June 3, 1880.J 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



355 



Rigby breech-loader is an unknown quality yet as to its 

 merits, and we can only echo to our speeding experts a 

 hearty bon voyage. 



The Team Selection— Col, John Bodine, who was se- 

 lected as the captain of the American Team to Ireland, 

 yesterday handed in to the office of the Forest and 

 Stream the following note : — 

 Editor Forest ami Stream. :— 



It gives me pain that just at this important time, 

 when a team is about to sail to compete in a foreign 

 match, yon have committed the indiscretion of pub- 

 lishing an editorial reflecting on me and mv team. 

 You had published the conditions of the competitions, 

 and consequently knew their purport. I am not about to 

 discuss the wisdom of the method of selection, nor 

 the personnel of mv team, except to say that I think it 

 a strong team, and fully equal to auy that may be pitted 

 against them on the Irish ranges. And farther, I 

 challenge any man to show anything unfair in the 

 Selection, or anything like Star Chamber judgment in 

 my action. I was fully sustained by the Committee and 

 by the Board of Directors, and to have done differently, 

 in any particular, would have been a violation of mv in- 

 structions. If any one was aggrieved, it was from his own 

 delinquency in not complying with the plainest termaof 

 the circular, and no one regretted this more than myself. 

 This is the view taken in the matter by all riflemen who 

 have become familiar with the circumstances. 



It; is with the greatest reluctance that I refer to this, 

 but I cannot consent that this presentation of our action 



(should go abroad without my earnest protest. 

 John Bodine. 

 Col. Bodine is correct in saying that we had published 

 the conditions, and we are coxTect in saying that they have 

 not been lived up to. The one reserve which was amply 

 sufficient for the purposes of the team was swelled to an 

 indefinite following. Challenges about " star chamber 

 judgment," whatever that may be, do not remove the 

 fact that three secret meetings were deemed necessary 

 1 before the present state of dissatisfaction was fully 

 | reached. Nobody has denied that the Colonel was sus- 

 tained by the Board of Directors ; but that does not 

 remove the fact that Capt. Bruce was promised Saturday 

 as a day on which to make a score by Col. Bodine, and 

 to his surprise and disgust found the team organized, 

 with himself excluded. We deny the Colonel's assertion 

 ■about his views being taken by all riflemen, because we 

 Iknow otherwise. Our own reluctance, in being compelled 

 to speak of the manner in which the team had been 

 made up is fully as great as that of Col. Bodine in writ- 

 ' bag his note to shield the action of the managers of the 

 affair. 



Decoration Day Sports— The growth of out-of-doors 

 fsport in the United States is never better illustrated than 

 .-Upon the occasion of a national holiday. Decoration 



1 - : ■■'_■ .", coming as it does at a season of the year when the 



heat of summer has not yet overcome the inspiriting in- 

 ( fluences of spring, has been adopted by the clubs as an 

 •anniversary day in their calendar. Yachting, rowing, 



athletic games, archery, cricket and ride shooting com- 

 brised the programme of the day last Monday, and the 

 * Tuesday morning papers devoted as much space to the 

 Hfecords of the previous day's sports, as to the distinctive 

 l-forms of celebration for which this occasion has been set 

 [apart. It is fitting that the yearly commemoration of 



the nation's dead should thus also become a season of 

 ■ recreation. The arena of manly, generous competition 

 Ljn athletic sports has its place in the development of 



the nation's citizens, 



I Coaching. — The annual spring parade of the Coaching 



| Club, last Saturday, was witnessed and applauded by 



thousands of spectators, and the young gentlemen who 



handled the ribbons received loud commendations for 



I their rare presence of mind in guiding their fiery steeds 



Rhrough the concourse of vehicles. But how a Rocky 



■Mountain jehu would laugh to scorn tliis play, and 



Ilightly so, too. If one wishes an exhibition of coaching 



he must go farther west than Manhattan Island to find 



£| : and for a genuine sensation we commend a winter 



[.mountain ride through the snow. 



— ■» « i — 



[From a Special Correspondent.] 



OUR WESTERN LETTER. 



Denver, Col,, May 20th. 

 HILE the vast plains, stretching from the Missouri 

 Eiver to the Rocky Mountains, are not without 

 sentiment, their monotony, theirsilence, their soli- 

 and their extent, while the sky and the ground have 

 grand beauty, and the very sense of the desolation 

 ts charm to the traveler, we must not overlook the 

 iful quality in this wild region. The long, creeping 

 of fire, which may please the eye with their weird 

 :ing in the blackness of the night far over the plain, 

 be doing harm as well as good. There is a hay rick 

 o which may prove an undesigned prey to their 

 tuty, and a ranch or so whose occupants may have to 

 keep the fire at a safe distance, It is difficult not to have 

 of fellow feeling for these scattered inhabit- 

 mts of the plains. Here they are, many of thorn, quite 

 kWay from friends, incurring solitude and separation to 

 mnass some kind of a fortune. The ranch, indeed, is not 

 wholly unprepossessing spot to the eye. Probably no 

 .me, who lias not seen the thing, could easily iruag- 

 ie just how a ranch looks, The word has a kind of lux- 



uriance about it wbicb is not found in the object itself. 

 Perhaps the farthest thing from a ranch, and yet of the 

 same general class with it, is a New England farmhouse, 

 glistening white, with its bright green blinds and red 

 chimneys, surrounded with shade trees, with a green 

 grassy yard, and very likely a little brook trickling 

 along by it. At a ranch there is nothing white, nothing 

 green, nothing red ; there is no yard and no rushing 

 brcok. The yard, indeed, is the great plain, though I 

 should say, that since the introduction of barbed wire 

 fences, one will occasionally see a fence of that sort even 

 west of the Missouri. The ranch is low and flat, perhaps 

 eight feet high in all, built of dirty looking logs, gener- 

 ally placed upright. The fiat eaves project, and all that 

 can be seen of a roof is usually earth and rough sod, 

 Rude enough, in looks, this abode is, but I should say it 

 would be far from uncomfortable, either in summer or 

 winter. Here a bachelor could keep his hall well enough. 

 And two or three bachelors, who had something in com- 

 mon between them besides their herd, might snap their 

 fingers for a few years at the East, especially if the herd 

 was doing well and the dollars were steadily piling up. 

 Here one could enjoy books, a pipe and a horseback ride, 

 and nature perhaps. There will be no tree to sit under, 

 nothing but the burning sun (and it gives a bronze and 

 color which even a Harvard oarsman might envy), or the 

 thick roof of the ranch. Then, in the spring, there 

 conies activity, when the round-up for branding calves 

 begins. This, too, is the season of activity for the Ish- 

 maelite herder — the herder who is too active, and goes 

 about branding calves that are not his. These men are 

 to the herdsmen what a claim-jumper is in a mining 

 camp. He may be successful, and get rich faster than 

 his neighbors ; and, on the other hand, he may be found 

 cold on the plains, or be "run off " to some other scene 

 of pleasure. Again, when a shipment of stock takes 

 place, there is more rounding-up. Then a pleasing com- 

 munity of action is seen, as an indiscriminate herd is 

 driven up to the railway station, and the herd-owners in 

 that region stand by, and each checks off in his book 

 each animal that passes into the car bearing his mark. 

 One man may thus ship fifty head to his neighbor's five ; 

 but it evens itself off in the course of the season. These 

 are the cattle that make the best New York beef. Along 

 or near the Missouri River they are picked up by Iowa 

 and Illinois farmers, who have come or sent "West for the 

 purpose. During the winter they are corn-fed, and fat- 

 tened on the farms of those States, and then are sold to 

 the stock -yard men of Chicago at a handsome profit. So 

 we get in Washington Market the large, fat quarters of 

 "Western corn-fed beef. The future promises even better, 

 at least larger beef than we have had hitherto. Consid- 

 erable short-horn blood is being put into the herds on the 

 plains, and while it may hardly be expected that such 

 heavy-chested cattle will result from this innovation as 

 are raised by extreme culture in England, yet in general 

 and gradually the size and form of the animal should 

 become better. All through Nebraska there is grazing 

 ground. Of course, it is better in some parts of that re- 

 gion than in others, and one should not settle down at 

 any point for herding, without some previous inquiry. 

 Another caution is, that a man who is not used to 

 cattle or herding, as the business is done on the plains, 

 bad better serve an employer for a while to get experi- 

 ence, before embarking in the business on his own ac- 

 count ; and even then he will have to be patient for a 

 couple of years, before the profits fairly begin. LEX. 



SPRING IN ALASKA. 



vV Sitka, April 9th, 



OF a dozen of us, whodifferand argue upon most any- 

 thing that will furnish a possible difference of 

 opinion, no two are agreed as to whether the steamer is 

 due now or will be soon. Her schedule time calls for her 

 to arrive on the 7th of each month, or 8th at farthest, 

 that though she has seldom done so we all avoid cham- 

 pioning that date, but four distinct sets of us are equally 

 positive that she is due this time on the 10th, the 12th, 

 the 14th and the loth, and we all base our positiveness 

 upon the same foundation — namely, the assurance of her 

 Captain upon his last visit. The matter is of little im- 

 portance, except that it enables me to be consistent, and 

 start this letter, as I find by glancing over my files I have 

 about all my letters, with a few remarks about said 

 steamer, and seeing the letters side by side in a scrap 

 book, I find I have been guilty of tautology, for very 

 nearly the same remark opens several of them ; but on 

 my word it was accidental, and having been discovered 

 will be in future eliminated ; but the fact is, her arrival 

 is our only event, and we can't avoid thinking and writ- 

 ing of her. rii try to stop, though ! I've broken myself 

 of worse habits ; for instance, my earlier letters, I gave 

 them the true Alaska stamp by bringing in nioro or less 

 " hoo-che-noo," a word introduced to the Eastern "World 

 as a typical A laskan phrase. I even adopted the missionary 

 paper style of speaking of it, and always preceded it with 

 the adjective "vile." How certain adjectives become 

 parts of the simple nouns they qualify and transform 

 them into compounds 1 "Who, in hearing a snake de- 

 cribed, or by a lady a rat, has failed to expect and hear the 

 " big?" And who, throwing a fly for a brook trout and 



raising a chub, or fishing for codfish and hooking a pol- 

 lock or dogfish, has failed to attach a prefix to then- 

 ejaculation when they named it? So it is with "vile" 

 hoo-che-noo. 



I think the word must have originated in '• Greenland's 

 icy mountains," etc., where, however, "only man" 

 merits the epithet, and as I like to be original occasion- 

 ally, I've dropped it, and I'll drop the steamer. 



March has been with us probably the pleasantest one, 

 so far as weather goes, that we have ever experienced out 

 of the tropics, and April so far is following its example. 



Although it is popularly supposed that it rains here 

 about all the time, we have in the last forty days had but 

 four or five rainy ones, and we have absolutely longed for 

 it, to wash off the snow, which an unusually severe winter 

 has piled up in an unprecedented ac cumulation. The 

 miners who are waiting its departure to develop their last 

 year's finds ; the prospectors who are anxious to be off 

 among the mountains, and whose stakes, with which, 

 economically used, they hoped to tide over the winter in 

 Sitka, have become impoverished through the earnest 

 efforts in their behalf, made by the purveyors of amuse- 

 ments in the shape of dance halls, grog shops, etc., 

 grumble at the snow, and the slight impression made 

 upon it by our not over warm sunshine, and we are all 

 tired of it. The robins and sparrows and buntings 

 have returned, expecting, evidently, to, as usual at this 

 season, go at once to housekeeping, but they flit around 

 on the leafless trees disconsolate ; and the eagles sit for 

 hours motionless, evidently discouraged. 



The herring have come in as usual, and are being caught 

 in great numbers by the Indians, who strike into schools 

 with poles armed with sharp nails. 



The ducks have nearly all left us ; a few old wives still 

 remain faithful and firm, somewhere — we can't find any. 

 The Indians bring in a few mallard. The venison is un- 

 eatable, and the trout have not yet put in an appearance. 

 On the : ,whole, this transitory stage is decidedly uncom- 

 fortable. 



I hear that down about the mouth of the Columbia 

 River the hair sealing season has begun, rather earlier 

 than usual, and that several hundred seal have been 

 captured. 



Right here let me again use your columns to urge peo- 

 ple to save their and my postal stamps by not writing to 

 me to get their seal skins. They don't come from this 

 neighborhood. I've been here a year and haven't seen a 

 seal. If I had I would have gone hunting for it daily till 

 I got it, for there's nothing else to go for, except perhaps 

 bears, and I'd rather buy them. 



To rny regret, and that of the Siwashes, many of whom 

 got rich out of it last summer, the salmon cannery will 

 not be operated this year ; the reason why I [cannot toll, 

 but I presume the company know their own business best. 

 I know, on one side, that the fish can be gotten here at 

 a far less cost than further south, but, on the other hand, 

 the season begins down about the Columbia River six 

 or seven weeks earlier, and the rise in tin from $5 to $12 

 per M. makes an item. 



Fred Mather writes to ask me to tell you something 

 about the Ihaleichys pacificus, or euchalon, or as we 

 call it in Alaska, the candle fish, or as called by the Si- 

 washes, the " oulachan." I can't tell you much now, for 

 they don't come here, but are plentiful in Wrangel, and 

 I'll send down a jar with alcohol for specimens, and get 

 up a lot of data by next steamer. In the meantime, Au 

 revoir. Piseoo. 



%mx\t §xg mfd §tit\, 



JUNK IS A CLOSE MONTH FOR GAME, 



— Address all communications to " Borest and Stream 

 Publishing Company, New York." 



A STRING OF FIELD SCORES. 



Montgomery, Ala,, ilfaw 25th. 



I NOTICED in last week's issue of your paper that some 

 of your subscribers thought the' killing of two snipe 

 at one shot a very great feat. In fact, it is, but what 

 do you think of this ? Several years ago, when I was quite 

 a boy, I made, I think, the best, score on record. At Aber- 

 crombie's plantation, five miles below Columbus, Ga., on 

 the Alabama side of the Chattahoochee River, I killed 

 and bagged eighteen 6nipe in thirteen consecutive shots. 

 I shot three at one shot, and two three times ; the re- 

 mainder were single shots. I did not take them as they 

 came (for they did not come), but I -went for them as they 

 went. When I killed the three at one shot they were 

 flying (only three) forty yards high, and apparently at 

 the rate of forty miles an hour or more. Two of them 

 were killed stone dead, the other one was wins-broken 

 and gathered. The double shots were made as they got 

 up before me in range, irrespective of distance from each 

 other, and I repeat that only once were there as many as 

 three together, and I killed them. I do not think this 

 score has ever been beaten, and should any of your 

 readers think I am simply telling a "snipe" story, I 

 would most respectfully say that 1 have a credible wit- 

 ness, who saw every shot. 



It may not be amiss to say that I am now shooting a 

 little 12 bore gun, and to tell of some of the shuts that I 

 have made with it only for the purpose of showing what 

 a gun can do when properly loaded and handled, The 

 gun is a full choke, 14 at the muzzle. Here is what I 

 have done with it, viz. : In the presence of the New Or- 



