Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Tebms, $4 A Ybae. 10 Ots. a Copy. ) 

 Six Months, $3. j 



NEW YORK, APRIL 16, 1891. 



( VOL. XXXVI.-No. 18. 



I No. 318 Bhoadtvay, New Yohk . 



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CONTENTS. 



Editoriai,. 

 Tlio Maine Game Situation. 

 April Talk. 



Dealh of General Strong. 

 Snap Shots. 

 Sportsman Tourist. 

 Snowbound. 



An Exciting Uhase in Jersey. 

 Natttral History. 



A Philadelubia Sanctum. 



Why the Grouse Drums. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



Sis Years Under Maine Game 

 Laws.— IV. 



To Help Out the Pot. 



Some St. Louis Clubs. 



Our Gun Club— Turtliug. 



My Last Experiment. 



"I'a'tridge." 



Maine's New Law. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



Water Life. 



Eastern Fish in California. 

 Keuka Lake. 



California. Trout Streams. 

 Caatalia Troul in the Siujw. 

 Angling Notes. 

 Game I^rotective Societies. 

 New England Trout Water.?. 

 An Ancier's Memories. 

 The Silver Pike. 

 Angling Notes. 



PlSHCULTUItE. 



State Oyster Policy, 

 i The Kennel. 



The Chicago Show. 

 Boston Dog Show. 

 Dog Chat. 



The American Spaniel Club's 



Judges. 

 Cleveland Dog Show. 

 The Helen Keller Fund. 

 Kennel Notes. 

 Kennel Management. 

 Rifle and Trap Shootinq. 

 Range and Gallerv, 

 The Revolver Championsliip. 

 The Trap. 

 E. S. Benscotten. 

 Harrisburg Tournament. 

 Trap Notes. 

 Yachting. 

 An Adventure at Mosquito 



Inlet. 

 ' Philadelphia Y. C. 

 Eastern Y. C. 



New York Naval Reserve As- 

 sociation. 



The Hcrreshoif Itj-Footer. 



New Fife Y'achts. 

 Canoeing. 



In My Boat House. 



Cruise of the Shenandoah C. C. 

 Answbhs to Correspondents. 



APRIL TALK. 



OF right there should be no shooting now, but of pests 

 and at inanimate targets. The killing of a bird in 

 this season of northward migration means, at least, one 

 better bird the less, perhaps two, or a dozen, in the sea- 

 sou to which shooting properly belongs. 



No right-minded man practices or advocates the shoot- 

 ing of woodcock, quail or any of the grouse in the spring. 

 Why should such uphold the spring shooting of snipe, 

 shore birds and waterfowl ? The poor reason is, that the 

 lirst breed with us and the loss is directly apparent, 

 forced at once upon us, when in early summer days we 

 visit the barren covers, fruitless now, not because of un- 

 timely harvesting, but for lack of seed, while the far 

 northern fields, on which the crop of last-named birds are 

 grown, are for the most part beyond our sight and ken. 

 Just as surely as if w'e destroyed the seed there instead of 

 here, the yearly crop diminishes and less and less of it 

 returns to us, * 



The only plea for this improvident killing of migrants 

 is, that without it we should have no spring shooting ! 

 As if life were not worth living unless one can be killing 

 something from the beginning to the end of the year, and 

 as if it were not better to stay our hands for a season now, 

 than to have nothing to shoot by and by. No, let there 

 be no more spring shooting of geese, ducks, snipe and 

 bay birds. If we cannot be content without the pulling 

 of triggers and the noise of guns, let us blaze away at 

 targets and clay-pigeons. There will yet be left clay to 

 mould others of. And if we want to go hunting, let us 

 go now without a gun. 



We shall not find it unpleasant nor unprofitable to take 

 to the woods now, for we may be sure -that they are 

 pleasanter than the untidy fields. Where nature has her 

 own way with herself, she makes her garb seemly even 

 now, after ;a.ll the tousling and rents sKe gave it in her 



angry winter moods. The scraps of moss, bark and twigs 

 with whicli the last surface of the snow was obtrusively 

 littered lie now unnoticed on the flat-pressed leaves, an 

 umber carpet dotted here with flecks of moss, there 

 sprigged with fronds of evergreen fern, purple leaves of 

 squirrel-cup and its downy buds and fu'st blossoml. 

 Between banks so clad the brook babbles as joyously as 

 amid all the bloom and leafage of June, and catches a 

 brighter gleam from the unobsti-ucted sunbeams. So 

 befittingly are the trees arrayed in graceful tracery of 

 spray and beads of purpling buds, that their seemly 

 nakedness is as beautiful as attire of summer's greenness 

 or autumn's gorgeousness could make them. 



Never sweeter than now, after the long silence of win- 

 ter, do the birds' songs sound, and never in all the round 

 of the year is there a better time to see them when the 

 gray haze of the branches is the only hiding for their gay 

 wedding garments. 



If you would try your skill at still-hunting, follow up 

 that muflied roll that throbs through the woods, and if 

 you discover the rutfed grouse strutting upon his favorite 

 log, and undiscovered by him can watch his proud per- 

 formance, you will have done something better worth 

 boasting of than bringing him to earth from his hurtling 

 flight. 



Out of the distant fields come, sweet and faint, the call 

 of the meadow lark and the gurgle of the blackbirds that 

 throng the brookside elms. From high overhead come 

 down the clarion note of the goose, the sibUant beat of 

 the wild ducks' wing, the bleat of the snipe and the 

 plover's cry, each making his way to northern breeding 

 grounds. Are you not glad they are going as safely as 

 their uncaught shadows that sweep swiftly across the 

 shadowy meshes of the forest floor? Are you not content 

 to see what you see, hear what you hear, and kill nothing 

 but time? 



Verily you shall have a clearer conscience than if you 

 were disturbing the voice of nature with the discordant 

 uproar of your gun, and marring the fresh odors of 

 spring with the fumes of villainous saltpeter. 



THE MAINE GAME SITUATION. 

 ''pHE Maine game question is so important that it is 

 -L well worth our while to try to understand it; to 

 learn all we can about it; to hear all sides. 



Two classes are interested, residents and visitors. The 

 chief importance attaching to the papers written by Miss 

 Fannie P. Hardy is found in her claim for them that 

 they give the side of the residents, or at least of those 

 residents most nearly concerned. She professes to speak 

 for this class— a class which is less often heard than the 

 other; and she claims that her peculiar opportunities for 

 gaining information and her long study of the subject 

 enable her to represent the views of these peoj>le accur- 

 ately.. 



Miss Hardy is a daughter of ]\Ir. Manly Hardy, of 

 Brewer, Maine, engaged for many years in fur trading (a 

 business from which he has only recently retired). Mr. 

 Hardy has had an acquaintance wider perhaps than that 

 of any other Juan in the State with hunters, trappers, 

 guides, lumbermen and other dwellers in the woods, upon 

 whose co-operation the preservation of game so largely 

 depends. More than this we imderstand that Mr. Hardy 

 enjoys the respect of the Game Commissioners, as a 

 citizen wdio has always obeyed the letter and spmt of the 

 game laws, even when such compliance involved great 

 personal loss to himself. 



From all this it would seem that Miss Hardy's claim 

 that she is qualified to speak for these people is well 

 founded; and if it is; and if she can tell us how the Maine 

 residents look at this game question, it is surely desirable 

 that %ve should hear what she (for them) has to say. Their 

 views may be full of error, their attitude a mistaken one, 

 their logic at fault, their position untenable, their prac- 

 tices indefensible; nevertheless all these must be accepted 

 as actually existing conditions, which should be taken 

 into account in the effort to ju-ovide the remedy and save 

 the game. For that, unless a change shall be inaugurated, 

 the game is going, appears to us to be beyond dispute. 



If what is told by Miss Hardy in to-day's issue is insuf- 

 ficient evidence as to the doings of so-called sportsmen 

 in Maine, turn liack to the Forest and Stream of Dec. 

 11, 1890, and read there what "Special" wrote of the 

 wholesale destruction of Jfaine deer by jacking and dog- 

 ging and other modes of hunting in the summer months 

 of 1890, and tip to the opening of the season, Oct. 1. Ac- 



cording to "Special's" report, this, killing out of season 

 and by forbidden methods Avas done by sportsmen from 

 outside the State, or-by guides employed for them. His 

 account and Miss Hardy's amply corroborate each other. 

 Their reports and much other information which has 

 come to us indicate that the illegal destruction of large 

 game in the Maine forests last year was practically un- 

 checked, and exceeded that of any previous season. 



The result appears to be this: The people of Maine, or at 

 least that class for whom Miss Hardy speaks, having seen 

 the deer and moose thus wantonly killed and wasted by 

 sportsmen in the summer months, have themselves given 

 over all restraint and in theiv turn have slaughtered the 

 game in winter and without regard to the laws. 



This, we are told, is the actual condition of things. We 

 need not now discuss the moral aspects of the case; we have 

 already said that two wrongs do not make a right; but 

 the situation is one that cannot be touched by an abstruse 

 or argumentative consideration of the points of ethics 

 involved. 



We confess that we do not at this moment see where 

 the remedy lies. Perhaps Miss Hardy may have one to 

 suggest: or it may come from elsewhere; but we are not 

 without confidence that it will be found, and that the 

 discussion of the question by Miss Hardy and by those 

 who will doubtless follow her will aid in its discovery. 



It surely must be discouraging to every true sportsman 

 (and we know many such), who visits Maine, and by his 

 practice, pxample and influence there strives to awaken 

 among those with whom he comes in contact a respect 

 for game protection and an observance of the laws, to 

 find that after all he is in a minority; for it appears from 

 what Miss Hai'dy has written that the Maine people 

 themselves have acquired their notions of "sportsmen" 

 as a class chiefly from the lawless individuals who in the 

 close season commit outrages which are abhorred even 

 less by the native of Maine than by sportsmen of better 

 type themselv es. 



DEATH OF GENERAL STRONG. 



ON Friday last the cable brought to this country news 

 of the death, at Florence, Italy, of Gen. William E. 

 Strong of Chicago, a gentleman who had a wdde circle of 

 friends all over the land. He sailed for Europe only a 

 month ago for the benefit of his health, though he was 

 not at the time supposed to be seriously ill. His death 

 was therefore entirely unexpected. Gen. Strong was 

 born in 1840 at Granville, N. Y., but during his boyhood 

 his father removed to AVisconsin, where the son studied 

 law and was admitted to the bar in 1861. At the break- 

 ing out of the war he raised a company of troops and saw 

 much service, passing through the various grades of pro- 

 motion from Captain to Brigadier General of Volunteers, 

 which brevet he received March 31, 1865. Gen. Strong 

 •was Inspector General of the Freedman's Bureau from 

 May, 1865, to September, 1806, and then became Secre- 

 tary of the Peshtigo Lumber Co. of Chicago. In 1873 he 

 became President of that company, and occupied the po- 

 sition until his death. He was Sergeant-at-Arms of the 

 Republican National (Convention which nominated Presi- 

 dent Garfield. 



General Strong was an ardent sportsman, and has had 

 a great deal of experience in many kinds of hunting. 

 Years ago he Avas a most successful prahie chicken 

 shooter, and did much deer hunting in Michigan. He 

 was an intimate friend of President Arthur and General 

 Sheridan, and accompanied them on many excursions 

 into what used to be the wild West. He was with the- 

 Presidential party which in 1883 made the trip from the 

 ITuion Pacific Railroad north through the Yellowstone 

 Park, and one of the camps made by this joarty on Snake 

 River, not far above Jackson's Lake, is still known as 

 Camp Strong. General Strong was a most genial, kindly 

 man, and was warmly esteemed by all who knew him. 



At the meeting of the Massachusetts Fish and Game 

 Protective Society last week 170 members and guests 

 were present. New England uniform game legislation 

 was the topic discussed, without definite result, the gen- 

 eral opinion being that it would be diflicult to make the 

 game and fish seasons the same in the several States. 



South Side Club Trout. — The first day's catch at the 

 South Side Sportsmen's Club was 556 trout weighing 

 5461bs. 



