Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Teems, U a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. I 

 Six Months, 82. ( 



NEW YORK, DECEMBER 26, 1889. 



J VOL. XXXIII.— No. 23. 

 I No 318 Broadwat, New Yobk. 



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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Put It Into Plain English. 



Another Phase of Coursing. 



Shall the Boy Have a Gun? 



Snap Shots. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



The Black Trackers of Aus- 

 tralia. 



Notes from Alaska. 



The Hill Farms of New Hamp- 

 shire. 

 Natural History. 



The White Goat in Captivity. 



A Tame Snipe. 



The Snowy Owl. 

 Game Bao and Gun. 



The Small Bny and the Gun. 



Quail in North Carolina. 



The New York Association. 



Aiming the Shotgun. 



Pattern and Penetration. 



Maine Deer. 



Chicago and the West. 



Rifle and Pistol. 



The Adirondack Deer Law. 



Connecticut Game and Mar- 

 kets. 



Game Notes 

 C amp-Fire Flick erings. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



Aquaria Notes. 



Spoon-Hook in Big Klamath 

 Lake. 



The Neversink. 



Angling Notes. 



Sea and River Fishing. 



Albino Catfish. 



Action of Light on Fish. 

 Fishculture. 



Young Saimonida? Fed on Lar- 

 vee of Flies. 



Pennsylvania Fish Commis'n. 

 The Kennel. 



Central Field Trials. 



Anent the Coursing Clu^s. 



What About These Beagles? 



English Kennel News. 



Eastern Coursing Club Meet- 

 ing. 



American Kennel Club 



Coursing and the S. P. C. A. 



Kennel Notes. 



Kennel Management. 

 RlELE AN"D Trap shooting. 



Range and Gallery. 



The Trap. 



Essex Gun Club. 



U. S. Cartridge Co. Tourna- 

 nament. 

 Canoeing. 



The Adirondacks Without a 

 Guide. 

 Yachting. 



The Floating Beacons of Nan- 

 tucket and Vineyard Shoals. 



Sultana. 



The Baboon Sail Plan. 



New British Racing Fleet. 

 • Royal Canadian Y. C. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



ANOTHER PHASE OF COURSING. 



A CORRESPONDENT, whose communication is printed 

 in another column, takes a pessimistic view of the 

 introduction of coursing. His argument in brief is that 

 in England, the great center of coursing interests, the 

 sport has largely degenerated, until it has become simply 

 a huge machine for gambling, and that once started in 

 this country, although introduced by gentlemen whose 

 motives may be perfectly proper, and their practice, as 

 at Hicksville, devoid of objectionable features, the sport 

 will here too degenerate into a feeder for the pool rooms < 

 and be a new and eagerly welcomed device for gambling. 

 This phase of the subject is quite distinct from any con- 

 sideration of an element of cruelty, which some contend 

 is involved in coursing, and it is more deserving of serious 

 discussion than is the cruelty question. A parallel is 

 found in the sport of carrier-pigeon flying, which from 

 the diversion of a few amateurs has become a vast organ- 

 ized system of gambling, with its regular sale of pool 

 tickets on the birds, similar to the betting systems of the 

 race track. 



While there may be no unreasonableness in the appre- 

 hension that inclosed rabbit chasing, if it shall ever be- 

 come popular in America, will be on this low level, it 

 would be a mistake to fail to distinguish between the 

 positions occupied by the several coursing clubs, with 

 respect to this contingency, The more nearly in spirit 

 and practice the mode of coursing adopted by any club 

 shall approach the spirit and mode of open, free field 

 coursing, the less will it partake of the objectionable 

 features deprecated by our correspondent, The Eastern 

 Coursine Club, for example, is mads up of gentlemen 

 who would, if they could, course in the open; they are 

 actuated by the same spirit that impelled the sportsmen 



of the old school, when coursing was at its best; they 

 adopt a modification of perfectly open coursing, not at 

 all because they prefer it to open coursing, but because 

 it is the next best thing, and the nearest possible ap- 

 proach they can attain. In spirit and practice this is 

 not the form of coursing concerning which moralists 

 may entertain apprehension. 



There is, however, another mode, now being pushed to 

 the front, which if successful will almost certainly be 

 marked by the objectionable features that disgrace the 

 "box coursing" meetings of Great Britain. This is the 

 inclosed coursing, undertaken by a company in the West. 

 In spirit, aim and practice it differs from the Long Island 

 greyhound coursing. The plan is to run the course on an 

 inclosed field or race track, where ;it may be witnessed 

 by a large gathering of spectators; and the purpose is 

 purely speculative; the end is to rake in gate money. 

 However cunningly such an enterprise may be veiled 

 under the guise of sport, there is nothing of the love of 

 sport impelling its promoters; but on the contrary they 

 are moved by a desire for gain. 



A little consideration will show that if this mode of 

 inclosed coursing is ever to fulfil the expectations of its 

 originatoi-s and draw crowds to witness it, the crowds 

 must be attracted, not by any such taste for sport as 

 impels the devotee of open field coursing; but by the 

 opportunities the races give for betting. No considerable 

 attendance will ever support inclosed coursing simply to 

 see dogs chase rabbits, without wagers on the results. If 

 inclosed coursing shall succeed, the gambling elements 

 of it will give it success. If we are to be cursed in this 

 country with the moral plague of " box coursing" meets, 

 the plague will be an outgrowth of inclosed coursing, not 

 of the practices followed by the Eastern Coursing Club 

 and others like it. In any intelligent discussion of the 

 present and future of coursing in this country, care must 

 be taken to distinguish between the opposite motives that 

 are impelling the promoters of the two forms we have 

 alluded to. 



SHALL THE BOY HAVE A GUN? 



YES and no. It depends on the boy, on how the gun 

 is given to him, on his opportunities for a right use 

 of it. If this question is of immediate interest and per- 

 sonal application to any of the readers of this journal, we 

 commend them to take note of the letter printed to-day, 

 from a mother, who relates her experience. If a boy's 

 bent be toward guns and gunning, in the majority of 

 cases the judicious course is to indulge his tastes; give 

 him a gun and teach him how to use it. The pretense 

 that a boy cannot use a gun just as safely as a man can 

 is not entirely well founded. Caution in the handling of 

 deadly weapons must be taught, whether the novice be 

 young or old. There is no quality inherent in mere 

 youth that precludes care in using arms, nor is there any 

 quality in mere age that insures that caution. Care in 

 handling of guns, when once acquired, becomes a thing 

 of habit, a second nature; it is just as much a matter of 

 course to carry one's gun in a safe position and not men- 

 acing human life, as it is for one to walk erect instead of 

 on all-fours. Habits are more easily acquired in youth 

 than in later life. Every experienced sportsman knows 

 that the dangerous comrade in the field is not the small 

 boy with his first gun, but the "old boy" who has just 

 taken to shooting and has recently learned to distinguish 

 the breech from the muzzle. It is a characteristic of 

 gunners who take up the sport late in life to have a 

 higher disregard of the danger of firearms than is felt 

 by those who in early youth are accustomed to the use of 

 guns and rifles. 



Give the boy a gun; and teach him how to use it. The 

 gun will make a man of him. The effect in this way 

 is often as surprising as it is gratifying. To be trusted 

 with a gun, a manly weapon, is that which will bring 

 out the traits of responsibility, self-reliance, self-respect, 

 caution, dignity. To handle a gun is to do away with 

 toys. 



The best possible training a boy can have in the sports- 

 man's art is that given him by his father; such experience 

 in the field is often the beginning of that new relation 

 which holds between a boy and a man, when they pass 

 from the relation of father and son to a higher com- 

 panionship as friends, 



Most men Who are themselves fond of field sports, wish 

 to see their sons blessed with the same tastes; and per" 

 feefcly familiar with the hazards attending the use of 



firearms, they are yet confident of the ability of the young 

 people to take perfect care of themselves when in the 

 field. Those who cry out loudest against the danger 

 of the use of guns by young people are they who have a 

 terror of firearms, no matter by whom employed. 



A favorite theme of the writers for a sportsmen's jour- 

 nal is the first gun they used; and it is a noteworthy fact 

 that the guns about which cluster the tenderest memories 

 of men in middle life or in old age were the arms they 

 bore about the home fields and through the dear old 

 woods in their youth. Many and many a man has 

 blessed the forethought and wisdom of those who when 

 he was a boy inducted him into the pleasures of field 

 sports; and an unnumbered host are they who in those 

 years provided for themselves recollections of happy days 

 out of doors to cheer them all through the course of after 

 life. They are the last to cry out against the use of guns 

 and the pursuit of game by the boys; and nothing in the 

 realm of sportsmanship is more beautiful than the cheer- 

 ful and sympathetic commendation and encouragement 

 these veterans bestow on the younger generations who 

 are coming after them. Indulgence in outdoor sport 

 with gun and rifle leaves no sting behind it; the boy, who 

 shall receive at this holiday gift season his first gun, 

 will receive with it an open sesame to treasures of pure 

 delight. 



PUT IT INTO PLAIN ENGLISH. 



TT OW shall it reasonably be required of a person to re- 

 spect a law if he can neither make out for himself 

 what the law is, nor learn from the officials whose duty 

 is to explain and enforce it? For instance — and a capital 

 example it is of the shiftless, careless, bungling, happy- 

 go-lucky legislation of the times — take that portion of the 

 New York game statutes which relates to the sale of 

 venison. 



The dealers were in doubt, the other day, as to when 

 the selling season would close. They appealed to Com- 

 missioner Blackford to know whether the old date held 

 good, or whether the statute extended the time. Corn- 

 misssioner Blackford gave it as his opinion that the old 

 law held. The dealers in compliance withdrew their 

 stock from sale. Then the Attorney- General gave his de- 

 cision, which was just the reverse of Mr. Blackford; "and 

 thereupon the game was again put on sale; and the 

 dealers were not unnaturally wroth over the causeless in- 

 terruption of their traffic. 



Is it not preposterous that the law on such a subject, 

 which to be effective must be known and understood, 

 should be beyond the understanding of even the intelli- 

 gent men who are charged with looking after its enforce- 

 ment ? The game laws should be first of all simple and 

 intelligible, and easfiy comprehended without referring 

 to Attorney Generals. 



The present statute relating to deer and other game is 

 a complicated patchwork, the product of successive years 

 of tinkering at the original. Its several provisions have 

 been amended and the amendments amended, and 

 amendments of amendments amended, with exceptions 

 and exceptions of exceptions, until now it takes a smart 

 lawyer to hazard a guess at what some of the provisions 

 mean, if they mean anything. 



Last winter it was proposed to unravel this snarl by 

 submitting the entire bodyof game and fish laws to a 

 commission of three, who should codify the statutes, 

 simplify them, harmonize the inconsistencies, and put 

 the whole into plain, simple, grammatical, properly punc- 

 tuated, intelligible English, to the end that a well-mean- 

 ing man might not be obliged to pay his lawyer a fee to 

 tell him what it means. There was so much ceiling scan- 

 dal investigation and other pressure of business connected 

 with corruption past or prospective, that the Legislature 

 failed to pass the measure. We are advised that another 

 effort will be made this winter to secure the creation of a 

 codification commission. It is the most important thing 

 likely to come up in relation to game and fish protection. 

 Individuals and associations can do no greater service to 

 the cause than by combining their efforts to secure this 

 commission. 



It was a very pertinent suggestion Mr. A. C. Collins 

 made the other day, that all persons wh* sincerely have 

 at heart the success of his efforts to protect game and fish 

 in Connecticut, should contribute some money toward it, 

 His comparison of a game protective society to a nickel* 

 slot machine is a very happy one. 



