106 
FORfisT AUt> ^ STREAM. 
[Feb. 6, 1904. 
It may be said that„±he above are exceptional cases. 
The second may be, but the first, unfortunately, was 
commonly practiced by many people who frequented 
the Adirondacks, and was even encouraged by men 
who leased, for short periods, small inns and hunting 
lodges for the profits arising frofii the accommodation 
of guests, and by certain guides. The slaughter of deer 
in this way was very great. The lessees did not care 
for the future of the country, or the deer, and the guides 
only considered present profits, not realizing that their 
future, as guides, depended upon there being deer in 
the woods and fish in the streams. A guide, I know, 
who once indulged in these practices has since seen 
his error and has become one of the strongest op- 
ponents to hounding in the North Woods. He now 
says: "One live deer in the woods is worth ten dead 
deer to me." 
We. decided to make a trip from our camp on Albany 
to see what was going on at the neighboring lake, as 
ihcre were hounds in the woods every day. We found 
(.nc of these little inns with half a dozen j^uests, and 
there were seven dead deer hanging in the woods 
vsome of them spoiling) near the inn. They were 
putting out some six or eight hounds every day; the 
guests taking positions on the various lakes, or bays 
of the larger lakes, in boats with their guides. When 
the deer took to deep water in any of these lakes to 
avoid the hounds, he was — what shall I say? — "killed" 
or "murdered!" 
The above is a fair specimen of the hounding of 
d^r on lakes in the Adirondacks, and of the number so 
k'^i'ed and wasted, and this occurred on many, many 
lakes, alas! 
I do not mean to imply that all hounding is unsports- 
manlike. Not at all. In many kinds of hunting it is 
necessary, and was practiced in the Adirondacks by 
some hunters in an entirely sportsmanlike manner. 
They took stands near a ford on some little river, or 
on a runway, and they used rifles, never shotguns. The 
-number of deer killed in this way was comparatively 
small. I do mean to say, however, that if hounding is 
permitted in the Adirondacks, these unsportsmanlike 
practices cannot be prevented and, with the present 
greatly increased facilities of getting into the woods, 
the slaughter of deer would be so great that the num- 
ber of deer in the woods would rapidly diminish, and 
the greatest sport for the largest number would last 
but a short time. 
Hunters the world over have found that local in- 
terests are often careless, and look to immediate profits 
and advantages, that the protection of game by law is 
necessary to prevent its virtual extinction, and that 
proper protection gives the greatest sport to the largest 
number in the long run. 
I. wish to briefly mention two other matters relating 
to hounding and protection, and possible increase of 
deer, and to still-hunting: 
Independent of the inevitable slaughter of deer where 
hounding is permitted in a country abounding in lakes, 
many experienced woodsmen believe that the running 
of, deer by hounds seriously interferes with the does and 
prospective fawns; that hounding cuts both ways. From 
my own observation (this letter is too long to permit 
of further details), and my hunting has not been con- 
fined to . the Adirondacks, the absence of hounding 
tends very greatly to the increase of the deer, and also 
to their comparative tameness and approachableness, 
making still-hunting much easier and, therefore, to be 
enjoyed by a larger number of people. 
I know that I voice the feelings of true sportsmen, 
and of a large number of men who have property in- 
terests, or reside in many parts of the Adirondacks. 
Thoughtful consideration can but lead to the very 
general approval of the views set forth above, as they 
are not only in line with true sportsmanship, but will, 
in the long run, prove advantageous to the guides, per- 
manent residents and regular visitors. Good hunting 
will hold the old frequenters and attract new visitors 
who- will otherwise go to other parts of the country 
or Canada, where game is carefully protected, and the 
hunting (becoming) much better. 
Keep the hounds out, let the deer have a chance^ to 
increase, and we shall not only enjoy better hunting 
ourselves, but we shall leave some for our children. 
Nat. Henchman Davis. 
Cincinnati, Jan, 25.- 
Canton, N. Y., Jan. 25. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
The season is now open for game law tinkering. _ I see 
that a few who are interested express their opinions, 
hopes, and desires in Forest and Stream, and will, 
with your permission and assistance, join tlie slender 
crowd. 
First, is any amendment necessary? If not, why not 
let it alone? If change is needed, why, and what should 
this change be? If the supply of game is being main- 
tained, why curtail the privileges of any person to kill? 
How can you tell whether the supply is being main- 
tained or, not? You cannot, except in a general way. 
If our chief warden keeps tab on all sorts of reports and 
information from year to year he can strike a sort 01 
general average. More than this no one can do, as deer 
drift about. How far they drift I do not know, but I 
know that often a fresh track cannot be seen in a neigh- 
borhood where a few days previous the ground was cut 
up like a sheep yard, while one mile or five away the con- 
ditions will be reversed. 
VVe legislate for the hunter, not for the deer. -One 
hunter wants to kill early in the season. I do. I want 
to take my family to camp any time from August 15 to 
September i. I want to kill a deer, hang it in the ice 
house, and loaf around until it is eaten. Then, if the 
party is large enough, I like to get another and do the 
same way with it. Then come home. I seldom bring any 
venison home. Now and then perhaps a piece to a friend 
who cannot go for it himself. I have not jerked a poiind 
of meat in many years. I never sold any in my life. 
There are those who like to sell enough to at least pay 
a part of the expenses of the trip. There are others who 
wish to go to the woods later on. A jolly party ,of men, 
and they like to kill and eat, and then bring home one or 
two deer each. They want a late season to get a tracking 
snow. They will tell you that meat will spoil in Sep- 
tember. Sure it will if not taken care of. But why not 
take care of it? Even if you have no ice you can keep it 
ten days if you but use a little care. How? Skin your 
deer, hunt out a dry place between the roots of some 
good sized tree, scrape away the leaves down to hard 
ground, spread your hide flesh side up on it, sprinkle a 
little salt over the hide; next cut the meat off the bones 
in pieces about the right size for jerking, toss them on to 
the skin, sprinkle the meat with salt, just enough for 
cooking purposes, draw the edges of the. skin up around 
the meat, being careful meanwhile to have kept the flies 
off ; be sure that only the flesh side of the skin touches 
the meat, tuck all the edges in with care, so no flies can 
get through, cover with moss, three, four, or even six 
inches deep, cover this with boughs, then with a bit of 
bark or sticks, not too heavy, but enough to keep the 
boughs and moss in place. Go to your cache in a week, 
and if you do not find your venison perfectly sweet (even 
though the skin may be spoiled), your experience will not 
be mine. 
Schools begin about September i. The law already 
cuts off teachers and students and parents whose children 
attend school. I send my school children home to board 
with the neighbors until the madame and I return. If 
you shorten the open season by cutting off the early part, 
you shut out everybody except the hardy men who like 
the chill November weather. That you can preserve the 
deer (if that is the object) by cutting off the November 
hunting, there is no doubt. The question is, is it neces- 
sary, and is it fair toward that class of hunters? I will 
not attempt to answer the question. 
There is yet another class of hunters ; one or more have 
spoken in your columns. These are the men who live on 
the borders of the woods, say within its borders. A large 
majority of these residents are honest, hard working men^ 
who seldom or never hunt. Now and then, mostly one 
or more in every backwoods neighborhood you find the 
exception. No use to legislate for him, for he goes his 
own way, and hunts whenever he pleases. In the legal 
open season he hunts openly, and sells his meat. During 
the close season he is close mouthed, and the game war- 
den who catches him is a dandy. Perhaps he ought not 
to be caught. If he and his family endure the hardships 
and privations of the woods, maybe his violations of 
game la.ws ought to be condoned. Mostly it is, for it is 
pretty hard to convict him except on the most positive 
evidence. 
In your last week's issue I notice that a gentleman 
from Essex county advocates a return to hounding. He 
asks that if the whole State does not want that, that cer- 
tain counties, among them St. Lawrence, be given such a 
law. Since when, I would like to ask, has the gentleman 
from Essex been given authority to speak for the hunters 
of St. Lawrence? If he will but search the records of 
the St. Lawrence county Board of Supervisors, he will 
find that they prohibited hounding (under power given 
them by State law) long before the entire State became 
non-hounding. He will find that the first non-hounding 
law for the State was introduced by Gen. N. Martin 
Curtis, then a member of Assembly from St. Lawrence. 
He did it by request of a very large majority of the 
hunters of St. Lawrence. A year later the law was re- 
pealed, but at our special request St. Lawrence was ex- 
cepted, and we have never had a hounding law since, 
and we never will if we can prevent it. 
After St. Lawrence had a non-hounding law for a few 
years — the rest of the State meanwhile using hounds — 
we were overrun with hunters from other counties be- 
cause we had deer while they had none. And I think if 
the gentleman from Essex could make the law (exclud- 
ing St. Lawj"«nce) he would be up in St. Lawrence look- 
ing for venison within the next five years. We will keep 
the dog? out, and if he does come he will find deer. I 
fancy, however, that there is very little danger of a 
hounding law. J. H. Rushton. 
Mr. Clarence L. P-arker, of Norwich, N. Y., has ad- 
dressed a letter ip the Forest, Fish, and Game Com- 
mission relative to proposed changes in the New York 
law, in which he says, regarding Adirondack deer 
hounding: 
Essex county's Board of Supervisors has passed a reso- 
lution asking the Legislature to allow the use of dogs for 
driving or hounding deer in that county. What effect 
and results can be expected in case it becomes lawful to 
use dogs for such purpose in Essex county? 
It will largely counteract the good results already ob- 
tained by the law making the use of dogs, for these pur- 
poses, illegal in the Adirondacks. It will help educate 
sentiment and public opinion for game protection and 
preservation in the wrong direction. It will be a large 
and harmful step backwards. Even allowing the use of 
dogs to run, drive, or hound foxes and rabbits v^ill be 
harmful, for it gives, an excuse for keeping dogs in the 
woods, and it follows that the temptation to drive or 
hound deer will be added to and actually done. 
The State paid out thousands and thousands of dollars 
to get the wolves out of the woods. One ciir dog will 
kill more deer in a year than a wolf in its lifetime. _A 
wolf only kills to eat and satisfy its hunger ; a dog kills 
for slaughter all he can reach, same as "sheep-killing" 
dogs do. 
How about our large game — elk, moose, caribou, black- 
tail deer, etc.? Our State has bought and set at liberty 
some of these; public spirited gentlemen have , furnished 
m.any more, and there is good reason to expect that, with 
proper and adequate protection, the Adirondacks may 
again become stocked with large game. 
Give the right to use dogs for driving or hotinding 
deer, even in one county in the Adirondacks, and it will 
largely, if not entirely, in the end destroy the expected 
increase of large game. One cause not always recognized 
is the large number of does which go "dry" or "barren" 
each season from the effect of having been chased and 
disturbed by dogs in the rutting season. 
A deer which has been dogged, hounded, or driven by 
dogs until it is heated and tired out will plunge into, a 
river or lake, where it is generally killed by those who 
wait to shoot it.. Sometimes it is headed off from the 
shore by men in a boat and shot, or clubbed to death with 
an oar, or has its head held under water and drowned, or 
caught the tail and its throat cut 
It seems none of these ways of killing appeal to us as i 
fair or sportsmanlike; besides which the venison is not I 
only unfit for food, but is poisonous and detrimental to ' 
health. If our butchers run, or worried, or heated beef: 
and mutton in this way and sold it to us, we would take : 
action against them in our courts. 
Public opinion in the Adirondacks and through the ; 
State has been educated to a point where it approves laws; 
which prohibit the sale of trout, partridge, and wood-i 
cock; also the prohibition by law of shipping the same, v 
unless accompanied by parties who own them, and then? 
in limited numbers and quantity only.. 'j 
These laws, with the shortening of the open seasons, ! 
with not allowing jacking, killing deer at salt-licks, or I 
the use of dogs to drive or hound deer, have resulted 
in a large increase of native deer in the Adirondacks, and : 
of all these it seems quite evident that prohibiting the use ; 
of dogs in that section has been most conducive to this;i, 
large increase. , ' 
The writer has had over twenty-five years' experience 
in the Adirondacks, has also had experience in thci 
Southern States and in the Rocky Mountains, and in the 
Alleghany Mountains, as far back as the year 1867. j 
From personal knowledge and observation, as well as] 
from the Hps of experienced men in camp, town, and vil-; 
lage, he can state there are more deer, many more, now I 
than twenty—five years ago in the Adirondacks. 
He believes no backward steps should be taken, no'' 
restrictions removed, and nothing in any way done which 
will tend in the least to retard the satisfactory increase 
of our native white-tail deer in our State; nor that will 
help to again exterminate the large game in the 
Adirondacks. 
If one county allows the use of dogs it will cause muchiil 
trouble, litigation, and shooting of dogs. Neither men,' 
as a rule, nor the game, or the dogs know where the' 
county lines are, and care less, as a rule, when at such 
so-called sport, and in the adjoining counties which do ■ 
not allow hounding or driving with dogs the officers and 
those who oppose the use of dogs will be on the lookout 
to cause legal trouble and to shoot dogs. 
Some Alaska Moose Heads. 
PeA6e Dale, R. L, Jan. 20. — Editor Forest and Streamri 
Some time ago, about last November, you reprinted dn| 
extract from a Tacoma paper giving an account of mod!?e| 
heads brought down from Alaska this fall. As that wasl 
very incorrect I inclose a more complete list of thosej 
from the Cook's Inlet country. I 
Seven parties were hunting on the Kenai Peninsula for*^ 
moose this fall, two of Americans and five of foreigners.;! 
The heads they brought out were as follows, as the Gov-'; 
ernment allows but one moose head to a hunter to be 
exported : 
Messrs. Fobes and Hazard, who- hunted with the guide' 
Emil Berg west of Kussiloff Lake, a 74^ and a 72-incb; 
head respectively. 
Mr. Handburry, with the half-breed guide, Philip 
Young, from the same district, a 71-inch head 
Mr. A. J. Stone, with the. guide John Kilpatrick, from 
Kachemak Bay, a 70-inch head. , 
Lord Elphinstone and Mr. Vanderbyle, who were witli'' 
the Indian guide. Bill Hunter, on the second Kenai Lake,'" 
had a head of 44 points and 68-inch spread, one horii^ 
having a double row of points — -shot by Lord Elphin-? 
stone — and a 69-ich head by Mr. Vanderbyle. 
The others, except Dr. Maurer, who had a small head; 
took out heads from 66 to 69 inches. 
Captain Radcliff bought for the British Museum a heac 
shot last year (1902) by Andrus Berg, which he had; 
measured 77 inches, but we only made 75 with a stee!, 
tape this fall. It was a twisted, irregular head. The 
four heads over 70 inches were all quite re.gi:lar, witl' 
good palmation. Mr. Hazard's 72 had a 20-inch pain: 
and 40 points. 
Mr. Handbury weighed his moose by cutting hin 
into small pieces, and found him 1,576 pounds. i 
J. W. Fobes. I 
The Docks and the Cheese. 1 
Editor Forest and Stream: | 
I have just read a communication in your January i<| 
number, by Mr. Charles Cristadoro, under the caption' 
"High Game." Mr. Cristadoro, whose articles are alway' 
read with relish, ends this one with a curious statement 
to wit, that an empty can that had contained Limburgeij 
cheese, having been carelessly thrown , behind his duel 
blind, had caused the ducks to fly shy of that blind, whicl' 
he attributes to the strong scent of the cheese assailing' 
the olfactories of the flying ducks. 
It is a question whether Mr. Cristadoro intends thi. 
for a joke or for sober earnest. Assuming the latter t(, 
be true, several objections to his theory present them 
selves. 
First, it is my impression that a verdict has been ren 
dered by investigators upon the question of the smellins; 
capabilities of birds, with the result that their olfactor; 
machinery has been pronounced non-effective ; in othe ; 
words, that birds do not possess the smelling faculty 
The common impression that carrion crows and turke; 
vultures .are attracted to dead carcasses by the effluvi. 
sent forth is pronounced to be a fallacy, the powers 0 
vision alone being brought into play to discover th 
quarry. 
The -second point I have to offer is that even had th 
ducks' noses been regaled by the rich aroma of the Lira 
burger, they should not have associated the smell with th 
presence of men, or at all events live men, and dead me: 
should have no terrors for ducks. 
In the third place, Limburger cheese could hardly ex 
ert such a powerful influence on the surrounding ai 
mosphere as to project its scent to the approachin 
ducks, as it is frequently tolerated in German eatin: 
houses without giving offense to the noses of promises 
cus patrons. 
And lastly, a tin can exposed to the view of the ducl<: 
should sufficiently account for their shyness of the blimi 
as I have known a white shirt collar worn by the hunte 
to have a similar effect, and have also_ found it necessar 
to smear mud over the freshly cut willow stumps, mad; 
in building the blind, to obliterate the whiteness. 
Coahoma^ 
