854 
The Hunting License. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
There has been so much misinformation given 
out about the intent and purpose of hunters’ 
license laws that a few authoritative statements 
regarding them may help to put the whole mat¬ 
ter in its right aspect before the people. Not¬ 
withstanding the many misleading statements 
circulated in opposition to the policy of enact¬ 
ing hunting license laws, they have steadily 
gained ground, for the principle on which they 
are founded is right and just. Popular preju¬ 
dice against them is caused mainly by a mis¬ 
apprehension of the facts, and should be over¬ 
come, for every State will soon have laws for 
the registration of hunters upon its statute 
books, and these laws will be much better en¬ 
forced if they have the support of all honest 
people. The attempts so far made in the New 
England States to enact laws for the registra¬ 
tion of hunters have not yet met with entire 
success. This is to be deplored, for what is 
most needed now, to check the extermination 
of birds and game, is the means to enforce game 
and bird laws, and license laws furnish money 
for such enforcement. New England people are 
ready enough to adopt a system of registration 
which taxes nonresident or alien hunters, but 
we are not so ready to enact laws to tax our¬ 
selves. This selfish attitude defeats our pur¬ 
pose, for without a law for the registration of 
resident hunters the other hunting license laws 
cannot be fully enforced. 
Connecticut and Massachusetts are now the 
only New England States that have a complete, 
effective system for the registration of resident, 
nonresident and alien hunters. (The Massachu¬ 
setts law does not go into effect until Jan. x, 
1909.) All the other New England States license 
nonresident hunters (Maine and New Hamp¬ 
shire also license alien hunters), but they do not 
register or license resident hunters, and right 
here their laws fail. One of the prominent 
factors in opposition to the enactment of a com¬ 
prehensive law for the registration of resident 
hunters is the feeling among country people 
that they should have absolute liberty to roam 
the woods and fields of their native land and 
kill whatever and wherever they please. This 
spirit, however laudable it may seem to some 
people at first sight, is too likely to develop into 
a total disregard for the rights of others. If 
such unbridled liberty is to be given to the 
farmer and the woodsman, it must, in fairness, 
be given also to the city sportsman and the 
hordes of poor people of the city. There has 
been altogether too much of this unrestricted 
hunting by both natives and foreigners, and our 
game is disappearing. 
There are two ways in which this can be 
stopped. The first is to stop all hunting. The 
second is to allow hunting, but restrict it, and 
require those who hunt the game to pay for 
its protection and propagation. The first of the 
above propositions falls by its own weight. Any 
bill embodying this feature would be killed at 
once by the hunters of any State. The proposi¬ 
tion to license the hunter is, therefore, our only 
resource. 
Practically every civilized country has a hunt¬ 
ing license. The United States has been almost 
the last to adopt it. Fifteen years ago very few 
States had such a law. Now twenty-four have 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
resident and sixteen have alien hunting licenses. 
These laws have given such satisfaction that no 
State having once passed such a law has ever 
repealed it. The Canadian Provinces have hunt¬ 
ing license laws and high fees. 
The objects of the law are: (1) To protect 
the birds and game for the benefit of the people 
of the State; (2) to provide a revenue for this 
purpose and for the propagation of game; (3) 
to protect the property of the farmers from the 
depredations of vagabond hunters. 
The old system of procuring a revenue by 
State appropriations is inefficient, for it is im¬ 
possible to secure adequate appropriations. Most 
of the wardens are unpaid, and it is notorious 
that law enforcement is lax. 
Under a registration system the funds for en¬ 
forcing the law are provided in exact propor¬ 
tion to the number of hunters. These moneys 
increase automatically as the number of hunters 
increases. In some States the income derived 
in this way already exceeds one hundred thou¬ 
sand dollars annually, and is steadily increasing. 
The nonresident license law is based on the 
principle that the game of a State belongs to 
her people. It is intended to protect the game 
from irresponsible outsiders and to furnish some 
revenue for the enforcement of the law. As its 
provisions were enacted by one State after an¬ 
other it swept the country, for each State was 
bound in self-defence to follow her neighbors 
in such legislation or else see her game deci¬ 
mated by the people of neighboring States. 
The alien license is framed to prevent hunting 
by a class of unnaturalized foreigners, ignorant 
of our laws, like many Italians, Greeks, etc., who 
kill all living things that can be eaten. To-day 
these people form the greatest menace to the 
bird life of the New England States. 
Both the above laws are ineffective unless ac¬ 
companied by a resident license law which re¬ 
quires all hunters, to carry a license; for it is 
often impossible for an officer to determine, in 
the field, whether a man is a nonresident, a 
resident or an unnaturalized alien. 
Edward Howe Forbush. 
Hunting in Newfoundland. 
St. John’s, N. F., Nov. 10 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: The caribou migration to the southern 
feeding grounds has begun. The weather dur¬ 
ing the past season has been the finest on record 
for many years. Excepting a little frost and 
a few flurries of snow the weather continues 
fine. There is some snow in the interior as well 
as on the west coast. 
I send you, for the benefit of the shooting 
readers of Forest and Stream, some late clip¬ 
pings which will give an idea of the sport to 
date: 
At Terra Nova, Sir Henry Leonard secured 
three good heads with 36, 38 and 40 points re¬ 
spectively. He reports caribou fairly plentiful. 
John Paul, the Micmac guide at Badger, killed 
an old stag with 65 points about twenty miles 
from Badger Brook a-t a place called Mary Ann 
Lake. He also killed one with 41 points. He 
reports that stags with many points are unusually 
plentiful. 
Captain Blacker, of County Kildare, Ireland, 
has returned from Gander Lake with three 
heads, one of which bore 48 points. J. W. N. 
Johnstone secured a beauty of 50 points in the 
[Nov. 28. 1908. 
same territory. Lieut. Mogg and Asst. Paymas¬ 
ter Woodhouse, of .the Brilliant, secured two 
fine heads, one bearing 34 points, from Gander 
Lake. 
Numbers of caribou have been crossing the 
railway line near Howley the past few days on 
their way south to the winter feeding grounds. 
These deer are somewhat later than usual owing 
no doubt to the fine weather. 
E. E. Gilbert and party, of Schenectady, N. 
Y., arrived at Glen wood Tuesday with six ex¬ 
cellent caribou heads. They saw plenty of deer 
up country. 
Sir Robert Harvey, who had been hunting in 
company with Sir H. Leonard on the Labrador 
coast, has returned. They had poor luck, only 
seeing one caribou and two bears. They did 
not get near enough to have a shot at either. 
W. D. Reid, who had been out deer stalking 
with His Excellency the Governor and Mr. Pad- 
don, has returned. The Governor secured two 
caribou. They covered the country between 
Kitty’s Brook and the Reserve and found deer 
very scarce. They shot a good many partridge. 
The sportsmen who were out on the various 
grounds after partridge had fair sport. Some 
were fairly successful, others only indifferently 
so. Birds, as a rule, were reported scarcer than 
for some years. 
Some weeks ago an article appeared discuss¬ 
ing the effect of the slaughter of whales, now 
going on in various parts of the world. A par¬ 
tial return of the whales killed by the different 
whalers fishing around our coast has been made. 
The several catches give a total of 563 killed 
and secured; those wounded and lost are not 
accounted for. W. J. Carroll. 
Milford Game Wardens. 
Milford, Conn., Nov. 16. —Editor Forest and 
Stream: As suggested at the recent meeting of 
the Milford Fish and Game Protective Associa¬ 
tion by State Fish and Game Commissioner John 
M. Cranton and State Game Warden Clark, 
names for game wardens have been sent in. On 
Wednesday, the nth, J. H. Maher, now sheriff 
and constable, and Walter M. Nichols, were ap¬ 
pointed. 
On Saturday, the 14th, they arrested four men 
who were hunting rabbits with ferrets. They 
gave bond of $25 each to appear for trial Mon¬ 
day the 16th. 
This goes to show the grain is ripe and ready 
to harvest. We have two good men to do the 
harvesting. F. S. Downs. 
Bear and Porcupine Bounties. 
Elizabethtown, N. Y., Nov. 16 .—Editor 
Forest and Stream: Julius A. Roberts, clerk 
of the Essex County Board of Supervisors, re¬ 
ports bounty claims ($10 each) on thirty black 
bears killed in this county this year. He also 
reports 3,617 porcupine bounty claims of 25 cents 
each. The porcupine bounty went into effect 
at the 1907 session of the Essex county Legisla¬ 
ture and it therefore appears that 3,617 porcu¬ 
pines have been killed in this county during the 
past year. Good riddance to bad rubbish. 
George L. Brown. 
