Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1901, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Terms, |4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. I 
Six Months, |2. f 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MARCH 23, 1901. 
S VOL. LVI.— No. n. 
} No. 346 Bro.advyay, New York 
ILLUSTRATION SUPPLEMENTS. 
Contxnwing: the illusttation s«ppiements which 
have been an acceptable feature of the Forest 
and Stream, we have prepared a new series of 
four pictures which will be given with the first 
number of the month, as follows: 
April 6 — The Trapper's Camp. Drawn by E. W. Dem- 
May 4 — Rap Full. Tlie schooner yaeht Constellation in 
a northeaster. From a photo by Stebbitts. 
June I — Between Casts. On a trout stream. Drawn by 
W. P. Davison. 
July 6— The Home of the Bass. Drawn by W. P. 
Davison. 
Cbe forest ana Stream's Platform PlanR. 
"TAe sale of game should be prohibited at all seasons ^ 
NAILS DRIVEN IN ipoi.— No. I. 
INDIANA. 
Act of riarch 15. 1901.— Sec. 2. Whoever sells, or offers for 
sale, directly or indirectly, at any time, any quail, shall be 
deemed guilty of a misdemeanor. 
FOREST RESERVES AS GAME PRESERVES. 
The letter from Mr. Wm. Wells, printed this week, is 
an intelligent exposition of the conditions which prevail 
south of the Yellowstone Park, in and near the two 
forest reserves there. Mr. Wells is thoroughly familiar 
with the region and states clearly the existing conditions. 
One point, however, that he does not mention is that a 
very large proportion of the elk killed for winter meat 
are cows and heifers, since, after the month of Septem- 
ber, no man in the mountains is likely to kill bulls to eat. 
The country about the Yellowstone Park included in 
the Teton and the Yellowstone Park Forest Reserves 
is most of it high land and cannot serve for winter range. 
If the former reservation were extended southward, as 
suggested, it would take in a great deal of winter range 
and would be of great benefit. On the other hand, a con- 
siderable portion of that winter range having been fed 
over by domestic stock during the previous summer, will 
not support as much game now as formerly. The desert 
to the southward, which used to be a. great winter range 
for game, has, we are told, already been destroyed for 
this purpose by the domestic sheep. 
Such an extension of the reservation could be made 
without injury to any interests, it being understood that 
permanent settlers would retain their rights, and would 
have the use of timber according to the regulations laid 
down by the Department of the Interior. The hunting 
on this and on other reservations would be governed by 
State laws, and the forest rangers in the employ of the De- 
partment of Agriculture should^ be commissioned as State 
Game Wardens. On the other hand, the character of these 
foresters — ^and game wardens — needs to be carefully looked 
after. The position offers great opportunities and tempta- 
tions for the levying of blackmail, and not a few reports 
have come to us recently showing that, in certain States, 
wardens by threatening the arrest of hunters have obliged 
them to pay sums of money for immunity, or in other 
cases on receiving from visiting hunters a few dollars, to 
which they were in no way entitled, have given such 
visitors permission to kill all the game they wanted to, 
promising that they should not be interfered with. 
Mr. Wells' letter refers to one district only, and it 
is not likely that identical conditions prevail near all, or 
even many, of the other forest reservations. The charac- 
ter of the country included in these reservations varies 
greatl}', and rides suitable for one may not apply to all. 
One thing, however, is clear. In each reservation there 
should be a considerable area, where hunting should be 
absolutely prohibited, which should be an actual and ab- 
solute refuge for game, where it could never be disturbed. 
To the country which surrounds them, such refuges would 
be, in a less degree, what the Yellowstone Park is to the 
forest reserves which adjoin it; th&y would be game 
reservoirs which would annually pour forth a surplus of 
wild animals to stock the surrounding territory. 
These forest reservations, if wisely and reasonably ad- 
ministered, would not only be attractive places of resort 
to people from all parts of the country, but would be for 
all time sources of considerable and growing revenue to 
the States within which they lie, and to the communities 
situated on their borders, and no class of people in the 
whole country are so much interested in having the re- 
servations made the most of as those who dwell nearest 
to them. The difficulty of carrying through such a 
wholesome change of policy is to make the very people 
who are to be most benefited comprehend the advantages 
that they will gain by a proper guardianship of the 
reservations as to timber and game. 
For the public at large does not usually take the 
trouble to think for itself. No better example of this 
has recently been seen than the hysterical talk and writ- 
ing indulged in when the great forest reservations 
were established b}'^ President Cleveland. For a time the 
newspapers — and among them Forest and Stream — were 
full of meanings, bowlings and denunciations from peo- 
ple who feared something — they knew not what. But 
the reservations were established, their purposes patiently 
explained and the fears of the timid set at rest; and now 
pi-actically everybody in the whole country believes in 
forest preservation and the setting aside of forest reserves 
as large as practicable. 
Within comparatively few years we expect to see the 
forest reserves set aside as game refuges on some such 
plan as Forest and Stream has already outlined. Only 
by such action can our North American big game be pre- 
served from extinction. 
MASSACHUSETTS WOLVES AND PARTRIDGES. 
In his "New England Prospects," written in 1634, 
William Wood relates of the wolves in Massachusetts, 
'"They be the greatest inconveniency the Countrey hath, 
both for matter of dammage to private men in particular, 
and the whole Countrey in generall" ; and he thought that 
though the wolves were "killed dayly in some place or 
other, either by the English, or the Indian, who have a 
certaine rate for every head, yet is there little hope of 
their utter destruction, the Countrej' being so spacious, 
and they so numerous, traveling in the swamps by Ken- 
nels, sometimes ten or twelve are of a company." Those 
were the days when the wild pigeons darkened the New 
England sky; and when the wild turkey was found, 
"forty, threescore, and a hundred of a flocke. sometimes 
more and sometimes lesse," so that after a fall of snow 
"some have killed ten or a dozen in halfe a day." Then, 
too, heathcocks and partridges were so common that "he 
that is a husband, and will be .stirring betime, may kill 
halfe a dozen in a morning." And so of all the other 
kinds of game of the uplands and the waters, he relates 
the wonderful abundance — of the geese, of which some 
have killed a hundred in a week, fifty ducks at a shot and 
forty teal at another; of the shore birds "which one may 
drive into a heape like so many sheepe, and seeing a fit 
time shoote them — I my selfe have killed twelve score at 
two shootes," he tells us. 
Taking it all together, it was an enticing picture of a 
well stocked game country, and the description is one 
which we may well believe appealed very strongly to the 
Englishmen whose thoughts were turning to America. 
As for any one who might be disposed to question 
whether the abundant game supply would continue. Wood 
gives the reassuring testimony, "I have scene more living 
and dead the last yeare than I have done in former yeares." 
In his simplicity he believed that there was little hope of 
the utter destruction of the wolves, and he had as little 
fear of the disappearance of the game. He thought 
it would last forever. This may readily enough be 
forgiven the New Englander of 1634; he would have had 
prevision beyond his day and generation who should have 
dreamed otherwise. But the pity of it is that from that 
mid-century to the last the people of New England went 
along with the same simple confiding faith in the inex- 
haustibleness of the game supply. The wolves they 
banished long ago and no mourning attended the depar- 
ture ; but the wild pigeon, the wild turkey and the 
heathcock were killed off aS well, and they should not 
have been. The partridge was fast following the others 
to extinction, when the sportsmen of Massachusetts ral- 
lied to its protection with the enactment of the law to 
keep it out of the market stalls. 
From the day of William Wood to the present the peo- 
ple of New England an<J of thf rest of the country 
appear to have acted upon the belief that they had only to 
take as much game as they would — "to drive it in a 
heape like so many- sheepe and seeing fit . time shoote 
them" — and that with all the destruction, and in spite of 
it all, they would, as did our ancient author, see more 
living than dead the last year than , ever before. And 
such, if we may judge from the common every-day 
attitude and conduct of the community at large, is the 
simple faith held to-day. It was the sportsman who 
was first to realize the truth and to perceive that the 
reckless and unthinking killing should not go on un- 
checked, and could not so go on wnthout annihilation as 
the result. It is to the sportsman with his intelligent 
recognition of the need of protection that .we are in- 
debted for the game which remains to us to-day. 
There is profit in going back to the old chronicles of 
things as they were in the primitive days, for in the" 
review we learn of the advantages we have lost , arid are 
led to value more highly those which have been preserved 
to us. We should be prompted also to a wiser use of our 
own resources of field and stream, and to . hand them 
down unimpaired to those who shall follow us. 
N ON -GAME BIRD PROTECTION. 
Governor Odell of New York signed last week the 
non-game bird protective bill (Senate 222) which had 
been introduced by Senator W. McKinney, of Suffolk. 
This bill amends the game laws of New York in these 
respects: In Sections 20 and 21 of Article II. the words 
web-footed wildfowl are struck out, and for them are 
substituted the words ducks, geese, brant and swan. This 
amendment is merely carrying out the spirit of the law, 
which was to protect what are universally understood as 
wildfowl. A decision by the chief protector of this State 
has been that as grebes and terns were wild and web- 
footed, they had the same protection as the true wild- 
fowl, and no more. 
. Section 30 is amended by striking out the words grebe 
and bittern. These are in no sense game birds,, and 
shottld never have been included with plover, snipe, rails, 
etc. This change relegates grebe and bittern to Section 
33, certain wild birds protected, and includes them in the 
list of protected species. The sections relating to wild- 
fowl on Long Island are amended in like manner, 
the changes being made in Sections 103 and 
104, while from. Section 105 the word grebe is stricken 
out, and from Section 108 the word bittern. 
The effect of these amendments therefore is to protect 
gulls, terns, grebes and bitterns, a most desirable result 
to have attained. 
In New Jersey, Senate Bill No. 7, which is really the 
old bill of the Am.erican Ornithologist Union, defining 
what are game birds, and fixing seasons for them and pro- 
tecting all other birds, has passed the Senate, but is hung 
up in the Assembly. 
In the State of Delaware the old A. O. U. bill was 
passed at 10:30 on the last night of the session. ^ 
In Michigan, a modification of the A. O. U. law -has 
been attached as amendment to the new bill before the 
Legislature, and there is hope that it will be favorably 
acted on. 
In New Flampshire the A. O. U. law has just passed 
the Legislature. . 
In all these cases it will be seen that the effort has 
been made to have the law-making body define the terms 
"game birds" and "water fowl," and then to throw all 
the other birds into the protected. class. Legislation for 
game birds and for water fowl is left to the sportsman, 
while the ornithologists and the Audubon Society mem^ 
hers are caring for the other species. 
The Audubon Society movement, which was the first 
definite and concerted effort to protect our non-game 
birds, was set on foot by Forest and Stream in i88(3t, 
and much time, effort and money were expended 'in 
educating the public — and especially the children — as to 
the usefulness of birds. Within the last few years these 
efforts have begun to bring forth an abundant fruit, and 
the future looks bright. 
The proposal to forbid carrying firearms into the Maine 
woods in close time has not met with favor in tlie Maine 
Legislature, The measure is considered to he tco radical 
and its enforcement w<wl4 t>e difficulty 
