AmL 13, 1901.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
287 
killing of all kinds of game during the respective open 
seasons for same. 
The non-sale and license clauses of the game laws will 
be the principal factors in game protection. These meas- 
ures will have a tendency to prevent the boy with the gun 
killing everything in sight during the close season. It is 
a source of gratification to those who have for many years 
fought for game protection, to have the increased interest 
taken by the better class of true sportsmen, as evinced 
by the attendance of leading men from many of the 
States and Provinces at the recent meeting of the North 
American Fish and Game Protective Association in Mont- 
real, all intent in doing all possible to assist in the good 
work of perpetuating and preventing the extermination 
of the game and fish of this vast continent. 
One of the most pleasing features at that meeting — to 
me an Englishman, and all that the word implies — was the 
eloquent tributes of respect paid to the memory and 
character of our beloved Queen by the gentlemen from 
Maine, Vermont, etc., in terms eloquent and sincere, in- 
suring them for all time a warm place in the heart of 
Ranger. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
Westera Ducks Si til Coming. 
Chigaco. 111., April 6. — The unprecedentedly good duck 
shooting of this spring still holds on. We have not had 
such shooting in this part of the country in any spring 
that I can remember, and it is like the old times come 
back aga'n. The mallards and pintails made the bulk 
of the first flight, as was reported at the time. There 
are still large numbers of the marsh ducks at the better 
localities on the Kankakee and the Illinois rivers, but 
the likelihood is that the bulk of this marsh duck fliglit 
has now swept on past and is well up across Wisconsin or 
even further north. Singularly enough, the season seems 
to have been even earlier in the far West than 't has been 
in the Mississippi Valley. The geese and duck^ were as 
far north as the Blackfoot reservation in Montana a 
month ago. and by this time may have left even that far 
northern latitude. 
It is the bluebills, redheads and other deep-water ducks 
which are making this second flight and prolonging the 
sprng shooting season in this region. Ten days ago 
the bluebiU flight struck in at Lake Senochwine. and the 
shrooting has been good around Putnam ever since. They 
have also landed in the Shelby, Cumberland and lake 
regions of the Kankakee Valley, and every one who has 
been at those places this week reports very heavy shooting. 
Still further north, at the Fox Lake and Grass Lake 
country, just below the northern edge of Illinois, clouds 
of bluebills appeared this week. Billy Wells and Eddie 
Pope left there at just about the time the best flight was 
com'ng in. Mr. Wells killed eighteen on his last day. and 
might have gotten many more the day following. Charlie 
Grubbs returned last week from the Illinois River, near 
Putnam. He and a friend bagged between seventy and 
eighty ducks in two half-days, mostly bluebills. The 
weather continues very capricious, one fair day being 
followed by a day of rain and half-snow and overcast 
skies. It has been an ideal spring for ducks and for 
duck shooters. There is every likelihood that the last 
week of the spring season of 1901 will furnish the best 
shooting on deep-water ducks that we have known here 
for a very long time. 
As stated earlier, this wonderful flight of ducks has 
called out the Ch-cago shooters across the Indiana line in 
spite of the non-resident license tax. Nearly all the 
members of the leading clubs have taken out their licenses 
and consider that they are getting their shooting cheap. 
It is rather amusing that this unusual duck supply should 
follow close upon the enactment of this non-resident law. 
The explanation of the heavy flight, as previously men- 
tioned, is simply that we are having ari unusual amount 
of water all over this country. I can remember that out 
in Iowa, where I did my boyhood shooting, whenever the 
old Skunk River bottoms were overflowed we always 
had lots of ducks. A dry year meant poor duck shooting. 
Duck Flight in Nebraska. 
• Mr. John W. Carpenter, of Whitman, Neb., who is an 
experienced hunter and knows what he is writing about, 
states that this spring has shown the biggest flight of 
wildfowl known in Nebraska for years. There has been 
good shooting on all the adjacent lakes. He says- a party 
of hunters went out with his son George to a point forty 
miles north of Whitman, were gone about a week and 
killed 150 ducks and four geese, about half the ducks 
canvasbacks and mallards. Mr. Carpenter says that the 
hunters in his part of the hills are worked up over the 
stopping of market-shooting, but he "thinks they will 
get over their mad spell." "If we can stop spring shoot- 
ing," says Mr. Carpenter, "we shall have plenty of ducks 
and geese. They breed in this country if not bothered, 
and do not need to go to Alaska to nest." Curlew and all 
kinds of snipe are now near^ Whitman, Neb., and Mr. 
Carpenter thinks there will be no more cold weather in 
his part of the country this spring. 
Italian Joe. 
Our old-time Italian Joe came in from his place at 
Summit, at the southwest edge of Chicago, this week, in 
order to get his spring supplies of ammunition. He was 
buying shells loaded with No. 2 shot. "I killa the duck 
sure." said he, "when I hitta him with the bigga shot. I 
not lika to hit duck four, five times witha the shot and 
no getta the duck." Joe's theory of loading is not quite 
that of the average duck shooter, but as a matter of 
fact, when he goes out he nearly alwaj'S manages to "getta 
the duck." big shot or not. Joe openly bewails the clause 
of the Illinois law which stops plover shooting April 25 as 
he says that is just about the time the plocer flight is on in 
this countr}'. He says next week he will go down to Gil- 
man, HI., and he hopes there to get a little of his favorite 
decoy shooting on golden plover. He says mysteriously 
that if I Avill join him he can put me on to some very 
fipp jacksjiipe shooting next week. I do not think I would 
Wk£ for any spring shooting, unless it were (jg carp. Roll 
Oi%an and I have been figuring out for two or three 
years that coirtd takfe a bow anfl arrc^wrs anij haVe mtste 
fun shooting carp on the Kankakee Marsh than we could 
doing anything else in the wide, wide world. I do not 
know what the Game Commission of Indiana would think 
about our project, but at least presume they would not 
bar us from shooting jacksnipe or cottontail rabbits with 
the bow and arrow. 
In W^tsconsin. 
Mri D. J. Hotchkiss, of Fox Lake, Wis., seems to live 
in a rather arctic region, the ice at the time of his 
writing, April 2, not having left the lakes in his vicinity. 
He writes : "I took a walk up on the ice in the lake to- 
day. It is still quite firm, but beginning to soften up. and 
will be out in a week or ten days probably. A big flock 
of geese were sitting out on the ice about a mile away. 
I walked up to within about 100 rods of them and turned 
the old Mauser loose at them as they got up, but did not 
manage to connect with one. Lots of Bucks here in pond 
holes and the country boys, and some town boys, too, are 
shooting a little, but there is not much of it done. An 
effort is being made to kill our law prohibiting spring 
shooting, but we do not think it will succeed — hope not, 
any way." 
Mr. Hotchkiss states on April 5 that the ice is still in 
Fox Lake, Wis., and that numbers of geese and swan 
were to be seen on the ice. One gunner by the name of 
Dooley killed five wild geese near Portage this week. 
Wisconsin Quail. 
Mr. Howard Bosworth, of Milwaukee, advises me that 
the Legislature has established a five-years' close season 
on quail. This, in the opinion of most Wisconsin shooters, 
was an altogether unnecessary measure, for quail have not 
been so abundant at any time in the history of that State 
as they were last fall. The northward march of this bird 
is one of the most distinct changes of the fauna of the 
West. Mr. Bosworth says that he has shot all over 
Illinois and Indiana, and indeed in some of the best quail 
covers of America, yet he knew of no place where he 
could get so good quail shooting as he could at one or 
two points in the Wisconsin River valley. He said that 
he could easily kHl seventy-five birds a day if he had 
care.d to do so. Under such circumstances the five-years 
close season would seem to be unnecessary. At the end 
of the five years' term, as many, perhaps more-and per- 
haps less, might be in that State as there are to-day. 
A country will only stand about so much of a stock of 
game of any kind. This, however, only goes to cor- 
roborate earlier statements regarding the peculiarly pro- 
gressive, not to say aggressive, methods of Western pro- 
tective legislation within the past year. We are surely 
waking up in game law matters out here, not only in the 
way of enacting statutes, but in enforcing them. 
Chief Thunder Dead. I 
Chief, or more properly speaking, Doctor, John Thun- 
der, medicine man of the Winnebago tribe of Wisconsin, 
died at Black River Falls this week. This I take to be 
the same Doctor John Thunder who was here with the 
Tom Roddy Indians at the Sportsmen's Show last month. 
He d'd something of a business as a doctor while here. 
There was very much sickness among all the people who 
were obliged to be at the Coliseum a great deal during 
the show, and it is quite likely that Chief Thunder did 
not long survive his visit here. E. Hough. 
Hartford Building, Chicago, III. 
Iowa Fields, Marshes and Waters. 
Marshalltown, la.— The slaughter has been great 
among the ducks this spring. Press dispatches from all 
over the northern and central part of the State arc full 
of the bags made by the various parties of sportsmen. 
The Wapsipinicon bottoms, the northern lakes and 
sloughs have been alive with ducks and hunters this 
spring, and if there is any shooting for the fall it will not 
be because the shooters were merciful. Bags of 100 are 
reported by single parties. 
From Clinton a reliable correspondent of the Marshall- 
town Times-Republican stated that the people of his city 
were unable to rest by reason of the clamor of the ducks 
and geese that filled the reaches of the Mississippi and 
its bayous. Ducks and geese were so plentiful in the 
markets of that city as to be sold for 15 cents each, and a 
drag on the market at that. It is certainly time for con- 
certed action against spring shooting. Over on the Wapsi- 
pinicon River the farmers turned out and slaughtered 
and sold ducks until the markets of Clinton and neigh- 
boring towns were glutted, and mallards sold at $1.50 per 
dozen. This is an unusual thing for farmers to do, and 
shows how plentiful the genus anser was in Iowa this 
spring. 
They are not all gone from the northern lakes, and a 
party of Marshalltown sportsmen are at Lost Island Lake 
near Rutliven, where U. S. Consul S. C. McFarlane, of 
Nottingham, England, and Congressman Robert G. 
Cousins will be guests of a bunch of Marshalltown field 
and trap shooters at their shack on the banks of this very 
good body of shooting water. Charley Cook, Pete Den^el, 
Chas. Hull, Sam Abbott, P. S. Balch, C. J. Lander and 
Dr. W. B. Kebbey are among the party. All are good 
shots and carry good guns. 
From appearances fislrng will be good this year. The 
old gang are waiting patiently for the season to open, and 
the new' ones are fairly frothing in their anxiety. One 
of the more recent converts here keeps his reel in a 
burglar-proof safe and worries over every burglary re- 
ported in press dispatches. 
Iowa people on the Coast are having good luck fish- 
ing. As a letter from Paadena says: "Marvin Gates, of 
Clinton, in company with some Chicago gentlemen, had 
fine luck fishing at Coronado. So line a string of fish has 
but seldom been caught in so short a space of time, even 
at Coronado. It consisted of thirty-two Spanish mackerel, 
weighing in all 320 pounds, one yellowtail of 27 pounds, 
and eighty-seven barracuda which tipped the beam at 696 
pounds; i,043_pounds of fish for the time devoted to the 
sport was quite enough to make the members of the 
little party particularly happy." 
Game Warden Delavan, who has lately been succeeded 
by Lincoln, of Cedar Rapids, did some, elegant work em 
m&rkfeS: slibtrteTs and t^eppe^rs during thte last flays his 
incumbency. He captured poachers at Webster City, 
Union and other points in the State by watching tne 
Chicago express offices and pinching consignments of 
game, The poachers paid for a number ®f quail and 
chickens trapped and shot since Jan. i. Advices from 
Sioux City tell of the capture of seiners and the con- 
fiscation of .seines. It may be that the game laws are going 
to be strictly enforced, but a wager that Sept. i will find 
ninety-nine coveys out of one himdred broken would be a 
reasonably safe one. 
There is talk of a fishermen's club at this place. It is 
needed, and might be made extremely effective toward 
the conservation of the game fish in the Iowa River. 
Much seining goes on and a club might do what in- 
dividuals neglect. Moscrip. 
The Quebec Association, 
Quebec, April 5. — Editor Forest and Stream: Every 
sportsman who comes to Canada, and especially every 
member of a fish and game club in the Province of Que- 
bec, is deeply interested in the matter of fish and game 
protection, and -consequently in the work of the newly 
established Sportsmen's Fish and Game ProtecHive Asso- 
ciation of the Province of Quebec. Portions of tliis 
Province may aptly be termed the poacher's paradise. As 
many as twenty-eight moose have been known to have 
been butchered by one Indian in a single season. Cari- 
bou have been snared by the hundred and partridges by 
the tens of thousands. A local newspaper reported only 
a few weeks ago that one tannery not very far from 
Quebec, had three to four hundred deer skins in process 
of tanning, which had been obtained from poachers, 
though investigation showed this report to have been 
somewhat exaggerated. The spearing and netting of sal- 
mon in rivers leased for angling purposes was carried on 
as a regular business, while trout were caught in large 
quantities through the ice in winter for commercial pur- 
poses, and netted in such enormous lots in summer that 
over thirty tons were exported last summer from Mont- 
real to the United States. It is of course absolutely cer- 
tain that no country, no matter what its supply of fish 
and game can long withstand this constant drain, and 
consequently the initiative in the formation of a practical, 
working fish and game protective association ha.s been 
undertaken by a number of sportsmen in* the city and 
district of Quebec, in the confident belief that they would 
receive the moral and material support of every sportsman 
who comes to this Province for his fishing or hunting. 
Although very little has yet been noised abroad concern- 
ing the new Association and its work. I am glad to say 
that most of the members of two of the fish and game 
clubs holding preserves in this Province have already 
joined us in a body. We hope to obtain a membership 
of several hundred sportsmen, which, we trust, will en- 
able us, if not to entirely prevent poaching throughout the 
Province, at least to very materially restrict it. We are 
incorporated under the laws of the Province of Quebec 
and are assured of Government assistance and support. 
Our influence with the Government has already proved 
to be very great. Upon our representation, the Prime 
Minister of the Province, who is also Minister of Lands, 
Mines and Fisheries, has appointed an additional guardian 
for a portion of the territory traversed by the Quebec & 
Lake St. John Railway. It is our intention to appoint 
and employ fish and game guardians of our own, as soon 
as our means will permit, and knowing that there is 
plenty of work for any number of them to do, I make 
this special appeal to all sportsmen who are interested in 
the work of protection in this Province, to forward me 
their subscriptions and applications for membership with- 
out delay. In the meantime we are far from resting upon 
our oars. Until we can afford to employ our own 
guardians, we are, with Hon. Mr. Parent's kind permis- 
sion, utilizing those of the Government. 
Early in March three prominent young men about town 
left for the woods by Quebec & Lake St. John R. R. 
with guns and other paraphernalia. One of our officers 
heard of the expedition, and feeling sure that the guns 
had not beeen taken to the woods for the sole purpose of 
firing at wooden targets, he telephoned the Department 
of Fish and Game, asking that an officer meet them at the 
station on their return to town. His request was at once 
acceded to, buj: Mr. Joncas, instead of waiting for their 
return home, sent the detective up the line to meet them. 
His presence on the train was quite unknown to the 
returning party, and when they reached the city and comr 
plained to the baggageman that two large pieces of bag- 
gage were missing, the officer stepped forward to assure 
them that they had not been lost, but were quite safe in 
his possession. One package consisted of a part of the 
carcass of a caribou and the other of a quantity of brook 
trout The gentleman who claimed the baggage was pro- 
ceeded against in the courts, pleaded guilty and paid the 
fine and costs, amounting in all to quite a round sum. He 
is a well-known physician of this city, and the facts that 
neither his high social and professional stand'ng nor yet 
the powerful influences that were employed in his be- 
half could succeed in preventing his prosecution and 
punishment will have a splendid effect in strengthening 
the hands of our Association when it comes to deal with 
professional and other poachers in the country districts. 
We are interesting ourselves with the improvement of 
the laws as well as in their maintenance and enforcsjment, 
and consider that we have every reason to be proud of 
the work which we have already accomplished in this 
direction. At the sole request of our Association, Mr. 
Parent has amended the game laws 90 that lessees of hunt- 
ing territories from the Government can now prosecute 
trespassers upon such territories and recover damages 
from them if they invade any of their rights. Heretofore 
this right was reserved by the Government. In company 
with a delegation from a sister club in Montreal, which 
has done much excellent work, several of our members 
waited upon Mr. Parent some days ago in connection 
•mth. suggested .amendments to the fish and game laws. 
The delegation urged upon the Minister most of the' 
recommendations made by the North American Fish- and 
Game Association at its recent meeting in Montreal, and 
it is gratifying to note how many of them were accepted 
by the Minister and are now the law of tlje land. The 
sale of partridges has bten prohibited up to Oet 1903. 
Tnfetfead of beiri| pettrflttfeid! tb Idfl twto taiaoB»^ fwtJr fJScfbmi 
