Forest and Stream 
Terms, $3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy, 
Six Months, $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JANUARY 21 , 1911 . 
VOL. LXXVI.—N®. 3. 
No. 127 Franklin St., New York. 
A WEEKLY JOURNAL. 
Copyright, 1910, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
George Bird Grinnelx, President, 
Charles B. Reynolds, Secretary, 
Louis Dean Seeir, 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. 
AEROPLANE AND SHOOTING. 
A few weeks ago we made jocular allusion 
to the report that Hubert Latham, the famous 
aviator, had pursued and shot at wildfowl while 
flying in his monoplane over the grounds of the 
Bolsa Chica Gun Club in Southern California. 
He fired ten shots, we are told, killed at least 
one bluebill, and caused a widespread duck panic 
over the contiguous marshes. This unprece¬ 
dented occurrence has had such wide newspaper 
currency that it seems necessary to comment on 
it again in serious vein. 
However thoughtless and innocent of wrong 
intent the act may have been, it was most un¬ 
sportsmanlike, for no more destructive practices 
in relation to the preservation of wildfowl could 
be imagined. 
In many States the game laws prohibit the 
use of the motorboat and sailboat in the pur¬ 
suit of wildfowl, yet Latham used a machine a 
thousand times more effective in thoroughly 
frightening the wildfowl and driving them from 
their resorts. The killing of any number of 
ducks is insignificant in comparison with the evils 
sure to follow from the terror wrought by such 
a harmful innovation. All wild creatures being 
very susceptible to panic are likely to desert per¬ 
manently a region where they are constantly 
subjected to frightful alarms. 
The gun club, whose guest Latham' was, may 
reasonably be assumed to be the chief offender 
in this matter, for that he broke the game laws 
or took the initiative in this duck chasing with¬ 
out the assent of the club is hardly to be sup¬ 
posed. As an alien, Latham might plead ignor¬ 
ance in extenuation of his act, but it is difficult 
to conceive of any reasonable plea which the 
gun club could offer by way of justification. 
It is not surprising that public sentiment in 
California should now be opposed to the use 
of air craft for shooting purposes. Within a 
fortnight of Latham’s running amuck among the 
ducks, the California Game Commission appealed 
to the Legislature to enact a law prohibiting the 
use of air craft for hunting purposes. It is safe 
to predict that prompt and favorable action will 
be taken in response to this request, and the 
matter may well be considered by all other 
States. 
WILDFOWL, 1910 . 
In many of the States the wildfowl season 
has ended, and in none will it last much longer. 
All reports received about the shooting agree 
that the season has not been a good one, and 
that the crop of ducks has been short. Many 
gunners of wide experience believe that but 
few young ducks were bred during the season 
of 1910 . These opinions are based in part on 
an examination of the bags made, which gun¬ 
ners declare contain very few young birds. Be¬ 
sides this, during the whole shooting season, 
the birds have been wild. Instead of being 
gentle and unsuspicious, as fowl usually are at 
the opening of the season, these birds were shy 
and declined to come up to decoys without a 
careful inspection of the surrounding territory. 
They seemed to act, in other words, as if they 
were old birds which had passed through one 
or two shooting seasons, and this fall were 
making use of the experience acquired during 
previous years. 
Added to this wariness, and making the shoot¬ 
ing still .less successful than last year, was the 
carrying further of a habit of the wildfowl not 
altogether new. This year, on certain sea coast 
waters, the ducks, geese and swans have 
more than ever shown a tendency to leave 
their feeding grounds soon after daylight, and 
to spend the day at sea, not returning to the 
shoal water feeding grounds until after the sun 
has set—in other words, until after the law 
forbids shooting. This practice has been re¬ 
ported from a number of localities—on the 
Great South Bay of Long Island, on some of 
the broadwaters of Virginia, on Back Bay, in 
Currituck Sound and at various points in Cali¬ 
fornia. This habit puts an end to all shoot¬ 
ing, except on days when the weather is so 
tempestuous as to cause the ocean to be too 
rough for the ducks to rest on it in comfort. 
On most inland waters conditions such as this 
do not exist, although during the past season 
they were observed on some of the Great Lakes, 
making the shooting at some of the clubs there 
much less successful than usual. 
Ihis habit—the effort of the birds to escape 
the gunners who occupy the shooting grounds 
during the daylight hours—results in much 
lighter bags for the season and may become 
an important factor in wildfowl conservation. 
Through the invention of a Swede it is pos¬ 
sible that in time the pollution of streams by 
paper mill waste will be reduced materially. 
Consul-General Winslow, of Stockholm, reports 
that a Swedish company there is now making 
ethyl alcohol from lixivium of sulphite. The 
invention will enable the refuse of paper mills 
to be utilized and the sulphite waste, heretofore 
thrown away and which polluted streams, can 
now be turned into a profitable by-product. The 
invention is patented here and abroad. 
GOPHERS AND CATS. 
Newspaper reports tell of a man in the State 
of Washington, who is about to purchase in 
Pennsylvania several thousand domestic cats, 
ship them to Okanagan county, Washington, and 
through their activities attempt the extermina¬ 
tion of the gophers which are so injurious to 
the farming interests of that county. 
The Washington enthusiast is ignorant of, or 
has forgotten, the bitter regrets felt by com¬ 
munities, islands and continents where for vari¬ 
ous reasons foreign animals or birds have been 
introduced. Classic examples of this are found 
in the English sparrow in North America, the 
mongoose in some West India islands and the 
European rabbit in Australia. Very likely he 
is also ignorant of, or has forgotten, the fact 
that the domestic cat works great injury to agri¬ 
culture by its destruction of useful birds. 
Okanagan county is almost as large as the 
State of Connecticut. It has a large and in¬ 
creasing population among whom there are no 
doubt many who are as fond of birds as the 
cat man is of felines. While the domestic cat 
does not naturally take to open places, it some¬ 
times becomes wild through abandonment; or, 
if continuing a house cat, it scours the covers 
immediately about the house so thoroughly that 
it is condemned by most sportsmen and bird 
lovers. This class of the Okanagan county public 
is likely to have decided opinions about the pro¬ 
ject for importing cats. 
The destruction caused by gophers and ground 
squirrels is very great, but it may best be put 
an end to by carrying out the instructions of the 
Biological Survey for poisoning ground squir¬ 
rels published in another column. 
Walter Welch, of Capitola, Cal., has come 
into his own again. Mr. Welch, an honest man 
by inheritance and choice, is a game protector 
by preference. Because he refused to conform 
to certain alleged customs of his superiors 
he was removed, several years ago, from his 
place as State Deputy Game Commissioner. 
Later on he was appointed county fish and game 
warden . by the commissioners of Santa Cruz 
county, and fire warden by the State Forester. 
But a couple of years ago the commissioners 
discharged him without a hearing, whereupon 
nearly all the Santa Cruzans protested loudly. 
In the great landslide of last November 
the county commissioners found* that they 
had lost their billets over night, and the new 
commissioners have pleased the county by re¬ 
instating Mr. Welch. Santa Cruz county is 
almost unique in that the sportsman finds in 
its hills and vales both great and small game, 
while the angler may choose between salmon 
fishing in the bay and trout fishing in streams 
nearby, while the groves are filled with song 
birds. All these the people wish to protect, and 
they have chosen the right man to do it. 
