...^ 



THE AMERICAN s'PORTSMAN^S JOURNAL. 



^Entered According to Act or Congress. In tHe year 18TS, by the Forest and Str^m PuWlshtog Compauy, to tlic omce of the Librarian of CongTess, at WEmlUngton.] 



-jns, ^l: a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy.) 

 SlxMo's, S'2. Three OTo's, «l. j 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1880. 



CONTENTS. 



StUl ReTOrbei-ating ; Manslaughter on |the Bange : Indian 

 Burial Customs ; Neglected FiBhes ; The Wickersheimer 

 Fluid S 



The Spobtsmah Totoist:— 

 Rough Notea from the Woods ; Summer Sports iu Alaska ; 

 November ; Trigger and K«el in Maltha's Yineyard ; Ten- ^ 

 ueasee Hiuitiiig (rrounds i..i,\ >^ 



; Soake Bites : Eallidso iu Kentuokj ; Winter 

 5 5 Late Stay of Swallows ; Habits of the 



! thiltuie of Carp ; Those Rangeley Spawning Tront ; Cul- 

 I ■ ot the Sun-fish ; Carp for Distributicfh SQl 



I ' RivEK Fishing : — 

 ...i.ling FishiuK in Northern Miohigaii; The Migration ot 

 ILtlH r A ilauii:! Shrimp ; Another Big Bass : The An- 

 uhovy; Notes ,.., 30» 



iMK Ba.i and Gun :— 



iiiKIsbmd Club; Philadelphia Letter; Loug Maud Trap- 

 ]«til Bird^; Sliooting in Virghiiii ; The Chase : Its History 

 ;u!a I-a-.vJ ; i'riz.'iJ lor the State Couveution ; GuuB iu Pas- 



srug.T tliU-H ; Floridit Resorts ; Xebraslia Game ; North 

 CaroliiiJ (lame Grouuds ; Ciiieago NotetS ; Nebva»k;i Game; 



HamrnerleHs Guns ; Notes : Shootin- Matches 309 



■• Paiutej." Hujitiug in the Olden Tune ; Canada DuekSlioot- 



Tdk Kennel ;— 

 T'iie Nfitioruil Field Trials ; What Is a Cocker? Eastern Field 

 Tri;il;: -: lull ; Fiillowiug the Hounds ; A Sad Accident; Cw- 

 i-ei it I lilt; Stories ; Kennel Notes : S 



llr,;s.-, \isii, the Ranges; Near-Sightedneaa ; Hrmtmg Rifles : 

 iliJitarv Small Arms ; Another Range Slaughter ; Range 

 and Gallery ; Sehuetzen Notes - . 31 5 



Tacutino AJiD Casoeino : — 



.'Urow ; Go Slow on the Livadia ; The America Cup Muddle: 

 Yachting Notes 316 



AtiCttERY 31 4 



PUIILIBSEKS' Depahtment , 317 



Ans-webs to Cobbespondents 317 



^FOREST AND STREAM. 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1880. 



1 1, J l<"^ 'J ft pip,. 



I mii mpn' Utat pui'pose. 



ntt'ii*i<in ,if i/.,Hi fiieiult 

 II II , chilli l» luijijiy 

 I ,1 11 iKlilu'-^ts irhii/i 



T week the Forbst akd Stheam will go to press a day 

 than usual. Correspondents will please beai- this in 



-lind. 



TiiK LosBOS FiBLD's list sliows that there are in the British 

 IshiudH to-day hetwecn three and four himdred paclcs f/f hunt- 

 in;,' IjouudB. and the indic-ttioiis are that the cliasc is assuming 

 eacli year gre;iter proporticms. Some of tlic English packs 

 have been iu existeuce no one knows just how loug. and it is 

 claimed by one hunt that their hounds arc lineal desceud- 

 autsof the dogs introduced from Normaudy by William the 

 Conquerer. 



Si ILL Ri;vEnBEi:ATra(4.— Perhaps no other article ever pub- 

 ;; lit J in an American sporting paper— certainly no one ever 



luie printed in the Fouest and SiEKAJf— had such a wide- 

 spread influence as did the disctisaion, iu our issue of Sept. 

 a;!, of the ' ' Ditlmar Sportmg Powder." And we very much 

 doubt if any other article published iu any sporting paper 

 wa.^ ever re'eeived witli such a, cordial ;tnd decided indorse- 

 litent from its readi'rp. We siopiied pulilishing the letters of 

 (111, trie;uls -.ii ih.s pubieet some lime ago, but hardly a mail 

 , i , 1 1 ! I s not bring words of approval and appre- 

 iis ;ire still reverberating. To the writers, 

 ijue iiLiei ml, >ve lieii leave to acknowledge our satisfaction at 

 knowmg that the Forest akd Sibbam has won their increased 

 respect, and to express the hope that our fuUire may be at- 

 tended with equal satiafactiou. 



MANSLAUGHTER ON THE RANGE. 



OUR readers will notice in the rifle columns an account from 

 a Prince Edward's Island correspondent of another 

 of those so-called accidents on the range, which are becoming 

 idtogether too frequent. This affair doc^ not differ materially 

 from the usual nm of such killings. It m;iy be taken indeed 

 as a typical one and a study of it will show that these mis- 

 called accidents should be treated aud punished as cases of 

 manslaughter. It is entirely possible to so construct a tar- 

 get with its accompanying arrangements of marldng that it 

 will be impossible for the flying bullet to hit the marlcer. 

 Tliis being the fact, any contrivance of marking butt by 

 whicli a man's life is sacrificed should be regarded as a man- 

 Ixap and the contrivers and controllers of the engine of death 

 held to a strict accountability. It is no answer to say that 

 had sufficient care been exercised here no accident would 

 have taken place; the loop-hole for just such an accident was 

 left open, and as it is entirely iuexcusable that such a con- 

 tingency should exist, so the results should meet witli no 

 cloaking over under the title of a mishap. 



If a man should construct a boiler, and conclude to make 

 up for the absence of a safety valve by enjoining extra vigD- 

 ance upon the engineer, he would be held as hable for what- 

 ever damage might result from the explosion of that boiler. 

 He ia bound to provide the best appliances known for the 

 purpose, and he resorts to any half-way measures and mean 

 pinch-penny and slovenly devices at his own risk. He in- 

 vites disaster, and when it comes he should be prepared to 

 meet the legal penalties of his carelessness. This reasoning 

 applies to the rifle range, where an association, a club, a 

 military organization or it may be a private proprietor by a 

 faulty construction of butt invites the killing of an employee. 

 Wimbledon went on for j'ears without a single death from 

 gun shot, though bullets by the million went whizzing over 

 the range. Creedmoor has yet to have recorded Iter first con- 

 tribution to the death list. Meantime with two such e.x- 

 amples of what can be done by proper precautions, we are 

 called upon every now and then to record the strikiug do-rni 

 of some hard working marker on some one of the miserably 

 appointed and wretchedly contrived ranges scattered here and 

 there over the coimtry. A range may he small, but it is always 

 large enough to serve as a slaugliter pen, if proper safe guards 

 are not thro-vvn about the practice. At Creedmoor the most 

 careless marker cannot by any i)ossihility put himself before 

 the target while the flring is going on. lie is placed in a pit 

 and stays there, and at most can only receive flesh wounds 

 from the spattering of the lead after striking the target's face. 

 In addition to lieing safe it is a really very expeditious way 

 of signalling the loe:ttion of hits ; on the other band the Uttle 

 ranges are generally fotuid to consist of a heap of earth near 

 the target, behind wliich very secure breast work the 

 marker retires after signalling the shot. There is a certain 

 time of exposure, and a period of occultalion of the marker 

 so far as the firing point is concerned. Now if there is a cer- 

 tainty that the delivery of a shot and the exposure shall not 

 be simultaneous, all is well, but the only "way of securing 

 their proper alternations is tlie waving of small flags, or 

 merely the exhibition of them. By the doctrine of chances 

 the time must come when the marker will catch the coming 

 bullet in some portion of his body. This system of marking 

 invites just such acUmax; and while that possibility remains 

 the system should find no use on the rifle ranges. When, by 

 the application of vigorous legal definitions, the range officer 

 who permits such an apology for a marking butt to remain is 

 made to feel after one of these accidents that he has the blood 

 of a fellow being on his hands, perhaps something will be 

 done to remedy it. The hiciu-ceratiou of a few rifle-range 

 magnates to answer a charge of manslaughter might have a 

 healthy deterrent eflect on the managers of other ranges and 

 lead to an over-hauling of the arrangements on many a shoot- 

 ing ground where affairs arc conducted in this happy-go-lucky, 

 slip-shod uutrderous fashion. 



If the progress of modem rifle-practice in this country is to 

 be ptmctuated in this fashion by lifeless markers, it is well 

 that the thing should be known generally. But we object 

 against any such line of murders, for they will be little else 

 after the many warnings which have been given ou this 

 point. They all lead to one simple conclusion : That any 

 system of marking that permits any exposure of the marker 

 to the pathway of bullets must lead sooner or lato^ to the 



striking of one of these employees. That risk can be blotted 

 out by the use of a properly-constructed range, and any 

 shooting ground not so arranged ought to be closed at once, 

 and not another shot fired upon it until the possiliility of an 

 accident has been entirely removed. In the pi'esent c;ise a 

 complaisant jury have made haste to lay the blame on the 

 dead man : and he, too, in the brief interval between the receiv- 

 ing of his wound and his death confessed that lie was to bhime. 

 He probably thought so, but the real one to blame is the man 

 or set of men who set this place up as a range, and probably 

 boasted of it as such when in reality it was nothing but <i 

 lottery ^vith death, with now aud then a blank-dr.awing in 

 the shape of a slain marker. Rifles and guns are sufficiently 

 dangerous to make the best of precautions necessary for 

 their proper and complete enjoyment. The records of the 

 large, well-appointed ranges prove that it is entirely possible 

 to have rifle practice even on the largest scale without ac- 

 companying slaughter, and the little pest-holes of r;uiges that 

 do not present these conditions should be blotted out at once. 



INDIAN BURIAL CUSTOMS. 



MANY influences have of late years conspired to give a 

 decided impulse to the study of anthropology, and stu- 

 dents of the subject have not been slow to recognize the mag- 

 nitude and importance of the field open to them on thisC'onti- 

 nent. The special task of stimulating and directing researches 

 into the customs luid social life of the Indian tribes iias been as- 

 siuned by the Bureau of Ethnology of the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution, a most wise provision, whereby the labors of indi- 

 viduals", which would otherwise be desvdtory, or at least in- 

 complete, are combined into a systematic and intelligible 

 whole. 



At present we have as the result of the work of the Bureau 

 a series of mtroductory volumes, the direct purpose of which 

 is to .serve as guides for fmther prosecution of ea<;h division 

 of this special anthropological observation and resi'areh. The 

 first prmted was the "Introduction to the Study of Indian 

 Languages," by Maj. J. W. Powell; the second, an "Intro- 

 duction to the Study of Sign Language among the North 

 American Indians," by Col. Garrick Mallery, atid the third, 

 which is now before us, is an " Introduction to the Study of 

 Mortuary Customs among the North .Vnierican Indians," by 

 Dr. H. C. Yarrow. Other volumes to follow will treat re- 

 spectively of Medical Practices, Mythology and Sociology. 



None of these lirauches of the subject possess a dee]rer in- 

 terest than the one to which Dr. Yarrow's volume is devoted, 

 for aside from the attention with which we cannot fail to re- 

 gard the mortuary rites of any people, these customs are, 

 more than all others, sigiiilicant al.so of the modes of 

 thought of those who practice them, and of their belief re- 

 specting the questions whicli are ot the deepest himum im- 

 port. The way in whicli these savages, who went Ijefr.re us 

 on this Continent, regarded death, the notiuns lliey had re- 

 specting departed spirits, and the solution they gave of the 

 mystery of tlic future— all these are told in their manner of 

 disposing of their dead ; and through these we may deler- 

 mine the motives and beliefs which goviirned their lives. In 

 his sepultures and tombs the iVnierican aboriguic has left us 

 I lie key to his life and character. 



In tlie final work, of which the present volume is the intro- 

 duction, it is proposed to collate all the trustworthy iitforma- 

 tion contained in several hmidred of these volumes. In addi- 

 tion to this material. Dr. Yarrow has. by means of circular 

 letters, sought to gather all the results ,_,f presi-iit study among 

 the various tribes of the AVest, aud of exploration among the 

 remabis left by them in other parts of the country ; and the 

 pages of his Introduction .giro tmiple evidence tlirii rli • niiMior 

 has been forlimate ill seeming the iulelligeiii .. .-.- . i i m of 

 tho.se who enjoy the best opportunities for eih - i ,_^ ,,1 ;i. 



For the general pm-poaes of the work at its present stage 

 Dr. Yarrow has divided the different modes of sepulture prac- 

 ticed by the Indian tribes into the provisional clases of (1) in- 

 humation in cists, pits, graves, caves and mounds; (2) crema- 

 tion ; (3) embalment or mummifying; (4) aciial sepulture on 

 scaffolds or in trees, and (5) aquatic biu-ial beneath the 

 waves or in canoes whicli are turned adrift. The inquiry idso 

 embraces all ther various rites pertaining to each of these cus 

 toms, the mourning observances, feasts, food, dances, songs, 

 games, fltres and other ceremonies ; also the superstitions con- 

 , nected with or inspiring each. 



