Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal. Copyright, 1906, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Terms ’ $ k M^thiaS'. aC0Py ‘^ NEW YORK, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1906. 
( VOL. LXVII—No. 18. 
1 No. 346 Broadway, New York.S>. 
The object of this journal will be to studiously 
promote a healthful interest in outdoor recre¬ 
ation, and to cultivate a refined taste for natural 
objects. Announcement in first number of 
Forest and Stream, Aug. 14,1873. 
THE DUCK SHOOTING OUTLOOK. 
The three duck shooting paintings *by Mr. D. 
W. Huntington, reproduced this week, will stir 
the blood of many a gunner and will make him look 
forward with added longing toward the days of 
this season which he can devote to wildfowl 
shooting. The scenes represented are familiar. 
We have the wide sweep of water bordered by 
low marsh, the ducking boat with its decoys, 
and the gunner prepared for his rough work. 
In the first picture he is.putting out his decoys, 
balancing himself with bent knees as he stands 
in his cranky -vessel and tosses each decoy and 
its weight to their proper place. In the second 
picture he is giving to the decoys the final 
touches which shall arrange them in just the 
proper grouping, and in the third he has pushed 
his boat up against the marsh, and with a bunch 
of weeds as a blind, and grass hung over his 
craft, he is prepared for work. The scenes are 
true to life, excellent representations of what 
goes on in the duck shooting season along the 
bays and sounds of the Atlantic coast, and on 
many of the lakes and marshes of the west. 
The form of shooting here depicted is one of 
the many variants of what is called point shoot¬ 
ing, another form of which is described in 
“American Duck Shooting,” the latest and by 
far the most complete volume on wildfowl shoot¬ 
ing. It is gunning from the shore, and is, in the 
opinion of many, by far the most artistic form 
of duck shooting. Less difficult than pass shoot¬ 
ing, it nevertheless offers a variety which is un¬ 
equalled. 
Wildfowl shooting, though practiced under 
conditions that are often very hard, is one of 
our most attractive sports, and from the different 
circumstances under which the fowls are found, 
it has almost unending variety. In the book just 
referred to no less than twenty-five different 
forms of duck, goose and swan shooting are 
described. 
The season which is now just opening 
promises to be a good one. The warm weather 
has lasted long, and until very recently in many 
parts of the' land the only birds that have made 
their appearance in any numbers were the blue¬ 
winged teal, mallards and black ducks. Within 
the past few days, however, many fowl are said 
to have made their appearance on Long Island 
Sound and on Chesapeake Bay, and the pros¬ 
pects’for shooting on these waters are bright. 
At several points along the Atlantic coast 
sportsmen are complaining of the almost con¬ 
stant pursuit of the incoming waterfowl by men 
in power boats and all sorts of small craft, in 
many cases contrary to law. but in all cases very 
detrimental to the ducks, which, under the most 
favorable conditions, obtain too little rest even 
though technically protected. In Narragansett 
Bay both pleasure parties and gunners are com¬ 
plained of. The former chase the waterfowl 
from point to point in order to see therii fly, a 
new fad, apparently, to the leisure class; but 
the gunners pursue the birds with a sterner 
motive. Further south the chase begins before 
the season opens and is most active when the 
ducks begin to arrive in numbers from the 
north. 
If the laws are enforced, this constant nagging 
will cease; if not, the birds will be driven away 
for all time, for even wildfowl must have some 
rest and an occasional opportunity to feed. 
There is no excuse for acts of this sort. 
THE BIG LAKE DECISION. 
The efforts of the Big Lake Hunting and Fish¬ 
ing Club to hold the riparian rights for some 
fifteen miles of land lying along Little river, near 
Paragould, Ark., have come to naught by reason 
of a decision by the United States Circuit Court 
of Appeals, which holds that Big Lake is merely 
an expansion of Little river, which is a navigable 
stream. Several years ago this club purchased 
a strip of land fifteen feet in width on each side 
of the lake for a distance of about fifteen miles, 
and prohibited non-members from shooting on 
the lake. The fact that the members of the club 
were residents of Tennessee aided in turning 
local sentiment against them, and there was gen¬ 
eral indignation when the Federal court, which 
had granted a temporary injunction, made this 
permanent, and non-members were denied the 
right to shoot on the lake. An appeal from this 
decision was taken to the Federal Court of Ap¬ 
peals, and the injunction was dissolved in an 
opinion handed down at the last term of court. 
We recorded the other day the promulgation 
of an order by the War Department that the 
game and fish laws of a state should not be held 
to be operative on a military reservation over 
which the United States had acquired exclusive 
jurisdiction. The order further directed that 
a warden or other state or local officer who 
persists in attempting to enforce these laws 
within the limits of such a reservation after 
having been ordered to desist therefrom, should 
be removed from the reservation. This is per¬ 
fectly sound military law, and presumably the War 
Department is by the statute justified in making 
such a ruling. But it may not be said that the 
rule is in'support of game protection nor to be 
justified as in the interest of public policy. 
Game on a military reservation should be under 
the control of the State, fully as much as game 
on the property of private ownership. Nor do 
we believe that the officers of the United States 
Army would ask for themselves or for the men 
under their command such special privileges as 
are conferred by this order. As we know them, 
they are too good sportsmen for that. 
Edwin Sandys; the well-known writer on field 
sports, died of heart disease in this city on Oct. 
23. Mr. Sandys had an extensive and practical 
experience as a sportsman both on land and on 
water, and was a felicitous writer on the subjects 
dear to him. His books, “Trapper Jim,” “Sports¬ 
man Joe,” and others were designed for youth¬ 
ful readers, and by their influences awakened in 
his readers a healthful interest in the manly rec¬ 
reations of the outdoor world. Mr. Sandys was 
a Canadian and came of a brilliant family. His 
death is a distinct loss to the special field of 
literature he had chosen for his own. 
S* 
This is the season of the year when frequently 
there comes over the phone the query, ‘‘Must 
a resident of New Jersey take out a license for 
shooting in New York?” And almost invariably 
there comes the complementary inquiry. “What 
is the penalty?” It suggests a third question: 
Is the average man deterred from doing a pro¬ 
hibited thing by the punishment attached? Per¬ 
haps in other affairs than invading a sister state 
with a shotgun, no-. If this be true, and if the 
man, who- in ordinary affairs needs not be coerced 
by fears of fines and penalties, is controlled by 
them in his over-the-border shooting excursions, 
a fourth question suggests itself. Why is this so? 
*• 
In the Supreme Court of New York county 
last week Justice Greenbaum rendered a decision 
in the case of the State against the Waldorf- 
Astoria Hotel Company, in which the game laws 
are upheld and the defendant company is required 
to pay over the fine imposed for having in its 
possession 174 English pheasants in the closed 
season. It was last year that the original case 
came up, the defendant company admitting the 
charge but claiming that the birds had been im¬ 
ported and therefore no misdemeanor had been 
committed. The hotel company lost its case, but 
took an appeal to the Supreme Court, claiming 
that the law was unconstitutional. 
Dry weather and the absence of killing frosts 
saved a great many ruffed grouse during October. 
In the vicinity of New York city it was not until 
last week that the leaves began to fall rapidly, 
following the cold rains of ten days ago, but they 
are not falling as fast, even now, as anxious 
shooters had hoped they would, and it is evident, 
from reports received from the haunts of the 
grouse, that the number of birds bagged repre¬ 
sents a very small proportion of the number 
flushed. 
