MaroS 9, igdi.jj 
FOREST AMb STREAM. 
mtie §ag mid §m. 
Froprfetor* of ttaooting reaorts will find it profitable to advcrti** 
them in Fokut akd Stbxam. 
Notice. 
All communications intended for Fokest and Stxkav should 
always be addressed to tVe Forctt and Stream Fubliibinv Co., and 
not to any individual co'inected with the paper. 
New York Forest, Fish and Game 
Interests. 
Prestdent Wadsworth's Vicwst 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
In answer to your request for my views on the subject, I 
beg leave to say that I think that the Forest, Fish and 
Game Commission is an anomaly as at present constituted, 
for reasons given under the following heads. 
The Forests. 
The Commission is supposed to have charge of the 
State lands, amounting to hundreds of thousands of 
acres (1,384,128), valued at over ten millions of dollars, 
yet divided into nearly six thousand separate lots (5,974), 
some covered by valuable timber, subject to forest fires, 
decay and death; others miles away from the rest, sur- 
rounded by hotels and settlements, useless for game,' tim- 
ber or water supply, but of great value for lease, sale or 
exchange. 
But the Commission can make no rules regarding them 
beyond the laws enacted. The Constitution prohibits the 
leasing of land or even the giving away of dead timber, 
and the Legislature allows but three foresters to look 
after this property. 
Fisheries. 
These must in their nature be looked after by expert 
specialists. The technical part is well provided for, but 
it seems foolish for the State to spend money for putting 
fish into streams to have them killed by acid or saw- 
dust, and prevented from spawning by dams and nets ; or 
to raise them in captivity until mature, and then put these 
tame beasts where they are so easily captured that they 
might as well have been shipped direct to the kitchens 
instead of the pools of the "sportsmen." 
If the Legislature would provide for keeping streams 
pure, so that fish could live in them, free from obstruc- 
tion from dams and nets, so that they could spawn in 
them, and protected from molestation during that period, 
a much smaller appropriation would be sufficient to look 
after the valuable food fishes and for the care of such 
large bodies of water as cannot be seen to by towns and 
counties. 
The men who fish for fun are amply able to take care 
of themselves, and the communities which profit so much 
by their presence can well afford to cater to their wants. 
Shell Fish. 
The Shellfish Office, which is a thing by itself and can 
easily be made self-supporting, must be kept in New 
York so long as the State adheres to its present policy of 
leasing oyster rights, which experience, thus far, has 
shown to be beneficial, owing to the magnitude of the in- 
dustry, the complexity of the necessary surveys and the 
local rivalries and jealousies of small communities. 
Game. 
The present force of thirty protectors cannot act as 
private game keepers for every man in the sixty counties 
of the State, and it is not desirable that they should. The 
local police protection should be thrown on the towns or 
counties which profit by it, and the State should confine 
itself to general supervision, propagation, cold storage, 
sale, transportation and such matters. The game laws 
are so complex and change so often that they are ab- 
solutely unknown to the bulk of the people, and it is 
doubtful if there is any one man in the State who could 
tell what they are to-day. They should be simplified, and 
in each locality the season begin and end at fixed dates, 
outside of which no one should be allowed to carry a gun 
off his own premises without a license, or to catch, kill, seH 
or transport game of any kind whatsoever. There should 
be an express understanding that no fish or game should 
be put out by the State where there were not efficient 
local protectors, so that no locality whose inhabitants have 
not sufficient intelligence to appreciate the money value of 
good shooting and fishing should reap the advantage at 
the expense of other taxpayers. 
The Commission. 
At such time as the people feel that they can trust their 
officers and will withdraw the constitutional provision 
regarding them, the State forests should be put in charge 
of an unpaid Commission, not to exceed three members, 
who should have absolute jurisdiction within their limits 
on all matters pertaining to them, such as Avater supply 
and pollution, game refuges and protection and the con- 
trol of camping parties. They should also be empowered, 
under proper restrictions, to exchange, lease or sell out- 
lying lots, and to practice forestry in a proper and con- 
servative manner under a well defined plan, and should 
be allowed sufficient force under their own control to 
do so. 
And I earnestly hope that the Legislature, instead of 
multiplying laws, restrictions and penalties beyond what 
already seems excessive for a free country, will cut down 
and simplify them, and increase the power of farmers 
and land holders to keep intruders off their premises. 
There are hundreds of thousands of farms in the State 
whose owners never shoot and would gladly allow game 
to breed on them if there were any effective way of keep- 
ing the village loafer and pot-himter from tramping over 
them and killing every living thing. 
W. A. Wadsworth. 
American Wildfowl and How to 
Take Them. — XXV. 
BY GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL. 
ICon/inued from page 164.] 
Ruddy Duck. 
Erismatura rubida (Wils.). 
The adult male has the crown black, which color runs 
down on the back of the neck; the side of head, including 
cheeks and chin, pure white; the entire upper parts, red- 
dish-chestnut, except the wing coverts; the middle of the 
rump and lower back, greenish-brown, freckled with paler. 
The quills of the wing and tail are brownish-black; the 
under parts are silvery-whitish, something like the breast 
color of some of the grebes. The long tail-coverts are 
white; the bill and feet grayish-blue; length, 16 inches. 
The female is much duller; the upper part of the 
head is dark brown, paling on the sides of the head. 
Often there is a white strip below the ej-^es, running 
almost from the base of the bill to the back of the head. 
The chin is white. The throat and. neck are brownish- 
RUDDY DUCK. 
gray, fading to silvery on the breast and belly. The upper 
parts are grayish-brown, mottled and speckled with red- 
dish. The wings and scapulars are dark brown; the tail 
and wings as in the male; the bill is bluish, often blackish, 
and the legs and feet, bluish-gray. The young male is 
still duller. 
The ruddy duck is found throughout North America, 
and is one of the gentlest and most unsuspicious of our 
birds. It is resident in northern South America and 
yet it frequents the northern portions of the continent as 
far as the 58th parallel. It is abundant in California, and 
equally so on our south Atlantic coast, and occurs often 
in Massachusetts during the spring migration. 
The ruddy duck, although it takes a long time to rise 
from the water, is a strong flier. It is, however, very 
much at home on the water, a rapid swimmer and a 
very good diver. The ruddy is a most gentle and unsus- 
picious little bird, and appears to pay no attention to 
the gunner, though he may be standing in plain sight, as 
it darts down and splashes into the water among the 
decoys. Until within a few years, gunners in our south 
Atlantic waters never shot these birds, which were accus- 
tomed to come to the decoys and feed among them and 
then swim or fly away unmolested. Of late years, how- 
ever, this has become a fashionable bird for the table, 
and bringing good prices is eagerly sought after by 
market-gunners. Great numbers are therefore killed each 
MASKED DUCK. 
season now where formerly they were almost unmplested, 
and the result has been a very noticeable rediJction in the 
numbers of these little birds. 
The ruddy duck has a great number of common names, 
most of which refer to its physical peculiarities or to its 
great gentleness. Thus it is called sleepy Isroadbill, sleep}'- 
head, sleepy duck, sleepy coot, sleepy brother, fool duck, 
deaf duck, booby and booby coot, paddy and noddy. 
From its tail it is called stiff-tail, spine-tail, quill-tail coot, 
pin-tail, bristle-tail, heavy-tailed duck, stick-tail and dip- 
tail diver. From its supposed toughness, or the difficulty 
with which it is killed, come such names as hard-headed 
broadbill, shot-pouch, stub and twist, hard-head, tough- 
head, hickory-head, greaser, steel-head, light-wood knot 
and perhaps hard tack. There are a great number of 
other names, for which the reader must be referred to Mr. 
Trumbull's excellent volume. 
Masked Duck. 
Nomonyx dominicus (Linn.). 
The adult male, in full plumage, neck all around, back 
and sides, dark cinnamon-brown, the back and sides with 
the feathers broadly streaked with black; the front of 
head, including chin, cheeks and crown, black, this color 
extending nearly to the back of the head. The lower 
parts are rusty, but the feathers of the side are streaked 
with black. The wings are brownish-black, with a white 
speculum. The under tail coverts are brownish, spotted 
with black. The tail is dark brown; the bill blue, and 
feet blackish; length about 15 inches. 
The female has the head black, with one or two brown- 
ish streaks running back from the bill. The chestnut is 
paler, verging te yellowish and spotted with black; the 
sexes. are thus much alike, but the female is very much 
duller. 
The masked duck is found in North America only as a 
straggler, for it belongs in the tropics. It is a common 
West Indian and South American species. It has been 
taken on Lake Champlain, in New York, in Massachu- 
setts, in Wisconsin, Texas and Mexico. It does not ap- 
pear to be anywhere an abundant species, as is its rela- 
tive, the ruddy duck. We are told that it does not seem 
to be at all at home on the land, and that when it walks 
it is in some degree supported by its long, stiff tail. Gun- 
ners should be on the watch for this species. 
Maine and Sportsmen. 
Boston^ March 2. — There is an eleinent in the Maine 
Legislature this winter that is bound to cause the Fish and 
Game Commission all the trouble possible, and it is rea- 
sonable to suppose that a good deal of the feeling comes 
from the constituency of the members — the people. 
Economy and relief from taxation is demanded by the 
grangers, and they are ready to look for economy in any 
direction. Representative Thornton, of Ashland, intro- 
duced into the House on Friday an order that will make 
work for the Fish and Game Commissioners at least. It 
reads : "That the Commissioners of Inland Fisheries and 
Game furnish the Legislature with a full list of all acts 
relating to inland fisheries and game that have been 
enacted or are now pending in the present Legislature. Also 
a list of all appropriations, with title and number, that 
have passed or are now pending in the present Legislature, 
for the purposes of fish and game. Also a statement in full 
of the amount of fines and forfeitures under the fish and 
game laws during the years 1899 and 1900, the same to 
be classified by coimties." Another order put in reads: 
"That the Committee on Taxation shall take under con- 
sideration the matter of raising a larger revenue from 
the wild lands in unincorporated places, and whether there 
is any constitutional method whereby it can be done, ,and 
report by bill or otherwise." It is well imderstood that 
this last order is introduced for the sake of devising some 
means of raising direct revenue from the sportsmen who 
visit these wild lands and imincorporated townships. The 
farming and lumbering elements claim that while sports- 
men, according to the reports o£ the Commissioners on 
Fisheries and Game, annually bring millions of dollars into 
the State, none of it goes to the State, and the farmers are 
not relieved in the least from taxation, but are annually 
being assessed more and more for the support of fisheries 
and game. It certainly looks as though the days of free 
hunting and fishing in Maine were doomed, and that some 
form of exaction from them other than what they have 
always suffered from greedy camp keepers and ' trans- 
portation companies, will hereafter be in vogue. Maine 
law makers will do well to proceed carefully in the matter 
of greater taxation and annoyance upon visiting sports- 
men. It is a fact that as mzny people stay away from 
Maine every year — many who have been there— as go 
there, for the reason that it costs too much. 
Special. 
A March Afternoon. 
The night after the "February Afternoon" the weather 
dropped the mercury to 20 below zero, the wind blew 
50 miles an hour for nearlj' thirty-six consecutive hours, 
freezing ice a foot thick on all the streams, and all the 
diicks were gone. There was no sign of a thaw till the 
middle of March, and the man with the gun was shut in 
the schoolhouse for a month. Then the weather got 
warm and it rained for several days, and the ice in the 
streams broke to pieces and went tumbling over the 
mill dams, and ponds were open again, and long lines of 
ducks and geese harrowed the skv, all going North for 
the first few days, but after that there was a great flight 
to the South from, three to five each afternoon, and to the 
north from five till long after dark, the reason for these 
flip^hts being that to the uorth oi the Coon Riiver "tim- 
ber" lay a vast tract of prairie, dotted with innumerable 
ponds and traced by many winding marslay sloughs. 
To the south of the "timber" was "Quaker Ridge," a 
high, dry prairie. There were no ponds there, but there 
were thousands of acres of corn stalks, among which was 
enough corn to make fine feed for the ducks, so they 
went there to feed, and to the north prairie for water 
and roosting grounds. Each afternoon when school was 
out the man with a gun watched these great flights and 
said to himself, "On Saturday I'll be with them, and there 
will be roast duck at our house next Sunday." 
It was a lon,g week, but Saturday came. The man 
with a gun was eager to be using it, so it was not late in 
the morning when he was tramping through the timber 
on the way to the north prairie. A walk of seven miles 
brought him to "Parker's," where he visited with the 
folks till after dinner. Wayne Parker said there were 
any number of mallards roosting in "the ponds" every 
night, and there hadn't been a gun fired there this spring. 
"Parker's Pond," as we called it, was half a mile long 
and 200 to 500 yards wide, thickly covered with rushes or 
reeds ten feet high, the water shallow and the bottom 
soft deep mud. After dinner the man with a gun sat at 
Parker's upstairs window and watched the ducks leave 
the pond for the feeding grounds. They rose in flocks 
of half a dozen, loy fifties and then by hundreds, so many 
in all that it seemed as though they must have been piled 
on top of each other in the pond. By 4 o'clock they 
were all gone. 
Then the man got a board six feet long and another 
four feet long and made a cross of them, borrowed 
Wayne's old overcoat, and took his way to the pond. 
Abo,ut two-thirds of the way to the north end of the 
pond was a place perhaps three hundred yards wide, and 
there was an island pretty well over to the east side. He 
knew this place very well, for he had' been there many a 
time before. He stuck the cross iri'^fthe ground at the 
west side of the pond and hung the dvercoat and an old 
hat on it, then started to go roinid to the east side where 
he could wade to the island. He had reached the high 
