Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Cop bright, 1899, bv Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Terms, $4 a Year, lo Cts. a Copy. \ 
Six Months, |2. f 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, AUGUST 12, 1899. 
/ VOL. LIIL— No. T. 
I No, 846 Broadway, New York. 
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 which 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 
correspondents. 
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. 
If all the yeaf were playing holidays, 
To sport would be as tedious as to work. 
t Henry IV., i. 2. 
THE COLORADO GAME PARK SYSTEM. 
The new Colorado game law contains some noA^el fea- 
tures respecting parks and game preserves, which are de- 
serving of attention because of the growth of the preserve 
System in this country a;nd the probability that future legis- 
lation will more and more be determined by an intent to 
give special privileges to the owners of parks. 
The law provides that no person shall hold in captivity 
in any park, whether land or water, any game or fish un- 
less first having procured a license for the park, and any 
park maintained without the prescribed license is made a 
■ public nuisance and as a penalty the game contained in 
it may be liberated by the officials and the park fences 
I destroyed. One who has established or proposes to estab- 
lish a game park is required to make application in writing 
to the Commissioner, describing in detail the location and 
extent of the preserve, and in return the Commissioner 
issttes a license authorizing the park owner to keep and 
•propagate such game as is specifically named in the 
license. Park owners are permitted to capture wild game 
for stocking purposes under a special permit issued by the 
Commissioner, designating the variety and the number of 
, animals which may be so taken; and there are very 
stringent provisions to prevent the taking of any such 
game or fish for any other purpose than for stocking. 
Park proprietors are also permitted to exchange game or 
fish with other persons within or without the State, but 
this exchange also is controlled by a specific license issued 
by the Commimssioner. 
When a private park or lake already contains game 
quadrupeds or fish belonging to the State at the date of 
the license, the right- is reserved for the Commissioner to 
demand and receive from the proprietor not more than ten 
per cent, of the game increase for each year, and not 
more than ten per cent, of the fertilized fish eggs stripped 
from the fish in the preserve, or if the owner does not 
strip the fish the Commissioner has the right to do so. 
The game and fish thus obtained by the Commissioner 
from private parks are to be used by him for the stocking 
'.of other parks, streams or lakes. 
Game and fish contained in private parks are by the law 
made the private property of the owner, "to the extent 
that he may lawfully retain, pursue, capture, kill, use, sell 
[m dispose of the game or fish therein in any quantity at 
any time of year." It was under this provision that 
^Governor Tanner was permitted to take his deer in the 
iDebeque preserve. A further restriction is made that the 
aggregate number of game or fish contained in any private 
park or lake belonging to the State at the date of taking 
, effect of the act shall not subsequently be lessened by the 
I park proprietor, tTie purpose of this provision being to 
'maintain as to the park territory the natural game supply. 
^But even here a special license may be extended to the 
Owner on application to reduce the superfluous stock" of a 
given variet}-. 
The law contemplates close supervision of the game 
jand fish produced from a park. The owner is recjuued 
Iwhen selling or giving away game or fish to deliver to the 
[purchaser or donee an invoice containing full particulars 
of the transaction. Without such an invoice transporta- 
tion and possession are forbidden. Duplicates of the 
invoice mttst be supplied to the Commissioner at Denver, 
and when the game or fish is shipped by rail or express, 
the original must accompany it attached to it and in plain 
sight. The proprietor of a private game park is re- 
quired, whenever directed by the Commissioner, to make 
report of the number, age and sex of the game added to 
the park or taken from it annually. Licenses for the parks 
extend for terms of two vears or ten vears. 
Fees are charged for game park licenses and for the 
several privileges accorded in connection with the park. 
The fee for a quadruped park for two years is $40, and 
$30 for renewal ; for ten years $100, and $75 renewal ; for 
bird park, $10 for two years, $25 for ten years. A lake 
license costs $10 for two years. For export of game the 
fees are $10 for an elk, $S each for deer and antelope, and 
$2 for a lot of fish. 
While the Colorado law is not the first statute designed 
to give special privileges to owners of preserves, it is by 
far the most elaborate. It is the product of a desire on the 
part of the framers to accord all practicable concessions 
to the preservers, without endangering the public game 
supply. If the provisions are strictly enforced and in the 
transportation and sale of game and fish ■ the prescribed 
vouchers are rigidly complied with, there is little reason to 
apprehend that the system will interfere with efficient pro- 
tection. On the other hand, laxity of supervision on the 
part of the wardens might readily open the way to the 
illicit marketing of game and fish belonging to the public 
supply. 
Among the curiosities of game legislation is a New 
York law which forbids the hunting of moose, elk, cari- 
bou or antelope, all of which species have long since been 
extinct in the boundaries of the State in a wild condition. 
Nevertheless the law carefully provides that moose, deer, 
elk and antelope meat may be possessed or sold during the 
open season for venison, if killed without the State or in 
private parks ; the last clause in concession to the pre- 
serves which have been stocked with Western game. On 
the other hand, in Pennsylvania, where the law absolutely 
forbids the exportation of game, certain owners of private 
parks who have stocked their preserves with Western elk 
are legally debarred from taking the venison home with 
them to New York city. Some modification of the 
Pennsylvania statutes in line with the Colorado system 
would benefit park owners without endangering any real 
interest as to the State's own game. 
AN ADIRONDACK DEER HOUNDING CASE. 
The Ives deer hounding case decided by the New York 
Court of Appeals has already been referred to, and de- 
serves further mention because of the importance of the 
principle involved in the decision. Mr. Frank C. Ives, 
the well-known billiard expert of this city, had in the sum- 
mer and fall of 1897 ^ camp at Long Pond in St. Lawrence 
county in the Adirondacks. In October of that year a 
hound which had been harbored by Mr. Ives was found 
running deer, and suit was brought by direction of 
Chief Game Protector Pond against Mr. Ives, as the 
owner of the hound, to recover the penalty for infringe- 
ment of the law which provides that dogs of the breed 
commonly used for hunting deer 'shall not be permitted by 
the owner or person harboring them to run at large in 
the coimtry inhabited by deer. The dog was one which 
had been brought into Mr. Ives' camp by his guide, and 
was one which was known to have been trained on deer. 
The testimony showed that on several occasions the dog 
had got loose and had run in the woods, and was heard 
barking. The particular occasion concerned was the 25th 
of October, on which day, according to the testimony 
given by Mr. Ives, he had left his camp for the season and 
was on his way to the railroad station at the particular 
hour when the jjrotector discovered the dog running a 
deer in the woods near by. There was no question about 
the identification of the dog, its harboring was not denied 
by Mr. Ives, and while he himself was not accused of deer 
hounding, the particular point at issue was as to his 
responsibility for the dog under the circumstances re- 
lated. Mr. Ives contended in defense that he had never 
permitted the dcg to pursue deer nor to be at liberty in the 
deer country. The jury on the original trial found against 
the defendant, and the Court of Appeals has sustained the 
tinding of the lower court. The decision appears to have 
been strictly in keeping with the evidence in the case, and 
the principle it establishes is of the utmost importance in 
the enforcing of the anti-hounding law in the Adirondacks. 
If those who own or harbor dogs could evade respon- 
sibility for the dogs when loose, it is clear that the law 
would be a dead letter ; in fact it was because the statute 
without this provision had been found so weak that the 
new clause imposing the responsibility upon owners was 
found to be necessary. No sensible person will keep a deer 
dog in a deer country unless he means to hunt deer with 
it or to let others hunt deer with it, or unless he is ready 
to stand for the dog's hunting on its own account. Mr. 
Ives paid in penalty and costs $324.56 before going to the 
Court of Appeals, and this, with his counsel fees, made the 
deer dog Socks an expensive creature before he finished 
with it. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
The apathy of certain men in matters of sportsman- 
ship, to which Ransacker has so touchingly referred, is 
not without a bit of unconscious pathos in it, for it is the 
expression of the changes which come to us all with 
the passing of the years. It would be an erroneous conclu- 
sion, however, to accept the implied principle that a de- 
clining aptitude for such pursuits, a diminished capacity 
for enjoyment of them, and a lessened inclination to 
follow them mean the attainment of a higher ethical 
standard for approving or disapproving them. The change 
is in the individual man, not in the pursuits themselves; 
and it is a change in keeping with the rules of life. 
When one has had a surfeit of good things, the rel- 
ish for them is not so great afterward as it was before. 
Neither is the novelty so great in looking backward over 
known things as it is in looking forward to the unknown; 
the actual difference is in the point of view of the mature 
and the point of view of the young. 
The whole of one's li'fe is marked by well-defined 
stages, wherein the new is accepted and the old ignored. 
The tin horse yields to the baseball bat; this in due time 
to the canoe, or, dog and gim, or rod and reel; and all 
together in turn must yield to some adorable woman. 
There comes a time when watermelons would^ not taste 
so luscious, even though hooked on a moonlight night, 
and indeed the advanced man might not have a thought 
of eating the melon if it were at his elbow. Why? Be- 
cause he might not have the appetite which he had in 
his boyhood days. In this there might be no question of 
ethics, though there might be one of appetite. And so 
it goes to the end of the chapter, when one may sor- 
rowfully exclaim: "All is vanity and vexation of spirit" — 
the cry of him who is looking backward, not that of him 
who is looking forward. 
This is but one of many stages in the evolution of the 
individual, the same which has been reached by all who 
have gone before us, and will be reached by all who are 
following after us. It is not a part of the ethical prob- 
lems at all. It is the cry from incapacity for enjoyment, 
easily cofifounded as a development of new ethical ideas. 
If our capacity for enjoyment is gone, it is hardly logical 
to declare that all enjoyment has ceased to exist. The 
sage remark of Shakespeare is good for all time, and 
expresses a great truth : 
Sir To: Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall 
be no more cakes and ale? 
Clo: Yes, by Saint Anne, and ginger shall be hot i' the mouth, 
too. 
State Game and Fish Commissioner Johnson of Colo^ 
rado tells us that the deer killed by Governor Tanner of 
Illinois, at Debeque, last month, was lawfully taken, in- 
asmuch as all the hunting was done within the limits of a 
private park, and hunting under such conditions in the 
general close season is permitted by the statute. We need 
not add that this explanation will be received with genuine 
satisfaction, for it entirely relieves Governor Tanner from 
any criticism of his hunting on the score of illegality. 
The strong hold our .woods life, or water excursion or 
mountain exploration, has upon us is not always capable 
of exact definition or statement. We find ourselves in- 
sensibly hungering for the locusts and- wild honey of the 
free life in the open. In reverie the majestic panorama of 
I he monntain ranges is unfolded before us. We see 
ihrotigli the trees the white canvas of our home under the 
pines. We long for the bark she'ter, the camp-fire, the 
stars seen through the whispering tree tops. And in the 
pictures which come and go, the actual taking of game 
may have insignificant place. 
New Mexico publishes its game laws in Spanish. Tres- 
pass signs near New York are in German. On Penikese 
Island in Buzzard's Bay the warnings agamst killing 
terns are in Portuguese. In still other sections of the 
country such signs are readily understood if written in 
English. 
