Forest and Stream 
Terms, $3 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16 , 1909 . 
VOL. LXXIII,—No. 16. 
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 interest 
in outdoor recreation, and to cultivate a refined 
taste for natural objects. 
—Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1873. 
ECONOMIC USE OF SOME WILD 
CREATURES.—I. 
Man, the greatest destroyer of animal life, 
views with especial hostility all other destroyers 
of that life. Those mammals and birds which 
subsist on vegetation he kills chiefly as food, 
but he kills still more eagerly those which sub¬ 
sist on other birds and mammals, alleging—in 
these days—that the carnivorous birds and 
mammals destroy creatures beneficial to man. 
Yet of these carnivorous birds and mammals 
many are very useful to the agriculturist, for 
their services outweigh many times the depreda¬ 
tions which they may commit. The poultry-eating 
fox or hawk is comparatively rare, though the 
occasional misdeeds of either are heralded far 
and wide, for popular prejudice has given them 
bad names. A paper on this subject by Dr. A. 
K. Fisher, of the Biological Survey, recently 
printed, treats interestingly of this subject. 
In civilized communities there is no place 
for wolves and panthers, which, in the absence 
of their natural prey, must destroy live stock. 
There are, however, many places where—pro¬ 
vided poultry and sheep are properly protected 
at night—coyotes and wild cats might well 
enough be left without interference, since these 
animals keep down the rabbits and gophers 
which damage various crops and destroy fruit 
trees. There are places in the Western country 
where the services of these animals are ap¬ 
preciated at their true value. Moreover, there 
are times when the coyote feeds largely on 
harmful insects, such as beetles, crickets and 
grasshoppers, just as at times it feeds largely 
on fruits. The big timber wolf is sometimes 
a fruit eater, and in British Columbia feasts on 
salmon berries. 
If chickens are housed at night in tight 
houses, there is little danger to them from the 
fox, whose prey is largely field mice, rabbits, 
ground squirrels and insects. It is true that 
foxes kill a certain number of game birds, but 
their food is chiefly the animals just mentioned, 
together with an occasional gray squirrel or 
young woodchuck. 
The mink and weasel, while living chiefly on 
mice, the former also killing many muskrats, 
fish, crayfish and birds, sometimes form the 
poultry habit, and in such cases should be de¬ 
stroyed, but, as a rule, these animals prey 
chiefly on the farmer’s worst enemies—the 
rodents. 
The skunk has a bad name as a destroyer of 
poultry, yet its chief food is injurious insects 
and mice, varied with fruits of one kind and 
another. The services which it performs in its 
destruction of insects are incalculable. 
In the Western country the badger is most 
valuable as a destroyer of ground squirrels, 
gophers and other burrowing animals, and no 
doubt it eats insects as well. It would be good 
policy for all the States where the badger is 
found to protect and encourage it. 
Certain domestic animals, like the house cat 
and its natural enemy, the rat, do an enormous 
amount of damage in the' way of destroying 
poultry and useful birds—probably far more 
than that wrought by all the smaller wild ani¬ 
mals put together. Of course, there are not a 
few cats running wild in the fields or hunting 
from the house, which catch an occasional 
mouse or mole or red squirrel; but for each 
such service they probably destroy a hundred 
useful birds. 
The conclusion to be drawn from all this is 
that these small wild animals should not be 
thoughtlessly killed, since often they are man’s 
useful friends; and further, that the domestic 
creatures on which they are commonly thought 
to prey should be protected—especially at night 
—from any possible attacks by animals wild 
or domestic. 
THE POACHER’S REVENGE. 
A recent press dispatch from Ogdensburg, 
N. Y., states that the summer home of Oliver 
Adams, on one of the Thousand Islands of the 
St. Lawrence River, was burned the night of 
Oct. 7 by miscreants who poured kerosene on 
the veranda and set fire to it. The outrage is 
believed to have been perpetrated by illegal net- 
ters who have been punished as a result of Mr. 
Adams’ efforts to bring them to book. 
Taking revenge in this way, cowardly and 
reprehensible thought it be, is not unknown in 
places where laws are strictly enforced, and the 
'knowledge that something of this sort may occur 
deters many an honest man from bringing no¬ 
torious poachers to justice. No warden or citi¬ 
zen who attempts to break up illegal shooting 
or fishing can contemplate with equanimity the 
possibility that his home will be burned over his 
head if he continues his activity. For this reason 
it is often difficult to induce able men to become 
fish and game wardens. No matter how cour¬ 
ageous one may be, and though he take every 
precaution, there is no sure method of defend¬ 
ing one’s home against incendiaries. 
The sole remedy for the evil is swift and cer¬ 
tain punishment for those convicted of such 
dastardly crimes. 
A TALE FROM THE NORTH. 
Newspaper dispatches from Northern Alberta 
tell a sad tale of destruction by fire, which, it 
may be hoped, is not true. It is said that 
Canada’s National Buffalo Park no longer 
exists, and that the great fence which sur¬ 
rounded it has been destroyed by prairie fires. 
Moreover, the buffalo, it is said, are now free 
and have been driven northward by the flames. 
For weeks past prairie fires have been ravaging 
the country in the neighborhood of Wainwright, 
Alberta, many homesteaders have lost all they 
possess, and the damage will run into millions 
of dollars. 
The story is almost too complete to receive 
full credence, and we may await further details 
before believing that the 8oo buffalo purchased 
from Michel Pablo by the Canadian Govern¬ 
ment have been lost. 
The story of the wholesale destruction of song 
birds in the South, told in another column, is 
not a new one. In many sections of those States 
where Northern song and game birds pass the 
season of migration, they are exposed to con¬ 
stant slaughter all through the winter by unedu¬ 
cated whites and negroes, and the decrease in 
their ranks is something quite beyond belief. 
In some parts of the South earnest efforts are 
being made to put an end to this slaughter, but 
a comprehension as to the usefulness of birds 
makes its way but slowly through the masses of 
the Southern people. In the States of North 
Carolina and Louisiana, and perhaps in other 
States, a campaign of education is being car¬ 
ried on, which ultimately must work a change 
for the better. Meantime the most that can be 
done is to urge on game commissioners and their 
wardens the importance of an earnest enforce¬ 
ment of the laws and the dissemination among 
the people at large, especially among children, of 
accurate information as to the importance of 
our birds. 
Plans are being made to secure another 
series of cinematograph pictures for the Inter¬ 
national Shooting and Field Sports Exhibition, 
to be held next year in Vienna. We have al¬ 
ready referred to the series made during one of 
Emperor Francis Joseph’s chamois hunts, and 
now it is proposed to make King Edward the 
central figure in a fox-hunting series. 
One of the side lights on quail shooting in 
the South is depicted in our cover picture this 
week. One who rises at dawn and follows the 
dogs all morning will, after a hearty luncheon 
amid pleasant surroundings and under the spell 
of the balmy autumn air, appreciate a siesta ere 
taking up the sport again in the afternoon of a 
glorious day afield. 
