THE AMERICAN SPORTSMAN'S JOURNAL 



sintered According to Act of congress, m the year issi, by the Forest and stream Publishing Company, In the Office ot the Librarian ot congress, at Washington. 



Terms, *-t a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy.l 

 SIjc OTo's, »*. Three Itto's, «1. ] 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1 881. 



CONTENTS. 



Editorial : — 



State Pigeon Tournament ; Are Thev of Any Use? By- 

 Ways of the Northwest 203 



The Sportsman Toubist :— 

 The Dreams and the Streams of the Past ; The Great South 

 Bay ; A Glance at Yucatan 205 



Natural HisToar: — 

 Arizona Food -, Proceedings of the Philadelphia Academy ; 

 Ih the Turtle Pish or Game? The " Oonchologist ;" Be- 

 tarded Development ; Late Hatching of Woodcock ; Cop- 

 perheads in New England 207 



Game Bag and Gun :— 

 Two Interesting Questions ; Mailing a Fire Without Matches; 

 Is Sweepstakes Shooting Gambling ? The Trap Shooting 

 of Pigeons ; Mississippi Notes ; One of the Old Fellows ; 

 Reminiscences of Forty Years ; A Vigorous Letter from 

 Maine; Monroe County Notes ; Live Quail Wanted 208 



Sea and Biveb Fishing : — 

 Tim Pond and the Seven Ponds ; Aboriginal Fly-Fishing ; 

 Canoeing in Southern Michigan ; Amphiceceoiis FisheB ; 

 Big Brook Trout ; AStudyfroni Life 211 



FlBHCUMUBE :— 



Fisheultural Notes ; How Did the Fish Get There? Beports 

 Wanted; Indiana 213 



The Kennel : — 



Our London Letter ; Some Springfield Dogs; Field Trial 

 Judges ; Caution to Dog Buyers : Foxhounds at Grand 

 Junction ; National Field Trials Judges 213 



Rm,E and Tkap Shooting 214 



ItACHTTNO AND CANOEING : 



The Madge liacea 216 



Anbwebs to Coebespondents 217 



TO CORRESPONDENTS. 



The Fokebt and Stream Is the recognized medium of entertainment, 

 Instruction and information between American sportsmen. 



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 are Invited from every part of the country. 



Anonymous communications will not be regarded. No correspond- 

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

 ents. 



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Address: Forest and Stream Publishing- Co., 



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



FOREST AND STREAM. 



Thursday, October 13. 



Maine Moose Murderers.— We publish in another column 

 a letter from one of the Maine Commissioners of Fisheries 

 and Game, in which he questions the practicability of brib- 

 ing the Maine game wardens. As to the integrity of the 

 Maine game wardens we have no means of judging, beyond 

 the correspondence which has appeared in these columns ; 

 but whatever may be the f aithfulness or unfaithfulness of the 

 wardens, the Commissioners of Fisheries and Qame of that 

 State have given abundant proof of activity and determina- 

 tion. They should have the co-operation of all sportsmen 

 who wish to see the laws enforced. Mr. Stilwell says he is 

 ready to prosecute the Portland moose killer. Now let some 

 of the indignant Portland sportsmen, who have sufficient 

 grit, give the Commissioners the facts in the case. As Mr. 

 Stilwell pertinently suggests, ihe best kind of indignation is 

 that which bears some fruit. At the sitting of the Couaty 

 Court at Farrnington, last week, the Grand Jury found a bill 

 against Dr. A. A. Bobinson for having killed a yearling 

 moose, fie is reported as saying that "if convicted, he wiil 

 make his case a test of the constitutionality of the law ; if 

 he is fined $100, he will willingly pay $6,000 to make the 

 test." We advise the Doctor to keep his money. There is 

 nothing unconstitutional about the law, and money spent in 

 trying to prove the opposite is simply thrown away. 



STATE PIGEON TOURNAMENTS. 



THIS is a subject which has come into decided prominence 

 duringthe pastyear. We have, however, purposely deferred 

 its consideration in these columns, because the question is 

 one which should be discussed fairly and impartially on its 

 merits, aud not solely in its relation to any single particular 

 occasion or society. The State pigeon shooting tournaments 

 of 1881 are past ; those of 1882 are yet a long way off. 

 This, then, is a fit time to consider the question which has 

 engaged the serious attention of many sportsmen throughout 

 the country. It is this: Is the wholesale trap-shooting of 

 pigeons a proper employment to consume the time at the 

 various State conventions of sportsmen? 



To answer this candidly, it is necessary to look the facts 

 squarely in the face. Briefly stated, they are as follows : 



1. State associations are formed for the purpose — so their 

 titles, constitutions and professions declare — of advancing 

 the interests of sportsmanship and for securing the better 

 protection of fish and game. 



2. Annual conventions are held by each association, to 

 which delegates are sent from the several clubs composing it. 



8. These delegates are those who are most expert as trap 

 shooters. 



4 Professional trappers are hired to trap tens of thousands 

 of pigeons on their nesting grounds. These birds are packed 

 in crates and conveyed to the places designated for the con- 

 ventions. 



5. The only business accomplished at the conventions is 

 the shooting of these pigeons, dividing the prizes and arrang- 

 ing for the next shoot. 



6. Many influential sportsmen who have a warm interest 

 in matters pertaining to the advancement of sport, wiihhold 

 their support and presence from the State trap-shootiDg tour- 

 naments. The number of prominent men thus holding aloof 

 is yearly increasing. 



7. Not only do these conventions accomplish absolutely 

 nothing in the right direction, but more and worse than this, 

 they have a positively bad influence in their effect upon 

 public opinion. Instead of fostering by their transac- 

 tions a popular appreciation of the dignity of field 

 sports, and a public sympathy with the spirit and objects of 

 just game laws, they bring the term "game protection" 

 into ridicule and contempt. The only time the public hears 

 anything of these societies is when its ears are saluted by the 

 fusillade of their guns at the pigeon traps. The outside 

 world never dreams of the existence of these State associa- 

 tions for the protection of game, except when they pose be- 

 fore it as exterminators of wild pigeons. The influences of 

 these conventions upon (hose who participate in them is also 

 questionable. In one State at least the annual tournament is 

 tending more and more every year to a money-malting affair. 

 One of the State tournaments of 1881 was, to all discoverable 

 intents and purposes, a grand money-making scheme on the 

 part of the clubs under whose direct management it was 

 held. The speculation failed, because the public could not 

 be induced to pay gate-money to witness the immense and 

 business-like slaughter of pigeons. The convention was 

 barren alike of dividends for the stockholders in the sclume, 

 and of any single good result which should legitimately have 

 fo'.lowed a game society's convention. 



Those are the facts ; but in regard to them very diverse 

 views are held. It is argued, on the one hand, that the 

 pigeon is not a game bird ; that there is no sufficient reason 

 why it should not be utilized for trap shooting j that it is no 

 more cruel to kill one pigeon than one quail, nor twenty 

 thousand pigeons at the trap than twenty birds in the field: 

 that when the number of congregated shooters is taken into 

 consideration the average number of pigeons per man is not 

 excessive ; that no other form of amusement can bo substi- 

 tuted for the trap-shooting of live birds; and that without 

 some such ai traction the conventions would not be held. 



On the other hand, there is a growing conviction among 

 an annually increasing number of sportsmen that this yearly 

 slaughter of thousands of birds is essentially cruel, unmanly 

 and unworthy of the societies which practice it; that the 

 average shooting afforded by these birdB, which have been 

 cooped up and starved for so long a period before they are 

 finally put into the trap, and thrown weak, dazed and help- 

 less into the air, to the spot where the gun was pointed be- 



fore the trap was sprung, requires no special skill, that trap- 

 shooting is largely trick shooting; that the motives of those 

 participating in the State shoots are mercenary ; that in their 

 eagerness to secure prizes the pigeon shooters are nothing 

 more nor less than " mug hunters ;" that if pigeons are not 

 game birds, game associations certainly have no business to 

 trap and shoot them by wholesale ; that pigeon shooting is an 

 infatuation with which these game societies are so filled that 

 they wholly fail to do their legitimate work ; and that, if 

 pigeon shooting were abolished from the annual conventions, 

 the State associations would receive la'ge accessions of 

 influential supporters, and would then accomplish the ends 

 for which they are professedly organized, but which have 

 not been gained. 



Another objection to these large pigeon shooting tourna- 

 ments is one wholly apart from any sentiment, and is 

 recognized by both parties ; that is, the growing scarcity of 

 the birds, the consequent difficulty of procuring a sufficient 

 supply and the increased expense. During the past year 

 this objection has presented itself with more force than ever 

 before ; and has in some instances practically put a stop to 

 proposed tournaments. 



This question of shooting pigeons, or not shooting pigeons, 

 is one which demands the candid and deliberate consideration 

 of those who have at heart the perpetuity and usefulness of 

 our State sportsmen's associations. 



The question is not whether pigeon shooting is in itself 

 cruel ; it has nothing to do with ordinary pigeon shooting as 

 a form of amusement for individuals and clubs. 



The point at issue is simply whether by dispensing with 

 these vast annual trap slaughters of birds, the associations of 

 sportsmen in various States can not accomplish better results, 

 more successfully further the common interests of their 

 clubs, attain a greater prestige and wield a more potent in- 

 fluence. 



We invite an expression of views. 



ARE THEY OF ANY USE? 



WITH our issue of April 14, we began to head our 

 columns o f "Sea and Eiver Fishing " with choice 

 quotations from standard writers on angling. We have ran- 

 sacked our brains in the hottest of city weather, and thumbed 

 volumes of learned and entertaining authors to obtain quo- 

 tations which should embody some appropriate sentiment or 

 enforce some axiom which we especially wished to enforce 

 upon the attention of our readers. 



We are discouraged. Disappoinied at what we believe to 

 be a lack of appreciation. Not a word of censure or praise 

 has it brought forth, not a line of commendation has it 

 elicited. The sweetness has apparently been wasted upon 

 the desert air. No one has ever referred to the quotations in 

 any manner whatever. If they had only said that they were 

 bad! 



These quotations— gems we have thought them— appear to 

 us to have contained the cream of angling sentiment, epi- 

 gram, wit and learning. Some of them have embodied er- 

 ronious statements as well, but they have not called forth a 

 word of remonstrance. Why this is so we know not, but 

 have several times been on the point of abandoning the 

 practice of heading those columns with the coruscations of 

 thought of anglers gone before, on account of tbe labor of 

 looking up the passage which condenses Ihe wit and learning 

 of a volume, a work often requiring hours to select a para- 

 graph which can be read in four seconds. But we won't. 

 Not yet. We will continue for a while now that we have 

 thus publicly called attention to what ou^ angling readers 

 may have overlooked. We want them to know that these 

 things are weekly spread for them and have them educate 

 their tastes up to them, the same as they have learned to 

 love tobacco and raw tomatoes. 



We ha ve given quotations from Walton, Thad. Norris, G. 

 Christopher Davies, W. C. Prime, Frank Forester, Edward 

 Jesse, James Wilson, Cotton Mather, Dr. J. A. Henshall, J. 

 F. Sprague, W. Wright and others well known in England 

 and America. In fact we have prided ourselves on the apt- 

 ness and richness of these extracts, and knowing that we 

 number among our readers so many men of taste we have 

 wondered if it was worth while to continue this labor, or if 

 the pearls were cast before such an appreciative audience 



