500 
FOREST AND STREAM 
April 20, 1912 
Turtles (land, box and wood turtles and tor¬ 
toises)—No open season. 
BIRDS—OPEN SEASON. 
Waterfowl, wild and domestic (including 
geese, brant, swans, river and sea ducks)—Sept. 
16 to Jan. 10. Bag limit, twenty-five a day; forty 
to two or more persons using same boat, battery 
or blind. Exceptions: Long Island waters, Oct. 
I to Jan. 10. Floating devices, other than power 
and sail boats, may be used in Long Island 
Sound, Shinnecock, Gardiner and Peconic bays 
in the open season, and except from Oct. i to 
Oct. 19 in Great South Bay, west of Smith’s 
Point and east of the Nassau-Suffolk county line. 
Woodduck and swan—No open season. 
Rails, American coots, mudhens, gallinules— 
Sept. 16 to Dec. 31. Bag limit, fifteen a day; 
twenty to two or more using the same boat or 
blind. 
Upland game (including wild turkeys, grouse, 
prairie chicken, pheasant, partridge, quail) — 
Quail, Oct. I to Nov. 15; bag limit, six a day; 
thirty-six a season. Grouse, Oct. i to Nov. 30; 
bag limit, four a day; twenty a season. Wild 
pheasants, Thursdays in October; only males to 
be taken; bag limit, three a season. Males only 
to be taken. 
Partridge—No open season for Hungarian or 
European gray-legged partridge. Exception: 
Long Island, pheasants and grouse, Nov. i to 
Dec. 31; bag limit, six male pheasants a day; 
thirty-six a season. Shore birds (woodcock, 
snipe, plover, surfbirds, sandpipers, tatlers, cur¬ 
lews)—Woodcock, Oct. 15 to Nov. 30; all the 
others mentioned, Aug. i to Nov. 30. 
Protection is accorded to all wild birds except 
the English sparrow, starling, crow, hawk, crow 
blackbird, snow owl, great horned owl and king¬ 
fisher. Antwerp or homing pigeons properly 
marked must not be molested. J. D. W. 
Against the Sale of Game. 
The following appeal has been sent to the 
Massachusetts Legislature by George H. Gra¬ 
ham, secretary of the Springfield Fish and 
Game Association, and also a member of the 
State Commission: 
“We wish to call to your attention Senate 
bill No. 400, which prohibits the sale of all wild 
game killed in this State, and at the same time 
encourages the artificial propagation of game 
birds and animals, also the bill to establish a 
bag limit on the different species of game. 
These bills have been, carefully considered by our 
association, and at a meeting of 330 members it 
was voted unanimously to approve them. 
“The Springfield Fish and Game Association 
is the largest body of sportsmen in New Eng¬ 
land, having a membership of over 900, and we 
feel that we fairly represent not only the sports¬ 
men in Western Massachusetts, but the 45.000 
gunners throughout the Commonwealth. We 
are confident that the most effective way to 
preserve our game is to have a bag limit and 
stop the sale of all native wild game. 
“The passage of these bills will mean the 
greatest step forward that has ever been made 
in Massachusetts in the protection of our game 
birds and quadrupeds, and we hope and believe 
that you are enough interested in this cause not 
only to support these bills, but ask others to 
do the same.” 
Grouse Snaring. 
The Watertown News recently printed a his¬ 
tory of the old-time grouse snaring in Northern 
New York, and the efforts made by the Game 
Commission to break up the practice. Game 
Protector A. P. Williams is the author of the 
paper, which follows: 
This section including the adjoining counties 
of Lewis and Oneida comprising the south woods 
is one of the most natural breeding grounds for 
partridge to be found in this or any other State. 
Thousands of grouse were snared here for many 
years. Dozens of men and boys depended each 
fall upon this illegal work for their winter sup¬ 
plies. The whole population, almost to a man, 
was banded together to resist the protectors’ ef¬ 
forts to stop this illegal traffic. The department 
made desultory efforts to check the traffic, but 
with little or no success. Representatives of the 
New York commission houses visited this section 
every fall in advance of the season and con¬ 
tracted the game before taken, for it was neces¬ 
sary to have a market established in advance of 
taking, as the “stock” was perishable and must 
be disposed of at once. Matters drifted along 
in this way until about the latter part of 1905 
or early part of 1906 when Commissioner Whip¬ 
ple determined that it must be suppressed at all 
cost. After a long conference between Commis¬ 
sioner Whipple, Mr. McCollom and the writer, I 
was assigned the task as special work, and in¬ 
structed that we must suppress this traffic. I 
entered upon the work by first trying to catch 
the snarer at work. I have laid for as much 
as five whole days on one case in the woods 
with a partridge hanging in a snare nearby and 
not get my man. They were so banded together 
that it was impossible to show my head any¬ 
where, but the word would be passed along to 
“Look out, Williams is coming.” 
For many months I made little or no progress 
and finally began a critical study of the case 
from all viewpoints. Having learned some of 
their ways of covering their tracks, and “blind” 
methods of shipments, I came to the conclusion 
that the most feasible plan was to catch the pur¬ 
chasers, and thus shut off the market. For this 
purpose I trailed many a rig at night, followed 
one clue after another, until I finally began to 
get tangible matter to work from. I made many 
trips to New York city, and finally got what 
seemed to be at least one gilt-edged case. This 
we tried in the supreme court and won. From 
there the .case went upon appeal, clear to the 
court of appeals. The State finally winning out, 
other violators rapidly settled until we had a 
good start on this traffic. Other shipments were 
traced and occasionally a local man would be 
caught and so the warfare was kept up during 
1908 and into 1909, when the final outlet to New 
York was effectually stopped. 
We then set to work to close up the smaller 
semi-local outlets of Watertown, Syracuse and 
other nearby points. In all, over $6,000 in fines 
was collected for the State before this illegal 
traffic was wiped out completely. The past two 
years not a single complaint of snaring has 
reached me from this territory, nor has a close 
inspection each fall revealed any. Grouse are 
multiplying rapidly in that section and are over¬ 
flowing into the surrounding countr}' in goodly 
numbers, and it will not be long, if this illegal 
traffic 'N held in abeyance, before grouse shoot¬ 
ing in this vicinity will be restored to its former 
condition when any good shot could get the limit 
with little trouble. I am wondering if the true 
sportsmen appreciate the effort of Commissioner 
Whipple in their behalf? An interesting volume 
could be written from the history of this work 
alone. Some of the secret methods employed 
to conceal shipments would have done credit to 
the imaginative brain of Conan Doyle and other 
writers of detective fiction. 
Doctor Clemens’ Body Found. 
In January last three men put out from Bay- 
shore, Long Island, in a motor boat, en route 
to one of the islands for a few days’ duck shoot¬ 
ing. They were Dr. Carl Clemens and Edward 
Bailey, of New York city, and Thomas Veltman, 
of Bay Shore. That day the most severe storm’ 
of the winter came on, and for several days 
thereafter the cold was intense. Fears for the 
safety of the men prompted the good people of 
the village to search for them, difficult and dan¬ 
gerous though the task proved to be. The motor 
boat was found in the ice, but its tender, the 
three men and their paraphernalia were missing. 
Every effort was put forth to find the men or 
some trace of them, but without success, and it 
was not until last Sunday that the body of Dr. 
Clemens was found on Short Beach Island by 
Capt. George Van Nostrand, of the Life Saving 
Service. It is possible the other bodies may be 
found, as search for them is being made. Dr. 
Clemens left a widow. Young Veltman’s parents 
live in Bay Shore. Mr. Bailey had been married 
oply a month before his death. 
Graves on Forest Problems. 
The first session of the forest conference 
held in connection with the Nashville meeting 
of the Southern Commercial Congress was 
opened On the afternoon of April 8. The pre¬ 
siding officer was Henry S. Graves, Chief For¬ 
ester of the United States Department of Agri¬ 
culture. In opening the conference Mr. Graves 
spoke in part as follows: 
“Forest fires are primarily responsible for the 
damage resulting from erosion and disturbance 
of stream flow in the mountains. Unless there 
is a correction of the existing conditions the 
supply of forest products will not be main¬ 
tained, local industries will decline or vanish, 
land values will be permanently reduced, and 
the benefits arising from the mere existence of 
well managed forests will be lost, with unfortu¬ 
nate results. 
“There is no region except the far Northwest 
where forestry is so simple and the results so 
sure as in the South. The desired end can not 
be accomplished at once. Our efforts must be 
organized. We must with all our forces. Na¬ 
tional, State and private, endeavor to over¬ 
come the fire menace. The public must aid in 
the matter of a uniform, consistent, and sane 
system of taxation, while private owners must 
accept their responsibilities and handle their 
property in a way which will build up and not 
injure the interests of the State.” 
The Forest and Stream may he obtained from 
any nezvsdealer on order. Ask your dealer to 
supply you regularly. 
