Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Tkbus, |4 a Tkar. 10 Cts. a Copt 
Bes Months, 
( ^ NEW YORK, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2 8, 1896 
1 
VOL. XLVn.— No. 28. 
No. 346 Broadway, Nkw Tioax. 
For Prospectus and Advertising Rates see Page iii. 
■T* ^ .Ti VIW /^ J^^iK-Jti Jii A'i <T* A Jfi ^ ^ Jt^ Jf* ^ Vt>. Jr>% 
Forest and Stream 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 
subjects are outdoor scenes: 
Jacksnipe Coming: In. 
VigfUant and Valkyrie, 
W 
The plates are for frames 14X ipin 
twelve colors, and are rich in effect. 
He's Got Them" (Quail Shootingr). 
Bass Fishing at Block Island. 
3c 
.They are done in 
They are furnished 
to ola or new subscribers on the following terms: 
Forest and Stream one year and the set of four pictures. $S. 
Forest and Stream 6 months and any two of the pictures, $3, 
Priee of the pictnrcs alone, $1.50 each ; $S for tko set. 
Remit by express money order or postal money order. 
Make orders payable to 
FOREST AND STREAM PUB. CO., New York. 
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AUDUBON BIRD PLATES. 
The reproductions are to me most satisfactory; they lack 
color, of course, but in every other respect are the best we 
have ever seen, and I think I may say that those of the 
Attdubon family still remaining are much gratified with 
the f^st of tlie series. M. R. Audubon. 
The Forest and Stream's reproductions of some of 
Audubon's famous bird portraits in half-tone from the rare 
first edition are as follows, with dates of those already 
printed: That of the Willow Ptarmagan will be given in 
the issue of Dec. 19. 
Black Duck, Sept. 26, 1896. 
Prairie Chicken, Oct. 34. 
OANyASBACK Dock, Nov. 21. 
Willow Ptarmigan, Dec. 19 (to come). 
Shoveller Duck. 
Redhead Duck. 
American White-fronted Goose. 
Purple Sandpiper. 
American Golden Plover. 
THE YELLOWSTONE PARK IN 1896. 
The last report of Capt. Geo. S. Anderson, the acting 
superintendent of the Yellowstone National Park, gives a 
very clear idea of the condition of things in the Park during 
^ the past summer. Captain Anderson has now been in charge 
of the Park for more than five years, during which time he 
has managed its affairs with remarkable discretion and judg- 
ment. For a number of years his efforts were to a great 
extent baffled by the failure of Congress to enact any legisla- 
tion to protect the Park, but since the passage of the act of 
1894 his task has been easier, though this passage came 
almost too late to save the buffalo. 
The travel to the Park each year is very small in propor- 
tion to the number of persons who might naturally be expect- 
ed to visit it, and the increase in this travel from year to 
year is very small. Of those who go there, by far the greater 
number are "campers," or persons who travel with their 
own or hired outfits, and do not patronize the hotels, but 
camp along the road when night overtakes them. Many of 
these are ranchers or farmers from the neighboring country. 
The light travel of the past summer is attributable in part to 
the financial depression and in part to the pohtical campaign. 
There are two manifest causes for the neglect of the 
National Park. One is the expense connected with a trip 
there, which in view of the distance at which the Park lies 
from thickly-settled regions is considerable; the other is the 
ignorance which prevails— even among well-informed people 
—of the wonders of the Park and the comfort with which it 
can be seen. This ignorance must account for the failure to 
go thither of people who visit Europe each year by hordes, 
and who at a less expense of time, trouble and money could 
see here in their own country natural wonders far exceeding 
in beauty and interest anything in Europe. The American 
people are said to be quick to grasp new ideas, but their ap- 
preciation of the attractions of the Yellowstone Park has 
been slow. 
The summer of 1895 was the driest known there for a 
long time. By July the grass was completely dried up, and 
it was feared that destructive fires might occur. The un- 
ceasing vigilance of the patrols, however, and the constant 
watching and warning of camping parties, prevented any 
serious fires. In a few cases, campers who had been careless 
about extinguishing their fires were arrested, brought before 
the tJnited States Commissioner, tried and sentenced, and 
the effect of this on others was most excellent. This year 
the rainfall has been greater than usual, and no important 
fires occurred. The United States Forestry Commission 
visited the Park and requested the superintendent to inform 
them as to his methods of preventing forest fires. This he 
did. 
But one plant of fish has been made in the Park within 
the year. It consisted of 1,000 rainbow trout, which 
reached there in December, when the thermometer was near 
zero, and there was deep snow on the roads over which 
they were transported. They were deposited in De Lacy 
Creek, from which they would naturally make their way 
into the deep waters of Shoshone Lake, The lake trout 
placed in that body of water in 1889-90 have thriven and 
are abundant, as are also the brook trout put in Shoshone 
Creek two years ago. Nothing has been seen of the black 
bass planted here, although they were looked for last July. 
But as the plant numbered only 500, and they were dis- 
tributed over four large lakes, the failure to find them proves 
nothing. All the streams stocked by United States Fish 
Commissioner McDonald are now full of fish, their abun- 
dance being very great. Capt. Anderson, however, wisely 
suggests that there ought to be a size limit fixed, and sug- 
gests six inches as a minimum length. 
The story of the destruction of buffalo this year by the 
Henry's Lake poachers, which has already been given in 
Forest and Stream, is told here at length. Although 
Courtenay was acquitted, his prosecution had an excellent 
effect, as the trial was so expensive to Courtenay that neither 
he nor his neighbors care to run the risk of another. The 
fines of $50 each imposed on four men convicted of killing 
elk in the two- mile strip north of the Wyoming line also had 
a very good effect on the lawless element in Montana. It is 
gratifying to learn that the authorities in Wyoming and 
Montana now appear desirous of co-operating with the 
superintendent of the Park in the matter of game protection. 
In Idaho nothing has been done, though high officials of the 
State have promised to secure the passage of proper laws. 
Except the bison, game of all kinds seems to be increas- 
ing in the Park. Elk are extremely abundant. Deer wan- 
der through the military post, often passing close to the men 
who are at their work. As usual, mountain sheep and ante- 
lope winter on Mt. Everts, and their numbers are increas- 
ing. With the protection of other animals there has been a 
great increase in the number of the carnivores, such as the 
bears and the coyotes, as earlier stated in these columns. 
The coyotes especially have become so numerous that Capt. 
Anderson has caused some of them to be destroyed by the 
Government scout. Little is known of the few remaining 
buffalo in the Park, though individuals and tracks accounting 
for about thirty specimens have been seen during the 
summer. 
At the request of Capt. Anderson, the War Department 
detailed an officer of the Corps of Engineers to the work of 
surveying and marking the boundaries of the Park, and tliis 
is now being done. Capt. Anderson recommends the ap- 
propriation of at least $100,000 per year until the road sys- 
tem that he has laid out is completed, and the continuance 
of this appropriation until the roads shall have been macad- 
amized; the extension of the military post at the Hot Springs 
to accommodate another company, and the completing of the 
survey and marking of the boundaries of the Park. All these 
matters are of prime importance, and the superintendent's 
recommendations ought to be favorably acted on. 
DEER AND LILYPADS. 
The somewhat protracted discussion in our natural history 
columns respecting the deer and the lilypad is interest- 
ing, chiefly because it affords an example of a negative asser- 
tion stoutly stuck to in the face of overwhelming direct evi- 
dence. Our Michigan correspondent, Julian, has declared 
that deer do not eat the pad, stem, bud, flower, seed or root 
of the water lily. His contention appears to be based not 
upon personal testimony, but upon what has been told him 
by Michigan hunters and woodsmen, in whom he has such 
confidence that he has been ready to accept their denials as an 
offset to the positive statements of quite as many others who 
aver that they have seen water lilies that had been cropped 
off by deer, and deer eating the water lilies, and had 
found water lilies in the deer after the deer had eaten them 
and been killed. The evidence collected and printed to-day 
must impress a candid mind as of such convincing nature 
as to leave no further room for discussion. That deer do eat 
lilypads is established. 
One would think that for ascertaining facts in such a 
simple matter as this resort would be had to practical test; 
that is to say, if the question were, as hercj whether or not 
deer would eat lilypads, the simplest thing in the world 
would be to take a deer to the lilypad or to take the lilypad 
to the deer, and note what followed. This is precisely what 
was done by the Forest and Stream last week. Procnring 
some pads and stems of the water lily, we presented them to 
a white-tail buck and saw him eat them — take them in his 
mouth, chew them and swallow them. The pad and stems 
were eaten also by the European fallow and red deer in the 
deer paddocks in Central Park. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
Prof. D. G. Elliot has returned from his expedition to 
Somaliland, whither he went for the purpose of collecting 
African mammals for the Field Columbian Museum. He 
reports very gratifying success, having obtained specimens 
of the wild ass and of Swaine's hartbeest and Clarke's ante- 
lope; both the latter are now very rare, and their acquisition 
by the Field Museum would in itself well repay the enter- 
prise of Prof. Elliot, There are in the collections brought^ 
back for Chicago more than three hundred specimens of 
birds, fishes, insects and reptiles. 
The condition of the New York game law with respect to 
ducking on Long Island is nothing less than an outrage. 
The fowl are being killed in wholesale by netters who set 
their nets expressly for the purpose of capturing ducks, and 
not as in former times under the subterfuge that they were 
intent upon netting fish only, and that they were not to be 
blamed if the ducks would get into their nets. The birds 
are killed also by gunners who approach them in naphtha 
launches and steam craft, and there is under the existing law 
no way of stopping this practice. Shooting for sportsmen 
who like to take their ducks in a decent way has been ruined 
for this season. Whether the law as it now stands is a result 
of the slovenly carelessness which characterizes so much of 
the legislation that comes from Albany, or whether the 
statute was with deliberate intent made ineffective we can- 
not say ; but there should be no delay in remedying the ex- 
isting condition of affairs at the nest session of the Legisla-- 
ture. 
An interesting contest is going on in the Waters of 
Meacham Lake, in the Adirondacks, where Mr. A. R. Fuller 
is waging a warfare against the pickerel which some years 
ago invaded the lake and threatened the utter ruin of the 
famous trout fishing. Provision was made at Albany em- 
powering the Commissioners of Fisheries to license the neU 
ting of pickerel in specific cases in trout waters. Availing 
himself of this dispensation Mr. Fuller made war upon the 
water vermin, and while it was beyond his hope to ex- 
terminate them he has so far succeeded in lessening their 
numbers that the lake and brook trout fishing has improved, 
and until now it is reported as unusually good. 
Strictly speaking, there is no age which may be set apart 
from all others as heroic, for every age has its heroes and 
its heroism. And yet, as the present is always prosjue, not 
until the lives and deeds of men are seen through the mag- 
nifying glamour of the receding past do we recognize clearly 
the heroic qualities of their doing and achieving, and come 
to count their age heroic. Measured by the daring of indi- 
viduals who had part in it, the life even of such humble 
characters as the wolf trappers on our Western frontier in 
the Indian days had in it the true elements of heroism. 
Some insight into such lives is afforded by the chapter taken 
out of one of them which we print to-day. 
The twenty-third annual banquet of the Cuvier Club, of 
Cincinnati, was held at the club house, on Lohgworth 
street, on Friday evening of last week. President Alex, 
Starbuck welcomed the guests. One hundred and sixty- 
three sat down to a feast which was not less notable for the 
elaborate menu than for the sparkle of wit and flash of sen- 
timent which played about the board. 
The official election returns of New York on the forestry 
amendment, so far as received up to Tuesday of this week, 
showed for fifty counties an adverse majority of 271,827. 
The (unofficial) majority in Kings is estimated at 71,000, 
which would make a total of 343.827. Nine counties were 
yet to be heard from. 
