Forest and Stream 
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Terms. $3 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy, t NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MARCH 2 1, I 908 . 
Six Months, 51.50. 
VOL. LXX.—No. 12. 
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 
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. 
SIGNS OF SPRING. 
The sun shines warm on the sere brown fields, 
over which the first aggressive robins are run¬ 
ning. The hedge rows, deserted through the win¬ 
ter except for an occasional flock of black snow 
birds, are alive now with the first flight of re¬ 
turning migrants, mostly tuneful song sparrows, 
white throats and fox-colored sparrows whose 
red backs show bright as they flash in and out 
among the tall weeds. Groups of crows are 
awakening the echoes with tumultuous caw- 
ings, and now and then alight in the topmost 
branches of chestnut or oak and swing back and 
forth on the naked twigs holding excited con¬ 
verse. 
From a little pond whose borders are grown 
up with alders and soft maples, comes a con¬ 
fused gurgling chatter, punctuated by short 
bursts of interrupted song, and presently black 
birds in a dense flock rise on wing and alighting 
on some tall tree, drape its branches in mourn¬ 
ing. For a moment they sit quiet and then one 
by one drop down to resume their feeding, or 
perhaps all fly away in a loose, straggling flock 
and disappear in the distance. The little phcebes 
have just returned and are flying from one to 
another of the perches that they used last sum¬ 
mer. Soon they will venture under the piazza 
roof to inspect the nesting sites in which for so 
many years they have reared their broods. 
Along a brier-grown fence which separates 
corn lot from hay meadow a chipmunk is seen 
to run. Doubtless his store of nuts and grain, 
industriously garnered last autumn, is beginning 
to run low and he has ventured abroad to forage 
and to see if spring is really here. The muskrats 
have left their houses and taken to the open. 
They know that, although before warm weather 
actually comes there may be snow and cold and 
ice, there will be no long hard frosts again this 
spring. All winter the gray squirrels have been 
out off and on, and now their tracks are seen in 
the soft mud as so often before they have been 
seen in the snow. 
A few of the migrating hawks have come. A 
giant redtail scales low over the ground with 
hardly a movement of his broad wings; a lit’tlc 
sparrow hawk from a watch point in a tall tree 
dashes down to capture his prey from the 
dead grass, and bears it off to his high wind¬ 
swept resting place where he stands tearing it to 
pieces, balancing himself the while with graceful 
movements of wing and tail. 
In woods and swamps the scenes are still of 
winter. Little banks of snow and ice yet linger 
in the sheltered places. The tall trees stand 
apart naked and gray. The eye can look far 
through the swamps, whose recesses in summer 
are so well hidden. Now one may walk safely 
over morasses that in summer would engulf him, 
for beneath the carpet of sodden leaves and dull 
green moss there is still heavy ice. Yet in the 
brook and on the pond a few of the darting in¬ 
sects that the boys call water spiders are skating 
about. The buds of the pussy willows are swell¬ 
ing. Where warm springs issue from the hillside 
the new starting grass is vivid green. The pur¬ 
ple and green spathes of the skunk cabbage have 
pushed their way upward into the warming air, 
and the earliest plants are sending out new 
leaves. 
In the garden the snowdrops are all in 
bloom, and about the wet places in the meadows 
new grass is sprouting. Only a few weeks more 
and the whole face of the landscape will have 
changed. 
THE PROPOSED NEW YORK GAME LAW. 
The codification of the game laws of New 
York State, generally understood to be the joint 
work of Commissioner Whipple and Chief Pro¬ 
tector Burnham, was introduced in the Senate 
January 27, and sent to committee, where it still 
remains. The bill as a whole is an improvement 
on previous laws. It is more compact, ordeily 
and simpler in language than such bills usually 
are. The measures which relate to forests and 
public parks deserve praise. 
The hunting license provision ought to pass, 
but it would be far more acceptable if a dis¬ 
tinction were made between citizens of 'he 
United States not resident in the State of New 
York, and aliens; in other words, an intelli¬ 
gent citizen of the United States, living in \ er- 
mont, Pennsylvania or Michigan, should be on a 
different footing from an alien, too many of 
whom mistake liberty for license and entirely 
misconceive the laws of the land. 
The bill is not without certain faults and 
loosenesses which should be remedied in com¬ 
mittee. For example, Section 87 permits wild¬ 
fowl to be possessed for two months after the 
close of the season, December 31, a length of 
time which because it encourages violations of 
the law, and for other reasons is far too long, 
and might better be reduced to ten or fifteen 
days. It also permits the shooting of wildfowl 
in the night until an hour after sunset and from 
an hour before sunrise. Night shooting, even 
though practiced only for an hour or two, tends 
to drive fowl away, and should not be per¬ 
mitted. Shooting should not begin before sunrise, 
nor continue after sunset. This is the law in 
North Carolina, where the wildfowl are the 
actual living of a considerable portion of the 
population during the winter months. 
The provision in Article XI., Section 170-a 
permitting brant to be shot on Long Island from 
October 1 to April 30, tends to nullify the spring 
shooting law for that section. It will be recol¬ 
lected that this was one of the bones of conten¬ 
tion in the great fight made in behalf of spring 
shooting by residents of Long Island, who ad¬ 
vanced the familiar argument that the brant came 
to them only in the spring, and if they did not 
kill them at that time they could not kill them 
at all. Precisely that argument has been used in 
behalf of spring shooting ever since there has 
been any discussion of that subject. It was used 
in Minnesota years ago and is being used to-day 
in New Jersey. It is obvious that among the 
brant shooters there are likely to be many men 
who will kill ducks if they have an opportunity. 
To offer such temptation to gunners tends to 
lessen the respect for the law against spring 
shooting, and to make it harder to induce the 
birds to breed with us. 
There are other provisions as to certain species 
which ought to be modified as shown by the Na¬ 
tional Association of Audubon Societies. Properly 
amended the Cobb bill, Senate No. 255> ought 
to be acted on and passed. 
THE JERSEY CITY GAME BIRD CASE. 
In view of the fact that the sportsmen of New 
Jersey are striving to obtain the enactment of 
better fish and game laws than are now on the 
statute books of that State, the seizure, last 
week, of thousands of game birds in a cold stor¬ 
age plant in Jersey City comes as an object les¬ 
son which should, and we hope will, prove ef¬ 
fective. 
Where these shore birds came from has not as 
yet been ascertained. The fact that they were 
held—thousands upon thousands of them until 
such time as they could be sold, is sufficient for 
use as a strong argument against spring shooting 
and the sale of game in New Jersey, for they 
were all birds that are commonly found in that 
State. It is interesting to note that only eight 
ruffed grouse were found in the warehouse by 
the wardens who conducted the search. 
Mr. Stillman's paper on Florida fishing, which 
is begun in this issue, is but one of the many in¬ 
formational articles of timely interest which will 
shortly appear in Forest and Stream, now that 
the fishing season is near at hand. Notes on the 
trout fishing near New York city, by Winfield T. 
Sherwood, Theodore Gordon and other well 
known angling writers, will appear before open¬ 
ing day for trout fishing in New r York and Penn¬ 
sylvania waters, and bass and sea fishing notes 
will follow in season. 
