Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
TSEM3, $4 A Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $2. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1898 
J VOL. LI.— No. 2«. 
I No. 846 Broadway, New Y<-rk. 
The Forest and Stream is the recognized medium ol entertain- 
ment, instruction and information between American sportsmen. 
The editors invite communications on the subjects to which its 
pages are devoted. Anonymous communications will not bt 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. 
Cfte forest ana Stream Platform PlanR. 
" The sale of game should be forbidden at all seasons." 
— Forest and Stream, Feb. 3, 1894, 
AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHY. 
The Forest and Stream's announcement of prizes 
for amateur photographs is given elsewhere. 
For his New Year gift send him the first \ 899 
number of "Forest and Stream/' with his name on 
the address label showing subscription paid to 
January of 1900. The remembrance will renew 
itself weekly fifty-two times in the year. 
CHRISTMAS. 
Goon wishes and a Merry Christmas to every reader of 
Forest and Stream, wherever he may be. Those whom 
the fortunes of war have taken to Porto Rico or Manila 
will receive our gratulations late, but they are none 
the less cordial. 
For this Christmas of 1898 is not as those which have 
I gone before. In many a home throughout the land the 
empty chair is standing, and loving, longing thoughts are 
I turning to the isles of the sea, where, obedient to his 
country's call, son or brother is doing his uncomplaining 
duty. 
In all the festivities of the season Forest and Stream 
has surely its part to bear, for Christmas, as we know; 
it, is in a degree a celebration of outdoor life — an ex- 
pression of the reverence for the forest felt by all peoples 
who dwell in northern climes. It replaces in large measure 
the- ceremonial of those ancient worshippers of the North 
whose temples were the old oak groves, and whose yule 
tide festival it is. From the mysterious recesses of that 
forest those early people drew their subsistance, and it is 
not strange that the woods were sacred to them. Of the 
ceremonies and beliefs of that ancient time, and of that- 
forgotten religion, not a few still persisCrn England, even 
though much of their meaning is lost. Nor is this sur- 
vival confined to the old world, for wdien our ancestors 
crossed the sea nearly 300 years ago they did not leave 
behind the memories of this season, so that to-day all 
over the land, in anticipation of Christmas, we fare forth 
into the forests to gather and bring home trees and plants 
to adorn our houses; and like our skin-clad ancestors of 
old we choose those of living green to typify the new- 
birth of nature with which another season shall beautify 
the earth. , > : J 
To these primitive ancestors the time was a sacred one 
just as it is to us, or as it is to some of our Indians, who, 
when the winter god shows his coming by the first snow, 
hurry from their lodges to offer gifts to. him and to pray 
for his favor. For, notwithstanding the name it bears to- 
day, Christmas is far older than civilization ; and about 
the Christian festival that we celebrate cluster myths and 
customs and beliefs that have come down to us from the 
remotest barbarism. 
To all the world Christmas may appear with a two- 
fold meaning. By the Latin races it may be claimed by 
its date and by its customs as the old Roman Saturnalia 
under another name, while for the descendants of the 
northmen it is a scarcely less direct inheritance from one 
of the chief festivals of an ancient religion. But to the 
whole Christian world Christmas shines forth with a 
meaning deeper and sweeter than either of these, -for it 
signifies the renewing of what is old and worn out and 
dead — a new life to replace that which is spent. 
Welcome, then, Christmas; less for its light-hearted, 
merriment and the fleeting joys which it brings to the 
young and to the thoughtless, than for that deeper peace 
which its promise offers, and which is felt most strongly 
by th»se whose blood is cool and whose steps are de- 
liberate. For all it is a season of joy, and fittingly so, 
though for such different reasons. 
Chief among the outward symbols of the Christinas 
day is the tree bearing its load of gifts. Each year more and 
more the forests are ransacked for straight young spruces 
which shall satisfy the demand for Christmas trees; and 
along the crowded city streets rumble great truck loads of 
these freshly cut evergreens, whose fragrance calls back 
to' the tired dweller among bricks and mortar fresh 
memories of the snowy days of his distant boyhood on the 
old farm. Not long ago a protest was raised against the 
destruction of young trees for this purpose; but he who 
would remove the Christmas tree would labor in vain. 
Christendom will not do without its Christmas trees, nor 
should it be asked to. Let Us preserve the trees, but let 
this be done in the right way — a beginning be made at the 
right end. A tree is but a seed grown up, and we may 
cut down our trees as we reap our wheat, if only we will 
plant seeds for new trees, even as we sow grain for an- 
other crop. 
In a tree the primitive savage sees something sacred. 
Firmly rooted in the soil, it seems to him to be a part of 
the sacred earth. From it he gathers food which sustains 
him ; to its branches he hangs offerings which he makes to 
his gods, and when our children gather about the Christ- 
mas tree, whose branchrs are bending under their bur- 
den of gifts, they are but expressing, though all uncon- 
sciously, that reverence for the tree to which their fore- 
fathers gave utterance — a feeling that is latent in all 
humanity. 
The gifts of Christmas! Who can voice the deeper 
meaning which belongs to them ? Who can measure the 
thought, the care, the labor and the sacrifice of self which 
their preparation has entailed? If to some they represent 
merely the lavish expenditure of money, to the vast major- 
ity of givers they signify so real a- consideration for others, 
so true an abnegation of self, that the sum of these sacri- 
fices throughout the civilized world is no more to be 
comprehended by us than is eternity or space. And if 
Christmas comes but once a year, and this general thought 
for others is but annual, we may not doubt that each year 
its influence on humanity grows stronger and farther 
reaching, and is each year surely leading the race to fol- 
low more closely in the footsteps of Him for whom the 
day is named. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
In accordance with its time-honored custom, the Forest 
and Stream presents to its readers a budget of good 
things for the Christmas week. Of illustrations, we ven- 
ture to say that nothing more acceptable could have been 
provided than the excellent portrait of Mr. Robinson. 
Many thousands of people have a very warm place in 
the heart for this man, who through so many years has 
contributed to their pleasure by the graceful fancies of 
his pen, his rarely vivid photographic word-picturings of 
!' nature, his mother-wit, and an unfailing store of tender 
sentiment, whose expression finds response in the wak- 
ened chord of many a soul. The Robinson of this por- 
trait is Robinson the writer we all know, even though 
for many of us this may be the first picturing of the 
features of the man. If we might venture to supplement 
the toast proposed by Dr. Morris, it would be one to 
Awahsoose the Bear ; and to it we should expect an uni- 
versal response. 
The photographs of leaping salmon, by Dr. Robt. T, 
Morris, constitute a remarkable series of pictures. The 
securing of them was an achievement of which one might 
well be proud. 
The plan of acquiring territory on Long Island for a 
State deer park is an admirable one, and will be likely to 
commend itself to citizens throughout the State. But in 
its original suggestion of the game park project the Forest 
and Stream had in view only the game interests; the 
enterprise was not recommended for the benefit of any 
holders of real estate who might have land which they 
would dispose of for the purpose at ten times its real 
value, sharing the common feeling that so long as the 
money comes out of the public treasury it is perfectly 
right to get as much of it as possible, without regard to 
the value of what is given in exchange. If the State shall 
acquire a Long Island game park, the real estate part 
of the enterprise will probably be under the control of 
the Commissioners of Fisheries, Game and Forests, 
whose course with respect to the St. Lawrence River 
Park camp site purchases showed that land jobbing 
schemers would find in the Commission an insurmount- 
able obstacle to raids on the State treasury. 
It is related that Judge Forker, of Brooklyn, after 
having fined several culprits for robin shooting on a re- 
cent occasion, was thereafter induced by counsel for an 
accused Italian to take the view that robins were no 
longer protected on Long Island, the "five years having 
expired." There was no five-years law to have expired. 
Robins in that region are under protection as they are 
in the rest of the State. They come in the classification of 
wild birds for which no open season is provided. If the 
common people who own the farms and the gardens and 
the orchards frequented by the robins are not permitted 
to kill the birds, there would appear to be no good reason 
why strolling gunners from the cities should be given 
license to shoot them. 
By the way, sea gulls are also among the species which 
the people of New York have expressed themselves as 
anxious to protect against the attacks of Wanton bird 
killers; but a Long Island exchange heralds as "a feat 
quite rarely accomplished" the killing of fourteen sea 
gulls at a shot by Mr. H. Baker, of Freeport. There are 
people who value the sea gull as a pleasing feature in the 
landscape. The gulls are distinctly of value because they 
form such a pleasing part in the landscape ; they are often 
the animate features of the scene which lighten it up and 
give grateful relief to what otherwise would be somber 
and uninteresting. No seashore, resort can afford willing- 
ly and wittingly to dispense with this attraction of wild 
bird life. From this point of view then, when an unthink- 
ing gunner fires into a flock of gulls for no other reason 
than to brag of the numbers thus foolishly slain, his act is 
an outrage on the community. The laws which govern 
those matters are intended to discourage the perpetration 
of such doings by people who lack that good sense which 
in itself should be a deterrent force sufficiently strong to s 
prevent the slaughter of gulls and other sea birds. If 
there is a game protector whose district includes Free- 
port, his early attention to this gull shooting incident 
might be effective to draw public attention to the subject 
in a way which would be beneficial. 
By the courtesy of Mr. Fred Ireland, of the staff of 
official reporters of the House of Representatives, we are 
enabled to give in full the debate last Monday on the bill 
prepared by .Mr, Lacey, of Iowa, to enlarge the duties and 
powers of the United States Commission of Fish and 
Fisheries, to include in its scope the propagation and dis- 
tribution of game birds. Mr. Lacey had the satisfaction 
of seeing his measure approved by an unanimous vote; 
and we assume that the Senate will concur. The bird 
stocking enterprises open to the National Commission are 
varied and generous in their scope, and if the work shall 
be wisely directed we may look for results with game 
answering in some measure to what has been accomplished 
in the fisheries. 
The meeting of game wardens in Chicago last week to 
consider provisions for an uniform game and fish law for 
adjoining States in the Northwest is the most important 
meeting of its character of the year, The distinguishing 
characteristic of the convention was its saneness. ■ The 
topics discussed were such as to require for their intelli- 
gent consideration something besides whim and impulsive 
ignorance. The delegates were officials of wide practical 
experience.. The suggestion offered had grown out of 
this experience. We look for substantial results. 
Mr. Price's "Waste of the Warp and Woof" is a story 
of one of the queerest customs in all hunting; and the 
story is told in a way well worthy the subject. From time 
to time we hear of the shirt penalty imposed in various 
parts of the South and Southwest. 
Baltimore announces a sportsmen's exposition in April, 
to comprise a trade exhibit, a bench show, greyhound, 
foxhound and beagle trials, and a shooting tournament. 
The distinction between skill and luck, as recognized 
in hunting, is this: When you make a wonderful shot, 
that is skill ; when you miss an easy mark, that is htck. 
