Dec. 23, 1905.] 
“The biograph people say that the pictures are far bet- 
ter than they had any reason to expect, being taken under 
such unusual conditions, and those of the camp fire and 
calling the moose are two of the best they have ever 
made.” 
Is He a Backslider? 
Jamestown, N. Y., Dec. 15. — Editor Forest mid 
Stream: In your issue of Dec. 16, under the caption, 
“Good Times at Barnegat,” Mr. Stephen P. M. Tasker 
enlarges upon the pleasures of duck and brant shooting 
at Barnegat Bay, having evidently just returned from a 
shooting trip in that region. Upon reading this article 
it occurred to me that Mr. Tasker had last summer pro- 
claimed a new creed in P’orest and Stream on the sub- 
ject of hunting, and looking over my priceless file of 
your paper I find him on record in the issue of June 17, 
under the title of “The Heroic Pose,” in which he states, 
among other things : 
“I am filled with remorse every time I look upon my 
walls and into the wild glass eyes and think of the mur- 
der I have done — for murder it surely is, to wantonly 
slaughter the poor defenseless creatures that people the 
wilderness of our country. 
“I am. far from setting myself up as an example, or to 
say that a certain amount of shooting of birds and beasts 
is not necessary to ourselves and them, but I do want to 
entreat my fellow sportsmen to quell the insane desire to 
kill, and to be content as 1 intend to be hereafter, with 
photographs and memories of noble game crashing 
through brush unhurt by any bullet from my firearm. 
“Killing game — and I will except no animal on the 
face of the earth — is not dangerous work when the 
hunter carries in his hand the latest and most approved 
weapon. No, but it is cowardly. 
“And so I ask you, gentlemen, tO' try it for this year at 
least. Let us go to the woods and lakes with a firm de- 
termination to let live what animals we hunt, and come 
home with beautiful pictures of life and not with a feel- 
ing of defeat, but of victory over the spirit of the hunt 
to kill.” 
Here’s a how-de-do ! But upon reading Mr. Tasker’s 
Barnegat article over four times I cannot find that he 
admits murdering any wild creatures. No, but he says 
you can hire your guide to do it for you — and it won’t 
cost you anything but the price of the ammunition ! How 
are the mighty fallen ! Can it be that an erstwhile slayer 
of moose and caribou seeks to “quell his insane desire to 
kill” by putting on six pairs of socks and employing his 
guides to slaughter wildfowl for him at the cost of the 
ammunition? I hope that Mr. Tasker won’t have any 
guide-butchered waterfowl adorning the walls of his 
home — if so, their wdld glass eyes ought tO' haunt him far 
worse than do those of his hard earned moose and caribou. 
And how' about the “Heroic Pose” anyway? Wouldn’t 
Mr. Tasker do well to drop it and get fairly back into 
the ranks of honest sportsmen? Those of us who hunt 
and kill mostly as a means to an end — as an incentive to 
seek out nature’s rough spots and to court health-giving 
discomforts that we would never care to endure were we 
to leave behind the gun and carry only the camera, or 
perchance, a volume of poetry. Above all things, Mr. 
Tasker, if we know of any guides who are willing to 
.slaughter game for the cost of the ammunition, let us 
hold them up to the obloquy they deserve rather than 
commend them to the good offices of our brother sports- 
men. W. A. Bradshaw. 
The Vermont Season. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Now, that the mercury up here in northern Vermont is 
skirmishing down around 20 below zero, we may say that 
the shooting season is fairly over. Even the hardy fox 
and hare hunters prefer to stay in doors and hug the stove 
rather than to tramp around over the hills and swamps, 
though there is a good tracking snow of some six inches 
in the valleys and a plump foot on the uplands. 
Taking the grouse season on the whole, it has been a 
poor one, as the wet weather in the early part of the 
summer drowned out the early broods and the great over- 
flow that occurred in July must have submerged all the 
nests tthat were on the alder bottoms. We trust that our 
next Legislature will shorten the grouse season, making 
the open season from Oct. i to Nov. 30, and also con- 
tinue the limit in number to be killed. 
In some localities woodcock shooting has been fairly 
good, though in the northern part of the State the native 
bred birds migrated before Sept. i. The open season on 
woodcock in this part of the State should be from Aug. 
IS to Aug. 31, and from Oct. i to Nov. 10. This would 
give us a chance at the native-bred birds that we have 
protected during the summer, and would also give us 
over a month at the migraters. 
Though there was in some localities plenty of mast, 
butternuts, beechnuts and acorns, there were but very 
few gray squirrels seen. We looked for a migration but 
it did not come, because of the fact that the mast crop 
was good in other localities. 
More deer were killed this season than last year, and 
they were much larger, as the abundant rains made the 
feed good in all of the back pastures. There were, we 
believe, more does and fawns shot this season than dur- 
ing any of the past years. There were at least i,.soo new 
rifles sold in the State this year, and many of these guns 
were high power rifles, and went into the hands of boys , 
and young men, who w'ent out to “kill something”; and' 
it is a mystery to us that a single deer of either sex es- 
caped. It is a pleasing thought to us that we have in the 
person of Mr. Thomas an energetic Fish and Game Com- 
missioner, for he is making it hot for some, of these pot- 
hunters. He is in his office early and late, keeping in 
constant touch with his wardens and trying to. get them 
to imbibe some of his enthusiasm and energy. He is cer- 
tainly the right man in the right place, and we .hope that' 
our next Legislature will give him an appropriation of at 
least .$20,000 to carry on his work instead of a beggarly 
$5,000. Give him $20,000 a year for five years and the 
State would get a big revenue from summer .visitors, for . 
to couple good sliooting and fishing'- with our .beautiful 
scenery and pure air would make this little State' 'of Ver- 
mont the peer of all places as a summer resort. 
We believe that one of the tjream.s of our life is about 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
to be realized, which is that net-fishing of all kinds is to 
be stopped in the waters of Missisquoi Bay. This means 
good hook-and-line fishing for all our taxpayers, and for 
thousands of summer residents. Brother Chambers will, 
of course, give in your columns a full account of the work 
done at a recent meeting in Montreal. Now, let the net- 
fisher who owns property along the lake shores bttrn his 
nets and build cottages and boats for summer boarders, 
and he will have far more money at the end of the .season 
than he has now. The world moves, and in Uu lijilil di- 
rection, but sometimes for us old fellows it seetn-, to move 
slowdy. STAliblliAD, 
Sto'we, Vt., Dec. 16 . 
Parks, Preserves and Public. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
In his views upon the case of Rockefeller vs. LaMora, 
Mr. Raymond S. Spears reiterates the principle alleged 
to be sustained by courts and legislation, that the wild 
game, wild fish and wild birds belong to the public. This 
particular principle or allegation appears to be the cause 
of a great deal of contention and misunderstanding. It 
is the same doctrine that the Italian shooter of song birds 
adopts -when he invades private grounds, and when he 
threatens or shoots the owner who protests. 
I cannot agree with Mr. Spears that “the robin which 
sings in the maples of a private lawn is owned as much 
by the laborer digging a drainage ditch as by the man 
he works for,” nor with the sentences that follow in the 
paragraph quoted from. 
I believe that the rational and proper principle is gen- 
erally understoood to be that the “wild fish and game be- 
long to the public when they are upon the public lands.” 
The fish and game should be properly the property of the 
State when upon State lands, and not otherwise. 
Will any individual or court undertake to maintain that 
any State, or our Federal Government can establish own- 
ership of the wild things that pass over into Canada or 
Mexico, or even from one State to another? Is the State 
or Federal Government or the public to take a right from 
its citizens arbitrarily, after having granted the right? 
In deeding to a settler upon Government land his 160 
acres, does the Government or the State reserve the fish 
and game upon the land deeded ? I am a settler upon 
wild land, claim 160 acres as a homestead, and it is not 
my understanding that the Government retains any lien 
of this nature upon the land. If the State can throw 
open my gates to the public hunters and fishers against 
my protest I will abandon the land. 
Personally, after a rather extended observation of the 
widespread vandalism upon public lands — and private 
lands, too — I favor every sort of preserve, park and 
refuge that can be maintained to protect some regions 
from the general public. I would rather see some square 
miles of our wilderness owned and posted by million- 
aires for parks than to see all of it utterly devastated by 
the public or by commercial organizations. The material 
possessions which belong to ever3ffiody do not flourish- 
in proof of which we can point with sorrow to thousands 
of square miles of our public lands. The period when 
most of the public wilderness and its fish and game might 
rationally have been maintained open to public depreda- 
tion has passed, leaving unimpeachable evidence of the 
abuse and destruction of them. 
I believe individual and corporation acquisition of land 
(and money) should be restricted, but if we deed land let 
us not try to treat deeds to settlers or others as we have 
treated the concessions accorded to American Indians. 
Real property is the foundation of social polity every- 
where, and in no country more than in this. Molest that 
and disintegration will swiftly follow. Public rights and 
privileges in material property cannot rightfully be pro- 
jected upon private premises under the Constitution of 
the United States (without a great deal of trouble to 
somebody) by any sort of litigation. 
If there are flaws in Mr. Rockefeller’s title to the lands 
or waters in question that is another subject. 
Charles L. Paige. 
C \LIK 1RM A. 
Luck in the Moose Woods. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
I notice at the top of your paper, “Report your luck,” 
and as the result of my recent hunt in Maine was largely 
luck I must tell you about it. It also savored consider- 
ably of what A. J. Stone would call a parlor moose hunt. 
I left Oxbow with a guide on a Thursday morning, and 
after footing it for two days and a half, sleeping the first 
night at a camp near the headwaters of the Aroostook 
River and the second at Munsungan Lake, we arrived at 
Bluffer Pond Camp, which was to be our home for a 
few days. And, by the way, this tramp in was the most 
strenuous work I did the whole trip, for I foolishly wore 
an old pair of low shoe packs, and the long walk part 
way over an old rough and frozen State road so bruised 
my feet that they pained throughout the time I was in 
the woods. George, the guide, may have -vimndered why 
I hopped along so fast the second da}', but my object 
was to keep my feet in the air as much as possible. 
On arriving at camp we started right in hunting, but 
the conditions were against us, and what with missing one 
good and one poor cli.ance on deer we did nothing until 
Nov. I. The night pf the last of October it started to rain 
and kept, it up all night, and the following- morning found, 
us Out early on good tracking ground and in high antief-. 
pation. ■ 
. .The.', luck commenced at once. It was our intention of 
crossing the. pond , at the foot of the . hill on which our 
camp .was situated, and hunting the ridges on that side, 
l)ut we found the pond frozen over, and so being unable 
to cross in the canoe . we decided to hunt the ridges on 
our .own side. .:. 
-An old road runs along the side of the pond and up 
this we had gone but very few yards rvhen we saw a fox 
at the side of the road feeding at an old decayed carcass 
of a buck: my first shot. .missed him and he ran back in' 
the woods, but. on ..oi'r .keeping very quiet and still for a 
iew minutes .'he retrir-iud and, mv second .shot got him. 
George l iid him on a slump-close io where lie dropped.' 
and we turned off the road to the left up the ridge and 
had gone but very few yards when we struck the very 
818 
fresh tracks of two moose, one considerably larger thaiiffl 
the other. George said they were a bull and cow. The; 
tracks wandered in an aimless manner as though they 
w'ere looking for good day beds, and this proved to be 
true, for in a few minutes we came upon the bull lying' 
down and chewing his cud not sixty feet ahead of u.s.. 
We finished him in short order, and the fusillade started 
off the cow that was with him, but I never saw her, a.s> I 
had but eyes for the bull. 
He was a good-sized moose and had as fair head asi 
Maine heads average, spread about forty inches, and 
seventeen points. The luck in this instance consists of 
the small amount of easy tracking we had, the fact of 
his not being startled by my shots at the fox, and also 
finding him in what might be called the camp yard, as 
we were less than 1,000 yards from the cabin. We were 
gone perhaps one hour from camp. To finish a success- 
ful day we got a doe in the afternoon. 
This was my red-letter day, and the game, with two' 
more foxes, completed my bag, which added what might 
be called the climax to a very beneficial and pleasant 
trip to the Maine woods. Charles A. Gianini. 
Adirondack Deer Hunting. 
The following resolutions and petition were adopted 
by the Essex County Board of Supervisors last week : 
“Whereas, it is the sense of this Board that a deer 
hounding law would work for the benefit of the cou:aty 
as a whole ; and 
“Whereas, e already have a precedent in the excep- 
tion of Essex county from the provisions of the so-called 
bear law and in the laws now on the statute books allow- 
ing hounding on Long Island ; and 
“Whereas, the county of Essex is the roughest andl 
most mountainous county in the State, its physical fea- 
tures putting it in a class by itself; and 
“Whereas, we consider that a law giving us a certain 
hounding season would be observed and lived up to, 
working to an actual increase in the number of deer and 
the better observance of the game laws as a whole; be it 
“Resolved, That we ask our Senator and Member of 
Assembly to do all in their power to secure the passage 
of an act securing to Essex county a deer law allowing 
hounding of deer from the loth to the 31st of October, 
both days inclusive. 
“2d. Fixing a license fee for non-residents of the 
county of $10 for the season, the money to be paid to the 
county treasurer and considered as a part of the con- 
tingent fund of said county. 
“3d. The repeal of that section of the present law that 
provides for the killing of dogs used to hunt deer, and 
any other provisions of the game law inconsistent with 
this act. 
“4th. That the chairman of this Board appoint a com- 
mittee of three members to lay our wishes before the 
Forest, Fish and Game Commission and to co-operate 
w'ith our Senator and Member in every possible way, and 
that this committee be allowed their necessary , expenses. 
“5th. That each supervisor circulate the petition, a 
part of this resolution, and attached hereto, securing all 
the signatures possible thereto, and transmit the same to 
the committee, which is going before the Legislature. 
“6th. That the clerk of this Board be instructed to> 
send a copy of this resolution to Hon. Frank C. Hooper 
and Hon. Senator S. G. Prime. 
“Petition. — We, the undersigned residents of the 
county of Essex, hereby petition the Legislature of the 
State of New York that the recommendations embodied 
in the above resolutions be carried out.” 
Each supervisor in Essex county has a petition in cir- 
culation. The committee appointed to present the mat- 
ter to the Forest, Fish and Game Commission consists 
of Messers. Robert W. Motisher, of Keene; J. D. Rich- 
ards, of Lewis, and John R. Carson, of North Hudson. 
An earnest effort Avill be made to change the deer law.. 
One thing is reasonably 'certain, if the law is not changed 
there will in the future be more rigid enforcement than 
there has been in the past. George L. Brown. 
The Oppression of the Poor. 
Mr. Charles A. Shriner, whose name used to be very 
familiar in these columns when he was doing things 
worthy of note as the New Jersey State Game Warden, 
tells in his paper, the Paterson Chronicle, this moving- 
story of an English pheasant operation in that region: 
“A number of residents of this city will bear witness 
to the fact that this year has been an exceedingly poor 
one for English pheasants. In former years considerable 
numbers of these birds found their ways to the tables of 
people in this city, but this year there have been hardly 
any. The reason may be of interest to readers of The 
Chronicle, especially such as have had pheasants for din- 
ner in previous years. It is a tale of the oppression of 
the poor by the diabolical machinations of the wealthy. 
“The Stuyvesant-Rutherford-Vanderbilt preserves are 
located at Allamuchy, in Warren county, about six miles 
from Hackettstown. The owners of this property an- 
nually import a number of birds from Europe, and they 
also breed birds from the stock left over every year. A 
Paterson man one day discovered Allamuchy; also the 
fact that the farmers there did not permit shooting on 
their farms excepting at so much per. Being of a prac- 
tical turn of mind, the Paterson man took a lease on the 
farms adjoining the preserves and for some years there 
was better shooting there than anywhere in New Jersey. 
A club was formed of a few friends of the discoverer and 
the members always rubbed their hands in glee at the ap- 
proach of cold weather in anticipation of the fun they 
knew they would have. It w'as discovered that the pheas- 
ants were fond of raisins, and so raisins. were sent to 
Allamuchy from Paterson, in order that birds which 
strayed from the preserves might remain strayed. This 
was playing it rather low down on the birds and the 
owners of the preserves, but then the Paterson men were 
poor and they needed the birds. 
‘•EA^erything AA'ent along nicely for a number of years 
and bags of from ten to thirty, and even more birds a 
day for two.' gunners Avere not..at all imcommon. Then 
the natural greed of the rich took posfossion of the own- 
ers of the preserves. They went to the Legislature and 
