Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 2, 1882. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



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 respectfully invited. Anonymous communications wiU not he re- 

 garded. No name will be published except with writer's consent. 

 The Editors are not responsible for the views of correspondents. 



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CONTENTS. 





Editorial. 





Fishculturb. 





Express Hides and Express Balls 



Escaped Carp. 





November Shooting. 





Tel Kennel. 





The Sportsman. 





The Musi,- of th 



e Hounds. 



The Sportsman Tourist 





'. : .1 !-r, Field T 



■iuls Entries. 



A Leaf In mi a Vagal.,, i 





Eastern Field T 



■ials 



Rambles through New! 

 Vacation. 



iiindland 



Gun-Shy Dogs. 



Memory hi Dog 





Natural History. 





Murder Most Fr 





The Pine Grosbeak. 





ICennol jlanaoo 





The Breeding of Quai 



. 



Kennel Notes. 





Game Bag and Gun. 





Rij-li ri n 





The Moo- C Dera. 

 Gunning for Grouse. 





Rapidity Shooti 



ng. 



ey City Heights. 



A. "Day's Shooting in F 



orida. 



:uit.'ji , foi! ',:■ 





New Jersey Non-Kesi< 



ent Law. 



Yachtlso akd Cai 





Our Philadelphia Lett 





Single Hand Ya 



chts. 



Our New Jersey Lette 





Four for the Cutters. Two for 



Hounding vs. Still Hu 



nting. 



the Sloops. 



A Run at sea ; n 





Sea and River Fis.hi.vo. 





the Yawl White 



Fish in Season in Nov 



jmber. 



Cap. 





With Hackles and Gei 



tles.-v. 



Concerning- Ya 



vis. 



Camps on the Way.— i 





A. C. A. Canoes 



at Lake George. 



Canoeing on the Mata 

 The Anglers' Tom-nau 



pedia. 



Yachting Notes, 





ent. 



Answers to Correspondents. 



Otm Readers will confer a favor by sending us the nanus 

 of tuck of their fronds us are not now amontj Iht •subscribers 

 of tlw Foiif.st ksd Stream, but who would presumably be 

 interested in thepwper. 



NO VEMBEE SHOOTING. 

 "VTOVEMBER'S conventional and proverb.:., frosty 

 -L ' mornings" arc golden days in the spoilsman's calen- 

 dar, buLtltere is little of this distinctive character about the 

 opening of the month in the year of grace eighteen hundred 

 and eighty-two. The weather of the past few weeks lias 

 been exceptional in its mildness, and the newly ushered in 

 November is not frosty but muggy. The advent of Novem- 

 ber marks few changes in the sportsman's calendar. The 

 open game seasons in the great majority of instances remain 

 unaltered ; most of them began in September or October, 

 and few will close before mid-winter or early spring. 

 Among the few important changes to be noted are the open- 

 ings, on the first day of the month, of the quail seasons in 

 the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey, 

 New York and Michigan. A large number of very young 

 broods have been observed in various parts of the country 

 during the past few weeks. This was naturally to have 

 been expected, when the effect of the unusual warm 

 weather which has prevailed is taken into consideration. 

 Many of those sportsmen who contend against the theory 

 that quail ever rear a second brootl, will doubtless, this sea- 

 son, have an opportunity to add to their fund of ornitho- 

 logical lore. 



The weather has also materially affected the woodcock 

 shootiug. The migration has been delayed, and the birds 

 have remained scattered on their feeding grounds in the 

 inaccessible swamps, in the mountain tops, and in other 

 accustomed fall haunts. There has been no "coid snap" to 

 si art them on their southern journey. When the frost does 

 come a large flight may be expected, and those gunners who 

 may be so fortunate as to Tic in the line of this flight will be- 

 sure to have some rare sport. The migration -will be a 

 rapid one. The birds will not linger on the way, as is their 

 custom when they start earlier in the season. 



It is a favorite belief with many woodcock shooters that 

 the autumnal migration is dependent upon the moon's 

 phases. The birds, they claim, fly south "on the full of the 

 rnoou." It would be difficult to reconcile the correctness of 

 this theory with the facts of the lust, month, for we then had 

 the full moon, but not the usual flight, Possibly the truth of 



the matter is this: that the birds, flying by night, move when 

 the nights are cold and clear, and such conditions are most 

 apt to occur, it has been claimed, when the moon is full. 



Ruffed grouse shooting opened in New Jersey on the first 

 Of Hie month, and the season in Delaware will begin on the 

 15th. The deer season in Massachusetts and Minnesota 

 opened on the first, and on the same date it closed in Cali- 

 fornia; it will close in Wyoming on the 15th and in Ohio on 

 the 20th. The wildfowl season opened on the first in Mary- 

 land ami West Virginia. Grouse shooting in Coloiado 

 Closed £>n the first, and in Wyoming the same season will 

 close on the 15th. 



A MATTER OF OPINION. 

 r PIIE discussion as to (he excellence of the flesh of the 

 -*- mud-hen, or coot, which seems to be agitating some 

 of our correspondents, appears to us quite profitless. On a 

 matter of this kind only opinions are to be had, and what 

 may suit the palate of one individual, perhaps appears to 

 another very unpleasant/ There is no standard, as to what 

 is or is not good to eat, and while grasshopper bread appears 

 to the Pah Ute a choice delicacy, it does not appear prob- 

 able that it will ever w T in its way to public lavor along 

 the Atlantic seaboard. Like one or two of our corre- 

 spondents, we have seen mud-hens served as teal in the 

 West, and accepted by the eaters as genuine, and it may 

 perhaps be questioned whether most people could tell the 

 difference between the two. It has been our fortune to 

 eat coots in most of the States and Territories between the 

 Atlantic and Pacific, and we confess that we have always 

 relished them, and regarded them as quite equal in excel- 

 lence to most species of our ducks. They are very near 

 relatives of the rail, certainly among the most delicious of 

 our feathered game, and their food consists chiefly of the 

 tender shoots of grasses and water plants, together with the 

 seeds of the latter. In autumn, along the Atlantic coast, 

 they feed to a great extent, and ia company with rail and 

 many species of ducks, on the seeds of the wild rice (Ziza- 

 nki aquatica). There does not, therefore, appear to be any 

 inherent reason why the flesh of this bird should have a 

 disagreeable taste, or should be, as has been suggested by 

 one correspondent, dangerous for human food; nor do we 

 believe that under ordinary circumstances it is so. 



As our correspondent, ' 'Byrne, " remarked in a recent issue, 

 there is another bird — in fact there are two or three of 

 them — the small grebes, sometimes called divers, which, 

 especially when at rest on the. water, closely resemble, to a 

 superficial observer, the. coot, having the same partially 

 webbed foes, and being similar in general shape. These 

 grebes are extremely fishy in taste, and are by universal con- 

 sent condemned as utterly worthless for human food. They 

 are so tough that along the New England shore it is said 

 thai if yon are going to cook one, you should place in the 

 body an iron wedge, then conk until you can run a forkiulo 

 the wedge. When this can be done your bird is ready for 

 the table. It is not unlikely that in some of the cases re- 

 ported by our correspondents, these grebes may have been 

 eaten under the impression that they were coots. This is 

 perhaps overmuch ou a subject of no very great importance, 

 but it seems only fair that the much -abused mud-hen should 

 have a word said in its favor. The explanation of the term 

 coot, which, in New England, is improperly applied to the 

 black sea ducks of the genus <Rik mm, has been given in these 

 columns many times, both editorially and by a number of our 

 contributors. This mixing up of two utterly different birds 

 under a common name is only another example of the lament- 

 able confusion which is constantly arising from the use of 

 local names among men who shoot and fish. It has taken a 

 long time to drive out of use the terms partridge and pheas 

 ant, and to substitute for them in different sections of the 

 country the name ruffed grouse, and even now the work is 

 only half done. Still the partial success which has attended 

 these efforts should stimulate us to others in Ihe same direc- 

 tion. 



Death ok Dr. Howell. — Doctor Bsnjamin C. Howell, 

 one of the Pish Commissioners of New Jersey, at his resi- 

 dence, at Gloucester, N. J., October 10. Dr. Howell was 

 in the seventy-fourth year of his age and has been active in 

 the cause of fishculture for many years. He was a cultured 

 gentleman, esteemed by all who knew him, and his loss will 

 be felt by a large circle as well as by his co-laborers in fish- 

 culture. Dr. Howell was the owner of the great shad fishery 

 at Howell's Cove, which has been in the possession of his 

 family since the establishment of the fishery in the early 

 settlement of the country. Notices of the enormous seine 

 in use there have several times appeured in our columns. 



EXPRESS RIFLES AND EXPRESS PALIS. 



\ COMMUNICATION from a Montana hunter which 

 J -*- we give below shows very clearly that the writer 

 misconceives the object of the express bullet, and as this is 

 only one of a number of cases in which we have heard the 

 same or similar objections made io this form of projectile, 

 it may be worth while I o allude more fully to the subject. 

 The object looked for from the use of the express ball wo 

 conceive to be shock and not penetration. It is believed 

 that the deadly effect of a ball which is, to all intents and 

 purposes, explosive when it strikes a bone, is much greater 

 than that of a solid ball which merely pierces or breaks. 

 And it is self-evident lhat a ball which is so made that it 

 will fly to pieces or flatten out on meeting with a resistiug 

 substance cannot give penetration. For this very reason 

 we have heard old hunters condemn the, use of the express 

 ball on dangerous game, asserting that they want something 

 that will penetrate as deeply as possible. Our own experi- 

 ence with express balls has been somewhat limited. We 

 have witnessed their effects on the Creedmoor range, of 

 course, but have never used them to any great extent in out- 

 hunting. During the past summer, however, while in 

 the Pocky Mountains, we tried them on antelope, and found 

 them deadly, but not more so than a solid ball equally well 

 aimed. A buck antelope struck in the shoulder or just 

 behind it with an express ball rarely ran more than fifty 

 yards, but we could not see that death or disabling ensued 

 more quickly with one than the other. More definite results 

 might - have been attained had we purposely wounded the 

 game in places where a shot is not so speedily fatal, but 

 that would have been so cruel that it was not to be thought 

 of. 



On the other hand it must be remembered that the express 

 balls are, after years of trial, regarded by hunters in India and 

 Africa as a most fatal style of projectile. Their use in this 

 country is comparatively of recent date, and although 

 quite a good deal has been written on the subject, the prac- 

 tical experimenting has been confined to the hands of a very 

 few individuals. "An Old Hunter" may rest assured, how- 

 ever, that the fact that he does not obtain penetration with 

 express balls is not at all remarkable, but is just exactly 

 what was to be expected. 



The letter referred to is as follows: 

 M Bozemak, Montana Ter., Oct. 7, 1882. 



When express rides came in vogue, it was claimed by the manu- 

 facturers that they far excelled the common brecch-ioaders in regard 

 to killing power. Some manufacturers, like the Winchester Repeat- 

 ing Arms Company, are manufacturing now express rifles, .50 cal. 

 I ordered one of these from the factory, and gave it a good trial on 

 large game. The rifle itself is very good, and a very accurate shooter, 

 but as far as the killing power of the express bullet is concerned, I 

 don't see in what respects It is any better or as good as a solid ball. 

 The cartridge as manufactured by the Winchester Repeating Arms 

 Company contains ninty-five grains of powder and three hundred 

 grains of lead. At common hunting distances (from fifty to one hun- 

 dred and fifty yards) the bullet flies to pieces, at longer distances the 

 ball only flattens out. For instance, I recently shot at a blaek- 

 tailed deer at twenty -five yards, the bullet struck about the center of 

 the shoulder blade and went into fragments, which were distributed 

 through the whole shoulder (this shot killed the deer.) Shot at four 

 elk from 150 to 250 yards, the bullets didn't fly to pieces, but merely 

 flattened out, and gave very poor penetration; as soon as a bullet 

 struck a bone, it stopped after breaking the bone or part of it, where 

 a solid bullet would have passed clear through. One elk had five 

 express bullets in him. and lived over a day, when 1 finished him and 

 examined his wounds and found that all the bullets were flattened 

 out, and didn't penetrate far enough. I shot at an elk at forty yards 

 distance, the bullet broke the shoulder blade, and the fragments 

 didnot pass any further and failed to kill the elk; another shot killed 

 him. On my last hunt I used a Winchester Repeating rifle .44 calibre, 

 model 'GO, forty grains powder and two hundred grains lead, and a 

 Winchester Express, .50 calibre, ninety-five grains powder and three 

 hundred grains lead. The Winchester .44 calibre gives the best pene- 

 tration, as I killed two antelopes at one shot with it, the bullet, pass- 

 iug clear through them, while with an Express 1 never shot clear 

 through a deer or an antelope or an elk yet, although 1 killed a good 

 many with it. I,- for my part, prefer a solid ball for large game. 

 Penetration is everything, especially where a hunter has to take all 

 kinds of shots to secure game. The Winchester express bullet gives 

 very poor penetration, and for that reason the gun don't find many 

 admirers among hunters in this part of the country. I am trying to 

 shoot solid bullets out of my express rifle now, and hope to secure 

 large game with less shooting. 



Some hunters use Sharps rifles. .40, .44 and .45 calibre, with express 

 charges and express bullets, but they generally use more powder 1 115 

 U) 120 grains) and a longer bullet than the Winchester express, and 

 report good results. Most hunters, however, use solid balls in pref- 

 erence to the express balls. ■ 



The large game is decreasing fast In Montana and Wyoming. 

 Where about tour or five years ago I saw from two hundred to three 

 hundred elk in a single baud, I found now not more than from 

 twelve to fifteen elk in a band, and other game in proportion. 

 Eastern Nimrods should be aware of this, and those desiring to kill 

 large game should not wai', too long to take a trip to America's best 

 hunting grounds. An Old Hunter. 



