Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Terms, $4 a Yeab. 10 Cts. a Coptt. 
Six Months, $2. [ 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JULY 3, 1897. 
J VOL. XLVIX.— No. 1. 
(No. 346 Bboadway, New "Xokk; 
NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS. 
Attention is directed to the new form of address labels on the 
wrappers of subscribers' copies. The label shows the date of the 
close of the term for which the subscription is paid. 
The receipt of the paper with such dated address label constitutes 
the subscriber's receipt for money sent to us for a new or renewed 
subscription. Unless specially requested to do so, we do not send 
separate receipts. 
Subscribers are asked to note on the wrapper the date of expira- 
tion of subscription; and to remit promptly for renewal, that delays 
may be avoided. 
For prospectus and advertising rates see page ill. 
The peasants living in the mountains of North 
Wales believe that whoevef sleeps on Craig Eryri 
Will Wake inspired; niay we riot hfing this bit of 
stipferstitious revefenee to New Hampshire^ and 
§ay^ that to him Wh6 sleeps within the charmed 
circle ^' of the lake country, the stin will fise it 
never rose before, even though he may have taken 
a nap on the hill of Apollo ! J. Warren Thyng. 
AUDUBON BIRD PLATES. 
In our next issue will be given the sixth of the series of 
half-tone reproductions of Audubon's famous bird portraits, 
from the rare first edition. It -will be of the redhead duck. 
The list of plates already printed and to come includes: 
The Black Duck, Sept. 26, 1896. 
The Pkaieie Chicken, Oct. 24. 
The Canvasback Duck, Nov. 21. 
The Willow Ptarmigan, Dec. 19. 
The American Golden Plover, Feb. 27, 1897. 
The Eedhead Dtck, July 10. 
The Shoveller Duck. 
The Purple Sanppipbb. 
CAMP fiMes And FOSi^si' fihss. 
In the second annual report of Chief Fire Warden C d 
Andrews, of Minnesota, which has just been issued, re- 
sponses are given from the several counties of the State to 
the question, "What are the principal dangers or causes of 
forest fires, and how how can they be lessened?" Out of 
sixty replies twenty-five ascribe the chief danger to hunt- 
ers and campers. Outside hunters, run the answers, fish- 
ing parties, shotguns, non-resident hunters; by the time 
the hills are on fire the hiinterS ate gone— hunters leaving 
camp fires; the best thing is to rdake an example of some 
of them— non-resident hunters and fishers— carelessness of 
duck and chicken hunters — hunters coming up from the 
cities in the fall— unextinguished camp fires of indifferent 
and lawless men passing through the woods. Neverthe- 
less, in a total of eighty -seven fires the report records for 
the year 1896, only eleven are ascribed to hunters and 
fishermen, while land clearing is responsible for twelve, 
locomotives for nine, and other causes twenty-two, leaving 
thirty-three unaccounted for. Thus the comparative de- 
gree of danger imputed to hunters by the responses is not 
substantiated by the actual record, neither as to num- 
ber nor as to extent of territory burned and damage 
done. 
On the other hand, eleven forest fires caused by hunters 
and fishermen are just eleven more than there is any 
excuse for. No sportsman should leave behind him a fire- 
devastated country as the cm-sed fruit of his carelessness, 
thoughtless stupidity or criminal indifference. He should 
not permit his pleasure-seeking to result in ruin of prairie 
or woodland. 
The average conflagration caused by campers is due to 
thoughtlessness or ignorance. The camp-fire is kindled in 
a spot where it is certain to spread to inflammable mate- 
) ial in contact, and where, when once started, there can be 
no possible mastery of it. Or camp is abandoned and the 
fire is left burning, subeequently to communicate and 
spread. The tyro is apt to be blissfully ignorant of the 
dire result which may attend his striking a match in the 
woods. The man from the East cannot begin to realize 
until he witnesses it what a terrible phenomenon is a 
Western forest fire, how quick it is to start, how fierce to 
burn, how impossible to subdue. Only when one has had 
the teaching of actual observation can it be understood 
that an abandoned camp-fire may smoulder for days and 
days, making its way below the surface, until at last, com- 
ing to the top, it is fanned into flame. Of a hunting party 
in the Rockies, the members most in dread of setting the 
woods on fire are the old guides who have had the longest 
experience, 
There are a few rules, the careful observance of which 
will prevent disaster from camp-fires, and which, though 
they are extremely simple and easy of observance, are 
often disregarded. 
Never build a fire where its flame caai comthunicate to 
grass or brush or branches of trees. 
Never build a fire where the sparks can be carried to 
brush or trees, or leaves or grass. 
Never build a fire without first noting the lay of the 
land with respect to controlling it after it is kindled. 
Never leave camp for the day with the fire to burn un- 
attended. Extinguish it thoroughly. 
Under no circumstances, when moving camp, leave the 
fire to burn or smoulder. Put'it out.i 
To extinguish a fire built upon the ground where there 
is turf, the roots of trees or other vegetable matter in the 
Soil, pour Water upon it until the ground is thoroughly 
Soaked; then dig around about and well outside the cir- 
cumference, throwing the earth in toward the center, 
and then wet it down again. It is cheaper to tote water 
even up hill for this purpose, than to bear the after burden 
of responsibility on one's conscience for a conflagration 
due to laziness or shiftlessness. 
There is no fire more grateful than that which boils your 
coffee at the end of a long day's ride or tramp or paddle; 
no other one in all the world with the magic of that glow 
whose flame illumines the whispering pinee and, sends its 
ephemeral sparks shooting ahd dancing and darting and 
dying, up into the upper mystery of night, with the stars 
beyond shining inefiably serene and clear. A sportsman's 
every camp-fire, whether it be of humble stomach-satisfy- 
ing utility or spirit-uplifting sentiment, should be a blaze 
of blessed memory, unmarred by conscience pangs of dis- 
aster consequent upon its neglect. 
Put out the fire. 
A MONTANA ELK SCANDAL. 
OijR Chicago correspondence this week reports the an- 
ticipated arrival in that city of a consignment of live game 
on its way to preserves further East. Among the game are 
buffalo from the Allard herd in Montana, and elk from 
Jackson's Hole, Wyo. The elk, we take it, are from the 
Moose Head ranch lot, illegally captured in the snow last 
winter. The case has attracted sbme attention in Wyo- 
ming, but by no means all the prompt official attention 
that should have been given to it. 
The facts, as related by Attorney-General Benjamin 
Fowler in an official opinion submitted to Governor 
Richards in May, are briefly these; Some time during the 
winter, in a season of deep snows, seventy-seven wild elk 
entered through an open gate the fenced premises of J. A. 
Adams, of Jackson, Wyo. The gate was closed behind 
them and the elk were thereupon impounded in the cor- 
ral, where they were held in possession by Adams and 
fed upon the hay ricks. 
Section 14 of the Wyoming game law provides that it 
shall be unlawful at any time whatever to capture elk by 
means of any trap. Under this law, the game clearly 
having been trapped, the Deputy Game Warden of the 
county made a demand in April for the instant release of 
the seventy-seven elk. Mr. Adams refused to comply with 
the order, on the ground that, as he put it, "the elk were 
simply corralled without any effort at himting or pursu- 
ing, on my own premises, while they were in the act of 
depredating upon my pasture land and hay ricks, inside 
my inclosure." But for his taking them into his posses- 
sion, he added, they probably would have perished of star- 
vation; and he insisted that he was holding the elk for 
domestication and not for unlawful export from the State. 
The legal aspect of the case is summed up by the Attor- 
ney-General in these words: 
There is no doubt but that the ownership ot the elk In question is 
in the State of Wyoming, and that the action of Mr. Adams In con- 
tinuing to hold them contrary to the demand of the State game 
warden is in absolute violation, not only of the statutory laws of this 
commonwealth, but also of the well-settled principle that the owner- 
ship of such game is in the State. There is noway in which a pri- 
vate individual can acquire any ownership to game and flsh except 
by proceeding in such manner as the statutes of the State may 
direct. Various methods are provided under the act of Feb. 20, 1895, 
by which game can be hunted and killed for food, and also by which 
game can be captured for the purpose of shipping to supply public 
pirks, ssoologieal gardens and places of public amusement. There 
has been no expressed intention on the part of the State, through its 
law-making power, to provide for individuals capturing game for the 
purpose of domesticating thenj, and thereby securing a property 
contrary to the ownership of the State, and until the Legislature 
makes such a proyision, the authority of the §tat« game warden to 
order the release and to insist that the game so held shall be given 
their freedom cannot be disputed. If a party can hold seventy-seven 
elk for the purpose of domesticating thena, it would not be long before 
all the wild game in this State would become the property of private 
owners, and the State would have no ownership or control over it. 
In the letter which you have submitted on the part of Mr. Adams, 
he calls special attention to the fact that he has been a public bene- 
factor to the extent of allowing wild game to come within his Inclos- 
ure, feed from his bay-stacks, and that he has thereby saved them 
from starvation. This action on the part of Mr. Adams was certainly 
commendable. He has fed the property of the State with his own 
hay, and thereby prevented it irom destruction. There was no law, 
however, which compelled him to do this, and there is no way in 
which he can secure any compensation for caring for the property of 
the State except by action of the State Legislature. He certainly 
cannot appropriate the property ot the State to his own use because 
he has been a philanthropist to the extent of feeding these animals in 
the manner which he has suggested. 
I am clearly of the opinion that the action of the State game war- 
den and of his deputy, in demanding the immediate release of the elk 
held within Mr. Adams's inclosure, was not only justified under the 
statute, but was clearly in the line of their manifest duty as the 
guardians of the game and fish within the borders of the State. 
I would suggest that a formal demand be made at once for the im- 
mediate release of the seventy seven head of elk held by Mr. Adams 
. by the State game warden, personally or through his deputy, and 
that, on account of a misunderstanding on Mr. Adams's part, no 
criminal proceedings be instituted in the event that the request be 
complied with. However, if there should be a renewed failure, the 
matter should be referred to Hhe prosecuting attorney of Uinta 
county, and, if necessary, a civil action also be at once commenced 
for the purpose of maintaining the rights of the State as the proper 
and legal ov^ner of the animals so held. 
This very clear and entirely sound exposition of the 
law governing the case, and of the duty of the game war- 
den was sent to the Governor on May 14, but up to the 
present time no further steps are known to have been 
taken by State or local authorities to vindicate the law and 
to restore to the State its own property. Either from 
lethargy or because the officials of Uinta county "stand in 
with" the Moose Head ranch proprietors, the game has 
been retained in gross violation and contempt of the law. 
The most scandalous feature of the case is the apparent 
connivance of the county officers, who, by their refusal to 
act in the matter, are violating their oaths of office. 
The holders have even set up the claim that because they 
have fed the elk, and by so doing have saved public 
property from destruction, the State is indebted to them 
for the service, and that in lieu of other remuneration they 
have a right to hold the elk as compensation. This is of 
course a bald subterfuge, by which it is sought to cover up 
the unlawfulness of the original taking into possession; 
and even if it were a well founded claim, the value of the 
hay eaten would not be reckoned as equivalent to that of 
the elk by any other tribunal than one composed of the 
ranchers sitting as ©ourt, judge and jury on their own case. 
The form of procedure would not hold between private in- 
dividuals. If the Moose Head ranchmen had unlawfully 
corralled a bunch of seventy-seven horses they would have 
had a lovely time in making their hay rick bluff. An affair of 
this nature between private citizens would be settled very 
expeditiously, and the owner of the horses would go home 
with his property. When the question involved is of 
private greed and public property, the State is shown to be 
less powerful than an individual to maintain its rights. 
If our surmise is correct, that the elk now on the way 
East from Jackson are a part of the lot of seventy-seven 
unlawfully trapped elk of Moose Head ranch, the infer- 
ence is that the Wyoming authorities have been scandal- 
ously derelict in their duty, for they have practically if not 
intentionally abetted and connived at the robbery of 
public possessions. Inasmuch as the statute expressly for- 
bids the capture of elk for export from the State, the ship- 
ment of these animals presents a new phase of the case, 
based upon which the claim of the State is changed from 
a demanded release of the game, to a collection of the 
penalties for its unlawful capture and export. If, on the 
other hand, the original stock of seventy -seven contraband 
elR is still intact in the Moose Head corrals, Stat« Game 
Warden Gustave Schnitger should, by prompt action to 
compel their release, give the public a welcome assurance 
that the Wyoming game laws mean something for the 
actual protection of Wyoming game. As the matter now 
stands, it appears that if a raid on the Wyoming elk be 
committed on a big scale and in broad daylight the author- 
ities will wink at it. 
The stocking of Eastern game preserves with elk and 
other desirable species is a most worthy and highly com- 
mendable enterprise, and the available sources of game 
supply are such that robbery of public resources need not 
be resorted to. No owner of a preserve would wish to 
have any taint of questionable ea;pture attached to his game 
