-*_^ 



THE AMERICAN SPORTSMAN'S JOURNAL. 



[Entered According: to Act ot Congress, In the year issi, by ttie Forest and Stream Publishing Company, In the Office of the Librarian ot [Congress, at Washington.] 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 1881. 



CONTENTS. 



Editorial :— 

 The Spring Snipe Shooting ; The Fishcultural Dinner ; Pro- 

 tection of Introduced Game 183 



The Si'OBTsman Toueist : — 



Brant Shooting at Gape Cod 184 



Natural Histobv :— 

 The Morals of Birds ; Snake-Eating Snake ; Facts About 



Deer Mated But Not Matched ; Spring Notes 185 



Game Bao-and Quit : — 

 The Winter and the Birds ; New Jersey Garno Notes ; Spring 

 Snipe Notes from Delaware ; The Story of a ft ild Goose ; 



Duck Shooting in Tennessee ; Grouse Treeing 187 



Ska and Biveb Fishtko : — 

 The Angler's New Year : Black BasB in Tennessee ; Lut- 

 Ianns Blackf ordii : Fishing in the Oswego Itiver ; A New 



Bait 191 



Fish Gdltobe : — 

 The American Fishcultural Association ; Smelts in Fresh 

 Water; Shad Wanted for the Nottoway ; Fishcultural Law 



in Minnesota ." 193 



The Kennel : — 

 The Spaniel ; Points of the Cocker ; "Wauled a Woodchuck 

 Dog; The New York Dog Show ; National American Ken- 

 nel Club Derby ; News Notes ; Kennel Notes 187 



Bifle and Trap Shooting:— 



Bange and Gallery ; Trap Shooting ; Gun Club NewB 196 



Yachting? and (Janoeino : — 

 Length Measurement Practically Abandoned ; To Supersede 

 Steam ; Sloops of the New York Yacht Club and the Amer- 

 ica Cup ; Canoeing as a School of Sailing 197 



Answers to Cokeespondents 198 



TO CORRESPONDENTS. 



The Forest and Stream is the recognized medium of entertainment, 

 instruction and Information between American sportsmen. 



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- 

 ent's name will be published except with his consent. 



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, Nos. 39 and 40 Park How, 

 New York. 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



Thursday, April 7. 



THE SPRING SNIPE SHOOTING. 



r is time for the snipe to arrive. For three months our dogs 

 have had nothing to do ; now, for two or three weeks, 

 they can have a little work. All of our readers who shoot 

 have looked forward for weeks to the coming of the snipe. 

 The guns have been carefully looked over, cleaned and oiled, 

 the shells loaded, the long boots dragged out from their hid- 

 ing place and examined to see that they don't leak, and the 

 dogs given an extra amount of exercise to wear off some of 

 the fat that they have accumulated during their enforced 

 idleness, and to harden their muscles for the severe exertion 

 of trotting all day over the bogs and through the mud and 

 water. For the next three weeks the meadows will be 

 thronged with shooting men of all sorts and descriptions. If 

 you choose to visit these meadows, you shall see, on any day 

 during the remainder of April, an army of skirmishers who 

 have vowed death to the unlucky snipe. There you will find 

 the man accoutred in yellow leather leggings, wlute cor- 

 duroy pants, a green hunting-coat and a fancy cap, who bears 

 a gun bright with German silver mountings, carries a fringed 

 game bag swung over his shoulder and is followed by a rab- 

 bit hound. You will find, too, the dandy, clad in velveteen, 

 with English high-laced boots, whose gun is of the most re- 

 cent and improved make, and who is followed by, or rather 

 around whom plays in circles half a mile in diameter, a well- 

 bred pointer or setter, so wild and so little under command 

 that it chases up every bird on the ground long before the 

 gunner comes within shot. Mingled with these are the more 

 sober-minded shooters, who, in long boots and quiet, well- 

 worn suits of canvas, moleskin or fustian, handle their more 

 or less well-broken dogs with a considerable degree 

 of intelligence, and give a good account of themselves 

 at the end of the day's tramp. , Besides these men, 

 there is the old fellow who carries usually a muz- 

 zle-loader, whose rags flutter wildly in the wind, and whom > 

 but for his gun and dog, you would certainly take for. a j 



tramp. This man scarcely speaks to his dog, and his dog 

 hardly looks at him, but between them they find more birds 

 than all the rest of the shooters put together; and the snipe 

 that gets up within range of the old man has a marvellously 

 small chance for life. 



Our green-coated hunter, if he has good luck, returns home 

 from his snipe-shooting with a mud-hen, a spotted turtle and 

 a musk rat, which he found swimming in a creek in the 

 meadow, and which, after it was wounded, his hound re- 

 trieved in excellent style. The dandy has even less to show, 

 for he disdains the turtle and the musk-rat, and has nothing 

 but one snipe, wounded by some one the day before, and to- 

 day picked up and somewhat mangled by the dog, 

 from which he recovered it after a sharp struggle. The 

 others have each three or four birds, while the old rag- 

 man has, likely enough, fifteen or twenty. 



Snipe shuoting on the best known meadows here in the 

 Bast is no longer sport. It has become a circus performance, 

 in which each one who carries a gun acts the part of clown. 

 The grounds are crowded, and if a dog makes a point you see 

 men hurrying from all directions to surround the bu-d, each 

 one fondly hoping that when it rises, it may fly toward him. 

 The ground, having been thoroughly beaten over by the 

 shooters, a portion depart for other meadows, while others, 

 more lazy or more knowing, proceed to roost on the fences, 

 the logs or the musk-rat houses, near the best feeding spots 

 in the hope that during the day other birds may drorj in. 

 Should an unlucky snipe, startled from anojker piece, appear 

 in the heavens, each man of the waiting multitude hastily 

 seeks ambush behind his late seat, and if the bird alights, a 

 wild rush is made for the spot he has chosen for his refuge. 

 It is go as you please in very truth, and when the unhappy 

 bird arises, pounds of shot are sent after him by his panting 

 and breathless pursuers. 



There are many pieces of meadow or bog land, however 

 — each of our readers probably knows of one or more and 

 jealously guards the secret of its existence — where a few 

 birds are to be found each season. One can go in the morn- 

 ing and start from one to three birds, and again toward night 

 with a reasonable hope of picking up one or two more. The 

 spot is probably a small one, and we know just where the 

 the birds will be lying, according to the wind and the wea- 

 ther. The old dog trots carelessly, as a matter of form, through 

 the portions where the birds never lie, and as he approaches 

 the well-known feeding-ground, gradually slackens his pace. 

 He takes advantage of the wind, and at the first breath of the 

 scent stops until we come. up. Then, slowly advancing and 

 keeping just in front of us, he moves on a little farther, and 

 stops once more. We step forward, and one, two or three 

 birds get np. We kill what we can of them, and usually they 

 can all be secured, and then pass on to some other ground. 

 If we get a dozen birds and meet no one dining the day we 

 feel that we have done well, and go home at night con- 

 tented. 



Far different is the shooting in the West and Southwest, 

 where a man can bag from fifty to seventy-five birds in a 

 day. But, alas ! the West and Southwest are far off, and 

 the snipe is proverbially an uncertain bird, so that the busi- 

 ness or professional man has but little encouragement to 

 travel far for the spring shooting. Yet there are undoubted- 

 ly many localities which offer superb sport at this season of 

 the year, but those who know where such places are as a 

 rule keep the information to themselves. 



The practice of shooting the snipe in spring is one which, 

 in our opinion, is unhesitatingly to be condemned. We 

 know well enough the old and worn out arguments in its 

 favor : that the snipe are the only birds on which we can 

 work our young dogs in spring; that they are the only birds 

 we have which can be shot in the field between the close of 

 the fall shooting and its opening the following year j but 

 these statements are no reply to the undeniable fact that the 

 birds are killed while on the way to their breeding grounds 

 — nay, in some instances on their very breeding grounds, and 

 often with eggs almost ready for deposition. These birds 

 have been found nesting in Connecticut, New York and in 

 Pennsylvania, and it is in the highest degree probable that, 

 were it not for the uncompromising war which is waged up 

 on them in the spring, many of them would each year raise 

 their broods with us instead of, as now most of them do 

 seeking safety from persecution in more northern latitudes. 



We hope some day to see the game laws so amended that 

 snipe shooting shall only be permitted during the fall migra- 

 tion, and when such a law is passed and observed we look to 

 see the birds increase once more to something like their old 

 numbers. 



^Most of our readers are old enough to remember when these 

 birds were fairly plenty on our Eastern grounds, both in 

 spring and fall. That day has long passed, nor can we hope 

 for its return until the spring snipe shooting is done away 

 with. 



THE FISHCULTURAL OINNER. 



FOR some years past it has been the custom to have a 

 dinner at the close of the annual meeting of tho Ameri- 

 can Fishcultural Association, at which dishes composed of 

 such fishes as are attainable shall form a large proportion of 

 the bill of fare. These dinners have obtained such a local re- 

 nown for the quality of their menu and for their flow of wit 

 that they are quite popular among gentlemen outside the as- 

 sociation, and so it happens that on all occasions the latter 

 outnumber the fishculturists. This year the notices read 

 "Dinner of the American Fishcultural Association, at 

 Sieghortner's, 32 Lafayette Place, Thursday, March 81, 1881, 

 at 6:30 p. m. (Tickets, five dollars.)" 



At seven about thirty-five sat down and found an elegant 

 card with the same beautiful chromos on the covers which 

 were designed for Mr. Blackford's trout opening, on the in- 

 side of which was tho following : 



MENU. 

 HU1TKES. 



Blue points. 



sauierne. 



P0TAGK3. 



Bloudolse de. tortue a la grando duchesse. 



Bisque d'ecrevlsses, cardinal. 



Anion till aao. 



HOBS D'OEOVKK. 



Ravloles oi hard clams a la Grlmod. 

 Whitebait a. la dlable. 



(inii 1 .in tif.irr ti\ 



Niersteluur. 



Redsnapper a la Windsor. 



Filet de lXL-ui' pi, me a la Ducde Montebello. 



St. Esteptie. 



Moyonnaise de crevcl.ies. Saladc a. la russe. 



Pormnes novuelles. Asperges. 



concombres. Tomates. Kadis 



ENTREES. 



Grenadins of chicken halibut a la Robespierre. 



I '. -UiULi U -. ,_■■ " , -a.l'lU'J.-, ■,,'."! 



iluscalonge au solelL 



3 PBOIBES. 



nonie a ; 



l en ma} 



Nierstelner. 



Striped bass plquee er f arcle a lanormande. 



Shad baked a la maim.' d'liotel. 



English snipe sur canape. 



Cresson. Sniadedelaltuo. 



Pommery see. 



DESSEBT. 



Glace Napolitalne. sorbet Amerlcaln. 



Petlls (ours. Gateaus d'anuuidcs. 



Fruits. Dessert assortls. 



Cafe. 

 Mr. Roosevelt, President of the Association, presided, 

 flanked by Profs. Goode and Atwater, while Mr. John Ford, 

 of the Times and the Ichthyophagous Club ; Mr. Blackford, 

 of the Whitebait Association ; Mr. W. M. Laffan, of the Tile 

 Club and Long Island R. R.; ex-Mayor Smith Ely; Judge 

 Gedney ; Mr. Geo. Bird Grinnell and Mr. E. R. Wilbur, of 

 Fokest and Stbeam ; Mr. Gilbert E. Jones, New York 

 Times; Mr. James Annin, Jr., Rec. Sec. Am. Fiscult. Ass'n ; 

 Capt. J. H. Mortimer, the sailor naturalist ; Mr. Charles B. 

 Evarts and Mr. F. Mather, of the Ass'n; and Messrs. C. 

 Norwood, Jr., R. B. Hill, Douglas Smythe, G. W. Van 

 Siclen, W. Ottman, C. L. Van Brunt, Mr. Embee, 0. N. 

 Jordan, J. L. Perley, Gaston L. Feuardent, W. Haveshaw 

 and several gentlemen from the press. Little of note oc- 

 curred until JZaie au beurre noir was reached, when some 

 gentleman of an ichthyological turn discovered that Male was 

 only another word for skate, and those to whom the dish was 

 new approached it with caution which was soon laid aside, 

 and all pronounced it "good," some adding "excellent," and 

 others indulging in other superlatives, while three gentlemen 

 asked the waiters for another piece. With the advent of the 

 almon the President arose and said the Fishcultural Associa- 

 tion was now ten years old and its record was a proud one. 

 The United States Fish Commission had grown out of it. 

 Ten million salmon had been brought from California and 

 planted in Eastern waters, and think of the good dinners in tea 



