FOREST AND STREA 
A WEEKLY JOURNAL OF THE ROD AND GUN. 
TERMS, $4 AYwar. 10 Cts, A Copy. 
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NEW YORK, OCTOBER 16, 1884. 
5 VOL. XXI1I.—No. 12. 
) Nos. 39 & 40 PARK Row, New Yor«E. 
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Nos. 389 anp 40 PARE Row. New Yore Crry, 
CONTENTS. 
TH KENNEL. 
Modern Journalism. 
National Breeders’ Dog Show. 
Retrieving Woodcock. 
Philadelphia Kennel Club. 
The Kennel Hospital, 
The Esquimau Dogs, 
Danbury Dog Show. 
EDITORIAL. 
Progress of Military Marksman- 
ship. 
The Dielieh Sparrow Problem, 
Angling Through a Lens. 
THE SPORTSMAN TOURIST. 
Tog of the Bucktail.—1yv. 
A Voyage Between the Lakes. 
Florida Again.—1. Stafford Dog Show, 
NatuRAL History. Kennel Notes. 
American Ornithologists’ Union | RIFLE AND TRAP SHOOTING. 
A Fish-Eating Bug. Range and Gallery. 
Notes on the Guillemotts. Massachusetts Militia Shoot, 
Game Baa anp Gun. The Trap. 
Some Experience with Turkeys. | Toronto Gun Club. 
California Duck Shooting. New Orleans Tournament. 
CANOEING. 
©urves of Sporting Rifles, 
New England Game. Pittsburgh C, C. Sailing Race. 
The New Jersey Societies. The Revised Association Rules. 
Central Illinois Association. The Drowning of Mr. Conklin. 
The Galley Fire. 
The Old Dog’s Revenge. 
Food of Ruffed Grouse. More about Mushrooms. 
Breeding of Quail. Ash and Batter Cakes. 
Adirondack Game Protection. Squirrels, Rabbits and Opos- 
Philadelphia Notes. sums, 
Sma AND RIVER FIsHina. YACHTING. 
Lights and Fog Signals. 
‘frouting in Maine. 
The Sliced Hook, The Thorn-Gracie Race. 
Minnow Casting for Black Bass, Knickerbocker Y. C. 
The Tournament. British or American Cutters. 
The Big Pike. A Long Cruise ina Small Yacht, 
Another Cutter Victory. 
FISHOULTURE. 
Gilnets for Codfish. ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
With tts compact type and in its permanently enlarged form 
of twenty-eight pages this journal furnishes each week 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. 
PROGRESS OF MILITARY MARKSMANSHIP. 
4 bees range shooting season is closing in good style, and in 
the rifle columns will be found the notes of the regular 
official testing day for the militia of two States, while at 
another range in the far West, the picked men from the 
several sections of the U. §. Army met and fought out their 
peaceful battle for supremacy in the peaceful art of well 
doing. In one State the men were out for their first regular 
practice, and it goes without saying almost that the shoot- 
ing was of the wildest sort, and that a wounded cow 
feelingly remarked the want of accurate aim on the part of 
the men. In another State the general grade of shooting 
was far better, for it was a State where there has been an 
intelligent system of practice carried on for some years, and 
under an energetic head of the department the State has 
been amply repaid for the outlay in the matter of ranges and 
ammunition. The work of the regular army in the matter 
of rifle practice has before been commented upon in these 
columns. Under an almost overpowering load of red tape, 
and despite the temptation to make scores for the annual 
reports rather than for the real improvement of the men, 
there has still remained a broad margin of actual progress, 
and from the highest to the lowest member of the petty 
force which stands for Uncle Sam’s present potentiality in 
the matter of warfare, there is not a man who has not a 
better idea to-day of how to handle a rifle and what may be 
done with the weapon than he had five or ten years ago. 
The scores made within the last few days sustain the claim 
made by those in charge of army practice that officers and 
men are making good advancement with each recurring 
season of out-door drill. 
But while a half dozen States may be carrying on practice 
with some degree of regularity and method, there are a 
Score or more other States where nothing whatever is doing 
on this important branch of home guard work. There was 
a time not yery long since when the whole question of rifle 
practice was in the nature of an unsolved problem, It was 
a question whether or not it would be possible to get the 
members of the National Guard out on the ranges in such a 
way as to show real advance in the art, and that without 
undue expense or outlay of time and labor. There were 
errors made at the start and some vast picnics were had 
under the name of range practice, Then it was a question 
which is not yet fully settled just how far the practice should 
be carried, over what ranges and what system of rewards 
and penalties is best calculated to bring about the best 
results, Ten years haye been taken up in working out 
many of these questions, and there now exists for the use of 
whoever may wish to profit by it, a mass of valuable 
information, put away in reports of petty and superior 
officers. 
In the States where as yet no system of rifle practice is in 
existence, all that is needed is to open correspondence with 
the officers of these older commonwealths and the way is at 
once clear for a start on a excellent system of practice. It 
will be found that a large amount of work may be focalized 
about arange. The men who get tired of the routine of 
room drill and armory work, will go with energy into the 
contests of the range. Especially will this be the case if the 
system put afoot in the State includes some sort of annual 
gathering by which the merits of the men may be tested on 
a commen battle ground. Very soon comparisons would be 
instituted between the work done in different States. Small 
arin manufacturers would be compelled to produce excellent 
work, and cartridge makers would cease from flooding the 
market with the rubbish now too often sent out. 
The way is open to a rapid extension of rifle practice over 
the whole country. Once putin operation, something might 
be done toward getting Congress to take up the question of 
a really National Militia, and by a corps of semi-detached 
officers from the regular army, introduce an uniformity 
of drill and methods much wanted in the ranks of the 
Volunteers. Through the opening wedge of rifle practice 
the whole question of an effective home guard may be 
opened, while to have a uniformed force and neglect the 
important matter of out-door ball practice is the very height 
of arrant nonsense, We had such a pretty useless mummery 
of war in our regular army for many years. The New York 
State Guard was a similar force of paraders and show. This 
has now been changed, and it is doubtful whether any State 
could afford to have such a show long in yogue. Press and 
public would laugh it out of existence, even if a mob did not 
do it more roughly and expeditiously. 
THE ENGLISH SPARROW PROBLEM. 
T the meeting of the American Ornithologists’ Union 
held last month, the English sparrow was again de- 
nourced. 
We do not learn that any arguments were then brought 
forward against this species that have not appeared time and 
again in these columns. The committee to whom this sub- 
ject was intrusted occupied themselyes in collecting ina 
systematic way from all the sources at their command evi- 
dence for or against the bird, This evidence, when ob- 
tained, was brought together, sifted and weighed, with the 
result which we long ago predicted. 
The conclusion having been reached that the English spar- 
row is in all respects a most undesirable addition to our 
fauna, the question arises, what is to be done to remedy the 
evil which the hasty and ill-considered action of a few indi- 
viduals has brought upon us? This question is more easily 
asked than answered. We know that in Australia much in- 
genuity, time and money have been unavailingly expended 
in efforts to rid the country of this curse. The sparrow’s 
fecundity is something startling, and it seems impossible to 
hold the species in check. 
One method which, so far as it goes, will prove very effec- 
tual, is to encourage those small species of predatory birds 
which destroy the sparrow for food, Such are the shrikes, 
the screech-owls and the smaller hawks, the sparrow-hawk 
and sharpshin. We have no sympathy with the sentiment- 
alists who would shed tears over the spectacle of the sparrow 
in the claws of a hawk, and it is certain that there is no 
more efficient method of getting rid of the sparrows than by 
permitting their natural enemies to destroy them. A shrike 
or a little owl will, if undisturbed, spend a whole winter in 
a locality where sparrows are abundant, and will during 
that time kill a great many. 
The common policy of slaying these small predatory birds ! 
at every opportunity is a very mischievous one, and deserves 
the severest condemnation. They are birds that do almost _ 
no harm at all, while the destruction which they work to 
many injurious animals can scarcely be computed. A spar- 
row-hawk or a sharpshin may kill half a dozen quail, or a 
few English snipe during a season, but usually it flies at 
much smaller game, and kills grasshoppers, beetles and mice 
in great numbers, thus doing much to save the farmers’ crops. 
The usefulness of these birds should be everywhere recog- 
nized, and instead of being destroyed they should be pro- 
tected. 
It would be interesting to learn whether any efficient plan 
for destroying the sparrows has yet been devised. We have 
heard of none that promised success; but there are, no doubt, 
many minds at work on the problem. 
It is not now so much a question of getting rid of the 
sparrows, as of checking their increase before they spread 
over the whole land and kill or drive away all our native 
birds. What may ultimately be expected of them can be 
inferred from the report of their destructiveness in some of 
the districts of Australia, as deteiled a year or two sinc2 in 
ForrEsT AND STREAM, 
ANGLING THROUGH A LENS. 
a fit IS not all of fishing to fish,” Some men profess to 
hold that part of the sport is found in clambering 
over rocks and through tangles, in rowing one’s boat to the 
springholes, and in the various other pliases of toil and 
hardship through which the persevering angler, imbued 
with the true afflatus, must pass before he attains to the cap- 
ture of the prize. There are others whose belief and practice 
are that the best fishing is the easiest fishing; and if is not 
to be denied that they aré often right, An extreme case has 
just come to our notice; we will give the facts and the 
reader—‘‘true sportsman” or otherwise—can draw the moral. 
Our correspondent ‘‘Piseco,” who recently made a trip 
to the Maine lakes (going from the Brooklyn Navy Yard by 
way of Lisbon, Spain, and Naples, Italy, to Kennebago), 
writes that he had poor luck up there, and might better have 
followed the example set to ardent fishermen by the veteran 
Commodore Pickering, U. 8. N. Commodore Pickering is 
upward of seventy-five years of age, and still devoted to rod 
and gun. Having fully satisfied himself of the angling re- 
sources of the Upper Dam, he concluded to do his angling 
through lenses. He set his rod with the flies gracefully 
spread on the lawn in front of the house, took his station on 
the veranda in the most comfortable easy chair he could find, 
provided an entertaining book for recreation between strikes, 
and equipped himself with a field glass, through which he 
might watch the other anglers on the lake, and participate in 
their fun, whenever they had a strike. 
That was angling with ease and dignity, and at the end 
of the day the Commodore had just as many fish as at least 
one of the boats whose fickle fortunes he followed through 
the afternoon. But what becomes of the ‘‘electric thrill” 
that comes when one is actually at the buttt of a rod and a 
fair-sized fish at the end of the line? 
THE REBUKE 18 ADMINISTERED.—Last week, in speaking 
of the National Breeders’ Show and the extraordinary attacks 
made upon it, we ventured the opinion that ‘‘the character 
of the entry list would be such as would administer a signal 
rebuke to the presumption that had sought to satisfy a per- 
sonal grudge by misleading the public into serving its ends.” 
The event has proved thal this estimate of the intelligence 
and common sense of dog owners was decidely correct. The 
rebuke has been administered, and in such an emphatic 
manner that there can be no possible dodging it. The en- 
tries at the National Breedcers’ Show uumber 359, which 
are 50 odd more than the average of all the shows in 1883-4, 
outside of New York. This rebuke to the officious opposers 
of the enterprise ought not to be without its salutary influence. 
A few more rebukes of just this kind will perhaps so discour- 
age the peculiar class of gentry who beat Mongolian tom- 
toms and fire stink pots that they will give over these anti- 
quated, ridiculous and indecent implements of warfare for 
the more legitimate and becoming methods of modern jour- 
nalism, 
TRINOMIALS Aporrpp.—At the recent meeting of the 
American Ornithologists’ Union, in this city, the Committee 
on Revision of Nomenclature unanimously adopted the 
tenth edition of Linneeus’s Systema Nature as the starting 
point in Zoological Nomenclature; it unflinchingly avowed 
its adherance to the rule of priority, and emphatically and 
unequivocally indorsed the employment of trincmials in the 
designation of sub-species. 
