Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



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

 Six Months, $2. f 



NEW YORK, APRIL 29, 1886, 



j VOL. XXVI.-No. 14. 



j Nos. 39 & 40 Park Bow, New York. 



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Forest sad Sfcrasun Publishing; Co. 

 Nos. 39 and 40 Park Bow. New York Cot. 



CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Some Poor Men's Riches. 



Sentiment of Spring Shooting. 



Forest Protection. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



Days Among the Alligators. 

 Natural History. 



The Audubon Society, 



Tbe Sparrow Hawk's Services. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



Game and Fish Protection . 



Echoes from the Pacific. 



A Day on Shinnecock Bay. 



Massachusetts Poaching. 



Flight of Bullets. 



Virginia Coast Grounds. 



Abolish Spring Shooting. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



Camps of the Kingfishers.— ix. 



The Maine Angliner Season. 



Black Bass Kig. 



Florida Game and Fish. 

 Fishculture. 



Deep Sea Fishing on the U. S. S. 

 Albatross. 

 The Kennel. 



Our Hartford Report. 



The Kennel. 



North Carolina Amateur Field 

 Trial Club. 



Spratts Biscuits. 



The Cleveland Dog Show. 



Kennel Notes. 



Kennel Management. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 



Target Talk. 



The Trajectory Trial. 



Range and Gallery. 



The Trap. 



Three Traps or Five. 



The Ohio Tournament. 

 Canoeing. 



The A. C. A. Meet. 



The Canoe Exhibition. 



The Association Cup. 



British Canoeing in 1886, 

 Yachting. 



Puzzle. 



A National Yachting Association 

 Nanita. 



The Nice Regatta. 

 The International Races. 

 Yachting Notes. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



SOME POOR MEN'S RICHES. 



THERE are many who have inherited the hunting instinct 

 and were horn too late to find game enough in the 

 region of their birth to make hunting worth while for the 

 game that can be got by the most persistent seeking, and 

 who have not inherited wealth, nor the faculty of acquiring 

 it, so that they may go for a week, or month, or more of a 

 year, to places where game is still abundant. Some of these 

 sometimes wonder whether this inheritance, come down to 

 them through a thousand generations from wild ancestors, is 

 not under such conditions an entailed ill-fortune, a whole- 

 some desire, given without the opportunity of satisfying it, a 

 purse of gold that one must always carry but never spend. 



Most assuredly it is an unprofitable dower if it leads one to 

 too continual pursuit of what at best he can get but little of, 

 mere game. But if it takes him to the woods and fields for 

 that reasonable share of recreation which belongs of right to 

 all, rather than to questionable pastimes among ill-assorted 

 associates, then it is something to be thankful for. With 

 a gun to excuse his day's outing he goes forth. His wits are 

 sharpened to find the haunts of the infrequent woodcock or 

 quail or grouse, that should of right be in the swamp, or 

 field, or copse that of old their tribes possessed. All these he 

 must search, and study how changed conditions have wrought 

 changes in the habits of those few survivors. Their wits, 

 too, are sharpened. The woodcock does not wait till the 

 dog's nose is almost above him before he springs up with a 

 twittering whistle, but flushes wild, and alights afar off. 

 The scant bevy of quail goes off out of gunshot in a gray 

 flurry to the mazes of the woods. The ruffed grouse tarries 

 not to cry "quit! quit!" nor strut along the dim aisles of his 

 woodland sanctuary, but hurtles away unseen, almost out of 

 ear shot. If by good luck one of these falls to the unaccus- 

 tomed aim, if a woodcock tumbles in a shower of leaves to 

 the ferny carpet of the swamp, if a quail drops to the earth 

 out of a whiff of feathers, if a grouse slants from his arrowy 

 flight and strikes with a fluttering thud upon the fallen 

 leaves, or a woodduck started from a willowy bend of the 

 river, splashes back into it before the powder smoke has un- 

 veiled him, how the heart is warmed with a thrill of the satis- 

 faction of well-doing! 



"Without even this appeasing of the sportsman's gentle 

 bloodthirst, there is more and better to be got of a day's 



wandering with the helping burden of a gun. The com. 

 panionship of Nature, the eavesdropping and spying to 

 catch her secrets, the studying of the ways of all the little 

 wood people, not worth, or inestimably more than worth, 

 powder and shot. Who has ever heard the last word the 

 jay has to tell him in her many voices? or who has tired of 

 visiting with the chickadees, or of watching the nuthatches 

 creeping headlong down the mossy tree trunks, or the squir- 

 rels' saucy tricks, or the ways of strange woods plants grow- 

 ing and blowing and seeding, and the odd freaks of trees' 

 growths, and no end of things that he would never have 

 heard or seen if it had not been for this wooden and iron ex- 

 cuse that he lugs about with him? Thanks be to its first in- 

 ventor, in spite of all the woeful mischief it has wrought. 

 How many happy days it has gone to the making of, from 

 boyhood to old age, in the lives of those who love it. What 

 a comfort is the ownership of a good gun, though one sel- 

 dom shoots it. What a pleasure its owner has in those sea- 

 sans when it cannot be otherwise used, in putting it in order 

 for the days fondly looked forward to— days when the 

 woods have put on their last and bravest attire of the year — 

 days when they have cast it off and all the landscape is veiled 

 in the gray haze of Indian summer, and days when all the 

 fields and frozen waters are white with the first snows and 

 the wild music of the hounds stirs the woods. 



When these days have come and gone and winter winds 

 are howling, who so much as he, born to the love of field 

 sports with small opportunity of enjoying them, delights to 

 read by his cheerful fireside what others more fortunate 

 have written of their outings, and to share with them in 

 spirit the happy hours in camps by wild lakes, the tramps in 

 primeval forests, and hunting tours in far away lands that 

 he may never see. 



TEE SENTIMENT ON SPRING SHOOTING. 



IT is an encouraging sign of the times that the sentiment 

 - of the West, where spring shooting is chiefly carried 

 on, is changing on this subject. It was formerly as much a 

 matter of course to kill ducks in the spring as in the fall, but 

 of late, individuals in great numbers, and in some cases the 

 press, are protesting against the scandalous folly of this 

 wasteful practice. 

 The Milwaukee Wisconsin of April 17 says: 



The annual spring slaughter of ducks in Wisconsin and other 

 Northern States has begun rather earlier than usual and appears to 

 be pursued with more than common energy. Thousands of ducks 

 are being killed daily. The Oshkosh Northwestern states that the 

 birds which are being killed in that vicinity are "mere skeletons." 

 This is usually the condition of ducks in the spring, and for that 

 reason alone the shooting of them should he forbidden by legal en- 

 actment. But another and still better reason is, that each pair of 

 birds killed would raise a large brood during the summer if they were 

 unmolested now. Thus every duck destroyed stands for several 

 which might live. There are a few hunting clubs in the State which 

 bave bought or leased tracts of marsh where the ducks are allowed 

 to live through the summer and breed without molestation. This 

 plan makes the best of shooting in the fall at those places, and but 

 for them the ducks would be nearly exterminated in Wisconsin. 



Comparatively little spring shooting h done along the 

 Atlantic seaboard, for the very excellent reason that there 

 are few places where birds are to be found, and few birds to 

 shoot, but in the West the case is different. The experience 

 of a number of clubs in Western States has shown conclus- 

 ively the advantage which may be derived from the pro- 

 hibition of shooting at this season over limited areas. On 

 the grounds of the Winous Point Club ducks are protected 

 in spring, and as a direct result of this protection, the birds 

 are wonderfully numerous and tame in the autumn. 



It is, perhaps, hopeless to think of inaugurating the 

 abolition of spring shooting in the East at present. The 

 miserably foolish and short-sighted action of the Legislature 

 of the State of New York on the deer hounding question, 

 recently, shows how narrow and petty is the view taken by 

 our legislators on the subject of game protection. Still, 

 people are being educated, though very slowly, and we trust 

 that a few years more will see game of every kind protected 

 everywhere for all the year, except a short period in autumn 

 and early winter. The recent change in the Canadian game 

 laws, and the change of sentiment among sportsmen, point 

 to an awakening on the importance of a general alteration in 

 our laws, and as soon as the shooting public begin to think 

 seriously on this matter it will certainly be brought to the 

 notice of the different State legislatures in a way that will 

 compel their attention. 



Maine and Adirondack Waters will soon be open for 

 the angler, and many gentlemen are anxiously awaiting the 

 telegrams which shall announce that the ice has gone out. 



FOREST PROTECTION. 

 TT is well understood that whatever the damage done by 

 the reckless cutting away of our forests, this injury 

 is inconsiderable when compared with that caused by forest 

 fires. Those who are familiar with the mountains of the 

 Far West have seen the fearful havoc there wrought by fire, 

 and know a long way off the cause which gives to many a 

 lofty mountain its curious silver-gray appearance. For 

 years after being burned over, the dead and bleaching tree 

 trunks stand as witnesses of the terrible destruction brought 

 about by carelessness or malice. The loss of life and prop- 

 erty caused by forest fires in Michigan is too recent to have 

 been forgotten. 



The importance of this matter has long been appreciated 

 by those who have to do with large forest areas. One of the 

 principal duties of the police of the National Park is the 

 guarding against the spread of forest fires, and the value of 

 their services is shown by the fact that in the Park, a coun- 

 try especially liable to this scourge, there were last year no 

 forest fires of any considerable magnitude. 



The New York Forestry Commission recently adopted a 

 series of rules and regulations for the protection of the Adi- 

 rondack woods, which are as follows: 



First. All persons having occasion to bum a fallow or start a fire 

 in any old chopping, wind slash, bush or berry lot, swamp, "vlaie," 

 or beaver meadow, for the purpose of clearing or improvement, shall 

 give five days' notice of such intention to the nearest fire warden, 

 forester, or agent of the Forest Commission. He shall also give 

 notice to any neighbors who may have fields or woodlands adjacent 

 and liable to injury at least one day previous to the settfng of such 

 fires. Such fires will be permitted only when the wind is favorable, 

 and competent persons must remain on guard until the fire is com- 

 pletely extinguished on the surface and in the "duff." 



Second. All hunters, fishermen, loggers, guides, tourists and others 

 lighting fires in or near the forest for cooking, warmth, insect 

 smudges or other purposes, must clear away all combustible material 

 from within six feet of the place where the fire is to be kindled, and 

 must thoroughly stamp out, drench, or otherwise extinguish any 

 such fire upon leaving it either temporarily or permanently; and 

 hunters using firearms with inflammable wadding are hereby cau- 

 tioned against allowing fires to start from such causes. 



Third. Smokers are cautioned in regard to fires arising from any 

 carelessness of theirs, and their attention is called to the penalty for 

 negligence in causing fires. Parents and teachers are respectfully 

 requested to instruct children to avoid lighting fires in the forests or 

 exposed places. 



Fourth. Peeling standing trees of their bark for covering camps or 

 shanties is hereby prohibited. For such purposes the tree must be 

 felled, and all the available bark removed therefrom before another 

 tree is cut down. Tbe trees thus felled must be utilized for firewood, 

 and such fallen timber as lies in the vicinity of the camp must also 

 be used for firewood before any green standing timber is cut for that 

 purpose. 



The fourth of these rules implies a measure of license in- 

 consistent with any high standard of forest conservancy ; 

 and although, so long as no raarket exists for the timber, it 

 would perhaps be a dog-in the-manger policy to impose 

 severe restrictions on the utilization of forest products by 

 camping parties, it is desirable that restrictions be imposed 

 on the barking or felling of pine or spruce for any purpose. 

 Camping parties should bear in mind, too, that the sanctions 

 implied in this rule cannot extend to forests in private 

 hands, the owners of which have a right of action for dam- 

 ages for any tree felled on their property. These regula- 

 tions should be carefully read and remembered by all those 

 who contemplate camping out in the Adirondacks this sum- 

 mer, and advantage should not be taken of the liberal spirit 

 in which the fourth rule is framed to perpetrate reckless 

 waste. Sound growing timber, so situated that there is 

 room for its development, should never be felled, for 

 although it have no immediate market value, it may be in 

 active demand in another decade or two. 



It is well known that careless hunters start a comparatively 

 large number of the fires which spread and involve large 

 areas, and too much care cannot be exercised with regard 

 to the proper selection of the spot for the fire and its thorough 

 extinguishment before leaving it. 



In another column will be found that portion of the 

 report of the New York State Fish Commissioners which 

 relates to the protection of fish and game in this State. The 

 document is an important one and contains many suggestions 

 and recommendations which deserve the attention of our 

 legislators. The position taken by this report on the deer 

 hounding question, shows that the Commissioners bold sound 

 views on this subject. The recommendation for the appoint- 

 ment of a Superintendent of game protectors is in line with 

 what we have strongly urged. The report may be read with 

 profit by all who are interested in game and fish protection, 

 and it deserves the prompt attention of the New York 

 Legislature. 



