Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



saws, $4 a Yeah. 10 Cts. a Copy. I 

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NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 17, 1887. 



I VOL. XXIX.-N0. 17. 



"I Nos. 39 <fe 40 Park Row, New York. 



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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Netting Chesapeake Ducks. 



A Phase of Human Nature. 



Snap Shots. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



Under the Jacklight (poetry). 



Maid of Beech. 



In the Land of the Micmacs. 



Hunting in Florida.— I. 

 Natural Historv. 



Notes of the Fields and Woods. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



Bob W Kite's Paradise. 



National Park Notes. 



Clubs and Preserves. 



Shooting Notes. 



Connecticut Game Exporta- 

 tion. 



Camp-Fire Flickerings. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



AHugoWhiteflsh. 



Testing Strength of Trout. 



Under the White-Heads. 



On the Gasconade.— II. 



Mackinaw Trout. 



FlSHCULTURE. 



New York Oyster Franchises. 

 The Kennel. 



News from High Point. 



Indiana Field Trials. 



Westminster Kennel Club. 



Cockers for Bench and Field. 



Kennel Notes. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 



Range and Gallerv. 



Bullard Match No. 4. 



The Trap. 



The Dayton Tournament. 

 Canoeing. 



A. C. A. Executive Committee 

 Meeting. 

 Yachting. 



Lake Ontario. 



Open Boat Sailing. 



Galatea as a Seaboat. 



Selfishness in Yachting. 



The Log of the Thistle. 



The Deed of Gift Abroad. 



Canoeing Notes. 

 Answers to Correspondents- 



NETTING CHESAPEAKE DUCKS. 

 rpHERE has been this season a great destruction of 

 -L duct s on the Havre de Grace flats by the agency of 

 nets. The shooting season opened on Nov. 1, but long 

 before that date canvasbacks, redheads and blackheads 

 were offered for sale in Philadelphia, and upon examina- 

 tion it was found that they had been trapped in nets and 

 -drowned. 



These nets are set under water upon the feeding- 

 grounds of the wildfowl, ostensibly for the purpose of 

 catching rockfish or striped bass. Three nets are hung 

 upon the same line — the two outside nets are of 12in. mesh 

 and the middle one, which is a 4in. mesh, is loose hung — 

 that is, 100ft. of net are strung upon 50ft. of rope. The 

 duck, in diving for food, meets this obstruction, and its 

 head and neck becoming entangled in the small meshed 

 middle net,it naturally endeavors to force its way through, 

 and in so doing carries the middle net through the large 

 mesh of the outside net, thus forming a pocket in which 

 it is drowned. In the morning the "fisherman," overhaul- 

 ing his ' 'nets for rockfish," takes out the unfortunate ducks 

 and forwards them to market, where they meet a ready 

 s?)le, though they are comparatively worthless for the 

 table, since they have been strangled and then allowed to 

 soak for hours in the water. 



In this illegal manner thousands of ducks were killed 

 before the shooting season opened. Bad as this 

 destruction is, other effects follow this unsportsmanlike 

 method which are far worse for all the men engaged in 

 killing ducks by the legitimate means of shooting them, 

 for it is a well known fact that wildfowl will not remain 

 upon feeding grounds where netting is practiced, but will 

 abandon the place and seek safer waters. 



Americans pride themselves, and justly, upon the can- 

 vasback, the king of all ducks, and the redheads and 

 blackheads of the Chesapeake are but little inferior; but 

 their numbers are fast diminishing under the ceaseless 

 persecution to which they are subjected. The killing of 

 ducks by a gun, shot from the shoulder, is the only law- 

 ful and fair way of obtaining them: but on any still night 

 on the flats can be heard the roar of the murderous "big- 



gun," by which from 50 to 100 ducks are frequently 

 killed at one shot, and as many more crippled; and now, 

 added to this wholesale slaughter comes the poacher with 

 nets. If something is not done soon to put an end to 

 these illegal methods of destruction, duck shooting on the 

 Chesapeake will soon be a thing of the past. 



A PHASE OF HUMAN NATURE. 

 TT is a curious freak of innate depravity that prompts 

 men to fire orphan asylums, and of like genesis is the 

 inclination now and then manifested to destroy public 

 property attached to fish breeding establishments. Let a 

 State set apart an appropriation for restocking the streams 

 with food fish for the benefit of its citizens, and let the 

 work be undertaken never so wisely, some there will be 

 who will find in the enterprise a real or fancied infringe- 

 ment of their "rights"; and when opportunity offers, 

 good care will be taken to wreak revenge. It will be 

 remembered that w r hen the Commissioners of Fish- 

 eries of New York established a trout hatchery at Little 

 Clear Pond, in the North "Woods, certain hoodlums 

 of that vicinity banded together and destroyed the 

 nets which had been set in the pond to take breeding 

 fish for the hatchery. These Adirondack savages con- 

 ceived that the State's work meant interference with 

 their own private particular interests in these fish; they 

 had always fished in that water, they had a right to keep 

 on fishing there; this right was inalienable, and if the 

 nets of the fish hatchery interfered, so much the worse 

 for the nets. They accordingly ripped up the nets and 

 did what they could to destroy the tools of the Commis- 

 sion and thwart its work. They acted very much as the 

 South Sea Islanders who fall upon and devour the mis- 

 sionaries sent out to civilize them. 



The same motives appear to have animated the gang of 

 ruffians who destroyed a weir of the Maine Fish Commis- 

 sion last week. 



A few years ago the Maine Fish Commission caused to 

 be constructed at Edes Falls, on the Crooked River, one 

 of the principal inlets of the Sebago, a weir, for the pur- 

 pose of taking all the landlocked salmon that should at- 

 tempt to ascend that stream to spawn. During the breed- 

 ing season immense numbers of these fish run up that 

 river. In fact it is the belief of those in the best position 

 to know that the greater part of the salmon in the lake 

 seek this river as their spawning bed, and hence by the 

 use of the weir the Commission had hoped to secure the 

 great majority of these fish for breeding purposes. Then 

 after they had been stripped of then- eggs they have been 

 returned to the river below the weir, from whence they 

 could seek the lake below. Previous to the construction 

 of this weir the inhabitants for miles around were in the 

 habit of visiting the river and taking these immense fish 

 from off their spawning beds and putting them to various 

 uses. It is related of one man that he did not like "traouts, 

 but they was good to feed the hogs on." Hence it was 

 that the construction of the weir and the hatching works 

 at Edes Falls was not looked upon with favor by the 

 dwellers along the river. The complaint came that all 

 the "traouts" were being stopped, and though it is always 

 in the close season that these landlocked salmon spawn, 

 yet the people of that section are not entirely silent in 

 their denunciation of the works of the Commission on the 

 river below. 



Though there have been dire mutterings, and once or 

 twice men have appeared in the night time and threat- 

 ened the keepers of the weir, no very marked disturbance 

 has resulted till this year. One night last week, at about 

 2 o'clock A. M., the keeper of the weir, hearing some 

 noise outside, went out. At once he was set upon by a 

 man with a gun in hand; with the man were eighteen 

 others. All of them had their faces blackened, so that 

 they could not be recognized. They intimidated the 

 keeper, Harriman, who was alone, save for his little boy; 

 and the miscreants proceeded to their work unthw^arted. 

 They broke up the weir and turned all the salmon in the 

 tank loose in the river above the works, evidently with 

 the purpose that they might be afterward stolen, either 

 by themselves or their friends. The keeper was left under 

 guard till the masked men had killed or let all the salmon 

 loose. The Commissioners were at once advised of the 

 outrage, and they visited the ground and repaired the 

 damages as far as possible. The Commission had gathered 

 in the weir, up to that time, 140 fish from which they in- 

 tended to take the eggs. These were all turned loose, 

 and according to their natural instinct, they immediately 



started up stream. The keepers and the Commissioners 

 have since recaptured 25, and they hope to get still more. 

 The thieves did not destroy any eggs, as they were all in 

 the hatchery two miles away. But the liberation of the 

 fish and the destruction of the weir will seriously inter- 

 fere with the work of the Commission this year. Last 

 year 750,000 eggs were taken, and the Commissioners had 

 hoped to get a million this year. Instead of that num- 

 ber, not over 250,000 can be taken under the most favor- 

 able conditions. A curious feature of the whole situation 

 is that, by a law of the State, the eggs cannot be taken 

 from these fish to be used in restocking other waters, but 

 they must be returned to the waters of Sebago Lake. 



The Crooked River poachers evidently share the feelings 

 of the Clear Pond net cutters. In the Adirondacks the 

 better sentiment of the community finally prevailed, and 

 a paper was signed by many resident guides and others 

 setting forth their detestation of the vandalism. Some- 

 thing of the kind is now in order from the respectable 

 citizens of the Edes Falls district; in default of which 

 Maine would do well to give over planting salmon eggs 

 and send agents up there to sow the seeds of intelligence 

 and common sense. 



SNAP SHOTS. 



\ TTENTION is invited to the warning afforded in the 

 harsh fate that overtook an Ithaca young man last 

 Sunday. This ardent bare hunter was so possessed of his 

 mania that he would not confine Ms pursuit of game to 

 the six days allowed by law nor to the agents legalized 

 by the statute. He carried on the campaign on Sunday 

 and had a ferret to help. The ferret knew no better. 

 When the young man used his gun as a stick to poke the 

 hare out of the hole the gun went off and killed the 

 hunter. It was a punishment altogether disproportioned 

 to the offense, but when gunpowder and a charge of shot 

 volunteer to punish double-headed infractions of the 

 game laws, they cannot be expected to do the work with 

 the discretion of a game protector who is paid to be dis- 

 creet. 



The American Kennel Register in the November num- 

 ber brings the total list of entries up to 5,582. The fifth 

 volume will close with the December number. The an- 

 nual entries average over a thousand. The Register is 

 constantly growing in value as a book of reference, and 

 breeders and owners are constantly testifying to their 

 appreciation of its worth. The Register moreover has a 

 clean record; there is in it no material for the making of 

 those charges of business mismanagement and sharp 

 practice which have for years been the tiresome adjuncts 

 of another enterprise in the kennel stud book field of 

 literature. The publishers of the Register have won a 

 permanent place for this monthly record by fair dealing 

 and efficient service. 



There is manifested a tendency to complain of large 

 game preserves on the assumed ground that clubs and 

 private lessees of extensive tracts of wild land have not a 

 legal right to forbid trespass. It must be clear, on sober 

 consideration, that such leases are within the law, and 

 the right to prohibit others from shooting or fishing is 

 not invalidated by the extent of the preserve nor by its 

 wild nature. Objections to the growing system of private 

 game grounds cannot reasonably be lodged on the score 

 of illegality. Whether or no the system is to be con- 

 demned for any other reasons is a legitimate topic for 

 discussion. 



The more we learn of the stage robbery on the borders 

 of the National Park last summer the more farcical the 

 episode appears. Two of the "road agents" have been 

 arrested and they turn out to have been extremely de- 

 generate followers of Dick Turpin. They were not after 

 plunder, but were bent on getting revenge. One of them 

 had been put out of the Park for violating the rules and 

 he thought it would be a fine thing to vent his spite by 

 intimidating law-abiding and decent Park visitors. The 

 other was a discharged employe of the transportation 

 company, whose business he hoped to injure. 



The elegant club house of the Robins Island Club 

 was destroyed by fire last Monday afternoon, the loss 

 amounting to $20,000. The annual field trials of the club, 

 which were to have begun last Tuesday, have been post- 

 poned. A new club house will be erected at once. 



