180 



FORESf ANt) STREAM. 



[Maxch 13, 18^1. 



CHICAGO AND fHE WEST. 



CHICAGO, 111., March 6 —Heavy snow is falliug here 

 to-day and though the thermometer is not low it 

 looks more like winter here now than it has at any time. 

 It is very likely that the storm on this latitude will hold 

 back that hip; hurst of the spring flight which invaded 

 the country from Illinois to Kansas at just about the same 

 time— Feb.- 21 to 25, The Kankakee and the Illinois 

 countries were free of ice last week and thousands of 

 ducks were in. Charlie Gammon and Billy Mussey were 

 to go to Cumberland country to-morrow after an old- 

 fashioned duck shoot, but unless this storm moderates 

 quickly thoy may have to wait a few days before they 

 meet good shooting. The same is true for Mr. Cleaver 

 and his friends, who plan a trip to Putnam, in the Sen- 

 achwine comitry. 



It is impossible to say how the flight will hold out, but 

 from all that can be told now the promise seems xmusually 

 good for wildfowl in the AVest this spring. I ha,ve just 

 been out in Iowa this week and they report birds in un- 

 accustomed qua,ntities along the old Skunk bottom, so 

 long nearly deserted by the flight. At Reasnor, Jasper 

 county, ducks were in numbers a week and a half ago. 

 They have appeared also in great quantities along the 

 Missouri bottom above Sioux City, At Des Moines I 

 found plans going on for a special car party to Sioux City, 

 to start at an early date. Our friend Charlie Budd will 

 probably go, also Messrs,_ Eoyal, Converse, Chase, Bur- 

 nett, Roed, MoCJintockj Harris, Eason, Yearnshaw, Per- 

 kins, Martin, Vertrees and Kercher. That is to say that 

 most of 'em probably won't go. These gentlemen tell me 

 that ducks are in or were in last week over a great part 

 of Iowa. 



At Des Moines I met my friend John Hamilton, editor 

 of the IkdJi/ Mio^. He was just back from a goose trip to 

 Kansas, and I helped eat a Canada honker which he 

 brought back with him. Mr. Hamilton is young at this 

 shooting business, and openly declares himself not above 

 potting a goose whenever he gets a chance. He gave us 

 at table a thrilling account of how he crawled a quarter 

 of a mile through the grass to get a "settin' shot" at a 

 flock on a sand bar, the result of which nefarious deed 

 was four geese. "I hope this goose wasn't killed in that 

 way," remarked one of the party, "for if so, we cannot 

 eat any more of it." But Mr. Hamilton relieved such 

 fears by declaring that the taking off of this fowl was 

 quite legitimate. This party numbered three guns, and 

 they bagged 31 geese in four days. They were at Mrs. 

 Dodge's place, 13 miles below Hutchinson, on the Arkan- 

 sas River. They report the fields and bars full of geese 

 last week, and the flight along the Arkansas is said to be 

 heavier than for five years. 



"Doesn't it make you feel awfully bad to see the poor 

 geese fall down out of the air all shot up?" asked one of 

 the ladies at the goose dinner aforesaid. 



"No," replied Mr. Hamilton deliberately and naively. 

 "The first bird I ever killed onthe wing was a wild goose, 

 and when I saw him falling down, although 1 knew I 

 must lose him across the river, I think I never felt so 

 good in all my life," 



I take the extremest pleasure in telling of the exploits 

 of my friend, Mr, Hamilton, because he is a good speci- 

 men of the terrible example reformed through saving 

 grace. For years he was the strictest utilitarian, think- 

 ing nothing in the world was good but plain hard work. 

 I am glad to see he has nearly killed himself at that. 

 Finally he had to get outdoors or die. He went outdoors. 

 His shooting dates back for a very few years, and barring 

 his still rather utilitarian notions about pot shots, I have 

 some hopes for him. 



Now I want to show the reverse of this cheerful pic- 

 ture. About two weeks ago Mr, James Reynolds, a busi- 

 ness man of this city, took his own life, under circum- 

 stances the most distressing, in that he left a wife and 

 family who loved him. This is what the papers here say 

 of the matter: 



"As to the cause of the suicide there seems to be but 

 one opinion. The man had worked himself to death. In 

 speaking of the matter to T. G. Otis, a neighbor said: 'I 

 have kown Reynolds for twenty years. I am positive 

 that overwork had rendered him temporarily insane. He 

 was the first at the store and the last one away. Nature 

 had to give way some time, and poor Reynolds went 

 crazy.'" 



Too much work doesn't pay. Read the wholesome 

 sporting papers. Go out of doors. You will be nearer 

 manhood through it, and the time is passing when people 

 will pneer at you for that. 



In this connection I am reminded of a talk I bad lately 

 with a gentleman of this city, who is somewhat known 

 as a shooter and sportsman, and who is now holding for 

 a .second term a position of high trust as an oflacer of the 

 Illinois State Sportsmen's Association. This gentleman 

 told me that he did not read Forest and Stream nor any 

 other sporting paper, because he did not have time, his 

 business was so pressing. He represented himself to me 

 as a hard-driven man, with scarce time enough left to 

 get acquainted with his family. This only shows how 

 amusing some men can get to be, and also how far they 

 can get away f rom the paths of right li vin g. I don' t think 

 my friend is any busier than plenty of other men in 

 Chicago, who find plenty of time to read Forest and 

 Stream and other fresh, modern literature. If he is so 

 very busy I scarcely see how he can spare time for any 

 official duties outside of his ofiice. But, I say, all this is 

 simply amusing; for every one knows that any man has 

 time to do just what he wants to do, and no man was 

 ever so busy he couldn't be busier. If my friend the offi- 

 cial of the State Sportsmen's Association will take time of 

 an evening at home to read some good journal of outdoor 

 sports, I think he will find the pressure lighten at times, 

 and he v.nll not feel so busy, He will do just as much, 

 but will be freer from that strain of energy which makes 

 a worse than slave of many and many a man. I doubt if 

 the world is so very much better off for these overbusv 

 raen. Indeed, they seem to realize this themselves, an'd 

 once in a while they seek another world by gate of 

 self-destruction. I have reported several just such cases 

 here in Chicago. I will warrant not one of them was a 

 reader of Forest and Stream or a breather of good out- 

 door air. 



March 7. — ^The marshes are reported frozen. The shoot- 

 ing is not yet. 



Mr. Julius DeLong, of New York, spent a day in town 

 this week. He and Mr. A. Hirth have some sort of a 

 mascallonge scheme on the fire for this spring. 



Mr. A. Von Lengerke, of the well knovm New York 

 firm, flitted across the Chicago horizon last week, leaving 

 a smell of Schultze behind him, 



Mr. Gardner Thatcher, of this city, has outfitted here 

 for tarpon and goes to Florida. 



Some unknown friend has sent me a copy of the Beards- 

 town lUinoisan, with the following marked: "A, M. 

 Smith made a large haul of fish in Sangamon Bay last 

 week, aggregating some 30,000lbs." There is a brevity 

 and dirtctness of assertion about this which we could 

 wish less conspicuous. 



Br'er Hank Kleinman went out behind Br'er Abe's 

 house, down on Lake Calumet, for a little while last 

 Monday and bagged 19 bluebills, 1 goldeneye and 3 can- 

 vasbacks. The birds still hang about that persecuted lake. 

 Br'er Gawge killed 7 bluebills that same morning. 



I take pleasure in forwarding to the kennel ed.itor of the 

 Forest and Stream a cutting from the Commercial 

 Gazette of Cincinnati, sent me and, I think, written by 

 the hand of that remarkable greyhound enthusiast Mr, 

 M. Phister, of that city. The article speaks of the third 

 winning of the Waterloo Cup by the phenomenon Fuller- 

 ton, a feat unparalleled in coursing, Mr. Phister is fortu- 

 nate in having a half brother of Fullerton, the big brindle 

 Norwegian. 



Within 30 days we shall have good shooting and some 

 fishing around Chicago. The Kankakee at Momence is 

 one of the earliest streams to offer any fishing, 



E. Hough. 



ST. LOUIS NOTES. 



QT. LOUIS, March 3.— At a stand in Union Market I 

 O noticed the other day a fine string of croppies, the 

 fish averaging 21b8. in weight, They came from some 

 point down the river, and were netted, of course. It 

 makes the gorge of the angler rise to see the fine game 

 fish, bass especially, which are shipped to Union Market 

 from local waters and caught by means of nets and 

 seines, but there has been no slaughter this year from 

 fishing through the ice, for the very good reason that no 

 ice has formed in this section of the country. 



Now that the quail season is over, it will do no harm to 

 "give away the soft snap" of a St. Louis sportsman who 

 last fall killed nearly 200 quail within two miles of the 

 western limits of the city. While other hunters went out 

 many miles looking for quail, he had fine shooting liter- 

 ally at his own door. No one thought of looking for game 

 so near home, and the favored party was too smart to say 

 anything about it until the season was over. But what 

 chance will these quail have next year? 



There never has been a better winter for the preserva- 

 tion of game birds than the one just ending. It has been 

 extremely di*y all over this section, with no extremely 

 cold weather and but few snow storms, so that the birds 

 will winter over in good condition, and should increase 

 and multiply at the maximum limit. The absence of ice 

 will also insure the safety of the fish in the shallower 

 streams and lakes. The prospects of a good game season 

 the coming fall are consequently most excellent. 



Numerous petitions have been sent to the Legislature to 

 pass a law prohibiting all seining of fish in the State of 

 Missouri. The House recently passed the following bill, 

 and, as there is a similar one pending in the Senate, it is 

 probable that we wiU soon have a law prohibiting all 

 seining: 



Sec. 3,910. If any person shall place or maintain, or cause to be 

 placed or maintained, in any of rhe waters of the S»ate, any seine, 

 net, gill-net, trammel net, wire or other device, or by any suoli 

 means shall take or catch a flsli in the waters of tliiB State, he 

 shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and npon conviction 

 tboreof be fined in a sum of not less than S5 nor more than flOO, 

 provided the provisions of this section shall not apply to persons 

 who own lana adjoining such waters from taking iish for their 

 own family use, and provided, further, that they shall not prevent 

 the free passage of fish up and down such waters. 



Ducks struck in here quite freely last week, and there 

 was a rush for the favorite shooting grounds. 



Croppie fishing with hook and line has been carried on 

 all winter at Creve Cceur Lake owing to the mild 

 weather. 



The State Senate has shortened the deer shooting season 

 by knocking February out of the old law. 



There will probably be amendments to the game law of 

 the State. The Hawkins bill has received a favorable 

 report in the House and will probably pass. The bill pro- 

 vides that game shall not be killed during the following 

 seasons: Wild turkey, between March 1 and Sept. 15; 

 prairie chicken, between Feb. 1 and Aug. 15; quail and 

 grouse, between Feb. 15 and Oct. 1; woodcock, between 

 Jan. 10 and July 1: and wild ducks and geese, between 

 April 1 and Sept. 1. The bill also makes it a misdemeanor 

 to trap or net prairie chickens or quail at any time. 



The following bit of genuine news I clip from a San 

 Francisco market paper: "Japanese pheasants from Ore- 

 gon have been quite common in the game market during 

 the past fortnight. The male pheasant of this variety is 

 of handsome plumage. These birds were imported into 

 Oregon and for years were protected by very strict game 

 laws, untn now they are quite plentiful and are allowed 

 to be hunted. The meat is in favor with lovers of game, 

 Sales were made this week at $9 to $12 per dozen whole- 

 sale." Aberdeen. 



A WEST VIRGINIA RESORT. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



I notice in your columns, under date of Feb. 19, a com- 

 munication from "L. R. S.," Scranton, Pa., who refers to 

 an article from the pen of Mr. T. B. Wilson, Capon Iron 

 Works, W. Va., which was published in your paper some 

 weeks ago, who desires to know if the reports of T. B. 

 Wilson can be relied on. I wish to say a few words in 

 corroboration of Mr. Wilson's statements. It has been 

 my good fortune for the past ten years to spend my 

 annual hunt and fish with Mr. Wilson. I have fished all 

 the streams mentioned by him, viz.. Wait's Run, Trout 

 Run, Pond Run and Stoney Creek; and have taken many 

 fine specimens of brook trout from these streams. The 

 trout of Wait's Run and Trout Run are fine in point of 

 size and flavor. Mr. P. Johnston, of Linden, Ya., an old 

 disciple of Izaak Walton and a very intimate friend of 

 Mr. Wilson's, has perhaps taken more large trout from 

 the latter than any other angler; and he informs me that 

 on one day he took from a single pool in this stream thirty- 

 six trout, varying in size from l4in. to 18in. in length, 

 and on the day following took twenty-six trout equally 

 as large. While he had no means of ascertaining the 

 weight of these trout,'it is safe to say some of them wotxld 

 have weighed 31bs. Four years later Mr. Johnston and I 



took from this same pool one day seventeen very fine 

 ones. On one occasion Dr. John McKeever, of Wardens- 

 yille, W. Va,, took a trout from this stream weighing 

 4lbs. One peculiarity of these large trout is that they are 

 seldom, if at all, taken with the fly, but bite on the 

 bottom. 



Game is abundant in the mountains and valleys sur- 

 rounding the hospitable home of Mr, Wilson, as I can 

 testify from personal experience, and deer, bear, turkeys 

 and pheasants can he had in season; and with Tom, or 

 the "General" as be is more familiarly known, as guide, 

 the sportsman is sure to get a shot. The name and fame 

 of Tom and his achievements with his "bone smasher" 

 (Manton rifle) cannot be touched on here, but will endure 

 as long as the mountains which he has hunted. In one 

 hunting season Mr. Wilson, J. W. Thorp and I killed 

 twenty-two deer, turkeys and pheasants not being taken 

 into account, though we bagged great numbers of them. 

 This was done by still-hunting, and on no occasion do we 

 use dogs. 



A few shots made by Mr. Wilson will to the "kid glove" 

 hunter seem incredulous. I speak truth, however. In 

 1874: he killed at three shots two four-prong buck and fif- 

 teen turkeys. A few years after bagged eighteen turkeys 

 at three shots! 



Visitors are always cordially received and every hospi- 

 tality extended toward them. It is, indeed, "a region 

 full of interest to the sportsman and naturalist," and in 

 no other country will he find a more contented, congenial 

 and true-hearted people. 



I beg to refer you to an article by the late Alexander 

 Moseley, late editor of the Richmond Whig, relative to 

 the trout of this stream, published in Forest and Stream 

 in the fall of 1879, A. M. 



LiNDKx, Warren County, Va. 



REARING PHEASANTS. 



AN English correspondent writes: The period has now 

 arrived for making preparations for the pheasant 

 rearing season. The results produced in many parts of 

 the country by the semi-artificial culture of these birds 

 are certainly encouraging, and are in part due to the 

 increasing experience of game keepers in rearing them. 

 The pheasant shooting season of 1890 1 was on the whole 

 satisfactory, and would doubtless have been one of the 

 best on record but for the bad weather that prevailed 

 during the summer. The weather was favorable during 

 the early part of the summer, and the young birds had a 

 fair start, but the effect of the wet and cold which super- 

 vened during June was disastrous to them. Heavy bags 

 were, however, recorded in many parts, and the condition 

 of the birds proved to be good on the whole. 



The practice of rearing by hand, which obtains on many 

 estates, has prevented a great amount of depletion which 

 otherwise must occur. When nearly 4,000 pheasants are 

 killed on one estate in two days, as was the case last sea- 

 son, it is apparent that these buds would speedily be exter- 

 minated but for the system of cultivation now in vogue. 



As is generally known, the game keeper is responsible 

 for this work, and the uninitiated have no idea what 

 anxiety and labor it causes him, nor of the nights that he 

 spends with the young birds when sickness demands his 

 attendance. In "the matter of feeding he has to exercise 

 incessant zeal at ail times, providing them with food care- 

 fully and skilfully prepared. In conversation with the 

 well-known pheasant rearer, Mr. Wm. Burgess, of Malvern 

 Wells, Worcestershii-e, the other day, I was informed 

 that the acclimatization of the British variety is being 

 actively prosecuted abroad and that he (Mr. Burgess) 

 has, for many years past, assisted in the work by sending 

 eggs from his pheasantry. In the matter of fish he has 

 also done the same, and has by way of experiment success- 

 fully transmitted living examples of perch to Japan. The 

 Chinese pheasant had, I learnt, succeeded in nearly every 

 country, and I can speak from experience as to the favor- 

 able results attending its introduction in England. 



NEW JERSEY CODIFICATION. 



Editor Forest and Stream: 



Among the bills introduced in the Senate is one provid- 

 ing for theci'eation of a fish and game commission whose 

 duty shaU be to revise the fish and game laws of the State 

 and report a comprehensive bill to the next Legislatiire. 

 The bill provides that the Governor shall appoint three 

 commissioners, who shall hold sittings in various parts of 

 the State during the recess of the Legislature for the jjur- 

 pose of hearing the views of all persons who may desire 

 to present the same. The commission is then to prepare 

 a bill, embodying the present laws with such amend- 

 ments and alterations as the commission may deem 

 proper, and report the bill to the next Legislature. The 

 object of the bill is to follow in the wake of the States of 

 Pennsylvania and New York, where commissions of this 

 kind have been created by legislative action; in Pennsyl- 

 vania the work has been completed; in New York the 

 commission is still in session. 



There has always been serious complaint concerning 

 the fish and game laws of this State, and no laws could 

 be more centradictory. Thus, according to one law, a 

 man taking perch out of lakes or ponds is liable to go to 

 State prison for six months, but there is no law against 

 persons taking the same kind of fish out of streams. 

 There is a law which prohibits catching trout during a 

 close season, but there is no law prohibiting the j)osseB8ion 

 of trout during this close season, so that the former law 

 is rendered practically worthless, it being a dilficult mat- 

 ter to capture a person while in the act of hauling in the 

 fish. According to one law, persons polluting rivers or 

 allowing anything to flow into any sti-eam which will in- 

 jure or kill fish are subject to a penalty of two years in 

 State prison and a fine of a thousand dollars, and by an- 

 other law justices of the peace are given jurisdiction in 

 all these cases; the law in relation to the pollution of 

 rivers applies to corporations, so that justices of the peace 

 are given authority to send not only private individuals 

 but corporations to State prison. These are only a few of 

 the absurdities of the fish and game laws as they stand at 

 present. In fact, these laws are in so badly mixed up a 

 state that nothing but a revision will unravel the tangle, 

 and it is this that is sought by Senator Mallon's bill. That 

 the laws are defective and contradictory is apparent, for 

 the State provides no way of enforcing the laws in rela- 

 tion to game, although several thousand dollars are annu- 

 ally expended for protecting and propagating fish. War- 

 dens who do their duty do so at their own pecuniary risk, 



