It does not seem possible that this mere handful of men could perform all the duties of the American Forest Service and yet cover such an immense region as they do, but the records of the Government show that since these police of the wilderness began going their lonely rounds the number of fires has greatly diminished, while the various national parks are in a far better condition than ever before. One of the best things about the department is that it is educating the settler in the Far West to a better sense of the value of the forests, and the wasteful and extravagant methods formerly pursued by the farmer and lumberman are gradually being abandoned. [Illustration] The Legend of the Wailing Woman. +By D. W. O. Fagan, of Mangapai, Whangarei, Auckland, New Zealand.+ The author writes: "In a cave under the cliffs of Manaia is a 'blow-hole' only actuated once in every month, at the time of the highest spring tides, when it sends forth a wailing shriek. Below I have set down the native legend concerning it, as told to me by my old Maori friend Puketawa. Allowing for idiomatic differences, the narrative is in his own words." We beached our boat on the shore of the islet and waited the coming of the flood-tide to help us against the river current in the harbour narrows. Night had already fallen, but the sands were still warm from the heat of the sun, and though the sky was clear and full of stars, the shadows were very dark under the Pohotokawas, where we lay. Our fire had sunk to a few dull embers, and Puketawa's pipe glowed like a red eye from the darkness. Across the channel opposite, a quarter of a mile away, rose the dark mass of Manaia, its crags among the stars. Presently, the moon, rising from the sea behind us, lit the dark rocks with a flood of silver light. On three sides of the headland cliffs rose sheer from the water to a height of two hundred feet. On the flat, table-like top a cone-shaped mass of limestone rocks, piled one above the other, rose to a further height of a hundred feet or so. The cliff of the seaward face was pierced at its base by a dark cave, into which the swell broke with gurgling echoes. On the fourth side the ground fell away in a grassy slope from the base of the rock-cone to the white sands of the bay. At the top of the slope were the mound and ditch of an old "pah" (fort). Whence I wonder did those old-time Maoris obtain their knowledge of military fortification? Vallum and fosse, scarp and counter-scarp, the place looked like a Roman "castrum." It needed no great stretch of fancy to imagine the glint of moonbeams on brazen armour, the clang of shields and steady tramp of the legionaries on the ramparts.