April 8, 1911.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
535 
The Use of Game. 
Browning, Mont., March 28. — Editor Forest 
and Stream: We all know that it is impos¬ 
sible for game to exist in most of the European 
countries except on preserves or under domesti¬ 
cation, and we are rapidly drifting that way. 
It has long seemed to me astonishing that the 
game laws of this State permit the killing of 
many of our wild game animals, but prohibit 
under severe penalties the saving or trying to 
domesticate them. 
Where would have been the buffalo if men 
had been fined and imprisoned for caring for 
them? No doubt elk eat up some hay, but the 
accounts are probably exaggerated and many 
stories get into the newspapers that have very 
little foundation. Range cattle eat hundreds of 
tons of ranchers’ hay where elk eat one. When 
we complain that his cattle destroy our hay, the 
rich cattle man laughs at us and jeeringly says, 
“Fence your hay.” Can you get damages for 
this destruction? Try it and you will see where 
you stand. You will be out more than hay; 
in fact, it will take several crops of hay to make 
you even. 
In my opinion a man should have the right 
to trap or to preserve beaver upon his own land. 
I believe the beaver is the greatest of moisture 
conservationists, and that he does hundreds of 
dollars’ worth of good where he does one cent’s 
worth of harm. Streams that used to run a 
large volume of water all summer fail now— 
the beaver have been trapped and high water 
has washed out the dams—just when the rancher 
and farmer need the water. 
A trapper of the present day never makes a 
dollar or saves any amount of money, and I do 
not believe that many people will weep at the 
passing of trapping as a profession. 
There is nothing more aggravating than to 
have a colony of beaver, or a family of kit 
foxes on your land and to have some trapper 
watch until you are away or busy, and then kill 
your foxes or trap your beaver. Beaver con¬ 
serve moisture; kit foxes catch a great many 
squirrels and grain-eating animals. 
Our plains, which are now almost barren, 
ought to support millions of antelope, grouse 
and wildfowl. There was a time on our great 
American continent when men both red and 
white lived by destruction, but the wilful and 
wasteful destruction of timber and the wanton 
killing of every living head of game that could 
be seen belong to the days that are gone for¬ 
ever. 
I believe that a man should be permitted to 
domesticate game under proper restrictions. But 
the man who wants beaver trapped on his own 
land must produce absolute proof that he is 
not trapping beaver that have strayed from some 
other person’s land for the night. 
I presume that in the long run it would be 
best for the Government to take charge of such 
things, though we should all kick and roar for 
a time. 
I believe elk would be a far more profitable 
animal for a man to raise for beef than cattle 
on the Western plains. Also that mountain 
sheep would be a great deal better from a finan¬ 
cial standpoint than domestic sheep. Neither 
will winter kill or die of poison in the summer. 
The time has come when we must cease living 
by destruction, for there is little left to destroy. 
We must now reconstruct what our forefathers 
and ourselves tore down. I would encourage the 
domestication and sale of all kinds of live game 
under proper restriction as regards capture. I 
would allow a man to trap or own beaver under 
proper supervision and on his own land. 
I was once going down the Missouri River 
with the State game warden of Montana, and an 
antelope followed our boat for a half mile. I 
called the warden’s attention to the fact that 
this antelope had been raised by a rancher and 
was as gentle and as playful as a lamb. It was 
against the law of Montana to catch or hold 
game, but the game warden only said: “That 
man is a Christian, but if he had that antelope 
in a small dirty pen and half fed with stuff un¬ 
suited to it, I would have him locked up inside 
of twenty-four hours.” 
And there is the secret of the whole matter; 
r 
A FIVE-INCH SECTION OF POPLAR LIMB TAKEN FROM 
A two-year-old buck's CHEST. 
to allow an ignorant, coarse brute to catch and 
snare game that had always been free and at¬ 
tempt to raise this game as he would swine 
would be a crime. To compel a careful con¬ 
scientious man to kill a slightly wounded or 
stunned animal when his whole nature longs 
to save it does injustice to the man and animal 
alike. Hence the need of careful and thorough 
supervision. 
A word about Federal or Government super¬ 
vision is worth speaking. The average Ameri¬ 
can does not so much object to supervision as 
he does to the manner of the man who does the 
supervising. A county official drawing a salary 
of $2,000 per annum is usually courteous, pleas¬ 
ant and sociable. A $1,200 Federal official from 
a distance is often as cold and unapproachable 
as the Czar of Russia. 
When the forest service was first started, 
many of the appointees did more to antagonize 
the movement than all other conditions com¬ 
bined. They seemed to imagine that the par¬ 
ticular reserve on which they were stationed 
was their individual estate to rule as they saw 
fit. The publications of the Forestry Bureau and 
the careful culling out of undesirable officials 
have greatly changed the sentiment of the West, 
and the forest reserves are being appreciated. 
So with game supervision; let the public and 
the supervisor know where he must stop and 
where the citizens’ rights begin. Americans do 
not take kindly to supervision, and we take less 
kindly to rough orders from an old country emi¬ 
grant who is sometimes the only one that will 
work for Government pay in this Western 
country. 
A quiet sensible man who can answer ques¬ 
tions as to diet, care and exercise, who hands 
you a pamphlet with laws, rules, regulations and 
advice, is worth all the bluffers on earth. 
Let us have supervision, but let us have the 
right kind of article. J. B. Monroe. 
Snagged Adirondack Buck. 
Poland, Herkimer County, N. Y., March 25.— 
Editor Forest and Stream: Not very long ago 
I was much interested in reading in Seton’s “Life 
Histories of Northern Animals” the description 
of the snagging of deer and little thought then 
that I was soon to find an example of the same 
myself. 
Last fall while hunting in the town of Wilmurt 
in the West Canada Creek country, we secured 
a two-year-old buck, and on dressing him out 
we were surprised to find driven into his chest 
a piece of poplar limb shown in the photograph. 
This piece measures five and one-half inches in 
length and one and three-eighths inches in di¬ 
ameter, and when found in the beast was en¬ 
cased in a sack of tissue. On the outside of the 
deer’s chest there was no sign or scar showing 
where the wood had entered. 
Trume Haskell, the well known guide of this 
section, who was along with us, claimed that of 
all the deer he had killed and seen killed, this 
was the second time he had noted such an occur¬ 
rence. The first was some years ago and the 
deer was snagged in one of his hind hams. The 
first mentioned deer was apparently healthy aqd 
semed to be in no way affected by this accident. 
Charles A. Gianini. 
[The experience of our correspondent is an in¬ 
teresting one, and as Mr. Seton suggests in his 
admirable work, such accidents are probably 
much more common than we imagine. The snag¬ 
ging of horses when going through down timber 
used to be not uncommon in the West, even 
though every effort was made by their riders to 
avoid such a danger. Woundings from fighting 
or in the capture of prey are another class of 
accidents that sometimes happen to animals. We 
recall many years ago seeing the case of a Rocky 
Mountain goat which had evidently been fighting, 
and in the ham of which was found imbedded 
the broken horn of another goat. Not long ago, 
in talking with a recently returned African hun¬ 
ter, he told of a recently killed lioness, in the 
shoulder of which was found, on skinning, the 
fragment of the tusk of a wart hog. 1 he 
lioness’s hide showed no scar on the outside and 
the wound had been inflicted during the capture 
of prey some time before.— Editor.] 
