778 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[May 14 , 1910- 
inch of snow, the bucks showed the drag just 
as plainly; also the old bucks dragged the strong¬ 
est and their toes were inclined to turn out from 
each side from the central, basic line of tracks. 
Now, if all the deer track “drags” I have seen 
during the past winter denoted wounded or weary 
deer, the woods was certainly full of such. 
Harry Chase, County Warden. 
Fire Control in National Forests. 
Secretary Wilson has signed memoranda of 
agreement with the Great Northern and North¬ 
ern Pacific railway companies, which provide 
for co-operation of the Forest Service and the 
railroads to prevent damage to the National 
forests from fires along all lines operated by 
these railroads. These agreements are now m 
The agreements have in view both the reduc¬ 
tion to the lowest point of the fire risk from the 
operation of the railroads and joint action by 
the Forest Service and the railroads to fight a 
fires which may start along the lines. The com¬ 
panies agree to clear and keep clear of inflam¬ 
mable material a strip of varying width, as con¬ 
ditions may demand, up to 200 feet beyond the 
right of way, and to provide all locomotives 
which do not burn oil with suitable spark ar¬ 
resters and other standard equipment to prevent 
the dropping of fire. It is also stipulated that 
every effort will be made by the companies to 
operate their locomotives so as not to cause 
fires! The protective strip is to be designated 
jointly by representatives of the railroads and 
the Forest Service. 
In fighting fires the railroads and the rores 
Service will co-operate closely. Prompt notifica¬ 
tion to forest officers of all fires discovered by 
employes of the railroads is provided for. Tele¬ 
phone lines to make this possible will be put 
up by the Forest Service, using the companies 
poles where this is desirable. Warning whistles 
will be sounded by locomotives on occasion. 
Forces of fire fighters will be assembled on the 
outbreak of fires, made up of forest officers, 
railroad employes and such temporary labor as 
can be gathered by either. Except for salaries 
of regular employes the cost of fighting fires 
which start within 200 feet of the railroads will 
be borne by the companies and of all others by 
the Forest Service, unless it shall be shown in 
the first case that the railroads were not re¬ 
sponsible or in the second case that they were 
responsible for the outbreak of the fire. 
The agreement provides that the Forest Service 
will regularly patrol the rights of way during the 
fire season. The work of clearing the strips 
satisfactorily, including disposal of all slash and 
refuse, is to be performed by the railroads under 
the supervision of the Forest Service. 
Since the courts have sustained the right of 
the Department of Agriculture to collect dam¬ 
ages from railroads running through National 
forests for fires which they cause, there is in 
this fact a strong inducement for railroad com¬ 
panies to join with the department in the effort 
to keep fires down, but other reasons are doubt¬ 
less potent, and perhaps the most potent ones in 
favor of this agreement. The Northern Pacific, 
being a land-grant railroad, owns a great amount 
of timber on the alternate sections, along its 
line The Great Northern, although it is not a 
land-grant road, also has property at stake in 
its buildings and the line itself, operation of 
which may be seriously interfered with by forest 
conflagrations. The value of heavy timber in 
mountainous regions as a deterrent to ava¬ 
lanches, landslides and floods is also to be con¬ 
sidered. But from the standpoint of a far¬ 
sighted business policy a still broader argument 
is the relation of the forests to the general wel¬ 
fare of the regions whose traffic the railroads 
handle. Timber which goes up in smoke pays 
no freight tolls, and unchecked forest devasta¬ 
tion means the enfeeblement of many industries 
dependent on wood or water. For this reason, 
though there were no other, Secretary Wilson’s 
foresters think the new agreements of import¬ 
ant significance. 
Comments. 
Clarksdale, Miss., May 5.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: Your contributor “Bee” confirms, the 
tradition of thirty-five or forty years ago which 
I mentioned that woodcock were killed in cer¬ 
tain localities of the Louisiana lowlands by hunt¬ 
ing them at night with the aid of torches. By 
“Bee’s” statement it has been twenty-five years 
since he had personal experience of woodcock 
shooting. I am still of the opinion that such 
mode of woodcock killing is among the tradi¬ 
tions of the distant past, and if mistaken would 
like to have evidence to the contrary. 
I take a mild exception to a slight garbling 
by typographical error of a quotation used in 
my contribution printed in the last number of 
Forest and Stream, which spoiled a very pretty 
line in a poem, once a popular song in Scotland, 
by the “Ettrick Shepard.” The type rendered it 
“Betwixt the gloaming and the muk.” The line 
is “Betwixt the gloaming and the mirk,” which 
means “Between the twilight and the dark.’ 
“When the kye com’ hame” is the next line. 
In your editorial paragraph alluding to “the 
netting of robins by thousands at night” in the 
Southern States, you doubtless have substantial 
basis for the assumption. It would, however, 
be of interest to know where, when and how 
this is done. 
In my early boyhood days the robin I regarded 
as my own special game to be brought down be¬ 
fore my single barrel shotgun when they visited 
the chinaberry and cedar trees about the paternal 
homestead. But from that day to this I have 
never before heard of robins being netted at 
night, and I should be gratified to know where 
and by whom it is done. 
The robin is invested with a great deal of 
pardonable and commendable sentiment in the 
Northern States, where he plays the role of a 
familiar and semi-domestic song bird in the 
gardens, lawns and orchards. But the robin, as 
well as the bobolink, presents himself in a wholly 
different aspect in the South as a winter visitant 
who sings no songs, but gets very fat on the 
berries in the woods and is a delicious morsel 
on the table. 
Divesting the subject of mere sentiment, the 
real question is whether the robin may be levied 
upon in the winter time in the South for gastro¬ 
nomic purposes, without materially depleting the 
supply of song birds about Northern homes. I 
feel quite sure that I derived more genuine hap¬ 
piness when a small boy in shooting robins than 
anyone ever did freen hearing his song. Of the 
robins^ song your contributor in the current 
number, Mr. Robinson, says: “I greatly enjoy 
the robin’s song when he first deigns to sing 
each spring, but like rhubarb pie it soon cloys 
and becomes monotonously discordant when a 
dozen vie with each other -in awaking and keep¬ 
ing me awake soon after three in the morning. 
If it could be shown that killing robins in the 
South created a scarcity of songsters in the 
North, I should say, stop killing them; but is 
there such testimony or even suggestion? 
Commenting further on Mr. Robinson’s letter 
it seems that as early as April 21 he heard bob- 
white giving voice to his characteristic spring 
call in Connecticut, whereas at a later date down 
in Mississippi I flushed a covey of unmated birds 
and have not yet heard a single bobwhite call, 
but have often heard the familiar winter whist¬ 
ling. Here is an apparent anomaly. Coahoma. 
New York Legislature. 
Albany, N. Y., May 9.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: Governor Hughes has signed the Audu¬ 
bon bill of Assemblyman Shea. It brings within 
the protection afforded the plumage of native 
wild birds, the plumage of birds of the same 
family from without the State. The bill was 
strongly opposed by the millinery interests 
throughout the State when it was before the 
Legislature, and at the recent hearing before 
the Governor. It goes into effect July 1, 1911* 
The Assembly has passed the bill of Assem¬ 
blyman Brainard, providing that the restrictions 
upon the use and possession of ferrets shall not 
apply to Livingston county. 
The Senate has passed the bill of Assembly- 
man Wood, relating to the waters and territory 
comprising the St. Lawrence reservation. 
E. C. C. 
Recent Publications. 
Wildflowers and Trees of Colorado, by Francis 
Ramaley, Ph.D. Cloth, 78 pages, with fron¬ 
tispiece and title page in tint and illustrations 
from drawings and photographs. Boulder, 
Colo., University Book Store. 
Sportsmen tourists find in Colorado so much 
that is new and strange to them that a book of 
this sort is very useful. Describing as it does 
the wildflowers, the evergreen and deciduous 
trees of the mountains and the vegetation of the 
plains, it is an excellent guide; more, an essay 
that may be read with profit by those who have 
not as yet revelled in the wildflowers of the Cen¬ 
tennial State. 
From Ruwenzori to the Congo, by A. F. R. 
Wollaston. Cloth, 315 pages, illustrated from 
photographs. London, John Murray; New 
York, E. P. Dutton & Co. 
The notable feature of the flood of books on 
Africa appearing recently is their lack of de¬ 
scriptive matter relating to the natives and the 
country. Mr. Wollaston’s book is different. Al¬ 
though his impressions are those of a field natu¬ 
ralist, one densely ignorant of the Africa of to¬ 
day can follow the narrative with enthusiasm, 
for the author shows that not all of that portion 
of Africa visited by him is the howling wilder¬ 
ness pictured by many writers. He found a vast 
amount of the country visited worthy of descrip¬ 
tion, while of the flora and fauna he writes with 
enthusiasm. 
