THE AMERICAN SPORTSMAN'S JOURNAL. 



Entered According to Act ot Corgress, In the year 1S81, by the Forest and Stream Publishing company, In the Office of the Librarian ot congress, at Washington 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1881. 



CONTENTS. 



Bmtobiai. :— 

 One of the Results of Fiahculture ; By-Ways of the North- 

 west; List of Fish Commissioners ; Catalogues Received. 163 



las Sportsman Toobist :— 

 The Sturgeon ; A Fearless Doe ; From Vera Cruz to Man- 

 zatiilla: Building a Birch Canoe; Chat by an Old 

 Typo 165 



Natural History :— 



nioil in Confinement ; My Woodpeckers ; Two Puzzling 

 Qnotitioii* ; Longevity of Turtles ; Special lustanees of 

 Ant Intelligence ; Notes ou Snakes 166 



^iME B»» AND UN :— 



Hume Old Guns that I Have Shot ; A Grand Huut ; " Loft- 

 Evcd Shooting ;" Rust Spots in Gun Barrels ; Sport in 



Frau' e ; Game in Sullivan County 167 



8ba and Rrnsn Fishing -.— 



Fishing ut Escanaba : A Large Brook Trout : In Northern 

 Michigan ; How to Kill a Muscallonge ; Oneida Lake ; 

 Pickerbl Fishing at Broivu's Mills ; Preserving Live Fish 

 in Ruosia ; Iiilbouruo's Pictures ; Canned Brook Trout. . . 170 



FlSFDTTLTrjBE : — 



Hcply to a Benightod Man ; Fiscnltural Notes ; Carp Ponds 

 in Winter ; Edinburgh Fisheries Exhibition ; Fishculture 

 in Scotland 173 



The Kennel :— 

 Ever It Smith's Kennel ; Franklin Dog Show ; The Saga- 

 eimin Brute ; Newfoundland Dogs for Life-Saving Sta- 

 tions i ;«, 173 



Yachting and Canoeing : 



fudge ; A Wrong Decision : American Canoe Building ; 

 DrsRs; Detachable Centreboards for Canoes; Wanted 

 for Singla Handera ; Ocononiowoc Y. C 175 



BIFM2 and Teap Shooting 177 



Answers to Cobbespondents 175 



TO CORRESPONDENTS. 



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nts. 



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FOREST AND STREAM. 



Thursday, September 29. 



Black Bass for Ponds. — In a recent article we said that if 

 TC wanted black bass for stocking purposes we would not 

 jl '.now how to get them by other means than to go and catch 

 bem. We were aware that Mr. Livingston Stone formerly 

 wWertised them, but had not heard of his doing so for some 

 'wa past. We now take pleasure in calling attention to his 

 tiivettisement, which will be found in this issue of our paper, 

 nr. Stone has just finished his s ason's work in the Pacific 

 't)»st Depariment of the United States Fish Commission, and 

 1 low on his way East to attend to his private business. 



jjffijS Pigeons vs. Glass Baixs.— It haB been claimed by 

 3rae that i he new clay pigeons are hard to break. The fac 

 'they are far more easily broken than glass balls, as cm be 

 Milled by any one who will repeat the following experi- 

 WliVma'.le by Mr. H. M. Hills, of the Wyoming City Gun 

 lub, at Cincinnati, Sept. 19. He first placed a clay pigeon 

 "tt a Bogardus glass ball side by side, and fired ten shots at 

 riUReof sixty-five yards. Niue clay pigeons out of ten 

 'W6 broken, while tbe one glass ball was not broken at all 

 y the tea shots fired at it, though there were seven distinct 

 wt marks upon it, A second experiment was made by 

 Acing tea glass ba'ls side by side, and firing at theui at forty- 

 Je y»rdsraiige. Five only of them were thus broken. Ten 



r J a ypigeon3 were then similarly fired a , same range, eight 

 yj pigeons being broken. The clay pigeons used were 



'■j <en at random from a barrel of same. The glass balls 

 ->und. 



ONE OF THE RESULTS OF FISH- 

 CULTURE, 



TN connection with the " Reply to a Benighted Man," on 

 -*- another page we would refer to the following from the 

 Report of the Fish Commissioners, of California, for the 

 year 1880 : 



Two millions of the quionat salmon have been annually 

 hatched and deposited in the tributaries of the Sacramento 

 River and have produced their legitimate results. Salmon 

 are now plenty inihe river, although how many could be 

 taken at present if fishculture had not been adopted cannot 

 of course be known, but as the spawning beds have been 

 destroyed by sediment brought down by mining operations 

 the number would probably have been small, if the fish 

 existed at all. It is the testimony of all the pioneers, at the 

 beginning c.f the mining opi rations, that every tributary of 

 the Sacramento was fill d with this salmon at the spawning 

 season, struggling to reach the sources. A few continued to 

 enter the Feather, Yuba, Bear and American rivers until the 

 floods of 1860-1 covered the gravel bottoms of those streams 

 with mining sediment. In 1872 and 1873 the fish were 

 nearly extinct in them and the minimum of production was 

 reached. Previous to those years artificial culture was be- 

 gun and the yield has increased. 



The Commissioiers have wisely kept a record of the catch 

 of salmon in the Sacramento and therefore the effect of 

 the yearly introduction of these 2,000,000 fry can be ex- 

 hibited. Since 1874 they have obtained both the number 

 and the weight of the sa'mon caught in the Sacramento and 

 San Joaquin that have been sent to San Francisco, Sacra- 

 mento and Surickton, and also of those put up in tins by the 

 cam ing companies. The record is : 



For season ending Aug. 1, 1875 5,098,781 pounds. 



For season mding Aug. 1, 1876 5,311 423 pounds. 



For season ending Aug. 1, 1877 6.493,563 pounds. 



For season ending Aug. 1, 1878, ,. 6 520,768 pounds. 



For season ending Aug. 1, 1879 4,432,200 pounds. 



For season ending Aug. 1, 1880.. ...... .10,837,400 pounds. 



The apparent falling off in the season end ng Aug. 1, 1879, 

 was due to a disagreement between the fishermen and pro- 

 prietors of the cannaries, during which time no salmon were 

 sent to market. Comment on this is unnecessary. 



Madge.— The brilliant victory scored by the deep and 

 narrow Scotch cutter Madge over the fastest light-draft cen- 

 tre-board sloop we he.ve in America will be discussed in all 

 i's bearings in our next issue. In the meantime we think 

 unprejudiced readers will bear us out in the claim that our 

 course in lavor of yachts built upon the principles so success- 

 fully followed in the Madge has been as persistent and con- 

 scientious as our endeavors to lead yachtsmen into the higher 

 realms of the sport — in short, to make ships out of machines 

 and sailors out of dawdlers. The issue now terminating 

 in our favor will, we hope, justify in their eyes our enjoying 

 to the full the sweets of a victory earned after much hard 

 work and ceaseless, as well as disinterested, advocacy of 

 what we conceive to be the worthiest and healthiest aims of 

 the grand art of sailing. 



Why "Comio Prelude ?'— Noting the arrival of Alfred 

 Shaw's cricket team of English professionals at New York this 

 week, one of the daily papers announces that they will 

 play " a game of base-ball by way of comic prelude." And 

 why " comic prelude,'' pray? A hundred thousand Ameri- 

 can base-ball players in this country will agree with us 

 that base-ball is ten times the game that cricket is. There 

 is nothing "comic" about it in comparison with cricket. 



The Kansas Tournament. — The tournament of the Kansas 

 State Sportsmen's Association, wheh had been appointed for 

 October, has been postponed until next Spring, because the 

 managers could not procure birds for the trap-shooting The 

 Secretary writes that this is a great disappointment as a large 

 attendance had been anticipated. 



Prof. Jordan at Home. — We are pleased to record the 

 arrival of Prof. D. S. Jordan from his annual summer trip 

 to Europe. He returns fresh and hearty and promises to 

 issue a Synopsis of our fishes soon. This will have an index 

 of popular names and will prove a valuable addition to our 

 icthyology, 



BY-WAYS OF THE NORTHWEST. 



FOURTH PAPEB. 



MIRROR LAKE, as I first saw it, well deserves its name. 

 A lovely sheet of water, only a few hundred yards in 

 width and less than a mile long, it is surrounded on all sides 

 by a superb forest of gigantic i oaifers. All along its margin 

 is a narrow border of grass or low willows, separating the 

 water from the dark forest, and beyond this border is a fringe 

 of lily pads, which float motionless upon the unruffled sur- 

 face of the lake. The little strip of grass, the tall green 

 trees and the blue sky above are so perfectly reflected in 

 the clear waters that it is difficult to determine where the 

 refl- ction ends and the vegetation begins. Shut in on all 

 sides by the primeval forest, the lake lies there like a great 

 eye, which gazes steadfastly and unwinkingly at the sky 

 which it so perfectly mirrors. 



The light breeze had fallen as the sun rose, and there was 

 now not the slightest motion on the water. The branches of 

 the trees had ceased to wave, and the stillness of the morning 

 was at first unbroken. As we sat there listening for the cry 

 of the hounds, there was time for us to admire to the full 

 the quiet beauty of the scene, which, however, little by little 

 became more animated. The various inhabitants of lake and 

 foresi began, one by one, to resume their wonted occupations, 

 and unconsciously to reveal to us little glimpses into their 

 life history. An old mother golden eye led her brood of half 

 a dozen young out from among some low willows, whose 

 drooping branches touched the water, and began to teach 

 them how they could most easily procure food, calling to 

 them occasionally in low lispiDg tones, to which the little 

 ones responded with soft peepings. High up above us on the 

 dead limb of an enormous Douglas fir a huge gray eagle 

 {Halimtus leucacephalus) sat sleepily, apparently not yet 

 quite awake, although the sun was now well up in the 

 heavens. On the other side of the lake a little 

 pine squirrel was making his breakfast from the 

 green cones, which he cut from the tree as fast as 

 he could eat them, making more noise with the dropping 

 husks than a b.md of elk would have done had they been 

 feeding there. Occasionally the cry of the hounds "from 

 farther distance borne" would be f aim ly heard, only to die 

 away again and leave but the voices of the forest to break 

 the morning's stil ness. A pair of superb white-headed 

 eagles flew silently across the lake, the hindermost strenuously 

 endeavoring to overtake the one in front. This he succeeded 

 in d ling, when the foremost bird, without closing his wings, 

 swung over on his back, thrust out his talons menacingly 

 toward his pursuer, and then resuming his normal position, 

 passed onward and out of sight. It was almost with a shock that 

 I heard the loud mournful cry of a loon, two of which settled 

 down on the water not far from the canoe. And now for a 

 little while there was no more silence. The birds swam 

 backward and forward over the lake, screaming every five 

 minutes, until Mr. H. in despair, said: "I wish that loon 

 was dead." It was useless now to listen for the dogs ; we 

 could only watch. After half an hour of impatient waiiiog, 

 the loons ceased their doleful screaming, tcok wiDg, and 

 disappeared in the direction of Burnaby Lake. Now once 

 more we gave all our attention to the cry of the hounds 

 which was now heard again, though very faintly. Before 

 long, however, it came nearer and nearer, passed the west 

 end of the lake and a»ain grew fainter, and then out of hear- 

 ing. Mr. H. has just remarked, with an air of disappoint 

 ment, that he feared the deer would take water in Burnaby 

 Lake, when I heard tbe Indian speak in very emphatic, but 

 suppressed, tones to my companion, and, following 

 the direction of their eyes, saw something moving 

 slowly through the water at the other end of the lake 

 The object, whatever it was, moved very slowly, and 

 looked as much like a box two feet square floating on 

 top of the water as anything else. I took it for granted 

 that it was the deer, because I could not think of any other 

 unrecognisable living thing that would be in that place 

 at that time. It appeared, however, that there was one man 

 in the canoe who by no means believed it to be a deer. I 

 was much surprised to see the Indian so much excited at the 

 appearance of the game. It seemed altogether out of char- 

 acter, and in all my experience of Indians, on tbe Plains, 

 in the mountains and by the sea shore, I had never seen any 



