Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Terms, fi a Yeak. 10 Ct-s. a Copy, I 
Six Months, $-2. ( 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MARCH 6, 1898. 
.1 VOL. L. -No. 10. 
/ No. 340 J^RuAOWAY, New Yokk. 
The Forest and Stream is the recognized medium of entertain- 
ment, instruction and information between American sportsmen. 
The editors invite communications on the subjects to whicli its 
pages are devoted. Anonymous communications will not be re- 
garded, While it is intended to give wide latitude in discussion 
of current topics, the editors are not responsible for the views of 
correspondents. 
Subscriptions may begin at any time. Terms: For single 
copies, $4 per year, $2 for six months. For club rates and full 
particulars respecting subscriptions, see prospectus on page iv. 
A woodsman may bla^e his way thtough. the 
trackless forest^ but he leaves the gfash on the tree 
as a sig^n of his cottrse, while the gfypsy can travel 
a thousand miles and leave no sign that any eye 
but a gypsy's can see, and yet the route he has 
g:one is perfectly plain to ihe lagfg;ard who follows 
a day's journey behind. Gypsy has followed 
gypsy hundreds of miles, day after day, guided 
only by thepatteran — the mark at the cross-roads. 
The patteran is sometimes made of a handful of 
grass, sometimes of a heap of sticks placed with 
significance, sometimes of a pile of loose stones so 
arranged that they show the way the wanderers 
have taken. Different families have usually a dif- 
ferent form of the patteran, but all know and rely 
upon it. Paul Kester. 
FLORIDA AND MAINE. 
In his paper on "Florida Fish and Fisheries" Dr. 
James A. I-Ienshall contends* for the appointment of a 
competent Commissioner to prornote the fishing re- 
sources of the State. The plea is well considered and 
reasonable. In this day no State possessing fishery in- 
terests of the magnitude of those of Florida can be con- 
sidered abreast of the progress of the age if it fails to 
control those interests by wise regulations and to foster 
them by the' direction of intelligent fishcultural experts. 
Florida should have a Fish Commission; if a single- 
headed one, so much the better. Gov. Bloxham, having 
displayed such interest in the subject of the fisheries 
and their protection, may be relied upon to urge the 
Legislature in the next session to create a Commission. 
The Legislature should not stop here. Florida stands 
in need not only of supiervision and control of its fisher- 
ies, but supervision and control of its game resources 
as well. The game protective doctrine promulgated by 
Commissioner Carleton, of Maine, may have sounded 
strange in Tampa, but it was eminently sound and sen- 
sible. Maine and Florida, the one at the extreme north 
and the other at the furthest south of the Atlantic sea- 
board, are separated not more widely geographically 
than in the wisdom and the folly of their respective 
courses with regard to game protection. Both have in- 
calculable pecuniary interests involved; in Maine and 
Florida alike vast revenues are derivable from tourist 
hosts, attracted in large measure by the opportunities 
for shooting and fishing. Twenty-five years ago Florida 
was more famous than Maine as a game country; the 
quarter-century has witnessed the increase of game in 
one State under a provident system of protection-; and 
in the other practical extermination over wide areas, be- 
cause of wanton, unrestrained and fatuous killing. What 
might have been a permanent and profitable attraction 
has been recklessly destroyed. 
It is customary to lay the blame for this upon the 
original, native, way-back Florida cracker, who without 
a qualm kills game in the breeding season and makes 
venison of does heavy with fawn ; but paint him black 
as one will, it is yet to be said for the Florida cracker 
that he does not kill in wantonness. Nor indeed has his 
hunting taxed the resources of the State in any degree 
which begins to compare with the destruction wr«ught 
by his detractors. If the resident Floridian, who should 
have known better, and the tourist gunners from the 
North and West, had been restrained, even within the 
simple bounds of decency, there would have resulted no 
such dearth as now prevails. 
We never heard of Florida crackers fishing for the 
sake of making a bigger catch than some other fisher- 
man; nor shooting a big bag of quail for the sake of 
bragging that he had slaughtered more than some other 
shooter. The seine fisherman and the big bag gunner 
are found among an altogether different class. They 
are creatures of idle hours and ignoble ambition, whose 
petty pride it is to see their itaiH^s the- society jotir- 
nals prefixed to such records of fish and game killed 
as a sober and sensible person should be ashamed of 
The hotels encourage this purposeless and wicked de- 
struction by proclaiming the perpetxators of it as heroes 
who have achieved noble deeds. 
NATIONAL PARK TRANSPORTATION. 
In our issue of Feb. 5 we took occasion to criticise 
adversely the management of the business conducted in 
the Yellowstone National Park by the Wylie Camping 
Co. This has brought .to us in reply communications 
which are printed on another page. The writers con- 
tend that the conditions upon which our strictures were 
based do not exist, and that in consequence the Forest 
AND Stream has not fairly represented the character of 
the Wylie enterprise. 
These statements of our correspondents evidently 
coming to us in good faith, and being accepted as cor- 
rectly stating the conditions aS they exist, it is manifest 
that our remarks were based upon a misapprehension of 
the facts in the case. For transportation and camping 
fscilities conducted as our correspondents assure us the 
Wylie business is carried on there is a w.ell-recognized 
place of usefulness in the Park. They unquestionably 
fill a public need, and should in every way have en- 
couragement, being subject to the same control and su- 
pervision by the Superintendent of the Park as are now 
exercised with respect to the hotel and stage companies, 
and being conceded by the attthorities at Washington 
and in the Park corresponding privileges and oppor- 
tunities. Whatever agency makes the National Park in 
actual realization what it is in theory, the pleasure ground 
of the people and of as many of the people as possible, is 
commendable. As was stated in the article referred to, 
we believe that there is room for just such a business, 
where the rates charged shall be less than those de- 
manded by the regular transportation and hotel com- 
panies. The people who visit the Park are of many 
classes, and have varying depths of purse. There should 
be accommodation for all. 
Having cheerfully accepted the good faith of our sev- 
eral correspondents, we need hardlj' add that nearly 
twenty years devoted to a successful defense of the pub- 
lic's interest in the Yellowstone Park has established 
the position of Forest and Stream s,o firmly that no 
one familiar with this journal needs any explanation of 
its motives. During these j^ears we have had frequent 
occasion to point out their duty in connection with the 
Park to high Government officials, to wealthjr corpora- 
tions and to individuals of all degrees of standing in 
the community. In doing this we have been governed 
by a single motive, the best interests of the public, to 
whom this wonderland belongs. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
On Tuesday last, March i, the forest reservations 
passed under the care and direction of the Secretary 
of the Interior. Mr. Bliss is deeply interested in this 
subject, and may be trusted to do all in his power 
to set on foot before long the beginnings of a forest 
service which will be immediately useful to a large sec- 
tion of the country. During the year that has passed 
since the forest reservations were set aside, public senti- 
ment in their favor has steadily grown, and we believe 
it will continue to grow. During this year, too, there 
have not been wanting efforts to remove from some of 
these reservations everything on them that was of value; 
but it is to be hoped that with the organization of the 
forest service such efforts will cease forever. 
Mr. Stark's experiences of foxes and game is that 
of many another man who has spent much time out of 
doors in New England woods. No one doubts that a 
fox is willing to capture game birds if he can, but also 
no one doubts that a fox or any other predatory creature 
will live chiefly on that food which is most easily ob- 
tained. Except in the breeding season — when the foxes 
no doubt destroy some ground-nesting birds and their 
broods — the food of the fox may be presumed to con- 
sist almost wholly of mice, varied occasionally by squir- 
rels, and still less often by rabbits. On more than one 
occasion we have seen where a fox had captured a gray 
squirrel while he was digging through the sno-\y for 
nuts, and an old fox hunter of our acquaintance actli^ 
ally witnessed such a capture, and then secured the fox. 
It must be remembered that for ages the fox and the 
game birds have been carrying on their warfare just 
as they are carrying it on to-day, and yet the balance 
of nature was well enough preserved, and both foxes 
and game were plenty until man came to have a gun 
and ;to know how to use it. When this came about the 
destru'etion of game by foxes at once became insignifi- 
cant by comparison with that wrought by man; so 
trifling, in fact, as not to be worth considering. 
The quaint picture of Florida deer hunting is from the 
pencil of Jacques Le Moyne, the French artist, who 
accompanied the expedition of Laudonniere in 1564, and 
whose illustrations of life and nature as he found them 
in the strange new world were published in one of De 
.Bry's series of voyages, at Frankfort-on-MaiUj in 1591. 
The engraving has been reproduced for the Forest and 
Stream directly from the three hundred years old origi- 
nal. It was a hunting custom with the inhabitants of 
Florida;, Le Moyii'e fells, iis, When they stood in need of 
venison, to clothe themselves in the skins of deer, and 
repair to the streams where the unsuspecting game came 
to drink. The game of those days must have been less 
circumspect than the FJjorida animal to-day, or the sav- 
ages were more expert in their masquerading. It would 
defy the skill of the craftiest white hunter of this age to 
assume a deerskin disguise and approach game in the 
open as these Florida Indians are represented as having 
done. 
The relations between men and animals at that time 
were very different from those of to-day. With his fewer 
wants, his crude weapons, and general helplessness, the 
Indian was not a formidable enemy of the wild creatures. 
He played but meager part in reducing the stock. The 
old chronicles are filled with accounts of the wonderful 
supply of furred and feathered creatures everywhere 
found in the southern country; while, if one may believe 
the narratives of the explorers, the crocodiles (known to 
us as alligators) were so numerous as to be a continual 
menace to man ; so much so, Le Moyne averred, that 
the cHef concern of some of the tribes was how they 
might defend themselves from falling prey to these rep- 
tiles. 
Mr. Lacey's bill to add game propagation to the scope 
of work of the United States Fish Commission has been 
favorably considered by the House Committee on Ma- 
rine and Fisheries, whose report is published elsewhere. 
While the work of game protection and game importa- 
tion and restocking belongs legitimately to the several 
individual States concerned, it would be difficult to dis- 
criminate between the principle here involved and that 
which controls the practice of the Fish Commission with 
respect to fish, or of the Agricultural Department with 
respect to the distribution of seeds. If the Government 
collects fish in one State and gives them to another 
State, no good reason suggests itself to forbid the col- 
lection of birds in one State for transfer to another. 
The si-'ecial interest of the current report of the Mas- 
sachusetts Rod and Gun Club, which is given on another 
page, lies in the fact that it records actual work ac- 
complished. The club is composed of members who 
are personally and actively interested in game protection 
to the extent of contributing money and effort and time 
to actual endeavors to execute the laws. Their chief 
attention has been given to abating the grouse snaring 
which has long been an established industry in Massa- 
chusetts. The club detective has destroyed many miles 
of snare lines, and arrested and brought to conviction 
the snarers. Quietly and without any blowing of trum- 
pets the club has broken up the traffic in snared Massa- 
chusetts game. It deserves cordial and substantial sup- 
port. 
The sentiment that it is not all of fishing to fish nor all 
of shooting to shoot is one which sounds well when in- 
terjected into a record of success in the field; but gives 
sorry comfort in alleviation of the disappointment and 
chagrin which crown an utterly barren enterprise with 
rod and gun. When one goes for game or fish he 
wants something tangible to show for it; that is, unless 
he shall be content to dodge all his shooting friends, or 
to cultivate thf- arts of deceit arid dissitrmlation. 
