Jan. i6, 1909 .] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
99 
The capacity for team work is displayed in 
, every kind of canine effort. 
Retrievers acquire accurate, comprehensive 
knowledge concerning the flights of birds and 
can unfailingly distinguish that of a wounded 
bird from that of the unwounded. They note 
where the wounded bird alights, and go to it 
direct on opportunity. 
In like manner, intelligent setters and point- 
! ers “mark down” the scattered birds of a bevy, 
and go to and point them with astonishing pre¬ 
cision. 
All this has to do with the general subject 
of team work. 
The act of the reporter dog, the announcement 
that he has found a bird or birds, is merely a 
novel extension of team work, adapted to the 
peculiar combination of circumstances. Many 
similar acts are displayed by the lurcher when 
poaching. 
If the average shooter comprehended the 
capability of the dog as does the poacher, the 
reporter dog would be much more numerous. 
In many cases, as to ways and means of best 
handling the birds, the dog knows more than 
does the shooter, because he has a keenly dis¬ 
criminating nose as a sense organ, one of mar¬ 
velous excellence. 
As a rule, the reporter dog is a wide ranger. 
He first has the reporter problem to solve by 
the successful finding of birds out of sight of 
his master. The obvious ignorance of the latter 
as to their whereabouts under such circum¬ 
stances engages his attention. He knows that 
to obtain the desired results, according to all 
the needs of good team work, shooter and birds 
must be brought together. 
All dogs are not reliable. The distinction is 
that some dogs have' more honesty than others. 
Some dogs are reasonably honest all the time; 
others are honest when in sight of their mas¬ 
ters. Others are dishonest always. The obser¬ 
vance of general honesty is a characteristic of 
the reporting dog. He is honest in his team 
work. 
Dishonest dogs, when out of sight of the 
shooter, indulge in lawlessness. The greater 
their intelligence, the greater their capacity for 
mischief. They flush and chase with unbounded 
delight. They eat birds which they were sent 
out to retrieve. Returning under the eye of the 
shooter, correct behavior in instantly assumed. 
Most dogs are honest in their team work, how¬ 
ever much they may lack it in the division of 
the spoils. They observe the team work neces¬ 
sary to accomplish the desired results. These 
being obtained, the ego asserts its domination. 
The dog is intensely _ selfish. He considers his 
own advantage first. 
Illustrative of the accomplishment, as observed 
by practical sportsmen, there probably was no 
more brilliant performer than Trim, whose biog- 
raphy, in S. T. Hammond’s “Practical Dog 
Training,” has the caption, “My Old Dog Trim.” 
The pertinent excerpt is as follows: 
“Trim was an indefatigable worker and dis¬ 
liked to stop a moment, but would work from 
morning until night. It was hard to keep him 
quiet when I sat down to rest or eat lunch. One 
day we had tramped a long distance, and coming 
out on the sunny side of the woods, we sat down 
and took a long rest. 'When we got ready to 
start Trim was missing. I called and whistled, 
but he did not come. Casting my eyes across 
the open lot I saw him two hundred yards away, 
at the far edge, pointing directly toward us. 
When we came up to him he broke his point, 
and wheeling round in the opposite direction 
led us a quarter of a mile away and came to a 
point at the edge of a stubble field. Moving on 
we soon flushed a noble bevy of quail. It was 
plain to be seen that he had been there before, 
as his footprints were visible on the soft ground. 
He evidently reasoned that we would never find 
him, and to let us know that he had found game 
deliberately broke his point, and retracing his 
steps to where we could see him, pointedly told 
us to come along. This peculiar trait soon be¬ 
came habitual with him, and ever after we let 
him have his own way, knowing that if he found 
birds he would show himself and cause us no 
trouble to look him up. I found this habit very 
useful the next season, as, owing to a severe 
cut on my ankle, I was incapacitated from walk¬ 
ing very far. I would sit in the wagon and let 
him go, whiling away the moments like the ‘lone 
fisherman’ in ‘glorious anticipation,’ keeping a 
sharp watch in every direction, and wondering 
at what point he would make his appearance. 
As game was very plenty, I was generally re¬ 
warded by seeing him come bounding into open, 
and, after a stride or two. strike an attitude, the 
memory of which, even now, after the lapse of 
forty years, causes my heart to bound with de¬ 
light, and sends the hot blood tingling to my 
fingers’ ends. 'When Trim made a point there 
was a magnetic, inspiriting sympathy among all 
beholders that I can compare to nothing except¬ 
ing to the sensation of an electric shock, and 
I have yet to see the dog that will cause my hair 
to rise to the elevation it obtained when view¬ 
ing his performances. I cannot better describe 
this feeling than to quote the language of a wood- 
chopper Irishman, near whom Trim came to a 
point. When we came up the man had dropped 
his axe and stood looking at him with heaving 
chest, gaping mouth and wide open eyes. ‘Look 
at him!’ he said; ‘did yees iver see the loikes 
of that; howly Moses, how me hair riz up and 
the cowld chills run up me back whin he tuck 
the scent; if the howly Virgin shud tell me there 
wan’t twinty burds forninst him, by me sowl I’d 
helave the dog furst.’ ” 
Off for Africa. 
Messrs. Henry Sampson, Jr., Bayard Domi¬ 
nick, Jr., and E. H. Litchfield, Jr., three New 
Yorkers, sons of well known New York sports¬ 
men, have just left Paris on their way to Africa. 
They embarked last Saturday at Marseilles for 
Mombasa. From there they will proceed by the 
Uganda Railway to Nairobi, British East Africa, 
whence they will start out on their hunt. It 
takes nearly a month to reach Nairobi and they 
are due there about Feb. i. They are going 
into the same general country recently visited 
by John J. White, Jr., and Dr. Rainsford, 
and to be visited next spring by President 
Roosevelt. They hope to have good hunting 
and to collect some material for the American 
Museum of Natural History in New York. 
The three gentlemen have hunted big game 
over much of North America, and Mr. Litch¬ 
field has been in India also. A few years since 
Forest and Stream printed a number of very 
interesting photographs, taken by Mr. Sampson 
during a trip for goats into British Columbia. 
Mr. Dutcher on Game Laws. 
Concluded from page 78. 
Some years since the American Ornithol¬ 
ogists’ Union, which is one of the leading scien¬ 
tific bodies in this country, and whose members 
are the recognized authority on the subject of 
birds, as they make a study of the live bird and 
its habits and economic value to the human 
race, passed a resolution recommending that in 
every part of the country all of the small snipe, 
known as peeps, should be removed from the 
list of game birds. The resolution was as fol¬ 
lows; 
Whereas, It is well known that some of the Limicolae, 
or shore birds, are rapidly decreasing in numbers, on 
account of spring shooting, and because they may be 
killed for millinery purposes under the guise of game 
birds; and 
Whereas, Eleven species are too small to be of any 
value for food, but are of great esthetic value as an 
important feature of the wild life of beaches, marshes, 
meadows and prairies, and cannot well be spared; and 
Whereas, These species, particularly the killdeer, which 
is known to destroy the boll-weevil, -have more or less 
economic value; therefore, be it 
Resolved, That in order to prevent further excessive 
slaughter of such birds, or their use as millinery orna¬ 
ments, the American Ornithologists’ Union recommends 
that the following species, known as red phalarope, 
northern phalarope, Wilson’s phalarope, least sandpiper, 
semipalamated sandpiper, western sandpiper, spotted 
sandpiper, killdeer, piping plover, snowy plover, either 
be transferred from the list of game birds, or given pro¬ 
tection similar to that now accorded non-game birds. 
I thoroughly endorse the above resolutions, 
because every true sportsman who shoots shore 
birds knows that he scorns to kill so small a 
bird as the “peep,” which is no larger than the 
common English sparrow. From the well- 
known habits of these birds that live on the 
bogs and swampy places along the shores of 
fresh-water lakes and streams, and in and about 
the borders of salt marshes, it must be a fact 
that they destroy enormous quantities of the 
larval forms of insect life whose first stages of 
existence are passed in the water. These birds 
are always probing and feeding about places 
such as indicated above, and undoubtedly they 
are doing a great eeonomic work. It is now a 
well known fact that malaria and yellow fever 
are conveyed by mosquitoes, and as these 
vicious insects are only reproduced in water, it 
is presumable that millions of mosquitoes while 
in the larval form must be destroyed by birds 
of this class. 
Further, a beach or marsh without these small 
birds running about would lose half of its 
charm; as they are altogether too small to be 
considered game, I think that we, as a body, 
should recommend that they should be removed 
from the class of game birds. 
I recommend as a change of minor import¬ 
ance in connection with Section loi, that all 
taxidermists should be licensed by the Forest, 
Fish and Game Commission. There are a 
large number of these men in the State doing 
an excellent and valuable work, but they should 
not be permitted to continue unless they are 
licensed, for which they should pay a fee of 
not less than $25.00 a year, and they should be 
compelled to keep a complete record open at all 
times to public inspection of all the birds and 
mammals that they mount, where the same were 
taken, where the bird or animal was killed, and 
to whom it belongs. Two objects will be gained 
in this way; first, no taxidermist could manu- 
{Continued on page 117.) 
