Forest and Stream. 





A Weekly Journal of the 



Rod and Gun. 





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



Six Months, $2. f 



NEW YORK, JUNE 2, 



1887. 



j VOL. XXVIII.-No. 19. 



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



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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 

 Brass Medals. 

 The Wellington Shoot. 

 Protection That Does Not Pro- 

 tec t. 



The Diamond Hitch. — I. 

 The Sportsman Touhist. 



An Adventure at Monte Carlo. 



A Day's Ducking at Martin's. 

 Natural History. 



Florida Bird Notes. 



Grouse Notes. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



A Trip After Pheasants. 



Southern California. 



A Day in a Dugout. 



Deer Driving. 



Dakota Game. 



Rifles and Bullets. 



Game Notes. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



A Fishing Dog. 



The Tournament. 



Youghiogheny and Tributaries 



New England' Waters. 



A Memory of Hayti. 



Angling Notes. 



FlSHCULTURE. 



Illinois River Fishing. 

 The Kennel. 



Bachshunde. 



Detroit Bench Show. 



Am. Kennel Club Methods. 



Mastiff Types. 



Don Consults the Doctor. 



Western i ield Trials Derby. 



Kennel Management. 



Kennel Notes. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 



Range and Gallery. 



The Trap. 



Decoration Day Trophy. 



The Minneapolis Tournament. 

 Canoeing. 



The A. C. A. Meet of 1887. 



The Spring Meet. 



The Northern Division Meet. 



Toronto C. C. Notes. 

 Yachting. 



Steam Yacht Building at Bris- 

 tol. 



Galatea in a Breeze. 

 Decoration Day Kacea. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



BRASS MEDALS. 



THE pewter medals given for silver at Pittsburgh in 

 1886 have passed into history, and the brass medals 

 of 1887 now take their turn. The prizes offered for the 

 champion classes at the dog show of the Western Penn- 

 sylvania Poultry Association were announced to be "gold 

 medals." These were to be, the Association ordered, 

 gold not in name merely, but actual gold. The discovery 

 that the supposed silver medals of the year before were 

 pewter, had disgusted a number of the directors of 

 the Association, and we have the very best authority 

 for stating that definite instructions were given to 

 those who had the show in charge, that if medals were 

 offered this year they should be what they were repre- 

 sented to be. How these instructions were followed out 

 may be seen from the fact that the "gold" medals given 

 this year have now proved to be a composition of brass, 

 plated with gold. The men who are responsible for 

 this petty swindling, for this obtaining money by false 

 pretenses, for this luring people to their show by repre- 

 senting that they should receive as prizes coin, and then 

 paying them in counterfeits, are reputable men of Pitts- 

 burgh, men whose standing in the business world is fairly 

 good. They are not thieves, nor gamblers, nor blacklegs, 

 but in their own world and with their own class they 

 stand well. 



People often express surprise at the moral obliquity 

 of men who in their own business are honest and 

 straight, while in matters connected with dogs and dog 

 shows they are guilty of practices which would forever 

 damn them in the commercial world. But the explan- 

 ation is not difficult. Such men are honest in commercial 

 affairs because to maintain any standing at all they have 

 to be so. But they have learned that in dog matters 

 such honesty is not an essential to good standing. A man 

 may be guilty of tricks of all sorts and yet suffer no 

 penalty. The supposed governing body in the dog world, 

 the American Kennel Club, says in effect, that swindling 

 of this kind meets its approval. 



At its last meeting the committee on Pittsburgh pewter 

 medals reported and submitted the evidence on the sub- 

 ject, and the report was accepted and laid on the table. 



There, no doubt, it will continue to repose until the sub- 

 ject of the brass medals shall come up, be reported on, 

 and also laid on the table to keep it company. There, side 

 by side, the brass and the pewter, they will be likely to 

 remain for ages, suggesting sweet memories of Pittsburgh 

 and of the methods of the A. K. C. It is very difficult 

 to see how this body can hope ever to gain the respect 

 of the dog public if it is to follow up the line of conduct 

 which it seems to have laid out for itself. "Good fellow" 

 methods were all very well years ago, but people inter- 

 ested in dogs have got tired of them, and look for intelli- 

 gence and honesty from the body which is supposed to 

 govern kennel matters. If such moral standards are to 

 rule in the dog world, honest people want to look on from 

 a safe distance. 



We have enough confidence in the inherent honesty, 

 uprightness and love of fair play of American dog own- 

 ers to believe that acts of this kind will not be allowed 

 to continue. That they have been permitted is due as 

 much to the good faith and simplicity of some gentle- 

 men, who are above suspicion, as it is to the knavery 

 and trickiness of those who have been able to deceive 

 them. But it is certainly time that the knaves and the 

 fools be thrown down from their seats of authority, and 

 that honest, capable men take their places. 



As for the Pittsburgh show, it was all through, from 

 the Bryson incident to the brass medal discovery, so dis- 

 graceful a piece of business that it is unpleasant to write 

 about — nobody likes to handle a skunk if he can help it. 

 It was made disgraceful, not by the directors of the asso- 

 ciation, but by the stupidity and dishonesty of those to 

 whom they intrusted the management. 



PROTECTION WHICH DOES NOT PROTECT. 



FEOM the condition of having almost no laws for the 

 protection of fish and game, which this country was 

 in within the memory of living men, it seems to some 

 that it is getting into that of having too many, which 

 they think is almost as bad as the first. Wherein are we 

 better off, they ask, with a complication of statutes too 

 ambiguous to be understood by even those trained and 

 schooled in the legal profession, and too ponderous and 

 unwieldy to be enforced if the best possible means were 

 provided, as they seldom are, for that purpose ? Wherein 

 is there more protection with laws unenforced than in no 

 law at all ? An honorable man will not knowingly vio- 

 late one of these statutes, though in his judgment it is 

 unjust and unreasonable ; neither would an honorable 

 and thoughtful man violate one of the plain laws of na- 

 ture for the preservation of fish and game, law3 which 

 the wisest and best of human enactments only reiterate, 

 while they specify a penalty more immediate in effect 

 than the extinction of species, which is nature's some- 

 times slow but always certain punishment for unseason- 

 able and excessive slaughter. These laws are not made 

 to regulate and control the actions of such men, but to 

 restrain the sport-loving instinct of the thoughtless and 

 the greed of the selfish and vicious, and if not faithfully 

 enforced are as ineffectual as the Pope's bull against the 

 comet, and worse than this, they are positively mischiev- 

 ous, for laws which are a dead letter breed contempt for 

 all law. 



In this there is weighty matter for the consideration of 

 all those who are interested in protection. It is evident 

 to every one who has watched it at all that legislation on 

 this subject is apt to become more and more unwieldy 

 and contradictory with each yearly or biennial legislative 

 tinkering, that good laws are often repealed or made in- 

 effective, and also that with all the new acts and "acts to 

 amend acts," there is in but few States any more adequate 

 provision made for their enforcement. It seems to have 

 become as much the fashion for some legislative bodies 

 to make game protection law, as to legislate on education 

 and temperance. While ignorance holds its own, intem- 

 perance does not decrease, and unseasonable killing of 

 game and fish is almost unnoticed and seldom punished. 

 There is an infinite deal of loss but little protection. All 

 laws for the protection and preservation of fish and 

 game should be simple, reasonable in their exactions, 

 easily enforced, and then — enforced. 



THE WELLINGTON SHOOT. 

 HPHE enthusiasm which marks the sport of trap-shoot- 

 ing at present and which calls for a supply of mil- 

 lions of artificial targets annually, finds a marked 

 expression in the Wellington shoot, now going on in the 

 Boston suburb. Every preparation has been made there 

 for a good time, with plenty of real, honest sport, where 

 rivalry will help on the enjoyment and where the rules 

 will see to it that the best man shall win in every contest. 

 The managers of this tournament have sought to put the 

 whole country under obligation in furnishing a supply of 

 contestants, and men have come from the far West to 

 show the Eastern shooters a few wrinkles on marksman- 

 ship, while locally a whole flock of trap-shooters has 

 sprung up to make a lively fight for the honor and profits 

 of the occasion. 



These big contests are but indications of the growing 

 conviction that among field sports trap-shooting holds a 

 favored position. It is eminently a gentlemanly sport, 

 where one can so easily pick his company in the way of 

 fellow-contestants. There is little expense attached to it, 

 any clear space of unused land will suffice for a shooting- 

 ground, and for the man who is busy through the day 

 w th engrossing business cares, there is no task of enjoy- 

 ment which he can set himself which will so readily take 

 his thoughts from the office and the desk as that before 

 the trap. Each target thrown is a challenge flung in the 

 face of the marksman, and soon the keen sense of con- 

 flict, which is the very essence of the sport, is felt in all 

 its bracing activity. 



It is a sport which does not weary and grow stale. 

 Take up any club list, read over any roll of entries, and 

 see the number of names of men who have been popping 

 away with muzzleloader and breechloader and later 

 with hammerless, lo ! these many years. So long as the 

 sharp, quick eye is supplemented by limber muscles, so 

 long the enjoyment of trap-shooting remains. 



The Forest and Stream match, even in its initial year, 

 has shown in some measure the wide-spread desire for a 

 trial of merit. Before the same trap, with shooters side 

 by side, this feeling is much stronger, and in such a gath- 

 ering as the Wellington shoot any trap devotee may be 

 sure of adding something to his stock of practical knowl- 

 edge, if in nothing more than by enforcing upon him the 

 conviction that there is a great deal he does not know. 



Trout Waters are just now in their prime and every 

 fisherman who can get away is improving the golden hours 

 as they fly. The salmon streams are also affording capi- 

 tal returns, and the fishing at Bangor, Me. , is remark- 

 able. 



The New York Legislature has adjourned and the 

 great grist of game and fish bills has come to an end. Of 

 the three general bills, termed by their authors codifica- 

 tions, none passed, and the laws are for the most part 

 unchanged. A number of unsigned bills now in the 

 Governor's hands will doubtless receive his approval. 

 Among them are a restoration of the six-inch trout clause 

 and the bill forbidding capture of salmon save with hook 

 and line. The one disgraceful piece of legislation at the 

 last session — there is at every session one new law worthy 

 of this distinction — was the repeal of the short lobster 

 law. This was done at the instance of parties in this 

 city who had fines to pay under the old law ; and it was 

 engineered by Finn the Park Row free-lunch man. 



There are in this world a number of well-meaning in- 

 dividuals who are more than ready to croak at the good 

 works accomplished or attempted by other people. 

 There are the querulous carpers, for instance, who 

 have their little wail about the undertaking of the 

 Audubon Society. There are milhons of human beings 

 in distress, say these croakers, and yet here is the Audu- 

 bon Society with its thousands of members bothering 

 themselves to preserve the birds, but forgetting all about 

 suffering humanity. Such critics go to bed hungry if 

 they cannot have the whole loaf. It is a good rule in this 

 world to do all the good you can, even though greater 

 wrongs go unrighted. 



President Cleveland is angling in the Adirondacks, 

 and the reporters are on hand with spy-glasses and ear 

 trumpets to chronicle his minutest risings up and sittings 

 down, what the President and his wife have for break- 

 fast, how many times he casts his fly, how many fish he 

 does not get, and the number of times he slaps at the 

 punkies and musquitoes. Evidently the reporter believes 

 that it is not all of fishing to fish. 



The Decoration Day Trophy scores are coming in, 

 but the result cannot be known for some days yet. The 

 full scores will be given in our next issue. 



