Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1904, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. , 
T ^ |4 ta Y SS™ 1 lSE 8 " ACopy 1 NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JULY 9, 1904. j No . 34^™^ Y«*i 
- THE PALM A TROPHY. 
In the Shooting and Fishing of June 30, an editorial 
embodies a letter from Gen. Bird W. Spencer, President 
of the National Rifle Association of America, which pur- 
ports to be a reply to an editorial published in Forest and 
Stream of June 18, on the Palma Trophy unpleasantness. 
But it is not a reply, inasmuch as it evades the issue. In 
our rifle columns it is published in full. 
In the first paragraph of this letter, Gen. Spencer states 
the reason, or another reason, for equipping the United 
States team with two sets of rifles. He asserts that "the 
British Association asked us to amend the rules allowing 
special barrels on rifles of private makers. We did not 
agree to this, but as the committee of the team captains had 
a right to make a change in the conditions, and as H. M. 
Pope offered to make the barrels used, the National Rifle 
Association thought that it would be just as well for the 
team to have with them a rifle with a barrel of a private 
maker ; and in the event that the rules were changed they 
would have the barrels with them for use." 
"In the event that the rules were changed they would 
have the barrels with them for use." But the rules were 
not changed. How, then, did the American team come to 
use these special barrels ? By representing that they were 
of a newly adopted service pattern, and so came within 
the rule that rifles used in a match should be "in all 
respects of the pattern adopted and issued to the troops 
for service." 
■ The rifles had eight grooves and an eight-inch twist. 
Were they at the date of the match in all respects of the 
pattern adopted and issued to the troops for service? The 
answer to this is the monosyllable "No'* of Col. Pliipps* 
letter quoted in our rifle columns. 
Gen. Spencer Writes •: "There is very little use in dis- 
cussing the subject as to whether the new U. S. service 
rifle, adopted June 19 [1903] contained an eight or a ten- 
inch twist." But in his letter to the British Association of 
March 7, Gen. Spencer as President of the National Rifle 
Association, stated that the rifles used by the American 
team contained one turn in eight inches,- the same, he is 
quoted as alleging, as the present service arm of the 
United States. Was it the same as the present service arm 
of the United States? Col. Phipps answers "No." 
However eager Gen. Spencer may be to avoid discussing 
this point, its 'discussion is well worth while. For this 
reason: When, as representing the United States, 
because it was an international event, the National 
Rifle Association entered into this competition, they 
owed it to the people of the United States to enter it 
with clean hands and straight, above-board methods. The 
more General Spencer writes for publication, the more 
clearly does it appear that the American team did not 
enter the competition with Clean hands, and that their 
methods were far from straightforward-. 
Stripped of all the irrelevant sophisms and evasions con- 
cerning what Col. Bruce, the committee of captains, the 
British- Association, et al, did not do, and the various 
contingencies appertaining to things which never hap- 
pened, the whole issue rests on what the team did do. Did 
it or did it not violate the conditions governing the 
match? Did it use inadmissible rifles? Even Gen. Spen- 
cer, receding from his former declaration that the rifles 
corresponded with the new U. S. issued service rifles, now 
concedes that the rifles were irregular. And he seeks to 
justify that irregularity on the part of the Americans by 
saying: "It is well known that the British team shot 
with a rifle made by a private maker (in no wise a Gov- 
ernment contractor), and they were exceedingly fine rifles, 
and were in no sense a service rifle." Accepting this 
statement, and assuming that, as between the American 
and British teams, the illegal rifles offset each other, what 
then was their status, under the rules, in relation to the 
Canadian, Natal, French, and Norwegian and Australian 
teams who came into the competition with clean hands? 
Did those other teams qualify as contestants and still 
have any rights which the British and Americans were in 
honor and honesty bound to respect? It is, indeed, a 
strange code of ethics which seeks to justify a wrong 
by alleging, as Gen. Spencer does, that someone else has 
perpetrated the same wrong. Gen. Spencer is mistaken 
if he indulges the notion that the American people will be 
satisfied with any such confession and avoidance as make 
up his latest declaration. 
As competitors for the Trophy, the American team and 
fhe National Rjfle Association, anc} General Spencer as. 
its President, representing America, were charged with 
maintaining the good name of this country for honor and 
fair play. Upon them was put the obligation which rests 
upon the officers of our army, as expressed by Secretary 
Taft in his address to the graduating class at West Point 
the other day, when he said : "One phase in your army 
life I would impress upon you — never depart from the 
pathway of honor." It would have been the better part for 
the Americans at Bisley last year to have upheld the credit 
of America, even if they had not won the Trophy. The 
Palma lost to-day may be regained to-morrow. The good 
name forfeited may be won again only when time shall 
have dulled men's memory of these men and their acts. 
JOHN FANNIN. 
One after another the old-time contributors of 
Forest and Stream are passing over the Great Divide, 
leaving behind them groups of sorrowing friends and 
records of good deeds well performed. 
John Fannin, long Curator of the Provincial Museum 
at Victoria, British Columbia, died June 20, 1904. He 
had long been failing and growing more feeble, and the 
end was not unexpected. 
Mr. Fannin was born in the year 1839 in the backwoods 
of Kempville, Out, where he passed his boyhood. From 
early life he was fond of the Woods and wilds, and cared 
niore for the lessons to be learned from the book of 
nature than for those taught in the country schools. By 
the time he had attained manhood, he was not only well 
acquainted with the ways of the birds and beasts of his 
native country, but was also a good practical woodsman, 
i In the year 1862 came the news of the discovery of 
gold in the wonderful Cariboo region, which drew to 
northern British Columbia so many old miners and young- 
men who were wooing fortune. One of these was Mr. 
Fannin, who that year j oined a party which proposed to 
make on foot the journey across the great plains and the 
Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Coast. They left Fort 
G arr y — now Winnipeg— which was then the last white 
settlement, and from there made their way over the vast 
unexplored Northwest. They crossed the Rocky Moun- 
tains at the Tete Jaune Pass, and proceeded down the 
west slope to a point near Fort George, on ' the Fraser 
River. The long journey had not been without dangers, 
difficulties, and hardships, but at last, after four months, 
it was safely completed, and the pioneers felt that now the 
fortunes that they longed for were really within their grasp. 
In Mr. Fannin's judgment, the season was then too late 
to start in to- the mines, and with five companions he pro- 
ceeded to Fort Kamloops, on the Thompson River, which 
they reached October it. The following spring he went 
to the mines, and cast in his lot with the gold seekers of 
Williams Creek, the richness of which made fortunes for 
many during the next two years. Mr. Fannin was not 
one of these, but nevertheless for nearly ten years he 
mined and prospected through the Province, coming out 
at last as poor as he .had gone in. 
All these journeyings, however, had given him a great 
knowledge of the Province, and on more than one occa- 
sion he was sent into the interior by the Government on 
exploring expeditions to acquire information on particu- 
lar subjects. 
About twenty-five years ago Mr. Fannin settled on the 
banks of the beautiful Burrard Inlet, about seven miles 
from the town of New Westminster. This was many 
years before the building of the Canadian Pacific Rail- 
road, whose rails to-day pass almost over the spot on 
which Fannin's . little shop and house used to stand. 
There were two of three other cabins near-by, and across 
the Inlet stood an Indian village, with whose dark- 
skinned inhabitants Mr. Fannin was on the best of terms. 
The waters swarmed with fish, and the woods with deer 
and grouse, while a few miles up the Inlet rose tall 
mountains where white goats and black bears abounded. 
Mr. Fannin had always had a deep love for nature, and 
here he settled down and began its systematic study, 
though at first with little knowledge and almost without 
books. Here was a case of absolute self-help, for without 
assistance he taught himself most of the. birds and mam- 
mals of the region.' He was very fond of hunting, and a 
remarkable rifle shot; but if he hunted much, he obseryed 
more; and what he observed he remembered. 
One of his closest friends was J. C. Hughes, who had 
. long been a yeatler and correspondent of Fopst and 
Stream, and through Mr. Hughes, more than twenty-five 
years ago, Mr. Fannin began to write. Subsequently some 
of the staff of the paper met and hunted with him, and 
were able to be of some little help to him. As time went 
on, his fame as a naturalist spread through British Co- 
lumbia, and when, about sixteen years ago, the Provincial 
Museum was established at Victoria, Mr. Fannin was 
made its curator. Of the pride that he took in its col- 
lection, and the unselfish toil that he expended in in- 
creasing and perfecting them it is hardly necessary to 
speak. His services were heartily appreciated by the 
Government, which in 1895 sent him to Europe and to the 
United States to study the workings of modern museums. 
Mr. Fannin was extremely well informed about the 
birds of British Columbia, and was always willing to put 
his great experience at the service of any bird lover. He 
published a list of the birds of British Columbia, and 
some years ago- a new form of mountain sheep was 
named after him. . 
Personally Mr. Fannin was a man of the kindliest 
.nature; extremely quiet, yet with a keen wit and an ap- 
preciation of the humorous side of life which made him 
to those who knew him well, one of the dearest and most 
joyous of companions. Pie had a very wide acquaintance. 
BIRDS AND . THE ELEMENTS. 
The year from, the spring of 1903 to the spring of 
'1904 was one of great destruction of wild birds- in many 
portions .of New England. The terrible drought of 
April and May of 1903 was followed by forest fires which 
ravished the Adirondack region, Maine, and other parts 
of New England, and these fires came at the height of the 
breeding season, and unquestionably destroyed the young 
of many mammals and the nests, eggs, and young of 
many birds. All this we have written of more than once. 
It has been suggested also that this terrible drought may 
in a number of cases have prevented certain birds, as 
•swallows, from breeding because of the lack of mud with 
which to build their nests. 
Early in June, however, came a change. After nearly 
two months, when the rainfall was far below the normal, 
followed a succession of rainstorms with easterly winds, 
fog, and low temperature, which absolutely reversed the con- 
ditions that had hitherto prevailed. In some portions of 
Massachusetts and Connecticut the rainfall for June 
was over 12 inches. In a few places it was only from 
3 to 6 inches, but the average precipitation for the 
month in Massachusetts was 7.44 inches— greater than 
in any other New England State except Connecticut. 
.These rains and the low temperature did much to destroy 
insect life, and so to- reduce the food supply for insect- 
eating birds. The tremendous rainfall caused floods 
which overflowed the wide meadows which border many 
.of the New England streams, drowning out all birds that 
had made their nests in such localities. 
Details of this general bird destruction are given else- 
where in this week's Forest and Stream. Here we 
-have to speak chiefly of the mortality among the game. 
Of this the Bob White, or quail, probably suffered most. 
' Massachusetts is . near the northern limit of the bird's 
.range, and it is frequently cut off by heavy, hard win- 
ders, necessitating a restocking, which restocking is, gen- 
erally done with birds from the South, which have little 
power of resistance to the New England winter, and so 
frequently in thei r turn succumb. 
IN THE NORTH WOODS. 
It is forbidden to kill deer in the Adirondacks in June. 
Under such conditions, if a man in the Adirondacks in 
June should be mistaken for a deer, he would be safe 
from any hunter, because it . would be unlawful for the 
hunter to shoot at the object thought to be a deer. 
All this sounds reasonable; and it is so- theoretically. 
The actual fact, however, does not bear out the reason- 
ing. Henry Prentice, a well-known character at Paul 
Smith's, was found dead in the woods the other day, 
and some time later a carpenter who works in the vicinity 
was arrested, and confessed that he had shot Prentice on 
Sunday morning, mistaking him for a deer. It is worthy 
of note that Prentice himself was deer hunting on this 
same Sunday morning. 
It behooves June visitors in the Adirondacks to keep 
close to the hotels, find not get ji)lo the woods on a Sun- 
day morning,' . _ .. v . ^ f ' , , ^ 
