Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal. Copyright, 1907, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 1907. | No .Tb IZTJ1NL 
The object of this journal will be to studiously 
promote a healthful interest in outdoor recre¬ 
ation, and to cultivate a refined taste for natural 
Objects. Announcement in first number of 
Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1873. 
THE FOREST IN EARLY MARCH. 
There is no other season so attractive to the 
woods lover as early March in the forest. If 
the day be a cold and still one the silence is most 
impressive, broken as it is only now and then 
by the cracking and popping of the trees. And 
if a breeze stirs their mighty tops, those limbs 
that touch seem to groan in agony as their icy 
surfaces rub together in mournful fashion. But 
if the temperature is rising and the sun is bright, 
cheery little woodpeckers rustle and bustle among 
the trees, busily engaged in seeking for a meal 
in the bark of pine or balsam fir, flitting from 
yellow birch to stately basswood, searching 
among the moss festoons of the swamp 
tamarack or looking into holes and cracks of 
rotting beech and hard maple. 
In the slashes near a lake, where the snow is 
light and feathery, one finds the cosy bed of the 
great “snowshoe rabbit,” probably just vacated. 
Crawling under snow-laden branches, pushing 
between leafless maple shoots, your snowshoes 
catching in unseen stubs, you make more noise 
than is good for purposes of observation, and 
perhaps the momentary glimpse you get of what 
seems to be a bit of snow falling off a log may 
indeed be one of these white-garbed fellows 
flitting away to a safer retreat. See how large 
his tracks are! Almost as wide, in the soft 
snow, as those of a deer. It is hard to believe 
they were made by a rabbit until one sees the 
furry pads that in part give him his title. 
Crossing the trail is a shallow groove, as if a 
sack of meal had been dragged at the end of 
a rope. No deer’s this. Look yonder down the 
slope. A tree with the bark stripped off com¬ 
pletely in bands far above the ground. These 
and the tracks in the bottom of the groove pro¬ 
claim the presence of the porcupine. Further 
on appears the trail of a “black cat” making 
straight up the slope toward a hemlock-crowned 
hill, his hunting over, sleep attracting him home¬ 
ward. 
When a deer trail crosses your path, follow 
it and learn one of the hard lessons of the forest. 
Beyond a fallen treetop where the tender 
branches have been snipped off, the single tracks 
lead straight to a rocky slope where there are 
icicles from the melted snow of the last mild 
day. Below there in a depression is a little ice 
and the trail shows how the deer crawled down 
on the ice and licked its margin in an endeavor 
to find a few drops of water. No use. The 
puddle is frozen solid. Straight to the nearest 
brook goes the trail, there to meander up and 
down and across, the toe marks showing how 
the buck tried to find a tiny spot where the ice 
could be broken. Back again to the evergreens 
to a waterless bed. So runs the story through 
weeks of bitter weather. 
On the lake, where the wind-blown snow is 
crusted, appears the trail of a fox, going straight 
toward a certain timbered point, deviating only 
to circle a stump or log where mice tracks 
promise a meal. There are shallow depressions 
that show that the fox is lean and not heavy 
enough to break through the light crust, but 
where they leave the lake they are deeper, 
proving that even Reynard’s furry paws are not 
broad enough to bear him up. 
The little river alone is not stilled, ice-coated 
though it be, for its softly tinkling voice comes 
up through its deep armor of clear blue ice. 
THE ADIRONDACK DEER. 
In a long journey through the Adirondack 
Mountains during the coldest week of the pres¬ 
ent winter, we were greatly impressed by a few 
facts relating to the State’s deer and their 
future welfare. Our journey was by snowshoe 
and sleigh through the wildest part of that 
region—a country that has as yet been com¬ 
paratively free from the severe blight of the ax. 
The conditions there are more favorable than 
in other places we passed through, but despite 
this, enough evidence was deduced to show that 
starvation will kill more of the deer, if the 
present conditions are not improved, than will 
the rifle. 
At the time of our visit the snow was about 
three feet deep, and during four days of a week 
passed at an altitude ranging from 1,500 to 2,500 
feet above sea level, the mercury stood at io°, 
18 0 , 42 0 and 30° respectively below zero at night, 
going as high as zero only once at noon. Thus, 
while the cold was intense—and had been for six 
weeks—the snow was not so deep as to seriously 
handicap the deer in moving about, and if there 
was natural food to be had, they found it with¬ 
out much difficulty. 
Luckily, in that region, a recent storm had 
upset thousands of balsams and dead trees 
festooned with moss, and everywhere we found 
these literally stripped of every vestige of food 
a deer will eat. Every balsam top was the 
center of tracks so numerous as to resemble a 
feeding ground for sheep, and in snowshoeing 
we were constantly jumping deer that were 
either feeding on or lying near the balsam tops. 
Despite the fact that these fallen trees were 
found everywhere in the woods, however, every 
“log job” was tracked up by deer attracted to 
the freshly felled trees, and in many cases they 
were feeding in the vicinity while men were 
cutting and hauling logs—showing that food was 
none too plentiful for the deer. The log roads 
resembled sheep trails, so tracked up by deer 
were they. Lakes were frozen almost solid, and 
along the most rapid streams only was there 
any water the game could reach. 
This is the region where deer died by thou¬ 
sands two or three years ago; where a few good 
men spent days in felling balsams to feed them; 
where every pool and stream was dotted with 
carcasses of deer that failed to survive the 
balsam diet alone without other food to offset 
its heating effects in the absence of sufficient 
water. 
Our observations were that the elk that are in 
the woods were taking good care of themselves 
—even those liberated in February. The snow 
interfered very little with the elks’ movements, 
but the absence of open water was evident in 
following their trails. 
The range of the deer is gradually becoming 
narrower, and with the cutting of the trees their 
food supply is growing smaller. The closest 
observers informed us that in their opinion while 
comparatively mild winters, or the absence of 
deep snows, may not work much injury to the 
deer, there will be a heavy mortality whenever 
severe cold and deep snows visit the Adiron- 
dacks at the same time. Everything tends to 
lend color to this belief, and the friends of game 
protection in New York State should bend all 
their efforts toward provisions looking toward 
supplying food for the deer, which, with the 
small supply of natural food now left, will carry 
them through the severest winters. 
It has been suggested that small clearings be 
made here and there near the evergreen forests 
and these planted with such shrubs, grasses or 
grains as the deer will eat in winter. Many of 
the preserve clubs and individuals have done and 
are doing noble work in feeding the deer, but it 
is not fair to leave a work to them that belongs 
properly to the State. 
FIREARMS FOR DEER SHOOTING. 
A paragraph in a Pennsylvania paper a month 
ago read as follows: 
The hunting this season must be done with rifles, buck¬ 
shot being forbidden by law, since so many deer in past 
seasons were wounded and not killed. 
Why is it that in so many of the States, par¬ 
ticularly in the south, the use of the rifle in 
deer hunting is almost unknown? It is fre¬ 
quently argued that undergrowth is so thick the 
gun and buckshot only will give good results, 
but in northwestern and northern States the un¬ 
dergrowth is just as thick, and rifles only are 
employed. 
The board of officers now testing revolvers 
and pistols at the Springfield Armory for the 
purpose of deciding whether the weapon that 
gives the best results is superior to the present 
army service revolver, has several .45 caliber 
automatic and other weapons in hand, and the 
results of its deliberations will be watched with 
interest. The tests will be a trial of the .38 
against the .45 calibers. 
