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Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal. Copyright, 1907, by Forest -and Stream Publishing Co. 
Terms, $3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy. (. 
Six Months, $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, 1907. 
VOL. LXVIII— No. 4. 
No. 346 Broadway, New York 
The object of this journal will be to studiously 
romote a healthful interest in outdoor recre- 
tion, and to cultivate a refined taste for natural 
bjeCtS. Announcement in first number of 
Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1873. 
COMPROMISE MEASURES. 
In the discussion as to whether or not the 
arious States will be benefited by the enactment, 
f laws regulating the possession of firearms in 
tie closed season one point appears not to have 
een given sufficient consideration. This re¬ 
ntes to rifles of small caliber, to revolvers and 
o pistols. 
It is evident—if the merits of the various dis- 
; ussidns carried on in recent years may guide us 
| —that sportsmen who are heartily in favor of 
igid protective measures will gladly welcome 
HWS prohibiting the carrying into.the woods dur- 
ig the closed season of all big game rifles and 
11 shotguns. 
j If the prohibition ends there such laws are 
kely to prove popular and effective, and their 
Enforcement will put a stop to the killing of big 
'•ame for lumber-camp meat. This is the prin- 
ipal end sought, for under present laws it is 
onceded to be very difficult to obtain evidence 
efficient to convict lumber-camp hunters who. 
ill deer in illegal fashion. Such laws would 
^Iso prevent canoeing parties from taking big 
ame rifles into 1 the woods in the summer 
ronths, a practice now too general in certain 
States. It is doubtful, however, if a law ab¬ 
solutely prohibiting the possession of firearms 
i the closed, season would be favored by sports¬ 
men at large, and since other interests would 
, ertainly oppose it to the bitter end, only the 
ainority would advocate it. To secure the pas- 
Jage of the protective law, therefore, the obvious 
hing to do is to seek a compromise measure. 
It is a recognized fact that one of the most 
! ifficult problems met with in our cities has to 
j o with weapon-carrying. No matter how severe 
he penalty, there are men who will carry 
; /eapons when they go abroad, and every house- ( 
old has its revolver. A general attempt to con- 
scate all these weapons and to punish their pos- 
essors would inevitably fail. 
If this is something well nigh impossible to 
| e done, how much more difficult would it be to 
1 revent sportsmen from taking revolvers, target 
f istols and small target rifles into the woods in* 
I he summer. To attempt to reason with them 
i s to revolvers would be hopeless; for, beside 
ill the good or bad reasons they might give for 
faking revolvers with them, the one of "protec- 
ion” would remain unanswerable. 
The little rifles and the target pistols and re- 
olvers are generally taken into camps and on 
ummer journeys (i) because of the sportsmen’s 
[nherent love for firearms; (2) through a general 
esire to practice marksmanship in the open ; and 
1 3) as a means of passing the time on rainy 
days or when the fishing is not' to be had. It 
is true that even the smallest rifles have been 
used successfully in deer shooting, and that they 
might be so used. It is also possible to kill big 
game with revolvers. But these are weak spots 
in a proposition that is strong in other respects. 
Americans are proud to be called a nation 
of riflemen, and few, indeed, are the sportsmen 
who do not own and occasionally practice with 
small rifles. Target and pocket revolvers and 
target pistols are merely compact miniature rifles, 
carried into camp or on journeys with a view to 
use in whiling away the time. It may be that 
their owners have a vague idea as to their pos¬ 
sible use in protecting their loved ones and their 
property, but this is only a secondary and very 
indefinite part of their purpose. 
Every landowner and bona fide resident may 
be permitted to- possess firearms of every sort, 
whether his residence be in the woods or else¬ 
where ; but the Lumber camp is not a permanent 
residence, and no big game rifle or gun should 
be kept there in the closed season. 
These are some of the reasons why it were 
better to legislate against bona fide big game 
firearms, with a reasonable hope of success rather 
than to declare against all firearms and insure 
failure for the cause. 
BIRD ISLANDS OF THE GULF. 
That is a most interesting report which Presi¬ 
dent Miller, of the Louisiana Audubon Society, 
has made on his last summer’s visit to the won¬ 
derful group of bird islands lying off the mouth 
of the Mississippi River in the Gulf of Mexico. 
It offers another proof, if further proof were 
needed, of the ease, with which our wild creatufes 
may be protected, if common sense be united to 
absolute fidelity to a cause. 
In the case in question the Federal Govern¬ 
ment, the National Association of Audubon So¬ 
cieties and the Louisiana Audubon Society were 
acting together, with the detail of the work in 
the hands of President Miller. The estimated 
increase of 100,000 birds in a single year on these 
lonely sand bars of the Gulf is a magnificent re¬ 
sult of this work, and one which should go far 
to strengthen the hands of the bird protective 
movement all "over the land. 
The presence on one of the islands of rac¬ 
coons and muskrats, which prey upon the eggs 
and young of the breeding birds, has handicapped 
the work in this one place, but it is reported 
that in the terrible storm of the early autumn 
of 1906 the sea absolutely covered some of these 
islands, and it is possible that the predatory 
mammals may thus have all been destroyed. 
Whether it be so or not,' confidence may be felt 
that Mr. Miller and his. associates will discover 
some effective way for dealing with such natural 
enemies of the birds, and will hedge their charges 
about with all possible safeguards. 
THE FOREST SERVICE. 
None of Forest and Stream’s readers should 
pass over the report of the speech delivered be¬ 
fore the American Forestry Association by Chief 
Forester Gifford Pinchot, for in it he explains 
what his department has done and proposes to 
do. In a few years, at the present rate, this de¬ 
partment will be self-sustaining and an im¬ 
mensely -valuable asset of the people. 
The Forest Service needs good men, and will 
need an ever increasing number as the years 
pass by. Here is an opportunity for boys who 
are fond of a life out of doors, of young men 
who are constitutionally unfit for a life between 
four walls. Frequently the assertion is heard 
that the youths of to-day have few opportunities. 
Here is a situation that belies this plaint. Op¬ 
portunities for advancement are good and there 
is nothing of the humdrum in forestry as in 
other work. 
In Illinois, according to a recent decision 
rendered by the attorney-general, prairie chickens 
may be legally hunted after July 1 of this year, 
but if Commissioner Wheeler’s recommendations 
are incorporated in the laws, these birds and 
also the imported pheasants he has distributed, 
will be protected for three or four years more. 
While the. Commissioner favors a reduction of 
the bag limit to twenty-five for wildfowl and 
fifteen or twenty for quail, strangely enough he 
is credited with the belief that spring shoot¬ 
ing should not be abolished, on the ground that 
it does not reduce the number materially. This 
may be true if an average of the various years 
is struck; but there are times in early spring 
when the slaughter of wildfowl along the Illinois 
and Mississippi river bottoms is a disgrace to 
the State. 
Mr. Sherwood places before our readers to¬ 
day a mental picture that will appeal to them 
with peculiar force; that of a young man trying 
to learn the art of trout fishing without assist¬ 
ance, and aided by no experience gained in boy¬ 
hood days, for he was brought up far from trout 
streams and the woods. But his father had been 
an ardent angler, and he himself tried hard to 
succeed, only to find that on the last day of his 
vacation he could not fulfill his promise to take • 
home to his mother in the old trout basket she 
had kept for the boy from her husband’s effects, 
a few trout. If that youth lives to be a cen¬ 
tenarian he will never forget the kindness' of 
heart of “Jim,” who, gentle as a woman, cor¬ 
rected the boy’s mistakes and saw him put two 
goodly trout in the old basket for his mother. 
* 
We congratulate Mr. Thomas Curtis on his 
record of three score and five years a sports¬ 
man, and upon the additional fact that he can 
now review all those hunting days with pleasure 
unmixed with regret. 
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