July 22, 1911] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
137 
Yellowstone Park Notes. 
Gardiner, Mont., July 10.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: I learned at Fort Yellowstone that 
there are 120 buffalo in the tame herd, twenty- 
four of which are this spring’s calves. 
Four wild buffalo—two bulls, one cow with 
her calf—were driven into the corral by Scout 
McBride and a detachment of four soldiers. 
This corral, or pasture, is the one at Mammoth 
Hot Springs, built for the first buffalo by Colonel 
John Pitcher, who started this herd. There are 
now in the pasture fifteen bulls as a show herd. 
The rest are on the range on East Fork and in 
the pasture. Now the problem confronts the 
management how to dispose of the surplus bulls. 
Five moose were seen on the head of Gray¬ 
ling Creek, twenty-seven buffalo on Astringent 
Creek and signs of others on Cache Creek. Two 
moose were seen on Fan Creek. No visit was 
paid to the Yellowstone moose, those reported 
by Mr. Shiras. I was in hopes someone would 
visit this winter range for moose to see their 
condition. 
Scout Henry Anderson killed 100 coyotes in 
the park near Gardiner, and a few were killed 
on the station. 
There were about 1,000 mule deer about the 
springs and this section of the park during the 
winter, and about 100 mountain sheep. 
I have been unable to learn how many ante¬ 
lope there were in all. Eighty-eight tonsi of 
alfalfa were put up in stock from the field in 
front of the town. There was considerable old 
hay left over from the year before. All this hay 
was fed except a few tons now in the stack. 
This field of alfalfa was put in by Colonel John 
Pitcher when he was acting superintendent for 
the purpose of affording feed for the antelope, 
deer and mountain sheep. At no time was there 
any intention of its being fed to the elk, al¬ 
though elk come down in great numbers and 
drive the other animals away from the hay. To 
prevent this, Colonel Pitcher had inclosures built 
to protect some of the animals from the elk over 
on Gardiner River. There was an unusually 
large number of elk last winter. They practi¬ 
cally ate the country up; even the fenced pas¬ 
tures were cleaned out by them after the open 
season. A great many died of starvation, but 
what avail would any portion of the eighty- 
eight tons of alfalfa have been where thousands 
of tons would be required? As it was, there 
’should have been more hay for the antelope and 
feed where the elk could not get at it. When 
the elk once get a taste they will, like domestic 
•cattle, stand around and starve to death. 
All the Montana Legislature did at its last 
session to encourage the domestication of use¬ 
ful wild animals was to make a small winter 
refuge. Game cannot winter there. 
Men are fined and punished for killing game 
out of season, and are not allowed to possess 
animals they feed or save from starvation. The 
Legislature refused to consider any bill that 
would dispose of the annual question of game 
protection. The hunter, after paying his license 
money, may kill one elk, although hundreds may 
starve during the winter. He must not capture 
any for breeding purposes. No rancher may 
capture or hold a lot of elk that have broken 
down his pasture fence, or that he has saved 
from starvation. The legislation nowadays is 
about the same as it was when the country was 
wild and only partially settled, when the free 
range was unlimited. The laws would have 
been reasonable then, possibly. Now conditions 
have changed, the country settled up, the free 
range gone, the winter range all broken up, the 
forest reserve feeding ranges sold to stockmen 
and the game protected from hunters, but not 
from starvation. 
Forest and Stream has long been trying to 
bring about a settlement of this question. It 
may possibly get some Legislature to act some 
day as it did for laws for the protection of the 
Yellowstone National Park. T. E. Hofer. 
New York Legislature. 
Albany, N. Y., July 10.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: Governor Dix has signed Assembly- 
man T. K. Smith’s bill prohibiting the taking 
of male pheasants in the towns of Parish, West 
Monroe and Amboy, Oswego county. 
Other bills signed by the Governor, amending 
the forest, fish and game law, are the following: 
Changing the open season for hares and rab¬ 
bits in Richmond and Wyoming counties, and 
relative to the hunting of hares and rabbits with 
ferrets in certain counties. 
Senator Emerson’s, providing that not more 
than thirty pounds of fish shall be taken in one 
day from the waters of Lake George when fish¬ 
ing from one boat. E. C. C. 
Albany, N. Y., July 17. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: The Senate has passed Senator Fiero’s 
bill, providing that from Sept. 1 to June 15, in¬ 
clusive, carp may be taken with nets in the Hud¬ 
son River below the dam at Troy. 
The Senate has passed Assemblyman C. W. 
Phillips’ bill, in relation to the taking of Mon¬ 
golian ring-necked or other pheasants. 
The Senate has passed Senator Bayne’s bill 
creating a shellfish department and his bill re¬ 
lating to marine fisheries. 
Sheepdogs. 
Oakmont, Pa., June 30. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: The inevitable blunders, from speaking 
of any breed of dogs as “the original” is well 
shown by the illustrations I send you, and the 
comments on this Spanish sheep dog in “The 
Memoirs of the Pennsylvania Society for Pro¬ 
motion of Agriculture” of 1814, and “The Prac¬ 
tical Shepherd,” by Henry S. Randall, LL.D:, 
Rochester, N. Y., 1863. 
You will see that in both cases there are shep¬ 
herd dogs and sheperd dogs. In the Memoirs 
only a dog for killing stray dogs which came 
near the flock—incidentally chewing up a man 
or two—is considered. In “The Practical Shep¬ 
herd” the same useful purposes are also con¬ 
sidered, and further attention is given to what 
we now want sheep dogs for—herding and driv¬ 
ing sheep. 
The illustration of Montagne is certainly very 
much out of drawing, but still a real dog fancier 
recognizes it at once as of mastiff type, and the 
measurements given indicate a dog of 175 to 200 
pounds. 
It is presumable that Montagne was a “mastiff 
of the Sierra de los Cuencha,” referred to by 
Dr. Mayo in “Kaloolah,” and entirely unfit for 
the work we now require of a sheep dog. 
Dr. Randall gives a very fair picture of a 
collie, a cognizable one of a bobtail, and of a 
"thorobred Spanish sheep dog.” “Arrogante,” 
of the same breed as the great Alpine spaniel 
or “Bernadine dog,” the “thorobred” doubtless 
being correct on the principle of the darkey 
“thorobred,” “his mudder was a fox terrier and 
his fader was all de dogs in de town,” if “St. 
Bernard,” is substituted for “fox terrier.” 
Of course Buffon must be dragged in, and his 
sage conclusion that the shepherd dog is the 
original dog from which all others sprang, even 
although the dogs found mummified in Egyptian 
tombs were distinctly of hound type. 
The sum and substance of all which is that 
it is arrant rot to attempt to trace our dogs to 
any one original type now existant. If they de¬ 
veloped from any existing wild animal, they 
must have developed in very different types, and 
all beyond that seems mere guessing, at least to 
Thomas Wade. 
All the game laivs of the United States and 
Canada, revised to date and now' in force, are 
given in the Game Laws in Brief. See adv. 
