Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gur 



THBMg, U A Yeab, 10 Cts. a Copy. ) 



Six Months, $3. { 



NEW YORK, APRIL 2, 1891. 



j VOL. XXXVI.-No. 11. 



i No. 318 Broadway, New Tobk, 



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Forest and Stxe»m Publishing: Cot 

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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



The N»w York Law, 



Bear Time in the Rockies. 



Snap Shots. 

 Sportsman Tourist, 



Antoine Bissette'f Letters, 



The Mystery of a Piece of Pie, 

 Natural History. 



The Birds of Greenland, 



The Raccoon and His Ways. 

 Game Bag asd Gun, 



Sis Years LTader Maine Game 

 Laws — rr, 



Pi'acticaJ 'J'rappinR,— II. 



Reply to "Special." 



Hunting and Killing. 

 Bea and Ri\'er Fishuvg, 



The Pike Family. 



Hubbard Lai^-e Wliitefisb. 



The Devil's Hole. 



Anglir^g Retreats of Maine. 



New England Trout. 



FiSHCUIiTURE. 



Nevada F]shf>ulture. 

 Stocking Pennsylvania 

 Waters. 



The Kennel. 



Lynn Dog Show. 



When is a Dog in Bench Show 

 Condition? 



A Homily on Judges. 



Watchdogs. 



Dog Chat. 



Boston Dog Show. 



Gordon Setter Club Meeting. 



Ivennel Notes. 



Kennel Management. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 



Range and GaUerv. 



The Revolver Championship. 



Revolver Shooting. 



The Trap. 



Brewer vs. Elliott. 



Detroit Inter-State Shoot. 

 Yachting. 



The N'ght Sky from the Deck 

 of a Yacht. 



The Deed of Gift. 



Protection or Exclusion. 

 Canoeing. 



Cruise of the Shenandoah C. C 

 Answers to Correspondents' 



THE NEW YORK LAW. 

 irii7 E are receiving numerous inquiries about tiie con- 



' * dition of the New York game law. Up to the 

 time of going to press the codification bill had not been 

 sent to the Governor. Ail provisions of the game and 

 fish laws remain as they were last year; the trout season 

 opened yesterday, except in the Forest Preserve, where 

 the date is May 1. The wildfowl season under the pres- 

 sent law will close May 1. The prevailing perplexity on 

 these points illustrates and enforces what we said the 

 other day of the effect of jjassing the codification in its 

 present shape. The bill provides that the law shall take 

 effect immediately on its signature by Governor Hill. 

 This, if the measure shall be passed this month, will pro- 

 duce complications by a summary change of the trout fish- 

 ing and duck shooting seasons. A man who catches 

 trout legally in the morning of one day may be arrested 

 for catching more of them illegally in the afternoon of 

 the same day, or for having in possession those caught in 

 the morning. The new law, if enacted, should take 

 effect at some date sufficiently remote to afford every one 

 an opportunity to become advised of the changes. No 

 good is to be attained by any other course. 



The Anglers" Association of the St. Lawrence River has 

 sent out circulars asking sportsmen throughout the State 

 to urge upon their representatives at Al bany a speedy 

 approval of the codification bill. It would be a decided 

 pity if, after the intelligent action of the State in provid- 

 ing for a revision of these statutes, the bill should fail to 

 become a law. We hope to see the measure enacted; but 

 as has already been jDointed out, there are nimierous 

 points which should be changed, and which can better be 

 altered now than later. Certain of the sections relating 

 to the Fish Commission are by no means satisfactory; 

 there are numerous exceptions in favor of special classes 

 and special localities which should have no place what- 

 ever in the law, but which have unwisely been adopted 

 to allay feared opposition to the bill as a whole. In 

 many respects the bill is better than when it first came 



from the hands of the codification committee; but in 

 many otlier particulars it has been tinkered for the 

 worse. 



Several bird lovers and students of ornithology, resi- 

 dents of Buffalo, have petitioned the Legislature to strike 

 out the clause which provides that any person may kill 

 birds destroying his fruit. Intelligence and common 

 sense are against giving any such permission to destroy 

 insectivorous birds. Every well-informed person knows 

 that the birds which destroy a little fruit depend for ex- 

 istence almost wholly upon insects; that if it were not 

 for the assistance of the birds in keeping the insect hordes 

 in check, there would be no possibility of fruit growing. 

 To shoot a robin because it is eating cherries does not 

 differ in principle from shooting a horse which happens 

 to break into the garden patch. Add to this that birds 

 are nesting in the fruit season, and the destruction of 

 the parents means the starvation of the young. There is 

 nothing but folly in such an exemption as this clause 

 provides. It should be stricken out, and stricken out 

 now, before the codification bill shall become a law. 



BEAR TIME IN THE ROCKIES. 



TT is perhaps not generally known that this is the very 

 -■- best season of the year to go bear hunting in the 

 Rocky Mountains. The natural close times which pre- 

 vail, for other game are not in force for bears, and it is in 

 the spring when he first comes out after his protracted 

 winter's sleep, when he is hungry after his long fast, and 

 when his heavy coat is at its best, that the bear is to be 

 killed. 



When Eplu-aim or Bruin first comes out of the "den" 

 in which he has spent the winter, he is fat and sleek, his 

 coat is long and glossy, and he seems in superb condi- 

 tion. It is not long, however, before a change comes. 

 First he loses his heavy coating of fat, and becomes very 

 hungry. As a result of this, he is traveling about almost 

 all the time, and in this respect his habits differ widely 

 from what they are in the summer and early autumn, 

 when he rarely shows himself— except on rainy days— 

 until the dusk of the evening. In April and May, how- 

 ever, in the Rocky Mountains, the bear is moving about 

 at any hour of the day. He turns over the rocks and 

 tears open rotten logs in his hunt for insects, explores the 

 streams for frogs with the earnestness of a coon , digs out 

 mice or ground squirrels, and tears up the caches of pine 

 nuts which the thrifty squirrels made the fall before. If 

 he finds one of these caches the bear considers himself 

 in great luck, and that they do find many is certain, for 

 the shells are often seen in the droppings of the animal. 

 At this time of the year, therefore, the bears being 

 always hungry and always moving, may be successfully 

 hunted. 



In a country where they are plenty the hunter who 

 posts himself on a commanding point, overlooking a valley 

 in which he has found signs that the bear has been work- 

 ing recently, will be likely to see more than one during 

 the day. 



The fact that the bears are always moving makes the 

 stalking of the animals at this season somewhat more dif. 

 ficult than it would otherwise be. You have to act with 

 promptness and are not at liberty to take your time. 

 Often a long run must be made to get within shot of the 

 prey, and often just as you have come in sight of him 

 and, all winded by your hurry, are raising your rifle to 

 shoot, he will disappear into a clump of brush and will 

 not be seen again. 



The restlessness on the part of the bears of the Rockies 

 does not last very long, nor does their excellent condition 

 of coat continue. The time of theirshedding varies with 

 altitude and latitude, but usually by the middle of May 

 their skins are ragged, sunburnt and worthless. 



SNAP SHOTS. 



THE absolute necessity of restocking the depleted 

 covers of the East has long been dwelt upon by 

 Forest and Stream, and within a year or two the ball 

 has fairly been set in motion, and this work assumes con- 

 stantly greater proportions. As is well known the impor- 

 tation and breeding of English pheasants has been under- 

 taken at a number of points, quail have been brought 

 from the South and turned out in many places, Massa- 

 chusetts has taken steps to stock her sandy barrens with 

 the allies of the "heath'n," which was long ago extermi- 



nated everywhere except on Martha's Vineyard. A pro- 

 ject is on foot for making an addition to the fauna of 

 Long Island which will be very important from the sports- 

 man's point of view, and about which we hope to give 

 full details in the course of a few weeks. 



Hereafter the sportsman who visits Maine will have 

 the privilege of carrying home his venison without com - 

 mitting a technical violation of the law. Under the old 

 statute, which was construed to forbid transportation 

 companies from carrying more than one moose, two 

 caribou and three deer in a season, visiting sportsmen 

 did carry their game out of the State, but they did it 

 because the authorities were pleased to wink at what was 

 in effect illegal. The new statute is modeled on the law 

 of New York, which has been found to work well. The 

 text reads: "No person or corporation shall carry or 

 transport from place to place any moose, caribou or deer, 

 or part thereof, in close time, nor in open time unless 

 open to view, tagged and plainly labeled with the name 

 of the owner thereof and accompanied by him, under a 

 penalty of forty dollars; and any person, not the actual 

 owner of such game or part thereof, who, to aid another 

 in such traneportation falsely represents himself to be 

 the owner, shall be liable to the penalties aforesaid. 



Ex-Minister Phelps's recent paper in Harper's Maga- 

 zine on the fur seal controversy has again blown into 

 flames the almost dead embers of this discussion. The 

 most diverse views are expressed by the newspapers of 

 opposite political parties over the rights and the wrongs 

 of this matter, and in much of the discussion a shameful 

 degree of ignorance is manifested as to the ownership of 

 ferce naturoi. Meantime we presume the destruction of 

 the fur sf al will go on, and in a few years this animal is 

 likely to be classed with the sea elephant, the buffalo, the 

 great auk, the Labrador duck, and other exterminated 

 wild creatures. 



Dr. David S, Jordan, the distinguished ichthyologist 

 and college president, now at the head of the Indiana 

 State University, at Bloomington, has accepted the presi- 

 dency of the Leland Stanford, Jr. , University, in Califor- 

 nia. We congratulate the University and the State of 

 California upon the accession to its educational ranks of 

 a man whose administrative ability has been so strikingly 

 demonstrated. The science of |ichthyology on the West 

 Coast will gain a most able exponent. 



Our long-time and' popular ^correspondent "Von W." 

 is an angler through and through. This was demon- 

 strated the other night, when he woke up to find the 

 house in a blaze. There was a scramble for dear life, and 

 a saving of what effects might be rescued. After it was 

 all over, the neighbors discovered that our angler had 

 made sure of his gun, rods, fly-books and wading boots. 

 When Barnum's Museum was burned Horace Greeley 

 consoled the showman with the comforting thought that 

 he now had time to go fishing, and advised him to do so. 



All lovers of good dogs will sympathize with the mis- 

 fortune of Mr. E. H. Moore, who within a few days has 

 lost the two fine rough-coated St. Bernard dogs, Ben 

 Lomond and Alton. It is not so very long since the 

 same gentleman suffered a similar misfortune by the 

 death of the mastiff Minting, a dog which was reputed to 

 be nearly, if not quite, the best mastiff in the world. 



We trust that if any of our readers overlooked the note 

 of the "Helen Keller Fund "in our issue of March 19, they 

 will turn to that number and read it. The enterprise is 

 one which should appeal strongly to a much wider cii'cle 

 than those who are specially interested in our Kennel 

 columns, where the note was published. 



The New Jersey bill to repeal the charter of the West 

 Jersey Game Protective Society has passed both houses 

 and is now before the Governor. The probability is that 

 it will have his signature, for numerous petitions have 

 been sent in by the farmers and land owners, who are 

 said to be bitterly opposed to the Philadelphia society and 

 its ways. 



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Moose wijl be pix>tepte4 Idaljo for ?ix.y ears from date . 



