FOREST AND STREAM, 
[Marctt 26, r()n4. 
is a warning that even fawns must notice, and so the 
game can readily look after itself. Pigs and sheep are 
easdy caught, but a deer is a different proposition; 
and so it may be that Bruin is no game killer for the 
simple reason that he cannot be, even with the most 
earnest intentions. 
In the brief season when fawns are left hidden in 
the woods, while the mother feeds, the bear might 
easily destroy the little fellows, and probably does, if 
he chances to stumble upon them. At such times, how- 
ever, fawns are cunningly hidden (and probably have 
something of the game bird's power of withholding 
scent); and I judge besides that Bruin is little of a 
hunter, contenting himself with simply taking the good 
things that come his way — with an occasional ausflug 
after sheep or shots that he can get without trouble. 
At most times of the year Bruin is well fed, thanks 
to his inclusive appetite and to nature's abundance. In- 
deed, he seems to make little effort for his food, ex- 
cept to ramble about perpetually. If he finds dead 
meat, he eats it; but, judging from my own observa- 
tions, he will go further and take more trouble to get 
fish than flesh; and at all times he prefers honey and 
mast and berries and grubs to either. In the summer 
and autumn he seems to be almost entirely herbivorous. 
In the winter, when deer are in their yards and more at 
the mercy of their enemies, Bruin is safely tucked away 
where hunger does not bother him. In the spring, 
when he comes out after his long fast, he seems to 
avoid meat in the first few days; but in the absence of 
other food, will turn to whatever dead animals he can 
find. It may be at this season that he occasionally 
kills some of the animals that have been weakened by 
the long winter. All these are, of course, mere indica- 
tions, which prove nothing conclusively, but which may, 
however, point to the fact that big game suffers very 
little from this prowler in the black coat. 
In the Yellowstone Park, where one of the chief 
objects is to protect the game, bears are not molested. 
Mountain lions and wolves are shot at all seasons; but 
Bruin and old Ephraim go their peaceful ways and are 
protected like the elk and bison. Mr. C. J. Jones 
("Buffalo" Jones), game warden of the Park, says posi- 
tively that bears are not molested there simply because 
they do no harm to the game. In forty years of his 
life_ among animals, he tells me, he has known hardly 
a single case of game being destroyed by bears of any 
kind. 
Certainly in the Park, where game is so abundant, he 
has splendid opportunity to settle the question. Yet 
one man's experience counts for just for one man's 
experience and no more, in settling any question of 
animal habits. Moreover, brutes of the same species 
differ widely from one another even in the same local- 
ity._ It may possibly be that the so-called ranger bear, 
which appears occasionally and which hibernates only 
a small fraction of the winter, dui-ing the heaviest 
storms, is simply a larger bear which, contrary to the 
habit of its species, has taken to killing game and so 
does not need to den up, as his fellows do, when the 
heavy snows come. 
In speaking recently with another hunter from the 
same locality, who is a well-known' guide for the Rock- 
ies, he said decidedly that bears do destroy game; and 
he mentioned the well-known fact that in the spring 
grizzlies are often caught feeding from the carcasses 
of winter-killed elk. But when I questioned him closely 
he said frankly that he had himself never seen a specific 
case, nor did he know of one, where he was fairly sure 
that the bear had caught and killed his game. 
So there is the question with which we started. Will 
not the hunters of Forest and Stream give us their 
own observations and experience, and so help to settle 
a problem in natural history which has interested the 
writer, and no doubt other readers, for many years 
past? Incidentally it may help to settle the primary 
question whether or not Bruin should be protected in 
regions where the farmers' sheep and pigs do not turn 
the balance against him. Wm. J. Long. 
Stamford, Conn., March It. • , . 
E. J. Chase, of Newcomb, N. Y., writes in the Essex 
County Republican : 
"Since the opening of the bear protecting campaign 
I have read with much interest the various articles of 
discussion on the subject in the papers, and am pleased 
to see such strong argument drawn out against the 
protective measure, but am surprised that some of the 
stronger points have beert omitted, points which should 
have much weight in our State Legislature. 
"It is an undisputed fact that bears cause great havoc 
ni the sheep pasture, and also take pigs, calves, colts, 
etc. I wish to say right here that the strongest point 
of the whole argument is the fact that bears commit 
even greater depredations on our noble game animals, 
the deer, moose and elk. 
"It is well understood by persons having any knowl- 
edge of the nature of deer that the mother leaves her 
fawns in hiding each day or night, and proceeds to 
some distant pond or stream for feeding, and while the 
fawns are thus left they offer no resistance to the 
Inmgry bear, who very easily locates them by the use 
of his very sensitive nasal organ, and a young' deer 
makes a very desirable repast for him. 
"It has been my experience to discover where several 
fawns had been thus caught and devoured by Bruin, 
whose tracks were in evidence to prove no mistake, 
and surely if several cases of this kind have come 
within the limited scope of my experience, there must 
be a great number throughout the vast Adirondack 
wilderness. 
"The above conditions are fully applicable to the 
moose and elk, whose natures are identical with that of 
the deer. 
"The State is expending a large sum of money to -c- 
stock the Adirondacks with these noble game animals, 
and surely our legislators Vv^ill not enact laws that will 
be antagonistic to the interest sought. 
yTIie ravages of bears are unlimited; they do not hesi- 
tate to enter any stream in quest of fish, and will liter- 
ally clean them out during the spawning season. 
"They are equally as destructive to our game birds, 
and are particularly fond of taking an old partridge 
from her nest and at the same time secure the eggs 
or j'oung birds. 
"I am at a loss to conceive any possible excuse for 
any person who may wish to pass a law to protect black 
bears, unless it may be to gain notoriety in some way; 
certainly it is not for the purpose of enhancing the 
best interests of the Adirondacks." 
Alaska Indians and the Game Law. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Since so much has been printed of late regarding the 
abundance of game in Alaska, and the privations en- 
dured by the natives in consequence of the so-called 
"absurd piece of legislature," known as the Alaskan 
game law, I deem it my duty to state the facts re- 
garding the Indians and the game, as I found them 
during a visit to the Cook Inlet country in 1901. 
The enemies to the Alaskan game law assert that 
there are yet large quantities of moose, caribou, deer, 
sheep, goats and bear in Alaska. This I do not think 
will be contradicted by any sportsman who has traveled 
in the country. It is not so much a question of whether 
the game is there, as it is how long it will remain, under 
existing circumstances. The buffalo once roamed our 
western plains in such vast numbers that people said 
it was impossible to exterminate. them, yet in less than 
ten years they were wiped from the face of the earth, 
and that before the time of smokeless powder and ex- 
pansion bullets. .Are we to wait until history again 
repeats itself before we come t,o our senses? 
Speaking in a general way, game is still plentiful in 
Alaska, but the stories that one hears about the wanton 
destruction, and about its abundance fifty years ago, 
proves beyound a doubt that it is rapidly being ex- 
terminated. This is particularly true about the pop- 
ulated districts where it has become necessary for 
those dependent on the game for their food to travel 
further away before they are satisfied. Still fish are 
usually plentiful where other game is scarce. 
Is it any reason why game should not be protected 
because it is still found common? We are told that the 
ailimals are so abundant that it is nonsense to pro- 
tect them. Can anyone point to a country that has 
been civilized or is undergoing civilization, where the 
game is as abundant now as it was before firearms 
were introduced? In every case the most stringent 
laws are necessary, and we have only to look at our 
West and to Africa, to convince us that there the pro- 
tection to the animal life came too late. Is it neces- 
sary to flaunt in the face of Congress and the people, 
such chestnuts as the passenger pigeon, great auk, 
Labrador duck, American bison, and Steller's seacow ; 
and many other animals that have fallen under the ad- 
vance of civilization ; to prove to them that animals are 
exterminated regardless of their abundance. 
If the Alaskan game is to be saved, the time to act 
is before it is too late, and that time has now arrived. 
For the benefit of those who think that the natives 
never kill game without a cause, and do not waste the 
meat, I will say: 
During my trip up the Knik River, I came near 
getting into serious trouble with my three Indians, be- 
cause I would not allow them to kill everything they 
saw, from an eagle to a moose. ,j-They claimed that 
they could not live on. my larder of rice, beans, flour, 
coft'ee, milk and bacon, but must have fresh meat; and 
they wanted to kill meat to take back to their hungry 
parents. 
As we were leaving the country we came suddenly 
upon two yearling moose, I killed one and the Indians 
shot the other. No sooner had the animals fallen, than 
my guide informed me that the Indians objected to 
packing the meat (piece by piece) a quarter of a mile 
over the level (but marshy) country to our boat. And 
these were the Indians who for weeks begged me to 
allow them to kill meat for their hungry families. 
A few days later a large bull moose was seen near 
cainp. Although we had all the meat we could pos- 
sibly carry, the Indians wanted to go after it. That 
same afternoon a second moose forded the Knik River 
near us, and again the Indians would have killed it had 
I not interfered. 
One of the Indians admitted that he and a com- 
panion had shot five moose the winter before, and had 
saved the meat of but one. When asked why he did 
not take the others, he replied that they "were bulls, 
and tough." 
During the spring of 1889, an Indian killed fifty 
moose back of Tyonek, where they, were once common, 
but have since almost entirely disappeared. The North 
American Company's agent at Knik gave the Indians an 
order for twenty-four head skins from bull moose. One 
windy day the entire order was filled, and little of the 
meat from the noble animals was saved. 
My guide, Mr. H. H. Hicks, whom I found to be 
perfectly reliable . and who has lived in the country 
for six years, trading and hunting with the Indians, 
told me that they were wanton destroyers of game. 
Mr. J. L. Davis, of Kadiak, informed me that the 
Indians on Afognak Island, and the adjoining main- 
land, were killing bears during a season when their 
skins were worthless, simply saving the intestines, 
which are used to make waterproof garments. 
Game law or no game law, the Cook Inlet Indians, at 
least, will have the same hardship-starvation story to tell 
every winter. It is the perpetual winter cry of the 
entire northland, and this is a country where fish, and 
both large and small game can be secured by little ex- 
ertion. 
At the time that I visited Alaska, there was no game 
law, still I heard hunger stories from the time that I 
landed at Tyonek until I left the country. While none 
of the natives were in an actual state of starvation, 
they claimed to be in want of food, and were constantly 
begging. Yet, whenever I took a trip into the timber, 
I found snowshoe rabbits and spruce grouse common 
within three miles of the village. At Knik, some eighty 
miles northward, I heard the same stories; yet back 
of this place is where one of my Indians killed five 
moose, four months before, and saved the meat of but 
one. Moose were fairly common fifteen miles from the 
village and there was then no law to prevent theui 
being killed, yet the inhabitants were too lazy to go 
for them, .liere, also, I saw the dogs patrolling the 
beach and mud flats at lov/ tide, catching the fish that had 
become stranded in the_. pools, while their owners lay 
about camp and begged credit of the traders. 
Of course, it is harder to hunt in winter than in 
summer or in fall, but there is really no need of an 
Indian stirring from his cabin during the winter, un- 
less it be to get water and fire wood. If he so chose,, 
during the summer and fall he could lay by enoughi 
dried berries, fish and moose, caribou, deer, sheep and! 
goat meat to feed his entire family, regardless of its; 
size, for a year; yes, years. 
I will leave it to any fair-minded person, if there is-, 
an excuse for anyone going hungry in a, country where: 
berries are abundant in summer, and where from the: 
first of July until the middle of September, the salmoni 
run up the streams in such numbers, that the fishermeni 
are often obliged to allow part of their catch .to es- 
cape before they can haul their seine ashore. Eveni 
the bears glut themselves to such an extent that they 
choose what to them are the choicest parts, eating only 
the head and belly. Candle fish (small fish, so fat„ 
that when dried they will burn) are so abundant, that 
I have walked along the beach and picked up dozens 
as they were washed ashore by the waves. My:guidfe 
told me that he knew of places where, at certain times, 
he could scoop up half a bucket full at a time. 
At Skagway I saw both Indians and whites paddling 
about the bay over schools of fish (herring, I think 
they were), capturing them by means of long poles, 
having nails driven into the end at intervals of two 
inches or more. One of these poles was thrust into 
the water by a man seated in the bow of the boat, and 
by a sweeping motion it was drawn through the 
schools, which were so compact, that each time from 
one to eight fish were impaled on the spines and flipped 
into the boat. I saw bushels of fish captured, in this 
way; the water was black with them, and when the 
steamers drew up to the dock the fish scarcely moved 
out of their path. 
Lack of foresight and lack of energy, are usually re- 
sponsible for the hardships endured by Indians. An 
Indian does not hunt because he likes it, it is labor to 
him, his way of earning his living, and so long as there- 
is meat in camp, so long will he postpone his labor. 
Even after he has consumed his last mouthful, he fre- 
quently does not attempt to replenish his larder until 
the pangs of hunger demand it. Then he starts out 
and his family fast until he returns; if perchance he 
is unsuccessful for a few days, or if he is further de- 
layed by accident or storms, as is frequently the_ case, 
the period of hardship for those dependent on .hipi is 
