Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1900, bv Forest and Strbam Pubushing Go.V 
RMS, $4 A Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. I 
Six Months, |2. J 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2 7, 1900. 
J VOL. LV.— No. IT. 
1 No. 846 Broadway, New York 
OUR ILLUSTRATED SUPPLEMENTS. 
We have provided a new series of four full-page illus- 
trations which will be published as supplements with the 
first numbers of November, December, January and 
February. The half-tone engravings are reproductions of 
the originals drawn expressly for the purpose, and the 
subjects will certainly prove to be acceptable and popular. 
The titles are: 
Nov. 3. — In the Fence Corner. By Wilfred P. Davison. 
Dec. I. — When Food Qrows Scarce. By Wilfred P. 
Davison. 
Jan. 5. — Quail Shooting in Mississippi. By Edm. H. 
Osthaus. 
Feb. 2. — In Boyhood Days. By Wilfred P. Davison. 
The readers and friends of Forest and Stream are in- 
vited to send us the names of their acquaintances whose 
tastes are such that they might be interested in the paper. 
We are printing week after week a store of the best read- 
ing in th« world for the man who uses rod and gun or 
who has a taste for the free life of the field and the forest. 
The Forest and Stream stands for the interests which 
are his; it is a weekly, monthly, yearly advocate of the 
preservation of his present opportunities and the enlarge- 
ment of his privileges; it preaches consistently and un- 
tiringly the doctrine of the dignity and deserving of his 
favorite pastimes; and it is to-day and will be in the 
future, as it has been in the past, an agency for the attain- 
ment of a higher standard in sport and a fuller popular 
recognition of the place of recreation in a well ordered 
life. 
THE MONTH OF FLAME. 
The face of the country is aglow with hues that presage 
the death of that visible part of nature which is the 
foundation and basis of life upon the land. Woods and 
hillsides and swamps blaze with the changing colors. 
Viewing a broad landscape, we might imagine that fire 
was sweeping over the whole land. The swamp is red 
with colors of deepest flame, the hills are yellow with a 
milder fire. Tongues of glowing crimson shoot up the 
ravines where the sumach grows, while at the edges of 
the swamp, over the conical cedars about which Virginia 
ivy twines, creep burning lines, soon, it wolud seem, 
to burst into blaze and consume them. Over all hangs 
the autumnal haze, adding vividness to the impression of 
fire; a faint thin veil which hardly seems to obscure the 
vision, yet blinds us to what is distant. 
We read of brown October, yet in America we know no 
such month. With us it is flaming October, rich and 
riotous in its gorgeous beauty, the last outburst of glory 
in a country whose loveliness is nowhere surpassed. 
If hills and swamps are gorgeous at this season, hardly 
less is the charm of the cultivated prairies, which have just 
yielded to the farmer the reward of his labors. Yellow 
or green, or showing rich brown soil where the plow 
has passed in preparation for the year which is to come, 
they offer a richer promise — if less of beauty — than the 
swamps and the rough hillsides, whose barrenness is 
v eiled by a lovelier mask. 
If we take ows way to the great mountains of the 
West, the story told there is the same. Aspens and 
box elders have turned yellow along the stream, mountain 
maples flame among the cliffs and along the ledges. Only 
the black pines, changeless as the gray rocks to which 
they cling, remain unaltered by the changing seasons. 
The nights grow cooler day by day, and sometimes a skim 
of ice appears on the little pools of quiet water. The 
storm clouds which hover about the mountain's heads drop 
softly on them a light mantle of snow, which gradually 
creeps lower and lower down toward the valley, and 
some day the dweller among the foothills is startled by a 
furious squall, whitening the ground with snow, which 
vanishes under the -next day's sun. It is warmer and 
then colder, and then warmer again, until at last winter 
IS at hand. 
If the vegetation ripens and dies and falls, not leas is 
the change of the advancing season felt by animal life all 
oyer the land. Each wild creattire anticipates the cooiiag 
struggle between the forces making the warmth and the 
cold, and each prepares for it. The newts have retired 
to safe shelters in the mud, and the frogs and turtles have 
chosen their winter homes. Hordes of migrating birds fly 
above thfe tree tops of the •woods or journey by shorter 
stages along the hedge rows. Woodcock drop into the wet 
places, snipe into the meadows; quail and ruffed grouse 
journey hither and thither in erratic fashion, trying to 
make up their minds what they shall do, since winter is 
coming. Sometimes in their confusion they dash them- 
selves against the houses, or fly through the windows or 
alight on trees in the village street, anxious and be- 
wildered by the portents of the coming change. Now 
many of the hawks have gone, but a few still remain, 
traveling southward with the small birds on which they 
prey, or patiently hunting the sere fields for the mice 
which are hungrily gathering their autumn stores. The 
earth dwellers, too, are making ready. The muskrat has 
built his house, squirrels have chosen theirs, and are 
busily garnering their harvest. The raccoon still searches 
along the brook side for the infrequent frog, but now he 
chiefly depends on the abundant nuts, which he shares 
with the squirrels and the grouse, and on the grapes 
already touched by the frost, and sweet, solid and sub- 
stantial. The hunters of the woods and swamps, the fox, 
the mink and the humble skunk, are all busy. Food is 
abundant. They are growing fat and warm coated. They 
care little for the winter's cold. 
In the Western mountains, too, all life is stirring.. Birds 
are migrating and pine squirrels are gathering the last of 
their cones. Wild sheep and goats, little though they 
care for storm and cold, are working to the southern 
slopes. Elk and mule deer are taking their ways by easy 
stages from the mountain tops to lower altitudes, and the 
record of their journeyings is plainly printed on the new 
fallen snow. Here, too, is seen where the snowshoe rab- 
bit has set his sign manual on the white page, where the 
grouse has walked, and the fox has followed in his trail. 
In the higher altitudes Nature's long winter slumber 
has already begun, but lower down there is yet an inter- 
val before the final cold shall come. On the prairie the 
wildfowl still continue to hurry from the north, and rest 
on lakes and rivers, and flock to the grain fields for food. 
There they will remain until the hard frosts shall lock the 
waters and drive them southward to other feeding 
grounds. 
The gunner is now at work thinning their ranks, -and 
with him work the weasels, the minks, the foxes and the 
hawks and owls, which are gathering for themselves those 
birds that man has injured but has not secured. Some- 
times the misrrating fowl seem countless for multitude, 
vet how few they are — if we may trust what is told in the 
books or by men of long experience — by comparison with 
what they were in the years gone by? In the East a few 
ducks are still seen — hardlv worth counting. Yet we con- 
tinue to oursue them as if eager to exterminate the fast 
diminishing race. 
Lovely and inspiring as are the fair days of October, 
there is yet about them a tinge of sadness, for we know 
how brief is their span and how soon other days will take 
their place; days which have their own charm, it is true, 
but nothing of the richness, the beauty and the softness 
of these. 
Seize then the glorious October days, when the hazy 
air of mid-day is balmy with the soft and languid perfume 
of maturity given forth by ripened vegetation, and yet at 
morning and evening is crisp, strong and exhilarating, so 
that he who breathes it rejoices in the life and vigor that 
it lends him. It will be long before these days shall come 
again. 
WHERE COMMISSIONER WOOD LIVES. 
It is a not unfamiliar condition in New York city 
that some of the most vicious dives flourish near the 
police stations. For many years one of the worst rcs€n-ts 
in the town was within a stone's throw of police head- 
quarters. Seeking for the operation of the same principle 
in the country, we may find it on Long Island, where 
game law violation is rampant, .right under the nose& of 
Forest, Fish and Game Commissioner Wood, whose -hilriie 
is at Jamaica. The local papers of that section of Long 
Island and the city papers which publish correspondence 
from that quarter teem with items like this, printed in 
the Brooklyl Eagle the other day, from Springfield, which 
is three miles froai Jaammx ' ' '" 
Springfield, L. I., Oct. 19.— Complaints are numerous of the 
reckless conduct of gunners from Brooklyn and Manhattan wlio 
are constantly shooting at birds in violation of the game laws, and 
with an utter disregard of the people's safety. In some sections the 
residents fear to walk about their places for ieat of getting a 
charge of shot. 
With all these stories of game killing out of season, we 
have yet to hear of any effort to inforce the law and 
punish the offenders. A correspondent who writes from 
Lynbrook well remarks that it would be better to repeal 
all the game laws and have done with them altogether 
rather than to perpetuate existing conditions "by which 
the poacher gets all the game and the law abiding sports- 
man gets left." There can be no excuse whatever for this 
disgraceful condition in the region contiguous to a game 
commissioner's home. Commissioner Wood could stop 
it and stop it at once and for good, if he would. As 
long as the lawlessness lasts it will be a reproach to the 
Commission of which he is a member and to himself in- 
dividually. 
They still elect town game constables on Long Island, 
though the office was abolished by a change in the game 
laws years ago, and the game constables in some instances 
which have come to our knowledge refuse to arrest be- 
cause they were elected by the votes of the game law 
breakers. One honest and energetic State game pro^. 
tector could break up the whole system of protected law- 
lessness in less time than a working week of seven days, 
and his hardest day's work would fall on a Sunday, 
SNAP SHOTS. 
A point made by a correspondent, C. A. D.. in his com- 
nmnication elsewhere, that forests do not affect the rain- 
fall, is perfectly well taken ; but we are not aware that 
any one ever claimed that the rainfall was increased or 
diminished by the forests. What is a familiar principle 
is that the forest acts as a retaining reservoir for the 
storage of the rainfall, and holds it back for the gradual 
and permanent flow of the streams. This is now so well 
understood that it is out of the domain of argument. The 
New Hampshire forest conditions as described in the 
article under review, were described as ruinous and de- 
plorable because instead of practicing an economic and 
scientific system of forest^^^ the owners of the wild moun- 
tain lands were denuding them after the old American 
method, which means waste and ruin. The actual con^ 
dition in the White Mountains as brought about by the 
operations of the lumber concern in control of the terri- 
tory is declared to be of precisely this nature; pnd this 
being the case it is certainly high time for the State to 
intervene. 
The Cameron Island Club, of Walkerville, Ont.. has 
prepared for the instruction of its members a cautionary 
circular of instruction for their conduct in the wood's 
while deer hunt'ns-. The one Darticular point on which 
most emphasis is laid is stated in the caution not to shoo*: 
until one is certain that the object aimed at is ?ame and 
not a human being. The circular is presented in our 
erame columns. We recommend all huntinsr clubs to copv 
it and make it their own. Secretary Amberg well says 
that "Caution is not cowardice," and that the veteran 
hunter is much more afraid of accidents with hi=; arms 
than the novice is who has not learned by experience the 
dangerous nature of hi? weapons. Only last week an'->ther 
case of man killed for g-ame was reported from the Maine 
woods. This tonic of peril in the hunting cotmtrv is not 
an agreeable one to return to week after week, but with 
a growing list of such casualties it behooves us to be 
constant in season and out of season in exhortinfr and 
warning one another to a great exercise of caution in the 
woods. j 
Hon. Eiierene G. Blackford, treasurer of the Baird 
Memorial Committee of the American Fisheries Societv, 
announces that the nature of the proposed memorial has 
not yet been determined, and must depend on the amount 
•subscribed. The committee, however, aims to provide ^. 
monument enfirelv worthy of the distincruished man 
whom the society desire- to honor, leavini? the details to 
be settled at .some future timr. Meanwhile, it ias been 
decided to besrin the raiding of fund=:. and the committe*' 
invites contributions. In view of the large number of 
persons who will probably wish to participate, thp com- 
mittee signifies its inclination to encourage small sub- 
scriptions. Mr. Blackford's address, is ^?ulton Marlc^^ 
|f;ew Yo^% " ' ' " ^ 
