June 17, 1899.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
467 
ber not against me the sins of m}' youth," said King 
David ; and so say most of us who have long hunted 
and fished. 
I believe there is no man in New York to-day who 
spends more time and thought, and money, too, in the in- 
terest of game protection than George O. Shields, and 
most of the enemies he has made are those whom he has 
correctly branded as game hogs. Whether Didymus is 
one of these, I know not, but it is evident that he has 
some time stacked up against him, directly or indirectly, 
and gotten the Avorst of it. 
Didymus is correct in saying that Mr. Shields is the 
president of the League of American Sportsmen, and those 
who have worked with him since the organization of the 
League know full well the amount of arduous, effective 
and unrequited work he has done in that connection. I 
know whereof I speak, and if Didymus, or any other man 
hiding under a nom- de plume, will take the trouble to learn 
and state the facts, he will discover in Mr. Shields a man 
who is giving a considerable portion of his time and sub- 
stance in the effort to bring about the state of affairs 
which Didymus professes to desire. 
"There is no defense against reproach but obscurity," 
and as Mr. Shields has come out into the open in respect 
to game protection and game hogs, it is to be expected 
that he will be subject to attack, even if liis enemies have 
to go back a score of years to dig itp an excuse for 
making it. Arthur F. Rice. 
Passaic, N. J.,' June 11. 
New Brunswick Notes. 
Present indications point to a somewhat larger influx 
of sportsmen next fall than in any previous season. There 
is reason to believe that our American friends will meet 
with good success, for all reports agree as to moose and 
caribou being very plentiful. In man}^ localities, especially 
on the Sou'West Miramichi, the moose yarded in large 
.numbers within a few miles of the settlements, where they 
had never been known to take up their winter quarters 
before. It is estimated that in the Cains River region 
alone several hundred caribou spent the winter, the iierds 
starting north in May in excellent condition. The killing 
Of big game in the deep snow, though not entirely stamped 
out, was very much less extensive last wmter than 
formerly. 
The well-known Scotcli Lake guide, Adam Moore, 
writes to a friend here that on a certain evening lately 
there were visible on one of the Tobique lakes from his 
camp at one time eight moose and two deer. The next 
m.orning he visited another lake, where ftfur moose and 
three caribou showed up. Adam has been trapping hears 
this spring, and though this is his fi.rst season at the 
. busmess, has secured up to date fourteen specimens. 
Some American sportsmen appear to be under the im- 
pression that the New Brunswick game 'laws have been 
amended by the Legislature. Practically no change has 
been made. A bill embodying some important changes, 
such as abolishing the $ioo bond provision, shortening 
the open season, prohibiting the sale of partridge, etc., 
was prepared by the Surveyor-General, and submitted to 
the House,' but was. for reasons unexplained, allowed 
to lapse until the dying hours of the session. It was then 
adopted en bloc, subject to being brought in force by 
proclamation of the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council. 
Premier Emmerson is my authority for the statement that 
it will not be proclaimed this year, so the law stands just 
where it did last season. Some of the changes in the new 
bill were very desirable, and it is, to say the least, regret- 
table that so important a subject as the game laws of the 
Province should not have been given adequate atten- 
tion. So far as I can gather, the discourteous treatment 
received by the new bill was due to two causes: First, 
the Government had never, as a body, considered the 
bill, and were not a unit as to all its provisions ; second, 
it was in the codified form used in the Ontario act and 
elsewhere, and the different sections required more time 
and attention than the members of the House, at the 
close of the session, felt like giving to the subject. Had 
the old law been retained, subject only to a few important 
amendments, which it was admtited by all were needed, 
there is no doubt that these latter would have readily 
passed the House. 
The Canadian Pacific Railway authorities have been 
bringing pressure to bear at Ottawa to induce the Domin- 
ion Government to allow all game carcasses or trophies 
legally killed by sportsmen to be exported when accom- 
panied by the owners. My information is that this very 
desirable concession has been secured, and will take effect 
this season, Frank H. Risteen. 
FrederictoN, June 8. 
Partridges Near Ticonderogfa, 
New York, June 9. — Editor Forest and Stream: While 
the farmer is praying for the much needed fall of rain to 
start his . spring crops, the optimistic sportsman almost 
sees the hand of Providence in this very dry spell. Up 
in Ticonderoga, where there has hardly been a drop of 
rain in six weeks, I am told on good authority that there 
•were never seen larger broods of partridges than this 
spring. The little fellows generally begin to run around 
for forage about Decoration Day, and as the weather has 
been warm, not to say hot, since then, with no heavy 
dews and no showers, the danger of the usual cold week 
or fortnight in June is over, as far as that part of the 
hunting grounds is concerned. I have often seen the 
woods alive with the chicks along Buck Mountain about 
the last of May, but after the long cold rains but few 
could be found with the old birds. Last season, how- 
ever, there was little shooting, as the birds were very wild. 
There were lots of them and they wintered well, notwith- 
standing the cold, which offered no special hardships to 
our little dreadnaughts, secure in their warm hollows 
thickly grown with pines and hemlocks. As a result, there 
will be first-rate shooting at the Vinej^ard Farm, and we 
shall be glad to see any gentle sportsmen who may want a 
turn at the grouse, grays and woodcock. 
Peter Flint. 
The Forest and Stream is put to press each week on Tucsdsy, 
Correspondence intended for publication should reacb us at the 
Istesl by Monday and as mucb earlier as practicable. 
^^X> Massachusetts Game. 
Danvers, Mass., June 8. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
I have just returned from an outing about Falmouth, Cape 
Cod. I went back five miles into the country, and never 
heard a Bob White. I didn't learn anything favorable 
from the natives as to the prospect for the quail crop, I 
heard quite a number whistling in Carver, Plymouth coun- 
ty; in fact, first I have heard this year. yVround here, in 
Essex county, I learn of only a very few ; heard of a 
bunch of five being found dead after the snow melted. 
Without a doubt our quail in Massechusetts suffered 
badly from the February bliz?afd. Partridges stood it all 
right, and have nested well ; been a dry, favorable season 
for the young bird. There seemed to be as many wood- 
cock and snipe along as ever. Large flight of yellow- 
legs passed about May i on the shore marshes. I hear 
niany were killed for marekt by an Ipswich shooter, who 
was allowed to shoot out of season by a local game war- 
den, who claimed there was "nothing in it for him" by 
prosecuting him. That's a fine "warden." 
John W. Barbitt. 
Proprietors of fishing and hunting resorts will find it profitable 
to advertise them in Foeest and Stream. 
Mountain Trout. 
The trout in the streams of this part of West Virginia, 
where the waters head, appear more numerous than 
usual this year, and it has caused me to do .some think- 
mg. I have come to believe that incessant fishing is 
not the sole cause of the decline in the number of trout 
that this country has seen, for the fishing has been kept 
up and there is no question but that the trout have 
been increasing during the past few years. I believe 
the game hog ' has been blamed with what the droughts 
ot some years ago caused. The past two seasons have 
been \yet, and the trout have thrived. I do not like the 
term ' game hog." It is more easy to tell who is not a 
.game hog. For instance, my confessedlv impatient 
but really unskillful friend, who has no fuck, is no 
"game ho;r." but he blames unnumbered generations with 
depleting the waters; for. having caught no fish, he takes 
It there are no fiish. Men used to go into the mountain 
here and stop fishing when they had all thev could carry 
out. But It is not for me to say, "Thou* game hoe''" 
T hey only helped themselves to what nature provided'so 
bountifully. It is the men who cut the trees who destroy 
the trout. When waters get low trout do not thrive. 
Ihey are at the mercy of all their enemies. Hear an 
incident of the dry summer of '88: 
A fisherman on Tea Creek was sitting on a fallen 
tree, when he saw an old mother raccoon and a lot of 
cubs come into the bed of the stream. The old one took 
to turning up rocks and catching little trout, some of 
winch she ate, giving the rest to her familv. The fisher- 
man observed her a long time, and being a very zeal- 
ous defender of the trout at all times unslung li"is rifle 
and shot her. As an example of maternal care, it was 
a very affecting sight, but when a coon turns from its 
legitimate pursuits to take advantage of a drou£>ht to 
fish how can it hope to escape the wrath of the fishc'rmc'h.? 
The writer tries not to mind what others do to fish, 
for it only makes him pessimistic. The outrages are 
just as real and as hard to get at as those of the body 
politic. We will be content if we can act well our part 
and trust to others not to abuse the bounties of nature. 
But there is a custom here that should be broken up. 
and that is quite an extensive practice of trading a pound 
of bass or trout for a pound of bacon. There is rarely any 
other traffic in fish here. The improvident mountaineer who 
has eaten up his scanty store of bacon will appear at 
some comfortable farmhouse with his string of trout, 
where he knows that they will pass current for bacon 
at the fixed and unchanging ratio of I to i. A week 
or so ago a man who was hungry for hog meat fished 
down Beechy for a few miles, and turned up at a lumber 
camp with 108 trout, where he cashed them in for I2lbs. 
of bacon, standard weight and fineness. We do not 
object to the traffic so much as we do to the standard 
of value. 
But we have been fishing for meat. Four of us said 
that clients could wait while we went to the Meadows 
one whole day sucker fishing. Our party accounted for 
about all the local bar at home that day, and therefore 
a legal holiday was declared. Reports came in that the 
A¥illiam's River red-horse suckers were swarming on the 
riffles by tlie thousand from out of the Deadwater. and 
the hoi polloi were taking them by the wagon-load. This 
sucker is a most edible fish, and it is a sight to see them 
running the riffles when they come up to spawn. We 
have been there tor several years to meet them, and we 
were telling a very pretty story of how it took just the 
same number of warm days the last of April to make us 
go camping that brought the fish forth from the deep 
water to spawn. But this year we were not there to greet 
them with spears and horse-hair dulls. Our scheme was 
to get up before dayhght, ride the twelve miles, take a 
hundred-weight or so each and go home loaded. We 
actually got away before daylight, and after a very 
pleasant ride through pine woods reached the Meadows 
about breakfast time. There we found no outside suck- 
ers. It was easy to see why. The banks were torn and 
trampled and the offal of fish was scattered around. 
The suckers had been so harried that they had been 
driven back to the security of the deep water. Then we 
tore our hair and rended our clothes because we had 
not brought our trout tackle. It was a warm cloudy 
morning, when the trout are supposed to bite. One 
had a fish basket, which I immediately borrowed, for I 
had found two leaders in an old pocketbook I had rny 
sucker fixings in. T had to be content with a green 
beech pole, and after a lot of hard work I had a fine lot 
of fishing worms. By 10 o'clock I was established on 
the ruins of a disastrous enterprise, full of hope of mak- 
ing the day a success. It was an ideal trout day— seem- 
ingly ready to rain any minute, but the rain never com- 
ing. The first pool was where the water swirled against 
the bank, and moved the submerged boughs of wiUoW 
unceasingly. Here a big trout took the bait, and after 
quite a lot of argument the beech pole, encouraged by 
me, flung it high in the air, and on the bank. It's the 
fool behind the rod that does the work. One cast, and 
one trout is all the best of tackle could have done. 
It was a great day. I think I must have taken a 
hundred, for "when the time for taking stock came there 
were sixty-six trout in the creel, and their weight was 
making the strap cut into the shoulder. I had to over- 
come another difficulty. When I had caught about halt 
the lot I was standing kneep-deep in the stream, where 
the current swirled around me. My bait was in an old 
oyster tin. In returning it to my pocket it fell in the 
water, and all my precious bait was swept away. _ It 
was just above a fine pool, and though it was expensive • 
it set the big trout to biting, and I took out four fine fish 
before the remnant of bait was exhausted. I have seen 
many a fisherman give up all hope of catching a fish 
and throw away his bait as he turned from the water. If 
he had thrown in the greater part of the bait and con- 
tinued fishing the chances are that he would have made 
a glorious finish. 
But my bait gone, I was again a ruined man. In that 
old pocketbook was a solitary trout fly of the coachman 
variety, and I turned to fish down stream with it. The 
beech did not do so bad, but it was wearying. It 
hurt me between the shoulders. But how the trout did 
swarm around it and dive out of sight again! I was 
sorry thev were dissatisfied, but I had nothing else to 
set before' them. But about every tenth fish would take 
it and be caught, and T made better speed than ever. 
About 4 o'clock I started home, and came on a hilari- 
ous crowd of my neighbors, who, having come for suck- 
ers, had stayed to have a good time. With them was 
the town preacher, who had ill-advisedly accepted an 
invitation to go fishing with that crowd. They had 
placed the preacher's name in an empty bottle, which 
had been recently emptied, and set it afloat, and had 
otherwise outraged the cloth. My own cro^yd, seeing 
the game was up, had trailed off home earlier in the 
day. Taking the preacher with rne, for I thought he 
looked uneasy, we rode home, discussing theological 
questions, for I soon found that on nothing else would 
the worthy man talk with animation. He tried to talk 
on my hobby — fish — and speak of a startling discovery 
he had that day made, which was that "trout have teeth," 
but when I showed him that forefinger of mine rough-- 
ened with the taking of a lot of trout from the hook 
he let the talk languish. 
My youngest brother has had an experience the 
thought of which takes me back to my first attempts at 
camping. He and another youngster have just returned 
from a trouting expedition nearly dead from loss of 
sleep. Briefly related, this is what they did: Up at 2 
o'clock, walked fifteen miles and fished till dark. Set 
to making camp in the heart of the wilderness Fire 
would not burn with soggy wood, and nobody could eat 
the cooking save only the dog. Could not sleep and had 
no watch to tell how the night was passing. Sat at foot 
of a big tree and heard the owls hoot all night. Dawfl 
came after a week or so, and they made a breakfast of 
corn pone. Just as they started away the log heap they 
had labored over the whole night broke into a cheerful 
blaze, and they turned back and warmed the very marrow 
in their bones. Fished until noon and walked about 
eighteen miles home. They caught 140 trout, and are 
anxious to try it again. They believe they know how 
to occupy a department in the woods gracefully and have 
several pointers on making themselves comfortable. 
They say they had over 20lbs. of grub to throw away, 
mostly bread, for which they had placed a large order 
with their mothers. 
I had fixed last Saturday to go a-fishing, but the 
date conflicted with a cold wave, and Friday evening 
there arose live issue as to whether the garden should 
be protected from the frost. I was for risking it, but 
the mistress of the household was willing to take no 
chances, and the garden was draped with all the spare 
"kivers" on the place. As we sat around a fire that 
evening which would have warmed a room in midwinter 
the prospect looked blue, for cold waves and fishing 
do not go well together. Clouds came, and no frost, 
but while I was trying to make myself believe the air 
was soft an old darky came by and remarked, " 'Pears 
like it was too col' to fros'." The inexoerienced might 
think I had scored a point when I had my prediction 
verified as to the safety of the garden, but I was informed • 
that what we had done to keep off the frost was right, 
I have tried in my time to impress a quotation from 
Hans Christian Andersen on a certain lady's mind, 
"Whatever the old man does is always right," with 
very poor success, and the frosts that never come are 
the bane of this fisherman's life in more ways than one. 
The only comfort I could take was that signs amount 
to nothing if the fish only bite. I reached the stream 
about Q o'clock, and by that time I had arranged to have 
the fish bite, because the air was too cold for insects to 
be flying about, and therefore fish would be hungry. A 
fisherman who is not sanguine is a rare bird. I fished 
down Laurel Creek three miles or so to its mouth. It 
was through a dense spruce forest. The way was rough 
and the water cold, but the trout did bite, and in a most 
peculiar manner. There is little individuality in the 
trout, and this day each took the bait and nibbled at it' 
for several minutes. All a man could do was to wait 
until the bait was absorbed, and if the fish had swallowed 
the hook all was well. If not given enough time, it 
would be lifted from the water and fall back. Nearly 
every fish had swallowed the hook which was taken. 
When I arrived at the mouth of the stream I had thirty- 
four trout, and had done far better than I had expected. 
In a deep pool in the river I tried an experiment, which 
resulted in some big fish to fini.sh with. It was getting 
late, and I threw nearly all my bait in the head of the 
pool. The fish began to bite in earnest, and f soon 
caught eight, ranging from 9 to T3in. The sport was 
more than satisfying on that day, when a wise man would 
not have gone forth. Two hooks were lost on those 
monsters which always get away. I marveled at theif 
size, and thought of the immensity of the tale I should tell- 
My honest intentions were nipped in the bud by find 
ing one of the hooks in the stomach of a gin. troittt, th 
