Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
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NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JUNE 20, 1896 
i VOL. ZLVL— No. 25 
| No. 346 Bkoadwat, New Yobs. 
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LAKE CRESCENT TROUT. 
Those of our angling readers who have followed. 
Admiral Beardslee's relation of his experience with the 
large trout of Lake Crescent, will congratulate him upon 
the superb fishing he has found and upon the realization 
of many a fisherman's dream of introducing to the world 
of anglers a new fish. Everyone in the vicinity of 
Lake Crescent appears to have caught the fever this 
spring, and there has come to us a story of an experience 
had by one of the fair anglers of Lake Crescent which 
proves more conclusively than does anything which 
Piseco has written that the Beardslee trout is truely to be 
ranked as a game fish. This is the incident as related by 
Mr. Carrigan: "The same day that Mrs. Michell caught 
the 14 pound rainbow she hooked and had a very hard 
fight with a monster Beardslee. She managed to get it 
up to the boat four times, but it fought with such desper- 
ation and was so heavy and powerful that she could not 
land it, and finally it tore away from the hook and she 
lost it. Her idea is that it was at least 36 to 40in. long, a 
foot in depth and weighed certainly a third more than 
the 14-pounder, it was by far the largest trout she had 
ever seen, and she has caught many big ones." 
In short, the big one got away. That gives the stamp 
of nobility to the new Lake Crescent trout, and demon- 
strates its fitness to figure effectively in fish stories. 
had been definitely located in Alaska, the talk was more 
vague, and the Indians of the British Provinces were held 
accountable for the wildfowl albumen industry. The 
purpose of the well-meaning individuals who secured the 
adoption of this statute was to insure good shooting to 
American sportsmen by cutting off the trade in duck eggs 
imported from Canada for trade purposes. Subsequently 
the victims of the duck egg mania transferred the scene 
of destruction from British North America to Alaska; but 
the law had been enacted, and it yet remains, although 
the duck egg albumen myth has been exploded. Thus it 
has come about that a statute adopted ostensibly in the 
interest of game protection is proving an unwarranted 
obstacle to game interests. It should be repealed. 
PHEASANT EGOS AND DUCK EGGS. 
A consignment of pheasant and partridge eggs was 
brought from Europe to this port last week, and was 
held up at the Custom House under the clause of the 
tariff law which forbids the importation of game birds' 
eggs. The eggs were consigned to Theodore Havemeyer, 
and were intended for stocking a game preserve and add- 
ing to the shooting resources of New Jersey. It appar- 
ently had not occurred to any of those who were con- 
cerned in the enterprise that it was forbidden by the 
United States statutes thus to increase the game supply. 
Section 471 of the act of Aug. 28, 1894, specifies as under the 
free list: "Eggs of birds, fish and insects; provided, how- 
ever, that this shall not be held to include the eggs of 
game birds, the importation of which is prohibited except 
specimens for scientific collections." 
The seizure of the pheasant eggs last week led to vari- 
ous surmises respecting the purpose of those who were 
instrumental in making such a law. One of the papers 
quotes Mr. John S. Wise, who relates that last year he 
had a similar experience when he attempted to import 
some pheasant eggs for a game club in Virginia, and 
they were seized upon receipt at the Custom House. The 
price charged Mr. Wise for the eggs in England was $15 
per dozen, while a dealer in this country asked $75 a 
dozen, and it was assumed that the prohibitory law had 
been instigated by speculative traders in this country. On 
the other hand, a pheasant breeder tells us that the law 
was adopted at the request of farmers in the South and 
West, who were opposed to sportsmen trespassing on 
their lands and took this means to discourage the threat- 
ened increase of game by foreign hordes. 
Both of these theories are fanciful; neither is the true 
one. The statute was an outgrowth of the northern 
Indian duck egg destruction foolishness. In the early 
stages of that delusion, before the far-away egg smashing 
THE RANGE IN JUNE. 
Back and forward over the broad expanse of the cattle 
country there passes constantly the lonely figure of the 
range rider. His tough, wiry pony, his broad hat, shaps, 
rope and six shooter mark him for a cow puncher as soon 
as you get near him, and when you meet and stop to 
chat, as of course you will, he will ask you if you have 
seen the horses he is looking for, and will exhibit a 
politely veiled surprise if you cannot rattle off to him the 
brands of all the animals you have seen in a week's ride. 
He is friendly and expansive, and very glad to meet any 
one with whom he can exchange a little conversation, 
since often for days at a time he has only his horse to talk 
to. He is interested in all that is going on, and will give 
you the talk of the range, telling you where the round-up 
camps are to be, and what has happened at the ranches 
he has last visited. In return he expects the latest news 
from town and the stray gossip that may have drifted to 
you from the distant East. 
When at last the range rider leaves you with a pleasant 
"Well, so long, pardner," you realize that you have parted 
with a type whose further acquaintance you would have 
enjoyed, and while you watch him as he glides away 
over the rolling swells of the prairie you feel that you 
can understand something of the attractions of this free 
outdoor life. 
The range rider is tough, hardy and enduring. He 
makes no complaint about anything that happens to him, 
and with calm philosophy faces alike the rains of spring, 
the heats of summer and the winter's storms. Many of his 
kind have perished while bravely doing their duty on the 
range, yielding to the biting blizzards of midwinter or 
being swept away while trying to cross boiling streams, 
bank full of the spring snow water, their bodies to be re- 
covered months later when stumbled on by some one of 
their fellows. 
Although he may not find his stock, the rider who is in 
search of lost horses sees many a sight that is worth look- 
ing at. Even the commonest landscape that meets his 
clear, quick eye is worth contemplation and study. The 
range rider is an observer; he knows how to use his eyes; 
he sees what is going on about him. No one quicker 
than he to detect the dark back of a feeding animal ap- 
pearing over a distant crest, or to catch a shod horse track 
in the dry, hard dirt, or to make out the brand on a timid 
heifer as she whirls to run. All this keenness is for the 
signs of his own trade, yet he is not blind to many of the 
facts of nature that are constantly going on about him. 
He knows all the larger animals and their habits; he is 
f amiliar with many of the birds, and has more knowledge 
of plants than just enough to tell loeo from poison weed 
and quaking aspen from sage brush. Yet after all he 
knows nothing so well as he knows his cows and horses, 
which occupy all his time and nearly all his thoughts. 
As the range rider passes over some higher crest of the 
prairie swell that overlooks a wide landscape, he may 
pause on the ridge to light his pipe and perhaps to examine 
with his glasses distant objects which dot the prairie, to 
see if perhaps among them he may find the animals he 
seeks. Here he dismounts, and throwing the bridle rein 
down over the horse's head seats himself on the ground 
amid the sage brush to look the country over. It is pleas- 
ant to sit here in the warm sun and to gaze upon the 
broad prospect stretching in all directions for miles and 
miles. The grass is green and the nearby prairie in June 
is decked with flowers, which in a few weeks, when the 
plants have matured under the scorching sun, will all be 
gone. Now there are tiny yellow violets and pale hare- 
bells and flaunting larkspurs, with here and there a patch 
of the brilliant blooms of the cactus. Down in the damp 
places the ground is blue with, fleur de lis, and the shining 
white prairie poppies carpet spots on the drier hillsides. 
The far-off horizon which limits the view here is 
bounded by sloping swells, there by loftier hills capped 
by jagged pinnacles of rock or by dark-green timber; 
Distance softens the harsher features of the landscape, so 
that rough and gullied bluff and precipitous rock-strewn 
mountainside alike seem smooth and gently rising. The 
far- stretching prairie is silvery with sagebrush, or 
patched here and there with green, where the waters 
from some spring or rivulet spreading out moisten the 
ground and nourish fresh and tender grass. Perhaps near 
some of these meadows lie gleaming lakes, whose shining 
surfaces tell falsely of cool, pure water, and in the olden 
time might have lured the thirst-tortured traveler to 
bitter disappointment at their muddy alkaline margins. 
Here and there from the higher slopes descending lines 
of vivid green trace the courses of rills whose springs are 
in the rocks above, and which hurry toward the lower 
ground, there to disappear— sucked up by the thirsty soil; 
and at intervals along their borders are groves of white- 
stemmed quaking aspens whose pale color ever changes 
with the constant motion of their leaves. 
Within this basin, down on the prairie below and on 
the hillsides, is the life of the land, a part of it visible 
even at this distance, but the most of it unseen. Feeding 
cattle and horses are scattered out far and near, the near- 
est easily recognized, the more distant mere black dots. 
Antelope are seen feeding among the nearby stock, but 
other animals less in size, though nearer, are invisible. 
Yet the watcher knows that on the hillsides are sleeping 
wolves and coyotes; that jack rabbits crouch beneath the 
sage bushes and great grouse stalk among their gnarled 
stems; that wild ducks are swimming on the surface of 
each little lake, while near their borders shrill-voiced 
killdeesrun and stop and run again; that on the flats the 
prairie dogs are lazily waddling about, or sitting upright 
at the mouths of their holes; that the badger, slow of 
motion, but stout of frame, is wandering over the prairie 
seeking what he may devour; and that wide-winged 
marsh hawks, with deliberate flight, are hunting back- 
ward and forward, each over his own range, scaring the 
little birds and capturing now and then a mouse. 
All these things the watcher knows, but now scarcely 
remembers, yet as he takes out and slowly polishes his 
glasses and gazes over the country before him he uncon- 
sciously makes note of the whole scene. And while he 
sits here the breeze hums through hair and beard, and 
blows out his horse's tail and the stirrups and the thrown 
down bridle; and as he inhales the fragrance of the blos_ 
soming sage brush, and hears the voice of passing bird ; 
and is warmed by the sun, he feels that it is good to be 
here and to see and know these things. 
Such is the range in early summer, but there is another 
side to this life — the range in winter. 
AGITATE. 
The paper on game protection read by Commissioner 
H. P. Frothingham before the American Fisheries Soci. 
ety should have careful reading, for it comes from one 
who has been engaged in the practical study of the 
problems involved. The task of preserving the fish and 
game supply is not inherently one of extreme difficulty, 
on the contrary it is simplicity itself. Prescribe the close 
seasons indicated by nature as the periods for breeding 
and maturing. Forbid the methods demonstrated by 
practice and experience to be wasteful and destructive 
beyond power to recuperate. Limit the taking to 
such measure as that all those who participate in the tak- 
ing of fish and game shall have the privilege of securing 
their equitable shares and no more. And that is all. 
It is simplicity itself. Why then is the protection of fish 
and game at loose ends, ship -shod and shamefully inef- 
fective? Not because of any inherent complexity or 
hindrance, but purely by reason of the indifference, in- 
dolence, inaction and neglect of the community at large 
and of interested citizens in particular. Taken as a 
whole, the public cares not a rap for fish and game pre- 
preservation, except, as Mr. Frothingham points out, for 
a sentimental acquiescence in the theory that the species 
of useful animal should be perpetuated. But for specific 
protection nine in ten care nothing. The village apostle 
of game conservation flocks by himself. The subject is 
one with which the public is not concerned. 
Here lies the whole difficulty. Game is not protected 
simply because there is not sufficient interest to secure its 
protection. The real problem then is how public opinion 
shall be created, controlled and directed. Once this is 
done what remains is simple in the extreme, 
