THE AMERICAN SPORTSMAN'S JOURNAL. 



iccordlilg to Act of congress, la the year issi, by the Fbre3t ana stream Publishing company, in the office of the Librarian of congress, at Washington. 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1881. 



CONTENTS. 



0B1AL :— 



[he AugJer iu Winter ; Tho Hair Snake ; The Cost of Stupid- 

 ity ; TheodatuS Garliek : 363 



Spobtssian Totjkist 1 — 



i tho " Ma.^h ;" Cruise of "The Nipper •" Autobiographical 

 Frayrnents-III 365 



HiSTOM :— 



i Enemies of Game Birds j Death of the Tame Partridge ; 

 sh and Frog Showers ; Suggestions about Acclimatation 867 



! Bag and Gun :— 



,oy Party in the South ; The Mellow Horn ; Maine 

 anS Vibilmg Sportsmen; Deer in the Adiron- 

 'ho Great Hiuklev Hunt of 1818 ; How He Got His 

 Mative Velocities of Rifle Bullet and of Sound ; 

 Bight ftuleB tor Treeing Grouse; Shooting Grouse on the 

 Ying ; Deer in Massachusetts ; State Pigeon Tourna- 



367 



and ItxvEE Fishing :— 



Angling in California ; Worm and Ply-Pishing by Night 371 



Hboultcre : — 



*l!&rp Distribution ; More Carp for Pennsylvania 371 



Bute) ii Field Trials ; Louisiana State Field Trials ; National 



■i:-.lis ; Training vs. Breaking ; Keunel Notes 371 



•ttTLE AND Tbap Shootino 376 



tjSWEKS TO COBBESrONDENTS 376 



Hdhtino and Canoeing :— 



aent ; How to Bace Madge Fairly ; American Canoe 

 Association ; Bice Lake Canoos 376 



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Address: Forest and Stream Publishing Co., 



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FOREST AND STREAM. 



Thursday, December 8. 



The Michigan Nos-Expobt Law, which, provides that 

 tison shall not bo shipped out of the State, is said to be a 

 letter. It is reported that the law is systematically 



aded by parties who take the venison to small towns near 

 line and carry it thence in wagons out of the State, and 

 e re-ship it. The law, if it cart only be enforced, is an 

 lirable one ; we hope to see it carried out. There ought 

 e a like provision against exporting gauie from this couq- 

 to Europe. 



i'ortrmen have always been legitimale game for the pun- 

 s. Joe Miller (England, 1684-1738,) had bis crack at 

 n : "A gentleman who had been a-shootirig brought home 

 mall bird with him, and hiving an Irish servant, he asked 

 lithe had shot that little bird? 'Yes,' he told him. 

 rah, by my faith,' replied the Irishman, * it was not 

 b t'ie powder aud shot, for this little thing would have 

 . iu the fail.' " 



'he Attention of Sportsmen is just now largely directed 

 e field trials of sporting doge. We have spared no es- 

 i nor pains to present to our readers accurate and in- 



gible reports of these meetings. 



HAIR-SNAKES AND THEIR EGGS. 



TN the middle of September last Mr. F. W. H. Hahn 

 -J- brought us a hair-snake, (rordius aquatimis, which he 

 found in a New Jersey brook. The animal was placed in a 

 jar of water on our desk and began laying its eggs on the 

 19th, finishing on the 24th. The " snake" was seven inches in 

 length and the knot which its eggs were tied in would if 

 straightened out appear like a fine thread four or five yards 

 in length. 



This is the worm which is believed by many to come from 

 a horse's or other hair, but in reality is a parasite of grass- 

 hoppers, crickets and water beetles. This worm is quite 

 plentiful but escapes observation by its small size. Trout cul- 

 turists find numbers of them knotted together on the screens 

 of their ponds at the close of summer. No doubt these 

 little animals destroy many noxious insects, for they are ex- 

 ceedingly prolific, and the insect in which they take up their 

 abode is said to die without increasing its species ; and Prof. 

 Riley says that all the Orthoptera (grasshoppers, crickets, 

 etc.) which came under his observation which contained a 

 Gordius, nine in all, were females. 



Prof. Leidy, in speaking of the variable Gordius, says; "I 

 observed one nine inches in length by two-fifths of a line in 

 thickness, commence laying eggs and continue the process 

 very slowly and gradually during two weeks. They were 

 extended in a delicate cylindrical cord, resembling a thread 

 of sewing-cotton. At first it broke off, as extruded, in pieces 

 about a foot in length, but toward the end of the process the 

 cord appeared to be less tenacious, and broke off in pieces a 

 few inches, and even a few lines in length. The pieces in 

 the aggregate measured ninety-one inches ; the thickness of 

 the cord was about one-tenth of a line. The eggs are very 

 minute, and in the cord were compressed together so as to be 

 polyhedral. In a transverse section of the cord I counted 

 about seventy eggs, and in the length of one-fortieth of an 

 inch twenty-six eggs, which, by calculation, gives 6,634,800 

 as the whole number of eggs in the cord. The eggs, when 

 isolated, assume an oval shape, and measure about the l-750th 

 of an inch long by the l-l,000lh of an inch broad. The de- 

 velopment of the young from the egg is readily observed from 

 day to day, and it takes about a month before the process is 

 completed. * * * In about four weeks the Gordius 

 reaches maturity, and escapes from the egg totally different 

 in appearance from the parent." 



Undoubtedly many of the young perish and fail to find a 

 " host," but an animal which lays over six million eggs does 

 not seem liable to become extinct soon. The eggs which 

 were laid by our specimen have failed to hatch, and now, 

 near Dec. 1, they are covered with a fungoid growth, re- 

 sembling that which comes upon a dead fish egg. According 

 to Dr. Meissner, the young Gordii enter their hosts at the 

 joints of their legs and abdomens and become encysted in 

 the muscular system instead of being intestinal parasites. 

 They have also been found in the muscular portions of fishes, 

 where they have probably obtained entrance through the 

 destruction of some insect by the fish. 



. — -». — . 



THE ANGLER IN WINTER. 



THE Northern angler, whose business and whose purse al- 

 low it, practically knows no winter. He goes b'outh. 

 The Southern angler keeps it up all winter, in fact that is his 

 best season, for the combined effect of heat and insects ren- 

 ders his summer fishing a most questionable enjoyment. 



With these two classes our present article has naught to do. 

 We write of the angler of the North whose lakes and streams 

 are frozen aud who, for various reasons, cannot spend two or 

 three months in Florida. What can he do? Many of the 

 hardier sort fish through the ice for the ever-hungry pike. 

 Holes are cut, fires are built and the angler, well swathed in 

 woolens, keeps liis blood in brisk circulation by running 

 from one hole to another to take out the fish which has noti- 

 fied him of its readiness to be so taken by hoisting the flag 

 attached to the "toggle" at the upper end of the line; or he 

 goes to see that the hole has not frozen over and that the line 

 will run free. If the ice be free from snow he does this on 

 skates and, although many affect to despise it as " hand- 

 line fishing with no chance to play a fish," it is a good and 

 a hardy sport, and we have enjoyed it many a time and oft, 

 from Minnesota to New York. The cold ah' is exhilarating, 



and the appetite is enormous. After a week of such fishing, 

 in ordinary fair winter w T eather, a man returns " like a giant 

 refreshed with wine." 



This and smelt angling near the sea coast are about all that 

 the Northern angler gets, unless he takes the lake trout in 

 much the same manner ; but the lake trout is not often found 

 in the smaller lakes and is usually taken by professionals, in 

 winter. The black bass in the North hibernates and so do 

 most Northern anglers. Winter is the time that the tackle 

 is overhauled, rods varnished, reels repaired and lines tested. 

 The tackle maker receives orders for new rods, made to a 

 specified length and weight, not to exceed a hair's breadth in 

 the former nor a feather's avoirdupois in the latter, and the 

 old lines are examined foot by foot for flaws that might lose 

 the largest fish of the coming season. Flies are inspected 

 and laid away in camphor or, better yet, in tightly corked 

 bottles, to keep the moths away. The gut is looked at with 

 a critical eye, and the frayed parts cut out or rubbed smooth 

 with India rubber. 



What anticipations of glorious sport, the care of fine tackle 

 brings ! What memories of past achievements its contempla- 

 tion conjures up ! The cleaning and oiling of the smooth- 

 running reel is a pleasure. Its sharp click recalls the struggle 

 with a two-pound trout in the pool under the roots of the old 

 sycamore ; or the silent whirl of the multiplier suggests the 

 fierce fight with the great bass, which was the envy of the 

 local fishermen and the talk of the town for days after, and 

 which was finally recorded in the pages of Fokebt and 



The Northern angler in bis hibernation has these enjoy- 

 ments, and others besides. He now looks back over theprinted 

 record of angling in all parts of the country in the pages above 

 referred to, which he only had time to hurriedly scan in 

 summer. He reads the angling books which he has bought 

 during the summer, especially to be read during these long 

 winter evenings ; for your enthusiastic angler loves fishing 

 books next to fishing, and always has a corner in his library 

 where a goodly collection of them is to be found. With his 

 slippers on, before a cheerful fire, pipe in mouth, the hiber- 

 nating angler of the .North takes in a world of quiet pleasure 

 and learning from his books and his Fobest akd Stkkam — 

 pleasures which those who can fish all the year rounu know 

 little of. 



The Cost of Stupidity, — A Boston correspondent sends 

 us a newspaper slip recounting some thirteen aceidenU with 

 fire-arms ; and our friend suggests that few people are aware 

 of the numerous exhibitions of carelessness in the handling 

 of firearms, or the result of the injuries resulting therefrom. 

 The cases mentioned in the newspaper cutting lncludb tit 

 bursting of guns, the shooting of companions in the field, 

 and fatal accidents caused by pulling the guns out of boats 

 and over fences, with muzzles pointed toward the unfortu- 

 nate victims. As we have pointed out before, these casual- 

 ties are in almost every instance due simply to the sheerest 

 stupidity and criminal carelessness of the handlers of guns. 

 Every fall the diligent exchange editors of our esteemed 

 daily contemporaries collect a long string of such accidents 

 under the heading of "Sportsmen's Perils." This fall and 

 winter will prove more than usually productive of such items, 

 owing to the flooding of the country with cheap guns, which 

 find their way into the hands of men and boys who an 

 as fit to handle guns as a two-year-old baby is to play with 

 a can of nitro-glycerine. We may always expect that Lien 

 will kill themselves by their own stupidity wi>.h guns, just 

 as they manage to be run over by railroad trains, blown up 

 by kerosene fire-kindling ; or contrive to fall off from 

 pices, and down into wells; or are kicked by mules, cm have 

 their hands taken off by buzz-saws an 1 1 ; bines. 



When the millennium comes, and the lion lies dowu with the 

 lamb, perhaps the shot-gun and the didh't-know-it-wliB- 

 loaded idiot can lie down in safety together, too; and both 

 get up again. But it must be remembered, as we have 

 said before, that the number of persons who are injured by 

 gunning accidents compared with the whole number 

 sons who use firearms is exceedingly small. The list of these 

 accidents which do not result from sheer carelessness u 

 less important. 



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 scription to this journal. 



