Forest AND Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
T«RM8, f4 A Yeak. 10 Ors. A Oomr. 
Six Moktes, $3. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY. AUGUST 22, 1896, 
VOL. XLVn.— No. 8. 
No. 346 Bboadway, Nkt» York. 
J^or Prospectus and Adveriising Rates see Page x. 
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A GOOD EXAMPLE. 
The Provincial Museum of British Columbia is a purely 
local institution and is devoted to the exhibition of the 
natural history and resources of the Province. It was 
established only about a dozen years ago, and had its first 
beginnings in the collections made by Mr. John Fannin, 
an old resident of the Province. Mr. Fannin was and is an 
accomplished field naturalist — a close observer and an en- 
thusiastic lover of nature. His studies and his writings 
had made his name well known in the Province long 
.before the project of establishing a museum had been 
considered. When the Government determined to found 
a Natural History Museum at the capital, the choice of a 
curator for the institution naturally fell upon Mr. Fannin, 
who has managed it with great success from the begin- 
ning. 
For the first few years of its existence the exhibition 
rooms at Victoria were few and small, but as time went 
on, the growing collections demanded more and more 
space, until the whole building was occupied. Still the 
collections increased, and at length it became evident 
that to properly show them, and to provide for their 
growth in the future, a new building must be furnished. 
This is now in course of erection. It is a fireproof build- 
ing of stone and will cost $80,000. 
The Government of British Columbia having set on foot 
this good work, wished to have its museum thoroughly 
modern and tip to the times. "Within the last few years 
great changes have taken place in museum furnishings, 
and the methods of exhibiting specimens. Realizing this, 
the authorities this summer sent Mr. Fannin to England 
and the East, in order that he might inform himself on 
all essential points, so that the Provincial Museum of 
British Columbia should in no respect be behind the first 
museums of the world in its equipmentfl, 
Mr. Fannin visited London, and saw there the collec- 
tions of the British and South Kensington Museums, and is 
now in New York studying the exhibits at the American 
Museum of Natural History. From here he will go to 
Washington to examine the National Museum there. The 
trip has been very successful up to the present time, and 
Mr. Fannin has accumulated a large fund of information 
which will be of great value in fitting up the new mu- 
seum. When at length the new building shall have been 
completed and the collections moved in, the Provincial 
Museum of British Columbia may challenge comparison 
with the best modern museums of the world in respect to 
its equipment and its methods. 
Every State and Territory of the United States ought to 
have in its capital or principal city such a local museum 
as] British Columbia is now building — one which shall 
show the^ mammals, birds and fishes of the neighboring 
country, amid their natural surroundings, all so clearly 
and fully labeled that the whole story of a species, its dis- 
tribution^ life habits and history can be seen at a glance. 
The day has passed when a museum was a mere curiosity 
shop in which strange and unknown and unexplained 
objects were displayed to make visitors stare and wonder. 
The museum of to-day is, or ought to be, a great volume, 
whose illustrations are actual natural objects, each one 
explained by enough text — the label — to render the pic- 
ture's meaning clear to the most ignorant. 
The establishment of such local museums in all the 
chief cities of the country wiU vastly increase public in- 
terest in the study of nature; people will begin to learn 
how to observe, to see what is going on all about them; 
their interests in life will be broadened and a great deal 
will be added to their pleasures. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
Here is a letter which comes to us from an esteemed 
correspondent in Texas: 
Victoria, Texas, Aug. 10.— Editor Forest and Stream; We have in 
this section of the country a party who is a member of a firm or an 
agent of a firm in your city, who is buying game from the local 
hunters and shipping to New York. He averages about five barrels 
of plover a day, each barrel containing 300 birds. 
Our game laws are in such an unsatisfactory condition that we have 
DO way to prevent this action at present, though we are making 
strenuous efforts to pass a bill in our next Legislature to prevent the 
shipping of game. 
I hear that he ships quail among his plover, although the open sea 
son does not begin until Oct. 1 of this year. 
This we could prevent could we substantiate it. I am not familiar 
with the laws of your State, but would be glad to know from your 
oflBce whether there is any way to stop the business at your end of 
the line. 
If New York has a non-shipping law, I should think it would be an 
offense to ship them in as well as out. 
In the event you believe that anything can be done from that end, I 
can in all probability get you name and address of the firm. 
If you believe that publication of this will do any good, publish it. 
W. M. Pbticolas. 
It is a humiliation to be forced to acknowledge in 
response to this plea that there is no practicable way of 
doing anything whatever at this end of the Une to inter- 
rupt the traffic in Texas plover and quail. 
The New York law permits at all seasons sale of game 
killed beyond a certain distance from the State; the line of 
protection for New York is drawn at 300 miles; the in- 
justice to other States may be limited only by the lines of 
the continent. The iniquity of this open market law ex- 
tends 2,000 miles to Texas; it promotes the wholesale 
slaughter of Texas plover and immature quail for ship- 
ment to market here. 
It is a reproach to every citizen of New York that his 
State encourages such butchery not only beyond the 300- 
mile limit, but within her own borders as well. That 
300 mile provision is a farcical Schomburgk line, which 
is all well enough for theorizing about, but which has no 
meaning when we come actually to fixing boundaries. 
The protection sought to be secured by distance is not 
provided. For just here is illustrated anew what has 
been demonstrated over and over again, that a State may 
not set up successfully a scheme of protecting its own 
game while robbing other States of theirs. New York 
declares that game killed within its borders may be sold 
only in certain specified seasons, while game killed else- 
where may be marketed the year around. Beautiful 
theory this, to protect one's own while destroying others. 
But how does it work? The ink of Gov. Morton's pen of 
approval had hardly dried when under cover of this 
measure the market hunters set out to take the immature 
game in New York covers for New York markets. From 
that day to this, wherever there wa New York game to 
kill for market, the New York market shooters have been 
trafficking in it; and the industry will continue so long as 
the game shall be worth the candle Such a law always 
works in this way. Witness Massachusetts, witness every 
State where game selling is unrestricted. 
As the situation is now, Texas must protect her own 
game and look out for her own interests and defend them 
from the blight of the metropolitan markets. He 
sportsmen have a right to demand the co-operacion of 
their fellows elsewhere; they peasoiiably may 
that other States shall not act as receivers of illioit'goods. 
But failing this, they must work out their own salvation- 
The only game protective system yet devised worth the 
paper it is printed on is that which limits the sale of game 
in local markets and forbids the exportation to other mar- 
kets. This system is what is proving effectual in Michi- 
gan, Minnesota and other States where it is in force. 
Such a system would prove equally efficacious in Texas; 
but we confess that there appears to be slight ground for 
confidence that Texas will very soon have a law of this 
character. For one thing, her own sportsmen are by no 
means agreed as to what they want, nor united to achieve 
it if they could agree. The market hunters there have 
things pretty much their own way; they are making 
money right along, and money talks. 
Summer woodcock shooting is stiU extensively prac- 
ticed, and the reason urged for it is that the game must 
be had then or not at all. This is the plea of New Jersey 
summer woodcock shooters, A correspondent wrote in our 
game columns the other day that, although he had long 
contended for a summer woodcock season, he was now 
converted to oppose it because of what he had seen of in- 
discriminate game killing by those who were out ostensi- 
bly for woodcock only. This rule prevails generally. If 
men are permitted to go afield with guns in the summer sea- 
son thty will kill whatever game rises before them. Some 
of them may have the very best of intentions, and shoo* 
to kill if it's a bear and miss if it's a calf; but they do and 
will shoot, and the game will be killed, and will be just as 
dead if it's a grouse or a quail. The ideal game season is 
one which opens for all upland game on the same date. 
If under such conditions some shall be deprived of their 
sport, they should accept the deprivation with philosophy 
and be content to give and take, for the common advan- 
tage and the greatest good to the greatest number. 
Some one has been giving to the Youths' Companion a 
weird tale of walrus hunting by members of the Peary 
Relief Expedition of 1892, It is a fearsome story of wal- 
ruses drawn up in ranks, "bearing their heads high, 
with white tusks gleaming fiercely, and great red disks of 
eyes gleaming balefuUy through the smother of foam 
churned up around their breasts," as they come from afar 
dashing at the boats. It is all madly exciting, and quite 
as well written as one of De Quincey's opium dreams. But 
will some one who knows the ways of walruses tell us 
whether they do charge in dress-parade array with bale- 
ful eyes and other accoutrements? The walrus inhabited 
seas of the Arctic are far away, and of distant lands and 
their unfamiliar denizens we are always prone to accept 
the wonderful tales of returning explorers, but the walrus 
story taxes credulity. Let us hear from some of the wal- 
rus experienced readers of Forest and Stream. 
Will international yacht races be sailed on wheels? 
We have had in recent years many radical modifications 
of yacht forms; shall we now have something more rad- 
ical still, and roll along over the course instead of plough- 
ing the main? A French engineer, M. Bazin, has de- 
signed an entirely novel craft. The main part of the 
structure consists of a strong deck or platform entirely 
above water, the buoyancy being supplied by a num- 
ber of hollow wheels in the form of very short cylin- 
ders. The wheels are not fitted with blades like a paddle 
wheel; they are smooth and are designed only as supports 
and to roU over and through the water as a wagon wheel 
rolls upon the ground. Propulsion is afforded by a pro- 
peller. The inventor has constructed a model on a scale 
large enough to test the practicability of his theories. If 
the experiment shall prove a success, it may open up 
a new line of development in yacht racing that 
will entirely throw into the shade all recent efforts at 
evading waterline measurement. It must be evident that 
the waterline of such a craft, no matter how long she 
may be, cannot be as great as the added diameters of the 
wheels, or very much less than of the whole hull. No 
doubt the old fogy element and the stupid and UUberal 
measurers may attempt to block the wheels of progress 
by measuring the length on the waterline of all the 
wheels, on both sides; but no such unfair and illibera 
measure can permanently succeed. 
Given such a craft as this, what a vista of renewed 
youth to yacht racing opens before us, the pleasures of 
the yacht and the wheel combined in one marvelous 
creation of human ingenuity. The time may come when 
international yacht racing will be a contest between two 
such great multi-aqua-cycles, njoying at speeds thus"^ 
unheard )f, 
