20 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[July i, 1911. 
Published Weekly by the 
Forest and Stream Publishing Company, 
127 Franklin Street, New York. 
George Bird Grinnell, President, 
Charles B. Reynolds, Secretary, 
Louis Dean Speir, Treasurer. 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
The Forest and Stream is the recognized medium of 
entertainment, instruction and information between Amer¬ 
ican sportsmen. The editors invite communications on 
the subjects to which its pages are devoted. Anonymous 
communications will not be regarded. The editors are 
not responsible for the views of correspondents. 
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ADVERTISEMENTS. 
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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. 
THE SPORTSMEN’S VICTORY. 
Through the prompt action of Governor Dix 
the aiarming effect of the passage by the New 
York Legislature of a flood of game and fish 
bills has been minimized. Sportsmen can rest 
assured that a large number of useless and con¬ 
fusing new local provisions will probably be 
vetoed. 
The Long Island wildfowl bills were before 
the Legislature for a long time. Sentiment was 
against their passage and they were opposed by 
numerous sportsmen’s clubs and by citizens. 
.Still they were pushed, at last successfully so far 
as the Legislature was concerned, though their 
advocates had to content themselves with the 
promise of a shorter season than they had at 
first demanded. The bill finally passed was a 
compromise', an admission that its friends had 
accepted winter shooting when spring shooting 
was what they had striven for; a further ad¬ 
mission that the time had passed when the old 
customs couid be revived. In short, that the 
sportsmen of the State had set the seal of their 
disapproval forever on the killing of wildfowl 
during the breeding season, and favored one law 
for the entire State. 
Victory for the Long Island gunners, such 
as it was, has been short lived. On June 24 
Governor Dix vetoed the Long Island wildfowl 
bill, and on the 26th he signed the Bayne bill, 
under which the sale of game is genera'ly pro¬ 
hibited. 
The Bayne law is not perfect, and it probably 
will be improved by future Legislatures, but in 
the main the signing of this bill by Governor 
Dix was the achievement of one of the most 
important victories ever won by sportsmen. 
Other States will now follow the example set 
by New York, and it is safe to predict that the 
reform wave will sweep ov'eT the entire Union, 
and be followed by the prohibition of the sale 
of game fish. 
Closing the most important markets for wild 
game will put a stop to the demand for it and 
take from market gunners the incentive to vio¬ 
late the laws of their respective States. At the 
same time the demand for game, created mainly 
by those who do not shoot, can be met in a 
legal way, for the raising of game for the market 
is sufficiently profitab e to encourage a large 
number of persons to engage in it, and the in¬ 
dustry is yearly receiving more encouragement 
from sportsmen and lawmakers. 
There is the promise of satisfaction for all 
interests in the reform instituted by the Empire 
State. 
FISHING FOR COUNT. 
Side hunts and fishing for count did much in 
the old days to bring about the present state of 
affairs so frequently lamented by sportsmen. 
Side hunts or circle hunts, as they are sometimes 
called, are seldom held to-day except in places 
where jackrabbits or coyotes multiply so rapid y 
that all ordinary means of ridding agricultural 
sections of these pests fail, whereupon great 
roundups are held and the animals captuied are 
slaughtered. 
For this sort of side hunting there is the ex¬ 
cuse that vermin only are killed. For contests 
where numbers of game or fish are counted theie 
is no excuse, and Forest and Stream has fie- 
quently pointed out this fact and put forth its 
best efforts to discourage the practice. 
When the bass season opened in New York 
State, the Niagara Anglers’ Society held its 
twenty-sixth annual angling tournament at 
Youngstown. Sides were chosen and prizes 
offered. One of these was for the largest black 
bass, to which no objection may well be made; 
but other prizes were for the largest stiings of 
bass by weight and by numbers, for largest num¬ 
bers of mixed fish, and so on. Nearly 100 pei- 
sons angled for eight hours, then produced their 
strings of big and little fish for counting and 
weighing. 
What the wholesale score was matters not; 
the principle alone is important. Such practices 
should be stopped, by appealing to the anglers 
themselves; this failing, by legislative enactment. 
By this we do not intend to infer that any law 
was violated, but in contests where numbers and 
weight count, it frequent'y occurs that sports¬ 
manship and the game laws are totally ignored. 
Safety from punishment in practices of this sort, 
as well as in those involving graver consequences, 
is often found in the crowd. 
The declaration that a majority of the eggs 
of partridges exported from Hungary to Eng¬ 
land are stolen, as mentioned in another column, 
will no doubt be news to State officials and pre¬ 
serve owners in this country. If true as applied 
to shipments of Hungarian partridge eggs to 
England, it may be true in reference to ship¬ 
ments to this country as well, though we be¬ 
lieve most of the imports received here consist 
of adult birds rather than eggs. The publication 
by the Austrian Game Protection Society of a 
blacklist of illicit dealers has not put a period 
to the practice, probably for the very good rea¬ 
son that violators of the law are not very sensi¬ 
tive to public criticism. Therefore, the remedy 
suggested by our London contemporary is the 
more praiseworthy. It suggests that instead a 
list of legitimate dealers be given. Buyers could 
then act intelligently and assist the Austrian 
sportsmen in their efforts to regulate the drain 
on their supply of game birds. 
*» 
A work of considerable magnitude and interest 
is to be initiated by the new Uruguayan Minister 
of Industries, namely, fostering the fishing indus¬ 
try. He proposes to secure the services of a 
foreign expert in fishculture and to install a 
fisheries institute with a permanent fishing sta¬ 
tion on the east coast of Uruguay. One of the 
professors of the agricultural college at Sayago, 
an authority on pisciculture, has been engaged 
for some time in a study of the sea and fresh 
water fishes of the Republic. When his report 
is presented a bill will be prepared dealing with 
the question. Consul Frederic W. Godling. of 
Montevideo, reports that the sea and rivers of 
Uruguay teem with edible fish, but as yet no 
attempt has been made to organize the fishing 
industry on a scientific basis, nor have any meas¬ 
ures been adopted to protect the fish from ex¬ 
termination. 
v. 
Because of the rugged character of San Cle¬ 
mente Island, off the coast of Southern Califor¬ 
nia, the descendants of the tame goats once 
liberated there have grown wild and are so 
difficult to approach that it is with no little pride 
that heads are exhibited by men who have been 
successful in hunting them. Now and then a 
head worth having is secured. To reach the 
island in small boats requires courage, for the 
San Clemente channel is not a pleasant stretch 
of water to be in during a blow. 
K 
The New York Senate on June 20 confirmed 
the nomination by the Governor of James S. 
Fleming, of Troy, as Forest, Fish and Game 
Commissioner, to succeed Thomas M. Osborne, 
who resigned and recently went abroad to re¬ 
cover from ill health. Francis A. Willard has 
resigned as secretary of the commission. John 
J. Farrell, of Troy, succeeds him. 
K 
Seventy-five members and guests of a local 
fishing club spent a day on one of the fishing 
banks boats recently. 1 he total catch was large, 
but there was no opportunity for unpleasant 
comparisons between large and small catches, for 
the entire number of fish taken was held in com¬ 
mon and equally divided at the end of the day. 
An excellent plan. 
* 
H Bramhall Gilbert, who died in France last 
week, was a prominent figure at many of the 
great live pigeon shooting matches held in the 
vicinity of New York city in the nineties, be¬ 
fore the shooting of live birds from the trap 
was stopped by law. His age was forty-nine 
years. He was American agent for a British 
spinning firm. 
