Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, $4 a Tear. 10 Cts. a Copy. 1 

 8rx Months, §2. ( 



NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 27, 1888. 



I VOL. XXXI.-No. 10. 



I No. 318 Broadway, New Vork, 



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New York City. 



CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



A Story of Destruction. 



Retaliation. 



Silas Stearns. 



The "Al Fresco" Fund. 

 The Sportsman Tod hist. 



Echoes from the Mt-xic Gulf. 



Glimpses of the Continent. 



Some Woods Characters.-n. 

 Natdrad Historv. 



The Sewellels, the Beavers, 

 and the Muridse. 



Blacksnakes. 

 Game Bag and Gdn. 



Rifles for Small Game.-in. 



Uun-shy Dan and the Chick- 

 ens. 



Adirondack Deer and Hounds. 

 Notes from Chicago. 

 Tompkins County Game. 

 Bears in Maine. 

 Days with the Partridges. 

 The Connecticut Association. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 

 Maine Fishing. 

 Two Good Men Gone Wrong. 

 Chicago. 



Some Bass Records. 



FlSHCBDTITRE. 



Co-operation in Fishculture-n 

 Frog Culture. 



The Romance of Rodenbauer. 



The Kenned. 

 Syracuse Dog Show. 

 Indiana Field Trials. 

 Beagles. 

 Standard of Points for Scbip- 



perkes. 

 Dog Talk. 



Another One Nailed. 

 American Kennel Register. 

 Kennel Notes. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 

 Range and Gallery. 

 The Trap. 



The Eastern Circuit. 

 The Keystone Tournament. 

 Our Tournament Bepotts. 

 Forest and Stream Gun Tests. 

 Yachting. 

 New York Y. C. Fall Regatta. 

 A New Yacht on the Norton 



System. 

 The St. Lawrence Yachting 



Association. 

 Orinda. 

 Canoeing. 

 The A. C. A. Meet of 1888. 

 A. C. A. Regatta Rules, etc.— 



Suggestions. 

 Springfield Cup— Final Trial 



Race. 



Brooklyn C. C. Fall Regatta. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



RETALIATION. 

 ^I^HE fisheries imbroglio between the United States and 

 Canada has hitherto been confined to the commer- 

 cial sea fisheries. The Canadians have stoutly declined 

 to grant American fishermen certain privileges in Can- 

 adian seas; but the Provinces have been ready enough to 

 admit American anglers to the trout streams and salmon 

 rivers of the Dominion. Americans, as individuals and 

 clubs, are holders of leases covering extensive territory 

 in Canada; they control a large number of the best fish- 

 ing grounds there. They pay well for their privileges, 

 and while a certain amount of dissatisfaction at this has 

 been expressed by individuals, the general feeling in 

 Canada it one of willingness to exchange salmon and 

 trout fishing privileges for American greenbacks at cur- 

 rent rates of exchange. 



The recent discussion of the fisheries treaty and the 

 talk of retaliatory measures to be adopted the United 

 States have had the effect of fostering whatever preju- 

 dice existed across the border against American lessees 

 of angling rights; and we hear it bruited that if retali- 

 ation ever becomes more than talk the Canadian Par- 

 liament will be asked to enact a law declaring that 

 only naturalized British subjects shall be allowed to fish 

 in Canadian waters. The possibility of securing the en- 

 actment of such a measure is now discussed in Montreal 

 and elsewhere. If a law of that purport were to be en- 

 acted, it is easily seen that it would seriously affect very 

 many Americans who now hold Canadian leases, both 

 individuals and clubs, as the Restigouche, St. Marguerite 

 and others. It would certainly cut off from Canada a 

 large revenue now derived from these lessees, but on the 

 other hand, those whe are talking of the measure, reason 

 that Canadian and British anglers stand ready to take up 

 the leases of salmon and trout streams at a moment's 

 notice. 



We are quite free to say that we do not believe any 

 such retaliatory law will ever be enacted, even should the 

 United States enforce retaliation against Canada. In 



leasing to American anglers, the Canadian authorities 

 have been governed in the past by business principles 

 they leased to Americans, not because they preferred 

 American to Canadian lessees, but because the Americans 

 were ready to put up the money. They will be governed 

 by the same principles in the future, retaliation or no re 

 taliation. When the Canadians have territory to lease to 

 sportsmen and anglers, they come down to the Boston 

 New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and other American 

 cities as a matter of course. 



It is here they find the men and the money for their 

 lands and waters, and it is here that they will come in 

 the future in quest of more men and more money. And 

 retaliation or no retaliation, the Indian and half-breed 

 and Canuck guides in the wilds will rejoice as much as 

 ever to see the color of the "Boston man's" wealth. 



There are other considerations than this one of mere 

 money. How many Americans are there to whom an 

 angling excursion in Canada means the renewing of 

 old friendships cemented by many a day and week of 

 pleasant fellowship with Canadian brothers of the craft. 

 It will take an iron-clad law and a whole army of police 

 to sever these friendships or break up the annual re- 

 newals of good will in the camps on Canadian lakes and 

 rivers. 



A STORY OF DESTRUCTION. 

 TN the Smithsonian department of the Cincinnati Ex- 

 position there is now to be seen a startling exhibit. It 

 is a collection of objects which have been brought to- 

 gether by Mr. W. T. Hornaday, to illustrate and impress 

 upon the mind of the observer the fact that nearly all of 

 our most conspicuous and interesting game quadrupeds 

 are rapidly being exterminated, and will soon disappear 

 forever. The lesson it teaches is both impressive and 

 saddening to every lover of animated nature, and like all 

 the lessons taught by the National Museum collections, 

 it is strictly true. 



The most prominent feature of the exhibit is a series 

 of mounted specimens representing the species of Ameri- 

 can mammals which have become extinct (in a wild state, 

 at least), and also those which are now approaching ex- 

 tinction. The buffalo, Californian sea elephant and West 

 Indian seal are represented as having become extinct in a 

 wild state, with the exception of perhaps a score of 

 stragglers which the hunters have not yet found. In the 

 series of species threatened with speedy extirpation are 

 found the mountain sheep, mountain goat, elk, a fine 

 group of antelopes of various ages, the moose, caribou, 

 blacktail deer, beaver, otter, sea otter, walrus and grizzly 

 bear. 



The story of the great buffalo slaughter is very graph- 

 ically told. A mounted specimen and a series of superb 

 photographic enlargements of the various specimens com- 

 posing the large mounted group in the National Museum 

 represent the species as it once flourished. Opposite these 

 hang ano'her series of pictures, three of which are large 

 •oil paintings, illustrating the methods employed in the 

 destruction of the buffalo. The first is a representation 

 of the "Chase on Horseback," which the label declares to 

 have been the only fair and sportsmanlike mode of hunt- 

 ing ever practiced by either reds or whites. Next to this 

 hangs a magnificent oil painting, executed by special 

 order by J. H. Moser, of Washington, entitled "The Still 

 Hunt." This represents the typical still-hunter, who 

 killed buffalo by the hundred, for hides worth a dollar 

 each. The hunter is lying flat on the ground at the top 

 of a ridge "pumping" bullets from a Sharps rifle at a 

 bunch of buffalo, on which he has "got a stand." A 

 dozen or more have fallen, but the stupid brutes stand 

 there in wonder, while the remorseless butcher pours in 

 the bullets of death. In the distance, a snowy plain, 

 backed by snow-clad mountains, is "black with buffalo," 

 to the number of ten thousand or more. The picture is 

 a very striking and truthful representation of the method 

 by which the destruction of seven or eight million buffalo 

 was accomplished in a few short years. 



Other pictures in this series represent the other methods 

 employed in killing buffalo, chiefly by Indians, such as 

 impounding, hunting on snowshoes, hunting in disguise, 



the surround," etc. On three large flat screens are 

 shown samples of "the objects for which the buffalo was 

 exterminated. " One is a skin of - a large buffalo bull , and 

 another is a cowskin, both in a raw state, just as they 

 came from "the range," where the former sold for the 

 insignificant sum of $1.25 and the latter brought even 

 less. A third specimen is a bull hide, taken in the 



summer when almost bare of hair, for use as leather, and 

 having only about half the value of the robe. The label 

 attached to this specimen fitly characterizes the hunters 

 who killed buffaloes in summer for hides as "greedy 

 wretches." 



Last come two objects to show what remains of our 

 most valuable American quadruped. On a section of 

 Montana prairie, eight feet by ten, lies the complete 

 skeleton of a large buffalo bull, just as it was found 

 bleaching on the range, and just as ten thousand others 

 lie to-day. The powerful action of the weather has 

 stripped every particle of flesh from the bones, and left 

 *hem clean and white, but still, attached to each other by 

 their dried-up ligaments, the legs in position precisely as 

 the animal fell. It is a ghastly object, and surely must 

 awaken a feeling of remorse in the breast of every old 

 buffalo hunter who comes face to face with it as he 

 passes along the main aisle. Hanging near it is another 

 large oil painting by Moser, entitled, "Where the Millions 

 Have Gone." It represents a scene on the Montana buf- 

 falo range as it is to-day. A wide plain is covered with 

 bleaching buffalo skeletons, similar to the actual skele- 

 ton already mentioned, as weird and ghastly a scene as 

 could be found anywhere outside a enamel house. 



One of the most startling features of this strange dis- 

 play is a lot of seventy tanned skins of the rare and little- 

 known Rocky Mountain goat, which the label explains 

 were purchased in New York, fully tanned and dressed, 

 at $1.50 each, and originally sold in Denver at fifty cents 

 each, to be made into sheep rugs and mats. This shows 

 what railroads and breechloaders are doing for the game 

 o£ the West. When it is possible for the pot-hunters to 

 get at even the mountain goat in its remote and danger- 

 ous fastnesses, kill them by the score and sell their hides 

 at fifty cents each, we can count on our fingers the number 

 of years within which the total extinction of this rare and 

 interesting quadruped is likely to be accomplished, in this 

 country at least. Western newspapers occasionally report 

 hunters as hauling in a wagon load of mountain goats at 

 a time. The Cincinnati lot includes the pelts of adult 

 males and females and young of all ages, even to kids. 

 If the members of State and Territorial legislatures in 

 the West could see this lot of skins and read the descrip- 

 tive label attached to it, they might be induced to pass a 

 protective law that would really protect these animals, 

 and others also, from such purposeless and wanton 

 destruction. 



The final feature of this unique exhibit is a collection 

 of "weapons of destruction," which includes specimens 

 of nearly all the sporting rifles that have been used 

 against American game, from the old Harper's Ferry 

 flintlock down to the latest and deadliest patterns of 

 repeating breechloaders. 



THE 11 AL FRESCO " FUND. 

 Editor Forest and Stream : 



Let "Onondaga" contribute a trifle toward the "Al Fresco" 

 fund. I would that it might be an hundred fold greater. 1 

 cannot refrain from an opportunity to show the esteem I feel 

 for "Al Fresco," both as a personal friend and as one of the 

 truest sportsmen America has ever known. The gloom that 

 overspreads fair Jacksonville extends even above these moun- 

 tain tops, for among the list of stricken I remember many 

 friends with whom I have cast the line, raised the gun and 

 traversed Florida waters. Should you publish the list of 

 donors let mine be as "Onondaga," as the Doctor will recog- 

 nize that as coming from me through our common medium, 

 Forest and Stream. Onondaga. 

 Cranberry Lake, Adirondacks. 

 ["Onondaga's" check tor $10 has been forwarded.] 



Trap Shooting Classification is a subject now much'' 

 discussed. There is a call for some system of shooting 

 which will give all contestants a fair chance. Too many 

 clubs have gone to rack and ruin because the rest of the 

 members have tired of putting up money for two or three 

 of the best shots to win. Classification according to rec- 

 ord remedies this in some cases, but the Chamberlin 

 tournaments have demonstrated that the experts can 

 grab all the money in a big meet by pooling. What is 

 to be the way out of this? 



The Maine Commissioners are so thoroughly con- 

 vinced of the good results of keeping the dogs out of the 

 woods that they believe the Maine deer supply would 

 take care of itself without protection from August to 

 January, were the dog law enforced to the letter, 



