112 
FOREST AND STREAM 
[Jan. 27, 1912. 
California Notes. 
San Francisco, Cal., Jan. 15.— Editor Forest 
and Stream: At the annual meeting of the Cali¬ 
fornia Fish and Game Commission, Frank W. 
Newbert, of Sacramento, was elected president. 
Mr. Newbert has been a member of the com¬ 
mission but a short time, having been appointed 
by Governor Johnson to fill the vacancy caused 
by' the resignation of Dr. David Starr Jordan 
prior to the departure of the latter for Japan 
on a lecture tour. The new president of the 
commission has a very wide acquaintance among 
sportsmen in this State, and is especially well 
versed with the fish and game laws. 
Another new member has taken his seat with 
the commissioners. Carl Westerfeld was ap¬ 
pointed a short time ago to fill the vacancy 
caused by the resignation of Fred D. Sanborn. 
Dr. C. FI. Gilbert, of Stanford University, who 
has been making a special study of the history 
of Pacific coast salmon and other fish, tendered 
his resignation, which was accepted, and this 
work will now be in charge of 'W. H. Shebley, 
superintendent of State hatcheries. 
The district of the State formerly under the 
direct control of the San Francisco office has 
been divided and a branch has been established 
at Sacramento in charge of Commissioner New¬ 
bert. The territory controlled from the new 
office will extend from the summit of the coast 
range mountains to the eastern boundary of the 
State, and from the Oregon line south to the 
San Joaquin Valley district, in charge of A. D. 
Ferguson. The San Francisco office will have 
charge of the coast territory and the counties 
around the bay. 
Steps are being made for the betterment of 
the service, and it is planned to place civil ser¬ 
vice rules in operation in all departments. It is 
not planned to have the examination for such 
position as game warden of a technical char¬ 
acter, but to make it of such a nature that 
hunters and woodsmen can successfully compete. 
It is also planned to have a traveling deputy 
whose duty will be to cover the entire State, 
visiting game wardens and instructing them in 
their work. Violations of the law are to be 
dealt with with more strictness than in the past, 
and during open seasons special deputies will 
be on duty in the duck and quail districts. 
Secretary Ernest Schaeffle’s report shows a 
balance of $104,899.15 in the treasury. During 
the year just closed there were 766 arrests made 
for violations of the fish and game laws and 612 
convictions were secured. Fines paid amounted 
to $13,693.50 and jail sentences totalled 309 days. 
The success that has been met with in oper¬ 
ating the State game farm and fish hatcheries 
has been such that it has been decided to in¬ 
crease the output of these. The game farm will 
be retained at Hayward, with an auxiliary farm 
at Folsom where birds will be reared on the 
prison grounds. Valley quail are now being se¬ 
cured, and it is planned to rear these in large 
numbers. 
Rabbit drives, which were formerly common 
throughout the San Joaquin val'ey, are now rare¬ 
ly held, owing to the fact that in but few places 
are jack rabbits to be found in sufficient num¬ 
bers to make such an event successful. An old- 
time drive was held recently at Raisin City, near 
Fresno, in which 600 persons took part. The 
hunters made a line four miles square and grad¬ 
ually closed upon the rabbits, killing them with 
clubs and shotguns. No rifles or revolvers were 
allowed. Over 1,000 rabbits were killed as well 
as three coyotes and other predatory animals, 
the rabbits being shipped to the Salvation Army 
at Los Angeles. 
Mayor Frank Mott, of Oakland, has offered a 
reward of $25 for the arrest and conviction of 
anyone caught shooting ducks on Lake Merritt, 
which is in the heart of the city. The park 
commissioners have been feeding the birds and 
doing everything in their power to induce them 
to stay on the lake, but numbers of them have 
been killed by early morning hunters. Shooting 
is prohibited within the city limits, but the lake 
is so large that it can be patrolled with difficulty. 
Justice of the Peace Holton 'Webb, of Riverside, 
Cal., was shot and seriously injured on Jan. 4 
by an Italian, John Chinicci, whose son had been 
fined by Webb for shooting without a license. 
Heavy storms throughout the Pacific North¬ 
west have driven southward ducks and geese in 
large numbers. The rains to date have been 
very light, and as a result there is splendid 
shooting. Nowhere is there a lack of water, 
and the arrival of northern birds is keeping the 
ponds well stocked. The absence of heavy 
storms here has resulted in shooting on San 
Francisco Bay and the nearby marshes being 
better relatively than in the interior. 
A magnificent specimen of the wandering alba¬ 
tross, recently caught on the coast, has been 
presented to the Golden Gate Park Museum at 
San Francisco by J. B. Williams. The bird 
stands five feet in height and measures nine 
feet from tip of wing to tip of wing. 
Golden Gate. 
Southern Game. 
New Orleans, La., Jan. 20 .— Editor Forest and 
Stream: The severe cold spell has rather de¬ 
terred even the hardiest and most daring hunters 
during the past several days. The rainy spell 
lasted several weeks and was intersperced with 
intense cold for this climate. There were sev¬ 
eral freezes, and ice formed on many of the 
still waters and lagoons. 
Ducks at the present time are more plentiful 
than at any time this season. The ducks are in 
excellent condition. The market hunters have 
had almost a monopoly recently and have 
brought large numbers to the city and shipped 
hundreds to the large cities in the North and 
East. Quail have not been so abundant as was 
anticipated. 
Mayor Martin Behrman, of New Orleans, re¬ 
ceived during the week by express a wild turkey 
gobbler weighing twenty-three pounds. The bird 
was sent by a friend who resides in Covington, 
thirty miles from this city. The gobbler was 
killed in the woods near Covington. The Mayor 
was also the recipient during the last few days 
of another big wild turkey shot near Abita 
Springs. Both of these specimens attracted con¬ 
siderable attention when they were displayed at 
the City Hall. The turkeys were in splendid 
condition and proved incentives to several to 
seek turkeys in the localities referred to. 
Practically nothing has been done in the way 
of fishing during the past two weeks on account 
of bad weather and storms. It is hardly prob¬ 
able very much fishing will be had until after 
the Mardi Gras. F. G. G. 
A Tribute to Charles Sheldon. 
Louisville, Ky., Jan. 12. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: I have just received a very high tribute 
to the distinguished genius of Charles Sheldon. 
It came to me unsolicited in a letter from an 
Alaskan who was companion and guide to Mr. 
Sheldon for a number of months. In part, it 
follows: 
“You said you had read Mr. Sheldon's book 
on the ‘Wilderness of the Yukon.’ He is very 
conservative and thorough. What he writes you 
can depend on, and a better sportsman never hit 
the hills. He nearly always hunts alone, and 
whatever he goes after he generally gets. I have 
known him to start out at 8 in the morning with 
a biscuit and a ‘billie’ of tea, and if he made a 
killing, get back at two or three on the following 
morning, with the skull and hide. Not once, but 
many times has he done this. He always takes 
his notes in the field and never lets them run 
Over a day. If I were with him he would read 
them over to me to see if I thought he had ex¬ 
aggerated. I never found that he had. He was 
always very conservative and yet thorough.’’ 
The guide’s report merely confirms the opinion 
anyone must have after reading what Mr. Shel¬ 
don has published. His Yukon book will rank 
with the best of English and American books on 
mountain hunting. And to natural history he is 
opening up a hitherto little known region, the 
Northern Rocky Mountains. It is with lively 
interest and keen appreciation that one learns 
that his recent superb volume on the British 
Yukon is to be followed in after years by the 
publication of his journals of travels in the upper 
Mount McKinley region, and on the islands of 
Alaska. 
Natural historians will no doubt follow with 
profound interest and considerable enlighten¬ 
ment the notes as they are made public of the 
close and careful scrutiny Mr. Sheldon has made 
of the habits and relationships of the large mam¬ 
mals in several years’ field work in the .rqmote 
and out-of-way Northwest America. 
Brent Altsheler. 
■-'ju. 
Will Bear Watching. 
New Salem, Mass., Jan. j 8 .—Editor Forest 
and Stream: At a recent public conference 
called by the Massachusetts Fish and Game Pro¬ 
tective Association at Boston, it was mentioned 
by one man that wherever pheasants abound, 
there are no partridges. 
In a report from Batavia, N. Y., in your issue 
of Jan. 13, Mr. Gardiner mentions the shooting 
of a large number of pheasants in his county 
last fall, indicating that pheasants are plentiful 
there, but he remarks incidentally that “our par¬ 
tridge (grouse) have about been cleaned out in 
this county, and we expect to get a three years’ 
closed season beginning in the fall.’’ 
In the book published by our State, “Useful 
Birds and Their Protection,” the author men¬ 
tions watching a ring-necked pheasant and a quail 
feeding together, and one day seeing a pheasant 
strike a quail on the head with its beak, exactly 
as a hen will sometimes strike and kill a strange 
chicken. 
For the restoration of partridges, therefore, 
perhaps it is well that a large number of pheas¬ 
ants were shot in Genesee county last fall. 
These foreigners will bear watching. 
E. O. M. 
