Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1902, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, AUGUST 2, 1902. 
Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. { 
Six Months, $2. ) 
( VOL. LIX.— No. 5. 
( No. 346 Broadway, New "York. 
WARDENS IN CONVENTION. 
The meeting of game and fish wardens at Mammoth 
Hot Springs in the Yellowstone Park last week was the 
beginning of a system of co-operation which, it is hoped, 
may result in much benefit to the States of the Northwest. 
The convention was the outcome of activity on the part of 
State Game and Fish Warden W. F. Scott, of Helena. 
Montana, who has long been convinced of the practical 
results of associated action by the authorities of contigu- 
ous States in the work of protection. There were present 
representatives from eight States — Warden Scott and Dr. 
Jas. A. Henshall, of Montana; Executive Agent Sam. F. 
Fullerton and Commissioner H. G. Smith, of Minnesota ; 
State Game Warden D. C. Nowlin, of Wyoming; State 
Game Warden C. W. Harris, of Colorado; State Game 
Warden L. P. W. Quimby, of Oregon, and Commissioner 
John Sharp, of Utah. 
A permanent organization was effected under the name 
of the National Association of Game and Fish Wardens 
and Commissioners. W. F. Scott, of Montana, was 
elected President, and H. G. Smith, of Minnesota, Secre- 
tary and Treasurer. 
Several well-considered papers were read and discussed. 
Commissioner Sharp made a strong argument for the 
abolition of spring shooting — an expedient which he 
reckoned absolutely necessary if the migratory species are 
to be saved. Mr. Fullerton discussed the benefits of co- 
operation between the States, and cited from his own ex- 
perience instances where game illegally shipped from 
other States had been intercepted in Minnesota, where- 
upon the authorities of the State from which the game 
had been shipped had been supplied with the evidence thus 
obtained, and the culprits had been punished. Such co- 
operation if carried out systematically will go far to break 
up the business of a lawless border element which pro- 
motes the underground game traffic between the States. 
The system may well be extended to international co- 
operation between this country and Canada; among the 
possibilities of the immediate future is an alliance between 
the Dominion Marine and Fisheries authorities aiid those 
of the Great Lakes States for the efficient protection of 
the boundary waters. Mr. Fullerton urged as to legisla- 
tion which should be adopted in such States as do not 
already have such features in their laws: (i) A declara- 
tion in the statute that the game is the property of the 
State and may be taken only as the statute itself expressly 
gives the privilege. (2) A non-export law. (3) A limit 
on the bag, "say twenty-five birds, two or three deer, and 
one moose." (4) Specific provisions respecting heads 
and hides ; for the hide and head hunter does perhaps 
Hiore damage than the meat hunter. (5) Above all else a 
prohibition of the sale of game birds, animals and fish at 
all times. On this point Mr. Fullerton said : 
When Forest and Stream first proposed this measure years 
ago, they were laughed at from one end of the country to the 
other. Strong editorials were written on the subject by the 
leading newspapers of the country, accusing Forest and Stream 
of working Jn the interests of the "dude" sportsmen and trying 
to deprive a large majority of our citizens of the privilege of 
buying their game in the open market. But sentiment has 
changed since then, and I bring you a message from Minnesota 
vouching for the benefits we have' received from that excellent 
section in our gaine laws stopping the sale of all game. 
(6) A provision making contraband all implements of 
shooting and fishing illegally used. (7) Wardens' right 
of search. (8) Abolition of spring shooting. (9) A 
shooting license. > 
Warden Nowlin, who has made a study of the operation 
of the Wyoming non-resident hunting license system, read 
a paper strongly supporting the wisdom and utility of the 
tax, as an expedient for providing revenue, for keeping 
out the meat hunter, and for enabling the authorities to 
know what is done in the woods. 
Years ago a New York city dweller having achieved an 
outing in the elk ranges of the Northwest, in reporting 
his experiences for Forest and Stream, told how the 
allurement of the mountains had taken hold upon him, so 
that henceforth he could live no longer in the East, but 
amid the scenes which had attracted him in the West. 
He was one of an unnumbered host of men for whom the 
chance of a hunting trip has meant a permanent change 
of residence and of fortune. The place of fish and game 
as advertising mediums for a country was the subject of 
a paper read by Warden Scott, of Montana, who de- 
clared that miUions of dollars had been investe^ in the 
Northwest by persons who had first been attracted to the 
country by the hunting and fishing. This with the other 
papers to which reference has been made will be printed 
in full in our next issue. 
NATURE IN IRVING. 
The beauty, majesty and variety of the natural world, 
whether viewed in its entirety, or in its infinite com- 
mingling of variegated detail, have been ever a source of 
constant delight to the true sportsman. Merely catching 
the fish or bagging the swiftly flying bird is in itself but a 
fragmentary part of the sport. The witchery of nature's 
setting must be allied to it, else it is sadly marred or 
depreciated, or, indeed, entirely ceases to be sport. This 
is materially felt by sportsmen when they attempt to gHe 
reali.stic descriptions of their outings. The pleasurable 
emotions, excited by the beautiful, the sublime and the 
transformations in nature, so clear to the beholder's own 
consciousness, seem almost inarticulate in the attempt to 
depict them and their causes to others. And yet, inso 
m.uch as a writer falls short of giving a full, realistic 
description of his mind picture, insorriuch is the descrip- 
tion imperfect in itself and lessened in value to the 
readers of it. Word painting, like color painting, is an art 
which requires- nice judgment, nice treatment and delicate 
blendings. There is quite as much difficulty in painting 
a mind picture in words so that it will be truly clear and 
pleasing to the minds of others as there is in painting in 
colors a picture which will be clear and pleasing to the 
eye and mind. Even among writers of established emi- 
nence, this art is rare. Washington Irving, whose works 
rank with the products of the world's best writers, pos- 
sessed in an eminent degree the art of describing natural 
scenes, though, for that matter, he was a thorough. master 
of any vein of literature which he engaged in. Much of 
his writings, however, are purely descriptive, and so fertile 
was his imagination, so airy and vivid his description, and 
so delicately and well chosen the matter, that continued 
reading of him is a continued delight. As a case in point, 
what could more delightfully portray a country home 
than the following, in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" : 
A great elm tree spread its branches over it: at the foot of 
which bubbled up a spring of the softest and sweetest water, in 
a little well formed of a barrel; and then stole away sparkling 
through the grass to a neighboring brook that bubbled along 
among alders and dwarf willows. Hard by the farmhouse was 
R vast barn that might have served tor a church; every win- 
dow and crevice of which seemed bursting forth with the treas- 
ures of the farm; the flail was busily resounding within it from 
morning to night; swallows and martins skimmed twittering about 
the eaves; and rows of pigeons, some with one eye turned up 
as if watching the weather, some with their heads imder their 
wings or buried in their bosoms, and others, swelling and cooing 
and bowing about their dames were enjoying the sunshine on 
the roof. Sleek, unwieldy porkers were grunting in the repose 
and abundance of their pens, from whence sallied forth now and 
then troops of sucking pigs, as if to sniff the air. A stately 
squadron of snowy geese were riding in an adjoining pond, con- 
voying whole fleets of ducks; regiments of turkeys were gob- 
bling throvigh the farm yard, and guinea fowls fretting about it 
like ill-tempered housewives with their peevish, discontented cry. 
Before the barn door strutted the gallant cock, that pattern of a 
husband, a warrior, and a fine gentleman, clapping his burnished 
wings and crowing in the pride and gladness of his heart — some- 
times tearing up the earth with his feet and then generously 
calling his ever-hungry family of wives and children to enjoy 
the rich ■ morsel which he had discovered. 
Can any one read the following without recalling to 
mind a brook just like it?: 
Our first essay was along a mountain brook, among the high- 
lands of the Hudson — a most unfortunate place for the execution 
of those piscatory tactics which had been invented along the 
velvet margins of quiet English rivulets. It was one of those 
wild streams that lavish among our romantic solitudes unheeded 
beauties, enough to fill the sketch book of a hunter of the pic- 
turesque. Sometimes it would leap down rocky shelves, making 
small cascades over which the trees threw their broad balancing 
sprays; and long, nameless weeds hung in fringes from the 
impending banks, dripping with diamond drops. Sometimes it 
would bawl and fret along a ravine in the matted shade of a 
forest, filling it with murmurs; and after this termagent career., 
would steal forth into open day with the most placid demure 
face imaginable; as I have seen some pestilent shrew of a house- 
wife, after filling her home with uproar and ill humor, come 
dimpling out of doors, swimming and curtseying and smiling 
upon all the world. 
The following conjures up thoughts of the ruffed 
grouse : 
It is a nigged region; full of fastnesses. A line of rocky hills 
extends through it like a backbone, sending out ribs on either 
aide; btit thMe rude hills are for the mos^ part richly wooded 
and inclose little fresh pastoral valleys watered by the Neperan, 
the Pocantico, and other beautiful streams along which the In- 
dians built their wigwams in the olden time. 
Could anything be more reaHstic in the way of describ- 
ing where to dine, to fish or to shoot? 
That question of the qualities of true sport has the 
perennial freshness of spring and the endurance of the 
everlasting hills. It has been discussed over and over 
again by correspondents of Forest and Stream^ and on 
each occasion has been settled for all time; yet but a 
spark is needed to kindle the flame anew. Just now the 
talk happens to have been prompted by Didymus, who 
made some invidious remarks about moose hunting and 
has brought out a vigorous defense from the big-game 
hunters. This is an admirable illustration of the bearing 
which the particular view-point may have on such a ques- 
tion. In his notes on tame birds last week, Didymus 
pictures himself as sitting on a shady porch, fanned by 
the Florida sea breeze, and for diversion winning the 
confidence of wild birds. How may one under such con- 
ditions be expected to view with any sympathy whatever 
the arduous enterprise of reducing to possession a set of 
moose antlers in the Canadian wilderness ? 
Whether advocates and followers of bird shooting or of 
big-game hunting, we are all agreed on this one thing, that 
the allurement of the sport is in the pursuing, be the 
pursuit indolent or arduous. In this the sportsman of 
to-day is the sportsman of two thousand years ago, as 
witness the Greek Callimachus, who lived and hunted and 
loved in the third centurj^, before the Christian era : 
The huntsman o'er the hills pursues 
The timid hare, and keenly views 
The tracks of hind amid the snow, 
Nor heeds the wint'ry winds that blow. 
But should a stranger mildly say, 
Accept the game I kill'd to-day — 
The proffer'd gift he quickly scorhs. 
And to th' uncertain chase returns: 
Such is my love; I never prize 
An easy fair, but her who flies. 
Rather severe on "The Future George V. of England" 
is a writer in Harper's Weekly, who recently gave six 
columns to a description of that Prince and his charac- 
teristics. The writer says: "Shooting and fishing are 
his chief recreations, and in both he is above the average." 
He also declared that the Prince is a "keen sportsman," 
and followed up this with the statement that he "has shot 
turkey buzzards in Buenos Ayres." One wonders — so 
different are men's ideas concerning sport in different 
countries — whether in all the wide world there is a place 
where turkey buzzards are regarded as game, or even 
where it is legitimate to shoot them. In many countries 
they are protected by law as scavengers. What is of 
course most probable is that Prince George never in all 
his life shot a turkey buzzard, but that the statement is 
merely the phrase of a writer who knows nothing about 
sport, but thought the combination of words sounded well. 
The amount of misinformation on. sport and natural his- 
tory that creeps in to the most carefully edited periodicals 
is astonishing. It is not long since, in a valued exchange, 
mention was made of shooting wild turkeys in the Altai 
Mountains in Siberia ! Thi^k of it ! 
Interesting evidence of the efficiency of the non-sale of 
game system comes from Florida, which was one of the 
last States to take up in earnest the protection of its deer 
and birds. The Legislature of 1899 enacted a stringent 
law, limiting the take of deer to five for any one person, 
and forbidding absolutely the sale of hides and venison. 
The law as to limit might be evaded, but with popular 
sentiment in support of the sale prohibition, excessive kill- 
ing is a negligible factor. The market-hunter cannot sell 
his game; he is therefore to be counted out. The people 
other than market-hunters who would kill more than five 
deer in a season are not so numerous as to affect the 
situation. In counties like Kissimmee, where the non- 
sale law is rigorously enforced by the power of popular 
sentiment, the good results are convincingly manifested It^ 
a renewed deer supply. ^ 
