Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, $i a Year. 10 Cts. a Copt. ) 



Six Months, $2. f 



NEW YORK, DECEMBER 27, 1888. 



J VOL. XXXI.-No. 33. 



t No. 313 Broadway, New York. 





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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Restocking with Foreign 

 Game. 



Snap Shots. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



Notes on Western Florida.-viii 

 Natural History. 



The Little Chief Hare. 



An Interesting Hybrid. 



Grasshoppers and Hawks. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



Shooting Clubs of Chicago.— 

 No. 1. 



Ducks by the Barrelful. 



Adirondack Deer. 



A Deer's Tenacity of Life. 



Chicago and the West. 



The Woodcock Supply. 

 Camp-Fire Flickerings. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



The Rod and Reel Association. 



The Sunset Ciub. 



Deep-Sea Fishing and Hunt- 

 ing. 



Charlotte Harbor. 

 Trout Poaching in Maine. 



FlSHCULTURH. 



Effect of Sawdust on Fish. 

 The Kennel. 

 Robins Island Club. 

 New England Fox Hunting. 



The Kennel. 



The Hempstead Rabbit Bait- 

 ing. 



The Dachshund. 

 Dog Talk. 



Westminster Kennel Club. 

 Disease of Liver in Dogs- 

 Jaundice. 

 American Kennel Register. 

 Kennel Notes. 

 Kennel Management. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 

 Range and Gallery. 

 The Trap. 



Decoration Day Trophy. 

 Canadian Trap Notes. 

 Yachting. 

 Fixtures for 1889. 

 The Corinthian Mosquito 

 Fleet. 



The Royal Canadian and 



Toronto Y. C. 

 Watertube Boilers. 

 Canoeing. 

 Nicken. 



The Improvement of Canoe 

 Sails. 



The White Squall's 1887 Cruise 

 Brooklyn C. C. 

 An Imperfect Cruising Outfit 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



RESTOCKING WITH FOREIGN GAME. 



YEARS ago "Nessmuk" said "the game must go." He 

 was right. It is going, and much more rapidly than 

 most people appreciate. 



It has long been apparent that the day is not so very- 

 far distant when there will be nothing left alive for the 

 gunner to shoot at. Our feathered game has lasted longer 

 than might have been expected, when we consider the 

 number of those who pursue it, and the utter contempt 

 felt by a considerable proportion of these gunners for the 

 laws looking to the perpetuation of our game supply. 

 Each year the destruction exceeds the annual increase. 



The failure to enforce the game laws increases the de- 

 struction and lessens the game supply. The gunner who 

 does not respect the law nor use his influence to have it 

 enforced suffers from the lessened supply of game, but 

 with him suffers also that large and ever increasing class 

 who are themselves law-abiding and who do their best to 

 make the law respected and to have it observed. The 

 lawbreakers deserve to suffer, but it seems hard that 

 those who respect the law should be punished for the 

 wrongdoings of other. 



Until a public sentiment compelling a more general 

 observance of our game laws can be awakened there 

 seems little prospect that there can be any great increase 

 in the number of our native game birds. It is possible, 

 however, to greatly improve the shooting in many locali- 

 ties, though to do so will take time and money and re- 

 quire a certain amount of self-restraint on the part of 

 the shooting public. The introduction of exotic game 

 birds is a slow and expensive method of restocking our 

 depleted covers, but it has met with such remarkable 

 success in certain localities on this continent as to make 

 It worth while for all sportsmen to seriously consider 

 whether it shall not be generally tried. Arguments 

 to show that foreign birds will do well in certain parts of 

 North America have been often advanced, and it is 

 scarcely necessary to repeat them. Instead of arguments 

 a, few facts may be given, 



Some years ago the English partridge was introduced 

 into New Jersey. The birds turned out did well, bred, 

 and the young grew to maturity, but as no effort was 

 made to protect those outside of the preserves during the 

 shooting season, they disappeared, probably all finding 

 their way into the gunners' bag, and have not recently 

 been heard of. 



The so-called English pheasant has been introduced in 

 many sections of the country, and in some localities it 

 has done extremely well and has furnished grand sport. 

 In the year 1881 nineteen of these birds were turned 

 out on the outskirts of the City of Victoria , on Vancouver 

 Island, B. C. For five years they were protected by law, 

 and this law was quite generally respected. The first 

 season the law was off it was estimated that 1,000 birds — 

 almost all cocks, for it is still forbidden to destroy the 

 hens — were killed, and the second season the score 

 was about as great. Toward the end of the shooting 

 season the birds become so cunning that it is almost im- 

 possible to get a shot at them. 



The importation of a number of Chinese pheasants by 

 Mr. Denny, and their liberation on an island in Puget 

 Sound is still fresh in the minds of the public. These 

 birds were protected for a term of years and they are 

 said to have thriven and increased wonderfully. In fact 

 the farmers on the mainland, whose lands they have in- 

 vaded, have come to look upon them as a curse on ac- 

 count of the damage which they cause to the crops. 



Attempts t© introduce the English pheasant on the coast 

 have been less successful, mainly because the birds, though 

 well cared for in their preserves, have not received gen- 

 eral protection. Those birds which have escaped from 

 the private lands where they were originally turned out 

 have most of them been destroyed by gunners, and the 

 species has never been able to acquire a foothold as a 

 wild bird. In New Jersey and in Maryland there is little 

 that is encouraging to report about these birds outside of 

 preserves. In Georgia, however, on Jekyll Island, where 

 they can be protected from outside shooting by the ciub 

 which owns the island, the pheasants at last accounts 

 were doing well, and there were more than 600 wild birds 

 at liberty, besides a number that are kept up for breeding 

 purposes. 



We understand that in Maine a lot of pinnated grouse 

 were turned out a few years ago and protected by a three 

 or four years close season. Contrary to the predictions 

 expressed by many people these birds flourished and 

 increased, and this autumn, we are told, one gentleman 

 killed thirty or forty of them. There seems to be no 

 doubt that the pinnated grouse might do almost as well 

 anywhere on the Atlantic' coast. But they must be pro- 

 tected for a while. 



On the island of Newfoundland two years ago a lot of 

 black-game were turned out by Mr. Robert Langrishe- 

 Mare. About forty birds were liberated in two places. 

 The Legislature protected them by a five years' law, 

 which is respected on all hands. These superb birds ap- 

 pear to have done extremely well, and are thought to 

 have greatly increased, for they have been seen on the 

 other side of the island as if they had made their way 

 across it. 



The migratory quail was imported to this country, 

 turned loose without protection, and has disappeared. 

 The same is true of the English pheasant, and of the 

 English partridge where not preserved. On the other 

 hand the English pheasant, certain species of Chinese 

 pheasants, the pinnated grouse and the European black- 

 game have been introduced in various parts of the coun- 

 try, and wherever protected have thriven and greatly in- 

 creased. 



With these facts before them, those interested can draw 

 their own conclusions as to the possibilities of increasing 

 our present game supply, 



SNAP SHOTS. 



ONE thing to be said of private game preserves, in 

 behalf of the public benefit accruing from them, is 

 that they foster a game supply which often overspreads 

 the preserve boundaries, and thus furnishes sport for out 

 siders. A case in point is that of the Country Club of 

 Westchester county, New York, who some time ago 

 posted an extensive tract of land, and turned out quail in 

 it. The birds have stocked all the country round about, 

 and gunners report better shooting in the vicinity than 

 for many years previous. No sensible person will ever 

 object to posted land, provided there is a free range near 

 by. Fences cannot be built so high that the birds wi] 1 



not fly over them; nor has any genius yet devised a 

 scheme to clip the wings and restrain the flight of grouse 

 and quail. Thus outsiders come in for a share even of 

 the expensive European pheasants and partridges put 

 out in American preserves. 



The bond of sympathy which unites the followers of 

 shooting and fishing is so strong that it would seem as if 

 anglers and gunners as a class would be admirably fitted 

 to unite in social clubs. The good fellowship is one 

 potent element of strength in associations organized 

 ostensibly and primarily for game protection effort; and 

 as has more than once been suggested clubs purely social 

 might be formed, the requisite of admission to which 

 should be the quality of sportsmanship. This was a 

 favorite plan of Col. Thomas Picton, who, it will be re- 

 membered, is one of the survivors of that circle of 

 which Frank Forester was the light. Colonel Picton's 

 notion was that if a club room were provided where 

 members could exchange their hunting and fish- 

 ing stories, the membership roll would soon be 

 filled and the list of applicants constantly overflowing, 

 It is easily seen that, rightly conducted, such a club 

 might be prosperous; but there are many qualities, other 

 than those pertaining to a taste for field sports, to be 

 considered in determining an individual's fitness for club 

 companionship. There are men who are royal good 

 fellows and most entertaining story tellers, the first time 

 you hear their stories; but who after a while, as with 

 certain companions in camp, become nothing more nor 

 less than bores with their same old stories told over and 

 over again. No more acute torture could be devised than 

 that of being hemmed in in a club room corner and com- 

 pelled for the forty-ninth time to hear the tale of how A 

 caught his monster bass or B "downed" his deer. 



A question of construction of law has been raised. In 

 certain waters, where it is permitted to shoot ducks from 

 a battery, it is forbidden to "sail for" them. Certain 

 gunners have hit upon the plan of secreting themselves 

 in batteries and then engaging boats to sail down on the 

 fowl and drive them to the batteries. It is a mooted 

 point whether this is legitimate battery shooting or illegi- 

 timate "sailing for" ducks. On the one side it is contended 

 that the law against sailing for ducks strictly construed 

 means to forbid their being killed from sailing crart; and 

 on the other hand it is urged that the combination of bat- 

 tery and sailing craft is not the usual battery shooting, 

 and violates in spirit if not in letter the prohibition of 

 sailing. The point is one of those which are to be settled 

 only by the courts. 



Since our notes on game introduction were in type 

 comes a report from Mr. Otto Plock's pig preserve in the 

 Neversink Valley. Some time ago Mr. Plock brought 

 over from the Black Forest a litter of five wild hogs, and 

 put them out in the fastnesses near Guymard, where it 

 is said they have grown in cunning and ferocity until 

 now they show a formidable front to man and dog. 

 It is said that Mr. Plock's chief purpose in stocking up 

 with boars was to reduce the surplus of rattlesnakes on 

 his domain. 



It has been left for Buffalo Bill to project a combina- 

 tion of music, marksmanship and patriotism such as 

 never was witnessed or heard before. He has devised 

 a set of targets, each one connected with a piano key, 

 whereby, standing at 100yds., the marksman may put 

 his shots into the bullseyes and play Yankee Doodle. 



A number of extremely interesting expressions of 

 opinion on the. Long Island fox-terrier rabbit business 

 have been received and will be published in our next 

 issue, together with some further communications 

 respecting the ethics of fox hunting as practiced in New 

 England. 



The series of papers descriptive of the shooting clubs 

 of Chicago, which is begun in this issue, will prove very 

 interesting reading. We have in store a number of wild- 

 fowl shooting sketches, for early publication. 



There is much complaint among Ohio sportsmen at the 

 want of a law to forbid the use of ferrets in rabbit killing. 

 The f erreters are booming things all their own way, and 

 the deadly practice is rapidly clearing out the rabbits. 



Our next issue will contain a full page portrait of 

 the Forest and Stream's grizzly now in the bear pit 

 in Central Park. The drawing is. by Ernest E, Thompson, 



