108 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Feb. 9, 1901. 
McCortp,ick, representing tlie Weyerhaeuser interests, had 
a conference -over the matter to-night. The two latter 
were at the Indian Office to-day in conference with the 
officials. The Eddy bill is approved by the Indian Com- 
missioner, and it will at once be submitted to Secretary 
Hitchcock. It provides, first, for the sale of the timber 
on the reservations, the lands to be reserved for agricul- 
tural purposes; second, the timber is to be sold in tracts 
large enough to justify the erection of mills on the 
reservation, and third, the system of estimating is 
abolished, and the pine is to be sold on the bank." 
Thus it may be seen that we are very apt to have a park 
up in Minnesota, after the lumbermen have reduced it to 
a condition bordering upon the cloistered quiet of an Aztec 
cliff dwellers' cemetery. It is our great and abiding con- 
-solation that we shall not be debarred from going up 
there and gazing at the stumps of the trees which have 
gone to keep the wolf from the door of the Hon. Thomas 
Shevlin and his very good friends who help him divide 
his trains at the right place when he is helping entertain 
guests tffi a Congressional trip. 
Last from the Park, 
Feb. 2. — The news from Washington on Jan. 30. in re- 
gard to the Minnesota Park, states that Secretary Hitch- 
cock has approved the Eddy bill and its amendments to 
the Nelson law. It is thought that mills will be erected 
on the reservations and their pine will be cut, and that the 
passage of the bill creating a national park will be per- 
manentl}' blocked. There is a rumor out that the backers 
of the park enterprise will combine with those interested 
in like projects in other parts of the country. It is be- 
lieved that the Eddy bill will probably pass. The attitude 
of Mr. Eddy himself toward the park has been clear all 
along. He does not want the park, but does want to 
see the lumber interests advanced. 
Weights of Canada Quail. 
A plea.sant letter from W. B. Wells, of Chatham, Ont.. 
takes up the question i^f weights of quail, and it would 
seem that the belt for big quail belongs across the border. 
I always tliought these Canada birds the largest of their 
species I have ever seen, but a 9 -ounce bird is surely a 
stunner. Mr. Wells writes: 
"Last December when quail shooting from a little inn 
not more than two miles from the shore of Lake St. 
Clair I saw some quail weighed. These weights were 
taken to decide a small bet as to the weight of a cock and 
hen. Another shooter said he had one that would berft 
either, which it did. The hen went 7^ ounces, the cock 
8 ounces, and the other cock g ounces. When these were 
being weighed on the grocer's scales next door, I got 
them to take in a dozen — not picked birds — and they went 
5^ pounds. These birds were quite strong and fast, as 
I found out. The friend with whom I shot was down a 
few days before I got there and was a little tired, and as 
it was blowing half a gale all the time, he soon acknowl- 
edged that he was outclassed. While I was fresh, I did 
fairly well, but after a couple of days I was no better, and 
so we ended up wi.h the birds on top. Duck shooting has 
been below She average with us the past year. Canvas- 
backs, both on Lake St. Clair and at Rond Eau, on Lake 
Erie, were unusually plentiful. Quail were not so plentiful 
in Kent, but in Essex the county to the west, were more 
plentiful than last season, and no one can tell the reason." 
Can't Lose Them, 
Gratiot county, Mich., has paid $11,000 in three years 
as sparrow bounties, and the birds seem to enjoy it, being 
apparently more numerous than ever. Mr. Lorenzo 
Tabor, of Adrian, Mich., some years ago thought it would 
be a good thing to import a few pairs of these nice little 
English birds to Michigan. It was nice — for the sparrows. 
You can't lose them now. 
Illinois Fish Law, 
Chicago, 111., Feb. 2.— Dr. S. P. Bartlett, Avho is to 
have charge of the fish exhibit at the Chicago Sportsmen's 
Show, has been obliged to absent himself from Chicago 
and to be on hand at Springfield, because he is having his 
regular season of dread lest somebody tinker with the fish 
laws. There is no doubt that a prettv strong attempt 
\vill be made to effect some changes. The amateur fisher- 
men say that the present law is in the interest of the 
market fishermen, who are seining everything out of the 
rivers. Dr. Bartlett and Mr. Cohen think that it may be 
well to prohibit seines from April 15 to Aug. i. and their 
bill will introduce that measure, as well as a clause pro- 
hibiting the use of hook and line within 400 feet of any 
dam between April 15 and Aug. 1. The real battle in 
regard to the game laws is not yet fully on, but the usual 
number of new measures, freaks and otherwise, are duly 
on hand. 
Aim of the Illinois Association. Of? 
Hon. James R. B. Van Cleave, of Springfield, presi- 
dent of the Illinois State Sportsmen's Association, in a 
per.sonal letter just at hand, goes on to say that the Asso- 
ciation does not intend to confine itself purely to trap- 
shooting matters. "Our aim," says he, "is to aid and 
encourage the propagation and preservation of game and 
game fishes, our annual tournament being only a pleasant 
but secondary matter of importance. Help us along these 
lines all you can." 
If the Illinois State Sportsmen's Association wishes to 
do something practical in the way of preserving the game 
of Illinois and the West, it has three things ahead of 
it which it m.^ght try to da: First, to put Illinois at the 
head of the hne of those States which will not permit 
game to be sold within their borders. Second, to try to 
get the State of Missouri to prohibit the export of game. 
Third, to try to get the State of Nebraska to prohibit the 
export of game. Lock up the sources of supply atid cut 
off the demand for this Western game, and the sports- 
men will get a chance for a little shooting. Otherwise all 
of our State associations are going to become trap- 
shooting associations and nothing more. The game will 
never be properly preserved under the system of protec- 
tion now in vogue, and our laws are persistently and 
steadil}'- violated. 
Mr. N. P. Riley, of this city, one of our well-known 
bass fishermen, is visiting Florida this winter. He has 
been at_ Tallahassee for some time, and since he CQuld 
"n^ B9 bait to suit him he telegraphed bapl? Chicago 
to his old fishing crony, W. H. English, for some live 
frogs. Four dozen frogs were sent to him, and at last 
accounts he was doing bu.siness with the big black bass. 
Florida must be a poor sort of place if it can't raise frogs. 
Mr. Fred M. Stephenson, of Menominee, Mich., presi- 
dent of the Gaylord Club, of that region, and a very 
prominent sportsman, is in Chicago for a short time to- 
day. 
Live Sheep and Goats, 
Matters are going on swimmingly with the first Sports- 
men's Show ever held in Chicago, and the time of any 
doubt is past regarding the success of the enterprise. 
Chicago does not do things by halves, and this show will 
break the record of first appearances. Large numbers 
of the wild animals which will be shown at the Coliseum 
are now coming into the city and will be taken care of by 
Cy De Vry, who used to handle the animals at Lincoln 
Park. A very large number of foreign ducks, imported 
from Europe, reached Chicago this week via Boston. We 
are also promised some good specimens of the Scotch 
red deer. There are several good spcciinens of live mus- 
callunge and of live ouananiche, now waiting for the cur- 
tain to rise. Yesterday a telegram was received from 
our old friend. Jack Monroe, of the Blackfoot Reserva- 
tion, Mont., who sets a price on wild sheep and wild 
goats which he has in hand, and it is thought that ar- 
rangements will be closed by which these animals will 
be secured and shown at the exposition. Mr. J. H. 
Morrison, of the same reservation, has been out in the 
mountains for several days on a similar quest. Maybe you 
can rope a wild goat and bring him here to Chicago and 
show him alive, but on the face of things this looks a 
little bit hard to do. 
The scheme of decoration for the Coliseum has been 
submitted by the artists, Mr. W. L. Wells and Mr. II. G. 
Maratta. There will be liberal use made of the old 
Roman idea oak leiif garlands and wreaths, as well as 
the customary evergreen effects. The list of exhibitors 
is now nearly full, and the class of attractions is of very 
high order at this writing, with more and good ones 
steadily coming in. Among other things to be shown 
here will be the Palmer collection of heads and horns 
from Davenport, la., with full exhibits from Kaempfer. 
Periolat and other taxidermists and dejilers, to say nothing 
uf the collections of amateur sportsmen all over the, West, 
The Sportsmen's Year. ^ 
The holiday season seems to be the only time when 
American business men catch their breath and take the 
liberty of doing any thinking about the pleasanter side of 
life. It seems to be a growing custom among sportsmen 
to remember each other at that season with little gifts of 
things prized by sportsn;ien. A friend writes me that two 
of his friends have made him a Christmas present of a 
splendid .",almon rod, with reel and line. Another sends 
to him a book which tells about the out of doors. What 
is the result? My friend lays aside his savage business 
air, sits down and thaws out, a little, and eke indites a 
letter to a friend, which shows that a business man may 
have a long memory and a soft spot in his heart: 
"I can look back to so many of our hunting and fish- 
ing trips." he says, "ajid so tnany incidents that still give 
me pleasure, that I am often reminded that really the 
best time comes after you get home. I can remember 
down along the dusty shores at the Long X crossing how 
you used to lie abed mornnigs and then corral the oyer- 
supply of sugar. I can remember the time Dan Seib 
went out ro shoot the deer at moonlight, and we tried to 
fool him by hanging an overcoat up in the bushes, and 
tied a string to it so as to pull it and make him think it 
was a bear. I can recall when old Bob Schultz got the 
buck fever and could not shoot a deer that came right up 
the bank in his face; and I shall never forget the night 
that you got lost down on the Magpie, and the tramp in 
the morning looking for you and the welcome sight of 
yourself coining along on Paddock's faithful old horse. Da 
vou remember the first trip when you were just getting 
over tvphoid fever, and espied the badger, and nearly 
killed yourself running after it and shooting him with 
fine shot? And the day we nearly lost our lives chasing 
the wounded canvasback over on Lake Isabel in the 
little tin boat, and what shooting we had? Now that I 
have started, I could keep up a string of these reminis- 
cences, I verily believe, all day. Last, but not least, is 
that fishing trip on the North Branch of the Au Sable. 
Was there ever a more enjoyable day than tlic three of 
us, my brother Ed, you and I. put in together? How the 
trout did take the fly, and how nearly used up I was that 
night when we reached the ear! 
"These things five in a man's memory and make mm 
younger again, and also make him wish he still was 
young and could never grow old. The book you have 
sent me is m.agnificent. It recalls a lot of; my Arizona 
and New Mexico trips: the cactus standing tall and 
straight 20 or 30 feet Wgh, the running partridge, then 
the grouse, the' cold north wind and the snow, and my 
old favorite, the ruffed grouse, on which I have had such 
fine shooting here at home this fall. Indeed, what a lot 
of good times we can have all over again!" 
The Infernal Regions. 
Even paraphrased, the foregoing sub head is not alto- 
gether pleasant to contemplate. Yet it came about this 
way: A friend and I were walking down the street the 
other day, in one of those lowering, black, sooty fogs 
which can be seen nowhere but in this benighted town, 
where dirt is dominant. We smelled a scent of pitch and 
burning pine. Then all at once, as we turned around the 
corner, we saw a long line of shallow fires that stretched 
across the street. (The street-car men were thawing out 
the track,) From these fires the smoke arose to jotti the 
other smoke in an air so dense that you could hardly see 
20 feet ahead. It was a scene which, taken in conjunc- 
tion with the rattlings and hangings and shoutings of 
the place, scented weird and impressive enough.- • ■ 
"T have alwavs thought," said my friend meditatively, 
"that Chicago was situated close to the infernal, regions, 
I see that the latter locality is just coming through," 
And, provided that one were under life sentence, and 
had to live in a big city from day to day. and never see 
any country cleaner and greener, any sky any sweeter, 
provided |hat he coul4 hear nothing more restful 
the nerve-jarring clamor of the city, what indeed would 
life be for him but a section of the infernal regions? 
• We need the out-of-doors. Every year American life 
becom.es more urgent and high-keyed. More and more 
men go down in the harness as though struck by light- 
ning. Sometimes I watch the big chains which carry the 
elevators up and down in the building where I office. 
Once in a while we read of one of these chains breaking. 
The experts say that iron sometimes gets crystallized, and 
hence snaps. It is the peculiarity of business life nowa- 
days that it crystallizes men. Once in a while they snap. 
They surely do not snap so often or so suddenly if once 
in a while they get ont of this pandemonium of the town 
and into the sweet air, and on the sweet earth which God 
meant all men should enjoy. 
This is my sermon at the beginning of the year, and I 
am going to try to practice a little of my .own preaching 
before the year is out. What's the fun of living if you 
are dead? 
E. Hough. 
Hartfobd Building, Chicago, 111, 
American Wildfowl and How to 
Take Them. — XXIL 
BY GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL, 
[^Coniinueci from page 87,] 
'.Spectacled Eider. 
Arctonetta fischeri (Brandt). 
In the adult male the space immediately about the eye 
is silky white, bordered by a line of velvety black, be- 
fore and behind. The feathers between the eye and the 
bill are stiff, and extend over the bill almost to the nos- 
tril. At the base of the bill they are white, changing to 
dark green, which grows paler toward the black bar 
before the eye. Crown and back of the head, running 
down a little way on the neck, pale olive green. Be- 
neath the space around the eye a strip extends back to 
meet the olive green, which is deep dull green. The 
head and neck, except as stated, are white. All the 
lower parts, including the upper breast, are pale leaden 
gray; while the whole back and wing, except the greater 
wing coverts, the tertiaries and a patch on each side of 
the rump, are yellowish white. The bill is orange, deep- 
est along the edge, and pale on tlie nail. The eyes are 
pale blue or bluish white. The feet and legs are yel- 
lowish. 
In the adult female the head generally is buffy, streaked 
w ith dusky. A strip of brown runs from the bill before 
SPECX.VCLED EIDER. 
the eye to the top of the head. The throat is very little 
streaked or spotted. The general upper parts are tawny, 
l;arred with black. The belly and the region under the 
tail is grayish brown. The length is about twenty or 
twenty-two inches. 
The spectacled eider is another Alaskan bird of which 
not very much is known. It is a dweller in the far North, 
its range seeming to extend only from the mou.h of the 
Kuskokwim River to Point Barrow, where it breeds. 
Another observer, however, gives it as occurring much 
further to the south, and says that it breeds among the 
Aleutian Islands, where it is a resident, althoiigh shy. 
The nest is built in the grass not far from the water, and 
the eggs are from five to nine in number. Mr. Nelson 
who has spent so much time in Alaska, and is very 
familiar with this bird, sounds a note of warning about 
it, saying that it might readily be so reduced as to become 
very rare. It is an extremely local bird, and with a nar- 
row breeding range, and with the attacks continually 
made on it for food by the Eskimo it has every prospect 
of becoming scarce. 
It is to be noted that the autumn plunij^e of male and 
female in this species are very nearly aliS? — dark brown 
with black mottling— and that the breeding dress dpes 
not appear to be assumed until toward spring. 
It is said that the flight of this bird is unusually 
swift — much more so than that of most other eiders — and 
that they usually fiy low over the water. 
The Common Eider. 
Somateria molUssima (Linn.). 
The adult male of the common eider duck has the 
crown deep. black, split behind in the middle line by a 
strip of white or greenish white, and reaching forward 
from the eye to the bill. The upper part of the back of 
the neck and the feathers back of the ears are pale green. 
The rest of the head and neck, with the forebreast, back, 
scapulars, wing coverts, tertiary feathers and sides of 
rump, white, often tinged with yellow or creamy bufi'. 
The breast is sometimes pink-tinted. The other under 
parts, the greater wing coverts, secondaries, middle of 
rump' and upper tail covert, black; quills of the wing 
and tail, brownish black; bill, dvdl orange yellow; legs 
' and feet' orange. . 
:' The adult female is generally oi a reddish brown 
f 9]9f , . IWQStly b?irre4 ^\\h. blacl<;, but tl^? txeJ^d and ne^l^ 
