Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1900, by Forest and Strkam Publishing Co. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1900. 
ERMs, $4 A Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. | 
Six Months, $2. f 
J VOL. LV.— No. 15. 
I No. 846 Broadway, New York 
MARSH FOLK.— in. 
As one passes over the marshes or along its edge, 
where the corn grass and the cattails and the tall weeds 
grow, rail spring up ofteij from beneath one's very feet 
•or from the bow of the boat, with clumsy flutterings and 
hanging legs — the birds for which at this season of the 
year the gunner searches. They kick and struggle as 
they rise, but after a little they seem to "get going" and 
move off with a smooth, slow flight, propelling them- 
selves by constant flappings for a few yards, when, if a 
good piece of cover is reached, they drop into it awk- 
wardly, with hanging legs and uplifted wings, and so 
hastily as often to deceive the novice — who has missed 
with one or both barrels— into thinking that he hit his 
bird and that it may be recovered. The old rail shooter 
knows better, and he also knows that having missed his 
bird it is quite likely that he will not see it again, for it 
may refuse to rise, racing of? through the grass and get- 
ting away before the boat can be brought near, or, if it 
cannot do this, hiding or diving and clinging to the grass 
with only the tips of its bill showing above the water, 
until it has tired out its pursuers. This bill is just the 
color of the yellow grass stalk and may deceive the 
sharpest eyes. Even if the bird floats on the water's sur- 
face, the brown back streaked with paler shades looks 
like a spot of open water crossed by two or three slen- 
der grass stems. But if the dead bird lies on its back 
vhe paler breast and belly are readily seen. 
In the marsh there are other rails beside the sora. 
One of these, similar in general make-up but little more 
than half its size, is the yellow rail, a bird long consid- 
ered extremely rare, but now known to be far less so 
than was once thought. It is not seen among the corn 
grass, but lives well up on the meadow, where it runs 
among the bogs and grass stems like a mouse on the 
ground, and will hardly take to wing. Sometimes the 
gunner, beating the marsh for snipe, with a young dog, 
may be greatly puzzled by these little birds. His dog 
will stop and point and look, and then go forward and 
point again, and look, and perhaps make eager plunges 
at the grass, and at last a little bird, which by its flight 
he knows to be a rail, but by the white margin of its 
wings he knows is not the common rail, may rise from 
the ground for a short flight, and if he shoots arid re- 
covers the bird he finds it this yellow rail. Once a good 
many years ago a man having such an experience de- 
voted an hour or two to looking for these birds, with 
the result that he secured about a dozen, some of which 
he shot, some his dog caught, some he caught in his 
hand and one or two he killed with .his dog whip. 
Besides the others, there is the Virginia rail, not very 
different in size from the sora, but reddish on the breast 
and with a long, sharp-pointed bill — a miniature of the 
.clapper rail. These are not many, but now and then 
,one is killed, as are also sometimes king rails and galli- 
nules — birds which stand midway between the rail and 
.the coot or sea crow. 
The early risen gunner who has reached the marsh in 
the gray of the quiet autumn morning is likely to hear, at 
first far off, but gradually growing nearer and louder, the 
.faint, thin whistle of the wild duck's wings, and perhaps 
.may see them as they turn against the paling sky, or may 
hear the long rush of their bodies as they slide along the 
still water when alighting. They may be half a dozen 
.bluewinged teal or a brood of black ducks reared not many 
hundred miles away, who have journeyed from their sum- 
mer home through the night and stopped here on their 
deliberate southward way. All through tlie day. and per- 
haps for several days and nights, they will loiter about 
the river, swimming through the stems of the corn grass, 
lifting the mud of the shores, startled now and then by 
passing boat or railroad train, and then after a few circles 
and a short flight up or down the river, alighting once 
more to r&sume their avocations. 
Now and then the eager rail shooter may come sud- 
(denly on a group of these birds and may secur,e one or 
,two as they rise, or seeing them near some shore may 
by laborious crawling come within shot of them sitting on 
ithe water. More rarely they will carelessly fly near a 
gunner, and so may lose one or two of their number; 
but the ducks killed in this way are few. 
Later in the season, after the frosts have hardened and 
the rail and snipe have left for good, the marsh is some- 
times visited by a small flock of geese, who, taking their 
way in silence from thg'salt water, com^ in aft^r 4arlc %q 
feed and leave again with the morning's first light. 
Talkative though geese usually are, these are silent while 
in the marsh, knowing well that if their presence there 
were learned, guards of gunners would surround their 
resting place and close it to them for the season. 
With much rustle and sharp flappings of wings there 
are often startled from among the wild rice stems groups 
of red-winged blackbirds, which perch on the swaying 
tops, now bare of seeds, and swing and bow with anx- 
ious duckings before taking safety in flight. Birds that 
are black with red shoulder straps are seldom seen, but 
there are many brown white-streaked ones, the young of 
the year. With these there may be a few reed birds, the 
bobolinks of yesterday, the rice birds of to-morrow, now 
clad in their yellow plumage, and taking their way from 
the North, where they are loved, to the South, where 
they are hated. 
Down lower in the rushes and among the cattails, and 
even in the long grass of the meadow, hop and fuss, like 
all their kind, the little wrens of the marsh. They ara- 
familiarly wrenlike in looks and ways, and have little 
fear of us as we appear on the marsh, for they will dodge 
about among the reeds, almost withiia arm's length from 
the boat. Now, too, the army of brown-backed spar- 
rows is gathering for the southward journey, and of these 
many love to hide among the reeds. There are swamp 
sparrows and Lincoln's finches and not a few others, 
which he who travels the marsh learns to know well. 
These are some of the dwellers in the marsh. There 
are not a few others, some of which in winter draw the 
trapper to the snoW-covered waste — water mice and 
muskrats and minks and, rarest of all, sometimes an otter. 
The time was, no doubt, when all the streamlets flowing 
into the river were dammed along their course by the 
beaver, but that was long, long ago, and the beaver has 
disappeared even more completely than the Indian. 
Rarely, however, after a day when birds have been few 
and shots infrequent, the gunner may see as the boat 
rounds a bend a brown mink sitting on the bank or on 
some floating drift stuff, busily engaged in devouring a 
captured fish or bird; but he is likely to have only a 
glimpse of this shy creature, for in these days the mink is 
watchful and retiring. 
If you have tramped the marsh until you are wet with 
perspiration, or have fallen overboard and filled your 
boots with water, it is pleasant on a warm September 
day to strip off your wet things and put them in the sun 
to dry while you lie on the grass of the bank and dreamily 
gaze off over the marsh. Your view takes in a whole 
panorama and you pay little attention to its details, yet 
along the water's edge you see the great conical weeds 
nod and bow in the wind whose sighing thri»igh the 
rustling leaves above you is interrupted now and then by 
the distant whistle of a train. You see the brown leaves, 
fallen from the trees, on the banks, rush swiftly up 
stream on the flowing tide, you watch the fish hawks 
swing and soar, and the sail of some tiny boat shines 
white far up the stream. The worries and the cares of 
every day life fall from your mind, troubles are forgotten 
and for a little while you are a dreaming boy again. 
BLAME THE GRANDFATHER. 
When the game potting sneaker sneaks, what is it 
that induces his sneaking? We may reasonably assume 
that a person of mature years, who moves in decent or 
respectable, not to say polite, circles of society, would' 
not of his own volition turn sneak and steal into the 
woods to kill game out of season, unless there were 
some compensation in addition to the mere birds he 
might get. If the sneak must have for his belly birds 
killed out of season, he can buy them and so save 
tiring his legs in the chase of them. Manifestly there h 
something more than the game that makes the sneak; 
and this something is the poa'ching blood in his veins. 
This indeed is a well recognized principle iia the coun- 
tries of Europe where shooting is a class privilege. 
There the game is preserved on estates and protected 
by armed, keepers, and liberty to take it is denied those 
outside. Under such circumstances there is, of course, 
a constant provocation to taste of the forbidden fruit. 
Stolen waters are sweet. The poacher finds real pleasure 
in getting the better of preserv* and keeper. To poach 
means to circumvent both game and guardian; and 
human nature being what it is, the continued persistence 
of poaching in a game preserve country is precisely what 
might be expected. As ]|€neration follows generation c ' 
game preservers, so generations of poachers follow with 
them; the poaching spirit is handed down from father to 
son; the babe sucks it in with the mother's milk. 
But in the United States the conditions of game and 
shooting are quite different. In x\meri.ca the piarsuit of 
game is as yet in no sense a class privilege. The covers, 
are free to all alike, under laws which in theory, intent 
and practice are for the common control of all alike, and 
for the benefit of all alike. Here there is no earthly 
excuse for any grown up gunner to turn sneak in order 
to get what belongs to him, nor any reasonable explana- 
tion of his doing so, imless we find the explanation in 
the presence of poacher blood in his veins. It is a 
familiar fact that many immigrants bring with them their 
old world prejudices against shooting restrictions and 
their poaching propensities. They do not understand 
the American system of game protection as being for 
the public good of all alike. They regard all game laws 
as obnoxious and tyrannical, and imagine that liberty 
in America means license to kill game according to the 
individual sweet will. Trace back the lineage of the 
poacher wherever you find him in this country, and you 
will discover the poacher blood in his veins. 
Take for example the case of that fellow who was 
rounded up by the Rhode Island constables near Narra- 
gansett Pier the other day, and was made to pay a round 
penalty for having sneaked off to kill birds in close time. 
The newspaper reporters who chronicled his sneak ex- • 
ploit, and its prompt punishment, took pains to sa^' 
that the culprit was "a prominent society man of Phila- 
delphia." Heaven help a society whose leade-rs are game 
sneaks, even though the sneaking be bred in the bone. In 
Philadelphia, as the rest of the world well knows, they 
attach high importance to the grandfather. Society's 
smile or frown depends upon the aaswer to the question. 
"Had he a grandfather?" No man not duly provided 
with a grandfather may ever aspire to be dubbed as a 
prominent society man of Philadelphia, when the re- 
porters tell about his arrest for killing game out of 
season. Conversely, when a poacher is described as a 
prominent society man, if he happens to hail from 
Philadelphia, we may be sure that he had a grand- 
father. LTpon the grandfather then let us leniently lay 
the blame for the transgressions of the frail and pecca- 
ble poaching grandson. 
At the same time let us not weary of punishing the 
grandsons, Philadelphians and all others, until by the 
salutary chastening we shall have eradicated to the last 
trace the poacher blood in their veins. 
The New Jersey law forbids the export of game, and 
the law is of the iron-clad class which permits no ex- 
ceptions whatever beyond the transmission of game 
through the State by common carriers in unbroken 
packages, or of game killed in preserves. This aieans 
that a New York sportsman who kills game in Orange 
or Rockland or Sullivan county and brings it through 
New" Jersey on the railroads is liable to have it seized 
by^ the New Jersey wardens at Jersey City, and to be 
arrested for violation of the law. This is, of course, a 
harshness which is quite unnecessary for serving the 
purpose of the statute, which is to retain New Jersey 
game within the State limits. A New York sportsman 
who kills game in New York and desires to carry it 
through New Jersey into New York again, .niay ac- 
com^ilish this by intrusting his game to the express 
. companies, which the New York law permits to trans- 
port it in the express car -of the train on which the 
ow»er is a passenger. In this way it will go through 
and the owner will have the satisfaction of knowing that 
though he has been inconvenienced, he has only com- 
plied with the laws of two States, the intent of which 
is to make difficult the shipment of game to market. 
The tropical game preserve described by Mr. Francis 
C. Nicholas affords an admirable example of wise fore- 
thought for the care of a native stock of game. The 
average development of a territory is planned 'and car- 
ried on. without regard to the ultimate effect upon the 
birds and quadrupeds which constitute a great natural 
resource for food and recreation. The company opera- 
ting here was extremely fortunate in having for its 
superintendent on the gpound one who had the eye to 
recognize the game supply possibilities and the good 
sense to think of caring for the stock an,d pressrving it 
from the usual effect of settlement. It is an examt>H) 
\vhich may be follo'vved everywhere, 
