Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, 



H A Ybaii. 10 Cts. a Copy. ) 

 Six Months, $2. j 



NEW YORK, AUGUST 8, 1886. 



) VOL. XXVII.-No. 2. 



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



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Forest and Sti'eam Piibli.shlng Co. 

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CONTENTS. 



EUITOBIAL. 



He Does not Court Notoriety. 



The Scarcity of Bluefish. 



Vacationists. 



Congress and the Park. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



Camping for its Own Sake. 



Sam Lovel's Camps. — I. 

 Natural History. 



What was It? 



Is the Grouse Polygamous? 

 American Association Meet- 

 ing. 



Domestication of the Buffalo. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 

 The First Tracking Snow. 

 Foxes and Foxhounds. 



Moose Calling. 

 The Prairie Chickens. 

 Aholisli Spring Shooting. 

 Rifled Chokebore Guns. 

 'I'lie Puget Sound Basin. 

 Hard Luck in ^' '.ie's Pocket. 

 Some Points ot La <v. 

 Muc^le vs. Breech. 

 Sea ani) Eivek- Fishing. 

 The Sunapee Lake Trout. 

 At Lake Onaway. 

 Brown Trotit in America. 



FiSHCUTURE. 



The Michigan Gravling. 

 The Kennei.. 



Dogs of the Occident. 



The Clumber Spaniel. 



Parasitic Diseases of Dogs. 



The Hornellsville Dog Show. 



The Mastiff Type. 



Kennel Notes. 



Kennel Management. 

 BiFLB AND Trap Shooting. 



Eangii and Gallerv. 



The Trap. 



A Much Needed Reform. 

 Yachting. 



The Arrival of Galatea. 



Another "Yachting Accident." 



The Lake Y. R. A. Round. 



Fair Play in the Cup Races. 



Beverly Y. C. 



Women as Sailors. 

 Canoeing. 



The Business of the Meet. 



The "Roslyn Weathergi-ip." 



The Season's Verdict on 

 Models. 



A Trip on the Neponset. 



A Salt Yf ater Meet. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



THE SCARCITY OF BLUEFISH. 

 T T is now the season when the bluefish should be abund- 

 ^ a.nt along the Atlantic coast from Cape Cod to Cape 

 Hatteras, but they have not appeared in numbers sufficient 

 to encom-age either the market fishermen or the anglers 

 to try for them. Occasionally a small school of small fish 

 is struck, but the markets are bare of them and the ang- 

 lers are disconsolate. These fish usually appear in Florida 

 in March, and reach the coast of Massachusetts about the 

 middle of June. A few are now taken about Long Island, 

 but not in numbers to compare with an ordinary year. 

 They have been gradually decreasing for some years, but 

 this season it is a sudden falling off. 



While it is a fact that the bluefish have occasionally 

 been absent for a year since they first appeared on the 

 Atlantic coast of North America some fifty-five years ago, 

 it is not recorded that they steadily decreased in numbers 

 year after year until some ten years ago. About this 

 time there was an increase in the catch of menhaden, and 

 steamers took the place of the sail vessels. Since then 

 more steamers have been added to the fleet, an,d the men- 

 haden, the principal food of the bluefish, have become 

 more or less scarce. 



Mr. N. E. Gould, of the U. S. Life Saving Station, 

 ChathaTU, Mass., writes to Prof. Baird (Bulletin U. S. 

 Fish Commission, Vol. V. . p. 216) under date of June 20, 

 1885, as follows: "The first menhaden were caught on 

 May 14, but no schools were seen during the season, al- 

 though these fish were at a former time very numerous on 

 this coast during the month of May; none have been seen 

 schooling in large schools since the spring of 1875. Be- 

 fore that time they were probably the most numerous fish 

 that passed along this coast." 



In view of these facts it seems idle to assert that the 

 captures by man do not affect the sea fishes. We do not 

 wish to be understood as laying the absence of the blue- 

 fish this year entirely to the menhaden steamers, because 

 the fish may return in some numbers next year, but we 

 believe that these steamers are the cause of the decrease 

 in the numbers of bluefish dming the past decade. The 

 question may soon arise, "Wliichis of the most value, food 

 fish or menhaden oil 



VACATIONISTS. 



npHE vacationist is abroad in full force. He has fol 

 lowed the sportsman as usual, and thougli it is not 

 pleasant to contemplate, he has followed him to the trout 

 waters and to the hunting grounds. He is there not for 

 angling, and as for hunting, he is not there for that in a 

 genuine sense. He is there out of season, and yet he wiU 

 sap eveiy source of enjoyment to its very source of dry^ 

 ness, and then lie about the rest. This vacationist is often 

 a newspaper man; generally an attache of the metropoli- 

 tan daily, who gets paid by the amount of stitff he writes 

 — ^by the amount of length in a column he covers. Or 

 perhaps he may be a country editor or correspondent, 

 with more time on his hands than brains to put in his 

 paper, and he goes there to pnfC Mr. Everybody on the 

 route and after he gets there; for it is this imffing — free 

 advertising — -which pays his bills. Otherwise he would 

 not be there, and our much-loved trout lakes and streams 

 wottld escape the affliction of being lied about and gushed 

 about for the nonce. If these vacationists who write to 

 lighten their expenses would stick to what they have 

 some knowledge of, it would be less annoying; but their 

 pens are ganaxlous and it is the number of words which 

 tell in the exchequer, and the dailj^ jjapers are loaded 

 with columns of Avhat it makes every true angler and 

 sportsman mad to read. 



A New York correspondent of the Boston papers is just 

 now "doing the Rangeleys," as he terms it. He is full 

 of advice to everybody. He assumes that all anglers are 

 liars, and yet he stoops to tell the most barefaced false- 

 hoods about his surroundings. He tells about 300 

 trout caught at Kenebago in one day, none less than 

 half a pound, caught by one fisherman. Then he goes on 

 to say that anybody can be sure of all the trout he wants 

 at that lake of lakes any day in the year. Such stuff is 

 written to please hotel keepers, but the public has not yet 

 come to understand it. The patent medicine cure-alls 

 the masses can understand, but these stories about trout 

 and salmon waters only those who are familiar with the 

 stibject can see through. One of the most peculiar ex- 

 periences the true angler is called upon to i^ass through 

 is the taking of a friend to the trout waters who has 

 never been there before — who is not familiar with the 

 business. That friend has read the gush and the lies, and 

 though he may not swallow the wliole, yet he is likely to 

 believe in at least a part. A case in point. The vaca- 

 tionist was a ti'ue and an honest soul. The trip to the 

 lakes was an event to him. He had a class of boys in the 

 Sabbath school of which he was a prominent member. It 

 was his first experience with the rod and line, but he had 

 read the papers. He was cautioned that his hick might 

 not be all he expected, but the exuberance of getting his 

 outfit and making ready was too much for him. He told 

 his friends in the church of his plans and they lent their 

 congratulations and spoke for a mess of trout. It would 

 probably have taken a few hundred poimds to have sup- 

 plied all these messes, but my friend was in for it. He 

 even promised the boys in his Sabbath school class some 

 glowing accounts of takmg trout on his return. He 

 reached the fishing grounds with the fishing only fairly 

 good, and caught trout, some of very good size; but he 

 did not come within a long distance of his expectations. 

 The time began to draw near for our return. He had 

 only one or two trout in his car. Alas! for all those Sun- 

 day school boys and those church friends. What should 

 he say to them? The thought weighed upon his spnits 

 and completely spoiled the last part of his stay. The 

 trout Avould not come to his lure in sufficient quantities 

 to suj)j)ly a whole church and the better part of the Sab- 

 bath school. He went home disgusted. That was his 

 first and his last fronting excursion. He reads aboitt 

 sixch things no more. 



Another newspaper vacationist has been visiting the 

 Yellowstone National Park, and if his yvTritings concern- 

 ing other matters, which he is presumed to cover when at 

 home, are as full of attempts to tell all about that which 

 he has no real knowledge of as he has shown himself to 

 be ignorant of the first principles concerning the game in 

 that region, then he is worthy of having his work taken 

 from him and given to the office boy. In the first place he 

 utterly ignores or is ignorant of the fact that there are 

 only a few buft'alo left on the continent, and he goes on 

 to tell of the opportunities for buffalo shooting and of the 

 buffalo he saw. He also fails to mention the fact of the 

 very stringent la-ws for the protection of the large game 

 n the Park, and indites a paragraph or two on the opj)or- 



tunities for the sportsman within the Park. He did not 

 try this shooting himself; time did not permit. 



Such writings are harmful, but what shall we do to 

 counteract them? Managing editors, who alone have the 

 power to bring such correspondents to their senses, are 

 indifferent. They are not generally posted on such sub- 

 jects themselves. These writers get into the widely-read 

 daily papers, and the harm they do is hard to repair) 

 even by all the force of the Forest and Stream and other 

 good journals devoted to telling the truth and giving real 

 information upon subjects these self-sufficient scribblers 

 presume to cover. 



HE DOES NOT COURT NOTORIETY. 

 ^T^HE Rev. F, L. Fleer, Fond du Lac, Wis., has our 

 ^ sympathy. He is a modest, slxrinking man, who 

 when he performs a virtuous action with his right hand 

 declines to permit his left hand to know of the occurrence. 

 When he gives alms he gives them in secret, according to 

 the teachings of the Master. He shrinks from publicity. 

 To such a man the idea of getting his name in the news- 

 l^ajpers seems horrible. 



But misfortunes come to all of us as we jjourney 

 through this vale of tears, and cruel fate has not spared 

 the Rev. F. L. Fleer. 



It happened that recently a small party of tourists were 

 traveling through the Yellow^stone Park. They were the 

 Reverend F. L. Fleer, of Fond du Lac, Wis. ; Mr. E. J. S. 

 Adams, of Philadelphia; Mr. T. C. Camp and his son, H. 

 H. Camj), bankers of Milwaukee, Wis. About the 24th 

 of July they found themselves at the Grand Falls of the 

 Yellowstone. Here they spent some time admiring the 

 beauty and grandeur of the scene. The majesty of the 

 falls, the depth of the cation, the wonderful display of 

 color, the fantastic shapes of the eroded rock walls, the 

 curious play of light and shade over the scene as 

 the slow clouds moved hither and thither in the 

 sky above them, fascinated tlie beholders. They watched 

 too, with interest the few evidences of animal life which 

 were visible. Over the abyss of the canon a few ospreys 

 hung motionless on steady pinions, newly hatched young 

 whistled from the nests on the rock towers, swallows 

 darted hither and thither through the clear air, and far 

 below them, over the apparently sloAV-moving, oily tor- 

 rent, one could make out with a glass the form of a busy 

 dipper hurrying up or down the stream. No one would 

 have imagined that there Avas anything in so majestic 

 and so peaceful a scene to suggest bloodshed or cruelty. 

 But while they were there, and while contemplating the 

 beauties of this scene, one of the party shot and killed an 

 eagle (osprey) that had lately hatched her young on one of 

 the rock towers which overhang the canon. 



Word of the occurrence was sent to the Superintendent's 

 office at the Hot Springs, and on the morning of July 26, 

 Assistants Wilson and Berry captured the party and 

 brought them before Superintendent Wear. In Col. 

 Wear's presence the Reverend F. L. Fleer confessed that 

 he was the man who killed the bird, and this confession 

 was confirmed by the statements of the other members of 

 the party. The Reverend F. L. Fleer begged hard that 

 his offense might be kept a secret. Notoriety was the 

 only thing he had to fear, because there is no law in the 

 Park by which a minister of the Gospel who kills the 

 mother bird oii the nest and leaves the young to starve 

 can be punished. 



We sympathize with the Reverend F. L. Fleer, and hope 

 that his crime against the regulations of the Interior De- 

 partment and the laws of God may not become generally 

 known, but we recommend that some quiet Sunday after- 

 noon, in the stillness of his study, just off the church, he 

 devote an hour or two to a consideration of his slaughter 

 of a mother bird over the Grand Canon of the Yellowstone, 



Trap Shooting Reform,— Trap shooting is too much in 

 the hands of men who are to all intents and pm-poses pro- 

 fessionals, who go into it solely to get what they can out 

 of it, who hog the prize money, who mean to earn their 

 living by it, who are not fit competitors for amateur shoot- 

 for-the-fun-of-it trap shots to contest against. A great 

 reform is needed in this. Has the time not come when 

 that reform can be brought about, and a large tourna- 

 ment made to afford a fair chance to the average trap 

 shot? The communication on this topic, in another col- 

 umn, comes from a member of a club numbering two 

 hundred, nine-tenths of whom, the writer tells us, share 

 his sentiments. 



