Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
''^''''^%:.l'o^rJ%':^'-^ -NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JANUARY 14, 1899. i no. V. 
globe upon its axis. Or again, looking west through a 
cross-town street, get ghmpse of the moon as dipping 
on the horizon formed by the Palisades it broadens and 
expands until the sphere fills the full widthof the street from 
house to house. Jn the country one may watch the moon 
descend behind the mountain top, or at sea sink into the 
ocean; but neither of these spectacles so effectually en- 
larges the disc and brings it close to earth as a sister orb. 
As for the minor and simpler things of nature, it would 
be a mistake to assume that the city dweller has not his 
share in these two. The trees in city streets and parks 
perhaps are few, but one may note the swelling bud and 
the unfolding leaf of springtime, the full foliage of 
summer, the changing tints of autumn, and the naked 
limbs and fretted tracery of branch and twig against the 
winter sky. The city man does see and note these things. 
They make a part of his life, and in his way and with his 
restricted opportunities (if any one will have it so) he 
gets as much and more out of nature than does many a 
brother in the country. And if there are those who have 
no eyes for nature in town, it is because they will not see ; 
like that" old man who goes scuttling along the gutters of 
downtown streets gathering bits of tin foil for a living, 
their attention is concentrated on something else. 
There is another conventionalism, perhaps as widely 
accepted, which assumes that whenever a person goes 
camping or fishing or shooting he is bent on connnuniori 
with nature and on looking "through Nature up to Na- 
ture's God." Sometimes he may be and sometimes not. 
When an enthusiastic camp-hunter talks about communion 
with nature, and lets on that his method is to strap a jack- 
ligfit to his head, load up the old gun with buckshot, and 
go prowling through the brush trying to shine the eyes 
of a buck, the correct diagnosis of his case is that he is im- 
pelled not so much by fancied necessity of communion 
with nature as by a hankering after deer meat. "The 
depths of forests, the summits of hills, make not a man 
blessed, if he have not with him a solitude of the mind, a 
Sabbath of the heart, a calm of conscience and inward as- 
pirations," wrote Ivo de Chartres of the anchorites and 
hermits of his day; and the words have a certain ap- 
plicability to your lire-hunter and what he calls his com- 
munion with nature, . .. 
tional law and the State law would clash ; and according 
to the Supreme Court th^ State law would prevail. We 
infer, however, that Senator Hoar lias considered the 
proposed law in its relation to State laws and its bearing 
on game protective interests in general ; and we assume 
that it is not his intention to cut off from the legitimate 
sport.sman the privilege of brifiging home his birds. 
GAME PROTECTION A PUBLIC CONCERN. 
Mr. E. C. Farrington, Secretary of the Maine Sports- 
man's Association, in his report to that organization urges 
that a license fee shall be exacted of big game hunters, $2 
for citizens and $5 for non-r«sidents. He gets at the justi- 
fication of this measure by a very curious course of reason- 
ing, which is to the effect that as only a small number of 
the citizens of the State hunt large game, the people of 
the State at large should not be called upon to support 
game protection for the benefit of the few. Mr. Farring- 
ton finds that a larger proportion of the citizens of Maine 
indulge in fishing, and reap advantage from angling in- 
terests. But no one can pretend that all tax-payers are 
fishermen or are immediately concerned with fishing. To 
be logical, then, the advocate of .special taxation of big 
game hunters should extend his system to a special tax 
for the larger but nevertheless limited class of fishermen. 
Indeed, if a scheme of taxation is to be developed on these 
lines, it cannot logically be restricted to hunting and fish- 
ing, but must extend to all the other varied interests and 
privileges enjoyed by "classes." It is mistaken and futile 
to endeavor to set the citizens of a State who hunt and 
fish apart in a class by themselves as having interests distinct 
from those of the people at large. If Maine's fish should 
be protected, as Mr. Farrington rightly says, by the pub- 
lic, game protection should have support in the same 
source and for precisely the same reasons. One interest 
is in principle just as much a public concern as is the 
other. We are not now dealing with the question of the 
desirability of a game license system as a protective meas- 
ure or as an expedient for raising revenue ; we are 
simply pointing out the untenable ground upon which this 
Maine license is suggested. The game is a resource of the 
State, and of the whole State; as such it should be 
protected by the State and by the whole State. 
The Forest and Stream ir the recognized medium of entertnin- 
ment, instruction and informalioa 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. 
Cbe forest and Stream Platform Platik. 
^''The sale of game should be forbidden at all seasons." 
— Forest and Stream, Ftb. 3, 1894. 
Think, in this batterM Ciravansefai 
Whose Portals arc alternate Niffht and Day, 
How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp 
Abode his destined Hour, and went his way. 
They say the Lion and the Lizard keep 
The Courts wherejamshyd gloried and drank deep: 
And Bahram, that great Hunter— the Wild Ass 
Stamps o'er his Head, but cannot break his Sleep. 
Rtjbaiyat of Omar Khayyam. 
COHJ VEN TIONA LI SMS. 
,Mr. Wilmot Townsend's record of observation.s at Bay 
Ridge of the southward iiying birds is of peculiar inter- 
est, because it exhibits the resources even of the city for 
natural history study, if only one have for this the bent 
and the intelligence. Bay Ridge is a part of Greater New 
York. It lies on a high ridge, as the name import.?, whose 
bold bluff faces New York Harbor and overlooks the Bay 
to Staten Island and the Jersey shore. It is directly in 
the line of migration, and gives rich opportunities for 
study of bird life, how rich and varied Mr. Townsend's 
record printed to-day and other recent notes from his 
pen amply attest. 
There is a generally accepted conventionalism which 
deprecates the lot of the city dweller as of one shut off 
from nature, and those phenomena of earth and air and 
sky which are supposed to belong exclusively to the 
privileges enjoyed by those who live in the country. But 
as a matter of fact the case is quite contrar-y. Nature in 
its beauty and glory, with its ever varying moods to en- 
gage the attention and divert the mind, and with its in- 
fluences to depress the spirit or exalt the soul, may be as 
real, as ever present and as potent in the city, and as much 
a part of one's life there, as in the remotest wilderness. 
Indeed, with some whose daily round is in the town, na- 
ture—the trees, the clouds, the sky, the tints and tones of 
the atmosphere, the mist and the haze, the sunlight, the 
storm, the lightning and the thunder flash, the enshroud- 
ing fog, the snowflake and the ice crystal, every phenom- 
enon of the changing seasons— is as well noted and as 
powerful to excite the same emotions as with one whose 
surroundings are wholly rural. For him of the town and 
for him of the country -there is, after all, practically the 
saiTie outdoor world if one have the eye to behold it, the 
ear to hear it and the nostril to inhale it. The grander 
phenomena of the succession of day. and night— the melt-, 
ing of darkness into the soft gray of the morning, the 
rosy flushing of the clouds, the lighting upiof the eastern 
heavens, and the majesty of the rising sun— may quicken 
the heartbeat and the breathing of one hurrying from 
city home to city task, and give inspiration and mean as 
much to him all through his day as it does to the dweller 
in the country who goes the round of chores by lantern 
light on the farm. As with the coming of day so with its 
going. A sunset is so transcendent that it matters little 
whether he who regards it looks out from city windows or 
from country hill crest. And as for the moon, if you would 
know the majesty of the lunar orb watch from the win- 
dows of Forest and Stream its climbing of the eastern 
heavens above the silhouette of the great buildings and 
the mysterious city spread out below. Or, standing on 
Fifth avenue, opposite St. Patrick's Cathedral, look 
straight up beyond the lofty spires to the scudding clouds 
with the moon bursting out now and again through the 
rifts, and let imagination picture in the apparent move- 
ment — not of the clouds, but of the spires and the 
cathedral and the earth itself — the revolution of the 
CONGRESS AND THE BIRDS. -•" 
As reported in another column, by" courtesy of Mr. Fred 
Irland, Mr. Lacey's bill, to enlarge the scope of the Na- 
tional Fish Commission so that it shall include game in- 
terests, was adopted by the Senate on Jan. 7. It had pre- 
viously been passed by the House. The Senate incor- 
porated with it Senator Hoar's bill,, previously approved, 
for the protection of birds by prohibiting their introduc- 
tion into the United States for ornamental purposes, and 
forbidding their transportation between the States. The 
Lacey bill, as amended by the incorporation of the Hoar 
bill, was sent to a conference committee of Senate and 
Hou.:e ; and there is reason to believe that it will find ap- 
proval. 
The secfion of the new bill which relates to transporta- 
tion reads as follows : 
"Sec. — . That the transportation of birds, feathers, or 
parts of birds, to be used or sold, from any State or Terri- 
tory of the United States to or through any other State 
or Territory of the United States is hereby prohibited. 
Whoever shall violate the provisions .of this section shall, 
upon conviction in the district where the offense shall have 
been committed, be punished for each such offense by a 
fine of $50." i 
This wording is so general in terms as manifestly to in- 
clude game birds ; and the question arises whether, in 
event of the enactment of the law, it woidd be held to for- 
bid the transportation between the States of game birds. 
If such a prohibition extended only to game birds shipped 
for traffic, there could be no objection to it; but the clause, 
"the transportation of birds to be used," goes beyond the 
sale provision, and if upheld as constitutional by the 
courts would prevent the sportsman from carrying home 
his game. We refer to the constitutional aspect of the 
question, since the United States Supreme Court has held 
that the regulation of the export of game is something 
which belongs to the individual State concerned as a part 
of its police power. In certain States it is expressly 
provided, as in Wisconsin, that persons may take limited 
quantities of game birds out of the State. In this the Na 
SNAP SHOTS. 
It is not yet too late for New Year's resolutions, if the 
resolves be of a practicable and practical nature. Let us 
all then take a solemn vow not to transmit money to pub- 
lishers for books or papers unless we sign our names to 
ihe letter so that the recipient shall know to whom to 
send the things ordered, We owe it to ourselves always 
thus to add the address essential to our getting what we 
pay for ; and quite as much do we owe it to the publisher 
so that he may send the things paid for, and not incur 
the bad opinion which we must have of him in default of 
receiving something for our money. The Forest and 
Stream Publishing Company is at this moment holding 
various sums of money sent to it for books and sub- 
scriptions by correspondents who neglected to sign their 
names. In some cases, by sending the letters back to the 
local postmaster and asking him to identify the writing, 
the sender has been discovered, and his wants filled; but 
this is not always successful. No doubt some of these 
careless folks are thinking hard thoughts of the publishers 
when the fault is entirely their own — whoever the\ 
"liay be. 
The report of the Maine Fish and Game Commission ■ 
this year i.s illustrated with plates of moose, caribou and 
deer. The portraitures have the merit of originality and 
novelty; and doubtless are intended to- be taken as accurate 
and official representations of Maine game. They do not, 
however, represent the several species familiar to the 
hunter as inhabiting the game country. Indeed, one who 
was fortified with the report might kill game out of sea- 
son, and when brought to book, prove by these official 
pictures of moose, caribou and deer that the animal he 
had "killed was none of these; and on this evidence the 
court would not fail to acquit him. 
The Amateur Photography Competition report will be 
given in an early issue. 
