Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, $i A Yeah. 10 Cts. a Copy. 1 

 Six Months, $2. f 



NEW YORK, OCTOBER 23, 1890. 



f VOL, XXXV.-No. 14. 



I No. 318 Broadwat, New York. 



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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Laws for the Benefit of the 

 Lawless. 



The Reluctant Camp-Fire. 



Susquehanna River Pollution. 



The Green Mountain State. 

 Sportsman Tourist. 



Moose River and the West 

 Branch. 



By Utah Lake. 

 Natural History. 



Notes on the Woodcock. 



Game Birds for Lynn. 

 Game Bag ahd Gun. 



The Ruffed Grouse. 



Chicago and the West. 



Adirondack Deer. 



Snipe, at Currituck. 



Ohio Deer Hunters. 



Two Bears with One Ball. 



A Plea for Bruin. 



Dog and Gun in Carolina. 



Same Notes. 

 Camp-Fire Flickerings. 

 Sea and Ktver Fishing. 



Half Hours in the Sierra 

 Nevada. 



Clubs of the St. Clair Flats. 



A July in Wisconsin. 



Trout at the Upper Dam. 



Sunanee Lake Fishing. 



An Investment for a Lifetime. 

 Ftshculture. 



A Yearling Landlocked Sal- 

 mon. 

 The Kennel. 



The English Setter Standard. 



The Kennel. 



Fun at Dog Shows. 



Dog Chat. 



Dogs of the Day. 



Philadelphia K. C. Field Trial 

 Entries. 



Indiana K. C. Field Trial En- 

 tries. 



International Field Trial En- 

 tries. 

 The Coursing Meet. 

 To My Lost Luray. 

 The Spaniel and Its Training. 

 Kennel Notes. 

 Riele and Trap Shooting. 

 Range and Gallery. 

 Massachusetts Marksmen. 

 The Giffard Gun. 

 The Trap. 

 Dayton Shoot. 

 Hutchinson, Kan. 

 California State Shoot. 

 Davenport. Ia. 



Boiling Springs Tournament. 

 Niagara. 

 Yachting. 

 Classification on the St. Law- 

 rence. 



Changes in the L. R. A. Rules. 



Racing Rules on Lake Ontario. 

 Canoeing. 



Danger in Canoe Sailiner. 



The Change of the Racing 

 Rules. 



Standing Sails. 



The Singhalese Canoe. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



A NAME ON A POSTAL. 



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SUSQUEHANNA RIVER POLLUTIOh. 



UNDER this heading will be found in this issue a brief 

 letter from a Pennsylvania correspondent relative 

 to the scarcity of black bass and wall-eyed pike at Bain- 

 bridge, Pa., once a famous locality for both of these in- 

 troduced game fishes. Mr. Bare attributes the present 

 dearth of fishes to freshets and to pollution by mine water 

 and* mill refuse. It seems hardly possible that mine 

 water could affect the Susquehanna at a distance so re- 

 mote from the coal region, and yet Mr. Bare is a veteran 

 fisherman, celebrated for his skill and acute observation, 

 and his statement must be received with the respect due 

 to one of his experience. The conditions were generally 

 unfavorable for fishing during the past season. Freshets 

 played sad havoc with the fish in many eastern streams, 

 notably the Potomac and the Susquehanna, and unfortu- 

 nately their injury was most grievous during the spawn- 

 ing season, so that the effect is likely to be felt even more 

 keenly in the near future. The theory of injury from 

 mine water is somewhat of a surprise to us. "We were 

 aware that many of the trout streams of northern Penn- 

 sylvania have been practically depopulated through this 

 agency, but had never heard the scarcity of black bass in 

 the lower Susquehanna accounted for in this manner, 

 and we cannot tell how far the opinion may be justified 

 by thorough investigation. The harmonizing of conflict- 

 ing interests in our water courses is becoming a matter of 

 extreme importance, and is attended with serious diffi- 

 culty. The mill refuse must be disposed of, and can be 

 conveniently floated off in our streams, while its dispo- 



sition in any other way may involve considerable expense 

 and loss of time. The mill owner will adopt the most 

 expeditious method without regard to any other interests 

 than his own, and he will be kept in check only by a 

 determined public opinion expressed in protective laws. 

 In many portions of our country this struggle between 

 opposing interests is in progress, and the result is not 

 always gratifying to the long-suffering public, but we 

 look forward hopefully to the time when the pollution of 

 streams and the consequent destruction of fish will be 

 finally unknown except as an unpleasant memory. 



LAWS FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE LAWLESS. 

 MPHE charge to the jury by Chief Justice Peters in the 

 J- Maine case of State vs. Darling, published in full in 

 the first number of the Book of the Game Laivs, is an 

 admirable exposition of some of the relations sustained 

 by the game laws to the public and to the public inter- 

 ests. No portion of the document is more suggestive 

 than that paragraph wherein it is pointed out that if the 

 game laws are broken with impunity they become in 

 effect statutes for the express benefit of those who violate 

 them. "The great majority of persons, all good people," 

 says Justice Peters, ''will observe these laws, and if the 

 violators of the laws are not to be punished they would 

 be supported in their violation of the laws and it would 

 be a law really for the benefit of law breakers rather than 

 for law observers; because, while the great majority of 

 the people are obeying the law, the few who are not 

 obeying it, if not punished for their violations, are bene- 

 fited, as they can more readily capture the game when 

 the great majority are not attempting to capture it. It is 

 the bounden duty of all to obey the laws." 



The truth of this observation is abundantly illustrated 

 in actual experience, not only with respect to deer hunt- 

 ing but shooting in general and fishing as well. How 

 many a patient, self-respecting and conscientious sports- 

 man has waited until the opening of the season on trout 

 or quail or woodcock, to go out at last only to discover 

 that long before the opening day the streams and covers 

 had been robbed by the close-time fishermen and gunners. 



It is a common experience, particularly in the prairie 

 chicken States, that if a man waits for the season to open 

 he must do so with a full knowledge that others less 

 conscientious — or rather, absolutely without any consci- 

 entiousness or squeamishness whatever — are anticipating 

 him and industriously gathering in the birds. He must 

 wait — if wait at all — knowing as an assured fact that 

 when opening day shall come and he goes into the field 

 it will be to barren grounds. To such an extent, indeed, 

 is illegal shooting, before the season opens, carried on in 

 some sections, that many gunners, who would cheerfully 

 obey the law if it did not mean being robbed, join with 

 the rest in premature slaughter and go in for what there 

 is, when they can get it, "now or never." Those who 

 break the law have all the fun and all the birds; he who 

 obeys it is cheated out of everything but the privilege of 

 lugging a gun over barren fields. The law in such cases 

 is altogether for the benefit of those who violate it, and 

 to the serious disadvantage of those who observe it. 



Now, if a given law prescribing open and close seasons 

 is based on common sense, and if its enforcement would 

 result in best preserving the game supply for the benefit 

 of all , manifestly this joining in with the lawless shooters 

 in killing game in close season is not the part that a 

 self-respecting sportsman would most cheerfully take. 

 But where the conditions of prevailing disregard for the 

 law are such that there remains no choice save only of 

 illegal shooting or no shooting whatever, human nature 

 will hardly be proof against the temptation. The same 

 principle governs in other fields; the common plea, "if 

 I don't, somebody else will," is potent to justify number- 

 less illegal and even immoral actions and practices. The 

 average every-day American sportsman of this genera- 

 tion is made up of about the same clay as the average 

 every-day man who does not happen to share his tastes, 

 and no matter how high may be the rule of conduct pre- 

 scribed for him to adopt theoretically, in actual practice 

 he is influenced by the considerations which control 

 human nature in general. We may lay it down as a lofty 

 principle for him to follow, that if he cannot have lawful 

 sport he must go without any; but while the average man 

 may applaud such a sentiment he goes in for the sport. 



And yet we are hoping for a time and for conditions— 

 and not only hoping for them but working toward them— 

 when public sentiment will be strong enough to suppress 



the illegal sport of those who would defy the game and 

 fish laws; and when that time comes, the laws will be, as 

 they are designed to be, for the good of all, and not for 

 the benefit of the lawless at the expense of the decent 

 portion of the community. 



THE RELUCTANT CAMP-FIRE. 

 rpHE depressing opposite of the fire that is the warm 

 heart of the camp is the pile of green or rain-soaked 

 fuel, that in spite of all coaxing and nursing, refuses to 

 yield a cheerful flame. Shavings from the resin-em- 

 balmed heart of a dead pine and scrolls of birch bark fail 

 to enkindle it to more than flicker and smoke, while the 

 wet and hungry campers brood forlornly over the cheer- 

 less center of their temporary home, with watery eyes and 

 souls growing sick of camp life. 



Night is falling and the shadows of the woods thicken 

 into solid gloom, that teems with mysterious horrors, 

 which stretch their intangible claws through the dark- 

 ness to chill the backs of the timid with an icy touch, 

 and the silence is terrible with unuttered howlings of 

 imaginary beasts. 



Each one is ready to blame the other for the common 

 discomfort, and all the high priest, who so far fails to 

 kindle the altar fire. He is an impostor who should be 

 smothered in the reek of his own failure. 



Yet, as the group regard him with unkind glances and 

 mutterings of disapproval, he perseveres, feeding the 

 faint flame with choice morsels of fat wood and nursing 

 it with his breath, his bent face and puffed cheeks now 

 a little lightened, now fading into gloom, till suddenly 

 the sullenness of the reluctant fuel is overcome, wings of 

 flame flutter up the column of smoke, and the black pile 

 leaps into a lurid tower of light, from whose peak a white 

 banner of smoke flaunts upward, saluted by the waving 

 boughs that it streams among. 



Tent and shanty, familiar trees and moving figures 

 with their circle of grotesque, dancing shadows, spring 

 into sudden existence out of the blank darkness. 



The magic touch of the firelight dispels every sullen 

 look, warms every heart to genial comradeship: jokes 

 flash back and forth as merrily as the sparks fly upward, 

 and the camp pulses again with reawakened cheerful 

 life. 



Verily, fire worketh wonders in divers ways. 



THE GREEN MOUNTAIN STATE. 



VERMONT has made notable advances in respect to 

 her game and fish interests, and the report of Com- 

 missioners Brainerd and Allerton, just sent to the Legis- 

 lature, is full of encouragement. There is a general 

 growth of public respect for the fish and game laws, say 

 the authors of the report, due mainly to a better under- 

 standing of their purpose and meaning, and to an appre- 

 ciation of the good results which follow their working. 

 This is shown by the fact that, although owing to re-^ 

 stocking and protection, the fish supply of the State has 

 been largely increased, and temptations to unlawful fish- 

 ing in a corresponding degree multiplied, the complaints 

 of infractions are steadily growing less. Fishing is better 

 than formerly, and the people of Vermont are beginning 

 to reap appreciable profits from sportsmen-tourists who 

 visit their State. 



The Commissioners do well to urge this economic view; 

 it is an appeal to Yankee thrift; and Yankee thrift is a 

 powerful factor when once enlisted in any cause. The 

 sooner Vermont, and for that matter every other New 

 England State and all States which can offer attractions 

 for shooters and anglers, shall appreciate at its true im- 

 portance the money value of game and fish protection, 

 and do away with the silly notion that it is prudence to 

 exterminate natural sources of profit, the sooner we shall 

 have substantial backing for protective systems. 



The Commissioners strongly urge that the State should 

 be provided with a hatchery for trout and other fish. 

 Under present conditions it is not practicable to meet all 

 the growing demands for brook and lake trout and land- 

 locked salmon. By the provision of a suitable hatching 

 establishment the output could readily be made to fill all 

 requirements, and at reduced expenses. The anglers of 

 the State, and others who visit Vermont for the fishing, 

 are organizing a movement to supplement this recom- 

 mendation of the Commissioners by a further appeal to 

 the Legislature; and there is little doubt that Vermont 

 will shortly be as well equipped as are her sister States 

 in this respect. 



