Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, 82. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MAY 4, 1895 
VOL. XUV.-No. 18 
No. 318 Broadway New York. 
For Prospectus and Advertising Rates see Page iii. 
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FOREST AND STREAM PUB. CO., New York. 
THE NEW YORK AQUARIUM. 
The Board of Park Commissioners of New York city 
have appointed Dr. Tarleton H. Bean, of the U. S. Fish 
Commission, Superintendent of the New York Aquarium. 
This appointment was made after a competitive civil 
service examination, in which the successful candidate 
answered 99* per cent, of the questions asked. 
New York is to be congratulated on having thus se- 
cured as superintendent of its aquarium the man of all 
men best fitted for this especial work. It is a rare and 
remarkable thing in this city of New York that we should 
secure for a public office of this importance not an indi- 
vidual who has always made his living by politics, and 
who secures his position through a political pull, but an 
admirably equipped scientific man, who for many years 
has devoted himself to tbe subject he is to handle, and 
who, by his training, experience and investigation, is in 
all respects its master. If the Park Commissioners had 
searched this whole country over they could not have 
found a man better fitted for this position than Dr. Bean. 
It is unfortunate that the officer in charge of the 
aquarium should be called its superintendent. Under 
the direction of Dir. Bean the institution will not be 
merely a show — a place to which the public can go and 
gape at the specimens on exhibition ; it will be also a 
center of scientific investigation, and the officer who has 
charge of it and who directs its work should be called the 
director. This title will lend dignity to the institution 
and to its work, while the title of superintendent is in- 
adequate. 
The first work to be undertaken by its new head is to 
complete the aquarium and to put it in working order, re- 
pairing as speedily as possible the blunders due. to the ig- 
norance and incapacity of the past. Much time has been 
lost and much money wasted, and the task of getting the 
aquarium into such shape that it will, in any respect, 
serve the purposes for which it was intended, is not a 
light one. This will be done, however, and we shall then 
have an aquarium which will be a credit to the city. 
After this has been accomplished, Dr. Bean will, no 
doubt, establish at the aquarium a biological station for 
the investigation of marine and fresh-water life, a most 
desirable adjunct to the exhibition features of the place, 
and one which in time is likely to reflect great credit on 
the government of this city. The possibilities of such a 
station, under the direction of such a man, are far-reach- 
ing. 
If the New York Aquarium should become merely a free 
show for the populace, it would fall far short of accom- 
plishing its proper mission. Under the past regimes, 
when politics and pull were everything and merit noth- 
ing, this would have been expected ; but under present 
conditions very different results are looked for. The era 
of wastefulness and ignorance has closed, that of intelli- 
gence and economy is about to begin. No fear need be 
felt that the popular side of the institution will be ne- 
glected. As soon as the errors and crimes of the 
past shall have been remedied, the exhibition of 
water life will be the first thing to receive at- 
tention; the people will have something to show for 
their money, an exhibition which shall be not merely 
a few fish and invertebrates and plants without order or 
arrangement, but an exhibition carefully planned. It 
will not only be beautiful to the eye, but systematic, 
orderly, and so arranged and labeled that it will tell its 
own story. Thus, to any one who will undertake the 
light and pleasing labor of studying, it will be of the 
highest educational value. After all this has been done, 
we look to see the development of the less popular and 
more strictly educational side of the aquarium. Exhibi- 
tions of the practical culture of different species of fish 
will be given, laboratory work will be encouraged, and 
opportunities afforded for New Yorkers to pursue special 
lines of investigation, which have hitherto been impos- 
sible for them. 
All this will not be accomplished at once, but those who 
are familiar with Dr. Bean's past achievements feel safe 
in predicting that it will be done, and that there is now 
every prospect that before long there will be in operation 
in this city not an aquarium alone, but also a school of 
biology of which the whole country as well as its metrop- 
olis may well feel proud. 
THE NEW YORK FISH COMMISSION. 
The bill to consolidate the Forest and Fishery and Game 
commissions was signed by Governor Morton on Thursday 
of last week; on the same day the new board was named, 
and held its first meeting. The commissioners are Barnett 
Davis of Palmyra, who was designated to be the presi- 
dent; Henry H. Lyman of Oswego, William R. Weed of 
Potsdam, Charles N. Babcock of Rochester, and Edward 
Thompson of Northport, Long Island, shellfish commis- 
missioner. Edward P. Doyle was reappointed secretary, 
with Maj. J. W. Pond as Chief Protector. Of the old 
force of protectors the following were reappointed pro- 
tectors and foresters: Robprt Brown, Jr., of Port Rich- 
mond, Dr. Willet Kidd of Newburgh, Matthew Kennedy 
of Hudson, Charles H. Barber of Greenwich, Henry C. 
Carr of Union Springs, Joseph Northrup of Alexandria 
Bay, George M. Schwartz of Rochester, and A. R. Potter 
of Sandy Creek. There are to be appointed a fishculturist 
and an assistant fishculturist; with the complement of 
protectors, making a force of thirty -six in all. 
The president of the Commission has a salary of $5,000, 
the others of $1,000 each; all are allowed expenses. 
We learn that Mr. A. N. Cheney, of Glens Falls, will 
have the office of fishculturist. This will be a most 
admirable appointment. 
We have no wish to prejudge the Commission or any 
member of it, but two of the appointments must be re- 
garded with grave distrust, those of Mr. Davis and Mr. 
Weed. Mr. Davis was named at the instance of Lieut. - 
Gov. Saxton and for purely political considerations. The 
place was in effect made for him; and he has been heard 
to relate with considerable glee how in the beginning Mr. 
Saxton resorted to a cunning ruse to insure his appoint- 
ment by the Governor. We cannot learn that Mr. Davis 
has any other qualification for the place than the political 
influence he has shown in the past and may show in the 
future in Mr. Saxton's behalf. It is disheartening that 
with so many available candidates who would have given 
dignity and ability to the Commission, and would have 
commanded public respect for it, this politician should 
have been foisted on the Commission and its character 
thus determined in advance. Commissioner Weed, who 
is a lumber dealer and is reputed to be interested in wood 
pulp, was a member of the old Forestry Commission, who 
in the closing days of last year betrayed their trust by 
handing over State lands to the Adirondack Railway. 
By this action Mr. Weed and his associates forfeited 
public confidence; no one of them should ever again 
have been intrusted with power to prove a second time 
untrue; and any commission of which one of them may 
be a member will bear close watching. 
The bill chartering the New York Zoological Society has 
been signed by Governor Morton and is thus a law. Th e 
founding of this society is one of the encouraging evi- 
dences of increasing interest in the education of tie 
masses, which are a feature of the urban civilization of 
the day. Taken in connection with the appointment of 
Dr. Bean to care for the aquarium, it affords reason for 
hoping that New York will not always be the last of the 
great cities of this country to care for the needs of its 
population, 
SNAP SHOTS. 
Now here is a good notion, and there should be decided 
benefit in it. A new Maine law reads: "That any person 
acting as guide for any person or party who shall assist or 
aid such person or party in killing any game or fish in 
violation of law, shall be held equally responsible for such 
violation of the law, and subject to the same penalties." 
For one thing, such a law will put a stop to tbe mid- 
summer butcheries perpetrated by a well-known Brook- 
lyn man, who has in years past taken regiments of Maine 
guides into the woods with him and defied laws and de- 
cency. 
Here is an amendment of the Maine game law, and it 
is just about as clumsy and bungling and ungrammatical 
as they make them. As changed by the last Legislature, 
Sec. 21 reads, respecting partridges: Whoever kills any 
"partridges between the first days of December and Sep- 
tember twentieth" forfeits not less than five dollars, etc. 
When, then, does the season close on partridges? How 
far into the month do the "first days of December" ex- 
tend? 
Another bungle: Whoever hunts cow moose "forfeits 
not less than one hundred dollars and be imprisoned 
thirty days." Probably, "shall be imprisoned thirty days" 
was intended, but it does not say so; and under the rule 
that a penal statute must be constructed literally, there 
appears to be some question whether the penalty of im- 
prisonment, here manifestly intended, might not be 
evaded. We have not examined the new Maine statute, 
which requires fathers to provide for their offspring, but 
let us trust that when the welfare of children is concerned 
the Maine Solons are more grammatical than when the 
subject of their solicitude is only a partridge or a cow 
moose. 
Years ago the capture of shad with rod and reel under 
the Holyoke, Mass., dam was something of regular oc- 
currence each spring and summer, and was practiced by 
many ardent anglers of Massachusetts. For several years 
past, however, there has been none of this fishing there, 
probably for the reason that the waters are poisoned by 
refuse thrown out from the mills and the shad no longer 
come up to the dam. If any of our shad anglers else- 
where have luck with the fish this season, we would like 
to have reports from them. 
The interesting letter from "Will Scribbler/'published in 
our columns this week, presents the fact that seeking fcr 
birds is but one part of the capabilities of pointers and 
setters in the pursuit of game. In other words, bird dogs 
are not seekers of birds to the exclusion of all other game. 
An individual sailing under the name of C. E. Well- 
born, and hailing from Birmingham, Ala., has been 
writing to various parties and seeking to secure goods 
without cash down, on the strength of a reference to the 
Forest and Stream Pub. Co. Wellborn has no authority 
to refer to us; our experience with him teaches us that 
he is irresponsible. If he was well born he appears to 
have degenerated. 
Is there such a thing as a "true sportsman" in Japan? 
We suggested last week that, whether or not fish feel 
pain, tender-hearted fishermen show by their treatment 
of a hooked fish that they have no realizing sense of its 
capacity for suffering. A correspondent cites in rebuttal, 
for our consideration, the fact that "when the tender- 
hearted fisherman, fishing in salt water, finds on his hook 
a toadfish or catfish or sea robin or shark, he assails the 
creature and maltreats it with a spirit and in a manner 
which indicate his belief that it can feel the punishment 
he inflicts." But do the manner and spirit indicate any- 
thing of the sort? The child which hurts itself against 
the table strikes the table in revenge, but does the child 
think that the table can suffer pain? Even a grown per- 
son will sometimes involuntarily resent in the same way 
injury received from an inanimate body; we once heard a 
leading light in the scientific world angrily anathematize 
a sleeping car berth against which he had stupidly 
bumped his head; but we never dreamed that the profes- 
sor thought the berth could hear what he said to it. 
