FOREST AND STREAM 
great many do, and after having refused shots From a Newf 
at better stags, had fallen down to a pretty but is a perfect one 
small head of few points. He had run twenty- brow antlers, a 
seven yards after receiving the first shot and I overlap, resemt 
would very much like to know how far he However, the 
would have gone had I not shot again.- Later one developed i 
on another stag I obtained with a shot in the a single spike, 
same vital spot ran about fifty yards before he the island—ever 
staggered and fell. offer on a head 
These deer, like our other deer, can go a foundlander tells 
considerable distance after receiving a fatal it is safe to boil 
wound and can carry a lot of lead before be- After all I fir 
coming sick; my largest stag took six shots game that const 
from an extremely high power rifle before com- chase; it is to w: 
ing to a standstill; but these shots were dis- watch and study 
tributed about him and none in a fatal spot. 
In a couple of my caribou under the skin 1 
found buck and BB shot, showing that these 
deer had been shot at at some time by the In¬ 
dians, for they are the only ones who use shot¬ 
guns. 
After we took some pictures of the fallen 
stag we removed the head and hanging it up in 
a tree, continued out travels. We saw a number 
of deer this day and in all five stags; one of 
them allowing me to take his picture, replace 
the film in the camera and take him again, and 
at no time did he move more than 150 yards 
away. Of course in this maneuvering the wind 
was right. 
That evening I was to witness an example of 
a caribou’s keenness of smell. On our return to 
camp I had left Bob to skin out the head while 
I went off to a barren hill not far away to 
try for some photographs of willow ptarmigan, 
and as I was sitting on a granite boulder I saw 
marching along between me and the camp five 
caribou, including a good stag. All went well 
until they came to my tracks, then they came to 
a sudden stop, up went their heads and off they 
bolted, first at a gallop and then a trot which 
soon carried them out of sight. 
I have noticed great variations in the antlers 
of Newfoundland caribou; in fact, my three 
heads show this very plainly; one head is very 
much palmated, the beams as well being flat; 
another is of the round horn variety looking 
somewhat like a wapiti head, and my third and 
best one is a combination of the two, being 
heavy of horn and wide in palms. Some one 
has said, and with justice, that horns can be 
found in the island typifying every species of 
caribou, of which there are eight or ten. 
Of course the desired head is one of fifty 
points, but I know of none to-day unless—and 
which I very much doubt—the one the Reed 
family of St. Johns possesses will figure up this 
number. A perfect forty-pointer is about the 
best a man can get to-day, and most sportsmen 
have to content themselves with thirty-pointers. 
Undoubtedly some big heads still roam the 
country—as evinced by the finding of dropped 
horns having twenty-five and more points—but 
these rare old fellows never seem to come to 
gun in their prime. I know of persistent hunt¬ 
ers who have made repeated trips to the island; 
one got a small forty-nine-pointer, but he con¬ 
sidered one of about forty-five points obtained 
on his fourth and last trip as superior; another, 
no less than Selous, the famous African hunter, 
had a forty-pointer to show for his best and 
the result of three trips; and again another man 
with three or four efforts could only claim a 
thirty-six-point head for his record. 
even if the work was -hard, the day unsuccess¬ 
ful and he had vowed as he wearily trudged 
home at night—“never again”? 
In addition- to the caribou, or deer, as the 
natives call them, and I have used the term 
irrespectively, you occasionally stumble on a 
bear or lynx, though the Indians gather in many 
of the former and keep the latter well trimmed 
down. They get most of their bears by watch¬ 
ing the blueberry patches in burnt ground when 
the berries are ripe. The lynxes are easily 
trapped. Then you will find the beautiful wil¬ 
low ptarmigan in abundance and tame enough, 
so that you may pick their heads off with a rifle. 
On my trip a number of these birds found their 
way to the pot. In the proper season good 
bags can be made of the Canada goose, black- 
duck and yellowleg. 
Of course, a day conies when you must strike 
camp and take your way out of the country, 
but even in our last journey down the river we 
were to see caribou—and one a great stag with 
a headpiece better than some I had, but I had 
to leave him for another day. Too soon comes 
the time to pay your men. say farewell and 
take the train for civilization. 
Fur from New York Stale. 
Edwin R. Roberts, of Glens Falls, Warren 
county, New York, devotes a considerable part 
of the winter to trapping. City people may well 
enough be surprised at the number of fur-bear¬ 
ing animals in their States, even in well settled 
sections. 
During the past season Mr. Roberts took 700 
muskrats, 93 skunks, 30 ’coons, 28 mink, 20 foxes, 
17 ermine and 1 otter, and he had out no more 
than seventy-five traps at any one time. The 
otter was taken in a wolf trap, and there was 
evidence, Mr. Roberts thought, that the animal’s 
mate had endeavored to free him from the trap. 
Most of the fur taken was by water sets and 
with live baits. Roberts makes a small pool by 
the waterside in which he places live bullheads, 
setting his trap close to the edge. Most of the 
mink and muskrat were captured in this way. 
He baits also with live chickens. He also uses 
a wire trap with two entrances and is applying 
for a patent on a wire trap with four entrances. 
The father of Mr. Roberts, now seventy-nine 
years old, has been a successful hunter and trap¬ 
per, having a score of fifty-four bears to his 
credit. The son served his apprenticeship with 
the father. Young Roberts is about thirty years 
old, has been a guide in the Adirondacks and 
also has served in the U. S. Navy. 
PACKING A CARIBOU HEAD TO CAMP. 
Photograph by W. J. Ehrich. 
successful photographs of game than to shoot 
same, and there are more odds against you. 
Not only must the wind be in your favor, but 
also the light; then you must have fair weather, 
and I have found results at anything beyond 
fifty yards rather small and poor. And some¬ 
times even your best efforts will only prove 
failures. 
Then again your various camps will live long 
in your memory—what ever seemed better to 
you than after a hard wet day on the “mash” to 
tumble into camp tired and hungry to find a 
blazing log fire and Sandy with the soup and 
kettle boiling. What pleasant hours we spent 
in the evening lying on the fragrant balsam 
boughs, the soles of our feet toasting to the 
fire and the tobacco smoke curling about the 
roof of our leanto. And what yarns we listened 
to—Bob’s adventures in the ice after seals, 
trapping in the fall or winter hunting for meat; 
Sandy’s exploits as cook and guide with various 
expeditions or in the logging camps, or Jack’s 
trials on the Labrador. What man that would 
not like to live over again some of his camps, 
That the reputation of the State of New York 
as a fur-bearing district has not been entirely 
lost, says the Newark Union Gazette, and that 
that reputation, so far as Wayne county is con¬ 
cerned, is still being kept up, is shown by the 
fact that approximately $30,000 worth of furs 
were shipped to New York by one dealer during 
the fall of 1910 and so far during 1911. 
Since the season opened last fall he has bought 
furs as follows: 50,000 muskrats, 10,000 skunks, 
500 raccoons, 600 minks, 300 red foxes, 500 
ermine, which make a total of over 60,000 skins. 
Undoubtedly this does not represent the entire 
catch, for there are probably other dealers. 
