Dear Forest and Stream : 
J RECEIVED a letter from Florida 
this morning in which my corre¬ 
spondent informed me that the Florida 
Legislature, just before adjournment, 
had passed a measure making the study 
of bird protection mandatory in the 
schools of the State. The schedule calls 
for an hour of this study each week, 
and this has been divided into five 
periods of twelve minutes each, one for 
each school day. 
This is a move in the right direction, 
for I believe that the benefits of con¬ 
servation of natural resources must ac¬ 
crue to the advantage of generations 
of Americans as yet unborn, and it is 
quite proper, in my opinion, that con¬ 
servation should be taught in the 
schools, from the primer to the high 
school graduation grade, and at the 
expense of the community. 
Joseph W. Stray. 
Dear Forest and Stream : 
A. CHINESE hunter is as rare as a 
perfect piece of jade. And the rea¬ 
sons for that are as clear. 
The possession of a gun, a dog, and 
a desire to hunt presupposes wealth and 
leisure. But the man of wealth and 
leisure in China is bound both by in¬ 
clination and convention to other 
amusements. A wealthy man carrying 
a gun would weaken his credit if noth¬ 
ing else. No one carries anything he 
can afford to have someone else carry 
nor does anything arduous he can 
afford to have anyone else do. 
In the same way wealth and leisure 
presuppose comfort, not hardship. No 
Chinese with leisure to enjoy life would 
spend it tramping through underbrush 
over rough ground, sleeping outdoors 
or in draughty temples, and eating what, 
and where the opportunity permitted. 
Leisure is meant for feasting, for med¬ 
itation, for the delights of gardens, the 
teahouse, and theater. The man of 
leisure does not amuse himself. He is 
amused. 
The poor Chinese has neither the 
money to buy a gun nor the time to 
use it. He may have a dog, but the 
dogs of China are not made for sport. 
It is their part to crawl and cringe 
during the day, to growl and snap dur¬ 
ing the protecting dusk of early eve¬ 
ning, and to slink away when darkness 
falls until the dusk of dawn. 
If the poor man wishes to shoulder 
a gun, he must become a soldier or a 
bandit. Thousands have joined both 
ranks. One profession is much the 
same as the other. 
The hunter in the accompanying pic¬ 
ture is a rare fellow. He has all the 
necessary equipment of the hunter— 
gun, dog, powder horn, game bag, and 
hopes equal to those of big game hun¬ 
ters entering Africa. But he is the 
thousandth man and must hunt alone. 
He is only going as far as the top 
of the city wall, however. There his 
dog released may stir up crows and 
other transients, or with good luck, the 
brillian golden pheasant. With a pair 
of these in his bag, he will be content 
to consider the season over. 
His gun has a peculiar merit. After 
it is carefully loaded from the powder 
horn at the hunter’s side, it can be 
aimed and fired like any other gun. 
But there the resemblance stops. For 
between the pulling of the trigger and 
the release of the charge there is a 
definite interval. During that time if 
the game prove restless and changes 
position, the hunter may follow it with 
his gun and aim again. 
A. V. Kelsey. 
Dear Forest and Stream : 
S one who has read—and consider¬ 
ably profited by the columns of 
your interesting paper, for many years, 
I take the liberty of bringing to your 
notice the following, thinking there are 
probably several of your readers who 
may be interested therein: 
A couple of weeks ago I was tracing 
the source of a brook that I have fished 
on several occasions, known as the 
Beaver Brook, a tributary of the 
Pequest River in New Jersey, and had 
followed it to a bridge about one mile 
from the quaint old Moravian Village 
of Hope. I was leaning over the bridge 
watching a fine native trout, when an 
Englishman from a nearby cottage 
strolled over and passed the time of 
day, later inviting me in to lunch. He 
had, it seemed, lately acquired the 
shooting rights to some few hundred 
acres of abandoned farms, beside the 
farm he was staying on and was spend¬ 
ing the summer raising young pheas¬ 
ants and three or four acres of buck¬ 
wheat for their winter food. Struck, 
he said, with the beauty of this little 
known valley—about six miles this side 
of Blairstown, in the Delaware Water 
Gap neighborhood—which is so like the 
scenery in his own country and at¬ 
tracted by the excellent fishing and 
good cover for birds, he had leased an 
old farmhouse, scrubbed and painted 
the interior, sunk a well and acquired 
a couple of miles of fishing rights. He 
plans to make it a little community 
house where a few sportsmen of the 
old school can make their headquar¬ 
ters when fishing the Paulingkill River 
or other streams and lakes in the vicin¬ 
ity. He explained that he thought a 
few New York business men would be 
glad to subscribe about $150 a year to 
use the house where they could camp 
and do a little cooking, etc., under 
comfortable circumstances, and to feel 
that they could always be sure of a 
couple of woodcock or a brace of pheas¬ 
ants within two or three hours of the 
city. 
After luncheon he and his wife took 
me for a ramble back under the hills, 
and the frequent startled whirr of our 
beautiful native grouse and the occa¬ 
sional glimpse of a stately English 
cock pheasant showed that he had se¬ 
lected his location skilfully. 
I understand that there is to be a 
very limited membership and asked his 
permission to bring the matter to the 
attention of your readers through your 
courtsey. The association is to be called 
the Beaver Brook Fishing & Shooting 
Asociation and is located at Hope, 
about three hours by motor from New 
York. It is about six miles from the 
Blairstown Railway Station. 
Thanking you for your courtesy in 
advance, I hope to remain for many 
years, 
A Constant Reader of Forest & Stream. 
Dear Forest and Stream: 
S it beneficial to learn something 
about out-door life? Something 
about the plant life; the insect life; 
the animal life? Something about the 
composition of the earth itself, which 
you walk on? You say, financially no, 
unless you intend to become a specialist 
in some particular line. I say, neither 
is it profitable to go to a circus, but see 
what fun it is. If you would learn to 
observe what is continually going on 
about you, you would derive a great 
deal' more pleasure and benefit from 
your outing. There are marvelous 
things happening around you all the 
time that rival the circus itself, if you 
would only see them. 
In your walks along the coast maybe 
you have seen a flock of sea-gulls sit¬ 
ting on a plowed field. Did you ever 
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