Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



•| NEW YORK, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1896. { 



For Prospectus and Advertising Rates see Page iii. 



The Forest and Stream is put to press 

 on Tuesdays. Correspondence intended for 

 publication should reach us by Mondays and 

 as much earlier as may be practicable. 



|| forest and Stram Water Colors | 



We have prepared as premiums a series of four artistic || 



$i and beautiful reproductions of original water colors, h 



t'[ painted expressly for the Forest and Stream. The !| 



l\ subjects are outdoor scenes: \\ 



i\ Jacksnipe Coming In. "He's Got Them" (Qaail Shooting:). \i 

 || Vigilant and Valkyrie. Bass Fishing- at Block Island. || 



j [ SEE REDUCED HALF-TONES IN OUR ADVT. COLUMNS. i I 



\\ The plates are for frames 1 4 x 1 9 in. They are done in 1 1 



\i twelve colors, and are rich in effect. They are furnished || 



$1 to old or new subscribers on the following terms: M 



1 1 Forest and Stream one year and the set of four pictures, $5. S 



i \ Forest and Stream 6 months and any two of the pictures, $3. 



{ i Price of t he pictures alone, $1.50 each f $a for the net. 



? \ Remit by express money order 01 postal money ordei § 

 H Make orders payable to || 



ft FOREST AND STREAM PUB. CO., New York, | 



A MANITOBA OBJECT LESSON. 



The vast "chicken country" of America is divided by the 

 artificial line which constitutes the boundary between the 

 United States and Canada. The natural conditions of the 

 two countries, so far as they concern the habitat of the 

 chicken, vary but little, excepting the natural variations 

 of climate which obtain in different latitudes. As to the 

 food supply, cover, habits of the birds, etc., they are 

 much the same North and South. 



Yet this artificial boundary line, with game protection 

 which protects on the Canadian side, and game protection 

 which, excepting in a few rare instances, is an abstraction 

 on this side of the line, serves admirably as a division for 

 the purpose of comparison. The contrast in respect to the 

 game supply is great. In Manitoba, and presumably in 

 the other Provinces also, there is first of all a popular and 

 genuine sentiment in favor of game protection. The 

 game laws are the earnest expression of the will of the 

 people, and were enacted with the serious intention of 

 enforcing them to the letter. The fine for killing birds is 

 so large that conviction is a serious matter for all, rich or 

 poor. It is a deterrent to even the most hardened and 

 reckless poachers. 



Through an organiz ition of game wardens in Manitoba, 

 local and general, the law is in constant action, and the 

 efforts to convict an offender are earnest and persistent. 

 Conviction is in most instances followed by the infliction 

 of the maximum penalty. If the offender be wealthy or 

 of high station, the effort to punish is greater that it may 

 be exemplary. The machinery of the law is not used to 

 condone the offense, nor are there strained constructions 

 whereby the offender is fined for one bird even though he 

 may have killed dozens. The certainty of the penalty 

 thus gives vitality to the law. It is neither a dead letter 

 nor inoperative. 



The landowners watch the birds with jealous care. A 

 man shooting out of season is considered as in the act of 

 taking property which does not belong to him. He is 

 almost certain to be reported to the officers, and sure of 

 conviction beyond a doubt if there is proper evidence. It 

 must not be inferred that there are no attempts at game 

 law violations in Canada. There are some violations, but 

 they are. reduced to a minimum. When once caught and 

 punished, the offender rarely is guilty of violating the 

 game laws a second time. Added to the fine is the 

 humiliation coming from the ridicule, censure, criticism 

 and disapproval from his friends and the commuoity. 



On the American side of the line, shooting before the 

 season opens, shooting without any limit as to the num- 

 bers killed in contempt of law or equity, shooting for 

 market, and the lax administration of the game laws 

 when they are administered at all, have produced their 

 natural result — that is, a scarcity of birds in some sections, 

 in others practically no birds at all. 



In a few sections, both in Canada and the United 

 States, the hatching was injured by heavy rains, one sec- 

 tion not being exempt more than the other from unfavor- 

 able weather conditions; yet in Manitoba there are birds 



in abundance, while in the United States the shooting is 

 comparatively poor. And yet the cause which produced 

 these results is one of public sentiment and law enforce- 

 ment. 



Manitoba has taken wise precautions to protect her own 

 game, and earnest effort to keep her game laws in opera- 

 tion. To guard against foreign invasion of her game re- 

 sources, a license fee of $25 is charged to non-residents 

 for the privilege of shooting during the season. As a 

 courtesy to a guest of a resident of the Province, a three- 

 day permit can be obtained for such guest. 



Notwithstanding the high license fee, Manitoba has a 

 large and growing influx of shooters from the States 

 who prefer to pay $'35 with a certainty of good shooting 

 than to pay nothing and strive with uncertainties and 

 disappointments. 



Manitoba has caught the true spirit of protection, for 

 it limits to the shooter's own use the birds killed— in other 

 words it has stopped the sale of game. The abundance 

 of birds in that province proves the beneficent effects of 

 stopping the sale of game. The barren and impoverished 

 game areas of the States show the effects of the sale of 

 game. They can be replenished by the same means 

 employed by the Canadian brethren — that is to say, en- 

 force the game laws and stop the sale of game. 



SNAP SHOTS. 

 If a poverty-stricken individual accosts you in a confi- 

 dential manner and communicates to you that he has a 

 bolt of dress goods, which he has come into possession of 

 by methods not recognized as strictly mercantile and 

 would be pleased to dispose of to you on favorable terms, 

 all this, and in the same breath beseeching you not to 

 betray him, as he is a poor man who can ill afford to be 

 arrested, what would be the proper course for you to pur- 

 sue? Should you incontinently hand him and his stolen 

 goods over to the authorities; or, having a regard to the 

 sacred obligations of confidence which he has "imposed, 

 though all unsought by yourself, should you regard his 

 proposition as a privileged communication, and without 

 purchasing his plunder dismiss him to try the next 

 man? 



It is not always possible to make one case go on all fours 

 with another similar one, but the supposed instance of 

 the stolen cloth is at least partially paralleled by another 

 and real one which has just come to our consideration in 

 a communication received from a correspondent in 

 Forsyth, Montana. He writes, "I have in my possession 

 a whole hide and head of an enormous bison bull, just 

 killed on the prairie of northern Montana. It is properly 

 cured and handled, with no cuts and only one ,38eal. 

 bulk t hole in it. Using the words of old buffalo hunters 

 who have seen it, it is as large and as hairy as any that 

 ever roamed the Western prairies. Please do not publish 

 anything about it in your valuable paper, as the killing of 

 buffalo in this State is unlawful and publishing would 

 injure me, a poor man; but I ask you to hand this letter 

 to a friend, if you know of any who would like to possess 

 such a specimen. If you can help me in this matter I 

 should be glad and thankful for it." 



Clearly the man who writes a letter like that to the 

 Forest and Steeam signs his name to it "not for publica- 

 tion but as a guarantee of good faith:" and it is also 

 clear that to give it would be a breach of confidence on 

 the part of this journal, much as we would rejoice to 

 know that the fellow who killed the magnificent bull was 

 in the hands of the Montana authorities. 



The English are carrying with them around the globe 

 among other British institutions the trout to which they 

 are accustomed in home watprs. New Zealand and Aus- 

 tralian streams have been stocked for years; and another 

 achievement has been the introduction of the fish into 

 the streams of Cape Colony, in South Africa. The occa- 

 sion of the liberation of the fish was made a day of cele- 

 bration by the sportsmen of the colony, and the ceremonies 

 on the banks of the Buffalo, near King William's Town, 

 took on the importance of a social "function." 



Here is an echo of the Bannock "war" and a circum- 

 stance which should go on record, for probably it is. the 

 last instance of the nature to be recorded for the region of 

 the United States. Most people now understand that the 

 "Bannock uprising" consisted of the heartless and brutal 

 murder of some defenseless Indians by white men, and 

 yet there are men right here in New York city who have 



given over their projected hunting trips into the moun- 

 tains because they stand in dread of the Bannocks, whom 

 their excited fancy pictures as on the war path thirsting 

 for the gore of the pale-face. 



In times past vast regions of game country have been 

 shut out from white hunters because infested with hostile 

 Indians, and in this way the savage has played no mean 

 part in game preservation. But those days have long 

 gone by, never to return. The individual who stays 

 home in the year of 1895 because he stands in dread of 

 Indians is laboring under a delusion. Because of that 

 delusion, however, possibly a few more Idaho and Wyo- 

 ming elk will get through the winter. 



A Chicago correspondent sends us a late copy of the 

 daily Chronicle, which prints a column of talk by a resi- 

 dent of that city, who has returned from the Yellowstone 

 Park burdened with discoveries he has made concerning 

 the Yellowstone National Park. "The facts that he has 

 thought best to disclose he believes will endanger his life 

 should he return to Yellowstone, and this he proposes to 

 do within a few months. He held, however, that it was a 

 matter of patriotism with him to reveal what he discov- 

 ered, desiring that his name should be omitted in order 

 that he might not be done away with, when he again re- 

 visits that portion of the country, by the outlaws against 

 whom his facts are directed. He is morally certain that 

 such would be his lot." 



The parlous tale he has to tell is that poachers have killed 

 many buffalo in the Park. There is nothing dangerous to 

 the personal safety of one who makes such disclosures. 

 The Foeest and Steeam's special staff correspondent, who 

 went into the Park winter before last and reported the 

 buffalo killing by Howell, came out and told of it, and 

 still lives. If the Chicago man has any facts about the 

 Park and game butchers, he should out with them and 

 give us his name, so that we may estimate the trustworth- 

 in ess of the evidence. 



The Chicago gentleman goes on to tell the reporter 

 that 



"When a sporting duke or any other foreign nobleman arrives at the 

 Park, he is coached to say that he desires to hunt in the Teton district, 

 which is south of the Park in the Jackson Hole country. The southern 

 district of the Yellowstone is not definitely marked off from the 

 Teton region. Consequently when he asks for a permit it is tacitly 

 understood that he need not go so far south as the Teton district, but 

 may hunt at will through the National Park, wherein a citizen of this 

 country cannot carry a gun.' 1 



Which is fudge. 



When the Valkyrie III. flunked the other day there 

 was no end of wild talk in the English papers of a lack 

 of sportsmanship among Americans, and we were assured 

 that there would be no more racing for the America's 

 Cup for many a long year. Now that offical notice of a 

 new challenge for the Cup has already come to the New 

 York Y. C, it is shown that the newspapers which made 

 the most noise about Yankee unfairness did not truly 

 represent the sportsmen of Great Britain. The fact that 

 English yachtsmen are so prompt to come forward for a 

 new trial at the trophy demonstrates that the sentiment 

 on the other side of the water coincides with public feel- 

 ing here as to the merits of the unfortunate fiasco of 1895. 



There will be another Sportsmen's Exposition. At a 

 meeting of the trustees of the Sportsmen's Association, 

 held last week in this city, Chairman Dressel of the com- 

 mittee previously appointed to confer with the Madison 

 Square Garden authorities respecting the time and con- 

 ditions of the proposed exhibition, reported: 



Tour committee has communicated with Mr. Frank Sanger, of the 

 Madison Square Garden, and we And we can secure the following 

 dates— the week of March beginning the 16th and ending 21st, inclu- 

 sive — and can have the Garden for preparatory work the 13th, 13th, 

 14th and 15th, and for purposes of removal the 22d and 23d. We can 

 also secure the services of Mr. Sanger as manager, and can otherwise 

 make contract on same lines as last year, with the exception that the 

 rent is to be at a less figure and the profits to be equally divided be- 

 this Association and Mr. Sanger as manager. Tour committee con- 

 siders this a fair offer, and recommends the closing of contract with 

 the Madison Square Garden people. 



The committee was empowered to make the contract 

 specified; and an Exposition Committee was named to 

 take charge of the affairs of the Association. Its mem- 

 bers are Messrs. J. A. H, Dressel, Justus Yon Lengerke, 

 Albert Chasseaud. There is every reason for indulging 

 the belief that the second annual exposition will as much 

 surpass the first as the first one exceeded the expectations 

 of the promoters, 



