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NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MAY 28, 1910. 
( VOL. LXXIV.-No. 22. 
1 No. 127 Franklin St., New York. 
A WEEKLY JOURNAL. 
Copyright, 1910, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Gboxgk Bird Grinnrll, 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 in¬ 
terest in outdoor recreation, and to cultivate 
a refined taste for natural objects. 
—Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1873. 
THE HUDSON RIVER PARK. 
The Harriman extension to the Palisades In¬ 
terstate Park, on the west bank of the Hudson 
River, is now assured. On Monday night of this 
week the New York Senate, by votes that were 
practically unanimous, passed the series of four 
park bills in the same order in which they were 
passed by the Assembly. 
With the concurrence of the Assembly the bill 
calling for a bond issue of $2,500,000 will be 
submitted to the people at the election next 
November. The other bills will go to Governor 
Hughes for his signature. 
Pursuant to the wishes of her late husband, 
Mrs. Mary A. Harriman last autumn sub¬ 
mitted to Governor Hughes and the State of 
New York a proposition to provide an im¬ 
mense outing ground for the people of New 
York and New Jersey. She agreed to give 
the State about 10,000 acres of land lying in the 
Highlands of the Hudson, and $1,000,000 in cash 
to be used in the purchase of additional lands; 
sixteen other persons agreed to contribute $1,- 
655,000 in cash; the New Jersey Legislature ap¬ 
propriated $500,000—all on these conditions: 
that the new State prison site on Bear Moun¬ 
tain be abandoned; that $2,500,000 be appropti- 
ated by New York' State, this, together with the 
sum subscribed by individuals, to be used in 
the purchase of additional lands for the round¬ 
ing out of the park project. 
With the exception noted above, the bills now- 
before Governor Hughes provide for all of these 
details, and further, that the work of acquiring 
the new park lands be placed in charge of the 
Palisades Interstate Park Commission. I his 
commission has in the past few years triumphed 
over seemingly impossible obstacles m the ac¬ 
quisition of all of the many parcels of land 
fronting on the west shore of the Hudson River 
from Fort Lee to Piermont. Its members have 
served without remuneration, and the expense 
account is ridiculously small. With the experi¬ 
ence they have acquired regarding local condi¬ 
tions, it is probable the purchase of the addi¬ 
tional lands as far north as Newburgh will be 
prosecuted w'ith dispatch. 
When the park bills came up in the Senate 
for final action last week, only eighteen senators 
favored them, and fifteen voted against them. 
This raised such a storm of public indignation 
that a majority of those who had opposed the 
measures hastened over to the safe side, and 
when the vote by which the bills were rejected 
was reconsidered on Monday night, the strongest 
opposition to any of the bills was only three 
votes. 
A map of the people’s play ground will be 
found elsewhere in this issue. A glance at it 
will show that the great park offers irresistible 
inducements to the people of two densely popu¬ 
lated States. For vacations, week-end trips and 
one-day excursions it is ideally situated, and 
they who walk, canoe, motor or drive will find 
places to rest, bathe, fish, shoot or camp. 
IV1 LDP OWL SHOOTING IN SPRING. 
Many gunners, East and West, believe that 
for the last two seasons wildfowl have been 
more abundant than for a number of years be¬ 
fore. Many gunners believe that this apparent 
increase is due to the stopping of spring shoot¬ 
ing in many of the States and Provinces of, the 
United States and Canada. None of us—whether 
naturalists or mere laymen—know much about 
the influences which govern the plenty or scar¬ 
city of wildfowl, but it seems obvious that the 
greater the number of breeding birds killed off 
during the season of migration, the smaller the 
crop of young must be next summer, and so the 
less the number of migrating birds to return the 
following autumn. 
During the many hot fights that have been 
carried on to induce legislators to prohibit by 
law the practice of shooting wildfowl in the 
spring, those who debated the question pro and 
con have advanced many arguments based on a 
variety of conditions; but, after all, the main 
reason for prohibiting spring shooting is to pre¬ 
vent the killing of so many fowl. The season for 
duck shooting has been too long. The number of 
birds killed has been too great. It is interest¬ 
ing- to note that most of the Provinces of Canada 
have long prohibited spring shooting for wild¬ 
fowl, except that in Prince Edwards Island wild 
geese and brant may be shot all through the 
spring into early summer, and in Ontario swans 
and geese may be shot in spring. So along the 
Atlantic coast the New England States and New 
York prohibit spring shooting. In the South 
and in the Mississippi Valley, birds may gen¬ 
erally be shot wherever they are found, except 
now and then in the case of the woodduck. 
It has been suggested that sportsmen should 
concentrate on spring shooting and should every¬ 
where endeavor to have it put an end to. If this 
could be done, there is little doubt that the gun¬ 
ning for wildfowl would improve all over the 
country; but it would be difficult to persuade 
residents of certain Southern States, where many 
people get their living by the sale of wildfowl 
or by taking out gunners for hire, to agree to 
any law wffiich would greatly shorten the sea¬ 
son. In some States of the South the open sea¬ 
son is not excessively long, and in some of those 
States there are three rest days each week, which 
are very helpful to the birds. O11 the other hand, 
some of those States have almost no protective 
laws on wildfowl. 
The subject is one that gunners may profitably 
discuss. 
CALIFORNIA’S GOOD FORTUNE. 
We congratulate the sportsmen of California 
and the Game and Fish Commission of that 
State on their good fortune in securing the 
services of John Pease Babcock as chief deputy 
commissioner. M. J. Connell, the new presi¬ 
dent, takes with him into the commission the 
good will of the sportsmen of his State, and 
Mr. Babcock returns to resume the work he laid 
aside when he retired from the chief deputy- 
ship several years ago. Since then he has been 
commissioner of fisheries of British Columbia, 
where he has performed the hardest sort of 
work in a very large field—work that has 
brought good results and which will be felt 
through the years that are to come. 
Mr. Babcock is well known to a great many 
of our readers, while others will remember him 
either through his writings which have been 
published in Forest and Stream or in connec¬ 
tion with the large number of beautiful photo¬ 
graphs of fishing scenes in the great Northwest, 
made by him and reproduced in these columns 
from time to time. A series of three of h:s 
pictures will be found in another column, and 
others will be published later on. 
California’s new executive agent, as the chief 
deputy commissioner is termed, is an enthusi¬ 
astic advocate of game and fish protection and 
a sportsman. He will find an abundance of 
w r ork, but he will also find the sportsmen—asso¬ 
ciations and individuals—ready and willing to 
assist him. 
A judge in Monroe county, Wisconsin, has 
handed down a decision of more than passing 
interest. An angler, in pursuit of trout, waded 
a stream through private property. The owner 
brought suit, alleging trespass. The court held that 
a landowner has no right nor title to a stream 
passing through his land, or to the fish in that 
stream; that the streams and the fish in them 
belong to the Commonwealth, and that the pub¬ 
lic has a right to navigate these streams, either 
in boats or by wading. It was further held that 
so long as a person following the stream re¬ 
frained from setting foot on the banks, no 
charge of trespass could lie. 
Another one of the Forest and Stream prize 
stories is printed in part in this issue. In "A 
Lillooet Sheep Hunt” big-game shooters will be 
able to glean valuable information regarding one 
of the famous ranges of the Rocky Mountain 
sheep. 
ii* 
