EDITORIALS AND NOTES 43 



to deer hunting of all of Districts If, 2, 2£, 2£, 2f, and that portion of 



3 not included in the previous order. The counties affected were Marin, 

 Napa, Solano, Yolo, Colusa, Sonoma, Lake, Mendocino, Glenn and a 

 small portion of Humboldt ; also Contra Costa, Alameda, San Francisco, 

 San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, and other parts of counties in 

 District 3 not included in the earlier closing order. 



These two closures prohibited deer hunting which normally would 

 have been open August 1st to September 15th in Fish and Game Dis- 

 tricts If, 2, 2i, 2i, 2| and 3 ; from August 10 to September 9 in Dis- 

 tricts 3i| and 4f ; and from September 16th to October 15th in Districts 



4 and 4f. 



A third request from General DeWitt caused the Commission on 

 August 26th to recommend closure of those portions of Shasta, Tehama, 

 Butte, Yuba, Nevada, Placer, El Dorado, Amador, Calaveras, Tuol- 

 umne, Mariposa, Madera, Fresno, Tulare and Kern counties lying below 

 what is commonly known as the ' ' ponderosa pine belt. ' ' This order was 

 signed on August 31st and took effect September 16th, to close for the 

 season an area which would otherwise have been open to hunting from 

 September 16th to October 15th, inclusive. 



To summarize : Four special regulations affected the 1942 deer 

 season, none of which originated with the Division of Fish and Game. 

 The first was an order of the U. S. Forest Service closing certain 

 National Forests to all trespassers. The other three were recommen- 

 dations of the Fish and Game Commission made in compliance with 

 requests of the Commanding Officer of the Western Defense Command, 

 which requests in turn were based on the existence of fire hazards as 

 determined by the Committee on Forest Fire Prevention of the Cali- 

 fornia Office of Civilian Defense. — George P. Miller, Executive Officer. 



TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO IN "CALIFORNIA FISH 



AND GAME" 



Leading articles in this magazine 25 years ago included an account 

 of the skates and rays of California by Professor Starks of Stanford 

 University, observations on bighorn sheep within 30 miles of Los 

 Angeles by Harold Gardner, and a paper by Harold C. Bryant on the 

 Trinity Game Refuge, the first of the large State game refuges. 



But the most interesting feature of the January, 1918, number 

 from the point of view of present-day readers is an editorial entitled 

 "Fish and Game Endangered." This has to do with World War I, and 

 the attempts made at that time to bring about relaxation of conserva- 

 tion measures on the score of emergency food needs. Such needs do 

 exist in war time, but those who wish to supply them through abnormal 

 capture of fish or game are not infrequently motivated by the desire 

 for personal gain. In many cases, the added increment to the food 

 supply is too small to be significant, while the extraordinary inroads 

 upon the natural resources may endanger the future stock. The pos- 

 sible extinction of a natural resource which would otherwise be self- 

 perpetuating should not be countenanced unless no alternative route to 

 victory exists. 



What has been the impact of the present world crisis upon Cali- 

 fornia fish and game ? A commercial fishing season for mullet has been 



