Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, $4 A Year. 10 Cts, a Copy, f 

 Six Months, 82. f 



NEW YORK, OCTOBER 3, 1889. 



j VOL. XXXIII.-No. 11. 

 ) No 318 Broad wax, New xork. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 

 The Forest and Stream is the recognized medium of entertain- 

 ment, instruction and information between American sportsmen. 

 Communications on the subject to which its pages are devoted are 

 respectfully invited. Anonymous communications will not be re- 

 garded. No name will be published except with writer's consent. 

 The Editors are not responsible for the views of correspondents. 



AD VERTISEMENTS. 

 Only advertisements of an approved character inserted. Inside 

 pages, nonpareil type, 30 cents per line. Special rates for three, six, 

 and twelve months. Seven words to the line, twelve lines to one 

 Inch. Advertisements should be sent in by Saturday previous to 

 issue in which they are to be inserted. Transient advertisements 

 must invariably be accompanied by the money or they will not be 

 Inserted. Reading notices $1.00 per line. 



SUBSCRIPTIONS 

 May begin at any time. Subscription price, $4 per year; $2 for six 

 months; to a club of three annual subscribers, three copies for $10; 

 Ave copies for $16. Remit by express money-order, registered letter, 

 money-order, or draft, payable to the Forest and Stream Publishing 

 Company. The paper may be obtained of newsdealers throughout 

 the United States, Canadas and Great Britain. For sale by Davies 

 & Co., No. 1 Finch Lane, Cornhill, and Brentano's, 430 Strand, 

 London. General subscription agents for Great Britain, Messrs. 

 Davies & Co., Messrs. Sampson Low, Marston, Searles and Riving- 

 ton, 188 Fleet street, and Brentano's, 430 Strand, London, Eng. 

 Brentano's, 17 Avenue de TOpera, Paris, France, sole Paris agent 

 for sales and subscriptions. Foreign subscription price, $5 per 

 year; $2.50 for six months. 

 Address all communications 



Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 

 No. 318 Broadway. New York City. 



CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Fourth Chapter of Accidents. 



Trophies of Skill. 



Snap Shots. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



The Modern Knight. 



In Pawn in a Frontier Town. 

 Natural History. 



Albinos and Hybrids Among 

 Birds. 



Notes on Back Numbers. 

 Mockingbirds in Massachu- 



Game Bag and &tnsr. 



Michigan Wild Turkeys. 



The Game Season. 



Quail in Red River Bottom.-n 



The Squirrel Exodus. 



Ail-Round Rifles. 



A Vain Quest. 



Pattern and Penetration. 



Shooting the Four-Eyed Fish. 



Michigan Wild Turkeys. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



Club Preserves. 



Camps of the Kingfishers.— xi 



A Piece of Luck. 



Late Spawning Trout. 



Cheap Fishing for "Podgers." 

 Fishculture. 



Aquaria Notes. 



For the Fish Commission 

 Aquaria. 



The Kennel. 

 St. Louis National Meet. 

 The Gordon Setter Club. 

 Mastiff Toe Nails. 

 Eastern Coursing Club. 

 An All-Round Dog. 

 The True Uses of a Stud Book. 

 "Podgers" Talks Dog. 

 The Stock-Keeper and its As- 

 sailants. 

 Jack. 



The All-Day Field Trials. 

 Dog Talk. 

 Kennel Notes. 

 Kennel Management. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 

 Range and Gallery. 

 Regiment vs. State. 

 The Trap. 



New Jersey State Shoot. 



Al. Bandle's Tournament. 



Trap-Shooting Notes. 

 Yachting. 



Fredonia and Hesper. 



Larchment Special 40 ft. Race. 



Kathleen and Shona. 



Mclntyre's Composite Con- 

 struction. 

 Canoeing. 



Ianthe C. C. Fall Regatta. 



N. Y. Athletic Club's Regatta. 



Books Received. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



A FOURTH CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS. 



ON Sept. 20 a Midclletown, New York, farmer, while 

 carrying his gun through a hallway, muzzle poin ted 

 toward his stomach, accidentally struck the hammer 

 against a chair, the gun exploded, and the man died 

 almost instantly. On the following day, as two Penn- 

 sylvania sportsmen were returning from a rabbit shoot- 

 ing expedition, one of them carrying his gun aimed 

 square at the neck of Iris comrade in front, the arm was 

 accidentally discharged and the victim instantly killed. 

 Last week a young man of Yonkers was shooting in 

 the suburbs. Walking up to retrieve a bird, he found it 

 not quite dead, and hit it with the butt of his gun; the 

 second barrel exploded, filling him full of shot; he died 

 a few days after. 



These are specimens of frequent firearm casualties 

 They are all the result of foolish carelessness, they are 

 the stern penalties paid for violation of the rule never to 

 point a gun at one's own person nor at the person of 

 another — a rule so imperative, so simple and so easily re- 

 membered and observed, that there is no room for excus- 

 ing its neglect. 



That the rule is violated one has only to read the news- 

 papers to learn; for the name is legion of those who poke 

 their guns at others, pull them toward themselves, and 

 point them around promiscuously, as if they were some 

 harmless variety of the big-headed canes carried by small- 

 headed dudes. The hopelessness of it all is that these 

 people are, in most instances, grown up men, but indi- 

 viduals who for all their years have not arrived at the 

 age of discretion in handling deadly weapons, and never 

 will; they are past reproof and instruction, and as fast 

 as they accidentally kill themselves and their fellows 

 their ranks and the supply of their victims will be filled 

 by others like them. 



It is, if not profitable, at least interesting, to classify the 

 firearm pokers and pointers and clubbers, as alienists 

 segregate the various classes of the feeble-minded and 



insane, or as an ornithologist might catalogue according 

 to the A. O. U. Check List the birds that destroy them- 

 selves by flying against the Washington Monument. First, 

 then, for one reason because they are often very old 

 men and should have precedence because of their gray 

 hairs, come those who pull their guns after them, muzzle 

 foremost. Thus a Newark gunner, aged seventy-four, 

 having climbed over a fence, reached back after his gun, 

 which, catching under the edge of the top board, was 

 discharged, and the load passing through the board 

 entered his left wrist. It was found necessary to ampu- 

 tate the arm. For the fence accident there is a stereo- 

 typed formula: "While getting over a fence he shot 

 himself in the neck and died instantly;" "in climbing 

 over a fence his gun was accidentally discharged, the shot 

 entering his left hand and blowing off the two last fingers 

 and breaking the middle one;" "at 4 P. M., as he was 

 climbing a fence, his gun was accidentally discharged 

 killing him instantly." 



In many instances the mischief is done before the fence 

 has its opportunity; there is a distinct class of wagon 

 casualties. A Maine hunter, when getting out of the 

 wagon, lifted his gun; it was accidentally discharged, 

 the shot passed through his coat sleeve and then instantly 

 killed his little eleven-year-old son. In the Adirondacks 

 one combination was a buckboard, on a rough road, in it 

 a young man with a loaded gun, with the muzzle pointed 

 toward his body and the butt between his feet, a cigarette 

 and a match; to scratch the match on the leg of his pan- 

 taloons he lifted his foot, twitched the trigger, and blew 

 an arm off. A Nebraska farmer, whose gun had slipped 

 from the wagon seat, grasped it by the muzzle and 

 attempted to pull it toward him; both barrels were dis- 

 charged into his heart. A Long Island sportsman, stand- 

 ing on a hub of a front wheel, drew his gun toward him 

 on the bottom of the wagon; the hammer caught on a 

 cleat, and the load of bird shot proved fatal. 



In a similar category belong the boat fatalities. A 

 gunner on Sinnepuxent Bay, Md., caught his gun by the 

 muzzle and pulled it toward him; it was discharged by 

 contact with a seat, and his injuries were fatal. The 

 same thing happened to a Sandusky, Ohio farmer, and a 

 San Francisco man brought a like fate on himself, in a 

 precisely similar way, on the rail marsh at Belmont; while 

 a New Orleans physician, who was collecting bird speci- 

 mens, and an Auburn, N. Y., duck gunner met their 

 deaths by pulling guns out of boats. 



Clubbed muskets are legitimate arms in time of war; 

 but fate is against the gunner who uses his rifle or shot- 

 gun as a club. An East Poughkeepsie, N. Y., party were 

 coon hunting at night, when the dogs got into a fight. 

 One of the hunters attempted to allay the scrimmage by 

 clubbing the dogs with the butt end of his gun. The 

 stock hit a tree, the weapon exploded and the man died. 

 A sailor rode out into the country after game; and when 

 his horse balked, he poked up the animal with his gun so 

 effectively that the refractory creature kicked up its heels, 

 struck the gun, and shot off the man's arm and killed hi m. 



Allied to this class, as a passive manifestation of it per- 

 haps, is the employment of the loaded gun as a staff or a 

 crutch. A North Carolina sportsman, who had been 

 hunting and had returned safely home again, was relat- 

 ing to his family the story of his luck; and as he talked 

 he leaned on his gun, butt on the floor, muzzle at chin, 

 while his little boy played with the hammer. When 

 the gun went off it tore away the entire top of his head. 

 A Pennsylvanian lost his head in a like manner; having 

 primed his muzzleloader with a lucifer match, he leaned 

 on it, muzzle to face, when the stock slipped and the 

 hammer fell. In a Connecticut barn a young man stood 

 leaning on his gun, and talking with a friend; during the 

 conversation he crossed one leg over the other, thus dis- 

 charged the gun and killed himself. At a Chicago turkey 

 shooting match one of the contestants, who was waiting 

 for his turn to shoot, placed the muzzle of his gun, with 

 both barrels full cock, under his right arm-pit and leaned 

 on it; then swinging one foot from side to side, he 

 accidentally struck the trigger and fell down dead. 



An army officer rested his rifle with the muzzle on his 

 foot, and it cost him a big toe. A Wisconsin gunner, 

 caught in a shower, put his hand over his gun muzzle to 

 keep the powder dry; a clap of thunder made him jump, 

 his knee struck the gun hammer, and he lost the hand 

 that was keeping the powder dry. A Brookfield, Conn., 

 gunner, handling his cocked gun by the muzzle, caught 

 the trigger in one of his boot straps; a Staatsburg, N. Y.. 

 man naught the trigger of his gun in his clothes; a Hag- 



erstown, Md., boy got his trigger tangled in his shirt 

 collar; all these with fatal effects to the gunner or a com- 

 panion. That there are still many muzzleloaders in use 

 is demonstrated by the frequent reports of the unfortun- 

 ates who peep into the muzzle to see why "the old thing 

 did not go off," or who, having loaded one barrel, kill 

 themselves by discharging it while attempting to load 

 the other. 



TROPHIES OF SKILL. 



INHERE is a class of sanguine and enthusiastic people, 

 whom no anticipation of danger or difficulty can 

 daunt, and who are ready enough to go to the world's 

 end in pursuit of hazardous undertakings, but succumb 

 readily enough when brought face to face with them. 

 Several Englishmen of this class went out to Cashmere 

 during the past summer, allured by the spirited accounts 

 of hunters, of the glorious sport in pursuit of bears and 

 chamois, and the spreading-antlered deer of that favored 

 region. They were men of means, who took with them 

 express rifles and all the appliances for camp life and a 

 summer's sport, and after a very pleasant trip they 

 reached Srinuggur, to find that man and nature and 

 especially women had conspired to make it the veritable 

 paradise it had been represented; but three days' clam- 

 bering among the rugged mountains in pursuit of ibex 

 was quite sufficient to take all the Excelsior out of them, 

 and glad enough they were to reach Srinuggur again in 

 safety. 



But they were a practical set of men; who, when they 

 found they could take no comfort out of mountain climb- 

 ing, applied themselves to achieving one, at least, of the 

 objects of their journey by other means. They sat at 

 home in the bungalow in the Vale of Cashmere, and em- 

 ployed native hunters to bring them the trophies of the 

 chase. 



Whether these men have done wisely or not is yet to be 

 proven; they will take their trophies to England, some 

 they will probably present to friends, and some they will 

 probably display in their dens, never pointing to them, 

 but when questioned about them, simply saying that 

 they are some of the things that they brought from 

 Cashmere when they went there for a shooting trip. We 

 have heard of one man who thus took home a lot of pur- 

 chased trophies from India and left it to be inferred that 

 they were the spoils of his own weapon, until at last he 

 had to invent a history of his acquisition of each trophy 

 in turn, and repeat it, until he was driven to give the 

 whole lot away for his conscience sake. But all men are 

 not constituted alike ; for we know of another, who, having 

 had a lot of skins given him by a friend, invented a story 

 of his acquisition of each, and told them so often and 

 circumstantially, that he was at length able to tell them 

 unblushingly and in full detail to the man who had pre- 

 sented him with them, pointing at the same time to the 

 holes in the skins to embellish his narratives. 



"A Summer Hunt with the Pawnees" is the title of 

 a sketch by "Yo," which will be published in our next 

 issue. Readers of the Forest and Stream, who are 

 familiar with "Yo's" descriptions of rough life in the 

 West, will be pleased to learn that he has prepared a book 

 of "Pawnee Hero Stories and Folk-Tales'— and a capital 

 book it is— which will be published at an early date from 

 this office. A fuller notice of it will be given next week. 



Club Preserves are attracting more and more atten- 

 tion among thoughtful sportsmen. Decided differences 

 of opinion prevail respecting the merits and demerits of 

 the system. There are those who profess to "view with 

 alarm" the growing dominion of the preserves; while 

 others claim to see in the extension of club holdings only 

 beneficial results. The subject is one that deserves care- 

 ful consideration and full discussion. 



Our Trap Reports have of necessity taken up much 

 room of late, for having set out to give the best trap de- 

 partment published in America, the Forest and Stream 

 has accomplished that purpose only by a generous allot- 

 ment of space. Now that the tournaments are nearly 

 finished and gunners are giving "more attention to field 

 work, our Game Bag and Gun columns will expand. 



Col. Robert Patton Crockett died at his residence on 

 Rucker's Creek, Texas, last Thursday, in the seventy-third 

 year of his age. His death removes the only remaining 

 son of pavy Crockett. 



