6 5 8 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Oct. 24, 1908. 
in Oregon opened Oct. 1. The main body of 
hunters seek the fields through the Willamette 
Valley where the China pheasant ( Phasianus 
iorquatus ) thrives. A great scarcity of these 
birds is reported from all sides this season. The 
general opinion is that this was caused by the 
unusually cold rains in the spring just after the 
young birds had hatched. In addition to this, 
the fall season has been dry, giving the dogs 
some difficulty in finding birds, an inconvenience 
to some hunters, but a good thing for the birds. 
Ruffed and sooty grouse and mountain quail 
were sought formerly, but now the China pheas¬ 
ant seems to be the favorite. For years these 
birds increased and spread through various sec¬ 
tions of the State, but the rapid increase of popu¬ 
lation and continued hunting are lessening the 
numbers. The limit of ten birds a day is sought 
by hunters and often secured. Such items as 
follows, which appeared in one of the daily 
papers during the week, are not unusual: 
“M. C. Dickenson, Tom Word and Frank 
Howe have just returned from a three days’ 
automobile hunting trip into Yamhill county with 
a fine shoot of eighty Chinese pheasants. The 
entire hunting party, with two dogs, made the 
trip in Mr. Dickenson’s touring car. The hun¬ 
ters pronounce a great scarcity of birds, but re¬ 
marked about the tameness of them in Yamhill 
county as compared to other sections. Whereas 
hunters usually get perhaps one-half of the birds 
seen, on this trip it is estimated that not more 
than 100 were possible shots and eighty were 
killed.” 
At the meeting of the Oregon Fish and Game 
Association, held Oct. 7, it was reported that 
an unusual amount of hunting had occurred be¬ 
fore the season opened. Lack of effective war¬ 
den service has been the complaint from various 
sections of the State. Several laws have been 
drafted which are more stringent than the pres¬ 
ent ones and will be proposed at the coming 
session of the Legislature. 
The number of those taking out hunter’s 
licenses has increased materially this season 
which will make the funds available for game 
protection much larger than ever before. 
William L. Finley. 
History Repeats Itself. 
Boston, Mass., Oct. 2.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: A little more than a year ago the fol¬ 
lowing short communication appeared in your 
columns: 
Aitkin, Minn., Aug. 5. —Editor Forest and Stream: 
Some years ago I told in Forest and Stream of an 
adventure in which I laid down and wrapped up in a 
fresh elk’s hide, after which the weather turned cold and 
froze the hide, and I had some little difficulty in getting 
out. It was a tale of fact which happened just as told. 
Since then I have seen that idea worked into a tale of 
fiction, and told as the personal experience of at least 
half a dozen different “old hunters.” The last time I 
came across it was in an old copy of a boys’ paper and 
copied from a California paper. It was told as the 
adventure of an old plainsman of Montana, but said old 
plainsman had never seen the plains, and the tale was 
contorted and impossible. Now, why is it that a tale 
must be twisted into such outrageous distortions before 
it is fit for youthful ears? E. P. Jaques. 
The letter interested me and I have ever since 
wanted to comment on it as an excellent illus¬ 
tration of an unwarranted assumption which is 
often made that history does not repeat itself. 
The letter bears every mark of entire sincerity 
and no one will doubt that the incident related 
by Mr. Jaques occurred as he related it. 
It was an entirely natural happening and the 
only queer thing is that Mr. Jaques should sup¬ 
pose it had never happened to anyone else and 
that his own experience and account of it should 
have been the source of all the stories of the 
kind that have appeared. Mr. Jaques does not 
give the date when his story first appeared in 
Forest and Stream and I do not happen to re¬ 
call his particular account, but I do remember 
giving in the same paper my own account of a 
similar incident, and so long ago that I cannot 
remember the date of it, and I shrewdly suspect 
that my account was long prior to the one of 
Mr. Jaques. 
The truth is that precisely similar stories have 
always been current in countries where men 
hunt big game and freezing weather is experi¬ 
enced, and there is no reason in the nature of 
things to doubt the truth of any one of them. 
It is the most natural thing in the world that 
a hunter, led far afield by the chase in very 
cold weather, should find himself on the ap¬ 
proach of night with no possible recourse but 
to strip the warm pelt from his quarry and 
wrap it closely around him to keep from freez¬ 
ing. Nor is there anything more certain than 
that in such a case he would find himself in 
the morning inclosed in an inflexible coat of 
mail from which it would take him long to free 
himself, and there are accounts of men actually 
perishing in such a predicament. 
The account which came to my own knowl¬ 
edge was of an old hunter and woodsman, Syl¬ 
vester Abbey, of Brownsville, Maine, whom I 
knew well and from whose lips I have more 
than once heard the story in all its details of 
time, locality, etc. In his case it was the hide of 
a moose which saved his life in the first place 
and then—frozen hard as iron—for a long time 
resisted his agonized efforts to escape from it. 
I have not the slightest reason to doubt the 
truth of the story in any particular or that, in 
the long history of man’s conflict with wild 
beasts in cold countries, many precisely similar 
experiences have occurred, and I think it likely 
that on a little reflection Mr. Jaques would agree 
with me. It would certainly be interesting to 
know if there are not present readers of Forest 
and Stream who have either themselves had or 
known of such an experience. 
C. H. Ames. 
An Adirondack Tramp. 
Waterford, Conn., Oct. 2.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: The writer, of Waterford, Conn., 
and Stanley Cobham, of Westfield,' Mass., have 
recently returned from a sixteen days’ tramp¬ 
ing trip through the Adirondack Mountains. 
Starting in at Thirteenth Lake, we tramped 
south and west to Speculator, then north and 
west to Cedar Lakes; west from these to Brook 
Trout Lake; thence north by Lake Kora and 
Kamp Kill Kare to Raquette Lake. Steamer 
and rail from Raquette Lake to Blue Mountain 
Lake; by Minnow Pond and South Pond to 
Lake Grove; steamer and canoe down Long 
Lake to Raquette Falls. From there we 
tramped to Axton, Ampersand Lake, to Preston 
Ponds and Henderson Lake, where we left our 
packs and went up Indian Pass to Summit 
Rock and back to Tahawus Club, leaving there 
en route to Mt. Marcy, to the Ausable River, 
Boreas Pond, Boreas River, Irishtown, North 
River and Thirteenth Lake. 
We had a very pleasant and varied trip of 
275 miles, keeping to the trails and No. 2 roads 
as much as possible. 
C. H. Brooks. 
A Question. 
Milford, Conn., Oct. 5 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: I had this question asked: As to the 
game that is to be distributed through this 
State during this fall, bought- by the money 
from the gun license and so paid for by the 
gunners; have the owners of land the right to 
post said land and lease to parties, keeping 
gunners that have helped to stock this same 
property, from shooting; or, in other words, 
is this country to be one great game preserve, 
rented by a few, and the common horde, as it 
were, pay the expenses and be content? 
Gunner. 
