142 
seal islands to study that much discussed subject 
had not been made public when the report was 
written. It has recently been handed in, and 
may be made public before these lines are in 
print. It is known at least that the committee 
and the expert agents from Canada and Japan 
who were present on the Island with the Ameri¬ 
can scientific men, agreed with them in all con¬ 
clusions, and it is not doubted that the repeal of 
the law forbidding the killing of surplus males 
will be recommended in the report. 
That the forest reserves generally should be 
made game refuges is recommended in the re¬ 
port. This ground was taken in the first book of 
the Boone and Crockett Club, as long ago as 1893. 
Many bills to set aside National Parks and 
game refuges are on the calendar of Congress, 
but on most of them no action has been taken. 
Nevertheless, last August Congress accepted the 
session by the state of Montana of the exclu¬ 
sive jurisdiction of the lands embraced in the 
Glacier National Park. This insures Federal 
control and protection of game, and will be effec¬ 
tive, as shown by the fact that last October a 
young man was arrested for killing a bear with¬ 
in the Park, and was fined $100 and sentenced 
to ninety days in jail. 
The game situation is fully discussed. Elk 
sent out from the Yellowstone National Park 
seem to have done well wherever set free under 
proper conditions. An interesting experiment 
was made in Arizona where elk were turned out 
in the Sitgreaves forest. Eighty individuals were 
held for a short time in a small enclosure, and 
then, when the feed gave out, they were turned 
loose. During the first season they scattered, 
some of them wandering one hundred miles 
north, but in 1914 almost all of them had re¬ 
turned to the original district where natural con¬ 
ditions are favorable. Only six or eight of the 
cows were old enough to produce young in 1913, 
but four calves were born, and they are likely 
to do well. The number of elk to be shipped 
FOREST AND STREAM 
from the Yellowstone Park and Jackson Hole 
herd makes no impression on the increase. There 
are supposed now to be about 55,000 head there, 
The constant increase of the herd results in a 
continual shortage of food supply and death of 
the animals through starvation. “The Commit¬ 
tee believes that in addition to those killed by 
sportsmen several thousand should be killed each 
year,” in order to establish a balance between the 
food supply and the numbers of the elk. It is 
recommended that the killing be done by officials 
under proper regulations. 
Bison are safe from extermination, but the 
antelope are going very fast. Mountain sheep 
are much more numerous than has been supposed. 
The Queen Charlotte’s Island caribou are on the 
verge of extinction. The musk-oxen are grow¬ 
ing fewer, because of the traffic in meat for 
whalers wintering in the Arctic, and the use of 
modern firearms by Indians and Eskimos. 
Grizzly bears are growing fewer, and should 
be protected, following the suggestions of J. A. 
McGuire, Editor of Outdoor Life, in Denver. 
Constant efforts are being made to commercial¬ 
ize the skins of the Alaska brown bears, but it is 
hoped that the people of Alaska can be brought 
to see that these bears are more valuable to 
them living than dead. This suggests the Alaska 
Game Law, which needs changes to secure the 
support of the public there. 
Much good work has been done by members 
of the Boone and Crockett Club and others in 
the way of securing interesting scientific speci¬ 
mens for the National Museum, the Biological 
Survey, the American Museum of Natural His- 
tory, and others. Among those who have taken 
an active part in this matter are Theodore Roose¬ 
velt, Dr. W. L. Abbott, Elton Clark, George L. 
Harrison, Jr., Theodore Lyman, Messrs. Pratt 
and Proctor, Hon. Geo. Shiras, 3d., Lincoln Ells¬ 
worth, W. H. Osgood, Charles Sheldon, Dr. L. 
C. Sanford, and others. 
The report refers to books published by mem¬ 
bers of the Club which tend to arouse interest in 
the wilderness and so to conserve the spirit 
which makes for game protection. Of these 
there are two by Mr. Roosevelt, three by Mr. 
Grinnell, one each by Messrs. Hepburn and 
Sheldon, and the composite book of the Boone 
and Crockett Club, “Hunting at High Altitudes,” 
to which the venerable Col. W. D. Pickett con¬ 
tributed by far the greater part of the matter. 
Dr. Allen’s monograph of the Musk-Oxen, Mr. 
Hornaday’s Wild Life Conservation, with a con¬ 
tribution by Mr. Walcott, and Mr. Selous’ con¬ 
tribution to two great works on sport, complete 
the list of strictly .outdoor publications. 
The committee insists again on a better en¬ 
forcement of the game laws, which means more 
liberal appropriations for warden’s service, and 
greater care in appointing the men selected for 
this work. It advises also laws restricting the 
'sale of trophies, pointing out that traffic in 
trophies tends toward the extermination of game 
as traffic in plumage tends to exterminate birds. 
At the meeting Madison Grant made feeling 
reference to the death within the year of John 
L. Cadwalader, a very old and valued mem¬ 
ber of the Club, and an earnest sportsman. Col. 
Roosevelt spoke with feeling of the death of Hon. 
W. W. Rockhill, the explorer who was so long 
in the diplomatic service of the United States, 
and who was one of the Club's most famous 
members. 
At the conclusion of the dinner which followed 
the meeting, Mr. W. H. Osgood, who has re¬ 
cently returned from the Pribiloff Islands, show¬ 
ed an extraordinarily interesting series of motion 
pictures of fur seal life. His talk was devoted 
wholly to the natural history side of this life, 
for his official position, of course, precluded any 
discussion of policy until the publication of his 
report. Resolutions were passed urging continu¬ 
ed protection of the Alaska brown bears. 
A Peg-Legged Pointer 
A bunch of brokers were reciting stories of 
their hunting and fishing experiences during the 
dull season, while the ticker was slumbering. 
The manager of one of the Chicago bond houses, 
with offices in this city, capped the climax with 
his yarn of an experience while after game in 
the woods in the extreme north of Minnesota. 
He asserted his willingness to make affidavit to 
the facts in the case before a notary and to 
wager that investigation would prove his story 
to be true to the last improbable feature. 
“While in Superior we picked up as a guide 
an old chap named Tom Billstein,” he said, “who 
was to take across the line with him an outfit 
of bird dogs that he guaranteed were fit to point 
anything in the way of game we should find in 
the woods or along the borders of the lakes. 
Tom turned up all right with a string of a half 
dozen dogs he had broken himself and which 
were guaranteed to be old hands at the game. 
“Among them was a liver and white pointer 
with one of the most intelligent faces I had ever 
seen on a dog. He was a companionable chap 
and made friends of every one in the party, par¬ 
tially, I think because we all sympathized a bit 
with the dog. His left foreleg was an artificial 
limb, and he naturally had a bit of a limp as he 
strolled about the camp when we were first in¬ 
troduced to him. Of course, we guyed Tom a 
bit about bringing a pet dog along to the woods 
with him. 
“ ‘He ain’t no pet more’n any of the other dogs 
in the bunch,’ snarled Tom. ‘He’s a hunter, he 
is, and they ain’t no dog in the bunch can beat 
him flushin’ a grouse, nor retrievin’ of him after 
you’ve shot him, if you fellows can shoot. Wait 
till you get out in the stubble and see him work’s 
all I got to say.’ 
“When we hit a bit of good ground for birds 
that peg-legged bird dog took on a new lease of 
life. He had a nose that would scent a covey of 
birds quicker than any other dog in the bunch. He 
was as rigid as one of Prince Troubetzkoy’s 
statuettes on the point, with both his nose and 
his tail, and that game leg of him sticking out 
like a weather vane. He flushed the birds like 
an artist, and when a lucky shot stopped a couple 
of grouse out of the covey, and he was ordered 
to do so, retrieved them like a spaniel. That 
artificial leg wasn’t in his way at all as he nosed 
his way through the underbrush to where the 
birds fell, and he came back with his prey like 
a sprinter. He kept up his work all day, and 
when we got back to camp was apparently the 
least tired of any dog in the lot, in spite of the 
fact that they had four good legs to work with. 
I’ve shot over quite a bunch of dogs up in those 
woods in my day, but none of them beat that 
peg-legged pointer for good all-around work. 
“That night Tom told how his dog happened 
to have that artificial limb. Tom had him out 
in the winter of 1913 and the dog stuck his 
foot into a trap set for muskrats. For several 
hours before Tom heard his yelps for assistance 
the dog was held in the trap and when Tom 
reached him his leg was frozen and had to be 
amputated then and there. Tom got back to 
civilization as soon as possible, bent on saving 
so good a hunting dog if it was possible. He 
tried a half dozen schemes and finally took him 
to an artificial limb maker in Milwaukee and had 
the new foreleg made for him. It took the 
dog only a couple of weeks to get used to it 
after the stump had healed. Now I’m willing to 
bet there isn’t a bird dog in all Wisconsin, or 
Minnesota for that matter, can beat that peg¬ 
legged, artificial-limbed pointer in finding birds 
in any stubble field you can put him down in.” 
