Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, Si a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. ) 



Six Months, $2. f 



NEW YORK, MAY 1, 1890. 



j VOL. XXXIV.-No. 15. 



I No. 318 Broadway, New 1 ork. 



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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Young Shad in Rivers. 



A Natural Reservoir. 



Beer and Partridges. 



Snap Shots. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



Slide Rock from Mountains. 



Log CabiDS. 



California Jottings. 

 Natural History. 



Intelligent Cats. 



The Florida Gartersnake. 



Accidents to Home Builders. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



Pattern and Penetration Tests 



More Preserves. 



Preservation of lame. 



Adirondack Deer Hounding. 



Chicago and the West. 



Spring Shooting in Nebraska. 



New Brunswick Law. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



Angling Notes. 



Massachusetts Trout Law. 



Random Casts. 



The Color of Trout. 



Kentucky Fishing. 



Fly- Fishing on Williamson's 

 River. 



Trout in Connecticut. 



Sea and River Fishing. 



New England Trouting. 



Angling in New Hampshire. 

 Ftshculture. 



Fiehculture and Fish ways. 

 The Kennel. 



Runs with the Foxes. 



The Dalmatian. 



Dogs of the Day. 



Schenectady Dog Show. 



Watch. 



Chesapeake Bay Dog Club. 

 Kennel Notes. 

 Kennel Management. 

 Riele and Trap Shooting. 

 Range and Gallery. 

 New Orleans Rifle Contest. 

 The Trap. 



Claremont Shooting Associa- 

 tion. 

 Canoeing. 

 1,500 Miles in an Adirondack 



Boat.— xvi. 

 A War Canoe Challenge. 

 Yachting. 

 New British Yachts. 

 Down the Coast in a Naphtha 



Launch. 

 Championship in Yachting. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



A NATURAL RESERVOIR. 

 \\7 ITH a unanimity which is rather remarkable, the 



' ' press of the -larger cities, and especially of New 

 York, has spoken out against the amendment added by 

 the Public Lands Committee to the Yellowstone Park bill. 

 The Boston Herald, the Chicago Times, the New York 

 Times, Evening Post, Tribune, Herald, Sun and many 

 other papers, hare all expressed, in strong terms on the 

 editorial page, the view held by all disinterested persons 

 that to permit a railway to enter the Park will be to de- 

 stroy the usefulness of that noble reservation. It remains 

 to be seen whether the House of Representatives will 

 disregard so unanimous an expression of opinion from the 

 leading papers of the country without regard to party. 

 We do not like to think that things are quite so bad as 

 they are said to be by an eminent public man, who, in 

 speaking of this matter recently, said: "The Western 

 members are for the railroad, the Southern members, 

 like Gallio, 'care for none of these things,' the Eastern 

 members own stock in the railroad and the mines." 



If a railroad is built through the National Park, the 

 inevitable result will be that the forests will be destroyed 

 by fire, the springs will fail and the rivers will go dry. 

 The whole of the arid West is deeply interested in the 

 question of a water supply for irrigating purposes, and it 

 is proposed to appropriate vast sums of money to build 

 great storage reservoirs, which are to hold the water for 

 this purpose. The Yellowstone Park is a grand natural 

 reservoir, which now collects and holds the drainage of 

 many thousand square miles of territory. Moreover, it 

 is the fountain head from which alone can be drawn a 

 large part of the water which it is proposed to store up 

 for the farmer's use. To admit a railway in the National 

 Park is to break down and destroy this natural reservoir. 

 Tt is of no earthly use to provide tanks in which to store 

 water if you are going to cut the pipes which supply 



those tanks; to build a reservoir if you intend to turn 

 aside the sources of the stream which flows into it. 



At all events, it is time that the Public Lands Commit- 

 tee and the House of Representatives go on record in this 

 matter. The report ought to be presented without fur- 

 ther delay, and action taken on it at the earliest moment 

 practicable. It will be interesting to see whether in this 

 matter, as in so many others, the well-being of the farmer 

 is to be sacrificed to that of people who can afford to em- 

 ploy a lobby in Washington. 



YOUNG SHAD IN RIVERS. 

 \\l E called attention last week to the destruction of 

 ' ™ shad in the Connecticut, and ventured the assertion 

 that if the catch of alewives or "whops" were examined 

 it would be found associated with young shad. We are 

 now able to justify this statement through the courtesy 

 of the TJ. S. Fish Commission. On the 25th inst. live little 

 fishes were sent to the Commissioner by Mr. S. G. Worth 

 from the U. S. station at Fort Washington, on the Poto- 

 mac River, where they were captured in a seine by Mr. 

 Harron. Mr. H. stated that about 500 of these small fish 

 were escaping from the bunt of the seine when he cap- 

 tured the specimens forwarded for examination. Two of 

 the five young individuals proved to be shad and the rest 

 were alewives. Mr. Harron further said that it is very 

 unusual to see such young fish in the river at this season 

 of the year. It has been considered settled that shad do 

 not return to the rivers until mature, with the exception 

 of a few small bucks, or male shad. In the case just re- 

 corded, however, the larger of the two is only about four 

 inches long. We must, therefore, revise our beliefs con- 

 cerning the movements of this species and look sharply 

 into the probable need of more stringent legislation with 

 regard to the size of the mesh of pounds along some por- 

 tions of the coast, and especially near the liver mouths. 



BEER AND PARTRIDGES. 



THE Supreme Court of the United States last Monday 

 rendered a decision, which appears to have a direct 

 and important bearing on the constitutionality of a 

 certain class of statutes relating to the sale of game. 

 The case was that of a firm of Peoria, 111., brewers, who 

 had shipped a lot of beer to Keokuk, la. , and offered it 

 for sale there in its original sealed packages. Under the 

 Iowa prohibitory law, the liquor was seized by the City 

 Marshal. The brewers brought suit against him, claim- 

 ing that the seizure was unconstitutional, because in 

 violation of that provision of the Constitution of the 

 United States, which says that Congress shall have the 

 exclusive right to regulate commerce between the 

 States. The local court sustained the plaintiffs; the 

 Supreme Court of the State overruled this decis- 

 ion, and appeal was taken to the Supreme Court of 

 the United States, which has just given its decision. 

 This is that the transportation of liquors from one State 

 into another is a matter of inter-State commerce, which 

 Congress alone can regulate: and further that this right 

 to transport an article of commerce into any State pre- 

 supposes and carries with it the right of the consignee to 

 sell the article there in the sealed packages in which it 

 was transported. 



It is readily seen that this decision seriously impairs 

 the efficacy of any prohibitory statute relating to the 

 liquor traffic. As pointed out by Justice Gray, one of 

 the dissenting judges, this right of importation and sale 

 gives practical immunity from all prohibitory and license 

 laws. He says: 



"If the statutes of a State, restricting or prohibiting the sale of 

 intoxicating liquors within its territory, are to be held inoperative 

 and void as applied to liquors sent or brought from another State 

 and sold by the importer in what are called original packages, the 

 consequence must be that an inhabitant of any State may, under 

 the pretext of inter-State commerce and without license or super- 

 vision of any public authority, carry or send into and sell in any 

 or all of the other States of the Union intoxicating liquors of 

 whatever description, in cases or kegs, or even in single bottles or 

 flasks, despite any legislation of those States on the subject, and 

 although his own State should be the only one which had not en- 

 acted similar lawB." 



There is a strong parallel between the liquor prohibition 

 laws and those game statutes which f orbid the sale of 

 game out of season even though it be imported from other 

 States. In most of the State6 the close season is made an 

 absolute close season for all game wherever killed. In 

 this city, for example, game dealers are forbidden to sell 

 ruffed grouse or partridges between Sept. 1 and Jan. 1. 

 The law applies to all birds, whether killed in New York , 



or brought in from other States where they'may law- 

 fully have been killed before Sept. 1 or after Jan. 1. 



If the principles laid down by the Supreme Court, with 

 respect to the liquor traffic, apply to the game traffic as 

 well, and no reason suggests itself to us why they should 

 not do so, it is plainly a violation of the inter-State com- 

 merce clause, to forbid the sale of game at any season, 

 provided it is shipped into a State and offered for sale by 

 the consignee in the original packages. If this holds 

 trme, boxes of Connecticut partridges and Maine trout, 

 and sacks of Minnesota venison and of quail from the 

 West, may be sold in New York city all the year around 

 by game commission merchants acting as agents of the 

 consignors. 



The advocates of prohibition express the opinion that 

 the result of this Supreme Court decision will be to take 

 the subject of inter-State liquor traffic into Congress, 

 where it rightly belongs, as a question of inter-State 

 commerce. If this view is correct, it may not be long 

 until Congress shall be asked to deal with inter-State 

 traffic in game. The remedy to be asked for, to cover 

 this particular point of the sale of game in the close sea- 

 son, would be a national law forbidding the sale of game 

 in any State during the close season for that game pre- 

 scribed by the statutes of that State. 



SNAP SHOTS. 



T) EPRESENTATIVE TURNER, of Kansas, is inter- 

 -*-* J ested in the preservation of our forests and pro- 

 poses to take hold of the subject and see if some adequate 

 legislation cannot be had from Congress. Some time 

 ago Mr. Dunnell introduced in the House, in behalf of the 

 American Forestry Association, a bill which provided 

 for the appointment of a commission of three persons to 

 investigate the forests of the United States and to rep'ort 

 to Congress plans for a temporary administration of 

 them. The bill, in the opinion of many persons, was en- 

 tirely impractical and its passage could have accom- 

 plished nothing. Indeed, the American Forestry Asso- 

 ciation did not expf ct any results from it, if passed, but 

 regarded it rather as an entering wedge, hoping that if 

 Congress could be committed to some action on this sub- 

 ject, it would be easier in future to induce it to move. Mr. 

 Turner believes that the time for action on this most im- 

 portant matter has now come, and favors the bill intro- 

 duced by Mr. Hale in the Senate of the Fiftieth Congress. 

 This bill, while by no means providing all that is to be 

 desired, would, if passed, be a long step in the right 

 direction. It is strongly backed by the American Forestry 

 Association and deserves the cordial support of every 

 one who is interested in matters pertaining to the care 

 and cultivation of our forests. 



Notwithstanding the stipulation made by Gov. Hill 

 when he signed the bill providing for the codification of 

 the game laws of Ne w York, the flood of bills on this sub- 

 ject flows through the Legislature unchecked. The Gov- 

 ernor, however, has very wisely taken the stand that he 

 will approve no more game bills. He declines to add to 

 the existing confusion of the laws, now that there seems 

 a reasonable prospect that within a year order may take 

 the place of the chaos whieh prevails at present. He has 

 vetoed Mr. Barton's bill amending the general game laws 

 for the following reasons: "This bill adds Brant Lake, 

 in Warren county, to the list of waters in which the kill- 

 ing or catching of black bass is forbidden between the 

 first day of January and the first day of July. Since the 

 bill was introduced the Legislature has passed and the 

 Executive has approved a measure which provides for 

 the revision and codification of the laws for the protec- 

 tion and preservation of fish and shellfish, and of birds 

 and quadrupeds. In view of the work contemplated by 

 this statute it would seem unwise at present to modify, 

 unnecessarily, existing laws pertaining to this subject. 

 The commission created under the statute above referred 

 to is compelled to make its report in January next, until 

 which time the legislation herein proposed can easily be 

 deferred. The bill is, therefore, returned without ap- 

 proval." For similar reasons he also vetoed Mr. W. C. 

 Stevens's bill amending the game laws for a particular 

 locality. The reasons advanced by the Governor for 

 vetoing these bills are ample, but if others were needed 

 they might be found in the absurdity of passing a special 

 law to govern the fishing and shooting in each pond hole 

 and brush patch throughout the State, 



