Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1899, by Forestt and Stream Publishing Co. 
""""''^^^^l^^^rJ^m^-^ NEW YORK, SATURDAY, APRIL 1, 1899. |no. 84« br!^'adwav:n.V^W. 
The Forest and Stream is the recognized medium of entertain- 
ment, instruction and information between American sportsmen. 
The editors invite communications on the subjects to whicli its 
pages are devoted. Anonymous communications will not bt re- 
garded. While it is intended to give wide latitude in discussion 
of current topics, the editors are not responsible for the views of 
conespondents. 
Subscriptions may begin at any time. Terms: For single 
copies, $4 per year, $2 for six months. For club rates and full 
particulars respecting subscriptions, see prospectus on page iv. 
TI/£ WHITE FLAG. 
The white flag shown in our illustration supplement to- 
daj' is one dear to the heart of many a sportsman, and the 
picture, as it travels here, there and everywhere over this 
land, will call up ten thousand memories of days afield. 
Some of these were successful and some unlucky; some 
were dreams of delight unmarred by any mishap, others 
were days of discomfort and misery. All of them, how- 
ever, as seen through the rosy mists of the years arc 
cheery and delightful in contemplation. 
How many men, while working their slow way through 
the forest or the undergrowth have been startled by the 
defiant waving of this white flag, have seen the beare" 
bound high in air and come down with a force that 
it seemed would break his slender legs, have heard the 
soul stirring thump, thump of his swift feet; and then 
after a fruitless shot have carefully followed along the 
track in search of evidence that the shot had told. 
We all know it well— the pursuit of the deer; whether 
niQccasin shod we follow him over the soft newly fallen 
snow through the silent forest, or stand on a runway 
near the edge of some southern swamp, listening for the 
faint distant trumpeting of the deep voiced hounds, or on 
thoroughbred Kentucky or Virginia hunter follow those 
hounds over hill and dale and through forest an.'! 
meadow. 
There are probably only one or two States in the 
Union, where deer belonging to the Virginia, or white 
tail, form are not found; and its wide range and great 
abundance have made this species regarded as the deer 
to the exclusion of all others. Wherever we find it east 
of the Mississippi, it is the deer— the only one— even 
though moose and caribou roam the same forests that it 
inhabits. It seems almost impossible to exterminate it 
and if given a chance, the stock will alwajb 
tend to re-establish itself even in districts wheie 
its numbers have grown very small. The coti- 
stant pursuit to which the deer has been sub- 
jected has taught it many things, and to-day it is tht-. 
most cunning abundant game animal of this Continent, 
and the most difficuh to circumvent by legitimate means. 
Many a still-hunter, we imagine, has followed the track 
of a deer for hour after hour, often crossing his own 
trail and feeling sure that frequently the deer had him 
under its eye and was protecting itself by leisurely fol- 
lowing the hunter about. This wisdom of the game, of 
which examples are so often seen and the strong attach- 
ment it feels for localities, make it a difficult matter t.; 
drive the deer from a home which it has chosen. Men 
may hunt it and dogs may chase it. and it will make a 
long round, but, after the pursuit is over, it comes stroll - 
ing back in a leisurely way to its chosen home. 
Naturalists have named several subspecies or geo- 
graphical races which belong to the Virginia deer group. 
As a rule, the deer of the North dififer markedly in size, 
and to some extent in coloring, from those in the South. 
The deer of Canada and Maine are much larger than 
those of North Carolina and Florida. The big deer cf 
the upper Missouri are giants when compared with the lit- 
tle fellows of Arizona and Mexico, and the non-scientific 
person who should compare specimens from the Norih 
with those from the South might easily enough imagine 
that, these differences were greater than they really are. 
The habits of the deer have been more fully written of 
than those of any North American wild animal except 
perhaps the bear. Yet of all that has been written, there 
is little that is of any practical value to the young hunter 
who is starting out on his first deer hunt. For in deer 
hunting, more than in almost any pursuit, experience is 
the only teacher whose instructions are actually useful, 
and unless a practiced companion or a special providence 
takes the novice under protection he is not likely to kill 
a deer by any legitimate means during the first season of 
his hunting. And yet— as the exception to prove the 
rule — the hunter on his first hunt sometimes brings veni- 
son into camp when the veterans are bafHed and uu- 
successful. There is adorning a home in this city a hand- 
some deer head from Maine, concerning which, should 
you ask, your hostess would say, "Yes, we were out of 
meat in camp; and they told me I could take the gun to 
get some meat; they thought I could be trusted wi':h 
it, and, of course, it was all a joke — as they saw it. I 
hadn't ever had a gun in my hands before; but I took it 
and went into the woods. And the first thing I saw was 
a deer; and the first thing I did was to shoot at it; and 
that's the head; don't you think it's a pretty one?" 
THE WYOMING GUIDE LICENSE SYSTEM. 
The State of Wyoming has taken a giant stride in the 
direction of efficient game protection by adopting legisla- 
tion which is based upon the Maine system of licensed 
guides. The scheme is one which goes to the foundaticm 
principle of the State's ownership in its game as a valu - 
able resource, the use of which must be controlled and 
restricted in such a way as to provide for preservation 
within reasonable limits. The new statute says in effect 
that the elk and the deer and the mountain sheep of 
Wyoming belong to the State, and the State will permit 
them to taken by individual citizen or by visitor on cer- 
tain conditions carefully laid down in the law. 
The most interesting feature of the new law is the es- 
tablishment of the guide license system. No person may 
engage in the business of guiding without first having pro- 
cured from the justice of the peace a guide's certificart', 
which certificate shall state the name, age and residence 
of the holder, and shall recite that he is a person of good 
moral character. Every licensed guide becomes by vir - 
tue of his occupation an assistant game warden, and 
must file his oath of office as such when he receives his 
certificate; he is held equally responsible with his party 
for any violation of the game law, and if he fails to report 
the offense himself, is liable to the penalty and to forfeit- 
ure of his license for a period of five years. A guide is 
defined as any person who shall, for pay, aid or assist any 
person or party in locating, pursuing, hunting and 
killing any game. It is unlawful for a non-resi- 
dent to kill game unless accompanied by a li- 
censed guide; and at the end of every hunting- 
trip the guide must report to the justice by 
whom his license was granted the number of days he has 
been employed, the numbers of persons guided and the 
game killed. The license fee is ten dollars per annum. 
In keeping with the principle that in the end the con- 
sumer pays the tax, this money will come out of the 
pocket of the non-resident sportsman; for the guide will 
recoup himself out of his employer. 
If the manifest intention of the framers of the Wyoming 
law had been embodied in the text as enacted, the 
non-resident would have been obliged also to pay a hunt- 
ing license fee of forty dollars. The phraseology of the 
statute is such, however, that the provisions relative to a 
license are permissive in character, and not prohibitory 
nor obligatory. The clauses bearing on this point read; 
"Any person who is a bona-fide citizen of the State of 
Wyoming shall, upon payment of one dollar to any jus- 
tice of the peace of the county in which he resides, be en- 
titled to receive a gun license, which shall permit such 
person to pursue, hunt and kill any of the game animah 
mentioned in the section." etc. But the statute does not 
say that a citizen must procure a license to kill game; 
nor that he may not kill game without a license. In like 
manner the provision as to non-residents reads : "Any 
person who is not a resident of the State of Wyomim 
shall, upon the payment to any justice of the peace of tl 
State, of the sum of forty dollars, be entitled to receive 
from such justice of the peace a license; vy^hich license 
shall permit such person to pursue, hunt and kill any of 
the animals mentioned in this section, during the time al- 
lowed therefor of the current year." There is no specific 
obligation to buy a license, nor any prohibition of hunt- 
ing without one. Nowhere in the entire text of the 
statute, is the procurement of a hunting license made 
obligatory on resident or non-resident 
The water killing of deer is a method of hunting which 
certain interests in Ontario are striving to have legalized. 
It is a mode which is almost universally prohibited in 
this country, and law against it should be restored in the 
Province* 
SNAP SHOTS. 
A common method of fish stocking in the West con- 
sists in rescuing the fish from places in which the reced- 
ing of the water threatens their destruction, and trans- 
ferring them to other bodies of water which are of pef- 
manent supply. In Utah the value of these enterprises is 
so well appreciated that it is made by law the duty -oi 
county fish wardens "to take or cause to be taken 
in the best practical manner any imported fish, 
mountain trout, bass or herring, found in pools 
or other places in which receding waters of the 
rivers, streams, canals or other waterways have 
left them, and which are likely to become dry, 
and to carefully put the live fish thus taken into main 
bodies of water, and to make the best disposition of ths 
dead fish in the interest of the county treasury." 
One of the first American victims, if not the first, of the 
American-Spanish war, was a marine killed by the ac- 
cidental discharge of a revolver in the hands of a com - 
rade. In a New York street last Monday a returned 
volunteer was explaining to a policeman the manipula- 
tion of his Krag-Jorgensen rifle, when the weapon was 
accidentally fired, and the bullet wounded three men 
across the street. What can be expected of the green- 
horn sportsmen, when 'professionals drilled in the use* of 
arms perpetrate such acts as these? 
Mr. Mariner A. Wilder of Warwick, New York, who 
died on March g, at the age of eighty-five years, was 
a notable example of the substantial and successful men 
of affairs who find their best recreation in field sport.s. 
Mr. Wilder was for years known as the largest shipper 
of southern pine in the United States; his business con- 
nections extended to all parts of the globe; and yet for a 
half-century, from young manhood to the age of seventy- 
four at least, as Mr. Charles Hallock tells us, he never 
missed his annual moose hunt in the Canadian wilds. 
The health and vigor he found in these wilderness out- 
ings are aptly demonstrated by an incident Mr. Hallock 
recalls when Mr. Wilder, at the age of sixty-four, packed 
his bark canoe over the portages in the Muskoka country. 
Mr. Wilder had been a reader of Forest and Stream 
from the first number 
We present to-day Mr. Chittenden's series of photo- 
graphs of a Maine moose which were awarded the first 
prize in the Forest and Stream's Amateur photography 
competition. Mr. Chittenden has supplemented the pic- 
tures with an account of the circumstances under which 
they were secured. How suggestive of new days and new 
ways is that point in the narrative where ' it is written, 
"We dropped our paddles and seized our cameras." Not 
many years ago the story of a Maine moose hunt, even 
in summer, would probably have read, "We dropped our 
paddles and seized our guns." 
The new Maine game law might be termed a measure 
for the relief of burdened consciences; for assuredly un- 
der its provisions the summer visitor who shall lawfully 
kill his game this year will eat the meat thereof without 
those qualms which have impaired his appetite for the 
venison illicitly brought into camp under previous con- 
ditions. The new rule is that upon payment of six d£»l -- 
lars if a non-resident, or four dollars if a citizen, an in- 
dividual may kill one deer for food purposes in Septem- 
ber. Just what the effect of the system will" be as to tlaa 
actual number of deer killed is, of course, a matter ot 
speculation, and cannot be otherwise, since while the 
deer which henceforth may be killed will be reported by 
the guides and enumerated, no one can ever know how 
many have been killed unlawfully in past seasons. V/c 
may reasonably assume, however, that the number will 
be largely increased. The Maine Commissioners have 
thoroughly considered the situation and. hold the belief 
that the stock can stand the draip upon it, and that the 
interests of protection will be served by the plan. 
"Skipper, the master of a fishing or small trading vesseL 
hence, the master, or captain of any vessel." "Skipper, 
one who, or that which, skips." These definitions are 
from Webster. For an example in point, see the item of 
marine intelligence sent by our correspondent Special. 
W e regret to record the death of Mr, J. George Stacey, 
of Geneva, N. Y., one of the older sportsmen of the 
State, well known to a large circle of friends and by them 
sincerely mourned. Mr. Stacey passed away on March 
19- ■ ^ u 
