FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Sept. 19, 1908. 
456 
I do not understand the object of saving the 
marten, unless it, is to keep trappers out of the 
woods. From the sportsman’s viewpoint I 
should think it would be an excellent thing for 
sport to have such animals as mink, marten, 
■fishers and foxes trapped out of the Adiron¬ 
dacks. If it were not for these animals grouse 
and rabbits would be most plentiful, and sport 
with small rifles and shotguns could be had 
everywhere to the advantage of the deer. It 
may be, however, that there is a desire on the 
part of the commission to increase the com¬ 
mercial importance of the Adirondacks by in¬ 
creasing the number of fur bearers. Still, with 
partridges and rabbits never scarcer, preserving 
the hunters of these game species is curious. 
' A trapper will catch in a winter nearly, if not 
quite, 100 head of fur bearers in the Adiron¬ 
dacks. Most of the victims are marten, mink, 
foxes, fishers and ermines—all game destroyers. 
These animals explain why so few grouse are 
seen in the deep woods. Preserving them seems 
foolish as a game preservation measure. But 
as a matter of commerce it is a most interest¬ 
ing experiment. An increase of the supply of 
fur bearers will certainly make to the prosperity 
of woodsmen in the future. 
While there is considerable opposition to the 
new hunters’ license law among woodsmen, the 
practical good which comes of it is plain. A 
number of Italians have been fined at Rome, 
Utica and in this vicinity under the alien license 
law, and the authorities are very much disposed 
to enforce the law to the letter; $25 and $50 
fines are mentioned in the papers in central 
New York every week. I think the license law 
for hunters is wrong, and that it makes for 
favoritism of classes. The constitutionality of 
the type of law has never been passed on by the 
United States Supreme Court, although, I be¬ 
lieve, socialists once attempted to get a similar 
question before that court without avail. Cer¬ 
tainly the law gives very serious and question¬ 
able advantages to natives of a State over out 
siders. The way to protect the game is to 
shorten the seasons, impose universal restric¬ 
tions as regards numbers of game killed and in¬ 
crease the breadth and number of game refuges. 
Deer seem not to have been so plentiful 
around the clearings of the mountains this year. 
I doubt if there are half as many deer in the 
Adirondacks now as there were ten years ago. 
The reason why the deer are scarcer is because 
the yards have been uncovered—the balsam, 
spruce and hemlock under which the deer win¬ 
tered have been cut away with the result that the 
deer are exposed to the storms and cold all 
winter long—they freeze to death at last, even 
if they do not starve. Of course the ever in¬ 
creasing area of State lands should make for 
the rapid increase of deer, especially if timber 
thieves are kept off the lands. Some day, when 
the State legislators awaken to the good sense 
and good business in Commissioner Whipple’s 
plan to reforest the old clearings, burnings and 
choppings on State lands, and to his plan to have 
the State give land owners seedling trees for 
planting, the public will see a wonderful change 
in the Adirondacks. Every hilltop and ravine 
head in the State should be reforested. The 
■result would be constant streams and valuable 
woodlots. Raymond S. Spears. 
Game Prospects. 
Berlin, N. Y., Sept. 10.—Editor Forest and 
Stream: We have had a dry season here and 
game is going to be plentiful. Blackberry 
pickers on the hills have reported large coveys 
of partridges. I put up six one day and have 
started any quantity of smaller lots. Rabbits 
are unusally abundant and outlying farmers are 
cursing the foxes who steal their hens. I have 
seen a number of plover and sandpipers along 
the creeks and at Dyken Pond on the mountain 
there is a good sized flock of ducks, while gray 
squirrels and coons are thick. 
Last winter a local hunter was out for foxes 
with his dog Bruce. The dog was broken to 
run rabbits first and will follow a rabbit unless 
he strikes a fox scent, then he shifts to the 
larger game. Two of the town boys were out 
for white rabbits, and as they were going along 
the mountain ridge a fox rushed by and a 
hound's note was heard in the distance. “That 
is Bruce,” said one. “We can’t do much with¬ 
out a dog. Let’s get him.” One of the boys 
took off his suspenders, and standing across the 
trail, they waited for Bruce. When he came along 
they roped him and took him up to Cowee’s 
Swamp where with his aid they made a large 
bag of rabbits and the dog’s owner came back 
to the village and declared that Bruce had run 
a fox over into Grafton where he would prob¬ 
ably chase him until he holed up if it took a 
week to do it. R. Saunderson. 
Guilford, Conn., Aug. 31.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: I have been on a sick bed for five 
weeks and have had no opportunity to find out 
about game myself, but I have questioned 
friends, who have called to see me, about the 
outlook for game this fall, and they tell me there 
are a few partridges, but they are far apart. I 
have been told of four different flocks of young 
ones, but they were miles apart. Last winter I 
took pains to distribute four or five bushels of 
grain where there were quail, but I have heard 
of only one flock of young ones, but I think 
there are more, as I know that during the winter 
when I fed them there were six different 
bunches, five or six in a bunch. 
I usually go out and hunt them up before 
shooting time, but this summer have not been 
able to. 
I have not shot a quail in three years, but I 
always try to locate them before the first of 
October. There were none let go this spring 
in Guilford, for they were hard to get. I think 
if there were no shooting for a couple of years 
they would come back, both partridges and quail. 
M. D. S. 
Knife River, Minn., Aug. 25.— Editor Forest 
and Stream: In parts of Lake, St. Louis and 
Aitkin counties I find a good increase in the 
number of ruffed grouse. It is rather strange, 
but localities where two or three years ago 
grouse were very plentiful I find now they are 
scarce; in other places where there was only a 
nominal number they have increased the most. I 
find through the snow belt of Lake and St. Louis 
counties, where they almost disappeared a year 
ago last winter, they have not increased as they 
should. Fortunately for us, we have not had any 
bad bush' fires this summer, and the birds now 
left ought to increase fast if we have another 
good winter. There is no question but that 
grouse should be protected for a limited time. 
All sportsmen and settlers who are interested 
in this question should be glad to give our best 
game bird another chance, or it is only going to 
be a short time until they will be a rare bird 
found in a day’s shooting. We hope that Forest 
and Stream will give us active co-operation on 
this subject. Fred Chase. 
Catskill-on-Hudson, N. Y., Sept. 3.— Editor 
Forest and Stream: The prospects for grouse 
are better than last season. More young birds 
are reported and a fairly good season can be ex¬ 
pected. C. H. 
Johnstown, Pa., Sept. 8 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: The nesting and incubation season of 
the ruffed grouse this year was much more 
favorable than in the preceding year. Observa¬ 
tions made in this and adjoining counties indi¬ 
cate that there will be many more birds than 
last season. H. S. Endsley. 
Destruction of Quail in Nesting Time. 
It is not sufficiently known that the trade in 
live quail during summer exists solely to supply 
the English demand. Lieut.-Colonel G. A. 
Momber declares in the London Field that in 
no other country of civilized western Europe 
are live game birds marketable for the table 
during the nesting season. 
The quail are caught in nets along the coast 
of North Africa during their spring migration 
when they are preparing to cross the Mediter¬ 
ranean to breed in Europe, as well as on their 
arrival on the opposite shores of Greece, Italy 
and Sicily. Large numbers are strangled in the 
nets and remain there almost worthless. The 
survivors are packed in the shallow canvas-top¬ 
ped boxes that they are exhibited in at the Lon¬ 
don poulterers’ shops. Their transit by rail 
through France, Switzerland and Germany being 
illegal in the close season, they are conveyed 
to England by sea, and the mortality on the 
voyage is enormous, the stench from these boxes 
of dead and living birds being powerful enough 
to deter some passengers from sailing by the 
steamers carrying large consignments of quail. 
Those that survive the horrors of the middle 
deck often become fat, and are retailed at about 
is. each to supply the oily, tasteless morsels of 
flesh so important in a fashionable dinner menu ; 
but the birds slaughtered in London are a small 
fraction of those netted in Egypt and Tunisia. 
The greater part are wasted. Agriculturally the 
quail is useful, feeding on small seeds and in¬ 
sects during summer, and it is a sporting little 
game bird whose numbers in its chief breeding 
haunts in Central Europe are sensibly diminish¬ 
ing. 
Surely it is time to end this cruel traffic In 
caged birds during the breeding season, a prac¬ 
tice discreditable alike to British civilization and 
to British sporting prestige. Even in Italy, 
where the killing and eating of small birds 
seems to be the national pastime, and where the 
“caccia” is specially kept open for quail shoot¬ 
ing until June 1 along the seaboard, the birds 
are granted immunity from being killed or mar¬ 
keted during the rest of the summer. 
