Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1899, bv FoiRESr and Stream Pcibhsming Co. 
Terms, $( a Yeak. 10 Cts. a Copy. ( 
Srx Months, |2. \ 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1899, 
/ VOL. I.IU.— No. 16. 
(No. 34t) Broadway, New York 
The Forest and Stream is the recognized medium of entertain- 
nient, instruction and information between American sportsmen. 
The editors invite communications oi; 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 pec year, $2 for six months. For club rates and full 
particulars respecting subscriptions, see prospectus on page iv. 
THE WASHINGTON SALE LAW. 
We noted the other day that the State of Washington^ 
in its new game law had adopted the principle of the 
prohibition of the sale of game; and the sportsmen of 
that State have been much elated over the new rule, an- 
ticipating from its working substantial advantage in the 
effective conservation of the game supply. A Spokane 
correspondent writes in comment on what was said in 
our issue of Sept. 23, that the satisfaction over the en- 
actment of the law has been short lived because of an 
opinion given by the deputy prosecuting attorney as to 
the scope of the anti-sale provision. The prohibition, this 
official decides, applies only to the game of the State and 
not to game imported from other States ; and our corre- 
spondent asks what steps may be taken to secure the pur- 
poses designed by the enactment of the law. 
It is clear that the opinion of the deputy prosecuting 
attorney is erroneous and .would not stand the test of the 
courts. The text of the statute reads: 
"Laws 1899, p. 278.— Section 3. Every person who shall 
offer for Fale, or market, or sell or barter any moose, elic, 
cariboti. killed in this State, antelope, mountain sheep or 
goat, deer, or the hide or skin of any moose, elk, deer or 
caribou, or any grouse, pheasant, ptarmigan, partridge, 
sage hen, prairie chicken or quail, at any time of the 
3'ear. shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor." 
While the prohibition of selling moose, elk and caribou 
is clearly restricted to game killed in the State, the law 
in its application to antelope, mountain sheep or goat, 
deer and the game birds specified has no such limitation 
and covers all game of the several species, whether killed 
within the State or imported from elsewhere. This is 
the interpretation given to all statutes of like character in 
other States, and there is no question whatever that if put 
to legal test the Washington courts would rule that the 
law applied to all game, whether native or foreign. 
The sufficient reason for making .such statutes cover 
imported game is found in the long experience which has 
demonstrated beyond questioning the fact that unless the 
law shall be comprehensive in its scope t!ie game of the 
State will inevitably be marketed with that which comes 
in from outside. An open game market will draw its sup- 
plies from all available sources. This has been shown, for 
instance, in New York. A law %vhich permitted the sale 
of game killed oittside of the Slate was under considera- 
tion by the Legislature a year or two ago. Deputy State 
Comptroller Oilman, speaking in behalf of the game 
dealers, told the Assembly committee that the New York 
city commission men never handled any game killed out 
of season in the Slate, but drew all their supplies from 
outside. He was confronted and his statement, impudent 
in its falseness, was refuted by documentary evidence pro- 
duced on the spot by the game commission, showing by 
express receipts and sundry other vouchers, that game 
was killed in New York and shipped by a roundabout way 
to the city dealers, and it was notorious that this illicit 
marketing was continuous and of large proportions. The 
one only way to stop the killing of Washington game for 
Washington markets is to prohibit altogether the traffic 
in game without regard to the source of supply. 
This is no new thing; the principle has long been 
recognized and acted upon; and the validity of statutes 
embodying it has repeatedly been upheld by the courts; 
one case in point is that of Phelps vs. Racey in New 
York. It is to be. hoped that the sportsmen of Spokane 
may take early action to secure in the courts an interpreta- 
tion of the new law. 
There is added reason for solicitude as to the interpre- 
tation of this law vdth respect- to quail, because, three 
years ago the Spokane shooters imported a lot of live 
quail from Kansas. The birds were put out amopg the 
farmers, and have multiplied and established themselves. 
There is a law on them running to Oct. i, 1901, bul now 
that the markets arc supplied with quail, it is of course 
impossible to determine whether the birds come from 
Nebraska or Kansas, or are some of these Washington 
quail introduced at the expense of sportsmen. 
THE BLACKTAIL. 
When the snows have begun to whiten the tops of the 
tall mountains, and the keen frost is biting the ripened 
leaves of the mountain maple, turning them from vivid 
crimson to plain brown, the blacktail takes his slow way 
ffom the higher mountains toward the lowlands. He is 
loath to leave these upland meadows, where summer has 
been spent, where the grass is tender and juicy and hies 
and mosquitoes are little troublesome, but as the yellow- 
ing leaves of the aspens loose their hold on the stems and 
slowly twirl toward the earth, and the thickets where he 
has couched become bare, he feels that it is time to go. 
Yet he does not hasten, and indeed he is in no condition 
for speed, for he is fat, roimd, heavy and lazy, though his 
muscles now are as strong as ever, and he is as well able 
to race through the timber and to climb the rocks. Yet lie 
picks his way slowly down the hillside, ever letting the 
snow go a little before him, and making curious twisting 
paths over the white mantle which covers the ground, as 
he wanders from tuft of grass to bush, and again to 
thicket, and at last to the bare spot beneath the mountain 
cedar, where he makes his bed. 
By this time his winter coat is thick and warm; not so 
long, to be sure, as it will be later, yet past the blue, and 
underlaid everywhere by a warmer covering of wool, 
which, if you had enough of it, you could spin into yarn. 
Little cares the blacktail for snow or rain or mist or 
wind. He is one of the hardiest of our mountaineers, and 
may be found abroad in all weathers. And so, as you 
travel through the high motmtains in the late autumn and 
early winter, you will see liim — if your eyes are sharp — 
taking his deliberate way along the hillside, or may jump 
him from under the trees where he rests at mid-day, or 
may view him as he crosses some river on his way to his 
winter range. Sometimes he is a great buck with 
massive horns, followed at a respectful distance by two 
or three younger ones, who prance and play and hold 
mimic battles, with sharp clash of horns, which the senior 
gravely watches. Or he may have with him an old doe 
almost as large as he, but hornless, and following her 
will be the well-grown fawns, no longer spotted now, but 
gray like their parents. 
Once the blacktail was simple and gentle, as all our 
game animals have been ; and we recall the time when a 
friend walked up to a sleeping doe, so close that he could 
have put his hand on her; but like the rest of our great 
game, thougl; more slowly than some, the species has 
learned to know man as its bitterest enemy, and to-day 
there are few or no places where he can be found in 
his old-time tameness. 
The picture which we present to-day shows buck and 
doe in autumn, traveling along the hillside on the way 
to the winter range. 
DOG LICENSES. 
The paper written by Mrs. Sarah K.- Bolton, of Cleve- 
land, and printed on another page, contains many valu- 
able data as to the ^relations of the dog to the community. 
To many of the recommendations advanced, owners of 
dogs will assent. There is a growing tendency to regard 
the dog as property for the protection of which the law 
should provide sufffcient security. The destruction of 
valuable animals through spite or by virtue of unrighteous 
laws is of altogether too common occurrence, and there 
is much room for improvement here. 
On the other hand, it should be remembered that the 
evils connected with the enforcement of dog licensing 
systems are abuses and do not necessarily belong to the 
license system itself. We cannot agree with Mrs. Bolton 
in her proposition that there should be no repression of 
the stipply of dogs. It must be yemembered ^that while 
the iiidividtial dog is a . possession valued by: the in- 
dividual owner, in general-inay be, and often are, de- 
cided nuisances in -the community; and whatever, may be 
said of a p§;rticular system: adopted, its purpose, wjiich 
is the limitation of the number of dogs maintained, is a 
commendable one. Doubtless the law which refers to a 
society the right to collect the dog tax and to take up and 
destroy animals which are unlicensed is unconstitutional, 
inasmuch as it gives to otiier than public officials authority 
to destroy property; and for this reason, even though the 
end sought to be attained is a just one, such a system 
should not prevail On the other hand, it is to be said 
for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals 
in this city, that its administration of the work of reclaim- 
itig strays and destroying dogs which are without owners 
has resulted in decided good to the community. No 
one who recalls the old times when the streets were over- 
run with vagrant curs, and contrasts the conditions then 
prevailing with those which now hold, could wish to have 
the old rule restored; and because the society does its 
work so well, we presume that.no intelligent person aware 
of the conditions would wish to interrupt the present 
system. 
There are sections of the country where the supply of 
dogs is so great as to be a serious drawback to agricul- 
tural interests. This is true particularly in some of the 
Southern States, which now support tens of thousands of 
worthless curs, in whose place there should be flocks of 
sheep. Probably the cost of these dogs means a million 
dollars a year when computed by the useful stock which 
might take their places. This is a subject which has 
been discussed in the press and in legislatures for a half- 
century, but some States like the Carolinas and Georgia 
are as far from rational settlement now as ever. In the 
last session of the Georgia Legislature a. bill was intro- 
duced to levy a tax of $1 on dogs over six months old. 
and it was urged by the advocates of the bill' that this 
would not only exterminate thousands of worthless dogs 
but would add a hundred thousand dollars to the public 
revenue. The measure provoked decided opposition; 
one amendment was that each family in the State should 
be allowed to own one dog exempt from taxation, and 
another representative of the dog districts proposed to 
amend the amendment by allowing each family to have 
two dogs free. One of the members, Mr. Hardin, in the 
course of the discussion showed that he .;had a lively 
appreciation of the sentiment of his constituents, when 
he closed the peroration of an eloquent speech in op- 
position to the measure, with the warning, "The dog war. 
is actually on! The next gale that sweeps the deck 
of the grand old empire ship of the South will waft to 
your ears the wail of the statesman minus a job!" The 
bill was defeated, and Georgia maintains her dogs. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
Some uncertainty prevails respecting the lawfulness of 
caribou hunting in Maine this year. Prior ta the revision 
by the Legislature of 1899, owing to aa uriintentioniL. 
omission by the framers of the statute, no close season 
whatever was prescribed. The law as amended in 1899 
and now in force provides with respect to caribou that "10 
person shall, within six years from October- fifteenth, 
A. D. 1899, in any manner, hunt, chase, catch, kill, or 
have in possession any caribou or parts thereof." Be- 
yond this clause, there is no reference whatever to a 
close season for caribou; and the manifest interpretation 
then is that the game may be killed at any time prior to 
Oct. 15. The prescribed close season will begin with that 
date. The Maine authorities, as Commissioner Carleton 
advises us, hold the view that caribou may not be killed 
prior to Oct. 15 of the present year, but we are unable to 
discover any ground for that theory in the test of thi^ 
statute. 
The Adirondack wolf supply this year has been a plenti- 
ful one in the stories which have come from the Northern 
Wildei-ness, and the reports have been marked by a wealth 
of detail which appeared to leave no ground for reasonable, 
incredulity. For instance, it was said that Mr. Charles 
E. Moore, of Trenton Falls, had killed a wolf in the 
vicinity of Jock's Lake, in Herkimer county, and that he 
had preserved the skin as a trophy. Some years ago an 
Adirondack wolf skin sent to the Forest and Stream 
for identification proved to be the pelt of a. dog;:;. Assum- 
ing that Mr. Mdbrfe's' specimen might Belotig^tsr tliei^sam-e 
class, we wrote tcrhini the- other day,"and! in; resp6i|se"he 
says: "There is no tr'Jth in the report of j.n^;- shooting a 
wolf. I have not been in the woods in tri^resty. years. I 
do not know who started the lioax, nor where it ^origs- 
nated." This is .the ustsal result of inv6StigatiDiia--into the 
Adirondack wolf tales. If they have ,any^ fsundatioii 
whatever, the fact will probably prove to be- that the deer 
killing wolves are domestic dogs hunting alone or aceoa^- 
panied by tlieir owners. 
