Forest and Stream, 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



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

 Six Months, $2. f 



NEW YORK, JULY 18, 1889. 



i VOL. XXXIl.-No. 26. 

 I No 318 Broadway, New iork. 



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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Bits of Talk.— m. 



Wa\s of rne Woodcock. 



Snap Shots. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



On ihe Border. 



An Adirondack Trail. 



A Week Off. 



"An Episode of the War." . 

 Natural Ristorv. 



A Siudy of Woodcock. 



Outdoor Notes from Louisiana 



The Sparrow Pest. 



More About O'ters. 

 &AME Bag and liUN. 



A Muzzleloader. 



Maine's Big Game. 



Small Calioer Rifles. 



A Georgia Pissum Farm. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



Michigan Fish Laws. 



Camps of the Kingfishers,— i. 



In Praise of Battle Lake. 



Bass Casting Chicago Style. 



All'gator Gars and Black Bass 



Speaker Boyd's Winnmish. 



Chicago and the West. 



FlSHCULTUltK. 



Fish Mortality in South Caro- 

 lina. 

 The Kennel. 

 Ethan Allin. 



Diseases of the Respiratory 



Organs. 

 Stamping Out Rabies. 

 Dog Talk. 

 Kennel Notes. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 

 Range and Gallery. 

 Our Team Abroad. 

 The Trap. 



Keystone Tournament. 

 Yachting. 

 Liris. 



Boston City Regatta, July 4. 

 Royal Canadian Y. C. July 1. 

 Racing at Marblehead. 

 Btveriy Y. C. 



St. Lawrence River Skiff Race 

 Canoeing. 



The Montreal C. C. Meet. 



Lake Hopatcong C. C. 



Royal C. C. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



BITS OF TALK. 



IH —CONCERNING QUAIL. 



THE man with the feather in his cap had tried, to kick 

 them out from the corn-stacks where they had 

 taken shelter at the first dischir.je of the gun; the man 

 with the red setter had poked at them in a stone wall: 

 and the man from Hackensack had captured them by- 

 hand when they had run into a hollow stump. " At an- 

 other time," he continued, ''we lost them entirely; there 

 was not a sign nor a scent nor a sound. It was at sun- 

 set; and I was just tired enough to set my gun up Against 

 the fence and perch on the top rail myself, while the rest 

 - went on further for a last try at them. I was looking 

 at the sunset and thinking to myself what a glorious 

 thing this going shooting was, whether or no, birds or 

 no birds, when all of a sudden I heard a quail's call, low 

 and sweet and timid, with a sort of 'Where are you?' 

 and 'Whist, there!' turn to it. I could no', make out just 

 where it came from; but a second later, from the rail 

 fence on which I was sitting, in fact, almost from direct- 

 ly under me, out stepped Bob. After him, from under 

 the next rail, came another and another, and then more 

 until there were seven. I kept mum and as motionless 

 as a brooding Buddha; and without appearing to see me 

 they went leisurely off in single file. It was a pretty 

 sight, too, I tell you." 



"What a chance for a raking ground shot," suggested 

 the man with a feather in his cap. ' 'Why didn't you pot 

 them ?" 



"Couldn't get to my gun," explained the man from 

 Hackensack with a smile; but the others knew him well 

 enough to know that that was not the reason, for if he 

 had had forty guns those birds would have been safe 

 enough. 



"That was odd, you being 'onto' those quail, and their 

 not knowing it," said the man fast to the dog chain. "It 

 is not often that we can get the advantage of the birds 



. in that way; but it often enough happens, I fancy, that 

 they are close by us without our ever finding it out, even 



- with the nose of 'the best dog in the world.' Why, down 

 on my place on Long Mand I one day eame upon a de- 



serted quail's nest, with the broken shells, under an ever- 

 green not more than three feet from the edge of the lane; 

 and we had been coming and going there all the time, 

 the carriage went by there three or four times every day ; 

 yet none of us had ever seen that quail nor mistrusted 

 that the nest was there under our noses. As a nest-hider 

 the quail may be voted a success; madam can keep a 

 secret, despite the noisy proclivities of her lord and mas- 

 ter. By the way, we have one fellow down there, who 

 always gives his full name, Rob ert White, three sjl'ables, 

 clear and distinct every time; he has been there for three 

 or four years; we can distinguish him unmistakably from 

 the rest, and know just where to find him. I've seen 

 him, and he appears to think some pumpkins of himself, 

 probably insists on being addressed as Robert in public, 

 though I don't doubt his wife calls him Bo 1 "." 



"Why don't you put him on toast some November? He 

 migl't taste better than the common brood." 



" 'No shooting allowed' is the sign you'll find nailed up 

 on my place. Besides, if I devoured him I would have 

 to fall back on the pipers of plain Bob White; and I pre- 

 fer melody to a mouthful." 



"A quail by any other name, even colin,"said the man 

 with the feather in his hat band. "I notice your love of 

 melody does not protect the quail to any great extent, 

 when you go up into Connecticut." 



"Excuse me, gentlemen," said a stranger, dressed for 

 a long journey, "but that's where I shoot, and last sea- 

 son I had a queer thing happen to me. I was shooting 

 once at the very tail of the season on the Sound, where 

 birds are not too plenty, and in the light snow we had seen 

 quail tracks and had found where they had flown. We 

 hunted for them high and low, but could not move them, 

 and at last, just before night, we started for home. We 

 had to pass over a sand ridge, from which the dry snow 

 had been blown. As we did so the old dog, who was still 

 working busily ahead of us, came to a point. We walked 

 up, thinking that now we had them, and that we would 

 at least get four barrels into them before dark. But when 

 we got to the dog he was pointing a woodcbuck's hole. 

 We stepped about in front of him, but there was no grass 

 on the ground, nothing but the bare sand, and of 

 course no birds in sight. The dog was pointing straight 

 down the hole. 'Darned ole fool,' said Sam, 'I'll larn ye 

 to pint woodchucks. Here, hold my gun.' I took the 

 gun and he drew out his whip and hit the dog a cut, and 

 as he did so — Br r-r-r-r — the birds rose all about him. I 

 was holding both guns and was so paralyzed that I for- 

 got to shoot, and the birds disappeared in the woods and 

 we never saw them again." 



"Those little incidents do linger in one's memory," put 

 in the man with the setter. "A fellow has some odd ex- 

 periences when he is out." 



"I think the neatest thing in quail shooting I ever 

 came across," said the man from Hackensack, "was 

 something I saw last Saturday, when I was out 'hunting 

 without a gun.' Barnes, from New Brunswick, was 

 visiting me. He is a sportsman, and has hunted game 

 on three continents, but he had never seen any American 

 quail shooting, and he wanted to take a hand at it. I 

 had no dog, but I suggested that we walk out and we 

 might at least flush a bird or two. So we went out and 

 down to our little brook, you know where it is, built us 

 a fire, and settled down to smoke a pipe and talk of game. 

 Barnes was just telling about one of his adventures in 

 Ceylon, when through the bushes I caught sight of a 

 man coming our way; and then I saw that he had a 

 gun and was following a dog. After him came another 

 man. They were heading directly for us, and soon the 

 dog came to a point. I signaled to the man to hold 

 his dog on point, and Barnes and I circled around, 

 and came up pretty near. The birds flushed, the gunner 

 shot both barrels, bringing down two birds wdthin 10ft. 

 of each other; and his companion got a third one and 

 missed with his second. The birds dropped within 30yds. 

 of Barnes and me. The whole thing was just as pretty a 

 bit of quail shooting as I ever saw, and you may imagine 

 how delighted the New Bruhswicker was with it all. 

 Why, if we had had things all our own way and planned 

 out ahead, I couldn't have arranged for him a better ex- 

 hibition of quail shooting as it is shot." 



By this time the ferryboat had reached her slip; the 

 man with the setter found himself and the dog and the 

 chain tangled up with several hundred pairs of legs; and 

 the others lost sight of hira in the jam, as they separated 

 to their trains. 



WAYS OF THE WOODCOCK. 



T^HE notes on the habits of the woodcock printed in 

 another column will undoubtedly bring a snrle to 

 the lips of many a reader, yet they are deserving of a 

 thoughtful consideration, which shall winnow r the facts 

 from the fancies. 



We really know very little about the private life of the 

 woodcock, or indeed about that of any of our best known 

 game birds. A few of the most obvious facts with re- 

 gard to each species have been seized and written of so 

 fully that we are all of us prone to think that these few 

 facts comprise all that there is to the bird's life. The 

 same thing — but in a greater degree— is true of the habits 

 of our game animals. Take for example the question of 

 the woodcock's fcoring. How many have seen the bird 

 do this? Of those who have seen the operation, how 

 many have been able to decide for them>elves whether 

 he knows the position of the worm by the sense of touch 

 or that of hearing? The familiar twitter or whistle is 

 another point about this bird concerning which there are 

 diverse opinions. A correspondent a week or two since 

 expressed the confident opinion that it was made by the 

 bird's wings; we believe that it is not made by the wings, 

 and could give reasors which to us appear conclusive. 



"Paul PastnorV theory that the woodcock perforates the 

 ground and then imitates the pattering of rain to induce 

 the worms to visit the surface, appears fanciful in the 

 extreme, but the error may be in his conclusions and not 

 in his observations. At the same time we should like to 

 have a little more testimony as to the distance at which 

 an earthworm is visible, even on a bright moonlight 

 night and through a pair of strong opera glasses. 



We wish that more of our sportsmen would devote a 

 portion of their time to the study of the birds and mam- 

 mals that they pursue with so much ardor, and that the 

 results of their observations might be set down and pub- 

 licly recorded. Almost every man who shoots or fishes 

 much, has seen a great many interesting things which 

 would be of value to others, and these observations ought 

 to be given to those whose tastes lead them in the same 

 direction. It is a remarkable fact that we still lack full 

 and complete life histories of birds so iamiliar as the 

 woodcock, the ruffed grouse and the quail, and of mam- 

 mals so well known as the Virginia deer, the red fcx and 

 the common gray hare. Who will take hold of one of 

 these species and supply the needed book? 



SNAP SHOTS. 



ARTICLES of incorporation were recently filed in 

 Minnesota incorporating the National Park Trans- 

 portation Co. with a capital of $60,000. The names of the 

 incorporators are Charles Gibson, St. Louis; Thomas F. 

 Oakes, St. Paul; George W. Wakefield, Bozeman, and 

 Ella C. Waters of Biliings, Montana. This company has 

 bought out the stage lines and property heretofore be. 

 longing to George W. Wakefield, and will in future oper- 

 ate them under the name of the "National Park Trans- 

 portation Company." J_ 



Charles Harvey Bollman, late museum assistant in the 

 University of Indiana, a young naturalist of great prom- 

 ise, died at Waycross, Georgia, July 13, at the age of 21. 

 Mr. Bollman was at the time acting as assistant to the 

 U. S. Fish Commission, having in charge the work of ex- 

 ploration of the rivers of Georgia. Last year he was 

 employed in the exploration of the lakes of Michigan, 

 and he had previously done a good deal of similar 

 work in Indiana, Arkansas and Florida. Although so 

 young, Mr. Bollman was the author of numerous scien- 

 tific papers on insects and fishes, published chiefly in the 

 Proce dings of the United States National Museum. He 

 was the highest authority in America on Myriapods, and 

 he was one of the few mea in America who had a thor- 

 ough scientific knowledge of fishes. 



In the Michigan Legislature a bill to prohibit the de- 

 posit of sawdust in streams was defeated, as was also a 

 bill, strongly supported, making the game and fish war- 

 den the inspector of all dams and giving him authority to 

 order the erection of fishways. 



Mr. George Sbepard Page has taken to England a large 

 number of American birds, bobolink?, cardinals, Balti- 

 more orioles and nonpareils, which have been liberated 

 ©a English estates. 



