Forest and Stream 
Terms, $3 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months. $1.50. 
( NEW YORK, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1909. 
VOL. LXXIII,—No. 23. 
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, 1S73. 
THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
The annual report of the Secretary of Agri¬ 
culture just issued treats at some length the 
' work of the Bureau of Biological Survey and 
gives much information which is interesting to 
sportsmen. 
The basis of the work of the Biological Sur¬ 
vey is the study of American birds and mam¬ 
mals in their economic relations. Some of these 
creatures are destructive, others useful; there 
is a continually increasing demand for fur, and 
for game to furnish sport and food. The edu¬ 
cational work of the Biological Survey is pro¬ 
ducing results and the importance of its investi¬ 
gations is coming to be more and more appre¬ 
ciated and understood, so that there is a con¬ 
stantly increasing demand for the publications 
of the Bureau. Among the injurious animals 
to be fought against are the house rat, which 
destroys in the aggregate an enormous amount 
of property, and which is one of the vehicles 
through which the plague germs are conveyed 
from place to place; the California ground squir¬ 
rel, believed to take a toll of $10,000,000 from 
the farmer and to be another vehicle for the 
transmission of the plague; prairie dogs which 
destroy grass and crops; rabbits which damage 
fruit trees, and field mice that ravage the gar¬ 
den, the truck patch, the alfalfa field and the 
orchard. Against all these pests the Biological 
Survey is fighting, striving by experiments to 
learn what method is most effective to destroy 
these animals or prevent their ravages. 
The utilization of lands now unproductive is 
taken up. The possibility of growing deer for 
the market has already been referred to in 
Forest and Stream. The increasing cost of 
furs suggests the utilizing of certain waste 
marshes, especially on the Atlantic coast, as 
natural muskrat breeding grounds. 
The birds are being studied in their relations 
to fruit raising, and in California this investiga¬ 
tion has been going on for several years. 
Studies of the food of wildfowl, ducks and 
geese, are now being made with particular refer¬ 
ence to the transplanting from one part of the 
country to another of various aquatic plants that 
furnish food for wildfowl. The work of game 
preservation and introduction continues and 
grows more effective. Last year nearly 30,000 
gray partridges were imported for liberation in 
the United States, chiefly in California, Con¬ 
necticut, Illinois, Indiana and Kansas. This is 
an advance of more than 400 per cent, over the 
previous year, which was more than 100 per 
cent, over that of 1907. 
A large number of bird refuges have been set 
aside, chiefly in remote localities. The National 
Montana Bison Reservation will soon be ready 
for occupancy, and the higher summits of the 
Olympic Mountains, in Washington, have been 
set aside as a national refuge, largely for the 
benefit of the Roosevelt elk and certain other 
ungulates. Estimates have been made of the 
number of deer killed in certain sections. Ante¬ 
lope are still found in fourteen Western States 
and the number is approximated as 17,000. 
This section of the Secretary’s report is one 
of much interest. The work done by Dr. C. H. 
Merriam, its chief, and his staff, command the 
respect and approbation of all sportsmen. 
it must be full of exceptions is not likely to 
command public support. 
The time should come, and come soon, when 
New York—and with it a number of other 
States—will enact a uniform game law for the 
whole State. When it attempts to do so, the 
trout anglers of Long Island will no doubt ob¬ 
ject to the change with the same strenuous argu¬ 
ments that the Long Island gunners used in 
fighting the rest of the State for the right to 
shoot ducks in the spring. But in game protec¬ 
tion, as in other matters, the world is moving, 
and these local laws must soon be done away 
with. 
LOCAL LAWS. 
The various local laws which prevail within 
the different States must before long receive 
consideration by game protectors everywhere. 
In this matter the States of the Atlantic sea¬ 
board and the South are the chief offenders. 
New York has a general law for the State, 
but quite a different law for Long Island. Be¬ 
sides that there are special laws governing cer¬ 
tain counties and permitting or forbidding fish¬ 
ing in certain little streams of the utmost un¬ 
importance—a multitude of provisions which are 
of no practical good to anyone and which by 
confusing the public mind bring the game laws 
into more or less disrepute. In New Jersey a 
similar state of things exists. North Jersey has 
one law, South Jersey another. 
For the legislators who pass these laws the 
reasons urged in their support seem always good 
enough; though, in fact, such laws are entirely 
without reason. The game laws are still too 
often—what they used to be to a much greater 
extent—the product and resultant of a session’s 
log rolling. Each legislator strives with all his 
might to secure for his own constituents the 
special privileges which he believes they desire. 
This absurd principle of home rule is perhaps 
carried to its most ridiculous conclusion in some 
of the Southern States. Mr. Pearson’s recent 
letter, showing what may and may not be done 
in certain counties of North Carolina, tells its 
own impressive story. It is even worse in Louis¬ 
iana. Half a column of fine print would not 
contain a list of the counties for which special 
privileges are provided in the game law, and 
notwithstanding this, we are told that there is 
a demand in Louisiana for still other local modi¬ 
fications and privileges. The result of this is to 
perplex the public, and to make people feel a 
mntempt for the measure. A law so weak that 
To those who dwell in the country of the 
ruffed grouse the picture on our first page will 
call up many pleasant memories. Notwithstand¬ 
ing the care exercised by the old dog and the 
gunner, a partridge has flushed wild and been 
shot at and followed, and again started and 
shot at, and now after a long flight has taken 
refuge in an open piece of woods beside a fallen 
log. But the old dog’s years of partridge hunt¬ 
ing have not been wasted. He understands a 
multitude of the tricks of this cunning bird— 
no dog knows them all—and slowly and care¬ 
fully has followed the bird until now at last 
he has pinned it, and the following gunner will 
surely get a shot. In this open woods he ought 
not to miss, yet what gunner is hardy enough 
to say that he is ever sure of killing a partridge 
when it rises ? If it is easy to miss difficult 
shots, sometimes it is easy also—through over- 
confidence—to miss the easiest shot. 
William Macicay Laffan, the distinguished 
proprietor and manager of the New York Sun, 
who died recently, was eminent in many fields. 
He was a writer of remarkable power and his 
knowledge of various branches of art was very 
great. It is not generally known that he was 
also a sportsman and that many years ago he 
wrote a very delightful article entitled, “Can- 
vasback and Terrapin,” which was printed in 
the Century Magazine and afterward in the 
Century Company’s magnificent volume, “Sport 
With Gun and Rod in American Woods and 
Waters.” Mr. Laffan had resided for some 
years in Baltimore, long known as the home 
of the canvasback and the terrapin. 
Very little has been heard this year concern¬ 
ing forest fires in the Adirondacks and Catskills. 
The Forest, Fish and Game Commission re¬ 
ports about 250 fires in all so far, but under the 
new system inaugurated by it, fires were quickly 
seen and given short shrift, so that the total 
loss, compared with other years, is insignificant. 
The Catskill region suffered heavier loss than 
the Adirondacks; due to the drouth, which aided 
fires in nearby States as well as in New York. 
