348 
FOREST - AND^ STREAM, 
[May s, I goo. 
destroy the insects, which were formerly kept in check by 
the birds. The different States have become aroused to 
the importance and necessity of extending additional 
protection to bird life, and it is to be hoped that Rhode 
Island will set an example which all other States will com- 
mend and follow. 
Excellent work looking toward the protection of bird 
life m this State is being done along other lines than in 
the Legislature. Not the least of these is the educational 
phase whereby the school children are being made better 
acquainted with our native birds. To this end the exer- 
cises in the public schools of Rhode Island for Arbor Day 
(May II) are chiefly devoted to the birds. In his pre- 
factory remarks in the printed programme issued by 
Commissioner of Public Schools Thomas B. Stockwell, he 
says: "The Arbor Day greeting this year comes to you 
in the songs of the birds. * * * But a special reason 
IS to be found this year for studying the bird, his charac- 
ter and his habits, his importance and value, in the threat- 
ened extinction of a large portion of our feathered friends, 
if not of all." The leaflet contains a brief sketch of John 
James Audubon, also a partial list of birds most readily 
to be seen and heard in Rhode Island. The latter, which 
also gives the dates between which each species is here, 
was prepared by James M. Southwick, Curator Roger 
Williams Park Museum. On the outside cover is an ex- 
cellent cut in natural colors of Robin Redbreast. 
Last week Governor Dyer announced the appointments 
of the Commissioners of Inland Fisheries as follows: 
Henry T, Root, of Providence; William P. Morton, of 
these birds one might not kill, but certainly hundreds. 
The burned marsh was alive with them this week all along 
the Kankakee from Lowell to Momence. 
Out Arlington Heights way, where Eddie Bingham 
sometimes gets a nice bag of snipe or plover with the 
Klehm boys, the season has thus far been a failure for 
jacksnipe and plover. Nothing much but upland plover 
has come in. The Klehm boys say that the golden plover 
do not get in around there until about May lo. That is 
after the close of the season in Illinois. The same 
shooters tell me that in August they used to get great 
shooting on upland plover, which breed in this latitude 
and vicinity in great numbers. They say the upland 
plover is a good game bird in the late summer and early 
fall, flying strong and rising wild. They do not shoot 
these birds in the spring. 
I fear that Italian Joe is a disappointed man this spring, 
for the new law cut him off from his annual go at "de 
plov'." That is to say, it probably did if he thought of 
the law, though I do not believe there has been flight 
enough to tempt him very much. 
Speaking of Arlington Heights reminds me of a con- 
versation I had with old man Klehm, father of the Klehm 
boys, to whom reference was made above. He tells me 
that he came to Chicago in 1854, and moved out to what 
is now a point many miles Avithin the thickly settled part 
of the city. Arlington Heights is twenty-three miles 
from the center of Chicago, but that was in those days too 
far for any one to think of going, if he wanted to hunt 
ducks, chickens or even deer. All the country out as far 
as_ where Arlington Heights now stands was then covered 
with timber. It was before the use of coal in railway 
history, as shown, will surely appeal to all America 
sportsmen. We shall see the past as well as the presei 
and see reproduced the wild life of that past as well as tii 
busy commercial life of to-day. The buffalo and the bea 
must figure in this picture of the past, we must see th 
trapper and the Indian once more. Already we are be 
ginning to try to show this generation what a generatio' 
was the one that preceded it in this great West, what 
generation of heroes, of mighty men, of adventurers witl' 
out fear. If Congress can aid in this exposition, surely ' 
were very well. The West is fading away, passing, dyin^. 
Let us see the old West once more. It is the last tributt 
Let the tribute be a noble one, before we say good-by t 
the great West, whose grave was dug with the plow. 
Distinguished Visitors. 
Two distinguished sportsmen are on Chicago's lists th 
week and next. Governor Theodore Roosevelt was hei 
for a day this week, and remained but too short a tinii 
Admiral Dewey, who is something of a shot himsel 
arrives early this coming week. Governor Roosevelt is 0 
the Chicago slate for President of the United States i- 
1904; if not then, some other year. We dqn't want anj 
body for President who is not a good shot, 
Minnesota Park. 
Nothing new comes to light regarding the Minnesot 
Park Bill for a joint commission of inquiry, which bi 
still remains in the hands of the sub-committee, but n 
ne\ys is good news in such a case, and Col. Cooper n 
mains sanguine. 
Johnsboro; J. M. K. Southwick, of Newport; Charles W. 
Willard, of Westerly; William H. Boardman, of Cumber- 
land, and Herman C. Bumpus, of Providence. The only 
change from the old board is the appointment of William 
H. Boardman in place of Adelbert Roberts, of Woon- 
socket. The latter's friends are asking why this change 
was made. . Mr. Roberts has been very active in the stock- 
ing of streams with trout and other fish, has been alert in 
enforcing the laws in this regard, and has the respect of 
hundreds of true anglers in that section of the State. 
W. H. M. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
Ending of the Snipe Season, 
Chicago, 111., April 28. — The snipe season came to a 
legal end in Illinois last Wednesday, and is drawing to a 
natural end in Indiana now from day to day, the birds 
seeming gradually to vanish into unknown regions. This 
•spring has added to the regular reputation of the jack- 
snipe as a strictly unreliable individual, for never have the 
birds been so hard to get a line upon. They do not act 
with any common intelligence, or with the least reference 
to precedents. They have for the past week been resorting 
to the wide wet marsh, where the high waters have kept the 
grounds drowned, and where no worm with any self- 
respect would be found. On this sort of country the 
jacks were wild as hawks, and hard enough it was to get 
together a decent bag of them. Billy Mussey, who went 
down to Maksawba a week ago, came back with a bag of 
eighteen, killed on one day. but he said he used over 
100 shells to kill them — and Billy is a very good snipe 
shot. too. On the day following his trip, the weather cam.e 
off cold and rainy, which was perhaps what the birds had 
in mind. At that time there were several Chicago soorts- 
.tnen at the club, among these Mayor Harrison. ex-Mayor 
Washburne, Mr. Jesse Sherwood, etc. All of these had 
but mediocre sport, the birds not handling well. There 
has hardly been been a really good day yet this spring 
for jacksnipe shooting, and no extraordinary bags have 
been made. The birds are now leaving for the North, and 
though there may be some shooting of consequence this 
coming week, when the warm weather has tamed them 
down a bit, it nsay safely be said that the edge is off the 
soine season. • • _ 
There were millions of sand shine on the Kankakee 
Marsh this week, but no one shoots them except as chance 
brings it about. The yellowleg crop has also been very 
heavy, and some of our gunners are coming to look with 
more favor on this long-legged and harmless little fellow, 
a'? the iack-^nine =upplv becomes more and more cut down. 
Seme big hns": of yellowleg? were made ibis pa<=t week, 
the be=t mixed bag of which I hear being twelve jacksnipe 
and forty-two yellowlegs in one dav. No one works hard 
to get yellowleps otit here. With blind and decoys, such 
sts tin the Ea^ern coeust, I do not kiKoiw Kc^W Mamy df 
locomotives, and a man bought all that timber land and 
denuded it of its timber for use as fuel in railway engines. 
When the trees were slashed down, the deer used to come 
and feed on the tops, and Mr. Klehm says he often killed 
deer far inside of what is now Chicago. He killed all the 
prairie chickens he wanted within a few minutes' walk 
of his house. Snipe and plover no one would think of 
shooting in those days. He trapped many mink in the 
ditches (where the mink go out after crawfish), and he 
heard of one otter that was caught at what was then called 
Douglas Grove. He caught several opossums one winter, 
and this was the only time he ever knew of the opossum 
being seen around Chicago. He caught them inside what 
is now the western boundary of Chicago. All over that 
country now are the houses of the big city, and Arlington 
Heights suburb is full of greenhouses, nurseries and 
business places, and all about are little farms. Strange 
enough seems this talk of the early part of this half-cen- 
tury. Yet even now the old ground holds a few prairie 
chickens, and the plover are not unknown, and the mink 
still leave their tracks along the farm ditches. 
The St. Louis Exposition. 
A committee of St. Louis citizens this week appeared at 
Washington to ask Congress for an appropriation to aid in 
the building of the St. Louis Exposition in 1903. The 
city asks $5,000,000, and it shows $10,000,000 raised by its 
own efforts as warrant of proper support from the com- 
m.unity most concerned. It is earnestly to be hoped bv 
every Western man that this appropriation will be granted, 
and this great exposition will be a success. 
The St. Louis Exposition is to be held in celebration of 
the_ centenary of the Louisiana Purchase, that lucky act 
which robbed France of an empire, but which placed an 
empire in our hands. The States of Louisiana, Arkansas. 
Missouri, Iowa, North and South Dakota, and parts of the 
States of Minnesota, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Kan- 
sas and the Indian Nations came to us in that purchase. 
Take those States out of the Union and what would the 
Union be? Its power and permanence would be seriously 
impaired. ' The region above noted has been the sporting 
gro.md of a generation, and may be for yet another 
though subiect to a change so rapid that not the widest 
or wisest visiofi could forecast the half of it. This is the 
region which produced the hunter and- the trapper,- whose 
figures will long remain as part of our national history; - 
This was the land which saw the buffalo multioly, and 
which saw them disarspear. It was the land where our 
fathers fought the Indian<; and penned them up. It is the 
land which saw the growth of the romantic and remark- 
able fur trade, the fur trade of the great Northwest. It 
is the land of the Missouri River, that stream whose name 
means ?o nuich to the adventurers of not more than a 
score of years ago. - 
The hi^^tory of this wonderful land, this region pronerly 
to be called the Great West of America, is to be told in 
grafihie fei^sois at this ctenten&ry - expOsitlOiii antt that 
Apropos of the park matter, a very cogent reason fc 
its establishment might be seen this week out in Minncsotii- 
in shape of m.any miles of blackened and wasted forer 
lands. Heavy fires have been raging west of Graui 
Rapids, out toward this very proposed park region, j 
good forest patrol will be one of the features of ou 
Northern forest lands one of these great days. 
A Sportsmen's Show for Chicago, 
A movement is in progress this week for the establish 
ment of a sportsmen's show to be held in Chicago ne> 
December, the matter being taken up by a gentleman con 
nected with the expositions of such nature in the Eas; 
It is the intention to enlist Chicago capital for this entei 
prise, and the matter is not yet assured. It seems lilcel 
there may be a good field here for a good show of thi 
sort, and it might perhaps have vogue if handled in thi 
right way by the right man. Such an undertaking her 
would need money enough to assure the best sportsmen' 
show yet given. Chicago might indorse it if it were bi; 
enough and good enough, but it must be complete 
original, and not any half-way attempt, else the enterpns 
might _ rapidly verge upon experiment. It is too earl-i 
to go into details regarding this, and the gentleman \v\v 
has sought to initiate the work here has returned th' 
week to New York, intending a later visit here to p.i 
upon the situation as it then appears. Chicago support 
the horse show and the dog show nicely, and she has ;: 
nice following for athletics. If this thing shall be properlv 
staged, it may be the beginning of a very useful fixture' 
but the am.usement game m Chicago must be a little bigge 
and brighter and better than anywhere else in the world 
People in New York and Boston will go to almost anv 
sort of a show, because it makes them forget for the tim( 
that they live in New York or Boston, just as the flea- 
on David Harum.'s dog made him forget he was a dog' 
but out here, where life is bright and joyful, we are verj 
select. We must have a show where Madison Squan 
Garden can be hid and not noticed, and where the city oi 
Boston can be put in one of the galleries and lost. 
. Lt(c6;y..Mr, Kinney. 
-Mr. Jack Kinney, up" at Bea-vfer Darn, Wis., not far fron- 
where Kekoskee is l6cated, had a fairish bit of luck the 
other day. He was fishing for perch-, and all he asked ir 
the world was to be left alone. He did not ex-nect to catcl- 
a $10,000 heiress or a prize in the lotterv, and he did not 
even demand that his prey should be the lordly bass ot 
the affable oickerel. He was fishing for perch, and he wa? 
content with perch. All at once he felt a pull which he 
took to mean that he had hold of a big one. He vanked. 
did Mr. Kinney, and he then had trouble. When he land"d 
his fi=h it was a duck — a nice, fat bluehill duck, which 
Mr. Kinney bore home with smiles and gladness. It is not 
often, in this heartless and cruel world, that one goes 
fishing ftJr perch anti Ciitohcs a dHcfe Much mors apt 
