Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, $i a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. ) 

 Six Months, $3. t 



NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 16, 1886. 



i VOL. XXVII,— No. 8. 



1 Nos. 89 & 40 PARK Row, New York. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



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I'orest and Stream PiiblisUing Co. 

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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 

 The New Government of the 

 Park. 



Match Races Over the N. Y. 

 Y. C. Course. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



Hunting in the Himalayas. 



The Park Superintendency. 



Travels in Boon Gah Arrrah- 

 biggee. 



Sam Lovel's Camps— vi. 

 Natural History. 



A Confiding Titmouse. 



"Like Cures Like." 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



Trajectories of Hunting Rifles. 



Two of a Kind. 



An Unnecessary Death. 



Louisina Game Interests. 



Dakota Prairie Chickens. 



Target Tests and Shot. 



Proposed Moose Preserve. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



A Ti-ip to Mad River.— u. 



Blueflsh and Menhaden. 



My First Trout. 



FlSHCULTURE. 



Ohio Fish and Game Commis- 

 sion. 



The Kennel. 



The Hornells^dlle Dog Show. 



Waverly Dog Show. 



Kennel Notes. 



Kennel Management. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 



Wing Shooting with a Rifle. 



Range and Gallery. 



The Canadian Wimbledon. 



The Trap. 



Trap-Shooting Reform. 



An International Challenge. 

 Yachting. 



The America Cup Races. 



Lieut. Henn'a Bermuda Chal- 

 lenge. 



Sloop vs. Cutter. 



The Newport Races, 



Corinthian Y. C. 

 Canoeing. 



The N. Y. C. C. Cup 



C. B. Vaux. 



Toronto C. C. Race. 



Regatta Committee Central 

 Divison. 



The A. C. A. and its Divisions. 



The Meet of 1886. 



New Publications. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



THE NEW GOVERNMENT OF THE PARK. 

 A S we announced at the time of the adjournment of 

 Congress, that body failed to provide any funds for 

 the protection of the Yellowstone Park during the ensu- 

 ing year. The result of this omission was to throw out 

 of office the Superintendent and his ten assistants and so 

 to deprive the Park and the public, to whom the Park 

 belongs, of the services of an able and energetic official, 

 who commanded a trained force of competent and faith- 

 ful men. These public servants have now been replaced 

 by a body of other guardians. The law which governs 

 the Park, so far as it is governed at all, provides that the 

 Secretary of the Interior may call upon the Secretary of 

 War for troops to assist in the care of the Park, and when 

 Mr. Lamar learned tliat no appropriation had been made 

 for the salaries of the Superintendent and his assistants 

 and for contingent expenses, he requested the Secretary 

 of War to furnish him with troops. This was done, and 

 Captain Harris of the First Cavalry assumed the charge 

 of the Park a short time since. 



The public will natm-ally inquire, what changes, if any, 

 have followed the displacing of the civil by the military 

 protectors of the Park. Are the forests still protected 

 from fire, the game from the cupidity of the skin or meat 

 butcher, the geyser craters and hot spring incrustations 

 from the brutal vandalism of selfish or unthinking tourists 

 and specimen hunters? Are things going on in the good 

 way to which we have become accustomed under Col. 

 Wear's superintendency? Or is there a change for the 

 worse? Are fires sweeping over the mountains, destroy- 

 ing the green timber and burning out the forest floor? Is 

 the game being killed within the Park? Are the natural 

 curiosities being broken down and destroyed? These are 

 questions which the public will ask. 



Well understanding the importance of having exact and 

 reliable answers to all these inquiries, the Forest and 

 Stream recently despatched to the Park a competent cor- 

 respondent with insti-uctions to carefully examine into all 

 these matters, to get at the truth with regard to them, at 

 no matter what cost of time or money, and to report fully 

 to us the result of his investigations. The person selected 



for this work is one who has for many years been familiar 

 with the reservation, who has followed with care its 

 history since the passage of the organic act setting it aside 

 as a National Park, and who, from his familiarity with 

 the region and with its history is peculiarly fitted for the 

 task set before him. 



The first portion of his report has just been received, 

 and it reveals a condition of tilings in the Park which 

 may fairly be called deplorable. 



Upon the withdrawal of the civil force, the first of last 

 August, a large number of people seemed to take it for 

 granted that all protection for the Park was at an end. 

 Early in that month forest fires were started in a number 

 of localities. A party of Lemhi Indians are reported to 

 have fired a great extent of country near the eastern line 

 of Idaho in or very near the Park, and these fires are 

 spreading rapidly, involving a great extent of country. 

 Fires have been started on the northern slope of the Town 

 Creek Eange in the Park, and on Black Tail Deer Creek. 

 The first one noticed on Black Tail was so isolated by 

 E. Wilson, who had been one of Colonel Wear's most 

 efficient assistants, that it could not extend, and must 

 have burned out; but almost immediately another was 

 discovered within three-quarters of a mile of the same 

 place, and this, although four men fought it for some 

 time, soon got beyond their control and at last accounts 

 was spreading fast and doing an incalculable amount of 

 damage. On the northeast side of the Park things are no 

 better. Fires are raging in the neighborhood of Soda 

 Butte, and on Slough Creek, and there is reason to believe 

 that these were set intentionally by persons who laugh 

 at the troops, and defy them to capture them in the act 

 of firing the timber. They know perfectly well that they 

 are safe from the militia. Through the energy of Wm. 

 McLellan, as already noticed in Forest and Stream, 

 three persons have recently been captured, who, if they 

 have not set the timber on fire, have at least displayed 

 criminal carelessness with regard to their camp-fire. These 

 men were on then- way to Cooke City and left a large 

 camp-fire in such a position that there is every reason to 

 believe that if it had not been extinguished by McLellan 

 it would soon have originated a new fire in the Soda 

 Butte region. Although McLellan had been throvm out 

 of office by the neglect of Congress to provide for the 

 Park, he had not therefore lost all interest in the reserva- 

 tion. He had now no power to make arrests, but the 

 soldiers who had been stationed at Soda Butte had this 

 power, and procuring assistance from them, he followed 

 up the travelers, captured them and brought them into 

 the Hot Springs on the evening of Sept. 1. 



But what shall be done to these men if they can be 

 convicted of a violation of the regulations? Congress has 

 enacted no law providing for the punishment of crimes or 

 misdemeanors within the Park. No penalty more severe 

 than expulsion from the Park can be visited upon them, 

 and when they shall have been escorted. beyond its bor- 

 ders there is nothing to prevent their returning to it as 

 soon as they may feel inclined to do so. 



So much for the fires, of which more are now burning 

 in the Park than have occurred during all of Col, Wear's 

 administration. 



With regard to hunting, things are no better. Hunters 

 and tom-ists appear to believe that all restrictions are re- 

 moved. Much game has been killed ta the Park, and 

 hunting parties pass through it scarcely concealing their 

 intention to hunt within its limits. A New York clergy- 

 man, Mr. W. S. Eainsford, by his own statement is known 

 to have recently kiUed an elk on Pelican Creek. Jack 

 Baronet saw two Cooke City men, named Van Dyke and 

 Nichols, leading out of the Park two pack horses loaded 

 with meat. As it was after his term of office had expired, 

 he had no power to make arrests. Captain Kingman, the 

 engineer in charge of roads and bridges in the Park, re- 

 cently found on Black Tail Deer Creek tlie freshly-kiUed 

 remains of an elk, from which most of the meat had 

 been taken. Our correspondent has seen in the Park 

 tourists on horseback armed with rifles who professed to 

 be in search of game, "but," he remarks, "they were the 

 kind of hunters who expect to find the game sitting down 

 by the side of the trail waiting to be killed," Numerous 

 other instances might be cited illustrating the present 

 utter disregard of the regulation which forbids shooting 

 in the Park, 



It is impossible at present to go further into this subject, 

 but hereafter we sh-aU give other instances of the utter 

 contempt in which the laws governing the Park are now 

 held. 



In another column is printed a communication from 

 Col. Wear, in reply to the charges made against him in 

 the Park debate in Congress. It is a subject of much re- 

 gi-et that the Park should have been deprived of the intel- 

 ligent and careful supervision of so competent and 

 efficient a Superintendent as Col. Wear proved himself to 

 be during his term of office. It is a huge piece of folly 

 for the Government to let loose the vandals upon the Park, 

 and nothing less tlian a national disgrace that Col, Wear's 

 force of assistants should be succeeded by soldiers who 

 go dff on drunken sprees, and in the people's pleasure 

 ground "hold up" stage coaches of tourists in regular old- 

 fashioned "road agent" style. 



MATCH RACES OVER THE N. Y. Y. C. COURSE. 

 "VrOW that the New York Yacht Club has vindicated its 

 -^^ power to hold one of the Cup races over the club 

 course on New York Bay, in spite of a general desire on 

 the pant not only of both contesting parties, but of yachts- 

 men generally that all the races should be over an opeia 

 course, it is to be hoped that they will in the future be 

 guided by the experience of this race, and abandon for- 

 ever the inside course for match races. For the annual 

 regatta it answers well enough; the ladies can see the 

 race; the steamers can cut across and easily keep up with 

 the yachts in any wind; and taken year in and year out 

 the inevitable flukes are fairly distributed. The conditions 

 of a match race, however, are very different. Every fair- 

 minded person wishes that both yachts may have exactly 

 the same chances of wind and weather, something that 

 never happens over this course. Early in the season, 

 when the matter came up for discussion, the Cup Com- 

 mittee promised to use their utmost efforts to secure a 

 clear course. As we predicted at the time, this has proved 

 simply impossible, their polite request to tug and steam- 

 boat captains to keep clear of the yachts was about as 

 effectual as it would have been for them to have stood on 

 the hill at Fort Wadsworth and made the^request verbally. 

 All happened as every one knew it 'would, tugs crossed 

 the bows of the two yachts, a steamer ran close aboard of 

 Galatea, and both boats suffered from the continuous 

 wash and blanketing. It is not due to the efforts of the 

 Committee but to kindly chance that the evils were about 

 evenly distributed between the two boats, the result was 

 not seriously affected, and very fortunately nothing oc- 

 curred in the shape of an attempt to hinder the visiting 

 yacht. Now that it is all over and the course has been 

 generally condemned, the Regatta Committee express 

 their regret that the steamers should have acted so badly. 



The right of the New York Yacht Club to hold one race 

 over the club course, or even to hold only one race in 

 place of three, is undisputed; it is fully settled by the deed 

 of gift, but here is a much broader view to be taken of 

 the whole matter. The club is supposed to be working in 

 the interest of true sport, in the promotion of a healthy 

 competition among gentlemen. Is the New York Yacht 

 Club course a fair neutral ground for a match, giving full 

 and equal chances to both competitors, and if not why do 

 they adhere to it ? The first question has been answered 

 negatively by the thousands who saw the last race, the 

 latter question can only be answered by the New York 

 Yacht Club. 



The Fish and Game Commissioners of Ohio advise us 

 that a convention is proposed of the citizens of that State 

 to adopt some measures for supporting the Commissioners 

 in their efforts to conserve the game and fish. There is 

 abundance of the right material in Ohio, if it could be 

 brought together and united for the purpose. We hope 

 to record a large gathering at the convention. 



The Proposed Match between American and English 

 trap-shooters will give an impetus to the growing interest 

 in that sport; and there is shooting talent enough in this 

 country to take care of the trophy competed for. 



"Our New Alaska," the book of travel and descrip- 

 tion, by Charles Hallock, announced some time ago has, 

 after a series of vexatious delays, at last come from the 

 press and is now ready. 



The Studies of Master Peter," a famous French 

 book on forestry, has been translated into English and 

 will be among the early announcements of new books 

 from this office. 



The Creedmoor Meeting is now in progress. A full 

 report will be given in our next issue. 



