Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, $i a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy. 1 

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NEW YORK, MAY 3, 1888. 



t VOL. XXX.-No. 15. 



1 No. 318 Broadway, New York. 





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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 

 Yellowstone National Park 

 Bill. 



Field Trial Rules. 



Seal and Sparrow Bounties. 



Snap Shots. 



The Rock-Climbers.— xviii. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



Pete, the Dog Without a Pedi- 

 gree.— i. 



Lake Mistassini. 

 Natltjae History. 



Bxillsnake and White Wolf. 



Are Hawks Destructive of 

 Game? 



Spring Bird Notes. 



Habits of the Mountain Lion. 



Tra-La (poetry). 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



Gun Chat. 



A Texas Style. 



Yellowstone Park Petition. 



Game Notes. 



Albany Game Law Mill. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



Winter Salmon. 



Indian River Pompano. 



Sea and River Fishing. 



Going to Guinea. — i. 



The Automatic Reel. 

 Fishoultitre. 



The Menhaden Question. 

 The Kennee. 



Thieving at Dog Shows. 



Field vs. Show Dogs. 



Bertie and Sir Colin. 



American Foxhound. 



Cincinnati Dog Show. 



American Field Trial Club. 



Richmond Dog Show. 



"Colonel Blood" in Mastiffs. 



Kennel Notes. 



Kennel Management. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 



Range and Gallery. 



The Trap. 

 Yachting. 



The Delaware Tuckup. 



Prospects on Lake Ontario. 



Yachting Notes. 

 Canoeing. 



British Canoeing. 



Eastern Division, A. C. A. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



SEAL AND SPARROW BOUNTIES. 

 YSJ HILE the Massachusetts Legislature has passed a 



* " bill offering a bounty on seals killed off the coast 

 of that State, a bill similar in character is brought for- 

 ward in New York State providing that a price shall be 

 put on the head of the English sparrow. 



These proposed measures are noteworthy examples of 

 the tendency toward interference with the balance of 

 nature, which is so common in this land of crude legisla- 

 tion. The Legislatures of two great States have taken 

 in hand a subject about which very little is known, and 

 with the utmost nonchalance are attempting to legislate 

 about it as if problems which puzzle the most accom- 

 plished naturalists were to them very simple matters. 

 One of the most unutterably asinine acts ever passed by 

 a legislative body in any country was enacted last year 

 by the Legislature of the State of New York, when it 

 passed the bill making it a misdemeanor to feed or har- 

 bor the English sparrow, but that act will be almost 

 equalled in folly if it should put the proposed bounty of 

 two cents a head on this bird as is now proposed. It has 

 been pretty clearly demonstrated that the English spar- 

 row is hurtful to grain crops, that it drives off useful 

 birds and does little or no good in the way of destroying 

 noxious insects. We do not doubt that it would be a 

 benefit to the country if this species could be exter- 

 minated; but the evil can never be sensibly abated by 

 putting a bounty on the heads of these birds. Such a 

 course will add very seriously to the burdens of the tax- 

 payers, and will not materially reduce the numbers of 

 these pests. Moreover, it is likely to result in the 

 destruction of a vast number of our useful birds, whose 

 heads will be turned in as those of Passer domesticus. 

 The average man cannot distinguish between the Euro- 

 pean sparrow and many of those finches which are indi- 

 genous to the soil, and the probable destruction of the 

 latter, in case such a law as the one in question should 

 be passed, is one of the most serious evils of the case. 



The question of the seal bounty is somewhat different. 

 It is well understood that the seals eat fish, and it is 

 assumed that the damage to our fisheries resulting from 



this diet justifies the destruction of the animals. No one 

 knows whether this is or is not true; and the policy of a 

 bounty on seals is a piece of unwise legislation, wholly 

 unwarranted by our existing knowledge of these animals 

 or of the relations which they bear to the other inhabi- 

 tants of the sea. 



The folly of hastily attempting to legislate a species 

 out of existence and of interfering with the balance of 

 nature has been more than once demonstrated of late 

 years. Besides being a foolish and entirely useless pro- 

 ceeding, it is also a very expensive one; and if New York 

 and Massachusetts want to enter into competition with 

 Pennsylvania, Wyoming and Montana in senseless at- 

 tempts of this kind, these two States will no doubt pur- 

 chase their experience at as dear a rate as did the 

 others in the case of the "gopher" and hawk bounties, 

 already alluded to in these columns. 



THE YELLOWSTONE PARK BILL. 



rpHE Park bill is still in the hands of the Public Lands 

 *- Committee of the House of Representatives, and the 

 date at which we may expect it to be reported to the 

 House is wholly uncertain. It is understood that some 

 changes will be made in the bill which will necessitate 

 its being sent back to the Senate. One of these is in- 

 sisted upon by the Billings, Clark's Fork & Cooke City 

 Railroad promoters, who desire to build their road up 

 Clark's Fork Canon to that "busted mining camp," Cooke 

 City. These promoters urge that this canon is the only 

 practicable way to Cooke, and demand that something 

 shall be cut off from the northern part of the proposed 

 addition, so that Clark's Fork Canon may not be within 

 the Park. It is understood that they began by urging 

 that this northern boundary be moved south eleven miles, 

 and that when this was assented to they asked for fifteen 

 miles, and then for twenty. In fact the more that was 

 granted them the more they demanded. Tins corpora- 

 tion, we believe, has not yet received from Congress its 

 right of way through the Crow Reservation, and it is 

 doubtful if the road will be built for years, if ever. In- 

 deed the opinion is expressed by many people that this 

 right of w r ay is only desired for the purpose of issuing 

 bonds, which may be marketed at some price or other. 



The need for a railroad from Billings or any other 

 place to nowhere, i. e., Cooke City, is a mysterious want 

 not to be comprehended by the average person. The 

 twelve persons who wintered at Cooke last season can 

 hardly be expected to ride enough on the road to pay 

 interest on its bonds, to say nothing of a dividend on its 

 stock. The Rocky Fork Railroad now in course of con- 

 struction will, if it is ever finished, give Cooke its outlet. 



FIELD TRIAL RULES. 



SINCE the inauguration of field trials in this country 

 at Memphis, Tenn., in October, 1874, there have been 

 each year important changes in the running rules, and 

 undoubtedly other changes will be made for many years 

 to come. These changes have been made as experience 

 has shown that the rules were unsatisfactory in their 

 working, and much brain power has been expended to 

 produce a set of rules that would invariably give to each 

 dog his proper place when the final heat was finished. 

 The present rules of the Eastern and National Field Trial 

 Clubs are a great improvement over those of the early 

 years and seemingly they are very nearly what is needed, 

 but cases will undoubtedly arise in the future as in the 

 past that are not provided for, and consequently injustice 

 may be done in deciding the point even under a liberal 

 construction of the rules by the most upright of judges. 

 We are often told by the judges that under the rules they 

 were obliged to decide as they did,'and more than once they 

 have openly stated that but for the rules the decision 

 would have been different. It is true that no very glaring 

 injustice was done; but as we are all anxiously seeking for 

 the very best of everything, especially dogs, it is emi- 

 nently proper that we should strive to eliminate every- 

 thing that tends to place one dog over a more deserving 

 but less lucky competitor. Just how this is to be accom- 

 plished ig a problem of the future; that it be speedily 

 solved is the earnest desire of all who have the interests 

 of field sport at heart. 



Competent judges— and surely none others should be 

 selected— are capable of deciding upon the relative merits 

 of competing dogs without the aid of any hard and fast 

 rules. Why not, then, give them full control of dogs j 



and handlers and send them afield with simple in- 

 structions to place the animals under their charge in the 

 positions earned by their performance? We are writing, 

 of course, only of those rules and instructions that govern 

 the judges while performing their duties, believing that 

 the abrogation of these rules, or at least then- essential 

 modification, would prove of benefit, and that such 

 change would be satisfactory to all concerned. 



SNAP SHOTS. 

 r PHE disputes as to the true discoverer of America and 

 the authorship of Shakespeare's plays sink into 

 insignificant consequence compared with the new topic 

 for debate afforded by Lake Mistassini, that more or less 

 mysterious body of water in the Northern wilds. Those 

 who contend that the situation and topography of the 

 lake are well known adduce the evidence afforded by 

 geographical charts, and one correspondent informs us 

 that he has personally explored Mistassini and mapped it, 

 and he sends us the map which we print to-day. On 

 the other hand, in the face of such testimony, the 

 counter side with doughty spirit affirm that all the 

 maps are inaccurate, that the lake has never been 

 explored. Be its waters known or unknown, common- 

 place or mysterious, Mr.W. H. H. Murray has proclaimed 

 to the world that he proposes to discover them this sum- 

 mer; and there is little ground for hesitating to believe 

 that Mr. Murray will do precisely what he says. A region 

 need not be a terra incognita to be discovered by Mr. 

 Murray. The Adirondack wilderness had been explored 

 and written about long before Mr. Murray ever set foot 

 in it, nevertheless for thousands and thousands of people 

 "Adirondack Murray" was in a practical way the first, 

 original and only discoverer of the North Woods. And 

 if his fancy shall not have given over its play, nor his 

 imagination abated, nor his pen lost its wondrous cun- 

 ning; if Phantom Falls shall be found pouring their 

 dashing waters into Mistassini; if through brush and 

 brake on its borders half-breed guides shall slosh 

 about, adherent to the tails of mighty bucks; in short, if 

 Lake Mistassini, seen before by other eyes and described 

 before by other hands, shall be seen with Murray's eyes' 

 and painted in Murray's glowing colors — if all this shall 

 transpire according to programme, the champions, who 

 are now so valiantly contending for the commonplace 

 Mistassini, may as well lay aside their weapons. The 

 Lake Mistassini of the Canadian Geological Survey may 

 be down on the map; but the Lake Mistassini of "Adi- 

 rondack-Mistassini Murray " is not there, nor will it be 

 until he himself has placed it there. 



An important bill before the New York Legislature is 

 one introduced by Mr. Piatt forbidding any railroad from 

 building or operating its line on land owned by the State 

 within the forest preserve. The object of the measure 

 is to shut off the projected railways which lumber- 

 men contemplate extending to the very heart of the 

 wdlderness. The construction of these roads means 

 the destruction of the hardwood forest; they will 

 be built, if permitted, for that very purpose; and where 

 the lumberman's ax cuts its way fires too will follow, as 

 they have in numberless and extended tracts of the Adi- 

 rondacks already, converting the blessed woods into 

 stretches of bald and barren rocky desolation. The Piatt 

 bill should become a law despite the maneuvering and 

 machinations of the railroad lobbyists. 



The citizens of Bangor are just now having what has 

 come to be an annual season of jubilation over the return 

 of the salmon of the Penobscot. The first fish were 

 killed by Messrs. F. W. Ayer of Bangor and George Mc- 

 Mahon of Brewer, on April 26. Four other fish were 

 hooked by other fishermen on the same day but were lost. 

 The Bangor salmon angling is within the city limits; 

 the waters are practically free; and all anglers who take 

 their fish in a legitimate way will be given a cordial 

 welcome. It is in truth a new order of things when sal- 

 mon fishing may be enjoyed so near home. 



The Park petitions are coming in. Several additional 

 lists of names are given to-day, and they will be con- 

 tinued until completed. The sentiment of all sections is 

 shown to be strongly in support of the Vest bill. 



The Forest and Stream's new offices are at No, 318 

 Broadway, corner of Pearl street. 



