December, 1919 
663 
FOREST AND STREAM 
day or more after one bird, but if I had 
killed it, it would have been because I 
knew enough about its habits. In the 
same way, I prefer to hunt rabbits with- 
out a dog. I had a dog once who was 
a wizard on' rabbit trails but here we 
needed a ferret to help him out. 
I feel that I am speaking reasonably 
when I say that there are hundreds of 
rabbits on our farm but it is doubtful 
if any group of men with the help of the 
best rabbit dogs in America could kill 
three rabbits on this place in any one 
day. With skillful tracking or a good 
dog two or three men by the aid of a 
ferret could get four or five rabbits in the 
same time under favorable conditions 
such as usually come three or four times 
a season. 
There is another side to the question 
of rabbits which is prominent under our 
system of game laws. As our laws are 
now administered it is a very serious 
matter for the owner of the land if the 
game animals get too numerous. If every 
game protector in the state had a beat 
say two miles square so that he could 
hear any shooting that might be done 
there and so that he could know the 
boundaries of each man’s land and then 
if he were required to arrest and prose- 
cute every person found hunting on the 
land of another without written permis- 
sion from the owner our present laws 
might really protect the game and tend 
to make it more plentiful. 
Since I have aready written at length 
I might as well make it a little longer 
and present part of the cat question as 
it appears from the point of view of the 
farmer. It is already beginning to seem 
that the cat agitation is likely to cost the 
country large sums of money in the loss 
of crops due to the increase of mice. It 
is safe to say that a very large number 
of mice are killed by the wild ranging cat 
for every bird so destroyed. The well 
fed cat of the suburbs will often kill 
large numbers of birds but the cat onq 
sees in the fields far from buildings is 
likely to catch more mice than birds 
simply because they are more numerous 
and. easier to catch. 
There is also the question of the real 
economic status of the song bird. We 
may count the ragweed seeds in the 
stomach of a tree sparrow and figure 
how many millions of such seeds that bird 
would have eaten if it had stayed here 
all winter. The whole makes a stag- 
gering total but when we come to count 
the seeds on a single plant of ragweed 
and figure how many weeks it would have 
fed the bird and realize that one or two 
of these seeds are all that would come to 
maturity in any case we are not sure of 
the correctness of our statements. 
I am as vigorous in the desire for the 
protection of song birds as any one but 
it seems to me that we are on a perilous- 
ly unsafe foundation when we make such 
statements as the common one that “with- 
out the birds agriculture would be im- 
possible.” Taking an average over the 
whole year and •ver the whole country 
the robin may do more good than harm 
f)ut in certain fruit growing sections at 
certain times the reverse is most de- 
cidedly true. The similar case of the 
bobolink has been recognized by the ad- 
ministrators of the Migratory Bird 
Treaty Act. 
It is to be hoped that I have been fair 
in this statement. It may seem to be a 
large collection of objections but in the 
final analysis the protection of our game 
rests with the landowner and he is not to 
be won over by statements which he can 
see are not just iu accord with the re- 
corded facts or with a just application 
of those facts. 
Alfebd C. Weed, New York. 
ON TRAPPING. 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream: 
I T has been a puzzle to me all my life 
why trapping is looked upon as un- 
sportsmanlike and why most people 
regard a man who takes fur bearing ani- 
mals in traps as being necessarily cruel 
and unfeeling. 
I am very sure that much of this feeling 
arises from lack of understanding of the 
art of the trappers in taking the game 
and lack of appreciation of how thorough 
a knowledge of the nature and habits of 
the fur bearing animals is absolutely 
necessary to anyone wishing to be a suc- 
cessful trapper. 
I am sure that any man who makes 
even an ordinarily good showing at trap- 
ping must possess an amount of wood- 
craft superior to the man who, often de- 
pending on hired guides, goes out and 
brings in his allowance of deer or other 
game. The trapper must also possess 
powers of observation far above the 
average and be able to read all the signs 
left by his game, no matter how faint 
and indistinct, if he wishes to have even 
fair success. He must be able to shift 
for himself at all times. He must rely 
on his own jud.gment as to proper places 
to set and methods to use. It is a far 
different proposition to shoot a fox, for 
instance, driven by a hound than to 
catch the same animal in a trap. 
Pit your wits Mr. Fox Hunter against 
the fox when he is not driven, when his 
time is all his own and see how many of 
you can so far outwit him as to cause 
him to place his foot on a space, which 
you must select for yourself, which can- 
not be over three inches square. He has 
his nose to protect him from all your 
wiles, and he will fool you many times. 
The mink, while not by any means as 
wise as the fox, will also elude you and 
cause you to wonder if you understand 
his nature at all, 'in many instances. The 
coon, skunk, and muskrat are all easily 
trapped but a good working knowledge of 
their nature and habits is necessary if you 
would secure enough of either to pay for 
your trouble. As to the cruelty of the use 
of the steel trap I have never been able to 
see where it led to any more suffering 
than the use of firearms. We all know 
that much game is wounded and escapes 
each season to suffer and die or get well, 
as the case may be, by those using fire- 
arms. That is an accepted fact and is 
unavoidable.. Any trapper who is at all 
expert will place all his muskrat traps 
where the rat on being caught will at 
once plunge into deep water and be 
drowned — no suffering there. 
The same applies in nearly every case 
to mink, otter and beaver. This leaves 
us only the fox, coon and skunk and the 
laws of nearly all states require that 
traps be visited once every twenty-four 
hours so you will readily see that most 
animals are in reality seldom held In 
traps for any great length of time. 
I will venture to state that any hunter 
who will take the trouble to learn the art 
of trapping and follow a trap line for 
three seasons to get a thorough under- 
standing of the subject will admit that it 
is not as cruel as the use of firearms and 
also that it brings one into closer touch 
with nature. 
Ernest A. Brown, N. H. 
A FEW REMARKS. 
To the Editor of Forest* and Stream? 
I N the first installment of Mr. P. A. 
Willits’ most ably written “Manual of 
Wild-Fowl Shooting,” he has stated “a 
few swans are still to be found on Cur- 
rituck Sound, North Carolina.” Mr. Wil- 
lits has in all probability not had oc- 
casion to travel over much of Currituck 
during recent years perhaps. 
Mr. E. H. Forbush in his work, “Game 
Birds, Wild Fowl and Shore Birds,” has 
this to say on page 199: 
“The great swan shooting ground 
today is Currituck Sound. Here the 
birds find open water, food is plen- 
tiful and they are far less harried 
than on Chesapeake Bay. This is 
the secret of their increase there, 
and they will probably continue to 
maintain their numbers there for 
years, provided the conditions re- 
main favorable.” 
This was written In 1912. Last sea- 
son when coming away from Currituck 
I will testify there were plenty of whist- 
ling swan there then. From a bluff 
overlooking the Sound on my property 
I stood one day with Mr. Jasper B. 
White than whom, as a life-long resident 
and sportsman, there is no one better 
informed, ^ to fowl .conditions in tho 
