Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 8, 1883. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



Tub 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. 



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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



' ,,, 1 ,■■ '.In .In - 



The Old Gun. 



( ■•ill' i ,-inciii '.ii' ii'i; 



The Duck Shooting. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 

 Adirondacks. 



Notes of tin; Yi Hi m stone Trip. 



Reminiscences of Algiers. 

 Natural History. 



':.,!i.- .v-ii-,i] K""i.i"- 



iiii'ii r.i'ii Ftel ' : m or Fishes. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



We Went Duck Hunting. 



Tied to a Pony. 



A Visit to ' ldHunting Grounds. 



Profession;;.] Mm ami Game. 



Si,. Louis Sifting. 



A November in Cain].). 



Western Notes. 



I'oiia, !;.][, nn > .ili"; 



Some Guns I Have Owned. 

 Alterations in Guns. 

 Game in Nebraska. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 

 Poaching in Pennsylvania, 

 Tunny Fishing in the Mediter- 



Fishci 



The London Awards. 

 Tee Kennel. 



Eastern Field Trials. 



Louisville Bench Show. 

 Collies. 



. ". ,... ■•,,-:•: ... .:.; 



The Kennel Hospital.— iv. 

 Fit-Id and Water Spaniels. 

 Kennel Notes. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 

 Range and Gallery. 

 The Trap. 

 Clay-Pigeon Medals. 



Cruising Information. 

 The Chart Locker. 

 Winter Camp-Fires. 

 The Meet of 1884. 

 Watertight Compartments. 

 Waterproofing Fabrics. 



He toon a Cruise. 

 A Sharpie Challenge. 

 Concerning Open Boats. 

 Opinion of an Expert. 



'Hi Hi: iVi:.. i • i :.. V; : :i: 

 I -;,-;' I '-"> ' ,'. 



Bottom Facts AbouttheSharpie 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



business with him, ami every shot must tell. The sportsman 

 may return home happy even if he take back no feathers; 

 but. who can imagine a sordid market shooter with an empty 

 game pocket and a smiling face? Then there are all the 

 minor haps and mishaps of the craft, they add to the zest of 

 the amateur's excursion, but to the professional shooter they 

 are as knots in the cord wood to the small boy with a buck 

 saw. When the sportsman misses a bird, he has at least the 

 comfort of the reflection that he "almost got it," and he can 

 enlarge to his hearers at night, on how difficult a shot it was; 

 but when the unfortunate market, shooter loses a bird, he 

 loses with it the twenty-five cents or half-dollar it would 

 have netted in the market, and when his gun mis-fires on a 

 raking pot-shot the loss and mortification are not to be 

 estimated save at current wholesale market rates. 



It is well that those who contemplate taking upon their 

 shoulders the cast-off mantles of the market gunners should 

 understand that the life is one of hardship. It is also ill- 

 paid. There are professional gunners who make the thing 

 pay. It is often the case that the part of the business that 

 pays best is a direct violation of the law; the snarer and the 

 crust-hunter, and the fellow who sends June woodcock and 

 the chicken grouse to market, often have a fair 

 margin of profits; but then, on the other hand, 

 there is always the chance that their rascality 

 may be detected and they themselves "jugged." But 

 such methods of work are, of course, not proper subjects of 

 consideration here, for we take it for granted that those per- 

 sons who seek our advice would not care to engage in aDy 

 branch of the market shooter's work that would conflict with 

 their standing as good citizens of the State. 



Successful market hunting requires ability and pluck, 

 which, if properly directed, would insure success in a more 

 honorable pursuit. We advise all young men, who are about 

 to enter this profession of arms, to think better of it and 

 learn a trade. 



him, old hunters of the by -gone days when caplocks first 

 came in and game was plenty; over whose tough old bones 

 the grass has grown and withered, and the snow lain for 

 many a year, an 1 who are now remembered more by the guns 

 they canied than by their grave-stones. For the sights their 

 now faded eyes beheld, for a chance at the game their guns 

 brought down, what would one not give? The old gun is a 

 link that holds one to the past. Let us not despise it, though 

 it is of a fashion of other days— though it is rusted and bat- 

 tered and its maker's name worn off and forgotten, it has 

 that in it more enduriug than iron, that which no new gun 

 can have, no matter how handsome or good. 



With its compact type and in its permanently enlarged form 



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

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

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

 American publications put together. 



THE OLD a UN. 



F 



' OUR CANDID ADVICE. 



WE arc frequently in receipt of letters from young men, 

 who want our advice about becoming market shooters. 

 Here is an inquiry of this kind from Coos county, New 

 Hampshire : 



Can you tell me of a good place where there would be any chance 

 for a couple of young men to make anything hunting this winter, 

 say good fair pay* I am not able to go into the woods for a good 

 day's work logging. I would like to try hunting, which I am pretty 

 well posted in. having been in the woods from one to two months for 

 live tails. 



We usually seek to discourage such a correspondent from 

 carrying out his intention of becoming a professional shooter. 

 The killing of game for sale is poor business. It is not the 

 life of elegant ease and indolence, so often painted by the 

 fond fancy of those unacquainted with the average market 

 hunter's routine. A taste for shooting and skill in the pur- 

 suit of game are not sufficient to insure success in this call- 

 ing. One must also have a tough physical constitution, a 

 capacity to endure fatigue and privation, and a stolid philos- 

 ophy that will bear the brunt of inevitable hardship. 



Many young men who find pleasure as amateur sportsmen 

 forget that shooting for sport and shooting for a living are 

 two veiy different employments; one is play, the other work. 

 The sportsman, who seeks pleasure first and game after- 

 ward, is independent of the weather; he need not expose 

 himself to the elements when the blast is too chilling or the 

 air too damp; he may sit by the stove and wait for a more 

 propitious time. But the market hunter must bolt his break- 

 last and be out on his post, rain or shine, hot or cold. If 

 the birds do not fly, the spoilsman may while away the time 

 with a companion or in the interest of his surroundings; but 

 the market hunter finds little comfort outside of bagging his 

 game. The amateur may now and then'try a long and doubt- 

 ful shot, but the gunner who shoots for what he can make 

 cannot waste ammunition by any such nonsense; it is pure 



T is not to be denied that there is great satisfaction to the 

 sportsman in being the owner of a fine new gun. The 

 perfect result of the handicraft of a master of the art of gun- 

 making; apiece so nicely balanced that, it will almost take 

 the line of flight of the swiftest flying bird of its own mere 

 motion; all its parts so neatly fitted that a spider's web in- 

 serted might cause a jam; its polished and gracefully turned 

 stock the chosen bit of many a goodly tree; the variegated 

 barrels almost as beautiful to look upon in their regular irreg- 

 ularity as a golden and purple barred sunset sky, or the 

 r of a rippled lake. It is a delight to the eye to look 

 upon, to the hand to hold, a satisfaction to the soul to feel 

 that one is the possessor of such a weapon. And yet, like 

 other riches, and like love, it has its cares, anxieties and 

 jealousies. One dislikes to be caught in the rain with such 

 ;un in its untarnished beauty, or to take it out under 

 threatening skies, or to breast haphazard blackberry briars 

 with it in hand; to leave it at night uncleaned, though the 

 day's tramp has been a weary one, and all one's muscles and 

 bones cry out for rest. One's richer neighbor may have a 

 costlier gun, hence a pang of unchristian envy, and the 

 breaking of a holy commandment, all for a stock and a bit 

 of iron. 



Not these frets and worries and ungodly heart-burnings 

 are felt by him whose only weapouly possession is an 

 ancient muzzle-loader, the barrels whereof half way from 

 breech to muzzle are worn bare of their first and only 

 browning, with stock battered, scratched and bruised, locks 

 rickety and inviting irrigation. The rains may fall upon it 

 and brambles scratch it, and it he none the worse for looks or 

 use. Its owner may hang it on its hooks at. night, with barrels 

 foul and dully blushing with a film of rust; and sup with 

 slow comfort and then betake himself to dreamless sleep, un- 

 t roubled by thought of duty unperformed. 



Then what happy memories are awakened by the sight 

 and touch of the old gun. with which one's first woodcock 

 and snipe, wild duck and grouse were brought down. The 

 very alder brake, and bog, river bend, and russet and green 

 bit of heech and hemlock woodland rises before him, each 

 the scene of a first glorious triumph in autumns long ago, 

 and each in apparition almost as real as then, though all are 

 changed or passed away. This bruise of the stock anil dent 

 in the barrel were got in a tumble over a ledge when you 

 were rushing for a runway, and you remember how your 

 heart tumbled at the time, and it aches and burns yet with 

 the fall it got, and the recollection of lost opportunity. 



But for use the old gun is as good as it was then — though 

 its owner is not quite, perhaps — and as for looks, he has none 

 the better of it, Maybe there were those who used it before 



RANGE AND GALLERY MURDERS. 



SEVERAL recent cases of death in and about ranges and 

 galleries seem to call for special comment on the sub- 

 ject. During the past week we read of the instant killing 

 of two men. During the practice of the First Regiment of 

 State Militia, near Chicago, Garret Huyck was shot while 

 passing in front one of the targets, and in a New York 

 gallery Charles Sams dropped dead with a .22-caliber bullet 

 in his brain. In this city alone there have been, during as 

 many years, a dozen cases of death from firearms in places 

 where pistol and rifle practice was carried on. As far back 

 as August 14, 1867, we recollect, the killing of Mr. G. W. 

 Jones in a gallery. At the Jones' Wood gallery, on Septem- 

 ber 27, 1871, Charles Baumann was killed. At a target 

 shoot between 109th and 110th streets, on June 3, 1872, Fred 

 Muiler fell a victim. James Fitzpatrick, on November 11, 

 1872, during a parade of the Martin Reynolds Guard, was 

 shot dead at Funk's Park, and in the gallery at 82 Bowery, 

 Philip Becker, a boy, was killed on December 23, 1877, and 

 the jury in sitting on the ease recommended that men instead 

 of boys be alone employed in galleries. More recent cases 

 have been noted from time to time in our columns and are 

 yet fresh in the minds of our readers. 



It is nonsense to say that such accidents are unavoidable. 

 They are entirely within the bounds of preventability, and 

 where they occur some one should be held responsible. A 

 slovenly conducted range or gallery where the attendant is 

 expected to march in front of the target to examine the re- 

 sults of shooting, or for any other purpose whatever, is noth- 

 ing more than a death trap. There are methods of arranging 

 targets and butts so that results may be known promptly and 

 accurately, while the markers cannot expose themselves to 

 danger. The most reckless marker at Creedmoor cannot get 

 his foolish head out of the marking trap and so cannot do 

 more than receive the splash from a bullet. He cannot get 

 in the line of fire. Then with a few simple rules touching 

 the sort of arms to be used and the manipulation of them it 

 is easy to reduce the chances of accident to an immaterial 

 minimum. That these are not mere theories and speculative 

 statements is shown in the fact that Creedmoor, with a 

 record of twelve years' shooting and after millions of rounds 

 have been fired, does not include a single instance of any 

 fatality resulting from the use of arms. 



What has been done at one range may be done at another, 

 and what is done at a broad, open-air shooting ground with a 

 score of targets stretched along in a line may he done in an 

 nclesed gallery where only a few rules, rigidly enforced, 

 secure ample protection to marksmen, attendants and spec. 

 tutors, and any master of a shooting establishment who neg. 

 leets to take every precaution for the protection of life, in 

 connection with his business, is so far guilty of a culpable 

 negligence, and deserves punishment at once, without any 

 waiting until there is a victim to hold an inquest over. 



A sapient coroner's jury in a recent case finds that death 

 was due to an "accident," and then further displays its 

 ignorance by recommending that hereafter in all galleries the 

 use of ball cartridges be prohibited. People fall from win- 

 dows, scores of them each year in this great city, but not 

 even a coronor's jury have yet recommended the walling up 

 of these convenient apertures. With the present make of 

 gallery rifle and pistol, and with the remarkable uniform- 

 ity which has been reached in the making up of the small 

 cartridges used, it is entirely possible to carry on prael ice with 

 pleasure and profit. The uncertainty of such toys as air- 

 guns does not come in to render all the shooting a mete 

 matter of luck. Skill may be acquired and will win against 

 inexperience and incompetency, and it is the height of foolish 

 nessto suppose that gallery practice is to cease, because a few 

 deaths, caused not by the use, but by the abuse of the sys- 

 tem, now and then occur. 



There is need of regulation and supervision, but not of 

 suppression in the matter. The average shooting gallery in 

 a city seems to be a place of resort by half drunken royster- 

 ers, to make tests of the comparative drunkenness of the vari. 



