FOREST AND STREAM 
629 
CANNOT PROLONG SEASON. 
Boston, Mass., Nov. 7, 1914. 
Governor 'Walsh cannot legally extend the 
open season on pheasants, according to an 
opinion rendered the Fish and Game Commis¬ 
sion by Attorney J General Boynton. Sportsmen 
had asked for an additional two days to make 
up for the time lost by a suspension of the sea¬ 
son because of the prevalence of forest fires. 
Thursday, November 12, is the date set by law 
for the close of the season. 
BEAVERS FAIL TO PUT AWAY SUPPLIES 
FOR WINTER. 
L’Anse, Mich., Oct. 30.-—Elizor Collins, who 
returned from the principal hunting regions of 
Marquette and Baraga counties, says there is 
every indication of a late fall and an open win¬ 
ter. As an infallible sign pointing to this con¬ 
clusion, Collins reports that the beavers have 
not yet stored up in the waters adjacent to their 
houses their winter’s supply of twigs of maple, 
birch and poplar trees. Collins noted also that 
wolves are plentiful and deer are scarce. He 
predicts that hunters will have extremely poor 
success this fall, and particularly if snow is 
lacking. 
KILLS BIG COUGAR. 
Seattle, Wash., Oct. 26. 
A huge cougar was shot a few days ago by 
Col. Pabst on his Ranch 7-11, near Elden, Hoods 
Canal, after the big feline had jumped a high 
fence into an inclosure near the ranch house 
and stolen a young ram. The cougar grabbed 
the ram by the neck, threw it over his shoulder, 
again jumped the fence and ran up a trail for 
about 800 yards. 
Col. Pabst, hearing the noise, rushed out with 
his rifle and shot the beast twice. The first shot 
entered near the shoulder and the cougar, after 
falling, half raised himself. The second shot 
entered one eye and Mr. Cougar quit. 
From the floor to the peak of the cougar’s 
shoulder measured 2 feet 10 inches. From the 
tip of his tail to the tip of his nose was 8 feet 
4 inches. 
RECORD CATCH OF BASS. 
Williamsport, Md., Nov. 1.—The largest catch¬ 
es of bass of the entire season were made in 
the Potomac River within the last week, at this 
place, by local fishermen. The biggest day’s 
catch was that made by Frank E. Murray and 
Thomas Lemen, who landed 154 bass of various 
sizes in the river at Dam No. 5. Another big 
catch of So bass was made by Lewis and Thomas 
Lemen at the dam in a day, and Robert S. Ard- 
inger and Thomas Lemen caught 84 at the same 
place. Other fine strings of bass were caught 
by William Smith, Charles Corby and Hill Ard- 
inger, who brought in the largest fish of any of 
the sportsmen, Including two weighing over 
four pounds and one that weighed five and one- 
half pounds. 
Due to the great European War, the source of 
supply of Circassian walnut has been cut off and 
we are turning to the use of our own native 
walnut, which is again becoming very popular. 
Before the war most of our native walnut was 
sent to England, Germany and France. 
BIRD POPULATION OF UNITED STATES. 
The bird population of the United States is 
estimated at 2,026,000,000, or something over 
twenty birds for every man, woman and child. 
These figures do not include the English spar¬ 
rows, the starlings and what are commonly 
known as game birds. The most numerous of 
all the birds are the robins, of which there are 
100,000,000 east of the Mississippi. These beau¬ 
tiful songsters are found everywhere, even up 
in far-distant Alaska. 
The bird census was taken largely by volun¬ 
teers, several hundred of whom freely contrib- 
Forest and Stream Trophy Catch. 
uted their services to the government. They 
selected typical districts, walking back and forth 
and counting the male birds, carefully noting 
the species. The counting was done in the month 
of June, and as this was the nesting season each 
male bird was counted as a pair, and the number 
of -birds per acre in a specified district was thus 
determined with at least an approximate degree 
o>f accuracy. 
The returns are not all in and may not be for 
several months, but enough have been received 
to permit the Agricultural Department to make 
some interesting estimates. Of the robins there 
are about fifty pairs to the square mile, but tak¬ 
ing all the field birds together the figures run 
up to 1,000 pairs to the square mile, not includ¬ 
ing timber lands and land planted to crops. 
Only -in a very few places were as -many as 
four pairs found to the acre, and in the arid 
lands of southwestern Arizona and New Mexico 
the average was only one pair to seven acres. 
It is marvelous how quickly the birds take to 
places in which they are protected and cared for. 
In Prospect Park, Brooklyn, thirty-three differ¬ 
ent species of birds -were seen and noted, and 
in Chevy Chase, the park near Washington, they 
numbered seven pairs to the acre- 
Rapidly the natural bird lands are -being taken 
up for agricultural purposes or are being denu¬ 
ded of trees and shrubs. This gives them much 
less space in which to increase and multiply. 
In addition, their ranks are ravaged by cats, 
minks, squirrels, hawks, owls, snakes and other 
carnivorous creatures, but their worst enemies 
are men and boys who kill thousands of them 
with pump guns, repeating rifles, air guns, 
snares and traps. It is marvelous that these 
dainty, helpful, valuable friends of mankind are 
able to find safe places in which to nes-t, rear 
their young and keep predacious insect life with¬ 
in limits. They are much better protected now 
than they were a few years ago, for their value 
is being much more widely appreciated. 
A. C. A. MEMBERSHIP. 
New Members Proposed. 
Atlantic Division: Ernest B. Spence, 659 West 
183rd St., New York, N. Y., by L. B. Morgan; 
Dwight Tenney, 66 Plymouth St., Montclair, N. 
J., by A. B. Mathis; George C. James, 107 War- 
burton Ave., Yonkers, N. Y„ by Paul J. Kuhn; 
Carhart Francis, 216 Woodworth Ave., Yonkers, 
N. Y., by B. M. Henemier. 
New Members Elected. 
Atlantic Division: 7017, Milton H. Tidd, 237 
Pearl St., Trenton, N. J.; 7018, Raymond D. 
Vroom, Prospect PI., Bound Brook, N. J.; 7021, 
Edward F. McKeon, 511 Eighth St., Brooklyn, 
New York. 
Central Division: 7019, Roy L. Bovard, 5599 
Baum Blvd., Pittsburgh, Pa.; 7020, Horace E_ 
Spears, 905 Adelaide St., Pittsburgh, Pa. 
TEACHING WORMS TO WRIGGLE. 
Quincy, Mich., Oct. 31.—.It’s the wriggle that 
counts, not t-he rouded obesity of the angle- 
worm, in luring fat fish to the hook. That is 
the theory of Harold Conrad, the most cele¬ 
brated of the village anglers, and his theory 
certainly bears piscatorial fruit. 
The average fisherman selects a long fat an¬ 
gleworm from a can and fixing it carefully on 
his hook, remarks: 
“Ah, there’s a beauty. Luscious enough to 
draw a nibble from the biggest fish in the lake.” 
If the fish are biting and the local Izaak flirts 
the gills of many tempting fries, he attributes 
his good fortune to the rotundity and flavor of 
the angleworm; if the fish are shy and scarce, 
he maligns the weather and prays for rain, but 
utters not a word derogatory of the bait. 
Not so Harold Conrad. According to his 
theory, the great virtue of the angleworm, rela¬ 
tive to bait, lies in its wiggle, and he has worked 
out a scheme for developing this virtue that 
gives him extraordinary distinction among the 
anglers of the land. 
