50 



>EAlV 

 FOREST AND STREAM-- 



SUMMER RUSTICATING. 



A WEEKLY JOURNAL, 



Devoted to Field and Aquatic Sports, Practical Natural Distort, 

 Pish Culture, tub Protection of Game, Preservation OP FOB 8BTS 

 and the Inculcation in Men and Women op a Heaj.tuy - 

 in Out-Door Recreation and Study : 



PUBLISHED BY 



Rarest mid §tre<wj gublixltittg §omynt{g. 



— AT— 



NO. Ill (old No. 103) PULTON STREET, NEW YORE. 

 [Post Office Box 2832.] 



TERMS, EOUE DOLLARS A YEAR, STRICTLY IN ADVANCE. 



Twenty-five per cent, oil for Cluba of Three or more. 



Advertising Kates. 

 Inside pages, nonpareil type, 25 cents per line ; outside page, 40 cents. 

 Special rates for three, six and twelve months. Notices in editorial 

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 received on any terms. 



V Any publisher inserting our prospectus as above one time, with 

 brief editorial notice calling attention thereto, and sending marked copy 

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NEW YORK, THURSDAY, AUGUST 23, 1877. 



To Correspondents. 



All communications whatever, intended for publication, must be ac- 

 companied with real name of the writer as a guaranty of good faith, 

 and be addressed to the Forest and Stream Publishing Company. 

 Names will not be published if obj ection be made. No anonymous con- 

 tributions will be regarded. 



We cannot promise to return rejected manuscripts. 



Secretaries of Clubs and Associations are urged to favor ns with brief 

 notes of their movements and transactions. 



Nothing will be admitted to any department of the paper that may 

 not be read with propriety in the home circle. 



We cannot be responsible for dereliction of the mail service if money 

 remitted to us is lost. No person whatever is authorized to collect 

 money for ns unless he can show authentic credentials from one of the 

 undersigned. We have no Philadelphia agent. 



J3£~ Trade supplied by American News Company. 

 CHARLES HAXJ-OCK, Editor. 



T. C. BANKS, S. H. TURELLL, Chicago, 



Business Manager. Western Manager. 



CALENDAR OF EVENTS FOR THE COMING 

 WEEK. 



Friday, Aug. 24— Trotting : Earlville, 111.; Poughkeepsie, N.Y.; Pitts- 

 burgh, Pa.; Meadville, Pa.; Hillsdale, Mich. Base ball : Live Oak vs. 

 Lowell, at Lowell, Mass.; Crystal vs. Active, at Brooklyn; Indianapolis 

 vs. Rochester, at Rochester. Creedmoor: Infantry, 5th Brigade, 2d 

 Div. 



Saturday, Aug. 25.— Trotting : Hillsdale, Mich. Base ball: Cincin- 

 nati vs. Hartford, at Brooklyn ; Louisville vs. Boston, at Boston ; Chi- 

 cago vs. St. Louis, at St. Louis ; Nameless vs. Witoka, at Brooklyn ; 

 Volunteer vs. Star of Greenville, at Poughkeepsie; Active vs. Buckeye, 

 at South Brooklyn ; Journeay & Burnham vs. Jos. O'Brien, at Brooklyn; 

 Produce Exchange vs. Osceola, at Brooklyn ; Lafayette vs. Putnam, at 

 Brooklyn; Orange vs. Wilkesbarre, at, Orange, N. J-; Hornell vs. Dan- 

 ville, at Hornellsville ; Athletic vs. Lochner, at Philadelphia ; Indianap- 

 olis vs. Rochester, at Rochester. Creedmoor: Fourth competion for 

 Remington prize of $300 in gold ; third competition for Turf, Field and 

 Werirt Bftdge; Seventh Regiment Rifle Club competition for "Shiels'-and 

 Remington Special Military Rifle ; New York Athletic Club Swimming 

 Match ; Rowing match between Watson and Peacock, Passaic River ; 

 Amateur Swimming Tournament, Harlem River. 



Monday, Aug. 27.— Trotting : Cambridge, Del. Base ball : Orange vs. 

 Wilkesbarre, at Orange ; Indianapolis vs. Syracuse Stars, at Syracuse. 

 Creedmoor: Infantry, 11th Brigade, 2d Div. 



Tuesday, A vg. 28— Trotting: Cambridge, 111.; Parker City, Pa.; Hart- 

 ford, Conn.; Oskaloosa, la.; Macomb, 111. Base ball: Cincinnati vs. 

 Hartford, at Brooklyn; Louisville vs. Boston, at Boston; Indianapolis 

 vs. Syracuse Stars, at Syracuse. Creedmoor: Practice of American 

 Team. 



'Wednesday, Aug. 29.— Trotting as above. Regatta of Nahasset Yacht 

 Club off North Shore. Creedmoor : Seventh Regiment competition for 

 regimental medals. 



Thursday, Aug. 30.— Trotting as above, and at Hudson, Mich. Base 

 ball: Cincinnati vs. Boston, at Boston; Louisville vs. Brooklyn, at 

 Brooklyn. Regatta of the Newburgh Rowing Association. Creed- 

 moor : Infantry, 1st Brigade, 1st Div. 



Long-Range Shooting.— We are in receipt of advance 

 sheets of a new work entitled "Long-Range Shooting," 

 which will be issued next week. It is a complete history of 

 the International rifle matches of 1873 to 1877, and a treatise 

 on the rifle and on rifle practice ; also a history of the Elcho 

 Shield, etc. It is a handbook that no riflemen can afford to 

 do without it. The fact that it is edited by the rifle editor of 

 the Fokest and Stbeam axd Rod and Gtjn, is sufficient 

 guarantee of its correctness and general merits. Published by 

 the Forest and Stream Publishing Company. 



— Hon. J. D. Caton, Chief Justice of Illinois, called on us 

 last week while on his way to Cape May. We can only wish 



£hc call had beou.longer. 



T N June, when the trees are all leaved and " Nature smiles 

 -*- serene," you decide that the country will not be honored 

 with your presence this year; but when August comes, and 

 all your neighbors are gone, and the workmen at the little 

 chapel next, door— which is undergoing its annual repairs (and 

 when is it not?)— keep up such a racket that your head is like 

 the interior of a sawmill, you begin to anathematize your com- 

 fortable home, and eulogize the "green fields," " shady lanes" 

 and "pure air" of country retreats. You close up your pleas- 

 ant, roomy house with its high ceilings, its soft carpets and 

 easy chairs ; its gas, hot and cold Mater, and the water cooler 

 and never-failing supply of ice ; with the smoothly shaven 

 lawn and croquet ground, pleasant yard, well-kept walks aud 

 cool afternoon breezes; with the drug- store in the second 

 block and the doctor close by. You scoff at these things, and 

 recklessly pepper the carpets; camphor your winter clothing, 

 swathe the furniture, nail your windows down, send your sil- 

 verto the Safe Deposit Co., your husband out West, pack a 

 Saratoga, a band-box, a valise, a shawl-strap, a box of books, 

 another of plants, a case of ferns, turn over the house to the 

 care of a.couple of "hoodlum" boys, and go to the country. 



Vou get there just about dark, tired and weary after a three- 

 mile ride in a double wagon over a road that is by no men us 

 pavement, where you find some more unfortunates still more 

 miserable than yourself, all having a "delightful time"— 

 Ugh! At last you retire for the night, and what a night it 

 proves to be ! AH the musquitoes in the State congregate to 

 greet you, and hold high carnival over your arrival. One 

 bites you, then another probes you ; then they all bite with a 

 unanimity of purpose perfectly astonishing, and lift up their 

 voices in high notes of joy. Lights appear and disappear at 

 each fresh bite to assist in applying cologne water, camphor, 

 salt, soda, soap, kerosene, carbolic acid and other applications 

 which your friends have recommended, and which have proved 

 futile on each successive application, to allay the sting. Numer- 

 ous-legged bugs of divers sizes, colors and voices make alarm- 

 ing aerial flights from unexpected places, and come violently 

 in contact with the ceiling and rebound upon yourself, and 

 crawl upon your neck with hooked claws and beaks like a 

 pair of ice-tongs. At last-, after you have killed bugs enough 

 to stock a museum, and filled the wash-bowl, or distributed 

 them upon the window-sill, and the musquitoes are fed and 

 hung up upon the wall— that is, those that are left after hunt- 

 ing them vigorously with a slipper for twohours,— tired Nature 

 asserts itself, and you are fast approaching the land of dreams. 

 You have not been asleep but a moment, seemingly, when you 

 are startled back to earth by a hideous roar, awierd, cavernous 

 sound that causes visions of the resurrection and judgment 

 to flit o'er your frantic brain. A muttered word of encourage, 

 ment, and ardent wishes for the eternal health of that pair of 

 lungs, to which, if wicked, you mentally add, "I'll soap that 

 horn before the day is out," and you again attempt to sink into 

 unconsciousness. But then the cows come up and moo around, 

 and one of them wears a bell which rings incessantly, and puts 

 the junkmen at home to shame ; the pigs grunt and squeal for 

 their morning meal, and the hens cackle, turkeys gobble, ducks 

 quack, geese huavmgh ; all the horses have to be watered, aud 

 they all whinny, and the dogs bark ; and, as it becomes unbear- 

 able, that horn toots again with a violence that would make it 

 heard upon the Danube, and silence remains thereafter for the 

 space of fifteen minutes. 



That quiet means breakfast, and you are just congratulating 

 yourself that you will not he obliged to get up after all, when 

 Pandemonium resumes its sway. The farmer and his men 

 come out to yoke the oxen and harness the horses to go to the 

 fields, and all are gifted with cast-iron lungs and knife grind- 

 ing voices. The oxen are geed, whoaed, hawed, backed and 

 darned till they attempt to go in seventeen directions at once, 

 and a dreadful " black snake " makes an incipient Fourth of 

 July. At last the " critters " are harnessed and yoked, the 

 boys run hither and thither collecting shovels and scythes, 

 which they stop to ring against stones, or to sharpen, and the 

 farmer who takes a few "select city boarders to give them 

 all the comforts of home"— God forbid!— stands in the barn- 

 door and gives orders to a man in San Francisco, while an 

 idiot at the back of the shed monotonously splits wood and 

 throws it in a pile, which serves to fill the intervals of silence 

 which otherwise might possibly occur. Just as all this shows 

 signs of yielding some one comes tip-toeing to your door with 

 a softness to be heard a mile, who, fondly imagining you have 

 slept through all the infernal racket, knocks fit to wake the 

 dead, and coolly informs you that breakfast is ready, and that 

 it's six o'clock. You opine from this that six o'clock is a late 

 hour, and with an unearthly :igh you reply. "Very well ! I'll 

 be down in a minute," and proceed to dress, your head mean- 

 time ready to split with the luxury of "country life in a retired 

 and quiet neighborhood," etc. Vide advertisment. 



You would have had beefsteak for breakfast, but the peram- 

 bulating meat man failed to put in an appearance yesterday 

 You would have had cream in your coffee if the cows had not 

 got out of the lot and eaten leeks. New potatoes are not large 

 enough to eat, and the old ones you are served with have been 

 frozen, or have sprouted, and consequently have a pre-historic 

 flavor. The hens, you heard, hide their nests, so but few eggs 

 are to be had, and those they are obliged to send away i 

 contract, or to pickle for winter use, The hams that were 

 smoked first are all gone, and thofte that were smoked last are 

 not yet cured. There's po— , the unclean beast, there's always 

 but you don't fancy the animal. So you, take some bread, 



which is made from salt rising and is a cross between beach- 

 sand and sawdust in flavor, and some butter which is frowy— 

 the good butter has to 011 contract also; and drinksome cream- 

 less decoction of rye, flavored with " short" sweetening, and 

 hope for better things. So you stay two weeks, and all I lie. 

 days and nights are but repetitions of the first, with now and 

 then an unexpected departure iu the shape of sick head aches, 

 ••gastric griefs and peristal tie woes," and the doctor three 

 miles off, which allows the farmer's wife an opportunity to ad- 

 minister hop pillows, poultices, mustard and onion draughts, 

 and nauseous compounds of "roots and yarns"— the latter 

 of which have a " leetle camp-fire and pain-killer" which trans- 

 forms you into a miniature Vesuvius. It works like a charm, 

 however, for your fright at being poisoned or burned up drives 

 away the pain, and you remain the rest of that scorching Au- 

 gust day deep in the big featherbed, drinking stale water from 

 the well (which is supplied from the frog pond just down by 

 the corner of the barn) and sigh for the cool mattress and ice- 

 Water of the city, But when two weeks are up you feel that 

 forbearance ceases to he a virtue, arid you write the boys to 

 meet you at the Grand Central, for you are longing for home. 

 Do you come? Not much! On the appointed day you tele- 

 graph you can't come, for your heart fails when you re- 

 member that the Smithses and Simpkinses and HcteVogenie- 

 cognomenses are not home, and you telegraph that you are 

 not coming till the month is over after all, and that you are 

 having such a sweet time, and turn to read the enlightening 

 "Mysteries of Rodolpho," or of "Casper the Cross-eyed Car- 

 penter of Kalamazoo" and such other literature as the house 

 affords. Meantime, the boys are going to the dickens : for, 

 unfortunately, they can't and don't want to appreciate the 

 beauties of the country. 



OUR GAME. 



'TTisan absurdity to say that the spread of civilization 

 1 and culture has destroyed the game, for it is a well 

 known fact that game of all sorts increases in the very same 

 ratio in which cultivation increases, if left unmolested in their 

 seasons of reproduction, nesting, spawning or tending their 

 helpless young— so long as a sufficiency of woodland is left to 

 afford them shelter. " 



The above sentiments were penned by Henry William Her- 

 bert, thirty-five years ago, and their truthfulness and prophetic 

 unction is more apparent in these later days than when the 

 immortal author of "The Warwick Woodlands " first brought 

 them to the attention of the public in " Graham's Magazine." 

 His reference to game was of course the smaller varieties, the 

 feathered denizens of our fields and forests, comprising the 

 quail (Ortyx virginiana), the woodcock (PhiloJiela mmor) and 

 the ruffed grouse (Bonasa umbrtlus). All of these are non- 

 migratory, depending upon something more than natural food, 

 the woodcock excepted, but as this little fellow's migrations 

 are short and do not interfere with the rearing of its young, 

 and as he also depends more or less for subsistence on the un- 

 gurnered grain, we can class him with the others as unaffected 

 in point of plentitude by the encroachments of civilization. 



The larger game, such as the deer, elk, moose and wild tur- 

 key, as well as those quadrupeds not strictly game, but afford- 

 ing great sport with a clash of danger to the. gunner ; the bear, 

 wolf, wildcat and panther, have long since passed away. But. 

 none of these levy extensively on the farmer's industry for 

 then support. Their disappearance from the face of the land 

 is not so much owing to the presence of man, as from a lack 

 of cover wherein to roam unmolested and procure their nat- 

 ural food, and bring forth and nurture their young. 



In studying the habits of the quail, woodcock and ruffed 

 grouse, and in comparing their present numbers with those of 

 a decade past we find them more plentiful, and do not hesitate 

 in saying that it is the advance in culture and civilization that 

 has caused the marked increase. Quail are much more liable 

 to be found on clean, well kept farms, than on those weedy, 

 unkempt tracts undeserving of the title. So long as good pro- 

 tective laws are passed and enforced, just so long will " Bob 

 White " flourish and increase in our rural districts. The more 

 farms and farmers there arc, and the better they till their land, 

 the more quail will there be, for better cultivation means 

 better grain and more of it ; and as our little friend is a good 

 deal of a gourmand, rest assured he will never desert the hus- 

 bandman so long as he provides for his wants, and protects him 

 during the close season. And so with the ruffed grouse, or 

 partridge as he is called by us in New York State. Although 

 he inhabits our hill and mountain sides where the ground is 

 roughest, and the cover the most thoroughly impenetrable, and 

 is somewhat of an autocrat, yet he sometimes condescends to 

 come down from his mountain fastnesses, and take his fill of 

 the farmer's grain. In fact there are seasons when he depends 

 to a great extent for his daily food upon the stubble fields, 

 and in the early fall when the foliage is still as thick as in 

 midsummer making the pursuit of the grouse in his native 

 haunts a bootless enterprise. To capture him at this season 

 you must find some sloping stubble field bordered on its up- 

 per side by a belt of scrub oaks and evergreens ; repair there 

 some September morning before sunrise, waif patiently, and 

 two to one, bonam will appear hopping through the snake - 

 fence dividing his domain from the field, and after carefully 

 viewing the landscape o'er for signs of crafty fox or dreaded 

 hawk, and giving a preliminary strut or two, will commence 



him, sitting 



mean nor unsportsmanlike to take ai 

 gtou.se, providiug you BhDQl 



