Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, U a Year. 10 Cts. a Copt. ) 

 Six Months, $2. j 



NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 18, 1890. 



( YOL. XXXV.-No. 9. 



1 No. S18 Broadway, New York, 



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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



The Creedmoor Meeting. 



The Poet's License. 

 Sportsman Tourist. 



A' Close Quarters. 



Camp Life on the Medicine. 



Trapping Days— rv. 

 Natural History. * 



Breeding Habits of Darters. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



Carpenter's Camp. 



A Southern Texas Game 

 Country. 



Hints by an Old Timer. 



Adirondack Deer Hounding. 



Bos'on Guns and Rods. 



Chicago and the West. 



Massachusetts Game Interests 



Game Notes. 

 Camp- Fire Flickering s. 

 Sea and River ushing. 



The Old Stream. 



Fxplodiug Horn Pout. 



The Olubs of the i>t. Clair Flats 



Winninish of the Metabelch- 

 ouan. 



Chicago nnd the West, 

 Angling Notes. 



Ftshculture. 



New York Fish Commission. 

 The Kennel. 



Detroit Dog Show. 



Dog Talk from England. 



Dogs of the Day. 



The English Setter Club. 



Toronto Doer Show. 

 Rifle and Trap shooting. 



Range and Gallerv. 



The Creedmoor Meeting. 



Newark. 



The Trap. 



Bandle's Sixth Annual. 

 Yachting. 

 Eastern Y. C. Regatta. 

 Milicete and G issoon. 

 Minerva and Liris. 

 B<werlvY.C. 

 Hull Y. C. 



Manhattan Athletic Club Re- 

 gatta. 

 Canoeing. 



Racing Rules and Standing 

 Sails. 



Point Claire Canoe Crew. 

 Cana' k. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



THE CREEDMOOR MEETING. 



THE success which came with the prize meeting at 

 Creedmoor last week is sufficient answer to those 

 who predicted an immediate collapse of the National Eifle 

 Association as soon as the control of the range was turned 

 over to the military authorities of the State. The Associ. 

 ation retains the right to a ten-day meet each year, and 

 it can make that gathering a success for all manner of 

 shooters. 



The good management this year is in almost an entire 

 measure due to Secretary Shepherd, who acted as ex- 

 ecutive officer. He has what he considers a very fine 

 edge in the running of a shoot. There is a certain knack 

 of knowing just where to insist upon the exact letter of 

 the rules and where to allow a little leeway, which makes 

 the difference between a wrangling failure and a smooth 

 and satisfactory success. The fact that the entire meet- 

 ing went off without a single protest of any sort, that 

 everybody went away convinced that they had won on 

 their merits or lost for the want of them, is good proof 

 that the management was excellent. 



There are some points worthy of note in the results of 

 the shooting. It will not do to blame too heavily the 

 despised "gas pipe" where scores do not come out to the 

 liking of our State guardsmen. The Remington State 

 model arm with its .50 caliber may be a rather obsolete 

 arm in the present rush for small-caliber weapons, but it 

 is hardly fair to give it too black a character, when suoh 

 scores as those made in picked competitions at Creedmoor 

 go upon record. No rifle yet made will get a good score 

 with a duffer manipulating it, but a clever shot with a 

 very indifferent arm can roll up very respectable scores. 

 It is the man and the machine together which unite in 

 getting the high score; and the Eemington arm in the 

 hands of our militia will be the right arm in the right 

 place for a long time, to come yet. All the arguments 

 about difficulty of carrying extra charge, and about the 

 necessity for extra long-distance shooting, which are 



brought forward when urging the high velocity, small- 

 bolt bullet arm now making in Europe, do not apply at 

 all to our militia arm. It fires a big bullet, the very one 

 to let fly into a mob of rioters, which is probably the only 

 enemy the National Guard will ever have to meet when 

 acting as a home guard. Let the men all along the line 

 come up somewhere near in skill with teams sent to 

 Creedmoor each year, and we should hear no more talk 

 about refitting the guard with a new arm at a good round 

 expense. 



The difference between the Remington and the Spring- 

 field is not so great when each arm is given its best show- 

 ing, and the regular army managers may well be on the 

 lookout for something more modern. A regular army 

 soldier should have in his hands the very best arm, one 

 fully on a par with those in foreign use. The three points 

 of rapidity of fire, length of range and accuracy must all 

 be well covered, and then the points of lightness of arm 

 and of ammunition come into consideration. If our 

 army Springfield is so little different from the State Rem- 

 ington as these matches go to show, then it is time for 

 somebody in the army board to look up a new arm. 



The Creedmoor meeting had the usual run of marks- 

 man's weather, with plenty of rain, but the rifles endured 

 the drip far better than they would have acted in a high 

 gale, so only those who look upon a meeting as a sort of 

 picnic outing had anything to complain of. The off- 

 hand team match did not fill as it should have done. If 

 all the off- hand clubs, whose members do so much talking 

 and challenge writing, really wanted a grand compara- 

 tive test of skill, this was the time and place. The shoot- 

 ing Zettlers were there, and being there of course carried 

 off the honors. 



The Hilton trophy goes to the National Capitol for a 

 year and the District Guard has shown that in addition 

 to being a very pretty appearing body it has some good 

 shots in its ranks. With the shooting States of New 

 York, New Jersey,. Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Mas- 

 sachusetts all within arm's length of Creedmoor, it seems 

 somewhat odd at least to have to record the trip of the 

 Hilton trophy down to the bank of the Potomac. 



THE POETS LICENSE. 



NOTE was made in these columns the other day of a 

 poem entitled "The Yellow Hammer's Tap," con- 

 tributed to a recent number of the Century Magazine, 

 and remarkable for certain ornithological peculiarities. 

 The poet among other things speaks of the season 

 When brown wrens peer through rough-hewn rail 

 And oft is heard the drum of quail. 

 For his drumming quail Mr. Oldham has been taken to 

 task by the Chicago Herald, and his defense is character- 

 ized by a delicious ingenuousness. "My critic," says he, 

 "thinks that I took too unwarranted a liberty with the 

 quail, he maintaining that 'quails do not drum; partridges 

 drum and quails whistle.' Well, in the South, where I 

 live, we make the same distinction between a quail and 

 a partridge as he might make between tweedledum and 

 tweedledee. He would doubtless prefer the whistle of 

 the tweedledum, while his nearest neighbor would prob- 

 ably have a decided leaning for the drum of the tweedle- 

 dee. There may be a shade of scientific difference 

 between the quail and the partridge, but substantially 

 there is none." 



The shade of scientific difference between the two 

 birds may well enough be ignored, when the exigency of 

 verse demands a rhyme for rail, aad Mr. Oldham is quite 

 right in estimating at its true worthlessness the sugges- 

 tion of his captious critic that there is any natural 

 obstacle to a quail's drumming. But if our poet should 

 leave his pen for a day or two, and seek a practical les- 

 son in the true scientific distinction between the two 

 birds, he might find it without difficulty in an October 

 ruffed grouse cover. If he has been accustomed to pott- 

 ing quail about Norfolk, he would find, when an old cock 

 grouse rose on strong wings and put a dozen trees between 

 itself and the poet-gunner, that the shade of scientific 

 difference between the birds was something vastly more 

 real than his fancy had ever pictured. « 



But it cannot be expected that the rhymesters shall 

 always observe the dry facts of ornithology and other 

 branches of natural history. If a poet must needs be an 

 ornithologist and an ichthyologist, it is certain that much 

 verse now printed in our magazines and other literary 

 journals would never see the light. There was, for in- 

 stance* the poem read by Rer. Dr. William Hayes Ward, 



at Woodstock, Conn., last July, on the South Fork Fish- 

 ing Club. Our Fishculture columns have contained some 

 discussions of the possibilities, failures and triumphs of 

 trout culture; but Dr. Ward performed the feat of trans- 

 forming the black bass, with which the Conemaugh Lake 

 was stocked, into "silvern" and "golden" trout. And big 

 fellows, too. For when a poet, sitting in his study, by 

 the magic of his pen and ready flowing ink, sets about 

 stocking a lake with trout, it is just as easy for him to 

 fill it full of big fish as of fingerlings. Dr. Ward makes 

 his club man fight the fish three-quarters of an hour, and 

 then — 



The glory, the wonder, he lies on the sod. 



Six pounds and ten ounces, a fish that will break 

 The record of fishing with fly and rod 

 The largest trout in Conemaugh Lake. 

 And not only big fish, but a generous supply of them; 

 for he tells us that "a million of trout are sporting about," 

 "one- pounders, two-pounders, or three or four," and big- 

 ger ones, up to the "monsters that never rise to the hook." 

 Surely, such a triumph of fishculture has not been 

 achieved elsewhere, nor will its equal be chronicled until 

 some other Fourth of July poet shall dip his pen in ink, 

 and emulous of Dr. Ward's "fish story," "go him one 

 better." 



But after all, is it not curious that in this day of gener- 

 ally diffused intelligence, magazine editors and others 

 should print poems which so manifestly mutilate the 

 works of the Creator? 



A Long Companionship.— We find in the Kingfield, 

 Me., Reporter note of a venerable trio of anglers, whose 

 long companionship in annual camps is worthy of record. 

 Messrs. T. C. Barrows and George W. Reed, of Mont- 

 pelier, Vt., and E. S. Merrill, of Winchendon, Mass., aged 

 respectively 71, 72, and 73 years, have been Camping this 

 summer at Blakesie Pond, on the Spencer waters, where 

 they have had success with trout. The summer of 1890 

 made the forty-second successive year during which these 

 three have camped and fished together. If .Messrs. Bar- 

 rows, Reed and Merrill are blessed with the vivid memo- 

 ries many anglers possess for incidents of their out-door 

 life, they must indeed have a rare fund of incident and 

 anecdote to rehearse to one another and live over again 

 together in their chats about the camp-fire. 



An Ohio Idea. — Dr. James A. Henshall, secretary of 

 the Ohio Fish and Game Commission, is sending out a 

 circular to farmers, sportsmen, fishermen and others, 

 asking their opinion as to desirable close seasons for fish 

 and game. He has prepared a list of the several species, 

 giving the prevailing seasons as fixed by the present 

 statutes, and asks those who receive the circular to write 

 opposite each one the season during which it should be 

 protected. In this way he hopes to get a concensus of 

 opinion, which will make it possible to draft a law fairly 

 reflecting public opinion. Persons interestpd, who may 

 not receive the circular, may obtain copies by addressing 

 Dr. Henshall, at 108 Broadway, Cincinnati. 



Professors Forbes and Linton, whose exploration of 

 the Yellowstone Park on behalf of the U. S. Fish Com- 

 mission was mentioned in Forest and Stream of July 

 31, have returned to their homes. They found greater 

 wealth of invertebrates suitable for fnh foxl on the 

 plateau, now destitute of trout, than in the valley which 

 contains native species. The streams cutting through 

 the Cretaceous and Tertiary rocks are richer in aquatic 

 insects, crustaceans, etc., than those penetrating the lavas 

 of the lower elevations. Many new and interesting forms 

 have been taken by these explorers, and there is no longer 

 a doubt as to the feasibility of stocking the troutless 

 waters with choice Salmonidce. 



Song Birds have bpen more numerous and in greater 

 variety in many localities this season than for many 

 years before. If the bird hosts have been large it might 

 be thought that there should be a corresponding decrease 

 in insect hordes. But as a matter of fact, where there 

 are the most birds there are also more than the usual 

 supply of many species of insects. 



The Notes on the Winninish in our angling columns 

 to-day will be supplemented next week by a letter from 

 Mr. Maxson with further details respecting the specimens 

 referred bo. 



