Forest and Stream 

Copyright, 1906, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 




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Six Months, $1.50. 

NEW 

The object of this journal will be to studiously 
promote a healthful interest in outdoor recre- 
ation, and to cultivate a refined taste for natural 
objects. Announcement in first number of 
ForEsT AND STREAM, Aug. 14, 1873. 
THE POINTING INSTINCT. 
THE literature of the dog and gun, like the 
literature devoted to many other subjects, has a 
certain part of myth and tradition interwoven 
with matters of facts. 
Fact and fallacy alike have been so deftly elab- 
orated by generation after generation of writers 
on sport, that the average man may well find it 
difficult to separate one from the other. To dif- 
ferentiate the fact from the fancy is a puzzling 
matter even for an expert to attempt. 
The myths seem to have the greater vitality 
and persistency, since they are likely to be more 
commonly known and believed by the people at 
large, and are even quite commonly believed by 
many who are accredited with expert knowledge. 
In many instances the writers seem to engage 
more industriously in proving the things they do 
not and cannot know, than in presenting such 
knowledge as they actually possess. This succes- 
sive deference to preceding writers, however, has 
other viewpoints. There is no harm in tolerating 
a charitable indulgence for the writer who bravely 
aspires to fill a book of bushel size with a pint of 
good ideas. The difference between the pint and 
the bushel must be filled somehow. 
Of these myths, few are more persistent than 
that which accounts for the pointing instinct in 
setters and pointers, as set forth by Stonehenge 
in his work, “The Dogs of the British Islands.” 
Substantially, his opinion was that the setter de- 
scended from the spaniel; that the spaniel was 
used as a springer for the hawk; that the hawk 
was superseded by the net as a means of capture, 
and that in time, owing to the changed circum- 
stances associated with the net’s employment, the 
spaniel, “gratified by observing the action of the 
net, he yielded his natural impulse of springing 
at all, and set or lay down, to permit the net to 
be drawn over him. After this the hawker trained 
his spaniel to set; then he cast off his hawks 
which ascended in circles, and ‘waited on’ until 
his master (sic) roused the quarry from its con- 
cealment, when she pounced upon it like a pistol 
shot.” While it is not quite clear how a pistol 
shot pounces, the foregoing nevertheless is the 
main authority for the perpetuation of the myth 
concerning how the setting instinct was acquired. 
Stonehenge never presented his researches as a 
settlement of this matter. He formally stated 
that there were differences of opinion in regard 
to setters and that he had determined to satisfy 
himself “as to their origin and best form,” and 
that he sought the assistance of the best authori- 
ties, his purpose being to add thereto his own 
conclusions. 
What thus was merely presented as the ideas 
of ancient writers, has been sanctioned seriously 
by writer after writer in many modern publica- 
tions. 
The “authorities” of Stonehenge were simply 
a couple of writers who flourished two or three 
centuries ago, and wrote pleasingly of sport as 
anyone might write in like manner at the present 
time. There is no proof or attempt to prove that 
they were authorities in their own day, however 
much the exigencies of argument might make 
them desirable as authorities in modern days. 
There is as much fallacy in attempting to prove 
the origin of pointing as in a like attempt to 
prove the origin of eating. 
As a matter of fact, the pointing act, com- 
monly exhibited by the pointer and setter, is an 
incident of the capture, or attempted capture, of 
food by dogs, and also by wolves, foxes, etc. 
Coyotes have been seen to draw and point on 
prairie dogs and grouse in precisely the same 
manner that the pointer and setter draw on game 
birds. There was the same rigidity and stealth, 
the pause to judge of distance and opportunity, 
and the final, rigid pause when all the energies 
are concentrated for the final spring to capture. 
All the phenomena displayed by the dog. family 
indicate that the drawing and pointing in the 
pursuit of prey were ever natural traits. It may 
be reasonably believed that man could not breed 
the pointing instinct out of the dog if he at- 
tempted to do so. 
SECRETARY TAFT AGAINST POUND 
WEDS. 
For many years a bitter controversy has raged 
between the salt water anglers on the one hand 
and the commercial fishermen who employ pound 
nets along the Atlantic coast on the other. The 
pound net men have declared that the nets were 
essential to the profitable carrying on of their 
business, while the anglers maintained that the nets 
destroy valuable food fish by wholesale, and that 
of those destroyed only a certain proportion are 
used. The New Jersey and Long Island coasts 
have been especial grounds for the controversy. 
Within the past few years, it has been alleged 
that the long poles planted in the Great South 
Bay by the pound fishermen to support their nets 
are obstructions to navigation. The United 
States Government was appealed to, and last 
summer a number of protestants, among them 
Mr. Julien T. Davies of New York city, appeared 
before Col. Livermore, of the U. S. Engineer 
Corps, who gave a hearing to both sides at Islip, 
L. I. Subsequent to this, the matter was carried 
to Washington and referred to the War Depart- 
ment. 
Secretary Taft has just rendered a decision 
that no more pounds shall be placed in the Cham- 
paign Creek Sluiceway in the main channel of 
Great South Bay near Fire Island, or in Dick- 
erson’s Channel, and has decided further, that 
YORK, SATURDAY, APRIL 7, 1906. 
VOL. LXVI.—No. 14. 
1 No. 346 Broadway, New York. 
hereafter no new pounds shall be set up by the 
fishermen without the consent of the War De- 
partment. The subject is of great interest to salt 
water anglers, and Mr. Taft’s decision is a sub- 
stantial victory for them so far as this partic- 
ular locality is concerned. 
FOR AN OLYMPIC FOREST, REFUGE: 
Siens of the increasing interest in the preser- 
vation of natural things continue to multiply. 
Only recently we announced the favorable re- 
port by the Committee of Agriculture on Mr. 
Lacey’s bill providing for the establishment of 
game refuges in the forest reserves, and since 
then the Public Lands Committee has favorably 
reported to the House a bill to set aside a large 
portion of the Olympic Forest Reserve in the 
State of Washington, as a refuge for the Wash- 
ington elk. The bill was introduced by Repre- 
sentative Humphrey, of the State of Washington, 
and is finding favor in the legislative mind at the 
Capitol. 
The elk in the Olympic Peninsula are probably 
the only ones left in the State. They inhabit a 
wild, rough, broken country of mountain and for- 
est, a country valueless except to the camper, the 
angler and the mountain climber. It is certainly 
most fitting that these elk shall be protected in 
their old range, where, of late years, they have 
been slaughtered in large numbers, when driven 
down from the mountains by the winter’s snow. 
Not only should the elk be protected within 
this refuge, but also the deer and the white goats. 
Shooting of any description ought to be forbid- 
den, and it may be hoped will be forbidden now 
or soon. 
It is gratifying to see the growing tendency 
in Congress and indeed in legislative bodies gen- 
erally to take action looking toward the preser- 
vation of fish and game all over the country. 
These natural things ought to be conserved, not 
necessarily for any good that this generation will 
get out of them, but for their benefit to those 
who are to come after us. 

THE action of the Legislature of the Province 
of Quebec in passing an act which provides that 
the Government shall collect a license fee from 
non-resident members of clubs holding fishing 
and hunting licenses from the Crown, interests a 
very large number of Americans. Nowhere in 
Canada is better sport to be had than in Quebec, 
and nowhere are there more fishing and hunting 
clubs. It is interesting that the first strong pro- 
test against this legislation should have been reg- 
istered by a Canadian lawyer, and not by any 
citizen of the United States who are those most 
directly affected. Mr. White's suggested plans 
for securing the repeal of this act will no doubt 
be effective if he can secure united action 
by the members of all the clubs interested. The 
amount involved is small but the principle at 
stake is an important one. 
