Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Crs. A Copy, ) 
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NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JULY 2, 18 9 8. 
j VOL. LI. -No. 1. 
| No. 340 Broadway, N b\v York. 
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Emerson says that when a naturalist has "got all 
snakes and lizards in his phials, science has done 
for him also, and has pat the man into a bottle/' 
I do not deny that there are such cases, but they 
are quite exceptional. The true naturalist is no 
dry collector. Sir John Lubbock. 
A FISHING NUMBER. 
While every issue is a fishing number, our columns 
to-day are filled with such a wealth and variety of 
angling papers that special note may be made of them. 
What a showing it is of the angling resources of the 
continent — Florida tarpon; California tuna; Maine 
trout and land-locked salmon, Canadian salmon; Michi- 
gan trout and bass; New York weakfish and bluefish; 
West Virginia trout; Wisconsin muscalonge and bass, 
and so through the catalogue. We have said it more 
than once before and shall say it more than once again, 
that in all the world no other land is so favored as 
America in the abundance, variety and excellence of 
its angling opportunities; the sun shines on no other 
land where fishing waters are more easy of access and 
more generous in their rewards to the angler. And a 
somewhat comprehensive acquaintance with the angling 
literature of the day gives confidence to the remark that 
nowhere else than here is angling a more fertile and 
fruitful theme to engage the pens of appreciative and 
felicitous writers. As contained in the pages of this 
journal from week to week, the literature of angling is 
in every way a creditable and adequate presentation of 
the subject. 
Mr. Mygatt's account of the tarpon fishing at Boca 
Grande, on the Florida Gulf Coast, will be a revelation 
to fishermen who know the tarpon only in such supply 
and feeding habits as are manifested in Florida waters 
in the months of winter and early spring. With such 
a superabundance of magnificent game fish, and such 
possibilities of taking the game beyond any known way 
of utilizing the catch, one must stop short of his op- 
portunities, or kill wantonly, or devise some way of 
having his fun and freeing his fish. The last expedient 
was that adopted by Mr. Mygatt; he played his fish, and 
then let them go to "grow bigger." And the story he 
has to tell reads all the better because it carries- with it no 
sickening tale of butchery and waste. 
Florida has a rival in Southern California, which is 
represented by Mr. Beard's enthusiastic relation of the 
game qualities of the tuna, and all that he says in cele- 
bration of the fish is admirably and effectually endorsed 
and illustrated by Prof. Holder's story of the notable 
struggle with his big fellow. 
Tarpon and tuna, these are the heroics of rod and 
reel; most of us must be content only to read of them, 
for it is not given to all of us to make a thousand-mile 
journey to catch a big fish. We must be content with 
shorter excursions and smaller fish; and so it is Mr. 
Mather's province in his practical paper to preach the 
doctrine of crappie fishing as one way to make the best 
of what good things fortune sends us. It is a sound, 
sensible, and satisfying rule, to get what we may with 
rod and line, and to have an outing near home if we may 
not visit distant waters. 
As for many of us, we ought to have better fishing in 
local waters than is to be found there; and we would have 
it if our fish commissioners and fish protectors did their 
duty. Fish stocking and fish protection are directly in 
the interest of the man of circumscribed opportunities and 
limited means, whether of time or money. No better 
answer may be made to the cranky opponent of fish and 
game protection than just this, that the cause of protec- 
tion is the cause of the people. A fish supply in home 
waters means that more of us may go fishing with 
something to show for it. We are accustomed to hear 
ignorant or selfishly interested criticism of fish laws as 
class legislation. No sillier suggestion could be made. 
The only class aspect of such regulations is that if proper- 
ly enforced they do prevent the piracy of the small class 
of men who would rob the public for their own individual 
gain. The illicit net fisherman of our inland waters is 
vociferous in his denunciation of the laws as infringing 
on his rights and robbing him of his legitimate occupa- 
tion, when the truth is that he has no special dispensa- 
tion to take in his nets for his own profit the public fish 
which a hundred other men might take with rod and 
line. The community has been a long time in coming to 
a recognition of this, but year by year the merits of the 
fish net question are more clearly understood, and the 
time is surely coming when the supply of our local 
waters will no longer go to the nets of a few, when, by 
wise administration, it may afford pleasure and sub- 
stantial profit, each his due share, to so many more. 
THE FOREST RESERVES. 
No forestry measure has been so bitterly opposed nor 
so warmly supported as that set on foot by President 
Cleveland in his proclamation of Feb. 22, 1897, which set 
aside thirteen large tracts in the West as forest reserva- 
tions. The taking effect of this proclamation was post- 
poned by act of Congress until March 1, 1898, and a 
provision was inserted in the Sunday Civil Service Ap- 
propriation bill now before Congress absolutely nullify- 
ing it. In conference committee of the two Houses, 
however, this provision was stricken out, and the procla- 
mation thus remains in force— a tremendous victory for 
the cause of forestry. Public sentiment in this country — 
though at first often hasty in jumping to conclusions and 
so, for a time, often wrong — may usually be trusted, after 
the people have had time to study any question. So it 
is that even in regions where, through misunderstanding, 
the preservation of our forests by means of reservation 
was at one time bitterly opposed, so great a change 
of feeling has taken place that those who a few months 
ago hotly denounced the plan are now anions its warm 
advocates. The public officials to whom is entrusted the 
duty of establishing a forest service, and of enforcing 
such laws and regulations as exist to-day, may wield a 
powerful influence for or against forestry in this coun- 
try, according to the manner in which they deal with 
that section of the public residing in and near any re- 
servation. It is within the power of these officials to make 
forest preservation popular or unpopular. It is a new 
thing in this country, and is distinctly opposed to the 
American idea, which is that the public domain, belong- 
ing as it does to all alike, is at the mercy of the first 
comer, so that any one is at libeity to appropriate to 
his own use anything on it that he may desire to pos- 
sess. Many people will be found, therefore, who at first 
will be disposed to regard laws which in any way limit 
their freedom in this respect as infringements on their 
rights. Such persons must gradually be educated to a 
respect for the forestry laws, and every effort must be 
made to show them that such laws, and the service by 
which they are carried out, are for the benefit of all, even 
though at times these restrictions may seem in some de- 
gree to interfere with practices to which years of time 
have given the apparent sanction of established custom. 
People should be induced to take an active interest and 
pride in the forest reservations of their own section, and 
thus be brought to strengthen the hands of local adminis- 
The establishment of a satisfactory forest service will 
not be easily or quickly accomplished, but the progress 
made during the last twenty-five years gives a guarantee 
that it will be done. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
When an association reaches its fortieth annual con- 
vention it may be presumed to have a name and a 
history which must be endeared to its members. The 
New York State Association for the Protection of Fish 
and Game met in Rochester last week for the fortieth 
year, and when a change of name came up for discussion 
this sentiment of pride in the long held name natural- 
ly manifested itself among the veterans. We give the de- 
bate in our trap columns. The title was retained; and 
whatever potency there may be in a name will continue 
to be exercised by the New York State Association for 
the Protection of Fish and Game. 
The history of the Association is instructive. It was 
founded by men who had the single purpose, only of 
gathering together to combine their influence for 
the enactment of game and fish laws, and to 
secure their enforcement. Trap-shooting was an 
afterthought, and was at first only subsidiary to 
the main purpose of the organization. It de- 
veloped and in time absorbed the entire effort and activ- 
ity of the annual meetings, in which game and fish pro- 
tective interests had no part, or if any only one so 
slight and perfunctory as to be ridiculous. True, com- 
mittees were named to report at the annual meetings, and 
certain enthusiastic and well-meaning individual mem- 
bers prepared papers to read; but as a matter of fact both 
the reports and the papers were listened! to with im- 
patient attention and scant courtesy by the delegates 
who were eager to discuss shooting rules instead. What- 
ever the constituent clubs may have done at home, in 
association they did nothing, nor made any pretense of 
it. After some years of this,, certain members of the As- 
sociation, led by Gen. D. H. Bruce, of Syracuse, called 
a winter meeting of the clubs for the express purpose of 
providing a way for the Association to return to its 
original purpose and work. This was attained by a 
system of two annual meetings instead of one, the winter 
meeting being set apart exclusively for game and. fish 
protection interests. The natural development has fol- 
lowed; those members of the Association who were in- 
terested in protective work have attended the winter con- 
ventions; those whose interest was in trap-shooting 
alone have bad part only in the summer tournaments. 
This will be the rule in the future. The game and fish 
protective element will carry on its work under the 
title of the League, and the trap-shooting will continue 
under 'the name of the Association. Individual clubs in- 
terested in both activities will have membership in both 
organizations, and each will have fullest opportunity of 
development unhampered by the other. 
In early days, when many sections of the country were 
but little known and not at all settled, it not infrequently 
happened that persons journeying from place to place 
lost their bearings, wandered about for days or weeks 
through uninhabited regions, and ultimately perished of 
starvation. Sometimes this took place in a region where 
food was more or less abundant, although not in such 
shape as to be evident to the lost man as food. If the 
prairie did not' furnish buffalo or the forest deer, there 
were yet often birds' nests in the trees, snakes among, the 
grass, turtles in swamps and creeks, roots in the ground, 
and more or less nutritious bark on certain sorts of trees 
Yet the lost man, delirious with fear, and with thinking 
of only saving himself by reaching some human habita- 
tion passed, by these sources of food supply, and fright- 
ened to the point of losing his wits, failed to use reason 
and at length died of inanition. Among the sources of 
food supply in many parts of America, as suggested by 
Mr. George F. Kunz in his recent interesting paper on 
the occurrence of pearls in the United States, are the 
fresh-w r ater mussels, which are found in very many 
brooks and streams of the United States. These, while 
not especially nutritious, might obviously sustain life 
for days in the lost hunter or explorer who knew enough 
to look for them where they might be found. 
One mean phase of mean human nature, and a quality 
closely akin to thievishness, is the propensity to sneak 
into the enjoyment of an advantage without paying the 
honest due for it. It is a trait sometimes exhibited' even 
by the man of the gun and the hunting rifle, though 
your typical sportsman is by common convention held 
to be above mean things. The Nova Scotia Game and 
Inland Fishery Protection Society reports that they have 
in that Province two distinct cuasses of visiting sportsmen 
from the United States. One is of those who give in 
their license fees, the other of "quasi sportsmen" who 
slip away to some distant places, go into the woods 
by one route and come out by another, and so by the 
maneuvers of outlaws and renegades succeed in killing 
their game without paying the license fee. Others re- 
sort to the trick of taking, out a bird shooting license, and 
then on the strength of it hunting moose. Nova Scotia 
is not alone in suffering from the fraudulent ways of dis- 
honest hunters. A notorious case of the same general 
character was that of a Lynn, Mass., moose hunter* who, 
without a license, killed a moose in New Brunswick last 
year, and then attempted to blackmail his guide. What- 
ever an individual who is an honest man, may - think 
about the justice or injustice of license fees for hunting, if 
the license system is in force he cannot do else than con- 
form to the law. His conscience and self-respect com- 
pel him to be honest and decent in the woods as well as 
out of them. 
