Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1904, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Terms, 
I a' Year. 10 Cts. a Copy 
Six Months, $3. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MARCH 5, 1904. 
( VOL. LXII.— No. 10. 
I No. 346 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 tlie 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 
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particulars respecting subscriptions, see prospectus on page iii. 
- THE CHANGING YEAR. 
The calendar tells us that winter is past and gone, 
but as yet we see few signs of spring. But surely it 
is time that it should be here, for. all along the Atlantic 
seaboard north and south, and as far west as the Mis- 
souri River, the winter has been bitter and long and hard. 
The January thaw so confidently looked for each year 
has come in but few places, and the unfortunate ground 
hog which put his head out of his hole on February 2 
saw his shadow clearly defined on the ground beside him, 
and very likely lost the fringe of his ears by the cold that 
then prevailed. 
We have heard many angry threats against the person 
of him — if he could be found — who first suggested that 
St. Valentine's day was the beginning of spring, and up 
to the very last day of February of this year there were 
no signs that winter would let go his hold. In many sec- 
tions of the West, on the other hand, the early part of the 
winter was unusually mild and pleasant. In Nebraska 
it was more like summer than winter, while in Montana, 
up to the beginning of February at least, there was no 
real winter, and the cattle remained fat and strong. 
On the birds throughout the depleted covers of the 
northeast this has been a hard winter. What has hap- 
pened to the ruffed grouse we do not know, but frequent 
reports as to the quail tell of widespread destruction 
among these favorite game birds. In many localities 
efforts were made to feed the coveys, but too often the 
danger was not realized until too late, and the birds per- 
ished before they found the food intended for them. Nor 
were the upland birds the only ones to suffer. At many 
points along the coast this has been a hard winter for 
the wildfowl, and not a few of them are believed to have 
starved to death. This condition of things is not very 
unusual in hard winters. Singular as it may appear, 
there are many ducks wintering along our coasts, which, 
for some reason or other, will not go further south. They 
remain here — notwithstanding that the ice floes cover 
their feeding grounds, and make it impossible for them to 
procure subsistence — and here they stay and starve and 
starve, until finally they must perish. Why the black 
ducks and the scoters and the broadbills do not go south 
with others of their kind we do not know, but many of 
them remain here to face death. It is reported that at 
present at many points along the coast ducks are starving 
to death. 
What the result will be of this past hard winter on shoot- 
ing, we cannot yet know, but in many places, notably in New 
England, New York, and Pennsylvania, the worst may 
be feared. Moreover, it is becoming more and more diffi- 
cult every year to restock those covers from which the 
birds have been swept away by the wholesale. State laws 
make the procuring of birds for stocking very difficult, 
and persons owning or controlling tracts of land on which 
the birds have been destroyed, hardly know which way to 
turn. 
One thing leads to another; when a discussion is 
started there is never any telling where it will end. 
Something was written here the other day about the coin- 
cidences of everyday life, the things which "just happen 
so," in such conjunction one with another as to make us 
remark them ; and this has led away into the fields of the 
occult and the supernatural-^-a realm which is, perhaps, 
outside the scope of 'Forest and Stream. But in all the 
records of personal experience which . have had chronicle 
in these pages, we recall nothing more unique or more 
'interestiiig than our old soldier contributor Cabia 
Blanco's statement of why he has gone into battle always 
■Vyith the confidence that he would coring ouj sJiv^. 
A Scheme of Game Restoration. 
We noted last week that the Massachusetts Association 
for the Protection of Fish and Game proposed to restock 
some of the covers of the State in which the quail have 
been exterminated by the severity of the winter. The 
publication of this intention brought to the officers appli- 
cations in numbers which surprised them. These were 
not requests for donations of birds, but were subscrip- 
tions to defray the cost and the expenses. The incident 
demonstrates not only the growth of interest in shooting, 
but an acceptance on the part of shooters of the principle 
that if they would have shooting, they must look out for 
it and provide it. In many parts of the country the day 
of a happy-go-lucky attitude toward the game supply has 
gone by. Over-shooting, hard winters, the fluctuations of 
supply due to natural causes which are not understood 
but are recognized as in operation, these conditions have 
set the sportsman thinking, and his thought has resolved 
itself into the conviction that he must supplement nature 
by making artificial provision for a renewed stock. In 
the Northern and more densely populated States this is 
the tendency of the time. 
The problem is one of a source of supply. 
There are three ways in which a supply of quail might 
be secured. Two of them are practicable and readily to 
be put into operation; the third awaits discovery and 
exploitation. 
The first way is the transplanting of quail from the 
districts of over-supply in certain States to those of 
scarcity in other States. The law in States where quail 
are abundant now forbids netting or trapping or export. 
It is a good law, and, as a rule, a highly necessary one. 
But there are States in which the law might very 
reasonably be modified to the extent of authorizing the 
taking alive of birds by agents under the supervision of 
the game commissioner or his deputies, for the purpose 
of exportation for stocking grounds in other States, 
where the birds should be put out under the supervision 
of the game commission of the State into which they are 
received. By providing thus for official control at both 
ends of the line, the enterprise could be restricted to its 
legitimate field quite as readily and effectively as is the 
interchange of fish now carried on between the several 
States. With the machinery properly devised there need 
be not the slightest apprehension that crates of live birds 
shipped ostensibly for stocking purposes would be under- 
ground railroaded to market. Every shipment could be 
registered and receipted for from the hour of capture to 
the hour of release. 
Nor need any source of supply be unduly drawn on, 
so that local covers would be depleted. The extent of the 
taking for export, with a maximum limit fixed by law, 
could be made discretionary with the game authorities. 
The prices received for the birds (quail are now worth 
from $8 to $io per dozen at the point of shipment) would 
be a sufficient inducement to secure them, leaving a sub- 
stantial remuneration to the catchers after the official 
fees had been deducted. 
There are such sources of live game supply practically 
inexhaustible, and amply sufficient to meet all the de- 
mands upon them for shooting purposes, if only the 
Forest and Stream's Platform Plank — "The sale of 
game should be forbidden at all seasons"— were put into 
operation with respect to dead game. 
Stop the sale of dead game, and the sale of live game 
under official control might be efficient to stock the 
covers of the country .and keep ^them stocked. 
^Why is not this ' a reasonahle and desirable ^ystem? 
A.re viQ\ the afjvaptages so great as to outweigh any obt 
jections that may be brought against it? Why should 
the system be put into operation? 
not 
Another plan — the second one referred to — would pro- 
vide for the supply of game birds by the National Gov- 
ernment. Congress now distributes millions of packages 
of seed to the farmers in the country and women window 
gardeners in town, and sends out annually millions of 
fish eggs and fish fry. Why should it not take up the 
enterprise of distributing live game where it is needed, 
and where anon it might perch on the top rail of political 
fences which its advent had helped to mend? 
That the distribution of fish to the streams is within 
the province of the National Government is a proposition 
now beyond debate ; the thing has been done for a quarter- 
century and has been accepted as a national policy. 
The proposition to distribute game to the fields runs on 
all fours with it. Congress has already made a certain 
vague provision for game stocking by enacting in the 
Lacey Act: 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled, That the duties 
and powers of the Department of Agriculture are hereby enlarged 
so as to include the preservation, distribution, introduction and 
restoration of game birds and other wild birds. The Secretary of 
Agriculture is hereby authorized to adopt such measures as may 
be necessary to carry out the purposes of this act, and to purchase 
such game birds and other wild birds as may be required therefor, 
subject, however, to the laws of the various States and Territories. 
The object and purpose of this act is to aid in the restoration of 
such birds in those parts of the United States adapted thereto, 
where the same have become scarce or eSctinct, and also to regu- 
late the introduction of American or foreign birds or animals in 
localities where they have not heretofore existed. 
This is very good so far as it goes; but it does not go 
far enough; nothing practical in the way of restocking 
has come of it. No birds have been imported or trans- 
ported by the agents of the department. Their sole ac- 
tivities in this field have been directed to the sup- 
pressing of the shipment of birds from the Indian Terri- 
tory tO: eastern game grounds. 
Now, the Government possesses in its territorial lands 
quail breeding districts which might be set apart as reser- 
vations for the production of a constant supply of breed- 
ing birds to be distributed by Government allotment to 
the covers of the several States. 
In one of these two ways, State initiative and control, 
or National, or both, the game supply of this country 
might be so administered as to effect the greatest good 
to the greatest number. The subject is one which may 
well have consideration and discussion and trial. 
The third way alluded to above is the domestication and 
breeding of quail for stocking purposes. This may be an 
achievement of the future. There is no reason to be- 
lieve that it will be done soon. For all practical purposes 
it may be dismissed as a dream. 
TWO PICTURES. 
The two pictures of the supplement this week, show- 
ing the Ocklawaha River of Florida and Chief Mountain 
in Montana, admirably illustrate in their contrast the 
wonderfully diverse phases of natural scenery our coun- 
try possesses. One picture is of the Northwest with its 
snow-capped mountain ranges ; the other of the South, 
with its sluggish waters and tangled vegetation. Each 
has its own alluring charms. No one who has camped 
beneath the mighty mass of a Rocky Mountain peak can 
ever forget the uplift of spirit that came to him as the 
light of dawn kissed the lofty summits. The brightest 
day of Floridafs golden sunshine will not at once resolve 
the weird spell , which is cast upon one who makes that 
night descent of the Ocklawaha, when the pine knot 
flare lights vip the spectre cypresses, and but half reveals 
the dreamland mazes of my§tery and gloom stretchin|f 
upon either hand, - ' 
