Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



13, $4 A YEAH. 10CTS. i 



Six Months, $2. 



NEW YORK, JUNE 21, 1883. 



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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Game Slaughter in the West. 



The Ichthyophagous Club. 



The Wind-Gauge Question. 

 Tuc Sportsman Tourist. 



Sport in Callao Bay. 



Death of the "Blown Stud." 

 Natural Historv. 



A Captive Hooded Seal. 



The Swallow. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



The Camp. 



Floridian Experience. 



'- ; ' . ■ i_l -- 1 1 1- .■ i ■ 1. n ■ j. < iar ,-. 



Indiana Laws. 

 Camp Fire Flickerisgs. 

 Sea and River Fishino. 



.mi .\.ij-.KUk- Tra->..lv 

 Plans of the Kingfishers. 



■■ .i I . !J ■.- :■" . :. ii ..--. - I 



Black and White l:.t^ Fishi'ig. 

 Mr. Bergh on Angling. 

 Some Futile Experiments. 

 The Rangeley Lakes. 



The American Fishcultural As- 



viaii-- 



isheries Exhibition. 



ogs at the New York Show 



Range and Gallery. 



Atmospheric Conditions Affect- 

 ing Initial Velocities and Tra- 

 jectories of Projectiles. 



The l'i-ap. 



Bridgeport vs. Jersey Citv 

 Heights. 

 Canoeing. 



Canvas Canoes, Coracles aud 

 Boats. 



A Trip on the Trent. 

 Yachting. 



■ i.-'i.ei city Y. C. 



Am 



.irulh.:, i.C 



New Jersey Y. C. 



Chicago Y. C. 



The Steamer Pilgrim. 



Launch Mashinery. 



1 to Correspondents. 



With its compact type aud in its permanently enlarged / bran 



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

 iimoi'ut of lirst-cb.iss matter relating to angling, shooting, the 

 kennel, and Kindred subjects, than' is contained in all other 

 •-■■'— n publications pat together. 



GAME SLAUGHTER IN THE WEST. 

 TNFORMATION from authentic sources makes it appear 

 J- that the Game Protective Association of "Wyoming is 

 not doing the good work that we had hoped to see per- 

 formed by it, and which the list of its officers and the tone 

 of its inaugural address to the citizens of the Territory, war- 

 ranted the public in expecting. In two essential particulars 

 complaint is made that there is a failure to take necessary 

 steps to punish violators of the law. 



Some years ago the. rapid decrease of the beaver within 

 the Territory induced the passage of a law protecting these 

 animals for a term of years, and forbidding their capture 

 under severe penalties. For two or three years this statute 

 was well observed, but during the past winter it has been 

 openly violated, and the Wyoming newspapers have at fre- 

 quent intervals contained local items like the following: 



"John Smith has been trapping on the Labonte and neigh- 

 boring creeks, and has brought in forty heaver as the result 

 of his season's work." 



"Peter Jones killed two beaver last week near the head of 

 Rock Creek. Beaver are scarce there now, and Pete was 

 lucky to get these." 



Items such as these have had sufficient currency in the 

 press to have attracted the notice of the officers of the asso- 

 ciation, and it would seem that by a little effort some one of 

 the numerous law-breakers might have been brought to book 

 and punished. A single conviction would have put an end 

 at least to the open violation of the law, and would have 

 greatly increased the respect iu which the society is held by 

 the public. The protection of the beaver is not less import- 

 ant than that of game animals, and we hope that the recur- 

 rence of another trapping season will find the officers of the 

 Wyoming Association so far on the alert, that any open vio- 

 lation of the wise act in regard to this great rodent will re- 

 ceive prompt punishment. 



During the past winter not a little elk skinning has gone 

 on in the Territory. The law forbidding the sale of hides 



has been evaded by transporting the skins by wagon down 

 to Fort Collins, Col., where they are readily sold. It is 

 true that the elk and the blacktail deer aud the antelope, are 

 not slaughtered in anything like such numbers as they 

 used to he a few years ago, but this is the result more of the 

 scarcity of the game than of any respect felt by the skin 

 hunters for life or law, or any apparent efforts on the part 

 of the Wyoming Association to stop the butchery. We 

 have uo desire to be hypercritical nor to belittle the diffi- 

 culties of enforcing the law iu a country where the condi- 

 tions obtain which are found in Wyoming, but we do wish 

 to see the fast disappearing game of the Rocky .Mountains 

 protected from the skin hunter. We know (few men bet- 

 ter) that it is simply impossible to prevent the slaughter, 

 except by closing the markets, but the wagons which carry 

 the butchers' spoils to Fort Collins pass through or close to 

 Laramie City, aud so the traffic ought to be detected and 

 stopped. If, as was at one time hoped would be done, the 

 stock men all over the Territory would take hold of this 

 matter of game preservation in earnest, they could, in a very 

 short space of time, make the butchers and illegal trappers 

 feel that their shameful business was a dangerous business 

 as well. 



If anything is to be done for the game it must be done 

 speedily, for each year shows more plainly than the pre- 

 ceding one that the big game of this eoutinent is doomed. 

 Only in the Yellowstone National Park, if the United States 

 officials do their duty, has it any hope of surviving the 

 ruthless persecution to which it is constantly subjected. 



One of the Fools. — A correspondent writes to us that, 

 misled by the glowing but false representations of a con- 

 temporary, he forwarded some time ago the fee for member- 

 ship in a certain Western hunting club, and received from 

 the officers promises of information and assistance iu a pro- 

 posed expedition to one of the Territories. Since the receipt 

 of the acknowledgment of his money, he has had no further 

 advice from this so-called club, and he now asks whether 

 there is any means by which he can secure the return of his 

 fee or in any way obtain satisfaction. We presume not. 

 This is evidently a case of the "fool and his money soon 

 parted," and we confess we have no sympathy with the fool. 

 A man who has not intelligence enough to use ordinary pru- 

 dence in dealing with strangers, deserves to be plundered. 

 It is from the ranks of this class of simpletons that the un- 

 fortunates are drawn who become the prey of the "bunco 

 steerers" and "sawdust men." and those! scarcely less silly 

 people who answer catch-penny swiudling advertisements 

 under the impression that while all the world beside will be 

 duped, they will be dealt fairly with. How anybody out- 

 side of the walls of an idiot asylum can be imposed upon by 

 the shallow devices of these sharpers is very mysterious, 

 and yet the rascals, if we may trust the frequeut exposures 

 of their practices by the newpapcrs, make a fat living off the 

 world at large. It may he set down as a true principle, that 

 in the long run all attempts to get something for nothing 

 will prove failures. All things have their price aud are worth 

 what they will bring, and any effort to obtain them with- 

 out rendering an equivalent, whether it be iu money, in 

 labor, or in marketable goods, is a clear violation of the 

 most self-evident principles of political economy. 



The announcement of the capture of a hooded seal on 

 the New Jersey coast, and its exhibition alive for nine days 

 at the Zoological Garden iu Philadelphia, will be a matter 

 of great interest to many of our readers. 3Ir. Brown gives 

 in another column some valuable notes on the subject, 

 though the death of the captive precluded any lengthened 

 observation of the habits of the species in captivity. The 

 hooded seal is known among sealers as the most ferocious 

 and difficult to capture of the species commonly found on 

 the North Atlantic coast, and the Philadelphia specimen, 

 even though so young, appears to have shown the usual 

 temper of its race. We learn from Dr. C. H. Merriam, 

 whose name is familiar to all our readers, that during a 

 recent cruise which he took on a scaler along the New- 

 foundland coast, aud among the ice fields off Labrador, he 

 found this species quite abundant. He secured during the 

 cruise 120 specimens of seals, most of them CystopJiora 

 cristata. Mr. Brown is to be congratulated on having 

 secured for his collection so uncommon a species of seal. 

 And the bringing together of the hooded seal aud the sea 

 elephant— two rare and closely related forms, yet from such 

 widely separated localities — was a piece of great good for- 

 tune. We shall look with interest for Professor Chapman's 

 paper on the anatomy of the present specimen 



THE WIND- GAUGE QUESTION. 

 'TUIE wind-gauge question is the one drawback upon the 

 J- prospects of the American team, so far as its prelimin- 

 ary practice is concerned. It was thought that the Wim- 

 bledon rules might be construed into keeping the American 

 team men from practice during the Wimbledon meeting, 

 but the discussion at the spring meeting of the members of 

 the British Rifle Association further showed that the rifle- 

 men of the visiting team using the screw wind-gauge had 

 little prospect of admission into the many matches at. the 

 great meeting. 



The speaker, at that meeting, who urged that the utmost 

 liberty should be given the American team, was silenced by 

 the remark that as the Americans had not made a formal 

 demand for the use of the screw wind gauge, therefore it 

 was evident that it was a matter in which they had no in- 

 terest, and that it was a matter of utter indifference whether 

 or not the rule prohibiting the use of such wind-gauges was 

 enforced at Wimbledon. 



The speaker should have remembered that it would 

 hardly have been courteous for the viators to look ahead in 

 this way. It is known to the British CfBucil precisely what 

 sort of weapon the Americans have propped for the match, 

 and it is known that they will wish tovpractice with these 

 arms as much as possible upon the very range and at the 

 vcr} r firing points from which the final match is to be fought. 

 If such privilege is not accorded them, they will go into the 

 match handicapped to a certain extent, and certain very in- 

 vidious comparisons will be made with the treatment which 

 the British team received a year ago. At that time Creed- 

 moor was thrown open fully and freely to the visitors. 

 They fired over the same ground which was to "be used in 

 the final match, and no restriction of any kind was placed 

 upon their use of the range. 



The American team iu England would like tile privilege 

 of getting all the shooting possible over the Wimbledon 

 ranges during the fortnight of the general competitions. It 

 will not do to say that the pool targets are openjjfo the gen- 

 eral marksmen on the range. The exercise at the pool 

 targets generally consists in standing for ari&jour or more in 

 line, and then hurrying through a tew shots, so that the 

 value of the shooting, so far as making any acquaintance 

 with the range is concerned, is about nothing^ 



If the full value of the fortnight's stay at Wimbledon, is 

 to be gained by the Americans, it must be by Rhe'i&kt to 

 enter without hindrance all the several milil 

 loader matches. In this way, too, the English riflemen 

 may learn something from the methods of the Americans, 

 and Ihere certainly will be cultivated a good fellowship be- 

 tween the Guardsmen of the two countries, which is after 

 all no small part of the permanent benefits of an inter- 

 national match. 



We beg our English friends to disabuse their minds of the 

 idea that the American team arc indifferent over the fact 

 that the Wimbledon programme, as it seems to be arranged 

 at present, shuts them out of many of the most valuable 

 practice matches, and if this exclusion is kept up, it will do 

 much to weaken our present faith that the match is to be 

 one of a fair field and no favor. 



The men who sailed on Tuesday in the steamer Alaska 

 to compete with the best rifle shots of Great Britain, went 

 off in good health and spirits, accompanied by the cordial 

 good wishes of a large throng of spectators. Although no 

 predictions can as yet be made as to the probable results of 

 the contest in which they are to engage, it seems certain 

 that the prospects for victory are far better than they were 

 at this time last year. We have every confidence that the 

 men will do their best, and the arm with which they are 

 equipped has shown that it can do most accurate work. 

 With whichever side the victory may rest.it seems likely 

 that the scores on both sides will be very satisfactory. 



Plenty of Birds. — Private advices from several of the 

 Western States speak most encouragingly of the prospect 

 for the fall shooting. It is rather too early yet to predicate 

 much upon such reports, for a great many things may hap- 

 pen in the two mouths (lull intervene before even Ihe prairie 

 chicken shooting opens. Still it is satisfactory to learn 

 that in many sections the birds wintered well aud have had 

 favorable nesting seasons 



Game Pkotectou Needed.— The need of a game pro- 

 tector for New York city, aud one tor Long Island, is every 

 day more apparent. Will not the State executive help the 

 sportsmen to protect the game and fish? 



