Oct. 29, 1S08.I 
93 quail and 3 deer. "Most of this game, said Mr. Love- 
day, "was rotten and unfit for use. Of the lot, five pack- 
ages were directed to 'L. H. Hicks, Milwaukee.' Some 
had on them 'L, H. Brown,' and others had nothing to 
mark them but 'Hicks, Milwaukee.'" Mr, Loveday 
says some of the heavy dealers have told him they 
would turn over any illegal stuff they got. A few pack- 
ages were turned in. How many duplicates of the 
methods of the Mr. Hicks outfit there may be I presume 
no one but the recording angel definitely knows. 
The Northern Flight, 
The bad storms of the past week have sent down the 
Northern birds all over the Wisconsin marshes. The 
birds have been abundant on the best of the grounds. I 
saw to-day Mr. John Roberts, of Neenah, who told 
mc he has been shooting for a long while this fall on 
the Butte des Morts and Poygan marshes. At the latter 
lake he says there were more ducks than he had seen 
for a long time, though they did not work very well, 
rafting up and not moving till sundown. On Puckaway 
Lake much the same thing was reported; plenty of birds, 
but no very heavy shooting. Theodore Thomas and 
a party of friends, of Milwaukee, went to Fox Lake, 
Wis., where they had only fair sport. Other Milwaukee 
men have gone to Sullivan, Winneconne and other fam- 
ous points. Koshkonong Lake has been favored with a 
heavy flight, both of shooters and of ducks. The past 
week has offered splendid canvasback weather, and some 
line bags ha\-e been made around that standby of Wis- 
consin waters. Warden Johnson, of Winnebago fame, 
has been detailed and put on duty at Koshkonong, so 
that the sneak-box work will no doubt have at least 
temporary check. 
It is thought that at the next session of the Wisconsin 
Legislature there will be a good fight made for a law 
stopping spring shooting. It is beginning to be realized 
that the spring shooting in the State drives away birds 
that would otherwise breed on the great marshes, and 
make good shooting in the fall. 
The flight is in all over Minnesota also. I hear that 
Ottertail county, around Ashby, Minn., is very good 
this month. Lake Traverse is another good point, 
though much hunted. Many are going to Brown's Val- 
ley, and the returns are good from that point. Big Lake 
is another Minnesota point which is good this week. At 
Fosston, Minn., the sport on ducks has been reported 
very good for the past week. This is a great point for 
partridges also. 
Duck shooting at the Caw Caw Club, on Puckaway 
Lake, Wis., has been improving. Major Cunningham 
and party bagged ninety ducks during their stay this 
week. 
Two Milwaukee gentlemen, Messrs. W. H. Dodsworth 
and John W. Mariner, have returned from Bordulac, 
N. D. They brought out about 200 birds, ducks and 
geese, and report fine shooting. They say the heavy 
.storms have started the flight in great shape. 
The Minnewaukon Club, of Dubuque, la., have re- 
turned from their trip to the Devil's Lake country, of 
North Dakota. They brought back with them 100 geese 
and 300 ducks. They killed in all 200 geese and 650 
ducks. They say the shooting was not quite what it 
should have been. 
Shooting at Mitchell's Lake, near San Antonio, Texas, 
is excellent, and I understand a club will be formed to 
control that wonderful wildfowl resort. 
The market hunters of Texas complain that the new 
non-export game law is ruining their business. 
The Ascent of the Grand Teton. 
Regarding the mooted question over the ascent of 
the Grand Teton peak, over which there has been some 
discussion in the Forest and Stream, Prof. Langford 
writes to me that he has made an extended answer to 
Mr. Owen's article, which was printed in the New York 
Herald, and he goes on to say regarding his own 
claim of first ascent of this peak: 
"I have had some correspondence with a few friends 
during the past few years relative to my ascent of the 
Teton. Some doubt has been expressed whether we 
reached the highest pinnacle. One suggestion was that 
the misty or smoky atmosphere may have rendered it 
difficult to determine the relative height of two pinnacles 
of nearly the same elevation. Another was that the 
"cloud which usually hangs on the top of the Teton may, 
from the point we reached, have obscured our view of a 
higher peak. These suggestions have no significance, as 
the day was perfectly clear. Mr. Owen challenges my 
veracity, and seeks to make his challenge good by 
ridiculous arguments. He will fail to convince a hunter 
that a mountain sheep cannot climb to the top of the 
Teton, which he has himself reached." 
White Deer. 
/V white deer was killed in the coast range of California 
this month by a party of woodland hunters, Messrs. 
Briggs, Brown and Taylor. I do not have particulars, 
but it is said the animal was the first of its kind seen 
in that country for very many years. 
Wisconsin Deer Licenses. 
One of the most remarkable phenomena of the non- 
resident deer license system of Wisconsin last year was 
the fact that the records showed less than a few score of 
non-resident hunters, whereas the resident licenses ran 
up into the thousands. I . firmly believe that under the 
organized system of railroad hunting traffic solicitation 
there are at least half as many non-resident deer hunters 
in the States of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota 
1 as there are resident hunters. To the man who is far 
away from a deer country it seems a very desirable thing 
1 to kill a deer. He brings back a pair of spike buck 
antlers, and hangs them up in his dining room, and his 
bosom swells as he looks at them and talks about them. 
To the man who lived fifty or a hundred miles from the 
place where this same deer was killed the matter of 
going out and killing deer perhaps seemed so simple and 
common an affair that he never troubled himself to do 
it. Of course, with actual residents in the deer country 
it is a little different, In the pine country there are not 
, a great many cattle kept, and such meat as is shipped in 
by the transportation companies is mostly manufactured 
FOHEST AMD SfflBAM, 
from the succulent hog. Fresh meat is easily obtained 
on the runway, and a great many deer are killed for food, 
to sa\' nothing of the great numbers killed for shipping 
to Chicago, in spite of the eagle eye of the express com- 
panies, so reluctant to carry contraband game. What- 
ever the ratio of non-resident and resident deer hunters 
may actually be in the brief fall. hunting season, there 
is no doubt whatever of the prevalence of the widely ex- 
tended fraud in the matter of deer licenses in the State 
of Wisconsin. It is gratifying to learn that in the State 
of Wisconsin there is to be at least an attempt to cor- 
rect this abuse. The licenses and applications issued 
last year have been recalled, and others sent in their 
stead to the county clerks. The license is void unless 
stamped by the seal of the county clerk, and under the 
new law, if the county clerk does not know the man 
who asks for the deer license, the latter must bring 
a certificate from the city or town clerk, telling who he 
is and where he comes from, the matter of personal 
identification being a necessity. Except under flagrant 
connivance of officials, this should put an end to the 
use of resident licenses by non-resident deer hunters, an 
abuse which last year was one of the most glaring shown 
in the all too common disregard of the public for the 
game laws. 
The Executive. 
It is an old saying that you cannot enforce a law 
which the people do not want. This ought to be true. 
Yet the people ought to reflect that the laws of America 
and the laws of each State of the United States are not 
arbitrary measures inflicted by the hand of despotism, 
but are measures which they themselves have asked for 
and secured. Game laws are no new things, but have 
been upon the statute books of our States for many 
years and many decades. As much thought and care 
and intelligence have been expended in this class of 
legislation as in any other class, and the result has been 
that our code of game laws is for the most part a good 
one. The fatally weak part in the chain is on the ex- 
ecutive side. The system of local wardens in the regions 
where game is killed is notoriously weak all over the 
Western country, to say nothing of the inability of the 
whole machinery of the State commissions to break up 
the admitted lawlessness of the game markets. What 
we need, at least certainly in the West, is less time put 
into laws and more money put into wardens. We have 
sheriffs and deputies enough to arrest the murderers 
and thieves, the embezzlers and defaulters and swindlers. 
We can follow a man from New York to San Francisco 
and catch him and bring him back and have him tried and 
convicted and punished, supposing that his offense is 
one against individual property rights. How about it 
in case of a violation of the game law? It is likely that 
not one violation in a thousand is ever punished. To 
follow a man from New York to San Francisco for an 
offense against the game laws would be called a perse- 
cution, even if our laws tolerated his pursuit under the 
proper requisition. For the county warden to prose- 
cute his neighbor is also called persecution under the 
laws as they are. Then why did the people make these 
laws? Why do they not wipe them from the statute 
books? Or else, if we are to regard these laws as the 
wish of the actual majority of the people, why can they 
not be enforced? It is only their enforcement which 
will ever bring them into respect. We would have 
plenty of theft and highway robberies and murder if it 
were not for the enforcement of the laws against those 
crimes. Weaken the executive and you weaken the 
whole law. Strengthen the executive of the game laws 
and you strengthen those laws, 
These thoughts arise the more naturally as one re- 
flects upon the undoubtedly increasing interest in the 
matters of fish and game protection in all parts of the 
Western country. Sometimes I am disposed to hope 
that there will some day really arrive a growth of pop- 
ular sentiment which will set these matters right. I 
presume I have used as much newspaper space as al- 
most any one in reporting and supporting game protec- 
tion. It is the rarest thing that I ever have any one 
write to me and express the least interest in this sort 
of thing. Yet if perchance I learn of any new and game 
country and mention that, I have a fe."TSt manv inquiries 
regarding it. 
The Panhandle of Texas. 
A writer in the News, of Dallas, Texas, takes up the 
question of the complete change in the game supply 
of that State. He mentions more especially the prac- 
tical extinction of the wild turkey in many regious, re- 
marking, "Here and there a flock can be seen, but there 
is not one now to where there were once a thousand." 
He says that these birds were most easily killed off in 
the country where the timber was infrequent, as they took 
to the trees to roost and were easily located and killed 
on the roosts in the scarce timber patches. In regard to 
the present status of the game in the upper part of the 
State he has this to say: 
" The prairie chickens and quail suffered from the 
hunters that came with the railroads from north and 
east into this part of the country. Thousands upon 
thousands were killed and shipped to St. Louis, Kansas 
City and Chicago. In some parts of the Panhandle the 
chickens are increasing very rapidly. In the first place 
the game laws are protecting them and the small stock- 
owner is doing the same. Besides this, the Kaffir corn- 
is the finest food for them and they are doing well. 
Three kinds of quail are to be found in what is called 
northwest Texas. The Bob White, the old standby bird, 
is (in great numbers) on hand and around the farms 
of the eastern part of the district mentioned. On the 
plains, or rather around the breaks of the plains, the 
blue quail are in abundance. These are the topknots, a 
small variety of the California quail. They are not con- 
sidered good hunting, from the fact that they do not 
'stand' the dog well, their means of escape being in 
running away. But when they can be forced into the 
grass, they will lie well; and as they are very game, the 
dog will work on them quite as well as on the Bob 
White. I am told that in and around the Guadalupe 
Mountains the larger blue quail, or the California quail 
proper, are numerous. All these birds, as I have said, 
are now protected by law, and if the courts will enforce 
849 
« ■ ■■■<„- ■ , .■ • ■, • - ■- , i- -- — . — - 
the law as it should be enforced, in time the old abun- 
dance of game in Texas will come again." 
I do not think game protection is a popular topic, yet 
after a while it may become more so, and perhaps all in 
due course we shall see a change in affairs which will go 
toward justifying the pains taken by Forest and Stream 
and other journals of its kind. In line with this, for in- 
stance, is the editorial mention in the Forest City Times, 
of Arkansas, which comes pat with the train of thought 
following on the open disregard of the license law in 
certain Northern States last year. The newspaper men- 
tioned remarks, "We are glad to note the interest 
aroused throughout all parts of the State as to the pro- 
tection of game. The passage of laws simply will not 
remedy the indiscriminate slaughter of game. We have 
laws enough, and what is needed is officers to define and 
enforce them. To prohibit the killing of game for five 
years, without special officers to enforce, the law, would 
only increase the number of violators, and game would 
become extinct in less than the time prescribed for its 
protection. Give us a game warden in each county, with 
deputies and a grand jury to back them, and with the 
present laws game will always be plentiful." 
That's it. It is deputies and a grand jury that we need. 
E. Hough. 
1200 Boyce Building, Chicago, 111. 
A Bohemian Field-Drive. 
Let us suppose that a feld-kreis, or field-drive, is 
about to take place. From a certain point two lines of 
beaters, with a "shooter" every 300yds. or so, diverge 
right and left, and, walking in Indian file, each detach- 
ment describes a half-circle, thus forming a ring usually 
of some two miles in diameter. In the center of the 
circle waves a flag upon which the whole line is to 
converge. 
And now the order to advance, passed from keeper to 
keeper by the aid of the ubiquitous horn, comes. Every 
now and then a hare rises from its form, and steals 
away, generally out of range. For the first quarter of an 
hour or so one hardly gets a shot. But wait! Gradually 
the circle lessens. Hares that have been roused on the 
other side of the ring begin to make their appearance 
— some with ears laid back, and body stretched out to its 
full extent, as they gallop for all they are worth; others 
coming slowly and quietly along, and sitting up, from 
time to time, to look round for a way of escape. Poor 
things! Sooner or later they almost all come to the 
guns. Now and then one will boldly charge the beaters 
— the best chance for safety, if only they all knew it. 
Sometimes a covey of partridges will flash down the 
wind, scattering right and left, and testing one's skill to 
the uttermost, as they rise high in the air to clear the 
line. 
The firing grows, fast and furious as the ring grows 
smaller, for the hares are literally in droves. Ten or a 
dozen hares are frequently lying dead in front of one at 
the same moment; and the guns become almost too hot 
to hold. 
A blast from the horn of the head keeper at length 
checks the advance. The circle is by this time not 
much more than a hundred yards across, and firing with- 
in it wovrld soon become dangerous, so the beaters open 
out, and form themselves in groups behind each gun, 
thus allowing the remaining animals egress and a run 
for life. 
In one drive like this kind 500 or even more hares are 
frequently killed. There is something about it, though, 
not quite in accordance with one's notions of fair play, 
the animals being, as it were, caught in a trap from 
which there is no escape. 
The most solemn function comes at the end of a 
day's shooting, when the slain are arranged in rows 
neatly on the ground, and the head keeper, hat in hand, 
reads out the number of each variety of game killed and 
the sum total, closing with a profound bow and a 
"Waidmann's Heil" to which the sportsmen reply with 
"Waidmann's Dank." On some estates it is customary 
to blow the death-song of the various beasts and birds, 
and also to announce what each hunter has himself 
shot. 
Many Austrian hosts give what they consider to be the 
best place throughout the day to the guest of the highest 
social rank- — a proceeding rather apt to lead to a certain 
amount of jealousy. Sometimes it happens, however, 
that the favored individual is by no means the best 
shot, and far from being the hunt-king (as the sportsman 
who kills the most is called), even fails to hold his 
own. 
An amusing incident once occurred at the end of a 
day's covert shooting. A certain gentleman of high 
rank, who had enjoyed the best position throughout 
the day, had fired off a tremendous number of cartridges 
with but very poor results. This placed the head keeper 
in a very delicate position. To announce the decidedly 
meager score of the august sportsman was not to be 
thought of! Approaching one of the other guests, and 
drawing him aside, he whispered: "Pardon me, but 
have you any objection to my adding forty of your 
hares and thirty of your pheasants to 's total?" "Do 
it by all means," replied the other guest; and, as two or 
three more sportsmen were equally good-natured, the 
gentleman in question thus obtained the nominal title 
of the hunt-king! 
Whether he fondly imagined that he had killed all 
the game that he was credited with, or whether he knew 
that the obliging keeper had "doctored" the figures, I 
cannot say. — Hodgson's Plain and Peak. 
Hotel Advertising Pays. 
Mr. E. B. Cobb, of Cobb's Island, Va., writes: "I 
have received quite a number of letters of inquiry from 
gunners since advertising in Forest and Stream this 
year." 
I am carrying an advertisement of the Camp Franklin 
Hotel and Cottages in the Forest and Stream at the 
present time, and Mall say further that it is the only paper 
that I have "ver gotten any results from. — C. J, Coon, 
Woodruff, Wis. .. ■ ; , } 
