524 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Sept. 30, 1911. 
Published Weekly by the 
Forest and Stream Publishing Company, 
127 Franklin Street, New York. 
George Bird Grinnell, President, 
Charles B. Reynolds, Secretary, 
Louis Dean Speir, Treasurer. 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
The Forest and Stream is the recognized medium of 
entertainment, instruction and information between Amer¬ 
ican sportsmen. The editors invite communications on 
the subjects to which its pages are devoted. Anonymous 
communications will not be regarded. The editors are 
not responsible for the views of correspondents. 
SUBSCRIPTIONS. 
Terms: $3.00 a year; $1.50 for six months. Single copies, 
10 cents. Canadian subscriptions, $4.00 a year; $2.00 for 
six months. Foreign subscriptions, $4.50 a year; $2.25 for 
six months. Subscriptions may begin at any time. 
Remit by express money-order, registered letter, money- 
order or draft, payable to the Forest and Stream Pub¬ 
lishing Company. 
The paper may be obtained of newsdealers throughout 
the United States, Canada and Great Britain. Foreign 
Subscription and Sales Agents—London: Davis & Co., 
1 Finch Lane; Sampson, Low & Co. Paris: Brentano’s. 
ADVERTISEMENTS. 
Inside pages, 20 cents per agate line ($2.80 per inch). 
There are 14 agate lines to an inch. Preferred positions, 
25 per cent, extra. Special rates for back cover in two 
or more colors. Reading notices, 75 cents per count line. 
A discount of 5 per cent, is allowed on an advertise¬ 
ment inserted 13 times in one year; 10 per cent, on 26, 
and 20 per cent, on 52 insertions respectively. 
Advertisements should be received by Saturday pre¬ 
vious to the issue in which they are to be inserted. 
t . ...... B! 
THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL 
will be to studiously promote a healthful in¬ 
terest in outdoor recreation, and to cultivate 
a refined taste for natural objects. 
—Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1873. 
HARD ON CURRITUCK GUNNERS. 
The New York Bayne law, which forbids the 
sale of game within the State, has struck con¬ 
sternation to the wildfowl gunners of the 
Southern seaboard. The great inland waters 
which extend all along the Atlantic Coast from 
New Jersey to Fiorida, are the winter home of 
millions of waterfowl, from which the local 
market gunners take their annual toll. Of the 
residents of the seaboard counties of North 
Carolina, many are poor people who make a 
living by farming in summer, by fishing in the 
late spring and early autumn and by wildfowl 
shooting through the winter. Currituck county 
includes the famous sound of that name—one of 
the most famous of winter wildfowl resorts. It 
is said that the fowl sold in Currituck county, 
bring in to its gunning population from $50000 
to $t 00,000 each year. 
Of the ducks killed on Back Bay, Currituck 
Sound and other waters to the southward, by far 
the greater number are sent to New York and 
consumed there. The gunners of Currituck 
county are indignant over the situation—and 
very naturally so. They declare that the Bayne 
law- takes the bread from their mouths and re¬ 
gard its passage and enforcement as a great 
hardship. The Currituck men are not the only 
ones to whom the law causes hardship. Many 
New York gunners who—so long as the winter 
was open season in that State—were in the 
habit of going South in the winter and sending 
back to their homes—under bond or otherwise— 
the game they killed, are now unable to do this 
after the season closes, Jan. 15. Such men feel 
that the law bears hardly on them. On the 
other hand, there are many Northern gunners 
whose interest in game protection is so strong 
that they would welcome a North Carolina law 
which absolutely forbade any killing of wild¬ 
fowl in that State. 
For communities whose actual income is so to 
be reduced, much sympathy must be felt. Yet 
since the object of all legislation is to secure 
the greatest good for the greatest number, this 
condition must be faced. Laws which work for 
the general good often seem to cause local or 
individual hardship. This is one of those laws. 
The passage of the Bayne law will not tend 
to make the Audubon Societies or the residents 
of New York popular in North Carolina. The 
people of Currituck county hold New York gun¬ 
ners responsible for the existence of the law, 
and are talking about some means by which 
they can avenge themse ves on the Northern 
sportsmen. In years gone by, the efforts of the 
shooting clubs in Currituck Sound to protect 
their property from poachers have given rise to 
some ill feeling. It is to be hoped that the 
present situation will not bring about a return 
of the conditions which formerly existed, but 
which of late years have been much less felt. 
SEPTEMBER DAYS. 
It is good to be abroad these glorious Septem¬ 
ber days. In some respects they are quite dif¬ 
ferent from the September days of other years, 
when the foliage was yellowing through long 
lack of moisture and the dust lay heavy on 
every roadside leaf and flower. 
To-day the foliage is as fresh as in late June, 
save here and there where an early frost touched 
lightly those leaves which are always first to 
change color. 
Among these are the huckleberries of the 
swamp, whose leaf-edges are tinged with red; 
the delicate serrated leaves of the red gum, 
whose twisted, rugged bark is but poor indica¬ 
tion of the sensitiveness of its fo'iage to low 
temperatures and the cold dews, almost frosty, 
of early morning; the flaming ivy, most beauti¬ 
ful of all our autumn climbers, yet to be avoided 
as a deadly thing, lying in wait for those who 
are susceptible to its influence. 
In early morn the homely junipers of 'the rocky 
pastures glisten under their burdens of dew- 
drops, and other myriads of nature’s jewels be¬ 
deck the spider webs that are suspended from 
weed to weed and here and there among the 
smaller popples and old field birches. It is a 
pretty tradition which has it that these spider 
works are put out when fair weather is prob¬ 
able, and that on a morning when the fields and 
tlvckets are dotted with them, it will not rain. 
Fields of green corn of a few days ago are 
disappearing, and in their stead are serried ranks 
of shocks stored against the coming of husking 
days. Exposed to view are luscious pumpkins, 
even now yellowing in the sun—mute but elo¬ 
quent reminders of the pumpkin pies of Thanks¬ 
giving and other festal days. These fields hold 
much of promise for the lovers of good dogs 
and brown barrels, for they are beloved also 
by bobwhite and bre’r rabbit. 
The flocking of the birds attracts the atten¬ 
tion of those that haunt country roads and tempt 
them to turn aside where a trail indicates a bet¬ 
ter point for observation in the woods. These 
pathways, used but little in summer, are quiet 
places to walk, carpeted as they are with mosses 
and creeping dewberry vines, with here and there 
the bright red fruit of the wintergreen. Stop 
for a moment beneath the rugged limbs of a 
veteran scrub pine and note how softly and 
craftily the crows pass back and forth in their 
mischief making, and listen to the plaintive note 
of the mourning doves which brought forth a 
brood among the crowded red maples in the 
thicket hard by. 
Robins flit by in pairs and dozens, intent on 
the half play, half work that follows their sea¬ 
son of anxiety in rearing young and precedes 
their leave-taking ere they pass on toward 
warmer climes. Noisy jays appear and disappear 
in their jerky, aimless way, and now and then a 
hawk passes far overhead, intent on making hay 
while times are good. Red squirrels frisk about 
suddenly in unexpected places, and seeking safety 
in their favorite hemlocks, scold the intruder 
furiously until he quits the trail and wends his 
way along the country road. 
Once again the ancient spring appeals to the 
wayfarer, who from force of habit seeks its 
place of concealment ’neath a limestone ledge. 
To-day the fount seems purer than ever, gar¬ 
nished as it is in freshly fallen leaves, and it 
tinkles merrily down the rain-washed stones to 
the old brook. The song of the brook is of 
abundant water and safety for its children, the 
trout, for the rains have been generous and there 
is water to spare for the reservoirs that lie far 
down in the valley.. 
Here and there in the woods and along the 
sunny sides of old orchards there is an illusion 
of spring time. After the long drouth and the 
warm rains, certain trees have put forth new 
shoots and tender leaf-branches that are ill pre¬ 
pared for the frosty nights to come. Now and 
then a myrtle blossom peeps out of the somber 
runners, and a rare find is a wood violet. White 
millers flit about in scores, and dragon flies im¬ 
prove each sunny hour along the stream side, 
devastating the work of the thrifty mosquito. 
Brown rabbits pause beside the road as the 
wayfarer returns homeward at eventide, and if 
he is fortunate, he may hear, even flush, the old 
cock grouse that haunts the needle-strewn 
ground under the hemlocks hard by. 
On the meadows the' hordes of grackles rise 
and fall, rise and fall, in their curious flight ere 
they seek lodging among the flags, where just 
now the rail are congregating, and where the 
glint of sunlight on gun barrels tells the old 
story of the coming of the hunters’ season, with 
its fascinating searches, its full bags and its 
blank days, all a part of recreation in the open 
which is so beneficial to busy men. 
The opening day of the small game shooting 
season in New York State this year falls on 
Sunday, Oct. i, but Saturday, Sept. 30, becomes 
the legal opening day under the new law. This 
law provides that, when opening or closing day 
falls on a Sunday, the season shall open or close, 
as the case may be, on the Saturday next pre¬ 
ceding such Sunday. To-day, therefore, sports¬ 
men may hunt grouse, woodcock, hares, and 
rabbits, except in certain counties; and of course 
deer and wildfowl. 
