March 21, igosl] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
229 
within a foot of the dead quail. I certainly used a lot of 
forbidden language. In the meanwhile the others had 
found a big covey and I could hear them popping all. over 
the lot. I started toward a farm house to get a drink, but 
had to stop to kill a single quail that Ned found under a 
bush. I waited for the others for a while and we started 
home together, picking up two quail and a partridge on 
the way to the station. Not a bad day's sport for this 
locality ! 
Iliough I intend to sell my dog to make room for a 
brilliant pointer pup, it will be a good while before I get 
such a reliable old dog again. I never want to see three 
better working dogs in the field. Wiz I consider the best 
dog I have ever seen. C. is a lucky naan. L. 
The Maine License. 
Worcester, Mass., Feb. 21. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
Within the last few days I have learned the provisions 
of the proposed new game law of Maine, whereby they 
propose to tax non-resident sportsmen $25 for the privi- 
lege of hunting moose, $10 for hunting deer and birds, 
and $s if they hunt birds only. 
Although non-resident sportsmen have spent millions of 
dollars in Maine and more than paid for all game secured, 
the sportsmen generally would not object to a nominal 
tax, say $10 at maximum, for the privilege of hunting 
big game. 
We have forwarded a strong protest to the Mame 
Legislature, and I thought that you could aid us 
materially by calling attention to the matter, and asking 
the sportsmen of the various localities to send in_ their 
protests at once, inasmuch as the bill has been filed in the 
Legislature, but has not been acted upon as yet. 
Can you not ask sportsmen, either individually or as 
communities, to send in their protests to the Legislature 
or to Hon. Chas. E. Oak, the only member of the Com- 
mission who had the courage to oppose the bill ? _ I send 
you clippings from our Worcester Telegram stating our 
case plainly. I also send you a slip I had printed and sent 
to every guide whose address I could get : 
To the Legislature of the State of Maine : 
We, the undersigned, sportsmen residing in the vicinity 
of Worcester, Mass., who have, in the past, been accus- 
tomed to spend our outings in the Maine woods, hunting, 
respectfully present to the honorable, the Legislature of 
Maine, this, our remonstrance against the passage of a bill 
taxing non-resident sportsmen to the extent called for in 
said bill. 
We state that we have annually, heretofore, passed our 
vacations in Maine, and the cost of transportation, sub- 
sistence, supplies and guide fees, which we have paid, 
amounts to large sums. But if a tax of over $10 is to be 
levied we shall feel obliged to cancel our ' engagements, 
already made for the coming hunting season in Maine, 
and hereafter seek other hunting grounds, where game is 
more plentiful, where the moose are larger, and where 
c: ribou may be shot without extra cost. 
We believe that the passage of the bill* as framed, will 
not be for the best interests of the State of Maine. We 
favor a moderate fee being charged of, say $10, and be- 
lieve that would suffice to yield a sufficient sum to insure 
the protection of tlie game, and would, in fact, yield to 
the State fully as much income as the more excessive fee 
called for in the bill, from the fact that the sportsmen 
would not object to paying the more moderate fee. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
Chicago, III,, March 9. — Heavy rains for a couple of 
days in this vicinity and storms which have been general 
all over the Mississippi Valley have sent the streams out 
of bounds, lifted or covered the ice and brought up the 
wildfowl in considerable numbers all over this portion of 
the country. Even at Fox Lake, which is slow to open 
in- the spring, report came down to-day that the sudden 
rise of the river had lifted and broken the ice and bade 
fair to run it out before long. Birds are reported in along 
Fox Lake in considerable numbers. 
At Swan Lake the waters are high, as indeed is the 
case all down the Illinois and Kankakee Valleys. Tele- 
grams from Swan Lake reported the birds in and re- 
quested the members to hold themselves in readiness to 
go down. 
At English Lake Club, on the Kankakee, in Indiana, 
birds were in two days ago in considerable numbers. The 
Hoyt brothers of this city ran down to English Lake and 
killed some twenty odd ducks, six of which were canvas- 
backs. The latter are the first canvashacks reported in the 
bag of any Chicago shooter this spring. 
No great numbers of birds have appeared in Lake 
Michigan as yet, though Tolleston Club reports a small 
transient flight, and members of that club are preparing 
to drop down there during the week. There may be 
heavy shooting at any of the better points now at any 
day this week. The bayous along the Kankakee River 
were at last writing still frozen over, although at several 
points, for instance, at Goose Lake Club, considerable 
numbers of ducks were reported living about and looking 
over the country for resting and feeding grounds. 
Everywhere the daily press reports tremendous floods 
and the highest waters known for a long time. This will 
mean good shooting and good fishing, although the price 
paid for that will be very high when the settlement for the 
flood shall have been made. 
Tame Buffalo Hunt. 
A dispatch from Salt Lake City, Utah, reports the kill- 
ing of three bulls of a private herd which has been kept 
on Antelope Island, some fifty miles from Salt Lake City. 
It is stated that these animals had become very vicious, 
hence it was resolved to kill them. It must have been 
a very exciting sort of buffalo hunt ; indeed, the press dis- 
patch frankly speaks of it as such. It is stated that 
"several of the men had narrow escapes. Several times 
the animals, maddened by bullets, turned upon their pur- 
suers and the latter escaped only by urging their mounts 
to the utmost speed. The buffaloes were finally killed." It 
must have been a very bold, adventuresome and sports- 
manlike kind of a hunt. I don't think it would have 
If-.sted quite so loug had some oJ4 skill huntgr engage4 in 
)( yvit)i a .45 Sharp!?, 
Better Game 'Laws in"; Montana. 
The State of Montana is coming forward in the matter 
of protective legislation. The records of the present ses- 
sion of the Legislature show that the principle of salaried 
officials paid out of a fish and game fund created by fines 
and licenses, etc., is at present indorsed by the Montana 
sentiment, l^he salary of the State game and fish warden 
i? set at $1,800 per annum, deputies to be paid $1,200 per 
annum, the latter not to have any expense fund allowed 
them. 
Several changes have been niade in the game seasons 
and in the specifications in regard to game animals. Three 
important bills have become fish or game laws at the 
present session. Senate Bill No. 29 a week ago only 
awaited concurrence of the Senate in one or two amend- 
ments, and will pass. This bill prohibits the shooting of 
turtle doves at any season. It allows the killing of two 
bnll elk per season, and one mountain sheep each season. 
In regard either to elk or mountain goat the season will 
be from September 1 to December i, cutting off one 
month, that of December. The kiUing of one mountain 
sheep, three deer and one goat per season is permitted. 
The old law allowed the killing of six deer and six goats, 
but prohibited the killing of mountain sheep. 
The grouse season on prairie chickens, sage hens, par- 
tridges, etc., opens August 15 and closes December i. 
An excellent feature of the bill is that abolishing spring 
shooting altogether. The open season on wildfowl is 
September 1 to January 1. In this respect Montana is far 
ahead of the State of Illinois. 
In another respect Montana shoAvs herself close in line 
with the most advanced game laws of the period. She 
prohibits the selling of trout, grayling or black bass at any 
time of the year. She has not quite yet got to the point of 
making a sweeping prohibition of the sale of game. Per- 
haps that will come a little later. 
Senate bill No. 30 has been passed by both houses and 
signed by the Governor of Montana. It obliges non- 
resident hunters to take out a license at $25 for hunting 
big game and $15 for hunting small game. This law, 
however, does not apply to taxpayers in the State. No 
game can be shipped from the State except under permit 
from the State warden, and any non-resident before ship- 
ping any game must present his license to the transporta- 
tion company. Common carriers are held responsible for 
violations of the provisions of this law. All shipments of 
game must be marked in plain letters. 
Thus it may be seen one by one the Western States 
are accommodating themselves to the principle of charg- 
ing for the killing of their game. With this attitude seems 
to come a growth of the sentiment against the marketing 
of like game. 
Books on the Early West. " 
Mr. Selden R. Probasco, of Burlington, N. J., wishes to 
learn about a book or so on the early West. He writes: 
"Sonie three or four years ago in one of your letters you 
mentioned two books written by George F. Ruxton, 
'Mexico and the Rocky Mountains' and the 'Far West,' 
the latter dealing with the early mountain men. My 
father has 'Mexico and the Rocky Mountains' (Harpers, 
1848), and did have the 'Far West,' but it was loaned to 
someone who forgot to return it. I think you mentioned 
this book was published by a firm in London and could 
be gotten from them at the time your letter was pub- 
lished. I am very anxious to .get a copy of it if possible, 
and an}"- information you can give will be appreciated." 
Ruxton's "Life in the Far West" was published in 1849 
b}^ Wm. Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh and London. I 
presume almost any extensive bookseller could secure a 
copy for Mr. Probasco. My copy came to me through 
Mr. Horace Kephart, Librarian of the Mercantile Library 
of St. Louis. Should Mr. Probasco fail through his book- 
dealers, I think perhaps Mr. Kephart could advise him 
where to purchase a copy. 
Waters Opening, 
Chicago, March 14.— The waters are rapidly opening up 
even to the north of this point, and the ducks are reported 
in 3'esterday and to-day. Pistakee Bay is open, Nipper- 
sink Lake is open, and the channel between these waters 
and Fox Lake is open, although the latter and bigger 
water is still under the ice, and only showing spots of 
open water. A few Chicago shooters will run up to the 
Fox Lake country to-night or to-morrow. 
Tolleston Club has a few men down at the grounds 
waiting for a flight. There were not many birds there 
yesterday. 
The tnain flight seems to be along the Kankakee thus 
far, but returning shooters say the water is so high they 
can not do much with the birds. The flight is still very 
unsettled and is hunting for feeding grounds. 
The Illinois Game Law. 
The bill earlier referred to in these columns as the 
Wheeler bill, slightly amended and introduced in the 
House by Representative Montgomery, is to-day reported 
by Representative J. B. Castle, of Sandwich, as very apt 
to pass. There will be an amendment exempting the 
sons of farmers from paying license for shooting on their 
own lands, but other residents will pay a shooting license. 
The quail dates are amended to read November 15 to 
December 15. Mr. Castle thought the clause stopping the 
sale of ducks would pass. Let us hope the latter may he 
the case. Personally I have some doubts as to the passage 
of any Illinois bill which carries a resident gun license 
and a stop-the-sale-of-game clause. 
A Greater Minnesota Park. 
The movement for the Minnesota National Park was 
not altogether so great a success as its friends hoped for, 
yet it may be called a success. Even 1,700 acres of virgin 
forest is better than a continuous wilderness of slashings, 
and even a cut tract, if cut under United States forestry 
regulations, is far better than one ruined by the careless 
and wasteful lumbering operations. At least the park, as 
it is secured, may have its success measured by the ire 
of the lumbermen who fought it. They do say that the 
Hon. Tom Shevlin, of Minneapolis, is a very wrathful 
man because he finds liimself not left free to cut a pine 
tree whenever and wherevei" found, on Indian lands or 
anywhere else. 
But this is not quite the end pf the hopes of the imn4s 
of the Minnesota park. In the next Congress there will 
be introduced a bill providing for the acceptance, for park 
purposes, and subject to the Unied States forestry regula- 
tions, of all tracts of pine lands which may be surrendered 
in trust by their present owners to the United States 
Government. The Weyerhauser and other big interests 
express themselves as perfectly wiHing and eager to entef 
upon such arrangements. They would have the timber as 
it grew again cut as the United States forester would in- 
.struct. The lands, now cut over and worthless, according 
to the ancient doctrine of the American lumberman, might 
thus eventually in time come to produce a certain income. 
The old doctrine has been — after me, the deluge. The 
new doctrine is — after us, posterity. It is a wide step for 
even the most intelligent of the lumber operators to be 
willing to admit that there is going to be any posterity. 
That they should do this and that they should realize that 
there is something in the principles of scientific forestry, 
is directly due to the agitation created over the establish- 
ment of the Minnesota National Park. With thi j the 
case, no one ought to call that park a failure. 
It is a singular thing how the forces originally opposed 
to this park movement in Minnesota have been scattered. 
Page Morri.s, of Duluth, an enemy of the park in 
Congress and elsewhere, has now retired from Congress 
and is again a judge in Minnesota. Judge Morris insists 
that personally he was not opposed to the park. I imagine 
that the friends of the park are not concerned how Judge 
Morris felt personally, since his works spoke for them- 
selves. He is now where his activity will scarcely be so 
much against the interests of the park. J. Adam Bede, 
who goes to Congress for that same district, is and al- 
ways has been an outspoken friend of the park personally 
and politically, or rather so much personally that he did 
not care for the political side of it. Mr. Eddy, late mem- 
ber for the other Congressional district most aflFected by 
the establishment of the park, is out, and in his stead is 
a man who used to be in the State Legislature and who 
has always been a friend of this park movement. Com- 
missioner Binger Herman, of the land office, although not 
openly opposed to the movement, was never any too 
actively friendly to it. His successor will be more so. 
In short, everything is framing up for a general Minne- 
sota ratification of the park scheme, and for the very pos- 
sible enlargement of the park lines. It is now Col. 
Cooper's dream to see all that corner of Minnesota 
bounded on the south by a line running westward from 
Duluth, and bounded on the west by a line running up 
north from Cass Lake and through Red Lake, devoted, 
after its original lumbering ofif, to the purpose of a 
national playground, subject to the United States forestrj^ 
regulations and patrolled regularly by a body of fire 
v/ardens chosen from among the Indians native to that 
country. It should be remembered that a logged-off coun- 
try is not wholly unattractive if fire can be kept out of it. 
The Indians themselves were never guilty of great forest 
fires. They would make good wardens. Perhaps, after 
all, Col. Cooper's dream is not so visionary as to be im- 
possible. Whether it shall expand into further success is 
not yet to be said, but he is very much mistaken who calls 
the Minnesota National Park a failure, even under its 
present restricted lines. 
Unfoond. 
This week Mr. H. W. Osborn, labor agent of the Great 
Northern railway, dropped into this office and I asked 
him whether anything liad ever been heard of the Great 
Northern official, Mr. Egan, who was lost in the Rocky 
Mountains near Belden, Mont., early last winter. Mv. 
Osborn said that the most diligent search has thus far 
failed to reA^eal any trace of the missing man, and that 
Mr. Egan was given up for lost by all of his friends. 
Search will be resumed this spring as soon as the melting 
of the snow renders it possible. Mr. Egan was with a 
friend and they started to meet two other friends at the 
extremity of a lake, one party being upon each side of 
the lake. A snow came up and in the journey toward the 
meeting place Mr. Egan wandered aside and did not join 
his friends. The falling snow at once obliterated al! 
traces, and there all knowledge ended. His fate will 
probably forever be one of the secrets of the mountains. 
Called. 
Mr. Irby Bennett, general agent of the Winchester R. 
A. Co., was in town yesterday, looking well and report- 
ing everything running at full steam and a nitrger on the 
safety valve. Mr. Bennett was just from Kansas Citv, 
whe^e he left Harold Money critically ill with typhoid 
fever. Capt. A. W. Money, of the E. C. Powder Co.. 
had hurried to his son's bedside. The word from him was 
that unless a telegram was sent yesterday the news wus 
to be supposed good. Mr. Harold Money should have 
passed the crisis of the disease some time yesterday, and 
it is much hoped that he is now upon the mend. 
Gone to Texas, 
Mr. Frank Parmelee, of Omaha, long famous in the 
shooting world, is reported to have given up his domicile 
at Omaha and to have removed with his family to Texas. 
At last accounts he was threatening to establish his resi- 
dence at Rockport, Texas. Mr. Parmelee is something of 
a jester. Should he really have determined to drive his 
stake at Rockport, the chances are that he may live there 
at least thirty days. After that it might grow a little 
monotonous for one of his enterprising habits. 
All About ^Coons. 
A friend of mine who lives in York State writes me as 
below in regard to the chasse au 'coon as viewed from his 
standpoint : 
"Last December you wrote a most entertaining little 
story about the Illinois 'coon hunt, that has been on my 
mind ever since, and I cannot keep still any longer, but 
rnust say just a word or two, showing how opinions can 
diifer. Who told you that the 'coon is most apt to begin 
his wanderings at some hour after midnight ? Not Mr. 
Powel, who hunts with a good pair of hounds. You have 
probably been imbibing 'coon lore from some such source' 
as I took it from some years ago, when that statement 
Was made by many to whom I looked up as persons who 
ought to know. Like many other ancient tales it is not 
founded on fact. Now, here are a few of the happenings 
last Ml, iQQd; September W, track at 8 p. M.'. treed and 
