Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1900, by Forest and Stream Publishing Go. 
Terms, f4 a Vear. 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $i. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1900, 
i VOL. LV.— No. 22. 
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 be 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 iii. 
OUR ILLUSTRATED SUPPLEMENTS. 
We give to-day the second of the series of four full- 
page illustralions already announced. The or'ginals have 
been drawn for the Forest and Stream by Mr. Wilfred 
P. Davison and Mr. Edmund Ostbaus, and the subjects 
will, we are sure, prove acceptable and popular as re- 
minders of days in the field. The first one, "In the Fence 
Corner," was contained in our issue of Nov. 3. The two 
to come are: 
Jan. 5. — Quail Shooting in Mississippi. By Edm. H. 
Osthaus, 
Feb. 2. — In Boyhood Days. By Wilfred P.. Davison. 
POACHER AND OUTLAW. 
A POACHER is a person who fishes or shoots on territory 
upon which he is forbidden to trespass. 
An outlaw is a person who is without the law and be- 
yond its protection. He may be shot on sight. There is 
no law to protect him. 
A Sullivan county, N. Y., game keeper classed poachers 
as outlaws, and had a notion that he could shoot a poacher 
on sight. He put his notion into effect, and the legal 
proceedings which ensued have just been ended. 
Mr. Stoddard Hammond, of Binghamton. has a game 
preserve in Sullivan county. The property is posted, and 
a game keeper. Edward Tompkins, is employed to keep 
out trespassers. One night Tompkins caught Frank 
Major fishing in one of the trout streams, and fired at 
h'm with a shotgun. The charge took effect in the man's 
hip, sha.tering it, and disabling him permanently. Major 
brought suit for damages and got a verdict for $15,000. 
The case was appealed to the Appellate Division, the de- 
fense being that Major was a poacher and therefore was 
an outlaw. The Appellate Division has just handed down 
a decision sustaining the verdict. The court refused to 
en erta'n the plea of outlawry, but holds on the contrary 
that there is a due process of law provided for the punish- 
ment of poaching. Of this process of law the defendants 
might have availed themselves. The court d'd not think 
it necessary to add that the penalty duly provided for 
poaching is not shooting on the spot. 
CREES AND MONTANA GAME. 
Last winter Vfs called attention to the wholesale and 
illegal slaughter of deer along the Missouri River in 
Montana by Cre^s and half-breeds, and urged the State 
and county officials there to take steps to put aii end to 
it. 
The case had a number of peculiarly irritating features. 
The Crees and half-breeds who have long made a prac- 
tice of this killing do not belong in the LTnited States, but 
are refugees from Canada who at the close of the "Rjel 
rebellion fled across the line and took up their residence 
in the United Slates, wh'ch they seem to like so well that 
they decline to return to Canada, Some of the half- 
breeds have taken up ranches in the Judith Basin, and 
have become worthy and hard working inhabitants of 
the State. But the greater number work for a short time 
if. they are obliged to in order to keep body and soul 
together, and wander about over the country for the most 
of the year. These are the people who a few years ago 
got in among the' only little bunch of buffalo still re- 
maining in Montana and killed the greater part of them, 
although the wh'te men living in the country where these 
buffalo range have been protecting them for a number 
of years. 
The Crees who take part in this destruction are true 
nomads. They are Indians who have no reservation and 
u ander ovei" the country, picking up a living as best 
chey can. and destroying large quantities of game. On 
more than one occasion they have been rounded up by 
|he United States troops, taken to the border line be- 
tween Montana and Canada and formally expelled from 
the United States, but the process of expulsion has 
never been permanent, and they soon drift back across 
the line. These people have no regard for the laws of 
Montana. They kill in late winter, in early spring, in 
summer and all through the rest of the year. More- 
over, not satisfied with hunting in the ordinary way, the 
half-breeds and the Crees use dogs to run game in viola- 
tion of the Montana statute. It was their practice last 
year to follow along one side of the Missouri River, driv- 
ing point after point with their dogs, until the deer had 
been cleared out from a long stretch of river. 
It is gratifying to learn that this, year the Montana 
papers have taken up the subject of the protection of 
this game, and it is hoped that they will continue to 
agitate it until some measures shall be taken to look after 
the Crees and half-breeds and to prevent the destruction 
that has so regularlj^ taken place in recent years. 
There is perhaps nowhere in the world a place which 
is so natural a game preserve as the valley of the Upper 
Missouri River in Montana. It flows through a deep 
channel a thousand or fifteen hundred feet below the 
prairie, • and into the river valley run. thousands upon 
thousands of ravines, timbered or brushy, most admirable 
lurking places for deer. A State which has within its 
borders so admirable a preserve should make the most 
of it, and this we believe the great State of Montana 
will do. 
A CALL FOR WEIGHTS OF GAME. 
The ignorance which appears to prevail concerning, the 
average weights of the game which hunters or bird shooters 
pursue seems quite extraordinarjr. The angler usually 
carries with him pocket scales by which he can ascertain 
the weight of tlie fish he takes, but we do not know that 
a similar practice prevails at all among shooters. Yet 
the frequent inquiries received at this office indicate that 
there is a general curiosity on the subject. This curiosity 
might well enough be gratified if shooters would take 
the trouble to weigh the birds and the small mammals 
which they kill. * 
It is not very long since we heard an individual esti- 
mate the weight of the average New England fox as 25 
I)ounds ; yet fox hunters ,who have weighed the animals 
that the}' have captured know that the fox's weight ranges 
from 10 to 13 pounds ; a fox of the latter weight being a 
very large one. An account was recen'lj- published of an 
opossum which weighed 25 potmds, but it is extremely 
doubtful if one so large ever existed. 
Recently a correspondent advises us that within one 
year he and a companion has killed 158 woodchucks, which 
averaged about 10 pounds in we'ght, the heaviest being 
pounds. This was for a locality in New Jersey. 
The weight of the American woodcock is known to 
be from 5 to 8 ounces, one of the last named weight being 
an exceedingly heavy bird ; while the weight of the 
Virginia quail is about the. same, but probably averages a 
little greater. Yet who is there who knows anything 
very definite about the weight of our ducks? Heavy can- 
vasbacks are expected by dealers to weigh 6 pounds to the 
pair, and these perhaps are the heaviest of our edible 
ducks. Yet we fancy that canvasbacks more often weigh 
4% pounds to the pair than 6. What is the weight of the 
redhead, the widgeon, the black duck or the blue- 
winged teal? 
While to tnost people this is a matter of mere idle 
curiosity, .j'et if sufficient statistics on the subject could be 
gathered the subject would have some scientific interest as 
indicating the aA^erage size of the different species of birds 
or mammals for a particular locality. 
An. ordinary pocket scales will answet very well for 
weighing most of the game which gunners kill. ' It can 
hardly be expected that the moose hunter of New 'Bruns- 
wick or the bear hunter of the Rocky Mountains will 
take with him a pair of platform scales to ascertain the 
weight of the game that he may be lucky enough to kill, 
hut a definite knowledge of the average weight^of our 
small game in different localities will ndt on\y in^'er^st a- 
large number of people but will also be of real valtie. ; 
If those who go g'mning ihis fall abd -winter wil'.^. 
send in reports of we'ght of birds, we ?h4ll be very .gla^. 
to nublish them. Let each man weigh his birds in- 
dividuallj'. and give the M'eight of mch. From that an 
average can be struck for the hr\^ 
SNAP SHOTS. 
Among the many extraordinary features of life at the 
end of the century is the manner in which photography 
has come to be used as a means of illustrating nature 
study in its different departments. To-day photographs 
of living birds and mammals are as common as those of 
houses were a few years ago, and besides this we have 
photographs of fishes, insects, flowers, of sections of 
wood, of interior anatomy, which convey the precise eflFect 
to be represented. The student of nature who reads the 
report of the Congress of the American Ornithologists' 
Union which is printed in another column will gain from 
the list of papers some notion of the use to which photog- 
raphy is put in the study of ornithology. The use of 
the camera in surgery is, of course, sufficiently familiar, 
and it may truly be said that there is hardly any branch 
of science in which it is not of very great value. Yet 
twenty years ago but little was generally known about 
photograph)'. Amateur users of the camera were few in 
number and the pictures which they produce^! were more 
often failures than successes. 
We hear good reports of the operation of the Massa- 
chusetts law which forbids the sale of woodcock and 
ruffed grouse. For one thing it has led to the practical 
abandonment of grouse snaring. There are, of course, 
some attempts to sell the birds in the markets, but it is 
believed that the extent of whatever illicit traffic exists 
is so slight as to be inconsequential. Commissioner Col- 
lins has a large force of detectives and deputies, and is 
working on the principle that "God is on the side of the 
strongest battalions," or as Napoleon put it, "Providence 
is always on the side of the last reserve." If the people 
of Massachusetts or of any other State are sincere and 
determined in their design to beat the grouse snarers and 
the dishonest marketmen, they can always do it by pro- 
viding the reserves and putting them in charge of the 
right generals. 
The non-resident shooting license is not a panacea. 
Its application is not of universal benefit. Witness the 
results in West Virginia, as related in a communication oh 
another page. There the hotel keepers and the farmers 
are made to suffer by the operation of license laws and 
for their deprivations there appears to be no sort of com- 
pensation to anybody. In this case it may be said that 
a license law which keeps sportsmen away does not work 
to the benefit of the community. 
Close vipon the New York decision that the State may 
not forbid the sale of Imported fish in close time follows 
the decision of the Federal Supreme Court, that the Ten- 
nessee law prohibiting the sale of imported cigarettes is 
constitutional. If the question decided adversely by 
the New York court should ever reach Washington there 
is good ground for confidence that the Supreme Court 
will sustain the right of a State to adopt the Forest and 
Stream's Platform Plank, and stop the sale of game at all 
times. 
We invite attention to the communication of President 
Tallett, of the Jefferson County Association, on the topic 
of spring shooting. The subject will come before the 
meeting of the New York State League next Thursday. 
Spring shooting should be forbidden everywhere. If it 
is a good thing for one county, it is good for all countids. 
If for one State, for all States. 
We talk about "going into the woods" and the pleasure 
of it. On the other hand the phrase "out of the woods'" 
is a synonym for being out of trouble. In a speech the 
other day on the Boer war. Sir Alfred Milner said, "Let 
us acknowledge that we are by no means out of the 
wood." And still another expression, to "take to the 
woods," means to seek a place of security. 
Some of the other moose liberated by Dr. Webb in the 
Adirondacks last spring have been seai. Wliile the 
"Wilderness" of a foriiler generation has become a suuj- 
mer re?ort region of the present day, there yet remaiag 
moose coiinfty for th^. isolation of the game from human 
kind, and if plain common seas* were in t}ie sscendcntj 
the Adirondack people w©ul4 jealously the agtt 
comers, , >j 
