Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, $4 A Year. 10 Os. A Copy. I 

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NEW YORK, APRIL 6, 1882. 



j VOL. XVIII.— No. 10. 



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



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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Spring Duck Shooting. 



Spring Fowl Shooting 



Destruction of Large Game. 



The Black Bass in Kngland. 



Sea and River Fishing. 



The Fishcultural Association. 



Easy Reading Lesson. 

 Among the Black Flies. 



The Sportsman Tourist. 



Lost on the Raton Mountains. 



The Trout Opening. 



"Podgers" in Florida. 



: u i -■• iii : •:.;■: - , 



Arizona as a Hunting Ground. 



What Fish Laws Are For. 



Longfellow (Poetry}, 



FISHCULTURE. 



Memories of a Favored Domain. 



American FishcuRural Associa- 



Walton Falls and Bluff Mountain 



tion. 



Natural History. 



The Kennel. 



The Drumming Grouse. 



Laverack Pedigrees. 



,H 1 ■ ■ 'i ■:-' i ' J ._" L i'-i 



Sheep and Dogs. 



Monkey Twins. 



Red Irish Setter Biz. 



The Massena Quail. 



New York Dog Show. 



Game Rao anu Gun, 



Yachting and Canoeing. 



An Arkansas Bear Fight. 



The First Yawl. 



Logic From Ohio. 



Measurement. 



Transplanting Quail. 

 Buffalo Legislation. 

 Wolves in Virginia. 



The Stella Maris. 

 America Cup. 



Type. 



Philadelphia Notes. 



Rifle and Trap Shooting. 



Air Gun for Small Game. 



Matches and Meetings. 



The Corn on the Cobb. 



Answers to Correspondents. 



SPRING FOWL SHOOTING. 



'T^HE mild weather of the winter just past has had a widely 

 -*- different effect upon the fowl shooting in the various 

 localities on the Atlantic coast. Along the New England 

 shore and that of the Middle States, the fall shooting in many- 

 places lasted longer than usual, and although the hirds were 

 not especially plenty, the shooting was fair. On the Chesa- 

 peake and in the mouths of the Delaware and Susquehanna 

 rivers, the shooting has been unusually good. The fowl 

 collected there in great numbers, and were not obliged by the 

 freezing of the waters to leave for their usual feeding grounds 

 further to the south. For the same reason, the shooting 

 south of Virginia was very poor. In Back Bay and in 

 Currituck, Pamplico and Albemarle sounds there were com- 

 paratively few fowl, scarcely any canvas-backs and but few 

 redheads, geese, and swans. Brant, however, were numer- 

 ous along the Virginia shore, and a portion of North Carolina. 



From this same cause it results that in Minnesota, Iowa, 

 Wisconsin, Michigan and Illinois the ducks were abundant in 

 February and March, the waters in many places being free 

 from ice weeks earlier than usual. 



Last year almost exactly the reverse of this was the case. 

 The early and severe cold closed marsh, lake and stream in 

 the Northern states, and the fowl were forced south before 

 the advent of winter. The cold was long and severe, and 

 many of the waters where the birds are wont to feed for 

 most of the winter were closed to them. So it came about 

 that the shooting that year on the Chesapeake and its tribu- 

 taries was unsatisfactory, while, on the other hand, on the 

 waters of North Carolina, the birds were very numerous. 

 Never, the gunners say, were there so many canvas-backs in 

 Currituck Sound and to the southward as in the winter of 

 '80-'Sl, and never so many geese and swans. Next year 

 another good season is expected. 



The time is coming, if indeed it is not already here, when 

 some measures must be taken to protect our fowl more 

 efficiently than U now done. From the time the birds reach 

 our shores in the early autumn until the survivors have 

 winged their way in spring to their breeding grounds in the 

 North and West, the boom of the shot gun is ever in their 

 ears. They are shot over decoys and from points, sailed 

 after, slaughtered from batteries anchored on the feeding 



grounds, and sculled up to at night with lights. They are 

 fired at with rifles, when bedded out in the broad-water "to 

 keep 'em movin' " and are in every way harassed and perse- 

 cuted. They have no rest. All this lasts from October to 

 May. 



We have for a long time advocated the abolition of spring 

 snipe shooting, and are inclined to take the same ground 

 with regard to ducks. There appears to be no good reason 

 why any fowl, with the possible exception of brant, should 

 be shot after March first, and there are excellent reasons why 

 shooting should cease with the end of the winter. The sea- 

 son when the birds are preparing to undertake the rearing of 

 their young is not the one at which they are most desirable for 

 food. Every female killed at this time lessens the supply of next 

 season's fowl by ten or a dozen birds. The farmer does not 

 kill off his ewes just as they are about to produce their 

 lambs. The sportsman also will be wise if he spares the 

 ducks in the spring. 



We have observed that within the last few years a very 

 noteworthy change of sentiment has taken place among the 

 older sportsmen on the subject of fowl shooting. In the 

 olden time it used to be said that you never could destroy or 

 drive away the ducks and geese which then swarmed during 

 the winter in such countless numbers in the bays and river 

 mouths along our coast. But those whose memory can cany 

 them back twenty or twenty -five years can see now a vast 

 difference between what has been and what is. The number 

 of shooting grounds along the North Atlantic coast/which 

 have been deserted by the fowl, whose bays and flats, once 

 resounding to the gabble of the loquacious throng, are now 

 silent, except for the long-drawn wailing cry of the seagull, 

 bear painful witness to the diminished numbers of the birds. 

 We cannot but fear that a continued policy of slaughter as 

 long as the fowl are with us will be bitterly regretted at some 

 day in the not distant future. 



Our Canadian cousins have set us an example in this mat- 

 ter which we would do well to follow, for, in the Province 

 of Quebec at least, certain ducks are protected from January 

 to August, although others, as well as geese and swans, may 

 be shot up to May. In other portions of Canada, the shooting 

 closes March 31. 



We recommend this subject to the thoughtful consideration 

 of our readers, and hope that something may be done about 

 it before long. We do not like to look forward to a day 

 when people will be wondering what has become of the 

 ducks, as they are now speculating in regard to grouse. 



BLACK BASS IN ENGLAND. 



THE question of introducing black bass into England is 

 now being agitated across the water and is argued pro 

 and con. in the sporting papers. The main questions appear 

 to be concerning their gaminess and their rapacity. It is 

 charged that they are not game, and our bass anglers will 

 smile as they read the following from "R. N." in the London 

 Meld. He says : 



Last autuum I took a three months' run through Canada and the 

 States, and being fond of Ashing, and having my interest excited about 

 biack bass fishing from reading the various accounts of sport in your 

 contemporary, the Forest and Stream, I went fully prepared to give 

 the above fishing a fair trial, and shortly after my arrival in Canada I 

 got a party of four up to go with me on a bass-fishing excursion. We 

 chose the Suable river where it joins Lake Huron. We found plenty 

 of bass, running about lib. to 21bs. weight; a green color as they came 

 out of the lake, and black up the river. They would not take the fly, 

 but were easily caught on the worm and minnow. I considered catch- 

 ing them to be poor sport, as tlie tackle had to be strong, owing to 

 them either having a soft mouth or walloping about, getting rid of five 

 hooks at once. There was one man who caught in three days over 

 four hundred fish, but he never played an inch, had a strong rod, or 

 pole, as they call it out West, strong line, about three feet gut, and a 

 fair-sized worm hook. At each cast he hooked a fish, lowered his rod, 

 and stepped back with a tight line, and trailed the fish out on the flat 

 beach. I consider bass-fishing about equal to pike-fishing, inferior to 

 perch-fishing, and not to be named the same day with trout-fishing. 

 I should certainly not advise any one having a good trout stream, or 

 even a good pond, to bother with the cultivation of the bass. In a 

 sluggish, deep river, where trout would not frequent, or in a dam, 

 deep and still, with muddy bottom, they might be worth cultivating. 

 They would cerlainly give mors sport than roach, carp or dace. 

 During my stay in America I caught several hundred, and I never saw 

 a single one leap clear of the water. I had splendid sport in Lake 

 Superior among the great lake trout, catching them up to 141bs. I 

 also got speckled trout weighing about lib., pickerel, maskalonge, 

 and suckers, but I came away with a decided impression that there 

 are no fish in America equal, for gameness or sport, to our brown or 

 white trout. I had not an opportunity of fishing for the latter, but I 

 understood they were the same as ours, and very numerous in the 

 rivers, at Bay Chaleurs, St. Johns, etc. If the bass would feed on the 

 "American weed," they would be worth their room, if they never 

 were caught. 



Another writer in the same paper, who signs himself 

 "Koorb," says: 



I fished at Alexandra Bay, on the river St. Lawrence, some four 



years since, for black bass in September, and I must say I thought 

 the sport, like everything else American, "all cry and little wool." 

 To my mind they played very similar to a pollack in the sea, and had 

 nothing like the dash of a trout. I had a very intelligent fisherman, 

 and from what I gleaned they rose to the fly in the summer when 

 heavy in spawn. Is this so? If it be, then, like other coarse fish, they 

 are in best condition in winter. 



I caught several very game sporting fish, which the fisherman called 

 the warlike pike. It was superior to the pickerel both in sport and for 

 the pot; I took it to be some kind of cross with the pickerel. 



This, coming as it does from men who talk of the pleasures 

 of angling for bream, barbel, and dace, is exceedingly good. 

 The fish mentioned are such as would never be noticed by 

 an American angler above ten years of age, and yet, outside 

 of salmon, trout, pike and perch, are the main fishes angled 

 for by the English angler. Even so good an angler as Fran- 

 cis Francis thinks the perch may be better than the black 

 bass. We would call his attention to the fact that we have 

 the identical perch, Perca, fluvialilw, called "yellow perch," 

 to distinguish it from others, which grows with us from half 

 a pound to a pound and a half, and it is hardly mentioned as a 

 game fish. Our boys angle for it; and in ponds where no 

 other fish are found, we have taken it with a moderate degree 

 of satisfaction, but it no more compares with the black bass 

 in game qualities, than the fierceness of a house cat does to 

 that of a Bengal tiger. 



If English anglers are content to sit in a punt and fish with 

 worms for grovelling bottom fishes and call it sport, they 

 have the privilege; but the American demands fight, and a 

 fish that does not test his tackle to the utmost, is pronounced 

 tame and uninteresting. Izaak Walton is not the type of 

 the angler of America. He enjoyed to sit quietly in the 

 shade and watch his quill go down and contemplate nature 

 and moralize on its beauties. We have tried to make Ameri- 

 cans take this view of the pleasures of angling, but they do 

 not seem to care for it. Many rush from business to the 

 lakes or streams and want a shark-like fish to strike within 

 thirty seconds, or they find it dull. Of course, all are not so ; 

 but this is characteristic of the people. Even "R. N." ac- 

 knowledges that the black bass is superior to roach, carp, or 

 dace, and this, from one who looks with disfavor upon every- 

 thing American, is surely a slight commendation. 



Concerning the fishes of the two countries, we can say that 

 we think that the English angler knows but two first-class 

 game fishes. These are the trout and the salmon, and but few 

 are so situated as to enjoy their taking. Therefore they mag- 

 nify the lazy pike, which we only esteem for his avoirdupois, 

 which offers some resistance, and the perch, which we perhaps 

 undervalue because it is a small fish. 



Our English friends may or may not introduce the black 

 bass into their waters; it is a matter which does not materi- 

 ally affect us either way, but, leaving out the salmon and the 

 trout, they have no fish to compare with it. 



TEE FISHCULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 



ON account of the time of our going to press, we are un- 

 able to give more than a synopsis of the proceedings of 

 the first day of the eleventh annual meeting of the American 

 Fishcultural Association. The meeting was rather small in 

 numbers, but the papers read were of great interest, and the 

 proceedings were as important as at any previous one. A 

 change in the mode of election of officers was made, and in 

 future the two chief ones, whicli are largely honorary, will 

 be held by one person for one year only. 



The new President, Mr. Geo. Shepard Page, has long 

 been identified with fishculture and with the association. He 

 was one of its first members, and to him is due the honor of 

 first suggesting that the National Government appoint a Fish 

 Commissioner. Not only did he suggest it to the association, 

 but he went to Washington and urged it. 



The association honored itself in placing the names of some 

 prominent foreign workers in fishculture on its small list of 

 honorary members. Mr. Page named Prof. Thomas H. Hux- 

 ley, Inspector of Salmon Fisheries of England. Mr. E. G. 

 Blackford named Mr. John D. Jones, of Cold Spring, L. I., 

 who has so generously donated the use of his valuable grounds 

 to the New York Fish Commission. Mr. Fred. Mather named 

 His Royal Highness Fredrick William, Crown Prince of 

 Prussia and of Germany ; Herr von Behr, President of the 

 Deutsche Fischerei Verein, and Herr von dem Borne, of 

 Berneuchen, Germany, all of whom were elected. 



The Executive Committee decided to hold the next meet- 

 ing in Boston on the first Wednesday and Thursday in Sep- 

 tember next. Prof. Baird was invited to arrange for a gen- 

 eral meeting of all fish commissioners about the same time. 

 This, if fully attended, would add much to the influence of 

 the association, and broaden its membership. 



