Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. I 
Six MorjTHS, $3. ) 
Copyright, 1904, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JUNE 17, 190B. 
( VOL. LXIV.— No. 24. 
( No. 346 Broadway, New York. 
^The Forest and Stream is the recognized medium of entertain- 
ment, instruction and information between American sportsmen. 
The editors invite communications on tlie subjects to wliicli its 
pages are devoted. Anonymous communications will not be re- 
garded. Wliile it is intended to give wide latitude in discussion 
of current topics, tlie editors are not responsible for the views of 
eoflespOrtdents. 
SubscHptions may begin at any time. Terms: For single 
copies, $4 per year, $2 for six months. For club rates and full 
particulars respecting subscriptions, see prospectus ort page iii. 
The object of this journal will be to studiously 
promote a healthful interest in outdoor recre- 
ation, and to cultivate a refined taste for natural 
objects. Announcement in first number of 
^ * Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1873. 
THE SPORT OF HUNTING. 
In our issue of last week, under the caption "Concern- 
ing the Heroic Pose," a correspondent expressed certain 
views on the humanities and the inhumanities of killing 
wild animals. Admitting that he had killed for sport, 
had killed creatures that he did not or could not use for 
food, he disposed of this particeps criminis by virtue of 
these words: "So if anyone sees fit to take issue with 
what I have to say, he may as well omit the personal note 
and not trouble himself to suggest that the pleasure of 
the chase, and the 'strenuous life' are out of my ken. I 
have been through it all." The issue is too broad to be 
made a personal one on any such score, but there is a 
dominant power. Nature, which makes it a direct issue 
with all forms of life, animal and vegetable. 
The young man scorns the sports of his childhood, al- 
though they were once: his daily occupation and his in- 
finite delight. The elderly man "who has been through 
it all" views contemptuously the frivolities of youth. It 
is merely the point of view. Nature, whose grasp in- 
cludes all, has ordained that we estimate life and its 
phenomena by our emotions and our mind. Our opinions 
as a result are a succession of errors and readjustments. 
It is quite a common occurrence that, with mature age 
and declining appetites, a man's enthusiasm in the sport 
of pursuit and capture, is dulled or destroyed. The man 
is prone to consider such change as being an evolutionary 
and wiser state of mind which exalts him personally 
above his fellows ; the philosopher views it merely as an 
organic decay, a change common to all mankind, a mere 
manifestation of Nature's laws. 
Although Fhnt Locke arbitrarily barred "the personal 
note," he ingenuously said: "But one's point of view 
changes, and now I question seriously the moral right of 
man to kill without necessity any other living creature." 
That is fallacious reasoning. One's point of view changes 
through the periods of development and decay, and a de- 
duction whose antecedent is nothing more than an in- 
tangible "point of view" is a thing unproven and unprov- 
ab]'' With every change of the point of view a repeal of 
the deductions from prior points of view is a matter of 
course; therefore in deference to the teacher whose data 
are his points of view, it is a wise part to wait till the final 
viewpoint has been reached, and the final verdict of the 
ethical weathercock has been rendered. 
It is dogmatically asserted that it is wrong to kill for 
pleasure. Why is it wrong to do so ? It is a racial char- 
acter implanted in man and other animals by nature. It 
is opposed only by individual dogmatism which is the 
equivalent of individual idiosyncrasy. Everything on 
earth, social, religious, political, physical, psychical, has 
been opposed by individuals or groups, at some time or all 
times in the world's history. Dogmatism is a measure of 
the individual's peculiar mental composition ; Nature pro- 
vides the laws, the standards of morality, which are the 
true guides of all mankind. 
Let us examine this sombre dogma, this verbalism that 
it is wrong to kill for pleasure. It is contrary to the les- 
sons of virile Nature before our eyes everywhere. It is a 
vagary of the sewing circle, the over-full stomach, the 
advanced senility when all is vanity. Nature has im- 
planted in our nature the capacity to hunt and kill with 
pleasure. The boy takes naturally to the bow and arrow, 
tfie spear, the stone as a miss'ile, his heritage from primi- 
' live man. The girl takes naturally to her doll. The 
plays of the boy and girl are mimetic of the serious life 
Qi later years. pact> is impelled by the ipstinpts which ^re 
essential to their best being in the struggle for existence, 
inexorably ordained by nature. So it has been from time 
immemorial, even from the time of the cave-dweller whom 
Flint Locke paused to extol as a brave man. And yet the 
cave-dweller gave battle to the wild animals, armed as he 
was with club or stone axe for want of something better. 
Around his rude hearth are found the split bones of his 
fellow man among the split bones of the larger animals, 
split because the Cave-dweller was fond of the marrow. 
The primitive, virile man was your true pot hunter. But, 
granting that he was primitive in equipment, is that evi- 
dence that he did not enjoy hunting as a sport as well as 
its use as a pot filler? Without the pleasurable phase of 
the pursuit, it is not at all probable that the human race 
would have been preserved. Without the pleasant incen- 
tive, primitive man would have delayed the hunt till the 
cravings of hunger forced him afield, when many times 
he would perish before food could be secured. If there 
was no pleasure in the hunt, he would have become a 
loafer. Undoubtedly there were effeminate men in those 
days who disliked to hunt, timorous souls, who among 
the Indians of our day, are rated as squaws and treated 
accordingly. 
Is it not reasonable to assume that a racial trait, 
dominant in man from prehistoric times in all places, all 
climes, all times, is essential to the well being and pre- 
servation of the human race? a something which cannot 
be changed by the reveries consequent to the satiety of 
the individual or the dogma of a cult? To denounce man 
as he exists naturally is to denounce the Omnipotence 
which gave him being. 
That man, as nature made him, should conform to the 
idiosyncrasies of men who have no taste for cakes and 
ale, is a proposition which need not be tak.en seriously. 
Every age has had its groups whose forces were against 
what is, whether what is was government, society, science, 
religion, creation, or ordinary peace of mind. Were any 
or all of the theorists to become dominant, it would be a 
chaotic world indeed. It may be proper to mention that 
many of the theorists, by wise exploitation of their per- 
sonal wisdom, secured sufficient following from which to 
derive a revenue and a subsistence. In our artificial state 
of life imposed by a dense population and the pursuit of 
agriculture, there is no vagary, however silly, but what 
will have a following if it is skillfully and earnestly ex- 
ploited. 
We would make no defense for the cruelties perpetrated 
on the lower animals from anger or malice; but to go 
forth as a matter of sport and kill according to the con- 
ventions of good sportsmen is right according to Nature's 
laws. So long as we have any of the fire of the primitive 
man so long will we be hunters ; so long as the fire burns, 
men will not cherish the point of view of an ash heap. 
OLD TIME HUNTING WAYS. 
When Baron Lahontan made his great fall hunt with 
the Indians in Canada, the story of which is told in an- 
other column, he learned a great deal. Experience had 
already taught him that the Indians were pleasant people 
to associate with— good companions in camp; but he had 
not hitherto appreciated how great was their skill in 
woodcraft, what good field naturalists they were— how 
familiar with the habits of the birds and animals; nor 
what good sportsmen they were— using the term almost 
in its modern sense. 
The great abundance of game found by this hunting 
party need not surprise us. Wild pigeons so numerous 
that the Bishop had been forced to excommunicate them 
oftener than once because of the injury they did to the 
crops, wildfowl in wonderful numbers ; otters so abundant 
that this party took 250 in deadfalls; wapiti a great 
many; with a great multitude of other beasts and birds. 
Perhaps it need not surprise us to see that more than 
200 years ago the Indians used decoys and bush blinds 
in their wildfowl shooting, just as, a few years ago, Mr. 
Robert Ridgway found the Indians in Nevada and Cali- 
fornia using the stuffed skins of ducks for the same pur- 
pose. The account of the hunting of the wolverine, here 
called by the old name of carcaiou, is interesting, as is 
the fact that they were killed by the dogs; but in these 
days we should hardly accuse the dogs of cowardice be- 
cause they declined to attack a porcupine. To us this 
would seem great wisdom, and we think that the dogs 
of the Indians of that time had more sense than many 
of those of to-day, , 1 , / 
Lahontan's hunting companions seem to have had a 
good idea of sportsmanship and thought for the future 
as well, for they declined to kill the cow elk on the ground 
that they were then carrying their young. We thus find 
the hunters of that distant day so thoughtful as to have 
acted on the rules laid down 200 years later by 
the Boone and Crockett Club. The advocates of spring 
shooting should take notice. Lahontan's observation on 
the drumming 'grouse contributes interesting testimony 
in answer to the subject which was up for discussion not 
long ago of the bird's drumming in the fall. Indeed it 
would be. difficult to pick out from our literature, ancient 
or modern, an article on hunting which conveyed more 
information than the one in question. 
PENNSYLVANIA GAME LEGISLATION. 
The method of human practice in the making of laws 
is not unlike the course of evolution in the making of 
species, in so far as the product of each is the resultant 
of forces not always to be calculated upon at the begin- 
ning. Perhaps this is especially true of game laws, in 
which case the State of Pennsylvania may be congratu- 
lated, that the recent act, now in force, is as good as it is. 
The bill, as orginally framed and presented by the 
Board of Game Commissioners, was in all respects force- 
ful and admirable, and was designed to supplant all pre- 
vious legislation of like kind, but by the time the senti- 
mentalist, the fruit grower, the individual legislator and 
the Executive had each and all got in their work, the 
measure was shorn of some important featura^. Still, a 
few notable improvements may be named. 
In the old act the taking of birds or eggs for "scientific 
purposes" was found to be sO' loosely guarded by the 
terms employed that grave abuses have occurred under it, 
even for the purposes of institutions which should have 
displayed a better moral tone. This is not likely to oc»ur 
under the present act. 
The language used in the former prohibition. cne use 
of dogs in hunting deer was such that conviction was 
nearly impossible. Under sections 8 and 9 of the new bill 
"any dog pursuing or following on the track of a deer or 
fawn" is declared to be a public nuisance and may be 
killed by any game warden, owner or lessee of land, who 
sees it in the act, and any dog which develops "the habit 
of pursuing or following on the track of game or wild 
birds contrary to the provisions of this act" may be killed 
by a game warden after notice to the owner, who, further- 
more is subject to a penalty of twenty-five dollars for 
each deer pursued and double the amount if killed. 
Section 11, dealing with the shooting or capture of deer 
and game birds for hire, is believed to be clear enough 
to put an end to market hunting under any conceivable 
subterfuge. The open season for woodcock hereafter runs 
only from Oct. i to Dec. i, and the July slaughter of 
fledglings, and incidentally of young grouse, is happily at 
an end. 
Spring shooting of water fowl is limited to fifteen days , 
from April i, which is a considerable step toward civilized 
sport, and the close season for deer begins Dec. i, before 
the usual occurrence of tracking snows. 
The size of bag which may be made on all kinds of . 
game birds and mammals is defined both for a day, a 
week and the whole season, and bear can be killed only 
between Oct. i and March i, except if actually engaged 
in depredations upon persons or property. 
The original bill, as drawn by the Commissioners, pro- 
hibited the sale at any time within the State of ruffed 
grouse, prairie chicken, English, Mongolian or Chines,e 
pheasants, quail, wild turkey, woodcock and deer. 
Woodcock and wild turkey are still barred from the 
market under the act as passed, the sale of ruffed grouse 
killed elsewhere is permitted only during the open season 
and for thirty days thereafter, and the sale of the other 
species named when killed within the State is prohibited. 
A provision designed to reach the irresponsible violator 
from whom a money penalty cannot be collected, imposing 
imprisonment in the county jail of one day for each dollar 
of delinquent fine, was regrettably eliminated at the in- 
stance of misguided sympathy. 
On the whole, the act is progressive and its shortcom- 
ings are not to be charged to the Commissioners, whose 
energetic efforts to secure and enforce good game laws 
^ives promise for the result;? gf the n^Yf in practice. 
