Jan. 14, 1886.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



487 



pities was selected as our campiug place, a roaring Are soon 

 lighted lip the darkness, the kettle was stcamin^r, some 

 bacon was broiled, the coffee made, and a heEirty meal fol- 

 lowed. Youug pines were cut down and a wind-rampart 

 •Was made td shii-ld ds ffoifl a biting nortkeaatcr which Jiad 

 feljnlhg up. We det'lihcd td set dp the tent In a short 

 while Oiir blankets vfrere sjiread find we "sdnk tin the 



f";i'oui-id, dverjjoweredr ' sleejiiug so.utidly dntil the Cheek of 

 .he east showed its first bldshr Theii after a stiOstitutiitl 

 breakfast, in wbicll neither duck nor plover wiis rodnd, "^e 

 left, hoping- for "far 2,-reener fields, far fresher flowers " 



This day was but a couutcipiirt of its predecessor. The 

 distance made was ahout the same. The sun was rapidly 

 donnini? his night dress when we drew np to Sloop l^oint. 

 A part of our forces made a virtue of necessity and camped 

 upoD tlie floor of a rude sbanty, while Teceel and I sought 

 the hospitality of an old friend of mine, who lived a few 

 lariudred yards from the water. Here we foimd a warm wel- 

 come and the comforts of an excellent bed. Nest morning 

 We left before the family had riseOi V>'ent.doWn to the water, 



fot breakfast, and spread oiir canvas to the itiviting breezle. 

 _ oon after le;iviug, (^us, who has been a whalef, told Us lliat 

 it >voilld "rain bucketsful" in a short wliile. As Owen was 

 ii stfatigei' to a part of our route, v/e engaged Slake, the 

 tenant df the suantjr, to act as oirf pilot to the "haven of our 

 hopes." ipw water ahd adverse winds retarded our pro^j- 

 fess, the rain fell in tdri'ents, and dur.gdns, Shells, blankets 

 jiad provii^ions, not to speak of dirrselfes, gdt rather da cap. 

 My little leather box saved most of my shells. About mid- 

 day, while the wind and rain vied with each other in their 

 efforts to make us uncomfortable, our new pilot informed us 

 tllat he had neyef gdue all the way, but thought he could 

 idd\V find it. This communication .startled us. We hauled 

 iili at ft fishing hduse which was idcked; somebody ripped 

 off a few plaiites, and We gdt in to shield ds frOm the "piti- 

 less siorm." There was no chance to eardp at (bat plaCe. 

 Gloom was on the countenances of all. As yet had nO 

 geese nor ducks. How and where would we pass the night? 

 Just tiien two darkies in oiled clothes came up and offered 

 their services as pilots. We traded in a hurry. Back to the 

 boats we went, our lugirage was replaced, and we were ready 

 for the perilous voyage to the iiappy waters ahead. Our 

 friend Wat by accident got into the water and was thor 

 ou.oiily soaked. But on we went. The channels were as 

 tortuous as possible. Unaided we could not have gone 

 through. At last, however, we hove in sight of a small 

 house, near the edge of the water, on Fullard's Creek, and 

 On inquiry learned that we could get shelter — but no beds. 

 This was much better than nothing, and we gladly entered 

 the habitation. A bright fire soon warmed us. Those of us 

 who had dry clothes changed our garments, and soon re- 

 paired to the kitchen, where some excellent Java, good bread 

 And buttel'. and a gallon of i^ullard Creek's best oysters made 

 U. repast to which all of Us did ample justice. Pretty soon 

 We were in the "loft'* ready for sleep. ' Our host let us have 

 the use of a mattress, on which Crickett, Teceel and I 

 stretched, cro.sswise, our weary limbs. We enjoyed refresh- 

 ing.repose. , 



Nest morning Crickett and "Wat got boats, went up Ful- 

 lard's Creek to some eligible points, and. wasted quite a num- 

 ber of sheUs at sharp-bill ducks on their way to and from 

 their fishing grounds. Teceel and I remained at home. 

 These sportsmen returned with about fifteen sharpbills and 

 one loon. In the afternoon we all went to the Banks, where, 

 we were assured, we should find plenty of black ducks in 

 some fresh water ponds. But, though we saw the ponds, 

 we did not see the ducks. A bountiful supply of oysters at 

 supper and we went to the loft ao-ain and dreamed of geese, 

 ducks and brant to fall before our ijuus the following day. 

 That day came, but at noon we had onl^^ five sharpbills. 

 Then we weighed anchor and directed our course to Cedar 

 Point, at which place lives Dr. E. Ward, in whose house we 

 expected to find comfortal)le quarters. In this we were not 

 disappointed. There we had good fires, good food and good 

 beds, all of which were enjoyed. Reaching his house at 2 

 P. M., .some of us went into his fields for Bob Wliite. We 

 killed about a dozen, and doubtless would have bagged 

 more, but our poor dogs were so punished with sand spurs 

 and cactus that ihey would not hunt. Next morning we 

 tried the ponds on the Banks for black duck, but black 

 ducks were somewhere else. The fields afforded a few Bob 

 Whites, and night came on. 



After we had r< tired to our room 1 informed my com- 

 panions thn t my business at home would not tolerate the 

 return voyage by water, and that if Dr. W. would furnish 

 even a blind ox and an oyster cart I should try the sandy 

 road. So after breakfast the others "plodded their weary 

 way" to the landing where the Nina pressed the ruffged 

 bosom of the waters, while I wailed for our host's "gallant 

 gray" to be hitched to the buggy. High winds prevented 

 me from crossing "the dark avTd stormy water" during that 

 day, and I had to return to the house of my friend and host, 

 and trespass further on his hospitality. The following 

 morning L got across New River at Sneed's Perry, and sought 

 the house of an old friend who lives near Scott's Hill, in 

 Pender county, thirteen miles from Wilmington. I was 

 warmly welcomed by the Major and his family, and spent 

 ;a pleasant night under their roof. He and his wife, son and 

 (daughter did all in their power to make ray unexpected visit 

 an agreeable one, and in this they were entirely successful. 

 The "gude man" is one of the most intelligent men in our 

 State, a good farmer and an eloquent speaker, his son is a 

 promising lawyer, and the wife and daughter are pleasant 

 ■and genial and hospitable. In a few hours after 1 bade my 

 kind friends fai-ewell I was in the office of the Orton. Where 

 were my companions? How were they faring? 



Soon after I entered the street. My trip was well known. 

 'The Daily Morning Star, which peeps into everybody's 

 husiness, had duly advised its readers that our party had 

 gone on a destructive expedition and would return with our 

 -crafts well loaded with geese, ducks and waterfowl, some of 

 which, no doubt, would be left in the city to gladden the 

 hearts of our friends. Alas! 1 met too many of the anxious 

 expectants, and among others the editor of the paper. All 

 wanted to know the result of the campaign. Some even 

 went so far as to suggest that a black duck or a mallard was 

 not an unacceptable present. I was forced to tell the tale, 

 so far as I could relate it. Then, as I went hurriedly down 

 the sidewalk, another would greet me 'with officious pleas- 

 antness, and propound the suggestive inquiry. At last I 

 saw on a corner a group of the £ood citizens, including the 

 Lieutenant-General of the State,' all looking inquisitive— 

 painfully so to me. As I approached them" and received 

 their greetings the stereotyped interrogatory was pro- 

 pounded. I was forced now, in desperation, to exclaim in 

 my agony the weU-known lines of Virgil, 'I/ifa/idmn, 

 Medina, jubes me reaadare dolorem," and to say to tfiem that I 



had Lucy Green in goaA ishooting order, and 050 loaded 

 shells, ready to be used on the nelt scamp who dared to al- 

 lude to that glorious hunt. They smiled pityingly upon me 

 and I did not shoot them. Such a hunt! How /gorgeously 

 painted in imagination; how sombre and gloomy In reality ! 

 Reader, do you desire to know the trophies of my struggle? 

 With sorrow I state that one shaii>billed duck, eight Bob 

 Whites, and, to me, an unknown shore bird, were all which 

 1 could claim! Your correspondent who asked, .some time 

 figo, fm- a l^iort of aa uusucccasful tramp, I trust is now 

 gratiiied. But, with all the ill luck, I got something of value 

 — I gained experience. 



i have said that my cdnipanions left ifle on Sunday morn- 

 inir, the l^^th, at Cedar Point. After that I beard nothini^ 

 until the Friday following, when one of them made hia 

 appearance at home. He told me that I knew nothing and 

 was fortunate in my ignorance. In this case it was "bliss." 

 There was on the return voyage a simple repetition. If pos- 

 sible, it was far worse in its ticconipiiniinents. On the whole, 

 the journey was a complete "bust." fiasselas, after he left 

 his happy valley, had no fli.sappointments compared with 

 otlrs. He aod we "listened with credulity to the whispers 

 of fancy alid pursued with eagerness the phantoms of hope." 

 Happy R isselas. Prince of Abyssinia ! 



It may be that at no distant day I may be able to narrate 

 the incidents of a more pleasant performance in stubble, 

 gra.ss, sedge and brush, all around a blazing ingleside, in 

 close proximity to a table and a bed of down. Possibly I 

 cflh tell how Argo and Eck ranged the fields, bow gallantly 

 they pointed the game, and how clearly little Lucy Green 

 made the hills and valley echo her musical voice. My friend 

 Mud may come in for a sbafe in the picture and Crickett 

 may have a place in the foreground, while his melodious 

 voice is .singing the "Boatman's Song," as he asks "E<noch to 

 drive dem ponies in" preparatory to crossing the Great Pee 

 Bee. Wells. 

 BoemJiGJilAM, N. C, Dec. 19. 1885. 



A FLlNT=LOCK TRIED AND TRUE. 



EMor Forest and Stream.' 



Your London correspondent "J. J. M.," who under date of 

 Nov. 80, in your last impression, writes a very clever and in- 

 teresting article on "Rifles and Shooting," has totally misap- 

 prehended my intention in the matter you printed Sept. 17. 

 Certainly he is veiy right in saying, "considerinjj the dis- 

 tance was only 40 yards there was nothing extraordinary in a 

 heavy smalbgauge gun hitting a 24-inch disc with every Iml- 

 let when fired from a dead rest." Nor is there. But the 

 rifle with which this shooting was done was aflint-lock made 

 in 1787, ninety-nine years ago. It was used at Mad Anthony 

 Wayne's victory over the Indians a few yeas later, in all the 

 Indian wars of the then Northwest Territory, now the States 

 of Ohio and Indiana; at Harmer's defeat; and was handled 

 by ^n ancestor of mine at the battle of the Thames and the 

 battle of Tippecanoe, and finally it was among those handled 

 by Carroll's Tennessee and Kentucky riflemen that foggy 

 morning, early in January, 1815. "when a crackling, blaz- 

 ing volley ran all along the line," and 2,100 of Packenham's 

 and Keane's British veterans, fresh from the peninsula, com- 

 manded by a brother-in-law of the Iron Duke, went down 

 before the "buckskins'" rifles. That a weapon of this great 

 age, absolutely unchanged since it left the workman's hands 

 except to be cleaned, should shoot so well, and that the flint- 

 lock should retain the silkiness of its youth, seemed to me 

 to be worth recording. Hence my mention of it at all. This 

 weapon is only curious and interesting because of its great 

 age and because it is a finely preserved^ specimen of the sort 

 of arm with which the hardy Southwestern pioneers sub- 

 dued the wilderness and overcame wild beasts and wilder 

 men nearly a century ago. 



In the other rifle "tests, with Ballard and Sharps .40-cali- 

 bers, we used the factory ammunition. The ofiicer of the 

 U. S. Engineers who was with me and did part of the shoot- 

 ing is an excellent shot, and the writer shoots fairly well 

 himself. My own experience is— after a pretty thoroush 

 test of them all— that no breechloader, American or English, 

 ever made will equal the shooting of the best made muzzle- 

 loading rifle in deadly accuracy, at from 40 to 100 yards. I 

 am no enemy of the breechloader. It is a very great im- 

 provement, especially in double guns, for birds and ducks; 

 and the art of war has been changed entirely in the introduc- 

 tion of a quick-loading military arm of precision that is 

 deadly at 2,000 yards. But where absolute accuracy is in- 

 dispensable, and unusually neat shooting is required at short 

 range, say 60 to 100 yards, I would rather have in my hands 

 a 9 pound 60-to-the-pound rifle I know of, made by a famous 

 New York interior maker, now dead, than the best breech- 

 loader that was ever devised. "Sich is my apinium." Has 

 the late Geo. H. Ferriss, of Utica, left any successor who 

 has his skill and workmanlike knowledge in rifle making? 



Mississippi Lowlands. 



Wkstern Massachusetts — Editor Forest arid Stream: 

 Your correspondent "Nonotuck," from Holyoke, Mass , 

 "cuts it fat" when he writes you that there are men here in 

 this county (Hampden) who, shooting for the market, "get 

 all the way from fifteen to twenty -five hundred birds apiece" 

 in a season. I do not like to impugn the veracity of "Nono- 

 tuck" or any man, but I believe the statement to be not only 

 an absurdity, but impossible. I have shot in this county for 

 twenty-five'years and so has Mr. Hammond. I know the 

 best shots in all this county, and I venture the assertion that 

 no man in that tune has killed legitimately with his gun, one 

 half of fifteen or twenty-five hundred birds. It is true, as 

 "Nonotuck" says, that grouse shooting this past season has 

 been good. I know and for fifteen years have siiot with the 

 best all-around brush shot here, and who shoots over dogs 

 more days in the season than any other man in- Western Mas- 

 sachusetts, and his maximum this year is less than six hun- 

 dred birds. 1 should like "Nonotuck" to give your readers 

 the name of any man in Western Massachusetts who has 

 even approximated the above score. If he can dp it he will 

 reveal to the sportsmen in this vicinity a prodigy heretofore 

 unknown.— E. H. L. (Springfield, Mass., Jan. 10 ) Holyoke, 

 Jan. 9. — Edittor Forest and Stream: The printer or some- 

 body else was rather hard on me in publishing my little com- 

 munication last week. I wrote that the shooters gather 

 from fifteen grouse to five hundred each, the exaet truth. 

 Not fifteen to twenty-five hundred, an outrageous falsehood. 



— NONOT0CK. 



Los Angeles, Cal., Dec 27.— Wildfowl more plenty than 

 when I wrote. Bagged fourteen ducks Saturday, mostly 

 teal. Sloughs are full of water and ducks now.— C. B. W. 



F. W. Freund, Esq — Dear Sir: The set of siglits received from you 

 DOl long ago are aU that you claim for theqa, and I think the best of 

 open sisbts. Rebpectfully, Albs. T. Lloto, Jk. (Chicago, 111., Dec. 2, 

 im).~Adv. 



m md ^ivet finishing. 



Address alt communications to the Forest and Stream Publish- 

 ng Co. 



THE KINGFISHER'S LAMENT, 



A KINGFISHEl?, sat on a cedar tree 

 Absorbed in sad reflection- 

 Unfolded at length in soliloquy " 

 The cause o( liis dejection, 



"The meadows are black with the frost," qiioth he, 



' The leaves are slowly dying; 

 A pitiless wind from the Northern sea 



Has set the pine ti-ee sighing. 



"The last of my race to the South have flown, 



To lands more warmly lying, 

 To mourn for ihe broolc I am left alone, 



And I must soon be flying. 



"Each spring where the lilies at anchor ride 



Or where yon whirlpool gushes, 

 I've fished, and I've slept, every watifc siippUed, 



Above tlie rustling rushes. 



"The trout and the perch and the felippery cat 



My morning menu furnished; 

 I dined upon pickerel fresh and fat, 



And dace in armor burnished. 



"But now 'tsvere less idle to flsh in rills. 



For men our plaints ne'er heeding, 

 Have poisoned the stream with their shops and mills, 



And stopped the flsh from breeding. 



"Our ancestors scarce could have dreamed, I weea, 



When Phoebus scorched their feathers, 

 Their children would suffer a pang more keen. 



On far off western heathers. 



"When first we were mated we little guessed. 



In yonder pine tree aerie. 

 They'd drive us at last to the distant West 



Like chickens of the prairie. 



"But what with ammonia, tar and dye. 



We've ruined our digestion, 

 And whether there's any healthy fry. 



Becomes an open question. 



"Haste on, ye rash men, your reward ye'll reap. 



For forest razea and stream polluted— 

 Full warm in your flne-woven fabrics ye'll keep, 



But deep j our recompense is fruited. 



"Ye drink in the waters diseases vile; 



Ye feed on poisoned flshes; 

 But are not your riches increasing while 



Death crouches in your dishes? 



"Adieu thou perverted and noxious stream. 



Abode of loathsome manes. 

 I seek the pure waters of which I dream. 



Beyond the ^lleghanies." 



He rose and his course to the westward swung. 



That gay and hardened sinner, 

 The factory bell unrepenting rung 



To call the girls from dinner. F. W. Trot. 



Washington. 



ADIRONDACK FISHES. 



THE long looked for report on the fishes of the Adiron- 

 dack region by Mr. Fred Mather has been issued in the 

 form of an extract iu advance of the 13th report of Mr. Ver- 

 planck Colvin, superintendent of the Adirondack Survey, of 

 which it forms an appendix. The title page tells us that the 

 researches were made iu 1883, and it bears the date of 1886. 

 It is an octavo of fifty-six pages and one plate of two species 

 new to science. There has been some difficulty in the way 

 of issuing Mr. Colviu's last report, although most of it has 

 been in type for some years, and this extract was printed at 

 the solicitation of the author, who feared that his labors 

 would become valueless with time, and a limited number of 

 copies were printed for him, this being the only compensa- 

 tion he received. We are surprised at the small number of 

 species (twenty-five) which were found there, and that these 

 represent eight families and sixteen genera. 



This report contains a great deal of information about the 

 habits of some of the fishes, especially of the land-locked 

 salmon, and is not too densely scientific for the understand- 

 ing of the well-informed angler. Synonyms, both popular 

 and scientific, are given, and also translations of the systema- 

 tic names, which will help many people to remember them. 

 The distribution of the fishes received as much attention as 

 time and correspondence would permit, and while not at all 

 complete, shows what lakes do not contain brook trout, 

 where black bass are found, etc. Among the invertebrate 

 life found was He Kay's "living trilobite," which puzzled the 

 author so that he labeled it "the queer animal" and sent it 

 to Mr. Richard Rathbun, of the TJ. S. Fish Commission, for 

 identification. 



It seems from this report that there may be two members of 

 the pike family in the Adirondack region, but the masca- 

 longe is not found there. The eel is thought to be more 

 plentiful than is generally supposed, while the yellow perch 

 exists only on the borders of the wilderness, and ©ne species 

 of catfish is quite common. Of the two species of suckers 

 claimed to be new, it may be said that both Dr. Bean and 

 Prof. Jordan incline to think that they may be dwarf moun 

 tain forms of the other two species found there, and Mr. 

 Mather says that at first he inclined to this view, but the 

 fact that the small specimens were adufi and spawning at a 

 different season from the allied forms, in addition to some 

 structural differences, satisfied him that they were entitled 

 to specific rank. No pretense of having exhaustively worked 

 the field is made, and it is very possible that other fishes not 

 included in the report will be found by those disposed to 

 look for them ; and the investigations will form a valuable 

 basis for future wonders in this field, as well as being of 

 general interest to anglers. 



That is Ouk Mission. — Your editorials on the hydro- 

 phobia question, short though they be, are to the point, 

 most direct and timely. This every day press has too much 

 "rabical rubbish" on more subjects than this, that wants a 

 well conducted Forest and Stream, to correct for the 

 people these many outputs of ignorance on subjects beyond 

 their reach.— Db. E. Sterling. 



