Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, %i a Year. 10 Ore. a Copt, i 

 Six Months, $2. J 



NEW YORK, JUNE 22, 1882. 



( VOL. XV111.— No. 21. 



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



CORRESPONDENCE. 

 The Forest and Stream is the recognized medium of entertain- 

 ment, instruction and information between American sportsmen. 

 Communications upon the subjects to which its pages are devoted are 

 respectfully invited. Anonymous communications will not be re- 

 garded. No name will be published except with writer's consent. 

 The Editors are not responsible for the views of correspondents. 



8 UB8CRIPTI0N8 

 May begin at any time. Subscription price, $4 per year ; $2 for six 

 months; to a club of three annual subscribers, three copies for $10; 

 five copies for §16. Eemit by registered letter, money-order,' or draft, 

 payable to the Forest and Stream Publishing Company. The paper 

 may be obtained of newsdealers throughout the United States and 

 Canadas. On sale by the American Exchange, 440 Strand, W. C, 

 London, England. Subscription agents for Great Britain— Messrs. 

 Samson Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, 188 Fleet street, London. 



AD VERTI8EMENT8. 

 Advertisements of an approved character only inserted. Inside 

 pages, nonpareil type, 25 cents per line. Special rates for three, six 

 and twelve months. Reading notices 50 cents per line. Eight words 

 to the line, twelve lines to one inch. Advertisements should be sent 

 in by the Saturday previous to issue in which they are to be inserted. 

 Address all communications, 



Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 

 Nos. 89 and 40 Park Row. New York City. 



CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Use of the Field Glass. 



Python Egg Omelette. 



Forest and Stream Fable, VI. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



Camps of the Kingfishers. 

 Natural History. 



Dr. Coues's Cheek List. 



A Bathtub for the Birds. 



From Poitneuf Canyon to Par- 

 machene. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



Bits of Florida Experience. 



Antelope and Turkeys. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



The Niagara Fly Casting. 



Fishing at Richardson Lakes. 



'■.V'. ! ' ••;-!■ I-!'. Lllnj . 'I'm ill. 



Light Rods or Toy Rods. 

 Salmon Fishing on the Jacques 

 Cartier. 



Sea and River Fishing. 

 A Working Club. 



FlSHCULTUHE. 



History of the Sword Fish. 

 The Kennel. 



Summer Shooting. 



The Dog. 



Fairy Prince. 



Kennel Notes. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 



New York State Association for 

 , the Protection of Fish and 



Game. 

 Yachting and Canoeing. 



Atlantic Yacht Club. 



New York Yacht Club. 



Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht 

 Club. 



Jersey City Yacht Club. 



A Word for the "Dish" Boat. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



THE USE OF TEE FIELD GLASS. 

 r r\HE man who sj>ends any considerable portion of his time 

 -*- in the open air should provide himself with every ap- 

 pliance of art to make his outdoor hours enjoyable. No one, 

 unless he be blind or lamentably unobserving, can take so 

 much as an hour's walk in the country without seeing very 

 many things which he does not understand, but which he 

 would like to investigate. Along the roadside, or in the 

 grass at his feet, are hundreds of beautiful flowers, each one 

 of which would well repay the closest inspection and study ; 

 the weather-stained rails of the fence, and the gray rocks in 

 the venerable stone wall are covered with a growth of mosses 

 and lichens, which are wonderful in their diversity, and, when 

 closely viewed, beautiful in their details; among the branches 

 of the tall trees the actively moving forms of the birds are 

 seen, and one naturally wonders to what species they belong, 

 and wishes that he might obtain a closer view of them. Of 

 two observers of the same scenes, who are equally alive to 

 the beauties of Nature, he will derive the most enjoyment 

 from them who has the keenest and best trained senses. 



The man who loves nature, even though he be no natural- 

 ist, will find that, if he carries a field glass with him in his 

 walks abroad, his perception and appreciation of her beau- 

 ties will be greatly heightened. The glass extends his range 

 of vision so much, his eye is enabled to take in so many 

 sights that he could not otherwise hope intelligently to per- 

 ceive, that he is introduced at once to a new world, and en- 

 joys a hundred pleasures that would otherwise have escaped 

 him. 



To the naturalist, who studies nature intelligently, and has 

 advanced far enough within her gates to appreciate the de- 

 light of solving some of her mysteries, a glass is indispensa- 

 ble. He wants to see things clearly, to have them brought 

 close to him for inspection, before he takes possession of 

 them. He does not wish to load himself down with a cargo 

 of useless stuff which upon closer examination must be 

 thrown away ; he. desires to be able to pick and choose. 



During the season of migration the collector often sees 

 flitting about in the tree top a dozen or twenty warblers. 

 Some of those nearest the ground he can recognize by their 

 colors, others perhaps by their, actions and mode of flight, 

 but there may he half a dozen in the tree about the identity 

 of which he is wholly at a loss. He does not wish to shoot 

 one of them without knowing what it is, not only because 

 he declines to take life needlessly, but also for the reason 

 that among' the half a dozen birds there may be one very 



desirable specimen. He has recourse then to his field glass, 

 almost as important a part of the collector's outfit as is his 

 gun. In old times, when we used to collect birds, we would 

 about as soon have thought of starting on a day's excursion 

 without ammunition, cotton, or paper, as of going without 

 our glass. 



The glass is equally indispensable to the man who hunts 

 big game. He starts out to pit his cunning against animals 

 whose sight, smell and hearing are their only defense against 

 the attacks of enemies. The eyes of the hunter have lost 

 the quickness and certainty of vision, possessed by 

 his primitive ancestor, who was obliged to see his quarry 

 before it saw him, or starve. His ears have been dulled 

 by the roar of the town, or the rattle of machinery. 

 His nose does not help him, its powers failed far back 

 in the ages. And yet this hunter will, if he be skillful, 

 make havoc in the ranks of the alert and watchful game, 

 although he is so handicapped by the dulling results of civil- 

 ization. The man with the quick eye will detect the brown 

 back of the deer through the forest before the animal sees 

 him, while he whose vision is less trustworthy, will either 

 miss it altogether, or take it for a fallen log covered with 

 moss. The quick ear will detect the whistle of the bull elk, 

 mellowed by the distance, as it reverberates along the valleys 

 and among the pines of the mountain side, or the thrilling 

 roar of the bull moose, which comes to Mm through the 

 hemlocks and alders from the distant barren, or the snapping 

 of the stick that tells of the presence, near at band, though 

 invisible, of some large animal, he knows not what. He is 

 thus always prepared for the event. 



The mere possession of the best arms will never place a 

 man on an equality with the animals which he pursues. His 

 senses must be trained, and he is to employ every aid that 

 art can furnish to supply the qualities which, through lack 

 of use, have now failed him. The sense of sight is the most 

 important to the hunter. He must be able to find his game 

 while it is still at a distance, in order that he may look the 

 country over and approach unconscious animals in the best 

 way. 



Many a night in the Rocky Mountains we would have 

 gone to bed supperless, or with no more satisfactory meal 

 than hard bread and "sow belly," had it not been for the 

 good glass which showed us the tips of the bull elk's horns as 

 he lay couched in the brush on the hillside, or the distant 

 and scarcely to be distinguished form of the deer feeding 

 among the willows in the creek bottom. That same glass, 

 too, has, on several occasions, done us good service in show- 

 ing to us the presence of hostile Indians. We think that in 

 this way it has twice saved our scalp, and know that on both 

 these occasions it at least kept us out of a fight, where 

 every chance was against us. 



A field glass then — a good one, understand — is an impor- 

 tant part of a hunter's outfit. The man who is shooting 

 birds over dogs can get along without it very well, but the 

 naturalist and he who is after big game requires it. The 

 article need not be large, nor particularly expensive, though 

 money intelligently put into a glass is money well spent. 

 Still, a pair of long-barrelled opera glasses, with good lenses, 

 will answer almost every purpose, and need not cost very 

 much. The most convenient way to carry them, is slung 

 over the shoulder on a strap, which should be strong, se- 

 curely sewed to the case, and rather short, so as not to admit 

 of the glasses flying about if you have occasion to ride or 

 run fast. 



Besides the use of the glasses as aids to vision we have 

 seen the time when the lenses performed — for a shivering 

 party all of whose goods, except guns and cartridge belts, were 

 peacefully reposing beneath the sands of the Platte River — 

 the office of matches, kindling the fire which gave courage 

 to the half-frozen wretches, and enabled them to continue, 

 on foot in the dead of winter, their journey through a 

 hostile Indian country to the settlements. Of the i rnportance 

 of a glass to the yachtsman we need not speak; but perhaps 

 most fowl shooters do not appreciate how much satisfac- 

 tion and pleasure may be derived from its use. The long 

 hours in the blind or battery, when the birds are not flying, 

 may be beguiled by watching the movements of the rafts 

 of ducks and the extended lines of geese and swans which 

 ride peacefully on the water, far out of gunshot, looking to 

 the unaided eye like mere dots upon its surface; and the 

 curious and interesting actions of many of the scarcely 

 known inhabitants of marsh ana water may be observed 

 with as much accuracy and ease, as if they were being 

 carried on within a few feet of one's face. In fact we know 

 of scarcely any way in which so much pleasure may be had 

 at so little cost of trouble or money, as by the habitual 



carrying of a pair of glasses. The new field which they 

 open up to the observer is of wide extent, and in its explor- 

 ation a vast amount of enjoyment will be found. 



PYTHON EGG OMELETTE. 



THE attention of the club with the hard name is called to 

 the fact that they have been beaten at their own game; 

 completely "laid over," distanced, and outdone by a German 

 professor. Let them call a meeting of the executive com- 

 mittee at once, and speedily devise means to obtain some as 

 yet untried monstrosity and eat it, if it kills them all. At 

 the same time, it will be a gracious thing in them to ac- 

 knowledge the defeat they have received at the hands of 

 this venturesome Teuton, by chartering a ship and sending 

 over for him and making him their presiding officer, an hon- 

 orary member, or grand high caterer. If this cannot well be 

 done, for some such reason as that he will not come, then 

 let them have a bust of him in marble, crocodile fat, porpoise 

 steak or other enduring substance, and let it occupy the 

 place of honor at the feast, if made hollow and with a 

 movable jaw, then it could have an attendant to stuff it with 

 the delicacies which abound at an Ichthyophagian revel, 

 lizards' tongues, snails' livers and the like. 



The gentleman who has thus taken the epicurean cake and 

 all the fragments thereof, and made the caterers of this 

 ence blooming club hide their shriveled heads, is Doctor 

 Hermes, Curator of the Berlin Aquarium. 



The Doctor has several large pythons in his "snakery," 

 and one of these without a premonitory cackle laid him a 

 handsome batch of fifty-six eggs. The eggs looked good, 

 and it occurred to the Doctor that here was a source of 

 human food which might be available to some starving strag- 

 gler in a distant land, where snakes are more plentiful than 

 chickens; and he decided to test their merits as an article 

 of food. Everyone knows that if a German is devoted to 

 science he never hesitates to carry out an idea that may 

 occur to him, and therefore Dr. Hermes no sooner conceived 

 the idea of eating these eggs than he proceeded to execute it. 



Now, some men would eat a nice lot of eggs all alone, and, 

 smacking their lips at the recollection, would afterward tell 

 their friends how rich the feast had been. Not so with Dr. 

 Hermes. He is as generous as a brave man should ue.» He 

 invited a few gourmets to share his delicacies with him, and 

 after they had assembled he began experimenting by boiling 

 one of the serpent's eggs for several minutes and then open- 

 ing it for their delectation. To his surprise, the boiling 

 failed to coagulate the contents of the leathery shell, and a 

 gray liquid was all that was to be seen of the expected tid- 

 bit. This, we must confess, rather staggered our hero, but 

 with truly Spartan courage he returned to the attack. He 

 could not expect his guests to eat what he would not, and 

 although the boiled egg might have been drunk, there was 

 not enough consistency to it to be eaten. 



His second essay was to make an omelette. Breaking a few 

 of the eggs into a pan, and adding the usual condiments, he 

 placed the mass on the fire and succeeded in presenting his 

 friends with a python omelette such as cannot be obtained 

 in the ordinary New York boarding house. But even then 

 they semehow did not show any enthusiasm over it, not- 

 withstanding that it "smelled uncommonly appetizing." 

 The Doctor grasped the situation ; he must lead in this as- 

 sault upon the works of prejudice. He took a good portion, 

 and never flinching under the gaze of his confreres, he ate 

 it, and after swallowing it helped himself to another gen- 

 erous portion and remarked, "es schmeckt," which, ren- 

 dered in American, might be freely translated "bully." His 

 heroism was contagious ; his friends rallied; they attacked 

 the omelette of snake's eggs. After eating it, they immedi- 

 diately organized a society to import the ova of pythons, 

 boa constrictors, and anacondas to supply a restaurant to be 

 built in Berlin within whose walls prejudice shall be un- 

 known. 



This is evidently the nucleus of a club which will have a 

 more extended field than our own Ichthyophagous Club, for 

 the latter confines its food to strange inhabitants of the 

 water, and, therefore, can only eat horrible fishes, unusual 

 marine mammals, and outrageous aquatic reptiles. The 

 German club will not be bound by any such narrow lines, 

 but will be able to dine on any form of animal life which it 

 can procure. The Zoological Gardens will be enlarged and 

 will become valuable adjuncts to the markets of the city in 

 the matter of purveying food for the people; and the good 

 German housewife will inquire of the portier at the outer 

 gate: "Guten Morgen, Heir Portier, haben sie gute Python 

 Eier heute?" 

 He will answer: "Jawohl, Madame, ganz frische." 



