Forest and Stream; 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1900, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
'rERMS,'f4 A Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. ) 
Six Months, liJ. f 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JANUARY 27, 1900. 
j VOL". LIV.— No. 4. 
I No. 346 Broadway, New York 
The Forest and Stream is the recognized medium of 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 fall 
particulars respecting subscriptions, see prospectus on page. iv. 
THE LACEY GAME BILL. 
We print to-day Mr. Lacey's amended game bill, as in- 
troduced into the House of Representatives on Jan. 17. 
3n its new form the bill forbids the importation of the 
mongoose, the flying-fox or fruit bat, the English sparrow, 
starling, and such other species as the Secretary of A-gri- 
culture may declare injurious. The provision respecting 
the transportation of game forbids the export of that 
which has been killed illegally, or of which the shipment 
is forbidden by a State law. This is highly desirable : 
and the enactment of the bill into a law would be a decided 
gain. Mr. Lacey should have the cordial support of the 
public. Every citizen who is concerned for the permanent 
game supply should address his representative in Con- 
gress in indorsement of the Lacey bill, which is known 
as H. R. 6634. 
BEARS IN THE SCHOOLROOM. 
One thing is quite certain and a foregone conclusion: 
Mr. J, P. T., who in the Forest and Stream last week 
advertised for a lost bear, will find his game. His request 
for the identification of his bear of schoolday memory 
was published in our Camp-Fire Flickering corner that it 
might "remind" some one of the old tale. Promptly 
comes Mr. C. H. Ames to tell us that the story was in a 
classic of his youth, the "Progressive Reader." Now 
that we have come so close as that on the trail, the bear 
will speedily be brought to bay; for there must be those 
who can tell us all about any bear story that had the 
currency of school-room literature. 
On receipt of the hint contained in the letter of Mr. 
Ames, we sent out to a second-hand schoolbook shop in 
the Cooper Union to buy a "Progressive Reader." What 
came to us was a book of the "Progressive Series," being 
"Osgood's America Fourth Reader," which, the preface 
explains, "corresponds in difficulty with the 'Progressive 
Third Reader' of our old series." It proved thus not to 
he the bear-story reader, though it has a bear story in 
it, a yarn which is, as bear stories go, by no 'manner of 
means progressive, but retrogressive and decadent. For, 
instead of Indians and grizzlies and a bald-headed trapper 
all mixed up in the scrimmage, after the good old- 
fashioned way of the old-time school books, we have 
here in this degenerate product a milk-and-water tale of a 
Maine bear captured as a cub and "brought up by hand 
a=; one of the family. He claimed the warmest place on 
the hearth stone, and nestled in cold weather with the 
dogs before the fire" — and there is a picture of the bear, 
the dogs and the cat "nestling." None of the pet animals 
about the farm were tamer than he ; none, we are told, 
"loved better to climb up into his master's lap and re- 
ceive his caress." What on earth could be told of a 
bear such as this, than that he was a confirmed egg- 
sucker and was forever smelling out and thieving what- 
ever goodies tickled his palate; and that one day when 
the family was at church, he drew the spile of the molasses 
barrel, filled himself and smeared himself over with 
molasses, then deposited himself in a bed, and when 
routed out by the family home from church, "started on 
the run for the haymow with the sheets sticking to his 
l)ack" : and the tale concludes, "it was sometime before the 
bear got well, and still longer before his mistress forgave 
him." 
Here is a bear story for you adapted to the infantile 
mind. But what shall be said of the child in the Fourth 
Reader grade who is fed on such bear meat as that? It 
is to be urged for him at least that he is defrauded of his 
rights;, he -is entitled to a schoolbook bear story that is a 
bear story — a story of a bear, not of a degenerate domesti- 
cated farm pet which climbs into its master's lap for 
caresses, and hides in the bed find is forgiven by its 
mistress. 
The tale of the schoolbook bear is all of a piece with the 
flood of wish-wash about the brute creation and human 
kind which has arrived at the dignity of a cult in these 
days. With those who belong to the new school, a bear 
is no longer a bear, nor are there now any wild and 
savage creatures between which and man exists an irre- 
pressible conflict. In place of bear hunting, this cult is 
given over to speculation as to Bruin's immortality. In- 
stead of a moving bear stoty with (ilaws and fangs and 
cuffs and hugs and bowie knives and catch-as-catch-can 
and snarl and grunt and quick breath and straining of 
muscles and desperate lunges and strivings and over- 
coming and coming out on top — either brute or human — 
there is an inculcation of kindness to bears and an ascrip- 
tion of millenium amiability of bears toward man, and 
these stories of molasses-smeared bears done up in snowy 
sheets. 
Mr. Ames knows about schoolbooks; perhaps he will 
tell us if it is now this species of bear that commonly 
holds place in the schoolroom. 
THE POLLUTION OF WATERS. 
In the annual message of Governor Roosevelt, of New 
York, high ground is taken in the discussion of . the fish, 
game and forest affairs. The message is an earnest, 
tliough as such by no means necessary, of the Gov- 
ernor's lively interest in these natural resources and his 
entirely adequate appreciation of their importance and un- 
derstanding of what is essential to conserve them. There 
is need of better laws, he says, and of an improved ad- 
ministration of the law. For the most part the in- 
adequacy of the system lies in an administration which is 
lax. and not the law which is defective. As was said at 
Syracuse the other day when the State League met to dis- 
cuss the subject, the law is now so nearly satisfactory that 
chief attention may be given to enforcing its provisions, 
rather than to devising amendments. 
Specifically, Governor Roosevelt very justly says : "The 
provisions of law in reference to saw mills and wood-pulp 
mills are defective and should be changed so as to pro- 
hibit dumping dyestuffs, sawdust or tan bark in any 
amount whatsoever into the streams. Reservoirs should 
be made; but not where they will tend to destroy large 
sections of the forest, and only after a careful and 
scientific study of the water resources of the region." 
This is one of the few sections which need revision. As 
the statute now stands, it reads : "No dyestuffs, coal tar, 
refuse from gas houses, sawdust, shavings, tan bark, lime 
or other deleterious or poisonous substances shall be 
thrown or allowed to run into any of the waters of this 
State, either private or public, in quantities destructive 
to the life of fish inhabiting the same." 
In operation this has proved altogether inadequate, be- 
cause of the difficulty of proving in any given case that 
the quantities of poisonous substance allowed to run 
into the water is "in quantities destructive to the life of 
fish inhabiting the same." Stream after stream has been 
ruined as a fishery by the refuse of mills ; and so rarely 
is an offender convicted that practical immunity may be 
said to be the rule. 
The only law effective in provision would be the one 
suggested by Governor Roosevelt to prohibit the dumping 
of deleterious substances "in any amount whatsoever." 
This problem of how to rescue the waters from the 
pollution already wrought and in progress, and of how 
to preserve them free from fish-destroying agencies in the 
future, is one of the most important in the whole range 
of those which have to do with protecting the natural 
resources of the State ; and yet it is one least likely to re- 
ceive any serious or intelligent consideration at the hands 
of the Legislature. 
There is a measure now before the Assembly, Mr, 
Henry's, for the protection and improvement of the 
purity of the waters of .the State, which makes it a duty 
of the State Board of Health to collect information con- 
cerning the waters of the State with reference to their 
being or becoming sources of potable water supply, and 
to their protection and improvement of their purity; to 
make examinations of the sources, surrounding condi- 
tions, and the causes or sources of pollution or threatened 
pollution; to employ such means as shall be necessary to 
prevent the increase of pollution; to investigate, when- 
ever the public interests shall require it, the desirability, 
fca^ihih'tv, rneans to be employed, and action necessary to 
be taken, in order to diminish or stop the pollution of any 
of the waters of the State, and to formulate general plans 
for the diminishing or stopping of such pollution. For 
abatement of water pollution nuisances the board is given 
no power; it is authorized to co-operate with the owners 
of manufacturing plants to ascertain the most feasible 
remedies ; but beyond this its power is not extended. We 
shall never have the question handled effectually until 
the public wakes up to the fact that its rights have been 
grossly invaded by individual and corporation mill owners, 
EXPERT AND AMATEUR. 
The subject of moose calling is one of the live topics 
of the day. We print communications on the subject this 
week, and others are in hand for our next issue. In 
the discussion a distinction is rightly made between the 
hunter who does his own calling and the one who has his 
moose called to him. To call a moose and to have a 
moose called for one are two things quite distinct. Closely 
allied to this subject is that of which Mr. Hardy writes, 
the killing of game for the sportsman by his guide. This 
probably is much more common in Maine than elsewhere, 
since, because of the licensed guide system, the guide there 
plays a more important part than in many other dis- 
tricts. In Maine, in certain seasons at least, every hunter 
mttst have a gtiide; he depends upon the guide to pro- 
vide means of transportation, to show the way into the 
woods, to carry the duflfle, to prepare the camp and to do 
the cooking, and it is only one step further to look to the 
guide to provide the game. 
As very many men who hunt moose by calling must 
have the game called for them, so a certain proportion of 
the deer hunters unable to kill game themselves must 
have it killed for them by the guides, or else must go 
without. Under these conditions, which are well under- 
stood by those familiar with affairs in the woods, even 
the expert hunter who would scorn to get his game in any 
other way than by bringing it down with his own rifle, is 
]\Me to suspicion when he exhibits the trophy of his 
success. 
The expert is necessarily the exception, where so many 
take part in a pursuit, and so few have opportunity or 
inclination to make themselves adepts. The average deer 
hunter, in whatCA^er section of the country he may be 
found, is much more of a novice than of a Leather-Stock- 
ing. In response to any criticisms which might be made 
upon his dependence on his guide, he probably would re^ 
tort that his style of hunting is very good so far as it goes, 
and much better than none at all. To become an expert 
means acquiring the craft by practice. The only way to 
learn to hunt is by hunting. There are multitudes of 
men who have neither time nor opportunity, to acquire 
the art, and yet who find a hunting trip an enjoyable and 
profitable mode of recreation ; and they would submit 
that they are not to be shut off from going into the 
Maine or Wisconsin or Arkansas deer woods simply be- 
cause they do not have the skill of past-masters in the art 
of woodcraft. 
The inexpert are the great majority. They constitute 
the patrons of woodland camps, and contribute to the 
treasuries of transportation lines, and in those States 
where there are license fees they furnish the great bulk 
of the revenue derived from this source. The woods are 
free to all, to hunt in their own way, within the law of 
the land; and if within the higher law of sportsman- 
ship as well, so much the better. Just what the higher 
law of sportsmanship actually is may not always readily 
be determined beyond argument. 
The ring-necked pheasant may now be counted among 
the game birds of Massachusetts. We print in another 
column the statement to that efl^ect in the report of the 
Commissioners— that is to say, the pheasant is established 
if it can be protected. The question of standing the 
climate appears to have been decided ; a larger probfciti is 
whether the shooting can be so restricted as to insure a 
permanent supply. Probably nowhere has the hardiness 
of these birds been more severely tested than on the 
preserve owned by Mr. W. C. Whitney, near Lenox, in 
the Berkshire Hills. This is one of the highest and 
coldest situations in Massachusetts, and yet the birds came 
through last winter without loss. That they endured so 
severe a test is evidence enough of their adaptftWIity to 
oiir nor-thcr.stern climate, rigorous though ft is. 
