552 
FOREST AND STRE 
about an hour each day, on the start of the in¬ 
coming tide, and caught all we wanted for home 
use as well as supplying three other families, and 
at the farthest we were not in a eighth of a mile 
from home. As my daughter is here on a visit, 
and never had an opportunity to learn to catch 
fish, near my former home in Kansas, she had to 
learn the knack of it here, but she learned it, and 
on our third trip she caught twenty-four one 
pound grunters and red snappers with a hand line 
while on each day I got fast to some king fish 
of some kind, and so large that I could not get 
him to the surface, and with all my skill with rod 
and reel, the fish broke the copper wire connect¬ 
ing the line and hook (as our game fish are so 
well supplied with teeth, that we fasten all our 
hooks to a copper wire leader, to which we 
fasten our line) and left. 
If I were a northern sportsman and had the 
wealth to spare, and could get away from my 
business during the months of December, January 
or February in each year, I would have me a four 
or five room cottage of my own, and my own boat, 
and I would bring my family with me to enjoy 
the delights of our winter climate and be at home 
under my own roof, not in the fashionable tourist 
winter resorts, but at some point where the fishing 
was first class all those months, and right at the 
door, so that if the wife and children wanted to 
fish, from wharves they could do so within a stone 
throw of home. Salerno, Florida, is the place to 
secure such a home. 
I am not booming or boosting a land selling 
proposition, but from my sixty-five years of 
travel, fishing and hunting, in its varied exper¬ 
ience, I have never seen another place that of¬ 
fered such advantages for a sportsman’s colony 
of homes as Salerno, and I have persuaded the 
owner to make of Salerno a Mecca for sportsmen 
and sportsmen’s families, and to make the place 
known through the advertising columns of the 
Forest and Stream, with the hope that every 
brother of the Forest and Stream family, who 
would like such a home in our sunny south land 
write to the address therein given. 
Life of Professor Baird 
The Career of One of America’s Greatest Naturalists Appreciably 
Set Forth in Book Form 
A GENERATION ago the most famous of 
American laturalists was Spencer F. 
Baird. His life, though shorter than 
man’s allotted span, yet covered the most impor¬ 
tant epochs of biological science in America. 
An enthusiastic, hard-working boy, an energetic, 
busy man and organizer, and finally a wise and 
well-loved chief, he worked hard for his fellow- 
men for more than forty years. 
For thirty-seven years he was continuously in 
the scientific service of the government and did 
more to make known the higher forms of life 
in the further west and the marine life of the 
Atlantic coast than any man ever did or any 
man ever can do. Secretary of the Smithsonian 
Institution, developer and organizer of the 
United States National Museum, and Commis¬ 
sioner of Fisheries, he ever found some new 
work to initiate and to direct, and all that he 
took hold of he did well. His work as Com¬ 
missioner of Fisheries, economically so impor¬ 
tant, appealed with especial force to European 
experts, and the accomplishments of the United 
States Fish Commission were highly praised in 
Great Britain, Norway, Holland, Belgium and 
France. A great French authority said of his 
work that “pisciculture has nowhere produced re¬ 
sults which can be compared with those obtained 
in the United States.” 
Professor Baird worked for the love of his 
work, not for the money compensation that he 
received. Like many another man his reward 
for doing a piece of work was the satisfaction 
of doing it. 
The Life of Spencer Fullerton Baird, just pub¬ 
lished by J. B. Lippincott, of Philadelphia, has 
been prepared by Dr. Wm. H. Dali, who had long 
worked side by side with Professor Baird, and 
* Spencer Fullerton Baird, a Biography, by William 
Healey Dali, A. M., D. Sc.; with 19 illustrations. 
Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Co., 1915, Price, $3.50. 
who knew him well. During the last eighteen or 
twenty years of Professor Baird’s life Dr. Dali 
was closely associated with him, and much of 
what he tells in this volume happened under his 
own eyes. 
Professor Baird, who was born in 1823, was of 
an old Pennsylvania family, the son of Samuel 
Baird and Lydia MacFunn Biddle. He gradu¬ 
ated from Dickinson College in 1840, and about 
that time, having secured two fly-catchers that 
he did not recognize, he ventured to wrijte to 
John James Audubon, from whom he received a 
most friendly letter. This was the beginning of 
a corrspondence extending over more than seven 
years, during which young Baird did much help¬ 
ful work for the older naturalist. The volume 
before us is packed full of interesting letters 
from the naturalist and his young friend. This 
was the beginning of Baird’s scientific career. 
As the boy had worked hard in collecting his 
birds and other specimens, so the young man 
worked hard broadening his field, becoming al- 
ays bettter known and meeting such men as 
Dana and Henry. A list of his correspondents 
would indeed be a catalogue of the most famous 
students of science of the period between 1850 
and 1885, during the last part of which he stood 
in the front rank of American workers in 
science. 
Interesting pictures of the life of Washington 
as it was in 1850-60 are given in Dr. Dali’s bi¬ 
ography : 
“The Washington to which the Bairds came, 
leaving out the public buildings and the tran¬ 
sient political population, was a rather shabby 
Southern village scattered over a grandiose plan, 
of which Tom Moore, the poet, made fun. The 
unpaved streets were too wide to be improved 
from the tax receipts of an only moderately 
well-to-do population. The city directory was 
a thin pamphlet. There was a slave pen, and 
here and there rows of houses (some still stand¬ 
ing) with low attics where the slaves were locked 
in, after a certain hour in the evening. 
“The abundant trees of the present had not 
been planted, though there were a few elms on 
‘The Avenue.’ The summer sun heated the 
rough brick sidewalks to the baking point, and 
this warmth was given off liberally until mid¬ 
night or later. Folks gathered in chairs on the 
sidewalks in the evenings, or visited between the 
groups seated on the verandahs of better-class 
houses. 
“The less frequented streets afforded an abun¬ 
dant crop of grass, which was utilized by wan¬ 
dering domestic animals. 
“It was all primitive, village-like, and yet not 
without charm. The suburb of Georgetown to 
the west across Rock Creek—older than Wash¬ 
ington and more aristocratic, with narrow and 
closely built up streets and old-fashioned man¬ 
sions with lawns and gardens—was connected 
with the capital city by a line of rumbling om¬ 
nibuses.” 
The great service performed for science by 
Professor Baird will never be forgotten. He 
filled a unique position among the scientific 
workers of that day, and his personality made 
him greatly beloved by all with whom he was 
brought in contact. His duties were so many, 
his problems of administrative detail so con¬ 
stantly pressing, that he was frightfully over¬ 
worked, and died early, universally lamented. 
Dr. Dali’s biography is a splendid piece of 
work, and should be read by all naturalists. 
BIRDS IN THE WAR ZONE. 
Experiments and observations made in be¬ 
tween times at the various European battle 
fronts by bird-lovers have revealed some strik¬ 
ing characteristics of the feathered broods that 
have not been frightened from their accustomed 
haunts by the war. It is shown that crows, 
from generations of experience, fear rifle fire 
but not artillery fire, while song birds, never 
having known the fear of the hunter and his 
rifle, break into song when the guns are fired, 
but are alarmed at the tremendous explosions of 
shells. 
Even the trained artillery horses continue to 
show more fright at shell explosions than do the 
birds. The crows, for instance, do not even 
trouble to take to flight when a shell lands near 
them, but does not explode, and only rise for 
an instant when it does go off. But when the 
rifles begin to pop they put as much distance as 
possible between themselves and the trenches. 
Many of the soldiers have canaries in their 
trenches, and have conducted numerous experi¬ 
ments with them. Usually the discharge of a 
rifle is a signal for them to sing, and even the 
sound of breaking glass will bring the same re¬ 
sult. The same is true to a great extent of the 
wild song birds that abound, especially along 
the French front. 
The birds, of course, display a sharpness of 
vision that even a powerful telescope will not 
equal, and many times the warning of an attack 
has come first of all from the crows and other 
birds rising in alarm at some movement that 
the sentries for all their watchfulness had not 
detected. 
