Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



NEW YORK, MARCH 22, 18S3. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



The Forest and Stream is the recognized medium of entertain- 

 ment, instruction and information between American sportsmen. 

 Communications upon the subjects to which its pages are devoted are 

 respectfully invited. Anonymous communications will not be re- 

 garded. No name will be published except with writer's consent. 

 The Editors are not responsible for the views of correspondents. 



SUBSCRIPTIONS 

 Slay begin at any time. Subscription price, 84 per year ; $2 for six 

 months: to a club of three annual subscribers, three copies for $10; 

 Ave copies for $16. Remit by registered letter, money -order, or draft, 

 payable to the Forest and Stream Publishing Company. The paper 

 may be obtained of newsdealers throughout the United States and 

 Cauadas. On sale by the American Exchange, 419 Strand, W. C, 

 London, England. Subscription agents for Great Britain— Messrs. 

 Samson Low. Marston, Searle and Rivtngton, 188 Fleet street, London. 



AD VERTISEAIENTS. 



Only advertisements of an approved character inserted. Inside 

 pages, nonpareil type, 35 cents per line. Special rates for three, six 

 and twelve months. Reading notices $1.00 per line. Eight words 

 to the line, twelve lines to one inch. Advertisements should be sent 

 in by the Saturday previous to issue in which they are to be inserted. 



Transient advertisements must invariably be accompanied by the 

 money or they will not be inserted. 



Address al! communications, 



Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 

 Nos. 39 amd 40 Pabk Row. New Tore City. 



CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Saint Palvelinus. 



The Adirondack's. 



Gossip About the Park. 



A Bad Bill. 



London Fisheries Exhibition. 



Horses in Homer's Time. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



Nimrod in the North.— v. 



Sketches of Labrador Life. 



Around tb.-i Musi. ,; !• r.nda-..:. 

 Natural History. 



Sal ma 



OurV .. 



Bruin's Varied .Moods. 



Experience with Water Witche: 

 Camp Fire Flickerinss. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



Summer Shooting. 



Wild Boar Hunt in Santo Do 

 mingo. 



The Negro and the Game. 



The London Societv. 



Hints for Next Season. 



l J .n:.v ."i ■ . "- 



The Fur Market. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



Two Sonnets. 



Sea and River Fishing. 

 National Rod and Reel Associ- 

 ation. 

 The Primitive Fish-Hook. 

 I Evening Fishing on the Lyco: 

 ing, 

 Monsou Lakes and Ponds. 



Cold Spring Harbor Hatchery. 



Salmon in New Hampshire. 

 The Kennel. 



N. A. K. C. Derby, 



A Clever Retriever. 



Kennel Management. 



Kennel Notes. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 



Range and Gallery. 



Becoming a Crack Shot. 



Muzzle vs. Breech, No. 3. 



The Trap, 



Matches and Meetings. 

 Yachting and Canoeing. 



Cruising ou Georgian Bay. 



"The Fendeur in the East." 



Length Measurement, 



The Coming Season. 



Mastheads or Cutters. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



With its compact type and in its permanently enlarged form 

 of twenty-eight pages this journal furnishes each week a larger 

 amount of first -class matter relating to angling, shooting, the 

 kennel, and Icindred subjects, than is contained in all other 

 American publications put together. 



Back Copies of the Forest and Stream can be supplied. 



SUNT SALVELTNUS. 

 /~iN the first day of April the brook trout season opens in 

 ^ California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, 

 New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, 

 Virginia and Washington Territory. Other States and Ter- 

 ritories make the season open earlier or later. In parts of 

 the State of New York no trout fishing is done until May, 

 but in tbe city the anglers look forward to the opening day 

 as the coming of an annual festival. Long Island trout are 

 early, owing to the fact that the ice is usually out of the 

 streams early in March, and on the first day of April there 

 is an exodus of New York city anglers to the island. 



This year the opening day comes on Sunday, and we know 

 of a score of enthusiastic anglers who will go down on Satur- 

 day night in order to be on the ground early on Monday 

 morning, and who will fish on that day, no matter what 

 sort of weather may be dealt to them. 



At the South Side Sportsman's Club the members are 

 feeling of their rods, oiling their reels and looking after 

 frayed gut and moth-eaten flies. The well-stocked pre- 

 serves of this club promise much sport in the way of extra- 

 sized trout. All along the island from Shinnccook Bay to 

 Oanarsie on the south side, and from Port Jefferson to 

 Whitestone on the north shore, there is a bustle of prepara- 

 tion that deuotes a vigorous opening of the campaign. For 

 our own part we usually prefer to wait until the blustering 

 March winds have blown themselves out and there is no 

 danger of one's marrow being solidified by a blizzard from 

 Manitoba, which goes through a spring overcoat, like a 

 black-fly through a patent fly-not. 



In Fulton Market there will be a goodly display of trout 

 from all parts of the country, and also from abroad. Mr. 

 Blackford has been quietly arranging for his yearly display, 



and no doubt it will be equal, if not superior, to his former 

 efforts, Trout and flowers are the attractions at Fulton 

 Market ou "trout opening" day, and they harmonize well 

 together; gems of the land and of the water, the condensed 

 poetry of the earth and the streams which How upon it. 

 Anglers, who do not go down to the seaside to take the trout 

 from the Streams, should not miss the sight of the beauties 

 in tbe market, where their differences, caused by food and 

 water, are better studied in an hour than by a lifetime on 

 the streams. 



THE NA TTONAL PARK. 



\ FEW newspapers, whose proprietors were interested in 

 -£*- the attempt to capture the Yellowstone Park, are 

 whining about the Government's loss of rent on the lands 

 leased for hotel purposes. To these splenetic grumblers 

 Mr. Assistant Secretary Joslyn adds his voice, and the quer- 

 ulous moans of the defeated gang are laughable to listen to. 

 They say that if the original forty-five hundred acres that 

 the Improvement Company so longingly reached for had 

 been leased to it, the annual revenue to the Government 

 would have been $9,000, whereas it is now only a pitiful 

 $20. This is very true, but whether tbe loss of tbe $8,930 

 to the United States Treasury is as serious a matter as these 

 sad-voiced scribes would have us believe is open to a little 

 doubt. If the Interior Department had, as it seemed at one 

 time likely to do, bartered away all tbe rights of the people 

 for ten years to this lovely spot for $9,000, would it not have 

 been thought that these dollars had cost the nation dear? 

 We think so. It is to be expected that the vanquished will 

 continue for a while to lift up their voices in sorrowful 

 ululations. They still feel the effects of their boating. 

 But life is too short to be devoted to such dead issues as the 

 Park grab. The Improvement Company may yet try to 

 seize on portions of the reservation, but it is for the officers 

 of the Government to look out for this matter. The law is 

 on the side of the people. 



The Secretary of the Interior has, we an: happy to say, 

 called on the War Department for a detail of troops to guard 

 the Park and its game, and this detail Secretary Lincoln has 

 promised to furnish. Things are, therefore, marching along 

 in very satisfactory shape. 



A dispatch to the public press credits Superintendent 

 Conger with the statement that the reports to the effect that 

 game was being killed within the Park are untrue. It may 

 be that just at present the slaughter has ceased, but we cau 

 assure Mr. Conger that a short time ago, and during the 

 progress of the light against, the encroachments of the Im- 

 provement Company, game was being killed in the Park 

 and in considerable quantities. All this sort; of thing must 

 now cease, and we look to Superintendent Conger to see 

 that it is put an end to at once and forever. 



With the openiug of the next session of Congress we hope 

 to see a bill introduced embodying the essential features of 

 Senator Vest's bill of last session, and providing for the en- 

 largement of the Park on the east and south, as suggested 

 by us recently. All who are familiar with the region aie 

 agreed that such increase in area is most desirable, and we 

 trust that within a year it may be made. 



Nkw York Fish Commission.— A bill has been intro- 

 duced into the Legislature of New Yotk forbidding any per- 

 son who deals in fish to be a Commissioner of Fisheries. As 

 there is no good reason for such a proscription it; is evident. 

 that it is aimed at Mr. Eugene G. Blackford, who is both a 

 fish dealer and a fish commissioner. The same bill was in- 

 troduced last winter, and it is believed to be instigated by a 

 man who was once in the employ of Mr. Blackford, but who 

 was discharged for dishonest practices in connection with 

 the capture of trout out of season, while pretending to do 

 other work. The fact that Mr. Blackford is a large fish 

 dealer and one who has paid much attention to fishculture 

 and kindred subjects, fits him to be a commissioner of fish- 

 eries in a degree that no other man in the State is fitted, and 

 the introduction of such a bill shows its animus. Last win- 

 ter when the same bill came before tbe Legislature, the late 

 George Dawson said to us, in a private conversation ; 

 "Why, you might as well pass a law that no man should be 

 a professor in a college who is qualified to teach'." That 

 such laws, framed to gratify a personal spite, will pass we 

 have not the slightest idea, we only wonder why our legis- 

 lators introduce them. The fish commissioners serve with- 

 out pay, and none but those who have the best interest of 

 the public at heart would burden themselves with the office. 

 Mr. Blackford's well-known public spirit and his knowledge 

 of the habits and values of fishes are of tbe greatest service 

 to the New York Fish Commission, 



"AMERICAN KENNEL REGISTER." 



r IMIE necessity of a printed register of the bleeding of fine 

 -L stock is thoroughly appreciated, and for most kinds of 

 stock, horses, cattle, sheep, etc., such records are regularly 

 published. The demand for a similar promptly published 

 regis! rat ion of dogs is urgent and is becoming moie im- 

 perative with the lapse of each succeeding month and the 

 increase in the number of sporting and pet dogs. At the 

 request of some of the prominent breeders of the day the 

 Forest and Stream Publishing Company have undertaken 

 the task of supplying such a record and will at once begin 

 the publication of the American Kennel Register. 



It is of the utmost importance for the convenience of 

 all breeders, and owners and purchasers of sporting dogs, 

 that there should be ready access to the pedigree and 

 record of the stock in question; and this can be secured in 

 no way more conveniently than that now proposed. The 

 American Kennel Register will bs published monthly in 

 convenient shape for filing and binding in an annual 

 volume. Its main feature will be the register of names 

 and pedigrees and the supplying of a number to each dog 

 entered. There will be also registers of "bred," deaths, 

 sales, etc., all fully indexed under each breed at the end 

 of the volume. 



In addition to this registry, there will be given complete 

 prize lists of all American dog shows and field trials, with 

 summaries of such foreign shows and trials as may be 

 deemed important; and a monthly compendium of all mat- 

 ters of interest iu the canine world. The aim of the publi- 

 cation of the American funnel Register, in short, will be to 

 make it a wide meeinn for breeders and owners. 



The initial number will be published early in April. 

 Fuller particulars will be given in our next issue. 



A BAD BILL. 



r r , WO provisions of the O'Connor bill to amend the game 

 -*- laws of this State are most unwise. One opens summer 

 shooting; the other extends the market time. The law is 

 much better as it stands than it would be if tinkered as 

 this bill proposes to "fix it." The bill bears very good 

 evidence of having come through the same manipulation 

 that not long ago produced the notorious "refrigerator 

 amendment,' - in fact it comes from the same source. Sec- 

 tion 24 provides that venison and grouse may be sold for 

 two months after the lawful killing season has expired. 

 Every man of ordinary intelligence knows what that 

 means. It means that for two months game will be killed 

 out of season and smuggled into market. This game will 

 come from New York and from other States in which the 

 markets have been closed. This Slate and others arc ex- 

 pending money in salaries for game commissioners and war- 

 dens and detectives, and the Originators of the O'Connor 

 bill with their extended market hold out fresh inducements 

 to the poachers. 



The market ought to be closed when the killing season 

 closes. The framers of the bill in question know this. 

 The probable reason why they have not acted on the knowl- 

 edge is that they are attempting to serve two masters. They 

 waul to make a "game law" that will answer the purposes 

 of the market men. The market men want all the game 

 there is, and they want it now. The O'Connor bill tranters 

 are perfectly willing they should have it; and if the bill 

 passes, it will be just one advance in their favor. We do not 

 believe that tbe O'Connor bill w r as framed in the true inter^ 

 ests of sportsmen and game protection. It bears the sign- 

 manual of the men in (bis city who advertise for snared 

 game birds, and of the hotel proprietors whose kitchen back 

 doors are always ajar for the sneaking midsummer slayers 

 of immature game. 



THE LONDON FISHERIES EXHIBITION: 

 r piIE American Commission will sail from Philadelphia 

 -*■- on the 31st of this month on the steamer Lord Gough. 

 It will consist of Prof. G. Brown Goode, Deputy U, S. Fish 

 Commissioner; Mr. R. E. Earl, in charge of fishculture; Capt, 

 J. W". Collins in charge of nets, boats and marine fisheries: 

 Mr, Joseph Palmer, taxidermist; Mr. Reuben Wood, in care of 

 the angling exhibit; a secretary, and perhaps others. Mr, 

 Wood will remain iu London until July 1, and then lake a 

 trip to the salmon rivers of Scotland. We hope that "Uncle" 

 Reuben will remain over until the annual tournament of 

 English anglers takes place so that he maj be able to see 

 bow they conduct those things abroad, and if there are 

 any points worth adopting our National Rod and Reel Asso- 

 ciation may have the benefit of his experience. 



