July 30, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
175 
cause and effect, and the inability to look ahead 
more than a few years. This last is, of course, 
fatal to the cause of game, for in conservation 
of any sort he who wishes to accomplish a more 
than temporary result must see even unto the 
third and fourth generations. For instance, we 
must not compare this year with the last, but the 
last ten years with the previous twenty-five or 
fifty if we are to gain a true insight into actual 
conditions. 
Though my views may be considered as pessi¬ 
mistic, I cannot help agreeing with Mr. Forbush 
in his note in Forest and Stream of June 18 in 
which he says that the “time is at hand when 
under our present system there will not be game 
enough for the sportsman alone, and when the 
stoppage of the sale of game will not suffice for 
its protection.” 
These are disagreeable words and the gunner 
may not allow himself to ponder on them, but 
they have a painful meaning to him who looks 
ahead. • And they refer not alone to the birds 
of field and cover, but to the hardy migrants as 
well. They mean that only the most stringent 
measures can be of avail. 
As certain States fill up and game becomes ex¬ 
terminated, the sportsmen of these States look 
toward neighboring States where there is still 
room. Thus the burden becomes more and more 
heavy on areas where game still exists and the 
process of depletion proceeds unchecked. 
It is indeed perfectly true that stoppage of 
spring shooting is a hardship to many who have 
always practiced it. But so is the twenty-mile 
law a nuisance to him with the sixty horsepower 
car; and so, to make odious comparisons, are 
the laws which discourage the artist with the 
bullseye lamp from prowling about your house 
at night, but these are good laws nevertheless 
and suit the average. 
Gunners are apt to consider the game of a 
State as belonging exclusively to them, not 
dreaming that there is a large and increasing 
per cent, of the population who are interested 
in our native fauna for its own sake, and whose 
title to it is as strong as their own. Such men, 
though often not sportsmen, are interested not 
to prevent shooting, but to try to conserve a 
species only so far as it seems necessary to in¬ 
sure a permanent stock. There is little fear of 
a surplus stock, and if it occurs more lenient 
laws are easily procured. 
As to the brant, here is a bird the protection 
of which does seem to have told hard on a few 
men who, at Chatham and Muskeget and a few 
other places, have gunned in the spring for 
many years. They use a just argument when 
they say that brant on their spring arrival are 
not mated, and that their sexual organs are un¬ 
developed. Special legislation might be made 
to cover the brant in his limited area of distri¬ 
bution in this State, though special legislation 
is a dangerous thing. If we look back far 
enough we find that brant formerly occurred 
even in the autumn in great numbers along our 
coast, and it does not seem impossible that what 
once happened might be brought about again. 
Many birds, if protected in the spring, have 
been known to change their habits. Why not 
try it anyway? A few years of spring protec¬ 
tion will not permanently injure the all-the-year- 
round gunner, and by that time perhaps his 
views will have changed for the better. 
J. C. Phillips. 
Sportsmen’s Cameras.—III. 
If you wish to make landscape and group pic¬ 
tures exclusively, the tripod and plate camera is 
the one to use, but for fishing, shooting, tramp¬ 
ing, riding and similar trips, a five-pound film 
camera is heavy enough. Take the two dozen 
films exposed during a shooting trip as an ex¬ 
ample. If your lens is a good one the majority 
are satisfactory just as they are. So far, good; 
you have obtained satisfactory work from a 
light, handy camera that was not a burden in it¬ 
self, and therefore you took it with you on 
trips instead of leaving it at camp, as you would 
have done with a fifteen-pound outfit. But be¬ 
cause of your foresight you are in possession of 
say six or eight exceptionally good negatives, 
and from these you can have 8x10 or 10x12 car¬ 
bon prints made. Considering the lower cost of 
your small films, your carbon prints will have 
cost little. The roll films now made are so good 
that serious workers depend on them at times 
when the failure of a certain film is no small 
loss; this in the face of all the testimony brought 
to bear against films by men who are wedded 
to glass plates and therefore prejudiced against 
all films. I confess to a fondness for glass plates, 
and yet in examining a number of film negatives 
I know that it would have been difficult to im¬ 
prove on the results obtained. There are places 
where climatic conditions are fatal to all films, 
and plates are not much better in this respect, 
but here in Northern America it is a simple 
matter to keep roll films in good condition, 
whereas with plates the paper boxes absorb 
moisture readily, and the plates must be pro¬ 
tected against breakage as well. 
With roll films it is different. Their weight 
is insignificant, their bulk is not important. They 
are well protected against dampness with oiled 
paper and tinfoil and their cartons protect them 
from other damage. A number of them will be 
safe if wrapped in a blanket or a spare flannel 
shirt and stowed away in a dufflebag or in your 
pack. Your mind is free from worry lest they 
be broken. 
As for speed, the best films are fast enough 
for every purpose outdoors, and in this respect 
they compare very favorably with the best plates. 
Their blacks and whites are clear cut and dis¬ 
tinct, while the half-tones and the color values 
are rendered in a manner that compares very 
favorably with the best general-purpose plates. 
For special work there are the special plates, but 
I will not go into that subject here. 
The film packs and their adapters have also 
been perfected until good results have been at¬ 
tained, and the method is a handy one, especially 
when it comes to the development of films, but 
I cannot bring myself to recommend them in 
preference to the roll films. The latter are in 
every way more satisfactory. In the dark room 
they are not quite so handy, but with the per¬ 
fected film developing tanks now made, they are 
deserving of the highest praise. 
It is an easy matter, while you are making 
plans for a vacation, to outline an active cam¬ 
paign, but the very fact that you have this in 
mind causes your nature to rebel. You go to the 
woods for recreation, not work. There is enough 
to do without taking on needless worry. This is 
a very good reason why your photograph outfit 
should be a simple one. If you carry a heavy 
pack all day, you will not feel like changing a 
number of plates in the drowsy hour when you 
should be in your blankets. In warm weather 
this is a task that ruins men’s tempers, and in 
cold weather it is one to avoid which you will 
invent plenty of excuses. The result is that on 
the next day you will lose your best oppor¬ 
tunities for picture making, just as you see all 
your game when you have no gun. 
In the years that I employed glass plates I 
changed them at night while in camp. This was 
done when convenient under a blanket in the 
tent, and it was by no means satisfactory, for 
dust found its way on to the plates, and bits of 
wool as well. On canoe cruises I lay in the 
cockpit of my canoe instead, and after arrang¬ 
ing plate boxes and holders, I or someone else 
covered the cockpit with a heavy blanket to keep 
out the light. Working thus, in total darkness, 
the task was a long one. But the acme of tor¬ 
ture was to do this work in daylight, with two 
blankets shutting out all light, but making an 
oven of my makeshift dark room. A Turkish 
bath is a cooler place by far, and yet it was 
sometimes necessary to change plates in day¬ 
light. Too often the necessity arose through the 
fact that on the night before I was too tired and 
sleepy to perform the task. 
There are other vexations inherent in the use 
of plates. Because of the weight of the number 
of plates I had decided on for a long canoe 
cruise, I carried only half that number with me 
and made arrangements-with my supply man to 
forward the other half on demand. The ex¬ 
posed plates were expressed to him and the fresh 
ones sent to me in due time. They came, and 
they were 5x7, though my order called for 4x5. 
I sent them back with a note that needed no ex¬ 
clamation points. The 4x5 plates reached me 
later on, but in his haste the shipping clerk had 
used big nails in the box, and these had pene¬ 
trated the plate cartons in such a way as to par¬ 
tially expose the plates in several. These I 
consigned to the fishes in a pool said to be ninety 
feet deep. To sum up, a week’s time and some 
of the best opportunities of the trip were lost. 
The sequel was a surprise to me. Most supply 
men, in a similar case, would think 'their duty 
well done when they had expressed regrets; but 
the head of this house literally read the riot act 
to every person in his employ who had had any¬ 
thing to do with the blunder. He insisted on 
making good the plates destroyed, at the same 
time admitting that this was but a small return 
for my loss. He was an exception, as most 
dealers would require the return of worthless 
plates, just as a grocer did on an occasion when 
two dozen eggs he sold me proved to be too 
ancient for even the husky camp appetites of a 
companion and myself. The first one opened 
proving bad, we sampled others, with no better 
success, so all were set aside until the day we 
broke camp. The last thing we did then was to 
place those archaic eggs in a row on a log, re¬ 
tire to a safe distance to windward and open 
fire on them with our six-shooters. It was good 
practice, but we never went back to see how 
many chickens escaped, wing-tipped. And after 
an unsatisfactory interview with the grocer, we 
crossed him off our visiting list, too. He is 
now driving a truck, for he failed to please other 
patrons, too, and lost his business. I cannot help 
thinking he deserved his fall from his high and 
mighty estate. 
Perry D. Frazer. 
