192 
FOREST AND STREAM 
April, 1920 
OUR CANADIAN-AMERICAN 
BIRD-TREATY 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream : 
T HE importance of our Canadian- 
American Bird-Treaty should not be 
underestimated. The protection of both 
song and insectiverous birds is of im- 
mense value to the interests of not only 
the farmer but to labor and capital in 
general. 
Were it not for the conservation of 
our feathered friends we would be un- 
able to enjoy the great measure of our 
present agricultural prosperity. 
The immediate current value of the 
nation’s birds is far in excess of the ex- 
pense of their continued protection. 
Were the present protection withdrawn 
and the birds left to the tender mercies 
of every hunter and purveyor of the mill- 
iner’s demands, in a brief period we 
ing remarks of Frank Forester in 1856. 
The English widgeon was first noticed 
by Mr. J. N. Lawrence in Fulton Market, 
having been shot on Long Island, and the 
discovery was communicated by him to 
Mr. Giraua, who has embodied it in his 
admirable work on the birds of Long 
Island. Since that period, however, it 
has been killed so frequently as to merit 
a place among the birds of America. 
Elsewhere Forester says of the Eng- 
lish Widgeon (again writing in 1856) 
that they “are becoming frequent among 
us, working their way from the north- 
east south-westerly, having been, until 
the last twenty-five years, unknown on 
this continent.” 
This gives us an earlier record than 
that which you mention, putting the date 
well before 1856. 
V IRGINIUS. 
Deer rescued from the Thames River in Connecticut 
would experience a national loss far in 
excess of that which our connection with 
the World-war may have cost us. 
The necessity to provide an ample 
personnel to enforce the general protec- 
tion of the nation’s feathered proteges, 
as well as to live up to our part of the 
treaty’s provisions is self-evident. Few 
legislative measures are as far-reaching 
in their beneficial results in the interests 
of the people at large as those which pro- 
vide for the protection of our insectivor- 
ous and other birds. 
John C. Hensch, Alabama. 
THE EUROPEAN WIDGEON 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream: 
R EFERRING to your footnote at the 
end of “Widgeon’s” article on “The 
Shooting of the Rara Avis,” in the Janu- 
ary number, you speak of the records of 
the European Widgeon being killed in 
this country back as far as 1870. 
May I call you attention to the follow- 
RESCUING A DEER 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream: 
T HE Scott Wrecking Co.’s employees 
here have had many emergency calls 
in the marine line but none so unique as 
the one that hustled them into a small 
boat one day recently. 
A deer came bounding out of the 
Pequot summer colony, crossed the ave- 
nue, headed straight for the Thames 
river and plunged into the icy waters. 
The animal had not swam more than 
two hundred yards when he became 
wedged in an ice floe and was nearly ex- 
hausted when two of Scott Co.’s wrecking 
crew worked their craft through the 
floating ice and hauled the deer aboard. 
The animal was given a square meal, 
put aboard an auto truck and sent up to 
the zoological garden at Norwich, four- 
teen miles distant. 
The deer had a head that looked very 
much like that of a mammoth rat. 
James P. Neilan, Connecticut. 
SHOTGUN ACCURACY 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream: 
T NOTE in the November number of 
your magazine that your correspon- 
dent “Gaucho” treats your readers to an- 
other letter in which he describes my con- 
clusions, which have been arrived at after 
careful and exhaustive practical experi- 
ments, as “misleading” “inaccurate state- 
ments” and “absolutely untenable con- 
clusions,” etc., but he makes no attempt 
to give any reasons for such wholesale 
condemnation. 
An ounce of practice is worth many 
pounds of theory, and I suggest to him 
that he make the same experiments that 
I have made and he will then be in a 
better position to express an opinion of 
some value. 
In the September issue of Field and 
Stream, “Gaucho” can see an article 
on page 483, by Mr. F. W. King, on the 
selection of a trap gun. He records 
using an auxiliary rifled chamber for a 
.25 calibre which he tried in his double 
shotgun. He writes as follows: 
“Luckily I tried it at first and found 
to my infinite disgust that at 50 yds. 
the right barrel shot a foot to the left 
and the left the same distance the other 
way. It was impossible to obtain any 
sort of satisfactory results so I gave it 
away. This crossfire is true, of course, 
but in a lesser degree in using a double 
trap gun, and IS ONE REASON WHY 
PRACTICALLY ALL OF THE 
CRANKS ARE USING THE SINGLE 
BARREL.” 
From this it is evident that at least 
one other shooter has had the same ex- 
perience as I have, but in the above case 
he did not carry out the experiments as 
far as I did; he would also probably have 
obtained straight shooting with the bul- 
lets, had he sighted along each barrel 
instead of along the rib. 
“Gaucho” omits to explain why the 
barrels of double rifles have to be wedged 
apart at the muzzles or in what way a 
bullet does not correspond with the 
center of a charge of shot, as far as this 
question is concerned. 
If the barrels of double shot guns do 
shoot to centre, why is the wedge nec- 
essary at the muzzles of double rifles? 
Why would not these latter be just as 
accurate without the wedge? 
“Gaucho” also suggests that I may not 
know that there are in the U. S. many 
men who, though they have never .seen 
a “try gun” or a professional gun-fitter 
“easily stand on a par with any the 
world over,” but to my good fortune I do 
know this and . it has been my privilege 
to shoot in friendly competition with 
such men as Work, Murphy, Dolan, 
Thompson, Robinson and many others, in 
their own country, as well as here, at 
Monte Carlo, Paris and many other 
places, though practically every man that 
I know has his gun stock fitted to him 
by an expert, and if gua-fitting is 30 un- 
necessary, why does every first class 
gunmaker in this country have his own 
private fitting school, where his cus- 
tomers’ gun-stocks can be “cast on” or 
“off” or “straightened” or “bent” to in- 
dividual needs? 
