Adirondack Deer. 
Gansevoort, N. Y., Dec. 5.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: I have read with much interest the cor¬ 
respondence which has appeared in recent num¬ 
bers of Forest and Stream in relation to the 
Adirondack deer season. I presume my interest 
in the matter arises from the fact that for over 
forty years I have hunted deer in the Adiron- 
dacks nearly every season, and their habits and 
peculiarities have always been an interesting study 
for me, and this has led me to form some very 
decided opinions relative to the time and manner 
in which they should be killed. 
I agree with Juvenal that there is widespread 
dissatisfaction with the present law among the 
guides, hotel men, and September visitors to the 
Adirondacks, and I think that this dissatisfaction 
arises almost wholly from the fact that the pres¬ 
ent law strikes a fatal blow at jacking. It is 
Juvenal, instead of Columbia, who should “be set 
right” as to the prevalence of jacking in the 
Adirondacks. Not one in fifty pf the September 
Adirondack deer hunters even think of going 
into the woods to get their deer, and if they did 
they would not be successful, for as a rule they 
are not still-hunters. Still-hunters do'not hunt 
deer in September, for obvious reasons. Juvenal 
is also wrong in thinking that September is too 
cold for successful jacking, for while deer do not 
come to water in September as freely as they do 
in- July and August they do so enough to make 
jacking a comparatively easy way to get them. 
Most of the jacking I ever did was done during 
the month of September in St. Lawrence county 
which is perhaps {he coldest section of the 
Adirondacks, and deer were killed nearly every 
night, and jacking appeared to be about the only 
way of hunting deer which was practiced. 
This was many years ago, and before I learned 
how destructive and wasteful jacking is, and 
therefore I sinned ignorantly. The reason why 
I condemn jacking is because the deer killed in 
this way are mostly does, and as shotguns and 
buckshot are commonly used not more than one 
out of every three deer wounded is secured, the 
others escaping to the woods to die in secluded 
places. When still-hunting near good jacking 
water I haye often found their bleaching bones, 
silent witnesses to the wastefulness of this method 
of hunting deer. Nearly all the does killed in 
September which I have examined have had milk 
in their udders which proves that the fawns de¬ 
pend upon their dams for sustenance during this 
month, and this is another good reason why deer 
should not be killed in September. Another good 
reason is because it is so difficult to save the 
meat in good condition until it can be consumed. 
T have confessed to killing a few deer in Sep¬ 
tember and I will now add that in spite of my 
best efforts over half the meat secured by such 
killing was fit to feed to buzzards only before it 
could be sent home and utilized as food for 
human beings. 
Taking into consideration the deer which are 
wounded and escape’ to die in the woods, the 
fawns which perish because they are deprived of 
their dams when too young, the meat which 
.spoils in 'warm weather, I think that for every 
deer killed in September and used for human food 
at least five are destroyed. 
The present law permits the killing of deer 
only when they are in the best condition, when 
the weather is cool enough to make the sport of 
hunting them enjoyable and at the same time 
makes it possible with reasonable care and effort 
to save the meat for human food. 
For many reasons! a few of which are briefly 
stated above, I regard the present deer law the 
best ever devised for the Adirondacks, and I fully 
agree with W. A. Bradshaw in thinking that 
what is most needed is more wardens to enforce 
it. J. W. Shurter. 
A Canadian Unicorn. 
Philadelphia, Dec. 10. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: Filmy mist wreaths, flushing purple in 
the faint beams of an October sun, but new 
arisen, were curling up from the oily surface 
of the pulseless deadwater. The sere and 
yellow bracken, bent beneath its burden of 
sparkling hoar frost, the omnipresent hard- 
hack, gay in its autumn finery, and the strag¬ 
gling ranks of slender tamaracks, gleamed 
with their myriads of diamonds, as with pad¬ 
dle scarce stirring the sullen shallows, we 
glided along the winding waterway. Near one 
of its many turnings, attracted by the out- 
reaching ripples in the water of a little bay, 
beyond our ken, followed by a deal of per¬ 
fectly audible splashing, we quickened strokes 
and paused behind the top of a fallen spruce. 
In the frosty air the single faint click of 
final preparedness rang sharp and clear, after 
which a nod to* the paddler sent me beyond 
the treetop, and on the instant I found my¬ 
self vis-a-vis with a venerable forest resident. 
Not thirty yards away, and standing broadside 
on, with dripping shoulders, a big bull moose 
was striving in vain to lift his ponderous fore¬ 
quarters from the ooze of the river bottom to 
the crumbling bank that again and again de¬ 
nied a foothold and compelled him to slide 
back into the clinging mud. For several 
moments we sat motionless and gazed at the 
totally oblivious beast, I with the barrel of 
my .45-70 in the hollow of my arm, mentally 
measuring the great spreading antler which, 
with its broad palms ■ and clustering points, 
shone with ivory whiteness, due to a very 
recent emancipation from the velvet. I 
promptly decided to shoot, and with that in¬ 
stant, swung sideways on my seat and raised 
. the rifle to my shoulder, a motion which 
caused the bull to turn a pair of inquisitive 
eyes and rigid, questioning ears upon 11s, and 
by that simple act, to win instant and abso¬ 
lute immunity from the death so Close im¬ 
pending. 
When the great head swung round and 
faced me, alas! it bore but a single antler. 
Where a duplication of that single splendid 
antler would have completed a noble spread, 
a ragged prongless stub rose a few inches 
above the skull, with an effect in which the 
ludicrous element almost overcame that of 
disappointment. 
Panic-stricken by our presence, motions and 
quickly found voices, a supreme effort carried 
the bull up the bank, and anon the crash of 
alders lapsed into the normal silence of the 
wilderness. In a pseudo-philosophic mood, 
I blew upon benumbed fingers, donned a pair 
of mittens, and set forth on yet another quest 
-—a good, stout breakfast at the home camp. 
Francis I. Maule. 
North Carolina Quail. 
It is reported that the protection of quail in 
North Carolina has produced excellent results, 
and the Greensboro Daily Record of Dec. 10 
savs: 
“It is safe to say upon the authority of gen¬ 
tlemen from variou's sections, from the sea¬ 
shore to the mountains, that there are more 
birds "in North Carolina now than there have 
been at any time, say, in the last fifteen 01- 
twenty yeats. 
Hunters are numerous, and guns cheap, but 
the law has been in the main very well carried 
out, and now that the results are beginning 
to be so apparent, the greater is the satis¬ 
faction. Of course there are pot-hunters and 
there are also trappers of partridges and 
people who take them in nets in several sec¬ 
tions, but these have to be sly in order not 
to be reported by their farmer friends, who 
have found out that it is very good to have 
the birds about. The farmers have learned 
the fact that it is best to kill out only part of 
the birds, as under this condition of affairs 
they reproduce better, but they do not £are to 
have extermination, as is the case in trapping 
and netting.” 
In some sections, however, the quail seem to 
be fewer in number, and it is thought by some 
people that the young birds were drowned out 
by the summer rains. 
Caribou in Canada. 
Montreal, Dec. 12. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
Caribou are plentiful in Canada, but they are 
growing wary and leaving the ordinary haunts 
of sportsmen. Numbers of them have been seen 
in the interior country in Ontario and Quebec 
near the source of the Restigouche and Upsal- 
quitch rivers. A Massachusetts sportsman saw 
three hundred. It is a very interesting study to 
follow their migrations. Both moose and caribou 
have migratory habits not so irregular as some 
people imagine. There is reason for it. The 
moose leave northern Ontario as the cold weather 
approaches and come to the hardwood country, 
which is about thirty miles inland from the shores 
of Lake LIuron, and yard in the ridges in the 
stretch of country twenty-five to one hundred 
miles in width from Lake Superior to the French 
River, so that the far north has few moose in the 
cold weather. Their habits are the same in Que¬ 
bec. I have not observed the caribou so closely, 
but feel pretty certain that we would find their 
movements studied and reasonable and not ab¬ 
solutely erratic as some people have told us. 
'1 L. O. A. 
A Merciful Shot. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Some eighteen years ago, with two gentle¬ 
men and three dogs, I went hunting gray 
squirrels near Putnam, Conn. We came across 
what T am inclined to believe is an uncommon 
occurrence. On the morning of the second 
day our dogs treed a squirrel in a large maple 
in a sort of swamp. We saw the squirrel lying 
flat on a large branch, and as it was my turn 
to shoot, I fired and brought him down. 
On picking him up, my companion laughed 
at me for having shot a squirrel that was too 
lean and bony to be fit for food, but the cause 
of his condition was plainly to be seen—his 
two front teeth in the upper jaw had grown 
down and then curved backward in the form 
of a half circle and entered the roof of his 
mouth, so that the points were embedded in 
the flesh. As I remember it, the rest of his 
teeth were all right, but with the condition the 
squirrel was in, it was plainlv to be seen that 
my shot had been a merciful one, as he was 
slowly but surely starving to death. 
N. W. Parker. 
South Bay Mishaps. 
The cold snap last week caused no little suffer¬ 
ing on Great South Bay, Long Island, where the 
sudden change from mild to severe weather 
caught several persons abroad in fishing boats 
and gunning batteries, and the life savers were 
needed. Half a dozen men were assisted by 
volunteers or regulars, and in two cases the men 
picked up were in a serious condition. High 
winds made getting about the'bay not only un¬ 
comfortable, but at times perilous, 
