March 20, 1909.] 
FOREST AND STREAM 
457 
North Carolina Quail. 
Raleigh, N. C., March 13. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: Secretary Gilbert Pearson, of the 
North Carolina Audubon Society, has been lead¬ 
ing the strenuous life for the past few weeks. 
The society introduced a hill forbidding sale of 
quail for two years. It passed the Senate, hut 
the House killed it. Then some men from the 
eastern part of the State introduced an anti- 
Audubon bill, which appeared on its face to be 
for a couple of counties, but really included a 
dozen or more. It went through the Senate, but 
when it got to the House was made to include 
a large area of the State. Bitter attacks were 
made upon the society and upon visiting hunters 
by narrow minded legislators whose observa¬ 
tions and information have never gone beyond 
their own townships. Out of the ruck of the 
fight comes the rather cheerful news that forty- 
three of the ninety-eight counties remain under 
the Audubon law, these embracing the principal 
quail counties. The counties which are out of 
it are largely the “duck counties’’ as they are 
known, the most troublesome in the lot, includ¬ 
ing Currituck, where there has been so much 
disorder, violation of law, poaching, fire-lighting, 
intimidation, etc. Three coast counties are yet 
covered by Audubon protection—Dare, New 
Hanover and Brunswick. 
Secretary Pearson tells me that last year in 
Currituck he spent two thousand dollars and 
convicted ten hunters of fire-lighting and other 
violations of the duck law. He prosecuted in 
twenty other cases, but owing to partiality shown 
the defendants by jurors the men escaped. The 
receipts of the society were only $800 during the 
season. In Currituck county under the new law 
the eommissioners will appoint the game war¬ 
dens and collect the gun tax, half of which will 
go to the wardens and the remainder to the 
public schools, and this applies to the other ex¬ 
cepted counties. The provision of the general 
law which gives the Audubon Society pow'er to 
send its w^ardens anywhere has not been re¬ 
pealed, but naturally the w'ork which will now 
be done by the society’s officers will be in those 
counties w'hich have showm that they want pro¬ 
tection. Much of the opposition to the bill was 
by men who wanted leave to shoot at any and 
all seasons. 
The representative from Carteret county in¬ 
troduced a bill to allow the killing of herons at 
any season. Now in the territory of this legis¬ 
lator there are two of the worst plume hunters 
on the coast of the whole United States who 
have shot hundreds of thousands of birds for 
their feathers. Between Beaufort and the ham¬ 
let of Lenoxville there is a large and growing 
colony of herons, and this is one of the things 
the legislator wanted to open. Secretary Pear¬ 
son, greatly to the annoyance of the legislator, 
cut off so much of his bill that under it herons 
can only be shot in that county during the cold 
months when they wdll be conspicuous by their 
absence, he having secured an amendment by 
which it is not permitted to shoot them during 
the breeding season. 
The winter has been so very open and food 
has been so abundant that the quail have had 
a very fine show. Though the law to prevent 
the sale of quail failed of passage, yet it has 
had a good effect and protection of these birds 
has been stimulated so much so that members 
of the Legislature from the chief bird counties 
say they think there will be more conservation 
than ever before. 
During the discussions in the Legislature of 
the game laws the right and title to birds was 
talked about and a member gave quite a strik¬ 
ing illustration. He spoke of a man who was 
out shooting quail when along came a land- 
owner telling him he must not shoot on his land, 
the hunter at that time walking on the lands of 
another person where he had permission to go, 
and being on one side of a little hedge the land- 
owner walking parallel with him on the other 
side as they talked. Presently some birds flew 
up on the landowner’s side and the hunter asked 
him if they were his birds. He replied, “Yes, 
indeed,” but as they walked on a little further 
THE REEDER PARTY BRINGING TURKEYS TO CAMP. 
some of the birds again flushed, flew over into 
the field where the hunter was and where of 
course he had a right to shoot, and he knocked 
over a couple of them. As he picked them up 
and returned in talking range of the landowner 
he asked the latter whose birds they were, to 
which the now angry man relied, “Not mine.” 
The hunter laughed very heartily, a truce was 
made and the hunter was invited to cross the 
boundary and make himself at home. As the 
two men walked down the line some birds 
flushed on the owner’s land, flew across the 
land where the hunter had a right to be by 
special permission, and so went on to the land 
of a third man with whom the owner was spe¬ 
cially friendly, and so he took the hunter there 
first to get up the birds. He finally admitted 
that the birds, like the wind, could go where 
they listed and still be at home. F. A. Olds. 
A PRESS dispatch from Ottawa states that wird 
has been received from Fort Churchill that 5 ;er- 
geant Donaldson, of the Northwest Mounted 
Police, while hunting walrus in a boat in com¬ 
pany with Sergeant Baird and an Indian, uas 
killed by a walrus. The men were on a jour¬ 
ney from Fort Churchill to Fullerton. 
A New Protective Club. 
Utica, N. Y., March 12 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: An organization to be known as the 
Stockbridge Valley Fish and Game Club has just 
been formed in Madison county, the head¬ 
quarters being in the village of Munnsville, N. 
Y. The following directors were elected: J. E. 
Sperry, Munnsville; D. E. Cole, Pratts; Jay T. 
Potter, Stockbridge; C. W. Davis and H. W. 
Tooke, Munsville; William Wood and E. W. 
Eaton, Jr., Valley Mills. The directors subse¬ 
quently organized by electing officers as follows: 
President, J. E. Sperry; Vice-President, D. E. 
Cole; Secretary, C. W. Davis; Treasurer, H. W. 
Tooke. It was decided to have the club incor¬ 
porated. 
The Oneida Creek and its tributaries flow 
through Stockbridge valley, one of the most 
beautiful valleys in Central New York. The 
waters of this stream are naturally adapted to 
the propagation of trout. There has been more 
or less effort on the part of individuals to stock 
this stream and its tributaries, but it is now pro¬ 
posed to make an organized effort in that direc¬ 
tion. The fields and woodlands of the valley 
are well suited for certain game birds and the 
new organization proposes to obtain a stock of 
them to distribute in the valley and protect them 
until they have increased sufficiently in num¬ 
bers to be hunted under reasonable restrictions: 
The new club will co-operate with the Madison 
County Bird and Anglers’ Association of Oneida 
and the Morrisville Fish and Game Association 
of Morrisville in the propagation and protection 
of fish and birds. W. E. Wolcott, 
Boone and Crocket! Club Smoker. 
On Friday evening, M^rch 12, the members 
of the Boone and Crockett Club gathered at 
their rooms, 29 West Thirty-ninth street, for at 
informal smoker. Among those present were; 
Major W. Austin Wadsworth, the club’s presi¬ 
dent; Madison Grant, its secretary; Dr. Alex¬ 
ander Lambert, Dr. John Rogers, Jr., Geo. Blei- 
stein, Caspar Whitney, D. M. Barringer, of 
Philadelphia; Townsend Lawrence, Geo. Bird 
Grinnell, Chas. Sheldon, the Alaskan explorer, 
and Geo. L. Harrison, Jr., of Philadelphia, who 
has hunted so much in Africa. The occasion 
was a very pleasant one, and there was much 
informal exchange of old hunting experience 
and discussion of zoological problems. It is in¬ 
tended to hold these infaimial meetings each 
month. 
Recent Deaths. 
Victor Smith died at his home in Bayonne, 
N. J., on March 13. His age was forty-nine 
years. He was a well-known journalist and was 
connected with the Tribune and the Press for 
nearly a quarter of a century. His witty short 
paragraphs in the Press’ “On the Tip of the 
Tongue” column were read daily by thousands 
of persons, and as he was a sportsman, many 
of the paragraphs which he contributed to this 
column were of peculiar interest to anglers and 
hunters. Mr. Smith was a native of Lawrence- 
ville, Ga. He leaves a widow and a son. 
John C. Ilarhenneau, an old-time trapper and 
hunter, died on March 13 at his home near 
Alpena, Mich. His age was 104 years. 
