Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
CoPYMGHT, 1902, BY Forest and Strkam Pubushing Co. 
Terms, ^ a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $2. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JULY 8, 1902. 
VOL. LTX.— No. 1. 
No. 846 Broadway, New York. 
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 current topics, the editors are not responsible for the views of 
correspondents. 
Subscriptions may begin at any dme. Terms: For single 
copies, $4 per year, $2 for six months. For club rates and full 
particulars respecting subscriptions, see prospectus on page iii. 
A PICTURE OF THE PAST. 
Our illustration supplement this week presents a pic- 
;ure of the past. It is one which cannot be duplicated. 
The plain still stretches away in billowy waves ; the ever- 
asting mountains rear their snow-clad pinnacles to the 
ikies; but the buffalo host has long since vanished from 
he land. The photograph, of which the engraving is a 
eproduction, was made years ago, and the negative has 
leen destroyed. The picture is an unique memento of the 
Vest of another age. 
MONTANA'S BUFFALO. 
In Montana, or on its borders, are to be found to-day 
le largest number of buffalo in any State of the Union, 
nd yet in all, these number only 350 or 400 head. Most 
i them are under domestication, though a few are wild. 
Twenty-five years ago the Southern herd of buffalo 
lad practically disappeared, but twenty-five years ago fat 
ow, bosse ribs, depouille and marrow guts, together' 
i'ith newly dressed robes, were still, as they always had 
■een since the first coming of the white men, familiar ob- 
ects in Montana. 
It may be surmised that there never were shipped from 
ny Territory in the West so many robes as from the old 
lontana Territory, of which Fort Benton was so long the 
lost important center of the fur trade. Other States or 
'erritories in the south may have shipped out greater 
umbers of hides, but northern Montana, owing to its 
reat Indian population and the late coming to it of the 
iilroads, was always the great country for robes. " 
To-day in the Yellowstone National Park there are a 
ery few wild buffalo. These are variously estimated at 
■cm twenty-two to thirty-two head, but the animals are 
) shy that for years it has not been practicable to count 
iiem, and their numbers can be only guessed at from the 
acks found in the winter's snow. 
The United States National Museum and the Amer- 
.an Museum of Natural History more than a dozen 
lars ago, sent out expeditions to collect a few specimens 
the last remaining buffalo. A small number were found 
I the heads of Dry Fork and Porcupine rivers north of 
le Yellowstone, and a number of specimens secured. 
;li seen were exceedingly wild. A very few individuals 
this herd escaped destruction, and these — for 3'ears 
most free from molestation — increased until, according 
report, they numbered about sixty head. But the bunch 
.d grown too large. A few years ago a concerted at- 
ck was made on them by the Red River half-breeds, and 
irty-two were killed. Other people say that the whole 
inch was wiped out. Certainly its numbers were so 
duced— if any survived— that many years must elapse, 
under the most favorable conditions, before these 
ifalo can again be counted. Montana has a law pro- 
;ting the buffalo, but game wardens are scarce on the 
lins where these buffalo range. 
The largest bunch of buffalo in the world is that owned 
Michel Pablo and the heirs of Charles Allard, which 
nges on the Flathead reservation in Montana. Stories 
ncerning it float about through the newspapers, but 
finite information concerning the bunch is not easily 
d. Where it came from, how it started, what are its 
isent condition and its future prospects are matters of 
:erest alike to historian, naturalist and sportsman. It 
seemed to the Forest and Stream that the setting 
wn of the essential facts about this herd was something 
II worth doing, and in order to obtain information, at 
26 intelligent and accurate, Mr, J. B. Monroe, of Teton 
mty, Montana, was recently dispatched to the Flathead 
mtry to learn everything possible about this herd. Nor 
i he limit himself to inquiry concerning the herd as it 
ists to-dsy. From Mr. Chas. Aubrey, of Browning, 
mtana, he received a full and most interesiing account 
' $he ppgifl of tbii herd from ^Ives born just twenty- 
five years ago on the plains, and the next spring taken over 
the mountain. 
Mr. Aubrey and Mr. Monroe offer in this account con- 
tributions to the history of the buffalo which will he 
read with the greatest interest. We print to-day the story 
of the origin of the herd, and this will be followed next 
week with its development and present condition. 
THE TUNA IN ATLANTIC WATERS. 
Angling history has been made in the fishing columns 
of Forest and Stream. There is ih them a perfect mine 
of angling lore, to which must repair the chronicler who 
shall record the rise and development of the several 
branches of the art in American waters. The history 
here covered goes back to a remote and primitive age 
when there was heated discussion of the question — how 
odd it sounds now— "Will the black bass take a fly?" 
Later came the doubtful speculations on the possibility 
of killing tarpon with rod and reel. The discovery of 
the qualities of the leaping tuna and its exploitation as 
the great game fish of the Pacific, make another chapter 
of the history. 
And now comes a corarautiication from Mr. J. A. L. 
Waddell which may prove the opening page of a new 
record. Mr. Waddell, who is known by his writings in 
our pages as an enthusiastic, successful and well-informed 
tarpon fisherman, has been investigating the tuna fishing 
possibilities of the Atlantic side of the continent, and be- 
lieves that he has discovered an opening for the sport in 
the waters of Nova Scotia. The information given by 
Mr. Waddell is so full and specific that it should induce 
salt-water fishermen to make a thorough test of the 
M-aters designated; and the fame which will surely attend 
the capture of the first Atlantic tuna with rod and reel 
should be a sufficient stimulus to provoke ambition and 
enterprise. We trust that the pioneer tuna fishing in At- 
lantic waters may have place among our fishing chronicles 
of 1902. 
In this connection it may not be amiss to say that last 
summer there came to us intelligence of tuna fishing in- 
vestigations conducted in certain of the Atlantic waters 
of the United States, the particulars of which have not 
been made public, pending their possible successful re- 
sult. 
THE DAY OF THE SMALL BOY. 
Independence Day, Friday of this week, has brought 
with it greater than ordinary cause for gladness of heart 
to all, for many of the great employers of labor have 
added Saturday to it as a holidaj% thus conferring three 
consecutive days of liberty in fact upon thousands of 
working people, who, under the Constitution, are in theory 
free always. 
The commercial signs of the times indicate that the 
American boy— and, on July 4, in a patriotic sense, said 
boy may be big or little, old or young, smooth-faced or 
bewhiskered — will be better equipped for giving vent to 
his annual surcharge of patriotic hullabaloo than he ever 
was before. 
For the making of noises and smokes and flames, all 
kinds of devices, new and old, are offered for sale in 
abundance at prices to please the individual or the masses, 
hence it is safe to predict that on Friday Young America 
will be abroad early, present to himself the keys of the 
city and the freedom of the country, and make a blending 
of the noises of earth and Bedlam, as becomes the day 
and his opportunity. For has he not hoarded his pennies 
to insure the wherewithal to purchase noise makers? Has 
he not for weeks and weeks been in a fever of impatience 
for July 4, a day so drearily slow in its coming? Now 
that it has arrived, why should he not in his own way, 
with bray of horn, explosions big, little and often, whoops 
and yells, struts, quirps, marchings and cminteimarchings, 
express his veneration for the day's historical significance 
while revelling personally in an ecstacy of delightful 
pleasure? Give him liberty. 
And yet, while as one in sentiment concerning the day's 
significance, the great American people will be divided 
it.to two distinct classes, those who emphatically object 
to the din and uproar as disturbing and unnecessary, and 
those who cannot conceive of disturbance enough. The 
anti-noisers journey to the country till the disturbance 
ceases, or bear it with such resi^ation as they can 
muster. The pro-noisers are 2«§ldus and active in pro- 
m.oting the general tumult. In the light of past experi- 
ence, July 4 is consecrated to hullabaloo, lost thumbs, 
singed eyebrows, lockjaw and dismemberment. It is an 
established institution, hence if one is disturbed by it, he 
should take the disturbance philosophically. 
It is the one. day on which the American boy can riot 
legally. He is giving expression to certain emotions, un- 
der certain > conditions, which in a way do not differ from 
the manner of his elders under certain other conditions. 
Aged men sometimes whoop and cheer for candidates at 
election time; young collegians utter college yells apropos 
of nothing, at any time or place; groups of men sing 
"For he's a jolly good fellow" when their bosoms swell 
with friendly feeling; thousands become idiotically ecstatic 
in their demonstrations over the winner at a horse race : 
so that, if we disapprove of what has ceased to be novel 
to us, we may in turn be disapproved if enthusiastic over 
what has ceased to be novel to some one else. 
Let Young America have his freedom for one day in 
the year, July 4, as in keeping with the declaration of the 
day. Let him make all the noise possible if no physical 
injury is done thereby. If he does not understand in his 
youth what it is all about, in his mature years, when he 
does understand it, there will be appreciation of its na- 
tional beneficence, blended with happy accentuated asso- 
ciations. 
Remember that all men were boys once, and that it is 
an ill stage in the life of any man wherein he forgets 
that he was once a boy himself. When the Declaration 
of Independence caused cannons to fight for years in 
war, we surely should be able to endure the roar for a 
day in time of peace. 
The bill for the creation of a Southern Appalachian 
Forest Preserve was passed by the Senate last week, after 
having been amended to provide that the measure shall 
not take effect until the Secretary of Agriculture shall 
have reported to Congress the plots of each reservation. 
The bill authorizes the purchase by the Secretary of Agri- 
culture, at a cost not to exceed $10,000,000, of not more 
than 4,500,000 acres of land to be selected in the forest 
regions of Virginia, West Virginia, North and South 
Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee. The bill has 
not passed the House; but on recommendation of com- 
mittee will be carried over to the December session as 
unfinished business. 
K 
The commission authorized by the New York Legisla- 
ture to select lands for a State park on Long Island, have 
had several tenders of available properties. The tracts 
offered include one lying between Manor and Yaphank, 
another on the Quogue Plains, and one in the Ronkon- 
koma section. Several thousand acres are said to be 
available on Peconic Bay, but the price asked would be 
prohibitive. The commission is reported to be favorably 
inclined to a Wading River tract of 6,500 acres, lying be- 
tween Manor and Yaphank, and having a frontage on the 
Sound. 1 
Mr. Charles Hallock tells in a very charming manner of 
the early days in the Massachusetts hills, where he first 
learned the art of casting the fly. We are all creatures 
of circumstance, our whole lives influenced by happen- 
ings which in themselves are as slight and trivial as they 
are in consequences powerful and lasting. The chance 
visit of a fly-fisherman to the trout streams of Hampshire 
county gave angling bent to a youth whose whole life was 
affected thereby. 
The Visalia, Cali., Times charges that the United 
States troops detailed to the protection of the Sequoia 
National Park have been poachers, killing deer out of 
season and dynamiting the trout streams ; and it calls on 
the Secretary of the Interior, in whose charge the Park 
is, to put an end to this lawlessness on the part of the 
troops. To state the abuse should be to find its quick 
remedy. 
An international agreement for the uniform protection 
of certain migratory birds, has been entered into by Bel- 
gium, France, Greece, Lichtenstein, Luxemburg, Monaco, 
Austria-Hungary, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and 
Spain. Absolute protection is assured for birds useful to 
agriculture. It is extremely unfortunate that Italy should 
not have joined in the compact, for the migrating birds 
cross that country in immeaise hosts, and the industry ^| 
capturing them results in an enormous destni^^/ 
