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FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Nov. 20, 1909'. 
mission, is one of the happiest of men just at 
the present on account of his good luck in se¬ 
curing a splendid game reserve in Caldwell 
parish of 6,000 acres from the United States 
Government. While the papers have not been 
formally signed, it is almost certain they will 
receive the sanction of President Taft in the 
next few days. This land is virgin forest and 
consists principally of the finest of oak and 
cypress timber and is the last of the land pur¬ 
chased from France in 1803 by President Jef¬ 
ferson. Bayou Lafourche runs through a large 
portion of it and tens of thousands of ducks, 
wild turkeys, squirrels, rabbits, deer and other 
birds and animals inhabit these forests. Mr. 
Miller considers this the finest game reserve in 
the United States. He discovered it by accident 
while on a speaking tour some weeks ago and 
immediately got into communication with the 
Government. The pictures were taken by Mr. 
Miller and show a portion of the forest. 
The commission has inaugurated a new sys¬ 
tem by compelling each market hunter to use 
tags on his shipment. On these tags must be 
written the number of birds, the date when they 
were killed, the names of the consignor and con¬ 
signee and other data. These tags are attached 
to the box or barrel containing the birds and 
are distributed by the several game wardens in 
the parishes. This new system is devised for 
the purpose of preventing a violation of the 
several laws on the subject of the individual 
kill per day, which is twenty-five to each per¬ 
son actually hunting and holding a license. 
This system has just been put into effect and 
sufficient time has not elapsed to determine its 
practical features. It seems probable it will 
meet with some opposition on the part of the 
market hunters, as all methods adopted by the 
board have been more or less frowned upon. 
The policy of the commission has been to equal¬ 
ize matters fietween the pleasure hunter and the 
market or pot-hunter and to hold the profes¬ 
sional to strict accountability. It has been 
pointed out that the market hunters would soon 
depopulate the fields and forests of the game 
and there would be none left for those who 
want to hunt for mere recreation or pleasure 
and also those who desire to kill game for their 
own tables. There are also many who hunt from 
necessity in the country districts. The Game 
Commission proposes to control shipments of 
game, and in order to have a more systematic 
basis the tag system was devised. F. G. G. 
Fantail or Towhead. 
Soda Springs, Nev., Nov. 10.— Editor Forest 
and 1 Stream: The old question of the fantail 
deer, while long ago forgotten by most Forest 
and Stream readers, has always interested me. 
The first I ever saw of the fantail was in 
Mendocino county, California, near the head¬ 
waters of Eel River and Ten Mile Creek. That 
was long ago, in 1872. They were very rare 
then and were called Chemeche by the Indians 
and white hunters of that region. Two years 
later I was in Southern Oregon in the Goose 
Lake and Loon Lake country, where I found 
them called flagtail from the habit they have of 
carrying their tail up when running and drop¬ 
ping it the instant they are scratched with lead. 
I judged they were of the same species as the 
Chemeche of California. For years after that 
I saw no more of them, although I was hunt¬ 
ing often in Mexico, Arizona, New Mexico and 
all through the Rockies of Colorado and south. 
In the fall of ’80 I fell in with an old Laramie 
plains hunter at Cheyenne, Wyo. We con¬ 
cluded to go north and trap for beaver in the 
Tongue and Powder river countries. En route 
he told me many stories of different animals 
and among others spoke of what the old moum 
tain men called the little towhead, saying we 
would be likely to find some of them on Goose 
Creek near the north line of Wyoming. 
We succeeded in killing there I think the 
smallest five-point buck I ever saw. My com¬ 
panion knew no name for it, but towhead, 
while I am sure it was the same species as the 
Chemeche and flagtail. 
The next spring I started out from Miles 
City at the junction of Tongue and Yellowstone 
rivers. We traveled up Tongue to Pumpkin 
Creek, then up Pumpkin to the north fork of 
that creek, and then turned west to the Little 
Wolf Mountains crossing the divide to the head¬ 
waters of Otter Creek, which empties into 
Tongue River. This seemed to be a favored 
locality for this little deer, as it was for al¬ 
most every kind of game then. It was there I 
first heard the name fantail. I found no hun¬ 
ters who had ever seen the little deer of Cali¬ 
fornia and Oregon, so it is my own opinion 
that they are the same class of deer. In these 
hills I found many of their horns, all very small 
and crumply. I have hunted much in the brakes 
of the Cheyenne, the Moreau or Owl River and 
Grand River hills. Slim Buttes, Short Pines, 
Cane Hills and the Pomme Blanche hills and 
spent a winter in that wild and indescribable 
section of country known as the Bad Lands of 
the Little Missouri. Of white and blacktail 
deer there were plenty, but I have never met 
the little towhead or fantail since I left the 
Little Wolf Mountains. 
I would like very much to hear from them 
or of them. J. J. Fulton. 
Massachusetts Game Notes. 
Greenfield, Mass., Nov. 7. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: A long tramp yesterday covering a 
lot of good country showed that birds were 
scarce. Three of 11s secured four partridges 
and one woodcock, a late flight bird. During 
the whole day we saw only fourteen partridges, 
of which six were too wild to permit us to get 
near them. I shot the woodcock and one par¬ 
tridge. 
A good many woodcock have been shot this 
fall. Several bags of from ten to fifteen were 
reported in October, during the flight. 
T. L. C. 
Got Away. 
Placervili.e, Cal., Nov 3. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: Deputy Fish Commissioner Geo. Wil¬ 
liamson, Jr., of Rescue, brought this morning 
to the county hospital a two-year-old doe which 
was killed by two unknown men who escaped 
from the commissioner while he was running to 
the scene of the shooting. The men wore blue 
jumpers, but could not be identified. They would 
have been fined $50 each if captured. The doe 
was walking in Webber Creek when she was 
shot and fell in the middle of the creek with a 
bullet through her heart. Nix. 
North Carolina Bears and Fires. 
Linville Falls, N. C, Nov. 10 .—Editor 
Forest and Stream: Bear hunting and forest 
fires have furnished plenty of excitement in this 
region for the past two weeks or more. The 
largest black bear that has been taken by any 
means in this vicinity for several years 
was killed by John Wiseman about a mile 
from the Linville Falls postoffice a few days 
ago. The big fellow had been committing some 
depredations in the settlement up the river three 
miles, tearing down stacked corn and eating it, 
and making forays upon the farm yards for the 
tender young pigs, of which bruin is very fond. 
A hunt was organized with the Burleson and 
Wiseman hounds, a dozen mountaineers partici¬ 
pating. The dogs soon struck the trail and the 
hunters either followed , as best they could or 
cut across the several stations where the bear 
was likely to pass. At the first of these was 
Edgar Burleson, the young fellow who dis¬ 
covered and helped to capture three bear cubs 
in Linville canon last year. Though only four¬ 
teen years old, he is an experienced bear hunter. 
He had the good luck to get the first shot and 
at close range. He had only a single-barreled 
shotgun loaded with buckshot, but he employed 
it with good effect, for it was afterward found 
that four of his shot had struck the bear be- * 
hind the shoulder, but a little too low to kill. 
At another station Harry Lorick, of Knox¬ 
ville, Tenn., who fortunately was here for sport ; 
and joined the hunt, had a shot and inflicted > 
another wound,, but the bear still went on, headed > 
for the gorge and safety. He whipped the pur¬ 
suing dogs twice, but they obeyed orders and 
went back, one of the best to be killed by hav¬ 
ing its back crushed in the jaws of the mad¬ 
dened beast. Finally the bear was cornered in 
a rocky cavern on the rim of the canon where 
Wiseman found him fighting with the dogs and 
about to kill them all. At the first shot he 
rolled down a steep decline and it took three 
shots at close range to finish him. The men > 
came up a few at a time, those that had not been 
lost from the trail in the high wind, and the 
prize, after having been dressed, was swung on 
a pole and carried nearly a mile through a tangle t 
of briers and birch, logs and rocks to the river, 
whence it was hauled to the village. It then 
weighed 224 pounds and the hide when stretched 
measured six feet six inches in length and more 
in width. The fur at this season was only 
fair. 
The meat was of course exceedingly tough if 
cooked in the usual way, fried when quite fresh. 
That, in my opinion, is a poor way to cook bear 
meat. If allowed to hang a week in cool weather 
where the air can circulate around it, it will be 
found to be perfectly sweet and quite tender, 
but the best way to handle tough bear meat is 
to stew it when it is properly seasoned or cured. 
It makes a delicious stew with vegetables, and 
bear soup is one of the choice decoctions en¬ 
joyed by only a few who have learned about it. 
The meat was in great demand here, for the 
mountain people are very fond of it. The rule 
of division is that the meat is divided equally 
among all who were in the “race”; that is, who 
followed the hounds. The pelt is sold and the 
proceeds divided among the* owners of the dogs. 
The satisfaction of these hunters was complete, 
though they were all badly scratched by the 
