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FOREST AND STREAM 
May II, 1912 
Published Weekly by the 
Forest and Stream Publishing Company, 
127 Franklin Street, New York. 
Charles Otis, President, 
C. B. Reynolds, Secretary, 
S. J. Gibson, Treasurer. 
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entertainment, instruction and information between Amer¬ 
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responsible for the views of correspondents. Anonymous 
communications will not be regarded. 
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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. 
FOR GAME REFUGES. 
The annual newspaper talk about the starving 
elk of Jackson’s Hole and the Yellowstone Park 
is over for another season. The snows have 
largely disappeared from the high country, and 
the elk have withdrawn from the lower lands to 
the mountains, where in due time the calves will 
be born, to swell the herds, which next year will 
be again driven down by the snows again to 
starve. It is reported that during the winter 
about 250 elk were captured in Jackson’s Hole 
and in the Yellowstone Park, and transferred 
to National and State game preserves in differ¬ 
ent parts of the country. 
This action is not a remedy for the deplor¬ 
able condition of the elk in the Yellowstone 
Park; it is only a palliative. 
In and about the Yellowstone Park are enough 
elk to establish important herds in different Na¬ 
tional parks and in game refuges which ought 
to be set aside in forest reserves over the West¬ 
ern country, where elk were once abundant. The 
'expense of establishing such herds would not be 
great, if only we had the place to put them. 
Many .States wish to see the elk replaced with¬ 
in their borders and protected there. Many 
States—or. if not State Governments, at least 
the citizens of States^—would be glad to pay the 
expenses of transporting these animals from the 
place of capture to places within the State where 
they should be set free. 
Within the great forest reserves of the West 
are many wide areas unsuited for agriculture. 
where there is no great amount of timber, and 
where elk, if protected, would flourish, increase 
and ultimately scatter out from the protected 
areas to stock adjacent territory. 
There is nothing new about this proposition. 
Nearly twenty years ago, in the first volume of 
the Boone and Crockett Club books, it was 
pointed out that the forest reserves offered then— 
and they do now-—opportunity for the preserva¬ 
tion of every species of large game known to the 
United States, and that by proper protection a 
full supply of all these animals might be per¬ 
petuated for all tinie. Soon after this the term 
game refuge—now so well known—was coined 
and came into use. Game refuges offer salvation 
to wild things. 
There is now before Congress a bill which 
authorizes the President, on the request of the 
Governor of any State, to set aside an area not 
exceeding 50,000 acres in any forest reservation 
in that State as a game refuge, which shall be 
under the charge of the Agricultural Depart¬ 
ment. The passage of such a measure would 
justify the restocking of such refuges with many 
sorts of game, and one game protective associa¬ 
tion, the Boone and Crockett Club, is prepared 
to furnish funds to restock one or more such 
reservations with native game, presumably elk. 
Those interested in the preservation of our 
large game animals will feel a deep interest in 
a work so practical and so useful as this. 
FEDERAL PROTECTION FOR MIGRA¬ 
TORY BIRDS. 
Bills to provide Federal protection for migra¬ 
tory birds, introduced in the United States Sen¬ 
ate by Senator McLean, and in the House of 
Representatives by Congressman Weeks, have 
both been reported favorably out of committee. 
The former was considered by the Senate Com¬ 
mittee on Forest Reservations and the Protec¬ 
tion of Game, and the latter by the House Com¬ 
mittee on Agriculture. 
In urging the necessity of this legislation, the 
American Game Protective and Propagation As¬ 
sociation, of III Broadway, New York city, says: 
“Millions of dollars can annually be saved to 
the people of the United States by wise and con¬ 
servative treatment of the enormous natural re¬ 
sources represented by our migrants. Under 
present conditions countless numbers of ducks, 
geese and shore birds are slaughtered at a time 
when every female killed means the destruction 
of a small flock. At all times the killing goes 
on at a rate that is out of all proportion to the 
natural increase.’’ 
E. Y. Visart, State game warden of Arkansas, 
reported in his endorsement of the Weeks’ bill 
that 90,(300 birds were sent from Mississippi 
county in one shipment on Oct. 16, 1911. Ac¬ 
cording to the game warden of Louisiana there 
were 4,265,585 ducks, geese and shore birds killed 
in that State during the winter of 1910 and 1911. 
The favorable report on the McLean bill by 
the Senate committee contains the following: 
“Game commissioners and other officials rep¬ 
resenting forty-three of the forty-eight States of 
the Union, together with some of the leading 
ornithologists of the country, appeared before 
your committee and their testimony, based upon 
years of experience and practical observation, 
was conclusive of the fact that State control of 
migratory birds must, from the very nature of 
the surrounding temptations and conditions, end 
in failure.” 
It is further pointed out in this report that 
the annual loss to the country through insect 
pests amounts to from seven hundred and ninety- 
flve to eight hundred million dollars. To bring 
home the signiflcance of these flgures the report 
adds that “there are about six hundred colleges 
in the United States to-day. Their buildings and 
endowments have been centuries in accumulation. 
The values of the college and university build¬ 
ings is estimated at $260,000,000, and the endow¬ 
ments at $219,000,000. If they should be de¬ 
stroyed to-morrow—buildings and endowments— 
the insect tax of one year would replace them 
and leave a balance sufficient to endow thirty- 
two new universities in the sum of ten million 
dollars each. 
There are, in this country to-day, about twenty 
million school children, and the cost of their edu¬ 
cation has become by far the heaviest tax laid 
upon the surplus of the country, yet it costs 
more by many millions to feed our insects than 
it does to educate our children. If there is any 
way in which this vast and destructive tax upon 
the national income can be prevented or stayed 
or resisted in any appreciable measure, it would 
seem to be the part of wisdom to act without 
delay. 
In conclusion the report says: “All of the 
foregoing evidence goes to demonstrate the 
existence of a natural economic relation between 
these three orders of life (vegetation, insects and 
birds). There is a sort of interdependence, and 
the existence of each one is dependent upon the 
existence of the others. But for the vegetation 
the insects would perish, and but for the insects 
the birds would perish, and but for the birds 
the vegetation would be shortly destroyed by the 
unchecked increase of insect destroyers. 
“It is the earnest, recommendation of your 
committee that the pending bill receive favorable 
consideration.” 
It is our observation that State control of 
migratory birds has been a failure, beyond per- 
adventure; that the sooner we get Federal con¬ 
trol of migratory game and insectivorous birds, 
that much sooner will the destruction of useful 
migratory birds cease, therefore Congress should 
pass the McLean bill and pass it at once. 
GOVERNOR DIX IN BLACK FOREST. 
That Governor Dix has forest conservation 
seriously at heart is evidenced in the sentiment 
expressed in the following paragraph: 
“The principal object this time of my going 
to Europe is to devote some weeks of study to 
forestation in the Black Forest, which I have not 
visited for several years. This subject is of vast 
importance in America, where a policy of forest 
preservation and development has become a posi¬ 
tive necessity, and I am pleased to think that I 
have made it one of the features of my adminis¬ 
tration.” 
The Governor’s action in this case is in line 
with his attitude in all other forest, flsh and 
game matters that have come before him during 
his administration. First, to get personal knowl¬ 
edge of conditions as they exist before acting 
unon them. Second, to sign only such bills as 
his investigation leads him to believe are just 
and to the best interests of the greatest number. 
As Goethe puts it, “Mehr Licht erst,” with de¬ 
cisive and immediate action afterward. 
