1056 
FOREST AND STREAM 
[Dec. 31, 1910. 
obtains that the court is to be guided by the intention 
of the parties, and if the words clearly express the 
meaning and intention, no other means of interpretation 
can be employed.” Is it a reasonable construction to 
hold that it was intended to clothe unnaturalized foreign- 
born residents with the same rights, immunities and 
advantages as are conferred solely as a privilege on 
citizens? The whole trend of our decisions is against 
such an interpretation. The terms of the treaty pro¬ 
vide for the protection and security of their persons 
and property, and in this respect—to such protection and 
security—the enjoyment of the same rights and privil¬ 
eges as are or shall be granted to the natives on their 
submitting themselves to the conditions imposed on 
the natives. 
An unnaturalized foreign-born resident cannot comply 
with the conditions imposed on a native-born or natural¬ 
ized resident. Article XIV. of the Federal Constitution 
defines this condition: “All persons born or naturalized 
in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction 
thereof are citizens of the United States, and of the 
States wherein they reside.” It would be a perversion 
of language to hold that the phrase—the same rights and 
privileges as are or shall be granted to the natives—was 
intended to or could embrace all the regulations affect¬ 
ing our franchise rights; the administration and execu¬ 
tion of our laws; the special rights granted as privileges 
by our government to particular classes of our citizens. 
Such a construction would render nugatory the qualifica¬ 
tion for president of the United States as provided by 
Art. II., Sec. 1, Par. 5, of our Federal Constitution and 
other limitations that are made equally explicit in our 
fundamental law. 
The assignments of error are overruled and the judg¬ 
ment is affirmed. 
Lucky Shots. 
When my farmer neighbor told me of killing 
two ruffed grouse at one shot on a sheaf of 
buckwheat, I was reminded of one of my own 
early hunting excursions that resulted in similar 
havoc among foxes. I, too, am a farmer, and 
not a sportsman, yet seasoned fox-hunters yield 
me the palm when I tell the story. 
It happened one November morning some 
years ago. I was squirrel hunting in the woods 
at the upper end of the valley when I was at¬ 
tracted by the clamor of a flock of crows in the 
field beyond. Evidently the birds were adver¬ 
tising the presence of some enemy. On look¬ 
ing out across the creek, I discovered that the 
cause of the excitement was a fine fox moving 
leisurely down the opposite hill and not at all 
feazed by the uproar. Hidden by the under¬ 
brush, I paused for a moment to compute his 
orbit, and figured that by crossing the creek a 
little lower down I could meet him with one or 
both barrels loaded with No. 4s, when he 
jumped the stone wall into the next field. The 
only thing that augured ill luck and promised 
to betray me was the thumping of my heart as 
I crept along the wall. Taking off my hat and 
peeping through a crevice between the cap 
stones, I saw my fox less than thirty yards 
away. He was standing still and looking in my 
direction, but seemed absorbed in thought or 
making his plans for the day; and I saw what 
made my heart thump still louder, another fox 
a few yards beyond walking unconcernedly 
down a dead-furrow. I raised my gun above 
the wall and fired at the nearest of the pair. 
The attack was so unexpected that the fox 
hardly changed position until the shot struck 
him, when he began such a series of somer¬ 
saults that I leaped the fence, grabbed him by 
the hind legs and quieted him by slamming his 
head against the wall. 
In the excitement following the shot, I had 
quite forgotten the other fox, and when it oc¬ 
curred to me that there had been a pair of 
them, the female was beyond gunshot and going 
up the hill with prodigious leaps. In a few 
seconds she would have been over the ridge 
and out of sight, but suddenly the pace 
slackened. I have a vivid recollection that the 
fox did not fall but lay down there on the hill¬ 
side as though tired. She was quite dead when 
I came up to her; one of the No. 4s had pene¬ 
trated a vital spot. Had the sportsman’s in¬ 
stinct been stronger in me, I might have turned 
the left barrel on the runaway before she had 
gotten quite out of range; but that would have 
spoiled the story. 
Perhaps the luckiest shot was fired blindly by 
a farmer as unskilled in field sports as myself. 
The tale is told by our village schoolmaster. 
There had been several mysterious disappear¬ 
ances from the poultry yard. The only clew 
was a few scattered feathers across the garden 
and among the berry bushes, and the occasional 
barking of a fox at night against the hill. One 
night when the fox was going through his 
ragged repertoire, the farmer took down his rifle 
and slipped out of doors, determined to give 
the animal a scare. He waited until the hills 
rang again with the vulpine music, then raised 
the rifle, pointed it carefully at the bark and 
fired. 
It is unnecessary to add that the fox barked 
no more that night. When the farmer went to 
his work on the following morning he saw a 
yellowish object out there against the hill that 
he had not noticed the day before. Incredible 
as it may seem, the yellowish object was the 
fox, with a bullet hole in its head. 
Will W. Christman. 
A Talking Dog. 
New York City, Dec. 10 . —Editor Forest and 
Stream: The New York Times for Sunday, 
Dec. 11, had a rather convincing story about a 
dog in Germany—a setter—that now speaks six 
words. The first word that he spoke is said to 
have been “haben.” I find myself giving con¬ 
siderable credence to the report and on the basis 
of experience with one of my own setters, a 
most winsome rascal who enjoyed mimicry. 
Sometimes when he looked up at me and whined, 
if I whined in the same key, he would at once 
repeat the whine. If I then whined in another 
key he would mimic that and could repeat my 
whines in several keys. 
If a dog has the power of co-ordination be¬ 
tween volition and adaptation of the vocal chords 
to a certain whine key, it is indeed a short step 
from that to articulation of such a word as 
“haben.” Given a dog with even one word of 
articulate speech and it should be a matter of 
little difficulty to add other words. 
A point of very great importance, it seems to 
me, would be to have pups in training, listen¬ 
ing to this particular setter when he speaks. The 
tendency toward mimicry is so well marked with 
some dogs that an effort to mimic a speaking 
dog would undoubtedly be made, especially on 
observing that a reward was in store for each 
word spoken. The intelligence of the dog will 
allow him to give correct value to many words 
spoken at first in mimicry only. If I could have 
about two minutes’ heart-to-heart talk with my 
setters occasionally, we would have famous times 
together. Robert T. Morris. 
New York Game Law Suggestions. 
An address delivered before the Forest, Fish and Game 
League, by Robert B. Lawrence. 
Game laws can be enforced only when they 
appeal to the common sense of the sportsman. 
If they are considered unjust and foolish, an 
army of protectors cannot enforce them. We 
have only ninety game protectors and over 100,- 
000 men who shoot. The majority of sports¬ 
men desire to see game increased by the en¬ 
forcement of proper common sense laws, but un¬ 
wise laws are always dead letters, observed by 
the conscientious sportsmen, it is true, but violated 
without hesitation by many who, considering them 
unjust,, realize, that the danger of detection and 
punishment is negligible, save when one of the 
game protectors happens to be on the spot. 
Every time the game law is violated with im¬ 
punity, the moral sense of the violator is weak¬ 
ened, and his respect for the law decreased, but 
if the sense of the community in which he re¬ 
sides is in favor of the strict enforcement of a 
sensible game law, the breaker of that law will 
be severely judged by his associates and shunned 
by all true sportsmen. Let the game laws be so 
worded as to meet the wishes of conservative 
sportsmen, and they will be less frequently vio¬ 
lated than at present. 
We have met here in annual convention year 
after year, have proposed changes in the exist¬ 
ing game laws—many of them of real value and 
tending to the proper conservation of our game 
and fish—but what a farce it has usually been. 
We have appointed our legislative and law com¬ 
mittees to introduce bills covering these amend¬ 
ments and to urge their passage, and they have 
labored faithfully with the limited funds at their 
disposal to accomplish that work, but political 
and other interests have time and again suc¬ 
ceeded in killing those bills in the committee on 
game laws, and in the last few years we, who 
have worked and watched, have found to our 
great disappointment that no matter how desir¬ 
able we considered a proposed change or how 
carefully we worded the bill, it was frequently 
not allowed to come before the Legislature for 
a vote, and if it did come out with the endorse¬ 
ment of the committee and received favorable 
consideration and passed both houses, it still 
failed to become law, because the commissioner 
of forest, fish and game did not give it his sanc¬ 
tion, and the Governor withheld his signature. 
His honor, the Governor, has so many bills to 
consider- at the close of a legislative session, no 
one can wonder at his turning to the commis¬ 
sioner of forest, fish and game for advice as to 
whether or not a bill is desirable and should 
become a law; but we, as sportsmen, represent¬ 
ing the majority of those who are interested in 
having proper game laws passed, have a right 
to be heard, and our wishes should be con¬ 
sidered as well as those of the commissioner. 
Our present forest, fish and game law sadly 
needs revision. The wording of some of the 
sections is faulty and ungrammatical, and the 
meaning at times so hidden under unnecessary 
verbiage that it is largely a matter of guess 
work. For instance, in the sections governing 
the shooting of wildfowl, Sections 87 and 170, 
we read the following: 
“They shall not be taken in the night after 
sunset until sunrise; they shall not be taken or 
possessed at any other time.” 
