108 
FOREST AND STREAM* 
[Feb. 8, 1902. 
way you can imagine. His eyes beamed kindness; he 
was just the most exaggerated picture of beauty you ever 
say. If a girl had been there she would have said truly, 
"Isn't he a dear?" It was with real pity in my heart at 
the murder of it that I pulled the rifle from its case and 
shoved the cartridge, a brazen monster just about the size 
of a pint cup. But there was nothing else to do. I raised 
the rifle slowly, the bead shone fair against the graceful 
neck, just where the white tapered into the brown. I 
was awfully sorry to shoot that deer. It was a low-down 
betrayal of confidence. But I pulled the trigger, the 
heavy ordnance roared, the mountain jarred, and I 
looked. 
Fifty yards away I got a glimpse of a bouncing, flaunt- 
ing thing of rubber and steel zigzagging out of sight. 
My sympathy had been premature. I had made a beauti- 
ful, elegant, clean miss. I call on those hills to witness 
that I have never lost a moose at which I fired. I once 
missed a caribou at 200 yards, and Henry can tell you he 
never saw me miss anything else, not even the passing 
of a jug. How in the world I let that deer go will ever 
be a mystery to me. But to my dying day I shall be glad 
of it. 
The weather was freezing all the time, but not cold for 
us. Our great trouble was that in trousers, drawers, 
undershirt, sweater and three pairs of woolen socks to 
resist the snow, we were nearly always too warm. 
When I was in Boston on my way to New Brunswick 
•I went into a clothing store with Charlie Small's father, 
who wanted to please Charlie. So when he saw a leather- 
lined corduroy vest, that was warranted to keep out the 
cold of Greenland, he bought it. I got one for myself, 
and also got a pair of long-legged corduroy trousers. It 
had long been my ambition to own a corduroy suit. I 
remember when I was a boy up in Michigan, and the 
grown men started out for a fall deer shoot, the swellest 
of them wore corduroy ; and I somehow got the idea that 
you couldn't really enjoy yourself in the woods without 
ribbed clothes. For twenty-five years I had had other 
use for my money, but this fall I managed to get $3.50 
together and buy the trousers. I wore them two days 
going in, and the boys said they could hear the legs 
scrape .together when I was a quarter of a mile off. 
Charlie Small wore the leather-lined corduroy vest one 
day, and that night he had to hang all his clothes by the 
fire to dry, and the next day too. Charlie said he had 
only one ambition, which was to get the vest on his 
father some day when he had a long walk to take that 
couldn't be postponed. After that the corduroys stayed 
in camp. 
For a few minutes in the gray morning we would wear 
the woolen mittens, as we started out from camp. Then 
first one would come off, soon the other, and we would 
be warm till we stopped to boil the kettle, while Henry 
would devastate the ever-present rampike for the noon- 
day fire. I have been a good deal colder since I came 
s home to Washington this winter than I was up among 
the New Brunswick green woods. 
The next day after the episode of the vanishing buck 
Henry and Charlie and I went up to the great barren 
which a few fortunates will recognize by the name of the 
Graham Plains. This is the great caribou ground of 
Henry's country. The caribou are everywhere except 
where the moose have driven them away; but on the 
Graham Plains and vicinity they are nearly always to be 
seen. They go there to dig the moss under the snow. 
We were so sure of getting some meat that Theodore and 
Jerry were taken along to cut up and lug back to camp 
some yet unselected victim. 
Gover Lake growled and protested as we crossed it. 
The warm blanket of the snow had kept it from freezing 
very thick, and in many places our shoe packs brought 
the water up through the snow. Henry went ahead, 
whacking now and then in a perfunctory way with his 
ax. The ice carried him all right. He weighs a scant 
150. When the ice cracked with Henry it was small as- 
surance to' Charlie Small bringing up the rear, for 
Charlie weighs 200. But it has often been a wonder to 
me how much abuse new ice will really stand before it 
breaks. Sometimes Henry would warn us to be ready 
to throw ourselves on our faces it necessary; but as usual 
when you go with Henry, nothing happened, and we 
clambered out at the upper end of the lake and picked 
up the trail. 
Now, it is about a mile from the head of the lake to 
the Lower Plain. I suppose we all expected, in a vague 
way, to see some caribou pretty soon, if we were lucky. 
The wind was at our backs, which was bad. But there 
was no other way to get where we wanted to go. We 
toiled up a little hillock, and as our heads rose above 
the top Henry began heartily .to swear. The whole 
landscape in sight was simply a cloud of galloping 
caribou and flying snow. 
That was Charlie's introduction to caribou. He lives 
in Maine, where there are none, and here, the very first 
thing, we had run again more caribou than I ever saw 
before in all my hunting trips together. You couldn't 
count them, but I'll bet anybody that there were 100 
caribou within gunshot. They didn't stay long. Some 
of them had winded us before we saw them, and that 
started them. 
The main herd swept out of sight, among the balsams, 
and then some scattering ones that had missed the first 
roll-call began to pile over the hill. It was Charlie's am- 
bition to get a good head, but it was late in the season, 
most of the old bulls had already shed their antlers, as 
Henry had predicted, and there were only a few traveling 
treetops in the bunch. But among the very last of the 
outfit a bull with a very good head stopped to look back 
and see what it was all about. He was about 200 yards off 
aiid Charlie took a quick shot at him with the .375. Just 
as he fired, the caribou gave a jump and went over the 
divide. 
Henry thought there might be more caribou ahead, 
and that if we did not follow the main herd they might 
soon quiet down, and we might look them up later. He 
never follows alarmed animals if he can help it. 
Charlie and I were amazed to see the countless tracks. 
The caribou had apparently been trying to see how much 
snow they could dig up and beat down. 
We went on for half arnile, and Henry began to show 
signs of coming to a point. Pretty soon he pointed out 
two caribou lying down. Neither of them had horns. 
Charlie wanted, horns. The camp wanted meat 
stood and looked at them till a little cow that we had 
not seen at all rose up, looked at us, and started to get 
out of that. When she was about 70 yards off and going 
pretty fast, I sighted for the end of her nose with the 
two-bushel rifle, and the four men who were watching 
say that the caribou seemed to bounce right into the air 
as the gun went off. Anyway, she didn't get up any 
more, and the disgraceful miss of yesterday was wiped 
out. The bullet had struck too far back for a small-bore 
man, but it did the business, and there was meat for 
Theodore and Jerry to lug. 
After 'lunch we went back to where Charlie had fired at 
the big bull. There was a splotch of blood where the 
caribou had stood. The .375, with its 320 grain hollow 
point bullet and 2,100 feet initial velocity, which some 
people tell you will stop a charging elephant, had not 
even knocked the caribou down. Henry and Charlie 
and I followed the trail of blood about a quarter of a 
mile, and then, all traces being obliterated by the hoof- 
marks of the herd, had to give it up. That was the only 
animal we wounded and lost on the entire trip. 
When we went back to the lake we found that Theo- 
dore and Jerry had made a long bridge of small trees, 
placed end to end, to get out on to the ice, because 
there were springs under it at that end of the lake, and 
we had shaken it up pretty well, coming over the ice in 
the morning. 
Having now killed my one moose and one caribou, I 
was out of the running, but I went along with Charlie 
and Henry the next day to give them the benefit of my 
valuable company and advice. We went away up to the 
Graham Lakes, where the water from one' runs into the 
Gulf of St. Lawrence, and from the next one, forty rods 
away, into the Tobique, St. John, and Bay of Fundy. We 
didn't see any more caribou conventions, but when we 
came to the first lake, and from the hills looked down 
on the tracks on the ice, it certainly looked as though 
the caribou might be at home. 
When you have traveled over miles of snow, unmarked 
by the feet of any living thing, and then come on t<5 a 
maze of fresh tracks, showing the presence, not only of 
one animal, but of many, it has a very stimulating effect 
on the mind. So, though no caribou were in sight, we 
made the circuit necessary to get a friendly wind, and 
looked over every new vista with the keenest expecta- 
tions, i 
We had scarcely come in sight of the second lake (the 
one falling into Tobique water) before we saw a bunch of 
caribou out on the ice, and we crouched down and 
watched them. There was one large bull in the party, but 
he had shed his antlers. So there was no shooting to be 
done. But it was great fun to watch these restless, care- 
free animals as they aimlessly poked around, on the sur- 
face of the snow-covered ice. The country around these 
lakes is very rough and brokeu, full of piled up rocks. 
The outlet of one lake, which for some distance is a 
canoe stream in size, disappears entirely beneath the 
rocky formation for miles, and then comes out again. 
While we were watching the caribou on the ice three 
more came out of a little spruce growth just below us, 
and among them was a young bull with quite a head of 
horns. Charlie concluded that it was good enough for his 
purposes, and so, resting the rifle on his knee, picked 
the spot he wanted and let go. The distance, we after- 
ward found, to be no yards, down hill. 
The caribou gave a couple of jumps, stood for a few 
seconds as though looking for a place to lie down, and 
then tore frantically down the gulch, making the snow 
fly at a great rate as he tumbled headlong to his death. 
The shot was classical in its perfect location, 4 inches 
behind the foreleg, midway between back and belly. 
The high velocity light bullet did not knock the animal 
down as a bullet from the two-bushel gun would have 
done. The hollow point seemed to have spattered into 
the lungs and the solid-jacketed base had gone right 
through, making the exit hole just about as large as the 
entrance. 
On the way home we made a long detour, and struck 
one of the river branches falling into, Gover Lake. This 
we followed down, and came upon the broad trail of a 
great caribou herd, probably the one we had seen the 
day before. Every hour or so we would jump a few 
stragglers. 
It was dark by the time we got to the lake, and an 
impenetrable snow squall struck us while we were cross- 
ing. We could not even see our morning tracks on 
the ice, and Henry kept feeling for them with his feet. It 
was a great comfort to know that the responsibility -of 
avoiding the numerous air holes, springs and soft spots 
in the ice rested on some one beside ourselves. That 
was what we had Henry for. For a long time we plod- 
ded through the darkness and storm, wishing we were 
at home; but presently the dim outline of the wooded 
shore loomed feebly, and then we were on the trail. 
At this point in the proceedings a curious quality of the 
shoe-pack developed. If you have never worn one you 
have something to live for. The shoe-pack is the easiest 
foot covering to be found for the woods. But it has no 
heel, and under certain conditions its soleless bottom be- 
cemes very slick and slippery; and then, as Henry says, 
"look out or you will be up-ended." When we struck the 
trail the shoe-packs had accumulated a coating of frozen 
slush and new snow that made them slip at every step. I 
could neither walk nor stand with any comfort. And 
Henry said he ought not to laugh at anybody for twenty 
years, he laughed so much at me during the interminable 
quarter of a mile from the foot of the lake to- the camp. 
I could sympathize with Henry a day or two thereafter, 
though, when, as he was going down a ridge ahead of 
me, his feet shot out, and he landed on his ribs with a 
sound exactly like that produced when you strike a big 
roll of carpet with a club. But all these things, as Henry 
says, belong to hunting. 
It was getting along toward the end of the month, 
and as Charlie and I had an engagement at Portland 
for Thanksgiving Day, we decided to move down coun- ' 
try by slow degrees, and so we sorrowfully left Gover 
Lake and took the winter trail down, the Little Souwest 
and across Birch Lake to the camp at Moccasin Lake, 
which HeUry uses as a half-way house on just such oc- 
casions. Henry and Charlie and I took to the ridges 
for a possible buck, while the transportation department 
£tuck religiously to the trail, 
Frederic jRr^jrp, 
Massachusetts Game Interests. 
- 
Fiom the annual report of the Massachusetts Commissioners of 
Inland Fisheries and Game. 
There is undoubtedly a very utilitarian side to the pro- 
tection of game in this Commonwealth. With the pass- 
age of years the New England States have become in- 
creasingly the favorite resorts in summer and autmn 
of those of ample means, who find an abundance of 
game one of the greatest attractions which nature offers. 
It is well known to be an inducement to some, more 
powerful than any other; hence millions of dollars are 
annually spent by sportsmen in a neighboring State in 
the enjoyment of hunting, and no insignificant portion 
of those millions is contributed by citizens of this State. 
If, then, it is possible by judicious protection to im- 
prove our game conditions, so that sportsmen from less 
favored States and from this Commonwealth shall be at- 
tracted thereby, it is evident that positive benefit will 
result, inasmuch as considerable sums of money will be 
retained within our own borders which otherwise might 
go elsewhere. It certainly seems wise to utilize as fully 
as possible the large areas of wild land and covers that 
still remain in the State, and to that extent hold out 
an inducement for those with means to build summer 
homes in many localities which may be largely benefited 
thereby. 
But there is another side to this question. While the 
well-to-do may experience no special deprivation from a 
scarcity of game in this State, because they have both 
time and money to seek desirable conditions in other 
localities, it must be conceded that a reasonable conserva- 
tion of game by adequate protection, stocking the covers, 
etc., is a matter of much moment to thousands who may 
derive both pleasure and physical benefit from hunting, 
but may not be able to expend the time and money re- 
quired for a trip to some other State or to Canada. 
It is therefore highly desirable that every reasonable 
effort should be made to preserve and increase the game 
in Massachusetts, and the benefit to be derived therefrom 
seems to warrant any reasonable outlay which may be 
made for such a purpose. 
Referring to these questions, the Boston Globe of Jan. 
24, 1901, makes the following statements: 
Generous encouragement from the Legislature in the way of a 
sufficient appropriation to conduct experiments and to keep in 
active service a corps of game wardens is all that is necessary to 
retain within the State boundaries a supply of game in abundance 
sufficient to warrant good shooting, There is no good reason why 
shotgun men should be forced by scarcity of game to go to other 
States for their field sports. What the privilege of hunting means 
to men whose business confines them to workshops, manufactories 
and counting rooms cannot be expressed in words or figures. The 
desire to hunt is almost universal, and probably no other form of 
recreation is so healthful or so helpful to jaded nerves. Some 
have the time and means to visit other sections to enjoy the 
privilege of hunting, but a large number cannot afford this, even 
though they may most need the relaxation from their ordinary 
duties which it brings. It is to the advantage of the general 
public, and consequently beneficial to the State, that every reason- 
able measure should be taken to promote an increase of game. 
But, even if the claim made by some, that hunting is 
a "fad," be granted, and its great advantage as a recu- 
perative recreation be ignored, there is still an imperative 
necessity that wise protective laws should be enacted, 
and that they should be enforced with vigor and deter- 
mination. This may be more fully appreciated when it 
is known that science has declared that "this world of 
ours would not be inhabitable by men in fifty years after 
its bird life had been taken from it." It is only neces- 
sary to refer to statements made by E. H. Forbush, 
ornithologist of the State Board of Agriculture, to be 
able to comprehend this, and to realize the importance 
of the work that is continuously carried on by birds 
during certain months of the year. Few appreciate how 
much humanity is indebted to birds, but there can no 
longer be excuse for neglecting them. 
Efftct of Recent Laws. 
Effect of Recent Laws. — The laws relating to shore, 
marsh and beach birds (Acts of 1901, chapter 178), to 
squirrels, hares or rabbits (Acts of 1901, chapter 102), 
to snaring partridges, hares and rabbits (Acts of 1901. 
chapter 141), and to shooting in Boston harbor (Acts of 
1901, chapter 174), have all been so recently enacted 
that it is too soon to speak with precision and in detail 
of their effect. It can, however, be said in general terms 
that their effect has been very beneficial. The full pro- 
tection to the passenger pigeon, the small gulls and the 
terns is most desirable, and may be expected to lead 
to gratifying results. The change in the opening of the 
hunting season for squirrels, hares and rabbits, so that 
it corresponds with the beginning of the open season 
for other game, is most commendable; while the same 
can be said of the change in the snaring law, whereby 
snaring on one's own land is legal only during the 
months of October and November. 
But it is possible to judge with some accuracy of the 
effect of the game law which prohib ts- the sale of part- 
ridge and woodcock (Acts of 1900. chapter 379), for its 
beneficial results are already obsenable to a very pro- 
nounced degree, in nearly all sections of the State, not- 
withstanding it has been in force so short a time. There 
can be no doubt that the increase in ruffed grouse, con- 
cerning which there is a large mass of evidence at hand, 
is directly attributable to this measure and the active en- 
forcement of the game laws. The outlook for the wood- 
cock also seems somewhat improved, even to the extent 
that it is reported breeding in this State, although it is 
well known that its appearance is generally as a migrant. 
While the act referred to does not prevent the sale 
of quail from cold storage between the first of December 
and the first of May, if legally taken in this Common- 
wealth, the nearly practical elimination of the pot hunter, 
by the restrictions on the sale of partridge and wood- 
cock, has unquestionably proved a protection to quail, 
and to that extent has led to their increase. It is the 
universal testimony that quail have not been so abun- 
dant in many years as during that covered by this report. 
Sea and Shore Birds. 
Sea and Shore Birds. — It is claimed by those who 
have been in a position to know, that the opportunities 
for shooting sea birds have been exceptionally good dur- 
ing the season covered by this report. The special fea- 
ture iSut few at Chatham, for instance, wa» that up to 
