Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



NEW YORK, AUGUST 30, 1883. 



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Editorial. 



The Rail Shooting. 



The Farmer and the Game 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



e Breton. 

 Xa: 



He « 



'apt 

 oufinement. 



Game 

 The Game Laws. 

 A Shot by the Wavside. 

 Game in Massachusetts. 

 New Jersey Deer Law. 

 Mosquitoes. 



Iti ' .)• li'-L \Al.el'_i]ie. 



' -."I -, !■: ■■■■■ - 



. ,ii> i . i ■■ : i ',!< i.-c --.,■.'.■■■ 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



Tin- Talmud on the Fisheries. 

 Blade Bass in England. 

 Tarpon Fishing. 

 Small and Large-Mouth Black 



Bass. 

 Odd Angling Incideuts. 

 The Vice- Regal Angling Party. 

 ',:::: '-:. - • ' ' -jis 



'■ I".'. I I. "li'.'l'ii .-' " ' I'M I "', 'ill 



A Word for the Sunflsh. 

 Fishculture. 

 Pot nd Nets and Seines. 

 The Oyster Problem Solved. 



CONTENTS. 



j The Kennel. 



I Blinking. 



Pointers. 



Dogs at the New York Show. 



Chat about Dogs. 



Kennel Notes. 



Kennel Management. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 



Range and Gallery- 



( Jived iii oo r Programmes. 



Dominion Riiie Shooting. 



Muzzle vs. Breech. 



The Trap. 



The Clay Pigeon. 

 Canoeing. 



'1 In- '■- .i :r -.i'i .'■ ..', I .-j. i - i I .. 



Waterproofing Canvas. 



The ',: :,.:r ."licet. 



Yachting. 



In Port. 



Echoes from the Marblehead 

 Race. 



Hera-Liile .1 :..'■. 



The Death Trap Mystery 



Boston Y. C. 



Practical Test of Displacement. 



Hard Work Appreciated. 



A Clown on Himself. 



Hull Y. C. Open Match. 



Wave-Shadow Matches. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



John McCullom, John Brown, Lew Gilbert, the three Wood 

 brothers, George Morris and Ben Badger. 



At Chester, which is reached in the same way as Lazaretto, 

 Goff 's Hotel is a good place to stop at, and John Goff will 

 furnish all the information possible to any one who writes 

 to him, and will engage pushers for those who are coming. 

 Some of the men who push from here are Isaac Rothwell, 

 Dick Brown, Ben Harris, Jacob Miller, Charles Goff, Sam 

 Brown, Bill Preston, Sam Preston, Perry Allen, and others. 



The North Haven Meadows, about six miles from New 

 Haven, are favorite resorts for the rail, but it is only 

 during unusually high tides that they can be pushed over. 

 We have, however, known of over 200 birds being killed 

 there in a single tide by a gentleman of New Haven. 



Essex is reached by the Hartford & Connecticut Valley 

 Railroad from Hartford or Middletown. The Essex and 

 Ely meadows arc large, and the shooting very good. 

 Clark's Hotel, Lyme, Conn., is a good place to go to. Bill 

 Flint, his son, and son-in-law are capital pushers. Any one 

 who intends to go there, should write to Clark in advance 

 and make arrangements. 



Every one who has shot rail much knows that the morning 

 tides are usually poor, and the evening ones good. Other 

 things being equal, the higher the tide the belter the pros- 

 pect for birds. Westerly or northwesterly winds are bad 

 for the shooting, because they lower the water, while east- 

 erly winds pile it up and make a high tide, which drives the 

 birds from their places of concealment, makes the water 

 deep over spots where usually a boat cannot be pushed, and 

 so enables the shooter to get into many a patch of grass or 

 reeds from which it has hitherto been impossible to drive its 

 inhabitants. Although there is in rail shooting little of the 

 excitement which is part of upland, and even of sea shoot- 

 ing, it is in many respects very delightful sport, and the 

 birds are extremely delicious eating. 



Rail are the easiest birds in the world to hit, and as they 

 usually rise close to the boat, the lighter the charge and 

 smaller the shot the better. 



ground for apprehension that the game statutes of this conn- 

 try will ever be harsh; there is much more reason to fear 

 that "the game must go" before we can ever secure a reason- 

 able regard for such moderate laws as we have already. 



The way in which the landowner may maintain his ex- 

 elusive right to the shooting on his land is by compelling a 

 rigid observance of the trespass law. In several of the States 

 this property or right of the landowner in the game is rec- 

 ognized by the statutes, wherein it is provided that trespass- 

 ers who shoot game on posted land shall be liable to a fine 

 additional to the actual damages proved. As is well known, 

 an ordinary trespass suit is likely to result in a finding of 

 six cents damages. 



With its compact type and in its per 

 of twenty-eight pages this journal fui 

 amount of first-class matter relating 

 kennel, and kindred subjects, than i 

 American publications put together. 



namrailji enlarged form 

 lishes each iveelc a larger 

 o angling, shooting, the 

 contained in all other 



THE RAIL SHOOTING. 



XN most of the States which have laws protecting this 

 species, the season opens September 1. This date we 

 consider early enough, for under ordinary conditions, the 

 birds do not begin to migrate until the last of August, and 

 those which are found on the marshes during the latter 

 month have been bred there, and are not yet fat. When the 

 cool nights have come and the foliage is just beginning to 

 turn, the rail begin to travel. At this time, too, the corn 

 grass, or wild rice, begins to ripen, and as your boat swishes 

 through the tall stalks, the full seeds rattle down into it 

 with a pleasant sound, which always brings back to your 

 mind memories of other early autumn days when the birds 

 were plentier than they now are, and shooters were less 

 numerous. 



The favorite spots for rail shooting are at Lazaretto and 

 Chester, in Delaware; on the Hackensack Meadows, in New 

 Jersey; on the North Haven Meadows and those near Essex, 

 in Connecticut. The Delaware shooting grounds are per- 

 haps the lust known, and, being within easy reach of Phila- 

 delphia, there is usually a full attendance of shooters on days 

 when the tide is right. Miller's Hotel, at Lazaretto, is a 

 good place to start from, and is also convenient to the rail- 

 road station (Moore's) of the P., W. & B. R. R. Trains 

 leave Philadelphia (Broad and Market streets) at short inter- 

 vals throughout the day, viz., 7:35. 10:16, A. M., 1:32, 2:30, 

 3:16, 4:25, 5:30, 6:20, 6:36, 8:30, 0:30, 10:30, P. M. Men 

 and boats can be had here, and the proprietors of the hotel 

 will, we think, be glad to inform those who write to them 

 as to the prospects for the shooting. It is well, also, to write 

 and engage your pusher some days in advance, as oftentimes, 

 ■when there is a rush of shooters, the men are all engaged. 

 Among the well-known shovers on the river at this place are 



THE FARMER AND THE GAME. 



IN a recent issue we called attention to the fact that the 

 common law respecting wild game in this country is 

 identical with that of England. A correspondent protests 

 that the English game laws are proverbially harsh and un- 

 just, repugnant to the spirit of our free institutions, and will 

 never be tolerated by American citizens. The protest is 

 more patriotic than logical, and is evidently inspired by a 

 failure to note the distinction between the common law and 

 the statute law. That the English game statutes are unrea- 

 sonably severe and oppressive we grant; and we share our 

 correspondent's belief that such an iniquitous system would 

 never be endured in this country. The common law relating 

 to game is quite a different thing, and is, we beg to suggest, 

 very good law for this country. 



Take, for instance, the subject of the discussion referred 

 to, namely, the property in wild game. This property, as 

 we have shown, is a very peculiar and limited one, being 

 merely the exclusive right, to kill or capture the game, and 

 it vests in the owner or occupant of the land where the game 

 is at the time found. Now in England, where vast landed 

 estates are leased to tenant farmers, the proprietor of each 

 estate, by special contract, reserves to himself the exclusive 

 control of the game. The tenant is forbidden to destroy the 

 game even as a course of self-protection if his crops are 

 damaged, as they often are. The farming classes are thus 

 practically at the mercy of an aristocratic class of proprie- 

 tors whose hobby for sport overrides everything else. To 

 protect this class statute If. .vs have been enacted which pro- 

 hibit poaching by penalties^out of all proportion to the mag- 

 nitude of the offenses, and provide for the conviction of 

 offenders by trial processes which violate the fundamental 

 principles of English law and liberty. 



In this country, on the contrary, there is neither the power- 

 f u I class of sport-loving proprietors to secure such unjust laws, 

 nor the class of small tenant, farmers to be oppressed by them. 

 The average American farmer owns the farm on which he 

 dwells, and can therefore, control the shooting on it, subject, 

 of course, to the State legislation respecting close and open 

 seasons. We are at a loss to conceive in whom this property 

 in game (or in other words the right of capturing it) should 

 vest if not in the man who owns and occupies the land. 

 This is common law, which is common sense. 



The American game statutes now in force are far from 

 oppressive on anybody. What they may be in the future 

 will depend altogether upon the wisdom of the men who 

 ore sent to our respective State Legislatures, There ia little 



Association Books. —We have received from Mr. N. E. 

 White, of the Sacramento Bee, the Proceedings of the third 

 annual convention of the California State Sportsmen's Asso- 

 ciation, held at Gilroy last May. The pamphlet contains 

 the several addresses and essays read at that meeting; they 

 afford ample evidence of the society's high character, and 

 give good reason for the liveliest, anticipations of the good 

 work to be accomplished by the members, Although 

 the association is in years one of the youngest of 

 the many similar State societies, it is a live or- 

 ganization, and has already wrought a most decided 

 change in the public sentiment regarding game in Califor- 

 nia. We are also just in receipt of the Sixth Annual Book 

 of the Michigan Sportsmen's Association, being the trans- 

 actions in full of the convention at Detroit last January. 

 The proceedings and papers were published in this journal 

 at the time. They cover a wide range of subjects, and the 

 edition of 2,500 copies of the book which have 

 been scattered all over Michigan cannot fail to 

 have a most salutary effect. The New Hampshire 

 Fish and Game League appear to have hit upon a plan of 

 publication which, while less expensive to the League, un- 

 doubtedly secures the grand end sought, which is the en- 

 lightenment of the public and the awakening of a respect 

 for the game and fish laws of man and nature. The New 

 Hampshire folks have their speeches printed in the annual 

 reports of the State Fish Commission. 



Diana. — This is the time of the year that the newspapers 

 pass around stories of heroines in the field. There- is 

 usually a Californian huntress. This year the tale runs that 

 Miss Mary Steins, who lives in Sonoma county, Cal., has 

 during the present season killed eight deer with a rifle. 

 Massachusetts is not to be outdone; the Boston Traveller, 

 of Aug. 17, reported that "a lady, a former teacher in one 

 of the Quincy schools, at Nantasket beach yesterday shot 

 eighteen peep, seven yellow-legs, five brow r nbacks, over the 

 decoys set in a salt pond near the house, and taking off her 

 shoes and stockings, waded into the water and landed her 

 game." Apropos of a picture in one of the illustrated 

 papers last week, in which a young lady was represented as 

 having wounded a deer in the Adirondacks, we heard an 

 animated discussion upon the merits of deer shooting as a 

 pastime for the fair sex, One said that he should take the 

 greatest pleasure in giving a lady who was very deaf to him 

 a good shot at a deer in the woods; while another contended 

 that shooting game was unladylike and not in accord with 

 his ideal of womanly character. The Forest asd Stream 

 having been appealed to maintained a discreet silence. 



"Between. "—There has been much doubt about the 

 opening and closing of the game seasons in certain States 

 where the law read "between" certain dates. Elsewhere 

 will be found a note from a legal correspondent, who ex- 

 plains that the word "between" is to be interpreted as ex- 

 cluding the dates specified in each case. 



The Princess Louise, who had "good luck" on her 

 salmon angling excursion, certainly deserves a compliment 

 for her pluck in braving the winged insect terrors of the 

 Cascapedia. 



"FOREST AND STREAM" FABLES. 



A MUiSQUITO and a 

 ■*»■ was most grievoi 



Wasp fell into a Dispute as to whose Weapon 

 & to the one attacked. Aftermuch contl trtton 

 they agreed to leave it to the Skunk to decide. Tfr. after duly con- 

 sidering the matter, said, "1 think the Wasp has the better of If, for 

 though the Musquito greatly worrletb his enemy, the Wasp most 

 speedily putteth his to Flight. I am provided with two Weapons, and 

 though I can bite sorely with my Muzzle, I fin 1 that my greater 

 Strength lies In my Breech.' 1 

 Moral,-Tbe Breech-loader i; ahead, 



