Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



^ Y £S^ST AOo "-f NEW YORK, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1895. U «8 V SLSIi"J2w^ 



For Prospectus and Advertising Pates 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. 



LORD D UNRA VEN'S CHARGES. 



The full text of Lord Dunraven's letter was received in 

 New York on Nov. 18, and on the evening of the same 

 day a special meeting of the New York Y. C. was held, at 

 Mr. Iselin's request, to consider the charges contained in 

 the letter. The club cannot be too highly commended 

 for the temperate and judicious position which it has 

 taken in appointing a committee of gentlemen whose 

 standing is above question, and who have in no way been 

 associated with the conduct of the races, to consider the 

 whole matter. On his side, Lord Dunraven has taken a 

 bold stand in notifying the club of his readiness to come 

 to Ne tv York and defend himself. 



Apart from the charges against Mr. Iselin, it must be 

 admitted that Lord Dunraven's letter is in the main an 

 able and fair statement of his side of the controversy, and 

 contains some points on which an explanation from the 

 New York Y. C. is desirable. Pending the coming re- 

 port of the Cup committee and the action of the special 

 committee, it would be useless, if not improper, to discuss 

 further the many points in dispute. 



THE STILL-HUNTER. 



The typical hunter is the still-hunter. There are a 

 many and diverse ways of taking big game — jacking, 

 hounding, calling, floating, baiting — but none of them is 

 so universal, none so truly typical of the essence of the 

 thing as still-hunting, 



The still-hunter trusts to beating wild nature at her own 

 game. He enters the wilderness haunts with all the 

 stealth of his aboriginal ancestors or of the wild things 

 themselves. 



Though his senses are less keen than theirs, he has the 

 added power of reason; and a terrible foe he proves. No 

 panther creeping for the spring, no wolf howling its 

 wild paean, strikes a keener terror to the heart of the deer 

 than the suddenly realized presence of the still-hunter. 

 And the fierce animals of the forest have learned to dread 

 him likewise. 



The still-hunter skirts the hardwood ridges noiselessly, 

 his moccasined feet resting on the moss-covered rock or 

 fallen tree trunk with a light sureness that suggests 

 simian prehensile powers. His progress is slow, but ter- 

 ribly suggestive of reserve power. Frequently he stops 

 altogether as he scans some hollow where mouldering 

 trees have furnished food for a luxuriant growth of the 

 young hardwoods, or peers under the dense shadows of 

 some balsam brake. 



The things he sees and hears are full of meaning to the 

 still-hunter. The turned leaf, the depression in that red- 

 brown soggy pile where some old forest monarch fell 

 and disintegrated the sharply defined footprint in the 

 black muck at the edge of the spring— all these tell their 

 story— the broken branch and nibbled bough, the crack- 

 ing of a stick far off under the forest arches. So he be- 

 comes aware of the presence of his game. Then with 

 infinite patience the approach is compassed and he stands 

 waiting his chance for a shot. An indefinable some- 



thing causes the wild thing to look up, and as it catches 

 the dread eye that seals its fate it is rooted to the spot 

 with fear. 



The still-hunter is the king of the forest. All nature owes 

 him allegiance, and he exacts his tribute at will. He is 

 close to the source of things and at night sleeps with the 

 spirits of his primal ancestors— old Nimrod and the lot. 

 To him the trees talk and the waters whisper. Old 

 mother earth with all her burden of years is young again, 

 and smiles as she did on the first man. Freedom and 

 power is his song — freedom and power. 



SNAP SHOTS. 

 And now if there be any doughty hunters of savage 

 beasts, scarred by battle with the fierce denizens of the 

 American wilderness, and disposed to scout at the perils 

 braved by the Forest and Stream's special commissioners 

 to the wilds of Long Island, as related on another page, 

 we pray them to read the latest advices from the seat of 

 war— the war which the savage deer are waging upon a 

 peace-loving, inoffensive and bucolic people. To have 

 penetrated to the heart of the Long Island deer fastnesses, 

 and to have emerged therefrom alive, whole and in their 

 right minds— this may be thought prosaic, but is truly 

 heroic. For, grown bold by the immunity given them by 

 the law — that wonderful law, which being retroactive, 

 that is to say working backwards, was efficient to in- 

 crease the deer supply by multiplying the stock at a time 

 long anterior to the enactment of the statute— the 

 Long Island Cervidae no longer flee from the genus 

 Homo, but forthwith attack it on sight. Long Island 

 men are forbidden to hunt deer; Long- Island deer 

 have taken to hunting men. Last Monday's papers re- 

 ported the harrowing details of a tussle between Eric 

 Evers, a hardy Norseman of Uniondale, and a monstrous 

 and savage buck. It appears that Eric, walking along 

 the highway, saw the deer in a field munching the poor 

 farmer's crops; and incautiously and foolishly saluted it 

 with derisive jestures. The deer resented the insult, 

 promptly knocked Eric down, jumped up and down on 

 him and would have tossed him into the branches of a 

 tree but for the timely appearance of men with pitch- 

 forks and clubs of cordwood. The golden truth is that 

 the wayfarer who fares on Long Island country roads 

 carries his life in his hands. It was from such perils that 

 Forest and Stream's expedition returned whole, and not 

 only in their right minds, but as they naively confess at 

 one point in the narrative, "brighter and better men." 



But lest it shall be said that this is a serious subject 

 treated with undue levity, it should be clearly understood 

 that the current tales of a vast increase of Long Island 

 deer, their ravages of farm crops and their attacks on 

 human beings, are all lies invented for the purpose of in- 

 fluencing legislators at Albany this coming winter. The 

 purpose is explicitly exposed in such declarations as 

 these, in the Eric Evers story, which its Farmingdale, 

 Long Island, correspondent sends to the Times of this 

 city. 



"As the season for deer hunting is closed, no one can shoot deer on 

 Long Island, and, in consequence, the deer wander over farm lands, 

 eating everything the farmers have planted for winter and spring use. 

 The farmers say they cannot see why they should feed the deer through 

 the season and suffer the consequent loss. One man, Eric Evers, of 

 Uniondale, had a tussle with a deer yesterday, and as a result it is not 

 unlikely that decisive steps will be taken shortly to ask the Legislature 

 to amend the law." 



There is just about as much ground for the Long Island 

 deer "fake" as there was for that Alaska duck egg yarn. 



The meeting of the American Ornithologists' Union, 

 which took place in Washing-ton last week, was of unusual 

 interest, and was a thoroughly representative gathering 

 of our ornithologists. From its foundation thirteen years 

 ago the Union has done excellent work in behalf of 

 science, and its membership has included most of the 

 leading ornithologists of America and not a few of those 

 of other lands. The importance of many of the prin- 

 ciples that it has laid down for its guidance in matters of 

 nomenclature has been so obvious that they have been 

 adopted in other branches of zodlogical science. While the 

 value of the investigations carried on by its members is 

 great, still more important are the publication of its 

 quarterly journal and the publication and frequent revision 

 of its check list of North American birds. Its continued 

 unselfish work, looking toward the preservation of our 

 native birds from destruction for commercial purposes, 

 must commend it to the grateful consideration of laymen 

 as well as of those interested in science. 



We have been looking for an explanation which Sena- 

 tor Eedfield Proctor, of Vermont, owes to the public with 

 respect to his Maine moose hunting this year. In an 

 interview with a New York Tribune reporter, Senator 

 Proctor gave this report of his luck "in the Maine woods 

 for a month hunting moose:" "I had great luck. I man- 

 aged to bag two moose— great big fellows with magnifi- 

 cent antlers. I am going to have the antlers mounted 

 and hung up as a souvenir of my prowess. The hunting 

 season is on full now and there is great sport up there." 

 A notice of Senator Proctor's moose appeared in Maine 

 papers early in October, certainly not later than the 5th. 

 Allowing a few days for getting the Senator out of the 

 woods, the killing must have occurred close to the danger 

 limit as to time. Whether killed in or out of season, the 

 Senator, from his own statement, killed double the num- 

 ber of moose permitted under the law. Perhaps he was 

 only romancing when he talked to the newspaperman; 

 an explanation from the gentleman would seem to be in 

 order. The prevailing opinion among those in position to 

 know is that the killing actually took place and thatjboth 

 moose were killed prior to Oct. 1. 



The famous Follett case has now passed into history, 

 and its decision has taken a place among the precedents 

 which go to make up the law on fish protection. Follett, 

 it will be remembered, was a Connecticut Fish Commis- 

 sioner who was prosecuted for having taken trout from 

 public waters in close time for breeding purposes, and 

 claimed in defense that the fish were some that had been 

 planted by him. This ridiculous contention was of course 

 overthrown, and the judgment of the lower courts, car- 

 ried on appeal to the Supreme Bench, has been upheld. 

 The most remarkable feature of the Follett case was its 

 revelation of an official's gross ignorance of the element- 

 ary principles of the laws of property. 



There is not only good law but sound common sense in 

 Judge McMahon's opinion in the Kinne Creek case, re- 

 ported in our angling columns. The stream, says the 

 Court, being private property, is under the complete con- 

 trol of its proprietors as to fishing rights. It is "private 

 property in the full sense so far as the law governing 

 trespass and private right is concerned." Trespass for 

 fishing is the same in its wrong as trespass for robbing an 

 orchard or vegetable garden. These are of course ele- 

 mentary, primary and foundation principles in law. The 

 reason why they are not more generally understood and 

 respected may be found in the fact that their application 

 and enforcement are in many localities recent and unfa- 

 miliar. The lesson is slowly and unwillingly learned that 

 a stream which has been free to fishermen from a time 

 when man's memory runneth not to the contrary is no 

 longer open to the public. We confess to an underlying 

 sympathy, in many instances, for the shut-outs, the 

 shooters and the fishermen who are confronted by tres- 

 pass signs forbidding ingress to woods and waters they 

 have frequented since they could walk and which were 

 open to their fathers and their fathers' fathers before 

 them. But in the case of the Pere Marquette Club there 

 appears to have been given no cause of just complaint by 

 any curtailment of such privileges. The club has actu- 

 ally increased the stock of fish open to the public, and so 

 has enlarged instead of restricting individual opportu- 

 nities. For this reason it deserves the cordial support of 

 the people of the neighborhood. 



Commissioner Henry M. Stanley writes us that the 

 game birds from Auburn have been turned over to the 

 Commission and are now receiving proper care and 

 attention at Dixfield. We hope to learn of some substan- 

 tial results from the new order of things. 



A St. Paul firm of game dealers have instituted a suit to 

 test the constitutionality of the law which forbids the 

 shipment of venison to market. The statute reads: 

 "Provided, that it shall be unlawful for any person to 

 consign by common carrier to any commission merchant 

 or sale market at any time any elk, moose, caribou or 

 deer, or any part thereof except the skin or head." This 

 the dealers claim to be class legislation, for carcasses of 

 game may be received by wagon or other conveyance, but 

 not by common carrier. The case was set down for to-day. 



The Saginaw crowd returned about this first of the month 

 from their Western outing, and a note from Mr. W. B. 

 Mershon tells us that the dozen men in the party managed 

 to find enough game to keep them from starvation. We 

 hope to have a story of the trip from his pen. 



Forest and Stream Water Colors \ 



\i 



3 i wvvwww 



I [ We have prepared as premiums a series of four artistic 

 ii and beautiful reproductions of original water colors, 

 |£ painted expressly for the Forest and Stream. The 

 ii subjects are outdoor scenes: 



Jacksnioe Coming In. "He's Got Them* (Quail Shooting) . 

 Vigilant and Valkyrie. Bass Fishing at Block Island. 



SEE REDUCED HALF-TONES IN OUR ADVT. COLUMNS. 



f • The plates are for frames 14 x 19 in. They are done in | 

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

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



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

 i i Forest and Stream 6 months and any two ofihe pic 'urea, $3. 



Price of the pictures alone, $1.50 each ( $5 for the set. 



Remit by express money order 01 postal money orde* 

 Make orders payable to 



| FOREST AND STREAM PUB. CO., N^,w York, 



