new YORK, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1908. 
VOL. LXXI.—No. 18. 
No. 127 Franklin St., New York* 
A WEEKLY JOURNAL. 
Copyright, 1908, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
George Bird Grinnell, President, 
Charles B. Reynolds, Secretary. 
Louis Dean Speir, Treasurer. 
127 Franklin Street, New York. 
THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL 
will be to studiously promote a healthful interest 
in outdoor recreation, and to cultivate a refined 
taste for natural objects. 
—Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1873. 
THE REELFOOT LAKE LYNCHING. 
Murder as a result of quarrels about fish and 
game is not uncommon, and is confined to no 
one section of the country. Such crimes have 
taken place in the Adirondacks and in Florida, 
in Pennsylvania and Wyoming, but seldom has 
public opinion been so aroused in regard to 
such an occurrence as over the recent tragedy 
at Reelfoot Lake, in Tennessee. 
■ Reelfoot Lake has long been the theater of 
disputes between land owners and certain squat¬ 
ters, whose rights were founded on nothing bet¬ 
ter than the contention that they had always 
fished and hunted over certain land and water, 
which, perhaps, some of them professed to own 
and to which others had no claim. 
Persons who have long carried on any opera¬ 
tion without being interfered with, come at 
length to feel that they have a prescriptive right 
to act in their accustomed way. Examples of 
this have more than once been seen in Western 
States, where the authorities have endeavored to 
enforce the game laws against the Indians. 
Some years ago there was a notable killing of 
Bannock Indians in such a case, and within a 
few days a game warden in Montana killed 
some Indians who were said to have resisted 
arrest, and was himself killed by a member of 
the party. 
Respect for the law, which means considera¬ 
tion for the rights of others, is the highest evi¬ 
dence of the best civilization, yet at his best man 
is so lacking in self-control that even in repu¬ 
table humdrum communities, outbursts of brutal 
ferocity worthy of the lowest savage, occasionally 
take place. The remedy for such outbursts is 
public opinion, supported by a body of efficient 
officers to enforce the law, and such officers can 
never be efficient unless they have heroic cour¬ 
age and determination strong enough to resist 
the threats and entreaties of persons who may 
possibly be their friends and their neighbors. 
Governor Patterson appears to be taking every 
means in his power to bring to justice the of¬ 
fenders whose crime has cast this stain on Ten¬ 
nessee, and in this matter all who care for the 
good name of the State will support him with 
heart and soul. 
LAND BIRDS AT SEA. 
Ships arriving at the port of New York since 
the recent hurricanes in the West Indies have 
reported that during and subsequent to the 
storms many land birds sought refuge in the rig¬ 
ging and on the deck houses of their vessels. 
That they were almost exhausted was evident, 
for they showed little fear of man and some of 
them remained for several days, taking food 
placed for them by the sailors. 
The belief is current with a great many per¬ 
sons that the lower orders of animals are wiser 
than we respecting approaching storms; that they 
possess faculties which we lack, and seek shelter 
in time to escape disaster. 
In a sense there is a basis of truth in this 
theory. The birds and the men who live close 
to nature see and feel more acutely than men 
who live within four walls in our cities. Per¬ 
sons who dwell in tents for a season and are 
therefore in close touch with the elements be¬ 
come—like the birds—peculiarly sensitive to 
radical changes in atmospheric and other condi¬ 
tions. Experience teaches them, as no doubt it 
teaches the birds. They come to notice little 
things, to feel that subtle something which 
prompts one to say that he believes a storm is 
coming; that high winds, or rain, or snow may 
be expected; to predict a change without re¬ 
alizing just why he does so. 
But the birds, like these outdoor men, are 
caught unawares at times when, depending on 
their senses, they go further from shelter than 
usual, and the storms approach with warning too 
brief to enable them to save themselves. 
Again, like seasoned mariners, they may take 
risks when fair weather has prevailed for some 
days, believing the gale will not materialize as 
soon as usual. Why may there not be reckless 
birds as well as reckless men? And though good 
fortune sometimes enables both to pull through 
tight places, we have ample evidence that disaster 
overtakes them at times. 
THE ART OF RAIN MAKING. 
In an age when marvels are happening every 
day without exciting special remark, not a few 
cautious people have drawn a pencil through the 
word impossible in their dictionaries. Many of 
the prophecies of Mother Shipton have proved 
fact. To-day Indians use the telephones or hear 
their own songs sung by the phonograph without 
the least surprise. Aeronautic feats have become 
so common that the establishment of a line of 
flying machines to connect the old and the new 
worlds would astonish no one. To look through 
the body of an animal and see its bones, or the 
shot or ball which wounded it is a matter of 
every day practice. 
Long before the discovery of any of these 
wonders, a belief that men could cause rain to 
fall at will, was common among savage people. 
Travelers who visited them, however, were skep¬ 
tical and declared that the rain maker having 
once begun his moisture-compelling operations, 
continued them until the rain came, and instead 
of creating or bringing the rain he merely tired 
out the fair weather. It is perhaps in Owen 
Wister’s truthful book, “Linn McLean,” that ex¬ 
tended reference is made to a wave of rain¬ 
making efforts that in the eighties swept over 
parts of the arid West. The experiments made 
alpout that time in Texas, Wyoming and Dakota 
must have put in the pockets of the rain makers 
not a little of the circulating medium. Even the 
United States Government tried its hand at rain 
making with about the same measure of success 
that had attended all previous rain makers. 
Now, in the year 1908, during the recent 
drouth, when the Adirondack forests were burn¬ 
ing up and the pulp mills, owing to low stage 
of water, were threatened with the necessity of 
shutting down, some hard-headed business men 
of New York State called to their assistance 
a rain maker, and a Prof. Myer was hired to 
do the work. According to accounts, he sent 
up an enormous balloon filled with an inflamma¬ 
ble gas and dynamite, and at the height of a mile 
set off his fire-works by an electric spark. 
At the time of the explosion the clouds are 
said to have hung low and threatening, and cer¬ 
tain scoffers declared that the rain maker had 
limed his experiment so as to take advantage 
of an inevitable shower. The event showed how 
utterly in the wrong these skeptics were, for in¬ 
stead of being followed by rain, the explosion 
dispersed and drove away the clouds and the 
sun shone forth hotter and dryer than before. 
The art of rain making—or is it the science— 
remains to be discovered. 
As we go to press with this issue there are 
good reasons for the belief that the destructive 
drouth is at an end. Rains have checked many 
of the worst forest fires, and if the precipitation 
continues, others that are smoldering under¬ 
ground may be quenched. In the Rocky Moun¬ 
tains hunting parties, made bold by the absence 
of cold weather, remained in the high parks too 
long, and were snowed in. flhis is an annual 
occurrence; the fall of snow is often heavy on 
the passes in October. 
A cablegram from Dublin announces the death 
of John Enright at Castleconnell on Oct. 26. 
It states that he was the champion salmon fly- 
caster of the world, but it is possible there is 
a mistake in names. John Enright and Son are 
rodmakers at Castleconnell, Ireland, and it was 
the son who, at Harlem Mere in 1906, cast a 
salmon fly 152 feet with a twenty-foot green- 
heart rod. He was in his prime then. It is 
possible his father is referred to in the cable¬ 
gram. 
