Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
TKKMs,»4^A^YK^iogrs.ACoF..j NEW YORK, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1896. 
VOL. XLVU.— No. 12. 
No. 846 BaoADWAT, Nkw Yore. 
J^or Prospectus and Advertising Rates see Page x. 
\ Forest and Streain^Water Colors 
We have prepared as premiums a series of four artistic 
and beautiful reproductions of original water colors, 
^ painted expressly for the Forest and Stream. The 
\k subjects are outdoor scenes: 
\ \ Jacksnipe Coming: In. "He's Got Them" (Quail Shooting). 
I J Vigilant and Valltyrie. Bass Fishing: at Block Island. 
s 
* The plates are for frames 14 x ipm. They are done in 
\\ twelve colors, and are rich in effect. They are furnished 
to ola or new subscribers on the following terms: 
^ Forest and Stream one year and the set of four pictures, $5. 
Forest and Stream 6 months and any two of the pictures, $3. 
Price of the pictures alone, $1.50 each ; $5 for the aet. 
Remit by express money order or postal money order. 
Mgke orders payable to 
FOREST AND STREAM PUB. CO., New York. 
AUDUBON BIRD PLATES. 
The most famous bird pictures in the world are those by 
America's great artist-ornithologist, Jobn James Audubon. 
Devoted as he was to the study of birds, Audubon was first 
of all an artist — ardent, sensitive, poetic — and it was this 
artistic terperamcrt, united to the painstaking, fidelity of 
the natiiralist, whiea made his paintings of birds far 
surpass any others ever painted. The great work in 
which ihe plates arc contained is now so extremely 
rare thut, although we have all heard much of 
these Aidubon pictui s, few of us have had the 
privilege of seeing them. It is with decided satisfaction 
then that the Foeest ajs > Stream announces that a series 
of half-tone rt productio as of selected Audubon bird plates 
will be given in forthcrming issues. The plates have been 
photographed esi:ecialiy for this purpose from a copy of the 
original double elephant folio edition of this work, 1827- 
1835, in the posses ion of a member of the Forest and Stream 
Publishing Comp iiy, and the results will be seen during the 
next few month i 1 y our readers. 
The birds cliOfen for the illustrations include several 
species of dvcta — ^including the beautiful plate of the 
canvasback- two species of grouse and several of the 
waders. Th i first of the series of reproductions will be 
the Black D. ckin our next number, Sept. 26. 
BIRDS AND THE FARM AND GARDEN. 
In 1 espouse to a demand for Miss Florence A. Merriam's 
pap' r, "How Birds Affect the Farm and Garden," we have 
reprinted it in a pamphlet of thkty-two pages, and it is now 
for sale at this oflice. Price, 5 cents per copy, postpaid ; 
with special pri-;es to individuals or bird protection societies 
ivt 0 may wish it in quantities for distribution. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
The Kational Forestry Commission reached San Francisco 
last week after a two mouths' exploration of the Government 
f{'rests in the Yellowstone Park, Idaho, Washington and 
Oregon. The observations have been much impeded by the 
widespread forest fires in the Northwest. Prof. William H. 
Frewer, of the Ovimmission, said to a press reporter: "I 
have been constantly surprised during this trip to notice the 
vy anton destruction of the great forests. I also noticed the 
inroads among the redwoods, those great forest giants, that 
ought to be preserved as a heritage for future generations." 
In these days of political turmoil and ill-considered speech 
we hear much loose talk about the East and the West as two 
sections with diveue aims and opposed interests. If we 
could induce the authors of such talk to take down their 
{.•;uns, pack their grif s and go shooting, the Eastern contin- 
j^ent on Western prairie chicken grounds and duck sloughs, 
und the Westerners in Eastern quail grounds and ruffed 
grouse covers, each enjoying all that a shooting excursion 
usually embraces in the way of personal intercourse, we 
should have accomplished about all that was required to con- 
vert them to the faith that they were to look upon one another 
as friends rather than enemies. The better the people of 
the country actually know one another, the less prone 
are the residents of one quarter to regard their fellows 
elsewhere with jealousy or mistrust. A good way to 
get acquainted is to go shooting together. Your sportsman 
tourist is a true cosmopolite. He has broadened his horizon. 
He is the true citizen of the country. Sectional strife can 
never be fostered in his soul. You may tell him that the 
East and the West are opposed in spirit and interest, but you 
shall not persuade him to accept the doctrine. He knows 
better. 
The European sparrow supply in the towns of this country 
has been affected in an enormous degree by the development 
of electric motor and cable car systems. The local abim- 
dance of a species depends largely upon its food supply; we 
always take into account the crops of mast in prognosti- 
cating the amount of game to count on. So too the more 
game, the more varmints to prey upon it. In India when 
game harborages are established it has been found that if 
shooting is forbidden for a term of years in such preserves, 
the tigers and leopards and wild dogs and other beasts of 
prey multiply in such force that their ravages upon the game 
come in time to defeat the purpose of the harborage. The 
tremendous increase of the European sparrow in American 
towns was due largely to the abundant food supply afforded 
by the offal in the streets. Now that the trolley lines and 
cable system have so generally superseded the horse cars, 
and hundreds of thousands of horses have been banished 
from city streets, the sparrow's food supply has been re- 
stricted in a corresponding degree, and the bird itself has 
diminished in like ratio. Another anti-sparrow agency in 
New York is the reformed street cleaning department. 
There was a time when the sparrows had the street filth 
pretty much to themselves; but nowadays there is a man 
with a broom on every block waging war continuously on 
dii-t and so on the sparrow simultaneously. It may be that 
while the local sparrow supply has decreased in the towns, 
the total stock remains as great as it was before; for the 
sparrows may have deserted the towns only to descend upon 
the country; so that the farmer may wail that under the 
new system he not only loses a market for his horses, but has 
to feed the sparrows too. Such a condition of things, it 
appears, might well have a place in the political platforms. 
Great is Texas, and her native game resources are magnifi- 
cent. In proportion to these gifts of nature is the responsi- 
bility of Texas citizens to conserve the supply and to 
maintain this wealth of furred and feathered creatures. As 
we all kuow, game protection has had practically no place 
whatever in the economy of Texas. Game interests have 
been left to look out for themselves, and the result has been 
in Texas what it always is everywhere else. But a change 
is promised ; action has been taken which gives reasonable 
ground for confidence that the great commonwealth of the 
Southwest will take her place among the States which have 
come to appreciate and maintain their resources of field and 
forest. 
A convention representing the sportsmen of different sec- 
tions of Texas was held in Waco Sept. 5 and resulted in the 
formation of the Texas Game Protective Association. The 
name has a business ring. The convention was marked for 
its business character; delegates showed themselves to be 
alive to the desperate condition of game interests and to be 
earnest in adopting measures to remedy that condition. In 
tlie nature of things, a first meeting can be little more than 
preparatory; it affords an opportunity of meeting one 
another, taking measure of strength, and planning for united 
effort. All this was done at Waco, and well done. A per- 
manent organization was instituted, a series of amendments 
was adopted as a basis for the new law, and a committee was 
named- to report at a future meeting. It iis hoped that the 
proposed measures may be won at the next Legislature. 
Texas should have a non-export game law and a law em- 
bodying the FoBEBT AND Stbeam's Platform Plank forbid- 
ding the sale of game at all times. This system is already 
extensively in force in other States; it is the best game pro- 
tection we can have, and the best is not too good for Texas. 
The man who devised the phrase "As sure as shooting" 
knew nothing about shooting, wbich is one of the least sure 
things in the world; and he certainly never could have had 
finy experience with shpoting club affairs, The unpertaip- 
ties of shooting are illustrated in the fortunes of the Bowley's 
Quarter Ducking Club, of Chesapeake Bay. The club's 
property was formerly one of the most renowned duck 
shooting grounds of that famous region, but the wildfowl- 
ing was seriously impaired in 1893, when a flood destroyed 
the wild celery beds. In 1894 the preserve was over- 
whelmed by the great tidal wave, and 800 of its pheasants 
met an untimely fate. Now we have to record a third seri- 
ous disaster, the destruction of 3,000 of the club's pheasants 
by poison miscreants. As President Janney tells us in an- 
other column, this is by no means a private calamity con- 
fined to the members, for this pheasautry was designed to 
stock the State of Maryland with the game, and the wrong 
which has been done is a public injury to the citizens of 
Maryland. The Bowley's Quarter Club will have the sym- 
pathy of sportsmen everywhere. ' 
A proposition to license sportsmen's guides is under dis- 
cussion in Maine. Those who advocate the system argue 
that licenses will commit the guides to better observance of 
the game laws and will insure a higher degree of skill in the 
craft of guiding. We have not seen any definite expla- 
nation of the way in which the license system is to se- 
cure these ends. That the guide is an influential agent for 
or against the law is universally recognized. If the guides 
of Maine should band together and stand by one another in 
a compact to keep the game and fish law scrupulously, and 
to compel the sportsmen under their conduct to respect the 
law, everyone knows that the problem of game protection in 
Maine would be solved. There would be an end of 
sneaking into the woods in midsummer and killing game to 
rot on the bank. There would be an end of wholesale sum- 
mer butchery by the Zieglers, if the Zieglers could no-longer 
buy up the guides body and soul to do their lawless bidding. 
The close season would mean something; it would mean 
close season. The guides hold the key of the situation ; if 
they say that the law shall mean in actual practice precisely 
what its terms- imply, it will mean it, and in the depths of 
the woods. 
Another reason given for the license system is found 
in the dangerous nature of the guide's occupation as a 
canoeman. Travel by canoe, it is pointed out, is full of peril; 
and when one intrusts himself to the care of his guide he 
should have some means of assuring himself that he ia in 
safe hands. The license would give such assurance, posses- 
sion of it being based on the proved qualifications of its 
holder. 
Along with the licensing of guides would naturally go 
licensing of sportsmen, and this proposition comes up every 
now and then in Maine. Whatever may be the result of 
these discussions, they are interesting because of the evi- 
dence afforded by them that it is in Maine no longer a ques- 
tion as to whether game shall be protected, bixt as to how it 
may be protected most efficiently. When the discussion 
has reached that point the interests at slake are in the end 
certain to be well cared for. 
We believe that a practicable and expeditious solution of the 
guide problem may be found in a voluntary combination of 
the guides themselves, following the example of the guides 
of the Adirondacks. The Maine guides might form an 
organization, pledging themselves to a standard of conduct 
quite as excellent as any that could be prescribed by law, 
agreeing one with another as members of the association 
strictly to observe the law and to compel its observance by 
sportsmen in their charge. Such an association would be a 
power in the State; it would do more for game protection in 
a year than all the wardens in ten. 
At the coming election in New York an amendment to the 
Constitution will be voted upon empowering the Forest Com- 
mission to exchange plots of State land which are outside the 
borders of the State Park in the Adirondacks for other pieces 
of land which are included within the park lines, or to sell 
the outlying plots and purchase others within the park area. 
In support of this proposition it is urged that many of the 
isolated tracts of land outside of the park are not without 
value to the State, but cannot readily be protected by the 
forest guardians, whereas the consolidation of lands within 
the park limits would extend the State's holdings whdre they 
could be properly cared for. The State Comptroller has 
made an order that the cancellation of State tax sales in 
Hamilton county made by former Comptroller Wemple was 
void and that the sales are therefore in full force. This 
means that some 200,000 acres of Adirondack lands will be 
restored to the State, if the order shall be sustaine4 by th€ 
courts, 
