Forest and Stream. 





A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 





Terms, S4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copt. ) 



Six Months, $2. f 



NEW YORK, JUNE 16, 1887. 



1 VOL. XXVIII.-No. 21. 



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



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Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 

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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Signs of the Times. 



One Sample Case. 



The Pittsburgh Medals. 



Professional Trap Shooters. 



Farmers and Soortsmen. 



The Diamond Hitch— m. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



The Ncpisiguit. 

 Naturae History. 



The "Ways of Prairie Dogs. 

 L An Exhibition of Snakes 



Ferns. 

 Game Bag and Gen. 



The National Park. 



Gunpowder Tests. 



International Game Pro- 

 tection. 



A Twinee of Pleasant Memory 



Among Minnesota Wildfowl. 



Untimely California Shooting. 



The Michigan Warden Work. 



Michigan Deer Hunting. 



Snaring Game. 



Game Notes. 

 Camf-Fike Flickerings. 

 Se a and River Fishing. 



Plank-Shad. 



An Ex-Governor's Pole. 



Sea and River Fishing. 

 Yermont Trout Brooks. 



FlSHCULTERE. 



Work at Cold Spring Harbor. 

 The Kennel. 



Am. Kennel Club Methods. 



Pittsburgh Medals. 



To Consider a Reconsideration 



A Dog Would Have Come In 

 Handy. 



Kennel Notes. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 



Range and Gallery. 



The Trap. 



Decoration Day Trophy. 



Wellington Winners. 



New York State Shoot. 

 Canoeing. 



New British Canoes. 



Passaic River Meet. 

 Vachting. 



Galatea as a Racer. 



Spring Regattas in New York. 



New York Y. C. Regatta. 



Seawanhaka C. Y. C. Regatta. 



Cormthian Y. C. Regatta. 



Harlem Y. C. Regatta. 



Atlantic Y. C. Ladies' Day. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



THE PITTSBURGH MEDALS. 



IN another column is printed an interview by the re- 

 porter o£ a Pittsburgh paper with Mr. Elben, secre- 

 tary of the last bench show held there. If this interview 

 is authentic, the explanation given by Mr. Elben of the 

 copper medal fraud furnishes a curious illustration of the 

 elasticity of the English language. The catalogue of the 

 Pittsburgh show said that in the champion classes gold 

 medals would be given, but the secretary says that it was 

 never intended to give gold medals. This statement 

 throws a haze of doubt over the whole catalogue. What 

 was the meaning of anything printed-in it ? Is it possible 

 that where this publication read mastiffs it meant York- 

 shire terriers? Where pugs are mentioned should we 

 read rough-coated St. Bernards ? If this is the case the 

 problem of locating the different classes becomes at once 

 too difficult for the average man to grapple with. This 

 may possibly account for some of the atrocious judging 

 there. 



Mr. Elben says that the "gold medals" were not gold at 

 all, but were composition. He is reported to have said 

 further that no one supposed that they were gold, and to 

 have hinted very strongly that exhibitors would have 

 been bitterly disappointed if the promises made by the 

 Pennsylvania Poultry Society had been fulfilled. This is 

 a view that had not previously occurred to us, but now 

 that it has been suggested it is eisy enough to picture to 

 oneself a circle of thirty or forty winners of champion 

 gold medals, each worth $50 or $60, shedding salt tears of 

 grief as they bit and whittled at their medals and dis- 

 covered that they were after all real gold, and not com- 

 position. It must be confessed that it would have been a 

 pathetic sight. 



Mr. Elben is reported to have said that this is not the 

 first time that this fraud has - been perpetrated. That 

 may very well be true, but why will not the secretary be 

 a little more explicit and tell us by what club it has been 

 done? If he is right, evidence to support his statement 

 mu t be easily obtainable. Why should the Pittsburgh 

 show a 1 one bear the odium of this bad eminence if other 

 clubs ought to share her shame? If it has been done else- 

 where, let the fa^ts be known. If Mr. Gregg and Mr. El- 



ben only followed the example of other clubs, they can- 

 not justify themselves on this plea except by stating who 

 set them the example. 



SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 

 I F God made the country man defaces it with patent 

 *- medicine advertisements on the rocks. The advertising 

 r rtists are ingenious in their way, but they have signally 

 failed in repeated endeavors to make pill signs harmonize 

 with the majesty of mountain crags or elixir notices set 

 off the picturesqueness of canon and waterfall. Even in 

 the Far West, where enterprise is largely devoted to alter- 

 ing the face of nature in developing the resources of the 

 country, there re plaints of the atrocities of these irrev- 

 erent advertising sign painters. The Billings (Mont.) 

 Gazette calls attention to the doings of one Zimmerman, 

 a pushing citizen of that town, who is utilizing the his- 

 toric Indian rocks of the vicinity by plastering "Zimmer- 

 man" in big letters over them. It can very readily be 

 understood that a man who has dry goods or groceries for 

 sale might scoff at Indian hieroglyphics and cover them 

 up with advertisements of his wares, but most people 

 will share the Gazette's opinion that "merchants who 

 propose to paint posters on the rocks should order then- 

 workmen to avoid disfiguring the few points of interest 

 left to mark the race that once possessed the land. When 

 this valley is filled with homes made by the skill of man- 

 kind, let the rock-altars tell of the race that dwelt here 

 when the country was designated as the 'Great American 

 Desert.' " 



Bad as are the pill and plaster legends on the rocks, 

 they have been outdone by the startling "sermons in 

 stones" for which tbe Salvation Arniy is responsible. 

 Not content with beating drums and blowing horns in 

 town, these people have gone about the country with 

 pots of blue paint, and bedaubed highway and byway 

 with warnings, entreaties, imprecations and exhortations 

 of a religious character, all done in scraggly lettering, 

 but in diction that is terse, direct and easily understood. 

 With the nostrum notices and these irreligious signs con- 

 fronting him on all sides as he travels, an angler in quest 

 of fish and physical and mental surcease is not at all 

 happy until he gets into the woods. 



ONE SAMPLE CASE. 

 WAS an editor wise. On six nights in the week he 



* • toiled from sundown well on toward sunrise getting 

 a big daily to press. Once a week he had a night's respite 

 from toil, and when the summer season came he figured 

 to make an agreeable break in the round of labor out of 

 this one day off. He found it by flitting away to a sea- 

 side hotel, finding bed and board and fresh air and brac- 

 ing salt baths all awaiting his coming. He took train, 

 moved with railroad regularity, got back on time and felt 

 refreshed. But this was monotonous; he read an alluring 

 "special" article about canoes. He would get one and 

 would spend his weekly day off in a series of ever-chang- 

 ing trips here and there about the beautiful harbor of 

 New York. He would investigate Staten Island, round 

 and round. He would push up the Hudson over the 

 track blazed by the original Hendrick. He would slip 

 past Hell Gate with its queer tides and puzzling eddies 

 and enjoy the waters about Fort Schuyler. There were 

 lots of routes on the map, but first he asked the sporting- 

 editor a few questions and unfolded Iris plan. He was 

 startled by the rush of queries which came back at him. 



"What, you start out in a canoe? Ever been in one? 

 Ever hoisted a sail? Can you swim? Do you know any- 

 thing about wind and tide? Do you feel ike buckling to 

 with the paddle when the wind falls flat on you? Do you 

 feel like wading ashore with your canoe under your arm 

 to make a quiet landing? Would you feel huffy when 

 you were flung on a lee shore by a sudden squall and 

 your canoe and outfit evenly distributed for a mile or more 

 up and down the beach? Are you prepared to work like 

 a slave to get there and then turn to again and work like 

 another slave getting up a meal for yourself? Are you 

 willing generally to spread ten parts of the butter of en- 

 thusiasm over the one little portion of the solid bread of 

 enjoymen ?" 



Editor G. gasped one general negative to all this and 

 went on to explain that he would have a boatman bring 

 about his canoe, hoist sail, and then he would step in, be 

 wafted to the predetermined point, and there he would 

 go to a hotel while the porter would attend to bringing up 

 the canoe. That was his notion of things, and he turned 



to a heap of proofs just drawn and began to look them 

 over. One caught his eye; it told how a catboat handy 

 by had fished a canoeist out of the water after the canoe- 

 ist had gone through a set-to with a passing tug. This 

 story provoked thought in the would-be amateur sailor. 

 Another proof told how a venturesome paddler had come 

 out of a squall. There was quite a catalogue of wreckage 

 and a long narrative of the long wave battle; and the 

 deep shade of thought grew deeper on the young editor's 

 brow. He will remain ashore. He will go as before to 

 his hotel, will strut up and down the balconies, will listen 

 to the band, will keep his cravat unruffled and will never 

 know the rich reward which comes from a personal parti- 

 cipation in any manly outdoor sport. 



FARMERS AND SPORTS3IEN. 

 A COMMUNICATION on game snaring, printed else- 

 where, comes to us from a professional gentleman, 

 who, at the last session of the Massachusetts Legislature, 

 was active in securing the repeal of the snaring law. He 

 worked in the interests of a number of Reading market- 

 hunters who make a business of snaring for the Boston 

 game stalls, and the reasoning he here advances as argu- 

 ments was that which prevailed .in the Legislature. 

 The writer of the letter is not a lawyer, as his patent mis- 

 conception of the principles of game legislation clearly 

 enough proves, and it is equally clear that he 

 does not speak with any authority for the 40.000 

 farmers in whose name he professes to make his 

 plea. Not all sportsmen are depredating rowdies, 

 nor are all farmers the curmudgeon dogs-in-the- 

 manger he represents. Farmers and sportsmen are not 

 two classes oppo ed to one another. Their interests 

 do not conflict. As a matter of fact, hundreds of farm- . 

 ers in Massachusetts welcome hundreds of spo tsmen to 

 their lands, treat them courteously and receive courteous 

 treatment in return. Any attempt to ignore the facts in 

 the matter and to array class against class, as was done 

 in the Massachusetts Legislature and is repeated in the 

 communication of "Bay State," is of a piece with the 

 mischievous rant of demagogues who harp on capital and 

 "labor." The "labor" agitator poses as a reformer until 

 his gulls discover that he has been stuffing his pockets at 

 their expense; and a Massachusetts retired clergyman, 

 who turns himself into a game legislation busybody and 

 harps on the wrongs and rights of the farmers' boys, 

 passes for a public-spirited citizen until it is discovered 

 that he is laboring in the interest of a nest of professional 

 market-snarers. 



The principles of property in game, that is, the quali- 

 fied "property," which consists of the sole right to take 

 the game, have been so fully set forth in these c©lumns 

 that it is not necessary to go over them again at this time. 



With tact and the exercise of average common sense 

 and common courtesy by sportsman and farmer, each 

 finds in the other not a natural enemy but a friend ; and 

 as a class the farmers of Massachusetts do not to-day 

 occupy toward sportsmen the attitude of hostility attri- 

 buted to them by the agents of the Reading grouse snar- 

 ers. "Farmer Brown" does not always cover his lands 

 with man traps, nor keep a gun loaded with buckshot to 

 pot the first city sportsman who shows his head. 



PROFESSIONAL TRAP SHOOTERS. 



SOME time ago there was a discussion of the advisa- 

 bility of barring certain shooters from amateur 

 classes on the ground that because of their skill they 

 should be ranked as experts, or as agents of certain fire- 

 arm manufacturers they should be classed as profession- 

 als. The managers of the recent Wellington Shooting 

 Carnival made provision for all, amateurs and profession- 

 als or experts, and the attendance representing both 

 classes appears to have proved the wisdom of the plan. 



This subject of professionalism at the trap has come Up 

 with added force this season, and it is one which should 

 be decided once for all. At the New York State shoot at 

 Utica a cu ious complication arose. Two of the expected 

 participants were members of the association, and so 

 legally entitled to all the privileges of membership, but 

 they were also agents of gun makers, whose arms they 

 were paid to use for t v e purpose of practically demon- 

 strating their merits. The delegates concluded that these 

 members could not be barred from shooting, and so they 

 politely requested them not to enter for the prizes. Hap- 

 pily there was no trouble about this, but it is too much to 

 hope that such a conflict of interests can always be so 

 happily adjusted. 



