a 
| dog also has. the right to exhibit it or withhold it from exhi- 
_ careful and intelligent mating are rewarded. That these 
_ financial management of the show is none of his concern. 
-anteed by a club, as at the Westminster shows, or by an 
_ agricultural society, as at Philadelphia last week, or by a 
" men in America have been guided in the past in their sup- 
. port of bench shows. 
~ 
show should hold such a position, being themselves repre- 
T AND STREAM. 
A WEEKLY JOURNAL OF THE ROD AND GUN. 
Terms, $4.4 YEAR. 10 Crs. a Copy. 
Srx Montus, $2 
NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 28, 1884. 
VOL, XX1IT.—No. 9. 
| Nos. 39 & 40 PArk Row, New YorE. 
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Address all communications, 
Forest and Stream Publishing Oo. 
Nos. 39 anp 40 PARE Row. New YoreE Crry. 
OONTENTS. 
EDITORIAL, THE KENTEL. 
Birds, Bonnets and Butchers. The National Bench Show Asso- 
The Keely Gun Trial. ciation. 
Tue SPORTSMAN TOURIST. National Breeders’ Show. 
Rbymes for the Season. RIFLE AND TRAP SHOOTING. 
A Chatty Letter. Range and Gallery. 
A Hunt with the Comanches. The Trap. 
A. Search for Amusement, New Jersey State Convention. 
NATURAL History. CANOEING. 
Robins and Strawberries. 
Domesticating Quail, 
The Catbird. 
GAME BAG AND Gon. 
Point of Beach. 
Game of Washington Territory. 
Hints and Queries. 
Bullet versus Buckshot. 
Camp-FIRE FLICKERINGS. 
SEA AND RIVER FISHING. 
The Dobson or Helgramite. 
Trout in Prince Hdward’s Island. 
Knickerbocker C. 0. Regatta. 
Drop Rudders and Settee Sails. 
Toronto C, C. Fall Regatta. 
Brockville C. C. Races. 
The Four who went to Sandy 
Hook. 
eon C. C, Challenge Sailing 
6 
ce. 
A Regatta at Albany Oct. 4, 
Washington ©, C, Fall Regatta. 
YACHTING. 
Open Sweepstakes for Catama- 
Unequal Luck. rans, 
FISHCULTURE. Pacific Y. C. Annual Regatta. 
Carp Culture, Yacht Race on Manatee River. 
THe KENNEL. 
Beverly Y. C. 
New York Fall Dog Show. ‘s 
) : Harlem Y. C. Fall Regatta. 
The Philadelphia Dog Show. Knickerbocker Y. ©. Regatta. 
Montreal Dog Show. New Jersey Y. C. Open Regatta. 
Ontario Collie Show and Field | ANsweRs TO CoRRESPONDENTS. 
Trials. PUBLISHERS’ DEPARTMENT. 
THE SUPPORT OF BENCH SHOWS. 
VERY man or club having the pluck is at perfect liberty 
to give one dog show ora dozen. Every owner of a 
bition, 
This liberty being conceded, there yet remains the con- 
sideration of expediency, A dog show is expedient just so 
far as it is beneficial to the interests of breeders and owners. 
The good results are secured iu a variety of ways: public 
appreciation of the several breeds is stimulated; a generous 
rivalry is excited among breeders, and the products of 
ends may be secured, it is essential that the promoters of a 
sentatives of the community of sportsmen, as shall afford 
assurance that the exhibition will be-conducted without a 
uspicion of fraud or prejudice. 
So long as the exhibitor is satisfied that these conditions 
are fulfilled, and has the added guarantee that his dogs will 
be properly cared for at the show, and that any prizes which 
may be awarded them will be promptly paid, clearly the 
If the money to hold the show and to pay the prizes be 
guaranteed, it is not of great importance whether it be guar 
number of individual breeders,as at the forthcoming National 
Breeders’ Show. Wor, so long as the exhibitor receives his 
prizes, need he give himself very much concern as to who 
shares the profits if there are any, or wno makes good the 
losses if any are entailed. 
These are the sound and proper principles by which sports- 
They are go very simple and familiar 
that there would be no need of referring to them now, but 
for the extraordinary attempt which has been made to lead 
the public to forget them, and to substitute others of a less 
tenable nature. Actuated by petty individual malevolence— 
the grounds of which may be explained in due time—a jour- 
nalistic endeavor is being made to prejudice the public 
against the National Breeders’ Show, which is to be held at 
Philadelphia in October. The facts concerning the ex 
hibition have all been published in our columns, and through 
this journal the public has been fully informed of the char- 
acter of the exhibition. The secretary, the sponsors and 
the judges are well known to dog breeders. With men of 
such standing as its promoters, the intelligent exhibitor cau 
readily form an opinion whether or not the Breeders’ Show 
fills the requirements of the exhibitions that should be 
heartily indorsed and cordially supported. ' 
Unless we have most, woefully misjudged the good sense 
of American sportsmen, they will not consent to have their 
eyes blinded by. the ‘mud slinging” to which reference has 
THE KEELY GUN TRIAL, 
At the Government station on Sandy Hook on Saturday 
last a group of gentlemen stood about a very small gun, 
lis bore was only one and a quarter inches, and its projectile 
was a 4% ounce leaden ball, There was no powder in this 
gun, no dynamite, no compressed air, no explosive of any 
kind, so far as any of the spectators could see, ‘‘no nothing,” 
as one of the staring boatmen comprehensively putit. The 
weapon was the new vaporic gun invented and constructed 
by the famous John W. Keely, of motor fame, and this was 
the first trial in public and over an out-door range. The 
gentlemen standing about were army officers and experts in 
other directions of things mechanical. They came, they 
saw, they were convinced that they had seen something, but 
just. what that something was not one of them could com- 
prehend or explain. 
Mr. Keely had come on from Philadelphia to make the 
exhibition, and had brought with him his bottled up force, 
and upon a broad platform raised above the sand a few 
inches the experimental machinery had been arranged. 
Four feet of copper tubing, about the diameter of an electric 
light wire, connected the generator with the gun, entering at 
the vent: The antique bit of ordnance selected hy the 
inyentor to demonstrate the adaptabilily of the mysterious 
power which he has brought to light looked like an ordinary 
yacht cannon, mounted upon a wheeled carriage. In the 
two-inch bore was inserted a brass tube that projected ten 
inches beyond the mouth. The gun barrrel is of steel. The 
large generator, to which was attached the copper wire 
tubing, was of chilled iron, with a holding capacity of five 
gallons. Two feet beyond the generator lay a small heavy 
iron cylinder, resembling in size and appearance a baker’s 
rolling-pin. This the inventor styled the intensifier. It 
was of chilled iron, with a capacity of half a gallon. The 
bore of the copper tube connecting the generator with the 
intensifier was of one-sixteenth of an inch in diameter, in 
appearance the same as that connecting the Jarge cylinder 
with the gun. To load the gun the inventor unscrewed the 
barrel and placed against the orifice in the chamber three 
washers, one of rubber and two of gutt-percha, This was 
to prevent, as he explained, any leakage of the ‘‘etheric 
vapor” with which the gun was about to be charged. 
Screwing the muzzle back in place, he rammed home against 
the washers a leaden ball. 
Then there was a lively scattering for places of safety and 
after the inventor had beat a short tattoo upon the holder of 
the cannon with a wooden mallet, a stop cock was turned 
and the shot went off with a short, sharp sound, There 
was, of course, no smoke; neither was the gun heated 
appreciably, and the recoil was very slight. Shot after 
shot was fired, until in all nineteen had been sent from the 
weapon, The initial velocities were taken and showed some 
variations. The highest was 533 feet per second, or about 
one-third that obtained from an army rifle. Steel bolt shots 
were substituted for the leaden ball and one was sent through 
a three-inch plank, and half way into a second plank. The 
pressure, according to the claim of the inventor, was about 
7,000 pounds to the square inch. 
Of course Mr, Keely was interviewed after the experiment 
and he took up a column of space in telling once more the 
fairy tale of his invention. He confessed that he had 
stumbled on his discuyery and then went on to talk of 
| humming steel cores, and molecules and streams of etheric 
|-vapor, until he had succeeded in creating a fine maze in the 
mind and then gave this explanation which at least has the 
merit of brevity. He said: ‘‘Stripping the process of all 
technical terms, it is simply this: I take water and air, two 
mediums of different specific gravity, and produce from 
them by generation an effect under vibrations that liberates 
from the air and water an interatomic ether. The energy 
of this ether is boundless and can hardly be comprehended. 
The specific gravity of the ether is about four times lighter 
than that of hydrogen gas, the lightest gas so far discovered.” 
Here is the whole thing in a nutshell, and not a very big 
nutat that. There is no extravagance in the use of either 
air or water, since the inventor says that the shots at Sandy 
Hook were fired by the use of six drops of water and a pint 
of air, and that after all of the shots were fired the air and 
-water remained in the cylinders, which were then filled with 
more power or energy than when they started, Now comes 
the era of application after all the years of experimenting. 
been made, nor will they be bullied by such malicious and | ‘‘Complete success is near at hand. The adaptation of my 
fatuous misrepresentations into withholding their support of 
the Breeders’ exhibition, and so being unwittingly used as 
instruments for the wreaking of personal animosity. 
force to gunnery is positively assured,” says the inventor. 
On a large or small seale the thing is bound to succeed, and 
it now only remains for gunners to throw their favorite 
breechloaders into the junk pile and provide themselves 
with this etheric-vaporic shotgun of the future, a wee 
cylinder tucked away in the stock, a moistened cap perhaps, 
and the sportsman is armed for the day. Even the electric 
gun becomes a clumsy contrivance beside it, and the inno- 
vator who has been going about with a battery strapped 
ubout his waist, finds himself nowhere besides this latest 
contrivance for getting something out of nothing, and 
by tickling a modicum of air with a drop of water, 
getting a power beside which the great enginery 
of the world becomes weak in comparison. We are 
promised a big thing, and we shall wait and see whether it 
is only a great stock jobbing bit of clever bluff, or whether 
the long dreamed of power of the future is at hand. The 
improbable is always happening, has been well said, and if 
there is aught more improbable than these doings at Sandy 
Hook, we have yet to hear of it. 
BIRDS, BONNETS AND BUTCHERS. 
N one of her stories, George Elliot tells of the little boy 
who loved birds—that is, loved to throw stones at them. 
Tens of thousands of matrons and maidens love the birds, 
too—that is, to wear them on their hats and bonnets and 
dresses. Birds being in demand for bonnets, butchers axe 
found to supply them. 
The industry of slaughtering birds for their feathers is one 
of such magnitude, that those not familiar with the details 
are loth to credit truthful statistics. We gave some startling 
figures on the subject the other day; but we have the best, 
of reasons for believing that they were moderate estimates 
rather than overstatements. 
This work of bird destruction is well organized and»per- 
sistent. It goes on through spring, summer, autumn and 
winter, from one year’s end to another. There are laws in- 
tended to protect some of the birds killed, and prescribing 
punishments for those who do the killing, But the average 
bird butcher cares little for such laws. He snaps his fingers, 
declares that he is ‘‘going to knock every thing that wears 
feathers higher ’n a kite,” and consigns the game wardens 
to perdition. In most cases, unfortunately, the bird butcher 
is justified in his contempt for the laws. 
Here is one example of the class of milliners’ agent to 
which we have had reference. A man living on the 
eastern end of Long Island acts as a sort of wholesale bird 
skin purveyor for firms in this city. He has turned his 
dwelling into an abattoir and a factory for the conversion of 
bird skins into the various forms demanded by the houses 
for which he works. Sub-agents are constantly employed 
in killing sea birds, song birds and insectivorous birds, and 
bringing them in to bim at so much a head or per dozen, 
Their campaign will be waged so long as there are enough 
birds found on the island to make it pay. Some persons 
may think that when the snow comes and the birds have 
gone the bird butchers’ work will cease. Not a bit of it. 
Birds go south. Butchers can go south, too, The Long 
Island man is up to snuff. When the birds go to Florida, 
then he will be there to meet them. He is making preparations 
for the winter campaign, His boats are already in course of 
construction. He has bargained for his shot in bulk, at 
wholesale prices from the manufacturers. He has engaged 
his assistant butchers. He has provided his cheap guns for 
the negroes who will aid in the work of destruction. His 
chemicals, tools and paraphernalia have been selected with 
the care and knowledge of one who has been there before, 
as he has been, All through the winter on the Florida 
coast, in the bays and inlets, and up the rivers and on the 
lakes, he and his men will gather all that flies. ‘Shoot 
everything that has feathers” is the motto. “If it is not 
called for now,” he explains, ‘it may be some time, and 
then, you see, I'll have it.” When the birds begin to come 
north he will follow along, banging and skinning and pre- 
serving. At Port Royal another headquarters will be 
established, and there he will secure the services of other 
negro gunners. Then, by and by, having completed his cir- 
cuit of bird slaughter, he will swing around to Long Island 
again. 
This is only one. How many more there are we have no 
means of knowing. But this single instance should be 
sufficient to set men to thinking what the end will be, and to 
devise some way in which this shameful war of extermina- 
tion may be interrupted. 
