Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



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



Six Months, $2. | 



NEW YORK, MAY 24, 1888. 



) VOL. XXX.-No. 18. 



) No. 318 Broad way, New Vork. 



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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



The Albanv Grist. 



The Bird Hosts. 



After Live Buffalo. 



Snap Shots. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



A Pond That Nobody Knows. 



Through Miramiehi with Rod 

 and Rifle— n. 

 Natural History. 



Some Autumn Birds of the St. 

 Mary's Lake Region. 



Snake Bite and its Antidote. 



Panthers Climb Trees. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



Schultze Powder. 



The Monroe Marsh Case. 



Yellowstone Park Petition. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



Old Antelope's Secret. 



Angling in Ice-Cold Waters. 

 Fishculture. 



American Fisheries Society. 



Conference of Fish Commis- 

 sioners. 



Fishculture. 



After Migratory Fishes in the 

 Grampus. 



The Menhaden Question. 

 The Kennel. 



The English Field Trials. 



The San Francisco Dog Show. 



Dog Talk. 



Kennel Notes. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 



Range and Gallery. 



The Trap. 



Canadian Trap Notes. 

 Canoeing. 



News from the Rag Canoe. 



Atlantic Division Meet. 



Mohican C. C. 

 Yachting. 



Yachting in Japan. 



The Coming Yachting Season. 



The Deed of Gift Again. 



Southern Y. C. Regatta. 



Dickenson's Patent Propeller. 



Yachting Notes. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



AFTER LIVE BUFFALO. 

 nr^HE expedition after live buffalo headed by Mr. C. J. 



Jones, of Kansas, has reached northern Texas, and 

 has already secured five calves. No doubt under such 

 leadership it will be successful and will, when it returns, 

 bring back a considerable number of the few remaining 

 buffalo which range in the waterless Pan Handle. 



The present expedition has long been contemplated by 

 Mr. Jones, who has sevei-al times journeyed down to 

 Texas for the purpose of capturing buffalo calves. All 

 the individuals, which make up a herd of about forty 

 head, now domesticated at his ranch in Kansas, have 

 been secured in this way. The present expedition, how- 

 ever, is much more pretentious than any of those which 

 he has made up to this time. Heretofore he has con- 

 tented himself with capturing calves. This time he in- 

 tends — if it be possible — to take all the buffalo that he 

 can find, young and old, bulls, cows and calves, and he 

 is very likely to succeed. To do so will require, however, 

 much hard riding. Last winter when Mr. Jones was in 

 New York he advised us confidentially of his intended 

 trip, and the matter was talked over at length and dis- 

 cussed from all points. It had been thought by many 

 of those who had considered the subject that this spring- 

 there would be no calves bom in this southern bunch 

 of buffalo, for it was supposed that the constant har- 

 rying and chasing to which they are subjected would 

 operate against their breeding. Mr. Jones's success in 

 getting five calves in the short time he had been out 

 shows this supposition to have been erroneous. 



The calves when captured are given over to foster 

 mothers, milch cows, of which a number have been taken 

 along for this purpose. Besides, the calves, which are 

 usually born in April, are large enough now to pick a 

 little bit of grass, and yet are not so strong as to make so 

 swift and determined a race for liberty as they would in 

 July or August, when it takes a very good horse to catch 

 one. 



The story of the capture of the last calf taken is worth 

 telling. Mr. Jones was driving the wagon around a ravine 

 on Beaver Creek, when he suddenly came upon two cows 

 and a calf, which at once took to their heels. Jones had 



no saddle, but in a moment he stopped his team, pulled 

 the harness off one of the horses, caught up a picket rope 

 which was in the wagon, and followed swift after the 

 buffalo. After a hard ride he overtook them and suc- 

 ceeded in cutting out the calf, but the swinging of his 

 rope as he was about to throw it frightened the horse, 

 which was untrained, and it became unmanageable. 

 Before he could get it started again the calf had gained a 

 good deal. The rest of the story may be told in Mr. 

 Jones's own words. He says: 



"We had already traveled at least five miles, and as we went 

 clumping down the grade 1 fully realized for the first time that 1 

 had no saddle. Yet this was possioly the last chance in this 

 world or those to come to catch a genuine wild buffalo calf, so I 

 rose superior to all discomforts. Just in the nick of time another 

 member of the party, mounted on a fine horse, came in sight. I 

 halted for a moment until he reached me, changed horses and 

 took his lasso quicker than it can be told, and away like a cannon 

 ball shot after the much fatigued calf. My lasso hissed through 

 the air, and one desperate throw placed it around the neck of a 

 beautiful heifer calf. It was, as all young buffaloes are, a pale 

 red or auburn color." 



It is to be hoped that Mr. Jones will capture not only 

 all the calves but all the adult members of this Texas 

 herd, and bring them back with him in safety to his 

 Kansas ranch. Every buffalo which is saved from death 

 and converted into a breeder is worth a great deal. 



THE ALBANY GRIST. 

 npHE New York Legislature was ^:»c so productive of 

 J- new game laws this year as it has been in the past. 

 There were as many bills as usual, good, bad and worse, 

 but few of them succeeded in getting beyond the com- 

 mittee rooms or a third reading. Of those which failed 

 to pass none was more outrageous than Mr. Flaherty's 

 cool proposal to allow "sportsmen's clubs"on the occasion 

 of side-hunts to kill all animate things, human kind and 

 domestic stock excepted. The so-called Eoosevelt code 

 did not pass, as indeed it was clearly evident from the 

 beginning that it would not. The list of other unsuccess- 

 ful Assembly measures includes bills to open the wood- 

 cock season Sept. 1, to permit the killing of robins and 

 blackbirds, to forbid the use of fyke and other nets in 

 Keuka Lake, .to make the season for wildfowl froni 

 March to September, to make the Delaware county wood- 

 cock season open August 1, to permit the leasing of 

 Adirondack camp sites, to extend the deer season to 

 Nov. 1, to make the deer season Aug. 15 to Nov. 15 

 with hounding from Sept. 1 to Oct. 5, to extend the 

 rabbit season to March 1, to provide a superintendent 

 of game protectors, to protect the robin, to make the 

 deer season in Hamilton county Aug. 1 to Nov. 1 with 

 hounding between those dates, to allow a bounty of two 

 cents per head on English sparrows, to make lawful the 

 taking of salmon trout in September and October, to 

 make the quail and rabbit season Nov. 15 to Jan. 15, to 

 forbid the capture of lake trout in Lake George from 

 Sept. 1 to Feb. 1, to require all dogs to wear a collar with 

 owner's name on it or to be killed, to prohibit fishing for 

 bullheads in Lake George between April and July, (by 

 Mr. Piatt) to exempt Dutchess county from all game laws, 

 to forbid shooting ducks from steamers in Gardner's and 

 Peconic bays, to permit the taking of bass in Friends (or 

 Brant) Lake from Jan. 1 to Aug 1. Senate bills wdiich 

 failed to become laws we're to make the woodcock, 

 gray squirrel and ruffed grouse season Sept. 1 to Nov. 30 

 and to open the wildfowl season April 1. This list does 

 not give all the bills, but it affords sufficient illustration 

 of the unwise and demoralizing system of working at 

 cross purposes and tug-of-war style of game legislation. 

 If it were possible for a majority of the shooters of the 

 State to agree among themselves as to what they want 

 it might then be practicable to control the game com- 

 mittees of the two houses and suppress seven-eighths of 

 the incipient measures without loss of time. 



Bills passed included those to provide a fishway for 

 Chittenango Creek, to protect homing pigeons, to allow 

 clubs to sell real estate to members, to provide for the 

 appointment of fifteen game protectors, to protect fish 

 in Seneca River, to appropriate $30,000 for the Fish Com- 

 mission, and to permit the Forest Commission to use 

 its appropriation as it may see fit instead of for 

 specified objects. 



The most important change made by the Legislature is 

 that embodied in Mr. Ainsworth's bill, which adds twenty 

 days to the deer hunting season and gives fifteen more 

 days of hounding. As a concession to the still-hunting 

 sportsmen this is very proper, but the extension of the 



hounding season is pernicious. The hounds have too 

 much license under the present law; if they are to be let 

 loose for a season gradually lengthened from year to 

 year, the deer law might as well be repealed entirely and 

 have done with it. Governor Hill, we understand, has 

 not yet signed the bill, but he may safely be depended on 

 to give it his approval. 



THE BIRD HOSTS. 

 \ GENERAL impression seems to prevail among 

 those who watch the coming of the birds that this 

 spring the migrating species in and about New York city 

 are more numerous than is usually the case. Various 

 causes are assigned to explain this apparent abundance, 

 the favorite one being that the severe storm of early 

 March destroyed a large proportion of the English sparrows 

 hereabouts, and in their places are now found robins, 

 orioles, thrushes, catbirds and other native species. 



It certainly seems true that many of our birds are 

 more abundant this year than is commonly the case. On 

 Wednesday, May 8, the newly mown lawn of the City 

 Hall Park was fairly covered with brown thrashers, wood 

 thrushes and catbirds. There must have been fifty indi- 

 viduals of these three species, besides a few chippies and 

 English sparrows, all hard at work feeding. The sight 

 was so unusual that it attracted crowds of passers-by, 

 who wondered what the strange birds were. At least 

 one pair of the brown thrashers still linger in the Park 

 and act as if they were going to build. Further north 

 in the city, in the upper parks and where the houses do 

 not stand so close together, orioles, warblers and scarlet 

 tanagei-s are abundant, one observer having seen no less 

 than five of the last named brilliant birds at one view. 



It may be doubted whether the blizzard of March last 

 caused any very large mortality among the English spar- 

 rows. If they did perish in great numbers, the abun- 

 dance of our native birds would be in part explained. It 

 seems quite as likely, however, that the Audubon Society, 

 which by its efficient work has almost entirely put 

 down the fashion of wearing feathers for ornamentation, 

 deserves a large share of the credit for the return in such 

 numbers of our bright-plumed songsters. 



Still this abundance is- probably more apparent than 

 real. The spring has been cold and backward, and 

 migration w r as retarded for a while. Then when the 

 bright, warm, pleasant days brought the birds, they came 

 with a rush, all together, and so seemed more numerous 

 than they really were. 



It would be interesting to know whether the blizzard 

 did have any noticeable effect on the number of the 

 English sparr ows. 



SNAP SHOTS. 

 HPHE prevailing weather this spring might not inaptly 

 * have been described in the phrase of "John 

 Phoenix," who said of Oregon that "it rained there forty 

 days and forty nights and then set in for a long storm." 

 The unusual rainfall has caused in certain quarters much 

 apprehension for the game supply, but there is no good 

 ground for thinking that the effect has been specially in- 

 jurious. Young woodcock may have been destroyed in 

 some instances, but the quail and grouse have probably 

 been unaffected. 



"Buffalo Bill" and his "Wild West" company have re- 

 turned from England covered with glory and laden with 

 British gold. The animals have all returned in safety, 

 among them being sixteen buffaloes and ten elk, with 

 Mexican burros, bronchos and steers reputed to be wild. 

 These with the Indians, cowboys, road agents, Dead wood 

 stage and other integral factors of "Buff alio Bill's" as- 

 tounding exhibitions will spend the summer at Erastina, 

 Staten Island. 



After a day's tramp, even in perfectly fitting and easy 

 boots or shoes, a change of foot gear gives comfort. Old 

 shoes are never more grateful than in camp. Moccasins 

 are even better for this than old shoes, and they are now 

 so cheap that it is very poor economy to be without more 

 than one pah of them in camp. 



The indications for bay snipe shooting this season are 

 excellent. Large numbers of yelpers and yellowlegs are 

 reported from the Long Island shore. Shooting will not 

 open until July. 



The offices of the Forest and Stream are at 318 

 Broadway, corner of Pearl street. 



