Mat 8, 1890.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



A REVOLVER REST. 



THIS is a sketch of a revolver rest I made not long ago. 

 The total length of the contrivance, including the 

 pistol, is 33in., and the distance between the peep sight 

 on the Test and the end sight is 21in., which is about the 

 average distance between the sights on a rifle. 



I was led to the construction of the rest by a desire to 

 ascertain, if it was possible, for a revolver with a 3in. 

 barrel, to throw a bullet with any degree of accuracy. 



I knew, from experience, that I could not do any 

 creditable shooting with it off-hand and I wanted to find 

 out whether (leaving out the factor of marksmanship) 

 this was due most to the extreme closeness of the sights 

 or the shortness of the barrel. 



With this end in view, I secured the revolver firmly at 

 one end of a jriece of half -inch board and at the other end 

 fitted a stock, shaped after the model of the stock of the 

 Winchester rifle. 



Having screwed on a peep sight and adjusted a lever 

 connected, by a piece of twine with the revolver trigger, 

 in such a manner that it served for a hair trigger, and 

 having carefully lined the revolver sights with the peep 

 sight, the contrivance was ready for use. Then came 

 the test. Just outside my window, about 10yds. oil', was 

 a maple free on which was a white spot, possibly l^in. in 

 diameter. At this I aimed and succeeded in putting three 

 successive bullets in it. A number of other shots proved 

 that the revolver with the rest was almost as accurate as 

 a rifle up to 30yds., and that the short barrel of itself was 

 not responsible for any misses. 



Having demonstrated to my satisfaction that the re- 

 volver would shoot straight, I decided next to test the 

 practical value of the combination as an outdoor arm on 

 woodchucks. I walked south from Hartford for about 

 three miles before I got my first shot. Then, just after 

 crossing a log ridge at the edge of a piece of woods, I 

 came suddenly upon a woodchuck some distance from 

 his hole. Aiming carefully, I tumbled him over at about 

 25yds. A little further on, across the road, I spied an- 

 other woodchuck making for his hole. As I expected, 

 he stopped at the mouth of the hole, and I gave him a 

 shot at a distance of 40yds. The woodchuck disappeared 

 and I walked toward the hole, uncertain whether I had 

 hit him or not. When about 30yds. off, however, he 

 stuck his head out of the hole. I fired quickly and saw 

 the bullet strike just over him. I cocked the revolver 

 again and walked a little closer, stopping between 15 and 

 20yds, from the hole with the pistol at my shoulder. 

 "Give me another shot," I thought, "and I'll do better," 



An instant after I saw the brown snout of the chuck 

 appear. I aimed a trifle lower than I had before, fired, 

 and when I ran up to the hole there lay the old fellow — 

 and he was a ''whopper" — with a bullet hole bored 

 neatly t hrough the center of his organ of curiosity. 



I never saw a woodchuck of quite so inquiring a mind. 

 He seemed to be saying each time aa-he popped his head 

 out of the hole, "That ain't a gun you've got. What kind 

 of an old board is it you're shooting with, anyhow?" I 

 doubt whether his curiosity was ever satisfied/ 



One f crew fastens the revolver in place, the stock is 

 easily detachable, and, as altogether it weighs only 21bs., 

 this combination is very handy to take on a tramp where 

 a rifle of any great size or weight would be inconvenient. 



Tycho. 



The Kentucky Clup.— Louisville, Ky., May L— The 

 present game laws of the State are very loose, and are 

 very poorly enforced. In the Legislature, however, the 

 following bills have been introduced: An act to establish 

 the fish and game warden system, etc. An act for the 

 protection of fish in the waters of Kentucky. An act to 

 amend chapter 46, General Statutes, title, "Game and 

 Small Birds." An act to amend the law in regard to 

 posting lands. All four of these measures were prepared 

 by the Kentucky Fish and Game Club, and this organiza- 

 tion is using every endeavor to have them become laws. 

 Those who have no interest either way are unanimous in 

 the opinion that the proposed acts are decidedly in favor 

 of the farmer in every way, and the latter, though he at 

 first objected to be dictated to by the "city chaps," as he 

 called them, is beginning to realize the value of them 

 both to himself and the game, and has instructed his 

 representative to do his best in assisting to make the bills 

 a law. The first three bills passed the Senate almost 

 unanimously, and when all four of them were introduced 

 into the House they were made a special order. Other 

 matters interfered, however, but they will come up next 

 week. The laws will be strictly enforced and all viola- 

 tions will be punished with the assistance of the now 

 great club that framed them, — C. A. D. 



Spring in Minnesota. — McHugh Station, April 23. — 

 Spring has finally made an appearance, much to the dis- 

 comfiture of snow and ice, which are rapidly disappear- 

 ing. Ducks are coming in abundance and are being 

 bothered very little, and as much also can be said of the 

 snipe, which are quite plentiful; the other migratory 

 birds have most all arrived except a few dilatory ones 

 that seemingly care nothing for the early worm.— J. 

 G. N. 



Killed by the Wire.— Holy oke, Mass.. April .28.— 

 Editor Forest and StrMm: I call on you and your many 

 readers to lament with me the untimely end of a bird 

 born to die game before dog and gun. A poor woodcock, 

 being too venturesome, met his death at the hands of 

 that foul assassin, the electric wire. It is a male bird in 

 fine feather and condition, weighing within a fraction of 

 7-J-oz. — Thos. Chalmers. 



Green Eiver and Corn Island.— Louisville, Ky., May 

 1. — Green Eiver, of this. State, winds its way through the 

 dark chambers of Mammoth Cave and breeds fish with- 

 out eyes. Great flocks of ducks make their winter home 

 on its clear, deep waters. The river has never been 

 known to freeze over, consequently the web-footed tribe 



have no trouble in finding an easy living there when other 

 streams arc not fit for winter quarters. In the fall and 

 spring the little bayous along its course are overflowed. 

 These are generally fertile, low spots that have been cul- 

 tivated, and never become so inundated that a pah* of 

 rubber boots would not be a safeguard against a wetting. 

 In February these swamps are black with ducks. Corn 

 Island, in the Ohio River, just above Owensboro, is a 

 great gathering place for geese and pigeons, and when 

 scarce everywhere else they may be found there. For 

 many years a famous pigeon roost has been located there, 

 and still is a retreat, although pigeons are rapidly disap- 

 pearing from all parts of the South. — C. A. D. 



"That reminds me." 

 302. 



IN one of the old mining towns of this part of Califor- 

 nia, away up on the slope of the Sierra Nevadas, there 

 lived several years ago, during the active working of the 

 hydraulic mines, a celebrated character, whose modesty, 

 as he is still in the land of the living, forbids my giving 

 his name. His justly celebrated fame arose from his re- 

 markable power of narration. He could take any trivial 

 occurrence that happened in town, dress it up in such 

 glowing colors and throw so many vivid sidelights upon 

 it, that not even the participants themselves could recog- 

 nize it. G. B. undoubtedly wore for years the belt as the 

 champion liar of that mining region, and one of his 

 stories, that I happened to hear him relate, I think is 

 worth preserving in the columns of the Forest and 

 Stream. I will let him tell it in his own words: 



"It was in the spring of '50 that a train of sixty-five on 

 us started across the plains for Californy. The most on 

 us were young men an' able to rough it, but we had three 

 famblys, with about a dozen young uns among us, an' 

 one baby was born on the way. Wal, of course, fresh 

 meat soon got mighty scase, as there was so many trains 

 on the trad ahead on us that all the game had been killed 

 or scairt away. The young mother she kept kind o' 

 pindlin like, after her kid was born, and got sick o' 

 bacon, an' sich like, an' the young fellers that had bosses 

 o' their own to ride, there being half a dozen on 'em in 

 the train, used to scour out on the plains for fresh meat 

 for her. One day three on us got arter a couple o' an- 

 telope early in the rnornin' when our hosses was fresh 

 an' we jest took after 'em, a yellin' like Comancbes, jest 

 to see 'em run. There was a couple o' hills on the piain 

 that stood seprit, with about twenty rods o' ground be- 

 tween 'em at the fur end, and the critters made a break 

 to go between 'em. We was comin' on arter 'em like Ave 

 meant to catch 'em, when they see that this open place 

 between the hills had grown up with tall chapparral. 

 Now an antelope won't run up a hill, nor into thick brush 

 if he knows it, so they stopped till we got a'most up to 

 'em, an' one on 'em tried to run back by us, but one o' 

 the boys stopped him with a charge o ! buckshot. The 

 other one seein' what an almighty tight place he'd got 

 into, jest made for the bresh an' tried to jump over it. 

 Wal, sirs! he made the all firedest jump as ever I see, 

 but when the critter got up into the air he seed he hadn't 

 jumped far enough, an' I'm a liar if he didn't gather him- 

 self in the air an' gin another o' the most tremenjous 

 jumps that any critter ever did make, an' jest went 

 a-sailin' right on over the bresh an' landed on t'other side 

 on't slick and clean!" Arefar. 



\m mjd §Htier fishing. 



CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 



C CHICAGO. 111., May 1.— There will be a few mascal- 

 ) longe and a few bass and a few trout taken by 

 Chicago anglers in the month of May, but the angling- 

 season proper will not be on until the first of June. This 

 is a late spring, and it will be some weeks before the fish- 

 ing is at its best. The bass are spawning in May, and it 

 is wrong to take them before about June 1, no matter 

 what the law says. 



Mr. C. D. Gammon and his party will start on a mas- 

 callonge trip, probably within a couple of weeks, if the 

 weather warms up in Wisconsin. May is naturally the 

 best month for mascallonge, at least until fall, taking the 

 seasons as they average, and there may perhaps be fair 

 fishing this month. This party was very successful at 

 Vieux Desert last year. The writer may possibly be with 

 them for a day or so this year, as it isn't polite not to ac- 

 cept an invitation two years in succession. 



Speaking of mascallonge reminds one that a specimen 

 of that fi«h was caught a week ago in the Grand Calumet 

 River, below Chicago, where they were supposed to be 

 unknown. Mr. Booth, the veteran fish dealer, pronounced 

 the fish a genuine mascallonge, but doubted its being 

 caught in that stream. Yet this is the third mascallonge 

 caught there of late years. Talking of this last night 

 Avith Henry Kleinman, who has hunted and fished all 

 over the Calumet country for thirty years, he said that 

 twenty years or more ago they used often to take mascal- 

 longe in the Calumet River, and frequently very large 

 ones in their nets out in Lake Michigan. I never knew 

 that the latter water ever had a mascallonge in it, but it 

 cannot now be doubted. 



Henry Kleinman told of one way to distinguish a 

 mascallonge that may be of service to some fellow who 

 doesn't know what he has caught. "A mascallonge," 

 said he, "always has a split in his tail, so that the top 

 part is divided clear from the rest of the tail. Now a 

 pike, or pickerel, never has its tail split that way. A 

 mascallonge is darker, too." 



Mr. W. H. Comstock, of this city, yesterday showed 

 me a singular photograph. It was taken on March 15 

 last, the opening day of the Castalia, Ohio, trout season. 

 Doubtless most of the Forest and Stream readers 

 know of that wealthy club and its well stocked stream. 

 The picture showed Mr. Comstock, Mr. A. C. E y and 

 Mr. Preston Ely standing in fishing costume, and with 

 visible proofs of their success, with their clothing covered 

 with a heavy snow and their faces hung with icicles. 

 Yet on that day the catch of trout was very good. It 

 need not be said that only the fly was used. Other pho- 



tographs showed the trout taken, a very fine lot. Mr, 

 Comstock says that the club now has nine miles of water. 



Mr. Henry L. Smith, of the Wisconsin Central road, 

 writes to Spalding's that he has been out trout|fishing 147 

 miles north of Milwaukee, but he is painfully silent as 

 to results. Mr. W. F. White, of the Santa Fe system, 

 and long time ago general passenger agent of the A. T. 

 & S. F., the same a very genial man and ardent sports- 

 man, is in town outfitting with some friends for trout, 

 and I understand they go to that lovely water, the upper 

 Pecos, above Las Vegas, New Mexico. 



No very definite news has come in by way of actual 

 angling results, except an unconfirmed rumor from Fox 

 Lake that a large-mouthed boy had caught a small black- 

 mouthed bass, the kind that have horns on them. This 

 was near Col. Lippincott's pier. Col. Lippincott's mas- 

 callonge is still alive this year, and is said to have chased 

 the steamer all the way across the lake from Lake Villa. 

 If this thing is not destroyed it will kill all the sheep in 

 the neighborhood, moreover frighten the summer hotel 

 trade. It grows yearly larger and larger. 



This business of waiting for the fishing season to begin 

 is hard on the constitution. I know where there is some 

 grayling fishing, and some bass fishing, and some trout 

 fishing, all of it not so very far from this city, and all of 

 it new to the general public, the writer included. In 

 consequence of which I have been casting a fly at a bit of 

 paper 30ft. distant on the office floor. This is better than 

 nothing, if you don't raise anything more than a splinter 

 or two. I have invented a fly for bass this season , and 

 am very anxious to try it. It has a yellow body, tinsel 

 wound lightly, with a red tail. The wings are turkey 

 brown, and the hackles mixed red and cinnamon, brown 

 or ginger. This approaches a cross between the Montreal 

 and the professor, and is, I think, new. The Montreal is 

 one of our best bass flies for Western waters, and the pro- 

 fessor is a good all-around fly. The new pattern makes a 

 good-looking fly, though what it will d© remains very 

 largely to be seen. 



Netting of fish is being practiced at Summit, in the 

 Des Plaines. Untold numbers of game fish have been 

 speared in the Kankakee this spring. Gill-netting is 

 going on in the Calumet Lake waters. The Fox River 

 Association can find plenty of missionary work to do. 



E. Hough. 



NEW ENGLAND NOTES. 



THE Quincy smelt case is attracting considerable at- 

 tention among both the friends and enemies of fish 

 and game protection. The case first came up before the 

 District Court at Quincy two years ago, where the de- 

 fendants, C. L. Prescott, Samuel Gregory and H. Thurber, 

 were complained of for taking 1,000 smelts with seine or 

 net. The statute provides that each person so taking 

 smelts shall forfeit $1 for each smelt so taken. The de- 

 fendants were taken in the act and with the smelts in 

 possession, and were acting together, and were each 

 liable for every smelt, but Judge Humphrey was lenient 

 and fined each for only 330 smelt, or $330. The defend- 

 ants appealed, however, and the case came before a jury 

 at the Norfolk county Superior Court at Dedham last 

 fall, when they were found guilty of taking 850 smelts. 

 But again the defendants were not satisfied, and through 

 their counsel, J. L. Eldridge, appeared before Judge 

 Aldrich last week at Dedham and moved an arrest of 

 judgment on the ground that the defendants were origin- 

 ally found guilty before the District Court of taking by 

 seine 330 smelts and no more, whereas the said judg- 

 ment substantially acquitted them of taking the re- 

 mainder of the 1,000. This appeared in the record, and 

 consequently there could be no judgment in the record. 

 The motion of Lawyer Eldridge has been overruled by 

 the Superior Court, and it will now be sent to the Su- 

 preme Court, where the exact wording of the law will 

 doubtless be sustained. The point taken by the counsel 

 is a mere quibble, and is doubtless employed to stave off 

 judgment as long as possible. The decision of the Su- 

 preme Court will be watched with interest. The defend- 

 ants have tried to create a sentiment in Quincy and 

 Dedham that should be strong enough to get the law 

 repealed at the present session of the General Court. 

 But in this they have utterly failed. The best people in 

 Quincy are fully in favor of sustaining the law against 

 the illegal taking of smelt in the river there. They have 

 seen a great increase in smelt under the anioxmt of pro- 

 tection the law has given, though it has been a hard 

 struggle. Each season the stealing of smelt is carried on. 

 By moonlight, by torchlight and in various ways the 

 work is attempted, and woe be to the quiet citizen who 

 attempts to interfere. Still, arrests and fines have been 

 frequent. The decision of the case now before the 

 Supreme Court will, if decided against the illegal smelt 

 fishers, as it doubtless will be, strike something like ter- 

 ror to others. The fine is a heavy one, and makes the 

 stealing of smelt rather dear business. 



There are no especially new features in regard to the 

 breaking up of the ice in the Maine trout lakes. A letter 

 from Rangeley on Saturday, May 3, states that unless the 

 weather is very warm, the ice will not go out before the 

 12th to the 15th. Another letter from Richardson Lake 

 on Monday says that the ice will hardly get out of that 

 lake before the 15th, though if the weather should be 

 very warm, matters might be hurried three or four days. 

 A letter from Moosehead on Friday says that the ice will 

 probably leave that lake somewhere from the 8th to the 

 10th. The ice is out of Sebago Lake, but I have not 

 heard of any landlocked salmon being taken, though 

 some parties are there fishing. The Maine trout streams 

 are yielding sone good strings. Several parties were out 

 from Lewiston and Auburn on Saturday, and were well 

 satisfied with the day's sport. Special. 



Where to Get Anchovies.— Our east coast as far 

 north as Cape Cod is reasonably well supplied with ancho- 

 vies, which would serve a useful purpose for the angler 

 in bait- fishing. The west coast, also, has a great store of 

 them; but in Asia Minor there is a stretch of Black Sea 

 coast, east of Trebizond, whereon, Consul Jewett says, 

 "anchovies are so abundant that they sell at the rate of 

 less than one cent per pound. At certain seasons the 

 catch of these fish is so large that they are used as a fer- 

 tilizer in the fields." 



Geo. Pbice, whose uptown fishing tackle store is at 1438 Third 

 avenue, New York, is well-known to anglers in that vicinity, and 

 having succeeded in giving satisfaction in the local field, Mr. 

 Price now asks wider patronage through an advertisement whir-b 

 appears in another eolumn— Artm. 



