Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



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

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NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 27, 1890. 



( VOL. XXXIV.-No. 6. 



I No. 318 Broadway, New York. 



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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



The National Zoological Park. 



National Fishcult.ure. 



An Iniquitous Scheme. 



TJ?e Rieht to Abate a Nuisance 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



Dungeness— A Winter Home. 



The Wasatch Foothills. 

 Natural History. 



The Evening Grosbeak. 



Notes of Spring. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



A Quail Hunt in North Caro- 

 lina. 



Lost in the Wilderness. 



Chicago Shooting. 



The Mule's Rosary. 



A Virginia Depr Hunt. 

 * The New York Deer La w. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



On the North Shore.— v. 



"Mysterious Stocking of 

 Ponds." 



Angling Notes. 



Random Casts. 



The Sunset Club. 



Canadian Salmon River 

 Leases. 



Aquana Notes. 



Kentucky Fish Notes. 



A Legal Angler's Fee. 

 Fish cult c re. 



Work of the U. S. Fish Com. 

 The Kennel. 



Field Trial at Indianapolis. 



The Kennel. 

 A Plea for the Foxhound. 

 Dogs of the Day. 

 The Selection of a House Dog. 

 English Notes, 

 Spaying. 

 Hector as a Sire. 

 A Reporter Dog. 

 Irish Setters at New York. 

 Buffalo Dog Show. 

 Chicago Dog Show Entries. 

 Kennel Notes. 

 Kennel Management. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 

 Range and Gallery. 

 The Trap. 



U. S. Cartridge Co.'s Tour. 



The Forester Tournament. 



The Birmingham Shoot. 



West End Social Gun Club. 



Chicago Trap Shooting. 

 Canoeing. 



1,500 Miles in an Adirondack 

 Boat.— ix. 



Park Island C. A. Camp. 



Buffalo C. C. Camp- Fire. 

 Yachting. 



A Night in New York Bay. 



New Yachts on the Lake. 



New Yachts. 



A Yacht Fisherman. 



The Ocean Yacht Squadron. 



Cruising Yachts and Yacht 

 Cruising. 

 Answers to Correspondents 



THE NATIONAL ZOOLOGICAL PARK. 



AT the last session of Congress a bill was passed pro- 

 viding for the establishment of a zoological park 

 in the District of Columbia. A commission, consisting 

 of the Secretary of the Interior, the President of the 

 Board of Commissioners of the District of Columbia, and 

 the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, was created 

 by this act and was intrusted with the selection and 

 securing, within a specified area of a tract of not less than 

 100 acres of land suitable for such a park. For the carry- 

 ing out of this provision the sum of $200,000 was appro- 

 priated. 



The site for this park which seemed most desirable was 

 described in these columns at the time the matter came 

 up, and a map of the tract was printed in Forest am» 

 Stkeam. The report of the year's work, made by the 

 Commission to the Speaker of the House of Represent- 

 atives last month, shows that the labors of that body have 

 been successful beyond their most sanguine hopes. It 

 was thought by some of those interested that the owners 

 of the lands selected would place prohibitory prices on 

 their holdings and that the land would have to be con- 

 demned , and taken by the Government. This has not 

 proved to be the case. Instead, the owners have met the 

 Commission in a fair, liberal spirit, and the result has 

 been that 131.14 acres of land have been secured by the 

 Government at a cost- of $158,356 76, leaving 35.34 acres 

 to be acquired by the slower process of condemnation, 

 making the whole area of the park 166.48 acres at a prob- 

 able cost of not more than $178,000. The actual cost of 

 the land purchased agrees very closely with the esti- 

 mates made by the officers of the Smithsonian Institution 

 when the original bill was submitted to Congress. 



The question of the land having thus been satisfactorily 

 disposed of, that of preparing the park for occupancy 

 and use, and of caring for the animals, naturally comes 

 up. To meet this a bill, introduced in the Senate by Mr. 

 Morrill, appropriating $88,000, has passed that body, and 

 on Feb. 19 was reported favorably in the House of Repre- 

 sentatives by the Committee on Public Buildings and 

 Grounds. 



There seems to be good reason to hope that this bill 



may pass, and when this occurs there is no reason why 

 work on the Zoological Pai'k should not begin at once. 

 As soon as there is a place to keep the specimens which 

 are offered to it, the Government will receive large num- 

 bers of native wild animals, and with reasonable care in 

 tending them it seems quite certain that in a short time 

 there will be gathered at Washington such a collection of 

 our indigenous species as has never before been seen. 



NATIONAL FISHCULTURE. 

 V\7 ^ publish in this number a statement prepared for 

 ' ' the U. S. Commissioner of Fisheries, Col. Mar- 

 shall MacDonald, showing the amounts of money appro- 

 priated for the propagation and distribution of food fishes 

 from 1886 to 1889, both inclusive, together with the 

 number of stations operated, the number of miles traveled 

 and the total output of eggs and fishes. A glance at the 

 tables will show the significant and very gratifying fact 

 that there has been a steady and marked increase in the 

 results desired. Comparing 1889 with 1886, we find that 

 with a smaller outlay, and notwithstanding the added 

 expenses of six new stations and an increase of 40 per 

 cent, in the number of miles traveled, the product of 

 eggs and fish was nearly doubled. In 1886 ten fish were 

 produced and planted at a cost of one cent; in 1889 the 

 number was raised to twenty and a large proportion of 

 these were yearling fish. Until 1885 no yearlings were 

 distributed. After that year the desirability of making 

 a decided impression on streams by introducing year- 

 lings became more and more evident and the Commis- 

 sioner has now greatly developed the improved system 

 of stocking. In 1889 were sent out from Wytheville 60," 

 000 yearling trout; from Horthville, 112,000 trout and 

 other members of the salmon family; from Maine, 112,- 

 000 salmon : from Illinois, 131,000 individuals of the choice 

 native species; 500,000 shad, also, were kept over in Wash- 

 ington until they had reached a length of nearly 6in. 



This notable achievement is to be credited in part to 

 improved apparatus and methods of work, partly to the 

 increased efficiency of the employees and to a more inti- 

 mate knowledge of the conditions of success in fishcul- 

 tural operations, and largely to the wise economy prac- 

 ticed in the management of this important division of 

 the Fish Commission service. 



Now that the organization has reached a high stage of 

 efficiency, the Government should profit by its skill. 

 Multiply stations if desirable, but at the same time fur- 

 nish the means to make them productive, otherwise they 

 will add no results of their own and impair the value of 

 those already established. 



THE RIGHT TO ABATE A NUISANCE. 



A DECISION has been reached in the case of Lawton 

 vs. Steele in the New York Court of Appeals, which 

 settles the important question of the right of game pro- 

 tectors to destroy unlawful fishing nets. The case, whose 

 progress has been reported in our columns, grew out of 

 the action of State Game Protector Steele, who seized 

 certain fishing nets in St. Lawrence River waters and 

 burned them, acting under the statute which declares 

 such unlawful nets to be nuisances and directs that they 

 shall be summarily destroyed. Suit was brought against 

 Steele to recover for the value of the nets, on the ground 

 that their summary destruction had been a confiscation 

 of property without due process of law. The judge, 

 Williams, gave a decision for the plaintiff, holding that, 

 although the law declared such nets to be nuisances and 

 provided for their destruction, the Legislature had no 

 constitutional authority for the law, which interfered 

 with the rights of property. The General Term reversed 

 the decision of Judge Williams and the case then went 

 to the Court of Appeals, which has just handed down a 

 decision sustaining the integrity of the law. It is held 

 that the Legislature had the right to authorize the sum- 

 mary destruction of nets, the setting of which it had 

 declared to be a public nuisance. 



The Jefferson County Fish and Game Protective Asso- 

 ciation, which has stood behind Protector Steele in this 

 affair, is deserving of all praise for carrying the case up. 

 The effect of this decision will be to discourage the net 

 fishermen, who had combined to make this a test case. 

 But the battle against the evils of netting has not yet 

 been finally won, for the net fishermen are at Albany in 

 force this year, asking that what the State has once de- 

 clared to be a nuisance shall now be legalized. As we 

 said last week, their demands should be resisted, for nets 



in the St. Lawrence River waters will surely work im- 

 provident destruction of the magnificent food fish supply 

 which has been fostered there under the present laws. 

 The pretense that under a system of netting the game 

 fish will be exempt from this speedy destruction is calcu- 

 lated to deceive. Tne St. Lawrence netters will not return 

 to the water live game fish caught in their nets any more 

 than the menhaden fishermen return to the sea the food 

 fish they scoop in their nets. 



AN INIQUITOUS SCHEME. 

 \ N effectual way to maintain and keep in condition 

 for all time a great public park, like the Central 

 Park of New York city, would be to divide it up into 

 plots of convenient size and lease the desirable portions 

 to wealthy individuals for villa sites. When all the 

 choice parts were fenced off and occupied by residences 

 and the private grounds attaching to them, the public 

 could walk around on the outside of the park limits, con- 

 template the picturesque cottages and magnificent man- 

 sions, and rejoice in the pleasing consciousness that Cen- 

 tral Park was in safe hands, to be cared for and protected 

 during the lives of those in possession and by their heirs 

 for generations to come. 



Such a scheme would settle forever the problems of 

 public park administration; but not even in a city that 

 has boasted a Tweed could a mayor be found who would 

 under any pretense whatever deliberately set to work to 

 put the choice bits of Central Park into private hands for 

 safe-keeping. The plot would stamp its originator a 

 hopeless idiot or a gigantic rascal. Yet a scheme of 

 similar nature has been put under way at Albany with 

 reference to the public lands of the Adirondacks. 



A bill was introduced into the State Assembly last 

 week, which, if passed, means a surrender of the Adiron- 

 dack wilds by the people of the State to private posses- 

 sion. The bill calls for the appointment of two additional 

 commissioners, who shall mark out a State Park area 

 and purchase lands within the boundaries decided upon; 

 and further — 



" Sec 6. The said hoard are hereby authorized and empowered 

 to lease for such time as they may determine small tracts of land 

 within the limits of said park, not exceeding twenty-five acres in 

 any one parcel, or to any one person or corporation, for the erec- 

 tion of camps and cottages for the use or accommodation of 

 campers and occupants and sites for hotels for the accommo- 

 dation of the public, which leases shall be general in form ex- 

 cept as to the length of time and amount of rental, and shall con- 

 tain strict conditions as to cutting and protection of lumher, 

 prevention of and protection from Ores, and reserving the right 

 of passage over or across the same for travelers at all proper and 

 reasonable time, which leases, as to form, restriction, reserva- 

 ions and conditions, shall he approved by the Attorney General of 

 the State." 



It would seem as if the bare declaration of such a 

 scheme as this should be sufficient to condemn it. The 

 leasing of twenty-five-acre plots will be an excellent 

 thing for the hotel men and summer cottagers who are 

 behind this bill, but the State lands belong to the State: 

 they should be held and kept free for the citizens of the 

 State, for the hunter and fisherman, carnper and health- 

 i-eeker, who may pitch his tent where he will; and not 

 given over to the hotel-keeper nor to the summer cot- 

 tager. 



If hotel men want to build hotels, let them purchase 

 grounds from private owners and pay for them. If 

 wealthy men want to build summer houses, let them 

 acquire land in the same way. This State park bill is 

 fully as preposterous and as impudent in its purpose as 

 would be a measure to lease city parks. And the results 

 would be in one case just what they would be in the 

 other; a betrayal of public interest for individual benefit. 



The need of the hour with respect to the Adirondack 

 wilderness, is not of a plan to hand it over to private 

 occupancy, but of a system that shall conserve this price- 

 less possession for the people of New York (and of other 

 States as well), both now and for the future. 



On Friday last the National Park bill for the fourth 

 time passed the Senate. It now goes to the House of 

 Representatives, where it will be referred, as has always 

 been customary, to the Committee on Public Lands. 

 What its fate will be in that committee is uncertain, but 

 all who are interested in the reservation will hope for 

 speedy and favorable action on the bill as it stands to-day. 



This issue contains the index of Volume XXXIII, 



