88 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[July 30, 1898. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
The Lost Park Buffalo. 
The killing- of the buffalo cow in Lost Park, Colo., last 
June has attracted much attention, and as is well known, 
State Warden Swan some days ago caused the arrest of 
two Leadville gentlemen, charging them with the act. 
The result of the case is not yet determined. The Miner, 
of Leadville, Colo., gives the other side of the story in 
the following words: 
. "One of the gentlemen is Frank W. Bartlett, the taxi- 
dermist, of 112 East Third street. On being interviewed 
he stated that a few weeks ago he and his wife and 
child, accompanied by Henry M. Blakely, the dry goods 
man of East Sixth street, went to the Lost Park coun- 
try for an outing. A number of other parties had talked 
of going along, but when the day for starting came the 
above named persons only were prepared to go. 
"When they arrived at Mr. Derley's place, near Lost 
Park, that gentleman and his wife accompanied them. 
The party camped on Rock Creek during their stay and 
never saw a buffalo, not even a track of one, while they 
were there. They never heard of the killing of the 
buffalo until they came out of the park. Mr. Bartlett 
remarked, when hearing of the affair, that they would 
accuse him of the killing because he was a taxidermist. 
" 'Sheriff Wilson, of Park county,' said Mr. Bartlett, 
'placed Mr. Blakely and myself under arrest and we gave 
bonds in the sum of $500 to appear at the September term 
of court to answer the charge. We deny having killed 
a buffalo, and we are prepared to prove our innocence.' 
"Mr. Blakely in his interview said they had neither 
seen nor heard of a buffalo on their camping out trip, and 
that the whole affair seemed to him to be the work of 
some malicious person who would be called to account 
for .the prosecution and attempted persecution." 
It is to be hoped that justice will be brought to the 
proper parties, whoever they may be. The gradual kill- 
ing of the. Yellowstone herd is one of the disgraces of the 
West, and the butchery of one of the little band of buffalo 
still :left in Colorado, a female at that, and suckling a 
young calf, is also a disgrace to the State of Colorado, 
every; man of which ought to be proud of the fact that 
his;,State has a few, a very few, specimens left of an 
animal -hardly to be found anywhere else in the whole 
world. 
Prairie Chickens. 
Those gentlemen of Illinois who think that the chicken 
law of this State is "unconstitutional," and that they can 
shoot chickens on Sept. 1, or earlier if they feel so in- 
clined, would do well to proceed with extreme caution. 
Warden Loveday stands on the date of Sept. 15. He will 
make it interesting to all sheriffs, attorneys, justices of 
the peace and other persons of high degree, as well as 
common people, who may feel a need of prairie chickens 
too urgent to be restrained until Sept. 15. 
There is reason to suppose that we shall have a fair 
supply of prairie chickens scattered here and there over 
a wide extent of the State of Illinois. By the date of 
Sept. 20 most of the shooting at these birds will have 
been done. There are so many guns and so many good 
shots nowadays, both in town and country, all of whom 
are well posted as to the chicken country, that the sup- 
ply of these big birds is sufficient to last but a short 
while. In this regard I think the State of Illinois is not 
very different from that of Minnesota or Nebraska. I 
have reports from both of these States that the chicken 
crop this year is unusually good. This is the stereotyped 
form of chicken information in the West these days. A 
month or So before the season the birds are reported 
"more numerous than they have been for years." Ten 
days after the opening date the story runs that the birds 
must have been killed off by a wet spring, or a dry 
summer, or by minks, hawks or some other evil-minded 
creatures. I presume that there are about as many 
prairie chickens in Illinois as in Minnesota. Mr. W. S. 
Phillips, of this city, is just back from a trip through 
the West. He says that Nebraska is full of quail and 
prairie chickens, the latter being especially abundant in 
the northwestern part of that State. He also says that 
there is a great deal of sporting travel going on in the 
West, numbers of parties going into the mountains. 
From other sources I hear that the season in Nebraska 
has been exceptionally favorable for prairie chickens. 
There has been a good crop, probably as good a crop 
as that State will ever again see in its history. It is also 
the case that shooting of market hunters and so-called 
sportsmen is even now going on over a wide part of 
Nebraska. When the opening day arrives the crop will 
have been largely harvested. 
Rough on the Gun Club. 
The Sioux Falls Press, a newspaper published in one of 
the best chicken regions of the country, gives utterance 
to some harsh comment on the methods of the members 
of the' local gun club, which comment I trust is entirely 
erroneous. While it does not reflect a spirit appropriate 
to the present, I know that such acts as those charged 
were at one time all too prevalent over a great portion 
of the West. 
The Press remarks: 
"It's about' time for -the president of the Sioux Falls 
Gun. Club to quote the game law of the State, and warn 
gunners not to shoot prairie chickens out of season 
The .members of the gun club in the past always ac- 
cepted the president's warning as a license to go out into 
the.fields and bag a few birds. In fact, all citizens, in- 
clined to field sports of this character played the warn- 
ing, in -the light of. an invitation to accompany the . mem- 
bers, on their first appearance among the young birds, 
and. no longer stood upon the order of going, but went 
boldly forth and shot everything in sight. Whatever 
poaching has been indulged in thus .far. this season has 
been" r performed very . quietly. Still it is known that 
several wing shots have been out and brought in young 
prairie, chickens. It is. ne,arly a month yet before the 
expiration of the game law in South Dakota, but the, 
birds : in many .coveys, it is. reported, . are nearly, full grown, 
Joe Dunn, of Ellis, "who is authority on prairie chickens, 
says these game birds are much more numerous arid larg- 
er at this date than any year since his advent into the 
country. He requested that this information should not 
be promulgated, 'because I have a couple of young dogs 
I want to train before the gun club members enter the 
field,' was the excuse he offered for the suppression of 
the chicken situation. They are all on the same lay. 
Every chicken hunter regards it legal to disregard the 
game law." 
Sporting Resources of the South. 
f have often been glad to note the fact that the game 
of the South is more abundant and apt to continue more 
abundant than that of the North 1 was talking over 
this fact the other day with Mi-. Joseph Irwin, of Little 
Rock, Ark., who was in Chicago on a brief visit. Mr. Ir- 
win saysthat close about his tosvn he has the finest of 
bass fishing and quail shooting. He can still get some 
prairie chickens earlier in the season on the prairies, and 
within a few hours' run can get into a camp where bears 
and deer will be hung up. Pie says that last year he made 
some long trips further into the South and found some 
splendid country. Forest and Stream earlier printed 
his story of the sport they had while stopping at the 
Sea View Hotel, at High Island, Texas. He says that 
the mallard shooting there was magnificent, and the 
snipe shooting the finest ever seen. He intends some 
time to visit this country again, and also to join a 
gentleman who owns a plantation in Louisiana, where 
the wildfowl shooting is fine. The High Island coun- 
try, so Mr. Irwin tells me, is along the sea marsh, less 
than fifty miles from where I was shooting a few years 
ago with Billy Griggs and the Stevensons, where I am 
sure I had the finest snipe shooting I ever saw in all 
my life, not trying for any ducks, although they were 
there in thousands. There was no place at our point 
where shooters could get in or could be. accommodated, 
and I am glad to call attention to this High Island 
country, and to give the indorsement of so practical 
a sportsman as Mr. Irwin. 
Speaking of the South, I am sorry to have missed this 
week the call of Mr. J. Bowmar Dabney, of Vicksburg, 
Miss., superintendent of education. Mr. Dabney is a 
son of Coahoma, who lives at Clarksdale, Miss., and. 
I should have been glad to talk with him about snakes, 
bears and other things. 
An Odd Case, 
An odd case in game protection is that of J. A. Marks, 
of Detroit, Mich. Mr. Marks is a trap shooter, and while 
attending the trap shoot at Grand Rapids, Mich., in the 
early part of last month, he shot a plover which flew 
past the firing line where the shooters stood. Many 
saw the act. Mr. Ben Bush, of Kalamazoo, filed com- 
plaint, and State Deputy C. E. Brewster will arrest Mr. 
Marks and push the case. As the latter was a guest of 
Grand Rapids, which was holding open house that week, 
the local sportsmen did not feel like pushing the case. 
Minnesota Quail. 
It is gratifying to know that as the prairie chicken 
lessens in number in Minnesota, the quail appears to be 
increasing. Unless all appearances prove deceitful, the 
sportsmen of Minnesota will have fine sport on quail 
over a large' area of the southern portion of the State, 
where in the old chicken days no one would have thought 
of looking for quail or shooting them if any had perchance 
been found. The Bob White will long outlive the prairie 
grouse in America. 
E. Hough. 
1200 Boyce Building, Chicago, 111. 
Hunting Deer in South Florida, 
Deer — They were everywhere. But we had been out 
on seven or eight camp hunts, and I still had my first 
running deer to see. The dogs had run deer off the 
hills and out of the swamps; different members of our 
various parties had shot within hearing, and afterward 
told of large bucks seen. I had covered stands and 
sprinted fast miles till guard duty and foot racing had 
become a vocation, but after awhile I feared that I 
would never even see a deer. Indeed, I still carried all 
the shells taken on the first trip. 
A person fond of nature might have found means to 
amuse himself in another part of the country, but I 
found it lonesome out in the pine forests of South 
Florida, where I seldom heard a sound, except the lull 
of tree tops and the occasional low of a cow. One 
morning I did detect a covey of quail approaching un- 
der palmettoes, the tree behind which I hid, and was 
glad that being on a stand by the law of the hunt pre- 
vented shooting at them, for I soon became interested in 
their peculiar actions, preceded by musical warning 
notes when they discovered my presence. First a large, 
ragged, plumed cock, probably the hero of every fight 
in his tribe for years, ascended a burnt log and inspect- 
ed me cautiously, then other males joined him. and all 
of them nodded and chattered for some time in a very 
human way; but I think it was wrong for them to tell 
those girl-birds down in the leaves such outrageous 
yarns, for when the males descended, how everybody did 
foot it to the nearest thicket. When one is on a stand, 
however, such incidents as this one even are rare. 
The membership of our hunts varied- each time that 
we went into the woods, and the three others with the 
Doctor and me on the trip I was to see my first deer 
had,never been out with us before. We had made camp 
on the side of a flatwoods belt several miles wide, be- 
yond which there was a nearly impassable swamp, and 
one morning three of us crossed into the flat several 
miles above the camp, while the other two of the oarty 
entered some distance below with the purpose of hunt- 
ing to meet. The two foxhounds with us soon led 
on a fresh trail in a fast half-mile race over grass slip- 
pery with dew to a circular cypress pond of about three 
acres, then turned back to flush a number of large gob- 
blers. When Morgan had urged the hounds into the 
pond again, he ran for the upper end of it, and Ben for 
the other end, while I remained where dogs and men 
had left mel - • ._: l , 
Now the dogs were yowling with certainty in their 
tones, then they shouted with wild jubilation as a large 
animal seemed to plunge through the shallows in the 
timber; all of this had occurred so often; if it would 
only come my way this time, and there it was. Oh, such 
a big, big creature, as it broke from the timber 40yds. 
off and cleared the belt of palmettoes in leaps that seemed 
sky high! Would I ever get those gyrating gun barrels 
to bear on that gray mass of erratic motion? What luck 
that the first time my aim and the bounding stag seemed 
to be in unison. Morgan was in the line of destruction 
as he still ran off at the top of his speed; then, as the 
deer struck an evener gait beyond the palmettoes, there 
was the report of a gun, perhaps my own, when the ani- 
mal flinched slightly and resolved itself into a gray 
streak that extended to the swamp half a mile away, as I 
delivered a second load into my end of this evasive line. 
How hard it was to face the intelligent eyes of those 
dogs when they came and I broke them off. I could not 
have changed their opinion of me, it seemed, by remind- 
ing them of when, time and again, they had chased coons 
up trees or had done other unsportsmanlike things for 
deer dogs; my failure had cut too deep into their hearts 
to be easily rubbed out. Then Morgan came up. Mor- 
gan, with whom I had eaten so many sweet potatoes and 
had bunked in such a friendly way back to back, closer 
than brothers, cool nights when the fire was low, and 
the withering look of pity he gave me made it seem pos- 
sible for me to crawl through the barrels of my gun. 
But both of us had noticed a fact which I had attributed 
to impudence and Morgan to a wound — the deer had 
waved its tail twice while in sight, so we urged the 
dogs on the trail and soon heard them, to rny great relief, 
baying some distance in the swamp beyond. 
I have a dim recollection of wading a cow path into a 
dense swamp, where I found Morgan and Ben with 
kindness in their faces standing over a large buck that 
lay on a green hummock, while our dog Tom, the no- 
blest foxhound that ever sent music to reverberating hills, 
licked my gun hand in an apologetic manner. They 
wanted me to shout, I believe, but I felt as if it would 
be more agreeable to my condition at that time to go 
where I could straighten out alone the events of that 
unusual morning; that first sight of a deer, the eccentric 
action of my gun when steadiness was most needed, those 
random shots into a gray atmosphere, the drumming of 
my heart afterward, and the bitter disappointment with 
a subsequent reaction. I would shout to-morrow and 
the next day, for all time to come if they wished it, but 
just then I wanted to recover my lost nerve. 
H. R. SteigEr. 
De T^and, Florida. 
The Destructive Skin Hunter. 
Wherever big game has entirely disappeared from 
districts where it formerly abounded, and wherever whole 
species have been exterminated, the mischief has in near- 
ly every case been done, not to procure food, but solely 
to obtain the creatures' skins. It is not the big-game 
hunter, or the savage, or even the agriculturist, who 
destroys the creatures, but the "skin hunter." In every 
"new country" this wasteful and relentless enemy of 
animal life has always appeared with the regularity of 
some recurring plague, and made it his business to de- 
stroy every creature larger than a hare. 
The advent of the skin hunter takes place at a parti- 
cular period of development in recent settlements. He is 
never among the early pioneers, but is a kind of parasite 
in half-occupied territories, often intensely disliked by 
the resident squatters, as he destroys the game on which 
they partly depend, though he sometimes succeeds in 
converting these to his own evil ways. In South Africa, 
for instance, the early Boer settlers, like the early pio- 
neers of North America, killed the antelopes for meat, 
and used their skins for clothing. They ate the venison, 
and from the hides they made suits of leather — "shamoy- 
ed," not tanned— supple, soft, and comfortable garments, 
well suited for the life on the veldt. The number of 
animals killed was limited by their own personal needs 
and those of their families. 
About 1850 the Boers learned that the myriads of ante- 
lope, quagga, and zebra which wandered over the plains 
had a marketable value other than as food or supplying 
leather hunting shirts. The skin hunters taught them 
that, though the bodies of the creatures might be left to 
rot on the veldt, the hides, not tanned or dressed, but 
merely stripped from the body, were marketable, to sup- 
ply the European demand for leather. The country was 
just sufficiently opened up to have arrived at the stage 
at which the business of the skin hunter pays. Freight 
is high, but not too high; and, though hides of countless 
cattle and sheep may be had for little enough in the set- 
tled districts, the skins of the wild animals cost nothing 
at all, except the value of powder and shot. 
Even this was economized in South Africa. "The 
Boers of the pastoral republic became perfect adepts at 
skm hunting," writes Mr. Bryden. "They put in just 
sufficient powder to drive the missile home, and care- 
fully cut out their bullets for use on future occasions. 
So lately as 1876, when I first wandered in Cape Colony, I 
well remember the wagon coming down from the Free 
State and Transvaal loaded up with nothing but the skins 
of blesbok, wildebeest, and springbok. This miserable 
system of skin hunting has been and still is. where any 
game remains, pursued in all native states of South- 
Africa. Between 1850 and 1875 it is certain that some 
millions of these animals must have been destroyed in- 
the Transvaal and Orange Free State." The slaughter 
was so prodigious, and the variety of wild animals so 
great, in these wild regions of South Africa, that the 
result made a sensible difference in the leather industry 
of Europe. The markets were filled with skins which, 
when tanned, gave leather of a quality ahd excellence 
never known before, but the origin of which, as the 
material was still sold under old names, purchasers never 
suspected. Hides of the zebra and quagga arrived in 
tens of thousands; and good as horse hide is for the up- 
pers of first-class boots, these were evea better. Smart 
Englishmen for years wore- boots the uppers of which 
were made of zebra and quagga skin, or from th» hides 
of elands, oryje and gemsbak disguised under the names 
of "calf" or patent leathers.-^-London Spectator.- - 
