4S4 
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FOREST AND STREAM. [Dec. 2 , 1905.1 
shooting, though relatively few people go there, simply 
because they <io not know about it. It can be reached, 
by the Atlantic Coast Line and the Southern Railway. 
I have always thought there were as many partridges 
east of Raleigh as there are west of it. For one reason 
the winters are not so hard and there is much more 
natural food for them, in addition to this being the fact 
that there are great areas planted in cornfield peas, this 
being the best of all food for partridges. And right here 
let me say to sportsmen who come here from the north, 
for heaven’s sake, never use the word “quail” while F 
iSlorth - Carolina, for not one countryman out of a hun- 
dred ' (no not one perhaps out of a thousand), will knpw 
what you mean. Everybody here says “partridges.” That 
always has been the word^ and it always will be. It was 
suggested early in this article that people who come to 
North Carolina to hunt ought to go out and take pot- 
luck with the farmers. They can get accommodations 
at very reasonable rates, and the companionship will do 
them good and will also be of benefit to the people with 
whom they stop, for the average sportsman is not only 
a clever fellow but a well informed one alp, and his visit 
does no harm to any_ community.. By being on the spot 
he can get more hunting and more kinds of hunting. For 
example, he can get some fox hunting, as there is a pack 
of hounds in range in many sectioip of the; State; he is 
sure to get good rabbit hunting with hounds, and there 
certainly isn’t any jollier sport than this, and no such 
chance to get all the fun there is out of a nigger, who 
would rather hunt rabbits than do anything in the world, 
unless it may be to capture a ’possum. By being out in 
the country a ndrthern sportsman can also get the benefit 
of ’possum hunting, and this is good fun and plenty of it. 
A little “dram” of North Carolina corn whisky, just a 
nip, taken immediately after each ’possum is caught, is 
considered the correct thing, besides which some fried 
chicken and biscuit, an apple or two, or maybe a pipe 
of home-cured ham or bacon and some North Carolina 
sweet potatoes make up a midnight lunch for which John 
D. Rockefeller would be willing to give $500, no doubt. 
North Carolinians who live in the country enjoy these 
things as they do the very air the good God gives them, 
and as they talk about the time they have had in the 
woods there is never a shade of envy of the poor wretch, 
their brother man, who toils and moils in some city. Are 
there a happier people on earth than these Tar Heels? 
No. President Roosevelt, when he was here in October, 
declared that in all his life he had not sep a happip lot 
of folks, and he was right. This much is to be said of 
these clear-eyed, clear-headed, nature-loving and hunting 
people here, and this is that they are the very essence of 
the straight Anglo-Saxon strain in this country. If any- 
body wants to mingle with Americans, right here is the 
place to Wd them. One piece of advice to strangers 
coming here is to be sociable and fall right into line with 
the people, no matter whether it be in city, in town or in 
country. Nothing pleases the people here so well as this 
and nothing will be of so much benefit to a visitor. But 
the true sportsman generally knows exactly how to do 
these things, and this is one of the secrets of his popu- 
larity anywhere. 
It must be remembered that the North Carolina annual 
tax on non-resident gunners is $10. The money which 
has been derived from this source has certainly been well 
expended by the Audu'bon Society, which receives it, and 
a world of good work has been done since that Society 
was put on its feet by the North Carolina Legislature. 
The fact is, that the Society, and the State as well, has 
been wonderfully well served by the secretary, Mr. Gil- 
bert Pearson, whose reputation as a worker, writer and 
speaker is not confined to North Carolina. Last week 
he was over in South Carolina and is setting things go- 
ing there. The example of what North Carolina has 
done is a happy one. A number of plans for the further 
extension and improvement of the work are now on the 
wav. F. A. Olds. 
Adirondack Deer Hunting. 
In the northern part of the Adirondacks hunters have 
met with excellent success this fall, while in the south- 
ern portion they have, as a rule, been but poorly re- 
warded for their time and labor. From Lake Placid, 
Tupper Lake, Chateaugay Lake, Wolf Pond, Plumadore 
Pond, McCullom’s and other points in the upper section 
of the wilderness it is reported that more deer have been 
killed than ever before in one season, and it is said that 
in the Cranberry Lake region there have been more, deer 
this fall than for some years past. In the southern and 
southwestern portions of the Adirondacks, however, the 
number has been small in comparison with other recent 
years. This is true of the Moose River, Beaver River, 
Black River and West Canada Creek regions, Piseco 
Lake, Honnedaga Lake, the Bisby Lakes, Fulton Chain, 
Racquette Lake and Big Moose Lake, according to the 
best information now obtainable, although why such 
should be the case is not easy to explain. 
It seems strangely contradictory and almost inexpli- 
cable that on the northern slope of the Adirondacks 
the best deer hunting ever known should be enjoyed, 
while in the southern portion of the wilderness sports- 
men should meet with comparatively poor success. The 
fact that few if any complaints as to the scarcity of deer 
in the southern Adirondacks have been heard this year 
tends to increase the mystery and render the situation 
still more puzzling. So far as can be learned, deer are 
quite plentiful all through the lower portion of the wil- 
derness, as well as farther north, but hunters have found 
it an extremely difficult matter to obtain a shot. The 
most common explanation that is given for their lack of 
success is that the undergrowth was exceedingly dense 
this year and the leaves remained on the trees and 
bushes until very late, thus rendering it difficult for a 
person to see a deer, and that an additional drawback 
was encountered after the leaves had fallen, owing to the 
fact that they were very dry and crisp, and it was im- 
possible for a hunter to move about in the woods with- 
out making sufficient noise to alarm any game that might 
be in the vicinity. 
With November snow came, and thereafter the hunting 
materially improved, A good many deer were killed dur- 
ing the closing days of the season in all, parts of the 
woods, but the fact renjg.jns that the aggregate number 
taken this fall was probably considerably smaller than 
last year or the year before. W. E. Wolcott. 
Utica, N . Y. 
Massachusetts Association. 
Editor Fore'st and Stream: 
We desire to ask your attention to the work done by 
the Massachusetts Fish and Game Protective Association 
during the present year. 
We have attended all hearings given by the legislative 
Committee on Fish and Game upon bills relating to> the 
protection of either fish or game, opposing such as we 
deemed objectionable, and favoring those we considered 
wise. 
We strongly urged the passage of the bill requiring 
unnaturalized foreign-born residents to procure a license 
for hunting ($15), believing its enactment and enforce- 
ment would keep out of the fields and woods a class of 
hunters accustomed to kill everything from a chicadee 
tO' a ruffed grouse, and who have destroyed many of our 
song and insectivorous birds. The Association proposes 
to see that it is strictly enforced. 
Hunters’ License. 
The bill requiring every hunter to procure a license, 
paying therefor the sum of $r, was not favored by the 
Association for the following reasons : 
First. — We were of the opinion that the section ex- 
empting the farmer and members of his family on his 
own premises would lead to complications in attempts to 
enforce the law. 
Secondly. — It having come to our knowledge that many 
agriculturalists of the State were opposed to the bill, it 
did not seem to us wise to antagonize them at a time 
when there was ample evidence of rapidly increasing in- 
terest among them in the preservation of our game and 
fish. It was our belief, that, without the approval and 
moral support of those on whose lands the game is to be 
found, the law would be difficult of enforcement and 
therefore fail to accomplish the purpose of its advocates. 
The House chairman of the Committee on Ways and 
Means offered objections before the committee at the 
hearing of the bill, to the manner provided in it for the 
expenditure of the amount to be derived from the sale 
of licenses, as being wholly at variance with the estab- 
lished policy of the commonwealth, which, he claimed, 
has been to make direct appropriations to' meet the wants 
of the various departments for definite and specific ob- 
jectst The plan of the bill to apply one-half the proceeds 
from sale of licenses to the payment of wardens, and the 
balance to the purchase of live quail for stocking he pro- 
nounced to be a new departure and wrong in principle. 
While we were aware that some of the farmers were 
in favor of a license law we believed the majority of them 
were opposed, and at the hearing before the committee 
they made a strong showing in remonstrance, as we had 
anticipated. 
The witness above referred to, and others, declared 
that if the bill were enacted it would lead to the posting 
of their lands by holders generally throughout the State. 
We were of the opinion that if that were to be the result 
of the law it wouuld be a great detriment to the public— 
that it would lead to the condition which now prevails in 
the British Isles, where there is absolutely no opportu- 
nity for hunting except for the landed proprietor and his 
guests — a condition wholly un-American and which we 
should greatly deplore. 
While prevented by what seemed to us reasons of great 
weight,; from giving our support to the bill, we were and 
are in full accord with the purposes of those who pre- 
sented it and urged its enactment. 
We are aware that some thirty-five States of the Union 
have‘ non-resident license laws, eight of them have resi- 
dent licenses, which, in the case of five of them, apply to 
the shooting of small game. 
We have believed that in proper form a license law 
would contribute to the protection of our game and that 
when public sentiment shall have become such that it will 
not produce the result above mentioned, when the people 
in the .rural districts shall become sufficiently impressed 
with 'the importance of game preservation, the time will 
:be ripe for, the enactment of a law for the licensing of 
hunters. 
Lobster Bills. 
When the hearing was given on the bill to legalize the 
sale of lobsters of nine inches imported from Nova 
Scotia or elsewhere, the Association went on record as a 
remonstrant. 
In addition to providing the opponents of the pending 
bills with extraordinary expert testimony, a petition in 
favor of holding the present law signed by hundreds of 
prominent bankers and business men of Boston, and an- 
other by all the leading hotel proprietors of the city, with 
letters of remonstrance from prominent members of the 
Association, were placed in Senator Harding’s hands. 
The result was the defpt of the proposed bills — a decided 
victory for the Association. 
Twice before has the Association saved the present 
law, each time by the interposition of the Governor’s 
veto of bills reducing the legal limit to nine inches. 
Bill for Bounty on Foxes. 
Early in the year, we made a careful investigation of 
the injury done to game by foxes, and have now on file 
a large number of letters received in answer to inquiries 
bearing on that subject. In many of these the testimony 
weighs heavily against the fox, while a few are of a dif- 
ferent tenor. _ But in view of the declaration of the Bio- 
logical Division of the Agricultural Department of the 
Urated* States Government, that the States which have 
tried Bounty laws have found them very unsatisfactory, 
and have caused their repeal, the officers of the Associa- 
tion did not take a stand in favor of the bounty bill. The 
committee reported against it. 
December Shooting of Quail. 
' A/ bill was presented in the Legislature to change the 
shooting season on quail, making it November and De- 
cember instead of October and November. At the hear- 
ing before the committee the author of the bill appeared 
alone in favor of the proposed change, while several 
members of the legislative committee of the Association 
and of the central committee, together with officers oi 
several prominent clubs, and some individuals, not less! 
than twenty in all, spoke strongly against the bill. ButI 
in spite of the overwhelming mass of testimony in oppo-| 
sition, the committee, much to the surprise of everyone: 
cognizant of the facts, reported in favor of the bill. A} 
circular stating the facts and giving the views of the, 
sportsmen, was distributed among members of the Legis- 
lature, and sufficient time elapsed before final action for 
the Solons to learn the opinions of their constituents, and 
the committee, seeing the mistake they had made, re-i 
ported a modified bill, closing October against quail' 
shooting without opening Pecember, leaving the law as it 
now stanp, the month of November only being open to 
the shooting of quail. ' 
Quail Cards and Food. j 
Early in the year we caused to be printed cards with an 
appropriate illustrated heading, adapted for display in' 
public places, urging people to feed the quail. These;, 
cards were sent to postmasters all over the State, as well 
as to associations and individuals known to be interested 
in birds, and at the same time the announcement was 
made through the press that all applicants would be sup-i 
plied with quail food free of charge. 
A mixture of various grains and bird seeds was pur-| 
chased and bags, containing either twenty-five or fifty 
pounds each, were sent out to some 150 different towns 
in the State, amounting in the aggregate to several tons) 
Instructions in methods of feeding were also sent to' 
those who applied for grain, and to many persons who^ 
fed the brids with grain purchased by themselves. In 
this way many birds were carried through the winter* 
that otherwise would have perished from starvation. ; 
Birds for Stocking. 
During the year 1904 our committee was successful in 
obtaining about 2,000 live quail in Kansas. They were 
strong, hardy birds, and were liberated here in excellent 
condition; but our efforts in 1905 to obtain birds from 
the same source were entirely unsuccessful, although 
throughout the season we were led to believe by letters 
and telegrams that birds were liable to be shipped any 
py. Our efforts in North Carolina, while unsuccessful 
in 1905, will undoubtedly be rewarded this year, as we 
have obtained the proper permits to take quail from thaf 
State, and are at present arranging to have the birds 
trapped and are perfecting suitable shipping crates, and 
the committee is satisfied that a large number of quail 
will be obtained this year for restocking purposes. 
We are glad to acknowledge the valuable assistance 
and co-operation of numerous societies and clubs in every 
branch of our work and especially in matters of legisla-: 
tion and of restocking the covers with game. 
H. H. Kimball, Secretary. 
Trappers and Indian Fighters. 
C. W. Mason writes in the Brooklyn Eagle of “Bill” 
Hamilton’s book in this appreciative strain ; 
“I recommend the book most cordially as a man’s 
book. Mr. Hamilton is the real thing — simple, reticent 
and unadorned, and the conviction that his Indian fights 
are unexaggerated realities, instead of romance, makes 
them keen reading. It is outdoor stuff and frontier his- 
tory, told by a man who is old enough to desire no 
longer to pose as a hero. I do' not mean to imply that 
when he was younger Mr. Hamilton desired to pose for 
a hero, because he is Scotch by birth. But heroes — real 
heroes, like the old trappers — were not without a big- 
lunged boastfulness. It is the author-kind that has built 
up the impression that a braggart is a coward. I, per- 
sonally, from a rather cosmopolitan experience, am pre- 
pared to take a good many braggarts at their word. 
When a man steers into camp, flourishing revolvers and 
announcing himself as the holy terror of Kansas, I am 
silting quiet and leaving it to some other literary per-> 
son to see his flush. But there is no conscious bragga- 
docio about Mr. Hamilton. 
“So to the man on the boundary there is always one, 
who has gone beyond in comparison to whom the pioneer' 
recognizes himself a novice. The original pioneers long 
recognized the superiority of the Indian. Mr. Hamilton 
proves most conclusively that the Indian was no match 
for the pale face in the supreme business of fighting, | 
either at long range or hand to hand, but I find him al- 
ways writing of the Indians as men to* be respected. 
Indian fighting has figured so much in romance that we 
hardly realize that it was the normal condition of pion-i 
neering, and that is what makes the American pioneer’ 
and his descendants a human item as reliable an evolu- 
tion as steel wire is in mechanics. Few conquered nationsi 
that I recall have put up as prolonged a fight as the 
Indian. They resisted invasion inch by inch so long that, 
a whole generation was trained in hardihood. I like to 
hear that the trappers scalped the Indians as a matter of- 
course. I like to hear that when they overtook a maraud- 
ing tribe they showed it no mercy. Indian warfare did 
not encourage sentimentalism, although it was just as 
rampant in the East then as to-day. The one sure cure 
for sentimentalism is the sight of the mutilated corpse 
and burned homestead of your brother. It releases the 
healthiest of all passions — unrelenting revenge. We don’t 
call revenge a healthy passion in our stuffy civilization 
because it disturbs things. But at the distance of fifty, 
years and the Rocky Mountains it looks very healthy.; 
The men who lived, not spasmodically, in the stress of 
the magnificent human passions were as men purged of 
the unhealthy, the sentimental, the morbid. The passions' 
of war are not morbid passions. These trappers took- 
battle as a matter of course. They were not excited 
about it, as our. young volunteers and the young volun- 
teers of - England get excited when they go to war and are 
called heroes. When the rifle practice was over and it 
came to “toothpicks” and tomahawks these big pale faces' 
in their woolly buckskins were fighting devils. But before 
and after they had a grim, good natured sangfroid about 
it. We haveift room for them in cities now, but we must 
recognize that the American nation would not be what it 
is without the hardy strain they planted.” 
