Forest and Stream 
Terms, $3 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JANUARY 29 , 1910 . ) 
VOL. LXX1V.—No. 5. 
No. 127 Franklin St., New York. 
PASSENGER PIGEONS’ NESTS. 
A WEEKLY JOURNAL. 
Copyright, 1909, 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. 
WILDFOWL SHOOTING, 1909 - 1910 . 
The wildfowl season of 1909-1910 has been 
noteworthy — on the Atlantic coast — for the 
abundance of the birds. A late and mild autumn 
caused vast hordes of fowl to linger long in 
the Great South Bay and in Barnegat, and while, 
on account of the mild weather, the shooting 
was not always good, there was no question 
about the great abundance of the ducks and 
geese. To be sure in these latter days the wild 
geese do not stop in Great South Bay as they 
used to years ago, but there were black ducks, 
broadbills, coots and many other fowl—more 
abundant there than for years. 
The waters tributary to the Chesapeake Bay 
supported a multitude of wildfowl, more, ac¬ 
cording to the reports of some gunners, than 
have been seen for years; and in the same way 
the waters of Currituck, Albemarle and Pamlico 
sounds were fairly crowded with fowl. Can- 
vasbacks, redheads, widgeons, blackducks and 
mallards were unusually abundant in various 
places, while all day long, in the proper weather, 
great flocks of geese could be seen stringing up 
and down the sounds. In Currituck Sound were 
seen this year great numbers of the so-called 
little blackhead—better known in the North as 
the small broadbill—but in that sound there 
were seen very few redheads, though these are 
said to have been abundant in Pamlico Sound. 
Little blackheads have been very scarce in Cur¬ 
rituck Sound for nearly ten years. 
In the interior—in Michigan, for example— 
there was noticed an unusual abundance of mal¬ 
lards, while blackheads, or as they are some¬ 
times there called, blackjack, seemed to be 
wholly absent. 
It is, of course, unwise to generalize from a 
limited number of observations, but many gun¬ 
ners are disposed to think that the abundance 
of birds during the past autumn and winter is 
due in part at least to the abolition in many 
provinces and States of the North of the per¬ 
nicious practice of spring shooting. Certain it 
is that for the past two or three years many 
wild ducks have bred in considerable numbers and 
have reared many young in States where none 
at all bred a few years ago. The laws which 
govern the plenty or scarcity of wild birds at 
different seasons are not understood. Sports¬ 
men should record their observations. 
It is not surprising that the plan for discover¬ 
ing wild pigeons and their nests, devised by Dr. 
Hodge and Colonel Kuser, has awakened a wide¬ 
spread interest. How general this interest is 
is shown by the fact that within a short time 
after the announcement of the plan over $ 2,500 
has been pledged to help along this good work. 
The list of the offers is given in another column 
and we are hopeful that soon after these lines 
meet the readers’ eye the amount pledged will 
be greatly increased. The news of these re¬ 
wards ought to be spread far and wide over 
the country, and our readers should give them 
as much publicity as possible among their neigh¬ 
bors who may not see the Forest and Stream. 
Who will claim the first of these rewards? 
THE BEAR MOUNTAIN PRISON SITE. 
From Newburgh comes the pleasing announce¬ 
ment that the site for a new State prison on 
Bear Mountain, on the west bank of the Hud¬ 
son River, will be abandoned. This was to have 
taken the place of Sing Sing Prison. The land 
was acquired more than a year ago and work 
was begun last season. Before the Harriman 
tract and other land and funds were tendered 
the State, the objections to establishing the new 
prison on Bear Mountain were numerous and 
were based on various grounds. Governor 
Hughes also recommended the abandonment of 
the site. The State Commission on New 
Prisons, therefore, at its meeting in Newburgh 
last Friday, gave way to popular sentiment and 
began to consider other sites. One of the most 
objectionable features in the way of the estab¬ 
lishment of the Hudson Highlands Park has, 
therefore, been removed. 
Apparently the commission favors the acquisi¬ 
tion of the State Camp Grounds at Peekskill for 
the new prison site. But here again it will meet 
with strong opposition. Historic Creedmoor was 
taken from the State National Guard despite its 
protests, and since then the guardsmen have been 
instructed in field work and marksmanship at 
Peekskill and elsewhere. To take away this 
camp of instruction would be demoralizing to 
the Guard. Surely a site can be found that will 
not be objectionable to the people at large, but 
which will still be near New York city. 
In connection with the rumor that the balloon 
of Prof. Andree, the Arctic explorer, and his 
companions, has been heard of in the far North, 
it will be remembered that the Hudson Bay 
posts were long ago requested by the Danish 
Government to assist in finding the lost party 
or word of its fate. It was near Reindeer Lake 
that the story was first heard from the Indians. 
They, it is reported, described “the house cov¬ 
ered with ropes that fell from the sky” and in 
which were white men. Father Tutelquil, the 
missionary who brought the news to Prince 
Albert, Sask., has offered to lead an expedition 
to ascertain the facts. Whether the party was 
murdered by the natives or died from exposure 
is unknown, but the reports are to the effect 
that the natives were very reticent when ques¬ 
tioned as to their possession of articles such as 
the party carried when it departed on the ill- 
fated expedition. 
* 
In Berlin the sixteenth annual exhibition of 
antlers and shooting trophies was opened on 
Thursday of this week, and it will continue until 
Feb. 16 . This is essentially a German exhi¬ 
bition, in that the trophies shown must have 
been obtained during the year 1909 by German 
sportsmen, at home or abroad, or by foreign 
sportsmen on German territory; they can only 
be exhibited by the persons who killed the ani¬ 
mals bearing them, or by the owners of land 
on which these animals were taken. 
* 
A press dispatch from Washington says that 
Captain Jacobs, of the revenue cutter Thetis, 
has arrested twenty-three Japanese who wert 
found killing birds of plumage on the islands 
in the Hawaiian group set aside by the Govern¬ 
ment as bird refuges. It is also said that Cap¬ 
tain Jacobs seized 259,000 pairs of birds’ wings, 
and these and the prisoners have been placed 
in the custody of the United States marshal at 
Honolulu. 
* 
Two prominent British angling writers who 
passed away within the month were Alfred 
Jardine and W. Earl Hodgson. Mr. Jardine s 
age was eighty-two years, but up to the time of 
his death he wrote entertainingly for the sports¬ 
men’s papers on his favorite topic. Mr. Hodg¬ 
son was the author of “Trout Fishing,” an ex¬ 
cellent book that has been widely read; and of 
several other volumes on trout and salmon fish¬ 
ing. 
The executive committee of the National Con¬ 
servation Association has elected Gifford Pinchot 
to succeed Charles W. Eliot as its president. 
This action was taken at the suggestion of Dr. 
Eliot, who was made honorary president. The 
association was formed last year in Cambridge, 
Mass., to assist in carrying out the work out¬ 
lined by the conference of governors, which was 
held in Washington two years ago. 
VL 
In his will the late Darius O. Mills bequeathed 
to the American Museum of Natural Flistory, in 
this city, one hundred thousand dollars and to 
the American Geographical Society twenty-five 
thousand dollars. 
