Jak. 7, 1886.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



469 



two years, and none entered into the spirit of the occasion 

 with greater zest than they. The other hunters represented 

 Lionville and vicinity, West Chester, Pottatown. Malvern, 

 Wagontown, Sadsburj'ville Gap, Glen Moore, Ohurchtown 

 Hnd portions of Delaware county. The fox proved a wary 

 and lively one and kept up the chase until evening, when lie 

 took to the. locks and escaped. Homo, 



Hunting TnoPiiiEa for tetb American Exhibition, — 

 Knighton, Buckhurst Hill, England.— jE'cMor Forest and 

 Stream! As tou are no doubt " aware there is to be an 

 American exhibition on an extensive scale in London. 1 have 

 suggested to the directors that it would be a favorable oppor- 

 tunity to get together a collection of American hunting 

 trophies. The idea has been very warmly received by them 

 and by many sportsmen in this country. There is the nucleus 

 of a very tine collection of heads of wapiti, sheep, moose, 

 etc., which are in the possession of sportsmen on this side of 

 the Atlantic, but I am sure that there are many on your side, 

 as Well as professional naturalists, who would be glad to 

 contribute the loan of fine specimens. It is proposed to ex- 

 tend the exhibition to the fur-bearing animals and game 

 birds. If you would publish a brief editorial on the subject 

 it would no doubt bring us many valuable and interesting 

 exhibits. Mr. Whitley, of Poultry, London, is the director 

 general of the exhibition. Mr. Pendarnis Vivian, M. P., 

 Mr. Moreton I^rewen and others have associated themselves 

 with me as a committee for the purpose of making the col- 

 lection. — E. N. Buxton.— [Communications respecting the 

 exhibition may be addressed to J. G. Speed, 83 Nassau street, 

 N. Y.] , 



Virginia Sheei*, Dogs, Wir^B Cats and Partridges. 

 —Nearly all the lazy, shiftless, cranky old farmers, rein- 

 forced sometimes by a shrewd nutmeg Yankee, often relieve 

 their pent-up feelings by shooting olf their chin at the worth- 

 less curs that yearly destroy 40,000,000 of sheep. Yet in 

 eastern Virginia good stock sheep are selling at 85 cents a 

 head by pubUc auction. Does that look as if the demand 

 was in excess of the supply? A dog's hide will fetch 85 

 cents at the tan yard. The truth is many of our best farm- 

 ers are ardent fox hunters; but they are men of industry, 

 and look after and take care of their sheep. Then again 

 there arc farmers along the foothills of the Blue Ridge, who 

 think it is very smart to poison dogs with strychnine, and 

 for their pains, since the dogs have gone out the wild cats 

 have come in, and made it very bilious for the poor little 

 lambs. And but for the foxhunters, the red foxes would 

 be masters of the situation all over Virginia and kill nearly 

 every lamb that is dropped. In a few years it may be 

 said of the Virginia partridge, all north of the James River, 

 "Ilium fuit." — KiLLBUCK (Jan. 1, 1886). 



Mississippi. — Aberdeen, Jan. 5, 1886. — On Monday last 

 the Aberdeen Guu Club had their annual side hunt. The 

 club was divided into four teams of four and hunted one 

 day. Their score footed up 351 quail, 33 hares, and 3 

 squirrels. Two members of one of the teams failed to hunt, 

 so the above represents the score of 14 guns. With a friend 

 who like myself does not approve of wholesale destruction of 

 game, I took an outing on Monday and Tuesday, spending 

 Monday night with a friend at his prairie plantation. While 

 our bag for the two days was not a phenomenal one, num- 

 bering only sixty-eight quail and three hares, we had enough 

 for ourselves and some to spare for our non-shooting friends, 

 and can return to our wonted occupations refreshed and 

 without the burden of game butcher on our consciences. 

 The best wishes for a happy and prosperous Kew Year to the 

 Forest AND Strkam and its numerous readers. — Will. 



Light Rifle Load for Small Game, — Editor Forest 

 and Stream: Having a .40-60 Winchester rifle and the reg- 

 ular cartridges being loaded heavier than necessary for squir- 

 rel and other small game, 1 filled fin. of my shells with lead, 

 having placed a pointed stick up through the primer seat so 

 as to leave a small hole through the lead. I load with 30 

 grains of powder and a round ball of my own casting, using 

 a lubricant composed of four parts beef tallow and one part 

 beeswax. With a shell loaded in this manner very accurate 

 shooting may be had up to l.oO yards, while the cost is less 

 than half that of the regular .40-60 cartridge. Of course the 

 gun must be used as a single loader when using this shell, as 

 it will not work through the magazine. — En Ami (Macomb, 

 111.). 



Arkansas.— Kerr Station. Lonoke County, Jan. 1. — We 

 are having lots of fun squirrel and quail shooting. Both are 

 very plentiful here. Ducks and geese are very scarce on 

 account of the open winter. Fairest weather up till now for 

 years. Deer are scarce. I and ray partner, Bud, killed 35 

 squirrels yesterday, he using a Ballard caliber and I 

 using my Winchester .23 caliber, 25 shot. That is my 

 favorite squirrel gun, with a Lyman rear sight and almost 

 any good front sight. 1 also have a Sharps .45 caliber, with 

 Freund's more light sights on it, which style of sights I 

 greatly prefer to many patent sights.— G. H. C. 



Quail Shooting. — All who are intending to take a shoot- 

 ing trip south will do well to read the advertisement headed 

 "quail shooting" in another cohimn. In addition to an 

 abundance of quail, there are some wild turkeys, a fair 

 amount of gray squirrels, and plenty of cotton tails. The 

 climate is healthy and the weather is fine with no snow so 

 far this season. The best quail shooting is from the middle 

 of the present month until the close of the season. 



Certifioates of Club Membership. — In another col- 

 umn Mr. W. 0. Hinman calls attention to his illuminated 

 certificates of club membership. We should think that at 

 the low prices at which these are offered there would be a 

 good demand for them, as most club members would be glad 

 to have some visible token of membership in their organiza- 

 tion. 



The old and popular firm of J. Stevens & Co., of Chicopee Falls, 

 Mass., manufaccu'ers of the celebrated Stevens Fire Arms and Fine 

 Machinists' i ooL«, have sold out their business to the new corpora- 

 tion just formed under the name of the J. Stevens Arms a.nd Tool 

 Co., with the following officers: Joshua Stevens, President; William 

 B. Fay, Joshua Stevens, (jeorge S. Taylor. Directors; Irving H. Page, 

 Secretary; James E. Taylor. Agent and Treasurer. The above look 

 possession of the business January 1, 1886.— ^dr. 



S. W. Freund, Esq —Dear Sir: The set of sights received from you 

 not long ago are all rhat you claim for them, and I think the best of 

 open sigbis Respectfully, Ales. T. Loyd & Co.— Adv. 



Fort Bowie, Arizona, Dec. 14, 1885.— IF jPVeund.— Dear Sir: I 

 consider your sights the finest made, and am -well pleased with mine, j 

 They are perfection in every respect. Youi-s respectfully, James C. 

 Hancock.— -ilfZv. I 



SALMON AND TROUT FISHING. 



THE STATE OF THE ART IN ENGLAKD. 



WE have before us two books on fishing recently pub- 

 lished in Eugland, each of some 450 post octavo pages. 

 One is devoted to salmon and trout fishing; the other treats 

 of angling for "Pike and other Coarse Fish." 



These books form part of the "Badminton Library," a 

 collection designed to consist of a number of volumes, which, 

 taken as a whole, will form an encycloptedia to which the 

 inexperienced Briton may resort for such information as he 

 may desire in reference to any branch of out-of door sport. 



It is our purpose at present to consider the volume on sal- 

 mon and trout fishing only. Of this Mr. H. Cholmondely 

 Pennell appears as the editor, and in part as the author. A 

 happier selection of an editor would have been difficult. 

 Mr. Pennell has not only the power of expressing his ideas 

 in an unusual degree, but he is also even more unusually fer- 

 tile in ideas to express. Few, if any, have written more real 

 common sense in reference to angling than he. His personal 

 equation leads him to the practical side of angling, and he 

 habitually examines each point he discusses solely upon 

 what seems to him its intrinsic merits, altogether unin 

 tluenced by prejudice, and very little by tradition. 

 But let us proceed to the book. 



It opens with 109 pages on "Tackle and Fishing Gear" 

 written by Mr. Pennell himself. 



Perhaps no part of the book will interest the American fly- 

 fisherman more than this. However doubtful he may be as 

 to the value here of directions intended for the use of anglers 

 upon the other side of the Atlantic, he recognizes the fact 

 that the birth-place;of his art was there, and that at all events 

 the appliances there in use are the same in kind as those he 

 employs. Which are the better of their kind, theirs or ours, 

 is a question of unfailing interest- aquestion which an exam- 

 ination of the'pages under consideration will go far to answer. 



Mr. Pennell first discusses the subject of fish-hooks. Here 

 he speaks with the voice of authority; and, as far as the 

 American reader is concerned, to those sadly in need of the 

 information he gives. The Sproat hook may be safely as- 

 sumed to have ranked as the best attainable" in our esteem 

 for many yeai-s. But that form of hook which made the 

 reputation of the Sproat appears to be a thing of the past. 

 Each manuf ucturer now makes his own distinctive pattern of 

 Sproat, differing not only from those of every other manu- 

 facturer, but from the original form as well. Indeed it would 

 be hardly too much to say that in the goods now sent to this 

 market under that name, they retain every defect, and lose 

 sight of every merit which gave to the original form its envi- 

 able reputation. 



Actuated possibly by some such considerations as these, 

 and guided by his sound knowledge of the laws of mechanics, 

 Mr. Pennell designed a hook some years ago which he re- 

 garded as an advance in the art. He took the Sneck bend- 

 that square-bent hook, with the point curbed or turned to 

 one side — obliterated the curb; inclined the point inward 

 toward the shank after the manner of the Sproat; provided 

 it with a long conical point that it might penetrate easily, 

 and at the same time render a good barb possible without 

 making it "hollow" and without excessive cutting into the 

 wire ; made it deep on the barb side that the fish might play 

 at a distance from the point of escape; and reinforced the 

 weak point of the Sneck — the almost rectangular bend at the 

 bottom of the shank — ^by thickening the metal at that part. 

 This hook for some reason never seemed to make itself felt 

 in this market. jSTotwilhstanding, it was theoretically nearly 

 a perfect hook; and, after three seasons of severe trial in 

 actual fishing, we feel assured that its practical are in no 

 degree inferior to its theoretical merits. Indeed we consider 

 it altogether the best hook we have ever used. But Mr. Pen- 

 nell was not satisfied with this. Clearly the more or less 

 rectangular bend on the shank side of the hook weighed on 

 his mind as an element of weakness. He has recently de- 

 signed what he calls his improved "Limerick" hook. While 

 to°the casual observer it does seem closely to resemble the 

 ordinary "Limerick," still the critical eye will at once recog- 

 nize that it is really his old form, embodying all the features 

 upon which its excellence depended, and only resembling 

 the hook which gives it name in that the shank is united to 

 the barb side by a long and easy curve. This increases the 

 strength at that point,"and for that reason, we suppose, Mr. 

 Pennell recommends its use where large hooks are required, 

 in preference to his Sneck form. 



But this is by no means all of value in reference to liooks 

 in these pages. We are in the habit of providing our flies 

 either with a length of gut terminating in a loop, or with a 

 small loop of the same material located next to the head of 

 the fly. Our leaders also terminate in a loop, and the fly is 

 attached by uniting the loop of the fly to that of the leader. 



It would seem that we are in this practice a trifle behind 

 the times. 



No one will question that inconveniences attend the use 

 of the long gut appendage to the fly. If a strand of the full 

 length is employed, it must be carried in a coil and straight- 

 ened before use, while the removal of one fly from the book 

 usually drags a small swarm of other flies in its wake. On 

 the other hand if the gut is made sufiiciently short to be 

 carried stretched to its full length in the fly-book, as is now 

 the custom, we disregard one of tile cardinal rules of the art 

 of war against timid fishes. We place near what is designed 

 to attract, something well calculated to alarm and repel. 

 Only he who has actually tried the experiment will fully re- 

 alize how conspicuous these two united loops really are, im- 

 prisoning as they almost always do each its own film of air, 

 which glitters like polished silver when submerged. 



If we use a short gut loop at the head of the fly instead, 

 (as in salmon flies) after the fly has once been wet the gut 

 loop is apt to twist on itself. Thereafter the fly no longer 

 swims upon an even keel, but wobbles through the water in 

 a manner equally demoralizing to the fish and the angler. 



A letter received from one of the highest authorities on fly- 

 fishing in the United Kingdom assures us that the better class 

 of fly ft.shermen throughout Great Britain have abandoned 

 the use of all gut appendages to the fly, the imitation insect 

 being built upon a naked hook the shank end of which 

 terminates in a small eye, into which the end of the leader — 

 or casting line, as our English brethren seem to prefer to 

 term it — is tied. Might we not imitate them in this to ad- 

 vantage. 



It is quite true, as Mr. Pennell frankly states, that the eyed 

 hook is old, and that it had been tried and found wanting' I; 

 is but another example of how slight a change of structure 

 will often convert a mechanical failure into a brilliant suc- 

 cess. The change in this instance consisted in giving the 



eye a bend upward of something more than half a right 

 angle. The leader then, if the knot is properly lied, leads 

 from the hook in a continuation of the line of the shank, 

 causing the fly to swim perfectly upright and on an even keel, 

 while the useful life of fly the depends on the cohesion of the 

 material of which it is composed, rather than on the integrity 

 of the gut upon which it is tied. Some authorities claim 

 that a fly so constructed lasts five times as long as one made 

 in the manner usual here; but however this maybe, there 

 can be no question that it will last much longer, be less 

 likely to snap off on the back cast, swim straighter, and that 

 the connections between the fly and the outside world, is 

 much more closely disguised. 



Mr. Pennell has improved on this form of hook by turn- 

 ing the eye downward instead of upward, thus, as he claims, 

 improving the draft-line of the hooU, and causing the leader 

 to lead straighter from the fly with a consequent improve- 

 ment in its swim. These claims seem to us well founded- 

 In the pages under consideration he figures both forms of 

 hooks, and gives full, explicit, and easily comprehended direc- 

 tions as to what knots should be used, and how they may be 

 readily and infallibly tied. 



We have dwelt at length on this matter, since it seems to 

 us a decided advance in the art, and one well worthy of the 

 careful attention of American anglers. 



But if we are somewhat behindhand in the matter of 

 hooks, it would certainly appear from the pages under re- 

 view that in the matter of rods "the boot is on the other 

 leg;" and that they, our English brethren, are really quite 

 benighted in this respect. 



Mr. Pennell has too sound a knowledge of mechanics to 

 lose sight of the advantages which a short rod offers over an 

 unnecessarily long one. He uses a rod of ten feet seven 

 inches in length, but though it weighs no less than ten ounces 

 he calls it a light rod. We should^ call a rod of this length 

 light only if it did not exceed six ounces; whereas if it 

 weighed eight or eight and a half ounces we should call it a 

 fairly heavy rod, and quite adequate for any use to which a 

 single-handed fly-rod can be put. Indeed w-c have known in 

 a number of instances of salmon of fifteen pounds and over 

 being taken with such a rod. 



Mr. Pennell speaks of fly-rods for ladies' use as follows 

 "Eight feet and a half, or so, is ample for a ladies' single- 

 handed fly rod, and such a rod need not exceed eight ounces 

 in weight." Every American angler will agree with Mr. 

 Pennell as to this length, but as to the weight we should 

 consider four, or at most five ounces, quite sufficient for all 

 purposes. 



However, the weight of a fly-rod and its length are a good 

 deal a matter of taste, a taste with the free exercise of which 

 we are by no means disposed to quarrel. But when we 

 come to the means by which the lengths of a fly-rod are 

 joined together it is quite another matter. We are then 

 dealing with a question of pure mechanics. Mr. Pennell 

 figures screws, bayonet-catches, and other devices for lock- 

 ing the ferrules of fly-rods together to prevent them from 

 throwing apart. Now it would be safe to assume that, with 

 our fifty'flve millions of people, full as many ferraied fishing 

 rods are in use in this country as in Great Britain — nay, if 

 we remember that practically nothing but ferrules are here 

 used for this purpose, it .seems probable that we have con- 

 siderably the greater number. How is it then that on one 

 side of the Atlantic some device for preventing the ferrules 

 of a rod from throwing apart is deemed absolutely necessary, 

 while on the other side.such a device is thought absolutely 

 useless. 



We believe we can suggest a reason. It would seem that 

 in England the notion prevails that ferrules must be "ham- 

 mer-hardened" to give them the requisite stiffness. It does 

 give them this siift'ness, but at ttie same time it renders a 

 proper fit almost impossible, certainly impossible unless the 

 inside of the outer ferrule be refiuished in some way other 

 than by grinding after the hammering. The same stiffness 

 can be obtained by drawing the tubing "inside and out"— that 

 is between a mandrel and a die-r— while a ferrule so made is 

 smooth within and cylindrical in bore. The entering 

 ferrule can then be readily so fitted that the joints will 

 never throw apart — at least they never throw apart in 

 America unless badly fitted, or unless the rod is carelessly 

 joined and without inserting the entering ferrule to its seat. 



Another thing will amuse the American angler in this, as 

 well as in almost every other English work on fly-fishing. 

 He will find the very same arguments in vogue against split- 

 bamboo rods that were current here some fifteen years or so 

 ago. The split-bamboo has with us so lived down all defam- 

 ation, that no one any longer questions its superiority. 

 Analogy would lead us to believe that the same result will 

 follow in time in Great Britain. 



We have dwelt so long on the first part of this book that 

 lack of space, rather than inclination, will compel us to do 

 the rest but scanty justice. 



Mr. Pennell follows his chapter on "Tackle and Fishing 

 Gear" with 67 pages on the "Natural History of British 

 Salmonidae," in which he distinguishes between what is 

 known and what is surmised with his usual discrimination. 



Next follows a very valuable paper on Salmon Fishing by 

 Major John P. Traherne, a gentleman whose name and fame 

 as a brother of the angle is by no means restricted to the 

 Sea-Girt Isle. This paper is of a strictly practical character. 

 The Major knows just what he wishes to say, and he says it 

 with military directness, and in a manner which would seem 

 to render it next to impossible for the reader to fail to grasp 

 his meaning. Should we begin to praise all in it that merits 

 praise, we should be obliged to consider it page by page. 

 We will allude to but one point— the admirable illustrations 

 of a dozen or so of the more meritorious varieties of salmon 

 flies. Each fly is given full size and with a page to itself. 

 Subjoined is a full description of its component parts, and a 

 history of its origin. We regret to be obliged to dismiss this 

 admirable paper in so summary a fashion. If we have met 

 with its equal in the Uterature of salmon-angling, we cer- 

 tainly have never encountered its superior. 



"Fly-Fishiug for Trout and Grayhng," by H. R. Francies, 

 follows. It is charmingly written throughout— the introduc- 

 tion especially so, — and cannot fail to prove of great value 

 to the British, and of interest to the American angler. 



Other papers on methods of fishing peculiar to Great 

 Britain are included, all seemingly excellent. Lack of space 

 compels us to dismiss them with this mere mention. 



In conclusion we feel assured that every reader of this 

 admirable book will join us in congratulating its editor and 

 the contributors thereto, as well as the promoters of the 

 Badminton Libery, in having added so valuable a contribu- 

 tion to the literature of angling. It is published in London 

 by Longmans, Green & Co. and in Boston by Little, Brown 

 & Co., Henry P. Wells. 



I^jrff YoBK, January 1 , 1886. 



