Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



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

 Six Months, $2. \ 



NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 3, 1887. 



I VOL. XXIX.-No. 15. 



\ Nos. 39 <fe 40 Park Row, New York. 





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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



It May Solve the Bait Question 



Ditchers and Dredgers. 



Are They Monopolies? 



Notes and Comments. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



Shooting a Leopard. 



Camp Life on Diamond Pond. 



Adirondack Pleasure Seekers. 

 Natural History. 



The Gila Monster. 



Reason and Instinct. 



Hints on Sparrow Destruction. 



Mud Wasp and House Spider. 

 Camp-Fihb Flickerings. 

 ItAme Bag and Gun. 



The "Spotted' 1 Curlew (poetry) 



A Day's Gunning. 



Texas Notes and Notions. 



Shooting Notes. 



Are They Worth Their Salt? 



Game in the Pasture Lot. 



Flight Birds in Pike. 



Roads in the National Park. 



Notes from the Park. 



The Game Campaign. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



The Maine Jigging Case. 



Trouting on the Passadum- 



Sea and River Fishing. 

 The Strength of Trout. 



FlSHCULTURE. 



List of Fish Commissioners. 

 The Kennel. 



American Coursing Club Meet 



Sawdust, for Dogs. 



Philadelphia K. C. Field Trials 



Western Field Trials Entries. 



A. K. C. Constitution. 



Benchers and Fielders. 



Mastiffs. 



Kennel Notes. 



Kennel Management. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 



Range and Gallery. 



The Trap. 

 Canoeing. 



A Boat for Sailiug and Cruis- 

 ing. 



Proposed Amendments to Con- 

 stitution. 



Canoeing Notes. 

 Yachting. 



An Act to Prevent Yacht Rac- 

 ing. 



Clara and Cinderella. 

 The Steam Launch Explosion. 

 Speedwell. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



IT MAY SOLVE THE BAIT QUESTION. 



UNDEE the terms of the present treaty, American 

 fishermen are forbidden to purchase bait in British 

 ports. Cod-fishing crews going out from Gloucester and 

 other ports of the United States take with them supplies 

 of herrings and clams for bait; and it sometimes happens 

 that by reason of stress of weather or some other cause 

 the bait is spoiled before it can be used. As we are living 

 in the nineteenth century, it would be the most natural 

 thing in the world, when the bait gives out, to put into 

 the nearest Canadian port and buy a new supply, pay- 

 ing therefor in good United States money at cm-rent 

 rates of exchange. Such a transaction, involving the ex- 

 change of money for herring, it would appear, ought to 

 satisfy all parties, and it would certainly save to the fish- 

 ermen the time consumed in sailing back to the United 

 States for bait and returning to the fishing grounds. But 

 the treaty forbids the Yankee to buy his bait in Canada; 

 and it is quite clear that if some improved method of pre- 

 serving fresh fish were devised, so that the bait taken 

 from the United States would remain fit for use until ac- 

 tually put on to the cod hooks, one grievance of the 

 American fishsrmen would be mitigated. 



There is now in this country an agent of the Eoosen 

 process of preserving fish, which has been tested with 

 great success abroad. The method is thus briefly de- 

 scribed in the Bulletin of the United States Fish Com- 

 mission: 



For many years the value of boracie acid has been recognized 

 as a preservative agent, but it has been left for a German scient- 

 ist to discover how properly to apply it and rid it of all obnoxious 

 properties or effects. This end is accomplished in the following 

 manner: A strong cask of iron with an adjustable lid is provided, 

 something like the well-known cans for carrying milk, but con- 

 siderably larger. In this galvanized iron barrel are placed a cer- 

 tain proportion of water and a quantity of boracie and tartaric 

 acid. The latter chemical has the effect of removing the slightest 

 taste of the boracie acid, which, by the way, is perfectly harmless 

 and even health-giving. The fresh fish are then placed in the 



liquid, as many as the cask will conveniently hold. The lid, 

 which is fitted with a large india rubber ring, so as to 

 make it perfectly air and water-tight, is now adjusted and 

 secured. A small portable force-pump is next fixed to a hole 

 in the lid, and the water is pumped into the cask, expelling all 

 air, which escapes at another little hole in the lid. As soon as the 

 cask is completely full and the air expelled the water begins to 

 flow through the little aperture. An air-tight cap is then screwed 

 tightly on this hole to prevent any further escape. Then the 

 pump is once more set to work forcing in water, until a gauge 

 affixed to the pump shows a pressure of 90 pounds to the square 

 inch. By an ingenious contrivance the second hole in the lid is 

 now hermetically closed, and the force-pump removed. The 

 effect of the enormous pressure on the water is to drive the chem- 

 ical right into the veins and tissues of the fish, and so prevent 

 organic change in any part. So well is this done that the fish will 

 keep for any length of time, and may be sent with perfect safety 

 to any part of the world. 



If the Roosen process be adopted it this country, it will 

 not only have a vast influence on the trade in fresh fish, 

 but it will render practicable the preservation of fresh 

 herring for cod fishing, and make the Yankee skippers 

 independent of British bait; and the occupation of the 

 Capt. Quigleys will be gone. 



DITCHERS AND DREDGERS. 

 fTVHE improvement which has befallen a famous marsh 

 in Mason county, Illinois, is the subject of complaint 

 among the gunners who have grown gray in annual 

 campaigns against the wildfowl that once resorted to that 

 ground in multitude innumerable. The marsh lies, or 

 did lie, along the Illinois River, on the western border of 

 Mason county; and covered something over 200,000 acres. 

 It was a grand shooting resort for ducks and other game. 

 But all its glory has departed. The farmers whose prop- 

 erty lies conntiguous have joined with the owners of the 

 marsh lands in an organization called the Mason County 

 Ditch Company; and intent oh making wheat and corn 

 grow where only'ducks grew before, they have undertaken 

 at an expense of $200,000 to drain the great "waste land," 

 as they call it, and to "reclaim" it, just as if a territory 

 which yielded its yearly crops of ducks was not highly 

 productive instead of wasteful; and as if anybody else had 

 any claim on a piece of land designed by nature for duck 

 hunters. The work has been in progress for some time, 

 and the glory of the Mason marsh has already departed; 

 and they who once knew it shall know it no more. This 

 "improvement" of a good hunting ground into wheat and 

 corn land is of a piece with what is being done in every 

 State in the Union, where ditchers and dredgers are at 

 work and where game resorts are growing beautifully 

 less. This is especially true of many of the Western 

 shooting resorts. The Chicago Tribune complains that 

 "the area of duck shooting is gradually 'retreating in 

 circles around Chicago." It bewails the sport once to be 

 had on the marsh between Englewood and Grand Cross- 

 ing, on the river at South Chicago, and on the north 

 branch of the Chicago River, from the limits of the city 

 to its source. Stores and dwellings have supplanted 

 bush-blinds and goose-pits. Even Calumet Lake has 

 come to a pass where the hunters outnumber the ducks 

 ten to one. 



ARE THEY MONOPOLIES? 

 T F the ditchers and dredgers are to persevere in their 

 work of reclamation, if marshes are to be converted 

 into populous villages, if fashionable summer and winter 

 hotels are to rise on beach and waste land, if forest lands 

 are to be cleared, if pleasure steamers are to ply on lake 

 and river, if railroads are to gridiron the wilderness, 

 where is it all to end? "Nessmuk" has said "the game 

 must go." Is there any other alternative? 



The answer is found in books like the "Guide Book 

 of the Megantic Fish and Game Club," which has just 

 come to hand. This club has acquired the hunting and 

 fishing privilege of a vast extent of territory in the Me- 

 gantic and Spider Lakes and Upper Dead River region 

 of Maine and Quebec, comprising in all one hundred and 

 twenty square miles. This club is only one of numerous 

 similar organizations already formed or about to be 

 formed, to secure for their own members exclusive rights 

 in fish and game. 



Some of these clubs have leased stretches of marsh, 

 mountains and swamps and points, some have taken pos- 

 session of lakes and rivers and mountain streams. They 

 hedge in their possessions with barb-wire, board fences, 

 trespass signs; they equip game constables and policemen 

 to warn off intruders and eject trespassers; and they 

 answer this question of perpetuity of a game and fish 



supply by thus setting to work in an efficient way to in- 

 sure it. 



Are these clubs to be denounced as monopolists and 

 then- methods to be condemned as monopolistic? Such a 

 charge has been brought against them; but can it be sus- 

 tained? 



NOTES AND COMMENTS. 



r pHE game law of this State occupies a very hazy posi- 

 tion in some of the northern, eastern, southern, 

 western, upper, lower and middle counties. Where the 

 fault lies we do not profess to explain. In some districts 

 it is held that there is no law whatever to protect game 

 birds; and this view is hinted in one of the game law 

 compilations put forth from Albany. 



It is said that some of the State game protectors have 

 taken the stand that the song bird section of the act 

 repeals the game bird sections, and these officers accord- 

 ingly refuse to arrest game bird snarers; and some district 

 attorneys take a like view of the subject. These opinions 

 are local. However sound may be the stand of the non- 

 arresting protectors and the non-prosecuting attorneys 

 in certain districts, it is worthy of note that the laws are 

 still held to be in force in this county, as three grouse 

 snarers learned by practical ■experience in the Tombs the 

 other day. If officials were disposed to do their duty 

 the law would probably be found to work satisfactorily 

 wherever actually tested. 



There is only one district where the model game pi*o- 

 tector's work is to be seen in perfection. That is the 

 vicinity of Flatbush, Long Island; and passing strange 

 as the paradox may be, the Forest and Stream has re- 

 ceived repeated complaints of the raids of Sunday song 

 bird shooters in this locality; it is, in fact, in response to 

 such complaints that we have been advised, by the game 

 protector in person, of the delectable condition of affairs 

 there prevailing. The protector asserts with mild em- 

 phasis that no complaints can be made about Sunday 

 shooting there by city hoodlums, because in the first 

 place the Audubon Society has protected the song birds, 

 and in the second place the birds have now all gone 

 south. 



The season for newspaper bear stories opens very tamely 

 this year. In place of the ferocious monster that for a 

 number of years has made his appearance in the daily 

 press, reeking with the gore of devoured infants, w T e now 

 have a mild-mannered brute, which climbs trees to elude 

 defenseless yonng women. Something is clearly at fault : 

 either it is the weakened inagination of the newspaper 

 man, or else the bears themselves are changing their 

 nature; in either case the times are degenerating, and 

 brain must soon lose his attractions for the reading public. 



The Florida shark is a healthy substitute for the bear 

 for all legitimate newspaper purposes, and if duly culti- 

 vated it will afford much instruction and entertainment. 

 Here, for example, is a harrowing recital of the fate of a 

 mail-carrier, whose route was from Miami and Lake 

 Worth on the coast. He was crossing an inlet in his boat 

 when the man-eaters beset him, assailed the boat, chewed 

 up the oars, bit out chunks of the gunwale, and having 

 thus made away with the craft, captured the mail-carrier 

 himself. "Another blow on the frail boat and he was 

 thrown headlong into the masses of the fierce seawolves. 

 One shriek of agony and all was over. The sea was 

 dyed for yards around with his life blood. Searching 

 parties were sent out, but nothing found." 



At a recent meeting of the American Ornithologists' 

 Union, held at Washington, a committee was appointed 

 to act in concert with the committee of the New York 

 Academy of Sciences to secure funds for the erection of 

 the proposed Audubon monument, to which reference 

 was made in our last issue. The members of the A. O. U. 

 committee are: Geo. Bird Grinnell, Wm. Dutcher and 

 G. B. Sennett, of this city. It was the feeling of the 

 meeting that all ornithologists and others interested in 

 birds would be glad of an opportunity to contribute to the 

 fund. 



Mr. J. E. Bloom has severed all connection with the 

 Ligowsky Clay Pigeon Co. , and will enter upon the prac- 

 tice of law in this city. 



