THE AMERICAN SPORTSMAN'S JOURNAL. 



[Entered According to Act ol Congress, In tne year ( 1881, by the Forest and Stream Publishing Company, In the Office of the Librarian of [Congress, at Washington.] 



Terms, «d a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy.) 

 Six Jtto's, $2. Three OTo's, SI. f 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, MARCH 31, 1881. 



J Vol. 16-No. 9. 



\Nos. 39 and 40 Park How, New York. 



CONTENTS. 



Editorial :— 



The Coming of the Shad ; What Supplies Shall We Take 



With Us ; Destruction of Game in Michigan 163 



The Sportsman Tourist : — 



Wild Turkey Shooting : A Trip Through tho Provinces ; 



Wiscomu u Shooting Grounds ; Foul Fancies 1 1 4 



Natural History : — 



Preserving Fluids for Fiuh and Pish Eggs ; Romeo and Ju- 

 liet; My Two Grey Foxes; Tile Finn or File Fish ; Gen- 

 eral News 166 



Gami; Bag and Gun : — 



The Winter and the Birds ; Spring Snipe Notoa from Dela- 

 ware ; A Day with the Squirrel*; Our Rochester Letter; 

 M Last Moose; Surrounding a Squirrel ; Goueral News.. Ill 

 Sea and Rivkr Fishing : — 



Fish and Fishing in the Edisto, South Carolina 171 



Pish Culture -.— 



Striped Base in Lake Ontario ; Tho Georgia Fish CommiB- 

 sion ; Roport of the Vermont Commission ; Carp Breed- 

 ing ; General News 1 72 



The Kennel :— 



The Spaniel ; Wanted, A Woodchnek Dog ; Reaearchea on 

 Rabies; City Doga ; The Benoh-Lc^. dLeude Question; 



Those Nervous Dogs ; Notes 173 



Yachting and Canoeing.: — 



A New Cutter ; A Cruise Around Capo Cod; Yachting News. 177 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting : — 175 



Answers to Correspondents 178 



TO CORRESPONDENTS. 



The Forest and Stream Is the recognized medium ol entertainment, 

 Instruction and Information between American spoilsmen. 



communications upon the subjects to which its pages are devoted 

 are invited from every part of the country. 



Anonymous communications will not be regarded. No correspond- 

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The Editors cannot be held responsible for the views of correspond- 

 ents. 



All communications of whatever nature should be addressed to the 

 Forest and Stream Publishing Company, Nog. 39 and id Park Row, 

 New York. 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



Xliursday, March 31. 



What Supplies Sham. We Take With Us, is a ques- 

 tion that has probably vexed the spirit of many a man, 

 and has caused anxious thought to every one who has 

 ever started out to go into camp in the wilderness. There 

 are some men who are contented to live on what they kill 

 during the trip, and who carry with them nothing but bacon, 

 bread and coffee, and there are others who scorn such meagre 

 fare and demand the accessories of condensed milk, canned 

 vegetables, potted meats and preserves. There iB no way of 

 transporting edible luxuries so convenient or so safe as in 

 cans, and such goods have been deservedly popular in the 

 past. Lately, however, we have begun to hear complaints, 

 which lead us to imagine either that the goods put up by 

 long established firms are deteriorating, or else that inferior 

 articles are being placed on the market. We have recently 

 eceived a cheerful letter from a INew England correspondent 

 who tells us that a canning eatablishnient near where he re- 

 sides, sent through the country last winter and bought up all 

 the sheep that had died and all the old poor cattle for use in 

 their establishment. Such a statement is not particularly 

 pleasing to one who is accustomed to depend in part, while in 

 camp or on his yacht on his meats put up in cans. But aside 

 from any thing of this kind, what can be more annoying when 

 one is wholly out of reach of the market than to find one's 

 vegetables spoiled and the meats tough or uneatable? 



Our readers, whether on land or on board ship, use a great 

 quantity of such stores as these, and they want them good. 

 There must be some reliable houses which deal in provisions 

 of this kind, and we should be glad to know who they are — 

 whom we can feel safe in recommending. 



Will some of our readers give us their experience in this 

 matter for the benefit of the fraternity at large? 



THE COMING OF THE SHAD. 



r I lHE advance-guard has arrived, and the main body, in 

 -*- solid phalanx, may be expected soon. About thistime, 

 as the almanac man would put the case, it is in order to scald 

 out the frying pan to take the flavor of the autumnal sausage 

 from its ferruginous pores ; scour up the gridiron to remove 

 all suspicion of chops, steaks or oleaginous mackerel ; but if 

 you plank your shad simply wipe the dust from the plank, 

 for it is held that the longer a plank is used the more its 

 pores become filled with the essence of previous shads, and 

 the less can therefore be extracted or absorbed from present 

 ones. 



The extension of lines of travel have enabled New Yorkers 

 to eat shad nearly all winter, beginning with those of Florida, 

 and after consuming quantities of them they take from the 

 more northerly rivers in turn until the run begins in the Del- 

 aware and the Hudson, or "North River," as they locally 

 call ii. This has tended to entirely destroy the romance of 

 the coming of the shad, which was formerly hailed with de- 

 light by the old Dutch settlers as a relief from tho spare-rib 

 and "oelecoeks" of winter. In those days it meant an un- 

 limited supply of a new food, and great was the rejoicing at 

 the capture of the forerunner of the school of clupcoids 

 which were as certain to come after as the dogwood and shad- 

 blows were to bloom. In ye olden lime the advent of the 

 shad was a thing to talk about, and Muynheer has been known 

 to even let the fire in his pipe die away in his haste to convey 

 the news over the old half -door to his neighbor on the other 

 side of the way, how Pieter Weindirk and " Brommy " Van 

 der Kuinck caught a shad in their fyke by the Battery this 

 morning. Later than this, within our own short memory, 

 the crack hotels paid prices from twenty-five to fifty dollars 

 for the first Hudson shad, and it was announced in all the 

 city papers that the enterprising proprietor of the Asterisk 

 House had served up the first shad of the season to his guests 

 at the price above named. Alas I he comes as unheralded and 

 unnoticed now as the Member of Congress from Sawlogville, 

 who wonders if the people will close their stores on his ar- 

 rival ; and so many Southern shad have preceded him that 

 his identity is lost, and instead of a pioneer leading a mighty 

 host he is simply a shad whose only credentials are the word 

 of the marketman who certifies to the fact that he bought it 

 of a fisherman who caught it at a certain place ; but in ap- 

 pearance it is not to be distinguished from its fellows of the 

 Chesapeake who have graced the slabs for weeks before, ex- 

 cept perhaps by a slight fullness in the eye which denotes the 

 freshly caught fish. 



We feel sorry for the man who does not long for the season 

 of succulent shad, and for the man who "likes 'em if 'twasn't 

 for the bones." We grieve for the former because 

 perhaps, he never ate shad, except small ones ; and your 

 real shad lover abominates a small one, dried up, perhaps, 

 in a pan, aud wishes that he could sit down to a juicy 

 six-pounder quickly broiled or planked. The latter— 

 the bone man— has our sympathies, because he does not know 

 that shad were made to linger over and enjoy and not to 

 bolt as our African brothers do their ham aud eggs ; and 

 besides, shad are not suitable for the railway lunch where 

 "twenty minutes for refreshment" are shortened at both 

 ends until there is actually only half that time available. 

 Moreover, he knoweth not that a shad or other fish is not to 

 be cut across like a slice of liver, but that the fork must 

 separate the layers of muscle between which lie the small 

 bones, which in cutting are inextricably intermingled with 

 the flesh. He knoweth not that the shad is built upon a cor- 

 rect plan, and that it is his piscivorine knowledge which is 

 at fault ; but we will tell him at every opportunity, so that 

 he may yet learn to enjoy one of the finest fishes which the 

 palate of the man whose ichthyophagic education has been 

 complete knoweth of. 



The first shad is usually taken at New York on or about 

 St. Patrick's Day, blessings on him for it; for perhaps if the 

 Saint had not existed we would never have known to what a 

 height a form of herring could attain. T hink of itl As 

 Ireland owes her freedom from snakes to St. Patrick, so 

 America owes the shad to him. The admirers of St. Patrick 

 vehemently insist that he was a gentleman. We believe it. 

 Why they so strenuously insist upon his gentility we do not 

 know. Perhaps it was an unusual quality in a saint ; but, 



be this as it may, we hope that while his memory endures 

 the snakes will not invade Ireland nor the shad desert the 

 waters surrounding Manhattan. 



We Called Attention Last Week to an admirable pro- 

 vision in Assembly Bill 342, in which a bounty is offered for 

 vermin. Some such excellent amendment we hope to see 

 added this session to the existing law. 



There are other sections of this bill, however, which by no 

 means recommend themselves to the public. Section 2, for 

 example will call forth the unqualified disapproval of all 

 shore gunners. It provides that "No person shall kill, or 

 expose lor sale * * * * any * * * * rail, snipe, plover * * * 

 between the first day of May and the first day of September, 

 except in the waters of Long Island, in wldok waters none of 

 said birds shall be killed between the first day of May and the 

 first day of October. Any person violating," etc. This pro- 

 vision woidd certainly appear to have been drawn up by some 

 one who was wholly unfamiliar with the shooting along the 

 tide water flats and marshes of our sea coast. By the intro- 

 duction of such an amendmeut to our law, the rail aud the 

 bay snipe shooting woidd be practically abolished in this 

 State. By the first of October the rail shooting is about over, 

 September being the month in which these birds are found 

 in our marshes in the greatest abundance. We usually kill a 

 few birds after October first, but no counts are made as late 

 as that which will compare with those made about the middle 

 of September. 



The bay birds commence to fly in July, and often the 

 height of the shooting at dowitch aud jack is during that 

 month or early in August. By the first of October none of 

 these birds, except a few stragglers, are to be found on the 

 Long Island shore. 



We have assumed that the word " snipe " here used is a 

 general term employed to designate bay snipe and shore bird, 

 and as it is immediately followed by the word "plover" this 

 inference seems a fair one. We think thaL,all will agree that' 

 the section alluded to is an unfortunate one and should not 

 be passed. 



The Pacts m Relation to the Annual Destruction 

 of deer in Michigan will certainly be read with interest by 

 every one. There are at presont but few localities within 

 reach of large cities where a man can go with any reasonably 

 fair prospect of having any deer hunting. Minnesota and 

 Michigan are two States in which this game is still abundant, 

 but in which, uuless steps to check its slaughter are speedily 

 taken, it will not long remain bo. 



There is much to be said in favor of the proposition to en- 

 act a prohibitory export law, and there is little doubt that 

 such a measure would meet with general approval among a 

 large class of sportsmen. On the other hand, it would have 

 to encounter the most bitter opposition from those who shoot 

 for the market and those who deal in game. Such a law, 

 however, would certainly protect large game, for if it were 

 illegal to carry game out of the State no one would kill more 

 than he coidd use on the spot. The market hunter's occupa- 

 tion would be in a measure gone, for he would only kill what 

 could be bought and consumed within the limits of the State. 

 A provision taxing the green hide woidd probably do good 

 work in supplementing the Prohibitory Export Act and 

 would so raise the cost of tho hides that it would be no lon- 

 ger profitable to kill the deer for these alone. This question 

 of the protection of large game is onethat demands the im- 

 mediate attention of those interested in game preservation, 

 and we are glad to see the Michigan sportsmen, through 

 theft able and energetic representative, Mr. Roney, taking 

 hold of the subject in earneBt. It is so much easier to pre- 

 serve the game now, while there is some left, than it will be 

 in the future to attempt to restock districts from which the 

 idigenous ferm natural have been exterminated, that it is 

 worth while to make great efforts to save what yet remains 

 to us. 



Among the "dogs" recommended or suggested as useful for 

 killing woodchucks are the fox terrier, the dachshund, the 

 spotted turtle and the steel trap. Surely with all these as- 

 sistants our farmers ought to be able to clear the pests from 

 their gardens and clover patches. 



