Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal. Copyright, 1906, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1906. 
THE NEW YORK SHOOTING LICENSE. 
The New York nonresident shooting license 
law calls for a license fee from the nonresident 
shooter equivalent to the fee exacted by the State 
from which he comes; or if he is from a State 
which has no nonresident fee the amount he 
must pay for hunting in New York is fixed at 
$10. This is the theory. In practice the rule is 
that the nonresident does not pay any license fee. 
The fees collected during the season could per¬ 
haps be counted on the fingers of two hands. The 
law is practically incapable of enforcement. Men 
who go to the Adirondacks for deer hunting may 
come from New Jersey or Pennsylvania or Ohio, 
but at the hotels they register themselves as from 
New York or Buffalo or Erie, and there is no 
way of determining their actual residence and 
collecting 'the fee. The conditions in New York 
are very different from those in Maine, where 
the hunter from out of the State can usually be 
identified as coming from abroad. 
As an expedient to insure the collection of the 
nonresident license and for what is believed to 
be beneficial extension of- the license system, the 
game authorities will endeavor to secure from the 
next Legislature a license law applicable to all 
shooters, whether resident or nonresident, the 
resident fee being some nominal sum. This will 
serve to identify every man in the woods with 
a gun as a resident or a nonresident. The resi¬ 
dent shooter will be required to take out his 
license from some public official and under con¬ 
ditions such as to identify him as a resident. 
The system will render impossible the securing 
of a resident license by a nonresident. Under 
these conditions where every hunter abroad in 
the game fields must show his license and identify 
himself, the protector will have no difficulty in 
discovering the man who comes from out of the 
State. 
This system is in vogue in other States and it 
is to be accepted as something which will be 
adopted in New York sooner or later; and for 
the matter of that, in all States which have game 
worth the caring for. We give elsewhere the 
Wisconsin license form. 
NATIVE BIRDS PREFERRED. 
The variety of effort made to provide wild game 
for the sportsman is an interesting feature of the 
shooting of the present day. Except South Africa, 
no land was ever fuller of game than was North 
America, yet this natural wealth we dissipated 
with a childish lack of foresight, and now we are 
resorting to various expedients to recover it. 
The example of England suggests that we 
should rear by hand birds for shooting, but con¬ 
ditions in England differ widely from those in 
this country, and the men here who have the 
time, the money and the land needed to rear 
birds for stocking are very few. A few indi¬ 
viduals and a few clubs breed pheasants success¬ 
fully, and generously too, for these birds are such 
wanderers that when set free they spread them¬ 
selves over wide stretches of country. There 
are places on the Atlantic seaboard where for 
years a stock of wild pheasants has existed; but 
they do not seem to increase in numbers and 
barely hold their own. On the Pacific coast, 
however, pheasants increase rapidly and do 
singularly well. 
European partridges, in some of their many 
varieties, have been imported to America, but 
without result. Years ago a few were turned out 
in New Jersey, and young ones were seen, but 
they never established themselves. 
The hardy and larger grouse of Europe seem 
to promise better. Those turned out on a Michi¬ 
gan island, and in one of the great parks of 
Canada, have apparently bred, but it is yet too 
early to conclude that any permanent results will 
be attained. These experiments, and the one 
being now tried in British Columbia, are ex¬ 
tremely interesting. 
With proper protection and encouragement the 
native game birds of America might be so in¬ 
creased as to furnish shooting for all the gun¬ 
ners in the land. Scattered over the United 
States and Canada are a dozen species of grouse, 
as many of quail, and the superb wild turkey. 
With all these species why should we go abroad 
for our game? This week it is reported that a 
steamer has brought from England a consign¬ 
ment of 2,000 pheasants intended to be turned 
out in Kansas. In Kansas, the home of the quail, 
the prairie hen, the sharp-tailed grouse and the 
wild turkey! It is true that over much of that 
State these native species have been terribly re¬ 
duced in numbers or even exterminated, but 
would it not be better, by the passage of wise 
laws and the expenditure of a little money to 
strive for the re-establishment of these native 
species rather than to bring in others from for¬ 
eign lands? 
AN IMPORTANT SEIZURE. 
When Game Warden Morgan arrested three 
men in Los Angeles, Cal., a fortnight ago, and 
confiscated a carload of elk antlers, hides and 
teeth, shipped there by them, it is believed he 
accounted for the principals if not all the mem¬ 
bers of a band of men that it is alleged have 
been killing elk in or on the borders of the Yel¬ 
lowstone Park and disposing of them through a 
taxidermist of Los Angeles. In the shipment 
were thirteen bales and three crates of elk 
antlers, several bales of elk scalps and quantities 
of teeth. Search of the taxidermist’s place re¬ 
vealed eight elk scalps hidden under the floor. 
Warden Morgan had been busy on the case 
for several months, for it is believed these men 
and perhaps others with them, have been at work 
a long time in or near the park. Shipments, ap¬ 
parently between the parties now under arrest, 
have been confiscated, and the Wyoming authori¬ 
ties were on their trail. Their examination will 
be held on Dec. 12. 
Everything found by the authorities goes to 
show that these men worked skillfully and took 
great pains to select, preserve and pack for ship¬ 
ment by freight only the most perfect specimens, 
and it is evident they killed the elk in deep snow 
at short range and took their time to finish their 
work. Two of the men had even interviewed the 
warden to ascertain his interpretation of the law 
before the shipment was undertaken. The ship¬ 
ment was entered as ‘ household goods,” and the 
men were arrested while actually receiving it 
from the railway company. 
The slaughter of a herd of elk is not a thing 
that can be accomplished quietly and without 
leaving plain evidence. Handling the bales and 
crates, some of which weighed close to a ton, 
was not the work of two men. These and other 
facts tend to show that other men probably know 
something about the killing and shipping, and 
the authorities in and about Yellowstone Park 
should leave no stone unturned to put a stop to 
the practice of killing elk in order to supply men 
with “trophies” and watch-charms. 
PROMINENT SPORTSMEN KILLED. 
Last week a terrible accident on a southern 
railroad cost the life of four sportsmen and busi¬ 
ness men of great prominence. These were Mr. 
Samuel Spencer, President of the Southern Rail¬ 
way Co.; Gen. Philip Schuyler, of New York, 
and Francis T. Redwood and Chas. D. Fisher, 
of Baltimore. These gentlemen, on their way 
south on a shooting excursion, were traveling 
in a private car, the last on the train, when a 
following train ran into this car and killed or 
severely injured all its occupants. Mr. Spencer 
was one of the most important' railroad men of 
the country. He was a native of Georgia and 
had worked himself up from the bottom to the 
presidency of the railroad. Besides being a rail¬ 
road man he was a financier. 
Gen. Philip Schuyler was a member of the 
old Schuyler family of New York and an en¬ 
thusiastic sportsman. He was a member of the 
Boone and Crockett Club, and an important citi¬ 
zen of New York, a man whose charming man¬ 
ners and universal courtesy endeared him to all 
with whom he came in contact. 
Messrs. Fisher and Redwood belong to well 
known Baltimore families and had each a large 
circle of friends. 
WASHINGTON’S FISHING TACKLE. 
That Washington was an angler is well known. 
Some years ago Dr. George H. Moore, Librarian 
of the Lenox Library of New York, published a 
monograph on the subject which we reprinted 
in our last week’s issue. That there are still in 
existence tangible relics of Washington’s fishing 
tackle is a fact which has been as little sus¬ 
pected by anglers in general as it is grateful to 
know. This fishing box with its hooks we count 
a veritable find. Anglers everywhere will be 
thankful to Mr. Anderson for affording the 
Forest and Stream the privilege of picturing and 
describing the treasured relics. 
