

Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, 84 a Teab. 10 Ore. a Copt. I 

 Six Months, $2. j 



NEW YORK, MARCH 23, 1882. 



I vol. xvnx— No. 8. 



I Nos. 39 & 40 Park Row, New York. 



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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



The Programme Changed. 



A Little Story. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



Camp Flotsam. 



Stock Raising in Texas. 

 Natural History. 



Ornithological Nomenclature. 

 Came Bag and Gun. 



Birds at Cobb's Island. 



An Arkansas Bear Fight. 



The New York State Association. 



Veteran Bear Hunters. 



Idle Hours in the Blind. 



"By me" and that Shotgun, 



', j p--" Mn.'.ii !■_.:; ,.!.■■ I-' iii- 1 1 ; ; 



Last Shots at the Grouse. 



The Mississippi Floods. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



Snapping Mackerel at Cape May. 



That Big Bass. ' 



Large Pompano. 



FlSHCULTURE. 



The London Fishery Exhibition. 



The Ohio Hatchery. 

 The Kennel. 



Pittsburg Dog Show. 



New York Dog Show. 



Eastern Field Trials Club. 



Laverack Pedigrees. 



Dog-Haters. 



Gordon Dogs. 



A Day and a Half with the 

 Beagles. 



Kennel Notes. 

 Yachting and Canoeing. 



Ships. 



Small Yacht Stoves. 



One-Gun Starts. 



That Tract. 



"Real" Yachting. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 



Military Revolver Use. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



of ruffed grouse August 1st in Otsego county was carried, 

 for what reason is not stated, but a more remarkable step 

 backward lias not been chronicled in late years, we think. 

 Why people in Otsego county should desire to kill the young 

 grouse, when many of them are no larger than quails, it is 

 hard to understand, and still more so to conceive why a 

 body of men containing many representative sportsmen 

 should support such a movement. The mover of this 

 proposes also to open the waters of Otsego Lake to the net- 

 ters during July and August. It is true that permission is 

 given only to take whitefish in this way, but how are the 

 other fish to be warned that the net is not intended for them? 



A LITTLE STORY. 



THE PROGRAMME CHANGED. 



rpiiE county delegates of the New York State Association 

 -*~ for the Protection of Fish and Game convened at Al- 

 bany last week. The report of their proceedings, which is 

 given in another column, will be read with pleasure by all 

 true friends of the society and of the purposes for which it 

 was organized. 

 The Albany convention was in decided and pleasing con- 



, trast to those others held by the association in recent years, 

 which have called out severe and merited criticism. It was 



| not an assembly of trap-shooters gathered for a great pigeon 

 slaughter, but a meeting of sportsmen who came together to 

 engage only in the work which legitimately belongs to the 

 society. The meeting was marked by a pleasant social 

 feeling, earnestness of purpose, temperate discussion and dig- 

 nified bearing throughout. It is a turning point in the his- 

 tory of the association, or at least it may be made such, and 

 the change af programme will be most gratifying to those 

 who have been outspoken in the demand that it should be 

 made. 

 The New York State Association, in so far as it continues 



|:in the work inaugurated at Albany last week, will merit and 



i receive the support of influential men and societies who have 

 heretofore held aloof from it. 

 It gives the Forest and Stream much pleasure to record 



'. the change of programme adopted by the oldest society of 

 its kind in this country, We trust that other State societies 

 may follow in its lead. Indeed, as our columns have of late 

 indicated, there has never been more decided necessity for 

 deliberate, determined, and persistent effort to conserve the 



1 game supply than there is in all portions of America to-day. 

 While that necessity exists no society which professes to be 



» organized for such an effort can honestly fritter away its op- 

 portunities by trap-shooting pigeons. 



The proposition to stop the spring shooting of ducks is 

 one that we had hoped to see accepted, and though not 

 received with favor by the delegates at this meeting, it is a 

 reform that is sure to come, and one. that will find favor in 

 the eyes of all broad-minded men. Some State must insti- 

 tute the reform in this matter, and once started the move- 

 ment will be accepted and followed by most of the sister 

 8tates. Mayor Hutchinson's remarks on the wanton de- 

 struction of our forests deserve careful attention. 



The truly extraordinary proposition to permit the shooting 



/^iNE day, when spring had fairly made its presence 

 ^ known by the softness of the south wind, and by — 



"The bluebird shifting his light load of song 

 From post to post along the cheerless fence" 



of northern fields, and by the robin tuning his pipe where it 

 had long been unheard, a pair of woodducks came flying 

 northward, and after some careful viewing from above of a 

 certain wood-bordered stream, settled in its waters. The 

 male was in brave apparel, which he had donned in the 

 southern swamp, where he had spent the winter and wooed 

 his mate, and her dress, though less gaudy than his, was 

 rich and beautiful. In fact, they were on their wedding 

 journey, and in search of a summer home. The little river 

 had just cleared itself of ice and was flowing between brim- 

 ming banks with many water maples bending over it, their 

 buds grown crimson with renewing life. The blackbirds 

 were gurgling so joyfully in the trees, the'muskrats swam so 

 boldly forth to their love-making and food-getting, and the 

 turtles basked in the sunshine on the logs so lazily that it 

 seemed as if bird and beast and reptile might live here undis- 

 turbed through all the live months with none to make them 

 afraid but the hawk and the mink. Hard by was a great 

 marsh that gave promise of wild rice in August and Septem- 

 ber, and the four sharp eyes of the ducks discovered a hollow 

 tree, in which a big woodpecker some seasons before had 

 chiseled a doorway to as snug a borne as they could wish. 

 Taking all things into accouut, they felt sure they could not 

 better themselves, and at once set about going to house- 

 keeping. 



A few days later, while they were resting from their labors 

 and taking a comfortable bath, they heard an unwonted 

 crashing among the underbrush, and presently a boy ap- 

 peared on the bank a few rods above them. He bore an iron 

 tube some feet longer than himself, and after groping down 

 the stream a minute he discovered them and pointed it in 

 their direction. If they had known anything about tele- 

 scopes they might have thought this was one, from the time 

 1 it was held toward them. But at last it belched forth fire 

 and smoke and thunder, and something went hurtling over 

 their heads with a sound as ominous as the whistling of a 

 hawk's wings. They swam away into a secret place as fast 

 as their paddles would take them, and left the boy there la- 

 menting and using some strange language concerning his 

 innocent gun. - 



The next day they ventured forth to feed and bathe, but 

 soon had their suspicions aroused by a slight rustling in the 

 bushes some ten rods away, and swam away from the source 

 of alarm with moderate speed. They had not gone ten feet 

 before there was fire and smoke and thunder again, more 

 terrific than before, for it was instantly repeated, and the 

 water just behind them was torn by a shower of the fiercest 

 hail they had ever known. Then uprose a hat, and under it 

 a man, and they heard him say, savagely, "Something or 

 other the luck" or "the ducks," tbey were not sure which. 

 Notwithstanding these disturbances they kept on making 

 ready for housekeeping. 



One day, while madam was inside giving the last touches 

 to the nest with some feathers of her own breast, her lord, 

 sitting outside on a branch, keeping watch and ward, saw a 

 man splashing through the neighboring marsh, and just be- 

 fore him a dog. Presently the dog stood still, with one fore 

 foot raised and his body as rigid as the limb on which the 

 wooddrake was sitting. Then the man walked up, cau- 

 tiously, behind him, and two little snipe flew up before the 

 dog. The man threw up to his face the iron tube, which all 

 mankind seemed to be carrying, and before the fire and 

 smoke down came the two poor snipe, one killed outright 

 and the other fluttering through the dead sedges with a 

 broken wing. They were acquaintances of the wooddrake, 



down the two birds, his iron tube seemed to be broken close 

 to the end nearest to him, and he was very busy with it for a 

 minute, so that the wood-drake began to think there would 

 be nothing more to fear from him. 



But he soon came their way with that death-dealing engine 

 of his in perfect trim again. So the drake sounded his 

 warning note "O-eek! O-eek!" and madam scrambled out of 

 the tree and they both set forth on wing, and each urged the 

 other to put the best quill forward. Then there were two 

 flashes of lightning and two clouds of smoke and two 

 thunderous reports, and the drake lost the brightest feather 

 of his crest, and the duck a quill from her wing, which went 

 floating down the air behind them. 



They decided that there was no safety for them here, and 

 that they would tempt fate no further, having luckily 

 escaped the boy, the pot-hunter, and the wing sportsman. So 

 they deserted the. home which promised to be so pleasant, 

 and began anew by a stream which ran through a Canadian 

 forest where no gunner ever came. There they reared a 

 family of fourteen, and in the fall took most of them safely 

 back to the south. 



There were no ducks in the stream they left in April, till 

 October, whereas, except for the shooters who got only two 

 snipe and two feathers, there might have been sixteen 

 plump woodducks on the first of September. 



There is a double moral to this little story; one for the 

 woodducks and one for the sportsman. So far only the 

 woodducks seem to have profited by it. 



A Proposed Monument to Herbert.— The Greenwood 

 Lake Association, whose club house is situated in the War- 

 wick Woodlands, at Greenwood Lake, N. Y., are desirous 

 of commemorating at that spot the memory of the man who 

 gave the lake and the park their names, and they have 

 already secured the services of an eminent artist to paint for 

 their reception room a fine portrait of William Henry 

 Herbert. One of the members of the association has volun- 

 teered to contribute the sum of $200 for a monument fund, 

 and the treasurer of the association, Mr. H. C. Cooke, No. 

 159 Front street, New York, has been authorized to receive 

 other contributions for the same object. It is proposed to 

 erect the monument in the Warwick Woodlands. The asso- 

 ciation offers to bear all attendant expenses, devoting all the 

 funds which may be subscribed solely to the purchase of the 

 memorial. We wish the Greenwood Lake Association 

 success in its commendable undertaking. This is an oppor- 

 tunity now for the namby-pamby class of professional 

 admirers of "Our Frank" to supplement their loud and un- 

 wearied harping on their mania and put their hands in their 

 pockets for some substantial evidence of their worship of 

 Herbert. 



Destruction of Song Birds.— The bill to amend th» 

 game laws of this State, now in the hands of a committee, 

 contains a number of most excellent features, as well as a 

 number that must be unhesitatingly condemned. One of the 

 most striking of the latter is that which permits taxidermists 

 to kill the small song and insectivorous birds, except on Long 

 Island. It is difficult to understand why any provision at 

 all should be made to protect small birds, if the only class 

 who do much toward their destruction is to be excepted from 

 the provision of the act. The taxidermists kill a veiy large 

 proportion of all the song birds destroyed in the State, and 

 sell the skins to milliners. We know of many men who, 

 during the migration of our bright plumaged warblers, em- 

 ploy shooters who kill from thirty to fifty of these birds each 

 day during their migration. The loss to the agriculturist 

 from this destruction of bird life can scarcely be estimated. 

 It should be stopped. The persons who should be excepted 

 in this provision are the working ornithologists of the State. 

 They cTo not take bird life wantonly or for the sake of gain. 

 When they kill, they do it with a purpose, and that purpose 

 is a high and noble one. 



Powder in the City.— The powder manufacturers keep 

 their stores in schooners and other sailing craft off Bedloe's 

 Island, down the bay. Tiie powder is delivered to city 

 dealers by a man who comes around twice a; day carrying 

 the cans in a bag marked "Powder," as provided by law. 

 Sometimes the bag is wrong side out, so that the label is on 

 the inside, but we have never known of a carrier having ex- 

 ploded. The dealers are licensed to keep fourteen pounds of 

 powder on hand. This permit is granted by the Bureau of 



Combustibles, and must be renewed annually. The fire in- 

 and he knew that they were intending to summer in the I surance policies contain a provision allowing powder to be 

 neighborhood of the marsh. After the sportsman had brought I kept on the premises as provided by law. 



