84 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Jan. 20, 1912. 
'' Published Weekly by the 
Forest and Stream Publishing Company, 
127 Franklin Street, New York. 
Edward C. Locke, President, 
Charles B. Reynolds, Secretary, 
S. J. Gibson, Treasurer. 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
The Forest and Stream is the recognized medium of 
entertainment, instruction and information betw.een 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. 
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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: Davies & 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¬ 
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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. 
FEED THE BIRDS. 
Throughout the United States low tempera¬ 
tures have prevailed during the past fortnight 
and storms of snow, sleet and rain have taken 
heavy toll of the furred and feathered game. 
The survivors need attention, and every sports¬ 
man should devote a little time to placing feed 
where it will be found by the game and other 
birds. This work is systematically done in many 
places, but there is not a woodlot or thicket that 
does not provide shelter for wild life, and every 
effort made to conserve this wiil bring satisfac¬ 
tory returns. Feed the birds. 
FUR SEAL LEGISLATION. 
Although the convention between Great 
Britain, Russia, Japan and the United States 
that met last summer agreed that pelagic seal¬ 
ing should cease. Congress has not yet ratified 
the convention's action. A bill providing such 
a ratification is now in committee of the House. 
There is also before the House a resolution of¬ 
fered by Mr. Rothermel, forbidding the killing 
of any seals on the Pribilof Islands for a period 
of fifteen years. That resolution, if passed, 
would undo much of the good promised by the 
agreement of the powers with regard to pelagic 
sealing. 
The habits of the fur seal have been so closely 
studied that they are well understood. The male 
fur seal gathers about him a company of twenty 
to one hundred females that he defends against 
all other males. Rival bulls are constantly striv¬ 
ing to steal females from each other, a bull seiz¬ 
ing a female in adjacent territory and-lifting her 
over to his own harem. If the bull from which 
the female is being taken, sees what is being 
done, he seizes the cow to retain her, and in the 
struggle she may be torn to pieces or greatly in¬ 
jured. Among fur seals the pups are produced 
in equal numbers, and as a result of their poly¬ 
gamous habits there is under ordinary condi¬ 
tions a great surplus of males. These, while still 
too young and too weak to hold a position in 
the rookery as breeding males, herd by them¬ 
selves. In past years the number of these bache¬ 
lor males was kept down by the killing for fur, 
enough being left to supply the loss among the 
breeding males from old age or death. 
If the resolution suspending the killing of all 
seals on the Pribilof Islands for fifteen years 
should pass, in a few years there would be a 
great body of strong adult males which would 
invade the rookeries, causing constant fighting, 
and as a result the destruction of a great num¬ 
ber of young and female seals. Such destruc¬ 
tion would tend to delay for a number of years 
the re-establishment of the fur seals on the 
Pribilof Islands in anything like their old num¬ 
bers. The resolution is opposed by every fur 
seal e.xpert who has been on the islands for the 
last twenty years, and all naturalists familiar 
with the subject believe that it would be very 
injurious to the fur seal herd. 
If a farmer has a dozen cows or a dozen 
ewes, he does not at the breeding time turn into 
the pasture with these cows a dozen bulls or a 
dozen rams. If he did that, the consequences 
can easily be imagined. Precisely similar results 
would be attained by treating the Pribilof fur 
seal herd in the manner proposed by House 
Resolution 277. 
Reports from Washington indicate that the 
House Committee on Foreign Affairs will report 
the ratification bill almost as introduced, and will 
not regard the representations of those who are 
urging a close season on the fur seals. 
THE COMMISSION PLAN. 
In the report of the Conservation Commission 
to the New York Legislature is found another 
hint that at some future day the people will be 
urged to empower that commission to take from 
the Legislature the making, as well as the en¬ 
forcing, of the forest, fish and game laws. 
The plan is not new, for it has been applied 
more or less successfully in other countries, but 
it is not likely that it will meet with the favor 
of lawmakers, some of whom find their principal 
occupation during legislative sessions in the jug¬ 
gling of the game laws. The desire for simpler 
game laws is growing, however, and when the 
long-suffering public finally demands that an end 
be put to the incessant changing of seasons, as 
it may be expected to do some day, then the 
plan to give over this work to a small group of 
men will be brought up for approval. 
It is not without merit. There is reason in 
the belief that a commission of three or five men 
seeking to please an entire State, can make bet¬ 
ter game and fish regulations than a hundred 
men, each of whom is pledged to carry out the 
wishes of a few constituents. And if the com¬ 
mission plan is ever carried out, there will, it 
is hoped, be few local laws to confuse and dis¬ 
courage sportsmen from other portions of the 
State, who must now know that it is unlawful 
to fish in Blue Run between Jake Smith’s black¬ 
smith shop and the Millville dam. 
Insofar as it applies to the supervision and 
regulation of lumbering on private lands with¬ 
in the Adirondack and Catskill Parks, the Con¬ 
servation ■ Commission’s recommendation for 
more power is sound. Scientific forestry, so- 
called, or rather common sense forestry, is 
needed on such lands as are not now within 
the jurisdiction of the commission, but which 
should be, since the cutting of every tree in the 
Adirondacks bears just so much on the solution 
of the question of preserving the stream heads. 
The American Forestry Association, at its 
thirteenth annual convention, held in Washington 
last week, recommended that the Forest Service 
be taken entirely out of politics and put on a 
scientific basis. The association also urged Con¬ 
gress to make further appropriations for the 
purchase of additional forest lands in the South¬ 
ern Appalachians and the White Mountains. Gov¬ 
ernor Robert P. Bass, of New Hampshire, was 
re-elected president, and Mrs. Grover Cleveland 
was elected a life member. 
No word of comfort has so far been received 
by the friends of Edmund S. Bailey, Dr. C. A. 
Clemons and Thomas Veltman, who departed 
from Bay Shore, N. Y., more than a week ago, 
intending to shoot wildfowl on Short Beach 
Island, in Great South Bay. Their motor boat 
was recovered, but no trace of the men or the 
small boat in which they put out for their shoot¬ 
ing box has been found. 
The forest situation may not inaptly be likened 
to the late Mark Twain’s whimsical description 
of his efforts to farm. He had succeeded, he 
said, in making one blade of grass grow where 
only three had grown before. And to-day great 
efforts are being made to replant more than one 
tree for every five that are felled. 
A buck deer that escaped from a crate and 
ran down Broadway some years ago created 
more excitement than the fox hunt which took 
place in Fifth avenue last Monday, for the fox’s 
dodging tactics were not equal to the buck’s 
speed, and he was cornered and taken alive in 
short order. 
There will be a brave showing of winter 
sports in Montreal next month. The annual 
convention of the American Physical Education 
Association is to be held there Feb. 22-24, in¬ 
clusive, and the plans include numerous outdoor 
sports. 
The new railway which is to be built in the 
spring, from St. John to Grand Falls, N. B., will 
render 200 miles of excellent shooting and fish¬ 
ing country accessible to sportsmen. It will 
traverse the St. John River valley the entire 
distance. 
•t 
An industrial exposition will be held in 
Manila, P. L, Feb. 3-10, inclusive. Admission 
will be free to the grounds, which will be situ¬ 
ated on Wallace Field, where the annual carni¬ 
vals are alwavs held. 
About 600 moose were killed by sportsmen 
during the recent open season in Nova Scotia. 
