Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, ]9ns by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Terms, |i A Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. I NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JUNE 6, 1903. \ No. 346 Broadway, New Yo«k. 
Six Months, $2. ( ' ' 
The Forest and Stream is the recognized medium of entertain- 
ment, instruction and information between American sportsmen. 
The editors invite communications on the subjects to which its 
pages are devoted. Anonymous communications will not be re- 
garded. While it is intended to give wide latitude in discussion 
of cun-ent topics, the editors are not responsible for the views of 
correspondents. 
Subscriptions may begin at any time. Terms: For single 
copies, $4 per year, §2 for six months. For club rates and full 
particulars respecting subscriptions, see prospectus on page iii. 
VACATION TIME. 
We are now in the height of the outdoor season, and 
for a few months longer the consideration of the vacation 
soon to come, or just enjoyed, will have large share in 
our thoughts. 
It is a trite saying that each of us is at heart a savage 
and desires, at least once a year, to return for a little 
while to the habits of those primitive ancestors who de- 
pended for support on the flesh of the beasts which 
they hunted, the fish which they caught from the waters, 
the shellfish gathered from the seashore, or the roots and 
fruits yielded by the soil. This may be true, but whether 
it is so or not will probably never be known. It seems 
more probable that since the pleasures of life consist 
chiefly in its changes and its contrasts, so we, who arc 
civilized, who live in cities, towns, villages or at all events 
in houses^ and are bound by all the restraints of civilized 
society, find our highest pleasure in escaping for a time 
from that society and the restraining fetters consequent 
on our ordinary close association with men. We long 
for a freedom unknown in our daily life, for an inde- 
pendence known only to natural things who wander at 
will, when and where they please, and who lie down and 
sleep at their own good pleasure. We long to go where 
we please ; to stop when we feel like it ; to eat when we 
are hungr}', and not at set times ; to lounge in camp, in 
our oldest clothes or without any clothes at all ; to be for 
a little time our own masters. 
One and all the civilized people of the world are strug- 
gling in a race for such measure of wealth as shall give 
them absolute independence, shall enable them to do pre- 
cisely as they please. None of them ever attains the sum 
of his desires. The man who has become a multi- 
millionaire has formed the habit of making millions, and 
this habit has become stronger far than was his old de- 
sire for freedom, for a time when he could travel, could 
spend his daj-s in fishing or shooting, or in studying 
natural history, or could buy back the old farm where he 
was born and go there to be for the rest of his life a 
farmer. 
Yet, for a little time, each one of us who spends his 
vacation in the forests, or among the mountains, or on 
the seashore, who makes his fishing trip, his hunt for 
big game, or spends two or three weeks cruising on yacht 
or tiny catboat, is richer far than any of these multi- 
millionaires, for he is doing the things that he has longed 
for and looked forward to; he has thrown aside for a 
little while all sense of responsibility, and has once more 
become a child with the child's freedom from care, but 
with far more than the child's capacity for enjoyment. 
Let him make the most of his good time. It will not last 
long, and a whole year may elapse before it comes again. 
The early spring trout fishing is over, and summer 
trips are now beginning. Long ago j'achtsmen fitted up 
their boats, and now every spare moment is spent on the 
water, preparing for races or cruises to take place during 
the next three or four months. Until the summer is well 
over the sports of the water will be the only ones present- 
ing themselves to most readers of Forest and Stream, 
but close upon them will follow trips into the mountains 
for big game, the strenuous climb after mountain sheep 
and goats, the careful stalk of the sleek deer and the high 
fronted bull elk. As the heat of summer wanes, men will 
begin to get their dogs in condition, and the covers of the 
East and the prairies of the West will be crossed and re- 
crossed by the active ranging beauties, and the flat crack 
of the shotgun, with its smokeless powder, will awaken 
echoes all over the land. Later still, when sharp frosts 
have killed vegetation North and South, and the air is 
bracing and the ground rings hard under the 
foot, quail and ruffed grouse will be followed, and from 
the north will begin to appear the wildfowl, sometimes 
in such numbers as to almost d^^rken the skies, and the^ 
as It grows colder and colder, and winter is at hand, 
the duck shooter's time has come, and hidden in blind or 
battery he takes toll of the swift-flying birds that dart 
to his decoys. 
There is a wonderful variety of fur and feather and fin 
in this broad land of ours, and if population, civilization 
and progress have covered much of it so thickly that there 
is no longer place there for the wild creatures that we 
love to pursue, yet there still remain many spots, far 
from the haunts of man, where good shooting and fishing 
may be had. In all directions the country is traversed by 
railroad lines anxious to give good service to the sports- 
man, and to induce him to travel over their roads. Of 
steamship lines the same is true. 
For many of us there is the opportunity for a good 
vacation. 
IN THE EARLY HOURS. 
Occasionally there comes, just before the dawn, the 
gleam of a strange peculiar light that shines in the eastern 
sky — an unfamiliar ghsten, refraction rather than reflec- 
tion. It is soft and thin, like the glimmer of zodiacal 
light, spanning the afterglow of a clear sunset. Only in 
the calm of early hours, when the east is absolutely film- 
less, does this weird, evanescent halo rest upon the world. 
It is the "avant courier" of the dawn, not always seen, but 
when once the charmed eye has looked upon its soft 
beauty as it holds the sleeping woods, his is a dead soul 
indeed that does not thrill to the memory. 
Phoebe often awakes and seems alive to the witchery of 
its shining, for time and again the plaint of the lonely 
little voice will add its far-away eifect to the prevailing 
quiet. 
Pho-e-be! Pho-e-be! cries the little gray bird, and, for 
a space, all nature seems to await the answer that never 
comes. Now the daw-n is rapidly brightening over the 
earth, till presently the thin, soft sheen we have noted is 
gone — vanished with the first touch of the morning breeze 
that rustles, the leaves. 
Tera-lee! tera-loo! sing the robins, in quick response 
to one another, while as yet the other members of the 
feathered choir are silent. How the echoes fling. their rol- 
licking notes far and wide through the early twilight. 
Olio! Olto-cheee-e ! — a ])ause~OHo-cheee ! Up from 
the dell where the night mist still lingers comes the ex- 
quisite voice. A swamp robin, sweetest songster in all 
our woodlands, is charming. Clear, bell-like the magic call 
seems to signal the late risers among the wood folk, for 
soon the sounding trill of the wren is heard, as it sings 
to a running accompaniment of A'ireo warblings, while the 
stirring tu-e! tti-e! of the oriole is answered among the 
tree-tops by the full-throated challenge of a great crested 
flycatcher. The deep chest-notes of a j^ellow-breasted chat 
announce the fact that the tenants of the shrubbery are 
awakening, and soon we hear them, brown thrush, che- 
wink, catbird — the air is filled with bird music. "Grace 
before meat" is the rule with the majority of bird families, 
and though it is said that "the early bird catches the 
worm," still, we find he generally sings with exquisite 
grace ere he proceeds to do the catching. Even the rank 
and file — plebian birds, we may call them — sqtiawk and 
cheep and chirrup to the best of their ability before breaking 
fast. Soft-winged owls and other night prowlers will 
utter uncouth soimds before starting on their silent quest 
for food. But it is the bird music that rings out on calm 
mornings just before the dawn that impresses the hearer 
with its fervor. They put their little hearts into their 
songs "in the early hours," long before the dew drops 
begin to sparkle in the sun's rays. 
The United States consumes a million bullfrogs a 
year, of a gross value to the hunters of $50,000; and the 
frog as food is growing in popularity. This means in- 
creased pursuit; and as was pointed out in a bulletin of 
the United States Fish Commission in 1897, "the unre- 
stricted hunting of frogs threatens their practical extinc- 
tion in all places where their abundance and shipping 
facilities or proximity to market render the business 
profitable." It is probablj'^ within the observation of more 
than the person who may read this note that waste places 
which once resounded witli the mallow bellow of the 
bulls by night are now silent; the frogs have been caught 
Vintil Xh,t Stock w^.§ exterminated. Up to date, in spite of 
the recurring story of marvelously profitable frog farms, 
artificial culture has not been achieved; every story of 
fi-og farming, when traced to its source, proves to be a 
fake pure and simple; or else the farming is found to 
consist only in catching small frogs and penning them in 
swamps and ponds until they grow to marketable size. 
As the frog supply cannot be replenished by artificial 
means, it is highly expedient that the native production 
of this valuable resource should be conserved; and one 
reasonable means to this end would be the protection of 
frogs in the breeding season, and a restriction of the an- 
nual period in which they may be taken. Such a provision 
has just been adopted by Pennsylvania in a law which 
makes it unlawful to take bullfrogs between July i and 
November i. 
K 
Mr. Fowler's paper on the question of public fishing 
rights in lakes will be read with much interest, because 
the subject is one which appeals to a vast number of 
anglers in a very direct and personal way. It is only a 
truism to say that the hosts of fishermen are multiplying 
while the waters available for fishing are decreasing, be- 
cause so many of them once open to the public have come 
into the control of individuals and associations by whom 
they are strictly preserved for their own use. In some 
States all bodies of water exceeding a specified area are 
by statute declared to be free to the public for fishing. 
Thus in Massachusetts the law is that "the fishery of any 
pond, the area of which is more than twenty acres, shall 
be public." And New Hampshire has the same size limit : 
"Ail natural ponds and lakes containing more than twenty 
acres shall be deemed public waters." The New Hamp- 
shire law goes further than this, for it provides that, if 
such waters are surrounded by private lands through 
which no thoroughfare gives access to the lake, county 
commissioners may lay out a thoroughfare to it through 
a way condemned for the purpose. While, as Mr. Fowler 
suggests, the operation of the New Jersey law in seizing 
private waters is akin to the seizure of private lands and 
has the color of an invasion and confiscation of property, 
the principles of riparian rights are so complicated that 
one would be unsafe in foretelling what the courts might 
ultimately decide in a case like this. 
It 
To THE Audubon Society of North Carolina has been 
entrusted the duty of appointing special game constables 
who shall work under the Societj-'s direction for the en- 
forcement of not only the laws for the protection of song 
birds, but of the game laws as well. In other words, the 
game warden machinery of the State is controlled by the 
Audubon Societ}'. Under these circumstances it is be- 
lieved that sportsmen, both residents and those who visit 
the State for shooting, will be glad to contribute to the 
resources of the Society by affiliating themselves with it as 
members. Membership is of two classes : One of sustain- 
ing members, who pay an annual fee of $5, and the other 
of life members, who pay one fee of $10, with no addi- 
tional fees thereafter. Prof. T. Gilbert Pearson, the 
secretary, tells us that a number of Northern sportsmen 
have already shown their interest in the Society by join- 
ing it, and there probably are many others who would be 
glad in this way to contribute to the work. Prof. Pear- 
son's address is Greensboro, N. C. 
In another column is recorded the agreement entered 
into by the members of the Millinery Merchants* Pro- 
tective Association with the Audubon Society and the 
A. O. U., by which the dealers pledge themselves to ab- 
stain from traffic in the feathers and skins of gulls, terns, 
grebes, hummingbirds and song birds. As the agreement 
covers importation, the good effects of the pledge will 
not be limited to this country. This result is a distinct 
achievement for the bird protectors, the importance of 
which is beyond computation. It were much to be desired 
that the example thus set by the dealers of New York 
might be followed in other great markets of the world 
where the traffic in wild bird skins is enormous. One 
Berlin firm has rec^fntly placed an order with Russian 
agents for 80,000 skins of one species ; and it is recorded 
that a single cargo of wings of willow grouse received, ^t; 
Archangel amounted to ten tons. 
