Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copt. I 

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NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 23, 1882. 



j vol. xvrn.— No. 4. 



| Nob. 89 & 40 Park Row, New York. 



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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Our Foreign Match. 



Protection of Large Game. 



Spitting on the Bait. 



Keep Up The Fight. 



Easy Reading Lesson. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



A Memory. 



Skillets, a Camp Sketch. 



Reminiscences of Camp Life. 



Ar-kan-saw. . 



Natural History. 



The Fauna of Spirit Lake. 



Red-Headed Wood Peckers. 



Enemies of Game Birds. 



Enemies of Snakes. 



Notes. 

 Game Bag and GtiN. 



A Deer Hunt in Ohio. 



My First Goose. 



A Dove Meadow. 



Reminiscence of Rangeley Lakes 



Hinckley Hunt Ground Memo- 

 ries. 



How to Kill Crows. 



Maine Sportsmen's Convention. 



That Perennial Grouse. 



Muzzle vs. Breech-Loaders. 



Game Bag and Gun. 



That Wonderful Shotgun. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



Camp Flotsam. 



Amateur Rodmakers. 



Can Any Fool Catch Fish i 



Frostfish of the Adirondacks 

 Fishculture. 



Fish and Laws in New Hamp 

 shire. 

 Kennel. 



Laverack Pedigrees. 



The Dachshund. 



Gordon, or Black and Tan Set 

 ters. 



The New York Dog Show. 



Cross-eyed Dogs. 

 Yachting and Canoeing. 



One Day in a Canoe. 



Death Rattle of Mean Length. 



Yawl in America. 



Cutters at Sea. 



Stella Maris. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 



Forest and Stream Tournament. 



The International Match. 



The Wimbledon Record. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



OUR FOREIGN MATCH. 

 TF the details for the proposed international match are not 

 ■*- fixed upon in a very few weeks, we may conclude that 

 there will be no meeting of English and American marks- 

 men at Wimbledon this year, and that the most favorable 

 opportunity that has ever presented itself for a real live 

 match has been thrown away. The flow of talk has set in, 

 and every would-be manager and actual mis-manager has 

 been airing his opinions through the press. We have had 

 prognostications by the score, and all sorts of owl sense by 

 the column, but all the time the American managers were 

 insisting upon what was, at least, an entirely irrelevant 

 point, and what may yet be shown to be an impossibility. 

 To demand that a team shall come to these shores in 1883 is 

 an impertinence, and when that demand is backed up by the 

 assertion that unless it is granted it will be impossible to 

 raise an American team for the present year, there is a dis- 

 tortion of fact and a prevarication unworthy of those who 

 resort to it. As a matter of truth it will be entirely possible 

 to raise a team for the present year and to fight a contest at 

 Wimbledon with very good chances of success. We have 

 not, to be sure, a large body of military shooters who are 

 familial- with the use of military breech-loaders at the long 

 ranges. We have not the weapons for that practice. But 

 what of that? We know precisely what is needed, and a few 

 weeks would supply our men with the long range, small bore 

 barrel, mounted on a military stock, which seems to fill the 

 "M. B. L. class" at Wimbledon, and which one of the pro- 

 posed conditions requires the rifles to fall under. The per- 

 mitted manipulation of the open sights by detachable wind 

 gauges and otherwise will permit the finest gradations to be 

 observed in dealing with the wind and fight, and it would 

 not be long before men who are naturally good holders and 

 have a perfect eyesight, could be trained into a team where 

 each man could help his fellows, and where each succeeding 

 shot should have the benefit of the experience of all the 

 preceding shots. There are no insurmountable obstacles to 

 our producing a body of twelve men with a perfect team 

 system to help them, and while the British team would have 

 the slight advantage of familiarity with the ground, this 

 would be nullified by the each-man-for-himself style of shoot- 

 ing which marks the effort of a team over there. 



The prospect of success is sufficiently bright to encourage 

 fhe sending of a team over, and if the managers of our 



National Rifle Association fail to send one it will need a 

 better excuse than any yet given to justify the neglect. We 

 have everything to gain and everything to lose by trying the 

 issue of a match. If we win, the victory will have a com- 

 mercial value in establishing more firmly the claim of 

 American armorers of being the best fire-arm makers in the 

 world. It will add another to the long and nearly complete 

 list of American sporting victories abroad, and it will enable 

 us to rest at home until some of our open matches at Creed- 

 moor and other ranges have been filled by British riflemen. 

 A defeat would remain such but a short time, for we mistake 

 very much if our American pluck will not lead to an im- 

 mediate wiping out of the bad record. It will not suffice to 

 go off with a grand hurrah and expect to win the match 

 with a rush. On the other side will be found men who are 

 great sticklers on small issues, and the team to go over must 

 be prepared for some irritations from this cause. Everything 

 must be looked calmly in the face, and the most extreme 

 chances against us calculated. At present there is nothing 

 which can be made use of as a guide. What records we 

 have are not available, since they are so few as not to be 

 worth anything in making up an estimate. The shifting of 

 the target divisions on the Wimbledon range has confused 

 the records of the practice there in large measure, but there 

 are the scores of the Queen's cup contest by which the 

 nascent American team could gauge their powers as against 

 the English marksmen. The match would bring out the fact 

 that the finest military shooting at Wimbledon is really done 

 by small-bore marksmen. Sir Henry Half ord is a member of 

 the volunteer force, and with him may be named a great 

 many other riflemen known to us principally as long-range 

 men. There are prizes innumerable on the many English 

 ranges open to volunteers only, while there are very few 

 for civilian shooters who care only for long-range work. 

 The tendency therefore has been to encourage the joining of 

 the volunteer force on the part of those fond of shooting, 

 and consequently there are not more than a dozen good shots 

 in the kingdom who may not enter into the contest for place 

 on the team to meet the Americans. 



PROTECTION OF LARGE GAME. 



SOME weeks since we published an appeal for the pro- 

 tection of large game in the West, and urged the import- 

 ance of some measure being taken to prevent the extinction 

 of our larger mammals in the only section of the country 

 where they still abound. The necessity of prompt and 

 efficient steps by the Legislatures of the various States and 

 Territories was insisted on. 



It is satisfactory to learn that speedy action has been taken 

 on this most important matter by the House of Representa- 

 tives of Wyoming Territory, and it is hoped and believed 

 that the bill which has been introduced will meet with no 

 opposition in the Council of the Legislative Assembly of the 

 Territory. The Legislature have gone to work in the right 

 way to stop the slaughter which has been going on for so 

 many years, and a provision has been inserted in the bill 

 against the traffic in the green hides of all game animals. No 

 hides in the hair or untanned state can be dealt in, nor can 

 they be transported by common earners or others. This 

 provision strikes at the root of the matter, and if it can only 

 be enforced will have the very best effect, and will prevent 

 much of the destruction that now takes place. The prime 

 factor in the rapid extermination of the large game of the 

 Territories has been the lack of enactments to restrict the 

 bloody hand of the skin hunter, who kills only for the hides 

 and pelts. Thousands of our most superb game animals are 

 annually slaughtered for these alone, and tons of wholesome 

 and excellent food left to rot on the ground, or to furnish 

 food for the coyotes, the ravens and the magpies. 



In the bill referred to, which passed the House of 

 Representatives February 16, provision is made also against 

 the shipment of game out of the Territory. Killing is per- 

 mitted only to an amount sufficient for home consumption 

 for food. The making of large bags is discouraged, by limit- 

 ing the number of grouse and other birds to be killed, to the 

 number of twenty-five. Ducks, geese and other migratory 

 birds are all protected, as are also rabbits and squirrels. 



Small game is still further protected by the passage of an 

 act providing for the payment of a bounty to persons killing 

 mountain lions, bear, wolves, coyotes and lynx, as well as 

 hawks, eagles and other rapacious birds. These measures 

 taken together would seem to furnish protection to game 

 against the depredations of man as well as beast. 



To make assurance doubly sure, however, the sportsmen of 

 the Territory are organizing a Game and Pish Protection 

 Association, and when this is in shape we trust that we may 



hear of good work done by it. It is likely that a license act 

 will be brought forward by this association as a separate 

 measure. 



We hope to see some such provision acted on, and trust 

 that it will limit the number of heads of game to be killed in 

 any given time. Nor should any part of the animals killed 

 be wasted. 



We have been urging the importance of this matter for 

 years, and it is satisfactory to see some practical results from 

 our labors. 



As long ago as 1876 we called attention to the subject in 

 language which will bear repetition here. 



Good hunting is at present scarcely to be found east of the 

 Missouri River. West of that stream, however, there is a 

 wide extent of territory, in many parts of which large game of 

 all descriptions may still be found in considerable abundance 

 by those who are sufficiently acquainted with the country to 

 know where to look for it. There remain on the plains and 

 in the mountains seven species of ruminants that are suffi- 

 ciently abundant to make it well worth while that the differ- 

 ent State and Territoral Governments should attempt before 

 it is too late to protect their game by severe laws — buffalo, 

 elk, white-tailed deer, mule deer, antelope, mountain sheep 

 and moose are still to be found in considerable numbers in 

 various portions of the trans-Missouri States and Territories, 

 but owing to a savage and indiscriminating warfare Which 

 has been inaugurated against them within the past few years 

 their numbers are decreasing more rapidly than ever before. 



Most of us remember the good service done some years ago 

 by Gen. Hazen in bringing before the public the facts in 

 regard to the wanton destruction of buffalo along the fine of 

 the Smoky Hill Road in Kansas and Colorado. The dis- 

 cussion at that time resulted in the adoption of some 

 measures to protect the buffalo, though it is to be hoped that 

 ere long still more stringent laws maybe enacted and enforced. 

 But we have just now to speak of a country distant from the 

 railroads, out of the way of the average tourist, and far from 

 the haunts even of the gentlemen sportsmen; we refer to the 

 territory lying between the Missouri River and the main 

 divide of the Rocky Mountains north of the Union Pacific 

 Railroad. It is in this region that the most abundant sup- 

 plies of wild game are to be found, and it is here that these 

 animals are slaughtered for their hides alone by the pro- 

 fessional hunter. 



Buffalo, elk, mule deer and antelope suffer most, and in 

 the order in which they are here mentioned. They are de- 

 stroyed without regard to season; the hides only are taken 

 and the meat left to feed the wolves, or to rot when the 

 sprinp- opens. We know directly of thirty-four cow elk killed 

 out of a band of forty, about the middle of April, 1875, by 

 one man. The snows were deep, and the butcher followed 

 the poor animals until all but six were slain. Each of these 

 animals, if allowed to five, would have produced a calf in a 

 little over a month after the time of its slaughter. Here then 

 were sixty-eight elk killed by one man in a day and a half. 

 It is estimated from reliable information that in the winter of 

 1874-5, during the deep snows, over three thousand elk were 

 killed for their hides in the valley of the Yellowstone between 

 the mouth of Trail Creek and the Hot Springs. Por the Ter- 

 ritories of Wyoming and Montana the destruction must have 

 been twenty times as great. 



The prices paid for elk hides were at that time sufficiently 

 renumerative to pay good wages to an ordinary hunter, when 

 game was as plenty as in those days it used to be. Buffalo 

 killing paid, too, and could be done by any butcher. Por, as 

 many of us know by experience, a man without any preten- 

 sions to being a skillful hunter can slaughter a dozen or two 

 buffalo in a day wherever they are numerous. Mule deer and 

 antelope are more difficult to kill, but in these days of breech- 

 loading rifles a fair shot can kill several out of a band before 

 the rest can get out of reach. It is a melancholy sight to see 

 as we have in a morning's march, half a dozen fresh doe an- 

 telope carcasses stripped of their skins, with the milk still 

 trickling from their udders; and it is sad to think that in ad- 

 dition two little kids must starve for each of these. 



Mountain sheep and moose do not suffer to any consider- 

 able extent from these skin hunters. They are too wary to 

 be successfully pursued by these men, many of whom are 

 vagabonds of the most worthless description. There are 

 some good hunters and good fellows among them; men who 

 would gladly relinquish the business could it be wholly stop- 

 ped, but who think and say that if the game is to be exter- 

 minated they must make the most of it while it lasts. Taken 

 as a whole, however, they are a miserable set, and many of 

 them do not kill more than enough to keep themselves in 

 provisions and ammunition from month to month. If all 



