610 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
A WEEKLY JOURNAL, 
Devoted to Field and Aquatic Sports, Practical Natural 
History, Fish Culture, the Protection op Game, Preser va¬ 
tion op Forests, and the Inculcation in.Mkn and Women op 
a Healthy Interest in Out-Door Recreation and Study : 
PUBMSHED BY 
FOREST AND STREAM PUBLISHING COMPANY. 
—AT— 
NO. IU FULTON STREET, NEW YORK. 
[Post Office Box 2833.] 
TERMS, FOUR DOLLARS A YEAR, STRICTLY IN ADVANCE. 
Advertising Bates. 
Inside pages, nonpnriei type, 25 cents per line ; outside page, 40 
cents. Special rates for three, six and twelve months. Notices in 
editorial column, 50 cents per line—eight words to the line, and 
twelve lines to one inch. 
Advertisements should be sent in by Saturday of each week, if 
possible. 
All transient advertisements must be accompanied with the 
money or they will not be inserted. 
No advertisement or businoss notice of an Unmoral character 
will be received on any terms. 
'.♦Any pu blisher inserri ng our prospectus as above one time, w ith 
brief editorial notice calling attention thereto,and senrlingmarked 
copy to us, will receive the Forest and Stream for one year. 
NEW YORK, THURSDAY, .SEPTEMBER 4,1879. 
To Correspondents. 
All communications whatever, Intended for publication, must be 
accompanied with real name of the writer as a guaranty of good 
faith and be addressed to Forest and Stream Publishing Com- 
pant. Names will not be pubUshedlf objection be made. Anony¬ 
mous communications will not he regarded. 
Wo cauuot promise to return rejected manuscripts. 
Secretaries of Clubs and Associations are urged to favor us wtih 
brief notes of their movements and transactions. 
Nothing will be admitted to any department of the paper that 
may not be read with propriety in the home circle. 
We cannot he responsible for dereliotion of mall service If money 
remited to us Is lost. 
Trade supplied by American News Company. 
Custer’s Statue. —The bronze statue of General Geo. 
A. Custer was unveiled with fitting ceremonies at West 
Point, last Saturday, in the presence of three thousand 
people, among whom were many notable personages ga th¬ 
ered to do honor to the gallant soldier. The presentation 
speech was made in behalf of the Statue Fund Committee, 
by Mr. Algernon S. Sullivan, to which General Schofield, 
as the Superintendent and representative of the United 
States Military Academy, responded. The oration, de¬ 
livered by General N. P. Banks, was a fitting tribute to 
the life and death of the hero thus commemorated. 
The monument is in the best vein of the sculptor, Mr. 
Wilson MacDonald, and is a statuesque portrait of Custer 
as he may have appeared charging in his last fight. It 
is noteworthy as a bold innovation upon the art of to-day. 
The artist has revived the Greek ideal by personifying 
the subject in the moment of supreme action. In other 
words, a soul has been infused into the inert material, and 
the soldier and hero of bronze speaks to us something as 
the attitude of the real soldier and hero would speak. 
The intrinsic, excellence of the statue is very happily com¬ 
plemented by the singularly appropriate and command¬ 
ing site chosen for it on the academy grounds. We join 
with the thousands of friends and admirers of the 
lamented hero of the Little Big Horn in their satisfaction 
at seeing the erection of a monument an accomplished 
fact; nor should we forget to add that the principal part 
of the funds for its erection were raised by the New York 
Herald ; Clara Morris, Judge Hiltofl, Lawrence Barrett, 
John T. Raymond, Louisa Kellogg and the Volkes family 
being among the principal subscribers, they having sub¬ 
scribed more than one-lialf of the whole amount raised 
by the Herald. __ 
How to Win a Fortune. —There is money in athletics 
in these times. One man wins a small fortune by training 
himself to walk, walk, walk. Another does it by paddling 
through the briny deep. A third pummels his antagon¬ 
ist more than his antagonist pu mm els him. The athlete 
need not however, confine himself to any particular 
branch of the business. Simple practice on the horizon¬ 
tal bar if persisted in faithfully for a course of years will 
achieve theldesired end—provided the muscular young man 
has an uncle. Here was Professor William Miller. It 
took him several years of persevering endeavor in many 
varied athletic pursuits, but finally he came out at the top, 
His uncle over in England died and left him $15,000. The 
athletio profession pays. 
—One of our friends who wishes a circular, asks us to 
send him “ asurkler,” 
A HINT TO SOUTHERN PLANTATION 
OWNERS. 
T HERE are in many of our States, noticeably in Vir¬ 
ginia, North and South Carolinas, and others adja¬ 
cent, scoreB of large estates upon which the very best of 
shooting is to he had. There are certain portions of every 
large plantation where at certain seasons the sportsman 
will meet assured success with the birds. In this abund¬ 
ance of game the land proprietors possess an unappreci¬ 
ated and undeveloped source of revenue. At present, with 
the exception of affording entertainment for friends and 
an unlimited supply of “sport" to our colored hero of 
the dollar shot gun, this possible game harvest is neg¬ 
lected. Meanwhile on the other hand, in our cities and 
towns are scores of Bportsmen who are ever seeking new 
and profitable fields to conquer. They either expend a 
large amount of money in car fare to go to the far West 
without any very definite information of just what they 
will find when they get there, or, debarred by the diffi¬ 
culty of reaching available sporting grounds and the un¬ 
certainty of a successful quest, they forego their cherished 
plans and the gun iB left in the rack. 
Southern land owners have here an excellent opportu¬ 
nity of supplementing their yearly cash receipts, as Eng¬ 
lish proprietors have long done. Let the proprietor of a 
game-abounding estate announce such possession in the 
advertising columns of the Forest and Stream, insur¬ 
ing to bis gentlemen visitors abundance of game. Then 
let him forego in these instances the practice of the pro¬ 
verbial and long time-honored Southern hospitality, and 
charge a certain fee for each gun per day, week, month, 
or season. Hundreds of gentlemen who read this journal 
would eagerly embrace such an opportunity ; they would 
willingly pay for the privilege offered. If salmon fisher¬ 
men are content to travel long distances and lease streams 
at high prices, surely the devotees of the gun will do no 
less. 
There would be many very pleasant attendant features 
of such visits of Northern sportsmen to their brothers in 
the South. Our pages have, time and time again, con¬ 
tained pleasant letters from correspondents who have 
fared well at the South. All such social interchange is 
to he encouraged. Its results are happy. 
Again, the revenue thus derived from really good game 
lands would warrant some attention and expense devoted 
to better protection Of the game. The dollar shot gun 
hunter of colored complexion would doubtless have his 
enjoyment somewhat marred and his privileges curtailed. 
But the proprietor who employs efficient game wardens 
will find ample reason to congratulate himself upon the 
new order of things. 
To set the ball rolling and to afford a precedent, Dr. J. 
R. Baylor, of Greenwood Depot, Albemarle County, Va., 
offers to sportsmen such privileges as we have spoken of 
upon his estate of over 1,600 acres. The land abounds in 
game, being one of the finest quail grounds in Virginia. 
Dr. Baylor prefers to lease the shooting privilege for the 
season, but he will, if desired, lease per diem or otherwise. 
The details of accommodations, trains, etc., will be ar¬ 
ranged by correspondence. For fall shooting Virginia 
offers very decided attractions. Our readers are familiar 
with the beauty of the scenery, the hospitality of the peo¬ 
ple, and the abundance of the game, for all this has been 
repeatedly written of in our columns. 
GLASS BALLS AND GAME PROTECTION. 
W E do not know that any naturalist, carrying his 
investigations into the very verge of humanity, 
has yet discovered a race of beingB who did not possess, 
in some rude degree at least, a form of sport. Mr. E, B. 
Tylor, an ingenious and hard-working English student of 
the early history of mankind, has shown that the approved 
sports of our boyhood were common among races which 
were long ago blotted off from the face of the earth. The 
savage child in the dawn of human development finds 
amusement in substantially the plays which satisfy the 
civilized infant, and the mature man of to-day mimics 
in his sports the toil of his ancestors. The significance 
of modern games is suggestive. The struggle of Church 
and State, noble and people, upon the chess-board is only 
the bloodless and meaningless picturing of conflicts which 
once cost blood and treasure. The boys who play “ pris¬ 
oners’ base” on the green are submitting to'capture which 
once meant death. The archery tournament at Chicago 
the other day was a striking contrast to the tournament 
of bow and arrow which might have been beheld there 
fifty years ago. 
An outline sketch of the development of national amuse¬ 
ments would make an entertaining volume, of which not 
the least instructive feature would be the study of mechan¬ 
ical ingenuity devoted to supplying by artificial contriv¬ 
ances the place of natural agencies of sport. Parlor-row¬ 
ing machines take the place of boat and oars, and the man 
who has never sniffed salt water may develop his biceps 
by paddling his own canoe. As the gun is the most uni¬ 
versal sporting implement, we would naturally look for 
the greatest effort devoted to compensate the destruction 
of game. And accordingly, when the guns and shooters 
outnumbered the birds, Bogardus came to the rescue with 
his glass-ball substitute. To enable sportsmen to see the 
tangible success Of their skill Paine added the feathers, 
and now there is little difference between grassing a 
“driver" and making the feathers fly from one of these 
trap-thrown balls. There has been an incalculable amount 
of glass-ball shooting during the past few years; yet it 
seems likely to end in smoke after all, provided the Targot 
Bail Company can supply the demand for their smoke balls. 
The direct influence of the substitution of glass, feathers, 
and smoke for birds has been very remarkable. Thous¬ 
ands of men have been induced to purchase guns and to 
acquire skill with them in ball practice, who, without 
such inexpensive and easily obtained targets, would have 
known only in a general way the muzzle from the breech. 
It is possible that had the glass ball not been invented 
Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire would 
have had no need at this day to prohibit bird shooting. 
There would now be no birds to. shoot. 
The game-protective merits of the glass ball have never 
been duly recognized. To secure a shot or a number of 
shots is the object of long tramps with gun and dog. If 
a man, instead of a weary and possibly disappointing 
trudge, can go out into his back yard (provided it is big 
enough) and be sure of a hundred difficult shots at swift 
glass balls, the chances are largely in favor of his prefer¬ 
ring that to the field excursion. If game protective asso¬ 
ciations, which have hitherto been at great expense to 
obtain wild pigeons from a distance, and have more than 
once been subjected by the scarcity of the birds to post¬ 
pone their meetings, would only substitute the most ap¬ 
proved balls and the most approved traps instead of the 
birds, and then put the difference of cash expended into 
paying for prosecution of game law violations, the tour¬ 
naments would prove fully as entertaining and the real 
interests of game protection would be vastly furthered. 
We are glad to see this consummation gradually ap¬ 
proaching. The encouragement of ball-trap shooting 
means the encouragement of game protection. 
It is not altogether fanciful to anticipate a time when 
the bird trap shall have become obsolete, and bird trap¬ 
shooting only another of the old sportsman’s reminis¬ 
cences. In this the. history of trap-shooting would he fol¬ 
lowing, in its way, the development of all games and 
sports, 
{ < T~) l >» THE months with an “r”have come again, 
Jtv I and with them the advent of the oyster. 
However humble the bivalve may be individually, col¬ 
lectively he is a power in the land. No living thing in 
the waters under the firmanent has so much notice 
bestowed upon him in the way of annual newspaper eu- 
logium as this denizen of the two shells. With the uni¬ 
versal exaltation of man’s spirit which comes with the 
first of May, is mingled the poignant regret at the cutting 
off of the oyster ; and the melancholy which attends the 
days of fall-time, is ever in a measure mitigated by the 
return to our tables of this same tried fried. 
OyBter dealers and other interested parties, we see, put 
forth their views in the newspapers, attempting to ridi¬ 
cule the well-founded prejudice against eating oysters 
during a part of the year, which has been factitiously 
limited to the months without the magic “r.” As a 
matter of course it is impossible to set the limits in such 
an instance so definitely that we can say, to-day you may 
eat, to-morrow you may not eat. But that there is a 
season in the natural life of the oyster, when its use as 
an article of food should be abstained from, common 
sense as well as science abundantly demonstrates. 
For the proper protection of the, bivalves also, and to 
give them an opportunity to rest from the drain upon 
them, such an interval of rest is highly necessary. 
Turtle Steak. —Country editors are always receiving 
good things; their desks are the only approved deposi¬ 
tory for overgrown pumpkins, elongated com stalks, and 
precocious spring chickens, and their sanctums resemble 
an agricultural fair. In lands where the creatures of the 
earth bring forth each after its kind, beasts, reptiles, and 
fishes, marvelous to behold, the happy knight of the ink 
is overwhelmed with the contributions of emulous sub¬ 
scribers ; the sanctum becomes a menagerie, the compos¬ 
ing room is turned into a museum. We have been in 
newspaper offices, before now, where the editor habitu¬ 
ally clothed himself in sheet-iron before opening his morn¬ 
ing mail. Florida editors are peculiarly favored in this 
way. That is one reason why the imagination of Florida 
editors has such an exalted reputation all over the world. 
Here is a case in point. Some one sent the editor of the 
Palatka Eastern Herald a turtle the other day. Bestrid¬ 
ing the back of the reptile, like the Delphic priestess 
perched upon her mystic tripod, the editor saw visions, 
and under the influence of the spell wrote, in strange sym¬ 
bols afterwards deciphered by the editorial staff, the fol¬ 
lowing :— 
We received a turtle a few days ago on whose back 
was marked the date 1700, and also the Spanish coat-of- 
arms, indicating that this old resident was in existence 
one hundred and seventy-nine years ago. What changes 
this old fellow of the deep has seen ! The rise and fall of 
empires, and the continent on which he partly lived, 
emerged from, the thraldom of despotism, with the rise of 
