77 
mr 
February, 1921 
A day later I came by this place and 
met the farmer returning from the 
pond with seventeen ducks he had just 
killed. 
Besides deriving a revenue from 
bass, he charged five dollars to each 
person for an evening and morning’s 
shooting at the pond. 
This lake always presented an 
agreeable appearance as the mud flats 
on the bottom were never exposed and 
no great loss of water was occasioned 
thereby. , 
It seems to me a good idea for the 
Government and State authorities in 
granting water rights to require the 
conduits in reservoirs to be placed high 
enough in the dams to insure always 
a reasonable amount of water to be 
left in the reservoirs, as a sanitary 
measure, for the propagation of fish 
and that the trees destroyed by the 
reservoir be removed. 
A fine body of water producing food 
for fish and fowl, is a better and more 
healthful proposition than a dirty mud 
flat covered with decaying vegetation. 
The increase in the number of these 
small reservoirs should be greatly en- 
couraged for besides adding a hundred 
dollars, in value, per acre to the land 
watered a large quantity of fish food 
I can be produced where such food is 
scarce and consequently in great de- 
mand. 
Edward Gillette, Wyoming. 
BRINGING HIM UP RIGHT 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream: 
A RECENT article in Forest and 
■GA Stream, must have touched the 
conscience of every sportsman who 
read it and sent him back in memory 
to the struggle he had as a boy to get 
his chance at the sports to be had with 
gun and rod. 
Perhaps there was a boy in your 
“gang” who had a 12 gauge, single 
barrel gun and maybe you chopped 
wood every morning during the week 
to earn money to buy paper shells and 
powder and shot, yes and wads (thin 
and thick) and maybe you can remem- 
ber how you and George and Roy sat 
up in the old garret room and loaded 
these shells, and dreamed of the trip 
next Saturday — and how good you 
were until parental consent was given 
for you to go down to the “big slough” 
and how you all three huddled down in 
a carefully constructed blind and wait- 
ed for a bunch of ruddies to feed in 
toward the shore close enough for a pot 
shot; also the disappointment when a 
down the lake sent them sus- 
piciously back toward the open water 
and then again the hope as they quieted 
down and fed closer in. You remem- 
ber the advice from the other two : “Get 
three of ’em in line, Red” — and “wait 
until you can see their eyes” — “I’ve got 
another shell all ready, maybe you can 
get another whack at ’em.” Then the 
supreme moment when with “three of 
’em in line” and just as you touched 
the trigger, two more sailed into range 
?f y° u r pattern and before the smoke 
cloud had cleared away another shell 
had been forced into the breech and a 
FOREST AND STREAI 
second shot had brought down three 
more and you looked up to see old 
Shep (the best retriever you have ever 
owned) swimming after a cripple and 
how you ran in as far as you could to 
give that duck a load of 5’s so that 
your faithful old pal could get him. 
You have been there, and you don’t 
need to blow your nose nor try to make 
me believe you’ve got a cinder in your 
eye ; for even if George has become a 
prominent minister and Roy a contrac- 
tor you can live over those days with 
the boy or girl for whom you are plan- 
ing and saving now. 
Supposing in those days that I have 
brought to your memory you had 
waked one Christmas morning to find a 
little 410 standing by your bed, and 
Sister had given you a real leather belt 
filled with yellow shells with brass 
rims, and Mother had given you a 
khaki suit and a pair of high boots 
that laced nearly to the knee and sup- 
pose a setter pup was struggling to 
A young Sportsman 
lick your hand and your father and his 
hunting partner were calling you to get 
into a high-powered automobile to go on 
a regular duck hunt — Do you think 
that the fact that you were only seven 
years old would bother you much? 
Yes, I know that sounds pretty 
young, and it did to my wife and 
daughters, but they had no right to be 
surprised for from the time my boy 
could walk he had been learning to 
handle a gun; first a pop gun and he 
learned — never to point it toward any- 
one — later an air rifle, and with that he 
learned the first commandment of a 
hunter — “I will never point a gun load- 
ed or unloaded at anything that I do 
not wish to destroy” and when he was 
allowed to shoot a 22 — he learned 
“never to kill game except for imme- 
diate use and then in moderation”, and 
now he is learning that a sportsman 
is considerate of the rights of others, 
farmers, landowners and leasers espe- 
cially; that he is modest in telling of 
his achievements. He has learned 
from hunting with some of the clean- 
est, best sportsmen of the West that 
the success of a hunt depends mostly 
upon the comradeship of the partici- 
pants. 
He has brought in several ducks and 
two rabbits that he killed, the picture 
enclosed shows him with his game; 
and, how about his father, what are 
the relations? With only two seasons 
of hunting and fishing behind us, we 
have no difficulty in finding things to 
talk about. Last spring we bought a 
hand trap and a barrel of clay pigeons. 
I got one of my daughters a 20 gauge 
gun and have seen her break eight 
straight birds at 35 yards (she is 15 
years old) and she hunted with us this 
fall, bringing in her share of ducks. 
Now, when the Snow is piling up out- 
side and the pinion fire is roaring in 
the grate, I can live over again all my 
boyish experiences with these two, and 
if we were to carry out all the trips 
planned my three score years and ten 
would be filled to the brim. When the 
time comes for them to guide some one 
else along the trail or maybe find it 
alone, for themselves, I would rather 
that they had these memories of days 
spent together, than the interest on 
the few dollars more I might have left 
them. 
For the sake of these younger ones, 
as well as for myself, I am most grate- 
ful for the wise restrictions which are 
saving the game. The abolishing of 
spring shooting has already done more 
for the wild-fowl than all the previous 
work of game wardens put together, 
and if every sportsman will make it 
his particular business to put in the 
time in the spring that he used to put 
in hunting ducks, in hunting crows, 
and magpies, not overlooking an oc- 
casional load for the common cat, our 
game future is assured. 
Geo. C. Franklin, Colorado. 
THE GREAT NORTHERN HARE 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream: 
TN North America there are no native 
I rabbits. What are commonly called 
rabbits are really different species of 
hares. 
Now a hare would naturally be con- 
sidered by most people as being one of 
the “dumbest” of all the well known 
higher animals. If anybody had stated 
in Colonel Roosevelt’s day that a hare 
could make itself heard for a quarter 
of a mile the chances are that such a 
person would have been accused of 
being a “Nature Fakir.” 
It is doubtful if many persons have 
ever heard the cry of the Northern 
hare, and it may be interesting to learn 
more about it. 
Some years ago a friend and I visited 
a remote section of the Lower Province 
of Quebec on a caribou hunting trip. 
Our destination being in the heart of 
the “Shickshock” mountains in the 
Peninsula of Gaspe, — which lies north 
of Bay Chalner. 
We went well up to the headwaters 
of one of the salmon rivers, which flow 
easterly into the Bay of Gaspe. Here 
are found some of what are known as 
“barren grounds,” where the caribou 
