June 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
Then came a long interval, and it was not till 1850 
that London received the first which had again visited 
Europe. Before the Cliristian era it haunted the Nile 
even below the First Cataract: it is now not found north 
of Dongola, between the Second and the Third, and is 
comparatively rare till above Khartum. As Mr. Lydekker 
tells us, at the present day it is practically restricted 
to the .African rivers and lakes between the seventeenth 
parallel of north latitude and the twenty-fifth of south 
latitude. But its range in prehistoric times was far more 
exten sive . — London Standard. 
miie §Hg and §mh 
"The Game Laws in Brief/' 
The new edition of "The Garrie Laws in Brief' is now 
ready. It gives the laws as revised to date, and is com- 
plete, accurate and convenient of reference as always. 
The Brief is finding constantly growing support and 
confidence, and has long been established as the accepted 
authority in its peculiarly useful field. 
Chamois and Stag Hunting in 
Austria* 
The Scotch deer stalker would be almost as much at 
sea when visiting for the first time an Austrian cliamois 
or red deer preserve as the jaeger of the latter country 
would be when first turned loose on a Scotch so-called 
"forest," where trees are conspicuous by their absence; 
if he were told to stalk yonder band of deer, lying out in 
the center of an open sketch of moor, far from covert. 
Both men M'ould have to learn the niceties of sport pecu- 
liar to the respective localities before they could hope 
to succeed. Confining myself to the experiences of the 
visitor to Austria, a few words concerning the entour- 
age of the continental presen'^es will fitly introduce him 
to his new ground. 
The landed aristocracy of Austro-Hungary have from 
time immemorial been keen stalkers, and the stag was the 
most prized game that roamed the great forest which- — 
tmtil quite recent times, when deforestation has made 
dangerous inroads — dotted the northern slopes of the 
main chain of the glacier mantled Eastern Alps. Until 
the year 1848 the poacher, when detected, fared ill in- 
deed, while the peasant dweUing in serf-life dependency 
upon his lord's broad acres dared not put up even 
fences to keep out of his wheat and turnips the deer and 
wild boar, which, as we know, grew in those days to a 
lustier size than at present. Antlers were the most 
valued token of friendship, and Lord Barton was bv 
no means the first sportsman who had a great head, such 
as was his celebrated 20-pointer of 1893, cast in solid 
silver, more than one ajicient head receiving that honor 
in life size. And the well-known instance of a king giv- 
ing a battalion of the tallest grenadiers in his army for 
a single famous red deer head of 66 points, or of another 
royal antler fancier offering in vain a sum corresponding 
to $25,000 for a many tined trophy of the stag, need hard- 
ly be repeated to show to what extremes went antler wor- 
ship in bygone centuries. 
Times have changed since then; the great magnate of 
Austro-Hungary no longer' holds feudal sway over his 
peasants, ' and his rights and privileges are but 
a shadow of what they were fiftj^ years ago. 
Deer preserving, except in the Carpathians, where 
individual estates are of enormotls sizC, some exceeding 
500 square miles, is a costly pleasure. Where the pres- 
ence of beech and oak mast, and the grasses springing 
from a naturally rich soil, do not provide the deer with 
sufficient food to their taste, they will enter wheat and 
maize fields and do a lot of damage, which the owner 
of the deer must make good, if the trespassers are to 
escape with life and limb. When I say that deer pre- 
serving is also an expensive luxm-y in Austria proper, I 
do not mean to say that things have cume quite to the 
same pass they have reached in the case of Scotch deer 
forests, where the net cost of every pair of antlers must 
be put at from $250 to $500. With the exception pen- 
haps of a dozen families with princely incomes, the 
Austrian aristocracy is not as rich as the nobility or 
landed gentry of Great Britain, for intermarriages with 
commoners who have amassed great wealth in trade or 
business are frowned upon, as is, alas, all connection 
with trade or manufacture. As the necessaries as well 
as the luxuries of life are cheaper and of a simpler de- 
scription in Austria than they are in Scotland, I think it 
can safely be said that a third, or very little more, of the 
sum named would cover the cost of a stag to a stranger 
leasing an Austrian forest, while to the sportsman shoot- 
ing his own preserve the cost would certainly not exceed 
$50 per head. 
In Hungary the chief aim is to stock the forest with 
the heaviest stags bearing the finest antlers. This, from 
the rich nature of the soil, is easier 01 achievement in 
that country than anywhere in Europe. In Austria prop- 
er, on the other hand, less attention is paid to the size 
of the deer than the number of tines, and as mountain 
chains ti averse all the Austrian provinces situated south 
of the Danube, people seek to combine deer preserving 
with chamois preserving. The latter game, pet of the 
romancer, is of course a much hardier beast than the 
stag, and can withstand cold and the vicissitudes of 
very hard winters infinitely better than can their ant- 
lered kinsmen, who frequent the forest below. The tim- 
ber line ttsually marks the boundary line between the 
crags and cliffs forming the chamois' breezy sanctuary 
and the playground of the red deer in the tangled and 
rarely-disturbed woods just below. 
In such a preserve judicious management on the part 
of the owner is usually rewarded with a good head of 
game, and as the Austrians do not look on such preserv- 
ing from a pecuniary aspect, as a possible source of in- 
come, good shoots are rarely leased except owing to 
some exceptional cause. If they are leased at all, then 
the}'' are never let for less than five, usuallj' for not less 
than ten 3'ears; indeed, separate communes having shoot- 
ing rights are prohibited by law to lease them for less 
than five years. To the owner of a good preserve, the 
idea of letting his forest to a man he did not knoAv 
personally, or about whose character as a. sportsman he 
had not made the strictest inquiries- — quite as searching 
ones as were the stranger a suitor for his daughter's 
hand — would be repugnant, and seem unsportsmanlike. 
I have heard some very unkind things said about the 
shopkeeper'^s way in which Scotch forests are let tor a 
single season to outsiders — strangers — whose bank ac- 
count is the only qualification inquired into. 
The shooting lodges in Austria are as a rule, very 
plainly furnished huts, with no pretension whatever to the 
luxury people expect in Scotch lodges. Hard wooden 
chairs, the simplest beds, and uncarpeted floor, would 
make many a head keeper's cottage on a Scotch moor 
seem ahnost a palace in comjjarison. Aitstrian sports- 
men are a hardy race, and take pride in putting up with 
as little as possible in the way of comfort, when they 
are on the mountains. From that veteran stalker, the 
Emperor of Austria, down to the young cadet of old 
name, but small fortune, eager to try his powers in out- 
witting the wary chamois, or listen for the first time to 
the roar of the stag's challenge as it echoes through the 
silent forest, the hardships of sport attract rather than 
repel. If these shooting chalets lack comfort, and the 
cuisine be of the plainest, the walls of every room, nay, 
the very outside of the dwelling~will be adorned with 
trophies such as never fall to the share of the ordinary- 
sportsman. Antlers of 18, 20 and 22 tines, and of such 
great size as to resemble those of the giant of the deer 
.species, the wapiti of North America, are the trophies 
carried bj'^ deer whose weight is quite double that of a 
good Scotch stag, for in Austro-Hungary numbers of 
stags of 56olbs. (clean) are shot every season. 
If the pleasures of the table and the ordinary comforts 
of life are eschewed by the Austrian sportsman, much 
greater care is devoted by him to the good condition of 
the deer than his British brother of the craft vouch- 
safes to his Scotch deer. Ample stores of good hay, and 
what is of vital imijortance in furthering the growth of 
antlers, a sufficiency of horn-producipg nutriment, such 
as chestnuts, maize, etc., is provided for the deer, while 
shelter sheds distributed over the preserve, where in 
some seasons snow to a depth of 3 or 4ft. may lie for 
months at a time, afford them protection against the 
inclemencies of a sub-arctic winter. It must not be 
imagined that this winter feeding reduces the innate 
wildness of these deer, for only in exceptional cases can 
the hardiest of the keepers, prepared to brave the deep 
snow in the isolated glens and corries where the 
shelter sheds are erected, CA^er get near the shy denizens 
of these upland forests. In very bad winters, when the 
store of hay is insufficient, serious losses cannot be 
avoided, and one sees on such occasions pitiable pictures 
of distress. I well remember one winter, that "terror" in 
Europe of 1874-5, I was out witlr a party rescuing 
snowed-in deer. The party consisted of men who were 
the pick of the sturdy mountainers, such as it wotild be 
difficult to match in any part of the world, and they 
did heroic work. The deer we found were standing 
about in the deep, soft snow, and were so near complete 
exhaustion that they allowed us to approach them 
quite close, and after a few feeble attempts to escape 
would greeddy take the hay, with loads of which each 
man was supplied. It had taken us two days of hard 
wading to get to the worst place from the last supply 
of hay, and finding many more deer assembled there 
than we expected, and could feed, the men carried the 
Weakest hinds on their backs for many hours through 
snow that reached up to their thighs; the two most pow- 
erful in the lot actually each shoulderea a two-year-old 
stag, a truly wonderful feat under the circumstances. 
While chamois can be stalked from July to December 
(though it is by no means an easy sport when snow 
mantles the slopes to any depth), the stag can only be 
himted in the dense woods to which he loves to retire 
after he has shed the velvet, and where he lays up a good- 
ly stock of fat, when the instincts of mating-time cause 
him to give vent to the challenging roar, and thereby be- 
tray his whereabouts to his human foes. At the begin- 
ning of the season when the stag is roaming excitedly 
through the forest on the lookout for hinds, those 
skilled in "calling" — imitating the sounds made by the 
stags and the hinds — will make use of this lure, but 
for the rest of the season, when the stag is more sur- 
feited with the joys of love-making, the more deadly call 
to use is that of the male. Under favorable circumstances 
the victim will, on hearing the challenge, come rushing 
toward his imaginary foe, at others he will do so more 
carefully, stealthily stealing through the forest. Again 
at other times the most skillful imitation will be left 
disregarded, or at best will be answered only by a 
grunt, which, if audible to the caller, is sufficient to 
enable the stalker to direct his approach. Under all 
circumstances the scent must be well guarded, for though 
the stag is himself at this season, careless and unmindful 
of danger, he is generally surrounded by hinds, who are 
at that period doubly keen watchers. 
Unfortunately for the sportsman these faithful watch- 
ers, numbering from two to eight head, are not always 
collected in one spot round the stag, but are often dis- 
tributed over a considerable expanse of ground, consider- 
ing the density of the timber. Let the stalker be never 
so careful, and manage his approach never so noiselessly, 
his efforts will assuredly fail if the ring is a wide one. 
Ambushing himself behind some bushes, he must resort 
to the "call" — generally by the aid of a large-mouthed 
sea shell, by which he can imitate the deep belching 
roar of the stag. If the stag has any fight left in him, and 
the hinds do not take the alarm, success may even then 
reward the skillful caller. The condition of the weather 
has much to do with this kind of sport, for 
in dull or rainy weather the stags will call 
much less frequently and respond more tardily than 
on crisp, bright autumn mornings, following frosty 
nights. The shooting is generally done at close ranges, 
for not only does the wooded character of the uplands 
prevent long shots, but most shots are obtained at dawn 
or at dusk. Of the two, the former is the best calling 
time, for by being out early you can arrive in the vi- 
cinity of the deer under cover of darkness. Stags are 
far more likely to call at night than during full daylight. 
Chamois shooting, perhaps a more fascinating sport 
even, is conducted either by stalking or driving. The 
former has about it many of the features of Scotch deer 
stalking, with the difference that the ground as a rule is 
far more precipitous, and requires not only stout legs, 
sound lungs, but also a clear head. For these reasons 
it is a kind of sport in which only younger men can 
shine. Of all mountain sport, it is the one which tests 
the sportsman's endurance most, though not his "quali- 
ties as a shot, for as a rule the stalker can take his time 
and get in his shot under conditions favorable to success. 
Different is this in chamois driving, when the fleet little 
beasts come tearing down impossible-looking declivities 
amid a rattle of stones, and dash past the sportsman with 
a fleetness that tests his marksmanship quite as much 
as it does his coolness; for, as the shooting of does is 
avoided as much as possible, and is considered unsports- 
manlike, and as the sexes resemble each other in build 
and in the shape of their horns, it takes steady nerves 
and long practice to excel in this branch of chamois 
hunting. W. R. Gilbert. 
Game Protection in Illinois. 
At the Peoria meeting of the Illinois State Sportsmen's 
Association last week Game Warden Loveday sum- 
marized his work for the year in the following synopsis: 
The number of arrests so far reported throug:hout the 
State for violation of the game laws, 603. That is not all 
the arrests that have been made, and I am sorry to say a 
great many deputies have not reported at all, although 
I know arrests have been made. The number of con- 
victions, 548. There are only two cases now pending in 
court. Fifty-three cases were dismissed or non-suited 
wherein the evidence was not sufficient, or extreme pov- 
erty prevailed, chiefly among the poor miners during the 
strike. All of these cases were thoroughly investigated 
and your warden has used his very best and humane 
judgment. Thirteen of the convicted were committed to 
jail; the others paid fines or gave bonds from $5 to $130. 
The State has been defeated in only three cases that carne 
to trial by jury, and only prejudice against any law was 
the cause of defeat. 
The convictions were: 171 for shooting game out of 
season; 105 for shooting and trapping plumage birds; 28 
for shooting after sunset and before sunrise; 11 for 
shooting from sink boxes, sail boats and steam boats; 
223 for having in possession and offering for sale. 
Game seized on sight in Chicago from June i to Oct. 1: 
3,206 prairie chickens, 1,852 partridges, 715 quail, 429 
ducks, S3 woodcock; total, 6,255. 
Game seized on sight in Chicago, from Nov. i to June 
i: i,Tio prairie chickens, 713 partridges, 9,159 quail, 
742 ducks, 62 woodcock, 211 squirrels, 13 venison; total, 
12,010. Total game seized, 18,265. 
In Chicago, during the hot weather, 1,680 of the above 
number of birds came into market in a worthless condi- 
tion; 1,450 of them being prairie chickens killed in the 
months of August and September. 
It is probable that several thousand more birds could 
be added to this list which have been contiscated by my 
deputies in other counties, which were disposed of with- 
in the counties in which they were found in accordance 
with the law, afid it has been impossible for me to get 
any kind of a report from them for- reasons hereinafter 
mentioned. 
It is very funny to some, perhaps, that I should pay out 
expense and get no salarj^ The expenses of this work 
are railroad travel, transportation for deputies in emer- 
gency case, board for same, attorney's fees outside of 
State's attorneys, stationery, postage, stenographer and 
typewriter, telegrams, salary to deport deputies, express 
and freight, cold storage and cartage, livery, personal 
expenses while traveling. All together this makes $3,- 
036.22 that I have paid out of nothing. The freight and 
express I paid at the end of the road. I made that ar- 
rangement with the express companies in order to get 
tlieir good will. I paid all the express charges up to the 
time of seizing. 
There are now 176 deputies in the State, good, bad and 
indifferent. I am of the opinion that if I had only 15 to 
t8 such men as I could choose out of the 176 under pay 
and under command, whom I could send from place to 
place when needed, I could do more good work than 
with this number under existing circumstances, for the 
reason as it appears they seem to be afraid to make ar- 
rests among their own townspeople, or people whom 
they know, whereas a deputy at large would know no- 
body, and consequently show no favors and do his best 
to hold his job. On account of the vigorous warfare 
that we have kept up in the past year against the vio- 
lators of the law, I sincerely believe there will not be one 
in ten as many violations in the year to come. There 
are but few counties in the State which have not had 
one example or more, and the country press has kindly 
heralded the names of the offenders, which of itself is 
enottgh to keep many from running the risk of being 
published. But at the same time the work must be kept 
up in order to protect the game we have lett. I am very 
doubtful if in the year to come there will be revenue 
from suits and seizures to pay the expenses. It is to be 
hoped that our next Legislature will take action on this 
matter. 
I attribute the reason that I have not received a full 
return from the deputies to the fact that when I first 
took the office I did not know whence I was to get the 
money that was necessary to carry on the work that I 
was so anxious to do, consequently in appomting depu- 
ties I assessed them one-quarter of their earnings. I soon 
found out that this would not work; but that a deputy 
earned every cent he got and more too, and I have noti- 
fied them to that effect. But in traveling around I found 
a number of cases wherein the deputy had not reported, 
and the more honest ones gave that as their reason. 
The office of game warden of this State, in order to 
keep an accurate account of everything in detail, re- 
quires one clerk and one stenographer. The correspon^- 
dence at times is very large. One hundred and three let- 
ters have been written from this office in a single day; 
3,981 letters in the twelve months; 3,719 have been re- 
ceived. A great many of these letters have been written 
to make inquiries regarding fish, but nevertheless had to 
be answered to refer them to the proper parties from 
whom to get the information required. 
It is necessary for the game warden to be continually 
traveling, and while away a responsible man should 
