Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1902, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Terms, |4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. {_ 
Six Months, $3. ) 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MARCH 8, 1902 
( VOL. LVIIL— No. 10. 
| No. 846 Broadway, New York 
WOOD DUCK AND WOODCOCK. 
In 1890 the Legislature of Ontario enacted a law pro- 
viding that "if at any time it shall appear that any mi- 
gratory game bird is in danger of extinction, and that the 
shooting and sale thereof has been forbidden in any two 
or more of the States lying to the south of Ontario, one 
of such States being New York or Pennsylvania or Michi- 
gan, ,the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council may protect 
such bird in Ontario for the period in which it is pro- 
tected in the States." With a view to making this 
effective with respect to the two species of wood duck 
and woodcock, the Game Commissioners in May of last 
year, directed Chief Warden Tinsley to correspond with 
the sportsmen's associations in the States concerned to 
learn their attitude toward a close time for this game. 
Mr. Tinsley also, through the Forest and Stream, in- 
vited correspondence on the subject. 
The result of this request is given in the current report. 
Mr. Tinsley received responses from representative sports- 
men in Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, New York and Dela- 
ware, expressing the generally held conviction that im- 
mediate steps should be taken for the protection of the 
two species. The testimony adduced is to the effect 
that the wood duck in the territory concerned is a vanish- 
ing species. Mr. C. T. Bodfield, Secretary of the Ohio 
Sportsmen's Protective Association, says "the wood duck 
is almost unknown to our hunters in this State, and very 
few are seen each year."' Mr. W. B. Mershon writes 
from Saginaw, "Wood ducks, I think, are practically ex- 
tinct here. I have not seen one for years, and our little 
streams used to be full of them." 
Whatever may be the immediate result of the agitation 
for protection of this duck — one of the most beautiful 
and valuable of all the feathered tribe — and one cannot 
hope for any speedy result, the efforts of Mr. Tinsley 
and his associates have at least served to direct atten- 
tion to the subject and have awakened interest in it; 
and if the discussion shall be kept up, there is reason- 
able ground of confidence that Ontario and the States 
concerned may in the near future have uniform laws 
which will accomplish the desired end. 
OUR FOREST RESERVES. 
Although it is well known that forest reserves have 
been established by the United States, and their area has 
often been stated, the general public has little or no 
specific knowledge of where they are situated, the extent 
of each or the character of the country within their 
boundaries. These details should be known. The table 
published this week gives much of this information. 
The only point untouched is as to the character of the 
country embraced in the different reserves. On the other 
hand, the table is a historical document which shows the 
date at which each reservation was set aside and at which 
each' has been added to or diminished. All this informa- 
tion is of great value, to every citizen. 
When these reserves were set aside by Presidential 
proclamation, their precise permanent geographical limits 
were not known, nor was it known whether the whole 
tract set aside was public domain or was in part occupied 
by settlers who had claims or titles within the boundaries 
established. To have waited until the tracts decided on 
as suitable for reservations should be surveyed would 
have postponed the establishment of the reserves for very 
many years, during which the work of destruction of the 
forests would have continued without let or hindrance, to 
the very great injury of the inhabitants of the Western 
country. It was very wisely determined to establish the 
reserves' boundaries by straight lines then, and to survey 
them afterward, and when their proper limits had been 
learned, to correct errors by subsequent proclamations. The 
work of surveying and of correction is now going on, and 
the table shows a number of cases where large areas have 
been subtracted from certain of the reserves as originally 
established, and are now restored to the public domain. 
Of the character of the country in all these reserves 
no one person is thoroughly informed. Yet some of the 
most competent men in the United States have journeyed 
over most of them, and as time goes on we may expect 
full reports on all. One such report — that on the Black- 
Mesa Forest Reserve — is now in. our hands, and will soon 
be published. What we do know about these reserves is 
that m the past they have been the homes of almost all 
fhe species of big game native to temperate America. In 
the northern central reserves, or in some of them, are 
still found a few elk, moose and sheep, and a greater num- 
ber of bears, goats, deer of two species, and perhaps a 
few antelope. In this same country the buffalo once 
ranged. To the west of the Rocky Mountains in the 
north are deer of three species, a few elk and moose, 
many goats, some sheep and bears, and possibly still a few 
caribou. Again, to the southward, there are sheep and 
deer, while still further south there are sheep, deer, a 
few antelope and the almost extinct Merriam's elk, if any 
of that species still survive. 
The unanimous voice of the nature lovers and sports- 
men of the United States calls for the setting aside as 
speedily as possible of these forest reserves, in part at 
least, as game refuges, where no hunting whatever shall 
be permitted, but where the game shall be allowed to 
live and to increase undisturbed. If this shall be done, 
and done soon, the results will be such that the wisdom 
of the action will soon be apparent to every one. The 
rapidity with which game increases when protected is well 
known and has been nowhere better shown than in the 
Yellowstone National Park. There is no reason why 
we should not have scattered over the Western country a 
dozen or twenty great areas similar to the National Park, 
all swarming with big game, which would overflow into 
the surrounding country. To the borders of such refuges 
hunters would come from all parts of the world, each 
anxious to secure specimens of the great game now so 
hard to find, and each visiting hunter would leave among 
the guides and ranchmen hundreds of dollars, paid out 
for services, supplies and horse hire. From the same 
overflow the settlers round about could kill their winter's 
meat and would thus receive a double benefit. Indeed, no 
one would be so greatly profited by the establishment of 
such refuges as the settlers living near them. One would 
suppose that from the States in which these forest re- 
serves lie there would come a united demand for the 
action suggested, for it is these States that will receive 
all the monev benefit from the refuges. 
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE DUCKING WAYS. 
We spoke last week of the way in which various species 
of game became educated under new conditions of rela- 
tionship with the human race. A noteworthy example 
of this is referred to in the current report of the Ontario 
Game Commission, in which attention is directed to the 
fact that the wildfowl are coming more and more to fre- 
quent the marshes controlled by wildfowl preserves. At 
the first blush it might appear an anomaly that the game 
should seek refuge and security on the very grounds 
dedicated to their destruction; but there is a very good 
reason for their action, and the security which they seek 
is in large measure given them. This is due, as Commis- 
sioner MacCallum, who writes the report, points out, to 
the fact that on the club grounds it is in many cases with 
Ontario preserves the rule that shooting does not begin 
promptly with the opening of the season on the first of 
September, but later, and often not until late as October. 
With shooting elsewhere from the first day continuously, 
it is a matter of course that the fowl should seek harbor 
on the marshes where there are no deadly guns. Again, 
on the preserves, when shooting actually is in progress, 
none is practiced before 8 o'clock in the morning and 
after sundown in the evening; and as nothing tends to 
drive ducks from their feedings grounds more certainly 
than shooting before sunrise and after sunset, it is not 
strange that the club marshes should have game while 
other territory is abandoned. 
For this reason the club preserves are preserves in 
fact, and the benefit of them is by no means confined to 
the club members, but in a general way extends to the 
public at large. 
This is another illustration of the great truth that 
public business, should be conducted on the lines approved 
and practiced in private business affairs ; and those prin- 
ciples of game protection which govern in private pre- 
serves should be adopted also for the vast preserve of 
which the public is owner and user. If our game laws 
were a transcript of the rules of a game club, and if 
our fishing laws were copied from the rules of a fishing 
preserve, and our general practice with respect t© re- 
plenishing the supply and limiting the take should follow 
those of the club organizations, the ideal theory and 
practice of game and fish protection would be- in a fair 
way of attainment. 
It is to be noted that a club which owns a fishing or 
shooting privilege which has cost it something to 
acquire, does not this year proceed recklessly to use up 
and exhaust its resources without thought of next year. 
On the contrary, it considers carefully the question of 
how to provide a new stock of fish or to leave a parent 
stock of game for the fishing and shooting of another 
season. It drafts rules to govern its members and to 
control their action with a view to this conserving of 
the common stock for the common enjoyment of all. No 
club member in these days is allowed to kill indiscrimi- 
nately and without limit the fish or game of the club; he 
is strictly bound by club rules. It is only the individual 
who is taking the public fish or game who considers that 
he has license to get all he can. The legal limitations 
on numbers of fish taken in a day or of birds killed in a 
day, are nothing more than an incorporation into the 
laws governing shooters in general of the rules of demand 
and supply which the clubs have voluntarily adopted for 
themselves. That State to-day has the best game and 
fish laws which in its statutes has approached most closely 
the club rules of a preserve. 
THE STORM AND THE BIRDS. 
The storm of two weeks ago was of the destructive 
kind which imperils in vast areas the lives of the game 
birds, and the kind which, in the mind of sportsmen, 
arouses forebodings of an open season devoid of birds 
and therefore devoid of sport. The experience of previous 
years in respect to similar storms affords good grounds 
for apprehension of grave disaster. 
The storm followed a spell of pleasant weather. It 
was a heavy downfall, ample in volume to cover up the 
-bevies which sought shelter from it in the fence corners 
or fallen tree tops, or hollow logs. A boisterously fierce 
wind set in, drifting the snow thoroughly and thereby 
adding further to the dangerous situation of the game 
birds. In the night the storm changed to mingled rain 
and sleet, which froze on everything with which it came 
in contact. Daylight brought to view a beautiful sight 
of glistening perspective. Every branch of tree, twig, 
telegraph wire, as well as larger objects, were heavily 
coated with firm ice, enchanting to behold. So heavy, 
indeed, was the encrusted ice, that many trees were more 
or less wrecked by the weight of it. 
The ice, formed by the sleet and cold, was the final 
touch which endangered the life of the game birds. The 
snow covered them and the icy crust imprisoned them. 
When thus covered over with snow, over which an icy 
crust is formed, quail are as firmly imprisoned as if 
they were within iron walls, and death comes to them 
from starvation or slow suffocation, or both. Whole 
bevies dead invthe spot where they sought shelter are the 
common results to be seen after the snow has melted 
away, over the whole area affected by such a storm. The 
full consequences, however, cannot be known for weeks 
to come. Fanners, when the plowing season comes, may 
report finding the remains of many bevies here and 
there in their fields; the whistle of Bob White will be 
seldom heard in the spring season, and when the open 
season comes there will be a dearth of birds, and by 
such, if it happen, the sportsman will know that this 
great storm of February, 1002, brought great loss to bird 
life and wholesome sport. 
And yet, often as the lesson of the storm has been 
driven home by disaster, there is seldom any precaution 
taken to protect game bird life against a possible recur- 
rence of the disaster. Birds are imported, turned out 
in the denuded grounds, and, as a rule, the rest is left 
to Providence. A few rough shelters here and there in 
their haunts, to which they could safely retreat in case 
of destructive storms, a few bushels of grain scattered 
about in the season of winter's dearth, and the worst 
storms could be safely passed through without loss. 
The lesson of the storm, however often taught as it con- 
cerns the game birds, seems to be one which is taught 
only to be forgotten. 
Rev. Percy F. Grant, of the Church of the Ascension, 
New York city, in a Lenten sermon the other Sunday, 
exhorted his congregation during the forty days of Lent 
to "eat as few birds as possible, particularly pigeons and 
song birds." That is pretty good advice as to song bird§ 
for the year 
