24 
FOREST AND STREAM 
;ODT©[^DAD= ©© [MlIMIIEIN 1 T 
on happenings of note in the outdoor world 
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MIXING THOSE PROPHETS UP 
T HE wide range of knowledge, the familiarity with diversi¬ 
fied facts of science, history and the arts possessed by the 
members of Forest and Stream’s family are a matter of 
too common import to discuss, but a sharp reminder of this 
followed our reference a few issues ago to the Prophet Elijah, 
the bad boys, and the bears. 
More than one reader has written us, advising deeper Bible 
study, and pointing out that it was Elisha, and not Elijah, who 
declared, or was the cause of the declaration, of an open season 
on the urchins who mocked the Prophet. 
We stand corrected, stripped of defense. But the years do 
roll by, and it has been a long time since the forcing process 
of learning Bible verses through the medium of ticket reward 
had been put to the test. You remember it, perhaps, reader of 
mature years—a blue ticket for ten verses, a red ticket for ten 
blue ones, and so on as you progressed from Genesis to more 
contemporaneous times. 
There was a tradition that one boy had committed the whole 
Bible to memory in that way. We used to walk around the 
place where he had been laid to rest, and gaze in hushed awe at 
his modest monument. Also there was animated juvenile dis¬ 
cussion a^ to the color of the ticket he received after having 
memorized the very last verse. The teacher never told us. 
No doubt the same little white frame 
church is standing yet in the grove of ma¬ 
ples on the hill. Let us hope that it still 
calls from the countryside just as devout 
congregations. How quiet those Sun¬ 
day mornings were! The subdued talk 
of neighbors, the stamp of the horses as 
they shook off the flies, the creak of 
the gear—it all seems like yesterday. 
In unaccustomed and torturesome 
clothes, including hated shoes, the boy 
population grinned sheepishly at itself, 
omitting, for reasons not needful to 
dwell upon, the usual exuberant impulse , 
of boyhood to skylark. Then after the sermon and the brief 
reunion of neighbors who had a genuine interest in each other, 
came the drive home. The back seat was best, if you could 
make it, for that was farthest removed from the parental eye, 
and even though the minister was being taken along to dinner, 
opportunity for some diversion might present itself. 
As the wagon rumbled over the bridge in the hollow, where 
everything was always cool and the water sang so delightfully, 
a kingfisher started up with his wild clatter, and over the end 
of the planking went that fox that you hoped some day to catch. 
Across the road limped a quail—as if you didn’t know that old 
trick! and you nearly went out of the seat, looking for the 
young ones. 
Why dwell on the Sunday dinner, which tasted like nothing 
else ever will on earth. You got your share, even if the minister 
was present, and though your clothes did seem to prevent the 
smoothness of a boy appetite. The long Sunday afternoon went 
by. The heat waves danced in the meadow; the grasshoppers 
droned in the fields. You had your shoes off now. Lower the 
sun dropped, and the cool wind sprang up. The west began to 
show its banners of gold, and then you had to go for the cows. 
The lane was a delightful stretch for natural history adventure. 
There the rabbits came out with their interesting families, and 
once you had seen, passing over, what looked like a million wild 
pigeons. 
The cows are brought in, and as the evening steals on, the 
bustle of milking time gives way to more stillness. You can 
hear the Smith dog barking two miles away. 
The gold in the west changes to purple; streamers of light 
mark the departing sun; soon a star stands out alone. An hour 
later the eastern hill is tipped with the silver of the rising moon. 
You are, after stern admonishment, standing near the well, pour¬ 
ing cold water over your feet, every scratch and bruise protesting. 
High in the air you hear the whiz of the night hawk. The 
whippoorwill begins his foolish, everlasting calling, and you go 
to sleep after a while, listening to him. 
We hasten now to make our humble amends for having mixed 
those Prophets up, and extend thanks to the learned readers 
who have tried to set us on the right path. 
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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, A ug . 14 , 1873 
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LOOKING AHEAD 
F a surety there is a common ground, a peace lodge, where 
the most rigid game law advocate and his no less fervid 
brother of the game breeding, open-market school can 
meet without the ordinary equipment of concealed cudgels, lit¬ 
erary and otherwise, ready to be flourished upon the slightest 
pretext. 
Whether we would have had more game to-day if fewer or 
no protective laws had been written, is beside the mark. We 
have what we have and the country apparently is getting 
more as laws are a little better enforced, and added to. 
Common sense would seem to indi¬ 
cate that without any restraint or at¬ 
tention to Nature’s unalterable man¬ 
dates we soon would have no game at 
all, unless some one saved the rem¬ 
nant and proceeded to propagate it un¬ 
der artificial conditions. 
That is being done now to a very 
considerable extent, but the clash comes 
when methods of selling this game are 
discussed. Being mainly responsible for 
the laws that prohibit the disposal of 
wild game in the open markets, Forest 
and Stream has had to bear the brunt 
of rather sarcastic criticism from the game breeder here and 
there who finds restriction thrown about his road to market. 
We still hold to the belief that the only thing that prevented 
total extermination of our wild game life was this prohibition 
of sale, but adherence to this creed does not involve such a 
stoppage of ordinary intellectual process as to deny the right 
of sale of tame game, if the word is permissible, under the 
most liberal provisions. 
Conditions to-day, compared with a generation ago, are vastly 
different. The covers are shrinking, the wild domain is narrow¬ 
ing, and reclamation projects are everywhere in evidence. That 
game not only persists, but is actually increasing, is all the de¬ 
fense that the advocate of protection need advance. 
But to return to the breeder, amateur or professional. We 
have only good words for him, and sympathy for his cause. On 
him hope for the future largely rests. He should be encouraged, 
and as legislatures begin to realize the importance of his work, 
he will find his path an easier one, and his reward more certain. 
Popular intelligence will never sanction the sale of wild game; 
it has not the least objection to the marketing of domesticated 
varieties. It will not sweep off the statute books the game laws 
already there, simply to create a market for the seller. 
There is no necessity that either extreme should be resorted 
to. In fact neither will be. But no one is going to arrive at the 
real answer if acrimonious discussion is not stopped, and co¬ 
operation substituted. 
K' 
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