4i6 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[March 13, 1909. 
North Carolina Quail and Bear. 
Linville Falls, N. C, March i.— Editor 
Forest and Stream: Quail shooters have lost 
something by not coming up here this winter, 
for it has been a winter hardly deserving the 
name. Never but once has the temperature 
been at zero, and most of the time well above 
freezing. There have been more days warmer 
than 40 above than cooler, and many days from 
50 to 60. It has been highly conducive to 
mountain climbing, tramps and horseback rides, 
and so to quail shooting. The scarcity com¬ 
plained of in the eastern part of the State has 
not been noticeable hereabout, and old resi¬ 
dents tell me the quail are more plentiful this 
season than usual. Several coveys have made 
their home in the woods and fields close to our 
cottage, and are quite tame. The mountaineers 
do not care much for them, and so the little 
fellows get along exceedingly well in an open 
winter. Next fall the woods and fields ought 
to be full of them. The Legislature, I notice, 
has refused to give protection to quail, as the 
better class of sportsmen asked. 
This Legislature has started to do another 
most unaccountable thing, the reason for which 
has not been made public, or at least not within 
my range of vision. The lower house has 
passed a bill looking to the extermination of 
hawks and owls by putting a price on their 
heads. What are the farmers thinking of to 
permit this? Probably nothing. The ignorance 
of the average farmer in regard to his obliga¬ 
tion to hawks and owls is lamentable, to say 
the least. If North Carolina should succeed 
in killing all its hawks and owls, the next gen- 
■eration would be making liberal appropriations 
to get them back. 
Old Bruin has been very wary this winter 
and has allowed but few of his family to be 
taken in this region. Two reasons for this 
disappointing condition appear. Last season 
forty-three black bears were killed in this im¬ 
mediate vicinity. Young and old, male and 
female alike were victims to the dogs and shot¬ 
guns of the mountaineers, for this thrifty and 
prudent individual takes no chances. A rifle 
looks to him like a foolish thing with which to 
hunt. He relies on his dogs to hold the bear 
until he can get up and stick the muzzle of his 
four-dollar shotgun within four or five feet of 
the poor beast. Of course many dogs are thus 
hadly torn to pieces and many bears escape. 
The other and perhaps chief reason for the 
scarcity of bears in this place is the fact that 
the mast, that is, the crop of chestnuts and 
acorns, was much below the average. Bears 
were plenty early in the season and in summer, 
when they were not hunted, but as the autumn 
advanced they began to go elsewhere in search 
of food. 
Let no one think that because the mountain 
bear hunter is fond of a sure thing that he 
has not courage and will not go into a bear 
fight. Only recently, telling it in a few words, 
a party of bear hunters ran an old one into a 
■cave in the rocks. It was a dark cavern, the 
dogs could not fight and no one could see to 
shoot. It was getting dark, so two of them 
stayed over the hole all night whip others went 
home for tools with which to pry out rocks and 
make an opening. The old bear growled a 
little, they said, but did not make any effort to 
get past the man smell. In the morning they 
tried to get him out with firebrands, but as fast 
as one was thrown in the bear promptly put it 
out. Then a shot was fired and the bear 
wounded somehow, so he set up a fearful howl¬ 
ing. Finally, reinforcements having arrived, 
the hole was enlarged, but still without results. 
Finally one of the hunters volunteered that if 
the others would lower him down into the hole 
he would hang there till he could see a little 
and get a shot at the bear. The net result of 
this was another wound, and by this time the 
bear was mad. Some one fired another shot 
into the hole, when the bear charged out in 
great fury. Some of the bystanders took to 
trees, but enough were ready to dispatch the 
animal. F. W. Bicknell. 
Proposed Missouri Game Law. 
An interesting, and on the whole most excel¬ 
lent, bill relating to the preservation, propaga¬ 
tion and protection of game animals, birds and 
fish, was recently introduced by Mr. Auerswald 
in the forty-fifth General Assembly of the State 
of Missouri. 
It provides that the ownership of all birds, 
fish and game in the State of Missouri shall 
be in the State; defines game birds; protects 
nests and eggs, fixes close seasons for turkey, 
quail, wildfowl, snipe and doves; prohibits the 
taking, except under scientific permit, of wood¬ 
cock, pinnated grouse, ruffed grouse and old 
world pheasants; prohibits the killing of deer 
under one year old, and of does, killing in the 
water or by artificial light and the possession 
of the carcass or portion of carcass without the 
natural evidence of sex. 
It prohibits also the setting of fires or the 
abandonment of camp-fires unextinguished; and 
the building of obstructions, so as to prevent 
the free passage of fish in streams. The pollut¬ 
ing them with sawdust or poisonous material 
from factories is forbidden. Provision is made 
for the building of fishways at dams in streams. 
A game and fish commissioner is to be ap¬ 
pointed with a force of subordinates. There are 
provisions for scientific permits and for taxi¬ 
dermists’ permits, for a license law for resi¬ 
dents and non-residents. The funds collected 
from the payment of hunting licenses, other 
licenses, penalties and forfeitures are to be set 
aside for the game protection fund and an ap¬ 
propriation made of $200,000 to carry out the 
provisions of the act during the next two years, 
provided the moneys credited to the game pro¬ 
tection fund shall be insufficient to pay such a 
sum. 
Common carriers are forbidden to transport 
birds or game except when accompanied by ship¬ 
per, and then only in limited numbers. Game 
shall not be shipped out of the State nor sold. 
Deputies, sheriffs, marshals, constables and other 
peace officers are ex-officio game and fish com¬ 
missioners, in addition to the deputies to be 
appointed from Congressional districts. 
The law in most respects is an excellent one. 
It is to be regretted that spring shooting is 
specifically permitted, and that doves are not 
protected. Yet against this there are many ex¬ 
cellent provisions. 
AH the game laws of the United States and 
Canada, rewsed to date and now in force, are 
given in the Game Laws in Brief. See adv. 
A Pennsylvania Bear Hunt. 
Du Bois, Pa., March 6.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: I learned to-day of a brave act by 
Chancy League, of Firstfork, Cameron county, 
Pennsylvania, a noted trapper and hunter. 
Mr. League was out looking after his traps 
on Feb. 22, armed with a .38 caliber pistol and 
a belt axe. Climbing a rough mountain, he dis¬ 
covered a cave in the rocks and as he had re¬ 
cently killed a large wildcat in a cave or fissure 
in some rocks, he began to examine this one. 
Looking in he saw the shine of a pair of 
eyes and fired two shots as nearly at the eyes 
as possible. 
The shooting created a disturbance in the 
cave, and the first thing Mr. League saw was 
the paw of a large black bear coming out of 
the cave, followed by the bear’s head, mouth 
open and mad all through. Mr. League stood 
his ground and put another bullet in the old 
chap’s head as he came out, and then started 
up the hill on a run, firing at the charging bear 
as he ran. When his pistol was empty, the bear 
started down the mountain, and as soon as Mr. 
League could load his gun, the brave trapper 
followed. He found the bear about half a mile 
away, leaning against a log badly wounded, and 
going as near as he dared he emptied his pistol 
again, killing the animal. The bear weighed 
252 pounds dressed and I was shown his skin 
here to-day. 
How many men would tackle a full grown 
bear, especially a wounded one, with a .38 cali¬ 
ber pistol? Not many, I think. 
E. H. Kniskern. 
Wild Dogs and Rabbit. 
Raleigh, N. C., March 6.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: For thirty years there have been wild 
dogs in a great tract of woods known as the 
Grimes lands, west of Raleigh, part of which, 
recently bought by the State, embraces some 
1,300 acres. These dogs twenty years ago at¬ 
tacked a herd of milk cattle and the latter had 
to be killed, some of the dogs having rabies. 
From time to time the wild dogs have been shot, 
but they cannot be exterminated. On two occas¬ 
ions they have attacked people passing through 
the woods and had to be beaten off. On the 
last day of February, which marked the close 
of the hunting season, in company with a num¬ 
ber of boys, I was rabbit hunting in these 
woods. A rabbit was jumped and made a wide 
sweep in his run. Most of us stood on the 
watch for him to “return to his bed,” as the 
darkeys say, and presently the music of the 
dogs bringing him back was heard in the dis¬ 
tance. The rabbit was seen coming down a 
hill, where the trees stood rather wide apart, 
and suddenly two very large dogs, mottled in 
color and looking remarkably like hyenas, 
dashed at him, and rabbit and dogs went over 
in a heap. 
At this instant a colored man came up with 
his gun and rushed at the dogs, which fled, leav¬ 
ing the rabbit kicking, but bearing on the rump 
the deep marks of the dogs’ fangs. The dogs 
had appeared like ghosts and they disappeared 
in the same manner. It was a remarkable inci¬ 
dent. When the pack arrived the owner was 
holding up the rabbit. The dogs appeared to 
pay no notice to the tracks of the wild dogs. 
Fred A. Olds. 
