656 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[April 29, 1911. 
To the Connecticut Legislature. 
Sandy Hook, Conn., April 18. —Editor Forest 
and Stream: I wish to plead through your valu¬ 
able paper to every member of the Connecticut 
Legislature, its committee on fish and game, and 
for the influence of every sportsman to give 
more protection to that noblest of all our game 
birds, the ruffed grouse or partridge, which, 
under the present law, is fast becoming extinct. 
When the fViSent law was passed it was thought 
to afford sufficient protection, and that grouse 
would increase, but in the last two or three 
years, with the increase of sportsmen, of rapid 
firing guns and last but not least of the auto¬ 
mobile, have shown that the present law does 
not suffice to keep up the supply. The automo¬ 
bile is one of the most destructive of all these 
agents. It enables the sportsmen to crowd three 
or four days’ shooting into one, and then return 
home at night for dinner. 
These are some of the reasons why the par¬ 
tridge has decreased from one-third to one-half 
in the last two or three years. 
The Legislature must act and act at once. 
Talking alone will not do, if it hopes to save 
this noble bird that cannot be restocked. In all 
probability the Legislature will not come to¬ 
gether again for two years and I fear then it 
will be too late to save this bird. I plead with 
the legislators to give it more protection before 
adjournment. Take ten or fifteen days off the 
last end of the season, when the leaves are off 
and the birds are getting together in swales. 
You can kill more partridges during the last 
fifteen days of November than in a’l the rest 
of the season. Also cut the number that may 
be killed during the open season to ten or fifteen 
and establish State game refuges. I think such 
action will give them the desired protection. Do 
not make a close season for a number of years. 
That would be worse than folly, for there is a 
class of pot-hunters that will steal in with some 
trap, snare or device, and in that way cause 
more destruction than if permitted to shoot for 
a short season. Besides, there would be no fund 
to fight or prosecute them with. To cut off the 
shooting is to cut off the license fees, and so 
the money to be used in protection. This tax or 
fund comes from where it belongs, from the 
men that carry the guns. Those who do not 
shoot pay nothing—which is right. 
The partridge is not a bird of song; neither— 
while he is a beautiful bird—will he parade him¬ 
self before you to show his beauty. His habits 
are secretive. He likes the dense cover far from 
all mankind. It is not for his song or his beauty 
that he was given to us. Our Creator gave man 
this noble bird to enjoy, but not to annihilate. 
You must protect if you wish to propagate; you 
cannot eat your good cake and save it, too. 
If you put a thousand dollars in the bank at 
4 per cent, it will draw $40; in a year you can 
spend that and still have your principal left. 
Each year lately instead of killing 40 per cent, 
we have been killing sixty to eighty, thereby 
cutting down our stock to an alarming extent. 
Suppose we use half of our income and leave 
the other half to add to our principal. The re¬ 
sult would be very gratifying to all. It cannot 
possibly do any harm. For when the birds in¬ 
crease and the sportsman’s pleasure also in¬ 
creases, everybody is happy, even the pot-hunter. 
I wish to give to the birds 60 per cent, and to 
the sportsmen 40. Then they are bound to in¬ 
crease. 
By shortening the season fifteen days on the 
last end, and reducing the number to be killed 
to ten or fifteen during the season, and by the 
establishing of State game preserves, this in¬ 
crease will be accomplished. I sincerely hope 
the Legislature will so amend the present law 
before it adjourns. 
Let us suppose that the partridges in Con¬ 
necticut had become extinct—entirely wiped out 
—and it were possible to restock them this 
spring. We would need fully as many as are 
now left to restock with. Is there a sane sports¬ 
man living that would advise letting the birds 
be shot for two months this fall and leaving 
the limit to kill at thirty-six, as the law now 
stands? Can you call that ■ protection? The 
Legislature will make a great mistake if it does 
not amend the present law before it adjourns. 
I am pleading for the noblest game bird that 
ever spread a wing. He cannot plead for him¬ 
self, nor even appear before the Legislature, 
which is the jury, in whose hands his life is. 
Save him by amending the present law. 
E. Taylor. 
The Use of Game. 
Kettle Falls, Wash., April 10. — Editor 
Forest and Stream: The question of the preser¬ 
vation of the remaining wild game of the United 
States is one now squarely confronting its peo¬ 
ple and one demanding immediate attention. 
To the old timers of a now fast fading genera¬ 
tion—particularly those of us who for the past 
thirty years have been side tracked in the moun¬ 
tain gorges of the Pacific coast region—the ques¬ 
tion is suggestive of deep sadness as we recollect 
the situation in long gone days when buffalo, elk, 
antelope and deer swarmed on plain, valley and 
mountain slope which we remember to have seen 
when they could have been numbered only by 
hundreds and by thousands. But how the scene 
changes with a varying point of view. I well 
remember when, in 1854, I, an eager boy, in¬ 
fatuated with the love of the great wilderness, 
stood by my father’s side on the then far fron¬ 
tier of Western Iowa listening to the wild 
prophecy of an enthusiastic neighbor whom the 
whole little settlement regarded as wildly vision¬ 
ary, who declared his firm conviction that the 
child was then born who would live to see a 
railway built across the great plains and moun¬ 
tains clear to the Pacific coast. 
It seemed as absurd to the listening group as 
the fancy that game animals would really become 
scarce in the great wild land to the west of 
us during the life time of some of the listeners. 
Yet the question is shaped into just this form 
to-day—that what is to be done must be done 
quickly if any hope of preserving the wild game 
animals of America be entertained. 
To me it appears plain that the national parks 
and forest reserves should be made permanent 
refuges for the wild game animals adapted to 
the different localities, and the starving elk of 
Wyoming; indeed, all the overflowing life of 
the game animals of the Yellowstone National 
Park should be maintained during winter at the 
expense of the general Government. 
What American worthy the name would be¬ 
grudge the few cents of his additional taxation 
to preserve this magnificent relic of the abundant 
animal life of the plains and mountains in the 
long ago days, “The days of old, the days o 
gold, the days of ’49?” 
Preserve the beaver? Yes, but with a proviso 
A very interesting little creature is the beavei 
but sometimes very destructive. Keep him se 
cure on the park and forest reserve ground 
and outside of those regions when he does no 
trouble too much. Let the unnecessary ones b 
trapped by experts alone—by men who ca 
catch the old males with the largest pelts an 
which are the pioneers in aggressive movements i 
their small emigrations in search of new territory 
I learned to trap beaver from the reading c 
an old time book from the pen of Captain Jamc 
Smith who was taken prisoner by Indians a fe' 
miles east of Fort Duquesne about a week b( 
fore Braddock’s defeat, and who remained 
prisoner with the Indians of Ohio for five year 
So completely did he describe the India 
method of taking the beaver that when I fo 
lowed his careful directions, success came in 
mediately, and the first beaver I ever saw 
took from my own traps. 
If I have not forgotten all I knew in the o 
trapping days, I can do this trick of taking tl 
old males and leaving the others. Doubtle 
many of the old timers can be depended on 
do this. Orin Belknap. 
Early Wildfowl Slaughter. 
Dwellers along the New England coast 
the eighteenth century were industrious ai 
thrifty people and lost no opportunity of ma 
ing money. Many of them had a hard time 
get along, but those who made the best of the 
opportunities, usually lived comfortably and h 
something to their families. Many a man h 
a trade which he practiced when, he could, 
farm which he cultivated at the proper seasc 
and in winter he voyaged to the banks for fi: 
In his “Genealogical Notes of Barnstal 
(Mass.) Families,” Amos Otis speaks of 
method of earning money which has probal 
been altogether forgotten by this time, and e 
cept for some casual mention such as this mig 
be wholly lost sight of. He is speaking 
Josiah and Edward Child, somewhere abc 
1750, and of their pursuits, and says that: 
“Both in early life went on feather voyag 
a term which few at the present time v 
understand. About a century ago vessels w< 
fitted out for the coast of Labrador to coll 
feathers and eiderdown. At a certain season 
the year some species of wild fowl shed a p 
of their wing feathers and cannot fly or o: 
for a short distance. On some of the ban 
islands on that coast thousands of those bi 
congregated. The crews of the vessels wo 
drive them together, kill them with a sh 
club or broom made of spruce branches £ 
strip off their feathers. Millions of wildfi 
were thus destroyed and in a few years tb 
haunts were broken up by this wholes 
slaughter and their numbers so greatly 
minished that feather voyages became unpro 
able and were discontinued.” 
The story as it reads might refer to sea du 
of various sorts, but on the other hand soi 
thing in the account seems to suggest thal 
may possibly refer to wholesale destruction 
the great auk. If this could in any way be 
monstrated the fact would be one of ext 
ordinary interest. 
