

Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 9, 1882. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 

 Tas Forest and Stream is the recognized medium of entertain- 

 ment, Instruction and information between American sportsmen. 

 Communications upon the subjects to which its pages are devoted are. 

 respectfully invited. Anonymous communications will not be 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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Editorial. 



Rule Practice in 1882. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



'■oi :ii. ' ::L, r ers on tie Ottawa. 



!!its of Florida Experience. 

 Natural History. 



Bird Migration in the Mississippi 

 Valley. 



Pine Grosbeaks in Confinement. 

 Game Bao and Gon. 



A Moose Monologue. 



Spore on the Ar'cansaw Prairies. 



Ontario Deer S (looting. 



Shooting over Cockers. 



Deer Hunt on the Yellow Medi- 

 cine. 

 CAMP Fire Flickerings. 

 Sea and Rn-ER Fishing.' 



The Fish of Central Lake. 



Bass Fishing in Florida. 



FlSECCT/rrJHE. 



The New York Fish C 

 Benjamin P. Howell. 



The Kennel. 

 Tetanus in the Dog. 



The Kennel. 



An Eastern Coursing Club. 

 Florida Dog Transportation. 

 The Mastiff "Gurth." 

 Ethics of Fox Hunting. 

 The Mastiff. 



J.-.I. ■ i '■'•'.. !.:■ 



Kennel Notes. 

 Rifle and That Shooting. 



Range and Gallery. 



The Trap. 



Matches and Meetings. 

 Yachting and Canoeing. 



What we Condemn. 



Straightened Out. 



ShaipiesatSea. 



An Improvised Cabin. 



Quite the Contrary. 



bedouin's Accommodations. 



Who Sailed Bedouin. 



Bedouin only a Cruiser. 



,.■: ii, ! ;;, •_/,.. \. !;._-... , : 



Bedouin to Windward. 

 What Bedouin Teaches. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



Oub Readers will confer a J umr by sending us the names 

 of such of their friends as are not now among the subscribers 

 of the Forest and Stream, hut who would presumably be 

 interested in the paper. 



RIFLE PRACTICE IN 1888, 



WITH the man}' matches lo be shot on Thanksgiving' 

 Day the rifle shooting and target practice season of 

 1883 will practically close. Tt has been a comparatively 

 active season, and the year ends with a much more general 

 knowledge on the subject. It has not been a year of unin- 

 terrupted successes, and it will be remembered as the time 

 when an American international team suffered its first de- 

 feat before the butts. That defeat, in all its bearings, has 

 been thoroughly discussed in these columns, and, so far as 

 possible, the blame has been placed where it rightly belonged. 

 That there was a blunder somewhere was evident in the la- 

 mentably weak showing made by the home team. It was an 

 ignoble defeat; but it has a value in showing us how one- 

 sided our practice has been, and wherein we are as deficient 

 in shooting knowledge as we were a decade ago. If Ameri- 

 can prestige on the range is to be sustained, it must be by 

 all-round marksmanship. The work of riflemen abroad 

 must be studied, imitated and improved upon. The match 

 showed us, in the strongest way, that our rifle-makers had 

 neglected entirely to inform themselves of what was doing 

 in. Great Britain in the making up of long-range military 

 rifles. The American team was put in the match with 

 weapons which must have raised a quiet laugh of contempt 

 on the part of the Britishers, and meantime those members 

 of the National Guard who gave their effort as competitors 

 found themselves handicapped by this failure of the so-called 

 managers of the match. 

 Apart from this lapse, a glance over the work of the 

 ' scores of ranges is a satisfactory one. Hundreds of marks- 

 men have found in the effort of the shooting match a most, 

 enjoyable, out-door sport. This view of target practice has 

 not been as general as it should be, and it is a fact worthy 

 of note that when a man has once tasted the pleasures of 

 keen competition before the butts — has found that every 

 personal effort toward a better physical condition has yielded 

 a result in more bullseyes— he rarely gives up shooting en- 

 tirely. Business may crowd out the chance of much prac- 

 tice—time may not be spared; but with a few personal 

 scores well memorized, the ex-marksman is always ready to 



compare later work with his own, and rejoice as he sees flic 

 difficulties of shooting overcome and work nearer aud 

 nearer perfection accomplished. The purely amateur char- 

 acter of rifle practice has been well sustained during tin 

 year. This is as it should be. While there is rivalry, keen 

 competition, and an uncertainty of result, there is not that 

 element of chance which invites the poolbox and the bet- 

 ting gentleman. Prizes, with the discrimination they afford, 

 may be necessary to bring out the best effort in range shoot- 

 ing, and this is now a pretty generally acknowledged fact; 

 but, fortunately, the spirit of gain stops there. It is to the 

 credit of American rifle shouting that, the, record is the great 

 tiling aimed at, and that it is the rarest thing in the world 

 to hear any discussion of what such and such a winning 

 place may bring in spoils. How best- to make a good score 

 is more thought of than what such a score will bring in cash 

 or kind. 



The season has shown in a shoo'ing way both the strength 

 a»d weakness of the National Guard of the country. Where 

 a rational, not overdone, system of rifle practice has been 

 put in force, it has yielded good fruit in a general spread ol 

 the ability to handle a rifle. Without martinets in Charge, 

 it is possible to get a vast deal of real work out of these volun- 

 teer bodies, but pushed ever so little beyond a certain point 

 and a spirit of opposition is roused which renders the whole 

 system a failure. This is particularly true of the rifle-shoot- 

 ing part of a militia man's duty. He may be coaxed to 

 do a great deal of work at a conveniently located and prop- 

 erly conducted range, but a system of harsh orders forcing 

 the men to present themselves before the butts at inconve- 

 nient, times results in a little wild shooting, a disregard of 

 any instruction and an entire loss of that healthy co-opera- 

 tion and desire for good work, which alone can bring out 

 the best, results before the target. 



The records show, too, that a great majority of the States 

 have as vet no National Guard, or if any organization does 

 exist, it is a non-shooting one; and therefore a non useful 

 one, for a soldier who cauuot shoot is a useless anomaly. 

 It is not desirable that the National Guard, which was in- 

 tended to he truly national, should become unduly devel- 

 oped in various sections. The military spirit should be 

 kept alive in every part of the country and a general knowl- 

 edge of arms is one of the best guarantee : of a continued 

 peace. Not until a general organization throughout the 

 country of a well-armed militia shall permit the stirring up 

 of a spirit of rivalry, will the best results in marksmanship 

 be secured. Then it will come without any harsh orders, or 

 rather in spite of them Sectional pride of the most healthy 

 sort may then be appealed to, and for the mere honor of win- 

 ning tnauy will enter the lists, give time and effort to their 

 preparatory drill and practice and create a fund of ex- 

 perience from which arm makers and arm users may draw 

 freely. 



In the regular army the past year has witnessed the 

 bringing together of the best marksmen of the various 

 divisions, and the spirit of emulation and rivalry has worked 

 out most excellent results. The army of to-day, viewed 

 from a shooter's standpoint, is completely transformed from 

 the army of a dozen years ago. Civilians have taught the 

 military men how to shoot, and a proper regard to the fit- 

 ness of things and popular sentiment on the matter have im- 

 pelled officers and men on until now it is doubtful whether 

 for the ranges covered by the weapons in their hands, our 

 regulars are not the equals in ability to shoot of any army in 

 the world. Upon the whole, then, the year 1882 has been a 

 healthy one in a shooting sense. We have had a salutary 

 knock down; have learned that there are points in rifle 

 shooting where we are weak; have held our own in those 

 styles of shooting which we have cultivated, and generally 

 by the extension of rifle shooting have opened the way for 

 more general and better work in the future. 



Election Hat was improved by the duck shooters, who 

 made the most of the holiday, and came home at night more 

 or less well pleased with the count. The day was a fair one as 

 far as its weather conditions went, but the fowl were shy. 

 Those who went out Monday found better shooti ng. That day 

 is usually regarded as a favorable one for duck -shooting, since 

 the birds not hiving been disturbed on the Sabbath, do not 

 fly so wild. 



Total Abstinence.— Look not upon the fly when it is 

 delicately cast upon the water. Such is the rule of prac- 

 tice of a New York business man, who refrained from at- 

 tending the angler's tournament because he feared an acute 

 attack of the "angling fever," something which his business 

 interests he thought would not allow. 



New Jersey's New Commissioner. — Gov. Ludlow, of 



New Jersey, has appointed Richard S. Jenkins, Esq., of 

 Camden, to succeed the late Dr. B. P. Howell, as member 

 of the Board of Commissioners of Fisheries of that State. 

 This is an exceptionally good appointment, and cannot fail to 

 .rive satisfaction both in and out of the State. Mr. Jenkins 

 is Prosecutor of the Pleas of Camden county, and has been 

 for many years a leader of the county bar, and though he 

 has not heretofore given especial attention to the fishing 

 interests of the State, he is well known as a gentleman of 

 culture and scientific attainments, and he will not fail to 

 heartily co-operate with his colleagues, Messrs. Anderson 

 and Morford, in furthering the very important fishing in- 

 terests of New Jersey. Our only objections to Mr. Jenkins 

 as Pish Commissioner are that he adheres to the damnable 

 heresy that a boiled shad is better than a planked shad, and 

 that he is half inclined to believe that a wcakfish can be 

 properly cooked in the sun on the lid of a champagne bas- 

 ket ! When his associates have cured him of these wretched 

 heresies, he will prove a valuable acquisition to the army of 

 quiet, unselfish but persistent men who are devoting them- 

 selves to the culture, propagation and protection of fish, 

 and whose work will be appreciated and enjoyed for many 

 years after they have passed away. 



A Tramp for Pleasure and Study.— The third annual 

 "Summer Tramp," under the personal direction of Prof. 

 David S. Jordan, of the Indiana University, will leave New 

 York about the tenth of June next. It will be largely com- 

 posed of students of the University, and the party will he 

 limited to thirty, about one-half of which will be ladies. 

 They will go through Scotland, Norway, Germany, Italy, 

 Switzerland, France, and back by way of England, reaching 

 home early in September. The trip will not be expensive, 

 and will afford a fine chance for those who like to see those 

 countries at their leisure to join the party and do some of 

 the most interesting parts of the old world on foot. Infor- 

 mation can be obtained from Prof. Jordan at the University 

 at Bloomington, Indiana. 



A "Game" Dock — Punning is said to be a form of mental 

 disease. The latest victim of the punster's insanity is the 

 owner of a magnificent setter dog. The otker day he was 

 out shooting with his punning friend; and dilating upon 

 the merits of a valued dog, he insisted that there was no 

 gamier animal in the workl — "He's game, every inch of 

 him." Whereupon the friend, remarking that he was after 

 "game," blazed away, and lodged the greater part of a 

 charge of No. 10's in the dog's hide. The dog did not wait 

 to be put iuto the game bag, but disappeared in the direc- 

 tion of home; and at last accounts the sportsman and the 

 horrible punster were locked in a death struggle in the 

 snow. 



Incongruities.— There is no written confession of faith, 

 nor stringent rules of conduct to which a man must sub- 

 scribe before he may be admitted to the fraternity of those 

 who delight in rod and gun and the wonderful out-of-door 

 world to which they lead. It follows that there are numer- 

 ous and amusing incongruities in the commonly accepted 

 tenets of the sportsman's creed. He who scorns to shoot a 

 quail on the ground does not hesitate to pick off the grouse 

 from the limb where it has "treed;" while another, who 

 holds up his hands and turns up his eyes in righteous horror 

 at the grouse-treer's practices, does not scruple to blaze away 

 into a flock of wildfowl at rest on the water. 



Fox Hunting is no new thing in this vicinity, but having 

 been recently revived as a popular pastime at some of the 

 fashionable summer resorts, the sport is attracting public 

 attention. There has been a great deal of more or less 

 nonsensical correspondence in the daily papers about the 

 alleged cruelty of the practice. A n exception to this intem- 

 perate style of writing appeared the other day in the 

 Herald, and it is altogether so sensible that we have trans- 

 ferred it to our columns. 



As shown by the entries published in our Kennel col- 

 umns, there is promise of a very large meeting at the. East- 

 ern Field Trials meeting in North Carolina next week. The 

 quality of the dogs entered is such as should insure a fine 

 exhibition of running. Reports are to tl e effect that birds 

 are abundant on the grounds, and that it is to be hoped that 

 there may be no annoying lack of game when'the dogs are 

 down 



