792 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Dec. 20, 1913. 
Published Weekly by the 
Forest and Stream Publishing Company 
Chas. A. Hazen, President 
W. G. Beecroft, Secretary. Charlfs L. Wise, Treasurer. 
23 Thames Street, New York. 
CORRESPONDENCE :-Foeest and Stream is the 
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of course, are not responsible for the views of correspondents. 
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THE MIGRATORY BIRD LAW. 
Forest and Stream: 
New York, N. Y. 
I am just in receipt of my this week’s copy 
containing Mr. Carmody’s defense of his opinion 
on the unconstitutionality of the Federal Migra¬ 
tory Bird Bill, and I fail to see, after a careful 
reading of same, that he sheds any new light on 
the subject. 
On the contrary, I think the vital point, and 
the one which makes the bill legal, has been en¬ 
tirely overlooked by him, namely that the State 
of New York cannot properly control a bird 
which neither winters in its borders nor 'breeds 
therein, but merely stops awhile to feed and rest 
on its semi-annual flights. The Legislature of 
New York if it sees fit can pass any legislation 
regulating migratory birds, even prohibiting their 
killing at all times, yet would accomplish nothing 
for the birds could be absolutely exterminated in 
their passage through other states, and New York 
would gain nothing. The very fact that these 
birds cannot be controlled by any one state or 
any group of states is a sufficient reason for 
Federal interference. 
I have followed carefully the progress of this 
law since its first introduction into Congress 
many years ago; have heard the arguments of 
both sides and firmly believe it to be constitu¬ 
tional. Mr. Carmody believes otherwise, and we 
both have a right to our respective opinions, and 
I agree with him, and it is 'the only point we do 
agree on, that the Supreme Court should settle 
this point one way or the other, for all time, in 
the language of the West— pronto. 
We shoot ducks in the south until May 1, 
we shoot woodcock all summer according to our 
state laws. Same ducks, same woodcock New 
Y’ork tries to protect by state measures even lim¬ 
iting the number o * l f woodcock a hunter can kill 
in a season; further south same woodcock are 
slaughtered at night by hundreds; poor old New 
Yorker only allowed to kill 16 in a season. Mar¬ 
ket gunners kill more than that per day in this 
state all summer. 
Mr. Carmody expresses his lack of informa¬ 
tion on this subject when he says “The Federal 
statute is an adjustment by those outside of the 
State of New York, who presumably have not 
the same knowledge as to needs of our climate.” 
The members of the Agricultural Department 
who formed the regulations under the Weeks- 
McLean Bill had a better knowledge of conditions 
in New York than any one, and with their 
broader knowledge of the needs of migratory 
birds throughout their entire flight can formulate 
regulations for their proper protection superior 
to that of any other body of men. 
Very respectfully, 
Talbott Den mead, 
Attorney for Maryland State Game and Fish 
Association. Dec. 13, 1913. 
SHOOTING OR HUNTING? 
The purist is on hand again with his fanciful 
grievance over the use of the term “hunting” for 
“shooting.” There is a distinction between the 
two, but one not commonly observed in this 
country, where hunting covers everything from 
the pursuit of the grizzly or the moose to the 
shooting of quail and hares. In years to come 
sports may so develop in American that we shall 
be required to observe the niceties of speech in 
referring to them; but it will be a long time 
before the word hunting shall be limited to the 
practice of riding to hounds. For the most part 
that use of language to describe field sports is 
best which is simplest and least affected. The 
technical distinctions between flocks and bunches 
and herds and gaggles are hardly known to t'he 
present generation. Pedantic writers have writ¬ 
ten learnedly and oracularly of correct sporting 
diction, but for the most part their well intended 
efforts to reform the language have been dissi¬ 
pated in the upper air, leaving no spoor behind. 
WINTER. 
When the fire of youth has burned out and 
the ashes of age lie in a gray drift on the smol¬ 
dering embers, one shivers instinctively at the 
name of winter. In imagination we already see 
the dreary desolation of the earth, stripped of 
its mantle of greenness and bloom and ripe fruit¬ 
age, ready to don the white robe for dreamless 
sleep. 
Gradually the change comes, the glory of 
autumn passes away, the brown leaves drift and 
waver to the earth, the summer birds fly south¬ 
ward to lands of perennial leaf and blossom, and 
leave to us but the memory of song in a deso¬ 
late, silent land, when the brooks must sing only 
to themselves under crystal roofs, and you only 
know they are singing by the beads of elastic 
pearl that round and lengthen and break into 
many beads as they slip along the braided cur¬ 
rent. 
There are only the moaning of the wind 
among the hills and the rustle of withered leaves 
along the dun earth. A week ago it was full of 
life—now there is only desolation and death, yet 
so imperceptibly have these come that we know 
not when the other ceased, and we are not ap¬ 
palled. Then comes the miracle of snow, the 
gray sky blossoms into a white shower of celes¬ 
tial petals, that bloom again on withered stem 
and bough and shrub until the gray and tawny 
world is transformed to universal purity, and 
behold another miracle. Where there was no life 
are now abundant signs of it, the silent record 
of many things. Mouse, weasel and squirrel, 
hare, skunk and fox have written the plain story 
of their nightly wanderings; red-poll, bunting, 
crow and grouse have embroidered the history of 
their alighting and their terrestrial journeying 
on the same white page. And lo, the jay of many 
voices proclaims his presence, the chickadee lisps 
his brief song, the nuthatch blows his reedy clari¬ 
onet, a white flock of snow buntings drift by 
with a creaking twitter like the sound of float¬ 
ing ice, a crow sounds his raucous trumpet, the 
ruffed grouse thunders his swift departure in a 
shower of dislodged snow, the woodpecker drums 
a merry tattoo, a fox barks huskily among the 
rugged defiles of the hills, and far away is 
sounded the answering challenge of a hound, and 
under the stars the screech owl’s quavering call 
is heard and the storm-boding, sonorous warning 
of his solemn big brother of the double crest, 
punctuated by the resonant crack of frost- 
strained trees. 
What beauty that lies hidden under summer 
leaves is revealed now in the graceful tracery of 
pearl enameled branch and twig, on gray trunks 
embossed with moss and lichen, on bent stems 
of tawny grass and frond of withered fern, how 
the uncouth ruggedness of common things is 
clothed and beautified by the charitable mantle 
of the snow, what curves and shadows in the 
immaculate folds. 
By day and by night, in sunlight and in 
moonlight, a dome of purest azure, now pale, 
now dark, canopies a world of purest white and 
purest shadow, or earth and sky are blurred in 
the wild grandeur of a winter storm. Surely the 
beauty of the world lives even amid the death of 
winter—it is not death, but beautiful sleep, broken 
at times by spasms of terrified dreams, followed 
by profounder sleep. 
SUCCESS. 
He has achieved success who has lived well, 
laughed often and loved much; who has gained 
the respect of intelligent men and the love of 
little children; who has filled his niche and ac¬ 
complished his task—who has left the world bet¬ 
ter than he found it, whether by an improved 
poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul; who 
has never lacked appreciation of earth’s beauty 
or failed to express it; who has always looked 
for the best in others and given the best he had; 
whose life was an inspiration; whose memory a 
benediction.— Stanley. 
PASSENGER PIGEON. 
A correspondent makes inquiry about the 
name of the passenger pigeon. The bird has 
been so called from time immemorial. While all 
the migratory species may be termed birds of 
passage, the application of the term particularly 
to the pigeon may have come from observation 
of the fact that its migrations were not regular 
and fixed by seasons, as with those birds that 
fly south in the fall and north in the spring, but 
were governed by the food supply of mast. The 
pigeon hosts were now here, now there; they 
were pilgrims and strangers, the gypsies of bird- 
dom, passengers. The migratory birds stay some¬ 
where when they get there; but the passenger 
pigeon is ever on the move—or was ever on the 
move until finally he passed on not to return. 
THE FLOWERS THAT BLOOM IN THE 
SPRING. 
Philadelphia, Dec. 4 .— Editor Forest and 
Stream: To one who has just returned from a 
rather uneventful gunning trip in New Jersey, 
two weeks of which were spent upon salt water 
in quest of wildfowl, there was considerable in¬ 
terest in your editorial of Nov. 8, “Autumn Flow_ 
ers” as well as the article upon “Weather,” by 
Mr. Allen. Oddly enough, your observations as 
to open-air flowers, etc., still hold good exactly 
one' month later, as this day many geraniums and 
even a counterpart of the editor’s rosebud were 
noted in bloom out of doors. Of course no ordi¬ 
nary mortal desires the brand of weather satis¬ 
factory to the ardent wild fowler, but when on 
the evening of Nov. 20 we were compelled to 
hunt up window screens to keep mosquitoes out 
of the houseboat, it did seem that the seasons 
were sadly twisted. Game seemed quite plentiful, 
but so far as the season of 1913 is concerned the 
weather man has been of great service in con¬ 
serving the supply of waterfowl. 
W. H. Eddy. 
