Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Teems, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. ) 



Six Months, $2. f 



NEW YORK, JANUARY 20, 1887. 



1 VOL. XXVII,-No. 26. 



( No8. 39 & 40 Park Row, New York. 



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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



AA^iat Protection May Do. 

 Godwin's liallucinations. 

 Snap Shots. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 

 Travels in Boon Gah Arrah- 

 biggee. 



The Headwaters of the Sissiboo 

 Naturax, History. 



Avian Tuberculosis. 



Mother Care. 



Migrating Larks. 

 Game Bag and Grir. 



"The Hounds of the Plains." 



Another Day witb the Cordelia 

 Club. 



The Maine Game Law. 



Swan Island. 



Dead River Region. 

 ■ Virginia Game Notes. 



Grouse and the Snow Crust. 



A New England Fox Hunt. 



Passaic County Association. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



The Menhaden Steamers. ■ 



The New York Trout Law. 



Sea and River Fishing. 



A Fish Tale. 

 Fishculture. 



Lobster Protection. 

 The Kennel. 



The Pacific Coast Field Trials. 



Dogs are Property. 



The Ben Hill -Lillian Heat. 



Collie Sweepstakes. 



Kennel M.anagement. 



Kennel Notes. 

 RiPiiE AND Trap Shooting. 



Annual Riiie Meeting. 



Range and Gallery. 



The Trap. 



National Gun Association. 



iTACHTING. 



The Scl.ooner-Smack Grampus 

 Those Plans of the Thistle. 

 Elections of Officers. 

 Tlie Ocean Yacht Races. 

 Canoeing. 

 Pecowsic. 



Western Canoeists and the 

 A. C. A. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



GODWINS HALLUCINATIONS. 



THERE is some reason to believe that the blindness of 

 the State Game Protector whose district includes 

 the great markets of New Yoi'k city is not a physical 

 defect, but partakes of the natm-e of mental obliquity. 

 Godwin does not permit the game dealers of this city 

 to defy the laws because he cannot see the game they 

 imlawfully display, but because he is incapable of the 

 mental processes wlaich take place in the brain of an 

 ordinary official when he runs against open violations of 

 law. When Godwin confronts a itiffed grouse hanging 

 up in market after the season has closed, there may be 

 the physical process of seeing, but the subsequent events 

 give no indication that the protector's brain has per- 

 formed its proper functions ui the matter. 



The only other hyi)othesis to account for this officer's 

 delinquency is to assume that he is the victim of certain 

 unfortunate hallucinations. The ffi-st of these is that the 

 game law is a joke, enacted as a bit of horse-play at 

 Albany, not to be interpreted as serious, and under no 

 cu'cumstances to be enforced as other laws are enforced. 

 This is the view he presumably held for the first thirteen 

 days of January with respect to the ruffed grouse statute. 

 On Jan. 14 this notice appeared in the daily papers: 



I desire to call the attention of marketmen and others inter- 

 ested in the subject to the fact that, by a law passed by the New 

 York State Legislature of 1886 (section 36, chapter 194, Laws 1886) 

 the oflEering for sale or having in possession of any ruffed grouse, 

 commonly called partridges, or pinnated groiise, commonly 

 called prairie chickens, is prohibited after Dec. 31. As this law 

 changes the time for possession and sale of these birds from what 

 it has been heretofore, and is not generally understood by the 

 public, I think it proper that I should give notice that I shall en- 

 force the law.— J. H. Godwin, Jr., State Game Protector for the 

 Second District. 



From this it may be inferred that Godwin has the 

 hallucination that if the law actaially does mean some- 

 thing the way to punish ^dolators is to come out in print 

 fotu'teen days behindhand and announce "I think it 

 proper that I should give notice that I shall enforce the 

 law." Tliis is sm-ely bad enough and absm-d enough. As 

 a hostler to rush frantically to shut the barn door after 

 the horse is out, Godwin would be a tremendous success. 

 Another of the protector's ridiculous notions is that by 

 these proclamations in print he frightens the dealers 

 and makes of himself a terrible fellow in tbeir eyes. 



One more of this bombastic official's hallucinations is 

 that he is earning his salary. The citizens of the State 

 may have some interest to know whether he succeeds in 

 drawing his pay for January. Unless the public money 

 is intentionally to be frittered away on officials who wink 

 at violation of laws they are sworn to enforce, it is time 

 for Godwin's place to be filled by some one else. 



WHAT PBOTECTION MAY DO. 



IT is well understood that animals which are protected 

 from their natural enemies tend to increase in num- 

 bers very rapidly. Striking examples of this are the wild 

 cattle and horses of South America and of portions of our 

 own West. This very rapid increase of wild and domes- 

 tic animals is not only a most important fact in natural 

 history, but is of exti'eme interest to the sportsman as 

 well. It shows just what might result if any large terri- 

 tory should be set apart and our own native wild animals 

 should be free from the attacks of man, their only im. 

 portant enemy. It shows what ought to, and will, take 

 place in the Yellowstone National Park, if only it be prop- 

 erly protected. 



All the wild cattle and horses, which at the beginning 

 of the present centmy thronged the plains of South Amer- 

 ica, came from the few pairs first brought over by the 

 Spaniards, and their remarkable increase was due to the 

 absence of natural enemies and the favorable conditions 

 JO theii- surroundings. 



Humboldt in his travels states on the authority of 

 Azzara that in the latter part of the last century there 

 were believed to exist on the plains of Buenos Ayres 13,- 

 000,000, cows and 3,000,000 horses, without including the 

 unbranded animals, which would add largely to this 

 number. M. Depons in the Quarterly Beview, has calcu- 

 lated that on the plains between the Orinoco and Lake 

 Maracaybo there roam at large 1,200,000 cattle, 180,000 

 horses and 90.000 mules. The cattle ranges of our own 

 West tell a similar story to-day. 



In all these cases the animals have no enemy to fear, 

 except man, and the country is admirably adapted to the 

 demands of their life. 



But it is not only the large animals that tend to increase 

 if preserved from their natural enemies. Our smaller 

 mammals and our game bh-ds feel equally the benefits of 

 rigid protection. We have in mind now a farm on 

 Long Island on wliich the owner looks after his quail 

 with the most sedulous care, and the results of his efforts 

 have been such as to richly repay him. He writes of 

 this as follows: "They increase very fast. For instance, 

 when I stopped all shooting and trespassing on my prem- 

 ises two years ago, there were about twenty birds on the 

 400 acres. The following fall I killed sixty birds and left 

 enough for seed. This fall and winter I have bagged one 

 hundred and sixty-one birds, and there are fifty pairs on 

 the place now. If all goes well, at this rate, what a lot 

 I will have next year. If they do sometimes raise two 

 broods, why I will have a thousand birds to shoot at next 

 fall." 



This is what one man has done on his farm of 400 acres. 

 On a larger area the results might not be so satisfactory, 

 yet with proper protection against poaching and wdth 

 due care and feeding during the winter, the quail can 

 be made to feel that they are at home, and will remain 

 and increase in numbers with startUng rapidity. 



If a number of adjoining land owners should pursue 

 this course, they would always have the very best of 

 shooting for themselves, or what to some men would be 

 more important, could lease the shooting privileges of 

 their land for a good roimd sum. Long Island is the 

 natural home of the quail, and all that the birds need 

 there is proper care and protection. 



Almost the same thing would take place in the case of 

 the ruffed grouse. This is a bird of very local habits, and 

 except during its wanderings in the early autumn, rarely 

 strays far from the piece of woods in which it was reared 

 and though it travels about more or less during September 

 and October, it is almost sure to return to its home when, 

 the frosty weather comes. 



Om- ducks and wildfowl generally seem to remember 

 from year to year grounds on which they are exempt from 

 distm'bance, and congregate in such places in spring and 

 fall in great numbers. We believe that there is no game 

 bird or animal which will not amply repay by its increase 

 any intelligent and continued effort made for its protection. 



This is a lesson that the sportsm^aiJ may weU lay to 

 heart before it is too late. 



SNAP SHOTS. 

 'T^HE trial of James M. McFarland in the Supreme Court 

 of Washington county, at Machias, Me., has been 

 concluded, McFarland was a companion of Graves, the 

 deer bounder, when Graves killed the two wardens, NUes 

 and Hill; and was charged with having been accessory 

 after the fact to the murder. The jury acquitted him. 

 Such a verdict may be accepted as giving evidence of a 

 decided change in looal public sentiment respecting the 

 killing of game officers by lawless ruffians. As our cor^ 

 respondent "Special" intimates, there is among certain 

 classes a feeling that Graves and McFarland were only 

 taking game which belonged to them by a method which 

 was legitimate because it suited them to employ it, and 

 in killing game wardens citizens are only defending 

 themselves in the exercise of a natm al right. In due 

 course of time it will be in order for the assassin Graves 

 to return to the bosom of his family and receive the sym- 

 pathy of friends and neighbors for hardships undergone 

 during his exile. 



Among the grotesque communications which have from 

 time to time been received at this office is one which 

 came from a firm of attorneys in Maine, intimating that 

 unless the Forest and Stream produced certain manu- 

 script relating to the notorious "Shacker Band," of 

 Wesley, Me., there would be trouble ahead. The remarks 

 in this journal, reflecting on Maine poachers who burn 

 barns and cows and behead horses in their stables at mid- 

 night, had wounded the sensitive natm-es of the Wesley 

 people. It will be remembered that Dr. Sam. B. Hunter, 

 of Machias, was half-way sued for hbel by these people, 

 the plaintiffs failing to put in an appearance when the 

 time came for trying the suit. A sequel to all this is the 

 sentence of the incendiary deer dogger, Devereaux Fen- 

 lason, to twelve years at hard labor in the State prison, 

 for having fired game warden Munson's barn at Wesley, 

 with intent to bum the dweUing also. 



State "Game Protector" Whitaker, of Southampton, 

 did not arrive in Brooklyn on the thirteen-days schedule 

 time last week. Owing to a heavy storm he was late. 

 Then in d<)fault of having his badge or other ordinary 

 means of identification, he was practically powerless to 

 cope with the illicit grouse dealers, who, with tongue in 

 cheek, were inclined to deride him. The Long Island 

 "game protector" is an amiable old gentleman, "by his 

 friends much esteemed for his social qualities, but quite 

 imfit to discharge the duties of his office except to regu- 

 larly draw the salary. Some one who can do it without 

 hurting his feelings ought to try to show him how grace- 

 ful it would be for him to resign and give another man a 

 chance not only to draw the salary but to do something 

 toward earning it. 



The Eastern New York Fish and Game Protective As- 

 sociation has appointed a committe to doctor up the 

 game law. It is to be hoped that the Association will in- 

 struct its delegates so that it will not agahi be necessary 

 to repudiate them, as was largely done last winter when 

 Dr. Ward gave out his misleading deer hoimding effusion 

 and tried to make the Association responsible for its 

 peculiar character. "We, the people of England," pro- 

 claimed the three taUors of Tooley street. "We, the 

 Eastern Association," said Dr. Ward. It is time to have 

 done with altering good laws into bad ones to suit the 

 selfishness of cliques within cliques. 



A Lynn, Mass., young lady wore a feather-bedecked 

 hat out in a rain-storm the other day. The rain trickled 

 from the hat dowoi on to her face, taking with it some of 

 the arsenic used for cming the bird skins. At last ac- 

 cormts she was expected to recover. Tliere is a moral in 

 this, but women will never give up bird-skin decoration 

 from fear of arsenical poisoning; they will brave every- 

 thing for fashion, no matter how unreasonable and 

 heathenish the style may be. 



"She poison alarmists are not likely to have much influ- 

 ence on feather wearers; nor is it any more probable that 

 the worm alarmists will materially affect the people who 

 eat spring ducks. Spring shooting will no doubt be abol- 

 ished, and that before very long, but this will not be 

 brought about by sensational alarms of the danger of 

 eating game because it is in spring infested with internal 

 parasites. The abolition of spring shooting is a common 

 sense move and it pan be accomplished by common sense 



