254 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



a steamer can start from there and cruise along its shore north- 

 west, west, and northeast to Mackinaw ; through the strait 

 east and southwest lo Cheboygan ; and thence by the chain of 

 lakes south and southwest hack to within six miles of Petoskey, 

 a distance which is now completed by stage, through a dense 

 wilderness. This is one of the advertised routes of travel, and 

 most delightful it is. 



Now let me go hack to Walton .Junction, where the railroad 

 branch makes off to Traverse City. Im determined to de- 

 scribe this country so thai, strangers will no longer be puzzled. 

 A map will assist. At Walton one can get good board, and 

 by driving three miles smilh to the. famous Manistee River, or 

 getting the railroad people to drop Mm off, he can enjoy the 

 new sensation of catching grayling. Parties intending a long 

 stay had better come prepared to camp. The river is naviga- 

 ble, and boats are required. The current runs swiftly— about 

 four miles an hour. The Manistee is one of the beat grayling 

 streams in Michigan. It empties into Lake Michigan some 

 seventy miles to the south-east. Four miles north of Walton, 

 journeying to ward Petoskey, is Fife Lake, a village of 300 peo- 

 ple situated on the shore of Fife Lake, which contains bass 

 and pike. Six miles north is the south branch of the Board- 

 man River, containing trout. At this point fishing must be 

 done chiefly by wading, on account of the brash; The river 

 runs south, then east and then north, for forty miles, and 

 empties into Grand Traverse Bay at Traverse City. Good 

 roads run to these streams. Board, $1.50 to $2 per day. It 

 will be seen that Fife Lake is good headquarters for the angler, 

 affording at least four varieties of excellent game fish. Thir- 

 teen miles further the railroad crosses the north branch of the 

 Boardman at Kalkaska, a village of 300 people located on that 

 stream; and yet three miles further on it crosses Rapid River, 

 by which a boat might be worked through to Elk Lake and 

 thence to Grand Traverse Bay, some forty miles distant. I 

 ascended the Rapid River for eight miles from its mouth near 

 Elk Lake, and found it much encumbered with fallen trees 

 and brush. After leaving Kalkaska the route of the railroad 

 is nearly parallel with what is known as the chain of Inter- 

 mediate Lakes (intermediate between the railroad and the 

 bay), and within a few miles of the headwaters of the Inter- 

 mediate, Grass, Jordan, Deer and Boyne Rivers, all most ex- 

 cellent trout streams ; but the intervening country is a wilder- 

 ness and impracticable. Besides, these streams can be easily 

 reached from their mouths in a meth#d which I have already 

 designated. Thirteen miles north of Kalkaska is the town of 

 Muncelona. A stage runs from here to York Lake and Spen- 

 cer Creek, distance twelve miles. Torch Lake communicates 

 with Elk Lake. A steamer can enter Torch Lake from Lake 

 Michigan, and, passing through connecting waters, come out 

 at Lake Michigan again at Elk Rapids. There is a good hotel 

 at Muncelona called the Muncelona House, kept by Perry 

 Andrus, which aceommodates forty guests at $2 per day aud 

 :$7 per week. [One inducement to visit Michigan is its very 

 reasonable hotel charges.] Thirty-eight miles north of Kal- 

 kaska, and twenty-five from Mancelona, is Boyne Falls Sta- 

 tion ; from this place there is a stage line of five miles to Pine 

 Lake, through which there is communication by steamer via 

 Charlevoix into Lake Michigan again. The Boyne River is a 

 fine trout and grayling stream, and some few anglers fish it 

 down through the woods into Pine Lake ; but its upper two 

 and a half miles is a tangle of forest. Deer Lake is two and 

 one-half miles from Boyne Falls. It affords good bass fishing. 

 Into Pine Lake flows the celebrated Jordan River, a- noble 

 trout stream, with a few grayling in it ; and also Horton 

 Creek, containing many trout. Deer River joins the Jordan 

 a mile or so above its mouth. It contains trout and grayling. 

 Pine Lake itself contains pike, bass and muscalonge. It is 

 sixteen miles long, of which its two branches are each nine 

 miles. Thence to Petoskey the railroad traverses a wilder- 

 ness;' but there are several cross-country roads by which 

 Torch Lake, Intermediate Lake and other points am be 

 reached. 



We come now to Petoskey, where I shall leave the reader. 

 In my next letter we will make the grand tour together and 

 learn what virtue there is in squirrel meat for bait. 



Hallook. 



A Colony fob Flobida.— There are really but three papers 

 in New York which seem to take any interest in the most 

 lovely country in the Union, which is Florida, and these three 

 journals are the Florida New Yorker, the Sun and the Forest 

 and Stbkam. From the Sun we learn that, 



''About sixty artisans, clerks and small merchants of this 

 citv met on the 26th of this month to receive the report of a 

 committee on the purchase of laud for the St, John's Co-opera- 

 X Colony of Florida. It was reported that a tract of ten 

 thousand acres of land on the St. John's River, twenty miles 

 from Pilatka, had been offered to the colony for *1 an acre. 



The first idea, which was conceived but a couple of months 

 ago was to engage fifty young men, married w unmarried, to 

 organize a colony on the co-operative plan, and buy about two 

 thousand acres wherever they could get it cheapest in Florida, 

 on the condition of paying part cash only. The organizers 

 were surprised and gratified to find offers to join the colony 

 accumulating. The list numbers over one hundred, and the 

 officer* hope to close the books with two hundred and fifty 

 names which will he sufficient to settle the ten thousand acres 

 of land it is proposed to buy. A representative of the colony 

 is in Florida, and another, Mr. Hines, will leave shortly to 

 institute a search into the title of the land. It is embraced in 

 aa eld Spanish grant," 



GAME PROTECTION. 



%fe §ifl*- 



—The meeting of Virginia Fish and Game Protective Asso- 

 ciation at Richmoud, last evening, was of unusual interest, 

 and we shall publish a full report of it from our special cor- 

 respondent. 



The following communication, which has hem received 

 from a Syracuse correspondent, we cheerfully publish i 



I have noticed lit ely in your most excellent paper several 

 articles reflecting rather severely upon the sportsmen of On- 

 iJnfjftga County. 



We are not so inactive as asserted in the articles you have 

 published. We are doing all we can in a quiet way, and 

 wiilnu t advertising what we propose to do, and so warn the 

 enemy. As yet we have confined our efforts to one thing and 

 one locality, and that is to stop the net. fishing On Onondaga 

 Lake. We do not as yet propose to arrest auy one, but simply 

 find the nets where set and destroy them. We have, .during 

 the last two months, found; raised and destroyed seven gill 

 nets in our lake. 



Our lake is so deep that other than seine nets cannot be used 

 to advantage. The nets destroyed were found set in from 

 thirty to sixty feet of water. We have fine fishing in the 

 lake, especially for black bass, which run large, some having 

 been caught this season weighing over five pounds and many 

 over four pounds. 



We know that it is notorious that net fishing is largely car- 

 ried on there, but. we cannot very well do anything with them, 

 for this reason: The boundary line between Onondaga and Os- 

 wego Counties along Oneida Lake is low water mark along the 

 south shore of the lake, so that, the lake lies entirely in Oswe- 

 go County. Our law makers at Albany have enacted that in 

 order to punish in Onondaga County a net fisherman in Oneida 

 Lake, it must be proven that the net was set and the law 

 broken within 200 yards of the line of Onondaga County. 



On this account wc are practically powerless, for we have 

 found after a protracted and energetic effort that we have 

 been unable to get proof to comply with the law. A year ago 

 we arrested thirteen men, and had them indicted in this coun- 

 ty, but they have never been tried, for the above reason. 



Virginia.— Complaints are made by the. Richmond Whig 

 and the Norfolk Public Ledger that the game laws prohibiting 

 the capture or sale of partridges are openly set at defiance by 

 restaurant keepers in those cities. 



—A correspondent writing from Salem, Oct. 20, says-. 



"The law now prohibits the killing of quail in this State un- 

 til the first of November, yet hundreds of them are now killed. 

 What do you think of a country where quails are killed and 

 marketed from September till March of every year ? I know 

 of several parties who make, a business of buying game in the 

 close season- One person has been running over our road buy- 

 ing game from St. Louis east, carrying from fifty to seventy- 

 five dozen quails into St. Loui3 every trip. The law is now 

 off in Missouri, and our game dealers are doing a lively busi- 

 ness ; they have men out hunting every day. It is no uncom- 

 mon thing to see fifty or sixty quails lying in the bickroorn 

 of a game buyer's shop in the close season. What can we do? 

 The law-abiding citizens are, I think, afraid to have the law 

 enforced, for fear of having their property destroyed. I think 

 it is the game buyers who are to blame for this disregard of 

 the close season. By offering big prices they induce pot- 

 hunters to shoot at any season of the year. We will have to 

 stop the marketing of small game iu this State at all seasons 

 of the year, or the cheerful whistle, of Bob White will be a 

 thing of the past. J- R- 



SHALL, WE HAVE MORE RIFLE 

 RANGES? 



SCARCITY OF QUAIL IN CONN. 



tm.VNFORii, Conn-, October 19, 1877. 

 Editor Forest and Stream: 



Allow me to call your attention to a subject, which, in this vicinity, 

 is sadly puzzling our sportsmen, viz.: the scarcity of quail. 



If tliere had been but few birds in the spring, or if there had been 

 insufficient food, the present lack of birds would readily admit of ex- 

 planation. But neither of these conditions can stand as causes, for it 

 is the testimony of the farmers that quail were plenty lu the spring. 

 Again, more grain has been harvested in this section this summer than 

 for many years previous. Iu fact, all the conditions appeared favora- 

 ble for the growth aud increase of quail, and seemed to warrant the 

 highest expectations of our sportsmen. Therefore, the almost unpre- 

 cedented scarcity of birds this fall, is a surprise as well as a' sore dis- 

 appointment. Sportsmen have been active in their endeavors to ac- 

 oouut for this anomaly, and as a consequence, many theories are in 

 circulation. But none of those that I have heard fulfill all the condi- 

 tions. 



The most plausible of these suppositions, and the one that isfaat 

 gaining credence, assumes Taris green as the agent by which the quail 

 have been destroyed. This explanation appears all the more probable 

 because, until this year, the poison has been but very little used. If 

 Paris green is the cause of trie scarcity of quail inthis section of the 

 country, it must have exerted a greater harm where it has been more 

 extensively used. 



The subject is worthy of investigation, as it may involve the total 

 annihilation of the qnail. Any information which you may be able 

 to afford will be awaited with interest, and received with gratitude. 



A. E. llAMNAR. 



[We cannot, for a moment, admit the plausibility of the 

 Paris green theory. There is no reason for supposing that 

 quail are injured by the poison, which has been extensively 

 used iu all sections of the country for some years past. Quail 

 have, this fall, been scarce all through Connecticut, but the 

 true reason, we take it, is the fact that they are still "run- 

 ning," and have not yet settled down onto their fall feeding 

 grounds ; and besides this, owing to the abundance of their 

 food, they are much scattered, it is always a hard matter to 

 find quail iu October, and we think that sportsmen in general 

 will bear us out when we say that in this latitude, the best 

 shooting for quail does not come until the weather is quite 

 cold. The runumg of quail is an interesting subject, which 

 our correspondent will find treated at some length in "Hal- 

 lock's Gazetteer" under the head, " Quail."— Ed. J 



The National Rifle Association proposes that in the ami uaj 

 army appropriation a fund shall be given for encouraging^ 

 and aiding rifle practice in the uniformed militia of varioujM 

 States and in the army. The N. R. A. advocates the establish^ 

 ment of rifle ranges in all the States, aud that prizes he awarcjM 

 ed, and that the Government provide means for the sarneH 

 This demand, if we can call it such, has every claim to thes 

 respectful attention of our legislators. It seems, as it wera-M 

 to be a logical sequence. Since it has been shown that thffl 

 militia of such Slates as California, New York, ConnecticujH 

 New Jersey and Massachusetts have exhibited wonderful* 

 proficiency as marksmen, why should not the citizen soldiers 

 from all other portions of the Union be equally skilful witm 

 their arms? It is practice on the rifle range, the systemat^H 

 philosophical study of the arm, which, perfecting the inuJ 

 vidual soldier, has given effectiveness to the whole. ItC 

 would be waste of common sense to argue this matter. 



That steadiness under tire, endurance and obedience can only 

 be acquired by drill and discipline we readily ackuowledg^B 

 nevertheless the single capabilities of the men, as adding to 

 the effective power of the whole, seems to have been tcra| 

 long: neglected. As education has increased, the belter &\ff 

 preeiation of toe soldier has permitted the ordnance officer to 

 place in the hands of his men arms of greater precision^ 

 The mechanical facilities of the arm, such as rapidity in. 

 loading, can be readily acquired in the barrack-room, but 

 the true efficiency of the rifle can never approach to itw 

 maximum save by practice on the rifle range. When onff* 

 thinks of it, the pomp and circumstance of war have heCjB < 

 wonderfully sobered down of late. -Men for military serriS 

 are no longer dressed finely, but comfortable. As to armS 

 such ornamentation as was once lavished on them would lfD> i 

 considered to-day as in •exactly inverse ratio to their useful* 

 ness. The dress-parade condition of the soldier has then ■ 

 somewhat passed away. The heroic element in war has heetj ' 

 superseded by a something which, prosaically enougb.sefimfi. 

 to partake of a mathematical calculation. A great General, i 

 even a Moltke, when he reads over the terrible list of the 

 Germans killed in the Franco-Prussian war, some OO.fXfflfc 

 does his best to find out how many shots the French pounH 

 into his lines. Certainly to a cartridge, that Prussian knows • 

 how many his own men expended on the French. Iu suoh . 

 grim books as he keeps, he credits his cartridges, and debllf 

 his dead foes. With the thorough study of small arin^.^ 

 averages of destruction are brought down as close as are life 

 insurance calculations. It is not that so many shots ought to, 

 but they must, in modern warfare, strike exactly somauy vaw 

 or horses. The time of improbabilities has passed awny, 

 Greedmoor and Wimbledon are the schools where all Ike 

 laws of military destruction, at least in small arms, are ijM 

 finitely determined. If then the efficiency of both nujt 

 regular troops and of our militia is to be brought up to 1(8.1 

 maximum, it is only by means of the rifle range that it can ! 

 be done. 



Impoktant Resolution of the National Riflb AsaJk 

 oi vnoN —At a meeting of the Executive Committee NatfflH 

 Rifle Association, held Oct. 30, 1377, the article in Armgtmi 

 Navy Journal, of 27th inst., was referred to, and the lollop 



ln ii^^S"ro°mmUteehave observed with astonishment ** 

 prdfranaiegrettt* attaoK upon the National mile As.soe.imo.iuij 

 NatlS Institution, which m contained in the Army and .\*vy M.wm 



0l /W»£f"Tbat the mailer be referred to a committee dJ 



whom the President shall be ono-to decile what aet.on i« proper w l.n 



Taken under the circumstances, and to report at the next meeting of fljC 



K0 Gen° f Wylie^and Col. Wingate were appointed as 

 members of the committee. . 



rWe bee; to state that our comments on the article mint 

 Army and Nary Journal were wtitten by us some daysboM 

 the action of the National Rifle Association.] 



• Massachusetts-^^, Oct. 24. -At the annual uirflj 

 shooting of the State militia, at South Fra.niingharj 

 day, the Charleston Cadets wou the first prize ami 

 bury City Guard the second. 



Massachusetts. -At the range of the Massachus 

 Association, Walnut Hill, on the 25th, Match to 2 upon tig 

 fall programme was shot, The distance tired wit 

 300 yards, seven rounds to each man; best possih 

 70 The first prizes were the Peabody -Martini bn . 

 Cr'eedmoor rifle. The prizes are given when three 

 of their value has been paid in. The following at 

 scores: mo yds. 



98 37 



DKirkwood M og 



(J 11 De Roohemont f ™ VM 



Match No. 3 was also shot. The distances were 300, H 

 and 1 000 yards, ten rounds each man, standing at 300 yaQH 

 and any position at the other two distances. The prizes « 

 a bronze medal of the National Rifle Association an 

 and a silver medal of the Massachusetts Rifle Ai 

 There will be five shootings, and the best three ave 

 secutive scores take the prizes. We .give the leading ecor« 

 300 yds. 600 yds. 1.000 yds. TJH 

 WIlJacKson so 49 « 1« | 



CBEEr.MOOK.-On Saturday last the day was rainy «■ 

 cold, and for a concluding match perhaps^ "">4jM 

 the season, the attendance was not large. The 1 

 match, for §300 gold, was unfortunately again po.* 

 The contest, was between members of the Amateui Uud.m 

 the bronze medal. The following are the scores : 



WMFwrow. FLamb, Jr, H 



tv inutility iiinitim 



tt 5 5 I 5 ! 5 I 5.4 6 5 t 6-« B 5 4 3 6 B 5 5 3 6 



" T«tai.r.....r,«.M««.. 2PS 



Total., 



