![Dec. io, 1904. 
A Federal Game Law. 
An Act to Protect Migratory Game Birds of the United 
Statesi 
Whereas., experience has shown that laws passed by 
the States and Territories of the United States to protect 
game birds within their respective limits have proved^ in- 
sufficient to protect those kinds and classes of said birds 
which are migratory in their habits, and which nest and 
hatch their young in States other than those in which 
they pass the usual hunting season, and in some cases 
breed beyond the boundaries of the United States ; 
And whereas such local laws are also inapplicable and 
insufficient to protect such game birds as, in their migra- 
tions, are found in the public waters of the United States, 
outside the limits and jurisdiction of the several States 
and Territories; 
And whereas the absence of uniform and effective laws 
and regulations in such cases has resulted in the whole- 
sale destruction and the threatened extermination of 
many valuable species of said game birds, which cannot 
be practically restored or re-stocked under State laws 
applicable in the ca.se of game birds having their perma- 
nent habitat within the respective States and Territories, 
therefore, 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa- 
tives of the United States of America in Congress 
assembled, 
Section 1. That all wild geese, wild swans, brant, wild 
ducks, snipe, plover, woodcock, rail, wild pigeons, and 
all other migratory game birds which in their northern 
and southern migrations pass through or do not remain 
permanently the entire year within the borders of any 
State or Territory, shall hereafter be deemed to be within 
the custody and protection of the Government of the 
United States, and shall not be destroyed or taken con- 
trary to regulation hereinafter provided for. 
Sec. 2. That the Department of Agriculture is hereby 
authorized to adopt suitable regulations to give effect to 
the previous section by prescribing and fixing closed 
seasons, having due regard to the zones of temperature, 
breeding habits and times and line of migratory flight, 
thereby enabling the Department to select and designate 
.suitable districts for different portions of the country 
within which said closed seasons it shall not be lawful to 
shoot or by any device kill or seize and capture migra- 
tory birds within the protection of this;. law, and by de- 
claring penalties by fine or imprisonment, or both, for 
violations of such regulations. 
Sec. 3. That the Department of Agriculture, after the 
preparation of said regulations, shall cause the same to be 
made public, and shall allow a period of .three months, 
in which said regulations may be examined and con- 
sidered, before final adoption, permitting, when deemed 
proper, public hearings thereon, and after final adoption 
to cause same to be engrossed and submitted to the 
President of the United States for approval. 
Provided, however, that nothing herein contained shall 
be deemed to affect or interfere with the local laws of the 
States and Territories for the protection of game localized 
within their borders, nor to prevent the States, and Ter- 
ritories from enacting laws and regulations to promote 
and render efficient the regulations of the Department of 
Agriculture provided under this statute. 
House Bill No. 15601, introduced Dec. 5 by Hon. George Shiras 3d, 
of Pennsylvania, and referred to the Committee on Agriculture, 
Hon. Jas. W. Wadsworth, of New York, Chairman. 
Who Are the True Sportsmen? 
As different persons choose to shoot small game in 
different ways, and I never could see that it made any 
odds to the game whether it was shot flying or sitting, I 
have never interfered with other people or called them 
hard names because they did not do as I did. At the 
same time my private opinion is that very few of those 
who cry out about "pot-hunting" or unsportsmanlike 
ways of shooting, have ever given game the same chance 
that I have. 
First as to duck shooting: I have always considered it 
a mean, lazy way to shoot any kind of ducks, except on 
sea shore, from behind a blind or with decoys or by bait- 
ing. I consider it giving the ducks a great deal fairer 
chance either by long rifle shots or by creeping to them 
and taking any chance which offered, either flying or sit- 
ting, or as the most of my shooting at ducks has been to 
shoot from a moving canoe at ducks which are usually 
on the wing. We have but few ducks here, and it is ex- 
tremely rare that one can get over half a .dozen in a day 
on our lakes or streams, and yet many of those who kill 
from 25 to 100 in a day from behind blinds, where not a 
tithe of the skill is required, will find fault with the man 
who may shoot one bird in three sitting, and kill the rest 
in fair flight instead of when dropping down to, or rising 
from, decoys, when the birds are often nearly as still as 
when sitting, and offering a great deal larger mark. Any 
fair wing shot knows that he is surer to kill most kinds of 
ducks flying than sitting. I have shot mostly at wood 
ducks and blue-winged teal, and have averaged better at 
those flying than those sitting, but often it is "Hobson's 
choice." After crawling for a long time, one gets a 
chance to poke a gun through the bushes, where there 
is no chance to shcot in any other way except sitting. I 
believe that the man who can by fair still-hunting get a 
chance to fire at ducks as wild as they are here, is entitled 
to shoot in any way he chooses, and it is no. one else 
business. \ ' - • 
Most men who shoot ruffed grouse prefer to shoot over 
a dog. Of course in this kind of shooting they must 
shoot flying. But I notice that they give the bird as small 
a chance as possible. They .usually shoot a cylinder- 
bored gun with to \Yz ounces of shot, usually No. 8. 
If the object of wing-shooting is to increase the bird's 
chance of life, why not shoot as I do— a choke-bore with 
only one ounce of No. 6 or No. 4? I have shot at least 
2,000 ruffed grouse, and have never shot a single one by 
the help of a dog. Probably at least half of them have 
been shot where the birds are as wild as can be found in 
the United States. I have depended on myself to do the 
hunting, and would prefer to kill one in this way to 
several shot over a dog — unless the dinner depended upon 
it. For many years I used a gun with one barrel rifled, 
and where grouse were tame I nearly always shot at 
the head and can count By the hundred those shot in that 
way. Often when I have missed I have not used the shot 
barrel unless I needed the bird to eat, and repeatedly I 
have shot a single bird when there were three or four others 
looking at me while I reloaded my rifle, and have picked 
up my bird and left the others without disturbing them. 
I have shot quite a number of ruffed grouse flying, but 
I had much rather gun a shy old bird and after starting 
him five or six times shoot him running or sitting, than 
vto shoot one flying without any gunning. I once started 
one nine times before I shot him, and have him now 
mounted. It is not the quantity of game I get that I 
care for; it is the way I get it. I have no fault to find 
with those who prefer to hunt with dogs; in fact the 
most of them would not get much if they did not use 
them; but I am sure that if more hunted game as I do, 
there would not be such an outcry about the scarcity of 
birds. 
The great mass of so-called sportsmen need to be edu- 
cated up to the fact that to bring in a large bag of any 
kind of game does not prove that the owner is a good 
gunner. When a man has to depend on a dog for his 
game, he from necessity does not learn as much about the 
habits of the game he shoots as the one who does his own 
hunting. Many people seem to think that the end and aim 
of all gunning is to kill all one can. Now, I do not believe 
in killing anything for the mere sake of killing. For many 
years I have not shot a heron, bittern, fish-hawk, log- 
cock, kingfisher, woodchuck or porcupine, simply because 
I had no use for them, and if they did any harm it was so 
small that there was no good excuse for killing them. 
The gentleman who signs himself "A Blunt Old Man" 
expresses my views better than Lean, and has my thanks. 
Robert Burdette once, in speaking of an article entitled 
"Every Man His Own Grammarian," said, "That is which 
I always did." So; I have always gone my way and let 
the other man go his, but I believe that the man who does 
his own hunting without any aid of dogs, blinds, decoys, 
etc., is the truest sportsman, and although he may not 
decrease the game supply so much, is the best gunner. 
M. Hardy. 
Shooting Ducks Sitting* 
Editor of- Forest and Stream: 
One or two duck hunters who have killed dusky mal- 
lards_ on the Hudson in springtime from behind white 
muslin blinds, have actually admitted that they then shot 
ducks not only sitting at rest, but ducks that were, in 
addition, sound asleep ! Truly strange admissions to sup- 
posedly bring credit to the writers when printed in 
America's foremost sporting publication! 
Such "sportsmen" and law-breakers, have caused strin- 
gent enactments by nearly all the States, forbidding, 
under penalties, various pot-hunting practices — limiting 
the time of year, day or week, number and kind s of 
blinds, guns and decoys, boats, and of the ducks killed, 
and forbidding their sale or transportation, and the use 
of poisoned or medicated food, etc. 
If one of these pot-hunters were a guest at the club 
house of almost any shooting club, and should fire at 
ducks when they were at rest or asleep, he would have 
a very uncomfortable experience furnished to him by 
almost any club member who saw him. Many clubs pun- 
ish such shooting by a fine, or even by expulsion for a 
new offense after admonishment. 
Yet some "Blunt Old Man" fires a flint-lock blunder- 
buss here in defense of such practices, and as their cham- 
pion declares that reference to them in deprecation is 
"implied criticism" and "insinuation." 
Sportsmen readers are entitled to know who it is that 
assumes to rebuke them and furnish instruction that such 
practices are universal among duck shooters. Who is 
Blunt Old Man? Let him get from behind his blind 
and shoot in the open. L. F. B. 
St. Paul, Minn. — Editor Forest and Stream: I ad- 
mire the bluntness of the "Blunt Old Man," but in such 
cases as this I think he ought to follow Priscilla's advice 
and speak for himself, and not for others. De gustibus 
non disputandum. Now, if "Blunt Old Man" takes every- 
thing coming his way, sitting or standing or sleeping, he 
certainly is privileged to do so, but when he, as a general 
proposition, assumes that everybody else with a. gun be- 
hind a blind will do the same thing, then I say it's time to 
call a halt. There is a wide difference between the ethics 
of a sportsman and a marketman. In the case of the latter, 
it's meat, and ergo, dollars, any way you can get them. I 
don't know how it may be with others, but if I were to 
fire into a flock of dusky mallards "all asleep together at 
the same time" (excuse me, Mr. Brown), and laid the 
whole flock low, including the sentinel, I'd feel ashamed 
of myself, unless I was shooting for market. In other 
words, game has no rights which the market-hunter is 
bound to respect. I can only speak for . myself when I 
say that to shoot a sleeping duck, a sitting grouse, a 
partridge strutting on a log, or a running quail upon the 
ground, to my idea, is the height of unsportsmanlikeship. 
I wonder if mortal man or boy who, crawling up to a 
fence corner and . shooting into a bevy of quail sunning 
themselves in the noonday sun, ever felt proud or. satisfied 
with himself after the deed was done? We can go just 
a little further, if the "Blunt Old Man" will permit it, 
and advocate the dynamiting of trout, the seining of bass, 
and the spearing of salmon. This is certainly getting 
meat, I would like to take a rising vote and thereby 
ascertain how many of the readers of Forest and Stream 
are with the "Blunt Old Man" or with 
Charles Cristadoro. 
In Cold Camp Under the Spruce. 
Here is a story of near-home camping in New England. It 
was written by Mr. C. H. Gere and printed in his own paper, 
the Hampshire Gazette, and Mr. Charles Hallock sends it to us 
as something that should be in Forest and Stream: 
Camping beneath the spruces in winter! Winter is 
when the leaves are off and water freezes. The sensa- 
tion is great! A little more ozone, and much less flies 
and ants; much more sighing of the branches and a 
little more scurrying for firewood than in summer. We 
had camped in the Rockies in winter and survived it, 
but to go out from your house in a civilized part of 
the earth and voluntarily commit yourselves tO' the ele- 
ments when water freezes in your bucket as you sleep, 
to stumble out of your tent in the morning and put on 
frozen shoes, to take your morning wash from an ice- 
fringed stream, these seemed to our home counsellors 
too rigorous for constitutions any less hardy than log 
drivers. Yet we two tried it, my son-in-law and I. We 
wanted to go a-hunting. We sighed for the hills. We 
could go up and live in board houses, and eat pie and cake 
and such things when the appointed meals were an- 
nounced, or we could take along our tent and frying 
pans, and eat in the woods what we wanted, when we 
wanted. A majority vote of the household was for the 
pie and the board house, but we, the hunters, took to 
the woods. 
After all the arguments were over, we backed a 
springless wagon up to the back door and loaded in 
the outfit. There was a 10 x 12 wall tent. A cotton 
mattress, abundant wool blankets, a big buffalo robe, 
two changes of shoes, an extra pair of pants, four 
pairs of stockings for each, an extra overcoat, in case 
we came in wet from a hunt, two cast-iron kettles, two 
frying pans, two water pails, plates, cups, etc. For 
the week's feeding of two men and two dogs there 
were twenty pounds of beef, a few onions, five pounds 
of pig sausage, five of dog sausage, four quarts of self- 
rising buckwheat flour, a quart jar of real maple 
syrup, taken back to the hills whence it came, apple 
sauce in glass jars, home-grown chow-chow in glass 
jars, two quarts of chestnuts to roast under the camp- 
fire at night, a peck of apples, a peck of potatoes, a 
peck of wheat coffee, four loaves of bread, five dozen 
doughnuts, two pounds of cheese and a half-pound of 
real Switzer, sugar and salt in glass jars (paper bags 
are apt to get wet and burst while camping) and three 
jars of jelly. 
This, with the game we should shoot, seemed enough 
to feed two men a week. Then we had an ax, wire, a 
few nails, and a lantern; but our piece de resistance was 
a sheet-iron stove weighing about fifteen pounds, four 
lengths of pipe and two elbows. 
We remembered a spot in the spruces, along Mill 
Brook in Plainfield. We would camp there. It was 
twenty-five miles away. We left home at 11 A. M. 
The way was steep, the wagon heavy; we fell short of 
the goal. Night was coming on us four miles short 
of the end. We turned into a pasture bar-way, rattled 
over mountains of boulders and brought up in a little 
clearing in a thick mass of spruces, beside a clear 
brook, into which we had put 5,000 of the State trout 
fry for several years past. There was little time to 
select the exact spot, though the locality was known 
years before, we having stopped there in the balmy 
June days when fishing down the brook. The earth 
was thick with the spruce needles and deep covered 
with the decay of fallen trees. Little moisture comes 
up from the soil through this covering. You sit around 
the tent and camp-fire in comfort in such a spot. 
Hurriedly we unhitched, lest darkness come before 
the camp was made. One goes with the horse to a 
nearby barn, and the other, more used to camp life, 
makes the camp. Back the tent up against a tree., 
run a pole through the top of the tent to a limb of 
the tree, drive two stakes at the front corners, slip 
the ropes over the stakes, lift the front end of the 
pole and rest it on a forked stick; the tent is up. Drive 
in the other stakes and make taut the ropes; the tent 
is secure in a gale. It takes an experienced hand but 
a few minutes. Lay spruce twigs over the ground, a 
foot deep, throw on your mattress; you can sleep the 
sleep of youth, before nerves were made and care was 
born. 
Next a fire, then to the brook for a kettle of water. 
Set two kettles a-boiling, one for coffee and one for 
dish washing. Fry ten sausages, cut half a loaf of 
bread. Set up the stove in the tent, running the pipe 
out of a hole cut in front. Then your supper is ready, 
arid you, too. After supper grope around in the woods 
for dead branches, to keep the tent warm while you 
talk over the tame events of the day and the wild events 
of the morrow. Strange, anticipation is always wild, 
no matter how oft experience proves the morrow to 
be as tame as was to-day and yesterday. 
After supper the glimmer of a lantern through the 
trees, and the clatter of footsteps over the rocks tell 
the approach of a visitor, a nearby farmer, known of 
old, who comes to sit out the evening and answer 
many questions of the haunts of game around about, 
with bright visions of which- we retire, exultant- in our 
power to slay it as it flees our approach. 
" The night was cold, the brook was lined with ice in 
the morning. Water froze a quarter-inch thick in 
