Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal. Copyright, 1906, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
new YORK, SATURDAY, September 29 , 1906. 
THE CUR DOG AFIELD. 
In their wisdom, the lawmakers of the dif¬ 
ferent States enact legal measures for the pro¬ 
tection of game birds and other animals, with 
more or less pertinency and perspicacity, which 
in turn are enforced with more or less zeal and 
efficiency. The law, however, as a rule, throws 
more stringent safeguards about some animals 
than it does about others, and is more emphatic 
in its inhibition of certain obnoxious methods of 
destruction than of others employed by man. 
But the vast destruction wrought by vagrant, 
predatory curs seems to have, in the main, es¬ 
caped the attention of the lawmakers. The sum 
total of such destruction consequent to the des¬ 
poiling of the nests of quails, ruffed grouse and 
"birds which nest upon the ground, etc., is in 
magnitude beyond computation. 
A few of the northern States, recognizing the 
evils Which are incident to large numbers of 
vagrant curs prowling at large through the coun¬ 
try, have endeavored to suppress them by legis¬ 
lation. Still such legislation as a whole is ex¬ 
ceedingly restricted in its scope. It chiefly has 
to do with the preservation of big game animals. 
Eggs are not considered. 
Pennsylvania has enacted—Chapter 180. Laws 
of 1905—that any dog pursuing or following upon 
the track of a deer or fawn is a public nuisance, 
and that any dog, off land controlled by the owner 
of said dog, pursuing or following upon the track 
of any game quadruped or game bird or other 
wild bird protected by law, is a nuisance and 
may be killed by the game officers or by land 
owners under certain restrictions. Thus a dog, 
prowling through hedges and covers where the 
birds nest and hatch, would not be within the 
purview of this law, and yet, by the destruction 
of several nests in one day, or a brood or more of 
chicks, all of which would make a moderate meal 
for a gluttonous cur. infinitely greater damage 
would be done than could possibly result from the 
trailing of a grown bird. In many days, the 
damage would be greater accordingly. 
The laws of Minnesota—Act of 1905, Section 
28—also endeavor to safeguard the game from 
the depredation of dogs, but this too in but a 
fragmentary way. Dogs used contrary to the 
provisions of the law are declared to be a public 
nuisance, and may be killed by anyone. 1 his law 
obviously applies to hunting dogs, and more 
specifically the pointer and setter, concerning 
which the legislation is as follows: “The use or 
running of either pointer or setter dogs in fields 
or upon lands frequented by or in which game 
birds may be found during the month of August, 
or at any time except during the open season 
for killing game birds, and the keeping and main¬ 
taining of any dog at or about any hunting camp 
or lumber camp used by hunters, situated in any 
locality frequented by deer, moose or caribou, is 
hereby prohibited and made unlawful.” It is 
self-evident that' the foregoing was drafted with a 
special eye to exempt the farmer’s dog from any 
jeopardy or penalty, and yet the average farm 
cur, if permitted to indulge his prowling, pre¬ 
datory habits will destroy more young game 
birds and .eggs in a season than it is possible for 
the setter or pointer, in charge of their owner, 
to accomplish in a life time. 
New Jersey, in an act of 1903, comes nearer to 
the suppression of the cur nuisance by making it 
unlawful for any owner, lessee or custodian of 
any dog to permit such dog to run at large in 
the woods or fields inhabited by rabbits or game 
birds, except only between the first day of 
October and the first day of February following. 
However, the laws as a whole fail to recognize 
the wholesale destruction consequent to preying 
upon the eggs and fledglings, as will be noted 
in the foregoing citations which are taken from 
some of the most stringent statutes. 
The greatest evils of the vagrant cur, however, 
are not in the North; they are in the South. 
There every negro has from one dog to many, 
no two of which are the same size, type, color 
or ancestry, nevertheless all are alike in the 
possession of a ravenous appetite which is in 
part appeased only by their own seeking. Their 
owners seldom give thought to feeding them, if 
indeed they have the wherewithal to do so. 
The negro'cotton-grower as he saunters repose- 
fully behind mule and plow, is usually accom¬ 
panied by his horde of curs, which rummage 
every nook and corner for a mile around, prey¬ 
ing upon everything which will afford suste¬ 
nance. The negro himself is not averse to birds’ 
eggs. In the absence of their master as com¬ 
pany, they make predatory excursions on then- 
own account, and the consequent diminution of 
the game supply in the Southern States, where 
game was once in abundance, lias that important 
cause, the destruction wrought by vagrant curs 
which are in such uniform abundance in that 
paradise of sportsmen,, and until the cur is sup¬ 
pressed, the protection of game birds will re¬ 
main correspondingly inefficient. 
MARKING GAME SHIPMENTS. 
The third section of the Lacey Act forbids the 
transportation of game which has been killed in 
violation of the laws of a State; but provides: 
That nothing herein shall prevent the transp.rtation of 
any dead birds or animals killed during the season when 
the same may be lawfully captured, and the export of 
which is not prohibited by law in the State, Territory, or 
District in which the same are killed. 
The section immediately following this requires 
the marketing of packages of game: 
■Sec. 4. That all packages containing such dead animals, 
birds or parts thereof, when shipped by interstate com¬ 
merce, as provided in Section 1 of this act, shall be 
plainly and clearly marked, so that the name and address 
of the shipper and the nature of the contents may be 
readily ascertained on inspection of the outside of such 
packages. 
It has been held, and observed in practice, that 
the phrase “such dead animals, birds, or parts 
thereof” referred directly back to the “dead birds 
or animals killed during the season when the 
same may be lawfully captured” named in tbe 
third section. But in a case which has just come 
up in North Dakota, in which the defendant was 
charged with a violation of the Lacey Act, be¬ 
cause he had shipped wild ducks from Devil’s 
Lake without having marked the packages, Judge 
Amidon rendered a decision that section 24 did 
not refer to game lawfully killed in the open 
season. 
The decision is somewhat mystifying. If the 
law does not require the labeling of game law¬ 
fully killed, it is hard to understand what game 
it does refer to. Certainly it cannot -mean that 
.game which may not lawfully be shipped must be 
labeled. 
The Victoria Colonist, speaking recently about 
the preparations being made for the shooting sea¬ 
son soon to open, advises sportsmen to exercise 
unusual care this season not to violate the tres¬ 
pass law. The farmers of the Victoria district 
are reported to have determined to put a stop to 
trespass on their land and intend to do so. This 
is one of the obvious means of protection which 
may be employed everywhere on this Continent, 
and which makes every farmer a game protector 
for a certain area of land. We hope that the 
farmers of Victoria district will live up to their 
threats, and that the farmers of this country in 
general will more and more strictly close their 
lands to the arrogant and disorderly shooter, 
who by his unreasonable conduct brings into un¬ 
deserved disrepute the decent and considerate 
sportsman. In a reasonable trespass system is 
found an assurance of the perpetuation of good 
shooting. There is land enough to support all 
the feathered game required to meet current de¬ 
mands, if only the land shall be protected for 
the use of those shooters who are satisfied with 
a reasonable bag and are willing to give some¬ 
thing reasonable in return for the opportunity 
of getting it. The landowner holds the key to 
the situation. It is for the true interest of sport 
that he should understand this and exercise his 
rights. Even the churlish owner, who posts his 
lands out of pure contrariness, is not to be 
despised as an agent of game protection; for the 
birds from his domain are likely to overspread 
natural and artificial boundary lines, and to stock 
adjacent covers. In many localities the game 
would long ago have been exterminated were it 
not for some such refuge. 
S? 
In our shooting columns is an arraignment 
of the domestic cat as a game destroyer. 1 he 
writer concludes from his experiences in the 
field and his observations On the Long Island 
highways that the cat. is a depredator which 
must be reckoned with in our system of gamq 
protection. The proposition that the stray cat 
should be killed by tbe 'gunner wherever en- 
coutered in the game covers is not a new one* 
but it cannot too often be repeated. 
