March 19, 1904.] 
FOREST . AND STREAM. 
281 
"But such wrongful use does not entitle plaintifY to 
pursue the remedy of injunction, except upon a show- 
ing of some special or peculiar injury to plaintif?. And 
ihp. question follows: What special injury does_ plain- 
tiff suffer by reason of defendant's conduct in this 
respect ? 
"It is admitted that pl?.intif¥ has invested large sums 
of money in these,, premises and that their chief value 
consists in the shooting privileges thus afforded. It 
is also conceded that by reason of the natural advan- 
taees and conditions existing on this land, ducks and 
wildfowl congregate there in great numbers during 
the open season, and when unmolested they make these 
vvaters their natural resting and feeding places, and in 
their flight from place to place upon these premises they 
furnish peculiar opportunites to the hunter for shoot- 
ing, and it is also admitted that the advantages and 
benefits thus afforded of pass-shooting on these par- 
ticular premises are of the value of $50,000 to the plain- 
tiff. It is also admitted that the shooting by defendant 
on the adjoining highway frightens away these wild- 
fowl, to the serious damage and injury of the pass- 
shooting privileges thereon. 
"But defendant contends, and it is unquestionably 
the law, that no person has any right of property in 
wild game, even upon his own premises, until he;has 
reduced it to actual possession by killing or taking; 
and defendant urges that plaintiff cannot be damaged 
in respect to the wildfowl on these premises because 
plaintiff has no property interest in these birds, and, 
further, because the defendant being in the highway 
has committed no trespass on plaintiff's lands. 
"While the principles of law stated are undoubtedly 
correct, they have no application under the facts in 
this case. 
"These premises are chiefly valuable not for the 
game therccn, but for the shooting privileges. They 
afford unusr.al opportunities for the enjoyment of the 
sport called pass-shooting. It is a matter of common 
knowledge that wild ducks are peculiar in this, that 
in tlicir flight from one feeding ground to another, as 
well as in their migratory flights, they quite uniformly 
fly or pass over certain places and pursue certain lines 
day after day and season after season, and such places, 
when well defined and established, are termed by 
hunters 'duck-passes,' and it is not uncommon for 
persons to pay large prices for land that has no other 
value than the opportunity it affords for the enjoyment 
• of so-called pass-shooting. By reason of the natural 
conditions and products of plaintiff's premises, wild- 
fowl of this description gather there in great numbers 
and when unmolested and not disturbed by defendant 
fly within easy range over certain passes on plaintiff's 
premises, and so furnish unusual opportunities _ for the 
indulgence of shooting privileges; and the enjoyment 
of this privilege is not necessarily dependent upon the 
ability of the hunter to reduce the game to possession. 
These duck-passes furnish shooting privileges not found 
elsewhere. These privileges are dependent upon the 
waters and feeding grounds and upon the conditions 
peculiar to these particular premises and surroundings, 
and in this sense are natural to the land and constitute 
a valuable property right that runs with the fee,_ and 
defendant has no more right to go upon the adjoining 
highway and persistently shoot and deliberately injure 
and destroy this privilege of plaintiff than he would 
have to maintain thereon some unheard-of device that 
would accomplish the same purpose. In either case, 
h.e infringes upon a valuable right incident to plaintiff's 
enjoyment of the fee in his land, and for this reason 
should be enjoined." 
la North Carolina. 
Raleigh, N. C, March 4. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
The writer has referred to the fact that the Audubon 
law has been excellently enforced in most of the post 
counties in 'North Carolina, particularly in Currituck and 
Dare, where the duck shooting is of the greatest im- 
portance. In Dare county the killing" of ducks at night 
by fire lighting has been completely stopped, but daring 
and dangerous residents of Carteret county have con- 
tinued to conduct this illegal shooting of wildfowl, 
threatening to kill persons who interfered with them. 
The game wardens first appointed there failed to do their 
duty, but a new one has been put in authority who has 
lost no time in making arrests. Using a very swift 
naphtha launch, he ran down and captured two fire- 
lighters in Core Sound, having caught them in the act. 
These men are now in jail at Beaufort, and will be tried. 
The local officials there failed to enforce the law. Not 
many persons were engaged in fire-lighting, and several 
of them were known. It is expected that these arrests 
v/ill stop the business. The men will be probably both 
imprisoned and fined. 
The game warden for this (Wake) county has been 
doing considerable special duty in other counties during 
the past sixty days, having been in fifteen or twent}', and 
inspecting shipments from various junction points on the 
railways in search of contraband game. Secretary Pear- 
son, of the State Audubon Society, got wind of the fact 
that some northern sportsmen in the counties of Rich- 
mond and Montgomery were adopting a new trick in get- 
ting partridges out of the State — that is, using the mails. 
Warden Upchurch has returned from a trip in both those 
counties and finds that in Richmond county fifty-nine 
licenses have been issued this season to northern sports- 
men, and that two or three of the latter have been ship- 
ping partridges north by mail, placing the birds, two or 
three, in empty shell boxes. The sportsmen have now 
gone home. The whole_ matter has been laid before the 
United States Commissioner here, who will co-operate 
with the State authorities in enforcing the law. 
Mention has been made of the fact that Game Warden 
Weatherly, of Guilford county, uses a very fine setter 
dog to aid him in spotting partridges shipped under dis- 
guise as all sorts of things, the warden and the dog visit- 
ing the trains at Greensboro, and the dog nosing out the 
birds no matter whether concealed in packages of butter 
or what not. But now comes a gentleman who says that 
the dog is all a bluff — that Warden Weatherly has had 
the tip as to the contents of the packages, and that he 
simply takes the dog along, The 4og is right there, how- 
ever, and is as much interested in the business as his 
master, no matter whether the latter has had the tip as 
to the birds or not. At Tarboro the young lady who is 
in charge of the local express office has certainly used a 
dog for two seasons to find birds. She was a pioneer 
in this business, since Warden Weatherly only began 
this winter. At Tarboro there is a very strong club of 
sportsmen, which really controls the whole county. In 
that county no birds are sold, the sportsmen forbidding 
this. In other words they go out and shoot, and anyone 
who gets license, coming from another State, is given 
liberty to shoot, but birds must not be shipped out, nor 
must they be sold, A bird seller is simply barred. This 
brings up the fact that there are a great many sportsmen 
in this State who would be glad to see the Audubon law 
so amended as to prohibit the selling of partridges. This 
selling certainly promotes pot-hunting, and the writer 
has heard of men in the vicinity of Raleigh whose only 
purpose is to kill the greatest number of birds, no mat- 
ter whether they shoot them on the ground or not, and 
who will destroy the last bird in a covey. One restaura- 
teur here has sold more than 8,000 partridges this season, 
these being bought from professional hunters or from 
farmers who make quite a business of hunting during the 
game season. The fai'mers are becoming exceptionally 
fine shots, and it requires crack sportsmen to keep up 
with them. There are plenty of farmers in this county 
who think nothing of killing forty to fifty birds a day, 
bring them in here and selling them for I2j^ cents 
apiece, that being the standard price this season. 
Jtist Happened So/' 
Several years ago while at Stilwell, Indian Territory, 
in the interests of the United States Biological Survey, 
a man called at the hotel and offered to guide me to a 
cave where I would be able to collect some bats. Half 
an hour later we were on the way. The trail led through 
a broken country covered with heavy oak timber. Wish- 
ing to secure a few flying squirrels, I hammered on the 
trunk of every hollow tree that we passed, hoping to scare 
one or more of the rodents out. 
Finally one launched into the air, but before I could 
shoot, it glided to another tree, and, running up the bark,' 
entered a hole. All our efforts to force it from its hiding 
place failed, so my companion suggested that he shoot a 
ball from his Winchester .44 into the tree a few inches 
beneath the cavity, to which I consented. Still the squir- 
rel obstinately, refused to appear; so I climbed the tree, 
and, on putting my hand into the cavity, pulled out the 
warm body of a full-grown gray squirrel. The rifle ball 
had pierced the thin shell of bark and wood, and entered 
the animal back of the shoulder. On turning my hand 
and reaching upward, I touched the flying squirrel, which 
darted past my fingers and out of the hole, only to meet its 
death a few seconds later by a charge of fine shot. 
Again, while collecting specimens at the foot of Mt. 
Otis, in the Bear Paw Mountains of Montana, I set a 
steel trap for a ground squirrel, and as they are small 
animals, I simply drove the staple to the trap into the 
hard ground. Further on I set another trap in a well- 
worn cattle trail ; this I fastened securely, intending it for 
foxes. That night a skunk, while prowling about, got 
caught in trap No. i, pulled up the staple, and, following 
the path, trailed the chain across the pan of trap No. 2, 
which sprang it, and the following morning I found the 
skunk a captive in two traps, set fully half a mile apart. 
J. Alden Loring. 
OWEGO, N. Y. 
New Mountain Goats. 
It has long been recognized by hunters that in the 
white goats there is a great variation in size. Many 
adults are killed which are very small, and on the other 
hand, now and then one may come across a perfect mon- 
ster, which seems two or three times as large as the ordi- 
nary ones. This difference has recently been recognized 
by Dr. J. A. Allen, of the American Museum of Natural 
History, who separates the forms of white goat into three 
geographical races ; one from the Cascade Mountains ; a 
much larger form, with a longer and narrower skull, 
from British Columbia ; and a much smaller form of the 
same type of skull as the last from Montana and Idaho. 
In all the forms, the coat is white, and the animals look 
substantially alike, so that the distinctive characters must 
rest on size and the form of skull, for the present. 
These forms are distinguished as follows : 
Size medium, skull broad: Oreamnos montanus mon- 
ianus (Ord.). 
Size large, skull narrow: O. montanus columbianus ; 
new sub-species. 
Size small, skull narrow: O. montanus missoulce; new 
sub-species. 
The material on which the twO' sub-pieces are based 
consists of nineteen specinients ; three from the Cascades, 
seven from British Columbia, eight from Montana, and 
one from Idaho. . 
Lost Island Shooters. 
Marshalltown, la., March 10. — Messrs. D. W. Norris, 
Jr., and Dr. Kibbey, members of the Lost Island Duck 
Shooting Club, left here to-day for the shooting lodge at 
Lost Island Lake, near Ruthven, to prepare for the other 
members of the club who will follow later, when the 
flight of the deep-water ducks begins. Among those who 
are practically certain to spend a few days at the shack 
are H. P. Densel, C. P. Cook, Charles Hull, L. C. Abbott, 
and possibly a few other Marshalltown members and Wm. 
Allington, of Webster City, la. 
The Marshalltown shack at Lost Island has long been 
a fixture. From a small beginning,, it has grown into a 
comfortable shooting box, capable of accommodating a 
dozen, shooters comfortably. A sleeping box is being 
added this spring, fitted with bunks and wash-stands. 
Lost Island is a famous ducking place, and usually 
affords sport, if any lake in northern Iowa does so. 
The Marshalltown sportsmen rarely return empty-handed 
from Ruthven. Their system is an excellent one. Their 
outing lasts there a fortnight or longer, and during this 
time there is certain to offer two or three days of rapid 
shooting. Last year's bag was satisfactory to the shooters 
who stayed it out, and the water this year promises good 
sport, _ ./. "."^ 'V ' - _ ^ MoscRi?, 
Good Old Black Powdef. 
The following interesting communication was recently 
received by the E. I. DuPont Company: 
PotsdaMj N. Y., Feb. 24. — DuPont Powder Company: 
Dear Sirs — I have in my possession some DuPont powder 
that was bought about fifty years ago by my uncle and 
grandfather. They owned two rifles and did lots of shoot- 
ing, so they bought a considerable quantity of powder 
and stored it in a large stone heap on my father's farm 
at a safe distance from the building. Uncle took to fever 
and died; grandfather never shot much more and died 
not long after ; my father was no gunner, so the powder, 
or portion of it, was left until about fifteen years ago I 
went and dug it out. There was a large flat stone over 
the box, and about two dozen %.-^omiA cans — round cans, 
I think, with an Indian's picture on each one. They were 
badly rusted. I picked the rusted can from around the 
caked powder, broke it up and sifted out the dust, leaving 
the powder looking quite natural, but for some red grains 
that showed the rust. I saved four pounds. I never 
tried it till last fall I loaded .38-72 shells with it, and 
some with some DuPont bought recently. The old pow- 
der shot fully as strong as the new. 
Yours truly, W. A. Clark, 
A Coon Hwnt in which the Coon was the 
Hunter. 
At a certain Adirondack cottage last season something 
disturbed things frequently. A jar of butter set under the 
house to keep cool, was broken into ; a tub of beef in 
process of corning was robbed; a jar of suet on the back 
piazza was tipped over, broken, and some of the fat 
eaten ; and many other depredations of like character 
committed. Several times the robber had been seen in 
the evening by ladies of the family, and to them he looked 
so big that the male contingent determined to watch for 
the thief and stop his thieving. Opportunity came one 
moonlit night. 
Seen through a window and stretched over a pail in the 
shadow, the animal looked big as a half bushel. But he 
could not be shot just there, and so the broken jar of suet 
was placed in the moonlight in range of an open window, 
and gun in hand, the avenger waited. He did not have to 
wait long. Quietly and with great dignity, as though en- 
tirely within his rights, Mr. Coon came out of the woods 
again — right along the path to the house — and stopped to 
regale himself with the suet, so easily found in its new 
place. 
Accounts were squared when the shotgun spoke. 
Juvenal. 
A New Lake. 
A remarkable phenomenon is reported from the Rus- 
sian rural commune of Schava, in the Government of 
Tzareff Koksaka. Inexplicable sounds were heard for 
several days issuing from the earth. The sounds varied 
from something like the booming of cannon to the 
screeching of steam whistles, and seemed to come from a 
forest skirting the commune. In this forest, where the 
terrified peasantry gathered in expectation of some 
calamity, the earth was seen to heave incessantly. 
Gradually huge cracks appeared, water was seen, at last 
the earth seemed gradually to sink, water rose, and there 
appeared a new lake of considerable extent, which is now 
being examined by geologists. — St. James's Gazette. 
Legislation at Albany. 
Albany, March 12. — The following bills amending _ the fish, 
forest and game laws have been introduced in the Legislature: 
Senator Stevens' (Int. No. 982), amending Section 176 so as to 
provide that special protectors may, when they hold the Com- 
mission's certificate that they are regularly employed by a board 
of supervisors or an incorporated society for the protection of 
fish and game, have the same power and right of search without 
a warrant as regular protectors. 
Assemblyman Bedell's (Int. No. 951), amending Section 75 so. 
as to allow the use of scoop nets in Wallkill Creek or River in the 
town of Wallkill, Orange county. 
Assemblyman F. C. Wood's (Int. No. 950), amending Section 
172 so as to increase the annual compensation of protectors to 
$600, with $600 for expenses. 
Senator Goodsell's, amending Section 75. (Same as Bedell bill, 
above.) 
The Senate has passed the following bills : 
Assemblyman Reeve's (370 — 623), amending Section 101, so as to 
provide that deer shall only be taken between one-half hour before 
sunrise and one-half hour after sunset on the first two Wednes- 
days and the first two Fridays after the first Tuesday of November, 
and that possession between Aug. 31 and the first Wednesday 
after the first Tuesday in November, and between the second 
Friday after the first Tuesday and the 2Cth of November, shall be 
conclusive evidence of a violation of this section, unles it appear 
that the same was lawfully killed within the State, or was killed 
without the State. 
Assemblyman Reeve's (438—477) amending Section 158 relative 
to renewals of leases of oyster lands. 
(The last two bills are now in the Governor's hands.) 
The Assembly has passed the following bills: 
Assemblyman Coutant's (390 — 1011), amending Section 27b so as 
to provide that the close season for grouse woodcock and quail in 
Orange, and Ulster counties shall be from Dec. 16 to Oct. 15, both 
inclusive. 
Assemblyman G. H. Whitney's (791—876), amending Section 87, 
subdivision 9, providing that perch shall not be taken in Saratoga 
county from Feb. 1 to May 1, both inclusive. 
AssemlDlyman Hanford's, amending Section 59 so as to provide 
that bullheads, catfish, eels, loerch and sunfish, and excepting the 
months of March and April, pickerel, may be taken through the 
ice with hook and line and tip-ups in Cayuta Creek and tribu- 
taries and the Suseiuehanna River and tributaries, Tioga county. 
The Senate has advanced to third reading Senator Elon R. 
Brown's bill (472 — 535), amending Section 2 relative to prescribing 
a method for acquiring land and water for State fish hatchery 
purposes. 
The Assembly has advanced to third read ng the following bills: 
Assemblyman Chanler's (870 — 1080), amending Section 86 so as 
to allow the taking of suckers through the ice in Crumelbow 
Creek, Dutchess county. 
Assemblyman Cowan's (518 — 579), amending Section 31 so as to 
provide that there shall be no open season for Mongolian ring- 
necked or English pheasants, except in Suffolk county, prior to 
1910. 
Assemblyman Matthews' (687 — 807), amending Section 44 so as 
to provide that the close season for lake trout shall be from 
Oct. 1 to April 15, 
Assemblyman Patton's (611—1063), amending Section 20 so as 
to provide that wild duck shall not be taken in Erie and Niagara 
counties from April 1 to Oct. 15, both inclusive. 
The Senate committee has reported the following bills: 
Assemblyman J, T. Smith's (293—518), providing that there shall 
be no open season for deer in Dutchess and Columbia counties 
before Sept. 1, 1908. . , , 
Senator Townsend's (15—15), adding a new section, to be known 
as Section 10a, requiring non-residents to procure licenses before 
being permitted to hunt deer. . 
Committee's bill (Senate), relative to the boundaries of the 
/^divondack Park. ' , 
