334 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[April 29, 1903, 
Howard Eaton's Buffalo. 
"With the opening of the Flathead Indian reserva- 
tion in Montana to settlement the coming sumrner, the last 
large band of buffaloes in the United States will be scat- 
tered to the four winds, or else removed to the Blackfeet 
reservation further north, or into the Milk River country 
of the Canadian provinces." 
This is the statement made by Howard Eaton, of 
Wyoming, who is interested in the largest herd of buf- 
faloes in the world, mostly belonging to Michael Pablo, 
who has a herd of about 350 on the Flathead reservation. 
"The Pablo herd is the largest in existence," said Mr. 
Eaton, "and comprises one-third of all the buffaloes in 
the world. A few years ago, when 'Buffalo' Jones went 
broke on a big irrigating scheme, he sold his bunch, which 
were then in Kansas, to Pablo and Allard, making the 
largest herd of pure bloods now in the world, and carry- 
ing the strains of the old herds of Texas, Indian Terri- 
tory, western and northern Montana, North Dakota and 
Manitoba. Jones built his ditch all right, but he got no 
water, so that his venture was a disastrous failure. 
"When I afterward purchased the Allard interests there 
were 400 in the herd, and I secured four-fifths of the 
Allard holdings. I have been gradually selling them off, 
and this year I expect to have disposed of nearly all of 
these." . ^ 
During the last summer Mr. Eaton accompanied Count 
Ernest Bernstroff and his son, Arthur, on an extended 
hunting trip through the Flathead country, and as the 
Count wanted to secure a pair of buffalo heads to take 
to his home at Ouaden, Schoenfeld, near Wiesbaden, 
Germany, Mr. Eaon sold him two buffaloes from his 
bunch on the reservation, and the Count and his son had 
the pleasure of stalking them for a day or two before they 
got a good chance to shoot them, even at long range. 
Buffaloes are now worth $1,000 a pair, bull and cow, 
and in a few years will be hard to get at any price. 
In speaking of the breeding of these animals, Mr. Eaton 
says that the bunch on the reservation produced sixty-six 
calves in 1904 and fifty-five in 1903. He sold the Gov- 
ernment a herd of twenty in October, 1902, two bulls and 
eighteen cows, for the Yellowstone Park, and they have 
now, in two years, increased to forty. 
Mr. Eaton has sold buffaloes to the cities and private 
individuals all over the United States. He deals in noth- 
ing but pure bloods. The mixed breeds, of which Pablo 
has quite a number crossed with polled Angus cattle, 
are easily distinguished by the lengthened tail, finer hair 
in the coat, and the hair on the fore legs is shorter. 
On the full blood, the hair hangs from the knees almost 
to the ankle, while it is much shorter on the mixed 
breeds. The buffalo will feed with his head against the 
wind, being so well protected by the shaggy coat around 
the_ shoulders, but the mixed breeds are inclined to turn 
their tail toward the wind, like common cattle. 
Pablo, the owner of the great herd, is of mixed blood 
and a direct descendant of some of the early Hudson Bay 
trappers. He is about 63 years old, has a family of sev- 
eral children, and is worth at least $600,000, half of it 
being in cash. While uneducated, PablO' is, nevertheless, 
very shrewd, and one of the finest men in the Flathead 
country. — Helen (Mont.) Independent, April is. 
The Rattler and His Stroke. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Spectator in the number of April 15, says that he 
has ridden many miles through Texas and New Mexico 
without having seen a single rattlesnake. He has -arrived 
on the scene too late ; that is all. Had he been in western 
Texas thirty-five or forty years ago he might have seen 
any number of them, but they, like the buffalo, have, no 
doubt; been pretty well killed off, though I would expect 
to find a few there yet. 
In the country where Fort Concho was afterward built, 
the railroad town of San Angelo occupies the ground 
now, and there are no rattlesnakes there, of course; but 
in 1866 I saw half a dozen of them in an hour, and did 
not have to hunt them, either. 
Around old Fort Cummings, New Mexico, was another 
good place to find them; as late as 1882 I hunted them 
there, using a shotgun to do it, and in one afternoon 
killed eight. I must have shot at least fifty of them before 
they began to get scarce. 
The largest one that I ever killed, or saw killed, I shot 
in 1867, on the prairie half-way between Canon Pass, near 
Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos River, and the head of 
the North Concho River. I killed him with the old Colt's 
powder-and-ball pistol, cutting his head off as he lay in 
a coil. I could not have made another shot like that had 
I tried; it just happened so. That snake measured 9^ 
feet in length, with a largest diameter of four inches. 
There was no guess work about these measurements, I 
used a foot rule to measure him, but he only had eleven 
rattles and a button. 
A correspondent a few weeks ago expressed a doubt 
about the rattlesnake's bite being always fatal. If I were 
bitten by one and used no remedy, I would not expect to 
live three hours. Still, the rattler is not half as dangerous 
as is our northern copperhead ; he always tells you where 
he is in time to get out of his road; he throws himself 
into his coil, then springs his rattle; and while he is in 
that coil — and he never strikes before that— he can only 
strike half the length of his body. I have tested this time 
and again by having one strike at my gun barrel while I 
stood just beyond his reach. 
We have one snake that I never kill myself or let 
others kill if I can prevent it ; that is the black snake. I 
ought to qualify this, though. I won't kill him. as long 
as he remains on the ground where he belongs, but when 
he climbs a tree after birds' nests he gets a charge of shot 
from me. Cabia Blancq. 
More Loon Lore. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
I see I have got the loon into trouble, and I must see 
if I cannot extricate him. In writing a short sketch of^ 
anything, one is very likely to leave out some things, and 
so to make it appear very different from the experience 
of some one else, and further explanation will be needed 
to clear up the matter. 
Now, that the loon that Mr. Hampton wrote of 
dodged twenty loads of shot, is, no doubt, all true; and 
that then they only succeeded in killing him by a ruse ; 
but it appears that they were in plain sight of the bird 
until the last shot, when the gunner was concealed by a 
pile of drift wood, and the other person was attracting 
his attention by pointing a stick at him. 
The loon referred to as having been hit with one hun- 
dred shot was not shot at continuously or several times 
in close succession, but was all summer in accumulating 
those shot, and he was shot at from a natural screen of 
brush, and the shooter's idea was that he dodged the shot 
after hearing the report of the gun. That was what I 
ridiculed. On several,occasions when I saw the bird shot 
at with the rifle during the course of the summer, I was 
out in the clearing, and they invariably shot over him. 
In the fall I shot the loon to demonstrate my knowledge 
of the game, and to win a bet. What I particularly 
wished to call attention to in my previous article, was 
certain peculiarities of the bird. The thick tough hide 
is one, and that their feathers cannot be plucked without 
scalding is another. I will further add that I never saw 
one alight on the water as ducks or geese do: They fold 
their wings when several feet from the surface of the 
water, and dive into it head first, and often come to the 
surface as much as a hundred yards from where they 
went in. I have only once seen a loon in shallow water, 
and I think it swam around through the channel from a 
deep lake that was a short distance away. 
W. A. LiNKLETTER. 
Legal Cranks in Game Protection. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Your editorial on "The Sale of Imported Game" affords 
a good text on the peculiar lengths to which game pro- 
tecting legislation will go,_ lengths to which law does not 
seem to go on other subjects. 
On no conceivable ground can the sale of game im- 
ported from outside this country, be held to interfere with 
protection of game in this country; so the only excuse 
for such an interference with commerce, must be in the 
confession that we must do wrong tq prevent another 
wrong. . 
Nor is this an unusual kink for game protection law to 
take, as witness the United States game protection idea 
of my old and valued friend George Shiras 3d. He 
must have forgotten that his honored father joined (prac- 
tically) with Justice White of the United States Supreme 
Court, in the lottery ticket case, that there is a Tenth 
'Amendment to the United States Constitution, oblivious- 
as that Court seems to be to that fact. Let any layman 
read that Constitution, and all amendments thereto, and 
see where he can hatch out any power given the United 
States to meddle in strictly State affairs. And if there 
is anything but the most finical of dodging, that can 
make game protection anything but a matter entirely for 
local legislation, then I don't see why Congress may not 
legislate on assault and battery, or picking pockets. 
Then Mr. Dwight W. Huntington, in his excellent 
work, "Our Big Game," page 14, has these statements, "If 
it were not for the fact that the privilege would be abused, 
I would strongly favor taking one or two dogs into the 
woods, to be used only to run down and locate the 
wounded deer," and further along, "The most disagree- 
able thing about shooting is the wounding of an animal 
which escapes to die." This is an honest confession, and 
must come from an honorable man, that "sport" must be 
beastly. 
And the confession is, that sport may not be freed from 
beastliness, because the means for so doing would be 
abused! In other words, law must do wrong, for the 
sake of preventing other wrong! Can this be paralleled 
in other departments of law? I don't know, not being 
a little of a lawyer, but some of your lawyer readers 
might enlighten us on whether law is given to such 
pranks? , . ^ 
Your Raleigh, N. C, correspondent, page 299, points 
out the nuisance deer were at the fox hunts at Chase 
City ; and no foxhunter ever wants his hounds to 'get 
after a deer" when foxhunting is the job, as that means 
an absence of some hounds from home for a considerable 
time, their being badlv worn-out, and the strong prob- 
ability that some will be shot by some "high-toned sports- 
man" of a still-hunter. My own opinion, based on a toler- 
ably long experience in both fox and deer chasing with 
hounds, is that hounding kills fewer deer than still-hunt- 
ing, and that the real impulse that moves the still-hunter, 
is that hounding makes the deer so shy that still-hunting 
is a much harder job than if they are not run by hounds. 
Yet your game protection laws make it likely that our 
hounds may be lawfully shot, because when we are fox- 
hunting, some fool de^r gets in their way. Have we fox- 
hunters no rights in your eyes? 
The real truth about game protection seems to be that 
it takes heed to the individual selfishness of particular 
classes, who want lots of game arid easy shooting of it, 
for— according to Mr. Huntington — the capture of the 
wounded deer is a secondary consideration, and when so 
fair-minded a man as his book shows him to be is driven 
to such a position, what monstrous absurdit-" is the aver- 
age "sportsman" to take to ? . . Wm. Wade. 
Oakmont, Pa., April 19. • 
Do Woodcock Decoy? 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
On Dec. S, 1904, I took a short gunning trip with a 
friend whom I consider one of the greatest living authori- 
ties on that fast vanishing game bird, the woodcock, and 
before the day was over had one of the most novel ex- 
periences that has ever befallen me afield. 
Our destination was some hills on Long Island, about 
an hour's run from the city. For several days the weather 
had been very cold, and when we got afield we found the 
ground frozen so hard that walking was made decidedly 
unpleasant, and to add to our discomfort it soon began 
to snow and sleet quite hard. 
Without going into details of the early part of our 
hunt, I will get right down to my story. We were ap- 
proaching some hills where earlier in the season we had 
had several days of excellent woodcock shooting, when 
my friend suddenly stopped and, turning to me, said he 
would show me a woodcock in a few minutes ; and he was 
so positive in his statement that I simply laughed at hfm 
and told him to go ahead, that I would have to see the 
bird before taking any stock in his statement. Going up 
a hillside, I went to the right and my friend to the left ; 
and on account of the dense growth of saplings and 
bushes we became separated, and I had almost gained the 
top when I heard him call for me to come to him; and 
when I finally worked my way to where he was standing, 
he showed me some woodcock droppings which were 
probably a cotiple of days old. He then related to me 
the most curious yarn I had ever heard about this, the 
most mysterious of all our game birds. He said-that the 
bird he was about to show me (for at no time did he 
seem to be in doubt as to his ability to show me the bird) 
was a small light colored cock that had been on this very 
hillside alL summer and fall, as he had found it there 
every time he had looked for it, and he had even seen it 
on the ground on several occasions. He said further, that 
he felt positive that this bird had inhabited this very spot 
for the past three seasons, and he made me promise if I 
flushed a bird and it proved to be this small light colored 
one, not to shoot it, as he said he had refrained from 
killing it himself, although he had had many opportu- 
nities to do so, for the' reason that he considered it was 
the "decoy" that had lured the other woodcock to this 
hillside, and to kill it would surely spoil our sport in 
the future. 
This latter statement made me laugh outright, but my 
friend, who is quite an old man and has made a study of 
woodcock for many years, insisted that woodcock will 
decoy to others, and in support of his theory stated that 
he had known many birds like the present one that lived 
in certain spots year after year, and while they were 
allowed to remain undisturbed, good shooting could 
always be had close by, but, as soon as they were killed, 
only an odd bird or so would be found in that partic- 
ular locality. 
Casting about, we soon found plenty of sign, some of 
it apparently only a few hours old; and ordering on my 
dogs, two pointers, I saw them suddenly stiffen out side 
by side, and calling my friend's attention to them, he said 
to go in. As I approached the dogs a bird flushed to 
one side of them and darted thirty feet or more straight 
in the air, and quicker than it takes to relate, I had cov- 
ered it and fired. At first I thought I had missed and 
was glad of it, for I had fired on the impulse of the 
moment without giving a thought to my promise, but my 
old dog Bob stiffened out at the . foot of the hill, and 
going to him I saw the woodcock lying on its back dead. 
Well, when I handed the bird to my friend and he 
recognized in it the bird he had been watching all sum- 
mer and fall, at first no apology I could make would be 
accepted, and he looked as though he had lost an old 
friend. Then he said we would have to suffer next sea- 
son for what I had done, as I had destroyed the "decoy" 
that had made our covert such a good place for birds. 
That my friend knows the bird and its habits thor- 
oughly I have had many demonstrations, for he has shown 
me birds every time I have been with him, and he claims 
that he can find birds any time from their first appear- 
ance in the north until they leave again for the south, 
On a previous trip, in October, 1904, he told me of a, bird 
which had been in a certain hollow in a high woods sea- 
son after season for about five or six years ; and when I 
doubted a bird would remain so long as that in any one 
locality he took me to the place, and going direct to the 
spot mentioned, flushed a bird. This bird also he would 
not kill. 
If my friend is correct in his theory that an individual 
woodcock will come season after season to a certain 
locality and will there raise its young if left undisturbed, 
might not this be one of the principal reasons for the 
scarcity of this bird in coverts where it was formerly 
plentiful and an excellent argument against all-summer 
shooting, for we all know that a good shot with a good 
dog can, in July or August, clean out a brood of wood- 
cock in a very short time? J. H. H. 
West Virginia Wild Turkeys. 
MoRGANTOWN, W. -Va., April 19. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: A recent report has been received from the 
mountains in this vicinity that two wild turkey hens have 
been seen with broods of young already this spring. This 
makes us glad. Emerson Carney. 
