Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gur 



Tehms, 84 A Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. } 

 Six Months, $3. f 



NEW YORK, MARCH 26, 1891. 



J VOL. XXXVI.-No. 10. 



1 No. 318 Broadway, New Yobk. 



C0RBE8P0NDENOE. 

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Forest and Stream FabUshlng Oo> 

 No. 318 Bboadway. Nbw York City. 



CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



The Home Fireside. 



The Oyster Problem. 

 Spobtsman Tourist. 



A Trip to Popple Camp. 



Southward Bound. 

 NATtruAL History. 



Coon Pi'py on Rabbits. 



How to Destroy Prairie Dogs. 

 Game Bag amd Gun. 



Six Years Under Maine Game 

 Laws. 



Practical Trapping. 



Texas Hunting and Coursing. 



The Indian and the Game. 



Another Powder Test. 



Iowa Game Birds. 



Wild Geese. 



Stocking Old Bay State Covers 

 Chicago an'-} the West. 

 Sea and Rr\T;B Fishing. 

 Trout in West Virginia. 

 Our Trout Preserve. 

 Angling Notes. 

 Do Not Drop the Rod Tip. 

 Angling Retreats of Maine-rv. 

 Seals Preserve the Food Fish. 



The Ken;!JEl. 



Champion Dick Swiveller at 

 Pittsburgh. 



Washington Dog Show. 



Lynn Dog Show. 



Dog Chat. 



Kennel Notes. 



Kennel Management. 

 RiEiiB AND Trap Shooting 



Range and Gallery. 



The Revolver Championship. 



The Rees Rifle. 



The Trap. 



Brewer vs. Elliott. 



Chicago Traps. 



Bergen Gun Club Trophy— A 

 Protest. 



Going to a Shoot. 



Brooklyn Traps. 

 Yachting. 



Yacht Building on the Clyde. 



A Ortiise to the West'ard.— n. 



Protection of the Hulls of 

 Vessels by Lacquer. 

 CANOEraG. 



Cruise of the Shenandoah C. C. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



THE OYSTER PROBLEM. 

 ''pHE evident and alarming decrease of the yield of the 

 oyster beds of Chesapeake Bay, recently emphasized 

 by the removal by nineteen oyster packing firms of the 

 whole or a part of their plant to other localities, led to an 

 important meeting of parties interested in the subject in 

 Baltimore on the evening of March 18. 



At this meeting Mayor Davidson presided, and addresses 

 -were delivered by Prof. W. K. Brooks, of Johns Hopkins 

 University: Marshal McDonald, U. S. Commissioner of 

 Fisheries; Hon. John K. Cow en and Col. Thomas S, Hod- 

 son, of Crisfield. Prof. Brooks, twelve years ago, warned 

 the State authorities that the extermination of the oyster 

 by injurious methods of fishing and lack of suitable pro- 

 tection was imminent. The small yield of 3,000,000 

 bushels of oysters in 1890 as compared with the output 

 of 17,000,000 bushels in 1875 is sufiicient evidence of the 

 soundness of Prof. Brooks's prediction. 



In the course of the addresses it was shown that the 

 oyster industry of Chesapeake Bay involves an outlay, 

 for wages, labels, boxes and transportation, of about 

 $3,000,000 annually, this not including the cost of the 

 oysters. It is safe to assume that the value of the oysters, 

 together with the cost of putting them on the market, 

 will represent a sum not less than $4,500,000 to $3,000,000, 



Prof. Brooks estimates that since the establishment of 

 the oyster packing industry fully 400,000,000 bushels of 

 wild oysters have been taken from the waters of Chesa- 

 peake Bay. This magnificent resource, however, is threat- 

 ened with complete destruction unless speedy measures 

 be taken to arrest the decline and foster the growth of the 

 industry. The Professor further states that in other coun- 

 tries, where the grounds are much less valuable, they have 

 by cultivation been made to produce oysters at a rate per 

 acre which in our superior waters would bring the annual 

 yield far above the entire harvest so far gathered by the 

 packers of Maryland and Virginia. 



There was perfect agreement among the parties inter- 

 ested in t]i§ OJjeeapeake oypter as to the need of prompt 



action, and this agreement found expression in a series 

 of resolutions calling attention to the threatened destruc- 

 tion of the oyster beds under present conditions, with the 

 consequent throwing out of employment of thousands of 

 workmen, and a greater injury to the people of Maryland 

 engaged in allied industi-ies. This threatened extinction 

 is charged to the want of legislative encouragement of 

 artificial propagation, and stress is laid upon the necessity 

 of selling or leasing to individuals certain portions of the 

 beds, for the experiment of oyster rearing. The desira- 

 bility of State supervision of oyster grounds has been 

 demonstrated in North Carolina, South Carolina and 

 Georgia, as well as in Massachusetts and New York, and 

 particularly in Connecticut, where the natural beds are 

 reserved for public use, but all other waters capable of 

 pi-oducing oysters are sold to individuals, whose vested 

 rights are amply protected and hence enjoyed without 

 molestation. As an illustration of the practical working 

 of this plan it.is stated that the oyster crop has quadrupled 

 in Connecticut in the last decade. 



Some experiments have been made by the U. S. Fish 

 Commission in the artificial culture of oysters, but so far 

 without demonstrating methods which are entirely prac- 

 tical and satisfactory. We understand that the subject 

 will continue to receive diligent attention, and, in addi- 

 tion to this, the methods of rearing oysters in artificial 

 basins, so successfully practiced in certain parts of Europe, 

 and especially in France, will be studied in detail, with a 

 view to utilizing the information in behalf of the oyster 

 industries of the United States. 



THE HOME FIRESIDE, 



WEEKS ago the camp-fire shed its last glow in the 

 deserted camp, its last thin tlu-ead of smoke was 

 spun out and vanished in the silent air, and black brands 

 and gray ashes were covered in the even whiteness of the 

 snow. The unscared fox prowls above them in curious 

 exploration of the desolate shanty, where wood mice are 

 domiciled and to whose sunny side the partridge comes 

 to bask, the woodpecker taps unbidden to enter or depart 

 from the always open door, and under the stars that 

 glitter through the net of branches the owl perches on 

 the snowy ridge and woods in undisturbed solemnity. 



For a time, camping days are over, for the sportsman, 

 and continue only for the lumberman, the trapper and 

 the merciless crust-hunter, who makes his secret lau- in 

 the depths of the forest. 



In the chill days and evenings that fall first in the in- 

 terim between winter and summer camping, the man 

 who makes his outings for sport- and pleasure, must con- 

 tent himself by his own fireside whose constant flame 

 burns throughout the year. 



Well may he be content, when the untempered winds 

 of March howl like a legion of wolves at his door, snow 

 and sleet pelt roof and pane with a continuous volley of 

 storm from the lowering sky, or when the chilly silence 

 of the last winter nights is broken by the sharp crack of 

 frozen trees and timbers, as if a hidden band of riflemen 

 were besieging the house. Well maybe be content then, 

 with the snug corner of his own hearthstone, around 

 which are gathered the good wife, the children and his 

 camp companions, the dogs. 



Better this cozy comfort in days and nights such as 

 these, or in those that fall within that unnamed eeason 

 that lies between winter and spring when the whilom 

 white carpet of the forest floor is untidy with all the 

 downfall.of winter litter, and if ono stirs abroad, his feet 

 have sorry choice between saturated snow and oozy 

 mold, a dismal season, but for its promise of brighter 

 days, of free streams, green trees and bird songs. 



Better, now, this genial glow that warms one's marrow 

 than the camp-fire that smokes or roasts one's front while 

 his back freezes. With what perfect contentment one 

 mends his tackle and cleans his gun for coming days of 

 sport, while the good wife reads racy records of camp life 

 from Maine to California and he listens with attention 

 half diverted by break or rust spot, or with amused watch- 

 ing of the youngsters playing at camping out. Or when 

 the callow campers assail him with demands for stories, 

 and he goes over, for their and his own enjoyment, old ex- 

 periences in camp and field, while the dogs dream of 

 sport past or to come, for none but dogs know whether 

 dog's dreams rim backward or forward. 



Long used rod and gun suggest many a tale of past ad- 

 venture as they bring to mind recollections of days of 

 Bport such as may never come again. The great logs in 



the ;fireplace might tell, if their flaming tongues were 

 given speech, of camps made long ago beneath their lusty 

 branches, and of such noble game as we shall never see; 

 moose, elk, deer, panther, wolf and bear, that are but 

 spectres in the shadowy forest of the past. But the red 

 tongues only roar and hiss as they lick the crackling 

 sinews of oak and hickory and tell nothing that ordinary 

 ears may catch. Yet one is apt to fall dreaming of by- 

 gone days and then of days that may come to be spent by 

 pleasant summer waters and in the woods gorgeous with 

 the ripeness of autumn. 



So he is like to dream till he awakens and finds him- 

 self left with only the dogs for comrades, before the 

 flameless embers, deserted even by the shadows that erst- 

 while played their grotesque pranks behind him. Cover 

 the coals as if they were to kindle to-morrow's camp-fire, 

 put the yawning dogs to bed and then, to bed and further 

 dreaming. 



SNAP SHOTS. 



THERE was at last accounts a bill before the Penn- 

 sylvania Legislature, introduced into the Senate by 

 Mr, Brown, of York county, to reinstate fish baskets 

 in the streams except the Delaware and Schuylkill. 

 Through a misstatement to the efllect that the measure as 

 amended was acceptable to the Pennsylvania Fish Com- 

 mission the bill has reached a second reading and will 

 probably be voted upon during this week. The result of 

 such a move would be to undo all the good already ac- 

 complished in stocking streams, and destroy the fish in- 

 troduced at a cost of much patience and money. It will 

 place a basket and dam across every trout stream of large 

 size and restilfc in the total destruction of both trout and 

 shad. 



It is only human to regard things which are at a dis- 

 tance as better than those which we know well. The 

 Illinois farmer is likely to believe that land in Dakota is 

 more fertile than his own farm, the unsuccessful Eastern 

 business man that he would make money in Seattle, the 

 Montana prospector that his luck would be better on the 

 other side of the range, while the big-game hunter sighs 

 for some distant game ranges of which he has only heard. 

 A good maliy years ago it was thought that the English 

 sparrow — about which we then knew a little less than noth- 

 ing— would rid our streets of the unpleasant measuring 

 worms which festooned the shade trees. We have had 

 an object lesson in sparrows, and now a Frenchman sug- 

 gests that a small European owl will deliver us from the 

 plague of sparrows and recommends that a cargo of these 

 pigmy owls be imported to do this work. We have native 

 owls and shrikes enough for this purpose, if they were 

 j)roperly protected and encouraged, and it seems scarcely 

 necessary to go to Europe for help. As things stand 

 now, however, if an owl, a shrike or a small hawk 

 attempts to capture a sparrow in any of our city streets, 

 the lives of the larger bird, and of a considerable portion 

 of the populace, are put in jeopardy. Boys and men—in- 

 cluding policemen — turn out and open fire on the aggres- 

 sor, and if not killed he soon becomes disgusted with 

 urban life and retires again to the woods and fields. 



Mr. Alexander Starbuck, of Cincinnati, O., has recently 

 presented to the Cuvier Club Museum a collection of bril- 

 liantly-plumed birds from Guatemala. Among them is a 

 specimen of the alma perdita or lost soul, which takes 

 its name from its mournful note, which sounds like a wail 

 of despair. Whittier has written of it, in his well known 

 poem, as 



"The pained soul of some infidel 

 Or cursed heretic that cries from hell." 



The Emperor of Brazil liked this poem so well that he 

 translated it into Portuguese and sent the translation 

 with two mounted specimens of the bird to Whittier; and 

 a Michigan doctor liked it so well that he transcribed the 

 verses direct from Whittier, signed his own name to them 

 and sent them in to the Forest and Stream as an original 

 specimen of native Michigan minstrelsy. 



The Audubon Monument Committee, after four years 

 of hard work, have succeeded in raising less than $3,000 

 toward the fund for the proposed monument to the natur- 

 alist. The total sum it is desired to raise for the purpose 

 is $10,000. 



Any subscriber may supply a friend with a copy of the 

 current issue of the Forest asd Stream by sending us 

 on a postal card the name of tbat friend. 



