59 G 
FOREST AND STREAM 
May II, 1912 
[Since the first published announcement of the 
discovery of the moas seventy-five years ago, 
these birds have been the cause of endless specu¬ 
lation. Their enormous size, the abundance of 
their remains, and the many curious circum¬ 
stances connected with them, stimulated the 
imagination of all who learned about them. 
As a matter of fact, nothing is known as to 
when the moas were exterminated. One natu¬ 
ralist believes that in the North Island they be¬ 
came extinct soon after the arrival of the Maoris, 
which was 700 or 800 years ago. Another orni¬ 
thologist thinks that in the South Island they 
lasted much longer, perhaps “down even to the 
time that Captain Cook visited New Zealand.” 
What is certain is this, that in dry caves bones 
with the dried fle§h still clinging to them, skin, 
feathers and eggs of which the inner membrane 
has not disappeared have been found. 
Mr. Henry’s conjectures sent us by Allen Kelly 
are speculations and nothing more. It may even 
be questioned whether we shall ever learn much 
about the time when the moas existed. 
These great birds, some of which must have 
stood twelve feet high, were probably herbivor¬ 
ous, and may very likely have fed on the shoots 
of the ferns so abundant in New Zealand. 
Five genera have been recognized, with about 
twenty species. In size they ranged from that 
of a turkey to the great height just mentioned. 
One of the most interesting things about the 
moas is the almost complete absence of the wing. 
These birds were Ratotae—the group containing 
the ostriches, rheas, cassowaries and emeus.— 
Editor.] 
Camp Foods. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
As one of your oldest subscribers, I am going 
to ask you why you don’t give us an article on 
camp foods? 
Like most other readers of out-door magazines, 
I am thoroughly familiar with the always in¬ 
teresting but somewhat stereotyped lists of foods 
to be carried when ' “hitting the trail,” a time 
when every ounce of superfluous weight must 
be done away with and only the actual neces¬ 
sities for sustenance of life can win pack-room. 
But somehow or other most, if not all, of the 
articles on camping out—and here I am not re¬ 
ferring to your publication alone—seem to be 
based on the idea of the exploring party. Now, 
I believe that, as a matter of fact, there are one 
hundred of your readers who spend their sum¬ 
mers in fixed camps to one reader who, with a 
gun, a fish hook, an ax and a pinch of salt, dares 
the unexplored wilderness. 
My own experience of tent-life dates back 
about thirty years, and while my trips have been 
confined to North America, yet a man who has 
tried Nova Scotia and Florida, the Temagami 
Region and the Texas coast, the IMaine forest 
and the California desert, can claim some little 
knowledge of how to live out-doors. 
Instead of articles telling the readers how 
much they can do without in the way of extra 
food supplies and camp comforts generally, why 
don’t you give us an article on the many camp 
luxuries, insignificant in bulk and ine.xpensive in 
price, you can take along with you just as well 
as not. 
When I first began to go on camping trips, 
about the only foods we had were sardines and 
potted ham. Nowadays it is perfectly possible to 
outfit a camp with package food supplies at a 
great saving in convenience and at no extra cost, 
because of the elimination of waste. 
Just to mention a few items—there’s soup, 
bouillon cubes, beef extracts, concentrated clam 
broth, any kind of canned meat or fish you can 
think of, any kind of vegetable, all kinds of 
crackers, evaporated milk, condensed milk, malted 
milk and—but I could spin the list out in¬ 
definitely. 
Of course, a man could pick up a knowledge 
of these things by reading advertisements, but 
these package food people don’t seem to adver¬ 
tise in the magazines devoted to men, and the 
average reader of these publications is too apt to 
absorb the idea that nothing should be taken 
into camp that you can do without. Roughing it 
is all right—within limits. But those of us who 
spend a good part of each year in the open—at 
least those of us who “have come to forty year” 
—see no valid objection to a little comfort along 
with our fresh air. Richard Montgomery. 
Massachusetts Stops Sale of Game. 
After three months of the hardest fighting 
ever known in the State of Massachusetts over 
bills for the better protection of wild life, last 
week the House of Representatives passed, by 
a vote of six to one, the Senate’s bill to stop 
the sale of all native wild game in the State of 
Massachusetts, to promote the sale of game bred 
and reared in preserves, and to permit the sale 
of certain species of foreign game. The tagging 
system, which is working so well in New York, 
is also provided for. A bag limit bill was 
also passed, immediately after the no-sale 
measure. 
During the whole of the present session of the 
Legislature, the market gunners of Massachu¬ 
setts and certain game dealers have made most 
determined efforts to repeal the present law that 
prohibits spring shooting, and also to defeat all 
new legislation in behalf of game. Five times 
in quick succession were spring shooting bills 
introduced and defeated. The advance of the 
Wharton no-sale-of-game bill was bitterly op¬ 
posed at every point, and the opposition was 
strong and well organized. 
The wild life protectionists of Massachusetts 
rallied to the defense of the remnant of game 
as never before. Lawyers, business men and 
professors left their offices and devoted weeks 
and even months of effort to the task of arous¬ 
ing the people's representatives to the serious 
conditions now affecting the remnant of game 
and about to compass its extermination. The 
organized sportsmen of Boston and Springfield, 
the State Audubon Society, the American Bison 
Society, the Boston Society of Natural History, 
and a strong contingent from Harvard Univer¬ 
sity, formed an army of defense that proved 
effective. The campaign was strongly supported 
by the New York Zoological Society, a national 
organization whose field of effort is the whole 
continent. 
During the last two years three of the great 
national plague centers for the sale of slaugh¬ 
tered game have been literally cleaned up—New 
York, St. Louis and Boston. There yet remains 
Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore and New Or¬ 
leans. W. T. Hornaday. 
Boone and Crockett Club Dinner. 
The annual Washington dinner of the Boone 
and Crockett Club was held at the Metropolitan 
Club in that city. May 4. About fifty members 
and guests were present. Major W. Austin 
Wadsworth presided. Among those present were 
W. J. Boardman, Admiral Willard H. Bronson, 
Major Henry T. Allen, Col. D. L. Brainerd, F. 
H. Newell, Drs. C. H. Merriam, A. K. Fisher 
and T. S. Palmer, Hon. H. L. Stimson, Hon. W. 
L. Fisher, Hon. C. Nagel, Arnold Hague, Col. 
Henry May, of Washington, Royal Phelps Car- 
roll, W. Redmond Cross, Walter B. Devereux, 
Henry Griswold Gray, George Bird Grinnell, Dr. 
Lewis Rutherford Morris, ^Morgan Davis, Chas. 
Sheldon, W. Fitzhugh Whitehouse and J. Walter 
Wood, of New York; Geo. L. Harrison, Dr. 
Cadwalader, Wilson Potter, of Philadelphia; J. 
Sterett Gittings, of Baltimore, Md., and Con¬ 
gressmen Fitzgerald, Martin and Sulzer. 
After the dinner was over the discussion of 
the evening was devoted largely to the preserva¬ 
tion of big game and fur-bearing animals and 
kindred subjects. Chas. Sheldon, chairman of 
the Game Preservation Committee of the Boone 
and Crockett Club, explained at some length the 
club’s past and present activities. Those of the 
past are sufficiently well known; at present the 
club is endeavoring to restock with large game 
certain areas from which that game has been 
exterminated. With this in view it urges the 
passage of a bill now before Congress, which 
will authorize the President to set aside, at the 
request of the Governor of any State, areas not 
to exceed 50,000 acres in any forest reserve with¬ 
in that State as a game refuge, to be in charge 
of the Department of Agriculture. Mr. Sheldon 
announced that when such a bill should be passed 
and such refuges established, the club would pro¬ 
vide means to stock certain areas with such 
species of big game as it might deem desirable. 
Secretary Stimson, a long time member of the 
club, a great bear hunter in old days and known 
as having, with another member of the club, been 
the first person to climb Chief Mountain from 
the east side, spoke earnestly in behalf of this 
measure. 
Secretary Nagel made an interesting discourse 
on the preservation of the fur seals, and an¬ 
nounced his agreement with the universal testi¬ 
mony of naturalists that there should be no close 
season on male seals. 
Secretary Fisher called attention to the efforts 
being made to establish some sort of co-ordina¬ 
tion in the management of the various National 
parks. He referred to the conference of Na¬ 
tional park superintendents held last year at the 
Yellowstone Park, a report of the proceedings 
of which has been published by the Interior De¬ 
partment. He felt that a Bureau of National 
Parks, or some organization to make the man¬ 
agement of these parks more effective, should 
be established. 
Congressman Sulzer spoke interestingly of the 
importance of preserving wild life, and illus¬ 
trated his remarks by some accounts of his ex¬ 
perience in Alaska, which he has visited no less 
than fourteen times. 
Congressman Fitzgerald, after declaring that 
he was not a hunter, said nevertheless that like 
many others he was interested in the preserva¬ 
tion of wild life; that he had learned much by 
what he had heard that evening, and that he 
