762 
FOREST AND S T REAM 
The Moose—and A Moral 
A CONTRIBUTOR in this issue refers to a 
fact that may have escaped the attention 
of the average sportsman. That is, in 
only one State in the Union was it permissible 
during the season of 1915 to hunt moose under 
a general license. Minnesota was the State in 
question. True, Wyoming for the first time in 
a dozen years permitted the killing of a limited 
number of moose under special license of $100, 
but from facts at hand it does not seem that the 
maximum limit was reached. Maine, a name 
that has been almost synonymous with moose 
for nearly a century, has enacted a closed season 
law. Thus the greatest game animal of America 
is under almost universal protection. This means 
only one thing. Moose have been killed off so 
rapidly, or rather so regularly, that the danger 
point has been reached and to perpetuate the 
species it has been found necessary to cease 
hunting them. 
A different state of affairs prevails over the 
northern border. In New Brunswick more than 
one thousand moose are shot every fall, without 
apparent effect on the remaining supply, and in 
Quebec the hunting is good. This latter state of 
affairs, while attributable of course to good game 
legislation, is not due entirely to this fact, for 
the hunting laws while stringent are yet liberal 
enough to give the ordinary hunter a chance at 
game. Judging from what has happened in the 
United States, the Canadian Provinces, now that 
they have to bear the double hunting burden, will 
become a little more strict in the issue of licenses 
and other provisions and perhaps may be in¬ 
clined, as the shortest way to accomplish a de¬ 
sired result, to increase the cost of big game 
hunting privileges. 
It is something of a shock to realize how quick¬ 
ly game disappears in the absence of wise legis¬ 
lation, or through the operation of shortsighted 
legislative policy. But the game of America 
need not disappear for generations to come if 
proper attention is given to its conservation. For 
instance, it is stated that more deer are shot 
east of the Mississippi in the supposedly thickly 
settled portion of the country than in the west, 
and even in New England, with its compara¬ 
tively dense population, deer are actually increas¬ 
ing. The same should hold true with all manner 
of fur, fin and feather. 
The time has come, brother sportsman, when 
you yourself must take more interest in these 
matters that are near your heart. The politician, 
with here and there an exception, is not particu¬ 
larly concerned in game legislation, and to the 
average public this whole great question of pres¬ 
ervation and protection of our native game is 
a closed book. Fortunately signs of awakened 
responsibility are apparent everywhere in the 
ranks of sportsmen and others who love the 
great outdoors and its inhabitants. It is well 
that this is true. Otherwise the game schedules 
of a dozen years hence would show blank spaces 
opposite the names of even the commoner va¬ 
rieties of wild life. It is possible, as has been 
demonstrated many times, to exterminate such a 
prolific and garden species of game as the cotton¬ 
tail rabbit. 
A Word About Forest and Stream 
N open season with bounty attachment 
should be declared on Rumor, that “Jade 
of a Hundred Tongues.” We were 
called upon last month to make- official denial 
for the Remington Arms Union-Metallic Car¬ 
tridge Company that it had changed hands and 
had gone into war munition business exclusively. 
We did not anticipate then that occasion would 
arise requiring us to make denial of rumors af¬ 
fecting our own business, but reports have 
reached us of late that stories are current to 
the effect that Forest and Stream had changed 
hands, that the paper is to be consolidated or 
merged with another publication. 
To all such reports unqualified denial may be 
made. Forest and Stream has not changed 
hands; the paper is not to merge with any other 
and we trust that it will for unnumbered years 
in the future continue to carry its message oi 
good cheer and information to its growing list 
of friends in all parts of the world. 
We appreciate that people generally are not in¬ 
terested in our own affairs other than as they 
result in a good publication each issue, but now, 
while presuming on the patience of the reader 
and taking up space that belongs rightly to him, 
we may add that the year 1915 was one of the 
best in the long history of Forest and Stream. 
The subscription list is growing at a rate that 
brings joy to the accounting and editorial heart. 
We trust that the same can be said of all of our 
excellent contemporaries. There is room for 
them all and the work which must be carried on 
by Forest and Stream and the allied outdoor 
press grows more necessary and more important 
as the years go by. Speaking for itself alone, 
however. Forest and Stream looks forward to 
1916 with higher hopes, based on certainties, 
than ever before 
In substantiation of which, and in closing, we 
have only to say that the guaranteed issue of 
Forest and Stream in February will be 25,000 
copies. Judging from the rush of new subscrip¬ 
tions, the succeeding months will show a regular 
and rapidly growing gain. 
To the good friends, old and new, who have 
made this possible Forest and Stream extends 
its heartiest felicitations, and wishes for every 
reader a Happy and Prosperous New Year. 
Outdoor Conveniences at the Front 
HE English outdoor papers are assuming 
a very familiar aspect to the American 
hunter and fisherman these days. Their 
columns are filled with advertisements of out¬ 
door equipment and articles of convenience that 
have long been in use on this side of the water. 
These advertisements, however, deal with war, 
and not with sport. They are being published 
for the man at the front and in the trenches, or 
for his friends at home who are concerned with 
his comfort. Thus we read of reindeer sleeping 
bags, pneumatic mattresses, a long list of handy 
camp nic-nacs that the outdoor man needs and 
of dozens of other camp conveniences. Thejr 
are largely adaptations of American ideas, for 
until the war broke out the English sportsmen 
had little use for anything of the outdoor ma¬ 
terial that so delights the American sportsman, 
the explanation being, of course, that the Eng¬ 
lishman, in his home environment, at least, never 
gets far from a friendly inn or base of supplies. 
We have an idea that had proper attention been 
given the matter, some of our larger American 
firms could have developed an immense business 
in England on supplies of this kind. 
The English outdoor papers contain also sharp 
and saddening reminders of the desperate con- 
flict now waging, in their description of inven¬ 
tions designed for the purpose of making it pos¬ 
sible for one armed men to fish or shoot suc¬ 
cessfully. It seems like mockery to talk of sport, 
in connection with the dreadful catastrophe that 
is deluging a whole continent with blood, and yet 
nothing brings home to us more clearly an idea, 
of what is going on over the water than to real¬ 
ize that thousands of good fellows—the very 
flower of the earth and the kind of men that are 
duplicated in our own camp companions ancf 
hunting associates—will return from that con¬ 
flict, if they return at all, crippled or disabled to 
an extent that will prevent all future participa¬ 
tion in the joys of active outdoor life. 
Nyctea Nyctea 
PPROPRIATE to the season is the cover 
design of this issue. The Snowy Owl is- 
not a regular visitant in these latitudes,, 
but he does appear occasionally as a winter mi¬ 
grant. Probably the number of pictures of him' 
that go out with this month’s Forest and Stream 
exceed by far the number of actual specimens ini 
the United States, if not in Canada. The Snowy 
Owl is an Arctic dweller. He is often whiter 
than shown on the cover but our authority for 
coloration in the instance at hand is Audubon* 
himself. Nyctea nyctea, for that is how natural¬ 
ists have classified him, is unlike most of his- 
tribe for, as Wilson observes, he hunts by day as- 
well as by twilight. Nuttall makes record of the- 
same fact and notes that he skims aloft, recon- 
noitering his prey, which is commonly the white 
grouse or other birds of the same genus, as well 
as hares and small animals. On these he darts 
from above and rapidly seizes them in his re¬ 
sistless talons. At times he watches for fish and- 
condescends to prey upon rats, mice and event 
carrrion. 
While the Snowy Owl is seen in temperate lati¬ 
tudes only during unusually hard winters we have- 
an idea that he is not driven from his regular 
habitat by the cold, but rather because he is- 
forced to follow his prey or find a substitute for 
it. There are other reasons also, which involve- 
some of the strangest and most mysterious phases; 
of natural history. Space will not permit going: 
into this topic, but several authorities, notably 
among them William Cabot, have written charm¬ 
ingly on this subject of the balance of nature and 
what lies behind seemingly unexplainable facts— 
as for instance the occasional appearance of the 
Snowy Owl in our own latitudes. 
The statistics on the deer shooting season, says 
the “Grand Rapids Press,” show that the hunters 
averaged about one-half a deer and one-ten tlx o-S 
an acquaintance apiece. 
