THE AMERICAN SPORTSMAN'S 



\.a.v:.' 



JOURNAL. 



Entered According to Act ot Congress, In the year lSSl, by the Forest and Stream Publishing Company, In the omce ot the Librarian of [Congress, at Washington. I 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1881. 



CONTENTS. 



Editobiai, :— 



Bail Shooting ; Great South Bay ; Put-Luok Poetry 103 



'£hb Sportsman TotmisT :— 



Hark Cock ! " Podgera " Puts a Motion; A Reminiscence of 

 the War ; The Previous 'PosBUtu Question 105 



B>TCBAI. HlSTOBY:— 



Habits of Snakes; The Beaver; Land and Hermit Crabs; 

 Snaked and Squirrels 106 



Game Bag and Gtrx :— 



Trajpctorv; Over the Sea: Reminiscences of Forty Xears; 

 The White Panther ; Rtil Shooting ScoreB ; Scarcity of 

 BaySuipo; Notea 107 



Sea ato Rivkb Fishikg :— 



Angling in the Bav of Quinte : Garnheart's Lake ; Tomer's 

 Angling: Notes." >.... 112 



FlSHcriLTUHE :— 

 Maine Matters ; Lake for Carp: Delaware Shad ; Notes.... 118 



The Kennel :— 



len-fnundlan-i Dog* for Life Saving Stations ; The Moodus 

 ~ >g Swindler; "Dragged Before the World as a Bnll 



;" Breeding for Color ; Pennsylvania Trials; Notes. 113 



x and Thai- Shootino 116 



TiOBrrNO and Canoeino: ' 

 The Old Wanderer : Oswego Y. C. ; Hull Y. C. ; Proof of 

 the Pudding ; Elvira ; Yachting Notes 116 



TO Correspondents , 117 



TO CORRESPONDENTS. 



The Fobkst and STREAM Is the recognized medium of entertainment, 

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

 ents. 



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Address: Forest and Stream Publishing Co., 



Nos. 39 and 4u Park Row, New York City. 



FOREST AND STREA] 



Thursday, September 8. 



The Index of Volume XVI. is published with this Ume. 



Last Wintrb it was the cold, and now it is the drought. 

 Belw en the two the game birds are having a hard time. 

 Sportsmen naturally think of the effect of the drought and 

 the forest fires upon the birds, but the prolonged dry season 

 a much more serious aspect than tins ; the crops in many 

 parts or the c mntry have mffeted severely, and the area of 

 crops thus damaged is an unusually extended one. 



The Daily Press devotes a large share of space to re- 

 porting i he sport, of the day. "Sport " means horse racine, 

 Mill tic games, base bal 1 , lawn tennis, polo, yachting, target 

 ■hooting, cock righting, dog fights, rowing contests, boxing, 

 PfdOitriiinism, and the various kinds of diversions of the 

 time. The daily pnpers c>in give more space to these differ- 

 Bg events thai is nffoided by some of the special weeklies. 

 Thus the Brooklyn Ragle, devotes a column of small type to 

 1 description of a pigeon shooting match, while the Fobkb 1 

 ^M) Btkkam, in order to find room for all its matter, is com- 

 pelled to condense i's report of the same match into ten lines. 

 There can be no question, either, but that the ten-line report 

 a enough. Our daily press has a way of spinning things 

 out wh'ch is of profit only to the reporter, who is paid by 

 tneeolumn. Our aim, on the contrary, is to give as much, as 

 possible in the space at our command. 



RAIL SHOOTING. 



THE fl'St of this month was the opening day for rail 

 shooting on the Delaware, but as the tides did not suit, 

 the bags were not large. The morning h ; gh titles are always 

 considered poor except when it is cloudy and hazy, but the 

 afternoon tides are those when the large bags are made. 

 Should tbe wind blow from the eastward, either north or 

 sou heast, the water is driven in the mouth of the Capes and 

 large tides are the Jesuits. Northwest winds are bad, as the 

 low water prevents the boats from being pushed over the 

 flats. As yet, the reeds have not been broken down, and tbe 

 mysterious little fowls have too many hiding-places to be 

 easily flushed. Should a northeast storm prevail, one that 

 will last a day or two, we advise our friends to leave in tbe 

 storm, and they will be sure of splendid sport when it clears, 

 as birds this season are exceedingly numerous. The 15th of 

 his month is considered to be generally the height of the 

 season, but we have had fine sport on Oldman's Island, be- 

 low Chester, Pa., during ihe last of the month. 



The shooting is conducted out of boats, which enter the 

 marshes about an hour and a half befot e high water. The 

 giin stands on the bow, and the skiff is propelled by a pusher 

 wh ) uses a lorjg pole of about fifteen feet in length, with a 

 pronged foot, which prevents the pole from being driven 

 deep in tbe mud. Light charges of powder are used. One 

 hundred and fifty cartridges should be always taken out, and 

 number twdve-sbot is the thing. For a number ten-gauge 

 gun, the charge is three and one-half drachms of powder, one 

 ounce of shot, and for a twelve-gun, three drachms of powder, 

 and the same quanti'y of shot. To keep one's perpendicular 

 is not an easy matter at first, but by put ing the left foot f r- 

 ward, if a right hand man, the motion of the boat is soon ac- 

 quired. All the sportsman need wear is an old pair of 

 trousers, a flannel shirt and broad-brimed hat. A couple of 

 thick pairs of worsted stockings on the feet will be less diffi- 

 cult to stand in than shoes, the sole3 of which are apt to 

 become slippery. When muzzle-loaders were in vogue, the 

 exploded cap3 which were dropped in the boat prevented tha 

 use of stockings. The changing of the clothes can be dime 

 in one of the private rooms of the hotel along the river edge. 

 Once fairly in the reeds, the rail spring before the bow of 

 the skiff, and are easily dropped. The sportsman need not 

 heed their whereabouts, as it is the pusher's businsss to mark 

 the biids and retrieve them. This he does with wonderful 

 accuracy and rapidity, considering the sameness of the reedy- 

 growth and its matted nature. Often a large flock of reed- 

 birds will swoop down, and cluster within easy reach, on the 

 tops of the wild rice. 



Occasionally a passing flock of yellow legs will be called 

 down in shot, by an imitation of their shrill, tremulous 

 whistle. At times an Engli-h snipe will spring from off a 

 raft of floating reeds ; and during the top of the tide, large 

 flocks of teal disturbed by the ince>sant popping of the guns 

 . skim over the flats, darting here and there with their 

 whistling wings, running the gauntlet of innumerable guns, 

 and leaving brothers and sisters behind as trophies of the 

 correctness of the sportsman's aim, and as dead as a 

 duck(et) dead. 



Two of the best places on the Delaware to make a s'art 

 from are Miller's Hotel at Lazaretto, one mile distant from 

 Moore's Station, on the P. W. and B. R. It. and Goff's 

 Steamboat Hotel at Chester, Delaware County, Pa. Both 

 places are equally famous as headquart<rs for rail- shooters. 

 In olden times the boats made from each place were im- 

 mense, and that in the days before the muzzle-loader, loading 

 rod and rail box had to give way to the breech-loader and its 

 trimly-turned cartridge. The rail box, by the way, was an 

 ingeniously-contrived magazine, which was constructed of 

 tin and divided up into different parts, one to hold wads 

 and caps at either end, while the powder and shot were con- 

 tained in the two centre divisions, between which a lid was 

 hinged, so that when the powder was being dipped out by 

 the two little tin chargers, which were soldered toge'her, the 

 shot was covered, and when the shot was being handled the 

 lid covered the powder and prevented to some extent the 

 burning wadding from igniting it. 



Miller's Hotel can be reached by the following trains, 

 which leave Broad street and Washington avenues, Phila- 

 delphia, dally (except Sundays) for Moore's Station, at 6:45 



and 10:35 A. M.; 1:30, 12:30, 2:30, 3:15, 4:45, 5:30, 6:20, 6:4!), 

 8:0l>, 10:00, 11:00 and 11:30 P. IT. 



Although there are generally a large number of pushers and 

 their boats it is always well to telegraph to the hotel proprie- 

 tors several days in advance and engage one of the first-class 

 men. At Lazaret o John McCollam has the reputation of 

 being one of the best men on the river, but any of the Wood 

 boys, Dick, Bill or Milt, George Morr ; s, John Brown, Lem 

 Gilbert, Ben Badger are good ones, and the e is hardly any 

 choice among them. We print elsewhere the high- water table 

 at Lazaretto during the season that our friends may from afar 

 calculate their trips and save much t me. 



Mr. John Goff is proprietor of Goff's Hotel at Chester, a 

 grand stamping ground. It is really historic in its way and 

 many redoubtable shots have enjoyed its hospitality and 

 pushed out from it to have a day's sport in the reeds. It 

 was here that Herbert, Col. De P.yster, Porter, Andrew 

 Staley and many other gentlemen sportsmen used to rendez- 

 vous and spend a week or more every season in shooting 

 and fishiug. 



There are no better pushers on the river than th^se which 

 hail from Goff's place, the principal being Laac Rothwell, 

 Dick Brown, Sam Brown, Perry Allen, Ben Harris, Sam 

 Preston, Bill Rump, Charles Goff, Ben D iskett, Jacob Mil- 

 ler and a great many others, but not considered first class. 

 Those named can be relied upon and are hard to beat. 



GREAT SOUTH BAY. 



THE sea fisheries of Long Island bring in a great 

 amount of money to the inhabitants, esp cially of the 

 South side, both directly and indirectly. A g<eat number of 

 people go there for p'easure fishing who spend five times as 

 much money as the fish are worth commerciilly. To this 

 class of people the Long Isl tnders, if they are wise, will 

 cater. They come, hire boats, buy biit, pay hotel bills and 

 other expenses, which brings in a revenue to the South Siders, 

 the loss of which would be seriously felt. And yet they 

 permit a few men to fill the Great South B iy with nels, to 

 the detriment of the line fishing, when even the owners of 

 the nets would be benefite i in the end by keeping them out 

 of the wa'er, in the increase of visitors, some of whom s:ay 

 all summer. 



Instead of general asvrtions on this subject let us look at 

 the figures. At Fire Island there are from fifteen to twenty 

 boats sent out eac'o day for ninety days, containing three to 

 to five persons each, who pay for boats and hotel. There 

 are twenty-one p'aces on the Great South Bay which send 

 out from three to twenty boats each day. From informa 

 tion received we can calculate twelve places sending out 

 from three to twennty boats a day for 100 dajs, or about 

 4,500 boats, which, with three persons to a boat, would be 

 13,500 people during the season. The boats are mostly " cat 

 boats" of two to five tons and, with a man to sail them, cost 

 $4 pir day, making $18 00 per season, for tbe boata 



Board averages a dollar and a half a tiny, by tbe week; 

 refreshments aid ex'ras, 50 cents; railroad fares, $3; mak- 

 ing $7 for a three-days' trip for each individual of the 13,000 

 people estimated to visit Ihe Great South Bay in a season ; 

 equalling $94,500 for the season, which, added to the boat 

 hire, amounts to $112,500. This amount might easily be 

 doubled if the dozen nets which do not bring in $600 each to 

 their owners, and are a nuisance to all orhets v^ho must sail 

 around them, wete kept out. 



For the $7 which the visitor pays for his three-diys' trip 

 he is perfectly satisfied if he catches what would be worth 

 $2 or $3 in market, and these he usually gives to hi3 boat- 

 man. Looking at the fisheries of the South Bay as a com- 

 mon property of Hie citizens living on if, they cannot do bet- 

 ter with it, in a pecuniary sense, than to prohibit all netting 

 within its waters. 



If the biy were free from nets the fish would spawn there 

 more freely, for the angler seldom takes the spawning fish, 

 and in a few years the fame rrf the fishing on the S uth 

 Side would be so great that the summer rush of anglers, 

 who now straggle all over our coast from Maine to Florida, 

 would be increased ten fold, and the hotel men and tbe Bay 

 men would be busy and wax fat, figuratively speaking. At 

 present it is financial suicide for them to allow a few men 

 to fltt the bay with nets. 



