Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



TEBMS, $i A YEAR. 10 CTS. A COPY. ) 



Six Months, $2. f 



NEW YORK, OCTOBER 9, 1890. 



VOL. XXXY.-No. 12. 

 No. 318 Broadway, New York. 



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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



A Difficult Shot. 



Loug Island Deer. 



New Corrected Length Class. 

 Sportsman Tourist. 



Camp on Bin" River. 



The Pacific Northwest. 



MooFe River and the West 

 Brauch. 

 Natural History. 



Fishts for the National 

 Aquaria . 



Fishes ot St. Paul's Island. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



Chi' ago and the West. 



Olio Game. 



Adirondack Deer. 



Ways of the Ruffed Grouse. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



The Clubs of t he St. Clair Flats 



Memories of Melissa. 



Auglir.g Notes. 



The Gillaroo Trout. 



Ohio Anal mgr. 



The Canada Club. 



Bass on the My in the Fall. 



Maine Trout, Anglers and 

 Guides. 

 FlSHOUIiTURE, 



U.S. bisD Commission Work. 

 The Kennel. 



National Beagle Club. 



The Kennel. 

 A Remedy for Hydrophobia. 

 Gordon Setter Special Stake. 

 Style and Other Field Points. 

 A Run to Northvale, N. J. 

 Spaniel Judging at Toronto. 

 Dogs of the Day. 

 Dog Chat. 

 Dog Talk. 



Eastern Field Trials. 

 Dan bury Dog Show. 

 The A. K. C. Troubles. 

 Kennel Notes. 

 Kennel Management. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 

 Range and Gallery. 

 The Trap. 



The Middlesex Meeting. 

 Southern Illinois. 

 Long Branch. 

 Yachting. 

 Under Way. 



A Thousand Miles in a 



Naphtha Launch. 

 New Yacht. 

 Canoeing. 

 A River Cruise in a Folding 



Boat— ii. 

 Rochester C. C. 

 Canoe Yachts. 



Changes in the Sailing Rules. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



A DIFFICULT SHOT. 



W KITING of the ways of the ruffed grouse, a corres- 

 pondent whose notes are printed in our shot col- 

 umns, alludes to the difficulty of "getting on to" the hird 

 when it makes a pitch downward from the top of a tall 

 tree. It is indeed a shot which may well be classed as 

 one of the most difficult feats to accomplish in all our 

 American upland shooting; and he who can perform it 

 successfully, if but rarely, may justly feel proud of his 

 skill. 



There are many conditions which combine to make the 

 shot a hard one. The bird in pitching down adds vastly 

 to its momentum by quick strokes of its pinions: and by 

 the time it is near the ground the velocity of its flight is 

 comparable only with that of a cannon ball. Then there 

 is always a most decided uncertainty as to the limit of 

 that downward plunge. Not even the most experienced 

 of partridge shooters can tell beforehand whether the 

 bird will fall only a few feet or whether it will drop down 

 almost t© the ground before sheering off; the problem 

 cannot be solved until the turn is made; and that is, of 

 course, just too late. Should the bird shoot off at a tan- 

 gent, when only a short distance from the perch just left, 

 as it often does, the chances are ten to one that the 

 shooter has prematurely calculated the exact distance to 

 aim below the falling meteor; and sends his hurtling lead 

 anywhere from ten to twenty feet astray from the hurt- 

 ling grouse. It is twenty to one, too, that even if the 

 bird does not swerve off, but his plunge is continued, and 

 the shooter holds to the best of his calculation, the shot is 

 about as wide of the mark as before. 



In these cases it is rarely of any use to wait fire until 

 the bird shall have attained its desired depression of 

 flight and go skimming off on a level; for before leaving 

 its elevated perch the grouse has carefully and sompletely 



studied the situation: its downward plunge is calculated 

 to an inch; and when the turn is made there is sure to be 

 between the shooter and the game a tree or a bush that 

 effectually conceals and protects the grouse. 



No argument can induce the man who has had repeated 

 experiences of the sort to believe that such strategems are 

 not carefully planned and executed with intelligence by 

 this provoking bird. And the opinion is held with gpn- 

 eral unanimity that such trickery by a bird that has 

 already been counted as bagged, is reprehensible in the 

 extreme. More than one grouse hunter, who may per- 

 haps lay claim to being a true sportsman, on an occasion 

 like this, when nettled by this exasperating proceeding, 

 will simply grit his teeth, and "cut loose" with both bar- 

 rels, and then perhaps not entirely overcome an impulse 

 to kill his dog. 



The best ruffed grouse shooter we know claims only 

 the skill to shoot a down-plunging bird once to a score of 

 clean misses. An old hand takes the hard fortune of 

 such experience with equanimity, but the novice is 

 rattled by his want of success. On one occasion, after a 

 new hand had missed half a dozen of these droppers in 

 succession, his comrade, an old shooter, rallied him on 

 his want of skill; and himself letting go at a plunging 

 grouse, by sheer accident killed it. The bird fell with 

 such force as to be impaled upon a sharp stub. "There 

 was no necessity of shooting that bird," said the younger 

 man, "if you had let it fly it would have killed itself." 



THE QUESTION OF NUMBER. 



A QUESTION often arises as to how far it is allowable 

 to make the most of one's opportunity of bringing 

 to bag when game is plentiful; and he who would rush in 

 to lay down the law ex cathedra, would do well to follow 

 the example of the Catholic bishop who invariably pre- 

 faced his reply to all questions with the qualifying remark, 

 "I make a distinction," and who adhered to the usual 

 formula even when his cardinal host, with a sly side 

 twinkle, propounded the question: "Is it lawful to baptize 

 in soup or not?" In this case the bishop risked his dis- 

 tinction on the quality of the soup, and the laugh was 

 not wholly against him when he gave his reasons for the 

 conclusion, that it would be lawful to baptize in His Ex- 

 cellency's soup, for His Excellency was renowned for 

 niggardly fare. 



It is by no means easy to lay down hard and fast rules 

 as to the conditions under which it is justifiable to add to 

 one's bag. 



Some general propositions are easily arrived at with 

 regard to a sportsman's action in respect of certain 

 classes of game. For example, in respect of game shot 

 only for the pot, it is perfectly legitimate to shoot as 

 much as can be utilized in camp and advantageously 

 disposed of on the return home. If a gunner destroys 

 more game than he knows how to utilize, and allows it to 

 go to decay, or if he shoots out of season, he is deserving 

 of the most severe censure. But there is no accepted 

 canon of ethics to debar the gunner from bagging as 

 much game as he can utilize. We may feel a certain 

 kindly regard for the man who shoots a few birds and 

 then stops for fear of ruining the chances of later arri- 

 vals; but we should regard the act rather as a virtue of 

 supererrogation than as of ethical obligation. We must 

 not set the ethics of sport on an unattainable pinnacle. 



As regards the shooting of bears, panthers, wolves, 

 wildcats and all that class, the sportsman is generally 

 conceded to be justified in availing himself of his oppor- 

 tunities to the utmost. The object here is to annihilate, 

 and no sportsman is called upon by the ethics of sport to 

 throw down his gun and run up a tree that he might 

 give the next comer the pleasurable excitement of kill- 

 ing the game, even if it is a "silver tip." 



But when we turn to the consideration of the moun- 

 tain sheep and other big game pursued primarily for 

 their horns as a trophy, and only in a secondary degree 

 for their flesh, the ethics of sport become slightly tangled. 

 Shall the man who has just bagged a noble pair of 

 antlers withhold his fire in presence of an opportunity to 

 add as fine or even finer pair to his bag? In deciding on 

 this case it would perhaps be well to adopt the tactics 

 of the wary old bishop and "make a distinction," and 

 here the distinction would be between the ethical ob- 

 ligation of the sportsman to other sportsmen and the 

 ethical obligation of the State to all sportsmen. As re- 

 gards the individual, it is too much to ask that he should 

 withold his fire from ethical considerations; as the Bengal 



officer remarked when he angered the Prince of Wales 

 by taking first shot at a bear which rushed out between 

 them, "By heavens, sir, I couldn't have helped firing if 

 it had been the Angel Gabriel in place of Your Poya 

 Highness!" 



LONG . ISLAND DEER. 

 ^PHE New York deer law is construed as giving an 

 open season during the first ten days of October on 

 Long Island; and as is usual each year the hunters have 

 been out in force, vastly outnumbering the deer. Possi- 

 bly there was little if any exaggeration in the story 

 told us the other day of one party of fifty hunters wrang- 

 ling over the ownership of one doe, a doe which our in- 

 formant describes as standing about as high as a pig. 



Dogs are used to do the driving; guns are loaded with 

 buckshot, and it is almost beyond reason that some of 

 the participants do not shoot each other in the fusilade. 

 Many deer have been killed, among them was one buck 

 which weighed dressed 2571bs. ; this was captured by a 

 Patchogue party; and another party from the same town 

 secured a buck tipping the beam at 2851bs. dressed. A 

 New York company, among whom was Mr. Gustave 

 Boysen, also returned with one buck. 



It is worthy of note that there should be such a supply 

 of big game here at the very threshold of the great city 

 of New York. The conditions now prevailing in that 

 district of Long Island are peculiarly favorable for main- 

 taining the deer. There are several large tracts of land, 

 including those of the South Side Club, the Vanderbilt 

 and Cutting estates and others, adjoining one another 

 and comprising many thousands of acres, all of which 

 are strictly protected. Here the game finds safe refuge; 

 and it is only the surplus or overflow that can be reached 

 by the hunters. As decided interest is shown in securing 

 protection for the deer, and as the conditions now pre- 

 vailing will probably continue for a long time to come, 

 the promise is that the Long Island deer supply will be 

 maintained without serious diminution. We trust that 

 when the commission on codification of the New York 

 game law shall make its report, it will recommend for 

 these deer no les3 of legal protection than they now have. 



THE NEW CORRECTED LENGTH CLASS. 

 TT is not likely that any general change of classification, 

 such as was proposed last fall, will be carried through 

 this season; but discussion, which has been alive all sum- 

 mer, has been going on in a quiet but satisfactory way, 

 and it is only a time before the classification of all the 

 clubs will be remodeled on the basis of corrected instead 

 of waterline. The subject was by no means dropped 

 with the close of the hot campaign of last year, but 

 yachtsmen have thought and talked over it a great deal 

 this summer, the result being that many have changed 

 their views and at least recognize that the movement is 

 bound to succeed ultimately. 



In order that when the change is made it shall be in 

 the most perfect manner possible, it is highly desirable 

 that the rule should be tested by actual building and 

 racing under, and the Atlantic Y. C. has taken steps to 

 this end by the recent creation of a class limited to 25ft. 

 corrected length. One handsome 20ft. waterline racer 

 has already been designed to race under the rule, and 

 others are likely to follow, as the cost of such boats is 

 within the means of many young and enthusiastic yachts- 

 men. 



The designer being at liberty to chose his proportions 

 of sail and length can try such a type as he considers 

 fastest, and the question of beam that has come up 

 so prominently in the discussions of last season can be 

 settled by practical trial, which will be better than tons 

 of theory. The results obtained by a season's racing of 

 half a dozen yachts of various types in this class should 

 be of the greatest value in settling the proper basis for a 

 corrected length classification for all yachts. 



Our well known correspondent "Stanstead," Mr. 

 N. P. Leach, has severed his connection with the Do- 

 minion Cartridge Co., and will take the management of 

 a new cartridge concern with works at Akron, Ohio. 



The Massachusetts Association is bent on making an 

 experiment with the California quail. One lot of moun- 

 tain quail has already been received, and will be put out 

 where they will have protection. 



