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Forest and Stream 
Terms, $3 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 12 , 
I9IO. 
VOL. LXXIV.—No. 7. 
No. 127 Franklin St., New York. 
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. 
AMERICA AND AFRICA. 
Here in America we are slowly and laboriously 
trying to work out, for the general good, various 
problems of game protection and preservation. A 
certain number of earnest men have given much 
thought to these matters and have formulated 
measures likely to accomplish the results most 
to be desired. Through their influence many ex¬ 
cellent laws have been passed. Where we dwell¬ 
ers in the United States fail is that we do not 
see to it that these good laws are rigidly en¬ 
forced. Nevertheless progress toward better 
things is constantly being made, and there is no 
doubt that ultimately we will have a body of 
good protective laws well enforced. There is 
danger, though, that before this happy consum¬ 
mation takes place some species of fish or game 
may have advanced so far toward extinction that 
they cannot re-establish themselves. 
It is exceedingly interesting to learn that on 
other continents where men are struggling with 
the same problems, they are meeting with the 
same difficulties and finally reaching the same 
conclusions that we have reached here. This is 
shown by the letter published on another page 
which the warden of the Transvaal Game Re¬ 
serves has written to Mr. Grant, the secretary 
of the New York Zoological Society. This let¬ 
ter shows very clearly that game protectors in 
Africa realize that there they must have game 
refuges, as we have also learned here, and that 
the sale of the flesh of wild animals—the sale of 
game—must be prohibited or limited, as was first 
declared by Forest and Stream so many years 
ago, and as is now the law in many States. 
When independent thinkers, struggling with 
like problems on opposite sides of the world, 
reach the same conclusions about the same mat¬ 
ters, we may fairly assume that they are right. 
We may assume, too, that the time is soon com¬ 
ing when the education of the public will have 
advanced so far that the whole civilized world 
will take the same view of these matters and 
act in the same way about them. If this educa¬ 
tion and this action be not too long postponed, 
the fauna still surviving on the different conti¬ 
nents will be preserved, and the extinction of r 
species now threatened in so many directions 
will come to an end. 
FEEDING THE BIRDS. 
Candlemas day has come and gone, and we 
are supposed to know now what the remainder 
of the winter will be like—whether cold and 
stormy, or the reverse. The winter, up to this 
traditionary turning point, has been of the old- 
fashioned sort the boys of two generations ago 
recall with pleasure as they sit before their open 
fires and listen to the boisterous winds. In the 
Eastern States at least, additional wintry weather 
is expected. 
There has been an abundance of snow. Even 
in the States where such sports are enjoyed only 
at rare intervals, snowshoeing and skiing have 
been popular since mid-December, and the 
tradesmen have profited through a large sale 
of skis and snowshoes and warm outdoor wool¬ 
ens.- In. Southern California the wildfowlers 
have noted a thing that is unusual there—ice on 
the ponds and lakes; in the South there have 
been suggestions of snow and of freezing tem¬ 
peratures; in the mountains and in the Northern 
States the snow is growing steadily deeper. In 
some places rain fell while the snow lay deep 
in the woods, the mercury fell, followed by sleet 
which coated everything heavily. Usually this 
does not remain long, but in at least one instance 
the hard ice remained on trees and shrubs for 
several days, effectually barring our feathered 
friends from their accustomed food supply. In 
times of stress like this, scattering grain in the 
covers may save the birds from actual starva¬ 
tion. 
Whether the fabled groundhog saw his shadow 
or not in his particular locality, now is the time 
for every sportsman to devote a little time to 
reconnoitering in the woods and thickets, armed 
not with a gun, but with food for the game 
birds. The cost of this work is trifling for those 
who do not produce grain, while farmers and 
their sons have at hand the materials needed. 
A little straw placed beneath the shelter of ever¬ 
greens or hardwood tops, so that new snow will 
not bury it, and the scattering of grain here and 
there will be an investment of more value than 
may be computed in dollars and cents. 
Last week a correspondent told our readers 
by means of the camera how a few members of 
a sportsmen’s club have worked to'tide over the 
nucleus of a little band of imported game birds, 
and we would like to learn what other clubs 
are doing. This is the season for annual meet¬ 
ings and smokers, and if the members and 
guests present at these affairs are appealed to 
they will readily contribute toward a small fund 
for the purchase of food for the game and other 
birds. Once attract their attention to the mat¬ 
ter and in the future they will keep it in mind 
and act individually as well as collectively when 
opportunities present themselves. 
There are two holidays this month that will 
be generally observed by the people of those 
States in which ruffed grouse, quail and im¬ 
ported game birds are to be found. If every 
sportsman will devote a part of Lincoln’s and 
Washington’s birthdays to looking after the phy¬ 
sical welfare of his feathered friends, he will 
be satisfied with time well spent. We hope clubs 
will make it a rule to so observe the 12th and 
22d of February every year, for at this season 
the strength of the birds, as well as the food 
supply, is at low ebb. 
LOUISIANA’S DEER SLAUGHTER. 
An interesting commentary on the complaints 
made in certain of the Louisiana parishes against 
the State Game Commission has just appeared in 
the New Orleans papers. 
Not long ago the assessor of Concordia parish 
wrote to the Times-Democrat calling attention to 
the wanton slaughter of deer in the Tenth ward 
of that parish during the present season. Ac¬ 
cording to the assessor, J. D. Miller, the Coco- 
drie swamp has for a number of weeks been 
the scene of operations for a large number of 
hunters, who have been killing deer for their 
hides alone. This Cocodrie swamp, Mr. Miller 
asserts, is the greatest natural deer park in the 
world, and he believes that more than 500 deer 
have been killed in that section during the pres¬ 
ent season. Residents of the ward are finding 
carcasses stripped of their hides, and other car¬ 
casses of deer that have been wounded, and 
afterward died, all over the swamp. 
The people of Concordia parish are naturally 
outraged at this invasion of hide hunters, who, 
however, declare that they are protected by the 
game laws, having paid the State license of $1. 
Yet the laws of Louisiana prohibit the slaughter 
of does and fawns and limit the kill of the in¬ 
dividual hunter for the day and for the season. 
If the destruction has been anything like what 
is reported, these provisions must have been 
constantly violated. 
Information of this alleged destruction ought 
to have reached the State Game Commission 
long before the close of the season. If it was 
not learned of, at all events they have it now and 
this information will undoubtedly cause the game 
authorities to be on the alert for similar viola¬ 
tions next season. If such destruction is con¬ 
tinued, it can mean only the extermination of 
deer along the Cocodrie Bayou, and if such 
slaughter takes place in one swamp or parish 
of Louisiana it may take place in a dozen others 
where deer are plenty. 
Louisiana is a large State and the game com¬ 
mission’s means are limited. Such occurrences 
as this will justify them in demanding from the 
Legislature money to enable them to hire war¬ 
dens to police the whole State, and promptly to 
stamp out such flagrant violations of the law 
by apprehending and bringing to trial the of¬ 
fenders wherever they may be found. Such 
action will everywhere win popular approval. 
