Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copt. 1 

 Six Months, $2. f 



NEW YORK, AUGUST 9, 1888. 



1 VOL. XXXI.-No. 8. 



I No. 318 Broadway, New yoRK. 



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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Mr.Belmont'sDesperate Dodge 



The Park Bill in the House. 



Snap Shots. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



Canoeing and Fishing on the 

 St. John. 



Early Days on the Missouri.-in 

 Natural History. 



To a Brown Linnet (poetry). 



The United States Rodentia. 



Rattlesnake Venom Antidote. 



Notes from a Canoe. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



The Grouse and Squirrels.-ui. 



Turkeys in the Nation. 



Adirondack Abominations. 



Dr. Bailey and his Deer. 



Ontario Game Law. 



Wisconsin Deer Law. 

 Camh-Fire Flickerings. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



The Hermitage. 



More About Lake Edward. 



Maine Waters in August. 



Adirondack Trout Record. 

 Fishculture. 



The New York Commission. 



Observations on the Black 

 Bass. 



Fishculture. 



Food of the Fishes of the 

 Mississippi Valley. 

 The Kennel. 



The Two Dog Clubs. 



Dog Talk. 



Indiana Field Trials. 



"Disgruntled Associates." 



"A Bit of Kennel History." 



Bench vs. Field. 



The Buffalo Dog Show. 



Our Boston Show Report. 



Kennel Notes. 



Kennel Management. 

 Riele and Trap Shooting. 



Range and Gallery. 



N. R. A. Programme. 



The Trap. 

 Canoeing. 



Northern Division Meet. 



New York C. C. Cup. 



Fast Traveling in a Canoe. 



Canoeing Notes. 

 Yachting. 



The Lake V. R. A. Round. 



Centerboard Question on the 

 Clyde. 



Yacht Racing Notes. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 

 New Publiications. 



THE PARK BILL IN THE HOUSE. 



IT is impossible to say when the Yellowstone Park bill, 

 recently reported by the Public Lands Committee of 

 the House, will come up for action. When it is called up 

 a sharp fight will no doubt take place over it, and especi- 

 ally over the amendment authorizing the building of a 

 railroad through the Park. This amendment, which is 

 the most outrageous of the many bad changes made in 

 the bill by the House Committee, will be the first one to 

 be attacked, and there is every reason to believe that it 

 can never receive favorable consideration by either branch 

 of Congress. 



It seems strange that a measure which is certain to in- 

 flict irretrievable damage on the Park, and so to meet 

 with the uncompromising opposition of every friend of 

 the reservation, should have been brought forward again. 

 It shows the desperation of the railroad schemers. Does 

 not the lobby remember its defeat two years ago on this 

 question of railroads in the Park? Does it imagine that 

 the temper of the House on this subject has so greatly 

 changed since then? Has Judge Payson forgotten that 

 the sentiment of the members was clearly expressed at 

 that time by a vote in which the majority against his bill 

 was 102 in a vote of 238? It is in the highest degree 

 improbable that there has arisen in the House of Repre- 

 sentatives since that vote was taken any feeling in favor 

 of railroads in the Park which would overcome this 

 majority. In fact, there is every reason to believe that 

 the feeling in favor of protecting the Park by keeping 

 railroads out of it is stronger now than it has ever been 

 before. 



It is said that General Wheeler, who made the report 

 in which were recommended the iniquitous amendments 

 which all those interested in the Park so unhesitatingly 

 condemn, does not agree with the report which the ma- 

 jority of the committee decided should be made. We 

 hope that is the case, and that when the time comes his 

 voice may be heard on the right side of this question, 



The suggestion has been advanced by a very eminent 

 gentleman, one who is deeply interested in the Park* 

 who is familiar with legislative methods, and has occu* 

 pied a seat in the Cabinet at Washington, t*iat it might 

 be better to permit this bill to pass the House, and to 

 trust to its being amended or killed as may seem best in 

 conference committee. This suggestion, from such a 

 source, is worthy of careful consideration, but to our 

 mind it has one fatal objection. 



The House of Representatives has put itself strongly 

 on record as opposed to any project to permit railroad 

 encroachment in the National Park. If it should pasa 

 this bill it would stand committed in favor of such en- 

 croachment. A vote to authorize the granting of the 

 right of way to a railroad Up the Yellowstone River 

 would be construed by the various corporations which are 

 anxious to build into the Park as a notification that the 

 House has changed its views on this subject and is now 

 willing to tear down the barrier's of protection which 

 have up to this time surrounded the reservation. If 

 Congress shall grant permission to one railroad to enter 

 the Park it can scarcely deny such permission to another. 

 A flood of bills asking similar rights would be introduced 

 by various corporations, and these rights the House could 

 not logically refuse. The passage of the first bill would 

 be the entering wedge. The first stroke of the hammer 

 which drives a spike in the Yellowstone Park will be the 

 death blow to that reservation. 



It seems, therefore, far better that the bill should be 

 defeated in the House than that it should pass with this 

 disastrous railroad amendment as a part of its text, even 

 though this provision should be struck out in conference 

 committee. If this particular amendment can be thrown 

 out, and the remaining portion of the bill passed, no great 

 harm will be done perhaps, and we may hope to see the 

 many crudities of the amended bill somewhat modified 

 in conference committee; but the first thing to be done, 

 and the one on which everything else hinges, is to kill 

 the railroad amendment. This can and will be done, and 

 for this all who are interested in the protection of the 

 National Park should work. 



MR BELMONT'S DESPERATE DODGE. 



WHEN the New England Kennel Club refused to 

 hold its Boston show under American Kennel 

 Club rules last April, Mr. August Belmont, Jr., and his 

 associates in enforcing the autocracy of the American 

 Kennel Club boycotted the show by withholding their 

 dogs. 



In its report of the show the Forest and Stream said: 

 The dog show of the New England Kennel Club held in Boston 

 last week, taken as a whole, was fully up to that of last year, ex- 

 cept perhaps in its financial results. * * * There were 1054 en- 

 tries, fifteen more than last year. In some of the classes the 

 quality was superior to that of any previous show which we have 

 attended, while two or three classes were not quite up to the 

 mark. 



We are not aware that the correctness and fairness of 

 this estimate were ever questioned, until at a recent 

 meeting of the A. K. C. Mr. Belmont asserted that our 

 Boston report was untruthful and misleading, because it 

 represented the show to have been more successful than 

 it actually was. When asked for some substantiation of 

 his assertion, Mr. Belmont in his letter printed last week 

 added a second charge, namely, that the author of the 

 Boston report had purposely made the report misleading 

 and untruthful. Both of these charges we took pains to 

 point out to Mr. Belmont last week were impertinent 

 and void of truth. Now he sends us a reiteration of them ; 

 and instead of submitting anything even to show that he 

 may have been deceived by others into making them, he 

 suggests (and what a deliciously cool suggestion it is — fdf 

 August) that our kennel editor "call upon him" to look at 

 some "written proofs" he professes to have in his posses- 

 sion. Mr. Belmont does not need to be told that, if he 

 has any such "satisfactory written proofs given to him 

 by the best authorities of each special breed," the very 

 best possible use he can make of them is to put them into 

 print. If he can show that he has such "proofs," and 

 was misled by them into making his charge at the 

 A. K. C. meeting, the fact of his having been misled 

 would be accepted in mitigation of the impertinence of 

 the charge, though it would not affect its untruthfulness. 



It is not to be thought that Mr. Belmont was moved to 

 say what he did by any feeling against the Forest and 

 Stream; we are unaware that he has any feeling against 

 the paper powerful enough to induce him to wrongly 



charge it with untruthfulness; and we are quite sure that 

 if he had had any such feeling he would have been astute 

 enough to see that the false charge could not injure the 

 paper, but must injure him. There must have been some 

 other motive for the part he played. 



What is the explanation of Mr. Belmont's extraordin- 

 ary conduct? Why did he make the assertion that the 

 success of Boston's show had been untruth fully reported 

 by us, when he ought to know, as every one else does, 

 that his assertion lacked the first iota of truth? Why did 

 he make the charge at an American Kennel Club meet- 

 ing? Why, when publicly taxed by us with having made 

 a statement not in accordance with the facts, does he rest 

 content under the charge, and evade the issue by silly 

 and mysterious references to "written proofs"? In othel' 

 words, having made a charge notoriously false and inde- 

 fensible, why does Mr. Belmont stick to it through thick 

 and thin? These are questions easily answered. Mr. 

 Belmont is playing a desperate dodge, but not a deep 

 one. 



It has been announced that the Buffalo show will not 

 be given under American Kennel Club rules, but under 

 National Dog Club rules. Mr. Belmont proposes to put 

 Ilia foot down, hard, on the National Dog Club. He has 

 set out to intimidate the Buffalo managers into changing 

 their rules. It is threatened by Mr. Belmont, or agents 

 working for him, that Unless Buffalo throws overboard 

 the National Dog Club, he and his associates will boycott 

 the show. Obviously such a threat will be ineffectual to 

 bulldoze Buffalo unless the managers can be bamboozled 

 into believing that to be boycotted by Mr. Belmont means 

 disaster. To frighten them, therefore, Mr. Belmont 

 boldly asserts that the Boston show, boycotted by him, did 

 not have the success it is credited with in our columns. 

 The argument as presented to the Buffalo managers, and 

 based on a misstatement, is this: Because Boston did not 

 show under American Kennel Club rules, Mr. Belmont 

 boycotted Boston, and Boston (according to Belmont) 

 was injured thereby; and because Buffalo will not show 

 under American Kennel Club rules Mr. Belmont will 

 boycott Buffalo, and Buffalo (according to Mr. Belmont) 

 will be injured thereby. 



The straits to which the President of the American Ken- 

 nel Club is driven, in the endeavor to intimidate Buffalo, 

 thus afford a perfectly satisfactory explanation of his 

 untruthful statement that the Forest and Stream mis- 

 represented the success of the Boston show. It is held 

 by some politicians that a lie well stuck to will do effec- 

 tive campaign work. The event will prove whether or 

 not Mr. Belmont's desperate dodge will accomplish its 

 intended purpose. 



SNAP SHOTS. 



AMONG the candidates for the office of Chief Game 

 Protector of New York are ex-Deputy Controller C. 

 R. Hall, of Albany; J.W.Johnson, of Palatine Bridge, and 

 Hon. Floyd J. Hadley, of Westville Centre. Of the quali- 

 fications of the first two candidates we are not advised, 

 but Mr. Hadley's conspicuous unfitness for the place is 

 demonstrated beyond cavil by his record at Albany with 

 respect to game legislation. To make Mr. Hadley Chief 

 Game Protector would be on a par with the proposition 

 once seriously entertained in some quarters of giving Mr. 

 "Paul" Smith a place on the Fish Commission. It is doubt- 

 less practicable to discover a competent and trustworthy 

 person to whom may be intrusted the game and fish pro- 

 tection interests of this State, and the Commissioners of 

 Fisheries are not in any such desperate strait that they 

 must follow the example of the ancient goodwife who 

 made the fox her goose-herd. 



The regular IT. S. troops attached to the various de- 

 partments are busy just now in the annual contest before 

 the butts for the making up of the various teams and for 

 the determination of the standing of the companies and 

 individuals. There is fine marksmanship displayed at 

 every one of the ranges. From the Presidio, Fort Snell- 

 ing. Fort Leavenworth, Van Couvers Barracks and the 

 lower ranges the reports are most encouraging and go to 

 show that the love of the rifle has taken a firm hold on 

 the bluecoats and that rivalry is running very high. 



The Forest and Stream's report of the lawlessness 

 rampant in the Adirondacks has been widely copied and 

 commented upon. It is recognized as a faithful descrip- 

 tion of the abominable condition of things there. 



