Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cm a Copt. ) 



Six Months, $2. f 



NEW YORK, JANUARY 17, 1889. 



1 VOL. XXXI.— No. 26. 



( No. 318 Broadway, New Fork. 





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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Free-For-AIl Matches. 



Creedmoor's Enlarged Scope. 



The Boone and Crockett Club. 



Snap Shots. 

 The Sportsman Touhist. 



A Breath from the Maine 

 Woods. 

 Natural History. 



Washington Notes. 



The Super-Sense of Animals. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



A Water Haul, 



Diminution of the Ducks. 



Massachusetts Association. 



Deer Shooting in Newfound- 

 land. 



Rifles for Small Game. 



Protection in Central New 

 York. 



How Bears are Shot. 



Chicago and the West. 



Boone and Crockett Club 

 Meeting. 



New York Legislature. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



Fox River Fish and Game 

 Association. 



landlocked and Atlantic Sal- 

 mon. 



Rubbish in the Thames. 

 Lake and Brook Trout Hy brid. 

 Experience with the Steel Rod 

 "The Coinpleat Angler." 

 Protection for the Delaware. 



FlSHCULTURE. 



Menhaden Oil and Guano 



Association. 

 Stocking the Passaic River. 

 The Kennel. 

 The Troy Dog Show. 

 New England Fox Hunting. 

 Coursing. 



Indiana Field Trials. 

 Responsibility for Entries at 



Dog Shows. 

 Salisbury's Pedigree. 

 St. Bernard Club Cups. 

 Dog Talk. 

 Omaha Dog Show. 

 Canadian Kennel Club of 



Canada. 

 Kennel Notes. 

 Kennel Management. 

 Riele and Trap shooting. 

 Range and Gallerv. 

 The New York Tribune Match. 

 The Trap. 



Kansas State Badge Shoot. 

 Average Club Scores for Sea- 

 son. 



Canadian Trap Notes. 

 Yachting. 

 Tip, Tough. Brother and the 



Harry Leslie. 

 Orinda. 



Building Notes, Etc. 

 Canoeing. 



The New Royal C. C. Rules. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



THE BOONE AND CROCKETT CLUB. 

 HPHE Boone and Crockett Club is doing a good work. 



As will be remembered, this association, which was 

 founded only about a year ago, is made up of American 

 riflemen who use the arm in hunting big game. 



The objects of the club as announced in its constitution 

 are these: 



(1) To promote manly sport with the rifle. 



(2) To promote travel and exploration in the wild and 

 unknown or but partially known portions of the country. 



(3) To work for the preservation of the large game of 

 this country, and, so far as possible, to further legislation 

 for that purpose and to assist in enforcing the existing 

 laws. 



(4) To promote inquiry into, and to record observations 

 on the habits and natural history of the various wild 

 animals. 



(5) To bring about among the members the interchange 

 of opinions and ideas on hunting, travel and exploration, 

 on the various kinds of hunting rifles, on the haunts of 

 game animals, etc. 



The club has as yet made no formal statement of 

 what has been accomplished toward forwarding these 

 objects, but from what is known of its members we may 

 feel sure that some work has been done, and that before 

 very long some results of the club's labors will be an- 

 nounced. It is not of this phase of the club's influence 

 that we purpose now to speak. There is another, and an 

 unconscious work that it is doing which is perhaps not 

 less important. 



Among the members of the Boone and Crockett Club 

 are a number of men whose large wealth enables them to 

 indulge to the fullest extent their fondness for hunting. 

 In the past the worst enemies that the great game of the 

 West has had, excepting, of course, the "skinners" and 

 the meat hunters, have belonged to just this class. 



Whether English or American, these wealthy young 

 fellows who are fond of the delights of hunting have 

 gone West, hired their retinues of guides and packers, 

 and have started off on butchering expeditions. Such 

 men had not the excuse of the meat hunter nor of the 

 skinner," each of whom carried on his revolting work 

 for actual material gain, while the wealthy hunter did 

 his slaughtering in pure wantonness. The English sports- 

 man, so-called, has, perhaps, rather more to answer for 

 in this line than the American, but we believe that there 

 is not much to choose between the two. A great many 

 of those who offend in this way against the laws of sports- 

 manship and decency, do so through thoughtlessness 

 and ignorance. This does not excuse their offenses, but 

 it renders it less difficult to ma ke them understand that 

 their murderous practices are unworthy of gentlemen or 

 of sportsmen. 



The Boone and Crockett Club is composed of men of 

 social standing, whose opinion is worth regarding and 

 whose influence is widely felt in the best classes of 

 society. This club discountenances the bloody methods 

 of all game butchers without regard to occupation, wealth 

 or social status, and no man who is guilty of slaughter- 

 ing game can expect consideration from, or fellowship 

 with, its members. These members are not slow to express 

 their views about the folly and the wrong of wanton 

 butchery, and their opinions on sport are therefore spread 

 among that very class which in the past has given most 

 offense in this respect. That within the last year or two 

 a considerable change of sentiment has been brought 

 about among men who have heretofore been very destruc- 

 tive to game seems quite certain. Those who used to boast 

 of their slaughter are how ashamed of it, and it is becom- 

 ing a recognized fact that a man who wastef ully destroys 

 big game, whether for the market, or only for heads, has 

 nothing of the true sportsman about him. 



As the Boone and Crockett Club increases in age and 

 influence this feeling will become more general, and 

 those who in the past have desired only to kill will come 

 to see that there is something higher and better in big 

 game hunting than the mere shedding of blood. 



CREEDMOOR'S ENLARGED SCOPE. 



IF Mr. Bernard Walther, who has just been elected a 

 member of the Board of Directors of the National 

 Rifle Association, shall take full advantage of the oppor- 

 tunity afforded him, there is no reason why the range at 

 Creedmoor should not in the near future see a ready 

 comparison of all manner of rifle shooting. To date, the 

 National range managers have frowned down the sort of 

 arms preferred by the German-American shooters. The 

 ten-pound limit of weight and the three-pound trigger 

 pull for rifles demanded by the rules of the Association 

 shut out the weapons used by the members of the various 

 Schiitzen bodies. The election of Mr. Walther would go 

 to show that the rule is to be relaxed , and it would require 

 very little effort on his part, we think, to so modify the 

 rules that those who prefer the heavy rifles and the 

 quick pull would find opportunities and facilities for 

 practice at Creedmoor. 



Mr. Walther may speak as a fairly representative man; 

 he has leisure and ability. He knows precisely what 

 riflemen want in the way of facilities, for he stands in 

 the front rank as a marksman, and he has had such a 

 wide experience as a member and officer of shooting 

 socfeties and clubs that he can speak with authority for 

 a very large clientele. 



Despite the fears of those who imagine that should 

 Creedmoor pass under State supervision it will become a 

 forbidden ground to certain shots, we incline to the be- 

 lief that it will rather be the other way. One of the first 

 things the Inspector General of Rifle Practice should 

 order is a shooting house at the 200yds. range. Properly 

 arranged it w r ould make a safe place for any sort of 

 shooting, and it would be a novel and a welcome sight if 

 a company of the old style muzzleloading rest shooters 

 should pay a visit to Creedmoor and find there proper 

 facilities for a trial of their peculiar fashion of burning 

 powder behind bullets. 



What Creedmoor has needed and what it has not here- 

 tofore had is such an arrangment of butts and firing 

 points as would permit shooting of any sort. There is no 

 reason why it should not have been a popular place for 

 trap-shooting contests, but if it should be objected that 

 this was not within the line of the Association's work, it 

 must be acknowledged that no objection coiild he lodged 



against giving facilities for a style of shooting which has 

 so many enthusiastic adherents as that followed in the 

 German shooting park. The expense, even of an ex- 

 tended accommodation for this style of shooting, would 

 not be very great, and on such a public range as it is 

 proposed that Creedmoor shall be, it would seem proper 

 and just that all fashion of rifle shooting should find en- 

 couragement. 



FREE-FOR-ALL MATCHES. 

 pARLY last fall the New York Tribune thought it 

 would do a semi generous act in offering prizes for 

 a test at rifle shooting. To make the trial as fruitful as 

 possible it threw the contest open to everybody, and more 

 than a hundred went in for glory and cash. When the 

 returns came in the shooting expert of the Tribune was 

 staggered. He had expected to find some good shooters 

 among them, but he had not expected to find such a 

 batch of perfection as came trooping in for first place. 

 When a perfect score off-hand is made at Creedmoor or 

 any other regular record range, it is a matter for com- 

 ment and w T ide talk, but here were a half-dozen farmer 

 lads who went behind the barn, paced off 200yds., and 

 then, with seemingly no effort at all, placed 10 shots in 

 an eight-inch circle. 



The generous donor of the prizes was in a quandary 

 and tried to make the public share in the expressed belief 

 that the shooting had not been a test of the elasticity of 

 the shooters' consciences, but a bona fide test of the 

 steady arms and clear eyes of the marksmen. When 

 asked to step forward and make a public exhibition of 

 then" skill, the phenomenal shooters largely declined and 

 crept behind trifling excuses. 



The odd part of this experience is that the Tribune is 

 going to repeat it. This time there are to be rules and 

 regulations to insure honesty as well as other equal 

 conditions. Perhaps this time there may not be a long 

 trail of doubt following the announcement of alleged 

 results, but it will be exceptional if the Tribune can 

 reverse the general experience and throw down a free- 

 for-all purse and not evoke a great deal of very queer 

 scoring in the returns. The intent may be good, but the 

 Tribune is throwing strong temptations around very 

 recklessly, while so far as scores go its results are utterly 

 valueless. ' 



SNAP SHOTS. 



SHOOTING, fishing and land speculation are not impos- 

 sible combinations; in fact there are many practical 

 examples of the union of sport and profits realized or 

 anticipated. Our columns last week noted a club of 

 Philadelphia sportsmen who have just completed negoti- 

 ations for some Texas property which is now adapted for 

 shooting preserve purposes, and in the future, the inves- 

 tors hope, will advance in value and yield returns on the 

 investment. There is a certain Adirondack club which 

 has taken up some of the choicest bits of all that charm- 

 ing region; and while now content to raise a revenue by 

 levying toll on those who travel the public road, and by 

 taxing parties so much per night for the privilege of 

 camping out in the wilderness, it is generally understood 

 that the club enterprise is nothing more nor less than a 

 land speculation. The promoters of this scheme have 

 designs on the Legislature at Albany; they ask special 

 privileges on the ground that they are a game-protective 

 and forest-guarding association; but they ought not, 

 simply because of these pretensions, to be given favor 

 above other land speculators, who make no claims to 

 philanthropy. 



The feeling that game should have a fair show is at 

 the basis of very many tenets of the sportsman's creed, 

 which would otherwise be fanciful and meaningless. 

 What is the root of the regard for angling skill with fine 

 tackle but the pitting of skill against clumsiness? For 

 the greater the skill the greater the presumption that 

 with the finer tackle the fish has more chance to escape. 



This is the season when legislatures convene and mon- 

 gerers of all manner of cranky notions come to the front. 

 In Connecticut a granger has bobbed up with a proposal 

 for a law to provide that all owners of dogs when having 

 the canines registered shall file a bond for $500 as surety 

 for damages which may be caused by the dogs. 



We have more correspondemce on the New England fox 

 hunting, which is interesting and will be published next 

 week. 



