FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Feb. 29, 1908. 
A New England Forest Tragedy. 
Springfield, Mass., Feb. 20 .—Editor forest 
and Stream: A fierce battle for supremacy was 
recently fought by wild deer on the brink of 
an almost perpendicular cliff in the New Eng¬ 
land forests, resulting in the precipitation of 
both bucks down the sides of a precipice into 
a chasm where they were killed. The scene of 
the struggle was in the mountains of Florida, 
Mass., within about a mile of the Hoosac tunnel. 
The principals were two ten-point bucks which 
apparently fought for hours until their antlers 
became securely interlocked. Being unable to 
extricate themselves, one of them backed his 
antagonist off a cliff 250 feet high. 
About four days afterward, judging from the 
prime condition of the carcasses, the attention 
of a Greenfield rabbit hunter was attracted by 
the baying of his hound, and crawling through 
steepest in that region. At the bottom of the 
chasm were many mammoth boulders and blown- 
down trees. Warden Hatch found it impossible 
to reach the summit, where the deer fought, by 
ascending where they went down the cliff, so 
he went back and around and began to climb 
at a more accessible spot. On reaching the sum¬ 
mit he saw how the struggle took place. The 
bucks had broken down brush, left samples of 
their coats on the trees and plowed furrows in 
the ground. The deer landed first on a projec¬ 
tion in the mountain twenty feet below the sum¬ 
mit where they struggled awhile and then again 
plunged off into space. They probably struck 
the ground with sufficient force to separate their 
locked horns and one of the prongs was broken. 
The inside surfaces of the antlers of both deer 
were also scarred and chipped. They were other¬ 
wise intact. One buck lodged against a beech 
tree, fracturing his left hind leg in several 
THE BUCKS THAT FELL OVER THE CLIFF. 
a thicket, over rocks and up the slope, he came 
to a fissure. The old hound stood beside the 
bodies of the two bucks. There were no bullet 
marks in their hides, and it was conclusive that 
no one had violated the laws which protect wild 
deer. 
The unusual find was reported to James P. 
Hatch, deputy game warden of Springfield, who 
was told that the deer were found Nov. 23. Mr. 
Hatch, accompanied by F. C. Burnham, a taxi¬ 
dermist, and Lyman Ruberg, a deputy game 
warden, went to the place. Mr. Burnham took 
his camera and made several exposures. The 
pictures will occupy a conspicuous place in the 
art collection of the fish and game commissioners 
of Massachusetts. The deer were photographed 
in the positions in which they fell, and to show 
their comparative size and how evenly they were 
matched, Mr. Burnham removed heads and hides. 
Both bucks had graceful antlers and beautiful 
heads. These are now being mounted. 
The declivity down which the deer fell is the 
places. The other landed between a down tree 
and a boulder. Singularly they each showed 
ten points and weighed 225 pounds apiece. It 
was apparent that they were five-year-old bucks, 
well turned, and in fine fettle. 
According to Warden Hatch deer have in¬ 
creased rapidly in western Massachusetts the 
past year and are now almost as plentiful as 
in Maine.. The farmers are considering the 
matter of petitioning the Legislature to open the 
season for one week on deer which overrun 
their acres and browse on vegetables in spring 
and summer. The proposed bill will probably 
restrict a hunter to one deer in a season which 
must be killed with a shotgun. While the far¬ 
mers have redress by making complaint to the 
authorities, which are empowered to reimburse 
them for all damage done, they do not consider 
that the bounty received is commensurate with 
the loss likely to be sustained. ‘The wardens 
estimate that 300 fawns were bred in Hampden 
county last spring. Arthur C. Merritt. 
Southern California Shooting. 
Los Angeles, Cal., Feb. 5. —Editor Forest and 
Stream: There are two reasons why southern 
California is a great resting ground for the 
waterfowl. First are its hundreds of gun club 
ponds, with their thousands of acres ,of fresh, 
sweet water drawn from artesian wells upon 
which the fowl find sanctuary for five days in 
the week. Some feeding is done; a mere des¬ 
sert to the duck army that congregates on the 
ponds after the northern birds have come down. 
Of all the causes bringing the ducks here, none 
is more influential than the vast barley farming 
practiced on the mesas or high tablelands after 
bountiful winters. The summer’s work of 
threshing done, rich gleanings await the sprigs 
and widgeon on these immense fields, sometimes 
aggregating many thousands of acres, and upon 
which a dozen outfits may be busy at one time 
separating the grain from its chaff. About the 
base of the old straw stacks is a favorite feed¬ 
ing ground of the ducks, and on moonlit nights 
particularly they congregate there literally in 
shoals and millions, coming in to the fresh water 
ponds at daylight in clouds, full to the tongue 
with the proceeds of their night’s work, and 
ready to go to the sea at the first fire, and there 
digest their cropful, if their elastic gullets may 
be properly dignified with the standing of a 
real crop. After dark nights, their feeding 
operations being curtailed, the birds remain at 
sea but a short time, and that in great measure 
accounts for the marked improvement noticed in 
the shooting at such stages of the moon. 
Until the last of January this has been an un¬ 
usually dry season, and that fact has been mani¬ 
fested by splendid duck shooting throughout 
The gun clubs are mostly independent of the 
rains owing to their artesian wells, and the fow. 
.have concentrated upon them until day after da) 
the gunners have been agreeably disappointed 
Generally a dimunition is noticed , after New 
Years, but this season the gunning has slack¬ 
ened hardly a bit. Our club, the Canvasbacl 
Land and Water Company, has killed betweer 
2,500 and 3,000 birds thus far. I have accountec 
for 957 °f them myself. This is a lot of ducks 
Some may think no one man has a right to kil 
so many. They were shot with a 16-gauge gun 
in fact, I use a 20-bore such of the time as 
can get suitable ammunition for it. In view o 
the fact that there are fellows killing 300 fi 
400 a day in the San Joaquin Valley and sell 
ing them in open defiance of law, I am inclinei 
to believe the ' sportsman who abides by th 
thirty-five bird bag limit is entitled to his spor 
The maudlin sentiment that passes by the 40 
a day market hunter to rail at the clubman’ 
thirty-five once or twice a week just because th 
clubman is under the gun, so to speak, and th 
market hunter off in the - swamps where he i 
hard to get at is not game protection or an) 
thing like it. If no man is allowed to excee 
thirty-five a day the duck supply will steadil 
increase. 
At present there are some men around Tulai 
Lake who are openly violating 'the law, usin 
4-bore swivel guns mounted on the backs c 
steers and known locally as “bull hunters 
They use the steer in much the same manner ; 
the British fowler uses his stalking horse, ei 
cepting that the gun is fastened by straps 1 
the steer, so it takes the brunt of the recoil, r 
