Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1896. \ 
I'BRMs, f4 A Ykab. 10 Ore. A Copt. ( 
Six Months, f3. { 
VOL. XLVn -No 21 
No. 346 Broad-wat, Nbw \ ork. 
For Prospectus and Adzjerlising Rates see Page ii'. 
Forest and Stream Water Colors I 
We have prepared as premiums a series of four artistic 
and beautiful reproductions of original water colors, l\ 
painted expressly for the Forest and Stream. The \\ 
subjects are outdoor scenes: 
Jacksttipe Cominir In. "He's Got Them" (Quail Shooting:). || 
Vigrilant and Valkyrie. Bass Fishing at Block Island. \\ 
The plates are for frames 14 x 19 in. They are done in Ij 
twelve colors, and are rich in effect. They are furnished \i 
to olu or new subscribers on the following terms: Ijf 
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 ; $£ for tho set. 
Remit by express money order or postal money order. 
Make orders payable to 
FOREST AND STREAM PUB. CO., New York. 
FOREST AND STREAM OFFICE 
346 Broadway 
NEW YORK LIFE BUILDING 
Present Entrance on Leonard Street 
The Forest and Stream is put to press 
on Tuesdays Correspondence intended for 
publication should reach us by Mondays and 
as much earlier as may be practicable. 
AUDUBON BIRD PLATES. 
Tfie reproductions are to me most satisfactory ■■ they lack 
color, of course, but in every other respect are the best we 
hive ever seen, and I thinh I may say that those of the 
Audubon family still remaining are much gratified with 
th^. first of the series, M. R, Audubon. 
The first subject of the Forest and Stream series of half- 
tone copies of Audubon's famous bird portraits was that of 
the Black Duck, in the issue of Sept. 26; the second, of the 
Prairie Chicken (pinnated grouse), was given Oct 24. To- 
day we print the Canvasback. Others which will follow on 
dates to be announced are: 
Sho^'eller Duck. 
liEDHEAD DXJCK. 
American WHi'iE-FiiONTED Goobb. 
PuHPLE Sandpiper. 
American Oolden Plover, 
Wii-Low Ptarmigan. 
In conntolion with the plate we give Audubon's account 
of the bird, which was famous in his day, as it is in ours, 
for its excellence on the table. ' The chapter is from the 
t"our<h volume of the Ornithological Biography, published 
i a 1888. We have not the date of the Cabinet of Natural 
History from which the description by Dr. Sharpless is 
taken; but the "some years ago" would give it a place 
among the early years of the century. One of the most 
common, as it is the most impressive, reflections which we 
indulge in when reading of men and events and human ways 
in the distant past, is the likeness of the human nature of 
those days to the human nature as we know it and manifest 
it in our own day and in our own selves. The material con- 
ditions of canvasback shooting then prevailing were not dis- 
similar from those which exist to-day, barring perhaps the 
richer abundance of the game and the ruder implements of 
its pursuers. Then, as now, Carroll's Island, Maxwell's 
Point and other peculiarly favored shooting grounds were 
held at high figures; and there were in vogue all the meth- 
ods of taking the game now practiced, openly or under a 
ban, including big guns, night-shooting and netting. The 
human nature of the men who went out for ducks, whether 
for sport 0^ for market, sitting-shooting flying-shooting, 
in the early thirties was much of a piece with that of the 
sportsman and market-shooter of our times. There is a 
similarity even between the ducking dogs of that day and of 
this, tolers and retrievers. 
The men who went duck shooting in those times were 
after ducks; and the man of sixty years later may thank his 
stars that they did not then have breech-loading magazine 
guns and factory-loaded cartridges. The canvasback 
shooter of the nineties should have more than antiquarian 
interest in the powder horn, shot bag and ramrod of the 
thirties; he may well regard them with a lively sense of 
gratitude for the slowness of reloading they compelled even 
in the coolest hands, the fumbling of excited fingers, the not 
infrequent pouring in of the shot before the powder, and at 
best and always the opportunity they gave the game to get 
out of range. To the sportsman of old the muzzle-loader 
was a source of huge satisfaction, despite its qualities of 
tardiness and mischance; in its possession of these very 
characteristics is found our chief admiration of the ancient 
trusty. 
SUNDAY SHOOTING ' LAWS. 
The Sunday shooter is much in evidence this year. We 
have chronicled numerous instances of his discomfiture at 
the hands of vigilant and vigorous game wardens. He has 
fared particularly hard in the jails and lock-ups of New 
Jersey, and we have reported his undoing in many other 
States where the laws forbid gunning on Sunday. 
There are two view points from which to regard such 
statutes: one is the moral and religious, the other the purely 
economic one of game protection. To keep the two con- 
siderations distinct is not always more successfully accom- 
plished than in a recent Sabbath observance question which 
arose in St. Augustine, Fla., in connection with a projected 
Sunday excursion to that city of the Jacksonville Rifles. A 
St. Augustine clergyman having publicly protested against 
tbeir coming on that day, the militia desisted, and the pub- 
lished announcement explained the double -barreled reason foi 
their decision in these words* 
From a moral point of view tlie Jacksonville Light Infantry de- 
cided not to go on the excursion. Another reason was that the com- 
pany's footbaU team usually has a practice game on that day, and 
the excursion would seriously interfere with the practice. 
With the moral point of view a sportsman's journal has 
properly no concern; the economic reasons may be discussed 
freely. Si^t days of the week, in settled precincts, allow as 
much pursuit as the game supply should be subjected to 
during the open season; and it ought to have given to it the 
benefit of one day a week of freedom from alarm. As for 
the close season, in many districts the Sunday shooter is the 
game law violator most defiant, most reckless of the 
farmer's rights, ruffianly, and most difficult to cope with. 
In the interest of better game protection, should not Sun- 
day shooting be forbidden, and the prohibition of it made 
effective by a statute providing that possession of firearms in 
the field on Simday should consiitute prima facie evidence of 
a violation of the law? 
FROa FARM PHILAMWROPY. 
TflE latest frog farm story comes from New Jersey, A 
schoolmistress fallen into ill health, and obliged to give up 
her school, found herself without means of support. Friends 
rallied to her assistance, contributed funds sufficient to buy a 
piece of laud and set her up in business as a frog farmer, 
which lucrative pursuit she is now following, with much 
satisfaction to the New York boii vivaiiis and profit to her- 
eelf. 
It is a story not unpleasing; there is in it only one doubt- 
ful element, and this has not to do with the humanity in- 
volved. Schoolmistresses do fall ill; the world is full of 
sweetness and light and ready willingness to assist the unfor- 
tunate, and purse strings loosen at the call of distress. But 
who ever heard before of a frog farm as a philanthropic en- 
terprise? For that matter, who ever heard of a frog farm at 
all outside of the newspapers? Do the Stars and Stripes 
float over a single frog farm in all of Uncle Sam's domains? 
We have investigated many of these stories of men and 
women who were farming frogs on a large scale, but we 
have never yet got within hearing of their melodious live 
stock. We believe that the only frog farms in existence are 
those laid out, stocked and attended by Dame Nature. If 
any person has information of the artificial culture of frogs 
anywhere on this continent, he will kindly advise us of the 
particulars in behoof and for the benefit of inquiiing corre- 
spondents, who, about one in six months, request to be told 
how tp go to work to make a fortune by frog farming. 
THE GROWTH OF A SENTIMENT. 
We have heard it hinted that, undismayed by the recent 
tremendous vote in condemnation of the proposed amend- 
ment of the Forest Pireserve section of the New York Con- 
stitution, the plotters against the Adirondack wild lands in- 
tend to continue their agitation of the question and their 
efforts to break down the constitutional safeguards of the 
forests. We advise these misguided brethren to possess their 
souls in patience and resignation to the popular decree. If 
there was not a living chance of carrying through their 
schemes in 1896, there will be no living chance in this geuer- 
ation. They may agitate and scheme and contrive until 
they are white haired and palsied with age, but the forestry 
section will stand as it is. 
This emphatic repelling of Adirondack invasion illustrates 
a distinct period of our civilization in its attitude toward the 
forests. We have come at length to a point where we can 
see something better in the woods than mere raw material 
incontinently to be hewn down and converted into firewood, 
tan bark, lumber, charcoal and the all-compelling wood 
pulp. We have passed beyond the stage when woodlands 
were to be cleared for the sake of clearing and just because 
they were woodlands; and now we have come to regard the 
forest as something to be protected and preserved and 
guarded and cherished because it is forest, and because 
we have a more rational recognition of the place 
of wild forest tracts in the great scheme of union 
and interdependence which holds between man and 
nature. Having destroyed in our folly, we now in our 
reason stay the hand of destruction; having wrecked 
without ruth, we now are concerned to save what we may 
from the wreckage. The people of the State have declared 
and do declare and will declare, "We shall keep the forests 
because they are forests, for our enjoyment of them as for- 
ests, and for their enjoyment by our children and children's 
children." This was the spirit which animated tens of 
thousands of voters the other day who have never seen the 
Adirondacks nor expect ever to see them. The vote was a 
vote of sentiment, a sentiment which is gaining every year, 
which will be stronger next year than now, and the year 
after than then ; and which is not to be overcome by specious 
schemes of lumbermen and permanent camp-site grabbers. 
DEATH OF JAMES BOYD NIXON. 
Another one of the Forest and Stream's circle of con- 
tributors has passed over to the majority. James Boyd 
Nixon, of Bridgeton, N. J., who was a frequent correspond- 
ent ever the signature F. S. J. C, died on Thursday of last 
week, at the age of fortj^nine. Mr. Nixon had spent a num- 
ber of winters in the South, whence he wrote vivacious and 
well-received sketches of Florida tarpon fishing and the other 
outdoor pursuits in which he took part for their health- giving 
influences. It was the privilege of members of the Forest 
AND Stream staff to have met Mr. Nixon personally, and 
by such intercourse to have shared the esteem for him which 
was entertained by his fellows. "No man in this part of 
the State," says the Bridgeton News, "was more universally 
liked or more popular among an unusually wide circle of 
acquaintances. He was actively interested in all branches 
of sport, and was an acknowledged authority on many, 
especially that of angling. He was a desultory, but always 
acceptable, contributor to various papers and magazines, 
and had his inclination turned him into distinctively literary 
paths his success would have been notable. In him our city 
has lost a capable lawyei', an honorable citizen and a cul- 
tured gentleman." 
REPEAL SECTION £49. 
The next convention of the New York State Association 
for the Protection of Fish and Game will be held in Syra 
cuse on Jan. 13, when proposed amendments of the game 
laws will be considered. 
The most important subject to be discussed will be the re- 
peal of Section 249, the iniquitous provision which permits 
the sale of game the year around, and is working the injury of 
the game interests of New York and of every State tributary 
to its market. The Association can accomplish no greater 
public service than the modification of this law. Repeal 
Section 349. 
STORIES OF TEE HEROIC AGE. 
Under this title we shall begin next week the publication 
of a series- of chapters out of the lives of certain men on the 
Western frontier. The incidents are worth the telling, and 
^e promise that tUe^y shaU;be worth the reading. 
