494 
[March 26, 1910. 
. 
that it is now time to hand over what is left. 
If any of the several propositions have merit, 
why not submit one or two at a time and let the 
people say what they think of them? The very 
fact that no clear cut amendments are proposed, 
but instead a blanket one permitting at once 
nearly all of the several grabs so often attempted, 
justifies the suspicion that we cannot yet expect 
dealings in good faith. David Carl. 
Canada’s Buffalo Park. 
Some two years ago at the time of the pur¬ 
chase of the Pablo buffalo from the Flat Head 
Reservation the Dominion Government availed 
itself of the opportunity of having sixteen 
sections of land fenced in with a woven wire 
fence eight feet high, posts twelve feet apart 
and six feet in the ground. Nothing smaller 
than an elephant could break through. The buf¬ 
falos tried many times and nearly got their 
necks broken. 
The buffalo wintered at Elk Park in 1908-1909, 
and in the spring of 1909 a number were sent 
to the Buffalo Park at Wainwright on the Grand 
Trunk Pacific, leaving forty-three at Elk Park, 
Lamont. 
The Buffalo Park at Wainwright, fenced in a 
similar manner as the Elk Park, has an area 
that requires seventy-five miles of fencing. Tons 
of hay have been put up in the park for the buf¬ 
falo, and up to the middle of January none had 
been required for feed. There are 630 head 
of buffalo now at Wainwright. 
One buffalo bull had to be shot this winter, 
owing to an accident last winter—slipping on 
the ice of the Lake “Asbotin.” He broke his 
shoulder blade; the shoulder shrank up. This 
winter it was decided to execute him, the hide 
and meat being in good shape. Ed Carey was 
appointed executioner and he killed the buffalo 
with one shot from his little .25-35. An hour 
afterward the meat and skin were safely packed 
away on the awaiting sleigh. From the sale 
of the meat and hide Mr. Douglas expects to 
realize $400. He states the head is the finest 
in the world. 
The total of buffalo is as follows: 
Wainwright . 63° 
Elk Park . 43 
Banff . 15 
688 
Further shipment from Flat Head.. 140 
828 
Estimated calf crop, 1910. 150 
978 
Besides this great herd of buffalo in the park 
at Wainwright, a number of moose are to be 
turned in there. At last accounts a couple of 
young cows were on the way from Lesser Slave 
Lake, and it is purposed to transfer some moose 
from Banff to the Buffalo Park. This immense 
reservation, therefore, is likely to be one of the 
great game preserves of North America—a pre¬ 
serve from which other regions can well be 
stocked. 
All the game laws of the United States and 
Canada, revised to date and now in force, are 
given in the Game Laws in Brief. See adv. 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
Again the Woodcock. 
Cherry Hill, Branford, Conn. — Editor Forest 
and Stream: Where I live in the good old town 
of Branford, woodcock are our most common 
game bird and have been for the past thirty 
years, as I have shot them every fall for more 
than a generation. 
There are more woodcock breeding here than 
there were thirty years ago. My nephew found 
eleven nests this last spring within a mile of my 
house. In the spring of 1908 he found eight. In 
some cases there were two or three broods with¬ 
in a quarter of a mile of each other. Branford 
is a large town with many fine breeding places, 
and I should think that fifty pairs would be a 
small number to breed here in one season. 
We see them in numbers in July in the thick 
swamps, but they certainly disappear when the 
moult begins—which is about the time of our 
long summer drouth—and do not reappear until 
the middle of October, when they are full of 
pin feathers. I killed several in that condition 
last year. When you do find them during the 
moult, they are in dense briers and hard to find 
and harder to get up. 
The time of the flight varies. The earliest I 
have known was on the nth day of October. 
The best flights are from the 20th of October 
till the 15th of November. 
The great flight of 1908 was from the 13th of 
November until the 20th. They were here then 
by the hundreds. I moved forty or fifty in a 
morning, twenty-five in one piece of sprouts— 
hickory with light alluvial soil underneath. Six 
and eight in one place were common during this 
flight. 
The duration of the flight depends much upon 
the weather. I have known it to be over by the 
15th of November, but many years it is pro¬ 
longed until after Thanksgiving. One can gen¬ 
erally count on good woodcock shooting if we 
get an early November snow followed by mild 
weather. 
Woodcock sometimes stay with us all winter. 
In 1907 one made his home in an old mill owned 
by our next neighbor. He lived in the shed/ 
that covered the stream below the big wheel. 
The winter was mild and there was no frost in 
the mill shed, and he had good feed along the 
flume. 
We have not had a poor flight of woodcock 
here for years. This last season was perhaps 
the worst on account of the terrible drouth, the 
poor birds having few places to feed in, but I 
have had good shooting, though I was obliged 
to hunt harder to find the birds. If the birds 
were not killed in such immense numbers in 
the cane brakes of the South where they winter, 
their numbers would be greatly increased. 
Woodcock breed here on the edges of our old 
pastures, especially those that border on a swamp 
or low woods. A favorite spot is one near a 
brook or spring. 
We find the nests early in April. Oftentimes 
we have heavy frost after the eggs are laid, but 
I have never known an egg fail to hatch nor 
have I seen more than four eggs in a nest. The 
old birds arrive here the last of February. Many 
stay to breed, but far more go on to the north 
where the great breeding grounds are to be 
found. 
I am glad to note that more people are using 
small-bore guns. I have not used a twelve-bore 
for many years, but have a little twenty that 
kills quite far enough. J- W. N. 
Norwalk, Conn .—Editor Forest and Stream. 
Your article on the woodcock, asking for intor- 
mation in regard to its present distribution, in¬ 
terested me, although I am not able to contribute 
a great deal. I thought a few points might be 
of interest. 
The woodcock breeds in this locality, but to 
a limited extent. Every year I hear of one or 
two nests and last spring I flushed a number of 
birds in pairs, which were undoubtedly mated 
and probably bred in the vicinity. We cannot 
call the woodcock numerous here, but there are 
some with us every summer. It is hard to say 
whether the natives leave before the flight birds 
arrive, but I think they do. The flight date 
varies from year to year, but as a rule it comes 
about the last week in October and sometimes 
the first week in November. Sometimes the 
flight is strung out for two weeks, and then 
again it may be over in three or four days, after 
which you may pick up a few stragglers. 
The weather conditions which bring on the 
flight seem to be a few nights with hard frost 
and calm, clear moonlight nights. Snow north 
of us also will start them moving. We do not 
often see woodcock after the middle of Novem¬ 
ber, but I am told by some of the farmers that 
they have seen them after the season closes on 
Dec. 1. This seems rather doubtful, but may 
be so. 
I think the flights of 1907, 1908, 1909 were 
larger than the previous three years, and cer¬ 
tainly the flight of 1908 was the largest in a long 
time, the birds all coming in the space of four 
or five days, and they were everywhere. Many 
hunters killed more than fifty birds that year, 
if reports are true, and I think it could easily 
have been done, as the birds were very plenti¬ 
ful. 
The saving of the woodcock is going to be a 
hard problem, as it is not possible to breed them 
in captivity, in my opinion, as will be done with 
the quail and grouse in time. The feeding grounds 
are becoming scarcer every day and are bound 
to continue to contract. Many birds are killed 
by the wires and every year I have cases of this 
kind brought to my notice. 
My knowledge of the damage done by the 
colored man of the South is limited, but when 
in Virginia I could not find out anything about 
the woodcock, whether the flight reached them, 
when it came or how numerous the birds were. 
I have often wondered what route the woodcock 
took on its southern flight, and how far they 
went. It seems to me the season could be short¬ 
ened in the Southern States to great advantage. 
This fall I had one good day during the flight, 
and although two of us only accounted for nine 
woodcock, it was a day full of good sport with 
a splendid dog, and the birds coming often 
enough to keep you going hard until too dark 
to shoot, and then you knew'you were tired and 
had two miles to go to the wagon. We found 
the .birds in open swampy fields and many in 
the weeds, although the season had been very 
dry and there was no water in places where 
usually you could not cross at all. Your idea 
in asking for information in regard to the habits, 
flight, etc., of woodcock in different parts of 
the country seems to me a mighty good one. 
Woodcock. 
