Forest and Stream 
Terms, $3 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JUNE 1 8 , 1910. 
( VOL. LXXIV.-No. 25. 
1 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 in¬ 
terest in outdoor recreation, and to cultivate 
a refined taste for natural objects. 
—Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1S73. 
HETCH-HETCHY NEXT YEAR. 
Late last month a hearing was held before the 
Secretary of the Interior on the question of re¬ 
voking a permit granted by Secretary Garfield in 
May, 1908, to the city of San Francisco. This 
permit authorized the use by San Francisco, 
under certain circumstances, of the Hetch- 
Hetchy region in the Yosemite National Park as 
a source of water supply. By the terms of the 
permit, San Francisco might draw water from 
the Hetch-Hetchy valley whenever the demands 
of that city were greater than Lake Eleanor 
could supply. i 
It has been reported by the Director of the 
Geological Survey and engineers of the Recla¬ 
mation Service that Lake Eleanor contains, or 
can be made to contain, a supply of water suffi¬ 
cient for the future needs of the city, but the 
authorities of San Francisco deny that this is 
true. Secretary Ballinger invited a board of 
Army engineers to be present at the hearing, 
and three officers were appointed for that pur¬ 
pose. After an adjournment the engineer acting 
for the Society for the Preservation of National 
Parks showed that the Lake Eleanor and tribu¬ 
tary sites were sufficient to furnish water for 
San Francisco up to 1948, and after a considera¬ 
tion of the various arguments the Secretary an¬ 
nounced that he would suspend decision for one 
year, during which another investigation should 
be made by a board of army engineers to whom 
the San Francisco authorities are to report the 
results of their examination into the water ques¬ 
tion for the city. 
It has been pointed out by Forest and Stream 
that however important the needs of San Fran¬ 
cisco may be, a much more important question 
is here at issue. Shall our national parks, es¬ 
tablished by Congress for the benefit of the 
whole people, be diverted from the purposes for 
which originally set aside—the pleasure of the 
people—for the benefit of any private or even 
municipal use? If a portion of the Yosemite 
Park can be used for such a purpose, a portion 
of any other national park may be used for any 
similar purpose, and the whole system of these 
national reservations may shortly be destroyed. 
It appears to us inconceivable that the officials 
of the nation should consent to anything of 
this sort, or that Congress should permit it to 
be done. 
NATURE’S BALANCE. 
Truly the lot of the farmer is a hard one, 
and those.who have gone back to the soil—or 
who have never left it—can sympathize heartily 
with the plaint of one farmer who, on another 
page, discusses the ravages of the pine mouse, 
and the troubles which followed the effort to 
check these ravages. It is not long since the 
damage caused by deer was complained of. A 
few days since a farmer told us of having set 
out a few cabbage plants of which, a day or 
two later, more than ninety per cent, had been 
destroyed by cut worms. Not long ago corres¬ 
pondents described the destruction of poultry 
caused by hawks, and two or three years earlier 
a hot discussion took place as to whether the 
weasel did or did not kill poultry. 
Of persons living in the country a very large 
number kill hawks on sight and a less number 
—for weasels are scarce—crush the weasel's 
head when they can reach it. 
No doubt it is true that hawks and weasels 
and foxes and skunks from time to time kill 
poultry. No doubt also the greater part of the 
food of these predaceous creatures consists of 
mice, moles, squirrels and rats—many of them 
unquestionably injurious. It is altogether pos¬ 
sible that the correspondent who lost the young 
white pine trees in Connecticut is quite ready to 
kill hawks or weasels if he can get at them, but 
there is no doubt that two or three weasels in 
his white pine orchard would have saved him 
many trees. 
We have not now—nor for a long time are 
we likely to have—any means of measuring even 
in the most general way the value of the services 
performed by predaceous birds and mammals 
for the farmer, but it is obvious that it must 
be great. In some cases perhaps the harm they 
do is serious. More should be known about 
these matters. Each farmer should do his best 
to inform himself as to what is now known, 
and further should make ail the observations 
possible on such points, and should communicate 
these observations to others. 
Dr. H. G. Piffard, a physician of eminence, 
an ardent sportsman and a long-time corres¬ 
pondent of Forest and Stream, died in this city 
last week. He was born in New York city in 
1842, educated here, and had been a practicing 
physician for forty-six years. He was a man 
of acute intellect and abundant energy, and was 
full of ideas on many subjects. Whatever he 
took up he went into with the utmost enthu¬ 
siasm. He had been an expert rifle shot, canoe¬ 
ist, photographer, and was an authority on 
radium and the x-rays. Besides being a keen 
sportsman, devoted especially to the use of the 
shotgun, he was a great authority on edible 
fungi, and was for some years the president of 
the Mycological Club. Possessed of a keen sense 
of humor, he was a delightful companion; yet 
sternly devoted to what was right, he 'would 
fight earnestly and obstinately in behalf of his 
beliefs. He was the author of a number of 
medical works, and for many years was a pro¬ 
fessor in New York University and consulting 
surgeon in the City Hospital. 
Careful investigation was made by the Bio¬ 
logical Survey during 1908 of the present dis¬ 
tribution of big game, especially deer and ante¬ 
lope, and the number killed during the hunting 
season. East of the Mississippi (omitting New 
Hampshire, Georgia and North Carolina) 60,000 
deer were killed in 1908. Antelope are still 
found in fourteen Western States, though the 
total number is approximately only 17,000. Not¬ 
withstanding the fact that the antelope is pro¬ 
tected throughout the year in practically all the 
States in which it now occurs, special efforts are 
necessary to save this fine game animal from 
extinction. In the decade from 1898 to 1908 the 
antelope of Colorado, according to estimates of 
the State game warden, decreased from 25,000 
to 2,000. Statistics have been gathered by the 
bureau concerning private and public game pre¬ 
serves, game propagation, hunting license receipts 
and many other special features of game and 
bird preservation. 
Robert W. de Forest, trustee for the Sage 
Foundation, has announced that Mrs. Sage has 
stated that she will contribute $5,000 a year for 
the next three years to the work of the National 
Association of Audubon Societies for the pro¬ 
tection of wild birds and animals. Mrs. Sage 
has made no stipulations as to how the money 
shall be used, further than to say that she would 
prefer that it fie expended in the Southern 
States. It is reported that some portion of this 
money will be used especially for the protection 
of robins, but probably no plans have as yet 
been made in regard to it. 
at 
Leonard Crossle, honorary secretary of the 
British Amateur Fly- and Bait-Casting Club, has 
asked Forest and Stream to inform him as to 
the number of American anglers' who intend to 
take part in the international casting tourna¬ 
ment to be held at Hendon on July 7 and 8. If 
intending contestants will write us, Mr. Crossle’s 
request will be complied with at once, and ar¬ 
rangements will no doubt be made to extend the 
time for receiving entries from this country. 
m 
Two remarkable pictures of wildfowl in flight 
are reproduced elsewhere in this issue. They 
were made in the Imperial Valley, in California, 
and show the character of the irrigated lands 
on which the ducks feed during several month? 
every year. [j j 
