Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. ] 

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NEW YORK, MAY 8, 18 90. 



( VOL. XXXrV.-No. 16 



I No. 318 Broadway, New York, 



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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Capercailzie and Black fiame. 



Samuels'? Work on AngliQg. 



Death of ''Nessmuk " 



Snap Shots. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



A Bit of Advice. 



Camp Life in Colorado. 

 Natural Histoht 



Birds from Peep Water. 



Foreign Game for America. 

 Game Bag and Urns. 



Bear Hunt in Tensas. 



Log of the Launch Green wing. 



Revolver Rest. 



By Moonlight. 



The Profits of Trapping. 



Small Game in Northern 

 Mexico. 



Chicago and the West. 



A California Spring Day. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



The Wea k fish. 



Striped B^ss in California. 



Scarcity of (Jonnpcticut Shad. 



Brook Trout in Minnesota. 



Club Meetings. 



Random Casts. 



Angling Notes. 



Chicago and the West. 



Sis a and River Fishing. 



New England Notes. 

 Fishcultlre. 



Midland Counties Fishcul- 

 tural Establishment. 



U. S. Fish Commission Work. 

 The Kennel. 



Care of Puppies. 



Ogdensburg Dog Killing Case. 



Runs with the Foxes.— n. 



Beaufort. 



Color in St. Bernards. 

 St. Bernard Club Medal. 

 Th" Cincinnati Show. 

 Dogs of the Day. 

 Indiana Field Trials. 

 Kennel Notes. 

 Riele and Trap Shooting. 

 Range and Gallery. 

 The Trap. 



New York Tournament. 



The Columbus Tournament. 

 Canoeing. 



Vikings on the Cruise. 



A. C. A. Central Division Meet 

 Yachting. 



The New Yachts of 1880.: 



Larchmont Y. C. 



Minerva. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



CAPERCAILZIE AND BLACK GAME. 

 TT gives us much pleasure to print from advance sheets 

 J- an important report which Hon. W. W. Thomas, Jr., 

 our Minister to Sweden, has sent to the State Department, 

 respecting the adaptability of the capercailzie and black 

 game for introduction into this country. Minister Thomas 

 is a devoted sportsman and angler, and having enjoyed 

 the pursuit of these grand species of game in Sweden, 

 has with true patriotic feeling been prompted to add the 

 birds to the game supply of his own land. There are in- 

 deed few things our foreign representatives can do more 

 useful to their country than to add to its fauna a valua- 

 ble animal or fish. In suggesting the enterprise so well 

 represented in his report, and in urging it upon his home 

 government, Minister Thomas is performing a distinc- 

 tively public service. 



His report is very full. He gives the history of both 

 birds, their habitat, food, haunts, habits, results of ship- 

 ping and acclimatizing them in other lands, with the 

 mode and cost, and points out the sections of our country 

 fitted for them. 



The birds would certainly be a most desirable acquisi- 

 tion. The habits of the capercailzie are much like those 

 of the ruffed grouse; and the foreign bird is about ten 

 times as large. Old cocks weigh from 10 to 12 pounds, 

 and sometimes exceed the latter figure. They lie fairly 

 well to the dog early in the season, about the same as the 

 ruffed grouse. The flesh is like that of our prairie chicken. 

 There is no gamier bird than the black cock; its weight 

 is 3 pounds, and it lies like a stone to the dog. Its flesh 

 is much the same as that of the capercailzie. 



Minister Thomas has occupied much of his leisure 

 time, during several years of residence abroad, in study- 

 ing the fitness of these birds for America and the practi- 

 cability of their introduction here. He may be consid- 

 ered then as a safe guide, and his favorable opinion of 

 the feasibility of the undertaking should be accepted as 

 conclusive. He reports that after this thorough investi- 

 gation of the subject he is convinced that the birds will 

 stand the voyage and thrive in all our Northern forests 

 from Maine to Oregon; down the wooded slopes of the 

 Rockies and Pacific Coast ranges to the southern border; 

 and down the AUeghanies, Cumberland Mountains and 

 Blue Ridge, through A r irginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and 



North Carolina, to South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama. 



His suggestion that the Government might legitimatel y 

 undertake the importation of these species, putting the 

 birds out in the National Park, commends itself. If it is 

 within the province of the Government — as it most as- 

 suredly is — to protect and conserve the native varieties of 

 game, it is no less a proper field of enterprise for it to add 

 to the indigenous stock in the way here recommended. 

 The transplanting of the capercailzie and the black game 

 is not experimental. It has been done with success in 

 other lands; no reason presents itself for the presumption 

 that it cannot be accomplished with similar good results 

 here. It is worthy of trial. Congress should be induced 

 to act in the matter. The commendable enterprise of 

 Minister Thomas in laying before the State Department 

 this project for increasing the game food supply of his 

 native land should receive indorsement and practical 

 adoption. 



MR SAMUELS'S WORK ON ANGLING. 

 TOURING the present month, the Forest and Stream 

 Publishing Company will issue a new work on 

 angling under the title, "With Fly-Rod and Camera." 

 Its author, Mr. E. A. Samuels, President of the Massa- 

 chusetts Fish and Game Protective Association, is one of 

 the most devoted and expert salmon fishermen of 

 America. For more than a quarter of a century he has 

 made annual excursions to the salmon rivers of Canada 

 and the trout lakes of New England. He is a polished 

 writer of long experience, and besides this possesses ex- 

 ceptional skill as an amateur photographer. On his trips 

 to the woods and streams, his camera has been as much 

 a part of his outfit as his rod or his note book. 



The results of his long experience are given in the pres- 

 ent stately volume, and while its reading matter is full 

 of interest, it is really as an art volume that the book 

 merits special distinction. The illustrations comprise 150 

 full-page plates, which are direct reproductions by a half- 

 tone process from Mr. Samuels's photographs. In the 

 number and quality of its illustrations, "With Fly-Rod 

 and Camera" is the most elaborate book on angling ever 

 issued from the American press. The subjects include 

 views of the picturesque scenery of Canada, the famous 

 salmon rivers and pools, incidents of travel and camp 

 life, and numerous instantaneous pictures of actual 

 fishing. 



If this book is remarkable as an example of the photog- 

 rapher's art, it is not less interesting to him who is seek- 

 ing for information on the art of taking trout and salmon 

 with the fly. The text, with not less graphic effect than 

 the illustrations, pictures everyday experience in what is 

 beyond question the grandest angling in the world; it 

 fairly bristles, too, with hints and instruction, interspersed 

 with incident and anecdote. While not professing 

 to prepare a manual of angling, the author of "With Fly- 

 Rod and Camera" has given us a work so full of interest 

 and of practical guidance that no salmon or trout fisher- 

 man, angler or novice, can afford to leave it unread. 



The work, which is a super-royal octavo, page 7x9^in., 

 will contain 480 pages, 150-full page illustrations, and 

 will be ready for delivery May 27. 



THE DEATH OF "NESSMUK." 



THE sad intelligence, which came to us last Saturday, 

 announcing the death of "Nessmuk," was not alto- 

 gether unexpected. For several months past it had been 

 known to his friends that Mr. Sears was in a very feeble 

 condition, and his death was regarded as a contingency 

 by no means remote. Last summer, too weak to make a 

 camping excursion to the woods, yet powerless to with- 

 stand the longing for a taste of the old life, he pitched 

 his tent beneath the hemlocks of his home yard, and 

 there with his grandson "played" at an outing. After 

 the long and weary confinement of the winter just past, 

 he craved outdoor life: and on the last day of April, sup- 

 ported by loving arms, he went out for a little while 

 under the same trees. The next morning at 2 o'clock, 

 May 1, he passed away. Last Saturday, in the spot he 

 had selected beneath those same hemlocks, they laid him 

 at rest. His age was sixty-nine years. 



His death brought to its close a life which was in many 

 respects singular and worthy of note. George W. Sears, 

 in the character of "Nessmuk," by which he was known 

 to readers of this journal, was the product of peculiar 

 circumstances. 

 His was a woods life. In fact, as he once humorously 



put it, "he took to the woods for very life." When at an 

 early age, being of consumptive tendencies, he was told 

 by his physicians that but a year or two of life lay be- 

 fore him, with pluck and resolution undaunted, he sought 

 healing and strength from the forests and the moun- 

 tains. From that day he was for much of the time an- 

 nually a woods dweller, sleeping under canvas, in "brush 

 camp" or beneath the rough bark lean-to; following the 

 deer and the bear, studying the secrets of the wilder- 

 ness; and all the while proving the blessed influences 

 of the simple outdoor existence to build up a fragile con- 

 stitution and restore to health. But while dwelling thus 

 apart from society, there was nothing of the spirit of the 

 recluse in him ; he was in touch with his fellow men, alive 

 to the questions of the day, concerned with the problems 

 of society, a student of human nature. He was gifted 

 with a superior intellect, and it did not stagnate in the 

 woods. Uneducated in the schools, he was yet self- 

 taught, and well taught. He knew the best authors. 

 That was no idle boast of his, on being asked what books 

 he took into the woods, that he found it necessary to take 

 none, seeing that he carried Shakespeare and other poets 

 under his hat. He possessed a rich store of mother wit, 

 a vast fund of practical common sense, a philosophy of 

 his own. He commanded the respect of intellectual men 

 with whom he came in contact. A distinguished clergy- 

 man once wrote us after spending a fortnight in camp 

 with "Nessmuk," "Of all the men I have ever met, Sears 

 is the best worth knowing." 



It was some ten years ago that our correspondent 

 "Awahsoose," R. E. Robinson, the author of the "Uncle 

 Lisha's Shop" series, wrote to the Forest and Stream 

 asking what had become of that one of the old Spirit of 

 the Times contributors who over the signature of "Ness- 

 muk" had charmed the readers of that journal with his 

 descriptions of wild woods life. This published inquiry 

 brought out a response from ' 'Nessmuk" himself — George 

 W. Sears — and shortly thereafter he wrote for these 

 columns a series of "Rough Notes from the Woods." The 

 papers attracted immediate attention, and by them the 

 name of "Nessmuk" was made as familiar to the sports- 

 man of the present as it had been to those of Porter's Spirit 

 days. Mr. Sears speedily took his rightful place among 

 the most popular of the Forest and Stream's many con- 

 tributors, and held it so long as he continued to write. 

 His abundant experience, his rich store of information in 

 all branches of woodcraft, his familiarity with the ways 

 of wild creatures and sympathy with the wood-folk, a 

 never-failing fund of anecdote, shrewd insight into 

 human nature, the terseness and compactness of his 

 quaint style, his command of English and sturdy asser- 

 tiveness — all these combined to win for him an interested 

 and devoted following. Whether he wrote of the hack- 

 neyed, fashion-plagued Adirondacks, the remote wilds 

 of the Northern Michigan Peninsula, the dense forests of 

 Pennsylvania, or the swamps and hamaks of Florida, it 

 was all one; each locality was invested with a new inter- 

 est when seen through his eyes, and made fascinating by 

 the charm wrought of his personality. 



Perhaps the best specimen of "Nessmuk's" prose is the 

 little manual of "Woodcraft," published in 1884, contain- 

 ing the "boiled down" information and lore he had spent 

 half a century in acquiring. In these days, when there 

 flows from the press a never ceasing flood of empty books 

 manufactured by literary charlatans, to read the terse, 

 suggestive chapters of "Woodcraft" is as refreshing as to 

 inhale the perfumed air of the old woods lot after a June 

 shower. 



It is by the volume of poems, "Forest Runes," that the 

 name of Mr. Sears is destined to be longest remembered. 

 He was a genuine poet; his was the verse that comes to 

 the brain and presses for utterance. In his poems he 

 speaks to many a responsive soul. There are touches 

 deep and pathetic, and others in lighter mood. The 

 "Runes" came from the pen of one who was used to call 

 himself only a "ragged woodsman," but in truth they had 

 their origin in the heart of one who knew human life in 

 all its phases of joy and love and toil and bereavement; 

 and who had a deep sympathy with humanity in its every 

 condition, but more than all in its humbler aspects. 

 This is one of the noteworthy points of his career, 

 that "Nessmuk" the woods-dweller, the haunter of 

 forest fastnesses, was yet a poet of the people. 

 Nor is there in this any occasion to wonder, for it was 

 in his solitude amid the pines and the hemlocks that 

 he found time to ponder and study the great questions 



