84 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Jan. 17, 1914. 
in places where they are entirely unknown to 
the first settlers, where they do not in fact exist 
at all, they speedily become abundant, so soon 
as the axe levels the umbrageous forest, and the 
admitted sunbeams awaken or mature the germs 
of that animal or vegetable life, on which the 
birds subsist. 
This is, I presume, so generally known as 
a fact, that no proof thereof is necessary. I 
may, however, mention two or three very dis¬ 
tinct and remarkable instances of this fact, which 
have come under my own observation; one with 
regard to the increase and spread of Quail, the 
others of Woodcock, into localities where they 
were previously unknown. Some seventeen years 
ago, I visited Niagara Falls for the first time, 
and travelled westward so far as the upper 
waters of the Thames and the Chenail Ecarte 
in Canada West, shooting a little when occa¬ 
sion offered, and making many enquiries con¬ 
cerning the varieties of game, and the habits of 
those to be found in the province. At that time, 
T enjoyed some extremely good Snipe shooting, 
close to the village of Niagara, at the em¬ 
bouchure of the river into Lake Ontario; and, 
in fact, I saw more birds, and those tamer, than 
in any other place where I have ever shot them. 
I had no dog with me, and was completely 
ignorant of the country; but in such multitudes 
were the Snipe feeding in every fallow-field and 
maize stubble—it was in the spring immediately 
on the breaking of the frost—that I made a 
very large bag, in the course of a very few 
hours. At that period, the Woodcock was just 
becoming known on the frontier; and a few 
birds were killed in the sesaon; they were, how¬ 
ever, still extremely rare, and had been known, 
comparatively speaking, but a short time. Quail 
were utterly unknown, both in the Province and 
on the American side of the river. I had not 
journeyed many miles, ere I had outstripped the 
Woodcock; and I could gain no tidings of his 
existence beyond the Ouse, or Grand River of 
the Mohawks. At this moment, probably, the 
best Woodcock shooting on the continent is to 
be obtained in the islands situate at the western 
end of Lake Erie, in the Detroit River, and in 
Lake St. Clair. Quail are also becoming ex¬ 
ceedingly plentiful throughout that region. 
In the same manner, in the Eastern States, 
until within the last six years, the Woodcock 
has been unknown on the Penobscot River, 
although abundant in the vicinity of Portland 
and Casco Bay, and in the older settlements on 
the Kennebec. What renders it more evident, 
in the latter case, that it is the absence of civili¬ 
zation and not the severity of the climate, which 
has so long deterred this bird of passage from 
visiting the eastern parts of Maine, is the fact 
that, in the British Provinces of New Bruns¬ 
wick and Nova Scotia, much farther to the 
northward and eastward, and in the old culti¬ 
vated French country below and around Quebec, 
the Woodcock has long been an object of pur¬ 
suit by the sportsman, and of attainment by 
the gourmet. 
It may, therefore, be assumed at once, that 
the spread of agriculture and civilization, in 
themselves, has no injurious operation, but 
rather the reverse, on any kind of winged.game; 
and that, in some instances, the progress of one 
is simultaneous with the increased numbers of 
the other. 
Even with game of the largest kind, as Deer, 
Bear. Hares, and the like, it is not the cir¬ 
cumscription of their limits by ploughed fields, 
but the ruthless persecution to which they are 
subjected, which is gradually*extinguishing them, 
where, within ten or fifteen years, they 
abounded. 
In the counties of Hampshire and Berkshire, 
in Massachusetts, of Dutchess, Putnam, Rock¬ 
land and Orange in New York, and of Sussex, 
in New Jersey, there is an extent of forest land, 
wilder and more inaccessible, and in every way 
more suited to harbor herds of Deer, and ten 
times greater, than all the Deer forests in the 
Highlands of Scotland; in the former, you have 
perhaps rather a greater chance of meeting an 
elephant, thanks to the abundance of menageries, 
than a hart or hind—in the latter, the Red Deer 
are more numerous now than they were two 
centuries ago. 
Hence it is evident that there is no natural 
reason whatever, much less a necessary or in¬ 
evitable one, for the rapid decrease and ap 
proaching extinction of all kinds of game, 
whether large or small, throughout the United 
States of America. Nor is it to be attributeo 
to any other cause than the reckless and ignor¬ 
ant, if'not wanton, destruction of these animals 
by the rural population. 
The destruction of the Pinnated Grouse, 
which is total on Long Island, and all but total 
in New Jersey and the Pennsylvania oak-bar¬ 
rens, is ascribable to the brutal and wholly 
wanton havoc committed among them by the 
charcoal-burners, who frequent those wooded 
districts; and who, not content with destroying 
the parent birds, at all seasons, even while hatch¬ 
ing and hovering their broods, shooting the 
half-fledged cheepers in whole hatchings at a 
shot, and trapping them in deep snows—with a 
degree of wantonness equally barbarous and un¬ 
meaning, steel or break all the eggs which they 
can find. 
To this add the spring burnings of the for¬ 
est land, and you have cause enough to ac¬ 
count for the extermination of the Pinnated 
Grouse, or Heath-Hen; who is not now to be 
shot in such numbers as to render it worth the 
while to hunt for him nearer than Michigan or 
Illinois. 
I should, perhaps, here state as a farther 
proof of the correctness of my assertion, that, 
on the little island of Martha’s Vineyard, off the 
coast of Massachusetts, where the Heath-Cock, 
once abundant, had nearly become extinct, the 
species was preserved from annihilation by the 
very praiseworthy means, equally determined 
and energetical, adopted by the citizens in gen¬ 
eral to prevent its extermination. 
This fine bird is again plentiful in that, its 
last locality, on the Atlantic coast; and it is 
like to remain so, as the .people take an honor¬ 
able pride in preserving it, and neither kill it 
themselves, nor allow visitors to do so, except 
in the proper seasons, and under restrictions as 
to numbers. For a space, I believe, of five years 
the prohibition to kill was absolute; and the 
fine so heavy, and so rigorously enforced—back¬ 
ed as it was by public opinion—that the desired 
end was gained. 
The period, if I am not mistaken, for which 
the Grouse barrens were closed has expired, and, 
under some limitations, of the nature of which 
I am not exactly aware, they may be visited by 
sportsmen henceforth. 
The destruction of the smaller and more 
abundant species is to be attributed to different 
reasons—but the operation of these is more rapid 
and more fatal than those which have led to the 
extinction of the races we have mentioned. 
The first of these causes is the very singu¬ 
lar, if not incomprehensible, characteristic of the 
people of the United States, to disregard and 
violate all laws, even laws of their own mak¬ 
ing—the second, the apathy of the rural popula¬ 
tion with respect to game, and the error into 
which they have fallen of regarding all game- 
laws as passed to their detriment, and for the 
pleasure of the dwellers in cities—the third is, 
the dishonest gluttony of all classes in the cities, 
with the exception of a few sportsmen—and the 
last, horreSco referens, the selfishness and want 
of union among themselves of genuine sports¬ 
men. 
With regard to the first of the reasons laid 
down here, it may be taken as a matter of fact 
that no man, boy or fool, in the country, abstains 
from killing game, in or out of season, for fear 
of the law; and that no farmer or landholder 
will ever give information against the violation 
of this law, though so far is he from being won- 
litigious, that one of the principal pleasures of 
his life is the sueing his neighbors for the 
smallest possible sums. The exceeding fondness 
of the population in general for recourse to civil, 
and their equally evident disregard of criminal, 
law, is one of the phenomena of the country, 
and the age in which we live. 
Secondly; the apathy of the farmer arises 
naturally enough from this, that all he has 
heard of game-laws in foreign lands is in con¬ 
nection with feudal rights, individual privileges, 
and nominal distinctions, which are certainly 
everywhere more or less vexatious, and in some 
places really injurious to classes—although far 
less so than Americans are led to believe by the 
demagogue orators and editors from whom they 
obtain- their information on this topic, as on 
most others of the internal economy of foreign 
countries. 
It is needless to state that the game-laws 
of the United States have no such bearing what¬ 
soever; and are intended solely to protect the 
animals in question, during the periods of nidi- 
fication, incubation, and providing for the youth¬ 
ful broods. 
Remarkably enough, it has so happened in 
this country, owing to the non-residence of 
wealthy and otiose men in the rural districts of 
the Northern States, that until very recently all 
application for and amendments of game-laws 
have emanated from the dwellers in cities; and, 
for this obvious reason, that the country farmers, 
as a body, have neither the time, the inclina¬ 
tion, nor the opportunities for making them¬ 
selves acquainted with the names, habits, or 
manners of game-animals; and consequently 
could not, if they would, have framed adequate 
laws for their protection. I believe that if they 
could now be brought as a body to understand 
that the provisions of these laws are not arbi - 
trary and intended to suit the wishes of classes, 
they might be induced to lend their hand to the 
good work of game-preservation. 
A very few years since, the sportsmen prop¬ 
er—those I mean who shot for exercise, pleas¬ 
ure, and healthful excitement—and the poachers 
who shot for the markets, both coming from 
the cities, were the only enemies of the Quail 
and Woodcock. They were at that time en¬ 
tirely disregarded by the farmers, who had not 
the art to kill them on the wing, who did not 
care for them as delicacies, or articles of food, 
and who had no markets to supply with what 
they considered useless birds. So great was the 
extent of this disregard, that I have repeatedly, 
on firing a great number of shots in small pieces 
o* woodland, been questioned by the owners 
what on earth I found to shoot at and, on show¬ 
ing some twenty or thirty Woodcock, have been 
met by a remark that the speaker had lived on 
that farm all his life, and had not seen a dozen 
such birds in his life-time—and the name of 
the bird was unknown to them. 
(Continued on page 90.) 
