The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1897-12-03
COMMON. SENSE GAME LAWS.

IN fact most OF the time, with surprise,
the genesis and development of our
game laws, but in all that time we have
never received a greater shock than we
did last spring when Governor Griggs
vetoed the almost idiotic game bill pass
ed by the Legislature of last winter. 1t
has always been taken as a matter
of course that any game bill that
has received the sanction of the lawyers
and doctors and farmers that go to COM
pose the membership of the two houses
should receive the gubernatorial sane
tion ipse facto, as in the past few years
while the Governor may have been a
man wise in the councils of his party he
has never been sportsman. Governor
Griggs. fortunately, is fully up to meet
ing both requirements and he came down
hard on the bill which practically for
babe woodcock shooting in the State of
New jersey.
Now let us take and consider this
woodcock question, in a calm, impair
tial spirit, with knowledge born If
years of practical study of the habits of
the bird, the while having in view the
legislation applying to it in surrounding
states.
Our state is one of the great nesting
and Matching grounds of this, the noblest
of all game birds. In years gone by
when game had not as yet felt the in
roads of the breech loader and of the
greatly increased population of all the
surrounding states, they were here, they
bred here, they lived here, not by the
tens or by the hundreds, but by the
thousands, and in our own county, bags
Of thirty, forty and fifty day were nei-
Their unusual nor did it require any great
exertion to make them even with the old
muzzle loader. In an ordinary season
the young birds are well developed by
the first day of July. In some seasons
when the first nests have been destroyed
the general Matching is later, but this is
Of rare occurrence so that as a general
thing the birds are fit to shoot about
July first. Pennsylvania, Delaware and
Qhii S take take this view Of the natter and
allow shooting to begin on this day.
New York, more conservative, opens its
season on the fifteenth of August, but in
all these surrounding states the principle
of summer shooting is well defined and
not only defined but permitted. We
will be frank to admit that the heat in
July and the flies and mosquitoes make
hard work of sport and while arguing
about this question we have often been
met with the objection that the objector
was against July shooting because he
either could not or would not stand the
discomforts.
We will admit, for sake of argument
that the birds are too young in July, but
certainly by the first of October and
long before, all young birds will have
reached maturity and not only will the
local birds be strong of wing and plNmp,
but also, in many years, birds raised to
the north of us will have begun their
southern journey One of the biggest
flights that ever took place in this coun-
ty occurred in the early seventies on the
28th day of September, and on the 31st
day of August, 1890, woodcock were all
over on ground where the day before
there had not been a bird. They were
not local birds. but foreign. The big
gest fight of woodcock that we found in
1896 was on the 4th day of October and
every year our experience has been that
given favorable weather conditions, our
flight begins early in October. And yet
the gentlemen who are in authority, con-
stituting the Fish and Game Commits
sion, and who had their representative,
paid by the State, to urge their views
before the members of the Legislature
who never hunt woodcock, calmly go
before the people of this state with bill
to prevent all woodcock shooting until
after the tenth of November on the plea
that men pretending to hunt woodcock
kill rabbits or other vermin out of
season
We have shot in the northern part Of
this State for great many years and we
have found that the number of game
birds killed cut of season by both sports
men and market hunters is infnitesim-
ally small and exists largely in the
imagination of the gentlemen COM
posing the corps of Fish and Game
Wardens and of the farmer who
once year sallies forth with a
trusty musket and half starved hound
to shoot rabbits for the pot. We are
sick and tired of hearing what the farm
er wants in the matter of game protec-
ton. He generally knows little or nothing
about game or its habits and still less
about killing it on the wing. The men
who shoot-who shoot for pleasure, the
men like Governor Griggs and hundreds
of others in this State, are entitled to