May 4, 1912 
FOREST AND STREAM 
blood, as I have seen so many of the winter 
visitors to the South do. 
The resident of a semi-tropical country is en¬ 
titled to his sport in season and moderation, but 
the man who has his chance in the bracing 
climate of the temperate zone winter should not 
pursue game to its sunny retreat where it is 
neither in edible condition nor full enough of 
life to make its pursuit real sport. 
But this is digression, also dictum—and per¬ 
haps offensive—to some, who take a different 
view of the question. Well, I am actuated by no 
selfish motive. I was moved to speak by love. 
A childless home and a birdless forest are two 
of the sad sights of this world. The cause of 
the first has been championed by a man whose 
splendid achievements have given him world¬ 
wide fame; and that of the second will, we hope, 
continue safe in the hands of Forest and Stream 
and its able contributors. 
Lewis Hopkins. 
Good Work. 
Gloversville, N. Y., April 2;^.—Editor Forest 
and Stream: Inclosed find clipping from a local 
paper which I am sending you at the request of 
readers of Forest and Stream : 
Antonio Sarro and Mariano Cario,. of this city, were 
fined ?50 each in Justice Gulick’s court in the town of 
Johnstown, Friday, for a violation of the game laws. 
It has been claimed for some time that the slaughter of 
birds was being made outside the city. President Clay¬ 
ton H. Hasten, of the Fulton County Fish and Game 
Club, has been making a quiet investigation for some 
time in the matter. He also interested Game Protector 
E. T. Burtch and on Thursday both men made a trip 
to the reservoir of the Gloversville waterworks on the 
Bleecker road. 
On their travels they met Sarro and Cario. Both men 
carried guns and were apparently returning from a hunt¬ 
ing trip. Messrs. Burtch and Hasten accosted the pair 
and asked them what they had shot. The men stated 
that they had shot nothing. On looking into the game 
bag the game protector found three robins, one black¬ 
bird and a Canadian hare. The hare is one of the num¬ 
ber with which the game club recently stocked the 
vicinity. Messrs. Hasten and Burtch' confiscated the 
game bag, its contents, the guns of the men and also 
their hunting licenses and notified each to appear be¬ 
fore Justice Gulick. 
C. H. IMasten. 
Wildfowl Gun. 
I BELIEVE that most makers recommend that a 
gun for this purpose should be full choke-bored, 
and I should, with great deference, like to ques¬ 
tion the wisdom of this for moderate shots. 
Wildfowl shooting in the majority of cases in¬ 
cludes plover-flighting at both green and golden 
plover, and sport at shank, curlew and other 
smaller waders. For any of the above work 
(especially, say, flighting golden plover in a bad 
light), a shooter will be greatly handicapped if 
he is using a gun with a pattern of 212, and the 
smaller killing circle it entails, unless, of course, 
he is an exceptional shot. Also, though I have 
had little experience in this direction, I believe 
that a wider pattern will be as suitable for shoot¬ 
ing duck and the more important wildfowl, as 
when the game is beyond the ordinary range of, 
say, forty-five yards, a fair shot will lose in the 
small killing circle (which covers no error in 
aim) what he gains in the closeness of the pat¬ 
tern. In addition, the gun will be used for game 
shooting in many cases, and in this class of 
shooting a choke bore is certainly a disadvant¬ 
age. It appears to me that an improved cylinder 
(of, say, 150 or 160) in the right and a half¬ 
choke in the left (say 180) would be more suit¬ 
able boring for a general purpose gun to be used 
by a moderate shot. In this I believe I am sup¬ 
ported by a good many professional fowlers. 
Another point I should like to raise is whether 
a heavy 12-bore will require a different cast-off 
to an ordinary game gun. My reason for this 
inquiry is that for some years I used a light 16- 
bore, and then purchased a heavy wildfowl gun 
chambered for three-inch cases. On trying it I 
found that I invariably shot to the left, although 
the cast-off (three-eighths inch) was greater than 
my old sixteen, which was nearly straight. When 
fitted with a try-gun it was found that I re¬ 
quired a cast-off of nearly three-quarter inch, 
and the gun when built to this dimension fitted 
me exactly.—Shooting Times. 
American Game Bird Shooting, iil^''” 
Old-time readers of Forest and Stream, who 
recall twenty years or more ago the first begin¬ 
nings of active interest in this country in the 
beagle as a sporting dog, will remember also the 
prominent part taken in the discussion of this 
breed by General Frank A. Bond, then of Mary¬ 
land. 
General Bond, a veteran of the Confederate 
Army, was one of the earliest Americans to use 
beagles in hunting the small hare of the South, 
and if we recollect aright, was the first to bring 
to public attention the so-called bench-legged 
beagle. 
As many present-day readers are aware. Gen¬ 
eral Bond is still an active sportsman and resides 
in North Carolina, where he still enjoys excel¬ 
lent quail shooting. His interest in this pursuit 
is as great now a? it was a generation or more 
ago, and he loves to practice it and to read 
about it. 
A copy of Mr. Grinnell’s book, “American 
Game Bird Shooting,” having recently come into 
General Bond’s hands, he has written the author 
the following letter: 
I have just finished reading your book, “American 
Game Bird Shooting.” I have enjoyed it very much. 
Fully sixty years ago I owned 'an excellent pair of 
pointer dogs that I had broken myself. Ever since 
that time I have owned pointers, setters or droppers 
and have hunted quail. 
I have in the meantime read all the works on the 
hunting of quail that I could procure. It gives me 
pleasure to say that the chapters on dogs and quail 
shooting pn your book] more fully and exactly express 
my opinions than anything I have ever seen. 
I do not feel qualified to criticize any other descrip¬ 
tions, but from the truthfulness of the ones I have 
mentioned, I feel sure that the entire work is the re¬ 
sult of careful and intelligent thought and knowledge. 
Hunting in California. 
Berkeley, Cal., April 23.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: The citizens of Placer county have de¬ 
clared war on the bluejay, and a series of shoots 
hi.s been arranged for. One took place recently 
in which 200 hunters took part, and it is esti- 
mf.ted that 2,000 bluejays were killed, as well 
as several hundred jack rabbits. Prizes were 
offered for the largest bags, and teams from 
Auburn, Lincoln, Loomis, Penryn and Newcastle 
took part. 
Geese are still to be found in large numbers 
in Merced county and vicinity, and so much 
damage is being done by them to the grain 
crops that farmers welcome the presence of 
hunters. Market hunters are killing the birds 
by the thousands, and it is nothing unusual for 
them to slay forty geese at a single shot from 
their big guns. Golden Gate. 
Prominent Sportsman Dies. 
Berkeley, Cal., April 23. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: Sportsmen and nature lovers through¬ 
out the coast were grieved reecntly to learn of 
the death of William James Golcher, which oc¬ 
curred at a San Francisco hospital on April 14. 
The deceased was a native of St. Paul and came 
to this city thirty-five years ago and entered the 
sporting goods business with his father, the firm 
name being Claybrough, Golcher & Co. Follow¬ 
ing the fire of 1906 the business was reorganized 
and since then has been conducted under the 
name of Golcher Bros., the owners being W. J. 
Golcher and H. C. Golcher. About a year ago 
Mr. Golcher suffered an attack of pneumonia 
and has not been well since. Recently he went 
to Southern California to recuperate, but grad¬ 
ually grew worse and returned to his home. The 
deceased was a genuine sportsman, beloved of 
all who came in contact with him, and was an 
authority on fish and game matters in California. 
He was a member of the San Francisco Fly- 
Casting Club, the Golden Gate Gun Club and 
the California Wing Club. He is survived by a 
widow, two sons and a brother. 
Golden Gate. 
THE TOP RAIL. 
“Is otter hunting cruel?” queries a hunting 
paper from the other side of the Atlantic. To 
one who has viewed the sort of otter hunting in 
question from long range I should say that it is 
cruel—to the men and women who take part in 
it. Judging again from pictures of many other 
hunts, to an outsider at least, there appears to 
be an abundance of humor in the solemn man¬ 
ner in which men and women—especially the 
latter, slop along through creeks and swamps in 
their Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes, as if that 
was the only thing tO do. Neither do they wear 
rubber boots, nor seek dry footing when there 
is opportunity to wade in a creek; at least, while 
the photographic lens is aimed in their direc¬ 
tion. Surely, John Bull takes his pleasures very 
seriously, but if he thinks otter hunting is cruel, 
he should give the bad little children taking part 
in it a sound spanking and put them to bed 
while their wet shoes and other things are dry¬ 
ing behind the kitchen range. 
As for the otter, it must be conceded that in 
a country where the trout is held in almost as 
great reverence as is the sacred codfish in Bos¬ 
ton, the otter’s feelings are not to be considered 
for a moment, and if he does not enjoy being 
chased by people who would rather be wet than 
dry—while there is a camera about—then he 
should seek a clime where cold lead is swifter 
than a pack of dogs and stick-carrying persons. 
^ jK * 
The Boy Scouts of Pennsylvania are taking a 
special interest in the fight that is to be waged 
this year against the chestnut bark disease, be¬ 
cause the supply of chestnuts is being reduced 
at a rate that is not agreeable to boys. The 
Scouts are being instructed and will make this 
a feature of their hikes this summer. 
Grizzly King. 
