Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly J ournal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1904, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. I 
Six Months, $8. f 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MAY 14, 1904. 
j VOL. LXII.— No. 20. 
j No. 346 Broadway, New York. 
^ The Forest akd Stream is the recognized medium of entertain- 
ment, instruction 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 subsaiptions, see prospectus on page iii. 
A WILD GARDEN. 
Nothing is more common than for people who have 
grounds about their homes to endeavor tO' surround 
themselves with the wild creatures of nature. The wish 
to do this is confined to no class, but is common to the 
rich and the poor, the rude and the cultivated. It may 
be undertaken by wholesale, or on the very smallest scale. 
It may be only a gourd hung up in a tree by a negrO' for 
the martins or the house wrens to nest in near his cabin 
in the South; or it may be the deer park, the pheasant 
runs, or the inclosed ponds where semi-domesticated 
wildfowl are bred on the great estate owned by some mil- 
lionaire business man. There is no one but regards with 
interest the progress of a robin's nest built on the pro- 
jecting shelf of a column of the piazza, or who is indif- 
ferent to the family life of the pair of chippies which 
have made their home in the vines that clamber up the 
porch. Men, women and children, from infancy to old 
age, are interested in and thoughtful for living things, 
and but little instruction is needed to teach the youngest 
member of the family that these wild things must not be 
disturbed or harmed ; that he may look as much as he 
pleases but must never touch. 
Many a country home, beautiful in itself, is made still 
more attractive by the throng of wild creatures about it, 
which feel themselves a part of the establishment — almost 
members of the family. Squirrels come to the house to 
be fed, sparrows, catbirds, scarlet tanagers and many 
ether birds hop about on the piazza rail or floor, picking 
up food scattered there for them, in absolute fearlessness, - 
provided members of the family only, their well-known 
friends, are present— a little shy if strangers are near. 
Meantime, at early morning and toward sunset, rabbits 
feed on the lawn, and quails scratch in the flower beds. 
A love of plants seems to be less instinctive than that 
for animals ; we all of us wish to see things that move. 
Yet multitudes of people are devoted to flowers and 
plants, but chiefly to those plants which are cultivated. 
Why should not men and women who reside in the 
country, and within whose easy reach wild flowers bloom 
in great profusion, variety and beauty, ornament their 
places with these flowers and make friends of them as 
well as of the birds? 
It is true that plants show themselves less adaptable 
than animals; that efforts must be made to secure for the 
transplanted violet or pyrola or orchid just the proper 
conditions of soil and shade and moisture suited to its 
continued life and growth. Yet the effort to do this is 
v/orth making, for, if the plant can once be established, 
it needs no further care, and remains a perpetual beauty 
and a continued encouragement to further efforts in wild 
flower culture. Those who live on farms, or who own 
large places where there is variety of soil and shade and 
moisture, may do much in this direction. A search of the 
neighborhood for beautiful plants adapted to the special 
conditions which the land offers is certain to be re- 
warded, and the heart of man or woman or child will be 
filled with joy and pride by successfully establishing a 
wild garden. 
Many highly ornamental wild plants at once suggest 
themselves for such semi-domestication ; .the water lilies, 
v.'hite and yellow, for the water of ponds, sedges and 
wild- rice for their borders; moccasin flowers for dry, 
shaded knolls; the wild honeysuckle and the Virginia 
creeper for' climbers about the house and buildings and 
a hundred other plants, all different in habit, and so re- 
quiring different treatment, but all beautiful, and all 
v/ortii working over and succeeding with. 
Ingenuity, perseverance and observation will be needed 
to discover the right plants, to transfer them successfully, 
and to make them grow; but in the work there will be 
found an ever-increasing interest, and in success an 
abundant reward. 
PORTABLE BOATS. 
A UETTER published elsewhere expresses some interest- 
ing and valuable views about folding or portable boats 
which may be of benefit alike to user and manufacturer 
of these useful little craft. 
Although there should be a great demand for a really 
good portable boat by sportsmen who pursue their bent 
cither on fresh or salt water, comparatively few are in 
use. There are good reasons for this. The boat has 
not been brought to a sufficiently high state of perfection 
to be generally acceptable, and some of those now on the 
market are so complicated as to be more of a nuisance 
than a convenience. While it is obviously difficult to 
produce a portable boat adapted to all uses, still the 
boats could be modified to meet different requirements. 
Of the boats of this character now to be had, all seem 
to have their weak points. In some the principle of 
construction appears faulty, but a general criticism is 
that, material and workmanship are often unsatisfactory. 
These matters might easily be rectified, but the manu- 
facturer, realizing that the masses demand an article 
cheap in price, too often turns out a product whose most 
important features are sacrificed for a few dollars. 
Most purchasers do want a low priced article, but there 
are still many men who avoid the cheap and flimsy and 
desire something substantial and lasting, and who are 
willing to pay for what they get. 
It is difficult to say just what a perfect folding boat 
should be, but it must combine simplicity — by which is 
meant ease in putting together and taking apart — with 
lightness, strength, and seaworthiness, and compactness 
v/hen packed. 
Attention to detail is what makes anything perfect; 
this applies particularly to the portable boat, for if not 
■correct in every detail, it is almost useless. The boat 
should be constructed on good sound principles ; its parts 
■ must be of the very best material, and finally, the most 
efficient workmanship should enter into its make-up. 
Considering the wide field there really is for portable 
boats, it seems remarkable that greater energy and more 
capital have not been expended in perfecting these craft. 
Not only is the folding boat a necessity to the sports- 
man tourist, but to the cruising yachtsman who does his 
knocking about in a small craft, it would be indispensable. 
The average sportsman of to-day contents himself with 
a canoe— even though it is cumbersome to carry and does 
not answer his purpose — or builds a raft, rather than 
bother with a poor folding boat. The yachtsman is com- 
pelled to tow a heavy wooden dinghy that greatly retards 
his boat's speed in any weather and in rough water is a 
danger, because the folding boat is unreliable and un- 
satisfactory. 
It is not until questions of this sort arise that we 
realize how little progress we have made in some direc- 
tions, and how much certain things would add to our 
comfort, convenience, and safety. 
A MARINE MONSTER. 
Twenty or twenty-five years ago, with the recurrence 
. of the heated period of each summer, the newspapers 
were accustomed to' make jokes and- to have comic arti- 
cles about the sea serpent. The crop of jokes on this 
subject was perennial for many years. 
More than twenty years ago Forest and Stream pub- 
lished an illustrated article giving a number of the most 
authentic accounts of the viewing of certain large un- 
known marine animals, and pointed out that there was no 
reason for supposing that all such accounts were inven- 
tions or that these creatures were mythical, but that it 
was altogether probable that, inhabiting the depths of 
the sea, and perhaps often coming tO' its surface, were 
many great animals more or less serpent-like in form, 
and perhaps resembling some known reptiles of earlier 
geological times, whose descendants they might possibly 
be. Such reptiles living in the deep ocean, being destitute 
cf any great amount of fat which should float them, and 
perhaps having solid and heavy bones, would on death 
at once, or soon, sink to the bottom, and the probability 
of their ever being washed upon the shore would be ex- 
ceedingly remote. It was pointed out that the mythical 
kraken, so long derided as a creature of fancy, had been 
shown to have an existence by the discovery of a gigantic 
cuttlefish on the Newfoundland coast in 1872, and that 
later many of these animals have been found, so that 
to-day most large museums possess specimens, or at least 
n-iodels made from tbe actual individuals. The probability 
of the existence of these animals — sea serpents, so-called 
— has thus long been recognized. 
Recently some unknown serpentiform animals, 
described as more than twenty yards long and two or 
three yards in diameter, were seen by the commander 
of the French gunboat Avalanche in the Bay of Faitsi- 
Icng on the coast of Tonkin. They are said to have been 
gray in color, swimming with an undulatory movement 
in a vertical plane, and thus possessing a body not rigid 
like that of the whale, but flexible. The head appeared 
to be round, somewhat like that of a seal, but of course 
very much larger. 
Lieut. Lagresille, when he first saw these animals from 
the deck of his vessel, endeavored to shoot them, but 
without success. Subsequently he pursued, but could not 
overtake them, and in each case, when alarmed, they dis- 
appeared under the water. From the description given 
by the observer. Prof. E. G. Racovitza, Assistant Direc- 
tor of the Arago Laboratory in Paris, has given this beast 
a Latin name, calling it Megophias megophias. 
The describer points out that the securing oi further 
knowledge about these monsters is very desirable, but 
that it is not likely that they can be captured by ordinary 
means, such as shooting, since they will probably sink at 
once. What would be much more useful would be to 
approach the animal as nearly as possible and make pho- 
tographs and sketches. If one could be found in a shal- 
low harbor, and killed there, it might be secured. 
From what is told by the officers of the Avalanche, it 
is supposed that these animals are not uncommon, or 
perhaps are even abundant, on the coast of Tonkin, and 
if this is true and a knowledge of the best method of 
acquiring information about them can be spread among 
vessels of the white men traversing these waters, we 
may hope some time to learn more about this particular 
form of marine monster. 
HENRY. M. STANLEY. 
The death of Henry M. Stanley removes one of the 
m.ost striking figures of the explorers of the day, and the 
man who of all others has done the most toward opening 
up to knowledge, settlement, improvement and civiliza- 
tion that tremendous land which he first named the Dark 
Continent. From Bruce down to Livingstone and Stanley 
the list of African explorers is a long one, but none has 
stood higher, and none has accomplished more, than 
he who has just died. 
Henry M. Stanley was eminently a self-made man, 
reared in a poorhouse and beginning life as a cabin boy. 
Later he was adopted by a New Orleans merchant, whose 
name he took. He served in the Confederate Army, and 
after the war went into newspaper work. In 1867 he was 
engaged in reporting two Indian campaigns in Kansas, 
Nebraska and Colorado, then a part of the far west and 
almost without inhabitants, for at that time the popula- 
tion of Colorado was 3S,ooo and Nebraska 122,000, and 
Kansas 35o>ooo- In 1868 he was working for the New 
York Herald, and was sent to Abyssinia with the British 
expedition. In 1869 Mr. Bennett sent him to Africa to 
find David Livingstone, and it was his success in this 
enterprise which made him famous. Subsequent years 
were spent in exploration in Africa, which increased his 
reputation as an explorer. 
He wrote several important books of travel and ex- 
ploration, and finally returned to England, married, and 
was elected to Parliament. He was 63 years old when 
he died. ,■ 
In a New York paper, usually entirely reliable, there 
appeared a couple of weeks ago a dispatch from Phoenicia 
New York, declaring that the wild passenger pigeons! 
formerly so abundant in Sullivan and Ulster counties' 
had returned there and were nesting Tn great numbers.' 
Jt added that about thirty years ago the wild pigeons 
were abundant there, and then, for some unexpkined 
reason, disappeared, and have just returned from Canada. 
The dispatch bore some evidence of being an invention 
made for sale, but in order to settle the question, a num- 
ber of reliable persons who reside in Phcenicia, Harden- 
bm-g. Denning, and other points in Sullivan and Ulster 
counties, were communicated with; All replied that there 
have been no pigeons seen in that region for about thirty 
years, and that there are none this season, ' 
