Some Game Law Suggestions 
By Peter Flint. 
New York, N. Y., Feb. 18, 1914. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
A farmer friend living in Ticonderoga, N. Y., 
with whom I have spent many happy days hunt¬ 
ing in the Pyramid and Lake Pharoah section of 
Essex county, N. Y., suddenly awoke from his 
hibernation and has just written me the follow¬ 
ing letter which I offer as evidence of local feel¬ 
ing about the game law “for what it is worth” : 
“The deer law is wrong. It was all right be¬ 
fore. The new buck law has not stopped the 
killing of men. Was more killed last fall than 
ever. Let the law say two deers, bucks or does. 
There have been some does shot and left in the 
woods. I have killed a good many deer and am 
as good a shot as any man that goes hunting 
(rather boastful, but absolutely true in every 
respect), and I cannot tell half of the time I am 
shooting at bucks or does. If those lawmakers 
would make the deer grow horns on the tail end 
of them we hunters could see them, for that is 
the end we most always see, and we don’t get 
close enough to tell the other way what they are. 
There is more deer.around Gooseneck and Put’s 
Ponds last fall than there has been in fifteen 
years. I saw six one day. The bounty should 
be taken off from bears. Hunters shoot them in 
the summer time when the meat or skin is no 
good, just for the ten dollars bounty, and they 
are scarce. 
“Law should be put on foxes, as well as other 
fur-barrin’ animals, as lots of them are caught 
before the fur is good, as they are easy to catch 
in warm weather, that is in September. I have 
seen no sign of any pheasants (English) except 
the one at our farm barn. The partridges will 
have a good chance this winter, as there is plenty 
of snow. It has snowed eighteen inches since 
morning (February 14, 1914). 
“Was very little fur caught in this part of the 
country. I think there will be plenty next fall. 
I shot my two deer, but did not take any pictures 
of them, for the horns could not be seen, not 
even with the naked eye. I was down to the 
village last night and saw your New York City 
champion basket ball team get trimmed bad by 
our small team. 
“Sunday, February 15, 1914. It looks like win¬ 
ter. The snow is over the fences. It is clear 
but cold—two below zero now, at 12 o’clock noon. 
Thirty-seven below zero is the coldest we have 
had this winter so far. If you had that cold in 
New York you would all freeze up. If the wind 
blow, the stage (Ticonderoga-Schroon Lake) 
won’t get through to-morrow. Will close with 
best regards to all.” 
Now, Mr. Editor, hasn’t that letter the real 
mountain swing to it? My friend must receive 
your issue of January 24, 1914, in defense of the 
Buck law. He needs to be straightened up a 
good deal in modern sporting ethics, but he rep¬ 
resents the average well-to-do resident farmer- 
hunter’s ideas upon these subjects, and which, as 
a citizen and large taxpayer, he has a perfect 
right to express freely. Such men are as anxious 
as any city man to have deer and other game 
plentiful, but have to be shown that legislative 
methods are practical before they will adopt 
them in everyday life up there in the hills. 
Reports reach me that many does have been 
found dead in the woods in Essex county. This 
is natural, considering the methods of hunting 
employed and the lay of the land where this 
hunter resides. The trees there are mostly sec¬ 
ond-growth pine, hemlock, poplar and soft maple, 
with great quantities of thick and low under- 
Who Sa'd I Have Horns? 
brush. The leaves, either green or brown, con¬ 
ceal the deer so well that it is rare that one can 
see a deer except when in motion, after he has 
been “jumped.” Then it is that your hill rifle¬ 
man who has learned to shoot grouse on the wing 
with the little, cheap 22-caliber ammunition, “cuts 
loose” at the fleeing object with his full-magazine 
30-30 smokeless “corn sheller,” firing at every 
appearance of the brown or gray coat, whether 
going straight away or giving chance for side 
shots. This firing at all angles and in reckless 
disregard of the termination of the bullet’s flight 
accounts for the fact that hunters are sometimes 
found dead in the woods with their own rifles 
fully loaded, or are killed or wounded while out 
with companions. 
Now there is related a story in point as a good 
joke on my farmer friend whose literary effort 
is printed herewith and honors my present con¬ 
tribution. He was out with two or three brother 
hunters, and it was arranged to drive a buck 
from around the Hunter farm down the Seven 
Pines runway to Eagle Lake. A big, jolly fel¬ 
low who disliked tramping about in the rough 
country was put on a stand near the lake to 
watch, while the rest beat up the brush for the 
deer. 
“All of a sudden,” to use Jim’s picturesque 
language, “I heard the boys barkin’ like all pos¬ 
sessed. Then came a cracklin’ and smashin’ 
among the dead popple bresh up the side of the 
mountain, and I knowed that a buck was a-head- 
in’ for the water where I was. I got the little 
Savage carbine ready for him, and would have 
had my deer all right if X. hadn’t caught sight 
of him just then, about two hundred yards furder 
up the mountain trail. Wall, sir, the way them 
soft-nose 30-30’s of hissen came ’round my way 
was a caution. I stood it a minute or so, for the 
buck was a jumpin’ right along, but when a 
bullet cut a big limb in two, and it near fell on 
my head, I thought it was time to get out. Now, 
it don’t do no good to git behind trees with them 
pesky things tearin' through the woods like that, 
so I just threw myself flat on my face behind a 
big stone and stayed there for a spell. Yes, X. 
got the buck all right, but it took his whole 
chamber full of twelve shots to do it. I guess he 
hit him as many as three or four times at that. 
He sure is a good shot. The best one around 
these parts.”' 
Having held the theory for many years that 
any deer at all could be killed, it is rather hard 
for men up there to get used to modern laws for 
the protection of their game. The idea seems to 
be, judging from my friend’s letter, that the meat 
must be secured at any price and anyhow. But 
this is not sport, the city man will say. It is the 
local hunter’s idea of sport, anyway, and it is he 
who really has charge of the state’s deer in the 
woods and clearings. And yet these men can see 
a good way ahead, if you give them the propel 
arguments. They bitterly fought legislation that 
ended the butchery of deer attendant upon driv¬ 
ing this game from the hills to be killed in water. 
They were told that the flesh of an overheated 
and exhausted deer, killed in cold water, was 
unfit for human consumption, and, indeed, very 
little was then enjoyed when cooked and eaten 
on account of the supposed game flavor of the 
flesh. Little by little the hounds were banished 
from the deer forests, and these men had to learn 
to shoot “like their daddies used to do.” So 
now there is not a man in that section who would 
use a hound. They say that dogs keep the deer 
wild and away from the fields and settlements, 
and that they can now take their game almost 
anywhere in fields and pastures, and do not have 
to make long and expensive journeys into strange 
