Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



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

 Six Months, §2. I 



NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 26, 1889. 



I VOL. XXXIII.-No. 10. 

 i No 318 Broadway, New York. 



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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



The Author of the "Leather 



Stocking" Tales. 

 Study of Fresh Water Food 



Fishes. 

 Snap Shots. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 

 A Cattle Drive (poetry). 

 Antlers, Fur and Feathers at 

 the Antipodes. 

 Natural History. 

 A Rattlesnake Killer. 

 Birds of Niagara County. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 

 Open Seasons. 



Quail in the Red River Bottom 

 Kansas Misadventures. 

 More Rifle Talk. 

 Pattern and Penetration. 

 Game Notes. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 

 About Guides. 



Susquehanna Bass and Perch. 



Cheap Fishing for "Podgers." 



The Bay of Quinte. 

 Fish culture. 



Sawdust in Streams. 

 The Kennel. 



Toronto Dog Show. 



Elmira Dog Show. 



The Kennel. 

 American Kennel Club Meet 



ing. 

 Field Trials. 



Central Club's Free-for-All. 

 German Dogdom. 

 Dog Talk. 

 Kennel Notes. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 

 Range and Gallery. 

 National Rifle Club. 

 Inter-State Match Wrangle. 

 The Trap. 



Central Illinois Shoot. 

 Connecticut Tournament. 

 St. Paul Tournament. 

 The New Jersey Association. 

 Yachting. 

 The Newport Races. 

 Hesper and Fredonia. 

 A Futuritv Yacht Race. 

 Bay of Quinte Y. C. 

 Mi ramie ni Y. C. 

 Beverlv Y. C. 



The Tnornycroft Water-Tube 

 Boiler. 

 Canoeing. 



Amateur vs. Professional. 



N. Y. Athletic Club's Regatta. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



The "Saginaw Crowd," whose doings in the Indian 

 Territory were set forth in these columns a year ago, 

 will go west next month in their hunting car, equipped 

 with guns and cameras, and it is hinted, a diary. Mr. 

 W, H. Mershon, former secretary of the Michigan Sports- 

 men's Association, and one of the "Crowd," had a suc- 

 cessful grayling fishing trip this year on the Little Man- 

 istee, taking 146 in two days. 



Mi-. C. H. Ames, of Boston, who is a frequent and 

 valued contributor to our columns, is planning for a run 

 down into Maine with rod and gun. Mr. Ames has just 

 withdrawn from the Prang Educational Company to be- 

 come a member of tbe publishing house of D. C. Heath 

 & Co. Mi-. Heath, by the way, shoots a rifle and casts a 

 fly, as in fact do a surprising number of Boston's success- 

 ful business men. 



Mi-. Charles Hallock, who resides in Washington, has 

 been summering in his native town in Massachusetts, 

 where he reports grouse are plenty and double-barreled 

 guns and bird dogs almost unknown. We have a paper 

 from Mr. Hallock in type for next week. 



Capt. L. A. Beardslee, "Piseco," was not long ago dis- 

 cussing ways and means of an expedition against the 

 winninish of Lake St. John; and the next thing we heard 

 he was studying the Forest and Stream series of papers 

 on "Fishing Around New York." This change of pro- 

 gramme was caused by his appointment to the command 

 of the United States Receiving Ship Vermont, at the 

 Brooklyn Navy Yard. It gives us decided pleasure to 

 count "Piseco" among our near neighbors. 



Mr. E. A. Samuels, President of the Massachusetts As- 

 sociation, is now at the Upper Dam, Maine, and reports 

 rainy weather and fishing slow. Mr. Samuels, it is an 

 open secret, has completed the preparation of his mag- 

 nificently illustrated book on salmon and trout fishing, 

 on which he has been engaged several seasons in taking 

 photographic views, 



STUDY OF FRESH-WATER FOOD FISHES. 

 /\NE of the most pressing needs of the day for the 

 ^-^ advancement of fishcultural work in this country 

 is an establishment in which our important fresh- water 

 fishes can be kept for the purpose of observing their 

 habits, learning the best conditions under which they 

 prosper, and the effect of climatic and other changes 

 upon their growth and nature. 



Our ignorance upon these subjects is inexcusable, and 

 as Dr. Gill has said, in speaking of the doubtas to whether 

 it is the male or female black bass that guards the nest, 

 "Certainly, with all the piscicultural establishments in the 

 country, and the large appropriations they enjoy, it is 

 strange that the facts are still unknown, especially as the 

 black basses have been the subjects of long attention and 

 extensive cultivation." This applies equally well to the 

 other important members of this family, the red-eye (Am- 

 bloplites), crappie (Pomoxys), as well as to the perches. We 

 believe that these excellent species can be successfully 

 transplanted to and made to thrive in waters in which 

 they do not at present exist. We also believe that the 

 U. S. Fish Commission, at Washington, should establish, 

 in connection with its extensive aquaria, a series of small 

 ponds in which such fishes as are desirable can be kept 

 for this purpose, not only for a study of their life history, 

 but also for experimentation as to the adaptability of spe- 

 cies to new waters. These ponds could be established and 

 provided with fishes at a nominal cost, and being easy of 

 access would afford students and investigators an excel- 

 lent opportunity to study and observe the fishes under 

 the most favorable conditions, making such work invalu- 

 able. The ponds could be constructed and so sheltered 

 that conditions suitable for species from North and South 

 would be found in Washington, and it seems to us emi- 

 nently proper that the U. S. Fish Commission should 

 carry on this work. 



Col. McDonald, the Commissioner of Fisheries, ex- 

 pressed to us years ago the necessity and pressing need 

 of such work, and it is to be hoped now that he may find 

 time to seriously think of, plan and establish the neces- 

 sary plant looking to a more thorough understanding of 

 the habits and needs of fishes. One of the principal 

 experiments should be made with the sunfish. A ledge 

 placed in the corner of a large aquarium, and arranged 

 so as to repeat the conditions they would have in a state 

 of nature, would enable observers to study and note more 

 accurately the exact habits of this interesting fish while 

 breeding. 



THE "LEATHERSTOCKING" TALES. 



NOTE of the centenary of the birth of James Fenimore 

 Cooper, Sept. 15, has recalled, we dare say, to 

 many a man now on the shady side of fifty, the rare de- 

 light with which many years ago — so many that one 

 hardly dares reckon them — he first made the acquaint- 

 ance of Natty Bumpo; and perhaps the dusty volumes of 

 the "Leatherstocking Tales" have been taken down from 

 their shelf to test if their pages have the charm of those 

 younger days. In a home where there are healthy boys, 

 to be sure, there is small danger that the "Tales" will 

 have accumulated dust; more is the pity if they have; or 

 if their place has been filled by the pestiferous and per. 

 nicious blood-and-thunder trash now in vogue. Certain 

 it is that many a youngster has imbibed from Cooper's 

 chapters his early taste for roughing it and for wood- 

 craft; but no boy ever found in any of the "Tales" the 

 spirit of insubordination to authority and the wild defi- 

 ance of law and order which pervade so much of the 

 literature for the young in these days. That is the dis- 

 tinguishing merit of Cooper over one modern school of 

 writers of adventure. 



Cooper is the American novelist par excellence; his 

 field is the realm of pure romance, and although 

 America has given birth to many and great writers, 

 Cooper is still without a rival in his chosen field. He 

 knew whereof he wrote, he invested the prairie and the 

 ocean, and the life of adventure amid those scenes, where 

 man has to grapple single-handed with the hostile forces 

 of man and nature, with a charm which all men felt, be- 

 cause by elevating heroism he appealed to the sentiment 

 of hero worship latent in every breast. His heroes, too, 

 were heroes cast in a new mould. The points of resem- 

 blance between his "Leatherstocking" and the mailed 

 heroes of Walter Scott are less noticeable than the points 

 of distinction, and yet in "Leatherstocking" we miss none 

 of the attributes of the true hero. And herein lies the 



secret of Cooper's success and the moral of his writings. 

 He endowed his simple backwoodsman with the sterling 

 qualities of truth, courage, self-reliance, and all the 

 attributes of the true hero, stamped him with the impress 

 of nobility, and taught the young nation that nobility is 

 inborn, and not the creation of king or kaiser, who can 

 at most show their recognition of it. 



Apart from the charm of Cooper's works, they are essen- 

 tially wholesome reading, and by their treatment of the 

 free life of adventure in the forest and on the prairie, 

 tend to waken the love of the chase and the craving for 

 free communion with wild nature; and who shall say 

 how much we are indebted to the healthy inspiration of 

 Cooper's writings for rendering field sports popular, and 

 inspiring the fast growing custom of withdrawing from 

 the all-absorbing business of life for a few weeks in the 

 year to recuperate on mountain and prairie, by forest and 

 stream ? 



SNAP SHOTS. 



^pHE State of Massachusetts has a law forbidding the 

 drag, set or gill nets, purse or sweep-seines, in 

 waters of Buzzard's Bay. This law has been rigorously 

 enforced in its application to the home fishermen, and it 

 is said that they approve of the law and hold an opinion 

 that it is beneficial to their interests. The menhaden 

 fishermen from Rhode Island have invaded the bay, and 

 Massachusetts officials have been active in thwarting 

 them. The fishing steamer Joseph Church was recently 

 seized by the police while fishing in the bay, and in con- 

 nection with this case has come up a consideration of the 

 constitutionality of the Massachusetts law. Mr. F. J. 

 Barbour, president of the National Fishery Association 

 in a letter to the owners of the seized vessel, writes: 

 " The real issue is that of jurisdiction, and it seems to me 

 proper to waive all preliminaries possible and obtain the 

 decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, as 

 this case involves not only your vessels, but the entire 

 menliaden business, and the seining operations of the 

 whole American fishing fleet. The fisheries must stand 

 together for equal rights and opportunities to take fish 

 wherever they may find them. Massachusetts may leg. 

 islate for her inland waters, but the fish of the ocean, 

 outside of three miles from tbe shore, are the property of 

 whoever may take them, and inside of the three-mile 

 limit the waters, where navigable, are under the sole 

 jurisdiction of the United States, and the fisheries in 

 them can be regulated only by national legislation." If 

 there is any doubt of the perfect right of a State to con- 

 trol the fishing privileges in its own bays and local waters 

 like those of Buzzard's Bay, the sooner the doubt is set 

 at rest the better. 



The Kansas correspondent, who writes of an expedition 

 to kill prairie chickens in the close season, asks that com- 

 ments on the conduct of his party be withheld; but it 

 would be interesting if not instructive to learn just how 

 this "Dennis" incident is regarded by the average sports- 

 man of Kansas. According to the author, his party set 

 out to kill birds in the close season, knowing that if they 

 waited for the opening day there would be no birds left; 

 and the people who punished them for their violation of 

 the statute were not actuated by any laudable motives, 

 but by a base desire to gratify personal grudges. If this 

 is a true presentation of the state of affairs in Kansas, 

 nothing but a speedy interposition of providence can save 

 the pinnated grouse. 



The concluding instalment of the chronicles of the 

 "Kingfishers" came to hand too late for publication in 

 this issue; it will be given next week. "Kingfisher" does 

 not claim to be a second Izaak Walton, but if the "Com- 

 pleat Angler" were blotted out of existence, a very satis- 

 factory substitute for it could be culled from the philoso- 

 phy of "Old Knots" and the rest of the famous band as 

 set forth in the several "Camps" series. 



The coming of October is looked forward to with rare 

 expectation this week by scores and hundreds and thou- 

 sands of gunners who have been more or less patiently 

 waiting for the law to be off. The unusually heavy foli- 

 age this season will be an element in favor of the game. 



Mr. A. C. Collins, the energetic and efficient president 

 of the long named Connecticut fish and game protec- 

 tive society, is winning many words of praise and en- 

 couragement from the press of the State. 



