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THE AMERICAN SPORTSMAN'S JOURNAL- 



[Entered According to Act of Congress, in the year ISSI, by the Forest and Stream Publishing Company, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.] 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY IO, 1881. 



CONTENTS. 



Bditoeial : — 



The Proposed New York Law ; Breeding Salmon in Fresh 

 Water; National Guard Practice ; The Eel-Weir Question ; 

 A Zoological Warden for New York ; For Gentlemen Hand- 

 ler* ; Notes 23 



The Spoetbman Tourist :— 



A Trip Throng] i the Provinces ■ Grouse Shooting on the Bed- 

 wood ; Deer Stalking ; F. A. Dm'ivage 24 



Natural History :— 



The Chesapeake Zoological Laboratory ; The Florida Battle- 

 snake ; Can the Pinnated firomi! tie Successfully Propa- 

 gated? Minute Forma of Life in the Waters of the Lakes ; 

 Pine Grosbeak in Mass 27 



Gasle Bag asp Gtrs :— 



Destroy the Hawks ; The Weather and the Birds ; Crusting 

 Deer ; Quail and Ducks in Florida ; Killing Grouse from 

 Trees ; The Unusual Numbers of Wild Fowl South ; Trap- 

 ping on Bailey Lake : Hunting with Daniel Webster : The 

 Dutchess County Law; The Proposed Amendments ; Notes. 28 



Sea axd Biver EiBHiSd i— 



Protect -he Bockfisb in the Delaware; Nets in Lake Cham- 

 plaiu; domfi Singufaj Salmon; Bange of Catfish ; Scarci- 

 ty of Salmon 32 



Fish Culture :— 



Breeding California Salmon in Fresh Water ; Restoring Ex- 

 hausted Fisheries ; Beports of Kansas and Illinois Com- 

 missions ; Notes 83 



Ta» Kennel : — 



Alexandra Palace Dog Show ; Picture of Thornton's Dash ; 

 The Fate of " Hunter ;" Notes ; Kennel Management ; 

 Kennel Notes , 84 



Biele and Trap Shooting 36 



Yachting akd Canoeing ; — 



LisrhtB in Boats " Propelled by Oars :" Sharpies vs. Keels ; 

 New York Yacht Club ; Slabs at Sea ; Yachting News 37 



Answers to Correspondents ' 38 



TO CORRESPONDENTS. 



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 are invited from every part of the country. 



Anonymous communications will not be regarded. No correspond- 

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AU communications of whatever nature Bhould be addressed to the 

 Forest and Stream publishing Company, Nos. 39 and 40 Park Row, 

 New York. 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



Thursday, February 10. 



THE PROPOSED NEW YORK LAW. 



THE new law proposed by the committee of the Long Is- 

 land Sportsmen's Association would be in several re- 

 spects more desirable than the one now in force. It restricts 

 the killing of certain game to more limited periods than at 

 present permitted, and in these changes the sportsmen in the 

 State will concur. 



In respect to the provisions which regulate the traffic in 

 game the proposed law has vital defects. The committee 

 who drafted the bill explain that they " have heard the argu- 

 ments of representative hunters for the market, dealers in 

 fish and game, and those who hunt and fish for recreation 

 aud amusement." "The naturalautagonismbetweentho.se 

 who hunt for a living and those who hunt for pleasure has 

 been apparent. We have endeavored to reconcile these con- 

 flicting interests as far as possible." 



From the wording of their bill it is perfectly clear that the 

 "endeavor to reconcile" has been altogether in favor of the 

 market hunters and dealers. The committee appear to have 

 lost sight entirely of the real intent of a game law, which is 

 the due protection of game, and to have had in mind only the 

 protection of the unrestricted traffic in game. This was per- 

 haps a natural result of the circumstance that the influential 

 member of the committee drafting the bill is himself a large 

 dealer in game, aud fish, and has for a long time openly and 

 strenuously advocated the stdc of refrigerated game all the 

 year around. 



The obnoxious refrigerator section, which has met such de- 

 served opposition among sportsmen throughout the State, is 

 still retained, although in a modified form. It reads as fol- 

 lows : 



Sec. 84.— Any person may sell, or expose for sale, or have In pos- 

 session any hare or rabbit, any woodcock, any ruffed grouse, com- 

 monly called partridge, any spruce grouse, commonly called Canada 

 partridge, and any quail, from the first day of January to the first 

 day of February, and any pinnated grouse, commonly called prairie 

 chicken, and any venison, from the first day of December to the first 

 day of March, without liability to punishment or penally, provided It 

 be proven that such birds or game were killed without tills state, or 

 within fhi' period provided by this act. 



The sale of all game should cease with the expiration of 

 the lawful ti mef or killing it. No concession whatever should 

 be made for the extended sale of birds. If any concession is 

 made for venison one month is amply sufficient. The dealers 

 can regulate their trade and confine it to the legitimate 

 period if they choose to do so. Their trade should be gov- 

 erned by the law ; the law should not be governed by their 

 trade. 



It is claimed that the present law against trapping and 

 snaring birds and the sale and possession of such birds is in- 

 operative, because the word "wilful" occurs in the law. 

 The simplest, easiest, and only effective remedy then would 

 be to omit altogether the word "wilful" in the section. The 

 proposal of the committee that the Long Island Railroad bag- 

 gage men who peddle trapped birds, and the dealers who ex- 

 pose trapped birds for sale must be in due form first notified 

 that their birds are trapped, before they can incur any liabili- 

 ty therefor, is simply ridiculous, and if put into effect would 

 make the law more of a nullity than it is even now— if that 

 be possible. 



In case the plea of ignorance should some time not 

 prove sufficient protection to the guileless offender, 

 and a "State game protector," undaunted by the 

 obstructions of this proposed law, should really pros- 

 ecute for violation of law, the party proceeded against 

 need only summon a "county game protector," who is 

 empowered by proposed section 38 "to take or re- 

 ceive by voluntary surrender game or fish which, under vio- 

 lations of law, shall be killed, caught, had in possession, 

 sold, exposed for sale, purchased, or transported into the 

 county for which such officer shall be appointed." And "the 

 receipt of such game or fish by such officer shall be a bar to 

 any prosecution, civil or criminal, in case of voluntary sur- 

 render, or where the person from whom such game or fish 

 shall be taken shall have given prompt notice of such pos- 

 session, and shall, when required, make oath that at the 

 time of receiving the same he was ignorant of such violation 

 of law, and shall disclose the name and residence of the per- 

 son from whom the same was received to the best of his 

 knowledge." This section should be amended by throwing 

 out in the last sentence quoted, after "criminal," the words 

 "in case of voluntary surrender, or;" the clause would 

 then cover all that it ought to cover, and it would not be, as 

 now, the last of a number of resorts provided to allow any 

 man of ordinary intelligence to sell all the year round game 

 killed in any manner and at any time. 



In fact the effect of those provisions must be to so hamper 

 and render nugatory any prosecution for illegal traffic in 

 game that it would be practically giving those disposed to en- 

 gage in such a traffic the fullest license and encouragement. 

 We can conceive of no possible circumstances under which, 

 with this law in force, such offenders could be punished, 

 save by the forfeiture of the game itself. The proposed act, 

 as it is now worded, is not a game protective law ; it is de- 

 signed rather to protect the dealer and to render ineffectual 

 any attempt to restrain the traffic in game as it ought to be 

 restrained. 



The members of the Long Island Sportsmen's Association 

 owe it to themselves as sportsmen, to their reputation 

 throughout the State and to the true interests of game pro- 

 tection in this State and elsewhere to withhold their indorse- 

 ment from such a bill. Their prompt rejection of these pro- 

 visions will do much to allay the suspicion, now somewhat 

 prevalent, that this whole movement is simply the shrewd 

 attempt of a prominent game dealer of this city, who is also 

 the leading spirit of the association, to use the influence of 

 the society to fix the game laws just as ho wants them, that 

 they may subserve Mb own personal interests. 



BREEDING SALMON IN FRESH WATER 



WE recommend a perusal of Mr. Fairbanks article, 

 under this head in another column, to all fishcultur- 

 ists and fish commissioners. LTis method wc believe to be 

 the right one. He has pooled his salmon and not scattered 

 them, and the result is tbey are there. If he had put in half 

 the number he might never have seen a salmon ; but he put 

 in enough to make their presence felt and to allow some to 

 escape their enemies, aud they escaped. 



Nature intends millions of eggs aud millions of young fish 

 to be food for birds, aquatic mammals, insects and fish, just 

 as she provides a plant with a hundred seeds, ninety-nine of 

 which feed the birds, mice and squirrels, and one brings 

 forth its kind and keeps up the stock. 



A half million of fish eggs seem to be a great number, and 

 tempts commissioners to distribute a "good lot " to a dozen 

 localities. But what is the entire number when compared 

 with the vast quantity dropped in the McClotid River by 

 millions of salmon ? 



The lesson taught by Mr. Fairbanks in his paper read be- 

 fore the Central Fishcultural Society at Ch'cago is a plain 

 one. It means consolidate, and not distribute. In distribu- 

 tion there is weakness ; in consolidation, strength ! If to- 

 day we had a million eggs of a new and valuable fish at our 

 disposal they would all go into one stream, "make or break," 

 as the saying goes, and we think an impression might be made 

 on the stream that would remain. 



NATIONAL GUARD RIFLE PRACTICE. 



r would seem that the magnificent record which the 

 citizen soldiers of the State of New York have made 

 for themselves is to be cut short by a sort of official strangu- 

 lation. Gov. Cornell has decided that rifle practice is of no 

 value because there is no prospect of any war breaking forth 

 for 50 years to come, and therefore no merit in having troops 

 prepared to use their weapons. This is the perfection of 

 simplicity, aud as a statement from one supposed to have 

 mastered some of the simplest ideas of political economy, 

 appears almost monumental in its stupidity. 



With a regular army barely largo enough to serve as a 

 police force for the rapidly diminishing frontier it would be 

 the most rational substitute to build up to its largest propor- 

 tions a strong militia force ; lint to make a record for econo- 

 my the National Guard is to bo attacked and slashed out of 

 all semblance of utility. The new crotchet is to have en- 

 campments, where the citizen who is willing to give a por- 

 tion of his time to the service of his State suddenly finds 

 himself the victim of capricious orders and compelled to 

 sacrifice a good portion of his private time for a foolish 

 notion. A regiment able to carry on a good street fight is 

 worth far more as a menance against turbulence and disord- 

 ers than a command able to go through all the routine of 

 camp duty. And then, as the camp sites are to have butts 

 off in some corner the troops- under canvas are to pick up 

 during their week's picnic a full knowledge of how to hold 

 and how to hit. What is re illy needed is a careful showing 

 up of the present system of rifle practice. 



The whole system of rifle practice is on too wholesale a 

 scale. Men cannot be set up in rows and taught to shoot in 

 the aggregate. Each man is a unit, aud because A shoots 

 well is not the least reason why B, who stands next in the 

 ranks, should be able to hit a barn-side. Each man must 

 have a definite personal idea of how to shoot, and much of 

 the instruction can be given in the armory, but it is not a sort 

 of instruction which can be hurried. To hold a rifle with 

 ease aud steadiness, to pull off without giving the weapon a 

 twist and to pull the trigger without the ordinary flinch are 

 all points to be acquired by much personal practice. When 

 all this has been gained then a charge may with some advan- 

 tage be placed in the rifle. Where regiments have succeeded 

 in showing a good rifle record it has been by following Out 

 this plan of careful attention to the personal instruction of 

 the men. Where regiments have shown a wretchedly poor 

 percentage the inference is that it has followed out the regu- 

 lation orders in a perfunctory manner. Now the Adjutant 

 General proposes to take away the lasL incentive by cutting 

 away the extra prizes offered each year for the team and 

 other contests. Much has been done during the decade of 



