258 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Aug. 12, 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. 
P" ADVERTISEMENTS. 
Inside pages, 20 cents per agate line ($2.S0 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 TURNING OF THE TIDE. 
The tide of mid-summer has risen, eddied and 
turned. As yet the current of the new ebb is 
feeble, but it will gain in speed as the days 
pass. The nights are cooler, twilight comes 
earlier and the dawn is later, while every shrub 
and flower and grass leaf sparkles with the dew 
which is their life in the season of torrid sun 
rays and little wind. 
Along the roads the purple flowers of the 
ironweed peep out of their heavy mantle of 
dust. Overhead the swaying wires are dotted 
with birds, flocking and resting ere they take up 
their long journey to the rich Southland. On 
the salt meadows the delicate pink flowers of 
the marshmallow lend contrast to the universal 
green of the cattails and the rank grasses which 
even now hide the elusive rail. 
Offshore the finny migrants swarm in schools, 
eager for the lure which the angler, in dory, 
sloop or power, boat and in countless numbers, 
displays in the most tempting manner. The water 
is warm and placid, for the winds of August 
are kind to seafarers, and vacation days pass 
quickly in the old-time favorite pastimes of 
swimming and sailing and fishing. 
Inland every lake and pool has its coterie of 
campers, every stream its flotilla of canoes and 
young people idling away the time allotted them 
for rest and amusement in the year of activity 
in town. The game fish are in the depths, where 
the rays of the sun do not penetrate, hut pres¬ 
ently they wiil emerge, eager for the fly or the 
insects that swarm in the foliage alongshore. 
Swallows circle about at eventide, and along 
every wayside path little brown rabbits hop 
about in shy but fancied security on the approach 
of the pedestrian. Follow the faint grass-grown 
trail into the wods where all is still save for 
the plaintive call of the robin and the chatter 
of the squirrel. Now and then a grouse drums, 
perhaps one flushes at the sound of footfalls. 
Always the sleek chipmunk appears at unexpected 
times. He peers from his secure hiding place in 
an old rail fence or runs across the trail to 
sound a final challenge ere he disappears in his 
fortress, the loose stone piers of the bridge 
spanning the brook. 
Everywhere nature has hidden with rank 
growths of weed and grass and flowers man’s 
clumsy attempts to improve her domain, or to 
take from it all that may be quickly converted 
into money. 
The katydids’ plaintive warning that the nights 
of frost are coming are heeded by the gunner, 
who rummages in closets and drawers, to bring 
forth the gun and the old shooting coat, to ex¬ 
amine the one for evidences of rust and the 
other for possible repairs to rents. Stock of 
ammunition is taken and the numerous units 
that go to make up the shooting kit collected, 
for the time for days in the stubble field and 
the brier patch is approaching, and it is well to 
be prepared. 
THE AUDUBON LAW IN NEW JERSEY. 
Those New Jersey women who were a’armed 
at a rumor which was current in that State last 
week, and which related to the Audubon law, 
were easily frightened, and without cause. As¬ 
sistant Attorney-General Nelson B. Gaskill, of 
that State, in an opinion made public last Fri¬ 
day, says that it is not illegal for women to wear 
on their hats the piumage of wild birds. In his 
opinion the new law applies to the killing and 
sale of wild birds. 
Secretary Bowdish, of the New Jersey Audu¬ 
bon Society, says there is nothing in the law 
which directly affects the wearer of plumage in 
any way or makes the wearer liable to arrest or 
prosecution. It is made illegal to sell or offer 
for sale certain kinds of plumage. Ostrich 
plumes and the feathers of birds of paradise, 
domestic poultry and domestic pigeons are spe¬ 
cially exempted from the prohibition. 
Mr. Bowdish further states that the officials 
of this society have had no communication with 
State or municipal officials regarding the en¬ 
forcement of this or any other law. The en¬ 
forcement of such laws belongs to the State 
Fish and Game Commission, and this society has 
entire confidence that they will be satisfactorily 
enforced. 
While New Englanders have long sought to 
bring about the preservation of the White Moun¬ 
tain forests, now that the Forest Service is au¬ 
thorized to purchase lands for this purpose, there 
is reticence on the part of landowners to sell. 
In an address before the American Forestry As¬ 
sociation convention, which was held at Bretton 
Woods, N. H., last week, Forester Philip W. 
Ayer said that large owners of land, particularly 
on the southern slopes of the White Mountains, 
had shown complete indifference to the Service’s 
offers to purchase. He suggested that public 
pressure be brought to bear on large owners in 
the area within which the Service is authorized 
to acquire land, to induce them to offer their 
holdings. Failing in this, action by the Govern¬ 
ment will be necessary. To date only about 20,- 
000 acres have been offered within the area pre¬ 
scribed by Congress. 
The association has elected Robert P. Bass, 
Governor of New Hampshire, as its president, 
to succeed Curtis Guild, Jr., ambassador to Rus¬ 
sia, resigned. 
Three thousand acres of land in Somerset 
and Westmoreland counties, in Pennsylvania, are 
to be set aside as a refuge for turkeys, deer and 
other game, if the plans of State Game Com¬ 
missioner John M. Phillips are carried out, as 
they probably will be. The tract is on Laurel 
Mountain, and as Laurel Ridge has long been 
known as a splendid game section. The pro¬ 
posed refuge is in the Q,000-acre tract set aside 
some time ago as a State forest reserve. Mr. 
Phillips went over the ground recently in com¬ 
pany with Forester J. R. S. Williams, and he 
was favorably impressed with the desire of the 
people of the vicinity and in Pittsburg that the 
refuge be established. 
* 
President Taft has signed a proclamation re¬ 
ducing the area of the Petrified Forest National 
Park, Arizona, from ninety-five to forty square 
miles. This reduction is made on the recom¬ 
mendation of Dr. George P. Merrill, head cura¬ 
tor of geology of the National Museum, who 
has just made an examination of the land for 
the Interior Department. He says in his report 
that outside of the new boundaries there is prac¬ 
tically nothing worth preserving. Two large 
tracts within the park were aiso marked off by 
Dr. Merrill from which museums and others, 
authorized by the Secretary of the Interior, may 
take specimens of the silicified woods. 
r. 
The death of Colonel Leslie C. Bruce recalls 
the palmy days of long-range rifle practice and 
the famous international matches in which 
Colonel, -then Lieutenant, Bruce so frequently 
distinguished himself. Creedmoor is gone, the 
long-barreled rifles of the seventies are but a 
memory, and now the most famous one of a 
group of long-range riflemen of the old school 
has completed his last perfect score and passed 
to his reward. 
Within the next two years sportsmen may 
travel northward from Sault Ste. Marie to a 
point within about one hundred miles of Hudson 
Bay. Part of the railway is already in opera¬ 
tion and a further extension will be finished ere 
snow flies this year. When the greater part of 
the line is completed, a vast fishing and shoot¬ 
ing region will be accessible to sportsmen. 
A late press dispatch from Middletown, N. Y., 
records the death by drowning of David Briggs 
while angling for trout in one of the Catskill 
rivers. In making a cast he is said to have 
fallen in the pool below Gumarer Falls. Evi¬ 
dently he was injured in falling or fell while 
wading a rift. 
