Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Terms, $4 a yEAR. 10 Cts. a Copy. ) 
Six Months, $2. ) 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MAY 22, 1897. 
J VOL. XLVin.— No. 21. 
( No. 346 Broadway, New Yosas. 
NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS. 
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wrappers of subscribers' copies. The label shows the date of the 
close of the term for which the subscription is paid. 
The receipt ot the paper with such dated address label constitutes 
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may be avoided. 
For prospectus and advertising rates see page iii. 
If we are content with, an ungfainly fly^ we will 
be satisfied with inferiority of rod and tackle? and 
althougfh the fish may not see the difference^ the 
angler may become, from negflectingf one point, 
slovenly in alL A well-made fly is a beautiful 
object, an ill-made one an eyesore and annoyance ; 
and it is a gfreat satisfaction both, to exhibit and 
examine a well-filled book of bandsomely-tied 
flies. R. B. Roosevelt. 
Cbe forest ana Stream's Platform PlanK, 
" The sale of ga?ne should be p'ohibited at all seasons." 
NAILS DRIVEN IN 1897.— No. III. 
NEW HAMVSHIRIi:. 
Act of March 3, 1S97 — Section 1. That any person -who 
sTiall for the whole, or any part of the time, engage in the 
busiaess or occapation of fishing on any of the streams or 
ponds of this State for the brook or speckled trout, or in the 
lakes thereof of less size than the first Connecticut lake for 
lake trout, with intent to sell or trade fish so caught, shall 
for every such offense he fined not less than 8'400, or impris- 
oned not less than thirty days or more than six months, or 
both 
TUB MAINE aUIDE LICENSE. 
« 
TiiE Maine guide registration law provides that before 
engaging in the business of guiding one must register with 
the Commissioners of Fisheries and Game his name, age 
and residence, and must procure from the Commissioners 
a certificate setting forth that he is deemed suitable to act 
as a guide. For this certificate he is required to pay a fee 
of |1, and for failure to comply with the law there is a fine 
of |50. The obligation is not imposed upon any person 
who does not directly or indirectly hold himself out to the 
public as a guide, or directly or indirectly solicit employ- 
ment as such. Every registered guide is required from 
time to time, as requested by the Commissioners and on 
blanks furnished by them, to "forward a statement to them 
of the number of persons he has guided in inland fishing 
and forest hunting during the time called for in said state- 
ment, the number of days he has been employed as a guide, 
and such other useful information relative to the inland 
fish and game, forest fires, and the preservation of the for- 
ests in the localities where he has guided, as the Commis- 
sioners may deem of importance to the State." Whenever 
a registered guide is convicted of a violation of the fish or 
game laws he shall forfeit his certificate and be debarred 
for one year from engaging in the business of guiding. 
The purpose of the new system manifestly is to give the 
Commissioners, who represent the executive machinery of 
the game law, some measure of control over the guides, who 
are most directly and personally responsible for the ob- 
servance or the violation of the law in the woods. No one 
will question that the INIaine guide has it absolutely within 
his own control to see that the game law shall mean in the 
cover of the forest precisely what it does on the page of 
the statute book. When a man from Boston or Worcester 
or Providence or Albany, or New York or Philadelphia 
goes into the Maine woods and takes his game out of sea- 
son or by dogging it into the water, he does so, and can do 
so, only with the purchased connivance, encouragement 
and assistance of his guide. And not only this, but he 
dares to defy the law only because he believes that he 
may trust his guide and accomplice to keep mum about it 
afterward. 
This is not saying that ninetymine out of every hundred 
sportsmen who go down to Maine are not in spirit and 
practice observant of the laws; nor that ninety-nine guides 
out of every hundred are not in spirit and practice law 
abiding. The fact remains that the hundredth sportsman 
and the hundredth guide do kill an unconscionably large 
amount of game in forbidden ways and seasons, and it is 
to get control of this hundredth factor that the guide 
license and guide reporting, after coming out of the woods, 
ystem has been put into effect. If the constitutionality of 
■ the law shall be tested, doubtless the line of reasoning 
adopted for its defense will be to show that no new prin- 
ciples are involved, but that the law involves only familiar 
ones carried to an extreme. 
The police power of the State is very broad. In rela- 
tion to game and fish it may prescribe conditions as to 
when, how, by whom, and for what purpose they may be 
taken; in short, may hedge about and restrict that taking 
even to the point of absolute prohibition. Maine may 
enact that moose may not be killed at any time, or that 
they maybe killed at certain seasons only, tinder condi- 
tions that the hunter be licensed or that his guide be 
licensed, and that the killing be reported to the oflicials. 
Guiding sportsmen is a part of hunting; as a part of hunt- 
ing, it is subject to that legislation which has to do with 
hunting. All that requires to be shown in defense of the 
consijtutionality of this Maine guide's law in its general 
character is that the statute is in the direct line of game 
protection. 
What the new system will accomplish in the direction 
of eliminating from the guide's calling unworthy members 
remains to be proved in practice. No qualifications are 
named by which the Commissioners are to govern them- 
selves in determining the fitness of an applicant; it appears 
to be left wholly to their discretion to declare a man fit or 
unfit to act as guide; and just here perhaps is the weak 
point in the law. We may take for granted, however, the 
desire and purpose of the Commissioners to exercise their 
discretion for the good of the cause. 
The chief objection to the system on the part of the 
sportsman is found in a natural and quite defensible objec- 
tion to having made public or a rUatter of record his ex- 
perience in the woods. The thought that his success or 
his failure, his goings in and comings out, rising up and 
sitting down, are to be made subject of official investiga- 
tion and chronicle, takes away something of the freedom 
and abandon which are after all the chief charm of the 
wilderness; and the law-abiding sportsman is quite as apt 
to resent this feature as is his brother who finds in it a 
hamper of lawlessness. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
Mk. James A. Miller, of Denver, Colo., has submitted to 
Congressman John F. Shafroth a proposition with respect 
to the buflfalo remnant in Lost Park Eeservation. There 
are very few of these animals surviving, and the machinery 
of the State game protective system does not seem to be 
adequate to cope with the problem of their preservation. 
They are killed by illicit hunting in such numbers as to 
overcome the natural rate of increase. The end not long 
deferred must be extinction, unless some more adequate 
protection can be provided. Mr. Miller proposes that the 
United States cavalry stationed at Fort Logan, near the 
Park, shall patrol the buftalo country to keep out poachers 
The proposal has much to commend it. The duty would 
be an agreeable one for the troops, and although the 
actual measure of protection might not be considerable, 
the knowledge that iTnited States troops were on the look- 
out would doubtless deter the rascally class of hunters who 
are now bold, because under the present remote and inade- 
quate system of protection machinery they have nothing to 
fear. We trust that the matter may have favorable con- 
sideration by the Interior Department. 
Something of the complications and difficulties which 
must alwa,ys attend interstate game legislation was hinted 
at in the letter from Dr. Geo. W. Massamore, printed in 
our last issue relative to the black bass law of the Potomac. 
In the winter of 1895-96, the legisiatures of Maryland and 
Virginia adopted laws providing a close season from April 
15 to June 1 for Potomac black bass. The operation of the 
statute, however, was made contingent upon the enact- 
ment of a like law by West Virginia, and it was stipulated 
that before the statute could go into effect in the three 
States, its adoption must be proclaimed by each of the sev- 
eral governors. West Virginia in its turn adopted the law 
last winter, but the proclamation was not made in season 
to procure the full close in time for this year. Last week 
Gov. Lowndes, of Maryland, named May 19 as the first 
day of the close time for 1897. Even the short season 
thus provided will be beneficia,!. 
year, has attracted some attention. It appears that the 
justice authorized the prosecution under the misconception 
that the Potomac black bass law was already in effect^ 
whereas it is to be said for Dr. Owen that the law — or lack 
of law — was on his side, and he was guiltless of actual vio- 
lation of the statute. The question comes up, whether 
under such circumstances, it is the duty of an angler to 
obey both the letter and the spirit of the law. The Mary- 
land Legislature having enacted this statute providing for a 
close season on black bass, to begin on April 15, but hav- 
ing its operation dependent upon the adoption of a like 
law made by sister States, the question is whether a fish 
erman who governs himself by the ethics of the 
fraternity rather than by the strict letter of tbe 
law should refrain from black bass fishing after April 15, 
or whether, taking advantage of the technicality of the 
case, he should insist upon his right to fish. Under the 
circumstances, should not an angler be governed by the 
higher law? It is an encouraging sign of the times to ob- 
serve that this opinion is held by those who have ex- 
pressed themselves in the local newspapers. Long before 
the millennium shall be proclaimed, anglers and shooters 
will govern themselves by the spirit as well as the letter 
of the game laws. The call to do this is not uncommon 
For instance, on Long Island, New York, because of a 
bungle in the law, birds which should be unprotected 
from Aug. 15 to Jan. 1 are actually unprotected fronj Jan, 
1 to Aug. 15. Observing the strict text of the prohibi- 
tion, one might kill these birds in the springtime, and yet 
defend his action upon the ground that he was law-abiding, 
whereas the obligation of his profession as a sportsman 
would require him to abstain from shooting in the un- 
timely season permitted by the law, even though he was 
thereby deprived of his sport the year around. A similar 
condition of affairs existed not long ago in Minnesota 
where certain birds were by a twist of the law protected 
at the seasons when they should be pursued, and were left 
without protection in the nesting and immature periods. 
Under these conditions no one who professes to be 
governed by an enlightened regard for the interest of pro- 
tection, or even by considerations of ordinary individual de- 
cency with, respect to game can do other than observe the 
spirit rather than the strict letter of the statute. It has been 
intimated that Dr. Owen will take his grievance of an un- 
warrantable arrest before the Grand Jury, and the justice 
retorts that as -for him he would be content to abide by the 
decision of a committee of leading citizens respecting his 
official action. As this is a question of field ethics, it should 
be left to the decision of sportsmen. If Dr. Owen and the 
Justice would submit their sides in the Forest and Stream 
columns we could assure them of even and exact justice at 
the bar of public opinion. 
The establishment by the Governor of Wisconsin of a 
Bird Day marks a distinct advance in public opinion by 
one of the most progressive States in the Union, and this 
proclamation is likely before long to be followed by simi- 
lar action in other States. Slowly, but steadily, the inter- 
est in bird protection has been growing, ever since the 
Forest and Stream, nearly twelve years ago, originated 
the Audubon Society idea and started the first Audubon 
Society, which it carried on unaided and alone for several 
years. Now there are Audubon Societies in many States, 
and the interest in them and in their work is constantly 
increasing. These societies appeal to two motives: the 
sentimental and the economic; and gain support alike 
from the tender-hearted and from the hard-headed and 
practical. To the latter class the effective presentation of 
the subject in Miss Merriam's little book, "How Birds 
Affect the Farm and Garden," is a cogent argument, and 
the Massachusetts Audubon Society has distributed a 
large number of copies of this pamphlet with great benefit 
to its work. 
Florida mockingbirds have been trapped, and their 
nests robbed, until the diminution of numbers and the 
silence of field, garden and woodland have awakened 
alarm. The Legislature now in session is considering a 
measure for the protection of the birds. It should be 
made a law; and means should be provided to miake the 
law a force rather than a farce. 
The case of Eev. Dr. Owen, of Hagerstown, Md., who 
was up before a Williamsport justice of the peace on the 
charge of having caught Potomac bass out of season this 
We regret to record the death of Mr. Charles E. Parker 
of Meriden, Conn., vice-president of the Charles Parker 
Co. and a member of the firm of Parker Bros. Mr 
Parker succumbed to pneumonia, on May 11; he was in 
his fifty-sixth year. 
