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, $2. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JULY 30, 1904 
1 
VOL. LXIII.- No. 5. 
No. 346 Broadway, New York. 
THE WILD DUCK SUPPLY. 
For a long time the State and Federal Governments 
have been taking a hand in the propagation and distribu- 
tion of fish, and in recent years some efforts have been 
made to rear and distribute game, but this last is an 
operation much slower and more difficult than fish propa- 
gation. Yet no one can tell what may come of experi- 
ments in this direction, and such experiments should be 
encouraged, since money spent to increase our game or 
fish supply is well spent. 
The State can purchase deer or pheasants and turn 
them out in parks and preserve them from injury by gun- 
ners, but it cannot hi sure that they will not be killed by 
the winter or by vermin or suffer from a thousand other 
ills. On the other hand the examples of the Yellowstone 
Park, the Austin Corbin Park, and many other properly 
guarded preserves show that where game is protected, 
from outside attacks, there is every prospect of success. 
There is a growing tendency now in the various States 
to set aside reserves where wild creatures shall be pro- 
tected. Massachusetts has established several such pre- 
serves; so have California, Michigan, Minnesota, New 
York, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. Two or 
three'other States have reserves devoted to forestry or 
to other uses, but they are small. Canada has set apart 
a great number of timber reserves similar in many 
respects to our United States forest reserves, and while 
on these reserves the killing of wild things is to some ex- 
tent limited, there is, we believe, no such absolute pro- 
tection as is found in the United States Yellowstone 
Park or other national parks of this country. 
' It would undoubtedly be a wise action for each one of 
the United States to set aside within its borders some 
area, greater or less, which would at all times be pro- 
tected. If such tracts were put in the charge of a game 
keeper, were protected by statute, and were reasonably 
looked after in the matter of providing food and shelter 
in winter, there is no' doubt that each one of. them would 
before long become a center from which might flow out a 
never ceasing supply of game. 
About fifty years ago something of this kind was at- 
tempted by private enterprise on the borders of Chautau- 
qua Lake, the largest of the inland waters of western 
New York. At that time and earlier, Mr. Geo. Irwin, a 
nature lover residing near Mayville, N. Y., made a sys- 
tematic effort, extending first and last over thirty, years, 
to domesticate several species of wild duck. Chautauqua 
Lake was at that time frequented by a multitude of 
ducks, among which were all those which still occur on 
the shores of Lake Erie ; several species of geese and 
swans also visited it, and many other sorts of water- 
fowl bred along its shores, which were then clothed with 
deep forests of beech, poplar, and chestnut. 
For the purpose of attempting the domestication of as 
many of these sorts of birds as could conveniently be 
obtained, a small area of about an acre, situated at the 
very edge of the lake, was selected as a breeding ground. 
The choice was made with special reference to the vege- 
tation growing within the inclosure, which should furnish 
alike food and shelter. Sheds and nesting places of dif- 
ferent sorts were put up within the inclosure, and the 
first birds put into it were young ducks, caught alive, or 
just hatched from eggs taken from the wild birds' nests. 
Of. the species experimented with, the mallard, dusky 
duck, and blue-wir.gcd teal were the most abundant; but 
pintails and swans also bred in the inclosure, migrating 
south in the autumn, but returning in spring to take up 
their homes here to breed again, and again to make their 
southward journey. While a considerable number of 
the birds reared here were allowed freedom, migrated, 
and returned again to breed again, others were captured, 
transferred to a barnyard, and kept in captivity, finally 
developing into domestic fowls which could hardly be 
known as having wild origin. The species which took 
most easily to domestication were the mallard, the dusky 
duck, and the Canada goose. Mr. Irwin was especially 
successful in rearing wood ducks, and his account of the 
habits of the bird is very interesting. These experiments 
were brought to an end by the building of a branch rail- 
road through the place where they were being conducted, 
and so far as we know they have never been resumed. ' 
Their apparent success, however, suggests what might 
be done in a State reserve, or what might be done by in- 
dividual effort on almost any body of water, provided the 
land owners about it would agree to protect it during the 
season of breeding. We understand that something of this 
sort is taking place in Jefferson county, New York, 
where for a number of years now there has been no 
shooting of the birds in spring. It would be interesting 
to learn to-day whether black ducks and blue-winged teal 
are breeding this year on Long Island as they certainly 
have bred in past years. 
Few occupations, we think, could be more interesting 
or attractive, for one who has the time to devote to it, 
than breeding our native wildfowl in domestication. This 
can be done, and has been done, and requires little more 
than a breeding stock, and thereafter reasonable atten- 
tion to protect the young birds from vermin. The late 
Fred Mather was at different times and places success- 
ful in this matter; a resident of Long Island, and an 
eminent artist of Boston have also bred wildfowl on a 
large scale. A number of zoological gardens have regu- 
larly reared fowl, and only this summer broods of young 
Canada geese, mallards, dusky ducks, and other wild 
species were to be seen in the Gardens of the New York 
Zoological Society of this city'. 
There is abundant reason to think, therefore, that sys- 
tematic and faithful effort by Government officials in the 
way- of rearing wildfowl would be rewarded by abundant 
success, and we are disposed to think that it is by efforts 
in this direction on State reserves that the increase in 
our wildfowl so eloquently pleaded for a few weeks ago 
by Mr. Sydney Fisher may be hoped for. 
If the spring shooting of wildfowl should generally be 
abandoned throughout North America, and reservations 
should be established where the birds might breed in 
safety, long steps would have been taken toward the re- 
newing of the old time abundance of wildfowl which 
most of us have thought was gone forever. 
AN OPPORTUNITY FOR PHILANTHROPY. 
Rational recreation is a cure-all for numerous ills of 
life, physical, mental, and moral. Body, brain and spirit 
require it. If deprived of it, they balk, break down, or 
develop in some irrational direction. As a social organ- 
ization, a community, we are coming to recognize this 
more clearly, and to give expression to our recognition 
of it by providing more frequent holidays, more public 
parks, more children's playgrounds, and various other 
means of diversion. Every such opportunity for harmless 
recreation of the young makes for good citizenship. The 
State can well afford to pay increased attention to pro- 
viding means of healthy outdoor sport for the boys of 
to-day who are to be the citizens of to-morrow. 
A seriously complicated problem, and one which is 
ever with us in the large cities, is what to do with our 
young men on Sunday. It is a problem which is restricted 
for its solution to the actual conditions as they exist, 
not to any theoretical assumption of what might be or ought 
to be. An incessant conflict is waged between the young 
people who want to play ball and other people who de- 
mand that Sabbath quiet shall not be broken by ball 
games. The ball players are frequently taken into court 
in prosecutions set on foot usually- by representatives of 
the churches. Such a case came up in Brooklyn the past 
week, when, on complaint of the pastor of. a Methodist- 
Episcopal church, a number of boys were arrested for 
having played baseball on Sunday in the vicinity of the 
church. The defendants were discharged by city magis- 
trate James G. Tighe, who drew a distinction/ between 
public sports and pastimes, and held that the defendants 
were not liable under the code, inasmuch as they had been 
playing simply for the sake of the game, and not for any 
revenue from gate receipts. The magistrate said : 
If the American boy is offered a proper outlet for his pent-up 
and surplus energy, he can be trusted to respect and obey the 
law in his youth, and manhood will find him a good, law-abiding 
citizen. In my thirty years' experience in criminal law, I have 
found the playing of harmless games on Sundays by our boys and 
young men conduces to good order, and that repose of the com- 
munity in the highest degree, and this has been the experience 
of our police captains in charge of the precincts within whose 
bounds these games are played. Corner loafing has within those 
precincts ceased to exist, and without some vent of this descrip- 
tion, all the mischievous and vicious tendencies of young men and 
boys would be called into active play, and as a result we would 
have rioting, disorder and all kinds of drunkenness and gambling, 
and I know by reports that those conditions do not exist in the 
precincts wherein these play grounds are situated, and I. believe 
it would be a good thing for the city to establish, under police 
control, public playgrounds where sports and pastimes of this 
kind could be indulged in. 
Such a statement from such authority is deserving of 
very serious attention and very careful consideration. 
The town itself offers no place suitable for baseball 
on Sunday. The game is boisterously noisy, and the 
courts to the contrary notwithstanding, is nothing short 
of a public nisance. The dweller in the town is entitled 
to his Sabbath quiet and repose in the fullest measure 
attainable; and it is an imposition and often an outrage 
to subject a neighborhood to the uproar of a Sunday 
game of baseball. There are numerous available sites 
readily accessible from every large city where the game 
might be played without so imposing upon other people 
who prefer the day of rest without the hullabaloo of the 
ball ground. 
Now that the country is well supplied with library 
buildings, some practical philanthropist might wisely pro- 
vide in the suburbs of the large cities recreation fields for 
the free use of the boys of the town, under necessary 
restrictions which might readily be framed. 
SQUIRREL BARKING. 
The discussion of the squirrel question has collected 
enough barked limbs to supply a camp-fire. The evi- 
dence adduced to demonstrate the possibility of barking 
is conclusive, and we may consider the question settled. 
The abundance of the testimony to squirrel barking 
by correspondents who have done the feat themselves, 
or who know others who have done it, may be a surprise 
to some who, while not skeptical about the practice of 
barking in the old days, have been wont to regard it as 
a part of the art of shooting that had long since passed 
out of vogue. To bark a squirrel requires an exactness 
of aim and a steadiness of holding which are nowadays 
not so commonly developed as they were under the con- 
ditions which once existed, when the man of the woods 
had to know how to shoot, and to shoot well, or go 
hungry. The necessities of the time and the extended 
actual practice of shooting for subsistence, developed a 
degree of skill among the frontier shooters for meat 
which your modern marksman may well envy but rarely 
hope to attain for himself. And as we become less ex- 
pert ourselves, the less credulous are we of the stories of 
what the men of an earlier day could do with their old- 
fashioned arms. The fine art of rifle shooting— that is to 
say, actual shooting at game in the woods — has sadly 
deteriorated since the times of Boone and Crockett. The 
game itself has' gone. The substitution of the repeater 
for the single shot has made the shooter less careful and 
even reckless in delivering his shot, and the old oppor- 
tunities of the men in the woods who had "all the time 
there was" to hunt the .game with, deliberation and sure 
shooting, are very different from those of the average 
big-game hunter of to-day, who, even in the woods, can- 
not wholly free himself from the dominating spirit of 
hurry and impatience so characteristic of our modern 
social system. 
The cut of Davy Crockett's rifle illustrates a typical arm 
of precision of a squirrel-barking generation. The old 
arm was sent to us some years ago for exhibition, and 
afterward was shown in the Forest and Stream's ex- 
hibit at the World's Fair. The rifle at that time belonged 
to Col. "Bob" Crockett, a grandson of the :hero of, the 
.Alamo; by him it was bequeathed to John W. Crockett, 
Secretary of State of Arkansas, who has placed it on 
exhibition in his office in the State Capitol. The rifle was 
originally a flint-lock, ^with a 46-inch barrel, afterwards 
reduced to 40^ inches. It takes thirty-two balls to the 
pound. It was made at a cost -of $250 by Constable, a 
famous maker of his time. The rifle was presented to 
Crockett soon after, his second election to Congress in 
1829 by some of his admiring Whig friends of Philadel- 
phia. In the top of the octagonal barrel, . in letters of 
gold, is the inscription : "Presented by the Young Men 
of Philadelphia to the Hon. David Crockett, of Tennes- 
see." In smaller letters, near the muzzle, are Crockett's 
famous words, "Go ahead." 
That is not an altogether pleasing picture of the 
American angler which Mr. Bastedo gives us in his 
explanation of why the Ontario authorities have found it 
necessary to put a license upon the visitor who fishes in 
St. Lawrence River waters. Heretofore angling in that 
territory his been free. It was a freedom which has 
been abused, and for the new restrictions the fishermen 
have no one to blam.e bui themselves. 
