Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, $i A Tear. 10 Cts. a Copy. I 

 Six Months, $2. I 



NEW YORK, JUNE 19, 1890. 



( "VOL. XXXIV.-No. 23. 



} No. 318 Broadway, New York, 



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Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 

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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Our Shot Count. 



Fishing Rights. 



A Song Bird Decision. 



Snap Shots. 

 Sportsman Tourist. 



"Nessmuk"-Not Gone (poetry) 

 Natural History. 



Habits of Beavers. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



Hints and Points on Ducks. 



A New Lefever. 



Flight of the Ruffed Grouse. 



Shot Count and Weight. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



Trouting on the Sioux. 



New England Waters. 



Chicago and the West. 



Fishing to Sustain Life. 



Angling Notes. 



FlSHCULTURE. 



Newfoundland Salmon Rivers 

 Utility of Trout Culture. 

 The Kennel. 

 Fun at Dog Shows. 

 Prince Cliarliein Novice Class 



The Kennel. 

 To Form an English Setter 

 Club. 



A. K. C. Management. 

 The National Beagle Club. 

 The English Setter Club. 

 Cincinnati Dog Show. 

 Kennel Notes. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 

 Range and Gallery. 

 The Trap. 



New York State Association. 

 EJni City. 

 Harrisburg. 

 Yachting. 

 Seawanhaka Corinthian Y. C. 

 Buffa'o Y. C. 

 Brooklyn Y. C. 

 Southern Y. C. 

 Bad Construction. 

 5Tam a. 



Atlantic Y. C. 

 Canoeing. 



Central Division Meet. 



Rochester C. C. Regatta. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



OUR SHOT COUNT. 



THE table presented in our gun columns is a natural 

 outcome of our work at the gun-testing screen. 

 From the first it was decided not to mislead those who 

 were watching the results of the trials at the Forest and 

 Stream's gun-testing range by saying that such and such 

 a charge of this or that number of shot was used and 

 giving no further particulars. Instead of this, accurate 

 count and weight figures were taken in every instance 

 and published in connection with the charges as given by 

 the loader of the cartridges. In not a few cases the shot- 

 gun owner was surprised when he discovered that what 

 he had a notion he was using in the way of quantity of 

 shot was not there at all. There is no end of confusion 

 on the whole subject, and the result has been that many 

 previous gun tests are now shown to have been practi- 

 cally valueless because of their lack of this exact data 

 about the charges used. 



It is no new discovery that shot size and shot numbers 

 bear no sort of relation when coming from various fac- 

 tories. The New York State Association some years ago 

 took up the subject, discussed it somewhat, and took 

 some inconsequential action, and then the companies 

 went on making each its shot in its own peculiar way, 

 being a rule unto itself in the matter of size. 



In no other class of manufacture would such an absurd 

 fashion of nomenclature be followed as in shot making. 

 Shoe sizes run even throughout the trade. Collar sizes 

 do not materially vary. In any one of hundreds of call- 

 ings a general agreement has been reached in the matter 

 of trade sizes, and this is followed from one end of the 

 country to the other; but when a man holding a fine 

 shotgun has after long experience and experiment 

 reached definite conclusions as to the best load, and fixed 

 upon a standard sort of ammunition, it then becomes a 

 mere gamble on his part, when he goes to buy a new 

 supply of shot, whether he gets within 40 per cent, of 

 what he had been using, and upon which his conclusions 

 as to a standard load had been based. 

 Our investigation is up to 4ate; jt is accurate and com' 



plete. It shows the status of the shot business, on this 

 question of nomenclature, as it exists to-day. What may 

 be done, what can be done, we cannot now state. That 

 it would be a satisfaction all around to secure a uniform 

 standard cannot be doubted. A congress of shot makers 

 might do something, State associations might help on to- 

 ward the desired end, and it certainly looks as though 

 the question is one which the American Shooting Asso- 

 ciation might take up and on which it could score a suc- 

 cess. Our mission now is to give the news side of the 

 topic, and when we have completed our series of tables, 

 from No. 10 to No. 6 shot, there will certainly be text 

 enough for the proper action by the proper agency. 



FISHING RIGHTS. 



HPHE question of fishing rights in trout streams is ex- 

 citing much attention in certain districts in Con- 

 necticut, as it has done in other States. Clubs or 

 so-called "syndicates" of anglers — in most cases city 

 residents — have leased the fishing privileges in certain 

 streams, paying to the farmers, who own the lands bor- 

 dering on the streams, annual rental for such rights. 

 One case which has recently attracted attention is that 

 of the Muddy River in Wallingford. The fishing rights 

 on that stream were leased by a club or "syndicate" of 

 anglers, and the adjoining lands were posted by the 

 lessees. For a while the system worked; but after a 

 time, when, it is said, the rents were not promptly paid, 

 the landowners permitted their friends to fish in the 

 Muddy waters. The club brought suit against the fisher- 

 men, seeking to punish them for trespass. The case was 

 tried at Wallingford and the verdict given was in favor 

 of the defendants. The judge held that while the club 

 had leased a right to fish they had not leased the exclu- 

 sive right; and that under the law the stream must be 

 posted by the proprietors in their own names, not by the 

 club in its name. If this is a correct statement of the 

 case, it is plainly seen that a club can still secure to itself 

 exclusive fishing rights in a stream, by leasing the same, 

 and providing for the posting of the waters by the pro- 

 prietors in their own names. 



In a word, the whole problem of maintaining exclusive 

 fishing privileges depends upon the trespass laws. The 

 statutes declare that a landed proprietor, by conforming 

 with certain prescribed rules, may protect his lands from 

 trespass by outsiders. If a person or a club of persons 

 can induce the landowner to post trespass signs and keep 

 all others off, the desired exclusive privilege may be 

 acquired. 



But while the legal phase is thus perfectly simple and 

 clearly defined, there is another side of the question, 

 which is more complex, and which in reality is that in 

 which the Connecticut anglers are most interested. Aside 

 from the purely legal rights, which must be conceded, 

 has a landowner a moral right to shut out his neighbors 

 in favor of the city men who pay for their privileges? 

 This is one of those questions which is viewed altogether 

 differently by the several parties involved. The local 

 man, who has been used for years to fish in a trout- 

 haunted stream, rebels when on repairing to a favorite 

 stretch of these waters he is confronted by a sign forbid- 

 ding him to trespass. He denounces the lessees as mo- 

 nopolists, and the landowners as selfish, unneighborly and 

 mercenary. On the other hand, the lessee, who has per- 

 haps grown weary of making journeys into a far country 

 without reward, is glad enough to have an interest in a 

 preserve, and stoutly contends that to lease the stream 

 from the landowner, fairly and honestly paying him to 

 post it, is just as legitimate as it would be to buy the land 

 and post it himself. 



Perhaps a person who himself never went fishing and 

 cared absolutely nothing for it, and thus being in a posi- 

 tion to judge impartially, might suggest that each party 

 had reason for holding to his opinion. The truth is that 

 changed conditions have arisen; under a new order of 

 things, there is inevitable friction; disputes will be fo- 

 mented until society shall have adjusted itself to the 

 changes. Briefly stated, the new conditions are these: 

 Interest in angling has been enormously stimulated. 

 There are tens and hundreds who go fishing to-day, where 

 formerly there was one. No adequate provision has been 

 made to supply fish for the fishermen. Waters have been 

 depleted, fished out, ruined by pollution. With an ever- 

 increasing host of anglers and a steadily diminishing 

 supply of available waters, the individual angler does 

 not enjoy, cannot enjoy, the freedom of old, Those ^hp 



can afford to buy or lease fishing privileges, naturally 

 do so. Those who cannot or do not buy or lease are shut 

 out. Both classes are impelled by motives of personal 

 interest. It is asking too much of human nature to de- 

 mand of the lessees that they shall abandon their system 

 because it works hardship to others. It is equally un- 

 reasonable to expect that those who are deprived of their 

 accustomed free fishing shall regard with equanimity the 

 usurpation of these privileges. 



The dispute is one which can never been settled by ar- 

 gument about the right and wrong of the leasing system. 

 It will last as long as there shall be more fishermen than 

 waters to fish in. If all the waters of Connecticut, for 

 instance, which were by nature ruited to the support of a 

 fish supply, were redeemed from their present factory 

 pollution, protected from unlawful fishing, and stocked 

 and fished only in a legitimate way in a proper season, it 

 may be that there would be fish for all, and contentment 

 and harmony for all. Is not the present condition of 

 affairs simply an inevitable result of the foolish misman- 

 agement and squandering of fishing resources? And is 

 not the wise and sensible course now to pursue to con- 

 sider in what manner the inland fisheries may be restored? 



A SONG BIRD DECISION. 



A DECISION of great interest to small bird protectors 

 was recently made by Chief Justice Barnard, of 

 the Supreme Court' of New York. Some time ago a suit 

 was brought by the Long Island Game Protector against 

 a Mrs. Fishbough, of Brooklyn, who exposed for sale in 

 her store seventeen living yellowbirds. Before a Police 

 Justice, the Long Island Game Protector charged Mrs. 

 Fishbough with violating Chapter 427 of the laws of 1886, 

 but in that court she was acquitted on the ground that the 

 birds were living, the Justice holding that the prohibi- 

 tion against exposing song birds for sale applied only to 

 those that have been killed. However, the case was car- 

 ried up, and Judge Barnard decided that Mrs. Fishbough 

 had violated the law ; that it is an offense to keep for sale 

 live song birds, and that such action renders the offender 

 liable to fine or imprisonment, or both. 



It is to be hoped that this decision may put an end to 

 an abuse which has flourished greatly in and near this 

 city of late years. This is the trapping during the season 

 of migration of numbers of native song birds. These 

 little captives after being taken are either sold for a trifle 

 to the keepers of bird stores, or more frequently are at 

 once destroyed and their skins sold to the dealers in 

 feather millinery. 



- SNAP SHOTS. 



OUR esteemed contemporary, Our Dumb Animals, 

 deprecates the "sad sport" of killing seals as de- 

 scribed by some one who had participated in it. We 

 never knew before that any one looked upon the clubbing 

 of seals as a "sport" of any character, sad or joyful. It 

 is an industry followed for profit, to obtain furs or oil, 

 the sealers being actuated by the same motive which 

 govern butchers in an abattoir, and justified by the same 

 considerations of profit and usefulness for mankind. 

 The only people who club animals to death for sport are 

 the summer tourists in the Adirondacks and their guides. 

 Many people besides professed humanitarians consider it 

 an abominable style of "sport," but it will be followed as 

 long as the peculiarly constituted tourists visit the North 

 Woods, or until we have succeeded in reforming the laws. 



An innocent correspondent of one of the New York 

 dailies telegraphed from the meeting of the New York 

 State Association for the Protection of Fish and Game at 

 Lyons, one day last week, that the Association had taken 

 a stand against the market sale of game, and that this 

 was a move which would create consternation among the 

 game dealers. As a matter of fact the game dealers are 

 not in the least alarmed by any of the stands taken by 

 this Association. The organization has to do with game 

 protection in its name only; as an association, in its offi- 

 cial capacity, it cares not a flip about game protection. 

 The dealers understand this as well as the members. The 

 game protective pretense embodied in the society's name 

 is a harmless fiction. The New York Association is made 

 up of trap-shooters; and in organizing and carrying 

 through a big tournament, it is a rousing success, as the 

 Lyons meeting demonstrated. By the way, what has 

 become of all that brood of sapient soothsayers who were 

 once heard foretelling that artificial target shooting neyer 

 would draw attendance at State tournaments? 



