Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Teums, $4 a Year. 10 Ots. a Copy. I 

 Six Months, $2. j 



NEW YORK, MARCH 3, 1892. 



J VOL. XXXVIII.-No. 9. 



I No. 318 Bhoabwat, New York. 



Editorial. 



"Boss McLaughlin Says So." 

 Oheap Ammunition. 

 Soring Shooting. 

 New York Game Bill. 

 Snap Shots. 



The Sportsman Tourist. 

 In the Muscalluuge Country. 

 Wildfowl in Texas.— 11. 



Natural History. 



Wild Geese in Winter. 

 Catching Wild Animals— n. 

 Chicago and the West. 

 Buffalo Extermination Fore- 

 told. 



Value of Natural History. 



Game Bag and Gun. 



New York Game Bill. 

 The Mongolian Pheasant. 

 A Jack Rabbit Drive. 

 A Montanian on the Park. 

 Foxes Climbing Trees. 

 Wolf Hunting in Russia. 



Sea and River Fishing. 



Trouting in the Cascades. -xii. 

 Angling Notes. 

 Boston Pickerel Fishermen. 

 The Migration of Eels. 

 Massachusetts Fisheries and 

 Game. 



CONTENTS. 



Sea and River Fishing. 



Minnesota Game and Fish. 

 The Kennel. 

 New York Dog Show. 

 Brunswick Fur Club Trial". 

 Philadelphia Dog Show. 

 Philadelphia K. C. Field Trills 

 Club Meetings. 

 Dog Chat. 



Answers to Correspondents. 

 Canoeing. 

 The Government of the A.C.A, 

 A Stickful or So. 

 News Notes. 



Yachting. 



Cruising Steam YachLs. 

 Rscing Fiztures. 

 Wasp. 

 News Notes. 



Npw Jersey Rifle Shooting. 

 Rifle Range and Gallery. 

 "Forest and Stream" Tourna- 

 ment. 



Trap Shooting. 



Drivers and Twisters. 

 Matches an<1 Meetings. 

 The Trap Clubs of Chicago. 



Answers to Queries. 



For Prospectus and Advertising Rates see Page 217 



Thirty-Six Pages. 



This number consists of thirty-six pages, four extra 

 pages being added to make room for a very fully illus- 

 trated report of the New York dog show. 



THE NEW YORK GAME BILL. 

 O Y a piece of gross stupidity on the part of somebody 

 in the post office, a special-delivery stamped copy 

 of the New York Game Bill, mailed to us from Albany 

 on Tuesday and plainly addressed, turns up at the last 

 moment before we go to press. It bears the legend "Mis- 

 sent." This was mailed to us fresh from the printer's 

 hands, and we had hoped to give all the important sec- 

 tions in full to-day. Owing to the postal blunder, we are 

 compelled to substitute for the full text a hasty summary. 

 The sections relating to game, fish, birds and animals 

 will be printed in our issue of March 10. 



From the digest given on page 200 it will appear that 

 the Assembly Committee has adopted many of the re- 

 commendations made by the Syracuse convention. There 

 yet remain many of the original features, of which dis- 

 approval was then strongly expressed by the sportsmen 

 of the State. For instance, while the general woodcock 

 season is made to open Sept. 1 in certain favored coun- 

 ties, the date is put a month earlier, Aug. 1. The Syracuse 

 convention asked for the entire abolition of spring shoot- 

 ing; the bill permits shooting to March 1, and on Long 

 Island to May 1. The convention asked that robins should 

 be protected at all times; the bill permits them to be 

 killed; so with does. 



On the other hand, very many and most important 

 suggestions were adopted, and the Gould bill as reported 

 by the committee is distinctly a more reasonable, ade- 

 quate and effective measure as a direct result of the 

 Syracuse meeting. So much a hasty examination dis- 

 closes, not only in the outlined portion of the bill, but as 

 well in the sections providing for prosecutions. The 

 practical experience of such organizations as the Ang- 

 lers' Association of the St. Lawrence River and the 

 Anglers' Association of Onondaga has demonstrated the 

 strong and the weak points of this part of the law, and 

 the Syracuse recommendations adopted by the commit- 

 tee are such as will render game and fish protection more 

 effective when this bill shall become a law. 



Next week we shall present a careful comparative 

 analysis of the Gould bill and the existing statutes. 



The Committee of Fifteen delegated by the Syracuse 

 meeting to present the recommendations of that meeting 

 before the Assmbly committee were given a hearing on 

 Wednesday evening of last week. There were present 

 Messrs. MacGregor, Chase, Van Cleef, Hookway. Pond 

 and Gavitt. Representatives were present from Long 

 Island, Albany and elsewhere. Mr. MacGregor and 

 his associates made a strong and forcible plea for the 

 adoption of the changes urged by the convention, but 

 were no less strenuous in asking for the adoption of the 

 Gould bill even if its final form should be a compromise. 

 They reflected in their addresses the spirit which ani- 

 mated the convention— protection, all practicable, for the 

 general good, 



■'boss Mclaughlin says so." 



r pHE Long Island game season provided by the Game 

 Bill, as reported from committee, will open on Nov. 

 10. The adoption of that peculiar date has been explained 

 to us by this little story : 



At a recent hearing before the Assembly Committee on 

 Game Laws, a certain well-known lawyer from New 

 York city was arguing for Nov. 1 as the opening date on 

 Lang Island. He might as well have spent his breath on 

 the towers of the Brooklyn Bridge. "Boss McLaughlin 

 wants the season to open Nov. 10," said one of the com- 

 mittee, interrupting him, "and whatever Boss McLaughlin 

 says is going to be done." J 



In theory game laws are founded upon the necessity of 

 protecting wild creatures in their seasons of breeding, 

 immaturity, weakness, helplessness or unfitness for the 

 table. In practice, the sportsmen of Long Island have 

 their game laws determined by the arbitrary and impu- 

 dent dictation of a political "boss." 



Is not this a pretty kettle of fish? 



CHEAP AMMUNITION. 

 IT sounds odd for any one having the least knowledge 

 of rifle matters to suggest the use of two various sorts 

 of ammunition for the same gun, one to act as a sort of 

 practice firing, the other being reserved for real work. 

 Yet this is just what the English rifle authorities are 

 doing at present and against which there is a very proper 

 protest on the part of some of the shooters. The Martini- 

 Henry ammunition for the service arm is supposed to 

 have 85 grains of powder behind a 480 -grain ball, and yet 

 when the London Field took 150 charges scattered over 

 the official output of six years, from 1886 to [1891, it 

 found but fifty-four with the standard powder charge, 

 the others varying from 87 grains max. to 80 grains min. 

 Of the bullets only twenty-eight were of exact weight, the 

 others varying from 483^ to 476 grains. 



All these objections, serious as they were, became em- 

 phasized in the coiled brass cartridge cases which are 

 flimsy and easily twisted out of shape, leaving air spaces 

 between the side of the shell and the chamber, and these 

 are issued simply to save the cost of solid cases, which it 

 is explained are reserved for use in actual warfare. This 

 means that at Bisley, where experts gather in competi- 

 tion of skill, they are compelled to take pot luck with a 

 lot of cartridges which are good for grouping shots on a 

 6ft. square target, while all the time there are waiting 

 and wasting away by deterioration in the arsenals, and 

 the moment a call is made to arms, the soldiers find 

 themselves supplied with a different make of cartridge, 

 and at once distrust their shooting with any uniformity 

 alongside the scores already made with the practice am- 

 munition. 



The man who is practicing wants the very best charge 

 going, in order to get the maximum record from his arm. 

 The soldier before the enemy wants the very best charge 

 in the very best arm if his morale is to be preserved: in 

 other words, inferior charges may be set aside for Fourth 

 of July hurrahs, where noise is a requirement, or for 

 crow shooting in a cornfield, where noise plays a big 

 pari: but for an official body to countenance such a short- 

 sighted bit of economy, as the use of a second-rate cheap 

 cartridge to men who are working for records and expect 

 that such practice is of the least value as preparation 

 for real work with another ammunition, is the very ex- 

 treme of absurdity, and is a penny wise, pound foolish 

 policy, hardly fitting our notions of hard British common 

 sense. 



SPRING SHOOTING. 



r pHE poet Whittier said the other day that if he were a 

 -*~ young man he would enlist under the banner of 

 some great moral reform, no matter how desperate the 

 fortunes of that cause might now appear, and devote 

 himself to laboring for its success. One of the younger 

 generation of sportsmen now coming on to the stage 

 might enroll himself on the side of the spring shooting 

 abolitionists with perfect confidence in the ultimate 

 triumph of their principles. Nothing in the entire field 

 of sportsmanship is more clearly demonstrated by pass- 

 ing events than that the sentiment against spring shoot- 

 ing is gaining strength. It is stronger to-day than it was 

 ten and five years ago; it will be stronger five and ten 

 years from now than it is to-day. It is gaining ground 

 in a wider territory than ever before, No one who in- 

 telligently notes the trend of opinion in relation to such 



affairs can fail to be convinced that this is the situation 

 with respect to the shooting of wildfowl flying north- 

 ward to their feeding grounds in the spring.of the year. 



SNAP SHOTS. 



T^HE fish protectors on the lakes in Central New York 

 -*~ have time and again been thwarted in their pursuit of 

 illegal netters by the refusal of keepers of boat liveries to 

 supply boats for their use. To overcome this, the Syra- 

 cuse convention sought to have incorporated in the game 

 bill a section requiring such boat keepers to furnish boats 

 to the protectors, upon payment of the customary fee 

 for hire. The section, however, the Assembly committee 

 rejected as unconstitutional. This proposed remedy then 

 has failed; but there must be some other, and no one 

 who knows the temper of Mr. Henry Loftie of Syracuse 

 and his associates in the Onondaga Anglers can doubt 

 that they will discover a way to get ahead of the netters 

 and all their allies. 



We owe apologies to a large number of persons who 

 have sent to this office asking for special numbers of the 

 enlarged Forest and Stream, and whose orders we 

 have not been able to fill. Since the first of January we 

 have been obliged each week to increase the number of 

 copies of Forest and Stream printed, and each week 

 before the succeeding day for publication we have found 

 ourselves without a single copy of the paper in the office. 

 We have not been able to gauge the additional orders so 

 as to keep the supply up to the demand. This week we 

 are printing 1,300 copies more than last week, and we 

 trust that this will enable us to fill all orders which we 

 may receive before next Thursday. 



We print to-day in advance of its official publication 

 the current report of the Minnesota Game and Fish Com- 

 mission. The document is of addc d interest because it is 

 the first report given of the Commission's work since the 

 scope of that work was so widened as to comprise also 

 the enforcement of the game laws. The limitations 

 hampering protection in Minnesota are shown to be 

 substantially those which govern elsewhere— public in- 

 difference; the greed of those who find profit in inciting 

 to unlawful acts; the obstructions put in the way of the 

 law by officers sworn to execute those laws. 



The tarpon season has so far been moderately success- 

 ful at St. James City, Fla. More fish have been taken at 

 Fort Myers, the score there up to Feb. 23 counting thirty. 

 A correspondent suggests that visiting anglers will do 

 well to make their headquarters at St, James City, going 

 thence by daily steamboat to Fort Myers, or engaging 

 one of the many very good sloops, which will accommo- 

 date four, and living on the grounds. 



Chief Game Protector Pond reports that the stories of 

 destruction by the men employed in building Dr. Webb's 

 new Adirondack railroad are without foundation; there 

 has been no crust; the protector has employed special 

 detectives for service in the North Woods; Dr. Webb has 

 cooperated in this; and the tales of slaughter are declared 

 to have been canards. 



Western New York Association.— A bill introduced 

 at Albany by Senator Parsons, from the Cheaper Food 

 Fish Association, of Rochester, incorporates Wm H. 

 Adams, of Cayuga; Wm. Rumsey, of Bath; W. S. Gavitt, 

 of Lyons; John T. Little, of Lockport; E. Bloss Parsons, of 

 Sodus Point; John B. Sage, of Buffalo; Wm. Hamilton, 

 of Caledonia; John H. White, of Albion: Wm. E. Holly, 

 of Holly, and Geo. F. Danforth, Halbert S. Greenleaf , 

 Hulbert H. Warner, Daniel W, Powers, Wm. Purcell, 

 Charles H. Babcock, Lewis P. Ross, George Raines, Wm. 

 F. Cogswell, Wm. S. Kimball, Charles S. Baker, Corne- 

 lius R. Parsons, Richard Curran, John A. Reynolds,Wm. 

 F. Balkan, Nathaniel Foote, John R. Fanning and Frank 

 J. Amsden, all of Rochester, as the Western New York 

 Protective and Propagating Association for food and 

 game fish and song and game birds, for the purpose of 

 enforcing the laws relating to the taking and killing of 

 fish and birds, and the promotion of the culture and 

 propagation of fish and birds and the introduction of new 

 species and varieties of fish and game, and the publishing 

 and dissemination of information relating thereto. 



