50 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[FEBnrABY 19, 1880, 



A WEEKLY JOURNAL, 



Devoted to Fnnvn axd Aquatic Spouts, PhacticATj Natubai, 

 HiSTOiiY.Fisu Cdltdbe.trf. Protection Of Game, Preserva- 

 tion of Forests, asb the I sou [.cation in Men and Women ojt 

 A HjEAi/mv Interest in Out-Door Kecreaiion and Study : 



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NBWYOEK, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1880. 



To Correspondents. 



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Constitutions of CLt?BS.— We are in constant receipt 

 of letters inquiring for forms of a constitution and bye- 

 laws for sportsmen's chilis. Wo shall esteem it a favorif 

 Clubs will transmit to us copies of their forms. Their 

 dissemination extends the good cause. 



— The reception accorded the President of the Now 

 York State Association for the Protection of Fish and 

 Game upon his recent visit to this city was highly grati- 

 fying, and gives evidence that the sportsmen in this east- 

 ern section of the State are rapidly increasing in num- 

 bers and are coming to take an interest in the affairs of 

 the State Association, It lias taken several years of per- 

 sistent labor on the part of a few individuals to teach the 

 sportsmen of this vicinity that there was a solid organiz- 

 ation in the State, and that it has already held twenty- 

 one annual conventions, each one of them superior to 

 those before it. But now a sudden change has taken place 

 in this respect, and when Mr. Silsby, the President of the 

 ion, came here, it appeared that the clubs of Long 

 Island coald not do enough to show their appreciation of 

 the Association and in making his stay agreeable. An 

 impromptu banquet at Mouquin's, drives and receptions 

 were the order of the day. The lungs County clubs will 

 be well represented at the Seneca Falls Convention, and 

 they arc all working in harmony to that end. In their 

 fellowship and concert of action they are setting an ex- 

 ample worthy of imitation in every section, - 



— "The older I 

 more I love fishing 

 can tramp over lat 

 gentle craft ; par 

 day. Hen ma 



stow,'' writes "Ned Buntline," " the 

 for I can wade streams easier- than I 

 ;1 in search of game." Angling is the 

 xcdlenoe the employment of a quiet 

 igle when they may not shoot. The 



tramp over the fields and through the woods with gun 

 and accoutrements presupposes a certain superabundance 

 of vigor. It is the fit sport of the young man whose 

 glory is in his strength, and of those who are in the prime 

 of life. As nun grow older they forego the tramp after 

 game and go out more often with rod and reel. The 

 angler's passion never ceases. An old man finds in the 

 solitude of the streams a fit scene for living over his life 

 again in the memories which there gather about him, 

 playing in and out with the shadow of the leaves and the 

 flashing of the stream. 



JUDGES AND THEIR CRITICS. 



WITHIN the last few months, and noticeably imme- 

 diately after the inaugural of the Eastern Field 

 Trials, we have been in receipt of abatch of letters from 

 parties requesting us to write scathing articles on the 

 judges and their decisions. Applicants have also ap- 

 peared in the body, who have urged and endeavored to 

 persuade us to take up then cudgels and smite in a back- 

 banded, covert, kind of way the gentlemen who did not 

 decide in favor of their friends' dogs. As yet, however, 

 no winner has put in an appearance or written us abusive 

 letters on the subject, so that we presume that to a few, 

 at; least, the trial decisions appeared to be just and cor- 

 rect. If they had been otherwise we are sure that there 

 were gentlemen who were recorded as winners who would 

 have been as ready to disclaim any errors of judgment or 

 partiality regarding their dogs as the friends of the 

 owners of animals that were beaten. 



Really, matters are getting so bad, both here and in 

 England, that it seems that there cannot be a bench show 

 nor a field trial without the sporting press being forweeks 

 afterwards flooded with communications from the large 

 army of unsuccessful competitors, the poor judges being 

 the bulls'-eyes at which they aim. It therefore appears 

 tons that a continuance of this course will, within a short 

 time, deter, in a direct and indirect way, if it has not 

 done so already, the very men who are specially adapted 

 to stand as judges — in what may now be termed the an- 

 nual sporting pillories. As a relief for this we occasion- 

 ally hear it said by those .of the broad-brim persuasion 

 "that the only way so save this trouble is to award each 

 entry an equal prize." This ingenious method, however, 

 is not the remedy we would suggest for stopping what is 

 vulgarly called " kicking." 



It is to be presumed that every one that places his ani- 

 mal in a bench show, or runs him in a field trial, is aware 

 that the dog is intended for competition, and that there 

 are to be judges to pass on his merits and f ailings. That 

 the exhibitor should know the names of the judges is of 

 paramount importance, Once knowing their names he 

 can determine for himself whether they arc fitted for the 

 position or not, and whether they will be perfectly un- 

 biased in their decisions. If he resolves that they are 

 not he should not enter his dogs, there being no obb'ga- 

 tion for his doing so. But if he does enter his animals 

 he thus accepts these individuals as fit persons to judge 

 his entries, and thus binds himself to abide by their judg- 

 ments. If ther. he adopts the latter course and 

 finds too late that he has been wronged in a willful man- 

 ner, he would show more, spirit, good sense and manli- 

 ness, by quietly submitting to the injustice which he has 

 no power to remedy, and ever afterwards refusing to 

 enter his stock in any show or trial conducted by the 

 same management. 



In all sporting matters the duty of the judges is an 

 onerous and an extremely thankless one, and a most 

 liberal allowance should always be made for contingent 

 errors. At the same tunc, however, it should be borne in 

 mind that there is a vast difference between errors of 

 judgment and intentional wrongs, We mark this dis- 

 tinction because we notice that correspondents of the 

 " kicking " class usually begin their epistles in an inco- 

 herent tone, alluding to the mistakes of the awards, when 

 they really point to supposed wrongs that have been done 

 them, and, as is often the case, they wind up with direct 

 charges. Undoubtedly there are at times just griev- 

 ances, because in all sporting matters incompetent per- 

 sons will be selected to fill the high offices of judges and 

 umpires. Take, for instance, the old English game of 

 cricket, and it is found that the only proper person to 

 umpire the game is one who is a practical player himself : 

 he must be this ; but it is not because he is a crack player 

 that it fits him to decide the points of the game ; he must 

 be something more. Thus on the same ground, because a 

 gentleman owns half a dozen good dogs and is a rare 

 good shot, it is no reason why this fits him to stand alone 

 and judge the working of a number of dogs at a field 

 trial. The only man who is really worth a rap for the 

 position of judge in the field is one who has made shoot- 

 ing over dogs in all sections of the country a fife-long 

 sirnly. What does an old woodcock shooter who has 

 never been out of the cover of his county know about 

 dogs that have been handled only on prairies? Is he a 

 lit person to lay down the law ? And yet he may excelin 

 the cunning of that branch of his craft. No, he is no 

 more fitted than the prairie sportsman is to judge the 

 most killing cover dog ever littered. Therefore, to sum 

 the matter up, let gentlemen of universal experience fill 

 the list of judges ; their names should bo announced 

 when the entry roll is open. Then will the exhibitors 

 commit themselves morally, and either courtesy or a 

 sense of shame will oblige them to quietly abide by the 

 decisions of the judges whom they have practically ac- 

 cepted. All Ibis will then tend to make shows and trials 

 more popular, and exclude from both the bane of all true 

 sport, the chronic grumbler. 



—We commend to Professor Elliott Coues and other 

 anti-sparrow partisans the experience of Tobit, as detailed 

 in the ninth and tenth verses of the second chapter of the 



Apocryphal book bearing his name. The marginal notes 

 will in turn afford some consolation to the friends of the 

 bird ; putting these aside, however, the inference is that 

 the habits of the ancient bird which dwelt in the walls 

 of Nineveh, in the reign of Sarchedonus, were very simi- 

 lar to his modern Anglo-American cousins, who litter up 

 the stoops of brown-stone fronts in tiro modern city on 

 Manhattan Island. 



WiKGtATB vs. Lajdley.— When late last fall Laidley's 

 "Rifle Firing" was sent out among riflemen the close 

 similarity of the work to the small compilation of Gen. 

 Wingate on the same subject led many who were familiar 



with rifle literature to cast it i 

 it contributed so little tbat was noi 

 was evident that Col. Laidley had o 

 retieal knowledge of rifle practice, 

 best was only an attempt to provide 

 by an army officer in preference ti 



'if no value, since 

 already known. It 

 lly a closet or theo- 

 :rad that bib work at 

 a book for the army 

 on'e prepared by an 



outsider and a member or the National Guard. But while 

 it was almost a certainty that the work was not to create 

 more than a transient riffle in rifle circles, Gen. Wingate 

 did not allow the bald ^and barefaced infraction of his 

 copyright to go unnoticed, As the case went almost at 

 once into the courts, the Fokest and Stkeam has ab- 

 stained from making any comments on the controversy, 

 not even going to the extent of a notice of the Laidley 

 book. Within the past few days the action in the United 

 States Courts has reached a conclusion, in a complete vic- 

 tory for Gen, Wingate, by the issuance of a decree of per- 

 petual injunction against Col. Laidley and his publish- 

 ers, the full text of the decree to be found in our rifle 

 columns. The matterjhas been watched with a sharp in- 

 terest by army officers, since the curious spectacle was 

 presented of an officer high in the service of the ordnance 

 department, when ordered by his superior, the Chief of 

 Ordnance of the Army, to prepare a book, filching entire 

 sections with the poorest shadow of a change in phrase- 

 ology, and when the work was approved by the Secretary 

 of War, and sent far and wide to army posts and officers 

 all over the country, to have it judicially determined 

 by an action in equity that Col, Laidley had appro-' 

 priated that which was not his own and palmed it 

 off on his superior officers as an original work. He did 

 not give the least credit to the sources of his information, 

 nor did his superiors detect the character of the work 

 which was presented for their approval. The whole 

 matter is one which does little credit to the army side in 

 the controversy. It is a fair, flat acknowledgment that 

 the man thought most competent in the whole army of 

 the United States to prepare a work on rifle practice was > 

 not so competent, but did not scruple to appropriate, to i 

 use no stronger term, what he could not himself prepare. 

 West Point has never had a work on this important 

 branch of military science ; there are many works on 

 gunnery, many on the force of explosives, and reports 

 many and various on small arms and magazine rifles, . 

 but a work from Which the soldier may learn how to U36 

 his infantry arms has not yet been in possession of the 

 army of the United States. The National Guard secured 

 such a work, made rapid progress in rifle firing, so much 

 so as to completely defeat picked teams of regulars, and 

 now, as a crowning mishap in the chapter of accidents 

 which regular army rifle practice has thus far been, an 

 official high in rank is convicted of an offense which gives 

 point to Gen. Wingate's closing phrase in his review of 

 the infringing work, that Col. Laidley had shown him- 

 self unworthy of consideration as an officer and a gentle- 

 man. The matter, however, should not bo made a per- 

 sonal one. The blame must rest on the army as a whole. 

 It has been sadly and lamentably deficient in this im- 

 portant branch, and its ignorance and helplessness is in 

 nothing so conspicuous as in this latest decision. 



Who was John A. Gkikjdlk ?— Where did he live 

 and what disgraceful thing did he do, that that most de- 

 testable fish-reptile, the "Grindle," " lawyer," "dollish" 

 (Ainia calva). was named alter him ! Had any one else 

 asked that qucsi ion we should have referred them to our 

 frequent correspondent " Salmon Roe," of Jacksonport. 

 Ark., who is well versed in the ichthyological lore of hia 

 section; but it happens that "Salmon Roc" is the very 

 one who propounds the puzzle, We are probably safe in 

 assuming that the question was sent to us, not becauso 

 our friend really wished to know who John A, GrjhdJ.8 

 was, but rather an expression of intense disgust after a 

 day of vexatious experience with the ugly and voracious 

 fish in question. It is a summing up in one terse inter- 

 rogatory of a whole page of anathema ami expletives. Cut 

 " Salmon Roe " errs in casting the odium of the Grindle - 

 listi back upon the memory of the man after whom it is 

 named. It is surely an unsafe assumption to premise that 

 because a specimen of natural history is an unpleasant 

 thing to deal with, any ill repute should thereby be attach- 

 ed to its god-father. It is considered quite an honor than 

 otherwise to have one's Latinized patronymic incorpo- 

 rated into the scientific nomenclature of what Oliver 

 Goldsmith designates Arrimated Nature. Wo are ac- 

 quainted with some men, whose craving after fame does 

 not extend Beyond securing for their names such a pisca- 

 torial immortality .; nor, so far as we may judge, are 

 they at all fastidious about the game qualities or speoifi c 



