Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 190^. by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Terms, 
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NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JANUARY 3, 1903. 
j VOL. LX.— No. 1. 
( No. 846 Broadway, New York 
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THE WILD HORSE IN AMERICA. 
When Europeans first came to this country the horse 
was unknown to its inhabitants, and the Spanish ac- 
counts of the landing of the conquerors in Mexico tell 
of the wonder with which the natives viewed the strange 
animals, and saw the people riding on them. More re- 
cently we have heard from the mouths of Indians how 
marvelous appeared to their fathers, the sight of a man 
seated on a horse. 
' In post-tertiary times horses — scarcely, if at all, different 
from those which we know to-day — existed in great num- 
bers on this continent. America was an original home 
of the horse, but before the present race of Indians had 
appeared, it had become extinct, perhaps swept out of 
existence by the great ice sheet which covered the north- 
ern portions of North America, or by climatic changes 
connected with this ice sheet. It may be that to the 
men whose bones and stone tools have been found along 
the southern limit of that ice sheet, the horse was not 
an unfamiliar animal, and yet it is hardly to be supposed 
that it should have inhabited a country ranged over by 
the musk-ox, as were the regions just south of the ice 
sheet — West Virginia, and the valley of the Ohio River. 
The horse developed and increased here, after his sec- 
ond coming — an immigrant from the old world. The 
stock first introduced cannot have been large, and of 
this stock the number which escaped from captivity, 
and became wild on the plains of the southwest must 
have been small. Yet in 250 years the increase was so 
great that horses had spread over the whole south- 
west, east nearly to the Mississippi, north to the Yel- 
lowstone River, and all through what is now California. 
The tribes of the southwest early learned the uses to 
which the horse might be put. They rode him, and made 
him drag the travois; and the knowledge of him spread 
north and east; yet slowl}', since, as we have said, we 
have talked with aged Indians in the northern country 
who have told us how, in the generation before their own, 
their people first saw horses. Moreover, there were some 
tribes so conservative that they declined to use the horse, 
realizing that, in a certain fashion, the possession of 
horses added to their responsibilities, since horses must 
be looked after and guarded; while the dogs, which 
from time immemorial had been their only domestic 
animal, were held to them by ties of personal affection, 
and could be trusted never to desert them. 
In the days of the earlier explorers of the west, wild 
horses were extremely abundant. While most of these 
were descended from stock that had been wild for many 
generations, their numbers were constantly being added 
to by escaped and stray animals, so that it was not un- 
common to see among the herds, mules and branded ani- 
mals, and others that bore marks of saddle or harness. 
These herds of wild horses were interesting features of 
the landscape, though they were not very often cap- 
tured in the north. Yet often they served a useful 
purpose to travelers since, when game was scarce, the 
horses on the prairie were killed for food; or. others, 
purchased from the Indians, eked out, with dogs ob- 
tained, in like manner, the meagre subsistence of starv- 
ing voyageurs. 
It was not only in the west that the horse became wild 
and flourished in America. Though the vast grassy 
plains of the trans-Missouri region, which they shared 
with the buffalo, the ellc, and the antelope, offered to the 
horse conditions of life far more favorable than were to 
be found in mountainous or forest-clad regions; neverthe- 
less, at various points, all along our Atlantic coast, there 
have been herds of wild horses which have been cap- 
tured, subdued and domesticated within the memory of 
meiT"stiir livihgl 
The Spaniard left in Florida a stock of horses which 
grew wild and increased, and which were long kaown 
there as inarsh tacl-- jrther noith, in the Carolinas, 
horses left by Sir Walter Raleigh's expedition gave rise 
to a breed of bank ponies, ranging along the sea-=beach, 
and^pasturing on the tough grasses that flourished there. 
Still further to the north, at 'Chincoteague Island, there, 
was a stock of ponies named from the island, as wild as 
any mustangs, the gathering and penning of which was 
an annual festival not more than forty years ago. Finally, 
far to the northward were the Sable Island ponies, the 
progeny of a few horses which reached the shore from 
a wrecked vessel, and which increased there until their 
numbers had become considerable. 
Ponies are only dwarfed horses, and we may imagine 
that all the wild stock above enumerated were the de- 
scendants of the smaller, lighter, and more wiry horse, 
which is sometimes spoken of as the Oriental horse, in 
contradistinction from the western horse, which includes 
the heavier draft horses of Flanders, and France, and 
Great Britain. Certain it is that the horses of southern 
North America, coming as the}' did from Spain, were 
largely of Arab stock, first brought to Spain by the Moors, 
and carefully bred and nurtured by the Spaniards after 
the Moors had been expelled. 
The horse is a tough and hardy animal, and fears little 
the biting cold or deep snows. In the wind-swept valleys 
of the high mountains of the west he grows a coat of 
extreme length and warmth, and under the long shaggy 
hair which hangs six or eight inches down from his body, 
has been developed in these cold . regions a close warm 
wool, which is an admirable protection against the win- 
ter. Fearless of anj^ animals which America produced, 
we can conceive that, with one or two hundred more 
years of time, the horse might have so increased as, 
in numbers, almost to have equalled the buffalo; and it 
is uncertain which animal would have survived in a 
struggle for existence. But with the settling of the coun- 
trj^ came the destruction of all wild life, and the horse, 
familiar to all as a domestic animal, took his place in the 
commercial world— a place that the undomesticated buf- 
falo could never fill. 
Over the high and arid sage plains of the West the 
horse still wanders in great droves, to all appearances, 
as wild as he ever was, yet each of these animals bears 
on his body the mark of the hot iron, which is the badge 
of his servitude; and annually each is gathered up with 
his felloAvs, run down, and driven into the corral, where 
by his actions he acknowledges that man is the master. 
ST. HUBERT IN AMERICA. 
The story runs that Hubert, a nobleman of the 
Court of Emperor Theodoric III., was passionately 
fond of hunting, to which pursuit all his time was 
given. But it came to pass that on a Good Friday, 
about the year 650, as Hubert, hunting the wild boar 
in the Ardennes, was making his waj^ through the 
thickets to slake his thirst at a pool, suddenly he was 
confronted by a snow-white stag, which bore between 
its antlers a shining crucifix: and Hubert heard a 
voice calling on him to repent and lead a Christian 
life. Obeying the supernatural summons, he repaired 
for instruction to St. Lambert, under whose guidance 
he devoted himself to a devout life, and whom he suc- 
ceeded in the bishopric of Liege. St. Hubert's miracu- 
lous vision has been a favorite theme of the artists; 
he became the patron saint of huntsmen, and the 
shrines erected in his honor are familiar objects in 
the hunting forests of France. 
One of the most elaborate and interesting of the 
modern chapels of St. Hubert is found in America, and 
constitutes a feature of a private estate and gam^e pre- 
serve not far distant, from New York city. The struc- 
ture is of stone, with a belfry fifty feet high; and pains- 
taking efforts have been made to reproduce in it, with 
artistic and historic fidelity, a chapel of the period 
when St. Hubert lived. The dedication of the chapel, 
by Bishop Wigger, of New Jersey, upon which occa- 
sion it was formally put under the patronage of the 
saint, has been commemorated in a bronze tablet set 
in the face of the outer wall, in which St. Hubert is 
depicted in bas-relief, with tunic, sword and belt, boar 
club and shield on which appears the snow-white stag; 
and by his side is a St. Hubert hound, one of the an- 
cient brfeed which Hubert himself has the credit of havr- 
ing introduced, into the Ardennes- to hunt, the boar. 
Fof the cost'uiT^e^ af]4 f^fSfs^^ries pf this piece, as of all 
the other historical reproductions in the adornment 
of the chapel, the artists went to the museums and 
art collections of Europe, and years were spent in re- 
search and study, to • insure accuracy of treatment. 
The costume and equipment of St. Hubert, the sword 
and sword belt, and shield, even the buttons of the 
cloak, all were modeled from objects dating from 
Hubert's time, preserved among the treasured antiqui- 
ties of Antwerp and other museums; and the hunting 
horn is patterned after the one preserved in the cathed- 
ral at Liege, which is reputed to have been used by 
the saint. Beneath the panel is the inscription: Sancte 
Hiiberte ora pro nobis. 
Within the edifice the furnishings and decorations 
have been made to conform as closely as possible to 
those of St. Hubert's day, eiven the pattern of the 
mosaic floor is from one of the period: there is a huge 
fireplace, after the style of the ancient church fire- 
places; and on the walls are displayed deer antlers, 
heads of wolf and bear, and other trophies of the hunt. 
The stained-glass windows picture, together with the 
conventional sacred themes of ecclesiastical adorn- 
ment, the conversion of St. Hubert, and a series of 
woodland scenes. Among the sculptural adornments 
are five full-length figures portraying St. Hubert and 
three other saints, who, like him, were converted while- 
following the chase — St. Germanius, St. Eustache and 
St. Xeno; and a fifth St. Michael the Archangel, who 
drove the wild beasts out of Paradise. All these anti- 
quarian and artistic features, the expensive marbles 
of the altar and the costly vestments combine to render 
this American chapel unique and notable among those 
which commemorate the noble sportsman of Aquitaine,. 
who in the forest of the Ardennes was confronted by 
the white stag on a Good Friday twelve hundred years 
ago. 
"A DISGRACE TO VIRGINIA." 
In our issue of Dec. 13 a correspondent directed at-, 
tention to the wanton practices of gunners in Princess 
Anne county, Virginia, who make war on the rafts of 
blue peters simply for the sake of killing the fowl, 
which are worthless. The butchery was truly desig- 
nated a disgrace to Virginia, as it would be a disgrace 
to any State which permitted it to go on. We are 
glad to know that the subject will be brought to the 
attention of the Virginia Legislature, now in session, and 
a determined eft'ort will be made to put the blue peter 
killing and all kindred slaughter under the ban of the 
law. There is every reason why the necessary legislative 
action should be promptly and unhesitatingly taken. 
There is absolutely no justification for the wanton 
destruction of any form of harmless or useless ani- 
mal wild life. Public sentiment does not sanction it. 
It is perpetrated only by individuals of coarse Ma- 
tures or diseased minds. It is contrary to every manly 
instinct. It is brutal and brutalizing. There is in it 
nothing akin to sport. Shooting for sport— the shoot- 
ing that decent men indulge in — is the shooting of 
something which is good for something after it has 
been secured. This legitimate shooting for sport is 
in its essence different from the killing of blue peters 
or other luckless objects of human wantonness. If;' 
there be men calling themselves sportsmen who find 
gusto in potting the blue peter, we may beg leave 
to tell them that they are unworthy of an honorable 
designation upon which they bring obloquy. The 
sooner Virginia finds a way to suppress their practices 
the better will it be, not only for the hapless fowl 
but for the credit of shooters. 
It is very essential that fish and game protective 
clubs in New York should be incorporated, since by 
law the game commissioners are restricted to deal- 
ing with incorporated clubs in the appointment of spe- 
cial game protectors; and the employment of such pro- 
tectors is the most efficient method by which a club 
may secure the purpose of its existence. Certain clubs 
have hesitated to incorporate by reason of fear that 
incorporation would bring individual responsibility 
upon the members for any financial obligations in- 
curred. In a note elsewhere. Mr. John W. Whish, sec- 
retary of the commission, points out that such fear is 
groundless. The incorporation of game and fish pro- 
tection clubs shgvi|4 ^? ^"1^ f^<^?FtiQilf 
