Nov. ii, 1911] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
713 
A Few Post-Season Tears. 
Little Falls, N. Y., Nov. 4.— Editor Forest 
and Stream: Reports from the Adirondacks are 
confusing. It is hard to say whether the deer 
have been plenty or not, and whether the hunt¬ 
ing conditions have been good or not. I did 
not go in this fall, and there are hundreds of 
other hunters who did not go into the woods, 
deterred by the criminal carelessness of many 
hunters. 
The truth about the shootings is known to 
all who go into the woods—untrained fools, 
drinking roisterers and scoundrels, so greedy 
that they would rather take a chance of killing 
a man than of failing to get deer meat, are the 
ones who do most of the killing of men in the 
woods. Once in a great while there may be a 
“justifiable” accidental killing, but only seldom. 
The result is that the old-time hunters are keep¬ 
ing out of the woods. 
This may account for reports that deer are 
scarce this year. Good hunters, however, seem 
to get their game as usual, although the per¬ 
sistent and long continued still-hunting has 
made the deer shyer, more difficult to approach 
and less easy to get than they were when hound¬ 
ing was first prohibited. Deer used to hounds 
but not to still-hunting are easier victims of 
still-hunters than those that know only the still- 
hunters and their wiles. 
There is a steady improvement in the ability 
of Adirondack deer to take care of themselves. 
They are followed to the deepest parts of the 
woods, and the old-time pockets of deer, where 
they were seldom molested, grow fewer all the 
time. Yet there are places now which were 
hard hunted a few years ago, and which now 
are hunted but little. The hunter is fortunate 
who is able to find some patch of timber and 
old burning containing eight or ten square miles 
which hunters seldom cross. They are remote 
from camps, however, and one needs to know 
the wilderness trails, and be independent of the 
fancy shelters which are now regarded as the 
necessity of most of the “wilderness” hunters. 
There have been fewer notes telling of suc¬ 
cessful hunts this year than of any year I re¬ 
call—at least, so it has been in the papers I 
read. At the Powley place—a woods inn which 
persists on State lands in spite of the laws of 
man—forty-two deer were shot, and from Wil- 
murt, Morehouseville and other points north 
come reports of hunters’ success. The habit is 
to credit a locality with all the deer killed north 
or on the woods side of the locality. In this 
way North Lake used to boast of seventy-five 
or eighty deer in a season. In late years, how¬ 
ever, the difference between still-hunting and 
hounding is shown; North Lake could claim 
only twelve or fifteen deer in a late year’s 
hunting. 
The reports that deer have been scarce are 
hardly to be credited. The chances are that 
there was some phase of feeding that hunters 
did not discover, which kept the deer in small 
localities. The Old Pardy crowd one time 
hunted for days without success, going high and 
low and over the flats and up the mountains. 
The last two or three days, however, the hunt¬ 
ers discovered the deer in a little thicket of a 
chopping, where they were eating lichens or 
mosses, for it was an off year for beechnuts. 
They found a score of deer in a dozen acres or 
so. Another year the deer were on the open 
flats, picking up beechnuts, and again they were 
on the ridges browsing. 
This year was at first reported to be a beech¬ 
nut year, but the beechnuts are sometimes 
plenty in one locality and scarce in another. 
One cannot tell much about the nuts, unless he 
is in the woods late in the summer. 
Bears seem to have eluded the hunters. I 
have not seen one report of a bear killed this 
year. This would indicate dry leaves and noisy 
traveling, but hunters claim the woods have 
been “soused”—hunters wet to the skin all day 
and hunting miserable. 
What a pity it is that comfort has so much 
importance in the woods these days! The crv 
is for good, dry, warm camps, and one who 
travels the woods finds that the old-time open 
camp is safely located alongside the modern 
closed camp, with its bedsprings and its fine 
polished stove, and its comforts, even to light 
literature. I am inclined to think that the rea¬ 
son deer seemed scarce this year is because the 
hunting has been so good! 
In the old days, the hunters demanded and 
prayed for wet weather, so that the leaves would 
be wet and the twigs too damp to crack. This 
year it has rained every day or two. How could 
tire tenderfoot be prevailed upon to go out into 
the wet woods and get his fine new rifle and his 
precious hunting suit wet, and, worse, his own 
hide wet? It was poor hunting because it was 
such good weather for hunting! 
The pity is that so many who really delight 
in hunting, and in the wild life which is the joy 
of hunting, were deprived of their sport by the 
fact that so many men have been murdered by 
the fools and worse! Where men shoot at 
men who are clad in red sweaters, and wear 
red hats, what hope is there of continued sport 
in the woods? 
Most of the tragedies occur early in the sea¬ 
son, before the leaves are fallen. The eager 
crowd, desirous of good weather and first whack 
at the deer, rush in the day the season opens. 
I hen they shoot at the bushes they see moving 
—and now and then kill some one. But so 
many are in the woods that it is dangerous all 
the season through. They mistake men for 
rabbits, for foxes, for deer, for bears, as the 
records show. 
There is a report going the rounds that boars 
from Litchfield park and other preserves have 
stocked the Adirondacks in spots. There is 
some consolation in this. If the wild boar is 
half as bad as he is said to be, it would not 
be surprising to hear that sundry localities had 
been deserted by bunters and given over to the 
wild hogs. I had always understood, however, 
that the efforts to introduce the wild boars had 
failed, because the animals could not survive 
the bitter Adirondack winters and deep snows. 
Elk, moose and the like have been scarce, 
though it is evident that some have survived 
the fusilade of those who know not what they 
shoot at. Most of the big game has fallen and 
been left where it fell, because the hunters mis¬ 
took it for “old whales” of deer. 
Beavers are increasing rapidly, and their dams 
are found on all sides. There are persistent 
reports of wolves and panthers, but one cannot 
judge of their truth. Ruffed grouse have been 
very scarce, good hunters getting only a bird or 
two after days of hard hunting. The snowshoe 
hares—the white rabbit—are recovering from 
the epidemic which carried them off a few years 
ago, and those who know good fun with a small 
rifle—still-hunting these wary animals—may 
look forward to the return of their sport in a 
year or two. 
It looks to me as though the hunters who are 
driven out of the woods in the deer season will 
have to defer their vacations till November and 
December, after this. If they are as fond of 
the woods and if hunting to kill is so small a 
part of the sport as is claimed, they can have 
the fun of woods ranging, either still-hunting 
varying hares, or, better yet, bears. Of course, 
game protectors are suspicious, with good rea¬ 
son, of the men who go hunting after the deer 
season closes—but that need not worry the law- 
abiding. Certain it is, there is a lot of good 
sport for the man with a little rifle, or for the 
man with the patience to still-hunt Adirondack 
bears, which are increasing. 
The change which has affected most of the 
American wilderness areas, has of course hit 
the Adirondacks hard, and the past three or 
four years have shown more change than the 
previous ten years. Now that the State has set 
its shoulder to the policy of building good 
roads through the innermost depths of the forest, 
the change that threatens is greater than ever 
before—but probably thousands will drink a 
little, where in former days a few drank deep 
at the cup of forest joys. The good of the 
many! It is the only excuse that remains un¬ 
questioned in this matter of throwing open 
the wilderness depths to the pound and whirr 
of demon cars. Raymond S. Spears. 
