THE 



AMERICAN 



SPORTSMAN^S 



JOURNAL. '^ 



LEatorcd According to Act of Ctongresa, in the year 1879, by the Forest and Stream Publishing Company, In the Office of the Librarian of Congresa, at Washinstrji 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, AUGUST 19.1880. 



CONTENTS. 



Editorial. :— 

 The Tilestou Memorial Fund: Dr. Huth: The New Y-orlc 

 Fish Couimission; A Valued Coadjutor; It Is the Cat; 

 Breeding Quail in Confinement ; Nebraska Field Trials; 

 The American-Canadian Match : The Wimbledon MiUldng 

 Scandal; The Anthracite's FaUure 13 



The Sportssun Toubisi :— 

 Hough Notes from the Woods ; Camp Notes 15 



NATtTRAL HlSIOEY ;— 



Bitera Bit ; That Kat Catcher 17 



FiSH Cdlidre:— 

 Carp Appreciated in Texas ; Shad in the Columbia ; America's 

 Exhibit at Berlin « 



Sea and Biver Fisbing :— 

 Movements of Salmon ; Fly-Fishing: for Shad ; Bass Hods 

 and Bass Nomoaelaiure ; Black Bass and Hock Bass ; Texas 

 Trout; Haugeiey Lakes ; Forked Hirer; Laud-locked Sal- 

 mon in Ha ugeleys J8 



Game Bag and Gun :— 

 A Sporilnff Cobbler ; A Camp Meeting Incident ; How Dan- 

 iel Webster Thought it was a Squirrel ; Fish and Deer in 

 Minnesota ; Game and Doga in Quebec ; Bunched Shots ; 

 New Jersey ; Minnesota Game Prospects ; A Dakota Asso- 

 ciation ; Notes ; Shooting Matches 49 



The Kens EI,:— 

 Of English Dogges ; How Some Dogs Scratch 51 



The Rifle:— 

 The Irish-American Match; The American-Canadian Match; 

 The Wimbledon Marking Scandal ; Kange and Gallery. . . . 49 



Archery :— 

 Private Practice Club 34 



Cricket :— 

 Matches and News Notes 55 



ITaobiinq and CANOEMia:— 

 New York Tacht Club; Cooper's Point Yacht Club; Yacht- 

 ing News 55 



ANSWERS TO Correspondents 5T 



PnBListtERS' Department 51 



For advertising rates, instructions to correspondents, 

 eti., see prospectus at end of reading matter. 



F 



^^ 



OREST^SS-OTREAM 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, AUGUSI 19, 1880. 



THE TILBSTON MEMORIAL FUND. 



New 



Edito;- Forest and Sii 

 I have to acknowledge the receipt to date of further 



tions to tbe "Tilesion Memorial Fund," as follows:- 



Previously acknowl- 

 edged S59300 



Louis B. Wright ai 00 



ASalem Fnend.... 10 00 



Geo. P. Osgood. 85; S. D. 

 Crafts, SI. through U. 

 G. Barker (i Oi 



Geo. G. Barker 5 00 



H.C. Glover 5 00 



York, Auq. Wi. 

 ibscrip- 



I C. E.McMurdo 



C. T. Fauntleroy, North- 

 comb, Hlghampton, 

 Eng., through James 

 Moore, Toledo 



A. Hammersiey, through 

 Forest and Stream.. . 



Total .$030 00 



We have recerved from Mr. P. C. Ohl the promised oil painting 

 of an English snipe, suitably framed, which is a fine work of ait, 

 and the same will be disposed of for the benefit ol the fund at the 

 next regular meeting (in September) of the Eastern Field Trials 

 Club. Fred. N. Hall, Seoretarj-. 



We have received and transmitted to Mr. Hall §5 for 

 the fund, from Mr. A. 8. Smith, Kew York City. 



Dr. Ruth.— Dr. Ruth, the CaUfornia rifle expert, -svill 

 give an exhibition at the Brooklyn Driving Park, Park- 

 ville, L. I., next Saturday afternoon at 3 o'clock. His 

 wife will be present, and will exhibit her skill with rifle 

 and pistol. The shooting wiU be at glass balls, and if 

 Dr. Ruth performs the feat he has had the credit of ac- 

 compUshiug on the Pacific Coast, the entertainment 

 next Saturday will be well worth witnessing. 



— By a very curious coincidence we pubhsh to-day 

 ' ' Bodines' " note on the mother woodcock, which shams 

 lameness, and another account of the same trick of the 

 duck, the litter written three hundred years ago. The 

 chapters of the book " Of EngUsh Dogges " to-day con- 

 tain much that is novel ; but much of these old descrip- 

 tions would answer very well for the present if put into 

 modem English. 



THE NEW YORK FISH COMMISSION. 



AMEETINCr of the New York Commission was held in 

 the city last week, and the subject of the salt water 

 fisheries came up for discussion. These have never re- 

 ceived much attention, if any, from the Commission, 

 although New York has in Long Island a fine stretch of 

 coast, interspersed with magnificent bays, where not 

 only are tons of fishes taken by professional fishermen 

 to supply the great markets, but is a favorite resort for 

 anglers, who take great quantities of bluefish, weakfish 

 and others, which are partly consumed in the hotels, and 

 the remainder find a market in New York, for the angler 

 pays his boatman by the day, and usually gives him all 

 the fish, and there are probably five hundred men in the 

 towns about Great South Bay alone who live entirely dur- 

 ing the summer season by taking parties of anglers out 

 to fish, thus earning from four to five dollars per day, 

 the usual price tor a three to five ton catboat and man, 

 while the fish caught will bring about as much more in 

 many cases. There is no fresh water angling within the 

 waters of the State to compare to it, and it is a question 

 if the commercial fisheries of Long Island do not equal 

 in value those of the rest of the State. Of course no 

 correct estimate of such value can be made until the re- 

 tm-ns from the experts of the United States Fish Com- 

 mission, who are collecting statistics in connection with 

 the census of 1880, are all in. 



At this last meeting Messrs. Roosevelt and Blackford 

 were appointed a committee to investigate thiij subject, 

 and report at the next one the propriety of establishing 

 a station for observation on the habits of valuable sea 

 fishes, and perhaps propagate them. The time has come 

 when this should be done. Fish culture has broadened 

 its field, and no longer contines itself to the saluiouidis or 

 to stocking inland lakes and ponds with bass and "bull- 

 heads.'' The sea is the great feeder of mankind, and the 

 possibilitj' of its being made to produce more of certain 

 favorite kinds is now being rapidly demonstrated, and 

 the New Y'ork Fish Commission is awake to the fact, but, 

 alas I just as they are about to move in this matter thek 

 appropriation is cut down and they are powerless, 



If ever the State appropriated money tor the future 

 benefit of the people, it was in the small amount given 

 for fish cultiu-e, whereby the people obtained cheap and 

 wholesome food from sources which were otherwise un- 

 productive, evidenceof which can be obtained from many 

 portions of the State. 



The bluefish [Pomatomits saltatrix), seems to hold its 

 own, but most of the other valuable food fishes have de- 

 creased in numbers within the past twenty years. Per- 

 haps this is on account of increased fishing ; if so, there 

 has been also an increase of population demanding food, 

 and the way to increase the fishes is not to stop or pre- 

 vent fishing and wait, in old fogy fashion, for them to 

 increase themselves, but to hatch them by the milUon 

 or the hundred of millions, and destroy the sharks and 

 other enemies. If our net fishermen could be induced 

 to kill sharks, sculpins, toad fishes, etc., instead of lift- 

 ing the net and getting rid of them in the easiest man- 

 ner, one good point would be gained and the fishermen 

 and fish commissioners would work in harmony as soon 

 as the former learn that their interests are identical. 



A Valued Coadjutor.— It is satisfactory to notice 

 that Land and Water very heartUy supports the posi- 

 tion taken by Forest and Stream on the subject of 

 summer woodcock shooting. The writer of the article 

 alluded to, after quoting from oiu- recent article on this 

 topic, states that he has "seen young woodcock in 

 more than one of the markets of the Eastern States in 

 July not more than half fledged." The truth is, that the 

 season for woodcock should not open much, if any, be- 

 fore Oct. 1st, and the sooner this fact is recognized by 

 sportsmen of the better class, the sooner the reform which 

 we all desire will come about, 



—Mr, Jerome Marble starts from Worcester, Mass., 

 Sept. 3d, in the sportsman's palace car, the City of Worces- 

 ter, for a short trip In the Northwest. 



IT IS THE CAT. 



FEW people, we imagine, reaUze how fuU of vicissi- 

 tudes and perils is the life of our upland game 

 birds. Take, for example, one of those quail hatched 

 not a hundred rods from your doorstep and reared on 

 your own farm, whose parents you heard whistling on 

 the fence, or the old rocky knoll, every day through the 

 spring and summer— have you ever thought how many 

 enemies that httle thing had to contend with, and how 

 small was the chance that it would ever attain its full 

 size, and spring from before the dogs in November a full 

 fledged bird V From the time that it struggles out of the 

 shell till the hour when, struck by the leaden hail, it 

 turns over to the shot and is pocketed by the satisfied 

 shooter, its life has been one of constant watchfulness, 

 one long series of efl'orta to' escape from constantly im- 

 pending perils. 



The egg from which it is to emerge has been deposited. 

 The parent birds have not been destroyed by the deep 

 drifts of the previous winter, nor have they fallen a 

 prey to the small boy and the pot hunter, who, when 

 the weather is favorable for such nefarious practices, 

 track the innocent birds over the Ught snows, and shoot 

 them when huddled. The nest is prepared and the eggs 

 are laid. Now, other dangers threaten. If the mother 

 is killed ; if by heavj' rain storms the nest is flooded ; if 

 the prowling skunk or the thievish crow discovers its 

 location, the life of our young quail will be a short and 

 not a particularly merry one ; he will never see the day- 

 Ught. 



Let us suppose him happily hatched, however. He 

 starts forth with his brothers and sisters on his journey 

 through life. The chances are ten to one that before 

 three weeks have passed he will have been picked up by 

 a hawk, or carried off some evening, just at dusk, by a 

 soft winged owl, or captured as he passes some old pile 

 of stones, by a weasel, or casually gobbled up by a fox 

 while passing through the swamp. It' he escapes all these 

 dangers, if the weather during his days of extreme juve- 

 nility is warm and dry, so that he gets a fair start and 

 plenty of strength before cold, harsh rains come to chill 

 his small body and make him an easy prey to disease ; if 

 the larvsB of the partridge fly do not fasten on his poor 

 little head and suck away his very life blood ; if 

 none cf these things happen— and aU or any of them 

 are likely to come about — otu' quail has a reasonably fair 

 chance of living for six or seven months, and finally be- 

 ing brought to bag in the approved and legitimate way. 

 From, a quail's ijoiut of view, however, his lot is not a 

 happy one. 



We have enumerated a few of the dangei-s to which 

 some of our upland game birds are subjected, and which 

 it is the sportsman's duty to diminish as far as in him 

 lies. Boimties on hawks, owls, skunks and foxes, offered 

 by gtm clubs and game protective associations, would do 

 much to lessen the number of these vermin, and, hence, 

 to increase the birds in any district. Of aU our hawks 

 the common marsh harrier is one of the most persistent 

 and successful destroyers of quafl, and one of them will 

 more than decimate a growing brood. All the animals 

 mentioned, with the exception of the fox, may be readily 

 destroyed either by the gun or trap, and a little well di- 

 rected efl'ort to this end would, we think, soon be repaid 

 by the improvement in the shooting. But there is one 

 enemy to bird life to which we have not yet alluded, 

 although, in our opinion, it is no less destructive than all 

 the others which we have mentioned. An enemy that 

 hunts indifferently by night or day, in the deepest woods 

 or in the orchard close to the house ; a creattuo that does 

 more to deplete the covey of quail, to destroy the wood- 

 cock, both old and young, and kills more insectivorous 

 birds than all the hawks in a district ; an animal that is 

 the pet of the children and the favorite of the housewife, 

 " What 1 " says some horrified reader, " you don't mean 

 the—" Yes we do. It is the cat. 



A cat that Uves in the house or in the stables and only 

 makes occasional stolen visits to the woods and fields is 

 bad enough, and destroys no small amount of bird life. 

 We have seen such a cat — one that spent all its days ly- 



