Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, $i a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy, i 

 Six Months, $2. f 



NEW YORK, MAY 9, 1889. 



I VOL. XXXII.-No. 16. 

 i No 318 B ho ad way, New York. 



COBBESPONDENCE. 

 The Forest and Stream ia the recognized medium of entertain- 

 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. 



ADVERTISEMENTS. 

 Only advertisements of an approved character inserted. Inside 

 ' pages, nonpareil type, 30 cents per line. Special rates for three, six, 

 and twelve months. Seven words to the line, twelve lines to one 

 inch. Advertisements should be sent in by Saturday previous to 

 issue in which they are to be inserted. Transient advertisements 

 must invariably be accompanied by the money or they will not be 

 Inserled. Reading notices 81,00 per line. 



SUBSCRIPTIONS 

 May begin at any time. Subscription price, $4 per year; 82 for six 

 months; to a club of three annual subscribers, three copies for $10; 

 Ave copies for $16. Remit by express money-order, registered letter, 

 money-order, or draft, payable to the Forest and Stream Publishing 

 Company. The paper may be obtained of newsdealers throughout 

 the United States, Canadas and Great Britain. For sale by Davies 

 & Co., No. 1 Finch Lane, Cornhill, and Brentano's, 430 Strand, 

 London. General subscription agents far Great Britain, Messrs. 

 Davies & Co., Messrs. Sampson Low, Marston, Searles and Riving- 

 ton, 188 Fleet street, and Brentano's, 430 Strand, London, Eng. 

 Brentano's, 17 Avenue de l'Opera, Paris, France, sole Paris agent 

 for sales and subscriptions. Foreign subscription price. $5 per 

 year; $2.50 for six months. 

 Address all communications 



Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 

 No. 318 Broadway. New York City. 



CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Superintendence of the Na- 

 tional Park. 

 Arbor Day. 



The Domesticated Buffalo. 



Snap Shots. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



A Nova Scotia Reminiscence. 



Bowels of Compassion. 

 Natural History. 



Five Days a Savage.— v. 



Domesticated Wild Geese. 



Odd Habits of Animals. 



N ests of the Grt at Horned Owl 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



With the Crested Quail. 



A Hunt in Arkansas. 



Rifles for Small Game. 



Last Season in Kentucky. 



What You're Used To. 



Shooting, Public and Private. 



Smoky Fireplaces. 



Ten Days in Camp. 



The Season Near St. Louis. 



Chicago and the West. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



Fishing near New York.— iv. 



Early Fishing in Maine. 



The Range! ey Lakes. 



Ozark Mountain Trout. 



How to Catch Trout. 



California Fish Laws. 



Winter Fishing at Point Bar- 

 row. 



Sea and River Fishing. 



Fishing near Chicago. 



Sunapee Lake Trout. 



Fishing near St. Louis. 



Crossing of Salmon and Trout. 

 Fishculture. 



Canadian Fisheries. 



Fishculture in Ohio. 



Fishculture in Wyoming. 

 The Kennel. 



Our Every-Day Friends. 



Racing the Youngsters. 



The English National Field 

 Trials. 



Russian - Siberian - Circassian 

 Wolfhounds or Greyhounds. 

 Dog Talk. 

 Kennel Notes. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 

 Range and Gallery. 

 The Trap. 



The Middlesex Tournament. 



St. Paul Gun Club. 



Trap Around Chicago. 

 Yachting. 



The New York Yacht Racing 

 Association. 



Lord Dunraven's Challenge. 



The Lake Y. R. A. 



Building Notes. 

 Canoeing. 



The Atlantis and her Cruise, n 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



Books Received. 



STJPERINTENDENCY OF THE NATIONAL PABK. 

 TT is reported that Captain Moses Harris and his troop 

 of cavalry are to be transferred from the National 

 Park, and that another officer is to be ordered there to 

 take bis place. This ought not to be done. Captain 

 Harri6 has been stationed in the Park for several years, 

 and has made a faithful, energetic and efficient Superin- 

 tendent. He and the men under him have learned the 

 needs of the reservation and must of necessity be more 

 competent to carry on the work of protecting and caring 

 for it than any one who has not had this experience can 

 be. Another officer sent there would be hampered for a 

 long time by his ignorance of the region and its needs, 

 and while he was learning his duties great damage to the 

 reservation might result. The position of Superintendent 

 of the National Park is one which calls for hard work, 

 the exercise of great judgment and great firmness. It 

 is not an easy position, even during the height of the 

 season of travel, while for six or eight months the post is 

 almost altogether cut off from the world. 



By his management of the Park, Captain Harris has 

 made the rules and regulations established by the Secre- 

 tary of the Interior respected. Visitors to the Park know 

 what to expect there under hi3 management, and under- 

 stand that the regulations must be obeyed. It will be a 

 great .misfortune if by the transfer of Caj)tain Harris all 

 this should have to be gone over again, and the public 

 should be obliged to adapt itself to the idiosyncracies of 

 a new Superintendent. 



If there were any law in existence for the Government 

 of the Park, the matter would be one of less importance, 

 but there is no law, and everything depends on the com- 

 petence of the Superintendent. 



Captain Harris has conducted the affairs of the Park 

 with exceptional ability and he should now be allowed 

 io remain there and to receive the e redit for the organi- 



zation which he has completed. We earnestly trust that 

 no change will bo made. 



THE DOMESTICATED BUFFALO. 

 I T will be remembered that last year when the Bedson 

 * herd of domesticated buffalo was purchased by Hon. 

 C. J. Jones, of Kansas, a feeling of keen regret was ex- 

 pressed by the residents of Manitoba that the herd should 

 have passed out of the hands of a resident of the Province 

 to be taken to the United States. This sentiment, which 

 was very general, found strong expression in a letter of 

 a cori'espondent printed in this journal in January last. 

 Since that time we understand that the feeling has taken 

 a definite shape, and that the Province of Manitoba has 

 offered Mr. Jones all the land he may desire for a buffalo 

 ranch on a lease to run ninety -nine years and at a nomi- 

 nal rent of a dollar. The Manitobans took great interest 

 in the herd of buffalo, feeling, and rightly so, that the 

 location in the Province of the only considerable herd of 

 domesticated buffalo in the world was a great advantage 

 to them and a cause for just pride. 



The action of the provincial government of Manitoba is 

 not without interest for the dwellers in the United States. 

 The buffalo has always been regarded as distinctly an 

 animal belonging to our country. While its range ex- 

 tended beyond our territorial borders' on the north and 

 on the south, the true home of the buffalo lay almost 

 wholly within our borders. At present the only domesti- 

 cated buffalo known are owned in the United States, and 

 by our own citizens, some of whom are expending time, 

 effort and money to demonstrate the practicability of es- 

 tablishing a new race of domestic cattle, which will be 

 more useful than those we have at present. 



It would be a pity, it would almost be a national mis- 

 fortune, to have the only considerable herd of these ani- 

 mals moved out of the United States into our sister 

 country, Canada. We should feel pride in retaining 

 within our borders the few survivors of this otherwise 

 vanished race. But aside from any question of national 

 pride, is the one of pecuniary advantage to the agricul- 

 turists and stock raisers of the West. If, as now seems 

 probable, the buffalo is in the near future to prove an 

 impoitant factor in the beef -raising industry in the West, 

 the proper place for a breeding herd is in the central 

 West, not far from where Mr. Jones's herd is now located. 

 This location is adjacent to the great stock ranges of the 

 West, and is perfectly accessible. 



We understand that Mr. Jones is seriously contemplat- 

 ing the acceptance of the offer of the Manitoba govern- 

 ment, and may remove the part of his herd now in Kansas 

 back to Manitoba, where a large number of his pure bred 

 buffalo still remain. As a citizen of the United States, 

 and a typical Western man , he would naturally prefer to 

 retain the herd in his own country, but we take it that 

 Mr. Jones desires to carry on these experiments at as little 

 cost as possible, and that his patriotic pride will not be 

 allowed to interfere with the integrity of his pocket. 

 Therefore we think it likely that he may move his buffalo 

 into Canada. 



To carry on the experiments in buffalo crossing on a 

 large scale a considerable tract of land is needed, and 

 this land must be fenced. The cattle can be turned loose 

 on the prairie, but the buffalo cannot. Not because these 

 latter will run away, but because the average pilgrim or 

 settler from the States would, on seeing these tame buf 

 falo, promptly kill all of them that he could. A town 

 ship of land properly fenced would afford ample room 

 for this herd, but the United States land laws do not 

 allow any individual to acquire so large a body of land 

 from the general Government, 



It would seem that it might be worth the while of the 

 State of Kansas to make to Mr. Jones a long lease of a 

 large tract of State land within its borders, or, if this is 

 impracticable, a long lease of a township in some unoccu- 

 pied portion of the Indian Territory or in No Man's Land 

 might be made by the general Government. It is not an 

 unusual thing for a town to give a large manufactur- 

 ing establishment land on which to erect its buildings 

 providing the corporation will move its works to its bor- 

 ders. It is a common practice for towns in the West to 

 offer the railway companies which pass through them 

 free building sites, if they will move their shops and 

 round houses to them. The present case is not very dif- 

 ferent from such an one. 



There is good reason to believe that a new and valuable 

 face of cattle will be established through Mr. Jonee's ex- 



periments. That a definite advantage will accrue to the 

 people of these United States by the establishment of this 

 new breed of cattle in their limits can not be doubted. Is ' 

 not the matter of sufficient importance and is the advan- 

 tage to the country not sufficiently promising to make it 

 worth while for the State or the Federal Government to 

 depart from its rules and lease Mr. Jones a tract of land 

 which he can use for a ranch for buffalo breeding? 



ABBOB DAY. 



npHE first Arbor Day was celebrated with more or less 



ceremony in every county in the State of New York. 



The object of setting aside a day to be observed as 

 Arbor Day was to encourage the planting of trees in 

 groves, arbors and waste places, to familiarize the people, 

 more especially the young, wdth the methods of tree 

 planting, to afford experimental evidence that it is at- 

 tended with no difficulties but such as can be readily 

 guarded against; and to surround the important labor 

 of tree planting with pleasant associations. 



Full effect was not, and indeed could not have been 

 given to these objects in the city of New York. Like 

 Hamlet with the ghost left out; there was no tree planting. 

 In almost every other county of the State a number of 

 trees were planted; in some cases several hundred, and 

 even in New York where from lack of available land, or 

 it may be from lack of ideas on the part of the direction, 

 the practical task of tree planting was set aside for an 

 imposing and interesting ceremonial intended to symbol- 

 ize it, the observance of the day as a holiday will inevit- 

 ably bear practical results by and by. The difficulties 

 of finding land and trees to plant is purely imaginary* 

 even in this city of New York. The Park Commissioners 

 cause numbers of trees and shrubs to be planted every 

 year, and this work might well be done by the school 

 children under proper direction on Arbor Day. The holi- 

 day appears to have taken hold and promises to bear 

 good fruit, but an important matter not to be overlooked 

 is to afford the children opportunities of noting the pro- 

 gress made by their trees. 



SNAP SHOTS. 



THE announcement that the President has appointed 

 Hon. Theodore Roosevelt of this city a member of 

 the Civil Service Commission will be received with gen- 

 eral satisfaction. To the readers of Forest ^nd Stream 

 Mr. Roosevelt is known as an ardent sportsman, a pro- 

 lific writer on sport in current literature and author of two 

 very charming books on outdoor life. The friends of civil 

 service reform will rejoice at this appointment, for Mr, 

 Roosevelt's record in politics is that of a man of great 

 energy, of uncompromising integrity and of unswerving 

 devotion to reform. We need in our political places 

 more men of this type, and it is an encouraging sign of 

 the times when such appointments as this one are made. 



In the discussion of George Washington and his times 

 there has been much comparing of the old order of things 

 with the new in the political and material phases of the 

 country's development, and the comparison might be 

 carried further into the domain of nature and the game 

 supply. What, more suggestive, for instance, than the 

 record of one of Washington's hunts when he killed five 

 buffalo on the Little Kanawha River in West Virginia ? 

 This reads like fiction in these days, when for generations 

 the buffalo has been unknown in the East, and the bleached 

 bones of the bisons of the West are gathered on the 

 plains and shipped by car loads to mingle with the ship 

 loads of bones of Egyptians in the mills of fertilizer fac- 

 tories. 



During the spring months most of the gun and fishing 

 clubs and game protective associations hold their annual 

 meetings for the election of officers and for other busi- 

 ness, for the spring months either close up the shooting 

 or open the fishing season. Club secretaries should send 

 in to us reports of these meetings as speedily as possible 

 that their results and the officers for the ensuing year 

 may be announced in these columns. 



The season has thus far been a most favorable one for 

 the woodcock. The mildness of March and April, un- 

 broken by severe cold snaps, furnished excellent condi- 

 tions for the nesting, and next autumn's supply should 

 show the effect in increased abundance. The new law just 

 adopted by New Jersey retains July woodcock shootings 



