Forest and Stream 
Terms, $3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy, | 
Six Months, $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MARCH 18 , 1911 . 
VOL. LXXVI.—No. 11. 
No. 127 Franklin St., New York. 
A WEEKLY JOURNAL. 
Copyright, 1911, 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, 1873. 
MONTANA’S GAME REFUGES. 
The establishment by the State of Montana 
of three game refuges shows that at last the 
game refuge idea is taking hoid in the West, 
where there is still left some game to protect. 
Hidden away among the rough bad lands along 
the Missouri River are still to be found a few 
mountain sheep—scattered survivors of the old 
herds that thirty years ago used to be seen by 
those who were passing up and down the river 
resting on the points of the bluffs in bands 
which sometimes numbered seventy-five. So, 
too, in these bad lands, browsing on the up¬ 
lands and daily going down to the river to drink, 
are a few mule deer and even a few antelope. 
Not far from this country many years ago 
the last of the wild buffalo of Montana were 
destroyed. It was here that Dr. Hornaday col¬ 
lected for the Smithsonian Institution a series 
of wild buffalo, and the few that were left after 
this hunting expedition—and that for the Ameri¬ 
can Museum of Natural History which followed 
it—were for some years carefully guarded by 
the cowboys and range riders of the Dry Fork 
and Porcupine country and considerably in¬ 
creased. One year, however, the halfbreed 
Crees which had escaped from Canada, just after 
the Riel rebellion, made an incursion into the 
country and are supposed to have destroyed all 
these buffalo, though it was said that later still 
one or two were killed by non-professional hun¬ 
ters. These Crees used also to sweep the Mis¬ 
souri River bottom with men and dogs killing—■ 
so it was said—the whitetail deer, and in fact 
everything found there. 
At that time it was urged that Montana should 
set aside a section of this country—of which the 
only possible available portion is the actual bot¬ 
tom of the great river—as a game preserve, but 
the idea came too soon to receive favorable con¬ 
sideration. 
The Pryor Mountain Game Preserve lies west 
of the Big-Horn River and includes a consider¬ 
able area of rough bad land country excellently 
adapted to game preserve purposes, and not very 
distant from the Big-Horn Mountains of Wyo¬ 
ming which that State purposes to stock with 
game of various sorts. 
TO REGULATE COLD STORAGE. 
The New York Assembly passed last week 
the Brennan cold storage bill which regulates 
the length of time food may be kept in cold 
storage warehouses. It provides that goods on 
being delivered at cold storage warehouses must 
be stamped with the date, and that it shall be un¬ 
lawful to keep food in cold storage for more 
than six months, except with the consent of the 
Commissioner of Health, and that in no event 
may it be kept for more than one year. The 
Commissioner of Health is to have power to 
inspect all cold storage warehouses and to con¬ 
demn and destroy food if he deems it unfit for 
use. 
This bill should become the law, as should 
also a similar bill now under discussion in the 
Legislature of New Jersey. It is gratifying to 
see that these bills are supported by some of 
the prominent cold storage warehouse men in 
Jersey City and in New York. 
Cases of poisoning by cold storage food are 
not very unusual, and it is only tw r o or three 
years since the town of Lockport, N. Y., re¬ 
ceived a wholesale shock of this sort, four 
families and 125 members of a club being 
poisoned, it was believed, by cold storage 
turkeys. 
The passage of a law such as this is not only 
a needed safeguard to the public health, but it 
is also a strong game protective measure. It is 
now too often the custom for dealers in game 
to buy up large quantities of game birds at the 
close of the season, and to put them in cold 
storage to be retained there until the opening 
of another season. If these bills shall be¬ 
come law in New York and New Jersey, it will 
undoubtedly save many upland birds, and espe¬ 
cially great numbers of wildfowl. The measure 
deserves hearty support. 
BREAKING ILLINOIS’ LAW. 
The Illinois law limits the number of wild¬ 
fowl that may be taken by a gunner in a day. 
How far this law is enforced we do not 
know, but we are told that in some places it is 
deliberately violated by certain members of duck¬ 
ing clubs, who go out with their punters, or boat¬ 
men, taking along an extra gun for the punter, 
and then themselves shoot—if they can—the limit 
for themselves and for the punter. 
This is a contemptible method of breaking the 
law, and becomes doubly an evil when practiced 
by club members who are supposed to be well 
to do people and many of them well brought up. 
A man who is a member of a gunning club takes 
on himself certain special responsibilities and 
ought to be especially scrupulous so to carry 
himself as to be an example to his less fortu¬ 
nate fellows who may not be club members. 
Such disregard of the law by the idle and 
wealthy not only tends to make the clubs to 
which they belong unpopular, but stimulates the 
residents of the surrounding regions to viola¬ 
tions of the law. These residents feel, natu¬ 
rally, that if club members can do this, they may 
do the same. Moreover, not a few such men, 
envious of the success of the club member, will 
do everything in their power to destroy the fowl. 
If, in their actions with regard to game and 
game protection, men—rich and poor—would try 
to put aside the natural selfishness which is in¬ 
herent in all of us, they could work together 
single-heartedly and accomplish great things. 
Now that the attention of the public is cen¬ 
tered in Mexico, the story, “Boregas and 
Tanakas,” begun in this issue, will be of un¬ 
usual interest to readers. The author is a big- 
game hunter of note, and the narrative is en¬ 
livened with a few of the many fine photographs 
made by him on his Mexican journey. The 
region visited is now the scene of no little 
activity by Federals and insurrectos, but readers 
of the story will readily understand that the 
scarcity of water, and not the nature of the 
country, regulates the range of both game and 
fighters. Throughout the dry country of the 
Southwest the presence of tanakas, as the pools 
of rainwater are called, is of more importance 
than mineral deposits. These are often potholes 
in the bedrock of dry watercourses. Following 
a downpour of rain the water roars down these 
drains for a short time, then subsides, leaving 
the tanks filled. Here at nightfall gather horse¬ 
men, cattle, game, doves in hordes, and other 
furred and feathered creatures, to slake their 
thirst. 
Attempts to repeal good protective laws and 
to enact bad ones continue at Albany. Assem¬ 
blyman A. J. Levy has introduced a bill which, 
if passed, wouid have the effect of practically 
repealing the Shea law forbidding the use of 
bird plumage in decoration. The Levy bill should 
be opposed by everyone interested in the pro¬ 
tection of birds, and this means all the agricul¬ 
turalists of the country. Senator Baynes’ bill to 
prohibit the sale of game should receive favor¬ 
able action by the New York Legislature, and 
it is interesting to see that at the meeting of 
sportsmen at Albany last week this measure was 
unanimously approved by representatives of not 
less than thirty-eight associations of sportsmen 
and game preserves. 
*» 
Dr. Arthur W. Booth has ordered from the 
State 6,000 trees which are to be planted under 
his direction by the school children of Elmira, 
N. Y., on Arbor Day. Last year and in 1909 
12,000 trees were planted on lands near the city, 
permission being gladly given by the owners. 
Glens Falls school children are also planting 
several thousand trees each year. 
