February, 1920 
FOREST AND STREAM 
69 
encouraged and stimulated. The number of those 
at work on the technical side of mammalogy is small 
by comparison with those interested in animals as 
living things. Technical men absorbed in their re- 
search may often overlook this, but by an institution 
it must be remembered if the broadest success is to 
be attained. In these days science needs the public 
almost as much as the public needs science. 
The officers of the Society are men who stand in 
the front rank. Dr. C. Hart Merriam was chosen 
President, and E. W. Nelson and Wilfred H. Osgood, 
Vice-Presidents; these names are familiar to all 
who are interested in natural history. On the Coun- 
cil, Canada is represented by Dr. R. M. Anderson, 
the arctic explorer, and California, by Dr. Joseph 
Grinnell and Professor John C. Merriam. Standing 
Committees appointed with their respective chair- 
men, are, on Publications, N. Hollister, on Life His- 
tories, Charles C. Adams, Game Mammals, Charles 
Sheldon, Anatomy, W. K. Gregory, Bibliography, 
T. S. Palmer. 
The importance of the work to be done by this 
Society can hardly be overestimated. It is almost 
forty years since the American Ornithologists’ 
Union was established and what it has accomplished 
is well known. Work of equal importance will be 
accomplished by the Society of Mammalogists and 
its Journal will have a wide circulation. 
THE BOY SCOUT ANNIVERSARY 
r T HE Boy Scouts of America are celebrating this 
A February, the tenth anniversary of the found- 
ing of the Scout movement in this country. 
From point of view of numbers alone the organi- 
zation has every reason to feel proud of the phenom- 
enal growth and expansion of the movement. There 
are today approximately 370,000 scouts and over one 
hundred thousand scout leaders in the United States, 
and thousands of others have passed through the 
movement and on to manhood, still Scouts in spirit 
if not in name. The Scout program of outdoor rec- 
reation — education is being carried out in every 
state in the Union, as well as in Alaska, Hawaii and 
Porto Rico. 
But numbers alone tell only a very small part of 
the story. Scouting makes for quality as well as 
quantity. Boy Scouts are boys plus, using their 
energy in learning to tie knots, make maps, lay 
trails, photograph wild life, practise first aid and 
signalling, camping, hiking, treking, swimming, do- 
ing a thousand interesting things which take them 
out of doors, show them how to look out for them- 
selves and others under all circumstances, make and 
keep themselves hardy, healthy, reliable and manly. 
Every Boy Scout takes upon himself a pledge to 
do his best, to do his duty to God and Country, to be 
helpful to other people, to keep himself physically 
strong, mentally awake, morally straight and to 
keep the Scout Law, which is itself one of the finest 
codes of conduct which has been devised since the 
Sermon on the Mount, the principles of which it 
embodies. 
One of the fundamental features of Scouting is 
the Good Turn, which every Scout agrees to do daily, 
an act of simple good will and kindness done without 
thought of reward, from sheer friendliness and de- 
sire to help others. This year in celebrating its 
decennial The Boy Scouts of America are urging all 
America to join with them in taking the pledge and 
for at least one week to keep the Scout promise. 
THE ALASKA COAST BEARS 
On the Alaska coast and its adjacent islands are 
found several related species of brown bears which 
grow to enormous size and are unlike any other ani- 
mals in the world. Dr. C. H. Merriam has spoken of 
them as the largest existing carnivorous land ani- 
mals. They are found only along the coast and on 
these islands, so that the territory they inhabit, 
though long from North to South, is narrow. In the 
time of the salmon run. they resort to the streams 
for the purpose of feeding on the salmon that are 
running up to spawn or that have already spawned, 
and at that time of the year they are easily killed. 
The Department of Agriculture, having regard to 
all these matters, has forbidden the sale and export 
of the hides of these bears south of latitude 62 de- 
grees, and by thus forbidding a trade in their skins, 
has also prevented their extermination. This far- 
seeing action took place under a law of Congress 
passed in 1903, the bill having been drawn by Hon. 
W. E. Humphrey of the State of Washington. Be- 
fore he drew the bill, Mr. Humphrey visited Alaska 
and gave thorough study to the bear question. The 
bill he drew was intended to permit the exportation 
of the skins of black bears — always readily to be 
recognized — but of black bears only, so that the 
skins of these brown bears should not be made an 
article of commerce and so they should be protected. 
There is sometimes expressed in Alaska a feeling- 
that this protection should be withdrawn, because, 
as it is said, bears destroy the salmon and are dan- 
gerous to man. But many of the salmon they eat are 
those that have reached their spawning ground and 
fulfilled their reproductive functions and in any event 
would soon die. People have been travelling through 
Alaska now for twenty-five or thirty years and the 
number of those who have been attacked by un- 
wounded and unfrightened bears could perhaps be 
counted on the fingers of any man’s two hands. 
It would be very unfortunate if this protection 
were withdrawn. As soon as the flesh or the hide or 
any useful product of a wild animal can be readily 
brought to a market, the extinction of that wild ani- 
mal is made certain. This has been demonstrated 
here in America a great many times and is generally 
understood. It was understood by the Department 
of Agriculture, which, by its regulations, now pre- 
vents commerce in the bides of these splendid bears. 
MAJOR CHARLES H. STIGAND 
The death of Major Charles H. Stigand, which 
occurred on the 8th of December, 1919, in the Su- 
dan, Africa, while serving with the British Forces 
engaged in suppressing an uprising of Natives, re- 
moves one of the best known writers on African 
wild life. 
He was the author of several books on hunting in 
the Dark Continent and only recently had under- 
taken to write a series of articles for Forest and 
Stream on the life histories of several species of 
African game animals. In the foreword of what is 
probably his best known book, Hunting the Elephant 
in Africa, the late Theodore Roosevelt pays a high 
tribute to the qualities that have placed Major Stig- 
and in the forefront of that little coterie of writers 
on natural history topics who, by their close atten- 
tion to detail and accuracy in the portrayal of their 
observations, have made their writings of such in- 
calculable value and interest to students of nature. 
