278 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



EDITORIAL GLEANINGS. 



National Bird and Mammal Eeservations in Alaska in 

 Charge of the U.S. Department op Agriculture. — Seven reser- 

 vations for the protection of birds and mammals in Alaska have been 

 set aside by executive order and placed in charge of the Department 

 of Agriculture. These reservations, created in February and March, 

 1909, comprise, with one exception, small islands at several points 

 along the coast of Alaska and in Bering Sea, as follows : — Bering Sea 

 Reservation : Saint Matthew, Hall, and Pinnacle Islands. Fire Island 

 Reservation : Near head of Cook Inlet. Tuxedni Reservation : Chisick 

 and Egg Islands, Cook Inlet. Saint Lazaria Reservation : Saint 

 Lazaria Island, Sitka Sound. Yukon Delta Reservation : Tundra of 

 the Yukon Delta. Pribilof Reservation : Walrus and Otter Islands, 

 Bering Sea. Bogoslof Reservation : Bogoslof Islands, Aleutian Archi- 

 pelago. Fire Island is the breeding ground of the Alaska Moose ; the 

 islands in Bering Sea contain rookeries of Sea-Lions, and all of the 

 reservations are important breeding grounds of Sea-birds or Ducks 

 and Geese. All of these species are protected by the Alaska Game 

 Law (35 Stat., 102), and the birds on the reservations are protected 

 by Act of Congress, signed Theodore Roosevelt, under date, 

 Feb. 27th, 1909.— (U.S. Dep. Agric. Bur. Biol. Surv., Circular No. 71, 

 1910.) 



Private Game Preserves and their Future in the United 

 States — Historical.— The game preserve in the form of a Deer-park 

 as an adjunct to a private estate dates back to the earliest colonial 

 days. One of the first, if not the first, in x\merica was located in 

 Maryland, on the eastern side of Chesapeake Bay, near its head. 

 Augustin Hermann, a cartographer, born at Prague, Bohemia, in 

 1608, came to Maryland in 1659, and surveyed and mapped the 

 province, a service for which he received a grant of land in Cecil 

 County. Here he founded, in 1661, the manor of Bohemia, and 

 among other attractions added "a large Deer-park, the walls of which 

 are still standing."" In the descriptions of colonial estates, par- 

 ticularly those in Maryland and Virginia, frequent references may be 

 found to Deer-parks. 



* Wilson, J. G., ■ A Maryland Manor,' p. 15, 1890. 



