Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Teems, $4 a Yeas. 10 Cts. a Copy. ) 

 Srx Months, $2. 



NEW YORK, JULY 6, 1882. 



j VOL. XVm.-No. 23. 



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



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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Firing in the Air. 



Hoop Snake Season. 



Forest and Stream Fables— vn. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



The Great Swamp. 



Adirondack Survey Notes. 



Camps of the Kingfishers— v. 

 Natural History. 



Byrne's Seareh for Hoop Snakes 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



The Grouse Question Again. 



Fire-Hunting Woodcock. 



June Deer Shooting. 



The London, Ont., Society. 

 Camp Fire Flickering^. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



Fish in Season in July. 



Ten-ounce vs. Five-ounce Rods. 



The Thousand Islands. 



The "Blue Gill" Minnow Pail. 



Little Wind River Trouting. 



Trout at Meacham Lake. 



Moosehead Lake. 



Oswego Bass Fishing. 



Notes from Kennebago. 



The Piscataquis Society. 



Sea and River Fishing. 

 West Virginia Trout Streams. 

 Salmon in Maine. 

 The Skoodoowobskook Again. 



FlSHCULTURE. 



Black Bass in the Scotch Lochs. 



Penobscot Salmon Breeding. 



A New and Valuable Food Fish. 



Return of Marked Salmon. 

 The Kennel. 



Alexandra Palace Dog Show. 



Proposed Irish Setter Club. 



Dawn. 



Hoboken Dog Poisoners. 



The Chicken Trials. 

 Rif^e and Trap Shooting. 

 Yachting and Canoeing. 



New Jersey Y. C— June 29. 



How Maggie Sailed. 



Centerboard for Canoes. 



Defeated. 



New Bedford Y. C. 



San Francisco Yachting. 



Why Mystery Lost her Mast. 



Cooptr'K Point Y. C— June 20. 



Results of Bud Classification. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



FIRING IN THE AIR: 

 TT is a dreadful waste, of ammunition and it should cease. 

 ■*- It is forty or fifty years siuce real efforts began to be 

 made by the sbooting and angling public to protect the game 

 whicb, even at that time, was presaging by its increasing 

 scarcity, that state of tbings whicb bas since come to pass. 

 Not to go back to the ancient days of game plenty, tbose 

 times wben our grandfathers and greatgrandfathers could 

 kill deer within a mile of their homes, and were sometimes 

 in winter forced to take to the trees by the pressing attentions 

 of the wolves, it is within the memory of many men who are 

 not yet too old to do their day's tramping, that game was so 

 abundant that an assistant w is required to carry along the 

 bag which was to bold the quail or woodcock secured in a 

 day's shooting. The sentiment in favor of game protection 

 among the better class of sportsmen, although no doubt it 

 existed long before that time, did not crystallize, so to speak, 

 did not have any general support, until the time of the pub- 

 lication of Frank Forester's writings. Herbert's enthusiasm 

 and bis happy style aroused the first interest in these matters, 

 and from bis time to the present day the interest in them has 

 been steadily, if slowly, increasing. 



It was natural enough that the movement in favor of game 

 protection should first take shape in the enactment of pro- 

 tective laws, which provided penalties against the killing of 

 game at certain seasons when it was least fit for use. This 

 method of protection, while it was well enough as far as it 

 went, did not go far enough, since in most instances neither 

 machinery nor money were provided for the carrying out of 

 the provisions of the law. In this respect the enactments for 

 protection presen* a curious anomaly, differing as they do 

 from any other statutes passed by the Legislatures of the 

 various States. 1 lie clamor for reasonable and proper laws 

 statesmen are willing to yield to, but it does not appear, 

 except in rare instances, that appropriations of money to en- 

 force such laws have ever been either asked for or granted. 

 The fact is that those interested in the subject have fallen 

 into a rut, from which they do not seem able to extricate 

 themselves, and so, at eveiy session of the Legislatures of the 

 different Slates, we hear of proposed alterations and amend- 

 ments of the laws, which tbose who advance them apparently 

 think, will cure all our present evils. Tinkering with the 

 game laws has become a regular part of the programme of 



our legislative bodies. Now, no one will say that our game 

 laws, as they at present stand in the various sections of our 

 country, are at all what they should be, but if they were 

 properly and sternly enforced, they would do a vast amount 

 of good, instead of, as is now too often the case, ac- 

 complishing nothing at all. The laws should be short and 

 simple so that they can be easily understood by all, and so 

 that under their provisions convictions may be easy and there 

 may be no loophole for the escape of the offender. A cumb- 

 ersome and intricate law, full of exceptions and special pro- 

 visions, should be made by all means avoided. But it is a 

 great mistake, and we wish we could induce every one to 

 think so, to apply for relief in this way only. Why can we not 

 next year leave, the laws as they are, and devote ourselves 

 with all our energy to securing appropriations and the ap- 

 pointment of officers to enforce those that we already have? 

 This expenditure of effort to secure changes in the laws is a 

 waste; it is firing in the air. 



The efforts to secure enactments whicb are perfect is very 

 well, but long before they have been passed the need for 

 them will have ceased, for the game will have all dis- 

 appeared. We should begin now at the right end, and make 

 provision for the enforcement of such laws as we have, and 

 then, after having inculcated in the public a wholesome 

 respect for. and fear of, the law, it will be time enough to 

 make efforts to improve them. It is a shame and a disgrace 

 that, as is now usually the case, the enforcement of the 

 statutes should be left wholly to private individuals, societies 

 and corporations. And it is not only a shame, but it is the 

 worst possible thing that could happen for the general shoot- 

 ing and fishing public, since, as we have more than once 

 shown, the natural result of such a state of things is to in- 

 duce wealthy clubs and corporations to secure the most 

 desirable shooting grounds, which are thus of course closed 

 to the public at large. Cases of this kind are constantly 

 being brought to our notice, and the rapidity with whicb 

 this movement is now going on shows that the appreciation 

 of the existing state of things is widespread. The matter is 

 one which touches so nearly every one who at all depends 

 upon shooting or angling for bis amusement and recre- 

 ation, that it is difficult to account for the apathy that 

 appears to exist among sportsmen in regard to it. We can 

 understand why the club member, who can go in September 

 to his marsh on the lakes and later in the season to the 

 points and uplands of the Southern States for his sbooting, 

 should be careless in the matter, but how the man whose 

 occupations only permit him to take an occasional day or 

 two in the country near his home, can view with equanimity 

 the gradual disappearance of game we do not exactly see. 

 Of course, this is a matter that interests sportsmen, and 

 them alone. If the prospect is a'satisfactory one to them 

 no doubt it is equally so to the rest of the community, but it 

 certainly seems a pity that the result, which is inevitable 

 unless some earnest action is taken, should come to pass. 

 Tbings grow worse each year, game is less abundant and 

 harder to find. 



In the meantime, we cannot urge too strongly upon tbose 

 who have akeady put their hands to the plow, who have 

 actively interested themselves in seeing that the laws are 

 enforced, the necessity of not looking back, of not ceasing 

 from the labor of love which they have undertaken. For 

 the present our hopes rest on them, and each man should do 

 his best. But next fall and winter, when the Legislatures 

 meet, let us all try to do something which will really tell, 

 and no longer fire into the air. 



" Hamak. "— This is the latest accepted form of the word 

 variously spelled "hammock," "hummock," and, as we 

 find it in Webster, "hommock." The spelling "hamak." 

 adopted by our correspondent "S." in his "Bits of Florida 

 Experience," two weeks ago, is defended by him in a note, in 

 which he says: "My authority is Will. Wallace Harney, 

 the scholar, correspondent and poet, who first used the word 

 'hamak,' giving it as his opinion that it was Seminole in 

 its origin, meaning swampy hard-wood land — or descriptive 

 of that peculiar combination of dark rich soil, either low or 

 high, grown with hickories, magnolias, palms, bays, several 

 kinds of oak and vines galore. I don't think there is such 

 a word as 'hommock.' Neither 'hammock,' nor 'hum- 

 mock' describe such lands at all. And knowing Mr. 

 Harney's reputation for lore and research, I followed bis 

 example, thinking, if a word was to be invented, hamak was 

 better than any. Mr. H. has lived in South Florida many 

 years." __ 



Maj. Joseph Verity Says: A small flight of ducks is 

 better than a big flight of fancy, 



HOOP SNAKE SEASON. 

 X^ITH the first of the real hot days of summer, the 

 editor, country or city, brings out his scrap book, and 

 begins to draw on his reserve stock of snake stories. The 

 earliest and most attractive of. these is the hoop snake tale; 

 it is also the one which has the least basis of fact to rest 

 upon. Newspaper cuttings, accompanied by letters of in- 

 quiry, are accumulating on our table, and, while perhaps it 

 would be as well to consign all the matter referring to this 

 subject to the seclusion which a waste paper basket grants, 

 it is possibly our duty to make one more effort to stamp out 

 the erroneous behef in the existence of this animal. 



Mr. A. Pope was no doubt right in a general way when 

 be informed the world that "truth crushed to earth will rise 

 again," and further, that 



Error, wounded, writhes in pain, 

 And dies amid her worshipers; 

 but it would have been ' a good-natured and gracef ul act in 

 him to have suggested that Error, although she may at last 

 die, has more lives and is far harder to kill than the average 

 city cat. 



The hoop snake myth belongs to the same class of lies 

 with that of the hair snake, and is equally hard to kill. The 

 average scribe does not, we presume, care whether it is true 

 or not, or perhaps with that tenderness of conscience which 

 so distinguishes the journalist of to-day, he fears to keep 

 from his readers something that may be of value, and being 

 ignorant on the subject himself, he leaves to them the labor 

 of sifting the true from the false. These particular stories 

 get into the papers and are copied far and wide, thus adding 

 each season some credulous converts to the believers in the 

 myth. A Watertown, N. Y. , correspondent sends us a slip 

 cut from the Utica Herald of June 13, which reads : 



Hoop snakes have recently been seen in Orange county. One was 

 killed last week which measured three feet in length. This snake 

 had a hard, fine-pointed, bone-like substance at the end of its tail, 

 with which it strikes. It forms itself in the shape of a hoop, and 

 speeds over the ground at a lively rate; but it is only necessary to 

 step one side to avoid it, it being impossible to alter its course when 

 rolling. 



The paternity of this extract is fortunately easily deter- 

 mined by comparing it with a cutting from the New York 

 Sun of two or three days previous, which says: 



Newburgh, June 10.— The question raised as to whether there are 

 hoop snakes in this section of the country can be answered in the 

 affirmative. Some years ago a young lady living on her father's farm 

 at Shawangunk, Ulster county, twelve miles back of this city, was 

 chased down a lane by one, and when she swerved to one side it 

 rolled swiftly by. One was seen on Saturday last. It measured 

 about three feet in length, and was killed on the farm of William 

 Startup, on the north plank road, near Middletown, this county. 

 This snake has a hard, fine-pointed, horn-like substance at the end of 

 its tail, with which it strikes. Some people are of the opinion that 

 the tails of this peculiar species of snakes are poisonous, while others 

 believe them to be perfectly harmless. They form themselves into 

 the shape of a hoop and speed over the ground at a lively rate ; but it 

 is only necessary to step one side to avoid them, it apparently being 

 impossible for them to alter their course when rolling. No one in 

 this section has ever been known to have received dangerous injuries 

 from this kind of a snake. 



A Kansas City, Mo., correspondent calls our attention to 

 other extracts from the Sun, some of which we reproduce: 



i answer to "E. S.'s" inquiry about hoop snakes, I would say that 

 I have seen a dark-colored snake in Dakota take its tail in its mouth 

 and roll along like a hoop. They are also found in Australia.— A: O. T. 



New York, June 8. 



"E. S." seems to regard hoop snakes as a myth. I, too, for years 

 listened to stories about them with incredulity; but my experience 

 with one last August, while rusticating on Rockett Farm, Somers, 

 Westchester county, fully convinced me that there was such a snake. 

 While rambling on the farm one day, I saw across my path what I 

 took to be a black snake I shied a stone at it, and, to my horror, it 

 coiled up like a hoop and began to roll toward me. I jumped aside 

 and it darted past me like an arrow. Too frightened to investigate, I 

 beat a retreat to the farmhouse and told my experience. I was there 

 told that it was a species of black snake that, when angered, puts its 

 tail into its mouth and forms itself into a hoop, and then rolls until it 

 has sufficient velocity to throw its body, straight as as a lance, at the 

 object oi attack. Its stroke is painful, but the wound is not poison- 

 ous. As the snake keeps on a straight track, it is easily avoided by 

 stepping to one side. These snakes are generally about four feet 

 feet long.— Hatter. 



Hoboken, June 8. 



Seeing the inquiry in to-day's Shm asking if there are such things as 

 hoop snakes, and where they can be found, I reply. They may be 

 found in Moodus, Conn., and other parts of that State.— A. J. Roberts. 



New York, June 8. 



It is scarcely necessary to inform our correspondents of 

 the fact that there is no authenticated instance on record of 

 a hoop snake having been seen by any competent observer. 

 The whole story is a myth, a figment of the imagination. 



The hoop 6Nake does not exist. 



Read in another column the story of "Byrne's" search for 

 one, 



