FOREST AND STREAM. 

[MaARcH 31, 19060. 
GAME BAG AND GUN 

Wild Deer in Illinois. 
THOSE primal text-books of our modern 
American sportsmanship, ForEST AND STREAM and 
the American Field, and, latterly many monthly 
magazines of the out of doors, have educated 
the public to a point where they take pride and 
pleasure in seeing wild creatures live, move and 
have their being; in forming their acquaintance, 
and in preserving their lives and environment. 
In short, while we are still a red-blooded people 
we have been taught to use and not abuse the 
mercies of nature. Cui bono? Why simply this, 
the white flag of Cervus virginianus is beginning 
to wave once more in old deer ranges where a 
deer’s tail had not been complacently wiggled for 
scores of years. Here is how, to him and his 
flag. 
Generally speaking, the deer of northern Illi- 
nois held their own during the first fifteen years 
of the white occupation, the needs of the settlers 
being rather less than those of the Indians, not to 
mention that the deer were saved from the drain 
of the wolf packs, which had been -killed, scat- 
tered or driven further north and west, while 
there was no dependable market for the meat and 
hides. Then came the winter of 1848 and ’49. 
One day there fell a snow, then a sleet on top 
of that, then another snow, then another sleet 
until the surface was “as slick as glass.” There 
now ensued several weeks of freezing and thaw- 
ing weather. The nights were very cold, and the 
sun would melt the ice crusts at mid-day ‘and then 
the resulting water was frozen solid, so that at 
times neither man nor beast could travel—much 
less run—upon its surface. In fact, locomotion 
was thus rendered especially difficult to all hoofed 
animals, wild or domestic. Then it was that the 
deer of Illinois, from Springfield to Galena, were 
given a blow from which they never recovered. 
They were ruthlessly slaughtered in bunches of 
from three to thirty and more; individuals with 
hickory sled stakes and iron bars, and history 
have recorded the fact. Extermination was com- 
pleted in 1860. 
In the “Outdoor Pastimes of an American 
hunter” Theodore Roosevelt says: “But with all 
wild animals it is a noticeable fact that a course of 
contact with man continuing over many genera- 
tions of animal life causes a species so to adapt 
itself to its new surroundings that it can hold its 
own far better than formerly. When white men 
take up a new country, the game, and especially 
the big game, being entirely unused to the new 
foe, succumb easily, and are almost completely 
killed out. If any individuals survive at all, how- 
ever, the succeeding generations are far more 
difficult to exterminate than were their ancestors, 
and they cling more tenaciously to their old 
homes. The game to be found in old and long 
settled countries is, of course, much more wary 
and able to take care of itself than the game of 
an untrodden wilderness; it is the wilderness life, 
far more than the actual killing of the wilderness 
game, which tests the ability of the wilderness 
hunter.” 
Brethren of the craft, lovers of the outdoor 
life—wilderness or otherwise, all—this is the 
voice of a hunter-naturalist, an accurate trained 
observer of nature as she is. © 
Many good citizens of Illinois breed and have 
bred tame deer. It takes the right environment, 
both human and natural, to originate a race of 
wild deer in an old settled country, as George 
Stevens, of Kishwaukee, IIll., has done. Mr. Stev- 
ens is a valued friend and neighbor of the writer. 
A New Engiander by birth, he has lived at Kish- 
waukee since 1860. In the ’90’s a near friend, one 
William A. Rothwell, sent him from Wisconsin 
a doe fawn, which had been caught and tamed 
and raised by hand by an Indian. Fanny would 
never sleep in the comfortable quarters prepared 
for her except in fly time. In winter her daily joy 
is two ears of corn and a snow drift, no more, 
no less, and on it she has always thrived and 
waxed strong. Clover hay is the winter rough- 
ness for tame deer. They thrive on it. An- 
nually, since she was mated at the age of three 
years, she has given birth to twins and some- 
times triplets, and, being a good mother, she has 
raised: them all. In 1904 old Fanny was given 
her freedom, and her headquarters, with four 
other deer, is a sixty-acre apple orchard. Each 
year the young deer have gone out to possess 
the land, and as they fill up the old deer ranges 
we are beginning to hear a great deal about them. 
Dr. J. A. Wheeler, the Game Commissioner of 
Illinois, has directed the deputy wardens of Ogle 
and Winnebago counties to keep a sharp lookout 
for the welfare of these wild deer, and there is a 
standing reward of $50 for information of any- 
one’s offering or having offered violence to them. 
The writer saw these men meet by appointment, 
and pass on through the range of these deer. 
The wild deer of this section are all descended 
from old Fanny and are increasing in numbers 
very satisfactorily. They live in the brushy draws 
and coulés running back in an easterly direction 
from the cafion of Rock River south of the Kish- 
waukee, and on the southern exposures of the 
forest covered, rough, broken hill country that 
far back overlooks the valley of Stillman’s Run. 
The mouth of the Kishwaukee, a large tributary 
to Rock River from the east, is seven miles north 
of Byron; from Kishwaukee, a prolific and noted 
hunting ground; Kishwaukee, over whose bright, 
gleaming, pearl- bearing sands there flashes with a 
current hard to stem with oar or paddle, the 
clearest, purest water of a like body in northern 
Illinois; Kishwaukee, one of the favorite hunting 
grounds of Black Hawk and his band of Sac and 
Fox Indians; Kishwaukee, the picturesque and 
the beautiful, the home of the wild ones, and of 
the pearl-bearing unios, in short the mother of 
pearls—and herself the fairest pearl of them all— 
to where Pine Creek, after wandering here and 
there through a pine forest of which we are 
justly proud, pays tribute to Rock River from 
the west a few miles below what the early French 
settlers of the Illinois country called Grand 
Detour (the great bend of the river) is a distance 
by water of some thirty miles. It is one endless 
succession of gems of natural beauty, and like 
all such land is opposed to agriculture, but pro- 
duces good blue grass. Of course, here and there 
much fine farm land lies among the rough and 
broken river lands. It was designed by a bene- 
ficent Creator as the range and home of hoofed 
animals, wild and domestic, and is a pleasure 
ground for the people of Illinois. 
Since the country was settled, the land fenced, 
the consumers of brush—the deer—ruthlessly 
killed or driven from the country, and the In- 
dians who annually burned the country over were 
chased across the Mississippi River into Iowa, 
second growth timber, brush and scrub’ growths 
of all kinds have claimed these broken river lands 
for their own, and hold them with a grip that 
costs the agriculturalist $30 per acre to clear and 
break ready for a first crop, while the reclaimed 
land being thin and poor, is soon exhausted, de- 
manding clover and manure. Vast areas of this 
land, in the aggregate, never can be worked. 
Now the acclimated, hale and hearty little band 
of Ogle county deer, like all other species of the 
American cervid@, are browsers, i. ¢., they live 
almost exclusively upon the wooded growths, es- 
pecially hazel, which costs our agriculturalists so 
much to remove. Deer make the grass grow by 
clearing the land of brush. Deer and cattle live 
harmoniously together in all sections of America, 
when. given the chance, * * * the one living 
mainly upon what the other rejects. If the lives 
of this band of wild deer are carefully conserved 
‘ 
until the long closed season is over and their kill- 
ing then carefully prescribed and safeguarded by 
wholesome law, the people of this wilder Illinois 
will have plenty of venison and some to spare, 
and wild animate beauty forever in their land- 
scapes, which once seen are never forgotten. 
Dr. A. J. Woopcock. 
RIVERSIDE Farm, Byron, IIl. 
The Game Refuge Bill. 
THE game refuge bill (H. R. 7019) .introduced 
by Mr. Lacey and favorably reported by the Com- 
mittee on Agriculture, reads as follows: 
“A bill for the protection of animals, birds and 
fish in the forest reserves and for other purposes. 
“Be it enacted by the Senate and House of 
Representatives of the United States of America 
in Congress assembled, that the President of the 
United States is hereby authorized to designate 
such areas in the public forest reserves as should 
in his opinion be set aside for the protection of 
game or of other animals, birds, or fish, and be 
recognized as a breeding place therefor. 
“Sec. 2. That when such areas have been so de- 
signated as provided for in section one of this 
act, hunting, trapping, killing or capture of game 
or ‘of other animals, birds or fish upon the lands 
or in the waters of the United States within the 
limit of said areas, or on any reserves heretofore 
or hereafter set aside by Executive order as 
breeding grounds for birds, shall be unlawful, and 
any persons violating the provisions of this act 
shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and 
shall, upon conviction in any United States court 
of competent jurisdiction, be fined in the sum of 
not exceeding five hundred dollars or be impris- 
oned for a period not exceeding six months, or 
shall suffer both fine and imprisonment, in the 
discretion of the court; Provided, That the Sec- 
retary of Agriculture may, “when necessary, au- 
thorize the capture therein of animals, birds or 
fish for propagation or exhibition, may permit 
the collection of specimens for scientific purposes, 
and may exempt from protection such species as 
he may deem injurious; Provided further, That 
this act shall not give protection to such birds 
or animals as are, or may hereafter be, declared 
injurious by the laws of the State or Territory 
in which such reserves are situated. 
“Sec. 3. That it is the purpose of this act to 
protect from trespass the public lands of the 
United States and the animals, birds and fish 
which may be thereon and not to interfere with the 
operation of the local game laws as affecting pri- 
vate, State or Territorial lands.” 
California Canvasbacks. 
Tue California duck shooting season closes 
now Feb. 15, and with the cessation of the shoot- 
ing great multitudes of ducks have made their 
appearance in localities where, during the open 
season, they were few in number and hard to 
get at. On the overflows near the city of Sacra- 
mento, canvasbacks have begun to make their ap- 
pearance in large numbers, and the country back 
of Clarksburg is full of birds, while along the 
shores of San Francisco Bay and other smaller 
bodies of water they are extraordinarily abun- 
dant, and are becoming very unsuspicious. This 
adds another bit of evidence to that which was 
already abundant enough, showing that birds 
speedily learn to become tame just as readily as. 
they learn to become wild. 
Hares for Stocking Purposes. 
A Lone IsLAnp club is desirous of securing 
some hares (cottontail rabbits) for stocking the 
club preserves. We would thank any correspond- 
ent who may inform us where the animals may 
be had. 
