Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. I 

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NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 4, 1886. 



( VOL. XXVI.— No. 2. 



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



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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Tne Maine House Burners. 



Kansas Game Needs. 



The Albany Deer Bills. 



The Revenge Argument. 



To the Walled In Lakes. - ix. 

 Camp Fire Flickerings. 

 The Sfortsm&u ToxnusT. 



Camp Flotsam — xxn. 

 Natural Historv. 



The Standard Natural History. 



Two Years iu the Jangle. 

 Game Bag and Gins. 



A Camp Hunt in Missouri.— I. 



The Dead Diamond Country. 



"Forest and Stream's" Grizzlies 



The Trajectory Tests. 



January Reflections. 



The Adirondack Deer. 



Kansas Game Birds. 



Midwinter Birds. 



A Florida Yarn. 



Dakota Game. 



Erratic Bullet Flights. 



An Adirondack Deer Hunt. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



Fly- Fishing for Suckers. 



The Striped Bass Law. 



Sea and River Fishing. 

 Cooking a Trout in Camp. 

 Harpoon for Big Fish. 

 To Carry a Landing Net. 



FlSHCHLTURE. 



The Adirondack Hatchery. 

 The Kennel. 



Notes from England. 



The Pittsburgh Dog Show. 



The. New Haven Dog Show. 



Kennel Notes. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 



Range and Gallery. 



The Trap. 

 Canoeing. 



Wide and Narrow Canoes. 

 Yachting. 



Cruise of the Coot — xi. 



The Cruise of the Pilgrim.— vi. 



The Cruise of the Bonita. 



A Primitive Lateen Rig. 



A Steering Gear for Ice Yachts. 



Lateen Rigs for Ice Boats. 



The Status of Galatea. 



The Atlantic. 



Newspapers and Club Scandals. 

 Elections of Officers. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



THE MAINE HOUSE BURNERS. 



ONE common protection of the classes who violate the 

 game laws is in their standing threat to poison the live 

 stock and burn the barn of any one who dares to give 

 evidence against them. Scores and hundreds of outrageous 

 aets have gone unpunished because no one iu the community 

 had backbone enough to risk the vengeance of these fellows. 

 Just now the Legislature of New York is asked to modify 

 one of the best game laws of the State out of deference to the 

 demand of Adirondack dwellers, who threaten, if the law is 

 not changed, to slaughter the game out of pure revenge. 



In most instances this fear of vengeance is without any 

 adequate foundation. The grouse snarer may proclaim that 

 if "peached on" he will burn barns, but as a matter of fact 

 he is a cowardly fellow, brave enough in setting snares, but 

 lacking courage to apply the incendiary's match. The way 

 to treat him is to go ahead with his indictment and punish 

 ment. In nine cases out of ten no barn burning will follow. 

 In the tenth case, where the law breakers are actually so de- 

 praved as to execute their threats, there is but one course of 

 action, as in the other nine, namely, to prosecute. Then if 

 the barn incendiarism follows, punish that too. At all 

 hazards take away from such dangerous members of society 

 their defense. Break up the reign of terror. This is just 

 the condilion of affairs they have had to contend with in 

 Maine. 



Last March one J. W. Day, of Wesley, Me., was prose- 

 cuted by detective Pettingall for having killed deer contrary 

 to law. Day believed that Game Warden Munson, of Wesley, 

 was responsible for his arrest, and he made the customary 

 threats of revenge. He belonged to a clique known as the 

 "Shacker Boys," Shacker being a local term for deer. The 

 ©Backers resolved to "clean out" Warden Munson. Among 

 other devices to accomplish this end, they set a dead-fall for 

 him, but this he escaped. Then Day announced that a 

 match was waiting for Munson's buildings as soon as the hay 

 was in. At last on the night of July 17, Day poisoned Mun- 

 son's cow, emptied a can of kerosene in the barn and house 

 and set fire to them. Both were totally destroyed. Six 

 weeks after that others of the "Shacker Boys" stole into the 

 bSTO Of ©anje Warden Samuel pushing, cut pff hjs horn's 



head and burned the barn and all its contents. The incen- 

 diary Day was arrested for his crime and lodged in jail. 

 Then letters were sent by the Shacker gang to six 

 other persons who had been prominent in enforcing the 

 game laws, among others to Dr. Sam. B. Hunter, Of Machias. 

 These cheerful missives threatened fire, poison and death. 

 Day also sent out from his cell poetical effusions bearing 

 upon his crime and arrest. One of these compositions was 

 produced at his trial as an evidence of the law -defying char- 

 acter of the Shackers. It is an illiterate mess of doggerel 

 beginning: 



It was in the town of wesley 



as you shal understand 



thair lived a croud of young men 



thay was cald the shackr band 



and thay was accused of menny 



a bad deed let them be guilty or not 



but they hunted deer the year around 



and for the wardens make it hot 



thair was one young man among them 



the wardens all knew well 



for by this devels rifi 



thair had menny a poor deer f el 



he hunted on old stream 



I would have you all to know 



and he sed it was one place 



the wardens dast not go 



Day was brought into court Jan. 23, and the case went to 

 the jury on Monday of last week. He was convicted of 

 arson and sentenced to State Prison. Next April, it is con- 

 fidently hoped, at least one more of the Shacker band will 

 join him there. The Maine authorities have adopted the 

 only adequate policy of dealing with these characters; they 

 are pursuing that policy with a decision and a vigor that 

 cannot be too highly commended, and by the time they shall 

 have finished, it will be understood, in that part of the State 

 at least, that prosecutions for game law offenses are not to 

 be avenged by poisoning cows, beheading horses and putting 

 the torch to barns and dwellings. 



KANSAS GAME NEEDS. 



THE members of the Leavenworth Gun Club have addressed 

 a memorial to their Senator, asking for much needed 

 changes in the law for the protection of game birds. The 

 quail and grouse are shipped to market in such quantities 

 that, though the open season for them is right, the two species 

 are sadly harried and their extinction only a matter of time. 

 Another evil which has been developed in Kansas is the side- 

 hunt. Competitive shooting leads to the killing of unreason- 

 able bags. Game is destroyed not for the inherent sport of 

 shooting, nor because the birds themselves are desired for 

 food, but only to make a score which shall "beat the other 

 fellows." The petitioners ask that exportation of game may 

 be stopped ; that Kansas game may not be dumped into the 

 Chicago and St. Louis markets. They also ask that local 

 game killers may be limited by law to twenty-five birds each 

 in one day. These demands are reasonable. Senator Lowe 

 will serve the true interests of his constituents if iie will 

 secure the game legislation they ask. 



THE ALBANY DEER BILLS. 



TWO of the bills relating to the hounding of deer have 

 been reported upon by the Assembly committee, and 

 were put on the files last Monday. 



The first is No. 107, introduced by Mr. White. It makes 

 the deer killing season from Aug. 15 to Nov. 1 ; allows jack- 

 hunting from Aug. 15 to Oct. 15, and dogging from Sept. 

 15 to Oct. 15; allows possession of venison from Aug. 15 to 

 Nov. 15, and the sale of venison from Aug. 15 to Nov. %. 



The second is No. 108, introduced by Mr. Barnes. It 

 makes the deer killing season from Aug. 15 to Nov. 15; per- 

 mits hounding from Aug. 15 to Nov. 1; forbids jacking at 

 any time; and forbids tbe transportation of venison out of 

 any of the counties of the State (save Queens and Suffolk) 

 except that from Aug. 1 to Nov. 15 two carcasses may be 

 transported if accompanied by their owner. 



Both of these bills contains some good features, but each 

 one has a vast preponderance of unmitigated evil, and the 

 amendment of the present law as Mr. White proposes it, or 

 as Mr. Barnes proposes it, would be nothing less than a 

 public calamity. Mr. Barnes's clause restricting tranporta- 

 tion of venison to two carcasses accompanied by the owner, 

 is a capital provision, or it would be but for the idiotic 

 proposition to legalize the transportation of dead game 

 fifteen days before it is lawful to kill that game. 



Mr. White and Mr. Barnesare posing under false pretences 

 as apostles of game protection. The milk in the cocoanut 

 is the deer-hounding clause. These bills have been prepared 

 and are now being j pushed solely witlj a yjew t? redwing 



Adirondack deer-hounding. The good non-jacking clause, 

 the good non-transportation clause, the good shortening of 

 the season clause — each is only a sop to make us forget the 

 true nature and intent of the bill. Either bill, if it became 

 a law, would mean the deplorable destruction of Adirondack 

 deer. Mr. Barnes is working only for a small class of..im- 

 provident hotel keepers, stage drivers and guides. Their 

 time-serving policj' of grasping all they can to-day without 

 regard to certain ruin to-morrow, is directly opposed to the 

 true sentiment and interest of the intelligent residents of the 

 Adirondack counties. 



Every citizen of this State should concern himself to work 

 for the defeat of the Barnes bill and the White bill, and all 

 other bills intended to restore hounding. 



We repeat the warning already given. If the deer law is 

 to be maintained it must be by immediate, earnest and per- 

 sistent action by individuals, each one doing his share. 

 Elsewhere we reprint the petition given last week; and we 

 urge every reader of the Forest and Stream in this State 

 to secure signatures to this and forward it to his district 

 representative in Albany. This must be done now. The 

 deer-hounders in\he Assembly boast that they will carry the 

 day. If their designs are thwarted it must be by prompt 

 work. 



THE REVENGE ARGUMENT 



ONE argument upon which the advocates of shooting 

 exhausted deer in the water lay much stress is the 

 revenge argument . 



There are a number of men and their families in the 

 North Woods who depend for a livelihood largely upon the 

 wages paid them by rich city sportsmen who hire the guides 

 and their hounds to drive deer into the water for the sports- 

 men to butcher. The hounding advocates aver that the guides 

 of this particular class are a miserable, poverty-stricken 

 lot, continually upon the verge of starvation. They drag 

 out a wretched existence through the winter, barely subsist- 

 ing upon what provender they have secured with their deer : 

 hounding revenue and with what venison they kill in the 

 snow. Were hounding allowed the winter-killing of deer by 

 these half-starved guides would he limited to their actual 

 present needs; they would crust-hunt only enough deer to 

 do them and their dogs through the winter, and would care- 

 fully protect the rest as material for the profitable summer 

 and autumn water-killing. But — this is the argument— if 

 hounding be forbidden, 'and this source of revenue cutoff, 

 the guides will be compelled to kill more deer in winter ■ 

 and, more than this, will crust-hunt by the wholesale and 

 destroy the game out of pure revenge ; and their revenge will 

 not be sated save at the sacrifice of all the deer they can 

 butcher. 



Briefly put, the contention is that the deer must be hounded 

 to death by sportsmen in order that they may not be crust- 

 hunted by the guides. Paddle up to them in the water and 

 cut their throats in August to save them from having their 

 throats cut in the snowdrifts in February. The hounders 

 who make this plea doubtless think that they have for it some 

 foundation in fact. If there are shiftless, lazy, half-starved 

 Adirondack dwellers who will butcher deer out of revenge, 

 they certainly are not representatives of the decent class of 

 North Woods guides. They are not the sort of citizens 

 whose threats should coerce the Legislature into making a 

 law for their benefit. 



To the tender-hearted water-butcher of Adirondack deer 

 it may appear a harsh sentence, but most other people 

 will agree with us that if these men cannot make a living as 

 guides in the North Woods under present laws, they ought 

 to kill their hounds, engage in some legitimate labor and 

 earn their bread and butter as other folks do. 



Massachusetts Sunday Shooting. — A petition was 

 presented to the Massachusetts General Court, at Boston, 

 last week, praying for the repeal of the "Blue Laws" of that 

 State, among them the statute which forbids shooting game 

 on the Sabbath day. Whatever may be the reasonableness 

 or unreasonableness of the other laws included in the 

 petition, this one is perfectly right and proper. The pro- 

 hibition of Sunday shooting should be maintained; to repeal 

 its provisions would be most unwise. 



Codfish pgr the Gude of Mexico. — Professor Baird 

 is engaged in an attempt to acclimatize codfish in the Gulf 

 of Mexico. A million eggs from the sLation at Wood's Holl 

 in Massachusetts, will be put into the waters of the Gulf at 

 Pensacola. The experiment wil! be watched with a great 



§w) of i&temh 



