January, 1921 
FOREST AND STREAM 
19 
causes of game bird scarcity we must do all that 
we can to protect our species by care in winter, by 
protecting them from their natural enemies, by 
seeing to it that game laws are enforced, and by 
shortening the shooting seasons. If we do not take 
these measures or some of them, we shall face a 
situation where we shall have no wing shooting at 
all, and the game bird of America will be the clay 
pigeon. 
. REPORT OF THE AUDUBON SOCIETIES 
A CCORDING to the Annual Report of Mr. T. 
**• Gilbert Pearson, president of the National As- 
sociation of Audubon Societies: “One of the most 
significant occurrences in the field of bird pro- 
tection the past year was the decision of the United 
States Supreme Court upholding the constitution- 
ality of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. This was 
the final scene in the drama which began in 1904 
when George Shiras, 3rd, introduced in Congress 
the first bill intended to place under federal pro- 
tection the fortunes of North America’s migratory 
birds.” 
The residents of Alaska seem determined to 
wipe out the American Eagle. At least before their 
present bounty law, Alaska was one of our few re- 
maining regions where this magnificent bird was 
common. It is considered to be a destructive bird 
there; its destructiveness doubtless exaggerated by 
prejudice. Unless the bounty law can be repealed 
and the slaughter checked until a proper investi- 
gation of the economic status of the Eagle in 
Alaska has been made, and the facts of the case 
brought home to the people of that territory, Alaska 
will presumably realize its error after its Eagles 
have all been killed. 
Many of the most important migratory birds of 
the United States spend their winters south of our 
boundaries. According to this report: “The past 
year has seen further efforts to open conventions 
with the Republics to the south of us with a view 
of secuing protection for our birds that migrate to 
those countries. The wisdom or perhaps I had 
better say the urgency, for such a course does not 
yet lie clearly before us, but the matter is under 
advisement and the United States Government has 
sent a naturalist [Dr. Alexander Wetmore of the 
Biological Survey] to South America to study the 
situation with the object of arriving at a more in- 
telligent understanding as to the benefit to be de- 
rived should such an arrangement be entered into.” 
One of the most important phases of the Asso- 
ciation’s activities is its system of employing spe- 
cial guards to protect important breeding places 
of water birds. We are told that : “The nesting sea- 
son of 1920 was a fairly good one in the guarded 
colonies. The loss of life from natural causes, such 
as high tides and storms, not being greater than 
in an average normal year, and no raids of conse- 
quence were carried out by feather hunters.” 
THE OLD CAMP GROUND 
I7VERY sportsman of middle age looks backward 
through the years to some spot where, in days 
gone by, he has passed at least one vacation in per- 
fect contentment. For him there is at least one 
old camp ground that he hopes some day to revisit. 
In his moments of relaxation, he can see it and 
picture its every detail. Incidents connected with 
it pass in review before him and are portrayed in 
memory as plainly as if they had happened but 
yesterday. These are the pleasant incidents ; those 
that were not agreeable are happily forgotten or 
are so hazy in memory that they are reviewed 
calmly and as if of no importance, although at the 
time they may have seemed very disturbing ele- 
ments in an otherwise perfect season of rest and 
communion with nature. 
Happy the man who can find contentment in re- 
viewing the pleasures enjoyed at the old camp 
ground. He who realizes that the place will know 
him no more may be fortunate after all. For thf 
passage of time plays sad havoc with camp grounds 
and with their one time occupants, and it is better 
to think of a place as it was, than to see it as it 
may be after the changes wrought by nature and 
by man. Nature is kinder than man. Let her work 
her will and our old camp grounds suffer but little 
and grow more attractive, if possible, as the years 
go by ; but man is no respecter of the sentiment that 
attaches to favorite camp sites, and if you go back 
to one of these with the memories of your last visit, 
perhaps ten or fifteen years ago, still fresh, there 
may be unhappiness in store for you. 
Perhaps the actual site of your camp remains 
much as it was when you left it the last time. The 
old path to the little boat landing you made of drift- 
wood and logs is washed away, and of course the 
tiny landing itself is gone. The trees that shaded 
your tent so many warm afternoons in autumn may 
have grown in girth and height, and the sprouts 
you lopped off to furnish pegs on which to hang 
your pots and pans have decayed and disappeared. 
The stones of the old fireplace lie scattered here 
and there, and you turn them over with your foot, 
recalling meanwhile that just here stood your 
puncheon dining table, supported on crotched sticks 
and crosspieces. Even the ashes of the fire — but 
no, you do not let yourself believe this possible, 
thinking rather that some other woods lover left 
them to mark a camp in this place a year or two 
ago. The old spring — surely it is still as it was in 
former days; but no, it is only a trickle now and 
no tin cup hangs nearby. 
Perhaps the saddest surprise awaits you when 
you walk down to the beach and look out over the 
river, now shrunken to half its former size, but 
still your favorite river. Where are the woods 
that stretched away for miles from its very banks? 
In their stead you gaze on fields of corn, with here 
and there stumps of the one time magnificent oaks 
and hickories in which squirrels used to play as 
you remember them, while wild turkeys roosted 
over the marshy places where monster bullfrogs 
held forth and serenaded you by night. Patches of 
woods remain, but they are pitiful remnants, and 
you know that the deer that were wont to come 
down to the water’s edge to slake their thirst have 
gone with the trees you loved so well. 
Turning away you seek the hills, and following 
an oak ridge that took you in other days to a wood- 
ed valley where game was abundant, you come, not 
to woods, but to abandoned fields thickly studded 
with stumps. The lively brook on whose banks you 
ate your luncheon many a day is now dried up and 
on all sides there is desolation. 
Better far to think of the old camp ground and 
your favorite haunts as they were when you saw 
them last than to return to them and find that time 
and the despoiler, man, have ruined them. 
Since nothing is permanent in life save the inci- 
dents we have lived and the impressions we have 
received, it behooves us to make certain that our 
actions are such that we can think of them with 
satisfaction when the material things are gone. 
