THE AMERICAN SPORTSMAN'S JOURNAL. 



Entered According to Act ot Congress, In the year 1SS1, by the Forest and Stream Publishing Company, In tie Office of the Librarian of [Congress, at Washington.; 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, MAY 26, 1881. 



CONTENTS. 



Editorial : — 

 A Connecticut Plan ; The Massachusetts Muddle ; Some 

 Points of Law; No Luck ; Live Quail; Deer Floating; 



Lawn Tennis ; Notes 323 



The Sportsman Toorist : — 



On tho Larriw eep ; Maine Camping Grounds 324 



Natural Histobs :— 

 The Seals of North America : A Duck Newto North America : 



a Moriung'a Walk 326 



Gathf, Bap, Abu Gtjn :— 

 The TUnuta of the Buffed Grouse ; Pennsylvania Woodcock 

 Hunting; Houndiug vs. Still Hunting ; Middlesex County 



*,B»oroaKqn ; BeroirflBoeTices of an Old Fogy 327 



Sea and Rivkr Fishing :— 



Some Pishini Club Rules ; Human Agencies as Affecting 



tho Fish Supply ; The Fly-Casting Tournament; Western 



JFiflb.es ; Bass, Rod Snapper and IVrpom ; Fish in the 



Adirondack-, • Taking SffalloSa with a Fly. A New Game 



Fish .. 330 



Fisrr Culture ; — 

 Epochs in the History of Fish Culture ; A Novel Shipment of 

 Carp ; Report of the Missouri Commission 332 



The Kennel:— 

 Eastern Field Trials Rules ; Kennel Club Field Trials ; The 

 Cocker Standard ; Notes * 332 



Yachting and Canoetno :— 



Cruise of the Schooner Sunshine ; Challenge for the America. 



Cup ; Yachting Notes , 335 



Rifle and Trap Shooting :— 



Range and Gallery ; The Trap 33(> 



Answebs to Correspondents :— 337 



TO CORRESPONDENTS. 



The forest and Stream Is the recognized medium of entertainment, 

 Instruction and information between American sportsmen. 



Communications upon the subjects to which Us pages are devoted 

 are invited from every pait of the country. 



Anonymous communications will not be regarded. No correspond- 

 ent's n.imi; 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 

 I'orost aud Stream Publishing Company, Nos. 89 and 40 Parkllow, 

 New York. 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



Tliurselay, May 26. 



San Fkanoisoo sportsmen are about organizing a game 

 protective association. There is a most emphatic call for a 

 live, working, earnest society in that vicinity. If it is started 

 in the right spirit, and confined slrictly to securing a better 

 enforcement of the law, the good it may do is very great. 

 From the character of those who arc engaged in the effort to 

 form such a soeiely, wo are sanguine of its success. Wc 

 notice that the San Francisco Gall is devoting some attention 

 to the subject of game and fish protection, and is exerting a 

 very commendable influence in that direction. 



Tub Engraving of Major, Mr. Dorsey's beagle, in our 

 last issue, was cut from a drawing on the block by our valued 

 contributor Mr. Rowland E. Robinson, who has thus proved 

 his pencil to bo as facile as his pen. The drawing, which wc 

 need not say was an admirable piece of work, was a veritable 

 labor of love ; and possibly Mr. Robinson's success was part- 

 ly due to this enthusiasm for his subject. We count Major's 

 owner and ourselves fortunate in having secured so true 

 and artistic a portrait of the dog ; and we only regret that our 

 acknowledgment to the artist should not have been made 



last week. 



■«. . 



Pjrbpakations for the State shoot are nearly complete, and 

 the programme for the week is now in the printer's hands. 

 The prize list is an extraordinary one. The delegates, it is 

 nowproposed, will meet at the Hotel Brighton, Monday noon, 

 .Tune 20, the first business being the discussion of an immense 

 clam chowder. The afternoon will be devoted to locating the 

 club tents, providing hotel accommodations, and other pre- 

 liminaries. The evening sessions will be held at the Hotel 

 Brighton, and some rare musical attractions will add to the 

 entertainment provided. Mr. Crooke, to use a homely 

 phrase, is working like a beaver, and the smooth working of 

 details will be largely due to his energy. 



A CONNECTICUT PLAN. 



THE Middletown, Conn., Association has made a suc- 

 cessful attempt to secure better game presentations by 

 enlisting in the work the co-operation of farmers and land 

 owners. The Jsystem works well because it recognizes and 

 provides for the mutual interest of farmer and sportsman. 



For a certain merely nominal payment, the owners of the 

 laud agree to confine the privilege of shooting over it and 

 fishing in its streams to the members of the Association, of 

 which they are themselves by the terms of the agreement 

 honorary members, having the same shooting and fishing 

 rights as the rest. Each individual belonging to the Associa- 

 tion is furnished with a ticket, which serves as a permit to 

 enter the lands under its control ; if others trespass, they are 

 intercepted and driven off. The advantage accruing from its 

 expenditure of funds are thus secured to the Association. 

 The game and fish replenished by them are protected from 

 the pot-huuter and net fisherman. 



The Middletown plan appears well in theory, aud we are 

 assured by its officers that it works well in practice. It pre- 

 serves the game ; and involves no clashing of interest between 

 sportsman and farmer. We print on another page tlie form 

 of government of the club ; and commend it as a model to be 

 adopted elsewhere. The society is incorporated and can 

 bring suit through its attorney, without involving any indi- 

 vidual member in the thankless task of prosecuting offenders. 



The success of the Association has been largely due to the 

 exertions of Dr. Joseph W. Alsop, its president. 



THE MASSACHUSETTS MUDDLE. 



AS to the general legal sapiency of the legislators who 

 have been convened under the big gilded dome of the 

 State House at Boston, we have no knowledge. Of their 

 specific lack of wisdom, when they arc called upon to con- 

 front the vexed problem of game protection, they have just 

 given striking evidence. 



The Mr ssachusetts Fish and Game Protective Association 

 is a society of anglers and gunners, who have had a great 

 deal of experience in the actual work of preserving the game 

 and fish of the State. They presented, at Boston, the bill of 

 a proposed new game law. It embodied what after mature 

 consideration they believed to be the best practicable regula- 

 tion of the taking of game and fish. The bill ought to have 

 passed. It was lost by a large majority. This result was not 

 wholly unexpected. In Massi'cliusetts, as elsewhere, game 

 legislation is too much in the hands of know-nothings, and 

 the know-nothings are in the hands of a class of men who are 

 concerned not to preserve the game, but to squeeze the al- 

 mighty del 'ar out of it as it goes. It was not, therefore, 

 strange that the existing law was not made any .better ; nor 

 even that it was made worse. 



But the stupidity exhibited by the adoption of gecjs 4 is an 

 occasion of genuine surprise. This section prohibits the 

 trapping and snaring of game birds and hares, "p?vmded, the 

 provisions of this act shall not apply to the trapping or snar- 

 ing of ruffed grouse, commonly called partridge, or hare or 

 rabbit, by owners of land upon their land, or by any person 

 or persons authorized by them, between the first day of 

 September and the first day of January of any year." 



This is in so many words a concession that wild game is 

 the private property of the landowner. By no other doctrine 

 can an individual, a private citizen, be authorized to kill the 

 game at a time or in a manner forbidden to the people ; and 

 by no other doctrine can the individual delegate to another 

 the privilege of so killing game. On no other principle than 

 this can the section be construed as other than an arrant ob- 

 surdity; the prin ciple once adopted makes of the rest of the 

 Jaw equal nonsense. If game is private property the Legis- 

 islators under the big dome have no business with it, and 

 should let it alone; if it is the propety of the State, the man 

 upon whose land it happens to be has no more i ight or con- 

 trol over it than any other citizen has. The two doctrines 

 are inconsistent; a law must be based upon one of them only. 

 The attempt to embody each in different sections of the same 

 law only makes a muddle of the whole statute. The Massa- 

 chusetts law is such a muddle. 



Ichthyophagous Dinner tickets at Blackford's. Steamer 

 Matteawan will leave Fulton st. t E. R., 5 p. m, 



SOME POINTS OF LAW. 



THE MAGNER CASE AND THE CAIN CASE. 



THE opinion of the Court in the case of Magner wj. The 

 People of the State of Illinois, recently decided by the 

 Supreme Court of that State, is a well considered and com- 

 prehensive review of the law respecting the legal status of 

 animals and birds, fercp, natures, especially those that are 

 generally denominated "game." It may be well to review 

 this case in connection with certain other cases arising in the 

 courts of this country as well as in England, involving in one 

 way and another the leading questions determined by the 

 Illinois Court. This case, sustained as it is by the eminent 

 authorities to which we shall refer upon elementary prin- 

 ciples of law; will commend itself to the legal fraternity both 

 at the bar and upon the bench. 



The lawyer who, for fee or reward, or the judge who, 

 through the vista of an occasional quail-ou-toast, or precon- 

 ceived notions and prejudices against restrictive laws, shall 

 seek by subtle distinctions or judicial fine sighting to evade 

 its consequences or overturn its force, that lawyer or that 

 judge should receive the just condemnation of all fair-minded 

 men. 



The doctrine of the law that all animals, birds and fishes 

 that are by nature wild, belong to the sovereign or govern- 

 ment, has been so long and so well settled as to admit «f no 

 question among lawyers or judges, and hence they are en- 

 tirely subject to the legislative will of the State. At least, 

 until the Federal Government shall have passed some act, or 

 otherwise assert Federal control over the question, the matter 

 must remain of State sovereignty and subject to State legis- 

 lation. It is a matter of grave doubt, after this right has 

 been for so long a period of time exercised by the State 

 governments, whether Congress would have Ihc power to 

 legislate upon the subject at all, except, perhaps, within the 

 jurisdiction of the unorganized territory belonging to the 

 Federal Government. 



It follows, then, that the Legislature of the State may 

 prescribe the time and manner in which any or all wild 

 animals, birds and fishes may be taken or killed, or it 

 may prohibit the killing or molestation of them entirely. 

 This being so, the State has the power, under what is 

 known as the police power, or authority to prohibit the sale or 

 traffic in dead animals, birds and fishes within the State that 

 have been killed outside of the State and brought within the 

 Slate for sale, as weil as those that may have been lawfully 

 killed within the State during the licensed period for killing, 

 and kept until their sale is forbidden by the local law. 1 his 

 question was before the Court in Phelps «s. Racey, 60 N. Y., 

 10. Tile defense in Ibis case was that the bird, a quail, had 

 been killed in the proper season, and kept by a proeess of 

 preserving game until after the season expired, and then 

 offered for sale. But Ihe Court held that "the penalty is 

 denounced against the selling or the possession after that 

 time, irrespective of the time or place of killing." It seems 

 that this question has recently been decided in the English 

 Common Pleas Division, Law Reports, Whitehead vs. Smith- 

 crs, but we have not examined that case. 



But, notwithstanding the clearness with which the cases 

 referred to have settled these quesl ions, it seems to remain 

 for the Police Court of Cincinnati, by some method of ju- 

 dicial legerdemain, to evade the effect of those decisions, as 

 applied to the game laws of Ohio. See State «•«. Cain, pub- 

 lished in the Fobsst and Stream, April 14, 1881. The 

 question before the Court iu that case appears to have been 

 whether quails killed in Illinois and exposed for sale in Ohio 

 in the month of February were so exposed for sale in viola- 

 lation of the Statute of Ohio, which prohibits the exposure 

 for sale of " quails killed during the time when the killing 

 thereof is made penal." The first section of the Ohio Statute 

 provides " It. shall be unlawful to kill quails between January 

 1 aud ^November 1." The act is limited only as to the time 

 of killing, namely, "within the time when the killing 

 thereof is made penal," without regard to place where killed. 

 The only distinction between this case and the case of Mag- 

 ner »s. The People, is this : The Illinois Statute prohibits the 

 exposure for sale of quails after the expiration of five days 

 next succeeding the first day of the prohibited season for 

 kdling them, without regard as to when or where such quails 

 may have been killed. Consequently quails lawfully killed 

 in Ohio during the " open season " cannot be sold in Illinois 



