54 
FOREST AND STREAM 
[July 14, 1906. 
Good and Bad Game Laws. 
The Colonel was walking into town from a 
quail shooting trip in southeast Missouri a little 
more than a year ago, when Missouri had a 
bad game law. Parenthetically, it may be stated 
that a bad game law is one which permits the 
sale of game and which contains no provision 
for funds to pay for good game warden's. A 
man came along the road in a one horse wagon. 
He was followed by an old, fat pointer. 1 he 
bed of the wagon was full of quail, all shot 
that day. The man explained how he did it. 
The dog ambled along in a field, having a short 
cord attached to his collar. Presently he would 
come to a point, whereupon the man would 
walk up to the dog and tie the end of the cord 
around his leg. The dog could not then go 
forward. They just waited. In a few minutes, 
maybe five minutes, maybe not so long, the 
covey of birds began to walk away; first one, 
then another, until they were strung out in a 
line. Then the man fired into them on the 
ground with both barrels, at the proper distance. 
Sometimes getting ten birds, sometimes getting 
nearly all of them. As I say, he had filled the 
wagon bed that day. 
The year after that, Missouri had a good 
game law; a law which provides ample funds for 
efficient game warden, which restricts the bag 
to twenty-five quail a day, not more than fifty 
to be in possession at one time, and which pro¬ 
hibits the sale of game. That year I went to 
the same country to shoot. The first day my 
meat dog, Jemimah, and I got our limit in good 
time and strolled back to town in a leisurely 
and conteiTted way, to supper, Jemimah getting 
hers first. Raw meat until her sides swelled 
out. The next day it was the same way. At 
just half-past two o’clock, a certain quail tumbled 
over and over into the cornstalks, and when 
Jemimah fetched it in, I said, “My dear, that is 
number fifty, we are going to stop now.” I 
tried to explain the game law to her, but she 
had been brought up under the old law, and 
seemed to think it was good enough for her 
and ought to be for me, and so I just had to 
draw her up on a wagon load of corn that a 
man came along with, and hold her there until 
we got to town. When I got home, my wife 
said, my count was exactly right, but there was 
one bird that ought not to have counted. That 
will happen to the best of us, sometimes. I 
didn’t think I was so close. There was another 
bird that must have come very close to being 
mangled also. When I kicked it up and waited 
for it to get far enough away, it just circled 
around me, still keeping too close, and I was 
all twisted out of shape, and I just had to let 
go. Then this Jemimah person started to bring 
it to me, but I said, “Hold on there, sister; I’ll 
have to gather that one up in a handkerchief.” 
But, when I went to where it lay in the corn, 
I found I had cut off one wing and its head, 
as if done with a hatchet on a chopping block! 
Southeast Missouri is the best quail shooting 
country in the world, now that Missouri has a 
good game law. If you want to go there, I’ll 
tell you where to go. I never would do that 
in the old days, but you can’t hurt the shooting 
there now. 
Good Guns and Bad Guns. 
I am glad to see that some of the sportsmen 
have begun to get into print on the subject of 
the automatic and pump shotgun. I think the 
columns of the Forest and Stream should be 
open to the full discussion of this subject. If 
there are certain types of shotguns that are bad 
guns, and certain other types that are good 
guns, it will be known sooner or later, and 
public sentiment will do away with the bad ones. 
It is my belief that this sentiment is even now 
in process of formation, and that in time no 
repeating shotguns will be allowed in any of 
the States. Sportsmen will not hold up the 
good game laws with one hand and be seen to 
uphold the slaughter gun with the other hand. 
It is not that the slaughter gun gets so many 
more birds, but that it kills so many more that 
are not gotten. Meanwhile, it would be in¬ 
structive to those of us who never used a gun 
of this sort, and who never will, to hear from 
those who are its advocates. There must be 
something in their favor, or they would not be 
used. What is it? Do they shoot harder, or 
do they bag more birds? Do the people who 
use them, do it in order to get all the birds at 
one time? Do they get.up two coveys of quail 
or two flocks of ducks and get ten of them in 
the two times, and then go right off home with 
them? Is that it? Come now, Mr. Pump Gun, 
why do you pump? Is it because, although you 
get no more birds than we old fashioned double 
barrels, you have so much more fun wounding 
the other birds? Is that it? 
George Kennedy. 
Game Legislation at the Last 
Session of Congress. 
At the first session of the Fifty-ninth Con¬ 
gress, which adjourned on June 30, 1906, more 
bills affecting game protection were introduced 
and more measures became laws than in any 
previous Congress. Fifteen special bills were 
introduced, of which four were passed and sev¬ 
eral favorably reported. Of the bills which be¬ 
came laws, one provided for the leasing of not 
more than 3,500 acres of land in South Dakota 
for a buffalo preserve; another provided better 
protection for birds on the seven bird refuges 
established under Executive order, in Florida, 
Louisiana, Michigan and North Dakota; the 
third established a game refuge in Arizona, and 
the fourth prohibited shooting in the District of 
Columbia, except in limited areas on the east¬ 
ern branch and on the west side of the Potomac 
River, thus making the District in effect a game 
refuge. The titles of these acts are as follows: 
An Act authorizing the Secretary of the In¬ 
terior to lease land in Stanley county, S. D., for 
a buffalo pasture. Public No. 43. Approved 
March 12, 1906. 
An Act to protect birds and their eggs in 
game and bird preserves. Public No. 314. Ap¬ 
proved June 28, 1906. 
An Act for the protection of wild animals in 
the Grand Canon Forest Reserve. Public No. 
339. Approved June 29, 1906. 
. An Act to prohibit the killing of wild birds 
and other wild animals in the District of Col¬ 
umbia. Approved June 29, 1906. 
Other measures of interest in this connection 
are the appropriation of $15,000, included in the 
agricultural appropriation bill for the erection of 
a fence on the Wichita Game Preserve, to make 
an enclosure of several square miles for the 
buffalo offered to the Government by the New 
York Zoological Society, and the passage of the 
Statehood bill, which will extend the game laws 
of Oklahoma to the Indian Territory. 
The bills which failed to become laws were 
eleven in number. Of these, H. R. 376 and 
S. 3602 covered the same ground as two of the 
measures passed. Two bills relating to the use 
of automatic shotguns in the Territories and in 
the District of Columbia were acted on adversely 
in Committee. Three game refuge bills—one of 
a general character; one establishing a game 
refuge in the Olympic Reserve in Washington, 
and the third creating game refuges in the for¬ 
est reserves of California—were favorably re¬ 
ported, but the California bill was accompanied 
by an adverse minority committee report. Four 
other bills, namely, House bills, providing for 
a Territorial park in Woods county, Oklahoma, 
and for the protection of water fowl on the 
Potomac River, and Senate bills providing for 
the creation of game refuges on forest reserves, 
and for game refuges on the forest reserves of 
California, were not reported by the respective 
committees. The titles of these bills and their 
status are shown in the following list: 
House Bills. 
H. R. 376. Concerning reservations of pub¬ 
lic lands as preserves and breeding grounds for 
native birds or for game birds, and to punish 
violations of Executive orders concerning the 
same. Referred to Committee on Public Lands, 
Dec. 4, 1905. Superseded by H. R. 13,190, which 
was approved June 28, 1906. (See Public No. 
3 : 4 -) 
H. R. 7019. For the protection of animals, 
birds, and fish in the forest reserves, and for 
other purposes. Referred to Committee on 
Agriculture, Dec. 13, 1905: Reported without 
amendment, March 23, 1906. 
H. R. 11789. Creating and establishing a Ter¬ 
ritorial park in the county of Woods, Territory 
of Oklahoma, and for other purposes. Referred 
to Committee on Public Lands, Jan. 13, 1906. 
H. R. 11949. To prohibit the use of the auto¬ 
matic shotgun in hunting in the Territories of 
the United States. Referred to Committee on 
Territories, Jan. 15, 1906. Laid on the table 
March 29, 1906. 
H. R. 11950. To prohibit the use of the auto¬ 
matic shotgun in hunting in the District of Col¬ 
umbia. Referred to Committee on District of 
Columbia, Jan. 15, 1906. 
H. R. 15335. For the protection of game ani¬ 
mals, birds and fishes in the Olympic Forest 
Reserve of the United States, in the State of 
Washington. Referred to Committee on Pub¬ 
lic Lands, Feb. 21, 1906. Reported March 29, 
1906. 
H. R. 15849. To protect wild water fowl on 
the Potomac River and its tributaries. Re¬ 
ferred to Committee on Agriculture, Feb. 28, 
1906. 
H. R. 19234. For the protection of animals, 
birds and fish in the forest reserves in Cali¬ 
fornia, and for other purposes. Referred to 
Committee on Public Lands, May 11, 1906. Re¬ 
ported with minority report, June 9, 1906. Rept. 
No. 4907. 
Senate Bills. 
S. 2966. For the protection of animals, birds 
and fish in the forest reserves, and for other 
purposes. Referred to Committee on Forest 
Reservations, Jan. 10, 1906. 
S. 3602. To prohibit the killing of wild birds 
and wild animals in the District of Columbia. 
Referred to Committee on District of Columbia,. 
Jan. 23, 1906. Indefinitely postponed June 21, 
1906, the corresponding House bill being sub¬ 
stituted and passed. 
S. 6119. For the protection of animals, birds- 
and fish in the forest reserves of California, and 
for other purposes. Referred to Committee on 
Forest Reservations, May 10, 1906. Reported 
June 11, 1906. 
From the above summary it will be seen that 
seven bills still await action at the session of 
Congress which begins next December. Five of 
these—two in the Senate and three in the House 
—are game refuge bills. Three of the House 
bills—No. 7019, a general bill authorizing the 
President to establish game refuges on the 
forest reserves; No. 15,335, providing for the 
establishment of a game refuge in the Olympic 
Forest Reserve in Washington, and No. 19,234,. 
authorizing the establishment of game refuges. 
