Sept. 3, 1885. J 



107 



"QUAIL" AND "PARTRIDGE." 



Ml'iior Forest and Stremn: * 



Your correspondent "S." is somewhat of a cayiller. Ho 

 asks if a Bob White does not more resemble a quail than 

 a Bob White? By no means. He is as much like a Bob 

 Wliite as two black-eyed peas, and a,bout as much like a 

 quail as a navy bean. That is, if we Icnow what a quail is, 

 and we must confess that our knowledge of that somewhat 

 mythical bird is mainly derived from scripture, where he is 

 described as coming down upon the camp of the hosts of 

 Israel in countless muUitude; and the people of Israel killed 

 them with slicks, and devoured them until they were com- 

 pletely surfeited; insomuch that the quail stuck out of their 

 nostrils. 



It is related by some authority, whom I cannot now call 

 ■to mind, that even at the present day, immense flights of 

 quail cross the Mediterranean Sea, and alight upon its 

 shores in an exhausted condition, so that they maybe picked 

 'up by the hand. It is described as being a smaller biixl than 

 our Southern partiidge, and much given to republican ways, 

 discarding the ancient patriarchal form of government, 

 which our bird clings to with such tenacity. 



The remarks of "S." about the propensity of Southerners 

 to miscall bass, trout, is true enough, .but tliis is the result of 

 ignorance, or a habit horn in ignorance, rather than a will- 

 ful purpose to go wrong. The fact is, we have no trout in 

 this region, and it was a natural error to fall into, by those 

 early settlers who, finding the black and striped hass closely 

 resembling trout in general characteristics, and not beina: up 

 in lish nomenclature, readily fell into the habit of calling 

 them trout. Ask a Southern negro fisherman, or uneducate(i 

 white if there are any bass in this neighborhood, he will tell 

 you he never saw one, but that theie are plenty of trout. 



We will clicerfuUy give up your trout, Mr^ "S.," but for 

 mercy's sake let us have our partridge— the partridge of our- 

 daddies — the bird which is associated with our most agreea- 

 ble boyhood reminiscences — which we bore home in triumph, 

 as the result of oiu- first exploit, albeit accidental, in shoot- 

 ing on the wing— and felt like a hero for a month after. 



We have been raised to call this bird partridge, and our 

 affections go out to him b}' that name. We have called him 

 partridge for generations past, and we hold that reconstruc- 

 tion has not deprived us of this right; that it does not come 

 within the scope and legal purview of the lifteenth or any 

 other amendment to the constitution. We solemnly protest 

 against being deprived of our partridge, and I shall propose 

 to our friend "Wells" that we inaugurate anti-quail societies 

 all over the South, in opposition to this tyranny. 



So take your trout, Mr. "8.," but leave us in undisturbed 

 possession of our dear little partridge. Bob White. 



Coahoma. 



llEMPHis, Tetin._ 



New Hampshire Gkousk.— Dunbarton, N. H., Aug. 35. 

 — The prospect for grouse this season is very encouraging, 

 the birds seem to have bred well and to be quite numerous. 

 While^working one of my young dogs on woodcock a few 

 days since I started from twenty-five to thirty grouse. This 

 was done in about an hom-'s tramp and within a quarter of a 

 mile of my house. I think I could kill tw^enty birds in a day 

 over either of my young dogs, but shall be satisfied with less 

 than half that number, as I do not know what to do with a 

 larger bag. We now have a law whieli prohibits' shipping 

 of game out of the State. I think it a good thing for the 

 birds, although the market shooters were strongly opposed 

 to it. I am anticipating good shooting over my young 

 Llewellins. They have both improved very much since I 

 adopted the method advised in "Training vs. Breaking," and 

 bid fair to make the best dogs I ever had.— C. M. S. 



Rail and Reed Bikds. — Philadelphia, Aug. 29. — A few 

 railbirds have already appeai'ed on our river shores, and 

 quite a number of reedbirds have shown themselves. This 

 is early, but the crop is ripening sooner this season, which 

 can account for their coming. All reports from the .shoot- 

 ing grounds indicate one of the best seasons for years, as it 

 is noticeable that whenever the growth is good many birds 

 are attracted. With the rail and reed birds comes the wild 

 duck, which is as fond of the fattening seed as the former. 

 Many heretofore high grounds where skiffs could not ap- 

 p'roach have overflowed since the tornado which visited our 

 section, and pushers will now be able to get thoir boats to 

 excellent places. — Homo. 



Rail IN New Jersey.— Perth Amboy, K. J., Aug. 31. 

 — A bill fixing the opening of the rail-shooting season upon 

 Aug. 35, was passed last winter by the New Jersey Legisla- 

 ture, but not receiving the Governor's signature within the 

 required ten days it failed to become a law. Several sports- 

 men, however, in ignorance of that fact, availed themselves 

 of the high tide of the 26th to push over the South River 

 meadows at Washington, N. J., but with little success. 

 The wild aats were quite green and the birds very scarce in 

 consequence. Favorable tides should occur next week, by 

 which time ii is hoped that the oats wiU be ripe and fit for 

 food.— J. L. K. 



Gakdner, Mass., Aug. 28.— The Monomonock Sporting 

 Club of this town go into camp next week on the shores of 

 Monomonock Lake, which is in the town of Rindge, N. H., 

 but near the Massachusetts State line. They remain in 

 camp some time and take thek families with them. The 

 recently elected officers of the company are as follows: 

 Aaron Greenwood, President; George F. Ellsworth, Vice- 

 President; F. M. Greenwood, Secretary and Treasurer; G. 

 P. Ellsworth, George Nichols and Ambrose Stevens, Exe- 

 cutive Committee. 



St. Loois Convention. — ^At a meeting at the Mercantile 

 Club, Aug. 28, Capt. H. C. West reported that he had been 

 in communication with 1,350 clubs who might send delegates 

 to the convention of Sept. 29. It is expected that something 

 like 2,000 visitor,s will be present on that occasion, and the 

 736 members of St. Louis gun clubs are called upon to sub- 

 scribe funds for the expenses to be entailed. Help will also 

 be asked from the various trades. The assistant secretary of 

 the executive board is J, G. Schaaf, 417 North Seventh street. 



Woodcock Shooterb Kill Geouse.— Wales, Mass., Aug. 

 29.— Editor Forest and Stream: Woodcock were plenty in 

 this vicinity early in the season, but the wet weather scat- 

 tered them, and not many have been shot. We look for 

 some good sport with them when frost comes. Ruffed 

 grouse were also plenty, but the woodcock hunters have 

 killed a great many of them. Cannot something be done to 

 stop this killing of birds out of season?— G, 



Dj;s.irpoiNTMENT Ended in Dtsgcst. — Calvert, Tex. — 

 A friend and myself concluded we would have a fine day on 

 quail., he having Jutst. received a finely bred setter just from 

 the br'eaJker''a lhands. We made an early start and faithfully 

 stuck to it tmtil the declining sun warned us to reti-ace our 

 steps liomeward, but not a bevy or single quail did we find, 

 althou,gh the gmund looked fine for them. As we were 

 within half a miiie of town, utterly disgusted of coin-seat our 

 luck, we lUp.t.a-R old feQow with a half cur dog and a musket 

 and witJi seven quail hung to his belt. And when he began 

 to brag ©f biificur dog as superior to our setter, we felt like 

 shooting hamiand the dog both.— North Oarolinlan. 



The P.'eaaMDENT and the Hounds. — The World last 

 week rerxjs.'^tf.d the hounding of deer by President Cleveland's 

 party in tSie Adirondacks. We have expressed the opinion 

 that this ipeip'.ort was unfounded. As the charge has been re- 

 iterated ija She papers, it is to be hoped that Dr. Ward will 

 now be heard from. 



North Carolina. — A correspondent suggests that Mun- 

 Toe, N. 0., on the Carolina Central Railroad, is a good point 

 for qiiail shooting. Information may be had of T. M. 

 BrowiH, wbo keeps the hotel there. 



Mb, WtLMAM: Ltman, the inventor of the Lyman rifle 

 sigh.t, retiu-ned last Monday from Europe, where he reports 

 the sight is winning favor among English sportsmen. 



Vekison. — New York dealers are now selling venison 

 which was killed last winter, and has been stored' in the re- 

 frigerators. 



Address all conmHiiioatwnS^ to the Forest and Stream Publish- 

 ing Co. 



MURDER MOST FOUL. 



\ ND yet it was of a fishy eJiac&cter, although we were 

 .^i- after fowl. The days of the bay snipe are almost 

 gone, never to be heard of again. The sweet terms of 

 "dowitcher" and "krieker," "marlin" and "yellowleg," 

 "oxeye" and "dowbird," are to be things of rcinembrance, 

 to live possibly as long as some of the older generation, who, 

 in the pleasure of memory and inspiration of hope, will still 

 .occa.sionally do as we did, get up at daylight in the lovely 

 August morning, and sit all through the crawling hours 

 under the broiling sun, with but a very .occasional whistle of 

 encouragement and a still more occasional shot. There were 

 just enough of these to make it certain that if we left the 

 stand a straggler would put in an appearance, so we deserted 

 our bushy hiding place on purpose, and one of us would go 

 away, leaving the Other to guard, or both would take a stroll 

 and would let our yacht captain act as temporaiy substitute. 

 Thus we beguiled the innocent birds with a pretense of neglect 

 and a very manifest evidence of desertion, and had deluded 

 a few to their destruction, when our attention was attracted 

 to one of the fishing .steamers which are getting so numer- 

 ous on our coast, and vrhich had evidently struck a school 

 of "bunkers," as it had stopped in its ominous career along 

 shore. Cui'ious at its being so close to the breakers, and 

 desirous of seeing how the nets could be managed under 

 such circumstances, we shouldered our guns, leWing the 

 bay birds to the tender care of our captain, struck out 

 across the wonderful collection of sand that we call "the 

 beach," and which in its weakness defies the roaring ocean 

 as the toughest rocks cannot do. A walk of a quarter of an 

 hour to the busy if not pleasant hum of the active mosquito, 

 who welcomed our appeaiance with pagans of rejoicing, 

 brought us to the side of the "sounding sea," where we sat 

 down in the soft sand to study the evil ways, of the enemies 

 of fish kind. 



The steamer that had been first observed by as was an im- 

 mense one, coming from Maine, according to rumor, and 

 certainly large enough to have crossed the ocean. She had 

 already sent out three boats before we had got within sight, 

 one of these, a small Whitehall affair, held only one man, 

 and he was close in shore between it and a school of men- 

 haden. The ocean was in its very calmest of moods, there 

 was scarcely any surf and we could have launched through 

 it our smallest flat-bottomed yacht tender, and though we 

 might have ''tossed a biscuit," as the saying is, easily into 

 the wherry of the nearest fishej-man, he was safe and man- 

 aged his boat without trouble His duty was to gently drive 

 the fish a little further from the shore that the nets could be 

 run around them without risk. This he soon accomplished, 

 and the two large whaleboats, each manned with six men. 

 started on their cai-eer of capture. In ten minutes thej^ had 

 the school entirely surrounded. At first the fish were undis- 

 turbed ; then aroused to their peril they made a wild rush to 

 escape. There was a streak of foam in the water at the 

 outer edge of the net, a few frantic struggles and that was 

 all. The hundred thousand of individiial entities of fish 

 food were in the rapacious maw of the all-devouring net. 

 Not far off was a smaller steamer, one that belonged to the 

 factories in our bay, for they have lately come to the same 

 deadly means of pursuing their business. Between them I 

 noticed and pointed out to my companion another school 

 of fish. These can be readily distinguished by the purple 

 color in the water which is otherwise for the most part of a 

 greenish hue, especially so near the shore. But hardly had 

 I seen it before we perceived another set of boats putting out 

 from the steamer prepared to pm'sue the same tactics and 

 equipped in the same manner. These latter made a bungle 

 of it, however. Their capture was even larger than that of 

 the first set; but by some mismanagement they did not draw 

 the pursing rope properly, and the purple fine of prisoners 

 drifted out of the net till they were spread a hundred yards 

 from it. But this misfortune, while it injured the fish hunt- 

 ers, did not benefit the fish, who had been suffocated, and 

 after lying a few minutes on the surface sank to the bottom 

 or were carried away by the current. They are so exceed- 

 ingly dehcate that the least ill-treatment kill them. Thus 

 were other hundreds of thousands of bait fishes destroyed or 

 tm-ned from their natural purpose of feeding others of their 

 kind to making oil and debasing themselves into fertihzers. 



Here were two vessels with all the immense advantages 

 that steam gave them, for when the ocean is calm and there 

 is no wind, is the best time for seeing and capturing their 

 prey, like two enormous marine monsters prowfiug up and 

 down om- coast with maws of infinite capaciousness, taking 

 the food of the bluefish by milUons, and incidentally every 

 other species that may be found with them, and converting 

 the whole into a comparatively worthless article of com- 



merce ; and yet wc are told that this does not diminish fhe 

 supply and will not injure the fishing. If thev do not utterly 

 exhaust the schools of menhaden, and it they do not equally 

 utterly destroy and starve to death the better varieties of 

 food fishes, there is no arguing from cause to effect, no 

 judging the future by the'past. But hardly had we been 

 seated there fifteen minutes when from the distance along 

 the shore and beyond our ken appeared another monster like 

 unto them attracted by the sight of the deadly work, and in 

 another fifteen minutes a second from far out at .sea. They 

 reminded me of the vultures in the southern country that cob 

 lect around the body of a dead or dying horse. They came 

 from beyond human sight to the cruel' feast. The destruc 

 tion they wrought was complete; not a fish was left when 

 they got through. A few schools had escaped them so far, 

 but the calm weather wan their oi)portunity, and thoy 

 "scooped them" to the last individual, is it any wonder 

 that there has been no blue-fishing along our coast this sum- 

 mer, or in the bays of Long Island, Barnegat or Jamaica? 

 This destructive industry has been prosecuted so vigorously 

 that the waters in the neighborhood of Maine are exhausted; 

 scai'cely any menhaden can get into any of the coast line of 

 bays, and factories have been established and steamers have 

 been sent as far south as North Carolina, and it is said are to 

 be employed in Florida. It almost makes a person an anti- 

 monopolist when he thinks that iu spite of this impending 

 ruin hanging over the fisheries, the poor people of our bays 

 who follow moderate fishing for a living cannot get the in- 

 vasions and murderous operations of these foreign'maraudel'S 

 stopped, and will not be able to do so till there is nothing 

 left for them to catch. R. B. R. 



MORE MENHADEN TESTIMONY. 

 Editor Forest and Stream: 



It may be remembered tliat early in the season weakflsh 

 were quite plentiful all along the "New Jersey coast from 

 Barnegat to Cape May, and good catches of fai'rly-sized fish 

 were daily reported. At these times the menhaden had not 

 appeared close to the beach line and the few fi,9hing 

 "machines" that were in operation did not interfere with the 

 entering of the weakfish into the inlets; but just as soon as 

 the schools of mossbunkers show themselves inshore and the 

 ' 'scoopers" began to follow them, the former disappeared and 

 line-fishing has been poor. 



The question as to what shall be done with these men- 

 haden boats, which arc doubtless doing as great damage to 

 the food-fish supply along the New .Jer.sey coast, is yearly 

 assuming greater importance, and it is truly a serious matter. 

 Every bay fisherman that plies his vocation with hook and 

 line, be he pi'ofessional or amateur, is loudly complaining of 

 what is certainly an outrage, which cannot be remedied save 

 by the action of the United States Government, for the 

 Attorney-General of New Jersey has decided that the law 

 of last year has virtually no effect; the State has no jurisdic- 

 tion over the waters of the Atlantic Ocean beyond low-water 

 mark. Congress must be appealed to to prevent theouti-age,. 

 and until that body legislates the menhaden fishermen can ' 

 continue theu" work unmolested anywhere outside of the 

 surf-line. 



During the past week some of the Long Beach natives 

 used a rifle on a menhaden fi.shing boat that came in close to 

 the siu'f. which caused the crew to make a hasty retreat; but 

 the real remedy is in the hands of Congress, and it behooves 

 those interested, and. their name is legion, to be ready for 

 the question at its next session at Washington. Homo, 



PfflLADELPHlA, Aug. 39. 



The fishing steamer Annie H. Morris, now engaged in 

 capturing menhaden oft* the coast near Egg Harbor Inlet, 

 made a haul last week of 285,000 of these fish, which will be 

 (or are already) sold for fertihziug purposes; and this is 

 the record of only one of the extensive fleet of steamers 

 engaged along our coast in this shameful devastation.- As a 

 proof that our sea food fish exist largely on menhaden it is 

 enough to know that during the time these first mentioned 

 fish were being caught iu such quantities, vast schools of 

 bluefish, weakfish and bass were among the small ivy, and 

 anglers have reported the fishing to have been better last 

 week than at any time before this season. The menhaden 

 have been scarce this summer up t;o last week, and the large 

 fish have been correspondingly fewer than ever before. The 

 sudden appearance of menhaden in large quantities now is 

 probably due to the younger fish leaving their breeding 

 places in the rivers on their way to the sea, although their 

 migration thither generally does not occur until early fall. 

 From Block Island all along the New York and New .Jersey 

 coast to Cape May it is universally declared that the present 

 has been the poorest fishing season ever known. Purse- 

 seining has lessened the sport with rod and line, but the 

 menhaden destroyers threaten us with a much graver result, 

 which is the speedy and thorough extinction of our food 

 fish in these latitudes. New Jersey representatives in the 

 United States Senate and in the House should be awakened 

 to the necessity for prompt and decisive action in the next 

 session of Congress against menhaden destruction. This 

 wanton fish piracy must be put down before another season, 

 and such laws should be made as will allow of no technical 

 evasion. To do this it will be necessary to entirely prohibit 

 the capturing of menhaden for the making of oifor guano. 

 It has been suggested that menhaden netting be restricted to 

 a distance from shore of at least eight miles. Such a law 

 would be worse than useless, as its provision of distance 

 would furnish a point difficult of proof and simple to evade. 

 What is wanted is a law of absolute prohibition. It will be 

 said that this law would destroy an industry and throw men 

 out of employment. Of course it would. But menhaden 

 netting has destroyed the employment of many hundreds of 

 coast fishermen who catch food fish for a hving. These 

 men are worth only their little vessels and their outfit, and 

 with no other industry that they can follow but fishing, 

 actual want is a result no great way distant for them, The 

 men on the menhaden steamers are poorly paid, are young 

 men for the most part, who could and would find other 

 employment fully as remunerative, and are certainly less- 

 numerous than the coast fishermen. Last year there were 59^ 

 steamers, averaging about ten men to a crew, of which num- 

 ber more than halt were boys. There are surely more than 

 600 coast fishermen with families on our shores dependent 

 upon the legitimate capture of food fish for the living which 

 the menhaden destroyers deny them ; and there are certainly 

 treble that number of handlers and dealers in fish who 

 depend largely for their profits upon our coast food fish. As 

 to the menhaden industry itself, according to a report made 

 last January at a meeting of the U. S. Meunaden Oil and 

 Guano Association, "as a whole it is not a paying business 

 on account of low prices of oil and guano, and high cost of 

 men and material." And this report was made after the 

 season of 1884, when 858,593,691 menhaden were ta,keJni 



