THE AMERICAN SPORTSMAN J S JOURNAL. 



[Entered According to Act ol Congress, In the year 1SS1, by the Forest and Stream PnbllsMng Company, In the Office of the Librarian of [Congress, at Washington.] 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, APRIL 21, 1881. 



CONTENTS. 



Editorial : — 

 Local Names of Fishes ; Kifle Practice vs. Encampments ; 

 The Protection of Bluefish ; Evening in Camp ; Anim al 



Life as Affected by Natural Conditions of Existence , 223 



The Sportsman Tochist : — 

 Spring Ouce More; The White Buffalo Cow; The North 



Shore or the Bay of Chaleur ; Where shall We Go V 224 



Natuuai., HiSTonv :— 



Our Unique Nuu'.m-l'.ilk'it ri:mdpiper ; Where the Birds Win- 

 tered ; A '['tune drizzly Cub: Grouse Burrowing in the 

 Snow ; Ohio Bird Notes for 1877 ; The Schipka Jaw ; The 



Flying Pish 225 



Game Bab and Gnu : — 

 Something About Shooting Distances : A Plea for the Sink- 

 Boat : The Flight, of Balls ; Sport About Savannah ; 

 for, taking him to be a fox, which they may have ofteen seen, 

 they fly to the uearest bash or tree just high enough to got out of 

 his reach. 



Sporting Scrapes ; My First Moose ; Do Crows Beason ? 

 Birds in Connecticut ; " When Ignorance is Bliss ;" Notes. 227 

 Sea and River Fishino : — 

 A Cheap Trip to the North Woods ; The Spanish Mackerel ; 

 The Tarpon ; A Trip for Bass in Kentucky ; Vermont 



Notes ; Tennessee Law j Catfish as Food ; Notes 230 



Fish Ct-LTURE : — 

 American Fishcultural Association; Habits and Food of 

 Carp ; Koport of Ohio Commission ; Kaces of Carp ; How 



Black Bass Spawn 233 



The Kennel : — 



The Lave-raek Kott<u-n in iuw ica ; ("■iioiie; ;-',p:i.i>i.-l : . I'm- 

 trait of Darkle ; The Clumber Spaniel ; The Westminster 



Show ; Kennel Notes - 234 



EiitjE and TBAr Shooting :— 



Eange and Gallery ; The Trap 235 



Yachtinq and Canoeino :— 

 Thirty-four Wise Men all in a Row; TheNorseinan Schooner; 

 Small Cruising Yachts : American Canoe Association ; 

 Yachting News 236 



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. So correspond- 

 ent's name will be published except -with Ms 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 Bow, 

 New York. 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



Thursday, April 21. 



LOCAL NAMES OF FISHES. 



A CORRESPONDENT writing from Augusta, Ga., says: 

 '• Your correspondent, ' Buckshot,' as well as yourself 

 I think are mistaken in the name of the ' red-breasted perch.' 

 It should be called 'bream.' It is very plenty in all South- 

 ern waters, and a gamy fish to catch, and delicious to eat 

 when fresh caught " 



This well illustrates the coufusion existing among common 

 names. We knew of the name 'bream' being applied to 

 the fish in certain sections, but did not give it because we do 

 not wish to extend that error. There are no bream in 

 America. That is, if the fish which is so-called in England 

 for centuries past has a right to the name by priority. The 

 fact is, as has often been stated, that English names have 

 been misapplied to American birds, fishes and mammals 

 which have not the sligheat resemblance to the originals 

 bearing the names The English bream {A brairds brama) is 



fish with Boft flits, a cyprinoid, nearer to the " fall-fish," 

 " corporal," chub (of the North) and " shiner," whose only 

 resemblance to the Georgia fish is in its outline ; and that is 

 not a very close one. The misnomer is as great as the appli- 

 cation of the name of " salmon " to a pike-perch in the Sus- 

 quehanna, OhioandTJpper Mississippi rivers, orthatof "trout" 

 and "chub" to the black bass in Virginia and Southern 

 waters. The names bream, salmon, trout and chub are pre- 

 occupied in the language, and really belong to certain fish as 

 much as "cat," "dog" and "horse" do to certain animals, 

 and to those who know to what they belong it sounds just 

 as outlandish to transpose them. 



We thank our correspondent for calling our attention to 

 this matter, as it serves as an excuse to lecture upon. There 

 is much confusion arising from the application of names 

 purely American applied to purely American species in differ- 

 ent parts ; and we do not feel warranted in the latter case in 

 assuming that a certain one is correct because it happens to 

 be the one which has been familiar to us from childhood. 



For instance, between the names "striped bass" and " rock- 

 fish," applied to the same fish North and Bouth j " bluefish" 

 and " tailor," etc. These are commercial fishes, and as the 

 great market is New York the names in use in the markets 

 there will probably prevail, because the buyers use them. 



Now to the fish in question ; " Buckshot " wrote of " red- 

 breasted perc.h," and described its colors and sharp dorsal 

 fin-rays ; and as we always like to make it clear what fish 

 our correspondents mean, if we are sure that we can do so, 

 a foot note was added in which we said: "From our cor- 

 respondent's description this red-breasted perch is evidently 

 one of the many fishes which are variously known as ' sun- 

 flshcB,' ' pond fishes,' etc. It is probable that it may be Jor- 

 dan's 'bloody sunfish,' Xenotis sanguinokntm." We have 

 fished in waters North, South, East and West, and have 

 picked up an extensive vocabulary of local names applied, 

 or misapplied, to many fishes. Tn the North the name 

 "bass " is applied to mauy fishes which become "perch " in 

 the South. Bass is a corruption of the Dutch BarscK for 

 perch, and therefore the two names stand on about an equal 

 footing. The Northern angler knows only two "perch," 

 the white and the yellow. The former is a tidewater fish ; 

 and the latter is common to all fresh waters except cold 

 trout streams, and is the "raccoon perch," "barred perch," 

 etc., of the South, where the yellow ground color of the fish 

 did not attract so much attention as the dusky bars on its 

 side. The Southern angler has many " perch," which often 

 includes all the "bass" of the North, the "black bass" be- 

 coming "black perch" in parts where it is not a "trout," 

 chub or Welshman. But what shall be the name of our so- 

 called red-breasted perch? "Bream," no matter how dear 

 to the heart of the Georgian from old associations, is pre- 

 occupied by a fish as widely different as a hedgehog differs 

 from a rabbit, and therefore is not available. " Red-breasted 

 perch" is descriptive, and there seems no objection to it. 

 If this particular species, which belongs to an extensive 

 family, which in some form inhabits all the ponds and warm 

 streams east of the Rocky Mountains, were caught by a 

 Massachusetts angler, he would christen it a "red-kiver," a 

 man from New Hampshire would say "Here is a red-pond- 

 flsh," while one anywhere from New York to Iowa, and along 

 that line north and south, would immediately call it a " red- 

 bellied sunfish," which Prof. Jordan has crystalized into 

 "bloody sunfish." 



Now to a few scientific distinctions : The family Centra- 

 rchidas (tenfron a spine, archot the anal opening, from many 

 spines in the anal fin, or fin just behind the opening), in- 

 cludes not only many species but also many genera. They 

 are all short bodied, flat sided fishes, quite rounded in pro- 

 file. They have but one dorsal (back) fin, which has both 

 hard and soft rays, a large anal fin with three to nine spines 

 according to species. There is usually a black spot at the 

 end of the opercle (gill cover), which sometimes lengthens 

 into a flap which projects some distance over the side of the 

 fish. The family includes the black bass, the warrnoutbs, rock 

 bass, goggle eyes, red eyes, etc., as well as forty or fifty more 

 species which are quite local and have different local names, 

 but from the usual bright colors, in which red and green are 

 usually prominent, they are widely known as "sunfishes." 

 The name sunfish is also applied to a great marine fish not 

 related to this family, whose body is fiat sided, round as a 

 cart wheel, and has the appearance of having no tail. And 

 so the common names go. It is often impossible to tell to 

 what fish a man refers, unless one is exceedingly well posted 

 in the changes wbich are made in the names in every State or 

 county in the Union. It is sad, but true, and it will take 

 long to better it, so strong is local prejudice, even with the 

 help of widely circulated papers like the Forest and 

 Stream and the reports of the Fish Commissioners, some of 

 whom have tried hard to overcome the use of names which 

 are palpable misnomers, but which people generally stick to 

 after they know them to be bo, because it is really difficult 

 for most people to change a familiar for an unfamiliar name. 



N. A. K. C. Mem-gig.— Mr. P. H. Bryson, president, has 

 called a meeting of the National American Kennel Club at 

 the American Institute Fair Building, on Wednesday, the 

 27th inst., at eleven a. m., to take action on such business as 

 may be presented. The room for the meeting is furnished 

 through the courtesy of the Westminster Kennel Club. 



RIFLE PRACTICE VS. ENCAMPMENTS. 



FROM being the leading State of the Union in the mat- 

 ter of militia rifle-practice, New York promises to be- 

 come of the worst conditioned. The notion seems to possess 

 the Adjutant-General that he has only to pass strict martinet 

 laws, and the volunteers of the National Guard will at ouce 

 come up to the requirements. The fact that the membors 

 of the State militia never intend to do more than give their 

 leisure time to soldiering does not seem to enter into the calcula- 

 tion of the officer general, who has shown thus far only a facility 

 in throwing matters into discord. Iu rifle-shooting the evils 

 of the present ill-advised system are specially patent. In 

 place of having the citizen soldiers visit the range at their 

 convenience and for the sole purpose of perfecting themselves 

 in butt-firing, there are to be official encampments, where 

 the men are supposed to learn something of camp duty at 

 an expense of several days taken from business, and in con- 

 nection with these brief episodes of tent-life there are to be 

 intervals of practice with the rifle. The fault of the system 

 which we havo had for several years past was its wasteful- 

 ness. There was a waste of labor, of material and of time. 

 A regiment as a whole was ordered to Creedmoor or any 

 other of the State ranges and set at work blazing away at the 

 shortest distance. There was none of the gradual promotion 

 from the instruction of the company drill-room, whero 

 the manipulations of the rifle and position were to be 

 taught, to the opporl unity of the range, where the vary- 

 ing influences of distance, light, wind and moisture wore 

 to be mastered. The results under the old system were not 

 as great as they should have been, yet something was ac- 

 complished, and to-day we have in the ranks of the ten 

 thousand national guardsmen in and about New York City 

 scoces and, hundreds of marksmen whose performances 

 would compare favorably with the sharp-shooters of any 

 army of Europe. To cease practice now would mean the 

 loss of those experts as they gradually go into the ranks of 

 the veterans, and it would mean also the loss of the instruc- 

 tions by example which these marksmen are able to give to 

 the new recruits in the guard. All that has been accom- 

 plished iu ten years of careful cultivation of rifle practice by 

 the National Rifle Association in connection will be lost by 

 a few years of this repressive policy, and Gen. Townsend 

 must be prepared to take the strong talk which will follow 

 the placing of the national guard on its old basis of mere 

 tactical knowledge ; and while an enlightened policy would 

 be looking to a change in the arming of the men to bring 

 them up to the latest developments in rifle construction, the 

 object of the present regime seem to be the rehabilitation of 

 the old pompous packages of gold lace and uselessness. If 

 our soldiers are not to shoot then we might as well buy up a 

 lot of old army muskets at old-iron rates, for, with a little 

 scouring, they will glitter very nicely on parade. But if we 

 are to have a force of civilian soldiers, ready for any emer- 

 gency, then we want not only the best arms that our inven- 

 tive genius can devise and our armories turn out, but with 

 efficient instruction in the use of them, so arranged as to bring 

 out the best results with the least inconvenience to the 

 volunteers. 



THE PROTECTION OF BLUEFISH. 



UNDER the provisions of the proposed law now before 

 the Legislature of New York it will be unlawful to of- 

 fer for sale bluefish weighing less than three-quarters of a 

 pound. This clause has been the subject of some verbal 

 criticism among the professional fishermen of Long Island, 

 who claim that as there is no such law in other States all the 

 small bluefish caught will go to other markets, and that these 

 fish are caught by them in great numbers and are a great 

 source of revenue. The anglers claim that often there is 

 nothing else to be caught except bluefish under the weight 

 named. 



The facts, aa they appear to us, are that there is little use in 

 protecting this fish in any manner. It is a bold, fearless and 

 aggressive fish, which breeds freely in our waters and is 

 abundantly able to take care of itself. It is a scourge and a 

 terror to all other fishes which may be smaller than itself, 

 and while the bluefish seem in no danger of decreasing it is a 

 belief of ours, seconded by many fishermen and anglers, that 

 their decrease would be fully supplied by an increase in weak> 



