770 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[May 20, 1911. 
and shores. With the tropical sun shining on 
that rich mud one can imagine that the very 
first forms of life as distinguished from matter 
were here hatched from heat and slime and 
wriggled into the light to people the world. They 
must have slipped from matter to mind some¬ 
where and why not here as well as anywhere. 
I suppose it would have been quite out of order 
for the Creator to have brought us on the stage 
a few ages sooner, so that we could have taken 
a cruising and camping trip in the old Louisiana 
estuary and hunted the mammoth, or the earlier 
pterodactyl or the dinosaur. I suppose man was 
unworthy of such hunting grounds, which were 
fit only for the gods themselves. 
All this of the far geologic past is preliminary 
to saying that one indication of the swarming 
life of the old estuary is that the 
remains of it have continued to 
live there or migrate there peri¬ 
odically down into our own time. 
The great flights of wildfowl, 
which for thousands of years fol¬ 
lowed down the great valley to 
the estuary, continued their habit 
as the estuary filled up, and their 
lessened numbers can now be 
found every year feeding by mil¬ 
lions along the delta and the 
waters and bayous of the Gulf. 
Only a few years ago they fed 
by millions on the now cultivated 
prairies which I visited this win¬ 
ter. Further north, where not 
driven away by habitations, they 
feed along the swamps and net¬ 
works of bayous which fringe 
the Mississippi and help carry 
off its waters in its passage 
through Louisiana. 
These swamps are still the 
refuge of the black bear and 
deer. Fur-bearing animals, the 
mink, otter, raccoon, now becom¬ 
ing extremely valuable, are found 
almost everywhere in the less set¬ 
tled parts of the State along the 
water courses. It is surprising 
to reflect that Abbeville, where I 
stayed, and which is near north 
latitude 30 and only a short run 
from the tropic of cancer, is 
the seat of a fur trade, as many 
years ago were villages and towns in frozen 
Canada nearly 2,000 miles to the north. The 
statistics of the furs brought into Abbeville from 
the neighboring marshes run up into thousands 
of dollars every winter. 
Over the drier portions of the State suitable 
to them, quail have flourished in numbers which 
I think must have exceeded the fabulous quan¬ 
tities of them found in the Yadkin Valley and 
the Tar River regions in North Carolina some 
years after the Civil War, when the Northern 
sportsmen first discovered that paradise and in¬ 
vaded it. In short, the old geologic conditions 
which have given Louisiana her wonderfully rich 
soil, have also enriched her with wi’d game in 
excess probably of any other State in the Union. 
As a mere food supply it has been and still is 
of enormous value to her people. They have 
largely lived upon it for nearly 200 years, and 
recently when it was being so rapidly diminished 
they saw that here was a natural resource which 
deserved to become a matter of conservation just 
as much as timber and mines. 
Investigations were made, the amount of game 
killed in certain counties estimated and the quan¬ 
tity was prodigious and almost unbelievable. A 
strong game commission was appointed and a 
gentleman placed at its head, Frank Miller, who 
I am proud to say is originally from Pennsyl¬ 
vania. I called on him at his offices in New 
Orleans and with a special map before him he 
gave me a rapid lecture which filled me with 
information I could hardly have obtained in 
years from other sources. I have to thank him 
for advice and suggestions which largely added 
to the pleasures of my trip. 
He appears to be leading the supremely happy 
life of a man inspired by an idea of public ser¬ 
R0BINS IN THE IOWA HISTORICAL DEPARTMENT MUSEU 
Showing plan of grouping birds. 
vice. Hard worked indoors with innumerable 
details of the passage of legislation, superintend¬ 
ence of wardens and the conservation of the 
oyster and fishing interests as well as of the 
game, he is adding millions to the wealth of 
the State and is making a real working depart¬ 
ment of what is, I fear, in most of our States, 
a mere sham if not worse. 
From my observation of the prairies I am in¬ 
clined to think that his laws are enforced, for 
it is easy to have good game laws on the statute 
book, but quite another thing to enforce them. 
Best of all, the planters and farmers seem to be 
on his side. They are glad to be relieved of the 
reckless market hunters that swept up their game 
without a thought of the future; glad to have 
the sympathy of the State Government in pro¬ 
tecting their land. They have begun to forbid 
and to limit hunting on their lands. But I 
found that in most instances where any of them 
had once made up their minds that, though a 
barbarian in language, I was nevertheless not a 
market shooter, the situation became easy 
enough. My uncivilized accent of “Permettez 
moi chasser sur votre place” was received with 
a tolerant smile, and a wave of the hand gave 
me the cane fields and the cherokee hedges. 
In one or two instances I was asked not to 
hunt a certain part of a plantation where the 
coveys had already been much cut up, and I of 
course gladly complied. The people are, on the 
whole, I am inclined to think, in favor of the 
bag limit of fifteen quail a day, which has been 
made the law, and if this line of education can 
be continued, and they will abandon the un¬ 
sportsmanlike habit of shooting quail on the 
ground and get rid of the whole silly idea of 
making and breaking records and getting more 
than the game hog that was there 
before; in short, acquire a pride 
in quality and method rather 
than quantity, our friend, Frank 
Miller, will rest easier and will 
be able to leave some of his 
harassing labors indoors and go 
out among his own game. I felt 
rather ashamed at times to have 
him work so hard in the office 
while I was enjoying the fruits 
of his labors on the prairies. 
But at last I left them and re¬ 
crossed the mighty Mississippi 
just above New Orleans. It 
seems a small stream now when 
one reflects on all its work in the 
past. But it was very impressive 
that beautiful day, though the 
railroads have bereft it of steam¬ 
boats and barges. It was rolling 
solemnly along by itself, crumb¬ 
ling its banks as though it would 
take Louisiana out to sea, swirl¬ 
ing in its eddies the rich mud 
and soil that it has been bring¬ 
ing down for ages through the 
Missouri from the great plains 
of the Dakotas and Montana, 
bearing logs, trees, stumps and 
the remains of human handi¬ 
craft which tell the story of its 
adventures, and piling all out 
into the Gulf, until some day, 
I suppose, it will fill that up 
also. 
I thought of Daniel Webster's remark when 
they asked if he had ever seen the famous junc¬ 
tion of the Mississippi and the Missouri. “Yes,” 
he said, “but there is no junction. The muddy 
.Missouri seizes the clear Mississippi and carries 
it captive to New Orleans.” I must go back 
some day, cross it again, return to the good 
French people and pass out beyond the prairies 
to the pine timber lands along the Calcasieu and 
Sabine rivers; and Saxon says he is ready to- 
go at any time. 
M. 
Book Exchange. 
No doubt there are many of our readers who possess- 
old books, and others who would be glad to possess 
them, arid we are, therefore, making a special place in. 
our advertising columns, which may be called a book 
exchange, where those who wish to purchase, sell or ex¬ 
change second-hand books may ask for what they need, 
or offer what they have. 
