Forest and Stream 
Terms, $3 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. I NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MARCH I 4 , I 908 
Six Months, 51.50. 
VOL. LXX—No. 11. 
No. 346 Broadway, New York, 
A WKEKLY 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 
will be to studiously promote a healthful interest 
in outdoor recreation, and to cultivate a refined 
taste for natural objects. 
—Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1873. 
LET THE BIRDS REAR THEIR YOUNG. 
Spring shooting should be put an end to, not 
only in order to reduce the excessive destruction 
1 of the ducks and the shore birds, but to increase 
their breeding range and so their numbers. Until 
within the past few years there has been practi¬ 
cally no close season on ducks because most laws 
provided that the seasons should close only after 
the migratory ducks had left us. 1 hus ducks 
were shot from the time of their arrival in the 
autumn until that of their departure in spring. 
! Their pursuit being lawful at the time when they 
were about to nest they were so pursued, shot at 
I and disturbed that they could not breed with us, 
, but passed on to rear their young in more north¬ 
ern regions, where people were fewer and they 
were undisturbed. Yet in every county in every 
State there are many secluded spots where a few 
birds might breed each year, and the sum total 
of all these birds for the whole country would 
make an immense addition to the number of our 
fowl. 
Over most of the Middle and Northern States 
: the woodcock, English snipe, and a number of 
species of shore birds used to breed, but owing 
to the constant pursuit and the destruction of 
nesting parent birds, they have almost ceased to 
do so. 
It is obvious that as the country becomes more 
thickly settled, more land is brought under culti¬ 
vation and more swamps and ponds drained of 
their water, the places frequented by wild fowl, 
or birds whose living depends largely on water, 
must grow fewer in number. As these places 
grow fewer, the number of birds which a given 
territory will support must be reduced. At the 
same time the number of men who pursue the 
birds increases each season. Thus the candle is 
being burned at both ends and it is clear that the 
only means by which the supply can be kept up 
is to shorten the season. That this is true has 
been acknowledged by most of the Northern 
States and Provinces on this continent. 
It cannot be too frequently repeated that wild 
animals and birds have no inherent fear of man, 
but avoid him only as a result of experience. 
This discovery surprised Alexander Selkirk, but 
it need not surprise us to-day. We see abso¬ 
lutely wild birds breeding in the heart of London 
and paying no attention to the people about them, 
and we see the same thing among birds in the 
protected Yellowstone Park. At Palm Beach, in 
the protected region the birds will feed out of 
your hand; in Golden Gate Park you can walk 
up to within six feet of them, but outside of the 
protected area they are as wild as ever. Wild 
ducks in plenty feed in the lakes in Central Park, 
and in the New York Zoological Park. 
A few years ago, when spring shooting was 
practiced in New York, the black duck was known 
to breed only on the extreme end of Montauk 
Point, L. I. Within the last three years they have 
taken to breeding in many other places in the 
center of the island, while the woodducks are 
breeding in increasing numbers all over Long 
Island and even within the limits of New York 
city. 
If the State of New Jersey should abolish 
spring shooting and enforce the law against it, 
black ducks, mallard, woodducks, teal and various 
shore birds would begin to breed in the marshes 
along her winding water courses, about the numer¬ 
ous lakes which dot her territory, and in the 
many swamps that are hidden away in the more 
secluded portions of the State. It is perhaps not 
too much to say that there is room within this 
State—a most favorably situated one—for 10,000 
pairs of birds to breed; and if each pair raised 
six or eight young, there would be an annual ad¬ 
dition of 60,000 or 80,000 birds to the State’s wild 
fowl supply. If something of this kind is taking 
place all over the northern country—as it is in 
many quarters—it can readily be seen how speed¬ 
ily the shooting for New Jersey and for every 
other part of the country may improve. 
The easiest and least expensive way for the 
States to increase their wildfowl supply is to 
encourage the ducks and snipe to return to then- 
old habits, to breed again in the region where 
they formerly nested. To induce them to do this 
is perfectly practicable, and all gunners ought to 
realize it. 
“MY FRIEND THE PARTRIDGE.’’ 
That Mr. Hammond’s interesting and vivid 
biography of the partridge has attracted wide 
attention will surprise no one who has read its 
interesting chapters. It is clear that Mr. Ham¬ 
mond’s friend is also the friend of all gunners 
who shoot in the region where this splendid bird 
is found. While letters of appreciation of the 
story have come in great numbers from New 
England and New York, they have not been con¬ 
fined to writers in those sections. Michigan, 
Wisconsin and Illinois have furnished their 
quota, and enthusiastic letters from Southern 
sportsmen have not been wanting. 
So very general has been the interest awakened 
by the series that it has been determined to 
bring it out in book form, in order that those 
who have taken so much pleasure in the serial as 
it appeared from week to week, may now have it 
in handy form for preservation. This action is 
in line with the suggestions of a number of our 
readers, and we believe that many of those who 
have enjoyed the series without writing about it 
will welcome the appearance of the book which 
will be published shortly and may be ordered at 
any time. 
It is not surprising that these letters should 
have been popular, nor that in reading them 
many an enthusiastic gunner has been reminded 
of happy days which he has spent afield in pur¬ 
suit of this noble bird. Mr. Hammond’s experi¬ 
ence has extended over more than sixty years, 
during which time he has been an enthusiastic 
field shooter, and his wanderings with the shot¬ 
gun have covered the whole eastern half of the 
United States. Over all this broad territory, 
wherever he has shot, and whatever birds he has 
pursued, he has ever been faithful to his first 
New England love, and while never undervalu¬ 
ing the delights of all the various sorts of field 
shooting which he has had, the ruffed grouse, 
“My Friend the Partridge,” still stands first in 
his estimation. 
Nor is it only in the fact that his experience 
has been so great that Mr. Hammond stands in 
the front rank of our writers on field shooting. 
With this great experience he combines a deep 
love for nature in all her forms, together with a 
simplicity of diction and a keen but kindly 
humor, which makes what he has to tell us espe¬ 
cially well worth the reading. Many of those who 
have enjoyed the present serial will remember 
also that most delightful sketch “The One-eyed 
Grouse of Maple Run,” which appeared in one 
of the author’s earlier volumes. 
Many men who have passed middle life, when 
they grow reminiscent are likely also to become 
prosy, but of Mr. Hammond, as of many an¬ 
other New England writer of similar charm, this 
can never be said. To-day he writes as freshly 
and as interestingly as he did thirty or forty 
years ago, when his pencil less frequently drew 
the charming pen pictures of which “My Friend 
the Partridge” is the last. Indeed, as the years 
go by, his writings, like old wine, grow mellower 
and better and his sketches possess a greater 
charm, so that of this latest sketch it may per¬ 
haps be said it is the best and most feeling 
thing that he has done. 
In the New York Senate Mr. Carpenter has 
introduced a bill which merits the condemnation 
of sportsmen. After providing that “birds shall 
not be hunted or pursued or killed by any dog 
or bitch or dogs of the breed commonly used for 
hunting birds,” it would make legal the killing 
of such animals, just as dogs found in the pur¬ 
suit of deer in the Adirondacks may now be 
killed. 
