Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



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

 Six Months, $2. ) 



NEW YORK, MAY 8, 1884. 



( VOL. XXlI.-No. 15. 



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



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

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Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 

 New York City. 



Nos. 39 and 40 Park Row. 



CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Defects in Army Practice. 



Bench Show Judging. 



A Bench Show Association. 



Almost a Catastrophy. 



Mr. Lumberman Littlejohn. 



Iniquitous Measures. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



"Monty." 



Major Joseph Verity's Steam 

 Cat. 

 Natural History. 



Deer in the Adirondack^. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



Upland Plover in Minnesota. 



American and Imported Guns. 



Southern Shooting Grounds. 



The Performance of Shotguns. 



Two-Eyed Shooting. 



A Day with Snipe. 



The Choice of Hunting Rifles. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



Concerning Black Bass. 



Fly-Books. 



Fishing Afoot. 



New England Salmon and Trout 



Philadelphia Notes. 

 Fishculture. 



Fishways in Scotland. 

 The Kennel. 



The New York Bench Show. 



The Kennel. 



Eastern Field Trials Derbv. 



The Warwick Dog Show. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 



Rational Target Practice. 



Range and Gallery. 



The Trap. 

 Canoeing. 



Cleveland C. C. 



The Galley Fire. 

 Canoe and Camp Cookery. 



The Chart Locker. 

 The Susquehanna. 



Canoeing in Florida, 



Merrimac River Meet, 



Club Notes. 



Fun and Experience 



The Mohicans of Albany. 

 Yachting. 



Yacht Building on the Delaware 



New York Y. C. 



Florinda's Great Triumph. 



Estimating Displacement. 



Racing in England. 



Early Opening of the Death- 

 Trap Season. 



Hardly Correct. 



The Nice International. 



Ballast Whips Beam. 



Windward. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



With its compact type and in its permanently enlarged form 

 of twenty-eight pages this journal furnishes each weeic a larger 

 amount of first-class matter relating to angling, shooting, the 

 kennel, yachting, canoeing, and kindred subjects, than is con- 

 tained in all other American publications put together. 



BENCH SHOW JUDGING. 

 Al/'E regret to see that the practice of holding dog shows 

 extending over a period of four days still continues, as 

 well as that of dragging the judging along over the whole 

 time of the show. It is generally acknowledged that hoth 

 of these practices are wrong in principle, that the dogs would 

 suffer much less in a three-days' exhibition than when con- 

 fined for four, because the accumulated strain of confine- 

 ment, excitement and had air increases in geometrical ratio, 

 and the poor beasts by the fourth day are either frantic or 

 utterly worn out. It was the place of the Westminster Ken- 

 nel Club to have inaugurated a reform in these particulars. 

 The strongest and best equipped bench show association 

 should have had the courage to break its way out of the old 

 rut. The time was when the dog show was kept open for 

 four days, in order to pay expenses and to put a little balance 

 into the pockets of those who took the risk of the expenses, 

 but that time is past. A dog show in New York is now 

 sure of liberal patronage, and it is no longer necessary to treat 

 it as if it were a peep show, which must remain open as 

 long as any one would visit it, and at which everything must 

 be done to attract the public. This last is the reason for the 

 long drawn out judging. 



Mr. Charles Lincoln's utterly mistaken idea that the public 

 desires to see the judging explains the survival of this ancient 

 custom, which has long been obsolete in the country where 

 dog shows were first held, and from which we have drawn 

 most of our best dogs. No one but the exhibitors care a rap 

 to see the judging. What the public care about is to know 

 which are the best dogs, and to be able to examine and 

 admire them. The judging should, therefore, be all done on 

 the first day of the show, and the catalogues marked, in 

 order that the public, whom it is desired to instruct, may 

 have an opportunity of seeing what the best dogs are, and 

 learning why they are the best. As it is at present, the 



winners in many classes are not announced until the last day 

 of the show, and so are seen by only a small proportion of 

 the visitors. Thus a great deal of the good that a dog show 

 should do is lost. 



There are other matters that will bear reforming, to which 

 special allusion need not now be made, but we hope another 

 year to see the necessary changes made. 



INIQUITOUS MEASURES. 

 nPHE game law tinkers, who turn up annually at Albany, 

 -*- have devised certain amendments to the present statute 

 which will effectually nullify any force the law may have 

 now. 



One amendment allows owners of land to trap birds on 

 their own property —which means that the New York and 

 Albany and Utica and Buffalo market stalls will be piled up 

 with snared game. 



Another permits the sale of woodcock in nine counties , in- 

 cluding New York county, in July— which means that the 

 market refrigerators will be stuffed full of woodcock, killed 

 out of season in other parts of the State. This is something 

 like the "refrigerator amendment" which Mr. Abel Crook 

 tried to foist on the sportsmen of this State some years ago. 



A third clause so hampers the investigation of suspected 

 stores of contraband game that it practically puts beyond 

 probability the detection of the offenders. 



These three moves are all in the direct interest of the 

 market dealer, and, we understand, are engineered by the 

 same individual who has been so notoriously engaged in 

 working for the New York game dealers for several years 

 past. 



The only salvation against the machinations of these 

 selfish game law tinkers is a powerful State association of 

 men who honestly desire the good of the sportemen com- 

 munity and will work to secure it. 



Is there any possibility of organizing such a society? It 

 would have abundance of work to do. We have been shown 

 to-day two snared quail from a wholesale poultry dealer's 

 refrigerator in this city, and the man who brought them in 

 said he would get thousands of the same sort, with wood- 

 eock and ruffed grouse in the bargain. 



A BENCH SHOW ASSOCIATION. 

 T^ROM correspondence and private conversation which 

 -*~ we have had with many breeders and exhibitors of 

 dogs, it is apparent that there is a strong desire on the part 

 of a number of them for centralization in dog matters. Com- 

 plaint is made, and very justly too, that dog shows are at 

 present carried 'on in an aimless fashion, the managers of 

 the show being responsible to no one body of men, which 

 represents the kennel interests of the whole country. There 

 are several large and wealthy clubs representing certain 

 sections, which have done good work with the sporting dogs, 

 and the two special clubs which have recently sprung up are 

 doing a great deal for the breeds which they have taken in 

 charge. Any one who will inspect the beagle and spaniel 

 classes at the show now in progress, will see how great is 

 the increase in the interest taken in these breeds within the 

 last two or three years. All this effort is well expended and 

 has a good effect, but much is required, besides this special 

 care for particular breeds, to put kennel matters in this coun- 

 try on the same firm basis that they now have in England. 

 A radical change in the methods under which our bench 

 shows are now held is imperative. The old-fashioned rules 

 require extensive modifications and additions, and some 

 court of last appeal is required, before which all questions of 

 importance may be brought. It should not be possible for 

 any irresponsible person or set of persons to hold bench 

 shows, as has several times been done, for speculative pur- 

 poses. There should be some recognized authority which 

 should have the power to approve or disapprove any show. 

 Many other matters would come before such an association. 



It is evident that such a kennel club, covering the whole 

 country and having on its membership roll the names of the 

 recognized leaders among the exhibitors and breeders of the 

 different varieties of dogs, would be a power in the land, 

 and could work out the needed improvements in the methods 

 at present followed. This seems to be the general sentiment. 

 The question now is, how is such a kennel club to be formed? 

 There are reasons enough why something should be done, 

 but it is not our province to call upon exhibitors to carry out 

 their own wishes; the project is one which is best left to de- 

 velop itself in the hands of those most interested, until the 

 columns of the Forest and Stream are necessary for its 

 more complete establishment. 



We would point out, however, to those who have taken 



any part in the private correspondence which has been going 

 on, that there is no better time to canvass the matter than 

 during the present week, when every exhibitor of promi- 

 nence is in attendance at the Westminster Kennel Club 

 show. 



It has been objected that this work would naturally fall 

 within the province of the National American Kennel Club, 

 and that this body was originally organized for the purpose 

 of filling in America the place occupied in England by the 

 E K. Club. This was undoubtedly the case, but these pur- 

 poses have been so modified that the N. A. K. Club is inter- 

 ested now only in pointers and setters, and, while holding 

 each year successful field trials, gives no attention to the 

 non-sporting classes, which now fill so large a proportion of 

 the benches at our shows. It is but simple justice to state 

 that the N. A. K. Club has done a great work for kennel 

 matters in America, but it has so far modified its original 

 purposes that it has become a field trials club, and what 

 breeders and exhibitors are now calling for is a club to care 

 for matters which do not fall within the province of a field 

 trials club. 



If the time is ripe for any decided action in this matter, 

 it will no doubt be taken hold of energetically and carried 

 through successfully. 



MR. LUMBERMAN LITTLEJOHN. 

 '"I^HE Lansing billjn the New York Legislature, provides 

 -*- for the appointment of a forestry commission to under- 

 take the intelligent care of the Adirondack forests. The 

 bill, as it came from the Senate, is not all that an Adiron- 

 dack measure should be, but is good so far as it goes. Now 

 Mr. Littlejohn wants the Assembly to amend the bill in 

 various ways, reducing the number of commissioners, and cut- 

 ting down the appropriation. This move of Mr. Littlejohn 

 is not for the benefit of the Adirondack forests; it is a 

 deliberate, thereby disguised attempt to hamper legislation 

 on the subject, and at this late day to prevent any measure 

 at all from being enacted. It is, so far as the public can 

 judge, a big scheme to ward off the day of judgment for the 

 men who are wrecking the Adirondack woods. Mr. Little- 

 john, in other words, is working in the interests of the lum- 

 bermen, of whom he is one. His purpose is to look out for 

 his own pocket at the expense of the public weal. If the 

 members of the Albany Legislature care anything about 

 their constituents, they will repress the activity of Mr. Lum- 

 berman Littlejohn and pass the Lansing bill. 



ALMOST A CATASTROPHE. 

 HPHE steam yacht Norma was launched last Saturday from 

 -*- Poillon's yard in Brooklyn and came near startling 

 New York with a frightful accident, the lives of two hund- 

 red people having been risked in a manner which calls for 

 condemnation. The steamer was sent off the ways with her 

 spars on end and no ballast inside. She had no sooner slid 

 clear of the ways when she toppled over and rolled from side 

 to side up to her hatches. Everything that could possibly in- 

 sure a catastrophe, was done, and neither the builders, nor 

 the skipper, nor the "designer" foresaw the fearful risk they 

 were taking. It was a miracle that the yacht did not cap- 

 size, and but for the fact that the righting arm of her stability 

 couple reappeared, when the vessel was on her side, after van- 

 ishing at the outset, hundreds would have met a watery 

 grave. Coming so 30on on top of the Daphne disaster abroad, 

 the incompeter/c/ or callousness exhibited in this case calls 

 for the severest censure, in the hope that the insane advertis- 

 ing dodge of herding a crowd aboard a vessel about to be 

 launched will be done away with in the future by law or the 

 good sense of the people in charge. The Norma has ahead y 

 been described in these columns. 



Dyn mite Measures.— Mr. Nathan Curtis and a con- 

 frere " Tied Freeman were pursuing the gentle art of angling 

 with ii/namite cartridges in Lake Champlain last Saturday, 

 when one of the infernal engines of destruction went off 

 prematurely, blew the boat sky high, and deprived Mr. 

 Curtis of one of his arms. Thus it appears that a dynamite 

 cartridge is more powerful than a game constable. 



Books and Pictures.— We are prepared to supply 

 sportsmen's books of every description. Our facilities are 

 such that we can promptly supply all orders for books. 

 Our series of Forest and Stream publications include 

 "Woodcraft," "Training vs. Breaking," "Shore Birds," 

 "Angling Talks," and the "List of Open Seasons." The 

 portraits of canine celebrities have been received with great 

 favor; we still have a limited number of sets on hand. 



