Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1904, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co, 
Teems, 
t A Year. 10 Cfs. a Copy. 
Six Months, |S. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, APRIL 2, 1904. 
; VOL. LXII.-No. 14. 
No. 846 Broadway, New York. 
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particulars respecting subscriptions, see prospectus on page iii. 
IN FLORIDA. 
AuDUBON''s portrait of the greenshank has peculiar in- 
terest, because the species is European, and there is no 
other recorded observation of its occurrence in North 
America. Audubon shot three of the birds on Sand 
Key, six miles from Cape Sable, in the spring of 1832. 
It was certainly a curious circumstance that these wan- 
derers so many thousand miles from their accustomed 
haunts should have found here in Florida the natural- 
ist's pencil to perpetuate them for us. Audubon, indeed, 
did not recognize them; he took them to be telltale 
godwits, and when he had them in hand imagined them 
to be new; but was set right by his companion, who 
was familiar with the European greenshank and iden- 
tified them as belonging to the species. 
The picture has an antiquarian interest also, because 
the artist has chosen for the background a "View of 
St. Augustine and Spanish Fort, East Florida," as he 
saw them, only ten years after Florida had come into 
the possession of the United States, and five years after 
Fort San Marco had been given the name of Marion 
the Swamp Fox. Audubon's view of the town and fort 
and harbor shows them as they remained in general 
outline as late as the seventies ; and as, indeed, some 
of us may wish they might have remained to this day, 
at all events with this once characteristic suggestion of 
bird life about them. In no respect have the natural 
conditions of "East Florida" changed more completely 
since Audubon's day thanyn this of the wild life which 
once was so conspicuous a feature and is now so meager. 
Audubon saw the Florida bird land in its pristine fresh- 
ness and plenitude, and he looked upon it with the 
same enthusiasm and delight which permeate all his de- 
scriptions. It is good to go with him through the 
Florida of the thirties, as he takes a schooner from St. 
Augustine to explore the St. John's River. As the vessel 
made its way across the shoal bar, "my eyes, however, 
were not directed towards the waters," he tells us, "but 
on high, where flew some thousands of snowy pelicans, 
which [at the report of the pilot signal gun] had fled 
affrighted from their resting grounds. How beautifully 
they performed their broad gyrations, and how match- 
less, after a while, was the marshaling of their files as 
they flew past us ! On the tide we proceeded apace. 
Myriads of cormorants covered the face of the waters, 
and over it the fish-crows innumerable were already 
arriving from their distant roosts. We landed at one 
place to search for the birds whose charming melodies 
had engaged our attention." On shore, that February 
morning, "the blossoms of the jessamine were steeped 
in dew; the humming bee was collecting her winter 
store from the snowy flowers of the native oranges; 
and the little warblers frisked about the twigs of the 
smilax." 
It is all very charming and alluring as he describes 
it, even the clouds of "blind mosquitoes," which had no 
sting, but swarmed about them in such numbers one 
night as to extinguish the light and sacrifice themselves 
in hosts between the leaves when Audubon surrendered 
and shut up his journal. 
The Florida of that day was a land of ever unfailing 
interest for the bird lover. If the more valued species 
have now become few in number and rare, there is yet ; 
reason to believe that conditions are changing for the . 
better. The bird butchers' "exterminatory peregrina- 
tions,": as our contributor. Didymus 'so aptly termed" 
them, have been suppressed by. law and by public senti- ■ 
ment; and the Florida landscape may once again be 
brightened by the flash of bright plumage. A State' 
whose tourist interests are so large cannot fail to find 
bird protection good business. 
As yet, however, the barbarians are abroad in the land. 
A Florida correspondent of the New York Herald re- 
ports that two northern visitors brought into St. 
Augustine as a trophy of their prowess a six-foot alli- 
gator which they had killed with rifles, and it is added 
that "the beast made a desperate struggle for its life." 
Of what nature is the "desperate struggle" a creature 
can make against a brace of repeating rifles ! And is 
not the doing to death of a six-foot alligator rather a 
slender claim to glory in the society news columns? 
FOR THE SPORTSMAN TOURIST. 
Among the interesting things brought out by the pub- 
lication of Mr. Grinnell's "Trails of the Pathfinders" is 
a little volume entitled, "The Travelers' Directory 
through the United States, containing a description 
of all the principal roads through the United States, 
with copious renriarks on the rivers and other objects. 
I'o which is added an appendix containing post-office 
regulations, land offices and military posts, together with 
a census of the United States and a comparative and 
prospective view of the population. The whole illus- 
trated by appropriate maps by John Melish. A new 
edition revised and enlarged, New York: published by 
A. T. Goodrich, at his Geographical Establishment, 124 
Broadway, 1825." The little book is loaned us by our 
valued correspondent, Mr. H. L. Allen, of Staten Island. 
This directory gives the roads by which the different 
portions of the country may be traversed, naming the 
towns on the road and often side remarks referring to 
the natural features of the country. Thus, on page 49, 
the article describing the road from Washington to New 
Orleans by Staunton, Knoxville and Nashville, says, 
opposite the name of the town of Lexington, "At four- 
teen miles from Lexington, two miles to the west is 
a Natural Bridge one of the greatest curiosities in the 
world." 
There is much that is quaint and interesting in the 
type matter of this little volume, which is, however, 
almost entirely statistical. 
Its most interesting feature, however, is the map. 
On it we see, in the east, the States much as they are 
to-day, but when we get as far west as Lake Erie, we 
find that Detroit is in Michigan Territory, while to the 
west of Lake Michigan is the Northwest Territory, in- 
cluding what are now Wisconsin and parts of Michigan 
and Minnesota, and to the west of the States of Missouri 
and Illinois and of the Northwest Territory, is the great 
Missouri Territory, including what are now Kansas, 
Nebraska, Iowa, parts of Minnesota, North and South 
Dakota, and parts of Wyoming and Montana. 
The western border of the map includes the heads of 
the Marias, the Two Medicine Lodge and the Missouri- 
Rivers in Montana, and shows, in the mountains at the 
head of the Yellowstone River, a lake called Lake Eustis. 
Further to the south on the Rio Del Norte is Santa 
P'e, not very far from the heads of the Canadian Rivers, 
but there is no road leading to it, for the Santa Fe trade 
had not yet become established. 
The town of Chicago is shown on the map, and a 
trail leading thence southwesterly to Arkopolis, the Hot 
Springs, and Natchez, where this trail meets a wagon 
road. 
Many of the western rivers are named as they are 
to day, but it is not without interest to see in Dakota, 
not far from the boundary line and just west of the 
Red River, the "Lake of Devils," which we know to-day 
as Devil's Lake. The old name for the Niobrara River 
is here printed "R. Quicourre, or Running Water." 
Away to the west in the mountains there are practically" 
no names. On the heads of the Arkansas River are 
"James Peak," now Pike's Peak, "Castle Rock," and a 
little more than two degrees further north, three high 
mountains are indicated, with the name "Highest Peak." 
West of the Mississippi River, towns were few, though 
in Louisiana there were half a dozen, and as many in 
Arkansas Territory and Missouri. Just below the Coun- 
cil Bluffs, the map shows Fort Calhoun, and there was 
a St. Peter's military post, presumably on the St. Peter's 
River, though we do not see it on the map. 
Here and there little triangular marks show, repre- 
senting Indian tents, "Old Kansas Vil.," "Tetons of 
Burnt Wood," "Old Rickeree Village," "Mandans;" and 
just north of the Mandans, between the Cannon Ball 
and the Little Missouri Rivers, perhaps about where 
the town of Mandan now stands, is "Fort Mandan." 
The statistics as to population are interesting. We 
are told that the population of the United States had 
increased from 3,929,326 in 1790, to 9,609,827 in 1820. 
New York had the greatest population, 1,379,939; Vir- 
ginia the next, 1,065,366; with Pennsylvania a close 
third, 1,046,844. The smallest named population was' 
that of Michigan Territory, 8,896. 
It is interesting and curious to glance over this little 
book and to compare the conditions in this country 
seventy-nine years ago with those of to-day. 
The sportsman tourists of 1825, planning journeys into 
new and unexplored regions, had only this material to 
study. Truly of them it might almost have been said: 
"The world was all before them where to choose." 
GOOD SHOTS ON BOARD SHIP. 
In the matter of target shooting, the doings of the 
navy, in its big-gun practice, receive very little attention 
by the average landstnan. One cause of this seeming 
apathy may be in the ignorance of the average landsman 
on all matters pertaining to the deep sea in general, and 
naval matters in particular. Yet all Americans keenly 
admire skillful marksmanship, and that is one of the 
points on which the men of land and sea are one in 
common interest. 
The recent exhibition of the Kearsarge gunners with 
the powerful guns of war, will gratify all Americans. Rear 
Admiral Taylor, Chief of the Bureau of Navigation, on 
March 21, reported to Secretary Moody, in part, as 
follows : "One 13-inch gun made six hits out of seven 
shots, in five minutes and twenty seconds. One 8-inch 
gun made ten hits out of ten shots, in five minutes and 
twenty seconds. One 5-inch gun made eighteen hits out 
of eighteen shots, in two minutes. You could have 
covered all the holes in the target with a hall rug." When 
it is considered that the shooting was done at a distance 
of 1,600 yards, at a target 17 by 21 feet, the wonderful 
precision of it is apparent. 
NEXT WEEK. 
The series of chapters following the "Trails of the 
Pathfinders" is attracting much attention and is read with 
growing interes't. They give the individual personal ele- 
ment of the Louisiana Purchase theme; and it is always 
the individual and personal in which we are most in- 
terested. Mr. Grinnell has had the good sense to let 
his heroes in large measure relate their experiences for 
themselves ; and this makes the story all the more real 
and graphic. Next week's chapter will relate to Alex- 
ander Mackenzie and his voyage to the Frozen Ocean. 
The press published last week the story of the fate 
of Leonidas Hubbard, Jr., of the e^iploring party sent 
into Labrador last summer for the Outing Magazine. 
Mr. Hubbard starved to death last October ; a report 
of his death came from Labrador in January, but was 
unconfirmed until the receipt last week of a letter from 
Dillon Wallace, his surviving white companion. The 
distressing details have been printed at length in the 
daily papers; and it is not necessary to repeat them here. 
But the awful sufferings of the Hubbard party should 
not fail to serve as a warning and a deterrent from 
other like ill-considered enterprises. The two white m&n 
and an Indian plunged fatuously into what they be- 
lieved to be an unexplored wilderness, insufficiently pro- 
visioned, inadequately fitted with transportation for what 
supplies they did have, and unequipped with any knowl- 
edge of woodcraft which might sustain them after their 
provisions should be exhausted. What happened was 
precisely what might have been expected to happen under 
the circumstances; The one bright gleam in the dismal 
story is the courage with which the men endured their 
suffering, and the unselfish devotion of each member 
of the party to his fellows. 
There have been- published numerous and persistent 
reports of a great mortality of Adirondack deer during 
the past winter. In a communication in our shooting 
columns Chief Protector Pond gives an authoritative 
contradiction of the sensational stories. Some deer have 
been found dead, but the number is so small as fo be' 
altogether insignificant. The Chief Protector has done 
Well in the way to set the false rumors at rest. 
