

Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal. Copyright, 1907, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
GrorcE Birp GRINNELL, President, 
346 Broadway, New York. 
Cuarves B. Reynotps, Secretary. 
346 Broadway, New York. 
Louis Dean Speir, Treasurer. 
346 Broadway, New York. 



Terms, $3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy. t 

Six Months, $1.50. 

NEW YORK, SATURDAY, AUGUST 31, 1907. 

THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL 
will be to studiously promote a healthful interest 
in outdoor recreation, and to cultivate a refined 
taste for natural objects. 
—Forest AND StrRE¢M, Aug. 14, 1873. 
THE SHRINKING WATERCOURSES. 
Aut through the Catskill Mountains and in 
the hills of Eastern Pennsylvania the trout 
streams have shrunk to the size of little brooks. 
In northern New York the creeks seem very 
low. Along Lake Erie every stream shows 
miles of bottom stone or sand where, in former 
summer seasons, was found an abundance of 
good fishing water. In northern Indiana and 
Illinois, where lakes are so numerous after the 
spring overflow from the rivers, dry land and 
not water is noticeable, and the watercourses 
are low. 
In the East the low water is partly due to 
lack of heavy rains, but in the Middle West, we 
are told, the summer season has been normal ; 
if anything with more rains than usual. 
The watercourses throughout the vast region 
referred to, however, certainly carry much less 
water than they did at the same season a quarter 
of a century ago, but only those who have dis- 
tinct recollections of the conditions then and 
compare them with present conditions can have 
a fair conception of the marked change wrought 
by cutting away the small woodlots as well as 
the forests, by draining every little swamp and 
pond, and by turning every bit of cover into a 
plowed field. 
If, as is often claimed, our summers are grow- 
ing hotter, the reason is not difficult to find. 
Vast stretches of bare ground, baking in the 
sun’s rays all day serve to keep. the air hot at 
night, and when rains are infrequent the tem- 
perature remains very high for long periods of 
time. 
Some day our good people will tire of these 
conditions and attempt to replace a small por- 
tion of the forests, the groves and the waters 
they or their fathers swept away. It will be 
very slow work—slower than that of the axe and 
spade—but there are evidences now that this re- 
form is regarded as necessary. 
It has been a great season for the rearing of 
game birds, but a terrible one for the rearing 
of game fish in natural waters in New England, 
New York and Pennsylvania. Brooks that never 
before were known to go dry have now lost all 
their. moisture and twist through meadow or 
swamp or woodland as mere black mud beds in 
which the water stands only in infrequent pools. 
Usually at this season of the year the shallows 
of these brooklets hold myriads of tiny trout, 
but this year all have perished, and in all such 
streams the trout crop of 1907 is non-existant. 
When this drouth shall have been broken and 
the streams once more begin to flow and at last 
reach their accustomed there will be a 
mighty demand on the fishculturists for trout 
to stock the brooks. 
A few days ago reports began to come in of 
forest fires in the Massachusetts woods on Cape 
Cod and in the Adirondacks; but happily before 
these had done much harm a brief, but welcome 
rain came to the aid of the fire fighters and the 
flames were quenched. If with opening Sep- 
tember we should have heavy rains the burnt 
grass lands will soon resume their usual verdure, 
but no rains now can restore the trout that have 
been destroyed, or make up to the farmer for 
his lost crops. It may be hoped that the damage 
done by this drouth is not so widespread as 
to seriously affect the country at large. Though 
the farmer and the angler have much to worry 
level, 
about, the upland bird shooter many congratulate 
himself on the prospect of good fall shooting. 

THE CAPE COD CANAL. 
Wuute the rounding of Cape Cod is to the 
small yacht owner about as strenuous as is the 
rounding of Cape Horn to the captain of a ship 
—and there are lots of yachtsmen who rather 
enjoy the attending danger of such a trip—there 
are many who, were it possible to get into Boston 
waters without incurring the danger of a ship- 
wreck off the Cape, would visit that locality 
more often than they do. 
To yachts that are changing hands between 
New York and Boston owners a canal across the 
Cape will be a great boon. More yachts will be 
exchanged, as the great danger of bringing them 
around the Cape will be done away with and 
timid yachtsmen can then sail in perfect security 
through the raging waters off the “blooming 
canal’ behind a mild and well broken 
No one will look for shipwrecks on the. “rag- 
ing canal,’ the first shovelful of dirt in the 
actual construction of which was thrown out at 
Sagamore on Tuesday, Aug. 20, by William 
Barclay Parsons, of New York, chief engineer. 
horse. 
The canal will run from Sandwich, on the 
Cape Cod Bay shore, through Bournedale and 
Bourne to the headwaters of Buzzard’s Bay, 
thereby saving the navigation not only down the 
sandy back of the Cape, but also the much more 
dreaded wet, rough and nasty passage across the 
Nantucket Shoals. In round numbers the 
tance saved by this canal to boats bound from 
New York to Boston, or vice versa, will be fifty 
miles, and taking into consideration the tide to 
buck and the possibilities of a head wind, this 
distance may be doubled; whereas, when the 
canal is finished a one-mule breeze 
satisfaction instead of a dread to 
dis- 
will be a 
the timid 
yachtsman. 
We only hope the completion of this 
will be reached before that of Panama. 
canal 
VOL. LXI1X.—No. 9. 
1 No. 346 Broadway, New York. 
INTERNATIONAL ZOOLOGICAL CON- 
GRESS. 
THE formal sessions of the Seventh Interna- 
tional Zoological Congress ended at Boston last 
week. The will be held 
years hence at Graf, Austria. 
This week the delegates to the Congress will 
next Congress three 
spend in New York, being entertained by various 
learned and scientific institutions here. Colum- 
bia University, the American Museum of Natural 
History, the Brooklyn Academy of Arts and 
Sciences, the New York Zoological Society, 
Prof. Henry Fairfield Osborn, and Yale and 
Princeton Universities will divide the time of 
the delegates. 
September 2 and 3 will be spent at Philadel- 
phia, the delegates being the guests of the com- 
mittee on entertainment of the Philadelphia 
Academy of Sciences, the Zoological Society and 
the University of Pennsylvania. Of this 
mittee Dr. Arthur Erwin Brown is the chairman 
and Dr. Phillip P. Calvert the secretary. Mon- 
day will be devoted to an inspection of the col- 
lections of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural 
Sciences and of the Zoological Gardens, while 
com- 
on Tuesday the members will visit the rooms 
of the American Philosophical Society, and the 
University of Pennsylvania, where the zoological 
laboratory and vivarium, the botanical gardens, 
the new medical laboratories, the Wistar Insti- 
tute of Anatomy and the Museum of Archeology 
will be among the interesting things to be seen. 
At the conclusion of their visit to Philadelphia 
of the Congress will leave for 
the members 
Washington. 

Ir will be remembered that a law was passed 
in Pennsylvania last winter prohibiting the use 
The Board of 
“automatic 
of automatic guns in that State. 
Game Commissioners interprets 
guns” to mean “both the shotgun and the rifle, 
or any firearm in which through the recoil of the 
discharge of a shell the empty shell is ejected, 
a loaded shell put in place and the gun cocked, 
it matters not whether the shell contains shot, 
4 single bullet or pellet. It does not include the 
pump gun or the lever gun.” The 
mission intends to enforce this law against all 
guns described as automatic guns. 
td 
THERE would be fewer “nmiad dog scares” in 
the cities and of this country if those 
persons who give millions for educational and 
game com- 
towns 
charitable purposes would set aside modest sums 
fountains where thirst maddened 
no fault of the 
for drinking 
dogs could find solace. itads 
dog that he is brought into the 
petted awhile and then turned into the 
to shift for himself. Dogs we will 
whether or not the city is a proper place for 
them. but to let them run at large in countless 
thousands without food or water is the height 
world to be 
street 
have, 
of cruelty as well as a menace to those who 
should befriend them. 

