Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, $4 a Ykar. 10 Cts. a Copy. 1 

 Six Months, $3. } 



NEW YORK, MAY 14, 1885. 



j VOL. XXIV.— No. 16. 



( Noa. 39 & 40 Park Bow, New York. 



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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Fish Legislation. 



The Deer Hounding Bill. 



New York Forestry Bill. 



The Park Needs a Superin- 

 tendent. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



Wild Boar Shooting in Syria. 

 Natural History. 



The Birds of Michigan. 



New York and Science. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



Notes from Rochester. 



The Bore of Guns. 



Some Remarkable Shots. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



Black Bass in Lake Champlain. 



Snellms: Hooks. 



The Willewenioe Club's Waters. 



Protection for the Potomac. 



The Tarpon as a Game Fish. 



The Pioneer Sea Fish. 



A Home-Made Minnow Net. 

 Fishculture. 



The American Fisheries Society 



The Menhaden Question. 

 The Kennel. 



The Pittsburgh Piece of Paper. 



The Kennel. 



Bruno. 



Cincinnati Dog Show. 



The Bench Show Novice. 



New Jersey Kennel and Field 

 Trials Club. 



Canine Therapeutics. 



Kennel Management. 



Kennel Notes. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 



Give the Proof. 



Range and Gallery. 



The Trap. 



The National Gun Association. 

 Canoeing. 



Knickerbocker C. C. 



Whispered (Aside) to the Novice 



The Canoe Fever. 



Sherbrooke C. C. 



The Association Badges. 



Springfield C. C. 

 Yachting. 



A Cruise in Florida Waters.— u. 



Notes from Lake Ontario. 



The Voyagre of the Carmelita. 



The Keel Cutter Dart. 



The Cup Races. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



THE PARK NEEDS A SUPERINTENDENT. 



HERE in America we are too much accustomed to the 

 discovery of inefficiency and unfaithfulness in our 

 public officers to have it cause much surprise. The practice 

 of appointing men to office as a reward for political services 

 has long prevailed, and the natural result of this pernicious 

 system has led to gross maladministration in many places, 

 high and low. The appointee is apt to look upon his 

 position not as one in which he is bound to do faithful 

 service for the government which pays him, but rather as a 

 sort of a claim which opens up to him various avenues, 

 either for the accumulation of wealth, or for the strengthen- 

 ing of his political influence, and consequent paving the 

 way to further and more desirable political honors. That 

 this view of a public office is a low and degrading one is so 

 evident, that to a man of ordinarily keen perceptions no 

 demonstration of it is needed. It is apparent and is daily 

 becoming better understood, that the public servants who 

 hold their positions in such estimation as this are unfit to 

 longer occupy them. A man who uses his official position 

 for his own private gain is out of place in an office, and 

 should give way to some one who has more just ideas of his 

 duty toward the public. 



We pointed out several weeks ago that the Superintendent 

 of the Yellowstone National Park had in a variety of ways 

 shown an utter failure to comprehend what he owed to the 

 public, whose interests he was appointed to guard. He en- 

 tered on his duties last fall, but left the Park in December 

 and passed most of the winter in Washington, where he held 

 close relations with one of the Hobarts, who was a principal 

 of the notorious Park Improvement Company. The vigor- 

 ous, but, happily, unavailing efforts of this company to 

 obtain a monopoly of the National Park are too familiar to 

 our readers to make it necessary to recall them. This close 

 affiliation of the Superintendent with the Improvement Com- 

 pany was of itself enough to destroy his usefulness in his 

 position, for the relations which that corporation holds 

 toward the Government are so well known in the Territory 

 that the mere suspicion of an understanding between the 

 executive officer of the Park and the company would at once 

 destroy all respect for laws and regulations. Trespassers 

 and poachers would feel that the Improvement Company 

 was to receive favors and privileges which could not with 

 justice be denied them. The authority of the Secretary 

 of the Interior would thus be brought into contempt, and 

 there would be nothing in the way of the lawbreakers, who 

 would renew the work of destruction and slaughter. 



It is with the actions of the Superintendent and the results 



which would follow these actions that we have to do. TSTo 

 matter what his motives, the worst results will ensue if he be 

 allowed to retain his position. A fool can often accomplish 

 more harm than a knave. Besides taking, by his relations 

 with the Improvement Company, a position hostile to the 

 public, the Superintendent has proved himself inefficient. 

 His duties are in the Park, but he had scarcely shown him- 

 self there, and taken a look about him, when we find him 

 back again in Washington, where — with but a short interval 

 —he passed the winter. During his absence almost all the 

 horses were withdrawn from the Park, and it was made im- 

 possible for the assistants who wintered there to see what 

 was going on, except in the immediate vicinity of the points 

 at which they were stationed. Thus he not only neglected 

 his own duty, but prevented his assistants from performing 

 theirs. 



The crowning act of culpability, and we may also add 

 stupidity, was the filing a claim to a portion of the National 

 Park. It is difficult to understand how any one could be 

 guilty of such a hopeless blunder. If Carpenter knew any- 

 thing at all about the Park, he must have known that a 

 number of people were watching closely the course of events 

 in it, and if he had thought of the matter a little, he would 

 have seen that it was impossible for bis course to remain long 

 unknown. His action indicated either the height of audacity 

 or a most dense ignorance. Whichever it may have been, 

 the action of itself showed most clearly how unfit a man 

 Carpenter is for the important position of Superintendent. 



The season for active work in the Park is at hand, and it 

 is important that an efficient and honest Superintendent 

 should be on the ground when there is so much work to be 

 done. The responsibility in the case rests with the Secre- 

 tary of the Interior, who alone, under present conditions, 

 has the power to remove a delinquent official and appoint 

 his successor. 



EISH LEGISLATION. 



IN the State of New York there is pressing need of some 

 law restraining legislation on questions relating to fish 

 and fishculture. Hardly a winter passes without the laws 

 being tinkered by some well-meaning but ill-advised persons 

 in the interests of what they believe to be for either the 

 protection or propagation of fish. This in its turn necessi- 

 tates counter-tiakering. and confusion is the result. The 

 remedy for this state of things is to pass a law that all bills 

 relating to the fisheries or to fishculture shall receive the 

 approval of the majority of the Board of Commissioners of 

 Fisheries before oeing sent for the signature of the Governor. 

 These gentlemen have for years paid attention to the needs 

 of the fisheries, and in their zeal have served the State faith- 

 fully without other pay than occasional abuse from un- 

 appreciative people who fancy that their locality is neglected 

 or who have some private grievance. 



We have recently said much on the last trout law, which 

 was amended in the Senate after one of the Commissioners 

 had seen and approved it, and it is not our purpose to refer 

 to it again at this time. We wish to call attention to a bill 

 which some one had introduced to compel the Commissioners 

 of Fisheries to stock Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence 

 Paver, and which compelled the Governor to veto the entire 

 appropriation for fishculture in order to defeat this scheme. 

 The Governor's veto is sensible and just, and the only regret 

 is that it must include the other appropriation, for the 

 objectionable item cannot be separated from the others. In 

 his message the Governor gives the following reasons for his 

 veto: 



" 'For the Commissioners of Fisheries, to be expended as 

 they may deem proper upon the vouchers to be approved by 

 the Controller, for the purpose of replenishing the lakes, 

 rivers and other waters of this State with fish, as provided 

 in chapter 285 of the laws of 1868, chapter 507 of the laws 

 of 1870, chapter 74 of the laws of 1873, chapter 523 of the 

 laws of 1875, and chapter 309 of the laws of 1879, $26,000, 

 of which sum the Commissioners are hereby directed to 

 expend $2,500 in stocking Lake Ontario with pike, white- 

 fish and salmon trout, and $1,000 in stocking St. Lawrence 

 River with black bass and California trout.' This item is 

 objected to and not approved for the reason that in the last 

 clause the Commissioners are directed to spend $3,500 in 

 stocking Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. The 

 high character and fitness of the Commissioners are well 

 known, and the Legislature has very properly recognized 

 these qualities in appropriating $23,500 ^to be expended as 

 they may deem proper. I see no reason why they should be 

 'directed' to stock this mighty lake and river, half the 

 waters of which belong to a foreign government, even 

 though they may deem it useless. They are the best judges 



of the needs of the State, and should be permitted 

 to expend the money untrammeled. If, in their 

 judgment, waters can and should be stocked, I doubt not 

 they will attend to the matter. The principle of directing 

 expert officials how to expend money appropriated for their 

 uses I believe to be wrong, and should not be countenanced 

 even in so small a matter as this. The Fish Commissioners 

 should receive all the money the public means demand, and 

 they should expend it as they deem proper." 



The only remedy now at hand is to have another bill 

 framed which excludes the items objected to, or to pass the 

 whole over the veto. We entirely agree with the reasons 

 given by the Governor, and believe that the Commissioners 

 should have something to say on all legislation pertaining to 

 their department, which their experience and years of study 

 qualifies them to judge of. This would prevent the passage 

 of all hasty and ill-advised bills and would not be productive 

 of evil in any case. 



NEW YORK FORESTRY BILL. 

 'T^HE Assembly passed last week a compromise forestry 

 -*- bill, which has been approved by the New York 

 Chamber of Commerce and the Board of Trade. It pro- 

 vides for the appointment of three Commissioners, to serve 

 six years, without pay; and these Commissioners are to 

 employ a forest warden, inspectors, agents, etc. 



All State lands now owned or which may be acquired in 

 the counties of Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Fulton, Hamilton, 

 Herkimer, Lewis, Saratoga, St. Lawrence, Warren, Wash 

 ington, Greene, Ulster, Delaware and Sullivan shall consti- 

 tute the forest preserve. These lands shall be forever kept 

 as wild forest lands. They shall not be sold, nor shall they 

 be leased or taken by any person or corporation, public or 

 private. 



The Commissioners are to maintain and protect the forests, 

 and through the wardens as agents they are to punish tres- 

 pass; and town supervisors are made forest protectors. The 

 Commissioners are to take measures to impart through the 

 public schools elementary instruction upon forestry. A very 

 important and wholesome provision relates to the precau- 

 tions against forest fires to be taken by railroads passing 

 through forest lands. The bill, on the whole, is a capital 

 beginning, and if it becomes a law, New York State will be 

 well started in forestry reform. 



THE DEER HOUNDING BILL. 



THE bill to forbid the bounding of deer in this State is 

 still unsigned in the hands of Governor Hill. After 

 hesitating to give it his signature, the Governor last week 

 intimated that his objections to it referred to the clause of 

 the bill which concerned the giving of evidence. Upon this 

 the bill was recalled and passed a second time by the Senate 

 and Assembly, receiving a larger vote than on its first passage. 

 Now that it has again come to Governor Hill with the 

 objectional portion removed, we cannot conceive any reason 

 for this delay. The bill is what the people want. Public 

 sentiment demands, and this with no uncertain voice, that 

 the water butchery of deer in the North Woods be stopped. 

 Governor Hill cannot afford to disregard this sentiment; he 

 cannot afford to withhold his signature from the bill, not 

 even to please the few personal friends who are seeking to 

 influence him for their own selfish ends. 



Massachusetts.— The Massachusetts Senate is consider- 

 ing a new game bill, of which the provisions have become 

 by repeated amendments so vague that in the present stage 

 it is quite impossible to forecast what the character of the 

 several sections may be when they come up for final action. 

 One clause provides for the posting of land, and declares 

 that the game on such land "shall be the exclusive property 

 of the persofl preserving the same." Another clause permits 

 the snaring of ruffed grouse "by owners of land upon their 

 land, or by any person or persons authorized by them, " be- 

 tween certain dates. This might do for the interior of Africa, 

 but the Massachusetts Legislators under the gilt dome ought 

 to be heartily ashamed of it. 



The Duck Netting Bill. — Misled by an erroneous 

 report from Albany last week we stated that Senator Otis's 

 duck netting bill had passed the Assembly. On the contrary, 

 owing to the opposition of his constituents on Long Island, 

 Senator Otis has withdrawn his bill. So the Long Island 

 duck netters will have things all their owu way, and can 

 play heathen a while longer. 



