FOREST AKiD ^ STREAM. 
tApRit 2, ig64. 
thereto by the L. A. S. who might be better engaged, 
has prohibited the trapping of bear and martm on 
reserves, thus further discouraging trappers. I stand 
by my statement that the Yellowstone Reserve, as now 
established and managed, will be a breeding ground for 
predatory animals and a menace to the stock interests 
of the surrounding States. 
With the boundaries restricted to the actua. forest 
and mountain lands, and with a man in charge well 
informed as to actual conditions and who possessed 
the respect and confidence of the people, much might 
be done. As it is, the situation is bad. A heavy blow 
has been struck at the development of Wyoming, and 
very little good accomplished. The forests could have 
been protected just as well with a much smaller reserve. 
These forests are mainly of large pole pine, are of very 
little commercial value, and were in no danger until 
railroads came. . . 
Nothing has been done toward the main object of 
game protection, to save the larger males, so as to pro- 
vide trophies that are worth going after. I see that 
Buffalo Jones is quoted as saying that the small pro- 
portion of big bulls to cow elk is caused by the cougar 
prefering bull elk meat'. I never noticed that cougar 
prefered bulls; most of the elk I have seen killed by 
cougar were cows and calves. Bx\t I noticed that the 
following prices were offered: Bull elk scalps, $8 to 
$15; bull elk tusks, $2 to $5 each; mountain sheep 
scalps, $3 to $8; and from $50 to $500 for extra large 
elk and sheep heads. And if anyone thinks that no elk 
and sheep are killed at these prices, they are mistaken. 
For the next two months is the hunters' harvest. The 
big bulls and rams are weak and are bunched m 
sheltered places. . j t. r 
I can leave home to-morrow morning and, before 
night, can have a hundred dollars worth of elk tusks 
in my pocket, and in a month can have a thousand 
dollars worth of heads cached, ready to pack out in 
the spring, and no one the wiser._ And I don't know 
but what I might just as well do it. 
Mr. Anderson is in New York telling what great 
things he has done, and is going to do toward game 
protection, and if I don't get the heads and tusks, some 
one else will, so what is the odds? Wm. Wells. 
Wells, Wyo. 
New Hampshire Bears. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
This State pays a bounty of five dollars on bears 
killed within its borders. During the last two sessions 
of our Legislature, efforts were made to repeal the 
bounty. As I understand, the opposition which de- 
feated the repeal came from men living on or near the 
bear regions. , t -n, 
In many parts of New Hampshire, north of Ir'ly- 
mouth, there is a fair number of bears, and they know 
how to take care of themselves. 
My experience in hunting bears has been rather 
limited. I have seen in all (when wild and free from 
traps) ten black bears. Of this number, I shot at five; 
one at long range, which I missed, and four at close 
quarters, which I killed. I also assisted in the killing 
of four more. I never had a chance to follow an un- 
suspecting bear on a good still-hunting snow. I did 
follow three which had been started; one from its 
winter den under a fallen spruce. The recollection of 
the rough ground over which those bears led me, and 
the very slight chance of even getting a sight of them, 
cured me of all desire to again attempt to still-hunt a 
bear which had been started. . , t 
Occasionally a bear is found in its winter den i 
have seldom heard of one being tracked there. It is 
said that when a bear retires to winter quarters he 
usually does so at the beginning of a snowstorm, and 
leaves no trail. , • j 
The easiest instance of finding some bears in a den 
that I know of happened to a member of a party I was 
with. During the latter part of November, 1900, two 
of my neighbors and I were hunting deer near Stinson 
Lake, in Rumney, N. H. There had been a sno,w 
fall of several inches, followed by a thaw. When we 
reached the hunting grounds we found about an inch of 
crusty snow. On this snow one of our party found the 
trail of two bears quite handy to our camp. The tracks 
were old and, in places, hard to follow, and evidently 
were made before the thaw. Few men would have 
thought it worth while to follow such old bear tracks. 
The man who found them is a powerful young fellow, 
a natural woodsman and hunter. Previous to that year 
he had never hunted anything larger than a fox. He 
wanted very much to kill a bear, and had said that 
should he find the track of one he would follow it a 
long time. He followed those tracks about halt _ a 
mile to a hole in a ledge near the top of a mountain. 
A wide circle was made around the ledge, and no out- 
going tracks found, the hole and:several other holes m 
the ledge were tightly plugged. The followmg tnorn- 
we all went there to investigate. We found and killed 
four bears, an old one and three good-sized cubs. _ _ 
A good many bears were seen last fall in the vicinity 
of this den. Ten were shot (no trapping), and some 
shot at and missed. About four miles north of the den, 
in the town of Ellsworth, is what is called the Wallace 
Place Here are several deserted farms and the re- 
mains of some buildings, and also quite a number of 
apple trees. Last season the berry and nut crops were 
failures In some places there were apples, and the 
Wallace Place was favored. Bears came frequently to 
those trees. Eight were shot there ; seven of them when 
either on or under apple trees. I heard of some in- 
stances connected with the shooting. At the upper 
end of an old road leading to Wallace Place is a barn. 
A party of three, two of whom had repeating rifles, 
were watching from the barn. A bear came to an 
apple tree some thirty yards away. The men opened 
on him One fired all the cartridges his rifle held, and 
the other pumped out five without pulling the trigger, 
and the bear departed, unharmed. 
As to protecting bears by a close season and other 
restrictions, A New Hampshire bear does not need 
anv protection from the man who hunts him with a gun, 
and I think the same applies to other regions. For 
every bear shot, ten are trapped. 
I have hunted in some parts of New Hampshire, 
Maine and Nova Scotia, where there were bears. I 
spent some time cruising about. I never yet have seen 
a bear (except those in the den) when I was looking 
for one. Those I saw I ran across when hunting for 
other game. 
Last October was an exceptionally good time to get 
a shot at a New Hampshire bear. With practically 
little or no food for them in the woods, they hunted up 
places where there were apples, and the chances of 
getting shots were very much better and easier by 
watching such places for an hour or two in the_ early 
morning or late afternoon than to cruise about in the 
woods. CM. Stark. 
DoNBARTON, N. H., March 24. 
The Boy and the Gun* 
Boston, March 24. — Editor Forest and Stream: In 
your last issue, I noted with a great deal of satisfaction 
the editorial relative to Senator Armstrong's proposed 
bill for a license in the carrying of firearms, and also 
absolutely prohibiting the use of firearms by any person 
under the age of eighteen. 
I agree with you heartily in the position you take, 
for while the bill would not affect me or my family in 
any way, yet my own experience has been such, and the 
satisfaction of following out the ideas as outlined in 
the editorial has been so great, that I wish to express 
my thanks for the broad position you take in this 
matter. 
I have a son who is now thirteen years of age and 
who, from the time he was six years old, has been in 
the woods with me each year from two to three months 
at a time, and who has been plainly taught to use, a 
rifle, and with such success, that even he feels the re- 
sponsibility, and is better able to handle a gun, with a 
proper knowledge of its uses and also with a proper 
idea of the possible disastrous, consequences which 
might arise from the misuse of it, than a great many 
people who have arrived at the voting age, and who 
never knew the value of early instruction. I venture 
to say that a gun in his hands, is safer than in the 
hands of many so-called sportsmen, who go into the 
woods late in life, and when they are supposed to have 
arrived at . the age of discretion. 
Nearly all of the accidents which happen from shoot- 
ing, and at something you never see, are due entirely 
to the fact that the gunner had not been brought up 
in his youth to a proper a^jpreciation of the importance 
of knowing how to handle a gun, and not take chance 
shots; had such instruction been given, many of these 
accidents would not occur. • , , . 
Very rarely do you find in the woods a man with his 
son,' and more is the pity. Not only is the boy bene- 
fited by his early experience and the knowledge he ac- 
quires from the love of nature; but the man who has 
not been in the woods with his son can have but little , 
appreciation of the pleasure that one gets with his boy, * 
whom he can make his chum when all others fail. One 
who has yet to experience the full companionship of 
a bright, healthy boy in the woods, would find, if he 
ever tried it, that the boy would see more to interest 
them both in one day, than the pater could in a month. 
I think one is to be pitied, who has failed to experience 
this feeling of companionship that comes from bring- 
ing a boy up in this manner. Leaving aside the health- 
ful benefits which would naturally accrue from these 
experiences, we must not fail to consider the moral 
effect that it has on a boy's mind. No one ever saw a 
boy brought up in the woods who was not better for 
it; and while this measure may be enacted in New York 
State, yet it will not be, if the fathers who have sons, 
and who are fond of nature and the woods, will take 
into consideration the benefits that they themselves can 
get from the close companionship with each other and 
their guns. _ . 1 • 1 • j 
Leaving aside this point, is a measure of this kind 
constitutional? If I remember correctly, there is a 
certain amendment of the Constitution of the United 
States, which reads as follows: "A well regulated 
militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, 
the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not 
be infringed." 
Does not this amendment apply as much to guns 
that are bought for private use, as well as for means 
of protection? It seems to me that a literal construc- 
tion of the amendment would imply that a more efficient 
militia could be organized if the people were allowed to 
use arms m other ways. F. A. Niccolls. 
[As our correspondent doubtless has observed in our 
issue of March 26, the law forbidding the possession of 
firearms by boys under eighteen years of age is already 
a part of the Penal Code of New York.] 
Can Ducks Smell? 
Summing Up. 
Your Honor, since Coahoma, my learned and clever 
opponent on this momentous question, shows an in- 
clination to come over on the side of the defe^ndant 
in this action, I am led to believe from this that he has 
seen the error of his ways. 
May it please the Court, and if it will be good enough 
to bear with me a few moments, I will recite the true 
history of this Limburger case. _ , i, • 
I was acting as chairman of a meeting of business 
men some years ago, when, because of friction and 
other things that sometimes arise at such meetings, the 
atmosphere became decidedly inharmonious. There 
was a lull in the proceedings, caused by the necessity 
of waiting for some records that had been sent for. 
How to throw oil on the waters I did not know. 
Seated among the rest was a bewhiskered Teuton, with 
whom I had gone duck shooting once. I remembered 
the trip, because he and his friend had eaten Limburger 
that day for lunch, and had borrowed my favorite hunt- 
ing knife with which to open the can. (I boiled the 
knife in lye afterward before I could make use pf it.) 
Well, the Limburger tin thrown carelessly on the 
pass flashed into my mind, and I thea and there made 
the story of the wayward mallards and told it in the 
crowd. They listened attentively, many of them being 
sportsmen; and I had a no more attentive listener than 
the Teuton referred to, who had been on the trip with 
me. 
As I got along in my story I could see now and then 
a gleam of intelligence scintillate through his whiskers 
as if he recognized some earmark familiar to him in the 
story. And, as I expatiated on the hypersensitive ducks, 
and described how they went to the right and left and 
far over our heads out of gun shot, and how I buried 
the tin, and how the shooting once more instantly im- 
proved, I could see him grasp the handles of his chair 
and with much self control hold himself down. But as 
I finished the story and told how I dug up the buried 
tin, and how they admitted that the tin where it was 
exposed "smelled" off the ducks, and there finished 
my yarn, he flew out of his chair and fairly yelled, 
"I vos dere myself, already! You vos de tamtest liar 
in tree states! So!" and at once the whole room burst 
into a fit of uncontrollable laughter at his own "give 
away," and the button was pushed and the liquid re- 
freshments were on him, and no mistake. The story 
did the work. The oil — or Limburger — turned the meet- 
ing into harmonious paths and all went well and peace 
reigned. 
And that, your Honor, makes me think of a story. 
A fisherman stopping at the farmhouse of a well-to-do 
and educated German, referred to the inability of the 
average German to appreciate an American joke. _ Yet 
the American was quick to catch on to anyof the jokes 
given out in the Fliegende Blatter and other German 
comic publications. The German disputed this state- 
ment, and said, "Germans were just as quick to under- 
stand a joke as anybody else." 
"Well," said the fisherman, "here's one. We had 
down in our country a farmer with such big feet, that 
when he went to bed nights he had to go out into the 
forks of the road and use it for a bootjack to pull off 
his boots." 
The German never cracked a smile. 
"I told you so," said the fisherman. 
"Vait a minute, just," said the German, "so I see 
vedder I you uncierstand correctly. You say dot you 
know a man vat makes a bootjack already of de forks 
of de road to pull mit his boots off, he such big feet 
got?" 
"Yes," said the fisherman. 
, "You mean by de forks of de road vere de road, one 
goes dis vay and de odder dat vay, a fork making?" 
"Yes." 
"And he go out dere and his boots he must pull off 
like a bootjack he use?" 
"Yes " 
"Veil, I understand, don't I? Vat?" 
"Yes." 
"Oh! den, dat no joke vas, dat vas chust a tam lie." 
Charles Cristadoro. 
The Adirondack Deer Supply. 
Albany, N. Y., March 28. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
In justice to the general public, the hotels and guides 
of the Adirondacks, and to the railroads traversing the 
region, I consider it my duty to refute the numerous 
unreliable statements that have been printed in the news- 
papers from time to time to the effect that on account 
of the unusually cold weather during the past winter 
the deer of the Adirondacks are becoming a thing of 
the past. 
This department has been kept advised daily by a_ re- 
liable class of men, who have been on snowshoes visit- 
ing the principal deer yards since the first statements 
were made early in the winter that deer were suffering 
unusually; and we can truthfully report for the benefit 
of all persons interested, that there is no foundatiori for 
any such statements. People who frequent the Adiron- 
dacks during the summer and fall will see_ fully the usual 
number of deer as in past years, and will find the fall 
hunting as good, if not better. 
Protectors Emery Kinsman, who is located in the 
northern portion of Lewis County, and B. H. McCollum 
ac Edwards, St. Lawrence County, have spent no little 
time in the woods, and especially in the vicinity of Cran- 
iDcrry Lake and the middle branch of the Oswegatchie 
River, where deer are very plentiful. _ Protector E. H. 
Reynolds, of Colton, has spent the principal part of the 
kst two months along the Raquette River, circling either 
way into the forest as far south as Tupper Lake. George 
Selkirk, of Duane, Franklin County, and Isaiah _ Vos- 
burgh, of Saranac Lake, have been equally busy visiting 
on numerous occasions the principal deer yards in Frank- 
lin County. Protectors R. B. Nichols, of Indian Lake, 
and Joseph Grenon, of Raquette Lake, have covered the 
northern portion of Hamilton County thoroughly, and 
the same is true of Frank E. Courtney, of Wells, in the 
southern portion of that county and down into Fulton 
County. 
Alvin Winslow, of Stoney Creek, Warren County, and 
C. T. Barnes, of Olmsteadville, Essex County, have been 
watchful over the territory they are supposed to look 
after, and the same is true of N. A. Scott, of the north- 
ern portion of Saratoga County, and Charles A. Klock, 
of Fairfield, Herkimer County, whose territory not only 
covers the southern portion of Herkimer County, but 
extends through into Fulton County, and the reports of 
these several protectors are to the effect that scarcely 
any dead deer have been found. The north parts of 
Essex and Clinton counties are taken care of by Pro- 
tectors F. S. Beede, of Keene Valley, John Weir, of 
Dannemora, and J. F._ Shedden, of Mooers, and they 
make no report of finding any dead deer. The snow in 
that portion of the Adirondacks was not so deep as in 
former years. 
Protector H. N. Gaylord, of Turin, in the southern 
portion of Lewis County, has been very active, and in 
company with assistants has taken in all that portion 
of Herkimer County from the head of Fourth Lake to 
the south branch of the Moose River, following the river 
and making large circles either way down as far as deer 
inhabit, and going also through Beaver River country. 
He reports that on that extended trip by the aid of two 
trappers, who were located remote from any settlement, 
twenty-iight dead deer were found. In the territory that 
