-^85? 



THE AMERICAN SPORTSMAN'S JOURNAL. 



Entered According to Act ot Congress, In tlie year issi, by the Forest and Stream Publishing Company, In the Ofllce of the Librarian ot 'Congress, at Washington.] 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, JULY 21, 1881. 



CONTENTS. 



Editorial : — 

 The Berlin Fishery Exhibition ; One Phase of the Washing- 

 ton Assault i Abate the Pistol Nuisance 487 



The Bpoutkman Tourist :— 

 Two Weeks With the Baas and Pickerel ; Notes of an Angler 



in the North; Vacation Re-torts 488 



More Light on the 'Possum Puzzle j Another 'Possum Story, 490 



Asiitic Birds for America 497 



ASportsmau'a Studio 497 



Natural Historv:— 

 Bats a{ Wwtetwster County \ Habits of Beaver ■• Spike Horn 

 Bucks; The Weight of Loons; Skunk Bites and Hydro- 

 phobia; Notes 490 



Game Bao and Gos ;— 

 Table of Open Seasons; Hounding vs. Still-Hunting ; Our 



Detroit Letter ; Game in the West 492 



Sea a*d River Fishing t— 

 The Angler's Confession ; Disgusted Podgei'S Wants a Fish- 

 ing Place ; American Fishermen ; Fishing in Tennessee ; 



Bass at Alexandria Bay 493 



Fish Cm/ruRE :— 



Our Edible Fishes ; Beport of the Pennsylvania Commis- 

 sion ; Cross-bred Fish 495 



The Kennel :— 

 The Leotiberg Dog; Hydrophobia; Butherfurd'a Kennels; 



"Blanco," - 495 



Yachting and Canoeing 499 



Klyle and Trap Shooting 498 



Answers to Correspondents 501 



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FOREST AND STREAM. 



Thursday, July 21. 



THE BERLIN FISHERY EXHIBITION. 



WE have received Part II. if 'he Official Report of the 

 Internal onal Fishery Exhibition at Berlin, 1880— 

 "The Sea Fisheries, by Dr. M. Lindeni-m," from the press 

 of Paul Parey, Berlin. It is an octavo of 244 pages, printed 

 on heavy p per in cb ar type and illustrated. As aspecimi n 

 of typography it is elegant. The illustrations are good, but 

 some glaring errors in either the drawing or tbe naming are 

 apparent. Fig. 117, labelled "a schooner smack from 

 Maine," ia evidently an oyster boat, such as is used in the 

 viciniiy of Boston. Fig. 128, a diagram of a purse-net boat, 

 his a r g unknown to purse-netters. I he a'li t has mistaken 

 an umbrella anchor for an implement to hoist Hie bag of a 

 purse-net. ThU bee tnes quite comical in Fig. 134, « here a 

 perspec ive view of the working of the in t by means of this 

 umbrella anchor is given, with the men ia position, heaving 

 away on the lines, -whose attachment lo the net exists only 

 in the imagina ion of the artist. In other respects the re- 

 port on the sea fisheries of the different countries, as far as 

 we can judge, is a very good one. It includes the exhibits 

 of boats and nets, together with oyster dredging and wme 

 appliances for curing fish, but does not cover the whole 

 ground of the immense exhib t of sea-fishing implements ex- 

 hibited at Berlin, where every form of knife, tool, harpoon, 

 clothing, rig of boat, implements for curing fish and the 

 thousands of things pertaining to the sea fisheries were ex- 

 hibited. The fishcultural report was so comp'ete that we 

 confess to a feeling of disappointment in this. The different 

 reports will be uniform and are for sale by the publisher 

 named and will bo a handsome souvenir of the exhibition. 



ONE PHASE OF THE WASHINGTON 

 ASSAULT. 



THE divinity that doth hedge about a king, according to 

 the great dramatist, seems to be playing an important 

 part in recent Washington occurrences. The would-be as- 

 sassin of President Garfi Id was no', according lo all accounts, 

 troubled by any "Buck-fever." He kept a wonderfully cool 

 head And steady aim when he fired at short range into a vital 

 part. The chances were overwhelmingly in favor of tho 

 shooter accomplishing his murderous end, yet our President 

 lives on, a comradioiion to the opinions of men who dec'ared 

 he hid received a death-wound, and affording a text for tbe 

 discussions which have been going on for the past forinight 

 on sma'1-arms of various sorts. 



The talk upon the subject of pistols and their effectiveness 

 bas brought out Eome very curious assertions ftom men in a 

 position to kuow whereof tht-y were talking, and their talk 

 seemed to show conclusively that they had not improved 

 their opportunities. The weapon used, as most of our read- 

 ers are doubtless aware, was a five-chambered, self-cocking 

 " British Bull Dog." It has a nominal calibre of .44, though 

 that seems to be the measurement of Ihe chamber and not of 

 the barrel. It was of cour-e not known as a military weapon, 

 but belonged to that large class of uoi-y, dangerous pieces of 

 mechanism which are turned ou< in such vast, quantities each 

 year for, if we may so term it, "amaeur" consuuip 

 t : on, to be sold to those who have either no experi- 

 ence with firearms or only a s'i'l more dangerous 

 smattering of knowledge on the subjtct. The ad- 

 vantages of this particular arm in Ihe eyes of the 

 wretch who ufed it was its large calibre, and when fired off, 

 the amount of racket kicked up by it. Its disadvantages, 

 which he entirely overlooked, was that it was badly arranged 

 for a secure grip ; that its short barrel of 2i inches did not 

 suffice for the consumption of all the twenty grains of powder 

 used, and that in so short a space the rifling was practically 

 inoperative, making the weapon really a smooth bore, and 

 tha' the slight initial velocity secured gave the bullet very 

 small pe' etratiag power. 



Listeuing to th" many remarks made by military men 

 about th national capital on this subject, we were surprised 

 by the curious c nclusions drawn from simple data. When 

 it, was announced that a 44-calibre pisiol bad been used, the 

 insufficie»t conclusion was at once reached and the wrong 

 opinion expressed hymen holding responsible positions in the 

 regular army, that it was the most dangerous one that could 

 hive been chosen. Gen. Sherman was very much impressed 

 by the noise which tbe shots made, and a>gued from ihst 

 f ct alone that it was a very destructive mechanism. It did 

 indeed err ate a great, hubbub, he discharge being louder than 

 that of a long-range rifle burning up to 110 grains of powder, 

 but in this case the comparatively silent piece sends a bullet, 

 with an initial velocity of 1,700 feet per second, while 700 

 feet is the cdculated velocity in the other cse. 



Another official, holding one of the most influential offices 

 in the War Department, got the crotchet into bis head that 

 there was a point at some dstance fiom the muzzle where the 

 bullet had a greater velocity than it had on leaving Ihe 

 weapon— in other words, he disregarded tbe well-known fact 

 that from ihe moment of starting on its journey every influ- 

 ence brought to bear on the flying bullet is of a re arding 

 nature, and lhat there is no reservoir of force anywhere about 

 the bullet to be expended while it is en route, and yet this 

 offic r was reckless enough to say that, he regarded it as for- 

 tunate that the victim was close to his assailant, since "if be 

 had been standing at that point of greatest velocity, the de- 

 structive effect would have been more marked." 



It was not until a systematic examination of tbe question 

 was mide by a civilian that any accurate knowledge was 

 shed on the subject. Mr. A. A. Adee, of the Columbia 

 Rifle Association, with the fund of information he possesses 

 as one of the foremost riflemen of the country, expressed 

 opinions only as they were bnsed on experience, and very 

 soon determined that the choice of weapon made by the 

 assassination was about as poor as could have been made, since 

 the low initial velocity of the ball made it an easy matter for 

 clothing and tissue to chick its course and turn it from i's 

 way inward. Mr. Adce's experiments brought prominently 

 forward a fault common to many classes of firearms, and 

 especially in such rule o' thumb constructions as pistols, that 



no attempt is made to establish any sort of relation between 

 the burning capacity of the pistol and the amount of powder 

 in the cartridge, and this again in relation to the weight of 

 lead used. Tbe British bulldog, according to ihe outcome 

 of civilian examinations made upon it and in direct contra- 

 diction to official off-hand verdicts upon it, seems better 

 adapted for barking than biting, and that it should be dear 

 to those who believe in the Chinese tom-tom style of war- 

 fare, where noise is an important element in determining a 

 battle. The point of real interest to the public, outside of 

 the main issue of the shooting, is that we have in high po- 

 sitions under our War Department men whose knowledge of 

 firearms is so meagre that such opinions as those mentioned 

 above should over have been uttered. 



ABATE THE PISTOL NUISANCE. 



THE fatal toy pistol did its deadly work as usual last 

 Fourth of July. The reports of fingers blown off 

 cases of lockjaw and deaths arc not all in yet, but the num- 

 ber of victims will count up many scores, and the record is 

 sufficiently bad as it is. 



One way to abate the plague would be for our legislators 

 to stop their antics at Albany, and pass a law prohibiting the 

 manufacture and sale of such toys Another wise move 

 would be to indict the manufacturers for manslaughter and 

 send them to prison. And while about it, the legislator of 

 this State and of other Sates ought to pass a law prohibiting 

 the sale to, or possession by, a minor, of any kind of pistol, 

 save under clearly defined conditions. No law of this kind 

 is necesfary so far as our reputable gun dealers are con- 

 cerned, for they already exercise due discretion in selling 

 pistols to boys. There are altogether too many bulging hip- 

 pockets on our streets. The murderous arms borne by 

 crazy Guiteans and city gu ter Thugs are evidences of sotne- 

 thi g radically wrong in the brains or hearts of ihese fellows, 

 and the s traer society snuffs out the fire from their eyes by 

 removing the pistol from their pockets the sooner will our 

 daily papers cease to be filled with accounts of these fatal 

 accidents anil murderous as-aults. 



There are laws now on the statute books relating to the 

 carrying of concealed weipons, but it usually happens that a 

 man is never punished for violating these laws unit! afier he 

 has put his infei nal machine into use. Our police manage to 

 capture the pistol only af er it has been discharged and flung 

 away. Three out of every five gamins in the street have 

 some kind of a crazy old firearm concealed upon their per- 

 sons; and ihere are shops in Chatham street which make a 

 specialty of supplj ing the tools. Some means ought to be 

 il vised to check this pistol nuisance. When the Albany 

 legisla ors get through discussi g skunk prot clion and peek- 

 ing through key-holes, let us hope they will lake up the toy 

 pist' il and the revolver. 



Tmodt for the Fisue t Census — Prof. G. Brown Goode 

 wrote to Mr. E. G. Blackford 'or a good specimen of a trout 

 from which to make an original thawing to illustrate the 

 census report. Mr. Blackford asked the South Side Club 

 for some. We happened t > be in Fulton Market when Ihey 

 arrived. There were thn e, all male?, weighing one pound 

 fourteen and a half ounces, one pound and eleven ounces, and 

 two pounds an' I one ounce, respectively. They were quite 

 high colored, but as an old m»le trout is not graceful, and 

 has hard lines about his head, which is long, we did not ad- 

 mire them much. Mr. Blackford will send for some females 

 and let Prof. Goode take his choice. 



Encouraging Men to Break the Law. — The " official 

 organ of the Market Protective Assi cia'ion,"of this city, and 

 late "official .organ " of a bportsmen's association, shame- 

 lessly incites its patrons to violate the laws relating to trapped 

 birds when, in giving directions for shipping to market wild 

 turkeys, wild ducks, prairie chickens, woodcock and quail, 

 it says : 



The freight on trapped birds is no more than on others, and 

 those shot or otherwise mutilated not only bring a low price, but 

 are apt to spoil, and by their more rapid decomposition cause the 

 others to smell badly, thus injuring those they are packed with 

 more than the value of the mutilated birds. If they must be 

 sent, they should be put in separate packages. 

 Which is to say, that the marketmen want trapped birds in 



