A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1904, by Forest akd Stream Publismihg Co. 
IS, $4 A Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. I 
SiH Mosths, $3. f 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2 8, 1908, 
j VOL. LXV.— No. 18 
( No. 346 Broadway, New Y ork,. 
he Forest awd Stream is the recognized medium of entertain- 
it, Instruction and information between American sportsmen, 
editors invite communications on the subjects to which its 
SS are devoted. Anonymous communications will not be re- 
led. While it is intended to give wide latitude in discussion 
urrent topics, the editors are not responsible for the views of 
espondents. 
ibscriptions may begin any time. Terms: For single 
es, $4 per year, fa for she months. For club rates and full 
iculars respecting subscriptions, see prospectus on page iii. 
study should be developed another illustration of the 
folly with which we have gone on for years tolerating 
the destruction of game for market; and demonstrating 
anew the wisdom and utility of the Platform Plank, that 
the sale of game should he forbidden at all seasons. 
Tie object of this Journal will be to studiously 
\mote a healthful interest in outdoor recre- 
m, and to cultivate a refined taste for natura. 
QQfa Announcement in first number ot 
Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1873. 
BIRIDS AND THE COTTON CROP. 
'he Department of Agriculture has undertaken the 
ly of birds in the South and their relation to the cot- 
boll weevil. This insect is one of the most destruc- 
pests in the country to-day; its ravages in Texas 
e caused enormous losses and the weevil is steadily 
eading and -covering a wider territory. The investi- 
ion is to determine what effect the birds have as its 
troyers. The s.tudy has been made by Mr. Vernon 
ley, chief field naturalist of the Biological Survey, 
I a preliminary teport has just been issued. It is a 
ort of progress, for the investigation has not yet been 
ried to a point where the services of the birds as allies 
man may fully be summed up. But enough has been 
>wn to prove that these services are extremely valu- 
;. The fact is pointed out that for twelve years since 
introduction the weevil has made steady progress in 
spread over the cotton producing area in spite of the 
Is ; and there is no ground then to assume that birds 
ever likely to exterminate the insect. It is true, 
■ertheless, that the iilvestigation has shown that birds 
'e had a very important influence in checking the 
ivil, to such an extent indeed that the conclusion is 
tly reached that if it were not for the birds no cotton 
atever could be produced in the infected areas. More- 
:r, it is reasonable to believe that when the services of 
birds shall be more fully recognized and in conse- 
;nce more efficient protection shall be given to them, 
increased avian supply will, in corresponding ratio, 
ive more effective iil reducing the weevil. 
i.mong the birds found to be destructive of the boll 
evil the fir-st place is given to the titlark or pipit, of 
ich at the time of his visit in November Mr. Bailey 
ind flocks of roo to 500 constantly in the cotton fields, 
king food as they ran or walked over the ground. Of 
ht individuals killed for examination of their stomachs, 
i were ^ md to contain femahis of boll weevils, 
lowing, ...V. birds only two meals a day, at this rate 
:y would r'^nsume 125 per cent, of their own numbers 
weevib= '' ' . The titlarks winter in Texas in inl- 
and the aggregate of their useful work 
, must he of tremendous magnitude. 
lose asefnlness , in varying degree was 
Honstrated i..^lude the Carolina wren, the western 
adow lark and the Florida meadow’ lark, the cominon 
oebe, the red-W’* Ted blackbird, the western savanna 
irfow and. th.. ,rhite-coated sparroiv, the brown 
•asber and the Te: a bobwhite. The investigation of 
: quail was made In the autumnal season, when the 
ds -^ere feeding almost exclusively on ripened weed 
;ds.; but quail are known to feed largely on insects in 
: summer, and Mr. Bailey concludes that later in the 
ison, especially during the winter and spring months, 
;er the weevils have left the cotton, the quail scratch 
;m up from under the leaves and rubbish. 
Other birds which are named m the report as giving 
eful co-operation in the weevil warfare are the shore 
•ds, in particular the killdeer plover, which is known to 
t the insects and frequents the cotton fields at all sca- 
ns. Tlie same statement applies to other plover, the 
land plover or Bartram’s sandpiper being one of the 
DSt insectivorous of all species. Formerly it was. 
und in immense numbers on Texas prairies, but market 
inting has almost exterminated it. The bird is known 
papabotte in Louisiana, and is one of the choicest birds 
■the New Orleans market. 
ft, is suggestive that here in this cottgp |)oll weevil 
NEBRASKA’S GREAT TREE PLANTER. 
To-day, Oct. 28, a fitting honor to a public benefactor 
will be paid, when at Nebraska City, Neb., a monument 
will be dedicated to the memory of J. Sterling Morton, 
the founder of Arbor Day. A Nebraska pioneer, having 
taken up a homestead in 1854, a highly successful farmer 
and man of affairs, Secretary of Agriculture under Cleve- 
land, Mr. Morton is most widely known and most grate- 
fully remembered as an advocate of tree planting and 
forest preservation. No other man of his generation, nor 
of any other generation in this country, has had such an 
influence in this field of tree planting as he. Plant 
trees” was his lifelong motto. These words were en- 
graved on his stationery, emblazoned on the panels of his 
carriage, proclaimed by him in season and out of season, 
preached and practiced. The memorial stands in a grove 
of trees on the Morton farm, which he himself planted 
and in which, it is said, he took more pride than in any 
other achievement of his life. The monument has been 
provided by the Arbor Day Memorial Association, which 
was organized after Mr. Morton’s death in 1902 ; and the 
purpose of the memorial is tO‘ be first “a perpetual re- 
minder of Mr. Morton to his fellow-townsmen and their 
children and grand-children, as an example of integrity 
and patriotic citizenship for them to imitate, to com- 
memorate his public services, particularly in founding of 
Arbor Day, and to recognize his record as a pioneer of 
the West.” 
The design, by Rudolph Evans, of this city, is a life- 
like portrait statue in bronze, the accessories being a 
bough of a tree, a plowshare, and a woodsprite caressing 
a young tree. The characterization chiselled in the 
marble on one side is, “Pioneer, Statesman, Scholar, 
Tree Planter,” and on the other side “Father of Arbor 
Day,” and the motto “Plant Trees.” 
ALIENS AND GUNS. 
The killing of song birds by foreigners, which is a 
nuisance of such large proportions in the vicinity of 
towns and cities, may be suppressed at least in so far as 
unnaturalized foreigners are implicated simply by en- 
forcing that section of the penal co.de which forbids 
aliens to carry arms. This is section 409, which reads as 
follows: “No person not a citizen of the United States 
shall have of carry firearms or dangerous weapons iri 
any public place at any time.” 
The Forest, Fish and Game Commission has printed 
this in bold type on a linen poster, together with afi an- 
nouncement that “under this law the slaughter of song 
and insectivorous birds, which has been carried to such 
an alarming extent by non-citizenS, may be stopped al- 
most wholly. It is the duty of all good citizens to report' 
violations of this law to the police or to the civil authori- 
ties and to see that offenders are summarily punished.” 
This poster will be supplied free of cost on application 
to the Forest, Fish and Game Commission, Albany, N. ¥. 
It should be very extensively displayed in all districts 
where Italians and other aliens flow invade tlie highways 
and fields in pursuit of song birds. 
The Commissioners might do well to put out polyglot, 
posters, giving the law in English and Italian, for it is 
to be assumed that the song bird potters are not familiar 
with the English tongue. Five song bird killers., captured 
last Sunday near Bronx Park, in the upper part of the 
city, were of Italian extraction, as their names indicate— 
Parelo, Amodeo, Comoneto and Gaetano. In their pcK- 
session were found twenty-nine robins, two indigo birds, 
five thrushes, a grosbeak and a catbird; and evidence 
seemed to show that they had regaled themselves on sev- 
eral other birds, cooking them over a fire kindl.ed in the 
woods. 
THE CALIFORNIA ELK. 
Readers of early, books of California history remember 
that at the inpouring of Americans into that State fifty 
years ago, the elk were very abundant. Especially were 
they numerous in the San Joaquin and Sacramento val- 
leys and in the tule marshes which bordered many of the 
rivers and lakes of the flat country. 
Over the greater part of this region the elk have long 
been exterminated, but on the extensive cattle ranch 
owned by Miller and Lux there has always been a small 
herd, protected by the proprietors, and this herd has 
come to number about two hundred. A few years ago, 
through the efforts of Dr. Merriam, Chief of the Biolog- 
ical Survey of the Department of Agriculture, Messrs. 
Miller and Lux presented these elk to the United States 
Government, and after a time a pasture was constructed 
for them in the Sequoia National Park. In November, 
1904, efforts were made to round up the elk and drive 
them into a corral, so that they could be caught, boxed 
and shipped to their new home. The drive, though care- 
fully planned and taken part in by good riders, was a 
failure. The elk refused to be driven, broke back through 
the line of riders and escaped to the foothills of the 
Temploa Mountains. During the drive the cowmen roped 
a number of elk, most of which died. Their skins and 
skulls were preserved and were the first specimens of this 
animal which had come into the hands of a scientific man 
in recent times. On these specimens is based a new 
species of elk, Cervus namiodes, described last February 
by Dr. Merriam, and then spoken of in Forest and 
Stream. 
As our dispatches show another drive was held this 
year and twenty-three specimens were captured, of which 
twenty lived to be transferred to the quarters prepared 
for them on Kaweah River, in the Sequoia National 
Park. Here it may be hoped that they will do well. The 
tide elk is very much smaller than any of the other elk 
known from America, is shorter legged, much paler in 
color, and has more white on the ears. I: ik thought to 
be more nearly related to the elk of the PocR-v Moun- 
tains than to either of the Pacific coast species. 
That is an ingenious piece of figuring in the paragraph 
on “Bobwhite as an ally of the farmer” in another col- 
umn, which leads to the conclusion that in Virginia and 
North Carolina the quail consumes 1,341 tons of weed 
seeds between Sepit, i and April 30, and 34O tons of in- 
sects in the period from June i to Aug. 3'i. This is pre- 
senting the bir-d in an unfamiliar light. We esteem' the 
quail as a game bird, but its economic value is not so 
well understood nor so highly appreGiated as it should be. 
This study of the life history of the quail ought to have 
the widest possible currency. When the relation of game 
birds as well as of other birds to agriculture §hall come 
to be within common knowledge, we may look for a dis- 
tinctly changed and 'improved attitude on the part of 
land owners. 
We recorded at the time of its occurrence the death of 
Guy M. Bradley, the Florida warden of the. National 
Association of Audubon -Societies, who was murdered 
while making arrest of an egret hmiter at Oyster Key, 
Fla., last July. Mr. Bradley was a martyr to the cause af 
bird protection, and it is fitting that recognition of his 
services and lamentable death should take the substantial 
form of provision for his widow and two young chil- 
dren. The movement set on foot to provide a pension for 
the f -lily must appeal widely, and the response should be 
pr generous. Contributions may be sent to Mr. 
Willife.m Dutcher, President of the National Association 
of Arf^.ubon Societies, No. 525 Manhattan avenue. New 
York c. 
Deer are so plentiful in Long Island that they invade 
the hiig' ' J’ji and narrowly escape death by the auto- 
mobiles w' speed noiselessly around the curves in the 
road; Waen Mr.. R. B. Roosevelt, on his way from the 
Vanderbilt Cu races last week, ran into a herd of eight 
deer near the ' . _Tderbilt estate at Oakdale, a buck sprang 
from the path of he vehicle with such force as to drive 
its head through t he wire, fence, where it was held im- 
movable, unable to go either forward or backward. The. 
deer supply in this part of the'i.sland is so great as in 
many ways to be a -i-ance; and the residents are look- 
ing forward with n. , satisfaction whatever to the occa- 
sion which is schedi for Nov. 8, when an army of 
deer hunters will 1^^ <'-’P opening day’s sportj 
