FOREST AND STREAM 
Feb. io, 1912 
1:4 
The Game Situation. 
at the present day. The laws permit all tenant 
farmers in every county of England to a joint 
right to kill and sell the ground game (hares 
and rabbits), thereby getting both profit and 
recreation without any additional expense. 
Deer are not classed as game in this country, 
nor is there any closed lime for them. They 
can be legally killed in any park by the owner, 
or his park keepers, by the purchase of a ten- 
shilling gun license. This applies to all varieties 
of deer in England. Although many deer are 
annually killed, we find no difficulty in main¬ 
taining a full stock up to the acreage of the 
park, thereby keeping them at a uniform num¬ 
ber; but had it not been for the game laws and 
private preserves, the game in England would 
have been exterminated long, long ago. 
In conclusion, I say once again: Gentlemen, 
kill your vermin. 
THE TOP RAIL. 
Ne.ari.y every hunter has, no doubt, heard ex¬ 
cellent imitations of the wild turkey’s call, and 
knows that it is possible to lure gobblers in this 
way. But how many of them, I wonder, ha\ c 
considered the danger that lurks in the vicinity 
of the one who manipulates the call, and the 
absolute reliance he places in the ability of every 
other hunter who hears the sounds to correctly 
interpret them as coming from a tiny cedar box 
or the wingbone of a Christmas goose? He 
knows that he can lure the wariest old gobbler, 
for he has proved this, but he depends on the 
superior ear of fellow hunters to detect false 
notes that the gobbler does not hear or disre¬ 
gards, as may be, to keep bullets out of his own 
precious skin. Otherwise turkey hunting would 
be practiced differently. 
I will tell you a story. On a cold autumn 
morning before daylight three hunters left camp 
and sought stations on the side of a bald hill. 
IMy station was the center one, and I sat beside 
a huge oak in the midst of a group of pawpaw 
bushes whose big leaves completely hid me. 
There were plenty of turkeys about, and it w'as 
their habit to cross the open summit of the hill 
and descend to the woods in the valley below 
us, to feed. Walter, on my left, was not an 
expert caller, but a “cheep’’ or two now and 
then told me that he had moved from his first 
station to a point further away. Will, on my 
right, was more skilled than I was, and I called 
but seldom, preferring to depend on him to lure 
any birds that might come our way. Still, in 
my own estimation, I was a fair caller, and later 
on I called at infrequent intervals, because, as 
I thought, turkeys were in the woods below me, 
and not on the hillside. 
Presently the turkeys came nearer and nearer 
and I ceased to call, fearing that any gobbler 
among them might detect the fraud and bolt. 
So I crawled through the pawpaws, trying to 
peer beyond, then rose suddenly to see Will mak¬ 
ing his way toward me through the scrub oaks 
and sumacs. 
That was a scare for us both, and as we stood, 
shaking hands in silent thankfulness, I am sure 
that the great lesson every hunter must learn 
sooner or later was so deeply impressed on us 
iliat we are never likely to grow careless with 
firearms, though we live to be a hundred. 
Grizzly King. 
Wenham, Mass., Feb. 4 .— Editor Forest and 
Stream: In your issue of Jan. 20 my old friend 
Mr. Hopkins has a very sensible note. I cannot 
help, though, differing from him on the subject 
of the hopelessness of Federal game control. 1 
do not believe that such a situation is impossible, 
and I have talked with men recently who are in 
a position to know the exact status of this move¬ 
ment. The worst thing we can do for the cause 
is to assume its hopeless nature. Granted we 
believe in its usefulness, we ought to push it 
for all it is worth in spite of the adverse atti¬ 
tude of men like Mr. Miller, of New Orleans. 
All this does not affect at all our local game 
birds. Mr. Flopkins is right about the grouse. 
That bird is certainly going, slowly but surely, 
with occasional fluctuations which give us an e.x- 
cess of either hope or despair. The question is, 
can any amount of legislation and education save 
it in numbers at all sufficient from a sporting 
standpoint? I believe not. Competent ornitholo¬ 
gists have e.xpressed the opinion to me that the 
grouse, here in the East, anyway, is bound to go. 
There are two distinct classes of birds and 
beasts—those that are favored by proximity of 
man, cleared land and perhaps extermination of 
certain carnivores; and those that are gradually 
doomed by the same train of causes. In the first 
class, for instance, we might put the bobwhite, 
the cottontail rabbit and the Virginia deer; in 
the second class, the ruffed grouse, the turkey, 
the snowshoe rabbit and the caribou. 
The case of the quail is too well known to 
more than mention, and everyotie is fami iar with 
the extending range of the cottontail, which 
animal except for continual persecution from 
various enemies, would soon be numerous 
enough. The deer always increase if given half 
a chance. Now, the grouse is just the opposite. 
It and the white rabbit do not thrive well where 
land is cleared, especially when the swamps are 
gone. What subtle causes contribute to its un¬ 
doing we do not know, but the result is plain 
enough. 
Within a very few years there has developed 
an enemy to our grouse, so serious that if the 
open season were cut down to one week, the 
result would only be delayed, namely the auto¬ 
mobile. I am speaking of conditions here in East¬ 
ern and Central Massachusetts. It is possible now 
to cover an enormous stretch of country in one 
day, and to waste no time in blank covers. The 
result is, that with sufficient local knowledge one 
can comb out the favored places with much less 
exertion than formerly. 
Now, as to the game preserve idea so heartily 
sat upon by Harry Chase in a recent issue. By 
game preserve we do not necessarily mean a 
large tract under an eight-foot fence, typified by 
the great Adirondack parks, and controlled by 
one individual. The game preserve of the future, 
and there will be many of them, will be or¬ 
ganized by bodies of sportsmen more far-sighted, 
energetic and thrifty than the average, who have 
combined to lease tracts of land. The farmers 
will provide most of the warden service neces¬ 
sary. This is simply the result of the inevitable 
increase of the population and the decrease in 
hours of work necessary to keep body and soul 
together. For instance, there are a good many 
men of very moderate means nowadays who are 
able to take a vacation each year extending over 
most of the open season. 
Now the future game preserve, like some al¬ 
ready in operation, need not be at all an expen¬ 
sive affair, but it will cost something. In the 
South shooting can be had to-day in places for 
two and one-half and three cents an acre. And 
there is no reason why the right kind of pre¬ 
serve should cause the terrific race feeling that 
Mr. Cihase has pictured. Anyway, it has almost 
got to be a question of preserved sport or no 
sport. We do not all own steam yachts or pri¬ 
vate cars; neither do we all depend on charity. 
Some people are always going to have some 
things that their neighbors either do not want 
or cannot have, and if it were otherwise, what 
a dreary place this world would be. 
J. C. Phillips. 
Game in Nevada. 
Troy, Nevada, Jan. 30. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: I live on a small farm in the moun¬ 
tains, and as there is not much news of this part 
of the State regarding the game, I will tell the 
readers some facts about it. The mountains 
around here are as high as 10,500 feet. There 
are a great many mountain sheep or bighorn 
to be found; in fact, they are thick. I have 
seen as many as twenty-four head in one bunch, 
although they usually run in bunches of six to 
twelve, and bucks of all sizes mostly alone. In 
the summer at times I see three and four in a 
bunch. They are practically tame, and I have 
ridden up within fifty yards of them before they 
ran, while at other times they will run before 
I get within gun shot of them. 
There are also a good many blue grouse in 
the timber. I have killed grouse that weighed 
4F2 and 5 pounds. On the mesas antelope are 
seen, as many as one hundred in a bunch, and a 
man could get one most any day. 
There is not much duck shooting here, as 
there are no lakes or large ponds, but the 
mountains are full of small streams which come 
from the snow. There are snow banks in the 
mountains in July. It seems a shame that the 
streams around here are not stocked with trout, 
as it is a fine place for them. 
There are a good many interesting sights for 
the Eastern sportsman. There is one place es¬ 
pecially where the canon narrows to about 
twenty feet wide and 300 feet high. On the 
left-hand side, up about 150 feet, there are a 
number of Indian arrows in a crack which were 
shot up there in early days by the Indians. The 
old Indians here claun it was the result of a 
treaty of peace, and that the warriors shot their 
remaining arrows up in this crack. The arrows 
are made of grease wood. Some still have parts 
of the feathers on them. These were fastened 
by means of deer sinew. 
John W. Garrett. 
