9?6 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[June 24, 1911. 
Never Too Late to Mend. 
Monticello, N. Y., June 17.— Editor Forest 
and Stream: My early boyhood days were 
passed amid the rugged hills of rockbound Sul¬ 
livan, and oft have I tramped through the wild 
yet beautiful section of the great Empire State 
with dog and gun in quest of game, which 
twenty-five years ago was plentiful everywhere. 
To-day in the quiet solitude of my home, memory 
runs back to those good old days when in every 
little copse and swale, on every hillside and 
towering summit of the miniature mountains, so 
plentiful here, partridges or ruffed grouse were 
found in great numbers. 
It is difficult now to imagine, after the lapse 
of a quarter of a century, conditions as they then 
existed throughout Sullivan county. One may 
tramp the entire day at the present time, and 
if a dozen birds are flushed, the sportsman con¬ 
siders himself in luck. I have shot six par¬ 
tridges in those days in less than twenty minutes 
and without a dog, too, while a few years later 
I well remember a local sportsman, who with 
his beautiful and well trained dog, Black Bess, 
shot in one afternoon forty-six ruffed grouse, 
and he to’d me the ground especially through a 
black alder swale which contained perhaps six 
acres, and where the greatest slaughter was 
made, was literally covered with feathers. Many 
of these birds were flushed and flew out on the 
hillsides and' were again driven into the low 
ground and killed during the afternoon. 
Do not for a moment think that we consider 
such wanton slaughter of those noble game birds 
sportsmanlike or right, for we do not. We have 
always condemned it both by voice and pen and 
will continue to denounce any method that tends 
to materially reduce game in our State. Noth¬ 
ing in nature could withstand such destruction. 
Unless some active legislative measures be in¬ 
troduced and increased in forest preserves estab¬ 
lished throughout our State, the outlook for 
game in the future, so far as Sullivan county is 
concerned, is, to say the least, not bright. No¬ 
where within the borders of our State are con¬ 
ditions found more favorable for State forest 
preserves where game and fish of all kinds suit¬ 
able for this section may be developed and pro¬ 
tected than in Sullivan county. Nature has with 
more inspiration and a more de'icate touch than 
a Raphael or a Michael Angelo painted and em¬ 
bellished our county with rugged and crude 
beauty. Our wooded hillsides with here and 
there a spring brook dashing down its slopes to 
join some larger stream in the valley; our beau¬ 
tiful lakes of pure water scattered everywhere 
throughout the county, nestling in quaint little 
nooks surrounded by wood'and or high up on 
the mountain which casts its shadows far out 
upon the placid waters—these waters should be 
stocked and protected, something like our old- 
time conditions. Tanneries and saw mills, so 
destructive to fish, are gone and conditions are 
ripe for great improvements. The hills and va’- 
leys, now almost worthless, should be made a 
sportsman s paradise, and will be if progressive 
and protective measures are introduced. 
\\ hy not urge the State to acquire a’l these 
lands not suitable for agriculture, but charming 
in crudeness and natural beauty, and give to the 
weary, tired, over-wrought brains from our great 
centers of population a restfu 1 , beautiful locality 
in which to camp; and there anv'd nature's wild¬ 
ness—with a landscape which in variety and 
beauty, either in the valley or upon some hill¬ 
top or along some crystal, rippling brook filled 
with fish life as of yore, and with nature’s forest 
life and activity about him just as they existed 
and were depicted by James Fenimore Cooper 
in his Leather Stocking Tales, and which is a 
possibility of the near future-—should proper ac¬ 
tion be taken. What a boon to weary and dis¬ 
couraged humanity this would be. 
Something must be done in this direction. Re¬ 
member the fate of the passenger pigeon. Count¬ 
less thousands of them were recklessly slaugh¬ 
tered in Sullivan county alone. 
How many there are in our county at the 
present time who can remember the myriads of 
pigeons that semi-annually visited Sullivan 
county. We have seen the heavens black with 
them for hours. As one flock followed another, 
oftimes the sun was obscured, while farmers 
was in darkness and shadow, while farmers 
came out of every crossroad with wagons loaded 
down with them upon specia’ly built boxes, en 
route to Newburgh or some other outlet to the 
New York market, every wagon containing from 
1,500 to 2,000 birds which had been caught in 
nets. During the nesting season the trees in 
the town of Denning and adjoining towns in 
northern Sullivan were trembling under their 
weight, and the crash of broken limbs could be 
heard long before the nesting grounds were 
reached. 
The nests were generally built quite low, of 
dry sticks and never contained but one egg or 
one squab. Men in those days from all parts of 
Sullivan, Orange and Ulster counties would visit 
these nesting places. Mingled with the constant 
noise of the pigeons and broken branches and 
treetops, which could not withstand the weight, 
the crack of guns on all sides told us beyond 
a question of doubt, that the slaughter had com¬ 
menced, and the doom of these beautiful and 
graceful birds was sealed. Nor was this enough, 
for when night came these men would again visit 
the nesting grounds with torches and clubs and 
complete the destruction. Do you wonder that 
rewards of thousands of dollars are still offered 
for a passenger pigeon’s nest and egg, and that 
reports sent in to the committee which has in¬ 
vestigated have only proved to be nests of doves 
containing two eggs? 
This picture is not overdrawn or unduly em- 
be’lished. I have kept myself well within the 
scope of truth, and it could be written up even 
stronger and yet be true as many now living in 
Sullivan county can prove. But we hope what 
game is not extinct will have better protection, 
and we are getting it gradually. The varied 
and changing vicissitudes of politics have re¬ 
cently made a change in the game warden of the 
county and these changes are just, for to “the 
victor belong the spoils.” 
During the past few years Hon. Edward Bis- 
land has represented our county as an officer of 
the Forest, Fish and Game Commission, and he 
made a thorough and efficient official, giving on 
all sides the best of satisfaction and meeting with 
the full approval of the commission. Recently 
the department appointed as custodian of our 
natural forest preserve and parks our honored 
townsman, ex-Sheriff David S. Avery. No wiser 
choice could have been made and no appoint¬ 
ment in the State will meet with more general 
approval than that of Sheriff Avery. Mr. Avery 
is not only a thorough and experienced sports¬ 
man himself, but like his predecessor, is of high 
character, capable and competent, a man who 
will always have at heart the best interests of 
our State parks and the game and fish within 
them. He will show no favor to friend or foe, 
and no better guardian of our natural forest 
preserve could have been selected than ex-Sheriff 
David S. Avery, of Monticello. Under his ad¬ 
ministration as under that of Mr. Bisland whom 
he succeeds, there will continue to be an in¬ 
crease of fish and game in our State forest pre¬ 
serves, and wise appointments and competent 
officials such as Mr. Bisland was, and Mr. 
Avery’s past record and character stamp him to 
be, and with increase of forest preserves in Sul¬ 
livan county and elsewhere throughout our State, 
it should tend to redeem much of that which we 
have lost in the past by lax law and ruthless 
slaughter of game. J. F. C. 
$25,000 a Year Declined. 
A special meeting of the board of directors 
of the National Association of Audubon Socie¬ 
ties was held on Friday, June 16, for the fur¬ 
ther consideration of the offer from a group of 
gun and powder manufacturers of $25,000 a year 
for five years, to be used for game protection. 
Seven directors attended the meeting, among 
them Dr. T. S. Pa'.mer, of Washington, one of 
the vice-presidents, and Frank M. Chapman, who 
for some months has been absent in South 
America collecting material for the American 
Museum of Natural History, and who had only 
reached New York the day before. 
It will be recalled that when the offer of this 
money for this purpose was made to the Audu¬ 
bon Society, it met with much adverse criticism, 
chiefly from persons who did not belong to the 
Audubon Society, but to some extent also from 
members. 
So active was this criticism that a member -of 
the board who had previously voted for the ac¬ 
ceptance of the donation moved a reconsidera¬ 
tion of the resolution accepting it, and when 
this was passed, the question of acceptance was 
taken up on its merits. 
Frank M. Chapman, who, having just returned, 
was ignorant of the whole question and of all 
the criticism, took the ground that the Audubon 
Society was primarily organized for the protec¬ 
tion of song and insectivorous birds. He de¬ 
clared that at the time when the society was 
organized, there were many game protective as¬ 
sociations which were expected to look after the 
protection of the game birds, but that the song 
and insectivorous birds were without friends and 
helpers until the Audubon Society was formed 
to look after their protection. Mr. Chapman be¬ 
lieved that if it went into the work of game pro¬ 
tection, the Audubon Society would be leaving 
its own field and taking up new work, and that 
its old and most important field might thus be 
neglected. 
The matter was discussed at considerab'e 
length. Dr T. S. Palmer made a really stirring 
speech in opposition to the acceptance of the 
gift. Gifford Pinchot and Witmer Stone, mem¬ 
bers of the advisory board of direction of the 
Audubon Societies, also spoke against it. When 
the vote was taken toward the end of the after¬ 
noon, it stood five to two in favor of declining 
the gift. 
