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FOREST AND STREAM 



A WEEKLY JOURNAL, 



Devoted to Field and Aquatic Sports, Practical Natural History, 

 jji.-«* *i t -ture, the Protection of Game, Preservation or Forests, 

 akd the Inculcation in Men and Women oy a healthy interest 

 EJ Out-door Recreation and Study : 



PUBLISHED BT 



AT 



17 CHATHAM STREET, (CITY HALL SQUARE) NEW YORK, 



[Post Office Box 2832. 1 



127 SOUTH THIRD STREET, PHILADELPHIA. 



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Terms, Five Dollars a Year, Strictly in Advance. 



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A discount of twenty -five percent, allowed for five copies and upwards. 

 — — «^*^— — 



Advertising Slates. 



In regular advertising columns, nonpareil type, 12 lines to the inch, 2E 

 cents per line. Advertisements on outside page. 40 cents per line. Reading 

 notices, 50 cents per lice. Advertisements in double column 25 per cent, 

 extra. Where advertisements are inserted over 1 month, a discount of 

 i0 per cent, will he made; over three months, 20 per cent; over six 

 months, 30 per cent. 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, DCEEMBER §0,1875. 



To Correspondents. 



, * . 



All communications whatever, whether relating to business or literary 

 correspondence, must be addressed to The Forest and Stream Pub- 

 lishing Company. Personal or private letters of course excepted. 



All communications intended for publication must be accompanied with 

 real name, as a guaranty of good faith. Names will not be published if 

 objection be made. No anonymous contributions will be regarded. 



Articles relating to any topic within the scope of this paper are solicited. 



We cannot promise to return rejected manuscripts. 



Secretaries of Clubs and Associations are urged to favor us with brief 

 notes of their movements and transactions, as it is the aim of this paper 

 to become a medium of useful and reliable information between gentle- 

 men sportsmen from one end of the country to the other ; and they will 

 And our columns a desirable medium for advertising announcements. 



The Publishers of Forest and Stream aim to merit and secure the 

 patronage and countenance of that portion of the community whose re- 

 fined intelligence enables them to properly appreciate and enjoy all that 

 8 beautiful in Nature. It will pander to no depraved tastes, nor pervert 

 Hhe legitimate sports of land and water to those base uses which always 

 tend to make them unpopular with the virtuous and good. No advertise- 

 ment or business notice of an immoral character will be received on any 

 terms ; and nothing will be admitted to any department of the paper that 

 may not be read with propriety in the home circle. 



We cannot be responsible for the dereliction of the mail service, if 

 money remitted to us is lost. 



Advertisements should be sent in by Saturday of each week, if possible. 



CHARLES HALLOCR, Editor. 



WILLIAM C. HARRIS, Business Manager. 



HAPPY NEWYEAR! 



1876. 



i 



FOR the third time the Forest and Stream is permit- 

 ted to extend its congratulations to its patrons, and 

 wish them, according to time honored and gracious cus- 

 tom, a Happy New Year! The intercourse that we have 

 had from the beginning we trust has proved mutually 

 pleasant and advantageous. The times have been distress- 

 ing, and fatal to the vitality of special publications, whose 

 existence is at the best precarious; for statistics show that 

 of each fifty that spring into existence, foity-nine die in 

 their infancy. The law of natural selection asserts its 

 supremacy here as elsewhere, and the weaker go to the 

 wall. Nevertheless, our journal has been favored with a 

 steady accession of subscribers from the date of its an- 

 nouncement, and to-day its success is more fully assured 

 than ever. It is a pleasant duty we owe to the hundreds 

 of contributors who have voluntarily aided us, to thank 

 them for their friendly and inestimable services. We 

 shall endeavor by assiduous exertions to continue deserv- 

 ing of this most comfortable support. 



This is the season of the year for renewing good resolu- 

 tions; the time for wiping off old scores. Metaphorically, 

 it is the period when every man may be said to "spit on 

 his hands and take a fresh hold;" and if all is not lost in 

 the letting go, there is certainly much encouragement for 

 the future. We, in common with the great mass of the 

 people, hope for a marked improvement in business in the 

 course of this Centennial Year ; and if the proud conscious- 

 ness of a completed Century do not brace up and stiffen the 

 energies of our semi-demoralized nation, and stimulate the 

 wisdom and action of our law makers and tariff manipula- 

 tors, then we have no faith in the efficacy of age to make 

 good wine better, or to improve the quality of the spirit of 

 1776. There are some who place no trust in the bow of 

 promise that hangs over the great exposition at Philadel- 

 phia, and who will affect as much surprise at the return of 

 universal prosperity as the friends of Jonah did when he 

 was thrown up on shore! But since no one can tell what 

 a day or a year may bring forth, who shall say what con- 

 tingencies and happenings may not hang upon a Century! 

 Momentous suggestions of what may be dwarf and obliter- 

 ate the speculations as to what might have been. One 

 thing is certain; the New Year's cup of promise is always 

 full, and ardent hopes are interwoven with the chaplet of 

 flowers that twines about it So, then, a bumper to the 

 fickle Goddess, and a wish to all for a "Happy New 

 Year!" 



GAME PROTECTION. 



THE FLORIDA SNAP LAW. 



WE have been notified of a law how in operation in 

 Florida, that imposes a penalty of not less than 

 $50, nor more than $500 upon any non-resident detected 

 in shooting game of any kind, for the purpose of carrying 

 it out of the State, unless he has paid a license of $35, so- 

 cured from the county in which he proposes to hunt. We 

 question the validity of this law, believing it to be entirely 

 unconstitutional, and in this opinion are backed by the 

 most eminent legal counsel of several States. Its hard- 

 ship is insufferable and its provisions ludicrous, for, as 

 very few sportsmen would be likely to confine their hunt- 

 ing and fishing to any one county, the license expenses for 

 the half dozen counties they would wish to visit would 

 amount to a large sum. 



We believe in the letter and spirit of our Constitution, 

 which guarantees the same privileges and immunities to 

 the citizens of one State that it does to another. We 

 believe that the regulation of internal commerce belongs 

 to the General Government and not to individual Stales. 

 We believe that no SUte has the right to station Custom 

 House Officers upon its border, to levy a tax or duty of 

 $25 dollars upon every quail and egret carried out of Ike 

 State; else we should soon be able to stop the wholesale 

 shipment of prairie fowl, quail, and ruffed grouse from 

 sundry States to our metropolitan markets, where dealers 

 stand ready to buy and sell them out of season, in defiance 

 of law, thus offering premium and pretext for disobedience. 

 While we are anxious that some method shall be devised 

 to prevent this shipment we feel that it cannot be accom- 

 plished by such a measure as the one in force in Florida. 

 It will not meet the necesssities of the case, nor the expec- 

 tations of those who secured it. The detention or arrest 

 of supposed offenders is usually left to the discretion of 

 ignorant, inpecunious, and avaricious men, who have al- 

 ways in mind the reward of one half the fine collected, 

 which the law adjudges to them, and who will not readily 

 discriminate between the market hunter and the scientist 

 who is shooting only for specimens. Naturally, every 

 man with a gun will be challenged and examined for his 

 license, and if found without it, arrested on the slightest 

 suspicion that he is something else than an innocent pleas- 

 ure seeker spending his Winter vacation in the pastime of 

 shooting and fishing. Such proceedings will keep every 

 sportsman out of Florida, and shut up all the hotels and 

 sources of revenue that are now making that lately im- 

 poverished State rich. 



A case was brought to our notice last Spring, where an 

 eminent entomologist was brought to a halt with his bug- 

 portfolio, in Brevard county, the ardent prosecutor insist- 

 ing that he required a license under the game laws— he 

 maintaining that insects were game! 



We commend this matter to the attention of the Florida 

 Legislature and shall personally press it next month. 



Detective Leagues for the Protection of Game. — 

 It has long been a prevailing impression on the part of 

 sportsmen in various parts of the State that an appeal to 

 the New York City Association for the Protection of Game, 

 and the reporting of any violation of the game laws, 

 was all that was necessary to insure the prosecution of the 

 offender by that organization.? Not even an offer of co-op- 

 eration is usually made by the country sportsman, but he 

 assumes that gentlemen residing hundreds of miles from 

 his own district will undertake to redress his wrongs and 

 preserve the game for his own delectation and amusement. 

 The work of the above mentioned association has been 

 bravely done in prosecuting dealers, who are after all 

 the evil geniuses of the pot hunter, and by providing a 

 market for his unlawfully captured birds and fishes, aid, 

 abet and encourage him. Country sportsmen should either 

 form themselves into Game Protective Societies or into 

 "Leagues," after the model of the one alluded to below. 



There is another method, one thal-we have advocated 

 before and that we hope soon to see adopted, more partic- 

 alarly with regard to the Adirondack region. Here, over 

 a vast expanse of thinly settled country, the individual 

 sportsman could scarcely be expected to act either as detec- 

 tive or prosecutor; what is required then, is the appoint- 

 ment by the State of an official, or officials, who shall be 

 above the fear of local disrepute or odium, and who shall 

 be invested with full powers to arrest and prosecute to con- 

 viction any offenders . He, or they, should be appointed 

 from some other locality than the one in which they are to 

 officiate, on the principle adopted by the Chinese, who 

 never send a man to govern in his own province, arguing 

 very justly that ties of locality are the first and most apt 

 to cause dereliction of duty. What we want are detectives, 

 appointed, in secrecy if need be, who will ferret out of- 

 fenders and bring them to justice;— 



Pbotedence, R. I., December 10th, 1875. 

 Editor Forest and Stream:— 



The "Forest and Stream League, Elk Horn Lodge," of Providence, R. 

 I was organised Thursday evening.December 9th, by the Chief Com. and 

 officers of the National Lodge. The following were gazetted officers 

 of the lodge for the ensuing year:— 



Chief, Vincent W. Wilson; Vice Chief, Wm. H. Carlisle; Deputy, 

 CharlesH. Hodges; Clerk, Wm. Green; Guide, James Murpa; Sentinel, 

 Thomas Carlisle; Picket, Edward Green. 



Elk Horn Lodge of this League is organized for defending our ga'me 

 laws, and for the protection of game in this State. The main feature of 

 the League is the formation of an independent detective force for the 

 ferreting out of violators of the law, with power to bring the offenders 

 to justice. We are all young men from eighteen to thirty years of age 

 who are engaged in this work, and fully determined to enf orcelthe law 

 (with the means at our command) to its fullest extent. Our motto is 

 "Death to Pot Hunters," and before another season haa passed and gone 



you will no doubt hear of us as a power where we are now hardly known 

 As regards our name, it was one among a dozen presented, and was 

 adopted by a unanimous vote. We are all lovers of the Forest and 

 Stream, aud Bod and Pun, and the Field comes in for its share of 

 our favor. 



Our rooms are*open every evening from 9 to 11 o'clock; our location 

 Burlingame's Block, No. 18 Cranston street, where we would be pleased 

 to see all true sportsmen, whether resident or visiting, at any time. AH 

 the popular papers and magazines, games, foils, dumb bells, and other 

 artie'e.* of amusement, always on hand. We receive members with a 

 form of initiation, full of instruction and reality, which binds us more 

 closely together in the mystic tie of fidelity. The Deputy Commander 

 is prepared to furnish full information to those desirous of organizing a 

 lodge of this League. His address is V. W. Wilson, D. C. C., No. 236 

 Washington street. These lodges should be established in every city 

 and town throughout the country. More anon. Kepotak. 



Jastesville, Wis., December 18th, 1875. 

 Editor Forest and Stream:— 



It is desired to secure, during the coming session of the Wisconsin 

 Legislature, the passage of a law prohibiting the use on Wisconsin wa- 

 ters of batteries, sneak boats, scull boats, and in fact all illegitimate 

 means for hunting waterfowl. 



In order to overcome any opposition that may arise to the passage of 

 such a law, it is thought best to prepare petitions, to be presented to the 

 Legislature. I wish to state to the sportsmen of Wisconsin, therefore, 

 through your eolurns, that printed heads for such petitions are being 

 prepared here, and applications for them to the writer will be promptly 

 attended to. If the sporting clubs throughout the State will take hold 

 of the matter, there will be no difficulty in securing the passage of such 

 a law, which we all know is much needed, if we would protect our water 

 fowl from the depredations of the market hunters. 



You will remember that this matter was talked over during your visit 

 to our club house at Koshkonong this Fall, and I am sure your sympathy 

 is with us in the matter, and that you will aid us as much as possible. 

 Our lakes, and especially Koshkonong, are becoming more aud more cel- 

 ebrated for canvas back shooting, and if the ducks can ba protectei from 

 all but legitimate shooting, the sport will grow better instead of worse. 

 Let us hear from other sportsmen who are interested in the matter. 



A. M. Valentine. 



For several years we did much shooting in Maryland, 

 upon Chesaper.ke Bay, and the rivers empting into that 

 hay, and have had ample opportunity of observiug 

 the effect of shooting wild fowl from batteries and sneak 

 bouts; and we are fully convinced that if the State 

 had not passed laws prohibiting such shooting, and had 

 those laws not been strictly enforced, those splendid 

 game water fowl, the canvas backs, red-heads, and other 

 delicious ducks, would have been exterminated or driven 

 from those waters long ere this. You have our full sym- 

 pathy and shall have our warmest support. 



—The "Capital Sportsmen's Club," of Topeka, Kansas, 

 have resolved not to shoot any more quail during the re- 

 mainder of the open season, which continues until March 

 1st; this in view of the present scarcity of these birds. 

 The same club is striving to secure a law to prevent whole- 

 sale destruction of game and its shipment to markets out- 

 side the State, an effort which should be imitated through- 

 out the whole West. 



—The Fish and Game Protection Club of the Province 

 of Quebec, Canada, held its annual meeting, last week, 

 McPherson Lemoine, Esq., in the Chair. The following 

 gentlemen w ere elected officers:— 



McPherson Lemoine, President; E.M. Copeland, Vice- 

 President; A. N. Shewan, Secretary; W. H. Rintoul, 

 Treasurer; Maurice Cuvillier, R. A. Alio way, D. D. 8., 

 George A. Drummond, W. II. Kerr (legal adviser of the 

 club), F. W. L. Pentou, F. J Brady, James Esdaile, H. 

 W. King, D. B. Willv, and R. H. Kilby, Committee. The 

 Chairman stated that""the club is determined to use every 

 effort to see that the fishing and game laws are carried out, 

 both by offering rewards for the conviction of offenders, 

 by employing detectives to watch suspected persons and 

 places, and by circulating copies of the laws concerning 

 rish and game printed in both the English and French 

 languages." 



In view of the noble and pertistent efforts that the Sec- 

 retary, Mr. Sbewan, has made for the protection of game 

 in Canada for years past, we are proud to be able to state 

 that he has served as the general agent of Forest and 

 Stream in Quebec and Ontario for a long period. 



—The following amendments were made in the Quebec 

 game laws during the present session:— Elk, moose, caribou 

 and red deer or their fawns are not to be killed or taken 

 between the 1st of March and the 1st of September for the 

 districts of Quebec, Chicoutimi and Saguenay, and between 

 the 1st of February and the 1st of September for the rest 

 of the Province; no otter to be taken between the 1st of 

 May and the 1st of October; no beaver between the 30th 

 of April and the 30th of September, and no inuskrat 

 between the 1st of June and the 1st of April following for 

 the districts of Quebec, Chicoutimi, Saguenay, Montmagny, 

 Kamouraska, Rimouski and Gaspe, and between the 1st ot 

 May and the 1st of April following for the rest of the Pro- 

 vince. No wild duck to be killed between the 1st of May 

 and the 20th of August, nor any wild swan, teal, &c., &c., 

 between the 1st of May and the 1st of September in the 

 parts of the Province west of Three Rivers, nor between 

 the 15th of May and the 20th of August for wild duck, 

 and between the 15th of May and the 1st of September for 

 other game above mentioned in the section east ot lnree 

 Rivers. No snipe to be shot between the 1st of May ana 

 the 20th of August, nor any grouse, ptarmigan partridge 

 and woodcock between the 1st of March and the 1st oi 

 September. 



—Within two weeks past a party from Winooski, Vt., 

 have killed a dozen deer among the Adirondacks, ana 

 another party from Burlington destroyed nearly as many. 

 Too much w^^ste, gentlemen ! 



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—Any persons having spare copies of the issue of Forest 

 and Stream of March 5th, 1874, will render us a great 

 service hy mailing them to us, as we cannot bind volume 

 II complete without them. We will cheerfully refund the 

 price. 



Florida.— Parties who buy our "Camp Life m Florida 1 ' 

 can save twenty -five per cent, of their travelling expenses, 

 by its purchase 



