Copyright, 1906, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Forest and Stream 



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NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JUNE 30, 



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Forest and Stream on the Stands. 
THIS issue completes the first volume of the 
-ForEST AND STREAM in the new form and style 
adopted for it at the beginning of the year. The 
change was all in the direction of convenience 
and an increased attractiveness; and the welcome 
‘then accorded has been followed by a warm sup- 
‘port and a growing popularity. Beginning with 
‘the issue of next week, July 7, the Forest AND 
StrEAM will not be returnable by newsdealers; 
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FRANKLIN AND THE EAGLE. 
In his entertaining remarks on the eagle as 
-an emblem, Mr. E. F. Randolph recalls that Ben- 
| jamin Franklin once made an ingenious plea for 
the selection of the wild turkey in place of the bald- 
“headed eagle as the national bird. Itis true that 
| Franklin did thus champion the wild turkey, but 
this must have been an afterthought, for there is 
no record to show that the sage himself did any- 
thing to put the suggestion into effect on a 
certain occasion, when he had an excellent op- 
portunity for doing so. 
When the new-born nation bethought itself of 
providing a coat-of-arms, the task of selecting 
the design was entrusted to a committee which 
consisted of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and 
Thomas Jefferson. The several devices recom- 
mended afford an interesting insight into the 
thought of the period. Adams proposed the 
Choice of Hercules, as depicted by an Italian 
artist, representing the hero resting on his big 
tick, with Virtue pointing to her rugged moun- 
tain and Sloth inviting to her flowery paths of 
pleasure. Jefferson suggested for the face of the 
seal, the Children of Israel in the Wilderness led 
by the cloud by day and pillar of fire by night; 
and for the reverse the Saxon chiefs Hengist and 
Horsa, from whom the English colonists claimed 
their illustrious descent. This would have given 

the several other races composing the new nation 
no representation whatever. A much fairer plan 
in this respect would have been the adoption of 
the device for the shield which was proposed to 
the committee by a French West Indian artist, 
whom they had called in to assist them and who 
urged that the arms of the United States should 
include suggestions of all the European countries 
from which the colonies had drawn their people— 
the rose for England, the thistle for Scotland, the 
harp for Ireland, the fleur-de-lis for France, the 
imperial eagle for Germany and the crowned lion 
for Holland. Manifestly with such a jumble, this 
was the psychological moment for Franklin. If 
he entertained any strong convictions concern- 
ing a wild bird for a totem for the new nation, 
this manifestly was the time for him to talk turkey. 
But instead of this he followed Adams back’ to 
Egypt, and found his inspiration in the exodus 
of the Jews from bondage; and his device was 
Moses lifting up his wand and dividing the Red 
Sea, and Pharaoh and his chariot overwhelmed 
with the waters, while up in the sky the eye of 
Providence illumined the scene. 
The result of the work of the committee was 
a grotesque combination of Moses and Pharaoh 
and the several heraldic emblems of European 
monarchies. But Congress would not have it. 
Various other designs for the arms were sub- 
mitted from time to time by other committees, 
only to be rejected by the saving common sense 
of Congress, until after several years choice was 
made of a design prepared by William Barton, of 
Philadelphia, in which the American bald eagle 
had the central and conspicuous place it holds to- 
day. The eagle appears to have suggested 
itself to Barton because it was a familiar and 
conventional heraldic. device, emblematic of 
power and might, and the American bald eagle 
was chosen as specially appropriate. Some years 
before this the State of New York had adopted 
the eagle in its coat-of-arms, but it had been 
simply an heraldic eagle, and had no reference to 
the American bird. Barton gave to the eagle, to 
be held grasped in his talons, the thirteen arrows 
and the olive branch as symbolizing the power of 
peace and war under the control of Congress; 
and he omitted heraldic “supporters” for the bird 
for the reason, as he said, that the American 
nation must stand or fall by its own inherent 
virtues without depending on any outside aid. 
And so the eagle became America’s bird of 
freedom, to decorate our State papers, to be 
sculptured on our public buildings, to surmount 
our million flagstaffs, and to gleam and glitter 
on the standards and guidons of our troops in 
battle—fancy the wild turkey as an emblem to 
inspire valor in any but trenchermen; to be en- 
graved on our currency and minted on our coin- 
age—even Franklin was never known to have re- 
fused good American money because it bore the 
eagle’s stamp instead of that of the turkey; and 
to inspire our Fourth of July orators to cloud- 
piercing excursions into the empyrean, rivaling 
that of the bird of Job himself. In illustration 
of which and in certification thereof, let us hear 
Col. P. Donan, of Fargo, North Dakota, who in 
the course of much else of the same exuberant 
nature in a Fourth of July oration, said: 
“Then shall proud Columbia’s pet 
(which is being so numerously and diversely 
squeezed until he 
the loftiest pinnacle-crag of the royal-cre-ribbed 
Rocky Mountains, spread his cloud-bathed 
wings from the multifloral rainbows and frost- 
wrought splendors of the Aurora-Boreaiic 
realms, to where the billowed sunshine of Hon- 
durian gulfs chants its ceaseless anthem to 
shores of everlasting green and gold, and 
trumpet forth in universe-reverberating tones 
his ‘Cock-a-Doodle-Yankee-Doodle-Doo’ of 
exultation and defiance to all the world and the 
rest of mankind. Earth’s two greatest oceans, 
three thousand miles apart, shall roll up in 
thundering oratorio their echo of the high and 
glad refrain; the mightiest gulf and grandest 
lakes in all creation shall join the chant; river 
after river, huge, rolling floods, shall conspire 
to sweal the giant pean; Superior’s waves, old 
Mississippi’s torrent, Niagara’s misty thunders 
shall roar it far and wide; the hurricane crashing 
through ten thousand mountain gorges, from 
the Alleghenies to the Cordilleras, and from the 
Adirondacks to the Sierras, shall chime it; the 
raging blizzards, hurling six-inch hailstones on 
sky-bound Nebraskian plains, shall whistle and 
rattle it; the catamount shall shriek it, the 
prairie-wolf shall howl it, the lone owlet hoot it, 
and the grizzly bear shall growl it; and the 
burden of it shall be, America for Americans! 
One country, one flag, zwei lager, from Green- 
Jand’s icy mountains to Darien’s golden strands! 
E pluribus unum, now, henceforth and forever- 
more, world without end—Amen PP 
Under the spell of which soaring eagle flight 
we can only exclaim with Eliza Cook: 
eagle 
squawks to-day), perched upon 
* 4 curse on the hand that’would build him a coop.” 

MIGRATORY WILDFOWL. 
TuHat open letter by Mr. Sydney G. Fisher to 
Congressman Lacey deserves and will repay care- 
ful reading. Mr. Fisher reviews the situation as 
it exists in these days of inefficient State pro- 
tection, and finds the remedy in Federal protec- 
tion warranted by an amendment to the Consti- 
tution. Such an amendment he believes to be 
necessary, because, in his view, Congress now has 
no jurisdiction for the exercise of the required 
police power. It will be recalled that Hon. George 
Shiras 3d introduced a measure in Congress fora 
Federal game law applicable to migratory fowl, 
and that he contended for an authority already 
existing for such Federal police power. Mr. 
Shiras has recently reviewed the subject in a 
brief, which, we trust, may soon be laid before 
our readers. 
