Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2 0, 189 7. 
Terms, 
U A yEAR 10 Cts a Copy. 
Six Months, $% 
J VOL. XLVIII.— No. 8. 
I No, S46 Broadway, New York. 
For Prospectus and Advertising Rates see Page iii. 
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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. 
Vigilant and VaDtyrie. 
"He's Got Them" (QnaU Shooting). 
Bass Fishing: at Block Island. 
The plates are for frames 14 x 19 in. 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, $S. 
Forest and Stream 6 months and any two of the pictures, $3. 
Price of the pletures alone, $1.50 each ; $S for the aet. 
Remit by express money order or postal money order. 
Make orders payable to 
FOREST AND STREAM PUB. CO., New York. 
I trust indeed that the day will etc long arrive 
when all trtte sportsmen will set their faces steadily 
toward game protection^ and as steadily against 
those false brothers of the gun who^ crying out 
"protect^ protect,*^ yet lose themselves no oppor- 
tunity^ when unsuspected or unseen, of slaughter- 
ing for the bag and for the brag, at all risks, in all 
manners, and at all seasons* Frank Forester* 
AUDUBON BIRD PLATES. 
In our issue of next week, Feb. 27, will be given the fifth 
in the series of half-tone reproductions of Audubon's 
famous bird portraits, from the rare first edition. It will 
be of the American golden plover. The list of plates al- 
ready printed and to come includes: 
The Black Duck, Sept. 26, 1896. 
The Pkairie Chicken, Oct. 24. 
The Oanvasback Duck, Nov. 21. 
The Willow Ptarmigan, Dec. 19. 
The American Golden Plover, Feb. 27, 1897. 
The Shoveller Duck. 
The Bedhead Duck. 
The Purple Sandpiper. 
PENNSYLVANIA AND THE PLATFORM. 
The State Game Commissioners of Pennsylvania have 
proposed to the Legislature a new game code, one pro. 
vision of which makes unlawful the taking of game for 
sale, its sale within the State or export out of the State. 
Tins is a righteous measure, and it should have the warm 
support of every sportsman in the State. The market- 
shooter is out of his place in history. He has had his day. 
Game is no longer, in sound public economy, an article of 
traffic. We shall rejoice to see Pennsylvania by the adop- 
tion of such a law make good the ending of the professional 
hunter's industry within her borders. 
NOCTURNAL PROTECTIVE COLORING IN 
ANIMALS. 
To the Ameriam Journal of Science for February Prof. 
A. E. Verrill contributes an article on "Nocturnal Protect- 
ive Coloration in Mammals, Birds, Fishes, Insects, etc., 
as Developed by Natural Selection." The paper is full of 
interest and suggestion, and is likely to lead other ob- 
servers to contribute facts bearing on this question. 
Very much has been written concerning imitative and 
protective coloring in these various groups as seen by day- 
light, but little or no attention had been given to their 
colors as seen at night until the subject was brought up 
some time ago in a paper read before the American Mor- 
phological Society by Prof. Verrill, of which the present 
article is an abstract. Prof. Verrill shows that many of 
the colors whicli are protective by day are still more so 
under moonlight or starlight. It is evident that in the 
case of all nocturnal animals protection is much more 
needed at night than it is by day. Such animals as rats, 
mice of various sorts, moles, shrews, some herbivorous ani- 
.mals, mi Qtber creatureij belonging tg many different 
orders, lie hidden during the day, and only venture forth 
to seek their food during the night. Such animals require 
protective coloring in order that they may escape the 
notice of other animals that prey upon them. In the same 
way many of the animals that capture those just men- 
tioned need protective coloring in order that they may 
escape the notice of the creatures that they prey on, and 
may succeed in capturing them. 
S J it is that many small nocturnal mammals belonging to 
many groups are gray or brownish-gray in color, and so are 
protected at night, when they are abroad, although this color- 
ing would be a positive disadvantage were they to be abroad 
during the day, for it would be in sharp contrast to the 
grass in which they live and on which they feed. The 
common meadow mice, which are very dark gray, can 
hardly be seen even in a bright moonlight and in locali- 
ties where they are very abundant, and when the numbers 
close at hand are so large that the sound made by their 
teeth in eating can be distinctly heard. Many of the noc- 
turnal carnivorous animals are black or very dark in color, 
and so are extremely inconspicuous at night, although thej' 
would be readily seen in daylight. 
The same principle will apply to many birds, reptiles, 
fishes and insects, many of which are very active at night, 
and by day conceal themselves in holes, or hide in thickets 
or in the grass. But it is not only nocturnal creatures that 
need protection at night, for many which are active during 
the day rest at night in exposed situations, where, if ob- 
served, they might be destroyed by enemies. Small birds 
roost in trees, bushes or reeds. Small fishes rest at night 
on the bottom, or among sea weeds, grass or stones. Both 
are thus exposed to the attack of nocturnal predaceous 
species. 
Often it is true that the same color is equally protective 
at night and by day. Examples of this are found in the 
green plumage of birds that live among foliage, and in the 
gray and brown colors of birds and mammals that live on 
the ground, among rocks or dead leaves and on the trunks 
of trees. The white colors of some birds and mammals in 
winter, and in arctic or alpine regions, are other familiar 
examples. Some colors, however, which are not at all pro- 
tective by day are eminently so at night. Black and 
brown are colors protective by night and not by day, since 
in the black shadow cast by the moonlight a dark animal 
becomes invisible. This invisibility is often increased by 
the presence of stripes of light color on a dark ground, 
which look like patches of moonlight falling across a dark 
shadow, and thus serve to break up the outline of the body 
of a bird or beast which otherwise might be recognized. 
Transverse bands of black or dark brown on fishes, and 
black fins and tails, have the same effect of weakening 
and confusing the outline of the body. Where fishes rest 
among eel grass or seaweed these dark marks look like the 
shadows and shaded surfaces of the weeds. The striped 
colors of the tiger and the spotted patterns of the leopard, 
jaguar and panther, which live in thickets and jungles 
among straight canes or twisted shrubbery, have the same 
eftect of making indistinct the outline of the animal's body 
even by day, and the eftect would be still greater by 
moonlight or starlight. 
Among insects numerous examples of coloring, evidently 
protective at night, might be cited, and these can be ex- 
plained only on the basis of natural selection. Such color- 
ing may, or may not, be more or less protective by day. 
Often it appears to be the reverse of protective. Many 
hutterflies, for example, are brightly colored and in no waj'^ 
match the objects among which they live. Species that 
are black or dark blue, striped or blotched with light yel- 
low or orange, and those that are spotted or striped with 
red, orange and black on the upper surface of the wing, are 
conspicuous whether flying or at rest. Their active habits 
and acute senses no doubt give these species a measure of 
protection by day. When resting at night, with wings 
folded, the colors of the under surface of the wings usually 
harmonize very perfectly with that of the flowers on which 
they rest. Certain butterflies have silvery spots on the 
under surface of their wings, which, when they are resting 
at night, look like the dew drops which surround them. 
Many nocturnal insects that liv'e on the ground have 
colors that are protective only at night. Many of these 
hide themselves during the day, so that no protection is 
then needed. Other insects, which are abroad during 
both day and night, have acquired green or yellowish 
colors, which are protective at all times to such as live 
among grass or foliage. Examples of this are seen in kfity- 
dids, green gr^eph.oppers and others, 
As a rule, patches, stripes or spots'of strongly contrasting 
light or dark colors are more likely to be protective by 
moonlight than by day, whether on birds or fishes. We 
know less about reptiles, but among the nocturnal am- 
phibians protective coloring certainly occurs. Some of our 
native black salamanders are conspicuously blotched or 
spotted with white or light yellow. 
The whole subject is one of very great interest, and it is 
remarkable how little is known about it. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
The results of the last trials of poachers in the Yellow 
stone Park are very satisfactory — -as much so as some d 
the earlier ones were discouraging. Of the two men 
arrested, one named Decker was shown to have had no 
gun and was in the Park only as an assistant to help the 
real criminals pack out their meat. He was therefore 
acquitted, and properly enough, since though he was an 
accomplice, it was hardly worth while to treat him with 
the severity which his ofiense merits. It is wiser to work 
up the punishiuents gradually on these offenders rather 
than to enlist sympathy in their behalf The other man 
arrested, George Scott by name, is an old oft"ender, who 
claims to be a hardened and desperate man, but is not, 
Scott was sentenced to six months in jail and to pay a fine 
of $200 — an eminently fitting punishment. He may per- 
haps take the pauper's oath and so escape the fine, but he 
will have to suffer the imprisonment, which will undoubt- 
edly do him a great deal of good and will make his friends 
and neighbors do a large amount of thinking. This is 
likely to make them and others pause before killing Park 
game again. There is little doubt that this same Scott has 
killed buffalo in the Park, and in any event he is entitled 
to no sympathy. 
At a book sale in New York last week a copy of Walton 
and Cotton's "Angler," in two volumes, extended to four by 
the insertion of six hundred and fifteen- illustrations, was 
sold for $460. Walton is a book which readily lends itself 
to extra illustrating, and it has often been devoted to 
this purpose. The illustrations suitable are practically 
endless. In portraits one might begin with Walton 
and Cotton themselves, their friends and contem- 
poraries, and follow with all the famous anglers 
down to the "Men I Have Fished With." Of fishing locali- 
ties which might be pictured, from waters frequented by 
Walton to those of our own country, there would be no 
end. Pictures of fishes make up another branch; and 
then the field of angling sketches, engravings, prints and ' 
drawings, stretches out illimitably. Once the extra illus- 
trating mania takes possession of the possessor of a two- 
volume Walton, he has a life work before hirn. It is 
the first step that counts. 
The scheme of imposing a license tax for the privileges 
of shooting and fishing is constantly gaining ground as a 
game protective expedient. It has reached its most ad- 
vanced stage in Maine, where the plan of imposing a stifl: 
tax on sportsmen's guides is now under discussion by the 
Legislature. In other States it takes the form of a heavy 
fee exacted from non-residents, while citizens go free or 
are taxed in a nominal sum only. The principle under- 
lying the system is that those who profit most directly by 
the shooting and fishing resources of a country 
should contribute toward the maintenance of the 
supply. Tax the sportsman, say the license advo- 
cates, and devote the funds so provided to warden 
and protector services. Another impelling motive is 
to keep the foreigner, the non-resident, out of the State. 
This rule holds more especially in the Canadian North- 
west, although in the Province of Quebec there is no desire 
to exclude sportsmen from the United States, but, on the 
contrary, inducements are held out to bring them in. The 
various license systems already prevailing in some of the 
Western States have not been in practice long enough yet 
to afford a sound basis for determining their utility. It 
may be said that everything which diminishes the number 
of shooters decreases also the amount of game destroyed; 
and yet this wholesome result may be entirely offset by un- 
restrained slaughter on the part of native shooters. 
The National Game, Bird and Fish Protective Associa- 
tion convened in annual session in Kalamazoo, Mich., last 
week, twelve members present, and adopted the custom- 
ary regular annual resolutions respecting wildfowl eggs in 
Alaska, They appear to he bopelegsly dftft oij duck eggq. 
