Forest and Stream. 
a Weekly Journal of the Rod and G 
UN 
Copyright, 1902, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co, 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1902 
Terms, ^ a Year. ^0 Cts. a Copy 
Six Months, $2. 
'1 
J VOL. LIX.— No. 24. 
( No. 846 Broadway, New York. 
THE SEASON'S DUCK SHOOTING. 
The recent cold snap offers us forewarning of the 
close of the duck shooting season in the North, and 
from' this time on the gunner must look for his fowl 
in Southern waters — those wide arms of the sea or 
bodies of brackish, or fresh, water which from time 
immemorial have been the winter feeding grounds of 
the swarms of ducks, geese and swans, which rear 
their young in the far north. 
We know little about the breeding of these fowl. 
For the most part their summer homes are far from 
the haunts of men, and there are few opportunities to 
observe them or to learn anything about their annual 
increase. As it happens, we do know that in western 
Montana, close to the mountains, and northward into 
the Province of Alberta, Canada, very few young 
ducks were bred during the past summer. Spring 
opened late, and the summer was consistently cold, 
with continuous rains, so that in many cases the water 
covered the prairies and drowned out the nests of 
eggs on which the birds were sitting. This observa- 
tion, however, covers but a small section and affords 
no hint as to how the wild fowl may have succeeded in 
rearing their young in other quarters. 
So far, the duck shooting has been generally good. 
Reports from the Middle West show the flight to have 
been a large one. The mild weather caused it to be 
late in coming, but after a few hard frosts the birds 
came in well, and the usual lakes, marshes and club 
grounds furnished shooting quite as good as is com- 
monly had. 
Along the Atlantic coast, the shooting has been bet- 
ter than usual. Broadbills and redheads have been 
abundant in the Great South Bay, and some extraor- 
dinary bags have been made. Thus, notwithstanding 
a century of persistent gunning, Long Island still re- 
tains its fame as a duck shooting resort, and it will 
probably hold that eminence for generations of gun- 
ners yet to come. 
Passing southward to Chesapeake Bay, we learn that 
in many localities the shooting has been better than 
it usually is. On Spesutia Island — once a great resort 
for canvasbacks — blackheads and occasionally red- 
heads offer shooting good enough to satisfy the most 
greedy gunner. And while the Chesapeake waters do 
*'----not furnish such vast numbers of ducks as used to be 
killed there twenty-five or thirty years ago, the ag- 
gregate number taken by the increased number of 
shooters is very great. 
Still further to the southward come the great broad 
waters lying along the coasts of Virginia and the two 
Carolinas, where, the birds are said to be found this 
year in unusual numbers. During much of the time 
since the shooting season opened, the weather has 
been so warm as to make sitting in the blind uncom- 
fortable, and it has been impossible to use any con- 
siderable number of ducks which might be killed. 
Nevertheless, many birds have been killed, of ducks, 
geese and swans, and as the weather grows colder 
and more tempestuous, there will be great shooting. 
It is said that in Currituck Sound there are already 
many canvasbacks and redheads. Further south, 
even in Core Sound, canvasbacks have made their ap- 
pearance in numbers. On the other hand, we are told 
thai at City Point, Va., there are now no ducks because 
of the mild weather. 
It is never easy to forecast the results of a duck 
shooting season. Even though the birds be plenty, 
weather conditions may make fiie season a failure, or, 
again, when the ducks are relatively few, the proper 
weather may result in bags which are very satisfactory 
to the sportsman. 
-... A . good season of duck shooting leads the super- 
ficial observer to think and say that the ducks are as 
plenty now as they ever were, but this is not true. In 
■'iew of the constantly increasing number of gun- 
ners, and the general settling up of the country, north 
and south, and east and west, it is inevitable that the 
birds should-grow -scarcer year by year, and it is the 
part of wisdom for gunners generally to consider what 
-measures should be taken to offset, in some degree, 
the slaughtei._whicli takes place each' year. Wild fowl 
being v^at_:tliey_ are, it seems evident that the only 
fem^dy' ia ^ Ml ^afeh year a t^ss numbtr o* «»- 
ti] the number killed shall be smaller than the annual in- 
crease. When this happens the fowl will begin slowly 
to grow more abundant. To lessen the number of 
birds annually killed, means to shorten the season, as 
has been done in the case of certain game birds in sev- 
eral States; and to this shortening of the season might 
well be added a limit of the bag, so that no man should 
kill more than a certain number of birds, which num- 
ber should be established by statute. It is only by 
measures such as these that the decrease of our wild 
fowl can be arrested. 
THE MAN KILLING. 
Recent associated press dispatches recount that four- 
teen people Avere killed and twenty-one injured more or 
l(.ss seriously in Michigan by hunters since the commence- 
ment of the open game season in that State this year. 
"I'his is an appalling list of calamities, more suggestive of 
war than of the peaceful and beneficent sport of field and 
forest. It is a deplorable condition of hunting, all the 
more deplorable since it is not due to any inherent dan- 
gers in the sport. 
Most of the so-called accidents from the use of rifle and 
shotgun are the result of criminal carelessness on the part 
of the users. They have their origin in the erroneous 
judgment of the man who mistakes his fellow man for a 
deer, or who uses a high-power rif^e in a settled com- 
munity regardless of the perils he imposes on its dwellers. 
They are unjustifiable. 
Though commonly considered and dealt with as an ac- 
cidental happening, the shooting of man on the assump- 
tion that he is a deer is not an accident at all. Such is 
criminal carelessness in its most culpable form. The dan- 
gers of such shooting are a matter of common knowledge. 
The past years have had their long lists of deaths and 
maimings caused by reckless hunters. The dangers of 
shooting at a body first and investigating whether it is 
man or deer afterward, or of using in a settled com- 
munity a rifle, having a range of two miles or more when 
one of two hundred yards would be sufficient, are domi- 
nant themes every year in the open season. No one can 
truthfully plead ignorance of them. 
After killing a man in the common woods manner, it 
is absurdly weak to plead that the man was mistaken for 
a deer. There is no resemblance whatever between them. 
Even in the woods, the distinctive features of man and 
deer are easily distinguishable. If the hunter in the woods 
ran perceive a body of some kind moving, but cannot 
definitely determine to what class of animals it belongs, 
it is quite as easy for him to think that such animal is a 
man as to think that it is a deer. In any event, under 
the dangerous hunting conditions which obtain at present, 
the hunter has no justification for shooting until he ab- 
solutely knows what kind of animal he is shooting at, or 
at least that he is not shooting at a man. The fact that 
the hunter shoots a man is, unconditionally, an act of 
criminal carelessness. If he did not know, he should 
have investigated till he did know. Suppose it was really 
a deer and escaped in consequence of the delay. Let it 
escape then. The lives of men are not to be jeopardized 
because a hunter dislikes to risk the loss of a deer. 
The fact of the matter is that so many killings and 
woundings give just grounds for suspicion that some of 
Ihem are perpetrated maliciously and intentionally. There 
are men of cruel natures who take pleasure in killing 
anything, even their fellow men. This perverted craving 
for bloodshed finds expression in various forms. In the 
great cities, not infrequently some murderous individual 
creates a reign of terror by murdering and mutilating 
many people. It is a well-known fact that farmers are 
insistent in the claim that their live stock is shot in utter 
wantonness. It has been stated as a fact that a sports- 
man in Maine asking his guide to take him into another 
section of the woods in a hunt for big game, the guide 
refused emphatically on the ground that if so and so 
caught him in that section, so and so would mistake him 
for a deer and, kill hjm. The safety with which life could 
be taken .maliciously under the plea of mistake was thus 
clearly apparent. It is aibelief in India that many of the 
deaths attributed to tigers are really caused by men. 
In any case, deaths or maimings. due to criminally care- 
less acts, should C0m,e.\yithin the cognizance of the law. 
^len guilty of manslaiightef. should be punished for raan- 
in the least condone or excuse the act The plea that he 
did not know really aggravates the offense. There, was 
a dominant obligation that he should have known that he 
was not firing at a man. Once put the offender's liberty 
in jeopardy, or his life if the shooting is done maliciously, 
and there will be a great slump in the number of so-called 
accidents incident at present to deer shooting. With the 
penitentiary as an alternative for criminally careless shoot- 
ing, men v>'ho are reckless now will be imbued with cau- 
tion for their own personal interest. The value of one life 
is far in excess of the sum total of all men's pleasure, 
and it should be properly safeguarded by law, when the 
ordinary human considerations of mankind have yearly 
been shown to be wholly inadequate. 
Montana taxidermists advertise buffalo specimens and 
heads at prices which run from $ioo for a "Rocky Moun- 
tain bison calf specimen," to $375 for a "Rocky Moun- 
tain btiffalo bull specimen," and from $125.10 $500 for. 
heads. These quotations go to show the" profitable char- 
acter of buffalo, farming, and explain also the eagerness 
rooted in ■ cupidity , wit.h which poachers harry the 
remnants of the race now roaming in a wild state- 
The existence of certain semi-domesticated buffalo 
herds serves as a cloak to cover the traffic in illegally 
killed wild buffalo — for there is no place in the country 
where the wild ones may lawfully be taken. Just so 
long as the hunter can get a round price for buffalo 
heads he will seek them. The only way to put a stop to 
buffalo poaching is to prevent its rewards, by stopping 
entirely the transportation and the sale of wild buffalo 
heads. The sale of heads of animals raised in domesti- 
cation may very properly be permitted, each head so 
sold being duly certificated to show it origin. But to 
endeavor to preserve the wild buffalo, while at the same 
time allowing taxidermists to make merchandise of their 
heads is the sheerest' absurdity. Stop the sale of wild 
buffalo heads. 
•I 
Notice has recently been received at the Lewistown 
Land Office in Idaho -of the temporary withdrawal from 
settlement of 2,300,000 acres Ijnng south of the present 
Bitter Root Forest Reserve, in the counties of Idaho and 
Boise. An investigation is to be made as to the ad- 
visability of adding this territory to the reservation. 
Should such an addition be made, the: Bitter Root Forest 
Reserve will have an area of 5,300,000 acres-^bout equal 
to the State of Massachusetts, The land temporarily 
withdrawn lies along the Salmon River watershed and 
includes several mining districts. 
•S 
The question of the pollution of streams by coal mine 
refuse is soon to be investigated in Pennsylvania by the 
Division of Hydrography of the U. S. Geological Survey. 
It is a matter of common observation that streams run- 
ning through the anthracite districts of eastern Pennsyl- 
vania, and other mining localities, are often heavily 
charged with sulphur. The mine refuse which comes 
from the washeries carries with it much fine coal dust in 
suspension, so that for some distance below the outlets 
of these washeries the streams look like liquid stove 
polish. The fine coal dust carried long distances down 
the stream is gradually deposited and tends to fill up the 
stream. Water so polluted destroys or drives away all 
varieties of fish, is unfit for use in the household or in the 
manufactories, and the process of filtering it is extremely 
difficult. An important part of this investigation will be 
to learn what effect the sulphur-charged streams may 
have on the processes of decomposition of organic mat- 
ter, which is taking place in the rivers. 
•e 
The most important measure that came up for discus- 
sion by the New York League last week was the aboli- 
tion of the sale of woodcock and ruffed grouse killed 
within the State. Such a law is absolutely essential to 
any efficient protection of titese birds. With an open 
market the grouse snarers and market shooters will kill 
for sale; an open market means continuous- traffic. That 
is an axiom. The only way New York c^n save its most 
valuable game birds is to stop the sale of them. It will 
be something better- 'than present cond|ti^ns._if ,.-t-he pro- 
posed law shall be put into operation to forbid the sale 
of birds killed within the State, but the only actually suffi- 
cient system will- be one whieh prohibits "traffic in the 
Wr43 altt^E^hetj witfeout^i^^ distiaGtioto td tft^ir ^origi^ 
