Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms. 



54 A Yeah. 10 Cts. a Copy, j 

 Six IWoJfTHS, $2. \ 



NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 18, 1886. 



} VOL. XXVII.-N0. IT. 



( Noe. 39 & 40 Park Row, New York. 



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Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 

 Nos. 39 and 41) Park Row. New York City. 



CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Time has Been. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



Black Bass. 

 Natiikat> History. 



The American Ornithologists' 

 Union. 



"Coon" Cats. 

 GrAME Bag and Gun. 



Louisiana Fire-Huuting. 



Game Preserving in Britain. 



Government of the Park. 



Colorado Game Grounds. 



The Game AVarden Tvlurder. 



Rifles Old and New. 



Game Notes. 



CAMP-FIRE FLICKERING!?. 



Sea and RrvER Fishing. 

 m Defense of Alaskan Trout. 

 Stoves iu Camp. 

 A Coincidence. 

 Liake Bomosene. 

 A Southern Maskinonje. 

 Catgut. 



FlSHCULTUBE^ 



The Great \y orks Fishw-aj'. 



The Kennel. 

 News From High Point. 

 National Field Trials Entries. 

 Fisher's Island Trials. 

 Western Trials. 

 Philadelphia Club Trials. 

 Mastiffs. 



Kennel Management. 



Kennel Notes. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 



Asking for Glory. 



Range and Gallery. 



The Bullard Rifle Prizes. 



The Trap. 

 Yachting. 



A Final Explanation. 



A Cruiser's Cabin. 



Thetis and Stranger. 

 Canoeing. 



Paddle and Current. 



Common Sense Canoes. 



Resistance Experiments with 

 Canoes. 



A. C. A. Executive Committee 

 Meeting. 

 Answers to CoRREgPOKDENTS. 



TUIE HAS BEEN. 

 "XrES, the time has been, but it was years ago. Then 

 the West was truly the wild country of which we 

 used to read; then the man who had traveled in the Rocky 

 Mountains was looked on in the East with a certain 

 amount of awe. If not a hero, he was at least regarded 

 as a daring fellow, who had taken his life in his hand and 

 had exposed himself to many perils. His stories of the 

 Far West were listened to with open mouths, and many 

 were the questions asked him about the Indians, the 

 buffalo and the bears. If he was not a modest, or at least 

 a quiet man, the temptation to indulge in a little romance 

 was often too much for him. He usually lied a trifle 

 about what he had seen and done, though indeed that 

 was scarcely necessary. A simple recital of facts would 

 have been startling enough to the goodpeopleof the East. 



Most of those who journeyed to the mountains years 

 ago, did it because they were obliged to, but there were a 

 few who made amuial pilgrimages to the main range 

 from pure love of the wild free life, which had in it then 

 often a spice of danger and always something of adven- 

 tm-e. Nowadays it is quite different. Now it is fashion- 

 able to go West, and every one has a cow ranch. Where- 

 ever one goes he sees cattle. The cowboy is ubiquitous. 

 If by chance there is a square mile of prairie without a 

 cowboy, in his place will be found a sheej) herder or a 

 homesteader. It is as prosaic as to travel through 

 Illinois. The early denizens of the mountains are no 

 longer to be seen. They have passed away, have given 

 place to products of civilization. Where the Indian 

 once made his surround of the buffalo which he dried for 

 Ms winter's food, the white man now gathers his beef to 

 send to the packing houses in Chicago. 



In some few localities the white skulls of the bufi'alo 

 still dot the plains, but those monuments of an extinct 

 race are fast mouldering to decay. Soon a buffalo skull 

 wiU be as rare as a buffalo. In place of these relics of a 

 hapjjier time are other whitened skulls — those of winter- 

 killed cattle. 



The extinction of the buffalo meant starvation to the 

 Indian. Forced on to his reservation he is there plimdered 

 or kept on quarter rations till he dies of hunger, and 



the Indian question is thus being rapidly settled. The 

 Indian gone from the greater portion of the West, settle- 

 ment went on at a rate which, twenty years ago, would 

 have been deemed inconceivable. People fairly poured into 

 the country. The cattlemen came first, but hard on their 

 heels followed the homesteaders— the farmers. Aa the 

 cattlemen drove before them the Indians, so now the 

 agriculturists are di-iving out the stockmen. 



The great bulk of the buffalo disappeared a dozen years 

 ago, though it w-as not until 1883 that their extermina- 

 tion could be pronounced to be complete. Tlie number 

 now existing in the United States is knoAra jjretty accm*- 

 ately by the careful inquiries instituted by the Forest 

 and Stream, and it is probably not more than about 600 

 or 700. In Wyoming Terxitory — including the National 

 Park — there are perhaps 250; m Montana, near the heads 

 of the Mussellshell, fifty-two head were seen the last 

 summer; in Nebraska, on the head of the Dismal River, 

 there wore this summer about thirty; in the mountains of 

 Colorado there is one band of thirty and one of twenty, 

 while in the sandhills of Kansas and to the south in the 

 Pan Handle of Texas, there are reported to be between 

 300 and 400. Many of these will be killed this autumn. 



A few j^ears ago we knew that the buffalo were practic- 

 ally gone, but the elk were still abundant. They are far 

 better able to take care of themselves than the buffalo, 

 and we thought that they would smnnve for a few years 

 longer. Vain hope. Fi'om the regions where, tlu-ee years 

 ago, they were most abundant, they are gone. The ranch- 

 men needed meat, and it is cheaper to kill elk than to buy 

 beef. So when the weather grows cold, the hunting par- 

 ties start out, and repairing to the range of the elk, they 

 load up the wagons with fat cows and heifers and start 

 for home again. We have known of 150 two-horse wagon 

 loads of meat being hauled out of one small mountain re- 

 gion in less than two months. But this will never be re- 

 peated. The elk are gone from this region, never to 

 return. 



Far more effective than the hunters in driving away 

 the elk are the cattle. These have spread themselves 

 everywhere over the cou.nti'y. They dot the plains and 

 the hillsides. They feed in the little momitain valleys 

 and in the parks high up in the timber. They go every- 

 where that the elk go, and they drive them from their 

 favorite feeding grounds. Elk and blacktail deer, we 

 have found, are very much averse to the presence of cat- 

 tle, while, on the other hand, wiiitetail deer do not seem to 

 mind them much, and antelope not at aU. 



The days of good elk himting are about over. Of 

 course, for some years to come it will be possible for hunt- 

 ers to go to the mountains and kill a few of these noble 

 animals, but we do not know now^ where one ca,n now go 

 with any certainty of finding them abundant. We have 

 lain in camj) when, night after night, it has been impos- 

 sible to sleep owing to the noise made by the elk scream- 

 ing and siDlashing in the water by which we had pitched 

 om- tent. We never expect to be disturbed in that way 

 again. 



The deer have followed the elk, the sheep have retreated 

 to the highest pinnacles of the mountains or have sought 

 other distant homes. Nowadays one has to depend for 

 food on jack rabbits and sage hens. In many places he 

 is lucky if he gets these. The prairies are without life. 



Yes, the time has been when one could go in to the 

 mountains of the West and live on the country. Then 

 the plains Avere dark with buffalo, the graceful antelope 

 moved lightly about among the ponderous and shaggy 

 beasts whose pastm'age it shared. In the broken buttes 

 and bad lands, and among the rough ravines and hog 

 backs of the foothills the black-tailed deer fed morning 

 and evening, a,s did their cousins the whitetails among 

 the willowy thickets of the streams. High up in the 

 table lands of the mountains among the green timbers 

 lived the elk — at gaze the most beautiful of large game. 

 Here in summer fed the great droves of cows and calves, 

 and to these in the early autumn the superb stags, descend- 

 ing with hardened horns from the moimtain tops, came 

 to choose their mates. Clambering about among the rocks 

 above, but often descending to the prairie to feed, were 

 bands of sheep, inquisitive as the antelope and then 

 scarcely more difficult to kiU. 



Day after day, week after week and month after month 

 we have traveled through the mountains, never out of 

 sight of game, but killing no more of it than was required 

 for our needs. The animals were tame, for then they had 

 not learned the bitter lesson that has since been so effectu- 

 ally taught. Then the skin hunter was unknown, and, 



except in some few parts of the buffalo range, the tourist,, 

 the Eastern sportsman, had not made his appearance. 



It is all over now and scarcely worth mourning about; 

 but there are some of us who devoutly thank God that our 

 day came before the game was all destroyed. We at least 

 can say the "time has been." 



The Maine Game Warden Murder. — There have been 

 no imi)ortant developments in the Maine tragedy. The 

 account published in the Forest and Stream last week 

 was correct in all important particulars. Great excite- 

 ment prevails in the vicinity and armed men have been 

 scotu'ing the country in a vain search for the assassins. 

 Probabilities of their capture are meager. The fugitives 

 are perfectly familiar with the wilderness into which 

 they have fled, and it is thought that they have made 

 then way to Canada. Our Boston correspondent con- 

 fli-ms the view expressed in these columns last week that 

 the tragedy would do much to clear away any sentimental 

 sympathy with Maine poachers. Such incidents as the 

 Wesley barn-burning and the Fletcher Brook murder ex- 

 pose the true character of the lawless ruffians who defy 

 the laws and the officers.. The ignominy attaching to 

 such evil-doers ought to be shared m some way by the 

 city sportsmen of other States who have hired these mur- 

 derers and others of their ilk as accomijlices in breaking 

 Maine game laws. We may hope for less bragging on 

 the part of such sportsmen now that their hu-ed tools in 

 the Maine woods are disclosing then- true character. 



Magazine Rifles. — A great deal of ink is spilling just 

 now over the question of magazine rifles for military use. 

 Several of the Continental armies have adopted some 

 form of repeater. The English Ordnance Boasils are 

 working over the problem with no end of civilian advice. 

 In our own country, the men on the new cruisers w*ill be 

 armed with a magazine weapon, but the cry is for its imi- 

 versal adoption. The old objection that in the excite- 

 ment of conflict the men would empty the magazine 

 without result in any way commensurate with the con- 

 sumption of amr ^mition, is no longer held to have any 

 weight. Against it the ai-gument is m-ged that it would 

 break up the morale and efficiency of the oldest fighters 

 to know the enemy had a much better arm, while with 

 such a reservoir of destruction as a well-filled cartridge 

 chamber, the men wdll gain in steadiness, and reserve 

 their fire until its best effect can be gained. What with 

 long-range military rifles to create dismay before the 

 enemy is in sight, and a close skirmishing fire from 

 magazine arms, war will soon become too sure a method 

 of death for the most enthusiastic glory Inmter. 



A Souvenir from Killarney.— A Montreal sports- 

 man and admirer of the Canadian sporting sketches of 

 J. M. Le Moine, ha-\'ing shot a splendid Ii-ish deer while 

 deer stalking recently on the lovely banks of Lake Kil- 

 larney, at Muckross, forwarded, per last trip of the S. S. 

 Polynesian, a haunch of venison to the author of " Maple 

 Leaves." Our esteemed contiibutor might now address 

 to his friend, the Canadian Laureate, Frechette, an invi- 

 tation to meet him imder the green groves of Spencer 

 Grange, something like Walter Savage Landor's to his 

 friend, the English Laureate : 



I entreat you, Alfred Tennyson, 



Come and share my haunch of venison, 



I have, too, a line of claret. 



Good, but better when you share it. 



The Death of John Krider removes a figure long- 

 familiar to multitudes of sportsmen. Mi\ Kaider was 

 one of the old school; he had enjoyed a wide exjDerience 

 in the field and it was a pleasure to listen to his relations 

 of scenes in which he had participated. Mr. Krider was 

 something of an ornithologist; he made a number of col- 

 lections, and his services in this department were recog- 

 nized by naming for him a Western form of the red-tailed 

 hawk, Buteo horealis krideri. 



"Nessmuk's" Poems. — We repeat this week the sub- 

 scription blank for the forthcoming volume of "Ness- 

 muk's" poems. 



Fate — To go through a civil war and then meet deatk 

 at the hands of a deer-dogger in Maine woods. 



Correspondents are asked to give theix address when 

 communicating with the Forest and Stream. 



