March 26, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
495 
The Evening Flight. 
As we were sitting one night on the lawn of 
the Ribera Castellanos, a triangle of large ducks 
flying slowly came over the roof of the house 
and skimmed with many hoarse quacks the blue 
surface of Lake Chapala, disappearing in the 
haze on the opposite side of the great pond. 
“Let’s go after them to-morrow afternoon,” 
said Sumrow, and the next day, about 3 o’clock 
found guns and ammunition being carried out 
from the shore of the lake to a small freight 
canoe which was to carry us to the edge of the 
marsh, where we would be taken on board a 
larger canoe in which we could sleep. Then, 
mounting the shoulders of the two Indian boat¬ 
men, Sumrow and myself were carried through 
the shallow water to the boat, already loaded 
with freight for an Indian settlement up the 
lake, and both poling and sailing, away we went. 
At four we had reached the edge of the 
marshes, been transferred 
to the larger, tule-thatch- 
ed canoe, and the wide 
square sail bellying in 
the evening breeze, were 
headed into what had 
once been a river mouth 
before the marsh choked 
the life out of the stream 
and forced its waters to 
flow underground to the 
lake. 
The two boatmen seem¬ 
ed proud of their charges 
and were anxious to be¬ 
gin preparing the evening 
meal on their brick char¬ 
coal stove before we had 
thought of unlimbering 
the guns or opening the 
ammunition cases. We 
were standing in the 
waist of the boat, the Indian sailor in the bow, 
another in the stern, when the old Chapalan, 
rising on his tiptoes, pointed to the marshes 
and cried: “Look! look! the marshes; the 
marshes!’’ 
Before us lay a flat arm of the lake or mouth 
of the dead river, low, almost as the water on 
which we floated, 5,000 feet above sea level. 
Ducks were circling by myriads above the reed- 
grown flats to which they had come from the 
cornfields of Jalisco and Michoacan to settle 
down to their nightly rest. 
Here the feeding of the birds is exactly re¬ 
versed from their methods amid the cornfields 
of Minnesota or the wheatfields of Manitoba and 
Alberta. There the web feet feed at night and 
rest in hidden retreats during the day, so that 
the gunners shall not have so much of a chance 
at them. On Chapala’s marshes the sound of 
a gun is a novelty, and the ducks know no fear 
of man. I have passed through rafts of ducks 
resting on the lake when I could have almost 
hit birds on either side of the launch with an 
oar. 
The two men poled the big canoe well up into 
the marsh, into an aisle of water possibly ten 
feet wide and four or five feet deep. On either 
side a wall of rank vegetation shut us in, and 
all around was the noisy gabble of unseen mil¬ 
lions of waterfowl. Now and then a heron flap¬ 
ped leisurely overhead; once two jacksnipe, fly¬ 
ing like the wind, crossed us before either could 
raise a hand to delay them. 
The Indians unstepped the mast, put over the 
old stone idol anchor, and went into the tule- 
thatched cabin'to prepare the evening meal, from 
which we could no longer hold them back. I 
dropped down in the stern ‘of the boat which 
had swung at an angle across the current be¬ 
fore the sailors could put over another stone 
from the side. Mr. Sumrow took a like place 
in the bow, both of us screened from the sight 
of the birds by the overhanging thatch of the 
cabin. I was busily engaged slipping shells out 
of the case when my companion’s gun boomed 
out, and a second later the other barrel roared 
out its salute to a band of passing spoonies. It 
was a fine double and the prettiest shot of the 
evening. # 
Then the birds began to come in fast. I drop¬ 
ped a teal, missed the second shot and made a 
double when I had reloaded. The little sixteen 
was doing good work as usual, and I did not 
envy my friend his twelve-gauge, but I over¬ 
estimated a couple of redheads, and though both 
carried away shot, they did not fall. 
At the end of an hour, near dusk, we quit. 
I had thirteen birds and one in the tules which 
my human retriever failed to find, and Mr. 
Sumrow with fifteen. I had used twenty-one 
shells and had had an hour of as good sport 
with the gun as I ever care to have. 
That night we ate tortillas and beans and 
native cheese, drank the water of the lake, slept 
in serapes woven more years ago than I am 
old, and woke in the morning to find ourselves 
skimming across the lake, all sail set to break¬ 
fast at the hotel. On the way back I shot a 
jacksnipe flying over the water, an experience 
I never had before. Harry H. Dunn. 
Opposed to the Commission. 
New Orleans, La., March 18 .—Editor Forest 
and Stream: The hunting season in Louisiana 
is practically over now and very few are going 
out with their guns. The weather is quite warm, 
the mercury registering eighty several days re¬ 
cently. It is still permissible to kill blue-winged 
teal, wild turkey cocks, snipe, sandpipers, 
cherooks and papabottes, but game has become 
scarce. * ' F. G. G. 
Killing the Goose. :: 
I regret having been compelled to prosecute 
during the present year for infractions of the 
fishery laws a number of fishermen, farmers and 
others, who, having obtained licenses for alleged 
domestic purposes, have grossly abused the privi¬ 
leges accorded them by illegally catching, selling 
and exporting black bass. These parties fool¬ 
ishly killing the goose that lays the golden egg. 
Most of these infractions occurred in localities 
and vicinities of summer resorts visited by large 
numbers of foreign tourists, the attraction being 
the angling for bass and other game fish. It is 
surprising that men living in these favored lo¬ 
calities should be so shortsighted to their own 
permanent interests as these men have proven 
themselves to be for doubtful and temporary 
gain. These men, instead of being poachers and 
lawbreakers, if alive to their own interests, 
would neither violate the law nor allow others 
to do so. Having a mar¬ 
ket for their produce and 
a demand for their ser¬ 
vices as guides, etc., and 
highly remunerative 
terms, should convince 
them of the folly of their 
past conduct and the wis¬ 
dom of the Government 
in protecting and perpetu¬ 
ating the interests of 
those evidently unable to 
protect themselves. I fail 
to realize why the con¬ 
ditions of a license to 
take fish from the public 
waters should not be 
carried out and observed 
to the same extent as 
those relating to cutting 
and taking timber from 
the public domain. They 
are both valuable assets, and the same conditions 
should prevail. There is only one way to ac¬ 
complish this, and that is to let all obtaining 
licenses realize in the most unmistakable manner 
that it is a business transaction, and must be 
carried out on business principles to the fullest 
extent, and in the event of their failure to do so 
no influence will be tolerated or allowed to shield 
them from the consequences of their wrong do¬ 
ing. Men who knowingly take public property 
in excess of that they are legally entitled to by 
lease or license are not honest, and when caught 
have no right or cause to complain at being 
treated the same as other wrong doers. 
The Government in the interests of the gen¬ 
eral public has been compelled to withdraw the 
privilege of hunting permits that have been 
grossly abused by residents in certain portions 
of organized territory to whom they were issued. 
It is time the settlers realized how unwise their 
conduct has been in the wanton destruction of 
game and fish. They fail to realize that with 
the disappearance of game and fish in the north¬ 
ern portions of the province that the tourist 
would also disappear, and with them the large 
amounts they annually spend in the province by 
which all portions of the community are bene¬ 
fited. The tourist business in the province is as 
yet comparatively undeveloped. The more I see 
*From the third annual report of the Ontario Game 
and Fisheries Department. 
