1192 
FOREST AND STREAM 
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on happenings of note in the outdoor world 
No Spring Slaughter 
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E VENTS have moved rapidly within the last 
month. As announced in our September 
number, the effort to break down the bars 
on spring wild fowl shooting failed utterly, the 
new regulations having held firm on that point. 
The victory is one that means much. It spells 
the preservation of a number of species of 
valuable wild life, and a continuance of reason¬ 
able good sport for a large portion of our popu¬ 
lation in the future. 
But over and beyond that incident, which 
otherwise would be written as the most import¬ 
ant and encouraging of the year, the ratification 
of a treaty between the United States and Great 
Britain, making the protection of migratory 
birds international as between this country and 
Canada, stands supreme. 
The migratory bird law, be it remembered, is 
still the law of the land, and will be until the 
Supreme Court declares it unconstitutional. That 
it has not yet done. The case is on for a re¬ 
hearing, and learned lawyers are of the opinion 
that no court will go so far as to rule that a 
law which forms the basis of an existing treaty 
with another nation is to be set aside on merely 
technical grounds. 
This is not the proper place for discussion of 
hair splitting legal puzzles, but it may be added 
that a treaty takes precedence over state laws. 
The confusion arising out of the Japanese mat¬ 
ter in California a year or two ago is an instance 
in point. National law cannot interfere with a 
treaty, for what is a treaty if not a national 
law or bargain? 
The real point is that the spring shooters have 
been defeated, and defeated beyond hope of 
resurrecting their cause. Many who opposed 
the migratory law did so because of honest con¬ 
viction. Some claimed to have just ground for 
their attitude. Perhaps they had. But as good 
citizens they cannot do else than to bow to 
the will of the majority. This they will do. 
So far as they are concerned, there will be no 
necessity of staging any visible manifestation of 
the majesty or authority of the decree of the 
people, in the form of wardens or special offi¬ 
cials. The law says that there shall be no spring 
shooting. That is enough for the honest spotsman. 
But in respect of the riff-raff, the selfish in¬ 
terests, the market hunters and the unlovely 
element which was prompt to swing in behind 
honest men, the least said the better. Their 
very presence killed what might otherwise have 
been an argumentative case. For them it will 
be necessary to institute repressive measures. 
This no doubt will be done. 
And perhaps in the unpleasant consequences 
that ensue, they will be disagreeably surprised 
to note that the forces of whom they formed 
the camp followers are now arrayed solidly 
against them. The honest man may have his 
own private convictions—but he obeys the law be¬ 
cause of his respect for it. 
THE HOME CAMP 
Forest and Stream desires to announce 1 
| the removal of its offices from 128 Broad- | 
i way to the Arcade Building, 118 East § 
| Twenty-eighth Street. The new location 1 
| is more in the center of things, and ac- I 
| cessible by all local transportation lines, j 
I The Twenty-eighth Street subway station 1 
i is almost at the door. While in the middle | 
| of the big city, the Home Camp has been j 
1 fitted up most commodiously for the re- | 
1 ception of its friends, and you, brother f 
1 member, will always find the proverbial | 
I latch string hanging out for you, and a 1 
j warm welcome awaiting you when you call. I 
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The Black Bear 
O NOT a few sportsmen there is something 
repugnant in the thought of killing a black 
bear. Yet the law, if prevailing statutes 
are a criterion, regards this harmless beast as a 
dangerous animal, to be exterminated as quickly 
as possible. Some states go so far as to offer a 
bounty for Bruin’s scalp, classifying him with 
the vermin or dangerous animals that must give 
way to the advance of civilization. 
This is nonsense. The bear is not a dangerous 
animal. Probably he is suffering his unhappy 
situation because of the literal interpretation of 
Scripture to which most of us, as the result of 
early training, are prone. 
Who can forget Elijah and the fate of his 
mockers? True, Elijah was a zealous, baldheaded 
reformer, doing good in his own way, no doubt, 
as is the way of all reformers, but he gave the 
death sign to all coming generations of the 
Ursus family. 
Perhaps Elijah would have more nearly lived 
up to the ideals of the reform clan had he over¬ 
looked the tantalizing to which he was sub¬ 
jected, but let that pass. He did establish one 
important fact in natural history, namely, how 
many small bc.ys three she bears can hold. 
To get back to the main subject, why kill off 
the bears? “'The clowns of the woods” they 
have been aptly called. So far from being 
ferocious, they are the most amiable of all the 
wild folk. If we want to take up the question 
of fur protection, every argument in favor of 
the beaver or other of the peltry class applies 
in a magnified sense to the Bruin tribe. If we 
accuse bears of stealing sheep, we may as well 
accuse sheep of biting people. One habit is about 
as frequent as the other. 
The bear is not a food animal. The Indian 
sidesteps him in that particular. He calls him 
brother. If yt,u, with your superior civilization, 
rise above this superstition—well, suppose you 
try living a week on bear meat. You won’t 
call him brother; neither will you hunt bears 
thereafter for food. 
The Far T)istant Places 
E OF the woods loving, wilderness faring 
tribe are not yet forced to tread on each 
other’s heels, although sometimes a na¬ 
tural thought arises whether this happy condition 
will long endure. The increasing popularity of 
the great outdoors and the toll exacted from 
Nature by reason of the drift of more people 
towards the hunting and fishing places of remote 
distance-—a drift made easier from year to year 
because of the extension of railways into seem¬ 
ingly impossible places—are factors that must 
affect the situation. 
They do. But let us not despair. There 
should be a feeling of satisfaction that beyond 
the horizon, as the necessity calls for more room, 
it is always to be found. 
And for numberless years to come this will 
hold true. Look at Labrador-—a vast half-ex¬ 
plored game and fish preserve which some day 
will be accessible to the American sportsman. 
Alaska, big as the eastern part of the United 
States, is a paradise of wild life. The new 
Transcontinental of Canada does no more than 
fringe a section so illimitable that no sportsman 
will ever be able to say that he knows it frac¬ 
tionally. 
Why, even to-day, in this waning year of our 
Lord, 1916, the unexplored portion of northern 
Canada, exclusive of the islands of the Arctic, 
is embraced in a number of blocks marked off 
from each other by the dim trails of first ex¬ 
plorers, the aggregate of impenetrated territory 
measuring 850,000 miles, or about one-fourth of 
the continental Dominion itself. Lots of room 
there! 
This unknown area is being reduced, or rather 
made known, through the intelligent, persevering 
work of the Canadian Geological Survey, which 
counts on its staff men who are fit to rank, by 
reason of boldness, courage, devotion and re¬ 
sults to be achieved, if not achieved already, 
with Champlain, La Salle and others who first 
penetrated this continent. 
Forest and Stream for many years has fol¬ 
lowed the course of these men, not alone in 
Canada, but in our own country as well, and it 
has been in these pages that great hunting or 
fishing districts, now familiar to all sportsmen, 
were first located and described. This pleasant 
service, it seems, is not yet at an end. 
Through the courtesy of the Canadian Govern¬ 
ment we are able to record, this month, an ac¬ 
count of the exploration of a section of some 
53,000 square miles in the Athabaska and Great 
Slave Lake districts, by Charles Camsell and his 
party. Written as an incident of his work, Mr. 
Camsell’s story is one that will appeal not only 
to the sedentary, fireside “book explorer,” but 
to the man who loves to be himself one of the 
first to view the unknown places, it offers a 
temptation to break away from the restraints 
of irksome civilization—to pack up and hike 
where the wind blows free and the blue of the 
sky and unknown lakes intermingle. 
