403 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[June 17, 1886. 



FLORIDA FOOLISHNESS. 

 A T the inter-state tournament of the National Gun Asso- 

 ciation, at Tallahassee, Florida, June 21, it is proposed 

 to trap-shoot martins. Such a proceeding ougbt not to have 

 the sanction of the National Gun Association, nor of the 

 local club, nor of any individual making pretension of pos- 

 sessing the customary modicum of common sense. It is pure, 

 unadulterated, aggravated foolishness. 



All other considerations aside, there are abundant economic 

 reasons why these birds should not be destroyed. Martins 

 are insectivorous. That is to say they catch, eat and destroy 

 vast numbers of injurious insects. In one of the volumes of 

 Forest and Stkram is given a record by a naturalist, Mr. 

 O. Widdnian, of St. Louis, Mo., who watched a nest of 

 a pair of martins sixteen hours, from 4 A. M. to 8 P. M., to 

 see how many visits the parent birds made to feed their 

 young. He found that in that time 312 visits to the four 

 young were made, 119 by the male and 198 by the female. 

 If we suppose only six insects to have been brought at each 

 visit, this pair of birds would have destroyed, for their young 

 alone, in this one summer's day, not far from 2,000 insects. 

 It is hardly necessary for us to begin at the iirst pages of the 

 primer and laboriously teach that creatures which perform 

 such services for the community should not be thoughtlessly, 

 not to say wickedly, destroyed in trap-shooting competitions. 

 Florida does not enjoy such extraordinary immunity from 

 insect pests that its citizens can afford to make war on 

 martins and other like birds. 



The number of martins which the . National Gun Associa- 

 tion proposes to trap-shoot at Tallahassee may be very 

 small, so insignificant that the actual results of their destruc- 

 tion will be practically nothing. The harm likely to ensue 

 is not, however, to be measured by the immediate material 

 result of the proceeding. The National Guu Association and 

 the gentlemen gathered inTallahassee have a certain responsi- 

 bility, because they will be looked upon as representing the 

 attitude of sportsmen on such questions as this of the destruc- 

 tion of valuable insectivorous birds. If they shoot martins 

 it will be a warrant for others to do the same. If they take 

 a stand against the killing of useful birds, their example will 

 have an influence on others. The proper thing for the 

 Florida members of the National Gun Association to do at 

 Tallahassee is to initiate a movement to secure from the 

 Legislature of the State a law forbidding the destruction of 

 martins and all other insectivorous birds, as well as birds of 

 plume. 



SPUING IN THE YELLOWSTONE PARK. 



THE latest advices from the National Park, dated late in 

 May, i-eport a mild winter and the spring fairly opened. 

 Game is said to be plenty and to have wintered well. Elk 

 have been seen in large numbers around Specimen Mountain 

 near the mouth of Slough Creek, and East Fork travelers 

 have reported seeing over two hundred head between Soda 

 Butte and the Mammoth Hot Springs. A. good many elk 

 have wintered also in the Swan Lake and Indian Creek 

 country, where they were fairly abundant last August. It is 

 stated that these numbered from three to five hundred. 



The usual baud of mouutaiu sheep have been seen on the 

 slopes of Mt. Evarts, where they remained until after the 

 lambs were born. Some of these were dropped not far from 

 Gardiner's River. 



A small band of fifteen or twenty head of antelope have 

 been seen near the town of Gardiner, between the foot of 

 Mt. Evarts and the river. 



Early in the month of May, Geo. Miller, one of the Park 

 Police, went from the Springs to Soda Butte, and when 

 crossing Specimen divide, came upon three buffalo, a large 

 bull, a cow and a smaller bull. As there was considerable 

 snow the animals kept the road for some time, and when at 

 length they turned off, Miller was only about twenty yards 

 behind them. They did not appear to be greatly alarmed, 

 aud stopped soon after he had passed them. 



A new road was recently opened from the Norris Basin to 

 the Falls for the purpose of takiug in building material for 

 one of the hotel companies. James Blanding, one of Lieut. 

 Kingman's foremen, broke this road, and reports having 

 seen twenty five bison and a great many elk. He did not 

 reach any point where he could overlook the Hayden Valley, 

 which is the great wintering place for game in the Park. 



Building by new hotel companies is going on quite vigor, 

 ously in the Park, and by this time the season may be con- 

 sidered to have fairly opened. A few tourists even went 

 into the Park i n May. 



THE BOSTON DUMPING GROUND. 



THE new Massachusetts game law is in many respects an 

 improvement upon the statute it supplants. Its text 

 is the outcome of much pulling and hauling by represeuta : 

 tives of diverse interests. The members of the Massachu- 

 setts Fish and Game Protective Association had as usual the 

 market-dealers to contend against, and as usual the game 

 sellers came out ahead. They still have the privilege of 

 receiving the unseasonable game which can find a market 

 nowhere else. Western prairie chickens and venison and 

 Eastern quail will find their way to the Boston dumping 

 ground, and if Massachusetts game is not displayed on the 

 same stalls it will be because Providence sometimes overrules 

 the natural consequences of such grossly stupid legislation as 

 the Massachusetts people are capable of perpetrating when 

 game interests are at stake. 



JP* Sportsman §onri$U 



DAYS WITH THE BARMECIDE CLUB. 



IV. 



FOUR or five miles southeast of Our Lake were three other 

 lakes, all discharging their waters through the outlet of 

 the most southerly of these; and their combiued flows, in 

 addition to numerous springs which added their mites, made 

 a large stream, one to fill all the requirements of the angler. 

 It was a wild rough place off the beaten track, and we were 

 one of two parties who had visited it in the last three years. 



We had to build a raft for our lake fishing, as we found 

 the old one was water-soaked and nearly a complete wreck. 

 If it had ever been "a thing of beauty" it was not "a joy 

 forever," for its beauty, its joy and all its ajsthetic and use- 

 ful qualities were numbered with the past. The tramp from 

 Our Lake, building a raft and repairing shanty, consumed 

 the greater part of the day, but the time was well occupied 

 and enables us to devote the remainder of our stay to fishing, 

 loafing or ornamenting our residence and grounds as best 

 suits us. 



We were all pretty handy with the axe and had done our 

 work well. The shanty was twenty yards from the lake 

 and near a large spring which fairly tumbled over a ledge of 

 rock into a low, cool, moss-covered pool, which we utilized 

 as a kind of store house for portions of our supplies. 



Healthily tired out after our tramp, day's work and prep- 

 arations for the morrow, when the day's light was blown 

 out we went to roost. Guide reported in the morning that 

 a hedgehog or hedgehogs had made a nocturnal visit to our 

 storehouse and had got away with a large portion of a bucket 

 of butter. Report accepted with thanks. Hedgehogs may 

 have our butter if they want it more than we do, which they 

 evidently do. We have a rifle in camp and we are going to 

 set that bucket of butter to-night. 



The woodland stir and sounds of early morning had barely 

 commenced ere we had finished breakfast and made ready 

 for a raid on the beautiful wet home of the fishes. Storm 

 and Roy take the raft, while Glen goes fishing afoot. There 

 was a sky of tender gray with a suspicion of blue behind, 

 which was trying to assert itself but with no present prospect 

 of success, though the sun was doing its best to help the 

 blue. The wind was so capricious there was no telling 

 when it was blowing favorably for angling. It was a regu- 

 lar spree from all quarters of the compass. We had our 

 doubts, but when you are in doubt take the trick, and Storm 

 and Roy quietly dropped anchor and then dropped flies close 

 up amoDg the lily pads, where a spring branch emptied into 

 the lake, and brought some lusty beauties to their creels. 



The red ibis alone would tempt them. Nothing else in 

 our judicously stocked fly-books possessed any attractions 

 for them. They cared not for highly-seasoned food; only 

 demanded theirs plain and straight every time. There are 

 some flies to which trout will rise only at certain times, and 

 there are others to which they will rise at almost any time. 

 The scarlet ibis, the grizzly king, the professor, the coach- 

 man, the Montreal and some others the practical angler will 

 find killing enough every month the game laws allow him to 

 use them. These are all recognized as standard. There is 

 little need, at least in this country, of burdening yourself 

 with the almost endless assortment of nondescripts, of which 

 piscatorial theorists preach, for the most successful practical 

 anglers find a comparatively limited assortment all that is 

 requisite. A large majority of American anglers will tell 

 you the same thing, though dealers display a collection con- 

 fusing enough to perplex the novice. You will rarely find 

 me here without a scarlet ibis on my leader. It may be a 

 dropper, but it is more likely to be the stretcher fly. 



Glen footed it around the lake to the outlet, where he ad- 

 justed his tackle and maneuvered for position. Oh, but it 

 was a rare place for one who loves the mountain stream. 

 There were beetling cliffs, bare and rugged, then openings 

 above, but below a network of tangled branches, places 

 where the fly could not be cast and where strategy only 

 would succeed, then long stretches of shallow where one 

 could cast "far off and fine." In places, huge trees had 

 fallen across and into the stream, making perfect jungles of 

 pine disorder and hemlock, which necessitated detours around 

 them; but not a foot of fishing ground did the careful Glen 

 waste. There was the faintest ripple of a suspicion that ou 

 the inside edge of the swirl beyond that projecting rock 

 dwelt a prince of the family Glen has known so many years. 

 He was not acquainted with this particular individual, but 

 his intimacy with friends and relatives justifies his calling. 

 He does not knock at the door, but sends. his red-winged 

 messenger and lets him tap ever so gently. No response? 

 Try again and tap a little louder. No response? Try yet 

 again and tap a little louder; push like a humming bird 

 probing a honeysuckle. Ah-ha! he is at home, and wide 

 swings the palace gate as he springs hastily out to investigate 

 the wherefore of this unseemly hubbub. Foul play, by my 

 dorsal fin, foul play. Never was challenge fairer offered, 

 aud now good rod and reel and leader, all old times, once 

 more. Mitchell to the front, and if you can smash him, 

 don't hesitate a moment. With a swishshsh the silver leader 

 cuts a crescent in the dark, quiet pool below, and the won- 

 dering trout are bewildered at the eccentric movements of 

 their royal countryman. The eccentricities of royalty were 

 never more apparent. Handsome fellow, reckless devil, 

 rushing frantically through his neighbor's domain. He is as 

 Herbeit says to Pip in "Great Expectations," "A good fellow, 

 with impetuosity and hesitation, boldness and diffidence, 

 action and dreaming, curiously mixed in him." 



Glen explored the outlet pretty thoroughly for several miles 

 before he returned to camp, and was very glowing iu his 

 praise and description of it. 



For the men on the. raft the fitful wind had indeed proved 

 favorable and all went merry as a marriage bell. Roy man- 

 aged, by a misstep or a slip, to fall off the raft into ten feet 

 of water, incontinently disappearing and for a few moments 

 was not to be seen, but had left a larger rippling circle than 

 any feeding fish. But a little thing like that would not suf- 

 fice to dampen his ardor, for to Storm's "What's the matter, 

 Hoy ?" he resurrected the old "chestnut" for an answer, "Oh, 

 nothing; I ODly went down to see if the anchor was all 

 right." Reaching camp just in the deepening twilight and 

 hungry as the proverbial fishermen, but with baskets, as 

 Noah said of the ark, rather crowded, we found supper 

 awaiting us. A few meditative puffs and then to bed and 

 rest. Oh, these glorious nights iu the woods, where one 

 comes in late from a day's sport and, outstretched on his bed 

 of browse, can find pleasure in listening to the hooting of 

 the owl, to the cricket's song and the croaking of the frogs, 

 to the wind sighiug through the trees and the plash of the 

 gentle little wavelets that creep murmuringly up to the shore, 



kissing the lily pads as they pass and encouraging you to 

 sleep, while the hedgehog, unable to control his predatory 

 instincts, is sacking your butter pail. However, guide keep- 

 ing awake late that night, patiently awaited bis coming and 

 then shot him, so our account with that animal was balanced 

 up to date. 



We must cease from our angling for a day. We had been 

 here three days, and during each one all the conditions had 

 been favorable for good creels and we had made the most 

 of it. The fourth day we were not to fish, so we slept until 

 it was late, having breakfast at city hours. To many it 

 would seem a very strange statement to make, that having a 

 superabundance of game we refrained from capturing more 

 at present; but such is the sad fact, and many is the time in 

 the woods and on the plains when we have been guilty of 

 the same offense. Many are the smiles and shrugs of the 

 shoulder that have been given us for opinion's sake on this 

 point, but we have always quietly endured them, because it 

 was never numbers nor pounds avoirdupois that caused us to 

 go out with rod or gun. No person loves to hunt or angle 

 more than we, and we claim that the reckless, cruel slaughter 

 of game for simply killing and wasting and thi owing away, 

 is a charge which cannot be held against us; and further- 

 more, we claim that our captures have been fair and sports- 

 manlike, and that we are in full sympathy with all laws 

 tending to the better conservation of came, the young buck 

 spoken of in the fourth section of this sketch to the contrary 

 notwithstanding. 



The ills and dangers that nature inflicts are numerous and 

 merciless enough, but almost harmless in comparison to the 

 skill employed by even the most honest and conscientious of 

 sportman; but what shall be said of the desperate chances 

 they ruu when attacked in season and out by the villainous 

 devices of the pot-hunter. "Blessings brighten as they take 

 their flight," and we hope that law will more securely lock 

 the stable door before the horse is stolen 



But then we had lots of fun around camp. There v, as 

 plenty to do. Lots of little tricks to busy about. Glen tied 

 a few flies and repaired a few leaders. Storm was boss and 

 all hands at making some improvements on the raft We 

 read and smoked and slept, traded experiences and enjoyed 

 to the fullest the three square meals provided by guide and 

 company. It was a holiday for guide, as we chopped his 

 wood, helped him get dinner and joined the chorus of his 

 afternoon siesta. 



And it was a glorious rest, where every bugle was in per- 

 fect harmony with its neighbor, and if one bugler awoke he 

 was not mean nor selfish enough to repeat the miserable 

 trick of the would-be funny man of tickling some sleeper 

 with a straw. As well take a cup of water from parched lips. 

 Nor was it indolence, this afternoon nap. It was medicine 

 and good medicine too, and each man partook of it whatso- 

 ever he needed and was content. Full well he knew there 

 would be no stupid finger drumming on the table nor any 

 torturing whistle to disturb the calm. 



Then we paddled over the lake and visited many a familiar 

 point of old time and present interest only less interesting 

 from the absence of former outers who had in times gone by 

 frequented them with us. Mili.aud. 

 Ohkyeknk, Wyoming. 



A DAY IN TUSCANY WITH THE QUAIL. 



AN early rise, a hasty breakfast in the big kitchen of the 

 "Fattoria," a run to the keonels, a joyous bark at our 

 arrival, and the old gamekeeper and I sallied forth for the 

 lowlands by the Arno, accompanied by a choice brace of 

 pointers. 



Reports had come in the evening before of the arrival of 

 the migratory quail, nearly always quite a sudden event, and 

 a few snipe could always be counted on. The "guard ia" 

 and I had loaded a few sheds for my gun, a central-fire, 

 which had excited a little curiosity in the neighborhood, as 

 muzzleloaders were the rule, a few pin-fires the exception, 

 and the central-fire an unknown quantity. The prevailing 

 opinion was that it was a good enough arrangement for a 

 gentleman to have, but not of any great advantage save the 

 emolument of gun dealers. This was about twelve years 

 ago. 



We walked down the hills, a gentle breeze softly waviug 

 to aud fro the new-born leaves and tendrils of the vines, 

 gracefully festooning from tree to tree in luxuriant garlands. 

 The dogs were gamboling ahend, now and then turning their 

 heads and looking at us, to make sure whether or not their 

 conduct was open to any criticism, and then resuming their 

 chase through the green, waving wheatfields on either side of 

 the path. 



The old gamekeeper was a remarkable specimen, a kindly 

 old triant whose huge proportions were well fitted to strike 

 awe" and terror into the craven hearts of any trespassers 

 about the preserves. He sported a pair of cowhide boots, 

 rising high above the knee, whose cubical capacity must 

 have fallen little short of a bushel apiece. Deep iu these 

 boots were lost the ends of a pair of breeches, once of blue 

 corduroy, but now somewhat iridescent from the play of 

 light upon the many patches. His coat was of a brown 

 canvas-like material, with more pockets than even Upthe- 

 grove & McLellan can ever have dreamed of, and his cap 

 was of the shape and hue of a Bection about eight inches be- 

 low the end of a watermelon. It was graced by a bit of gold 

 cord and a visor, a cap held in greater reverence and awe 

 than ever was the covering of the tyrant Gessler. His gun 

 would have deserved an engraving in a work upon ancient 

 gunnery, a weapon born as a double-barreled flintlock 

 which, after many years, had been placed in the hands of 

 a cunning artisan, whence it had issued as a percussion gun, 

 to again resume its destructive course. The muzzle had 

 worn down to an edge as keen as that of many a razor I wot 

 of, and the barrels held on to the stock partly by force of 

 habit, and partly by the restraining influence of a piece of 

 string. The stock was ornamented by a gargoyle which was 

 alleged to present some similitude to the head of a stag, but 

 which reminded me far more of one of those amaziug and 

 shapeless monsters we see depicted in the middle-age pictures 

 of the "Temptation of St. Anthony." In the gamekeeper's 

 hands, however, it proved itself endowed with wondrous 

 qualities. 



We soon reached the marshland, and a whistle recalled the 

 dogs to seriousness. They went off ianging over a damp, 

 sedgy field that stretched way off to the Arno, and the old 

 dog°suddenly fell on a point, the younger one backing beau- 

 tifully. We advanced, and with a shrill cry three snipe rose. 

 1 shot and killed with my first barrel, but missed with the 

 second; the old keeper had killed his first bird within three 

 feet of where it arose, and downed the one I missed, saying 

 afterward, as he stood reloading his gun, that he hoped my 

 excellency didn't mind, for snipe were scarce and we might 



