Feb. 24, 1912 
FOREST AND STREAM 
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Self'Hunting Dogs. 
Boston, Mass., Feb. 13. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: I have carefully read Mr. Grinnell’s 
criticism of Senate Bill No. 175, in your issue 
of Feb. 10, which has been presented to the 
Legislative committee of this State, and which 
covers the better protection of partridge, quail 
and woodcock during the nesting season, by 
the restraint of self-hunting dogs from dis¬ 
turbing the ground-nesting birds during the 
months of May and June. 
The committee agrees most heartily with Mr. 
Grinnell that the bill should cover a longer 
period of time, but it is clearly evident that 
he is not conversant with the unfortunate' con¬ 
ditions existing in this State to-day. We most 
assuredly would like to protect our game birds 
from these self-hunting dogs for a longer period 
than May and June, but, inasmuch as the bill 
presented last year by the Fish and Game 
Commission itself, asking for the restraint of 
these dogs from April i to Oct. i, was killed 
so quickly, we felt we would rather have half 
a loaf than none at all, and one reason for 
asking only for two months was to make the 
bill so obviously fai-r that none woidd oppose 
it; inasmuch as all will concede that the bird 
life of our State at the present time is actually 
hanging in the balance. Even this bill was 
vigorously opposed by a certain element of fox 
hunters, who seemed to disregard altogether the 
rules of commen sense, insisting on the privi¬ 
lege of running their dogs, if they desired to do 
so. twelve months in the year. 
For the past ten years, unfortunately, the 
game laws of this State have been practically 
dominated by this fox-hunting contingent, 
which is very well organized, and which has 
opposed, and will oppose, no matter how meri¬ 
torious it may be, any measure that might be 
construed to in any way interfere with training 
or running their dogs through the covers at 
all seasons of the year. They admit that the 
game birds of the State are almost extinct, yet 
they are unreasonable enough to object to any 
measure that would have a tendency to give 
the birds a better chance during the breeding 
season, for the simple reason that they might 
want to take their dogs into the covers during 
May and June. 
This element is led by a certain prominent 
man from Worcester county, whose eloquence 
and power of oratory are such that he seems 
to be able to win over to his way of thinking 
our recent committees, owing to the regrettable 
fact that very few of the members of our fish 
and game committees have been men with suf¬ 
ficient actual experience to enable them to 
judge these matters from a practical standpoint, 
with the result that they have acted on the 
matters brought before them greatly from the 
standpoint of who recommended or who op¬ 
posed them, so that alt measures desired by the 
fox hunters have gone through and been en¬ 
dorsed by the committee, and everything they 
have opposed has met with defeat. 
At the hearing on this bill, the man above 
mentioned rose to heights of oratory that would 
have been commendable in a better cause; in 
fact, he denied the right of any legislation to 
prohibit him from taking his dog into the woods 
whenever he pleased, stating that it was his 
constitutional right, and that he was going to 
exercise it. His graphic description of the ac¬ 
cumulation of fleas on a dog restrained was so 
realistic that more than half the people in the 
room unconsciously began to scratch. 
This bill, as submitted, was approved by T. 
C. Palmer, of the Biological Survey; T. Gilbert 
Pearson, of the Audubon Society; W. T. Plorn- 
aday, of the New York Zoological Garden, and 
John B. Burnham, President of the American 
Game Protective and Propagation Association, 
as well as our own fish and game commission, 
and it is to be hoped that the strong letters of 
endorsement given our committee by these men 
will, when read before the executive session 
of the fish and game committee, prevail against 
the untenable argument presented by this man. 
It was most gratifying to our committee to 
note that there were some of the old-line fox 
hunters who were willing to concede that it was 
not beneficial to our bird life that these self¬ 
hunting dogs be permitted to disturb them dur¬ 
ing the nesting season. 
As to the final success of the bill, that re¬ 
mains to be seen, and this letter of explana¬ 
tion is simply to let the readers of Forest and 
Stream know that we should have liked to 
have had not only the month of April, but 
July also, but that, owing to the strong op¬ 
position of the fox hunters, we felt that if we 
could get May and June, we would be accom¬ 
plishing something—at any rate, more than we 
have at the present time. 
George B. Clark, 
For the Committee. 
Duck Foods. 
Waterlily, N. C., Feb. 10.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: In these days when the whole country 
seems to have gone “game law made,’’ I would 
like to offer a suggestion to every iildividual 
club, or any organization fond of wildfowl shoot¬ 
ing, and it is this—write to the Biological Sur¬ 
vey people at Washington, D. C., for Circular 
No. 81, which tells how to grow the different 
kinds of duck foods—sago, pond weed, wild 
celery and other kinds. It is a well known 
fact that thousands of acres of the very best 
waterfowl marshes have been drained for agri¬ 
cultural purposes, entirely destroying their use¬ 
fulness so far as the fowl are concerned, and 
while this is true there are hundreds of thou¬ 
sands of acres of lakes, rivers, creeks, ponds 
and streams in America in which some of these 
foods mentioned wid grow abundantly and some 
will grow them all. Now it is up to all of us 
who are fond of waterfowl shooting and who 
care to do so to plant these seeds and plants in 
all sections of the country where they are not 
now found, and in a year or two we will find 
that all specimens of the waterfowl tribe have 
wonderfully increased. 
No better proof of this could be offered than 
Currituck Sound where their foods, all except 
the wild rice, are found. For more than fifty 
years wildfowl have withstood the awful slaugh¬ 
ter of the market hunter and the many clubs and 
still continue to come here in countless thoussand. 
It is known among all raisers of ducks and 
geese that where they once lay and rear their 
young, they wi.l return season after season and 
repeat it, unless killed or driven away by de¬ 
stroying their nesting places. This being true, 
waterfowl can be caused to breed in many sec¬ 
tions of the South and Middle West as well as 
along the whole coast from Maine to Florida, 
instead of all going to the far North where their 
grounds are being rapidly destroyed. 
Another very important thing to us all is 
raising game—I mean ducks of all kinds and the 
Canada geese. They are much easier reared 
than chickens and there are millions of acres 
in America where this can be done and many 
of those grounds of little value for anything 
else Let us then turn our attention to these 
two matters, which I think are very important 
just at this time. 
W. L. McAtee, who issued the circular. No. 
81, has made a deep study of the duck food ques¬ 
tion, and what he says is of much interest to 
More Anon. 
G&Tne Birds and Foxes. 
Packer, Conn., Feb. g.-Editor Forest and 
Stream: Since Jan. 20, the date of my last let¬ 
ter when we were having a warm spell with 
melting snow and spots of bare ground, we have 
had another co'd snap with ground snow covered 
until the last day or two. I have heard of only 
three quail being found dead, but of many being 
seen alive and in apparently good health. One 
of my fox hunting friends told me of seeing 
two large bevies one day, and the tracks of three 
other bevies. 1 took a walk yesterday and an¬ 
other to-day to see if I could find any quail 
alive or dead, but failed. Yesterday I found 
the tracks of a bevy of eleven near my buddings, 
fully as many as I supposed were left at the 
end of the late shooting season. Last night we 
had another light snow, not more than a quar¬ 
ter inch, and the ground is bare in all sheltered 
nooks and on the sunny hillsides, so quail may 
obtain the needed grit again. I have been scat¬ 
tering corn where I thought the quail might 
find it, but have not seen that they have eaten 
any of same. The mice seem to take advantage 
of my generosity and have nightly picnics with 
corn on their bill of fare for a change. 
One of my fox hunting acquaintances who 
tracked a fox for some miles on a recent fresh 
snow to his burrow and dug him out says he 
caught and ate four ruffed grouse during this 
short trip. On questioning him carefully he 
cou’d not be certain all four were caught on 
this trip, but had thought so at the tune, yet 
admitted that the fox might have caught and 
hid one or more of them on a previous night. 
Five or six pounds of partridge would be quite 
heavy feeding for even a large fox, I would 
say, and of a grade not indulged in very freely 
by some men of fortune. This man’s experi¬ 
ence is in accord with my own, as I have often 
seen where foxes had caught quail, grouse and 
rabbits, but some hunters think foxes not very 
destructive of our game birds and animals. 
What has been the experience of the readers of 
Forest and Stream? E. P. Robinson. 
