THE AMERICAN SPORTSMAN'S JOURNAL 



Entered According to Act ot Congress, In the year 18S1, by the Forest and Stream Publishing company, in the Office of tie Librarian or Congress, at Washington. 



T %^'^Sw"xiiL e Mo",^ . py -} NEW YORK, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1881. { N 



CONTENTS. 



Editobiai, :— 

 Johu Alien Banks ; The Only Honest Course ; Pistol Shoot- 

 ing ; The Atalanta j Importation of Foreign Birds ; Eng- 

 lish Ply-Casting Tournament ; Match Conditions ; Bye- 

 Ways of the Northwest 263 



Correspondence : Paul Morphy, the Chess Player 266 



The Spobtsman Toubist :— 

 A Transformation Scene on Barnegat Bay; Florida Game 

 Resorts ; Roughing It in Rubber 266 



NATUBAIi HlBTOBI:— 



New England Bird Lire; The Tame Massachusetts Part- 

 ridge; Skull uf Big Horn Embedded m Trunk of Pine 

 Tree j The Song of the Mocking Bird 267 



Game Bag and Gdn : — 



The North Shore of Long Island ; Decrease of Game Birds; 

 Adirondack D^er Slaughter ; State Pigeon Tournaments ; 

 What Does It All Amount To ? Is He a Lunatic ? Deer in 

 Vermont : Pot Metal Guns ; Farmers and Spoi tsmen ; 

 Wild Turkey Calls ; Dakota Game 268 



Sea and Riteb Fishing :— 

 Trolling on Lake Superior ; A Model Whale Boat ; A Cruise 

 on Indian River ; Rowing m a Circle ; The International 

 Fishery Treaty; That Mackerel Bout; Bass in the Potomac 272 



FI8H0ULTURE :— 



Epochs in the History of Fishculture ; Turbot and Soles for 

 American Waters ; Carp Culture in Tennessee ; Fisheul- 



tural Notes 271 



The Kenned :— 

 Rearing Puppies ; Westminster Kennel Club ; Lowell Bench 



Show 275 



Rifle and Teap Shooting 275 



Yachting and Canoeing 276 



to cobbespondents 277 



TO CORRESPONDENTS. 



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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, November 3. 



JOHN ALLEN BANKS. 



IT is with deep sorrow that we here record the untimely 

 death of a companion, who had for many years been 

 associated with us in the work of this office. John Allen 

 Banks, the eldest son of Thaddeus C. Banks, Business Man- 

 ager of this journal, died at his residence in Brooklyn, last 

 Saturday morning, October 29, aged thirty-one years. Dur- 

 ing his long connection with the Forest and Stream, as its 

 cashier, he made very many friends, who will here for the 

 first time learn ihe sad tidings of his death. 



"Words are cold to express in any fitting manner our 

 own grief at I he loss of one who had become so endeared 

 to us by the kindly intercourse of business and social life. 

 His faithful discharge of duty, and his high character and 

 strict integrity commanded the respect of all men with 

 whom he came in contact ; while his quiet, unassuming dis- 

 position, and gentle and courteous bearing won the esteem 

 aud love of those who knew him more intimately. 



If the possession of such a character by those who are 

 mourned can in aught temper the grief of bereaved friends, 

 surely this comfort is left to those who are to-day sorrowing 

 for the death of John Allen Banks. 



The memory of our friend will hold a warm place in our 

 hearts. 



THE ONLY HONEST COURSE. 



A MONG the letters, which we print to-day on the sub- 

 -£*- ject of State pigeon tournaments, is one from a 

 member of ihe New York State Association for the Protec- 

 tion of Fish and Game. Its writer, who has taken an active 

 part in recent conventions of the association, and whose 

 views we invited because we believed them to be representa- 

 tive, says that he does not consider game protection " a 

 matter of so much consequence that annual conventions are 

 necessary to its success." He admits that nine-tenths of the 

 members of the association attend the meetings for the trap- 

 shooting ; and he thinks that " the cause of game protection 

 doeBnot receive much assistance from the annual meetings." 



That is frank, free, honest. It undoubtedly correctly rep- 

 resents the views of very many of the society members ; 

 and the writer puts his feelings in a manly, open way, in 

 strong contrast with some of the letters we have published 

 in the past from other members of the association, holding 

 the same opinions, but lacking the courage to express them. 



The letter signed E. R. may be taken as representing the 

 true feeling of the great majority of the members of the 

 New York State Association for the Protection of Fish and 

 Game. They attend the conventions for pigeon shooting 

 only, and do not think the subject of game protection to be 

 of such importance that they need bother their heads about 

 it. The other letters on this subject show how those who 

 really are engaged in game protective efforts regard such 

 societies. 



From the letter of E. R., and from other letters of like 

 tenor, sent to us by other members of the association, but 

 "not for publication," we are reluctantly compelled to believe 

 that the cause of game protection will, in the future, have 

 little or no attention from the society in question. This being 

 the case, one thing is certainly in order. A society which is 

 ostensibly organized for one thing, and does something else, 

 should be honest enough to have its true purpose appear in 

 its name. This much at least is due to those who are in fact 

 doing the work it ignores. A civil service reform club, 

 which should spend all its energies in wire-pulling for pub- 

 lic offices for its members, would not only at once lose the 

 confidence of the public, but would work incalculable injury 

 to the cause of civil service reform. A game protective 

 club, which does nothing but annually shoot thousands of 

 pigeons, not only destroys public confidence in the sincerity 

 of its pretensions, but works great harm to the cause of 

 game protection in general. Simple justice to the great 

 body of sportsmen throughout this country imperatively de- 

 mands that pigeon shooting societies call themselves pigeon 

 shooting societies; and that the title of game protective 

 society be confined to game protective societies. 



This is surely the only manly, honest and just thing. 



PISTOL SHOOTING. 



THE practice of pistol shooting has received a wonderful 

 impulse of late, and now the works where the finer 

 grade of these firearms are turned out are crowded with 

 orders. Accurate shooting with a pistol may be indulged in 

 almost anywhere. A range of 50 feet is readily gained and a 

 sheet of ordinary iron boiler plate, or even a backing of plank- 

 ing forms an admirable bulkhead into which to fire and on 

 which to nail up the target. These may be the cheap paper 

 diagrams or the sport may be varied by using any small object 

 for a point of aim, and we know of no better use for a " ten- 

 spot " than to set it up as a target to pick out the spots in 10 

 consecutive shots. The sport may be indulged in by old 

 and young and by either sex. Ladies are often the best hit- 

 ters, and while they make poor holders, as a general rule, they 

 excel in a knack of catching the sight and pulling the trigger 

 at ihe same instant, and in this way a very nervous person 

 will often do very fine scoring. 



The pastime is a comparatively cheap one, for the .22 cal. 

 cartridges are now made so accurate and are so uniform in 

 action that they may be relied upon by the most fastidious 

 marksman. There is no sport so well calculated to develop 

 a number of excellent qualities. The least relapse into dissi- 

 pation at once works its effect in irregular shooting, and the 

 shooter in the best physical condition, other things being 

 equal, must win. It is an excellent test of the eyesight and 



accustoms one to a quick fixing of the attention on a distant 

 object. There, must be a perfect control of the muscles and 

 that ready relation between the eye, hand and brain which 

 will be found serviceable in a thousand ways. 



Those who have once taken up pistol shooting, and gained 

 a clear idea of how to do it, rarely abandon the pastime. 

 They become enthusiasts, and the sport is to them a hobby. 

 They love to look upon the handsome little weapon as the 

 synonym of exactness. They learn to know that, when 

 allowed to do it, the pistol will work with the accuracy of a 

 mathematical instrument, and this begets a love for it. We 

 have stories of old hunters swearing by their long-toms, and 

 old duellists and those accustomed to the use of the smaller 

 arm become equally confident of its powers and precision. 



In speaking of pistol shooting we do not wish to be under- 

 stood as regarding those pesky little fomenters of lock-jaw, 

 cheap-made "revolvers." These little instruments of death 

 and devilment are whacked out at a single blow under the 

 trip-hammer, and their only specialty, in which thc-y are un- 

 excelled, is the amount of noisa they will kick up. A pistol 

 to shoot with accuracy must be made with special reference 

 to that point, and the ordinary cheap revolver is made with 

 the single idea of getting up the showiest looking device for 

 the least money. They are not weapons of offense or de- 

 fense in any way, but merely dangerous devices, a constant 

 menace to every body in their vicinity, and if in any way 

 they could be stamped out of existence it would be a great 

 boon. Fine work, or in fact work of any kind worth the 

 pursuit, cannot be done with these instruments, and they are 

 never seen in the resorts of the pistol-shooting experts. In 

 future articles we shall give instructions in pistol shooting, 

 describe the weapons used, quote past doings in scores and 

 records, and try to measure the extent of this very popular 

 pastime. 



THE ATALANTA. 



THERE is considerable difference between a good boat 

 and a very good boat. The former represents an average 

 production, the latter an exceptional. The Atalanta is a good 

 boat, but in our judgment nothing more. It would be most 

 agreeable to receive a stranger with open arms, and exclama- 

 tions of surprise and admiration, but a regard for reputation 

 as a good judge of yachts compels us to place the Atalanta 

 only in the class of good boats of which fair performance 

 may be expected, and which would certainly astonish us 

 with an exhibition of extraordinary speed. Tne Canadians 

 have shown a most commendable spirit of enterprise in send- 

 a sloop from Belleville to race boats of a particular type 

 which have been brought to greater perfection in New York 

 than anywhere else in the world. They have contended 

 bravely with many difficulties in so doing, but facts must be 

 looked squarely in the face. These are th>it the Atalanta is 

 more or less a chance production, the first large sloop ever 

 put in frame by Cuthbert, but the third of anything like her 

 tonnage. She has been built, rigged and fitted hastily. She 

 is still incomplete, has had no fair opportunity of obtaining 

 best trim, her sails are unstretched, gear all stiff and new, 

 and the crew unacquainted with each other and the course 

 they have to sail. On our side we have the pick of a 

 large fleet, slowly brought near perfection by numerous op- 

 portunities for comparison, and the consequent modifications 

 in successive attempts at modeling or alteration. Our sloops 

 are in the best of condition, their crews have shaken down 

 to their billets, skippers are well posted, sails comparatively 

 flat, gear in good working order and the choice of represent- 

 ative boat not to be decided until the morning of the first 

 race. Even assuming the model of Atalanta to be as perfect 

 as the best we can produce, she has taken upon herself such 

 heavy odds in other respects, that her opportunities for vic- 

 tory seem to be of a most doubtful kind. Atalanta is, 

 however, to our mind not the equal in model of either Grade 

 or Mischief, and we must confess we deem our friends 

 doomed to serious disappointment, for the chances of her 

 taking the America Cup are practically hopeless, bar acci- 

 dent aud fluke. If in spite of these predictions, the Cana- 

 dian should prove able to "squander" our best, we will 

 frankly acknowledge that we have more to learn about a 

 yacht than hitherto believed, and we shall be chary in the 

 future about an expression based, as this one of necessity is, 

 upon a casual inspection of form and fittings. 



