770 
FOREST AND STREAM 
A WEEKLY JOURNAL, 
Devoted to Field and Aquatic Sports, Practical Natural 
History, Kisii Culture, the Protection op Game, Preserva¬ 
tion op Forests, and the Inculoation in Men and Women of 
a Health y Interest in Out-Door Recreation and Studv : 
PUBLISHED BY 
FOREST AND STREAM PUBLISHING COMPANY. 
—AT— 
NO. Ill FULTON STREET, NEW YORK. 
[Post Office Bos 2833.1 
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twelve Hues to one inch. _ ... , 
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possible. , . ... ,, 
All Iransiont advertisements must bo accompanied with the 
money or they will not be inserted. 
No Advertisement or business notice of an immoral character 
will he received on any terms. 
. V An v TRibl islier inserting our prospectus as above one time, with 
brief editorial notice calling attention thereto.and sending marked 
copy to us, will receive the Forest and Stream for ono year. 
CARRIER PIGEONS IN INDIAN WARFARE. 
T HE suggestion, of a correspondent, in our last num¬ 
ber, that carrier pigeons might be utilized as mes¬ 
sengers between the forces of our military on the frontier, 
is seconded hy several of the practical carrier-pigeon flyers 
of this vicinity. The proposal deserves the consideration of 
the officers in charge, if not of the ‘War Department itself. 
With our rapid growth in facility of scientific communi¬ 
cation between distant points, it is possible that we have 
ignored some of the ancient appliances which have in re¬ 
ality lost none, of their merits. The telegraph and the 
railroad train are such mighty agencies that the little bird 
messenger becomes ridiculous beside them. But an ad¬ 
vancing military force cannot construct a telegraph line 
on its advance. If it did, the Reds would soon take a hand 
at switching off the wire in the rear. At present (and 
until tile new race of pedomaniacs is more fully devel¬ 
oped) commanders are dependent upon mounted couriers. 
And good work, too, these heroes of the saddle have done ! 
In August, 1868, Buffalo Bill rode, in twelve hours, from 
Fort Lamed to Fort Zarah and back again; and in the 
next twelve hours he carried despatches from Fort Larned 
to Fort Hays, sixty-five miles more ; in the next twenty- 
four hours, to Fort Dodge,ninety-five miles; the next night, 
thirty-five miles on foot, and thirty-five miles more on a 
mule, to Fort Larned ; and the next night again back the 
sixty-five miles to Fort Hays. And here the other day 
Rankin, the scout, rode from Payne’s lines, carrying the 
news of Thornburgh's command to Rawlins, one hundred 
and sixty miles, in twenty-four hours. These are feats 
of wonderful nerve and endurance well deserving of ad. 
miration. But as couriers the bird messengers would 
prove their utility in just such emergencies as these. A 
system of communication could be so devised as to do 
away with at least the return journeys. We should be 
be pleased to evoke from our frontier readers some re¬ 
sponse upon this subject. 
NEW YORK, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30,1879. 
To Correspondents. 
All communications whatever, intendedfor publication, must be 
accompanied with real name of the writer as a guaranty of good 
faith and ho addressed to Forest and Stream Publishing Com¬ 
pany. Names will not he published if objection be made. Anony¬ 
mous communications will not be regarded. 
«t_ _to vofni'n rnlru'tofl rnoniiRoriniR 
IB wtih 
□nous communications wiu uul uv iosiuulu. 
We cannot promise to return rejected manuscripts. 
Secretaries of Clubs and Associations are urged to favor v 
brief notes of their movements and transactions- 
Nothing will be admitted to any department of the paper that 
mn v not be read with propriety in the home circle. . 
We c in not bo responsible for dereliction of mail service if money 
remit e.i to us is lost. _ _ 
Trade supplied by American News Company. 
“Sportino Clergymen.” —From one of many readers 
who have expressed to us their written approval of our 
articles which we have published in defence of clergy¬ 
men who seek recreation in field sports, we have the fol¬ 
lowing parenthesis accompai lying a remittance in behalf 
of one of the cloth, for whom he subscribed :— 
This gentleman is one of Nature's noblemen and one of 
our best shots. In taking fish he has no superior. He 
walks to most of his “appointments." and where quail, 
squirrel, pheasant or turkey are in the route he never 
encroaches upon the “ yellow legs" of the barnyard. With 
his great love for these sports you may know that when 
ho reaches his country church his sermons are as fresh 
and sweet as the flowers he has enjoyed by the fence rows 
and through the wildwood. I feel assured that your 
paper will be read by him—sometimes on Sunday. 
Florida. —Two more Florida letters will conclude the 
admirable series which we have been printing for several 
iveeks past. We have given a good deal of space to this 
region and subject, to the exclusion of other valuable 
matter, but no more, perhaps, than our readers will 
cheerfully permit. When concluded, they will be fol¬ 
lowed by a series of four letters from the Nepigon and 
beyond, describing the Hudson’s Bay region which lies 
north of Lake Superior. 
By the way, an Indianapolis correspondent, who has 
spent half his life in Florida, writes to say that Dr. Hen- 
shall is mistaken ns to the name " English duck” being 
applied to the mallard by the crackers. It is the 
“ dusky duck," the female of which closely resembles the 
female mallard. 
Why Salmo Qcinnat Does not Take the Fly.— Stxlmn 
quinnul is the representative salmon of the Pacific coast. 
Tills is the species or variety so extensively canned for 
export, and whose ova are distributed throughout the 
States by fish propagators. Those of our readers who 
have been told that these fish never take the fly of the 
angler will be able to discover why by reading the very 
intelligent article of C. R. in our “Sea and River” de¬ 
partment. The very sufficient reason he gives is that at 
the time when the salmon ascend the rivers the water is 
discolored by the annual rise, which is caused in great 
part by the melting snow on the mountains. There are 
fifteen other less known species of salmon on the Pacific, 
many of which do take the fly and afford abundant sport 
to the angler. 
See advertisement of Diving Decoys, 
THE INDIAN QUESTION. 
T HOSE who are best informed of the social and politi¬ 
cal economy of the Indian tribes and of their very 
anomalous relations to the United States Government, 
will endorse the following resolutions which were recently 
passed at a meeting of the citizens of Colorado. They 
express the views of men who are in constant contact with 
the people to whom they refer ; and must be accounted 
best judges of what is expedient and necessary :— 
Resolved, That all efforts to civilize the Indians must 
prove futile so long as they are permitted to retain their 
tribal relations, indulge in barbarous practices, and are 
taught to regal’d themselves as independent nationalities 
to be treated on an equal footing like a foreign country 
and as such pampered with the idea of a sovereign right 
to make war against the government for any fancied 
grievance. 
Resolved. That the first requirement in the process of 
civilizing the Indian is to teach him a sense of responsi¬ 
bility to the government which supports and protects him, 
whereas under the policy which has so long obtained he 
derives no such lesson, but, on the contrary, is habitually 
impressed with the idea that the government owes him a 
living and has no right to his loyalty or obedience in re¬ 
turn, he should either he accorded the same right and held 
to the same accountability as a citizen, or should be re¬ 
corded as irresponsible and dangerous and rigidly kept in 
restraint. 
Resolved, That while the Indian is allowed to remain 
in the limits of a State he should be subject to police reg¬ 
ulations and governed by its laws and authority. 
The above are but reiterations of what has been .urged 
for two centuries. The Indian question is as old as the 
lulls. The French and English, in our early history, took 
the Indians as allies in their warfare. Tiie Americans 
adopted a different policy. The far reaching effects of the 
two systems are now seen in the political and social rela¬ 
tions of the red men in Canada and in the United States. 
Num erically greater in proportion to the population in 
Canada than here, they make no disturbance; they be¬ 
come good citizens; they inhabit villages and obey the 
priests ; a few till the soil; many locate on the streams, 
lakes and coast, and fish ; many hunt and trap for the 
Hudson’s Bay Company, which has always dealt equitably 
with them, and not put three fingers into the tin cup when 
they dealt out whiskey for pliens; and a very large pro¬ 
portion serve as voyageurs and lumbermen. They adopt 
those labors which are constitutionally most congenial to 
them, and they find those labors in the forests and unin¬ 
habited places. 
In the United States the Indian is simply a hunted wild 
cat, made fierce and relentless by constant pursuit, re¬ 
sisting agriculture for an employment, (as a slave would 
oppose labor in the swamps,) and accepting the only alter¬ 
native which an hereditary antagonism and open resistance 
entail. When they keep the peace and hunt they are 
swindled out of the proceeds, and when certain designated 
hunting grounds are conceded to them by treaty, they 
Boon find them overrun and the fur driven out by the min¬ 
ers and ranchmen. They look upon soldiers as the tools 
of a faithless enemy, while they yet respect their discipline, 
then- hardihood and patience, and the uniform which they 
wear. 
Of Indians'there are many tribes, of .many dispositions 
—good, bad, and indifferent. In every tribe there are 
chiefs and common folks, just as therearein any commu¬ 
nity. There are statesmen who are intelligent and well 
informed, and there are ignoramusses who are the work¬ 
ers, if not the drones of the camp. And yet the policy of 
the Government treats all of them alike ; makes no dis¬ 
crimination in rank, condition, intelligence, or disposi¬ 
tion ; treats sensitive and sensible men as they would dumb 
brutes, and prods the whole race with the bayonet, just 
as a ruffian police ply their clubs among a mixed assembly 
of citizen spectators of a pageant. 
There are dozens of great tribes with hundreds of wiBe 
chiefs who are as well able as the most astute to see tho 
inevitable doom of the aborigines ; but they prefer to keep 
the inevitable day as far off as possible. They will hold on 
to their treaty guarantees as long as possible ; they will 
keep intruders off of their lawful reservations as long as 
possible, that they may hunt and trap while game and fur 
last, and pursue the hereditary avocations which are con¬ 
genial to their temperament and open air education ; and 
when the limits of their occupation become gradually cir¬ 
cumscribed by the encroachment of settlement which, 
like a great inevitable wave, sweeps toward them, they 
will succumb as gracefully, or as sullenly, as any van¬ 
quished or disappointed race or person does to the force of 
circumstances. Meanwhile the good Indians know who 
the bad ones are. Some of them have been their heredi¬ 
tary enemies from the beginning. These had Indians are 
known throughout all the aboriginal nations by disparag¬ 
ing sobriquets, such as “ Pillagers,” “ Cut-throats,” 
*• Snakes,” etc. They are the Ishmaelites of the scattered 
tribes, and the mark of outlawry is stamped upon them. 
To sensitive, good Indians to he classed with such riffraff 
and ruffians as these, and to be treated all alike by agents 
and civil officers who cannot tell the individuals of one 
tribe from another by their dialect andjphysiognomy, and 
much less by the make of their moccasins—the disgrace 
cuts keenly. Native indignation is kindled by such inex¬ 
cusable lack of discernment, and the effect is to mass all 
together in one common cause against the white in¬ 
truder. 
Were there to come among the Indians sagacious men 
bringing such credentials as are recognized and accepted 
on the frontier, who would find out the best men of the 
best tribes and of all tribes, and be able to assure them 
beyond doubt or possibility of failure that treaty rights 
would be preserved and maintained, it would not take 
long to collect together a wonderful army of courageous 
braves who would unite with the troops in driving out 
and exterminating, if necessary, the bad Indians, who are 
as obnoxious to the redmen themselves as they are bane¬ 
ful to the immigrants. Most efficient allies would these 
become. Invaluable would be the standing army thus 
constituted, and most economical the cost of maintaining 
it. The constant call for more troops to fight the Indi¬ 
ans would be heard no more. Lives of Custers and Thorn¬ 
burghs would be spared. Our whole Western territory 
would be policed, and the safety of the tourist or emi. 
grant would everywhere be assured so long as they re¬ 
spected the trespass notices which the Government has 
authorized to be set up on special reservations. Thus, 
with the air cleansed of the powder of skirmish and carn¬ 
age, would the Indian hunter and trapper be enabled to 
pursue his humble vocation undisturbed and with pecu¬ 
niary profit. The “big” warriors would wear their regi¬ 
mentals and insignia, and patrol their heats with their 
bands of braves, authorized and enlisted by the Great 
Father and proud in their position; while the women 
would dress pelts in camp, and the workingmen and small 
boys cut wood for the railroads, act as scouts, guides, 
voyageurs and camp-cooks for sportsmen, prospectors, and 
reconnoitering parties of troops, serve as interpreters, 
cultivate a little corn, make a little hay for ranchmen, 
drive teams, herd cattle, and do a hundred other useful 
chores which would come within their natural bent and 
inclination. 
Now, as to the tribal relations, which will be nominally 
maintained until, like the great Shinnecock Chief, Phar¬ 
aoh, the last man of the last tribe is laid in the dust—diplo¬ 
macy will have to he exercised for a little while. Chiefs 
of tribes will have to be treated with separately, in order 
to enlist their good services, and antagonize them against 
the bad elements Yvhicli exist; but when at last that bad 
element is wiped out and the wolves are separated from 
the sheep, then the only tribe which Government will 
be required to recognize will be the tribe of conciliated 
and reconciled redmen, harmonized and united on the 
single basis and policy of friendship and peace. Defer¬ 
ence will be paid to their traditions and tribal preroga¬ 
tives, as between tribe and tribe, but the attitude of the 
Government will be to them all as citizens of one com. 
munity, subject to the same rules and pri vileges as citi¬ 
zens Of other races and colors. This is the relation which 
the Indians in Canada hold to the powers that reign ; and 
there all is peace, if not absolute contentment. 
Let us consider these tilings carefully, and prepare 
to pass the pipe around. “ How I” Let us all smoke. 
—An accountant who visited Bunker Hill Monument 
last summer says it is the longest column he ever footed 
up. 
