208 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Feb. 15, 1913 
Published Weekly by the 
Forest and Stream Publishing Company, 
Charles Otis, President. 
W. G. Beecroft, Secretary. W. J. Gallagher, Treasurer. 
127 Franklin Street, New York. 
CORRESPONDKNCK— Forest and Stream is the 
recognized 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. 
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A NEW VIEWPOINT. 
The report of the Game Preservation Com¬ 
mittee of the Boone and Crockett Club, referred 
to on another page, ought to be read by all 
sportsmen. It presents a new point of view, 
and urges careful consideration of a number of 
new points. 
The game protection movement in this coun¬ 
try has become a great reform movement, and 
like all reform movements is composed of ex¬ 
tremists, reactionaries and people of moderate 
views. At present many of the extremists are 
urging the absolute prohibition of the taking of 
wild life. 
The Boone and Crockett Club feels that 
under proper conditions reasonable sport with 
the gun is altogether admissible. Prohibition is 
only one of the many elements in the prob¬ 
lem. The Club would completely prohibit where 
necessary, and approve the shooting of animals 
and game birds where it can be done without 
injury to the breeding reserve. TO' discourage 
the sportsman will be to destroy the most effec¬ 
tive force now working for game protection. 
On the other hand, the sportsman must con¬ 
duct his sport like a gentleman. He should be 
the first to refrain from killing animals where 
they are so few that the destruction of any of 
them will tend toward extermination, or even 
endanger their increase. Antelope at the present 
day should not be killed. In most places the 
mountain sheep should, not be killed, and the 
same may be said of grizzly bears and in cer¬ 
tain places of deer. On the other hand, the kill¬ 
ing of elk, outside of Yellowstone Park, and of 
deer, moose and caribou in certain localities is 
entirely legitimate and proper. 
The Club urges — and this is the point which 
calls for the best judgment of the best man — 
the creation of commissions for the preservation 
of game, and investing these commissions with 
elastic powers, and holding them to full respon¬ 
sibilities. They should have authority to make 
or unmake, lengthen or shorten close seasons; 
to increase or decrease bag limits; to set aside 
absolute refuges on feeding grounds necessary 
to wildfowl, shore birds, game birds, or animals; 
and in fact to establish such constitutional regu¬ 
lations or restrictions as varying condition of 
place or time may require; the whole object 
being to conserve the game. 
To many sportsmen these ideas will be 
wholly new, but they are the results of careful 
thought by men of wide experience who have 
long been studying the subject. Sportsmen gen¬ 
erally may profitably read and study the com¬ 
plete report here referred to. 
NORTH ATLANTIC FISHERIES. 
Secretary of State Knox and Ambassador 
Brice have exchanged ratifications of the treaty 
signed last July providing for the adjustment 
of the North Atlantic fisheries controversy. 
The convention has already been approved by 
the Senate, and the substance prescribes the 
boundary waters and provides for a commission 
which shall pass upon the reasonableness of the 
local Canadian and Newfoundland fisheries 
regulations. One of the questions settled by 
the treaty is that neither Great Britain nor its 
colonies may impose regulations on American 
fishermen exercising their treaty rights in the 
territorial waters of Newfoundland or Canada, 
unless such regulations are held to be reason¬ 
able by an impartial tribunal. In case of dis¬ 
pute, neither Great Britain nor the United 
States can be the sole judge of the regulations. 
The fishermen will know before the beginning 
of each season just what regulations will be in 
force that season, thus putting to an end the 
fonaer practice on the Newfoundland coast of 
imposing regulations on short notice or with¬ 
out any notice. The results attained sustain the 
chief contentions of the United States in the 
arbitration. The whole matter was referred to 
the Hague tribunal wdiich rendered a decision 
which both the Canadian Parliament and the 
United States Senate ratified in substance, 
though for a time it was thought the whole 
question would be reopened on account of the 
Canadian Parliament balking over the sections 
relating to the fisheries in Lake Michigan and 
the salmon fisheries of British Columbia. Hap¬ 
pily this w'as avoided and the matter was agreed 
upon and the treaty closed. 
THE ALLIGATOR SATCHEL. 
If the feather-bedecked hat implies the de¬ 
struction of birds of plumage, the alligator skin 
hand bag means the passing of the ’gator; and 
with all his ugliness the Florida alligator bids 
fair to follow the Florida plume birds with all 
their beauty into the limbo of wild species de¬ 
stroyed for commercial purposes. One unfortu¬ 
nate feature of the case is that the alligator 
has no friends. He is universally regarded as 
an ugly customer. Flis ways are the reverse of 
wdnning. No Audubon Society espouses his 
cause. The sentiments evoked in behalf of the 
feathered singers in the trees has no regard for 
the alligator bellowing in the swamp. The alli¬ 
gator must go. The statistics show that he is 
going; in fact, from large areas of Florida he 
has gone. In the early days of pleasure travel 
in that State, a half of a century ago, on all 
the great highways, the alligator w’as as ubiqui¬ 
tous as he was novel and interesting. To-day 
one must seek him, if to be found at all, in 
the remote by-w'ays. In those times he was 
sought as a curiosity, or fell a victim to the 
sportsman thirsting for renown as an alligator 
slayer; but since then, the commercial import¬ 
ance of his pursuit having been demonstrates, 
he has been hunted systematically for market. 
Alligators are killed chiefly for their skins 
and the commercial value of their teeth. A large 
trade is still carried on in alligator curiosities. 
In 1900 about 8,400 alligators were disposed of 
to tourists in Jacksonville. Most of these are 
very small ones, for which the hunters receive 
only from $10 to $30 per hundred. In no branch 
of the industry are those who gather the raw 
material well paid. Marketable skins from three 
to twelve feet in length bring only sixty cents 
on an average, and most of this is taken out 
in trade—provisions and ammunition—so that the 
hunter appears to earn all that he receives. The 
hunter combines with his pursuit of the alli¬ 
gator that of deer, bear, wildcat, opossum and 
raccoon for the skins. Previous to the bird pro¬ 
tection law the plume birds contributed an im¬ 
portant share to the profits. In like manner, un¬ 
less there shall be a change in present methods, 
the alligator industry must fail. 
PERCIVAL ROSSEAU. 
Those who have enjoyed the Rosseau covers 
that have appeared recently in Forest and 
Stre.vm will be interested in visiting the exhi¬ 
bition of Mr. Rosseau’s celebrated paintings at 
the M. Knoedler & Co. galleries, Feb. 15 to 
March i. The drawings of this foremost artist 
represent the highest type of canine portraiture 
and will repay well any dog lover visiting the 
galleries. 
A FITTING tribute was paid Walter Winans 
by the King of Sweden, who has decorated him 
with the Olympiad Commemoration medal. Mr. 
Winans has done probably more than any one 
individual in the development of the sporting 
rifle, as well as in furnishing valuable data on 
game preservation through his breeding for big 
heads. At the Olympic meet Mr. W inans won 
the gold medal for sculpture and the silver- 
medal for running deer team shooting. 
•I 
Friends of the McLean bill now in the hands 
of the Committee on Agriculture in Congress, 
and which undoubtedly will take the place of 
the Weeks bill, are urged to lend their influence 
at once that the bill may be passed before the 
expiration of the present session of Congress oni 
March 4. 
March. 
BY ELSIE SCHNEIDER. 
What care I if the winds are cold 
And the clouds of'winter subdue the sun? 
The little brown buds will soon unfold. 
.‘\nd the crocus bring forth its pot of gold— 
For winter’s race is nearly run. 
What care I for the vanishing snow 
-And the dull, dead leaves that lie about? 
In the somber field the grass will grow 
And the ice-bound river will merrily flow— 
For winter is nearly wearing out. 
What care I for the pelting rain 
And the steel-gray dome that hangs overhead?’ 
The robin and bluebird will come again, 
The day .grows longer, the night’s on the wane— 
For winter sleeps the sleep of the dead. 
