Forest and Stream 
Terms, $3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy, \ 
Six Months, $1.50. ' 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 
io, 1910. 
VOL. LXXV—No. 24. 
1 No. 127 Franklin St., New York. 
A WEEKLY JOURNAL. 
Copyright, 1910, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
George Bird Grinnell, President, 
Chari.es 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. 
THE HUDSON RIVER PARK. 
With the returns in from all but five of the 
counties of New York State, and the prob¬ 
ability of a safe majority in favor of the project, 
the people of New York city and vicinity are to 
be congratulated for their loyalty and their sup¬ 
port of the Palisades Park provision. But for 
their large majority of votes in its favor, the 
proposition would have been lost, and for 
110 good reason. The up-State counties voted 
against the proposition. Just why is not clear; 
either their people lacked interest in the project, 
or they believed the Adirondack and Catskill 
parks sufficient. In this they may have reasoned 
that the vast throng of people from New York 
city and its environs who go annually to these 
two large parks constitute the majority of the 
outdoor people of the city. The vote in West¬ 
chester, New York, Kings, Queens and Rich¬ 
mond tells a different story—a story of thousands 
of men and women who take in their little week¬ 
end journeys quite as much enjoyment as their 
more fortunate brethren do on annual vacations. 
To these men and women and children of few 
and brief vacation days the great park that is 
now assured will be—now and forever—a happy 
hunting ground of unsurpassed beauty and en¬ 
during charm. 
OF MANY MEANINGS. 
The term hunting is one which is used in many 
different senses according to locality. In Eng¬ 
land, for example, it has to do with riding after 
hounds, in pursuit of the fox—cross country 
riding in other words—although in old times the 
riders and their packs followed the deer. The 
hunter is of course unarmed. 
In the good old days in America, hunting 
meant still-hunting or stalking; that is, approach¬ 
ing the game by stealth, the hunter pitting his 
woodcraft against the keen senses of the large 
wild game. Later it was used in speaking of the 
chase of the buffalo on horseback. Still-hunting 
having become a lost art in the United States, 
the term has of late years had a broader appli¬ 
cation, being used first in speaking of the kill¬ 
ing of large game and later of the killing of 
any game, so that to-day we hear of duck hunt¬ 
ing, dove hunting, and in the course of time we 
may hear of robin hunting or sparrow hunting. 
When a whole community turns out to destroy 
tame and long preserved deer in a settled coun¬ 
try, as used to be the case on Long Island, and 
has recently happened in Massachusetts, that is 
still called hunting; and so in the old world, 
when emperors visit preserves and have the do¬ 
mesticated wild animals driven by stands, from 
which they kill all they can, we hear again of 
hunting. 
With the increase of population and with the 
changed conditions which modify the sense in 
which the word was originally used, the special 
significance of this word as of other words used 
in a particular sense will pass away. 
FIGURES THAT DO NOT TELL THE 
WHOLE TRUTH. 
The statement of the number of persons killed 
and injured during the shooting season, sent out 
every year by the Associated Press, is assumed 
to be more or less accurate. The statement for 
the current year is at hand, and the figures show 
that what it calls hunting accidents caused the 
death of 113 persons and the more or less seri¬ 
ous injury of eighty-one others. Michigan heads 
the list with twenty-seven deaths. New York is 
given second place, with fifteen, although in the 
Forest, Fish and Game Commission’s summary, 
published in these columns last week, of the total 
of sixteen deaths, only three were credited to 
persons who fancied their victims were deer. 
Minnesota stands third, with fourteen deaths and 
twenty-two injured while handling firearms or 
actually hunting. Colorado, Kentucky, Montana, 
Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania. Tennessee, 
Washington, Texas, Alaska and British Colum¬ 
bia are credited with a total of twenty-four per¬ 
sons killed, but none injured. The list follows: 
Kill’d. Inj’d. 
Colorado . 2 0 
Illinois . 3 5 
Indiana . 3 2 
Iowa . 0 1 
Kentucky . 3 0 
Maine . 9 20 
Midhigan . 27 4 
Minnesota . 9 7 
Montana . 1 0 
N. Hampshire.. 1 1 
New York .15 10 
North Dakota... 2 1 
Ohio . 5 7 
Oklahoma . 3 0 
Oregon . 6 0 
Pennsylvania ..3 0 
'Tennessee . 1 0 
Washington .... 1 0 
Wisconsin . 14 22. 
Texas . 1 0 
V ermont . 1 1 
Alaska . 2 0 
Brit. Columbia.. 1 0 
While interesting, the figures are of no prac¬ 
tical value, since they fail to differentiate between 
common accidents with firearms which belong in 
the same category with street and road accidents; 
and the shooting of human beings by mistake for 
deer. The statistics are thus mis’eading. 
State Game Commissioner Wiieeler, of Illi¬ 
nois, has decided that a landowner and his chil¬ 
dren are not required to take out licenses to hunt 
game in that State on their own land. This ap¬ 
plies to persons residing elsewhere, who return 
to the family home for the shooting, but whether^ 
non-resident owners of land in the State are in¬ 
cluded in this interpretation of the law does not 
appear in the published statement. Commissioner 
Wheeler has also decided that non-resident hun¬ 
ters may take with them from the State a total 
of fifty birds, and not fifty of each kind classed 
as game birds. 
FURS AND TRAPPING. 
The constantly increasing price of furs brings 
joy to the heart of trappers, of whom a great 
multitude are scattered over the United States. 
Many a farmer’s boy, and many men who have 
long passed the boy stage, reap by trapping each 
winter, even in thickly settled localities, a har¬ 
vest of dollars that is by no means to be de¬ 
spised. In New England and the Middle West, 
and still more so in the Rocky Mountains, furs 
may still be taken in goodly quantity during the 
season of cold, though nowhere are they now 
plenty enough to make it worth while for a 
man to give his whole time to the trap line. 
The muskrat, skunk, raccoon and mink still 
win their living in the fields and woods and 
along the streams of much of this land, and 
their pelts, caught at the right season of the year 
and properly treated, pay constantly better and 
better wages to the trapper. Only a few years 
ago muskrats were worth from eight to ten 
cents; now they range in price from eighty cents 
to one dollar. Skunks have increased in like 
manner, and the prices of mink have soared. 
Most of these animals are never seen by the 
average man or woman who walks abroad, but 
in many places they exist in great numbers. It 
is recalled that only a few years ago when Prof. 
Clifton F. ITodge was engaged in the work of 
rearing game birds at his home in the large city 
of Worcester, Mass., he trapped—in protecting 
his quail and ruffed grouse from the attacks of 
vermin—no less than seventeen skunks. 
The constantly increasing scarcity of furs is 
almost certain to result in a continued rise in 
price, and in the ultimate replacement of the 
skins of wild animals by those of domestic ani¬ 
mals and by fabrics made in imitation of fur. 
An apparent beginning of this change is seen in 
the various names which are given to the skins 
of familiar animals after they have passed 
through the dyeing vat, and so changed their 
color, or have been subjected to other manipu¬ 
lation. 
The high prices of furs are certain to be of 
interest to many of our readers who trap through 
the winter. 
It may be thought that any man lucky enough 
to bag six wild turkeys in one day should be 
content, but a Pennsylvanian who did this is not 
happy, for a warden reminded him that the day 
was Sunday and the number in excess of that 
allowed by law. One turkey per day, or two 
for the entire season, is the limit in Pennsyl¬ 
vania. 
* 
Thirty-four hundred and twenty-one per¬ 
sons were licensed to scour Baltimore county, 
Maryland, on opening day. For the privilege 
they paid the little county about four thousand 
dollars. What they bagged is unknown. 
