Hunting in Many Lands: the Book of the Boone and Crockett Club

Part 1

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Hunting in Many Lands

The Book of the Boone and Crockett Club

Hunting In Many Lands

=The Book of the Boone and Crockett Club=

EDITORS

THEODORE ROOSEVELT GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL

NEW-YORK FOREST AND STREAM PUBLISHING COMPANY 1895

Copyright, 1895, by Forest and Stream Publishing Company

Forest and Stream Press, New York, N. Y., U. S. A.

Contents

Page

Hunting in East Africa 13 W. A. Chanler.

To the Gulf of Cortez 55 George H. Gould.

A Canadian Moose Hunt 84 Madison Grant.

A Hunting Trip in India 107 Elliott Roosevelt.

Dog Sledging in the North 123 D. M. Barringer.

Wolf-Hunting in Russia 151 Henry T. Allen.

A Bear-Hunt in the Sierras 187 Alden Sampson.

The Ascent of Chief Mountain 220 Henry L. Stimson.

The Cougar 238 Casper W. Whitney.

Big Game of Mongolia and Tibet 255 W. W. Rockhill.

Hunting in the Cattle Country 278 Theodore Roosevelt.

Wolf-Coursing 318 Roger D. Williams.

Game Laws 358 Charles E. Whitehead.

Protection of the Yellowstone National Park 377 George S. Anderson.

* * * * *

The Yellowstone National Park Protection Act 403

Part 2

Head-Measurements of the Trophies at the Madison Square Garden Sportsmen's Exposition 424

National Park Protective Act 433

Constitution of the Boone and Crockett Club 439

Officers of the Boone and Crockett Club 442

List of Members 443

List of Illustrations

Crown of Chief Mountain Frontispiece From the southeast. One-half mile distant. Photographed by Dr. Walter B. James.

Facing page A Mountain Sheep 55 Photographed from Life. From Forest and Stream.

Rocky Mountain and Polo's Sheep 75 The figures are drawn to the same scale and show the difference in the spread of horns. From Forest and Stream.

A Moose of the Upper Ottawa 85 Killed by Madison Grant, October 10, 1893.

How our Outfit was Carried 123 Photographed by D. M. Barringer.

Outeshai, Russian Barzoi 151 Winner of the hare-coursing prize at Colombiagi (near St. Petersburg) two years in succession. In type, however, he is faulty.

Fox-hounds of the Imperial Kennels 177 The men and dogs formed part of the hunt described.

The Chief's Crown from the East 229 Photographed by Dr. Walter B. James. Distance, two miles.

Yaks Grazing 255 Photographed by Hon. W. W. Rockhill.

Ailuropus Melanoleucus 263 From Forest and Stream.

Elaphurus Davidianus 271

The Wolf Throwing Zlooem, the Barzoi 319 From Leslie's Weekly.

Yellowstone Park Elk 377 From Forest and Stream.

A Hunting Day 395 From Forest and Stream.

In Yellowstone Park Snows 413 From Forest and Stream.

On the Shore of Yellowstone Lake 419 From Forest and Stream.

NOTE.--The mountain sheep's head on the cover is from a photograph of the head of the big ram killed by Mr. Gould in Lower California, as described in the article "To the Gulf of Cortez."

Preface

The first volume published by the Boone and Crockett Club, under the title "American Big Game Hunting," confined itself, as its title implied, to sport on this continent. In presenting the second volume, a number of sketches are included written by members who have hunted big game in other lands. The contributions of those whose names are so well known in connection with explorations in China and Tibet, and in Africa, have an exceptional interest for men whose use of the rifle has been confined entirely to the North American continent.

During the two years that have elapsed since the appearance of its last volume, the Boone and Crockett Club has not been idle. The activity of its members was largely instrumental in securing at last the passage by Congress of an act to protect the Yellowstone National Park, and to punish crimes and offenses within its borders, though it may be questioned whether even their efforts would have had any result had not the public interest been aroused, and the Congressional conscience pricked, by the wholesale slaughter of buffalo which took place in the Park in March, 1894, as elsewhere detailed by Capt. Anderson and the editors. Besides this, the Club has secured the passage, by the New York Legislature, of an act incorporating the New York Zoological Society, and a considerable representation of the Club is found in the list of its officers and managers. Other efforts, made by Boone and Crockett members in behalf of game and forest protection, have been less successful, and there is still a wide field for the Club's activities.

Public sentiment should be aroused on the general question of forest preservation, and especially in the matter of securing legislation which will adequately protect the game and the forests of the various forest reservations already established. Special attention was called to this point in the earlier volume published by the Club, from which we quote:

If it was worth while to establish these reservations, it is worth while to protect them. A general law, providing for the adequate guarding of all such national possessions, should be enacted by Congress, and wherever it may be necessary such Federal laws should be supplemented by laws of the States in which the reservations lie. The timber and the game ought to be made the absolute property of the Government, and it should be constituted a punishable offense to appropriate such property within the limits of the reservation. The game and timber on a reservation should be regarded as Government property, just as are the mules and the cordwood at an army post. If it is a crime to take the latter, it should be a crime to plunder a forest reservation.

Part 3

In these reservations is to be found to-day every species of large game known to the United States, and the proper protection of the reservations means the perpetuating in full supply of all the indigenous mammals. If this care is provided, no species of American large game need ever become absolutely extinct; and intelligent effort for game protection may well be directed toward securing through national legislation the policing of forest preserves by timber and game wardens.

A really remarkable phenomenon in American animal life, described in the paper on the Yellowstone Park Protection Act, is the attitude now assumed toward mankind by the bears, both grizzly and black, in the Yellowstone National Park. The preservation of the game in the Park has unexpectedly resulted in turning a great many of the bears into scavengers for the hotels within the Park limits. Their tameness and familiarity are astonishing; they act much more like hogs than beasts of prey. Naturalists now have a chance of studying their character from an entirely new standpoint, and under entirely new conditions. It would be well worth the while of any student of nature to devote an entire season in the Park simply to study of bear life; never before has such an opportunity been afforded.

The incident mentioned on page 421 was witnessed by Mr. W. Hallett Phillipps and Col. John Hay. Since this incident occurred, one bear has made a practice of going into the kitchen of the Geyser Hotel, where he is fed on pies. If given a chance, the bears will eat the pigs that are kept in pens near the hotels; but they have not shown any tendency to molest the horses, or to interfere in any way with the human beings around the hotels.

These incidents, and the confidence which the elk, deer and other animals in the Park have come to feel in man, are interesting, for they show how readily wild creatures may be taught to look upon human beings as friends.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT, GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL.

NEW YORK, August 1, 1895.

Hunting in Many Lands

Hunting in East Africa

In the month of July, 1889, I was encamped in the Taveta forest, 250 miles from the east coast, and at the eastern foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro. I was accompanied by my servant, George Galvin, an American lad seventeen years old, and had a following of 130 Zanzibaris. My battery consisted of the following weapons: one 8-bore smooth, using a cartridge loaded with 10 drams of powder and a 2-ounce spherical ball; one .577 and one .450 Express rifle, and one 12-bore Paradox. All these were made by Messrs. Holland & Holland. My servant carried an old 12-bore rifle made by Lang (intended to shoot 4-1/2 drams of powder, but whose cartridges he recklessly loaded with more than 7) and a .45-90 Winchester of the model of 1886.

Taveta forest has been often described by pens far abler than mine, so I will not attempt to do this. It is inhabited by a most friendly tribe of savages, who at the time of my visit to them possessed sufficient food to be able to supply the wants of my caravan. I therefore made it a base at which I could leave the major part of my following, and from which I could with comfort and safety venture forth on shooting trips, accompanied by only a few men.

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