Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1904, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cfs. a CoBy. 1 
Siic MONtils, |2. J 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 9, 190S. 
( VOL. LXV.— No. 24 
(No. 346 Broadway, New York. 
jThe FoRfcsT AND Stream is the recognised medium of entertain- 
ment, instruction and information between American sportsmen. 
The editors invite communications' on the subjects to which its 
pages are devoted. Anonymous communications will not be re- 
garded. While it is intended to give wide latitude in discussion 
of current topics, the editors are not responsible for the views of 
correspondents. 
Subscriptions 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 on page iii. 
DUCK SHOOTING, 1905-1906. 
tJi* to the Very last days of November, the weather all 
along tile Atlantic seaboard had been so nlild and pleas- 
ant that there has been little or no wildfowl shooting. 
Moreover, the unseasonable Warmth had detained - the 
fowl far in the north so that the Shooting on Southern 
grounds at the opening of the Season in No'vember was 
somewhat disappointing, though bags of from thirty to 
fifty birds have been made on the Virginia and North 
Carolina coast. It is reported that in the Sound country 
of North and South Carolina the feed this year is not 
so good as usual ; a condition of things likely to result 
in poor shooting later in the season, when the fowl, hav- 
ing consumed the water plants on which they subsist dur- 
ing the- winter, will be obliged to seek other feeding 
grounds, presumably to the south. This year — as often 
in recent years — gunners on the coast of North and 
South Carolina complain greatly of the abundance of the 
Canada geese, which destroy the food that would other- 
wise support the ducks. 
On the great northern Atlantic coast resting place for 
good ducks, that is to say, on the Great South Bay and 
adjacent bodies of water, there is an abundance of birds 
such as has not been known there for many years. 
Broadbills and redheads are reported as unusually numer- 
ous. Flocks of canvasbacks have been seen, birds which 
are unusual in any numbers on the waters of Great South 
Bay, though, of course, scattering birds or even small 
flocks of them occasionally drop in. Black ducks are re- 
ported much more numerous than usual, and as a result 
of the abundance of the fowl and of the mild weather, 
point shooting in this vicinity has been very much better 
than for years past. In fact, except for the illegal night 
duck shooting, point shooting up to a very few years ago 
had become almost a forgotten sport on the Great South 
Bay. 
By many gunners the greatly increased quantity of fowl 
loitering on Great South Bay is believed to be due to the 
abolition of spring shooting in New York. No doubt 
this has something to do with the abundance of these 
fowl, which, on their passage northward last spring, 
learned that they were comparatively undisturbed on the 
Great South Bay, and have thus returned there in great 
numbers and now loiter there in great hordes since the 
mild, fair weather prevents their being greatly disturbed, 
and they remain in great beds which give little oppor- 
tunity for the battery men. 
From points about the Great Lakes and in the vast 
Mississippi drainage, which are in the line of the wild- 
fowls’ southward migratory flight, come reports of abun- 
dance of birds ; and while in m.any localities, owing to 
the lack of suitable ducking weather, the shooting has 
been poor and bags small, nevertheless the birds seem 
everywhere in great abundance. 
It is many years since the Forest and Stream began 
to agitate the question of the abolition of spring shooting 
and to point out the necessity for a change in shooting 
methods. Our forefathers and the older men of this 
generation shot without thought of the future, and it is 
only within the last twenty years that people have begun 
to see to what spring shooting and' unlimiled hags must 
ultimately bring us. Within the last few years the change 
in sentiment has been great. In many of the Northern 
States and over, much of Canada spring shooting has 
been abolished. In many sections the birds are allowed 
to rear their young unmolested on their ancient breeding 
grounds, and this freedom from disturbance shows itself 
in the increasing numbers which are beginning to return 
to us in the autumn. It is possible that we have passed 
the turning point in the dimunition of our wildfowl, and 
that from now on they may increase. To aid in their in- 
crease there should be a multitude of reservations — both 
State and Federal — set aside along the Atlantic coast, in 
the Mississippi Valley and about the Great Lakes, where 
the birds may be always free from molestation. The 
sportsmen themselves should have enough intelligence to 
do what the Audubon Societies are now doing; that is, 
to lease tracts of ground where the wildfowl shall be pro- 
tected, preserved and propagated and never disturbed. It 
does not speak well for the lovers of the gun that they 
must wait to have an example shown them by the Audu- 
bon Societies, 
The prospects seem favorable for a good duck shoot- 
ing season this winter. There will be plenty of birds, and 
if there are plenty of birds, the only things needed to in- 
sure good shooting are feed enough to hold the fowl to 
their feeding grounds and such weather as will break 
them up into small bunches and make them fly. Predic- 
tions about sport are notoriously untrustworthy, yet, it 
would seem that in the next two months a great many 
wildfowl should be killed. 
POSSESSION OF FOREIGN GAME. 
The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court has 
handed down an opinion in the Silz case, in which the 
point at issue was the right to possess in close season 
game imported into the State. The prevailing opinion 
is favorable to Mr. Silz, because it sustains his defense, 
which was that the State could not constitutionally for- 
bid his possession of property which had been passed 
through the custom house. The Buffalo fish case was 
followed as a precedent; the opinion, written by Jus- 
tice Woodward, adopting its conclusion that “fish im- 
ported under the tariff laws and regulations of the 
United States were not subject to State control.” It is 
worth while noting in this connection the fact brought 
out by Justice Miller in a dissenting opinion that as to 
the bearing of the Buffalo fish case on the proposition 
that the statute offends both the State and Federal Con- 
stitutions, “the answer is that it never was authority for 
any such proposition, and this without regard to the 
effect of the ‘Lacey Act’; three judges only assented to 
that proposition, three united in a vigorous and logical 
defense of the constitutionality of the act, and the con- 
currence of the seventh with the opinion of the majority 
was expressly limited to the point that the act was not 
applicable, thereby by implication at least, agreeing with 
the minority on the constitutional question.” And Jus- 
tice Miller further declares that the statute in question 
does not in terms or effect prohibit inter- State or for- 
eign commerce. 
The full text of the prevailing and dissenting opin- 
ions is given in our game columns. We assume that 
the case will be carried to the higher courts. 
' THE NEW ENGLAND SHOOTING. , 
With Thanksgiving Day the shooting season for 
southern New England came to an end, and we may now 
look back and consider what it brought us. On the 
whole, the shooting has been much better than was anti- 
cipated. 
The past two severe winters and the reports received 
of quail destruction had taught us that these birds, which 
in Connecticut and portions of Massachusetts we com- 
monly find our most reliable game bird, had all been win- 
terkilled, and could not be looked for. If by chance a 
few were left over in any locality, it would be most un- 
wise to kill them off ; much better to leave them unmo- 
lested this autumn in the hope that a mild winter and a 
good breeding season next summer might restock our 
coverts with native birds. For, after all, if they can be 
had, these New England quail are better for New Eng- 
land than those imported from the South, because they 
are larger, hardier and far better able to take care of 
themselves. We know of some places where the best 
shots of town or village agreed not to kill quail this 
autumn, and lived up to their agreement. 
If few or no quail were killed, the case was quite dif- 
ferent with the ruffed grouse — New England’s standby 
among the game birds, and about the best bird that can 
be shot. The opening of the season — in Connecticut and 
IMassachusetts — on Oct. i gives the grouse a little pre- 
liminary training, which tends to protect it. Often the 
weather then is warm and dry, so that the dogs have hard 
work to find the birds; always the leaves hang heavy on 
the trees and furnish an effective shield for the swift flj’'- 
ing bird, who practices his old game of getting out of 
sight as soon as possible, At all eventg, while there was 
good shooting through November, there were plenty of 
partridges left over to breed next year, and in very 
many sections of New England, at the close of the sea- 
son, these birds were still plenty. 
This fall the woodcock was somewhat more abundant 
than usual. The native birds were killed off almost at 
once, and owing to the warm weather the flight birds 
came on rather late. Such birds as were killed were in 
good condition and gave excellent sport to the gunner. 
As the years go by and the woodcock grow fewer, one 
tries to think of some method by which these splendid 
and delicate birds may be protected. There are yet in 
New England and far to. the north vast tracts where the 
woodcock may breed, but further to the south there are 
still some States that permit the shooting of the birds in 
summer. The practice ought now to be stopped; the 
woodcock are growing too few. There are elderly men 
who still go out shooting three or four times a year who 
have not seen a live woodcock for ten or fifteen years. 
Their recent knowledge of the bird has come either from 
eating woodcock that they buy in the market or looking 
at stuffed specimens killed many years ago. 
We admire the systematic and business-like methods 
of the Audubon Society in its work of protecting and 
preserving the birds. Nothing could be more effective 
than the plan it has put into operation in different 
parts of the country of getting control of the breeding 
grounds, placing them under strict guard, and so assur- 
ing permanent immunity. Some of these wild preserves' 
have already been noted in these columns. A recent 
Audubon transaction was the leasing on Nov. 24 of sev- 
eral islands in the Lake Borgne Levee district, in Louisi- 
ana, for a period of ten years. The islands acquired 
comprise an area of nearly 25,000 acres ; and are the 
natural breeding grounds of many species of wildfowl. 
A transaction of the same character has just been con- 
summated at Augusta, Me. Old Man’s Island, near 
Machias Bay, has been leased to the National Audubon 
Society, which has undertaken to police and protect it 
as a breeding place for gulls and for the eider duck, of 
■which species there is now a colony on the island. 
These bird preserving expedients are very practical 
and efficient. In them we have an illustration of one 
method of wildfowl protection which should be taken 
up in a larger way than now by sportsmen’s associations 
and by the States and the Federal Government. The 
creation of game refuges in the Forest Reserves is 
rapidly winning popular approval. A conference of the 
game wardens of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming will 
be held at Butte on Friday of next week to discuss plans 
for the setting apart of some 4,000,000 acres in the Bitter 
Root Mountains as a vast game refuge, to be taken 
charge of b}" the National Government. This 'is one of 
those projects for which the sentiment of the times is 
ripe; and the scheme is likely to receive cordial support. 
On two or three occasions we have made a well-in- 
tended effort to, take from Davy Crockett the coon which 
does not belong to him, and to restore it to Capt. Martin 
Scott, to whom it does belong. We now renounce the 
purpose and abandon the effort, henceforth to content 
ourselves with a simple recording of the perpetuation and 
currency of the popular error, as illustrated in the news- 
papers, that it was Davy Crockett to whom the coon 
came down. In a report by the New York Times of 
the mine workers’ demonstration in Pennsylvania last 
week, it, is told that one of the banners carried in the 
procession pictured President George F. Baer, of the 
Reading Company, as a bear up a tree calling out to 
John Mitchell, “who was pictured as Davy Crockett, 
‘Don't shoot. I’ll come down.’ ” And in the very same 
issue of the Times is printed a letter written by a New 
York magistrate tO' an agent in Florida, in which was 
written : “All of them will be like David Crockett’s coon 
— all you need to do is to point your gun and every 
high-toned, desirable citizen at Palm Beach may tumble 
instantly into your basket.” 
Older readers will recall with pleasure the pseudonym 
Pious Jeems as a familiar signature tO' sketches of sport 
in the South; and will be glad to know that we have in 
hand from that writer for our Christmas week issue a 
capital story of .war times, which is characteristically 
well told. _ ; 
