Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1900, by Forest and Stream Publishing Go. 
Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. ) 
Six Months, $2. ) 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1900, 
( VOL. LV.— No. 9. 
( No. 846 Broadway, New YoRy 
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 be 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 lor six months. For club rates and full 
particulars respecting subscriptions, see prospectus on page iii. 
ANNOUNCEMENT. 
We shall begin next week the publication of two im- 
portant series of papers of practical sportsmanship, each 
of which will extend through several issues. The first 
series will be on 
American Wildfowl and How to Take Them. 
By George Bird Grinnell. The chapters first to be pub- 
lished will give a general description of the duck family 
as useful to man, together with a particular description of 
each individual of the family, including the swans, geese, 
brant and ducks, with illustrations by Edwin Sheppard, 
the well-known illustrator of Baird, Brewer and Ridg- 
way's ''Water Birds" and other works. By means of the 
text and pictures to be given in Forest and Stream 
it will be practicable for the novice to learn his ducks 
and for the older gunner readily and certainly to identify 
any strange fowl that may fall to his gun. The second 
series of papers will be on 
Training the Hunting Dog for the Field and 
Field Trials. 
By B. Waters. This is an exhaustive and in every sense 
practical manual of instruction for developing the field 
dog for its highest usefulness as an adjunct to the gun 
in the field; and the successive chapters will command 
attention by reason of the common-sense and efficient 
system set forth. These are among the features which 
in the months to come will maintain the interest and 
usefulness of the Forest and Stream as a sportsman's 
journal. \ - ^ 
IN THE WILD RICE FIELDS. 
Scattered over the northern country between the 
Hudson River and the Missouri are many thousands oC 
reedy swamps and shallow lakes, and great stretches of 
wet meadow land, where the wild rice grows. In the 
spring, so soon as the water is warmed by the genial 
rays of the advancing -sun, the tiny pale green spears 
show themselves above its surface, and, all through the 
hot summer, grow taller and stouter, until, whien August 
comes, the tasseled heads begin to bow with the weight 
of the flowers, and a little later the soft, milky grain 
appears in a waving crop. In the good old times, be- 
fore the white man's foot had explored every recess of 
our land or his plough furrowed every prairie, or his 
crooked gray fences disfigured each landscape, these rice 
fields were the homes of innumerable wild creatures. 
On their borders the herons built their nests, and in 
the open waters, among the stalks, they did their fishing. 
In and out among the stems, the wild ducks and grebes 
swam in daily journeyings, while the rails and the coots 
ran or waded or climbed among the stalks undisturbed. 
Here the muskrat had his f^me, living, in the sum- 
mer, perhaps, in a hole on some higher piece of ground 
and in winter building for himself from the reeds and the 
stems of the rice a house, sohd, substantial and im- 
pervious to the cold. Here too lived thz mink, taking 
his daily toll of fish or frogs from the water, sometimes 
killing the muskrat and now and then feasting greedily 
on the eggs or the young of some bird whose nest he 
had despoiled. 
Among the rice or the reeds the blackbirds built their 
hanging nests of grass, supported by three or four natural 
columns, and all through the heat of the June days the 
mother bird brooded her pale blue, black- streaked eggs, 
swinging easily to the movement of the rice stems, like 
the sailor in his hammock at sea. More solid and sub- 
stantial were the houses built by the marsh wrens; round 
balls of grass, deftly woven about a stalk of the rice, 
roofed oyer as well as floored, and with only a narrow 
hole for the passage in and out of the tiny owner. Some- 
times a single pair built half a dozen of these nests near 
one another before making a habitation that pleased 
them, and those that they had left were taken by the 
bumblebees for homes in which to do their housekeeping. 
Rarely, in such marshes, might be found the nest of 
the great gray goose; the female brooding her eggs on 
a solid nest placed on a foundation of reeds and grass, 
the faithful gander not far from his mate, ready at an 
instant's warning to fight bravely in her defense, should 
prowling fox or coon or wolf approach his home. Then, 
after the yellow goslings were hatched, the pair led them 
by well-known paths hither and thither through the rice 
fields, telling them where the best food was to be found, 
where danger might lurk, and teaching them how to 
live their lives. 
But it was when autumn came and the ripened grain, 
loose now in its husks, began, as the breezes blew, to 
drop down into the water below, that the greatest ac- 
cessions came to the life of the wild rice fields. Now 
from the north, singly and by tens and hundreds and 
thousands, came flying the hordes of water fowl which 
had been hatched and reared toward the borders of the 
Arctic Sea. Their numbers were beyond belief, and such 
as no man of the present day can hope to see again. 
Flock after flock, they came dropping down into the 
marsh, until the open spots were crowded with their 
dark bodies, and from the concealment of the reeds, 
where no water could be seen, tumultuous clamorings 
told of other thousands hidden there. In those days, 
when ducks were food for the infrequent dwellers of those 
regions, the single discharge of a gun would supply the 
hunter with birds enough for several days; then, no one 
thought of shooting ducks or geese except to eat, and 
indeed ammunition was often far too valuable to be 
wasted on birds. In the old days it was the practice of 
the Indians, when camped on the borders of the wild 
rice lakes of Minnesota and Manitoba, to enter the water, 
and, fixing a chaplet of grass or rushes about the head, to 
wade very slowly close to the flocks of unsuspecting fowl, 
and, seizing them by the feet, to draw them, one by one, 
beneath the water until enough birds had been obtained 
to satisfy their wants. 
To such lakes and sloughs, where the birds regularly 
came to feed on their migration, the gunners of years 
ago used to resort, and, taking station on some point of 
land or on a muskrat house or in a boat concealed in 
reeds, to have, without the use of decoys, such shooting 
as to-day is hardly dreamt of. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
In the autumn of the year 1S40 the first white explorers 
of California, whose adventures were forcibly told in 
1898 by our correspondent Mr. H. G. Dulog, reported 
that in the waters of the Gulf of California they saw a 
great serpent. As described by Martinez, who chron- 
icled the adventures of the little band, its head was of 
the bigness of a wine cask and it had eyes about the 
size of a breastplate and long white teeth, As it swam 
fast through the water about 200 paces from the shore 
it held its head high above the surface, and over the 
waves were seen from six to nine folds of its swimming 
body. In the summer of 1900 — ^360 years later — certain 
Americans who were engaged in the contemplative pur- 
suit of fishing in these same waters — off Guaymas — saw 
and promptly reported another sea serpent whose de- 
scription would well enough fit the one reported by 
Martinez. Thus, after three and one-half centuries comes 
to us confirmation of the observations of Father Jayme, 
Martinez, Estreda and Bejar. 
There are many idle hours in camp — hours when for 
one reason or another neither fishing nor hunting is in 
order. He gets the most out of camp who has resources 
to employ these by-hours in something besides simple, 
vacuous indolence and laziness. A fortunate principle 
of human nature is that study of a subject awakens and 
promotes interest in it. If we investigate any branch of 
the outdoor world — bird life, the growth of vegetation, 
entomology, the structure and distribution of the rocks — 
indeed, any such subject, simple or complex, we discover 
the universal experience that such study gives enlarged 
opportunities of entertaining on^'s self amid woods sur- 
roundings. And so it is well to make provision for 
increased camping enjoyment by equipping for it with a 
knowledge of some one of these branches of natural 
history. The more one knows the more one is eager to 
know. Thus, by the principle we have referred to, of 
the growing interest which always comes with the acqui' 
sition of increased information, one may return from his 
outing with a gain of something more than the moose 
head or the shoulder of venison. All the realm of nature 
is the sportsman's for his study and gratification. It is 
not to any one's credit that the camp hours unoccupied 
by hunting or fishing hang heavily, when the day^ from 
dawn to nightfall, might be^ full to the minute. 
The action taken recently by the American Fisheries 
Society looking to the erection of a monument or me- 
morial tablet to the late Professor Spencer F. Baird is 
worthy of all praise. The project deserres the support 
of every one interested in fish or fisheries and ought to 
be carried through successfully in a very short time, 
Prof. Baird was one of the greatest of scientific Ameri- 
cans, but was at the. same time so modest and retiring 
that his achievements were for the most part known 
only to men of science and not to the great public. It 
is high time that steps were taken to erect a lasting 
monument to his memory, and the Fisheries Society may 
be congratulated on having set on foot the plan. It is 
proposed to erect this memorial at Woods Holl, the scene 
of much of Prof. Baird's work in connection with fish- 
culture and marine, biology. The members of the com- 
mittee having the matter in charge are Dr. H. M. Smith, 
chairman; Hon. E. G. Blackford, Dr. E. W. Blatchford, 
Hon. Geo. M. Bowers, Frank M. Clark, Vinel N. Ed- 
wards, Dr. Bushrod W. James, Hon. Geo. F. Peabody, 
Hon. Redfield Proctor and W. de C. Ravenel. 
Acting Superintendent Goode, of the Yellowstone 
National Park, under date of Aug. 27 reported to the 
Secretarj' of the Interior the welcome news that forest 
fires, which had been raging in the Park, had been ex- 
tinguished. The conflagration was for the most part 
confined to dead and down timber, and the telegra^n says; 
"The last report from the scene of the fire is to the 
effect that it is completely extinguished. Was held at a 
point about two miles from the road until extinguished 
by the rain. The burned district is out of sight qi any 
travel, and damage to the beauty of the Park is re- 
nj^rkably slight."" 
■The financial value of forests as pleasing elements in 
the landscape are beyond compute in regions which de- 
pend upon the attractiveness of their scenery to promote 
the tourist business. From the White Mountains and the 
Rockies this summer have come stories of forest de- 
struction by the lumbermen in New Hampshire and by 
fire in Colorado, which threatens seriously to impair their 
tourist value. The marring of the sweep of forest seen 
from Glenwood Springs would be nothing short of a 
national calamity; and when we read of the passive 
acquiescence in the skinning of New Hampshire moun- 
tains we marvel that the citizens of a State which draws 
its revenues so largely from scenery-allured summer vis- 
itors can be so fatuous as to make no effective protest. 
The prize of $100 or a gold medal of equivalent value 
presented to the Military Service Institution by Dr. 
Louis L. Seaman for the best paper on "The Ideal 
Ration for an Army in the Tropics" has recently been 
awarded. It was won by Capt. E. L. Munson, assistant 
surgeon, U. S. A., whose contributions to Forest and 
Stream will no doubt be remembered by many of our 
readers. Dr. Munson's energy and ability haVe kept him 
well to the front during these late years of war. and as 
time goes on he is likely to be more often heard of. 
"There are many lakes in Lapland abounding in fish 
to a miracle," wrote a historian of the country nearly two 
centuries ago, "and these lakes are called by the Lap- 
landers Saivq — i. e., Holy — because they look upon 
them as sacred, and v/ill not allow the least dirt to be 
thrown into them." If during the last two centuries the 
people of America had shared something of the Lapps' 
reverence for the waters stocked with fis.h, so that these 
should not have been converted into sewers and poison- 
ous and deadly drains, our fishery rescaiFceis would h^v@ 
been the richer for it to-day. 
