230 
Death of the Last Deef^m^Tioga County, N. Y. 
The last deer in Tioga county, N. Y., m-^t a tragic 
death, and as far as I am able to learn, the story is cor- 
rect. 
J^rry Van Duser, a farmer living at Catatonic, a small 
hamlet five miles north of Owego, was engaged during 
the winter of 1858 in cutting wood. He fixes the date 
from the fact that it was the j-^ear of his marriage. There 
was snow on the ground at the time. 
One morning, while passing through a piece of woods 
on his way to work, he heard a noise, and turning, saw 
a buck deer coming down a skidding trail, or wood 
road. As the animal had not seen him he stepped behind 
a tree, and slipping the dinner pail ofif his arm gripped 
his axe and aivaited the deer's approach. When the ani- 
mal came wuthin reach, Van Duser jumped from his hid- 
ing place and hurled the axe at the deer, striking it in 
the shoulder, but not disabling it. Returning to the 
house, he procured a gun and started in pursuit, but did 
not overtake the game before nightfall, although traces 
of blood were abundant, as were indications of the ani- 
mal's having laid down. The next day he continued the 
chase, taking up the trail where left the night before. 
He soon came up with the deer, which was lying down, 
and shot it, 
It was a four-pronged buck. One of the antlers is 
now in the possession of a young lawyer in this village, 
the other having been used in the making of sundry 
jackknife handles, and other kindred uses. 
As far as I ani able to learn this was the last deer 
killed in this vicinity, but if I am mistaken it would be 
interesting to hear from others claiming the honor (?). 
The time is coming when records of this kind will 
be of value. Let us, before it is too late, record the kill- 
ing of animals in a country where they are not extinct, 
that they may be used as refeVence in years to come. Be 
sure your records and identity are correct, however. 
J. Alden Loring. 
OwEoo, N. Y. 
The Late Georgfe T. Freeman. 
Boston, March 18. — Sportsmen will be pained to 
learn of the death of GeOrge T. Freeman, of Boston, at 
his home in Arlington. He wa,s forty-five years of age. 
In his boyhood he conceived a love for athletic sports, 
as well as a great fondness for natural history. As a 
young man at work in the watch and jewelry business, he 
spent much of his spare time in obtaining and mounting 
specimens. His collection of birds was a rare one, the 
study leading him naturally toward the woods and waters 
of Maine. There he took up rod and reel sports with 
all the zest belonging to a genuine follower of the gen- 
tle Izaak. He has visited the Rangeleys almost every 
year since the early seventies. As a camping companion, 
no man was ever better. Purely Unselfish, satisfied with 
whatever 'was at hand, it was a charm to be with him. 
A frequent exclamation of his always spoke volumes: 
"There, now. I rather see you take that trout than t.) 
catch twenty myself!" He was one of the prime movers 
in the Arlington Boat Club, frequently its president, and 
always an executive officer. He generally took part in 
its aquatic sports, and was frequently a prize winner. 
He was also for some years a crack gymnastic performer 
in a society of the better class of young men, to which 
he early belonged. Naturally his love of outdoor life and 
the beauties of nature led him toward amateur photog- 
raphy, and finally to depicting with the camera some of 
the finest historic and natural scenes about Arlington. 
Belmont and Concord. He had also created a series of 
lantern slides of woods and water scenes about the 
Rangelej's and in his native town that it is a delight to 
behold. Last year, though not in the best of health, he 
packed up fly, rod and camera, and with his long-time 
sporting friend, O. W. Whittemore, of Arlington, made 
a trip to the Maine fishing and hunting regions. Hi's 
purpose was that of photographing live game. He aciu- 
ally stole up to a live moose and snapped the camera sev- 
eral times at him; but alas, the apparatus failed, at a very 
important moment. Always patient and painstaking, his 
purpose was to try again, had he lived. Special. 
Maine Deer, 
Phillips, March 11.— Word comes from the Megantic 
preserve by way of Kingfield of a most remarkable deer 
yard. The yard commences a mile northwest of the base 
of Mount Abraham and extends in that direction for no 
less than six miles. A "gummer" from the provinces, 
homeward bound, told the story to Superintendent Bob 
Phillips. He was seeking .spruce trees in the vicinity, as 
stated above, when he came into what he thought was 
an ordinary yard. Finding gum fairly plenty, he worked 
along slowly and after four days was astonished to find 
himself yet within the limits of what was unquestionably 
one mammoth deer yard. He counted no less than ninety 
deer, bucks and does, and the former had shed their horns, 
giving parts of the yard the appearance of a bone yard. 
According to the gum gatherer the deer had not yet be- 
gun to leave their winter quarters, although the crust 
outside would easily support their weight. He traveled 
entirely without _ snov^;shoes, and says the yard, which in 
places was a mile wide, was beaten down to a regular 
skating rink surface by the hoofs of innumerable deer. — 
Portland Daily Press. 
A Good Fisherman. 
Uncle Barney Cassidy holds the championship' as the 
boss fisherman so far this season. He returned from 
Fleming Creek last Wednesday with a string containing 
112 catfish. Uncle Barney is a man of remarkable phys- 
ical constitution. Notwithstanding he is between seventy- 
five and eighty years of age, it is no uncommon thing for 
him to spend a day fishing on Fleming Creek, oftentimes 
when the weather is quite cold and disagreeable, and it 
is seldom he returns home empty-handed. He has lived 
an out-of-door hfe and hardly knows what sickness is. — 
Flemingsburg (Ky.) Gazette. 
See announcement of the Woodcraft Magazine enlarge- 
ment of the Qmw- Laws in Brief, 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
Proprietors of fishing and hunting resorts will find it profitable 
to advertise them in Forest and Stkkam. 
In the Pound-Net, 
BY FRED MATHER. 
A personal note from that well-known sportsman, Mr. 
J. L. Davison, of Lockport, N. Y., conveying an inter- 
esting lot of information about the early fishing in west- 
ern New York, .says: "I am too lazy to fish, but will row 
a boat all day for some other fellow to do the fishing." 
Here is one of the men I should have fished with, but 
have missed, not one of those "unaccountable misses" 
that riflemen complain of when they wish to shift the 
responsibility from their sighting to their nerves, but ju.'=t 
because there are so many good fellows whose mocca- 
sin tracks were not in my wa.v and I never ran into their 
camps. In this case there is cause for grief because Mr. 
Davison and I would have made a complete team; he 
the rower and I the rowee (and we never woidd have 
disputed about the time for changing places. We would 
camp as happily as those "two little bugs in a rug," with 
no dissensions looming, he being too lazy to fish and I 
too lazy to row. 
This combination is a rare one. Somewhere in my 
reading there was a verse which illustrated such a happy 
partnership, but whether it was by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, 
Robert Burns, Shakespeare, the Vedanta, the most ortho- 
dox of the' six Brahminical philosophies, the Sagas of the 
Norsemen, the Book of Lilies of the Chinese, which was 
written before the beginning of things, or among the 
words of that pre-historic wri'ter, James Whitcomb Riley, 
is impossible to tell by one who is an omnivorous reader. 
But not only the sentiment remains, but the exact words 
can be qtioted. They are: 
"Jack Spratt could eat no fat, 
His wife could eat no lean ; 
So, 'twixt them both they ate the broth 
And licked the platter clean." 
History records no better mated couple. Surely Xan- 
tippe would never have absorbed all the adipose rinds of 
the mutton chops which Socrates left on the rim of his 
plate. and that greasy old philosopher would not have the 
oleaginous trimmings from those chops him.self, and .so 
he slammed the door when his long-suffering wife 
scolded. 
This is what Mr. Davison writes: 
Salmon in Lake Ontario. 
"While reading Mr. Chas. Stewart Davison's article 
on the 'Salmon of Lakes Champlain and Ontario' I re- 
membered that I had lately read something pertinent to 
the subject in the 'History of the Holland Purchase,' 
published in^ 1849, and turning to page 558 I find the 
following: 'The salmon in their seasons were abundant in 
Oak Orchard Creek, in Orleans countj\ at the early 
period of settlement, and in fact up to 1816 and '18. In 
the month of June and September the salmon would as- 
cend the main stream and its small tributaries in great 
numbers, and were easily taken. Sometimes they would 
ascend "in high water, and when it receded would be left 
upon the banks. They have been picked up in the cul- 
tivated fields along the stream after a freshet." 
■'Again, on page 315, the late John Mountpleasant, 
chief of the Tuscaroras, who resided on the Tuscarora 
Reservation, a few miles west of this city, says: 'When 
I was a boy I have taken salmon in the Eighteen-Mile 
Creek, where Lewiston road crosses near Lockport, and 
below the Falls of the Oak Orchard, with my hands, 
3ft. in length.' 
"Eighteen-Mile Creek runs through Lockport; the 
Lewiston road crosses it about three miles north, and 
about seven miles from Lake Ontario, as the crow flies. 
I_ remember Chief Mountpleasant well, as he was sixty- 
eight years old at the time the book was published. He 
must have been nearly one hundred at his death." 
Here Mr. Davison brings up an almost forgotten in- 
cident. In a year before 1888 — reports not at hand — I 
personally made a plant of salmon in the Salmon River, 
which empties into Lake Ontario near Pulaski. Oswego 
eount3^ N. Y., at a place called Sandy Hill, where once 
upon a time the sea salmon were plentiful. There was 
a dam below, near Pulaski, but if the salmon came back 
and jumped at the dam then a McDonald fishway would 
be put in, for the alleged inventor of the fishway was 
the United States Fish Commissioner. Next year T was 
ordered to send another lot of salmon fry there, and I 
sent one of my men with the shipment, and with a writ- 
ten order to change cars and go up the Utica and Black 
River Railroad to Sandy Hill, and there plant his fish. 
A brakeman told him that Sandy Hill was in Orleans 
county, and persuaded my man to take the Niagara Falls 
branch of the Central Railroad to some other "Sandy 
Hill," and a telegram came to me saying th^t there was 
no Salmon River there. Knowing that he was keeping 
the fish ali\e by hard work, I telegraphed to him to 
find a cool stream flowing into the lake and plant them. 
They went irto Mr. Davison's "Oak Orchard Creek." 
My remarks to the messenger on his return need not 
be quoted in extenso, although no man under me, since 
army times, can say that I used profane language to him, 
no matter how much I was displeased; but, in the pres- 
ence of the other employees I announced that as every 
messenger had written instructions what to do with his 
fish, he must obey his orders, no matter if he thought 
them wrong, or he would have trouble. The man was a 
good man, an easy-going fellow, who was faithful to 
the highest degree,- but he erred thinking that I had made 
a mistake, on the authority of a brakeman, and so Oak 
Orchard Creek got a plant of salmon. I wrote the par- 
ticulars to Col. McDonald, with request to let the error 
pass, and smoothed it over in the State reports. 
iMcDonald. who was a severe disciplinarian and who 
had been chief of engineers on the staff of "Sonewall" 
Jackson, wrote me a sharp letter, in which he said: "As 
an officer in the Army of the Potomac one would expect 
better discipline among your men. You gave a wri.tiei\ 
order. Why was it not obeyed?" 
[March 25, iSgg. 
The only possible reply was that while I might have 
the soldierly training to obey orders, even in the face of 
death, my men were not so trained, and, while I would 
take trout into the desert of Sahara if ordered, it was too 
much to expect the same from a civilian who had not 
had it drilled into him that he was to obey orders against 
his judgment, and that he was a mere machine controlled 
by another. This incident was productive of good; there 
were no other "mistakes" due to a misinterpretation of 
orders, and the man who made the mistake never again 
took his orders from any man on the road. But at pres- 
ent writing I have no word of a great salmon catch either 
in Salmon River or in Oak Orchard Creek. 
_ I am too old a fishculturist to expect results from 
single plants of small numbers of salm'on, or other fish, 
in streams where dams, chubs, perch and other ob- 
structionists are frequent. In order to restore a species 
in a stream you must restore the old-time conditions. 
If the chubs have supremacy and gobble up the salmon 
tlien sock in the salmon fry in such numbers that some 
escape and come back to feed on the chubs and so restore 
the balance. Ten to fifty thousand salmon fry in the. 
Salmon River of Oswego county, N. Y., are as good as 
wasted; the chubs and other fish will take them in out of 
the wet. They will do the same with as many yearlings. 
Put in fishways of the right kind, and then .stock Sal- 
mon River with a million fish at and above Sandj^ Hill 
for four or five years, and there may be a favorable result. 
The salmon must be able to turn out the chubs, and 
they are not well adapted for the work, because few sal- 
mon feed in fresh water; but enough of them did in the 
old days to keep the chubs down. 
The altered conditions must be considered; there are 
newcomei-s, and they must be driven out before we can 
have things as they were. The salmon must be made" 
the supreme power in the_ river, or all our efforts are" 
idle. Instead of scattering a few salmon here and there, 
they should be concentrated into suitable rivers for sev- 
eral years in order to give them a chance against fishes 
which have occupied those rivers since the salmon were 
killed out of it. There is a struggle for life in the streams 
as well as on the land. 
Trout in Caledonia Creek. 
Mr. Davison further quotes from "The History of the 
Holland Purchase," and writes.: "On page 382 John 
McKay, Esq.. of Caledonia, says: 'I came to Caledonia 
in 1803. When I first came to the springs trout were 
abundant in it; and it will surprise trout fishers of the 
present day, and would perhaps old Izaak Walton him- 
self, if he were living, to learn that they were compara- 
tively tame. When we wanted them we used frequently 
to catch them with our hands, as they lay under the 
roots of the cedar trees that grew along the banks. There 
would be occasionally one weighing as high as 3lbs. 
It is the habit of the speckled trout to breed in none 
but running water, consequently they would never breed 
in the spring, but would resort to its outlet. There was 
never any other fish in the spring; they have been grad- 
ually diminishing, not only in numbers, but in size.' 
"The publisher appended to this the following foot- 
note:* "This last resort, almost, of the speckled trout in 
all the northern portion of western New York, has within 
a few years been threatened with entire desertion, or ex- 
tinction. There is now (1849) a law in oneration, lim- 
ited to three years' duration, which makes fishing in thf:- 
spring or its outlet a penal offense. The trout, as if ready 
to co-operate in this attempt to protect them in this 
seeming reservation, are now rapidly increasing in num- 
bers and size. It is almost a wonder that some greedy 
pre-emptionist — say a shoal of horned "bull pouts" — are 
not contesting their rights.' " 
And this a half century ago! 
From the St. Lawrence to tlie Gulf of Mexico. 
Mr. Davison further quotes from this book the follow- 
ing very curious statement. He says: 
"On page S37 I find the following: 'It will surprise 
those who are not already acquainted with the curious 
fact, to learn that there is a spot upon the Holland Pur- 
chase where the speckled trout passes from the waters of 
the Gulf of St. Lawrence to those of the Gulf of Mexico 
and vice versa. About six miles from Rushford, on the 
Olean road, in the town of New Hudson, the headwaters 
of the Canadea and Oil creeks approach each other, and 
in freshets mingle, affording the facility for the trout to 
pass over the dividing ridge.' " 
This new route for fish from the St. Lawrence to the 
Gulf of Mexico is probably a pipe dream that was 
dreamed as lately as 1849. 
Is he an Angler? 
While Mr. Davison is not an angler, for he has said 
it, I heard this story of him from a friend. Last sum- 
mer he was on the beach at the outlet of Johnson's Creek, 
near Lakeside Park, Orleans county, N. Y., looking for 
shore birds, when he saw a darky boy who was fishing 
for perch lay down his pole at the call of his mother to 
do some errand. Mr. Davison put his gun aside and 
took the cane pole and fished, adding a dozen perch to 
the boy's string, and sneaked off without thanking the 
boy for the chance to practice the gentle art. The friend 
happened that way, asked the boy the usual question, 
and got this answer: 
"Yess'r deys good fishin' heah, but somehow w'en I 
stop to run to de sto' fo' to get some cawn meal fo' 
mam, de perch come outen de crick an' je.s' strings dey- 
selves awn my string. I don' on'stan' it, but dey's jes' 
as good fo' breakfas' 'sif dey was cotched awn a hook." 
The Stripes on Striped Bass. 
A correspondent sends me the following slip from a 
New York city paper and asks: "How about these 
stripes?" 
Permit me to say. in reply to Ang-ler's remarks in last 
Sunday's Press, that' he is right when he says that striped bass 
come into the Hudson from the ocean in the spring to spawn, 
but the bass that are caught through the ice come up the Hudson 
(luring October and November in great numbers, and remain 
until March. They are different bass from tho.se that come in tlie 
spring. Every fisherman knows this, as a majority of those that 
run up in autumn have straight stripes, while those that run tip 
in the spring have a broken stripe. 
Great quantities of the spring run of all siz.cs are Caught by 
