A Weekly Journal of the Rob and Gun. 
Terms, 
14 A Year 10 Cts. a Copy. (. 
Sis Mosths, $2. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MAY 29; 1897. 
I VOL. XLVm.— Nft. 32.!. 
1 Nb. 346 BroabIvay, New YoMk. 
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For prospectus and advertising rates see page iii. 
King James the First and Queen Anne being: 
hunting, the Queen, shooting at a deer, mistook 
her mark, and killed Jewel, the Kingf^s most prin- 
cipal and special hound; at which he stormed 
exceedingly awhile; but after that he knew who 
did it, he was soon pacified, and with much kind- 
ness wished her not to be troubled with it, for he 
should love her never the worse; and the next 
day sent her a diamond worth two thousand 
pounds as a legacy from his dead dog. 
Letter of Arthur "Wilson, August, J 613. 
Cbe forest ana Stream s Platform PlanR. 
"77/1? sale of game should be prohibited at all seasons." 
NAILS DRIVEN IN 1897.— No. IV. 
MINNESOTA. 
Chap. 221, Lhws 1897.— Sec. 10 * * * The sale, exposing 
for sale, liaving ia iJoasession with intent to sell, or the ship- 
ment to any person, either -within or "without this State, by 
common or private carrier, of any ruffed grouse, sometimes 
known, as partridge or pheasant, is hereby prohihited and 
made im^awfiil. 
LEAP- YEARS FOR GAME. 
On the State reservoirs of Ohio and on Lake Erie within 
the Ohio limits duck shooting is forbidden on Sundays, 
Mondays and Tuesdays of each week in tlie open season. 
In Currituck waters of North Carolina decoy shooting is 
forbidden on Wednesdays and Saturdays of the open sea- 
son for ducks. In Chesapeake Bay the Maryland law 
provides that each alternate week day shall be closed on 
duck shooting. In Maine during the forty-eight hours 
from Saturday sunrise to Monday sunrise salmon fishing is 
forbidden; and in New York a law of the same character 
provides a weekly close time for shad in the'Hudson. 
These are examples of the familiar expedient of provid- 
ing for brief intervals of exemption from pursuit during 
the period when shooting or fishing is permitted. The 
purpose is to interrupt the open season, so that some 
portion of the game or fish may make good its escape. 
A novel application of this principle has just been made 
in the new law of South Dakota where, following out the 
principle of close days in the week, a close year has been 
adopted coming once in every term of five years. It ap- 
plies to big game and provides that bufialo, elk, deer, 
moose, antelope, mountain sheep and mountain goat may 
not be taken in the year 1900, and that hunting shall be 
prohibited in every fifth year thereafter. Such a system 
has much to commend it for efficiency; it certainly is wiser 
than the common shiftless neglect of game resources, until 
it is found necessary or considered expedient to make a 
long close time of two, or three, or five years. The inade- 
quacy, injustice and futility of such long time close periods 
are found sometimes in that they are ignored by the law- 
less — which in these matters means the great majority — 
who disregard the close time altogether and get the game, 
while the law-abiding sportsman is cheated out of his 
share, so that at the end of the period the game supply is 
in no better condition than that it was at the beginning. 
Again, if the law chances to have been well observed, 
when the close time expires all hands turn in with ardor 
whetted by long abstinence, and in the first opsn season 
work quite as much destruction as that which would have 
been wrought under ordinary conditions in the open sea- 
sons covered by the close period term. A single close 
year, on the other hand, is more apt than a term of three 
or five years to be respected by all classes. 
In this new departure has not South Dakota, then, set 
an example which might profitably be followed in other 
States with respect to the particular interests of the game 
supply in each section? Por the convenience of fixing in 
the public mind the recurrence of such close years, they 
might be made identical with the leap-years, which are 
^.Iso the years of our Presidential elections. Thus, m 
Maine, every leap-year or national campaign year might 
be made a year of grace for moose; in the Adirondacks it 
might be a year of grace for deer, in Vermont for deer, in 
New Hampshire for moose and deer, in Michigan for deer, 
in Minnesota and Wisconsin for moose and deer, in Vir- 
ginia for quail, in North Carolina for wildfowl; and so 
throughout the Union, in each particular State, for what- 
ever variety of game might stand most in need of such 
periodical immunity. It is even possible that in its appli- 
cation to spring shooting we might find in the leap-year 
system at least a partial solution of that long-vexed and 
apparently never fully to be settled problem. A measure 
introduced in any of our Legislatures to forbid the spring 
shooting of ducks and snipe and shore birds for one year 
in four would perhaps not encounter the determined 
opposition which now defeats most endeavors to prohibit 
spring shooting absolutely; and the promoters of a leap- 
year spring shooting law could work for it with some 
heart. It might be practicable in this way even to secure 
an uniformity of legislation by several contiguous States 
for a once-in-four-years cessation of spring shooting, by com- 
mon consent to prevail over the several States concerned. 
The advantages of such a system applied as the exigen- 
cies of the game supply may demand would be these: 
I. Being incorporated in the permanent law, and close 
times thus set apart far in advance, the leap-year provision 
would be simple, definite, readily comprehended and 
easily remembered. There would be no dates to be un- 
certain about. Most people know a leap year; and those 
who do not know leap years would at least find out before 
shooting time that a National campaign was in progress; 
so that if made identical with the leap years, which are 
also the years of the Presidential campaigns, the close 
game year would be fixed in the public mind, to be looked 
forward to, anticipated and pi-epared for. One would 
know years in advance that, for example, in the spring of 
1900 he could not go duck hunting on Long Island, or that 
in the autumn of 1900 he could not go deer hunting in' 
Michigan. 
II. The interval of three open years separating the re- 
currence of the close years ^s so extended, that the one 
single year of prohibition could not reasonably be regarded 
as a hardship; and the deprivation of sport so entailed 
could not be complained of, particularly in view of the 
increased game supply assured for the three open years. 
For it would also be found 
III. That although only one year in every four is closed, 
nevertheless, this one year will be sufficient to assure a 
decided improvement in the game supply. If there is any- 
thing in arithmetic, the thousands of wild ducks permitted 
to pass to their northern breeding grounds in one leap- 
year would assure the multiplication of ducks for the years 
to follow. If two and two make four, as is the rule with 
the deer tribe, the thousands of deer permitted to escape 
in a leap-year — ^in one such particular region as the Adi- 
rondacks — would mean a very substantial addition of the 
stock for the three years of shooting. In short, if one close 
year in four meafls in the long run one-fourth less of game 
destruction, it means also a game increase vastly greater in 
proportion — as much greater, with respect to wildfowl, as 
the product of ten thousand pairs of ducks exceeds in num. 
ber the parent thousands. 
IV. One full close year means an actual close time of 
much longer duration. For instance, in North Dakota, 
where the big game season runs from Oct. 15 to Dec. 15, 
while the closed leap-year of 1900 would involve on the 
part of the hunter a deprivation beyond the present system 
of only two months, it would assure for the game a close 
term extending from Dec. 15, 1899, to Oct. 15, 1901, or a 
total of twenty-two months. Such a long period of immu- 
nity from pursuit and of freedom from alarm is, as stock- 
breeders well know, particularly favorable to prolific breed- 
ing. 
In short, if there is anything in game protection, and 
any virtue in withholding for a time the hand of destruc- 
tion, a system of closed leap-years would work advantage- 
ously for the preservation and conservation of our dimin- 
ishing game supply. The system is one which has de- 
cided merits, and to it no serious objections present them- 
selves. We believe that the plan is one well worthy of 
serious consideration, and of at least experimental adop- 
tion. If it is good in South Dakota it would have like 
beneficial results elsewhere. We believe that in it will 
be found a partial solution of the problem of game con- 
servation. . , 
DECORATION DAY. 
The great conflict that for four years rent the land is 
more thah thirty years behind us. A generation has grown 
up which knows of it only by tradition. Men who are 
now in middle life were but children then; they remember 
the stirring events of the war but dimly, and then by onfe 
or two of its incidents. It is only the gray-haired who 
have clear recollection of the horrors of the battle and of 
the sorrows that followed it. 
The feelings that engendered the war and that grew 
with its continuance have largely passed away. After the 
lapse of a generation the men who fought on either side 
feel for each other a wider charity. The devotion of each 
to the cause for which he fought may not be less to-day 
than it was then, but the mellowing touch of time has 
softened the old rancour, and with the years have come 
toleration and gentleness. 
Even to those who lost their nearest and dearest, time 
has brought its solace. The keen, hard agony of bereave- 
ment is softened to a tender regret. To-day, the hero who 
fell on the battle-field is not less a hero than the day he 
died; but the rebellious bitterness of the first grief has 
given place to a solemn pride in the life that was sacrificed 
for the cause held so dear. 
Thank God, the bitterness of the old war feeling has for 
the most part been forgotten. Those who fought on either 
side acknowledge the bravery and the worth of those 
whom they met in the heat of battle, and all are glad" to 
unite in honoring their courage and their devotion. The 
warm spring sun, which brightens the grass beneath which 
lie the forms that wore the blue and the gray, and which 
on Memorial Day will silver the bared gray heads of the 
comrades who stand about the graves, shines to-day on a 
people united in their love for the common flag which re- 
presents our common country. 
In the pages of Forest and Stream the brave soldiers of 
North and South have for many years met on common 
ground. In these pages the true sportsmen of both sec- 
tions long ago put aside all hostile feeling and became 
united by the bond of a common interest — their love for 
nature, for the gun, the rod and the yacht. Many war 
stories have been printed in these columns, but in them 
all we recall no word of unkindness toward either section. 
This is as it should be. In the pure delights of field 
and stream the harsher and rougher aspect of life's 
struggle may for a time well be lost sight of. And as we 
return from our outings refreshed and strengthened to 
renew life's battle, let us bring back from the contempla- 
tion of nature's beauties also a broader kindliness and a 
spirit of charity and good will for onr fellows that will 
make easier not only our own lives, but also those of 
others. 
VENEZUELAN PLUME BIRDS. 
Plume bird hunters from this country have scoured the 
South American continent in search of birds. They have 
penetrated far to the interior, following up and down the 
great rivers, searching out the nesting places and de- 
veloping a traffic valued at many thousands of dollars. 
The warfare upon the herons of Venezuela by the plume 
hunters has been so destructive that the government has 
recently taken action to insure the protection of the birds. 
The decree issued on this subject transmitted to the State 
Department by our consul at Maracaibo, provides in brief 
that the birds shall be taken on their rookeries only by 
hunters who have obtained for the purpose a license, to be 
granted by the president of the State. The Secretary of 
State is charged with keeping a record of all the places 
where the rookeries are situated, their boundaries and 
extent, etc., and the quality and quantity of plumes 
which each one. produces, together with the names 
of the persons who select the plumes, and the 
method of hunting. No transaction or sale can 
be entered into with respect to the plumes without a 
"pass" to be granted by the authorities for the purpose, nor 
without this document can the plumes be exported. It is 
absolutely prohibited to hunt herons with fire-arms, and 
the decree also forbids "all practices which may tend to 
destroy these birds." The entire industry of taking plumes 
is thus placed under strict official regulations. The adop- 
tion of the new system probably is to be taken as an 
earnest that the native supply will be conserved, and that 
in Venezuela at least the plume bird source of revenue will 
be maintained. We do these things differently in our 
country; with us the regulation or restriction is postponed 
until there is nothing left to regulate. 
