Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1904, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
MS, $4 A Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. ) 
Six Months, $2. ) 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 190B. 
I 
VOL. LXV.— No. 10. 
No. 346 Broadway, New York. 
The Forest and Stream is the recognized medium ofentertain- 
ot, instruction and information between American sportsmen. 
5 editors invite communications on the subjects to which its 
;es are devoted. Anonymous communications will not be re- 
ded. While it is intended to give wide latitude in discussion 
:urrent topics, the editors are not responsible for the views of 
espondents. 
jiubscriptions may begin at any time. Terms: For single 
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;iculars respecting subscriptions, see prospectus on page iii. 
\rhe object of this journal will be to studiously 
omote a healthful interest in outdoor recre= 
on, and to cultivate a refined taste for natural 
Announcement in first number of 
'' * Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1873. 
A MASSACHUSETTS BIRD STUDY. 
\Ve have more than once spoken of the excellent work 
ne by Mr. Edw. Howe Forbush in connection with 
: State Board of Agriculture of Massachusetts, and his 
:ent report to that board is well worth reading by all 
lo are interested in our birds. It has to do with the 
..rease of certain birds and the causes for this decrease, 
d gives a number of suggestions for bird protection. 
,ie matter of the report is compiled from the author’s 
servations, and those of the persons replying to 400 
■culars sent' out by him to naturalists, secretaries of 
ate, game protective associations, officers of various 
cieties and commissions, sportsmen, market hunters and 
;elligent observers generally. 
As might be expected, the majority of these observers 
ke the view that our small birds have decreased, a de- 
ease which is far the greatest in the neighborhood of 
nters of population. The larger birds, including the 
me birds, are certainly decreasing, but some of these 
rger birds — as for example, the gulls and terns have 
'ghtly increased within the past two or three years, 
ving to the passage of new laws and their enforcement. 
T may all listen respectfully to the opinion of so good 
I authority as Mr. William Brewster, who passes a 
■eat deal of his time afield and who says that birds do , 
)t appear to be decreasing generally, but there has been 
decrease among swallows, martins, night hawks, birds 
: prey and certain waterfowl. 
Man and man’s works are the chief cause of the de- 
ruction or diminution of our birds. His rude intei- 
rence with the balance of nature, added to the injury 
orked by their natural enemies, increases the destruc- 
on of the birds to a point where it is greater than the 
inual increase. 
While opinions are of no great value unless backed by 
ddence, the trend of feeling expressed by the observers 
msulted by Mr. Forbush is interesting. Of his 217 re- 
des it was found that 82 assigned the diminution of 
rds to “sportsmen, or so-called sportsmen” ; 70 to Ital- 
,ns and other foreigners” ; 62 to “cutting of timber and 
irubbery”; 57 to “market hunters”; 32 each to “bird 
looters and trappers” and “egg collectors, boys and 
thers”; 18 to “milliners’ hunters”; 17 to “draining 
larshes and meadows,” and 16 to “gun club and hunting 
Dntests.” 
Each observer will naturally generalize from the condi- 
ons with which he himself is cognizant, but leasons 
iven for their opinions by the observers have a value ; 
Dr example, one reporter writes that there are now at 
‘ast seventy-five hunters provided with bird dogs, where 
lirty years ago there were only three dogs in his town, 
'he improvement in firearms, from the flint lock, through 
le percussion cap, the breech loader and the pump gun, 
enders the efforts of each gunner far more destructive 
ow than formerly. In Massachusetts wildfowl shooters 
uring the open season live on the ground frequented by 
he .birds, and by the aid of trained live decoys often suc- 
eed in decimating the flocks which pass them. 
The destruction caused by foreigners affects chiefly the 
mall birds and those larger birds which are not game, 
uch as herons, hawks, owls and crows. These foreigner 
onie to this country under the impression that this is 
free land, where each man may do what he pleases. 
They regard the shooting of small birds as sport, and 
IS we all know frequently resist the officers of the law 
vho attempt to check their depredations. 
In offering suggestions for the better protection of the 
Oirds the correspondents made a multitude of suggestions 
which are grouped under four heads, which may ^ be 
termed educational, legislative regulation of shooting, 
bounties, and miscellaneous. Of these the first two con- 
tain many ideas worthy of consideration, the third, which 
has to do with bounties, may be passed over, for it has ■ 
been pretty well determined that bounties aie ineffective, 
but in the miscellaneous suggestions is found the excel- 
lent and practical recommendation to establish State 
reservations where birds shall be protected. 
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has already taken 
noteworthy steps in this direction, and it may be hoped 
that the work so admirably begun may be carried much 
further. Not only Massachusetts alone, but every State 
in the Union should have a multitude of reservations to 
he left in state of nature, to be protected from injury by 
the public, and where the birds themselves shall be pro- 
tected from enemies of whatever sort. It is possible, in 
time, to bring back many of our native birds in their old 
abundance, and we believe that this will ultimately be 
done. The sooner it is done the better. 
THE TROUT OF GOLLEY BROOK. 
The delusion that private waters may be converted 
into public waters by the simple expedient of putting 
intO' them fish from the State hatcheries is manifested 
anew in a Case which came up last week in the Rome, 
N. Y., city court. The circumstances as developed at 
the trial were these : 
The New York game law contains a provision that in 
any town in which fish may have been placed at the ex- 
pense of the State, the Forest, Fish and Game Commis- 
sion may, on the request of the town board, “prohibit or 
regulate the taking of fish from public inland waters 
therein,” for not exceeding five years from the time the 
fish were planted. Printed notices of the prohibitions 
are to be posted along the shores of the waters affected, 
and whoever shall fish in violation of the prohibition is 
declared to be guilty of a misdemeanor. 
Taking advantage of the opportunity assumed to be 
afforded by this law to improve local trout fishing con- 
ditions, the Rome Fish and Game Protective Association 
applied for a consignment of fry from the State hatch- 
eries to be placed in a stream knowm as Golley Brook, 
and at the same time petitioned the Commission tO' close 
the brook as to fishing. This was done; the fish weie 
put in, and in November, 1903, the stream was declared 
closed for a term of three years, and was posted with 
legal notices to that effect. 
Last July a Rome attorney, Elliott O. Worden, went 
fishing in Golley Brook, and -when Asa Golley, the owner 
of the land from which the stream takes its name, cited 
the law to him the fisherman retorted that he was not 
worried about being arrested, but was worried as to 
whether he could get a mess or not. Mr. Worden as-' 
sumed the role of one who was standing up for his 
rights. It is claimed for him that he fished in Golley 
Brook because he believed that the Commission had no 
authority to forbid his doing so, the stream not being 
within the classification of “public waters.” 
The character of the brook was described by several 
witnesses at the* trial. Asa Golley, a witness for the 
prosecution, testified that the brook was not a navigable 
stream and that logs could not be floated there. When 
the meadows are filled with high grass, he said, the 
tops of the grass will meet over the brook, the brook 
being so narrow. There are arms of the brook in the 
town of Lee and the courses have been changed by the 
farm owners by plowing ditches, making more con- 
venient courses. Golley Brook is made up of seveial 
little springs having their source from the side hill, not 
over three-quarters of a mile away from, where Worden 
was fishing.” 
Counsel for the defense- claimed that the brook was not 
“public inland waters,” but a stream subject to private 
ownership, and in fact was inclosed private property. 
Charles Wengetz, a witness for the defense, testified that 
throughout most of the brook as it flowed through his 
land he could step across it; in a test made on the morn- 
ing of the trial, in a distance of 396 paces along the 
brook, a stick fourteen inches long, used to span the 
width between the banks, “got stuck fourteen times, so 
that he had to dislodge it.” Wengetz and Edward 
Lasha, owners- of adjoining farms through which Golley 
Brook flows, testified that they had not authorized the 
posting of the stream on their property. 
Lasha, on whose farm the fishing was done, said that 
he had invited the defendant, Worden, tO' fish there on 
the occasion for which Worden was arrested. 
The private character of the water appears thus to have 
been demonstrated. Apparently no attempt was made by 
the prosecution to show that it was a public inland water 
for any other reason whatever than that it had been 
stocked by the State with fish, and that such stocking had 
made it public. 
The court took this view. As quoted in the printed 
report of the case, “the court said he had his notion about 
it. He said John Golley owned property through which 
Golley Brook flowed and had given his consent to have 
it stocked by trout from the State hatchery, and that the 
town board of Lee had made application to have the 
stream, closed, and that the proper notices had been 
posted prohibiting fishing in that stream, and that the 
requirements of law having all been lived up to, he held 
the brook to be public inland water and found Mr. Wor- 
den guilty of a misdemeanor in violating the law, section 
156, in fishing there on July 18 last.” A fine of $10 was 
imposed, but sentence was suspended pending appeal. 
If the Golley Brook was truly described by the wit- 
nesses whose testimony we have quoted, it is manifestly 
not a public but a private water. 
If it is private water the planting in it of fry from 
State hatcheries cannot make it public. 
If it is a private water the State cannot close it to 
fishing. 
If the Rome Fish and Game Protective Association 
members want to improve the, fishing in Golley Brook by 
closing it for a term of years, they may do this legiti- 
mately by planting fry in it and persuading the land own- 
ers through whose farms it flows to post the stream and 
keep fishermen out. They would be obliged, however, to 
purchase the fry from private trout culturists, for the law 
forbids supplying fish from the State hatcheries for 
stocking private waters. Nor does such an arrangement 
with the farmers appear feasible just now, for taking 
umbrage at the Worden prosecution, some of the land 
owners have posted Golley Brook on their own account, 
declaring it to be their private property, and warning 
trespassers to keep out. 
The tendency of the times is toward the more compre- 
hensive and stricter closing of all private waters against 
promiscuous, public fishing. The angler who finds him- 
self shut out from streams once free to him may feel 
chagrined and outraged, and that he is deprived of what 
custom has made him consider his rights. But the 
changes are inevitable. There is no halting its progress. 
The fishing of the future, as to stream fishing for brook 
trout at least, will be in waters owned or leased by the 
fisherman, or in which he pays for the temporary privi- 
lege -of fishing, or fishes as a guest. It behooves us to 
mike up our minds to this, to reconcile ourselves to the 
change, and to cast about to make sure of our own per- 
sonal, individual opportunities by prudently looking out 
for number one. In doing this we shall act most wisely 
if we shall depend on the ancient and well established 
principles of land ownership and property rights, and not 
put our faith in freak products of the legislative mill, 
such, for instance, as a law declaring that the stocking 
of private waters with fish from public hatcheries throws 
those waters open to the public. 
A BETRAYAL OF TRUST. 
That is a most extraordinary condition of affairs in 
the Adirondacks which is described by Mr. Raymond S. 
Spears in his story of the sale of State lands by officials 
whose duty it was to protect the people’s interests. The 
State Constitution forbids the sale of lands in the Forest 
Preserve. In the face of that prohibition, if Mr. Spears 
be right as to his facts, parcels have been handed over 
to the wood alcohol manufacturer and other private pur- 
chasers. Among the lands of which the State has been 
robbed is a strip bordering on Ampersand Pond, .one of 
the most famous beauty spots of the whole Adirondack 
region. 
The charges made by Mr. Spears are not general but 
specific. They are serious and demand an answer. If 
such transfers of public property into private hands have 
been made, the officials who have betrayed their trust 
should be punished; the contracts being illegal should be 
annulled, and to the people of the State should be re- 
stored the lands of which they have been defrauded. 
