Nov. i§, igos.j 
lands show that upward of twenty more acres were paid 
for in some of the lots than the lots are said to contain 
in the tax list. The State paid for 269 acres and got 
240 acres, for instance. 
It is alleged there is “nothing doing” around Raquette 
Lake, and yet not ten weeks ago it was discovered by 
the State Attorney-General that private' individuals were 
paying taxes on more than 8,000 acres of State ^land 
around Raquette Lake, thereby getting a chance to.“par- 
lition” some more State lands, perhaps. 
There isn’t a report of the Adirondack Forest Com- 
mission that hasn’t got a statement of questionable pro- 
cedure in it, and Mr. Whipple’s last statement shows 
that in,stead of the State losing a mere 117,000 acres, over 
217,000 acres were taken. 
This “100,000 acres” mentioned by Mr. Whipple was 
■Recovered” bv the State. How much did the State pay 
to “recover it”? One hundred and sixteen thousand 
dollars net in the Saranac Association deal. Let us now 
have a statement giving exactly how much the State has 
paid to “recover” these lands which had adrnittedly 
gone out of the State’s possession in a questionable 
manner. 
Let us have the truth about State lands in the Adiron- 
Raymond S. Spears. 
Hun riNGTON, Long Island, N. Y. 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
Raymond S» Spears and Adirondack Lands. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Accept thanks and congratulations for your efforts to 
get at “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the 
truth” in the above matter, but nevertheless I feel in- 
debted to Mr. Spears for his note of alarm, better a false 
alarm now than no alarm at all, and anyone familiar with 
the theft of the people’s lands by the land barons in this 
and older countries must have felt thankful for the alarm 
.sounded by Mr. Spears. ; Do you’- readers know how the 
English people were robbed of much of their commons 
by the land hog who, having enough, stole more? Those 
beautiful common lands? of Britain, common to all “en 
and priceless to the poor,, where those who were landless 
and could barely pay the rent of the poorest cottage, 
could browse a cow and so make both ends meet , also, 
the playground of all the people. When- a small boy a 
good mother sent me, a city child, to the country for a 
few weeks’ summering. ' One of my chief delights was to 
drive home at night poor Betsy Sharp s black cow 
Sheen- common not many miles from London town. What 
are the values to-day to- the poor of London of Clapr^m 
and Wandsworth commons, Highgate Fleather and lip- 
ping forests with their- springy turf, yellow flowering 
o'orse and rolling surface; not to mention the noble trees, 
acres of ferns and deer, of the last mentioned? Only a 
409 
few years ago, sir, these were constantly being en- 
croached upon under clever pretexts by the lords of the 
manor ; thanks be that is all stopped now, and warned 
thereby we should be alert “to ' hold fast that which is 
good” ; and what is better than the people’s playgrounds. 
We are delighted to hear that Mr. Whipple is so good a 
commissioner for forest, fish, and game, but since he is 
good, watch the politicians and see them try and turn 
him out, for we know that Albany crew who, with a 
few noble exceptions, have ever been willing to help the 
land hogs, and incidentally themselves to acres and 
shekels. 
It is noteworthy that Commissioner Whipple himself 
says of the Saranac Inn Association case, “These can- 
cellations undoubtedly should not have been made. 
;i= =1= “q’he Forest Preserve Board immediately 
after its organization in 1897, made a systematic attempt 
to. recover the lands which were lost 'through cancella- 
tions,” and seem to- have largely succeeded. But it is 
admitted that what Mr. Spears charged had really hap- 
pened under previous officials, so there was fire with the 
.smoke after all. Do not be discouraged. Brother Spears, 
sound your note whenever you think there is cause for 
alarm. Rogues need watching, and honest men do not 
nfind'it. Yours for the common. 
The Deckhand. 
Dr. Hodge's Partridges Poisoned. 
From the Worcester, Mass., Telegram, Nov. 9. 
The work of Dr. Clifton F._ Hodge, head of the bio- 
logical department of Clark University, in trying to raise 
partridges . in captivity, was brought to a sudden and 
tragic end Oct. i by the dirty act of a coward, actuated, 
no doubt, by malice, throwing poisoned acorns into the 
birds’ inclosure. The birds ate them and died. 
This statement was given out officially by Dr. Hodge 
yesterday to a Telegram reporter. He made the state- 
ment when it was called to his attention there were 
those in Worcester who have been painstaking m circu- 
lating the news that the partridges were no longer 111 the 
pen wlT<ere they had been kept. 
But Mr. Hodge would make no statement as _ to 
whether he 'had suspicions or whether there was being 
anything done to apprehend the person or persons who 
did the cowardly act. _ - • 
The birds were poisoned with white /a.rsenic. i nc 
arsenic was fed them in acorns. The perpetrator of the 
crime had taken. great pains that his work might not tail 
of his purpose. , j ■ 
The acorns, a handful of w'hich are now sealed m a 
bottle at the university, had evidently been, carefully pre- 
pared for the use. They had been shelled, and then many 
of. them had been split and holes bored m the side and 
arsenic paste inserted. , • j ■ • 
Arsenic was ■ used in plentiful quantity, and it is not 
surprising not one of the four birds that had so lo^S 
on food handed them by their friends m Dr Hodge s 
family died in a few hours after they swallowed the poi- 
soned morsels. , , . , , , >11 
Dr Hodge went to look after the birds about 7 o clock 
Sundav,-Oct. i, and found the cock bird, which had been 
the special pride of Dr. Hodge and the children of the 
neighborhood, and had been named Buffer, dead. Shocked 
at the discovery. Dr. Hodge looked quickly for the othei 
birds, the three females. _ ^ a ..a 
He found them all drooping, apparently almost dead. 
Then he suspected that something had happened to affect 
them ail similarly, and he looked about to see if they had 
been given anything to eat which had not been in keep- 
ing with the customary diet. 
He sawi several bits of broken acorn, and he knew ttat 
it had not been out in the pen by any of ms Hmily. He 
suspected then that possibly the death of Buffer and the 
ailment of the other birds was due to poison, and he first 
gathered all the bits of acorn he could find and arranged 
to preserve them. Then he went to work to save the life 
of the rest if possible. But the influence of the drug- 
had too stiff a hold for any hope, and m a few hours all 
three were dead. The last to die was the hen bird which 
hatched the young ones in captivity. _ , 
The birds W'ere taken to the chemical laboratory and 
the stomachs, removed, and an analysis had to see it 
there could be arsenic discovered. The task was an ea^ 
one The examination was made by Dr. Benjamin h. 
Mei-gold and Dr. C. A. Lyford, and every stomach was 
found to contain large quantities of white arsenic^ exactly 
like that found in the acorns found in the pen. Ihe cori- 
clusion that the death of the birds was due to premedi 
tated and intentional poisoning, the work of a person who 
w’anted to do the man interested in the work a personal 
spite, is the opinion of all who know the circumstances 
of the case. 
A Worcester correspondent sends us these details 
f events preceding the poisoning of the birds. 
The crime was committed on the Sunday morning 
fter Judge Samuel Utley’s decision in his court— cited 
elow — that the cat is a wild animal and that a. man is 
.istified in protecting his property from wild animals in 
ny way he may see fit. IThis defeat aroused some 
enomous fiend to the low-lived trick of poisoning the 
irds out of revenge, thus setting back the expenrnent 
hree years. Acorns— about the only food with which 
he birds could have been caught— were cracked and 
rsenic pasted over and cut into pieces of the kernels 
'hese were thrown into the partridge cage. A handful 
,f the uneaten fragments was gathered and chemical 
ests leave no doubt as to the poison used. All the 
lirds, which were in prime feather and health, died 
with the . same symptoms of arsenic poisoning, and in 
all were found fragments of the fatal acorns. 
The chief difficulty in rearing the ruffed grouse Dr. 
Hodge found to be the cats which infested the neigh- 
borliood. After two of the birds had been caught 
through the inch-inesh netting of the inclosure, he gave 
fair warning and began catching the cats in box traps 
placed near the partridges, chloroforming those that 
appeared to be strays. Some were sent home, in case 
the owners happened .to be known; and sometimes a 
neighbor called and got a cat that had been caught. 
Everything was done-'-in an above-board manner and 
with entire publicity, with the express purpose of en- 
abling those who valued-their cats to keep them at home. 
Under these conditions it was considered safe to assume 
that chiefly strays' would be caught, and many expres- 
sions of encouragement ’and good will were made to Dr. 
Hodge for ridding the; neighborhood of the pests. 
Early in July Dr.- Hodge went away for the summer, 
leaving the care of hiS grouse to students who oc- 
cupied his house. Alot%. in September, before his re- 
turn, a certain yellow 'cat became very troublesome, 
haunting the partridge' kiclosure, climbing about on the 
vdres and even over- the top in its attempts to get at 
the birds. One. of the. iltens died about this time from 
having burst its crop, probably by flying against , the 
cage when frightened by this cat. The cat had to be 
chased away, often several times a day; and finally the 
student in charge threw the usual something in its 
direction as it was making for the partridge pens, but 
this time it happened to be a good sized stone and 
knocked the cat senseless. Supposing he had killed or 
maimed the animal, he crushed the head with a larger 
stone and left it for dead. ' 
Some of the neighbors who saw pant of the proceed- 
ing came over and got the cat; and, claiming that it 
had not been properly killed, instigated the agent ,oj 
the Massachusetts S. P. C. A. to bring suit for “cruelty. 
Judge Utley’s decision in discharging the defendant is 
as follows (Worcester Evening Gazette, Sept. 27, 1905U- 
“Here is a case where .a inan found a ; cat on his 
premises and was perfectly justified in doing what he 
did. Whether he meant to_ strike the cat or not is im- 
material. Some time ago in this court I discharged a 
man for shooting a cat that was stealing his chickens. 
I see no reason in this case why I should _ change my 
opinion. A cat is the most untamed animal in Christen- 
dom. You cannot control it. A dog will mind you but 
a cat is beyond control. A man has a perfect right_ to 
protect his property from a, person or animal preying 
upon it.” . . ! , ■ -u 
The merits of the case, were thus summed' up m the 
Worcester Telegram the following Sunday morning 
(Oct. I, 1905); “The witness for the Government in 
the Dellinger cat case admitted the only cruelty done 
the cat was by them in keeping it alive” (for purpose 
of evidence). 
Compare the two pictures. On the one side' is a 
man protecting innocent creatures from beasts of prey; 
on the other, a cat-like coward throwing poison to. in- 
nocent birds for revenge. The principle of trespass is 
fundarnental to coininoii law. A man has no right to 
trespass on the property of his neighbor or the State. 
Do we live in ancient Egypt or in America? Is the cat 
the only animal that has the right t0‘ live? Who is 
the merciful man — one who keeps a cat and permits it 
to kill fifty birds a year (Forbush’s estiniate) ; wounding 
and mangling, killing parents and leaving the young to 
starve in the nests; or the man who puts an end to this 
hideous business? By a recent estimate of the U. S. 
Department of Agriculture we are losing $795,100,000 
worth of property destroyed annually by insects. Which 
is of more value to the community, a_ carnivorous cat, 
or say, five hundred insectivorous birds? _ Where is 
the coinmon sense in fining a man for killing a single 
bird and at the same time allowing him to keep an 
inconsequent and uncontrolled cat that kills fifty a year. 
What is the reason or sense in licensing wild beasts to 
ravage and kill the property of the State, when the law 
denies this license to men? 
Dr Hodge’s, and with him our own irreparable loss, 
is but a crisis, an index, a pointer to a large problem 
which involves the life or miserable death of millions 
of game and song birds the country over. There are 
several million good guns among us. We have every 
sanction of law, justice, mercy and common sense on 
our side. Let it be understood that one keeping a cat 
must keep it on his own premises. We can see to it 
that this rule is enforced. 
And finally, wherever the question is brought up, as 
it has been and surely will be in the near future, fight 
the licensing of cats to the last ditch. This would give 
the animal a properly status and legal protection which 
it clearly does not deserve. Charles I. Rice. 
The Great State of Texas. 
Texas, the largest and perhaps the most fertile State 
in the Union, is also to-day, to a majority of our people, 
the least known. This condition of things cannot last. 
For two or three years now population has been pour- 
ing into Texas at an extraordinarily rapid rate, and 
portions of that State which used to be regarded as 
desert are proving to be wonderfully fertile agricultural 
land.- It seems but a little while since this State was re- 
garded as a vast cattle range which produced only the 
light-bodied, long-horned steer; but to-day the cattle of 
Texas equal in quality those of any portion of the West, 
and the days of the range and of the long trail have 
passed forever. 
A- volume which will tend to open the eyes of rnany 
people about Texas is No. 25 of North American 
Fauna, which records the observations of Mr. Vernon 
Bailey, Chief Field Naturalist of the Biological Survey, 
and was prepared under the direction of Dr. C. Hart 
Merriam, its Chief. Naturalists and economists alike 
will be interested in the volume of 222 pages, with its 
abundant illustrations and its many maps of great in- 
terest. The work describes the various life zones of the 
State, giving the species of mammals, birds, reptiles 
and plants which characterize each; enumerates the 
reptiles of Texas, with notes on their distribution; and 
the mammals, with notes on their distribution, habits 
and economic importance. It had been intended to 
give a list of Texas birds, by Harry C. Oberli9lser, but 
the present work proved to be so large that this list has 
been omitted. 
The climate of Texas is wonderfully varied, ranging 
from abundant humidity to the aridity of the desert; 
there are low coast swamps and high, rough mountains, 
dense forests and vast treeless plains. In an enormous 
territory so diversified we should expect to find a rich 
and varied fauna and flora, and lying as it does on the 
borders of the tropics, the State receives many tropical 
species, while on the tops of its mountains are found 
other species which belong _ to the zone of northern 
climes, known as the Canadian fauna. _ 
The agricultural and commercial interests _ of the 
State vary with the climatic conditions on which they 
depend. In one place the chief industry is stock raising; 
in another, lumbering; again, cotton, or wheat, or rice, 
or sugar cane. It is the purpose of the Biological 
Survey to so study the climate of the State as shown 
by the plants and animals that are found in its different 
sections, that it may be able to learn for the agneui- 
turalist where he can and where he .cannot raise a 
.certain crop, and what area is best adapted to that crop. 
This work has been carried on by Dr. Merriam for 
many years, and his publications on it, especially his 
“Life Zones and Crop Zones of the United States” have 
been and are of the greatest value to the farmers of the 
country. 
The country along the Rio Grande is tropical, or 
almost tropical, in character. Here are found_ such 
animals of the South as the armadillo, ocelot, jaguar 
and red and gray cats, though, Jo be sure, these animals 
range beyond this tropical region, and are often found 
in the next cooler life zone. More than forty species 
of birds, chiefly confined to the tropics, extend their 
range into southern Texas. The plants do not appear 
to show the same tropical character as the birds and 
mammals, yet a palm is found near Brownsville. The 
fact that frosts occur from time to time along the Rio 
Grande is perhaps reason enough for the failure of 
tropical plants to firmly establish themselves there, 
since, even if they should spread a little out of their 
range, they would be killed off at intervals by these brief 
periods of cold. Thus, while bananas and oranges 
