Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1904, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Terms, $4 A Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. » NEVS/" YORK SATURDAY, JUNE 3, 190B. { No. 346°BroadwICnew^ York. 
Six Months, $3. ) ^ — ^ ' ) ^ ' ' . 
^The Forest and 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 subscriptions, see prospectus on page iii. 
The object of this journal will be to studiously 
promote a healthful interest in outdoor recre- 
ation, and to cultivate a refined taste for natural 
nbiectS Announcern'ent in first number of 
^ ^ ' Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1873. 
HUNTING IN FOREIGN PARTS. 
Year by year the world is growing smaller. There are 
more people in it, more widely distributed; and means 
of communication between distant points become con- 
stantly easier. Fifty years ago, one walked or rode 
across the 3,000 miles that separate the Atlantic and 
Pacific. Now it takes days to makes the journey where 
then months were needed. As population increases, 
hunting grounds contract; the Rocky Mountains for 
the most part are bare of game. People have to turn- 
to Canada to find the wild country that we all of us 
want to enjoy from time to time. 
But as there are more men who shoot and fish, 
Canada and the few spots in the United States where 
game and fish may still be had do not supply the 
needs of all. Men go to England and Scotland for 
angling and grouse shooting, or hire deer forests in 
Scotland on which they kill their quota of stags. The 
grouse moors and shooting estates frequently adver- 
tised in the Forest and Stream, show that British 
owners appreciate that in this country there is a 
large public to whom they may appeal. 
Here in America, the game preserve system is abso- 
lutely in its infancy, and there still persists much oi the 
ancient feeling that the wild game and fish belong to 
whomever may take them, no matter where they may 
be found. 
In Britain and in many cities of the continent of 
Europe there are firms which make it their business to 
sell and to rent places where shooting may be had. 
In the Old World there is no such thing as free shooting. 
The game goes with the land, and in any renting of 
shooting rights, the future is carefully looked after by 
conditions which provide that only a certain number of 
birds or animals shall be killed. 
It is commonly believed that only the very wealthy 
can rent shooting estates in Great Britain, but it ap- 
pears that at various points on the continent sport with 
gun and rod may be had at moderate cost. Very con- 
siderable shootings, including stags, bears and lynx, to 
say nothing of smaller game, such as chamois, roebuck, 
grouse of different species and partridges, may be had 
at prices that seem very moderate. At a certain place 
in Hungary, only -a few hours by rail from Vienna, 2,000 
partridges are to be shot over grounds occupying about 
12,000 acres, at a price of only S cents per shot. 
Austria-Hungary is a vast country of mountain, forest 
and plain, where the land is owned in great estates, 
and has for many years been carefully preserved. 
Much shooting is to be had there. In Europe a trip 
is being set on foot to Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla 
by a man who is reported last year to have shot there 
thirty-five polar bears, and where reindeers, bears, 
seals, walruses and sea birds are to be had. The cost 
for one of six persons on this trip, which will last for 
two and a half to three months, would be about $2,000. 
Let us hope that this trip will never be made, for 
the game of Spitzbergen is said to be very rapidly de- 
creasing. 
The time may come when we in America shall be able 
to offer sportsmen such shooting as they appear now 
to have in Austria-Hungary, and the various Turkish 
provinces which lie in the Balkan Mountains. But it 
looks as if that time were a long way ofif, and it may 
be questioned if ever we shall be able to offer to the 
visiting sportsmen bustards, wild geese, stags, deers. 
chamois, roebuck, eagles, wolves, mountain cocks, 
heathcocks, elk, bears, lynx and wild boars, together 
with rich trout fishing, such as may be had in south- 
eastern Europe to-day. 
- SHORT LOBSTERS. 
Governor Higgins has signed the act which changes 
the penalty for taking short lobsters from a fine of $100 
for the offense to a fine of $60 for the offense and $10 in 
addition for each lobster unlawfully taken or had in pos- 
session. The effect is likely to be salutary. 
The short lobster catcher is among the most improvi- 
dent of fishermen, and the most persistent in destroying 
immature stock, which if left to grow would be a valu- 
able resource. Lobsters do not breed before an age when 
they have attained a length of nine inches. The State 
has expended thousands of dollars in lobster breeding, 
and has put out the products of its enterprise on the pub- 
lic waters for him to take who will. The only consid- 
eration imposed, as expressed in the short lobster law, is 
that the immature lobsters may not be taken; they must 
be permitted to grow until they shall have reached an age 
when they may reproduce. To most of us this seems an 
extremely reasonable regulation, and one which, it might 
be thought, would commend itself most favorably to the 
approval and acceptance of the lobster fisherman— the 
partner, as it were, of the State in the enterprise of lob- 
ster catching— ^the State plants the seed, the fisherman 
reaps the harvest. But, so perverse is human nature, the 
lobsterman goes on the principle of taking to market 
everything that gets into his lobster pot, irrespective of 
size, breeding, present supply and future scarcity. Down 
in the Narrows of New York Bay, between Forts Ham- 
ilton and Wadsworth, are the best lobster breeding and 
growing grounds in this State, and but for the short- 
sightedness of the fishermen, a very large supply would 
be going into the New York market, but they seem pos- 
sessed to take them before they are half legal size, though 
they get practically nothing for them. Last summer they 
sold the immature lobsters for three and four cents a 
pound, while if they had left them until this year the 
mature lobsters would have brought fourteen cents, and 
would have spawned thousands for three years hence. 
The, taking of so many lobsters before they can spawn 
is really one of the causes for the almost prohibitive 
prices prevailing to consumers. 
Protector Overton, of this district, has been active in 
pursuing the fishermen and dealers in illegal lobsters, 
and has recently secured judgments of $200 each against 
two Fulton Market dealers; and like penalties are due 
from three Brooklyn marketmen. Cases are pending 
against Staten Island and Gravesend Bay fishermen. It 
is believed that the new law will prove a decided benefit 
because of the increased penalties it provides. 
THE CALAVERAS BIG TREES. 
Mr. Luther Kelly's paper on the Big Trees of Cali- 
fornia draws attention anew to the fact that the Calaveras 
Groves are now the property of private individuals and 
are in danger of destruction. They should be in public 
ownership and under permanent public protection. The 
Big Trees belong with the Yosemite Valley, the Geysers 
of the Yellowstone, and Niagara Falls, as objects of 
natural grandeur and beauty which of right belong 
neither to individuals nor to any one generation of men ; 
but to the nation and to posterity, not less than to the 
American people who are to-day temporarily occupying 
the land. 
Mr. Kelly alludes to the work of the women of Cali- 
fornia in an endeavor to induce Congressional action to 
acquire ownership of the Calaveras Groves as a national 
possession. The movement was begun in 1903 by the 
Outdoor Art League of California, which appointed a 
Calaveras Big Tree Committee, with Mrs. Lovell White, 
of San Francisco, as chairman. An active and earnest 
propaganda was set in motion to awaken public senti- 
ment throughout the country. The executive heads of 
the States were communicated with, and thirty-two Gov- 
ernors replied, many of them giving enthusiastic indorse- 
ment. The women's clubs throughout the country, the 
press, such organizations as the American Park and 
Outdoor Art Association, forestry associations, scientific 
bodies, universities, colleges and various societies — aU 
these were appealed to and their active interest was 
awakened. A bill providing for the purchase of the Big 
Trees was introduced in the Senate at Washington and 
was passed by that body. A corresponding measur/jywas 
introduced in Congress by Hon. J. N. Gillette, of Cali- 
fornia, but because of the opposition of Speaker Cannon 
was not allowed to come up. Thereupon, in January, 
1904, a petition bearing more than 1,500,000 signatures, 
representing every State in the Union, was sent to Presi- 
dent Roosevelt, and was by him transmitted to the House 
with the indorsement : "I cordially recommend it to the 
favorable consideration of Congress. The Calaveras Big 
Tree Grove is not only a California but a National in- 
heritance, and all that can be done by the Government 
to insure its preservation should be done." Speaker 
Cannon, however, refused to permit the measure to come 
before the House; and Congress adjourned without act- 
ing upon it. 
The California women who for years have been work- 
ing for the Federal control of the Calaveras Groves, are 
discouraged but not so disheartened as to admit defeat. 
The sentiment of the country as represented through' the 
clubs and societies which have participated in the move- 
ment, is beyond question fixed and determined in sup- 
port of the plan of Federal acquirement and preservation. 
The campaign to that end will be continued; and in the 
end, there is confidence to believe, the Big Trees will be 
in fact a possession of the United States. 
OLD BOOKS. 
Few of us, no matter how well read, how familiar with 
the literature of any subject, but are astonished from 
time to time by the discovery of some old work of whose 
existence we had been wholly ignorant. Quite aside from 
the subject matter that these old books contain they have 
usually a charm of their own which is due to the sim- 
plicity with which they are written and to a certain 
quaintness of diction, ciuite lost in these modern times. 
AVithin the past few years there has arisen in this coun- 
try a greatly increased demand for such old works, espe- 
cially for such as have to do with this continent — Ameri- 
cana: The prices of such books have many times in- 
creased, and besides the many old book dealers to be 
found in this country, there are many in England, Can- 
ada and Germany, who make a specialty of picking up 
and reselling such out-of-print works on American topics. 
In the fields of hunting, angling, exploration and the 
West, there are many excellent private libraries in this 
country. President Roosevelt possesses a remarkably 
good one on big game hunting. Mr. Russell W. Wood- 
ward has one on angling, together with a wonderful 
series of prints and portraits of angling scenes and 
angling. Mr. Charles Sheldon possesses a well-nigh com- 
plete library on shooting, and the list might be indefinitely 
increased. The purchase of these old books is, one would 
think, a safe method of investing money, provided one 
is content to receive as income from the investment the 
satisfaction which comes from the reading and the sense 
of possession of the books. If a time should ever come 
for them to be sold— ^provided the volumes have been 
well cared for during the period of his ownership — the 
possessor will receive back his principal much increased. 
Most of us, to be sure, do not buy books to sell again, 
yet it is a real satisfaction to own books whose interest, 
and whose money value as well^ is constantly increasing. 
We have for some months been printing in the Forest 
AND Stream a series of abstracts of old books on early 
western exploration and travel which have excited great 
interest, and these Trails of the Pathfinders afford a 
good example of the delightful reading that the old books 
on exploration afford. 
Some inquiries recently made of Forest and Stream 
about some of these old books and how they may be ob- 
tained have led us to think that there may be among our 
readers soine who would be glad to enlist our services in 
securing such old volumes. These cannot, of course, be 
bought off hand ;' they must be picked up when the oppor- 
tunity occurs. Recently a friend received from a German 
dealer a catalogue of old books which contained a volume 
that he had long been looking for. He wanted the book 
so much that he cabled over to Germany and secured it. 
If any of our friends desire our assistance in this mat- 
ter of securing such old volumes, we shall be very happy 
to be of service to them, 
