~_^^ 



THE AMERICAN SPORTSMAN^S JOURNAL. 



I Entered AccorUlag lo Act ot Congrass. In tlip. j-oar urs, by Che Forest aafl Stream PuTOlshIng Company, to the OIBcr of the Uhrarian ot Congress, at M'awULngton.] 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7, I880. 



r y^rk. 



CONTENTS. 



EmTOBiAL :— 



Appreciated ; Fish Out of Water ; Keport of the New York 

 Fish Commisaion ; Larmch of the Baft ; The Detonation 

 of " Dittmar Sporting Powder ;" Habits of Sahnon ; Steam- 



boatB and Fish : 183 



The Spoktsman ToiraiST :— 

 October ; An Old-Timo Negro Huntsman ; Non-Kesidont 



Game Laws 185 



Natcbai, HisTOiiv :— 

 The Freiio)! Deep Sea Dredging : The Unknown Brazilian 

 Edentate ; Tniuo Quail : The Em-opean Euff in Massachu- 

 setts ; Sun and Full HIooii ; The Odontnrnithca 185 



PiHH Ctotube :— 

 How the Fu-st Shad w^ere Hatched ; Qiiinnat Sainton Land- 

 Locked ; Now Hampshire ; Kehraska.. 186 



Sea A^•D Eiteb Fjbiumi !— 

 Spring-Spawning Salmon — The Grilse ; Eel Traps Which 

 Take Bass ; Fish Parasites ; Eangeley Lakes ; Growth of 



Carp ; An Encysted Rsh Hook ; Detroit Notes 186 



Game, Bao and Gtin :— 

 Echoes of the " Dittmar Sporting Powder" ; Florida Shooting ; 

 A Florida Cmise ; That New Jersey Woodcock Law ; Duck 

 Shooting Near Ryracnge : Ohio On " '^', ,:■ ^ : Texas; 

 Long Island Foresters: South ( ; -'i^ Dog; 



Our DetroH Lottery Jlilliou.s , ; ^ : i Lake ; 



Notes ; Shooting Matches 1S8 



The Kennei, :— 

 Pennsylvania Field Trials ; Importations ; Tlie English Set- 

 ter ; Who Has This Dog ? lionnclNotes 190 



The Buxe :— 



Eange and Gallery ; Schuetzen Notes 192 



Aeoheut : — 

 The Grand National Meeting of the Archers of Great Britain ; 



Highland Park ; Random Archery Clubs 193 



CniCKETf :— 



England vs. Australia _ 194 



Yachting aud CASOEiNb :— 

 Trimming by Our Sails ; The Weather Gauge ; Yachting 

 News ; Yachting ou Lake Ontario ; Beverly Yacht Club ; 



Beveriy Sweopstakes : Bessie-Lyda 195 



ANSWBUS to fJOtlRESPONDENTS 196 



PuBLisHEKs' Dep.vetment 191 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7, 



Apphboiatet).— We publish elsewhere, as an indication of 

 the popular .sentinacnt on the subject, some of the letters 

 which are coming to us imlorsiug om- com-se in respect to the 

 "Dittmar Sporting Powder." Indeed no other course was 

 open to us. Having fully satislied ourselves of the peculiarly 

 dangerous nattire of this rouipound, we could have done 

 nothing else than just what we did, namely, publl.sh the facts 

 fully and fearlessly. To perform what we believed to be our 

 duty was in itself .sufficient satisfaction. The assurances that 

 our action is appreciated gives us added gratification. 



Fian Out of Watek.— It is well known that some fishes 

 can exist out of w;ii,er for a long time, and many instances 

 are upon record of cmvi., catfish, fresh water gars and others 

 whicii have some way of Ivceping the gills moist, and so are 

 enabled to breathe om- atmospliere ; hut we now have to re- 

 cord an instance of a fish being shipped by rail a long dis- 

 tance, and arriving there alive and safe. Dming tlie past 

 summer Col. McDonald, of the U. S. Fish Commisaion, while 

 pursuing his investigations for the census of the fishery inter- 

 est, happened, while in Alabama, to obtain two large buffalo, 

 B^tbalkthys w-m, from the Alabama River, wliich he wished 

 to send to the Smithsonian Institution, and tliiukmg that it 

 might arrive in better condition if left alive as long as possi- 

 ble, he packed in the Southern or "Spanish" moss, and de- 

 livered it to the express ofllce at Montgomery, where it lay 

 twelve hom-3 before starting. Exactly how much time 

 elapsed between the taking of the fl,sh from the water and 

 the opening of the box in Wasliington we do not know, but 

 certain it ia that when it was opened both fish were alive. 



REPORT OF THE NE\V YORK FISH 

 COMMISSION. 



THE eleventh annual report of the Commissioners of Fish- 

 eries of the State of Sew York for the two 3'ear8 end- 

 ing December 31, 1879, has just been laid before us, no re- 

 port having been made last year. From it we learn that 

 there has been a steady advimce and improvement in all de- 

 partments, and a gradual but apparent replenishment of the 

 rivers and lakes. Complaint is made that the efforts of the 

 Commission arc to a certain extent cotmteracted by the reck- 

 less disregard with which protective laws are treated by a cer- 

 tain portion of the commiuiity that would enjoy or destroy 

 in the present to the neglect of the futm-e, and we are glad 

 to see that the Commissioners are becoming interested in the 

 subject of laws, as we believe that the whole question of fish 

 laws in every State sliould be considered by its Fish Commis- 

 sion, and no law passed without their sanction and approval, 

 while they should at the same time be empowered to enforce 

 them. The policy of the New York Commission has been to 

 educate the people up to the point of taking care of the fish 

 wliich they supply them with, and a beaittiful policy it would 

 be if it were luit for the fact that there are in every commu- 

 nity per.so)is who have uo thought or caj-e for the general wel- 

 fare, and who would take the last trout or shad in the stream 

 for their own taWe or for market, if it were possible to get 

 it, and that they recoguize this is sTiown when they say, 

 " Volunteer effort will never be sufficiently repressive, and 

 among the associations for the protection of game only one 

 or two have been of much use." 



At the last session of the Legislature, the number of Com- 

 missioners was increased from three to fom-, and it was im- 

 derstood that this was vrith a special view to the ciiltivafiou 

 of Long Island streams and the propagation of salt water 

 fishes, which are of great value, perhaps more than tjie entire 

 fisheries of the rest of the Slate, and which have, like the sea 

 fisheries of aU coimtries, beeu neglected until the recent ex- 

 periments of the U. 8. Fish Commission in hatching cod at- 

 tracted attention to it, when it at once struck everybody that 

 Ihere was no good reason why fish should not be increased in 

 salt water as well as iu fresh, the only thing to be considered 

 being the enlarged field, which wotdd, of com-se, require 

 operations to be upon a scale in accordance with it, a matter 

 rendered easy by the new methods now in use in fish culture, 

 which have been adopted everywhere for extensive work. 



Two species of trout from California have been obtained 

 which they (the Commissioners) caU "mountain trout" and 

 " McCloud River trout," whatever they may be, as the scien- 

 tific name is not given. jVnd here we woidd say that the New 

 York Commission is not happy in its choice of common 

 names for many fishes, having a nomenclature of its own not 

 recognized elsewhere — as "Oswego bass," " strawberry ba-ss," 

 "buU heads," etc. But, to retm-n to the trout. It is said 

 that these Califomian fish are superior in rate of growth and 

 hardiness to the native, though not so beautiful. We confess 

 to being a little puzzled at this, as we thought that one of the 

 varieties was 5a?ww imtte, the beautiful "rainbow trout," 

 but not having seen the fish in their ponds, this may be our 

 mistake. 



Of "salmon trout," iS. nam^yoush, many specimens have 

 been reared in confinement at Caledonia, and are fotmd to he 

 very sensitive to temperatm-e, some of them being six or 

 seven years old, and weighing twelve pounds, being per- 

 fectly domesticated, as shown by their breeding in confine- 

 ment. 



The shad season was favorable, and a good showing is made 

 of fry hatched between May 14 and June 20, when a freshet 

 put a stop to operations after C. 686,000 had beeu tm-ned loose, 

 the largest stasou's work for the past five years. The catch 

 by the fishermen is also reported in a quotation from the 

 Rochester Jirjiresn as, being exceptionally large, "so much so 

 that the lands along the river have been freely manured with 

 shad, and tons of fish have been thrown over at Albany by 

 the fishmongers, who would not ship at the reduced price de- 

 manded by outside market men." 



Carp have received some attention, 500 young having been 

 received from Prof. Baird in November, 1879, which were 

 distributed to eighteen persons, none receiving over twenty- 

 fi,ve specimens, and their growth and acclimatization is a sub- 

 ject for future reports. Letters reporting the suceeas of 



plantings in different parts of the State arc published, and an 

 appendix gives the list of eggs, fry and adult fish distributed, 

 making a very good showing of work done. 



LAUNCH OF THE RAFT. 



WE had been fishing from an old raft, which, if it had 

 ever been a thing of beauty, was not " a joy forever," 

 for it had annoyed us up to the jumping off point, where pa- 

 tience ceases to be a virtue and corauicnccd to indicate a very 

 decided tendency to laziness or stupidity, and the only re 

 course remaining was the construction of a new raft, one 

 built after the most approved model and known as the 

 "Prime Raft." The manner of its construction is best de- 

 described by the graceful author of " I Go a Fishing." 



Having cut yom- two side logs, hew near each end of these 

 a notch as deep as you please, only let this notch grow wider 

 as it deepens. Shis is easily done by cutting out with an axe. 

 Then cut your cross timbers and hew their ends down, if ne- 

 cessary, so as to slip the ends into the notches iu the side 

 /mbers. Having slipped the end through the notch, split it 

 and drive in a wedge to make it hold tight ,n the notch. You 

 will thus have a stiff, stout frame and can pile on your cross.' 

 logs and balsam boughs with perfect assurance that the raft 

 vnW not go to pieces. 



When it was announced that the raft was completed and 

 ready to be latmched business was imiversally suspended and 

 the anglers at the adjacent camps made a. holiday of the occa- 

 sion. The camp fires smoked with a denser smoke, dish 

 cloths fluttered from every cook-house, and tin pans, pails 

 and kettles shone like silver beer-mugs. Ample provision 

 had been made for the comfort and convenience of the sight- 

 seers, every one of whom had the option of standing iu front 

 by the music or of shinning up as matiy trees as tlicy chose 

 aud gazing down upon the skilled workmen as thej- busied 

 themselves about their different specialties connected with the 

 enterprise. 



After much anxious waiting everything was ready, and at 

 the third or fom-th "Ye ho! all togctlier, boys," she glided 

 like several serpents into the water, and as she straightened 

 herself, business-like .Jack did not break over her the tra'- 

 ditionary bottle of champagne, hut burst a vial of tar oil 

 and christened her the Goslow. 



The echoes retm-ned a himdred fold the cheers that rolled 

 down the motmtain sides, the tinware clattered with joy, and 

 evei-y dish cloth and towel fluttered with de%lit. The old 

 back log at the camp took a tumble and sent up a cloud of 

 sparks, while the birds piped their cheerful songs and fiUed 

 the summer air with their long-di-awii cadences. 



The Goslow was launched mid cfimiiloti-d independent of 

 Congressional appropriations, and the feverish expectancy of 

 its projectors was quieted. The ship-builders of the Dela- 

 ware and the Clyde were at last convinced that their yards 

 could no longer monopolize the naval architectm-e of the 

 world. On her trial trip she attained, tuider the tmfavorable 

 conditions of a head wind and a defective paddle in the hands 

 of an inexperienced paddler, according to Whi.stler's new 

 system of guessing, the very satisfactory record of one and a 

 quarter kinks an hour.. This record will be very materially 

 improved upon when her floating gear has dovetailed closer, 

 and when she has more perfectly shaped herself to the pecu- 

 liar formation of the lake. 



Her fittings were of the most gorgeous description compat- 

 ible with utility. She was covered with huge sheets of 

 spntcc bark and carefullj' selected boughs. A chtmk of red 

 sand.stoue of the Devonian age, fastened to a three-quarter- 

 inch maaila rope, made an anchor convenient in size and 

 weight. There were two luxiuious scats, one at each end of 

 the raft, which was intended to go like a ferryboat, either 

 way. 



The saloon and staterooms are intended to be left iu the 

 woods, forming, iu connection with the kitchen, what is 

 known as the camp. When the Goslow is in commission 

 these rooms may be reached ou eipergencies by jumping over- 

 board and swimming ashore. The bathroom, anywhere in 

 the hdie, furnishes ample conveniences for those who believe 

 cleanliness akin to godliness. Altogether it was admirably 

 adapted to the putpose for which it was intended, and its ap- 

 pearance was in perfect harmony with its siuroundings. 



A raft after the Prime model posseasea some advantages 



