Forest and Stream 
Terms, $3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MARCH 13, 1909. 
VOL. LXXIL—No. 11. 
No. 127 Franklin St., New York 
A WEEKLY JOURNAL. 
Copyright, 1909, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Ghorge Bird Grinnell, President, 
Charles B. Reynolds, Secretary. 
Louis Dean Speir. Treasurer. 
127 Franklin Street, New York. 
THE OBJECT OF 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. 
THE WILDFOWL SHOOTING. 
Reports received from many quarters indi¬ 
cate that the duck shooting season just closed 
has been better than usual. 
On the Pacific coast wildfowl have been very 
abundant and though the weather was not al¬ 
ways propitious, on the whole the season was 
a good one. Owing to mild weather, the open¬ 
ing of the shooting on the Atlantic coast was 
much later than usual, but the fowl were abund¬ 
ant. In Great South Bay ducks were very 
plenty and reports from the Connecticut coast 
state that on the north shore of Long Island 
Sound more birds were seen than for a num¬ 
ber of years past. 
On the south Atlantic coast the shooting, ex¬ 
cept as affected by warm and moderate weather 
conditions, has been better than for some years. 
We are told of one club where during the past 
season 40 per cent, more birds were killed than 
during the season of 1907 - 08 . 
All along the coast the wildfowl are constantly 
becoming more highly educated and so better 
able to take care of themselves. In Great South 
Bay, Back Bay, Currituck Sound and other 
broad waters further to the south the ducks now 
habitually leave their usual resting and feeding 
grounds at daylight in mild, still weather, and 
fly out to sea, resting there undisturbed through¬ 
out the day, and just about sundown, rising on 
wing and pouring back on to their feeding 
grounds in astonishing numbers. In rough, 
stormy weather, however, this refuge of the 
open sea is too uncomfortable for them, and at 
such times they are to be found in their cus¬ 
tomary resorts. 
The early opening of spring seems to have 
sent most of the birds north. North Carolina, 
Virginia and the waters of Chesapeake Bay are 
said to have been deserted by the birds a week 
ago, while on the other hand gr.eat numbers of 
fowl on their way northward stopped for rest 
on the Jersey coast. 
By most people the apparent increase in the 
numbers of wildfowl for the last year or two 
will be attributed to the doing away with spring 
shooting over vast areas, and the general feel¬ 
ing in the Northern United States and Canada 
that the season during which wildfowl may be 
killed should be shortened. 
GOOD THINGS TO COME. 
It is worth the while of each reader of Forest 
AND Stream to look at the announcements printed 
on the inside of the front cover which describe 
the attractive articles to appear during the next 
few months in the pages of the paper. Here 
will be found abundance and variety to please 
all tastes, but the limitations of space forbid 
extended discussion. 
Canoeing readers will find peculiar interest in 
two serial articles, the first of which begins in 
this issue. “A Canoe Trip on Chesapeake Bay” 
describes scenes and incidents on Southern 
waters, and this will be followed by a story of 
the strenuous adventures of two canoeists who 
traveled a thousand miles from Detroit to New 
York and did it in record-breaking time in the 
face of a multitude of difficulties, including a 
wreck on Lake Erie. As one reads it he is re¬ 
minded of that canoe trip made nearly one hun¬ 
dred years ago, when the fur trader Franchere, 
with his red-sashed Canadian voyageurs on their 
way to Astoria, paddled their birch c*anoe down 
the Hudson River, around New York and 
camped in the village of Brooklyn. 
Students of American history and especially 
of the Southwest—those who have read of 
Gregg and the old Santa Fe trail—will look for¬ 
ward to a long paper dealing with Bent’s Old 
Fort. This, the first permanent settlement in 
the Southwest, is mentioned in all the books of 
early travel and exploration on the plains. The 
author of the present paper has accumulated 
from a man born in Bent’s Old Fort a wealth 
of detail about the place and its people. 
Many sportsmen East and West are interested 
in the so-called Hungarian partridge, which after 
all is only the partridge of Europe. We are prom¬ 
ised an interesting series of articles on the shoot¬ 
ing of this bird in Europe and in America, and 
the methods practiced in its propagation. 
Altogether the programme of material for the 
coming year now on hand is one of extraordi¬ 
nary interest and fullness. 
CHARLES L. IORDAN. 
Another chapter has been added to the his¬ 
tory of the struggle between the owners of the 
Morris game preserve and residents of Tangi¬ 
pahoa parish, in Louisiana. On Feb. 26 Charles 
L. Jordan, superintendent of the preserve, was 
assassinated while attending to his duties. 
Mr. Jordan was a gentleman of the old South¬ 
ern school, kindly and courteous. He was an 
authority on Southern woodcraft and natural 
history, an artist and photographer of note. 
Some fifteen years ago there was published 
over his signature a valuable series of articles 
on hunting and photographing the wild turkey. 
His photographs of wild turkeys were remark¬ 
able, as showing the skill with which he ap¬ 
proached or lured these wary birds to photo¬ 
graphing range. In some of the pictures he 
utilized his skill as an artist in retouching his 
negatives, and this led to a bitter denunciation 
of Mr. Jordan by one of the naturalists—an 
attack which Mr. Jordan, in his kindness of 
heart, suffered in silence, though he was almost 
heart-broken over the incident. He wrote for 
Forest and Stream of turkey hunting, of which 
he was passionately fond, and many of his pic¬ 
tures were reproduced in these columns. 
Mr. Jordan was a native of Alabama and 
served through the Civil War in the Confederate 
Army. 
The preserve in question was established many 
years ago by the late John A. Morris. Cottages 
and camps were built, the woods stocked with 
game and the waters with fish, through propaga¬ 
tion. Always there have been conflicts between 
the wardens and lawless poachers. Last March 
Warden Tycer was tried and acquitted for the 
killing of a poacher named Thompson, who was 
shot in a fight on the preserve. 
The Belgian dogs which have been trained 
to assist the patrolmen in the outskirts of New 
York city proved their worth on a recent night. 
When an officer, no longer fleet of foot, at¬ 
tempted to capture three men who had been 
fighting, and who were in a fair way to escape, 
two of the dogs took part and so harried the 
men that they gave themselves up. These dogs 
are not large, but they are powerful and alert, 
and their actions so confuse and exhaust one 
who is trying to run that he gladly surrenders. 
They jump against him, dodge between his legs 
and trip him, so that locomotion becomes im¬ 
possible. Add to this the fear a dog nearly al¬ 
ways engenders in evil-doers, and the value of 
the police dog is proved. 
The recent earthquake in Messina will prob¬ 
ably affect the silkworm gut supply of this year 
and next. Some of the refina and refinucha 
grades come from Italy, but it is likely a large 
proportion of the Italian output had been ship¬ 
ped prior to the disaster. Aside from this, the 
visible supply of heavy salmon gut shows a 
shortage, and while prices have not as yet been 
advanced in the British market, they may be 
later on. Medium grades are abundant, but the 
quality of these and the largest sizes shows de¬ 
terioration. 
R 
A RUDE shock awaited the spring migrants last 
week, when a snow and sleet storm followed the 
April-like days which had lured so many of the 
birds from the balmy Southland. In the middle 
Atlantic States crows, robins-, blackbirds and 
bluebirds were moving northward in large num¬ 
bers when the blizzard arrived in true March 
fashion. 
