464 
FOREST AND^STHEAM*. 
lesson that, like the people, the animals have feelings 
which should be respected. 
Besides being a resort, the smoking room was also a 
publication othce. Before the ship had been long on its 
way,, it appeared that among its freight there was a 
considerable quantity of poetic talent, trom time to time 
this made itself apparent m rhyme, doggerel or even some- 
times in actual poetry, which would be discovered tacked 
up against the walls, and the news that a new poem had 
been written, spreading quickly through the ship, would 
bring to the smoking room a crowd eager to read the 
effusion, and to speculate as to who was its probable 
author. Most of these poems were unsigned, but some bore 
initials familiar enough to readers of the magazines, and 
belonging to one irreverently designated by another author 
as an "old literary war horse." If a poem was unsigned, 
interest in it was heightened, and if it contained some bit 
.of good-natured satire aimed at a member of the party, 
'the allusion being at once recognized, curiosity as to the 
author was increased and furnished food for much conver- 
sation. It was often interesting to listen to the clever 
evasions practiced by some man on whom suspicion had 
fastened, and who, unwilling, if guilty, to acknowledge the 
responsiljiHty for what had been written, and, if innocent, 
equally unwilling to positively deny its authorship, strove 
to throw the questioner off the scent, and to clear his own 
skirts, or in some way to mislead the person who was 
striving to pin him down to facts. _ - 
A feature of the smoking room poetry which was not 
without interest was the fact that many a new poem there 
published drew out from some one of its readers a reply 
or a parody. Often the reply would be written by some 
individWal who fancied that he saw in the original poem 
place for all men, most of whom were specialists, any one 
who desired information about most of the sciences or 
subjects represented on board went there to find the per- 
son whom he wished to question. If he wanted to ask 
about Alaska in general, or about geology, botany, glaciers 
or Indians, he went off to the smoking room, but if his 
inquiry was about birds or mammals, he turned in another 
direction. The chart room had been given over as a work 
room to the bird and mammal men, and it was here that 
they prepared their specimens and stood ready to answer 
questions. 
In fine weather the" hurricane deck was a favorite 
lounging place. Here in the Ice of the chart room, 
sheltered from the wind and warmed by the sun, a group 
of idlers usually reclined in steamer chairs_ reading, chat- 
ting or working. In good weather the ship's boats, too, 
were a favorite resort for sight seers and for groups of 
young people who wished to hear stories of distant lands 
or of strange people told by flattered narrators, or to re- 
ceive lessons in g(^ology, geography or biology from 
good-natured and helpful naturalists. 
At times, when for several days a landing was not 
made, the exercise needed by the ship's company was had 
in various waj's. Often at night there would be heard 
for hours the steady tramp on the hurricane deck of 
some who were walking back and forth, back and forth, as 
a matter of serious duty. Often, too, the small children, 
and some others of greater stature, engaged in riotous 
games of tag about the saloon deck, and it was a pleasing 
sight to see inen whose beards had been silvered by many 
3^ears of work, or whose heads, in war time, would have 
been a distinct disappointment to the conventional North 
American Indian, racing to and fro, dodging around 
The Heath Hen* 
The sportsman's journal, Forest and Stream, makes 
an earnest appeal for preventing the extinction of the 
heath hen, a game bird of the grouse family, formerly 
living in all the Eastern States, but now found only in 
Martha's Vineyard, where it is believed there are not 
more than fifty, all told. These are now hunted, not so 
much for the market as for collectors of specimens, who 
realize that they must procure one now or never. The 
price set on the head of each bird is $25, or even more, a 
temptation that .incites to great perseverance in exter- 
minating them. This seems to Forest and Stream 
a wicked and cruel thing. It calls for the passage and 
enforcement of a rigid law for their preservation, but 
has little hope that it can be secured. Perhaps it is as 
well. If the killing could be stopped now, the flock might 
indeed increase. As sure as it did, the men who shoot 
birds for mere sport would clamor for a chance at them. 
It is not the ultimate happiness of the birds that the class 
represented by Forest and Stream have in mind in plead- 
ing for the preservation of the kind, nor even the satis- 
faction of having them as an article of food, but the future 
sport of shooting them. Except for the numbers that 
have been killed in sport, we suspect there would be no 
danger of the extinction of the family, and no present 
urgency for securing specimens for ornithological jnu- 
scums. The sportsmen have small reason for condemning 
a reference to himself, and who took this method of get- 
ting even, in kind, with the supposed author of the attack. 
It must be remembered that aii this written material was 
in the nature of the most good-natured chaff, and that 
nothing ever appeared with the slightest intention of 
being taken in the least seriously. 
From' its name the smoking room should have been a 
place for smokers, but sometimes when three or four of 
these were comfortably sitting there, each in his corner, 
buried in his book and putting out dense volumes of 
smoke, it would be visited by some non-smoker, who 
would declare that the atmosphere was terrible, that the 
air could be cut with a knife, and would insist on opening 
all the doors; and windows. ^ This seemed to the smokers 
a little hard, but they bore it shivering. 
The position of champion story teller of the smoking 
room would perhaps be yielded to a man from the West, 
. just as an' Eastern man was the authority to whom all 
went when information was required about Alaska, its 
llistory and its fatma and flora. Other men had special 
knowledge, about special objects, but no member of 
all the ship's company had so broad an equipment of 
general information as the authority on Alaska, and per- 
haps no one possessed so broad and so judicial a mind, 
^nd could give on almost any subject so unprejudiced and 
fair an opinion. 
The entertainment in the saloon was usually over soon 
after 9 o'clock ; from that time until 10 the smoking room 
was crowded; by 10 it had begun to thin out, as the men 
•retired to' tlieir staterooms, and before ii o'clock only the 
owls were tip. Soon after this there would perhaps be 
an adjournment to the cabin for some supper, and by 
midnight the lights were out, and all the ship's company, 
except the officers on watch, were in bed. 
When the smoking room was full, the gathering was 
curiously diverse. There were men who talked all the 
time, and others who never spoke at all. Some groups of 
talkers discussed various branches of science, and some 
big-game hunting or , bird-shooting, or ^yachting. Those 
who" talked were all interested and enjoying themselves 
hugely, while the silent ones had quite as good a tinie as 
listeners.- " ' ' 
Another ftinctioti performed by the .smoking room was 
that of ^ifs encyclopedia. Because it w^s a gathering 
WILD FOWL AVIARY. 1, 
, Copyright, 1900. by N. Y, Zoological Society. . ?; 
pillars and leaping over hatchways and deck beams, In 
the effort to escape the children who were pursuing them. 
Often, too, in rainy and foggy weather there would be a 
procession of people tramping in single file round and 
round the narrow gangway of the saloon deck, sometimes 
singing at the tops of their voices, at others whistling in 
unison a lively march. 
On a few occasions, when important celebrations had 
taken place, the ship's company burst forth into noisy 
rioting, and individuals from seven to seventy years of 
age shouted, sang, danced and ran races until dark. 
The fact that during the sixty days of the trip the 
weather was always calm, made sea sickness almost an 
unknown malady on board the ship. There were, it is 
true, occasions when a slight motion of the vessel caused 
a few men to omit their meals, but even these were 
not so ill but that the smell of a Welsh rarebit at 11 or 12 
o'clock at night would bring them sniffing out of their 
staterooms to partake of the good things that were going. 
One eminent man — not himself a biologist, but interested 
in all science — ^propounded to one of the mammal men a 
new and infallible method by which rabbits might be cap- 
tured. He said : "AH you have to do is to hide behind a 
rock and make a noise like a turnip, and the rabbit will at 
once come straight up to you." This was paraphrased by 
the chairman of the Big Game Committee, who declared 
that he had at last discovered a certain remedy for sick- 
ness. This was to go into the ship's cabin and make a 
noise like a Welsh rarebit, when all the seasick men would 
come directly to^ him, cured. 
Perhaps the most singular thing about this trip, and ' 
about these fifty people who for two months were shut 
up together on board ship, was that all were smiling, good 
natured, jolly and helpful from the beginning of the trip 
until its very end. No one had dyspepsia or was nervous ; 
no one turned curtly on some pertinacious inquirer who 
failed altogether to comprehend an explanation; no one 
was ever abrupt or short in his replies. Unfailing^ cour- 
tesy, patience and helpfulness was the rule. which_ in 
this case was not proved by any exception. At no time 
was there the slightest friction, and the members of the 
party who at the beginning had met as strangers, or as 
slight acquaintances, parted at its end with feelings of 
warm friendship for each other. G, B. G, 
the collectors. Their motive is not a superior one.— 
Boston Herald, June 2. 
Boston, June 2.— To the Editor of the Boston Herald : 
Will you permit me to express in your columns my very 
strong dissent from the conclusions of your editorial 
in this morning's issue on "The Heath Hen"? You cor- 
rectly report the earnest appeal made by the sportsman's 
journal, Forest and Stream, for the protection of the 
heath hen, the Eastern cousin of the "prairie chicken," 
once to be found over a considerable extent of territory, 
but now reduced to a very few specimens on the island of 
Martha's Vineyard. You add the statement that it is 
perhaps as well that there is little chance for the enact- 
ment of a rigid law for the preservation of this remnant, 
as even if this could be secured and the flock increased* 
"the men who shoot birds for mere sport would clamor 
for a chance at them," and you say that the class oi 
persons represented by Forest and Stream have in mind 
in pleading for the preservation of this species not the 
happiness of the birds nor even the satisfaction of having 
them as an article of food, but the future sport of shoot- 
ing them, and that it is the killing of them for sport 
which threatens their extinction, and that the niotive of 
Forest and Stream should not command attention. 
As one who has for years had special interest ic 
preservation of this most interesting bird, the Mart! f 
Vineyard heath hen, and who knows well the noble ser\ 
of Forest and Stream in all that pertains to the intere 
of the noble study of natural history, I wish to express t 
surprise and regret at the Herald editorial. 
I think it evidently based on an entire misconception 
of the motives of the gentlemen who are conducting 
Forest and Stream, which, while it is indeed a ''sports- 
man's journal," is at the same time the paper which has 
done more than any other agency in this country, perhaps 
more than all others combined, to discourage wanton sport 
and butchery, to encourage "hunting with the camera," 
to preserve in the interest of science all rare and interest- 
ing forms of animal and plant life now threatened with 
extinction, to secure the reservation of parks and wild 
lands for the perpetual enjoyment of the student of nature, 
and, in short, to turn the modern reckless vandalism of 
our people into wise and thoughtful preservation of tji^ 
