Jan. 13, 1906.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 

In‘ Appreciation of Major Pond. 
Tue Essex County Republican prints this ac- 
count of a very pleasing action by the game pro- 
tectors to show their appreciation of Major J. 
Warren Pond, their retiring chief: 
“George Selkirk, our local game protector, re- 
ports that the game laws since the close of the 
deer season are being well observed. He has re- 
cently made a long trip through the woods and 
finds no evidence of hunting, which shows that 
the sentiment for game law observance is growing 
among tke people and that more and more the 
desire is becoming universal to give the deer a 
chance to propagate to make better hunting in 
the proper season. Mr. Selkirk says that the 
cutting of the hard wood in the Adirondacks is 
likely to hurt the deer hunting more than all the 
pot-hunting of years gone by, because it removes 
the winter shelter which the deer must have. In 
many places where the hard wood has been cut 
there is nothing left for shelter. The game pro- 
tectors who served under Major Pond, the 
former chief, have been considering ever since 
his resignation the presentation of some token of 
their regard. The plan culminated on Saturday, 
when the Major was the recipient of a beautiful 
$125 fur-lined coat and $30 in gold from his old 
associates, as a Christmas remembrance and testi- 
monial to their appreciation of his good fellow- 
ship and kindness to them while in the service. 
The presentation was made for the protectors by 
Isaiah Vosburgh, of Saranac Lake.” 

Mountain View, N. Y., Jan. 6.—Editor Forest 
and Stream: I wish to extend to the game pro- 
tectors of the State, through your paper, my 
heartfelt thanks for the beautiful Christmas gift 
in the shape of a fur-lined coat and purse of gold 
as a testimonial of the friendly relations hitherto 
existing between us. 
I appreciate this action on their part many 
times more than I could have done if the gift had 
been received while in the service, instead of at a 
time when our relations are so far removed, one 
from the other, and with but little prospect of 
ever meeting them again. 
Wishing them success in all things through life, 
I remain, as ever their friend, 
J .. WARREN Ponp. 
Massachusetis Game Conditions. 
Boston, Jan. 6.—Editor Forest and Stream: A 
brief summing up of the information gathered 
from about 300 different towns in Massachusetts 
the past autumn, concerning observance of the 
laws and trout fishing, may be of interest to 
your readers. 
In answer to the question whether fish and 
game laws are generally well observed, 57 per 
cent. of the replies are in the affirmative; 28 
per cent. of the reports are “fairly well,” while 
I5 per cent are decidedly negative answers. 
The counties that make the poorest showing in 
this respect are Essex and Middlesex, the 
former sending out 13 good reports out of 28; 
the latter only 15 reporting a good observance 
out of a total of 46. In their suggestions of 
means of raising the standard of conditions, 
9 correspondents in Essex county call for more 
wardens and 11 in Middlesex. But one con- 
clusion can be drawn from the reports, viz.: 
There is urgent need of measures to raise the 
standard as regards the enforcement of the 
fish and game laws to a point where they shall 
be effective in every community in the State. 
Two exasperating reports have recently been 
made verbally to your correspondent, one by a 
Lawrence sportsman, who says he found two 
dead grouse snared by a string, the other from 
Norfolk county, where an Italian landowner 
under the protection of the law which exempts 
farmers from the prohibition of snaring has 
taken a number of grouse this fall by that 
method. From several localities have come re- 
ports of the extensive use of ferrets. The late 
Captain Collins made an attempt to secure the 
passage of a law requiring the registration of 
ferrets by their owners. Our present statute 
against the use of ferrets is of little value. 
I have already given your readers some re- 
\ 
turns regarding quail and partridges, but I wish 
to emphasize the present conditions in Bristol 
county, which allows shooting during the first 
two weeks of December. From that county 
your correspondent has not one good report 
on quail, and but two that are good on ruffed 
grouse. The sportsmen of Bristol would con- 
tribute to the welfare of the game in their own 
county and greatly simplify the enforcement of 
the laws by a change giving them the same 
season for shooting as the rest of the State. In 
a recent visit to towns in that county, your 
correspondent heard many complaints of the 
influx of hunters from Rhode Island, and their 
violations of the non-export law. These com- 
plaints are not wholly confined to that county. 
A Boston gunner of repute, who has been 
in Holland and other towns, informs me that 
hunters from Providence were in that section, 
coming’ in automobiles and remaining several 
days, carrying back scores and probably even 
hundreds of partridges. Our wardens did all 
they could to get a case against them, but their 
efforts were baffled. The question naturally 
arises, What effective remedy is there? 
In a recent interview with one of the New 
Hampshire commissioners, he said, “Your State 
will have to come into line and enact a non- 
resident license law.” Perhaps he is right. At 
all events I am sure there is a growing senti- 
ment in favor of such legislation. If sportsmen 
coming from other States would show a proper 
respect for Massachusetts laws they might by 
that means defer for a time the enactment of 
hostile legislation. H. H. Kimpatt. 
Maryland Ducking. 
Stockton, Md., Jan. 3.—At last, after waiting 
all through November and December, the wild- 
fowl are coming in on the shoals, and they seem 
to be all redheads. In all the years I have 
been here, I have never seen so blank a fall. 
Plenty of geese and brant, but no ducks, that 
is, deep-water fowl—canvas, redheads and black- 
heads. It has been unusually warm here, with 
very little blustery weather, and what few fowl 
were on the feeding grounds would not decoy, 
as they could not be broken up in small bunches. 
I was out yesterday, and once more it looked 
like old times, with plenty of fowl in the air, 
and beds feeding as far as I could see. We did 
not lay the battery, as it was calm, and I had 
gone out more to look than try for shooting. 
I think we will have plenty of fowl from now 
until April, unless cold weather should set in 
and drive them further south. Every week now 
lessens the chance of their being driven off, 
unless the principal destroyer of wild fowl 
shooting everywhere should put in his appear- 
ance—I mean the night shooter, with his fire- 
box. No State seems to have a law, or warden, 
man enough to stop them. O77 DSPOULKS: 
Firelighting Ducks. 
New York, Jan. 2.—Editor Forest and Stream: 
The unlawful practice of firelighting ducks in 
the sounds of lower North Carolina is in vogue 
to such an extent at present as to be a serious 
menace to legitimate sport. 
Instances of the most flagrant violation of the 
North Carolina State laws, respecting firelight- 
ing have come under my personal observation 
within the past three weeks in lower Core 
Sound, N. C. The offenders for the most part 
are native market hunters, who ply their nefari- 
ous business in utter disregard of law and to the 
great detriment of legitimate wildfowl shooting. 
On a calm day, these pot-hunters go poling 
about the shallow waters of the feeding ground, 
locate a raft of ducks before nightfall, and the 
booming and reverberation of their 8-bore guns 
and “howitzers” are heard at intervals from 
sundown until daylight, carrying on this whole- 
sale slaughter. Apparently they make no secret 
of it, and often boast of the size of a bag to 
their neighbors on the following day. I counted 
nine lights within a radius of ten miles on one 
occasion. 
The place in question is an ideal feeding 
ground, and if the ducks were permitted to rest, 
57 
good sport for everybody would be absolutely 
assured when properly pursued, but firelighting 
makes this impossible. The ducks simply will 
not stay in any locality where the firelighters 
have been at work, and when they do venture 
back they are wild and restless; so much so, that 
they will seldom decoy. 
This thing should be stopped, and could be 
stopped if one or two arrests and convictions 
were made. It seems to me that the Audubon 
Society or others in authority should get after 
their local wardens with a few lines from the 
riot act, and spur them to the performance of 
their respective duties. READER. 
An Uniform Game Law. 
Scuenectapy, N. Y., Dec. 3.—Editor Forest 
and Stream: I would like to ask the readers of 
FOREST AND STREAM, who are residents of New 
York State, to help a sentiment, which is gain- 
ing ground all over the State for a more uni- 
versal game law that is to do away with many 
of our special laws and make a common law 
all over the State, so that when a season opens 
or closes it is in effect all over the State. It 
would save many people getting in trouble who 
break our laws,unintentionally. It is a pretty 
hard thing to determine the county lines when 
one is out in the open country or woods hunt- 
ing, and if we had such laws in effect there 
would not be any excuse for.saying, ‘I did not 
know I was over the county line,’ as I have 
had them say to me many times in the season 
past. I think you can do lots of missionary 
work in this line through the medium of your 
paper. 
There has been no open season on partridge 
in this county for three years, and the county 
is full of birds; in my travels about the county 
I see nice coveys in almost every piece of woods 
of any size. A number of quail were put out 
four years ago, but they have disappeared 
through either having been killed by the severe 
winters, or by hunters. Our brooks are filled 
with trout through the effects of the Schenectady 
Fish and Game Protective Association members 
who restock them each year. 
More than forty arrests were made by Pro- 
tector Jackson and myself; we have lost only 
one case this year, so there is a pretty healthy 
respect for the game laws in this county. Most 
of the arrests were for shooting song birds, 
which was carried on to an alarming extent until 
we punished two or three of them pretty 
severely, and it has put a stop to it. I hope 
you will try to create a sentiment through your 
valuable paper for a universal State law. 
FRANK P. VILLE, 
State Game Warden. 

Photographing Big Game. 
In an article written by Mr. W. B. Devereaux 
and printed in the first Boone and Crockett Book, 
“American Big Game Hunting,” the writer speaks 
of the extraordinary difficulties of photographing 
big game as compared with hunting them, and he 
notices one point about the animals which, per- 
haps, had not previously been observed. He says, 
“While trying to photograph the does and fawns, 
which were continually jumping up and running 
away as we rode along from day to day, I ob- 
served a very curious habit which had never at- 
tracted my attention before. Although they would 
often stop in the open, yet I shortly found that, 
photographically, they were not where they would 
make a negative. After several days it dawned 
upon me that they always stopped in the shadow. 
Giving special attention to this point I very soon 
found, on watching the deer which started up, 
that when they stopped for that moment of curi- 
osity, as so often happens, it was almost invari- 
ably in the long shadows thrown by some trees 
across the path or else in some shady part of the 
wood, and seldom by any chance where the sun- 
light shone directly upon them. This, while a 
matter of indifference to the hunter, is fatal to 
photographic success in this brilliant rarified air, 
where it is almost impossible to get the details of 
any objects in the shadow without very much 
oyerdeyeloping the high lights.” 
