Dec 13, Z903.J 
FOREST AND ^ STREAM. 
467 
Adirondack Deer. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
The deer season has ended, and as the snow is commg 
down as though it meant to stay, there is not much Hkeli- 
hood of any more deer news reaching the woodsmen till 
the crusting begins, which it does as soon as the crust is 
thick enough on deep snow. 
It has been a pretty good year for deer. Ruffed grouse 
and woodcock were :iever so scarce in the valley of the 
West Canada as they were this fall, but it has been a long 
while since the deer were more plentiful around the 
clearings along that stream .and its sister, Little Black 
Creek. Almost daily we heard that deer had been seen 
"up the road," or in somebody's pasture. Deer were seen 
eleven times in Johnny Bousefield's pasture, most of 
which Can be Seen from Northwood post office. Probab- 
ly these deer did not number more than five or six in- 
dividuals, however. A band was seen many times across 
the creek in Ohio. It began with five individuals, 
but diminished to three before the hunting opened. I 
saw a score or more of deer tracks where the animals had 
crossed the road up the creek within two miles of the 
stores here, and on at least two occasions two deer cross- 
ed the road together. One time, however, a dog was after 
a pair, judging by the track. 
When the season opened, several deer were shot around 
Northwood and Wheelertown. A few were got in fair 
fashion, as they wandered at tlie edge of a clearing, but 
there are some hounds which can run deer still left in 
the country, and some of these did not grow fat while the 
hunting lasted. 
But it is a fact known to every resident of the region 
that the number of dogs able to run deer is gradually de- 
creasing, and that the violations of the law in this manner 
have fallen off more than in proportion. The constant 
reiteration that it is against the law, and that the State 
is liable to have a man up in this country has worried all 
who have poaching inclinations. The result is that 
hounding is no longer carried on in this neighborhood as 
it once was. In fact I do not know of a single race be- 
ing run at Northwood this year. 
But along Little Black Creek, numbers of deer have 
fallen ahead of hounds, or other dogs. Yet even there so 
much caution was used that none should run to West 
Creek, that only short run dogs were used for the most 
part, and so frequently after a circle or two in the woods, 
the deer shook its pursuer, and went free unseen. 
It is a fact, however, that even this little hunting with 
hounds has kept the deer supply down a great deal. Un- 
less it is stopped, still-hunting wnth any success in the 
wood lots is far from likely within three or four years. 
But the deer are increasing, around the clearings at least, 
IP- the estimation of the woodsmen. 
One effect of the still-hunting law has been to make 
better -woodsmen of the hunters who visit the deep woods. 
"We didn't know how to hunt them at first," Fred Jones 
said the other day, and so it was. Men who had of late 
years merely sat on runways and waited for the deer to 
pop into view found that the deer back in the woods was 
conspicuous chiefly as a flying white plume, with no par- 
ticular place to aim at. Deer five rods away in the woods 
v\ere a harder proposition as a target than one ten rods 
away on an open stream. Many men with long records of 
big bucks found to their amazement that they couldn't 
get any at all. They simply had to go to work and learn 
how to hunt deer, of w*hich they had known practically 
nothing save that the animals fled to the water when 
pursued by dogs and that they followed runways to the 
streams. 
In these days it is no longer the Gorge Runway, the 
Pine Tree, the Natural Dam, of which one hears of an 
evening at the store, or by the fireside in a camp, but of 
the Burning, the Beaver Meadow, the Mountain up next 
to the top, the Beech flat down the brook. The most re- 
markable and the best eft'ect of the non-hounding law has 
not been that it saves the deer, but that it has compelled 
the men to learn woodcraft, to study the nature of the 
game and of the lay of the land. 
Incidentally in the learning, men have had a widening 
of their personal experience. Of a party of ten men who 
went to Horn Lake this fall eight slept out all of various 
nights— at least ran around trees, for the nights were 
cold — because they could not find camp. They got in in 
the morning or by the next night in all but ' one case, and 
that man stayed out two nights. So too with a party of 
hunters up on Little Black Creek Lake. They were hunt- 
ing, and two of them got lost. One fetched up at the Old 
Pardy Place nine miles away, and the other carried a 
deer to the North Branch, a matter of six or eight miles 
out of his course. 
In my own experience I have been a bit more fortunate. 
I have not been out all night, but I found myself ten 
miles from my camp at three o'clock on a November af- 
ternoon. The way I hit for camp was record breaking. 
In Just the ordinary course of a day's hunt, I have dis- 
covered lakes, mountains and brooks far from their na- 
tural resorts, and it was only with much effort and a 
compass, known to be perfectly reliable, that I was able to 
put them back in their proper places. I know from my 
own personal experience, as well as from listening to the 
tales of the woodsmen, that there is more real informa- 
tion to be had by the ordinary man from a day's still- 
hunting than from two weeks on a runway. 
And the difference between sitting for ten hours on a 
log or rock, chilled, blinded by the reflected light of the 
sun, deafened by the roar of a stream and numbed by in- 
activity, from "slipping through the woods exercising 
every muscle and the faculties and senses, is so great that 
to change back to the hounding would be to the disad- 
vantage of the woodsmen, mentally at least; and to the 
city "sports" physically as well as mentally, though in 
the latter case not in so marked a degree, since sitting on 
a runway to the two-week or so wood dweller is suf- 
ficiently occupying to the mind in its novelty. 
As to the accidents in which men are mistaken for 
game, we have had-none of them in this locality. Nor do 
I know of a man's being shot at. But it might easily 
liappen if any one were in the least careless. In the party 
1 was with this ftll, the two best woodsmen had experi- 
ences to make.them shiver. They were hunting on a side 
hill, Will at the foot, and Fred half way up. Will saw^ 
deer and fired. He i(vas tljen at the foot of the WU. 
Fred heard the shot and in a few seconds, as it seemed, 
he saw the hind leg of the deer directly in front of him, 
on the hill side. Fred stopped instanter and waited for 
the shoulder to appear. In a few moments the leg moved 
along, and then Will stepped out from the brush. Nine 
out of ten hunters would have felt themselves justified in 
shooting when all the circumstances so clearly indicated a 
deer. A day later Will had a similar experience with 
Fred. He supposed Fred was on his right, but Fred was 
to his left instead, where he loomed through the woods 
like a deer, but by waiting for a clear view in both cases, 
a tragedy was averted. The gang I travel with begins to 
talk about being careful before the supplies are purchased 
for the trip, and not a morning comes in the woods but 
what mutual warnings are exchanged. 
One reason ^vhy there are not more convictions for 
breaking the game law is neighborliness. Nobody likes to 
tell on his neighbor. One way to break the wholesale 
violations is to send a stranger to the district infested by 
the lawless spirit. Evidence could be had easy enough to 
convict half the citizens of some communities, but one 
conviction would make such a place "clean." Those who 
talk the most about law breaking are not always the ones 
who obey the law. 
This fall a local paper came out with a tirade against 
bounders. Wilmurt needed the warning all right 
enough, but the man who gave it was indiscreet. He 
signed his name to the article. Just one week later to a 
day, I was driving to Noblesborough, through Wilmurt. 
1 heard shots ahead, and on reaching the place, I met 
four men. Three of them were carrying a big doe, the 
fourth, the man who wrote, had four guns. The doe 
was wet, and had been killed in the water. A mongrel 
hound sported along with them. Of this same man it is 
told that he was on a runway — I've seen him so many 
times— watching for law breakers. A deer came along, 
and the man missed it, not once, but many times. Pretty 
soon the dog came along, and the watcher killed it ac- 
cording to law. 
The laws ought to be enforced. There is no doubt 
about that. But to offer half the reward to a man's 
iteighbor for betraying him, does not seem to be the best 
way of doing it. Nor are political appointees likely to be 
the most eflicient. If game constables were elected and 
could be made to see the need of doing their duty, prob- 
ably the game laws would, after a time, become as well 
observed as any other laws. But when government 
officials of various sorts— including judges, and lieuten- 
ant-governors, and the like, violate game laws, it looks as 
though it was just a case where liberal education and a 
fair sense of honor was needed. The trouble is further 
in the fact that when a man is in the woods, he is there 
to get away from rules and codes and business. Any- 
thing that suggests law and order are most distasteful to 
him. He wants to be "free," untrammeled. That is what 
he is there for, and one way of being so is to get out and 
shoot deer contrary to the laAv. With some it is just a 
way of showing that they are independent. 
One sort of game is growing plentiful in spite of lack 
cf protection. That is bears. There have been lots of 
them seen. Roscoe Conkling killed four one day, and saw 
eleven, in the Woodhull Lake country. He seems to have 
met a whole migration of them. He ran short of cart- 
ridges, or he would have killed — nobody knows how 
many more. Then Jim Macbeth saw a couple up at 
Noblesborough, and over at Wheelertown half a dozen or 
so were shot at. Their tracks were everywhere around the 
clearings. I saw three myself one day. I shot, of course, 
and missed. But it w^as worth missing to see the old one. 
She ran ten yards and then stood behind a big dead stub, 
and peeking around to one side of it, wondering what I 
was up to anyhow. With a rifle of low trajectory— a .30- 
:50— I might have hit her, but it was a long shot. In other 
respects I have found my .45-90 entirely satisfactory. 
The .30-30 is in the balance as regards local opinion. 
Many have used them here. Some tell about the awful 
holes they make, and others tell how they have had to 
put half a dozen bullets into deer before they could get 
it. When the bullets hit a bone, it is generally agreed, 
the effect is terrific. But otherwise a .32 would be as 
good. For our work here a .38-55 is plenty strong 
enough, and with that gun half the deer killed m this 
region are brought down. It is not unlikely that if more 
accidents occur with the .30-30 in proportion, it is because 
tenderfeet use them. Raymond S. Spears. 
Northwood, N. Y. 
Vifgfmia D«ck Shooting:* 
City Point, Va., Dec. 6. — ^Duck shooters who would 
like to come here and cannot, may comfort themselves 
with the reflection that their time would be wasted again 
this year, as it was or would have been last year. _ About 
the first of November, 1901, ducks appeared in their usual 
abundance, and for two or three weeks afforded excellent 
battery shooting. Then, owing to the scarcity of food, 
they "took out" and did not return, even in March or 
April. . . . ., , 
This year's food conditions are very similar, and no 
river ducks have come at all, though there are some 
black ducks, mallards and sprigtails on the marshes, 
which are as a rule rented to private parties. The Belch 
boys have not even put their batterj^ overboard, and their 
house-boat lies unused at anchor below General Grant's 
wharf — or the remains of it. 
Mild weather is generally regarded as the cause of the 
absence of blackheads, redheads and canvasbacks this 
year, and a cold snap which may bring them is anxiously 
awaited. J- 
Ontatio Deer and Hounds. 
Ontario has some of the finest deer hunting in t.he 
world, and season after season we have heard fairy 
tales of how, thanks to the excellent game laws of the 
Province and their thorough enforcement, the num- 
ber of deer, instead of decreasing, has been actually 
increasing, notwithstanding the invasion of the bush 
by hordes of hunters and hounds. The fact of the 
matter is that the number of deer is fast becoming 
smaller except in the more remote and inaccessible 
localities, and that they will be practically exterminated 
within a few years unless our boasted game laws are 
changed. The change that is wanted is the prahibitioft 
of hounding. This has been advised by the Govern- 
ment's Game Commissioners, as well as by others, but 
the pressure from the bounders and the butchers who 
murder deer in the water has been too strong, the 
game act remained unchanged and the slaughter has 
been unchecked. Even bounders begin to realize this 
and some of them suggest remedies such as limiting 
each hunter to one deer — anything but the prohibition 
of hounding. Let us hope that the Government will 
take action during the coming session. First let hound- 
ing be prohibited. This done, the hunters should be 
restricted to killing bucks only. This plan has been 
adopted in other countries with good results, and has 
been applied in Ontario to moose and caribou. Why 
not to deer also? It would not only help to keep up 
the number of the latter, but the necessity for looking 
for antlers might prevent the shooting of men in mis- 
take for deer, and there appears to be no good reason 
why each hunter should not be allowed to kill two 
bucks if he can. 
There are proposals to change the season, making 
it open later, as it is argued that venison is liable to 
spoil in the early part of November. Some may have 
spoiled during the season just ended, but it was ex- 
ceptionally mild. However, no great harm would be 
done by having the season open later, nor, if hound- 
ing be stopped and none but bucks killed, by lengthen- 
ing it by a week or ten days. — Canadian Champion. 
In the Yellowstone Patk, 
The usual amount of game has come down out of 
the mountains. Elk are very thick. I do not notice 
any particular increase in the number of antelope. I 
think covotes and other animals have taken almost 
all the increase. There is a lot of sheep and mule 
deer. The sheep have done better than the antelope. 
A mountain lion was killed about Nov. 25 in Gar- 
diner Caiion by Scout Holt. It had just killed a 
coyote. Something new to us. Holt saw tbe kill 
made down by the river, which leads us to think the 
coyote had gone there for water and was sick. Pos- 
sibly it had got hold of some poison. There is lots of 
strychnine out. The lion was taking the coyote up 
the side of the canon when shot. If they would kiU 
coyotes and not sheep they would be useful animals 
in the Park. 
The wild things around here are getting very tame. 
Teams pass down within a few feet of them unnoticed. 
The other day the mail stage had to stop_ for a buck 
mule deer in the road. The team was afraid to go on, 
and it was some time before the deer would get out 
of the way. As it was the running season there was 
some danger from the buck. They are getting too 
tame. I told the driver, Morrison, to carry a lot of 
good-sized rocks on the seat to throw at the bucks 
when they would not let the U. S. mail pass. I have 
known mountain sheep to be very slow about getting 
out of the road. 
The railroad is completed to Gardiner, by spring I 
hope to be able to sell out and move my roll of blan- 
kets to Seattle and Alaska. There is considerable 
snow here for Gardiner, about 4 inches. About 18 
inches at Swan Lake flat, 12 at Mammoth Hot Springs, 
3 feet between Norris and the Canon. I don't see 
Where all the game is going to get food th*is winter. 
Major Pitcher will feed the antelope_ when they re- 
quire it. They range now from Gardiner to the first 
fence this side of Cinnabar. T. E. H. 
Black Rivet Association* 
Utica, N. Y., Dec. 2.— The Black River Fish and Game 
Protective Association held its fifteenth annual meeting 
on Dec. i, and many matters of interest to true sports- 
men Avere considered. The report of Treasurer H. _A. 
Pride showed the financial condition of the organization 
to be very satisfactory. Secretary W. E. Wolcott pre- 
sented his annual report. 
Resolutions were adopted declaring it to be the sense 
of the Association that the open season for deer should 
be from Sept. 15 to Oct. 31, both inclusive; that the sale 
in the market of venison, grouse, woodcock, squirrels, 
wild ducks, wild geese, snipe and plover, killed in New 
York State, should be prohibited; that the Legislature^ at 
its coming session should make a liberal^ appropriation 
for the purchase of additional forest lands in the Adiron- 
dack region. 
The following officers were elected : President, Wil- 
liam L. Fowler, Holland Patent; Vice-President, Ed. 
Robertson, Trenton; Secretary, W. E. Wolcott, Utica; 
Treasurer, H. A. Pride, Holland Patent; Directors: John 
W. Hicks, Marcy; Frank S. Fowler,, Oriskany Falls; 
John C. Thomas, Remsen; Ed. Robertson, Trenton : 
George G. Chassell, H. A. Pride, Ira L. Park, Holland 
Patent; Delegates to State Convention: W. E. Wolcott, 
W. L. Fowler. ^ W. E. Wolcott. 
Pennsylvania Grouse. 
Sayre, Pa., Dec. 5. — Ruffed grouse are plenty in all 
the favorite covers of northern Pennsylvania. A good 
many bevies of quail are also reported. Gray squirrels 
were found in plentiful numbers and rabbits are every- 
where abundant. 
Mr. Benjamin S. Warner, of Sayre, a long-time reader 
of Forest and Stream, and the owner of a Gladstone set- 
ter that is a sure enough meat dog, is just back from a 
week's outing at Browntown, Wyoming county, and re- 
ports quail more plentiful in that vicinity than for sev- 
eral seasons past. Mr. Warner htmted largely over posted 
grounds, and the shooting he enjoyed was of an excep- 
tionally high class character. 
Benjamin Stone recently made a double on ruffed 
grouse in a bit of shooting country just out of Athens 
that is somewhat remarkable and worthy of note. 
A grouse arose directly in front of Stone, and on the 
instant he sho't at this bird a second grouse flew into 
the exact line of fire, and both birds were killed. 
If in the bright lexicon of sportsmanship there is such 
an existing fact as a cinch, then the lean and supple youth 
from the historic environs of Athens certainly acquired it 
on the occasion mentioned. M. Chu,i., 
