Forest and Stream 
Terms, $3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JANUARY i6, 1909. 
VOL. LXXII.—No. 3. 
No. 127 Franklin St.. New York. 
A WEEKLY JOURNAL. 
Copyright, 1909, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
George Bird Grinnell, President, 
Charles B. Reynolds, Secretary. 
Louis Dean Speir^ Treasurer. 
127 Franklin Street, New York. 
THE OBJECT Oh THIS JOURNAL 
will be to studiously promote a healthful interest 
in outdoor recreation, and to cultivate a refined 
taste for natural objects. 
—Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1873. 
A NEW ANCIENT MAN. 
If the proper study of mankind is man, no 
subject can possess for us a greater interest 
than the earliest human remains, which tell us 
of our ancestors. Many such remains have been 
discovered, but very few of them differ mark¬ 
edly from the man of modern times. The pre¬ 
cise relationships of the remarkable bones found 
in Java by Dr. DuBois, known as Pithecanthro¬ 
pus, are as yet uncertain. By seme authorities 
they are believed to be those of the most man¬ 
like of apes, by others of the most apelike of 
men. Aside from these, the most famous re¬ 
mains are the Neanderthal skull, that of Spy, 
and the jaw of Naulette, all of which belonged 
to men of low type. Complete skeletons of the 
Stone Age man show only slight differences 
from the man of to-day. 
About six months ago two French priests 
found, in some excavations being made near 
Chapelle-aux Saints, in the Correze, some bones 
which have since passed into the possession of 
the Natural History Museum of Paris. 
Last December, before the French Academy 
of Sciences, Prof. Edmond Perrier, Director of 
the Museum, exhibited these bones, which he 
regards as of extraordinary interest and import¬ 
ance. Prof. Perrier’s scientific attainments are 
such as to give his opinions great weight. 
The bones consist of a skull, together with 
the bones of the upper and lower limbs, and 
the rocks from which they come are believed 
by Prof. Perrier to be of Middle Pleistocene 
(Post-tertiary) age. The skull is manlike, but 
of extremely low type. It might be called an 
ape-man or a man-ape, but if a man-ape, one 
with a larger brain than any ape at present 
known. Its great brain capacity leads Prof. 
Perrier to consider it a human skull, but on the 
other hand the cranial dome is very low and 
with thick walls, the forehead flattened, the 
supra-orbital ridges pronounced, and the bones 
of the upper jaw much lengthened and protrud¬ 
ing—what is sometimes called prognathic. These 
characteristics give the skull a certain resemb¬ 
lance to that of a gorilla. Nevertheless the 
brain cavity is much larger than that of any 
known anthropoid ape. 
The leg bones are curved and present evi¬ 
dence that this man walked to some extent on 
all fours; perhaps more in that way than in an 
erect position. In many respects the bones seem 
intermediate between those of man and those 
of the higher apes. Prof. Perrier believes that 
these bones are those of a man much more 
ancient than the famous man of Neanderthal 
or Spy, and that they represent a type inter¬ 
mediate between Pithecanthropus and the man 
of to-day. 
Detailed information about these human re¬ 
mains, which seem to connect the present races 
with those which so long preceded them, will be 
awaited with great interest. 
THE CAPERCAILZIE. 
The splendid capercailzie is the largest of all 
the grouse. It is found in northern Europe and 
Asia, and was once generally distributed wher¬ 
ever thick pine forests were found. Its bones 
have often been unearthed in the kitchenmiddens 
of Denmark, and no doubt it formed an import¬ 
ant article of the food of primitive man. For¬ 
merly abundant in Scotland, it was many years 
ago exterminated there, but being reintroduced 
and thoroughly protected, re-established itself 
and is now shot. 
The capercailzie almost equals the turkey in 
size, the male sometimes reaching a weight of 
twelve or thirteen pounds, which is almost twice 
as much as the weight of the sage grouse of 
our Western plains. The capercailzie is called 
the cock of the woods, as the sage grouse is 
called the cock of the plains. A recent article 
from a Norwegian correspondent gave an excel¬ 
lent idea of the way in which the capercailzie is 
hunted in northern Europe. 
The capercailzie has been introduced in two 
or three places in North America, but without 
apparent results as yet. 
FOREST AND STREAM PRIZE STORIES. 
The response to Forest and Stream’s offer 
of prizes for true stories, dealing with outdoor 
life, was even larger than had been expected. 
Stories poured in on us; long stories and short; 
stories with just the right ring; other stories 
not quite so good ; and some—not many—that 
are impossible. They came from men and 
women; from teachers, divines, doctors, law¬ 
yers, engineers, architects and business men. 
The scenes where they are laid cover both hemi¬ 
spheres and all the continents. 
Our readers have labored diligently and have 
nearly completed the task of selecting the fortu¬ 
nate manuscripts which will carry off the prizes. 
The number submitted makes it inevitable that 
many competitors should be disappointed. On 
the other hand it assures extremely high quality 
for the manuscripts to which prizes are awarded, 
and this quality our readers will enjoy later on. 
It is natural enough that the scenes of some 
of the best stories should be laid in the further 
West, where the hunters of a generation ago. 
and those of the generation preceding that, used 
to have so many moving adventures. In these 
latter days much of the West has been settled 
up, and life there is as uneventful as in Ohio 
or Illinois; yet there are still a few places where, 
to him who faces life in the wilderness, adven¬ 
tures may come which will make the blood flow 
more swiftly through the veins, and set the heart 
a beating. If here and there in the West the 
grizzly bear and the bad man are still found, 
still more may we meet in Africa man-eating 
lions, vicious porters and wild men on whom 
the laws of civilization have not yet been im¬ 
pressed. 
It has been gratifying to the management of 
Forest and Stream to receive so generous a 
response to its request for these prize stories, 
and we feel certain that our gratification will 
be shared by all our readers as we place the 
successful stories before them. 
This is the beginning of the Legislature sea¬ 
son, and from the present time until late spring 
the attention of lawmakers in a number of 
States will be devoted to game and fish laws 
and other regulations of greater or lesser value 
to the public. It is to be hoped that measures 
to prevent the pollution of streams will be given 
the consideration they deserve, and that unifor¬ 
mity and simplicity in shooting and fishing sea¬ 
sons will replace the complicated provisions now 
in force in so many States. 
K 
In Somaliland, East Africa, during 1907, re¬ 
turns were made by sportsmen holding licenses 
to hunt, of a total of 367 game animals. The 
numbers and species in detail follow; Dik-dik, 
81; Speke’s and Pelzeln’s gazelle, 73; Scemer- 
ing’s gazelle, 68; Waller’s gazelle, 34; oryx, 22; 
klipspringer, 13; greater kudu, lesser kudu, wart- 
hog and hartebeeste, ii each; leopard, 9; Clarke’s 
gazelle, 8; baira, 7; lion, 5; great bustard, chee¬ 
tah and ostrich, i each. The ostrich, being a 
female, was confiscated. 
K 
One of the most noteworthy events of the 
past week was the conviction of the so-called 
night riders for the murder of Captain Quentin 
Rankin at Reelfoot Lake, in Tennessee, last 
autumn. Of the large number of men believed 
to have shared in the murder of Captain Rankin 
and the attempt to kill Colonel R. Z. Taylor— 
or suspected of complicity in the crime—six have 
been sentenced to be hung next month and four 
others to be sent to State’s prison for life. 
Commissioner H. G. Thomas, of Vermont, 
informs us that during the recent open season 
in that State 2,205 deer were legally killed, while 
about 500 more were unlawfully taken. Because 
of the forest fires the usual season was closed, 
and the sportsmen accorded six days in Novem¬ 
ber instead. 
