Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod. and Gun, 
Copyright, 3 903 by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $2. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, AUGUST 8, 1903 
VOL. LXI.— No. 6 
No, 846 Broadway, New York 
Game laws are said to be directly opposed to the liberties of 
the subject; I am well persuaded that they may be carried too 
far, and that they really are in most parts of Europe. But it is 
equally certain that where there are none, there never is any 
game; so that the difference between the country where laws of 
this kind exist and that where they are unknown, must be that in 
the former very few individuals will enjoy the privilege of hunt- 
ing and eating venison, and in the latter this privilege will be 
enjoy'd by nobody. — Diary of John Quincy Adams, 1787-8. 
AhT INSTRUCTIVE PREAMBLE. 
The framers of Tennessee's new game law have im- 
proved the opportunity to embody in the first section of 
the measure a preamble setting forth the basic principle 
C. the ownership and control of game. It is enacted by 
■the people of Tennessee in Legislature assembled: 
"That the wild game within this State belongs to the 
people in their collective sovereign capacity. It is not the 
subject of private ownership except in so far as the people 
may elect to make it so ; and they may, if they see fit, ab- 
solutely prohibit all taking of it or traffic or commerce 
in it, if it is deemed necessary for the protection or 
preservation of the public good. Therefore all game or 
wild animals or wild birds now or hereafter within tha 
Style not held by private ownership legally acquired, and 
which for the purposes of this act shall include all quad- 
rupeds and birds menticupd in this act, are hereby de- 
clared to Jdc the property of the State; and no right, title, 
interest, or property therein can be acquired or trans- 
ferred, or possession thereof had or maintained except as 
herein expressly provided." ' 
This is. of course, sound doctrine, and it was well 
enough to make it a part of the statute. Such expositions 
■of the fundamental principles cannot be made too often. 
There still prevails widespread and diverse popular mis- 
conception of relative public rights and personal rights 
in game. Not until the individual shall understand 
that he has no rights in game other than such as are 
jlccordcd to him by the State, may we expect him to 
respect and abide by the game laws. 
A NOISE IN THE NIGHT. 
Fkom New Orleans comes a pathetic story of a dog 
which died of a broken heart. George Luce, a resident of 
Prytania street, owned a pure bred collie, Bruno, which 
was valued and loved as the children's playfellow and the 
guardian of the house. Next door lived Joseph Marks, 
who had no love for dogs and could not sleep when they 
barked and howled and bayed under his window at night. 
Brtmo, Marks averred, persistently practiced all these 
nocturnal accomplishments, and recourse was had to the 
courts to stop his continuous performance. Marks 
brought suit against Luce, and secured an injimclion 
•forbidding Bruno's barking. Bruno barked, and Marks 
had resort to a rule of contempt, which was granted 
by the court. Bruno was then sent away and consigned 
to the care and keeping of a servant, but could not en- 
dure his banishment. "That night Bruno sickened. Yes- 
terday morning he died, and had a human being died 
under the same circumstances the world would have said 
a heart was broken by the strokes of a fate deemed all 
too cruel, but as it was a dog — it died of extreme nervous- 
ness." 
A.side from the pathos of the dog's taking ol¥, the fea- 
ture of the circumstances which is most worthy of note 
is the success of Marks in abating the nuisance of the 
noise at night. The result he secured was by no means 
the usual ending of such cases. As a rule, the next door 
neighbor complains, but the dog keeps on barking just 
the same. 
The dog that barks o' nights is a prolific source of 
discord among neighbors. In a city block, where the 
houses are built around four sides of a square, one 
vociferous and megaphonic dog may irritate many 
people wakened and kept awake by his maddening up- 
roar. As a rule, the neighbors suffer in silence. Fre- 
quently the dog and his master are recommended to 
the attention of the authorities; but the obstacles which 
the board of health and the police put in the way of a 
sufferer seeking relief are usually such as to deter activ- 
ity in this direction. 
In theory the citizen is entitled to repose at night, and 
Ihe board of health and the police are provided to secure 
him in the enjoyment of that repose; as a" matter o£ iact 
they do no such thing, save in exceptional cases. As a 
rule the sufferer who seeks to abate the dog barking 
nuisance by the duly provided legal and lawful means, 
discovers that the mode of procedure is practically inop- 
erative; and discouraged by the futility of his efforts for; 
relief, nerves himself to endure the ills he cannot cure. 
CONCERNING THE CHILDISHNESS OF THE ' 
GROWN-UP. 
It is a common observation that human nature is much 
the same the world over. Mankind, civilized or savage,, 
has a great uniformity in inherited characteristics; the- 
greatest differences are to be found in his acquired 
knowledge. 
Primitive man, simple, untutored, undeveloped in mind,, 
has been compared to a grown up child. Savage tribes, 
have their leaders who, feeling the superiority conse- 
quent to superior knowledge, popular homage, and offi- 
cial station, comport themselves with great and serious 
dignity, analogous to their civilized compeers under like 
conditions. But civilized man, adult and mature, has quite 
as much of the grown-up child in his nature as has the 
savage. It manifests itself in a thousand forms in his. 
unconventional, unstudied, playful moments. 
New York may be taken as the most conspicuous ex- 
emplar of the grave, sedate man of affairs and the in- 
telligent child, 'in one and the same person. In no city 
in America is life so intense as in New York. The most: 
work and the most play must be pressed into the smallest 
measure of time. If the man would play he must play 
quickly. And, at play, he is not burdened by conven- 
tionality. He reverts to the simple ways of primitive 
man. 
In the hot days of summer the seashore is a favorite 
playground for the dwellers of New York. Two circum- 
stances contribute to this condition— it is a pleasurable 
place to sojourn, and it is the only available place for the 
masses. Coney Island is the most famous gathering place 
for that large and useful class of society called the people.. 
It has been estimated that on each one of recent Sundays 
about 250,000 people, men, women and children, congre- 
-gated there to enjoy the various simple amusements 
offered for their delectation. 
The grown up woman rides side by side with the cal- 
low girl on the wooden horses of the merry-go-round,, 
each with the same expression of proud pleasure flowing 
from conscious skill and graceful horsemanship. Betimes 
a man, long past the meridian of life, side by side with 
the boy, will venture to take the childish ride ; and tO' 
the clamor of the machine music and the gallop of the 
machine horse, he throws out his chest, sits proudly erect,, 
and assumes all the airs of realism as if he were the con- 
quering hero. 
The seashore, on the warm days, swarms with people. 
The gray-whiskered man may be seen with the boy's toy 
shovel, gravely scooping sand over his gray-whiskered 
reclining friend with a purpose to bury him. As the 
work advances and success impends, they laugh merrily,, 
as do the litle boys near by engaged in a similar task. 
In the water the man with the white whiskers splashes; 
his friend with the gray head, both exhibiting the same 
merriment of their associate playfellows, the children, 
of tender years. 
One form of simple amusement seems to appeal 
strongly to the mature of both sexes. A tortuous shute,. 
something like a half cylinder in shape, highly polished 
inside so that sliding is easy, is the mechanical part. The 
manner of enjoying the sport which it affords is to be 
seated in the shute, then so seated slide from the top 
to the bottom, and so ecstatic is this intellectual form of 
sport that, in the busy hours of the daj', the shute is taxed 
to its full limit. The man and the child seem to enjoy it 
all in an emotional way, and to enjoy it equally. The 
big wheels, the bicycles which run on trolleys, the swings, 
the miniature railway trains, all have their patrons ex- 
actly alike in their emotional enjoyment, though varying 
greatly in size and external appearances, as becomes chil- 
dren between the ages of 5 and 70 years. 
But the relaxation from care and kljor thus afforded 
confers its benefits. It is the natural way of recupera- 
tion, and therefore the very best, even if it does show that 
human nature is much alike the world over, and that 
human nature is childish iiature,. 
SPORTSMEN AND OTHERS. 
Mr. Abbott H. Thayer's plea for patience in discuss- 
ing the matter of the preservation of forms of life must 
appeal strongly to all the mature generation of sportsmen. 
Nothing is more difficult than to give to our fellow men 
satisfactory reasons for the faith that is in us, whether 
it be our faith as to religion, or art, or science. By his 
training — his education, association, and environment 
from youth to middle life — each man builds up for him- 
self a series of reasons for doing or for not doing various 
things, but these reasons, while to his mind all sufficient, 
inay not at all appeal to the minds of his fellows. 
It is commonly said that the primitive man desired to 
kill in order that he and his family might eat, and that 
the immature sportsman's wish to kill much game is 
merely a survival of this desire for food. 
It is now coming to be generally believed that the less 
nature is interfered with the better, for it is nature that 
makes the world beautiful. There is beauty in art, but 
art can never equal nature. On the other hand, civiliza- 
tion is directly opposed to nature, and in the highest de- 
Tv'elopment of civilization nature scacely exists. 
It is unquestionably the fact that with maturity comes 
? lessened desire to kill, and an increased appreciation 
■of the beauty of nature's objects, unspoiled by contact 
v.'ith man. So it often happens that men who, after hav- 
ing been for fifteen or twenty years mighty hunters before 
the Lord, at last put aside their guns and rifles, and, arm- 
ing themselves with field glass or camera, still enjoy all 
the pleasures of the stalk, missing only the toil of the 
butchering and the return to camp laden with meat. 
■Such men, sometimes shooting at a mark, find that their 
'old skill with the rifle still remains with them, and have 
:no special ambition to prove this by taking life. 
On the other hand, there is more truth than at first ap- 
pears in Mr. Paige's contention that in many cases it is 
the men who kill animals directly who are most active 
iti preserving and increasing the animals for a useful pur- 
pose. Such men are foremost among those who advocate 
the establishment of game refuges in forest reserves; the 
•establishment of Federal and State parks, where abso- 
lutely no killing shall be permitted; the abbreviation of 
•open times for the killing of game; the limiting of bags; 
the killing of males only of the herbivorous animals. 
It is too much to say that any one class is all right or 
.ail wrong. Presumably most of us prefer the right to the 
wrong, and each in his own way is striving to do what is 
possible — often little rather than much — to better the 
•conditions that surround us, whether they have to do with 
;fish, or birds, or big game. But, as Mr. Thayer remarks, 
we should discuss all these matters in temperate fashion, 
:and not in a spirit too critical of our neighbors. 
Persons engaged in the little-neck clam fishery are only 
too well aware that under existing conditions the clam 
:is doomed to extinction. The demand is enormous, and 
the rewards of clamming are so great as to stimulate 
the industry far beyond a reasonable limit. The remedy 
proposed is to put the clam grounds into the same sys- 
tem of individual control which now prevails as to oyster 
grounds. Were the owners of clam grounds secured 
:in their exclusive rights as are the owners of oyster 
.grounds, with corresponding pains and penalties for in- 
fringement of those rights., each owner would look out 
for his own clams, and the supply would be continuously 
renewed from year to year by planting and protection, as 
In oyster farming. 
There is no halo of romance about the little-neck clam, 
but the economic considerations are of substantial im- 
portance, and the clam is a resource which should be 
maintained. The subject might well receive attention at 
the meeting of the New England Fish Commissioners in 
Boston next month to consider the lobster situation. 
R 
The tributes to Prof. Spencer F. Baird at the unveiling 
of the Woods HoU memorial the other day were expres- 
sive of the deep and la.sting regard entertained for that 
great man by all who knew him. We have reprinted the 
paragraph from Mr. Livingston Stone's earlier paper be- 
cause it is fitting that the qualities of Prof. Baird there 
described should be held up anew to our admiration. In 
honoring him by providing this monument of granite and 
bronze, the American Fisheries Society h-4S honored itself. 
