Forest and Stream 
Terms, $3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months. $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1908. 
j VOL. LXX.—No. 7. 
I No. 346 Broadway, New York, 
A WEEKLY JOURNAL. 
Copyright, 1908, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
George Bird Grinnell, President, 
Charles B. Reynolds, Secretary. 
Louis Dean Speir, Treasurer. 
346 Broadway, New York. 
THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL 
ill be to studiously promote a healthful interest 
t outdoor recreation, and to cultivate a refined 
iste for natural objects. 
—Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1S73. 
WINTER WOODS. 
Though the weather is bitter, and the snow 
hitens all the fields and woods, yet it is a fine 
'me to be abroad, and he is happy whose fortune 
,ads him to the country. To be sure the air 
ps keenly, the tips of one's ears grow red and 
nched, and the fingers, unless well protected, 
■come stiff. Nevertheless, there is a fine ex- 
'laration in plowing through the lots and into 
[e woods and across swamps whose depths 
e frozen now, and whose inmost recesses can 
: explored. Yet it is well to be on the watch 
r thin places in their icy covering, since now 
id then one may pass over a warm spring and 
e thin ice will give way under the foot, and 
t the walker in, half leg deep. 
The weather is too cold to see much life, and 
je snow, hardened by thirty or forty degrees of 
lost, receives no tracks save those of heavy 
liimals. Only a few birds are about. Now and 
en a vagrant crow is seen flapping his slow 
ay from one piece of woods to another, or half 
dozen bluejays, that have been trying to earn 
living about some warm spring hole, take to 
mg, and flying low along the ground, silently 
sappear among the white birch sprouts at the 
ge of the woods. From the thick foliage of 
cedar tree, your approach may start a great 
rred owl, which, flying a short distance, alights 
a limb and stooping forward stares at you 
th his huge brown eyes. Plainly he is not 
re whether the noise which alarmed him was 
ide by friend or enemy. The crunching of the 
ow as one moves away may alarm him and 
use him to take another short flight, but he 
,11 not go far. Here he is wintering, and hcre- 
outs he will kill mice and shrews so long as 
winter lasts. In this weather one may rarely 
; in the apple trees half a dozen pine gros- 
aks, birds of the coldest winter time, and, in- 
ed, seen here but seldom. Most of them are 
tin gray, sometimes with a wash of olive, or 
en yellow on the head and back. Only very 
rely will an old male, resplendent in his crim- 
,a coat, gladden the walker’s sight. 
Not so rare are the little pine finches, or sis- 
is, which at this season come whirling about 
flocks of from five to fifty. They alight in 
ne birch tree with a great noise, sit perfectly 
11 for half a minute, and then pitch down in 
a close bunch to the surface of the snow, where 
they run about and pick up portions of the cat¬ 
kins of the birch, which the wind has scattered. 
An impulse sends them again up into the branches 
of the tree, and again they fall from its limbs 
like apples being poured out of a barrel, and 
again cover the snow almost at your feet; but 
again something frightens them, and this time 
they do not stop in the birch tree, but whirl away 
like the down of the milkweed caught up by the 
autumn breeze and disappear from sight. 
Cold though they be, the winter woods are 
pleasant. 
THE PABLO BUFFALO. 
A very large number of the citizens of the United 
States are interested in the preservation from 
extinction of the existing buffalo. They believe 
that the Government should actively interest it¬ 
self in this preservation. Such action cannot 
be taken, however, without the appropriation of 
money to purchase a breeding stock of buffalo 
from private owners; failing this the only method 
by which such a breeding stock can be obtained 
is by gift from private parties. 
The great United States Government already 
owes to the generosity of the New York Zoological 
Society the only herd of buffalo not in a park 
which it as yet possesses. This consists of fifteen 
head presented to the Government for the pur¬ 
pose of stocking the Wichita Game Preserve, and 
transported to Oklahoma last autumn. Since its 
arrival at its new home the herd has been in¬ 
creased by the birth of two calves. In their 8,000 
acre pasture in the Wichita Forest the buffalo 
are being fed alfalfa hay during the winter, and 
when spring comes and the grass starts they will 
be left to their cfwn resources, and are expected 
to live and thrive under practically natural 
conditions. 
A year or two ago the far-sighted Government 
of Canada bought from Michel Pablo, the owner 
of the largest herd of buffalo in the world, the 
greater part of that herd. A portion of the pur¬ 
chase was transported to a point near Edmonton. 
Alberta, and there turned loose in a large pasture 
where the buffalo are thriving. It is the purpose 
of Mr. Frank Oliver, the Canadian Minister of 
the Interior, ultimately to distribute these animals 
in small bunches among Canadian cities or towns, 
giving a few to each city, which will agree to 
take proper care of its bunch. The result of this 
will be to distribute through Canada a number 
of small herds of buffalo, from which, under 
proper care and protection, the increase is likely 
to be large. 
It is not very flattering to the patriotic pride 
of Americans interested in the protection of the 
greatest animal of this continent, and one which 
had its chief centers of abundance in the United 
States, to feel that the Government of our north¬ 
ern neighbor is so much further sighted than 
our own, that it has been allowed to equip itself 
with something like half the existing living buf¬ 
falo, and has been able to come into our coun¬ 
try and purchase from one of our people a herd 
of buffalo which the United States might have 
retained for the benefit of its own citizens. 
It is understood that Pablo still owns a con¬ 
siderable number of buffalo, and there is no 
doubt that in view of the changed conditions on 
the Flathead reservation, where they used to 
pasture,, he would willingly sell them. On the 
other hand, there seems little or no prospect that 
Congress will appropriate money to purchase this 
herd as it ought to do. At all events, while this 
opportunity exists, the American Bison Society 
will do well to bestir itself and see whether Con¬ 
gress cannot be persuaded to act in the matter. 
One of the Atlanta papers recently devoted 
a half column to the exploits of what it terms 
a party of Atlanta sportsmen who spent a fort¬ 
night in hunting and fishing along the Chesso- 
wistkie River in Florida. It seems there were 
eight in the party. Their bag, the paper asserts, 
consisted of 4,000 pounds of fish, two hundred 
ducks, two buck deer. One of the deer was killed 
in the water with an oar, the other by a guide. 
They shipped twenty-two barrels of fish to At¬ 
lanta while away, but these were probably in¬ 
cluded in the two tons already mentioned. The 
paper referred to terms this party “the cham¬ 
pion game killers,” and we do not doubt that they 
are proud of the title. Missionary work is 
needed in Atlanta. 
K 
Mr. James W. Pinchot, long one of New 
York city’s fofemost citizens, died last week at 
the age of seventy-seven years in Washington, 
where he had lived for some time. Mr. Pinchot 
was greatly interested in art and literature, was 
an early subscriber to the Metropolitan Museum 
of Art, a member of the Century and Grolier 
clubs of New York, and of the Metropolitan and 
Cosmos clubs of Washington. He was the 
founder of the Yale Summer School of Forestry, 
of Milford, Pa., and of the Milford Forest Ex¬ 
periment Station, donating the money and the 
land which made these establishments possible. 
Mr. Gifford Pinchot, United States Forester, is 
his son. 
** 
At the annual convention of the American 
Paper and Pulp Association, held in this city 
last week, resolutions were adopted indorsing 
the efforts that are being made to preserve the 
forests of the State of New York and favoring 
“water storage to prevent the enormous waste 
of natural resources.” Which recalls the rumor 
emanating from Albany that water grab meas¬ 
ures may not be actively pushed at the present 
session of the Legislature. 
