056 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[April 23, 1910. 
with half a glance if a man understands how to 
ride from the moment he sees him put his 
leg across a horse. So with shooting, a novice 
or inexperienced man with a gun is always easy 
to tell, unless he be the one exception to the 
rule. Therefore, until the pupil is thoroughly 
au fait in carrying and handling his gun, keep 
his nose to the grindstone, and on this point 
be firm, for the firmer you are, and the longer 
you keep him at it, the better in this respect 
and keener will he become, and appreciate the 
real thing all the more when he gets it. 
Good shooting only comes with practice. The 
pupil may be told certain things to do in 
theory, but that is all. To make him steady 
and impress upon him that keeping cool and 
collected is the best means to insure hitting 
his object ipust be the endeavor. He must try 
to see clearly whatever he desires to hit, and 
not merely have a hazy notion of something 
brown moving in front of him, at which he 
points his gun, and lets drive haphazard before 
he thoroughly sees it. This is where being cool 
comes in, and he who can keep command of 
nerve and eye is the one who comes out “on 
top.” Among brother sportsmen rapid fir¬ 
ing, letting off both barrels before an older 
man would scarcely have fired even his first 
barrel, is altogether wrong, and though such 
men as the late Maharajah Duleep Singh, who 
was one of the most marvelous shots of his 
day, was remarkably quick in this respect, one 
cannot advise beginners to attempt or to imi¬ 
tate such an exception. 
A beginner must remember that guns carry a 
long distance, and at from thirty to forty yards 
and further a bird or rabbit is killed stone dead, 
and at the same time is not mutilated. Now, 
thirty or forty yards looks a long distance at 
first, but it is, in fact, easier to bring down a 
bird at this distance than at ten to fifteen yards. 
The simple reason for this is obvious, the 
further a shot travels the more it spreads, both 
in breadth and depth, and hence the greater 
chance of the object fired at being struck. 
N9W if the pupil is framing in the right way, 
and he can be depended upon not to lose his 
head when anything jumps up unexpectedly, 
let him, from trying his prentice hand at small 
birds, have a shot at some pigeons or starlings 
placed under a trap, or if there is not one avail¬ 
able, under a flower-pot, to which is attached 
a string. These, if not very brilliant flyers, 
will be all the better, and will afford him some 
easy shots. If this is not feasible, or the idea 
not liked, then have a spring trap and some clay 
pigeons, or a few rabbits caught up, and turned 
down one at a time in a field. Capital practice 
is this, as he is not likely to be flurried, and so 
he will gain confidence, as he finds he can stop 
some of them. All this time it is most de¬ 
sirable that only one person be out with the 
pupil—it is better for him in every respect and 
safer. In turning down rabbits, he must be 
made to understand that he has got to be un¬ 
commonly careful where he points his gun, for 
it often happens that when a rabbit is turned 
down in a field, and the pupil is standing be¬ 
tween the rabbit and the hedge, it will come 
straight back toward him in its attempt to 
reach the hedge. Then it is that in endeavor¬ 
ing to get a shot at it he will follow it round 
with his gun, thus causing any one present to 
(C<ntinued on page 6 77.) 
Game and Trapping. 
Little Falls, N. Y., April 9. — Editor F01 est 
and Stream: Hard rains in early March, fol¬ 
lowed by a few days “sugar weather,” after 
which came continued thaws on blight sunny 
days, took the ice out of the lakes a month 
earlier than usual and left only a few inches of 
snow in the swamps. Last year a man walked 
the length of Honnedaga Lake on the ice on 
May 7; this year the ice was gone weeks earlier. 
This seems to mean better conditions for game 
of all kinds, notably for deer and grouse. I saw 
twelve or fourteen deer on the crust following 
the big thaw of early March and most of them 
looked and acted as though they were in good 
condition for the season. Woodsmen claim that 
even well-fed deer grow lean in late February 
and March. That some of the deer were lean 
is shown by the fact that they could walk on 
packed _snow without breaking through. This 
was in the Canachagala Lake neighborhood. 
Some of the deer dragged their hoofs in the 
snow as if they were weary. One deer was 
around South Lake all winter and its tracks 
were easily recognized by the dragging of its 
hoofs. It was probably wounded in the fall. 
Trappers say deer wintered very well on the 
average. The early part of the winter was favor¬ 
able and the loose snow of February was no 
worse than usual. The break-up came in time 
to prevent acute conditions. Very few deer died 
of hunger and I heard of only two deer being 
found dead in the woods. The menace of the 
deer cruster is departing rapidly under efficient 
game protection. More protectors go into the 
woods and follow up the tracks of suspects, and 
this fact is a great deterrent. Few, if any, trap¬ 
pers use venison for bait. 1 he most successful 
one that I know used porcupines this winter, as 
he has done for years, with the result that he 
caught a number of fishers which are tempted 
by porcupines when no other bait appeals. 
There were more trappers in the woods this 
winter than in years. Few of them made ordi¬ 
nary day wages, due chiefly to inability, inex¬ 
perience and laziness. There were eight or ten 
trappers up the West Canada, but only one man 
made any money. A school teacher who set a 
few traps in the fall caught $90 worth of fur 
during November and December, including nine 
mink. This was more than he received for 
teaching school in the same time. 
There was a good deal of jealousy. Some 
trappers followed the lines of other trappers 
and one man figured he lost $50 worth of fur. 
“They needed it, I suppose,” he said. Two trap¬ 
pers in the center of the wilderness—Pashley is 
one of them—caught over 100 mink in Novem¬ 
ber and early December. 
The law protecting fur bearers (skunks, mink, 
muskrat and marten) seems to meet with ap¬ 
proval. Trappers say it will help in the spring, 
when breeding is at hand, and that it will pre¬ 
vent too early trapping of “blue hides.” Trap¬ 
pers all over the country are greatly con¬ 
cerned over the increasing scarcity of furs, and 
where the beneficial results of protecting game 
are apparent, trappers are becoming awakened 
to the need of protective measures for fur. I 
saw a paragraph to the effect that trappers in 
one locality had delegated one of their number 
to destroy traps set too early and too late. 
Lumbering operations have driven the marten 
hither and yon, and it is doubtful whether they 
are increasing or not. 1 hey are green timber 
animals and the destruction of the spruce, hem¬ 
lock and pine bothers them more than it bothers 
other animals. One trapper noted that they cross 
valleys now more than ever, and that traps along 
brooks, intended for mink, caught marten as 
often as mink. 
Fishers and mink seem to be more numerous. 
Perhaps marten will increase with the plain in¬ 
crease now of Northern hares. For several years 
hares have been very scarce, but this winter they 
are much more numerous. 
Foxes are not so abundant, probably because 
of trappers. I measured one track two inches 
wide and two and a half inches long on Nobles- 
borough Mountain a few weeks ago, the largest 
fox track I ever saw. 
A trapper told me about seeing where a fisher 
climbed a birch tree and sprang out at a par¬ 
tridge. The fisher caught the bird and fell with 
it to the loose snow, landing on its side and 
making a dent, tail and all, as if the fisher had 
seized the bird with jaws and all four claws. 
I saw where a rabbit started across a lake, be¬ 
came frightened, leaped zig-zag and finally 
reached the woods, but there were no other 
tracks in the snow. Perhaps it was an owl, but 
it looked more like panic. R. S. Spears. 
Kills Pregnant Does. 
Boston, Mass., April 1 6 .— Editor Forest and 
Stream: On Wednesday H. A. Estabrook, of 
Fitchburg, spoke before the fish and game com¬ 
mittee on game sanctuaries and other subjects. 
Mr. Estabrook holds the opinion that the land 
owned or controlled at present by the State on 
Martha’s Vineyard is especially adapted to the 
raising of quail and should be so used. The use 
of live decoys will go on the same as hereto¬ 
fore, only two members of the committee dis¬ 
senting from the vote of the majority to refer 
both the Gifford and Hallett bills to the next 
general court. 
Those of our friends who would stop all bird 
shooting if they could and those who would re¬ 
duce the killing to a very diminutive number, 
will naturally regret the loss of those bills. The 
various sanctuary bills have shared the same fate, 
although the committee has voted favorably on 
a bill for the expenditure of $10,000 for the pur¬ 
chase of a game farm, knowing of course that 
the committee on ways and mean, to whom the 
bill must go, are the natural watch dogs of the 
State Treasury. The fate of the farmers’ deer 
law is hanging in the balance. Members of the 
committee are inclined to grant an open season 
of perhaps six days in three or four of the 
western counties, although they admit that 
legislators from Berkshire are divided in opinion 
on that question. Some of the most influential 
among them are opposed. 
An event of the past week should make all 
thoughtful members “stop and ta“ke notice” be¬ 
fore final action. Under a plea that deer were 
injuring his rye, a farmer in the town of Frank¬ 
lin has shot one doe containing three fawns in 
embryo, and another containing one. For the 
first time since the privilege of killing deer 
causing damage to crops, a dozen or more have 
been killed in that town recently, and the fact 
of such wanton destruction has arbused no little 
indignation among the citizens. 
Henry H. Kimball. 
