Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun, 
Terms, $4 a Tl'ear. 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $3. 
} 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1897 
( VOL. XLV3X.— No. 15. 
1 No. 348 Bboad-way, NE-yir York. 
/AUDUBON BIRD PLATES. 
In this issue is given the seventh of the series of half- 
tone reproductions of Audubon's famous bird portraits, 
from the rare first edition. It is of the Shoveller Duck; 
and is noteworthy as one of the most animated of the 
wildfowl pictures left us by the great artist. The plate 
illustrates one admirable characteristic of Audubon's 
work, its truthfulness to nature, living nature. His por- 
traits are the delineation of birds as he saw them in the 
woods, on the marshes, in the air. In all the hundreds of 
plates never a one suggests the stuflfed specimen; all are 
instinct with life, whether the study be of action or of 
repose. To his bird paintings Audubon communicated 
that absorbing love of the gladness and living joy of 
nature which controlled his life. Ornithology as repre- 
sented in his great work is not the museum classification 
of the closet naturalist; it is the bird world of song and 
color and motion. 
OOTOBEB. 
Every season has in it that which is beautiful and use- 
ful, though the mawkish mind may be always able to find 
something of a gruesome turn and not to its liking. 
The springtime has come, the poet of prose or verse 
tunes his lay in glad strains, and all is high lights and 
glad imagery. Summer comes, and again joyous pteans 
arise in praise of nature, the bountiful, the beautiful, the 
eternal. The autumn comes, and the songs change. There 
are those who see the natural fruition in nature, a benefi- 
cent provision for her earthl)'- children, and there are 
again those who see only the lugubrious signs of a year 
which is dying. 
The sad October days, indeed! The days when the air 
is cool and bracinj?; when the golden, dreamy light of 
Indian summer, softened by its tinge of haze, illuminates 
an earth laden with fruits and foods, all in glorious color- 
ing; when the north wind and the south wind alternate in 
the gentlest of comings, the one feebly struggling to get 
possession of the earth, the other reluctant to yield. 
The sad October days, indeed, when the squirrels are 
merrily flitting from tree to tree, gathering in a winter 
stock, and whose speed and nimbleness and cunning tax 
to the utmost the skill of the hunter who pursues them 
fairly; when the ruffed grouse, proud in his full beauty 
of color and vigorous strength, plump of form and strong 
of wing, can take his shadowy flights through the 
densest thickets, wherein but few of the sons of men can 
cope with him in fair warfare; when the quail glean the 
fields and woods for the best foods, full of the courage 
which comes from the strength and self-confidence 
defying pursuit, whether it be from the setter or pointer 
whose beauty of color rivals that of his prey, or whether 
it be from the hunter in the full panoply of his craft; when 
the rabbit races with a dash boi-n of contempt for the pur- 
suers whose bugle notes make the woodlands full of a new 
melody , or, if it be on the plains where the long-legged 
jackrabbit makes his home, the scene is changed to one of 
silent flight and swift, fierce, silent pursuit. 
And the cooler waters, with their silvery yet darker 
glintings, hold denizens which are stronger and more dar- 
ing, ones fiercer in their pursuit of prey and more desperate 
in the warfare which they make either to gain possession 
or to avoid being possessed. Whether the sportsman take 
in hand either gun or rod, he will find the offering of the 
October days a matter for gratitude and not for reviling. 
And if he, the sportsman or the man, or if she, the 
sportswoman or the woman, wish to forsake the places of 
bricks and mortar, of struggle never-ceasing and of turmoil 
of wheels and bells, what season is better than the October 
season for pitching one's tent in a setting of autumn tints, 
mellow light and pure air? In days when nature is 
preparing for a rest from her labors; when, at every 
hand, tree or field bears the bounteous product of her 
fruitful efforts; days which are cool and bracing, making 
the chest expand and the spirits rise; days when the nos- 
trils are conscious of inhaling an exhilarating stimulus and 
the pulse are accelerated of their own volition; days when 
there is a spontaneous impulse to seek the woods or fields 
or waters in quest of fur, feather or fish, as did man's pro- 
genitors of the primordial days of life. 
In the October days are the bountiful and the beautiful, 
all the promises of the springtime and the summer time 
fulfilled. There is store in plenty for the winter there, 
sport for him who loves thfe best that land and water can 
offer, and all in the richest coloring of the year, and all 
these the October days offer freely to man. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
Mr. Ernest Seton Thompson makes an ingenious and 
quite practicable suggestion that special strains of domes- 
tic fowl should be developed for plumage adapted to use 
on hats, to take the place of song bird decoration. The 
barnyard fowl now contributes largely as it always has to 
woman's headgear, but the notion of developing by selec- 
tion a plumage particularly designed to catch woman's 
fancy is original and happy. Why not go a step further, 
and following the example set by ostrich farmers, domesti- 
cate and breed for its plumes the egret itself? The bird 
is readily tamed and takes to domesticity; we have pub- 
lished accounts of tame egrets in Honduras and Nicaragua; 
the commercial rewards certainly are sufficient to repay 
the enterprising Yankee who shall establish an egret 
farm. 
An extraordinary game decision is reported from Vir- 
ginia. Because of the destruction of quail in the severe 
winter of 1895-6, the Legislature in 1896 enacted a law for- 
bidding entirely the killing of quail for two years, which 
included this present autumn. With a view, we are told, 
of' testing the constitutionality of the law, a citizen recently 
went quail shooting, and when prosecuted made defense 
that the two-years close time was an unwarrantable res- 
triction of his rights and privileges as a citizen and land- 
owner. The court sustained him in the contention. 
Owing to the fact that the Commonwealth was a party to 
it, the case is not appealable to a higher court, and the 
decision will stand. This leaves Virginia without a quail 
law, although it may be assumed that the Legislature will 
enact a law when it shall assemble in December. 
What particular advantage there may be in a Virginia 
game law, however, does not appear, if the principle estab- 
lished by this decision shall hold; for precisely the same 
authority, and no other, which empowers the provision 
of a two-years clo se time empowers an annual close season. 
If there is no warrant for the one, there can be none for 
the other; if a two-years close season invades private 
rights, so, too, does a close season of nine months in the 
year; if the one is overthrown by the courts on the ground 
of unconstitutionality, so also must the other be held re- 
pugnant to the Constitution. In shore, if the ruling of this 
lower court shall hold good, A'irginia inay say good-bye to 
game protection; and if Virginia, other States, too. 
The fact is that the decision is bad law. No principle of 
jurisprudence is more firmly established than the right 
of a State to legislate for the protection of game, and to 
exercise its jurisdiction even to the point of an absolute 
prohibition of the taking of game for any period it may be 
judicious to prescribe. Said Mr. Justice White, of the 
Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of Geer 
vs. the State of Connecticut, the italics ours: 
While the fundamental principles upon which the common prop- 
erty in game rests have undergone no change, the development of 
free institutions has led to the recognition of the fact that the power 
or control lodged in the State, resulting from this common owner- 
ship, is to be exercised like all other powers of government, as a 
trust for the benefit of the people, and not as a prei-ogative for the 
advantage of the Government as distinct from the people or for the 
benefit of private individuals as distinguished from the public 
good. Therefore, for the purpose of exercising this power the State, 
as held by this court in Martin v. Waddell (16 Pet., 410), represents its 
people, and the ownership is that of the people in their united sov- 
ereignty. The common ownership and the resulting responsibility in 
the State is thus stated in a well-considered opinion of the Supreme 
Court of California: "The wild game within a State belongs to the 
people in their collective capacity. It is not the subject of private 
ownership except in so far as the people may elect to make it so ; 
and they may, if they see fit, absolutely prohibit the taking of it, or 
traffic and commerce in it, if it is deemed necessary for the protec- 
tion or preservation of the public good." 
The close term extending over a period of years is a com- 
mon and familiar feature of game protection in the several 
S ates; there are now in force numerous laws of this tenor, 
by which in the West buffalo, elk, antelope, mountain 
sheep, female deer and other species of large game are 
given immunity, and in the East deer, quail, imported 
pheasants and other species have been protected and are 
now, for such periods as may be considered expedient to 
insure the recovery of a depleted indigenous supply or 
establishing of a new species. Whether or no every long 
term is conducive to the advantages sought may be ques- 
tioned, but we are not aware that the point has ever before 
been raised of the authority of the State to enact and en- 
force such Jaws; nor do we doubt that if the Virginia case 
were one which could be reviewed by the higher courts 
the decision would be reversed. 
There is a deal of wisdom in the contention made by 
Dr. James in his paper before the American Fishery 
Society, that neighboring States should have uniform laws 
for the protection of fish. Without concert of action on 
the part of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and 
Delaware, the Delaware River cannot be made to yield its 
most fruitful supply of fishery resources; and so of 
numerous other waters subject to the control of several 
States. But however desirable national laws might be for 
such waters, it is outside the province of Congress to legis- 
late respecting them, and the attainment of uniform laws 
must be sought in State legislatures. 
This is the third paper we have published from the pro- 
ceedings of the recent Detroit meeting of the American Fish- 
eries Society. They have been taken from a copy of the 
report of the meeting furnished to us by a member, our 
application to the secretary for a copy having been met by 
the response that the society had voted to restrict the 
report exclusively to the members. This is decidedly an 
error on the part of the society. If its papers and discus- 
sions have any practical worth in fishculture and fish pro- 
tection they should be given the widest possible publicity, 
and the society should welcome the offices of a journal like 
Forest and Stream, in presenting these papers to thousands 
who would otherwise never hear of them. The American 
Fishery Society is and should be educational in its aims. 
It is made up of men who are in the public service. Pub- 
licity for its proceedings should be sought, and no light- 
hid-under-a-bushel policy resorted to. 
Julius Delmotti, of Somerville, N. J., has been the un- 
conscious recipient of much sympathy within the past few 
days because of his harsh fate as a victim of the stringent 
enforcement of the Jersey game law. Delmotti's case as 
reported in the newspapers is this: He is an honest hard 
working man, who has been care-taker of the place of 
William Van Buren, a New York business man, who lives 
in the summer at Mount Bethel, on the Watchung Moun- 
tain, in New Jersey. Moved by a love of pet birds, and all 
unknowing of any statute to the contrary, Delmotti caged 
five robins as pets. When advised that this was contrary 
to the law, he immediately set them free; but the relent- 
less game protector haled him before a justice, and despite 
his protestations that he had erred unwittingly, and had 
set the birds free of his own volition immediately upon 
being apprised of the law, he was fined the full penalty of 
$20 each and costs, and in default of the payment of $107 
was put into jail, there to remain one day for |1, until the 
crime should be expiated. He would be an unfeeling man 
indeed, who could read this recital without indignation, 
and it is certain that the enforcement of the letter of the 
New Jersey law in such a way would excite only repug- 
nance to the statute. It was a case, one might say, where 
the justice should have exercised his discretion of impos- 
ing a fine for one bird only, or of suspending sentence; the 
law would have been vindicated and no injustice wrought. 
The cold truth, however, is that any sympathy ex- 
pended upon Delmotti has been misplaced and wasted, 
unless he may be pitied for having trusted to the bad ad- 
vice and council with which Van Buren misled and 
victimized him. When Deputy Game Protector Ten Eyck 
found that the Italian, with the usual weakness of people 
of that race, had been trapping birds, and proposed to 
prosecute him, Van Buren announced that he would take 
care of him, and the two set in to defy the law. Both Van 
Buren and Delmotti were sued. They secured counsel and 
made their fight. Van Buren shook off his responsibility 
and was acquitted, and Delmotti was convicted and fined. 
The case was appealed and Delmotti gave bail for his 
appeal, but his bondsmen subsequently surrendered him, 
and he is now in jail. He is not there for a term of 107 
days, since the game law provides that the imprisonment 
for violation of the fish and game acts shall not exceed 
ninety days, nor did his offense lie in keeping the robins 
as pets, since there is no prohibition of that in the 
New Jersey law. As has been said already, if it had not 
been for Van Buren's part, and for Delmotti's having inju- 
diciously taken Van Buren's advice, the Italian would 
probably never have seen the inside of the county jail. 
