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AN OPPOSITE VIEW FROM VIRGINIA. 
Amelia C. H., Virginia. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Please find enclosed a check for one year’s sub¬ 
scription to Forest and Stream. It is my duty, 
however, to inform you that I am not a member 
of the Virginia Game and Game Fish Protective 
Association and that I do not agree with their 
views regarding game legislation; that I did my 
level best in common with most of the Virginia 
countrymen of the south side of Virginia to de¬ 
feat it, and that we will make every effort to de¬ 
feat any such bill whenever it comes up. Our 
reasons are the following: That the shooting 
rights will be bought up by wealthy non-residents, 
and the only amusement open to countrymen of 
ordinary means abolished. 
That it will be practically impossible, because 
of the irregular shapes and ill-marked bounda¬ 
ries, to be sure at times whose land we are on. 
Thousands of acres belong to colored people 
(from two to two hundred acres in extent). One 
would have to take an astronomical observation 
every few minutes to tell him where he was and 
that would be worthless without the finest kind 
of a map defining every man's land. These maps 
do not exist. If a man hunted at all it would 
mean that he would necessarily violate the law. 
I verily believe that this law if enforced would 
breed a feeling among the country people that 
would imperil the sanctity of other laws far more 
important. Ninety-five per cent, of our rural 
population cherish hunting as their one sport and 
privilege. The restrictions imposed in the Hart 
bill make real hunting impossible. Our people are 
not given to obeying a law because it is a law. 
They are very apt to first pass judgment on 
whether or not they consider it a good and just 
law. If they consider it so they are among the 
most law-abiding and enforcing people in the 
world. If they do not, that law is a dead letter. 
They have never taken the game laws seriously. 
If the Hart bill passes next session it will either 
be not enforced at all or it will arouse a storm 
that will make our politicians glad to repeal it 
just as quick as they can. Our country people 
believe that these laws are put forward by the 
rich city men for selfish purposes. It may be that 
the northern Virginian differs from us south of 
the James. 
Our Farmers’ Union, fourteen thousand strong, 
was solidly against destroying the last sport which 
kept our boys on the farm. The present law is 
disregarded; the game has not diminished but in¬ 
creased. My brother and myself, both of us 
hunters for thirty years, made the biggest bag 
last year we have ever made in two days’ hunt, 
and, both being past forty years of age, must be 
far less efficient at this hardest of all sports, than 
when we were in the twenties and thirties. 
Game has increased because of the destruction 
of the mink for his pelt. A fifty-cent bounty on 
hawks would stop these pests from harrying 
our quail in the snow, preventing the birds from 
eating and thus causing them to freeze. This 
is far more destructive to quail than town people 
realize. A quail’s color—its protection in ordinary 
times—renders it plainly visible on the snow at 
four hundred yards. It is impossible for them to 
feed with safety and they know it. A chicken 
farmer, neighbor of mine, lost five hundred 
chickens in one year, mostly from hawks, he 
thinks. He does not hunt and is impartial. 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Another neighbor never allows a shot fired in 
three hundred acres of open land around the 
house. He assures me that by the first of Decem¬ 
ber the hawks have driven every quail out of it 
except one covey in his yard, which diminished 
from seventeen to eight without a shot being 
fired. He does not hunt or care anything about 
it. He says from five to ten hawks can be seen 
every day hunting his fields. The $2,500 salary 
of the proposed game commissioner would remove 
five thousand hawks. 
The situation is just this: It is the country 
against the city. 
We feel if these gentlemen were so anxious to 
preserve game they would put a bounty on 
hawks. As long as they do not we suspect an 
ulterior motive. 
CRAIG EGGLESTON. 
BRAVE WORK IN VIRGINIA. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Two years ago the Audubon Society of Virginia 
had a measure known as the Moncure-Rutherford 
game bill, presented to the Virginia legislature 
for passage. This bill passed the upper house, 
but never came to a vote in the lower house. In 
1914 we came back with the same bill known as 
the Hart-White game bill, which again passed 
the upper house and lacked two votes in the 
lower house. Beyond a question, the progress 
we have thus far made is owing to the foundation 
laid and the fight maintained by the Audubon 
Society of Virginia. In 1912 we had no state as¬ 
sociation helping us; in 1914, under the efficient 
leadership of Mr. W. P. Patterson, by whose ef¬ 
forts the Game Protective Association of Virginia 
was resuscitated, this association did great work. 
In 1912 the Audubon Socety of Virginia was in¬ 
strumental in having the county boards of super¬ 
visors shorten the quail season. This brought an 
avalanche of antagonism, and our efforts and 
activities for comprehensive game laws and game 
protection in this state have made us many ene¬ 
mies among a certain class of sportsmen. 
We have been greatly encouraged financially 
and otherwise by the National Association of Au¬ 
dubon Societies, by the Amercan Game Protec¬ 
tive and Propagation Association and by the New 
York Zoological Society. But for this help from 
outside this state we would not have made as 
good a showing as we have. In 1916 we shall 
again present our bill, which is fashioned after 
that of Alabama; and we believe we have now 
aroused such an interest that the bill will pass 
easily. It took Colonel Wallace ten years to pass 
the Alabama game laws, but we propose to do the 
work here in four years. 
Every knock is a boost and the time is coming 
in Virginia when our enemies wll be among our 
best friends. 
M. D. HART, 
President Audubon Society of Virginia, 
Richmond, Va. 
MAINE DEER WINTERED WELL. 
Augusta, Me., April 3, 1914. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
I beg to say that the chief inland fish and game 
warden for Piscataquis county, Mr. Howard 
Wood, of Greenville, a woodsman of long experi¬ 
ence, was at the office to-day and stated that from 
his observation—he has been in the woods of 
northern Maine almost constantly this winter— 
that deer have wintered as well as they ordinarily 
do. The winter of three years ago was consid¬ 
ered to be a very hard one for deer; the next two 
winters were very favorable ones; the past win¬ 
ter has been an average winter. 
J. S. P. H. WILSON, 
Chairman Commissioners of Inland Fisheries 
and Game. 
WANT UNIFORM LAWS. 
“Make the law country-wide and we’re for it. 
Discriminate and we’ll fight,” is the motto of 
sportsmen at Quincy, Ill., who recently registered 
an objection to the present law which prohibits 
the shooting of ducks on or over the Mississippi 
river from Memphis to Minneapolis, and on or 
over the Missouri river from Bismarck, N. D., 
to Nebraska City, Neb. The protest is that some 
regions are highly favored by the edict, while 
others are discriminated against unjustly. 
Talmage Smith, president of the Mississippi Val¬ 
ley Hunters' Protective Association, said that in 
case the law is changed to include all localities 
peculiar to the haunts of ducks, there will be no 
protest from the Quincy hunters. 
PRESERVE AT BRAYTON, 1A. 
A 1,000 acre preserve for pheasant and part¬ 
ridge was established recently at Brayton, la., on 
land belonging to Percy Hallock, the arrangement 
having been made by Deputy Commissioner Fern 
Andersen, of Cameron township. 
AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGISTS’ UNION. 
The thirty-second annual congress of the 
American Ornithologists’ Union was held last 
week at the United States National Museum, 
Washington, D. C., and was largely attended. 
The present congress marks a new departure 
in the season for the meetings of the Union, 
which hitherto have been held in the autumn, a 
time of the year which is inconvenient for many 
members who are engaged in educational work. 
It was at the meeting last fall, as will be remem¬ 
bered, that the change to a spring date was de¬ 
cided on. 
The business session of the Fellows of the 
Union was held on the evening of Monday, April 
6th, at which it was determined to hold the next 
meeting of the Union at San Francisco, in May, 
191S. 
At Monday’s meeting Dr. A. K. Fisher, of the 
Biological Survey, was chosen president of the 
Union, and Mr. Witmer Stone, editor of The 
Auk, vice-president, while Joseph Grinnell, of the 
University of California, was elected a coun¬ 
cillor. 
The sessions open to the public were held Tues¬ 
day, Wednesday and Thursday, April ~th-9th, and 
at these a number of interesting papers were 
read. On Tuesday evening the annual dinner for 
members and their friends was held at the Wallis 
Cafe, and on Wednesday the Union as a whole 
was photographed on the front steps of the Na¬ 
tional Museum. 
Fox Hunters Punished. 
Three persons at Clark, Mo., were arrested and fined 
recently through the activity of Deputy Commissioner 
John G. Leslie for killing three foxes and selling the 
pelts during the closed season. Two were also prose¬ 
cuted for hunting without licenses. The fox hunters of 
the state are said to be giving information for the pur¬ 
pose of enforcing the fur-bearing statute. 
