July, 1919 
FOREST AND STREA:\I 
345 
have a sporting chance. Either method is simply a 
method of slaughter. Both are ways of procuring 
meat without regard to sport or sportsmanship. 
Hunting deer with dogs has been prohibited through- 
out the United States; hunting rabbits with fer- 
rets is gradually being done away with. 
The ferret is an importation from Germany. It 
is used largely by German-speaking people. The 
ferret attacks from underground, like a submarine. 
He torpedoes the rabbit out of its hole to be an 
easy m.ark for the meat-seeking hunter. Unless the 
ferret is muzzled it will kill the rabbit in its hole 
and stay there until it has sucked out his blood. If 
we wish to kill off the rabbit, by all means let us 
introduce the ferret. If we wish to preserve the 
rabbit as a game animal there must be no hunting 
with ferrets. 
It is an American characteristic to give everjThing 
and everybody a fair chance. For that reason we 
have abolished the shooting of song-birds, jacking 
deer, hunting deer with dogs, pigeon shooting, and 
the killing of any sort of game during the breeding 
season. Why, then, should we permit the un-sports- 
manlike and un-American practice of hunting rab- 
bits with ferrets? 
THE HUNTER WHO SMILES 
Y" OU’VE all met him — the hunter who smiles. Also, 
^ we take it, every real lover of happy hunting 
grounds has hit the quiet trail with the hunter who 
does not smile, the fisherman who fishes with a 
grouch, the sportsman who goes to the merry wild- 
wood as if he were going to the dentist’s chair, or 
making an attack through barbed wire entangle- 
ments. 
There comes to memory now two pictures, two 
days out of many a happy day with the rod and gun 
in the wilds. The first was a quiet day when the 
oak trees were red as burnished copper against the 
blue skies ; when the maples were crimson and gold- 
en ; with the evergreens making a picture fit for the 
background of the glory trails of paradise. And 
the game was afoot and awing; the dogs roading, 
and the promise of a red letter day all but fulfilled. 
But, my comrade of the trail cursed the dogs, 
grouched about the poor quality of shells. He ob- 
jected to this and he grumbled at that. . . . Oh, 
yes, we did get the full bag, but we brought it home 
as though it were a bag of rattlesnakes instead of 
a treasure trove of the happy trail. 
And we call to mind another day. A day not half 
so fair in promise. The scent did not “lay.” There 
were false points. There were abominable misses. 
But with it all there was real comradeship on the 
trail. We shot more that day than a man shoots 
with a gun. We got more game than a man puts 
in his bag. And at that, with all the difficulties, 
there was by no means a lean catch. We had pretty 
nearly our limit of the feathered beauties. But the 
best of it all was the comradeship of the trail. For I 
was with a real sportsman, a shooter who smiles. At 
noon we built our hunter’s fire in the rocks, and 
warmed our shack ; we took time to smoke the calu- 
met; we opened our eyes to the beauty of the forest 
and the streams. And when the full moon rose on 
the home trail, we came to the fireside, tired, but 
happy. It was a red letter day, a day you remember 
in the years to come. 
For, after all, _ what is this hunting and fishing 
game but a big bit of the bigger game of life? And 
the real sportsman, the shooter who smiles, is not 
playing the game merely for the prize. He’s play- 
ing the game for the fun of it. Chin up, and a 
twinkle in his eye when the trail is hard, back 
straight and a gleam of grim joy in his eye when the 
shooting is poor, or the fishing bad. And when the 
long trail is over, and the sky golden and red with 
the setting sun, he smiles again. For life has been 
to him the great game. He has lived by the side of 
the trail, not merely trampled over it. And always, 
in grim or gray days, when the game was afoot or 
when the game lay close and was gone, he was the 
shooter who smiles : the man you and I love to have 
for running mate on the trail. The real sportsman, 
gentleman and soldier at heart, brave to the soul of 
him — the man’s size man — the hunter who smiles. 
NEW YORK STEPS BACKWARD 
'T'HE passage by the New York Legislature of a 
bill to repeal the buck law" and the approval of 
that bill by the Governor is a distinct setback to 
game protection in the state and thus a public mis- 
fortune. 
From the old days when, after years of struggle, 
the practice was forbidden of hounding deer and 
killing them in the water, up to the present time, 
there has been constant improvement in the deer 
situation in the Adirondacks and a fairly steady gain 
in their numbers. Never perhaps were so many 
deer killed in that region as last year wffien the 
numbers secured by hunting wmre not less than 
15,000. Last year more deer w"ere killed in New- 
York than in any other state in the union. To one 
not very large tow"n 12,000 deer hides w"ere sent 
to be tanned, and practically all these w"ere killed 
by local and professional hunters. Those secured 
by outside sportsmen w"ere not disposed of to the 
tanners. 
It is not to be supposed that Governor Smith him- 
self knows anything about deer or deer habits, nor 
about the principles of farming, yet statements must 
have been submitted to him showing that the farmer 
w'ho breeds poultry or domestic live stock, does not 
indiscriminately kill his producing females, but only 
his surplus males. Statistics as to the relative fre- 
quency of accidents wffien the hunter merely shoots 
at something moving, or is obliged to be certain as 
to the character of his mark must have been pre- 
sented to him. 
The newspapers report the Governor to have said 
that he signed this bill in order that a test of the 
law" might be had. It w'ill be an expensive test, not 
so much perhaps in the loss to the state of its breed- 
ing stock of deer — though that loss will be serious 
and felt for years to come — as in the loss of human 
lives. These lives w"ill be sacrificed to the desire of 
certain Adirondack hunters for freer deer killing 
and to Governor Smith’s lack of know"ledge in this 
particular matter. It is a pity that he did not know' 
enough about it to distinguish the expert sportsman 
from the selfish hunter, or statements that w'ere true 
from those that w'ere false. 
MIGRATORY BIRD TREATY UPHELD 
J UST as this number of Forest and Stream w'as 
going to press word was received that Judge 
Trieber, of Arkansas, has upheld the constitution- 
ality of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. This is a 
great step forw'ard and one that Forest and Stream 
readers will be especially glad to learn of as it w'as 
largely due to the efforts of this magazine that 
interest in this movement has been kept alive. 
