Forest and Stream; 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Tkrms, S4 a Ykak. 10 Ots. a Copt. 
Six Months, fS. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, AUGUST 8, 1896, 
I 
VOL, SaiVIL— No. 6. 
No. 346 Broadway, Nkw Yobk. 
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BIRDS AND FARMERS. 
The advocates of protection for our small birds present 
two sets of reasons for preventing their killing: the one 
sentimental, and the other economic. 
The sentimental reasons are the ones most often urged; 
they are also of a kind to appeal with especial force 
to those whose responsibility for the destruction of the 
birds is greatest. The women and girls, forv^hose adorn- 
ment birds' plumage is chiefly used, think little and know 
less about the services which birds perform for agricul- 
ture, and indeed it may be doubted whether the sight of 
a bunch of feathers or a stuffed bird's skin suggests to 
them any thought of tha life that those feathers once rep- 
resented. But when the wearers are reminded that there 
was such a life; that it was cheery and beautiful, and that 
it was cut short merely that their apparel might be 
adorned, they are quick to recognize that bird destruc- 
tion involves a wrong, and are ready to do their part 
toward ending it by refusing to wear plumage. 
The small boy, who pursues little birds from the stand- 
point of the hunter in quest of his game, feels only the 
ardor of pursuit. His whole mind is concentrated on 
that and the hunter's selfishness, the desire of possession, 
fills his heart. Ignorance and thoughtlessness destroy 
the birds. 
Every one knows in a general way that birds render 
most valuable service to the farmer, but although theee 
services have long been recognized in the laws standing 
on the statute books of the various States, it is only 
within a few years that any systematic investigations 
have been undertaken to determine jnst what these ser- 
vices are, to measure them with some approach to accu- 
racy, to weigh in the case of each species the good and 
the evil done, and so to strike a balance, in favor of the 
bird or against it. The inquiries carried on by the Agri- 
cultural Department on a large scale and those made by 
various local experiment stations and by individual observ- 
ers have given results which are very striking and which 
can no longer bo ignored. Some of these results Miss Mer- 
riam gives in her paper prepared for Forest and Stream, 
the first instalment of which appears in this week's issue. 
It deserves careful study, not only by every farmer, but 
also by every one who is at all interested in birds or in 
agriculture in any form. At a time like this, when 
reports of the ravages of army worms, elm beetles and 
other noxious insects are constantly heard, a paper such 
as this has a deep interest for a very large class. Miss Mer- 
riam's articles, besides being written in graceful, simple 
and popular style, give in small compass the results of 
many papers which have appeared in different reports, 
not all of them easily accessible, and these reports are 
often so technical as to be quite beyond the grasp of the 
general reader. A wide circulation of Miss Merriam's 
paper would do much to arouse an intelligent apprecia- 
tion among agriculturists of the vast good done by many 
species of birds, and would vastly benefit the country. 
It is a difficult matter for any one to balance the good 
things that he reads and believes about any animal 
against the bad things that he actually sees. The man 
who witnesses the theft of his cherries by robin or cat- 
bird, or the killing of a quail by a marsh hawk, feels that 
here he has ocular proof of harm done by the birds, 
while as to the insects or the field mice destroyed, and the 
crops saved, he has only the testimony of some unknown 
and distant witness. It is only natural that the observer 
should trust the evidence of his senses, and yet his eyes 
tell him only a small part of the truth, and that small 
part a misleading one. It is human to generalize from 
our own limited experience, and yet we aU know that 
nothing is more likely to lead to error. 
It is certain that without the services of these feathered 
laborers, whose work is unseen, though it lasts from day- 
light till dark through every day in the year, agriculture 
in this country would come to an immediate standstill, 
and if in the brief season of fruit each one of these work- 
ers levies on the farmer the tribute of a few berries, the 
price is surely a small one to pay for the great good 
done. Superficial persons imagine that the birds are here 
only during the summer, but this is a great mistake. It is 
true that in warm weather, when insect life is most 
abundant, birds are also most abundant. They wage an 
effective and unceasing war against the adult insects and 
their larvse, and check their active depredations; but in 
winter the birds carry on a campaign which is hardly less 
important in its results. It is then that the chickadee, the 
nuthatch, the brown creeper, the kinglets and the wood- 
peckers are hard at work all through the short days, 
searching the crevices and crannies in the bark of the tree 
trunks and branches, looking among the undergrowth, 
hunting along the fences for the bunches of eggs, the 
buried larvse and the pupa of the insects, which if undis- 
turbed would, when warm weather comes, hatch out mil- 
lions of creeping, crawling and flying things that would 
devastate garden and orchard and every crop of the field. 
It is through this silent, unceasing work by the birds — 
some in summer and others in winter — that the insect hosts 
are held in check. The downy woodpecker which we see 
swinging with undulating flight across the snow-clad 
fields renders service not less important than the fat robin 
which flies with a beak full of cankerworms to his clam- 
orous young in the apple tree close to the house. 
CONCERNINO THE MAN WITH THE WHISTLE. 
Of the many idiosyncrasies exhibited by individuals in 
camp Ufe, petty, constant and irritating, few are so ob- 
jectionable as habitual whistling. Whistling is the self- 
absorbing occupation of the man away from home who is 
not actually in touch with his pleasure, the man without 
a true purpose of good fellowship in that he is a chronic 
disturber of the peace and comfort of his companions; the 
whistler of the early morning hours, who blunders about 
in industrious nothingness while his companions are yet 
resting; he of the late night hours, whistling after his 
companions have taken to their blankets and are endeav- 
oring to sleep. He sits him down to breakfast still 
whistling and eats hurriedly, as if a pleasure were broken 
in upon, and were capable of being resumed only by 
unbecoming haste to finish the task in hand. The meal 
ended, out breaks again the irritating succession of dis- 
cords in all their imperfection of faulty time, bad tune 
and wearisome repetition. Does one of his companions 
address him, he slackens his lips, ejaculates a hasty yes 
or no, instantly cocks his lips again, taking breath at the 
same time, and hurriedly resumes his musical fireworks. 
He does not hesitate at the effrontery of whistling while 
his companions are talking to him, and the end of his 
answer is blended in the resumption of the outpour of 
discord. In the boat while fishing, in the field and for- 
est, where silence and success are inseparable, the whistler 
is both an irritant and harmful to sport. 
Not infrequently the chronic whistler's repertoire con- 
sists of one or two tunes imperfectly learned and repeated 
with incessant persistence, so that at such rare times as 
he is silent the refrain, strident and recurrent, reverber- 
ates on in the ears of the hearers; thus silence is only a 
meaningless name. A faulty memory may supplement 
the tortures inflicted by a bad ear, so that if the whistler 
follow the tune fairly well part way, he may be at a total 
OSS for the correct finish of it; whereupon the listener is 
treated to the torment of hearing him feel his way to a 
discordant and inappropriate finish, or to an earnest im- 
promptu finish which would be ridiculous were it not 
such a wearisome nuisance. 
There are now and then men of true musical taste and 
attainments, men of perception and tactf ulaess as to time 
place and company, who seek to entertain, not themselves 
but their companions. It is not of such that we write. 
They are distinct from the whistling camp nuisance, and 
cannot be confounded with him. The chronic whistler 
indulges his habit to please himself. Moreover, at the 
best, a very little whistling, be the same good, bad or 
indifferent, goes a long way toward supplying the de- 
mand in camp. 
The whistling habit is peculiarly annoying in camp, 
the victims are so helplessly defenseless. If the host be 
the sufferer, he cannot rebuke his guest; and on the 
other hand, the guest must endure in silence if his host 
be the offender. Friendly companions are loth to appear 
churlish in respect to what to others may seem to be but 
innocent diversion. But the small troubles are often the 
most vexatious. They are the more so when they must be 
suffered in silence. That they are gratuitous adds to 
their sting. The hum of the mosquito in its nocturnal 
search for blood will disturb sleep and provoke ill-temper, 
but the sufferer can resent the infliction. The squalling of 
cats in the back yard invites a shower of missiles. And 
yet these kinds of annoyances are transient and mild as 
compared to the ill-selected, out-of-tune, disjointed, frag- 
mentary and maddening efforts of the incompetent 
whistler who inflicts his discords on his friends. 
It may be suggested that his friends should be in- 
dulgent and forbearing because they are friends. On the 
contrary, being friends entitles them to friendly 'consid- 
eration. Friends should receive the same deference in 
camp that they receive in town. Friendship should not 
be the plea for inflicting annoyance on one's companions. 
Whatever the man may be in town, he is an ill-condi- 
tioned fellow who will make himself a petty nuisance in 
camp. 
Have you ever been in camp with the fellow who 
whistles? 
YELLOWSTONE PARK BUFFALO 
The wholesale killing of buffalo in and about the Yel- 
lowstone Park which took place up to the passage of the 
law of May, 1894, was very discouraging to all who are 
interested in the survival of this species. Those who take 
the most gloomy view of the condition of the National 
Park buffalo have declared that in their belief there are 
not ten living animals in the Park. Others, however, 
think that it is not quite so bad as that, but that there 
should be forty or fifty left, scattered in little bunches 
over the reservation. We are gratified to learn that dur- 
ing a trip made through a portion of the Park last July 
by James Morrison, the civilian scout employed there, he 
saw fifteen buffalo, of which nine were cOws. 
At about the same time signs of as many more were 
seen in two places quite remote from those visited by 
Morrison, and there seems good reason for believing that 
at least thirty head of buffalo are still to be found in the 
Park. No doubt there are others — ^though they may be 
very few— in remote corners, and we can feel sure that 
Capt. Anderson and the force under his command will do 
everything in their power to preserve these few survivors 
from destruction. The number of buffalo left alive, how- 
ever, is so small that even under the most favorable cir- 
cumstances the increase of the herd must be deplorably 
slow. It is earnestly to be hoped that the Legislature of 
Idaho at its next session will pass and enforce a law for- 
bidding under heavy penalties the killing, pursuit or hav- 
ing in possession any buffalo. 
Such a law would certainly commend itself to the most 
intelligent sentiment of Idaho, and we cannot doubt that 
those who guide political affairs in that State will lend 
their assistance to carry through such an amendment to 
the statutes. 
During his trip through the Park Morrison saw a buU 
moose and much other game. 
