April 9, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
577 
Of Interest to Campers. 
The subjoined copy of a new fire notice issued 
by Commissioner Whipple of the Forest, Fish 
and Game Commission, which will be posted in 
the forest preserve counties, is of interest to 
fishermen, hunters, campers and visitors who go 
into the woods for either pleasure or business, 
as well as all residents within the forests or 
about their environs: 
ATTENTION! 
Campers, Fishermen-, Hunters. 
$500 Reward. 
Any person setting fire to waste or forest land, 
except by permission, or who negligently suffers 
fire to extend to another’s property, is punish¬ 
able by imprisonment for not more than one 
year or a fine not exceeding $1,000 or both, and 
is also liable for damages. 
The State expends large sums in preserving 
the forests as a pleasure resort, and asks those 
enjoying its pleasures to contribute their share 
by guarding carefully against fire. 
Fires will be permitted for the purpose of 
cooking, warmth and insect smudges. 
Fires on State land; standing^timber shall not 
be used to build fires. 
Fires must not be started on the leaves; all 
combustible material must be cleared away five 
feet from fire. A sand beach or dry creek bed 
is the safest fire-place. 
Fires must be thoroughly quenched, not cov¬ 
ered up or stamped out. The ground beneath 
should be saturated with water. 
Fires must not be started against stumps, trees 
or near piles of logs or brush. 
Fires other than those mentioned above are 
absolutely prohibited. Caution must be exercised 
against allowing fires to originate from use of 
firearms, cigars and, pipes. 
Especial care should be taken that lighted 
matches are extinguished before throwing them 
down. 
Any male person, eighteen or more yqgrs old, 
if summoned, must render assistance in putting 
out forest fires. 
Five hundred dollars reward is offered for the 
conviction of any person who willfully sets fire 
to State forest land. 
Old Times in Iowa. 
Charles City, Iowa, March 16. —Editor Forest 
and Stream: From time to time discussions 
take place among some of the earliest settlers 
of Iowa regarding the early presence and dis¬ 
appearance of the big game that once roamed 
over this portion of the Mississippi valley. 
These controversies often prove of much im¬ 
portance in that they not infrequently bring to 
light valuable knowledge and recollections that 
otherwise' would be lost. 
As a result of one of them the following items 
appeared in a Mason City (Iowa) paper and was 
copied in the Charles City Daily Press of Aug. 
28 last: 
“Recently there has been considerable said with 
reference to the buffalo and elk in Iowa, and 
one who claims to be authority states that buf¬ 
falo and elk wintered at Clear Lake in the early 
6o’s. F. B. Florence, who was a resident of this 
locality in the early 50’s, states that this is not 
true. He is an old hunter and trapper and says 
he remembers distinctly that the last herd of 
buffalo wintering in this section of the State 
was in 1856-57, and that they wintered just south 
of Clear Lake. The same winter there was a 
herd of elk wintering in the vicinity of Rock¬ 
well. These are the last elk as well as the last 
buffalo seen in the northern part of the State. 
“The above is not correct as to the elk. As 
late as the early 70’s, elk were plentiful in Dick¬ 
inson and Osceola counties to the certain knowl¬ 
edge of this writer, a resident of the former 
county at that time, and has a distinct remem¬ 
brance of teamsters to Sibley, the then nearest 
railroad town, chasing elk herds and capturing 
the fawns and bringing them home in wagons.” 
I was born in Northern-central Iowa in the 
late 50’s and I have perhaps one of the most 
extensive records of the times and conditions of 
that early period here now in existence, con¬ 
siderable of which I have published in my “His¬ 
tory of Floyd County and Northern Iowa,” and 
short articles by me relating to this subject have 
appeared in Forest and Stream from time to 
time. 
Thirty years ago and more the now rare birds 
of Iowa were quite abundant, but as the country 
became settled up, these birds, like almost all 
other forms of bird, animal and primitive plant 
life, rapidly became almost “things of the past.” 
Sandhill and whooping cranes were once seen 
here in vast numbers, wild swans were quite 
often seen in flocks in their season and the bald 
eagle was in places quite frequently met with, 
and the pelican was sometimes seen in flocks of 
eight to ten or more. The turkey buzzard also 
occurred in large numbers. To-day all these 
birds are among the rarest in this part of the 
Middle West, and what few do at rare intervals 
appear are ruthlessly hunted down and shot. 
Only a few days since Tom Lines, residing 
near Rockford, this State, shot two white swans, 
one weighing fourteen pounds' and the other 
twelve pounds, while Roy Lines, of the same 
place, recently shot an eagle which measured 
six feet eight inches from tip to tip. Another 
party living near Nashua, Iowa, recently shot a 
large white swan and brought it to me to be 
mounted. Others of some of these rare birds 
have been shot in other portions of this State 
this spring. 
The wild pigeon has gone, or at least seen only 
at exceedingly rare intervals, and the prairie 
chicken and the quail are going fast. The up¬ 
land plover or prairie snipe of the old days, once 
so abundant on our prairies, has practically van¬ 
ished, and this is equally true of many other 
species. Clement L. Webster. 
Recent Publications. 
Salmon Rivers and Lochs of Scotland, by W. 
L. Calderwood, F.R.S.E. Cloth, 442 pages, 
illustrated in colors and from photographs, 
with maps, $6 net. London, Edwin Arnold; 
New York, Longmans, Green & Co. 
In a region where it is still possible to bring 
to gaff salmon of magnificent proportions, if not 
one which will equal the River Tweed record, 
made when the Earl of Hume, in the early 
thirties, landed a salmon weighing 69)4 pounds, 
there is to-day a fascination in the salmon fish¬ 
ing. Mr. Calderwood’s connection with the Fish¬ 
eries Board of Scotland has given him excep¬ 
tional opportunities for studying the salmon, as 
all who have read his “Life of the Salmon” will 
concede; and in this later volume he has made 
special effort to bring about that which he has 
labored so diligently to attain in his official capa¬ 
city—the conservation and improvement of the 
salmon fishing in his native land. Aside from 
this he has given a great mass of information 
relative to the when, where and how of Scot¬ 
tish salmon fishing. 
There is an old saying in Scotland that 
‘Where there’s nae water there can be nae 
fush,” and the sentiment has had its influence 
in making increasingly difficult all attempts on the 
part of manufacturing interests to usurp water 
rights at the expense of the fishing. Even now 
it is in the main a fact that “for two salmon 
that go up, only one comes down again,” the 
fishing of every sort, natural causes and the pol¬ 
lution which, though diminishing, is still a men¬ 
ace, accounting for many a goodly fish. But big 
salmon have been taken and lost in recent years. 
Witness the 53-inch 57 j 4 -pounder caught by Mr. 
Pryor in the Tweed in 1886, and Mr. Denison’s 
River Ness salmon, which he played from 6 
o clock one night until 4 o’clock next morning, 
only to lose it. A sixty-pound salmon, recently 
found dead, had spawned twice in its eight years. 
Where historical associations are so common, 
even a descriptive work cannot be complete with¬ 
out some mention of famous places, but into his 
narrative, together with his statistics and cold 
facts, Mr. Calderwood has woven a strong thread 
of the romance of salmon fishing and of the 
rugged country of which he writes; so that one 
who has not and never may fish there, cannot but 
read the book with interest. 
The illustrations are in keeping with the text. 
Mainly they are from excellent photographs, 
with a frontispiece and here and there a full 
page reproduction in colors by famous artists. 
The Old Plantation and Other Poems, of 
which Col. James Gordon, late Senator from 
Mississippi, is the author and publisher, treats 
most charmingly of many interesting themes— 
romantic, spiritual, martial, domestic, musical 
and sentimental—as they specially appeal to the 
good people of the Southland. In particular, life 
on the Southern plantation holds first place in 
his poesy, and, as an inseparable adjunct, the 
plantation negro, with his peculiar dialect, emo¬ 
tional nature, simple mind, weird beliefs, irre¬ 
sponsibility and child-like dependency contribute 
much to the action of the poems. The negro, as 
portrayed by Col. Gordon, is the true Southern 
type, not the ideal negro as evolved by the 
Northern mind. The negro characteristics, his 
superstitions—of which he has many—domestic 
life, religious exaltation, exaggeration and love 
for the pedantic and bombastic are all treated, 
with a wealth of imagery, in a serio-comic way, 
but always in a sympathetic manner. The few 
war poems ring with a spirit and ardor which 
the years have never subdued, though once upon 
a time they were overwhelmed. Col. Gordon, as 
our readers are well aw^are, is one of the most 
versatile, prolific and charming writers on sports 
of the dog and gun. rod and reel, besides hold¬ 
ing high place in the official life of his State 
and the United States. His address is Okolona, 
Miss. 
