176 
[Jan. 29, 1910. 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
The Game Situation in New England. 
Boston, Mass., Jan. 20.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: Our stock of game birds has become 
so reduced and the number of hunters has so 
increased that if we have a very severe winter, 
followed by a poor breeding season, the woods 
and fields are almost destitute of game birds 
when the next shooting season opens, and the 
birds recover slowly. Nevertheless there has 
never been so much interest taken in the pro¬ 
tection of birds in this country as now, nor has 
there ever been so much money spent for pur¬ 
poses of game protection. Verily, it is time for 
us to examine carefully into the causes of de¬ 
pletion of our game. It is time to find and 
apply the remedy, lest the remaining game birds 
and animals are to be known to our descendants 
only from preserved remains in museums, colored 
plates or books written by naturalists. 
It soon becomes evident, to any one who looks 
into the history of game in this country, that 
game decreased rapidly soon after the begin¬ 
ning of settlement. This was to be expected, 
for every settler had a gun as a necessary part 
of his equipment. He must protect his family 
from Indians and other marauders, and his farm 
animals and poultry from wild beasts and birds. 
Naturally, the gun was used to supply the table, 
and every settler’s son became a hunter. Most 
of the male population hunted more or less at 
all seasons of the year. As a result deer, wild 
turkeys and other large game soon became 
scarce. The Indians had always hunted game at 
all seasons, but they were few in number com¬ 
pared with the whites, and the bow and arrow 
were not nearly so destructive as the gun and 
rifle, therefore the game had suffered no gen¬ 
eral decrease from the inroads of the Indians. 
As settlements increased and markets for game 
were established in the cities, the war of ex¬ 
termination began. All that is necessary to make 
any game animal scarce is to put a price on its 
head. 
There were no laws for the protection of 
game, and had any been enacted they would not 
have been observed, because of the spirit of free¬ 
dom prevailing among the settlers. The laws in 
regard to game that were passed during the first 
century of colonization were mainly such as 
would protect the hunter in the pursuit of game 
by giving him a monopoly of destruction with¬ 
in certain bounds. Regulations were enacted 
forbidding anyone to disturb or shoot pigeons 
near the nets of the pigeoners. Gunners were 
given exclusive rights to shoot on certain islands. 
The owners of certain salt marshes were given 
the sole privilege to shoot on those marshes. 
The rights of the individual were guarded, but 
the game was not protected. The eggs of birds 
were taken wantonly for food, without any 
thought or care as to what would be the result 
of such wasteful methods. Each gunner pur¬ 
posed to get his share while the game lasted. 
There was no thought of protecting it or in¬ 
creasing its numbers. 
This selfish spirit is shown by many hunters 
to-day. It is a perfectly natural manifestatipn 
of the normal greed handed down to us from 
primitive man. It shows the survival of the in¬ 
stinct of self-preservation which laughs altruism 
to scorn. The policy of protecting the gunner 
had produced so marked an effect in killing off 
and driving away the wildfowl during the seven¬ 
teenth century that in 17x0 a province law was 
passed in Massachusetts which prohibited the 
use in fowling of boats or canoes with sails, or 
of any kind of disguised craft. This was to 
prevent the disturbing of wildfowl on their feed¬ 
ing grounds in the bays and harbors of the towns 
along the coast. This was the first statute of 
which I have record, which shows any evidence 
of a disposition to conserve the birds. This act 
expired by limitation, but was re-enacted from 
time to time until the Revolutionary period, 
when it lapsed. Edward Howe Forbush. 
Ducks Scarce in Southwest. 
Los Angeles, Cal., Jan. 18 —Editor Forest and 
Stream: The sprig shooting, such as it has been, 
averaged better in the old Ballona district, scarce 
a dozen miles west of the city, than in the Bolsa 
marsh of Orange county. There is less water in 
the Ballona, and the grain was mostly threshed 
out. The wary birds were not disturbed as 
much as in the Bolsa, where the rapidly multi¬ 
plying clubs have been augmented by scores of 
road hunters banging away at impossible shots 
all week, respecting neither the laws of sports¬ 
manship nor those of the Commonwealth re¬ 
garding trespass. These chaps, some of them 
at least, have the idea that the clubs are very 
much down on them, and proceed along such 
lines as to make of the assumption a settled 
fact. As a matter of truth, no one cares how 
many ducks they get, but the useless mischief 
they do to the shooting of club men who have 
paid for it has built up an unfavorable senti¬ 
ment in the matter of road shooting or poach¬ 
ing, as it very often means when keepers’ backs 
are turned. Of course there can be only one 
ending to such a nuisance, and the shooters will 
have no one to thank but themselves when the 
roads one day are closed against them. This 
will work hardship upon some very decent fel¬ 
lows who shoot along the roads only because 
they cannot afford to belong to clubs, and to 
whom the club men are ready enough to extend 
the hand of fellowship, but none can attempt to 
deny that a lot of hoodlums, often in automo¬ 
biles, reinforced with jugs of whiskey, make a 
practice of raiding the roads to the detriment 
of their neighbors’ sport as well as the shoot¬ 
ing on the clubs. This more or less continuous 
bombardment at ducks, whether sky-high or not, 
has worked havoc all through Orange county, 
which enjoys the unique distinction of being one 
of the three counties in the State which have 
not as yet declared shooting on the public high¬ 
ways a misdemeanor. There seems to be a well 
defined idea that the reason is because some 
leading Orange county politicians like to shoot 
on the roads themselves. 
There were two shoots in December, one on 
the 15th the other on the 18th, that served to 
demonstrate the possibilities of the twenty-bore 
gun. On both days a high wind was blowing 
from the east, its velocity being something in 
excess of forty miles an hour. Birds could not 
make over twelve or fifteen miles an hour 
against it. Ducks coming at one low and against 
the gale seemed an hour getting up within range. 
Teal shot at would rise like kites and without 
apparent effort. Shooting was puzzling work. 
So often it was necessary to hold at what one 
naturally thought the wrong place in order to 
score a kill. Birds coming up against the wind, 
I started leading a couple of feet as with the 
sixteen, but soon found that was too much for 
the twenty with its great speed, and found that 
touching it off at their bellies with a swift up¬ 
ward swing seemed about right for the average 
shots. Occasional teal came down the wind, and 
if one saw them quick enough all the speed he 
could throw into a quick swing after and past 
the whizzing little marks ten, twelve or even 
twenty feet was none too much. How they 
would double up and turn end for end, or half 
shutting their wings dive at the water like fall- 
ink skyrockets to scale and rebound half way 
across a pond on impact. 
There is one shot that puzzles the best of them 
in the wind, and that is a crossing bird over¬ 
head, tacking or drifting across the gale at 
forty to fifty yards or higher, although one 
cannot kill as far into or across the wind as 
down it for obvious reasons. In high winds 
here the' sky is apt to be clear and there is noth¬ 
ing to gauge the actual direction of the bird’s 
travel by; the duck may be-heading a quarter 
into the wind and still be 1 falling off before it. 
With a twelve I used to play the wind a great 
deal, but with the twenties it seems better to be 
governed entirely by the bird and its apparent 
speed. ■ The little shot charge, tearing through 
the air at rifle bullet speed, was -little- more af¬ 
fected by the- wind than a solid projectile ap¬ 
parently. On birds apparently coming straight 
-across, but really quartering down the wind, sev- 
erab clean kills were made by leading them and 
swinging off into space to leeward, seeming a 
most indefensible thing to do. - The shot and 
the-bird met, however,-and proved the aim the 
only'correct one. 
On birds crossing to windward I tried leading 
the tip-of the near wing with the twenty, and 
found it was better to see the whole bird under 
the niuzzle. He was drifting in far more rapidly 
than seemed possible. Given the same shot down 
the wind, I made it a rule to swing low, expect¬ 
ing a quick angle shot if the first barrel missed 
connections. Some of the jumps would fool any¬ 
body, the bird being elsewhere. • Some good kills 
were made with the little gun right in the teeth 
of the wind which added to the surprises. 
For some time I had hoped to have a chance 
to try a twenty in the winds that we often have 
here. The sixteen had proved a thoroughly 
practicable gun, and did clean work at long 
range when loaded right. In this regard the 
twenty was to me a sort of unknown quantity, 
and the results were very gratifying. The shot 
seems to get to the mark more quickly and the 
work is cleaner. 
There is a simultaneousness about the work of 
a properly loaded twenty that the expert at once 
recognizes. Its little shot load hits the birds 
with one crack as against the spattering of the 
larger bores. Further, it cuts into the wind bet¬ 
ter and more accurately than any gun I have 
yet seen. The twenty-bore is here to stay and 
more are being shot all the time. They cannot 
compete with the twelve at the trap, but for 
field work I look for the day when the twelve 
will be obsolete. Edwin L. Hedderly. 
All the game laws of the United States and 
Canada, rezhsed to date and nozv in force, are 
given in the Game Lazos in Brief. See adv. 
