350 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



A WEEKLY JOURNAL, 



BkVOTBD TO FlBLD AND AQUATIC SPORTS, PRACTICAL NATURAL HlSTOKY, 

 FlSB CULTURE, THE PROTECTIOK OF GAME, PRESERVATION Of FORESTS, 



aniitrk inculcation in men and women of * h?althy interest 

 in Oct-Doob Recreation and Study: 



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NEW YORK, THURSDAY, JUNE 5, 1879. 



To Correspondents. 



All communications whatever, Intended for publication, must be ac- 

 companied with real name of the writer as a guaranty of good faith 

 and be addressed to the Forest and Stream Publishinq Company. 

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tar Trade supplied by American News Company. 



CALENDAR OF EVENTS FOR THE 

 COMING WEEK. 



Friday, June, 6.— Trotting : Philadelphia ; Meadville, Pa.; Batavia, 

 N Y ; Battle Creek, Mich. 



Saturday, June 7.— Manhattan Athletic Club Games. Trotting at 

 Milwaukee, Wis. 



Tuesday, June 10.— Illinois Slate Sportsmen's Convention, atreoria 

 Pittsburgh, Pa., ShootiDg Tournament. Michigan Regatta, at Diamond 

 Lake, CasBopolis. Trotting : Boston, Mass.; Pllteburgb, Pa.; Lyons, N- 

 Y.; Cedar Rapids, la.; Jackson, Mich.; Prospect Park. 



Wednesday, June 11.— Tournament as above. Trotting as above. 



Thunday, June 12.— Tournament as above. Trotting as above. 



Pebsokal.— Dr. Cbas. Fitz Mathew, late of H. M. 74th 

 Regt. , is on the Margare River, Cape Breton, for salmon. 



John Mullaly, Esq., of the Beard of Health, and J. H. 

 Welch, of Hartford, Ct,, are both booked for Kestigouche 

 early in July. 



W. J. Florence, E. A. Sotbern, and party are about to sail 

 for the lower St. Lawrence in their yacht, in quest of salmon. 

 , — .». „ 



As Authobity. on Bears. — We have published some 

 scores of bear Btories, yarns of imaginative adventurers, sci- 

 entific discussions of students who carry their books into the 

 woods, sketches of tyros, and rare narratives by genuine 

 woodland sages. The article in another column is from the 

 pea of a writer whose pseudonym is familiar to our readers. 

 What "Corporal Lot Warfleld" writes about hunting and 

 trapping is always worth reading. He is a trapper of very 

 long and varied experience, and knows what he is talking 

 about. He trapped "greasers" and "yellow-bellies" down 

 in Mexico thirty-three years ago— the time of the war— and 

 lost a leg thereabouts. 



— •* — 



With One Abm.— We spoke the other day of two or three 

 men, who, having been deprived of one of their arms, had 

 nevertheless acquired extraordinary skill as sportsmen. A 

 correspondent in Ronceverte, W. Va., who writes a great deal 

 better than many of our correspondents do with the full use 

 of their right hand, tells us of himself that he has been shoot- 

 ing and fishing with only a crippled left hand ever since 1864, 

 and yet he can manipulate a Winchester with any of them 

 on game, and with the fly can take as many trout as he can 

 carry, and more too. 



Cbowdkd.— We must beg the indulgence of numerous cor- 

 respondents for deferring their communications. 



A YACHT RACING ASSOCIATION. 



THE necessity of some central association with delegated 

 powers from all the yacht clubs of standing in America 

 has long been, to our mind, one of paramount consideration, 

 if we would keep pace in yachting with the other sports of 

 the country and with the rapid strides made of late in the 

 thorough organization of racing under sail upon a national 

 basis abroad. To some the proposition to unify and codify 

 the numerous conflicting interests of the various yacht clubs 

 along the coast, and of substituting for the present harassing 

 varieties one common code of laws to be observed by all clubs 

 claiming rank from a national standpoint, may seem almost 

 too advanced for the stage of development as yet attained by 

 yacht racing in America. We think differently, however, 

 and believe that the sooner efforts looking toward the forma- 

 tion of a National Yacht Racing Association are made, the 

 better will it be for the furtherance of the highest aims and 

 interests of the sport, and the quicker will it be rescued from 

 the present stagnation which certainly results from the fact 

 that yachting has grown beyond its period of infancy, and, 

 having thrown off its swaddling clothes, refuses to be coaxed 

 into brilliant activity by the pap of the " mutual admiration" 

 and "picnic"* or "jolly times" kind, which has hitherto 

 sufficed to nourish its younger and feebler days and draw 

 heterogeneous entries enough to the line to make it barely 

 possible to get rid of all the prizes, cups, pennants, and things 

 offered. So racing has gone from bad to worse, until last 

 year it culminated in the failure of the sand- bag affair— for 

 we cannot consider sailing with shifting ballast as legitimate 

 yacht racing — for which the sympathetic public of New York 

 and neighborhood subscribed a grand total of something less 

 than $100 ! How different would not have been the result 

 had the sailing been under the auspices of a regularly organ- 

 ized association, representing the interests of the entire 

 country? Prizes worth sailing for would have taken the 

 place of the paltry sums which were handed, after long 

 delay, to the disappointed winners ; sand-bags would have 

 been ruled out, and crews limited within the bounds of reason. 

 Spars and canvas might then have been in proportion to the 

 boats raced, expenses reduced, and the event would have at- 

 tracted the community as a whole, its issues would have gone 

 on record and remained for all time as evidence of the win- 

 ners' seamanship and speed. As the race was sailed, how- 

 ever, the sequence made little or no difference to any one, 

 and in a fortnight the whole affair was forgotten, and con- 

 signed to the oblivion of the past as not worth further con- 

 sideration. 



A move in the right direction is now on foot, and it is 

 needless to say that, for want of anything better at present, 

 it has our fullest indorsement. We quote from a coummuni 

 cation sent us : 



The New Jersey Yacht Club has issued a call to other 

 clubs for the appointment of a committee of three to meet 

 with a committee appointed by ttiemselves — consisting of 

 Com, Rogers, Vice-Corn. Dillworth, and Ex-Com. Ketcham— 

 to consider the formation of a navy, and instituting a Grand 

 Union Bay Regatta annually. To this invitation the Colum- 

 bia Yacht Club have promptly responded, and it is to be hoped 

 that other clubs will see the great advantage a central organ- 

 ization, composed of delegates from each yacht club, would 

 be, and appoint committees to meet and thoroughly discuss 

 the project. An association of yacht clubs would be of great 

 benefit to the club's composing it. More life and thorough- 

 ness would be infused into yacht clubs, especially those 

 whose fleets are composed principally of open yachts, and 

 who have not the two or three weeks' cruise each fall to keep 

 up the necessary interest. Once each year, or more if possi- 

 ble, a grand combination regatta could be given in New York 

 Bay, and reports of receipts and expenditures turned into 

 each club. Semiannually or quarterly a pamphlet could be 

 issued by the central association to each member of the clubs 

 composing it, containing matter of interest to yachtsmen, and 

 giving a list of yachts, rigs, measurement, owners, and 

 records ; and in many other ways could it be made exceed- 

 ingly useful. 



We need some central authority through which yachtsmen, 

 as a class, can be reached— an authority whose decisions and 

 operations will be looked upon as the standard in all apper- 

 taining to the sport, It is only by concerted action that the 

 crying evils and shortcomings of the racing fleet of to-day 

 can be counteracted, overcome, and the material finally led 

 into channels more worthy of public approval, and more to 

 the dignity and fame of sailing in America. The present 

 family plan, the reckless distribution of cups, prizes and pen- 

 nants to everything from first to last ; the innumerable cham- 

 pionships and counter-championships, class and club cham- 

 pionships ; the manifold methods of classifications, different 

 for every port along the coast, different for every club in the 

 same port ; the odds and ends in the way of measurements ; 

 the looseness of keeping records, and the general inefficiency, 

 limited influence of and rapid decline in the number of 

 entries ;— surely all this is quite enough to convince any one 

 that it is high time this aimless play were brought to an end 

 and a national system of some kind adopted for the purpose 

 of unifying, simplifying and promoting the interests of yacht 

 racing! What signifies it at present that some yacht, 

 unknown to the world, rejoices in the champion pennant, 

 won from some kind of a class, no one remembers when, how, 

 or where? Can there be any satisfaction in winning prizes 

 and things that have no meaning, that are not recognized by 

 any one outside of the half dozen interested local celebrities 

 of Bungtown, who back the Sallie Ann as the " fastest 

 thing afloat?'' 



Let us have a Yacht Racing Association, representing all 

 the clubB of the country. Adopt one rule of classification, 



time allowance and one Bet of sailing regulations. Place all 

 clubs on one basis in these respects. Offer annual, semi- 

 annual or quarterly Association matches, open to all yachts of 

 the country enrolled in recognized yacht clubs. Let these 

 matches take place in stated porls, give stated prizes worth 

 sailing for, and then— not until then— will yacht racing 

 receive recognition as a national pastime. Continued in the 

 present inefficient, ragged sort of a way, racing will always 

 remain as thoroughly characterless, insipid, unsatisfactory, 

 barren and local in results and dwindling in entries as now. 

 Has not the time arrived when the close corporation system, 

 the weakly and desultory efforts of individuals, the fruitless 

 rings of bantling cliques, the mere social aims of yacht 

 racing should give way to something more thorough, more 

 manly, sportsmanlike, and more dignified ? 



Nothing short of the formation of a National Yacht Racing 

 Association will rouse the sport from its worn-out rut, and 

 save racing from falling to the low stage of mere sand-bag 

 professionalism, in which the overrigged and overmanned 

 open boat usurps the place of the legitimate yacht until racing 

 boats and sand-bag sailors become a byword and a reproach 

 to the best and true interests of the sport. The influence of 

 sand-bag racing is pernicious, and a national code of Bailing 

 rules alone can cope with this and similar evils. 



New York Press Club.— The house-warming of the New 

 York Press Club at their new rooms, Nos. 119 and 121 Nas- 

 sau street, last evening, was a most pleasant occasion. The 

 present quarters of the club are commodious and comfortable. 

 Long may its latch-string hang out. 



GAME PROTECTION. 



Those Migratory Quail. —Advices from Messina, under 

 date of May 8th, report the shipment that day of 3,049 

 migratory quail for the gentlemen in this country who have 

 subscribed for them. Inclement weather made the flight of 

 the birds unusually late this season, and after their arrival 

 some days elapsed before a steamer was ready to receive 

 them, but upon the eighth of May they were finally delivered 

 in fine order into the hands of the steamership Zeal for 

 New York. It was hoped that steamers for Boston and 

 Baltimore would take the birds destined for those two cities 

 but as none were at hand they were all shipped for New 

 York, at which port they should arrive between the first and 

 fifteenth of June. From that place they will be sent by ex- 

 press to their several owners. 



The flight of birds at Messina has been unusually small this 

 year, and the orders for foreign shipment unusually large. 

 An increasing demand prevails for the shipment of live birds 

 to England, the orders from that country alone this year 

 bsing far upward of 100,000, a fact which shows the value 

 that is put upon them by the English sportsmen. This in- 

 creasing demand is affecting the market value of the birds, 

 and the importers of this year are to be congratulated upon 

 their purchase, as it is questionable whether shipments can be 

 obtained at so low a rate hereafter. 



A few remarks in reference to the treatment of the birds 

 after their arrival may be not out of place. Experience has 

 shown that the birds nest in tufts of grass in open fields and 

 near running water. It would be well to release them, so far 

 as practicable, in localities which shall tempt them to nest in 

 the vicinity of the spot where they are released, In releasing 

 them care should bo taken that they are not frightened, in 

 which case they may scatter and fly wildly away. A good 

 plan would be to let the birds be a little short of food for a 

 few hours before their release. Carry them to the appointod 

 Bpot, set down the cage, and scatter an abundance of food 

 around it. Unfasten the door, and attach to it a long siring 

 with which it can be quietly opened. Then retire to the 

 length of the string, get out of sight of the birds, and let the 

 birds have time to recover from their flight and become 

 accustomed to their surroundings. Pull the door open as 

 gemly as possible, and the birds will probably run out and 

 feed, and gradually adapt themselves to their new conditions. 

 The spot where they are released should afterwards be 

 occasionally supplied with food, and the quail will be likely 

 to remain in the vicinity, mate and nest, and return to the 

 same spot another year. 



It may be worth whileto keep in confinement a few pairs in 

 a large pen where they can have earth to run upon, and to re- 

 move their eggs as fast as laid, to be hatched under bantam 

 hens. The birds will, under this process, lay more eggs than 

 in their wild state, and the rearing of the young quad will be 

 interesting to those who have a taste for such pursuits. They 

 should be released when large enough to take care of them- 

 selves, and certaiuly before cold weather. 



Pennsylvania.— The fourth annual meeting of the Penn- 

 sylvania State Association for the Protection of Game and 

 Fish will be held at Huntingdon, Pa., on Tuesday afternoon, 

 June 17, 1879, at two o'clock. An invitation series of shoot- 

 ing matches will be held on the following day. The meeting 

 will be under the auspices of the Sportsmen's Association of 

 Huntingdon County. 



Illinois Tournament. — Mr. S. M. Lincoln, President of 

 the Illinois State Sportsmen's Association, announces positive- 

 ly that the postponed tournament will be held at Peoria, June 

 10th to 13th inclusive. An abundant supply of birds has been 

 secured. The cash prizes aggregate $500 in gold, and there 

 are many other valuable prizes. The meeting will bo a bril 

 Uant one. 



