Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1902, enr Forbst and Strbam Pubushing Co. 
Terms, |i a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. I 
Six Months, |2. j" 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1902, 
VOL. LIX.— No. IT. 
No. 846 Broadway, New York 
The Forest and Stream is the recognized mediain of entertain- 
ment, instruct' jii 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 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. 
OCTOBER. 
The four great subdivisions of the year, spring, sum- 
mer, autumn and winter, embody within them many other 
special seasons of the sportsmen's calendar, dear to the 
sportsman's heart. These seasons are as varied in length 
as they are in admirers, yet they afford opportunity, under 
nature's auspices, for the activities of the different sports- 
men's guilds in the acceptance of nature's charming 
offerings.' Though these seasons are chai-ged with numer- 
ous and varied themes, men nevertheless find much of 
common interest in October days. And hpw? 
First of all, it is a season when game restrictions are 
" suspended. 
He whose delight is to fish the spring brooks sur- 
charged witli babbling waters, or to fish the landlocked 
lakes newly stripped of their icy covering, has much of 
his favorite sport with rod and reel to which he may 
turn in October days. 
Those who, on waters salt and fresh, set forth boldly 
and pleasurably in yacht and canoe for strange places or 
strange lands, have a delightful season in October days. 
Those who camp on hill or in valley without the roar 
and rush of the great cities, have pictures of landscape 
from horizon to horizon in high coloring such as only 
October days afford. 
Those who pursue the big game of the rugged and 
lonely wilderness, pitting their woodcraft against the cun- 
ning, endurance and physical prowess of their quarry, have 
for it the season of seasons in October days. 
It is a season of superlatives, in which all the themes 
and sports of the other seasons converge and blend in 
matter of interest to all, whether they^be devotees of the 
strictly useful or the universal beautiful. 
To him whose chief delight is worshipping the beautiful 
of nature, October days afford pictures in unending 
variety, in all keys of beautiful coloring, and in size from 
little nooks to majestic breadths, delighting the eye and 
storing the mind with the pleasures of participation and 
of memory. All these charms are presented under op- 
posing moods of nature in October days; sometimes un- 
der a canopy of dark cloud and boisterous winds; of 
raw wetness of earth and sky; betimes of Sn atmosphere, 
calm, cool and bright, softened with the light blue haze 
of the Indian summer, when the landscapes are the super- 
lative delight of the artist. 
The year, too, is closing up its labors preparatory to its 
winter months of rest. It has finished its fruition. The 
harvest time is at its highest culmination in October 
days, and they largely determine the dearth or abundance 
of the months till October recurs again. 
To many kinds of the birds, October days are filled with 
warnings to depart for southern climes. The robins have 
broken up their domestic ways, and are leading vagrant 
lives for a while before taking their flights to the far 
south, where they are largely killed as a matter of sport 
or subject of food. 
The ducks, geese, woodcock and snipe are beginning to 
drift toward a warmer clime in October days, and add 
a new interest to the season in the esteem of the sports- 
man. 
The birds of local habits are at their best in October 
days, and in their honor they cause a general exodus of 
sportsmen from the towns and cities. 
In October days, while in the pursuit of fin, fur and 
feather, men gain good health by exercise and fresh 
air; peace of mind by contemplation and pleasant occu- 
pation. 
There is in October days a realization of many weeks' 
anticipation on the part of the sportsman ; unlimited beau- 
ties in the sky, fields and woodlands to satisfy the poetical 
phase of man's nature; a harvest so bountiful as to 
please him whose delight is limited to the material prp- 
ductions of earth, and a game supply sufficient for the 
sport of the moment and to insure the sport of other 
October days if the game laws are observed properly both 
in letter and spirit. 
SPRING SHOOTING. 
We print in our shooting columns a short note on 
spring shooting. It is a simple statement of the fact that 
the abolition of spring shooting in a district has been 
followed by the breeding of ducks there, a thing before 
imknown to men whose memories do not go back beyond 
the spring shooting era. This one single brief statement 
of the facts is worth long columns of speculation and 
argument. It is an unanswerable demonstration of the 
wisdom and profit of doing away once and for all with 
the shooting of wildfowl in the spring. What is good for 
one county in New York, is good for every other county 
ill New York, and for every State. 
Spring shooting may be opposed on sentimental grounds 
— the sentiment \\-hich abhors the taking of the lives of 
creatures which are on their way to the breeding grounds. 
But sentiment is an uncertain and fickle quality; experi- 
ence has demonstrated in this particular field that senti- 
n)ent cannot prevail against the passion for shooting. But 
the spring killing of fowl which are preparing to breed is 
also to be opposed for strictly economical considerations, 
and these may well have weight with those who on the 
sentimental side are the most stolid and indifferent. As an 
economic proposition capable of being stated in terms 
of spring nesting ducks, summer-hatched ducklings and 
fall birds for shooting, the protection of the wildfowl in 
spring should appeal to public intelligence. Spring protec- 
tion of ducks, pays; therefore,, let us protect them. 
LONG ISLAND WOODLANDS. 
Our recent remarks on forest destruction on Long 
Island aroused the city newspapers to" the interest of this 
subject for their readers. Their local reporters and corre- 
spondents at once began to scurry about along the North 
Shore and South Shore interviewing coal and wood 
dealers, with the result that many columns of news were 
published concerning the information given by Forest and 
Stream. 
Along the North Shore, the cutting down of the woods 
has been going on very generally, and it seems as if 
every west-bound train on the road carried its carloads of 
wood. Some of this has evidently been cut for a long 
lime, but much of it is newly cut and green. For some 
time past cordwood has been the equivalent of cash, and 
timber has been cut not merely for use at home as fuel, but 
to help out of his difficulties many a farmer whose crops 
have failed, or who, for any other reason, found him- 
self in a position where cash was needed immediately. 
Now that the coal strike appears to be over, the ex- 
cessive cutting which has been taking place on Long 
Island will probably cease; for the price of wood will 
sink to its normal level and the inducement to destroy 
the timber will be gone. 
MONEY. 
A WEEK or two ago Ave made more or less complaint 
about persons who, sending to the Forest and Stream 
sums of money for which they desire books or other goods, 
fail to give us the name and address to which these goods 
are to be sent. 
We are obliged to bear the burden of blame for care- 
lessness and failure to render value received from such 
persons, each of whom is, of course, unconscious that he 
omitted from his letter the most essential facts in con- 
nection with it. The unconsidered trifles continue to 
reach — and annoy — ^us, we are sorry to say. 
In the United States there are a great many people, 
and among them an extraordinary number who are care- 
less. The annual report of the Dead Letter Office last 
published shows that there were deposited in the post 
offices during the previous year in this country no less 
than 81,063 pieces of mail which bore no addresses. It 
shows also that of the letters and parcels received at the 
Dead Letter Office, more than 50,000 were found to con- 
tain money, to the amount of $48,000; and nearly 51,000 
contained commercial papers of all kinds to the value of 
about $1,400,000. 
These remarks are not addressed to those persons who 
have sent us money for which they have received nothing. 
Such persons are presumably out of reach. They are in- 
tended rather for those who may contemplate sending us 
money, each one of whom is requested to write plainly his 
name and address. 
A notable enterprise in fish acclimatization has just been 
carried through successfully in Australia, where fish from 
the coast waters of Great Britain have been put out in 
New South Wales. The species selected for the experi- 
ment comprised plaice, soles, crabs, lobsters and some 
others; special effort being made to introduce the plaice, 
cf which 722 were shipped, and the soles, of which the 
original number was eighty. The fish were placed in 
specially constructed tanks of immense size, which were 
connected with reservoirs of sea water kept constantly 
supplied fresh from the ocean by the ship's pumping ap- 
paratus. Of the lot of soles not less than 580 survived 
the voyage of more than 11,000 miles; and the other 
species fared well, except the lobsters, of which one soli- 
tary female was the survivor. When finally put out near 
Sydney Harbor, in August of this year, the fish were in 
excellent condition, and the Amateur Fishermen's Asso- 
ciation, to whose initiative the transplanting was due, en- 
tertains every confidence that the assured result will be 
the enriching of these far southern waters with a new and 
permanent food fish supply. 
m 
The morning papers of Oct. 2r contained three press 
dispatches relating to the deaths of human beings at the 
iiands of careless shooters. In one case it was a woman 
killed by a woman companion, and in another a man who 
was killed by a stray bullet from a long-range rifle. These 
two were of the class of fatalities which we are. quite ac- 
customed to hear of at this season of the year, and are of 
no special significance. The third, which means some- 
thing, was the case of a Connecticut youth of seventeen 
years who had been tried on a charge of manslaughter for 
the killing of a hunting companion last August. The two 
shooters had been hunting on opposite sides of a hedge, 
when the defendant shot at what he thought was a bird 
and killed his companion. The defense was that the shoot- 
ing was accidental and did not involve criminal negligence. 
Ihe jury found for conviction. 
The current millinery advertisements and the autumn 
show window displays in the shopping districts indfcate 
that the bird as an appurtenance of hats and bonnets is 
still in the fashion. "The unusual demand for blackbirds 
has made them scarce in the market," advertises one firm. 
"We have secured fifty dozen of the most desired kinds, 
and will place them on sale to-morrow at iSc, 29c., 
39c. 59c." "Black Amazon plumes of great value," an- 
nounces another firm; "extra large birds," "black par- 
rots," proclaims a third; and so it runs through the 
long catalogue of birds real and artificial. The autumn 
flight of bird-decorated headgear is on in full force, and 
there is still something for the Audubon Societies to do. 
A correspondent asks for the origin of the fishing reel. 
The first mention of a reel in English angling literature is 
found in "Barker's Delight; or the Art of Angling," a 
little book published in 1651, which was two years before 
Walton's "Angler." In his chapter on salmon fishing, 
Barker speaks of a winder : "You must have your winder 
within two foot of the bottom to goe on your rod made in 
this manner with a spring, that you may put it as low as 
you please." Barker was also the first English writer to 
refer to a gaff for salmon anglers. 
A convention of boards of trade and others interested in 
the establishment of the Appalachian National Park will 
be held at Asheville, N. C, to-day. The Park Bill which 
has already passed the Senate and been favorably re- 
ported by the House Committee on Agriculture, will come 
up early in the session, and confidence is felt that it will 
become a law in the coming session. 
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose 
under the heaven, — ^Ecclesiastes 111:1. 
Among the other things for an Qctp|>er day in the field,* 
