301 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Sept. 6, 1913. 
Published Weekly by the 
Forest and Stream Publishing Company, 
Charles Otis, President. 
W. G. Beecroft, Secretary. W. T. Gallagher, Treasurer. 
127 Franklin Street, New York. 
CORRESPONDENCE —Forest and Stream is the 
Tecognized medium of entertainment, instruction and in¬ 
formation between American sportsmen. The editors 
invite communications on the subjects to which its pages 
are devoted, but, of course, are not responsible for the 
views of correspondents. Anonymous communications 
cannot be regarded. 
SUBSCRIPTIONS: $3 a year: $1.50 for six months; 
10 cts. a copy. Canadian. $4 a year: foreign. $4.50 a year. 
This paper may be obtained of newsdealers throughout 
the United States, Canada and Great Britain. Foreign 
Subscription and Sales Agents—London: Davies & Co., 
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ADVERTISEMENTS: Display and classified, 20 cts. 
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the inch. Covers and special positions extra. Five, 
ten and twenty per cent, discount for 13, 26 and 52 inser¬ 
tions, respectively, within one year. Forms close Monday 
in advance of publication date. 
THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL 
will be to studiously promote a healthful in¬ 
terest in outdoor recreation, and to cultivate 
a refined taste for natural objects. 
—Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1873. 
THE WOULDS. 
There are in this world two sorts of men, 
those who fish and those who don't. 
The don’ts are divided into those who would 
if they could but can't, and those who could if 
they would but won’t. 
The won'ts are still further divided into 
those who are quite contented that they don't 
want to, and those who are dissatisfied with 
themselves because they lack the taste. 
When we get as far as this, we reach the 
man who could if he would hut won't, and would 
if he could but can’t. 
Talk to him about it, and he will tell you 
something like this: "Yes, I know that it is 
a great thing to go fishing. There is my partner. 
He is a fisherman, says it's fun, and by the way 
he sticks to it and leaves me here to take care 
of things; I guess likely it is fun—for him. But 
as for me, T can’t fish. I’ve tried it, faithfully; 
have sat in a boat half a day at a time; have 
tramped miles of stream ; have gone through the 
motions and caught fish, too, but that is not fish¬ 
ing; it does not give me the enjoyment it does 
others. I am not a fisherman, when I see how 
others like it, how much good it seems to do 
them, and how it brightens up the world for 
them; I often wish I did like fishing. But I 
don’t, and never shall.” 
That is what the woulds say. Just such 
cases have come under the notice of almost 
every fisherman. For there is this about field 
sports, that while most people are quite ready 
to recognize what they do for those who follow 
them, the taste for their true enjoyment is born 
in one and is with difficulty acquired in mature 
years. It may lie long latent, and one may 
take to fishing or to shooting late in life, but he 
must have had in him, though dormant and un¬ 
suspected, the capacity of enjoyment with the 
rod or the gun. Not infrequently people take 
up in late life the fishing rod which has been 
idle for years, or go shooting once more after 
a decade of forgetfulness of the field. They re¬ 
new the sports of their early days, and with 
them awaken again the youthful spirit, and re¬ 
store health and strength and courage and forti¬ 
tude. To be possessed of such tastes is a bless¬ 
ing often too lightly esteemed. The father, who 
endows his son in the care-free days of boy¬ 
hood, with a liking for these sports of the field, 
is equipping him for life with resources of 
healthful enjoyment. 
CONNECTICUT GAME PROSPECTS. 
Within a few weeks, Oct. 8, to be exact, 
the shooting season will open in Connecticut, 
where only a few years ago reasonably good 
bags were the rule, and at the end of a day's 
tramp the gunner who worked hard might hope, 
when he came in at night, to turn out of his 
pockets from fifteen to twenty birds—quail, par¬ 
tridges and woodcock. Nowadays, however, he 
who follows his dog all day long over hill, 
through swamp and along swale, must be con¬ 
tent with a much more moderate recompense for 
his toil. If he gets four or five birds, he feels 
that he has done well. Quail seem to have abso¬ 
lutely disappeared along the shores of Long 
Island Sound; woodcock are not, and ruffed 
grouse—though holding their own much better 
than the other birds—exist only in diminished 
numbers. Unless some action is soon taken 
either to restock the State or to put a stop to 
the shooting, the prospects are that before very 
long there will be absolutely no shooting. On 
the other hand, there are localities where the 
unprofitable tillage of the soil has been aban¬ 
doned and the farms deserted, in which it is 
said that the birds have increased, and that both 
quail and ruffed grouse still are found in some¬ 
thing like their old-time abundance. Connecticut 
is so near New York that a few years ago it 
was a favorite shooting ground for New York 
sportsmen, but many of these have given up 
their autumnal journeys thither, discouraged by 
the scarcity of the birds. 
BIG CATCHES. 
If the fishing reports, which come to us 
from various quarters, are credible—and they 
would not be printed if considered otherwise— 
the count fisherman is abroad in the land, and 
is showing himself unusually industrious in 
working for a record of numbers or pounds. 
Mr. Blank, we are told, and perhaps Mrs. Blank 
and the little Blanks with him, succeeded in 
catching over sixty bass in less than sixty 
minutes, and was the envy of everyone else who 
had taken only fifty-nine fish in an hour and a 
half. What becomes of all these gigantic strings 
of fish is not told; in some cases it would appear 
to be quite impossible that they could have been 
eaten. Let us trust that at the least they were 
given decent burial, or went to the compost 
heaps, where in due process of time they would 
fertilize the soil. 
The purpose we have in printing these rec¬ 
ords of count fishermen is not to join in the 
acclamation of the crowd over their achieve¬ 
ments. It is purely to indicate where good fish¬ 
ing may be found. A large catch, stated in 
concrete pounds, is more to the point than a 
column of generalization, to show that fishing 
is good. Whether or not the inordinate destruc¬ 
tion related in any specific case may be approved 
there can be no questioning that the fish were 
there. And in many cases it proves as well that 
the fish will not remain there, for no supply, 
however superabundant it may be, can long with¬ 
stand the exterminating assiduity of the count 
fishermen. When a hotel proprietor heralds 
these fishing exploits of his guests, he proclaims 
not alone present abundance, but future dearth 
as well. 
THE GREATEST PARK IN THE WORLD. 
(Editorial, issue of Sept. 11, 1873.) 
Thanks to Mr. Hayden, we are now com¬ 
mencing to appreciate the grandeur of the 
Government reservation on the Yellowstone 
River. In time to come, when our great-grand¬ 
children people the Pacific slope, and population 
teems there, the memory of that particular 
Congress who made this great natural wonder 
public property, will be gratefully remembered. 
To the grandest scenes of nature, overhanging 
cliffs, deep gorges, towering mountain heights, 
are added the glorious falls of the Yellowstone. 
At the head of the Grand Canon, the fall is found 
to be 39/ feet in height, and the depth of the 
canon at its foot is 675 feet, increasing rapidly 
to 1,000 feet. Here the river narrows, and takes 
a deep sea-green color. A half mile from the 
upper fall there is another fall of 140 feet. 
These may be natural beauties, but in this - park 
the supernatural is added. Think of the geysers, 
with a temperature of 104 to 108 degrees, at an 
elevation of 6,779 feet above the sea! clear boil¬ 
ing fountains of water, bubbling all the day, 
forming beautiful incrustations on their margins. 
Never ceasing are they. To-day a spring may 
be here, to-morrow it may be gone, but then 
a new one has taken its place, bursting out at 
a short distance from its old locality. The very 
mud these hot spring cast forth loses the char¬ 
acter of simple mud, but is changed in hue, and 
is now red, now black, now cream-colored. 
We cannot but express our delight over the 
fact that this reservation belongs to the great 
American people for all time to come, and we 
consider it the first grand national step in the 
direction of the preservation of our forests. 
T. S. Palmer, Acting Chief of the Biological 
Survey, writes that a hearing on the regulations 
for the protection of migratory birds will be held 
in Boston, Mass., at the Copley Square Plotel on 
the evening of Sept. 12. Questions relating to 
the regulations affecting sunset shooting, pro¬ 
posed open seasons in some of the Southern 
States, and other matters will be considered. As 
this hearing is held at the same time as the meet¬ 
ing of the National Association of Game and 
Fish Commissioners, it is probable that a num¬ 
ber of representatives from different States will 
be present. It is also expected that several 
members of the Advisory Board will be in at¬ 
tendance. 
Let the columns of Forest and Stream re¬ 
cord your natural history observations that would 
be of interest to your fellow readers. 
