GULLS AND FISH 
Dear Forest and Stream : 
ANY articles are being written in 
these days about the pollution of 
streams and the destruction in other 
ways of the food fish of America and 
other countries. Every intelligent man 
and woman knows we need the fish on 
our tables and that the supply does not 
offset the demand, unless we pay a price 
that to the average family is prohibitive. 
In this letter I will deal only with the 
shad and herring of North Carolina. 
Twenty-five years ago the finest of shad 
caught in North Carolina could be 
bought in Elizabeth City, N. C., or in 
Norfolk, Va., at 50 to 75 cents each, and 
only a little higher in New York City. 
The price that will have to be paid this 
spring is something like $2.50—$5.00 for 
roe shad and $1.50 to $2.50 for bucks. 
What has caused this condition of 
things ? 
The writer will admit that the popula¬ 
tion of America has increased rapidly, 
and that we take many unfair advan¬ 
tages of our fish in the way they are 
caught, and with so little protection. 
But it is his opinion that by far the 
greatest destroyer of all fish is the Gull 
family. Our country today is doing all 
it can to protect them, making it a 
penalty of $10 to kill a single gull or 
tern. They have been protected many 
years and today there are billions of 
them. We use every scheme known to 
man to catch fish to feed the human 
family, and raise all the gulls we can 
to devour the balance. This is what I 
call disturbing the plans of the Creator. 
During the past 35 years I have 
gathered (for examination) many thou¬ 
sand stomachs of ducks, geese, shore 
birds, and—before it was illegal to take 
them—a great many gulls. The stom¬ 
achs of the gulls I found to be in¬ 
variably filled with the best of our food 
fish, in Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds, 
Mainly shad and herring. Any man of 
intelligence living in that vicinity will 
admit that one Royal tern, one Caspian 
tern or one of the large gull family will, 
in one hour, destroy enough young shad 
to feed a dozen families one day, were 
the shad left to reach maturity. 
This article does not intend to con¬ 
demn the whole family of gulls. The 
smaller varieties, such as least terns, 
Wilson terns, sea-pigeons, etc., in my 
opinion, do very little harm, nothing to 
compare with the larger varieties. Cor¬ 
morant and loons are also very destruc¬ 
tive to our food fish in North Carolina 
and Virginia. 
The writer is an old hunter who has 
shot waterfowl for fifty years. He be¬ 
lieves absolutely in the protection of 
game, in stopping spring shooting, in 
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t'yiESTDOTS 
mb /*weis 
the bag limit, and has never, even in 
boyhood, believed in killing game except 
for food. He expects to be severely 
criticized for expressing his opinion on 
this subject, but believes the time has 
come when something must be done to 
raise more fish and less gulls to destroy 
them. 
The cormorant, like the buzzard, of 
loathsome aspect, is very abundant in 
our shad-growing industry, and live en¬ 
tirely on fish. Can anyone give a sem¬ 
blance of reason why they should be 
protected ? 
I expect to be told that the large gull 
is a scavenger, like the buzzard, but 
that is worthy of another letter: “What 
has happened to the buzzard?” 
Jasper B. White, 
Waterlily, N. C. 
ANTELOPE IN THE WEST 
Dear Forest and Stream : 
A N editorial on Antelope in Forest 
and Stream for July, 1922, con¬ 
tains a statement that there are very few 
antelope left in the western part of the 
United States and that they can only be 
found in Southern California, Southern 
New Mexico and Arizona. 
In the spring of 1919, I was on a 
ranch near Albine, Montana. One day 
I walked out to get the mail and while 
on the road, about a half mile from the 
house, just on the other side of a small 
artificial lake, I saw one buck and three 
doe antelope. 
After a week on the ranch I started to 
ride the range, and in two weeks within 
a 25-mile radius of the ranch I saw and 
counted twenty antelope. 
After a time I went through the Bad 
Lands of South Dakota and there I saw 
many antelope. Also some in the east 
and northeastern part of Wyoming. 
The first of June I started out to find 
a band of sheep which had strayed for 
two weeks. A heavy rain and hail storm 
had driven them north. There was a 
reward for this band of sheep, so a 
native cowpuncher and myself started 
out to find them. We made Ekalaka, 
Montana the first night, and a month 
later we were near the Highwood 
Mountains. From the time we left Eka¬ 
laka until we made camp in the High- 
wood Mountains we saw twenty antelope 
in one bunch grazing on a small meadow 
stream, and on another day a doe and 
calf. At another spot we saw a buck 
and a doe. 
From the Highwood Mountains we 
went to the Milk River district, after we 
had given up hope of finding the band 
of sheep, and from there to Glacier 
National Park, and along the western 
part of Montana to Lewiston. We saw 
a few antelope near Teton Ridge in 
Teton County. It was late in September 
when we returned. Four days out of 
Billings, Montana, we saw a buck and 
two does with calves. 
E. H. Jung, Chicago, Ill. 
THAT MILAN PISTOL 
MATCH 
Dear Forest and Stream: 
I AM rather ashamed that you should 
put such an article in your January 
issue as “That Milan Pistol Match.” 
Your first offense is holding men up to 
ridicule. Your second offense is false 
statement. Reports were made in the 
public press in more than one paper and 
before the team returned home. Within 
a week after the return of at least one 
member of the team I heard a public 
statement made of the defeat, and for 
you to say that “not a single report has 
been published”; that “the team sneaked 
up the back stairs between midnight and 
morning”; that “they have been acting 
as though they had never heard of such 
a thing as an International Pistol 
Shoot”; that their conduct was “a most 
regrettable display of poor sportsman¬ 
ship” ; to say these things, I say,, is a 
reiteration of absolute falsehoods, and 
as to how deliberate it is on your part, 
of course, I do not know. 
It seems too bad to see such an article 
in your paper, and I think it wise for 
you to make an investigation and apol¬ 
ogize for allowing such an article to 
appear in your publication. I am not 
sure but that the article is a libel under 
the law that to hold men up to ridicule 
by stating falsehoods is a libel. 
David T. Abercrombie, New York, 
TO NEW JERSEY SURF 
FISHERMEN 
Dear Forest and Stream :. 
ELLOVV surf anglers, especially we 
who sojourn by auto to the Seaside 
Park Coast Guard Station No. 110— 
we park our cars at the little barn at 
the end of the run and grab our sticks 
and off to the beach; at the end of our 
stay we pile in our cars and, with our 
hearts in our mouths for fear of being 
stuck, we gingerly crawl off through the 
dunes over (or mostly in) the little 
sandy roadway to the - village. How 
