Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 





Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copt. ? 



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NEW YORK, MARCH 31, 188 7. 



I VOL. XXVIII.-No. 10. 



") Nos. 39 & 40 Park Row, New York. 



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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 

 On Snowshoes Through the 

 Park. 



European Military Anns. 



Snap Shots. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



A Record of Failures.— rr. 



In the Pocono Mountains. 



The Mountain Sermon. 

 Natural History. 



Bird Notes from New Mexico. 



The Shrike as a Mimic. 



Eggs of the Loon. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



The California Law. 



Bears and Bear Hunters. 



Wisconsin Game Law. 



The Alaska Excursion. 



The Michigan Warden. 



Mississippi Snipe. 



The New York Game Law. 



Hunting Rifles and Bullets. 



Possibilities (Poem). 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



Trout Season Openings. 



Farmer Brown's Trout. 



A Canadian Camp Trip. 



The New York Trout Season. 



Reels. 



FlSHCULTURE. 



The Minnesota Commission. 



The Wisconsin Commission. 

 The Kennel. 



Intestinal Obstruction in Dogs 



The Bench Shows. 



Cameron's Racket. 



Newark Dog Show. 



The Providence Show. 



Dan's Knowing Ways. 



Kennel Management. 



Kennel Notes. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 



Muzzle vs. Breech. 



Range and Gallery. 



The Trap. 

 Yachting. 



Second Cruise of the Pilgrim. 



The Ocean Race. 



Those Plans of the Thistle. 



The Challenge from the Clyde. 



Vanduara. 



Reefing Gears for Catboats. 

 Canoeing. 



A Washington C. C. Cruise. 



Patents and Patent Laws. 



New Canoe Clubs. 



A Northern Division. 

 Answers to Correspondnets. 



THIRTY-TWO PAGES. 

 Four. page* are added to the usual twenty-eight, and. this 

 issue of Forest mid St ream consists of thirty-two pages. 



ON SNOWSHOES THROUGH THE PARK. 



^VTEXT week we shall begin the publication of the report 

 of the special commissioner intrusted by the Forest 

 and Stream with the difficult and dangerous duty of mak- 

 ing the tour of the National Park in winter. The attrac- 

 tions of this wonderland in summer are well known, but 

 until now no man has beheld its winter glories — glories in 

 many ways more striking and more strange than those of 

 the summer time. 



Our commissioner had our full confidence and was 

 pinned down by no definite directions, but we instructed 

 him, if it were possible, to visit the various Geyser Basins, 

 the Yellowstone Lake and the Falls, and to report on 

 their winter character. He was also to look out carefully 

 for game, and above all to see if he could discover any 

 bison or signs of them in the Park. 



His trip has been in all respects successful. All the 

 principal localities of interest were visited by him, and 

 the marvellous effects of the frost are described in his re- 

 port. After leaving the Upper Geyser Basin, the crest of 

 the Rocky Mountains — the Continental Divide — was 

 crossed in a bhiiding snow storm in which it was impos- 

 sible to travel except by compass, for all landmarks were 

 hidden by the flying snow, and the wind whipping about 

 among the peaks, came, as it seemed, from half a dozen 

 different quarters at the same time. Over the desolate 

 snow-buried mountains the explorers made their slow 

 way, and down on to Pacific waters, out on the bleak, 

 frozen plain which, Og summer, is the blue, dancing Sho- 

 shone Lake, along that and then back once more up the 

 mountains, and again over the main range and down to 

 the, Yellowstone Lakei. From the Hot Springs at the 

 he^d of the West Arm of Yellowstone Lake, the party 

 traveled on the ice down to the outlet of the lake. 



From the time of leaving the Swan Lake Basin until 

 the Hayden Valley was reached, but little game was 

 seen. From that point on, however, elk were observed in 



great numbers, the country about Mt. Washburne and 

 the Valley of the Yellowstone being a favorite winter 

 range with these animals. With the modesty of a brave 

 man our commissioner speaks lightly of the perils and 

 hardships undergone on the trip. There are few men 

 who know what such a trip means; a journey of over 200 

 miles on snowshoes, through a country whose features 

 are all changed by the deep snow, in a temperature often 

 60° below the freezing point, and where provisions and 

 blankets have to be carried on the travelers' backs. 



Our correspondent has done his work bravely and well, 

 as we knew he would when we selected him for the 

 work. There has been no bluster about him, no long- 

 winded dissertations about what he was going do. His 

 journey accomplished, he tells his story in the simple, 

 quiet manner of the old-fashioned mountain man. 



EUROPEAN MILITARY ARMS. 

 \ VERY interesting contest is jusf now going on in 

 Europe. Each nation of that war-smitten group of 

 commonwealths is urging its inventors forward to the 

 manufacture of a small arm which shall so far exceed the 

 devices in use elsewhere as to give to the soldiers of the 

 lucky nation a vast advantage when the game of war 

 comes to be played in dead earnest. Each is seeking to 

 "get the drop" on his fellows in this respect; and to 

 American students of this branch of invention the results 

 so far attained are more curious than valuable. It appears 

 that the same, trouble is met there that was complained of 

 by our own mechanics in past years. Gold-laced incom- 

 petence serves as an extinguisher upon the clever efforts 

 of the practical men who understand the problem exactly 

 and have the ability to meet its requirements. Armory 

 mechanics are the men who make the improvements. 

 They meet the difficulties face to face, or rather hand to 

 hand. They see the arms come back broken, and in that 

 way note where hard usage discovers the weak points of 

 the weapons. It is not at all likely that any inventor is 

 to strike upon any great revolution in the making of this 

 class of arms, at least so long as the present source of 

 explosive force is employed. Gunpowder is capable of a 

 very narrow range of application. A new gas producer 

 or active agent of propulsion for the bullet may bring 

 with it an entire modification of the form and capability 

 of small arms of every sort, but until that day comes the 

 changes and improvements are likely to be in form, and 

 that only within very narrow limits. 



The history of the manufacture of rifles in this country 

 would be instructive reading to those leaders who are 

 now facing the problem of a better arm abroad. After 

 American ingenuity has exhausted itself on this subject 

 it is not Likely that any European mechanic or student 

 will strike anything better. The American weapons have 

 gone abroad, but through prejudice or international jeal- 

 ousy, or some other reason do not seem to be looked upon 

 with favor. The models, sent here, of the arms selected 

 for use in the several continental forces are not likely to 

 help our inventors any. They look like antiquated models 

 which, in this country, have been laid aside as objection- 

 able. The bolt action seems to be the starting point with 

 several of these inventors, yet American makers could 

 give valuable points on that action, especially when com- 

 bined with a tube magazine. 



It would seem that the question of a rapid firing weapon 

 (for all opposition to the use of a magazine or repeating 

 arm is now brushed away) is to be settled in some way by 

 the use of a detached reservoir of cartridges, and that the 

 rifle itself is not to be made at once an active weapon and 

 a supply depot. In this line of invention the American 

 patent office shows several very satisfactory solutions of 

 the problem, and while it seems improbable that such 

 should be the fact, yet it certainly appears from such in- 

 formation on the subject as eomes this way, that those 

 appointed to select arms abroad are not posted upon the 

 wares to be found in our market, or the lessons to be 

 learned from the history of firearm invention here. 



In this country it may not be long, with the present 

 agitation upoa the question of an improved militia, before 

 a cry is made for a new arm. It has already arisen to a 

 demand in this State, and, as before, the regular army 

 will be. quick to catch a good thing from the militia. 



Sporting arms and gunnery generally will be apt to 

 come in for improvement under the attention paid to this 

 subject, and in place of mere betterment and quality, 

 there may be, in the near future, material modifications 

 of the forms of our shotguns. 



SNAP SHOTS. 

 HPHE ocean yacht race between the Dauntless and 

 -§■ Coronet turns out to have been a purely business 

 enterprise engineered by Mr. Bush, the Coronet's owner, 

 He wanted to sell his boat, and thought she would bring 

 a higher price after making a record; so he played his 

 points. Mr. Colt, owner of the Dauntless, was induced to 

 match his boat against the Coronet, under the delusion 

 that the race was to be a thoroughly sportsmanlike affair, 

 and never dreaming that he was being used as a jack- 

 screw to lift the market price of the boat Bush had to 

 sell. The New York Yacht Club, the Royal Cork Yacht 

 Club, and various other organizations joined in, each 

 guilelessly adding its mite to booming the boat Mr. Bush 

 had for sale. But the greatest triumph of the speculative 

 "yachtsman" was in seeing the daily papers publish whole 

 pages of cable despatches giving full details of every 

 bucketful of water that flooded the Coronet's decks — all 

 these, Mr. Bush chuckled to himself, were a series of 

 reading notices for which even the World forgot to charge 

 its customary dollar a line. When the race was over. 

 Coronet a winner, the thrifty Brooklynite put up his price 

 to $150,000, issued his circulars, and is now awaiting a 

 buyer. It is extremely doubtful that, in spite of all his 

 brilliant engineering, the Coronet's owner will dispose of 

 his craft to the Englishmen at the figure named; for 

 much less than that sum much better boats are built in 

 England, and the yacht's March passage across the At- 

 lantic is not a feat so wonderful that eager purchasers 

 will elbow one another for the privilege of paying £30,000 

 for an American built boat. 



Mrs. Rickard, an Indiana farmer's wife, shot an eagle 

 which measured, when killed, nine feet from tip to tip 

 of wings. By the following week, when the item had 

 been copied into Eastern papers, the spread of wings had 

 expanded to thirteen feet. At this rate it bids fair to 

 rival the fowl occasionally heard of on the floor of the 

 House of Representatives, when the member from Bun- 

 combe, in impassioned rhetoric, pictures the proud bird 

 of freedom poised on Pike's Peak, with one wing stretch- 

 ing out to the Pacific and the other to the Atlantic, 

 screeching defiance to the effete monarchies of Europe. 



The New York Assembly having passed Finn's bill to 

 repeal the short-lobster law, the Senate has ordered it to 

 a third reading and will probably pass it. We have ex- 

 plained that Finn inns a barroorn, where, in the event of 

 the bill's passage, lie can set out his little lobsters as free 

 lunch bait. He is also said to be pushing this iniquitous 

 measure in behalf of certain dealers, against whom suits 

 for large short-lobster fines are now pending; they have 

 adopted the plan of repealing the law as involving less 

 expenditure of hard cash than would payment of their 

 fines. 



An Indian Territory squatter observed a mouse come 

 up through his cabin floor and play hide-and-seek around 

 a can of gunpowder on the floor. The man started in for 

 pistol practice at the mouse, hit the can, exploded the 

 powder, blew off the roof, wrecked the cabin, lolled a two- 

 year-old son outright, mortally wounded ^ ten-year-old 

 girl, seriously injm-ed himself and his wife — and missed 

 the mouse. 



The sketch of grouse shooting in the Pocono Mountains, 

 by "A Country Parson," is from the pen of the author of 

 "The Recollections of a Drummer Boy," which attracted 

 so much attention at the time of then- publication in St. 

 Nicholas, and have subsequently been published in book 

 form. 



The difference between the laws of the Medes and 

 Persians and the game laws of New York is that the 

 former were unchangeable, but the latter are changed 

 every year with the regularity of the procession of the 

 equinoxes. 



At the A. T. Stewart library sale in this city last Tues- 

 day, a copy of the original edition of Audubon's "Birds 

 of America," in nine volumes, was sold for $1,350. 



Mr. R. B. Roosevelt disclaims that the hodge-podge 

 game bill prepared by him is a "codification." In this 

 his position is impregnable. 



The hearing on the Maine Game Commissioner charges 

 was held last Tuesday, decision being reserved until 

 after the examination of the documents in the case. 



