Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



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



Six Months, $3. J 



NEW YORK, JULY 10, 1884. 



( VOL. XXlI.-No. 24. 



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



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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Destruction of Sea Fowl. 



Salt-Water Fishing. 



A Departed Race. ' 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



Uncle Lisha's Shop. — vt. 



Reminiscences of Shanghai. 



On the Guagus. 

 Natural History. 



The Flying Squirrel. 



Birds of the Gulf of St Lawrence. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



Days with the Prairie Chickens. 



The Game of Des Are 



Forty Years in the Field. 



A Maine Deer Case. 



Adirondack Deer Complications 



The Death of the Grizzly. 



The Choice of Hunting Rifles. 



Two-Eyed Shooting. 

 Camp Fire Flickerings. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



A Mid-Summer Lake Scene. 



Philadelphia Notes. 



Camps of the Kingfishers.— rx. 



Maine Fishing. 



The Canadian Sea Trout. 

 Fishculture. 



American Fishcultural Associ- 

 ation. 



The Kennel. 



Pointers at New York. 



Mistake in Pedigree. 



New York Fall Dog Show. 



Kennel Notes. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 



Range and Gallery. 



The Trap. 



Association of the Carolinas. 

 Canoeing. 



Mohican C. C. 



The A. C. A. Meet. 



Bayonne C. C. 



RondoutC. C. Camp. 



The A. C. A. Badge. 

 Yachting. 



Beverly Y. C. 



Lynn City Matches, July 4. 



Boston City Matches. July 4. 



The Association Races. 



Yachting on Lake Ontario. 



Cruise of the Mabel. 



Hull Y. C. Review and Cruise. 



LarchmontY.C. Annual Matches 



Atlantic Y. C. Cruise. 



Knickerbocker Y. C. Annual 

 Cruise. 



La Nubienue. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 

 Publisher's Department. 



DESTRUCTION OF SEAFOWL. 



HPHE northeast coast of North. America has from time 

 -*- immemorial been a favorite resort of seafowl. There 

 have been found, from earliest times, myriads of birds of 

 all descriptions, from the unwieldy cormorant down to the 

 tiny sea swallow, which make their nests on the rocky 

 islands and stern cliffs of this threatening coast. Their 

 numbers in bygone years have been such as almost to defy 

 computation. They bred there by millions. The accounts 

 given by Audubon and Coues, Bryant and other ornitholo- 

 gists, who years ago visited this coast, must be consulted 

 to gain any adequate idea of the innumerable multitudes of 

 seafowl which formerly made the region their summer 

 home. 



The center of abundance of the feathered hordes was, and 

 still is, about the mouth of the St, Lawrence Kiver. Here 

 the fish food, on which most of them subsist, is most abund- 

 ant, and all the conditions are such as to be favorable to 

 their well-being. But the increase in the number of the 

 settlers, and the almost entire extermination of the large 

 game on which the Indians once depended for food has 

 wrought a mighty change in the bird fauna of this coast. 

 Nowhere now are there the extensive colonies of seafowl 

 that once filled the minds of the observer with wonder. 



The adult birds are slaughtered on their nests for food or 

 for fish bait, and the young or eggs are taken. Colonies 

 once estimated to contain a hundred thousand birds are 

 now without inhabitants. 



In an interesting paper on a cruise in the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence, elsewhere referred to, Mr. William Brewster 

 gives a number of facts on this subject, from which we may 

 make some extracts to show the change that has recently 

 taken place here, and the method by which these birds are 

 being exterminated. Of the eider duck he says, "The 

 eider is still common along the north shore [of the Gulf of 

 St. Lawrence], but its numbers are rapidly diminishing there. 

 This is due largely to the depredations of the Indians of the 

 region who, during the summer, subsist largely on the birds 

 and their eggs. Their manner of taking them is peculiar. 



They skirt the shore in canoes, keeping as close to land as 

 the depth of water will permit. Meanwhile their dogs range 

 about among the trees, quartering the grouud like trained 

 setters, and when a nest is discovered announce the fact by 

 loud barking. The nests are usually within a few rods of 

 the water, and the scent of the dogs is so keen that they 

 rarely pass one. If the sitting bird can be caught or shot 

 the opportunity is seldom neglected, for the half starved 

 Indian neither knows nor respects considerations of mercy — 

 or, perhaps, we should call it policy — which restrain more 

 enlightened sportsmen on such occasions. Proceeding thus, 

 two men in a canoe will frequently ransack twenty miles of 

 coast line in a single day, and find, probably, nearly every 

 eider's nest. The result of this systematic persecution can- 

 not be doubtful or long-delayed." 



"Our personal experience with the eider was not exten. 

 sivc. We saw them frequently from Mingan Harbor east- 

 ward, but the Indians had been before us everywhere, and 

 we could find neither eggs nor young." 



Tnis recital certainly needs no extended comment. Every 

 one can see what the result of such systematic pursuit at 

 this season of the year must inevitably be. 



Passing on to the gannets, whose rookeries were once so 

 celebrated, we find the following statements: "Although a 

 few gannets are said to breed on Shag Bock, near Grindstone 

 Island, most of those seen at the Magdalens evidently came 

 from Bird Bocks. This famous rookery was visited by our 

 party on July 4 Its wonders have been so well described 

 already by Dr. Bryant and Mr. Maynard, that 1 shall con- 

 fine the present narrative to a brief account of the changes 

 which have taken place since their respective visits. In 1860, 

 the number of gannets breeding on the top of Great Bird 

 (then uninhabited) was estimated by Bryant at about 

 fifty thousand pairs, or one hundred thousand birds. 

 In 1872, Maynard found this portion of the colony reduced 

 to about five thousand birds (a lighthouse had been erected 

 on the summit of the rock and several men were living 

 there). When we landed in 1881 the top of the rock was 

 practically abandoned, although there were some fifty nests 

 at the northern end which had been robbed a few days be- 

 fore, and about which the birds still lingered. The shelving 

 places and ledges around the face of the cliff, however, were 

 still densely populated, and the colony on Little Bird was 

 probably as large as the available nesting places there would 

 allow. But the total number of gannets breeding on both 

 islands did not, as nearly as I could estimate it, exceed fifty 

 thousand. This number, although sufficiently astonishing 

 and impressive when the limited area of the islands is 

 considered, is, of course, insignificant, in comparison 

 with that of the legions which Bryant found twenty-one 

 years before. The decrease is easily explained, for the 

 stringent laws framed for the protection of these and other 

 seabirds breeding on the rocks, are— or were in 1881— but 

 loosely enforced, and a day rarely passed when parties did 

 not land on both islands to collect the eggs and shoot the 

 sitting birds. The eggs are eaten and tlie flesh of the birds 

 is used, in preference to anything else, as bait in the cod- 

 fishery. The negligence on the part of the Canadian Gov- 

 ernment, which tolerates such open violation of its statutes, 

 cannot be too strongly condemned." 



The author mentions visiting other breeding places of 

 the gannets, one of which, owing to its inaccessibility, is 

 rarely despoiled, but the others had been recently robbed 

 by the Indians. 



A similar story is told about the breeding places of the 

 gulls and terns; of the latter Mr. Brewster says: "Poor sea 

 swallows! they have nearly as hard a time among the Mag- 

 dalens as at breeding stations along our own coast. Not 

 that the birds themselves are as often molested, for the 

 islanders are too chary of powder and shot to waste them at 

 useless marks; but the eggs are duly appreciated, and parties 

 of women and children visit the sandhills daily, taking every 

 one that can be found. " 



The tale is a pitiful one, but it is the same that is being 

 told everywhere on this continent — the relentless destruction 

 of the wild creatures indigenous to the country. The sea 

 fowl on the northeast coast are protected by law, as are our 

 own birds and beasts, but the laws are not enforced, and re- 

 main a mere dead letter on the statute books. Each year 

 fewer of these fowl return to their ancient breeding grounds, 

 and each year those that return are harried on every hand, 

 and at length forced to depart without reproducing their 

 kind. Unless something is done, the end, except in a few 

 isolated localities, cannot be far distant. 



Will the Canadian Government take the steps necessary to 

 stop this slaughter? 



SALT- WA TER FISHING. 



THE question has often been asked us why we have paid 

 so little attention to salt-water fishing, and we have in- 

 variably answered that there are few of the thousands 

 who indulge in that sport who write about it, and but a few 

 more who care to read of it. If we devote more space to 

 salmon, trout and black bass than to sea fishes it is not be- 

 cause we are indifferent to the charms of bluefishing, weak- 

 fishing, etc., but because our readers do not seem to be inter- 

 ested in sea-fishing. 



There is a wide difference between the salt-water and the 

 fresh-water angler. The former is content to enjo3 r himself 

 in his own way, and says no more about it. The trout and 

 black bass angler, on the contrary, considers the fishing as 

 merely part of his pleasure; the trip, the scenery, the grand 

 old woods, all inspire him to fight his battles o'er again. 

 There is nothing of this in the salt-water angler, be he a 

 member of a swell bass club or an humble brother of the 

 hand-line committee who takes the Staten Island ferry-boat 

 in the morning and, with the patience of Job, goes to the 

 rocks and oyster beds for weakfish and with crab bait, awaits 

 a "tide runner," as the big weakfish are called in his vocab- 

 ulary. This sitting on a hard seat all alone waiting for 

 something, which mayor may not come, develops a reticence 

 that the fresh-water angler seldom acquires. There is no 

 doubt that the surroundings influence the angler to a greater 

 degree than has been suspected, and the depressing effect of 

 the ocean is noticeable on those who angle in it. 



New York city has more good fishing near it than any 

 city that we know of, such as it is. By this we mean 

 waters where a man can go and catch enough fish to consti- 

 tute what may be summed up in that vulgar term "a mess." 

 If that is the end of angling then surely the salt-water 

 angler should be satisfied, for when the neap tides are on 

 then the "school fish" will repay in numbers what the tide- 

 runners make up in avoirdupois. 



We have yet to see the salt-water angler who possessed 

 the fire and enthusiasm of the fresh-water fishers. It is 

 possible that there may be men who love salt water as the 

 trout anglers loves mountain streams. If so we do not know 

 them. We do know, however, that angling for trout among 

 the hills with the ever-changing scenery of a mountain 

 trout brook brings out all the laten t poetry in a man, which, 

 if it does not break out in verse, leads him to tell his un- 

 known fellow of the pleasures he has had, and of the means 

 he has used to capture his fish, which he usually regards as 

 a mere incident of the trip. 



The salt-water angler is seldom inspired by the beauties of 

 nature because there are no such beauties in the surroundings 

 to be inspired by, and no matter how many poems may have 

 been written on life on the ocean wave, every man who has 

 been out of sight of land knows that they were penned more 

 to create a taste for the monotonous sea than because the writ- 

 ters really liked it. Therefore the salt-water angler is a silent 

 man. He likes to catch his fish, but the bald, flat, unpoetic 

 surroundings have never inspired him to write about them. 



Take a list of angling works and see what they treat of. 

 Look over the indices of Forest and Stream and see who 

 writes of his fishing and what his fishing is! Salmon, gray- 

 ling, trout, black bass; these are the themes of American 

 writers, while our cousins across the water add other fresh- 

 water fishes. Where is the salt-water Walton? Except Young, 

 who wrote "Sea Fishing as a Sport," he has not existed and 

 never will; because, while there are salt-water anglers in- 

 numerable, the inspiration is lacking in the element in which 

 they fish. With the salt-water angler the capture of his fish 

 is the only charm; there is no scenery to inspire bim, there- 

 fore he is not inspired, and while he is often above fishing 

 for the pot or for count, his spirit is depressed by what it 

 works in. 



Whether this result is brought about by the monotonous 

 sea, the use of heavy bluefish trolling lines or oily chum, or 

 the companionship of the silent clam, which does alternate 

 duty as bait or lunch, we know not, but the fact remains 

 that of all anglers who not only love their art but seek to im- 

 prove their tackle and teach others to appreciate it, the fly- 

 fisher for trout and grayling stands at the head. Perhaps 

 there is some other reason which we have not named which 

 will account for the fact that fly-fishers love to write and to 

 read of their sport more than the salt-water angler seems to, 

 for with the latter the angler for maskalonge seems to vie 

 in the matter of reticence. Can it be that it is the catching 

 of heavy fish that thus affects the captors, or is it possible 

 that baits and trolling spoons are the real cause? 



Woodcock are in season in New Jersey, but the bags have 

 been light. In this State the season will open Aug. 1. 



