OREST AND STREAM. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1900, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Terms, Ifi'A Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. I 
Six Months, $2. ) 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JANUARY 13, 1900. 
i VOL. LIV.— No. 2. 
1 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 or. the subjects to which its 
pages are devoted. Anonymous communications will not hi 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, 
NAMELE5S REMITTERS. 
The Forest and Stream Publishing Co. is holding 
several sums of money which have been sent to it for 
subscriptions and books by correspondents who have 
failed to give name and' address. If this note comes 
to the eye of any such nameless remitter we trust to 
hear from him. 
Forest .'VND Stream is a chosen medium for the inter- 
change of experience, opinion, sentiment and suggestion 
among its sportsmen readers^ and communications on 
these lines are welcomed to its columns. 
MR. LACEY'S BIRD BILL. 
Mr. Lacey^ of Iowa, has again introduced, and in an 
amended form, the bill proposed by him in the recent 
session of Congress to establish under Government super- 
vision the work of introducing and distributing game 
birds. Mr. Lacey's original scheme was to give this 
work into the hands of the Fish Commission, and it is 
understood that strong opposition to it was developed in 
the Commission. As amended, the measure enlarges the 
scope of the Department of Agriculture to comprise a 
game bird distributing bureau; and the Secretary may 
purchase or cause to be captured such wild birds as may 
be thought desirable for stocking purposes. If we are to 
have a national bird distributing agency it would come 
within the province of the Agricultural Department more 
logically than within that of the Fish Commission. 
While, -as has been suggested before, the undertaking 
of stocking game covers belongs legitimately to the in- 
dividual States, there is in the establishment of the Fish 
Commission good precedent for the work as a Government 
enterprise. If a national commission may supply fish fry for 
the waters of the several States, there is no logical reason 
why a national game bird bureau might not supply birds 
to stock the land. It is probable that the work would be 
done much more effectively by the Government than by 
State enterprise, and there would perhaps be more respect 
paid to the protection of the introduced species than if 
the birds were put out by the local authorities. 
A most excellent provision incorporated in Mr. Lacey's 
bill is that relating to the franspo;-tation of game from a 
State or Territory in violation of the State law. While, 
as has been pointed out before, abundant authority is 
vested in each individual State to forbid the export of 
game killed within its borders, and while the United 
States Supreme Court has upheld the statutes to this 
effect and their execution, notably in the case of Geer vs. 
State of Connecticut, it is urged with much show of 
reason that if violations of such laws are classed as 
violations of a national law, and the prosecution of 
violators is placed in the hands of United States agents, 
the very fact that those who infringe the statute have to 
deal with the national Government instead of their local 
authorities would serve to deter infractions of the law. 
There is much reason in the suggestion. 
Another influence of the enactment would tend to 
correct the "constitutional rights" delusion which most 
people honestly entertain respecting this question of game 
transportation, and the other delusion which has to do 
with the interstate commerce aspect of the case. Nine 
men out of ten honestly enough believe that once they 
have captured their game it is theirs absolutely to do 
what they will with it, any restrictive statutes to the con- 
trary notwithstanding; and the usual appeal from the 
operation of the law is to the Constitution of the United 
States, an instrument which is believed in some occult 
way to guarantee the individual full license to do as he 
will with game killed, This serene trust in the Constitu- 
tion would probably abide for all time as against State 
Jaws, but WOUI4 riot prevail >yhen confronted by ^ law 
of Congress. And as for the conventional plea that to 
restrict the export of game from one State to another is 
something which belongs to Congress, since the Constitu- 
tion gives that body the control of interstate commerce — 
with this national statute we shall have an end of that 
too, for Congress will thereby have regulated the inter- 
state commerce in game. The effect of Mr. Lacey's 
measure Avill in this respect be most salutary; and the 
sooner we have such a law the more secure shall we be in 
our game protective systems. 
The trend of opinion and of legislation embodying that 
opinion is in the direction of restricting the transporta- 
tion of game. The expedient is wise and effective. Game 
export should be forbidden, and the traffic should cease. 
For as a matter of fact, to forbid and to cause to stop are 
two entirely distinct propositions. We have local laws 
in a plethora; but in New York City, for instance, the 
sale of game birds is continuous in much of the close 
season. Illicit game is served freely and openly in 
hotels and restaurants. Game dealers handle birds 
shipped to them surreptitiously as poultry or other 
produce. And what is true of New York is true of most 
other cities. There is a widespread faith that if only 
Congress would legislate on the transportation of game 
all this would be changed. We do not fully share that 
trust; but in the particular directions here pointed out 
there is good reason to believe that Mr. -Lacey's measure 
would exercise a most salutary influence. 
THE FIRST NIGHT IN CAMP. 
Is the average man afraid in the woods at night? By 
the average man is meant, of course, one who is unaccus- 
tomed to the woods and im won ted to being out in the 
woods of nights. Experience and observation show 
that the first night in camp is for the novice a season of 
perturbation and ill-defined, or undefinable, apprehensions. 
The night sounds are weird and mysterious, and magnified 
a thousand fold as they insistently bear themselves in 
upon his attention. They are all strange, and that which 
is unknown in the darkness is feared. Thousands of 
campers-out have found their first night one of misery 
by reason of these fears. The creaking of boughs, the 
fall of twigs, the grinding of one branch against another, 
the splash of a frog in a pool, the jumpihg of fish, the 
rustling of field mice, even the light impact of insects 
upon the tent — all these are to the alert and listening 
novice sufficient cause for nervous speculation and terror. 
The fear of the dark is inborn in human nature; and 
many a person who^ finds himself alone in the dark in a 
strange place is given to panic, against which it is usually 
useless to summon the fortitude of reasoning and appeal 
to common sense. It is not in any degree a subject that 
common sense has to do with. Common sense holds sway 
in the sunlight; it may desert one in the darkness. 
As for the average man, he is "scared of the dark" in 
the wQ,ods. However strenuous may be the denial of this 
by one who does deny it, if he would honestly confess, 
and moved by a desire to add his testimony to the actual, 
would give the facts, he would acknowledge the night 
fears of his initiation into- woodcraft. 
The experienced woodsman may laugh at the novice 
and affect to rally him upon his cowardice, but there is 
nothing to be ashamed of in the entertainment of fear in 
the dark. It is human nature, and he who is subject to its 
control need have no false pride to withhold acknowledg- 
ment of it. 
Recent relations of experience in Forest and Stream 
have told of this night fear, and of the satisfaction which 
was felt in the possession of firearms for defense against 
the things of darkness, although the writers appear not to 
have had any tangible notion of what the subjects of . their 
fears actually were. The topic is one on which we 
would be glad to have the testimony of those who would 
care to give it. 
In a recent lecture on the zebras of East Africa, Prof. 
Ewart described the zebra as an animal capable of domes- 
tication as a docile servant of man. But the one in- 
superable obstacle to their usefulness was an uncon- 
trollable and apparently ineradicable tendency to make 
a pr6digious bound if they imagined that something was 
about to leap on them, and they were forever indulging 
just such imaginations. Sometimes a man in the woods is 
much of a zebra. His imagination gets the better of him, 
and he has lots of it. In the dark his imagination teUs 
him that something is going to jump upon him. What it 
is he does not define, nor vaguely conjecture. It is a 
nothing which is to him a something. And the average 
man shies just as the zebra does. 
"THE LARGEST BIRD THAT FLIES." 
The article printed last week on the largest bird that 
flies was of great interest, but an omission from it no 
doubt struck more than one reader. Mr. Harting, al- 
though considering the condor among his largest birds, 
devoted his remarks and citations principally to birds of 
the old world, and said nothing aboitt the American 
turkey, which certainly deserves a place in the list. 
Though more of a walker, the turkey possesses great 
powers of flight, while its weight is unquestionably greater 
than that of any bird given in Mr. Harting's list. It is a 
common matter for the adult male wild turkey to weigh 
more than 20 pounds. We have weighed a gobbler which 
drew down the scale at 32 pounds; Audubon saw one of 
36 pounds, while Bonaparte reported the existence of 
some weighing 40 pounds. These were wild birds and 
well able to fly. The barnyard fowl is • said to attain a 
still greater weight. 
Commenting on this subject, the Osprey refers 
editorially to the harpy eagle, which is thought to be one 
of the heaviest birds of prey, but about the actual weight 
of which nothing very definite is known. 
W e have ourselves killed a wild whistling swan in poor 
condition which weighed 25 pounds, and we do not doubt 
that at times they become considerably larger, perhaps ex- 
ceeding 30 pounds in weight. 
While the turkey is a good flier, its main dependence, of 
course, is on running. It is so swift as often for a time to 
run away from dogs, and in some parts of the Southwest 
it is coursed with greyhounds, being forced to frequent 
flight, and finally run down by the dogs. An illustration 
of this sport is found in Mr. Roosevelt's book "Hunting 
Trips of a Ranchman." In old times, in the Indian Ter- 
ritory, it was not unusual in certain localities for the 
Indians to run down turkeys on their ponies, and In rainy 
or foggy weather when the bird's plumage was water- 
soaked and heavy, we have seen young Pawnee boys run 
down turkeys and capture them on foot. This, of course, 
could take place only in an open country. Among timber 
or underbrush the .turkey can readily outstrip any pursuer. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
We print the text of Senator Hoar's bill for the pro- 
tection of song birds. It is designed to put an end to the 
traffic in bird feathers and thus to the destruction of' 
birds for their plumage. We call attention again to an 
apparent obscurity as to the application of the proposed 
law to game birds. The title of this bill designates it as a 
measure "for the protection of song birds," and the ex- 
ception in the first section "except for food" may extfend 
to the second section forbidding transportation. But. no 
room possible for doubt should be left respecting the ap- 
plication of this measure to such birds only as are not 
game. Congress has already played mischief with the 
game bird interests of this country by' forbidding the 
importation of partridge eggs from Europe. Senator 
Hoar's bill appears to be deficient in providing for the 
enforcement of the law. 
One of the best and most efifective kinds of fish trans- 
planting is that accomplished by the United States Fish 
Commission in saving black bass and other useful fishes 
from the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, and turning them 
into the Potomac River. During the week ending Dec. 
23, 1899, 4,236 black bass, 410 rock bass, 627 crappies, ^5 
white perch, 220 yellow perch, 3,470 catfish, 3,850 sunfish, 
498 carp, 4,800 suckers and about 79,000 minnows were 
seined within a distance of ninety-two mJles, and with the 
exception of the carp, placed in the river. Of the bass, 700 
or 800 were adult fish, and their progeny should number 
many thousands. The minnows, as a matter of course, 
were sent along as food for the bass, and it is safe to say 
that the small catfish and suckers will share the same 
fate. 
We quote from the New York Commission's report Mr, 
James Annin's instructive paper on the winged enemies 
of fish. Mr. Annin's long experience as a fjsfeculturist; 
givgs spepigl value t9 what he writes. 
