100 
FOREST AND STREAM 
A 
Conservation—or Conversation? 
T HE policy of this journal with reference to 
game conservation is so well established 
as to require no new enunciation. It is 
a creed the actual and lamentable necessity of 
which is being demonstrated day by day. 
Whether it has proven popular or not is beside 
the mark. 
But while we hold to this creed, we do not 
deny our columns to those who disagree with 
us. The man who thinks we are wrong is af¬ 
forded an opportunity to express his views, if 
they are worthy of expression. We do not be¬ 
lieve in controversy; we do not invite it, but 
our opinion is that the best way to settle a dis¬ 
puted point is to have the matter thrashed out 
in the open. That is why we so often publish 
both sides of a case, even though our contribu¬ 
tors are frequently over frank in expressing their 
disagreement with the views held by this paper. 
In the present issue will be found communica¬ 
tions on the migratory bird law that may be re¬ 
ceived with a sentiment of wrath and open dis¬ 
sent by many people. But let us analyze or look 
further into the motives, or rather the other 
work of the large group of men whose views 
are expressed, we will sa£, by the Interstate 
Sportsmen's Association. These men, and as a 
matter of fact similar associations in other 
states, are fighting the migratory bird law be¬ 
cause they feel that an injustice has been done 
in placing them within a zone where they do 
not belong. 
The Situation Peculiar. 
T HE situation is peculiar, in that the very 
men who are protesting against—but still, 
as good citizens, observing the migratory 
bird law—are engaged at this very moment in 
the fight of their lives to protect the game 
within the states from destruction by indiffer¬ 
ent and hostile legislatures. 
What are we to think when a member of the 
Missouri Legislature arises in his seat and offers 
publicly to defend without charge any violator 
of state game laws? What sort of sentiment is 
it that inspires the introduction in the California 
Legislature of a bill removing all protection from 
meadow larks? What sort of state legislation, 
or lack of legislation, permits a man to shoot 
from their roosts 800 robins, as cited by a cor¬ 
respondent in another column? If, as argued 
by some Forest and Stream correspondents of 
legal profession, the game belongs to tbe State, 
then it is high time that the states make a more 
creditable effort in protecting it. 
The State and Posterity. 
B UT in a larger sense, does the game be¬ 
long to the State? Does it not be¬ 
long to posterity quite as much as the 
present generation? We urge every sports¬ 
man into whose hands this paper falls to read 
carefully and ponder over the article “Con¬ 
fessions of a Market Hunter” published on an¬ 
other page. Aside from the horror of butchery 
which it outlines, whole sermons on game con¬ 
servation might be drawn from it. If the State 
owned the game which the market hunters swept 
from the face of the earth, the people of the 
State certainly derived no revenue from legal pos¬ 
session. Their property was stolen outright, and 
a crime equally great committed against the 
present generation. 
Which Class Do You Prefer? 
AN we think kindly of a policy which de¬ 
prived the people of to-day of an oppor¬ 
tunity to enjoy legitimate sport and recrea¬ 
tion in the field? Sportsmanship aside, the 
economic blunder, and as a corollary the graver 
blunder which is destroying America’s power of 
defense by depriving its people of an opportunity 
to become good marksmen and therefore good 
soldiers are equally indefensible. To put the 
matter in a word, will you, reader, shoot ducks 
in the Spring when your own common sense 
teaches you that such shooting means exter¬ 
mination? Will you allow your state protective 
laws to be repealed while wasting your time in 
a useless argument whether the game belongs 
to the State or to the Nation? Will it be said 
of you in the next generation that you were 
of a class adhering to the theory, “after us the 
deluge” or do you desire to leave to your child¬ 
ren and successors a heritage of some game and 
a memory of having been considerate of pos¬ 
terity and the needs of the Republic in making 
possible the maintenance of a trained reserve of 
men familiar with arms and capable of repeat¬ 
ing if necessary the glorious record of their an¬ 
cestors who by skill in marksmanship and out¬ 
door life saved this Republic on more than one 
occasion? The answer rests with you, and you 
cannot evade the responsibility. 
Eels and Law in Tangled Knot. 
NCIENT Athens was the seat of learning, 
art and other distinguishing characteris¬ 
tics, but modern Athens (New York State) ' 
not to be outdone by its Grecian namesake, has 
produced a legal puzzle that may induce more 
controversy and more scratching of legal heads 
than the first casual reading may indicate. 
It appears that one Chas. Cri'pps, having un¬ 
lawfully taken a number of eels with a spear in 
hand (we are quoting from a transcript of the 
docket) from the waters of 'the Hudson River in 
the town of Athens, at or near a certain point 
known as the McCabe Ice' House, was promptly 
pounced upon by a deputy game warden and 
brought before 'Orin Q. Flint, Justice of 'the 
Peace. The defendant pleaded guilty to the 
dharge of taking eels in such manner, but denied 
that the same was illegal. The Court, after due 
deliberation, agreed that the defendant’s point 
was well taken and held itself bound “to take 
judicial notice of the fact that eels are a migra¬ 
tory food fish of the sea in that if has been de¬ 
termined that invariably eels are born in the salt 
waters of the sea and ascend the fresh watbrs of 
creeks and rivers tributary to the sea, and again 
return to the sea, as defined by sub-division 2, 
Section 177, part 3, Ghapter 508 of the Laws of 
1913, and as such are exempt from the provisions 
of this article.” 
Forest and Stream will not attempt to say 
whether the law as laid down by Justice Flint 
will hold, but it is bound to maintain that Mr. 
Flint, who by the way, has been a regular reader 
of Forest and Stream for many years, has his 
natural history down pat. His feet there are on 
solid ground, so solid in fact that even a plaguey 
eel can not wiggle 'through. 
March. 
ARCH, the Blusterer, is here. Few signs 
are there in the north that winter is end¬ 
ing, for the brooks and lakes are still 
fast in the iron grip of winter, and snow covers 
/he ground which rings under the footstep. Bu+ 
one feels intuitively and even tangibly that the 
sun is warmer. He is swinging north again; 
the days are longer, and there is a friendlier 
and a softer gleam on the landscape. It is not 
impossible to find, buried deep in the swamp, the 
unmistakable sign of that unpoetic but sure har¬ 
binger of spring, the skunk cabbage. The snow 
is melting on the exposed places, revealing to 
the close observer the architectural ruins of the 
marvelous little dwellers under the snow, who 
have tunnelled incredibly long distances in search 
of food. Within a week or two, if the sun be 
shining brightly, the twitter and the warble of 
the first song sparrow may be heard. Overhead 
the wedges of water fowl flying north may be 
seen. Thanks to enlightened sentiment these 
sadly diminished aerial squadrons can wing their 
way in safety to breeding grounds in the far 
distant places. The farmer's boy, blest of all 
mortals, knows that spring is near, if only be¬ 
cause of the thousand extra tasks that are being 
imposed on him in the busy preparation to open 
the sugar camp. Sap will be running; the flick¬ 
ering fire in the woods will reveal the activities 
of “boiling off,” a process now so mechanically 
improved as to have lost its earlier crude woods 
flavor, but still a red letter time in the boy’s 
life. Sap also will be running soon in the city 
angler's veins. It is a recurrent feeling, symp¬ 
toms of which may be pleasant or unpleasant, 
depending largely on the circumstance whether 
the angler will be able to go fishing this spring, 
but a symptom which is welcome, nevertheless. 
It may be cured at times by an overhauling of 
the tackle book and an examination of the fly rod, 
but who wants to cure it? A disease this is, 
that ought to be made more catching. 
More Money Needed for Parks 
O FAULT can be found with the develop¬ 
ment of our National park system idea, but 
the administration of these areas of recrea¬ 
tion and natural wonders by a dozen different bu¬ 
reaus at Washington is to be criticized, if only for 
the reason that it destroys the hope of any coher¬ 
ent plan of development. At present Congress is 
appropriating about three hundred thousand 
dollars a year for the protection of National 
parks, which contrasts very unfavorably with the 
^even hundred thousand dollars Canada expends 
for similar purposes. The scenery of Switzerland 
is estimated to be worth more than two hundred 
and fifty million dollars a year to the people of 
that little country, and the scenery of Switzerland 
cannot compare with that to be found in many 
of our own wonderlands. 
