368 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Sept. 21, 1912 
Published Weekly by the 
Forest and Stream Publishing Company, 
Charles Otis, President. 
W. G. Beecroft, Secretary. S. J. Gibson, Treasurer. 
127 Franklin Street, New York. 
COIIRESPONDEJVCE —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. 
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., 
1 Finch Lane; Sampson, Low & Co. Paris: Brentano’s. 
ATM ERTISEHIENTS : Display and classified, 20 cts. 
per agate line ($2.80 per inch). There are 14 agate lines to 
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. 
UP WE GO. 
About a month ago we made a short state¬ 
ment showing that, according to the records 
compiled by Printers’ Ink, Forest and Stream 
carried 2,215 agate lines more advertising in June, 
1912, than any other sportsman’s publication, and 
that in July it did better, having 2,920 more 
lines than its nearest competitor. For August 
we are pleased to report, as per following table, 
a still further gain. This month we are up 4057 
lines more, indicated by— 
AGATE LINES OF ADVERTISING. 
(Compiled by Printers’ Ink.) 
Publication. August, 1912. 
1. Forest and Stream .14 949 
2. Field and Stream .10,892 
3. Outing . 9864 
4. Recreation . 9 072 
5. Outer’s Book . 8,736 
WANTED—MORE MONEY. 
The United States Fish Commission is ac¬ 
knowledged to be one of the most valuable ad¬ 
juncts of the country, bearing as it does an 
economic relation to the food of the people, yet 
Congress appropriates only the modest sum of 
$564,000 for its maintenance and support. With 
this sum the commission supports and maintains 
thirty-nine fish hatcheries and fishcultural sta¬ 
tions in thirty States. In addition to these sta¬ 
tions there are six fishing steamers in commis¬ 
sion engaged in surveying, studying and propa¬ 
gating fish life. The commission gave away over 
a million dollars worth of fish last year, distri¬ 
buting almost four billion fish and eggs. For 
many years the scientists of the commission have 
been prosecuting inquiries and investigations into 
the causes of the decrease of food fishes in the 
waters of the United States, and they have also 
been engaged in experimenting with aquatic ani¬ 
mals, plants and waters in the interest of fish 
culture, all with the idea and purpose of propa¬ 
gating and increasing the supply of food fishes. 
Along this line of investigation experiments have 
begun to create new races of food and game 
fishes of large and better quality than any now 
in existence. Such work cannot be done without 
considerable expense, and as it is a valuable 
work. Congress should curtail elsewhere rather 
than stint the fish commission. Elsewhere in 
this issue an article by Raleigh Raines describes 
minutely the work of the commission. It is well 
worth reading. 
REPRESENTING THE INTERESTS. 
New York, September 11, 1912. 
Publisher Forest and Stream, New York City: 
Dear Sir —Has Forest and Stream a new editor, 
or has the old editorial staff gone to seed? Your 
editorial on the “Sullivan Revolver Law” in the August 
24 issue, indicates one or the other. 
Just how you can afford to champion a law so 
absurd and so dangerous as this law, is beyond my com¬ 
prehension. The only people it has benefited are the 
thugs. Has Forest and Stream been subsidized by 
“Monk Eastman” or “Gyp the Blood”? 
Perhaps you think a law which encourages degener¬ 
ates to shoot, and stab, and kill, and outrage young 
girls, is no concern of sportsmen. Has it occurred to 
you that we sportsmen who support your paper and 
pay your salary are also citizens; that we are the very 
ones who are compelled by this law which you so beau¬ 
tifully uphold, to calmly fold our arms while we are 
batted over the head or stabbed in the ribs by any one of 
the multitude of crooks which your law has drawn to 
New York, and which you tell us are so harmless? 
No, we need no weapons in our homes. The mil- 
lenium is here. Angels walk the streets of New York 
at night, chanting hymns and guarding the lives of her 
sleeping citizens. An Old Reader. 
It having been a law for years among pub¬ 
lishers to pay no attention to anonymous com¬ 
munications, we feel the necessity of an apology 
for printing the above, for of course we know 
it does not emanate with a Forest and Stream 
subscriber. We deny that any such condition 
exists as mentioned in the accompanying letter, 
and further reiterate that those who need re¬ 
volvers and are entitled to them will have no 
difficulty in obtaining them. In the mean time 
those of us sportsmen who have always gone 
without a revolver in our homes will continue to 
do so regardless of any suggestion from the in¬ 
terests. In the mean time we would refer ‘‘An 
Old Reader” to an editorial in our issue of 
Sept. 14, entitled ‘‘Anti-Revolver Law.” 
THE CHANGING SEASON. 
When we were boys, summer meant vaca¬ 
tion and baseball, fall led to opening of school 
and football, then skating, and so on through the 
line of youthful pleasures, through vacations 
and school, into college with its older, though 
somewhat similar recreations and ambitions, 
with four years’ preparation for business 
and bigger sports. And so with the boy after 
he reaches man’s estate. His pleasure becomes 
secondary to his business, but in these days of 
prosperity more time is devoted to recreation, 
so that the man who years ago was proud to 
bequeath to his heirs the statement that “he 
hadn’t had a vacation in thirty years,” now de¬ 
lights in not allowing one year in thirty to pass 
without making time and money enough to en¬ 
able him to take, not only one, but several vaca¬ 
tions. Many, perhaps most men of satisfactory 
income, turn to yachting or to motor boating in 
the summer. Here he finds pleasure and com¬ 
petition. When fall comes, the grown boy, like 
his younger self, rotates with the season, and in 
the case of yachtsmen, almost invariably it is 
rifle or shotgun that he substitutes for the tiller. 
The rifle and the big-game hunt attracts the 
attention of the big boat sailor, for in these days 
big game is synonymous with distance and ex¬ 
pense. The yachtsman who has kept his boat 
in tune for at least one regatta a week and his 
club’s cruise, has drawn heavily on his purse and 
time, perhaps too heavily on the latter. To this 
man field and trap shooting offer opportunity for 
greatest and most certain pleasure. A week or 
two at birds in a place, of which there are 
many at no very remote distance .from almost 
any city, and then the balance of the winter with 
the clay bird. Here is a man's sport second to 
live bird shooting only in the fact that you miss 
the joy that comes through studying the working 
of your dog. 
Clay bird shooting offers all the exhilaration 
and compels all the accuracy of the live bird 
game, knows no bag limit, and causes legislators 
no new worry in an endeavor to avoid protecting 
the animated targets. Here is a sport wherein 
great skill doesn’t mean diminution of the feath¬ 
ered folk. It is an evolution of one of our 
earliest pleasures, shooting clays. Now, instead 
of calling “knuckle down,” “fen everys” and the 
like, when the other fellow shoots, we call “pull” 
in order that we ourselves may get a shot. It’s a 
great rejuvenator, is clay target shooting. 
ALABAMA GAME REFUGES. 
State Game and Fish Commissioner John 
H. Wallace, Jr., of Alabama, will ask the Legis¬ 
lature, when next in session, to pass a bill de¬ 
claring all lands owned by the State, whether 
held in fee or in trust, State Game Refuges and 
Forest Preserves. 
Alabama holds in trust swamp and over¬ 
flowed lands, school lands and tax redemption 
lands, amounting to thousands of acres. State 
game refuges and forest preserves would cease 
to be such the moment the State disposed of 
any part of the lands declared therein. 
Under Mr. Wallace’s plan these refuges and 
forest preserves, if established, would be patroll¬ 
ed by wardens to see that the State’s property 
was not vandalized and the birds and game were 
given ample opportunity to rear undisturbed their 
young. 
This proposition has been submitted to Gov. 
O’Neal, Superintendent of Education Willing¬ 
ham, State Land Agent Martin and Col. Samuel 
Will John, of the Board of Trustees of the Brice 
Insane Hospital, and has received their endorse¬ 
ment. 
Commissioner Wallace is so sincere in push¬ 
ing his policies and is so tireless in formulating 
them that he deserves support of voter, hunter 
and legislator. 
COCK OF THE ROCK. 
We all know “duck on the rock” and each 
of us has met a “cock of the walk,” but Leon E. 
Miller has gone us all one better by securing a 
number of specimens of cock of the rock. 
This bird is a sort of crow of many colors 
that has a home construction habit not unlike the 
swallow, though the nest is a trifle more ornate 
in that it has a dangling fringe of roots. Mr. 
Miller’s cock of the rock addition to the Ameri¬ 
can Museum of Natural History will make the 
collection there very complete. 
