Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



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NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 3, 1886. 



j VOL. XXV.— No.' 6. 



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



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Forest and Stream PnbllshinK Oo. 

 Nos. 39 AND 40 Park Row. New York City. 



CONTENTS. 



BdITORIAIi. 



A Territorial Dogberry. 



The Menhaden Question. 



Our Trajectory Test. 



The Rancocas Game Preserve. 

 The Sportsman Todrist. 



A Deer Hunt in Eastern Texas. 

 Natxjral History. 



Tarantula Hawks and Tarantula 



Origin of American Dogs. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



Foreign Game Birds in America 



Adirondack Deer. 



Dick's Last Woodcock. 



Grouse in New England. 



Two Weeks in MicUigan. 



The Choice of Uutis.— iii. 



"Quail" and "Partridge." 



Where Our Quail Wenc To. 

 Sea and RrvER Fishinp. 



Optics and ADglitig. 



Murder Most Foul. 



Trouting Long Ago. 



A Restigouche Salmon Score. 



Fly-Fishing for Bass. 



Reflections on the Catfish. 

 Fishcflture. 



The Use of the Throwing-Stiek 

 by Esquimaux. 

 The Kennel. 



Standard Revi.?ion . 



The Kennel. 



With St. Bernards at thcHospice 



The Rancocas Kennels. 



Western Field Trials Association 



Show Distemper. 



Kennel Management. 



Kennel Notes. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 



Range and Gallery. 



The Trap. 



The New England Trap Shoot. 

 Canoeing. 



Canoe MeaBtiremeut, Gear, etc. 



Buffalo C. C. Races, Aug. 29. 



Chicago C. C. Annual Regatta. 



From Port .Jervis to Passaic by 

 Water. 

 Yachting. 



The Issues in the Coming Races. 



Greenwich Y. C. Annual Re- 

 gatta, Aug. 26. 



Beverly Y. C. 



South Boston Y. C. Fourth 

 Championship, Aug. 29. 



Hull Y. C, Ladies' Day. 



The Arrangements for the Races 



How to See the Races. 



The Previous Races for the 

 America Cup. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



The Forestry Congi'ess. 



.4 TERBITOBIAL DOGBERRY. 

 \ DETAILED consideration of the condition of affairs 

 in tlie National Park may well enough be postponed 

 until the assembling of the next Congress, but the very glar. 

 ing instance of official maladministration noted in these 

 columns last week demands present notice. 



It will be remembered that at one time last year there 

 appeared every probability that a bill placing the Yellow- 

 stone Park under jurisdiction of Wyoming Territory would 

 become a law. In anticipation of this event the Legislature 

 of Wyoming 'passed a bill providing for the election of two 

 justices of the peace and of constables to carry out the law, 

 and established certain penalties for specified offenses. As 

 is well known, the Congressional bill failed to pass, and mat- 

 ters therefore remain as they were before it was introduced. 

 Notwithstanding this fact, officials provided for by the 

 Wyoming bill were elected and have been administering 

 justice— of a certain kind— ever since. The headquarters of 

 one of these justices is at the Mammoth Hot Springs, while 

 the other holds his court in the Firehole Basin. It is with 

 the latter that we have to do. 



The Wyoming law provides that, in cases where lines are 

 imposed, one-half the sum shall go to the informer and the 

 other half to the Territorial treasury. The justice at the 

 Firehole has in a number of cases imposed very heavy lines 

 for trivial breaches of the regulations. These have been in 

 a number of cases so disproportionate to the offenses com- 

 mitted, that he has laid himself open to grave suspicion. He 

 fined a Bozeman banker $50 for the failure to extinguish a 

 Are, though it was clearly demonstrated that the fire was 

 built in a damp meadow near the water, that the grass, which 

 was green, had been carefully tramped down about it, and 

 that, when the parties moved camp the fire had all burued 

 out, and only a few smouldering coals were still alive among 

 the white ashes. These still gave forth a little smoke. It 

 was further shown that the persons who left this Are in this 

 state were old camper.s who understood all about fires and 

 the danger which exists of their spreading. Evidently, in 

 such a case, a word of warning, or at most a nominal fine 

 would have had greater weight than that which was im- 

 posed; but in that case the informer's half of the fine would 

 have been worth very little. 



Other similar cases have occurred in which this justice has 

 come down with twenty-ton force upon people whose inten- 

 tions were of the very best. 



In the case referred to last week, however, he caught a 

 Tartar. We said the other day that we thought the press 

 dispatches of the occurrence must have been sensational, 

 but advices from a staff correspondent of the Forest and 

 Stream who is now in the Park, confirm the perfect pro- 

 priety of Judge Paysou's course. Judge Payson is a mem- 

 ber of Congress from Illinois and one of the Committee on 

 Public Lands. He was in the Natienal Park on a camping 

 trip, and on moving camp one day, the fire was extinguished, 

 water being poured over it. Soon after leaving camp, how- 

 ever, a constable came up with the party, and arresting the 

 judge took him before the justice, who, after hearing the 

 evidence, fined him $60 and costs, the whole amounting to 

 S|72.80. It is stated by one who is in a position to be in- 

 formed on the subject, that there could have been no fire on 

 the ground abandoned by the party, and that it would have 

 taken hard blowing among the ashes to find even a spark. 

 The injustice of the procedure somewiiat aroused Judge 

 Payson's ire, and he protested very vigorously against the 

 fine. The justice having this by time received a hint as to who 

 the offender was, reduced the tine to $10 and costs. Judge 

 Payson then proved to him that the costs could not legally 

 be more than $4, and finally the justice is said to have cleared 

 the court room of all but the defendent and to have asked 

 his opinion as a lawyer as to whether he could lawfully re- 

 mit all the costs. Altogether it was a very comic scene. 

 We should scarcely expect to find among the mountains of 

 Northern Wyoming a character from Shakespeare, but there, 

 in the Firehole Basin, in this year of our Lord 1885, is Dog- 

 berry to the life. 



It is a matter of common report in the Park that there is 

 an understanding between the justice and the officials mak- 

 ing the arrests, that the part of the fine which shall be paid 

 to the informer is to be divided between them. 



Quite apart from the abstract justice of these cases, and 

 from the motives which may govern those interested in them, 

 is the question of jurisdiction. The oiiginal act, setting 

 aside the Yellowstone Park as a National pleasure ground, 

 places it under the control of the Secretary of the Interior. 

 This law has never fceen changed— although, as we have 

 said, the bill placing it under the jurisdiction of Wyoming 

 came very near passing last year — and the Park is still a 

 National reservation. Until it is authorized to do so by 

 Congress, Wyoming has no more right to direct the course 

 of justice in the Yellowstone Park than has Rhode Island. 



On the ground that any law is better than no law at all, it 

 may be admitted that the justices in the Park have done 

 some good. Indeed, we know they have. But one of them 

 has also done a vast amount of harm. He has rendered the 

 regulations odious to a number of people, and he has brought 

 upon Wyoming justice, as interpreted by him, the heartj^ 

 contempt of all who know about his acts. 



Judge Metcalf, on the other hand, who holds court at the 

 Mammoth Hot Springs, seems to be a sensible man, whose 

 ideas as to the administration of his office are very just. The 

 Dogberry of the Firehole has certainly succeeded in having 

 himself written down an ais. 



THE MENHADEN QUEST WN. 

 jj^OR some years there have been all sorts of opinions 

 ^ printed in our columns concerning the effect of the 

 captm-e of enormous quantities of the fish variously called 

 menhaden, moss-bunker, bony fish, pogy, and other names. 

 These opinions have been expressed by anglers and by the 

 men in the employ of the great fish oil factories along the 

 coast. Anglers are unanimous in claiming that the capture 

 of these fish by the hundred millions interferes seriously with 

 the supply of the food and game fish which feed principally 

 upon the menhaden. They assert that the absence of their 

 natural food accounts for the absence of the bluefish, weak- 

 fish, and striped bass, and that if the menhaden were undis- 

 turbed at the season when they spawn along our shores there 

 would be a great increase in the number of the food fish 

 which would come to prey upon them, but which at present 

 seek better feeding grounds. 



On the other hand the oil men, backed by Prof. G. Brown 

 Goode, who has made a study of the menhaden and its habits, 

 claim that their catch by the netters is only a fraction of the 

 daily destruction among the countless swarms of the defense- 

 less menhaden, which is preyed upon by its natural enemies. 

 They affirm that these enemies which harrass the schools 

 night and day, kill a hundred fold more than man can ever 

 destroy by netting. They have denied that menhaden ever 



forms a part of the diet of the striped hass, or that the blue- 

 fish mainly subsist on them. 



Those of our readers who are interested in this question 

 will remember the various articles, pro and con , which we 

 have occasionally published during the past four or five 

 years, and no doubt many have formed opinions on the sub- 

 ject. We have been looking over the evidence in the hope 

 of arriving at something like a fair estimate of the case and . 

 may soon have something to say on it. There are a variety 

 of things to be taken into consideration in formulating an 

 opinion upon, any subject so complex as the influence of the 

 abundance or scarcity of one species upon another species or 

 group. The Congressional committee appointed to investi- 

 gate questions connected Avith the fisheries, last year, found 

 so many conflicting opinions among the fishermen that they 

 were often in doubt on questions which seemed perfectly 

 plain from ex parte statements. The same difficulties beset 

 Prof. Baird in 1871-72, when he began his investigations on 

 the subject of the decrease of our sea fishes. Anglers can 

 readily appreciate this when they consider the great differ- 

 ences of opinion among some of our most expert anglers 

 concerning the status of one of the black basses, therefore 

 it is necessary to weigh the evidence in the menhaden ques- 

 tion well before saying much on the subject. 



OUR TRAJECTORY TEST. 

 ''F'HE preparations for the coming test of rifles as to tra^" 

 jectory lines are gradually completing, and with the 

 plan adopted we hope to make them short, sharp and decis- 

 ive. Every day shows that the plan of having such a trial 

 will meet the wishes of a large number of hunters and others 

 having arms of which they would gladly get exact data. 

 Suggestions and hints have poured in upon us, but many of 

 them being in the nature of repetition have not appeared in 

 print. From present appearances we shall probably have a 

 score of rifles to test. The list of weapons might be extended 

 indefinitely, but much of the work would be valueless because 

 of the same conditions of barrel and charge. If we fix with 

 exactness the figures for certain typical forms of rifle we 

 think we shall have done all that the problem demands and 

 shall feel satisfied that the outlay has not been a vain one. 

 There is yet time for further notes and comments for those 

 wishing to make them and we should be glad to hear from 

 our readers generally on the points to be covered hy the 

 trial. 



The Catfish in England. — In another column we re- 

 print from English papers some comments adverse to the 

 introduction of the catfish into the waters of Albion. It 

 does not appear, however, that any of the writers have had 

 a personal introduction to the "catty," and they prejudge 

 him only from the standpoint of conservatism and preju- 

 dice. The solitary member of the family found in Europe 

 is the very uninteresting SUurus glanis oi the Danube, not 

 at all to be compared to any of our numerous species. We 

 predict that when English anglers haul the festive "cat" from 

 its lair, gaze on its expansively open countenance with ilg 

 nine-inch smile, and its cheery "glug glug,'" as it expresses 

 its delight at leaving the ooze for the upper air, their hearts 

 will be won by the unassuming creature which tickles their 

 palms with the spines of its dorsal and pectoral fins. They 

 will hail with delight, too, the American fashion of stealing 

 a fence rail to sit on, and to jab the aforesaid pectoral spines 

 into, until, shouldering the filled rail with its struggling 

 appendages, they march home in triumph, having not only a 

 fine breakfast, but also wood enough to cook it. Their ang- 

 ling papers will teem with essays on the proper mode of 

 skinning the "catties," and a new impulse will be given to 

 the angling literature of Great Britian, now laden with 

 accounts of chubs and dace. 



An Artistic Consideration. — The London Saturdcnj 

 Reineic expresses the opinion that the America Cup is "one 

 of the ugliest cups ever produced by an English silversmith, 

 and that is saying a good deal." Well, that depends largely 

 upon the point of view. Looked at across an ocean perhaps 

 the cup is not so pretty; but seen closer it is by no means an 

 ugly mug, and just now on this side of the water we have 

 the advantage of the closer inspection. 



A Half-Tamed Fox is one of the attractions at Cornwall, 

 an Orange county summer resort. If it ever becomes wholly 

 tamed it ought to be taken to Newport for the gallant 

 "huntsmen" to chase. 



At the Forestry Congress to be held in Boston Sept. 

 32-24, a number of papers on important and tircely subjects 

 will be read. The programme is printed on another page. 



