Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, $4 a Yeah. 10 Cts. a Copy. 1 

 Six Months, $3. 1 



NEW YORK, DECEMBER 11, 1890. 



( VOL. XXXV.-No. 21. 



") No. 318 Broadway, New Yore, 



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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



What About the Park? 



About "Striking Colors." 



The American Woodcock. 



Snap Shots. 

 Sportsman Tourist. 



A Winter in Michigan. 



The Story of Two Shots. 

 Natural History. 



The American Woodcock. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



Wild Turkeys in the Overflow. 



Ducks on the Potomac. 



Chicago and the West. 



The All-Round Gun. 



Maine Deer Dogging. 



New York Fish and Game 

 Interests. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



Ice Fishing in Arctic Alaska. 



Rearing Sea Fishes. 



Angling Notes. 



Ftshculture. 



New York Fish and Game 

 Protectors. 

 The Kennel. 



Beagle Training. 



Some A. K. C. Matters. 



Central Field Trials. 



Kennel Notes. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 



Range and Gallery. 



The Trap. 



Trap Questions. 



Rahway. 



Chicago— Kansas City Record. 

 Yachting. 



Schooner Racing in 1890. 

 Canoeing. 



"General Purpose" Canoe. 



Cold Canoeing. 



A. C. A. Finances. 



The A. C. A. Meet of 1890— v. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



Readers of Forest and Stream iuIio are contemplating 

 the purchase of hooks for Christmas presents will do well 

 to send at once for a copy of our free Illustrated cata- 

 logue of publications. 



WHAT ABOUT THE PARK? 



IN his report just published, the Secretary of the Interior 

 calls especial attention to the value to this country 

 of the forests,, and urges that measures be taken for their 

 protection. The forests of Yellowstone Park, which pro- 

 tect the sources of two great rivers, are especially im- 

 portant, and, as we have so often said, their destruction 

 would be a public disaster. It will be remembered that 

 the summer of 1889 was marked by terrible conflagrations 

 in the Park, no less than seventy fires having occurred. 

 Some of these were very extensive, and it was only 

 through the faithful and unremitting work of his troops 

 that Gapt. Boutelle was able to prevent the burning over 

 of a very large part of the Park. The danger to these 

 forests is increasing each year and it is only by a strict 

 system of policing and patrol that they can be kept under 

 in dry seasons. The Park needs now, more than ever, a 

 government— a law to warn the careless and to punish 

 the malicious. All this was provided for in the bill wbich 

 passed the Senate during the first session of the present 

 Congress. This bill, however, went to the Public Lands 

 Committee of the House of Representatives, where, as 

 usual, it had a railroad amendment tacked on. This 

 amendment, however, has been characterized as an out- 

 rage by most of the best papers between the Atlantic 

 Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, and so the bill has been 

 held in committee and has never been reported. 



If anything is to be done for the National Park this 

 session it must be done between now and March 4, 1891, 

 and it will be interesting to see which influence is the 

 more potent in the House of Representatives, that of the 

 private interests which long to seize on a part of this 

 wonderful domain which belongs to the whole people or 

 that of public opinion as it has been voiced by the press. 



In his previous annual report Secretary Noble very 

 well expressed the way in which the self-seekers attempt 

 to turn to their own advantage this reservation, which 

 belongs to the whole people, when he said: 

 So long as this tract of country shall remain a national preserve 



for science, curiosity and pleasure, it will of course be an object 

 of cupidity to the covetous, who will see or imagine countless 

 ways in which its exhaustless wonders and resources can be 

 turned into private advantage and who will invent many arti- 

 fices to beguile and circumvent the guardians of this national 

 treasure into granting them footholds of one kind or another 

 whereby they can make personal gain out of this great public 

 benefit. If it is not to be thus frittered away, deprived of its most 

 attractive features and measurably lost to science and wonder, if 

 not to pleasure, the best and surest way to protect it is to permit 

 no trimming down, no incursions and no privileges except such 

 as may be deemed absolutely necessary for its protection and 

 regulation, and for the proper accommodation and comfort of 

 visitors. 



It is high time that the House of Representatives should 

 pass the bill for the proper protection of the Park, and 

 before it is passed the amendment authorizing the rail- 

 road should be cut out. This is the opinion of the Secre- 

 tary of the Interior, as it is of every one who has studied 

 the subject with an eye single to the public good. In his 

 report he says: "The passage of the bill that is already 

 before Congress is earnestly recommended, without the 

 provision allowing a railroad to be built therein." 



We have so frequently discussed the provisions of this 

 bill that it is needless to go into it again. The great body 

 of the people who know what the National Park is wish 

 to see it protected as a matter of patriotic pride, but the 

 preservation of the forests is a more important reason for 

 passing the measure. 



ABOUT "STRIKING COLORS:' 

 A CORRESPONDENT, whose views on subjects re- 

 lating to game protection we highly value, sends 

 us, and we print to day, an impassioned criticism of the 

 Forest and Stream for what he is pleased to term its 

 "treason," as shown in two recent articles, "Serious 

 Charges" and -'On a Runway, Or in the Water?" A 

 friend of "Saint Lawrence" told him that in these editor- 

 rials this journal had "struck its colors to the netter and 

 the hounder." 



This bit of intelligence might be "important if true." 

 It was news to us. We did not know that we had struck 

 our colors to anybody, least of all to two classes whom 

 we have been opposing for, lo! these many years, and 

 shall continue to oppose to the best of our ability for lo! 

 these many years to come. 



It does not appear that "Saint Lawrence"read the editor- 

 ials he alludes to before writing his letter; but manifestly 

 he accepted as true somebody else's statement that they 

 revealed the "treason" he denounces. If he will read 

 them for himself, he will find as will every other intelli- 

 gent person that there is in them not one word of ap- 

 proval of fish netting, not a suggestion of sympathy with 

 the water-butchery of deer as carried on in the Adiron- 

 dacks, not a shadow of solicitude for the gratification of 

 the hotel man and his guest. 



With respect to the deer law, we pointed out that the 

 Adirondack landlords had in the past proved themselves 

 powerful to shape legislation on the subject at Albany ; 

 that an efficient law forbidding killing deer in the water— 

 because it would interfere with their patronage— would 

 not be approved by them; and that such a law would 

 either prove a dead letter, or in due time be repealed by 

 the Adirondack landlord influence. Now, in such a state- 

 ment of the case, there was intended to be no indorse- 

 ment of the hotel men's attitude; no approval of water 

 butchery, no satisfaction at the spectacle of the Legisla- 

 ture bamboozled by Mr. Paul Smith and his allies. In 

 short, there is in the article nothing whatever to justify 

 the meaning ascribed to it by our correspondent; and this 

 he may discover for himself by reading it. 



It is equally only by an honest misapprehension or a 

 willful twisting of the meaning of what we have said 

 relative to the "Serious Charges" preferred against the 

 New York Fish Commission, that there can be discovered 

 in these one single word in advocacy of the fish netter. 

 Let us look at the facts in this case. 



At a meeting of the Commissioners, four of the five 

 members being in attendance, it was voted to make a 

 change in the office of Chief Protector. The four Com- 

 missioners present were unanimously of the opinion that 

 such a change would benefit the service. The fifth Com- 

 missioner, who was absent, did not agree with them. 

 The Commission thus stood four to one. The one re- 

 signed; and a new Commissioner has been appointed in 

 his place. So far from there being any "split," as "Saint 

 Lawrence" avers, the five Commissioners are united: and 

 not only united in a conviction that the change of 

 Chief was wise, but united in an honest, public-spirited 



solicitude for the cause of game and fish protection. 

 There is no "split." And if the "crisis" depends on a 

 "split," there is no "crisis." 



The chief offense of this journal appears to have been 

 that when Mr. Drew was retired to the ranks we did not 

 fall in with Mr. John D. Collins, of Utica, in his slander- 

 ous charges that the change had been made because Mr. 

 Drew had interfered with the shipping of illegally netted 

 fish to the President of the Commission. In the article 

 to which "Saint Lawrence" alludes we said— and we re- 

 peat — and if there is treason in it our friends and our 

 enemies (if we have any) may make the most of it — that 

 until Mr. Collins shall "substantiate his accusations their 

 acceptance will be confined to those who are ready to 

 believe evil of the Commissioners because they do not 

 know them: while that portion of the public, which now 

 esteems the members of the board, honors them for their 

 public services and trusts them as men of integrity and 

 high character, will demand that these charges against 

 them be proven or withdrawn. Until such proof shall 

 be forthcoming the Commissioners will continue to enjoy 

 public confidence." 



THE AMERICAN WOODCOCK. 



THE article on the woodcock, contributed to this week's 

 Forest and Stream by Mr. Gurdon Trumbull, is 

 perhaps the most important essay on this bird that has 

 ever been published. To the sportsman, and more es- 

 pecially to the sportsman who is a naturalist as well, it 

 is as entertaining as a novel, and holds the attention 

 from its beginning to its end. While many of the obser- 

 vations recorded in this article are merely confirmatory 

 of those which have been made by others it contains 

 several points which are entirely new and would seem 

 to finally dispose of the vexed question as to how the 

 woodcock whistles. Every one who has followed the 

 literature of this subject will remember what diverse views 

 have been held on this point, and how earnestly it has 

 been debated pro and con, such an eminent naturalist as 

 Mr. Brewster, with a vast number of sportsmen, taking 

 the ground that the sound is made by the wings, while 

 an almost equal number of writers, some of them well- 

 known, have held that the woodcock literally, as Mr. 

 Trumbull puts it, "talks with his mouth." 



We do not recollect that any man has ever before stated 

 that he has seen the woodcock curve up the tip of his 

 upper mandible as recorded by Mr. Trumbull, although 

 the bird's ability to do this was inferred from an examina-- 

 tion of its boring holes, in a note published in Forest and 

 Stream of Nov. 6 last. 



Mr. Trumbull's observations were conducted with the 

 extremest care, and the results will delight all who are 

 interested in shooting, or in natural history. The value 

 of such a study of our game t birds can hardly be over- 

 estimated. 



It must be remembered that Mr. Trumbull is a trained 

 ornithologist, a careful and accurate observer, and thus 

 that his observations are entitled to much more weight 

 than those of a man who— however honest he might be 

 — could not weigh evidence and draw just conclusions 

 with the certainty of a scientific man. Mr. Trumbull's 

 important and fascinating book entitled "Names and 

 Portraits of Birds Interesting to Gunners" has a placefin 

 every ornithological library in the country, and we doubt 

 not in most sportsmen's libraries. It is a piece of good 

 work, well done, and is to our mind the most entertain- 

 ing book on game birds ever written. 



It is not a pleasing picture which is presented this week 

 of the- condition of affairs in Maine, The responsibility 

 for the non- enforcement of Maine game and fish laws is 

 rightly to be laid upon the last Legislature of that State. 

 It was only because of changes in the statutes then made 

 that any such outrageous reign of lawless defiance has 

 been possible. Our correspondent has done well to write 

 of the facts that have come to his knowledge. The ex- 

 posure will accomplish its purpose if it shall lead to a 

 movement to provide a remedy. We do not understand 

 that the Commissioners are at fault. The defect is in the 

 law; and it will rest with the next Legislature to make a 

 change. 



There are more coon hunters in this country than we 

 dreamed of when we promised a page the other day, and 

 there is material on hand for another page— and more 

 too. It will be given in a week or two. 



