Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, S4 a Year. 10 Ors. a Copt. I 

 Six Months, $2. f 



NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 28, 1889. 



I VOL. XXXIII.-No. 19. 

 1 No 318 Broadway, Mew York. 



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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Thanksgiving Turkey Shoot. 



Snap Shots. 

 Tb<t sportsman Tourist. 



The Dun Horsp. 



Gunning Down bv tbp Sea. 



The "Summer Huut." 

 N^tttrai History. 



Out-of-Donr Papers.— v. 



Gaoi» in. Town. 



i ure Birds <n Rho^lf Maud. 

 Camp-Pike Flickerlngs. 



Ga MB BAG AND UHJN. 



Bear and Man. 

 Tbe Worcester Fox Hunt. 

 Some Figure Anomalies. 

 Give the Boys a Chance. 

 Restrict the Game Killed. 

 Chicago and the West. 

 Rutland Fish and Game Club. 

 Kentucky Deer Gnat. 

 Maryland Ducking Clubs. 

 Ssa and River Fishing. 

 Birds, Bears and Fishes,— nr.. 

 Protection of Fish a Blessing. 

 Cluosand Preserves. 

 WabanLake Pishing. 



Sea and River Fishing.' 

 Aquaria Notes. 



FiSH CULTURE. 



Ilhn"is Fish Commission. 



Salmon Culture. 

 The Kennel. 



Inimtia Kield TriaK 



Easiern Fiel! Trials. 



Southern Field Trials Entries. 



Robins Island Tiials. 



Eastern Fit-id Trials Club. 



A Card from Mr. Krehl. 



Kennel Notes. 



Kennel Management. 

 Rifle and Trap shooting. 



Range and Gallery. 



Conlin's Anniversary. 



The Imp. 



The Trap Shooters' Tour. 

 Yachting. 

 A Cruise to Marblehead in '86. 

 A Run Outs.de in Lir.s in 

 N< vembcr. 

 Canoeing. 

 A. C. A. Executive Committee 

 Me«iing. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



THE THANKSGIVING TURKEY SHOOT. 

 r pHIETY years ago Thanksgiving Day was immediately 

 preceded by a day of sport, whose corning was 

 quite as impatiently awaited by a considerable portion 

 of the community as was the following day of feasting 

 by the other. This was the day dedicated to the "turkey 

 shool f and as on his successful shot at the living target 

 depended many an impecunious rifleman's next day's 

 roast turkey, such were far more anxious that that day 

 might prove soft and windless, than that the sun should 

 snine on the succeeding one. Then there were others, 

 who were not in like predicament, but were eager to ex- 

 hibit their skill in the exciting contest, with a view to 

 which montbs of practice with their favorite weapon had 

 been devoted. It was a great day, too, for the boys, with 

 the cracking of rifles, tbe smoke and smell of gunpowder, 

 the bustle and no end of opportunities to get in the way. 



The provider of such entertainments who was fairest in 

 his measurements of distance, and most liberal in his 

 rules, and who furnished the largest turkeys, drew to his 

 "snoot" the best shots of two or - three townships— a 

 motley assemblage of men witb arms of various fashions. 

 Here might be seen the white-haired hunter, who had 

 outlived the day of abundant game, garrulous of former 

 exploits, with the long-barreled rifle, stocked to the muz- 

 zle with curled maple, its thimbles, guard, patchbox and 

 peaked heel-plate ail of battered but shining brass. There 

 was likely to be another old hunter, carrying a similarly 

 mounted but longer smooth-bore that bad killed deer and 

 bear where neither had now been seen tor years, or the 

 last panther that had ever ranged the mountains, and 

 that had hit its turkey at forty rods many and many a 

 time, as it might again if eye and hand of the owner 

 were as keen and steady now as then. Both guns, if not 

 now flint-locks, were altered from that fashion, with 

 strikers screwed into the old place of the flint. There 

 was sure to be at least one target rifle, which, too heavy 

 to carry or be fired but from a rest, had never been hunt- 



ing, nor had its telescope sight focused on living game. 

 There were "Windsor" rifles with inconvenient and dan- 

 gerous strikers on the under side; double rifles, rifle and 

 shot, over and under, and side by side, and a two-grooved 

 military rifle, a wonder from over the seas that had been 

 known to put its ball into a barn at short range. Well- 

 to-do young men brought the best work of some local 

 maker who had put no end of painstaking labor into the 

 barrel and covered the stock with a glitter of German 

 silver ornamentation. 



Sometimes the shooting was off-hand at 30 rods— the 

 distance was never given in yards— but oftener from 

 a rest at 40, 50 or 60 rods. The rest was a plank, witb one 

 end sustained by a log or wooden horse, tbe other on the 

 ground, tbe shooter lying on the plank and resting his 

 gun upon the raised end. Even this admitted of various 

 styles of shooting, for there were the hasty and careless 

 shooter, he who shot with deliberate celerity, the slow and 

 careful shooter, and he who pottered and aimed so long, 

 squinting over his uncocked rifle that all became tired of 

 waiting their turn. There, too, was the wobbler, shaking 

 with gobbler ague and firing wide of the mark; the man 

 who shot with both eyes open, and he who shut both eyes 

 when he pulled the trigger. 



The turkey was put up on a barrel or box, to which he 

 was fastened by a cord drawn through a hole; and bere 

 he sat in some bewilderment at the cracking of rifles, the 

 whistling of bullets, the mob of shouting boys rushing 

 down upon him at every shot, till a bullet grazed or killed 

 him or the gloaming fell upon the range. 



Though there were always some successf ul shots made, 

 there was always such a percentage of misses that the 

 proprietor of the turkeys was certain to receive a good 

 price for every bird killed, and in the evening the birds 

 left over were raffled. 



In some States the pastime is prohibited by law, and 

 tbough in some parts of the country it is still kept up, for 

 the most part it has fallen into disuse. This is not greatly 

 to be regretted, for witb much of the cruelty of field 

 sports, it possessed none of their fairness, and the most 

 that can be said in its favor is that it stimulated rifle 

 practice. _______________ 



SNAP SHOTS. 

 r pHE poets are fond of likening love to fishing; and as 

 J- it is never too late to hope for success in love, so one 

 should never despair of luck in fishing. The papers last 

 Friday reported the case of a man, wbo, voluntarily or 

 unwillingly having persisted in celibacy for sixty-nine 

 years, had at last taken to himself a wife. And a cor- 

 respondent, who tells us that he is seventy -two years of 

 age and has been visiting the St. Lawrence River for 

 twenty-two summers, reports that last October he caught 

 his first rnaskalonge, a beauty of nineteen pounds and an 

 odd ounce. If congratulation and good wishes for a long- 

 life are becoming at the wadding of one whose head is 

 frosted with the lapse of sixty-nine winters, what may 

 not be said in felicitation of an angler who at seventy- 

 two marks with a red letter the day he scores such angl- 

 ing fortune ? 



Thanksgiving Day is not all that it once was on the 

 New England farm— that great feast day of the year, 

 when sons and daughters gathered from near and from 

 far, drawn by the strong cords of affection, to meet once 

 more under the old home roof, to look out with glad eyes 

 upon the familiar landscape, to drink from the old well, 

 and so be young again, if only for a day. For the New 

 England farm itself is not all that it was. In scores and 

 scores of instances the well-tilled fields have been aban- 

 doned; and even the houses and barns have fallen into 

 decay. More than one New England gunner will to-day 

 flush his game amid the tangled growth Avhich conceals 

 abandoned garden spots; and perchance eat his frugal 

 lunch as be rests on the stone ruins of a home which 

 once rang with Thanksgiving cheer. In many parts of 

 New England farming is on the decline. Land has lost 

 value for agricultural purposes. The old men are passing 

 away. There are no young men to take their places. 

 Cultivated acres are reverting to their original wilder- 

 ness. Forest areas are increasing. 



Among the suggested new avenues of enterprise and 

 profit open to the proprietors of declining farm lands, 

 Judge Charles O. Nott suggests in a recent issue of the 

 New York Evening Post the industry of raising the new 

 cattle, half-breed buffalo, which could well withstand 



the rigors of the northern climate. Another enterprise 

 is that of deer farming. If fifty farms were thrown into 

 one ring-fence, suggests Judge Nott, with hounds and 

 hunters excluded, they might in time become semi-do- 

 mesticated like those in English deer parks; they would 

 be as prolific as sheep, subsisting on lands and in woods 

 where sheep could not they might be found a profitable 

 source of income. It is not quite clear in what manner 

 Judge Nott expects deer parks to be made to pay; 

 whether by the sales of deer skins and venison or by a 

 revenue to be derived from shooting privileges. Nor 

 does he tell us how he would protect the game and 

 exclude the hunters and hounds. The protection 

 would be the most expensive feature of a New England 

 deer farm; and that expense would eat a hole into the 

 profits. On the other hand, now that the game preserve 

 system is taking such a hold upon this country, and 

 there are found so many clubs and organizations ready 

 to lease and protect game grounds, it may not be at all 

 Quixotic to project extensive deer parks in New Eng- 

 land which shall bring in to the proprietors of the land 

 satisfactory returns in annual rent. But has the time 

 come when, by the dwindling of her hardy farming popu- 

 lation and the growth of a class which can indulge in 

 the luxury of rented game parks, New England must 

 formally abandon a portion of her cultivated fields and 

 hillside pastures to wilderness tracts for deer and wood- 

 cock and grouse? 



A correspondent who writes from Delaware reports 

 that there is great indignation among the farmers of his 

 vicinity because one of their number has recently been 

 arrested and fined for shooting game on his own land 

 out of season. The notion appears to be held by our cor- 

 respondent and to prevail among the indignant farmers 

 that this is an "unconstitutional" and highly tyrannical 

 invasion of their "natural rights." As a matter of 

 fact, all game laws are based upon the right of the State 

 to control the taking of game on private property; if 

 this were otherwise there would be little usefulness 

 of game laws. The "property" in game on one's 

 land consists only in the exclusive right, as against 

 other people, to take that game whenever the State 

 declares its taking to be lawful. The established 

 principles of game legislation are that the State shall 

 conserve the native supply by restricting the destruction, 

 and jurisdiction is exercised over all land, whether of 

 public or private ownership, The individual has no 

 more ''natural right" to kill the game on his land in vio- 

 lation of the public statutes than he has to manufacture 

 apples or corn into whisky in defiance of the internal rev- 

 enue laws, or to market his day-old calf for veal, or 

 in a well-regulated community to let his Canada thistles 

 grow, or in the city to maintain a barking dog at night, 

 or to wave a red flag in Chicago streets. As a matter of 

 fact, the natural rights of mankind are abridged as he 

 becomes civilized; and the sooner our Delaware friends 

 realize that they as individuals must conf orm to the laws 

 which are based on public advantage, the sooner will 

 Delaware game protection be relieved of this " natural 

 rights " fog. 



With the Christmas Number of the Forest and Stream 

 will be given a double supplement, consisting of four 

 pages of text and a double page folder with portraits of 

 elk, drawn expressly for this number. The issue of Jan- 

 uary 9 will be a special Florida fishing number. It will 

 contain a four-page illustrated supplement, describing 

 the fishes of Florida waters; it will be of value and inter- 

 est to all anglers who may go South this year; and it will 

 be welcomed also by those who have fished in that sunny 

 land. 



This season appears to be more than any former year 

 prolific of shooting accidents; and the casualties are in 

 nine cases out of ten due entirely to carelessness and 

 recklessness. Age cannot wither nor custom stale the 

 temerity of the gunner who leans on his gun, pokes 

 with it, draws it muzzle- foremost, and in divers ways 

 invites the death concealed in its barrel. 



The story of the "Dun Horse," printed to-day, m not 

 credited to the book of "Pawnee Hero Stories and.Folk- 

 Tales," because the manuscript of the story was in the 

 Forest and Stream's possession before the book was 

 projected, 



