Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



U a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. { 

 Six Months, $2. i 



NEW YORK, AUGUST 28, 1890. 



j VOL. XXXV.-No. 6. 



I No. 318 Broadway, New York. 



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Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 

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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



The Oamp-Fire. 



Mortality Among Black Bass. 



California Birds for Massa- 

 ' chusetts. 



Shoot Management. 

 sportsman Tourist. 



Around Cape Hatteras. 

 Natural History. 



Trapping Days. 



Birds Crossing the City. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



Shooting Geese in North Dak. 



Water-Killing Deer. 



Conn. Farmers and Sportsmen 



Chicago and the West. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



On Canadian Rivers. 



Shenandoah Bass Gigging. 



The Clubs of the St. Clair Flats 



Boston Sportsmen. 

 Ftsh culture. 



Return of Schoodic Salmon. 



The Kennel. 



The English Setter. 



"Ashmont." 



Dogs of the Day. 



Irish Red Setter Club's Field 

 Trials. 



Kennel Notes. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 



Range and Gallery. 



Newark. 



The German Shooters. 

 The Trap. 



Keystone Third Annual. 



St. Louis. 



Chicago. 



A Day at Dunellen 

 Yachting. 



Corinthian Matches. 



Lake Y. R. A. 

 Canoeing. 



American Canoe Association 

 Meet. 



Answers to Correspondents. 



THE CAMP-FIRE. 



IF, as Warner says in his "Back- Log Studies," "the 

 open fire furnishes the room," the camp-fire does 

 more for the camp. It is its life: a life that throbs out in 

 every flare and flicker to enliven the surroundings, 

 whether they be the trees of the forest, the expanse of 

 prairie, shadowed only by clouds and night, or the barren 

 Btretch of sandy shore. Out of the encompassing gloom 

 Of all these, the camp-fire materializes figures as real to 

 fche eye as flesh and blood, peopling the verge of darkness 

 -with grotesque forms, that leap and crouch and sway 

 with the rise and fall, or bending to the wind, of the 

 feme, and beckon the fancy out to grope in the mystery 

 of night. 



Then, imagination soars with the updrif t of smoke and 

 the climbing galaxy of fading sparks, to where the stead- 

 fast stars shine out of the unvisited realm that only im- 

 agination can explore. 



The camp-fire gives an expression to the human face 

 that it bears in no other light, a vague intentness, an ab- 

 sorption in nothing tangible; and yet not a far away look, 

 for it is focussed on the flame that now licks a fresh 

 morsel of wood, now laps the empty air; or it is fixed on 

 the shifting glow of embers, whose blushes flush or fade 

 under their ashen veil. It is not the gaze of one who 

 looks past everything, at nothing, or at the stars or the 

 mountains or the far away sea-horizon; but it is centered 

 on and revealed only by the camp-fire. You wonder 

 what the gazer beholds— the past, the future, or some- 

 thing that is neither; and the uncertain answer you can 

 only get by your own questioning of the flickering blaze. 



As the outers gather around this cheerful center their 

 lips exhale stories of adventure by field and flood, as 

 naturally as the burning fuel does smoke and sparks, 

 and in that engendering warmth, no fish caught or lost, 

 no buck killed or missed, suffers shrinkage in size or 

 weight, no peril is lessened, no tale shorn of minutest 

 detail. AH these belong to the camp-fire, whether it is 

 built in conformity to scientific rules or piled clumsily by 



unskilled hands. "What satisfaction there is in the part- 

 nership of building this altar of the camp, for though a 

 master of woodcraft superintends, all may take a hand 

 in its erection, the youngest and the weakest may con- 

 tribute a stick that will brighten the blaze. 



What hospitality the glow of the camp-fire proclaims 

 in inviting always one more to the elastic circle of light 

 and warmth, that if always complete, yet expands to re- 

 ceive another guest. A pillar of cloud by day. of Are by 

 night, it is a beacon that guides the wanderer to shelter 

 and comfort. 



The Indian weed has never such perfect flavor as when 

 contending with heat and smoke, one lights his pipe with 

 a coal or an elusive flame, snatched from the embers of 

 the camp-fire, and by no other fireside does the nicotian 

 vapor so soothe the perturbed senses, bring such lazy con- 

 tentment, nor conjure such pleasant fancies out of the 

 border of dreamland. 



There is no cooking comparable with that which the 

 camp-fire affords. To whatever is boiled, stewed, roasted, 

 broiled or baked over its blaze, in the glow of its embers 

 or in its ashes, it imparts a distinctive woody flavor that 

 it distils out of itself or draws from the spiced air that 

 fans it; and the aroma of every dish invites an appetite 

 that is never disappointed if the supply be large enough. 



It cannot be denied that the camp stove gives forth 

 warmth and with more comfort to the cook, serves to 

 cook food of such tame flavor as one may get at home. 

 But though the serviceable little imp roar till its black 

 cheeks glow red as winter berries, it cannot make shanty 

 or tent a camp in reality or impart to an outing its true 

 flavor. This can only be given by the generous camp- 

 fire, whose flames and embers no narrow walls inclose, 

 whose hearth is on every side, whose chimney is the wide 

 air. , 



SHOOT MANAGEMENT. 



THE returning German marksmen come back with 

 unanimous report that the management of the big 

 shoot at Berlin was not all that it should have been. In 

 fact, if half the instances cited of errors and blunders be 

 true, it is difficult to see how the management could 

 have been much worse; and in view of the excellent 

 fashion in which large tournaments are carried through 

 on this side, it is not to be wondered at that President 

 Walther thinks the Germans should come over here and 

 pick up a few ideas on the subject before they undertake 

 to manage another such affair as that so unsatisfactorily 

 conducted at Berlin. 



It is no easy matter to carry out such an affair as a 

 large competition. There are so many minor hitches, so 

 many chances for mishap, so many slips that get in at 

 the last moment, that the utmost care is necessary to in- 

 sure to each contestant an equal chance to show his skill 

 against all fellow competitors. It is so easy to upset a 

 marksman, so many little matters of detail which go into 

 the making of a single bullseye shot— much more a string 

 of them — that the shooter ought to go into the match 

 with all possibly removable impediments entirely out of 

 his way. He takes his chances against wind and 

 weather. If he gets a gust of wind, a flash of dazzling 

 sunlight, a drenching dash of rain, he simply gets thus 

 the luck of conflict and has no blame to lodge against the 

 management, but when clumsy or inadequate target 

 machinery breaks down, when the facilities are ridic- 

 ulously disproportionate to the entry list, or when the re- 

 cords get mixed up in inextricable confusion to the det- 

 riment of the shooters, then it is that the competitor 

 comes away with a hearty growl. 



In the case of the German shoot, it is not that the 

 Americans did not gain prizes. In many respects they 

 were far superior to the home talent, and this superiority 

 shows itself in a liberal list of medals, cups and other 

 insignia of victory; but they were won under conditions 

 made unnecessarily harassing by the poor management; 

 and just here comes in the criticism lodged against those 

 in charge. It is very easy to say that in the case of a 

 German shooting meeting it is an attempt to mix beer 

 and bullets which so often leads to a disastrous compound; 

 but in this instance this does not appear to have been the 

 case. There was a sufficiency of shooters present to as- 

 sure a successful meeting. The feasting and the firing 

 were kept separate. Whether the feasting suffered 



through bad arrangements does not appear; from all re- 

 ports it did not, but it is quite certain that the firing did. 



Here on this side rifle and trap tournaments have been 

 brought down to a precise management, so exact that we 

 rarely nowadays hear of a disastrous jumble. The 

 American Shooting Association has been doing good 

 work in showing shooting clubs all over the country how 

 to run a meeting smoothly and fairly. Penrose has been 

 a pioneer in his clever, fair and rapid Keystone system. 

 In rifle shooting, the National Rifle Association, at its 

 Creedmoor meetings, has put through large competitions 

 with substantial fairness to all concerned. Our Berlin 

 managers had but to take a run over to England to get 

 pointers in plenty from those who for twenty years 

 and more have carried on the gigantic enterprise into 

 which the Wimbledon shoots have grown. There was 

 absolutely no excuse for any errors in such a direction, 

 and particularly in so important a gathering as this 

 widely-heralded Berlin shoot had grown to be. At any 

 rate it has had one good effect. Our fellow citizens who 

 went over and have come back again will now have a 

 heartier respect than ever for American ways of doing 

 things, and we shall not be compelled to listen to invid- 

 ious comparisons after each poor score made, of how 

 much better things move in "Fatherland." 



MORTALITY AMONG BLACK BASS. 



IN Black Creek, North Carolina, large-mouthed black 

 bass, locally known as chub, are dying by hundreds 

 from some unknown cause. A specimen sent to the TJ. 

 S. National Museum was found to have nothing in its 

 stomach and intestines. The gills showed no inflamma- 

 tion and were free from parasites; but Mr. Benedict 

 noticed a moderate number of parasitic copepods, belong- 

 ing to the genus Lemaocera, on the back and gill-covers, 

 which, by irritation, had produced sores. In such cases 

 question arises as to the relation of the parasite to the 

 disease of the fish, whether that of cause or accompani- 

 ment. The degraded crustaceans called lernseans attack 

 certain fishes in overwhelming numbers in the fresh 

 waters and are killed or rendered harmless by contact 

 with brackish or salt water. This is well known in con- 

 nection with salmon and trout, and recently Mr. W. P. 

 Seal has related in Forest and Stream his successful 

 treatment of injured aquarium fish in brackish water 

 tanks. In salt water the parasites are comparatively in- 

 active, seldom abundant, and cause the host little annoy- 

 ance; but in fresh water the anadromous fish, when in 

 its weakest condition, is overrun with lernasaus, which 

 produce small sores; next in order comes the salmon fun- 

 gus (Saprolegnia), and soon the victim succumbs to the 

 inevitable. If the salmon were originally inhabitants of 

 the fresh waters, of which there is no adequate proof at 

 present, perhaps the habit of going to sea was acquired 

 through the necessity of ridding themselves of trouble- 

 some parasites. 



CALIFORNIA BIRDS FOR MASSACHUSETTS. 



THE Massachusetts Fish and Game Protective Associa- 

 tion's enterprise of stocking the covers of that State 

 with game birds is noteworthy because of the scale on 

 which it is conducted. The quail which have already 

 been put out are generally reported to be doing well; and 

 now the "Committee on Acclimatization" is devoting its 

 energies to securing pinnated and sharp-tailed grouse 

 from the West. It is intended to put out something like 

 a thousand of these birds by next Thanksgiving Day. 

 The Committee is aleo providing the introduction of Cali- 

 fornia quail; and contracts are about to be given for 

 several hundred of these birds. The investigation set on 

 foot by the members of the committee to gain informa- 

 tion as to the comparative game qualities and hardiness 

 of the mountain quail and the valley quail has resulted in 

 a mass of evidence of such a conflicting nature that the 

 Massachusetts men are more in the dark than they were 

 before. It should be quite practicable, however, for them 

 to secure definite advice on this question. The Forest 

 and Stream invites any of its readers who may be wil- 

 ling to communicate with the Committee on this subject 

 to do so, either through the columns of this journal or by 

 direct correspondence with the secretary of the commit- 

 tee, Mr. Henry J. Thayer, 176 Washington street, Boston. 



Oor Black Bass Number, July 24, has proved a great 

 hit: and there is a constant call for it. 



