8 
FOREST AND STREAM 
[July i, 1905. 
of savagery — that is, for one of them, in hunting and 
killing — but the most advanced civilized man, finding 
his pleasures in the pursuits of ciyilization and in the 
activity of what is highest in his own human nature, 
the one who has ponformed to Tennyson’s counsel: 
“Arise and fly 
The reeling faun, the sensual feast; 
Move upward, working out the beast, 
And let the ape and tiger die.” 
I have based my argument thus far on science alone, 
but it has also its side of sentiment, and of a sentiment 
not apart from science, but which science justifies and 
includes. It is a fundamental principle of Darwinism 
that all animals on the earth are of one primal stock; 
that all life, from that of the lowest monod up to that of 
lordliest man, is one life, a spark of the Infinite Life; 
consequently that we are all relatives, “distant rela- 
tives,” to be sure, as Mark Twain said when he wept 
at the tomb of Adam, “but still relatives,” and to take 
away in sport the life of any creature, that which is its 
most precious possession — what is it, even from the 
scientific point of view but a form, one form, even if 
not the worst, of robbery and murder? 
Then as regards sport, manly sport. Your writer 
speaks of those who have “disliked to hunt" as “ef- 
feminate men.” “timorous souls,” those “who among 
the Indians of our day are rated as squaws and treated 
accordingly.” But I cannot see what manliness there 
is in a person’s going out into the woods armed with 
all the protections and appliances of modern art and 
invention to kill a creature which has only its own 
bodily powers for its defense and escape, or how any 
man of culture and sensibility can find pleasure in giving 
any creature pain. All honorable sport implies some 
equality between the parties engaged in it, and 
some willingness on each side for the encounter. Even 
the lowest street urchins cry out against the bully who 
assails a boy smaller than himself. But what equality 
is there between a hunter with his repeating rifle, in- 
vented and made for him by some other man, and a 
bird or innocent deer, or even a Colorado bear equipped 
only with its wings and feat and teeth? Last Feb. 22 
four stout men, armed with guns and accompanied with 
four large dogs, passed my door on their way to cele- 
brate the birthday of “the Father of their Country” by 
slaooting out in the woods little chipmunks six inches 
long, and they called it sport! Well, it may be, as 
your writer says, “the vagary of the sewing circle, the 
overfed stomach and of advanced senility” to have no 
sympathy with such killing; but to my mind it is a 
vagary w'hich is manliness itself as compared with the 
virility of six feet of hunter and a Winchester rifle 
against six inches of squirrel and a set of teeth. In 
the days of the cave-dweller, when killing was needed 
for food and defense, and when man had reached only 
that stage of development suited for it, there was some 
equality between the parties^ — the cave-dweller on one 
side with only his club, and the cave-bear on the other 
with only his claws. And let the defender of killing 
now go forth similarly matched, and we of “the sewing 
circleT the over-full stomach and advanced senility” will 
look complacently on the encounter and will not say 
one word against any sport in it that the hunter so 
armed may be able to find. 
True it is, as your writer says, that “every age has 
had its groups whose forces were against what is, 
whether what is was government, society, science, re- 
ligion, creation or ordinary peace of mind.” But this 
fact only justifies the opponents of hunting. It is the 
method of all progress. The whole of our race cannot 
be in the advance. A few, to start with, rise up in 
every department of life through whom the forces of 
evolution manifest themselves; a few who first catch 
the fuller light and the larger view. It is so now with 
regard to the treatment of animals. In past ages such 
persons were put in prison, burned at the stake, tor- 
tured on the rack for their forwardness by their slower 
fellow men. Now they are only called names — “ef- 
feminate,” “squaws,” “timorous souls,” “theorists; ' 
“dogmatists” and the like. But by and by, in spite cf 
the ridicule and persecution, other men rise up and 
join them on the same level, and eventually the gre it 
majority of men take the larger view, see the bright ir 
light and do honor to the once despised leaders, 
“For Humanity sweeps onward, 
Where to-day the martyr stands, 
On the morrow crouches Judas 
With the silver, in his hands. 
Far in front the cross stands ready 
And the crackling fagots burn ; 
But the hooting mob of yesterday 
In silent' awe return 
To glean up, the scattered ashes 
Into History’s' golden urn.” 
All this I write, as my friend Hallock knows, not li 
an attendant' of .“the sewing circle,” or devotee of “a .tj 
and cake,” but as- a lover of nature and of out-of-doo/ 
sports and of a rough-and-tumble encounter now and 
then with out-of-door' forces. But I find the camera a 
better means of getting acquainted with nature than the 
shotgun, and a finer pleasure in winning the favor_ of 
animals than in -winning their fear— more satisfactior 
in the song and live motions of birds and beasts, al- 
ways so full of poetry and grace, than in their silenc ; 
and motionless- death, always the dreariest prose. And 
when I want a real test of the manhood that is yet left n 
me amid even “the senilities” and “organic decay” )f 
seventy-three years, I find it grandly with my yac'nt 
out un the river, lake and ocean in an encounter, gen- 
erally, alone,: with the foaming wave, the mad tempest 
and the lightning-armed storm-cloud, an encounter 
where surely the risk and strength are not all on one 
Side', and where, victory brings to. the conqueror no 
cruelty and to the conquered no pain. 
I like your paper. Forest and Stream, because it 
includes in jts field these finer sports, which involve no 
killing — is a weekly journal not only “of the . rod and 
gun” but of the camera, sail and oar. I know well the 
Sugar Island on the beloved St. La-wrence River that 
you say in the paper before me is to be the scene of 
the canoeists’ meet this present summer— can testify to 
its bejng ^ mpsj .pl^ce, \ hope that more ml 
more of your readers will rise up to the pleasures of 
which canoeing is a type. And my ain in this article 
has been to show that it is the lovers of such pleasures, 
rather than the lovers of hunting, who occupy the 
viewpoint of our latest science and our truest man- 
hood, and on the other hand, that it is those who find 
their sport in killing animals that are cherishing what 
the writer I have criticised calls “the point of view of 
an ash heap” — the ash heap in our human nature of 
old, burnt-over troglodyte appetites and tastes. 
_JOHN C. Kimball. 
Grevnfiei D, Mass. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Thoreau has said: “If anything ail a man, so that he 
does not perform his functions, if he have a pain in 
his bowels even — for that is the seat of sympathy — he 
forthwith sets about reforming the world.” To a cer- 
tain extent the above would seem to apply to two 
members of the great Forest and Stream family — 
Brothers Flint Locke and Stephen P. M. Tasker, 
Their argument against the killing of game does not 
prove that it is wrong to kill wild animals for sport, 
but that their own personal opinions have changed, 
and that they have come to consider it wrong. Could 
their argument be inculcated into the mind of every 
individual in this country, how long would it be be- 
fore we would become the prey of every land and 
property-grasping country on the face of the earth? 
This doctrine may seem irrelevant to the one advanced 
by them, but such an argument as theirs looks like a 
step toward the element which would dispense with 
an army and navy, because these instruments of gov- 
ernment might some day be the cause of somebody 
getting killed. 
It would seem that it would be an unfortunate day, 
indeed, for our country, should its citizens come to one 
mind that the killing of wild animals must cease. It 
is well known by those who are at all familiar with the 
subject, that living game is a far more difficult propo- 
sition for the marksman to hit than is the artificial 
target. The movements of game are more erratic and 
less machine-like than are those of artificial targets, 
because the game is endowed with natural cunning, and 
can think; but the artificial targets have neither cunning 
nor thought. 
As I have said before, in the columns of the Forest 
AND Stream, the ability of a nation to retain its individ- 
uality and independence, depends absolutely upon its 
ability to defend itself. History proves this. The ability 
of a nation to defend itself in these days depends upon 
the ability of its citizens to shoot and hit the target! 
It must seem that a nation whose people are expert 
marksmen on animated targets must be superior in 
warfare to those who have had practice only on inani- 
mate targets. The proof of this is right before our 
eyes to-day. The Japanese had absorbed knowledge 
and practice in this respect in their war with China, 
when their targets were living men, and they are 
demonstrating to-day the result of that experience in 
the magnificent manner in which they have thrashed 
Russia. The Japanese can shoot straight — the Russians 
can’t. H ^ 
Now we don’t want to wait and get our practice on 
the living men of an enemy. We can utilize time to 
advantage by putting our wild animals up, under wise 
game-law restrictions, as targets. It is no hastily 
arrived at conclusion on my part to say that I believe 
it to be a duty we owe ourselves to propagate game 
purposely that we may kill it for sport and profit. Not 
financial profit, but the return in good marksmanship, 
which practice gives, on living things. . 
Should vivisection be discontinued, and the valuable 
knowledge which results therefrom be thrown over- 
board because somebody happens to be shocked by the 
flow of blood, and the look of suffering in the tor- 
fured animal’s eyes? It is tough to look upon, I 
admit; but there is not one-tenth of the suffering 
caused in the hunt as there is in vivisection. We do not 
butcher our domesticated animals for the sake of in- 
flicting torture, nor have we a fiendish desire to be 
cruel. 'We kill them for food. We can use our wild 
animals to better advantage than this, and it is my 
opinion we do. 
The return we receive in seeking game with rifle and 
gun is in becoming acquainted with new scenery and 
surroundings; in different food and congenial com- 
panionship round the camp-fire; renewed health and 
vigor, and, above all, in that proficiency of marksman- 
ship which makes for the protection of home and fire- 
side, saves our country from the haughty and arrogant 
grasp of robber nations, and from other national humil- 
iation, because more eloquently than words it pro- 
claims, “Hands off!” 
To call President Roosevelt “an educated bulldog,” 
simply proves the unfitness of the Massachusetts^ official 
who did so for the position he holds. The sentimental 
donkey who would bray such an asinine opinion to be 
world simply proves that “fools are not all dead!” 
William H. Avis. 
Whitn *.Yvn LB, Conn., June 18. 
Breeding Game Birds."^ * 
Boston, Mass., June 24. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
The by-laws oj the Massachusetts Fish and Game Pro- 
tective Association require that- a meeting of its board 
of management be held as often as every three months, 
and accordingly a meeting was - held on Monday evening 
with President Hinman in the chair. While no formal 
action was taken, many of the members being away, sev- 
eral matters looking toward future work were informally 
discussed. Mr. A. B. F. Kinney brought a report from 
Worcester that Professor Hodge now has eight little 
chick partridges in his aviary,, which was pleasant news. 
The Association is much interested in the Professor’s ex- 
periments in raising ruffed grouse in captivity. In fact, 
this has appealed so strongly to the bird committee of 
the Association that a few months ago a donation of 
quite a sum of money was voted to Professor Hodge to 
aid him in carrying on this line of work. 
What will be the ultimate 'result of his efforts no one 
§|{l lay, hut if it should he shown that paitridges un h^ . 
propagated in large numbers it will be a great boon to 
the sportsmen of all those States where the ruffed grouse 
is the game bird, as it certainly is in Massachusetts. 
The writer has been told that quail (Bob White) have 
been hatched and reared in very considerable numbers in 
confinement. _ If any of your numerous readers can fur- 
nish full particulars of such rearing of quail it would be 
greatly appreciated, not only by your correspondent, but 
by a host of others. 
Mr. Louis Morse, of North Attleboro, succeeded in 
raising a number hatched from eggs he secured last 
spring, but I believe only three reached maturity. 
Mr. Wright, an enthusiastic sportsman of Rockland,. 
Me., whom I visited in 1894, fold me he had hatched bothi 
cjuail and partridge eggs and had been able to keep the 
chicks several weeks, but they eventually sickened and! 
died. One quail he had laid sixty-two eggs in a single: 
season. Whether Mr. Wright has been continuing his- 
experiments since I saw him I do not know. 
Mr. Cyrus A. Taft, of Whitinsville, informs me that 
he and bis friends are so well pleased with the experi- 
ment they tried in putting out quail last December that 
they will try it again the coming winter. He says it is. 
necessary to start in with the first snow and locate the 
birds and tole them to the feeding boxes. This he does- 
by scattering chaff along between* the spot where he finds, 
the birds and the box. After the quail once find the feed: 
they will come to look for it every day. Central. 
Alcohol in Gunnery Practice. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
The use_ of alcohol as an economic agent in army and! 
navy service is being much discussed in military circles, 
in the effort to determine what factors have most con- 
tributed to Japanese success in the Orient. Will you,, 
therefore, permit an occasional contributor of yours,, 
who claims the honor of putting up (in 1874) the first 
prize offered at a Creedmoor competition, to intrude- 
herewith his ipse dixit? 
From all the cumulative testimony which critical! 
investigation has been able to procure, it would seemi 
that the Russian efficiency was most seriously im- 
paired by the service of the old-time grog ration, which: 
was primarily given out to inspire courage, but whose: 
value, if any, was more than counterbalanced by caus- 
ing inaccuracy of aim in firing. There can be no doubt 
that alcoholic stimulants not only quicken the heart 
action, but blur the vision. Note the eyeball inflamed! 
by spirits, how suffused it is with blood, and say if the- 
aim of the piece can be accurate under such conditions?' 
Mark the cardiac rhythm when the arteries are sur- 
charged, and say if a heavy sea is not more steady 
than tbe human breast against which the gun is 
pressed? 
It used to be an open secret at the butts in long 
range rifle shooting that the best shots were made after 
inflating the lungs by a long-drawn breath; and, 
although in naval gunnery the weapon is not in con- 
tact with the body in a way to be affected, there can 
be no doubt that the eye which directs the range finder, 
and the hand which presses the electric button to effect 
its discharge, are both pathologically disordered and 
deranged when put out of normal by an exciting agent. 
C. Hallock. 
Ontario Deer Winter Mortality. 
John Kelly, of Lindsay, tells the Watchman War- 
den, ihat he saw a thousand dead deer during the past 
winter while bush ranging in the French River district 
for a Saginaw firm. The habit of the deer is to keep to 
the runways and browse along them, but in this long, 
severe winter, the fodder close to. the runways gave out, 
the deer could not travel through the deep snow, and, 
then the animals starved. “I have traveled the woods a 
good deal in winter,” said Mr. Kelly, “but I never saw 
such a depth of loose snow, nor such mortality among 
the deer before. I came across their dead bodies every- 
where. Often they had waded out into the deep snow to- 
■ward other trees, and overcome by weakness, sank down 
and died where they were. The lumbermen saved hun- 
dreds of deer. Hunger drove the animals right up to 
the camps, where they were not molested, but allowed 
to feed at the haystacks. I never saw a lumberman try 
to hurt one of them, but have often seen deer lying be- 
side the stack chewing their cuds. This treatment and 
the horse feed littered along the cadge and draw roads 
have been a great help to the deer. Sometimes, however, 
even that help came too late. I have seen where deer 
had come across the oats left where horses had been fed 
in the snow. The starving deer had eaten the remaining 
oats, but died on the spot, because the big feed of grain 
was too much for it.” 
Quebec Moose Reports. 
Aylmer, Que., June 22. — Editor Forest and Stream:- 
The following extract of a letter from Mr. Halstead 
Scudder, Mineola, N. Y., June 3, .1905, may be interesting 
to your readers: “I personally saw last fall on the 
Maganasippi River and tributaries twenty-nine moose, 
and a gentleman I had with me, who was north six weeks 
longer than I, saw fifty-seven. ,We have carefully pre- 
served the game on our territory, and the killing has 
been limited to six or seven bull moose a year.” 
On June 9 Mr. Archie McLean, lumberman of the 
township of Eardly, P. Q., reported to me that he had 
traveled timber limits on the Kipawa country with two 
men for two months and they say that during that time, 
they had seen at least 150 moose. He (Mr. McLean) is 
an old bushman, and he says that he never saw anything 
like it in his life. 
The moose, red deer and bears are very plentiful in 
the counties of Ottawa and Pontiac, including the Height 
of Land. The latter is a very good country for caribou. 
The game laws, as will be seen by the attached letter, has • 
not been amended last session. N. E. Cormier, 
Provincial Game -Warden and Fishery Oyersepr, 
AH communications intended for Forest and Stream should 
■always be addressed to ,, the ' Forest and Stream -Publishing 
.New York, and not to any individual connected -with the paperL ' 
