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Terms, $3 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JUNE 4, 1910. 
[ VOL. LXXIV.—No. 23. 
' No. 127 Franklin St.. New York 
A WEEKLY JOURNAL. 
Copyright, 1910, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Georg* 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 in¬ 
terest in outdoor recreation, and to cultivate 
a refined taste for natural objects. 
—Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1873. 
a hArriman fund. 
It has Just been made ptiblic that Mrs. M. A. 
Harriman has established a fund for the col¬ 
lection of information on the mammals and 
other animals of North America. Dr. C. Hart 
Merriam, long chief of the Biological Survey 
of the Department of Agriculture, has resigned 
from the Government service and will take 
charge of the work. 
The announcement of the establishment of this 
fund will rejoice all naturalists, nature lovers 
and sportsmen, since it gives promise that a 
great work on North American mammals will 
before long be undertaken. Dr. Merriam is one 
of the first of biologists, and in field and labora¬ 
tory has long been working on North American 
fauna and flora. 1 he Biological Survey origi¬ 
nated in his brain, was established at his sug¬ 
gestion and from the beginning has been directed 
by him. Its investigations have been of great 
value to agriculturists throughout the United 
States, and as time goes on and the work be¬ 
comes better understood, it will become more and 
more valuable. His studies of the life of North 
America have enabled him to set forth laws of 
temperature control of geographic distribution 
of land animals and plants, and to establish the 
relations between the life zones and crop zones 
of the United States. 
He has many times visited Alaska, the last 
time with the Harriman-Alaska expedition, and 
he brought together and edited the results col¬ 
lected by the scientific men of this party, which 
filled sixteen volumes. Besides being the first 
authority in this country on North American 
mammals, Dr. Merriam is an ethnologist and 
better acquainted than anyone with the Califor¬ 
nia Indians and the basketry of the Southwest. 
In charge of this fund and freed from the 
detail of office routine. Dr. Merriam will be able 
to make prompt use of the great amount of ma¬ 
terial that he has collected on North American 
mammals and North American Indians. 
The world owes a debt of gratitude to Mrs. 
M. A. Harriman, whose wise and generous gift 
offers to the public the immense advantages of 
Dr. Merriam’s vast stores of learning. Each 
one of - us may well pause for a moment and 
consider what this gift means to nature lovers 
everywhere and thus realize what Mrs. Harri¬ 
man has done for him. 
THE HUDSON RIVER PARK. 
On May 26 , three days after the Senate had 
passed them, the Hudson River Park bills were 
signed by Governor Hughes. The series relates 
to the following details: 
The abolition of the Hudson Highlands Forest 
Reservation; 
The extension of the Palisades Interstate Park 
from its present northern terminus at Piermont 
to Newburgh; 
1 he acceptance of the Harriman and other 
gifts of lands and cash; 
1 he issuance of $2,500,000 State four per cent, 
bonds for the development of the park; 
I he abandonment of the State Prison site on 
Bear Mountain and the selection of a site else¬ 
where. 
Only those who have tramped over the great 
region involved, cruised along its water front, 
camped on its shores, traversed its highways and 
trails, in summer and in winter, know the scope 
of this project. It may well be doubted whether 
Governor Hughes, the few strokes of whose pen 
consummated the transaction, realizes the full 
extent of the boon conferred on the people of 
New York and New Jersey forever. The great 
value of the preserve dawns on one only after 
he has learned to know the region intimately. 
Then he grasps its import—a rugged tract of 
land washed by a great river, in full view of a 
hundred tall business blocks in our greatest city, 
and free for all of its people. 
SPRING WILDFOWL SHOOTING. 
The varying opinions on this subject, which 
we print on another page, indicate the change 
that has taken place in the sentiment of sports¬ 
men within the last few years. It is not so very 
long ago that there was only one opinion about 
wildfowl shooting, and this was that, wherever 
and whenever found, a duck was the legitimate 
prey of whomsoever could kill it. 
At the present time, as shown in tables which 
we published last week, about one-half of the 
States and Provinces of North America permit 
spring shooting while all the others forbid it. 
The States and Provinces in which it is forbid¬ 
den are mostly those in which wildfowl breed, and 
for this reason the whole country, during the 
autumn migration and the winter sojourn, re¬ 
ceives the benefit of the laws of the prohibiting 
States. 
It is well established that in primitive times 
wildfowl bred over much of the eastern half of 
the continent as far south as the Ohio River; 
while on the great plains and in the high moun¬ 
tains they no doubt bred still further to the 
southward. The settling of the country—the cul¬ 
tivation of land, the draining of swamps and the 
cutting away of cover—have reduced the area 
in which fowl could nest, but one cause that has 
made breeding impossible over much of the land 
has been the constant pursuit to which the birds 
were subjected in the spring time. 
If a pair of mated ducks came to a certain 
pond and began to look about for a nesting site, 
their coming at once became known, and half a 
dozen gunners were in pursuit, almost before the 
birds had become rested from their flight. Some¬ 
thing of this kind was happening almost every¬ 
where, and under such conditions no birds could 
be expected to breed. If not killed, they were 
obliged to move onward in a fruitless search for 
some place where they might be safe. 
Within the last two or three years many ex¬ 
amples have been cited of the increased number 
of birds breeding in certain of our New England 
and Middle States, and a letter recently received 
tells us that to-day a great light is being seen 
by the ranchmen in Central Nebraska who are 
beginning to learn that by preventing spring 
shooting they can increase their autumn stock 
of wildfowl. 
1 lie general subject is one that must interest 
every gunner, and we hope that each one who 
has an opinion will express it. 
1 he canoeists encamped at Hermit Point on 
tie Hudson River last Sunday were just starting 
on a triangular race in open sailing canoes when 
ti e Curtiss aeroplane and the special train fol¬ 
lowing^ it down the river appeared along the 
New York shore. The race, for which months 
of preparation had been made, was forgotten. 
Those ashore and afloat were spell-bound, for 
once their cheers and club calls, so freely used 
in saluting, were not voiced. It was a camp of 
men of experience in the art of overcoming ob¬ 
stacles presented by baffling winds, and their 
silence was a high tribute to Curtiss’ success in 
these same currents. Perhaps there was a camp 
of red men at the same place when Hudson’s 
Half Moon sailed up the historic river. If so, 
their murmured wonder and admiration found 
an echo in this latter-day tribute to the latest 
demonsti ation of man’s partial mastery over the 
elements. 
* 
Another chapter in the history of Berdan’s 
Sharpshooters was written last week, when G. 
H. Chase passed away at his home in Boston. 
Mr. Chase’s age was seventy-six years. He was 
one of the most famous sharpshooters of the 
Civil War,, and he, in common with other mem¬ 
bers of Colonel Berdan’s command, was equip¬ 
ped with a very heavy muzzleloading rifle fitted 
with a long telescope sight. The skill of this 
little body of men. and the deadly accuracy of 
their ponderous rifles went far toward populariz¬ 
ing the use of telescope sights. These, in smaller 
form and at moderate prices, are in more or less 
common use to-day. In Berdan’s time each one 
was made to order and was a costly instrument. 
On one occasion Mr. Chase lost his rifle in cross¬ 
ing a river, but another one was presented to 
him by Secretary of War Stanton. 
