Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1908 by Forest and Strbam PuBusmNG Co. 
BRMS, $t A Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. ) 
Six Months, $3. f 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1903. 
j VOL. LXI.-No. I4 
1 No. 846 Broadway, New York 
The Forest and Stream is the recognized mediuin of entertain- 
lent, instruct' m and information between American sportsmen, 
'he editors invite communications on the subjects to which its 
ages are devoted. Anonymous communications will not be re-- 
arded. While it is intended to give wide latitude in discussion 
f current topics, the editors are not responsible- for the views of 
orrespondents. 
Subscriptions may begin at any time. Terms: For single 
opies, $4 per year, $2 for six months. For club rates and full 
articulars respecting subscriptions, see prospectus on page iii. 
STATE GAME REFUGES. 
Almost every State in the Union contains within its 
orders land available for game refuges. In many cases 
jis land is already owned by the State, or if owned by 
rivate individuals it is of such small market value that 
might easily be acquired by the State at small cost under 
le law of eminent domain. In each State, therefore, 
will be perfectly practicable — vvhenever the Legislature 
lall agree — to set aside State game preserves which, 
ader proper provisions, would furnish sufficient game to 
ipply the wants of the citizens of that State. 
Attention has very many times been called to the ex- 
aordinary results which followed the protection of the 
ellowstone National Park. It is only about twenty 
;ars since the effort to prevent the killing of game within 
lat National Reservation was first made, and it is only 
30Ut ten years since Congress provided a method for 
reventing that killing which proved effective. Those of 
s must be dull indeed who do not realize what that game 
jfuge has done for a great territory, and for all of us 
le matter has been made more plain by the visit of 
'resident Roosevelt to the National Park last spring. At 
lat time every newspaper in the land was full of what 
le President saw and did, and of the hordes of game 
iat he closely approached and counted. It was well that 
re Chief Magistrate — himself an ardent and accomplished 
portsman, and so not needing the lesson — should see with 
is own eyes what absolute protection will do for wild 
ame, and it is well also that by means of his visit to this 
Vonderland all our citizens should have had the oft-told 
lie of what rigid protection has done and is doing rein- 
Drced. 
Since such refuges can perform such miracles, is it not 
me that the various States should act on the lesson 
lus conveyed? Within the last twenty years the senti- 
lent in favor of the protection of natural and wild 
lings, whether they be trees or flowers or birds or mam- 
lals, has advanced by leaps and bounds, but it is high 
me that all who are interested in such matters should 
ut their united shoulders to the wheel with more energy 
jan ever, and should push hard to get the heavy legisla- 
ve wagon to move in the desired direction. Long dis- 
ussions as to the rights of the large landowner over his 
wn property are interesting to those who take part in the 
iscussion, and probably to a few others, but such debates 
re not likely to have any immediate practical results. 
;t our day legislatures are not likely to interfere with 
roperty rights in general, but legislatures may be in- 
uced to set aside tracts of State land as absolute refuges, 
r to appropriate money for the purchase of lands of little 
alue, for the purpose of making game refuges of them, 
he National Government has more than once shown its 
adiness to set aside portions of the public domain for 
irposes kindred to those of game preservation, and for 
;ars has been discussing the question of appropriating 
large sum of money for the purchase of the Appalachian 
ark in the south. The great area of our forest reserves 
a strong testimonial to the growing intelligence of the 
juntry, and to the wisdom of our Presidents. 
Surely now, if ever, the time is ripe for concerted 
nd practical action looking toward the preservation 
f the wild things of this country. It is time that the 
tate and the Federal Government should move ac- 
vely in these matters. The fundamental reason for 
ach action was given hy President Roosevelt in a 
peach last winter, when he said that it was the dutj*- 
f the Government to set aside these refuges and 
reserves for the benefit of the poor man; the rich 
'ere able to buy land and make and care for preserves 
f their own, but for the poor man, unless the Gov- 
mment acted for him, there would soon be no place 
^here he could enjoy outdoor life and the glorious 
ports of the field. 
It appears to be a self-evident truth that every pre- 
serve is a pubHc advantage. There are preserves owned 
by a single individual covering a thousand or ten thou- 
sand acres where no one is permitted to shoot. There 
are other tracts owned by a multitude of small land- 
owners, but aggregating a thousand or ten thousand 
acres, where each landholder posts his land and no 
one is allowed to shoot or fish. It would be diffi- 
cult to point out in what respect the case of the single 
landholder, protecting his ten thousand acres, differs 
from the thousand landholders who protect their ten 
thousand acres. 
TJie practical question is how may. we best protect 
the game in different localities, .^o that the supply of 
each species shall be maintained beyond any danger 
of destruction, so that we and our children who are to 
come after us, may see and take pleasure in seeing 
these wild creatures, and finally so that we may have 
an opportunity of hunting them under proper restric- 
tions, and thus being out of doors and gaining the 
health, strength and vigor, which, in the business 
struggles of the day, we are all of us likely to lose. 
Just as, in our cities, parks are set aside for the bene- 
fit of those residing near them, so in each State there 
should be vastly larger areas set aside for the benefit 
of those who can take a few days or a few weeks from 
their usual toils to live out of doors. Just as the 
people who frequent the city parks are forbidden to 
destroy the shrubbery and to kill the little birds and 
animals that inhabit there, so those who frequent the 
larger reservations should be forbidden to destroy the 
living timber, or to kill the birds and animals found 
there. Fish belong in a different category because 
fish can be artificially supplied, while birds and ani- 
mals cannot be replaced. 
TREASURE SEEKERS. 
A San Francisco dispatch reports the return of mem- 
bers of an expedition which sailed last year from that 
port in search of the buried treasure of Cocos Island. 
Some years ago our contributor, Tarpon, writing of his 
seafaring life, told of a visit to Cocos, and alluded to the 
legend of the. treasure buried there long ago by pirates. 
This prompted Capt. R. L. Ogden, Podgers, to tell the 
Cocos story with more detail. In the early years of the 
nineteenth century a crew of pirates captured a Spanish 
ship off the coast of Peru and took from it a great store 
of gold and silver, with which they sailed to their 
rendezvous on Cocos Island, in the Pacific, 600 miles 
southwest from Panama. There they lived not only 
riotously, after the approved way of all pirates, but so 
strenuously that after a troubled time of dog eat dog, 
only four of the crew Survived. These, fearing to be dis- 
covered so few with sq' great treasure, buried the gold 
and silver and set sail for the Isthmus. Arrived off 
Panama they burnt their ship, landed on the coast in a 
small boat and dispersed. Three of the four died with- 
out revealing the secret; the fourth made a deathbed con- 
fession and imparted to his confidant the precise location 
of the island and of the spot on the island where the 
treasure was buried. Once upon a time when Captain 
Ogden was in New Orleans engaged in fitting out a 
schooner for a voyage to Mexico, this person turned up 
there, displayed tattooed on his arm a map of the island, 
together with the latitude and longitude, and unsuc- 
cessfully endeavored to persuade Captain Ogden to 
change the destination of his schooner from Mexico to 
Cocos. Not long afterward Captain Ogden, having sent 
a schooner yacht from New York to San Francisco, there 
sold it to a party of Cocos Island treasure seekers. They, 
too, had listened to the story of the man with the tattooed 
arm. They fitted out the craft with all the appliances of a 
Avell equipped treasure hunter, surveying instruments, 
pickaxes and shovels, and a great lot of stout canvas bags 
to hold the gold and silver. In due time they returned, 
chagrined and empty-handed. This expedition was only 
one of a number. Writing in 1897, Captain Ogden related 
that he had known of four expeditions to find the Cocos 
treasure, each of which had returned with nothing to 
show for their pains. We have recorded at least one 
more since then, and now comes the story of this latest 
one, which, like all the rest, has ended in disaster. 
Better fortune has attended the quest of a treasure 
seeker on the East Coast of Florida. There has long 
been current in the vicinity of Miami the story of a wreck 
of a Spanish vessel laden with silver ore from the 
mines in Mexico. She was reported to have gone ashore 
in 1835 on one of the reefs opposite the numerous keys 
off the southern end of the peninsula. Sixty years ago a 
sailor appeared at Miami with a chart showing the site 
of the wreck, and long sought to enlist the co-operation 
of the credulous in a scheme to recover the wealth. The 
sailor died, but the chart was preserved, and guided by it 
Captain Joseph Jennings, master of the .little schooner 
Osceo, has spent years searching the reefs up and down 
the keys; and the other day Miami was excited by the 
news that the search had ended in the finding of the 
treasure-laden wreck. The tale was received with skepti- 
cism, but an air of truth has been given to it by the 
very business-like , action of Captain Jennings, who, 
through his attorney, has filed a libel on the wreck with 
the United States Court at Jacksonville. In the document 
is duly set forth that Joseph Jennings, master of the 
licensed wrecking, schooner Osceo, libels for himself the 
cargo of a vessel of unknown name, lying at the bottom. of 
the Atlantic Ocean, about one and one-quarter miles north 
of Hillsboro River Inlet ; that the vessel lies j ust off shore 
in water from four to six feet deep, the hull covered with 
sand ; and that under the sand is a cargo "which Hbellant 
has reason to believe and does believe to be of great value." 
The United States Marshal for the district has sta- 
tioned a deputy to guard the wreck. Surface digging has , 
disclosed silver ore beneath the sand in the hull, and there 
is a possibility that the wreck may prove to be the actual 
treasure ship of the old story. 
Last Saturday, two days before President Roosevelt's 
departure from Oyster Bay, the village was thrown into 
?. state of vague fear and wild excitement by the ap-: 
pearance of two prisoners securely handcuffed and 
brought into town by a deputy sheriff armed with a Win- 
chester rifle. The officer barely had opportunity, before, 
the wires dispatched their thrilling stories, to explain that 
the prisoners were Italians caught red-handed in the act 
of killing robins. 
If all the Italian robin shooters were . fitted out with 
handcuffs, the Long Island sheriffs would have to im- 
port a vastly increased supply of irons. The song bird 
shooter of foreign extraction is a perfect scourge on the 
island at this season. He is in evidence everywhere. He 
not only destroys the birds, but is a bold and defiant tres- 
passer, a destroyer of property, a menace to stock and 
human life. There is not the slightest reason for tolerat- 
ing this nuisance. If the local authorities cannot suppress 
it, they should appeal to Protector Pond for special 
officers. 
No OTHER non-resident hunting license law has been re- 
ceived with so much resentment as that of Maine. From 
all that we can learn a very large number of sportsmen 
who have in past years visited the Maine woods for deer 
and moose will this season either go to Canada or give up 
their big-game hunting. ■ Our Maine correspondent in 
another column explains that the talk of a guides' union 
to raise wages has been prompted by a fear on the part of 
the guides that they may not have the usual amount of 
employment this year; and they reason that if there shall 
be fewer to pay them, the fewer must pay more in propor- 
tion. It is as yet too early to tell what the actual de- 
terrent effect of the non-resident law may be. Commis- 
sioner Carleton, who was last j'ear the author of some 
wildly picturesque statistics, is quoted as hedging this year 
in his estimate of the number of sportsmen who have 
visited Maine for moose. But of Mr. Carleton's figures 
it may be said that they are at best unreliable and not to 
be taken seriously. 
Here is a useful hint from Sir Anthony Fitzherbert's 
"Book of Husbandrie," for the advantage of the sports- 
man tourist. It is a list of articles to teache a gentyl- 
man's servant to say at every time, when he taketh his 
horse, for his remembrance, that he shall not forget his 
gere in his jniie behynde hym: "Purse, dagger, cloke, 
nyghtcap, k^rchef, shoying horn, boget, and shoes. Spere, 
mole, hode, halter, sadelclothe, spores, hatte, with thy 
horse combe. Bowe, arrows, sworde, bukler, horne, 
leishe, gloves, string, and thy bracer. Penne, paper, inke, 
parchmente, reedwaxe, pommes, bokes, thou remember. 
Penknyfe, combe, thymble, nedle, threde, poynte, leste 
that thy gurthe breake. Bodkyn, knyfe, lyngel, give thy 
horse meate, se he be showed well. Make mery, synge 
an thou can. take hede to thy gere, that thou lose none." 
