
FOUNDERS OF THE AUDUBON SOCIETY 

Dr WILLIAM BRUETTE, Editor 

Member of Audit Bureau of Circulation 



THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL WILL BE TO 
studiously promote a healthful interest in outdoor 
recreation, and a refined taste for natural objects. 
August 14, 1873. 
MARCH 
F all the months on the calendar, March per- 
OC) haps holds the days of greatest discontent 
for the sportsman. Game birds and animals 
have earned their respite from the wiles and arti- 
fices of the hunter, and the cold, steel-trap jaws of 
winter have not sufficiently loosed their hold on the 
frozen streams to make salvelinus realize that his 
season of doom is rapidly approaching. The only 
redeeming feature which this inhospitable and 
drab month has to offer the sportsman is her in- 
clination toward fickleness. At odd times during 
her unenviable career, and as though regretting 
her past misdeeds and occasionally almost making 
it appear that she had reformed, she spreads a bit 
of warmth and sunshine across the dreary land, 
causing her protoplasmic forms, from the one- 
celled varieties on up to man himself, to stretch 
and yawn and dream of happier days to come. En- 
couraged by her fitful and temporary hospitality, 
the brooks and streams gurgle melodies cf vernal 
cheer, the ice on the ponds and lakes booms a note 
of welcome and blue-birds, red-winged blackbirds 
and song-sparrows voice their cheer in notes 
hoarsened by a subtle chill brooding in the air. 
Then, just to show that she is not so genial after 
all, March tempers the spirit of the stirring clod 
with fitful flurries of snow and blasts of wintry 
winds. 
Let us be thankful, however, that, now and then 
at least, March’s fickle nature tempts the red gods 
to invite the sportsmen to attend the debut of ap- 
proaching Spring. 
NATIONAL FORESTS ARE POPULAR 
S an instance of the popularity the National 
Forests have attained as resorts for va- 
cationists, especially motorists, the following 
information concerning recreation and travel in the 
California National Forests may prove of interest. 
The figures of the Forest Service show that 
4,336,700 people visited the seventeen national 
Forests of this state. Of these, 88% arrived in 
automobiles, 8% by railroad, trolley and stage, 3% 
were hikers and 1% on horseback. These figures 
are the result of the work of more than one hun- 
dred rangers, supervisors, and other Federal 
officers in cooperation with automobile associa- 
tions, railroads, stage companies and hotel and re- 
sort managers, supplemented by accurate check 
counts made throughout the year. 

Of the total number of visitors, nearly 2,420,000 
or 56% of this total were transient motorists; 
768,400 or 18%, picknickers; 618,000 or 14%, 
campers; 430,600 or 10%, hotel and resort guests; 
and 100,000 or 2%, summer home owners and 
holders of special use permits from the Forest 
Service. 
The Angeles National Forest in southern Cali- 
fornia, with a total of 1,671,000 visitors, heads the 
list. The records also show that more than 50,000 
people frequently enter this popular mountain 
playground on a single Sunday or holiday. The 
Santa Barbara National Forest, with 1,310,000 
travelers, a million of whom were transient motor- 
ists, is listed as a close second to the Angeles Na- 
tional Forest. 
The important place that the automobile has 
taken in summer recreation travel is shown by the 
report which indicates that of the total number of 
travelers entering the National Forests during the 
past year, more than three and three-quarter mil- 
lion, or 88%, came in private cars. These enor- 
mous figures of automobile travel prove conclu- 
sively the necessity of spreading the gospel of 
forest fire prevention among all motorists, since 
the records show that this travel came not only 
from California, but every State in the Union as 
well.as many foreign countries. 
Fifteen cities now have municipal recreation 
camps within the National Forests of California. 
Over 400 camp grounds have been set aside in 
these Forests by the Forest Service for the com- 
fort and convenience of travelers. 
While the National Forests of California an- 
nually have a larger number of visitors than the 
Forests of any other State, the above figures will 
give some idea of what a wonderful work the Na- 
tional Forests are doing for the ever increasing 
army of health and recreation seekers. 

EPISODE 
NTIL late night the snow fell, drifting the 
| valley and roads, hiding the trails in the 
wood'ot, and rising indolently from pipe and 
book, I stepred slowly to the door and flung it open 
for a last look at the weather. A white moon. hung 
just above the spires of squat pine, and a thousand © 
stars lighted the pale landscape. The world was 
a ghostly place, heroic, austere, of sheen and shim- 
mer, of sable and silver, of strange sinister 
shadows which retreated and advanced to the part- 
opened door. Half in awe I listened, and in the 
litany of the nines I heard the long roll of lonely 
ocean shores in the winds whipping the granite 
hills, and then came silence, vibrant, lethal, with 
the frost singing iike taut wire. The pines bent 
under heavy snow gobs, they groaned with creak 
and strain—trembling strings of wild harps—and 
as bough rubbed bough, the night ached with the 
dismal sound. The world seemed a ruin of the past 
in snowy marble, of crumbling arch and column 
of lonely altars and sky-flung spires, of mosaics 
and broken walls, wrought in cold, pallid, unforget- 
able beauty. 
Life prowled the glistening snows, and gaunt 
hunger, like a god afamished, stalked the frozen 
corridors of forest and swamp. Tragedy was 
rampant in murder and theft as soft-pawed figures 
of the night stepped the stark, moon-lit wastes. 
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