Forest and Stream: - • ■ 
"Dear Sir: I see by your issue of March 12 that you 
call W. H. Dupee and myself I'game hogs.' It is a fact 
that Mr. Dupec, Mr. Frank Turner, of Philadelphia, my- 
self and guide did kill a great many quail in Mexico-; 'we 
shot three days (four guns), and brought into the Hotel 
Coronado, 1,052 birds. Our guide, a Mr. Denton, is a 
market shooter, and is hired by the hotel to furnish game 
for the table, and he himself will kill anywhere from 
fifteen to twenty dozen a day. At the time that I was at 
Coronado there were over 800 people in the hotel. If one 
puts quail on the bill of fare and serves 800 people with 
quail, some one has got to kill them. Every bird was shot 
on the wing except one. I killed that one on the ground', 
thinking it was a cripple. Three years ago your papei" 
called me a 'game hog' for killing a great many "duck.? 
in one day at Swan Lake Club, of vidiich I am a member: 
Do you: happen to know what I did with those birds?. 
You don't, so I'll tell you. I shipped them, by eixpress, 
prepaid,' to two different charitable institutions in Chi; 
cago. I never sold a bird. in my life, and- it's only a 
few days ago that I gave up $50 as one of ten men 
to put out quail near Swan Lake Club, We have - spent 
$500 for quail, and they are put out, and we are going 
to protect them. I've shot over almost all the Western 
States, and have never gone on to a farm without first . 
asking if- I ' mi'ght. These qi-iail that we shot all be- 
longed to the guide, and what I gave a-vya.y I had to. 
buy of him. Don't al-vs'ays be in such a terrible hurry, 
to jump on people. I guess if other shooters gave up 
the coin that Mr. Dupee and myself have to restock the 
coiintry with quail, they would be running aroUnd .t.h.e 
streets of Chicago. Now you know what was d.ohe 
with the quail. .. . C. H.. Lester.'!. , 
If Mr. Lester will refer back to the columns of Forest 
AND Stream, he will find that he is in error in stating 
that I have previous .to this -date called him a "game 
hog." I do call, him so now, very .cheerfully; but^I, re- 
frained .from, it -in the earj-ier -publication of " the news. 
I hope he will pardon the oversight. Under the heading 
"As Others See Us" I printed the comment sent into 
Chicago, March 24. — A sportsman of Cleveland, O., 
AVrites to a friend of Forest and Stream some little 
notes on the spring shooting in his neighborhood. 
Avhich the latter is kind enough to put in the possession of 
Forest and Stre.'^m. The gentleman writes: 
'*We have received word from the keepers of both 
the upper and lower houses on the Ottawa grounds 
that there are thousands of geese on the marshes — more 
than ha-Ve; been seen there before in twenty years — and * 
that the open waters are crowded with canvasbacks and 
some redheads. The last-named duck is getting very 
.scarce in this coimtry. They report the marsh ducks in 
immense flocks. 
"I don't believe in shooting ducks in the spring, and 
there is very little of it done on our marshes. Some- 
times we go up in the spring and shoot a few ducks, but 
discourage large bags. I met a member of one of the 
Lake Erie clubs to-day, and he said one of their mem- 
bers had just returned with 140 ducks. I can't see how 
a man can do that in the spring. Just imagine what 
his bag means, it you could see those ducks coming 
down next fall with their progeny. About T,ooo ducks, 
that's what this bag means. 
"The ducks have not been shot at much on the Ohio 
marshes during the past two years, as two years ago the 
marshes were dr}% and last year they were pretty much 
grown up, so that the hunters could not get at the ducks. 
The result of this rest which the ducks had is seen in 
midtitudes of ducks on our marshes this year." 
There has been a second and greater flight at Lake 
Senachwine. A great many shooters have been at the 
Undercliff, and a great man}'- birds have been killed. 
One shooting party is reported to have killed 700 ducks. 
A number of Peoria' shooters are there. Yesterday I 
heard of one bag of eighty-frve mallards killed by one 
gun on Lake Senachwine one day this week. 
The full flight has reached the marshes of middle Wis- 
consin. Along the Wolf River and the Winneconne 
marshes bluebills and redheads have showed up in great 
numbers during the past week. There is no doubt that 
there will be heavy shooting on the deep-water ducks, 
and also that great numbers of mansh ducks will be 
illegally killed. To show the growing sentiment of even 
disinterested parties against the shooting of wildfowl in 
the spring, I should like to offer the following quota- 
tion from the Oshkosh Northwestern: 
"Within a week after the shooting begins the birds 
will be so wary that it will be next to impossible to get 
a shot at one of them. While a great many take pleas- 
ure in shooting ducks in the spring, there are sports- 
men who will not, as they consider spring .shooting a 
species of slaughter. The ducks seen on these waters 
in the spring are on their way north. They drop down 
for a brief rest on their semi-annual voyage. Thej^ are 
as a rule too lean to be of value as an article 
if food, and the flesh is not very palatable, be- 
cause of a fishy taste. When they leave their south- 
ern feeding grounds they are fat, but on their way north 
they lose flesh. Their food en route consists largely of 
small fish and a few snails, and the flesh becomes taint- 
ed. Sportsmen who do not hunt in the spring claim 
that the slaughter of ducks on their way to the nesting 
grounds is most destructive, as the death of one female 
duck now means the loss of a whole brood for fall shoot- 
ing. Spring ducks as a rule keep to open water, and are 
easily decoyed. During the past two or three nights 
the musical sound of wild geese on their way to the 
northern nesting groimds has been heard, a sure sign 
that spring is not ver}^ many weeks away." 
Still another Wisconsin paper, not, as it would appear, 
published solely in the interest of sportsmen (*rhe Fort 
Atkinson Union) makes the following comment on 
spring shooting: 
"The sportsmen have been having rare sport in duck 
shooting on the Bark River and Scupernong marsh. The 
slaughter has been by the hundreds and running up in 
and beyond the thousand mark. The shooting of a 
thousand ducks in the spring decreases the fall supply 
by five thousand, an argument against spring shooting. 
Extermination of the flocks will arouse the lawmakers 
when it is too .late." 
It is very gratifying to see numbers of those jour- 
nals which are sometimes described as "country papers" 
takii-ig advanced ground in matters of sportsmanship. 
The country papers are the rank and file, the bone and 
sinew of journalism, and their editorial opinions, usu- 
ally intelligent and well weighed, carry more influence 
in proportion to their circulation than those of any of 
the great daily papers which claim to mould public opin- 
ion. The fact that so many local papers nowadays pay 
attention to game law matters shows that the question 
of game protection is at last attaining the popular in- 
terest it has long deserved. Thus still another journal, 
the Tribune, of Bay City, Mich., goes on record in favor 
of the Michigan law which prohibits shooting in. the 
spring: 
"Wild ducks are beginning to arrive, and the high 
water in the marshes makes it certain that a large num- 
ber will nest and raise their young in this vicinity, 
which to sportsmen is an encouraging prospect. In 
this connection local sportsmen say they are prepared to 
fight any attempt that may be made to induce the Leg- 
islature to repeal the present law regarding wildfowl: 
The former law allowed certain kinds of ducks to be 
killed in the spring; now all are protected. There are 
some people who are opposed to this section of the game 
law, but sportsmen claim that it is a necessity in order 
that there may be plenty of birds for the last part of 
the season." 
May not Drain the Marsh. 
Some time ago the Wisconsin State Land and Im- 
provement Co. undertook to drain Muskego Lake, in 
Wisconsin, by cutting a canal from it to Wind Lake.- 
August Priewe sued the company, and the ease was 
taken up. A decision was handed down on March 21 
by Judge Johnson, giving Priewe $1,000 damages and 
declaring the law which authorized the draining of the 
lake to be null and void. The decision dernands that 
the original level of the lake be- restored. This may be 
considered as giving back to the public that much hunt- . 
For Killing Elfc. 
Joseph Chase and Charles Dando, earlier mentioned 
as having been arrested for illegally killing elk in the 
Sun River couiitry, have pleaded guilty ancl been fined 
$250 each, with six months' imprisonment additional. 
This is the' heaviest penalty which I remember to have 
seen inflicted upon any skin hunter. The men were 
alleged to have engaged in their elk shipping and elk 
butchering business on a large scale. 
• A Big Club. 
At the annual meeting of the St. Louis Game and 
Fish Preserve Association the following officers were 
elected: George A. Eayle, President; John M. Gates. 
■Vice-President; Wm. D. Bo3'-ce, Louis H. Haase, Alfred 
O. Westermann, Theo. H. Coni-ades, Wm. T. King, Di- 
rectors; and George J. Chapman, Secretary and Treas- 
urer. The membership has reached 185 business 
men. C. C. Maffit, Adolphus Busch, Col. Bob Anil, 
Dr. A. V. L. BrokaAV, James T. Drummond, J. B. C. 
Lucas, Judge Leo Rassieur, Juhus S. Walsh and others 
are included in the list. 
From a Good Town. 
Mr. G. F. Simmons, of Peoria, 111., was in the city 
yesterday. Mr. Simmons is secretary of the Illinois State 
Sportsmen's Association, and he lives in a mighty good 
town. Peoria is without doubt the second shooting city 
in Illinois, and comparatively speaking is a bigger shoot- 
ing town than Chicago. It is chock full of trap shoot- 
ers, duck shooters and all other sorts of shooters. The 
winter convention of the Illinois Association has stirred 
up great interest in Peoria and adjacent to-wns on game 
protection matters. 
Limit the Bag. 
Mr. A. H. Scott, of Clinton, 111., in handing in his 
dollar to the finance committee of the Illinois State 
Sportsmen's Association, does so with the following in- 
dorsement: "Cut the number of birds allowed to he 
killed in one day to 25, and that's too many." I wish 
that every one concerned with sport in Illinois thought 
just as Mr. Scott does. There are several points in the 
proposed bill of the Illinois State Sportsmen's Associa- 
tion which do not meet the approval of a great iiiany 
sportsmen, which indeed are perhaps not approved by 
the majority of the sportsmen of the State; for instance, 
the indorsement of spring shooting, which is now being 
condemned by gradual progress of belief in Western 
States as a relic of the past, and not in line with the 
requirements of sportsmanship to-day. Still this bill was 
devised by the majority of the members of the Illinois 
State Sportsmen's Association, who took sufficient in- 
terest to attend the convention, and as loyal members 
of that organization we are obliged to support the action 
of the majorit3\ The prospects of a good sum of money 
for that purpose are at present very fair. 1 
Loss to Lake Poygan Club. 
On last Monday, March 2T, the club house of the 
Lake Poygan Club, one of the best duck shooting cktbs 
of this part of the West, was destroyed by fire. The 
members lost not only their club house, but a number 
of their boats, some twenty or thirty boats being con- 
sumed. Lake Poygan Club has many members in Chi- 
cago, and is a representative shooting body. Its prop- 
erty on Lake Poygan, Wis., is very valuable, and the 
shooting on its preserves has usually been accounted 
the finest known on the many club marshes of Wiscon- 
sin. There is no doubt that the loss will be quickly 
remedied, as the membership is a wealthy one. 
Snipe. 
Jacksnipe and plover have appeared in this, vicinity, 
and I now hear of a few very good bags on snipe, most- 
ly to the west of this city. A few birds have been killed 
along the Indiana marshes, near Davis and Shelby. The 
birds are very thin and wild, and hardly repay the shoot- 
ing yet. The weather is growing milder noAV, and the 
grass is begining to show, so that before long the flight 
will settle and feed, and can be depended upon more 
than is possible now. Of course one may hear of a bag- 
in a certain place one day, and on the next may find 
no birds there at all. A few flocks of plover are re- 
ported to have been seen early this week near Dixon, 
111., and snipe are coming in over that country. Next 
week we should hear of golden plover near Gilman, this 
State. 
For those who inquire for snipe ground I would rec- 
ommend the Fuller's Island country, above Shelby, Ind., 
and the big marshes east of Swift's Station, on the Grand 
Trunk Railway. Th^ Kankakee marsh, near Davis, will 
open early. The Sag, near Chicago, is too much shot 
to count upon. The big sloughs near Chicago, beyond 
Arlington Heights, should, this coming week yield some 
toll, and around Fox Lake, Id., the birds ought to drop 
in for a time. Duck shooting is- about as good no.w at 
Fox Lake as it is apt to be this spring. A few good 
bags have been made on bluebills. 
In the Coear d'AIenes. 
The name of the Coeur d'Alenes naturally brings .tip 
thoughts of bears with manes on their shoulders, and 
sheep with ammonite horns, bitt the notion of the wild- 
ness to-day in the Coeur d'Alene country is somewhat 
reduced by the reflection that they .slioot ducks out 
there now, and not only shoot' thein, but 'feed them 
artificially. The Cceur d'Alene Rod and Guia Club has 
imported isolb.s. of wild rice, which will be planted in' 
the Cceur d'Alene Valley lakes, atid which if is thought ' 
will. help, the shooting. The planting of wild rice' is a 
A'ery wise .thing - for any ducking waters, for the wild 
duck is never better_eating- than when fed on this grain, 
and- never- more "abundant than where it can get this 
food. Wild rice itself,- :as I have earlier testified in these 
columns^ is -aiiightyigofSd to eat from a huniah stjah'd- 
point. . "•■ " ■ ' ■' ' ". - •'" ' . 
