FOREST^AND STREAM 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, $4 a Yeab. 10 Cts. a Copt. \ 

 Six Months, $2. J 



NEW YORK, JANUARY 7, 18 86. 



j VOL. XXV.— No. 24. 



I No8. 39 & 40 Park Row, New Yobk. 



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O0NTENT8. 



Editorial. 



The Indians' Lands. 



The Trajectory Report. 



To the walled-In Lakes.— v. 



Forestry Commission Report. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



A New Atlantis. 



Among the Coral Reefs. 



Camp Flotsam.— xvin. 

 Natural Historv. 



The Vampire of the Ocean. 



A Shameful Fashion. 

 Same Bag anu Guk. 



The '-Forest and Stream" Tra- 

 jectory Test. 



Stray Stiots from an Old Ranger 



We.siern Massachusetts. 



Our Grizzly Cubs. 



Deer in the Adirondacks. 



An Official Slaughter. 



Dter Notes. 



Turkey Hunting in Virginia. 

 Those City Fellows. 

 Philadelphia Notes. 



Sea and River Fishing. 



Salmon and Trout Fishing. 



A Second New Year Trip. 



My First Trout. 

 Fishcu-lture. 



Valuable Site for a Hatchery. 

 The Kennel. 



The Chatham Dog Show. 



Brooklyn Fanciers' Club's Dog 

 Show. 



Beagles and Cotton Tails. 



Is the A. K. C. to Live? 



The Graphic ChallenRe. 



Early Foxhound Development, 



Kennel Notes. 

 RrPLE AND Trap Shoouhq. 



Range and Gallery, 



The Trap. 

 Canoeing. 

 1 The Sneakbox Family. 

 Yachting. 



Cruise of the Coot — vii. 



The Cruise of the Pilgrim.— ii. 



I AjiSWKBa TO COBRKBPONiJKNTS. 



THE INDIANS' LAND8. 



ANEW project for the amelioration, of the condition of 

 the Indians is now in high favor. It is a kind of 

 patent plan, which is to civilize the Indian and make him 

 self-supporting— if he survives its adoption. It is advocated 

 with a little qualification by Gen. Sheridan. 



It is proposed to allot to each Indian family S20 acres of 

 land and to throw the remainder of the reservation open to 

 sale at $1.25 per acre. The sale of the surplus land, it is 

 calculated, would yield a sum which, invested in Gov- 

 ernment bonds, would produce an annual income of about 

 $4,480,000— a sum which considerably exceeds the amount 

 now appropriated for the Indians. 



The assumptions upon which this reasoning is based are 

 very largely fallacious, and the figures which appear to sup- 

 port thera lie as only figures can. It is misleading to say 

 that all or even the greater part of the reservations left over 

 after the best locations have been taken up for the Indians' 

 farms, could be sold. A very small portion of the land — that 

 along the creeks and near springs, where water can be had 

 —could so be sold at once; but the dry uplands, the arid 

 sage plains and the rough and rocky mountain sides, which 

 constitute so large a portion of many Indian reservations, 

 would never be bought up at anything like the price named. 

 It is but a short time since a portion of the land grant of a 

 great corporation — a strip forty miles long by twenty wide — 

 was sold for seventeen cents an acre. This was in a cattle 

 country and the land was bought for range. 



Moreover, the income mentioned would not support the 

 Indians. The beggarly appropriation made by Congress 

 sufficed up to two or three years ago, but they are sufficient 

 no longer. TJp to that time there were some buffalo left, and 

 a good deal of smaller game, on which the Indians subsisted. 

 Now all the game is gone except a few grouse, prairie dogs 

 and sand rats, and the Indians must have government food 

 or starve. For the last two or three years a great many of 

 them have starved. 



The time is close at hand when the friends of 

 the Indians must use all their influence to protect 

 him in his rights. The West is settling up more rapidly 

 than ever, and greedy eyes are casting covetous glances upon 

 the contracted lands which the red men still hold, as well as 

 upon tJieir fiocka herds. The lesemtions are pro- 



nounced too large, and about their borders hover many men 

 who have already selected the claims on which they will set- 

 tle and file as soon as Congress shall have thrown the terri- 

 tory open to settlement. In the Crow, the Flathead, the 

 Shoshone, the Bannack, the Piegau, Gros Ventre and Assina- 

 boine reservations and a portion of the Indian Territory are 

 choice tracts of land which the white men eagerly covet. 



They can hardly wait for these lands to be legally thrown 

 open to settlement. It was only two years ago that the best 

 springs on the arid reservation of one of the Pueblo tiibes 

 were boldly claimed by a powerful corporation, the lands 

 about them seized, and the hapless owners of the soil, who 

 depended for their crops on this water, warned off with 

 threats. Invasions of the Ocklohoma strip are continually 

 being made by supposed settlers, who coolly defy the 

 proclamations of the President and the opposition of the 

 United States troops in their endeavors to seize lands owned 



p9JaA008ip ST I9AJIS JO p[03 UOqi pUB M0J^J 'suBrpui 9qi .^q 



on a reservation, and the whites flock in and cannot be 

 ejected. 



Their lands should not be allotted to the Indians m sever- 

 alty unless it can be shown that such a plan will result bene- 

 ficially to these people. The time will come, and we trust 

 soon, when this may be done ; but it has not come yet. The 

 proposition to allot the land in severalty takes it for granted 

 that the land holders would be able to manage farms and to 

 use them at least as a partial means of support. This is not 

 true at present, nor can it be for years. 



The average wild Indian is as yet wholly incompetent to 

 manage a farm or to support himself. Until he has acquired 

 at least the rudiments of a farmer's education, it will be mere 

 cruelty to give him one. Since the soil on most of the reserva- 

 tions will not produce crops without irrigation, the allot- 

 ment of the land in severalty would necessarily scatter the 

 Indians far and wide along the creeks and rivers, and it 

 would be impossible to exercise over them the supervision 

 which they need, unless an army of officials were assigned to 

 each tribe. The labor of teaching them would be enormously 

 increased. Day schools for the children would have to be 

 established in great numbers, or else those living at home 

 would have to go without education, and only such as might 

 be at the boarding schools would receive instraction. And 

 f or the present we can only hope to see a very small minority 

 of the Indian children sent to the boarding schools. 



These are some of the practical difficulties in the way of 

 the plan to allot the lands to the Indians in severalty. The 

 chief objection to this project, and the one which utterly 

 condemns it, Ues in the fact that it would result in bringing 

 the Indians into close contact with the whites. To give the 

 Indians their allotments and then throw the unoccupied land 

 open to sale means that Indians and whites would live together 

 on what are now the Indian reservations. The result of such 

 a mixed settlement would be utterly disastrous to the red 

 man. He is not yet fit to walk alone. He has little self- 

 control. Like a child, he will barter for some trifle which 

 has caught his fancy his most precious possession. He is 

 fond of liquor, and a tin cup full of the vile whisky of the 

 border will purchase his good will and all his secrets. 



In a mixed settlement of whites and Indians the latter 

 would in a very short time have parted with all their posses- 

 sions. They would be sold whisky as long as they could pay 

 for it, and would become hopelessly worthless and wretched. 

 Their womeu would be debauched and the men drunkards. 

 They would be paupers whom it would be necessary to sup 

 port or to see starve. If they are to be supported it should 

 be done as now, on the agency, where they are measurably 

 free from contact with the white man, where whisky is not 

 allowed and where for the present they can be taught in a 

 body far more easily than would be possible if they were 

 scattered out over a wide extent of country. There is 

 nothing in the present agency system to prevent the Indians 

 taking up farms as soon as they know how to manage them. 

 Those who advocate this allotment plan of dealing with 

 the Indian are recommending a step which if adopted now, 

 will result in his speedy extinction. They show little 

 acquaintance with Indian character. 



Immediate contact with the white man the wild Indian 

 cannot survive. He must be protected from himself until he 

 has made some progress toward the self-control which is a 

 distinguishing character of civilized people. It will be 

 time enough to turn him adrift to take part unaided in the 

 struggle for existence, when he has learned in part the les- 

 son of civUized hfe. These savage descendants of bar- 

 barous sires are the weaker race. Put into competition with 

 the whites they must perish unless a helping hand is exten- 

 ded to them. In such a struggle the weaker must go to the 

 wall. Xt is a law of life that the fittest shall survive. 



THE TBAJECTOBT BEPORl. 



WITH the present number we bring the report of the 

 trajectory trials of hunting rifles to a finish, and con- 

 clude our exhibit of what this class of arms show themselves 

 capable of doing under the conditions as they prevailed at 

 Creedmoor during the pleasant October days used for the 

 trial. We have made the matter as plain and simple as possi- 

 ble, and in the pamphlet form in which it has been placed for 

 future reference will, we doubt not, form a permanent addi- 

 tion to the literature of the rifle. 



Taking the trial through, we think the riflemen of the 

 country are to be congratulated upon having the choice of 

 so excellent a selection of rifles from which to choose when 

 they seek to supply their kit with a reliable field arm. Any of 

 the rifles named may with safety be trusted, so far as accu- 

 racy is concerned. Some are closer, harder hitters than 

 others, and generally in proportion to the charge employed; 

 but to none of them could the complaint be properly laid that 

 it was an imreliable weapon. Every marksman must habitu- 

 ate himself to the peculiarities of his piece before he can use 

 it with satisfaction. In other word, "get the hang" of his 

 rifle. Because a rifle makes:a good showing in one table of 

 trajectory heights would not be evidence per se that it was a 

 better arm than another with a few tenths of an inch more 

 height above the line of sight in the track of the moving 

 bullet. 



To our friends and readers out after game, we can offer 

 the assurance that when they miss they may in the future 

 know just how far high trajectory and how far bad holding 

 has to do with their bad luck. 



In the absence of an international match to mark the year 

 1885, it has been the privilege of the Forest and Stream 

 to mark this year of our Lord with another event of great 

 interest to the rifle-shooting world. Our report we throw 

 open for discussion, and we shall be pleased to hear what 

 any of our frinds may feel inclined to say. 



Already we have had many queries; many of them have 

 been answered in the course of the report. If there are any 

 points which have not been fully covered or clearly under- 

 stood, we shall be happy to give further information; and in 

 the mean time, until occasion shall arise with the improve- 

 ment of rifles, our tables of averages will remain, no doubt, 

 the standard on this point of the shooting art. 



The Fish CoiiMissiON and the Auditor. — After all the 

 charges of unnecessary expenditure at Wood's HoU, made by 

 First Auditor Chenowith who refused to audit the bill for 

 plumbing, the accounts have been passed by higher authority, 

 which at the same time declined to allow the payment of bills 

 of Auditor Chenowith for new carpets, rugs, brass f ui-niture 

 for his fire-place and other articles of pure luxury. It is evi- 

 dent that the Auditor's objections to extravagance were never 

 intended to be apphed to his own case. He was seeking per- 

 sonal notoriety by sending out vague newspaper accounts 

 that there were "irregularities" in the bills of Prof. Baird, 

 which had the effect of making the public think that his 

 keen perception had discovered a very large African in the 

 Fish Commission wood pile. The Washington Sunday 

 Herald, an Administration paper, saidlon Sunday last: "The 

 recent approval by the Controller of the accounts of the Fish 

 Commission tend to show that the startling discoveries her- 

 alded with a flourish of trumpets by special correspondents 

 are indefinitely postponed. Any one who was at all ac- 

 quainted with Prof. Baird's character and standing, or who 

 knew Major Powell, of the Geological Bureau, could not be 

 made to believe, without evidence of the clearest kind, that 

 either had been guilty of anything crooked. As nothing 

 wrong has been discovered, although the desire of finding 

 'irregularities' has been evident, it is presumed that for a 

 little while calumny by innuendo wiU cease, so far as these 

 officials are concerned." 



Sensible Game Clubs. — There are many thousands of 

 sportsmen who cannot afford to own shares in the expensive 

 game clubs owning choice preserves. But it is quite within 

 the power of the gunners, in any given locality, by associa=- 

 ting together to prfjvide for the conservation of their game. 

 Our remarks on this topic last week have brought to notice 

 a club working in the manner then proposed. A report of 

 this we hope soon to lay before our readers. 



The Forest ,and Stream's Grizzlies are the most at- 

 tractive animals at the Central Park menagerie. They are 

 in a great cage out of doors, and tens of thousands of visit- 

 ors have been, interested spectators of tlieir ursine idiosya« 

 craoies. 



