THE AMERICAN SPORTSMAN J S JOURNAL. 



Terxs, $1 a "Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. | 

 Six Months, §2. f 



NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 2, 18 8 2. 



! vol. xvth.- so. 1. 



I Nos. 39 & 40 Park Row, New York 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



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Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 

 Nos. 39 and 40 Park Row. New York City. 



CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Signs. 



Tne British Match. 



A Close Call. 



The Michigan Association. 



Athleticism in England and 

 America. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



Camp Canuck. 



A Wet Week in Wisconsin. 



Ingle-Side Stories. 



Random Shots from Mexico. 



Southwestern Texas. 

 Natural History. 



Dave. 



Strange Habits of Beaver. 



The Work of Earth Worms. 



Enemies of Game Birds. 



Decrease of Game Birds. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



The. Michigan Association. 



Three Days on Bruin's Trail. 



Destruction of Large Game. 



Loading for Game. 



Record of Deer Shooting. 



Rust-Spots in Gun Barrels. 



The Purpose of Field Sports. 



Wire Cartridges. 



Hounding Deer. 



Sea and River Fishing. 

 Brook Trout in the Lower Pe- 

 ninsula. 

 A Trip to Brown's Tract. 

 An Autumn Sunset. 

 A Marine Bait Worm. 

 Fishculture. 

 Kentucky Commission. 

 Connecticut Commission. 



Training 



What they Found in the Dog. 



Conditioning for Bench Shows. 



Laverack Pedigrees. 



Pointer vs. Setter. 



Pittsburgh Dog Show. 



Kennel Notes. 

 Yachting and Canoeing. 



Measurement. 



Cutters at Sea. 



Larohmont Yacht Club. 



Challenge to Cutters. 



Boston Takes the Lead. 



Yacht Stoves. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 



Old Time Pistol Shots. 



Women and Pistols. 



Pistol Scores. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



THE MICHIGAN ASSOCIATION. 

 A MONG the game societies of the country the Michigan 

 -^-*- Sportsman's Association holds a foremost position. Its 

 members apjireciate the importance of the work to he done by 

 such a society, and they do it. The annual meeting at Grand 

 Rapids the other day was characterized by the same spirit of 

 earnestness that has marked the meetings of former years. 

 The papers read and the discussions elicited by them are well 

 worth the attention of sportsmen. We devote liberal space 

 to a report of the first day of the meeting, furnished by a 

 special correspondent. A report of the second day's proceed- 

 ings will follow. We congratulate the Michigan Sportsman's 

 Association upon the high stand it has taken, upon the dig- 

 nity with which it invests its meetings, and upon the good 

 service it is performing in elevating the standard of legiti- 

 mate field sports in Michigan. 



A SUICIDAI MOVE. 



rpHE committee of the National Rifle Association seem de- 



- 1 - tcrmined to damn the proposed international military 



match, and yesterday the following cablegram was sent in 



response to that received from Sir Henry Half ord ; 



Tr ,, , r , New York, Feb. 1. 1882. 



Halford, London; 



Guarantee of return match next year required. Also waiver of 

 g rifles. WrNGATE. 



In other words, the American committee have begun the 

 absurd task of trying to chive the British lion. Should the 

 British Council decline to give any such guarantee, as they 

 surely will if they have an ounce of gumption, it will leave 

 the matter thus; The N. R. A. of Great Britain have made a 

 perfectly fair offer for an International match, and the N. 

 R. - A. of America have sneaked out of the contest on a 

 totally irrelevant, issue, raised by themselves, and which the 

 self-respect of the Englishmen would not allow them to ac- 

 cept. 



THE DESTRUCTION OF IARGE GAME 

 A N interesting phase of game protection at present relates 

 -^- to the preservation of the large game of the West. 

 Ever since the completion of the Union Pacific Railroad, 

 which made accessible to sportsmen so large a section of the 

 far West, the slaughter of the larger mammals has been 

 going on, and each year increasing. It took about seven or 

 eight years to wholly exterminate along this road the buffalo, 

 which in the good old times we have seen blackening the 

 Platte bottom for miles. These poor silly beasts were so 

 easily killed, and, from their abundance, offered so rich a re- 

 ward to the hide hunter, that every idle fellow in a district 

 could make good wages by butchering them. The other 

 large game, for reasons apparent to every hunter, will last 

 much longer, and yet from many sections the elk and the 

 antelope have been driven, and are as utterly unknown as 

 they are in the streets of this city. Two reasons exist for 

 the appalling diminution of our big game. It is destroyed 

 by skin hunters and by pleasure parties. The former are 

 much the most destructive, yet the latter do a vast amount 

 of harm. They kill simply for the pleasure of shedding 

 blood. Some decided action is needed to check the slaughter 

 which has been so long going on. Decent, self-respecting 

 men will hunt in the mountains and kill only enough meat 

 for their use, but too often tyros who are respectable and 

 should know better, are inflamed by the taste of blood, and 

 are as keen to kill as a butcher could be. We commend to 

 the attention of our readers a letter printed in another col- 

 umn. The question there raised is a live one, and should call 

 forth expressions of opinion from every one who has ever 

 used therifle on large game. Later we shall have something 

 to say on this subject. 



A CIOSE CAIL. 



A T about ten o'clock Tuesday morning the occupants of 

 -£*- the Forest and Stream office were startled by the 

 excited cries of a great crowd in the street below. Rushing 

 to the windows they were hailed by the cry from a hundred 

 throats, " Save those men!" Glancing in the direction indi- 

 cated by multitudinous arms, they beheld the adjoining 

 building, No. 37 Park Row, enveloped from cellar to roof in 

 one terrific sheet of flame. Clinging to the narrow window 

 cornices, and painfully making their precarious way along 

 toward the Forest and Steeam windows, were two men. 

 They had now proceeded on their perilous journey as far as it 

 was possible for them to go, and had come to a wide space, 

 which, unaided, they could not pass. The flames were leap- 

 ing about them. Strength and courage were exhausted. 

 The excited throng of people below expected to see the two 

 men fall, as others had already fallen, from the burning build- 

 ing to the pavement. But quicker than it takes to write it, 

 three Forest and Stream men, Messrs. Mason, Banks and 

 Gibbons, had rushed to the rescue. Leaning far out from one 

 of the Forest and Stream windows, sustaining each other 

 and bracing themselves against the huge sign, they stretched 

 down, seized the terrified men and drew them in, while a 

 great cheer went up from the crowd. The men thus rescued 

 were Leslie C. Bruce and E. N. Carvalho. 



The ominous cracking of walls, and the inpouring smoke 

 warned the Fohest and Stream staff of their impending 

 danger, and their attention was now turned to securing their 

 own safety and rescuing from the flames such office property 

 as might be saved. There seemed to be no possible escape 

 for the Times building in which our offices are located. But 

 thanks to the efficient service of the Fire Department, and to 

 the superior stability of the building itself, the peril was ar- 

 rested, and to-day the Forest and Stream rejoices that it 

 did not share the fate of its unfortunate neighbors, who lost 

 their files, subscription books, and in fact almost everything. 



Among the journals whose offices were thus destroyed were 

 the Observer, Scientific American, Scottish American Journal, 

 and Turf, Field and Farm. To the editors and proprietors of 

 each the Forest and Stream extends its sympathy. 



In the confusion and hurry attendant upon such a crisis, 

 manuscripts and letters have been mislaid, and possibly some 

 of them lost. We must beg the indulgence of our friends for 

 the consequent delay, and we ask their patience until we can 

 bring order out of chaos and things run smoothly again. 



It was a close call. 



SIGNS 



IN our last issue an entertaining angler— they are all enter- 

 taining, by the way — invites his brethren of the angle to 

 give their experience with "signs." The subject is a good 

 one, and one that the craft is well versed in, each individual 

 having a stock of his own upon which he relies more or less 

 implicitly. Many of the signs given in books are traditional 

 ones which have come across the water with our first angling 

 literature, and have been copied in books on this side with- 

 out question as to their value when thus transplanted, Of 

 such is the old rhyme which lays down the law of good and 

 evil winds, and tells us : 



"W T hea the wind is in the north 

 The skillful fisher goes not forth. 

 When the wind is in the east 

 It's good for neither man nor beast. 

 When the wind is in the south 

 It blows the bait, in the fishes mouth. 

 When the wind is in the west 

 It is then the very best." 



This evidently has a local application, for in a country 

 where streams run in all directions a wind which blows up 

 one stream will cross others and even blow down some of 

 them. What is needed in the matter of wind signs is evi- 

 dently a calculation for each locality in the matter of cur- 

 rents of air from different points of the compass, or a for- 

 mula that will forecast the prospect of success in winds 

 blowing up, down or across the waters. 



The moon is also an element taken into the problem of the 

 appetite of fishes by some, while all know the edge put upon 

 their desire for worms by a warm rain. The seaside folk 

 have an heirloom in the verse referring to the size of chest- 

 nut leaves and the catching of blackfish (tautog), while every 

 schoolboy knows and repeats the caution to a profane com- 

 panion, "Don't swear or you won't catch fish." It would be 

 interesting to have facts bearing upon this latter proverb. . 

 Do fish reject the bait of the profane ? Can they recognize 

 the difference between a justifiable " hang it!" when a line is 

 actually hung on a snag and those more reprehensible words 

 that the thoughtless or wicked fisherman is alleged to use 

 when his patience is tried by the breaking of his tackle at a 

 critical moment. 



"Uncle Thad." Norris had a sign by which he recognized 

 the accomplished angler. The genial old man was often 

 bored by men who wished to claim to be up in 1 the higher 

 degrees of the art in order to place themselves on a fair foot- 

 ing with the great angling authority. One day he happened 

 in Pittsburgh and was introduced to a man at the hotel 

 who immediately began to try and impress Mr. Norris with 

 his importance as a mighty fisher, and the following colloquy 

 ensued: 



Man — "Glad to meet you, Mr. Norris, have read your 

 book and often wanted to know you. I am counted the best 

 fisherman in these parts." 



Uncle Thad. — " Do you fish with the fly?" 



Man — " Always, Mr. Norris, always." 



Uncle Thad. — " Do you use a float and sinker on your fly?" 



Man — "Oh, yes, always, Mr. Norris, always.'' 



Uncle Thad. — " Do you always spit on your bait for luck?" 



Man—" Certainly, Mr. Norris, always do that." 



Uncle Thad. — " Then I am proud to meet you, sir. I see 

 that you are an accomplished angler who is up on all the 

 minor points that make a finished and artistic fisherman," 

 and without a smile he bade him good morning and the man 

 was afterward known as the man who used a float and sinker 

 on his fly, 



Spitting on the bait is a subject that we approach with 

 diffidence. It is not perfectly clear that if one expects to rate 

 as a finished angler he must expectorate on his bait. It may 

 depend upon what he chews if the fish choose to chew on bis 

 worm. Then again, if tobocco juice is the proper thing on 

 a worm, is it certain that it would be relished upon a clam? 

 We confess that we have not investigated this question as it 

 deserves. Epicures may differ on the propriety of serving- 

 champagne with oysters, and why may there not lie differ- 

 ences of opinion among fishes'? We throw out these hints to 

 our readers for them to enlarge upon and second "Wawaj r - 

 auda's" motion for "experience." 



Let us, then, hear from the wise and prudent in these 

 things of their success when all the " signs" failed them; 

 and perchance, also, of failure, when ' 'signs" promised luck. 



