Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1899, bv Forest and Stream Publishing Co. , 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2 5, 18 99, 
Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. ) 
Six Months, $2. J 
f VOL. LIT.-No, 8. 
( No. M6 Broadway, New York. 
To the man who goes out simply for the purpose of filling 
the bag, a blank day is a blank day, and his visage and demeanor 
show it; but to the observant naturalist-sportsman an empty bag 
at the end of a long and tiring day will be no criterion as to his 
feeling, for he may tramp home with heart far lighter than his 
bag even, and record an entry in his diary or memory which 
will be reverted to in after years with much pleasure. 
Henry Sharp. 
TIf£ ELK IN CANADA. 
Much interest has been excited by the report made 
last month of the killing in the Province of Quebec of a 
wapiti, the great elk of Canada. This species has been 
extinct in the East so far as known for many years, 
though formerly abundant along the Atlantic Coast, at 
least from Virginia to Canada. One of the last localities 
where it existed was in the rough mountains of Penn- 
sylvania, but for many years there has been no evidence 
of its occurrence in the East further than the occasional 
finding of some of its bones or a decayed antler or two. 
It is said that there is no authentic record of the occur- 
rence of the elk in eastern Canada for the last thirty 
years. 
Up to about 1875 there were believed to be a few elk 
left in the dense forests of Michigan, and still later thej' 
inhabited the Roseau Swamp in Canada, near the bor- 
ders of Minnesota. These survivors were probably long 
since exterminated, and the elk is now confined to the 
Rocky Mountain region and westward. On the other 
hand, in many preserves in the wilder portions of New 
Hampshire, New York and elsewhere the Western elk 
have been reintroduced and have done remarkably well. 
The elk recently reported to have been killed in the 
Province of Quebec was taken on the Casupscull River, 
a branch of the Metapedia, not very far frorfi the head of 
the Bay of Chaleurs, It is said to be a true elk, and its 
skin has been sent to a Boston taxidermist to be mounted, 
and the specimen will be shown at the sportsmen's ex- 
hibition in New York next month. 
Confirming this capture is the statement by Count H. 
de Puyjalon, of the Department of Lands, Forests and 
Fisheries, Quebec, who, in his report on the region of 
western Quebec, published in 1896, states that on more 
than one occasion he has found unmistakable elk tracks 
in that country. Moreover, in a private letter to Forest 
AND Stream on the same subject he says: "I may add 
that I saw, though from a long distance, the two wapiti 
(Cervus canadensis) whose tracks I then followed. There 
can be no doubt with i-eference to the species of these 
two animals. Both unquestionably were the great Cana- 
dian stag." He adds: "Moreover, that animal formerly 
existed in large numbers in our western country, and it 
seems to be possible to admit that the exceptional cli- 
matic condition enjoyed by those regions since 1890 may 
have contributed to bring back a certain number of 
great stags to their original habitat." Of the occurrence 
of the elk said ^:o have been killed on the Casupscull 
River the Count de Puyjalon has no personal knowledge. 
"Nevertheless," he writes, "I may say that in our sparsely 
inhabited country, covered with almost continuous for- 
ests, some kinds of animals may sometimes be found very 
far from their usual habitat, without its being possible to 
f xplain in a very rational manner the cau'ses of a dis- 
persion as unusual as it is unexpected." 
The matter here brought up will be jceertly scrutinized 
by naturalists. The locality of thl'scapture is within the 
original range of the elk, but' one from which it has long 
been believed to be exterminated. Only two explanations 
of its occurrence are possible. Either it is a reintroduced 
animal, or it is a survivor of the ancient herd which 
roamed the Province of Quebec. It is hardly to be 
imagined that this last is true; for if the elk had been 
living in the Province of Quebec for thirty years without 
their presence being known they would by this time 
have become numerous, and among the many hunters 
who each season travel through these forests some would 
have seen and reported them long ago. 
On general principles, it would seem much more 
likely that the particular specimen in question was an 
estray from some preserve or park, possibly in New 
Hampshire, possibly in New York. It is true that the 
distance frotn any such known park to the waters of the 
Metapedia is great; but, on the other hand, elk are 
known to wander far. It is well understood that in these 
great preserves of the northern United States trees are 
constantly falling on the fences and breaking them down. 
and nothing is more likely than that from time to time 
elk escape through breaches made in this and other ways. 
While it is conceivable that elk may still exist in Que- 
bac, it is highly improbable, and naturalists will demand 
evidence of a positive character before accepting this 
statement. 
We recall a few years ago the report current for a 
long time in the Adirondacks- that a caribou or an elk 
had been killed there a fgew years before. A careful 
investigation of the facts by the Forest and Stream 
showed that instead of being an elk or a caribou, the 
specimen in question was a European red deer, which 
had been killed there a few years before. A careful 
in the Adirondacks. It was reported two or three years 
ago that a number of red deer had been turned out on 
the Island of Anticosti by M. Menier. It is possible that 
one or more of these may have in some manner escaped. 
TIIE BIRD OF WASHINGTON. 
No American who ever lived has been so honored as 
Washington iji lofty monument, in statuary of marble 
and bronze, and in the bestowal of his name upon State 
and city and county and town. From the time when 
Washington took command of the American army down 
to this present moment the name has been first in war, 
first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen; 
and they have used it for all manner of purposes — Wash- 
ington Masonic lodges, volunteer fire companies, schools 
and colleges, prize cattle, baseball clubs, steamboats, mili- 
tia companies, lozenges, negro slaves, and brands of 
flour, and Washingtonian societies of reformed drunkards. 
Considering this proclivity, then, it was not surprising 
that when the naturalist Ai^dubon, while voyaging on 
the upper Mississippi, beheld in the distance a bird of 
majestic flight, then first seen by him, aiid thought to 
be new to science, he should have chosen for it the name 
of Washington. This first bird he did not succeed in 
capturing, but in after years, in Kentucky, the longing 
he had cherished was gratified by the capture of a speci- 
men, which he describes in the first volume of the Or- 
nithological Biography. Of the name and the impulse 
which prompted him to bestow it, he records: 
The name which I have chosen for this new species of eagle, 
the Bird of Washington, may, by some, be considered as prepos- 
terous and unfit; btit, as it is indisputably the noblest bird of its 
genus that has yet been discovered in the United States, 1 
trust I shall be allowed to honor it with the name of one yet 
nobler, who was the saviour of his country, and whose name will 
ever be dear to it. To those who may be curious to know ray 
reasons, I can only say, that, as the new world gave me birth and 
liberty, the great man who insured its independence is next 
my heart. He had a nobility of mind, and a generosity of soul, 
such as are seldom possessed. He was brave, so is the eagle; 
like it, too, he was the terror of his foes; and his fame, extend- 
ing from pole to pole, resembles the majestic soarings of the 
mightiest of the feathered tribe. If America has reason to be 
proud of her Washington, so has she to be proud of her Great 
Eagle. 
And what was this noble "Bird of Washington," 
named in honor of "one yet nobler?" Modern authori- 
ties make it the young of the white-headed sea eagle, or 
bald eagle; and if we turn to Coues, we find the "Bird of 
Washington" — for all its high-sounding name, and as 
if in flouting of Audubon's patriotic enthusiasm— sum- 
marily characterized as "piscivorous, a piratical parasite 
of the osprey, otherwise notorious as the emblem of the 
republic." Alas! for this age of iconoclasm and irrev- 
erence. 
GETTING A WA Y FROM IT. 
In a crowded New York street car the other day a doc- 
tor and a restaurant cook got into a quarrel because the 
doctor thought the cook ought to itaove a bundle to 
make room for a woman to sit down; and in the affray 
which ensued the doctor drew a revolver and shot the 
cook. When we consider the nervous strainK to which 
city people are subjected in the congested street car traffic 
which makes up so much of their daily experience, the 
marvel is not that this doctor shot the cook, but that 
personal conflicts are not of everyday occurrence. That 
people permit themselves to be shoved and pushed and 
wrenched and squeezed and jammed and gouged and 
poked and walked oh- and twisted and compressed and 
pulled out and doubled up and bent back and sat upon, 
and with it all utter no protest, manifest no resentment, 
take not the law into their own hands, but meekly turn 
the other cheek, this is both a tribute to th^ inherent and 
all-triumphant amiability of the average man and woman, 
and an indication of a rule of conduct based Upon a phil- 
osophy learned by experience, which teaches that it is 
after all wiser to endure in silence, to bite the lip in self- 
repression, to crowd down and stifle the impulse to as- 
sert one's rights, and so to suffer and see others suffer 
without protest or resentment. Hor in ninety-nine cases 
out of one hundred, if one permits himself to digress 
from this rule of conduct he surely flies from ills he has 
to those he knows not of, nor ever dreamed of, until he 
finds himself the center of a street car scrimmage. If 
under all circumstances it is utterly impossible to keep 
one's temper, the wise man at least makes effort not 
to betray that his temper and he have parted company. 
This is the rule of conduct deliberately adopted by peo- 
ple who want to get to their business in the morning 
and to their homes at night in a tolerably equable state 
of mind. 
And one consideration, which is potent and comfort- 
ing with those who are so favored as to benefit by it, is 
that some of these blessed days, when the trout are rising 
and the birds are singing by the brooks, there will be a 
getting away from it all. For in the midst of "the push" 
there comes to one visions of green fields and flowing^ 
streams, and the quiet and content and peace of nature; 
and in fancy beholding such scenes, in fond anticipation 
promising for himself a fishing trip, he may well forget 
the annoyance of the present in the contemplation of the 
future. There is no theory nor speculation about this. 
The fishing one has had and the fishing he looks for- 
ward to are not of the past and of the future only, but of 
the present as well. 
Some people wonder why men are anglers, and what 
there can be in the catching of trout or bass, that your 
fisherman should be so bent on going fishing. Well, 
'one explanation is that a fishing trip means getting away 
from the turmoil and vexation of the street cars. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
From many parts of the country comes word of the 
effect of the great storm upon the game birds. The 
most astonishing phenomenon of the storm was its sever- 
ity in the far South. The residents of the northern part 
of Florida were treated to the sight of a snow-covered 
landscape, something which tens of thousands had never 
seen before. Judge R. C. Long, writing from Tallahas- 
see, reports that the mercury on the Sunday night of the 
blizzard went down to 2 degrees below zero, this being 
a record of 9 degrees lower than ever before known; but 
while fruit and vegetables were wiped out, the supply of 
quail, snipe and lesser scaup ducks. Judge Long reports, 
is abundant, and a goodly number of winter shooters 
are finding the sport all that it could be, snowstorm or 
no snowstorm. 
A correspondent writing from Rockingham, N. C, re- 
ports that the birds were not badly injured in that vicin- 
ity, while Mr. Chas. Hallock sends us from Fayetteville, 
in the same State, a story of universal slaughter perpe- 
trated by the people when they found the game at tlieir 
mercy. "The poor, starving and freezing birds," he writes, 
"robins, doves, larks, sparrows, woodpeckers— anything 
that flies or is able to fly — count as game; twenty to 
fifty robins make a common bag. Battues of twenty to 
thirty guns go dove shooting and bag seventeen to thirty 
apiece, the doves congregating at feeding places when 
snow buries everything else, and here falling easy vic- 
tims to the gun." 
From Charlestown, N. H., Von W. sends a record of 
mercury below the freezing point steadily from Jan. 24 
to Feb. 17, and often below zero in the morning, with 
consequent hardship for the feathered woodfolk. "Many 
of us feel sore at heart," writes a Danvers, Mass., cor- 
respondent, "over the prospect that most of our quail 
have been killed by cold, hunger or suffocation. Some 
seem to think the birds will pull through all right, as 
the high wind drifted the snow. Some places it is roft. 
deep and others only a few inches, and we have consid- 
erable high feed, such as bayberries, that makes a good 
-winter food for the quail." We shall look for further re- 
ports of the effects of the great storm on the game. ^ 
