654 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Oct. 22, 1910. 
out of position and every shot, as a consequence, 
went over the deer. Probably he had sought his 
mark by looking over the top of the tilted sight 
rather than through the peep-hole. After we had 
exonerated the gun and the hunter and hurled 
anathema on the head of the bungling gunsmith 
who misplaced the sight, we went our respect.ve 
ways once more. The sight, however, was first 
turned down to be used no more. , 
I followed the brook to the north, crossed a 
great berry patch which had once been the scene 
of a forest fire and found myself within a short 
distance of the river. Signs of deer were plenti¬ 
ful, and once I saw a doe that I might have laid 
low, but I wanted a buck. Bucks, however, 
were not visible as I laboriously clambered over 
the logs, and through the swamps. It was four 
o’clock when I arrived at the cabin. Uncle Pli 
had not yet returned. I started the fire and put 
the kettle on, when Charlie opened the door. I 
knew something great and good had happened 
the moment I gazed at his face. “Boy,” he said 
in impressive tones, “I have killed the biggest 
buck that ever cavorted and flirted in these 
woods.” 
“Wow!” said I. 
“That does not express it within a mile,” said 
Charlie. “When you see that buck—when you 
look upon his head, his neck, his horns, his broad 
body, you will wow not, but you will whoop and 
dance and cry aloud for joy. He weighs at least 
250 pounds—not an ounce less, T was stealing 
through the dry swamp when I saw a motion 
about eight rods away. I watched the place 
closely and finally made out the buck’s head and 
horns. I could not see his body. T took de¬ 
liberate aim at the head and fired. There was a 
terrible racket over there immediately afterward 
and the buck disappeared. I followed the frail 
for about five rods and there I found the buck 
stone dead. He died on the run. Hey! but he 
is a sure-enough elephant! I dressed him, but I 
couldn’t hang him up.” 
Of course I was elated. We took an ax and 
lantern and started over the river to hang the 
buck up. It was a long jaunt, but we were back 
shortly after dark. The buck certainly is a 
beauty and by far the largest I have ever seen. 
Charlie has presented me with the head, whereat 
I am even more elated than I was at first. 
Uncle Hi was in camp when we returned and 
had a hearty supper ready for us. He also had 
letters and one newspaper. We spent the eve¬ 
ning with these, viewing home and the outside 
world from afar. It is really a pleasure to look 
on the workaday world, its worries and struggles, 
from a distance, and feel that it cannot touch or 
involve you. Fred L. Purdy. 
Birds in the Hurricane. 
The West Indian hurricane that smashed 
things in Cuba probably destroyed much tropical 
bird life before reaching the island, says the Sun. 
A hint of the extent of the disaster to the birds 
was brought in by the Hamburg-American liner 
Altai, which skirted the swirler on her way from 
Cartagena, Colombia, to Kingston, Jamaica, a 
little less than two days’ run. Immense flocks 
of screaming bright plumaged birds and many of 
plainer hue, including several eagles, dropped on 
the decks of the ship exhausted. Members of 
the crew killed some of the eagles. 
Bird Dogs in the North Woods. 
Little Falls, N. Y., Oct. 12.-— Editor Forest 
and Stream: A curious sentiment is growing up 
in the Adirondack region against allowing bird 
hunters to use dogs in their sport, if it is car¬ 
ried on around the foothills of the mountains. 
The law already prohibits the use of dogs in 
woods where deer are found, but deer are found 
clear to the valley of the Mohawk, and it is 
exceedingly difficult to draw the line. Hunters 
of birds want to carry their dogs to the heart 
of the wilderness, a!ong the edges of old burn¬ 
ings and clearings where birds are found in 
greatest numbers. 
Now the deer hunters, and among woodsmen 
there are more deer hunters, ten to one than 
bird hunters, claim that the hunting of birds 
with dogs is no more sportsmanlike than hunt¬ 
ing deer with dogs. They say that the men who 
use dogs in hunting birds simply slaughter them; 
that the growing scarcity of birds around the 
Adirondack clearings is due to the use of bird 
dogs, and that if the bird dogs were put out 
of business, grouse would increase vastly in 
number just as deer have increased. 
Deer hunters claim that men have no need of 
a dog to get the four grouse allowed by law in 
a day. The dog simply is an invitation to kill 
too many birds. 
They declared too that when the partridge 
hunters bring their dogs romping through the 
edges of ■ the clearings they drive out the deer, 
and add that the bird dogs are just as good for 
hunting deer as for hunting birds. 
Another thing, it is recalled that in the days 
when deer hounding was allowed, the best hounds 
were invariably trained to run deer by taking the 
dog back into the woods in the deep snow where 
a deer was shot through the paunch. The bloody 
trail in the deep snow gave the dog its cue. and 
the dog pursued and pulled the deer down. This 
was how the hounds were broken. 
Bird dogs, the woodsmen say, are broken in 
the same heartless way. They are taken out in 
mid-summer and trained on the partridge chicks. 
The trainer shoots the chicks and the dog is 
taught to retrieve them. It is just as illegal 
to shoot grouse in mid-summer as to crust deer 
in mid-winter, but the illegal work of the trainer 
of bird dogs is far more difficult to prevent than 
deer crusting. Among the worst offenders 
against the game laws now are probably the 
host of dog trainers who skin the woods for 
miles around their quarters in breaking the pups. 
Almost every backwoods hamlet has a dog 
trainer of some kind. 
Hundreds of bird shooters would as soon think 
of going grouse hunting without a dog as with¬ 
out their guns, yet it is said the worst offenders 
against the hounding law now are men who have 
trained bird dogs and “treeing dogs” to the work 
of chasing deer. This is not a valid claim 
against the honest bird hunter who uses a well- 
trained dog, but the woodsmen make their claim 
against the bird dogger on the same grounds 
that were taken by the men who drove legal 
hounding from the Adirondacks. It is not fair, 
they say, it is not sportsmanlike, it fosters viola¬ 
tion of the law in the summer, and the bag limit 
in the fall, and worst of all it gives the hunters 
more birds than the supply can possibly stand. 
On the other hand it is shown that a man with 
a shotgun can go out and kill two or three birds 
by still-hunting. He can do better than this; he 
can take a small caliber rifle and by superior 
skill get a fair bag of game, and that skill does 
not need the unfair and overwhelming advantage 
of a pair of dogs which put up every bird with¬ 
in a few feet of the scatter charges of four or 
five automatic or repeating shotguns. 
This sentiment, which is spreading, is clearly 
worthy of the attention of sportsmen, and pos¬ 
sibly its significance is none the less remarkable 
because it comes from Adirondack woodsmen 
who were among the most ardent lovers of deer 
hounds, and who have now given the question 
of game laws increasing support and seek im¬ 
provements in them for the sake of the wild life 
they protect. Raymond S. Spears. 
An Important Decision. 
In an action for fire trespass on the Black 
Hills National Forest brought by the United 
States against the Missouri River and North¬ 
western Railroad, the jury has awarded damages 
to the Government not only for the loss of mer¬ 
chantable timber, but also for the destruction of 
unmerchantable young growth. 
This is regarded by the United States Govern¬ 
ment officials as establishing a very important 
precedent. So far as is known at the Depart¬ 
ment of Agriculture, it is the first time that any 
court has recognized what foresters call the “ex¬ 
pectation value” of young growth as furnishing 
a basis for the award of damages. The difficulty 
in the way of such an award in the past has 
been that there was no way to prove to the 
satisfaction of the courts the money value of 
the loss suffered. 
The award in the South Dakota case followed 
the presentation of evidence as to the cost of 
work in reforesting which the Government is 
actually doing in the Black Hills. The amount 
claimed for the young growth burned w f as $12 
an acre, and the claim under this item w r as al¬ 
lowed in full by the jury. The total amount of 
damages claimed was $3,728.85, of which $2,- 
634.45 was f° r merchantable timber destroyed or 
injured by the fire. 
It is recognized by foresters that the cost of 
artificial reforestation will not always furnish a 
fair basis for estimating the damage to forest, 
reproduction. Where new growth can be ex¬ 
pected by natural sowing from seed trees on the 
ground within a short time, artificial planting 
or sowdng is an unnecessarily expensive method. 
To meet such cases what are known as “yield 
tables” are being prepared. By the use of these 
the loss can be shown in terms of the final crop 
and the time necessary to produce it. 
Thus, if it is known that 10,000 feet of timber 
per acre can be cut once in seventy years, it is 
easy to calculate the value of the crop when it 
is ten years old by discounting from its value 
when mature. In European countries, where for¬ 
estry has been long practiced, this method is 
regularly applied in selling, condemning, or esti¬ 
mating damages on forest property. It is also 
used abroad in insurance, which would be irn- 
practicable if there w r ere not both an accepted 
basis for determining the loss suffered and a 
reasonably accurate knowledge of the hazard in¬ 
volved. 
The Forest and Stream may be obtained from 
any newsdealer on order. Ask your dealer to 
supply you regularly. 
