Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1900, by Forest(And Stream Publishing Co. 
Terms, |4'a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1900. 
J VOL. LIV.— No. 6. 
I No. 846 Broadway, New York 
The Forest and Stream is the recognized medium of entertain- 
ment, instruction and informatiorv 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 full 
particulars respecting subscriptions, see prospectus oh page iv. 
Forest and 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. 
SPORT, 
Who shall say in what true sport consists when there 
is such diversity of opinion concerning it? Is it in the 
bigness of the score? One might think so, since, while 
wc deny excess, we are all so prone to boast of it. Is 
it, as some maintain, exercise of the skill required to 
find and bring down the game, to lure and catch the fish? 
Is it in the difficulties overcome, or risk of danger? 
Punch's English gentleman says to his German shooting 
friend, "The fact is, I care very little for shooting if there 
is not an element of danger." "Ach! Den you zhould 
go zhooding vid me! Vy, it vas only lash dveek I zhod 
my brodder-in-law in ze shdummerg." Or, as some 
say, the best of sport is in the intimate acquaintance 
with nature to which it brings one. 
One sportsman cannot understand how another finds 
sport only at the risk of his life. As for himself, he has 
lost no grizzly bears, nor does he desire a shot at a 
mountain sheep or goat enough to endanger his neck 
for the sake of getting it. Indeed, he foreswears his 
favorite sport of deer hunting, since the chances of 
being shot have become as great as those of getting a 
shot at the game. Safety and comfort are essential to 
his sport. He would not freeze in a blind at the risk of 
pneumonia for all the wildfowl that swim, nor parboil 
himself and brave the stings of mosquitoes incompati- 
ble in the mirky midsummer atmosphere of the swamp, 
though woodcock were as plenty as the insects. Count- 
less trout could not tempt him to suffer all day the dis- 
comfort of wet feet and legs in the ice cold brook, with 
the consequent chances of rheumatism. 
If he could he would pursue his sport as did Kubla 
Kahn in a spacious chamber, luxuriously furnished and 
victualed and borne by elephants. Seated or stretched 
at ease therein, the mighty potentate watched the flight 
of his falcons or the coursing of his leopards, or let fly 
his arrows. Surely this was the refinement of luxurious 
sportsmanship. 
The man who estimates his day's sport by the size of 
his bag simply disbelieves the' man who professes to be 
satisfied with a little or even nothing tangible to show 
for his outing. He thinks it a case to which the fable 
of the fox and the grapes is applicable. How can there 
be sport without the excitement of frequent shots and 
the possession and exercise of skill which makes them 
successful? He scoffs at the idea of associating field 
sports with love of nature, yet no one can become a 
successful shooter or angler without acquaintance with 
the habits and haunts of the objects of his pursuit, 
which means in some sort the study of nature, which 
surely begets love of her. One must know when, where 
and on what his game feeds; when and where it rests, 
and its various haunts at different seasons. Then he 
sees how admirably adapted each is to its manner of life. 
How formed to obtain its food, to catch its prey, to 
escape its enemies; how colored, dull or bright, to 
escape detection, yet always in some way beautiful as are 
its surroundings and the whole great universe. 
Thus one unwittingly becomes a i student of nature 
and consequently her lover, until at last the study and 
the love become the chief attractions of fields, woods 
and waters, wherein he finds satisfaction and brings 
home rich spoils, though they yield little or nothing to 
,gun and rod that now are only cpnyeiiiejit pretexts for 
.§pen^ing the abroad. x j 
A NATURE STUDY STATION. 
The New York Legislature will be asked to make provi- 
sion for the establishment of a biological station. The 
project has its origin with the New York State League 
and the Fish and Game Association of the Cayuga Lake 
Basin — has for its object the establishment of a New 
York State Biological Station. 
So much is known in these days of the usefulness of 
biological surveys and the good work done by the biolog- 
ical stations in some States that their value is generally 
recognized. Prominent among such local stations is that 
of Illinois, which, under the very efficient superintendence 
of Prof. S. A. Forbes, has accomplished a great deal for 
that State. 
The announced purpose of such a station for New York 
is the making careful investigations and practical experi- 
ments to determine the nature, habits, good and needs 
of the fish, game and insectivorous and song birds of this 
State; to determine the causes of decrease of these crea- 
tures ; to determine what measures can be taken to re- 
duce their enemies, increase their natural food supply and 
shelter, and secure such natural or modified conditions as 
should lead to their abundance throughout the State; to 
propagate not only the desirable creatures named above, 
but also their natural food supply; to study and experi- 
ment with the best methods of introducing beneficial 
species and to show what measures can be taken to 
help them become acclimated and to provide for their 
winter feeding and shelter; to obtain material for pub- 
lication to enlighten the residents of our State upon these 
practical matters; to obtain facts upon which proper 
legislation can be based to secure the effective protection 
and maintenance of desirable species and the destruction 
of obnoxious kinds; to obtain facts that may be useful 
to teachers of nature study, natural history, biology, 
botany, zoology, ornithology, ichthyology, or forestry in 
our State. 
Such a station under the management of the right kind 
of a man, who should be not only a trained observer, but 
also familiar with the fauna of the State, would be con- 
tinually acquiring knowledge in regard to the fish, the 
birds and the game. It would be a source from which 
legislators could draw information, acts, bills which they 
wished to introduce, it could express opinions on those 
that had been introduced and came up for executive ac- 
tion, and could recommend others that were necessary. 
It would have charge of the fostering of our useful ani- 
mals, and could consider the introduction of exotic 
species. In a word, the usefulness of such an institu- 
tion properly conducted, might be, and should be, so great 
that in a very short time it would add to the natural 
wealth of the State far more than the appropriation 
needed to carry it on from yea? to year. 
THE FLUME BILL. 
The proposed amendment to Section 78 of the New 
York game law has caused more or less excitement among 
bird collectors and members of the Audubon Society, and 
has led to many remarks, public and private, which are to 
be regretted. All individuals interested in birds and bird 
protection desire to see the provisions of the law which 
bear on this subject strengthened so that they may be 
actually effective, but there is a wide difference of opinion 
as to how this may best be done, and a general feeling 
that it is better to leave the law as it is than to make 
amendments to it, which would bring it still more into 
contempt than now. The impression prevails that the 
amended bill was not sufficiently considered before its 
form was decided on. Besides those who have spoken 
about this amendment in public, many persons genuinely 
interested in the work of the Audubon Societies have 
protested against this bill on various grounds, of which the 
more important are that the law, if amended, as proposed, 
by the Hallock bill, would be impossible of enforcement 
and would leave matters just where they are at present; 
and that the amended law is so loosely worded as to be 
capable of great abuse. 
It is obvious therefore that the proposed amend- 
ment should have been drawn by a lawyer who would 
have considered the matter in all its bearings and would 
have so worded it that there would have been some 
prospect of its being enforced. A clause should be in- 
serted tp tjie effect th^t the provisions of this act sj^aft 
not apply to birds which can be shown to have been 
possessed prior to the enactment of the law. Another 
helpful and popularizing amendment would be the re- 
duction of the penalties for violation of the act. With a 
fine of $5 instead of $25, there would be some chance of 
getting a conviction by a jury. What the Audubon So- 
cieties and all who are interested in the protection of birds 
wish to accomplish is to put an end to the destruction 
from this time forward, and the changes suggested would 
be much more likely to accomplish this than would the 
passage of the bill as introduced. The attributing of 
sinister motives to the promoters of the measure is to 
be deprecated, and all the more because it tends to 
befog the issue. The work of Messrs. Chapman and 
Butcher in ornithology and bird protection is so well 
known that their impelling motives are not to be mis- 
understood when they seek only the more adequate pro- 
tection of our birds of song and plume. 
NATURAL HISTORY IN SCHOOL. 
The Mayne Reid bear story reprinted in another column 
is from the original, as contained in the "Hunters' Feast." 
It is a tale delightfully told. After one has read it for 
the story, it is worth while noting how ingenuously the 
material is handled, and how, as a good playright, the 
author introduces the personages of his play on the stage, 
each in his proper time, exhibits them as they play their 
part and then in due order removes them from our gaze. 
It is a drama of the canyon well played ; and no wonder 
the exciting incidents have been retained in memory. 
With all of Mayne Reid's fidelity to truth in his descrip- 
tion of the ways of wild animals, he shared some of the 
errors of his time. In this story is repeated the old 
myth of the mountain sheep hurling itself head fore- 
most from a cliff, striking safely on its horns and somer- 
saulting to its feet. For Reid it is to be said that he 
was only repeating a notion very generally held then and 
now. And the bighorn incident as he tells it is in- 
significant in comparison with the version given in the 
"Progressive Third Reader." We have received a copy 
of the Reader, dog-eared, thumb-marked, broken-backed 
and ragged and tattered from much use, and bearing on 
the inside front cover the name of George A. Willey, 
Plaiston, N. H. The editor of the Reader explains in his 
list of contents that the story of the grizzly bears is 
adapted from Reid. It is adapted with a vengeance. The 
paragraph describing the tumble of the animal from the 
cliff reads thus : 
"Suddenly a hollow crack sounded from above, like the 
breaking of a dead tree. We looked up and saw an animal 
tumbling downward from a projecting ledge half-way up 
the cliff. In an instant he struck the earth, head fore- 
most, and bounding to the height of several feet, came 
back with a somerset on his legs and stood firmly. An 
involuntary shout broke from the hunters; for a huge 
moose stood before them." 
Perhaps the school-book maker considered this particu- 
lar incident a sketch of the imagination, and was emulous 
to outdo the original, reflecting that "one might as well be 
hanged for a sheep as for a lamb." Or, more likely, big- 
horn and moose were all one to him. 
Our correspondent who writes of duck shooting on 
Oregon slashes opines that the term slash, as applied to 
swampy or wet lands, must have been of Northwestern 
origin. Such is fame. For once upon a time this country 
knew throughout the length and breadth of the land the 
"Mill-boy of the Slashes," as Henry Clay was named 
by his followers, from the fact of his birth and boyhood 
in the slashes of Kentucky. For Clay there were mass 
meetings and barbecues and torch-light processions, and a 
devotion of partisans not less strong than that accorded 
any other American who has ever lived ; and wide as his 
popularity was the fame of the slashes, to have been 
born; in which was counted to his credit. All this was 
long before Oregon came into the Union ; so long ago in- 
deed that the "Mill-boy of the Slashes" has been for- 
gotten. The term is an old one. Bartlett classes it as an 
Americanism; but it was probably of still earlier origin, 
for Berkeley, writing of game in Virginia in 1705, says: 
"Although the inner lands want the benefit of game 
(which, however, no pond or slash is withouOi 7?t ^ven 
they Jiave the advantage @f wild-turkeeys." 
