1144 
FOREST AND STREAM 
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on happenings of note in the outdoor world 
Brother William 
N looking over the multitudinous changes in 
the game laws that are made every year, fol¬ 
lowing the good American precept that what¬ 
ever is must be wrong, and needful of quick 
amendment, we often wonder whether our legis¬ 
lators give an occasional thought to Brother 
Bill, who personifies the typical American citizen, 
appealed to tearfully and eloquently when an 
election is pending, and given a merry cacophony, 
to use a slang expression, ever after. 
Brother Bill is a useful citizen. He is the 
bulwark of our liberties, if we are to believe the 
politicians. As a matter of fact he does bob up 
on occasion as a handy man. He is helping just 
now to guard the border, and the rest of the 
family at home, are assisting in paying the taxes. 
Bill’s heart is generally right, but it must be 
admitted that his head is not. He has an idea 
that a little recreation now and then is a good 
thing, and a half-latent instinct, inherited from 
gome of his forebears, who were the earlier 
Brother Bills, and fought to open America to 
civilization, causes him to yearn occasionally for 
the woods. Bill’s immediate necessities may be 
pressing, but he keeps an humble fishing outfit, 
and a gun or two, for use on odd days-off. 
Bill does not aspire to much beyond a scant 
reward of blue gills, or mayhap a bass of un¬ 
certain size, and his Nimrod propensities are 
satisfied with a stray cottontail. 
Still, he remembers as a boy that the old creek 
was a bully fishing place, and he recalls with a 
thrill the sound of the partridge drumming all 
■over the neighborhood. That was before the 
advent of the tannery that poisoned all the water 
in the stream, and while, with the free dis¬ 
regard of others’ rights that too often pass as 
liberty in America, the market hunters were even 
then sweeping the wild life from the face of the 
earth, Bill, or more likely, Bill’s father, never 
dreamed that partial extinction was probable. 
When he goes out now he marvels that game 
is scarce, that fish are so few in contrast with 
the old days, and sighs in recollection. But be¬ 
tween us—and this observation may be taken as 
personal or impersonal—suspicion sometimes 
points to Bill as a chump. He is to blame for con¬ 
ditions as they are, and as they are to be in the 
future. That he allows his streams to be polluted 
is a crime for which no one else is to be held 
culpable; that he allows his game to be destroyed 
or stolen from him by lawbreakers, or by those 
who put unwise or selfish laws on the statute 
book, is a reflection on his own intelligence. 
There are a sufficient number of Bills in this 
country now to bring back the fish and the game 
in greater abundance than ever, if the indiffer¬ 
ence of the composite Bill did not stand in 
the way. 
“L’etat, cest moi,” was the proud utterance of 
the French monarch. Freely translated this 
means “I am boss.” 
That is what Brother William is, only he is 
l| The object of this Journal || 
II will be to studiously promote 
a healthful interest in outdoor |{ 
recreation, and to cultivate a |l 
refined taste for natural objects. 
II —Forest and Stream, A ug . h, 1873 j| 
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not working much at it now, or probably what 
is nearer the truth, has not been until lately. 
If he does take up the task, conditions will im¬ 
prove, but so long as he loafs on the job he 
should not attempt to shift responsibility to 
other shoulders. 
The Error of Their Weighs 
HIS is the season when the daily and weekly 
press begin to report the “good luck” of 
returning anglers, who boast of catches that 
far outrun the limits of credulity, to say nothing 
of limitations imposed by reasonable laws. Mak¬ 
ing due allowance for the proneness of mankind 
to exaggerate his prowess and success in the 
fields of sport, it is still a fact that too many of 
these stories have some element of truth. 
A transient and gratifying local notoriety may 
attach the -taking of an unusually large number 
of fish, or the capture of a record breaker by 
the certain and deadly process of slaughtering 
the smaller ones without cessation until the 
big one is brought to net, as is usually the case, 
but the true angler has only a feeling of indigna¬ 
tion and contempt for the weak-willed brother 
who thus succumbs to temptation, or in whom 
the sportsman spirit is lacking. 
Through the high favor of the red gods it 
may be given to almost any angler or hunter, 
for that matter, to find himself in a position 
once or twice in a lifetime where he may take 
at will the object of his quest, be it beast, bird 
or fish. And the extent of his acceptance of this 
opportunity measures the standard of his sports¬ 
manship. It is not that the law says “so many 
and no more.” Rather it is the regard for the 
rights of others that draws the dividing line. 
A severe temptation it is to forego such a chance 
of fortune, to restrain the ambition to make a 
record “just once,” but he who conquers this 
primitive impulse has won for himself the only 
medal of honor that sportsmanship can bestow— 
a distinction which appears all the brighter when 
brought into contrast with the notoriety coming 
to him of gory record as a game butcher, or of 
equal guilt as fish destroyer. 
A good plan it is at times to clip these stories 
of excessive and illegal catches and bags and 
forward them to the proper game authorities. 
It may mean a lot of useless work to the latter, 
for the spirit of old Ananias still stalks afield 
and astream, but occasionally some transgressor 
is brought to see the light and correct the error 
of his ways—or weighs. 
Jack. Miner’s Qeese 
EADERS of this paper do not need to have 
repeated to them the story of Jack Miner 
and his wild geese. In various issues we 
have recounted how this man, by simple kindness, 
has succeeded in attracting to his little farm in 
Kingsville, Ontario, a yearly visitation of wild 
geese in numbers so large as to overtax the 
capacity of the small ponds adjacent to his dwell¬ 
ing, and quite beyond his ability to supply in the 
matter of food. 
In our report of the meeting of the Michigan 
Wild Life Association it was written that Miner, 
who was present, had confessed that after years 
of hunting, he had become impressed with the 
idea that all wild life feared him, and resolved 
to see what a different policy would accomplish. 
We doubt the accuracy of this story of conver¬ 
sion, and prefer to think of Miner as he is in 
real life—a kindly man, who likes to throw the 
mantle of human protection around the migrating 
aerial army of game fowl, the seasonal drift of 
which writes in the very sky the basis of sensible 
game legislation, were we only wise enough, and 
unselfish enough, to heed and follow it. 
At any rate, the wild geese, when they reach 
Miner’s farm in the spring, know that food and 
rest await them. The man almost robs himself 
to feed grain to his winged visitors, counted by 
thousands. The story can be read in the reports 
of the Canadian Conservation Commission and 
elsewhere, and we wish that it might have more 
general circulation. 
The moral—more than a moral, it is the essence 
of common sense—is that we can have the game 
with us if we will only give it a fair chance to 
perpetuate its existence. Shooting out of Na¬ 
ture’s season—not man’s—spells extinction. A 
migratory law that does not recognize this fact 
is a joke, a reflection on intelligence. 
Conservation does not mean that hunting must 
cease, and all sport stop. On the contrary, it 
means better hunting, but at the proper time. 
And to that end those not obsessed by a spirit 
of blind selfishness can contribute their bit, their 
little bit, in the effort to imitate the Jack Miners, 
or in assisting them in a work that means only 
one thing—the preservation of game on this 
continent. 
Game is Beginning to Come Back 
E have hesitated for some months to voice 
a confirmation, growing out of reports 
that have been reaching us from widely 
scattered sections, but the facts now fully justify 
such a statement—the game is coming back. 
We do not mean that it is becoming abundant 
in all sections, nor that where it is reappearing 
there is anything mysterious in the fact. The 
evidence, resting on a drift of testimony nation¬ 
wide, is that fur and fin and feather, given a fair 
opportunity, will not only survive, but will in¬ 
crease rather than diminish. 
