Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1899, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 18 9 9. ] 
Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $2. 
VOL. LIT.— No. 6. 
No. 846 Broadway, New York, 
PROPHETS. 
When Noah went about telling his countrymen that 
there was going to be a flood, they derided and mocked 
him. Since his day prophets have been held in better 
repute, until now nearly every man who has a theory 
about game protection constitutes himself a prophet and 
foretells that if his theory is not accepted and his pet 
system adopted there will be an end of the world to the 
game in just so many years, usually three, sometimes 
five, in rare instances ten. If such and such a law is not 
adopted, he declares, by the end of so many years there 
will not be a grouse or a quail left in the State. Some- 
times the law thus recommended as a last ultimate 
final expedient to save the game is not adopted; the stip- 
ulated term of years comes to an end, and when the 
shooting season opens the prognosticator of game anni- 
hilation loads up the old gun and goes out for his share 
of the birds. 
These cock-sure prophets would do well to take a les- 
son from the wiser Audubon. The great naturalist was 
without a peer in his generation as an observer of game 
conditions, and foresaw with clear vision the game deplet- 
ing effect of that civilization which in his day was chop- 
ping its wa}^ westward with the axe of the pioneer, and 
shooting its way westward with the rifle of the Indian 
fighter and the market hunter. Yet when Audubon pro- 
phesied game extermination, he made his conditions so 
circumspectly that no one of his contemporaries could sur- 
vive to disprove him, nor indeed could his prophecy be ques- 
tioned by generations to come. For of the deer he wrote, 
italics our own: "Notwithstanding the almost incredible 
abundance of these beautiful animals in our forests and 
prairies, such havoc is carried on amongst them that in a 
few centuries they will probably be as scarce in America 
as the great bustard now is in Britain.'' A safe prophecy 
that, whether false or true. Less than one of the centuries 
has elapsed, and already throughout vast areas of the con- 
tinent he traversed in his wanderings the extinction has 
already been wrought, and his foretelling has been vinci- 
cated. . _ 
A BUZZARDS' ROOST. 
A STORE of game history is locked up in our American 
place-names. Buffaloford in North Carolina, Buffalo- 
lick in West Virginia, and Buffaloridge in Virginia, not 
to mention the Buffalo-bluffs, and -runs, and -springs in 
various localities, are suggestive of the former presence 
of that big creature in log-cabin days or before. The elk 
has given names to settlements, and so has the deer; 
there is a Fawn's-Leap in the Catskills, where the mem- 
ory of man runs not back to the time of deer; just as 
there is a score of Indian Maiden's Leaps where n(j 
Indians have frequented for generations. There is an 
Alligator in Florida, another in Georgia,, and a third in 
Mississippi; but from these perhaps genius loci — the 
genius of the place — has not as yet departed; 
no more than Bob White has flown from the 
Quails of Kentucky and Virginia, nor, let us hope, 
the partridge from the towns which bear its name 
in Alabama and other like favored States. There are 
numerous Bears and Bear Creeks where Bruin never 
comes back to claim his own; and a Beargulch and a 
Bearhollow where toddling infancy may make mock 
of the baldhead unafraid. As for Catamoimt, and Lynx- 
ville, and Panther Creek, surely no curfew bell need ring 
in them to keep young folks off the streets o' nights. 
But what we had in mind to inquire was of what has 
become of the sweetly named Buzzards' Roost, which 
used to gladden the eye of the traveler who studied the 
Florida railroad time schedules thirty years ago. It was 
on the route through Georgia, at a point in the long, 
long tunnel cut for miles and miles through pine barrens 
and cypress swamps; and going south or coming north, 
bound east or west, one always struck it by night. There 
was something in the name that challenged attention, 
piqued curiosity, created interest, aroused anticipation, 
and as certainly ended in disappointment, because in the 
gloom no street lamps, no illuminated shops, no dwell- 
ings, no hotel, no station, no buzzard roost, no anything 
but pines and scrub palmetto and railroad track and 
water-tank could one see. Buzzards' Roost as a town, 
we have come to think, may never have existed; it may 
have been not "a local habitation and a name," but just 
a name and a water-tank; and when the exigencies of a 
new management demanded the change the tank was 
moved and the name, stricken from the schedule, was 
lost to all but the memory of the weary traveler whom it 
had deluded in the old days. Doubtless the buzzards 
roost there yet; and among them there may be an old 
bird, "the last leaf upon the tree," garrulous of those 
days — or nights— when from the halted train the jaded 
passengers emerged to stretch their legs and peer into 
the gloom of what was one of the most picturesquely 
named spots on the North American Continent. 
BOUND VOLUMES. 
The frequency with which we receive requests for the 
index of each succeeding volume of Forest and Stream 
throws an interesting light on the growth of the prac- 
tice among subscribers of binding their volumes of the 
paper as each is completed, and retaining them as a. 
valued library of information on outdoor sport. Not 
only this, but we receive a constantly increasing demand 
for indexes of volumes printed many years ago, a de- 
mand which we are usually wholly unable to supply. 
Many a man has fifteen or twenty volumes of the For- 
est AND Stream, complete except for perhaps a number 
or two, or an index or two, and when he determines to 
have these bound, so that they may be conveniently ac- 
cessible, he applies to 'us for the missing numbers. So 
it is that we are frequently obliged to advertise for back 
numbers, some of which we never obtain. It is only a 
year or two since one of the best equipped and most 
ably managed libraries in one of the largest cities in the 
Union paid $2 for a certain missing number to complete 
its file. 
A kindred matter, which is interesting as showing the 
impression made on readers by certain articles appear- 
ing in Forest and Stream, is the frequent requests that 
come to us for back numbers, the date of which the 
inquirer has forgotten, containing some article whose 
title he does not remember, but the gist of which he 
can give some suggestion of. , The finding of such articles 
is usually impossible. Success in s^uch a search would 
imply on the part of the employees of this office a mem- 
ory of the subject matter of every thing that had ap- 
peared in Forest and Stream, with the further recol- 
lection of the title under which it was published, and the 
date at which it appeared. Sometimes, if the inquirer's 
information is sufficiently specific, the indexes might 
show the article, yet often they do not, for the title may 
have no reference to the particular subject to which the 
inquirer refers. So that if we were to look up all the 
articles for which our correspondents ask, the informa- 
tion might be secured only at the cost of many hours' 
work, and when obtained might consist of nothing more 
than a title and a date. 
The binding of the volumes of Forest and Stream 
complete, that is to say, the advertising pages with the 
reading matter, as is usually done, makes the volume 
somewhat more bulky than it would be if only the read - 
ing pages were included, but is not without certain ad- 
vantages. One of the most obvious of these is the op- 
portunity which it gives to refer back to old advertise- 
ments, and these advertisements are, as a matter of fact, 
of considerable historical interest. A study of the busi- 
ness announcements in the Forest and Stream for the 
past twenty-five years shows the rise and development of 
many a new implement for sport which has proved to 
be just what was needed, as well as the rise and fall of 
many another implement, put on the market with high 
hopes by its inventor, but which failed to fulfil his ex- 
pectations and has now been long forgotten. 
MOUNTAINS. 
With his latest published communication in the For- 
est AND Stream on the subject of the ascent of the 
Grand Teton, Mr, Owen expressed his determination to 
write no more; and Mr, Langford's letter of to-day may 
therefore be taken as closing the discussion. One result 
of the controversy must have been to demonstrate that 
we have on this continent Alpine opportunities that well 
may challenge the attention of mountain climbers. The 
sport of mountain climbing is as yet undeveloped in 
America; but the time will come when it will number its 
votaries by the hundreds. Such a discussion as this re- 
specting the Grand Teton must give impetus to the sport. 
The peak is one whose ascent offers an emprise worthy 
the endeavor. No season should go by without length- 
ening the roll of those who have set foot on the glorious 
height. The Alps are the playground of Europe; the 
Rockies some day will be the playground of America. 
Once a mountain man, always a mountain man. When 
the Rockies have cast their spell upon the spirit of man, 
though a thousand miles of land and water stretch be- 
tween, and though the body be held as in chains, long- 
ing fancy carries him back, and hope whispers of a time 
when he shall see again the snowy heights flushing in 
the sunset glow, and shall spring again from tent at dawn 
to greet the conring day. 
SHIPS. 
We have long realized the fitness of a word concerning 
the ship appendage so commonly added to game and other 
animals. If Podgers will amiably assent to being held up 
as a horrible example, we venture to cite his employment, 
in his "Commentaries" in another column, of the expres- 
sion "his skunkship." He makes out a very fair case for 
a despised creature generally held in bad odor, but while 
he defends the skunk, who will venture to defend skunk- 
ship? Would not plain skunk be better? 
As intimated, this is one random case out of many like 
instances. It is common for writers to add ship to th^ir 
game or fish. Squirrelship, troutship, mooseship, snake- 
ship, alligatorship — these are some of the combinations. 
And in every single case the plain name with the ship 
omitted looks better, reads better, sounds better. The 
practice is no new thing. As far back as the fifties the 
author of that delightful sportsmen's classic "Camp-Fires 
of the Everglades" referred to a muskrat in a trap as "his 
ratship." Probably in lands where ivory grows they re- 
late stories of adventures with "his el^hantship," for if a 
rat may be shipped, much more may on elephant. 
Reckoning from the "ratship" of the Florida story which 
first appeared in the old "Spirit of the Times," we have 
had at least forty years of the shipping; and now we ought 
to be able to get along forty years more without it.. And 
may Podgers live the forty ye^rs to write in his charm- 
ing way of the dumb creatures which cannot speak for 
themselves. 
PHOTOGRAPHS. 
The award of the third prize of $io in the live game 
class of our Amateur Photography Competition was not 
announced last week because of some question as to the 
conditions under which certain pictures had been made. 
The prize was divided equally, and was awarded to Mr. 
Livingston Stone for his photograph of two bear cubs in 
the Shasta Mountains in California, and to Mr. Geo. S. 
Raymond for his picture of a mink. As the photographs 
will be reproduced for publication in our columns, further 
comment may be deferred. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
A correspondent makes inquiry about the name of the 
passenger pigeon. The bird has been so called from time 
iminemorial. While all the migratory species may be 
termed birds of passage, the application of the term par- 
ticularly to the pigeon may have come from observation 
of the fact that its migrations were not regular and fixed 
by seasons, as with those birds that fly south in the fall 
and north in the spring, but were governed by the food 
supply of mast. The pigeon hosts were now here, now 
there; they were pilgrims and strangers, the gypsies of 
birddom, passengers. The migratory birds stay some- 
where when they get there; but the passenger pigeon is 
ever on the move — or was ever on the. move until finally 
he passed on not to return. 
Commissioner Bowers sends us a tabulated exhibit of the 
catch of American fishing vessels landed at Boston and 
Gloucester in 1898. The fishing vessels made 6,932 trips, 
and the fish listed are cod, cusk, haddock, hake, pollock, 
halibut, and mackerel, with miscellaneous, including her- 
ring ; and the total catch was i43,403,74olbs., with a value 
of $1,947,448. 
The proposed Maine hunting license discriminating 
against the residents of other States has been killed in 
the Legislature. In other words, Maine will stay in the 
Union. 
