576 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[April 13, 1907. 
to the forefront with a clean swath, like a halo, 
enshrouding him? , . . , 
Just as the crowd began to feel shivery from 
C. S. Moody’s description of skis in Norway, 
Miss Maud Benson came in like a breath of 
scented zephyrs and told of her adventures deei 
stalking in a Cuban jungle. The crowd forgot 
all about the blizzard while she described the 
royal palms, the regal orchids, the luxurious 
parasitic vines, the dense foliage shot with 
golden shafts of light; the thousands of sweet 
odors that scent the air. She described such a 
scene of tropical luxury, and depicted such 
an enticing picture, that she had to respond to 
an encore. This was followed by a song by 
W. T. Duncan that made a pleasant break in 
the programme and reminded Dr. Morris of the 
songs in the “Compleat Angler ” Lloyd Breck, 
E W. Ewbank, J. N. Crossland, Portus Baxter, 
e’. P. Jaques, Ed. Breck, Lou S. Darling, Theo 
Gordon, and several other leading exponents of 
sport aflood and afield contributed to the gayety 
of the gathering. . 
About this time the company were in the best 
of humor, and Grizzly King began to bring, 
forth his best hair-raisers, but when Dr Morris 
capped the climax with the yarn about Canbou 
Charlie gaffing the 14-pound salmon on the 
jump, the applause became so uproarious that 
I awoke with a start to find the blizzard still 
raging, the fire gone out, and that I had been 
dreaming over a copy. of Forest and Stream 
that had come to hand in the last mail. 
I o-ot another scuttle of coal, refilled my corn¬ 
cob looked out at the snow-drifts, and wished— 
oh! if we could only get things for wishing like 
the man with the magic carpet in the Arabian 
ta ] es —I wished that I was in Cuba, in the shady 
orange orchard, attending as chief mourner the 
funeral of the ill-fated deer, shot near the plan¬ 
tation of Tres Sebas. W. J. Carroll. 
License Laws. 
Baltimore, March 30 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: D. J.’s discussion of license laws in 
your issue of March 30 prompts me to ask if 
the constitutionality of nonresident licenses 
(above those paid by residents) has been tested. 
It has always seemed to me to be not in 
harmony with * American policy that any State 
should discriminate against, or for, any body 
of Americans. If it can be done in the matter 
of shooting, why not in other matters, as cus¬ 
toms, for instance? 
I am heartily in favor of licenses, but 1 want 
them high all round. W. M. E. 
[The constitutionality of resident and non¬ 
resident license laws has been established *by 
our courts. One of the commonest objections 
raised to these laws is that they are un-Ameri¬ 
can, as our correspondent infers. This is a 
matter of personal opinion, and whether it be 
true or false, the fact remains that a majority of 
the States have adopted one form or another of 
license laws. We believe that in every State 
the revenue derived from these licenses should 
be used solely in the interest of game and fish 
preservation and protection. From to to 20 
per cent, only of our citizens shoot and fish. 
If it is right for them to bear alone the burden 
of this taxation, the money derived therefrom 
should go, not into the common treasury fund, 
but into the game and fish fund. Where this is 
done every man who pays $1 or $25 to shoot 
game understands that that is his contribution 
toward the maintenance of the game supply. 
—Editor.] 
Death of Mrs. Kinney. 
Mrs. Angie Kinney, the wife of A. B. F. 
Kinney, who died recently at their home in Wor¬ 
cester,' Mass., was very fond of shooting game 
and living outdoors, and this love of nature 
made her numerous journeys to the hunting 
fields with her husband far more enjoyable than 
they would otherwise have been. Mrs. Kinney, 
while a good shot at game, never cared for fish¬ 
ing, preferring to paint fishing scenes and land¬ 
scapes while Mr. Kinney fished. With him she 
had killed game in many of the States in the 
Union, and in Scotland as well. 
Duck Shooting in Early Days. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
In a former article, I attempted to give the 
present-day sportsman some idea of conditions 
in Iowa in the early ’50s and especially the great 
number of prairie chickens which made the 
hunter’s heart glad. This was in the north¬ 
eastern portion of the State, and after they 
grew scarce in that section, they were still 
plentiful in the thinly settled counties in the 
western part of the State, and as late as 1878 
there was still good shooting. Gradually they 
decreased until they disappeared. Some years 
ago I was in one of the Minnesota counties bor¬ 
dering on the Iowa line, and as my “better two- 
thirds”' had never seen a prairie chicken, eaten 
one or seen one shot, we went out with the 
landlord of the hotel, who was an enthusiastic 
sportsman, as well as a typical Frenchman, and 
after an all-day’s drive, walking many miles 
on account of fences, we succeeded in bagging 
only six birds. The last covey of eight or ten 
chickens flushed out of range and settled in a 
bunch of tall grass in a nearby slough. We felt 
sure of getting them all, but they rose wild 
and dropped into a cornfield. Dropping the 
DR. TARLETON H. BEAN. 
butt of his gun to the ground, mine host said, 
“Majoir, ze chickens hav’ learned a heep in ze 
last twenty years.” 
Equally plentiful were the wild ducks and 
geese in fall and spring, the fall shooting being 
always the best, for when on their way south 
they remained sometimes for weeks, if the 
weather was fine, feeding during the day in the 
cornfields and in the evening returning to the 
river and numerous prairie sloughs to spend 
the night; then with the first cold storm resumed 
their journey. 
Our little Iowa village was divided into nearly 
equal portions by a river, and in 1854-5 was 
more than double its present width, the break¬ 
ing of the prairie causing the absorption of 
moisture that formerly found drainage over the 
hard sod to the river. A flour and sawmill had 
been built and the dam providing the necessary 
fall for the motive power, created a pond over¬ 
flowing a wide strip of country, the back-water 
extending for nearly five miles up stream, and 
its banks being heavily wooded, many timber 
sloughs were formed. These were favorite re¬ 
sorts for the ducks in their passage south, owing 
to the shelter afforded, and while during the 
season the flight was continuous through the 
day, the evening shooting was the best, for when 
they started to their feeding ground, they all 
left in a bunch, but on returning for the night 
they came in detachments. Nearly all the dif¬ 
ferent varieties of ducks were represented. The 
widgeon is an Asiatic duck, and the few we 
got in those early days undoubtedly came across 
Behring Straits, it not being certain that any 
of them nested in this country. I do not re¬ 
member shooting a canvasback until in the late 
’60s. 
The canvasback duck feeds largely on wild 
celery, and none of this is found in the Iowa 
lakes. Later a shallow body of water in the 
northern part of the State became known as 
Wild Rice Lake, and as the canvasback is es¬ 
pecially fond of this delicacy, this probably ac¬ 
counts for their being more plentiful in later 
years. The overflow caused by damming the 
stream formed many small islands in the pond, 
covered with thick growths of wild plum and 
crab-apple, which made the best possible shelter 
for the hunters. The majority of the ducks 
when shot fell on land, while those which 
dropped in the water were retrieved by the 
setter, these dogs being used for this work, the 
water being cold and frequently full of shell ice, 
from which their heavy coats protected them 
much better than the thinner haired pointers. 
Often the flight was so continuous that it was 
only a question of how rapidly the double barrel 
could be recharged, and many good shots were 
lost owing to the length of time this ancient 
custom took. As an illustration of the abund¬ 
ance of these birds at that time, a party of four 
in two boats started out one Friday morning, 
going four miles up the river, arranging our 
camp before the morning flight began, and using 
the tall rushes and sedge grass for a blind, one 
boat at the northern and one at the southern 
end of the slough. We had fine shooting until 
dark, when we went to camp tired and hungry, 
and were soon inside of our sleeping bags— 
old comforters folded and sewed together along 
the side and across one end. After breakfast 
we returned to our blinds, ready for the flight, 
which began with daylight. When the carnage 
ended we counted 300 ducks—mostly green heads 
—and thirty-two geese. We returned home 
about midnight Saturday. 
During the afternoon the cornfields afforded 
good shooting, thousands of ducks and geese 
pausing to feed. I recall one afternoon seeing 
a flock of geese that had alighted on a strip of 
prairie. There must have been 800 to 1,000 in 
the flock. If'the hunters remained in the wagon, 
the team could often be driven near enough to 
secure a shot while they would rise at once if 
one of them attempted to walk toward them. I 
have seen an Indian, taking advantage of this 
fact, throw himself on the side of his pony and 
get near enough to discharge the arrow under j 
the pony’s neck. Several farmers near the town 
raised small patches of buckwheat, and these 
were always favorite feeding places for the 
ducks. They would remain until dark, seeming 
to have a special fondness for this food. The 
tall stalks of the buckwheat made an excellent I 
cover when one sat on the ground in the middle 
of one of these patches, and for a single hunter 
a bag of thirty-five or forty ducks was not an 
unusual result of the evening’s shooting. 
When the ponds and sloughs froze, there still 
remained the creek shooting. Two small 
streams flowed southward about three miles 
from the town. The current was so rapid that 
they seldom froze, and when driven from their 
usual places the ducks would drop into this 
water to pass the night. Two hunters provided 
with a wagon to >carry the game, and a driver, 
was the usual party engaged in this method of 
hunting. The creeks had many turns. The 
two men would take opposite sides and walk 
slowly along the banks, the team following a 
quarter of a mile or so in the rear, the driver 
picking up the ducks shot. Ducks were then, 
and are to-day, perhaps, the most uncertain 
bird that flies. Where they are plentiful one day 
there may be none the next. In 1868 a friend 
and I provided with a wagon and driver, spent 
an afternoon in this creek shooting with such 
success that at night we had seventy-five ducks, 
mostly mallards. Arriving in town', divers other 
hunters gathered around to view and discuss 
our “kill,” which filled the wagon. Three of 
these gentlemen determined to go the next day 
