American Big Game Hunting Part 12

=San Bernardino Forest Reserve.= In San Bernardino County. Estimated area, 1152 square miles; 737,280 acres. Proclamation issued February 25, 1893.

=Trabuco Canon Reserve.= In Orange County. Estimated area, 78 square miles; 49,920 acres. Proclamation issued February 25, 1893.

COLORADO.

=White River Plateau Timber-Land Reserve.= In Routt, Rio Blanco, Garfield, and Eagle counties. Estimated area, 1672 square miles; 1,198,080 acres.

Proclamation issued October 16, 1891.

=Pike's Peak Timber-Land Reserve.= In El Paso County. Estimated area, 288 square miles; 184,320 acres. Proclamation issued February 11, 1892; supplemental proclamation, March 18, 1892.

=Plum Creek Timber-Land Reserve.= In Douglas County. Estimated area, 280 square miles; 179,200 acres. Proclamation issued June 23, 1892.

=The South Platte Forest Reserve.= In Park, Jefferson, Summit, and Chaffee counties. Estimated area, 1068 square miles; 683,520 acres. Proclamation issued December 9, 1892.

=Battlement Mesa Forest Reserve.= In Garfield, Mesa, Pitkin, Delta, and Gunnison counties. Estimated area, 1341 square miles; 858,240 acres.

Proclamation issued December 24, 1892.

NEW MEXICO.

=The Pecos River Forest Reserve.= In Santa Fe, San Miguel, Rio Arriba, and Taos counties. Estimated area, 486 square miles; 311,040 acres.

Proclamation issued January 11, 1892.

OREGON.

=Bull Timber-Land Reserve.= In Multnomah, Wasco, and Clackamas counties.

Estimated area, 222 square miles; 142,080 acres. Proclamation issued June 17, 1892.

WASHINGTON.

=The Pacific Forest Reserve.= In Pierce, Kitt.i.tas, Lewis, and Yakima counties. Estimated area, 1512 square miles; 967,680 acres. Proclamation issued February 20, 1893.

WYOMING.

=Yellowstone National Park Timber-Land Reserve.= On the south and east of the Yellowstone National Park. Estimated area, 1936 square miles; 1,239,040 acres. Proclamation issued March 30, 1891; supplemental proclamation, September 10, 1891.

NOTE. The areas given are the estimated aggregate areas lying within the exterior boundaries of the reservations.

The lands actually reserved are only the vacant, unappropriated public lands within said boundaries.

The Exhibit at the World's Fair

At its last annual meeting the Club determined to have an exhibit at Chicago. It was felt that it would be a pity if at the World's Fair there was no representation of so typical and peculiar a phase of American national development as life on the frontier. Accordingly it was determined to erect a regular frontier hunter's cabin, and to fit it out exactly as such cabins are now fitted out in the wilder portions of the great plains and among the Rockies, wherever the old-time hunters still exist, or wherever their immediate successors, the ranchmen and pioneer settlers, have taken their places.

The managers of the World's Fair very kindly gave the Club for its exhibit the wooded island in the middle lagoon. Here the club erected a long, low cabin of unhewn logs; in other words, a log house of the kind in which the first hunters and frontier settlers dwelt on the frontier, whether this frontier was in the backwoods of the East in the days when Daniel Boone wandered and hunted in Kentucky, or later when Davy Crockett ranked not only as the best rifle-shot in all Tennessee, but also as a Whig congressman of note; or whether, as in the times of Kit Carson, the frontier had been pushed westward to the great plains, while new settlements were springing up on the Pacific coast and among the Rockies. The inside fittings of the cabin were just such as those with which we are all familiar in the ranch-houses and cabins of the wilderness and of the cattle country. There was a rough table and settles, with bunks in one corner, and a big open stone fireplace. Pegs and deer antlers were driven into the wall to support shaps, buckskin shirts, broad hats, stock-saddles, and the like. Rifles stood in the corners, or were supported by pegs above the fireplace. Nothing was to be seen save what would be found in such a cabin in the wilds; and, as a matter of fact, the various rifles, stock-saddles, and indeed the shaps and buckskin shirts, too, had all seen active service. Elk- and bear-hides were scattered over the floor or tacked to the walls. The bleached skull and antlers of an elk were nailed over the door outside; the head of a buffalo hung from the mid part.i.tion, fronting the entrance, inside; and the horns of other game, such as mountain sheep and deer, were scattered about. Without the door stood a white-capped prairie-schooner, a veteran of long service in cow-camps and on hunting expeditions.

The exhibit was put in charge of Elwood Hofer, of the Yellowstone National Park. On June 15 it was formally opened with a club dinner, at which a number of the gentlemen connected with the World's Fair were present as guests.

Big-game hunters visiting the Fair must have been especially struck with the colossal figures of moose, elk, bison, bear, and cougar which guard the various bridges; some are by Proctor, and some by Kemys. Well worthy of notice likewise were the groups of mounted big game in the Government Building, and those put up by Mr. L. L. Dyche in the Kansas State Building.

Const.i.tution of the Boone and Crockett Club

FOUNDED DECEMBER, 1887.

Article I.

This Club shall be known as the Boone and Crockett Club.

Article II.

The objects of the Club shall be--

1. To promote manly sport with the rifle.

2. To promote travel and exploration in the wild and unknown, or but partially known, portions of the country.

3. To work for the preservation of the large game of this country, and, so far as possible, to further legislation for that purpose, and to a.s.sist in enforcing the existing laws.

4. To promote inquiry into, and to record observations on the habits and natural history of, the various wild animals.

5. To bring about among the members the interchange of opinions and ideas on hunting, travel, and exploration; on the various kinds of hunting-rifles; on the haunts of game animals, etc.

Article III.

No one shall be eligible for membership who shall not have killed with the rifle in fair chase, by still-hunting or otherwise, at least one individual of one of the various kinds of American large game.

Article IV.

Under the head of American large game are included the following animals: Bear, buffalo (bison), mountain sheep, caribou, cougar, musk-ox, white goat, elk (wapiti), wolf (not coyote), p.r.o.nghorn antelope, moose, and deer.

Article V.

The term "fair chase" shall not be held to include killing bear, wolf, or cougar in traps, nor "fire-hunting," nor "crusting" moose, elk, or deer in deep snow, nor killing game from a boat while it is swimming in the water.