244 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Published Weekly by the 
Forest and Stream Publishing Company 
Char. A. Hazen, President 
W. G. Beecroft, Secretary. Charles L. Wise, Treasurer. 
22 Thames Street, New York. 
CORRESPONDENCEForest and Stream is the re¬ 
cognized 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 cets. 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 
Subscriptions and Sales Agents—.London: Davies & Co., 
1 Finch Lane; Sampson. Low & Co. Paris: Brentano’s. 
Entered in New York Post Office as Second class matter. 
THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL 
will be to studiously promote a healthful interest 
in outdoor recreation, and to cultivate a refined 
taste for natural objects. 
—Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1873 
ARE FISH COLOR BLIND? 
Nothing is easier than getting our British 
brethren tangled up in an argument or contro¬ 
versy. The London Times—or rather the readers 
of “The Thunderer”—has been conducting one 
lately on the question: “Are Fish Color Blind?” 
If we recall rightly, our own angling friends 
have discussed this subject in the columns of 
Forest and Stream, with a correspondingly re¬ 
sultant advancement and gain to science and nat¬ 
ural history. Our brilliant contemporary the 
New York Sun, in commenting on the agitation 
stirred up by the London Times, calls to mind 
the fact that the late lamented scientist, Herbert 
Spencer, an ardent angler, once immersed himself 
in the Aline or another river to put himself in 
the place of a salmon and gaze up at a floating fly. 
This may be true, for Mr. Spencer, while never 
revealing his conclusion, was noted ever after¬ 
ward as using dull colored flies, which would in¬ 
dicate that he favored the affirmative side of the 
■dispute. We remember that several enthusiastic 
Forest and Stream disputants adopted the same 
eminently sensible but rather uncomfortable and 
risky method of discovering truth at the bottom 
of a well, or rather a stream, but we are afraid 
that the experiment in one or two instances 
proved fatal, as it not infrequently does to search¬ 
ers after knowledge, for we have never heard 
from them since. Trout and salmon may be, or 
may not be, color blind. Are they? 
TAKING WHITE WATER. 
We observe, in the columns of one of our es¬ 
teemed contemporaries, an article by no less a 
personage than Dr. Edward Breck, the following 
being an extract therefrom: 
“Do you think you are a real canoeman? Wait 
till you have tried running rapids. There’s the 
acid test of your skill and nerve. The canoe can 
do it, but can you? Can you approximate the 
art of your Indian guide in white water? If you 
can,' you are in a small and very select class of 
white men who have sounded the depths of the 
canoe’s ability—and also of its tricks and whims.” 
The fact is the day of the few canoeists is 
passed. Since the development of the American 
Canoe Association, expert canoe handlers have 
become comparatively plentiful. These enthusi¬ 
asts, each year, take all sorts of canoe trips, in 
all kinds of water, and running dangerous rapids 
has ceased to be considered a remarkable feat 
in the ranks of the A. C. A. They revel in the 
sport. 
THE IRONY OF PEACE. 
Andrew Carnegie has set aside $2,000,000 in steel 
stock, the interest from which is to be devoted 
to keeping the world at peace with itself. We say 
the “irony” of peace because this peace offering 
represents only a small part of the profits from 
steel armor for battleships. Can peace be pur¬ 
chased with the profit of defense? This reminds 
us of the gentleman up-state who hoped to con¬ 
serve game birds by raising the price of shells. 
Each proposition seems equally feasible. 
WHO MARKED THESE DUCKS? 
Within the past few years a new method has 
been employed in the study of bird migration 
which promises excellent results. This is the 
marking—usually by metal bands placed about 
the legs—of young wild birds, the purpose of 
such marking being to identify the birds by 
means of the record kept by the man who put 
the band on the bird. Wherever the bird may be 
killed, the marked band which it wears will serve 
to trace it back to the spot where it was hatched. 
It is probable that after this has been in practice 
for a sufficient length of time and when people 
generally come to understand that it is being 
done, much new information will be received 
about the migration and distribution of birds. 
In Forest and Stream of April 29th, 1911, we 
had something to say about this matter. In the 
summer of 1910 nearly 8,000 birds were marked 
in this way in Britain, and within the past five 
or six years the work has been going on in this 
country. In that article it was told that storks 
hatched and marked in Denmark and Hungary 
had been killed in South Africa, at a distance of 
5,500 miles from the place of their birth. Ducks, 
woodcock, and other birds similarly marked have 
been killed at a great distance from their home; 
and it is thus known where species bred in one 
place spend their winter. 
In Forest and Stream of November 16th, 1907, 
there was printed a record from Fred B. Yard, 
of Trenton, N. J., of the killing of a female 
red-head duck with an aluminum band on her leg 
on which were these letters and numbers: 
T. J. O. D.—49. About the same time a New 
Jersey paper reported the killing by William 
Abbott, off Mannahawkin, New Jersey, of a can¬ 
vas-back with a leg band marked T. J. O. D. —48. 
In the January (1914) Auk appears the follow¬ 
ing note: 
Recovery of a Banded Pintail Duck. —Mr. Jef¬ 
ferson C. Wenck of New Orleans informs me 
that one of the guides at the Delta Duck Club 
killed a female Pintail at Cubit’s Gap, near the 
mouth of the Mississippi River, in December, 
1912, that had a band on the right leg, marked 
186A. It will be of interest to know where this 
bird was tagged.—A. K. Fisher, U. S. Biological 
Survey, Washington, D. C. 
These experiments in the marking of birds will 
certainly be very helpful in the study of migra¬ 
tion, and should tell us much about the routes 
and the distances which they travel. 
On the other hand, it must be remembered that 
at the present time practically no one except the 
ornithologists—and by no means all of them— 
know anything about what is being done in this 
matter, and it is certainly well worth the while of 
all interested in this subject to make known to 
the public everything possible about it. Only by 
continued publicity can the bird banders hope to 
receive back any considerable proportion of the 
bands that they attach and to learn much about 
the movements of the banded birds. 
REPEAL THE HETCH HETCHY GRANT. 
Senator John D. Works of California intro¬ 
duced into the Senate a bill to repeal the grant to 
San Francisco of the Hetch Hetchy reservation, 
and introduced it the day after the bill was 
passed. He declares that the bill never would 
have gone through Congress had it been properly 
considered; that the evidence that San Francisco 
needs the reservation and cannot get water sup¬ 
ply elsewhere is not sufficient; that injustice is 
done to the settlers in the valleys, leaving 200,000 
acres of fertile land barren and worthless; and 
that the bill’s passage was secured by evil means, 
among which was one of the most unscrupulous 
lobbies ever assembled in Congress. 
There are several other reasons; and we be¬ 
lieve Senator Works is right and sincerely hope 
that Congress will repeal the bill. President 
Wilson ought to help; its passage would relieve 
him of that job of explaining, which certainly 
awaits him if the present status continues. 
FOREST AND STREAM LEADS FOR 
JANUARY. 
According to the figures compiled by Printers 
Ink covering the amount of advertising published 
in outdoor magazines during the month of Janu¬ 
ary, this paper heads the list by a large margin. 
The totals are as follows: 
Agate Lines. 
Forest and Stream. 15,979 
Outing . 9,548 
Field and Stream. 8,694 
Outer’s Book . 5,600 
Outdoor Life . 5,488 
Outdoor World and Recreation. 4,486 
CORRECTION. 
In our issue of February 7, page 163, was pub¬ 
lished a delightful bit of verse by Miss Florence 
Harper. Through typographical error the young 
author’s name was spelled Hooper. 
