106 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
tAtfd. 5, 1S90. 
The Last of the Lincolns, 
The bobolink's song rises faintly over the rich meadow 
lands of New York and New England — from solitary 
throats. From fields where once flocks of the blythe 
warblers nested and caroled, to-day but a pair of these 
birds can be found. Roadsides skirting broad, green 
pastures may be traversed and not one bobolink seen nor 
heard in the stretch of a mile ; whereas, within the last ten 
years it was a delight to go awheel adown these roads and 
listen to the brilliant singers as they rose above the grass 
tops. The people of these country sides cannot be ac- 
cused of responsibility for the decrease, though, it is true, a 
few birds are captured for cage pets. North of the 
lower Hudson River and Long Island the bobolink is not 
considered a game bird nor protected as such. It is pro- 
tected and classes as a song bird. It is when the bird 
has changed his identity and well started on his Southern 
migration that his numbers begin to diminish — when his 
handsome coat of black and silver has been cast aside for 
the smudgy, brown suit of travel and the glad warble 
of June days changed to a monotonous, sparrow-like chirp. 
The reeds of the Susquehanna and Delaware rivers and 
bays of Pennsylvania furnish the bobolink his first alias — 
the reed bird — delicious eating for the most fastidious 
appetite, an epicurean tid-bit. 
In this region the bagging of our one-time songster 
is carried on in slaughter-house fashion — pot-hunting is 
the style which pays. The bird is small and powder is 
costly. 
A man who understands netting will sell you 100 birds 
daily, and such an amount is a minimum quantity. . 
The birds go further South as winter approaches ; to the 
rice fields, still meeting the same destructive fate, but 
under the name of rice bird. Firrther yet he travels: to 
the Gulf and Antilles — the butter bird, and still a rarebit. 
It is stated in New York city and Philadelphia that 
sparrows are masquerading at several eating houses un- 
der the name of reed birds (product of window-ledge 
trapping, etc.), and let us hope their flavor matches that 
possessed by Robert of Lincoln. Capt. Kidde. 
}^ttie B^s 
The Robin as a Mock Bird, 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
There is a resemblance to the cry of Whip-poor-will ! 
whip-poor-will ! whip-poor-will ! in the obligato of all 
robins (M. migratorius) that have sung in my hearing, 
though I am sure the resemblance is a fancy on my rather 
than a deliberate imitation on the part of the bird. Your 
correspondent who writes of the robin as a mock bird 
will find by observation that individuality plays a most 
important part in bird music, as in bird life. 
The rendering of any well-known musical composition is 
never twice alike, save when the hand organ or other 
mechanical device "grinds it out." Personal expression 
Varies among us humsans, and so it is with the birds. This 
time-worn obligato of our robin is rendered differently 
hundreds of times each spring by robins who, though they 
adhere closely to the original motif, express their own 
individuality in often a marked manner when voicing it. 
Practically all our songsters have this peculiarity. I 
have in mind a Baltimore oriole who possessed the true 
ringing note of his family, but whose Tu-e ! tu-e 1 tu-e ! 
had a most peculiar nasal twang, followed by a bad break 
on the final note. This bird (easily identified by his voice 
as above) nested for three seasons in my immediate neigh- 
borhood. Anyone who will listen to our feathered 
orchestras and who is at all familiar with our birds, will 
be quickly impressed by the "personal equation" they 
voice. 
I do iiot presume to say that such a "curio" as a mock- 
ing robin in the wildwoods does not exist. They ai"e 
certainly capable of being taught, for I have known a 
caged robin to learn a few sirhple notes, but I stijl incline 
to the idea that further investigation will show a fancied 
rather than a premeditated resemblance in the song of 
friend K.'s robin. 
By the way, we are honored by the summer sojourn of 
two fine wild mockingbirds here. They have made the 
sunny davs brighter and the moonlight nights more lovely 
with wonderful melody these many weeks. 
WiLMOT TOWNSEND. 
Bay Ridge, N. Y. 
A Cufiotts Nesting Place. 
On- June 29 the nest of an Arkansas fly-catcher (T. 
verticalis) was taken from the hood of an electric light 
mast at this place. It contained four moderately fresh 
eggs and had been abandoned by the parent birds. The 
nest had been placed on the cross-bar about midway be- 
tween the hanger and the hood, and within a few inches of 
a 1,200 candle power arc lamp. The cause of its aban- 
donment was undoubtedly due to the intense heat gen- 
erated by the iron hood. The past spring was an un- 
usually late one, and the weather, for this section of 
country, quite cold till well along in June, when Old So! 
came out and announced his readiness for regular sum- 
mer business. In the shade the thermometer registered 
108 to 115 degrees, and under the sheet iron hood at the 
top of the arc mast it was too much for even the parental 
affections of the birds. They would fly to the edge of 
the hood, hold themselves momentarily in the air while 
they took a peep at their nest, then slowly flv awav. 
Finally they left it for good, and although still about, do 
not appear to have done further nesting. This was, how- 
ever, their second attempt at nest-making in such posi- 
tion. _ The first one, built in May, was destroyed by the 
electrician, as it interfered with the working of the lamp, 
but the other being out of the way, although the lamp was 
in nightly use, was allowed to remain till the birds them- 
selves abandoned it. Occasional. 
Yuma, Ariz., July 21. 
Self. 
Baltimore, July 20. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
Reading "Self" in issue of the 22d inst., the following 
couplet came to my mind from an old book long ago out 
of print. 
Great is the worth oi self where none remains 
« And loyalty to self alone obtains. 
Tke July number of the Game Laws in Brief and Woodcraft 
Magazine is now ready. See advertisement of it. 
Getting There First* 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Many people wonder why the game laws have been and 
are being so heedlessly violated, when they ought not ex- 
press wonder at all. People who pose as the best law- 
abiding citizens frequently go for grouse and woodcock 
a month or six weeks before the open season. They go 
because they feel that they must if they: expect to get any 
game; for, as has been demonstrated on former occasions, 
if they wait until the open season they, as a rule, find 
that early market-hunters have invaded their haunts and 
left nothmg for the legal-time hunter but disappointment 
and a few of the wildest kind of birds, mostly old ones, at 
that. Men who abhor the violation of law when they know 
that poachers are relentlessly depriving them of the tart 
of their fall holidays, will naturally have a nervous feel- 
ing, which, to put it as I now think it, is the ovary of an 
illegal bird hunt which rapidly develops into a mis- 
demeanor. Such men are not wanton violators at heart; 
they simply want their rights, and in getting them they do 
not feel that they are playing against the law, but against 
the market-hunters and poachers who want a great big, 
glorious (?) day's hunt to tell about some time iti the 
future. 
These men whom I mention are the hinges on whicli 
swing the poachers. Generally they are of the type that 
have no enemies worthy of mention — ^just the kind that a 
protector would be prone to close his eyes upon. As a 
rule they are good-natured, whole-souled, sympathetic fel- 
lows, who win the esteem of all who have dealings with 
them. What, then, is the manifest remedy? With the 
ravenous poachers doctored up as they should be, our 
good "sports" would hail with delight the advent of an 
epoch in gamedom for which they have thus far vainly 
hoped; a time when they can calmly await the open 
season with assurance that game will not be illegally 
molested, at least to any great extent. 
I have heard it remarked time and again that if a man 
wanted to get any game he must get there before this one 
or that one or some other one (mentioning several well- 
known local market-hunters) gets in his early work, or 
get "left." 
If the game protectors would just start in and "bag," 
for the first, those whom they know have derived financial 
benefit from illegal shooting they would not be con- 
strained by their regard for the hinge men to shirk their 
duty in the least; for, as I intimated before, "douse" the 
extensive illegal shooter and the smaller ones will gladly 
disappear of their own accord. 
I do not mean to uphold law-breakers of any description, 
but I simply present my ideas of the quickest, surest and 
least troublesome way of doing the right thing. 
Chas. H. Smodell. 
. Stillwater, N. Y. 
Guides and Employers. 
In late issues some of, my American cousin sportsmen 
have been giving expression to their woes in experiences 
of guides. 
With due modesty, might I presume to think that, as an 
old stager, I could offer some suggestions? Guides (as 
they are unhappily, to their own and their employer's 
detfiment, designated) are, like all the rest of us, a few 
very good, many indifferent, a few bad. Good ones you 
may call archbishops, if you Hke — it won't huxt them or 
you. The balance, through their naming, get a wrong 
impression of whom they and you are in the respective 
relations. Instead of recognition of the fact that you are 
giving them employment to earn their living, and thus 
stand in exactly the same relation to them that the em- 
ployer does to the employed in any other business in 
life, they feel as if they owned you for the time. 
My suggestions, addressed particularly to novices, are 
these : When you have determined in what wilds you 
are going to rove, shoot or fish, get the very best obtain- 
able maps and on largest scale of the region. They will 
be more or less defective, probably more. Having fitted 
yourself out according to your individual tastes with 
what you are going to eat, drink, wear and live under — and 
in this don't be "guided," but take your own advice — the 
next thing is to find and engage the services of some 
healthy, sturdy, sober woodsman. Tell him you are not 
hiring a guide, that you are looking for a man to chop and 
carry and row or paddle you about, and make himself 
useful, day or night, in any way you may call for that is 
within his ability. Pay him accordingly. Get another 
similar man who, as woodsman, or on log drives in 
lumber camps, has been accustomed -to cook in open air 
in all weathers; as a test question, ask him if he can 
guarantee to make, from his sack of flour, fair, digestible 
bread in steady rain, with no shelter — over him or fire — 
other than what nature and his own wits may at the 
moment afford. If his experiences have included this 
he'll do as cook anywhere— forest or prairie. 
Thus equipped, start into your unknown territory, go to 
no hotel or camp, ask no one's advice or direction. Take 
wrong routes, make blunders in your stalk, find that par- 
ticular contrivance of your own that you fondiv imagined 
the pearl of your outfit, an infernal useless nuisance — all 
these amount to nothing compared with the advantage of 
finding out your country for yourself, of learning, of 
yourself, what is best, and enjoying the keen pleasure of 
the explorer, a pleasure greater far than that of "killing 
something," take the word of an old hand at both. 
The next time you will start in with a fund of knowl- 
edge of woodcraft and a feeling of happy independence 
of any dry nursing guidance, that will enhance manifold 
the enjoyment of your holiday in the wilds. When incul- 
cating so mttch independence in choice and action, I 
would not undervalue the counsel of experienced friends, 
nor the study, before going, of good books on outdoor 
life, such as many published by this paper's company. 
My suggestions mean that once started you are to do 
your own thinking and make your own decision. You 
may at first often blunder, but as a result, knowledge anc 
proficiency will rapidly come, and of quality rarely attain-' 
able when every move is under so-called guidance. 
Don't be taught by those who as a matter of contrac 
are there to do what you tell them ; you would not ir 
business or politics do it. Whether it be with a so-callec 
guide, or with a Scotch gardener, there' is much iii 
the philosophy of the retired admiral, ignorant of horti! 
culture, who, having ordered his hyacinth bulbs to be) 
planted in rows, the bulbs upward, replied to a friend's 
laughter-choked pointing out of the absurdity, and ques^ 
tion of why he had not consulted his gardener, "Nevei 
mind, they are going to stay that way. It's wholesom« 
discipline for him, as he is a little inclined to presume on 
his knowledge and forget that I am in command, not he- 
I'll have him water them all extra carefully to-night." 
I hope that the term "guide" may not be imported inti^ 
our Canadian woods. We are satisfied to employ, on ouk 
sporting excursions, canoeraen, axemen, cooks, as we dc 
for more serious pursuits therein. 
Treating of names — a digression — I am reminded o\ 
that of "muscalonge" which I see printed under an 
excellent illustration of the fish in a recent number. W<i 
have rather loosely anglicized this word. Its etymology 
begins with the Indian root "kino" or "kinwa," meaning; 
"long," as in "kinosi," he is tall, "kinogami," long lake 
and the terminal root "je," which I may call a "fishy" onS 
which make for the common pike the name"kinonje," i.e.' 
"the long fish." The prefixed root "mus" or "mas" is tha; 
which appears at the beginning of the word "Mississippi,'' 
and means great, hence "The Great River (sipi, river) 
The whole Indian name for the fish delineated becomes 
"maskinonje" or "greater pike," a fairly correctly de. 
finitive name. Coureur des Bois. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
Minnesota Reserve Movement Ofganizes. 
Chicago^ III, July 26. — ^The meeting for preliminary 
organization of the Minnesota forest reserve movemen 
WHS held yesterday evening at the rooms of the Chica^t 
Athletic Association, and was an enthusiastic and work- 
manlike success in all particulars. The following gentlei 
ment were present. Col, John S. Cooper, of Chicago ; Df 
li. M, Bracken, of the State Board of Health, St. Paul' 
Minn. ; Mr. Chas. Cristadoro, St. Paul, Minn. Fron 
Chicago were others as below : John A. Henry, Jas. B 
Clow, C. D. Peacock, Geo. W. Cass, John E. Williams 
H. E. W. Blatchford, H. Blatchford, L. J. Osborn, L. W 
Pitcher, Henry S. Fitch, O. R. Glover, Howard F. Chap- 
pell, Geo. W. Davis, Frank A. Jolinson, F. S. Baird, M 
R. Bortree, G. W. Strell, Fred Gardner, H. R. S. Wil 
Hams, Chas, M, Osborn, John F, Eberhart, Dr. J. N 
Grouse, H, G, McCartney, J. D. Adams, J. H. Whitbeck 
John A. Campbell and Geo. O. Shields, of New York. Oi 
motion of Col. Cooper Mr. E. W. Blatchford was callec 
to the chair and briefly and ably stated the reasons foi 
the meeting and, his personal approbation of the motive 
of same. The chairman then called upon Col. Cooper 
who, in a characteristic speech, described the general pur 
poses of the meeting and the resources of the region ir 
question. Col. Cooper used a large wall map to illustratf 
his talk. He said it was only two years ago that he firs! 
saw this beautiful country and he was charmed with i 
and then resolved to save it if that were possible. _ On the 
map he pointed out a vast slice of the State of Minnesota 
140 by 118 miles in extent, which he said he would like tc 
see set apart for this reserve, and also smaller sectionf 
which would be acceptable if we could not get so large 
tract as we might like. He said he had long ago writte» 
to the President of the United States, who had replieo 
referring the communication to the Secretary of the In 
terior. He wanted a Congressional committee and dit; 
not get it, and then at a lucky moment a friend, a membei 
of Congress, had suggested the idea that a visit by somt 
or all of the members of Congress to that region would be 
better thati any lobby, or any committee, better than anj 
writing, better than anything else. So he had tried whai 
he could do. The Great Northern and the C, B. & Q. rail 
ways had turned in to help him, a prominent official of tht 
Great Northern saying to him : "Well, it won't, perhaps 
help us, and it won't, perhaps, break us, but it won't kil] 
lis, and it's right!" So that was the way the matter had 
shaped itself up to the present time. There were diffi- 
culties, but not iVisuperable ones. There were in the trad 
I, 000,000 acres of land belonging to lumbermen, nearly 
5,000,000 belonging to Government, nearly 4,000,000 acres 
belonging to the Indians. All this could be arranged foil 
without prejudice to any rights and by the use of funds not 
overwhelmingly large. This was a great health region, asi 
Dr. Bracken, here present, could testify. He was grati- 
fied to see that the Commercial Club of St. Paul had 
cordially indorsed this movement and chosen a committee; 
to send to this meeting after fuller organization. Col.: 
Cooper said he thought a formal organization, to be but of 
a tentative sort, the beginning of the body itself, wa^ 
something which was now imperative. 
Dr. Bracken was now called to serve as recording; 
secretary, and was seated amid applause for the Minne 
sota man who has done so much to aid this enterprise 
Mr. Henry S. Fitch, of Chicago, was called upon to speak 
of the sporting possibilities and general beauty of this 
big Minnesota tract, which he did from his personal ex 
perience in that region. He was enthusiastic in his praise 
Dr. Bracken, when called upon, spoke at some length 
and cordially of this enterprise, saying it seemed providen 
tial. The Minnesota Medical Society had long ago sent 
out a committee to hunt out sanitary lands for patient 
afflicted with pulmonary complaints. They had selecte 
this very tract. "We were about to memorialize Congress 
when we heard of this very movement," he said. The 
original intention was to ask Congress to withhold these 
lands, and with the co-operation of the Federation o: 
Women's Clubs this had been asked of Congress, nr.c 
these lands were so withheld, and were Iving there waiting) 
for this very project to set them aside forever from such 
sale. The State Game Warden Avas delighted with this 
idea. The State Fire Warden was delighted quite as 
much. It was a movement which was attracting mu^.h 
attention and approbationi^ in Minnesota. 
Mr. Chas. Cristadoro said that we were here to ask Con- 
gress to do no one a favor, but to do only its duty — to pro- 
