Forest and Stream 
Terms, $3 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months. $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER io, 1910 . 
VOL. LXXV.-No. 11. 
No. 127 Franklin St. New York. 
A WEEKLY JOURNAL. 
Copyright, 1910, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
George Bird Grinnell, President, 
Charles B. Reynolds, Secretary, 
Louis Dean Speir, Treasurer, 
127 Franklin Street, New York. 
THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL 
will be to studiously promote a healthful in¬ 
terest in outdoor recreation, and to cultivate 
a refined taste for natural objects. 
—Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1873. 
AFRICAN DANGERS. 
Each year the dangerous game of Africa takes 
some toll from the hunters who seek pleasure or 
for profit in its pursuit. Elephant, buffalo, lions 
and rhinoceros, while always ready to escape if 
given the opportunity, are also usually prepared 
to fight if they must. All these are uncertain of 
temper and likely to act in unexpected ways. 
He who pursues them should be a good shot, of 
steady nerve and ready in emergency. The ques¬ 
tion as to what is the most dangerous game of 
Africa will probably never be answered. 
Disease has killed more African travelers than 
wild beasts, yet of late years so much has been 
learned of sanitary methods, so many precautions 
are taken and so many comforts are provided on 
safari that the African fevers once so dreaded by 
white men are now far less dangerous than they 
once were. 
Perils from hostile natives, once a real danger, 
at present scarcely exist. The native has learned 
that the white man is to be dreaded and that in¬ 
jury to one of them is likely to be followed by 
punishment to the tribe or community; punish¬ 
ment, which, if not swift, is certain. Neverthe¬ 
less it is not very long since near the Elayo 
country a safari was attacked, and a number of 
its porters and native policemen speared. 
Most of these dangers are of the past, yet to 
some extent they still exist and must be con¬ 
sidered. The recent wounding of Mr. C. E. 
Akely by an elephant shows what may happen 
even to the experienced hunter. 
HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC. 
When Plarry Whitney and Paul J. Rainey set 
sail last spring in the Beothic with Captain Bart¬ 
lett, it was their intention to hunt in Arctic lands 
during the summer, and to return home ere the 
channels closed, as they did not wish to remain 
in the North through the winter. Their wish 
has been gratified and the Beothic will reach 
local waters ere this issue is in circulation. What 
they have done others can and will do. There 
is good hunting and fishing in the North, and the 
fact that it is possible to go there and return in 
one summer will attract other sportsmen to the 
region. Even now salmon fishing expeditions to 
far Northern rivers are commonly undertaken by 
small parties. 
Another expedition which, when its details are 
made public, will serve to attract attention to 
the North, is that which was undertaken, with 
success, by Earl Grey, premier of Canada. With 
his party he journeyed by canoe north to Hud¬ 
son Bay, crossed Labrador and returned to Que¬ 
bec by steamer. 
Young men who sigh with regret that they 
were born too late to see the bison and other 
big game in their time of plenty, can turn their 
faces northward without fear of disappointment 
if it is a wild region they would seek, for there 
are big fish and wild game and mild adventure 
aplenty about and north of the arctic circle. 
When a city and a railway-steamer terminal shall 
have been established on the shore of Hudson 
Bay, the vast region round about will be open 
to countless canoe and steamer trips, and will 
be within a few days’ railway travel of our 
largest cities. 
FOUR YEARS’ GOOD WORK. 
Last week Colonel Hugh L. Scott completed 
a detail of four years as superintendent of the 
United States Military Academy at West Point 
and was relieved by Major-General Thomas H. 
Barrv. 
Never since its establishment has the Military 
Academy made such progress as under Colonel 
Scott, one of the best soldiers and ablest men in 
the military service of the United States. One 
of Colonel Scott’s purposes on assuming the su¬ 
perintendency was to make the academy better 
known to the public. This he has done in a 
variety of ways and to-day the institution is bet¬ 
ter understood and better appreciated than ever 
before. He has carried out the various improve¬ 
ments contemplated and planned at the time of 
his appointment, but besides this he has shown 
a remarkable fertility in progressive ideas and ah 
astonishing industry in carrying out these ideas, 
which have made the Academy more than ever 
helpful to the young men who are studying there. 
He has thus performed an enormous service for 
the United States army and for the country. 
Through his wide experience in many lands he 
has acquired a breadth of view possessed by few 
officers. First of all a soldier, he is besides that 
organizer, business man, diplomat, and man of 
science. Few men possess his knowledge of the 
Indian of the plains. His long intercourse with 
various tribes has given him a knowledge of the 
mental attitude of primitive peoples and a sym¬ 
pathy for that attitude, which have enabled him 
to perform great services in their behalf as well 
in the United States as in the Philippine Islands. 
His contributions to the science of ethnology 
have been great. 
Colonel Scott has gone to Washington to re¬ 
port to Major-General Leonard Wood, now Chief 
of Staff, his old associate and commander in the 
Philippines, where Colonel Scott accomplished so 
much with the.Moros and other half savage 
people. 
LABOR DAY’S SIGNIFICANCE. 
Monday last mar-ked the official closing of 
the active season for yachtsmen, canoeists, 
campers and outdoor people generally. Vast 
throngs look on Labor Day as the time to pull 
down their tents and return to their homes and 
their work in town until the next Memorial Day 
rolls around. 
It is often a subject for comment—this fairly 
strict observance of what might be termed the 
open season for outdoor people. The diversity 
of summer pleasures of our people explains the 
custom in part, these pleasures of course wait¬ 
ing on climatic and seasonal conditions, varying 
as these do here and there. President Taft cer¬ 
tainly knew his ground when he said the busy 
man's vacation should be of longer duration 
than the fortnight fixed by custom and the exig¬ 
encies of a business life. He knew that more 
and more men and women are living outdoors 
during the summer and autumn, and that the 
high pressure under which so many labor 
throughout the cooler months demands more 
rest than it is possible to crowd into two weeks’ 
time. 
Very few summers have been as pleasant for 
outdoor recreation. To offset the lack of rain, 
and the heat of June and a part of July, cool 
nights have followed pleasant days in a way 
seldom witnessed. Now for the shooting season. 
For those who have endured the heat of the 
cities while their more fortunate brethren were 
away—and for many of the latter, too—the clos¬ 
ing of the summer season is not witnessed with 
feelings of regret only. The shooting season is 
but a few days in the future, and the prospects 
of good hunting are bright, particularly in re¬ 
gions where the supply of small game depends 
on the rain fall and the temperature of early 
summer. 
Blackbirds are journeying southward in vast 
flocks, and the robins that made their summer 
homes far to the north are with us, resting ere 
they fare along to retreats below the frost belt. 
These are the birds most in evidence to-day, 
though many others have joined in the autumn 
migration. 
One of the merry spectacles of Labor day in 
the Pludson River was the chasing of a deer by 
two motorboats. With protection there has been 
an increase among the deer of the mountain 
country in and about the new State park and the 
Harriman tract, and if the prohibition against 
shooting at all times in the Palisades Park is 
strictly enforced for a series of years, it is prob¬ 
able deer will be seen along the northern end of 
the Palisades occasionally. In the hills back of 
Stony Point, and even nearer the city, reports 
have it that deer tracks are frequently seen along 
the brooks and ponds, and now and then a deer 
is made ‘out in a woods path or roadway. 
