Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1904-03-22
MAN-KILLING HUNTERS.
FOREST EXPERTS STUDY A PROB
LEM IN PSYCHOLOGY.
Why is it That the Deer Huni=y Some
times Mistakes Man for Deer
While the Moose Hunter Rarely IS
Guilty of This?


The accidental shooting OF human
beings in the woods by hunters OF big
game engaged the attention OF the
North American Fish and Game Pro-
tective Association at its recent meet
ing in Portland, Me-, says the New
York Sun. ]. F. Sprague of Monson
read an interesting paper on the SUD
iect, and H. r. Virgin, president OF
the State Senate and author of the
law providing for the punishment OF
those who negligently or carelessly
shoot or wound any human being,
gave his views on the question.
Only few cases of accidental shoot
ing in the woods were reported in
Maine during the recent hunting sea-
son, though there were large num-
Der of deaths from this cause in each
of the three or four preceding years,
and it is a question with the State
Game Commissioners whether the i'm
provement is due to the passage OF
Senator Virgins law or to the non
resident license law, wnich du.ing the
last season has brought to the State
a more experienced and trained class
of hunters.
The most interesting feature of the
debate related to the peculiar mental
processes by which a deer banter mis-
takes bush or perhaps some only
partially seen moving object, for a
deer, while the moose hunter is APP
parently unaffected by the forces by
which the deer hunter is so often N
huenced A partial explanation of the
phenomenon was attempted, with
some show of reason to support it.
For long time past the game laws
of Maine have imposed heavy penal
ty for killing the COW moose. Those
who attempt to account for the fact
that most of the accidents in the
woods are caused by deer hunters
argue as follows:
The moose hunter goes into the
woods in quest of moose, knowing that
he must stop to determine, before he
fires, whether it is a bull, COW, a
spike horn or calf, and he pauses
long enough to ascertain, and seldom
mistakes a moose for man. His
mental processes must have uneon-
sciously led him into deliberateness
in pursuing the moose to which he is
a stranger when hunting the deer.
The normal man when he enters
upon chase for either deer or moose
is possessed of no idea whatever that
he may kill fellow being. Such a
calamity is not consciously or uncon-
sciously any part of the workings Of
his mind
The excitement of the chase is in
tense with him, especially if he is a
beginner at the sport. This undue
and abnormal excitement subjects him
to distorted visions, mental and per-
haps optical illusions.
In his unnatural vision he sees
something. The bushes move, the
color of the animal lis there. He ar
CUES that the plan was for his COM
rade and guide to be on yonder noun
tain side, far from this spot, and no
latent mental forces suggest the pos
sibility of a man being near.
He has not that unconscious and
mysterious incentive to be deliberate
which ne might have were he looking
for a moose. In his mental vision he
sees a deer. 1t is real to him, as &C
tual as are the objects in the delirium
of a sick brain, yet it is only an IL
| fusion.
He fires, ard the one thing which
he was so positive the other day that
| he could easily and certainly avoid,
when ne was reading of the last acct
dental shooting, is done.
If he had been hunting a moose he
would not have stopped and looked be-
fore firing because he apprehended
that he might see a man. That frag-
ment of thought would be absent from
his mind in either event.
! But, yet, while not thinking of a
man when hunting the moose, he was
sane and thoughtful because there was
! something-a grain of thought which
passeth understanding marvellOusly
lodged somewhere in the recesses of
his mind, that ne might mistake COW
for bull. While hunting for the deer
he had no such mental promptings,
for the law has allowed him TO kill
both doe and buck.
There has been no inexplicable pro-
cess unconsciously at work to cause
him to ponder, with care, before fir
ing, and the danger of mis- killing a
man had never operated upon his
mind. He had always believed that
/ only the careless killed men in the
woods accidentally, and the belief that
he never had been and never could
be careless at such times was part
of his being.
The popular theory is that these
accidents are invariably the result OF
gross carelessness, and this belief is
so general that, being false, it may
| of itself be the great cause of them.
! When hunting for the deer he is
equally certain that he cannot by any
chance be careless enough to kin a
man, and having had no brakes put
on his senses regarding the deer he
loses mis- mental equilibrium at the
| critical moment and the tragedy is
| athwart his life.
It appeared to be the sentiment of
| the convention that the COW moose
law has served to draw from the
moose hunters background of con-
sciousness,' as John Fiske calls it in
his essay on Inspiration" an Impulse
at the right moment to be deliberate,
which is 50 much needed in all modes
of hunting. and the suggestion was
| therefore thrown out of the authori-
/ ties that more rational and more
Thoughtful mental conditions in the deer
hunter might doubtless be Induced by
simply forbidding by law the killing
/ of the doe.
Some hunters contend that the en-
forcement of such law would be ex-
ceedingiy difficult because Of the great
| er similarity between the doe and the