143 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Feb. 3, 1912 
A Measure to Restrain Dogs. 
Boston, Mass., Jan. 25 . —Editor Forest and 
Stream: The following is a copy of Senate bill 
No. 175, the result of the conclusions of a ma¬ 
jority of the committee appointed by the Fish 
and Game Association to draft a bill relative to 
the better protection of partridge, quail, wood¬ 
cock and other ground-nesting birds. 
Section 1. It shall be unlawful for any owner, lessee 
or custodian of any “self-hunting” dog to permit such 
dog to run at large in the woods or fields inhabited by 
game birds or quadrupeds between May 1st and June 
SOth, both dates inclusive. For the purpose of this act, 
no dog shall be considered a “self-hunting” dog until 
after he has been found running at large and hunting 
in woods or fields inhabited by game birds or quadru¬ 
peds, unaccompanied by the owner, lessee or custodian; 
and further, that the owner, lessee or custodian shall 
have been so notified in writing by the fish and game 
commission. 
Section 2. If, after the owner, lessee or custodian of 
such a dog has been notified, as provided above, the 
dog is again found running at large and hunting in the 
covers above described, it shall be presumption of law 
that such running and hunting was with the knowledge 
and consent of the said owner, custodian or lessee, unless 
the contrary is shown by evidence. 
Section 3. It shall be unlawful for any person or 
persons to molest, harass or annoy any game bird or 
quadruped by breaking, training or practicing any dog 
upon them between May 1st and June SOth, inclusive. 
Section 4. Whoever violates the provisions of this act 
shall be punished by a fine of not less than five dollars 
nor more than twenty dollars. 
It has been our intention to frame a bill that 
would be acceptable to any fair-minded sports¬ 
man. All bird lovers who are in the habit of 
getting out into the open and into the haunts 
of nesting birds know very well that “se f-hunt- 
ing” dogs are very destructive to bird life. It 
is our hope that the owners of self-hunting dogs 
will not insist upon their right to prey upon, or 
seriously disturb, wild birds that nest on the 
ground. 
It is our opinion that if our birds are to be 
saved, a great many people must make some con¬ 
cessions for their benefit. The contention that 
self-hunting dogs should be restrained during 
the nesting season, and while young birds are 
unable to fly, is really not open to argument. 
The fox hunting contingent of this State is 
expected to oppose this bill, inasmuch as they 
insist on the privilege of hunting foxes through¬ 
out the entire year, and at the present time there 
is no law on our statute books that wi'l restrain 
them. It would seem that every fair-minded 
sportsman, whether he be fox or bird hunter, 
should be willing to make it possible for the 
game wardens to get at that class of self-hunting 
dogs which, under the present status of affairs, 
cannot be done. 
You will note from the wording of this bill 
that it will ^ not apply to any dog until he is 
actually caught in the act of disturbing the game 
and hunting in the covers during the months of 
May and June. 
It is a fact that in this State we have thou¬ 
sands of self-hunting dogs that practica'ly sus¬ 
tain themselves, especially during May and 
June, on young rabbits, chasing them par¬ 
ticularly at night. Not only do they destroy 
the rabbits, but they drive the quail, par¬ 
tridge, woodcock and other ground-nesting birds 
from their nests, not returning until morning. 
If the eggs are in the nest, they will become 
chilled and refuse to hatch. If the young birds 
are out, and not over a week or ten day old, 
they will become chilled from the night air and 
perish before the mother bird returns to them, 
or if the dog finds the young birds, he will in 
all probability make a meal of them. 
It is. without doubt, a fact that the remnant 
of the iq land game birds of this State now 
hangs to life by such a slender thread that the 
friends of wild life must either give the birds 
more protection or lose them forever. 
George B. Clark. 
Birds in the Cold Snap.- 
Raleigh, N. C., Jan. 27. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: The most severe cold period North 
Carolina has known since 1899 began on the 6th 
inst. and ended on the i8th, the temperature 
ranging well below zero in the mountain section 
several days and in Raleigh going to 6 degrees 
above, while over all the State snow fell, more 
of it near the coast than anywhere else, almost 
breaking the record at Wilmington for depth of 
fall, though that region is almost sub-tropical. 
Millions of robins made their appearance with 
the cold weather. In the country they ate the 
hollyberries and chinaberries. In the suburbs 
two little boys killed a hundred. They stood on 
their porch and shot the birds while the latter 
were eating chinaberries. Strings of robins were 
brought in and sold at two and a half cents a 
piece. While on a long tramp on the 20th I 
saw a great many, together with an unusual num¬ 
ber of woodpeckers and crow blackbirds. The 
blackbirds made themselves at home in the 
Raleigh streets during the most severe weather. 
On the coldest day I saw four snipe alight on 
the sleet-covered snow on the edge of a little 
stream at a point where it was running swiftly 
and was not frozen. Two of the birds were not 
thirty feet away and were watched as they step¬ 
ped off the ice on to the bank and instantly 
began to sink their bills into the ground, being 
evidently very hungry and seemingly unafraid. 
It is a popular belief that the chinaberries to 
which allusion has been made possess some in¬ 
toxicating property, and the negroes declare that 
they have seen robins after eating these yellow 
berries, which are so thick on the trees, drop to 
the ground and walk about, “lak dey wuz drunk.” 
Eighty-eight miles from Raleigh a great dam 
has been completed and will furnish 32,000 horse¬ 
power here. Saturday the gates were dropped 
closing the sluice ways in the dam, which is over 
fifty feet high and 1,650 feet in length. It backs 
water about forty miles. As soon as the gates 
were closed the water began to rise very rapidly 
above the dam, and islands began to form. The 
negro employes at once noticed rabbits running 
toward the higher ground, and a party that put 
out in boats for one of the islands in a quarter 
of an hour killed seventy-two rabbits. Simi’ar 
hunts on the other islands before the latter were 
covered with water were made. When the Yad¬ 
kin had ceased to flow, the stream being about a 
quarter of a mile wide, the negroes rushed to it 
with sticks and gigs in order to get the fish in 
the shallow pools. A negro had caught a gigan¬ 
tic eel at least si.x feet long and as large as his 
arm. The eel was really too much for him. He 
tried desperately to hold it, but could not do so 
until help came. There was a wild search for 
fish all the way to the South Carolina line and 
no doubt beyond. 
Great numbers of ducks and geese were in 
the coast waters, but some days the weather was 
so severe that even the stoutest sportsman did 
not attempt to do any hunting. Fred A. Olds. 
^Minneapolis, IMinn., Jan. 20 .— Editor Forest 
and Stream: The recent cold wave that swept 
over the Northern States played havoc with the 
feathered kindred, if not the furred creatures. 
My first intimation of the relentlessness of that 
spell was when happening to go out into my tent, 
which I keep up all winter, I came across nine 
or ten sparrow’s unable to more than flutter 
around out of my reach. I had noticed before 
that the family cat helped himself at his leisure 
to this toothsome dish. I have found sparrows 
dead and dying from cold and hunger in nooks 
and crannies and in sheds. I scattered food for 
them despite the fact that I am a sort of foe of 
this species. I searched the surrounding country 
for further evidence of the devastation wrought 
by the storm wave, for I had in view a number 
of places where quail gathered. Last summer a 
number of quail made their home in Minneapolis 
and the outskirts. In several wooded sections 
I have flushed coveys.of up to thirty quail at one 
time. They have been everywhere in great num¬ 
bers w'ithin the limits, for the wholesale shooting 
that ran the gamut years ago in the city has 
ceased, and only a stray hunter attempts a shot 
within the city limits, hence the quail have be¬ 
come fearless. I followed the creek for a half 
mile that morning and came to the first resting 
place of the quail under a great bank. Ten were 
found stiff on the ground. They were hardly 
larger than a robin. I tracked through a corn 
patch where the shocks were still standing and 
flushed six in a stretch of weeds. The shocks 
had been used as shelter, and though I thrust 
my hands in and felt around, I could uncover no 
dead ones. Further on in the patch of weeds 
I scared up three others and watched them dive 
into a thicket on the other side of the creek. 
Returning along the creek, I found liberal evi¬ 
dence of weasel; a big fellow had followed the 
creek and took his course over a sort of rise. 
Under a windfall I found seven dead quail scat¬ 
tered around with their heads chewed off. This 
was the work of the large weasel. I suppose 
that the quail were half starved and froze, or 
the weasel killed them all at his leisure. Some 
of them were ten feet away from the windfall. 
I decided to trap the weasel, and with that in 
view took several of the quail and tracked him 
to where he had disappeared into some roots. 
Cutting the quail open, I pinned up the bait and 
then set one trap directly under same and an¬ 
other one a little to one side, both bedded in 
some hair-like roots. On the way home I found 
the trail of another weasel and decided to track 
him, too. I followed the trail through a wood 
and back to the creek and up a water course 
where I set another trap, baited with the head 
of a rabbit. Around a barn there was evidence 
