660 
FOREST AND STREAM 
May 25, 1912 
Hunting Ducks Along the Illinois. 
Bloomington, Ill., May 2.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: Hunting ducks along the Illinois River 
is no longer a sport for the man with limited 
resources. Instead, it may be termed the pas¬ 
time of kings, or at least for those with a good 
sized roll. As one veteran nimrod put it: “The 
farmers along the river have gone money mad.” 
In the good old days, Hot so very many years 
ago, a hunter got first class board for $i per 
day. The hunter and his partner, if he had one, 
would employ a “pusher” paying him $2 per 
day. This brought up the total expense for 
the day to $2 for each hunter and the 
poor men had an equal chance with the 
rich. At the present time the hunter who goes 
to the river discovers that $1.50 per day is the 
minimum and the exception for board. More 
often it is $2 and frequently the charge is $2.50. 
The quality does not vary much if the price does. 
The farmers are growing more wise with each 
recurring season, are comparing notes, and the 
result is that the higher price is now the rule. 
The principle upon which the tariff is operated 
is to charge all that the tariffed will stand. It 
should be explained that the river farmer, the 
one here considered, is not much of an agricul¬ 
turist. He has title to land that is too often 
overflowed to make it practical to cultivate. In 
addition, in most instances, he is not kindly dis¬ 
posed toward the kind of work that makes crops. 
He is a man of practical wits and he pays these 
the respect of depending upon them to make 
him a living. Manual crop labor is not in his 
line, never was, and never will be. 
Victims report that the duck hunting pusher 
is a retainer of the river farmer. Naturally the 
services of the pusher call for more money. A 
few years ago he could be had for $2 per day. 
Now $4 and $5 is demanded. The pusher is the 
man who does the heavy work in duck hunting. 
He handles the boat, picks out the places for 
blinds and constructs them. Also he kills most 
of the ducks and is modest enough never to 
mention it. 
Two city hunters and a pusher go out for 
a day’s hunt and return with thirty ducks. Al¬ 
though the pusher usually gets twenty or more, 
the thirty always go to the credit of the city 
sportsmen. Tt is believed that half the fee of 
the pusher goes to the farmer and as soon as 
the traffic will stand it, that a charge of per 
day will be made for the pusher, and board and 
lodging will jump to $4. The hunter from the 
city cannot get along without the pusher. The 
hunter is there to get ducks and the pusher is 
there to help him get them. The pusher must 
be in good standing with the farmer; in fact, 
a retainer of the organization. The hunter might 
be able to pick up a pusher for less money, but 
probably would not be happy under his guid¬ 
ance. He might have difficulty in locating the 
birds. He is a marked man, and the wise farmer 
chases him away from the hunting grounds. 
The city man who makes his first trip to the 
duck hunting sections soon learns that the birds 
prefer the places where they can find feed, and 
that is not in the middle of the river. It is 
often necessary to secure the permission of the 
farmer to locate a blind which will be within 
gunshot range of the wary birds. With the 
right kind of a pusher that permission goes as a 
matter of course, but with the strange man. 
it does not go. And so the situation has be¬ 
come distressing for the city hunter who does 
not feel able to spend a lot of money. There 
was a time, and not so long ago, when he could 
stay out at an expense, of not to exceed $3 per 
day. With one thing or another they now have 
the game arranged so that they take from $7 
to $10 per day. There is no relief in sight, as 
the predictions are that the tariff will go higher, 
not lower. The limit is what the traffic will 
stand. The man of small means and sporting 
blood will have to find something else to occupy 
his time if he has any leisure. Of late many 
sportsmen are compromising matters. Formerly 
they hunted ducks fifteen days out of the year. 
Now he must be content with five days. In an¬ 
other probably this will be cut to three, and per¬ 
haps after that it will hardly be worth while 
to go out at all. However, this is not disturb¬ 
ing the river farmer. He knows that there are 
others who will come out and contribute to his 
“money madness.” E. E. Pierson. 
In Ancient Mexico. 
At a meeting of the Biological Society of 
Washington, held recently at the Cosmos Club, 
E. W. Nelson, of the Biological Survey, pre¬ 
sented a paper of remarkable interest. This con¬ 
sisted of translations of two extracts from the 
Monarquina Indiana, a work by Juan de Torque- 
mada on Mexico. It was originally published at 
Seville in 1815. 
The first of the two extracts gives an account 
of the famous zoological garden maintained by 
Montezuma at the time of the Spanish conquest. 
In this garden were found examples of all the 
animals native to the country, and also human 
albinos, dwarfs and cripples. The size of the 
garden and of the collections is suggested by 
the statement that 300 attendants were needed to 
take care of the birds alone-. Two hundred and 
fifty pounds of fish were required daily for the 
fish-eating birds, and 500 fowls for the flesh-eat¬ 
ing mammals. The Spaniards were greatly as¬ 
tonished at the display. 
The other extract is the account of a great 
hunt in honor of the Viceroy Don Antonio de 
Mendoza, given by the Aztecs in 1540. This 
was a ring hunt, and 15,000 men went out very 
early in the morning and surrounded an area 
more than five leagues square. They advanced 
from the sides toward a center, and by the 
middle of the day had formed a close circle, in 
which were a great number of deer, rabbits and 
coyotes. 
Because of the great number of animals in¬ 
closed, openings were made in the circle, and 
great numbers of the animals permitted to es¬ 
cape. The openings were then closed up and 
the people again moved toward the center, until 
the diameter of the circle was little more than 
half a league, and the wall of men was two or 
three deep. Killing now began, and 600 deer, 
TOO coyotes and great numbers of hares and 
rabbits were destroyed. Among the deer are 
mentioned some of the pronghorn antelope, the 
most southerly record ever made for these ani¬ 
mals—far south of its present range. 
All the game laws of the United States and 
Canada, revised to date and now in force, are 
given in the Game Laws in Brief. 
New York Audubon Society. 
The report of Miss Emma H. Lockwood, sec¬ 
retary of the New York Audubon Society, tells 
us that the membership of the society for this 
State has increased to 13,127. 
The past year was one of considerable anxiety 
for the society in this State, but through the 
strenuous efforts of the Audubon and other pro¬ 
tective societies no backward step was taken dur¬ 
ing the year. 
The long cherished wish to establish traveling 
libraries in behalf of the work, to assist teachers 
in schools and to reach homes in rural districts 
is to be consummated. This has been made pos¬ 
sible through the generosity of members of the 
society. 
Efforts were made last winter, as they have 
been in previous' seasons, to induce the children 
to feed the birds during the bitter weather. 
There seems to be now less wish to destroy song 
birds than for many years. Letters received from 
friends scattered over the State tell of the in¬ 
creased interest in bird protection and especially 
in increased interest on the part of the children. 
The society is in a flourishing condition finan¬ 
cially. 
Illinois Notes. 
Bloomington, Ill., May 3.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: The close of April marked the wind¬ 
up of the waterfowl shooting in Illinois. Snipe 
and plover were eligible up to 'May i, but since 
that date they are protected as with other water- 
fowl. All species of game animals and birds 
are now protected. The ban will be lifted on 
squirrels on June i. Until then all sportsmen 
in Illinois will set aside their guns. Spring 
shooting this season has been disappointing, nim- 
rods, almost without exception, reporting the 
most unsatisfactory results in many years. The 
quarters of the various clubs of hunters along 
the Illinois River and contiguous lakes have 
been closed until next fall and the anglers will 
have the rivers and lakes to themselves until 
November. 
That the total number of hunting licenses 
issued in Illinois during the past year will reach 
200,000 now seems assured from the reports of 
various central Illinois counties. Many of them 
have issued more than 3,000 permits, breaking 
all records. Vermillion county disposed of 3,250 
licenses. Madison county leads all of those re¬ 
ported with 6,971, probably the largest in the 
State outside of Cook. E. E. P. 
Birds of Paradise Disappearing. 
Plumes of the birds of paradise are among 
the favorite feathers for the adornment of 
women’s-hats, and the result of this demand is 
seen in reports which come from those regions 
where the birds of paradise are found. It is 
said that every breeding season all the full plum¬ 
age males of one species—the greater bird of 
paradise, found only on the Aru Islands—are 
killed, and that the species is rapidly disappear¬ 
ing. An English ornithologist, Mr. Walter Good- 
fellow, who has recently returned from New 
Guinea, where several species of birds of para¬ 
dise used to abound, reports that all kinds have 
become exceedingly scarce and hard to find. 
