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THE AMERICAN SPORTSMAN'S JOURNAL. 



Entered According to Aot of Congress, In the year issi, by the Forest and Stream Publishing Company, to the Office of tne Librarian of [Congress, at Washington.: 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, AUGUST 18, 1881. 



CONTENTS. 



Editobial : — 

 Malaria in the White House : The St. Lawrence Game Club; 

 Prog Culture ; Tho Lake Goorgo Meet ; Notes 43 



The Sportsman Tourist : — 

 A Story of tho Juniper Swamps ; Texas AttractianB ; Dream- 

 ing Undor the Pine ; Trout Fishing in New Mexico. 4A 



Natural Historv:— 

 Bryant's Sparrow Song ; Do Garter Snakes Eat Fish? "The 

 Way of a Serpent on a Eock ;" The Mocking Bird's Tri- 

 umph ; Notes 46 



Game Bao and Gun : — 

 An Arkansas Turkey Hunt ; Delaware Rail Shooting ; Are 

 They Monopolies ? In Defense of Adirondack Guides ; 

 Asiatic Birds for America ; Game in Dutchess County ; 

 The Inu-o-mono; Notes 47 



Sea and River Fisuino : — 

 The Carp is Game ; Fishing ; The Wicked Fishing Wheel ; 

 Improvement in Mackerel Fishing ; The StariiBh aB a 

 Comestible; Seven Ponds; Large Black Bass; Rhode 

 Island Lobster Law 50 



FlSHCULTUBE : — 



Top-Minnow, Structure and Ovarian Incubation ; Carp in 

 Tennessee ; Fishery Exhibition in Scotland ; Bosher's Dam 

 irishway ; McCloud Hatchery ; Paris Exposition ; Notes.. 51 



The Kennel : — 

 Niagara Dogs Rescued ; Transportation of Dogs ; Nebraska 

 Field Trials ; Hydrophobia ; Dachshund Trials j London 



Dog Show ; Notes 53 



Rifle and Trap SnooTrxa 55 



Yachting and Canoeiso 56 



Answers to Correspondents 53 



MALARIA IN THE WHITE HOUSE. 



TO CORRESPONDENTS. 



The Forest and Stream Is the recognized medium of entertainment, 

 Instruction and Information between American spoilsmen. 



Communications upon the subjects to which Its- pages are devoted 

 are Invited from every part of the country. 



Anonymous communications will not be regarded. No correspond- 

 ent's name will be published except with Ms consent. 



The Editors cannot be held responsible for the views of correspond- 

 ents. 



Subscriptions. 



Subscriptions may begin at any tune. The subscription price Is $i 

 per year j $2 tor six months. Remittances should be sent by regis- 

 tered letter, money order, or draft payable to the Forest and Stream 

 Publishing Company. The paper may be obtained of newsdealers 

 throughout the United States and Canadas ; and Is on sale In Europe 

 by The American Exchange, «9 strand, W. C, London, Eng.; and by 

 Em. Terquem, 15 Boulevard, St. Martin, Paris, France. 

 Advertisements. 



Inside pages, nonpareil type, 25 cents per line. Special rates for 

 three, six and twelve months. Reading notices 50 cents per line- 

 eight words to the line, and twelve lines to one Inch. Advertisements 

 should be sent In by the Saturday of each week previous to the Issue 

 In which they are to be Inserted. 



Address: Forest and Stream Publishing Co., 



Nos. 39 and 40 Park Row, New York City. 



THAT the residence of the President of the United States 

 is an unwholesome place in summer is well known. 

 Now that he is lying on a sick bed from an assassin's bullet, 

 various newspapers have called attention to the pestilential 

 flats which have poisoned the air so that several of his at- 

 tendants have been stricken down with those complaints 

 called malarial. These flats have been complained of for 

 years and various projects have been broached to mitigate 

 their evils. 



Other Presidents have been able to escape. One made his 

 summer home at Long Branch and another on the heights of 

 the Soldiers' Home Park, but President Garfield is obliged to 

 stay. 



Former Presidents have complained, but the District of 

 Columbia is not a Congressional district, and, having no 

 member of Congress, has no one to urge the members to 

 make an appropriation for this purpose. A short time ago 

 it was reported that the Potomac fiats were to be raised from 

 their marshy condition by covering them with a deposit 

 dredged from the river channel. This was claimed to be no 

 remedy at all by Washington physicians, who declared that 

 the deposit from the river bottom contained matters which 

 would decay and prove as vicious as the swamps. This would 

 no doubt be the case, for the river bottom is covered with a 

 deposit from the sewers of the city. 



We would call the attention of those interested in this 

 matter to the fact that the old canal and swamp near the 

 Monument, which for years bred malaria and mosquitoes, is 

 now a beautiful carp pond. There is much of the swampy 

 flat in question which might also be made to produce carp in- 

 stead of miasma, not to mention the beauty of a sheet of 

 water in place of muddy flats. 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



Thursday, August 18. 



Specimen copies of this paper will be sent free upon applied 

 tton. We will esteem it a favor if our readers will call the at- 

 tention of tlieir friends to t?ie merits of the Forest and 

 Stream. 



Historical. — A correspondent is informed that the first 

 number of the American Sportsman was published by the 

 Parker Brothers at West Meriden, Conn., in October, 1871. 

 It was a monthly until October 1873, when it was changed 

 to a weekly. The publication office was removed to this city 

 and the name changed to " Rod and Gun" in 1875. 



The first number of the Forest and Stbkam was issued from 

 No. 103 Fulton street, Aug., 14, 1873. The Rod and Gun 

 and the Forest and Stream were consolidated in 1877, the 

 first number of the new form appearing May 3d of that year. 

 Out inquirer is further informed that the words "Forest" 

 and "Stream" are not the names of individuals who have 

 been connected with the paper. 



Two of tub Niagara Castaways have been rescued, as 

 related by our correspondent elsewhere, and " Old Bull " it 

 is hoped, will be present at the London, Out., Bench Show. 

 'Old Bull " ought to join a circus. 



THE ST. LAWRENCE GAME CLUB. 



A STRONG society, of which the membership numbers 

 nearly one hundred, has been formed at Ogdensburg, 

 N. Y., under the name of the St. Lawrence Game Club. ItB 

 objects are to stock the St. Lawrence River and the lakes, 

 streams snd ponds of St. Lawrence county with food fishes, 

 and to protect the fish and game for the public good. The 

 membership of the club is open to all citizens of the county, 

 the annual fee being but a trifle ; and it is hoped to enlist the 

 cordial support of the land owners. 



Game protective associations have been so long established 

 in this country, and methods of work have been so fully 

 tested that newly formed societies may readily avail them- 

 selves of the experience thus gained by workers in the cause ; 

 and there can be no excuse for the adoption by a new society 

 of impracticable or inefficient ways of work. The St. Law- 

 rence Club has started right ; and we hope to chronicle its 

 entire success. 



Washington Gun Club Excursion.— The Washington 

 Gun Club, of Brooklyn, are going on an excursion to Lake 

 Hopatcong, New Jersey, next Thursday. This beautiful 

 lake, famous as a health resort and well known to anglers 

 because of its fine bass fishing, is up among the Schooley's 

 range of mountains, and a more attractive spot for such an 

 excursion as our Brooklyn friends propose it were hard to 

 find. It usually takes two and one-half hours to reach the 

 lake from this city, but the Washington Club and guests are 

 to go by a special train in much shorter time. There is to 

 be a bountiful repast — we have had a peep at the bill of fare 

 — rowing and rifle prize contests, fishing and the various di- 

 versions always in order in such a pleasure trip. All the 

 Brooklyn sportsmen are invited by the Washingtons to join 

 the party and share the pleasure. Tickets ($5 each) are to 

 be had of Mr. Henry Altenbrand, the president of the club, 

 Mr. H. Hi deman, corner of Division avenue and Sixth 

 street, Brooklyn, E. D., and at the headquarters of the 

 Btooklyn Gun Club, Harry Miller's, Flatbush avenue. The 

 special train which is to convey the party on the Delaware, 

 Lackawanna and Western Railroad leaves at 8:15 Thursday 

 morning, August 35. 



FROG CULTURE. 



DOUBTLESS our readers have seen the item which has 

 appeared in the local papers, from Maine to California, 

 for the past year, on frog culture. One paper has copied it 

 from another, and it has been sent us by a dnzen correspond- 

 ents. It tells how a thrifty agriculturist near Elgin, Blinois, 

 has bred frogs for market and thereby accumulated much 

 lucre. We have explained the impossibility of feeding large 

 numbers of froglets, in pondlets or in brooklets, and how 

 the large frog had accommodations in his interior for the 

 smaller ones, which he usually kept full. 



We do not want a reader of Fobbst and Stream to spend 

 time or money in the culture of anything which is neither 

 profitable nor ornamental, and we have pronounced frog 

 culture a delusion and a snare. But the aforesaid article still 

 goes the rounds of the rural papers. To pin down the Elgin 

 ' • frogist " we wrote to Dr. Pratt, a former fish commissioner 

 residing at Elgin, and, inclosing the slip, asked for informa- 

 tion. What he gives us we lay before our readers in the fol- 

 lowing note : r 



Elgin, HI., Aug. 4. 

 Editor Forest and Stream : 



The man who started that frog-breeding story and gave it 

 to a reporter is a " dead beat." I understand that he is now 

 in State prison in Michigan. It is singular that it was not 

 inquired into before, so many papers copied the article.— W. 

 A. Pratt. 



We trust that every paper which has been imposed on by 

 the frog story will do its readers the justice to publish Mr. 

 Pratt's letter, and not let any simple-minded person invest 

 in a frog pond as a source of revenue. An adult bull frog 

 is a cannibal, and a given piece of water will only yield a 

 certain number of adult frogs, no matter how many tadpoles 

 are hatched. 



The Tot Pistol is just now a frequent cause of coroners' 

 inquests. The latest case is that of a little boy in Newark, 

 N. J., who was "playing forfeits" with a number of 

 children, and when it came his turn to pay a forfeit, handed 

 over a toy pistol to a little girl. He "thought it wasn't 

 loaded," but it went off and killed the girl. The jury re- 

 turned a verdict of accidental killing, censuring the boy's 

 carlessness, and adding : "We further feel that we cannot 

 too strongly condemn the reckless use of all kinds of 

 weapons of this character by children and youth, and we 

 suggest that the sale thereof be discountenanced by the 

 public and suppressed by proper authority." Perhaps it was 

 out of the jury's sphere to have ascertained the name of the 

 toy- dealer who sold this deadly firearm to the unhappy boy 

 and to censure him too ; but the sooner parents and guar- 

 dians of youth hold the toy-dealers personally responsible for 

 all the woe caused by these infernal machines, the sooner 

 will the nuisance be abated. The sale of toy -pistols must be 

 put down by law. 



Bryant's Sparrow Poem is printed in another column. 

 We should like to supplement it at once with a poetical obit- 

 uary of the last bird of that race in America. 



"Bird-Nesting" is a more heinous offense in England 

 than in this country. A man who robbed a nest at Wands- 

 worth, Eng., was fined the other day 4£, and in default was 

 sentenced to twenty-one days' imprisonment. A heavy 

 enough penalty, but light compared to the trouble which fol- 

 lowed the'robbing of a mocking-bird's nest in Alexandria Co., 

 Virginia, not long ago. It seems that a Justice of the Peace 

 had bad his eye on these particular birds, and had the cap- 

 ture of them all planned out so soon as they should be ripe. 

 Some other bird catcher stole a march on him, whereupon 

 the disappointed J. P. straightaway made out a warrant, 

 and the sheriff arrested the bird thief. The trial, we are 

 told, resulted in a verdict of guilty, carrying with it a fine of 

 $10 and the costs of the case. The costs were immediately 

 paid, but the fine was not. When the attempt was made by 

 a colored constable to arreBt Ihe capturer of the bird's nest, 

 who is deaf and otherwise afflicted, he declined to go with 

 him, and the wife of the accused seeing her husband dragged 

 along by the constable rescued him from the hands of his 

 captor. They were then arrested on the charge of assault 

 and battery, waived an examination, paid the costs, and re- 

 moved the case to the County Court. "A neighbor who de- 

 fended the accused in very strong words was fined $5 for 

 contempt of court. He refused to pay the fine, stating that 

 he was in the Post Office Department and did not recognize 

 the authority of the Justice. The Justice then made out a 



