Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. 1 
Six Months, $2. ) 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JULY 24, 1897, 
j VOL. XLVIX.-No. 4. 
j No. 346 Broadway, New Houx, 
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An impulse^ often irresistible it seems^ leads 
man away from civilisation, from its artificial 
pleasures and its mechanical life, to the forests, the 
fields, and the waters, where he may have that 
freedom and peace which civilization denies him. 
He will undergo all sorts of bodily discomforts — 
coarse food and roug:h bed, the wet and the cold — 
and yet be happy, because for a little spell he is 
free ; in other words, he has, for the time, become 
a civilized savagfe. He will learn how few are the 
real wants of a happy life in the midst of an un- 
civilized nature. His troubles, if he carried any 
with him, will vanish ; time will seem of as little 
value to him as to the sava8:e, and like all true 
sportsmen and ^ honest anglers,' he will return to 
his home with a calm spirit and a contented mind. 
Alfred M. Mayer. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
The death of F. 0. Creede, from whom the town in the 
Cripple Creek mining district in Colorado took its name, 
recalls the fact that in the late 60's he served as an officer 
in the Pawnee scouts, under the command of Major Frank 
North. This force consisted of several companies, enlisted 
by Major North from the Pawnee tribe, officered by white 
men, and rendered admirab'e service against the hostile 
Sioux and Cheyennes, at a time when those tribes were 
giving much trouble to the Government. No detailed 
history of this force has ever been written, yet it performed 
a great work for the settling up of the Western country by 
guarding the frontier, and guiding the regular troops prior 
to and during the building of the Union Pacific Railroad. 
Many of the old-time army officers who were stationed on 
the plains just after the war are familiar with the achieve- 
ments of Major North's battalion between the years 1865 
and 1877, but the number of those who have personal 
knowledge of the Pawnee scouts is rapidly growing 
smaller. Although no detailed history of this organization 
has been written, Mr. Grinnell, in his book on the Paw- 
nees, has given much information about it and its heroic 
commander, and a Nebraska newspaper has recently 
printed a series of articles giving some account of Major 
North's adventures. Such material, which is real history 
— a part of the winning of the West— ought to be preserved 
before it is too late. 
Professor Alfred M. Mayer, of Stevens In .thute, whose 
death occurred at Maplewood, N. J., on Tuesday of last 
week, was an enthusiastic sportsman, and belonged to that 
. type of men who find their beat recreations in the field. 
He was particularly fond of quail shooting, and in the 
magnificent volume of "Sport with Gun and Rod," which 
he edited for the Century Company, he chose for his own 
pen the chapter devoted to "Bob White, the Game Bird of 
America," the bird, in his estimation, which is destined to 
remain the most popular feathered game in American 
covers. In adopting the name "Bob White," we recall 
Professor Mayer quite won the heart of our contrib- 
utor "AVells," of North Carolina, who was impa- 
tient of the designations quail and partridge alike. 
The pleasure of quail shooting depends much upon 
the amiability and congenial make-up of one's shoot- 
ing comrades; of Professor Mayer it is to be said 
/ that he was a delightful field companion. Professor 
Mayer was a physicist whose high attainments were recog- 
niz jd throughout the scientific circles of all countries. He 
gave-special study to the problems of acoustics, and one of 
the recorded results of his researches was the discovery of 
the auditory apparatus of the mosquito. It was natural 
that his devotion to the gun should have prompted Pro- 
fessor Mayer to a study of ballistics; and he once conducted 
a long series of exhaustive experiments with the chrono- 
graph, to determine the velocities of shot; the results were 
published in Forest and Steeam, to which he was a fre- 
quent contributor. 
That is an extraordinary showing which is made in the 
first chapter, printed to-day, of our annual report on the 
game in American game preserves. It gives a census of 
six hundred buffalo in parks and gardens, which are prob- 
ably six times as many as are roaming wild within 
the bounds of the Republic. This is the rescued remnant. 
The figures are full of promise for the perpetuation of the 
species by breeding in captivity, if only this shall be pur- 
sued with the intelligence which governs the raising of 
domestic stock. By judicious infusion of new blood, now 
quite practicable with such a large stock to draw upon, the 
native stamina may be preserved, and We may expect to 
maintain indefinitely in our game parks and zoological 
gardens representatives of this unique American game. 
The breeding of buflTalo in captivity is an enterprise so 
admirable that we hope to see it taken up by an increasing 
number of those who have the means and the opportunity 
to prosecute it. 
It is given out that Chief Wade, of the Massachusetts 
Stale Police, will undertake to enforce the new statute, 
which forbids having in possession the body or feathers of 
song and insectivorous birds; and the lawyers have passed 
on the law's application to women as well as to men. A 
curious notion appears to hold in Massachusetts that just 
because the statute does apply to woman, fair woman, 
bird's body bedecked woman, it was not meant in earnest 
by the Legislature, and is now to be regarded as a bit of 
pleasantry. As a cold matter of fact, the law was designed 
for just what appears on the face of it, as a means to reach 
people who could not be reached in any other way. Ap- 
peals to woman's humanity, and arguments based upon 
economic considerations have been ineffectual. The only 
recourse, in Massachusetts as elsewhere, is to sterner 
measures and methods. The law is a good law; it should 
be enforced. 
The answer to Mount Tom's propounded question, "Who 
is Responsible?" appears to be that we are all in it together, 
townspeople and farmers; and one class may not point 
finger at the other. But the old way of blaming one 
another for the sins of both will continue. That is human 
nature. The sportsman from the town is intensely human, 
and the countryman is his brother. If there is not game 
enough for both, or for either, the sensible way of going 
about a remedy is to sit down together and talk it over. 
We do not share in Mount Tom's implication that the 
sportsman lays all the blame upon the farmer. We have 
been preaching for many years that the interests of the 
two classes are mutual, and we are convinced that the 
recognition of this truth is more general and more sincerely 
accepted to-day than it has ever been in the past. There 
is on the part of both town dweller and country dweller 
less tendency to berate one another, and more inclination 
to sta-nd together for the adrantage of both. 
An Indiana genius has devised an electric fishing rod 
with which he expects to revolutionize the world. The 
apparatus consists of an ordinary, every-day "bamboo 
pole," with the ordinary, every-day bob, hook and sinker. 
Then there is a brass tip, with an arrangement for con- 
necting live wires, and another airangement near the 
hook, making a complete circuit for the electricity, which 
may be opened or closed at the will of the fisherman. 
When the gentle angler experiences the electric thrill of 
the nibbling fish, he presses the switch button and the 
current does the rest. It is claimed by the inventor that 
'■with the pole and the battery no fish can nibble the hook 
without being instantly killed or shocked, so he can be 
captured with an ordinary landing net. The fish is never 
on the hoosk, but after being shocked immediately arises 
to the top of the water and floats." Some of the fisher- 
men of Columbus, Ind., who have tested the new device, 
and have taken with it 6 and 7-pounders, never failing to 
capture any fish, big or little, that bit, are loud in praise 
of the dead-sure certainty with which the electric fishing 
pole does its work. The inventor is convinced that he 
has a good thing, and we understand that he is ready to 
part with his patent rights if some enterprising anglers' 
supply firm will take hold of the device. 
and growing sentiment which governs angling, but it is 
equally foreign to the mechanical development of rod- 
making, which is the triumph and glory of the makers 
of our time. A fishing rod is an implement for anglers. 
It has those qualities of delicacy, resiliency and strength 
which make its use a pleasure in the practice of the art of 
angling. The primary purpose of a rod is not to catch 
fish, but rather to make of that catching an exciting sport. 
No real angler would give a rap for an electric shock 
arrangement which, on simple contact, causes the fish to 
turn their bellies up. It is not the fish on the sudden he 
is after, but the fun of taking in the fish at last after an 
output of skill and craft in its capture; and the greater the 
degree of skill called for, so much the more decided grati- 
fication at the end. In a word, then, the electric rod is 
not an angler's device; anglers do not want it, and no 
fishing tackle maker who has real rods to sell to real 
anglers will care to have anything to do with the shocker. 
Moreover, with the increased stringency of the 
statutes limiting the lawful modes of fishing, there is 
question whether such an electric device would not be 
barred by law, along with the spear, net and dynamite 
cartridge. Such restrictions are being drawn more and 
more rigidly every year. This is a poor time for the in- 
ventors of deadly devices, ambitious to make fishing or 
shooting more certain. 
The Pennsylvania Fish Commission finds itself in a 
serious dilemma. By gross negligence, or by intent almost 
criminal, the last Legislature failed to make any appropria- 
tion whatever for carrying on the fishcultural work. This 
means that unless some way shall be found to devote the 
State funds to the purpose, the Commission's work must 
stop. What such an issue would mean to Pennsylvania 
is shown in the summary of the Commission's work by the 
Philadelphia Leclyer: 
"By close attention to duty, by intelligent direction, the 
Commission has brought the work of fishculture in this 
State to such a condition of excellence that, notwithstand- 
ing the obstructionists, it was unsurpassed by any other 
Commonwealth, withi the single exception possibly of 
Michigan, and the annual output of fish reached to within 
one-fifth of the number hatched and distributed by the 
United States Government. This work has been accom- 
plished with a much smaller sum of money than is allowed 
by any other large State, and little more than New Jersey 
appropriates for its wardens or fish and game police alone. 
"The greater portion of the labor of the Commission has 
been directed to the increase of the commercial food fishes 
in the State. Of the 164,000,000 fish hatched and distrib- 
uted, about 160,000,000 were white fish and pike-perch for 
Lake Erie, and shad for the Delaware and Susquehanna 
rivers, and only about 4,000,000 so-called game fish were 
distributed for the pleasure or use of the angler. By the 
eflbrts of the Commission, seconded by those of similar 
bodies in .Ohio, and, to some extent, Michigan and the 
United States, the annual value of the commercial fisheries 
of Lake Erie was raised from $400,000 to more than 
11,000,000, and with the assistance of the United States 
Commission, the shad industry of the Delaware River was 
brought up from $80,000 to $500,000 a year. Yet, with full 
knowledge of these facts, the Legislature this year ad- 
journed without making a dollar of appropriation with 
with which to continue this great work, and by this 
neglect risks the loss to the State of over $100,000 worth of 
breeding fish." 
We are advised that the Pennsylvania Fish Protective As- 
sociation is endeavoring to devise a plan by which, at least, 
the stock of breeding fish may be maintained for the two 
years which will elapse before, in regular session, the Legis- 
lature can repair its oversight. The subject was the occa- 
sion of a special meeting of the Association at its rooms in 
Philadelphia, on Tuesday night of this week, too late for a 
report to reach us. In view of the gravity of the injury to 
the fishery interests of the State, the situation would ap- 
pear to call for a special session of the Legislature to ap- 
propriate the necessary funds. 
If the electric rod will do all that is claimed for it, we 
fancy that the Indiana member will look long and far 
before he finds any fishing tackle dealer to take stock in 
it. The tool is not only opposed in toto to the prevailing 
Another oversight by the Legislature was the appropri- 
ation of $15,000 for the fish warden and deputies, officers 
created by the Baldwin fish bill, passed at this session^ 
In view of this lack of funds to carry out the provisions of 
the measure, Governor Hastings has decided to veto it. 
