FOREST AND STREAM. 


JANUARY IN JACKSON’S HOLE. 
The Netting of Ducks. 
THE work done by Game Protector J. E. Over- 
ton, who has charge of New York city and Long 
Island, brought into the State during the twelve 
months ending Dec. 31, 1905, a very respectable 
sum of money. The number of cases in the 
various months run from one in January to 
fifteen in December; the least amount paid into 
the State in any month was $160 on three cases; 
the greatest amount was $2,588 on fifteen cases. 
The total amount paid to the State in penalties 
by Protector Overton during the twelve months 
was $11,243. 
Mr. Overton’s activity in bringing violators of 
the law to book makes these violators and the 
Butchers’ Advocate, their weekly organ, very in- 
dignant. They have not hesitated to say bitter 
things against the game warden and to bring 
charges against him to the Governor of New 
York. Nothing could have been more gratifying 
‘to Mr. Overton than this. A hearing took place 
before Forest, Fish and Game Commissioner J. 
S. Whipple, the various charges were brought up 
and discussed, and the,Butchers’ Advocate, which 
reported the case and which up to that. time had 
been abusing the game warden, acknowledged that 
he has merely enforced the law. It heads its re- 
port of the inquiry “The Law at Fault,” and calls 
upon game dealers to see that the law is altered. 
Whether the Legislature of the State of New 
York will amend the law as the Butchers’ Advo- 
cate desires it to be amended may seriously be 
doubted, 
Among the subjects which Mr. Overton has had 
to consider this fall is the netting of ducks on 
Long Island. ‘This has been practiced for very 
many years and sportsmen have long complained 
about it, but to no purpose. Mr. Overton found 
a case where 250 netted ducks had been shipped 
by one man, another where 104 had been shipped 
by a single person within a few days, another 
where sixty-two redheads had been sent by one 
Elk feeding on a hillside. 
shipper, and still another where seventy redheads 
had been shipped by one-man. It is safe to say 
that thousands of ducks are taken in nets and 
shipped to the New York market. 
Under present conditions it seems hopeless to 
convict duck netters unless two or three witnesses 
see the men taking the ducks out of the nets. The 
law specificaily provides that it is illegal to set 
nets for the purpose of taking ducks, and even 
prima facie case cannot be had unless the netter 
is seen in the act of removing the birds. We do 
not doubt that many thousands of ducks have 
been so netted this fall and there is no prospect 
of relief. 
Memory Pictures. 

Number One. 
FripaAy night in the winter time; a tracking 
snow.on the ground and rabbit tracks in the 
orchard. The “best rabbit dog in the world” 
asleep in the barn. In the old farm house a roar- 
ing fire in the big old fire-place. Father, mother, 
two older boys, two girls and David, the baby; a 
home which death has as yet not entered; the 
unbroken family sit in a semi-circle before the 
fire; there is a peck basket of winter apples, a 
basket of shellbark hickory nuts, and a glass 
pitcher of rich cider, just sharp enough to 
scratch the throat as it goes down, and there are 
in these latter days no apples like those, nor nuts 
with the exquisite flavor that those nuts had, and 
there is no cider, for that was forty years ago 
and the apple trees are dead of age, and the 
hickories have been cut down years ago. The 
father tells of the times when he was a boy, and 
the boys listen to him and are thinking of to- 
morrow, when there will be excitement and sport 
with the dog and those rabbit tracks in the 
orchard. 
Tt is an old picture. It is not to be seen on 
canvas, but hundreds of those who read this will 
Photo by S. N. Leek. 
bear witness that they have seen it, and that they 
often see it, and that it is dearer to them than 
any picture hat hanks on the walls of their homes. 
O. H. HAmpToN. 
Ticonderoga Gun Club Dinner. 
Tue Ticonderoga Gun Club, a local division of 
the K. W. Y. A. A. (Know What You Aim At), 
organized several years ago to prevent the reck- 
less killing of hunters by each other in the Adi- 
rondacks, and interested in teaching young hunt- 
ers the principles of care in the use of firearms, 
will hold its annual dinner at Rollino’s, 62 West 
Ninth street, New York, Friday evening, March 
2. The feast will be purely Italian in character, 
served by a chef who was formerly a lieutenant 
and decorated sharpshooter in a famous Italian 
regiment at Rome, and who will, naturally, take 
great delight in serving a body of American rifle- 
men and gunners. 
The speeches will be on subjects lately dis- 
cussed and of interest to sportsmen. A Brooklyn 
doctor will tell how the deer were so harried by 
hounds in Warren and Essex counties last fall 
that he had to remove his Lares and Penates to 
the Raquette region before he could get a shot 
at one still-hunting. Another member from Wall 
street will try to show that the .25-35 is too small 
a caliber for killing the big bucks in Essex 
county, N. Y., and give his experience to prove 
same. A member will talk about what to do with 
the short trout that get hooked, and another 
brother will dilate upon the departed glories of 
hounding deer in the woods. A guide from Ticon- 
deroga will relate how he became a snap-shot 
rifleman by the continuous use of a .25-20 Stevens 
“Tick-tack,’” which he carried over his back dur- 
ing all his farm work for several seasons taking 
wing shots at birds. PETER FLINT. 
For report of Massachusetts game legislation 
see page 290. 
