THE AMERICAN SPORTSMAN'S JOURNAL. 



Knterea According to Act of Congress, in the year issi, by the Forest ana stream Publishing company, in the Office of the Librarian of congress, at Washington. 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, DECEMBER I, 1881. 



CONTENTS. 



Editobial 1— 



Angling as an Art; Pistol Shooting; The Oneida Lake 

 Poachers ; Christmas Gifts 243 



The Smbtbman Toueist :— 



^Leaves from a Log-Book ; Care vs. Coot ; A Record of 

 Honor; The Wild Hog of Hampden 244 



Natdbal Histobx: — 



How to Prepare Bird Skins ; Beeeh-nuts and Squirrels ; The 

 Diviui.ig Bod ; Elk Horns Imbedded in Wood 247 



Game Bag and Gun :— 



Deer and Partridges ; Lord Duuraven and Nova Scotia 

 Game Laws ; Wild Fowl Shjottug on Long Island ; Maine 

 Wardens and Visitiug Sportsmen; A New Jersey Party in 

 the South ; Hints on Handling a Gun ; Muzzle Loader vs. 

 Breech Loader ; Beelf oot Lake ; An Old Time Bifle 348 



Sea and Biveb Fishing :— 



Pike Fishing on the Lehigh ; Notes 351 



Fishcdmube ! — 



The Golden Orfe or Ide ; How Missouri Carp Feed and 

 Grow ; Carp for Pennsylvania and New Jersey 351 



The Kennel :— 



Training vs. Breeding ; The Eastern Field Trials ; Notes. . . 352 



Answebs to Corbespondents 356 



Bifle and Tbap Shootino 357 



Yachting and Canoeing 357 



TO CORRESPONDENTS. 



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FOREST AND STREAM. 



Thursday, December 1. 



Whom The Gods Would Desteot they first make mad. 

 The modern reading is that the lawyers first make mad the 

 assassins whom they would not have hung. 



Da. Cotjks. — We learn that Dr. Elliott Coues has resigned 

 his commission as Assistant Surgeon in the army with the 

 intention of devoting himself to literary and scientific pur- 

 suits, in accordance with his life-long tastes and habits. 



The Elixir of Life.— Two years ago there came in the 

 FoitBnT add Stream's mail one day a letter from a Pennsyl- 

 vania town, in which the writer assured us that he had dis- 

 covered a wonderful secret, which was nothing less than a 

 way to prolong human life indefinitely. Our correspondent, 

 in short, claimed to be able to tell us how we might live for 

 ever. The letter was written in a cramped, almost illegible, 

 hand, and was altogether quite a curiosity. We were too busy 

 at the time to bother with this man who had the secret of 

 living for ever; but to a second letter we replied. We re- 

 ceived no further word from him, but we kept his name and 

 address in mind. In looking over a stray copy of a Pennsyl- 

 vania paper by the merest chance, the other day, we came 

 across a notice of this man's death. Strange, was it not 1 

 And his secret of how to live for ever died with him. 



ANGLING AS AN ART. 



TTOW few there are outside of the brotherhood of the 

 -* — L angle who know of what the angler's art consists, or 

 have even a faint conception of the pleasure which it brings 

 its devotees. To the outer world "fishing" is illustrated by 

 the lazy fellow holding a string off the corner of the dock and 

 sleeping between bites. Some have tried it, and becoming 

 disgusted, declare that they might angle if the fish would 

 only bite all tbe time, but they could not wait for them. Take 

 such a man to a pretty lake, put him in a boat with yourself, 

 and rig his tackle. Show him where the pike are apt to lie 

 among the lily-pads, and how to cast for them. Watch him 

 and see the feeble interest developed by the fresh air and 

 change of scene — but not at all by any belief in your story 

 about a mythcal pike among the lilies. Keep your eye on 

 him until hegeis a strike, and see him turn pale and then flush 

 with excitement at the thought of the "monster" which he 

 lost by striking too soon. A lecture on the habits of the pike 

 is now in order ; and he learns that this fish seizes its prey 

 and rushes to a secluded spot to gorge it; and must be allowed 

 to " poach it" before striking. Verily, he thinks, there is 

 some art and sport in this, after all. 



It is as difficult to explain the pleasures of angling, with 

 its anticipations, hopes, fears and thrills, as it is to describe 

 how a watermelon tastes. Those who have experienced 

 these emotions know, and the deeper they get into the mys- 

 teries of angling the more they enj >y it and the greater 

 its claim to be an art appears. What veteran angler but can 

 recall the taking of some wary old trout, which for seasons 

 bad lurked in a favorite pool and spurned the flies und 

 worms of dozens of skilled fishers, until at last it fell a 

 viciim to a peculiar fly, presented so artistically that even 

 this wary trout, educated in tbe wile3 of man by many a 

 sharp sting from his steel, was deceived into believing it to 

 be a living insect. Ask such a veteran if angliDg is an art, 

 or if it is merely luck. 



Chance enters into angling merely enough to give it zest. 

 The day may be stormy, the fish are not feeding, or many 

 other things may happen which have not been foreseen, but 

 the angler has become more or less of a naturalist, and 

 his perceptions have been quickened by failures until he is 

 able to reduce these chances to a minimum. He knows the 

 likely pools in the trout stream and the probability of suc- 

 cess at certain hours. This is where the standard joke of 

 the country boy with his alder pole and string has its rise. 

 The boy is familiar with the stream and catches more fish 

 than the stranger with better rig, but the angler can soon 

 give the urchin long odds. 



Angling is the only sport which does not pall upon the 

 taste wih age. In fact, it increases with it, and some of the 

 most enthusiastic fishers are men who have passed three score 

 and ten. It is a sport which leaves no taint upon its 

 devotees, but, on the contrary, brings themhealthand renewed 

 vigor. It has changed somewhat since the days of Izaak 

 Walton, especially in America, and is not so "contempla- 

 tive" as in his time. In England still-fishing from punts, for 

 bream, barbel and dace, is followed yet, for want of gamier 

 fish ; but the American angler, after graduating from the 

 perch and "sunnies" of the mill pond, aspires to the capture 

 of the pike, black bass, striped bass, trout, and such fish as 

 must be cist, or trolled for, and which fight hard. Let him 

 who thinks it idle sport cast the minnow or the fly for halt 

 a day and note the effect, upon the tired muscles of his arm, 

 and then say if he has been idle. Let him wade a trout 

 stream, knee deep for the same length of time, and then 

 judge if he has had more leisure than his system can bea r. 



Give the boys fishing rods, and good ones at that. Never 

 mind the talk about catching as many fish with a sapling as 

 with a fishing rod. This comes from men with no appreci- 

 ation of the niceties of the art — and can be answered by say- 

 ing that a net will take more than either. The angler loves 

 fine tackle, the finer the tackle the more enjoyment ; and it 

 is as natural as that a man should like a handsome carriage 

 when an ox-cart is stronger, or he can travel as many miles 

 in a lumber wagon. The pleasure that comes from holding 

 a trusty rod, made to the verge of lightness consistent with 

 strength, which kills a fish with its elasticity, is aa far 

 superior to a stiff pole, which throws a fish into the tree- 

 tops before the angler feels the electric thrill of the struggle, 

 as the sun is superior to a farthing rushlight. The angler 



with the best tackle gets more enjoyment out of a day's fish- 

 ing than he who captures m jre fish with coarser tackle. 



PISTOL. SHOOTING. 



NEXT to fish stories may be ranked pistol shooting by 

 talk. It seems so easy to claim all sotts of preposter- 

 ous performances with thi3 small arm that many give way 

 to the temptation and display their ignorance by their asser- 

 tions. Even those who ought to know batter aod will dis- 

 course glibly of the parts and make up of the weapons, show 

 how cleverly they can be cocked and snapped, and describe all 

 the minutce as they would the details of a puzzle, when 

 questioned as to the work and the record of the arms are 

 silent. 



There>re so many tricks of marksmanship that the descent 

 is readily made from what merely seems improbable to what 

 is absolutely impossible. If a skulking emigrant robber is 

 airested in the West, we are at once treated to most mar- 

 velous stories of his skill with the pistol, whereas in fact the 

 skill lies with the fabricator of the printed account. We 

 have it that the favorite pastime of these Western highway- 

 men is to take line shots at one telegraph p ile from the next 

 one. At an average distance of fifty-five yards such hits are 

 barely possible, but to say that they are repeated agiio. and 

 again is to give the assertion the aspect of a fish story. 



There are to-day in the city of New York as fine pistol 

 shots as anywhere in the world. In a single show case are 

 targets and hits actually made over known distances and un- 

 der match condii ions, with every detail accurately recorded, 

 which cannot be duplicated in any other city. Occasionally 

 one of tlnse paper shooters ventures into the company of 

 these record-makers and soon learns what may and what, 

 may not be done. There is room for great and varied 

 amusement in pistol shooting, but there seems room for far 

 more brag and assertion. 



THE ONEIDA LAKE POACHERS. 



GEORGE A. CROWNHART, Cicero, N. Y., who has 

 been so active in assisting the Game Protectors of the 

 State of New York in the proiecution of the violators of the 

 laws on Oneida Lake, has recently been outrageously fined by 

 a local justice of the peice for his good work. About two 

 weeks ago he was going from his hotel at Sou h Bay on the 

 lake in the little steamer which has been used to destroy the 

 nets of the poachers. He intended to return the steamer 

 through the canal to Syracuse, where it is owned. On the 

 way he saw some nets set in violation of the law, and took 

 them up and destroyed them. This happened to be done on 

 Sunday, and for this he was complained of by the owners 

 and was fined $100 for Sabbath breaking by a justice of 

 Oswego county whose sympathies must have been on the 

 wrong side. Perhaps the nets belonged to his cousin, per- 

 haps they were owned by his uncle, or may be his brother 

 had an interest in them. We only wish we knew the name 

 of this legal luminary that we might embalm it in ink. 



Another splendid specimen of a protector of poachers is 

 an agent of the Americm Express Co. He has bailed the 

 villains who assaulted Lindsley while engaged in destroj ing 

 the nets in the lake. He offered Mr. Cro wnhart money to 

 stop enforcing the law in this locality and to keep Lindsley 

 away from the lake. His excuse, as written to one of his 

 superior officers, is that if he does not receive and ship the 

 fish, which are illegally taken, they will be loaded in wagons 

 and driven across to another Express Co., at Syracuse, and 

 so his office would lose the freight, on which he has a per- 

 centage. 



Shore Birds. — Under this title five chapters have been 

 collected into a little book of convenient firm. They are : 

 "Haunls and Habits'' and " Range and Migrations," being 

 the article by Mr. WiMiam Hapgood, "Range and Rotary 

 Movements of the Limrcolte," published in this journal 

 Oct. 20, 1881 ; " A Morning Without the Birds," from Mr. 

 Roosevelt's " The Great Sou'h Bay," in our issue of Oct. 6, 

 1881; and the editorial articles which appeared last year 

 entitled " B ly Sni e," and treating of "Nomencla'ure," 

 "Localities" and "Bands and Decoys." We believe that 

 these chapters in their present form will be welcomed by 

 sportsmen and naturalists. The book will be_sent postpaid 

 for 15 cents. 



