some birch saplings, offering a beautiful shot. 
At the crack of the gun he dropped and fell 
like a brick bat. It was very amusing to see the 
unmistakeable evidences of pleasure in the set¬ 
ter’s action and facial expression. He had thought 
the bird lost, but we came home from that hunt 
also with a good bag. 
Hunting the ruffed grouse is certainly not easy 
sport for the dog, among the hills, they—the 
bii*ds—are usually fast enough runners to get 
into difficult places for hiding, hence if the dog 
is inclined to be a fast hunter, four or five 
hours’ hunt in the rocky hills is quite enough; 
even then one is apt to return pretty well fagged 
out. 
From very recent accounts of grouse scarcety, 
through the hills of Western Massachusetts, it 
seems to be a most lamentable fact that the 
tremendous influx of alien nimrods to this coun¬ 
try, together with other forms of native hunters 
—including always the troublesome “game hogs” 
—the ruffed grouse, like many other attractive 
species of game is going the way of extinction. 
But a decade since I have gone but a few miles 
from city life, and in several hours’ hunt flushed 
as many as twenty-five or thirty birds. 
A crack shot—one of those fellows who will 
follow a grouse to “kingdom come,” until it 
lands in his bag—informed me recently—in 
speaking of a favorable cover, that he and an¬ 
other fellow had gone there many times during 
the same season, and bagged as many as fifteen 
or eighteen birds. It is little wonder that such 
bagging—along with the other forms of destruc¬ 
tion—will more than offset the good effect of 
protective laws. 
From all accounts the planters in the far south¬ 
ern states seem effectually to aid in protecting 
the quail and other game birds, by posting their 
plantations and seeing that poachers are kept 
out; then too the long mild seasons are most 
favorable for bird propagation. Up in the hill 
country of New England, in wild territory, post¬ 
ing seems to count for little even though the 
farms are small. 
The seasons are frequently hard on the hatch¬ 
ing and brooding processes, as also the long 
winters are seasons of scarcety in the matter of 
FOREST AND STREAM 
provender. When all the plausible excuses are 
offered we certainly have nothing to be very 
proud of in our lame attempts at game con¬ 
servation. It is quite true that legislatures enact 
many good laws for different forms of protec¬ 
tion, etc., but when laws are not effectively en¬ 
forced—what’s the use? 
On one occasion a “game hog” came into a good 
cover and shot up a whole covey or half grown 
birds that had been hatched late in the season. 
He displayed the remarkable nerve of showing 
the bag to another man who suggested that if 
he could reach a game warden he would have 
had the “game hog” promptly arrested. It was sug¬ 
gested by the hunter that “everything was grist 
that came to his mill." “I live ten miles from 
here; by the time you get your game warden 
I’ll be at home.” He lighted his pipe, boarded 
a trolley car and returned home. It would seem 
that in our rapid, hustling progress, we are very 
much in the habit of seeing things afterwards, 
maybe when it is too late. It‘would seem also 
that the most effective time to make and exe¬ 
cute game protective laws—as a matter of fore¬ 
thought and wisdom—was at least half a century 
ago, or before the process of destruction had left 
comparatively little to protect. To the eye of 
most any man, accustomed to hunting, a trip 
through the wonderful hills known as the Berk¬ 
shire mountains, would be impressive of the fact 
that few finer game countries could be found 
anywhere. 
There is sufficient cultivation on the numer¬ 
ous farms to afford feed during a greater por¬ 
tion of the year, the farmers themselves are sel¬ 
dom active hunters (occasionally they are bold 
enough to set “snarsone recently got caught 
and “pinched”—with a “snar” in his corn-field 
and pleaded “not guilty” in court), but they do 
not seem sufficiently interested in the protection 
of what they do not have the time to hunt. 
Last year, in a famous cover for woodcock, 
during the flight season, a neighbor asked a 
farmer to allow him to hunt the cover the fol¬ 
lowing morning, and received permission. When 
the neighbor had gotten into sight of the cover 
he saw four or five other hunters with dogs. In 
the road he also saw two automobiles. The 
599 
neighbor turned off to another cover The same 
evening the farmer telephoned to ask "what 
luck?” When he was told of the automobile 
sports from the city, the farmer made the wire 
hum with pretty warm vocabulary, “that is the 
d—d—d bunch that camped down here near my 
house last night; I will go straight and have 
the farm posted; I’ll keep those chaps out if I 
have to stand guard with a shot gun”—after¬ 
wards you see. 
There is little or no trouble about propagat¬ 
ing game birds in any portion of the United 
States provided proper restrictions can be placed 
upon the appetite of genus homo, to allow his 
killing propensity within certain safe limits, and 
certainly before the other game birds are ex¬ 
terminated as completely as was the passenger 
pigeon. Some wise man suggested the idea that 
all of the pigeons were caught in a terrific hur¬ 
ricane and blown out to sea. No one ever saw 
game birds being destroyed by wind storms carry¬ 
ing them to sea, but many of us have seen the 
ruthless destruction of most of the game, to 
satisfy the greed of man—and the destruction 
has been wrought by the hand of man, rather 
than by the blow hards of good Dame Nature. 
The very logical conclusion would seem to 
be about as followsthat the active sportsmen 
throughout the country, those who are interested 
in game conservation as well as the fun of shoot¬ 
ing, to take the same active interest as that dis¬ 
played by the Southern planters. Those who 
write for publication might accomplish much by 
aiding in keeping alive a real active brother¬ 
hood of sportsmen, with eyes for the future, to 
look beyond the bird crop for just this season, 
to be interested in the preservation of enough 
for seed for succeeding seasons. And finally, 
the sporting journals may accomplish quite as 
much by keeping in touch with the sportsmen 
who are willing and able to write upon the sub¬ 
ject, thus keeping alive a good sentiment. It 
might be well for the journalists to remember 
that when the game shall have been extermi¬ 
nated, there can be no more hunting—hence no 
more hunting stories—only from the rehash— 
and sportsmen do not care to read ancient his¬ 
tory. 
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