Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Term«, $4 a Yeah, 10 Cts. a Copy. ) 



Six Months, $2. ( 



NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 3, 188 7. 



J VOL. XXVIII.-No. 2. 



( Nos. 39 & 40 Park Row, New York. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 

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 ment, instruction and information between American sportsmen. 

 Communications on the subject to which its pages are devoted are 

 respectfully invited. Anonymous communications will not be re- 

 garded. No name will be published except with writer's consent. 

 The Editors are not responsible for the views of correspondents. 



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Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 

 Nos. 39 and 40 Park Row. New York City. 



CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



A Superintendent of Pro- 

 tectors. 

 The National Park Bill. 

 A New Creedmoor. 

 Snap Shots. 



A Forest and Stream Fable. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



Unofficial Log of the Stella. 



A Trip to the Niangua River. 

 Natural History. 



The Terns of Muskeget Island. 



An Official Extermination. 



Do Squirrels Hibernate? 

 Camp-Fire Flickerings. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



A White Hare Shoot in Scot- 

 land. 



On the Trail of an Elk. 



In the Upper Peninsula. 



Bear Dogs, 



Big-Guns in Virginia. 



Opening the Chicken Season. 



Success With Wild Celery. 



The Michigan Convention. 



Home-Made Explosive Bullet. 



The Megantic Club. 



Whooping Cranes. 



Feeding the Quail. 



The New York Game Protector 



Massachusetts Association. 



The Ohio Association. 



Old and New Rifles. 



Sea and River Fishing. 



The Oneida Lake Nets. 



Landlocked Salmon. 



Locli Leven Trout. 



Improved Salmon. 



Salmon in the Hudson. 



Ways of the Sea Fish. 



Chateaugay and Plumador. 



A Pair of Wading Trousers. 



Angling Notes. 

 Fishculture. 



The Maine Commission. 



The Indiana Commission. 

 The Kennel. 



The Ben Hill— Lillian Heat. 



A Plea for Puppies. 



Our Field Trial. 



Kennel Management. 



Kennel Notes. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 



Range and Gallery. 



The Trap. 

 Yachting. 



A Cruise of the Katie Gray. 



Yacht Stoves and Catamarans 



Yachting as a National Sport. 



Elections and Meetings. 

 Canoeing. 



The Regatta Programme. 



Canoe vs. Sailing Boats. 



A Light Canadian Canoe. 



A Canvas Canoe. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



THE NATIONAL PARK BILL. 

 /~\ NE stage in the fight to save the National Park has 

 been passed, and a victory won. The result is so 

 decided and affords so much promise of ultimate success, 

 that all who are engaged in the struggle should take 

 heart and be inspired to renewed efforts. On Saturday 

 last Senator Vest's bill (Senate 2,436), providing for the 

 care and government of the National Park, passed the 

 Senate by a vote of 49 to 8. The debate on the bill was 

 long, many Senators desiring to express their views on 

 the importance of the measure. The overwhelming ma- 

 jority by which it was passed shows very clearly that the 

 United States Senate thinks with the people on the sub- 

 ject of the Park. 



The bill was amended in only one particular of import- 

 ance. This was in the direction of more carefully guard- 

 ing the rights of persons accused of crimes and misde- 

 meanors, and gives those sentenced by the Commissioner 

 to imprisonment the right to appeal to a district court of 

 the Territory of Wyoming. 



The cutting off of 'two miles and a half on the north 

 side of the Park and of half a mile on the west had no 

 hidden object, but was done merely to bring the whole 

 reservation within one Territory, and to avoid jurisdic- 

 tional conflicts. 



The success of the bill in the Senate is due almost 

 wholly to the energy and dogged persistance of Senators 

 Vest and Manderson. For years they have struggled 

 against discouragements and defeats in this matter of the 

 Park, but they have declined to be discouraged or 

 defeated. All the while public interest in the Park has 

 been growing. First the people and now the Senate have 

 come over to their side. We hope that the House is pre- 

 pared to do the same. The House of Representatives 

 should at once take up the bill and pass upon it. The 

 time is short in which to accomplish anything. Only 

 four weeks of the session remain, but the bill will accom- 

 plish so much, is so evidently for the benefit of the whole 

 nation, and is so wholly without objectionable features 

 that it should certainly receive the immediate attention 

 of the people's representatives, and go through without a 

 dissenting voice. 



At present the Park is without a government. There 

 is no law there, no provision for the safety of the lives 

 and property of those who visit it, nor any protection for 



the wonderful natural curiosities which exist there, for 

 the forest nor the game. This bill provides everything 

 that is now lacking. Its passage will give the Park 

 a government, will enable the 10,000 tourists who an- 

 nually visit it, to do so with safety to life and property, 

 will furnish a force of men to carry out the regulations 

 established for its proper protection and will save the 

 forests, the game and the geysers from the speedy de- 

 struction which now threatens them. 



By saving the forests, which keep full the sources of 

 the rivers which rise within its borders, it will be the sal- 

 vation of the farmers who cultivate the arid plains on 

 either side of the mountains. Without some measure 

 which shall protect these stream heads these farmers will 

 be ruined, and a fertile region be converted into a desert. 

 A year's delay in passing the bill will work damage which 

 will be irreparable. It should go through at this session. 

 Chief Justice Waite, of the Supreme Court, puts the case 

 tersely and forcibly when he says of this bill, " It seems 

 to me to meet the requirements of the case. To accom- 

 plish what is needed there must be a government, and I 

 do not see how any less than is provided for can be made 

 sufficient. If it is worth while to have the Park, it is 

 worth while to see that it is preserved for the purposes 

 for w T hich it was intended. It should either be abolished 

 altogether and be permitted to go into the hands of pri- 

 vate owners for the purpose of extortion, or else it should 

 be kept as a national institution and cared for as such." 



The bill now goes to the House and will probably be re- 

 ferred to the Committee on Territories. The fact that it 

 was so fully discussed in the Senate, and that after this 

 full discussion it passed that body by such an overwhelm- 

 ing vote, should insure its prompt consideration by that 

 committee and an early and favorable report on it. It 

 remains then to be seen what action the House will take. 

 The bill has the strong support of all of those who are best 

 acquainted with the needs of the reservation. Its passage 

 will not only save natural wonders which are sure to be 

 destroyed unless it becomes law, but will also be an 

 actual economy of money to the Government, for the 

 maintenance of the troops in the Park costs a great deal 

 more than would be expended under the operation of 

 this act. 



No effort should be spared to carry the bill through the 

 committee and to the House at once, and every one who 

 is in the slightest degree interested in the preservation of 

 this wonderful region ought to do his part toward helping 

 forward the bill. A little neglect now may cause a year 

 of waiting, another anxious time and irretrievable loss. 



A SUPERINTENDENT OF PROTECTORS. 



T^HE working of the New York system of State game pro- 

 tectors is of more than local importance. Other States 

 are regarding the experiment with interest to see whether 

 its success warrants adoption of the plan. It must be con- 

 fessed that as at present conducted the system does not 

 accomplish all that it ought to. This is owing in large 

 measure to the official delinquencies of the protectors. 

 These delinquencies are possible in some instances because 

 the officials are not accountable to any head. The sys- 

 tem is not complete. Having appointed these wardens 

 to watch poachers, the State must now appoint a super- 

 intendent to watch the wardens. 



As things go now, a State game protector is not ac- 

 countable to any superior official. He may be guilty of 

 grossest neglect of duty, yet draw his salary with regular- 

 ity and equanimity. The Commissioners of Fisheries are 

 ostensibly to exercise supervision over the protectors, but 

 the Commissioners have not the time to devote to the 

 work, and being unsalaried, they perhaps cannot justly 

 be asked to give more than their present perfunctory 

 service. What is needed is an energentic, interested 

 superintendent. The bill introduced at Albany last ses- 

 sion making provision for such an office should be re- 

 vived at the present session and passed. 



It will be remembered that a year or two ago the Maine 

 Supreme Court decided that in common law a dog was 

 not a domestic animal, but must be classed among the 

 ferce naturce. A bill has been introduced into the Maine 

 Legislature to give the dog better standing. The bill is 

 said to be the shortest one ever introduced into the Maine 

 Legislature or any other. Its full text is this: "Sec. 1. — 

 The dog is hereby declared to be a domestic animal. Sec. 

 2. — This act shall take effect when approved." The Leg- 

 islature will do itself credit by passing that bill. 



WARY BIRDS. 

 npHERE are knowing birds who are not to be taken with 

 -*- any device of the fowler. They have too often barely 

 extricated themselves from the snare and do not mean 

 again to let their feet be defiled with bhdlime. In his 

 efforts to spread the Audubon Society movement, the 

 Secretary has here and there come into contact with 

 agricultural residents, possessed of wariness of a high 

 degree of development. They have presumably been 

 " worked" by the genuises who make a specialty of get- 

 ting a farmer's signature to an agreement to receive some 

 sort of a present, and then by mysterious processes, best 

 known to themselves, convert the agreemont into a note 

 which takes all the astonished and unhappy signer's spare 

 greenbacks to cash when pesented to him by the county 

 bank. The victim who has been taken in and done for 

 by such sharpers does not propose to let any New York 

 city chap come it over Mm with so transparent a snare 

 as a pledge not to destroy useful birds. Once in a while 

 the Secretary receives an intimation like this from Wis- 

 consin: 



It is hardly fair to ask people to pledere and doubly sign their 

 names without any responsible names, even singly given, to guar- 

 antee the pledge-signers against foul play. We are advised by 

 nearly all our local papers not to sign our names to papers pre- 

 sented by strangers by reason of liability to find them attached to 

 something not intended to be signed. In the present instance I 

 have no authority nor indeed ability to guarantee the signers 

 to the pledges that they shall receive no harm for their good in- 

 tentions. The Forest and Stream Pub. Co. I have no doubt are 

 reliable and I see their periodical often quoted from in other 

 papers, but no responsible name has come to me from them, * * 

 and if anyone is harmed curses will follow and perhaps pros- 

 ecution. * * * Hoping that confidence and esteem may be 

 strengthenedlbetween us I am yours with respect, ." 



SNAP SHOTS. 



BY a note printed in another column it will be seen 

 that the course pursued by Game Protector Godwin 

 is such as to commend itself to the Commissioners of 

 Fisheries. It appears that from the very first Godwin 

 was cognizant of the extensive illegal traffic in ruffed 

 grouse in this city, and it is to be inferred from his letter 

 to Mr. Blackford that he at once took reasonable action 

 to suppress that traffic. The contrary is true, however. 

 Godwin did not bestir himself until after his delinquency 

 had been adverted to in these columns. His "proclama- 

 tion" to dealers to stop the sale of grouse did not appear 

 until fourteen days after the season had closed. That this 

 sort of masterly inactivity is acceptable to his superiors 

 may be lucky for Godwin, but it is certainly discouraging 

 to such as believe that the only reasonable way to enforce 

 game laws is to enforce them. 



It gives us great pleasure to publish from Game Pro- 

 tector Lindley his account of work carried through in his 

 district. We have taken occasion in the past to commend 

 Mr. Lindley's energy and fearlessness. In view of this 

 record, it is all the more unfortunate that by neglecting 

 certain gross violations of the law, though repeatedly 

 brought to his attention, he should have merited the 

 criticisms we recently made. If Mr. Lindley's conten- 

 tion that his field is too big for one be well founded,, 

 then the State should furnish assistance. Mere statutes 

 cannot protect the fisheries of inland New York lakes; 

 there must be an adequate force of officers. The Com- 

 missioners of Fisheries are empowered to detail other pro- 

 tectors to work in any given district; and if Mr. Lindley 

 needs help he should have it from the Commissioners* 



The thirteenth annual dinner of the Massachusetts 

 Fish and Game Protective Association, at Boston last 

 week, was the occasion of a very pleasant gathering'. 

 The addresses of Lieut. -Governor Brackett and Presi : 

 Boardman of the Senate, gave ample evidence of the 

 public appreciation of the character and work of the 

 Association and the place it holds in the estimation of the 

 executive and legislative departments of the State. The 

 Association contemplates no attempt to change the game 

 law this year, but will use its best exertions to hold the 

 present law intact. 



In connection with the international fisheries disputes 

 it may be remarked that the Canadian authorities made 

 a blunder when they appointed Capt. Quigley to the 

 command of a Dominion cruiser. Among the Blue-noses 

 Quigley is generally known as a crank. To put such a 

 man in his present position was unwise and impolitic, 



