Forest and 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1904, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. I 
Six Months, $2. j 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2 9, 1904 
j VOL. LXIII.— No. 18. 
1 No. 846 Broadway, Nbw York. 
FOREST AND STREAM AT ST. LOUIS. 
The Forest and Stream Publishing Company has been 
awarded the Gold Medal at the Louisiana Exposition. We 
have not received the particulars of the award, but we are 
told that the Group Jury, of which Mr. Carl E. Akeley 
was chairman, particularly mentioned the Forest and 
Stream and the company's technical publications. The 
exhibit consisted of bound volumes of the Forest and 
Stream from 1873 to 1904, books on tourist travel, natural 
history, fishing, the dog, yachting and canoeing; and en- 
gravings of fishing scenes and sporting subjects. 
The award at St. Louis is the fifth that has been won 
by Forest and Stream. The list runs : Philadelphia, 1876. 
silver medal and diploma. Berlin, 1880, silver medal and 
diploma. Chicago, 1893, silver medal and diploma. Paris, 
1000, grand prize, gold medal, silver medal, bronze medal, 
and three, diplomas. St. Louis, 1904, gold medal. 
NEW YORK AT THE WORLD'S FAIR. 
Advices from the St. Louis Exposition state that the 
very handsome and instructive collection representing the 
fish and game of New York State, which is shown as a 
part of the exhibit of the Forest, Fish and Game Commis- 
sion, has been awarded a grand prize and a gold medal. 
The grand prize is given to the collection of fishes, and 
the gold medal to the collection of animals and birds. 
Grand prizes were also given to the forestry exhibit, 
which is one of the most complete on flie grounds. It is 
also stated that silver medals have been awarded to each 
collaborator in the preparation of this exhibit. The ex- 
hibit of the Commis S1011 W3 s planned by Col. Wm. F. 
Fox, the State Superintendent of Forests, who was 
assisted in collecting the fishes by the secretary of the 
Commission, Mr. John D. Whish, and in the collection of 
animals and birds by the special agent of the Commission, 
Mr. Arthur B. Strough. It is understood tO' be the in- 
tention of the Commission to make the mounted speci- 
mens of fish and game a permanent exhibit at its rooms 
in the Capitol at Albany when the Exposition closes. The 
collection of mounted fish was prepared by Professor 
Denton, and comprises nearly one hundred specimens, 
representing very fully the fish life of the State waters. 
The birds and animals form an equally satisfactory col- 
lection, and both exhibits have attracted much attention. 
It is not likely that room can be found to make a perma- 
nent exhibit of the forestry group, which includes every- 
thing that should be found in such a collection, and is 
supplemented by a forest nursery in operation on the 
grounds outside the building where the display is made. 
THE REVENUE FROM LAWLESSNESS. 
The State of Pennsylvania has made an extraordinary 
showing of revenues collected as penalties from violators 
of the fish laws. Pennsylvania's Department of Fisheries 
was established in June, 1903, with Mr. W. E. Meehan 
as Commissioner. From that date to the present, a period 
of sixteen months, there has been collected in actual cash 
from persons convicted of illegal fishing over $10,000. . 
Of this sum, one-half went to the informer, usually the 
warden. Of the balance, $4,565.17 has been paid into the 
State Treasury, and over $500 is still to be received from 
the county treasurers. In addition there were fines im- 
posed amounting to over $2,000, and the parties instead 
of paying their fines, served sentences in jail for one. day 
for each dollar of fine unpaid. In addition there are a 
number of cases now before the courts, or unsettled, in- 
volving over $2,000 more in fines, one for over $1,700. 
Altogether the aggregate to the present time involves 
penalties to the amount of over $15,000 for violations of 
the fish laws alone. The revenue was sufficient to cover 
the entire cost of the warden service for one year ; and 
thus Pennsylvania has in large measure solved the prob- 
lem of maintaining a protective force. The record may be 
approached, it is believed that it has not been surpassed 
by any other State. Further revenues have been drawn 
from license fees for fishing in Lake Erie aggregating 
$2,269, or within $1,000 of the cost of operating the Erie 
hatchery; and the humble eel has been made to add, as 
license fees for eel catchers, $2,460 more. 
The department now lias five hatcheries in operation, 
one at Corry, one at Erie, one at Bellefonte, one in Wayne 
county, and one in Philadelphia county. Two — the one at 
Erie and the one at Philadelphia — are for food fishes. 
Two. are for trout exclusively, and one for black bass and 
yellow perch and pickerel principally. Two of the 
hatcheries were authorized by the last Legislature two 
years ago, and Commissioner Meehan points with satisfac- 
tion to the fact that both were ready for operation within 
four months after the sites were selected and the deeds 
turned over to the State. The ordinary annual output 
of fish, excluding the one in Philadelphia county and the 
one in Wayne county, is about 100,000,000, of which be- 
tween six and seven million are brook trout. 
MINNESOTA'S PINE LANDS. 
Public-spirited citizens of Minnesota who are con- 
cerned to stay the destruction of its forests and to end the 
system by which these valuable public assets are handed 
over to scheming land grabbers, are united in support of 
the demand that the prevailing law known as the Stone 
and Timber Act should be upheld. An illustration of one 
abuse fostered by the law is given by Gen. C. C. Andrews, 
Chief Fire Warden, in an official report, detailing Low it 
is possible, and is practiced, to obtain pine lands from the 
Government in a fraudulent manner by taking advantage 
of the Stone and Timber Act privilege of purchasing 160 
acres of such land at $2.50 an acre. The law provides that 
no one person can buy more than 160 acres, but if the 
person is going into the lumber business, he needs more 
than 160 acres. People who buy the land in this way, 
sell out to large individual or corporate holders. "The 
land thus purchased may often be worth over $50 an acre, 
and it was cunningly designed to enable large holders of 
pine lands to acquire title to the same at a low price. Of 
course, it would never do for Congress to say that any 
large corporation could buy up 20,000 acres of valuable 
pine lands at $2.50 an acre, but that object is accomplished 
just the same in a roundabout way." 
COL. BRUCE ON THE TROPHY. 
The statement which Col. Leslie C. Bruce, Captain of 
the American Rifle Team which competed at Bisley last 
year, makes on his return to this country, relative to the 
Palma Trophy matter is worthy of attention. It discloses 
the fact that when the National Rifle Association of this 
country returned the Palma Trophy to the British Asso- 
ciation, it took that important step without having con- 
sulted in any way whatever the captain of its own team, 
the one man of all concerned who should have been re- 
ferred to for the facts of the case, and for guidance as to 
any action. Col. Bruce was not asked to explain matters. 
He was not communicated with before or after the step 
of the Association. He was absolutely ignored; and it 
was left to him to learn of the return of the Trophy 
; months afterward, and then by chance in London. This, 
it goes without saying, was a most astonishing course of 
procedure, and we can well understand his wholly natural 
indignation at what was not simply a slight, but had the 
ugly look of a deliberate and contemptuous endeavor on 
the part of President Spencer to make him a scapegoat. 
At the meeting of the Executive Committee of the 
National Rifle Association of America held in Washing- 
ton on June 11, 1904, Col. Bruce being then absent from 
the country, one of the preambles to the resolution re- 
turning the Trophy read as follows: "Whereas, we re- 
.gret the evident differences of opinion which have been 
made matter for publication, and while we find the Cap- 
tain of the American team made no secret whatever of the 
exact character of the rifles, believing this to be perfectly 
proper, which difference of opinion would never have ex- 
isted had he officially submitted the rifles for approval, in 
accordance with the explicit instructions given by the 
President of this Association." We considered then that 
it was unfair to Col. Bruce that he should be selected for 
sacrifice, and in our issue of June 18 we expressed the 
opinion "the foregoing censure is undeserved, and as a 
defense it is fallacious and absurd." 
Had the President of the Association consulted the 
Captain of his team before rushing into print, there would 
not have been such a bewildering series of contradictions 
in the several statements given to the public in exposition 
of the Palma matter. For instance, as quoted in our issue 
of July 9, President Spencer said that the Pope barrels 
of the American team were "taken along to England to 
meet a condition which was likely to arise," but Captain 
Bruce says on the contrary that the Americans went 
abroad with "but one set of barrels." Again, Gen. Spencer 
declared that Col, Bruce should have brought his rifles tQ 
the front and have said that the Americans were going 
to use special rifles, "and I move that the team captains 
modify the rules so that the British, the Canadians, the 
French, and the Americans may all shoot with special 
barrels. Had this been done, there would never have been 
any controversy." Col. Bruce, the team captain, who was 
on the ground, says, on the contrary, "on the morning of 
the match the range officers made further and customary 
official examination of our arms in every respect." 
While sympathizing, as we have said, with Col. Bruce 
for the treatment which has been accorded him by his 
association, we are bound to say that we find in his state- 
ment nothing to alter the view already expressed by us 
that the rifles used by the American team were not service 
rifles as provided for by the condition of the Palma 
Trophy competition, which prescribes that they must be 
"the National Military Arm of the country the team 
represents, being in all respects of the pattern adopted and 
issued to the troops for service. Rifles of private manu- 
facture may be used, but- they must conform to the regu- 
lation pattern and bear the official view mark." Under 
this rule it is impossible to< conceive how the National 
Rifle Association of America, even had it consulted its 
team captain, could have retained the Trophy, inasmuch 
as the rifles used by its team were of a character contrary 
to the specifications, and as such could not be used. Nor 
is there anything in the rules which, had the matter been 
presented to the captains, would have authorized them to 
change the rules with respect to the arms used. 
We alluded the other day to the lawlessness of the 
Italian and other foreign bird destroyers who are a pest 
and a curse to the fields within reach of our large towns 
in various parts of the country; and an illuminating inci- 
dent affording an illustration of the ways of these im- 
ported bird killers has just come to our knowledge from 
Massachusetts. One day last week a sportsman of Mil- 
■ ford, who was hunting in the vicinity, came across a net 
in the woods such as had never been seen in that country 
before. He immediately notified the deputy fish and game 
warden, Mr. Arthur E. Smith, who- repaired to the spot 
and laid plans for the capture of the culprits. The net was 
so concealed that unless a man should happen to stumble 
upon it accidentally it would not be discovered. It was 
seventy-five feet long and six feet in height; it was 
fastened to a ground line and had another at the top, both 
drawn tight so that the net was firmly held in a perpen- 
dicular position. The main, body of . the net was of a 6- 
inch mesh, and -fastened by the top line and hanging \ 
loosely down on both sides was ' a second net of linen -i 
thread of one-inch mesh.' A bird flying against this outer % 
net would- carry the small meshes through the larger one, - < 
and then drop down and thus form a pocket from which 
nothing could escape. The first time the warden visited 
the net there were pocketed in it six robins, three blue- 
jays and a woodpecker. Warden Smith ascertained that : 
the net had been, imported from Italy by an Italian of the :" 
neighborhood; and after a few clays of patient waiting he 
captured the man; Because of an absence of any birds in \ 
the net at the time when he was caught, it was practicable • 
to impose on him only a penalty of $20. These engines . ! 
of bird destruction are- not uncommon on the Continent,, 
and the Italians in particular are much given to securing ; 
birds in this- way ; but we have no room for them in this ' 
country, and we may. well entertain the trust that for 
every net set up: there may be a Warden Smith promptly 
on hand to destroy the net and nab . the netter. 
- - ^"-'W' . 7 V J l V '■>..■ - i 
You may go duck shooting, and the sun may shine and 
the sea be calm, and the ducks refuse to fly, and your 
gun be useless from dawn to dark. Or it may blow, great 
guns and the sea may surge and the old boat tug at the 
anchor and the rains drive and the ducks go to Jericho. 
And so with one untoward condition or the other or both 
your leave of absence may be frittered away and your 
baggage checked for home, and your train boarded with 
never a duck to show for.it all. And yet shall the outing 
not have been fruitless nor without its substantial good. 
You come home refreshed in body and soul, to eat with 
an appetite you have not known for months, an elasticity 
of step, a fuller expansion of the chest, a clearer head, a 
keener mind, a stouter grip on the day's work, and a more 
genial feeling toward your fellow men. It pays to go duck 
shooting when you get ducks; it pays sornetini.es when 
you get none. . ^ / ', _^ _ , . u.'laL* 
