166 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
Some West Virginia Game Notes. 
A NEW game bill has been passed by the Legislature 
now in session, which does away with the unwieldy meas- 
ure that the Legislature of 1897 perpetrated. That body 
made a close season for all the principal game animals 
and birds and imposed a series of fines for any infringe- 
ment of the law. The effect of this was to afford a splen- 
did opportunity for the worthless to enjoy the exclusive 
right of the game in the mountains, who, safe in their in- 
solvency, were not interrupted by competitors from whom 
a fine could be collected. While we believe it wrong to 
give the aristocracy the exclusive right to hunt, it is 
hardly as bad' as to go to the other extreme. 
In the sweet simplicity of its nature, the Legislature of 
1897 showed a great confidence in their system of restric- 
tive laws and fines, for it created the office of game war- 
den, a being entirely new to the people, the majority of 
us not having a clear conception of what a game war- 
den was, and saying that his salary of $1,200 and expenses 
should be paid out of fines collected from the violators 
of the game law. The gentleman who received the posi- 
tion was an engine driver who has since served as a 
captain in the United States Volunteers. He was com- 
pelled to report no funds. 
Some practical sportsmen took the matter in charge 
this session and a bill has been enacted which will at least 
insure special privileges to none. The open season for 
deer is from Oct. 15 to Dec. 15; for grouse, the same; for 
quail, Oct. i to Dec. 15; wild turkeys, Sept. 15 to Dec. iS- 
. No game is allowed. to be shipped from the State. The 
promoters of the bill tried hard to get the people to live 
up to FoREST'AND Stream's plank, "To forbid the sale of 
game at all seasons," but it coming before a latter-day 
Legislature, the majority of which show no sign of 
atavism in the sporting way, except an unimpaired appe- 
tite for the treasures of the wilderness, and the majority 
seeing that by passing such a section they would cut 
themselves off from all hopes of tasting game in the fu- 
ture, very shrewdly and unceremoniously rejected the 
suggestion. 
There was one bluff old legislator who is enjoymg a 
great fortune, made by his own efforts, yvho boldly de- 
clared that he was too old to climb mountains, who was 
anxious to allow deer to be chased with hounds, so that 
he could kill a deer once more; but there is such a preju- 
dice against hounding, especially in non-hunting circles, 
that the repeal of the law against chasing was not at- 
tempted. The reason mentioned above holds good 
against this law, for a conviction is all but impossible, 
and the unscrupulous are benefited by the law. 
A new feature was introduced in this bill, for West 
Virginia, in the section requiring all non-residents to 
pay a license of $25 for the privilege of the rights of a 
citizen in hunting. Thus the visiting sportsman will 
have an opportunity of contributing for the protection of 
game which he will doubtless, be only too glad to em- 
brace. The bill was prepared by a very able lawyer, who 
consulted "Game Laws in Brief," published by the For- 
est and Stream Publishing Company, which is a very 
valuable compendium of the ideas of those who have 
thought upon the protection of game, as well as a usemi 
index for the traveling hunter. The Legislature, havmg 
passed this very righteous and satisfactory measure, re- 
fused to provide for a game warden's fund, or for any 
bounty for the lives of those game destroyers, the meat- 
eating animals, the natural enemies of the game. The 
hawk, fox, wildcat and the rest of that guild are more 
destructive than man, and they do not confine tlieir dep- 
redations to wild animals either, by any means. 
It is hard to describe the feeling in this (Pocahontas) 
county over the late game law. The injustice of it ran- 
kled to such an extent that we were given an insight mto 
what we might expect from the people if they were 
harassed in such way by laws touching more important 
matters. For instance, most of the farmers knevv of 
flocks of grouse at certain places on their farms where 
they could have been killed as easily as barnyard fowls. 
They respected the law and took a pride in game like this, 
in which they seemed to have a proprietary interest. 
Then some day the farmer would hear the lively banging 
of a shotgun, and some loafer would carry off m full 
view a half a dozen pheasants right under his eyes, say- 
ing insolently, "Why, this is the best law I ever heard of! ' 
We know this to have actually occurred more than once. 
We know too, of some of this class indulging m threats 
g1 injury to be done in secret if they were proceeded 
aa-ainst. , , , 
The feeling here was expressed by more than one: 
"Well, we'll wait this year to see if the Legislature will 
let us compete with these scoundrels in hunting, and if 
not we will hunt any way." . 
Last November one of our representative citizens 
(father of the young West Point honor man who died on 
board the transport on his way to Manila m July) was on 
a stand waiting for a fox. But instead of a fox a fane 
deer came loping by him, presenting an opportunity for a 
sure shot. He is an experienced hunter; but, having the 
proper regard for the law because it is law, he did not 
fire A more sincere case of righteous indignation can 
hardly be imagined. His first impulse was to obey the 
law; on deliberation, he had a keen regret he had not 
shot It is just the opposite with most hunters, and the 
remorse of one of the latter class would have been for 
breaking the law. What .a marplot and spoil-sport 
that law for a close season the whole year around is 
here was one incident connected with the pending of this 
bill before the Legislature which we must mention. It was 
pretty generally reported in the press that the hunter s 
license of $25 must be paid by every one, and editorials 
and protests from citizens, taxpayers, voters, etc., were 
orinted, opposing it. When these local hunters found out 
It was to oppose non-residents only rom bearing arms 
they were as well pleased as they had been alarmed be- 
fore. In the words of the sage, it makes a difference 
"whose ox is gored." ^ , , 
During the past fall and winter there have been some 
incidents connected with hunting in the county which 
perhaps deserve to be spread upon the record. 1 oca- 
hontas is a county nearly as large as the State of Rhode 
Inland inhabited by about 8,000 people. It has no rail- 
road 'its altitude varies from 2,000ft. to 4,800ft. It was 
once a hunter's paradise, but now only a trace oi-its 
former bountiful supply of game remains. There have 
been too many rifles and dead shots in the county. The 
kind of men who hunted here were those who shot 
squirrels in the head, not from any special pride in their 
marksmanship, but because that is the proper place to 
shoot a squirrel. It was no unusual thing for a turkey 
to be killed on the wing, and recently one good shot with 
a rifle killed a duck flying over the river. I have known 
hunters here who shoot a rifle and kill deer and other 
game who are not able to remember that they had looked 
through the sights. They point a rifle barrel intuitively, 
as a man points his finger. 
The best luck of the season came to Neal Hammond, 
one of the Hamraondses of Big Run, who are all great 
hunters. In November in a light tracking snow he 
came on three bears, two male and a female, and killed 
them all with a shot apiece. They were all large bears, 
and the most remarkable thing connected widi the 
occurrence was that it was rutting time with them, 
something unusual, as August is their usual season. The 
bears lay dead within a rod of each other. The hunter 
found he had taken a step between each shot. 
There is a set of deer horns on Elk, off of a deer 
recently killed, which make it very clear that there is a 
mystery connected with them. The bend of the horns 
is so great that two large men can stand inside of them. 
It is whispered that these horns are all that remains of 
a notable deer, which inhabited the Gaubey country, 
the size of which and opportunity proving too much for 
the probity of the born hunter. 
Every hunter knows, that in spite of the fact that deer 
are so wild, after many years, an old buck will become 
well known among the men who sink themselves in the 
woods. He registers himself in liis big hoof, and he is 
known as belonging to a certain section. An unusually 
large or peculiar head of horns may also have identified 
him. One of the biggest of its kind has been known in 
Buckley Mountain for years, whose distinguishing mark 
is a crooked foot. There was such a deer on the head 
of Hill's Creek who was known among the hunters as 
Old. Sam — a very large deer, with the biggest head of 
horns that ever was seen. The remains of this big deer 
were found by bear hunters in December. How he had 
come to his death will probably never be known. A 
chance bullet may have killed him, or he may simply 
have paid the debt of nature, the last enemy of all, which 
the game protector considers. The bears had eaten the 
carcass, but the horns were saved, and' brought away 
together with a hoof, which could have belonged to no 
other. The antlers have eight points to the beam. Old 
Sam may have borne a charmed life and been destined 
to die of good old age. 
Under the existing law, there would naturally be but 
few deer stories going the rounds. It is one of the 
phases of the lawbreaker's retribution that he cannot 
boast of his exploits. 
They say that a couple' of hounds passed through the 
Downey -Hacking after a fox the other day, both hounds 
and fox going at a snail's pace and unable to increase 
or diminish the distance between them; that a very ve- 
racious man saw a fox which the hounds were pressing 
reasonably hard stop to catch and eat a ni-buse, which 
confirmed him in the belief that a fox often enjoys a run 
with the hounds; also that a panther's track has been 
seen during tlie late snow on William's River. 
A black fox was killed bj-^ Levi Beverage, on Clover 
Creek, the first one to be seen here in many years. Our 
"black fox" was once very plentiful here. It is about the 
size of a house cat, and has the habits of a squirrel. Its 
fur is very valuable. 
William Kelley, a great hunter, raised seven foxes in 
1897, and six in 1898, and marketed their pelts. He is 
sixty years old, and during his long and active life 
has gotten much sport that was lasting and good out of 
a gun. His word can be relied on implicitly, and his 
reputation for truth was needed when he found a red 
fox asleep and killed it with his cane. The circumstances 
as related by him are as follows: "InTDecember he was 
walking on his farm and had occasion to pass through 
a piece of ground lately denuded of its trees by the 
lumberman. There in the sawed-olf stump of a tree he 
saw a fox lying asleep, with his head resting on his paws. 
Having observed the animal for a few moments, he start- 
ed to creep up to it, and succeeded so well that the fox 
did not rouse until the blow was descending. The first 
blow knocked the half-risen fox back, and a second swift- 
ly following, killed it. It was an unusually large fox." 
The writer realizes that such instances are nothing if 
not true, and would not report them as true unless he 
were in a position to judge. 
The following, told for the truth, had better be taken 
"with a large grain of cayenne pepper." The fox 
hunter says recently he was running to head off a fox 
from turning toward his den, on a fearfully steep moun- 
tain side. His foot caught on a stick concealed in the 
snow, , and he , went flying through the air, down the 
mountain, and landing near the fox reached out and 
caught it. During the same conversation he remarked 
casually that he believed that a man could tell a lie until 
he came to believe it. It was thought that this had some 
remote connection with the tale of the fox. 
Two wonderfuk birds were seen in Gauley Mountain 
this winter. Such astonishing birds have not been seen 
here since George P. Moore imported a couple of fine 
peacocks, and had them shot by his nearest neighbor, who 
took them for some unknown game bird. The birds m 
Gauley Mountain were a pair of Mongolian pheasants, 
which were liberated by the Cheat Mountain Sportsmen's 
Association last spring. Probably the most interesting 
feature of their discovery in Gauley Mountain is the 
proof the incident aft'ords that this bird will not con- 
fine itself to any special locality when liberated. They 
were released in the Cheat- Mountain country and were 
seen in the Gauley Mountain r^egion, more than twenty 
miles away. The two mountains are separated by a 
strip of farming country, and at no point are they con- 
nected by the forest. So these birds must have left 
all cover to have transferred themselves to a section not 
more wild, but of a different character. The surveyor 
who saw them had seen th^ birds while they were con- 
fined at the club house, and so recognized them, at once. 
He informs me that the Association was not successful 
in rearing them in captivity, owing to disease, to which 
they seemed particularly susceptible, and to the depre- 
dations of a mink. Last spring some seven or eight 
were released and have not been seen since by the game- 
keeper. The members of that Association will be glad 
to see, no doubt, in the Forest and Stream that two- 
of the birds were in good condition in December, even 
though they have gone further afield than was intended. 
When the surveying party came up the pheasants rose 
from a laui^el patch and perched on the limb of a tree 
until the men came nearer, when they gracefully sailed 
away. 
Our associations class the turkey buzzard as rather 
gamy than game; but the nest of one was discovered 
and watched last year on the top of Marlin's Mountain. 
The finding of this nest was considered very remarkable, 
aS those who were interested in the incident had never 
known of another nest being found. It was discovered 
early in the summer by a surveying party. Those who 
have followed the chain in the woods know that after the 
surveyor with his magical compass decides on a course 
meant to be N. 23 E., and 999 poles long, or something 
like it, and works his men through the right distance 
there comes a great overhauling time to find the par- 
ticular tree which bears the marks of the "broad arrow," 
or, as we know it, the marks of the three indistinct 
strokes given by a surveyor may be fifty years ago. The 
surveyor and all the men scatter over an ever-increasing 
jeircle, looking for the tree, and lucky it is if the surveyor 
has guessed the right mountain the tree is on, or come 
within . reaching , distance of it. 
It was while engaged in looking for the broad arrows 
which marked the corner tree "witnessed" by a "cliff 
of rocks" that the party found the buzzard's nest. The 
rocks were high and dangerous, and topped the summit 
of a very precipitous mountain side. It was such a place 
as the third-rate imagination would find joy in calhng 
Eagle's Height, Hawk's Nest, Lover's Leap, or some- 
thing of that sort. 
While examining the chestnut oaks on the summit, a 
buzzard flew out from under the chfl^ and directed the 
attention of the party to the place of her nest. About 
8ft. from the top. in a crevice, sheltered by overhanging 
rock, in a situation to make the best climber dizzy, was 
the nest. No preparation had been made by the bird to 
improve the place she laid her eggs. There were two 
eggs there, which in size about equaled a turkey egg, and 
which were marked by red spots, such as you see in 
the countenance of your billions friend. A few weeks 
afterward, the nest being revisited, two young birds were 
found in the nest, which had attained the size of a small 
duck. They were as white as the driven snow (why 
driven?) and had black beaks. They stood upright, and 
looked at the intruders, while their frantic mother hovered 
near. Then one of the young ones stretched its neck a 
great ways out and gave a hissing sound. The powerful 
stench that rose to place from which they were being ob- 
served drove the sightseers away. This smell is not re- 
markable when you remember that the mother feeds 
her young by disgorging carrion. A few weeks 
ago a sheep w^as found near this cliflf lying help- 
less from the effects of laurel, which it had eaten. The 
buzzards had picked its eyes out, but it afterward re- 
covered. Andrew Price. 
Marunton. W. Va. 
In the Days of Pigeons. 
Those glorious, "palmy days" were away back in 
the '50s They were indeed palmy days, for not alone 
were there myriads of those beautiful birds, which our 
esteemed friend old Noah Webster defined as gallina- 
ceous and belonging to the genus Columba or mi- 
gratory pigeons of North America, but every other 
species of the game birds which once iiiade Michi- 
gan the delight of naturalists as AVell as the lovers of 
those life-giving sports afield with dog and gun. What 
reader of Forest and Stream who loves the woods 
and fields, and whose happy lot it was to have lived m 
those bygone days, has not embalmed in fond memory 
experiences which will, continue to brighten his life until 
tlic end ? •' 
But the beautiful pigeons are gone. When one has 
eaten the strawberries of Switzeriand, those famed straw- 
berries which are tempting and beautiful m appear- 
ance and remembers the luscious fruit of Michigan, he 
will have something of the sensations which the sports- 
man of to-day experiences when he looks back upon the 
halcyon days "when we were young." They have 
a name to live and are dead— those "Alpine strawber- 
ries " which have such a fine sound to the ear, but we 
who know would give a bushel of them for one saucer 
of that delicious fruit that grows nowhere else in such 
perfection as in the old Peninsular State. 
So with the quail, grouse and woodcock; we have 
now such birds, it is true. I have had on my table withm 
the week Texas quail and ptarmigan, the white grouse 
of the West, but thev were not the birds we had here 
in the "oak openings" and the clearings in "the days 
of the pigeons." I well remember one notable day m 
September, in Monroe county, spent in the woods and 
fields along the River Raisin. A friend with the "un- 
quenchable yearning" to get away from the exasperat- 
ino- cares of business fell upon me in a mood when I 
only lacked a companion to start out, in pure despera- 
tion. A smart bay was duly put into the shafts of a 
suitable vehicle, guns, ammunition and other neces- 
saries were loaded into the commodious receptacle "for 
such purposes made and provided," and we were fairly 
on our way with something of the same sensations 
possibly that sweeps over a caged bird when liberated 
from captivity. The morning was a charming one, and 
"all nature smiled." It was not necessary in those 
days to make a very lengthy pilgrimage to find sport to 
■ our hearts' content. Five miles along the banks of that 
winding stream, over and through a country which had 
been the home of the Pottawattomies and Shawnees, the 
first landing places in the New France by Lasalle Ca- 
dillac and Father Henepin, who, as they paddled up this 
beautiful stream two hundred years before, had found it 
"entrancingly beautiful" and abounding in game and 
fish of the rarest beauty and delicious flavor. The banks 
of the stream, as these intrepid voyageurs and ex- 
plorers found them, were luxuriant with the wild grape, 
the exquisite Michigan rose, and the fruits which grew 
