Dec. i7, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
975 
Deer Hounding Again, or Not? 
Minerva, N. Y., Dec. 10 . —Editor Forest and 
Stream: The following editorial from the Post 
and Gazette partly explains itself, but leaves the 
main issue entirely in the dark: 
Assemblyman Shea comes out in favor of hounding 
deer, giving as his reason the sacrifice of human life 
under the anti-hounding law. The sacrifice of human 
life under the anti-hounding law has been going on 
during the past three years that Assemblyman Shea has 
been in office. No one ever heard of a man being shot 
for a deer under the old hounding law. Moreover, 
dozens of deer are wounded, die and go to waste yearly 
in Essex county because the law does not permit putting 
a hound on the trail of the wounded deer and following 
up to the finish. Again, it would be far better to have 
the hounding of deer according to law than it is to 
have it against the law, as has been the case in so 
many sections of Essex county the past three years. 
Undoubtedly the majority of Essex county hunters 
favor the legal hounding of deer. Let’s meet the hunt¬ 
ers on the level and give them a square deal. Give 
ten days hounding under law, and the hunters say they 
will be satisfied. They say they will, if given ten days 
hounding, tie up the dogs at the end of the season, and 
that, in effect, each and every hunter will then be a 
game protector. Let’s try the hunters on their honor. 
If the rest of the State doesn’t want hounding, exempt 
Essex county, as was done in case of the Radford bear 
protection law seven years ago the coming winter. It 
was the Democratic candidate for member of Assembly 
in Essex county who crystallized the sentiment which 
was presented to the senator and assemblyman represent¬ 
ing Essex county at that time. The fact that the 
Democratic candidate recognized sentiment and pre¬ 
sented it in overwhelming petition form at that time is 
evidence of what might be expected of him should he 
be elected assemblyman. The game laws should be 
made to harmonize more directly with the “well-known 
and oft-repeated wishes of the rank and file resident in 
Essex county.” Amend the present forest, fish and 
game law and the hunters will do their part toward pro¬ 
tecting game, etc. One-fourth the expense of adminis¬ 
tration in Adirondack counties may be saved by taking 
the right course. Safety, economy and common sense 
dictate a change. Let’s have it. 
A great proportion of the accidents in the 
woods was charged up to the anti-hounding law. 
But a man who will shoot at a moving object 
without knowing what it is ought not to be al¬ 
lowed in the woods with a gun, for he who takes 
time to see what he aims at will never shoot a 
person by mistake. Moreover, if careless men 
knew they could be tried for manslaughter, they 
would be careful what they shot at. The men 
who would be all the year round poachers and 
market hunters, seeing the great increase of deer, 
and not caring what may happen to the deer sup¬ 
ply if only they can have their wishes, have 
never ceased to agitate for a return to the old 
exterminative ways of hunting, and if they suc¬ 
ceed, deer will again become scarce. Does any 
man in his senses believe such men would be 
content with ten days’ hounding? Not even the 
man who espoused their cause for the sake of 
the few votes cast by them. A dog thus kept in 
confinement would be useless. Talk of putting 
such men on their honor! They have shown 
their whole lives long that they have none to 
be put upon. They know better, but raise this 
cry for the sake of getting their own share of 
the deer and everyone else’s, too. Some of these 
men get as high as twenty-five deer in a year— 
not necessarily in a season-—and brag of it, some¬ 
times in hearing of game protectors. Nothing is 
done to them. Some of them are not even kept 
under surveillance. 
For these people “a change” is asked. If many 
of them had their legal deserts they would be 
in prison now instead of posing as virtuous 
citizens. 
The exposure of Commissioner Whipple gave 
these men new heart, and when it became known 
that he would soon be out of office, hounds were 
brought into these parts in autos, and it appears 
that they were pretty freely used. A few guides 
who favor hounding helped them, and all was 
merry while the great mass of us viewed the 
signs of the times with anything but compla¬ 
cency. A few hounds were shot by those whose 
rights were being invaded, and whose hunting 
was being spoiled, for hounding and other 
methods of deer hunting do not go well to¬ 
gether, but most of them went back safely as 
they came. We trusted to our game protectors 
who could not cover all the ground, but did the 
best they could. Now, with five or more times 
as many hunters as before, and a full comple¬ 
ment of hounds, our deer would in five or six 
years be far nearer extermination than they were 
in 1897. Then, what would become of our 
boasted Adirondack Park? It is up to the sports¬ 
men of the rest of the State to defeat the efforts 
of these men. 
The plea that “since some hound deer in viola¬ 
tion of law, let the law be repealed to let us 
all do it” is childish. Suppose we repeal all our 
laws that prohibit theft, smuggling, murder, per¬ 
jury, etc., and let us all do things to the injury 
of our neighbors as well as in the matter of not 
preserving the deer from extermination, and see 
how that would go—every man doing that which 
is right in his own eyes. Few would want to 
do that. 
Should we, then, listen seriously to and act 
upon the vaporings of men who are asking us 
to do this very thing? They made the most of 
a lie by saying that there were no deer at all, 
even when deer were so- plenty that they came 
freely into our meadows by day to feed. When 
this failed them they must needs try something 
else. 
To give deer a chance to increase in other 
wooded portions of the State, the Adirondacks 
are among the few places in the State where we 
are allowed to hunt deer at all. Now, these men 
think that the people’ in other portions of the 
State are perhaps as greedy as they are. I hope 
not. If they all do prove so, then good-bye to 
the deer of the Adirondacks. 
Rodney West. 
Where Farmers are Friendly. 
San Francisco, Cal., Dec. 12 .— Editor F.orest 
and Stream: Duck shooting has been rather 
unsatisfactory so far this season, except with 
members of shooting clubs located on salt 
marshes. There has been practically no rain 
to date, and without green food and fresh water 
pools, the birds have been keeping on the salt 
water sloughs and on the marshes. A heavy 
rain would be welcomed by the unattaphed 
sportsmen, for this would have the effect of 
scattering the birds and of giving every one an 
equal chance for some sport. The concentra¬ 
tion of the shooting on a few preserves has had 
the effect of making ducks rather wild, and even 
some of the club members have not found much 
sport of late on the Suisun marshes. The birds 
have been keeping out of the way in the day 
time and visiting the feeding grounds only at 
night when shooting is not allowed. 
Cold weather has at last set in and this is 
causing many sportsmen to take up shooting who 
did not make their appearance at the opening of 
the season, when the weather was warm. Thou¬ 
sands of ducks were killed at that time and 
allowed to spoil on account of a lack of atten¬ 
tion on the part of the gunners and lack of 
accommodations at the club houses. It was al¬ 
most impossible then to get birds from the fields 
to the city before they spoiled, but this did not 
prevent many from shouldering their guns and 
killing the limit every chance that afforded. 
Club members in the Los Banos district are 
reporting that poachers are very busy there, and 
that they are killing heavier bags than the law 
allows. These men use a horse to get close to 
the birds, and with a big bore gun sometimes 
slaughter forty or fifty ducks at one shot, be¬ 
sides maiming many others. Last season when 
the arrest of a poacher was made at the initia¬ 
tive of a gun club, the club house was set on 
fire and a damage of $19,000 done to this and 
to property belonging to the landowner. 
Geese are now to be found in the Los Banos 
and Rio Vista districts in thousands, and there 
is but little difficulty in finding a good day’s 
sport in these sections. The geese are feeding 
on the stubble and the farmers are glad to have 
the hunters come, as the geese destroy much 
growing grain later in the season. Thirty or 
forty geese in a day is not an uncommon bag, 
there being no limit to the number of geese that 
may be taken lawfully. 
Local sportsmen have recently been entertain¬ 
ing F. P. Sherwood, an Eastern sportsman, who 
made a special trip to the coast to enjoy a short 
hunting trip, and were glad to note that he 
found what he came for. Mr. Sherwood shot 
recently on the grounds of the Gridley Gun Club 
in the Sacramento Valley, and his party bagged 
142 ducks and eighty-three geese in a couple 
of days. An automobile trip was then made to 
Los Molines, where four fine bucks were se¬ 
cured just before the close of the deer season. 
Bluebills and canvasbacks are now making 
their appearance, and after the first heavy rain 
storm they are expected to become quite plenti¬ 
ful in the marshes and sloughs. 
At the West Side preserve near Los Banos, 
club members are complaining of too much 
water, something that is unusual this year. The 
flood gates were opened recently and a great 
pond made, with the result that ducks, geese and 
snipe came in great numbers, but the.expanse 
of water is so great that they can be reached 
only with difficulty. 
M. Amoral was recently fined $25 at Gustine 
by Judge Meredith for hunting without a license, 
but refused to pay this and appealed the matter 
to the attorney-general, claiming that the fine 
was excessive. The matter was referred back to 
Judge Meredith, and the hunter becoming belli¬ 
gerent, was fined $100. 
The park commissioners of San Francisco 
have been presented with a fine big American 
eagle by Captain J. P. Hansen, of the schooner 
Olympic. The big bird fell exhausted to the 
deck of the schooner recently while twenty miles 
off the Oregon coast, and was brought to this 
port. The bird threatened to starve on the way 
down, but it was finally found that it would take 
food from Captain Hansen and it devoured the 
major portion of the fresh meat on hand before 
San Francisco was reached. A. P. B. 
