Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



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



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NEW YORK, JUNE 27, 1889. 



j VOL. XXXII.-No. >i3. 

 I No 318 Broadway, New York. 



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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Phases of Game Legislation. 

 The Contradictory Crow. 

 Snap Shots. 



Fur Fisheries of the North- 

 west Seas. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 

 ^To Allaguash Lake. 

 ^natural History. 



Raising Canary Birds. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



Was it a Fruitless Hunt? 



A Luckless Expedition. 



Small-Caliber Rifles. 



Oneida County Law. 



Game Laws at Albany. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



Fishing near New York. 



Penns> lvania Trout Streams. 



The Pike-Perch. 



Lake Ellerslie Fishing Club. 



Worse than the Heathen. 



Chicago and the West. 



Keeping Live Bait. 



Late Spawning Trout. 

 Fishculture. 



Delawai e River Black Bass. 



A Lesson in Trout Culture. 

 The Kennel. 



The History of Patsy. 



The Kennel. 



Patsy. 



Dog Talk. 



Breaking a Beagle. 



Kennel Notes. 



Kennel Management. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 



Range and Gallery. 



The Indianapolis Tournament 



The Trap. 



Lowell Rod and Gun Club. 



Est ex Gun Club. 



American Shooting Associa- 

 tion. 

 Yachting. 



No Cup Race This Year. 



Hindsight and Foresight. 



A Bad Week for Rule O' 

 Thumb. 



Titauia— Katrina. 



Corinthian Y. C. of New York. 



Coming Races. 



Seawanhaka C. Y. C. Cruise. 



Atlantic Y. C. 

 Canoeing. 



Atlantic Division Meet. 



Eastern Division Meet. 



A. C. A. Year Book. 



New York C. C. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



by them. Stomachs of crows taken in ^very month from 

 September to March, and coming from different localities 

 from Massachusetts to Florida, were found to contain 

 sumach and ivy seeds, in proportions which lead to the 

 conclusion that the consumption must be enormous. 

 The berries of both species cling to the stem throughout 

 the winter, and it is thought that their dissemination by 

 the crows must be carried on even when the ground is 

 covered with snow. 



It is a well known fact that certain seeds germinate 

 more rapidly for having passed through the digestive 

 organs of birds and other animals. To determine 

 whether this was true of the poison ivy and sumach 

 seeds eaten by the crows, experiments were made with 

 seeds taken from the great roost in the Arlington 

 national cemetery. These were found to have preserved 

 their vitality and to germinate more quickly than seeds 

 taken from the vine. This furnishes a new count in the 

 indictment against the crow, that he is spreading broad- 

 cast the seeds of these vegetable pests. 



The conclusions drawn by the Division from the 

 study of the crow question so far as it has been carried 

 are these: 



I. Crows seriously damage the corn crop and injure 

 other grain crops usually to a less extent. 



II. They damage other farm crops to some extent, 

 frequently doing much mischief. 



III. They are very destructive to the eggs and young 

 of domesticated fowl. 



IV. They do incalculable damage to the eggs and young 

 of native birds. 



V. They do much harm by the distribution of seeeds of 

 poison ivy, poison sumach, and perhaps other noxious 

 plants. 



VI. They do much harm by the destruction of beneficial 

 insects. m 



VII. They do much good by the destruction of injuri- 

 ous insects. 



VIII. They are largely beneficial through their de- 

 struction of mice and other rodents. 



IX. They are valuable occasionally as scavengers. 

 To this it is added that "the careful examination of 



large numbers of stomachs, and the critical study of the 

 insect food of the crow, may change materially the 

 present aspect of the question; but so far as the facts at 

 present known enable a judgment to be formed the harm 

 which crows do appears to far outweigh the good." 



THE CONTRADICTORY CROW. 

 rpHERE have been protracted newspaper discussions of 

 4- the good and bad qualities of the crow; and every 

 once in a while the bird is up for discussion in county 

 farmers' Societies and State legislatures. The Maine 

 Legislature gave a long hearing to the crow's friends and 

 enemies last winter, and finally passed a bounty law, 

 which is reported to be now effecting a decided decrease 

 in the ranks. The question of the crow's comparative 

 usefulness and deslructiveness is one that requires a more 

 careful and comprehensive examination than is within 

 the coinpass of any individual or local society; and the 

 topic has with reason been taken up by the Division of 

 Economic Ornithology and Mammalogy of the -National 

 Department of Agriculture. In the annual report for 

 1888, which is now before us, Mr. Walter B. Barrows 

 gives the results of the investigation so far as it has gone. 

 The data acquired are as yet insufficient for determining 

 beyond dispute whether the crows should be considered 

 destructive vermin and destroyed, or whether they 

 should be protected. 



Friends of the crow claim for it that it destroys insects 

 and field mice and eats carrion. These points are con- 

 ceded in its favor. The charges against it are that it 

 destroys young grain, particularly Indian corn, on first 

 -coming up, the ripe and ripening corn and other grain, 

 various other vegetable products, the eggs and young of 

 poultry, and the eggs and young of wild birds. 



To determine what consideration should be given to 

 these various contentions the Department has undertaken 

 the task of a. systematic examination of a large number 

 of stomachs; and from various parts of the country the 

 material has been sent in for this purpose; but the exam- 

 inat ; / v &as not yet progressed so far as to afford ultimate 

 cone. ions. 



One of the most interesting discoveries brought out by 

 this dissection of crows' stomachs is that of the birds' 

 agency in distributing noxious seeds. The berries of the 

 poison sumach and the poison ivy are greedily consumed 



PHASES OF GAME LEGISLATION. 



W; E report in another column the county ordinance 

 adopted by the Oneida county, N. Y., supervisors 

 forbidding the exportation of game killed in that county. 

 A bill to this effect was passed by the last Legislature, 

 but Governor Hill vetoed it. The New York law gives 

 county supervisors power to increase the protection of 

 game within their jurisdiction, and the Utica Fish and 

 Game Protective Association have thus seem ed by local en- 

 actment what they failed to obtain at Albany. The intent 

 of the new regulation is to shut off the marketing of 

 game birds taken in Oneida county. Other counties 

 have like laws with a like purpose, and in several in- 

 stances the results have shown that the end is attained. 



As an example of the evil we adverted to last week, 

 the damming of rivers and streams without provision 

 for the ascent of fish to their spawning beds, take the 

 Hudson River. In the dams at Mechanicsville and 

 Northumberland there should be fishways for the salmon. 

 A bill to provide for their erection, in the last Legislature, 

 failed to reach Governor Hill, and all because of party 

 politics. 



The notion is continually cropping up that the solution 

 of game protection in this country is to be found in 

 national legislation. State laws have in many respects 

 proved defective and worthless; and the feeling appears 

 to be to appeal to the general Government for a national 

 law supposed to be more potent, because it is national, 

 perhaps. We question whether any help is to come from 

 Washington, even if Congress could constitutionally legis- 

 late on the subject. If we cannot enforce State laws, 

 we could not enforce national laws. Advocates of game 

 bills in Congress are on the wrong track, 



gates from different States are to come together, hold a 

 meeting and pass resolutions. The resolutions have been 

 adopted and promulgated more than once already, and 

 that has been the end of it. And it will be the end of 

 other national conventions and other sets of resolutions. 



•As a matter of fact if game is protected it must be pro- 

 tected by the earnest purposes and the active efforts of 

 home men and measures. The State game and fish pro- 

 tector system, with wardens or protectors in each district, 

 county or town, is the machinery which has been proved 

 and is proving itself effective. We should look to per- 

 fecting this system, and to building up local public senti- 

 ment for its support, rather than to boom national con- 

 ventions which can never do any more than to resolve, 

 or than to besiege Congress for national legislation. 



SNAP SHOTS. 



IT is not a creditable picture; it is in truth a disgusting 

 one, which our Macon, Ga., correspondent draws of the 

 fishing practiced in that vicinity; and the more speedily 

 the residents there take measures to abate their heathen- 

 ish ways the better for the fish and for their own man- 

 hood. Georgia is the most progressive State of the South; 

 her material resources are developing with great strides; 

 her people are prosperous; but no people can afford to 

 squander such a natural source of wealth as is contained 

 in Georgia waters; it is folly, and folly on a tremendous 

 scale. With respect to caring for her food fish supply 

 Georgia is sadly behind the tines. When the State 

 comes to repair these wasted resources it will be found 

 necessary to expend large sums of money in restocking 

 waters which ought have been kept well stocked at 

 nominal cost if the natural supply had been drawn on 

 with discretion. This is the hard common sense aspect 

 of the fish question; there is no angler's sentiment about 

 it; but it appears to be a phase of common sense which 

 can be learned only after foolish wastefulness has made 

 its acquirement an expensive educational process. 



Another favorite panacea with some is the national 

 sportsmen's convention sebemej which means that dele- 



These Georgia fishing methods remind us of a story 

 "Al Fresco" told us last spring of a fisherman in the 

 North Carolina mountains who set out for a record. He 

 was an angler from town, that is to say he had all the 

 outer appurtenances that go to make an angler— rod, 

 reel, fly-book, creel, and dress the latest style of angling- 

 suits. He made his way to a remote stream, famed for 

 its trout, followed it up until he came to a dam, paid the 

 miller a generous price to draw the w r ater out of the 

 dam, and then literally scooped up the big fish, and on 

 his return went among decent people bragging of his 

 prodigious feat. 



The Forest and Stream Publishing Company will 

 publish in a short time a new work entitled "Log Cabins, 

 How to Build and Furnish Them." This book is by a 

 well-known architect, Mr. W. S. Wicks, of Buffalo, and 

 will prove a very useful aid to the camper and outer. Its 

 directions are so plain and simple that any one who can 

 use an axe can follow them, and it is profusely illustrated 

 with plans and elevations of camps and cottages, and 

 with designs for furniture and interior fittings. With 

 this book before him the man or boy who finds himself in 

 the timber can erect for himself a shelter either as simple 

 as a bough house or as elaborate as an Adirondack cottage. 

 This w r ork cannot fail to add very materially to the com- 

 fort of those who spend their vacations in the woods, 

 beyond the so-called comforts of civilization. 



Surely anglers of the better class are careless of their 

 duty, when the press publish without a protest records 

 of fish caught by the hundred whose average weight is 

 only an ounce or two. There are plenty of men who are 

 willing to catch and count fingerlings, but if the officers 

 of the law did their part toward enforcing the statutes of 

 New York State they ought to be afraid to boast of such 

 catches. Each decent angler ought to do his part toward 

 impressing those with whom* he comes in contact with 

 the criminality of taking these baby trout. 



Captain Moses Harris, until within a short time in 

 charge of the Yellowstone Park, has reached Fort Custer 

 with his command. 



We are desirous of obtaining a copy of the volume 

 index for the following volumes of FOREST AND STREAMS 

 2, 8, 5, 6, 7, 10, 13 and 15, 



