98 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[July is, 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. 
SUBSCRIPTIONS. 
Terms: $3.00 a year; $1.50 for six months. Single copies, 
10 cents. Canadian subscriptions, $4.00 a year; $2.00 for 
six months. Foreign subscriptions, $4.50 a year; $2.25 for 
six months. Subscriptions may begin at any time. 
Remit by express money-order, registered letter, money- 
order or draft, payable to the Forest and Stream Pub¬ 
lishing Company. 
The paper may be obtained of newsdealers throughout 
the United States, Canada and Great Britain. Foreign 
Subscription and Sales Agents—London: Davis & Co., 
1 Finch Lane; Sampson, Low & Co. Paris: Brentano’s. 
ADVERTISEMENTS. 
Inside pages, 20 cents per agate line ($2.80 per inch). 
There are 14 agate lines to an inch. Preferred positions, 
25 per cent, extra. Special rates for back cover in two 
or more colors. Reading notices, 75 cents per count line. 
A discount of 5 per cent, is allowed on an advertise¬ 
ment inserted 13 times in one year; 10 per cent, on 26, 
and 20 per cent, on 52 insertions respectively. 
Advertisements should be received by Saturday pre¬ 
vious to the issue in which they are to be inserted. 
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 FUR SEAL AGREEMENT. 
Friday, May 7, 1911, will go down in history 
as the day on which the first step toward the 
enactment of international game laws was made, 
and every American may well be proud of the 
fact that the international fur seal agreement 
was signed in Washington, the capital of the 
Union. 
The names of the representatives of the four 
great nations who affixed their signatures to 
the agreement are as follows: For the United 
States, the Hon. Charles Nagel and the Hon. 
Chandler P. Anderson; for Great Britain, the 
Right Hon. James Bryce and the Hon. Joseph 
Pope; for Japan, Baron Ushida and the Hon. 
Hiteshi Dauke; and for Russia, the Hon. Pierre 
Botkine and Baron Nolde. These representa¬ 
tives will submit the convention to their respec¬ 
tive Governments for approval, and this secured, 
it will become effective. 
Pelagic sealing will be prohibited in the North 
Pacific ocean for a period of fifteen years, and 
the hunting of sea otters on the high seas will 
be stopped. The several nations will pass laws 
looking to the enforcement of the terms of the 
agreement, and the waters affected will be 
patrolled. 
The full terms of the treaty will not be made 
public until it has been ratified, but it is under¬ 
stood that action was taken looking toward 
future agreements regarding the preservation of 
birds of plumage and whales. 
THE PLUMAGE LAW. 
The millinery trade has been prompt to show 
its attitude in relation to the plumage law which 
became effective in New York State 011 Juiy 1. 
A suit has been filed in the United States Circuit 
Court by Sciana & Co., who ask for an injunc¬ 
tion to restrain the Attorney General and the 
Forest, Fish and Game Commissioner from en¬ 
forcing Chapter 256 of the forest, fish and game 
law, which, they a.lege, is unconstitutional and 
therefore void. 
This is Section 98 of the forest, fish and game 
law, relating to the protection of certain wild 
birds. The section was approved last year, but 
that portion of it which refers to “any birds com¬ 
ing from without the State whether belonging to 
the same or a different species from that native 
to the State of New York, provided such birds 
belong to the same family as those protected 
by this chapter" did not become effective until 
Juiy 1, 1911. 
It is understood that the plaintiffs represent 
the millinery trade. They contend that the law 
is not a proper and reasonable exercise of the 
police power of the State and is, therefore, in 
violation of the Federal constitution. They 
allege that it is in restraint of trade and is con¬ 
fiscatory of property lawfully acquired; that it 
deprives them of property without due process 
of law, and they further allege that it is an 
unjustifiable interference with and regulation of 
interstate and foreign commerce in violation of 
Section 8, Article 1, of the constitution of the 
United States. 
The p'aintiffs summarize the methods fol¬ 
lowed by them in purchasing goods far in ad¬ 
vance of given seasons, of the necessity for 
carrying large stocks, and of the buying for 
them by agents in foreign countries. At the 
time of the passage of the new law, in 1910, they 
claim they had a large stock of prohibited plum¬ 
age; that since that time other plumage of this 
class had been received, and that although dili¬ 
gent efforts were made by them to dispose of 
these stocks before the first of July last, they 
had succeeded in selling only one-sixth of the 
total, about $50,000 worth remaining on hand. 
The plumage laws in effect prior to last year 
were ineffective in stopping the killing of vast 
numbers of birds of brilliant plumage, for they 
did not close the markets for feathers. The new 
law was made more drastic in the belief that a 
large part of the demand could be stopped, so 
that the incentive to kill for the millinery trade 
would cease. 
The outcome of this case will be awaited with 
interest. New Jersey has a new law regulating 
the sale of plumage, similar in the main to the 
New York law referred to, and the outcome of 
the pending suit will have an important bear¬ 
ing on the plumage laws of both States, as well 
as an indirect bearing on laws passed or pro¬ 
posed elsewhere. 
Deer have been seen this summer in a num¬ 
ber of places where they have been rare for 
many years. In the Ramapo Mountains, along 
the upper Palisades, in Westchester county, on 
the Harriman park lands and in several other 
places they have appeared, while in much of the 
rough country west of the Hudson and not more 
than twenty-five miles from this city, deer are 
reported frequently. This is one result of effec¬ 
tive protection. 
A MAJORITY VERDICT. 
In these days when the newspapers, the maga¬ 
zines, civic bodies, State and Government officials 
and all sorts' of people are doing what they may 
to reform wasteful methods and rebuild that 
which has been destroyed, when conservation 
is the watchword, it is as unusual as it is strange 
to note that there are still a few men who stub¬ 
bornly uphold the old order of things. 
In California, land of plenty, where the sports¬ 
men have agreed time and again to material re¬ 
ductions in bag limits in order that more and 
more of their fellows may enjoy a measure of 
success in shooting game, there is a newspaper 
that is not without influence in a county that 
is richly endowed by nature with fish and game. 
This newspaper, the Santa Cruz Sentinel, de¬ 
clares : 
We are asked if we are against the game and fish pro¬ 
tection laws. We are whenever and wherever they deny 
the people the right to buy wild game, to obtain the 
flesh of the undomesticated animals that run the earth, 
fly the air or swim the waters. Laws that are drawn in 
the interest of the few are damnable and should be 
amended or repealed. 
Since the days of the buffalo and the wild 
pigeon, Forest and Stream has striven earnestly 
and steadfastly to bring about that which is now 
called the conservation of our natural resources. 
In recent years the reforms it has so long up¬ 
held have been gradually brought home to the 
people, now no longer blind to the appalling effect 
of the wholesale waste of trees and water, birds, 
mammals and fish. Though there is still much 
work to be done for the movement that is new 
in a popular sense, the progress made is patent 
to all, and even the most pessimistic citizens 
cannot but note widespread evidences of the 
revulsion of feeling that is sweeping the country. 
Throughout the United States the sale of wild 
game will be made illegal, and that, too, ere 
many years have passed. The Sentinel is at¬ 
tempting to lead a few stragglers against an 
army of sportsmen behind whom are the people. 
And it is not a pleasant pastime to attempt to 
lead a cause wherein all may be lost and noth¬ 
ing gained. 
There are those who argue against common 
sense and reason merely because they love an 
argument. Now and then a talesman drawn 
on a jury will refuse to agree with the verdict 
reached by the other eleven men, and rest con¬ 
tent in the delusion that his very childish excuse, 
“because," is all sufficient. But while the case 
of the newspaper mentioned is somewhat simi¬ 
lar, its unpopular policy will have little or no 
effect on the verdict of the people, the majority 
of whom have declared and are declaring that 
the sale of wild game shall cease. 
The Attorney General of Maine has handed 
down an opinion in which he holds that Chapter 
185 of the public laws of 1911, which provides 
that it shall be unlawful to take or have in pos¬ 
session more than fifteen pounds of landlocked 
salmon, trout, togue or white perch or more 
than forty fish, and which regulates transpor¬ 
tation of such fish within the same general limits, 
does not repeal private and special laws where 
the limit is lower than that placed in the new 
general law, but does repeal those private and 
special laws where the limit is larger, and where 
such law is repealed takes its places. 
