Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, $<t a Yeah. 10 Gts. a Copy. 1 

 Six Months, $2. f 



NEW YORK, MARCH 10, 1892. 



J VOL. XXXVIII.-No. 10. 

 1 No. 31? Broadway, New York. 





CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



The Menhaden. 



Dflmoniro Woodcock on Ice. 



Snap Shots. 



The Sportsman Tourist. 



Wildfowl in Texas.— ill 

 Sportsmen of the Old School. 

 Winter Sports in North Caro- 

 lina.— VI. 



Natural History. 



Catching Wild Animals— hi. 

 Eagles and Tbeir Nests. 



Game Bag- and Gun. 

 Chicago and the West. 

 A Memory of the Mouu tains. 

 Nigser Wool Swamp. 

 Woodcock and Restaurants. 

 In th« Florida Cypress. 

 The Big Moose. 

 Pacific Coast Notes. 

 Uncle Barney's Story. 

 Worcester and Its Sportsmen. 

 The New York Game Bill. 

 A Day at Ragged Island. 

 Dog and Fox. 



Sea and River Fishing. 



April Trout Fishing. 

 Tarpon "on the Fly." 

 Kingfisher Memories. 

 Angling Notep. 

 Bos on Anglers. 



Fishculture. 



New South Wales Notes. 



Fishculture. 



Night Lights Scare Varmin. 

 The Kennel. 

 Philadelphia Dog Show. 

 New York Dog Show. 

 Gordon Setter Club Meeting. 

 More Canine Piracy. 

 Points and Flushes. 

 Dog Chat. 



Answers to Correspondents. 

 Canoeing. 

 A Stickful or So. 

 Rushton'a Boats. 

 Mersey Canoe Yawls. 

 News Notes. 



Yachting. 



Work at Bristol. 

 Biscayne Bay Y. C. 

 New Yachts. 



New Watson Centerboarder. 

 N. Y. Y. R. A. Dinner. 

 International Racing. 

 News Notes. 



Rifle Range and Gallery. 



"Modern American R'fles." 

 "Forest and Stream" Tourna- 

 ment. 



Trap Shooting. 

 Fulford vs. Budd. 

 Drivers and Twisters. 

 Matches and Meetings. 



Answers to Queries. 



For Prospectus and Advertising Rates see Page 241. 



THE MENHADEN, 



A FISH of the herring family, a little larger than the 

 river herring or alewife, is at present subject of 

 heated discussion in the newspapers and in Congressional 

 committee rooms. The struggle between the advocates 

 of State control of the fisheries and the menhaden purse- 

 seine interests has been sharp and protracted, but it will 

 probably go against the commercial fishermen as hereto- 

 fore. Massachusetts has closed Buzzard's Bay against the 

 purse-seine on the ground that the menhaden is the 

 principal food of certain larger fishes which inhabit this 

 body of water for a longer or shorter portion of the year, 

 and if this fish becomes scarce the food fishes will cease 

 to come into the bay. The bluefish, the striped bass and 

 the squeteague are the most important species known to 

 feed upon menhaden at Buzzard's Bay; the bonito is an- 

 other with the same feeding habits, but this is not now 

 prized as a food fish nor on account of its game qualities. 

 Practically the objection to the wholesale capture of 

 menhaden arises from the fear of driving away blue- 

 fish. 



"What are "the habits of the menhaden, the source of so 

 much contention? In the Northern States it appears on 

 the coast early in the spring or with the approach of 

 summer and disappears in the fall. It swarms in the 

 bays and sounds when the surface of the water reaches a 

 temperature of about 51°, and is often driven into 

 brackish water by its enemies. The migrations of the 

 menhaden have received comparatively little study. The 

 fish come into the Chesapeake in February or March ; 

 they are on the New Jersey coast early in May; enormous 

 schools have been seen in New York Bay on May 10; by 

 the middle of June they have appeared in Long Island 

 Sound and range eastward to Nantucket and Buzzard's 

 Bay. The northern limit of the species is the Bay of 

 Fundy ; but in some seasons it does not visit the waters 

 north of Cape Cod. In the fall the schools leave the 

 shores except south of Hatteras, where the fish remains 

 throughout the year. Where the menhaden spends the 

 winter is uncertain, but there i3 reason to believe that the 

 young at least seek the deep parts of bays when cold 

 weather sets in. The great schools are represented as 

 swimming out to sea to the inner boundary of the Gulf 

 Stream. 



The east coast of Florida has been considered to mark 

 the southern limit of the common menhaden, but Dr. 

 Henshall recently sent a fish from west Florida which 

 appears to be the same as the menhaden of Northern 

 waters. 



The food of this fish, if we may judge from the ex- 

 amination of stomach contents, consists chiefly of micro- 

 scopic animal and vegetable organisms usually sur- 

 rounded by a mass of dark greenish or brownish mud. It 

 seems certain also that oily substances floating at the sur- 

 face form an important element of its food. Fishermen 

 believe that menhaden consume the minute red and green 

 crustaceans that swarm in the water and help support 

 the mackerel and the alewife. Sometimes the menhaden 



takes food which makes it liable to decay and renders it 

 unsuitable for bait. 



About the spawning of the menhaden little is known; 

 it may be considered established, however, that the fish 

 does not breed upon the coast of New England and New 

 York, although Capt. Atwood once saw a few ripe 

 females in December atProvincetown, Mass., which were 

 detained in the creeks by accident. 



About Nov. 7, 1874, Delaware Bay was crowded from 

 Cape May to Cape Henlopen with unusually large men- 

 haden, nearly three-fourths of which contained eggs ap- 

 proaching maturity ; but 60 hours later not one of them 

 remained on the coast. 



On Nov. 27, 1879, Col. McDonald obtained a menhaden 

 from Hampton Creek, Va., in which the eggs were nearly 

 ripe. It has been reported, but not verified, that the fish 

 have been seen off the Virginia coast about Christmas so 

 ripe that eggs and milt could be easily pressed from 

 them, 



The enemies of the menhaden are numerous and formi- 

 dable. Among the whales the fin-back and the bone 

 whale are especially destructive. Dolphins and porpoises 

 consume enormous numbers. Acres of sharks have been 

 known to surround schools of the fish and annihilate 

 them. One observer has counted 100 menhaden from a 

 single shark's stomach. The horse mackerel is another 

 scourge to the menhaden, and the swordfish and sailfish 

 are not much leas destructive. The ravages of the blue- 

 fish are so well known as to require'only passing notice. 

 The cod, the pollock, the whiting, the bonito, striped bass, 

 and weakfish all take a prominent part in the slaughter 

 of this helpless fish. In southern waters the gar pike, 

 the large-mouthed black bass, the catfishes and the tar- 

 pon prey upon menhaden. The commercial fisheries 

 take about 700,000,000 annually, but these are a very 

 small fraction of the total consumption. 



It has been stated by Dr. Goode that the mission of the 

 menhaden is to be eaten. Men use it as food fresh, salted 

 or smoked; also in the form of sardines, extract of fish, 

 etc. The scrap left after pressing out the oil is fed to 

 cattle and poultry. The principal uses of the fish are for 

 bait and for the manufacture of oil and fertilizers. The 

 commercial products are worth upward of two million 

 dollars annually ; the value of the menhaden to the angler 

 and the line-fishermen is best appreciated when the 

 caprice of the fish, or its sensitiveness to temperature, re- 

 sult in its absence from its accustomed haunts. 



DELMONICO'S WOODCOCK ON ICE. 



r r , HE New York Legislature has amended the Gould 

 -*- bill by taking away from the prosecuting officers 

 authority to bring suits in a county adjoining that in 

 which the offense was committed. This provision is a 

 part of the present law; experience has demonstrated its 

 wisdom; and we regret that the Legislature has deemed 

 fit to omit such a useful clause. 



The provision was originally incorporated in the law 

 for this reason : In certain sections, particularly in the 

 North Woods, prosecutions for game offenses were nulli- 

 fied because local sentiment did not sustain them, and it 

 was difficult to get a jury which would convict. Or it 

 might be that the prosecuting attorneys of the county 

 could not be trusted to do .their duty. The transfers to 

 another county have in a large measure corrected this 

 evil ; and the game laws have been more efficiently en- 

 forced. 



In the particular counties referred to there is now less 

 need of such a provision than formerly because public 

 opinion there is healthier and sustains the la ws. Convic- 

 tions are readily secured to-day in courts where five 

 years ago such a thing would have been impossible. 

 But elsewhere, as in New York city, the provision is still 

 urgently needed. It ought to be within the option of the 

 game protector, when he finds that the District Attorney 

 of New York city will not do his duty, to remove the 

 cause to another county. 



Take the instance of the Delmonico unlawful woodcock 

 — the case which District Attorney Delancey Nicoll has 

 now stored away, like a woodcock on ice. After making 

 the game protector all sorts of promises, that the case 

 would be tried "right away," "in a few weeks," "on 

 Feb. 23," and more to a like effect, he put it into 

 the City Court, where as No. 6,94 1 it has a thous- 

 and cases ahead of it, and where in the customary 

 order of events it will keep for months to come, like 

 a woodcock in Delmonico's refrigerator. The game 



protector has all the evidence required; there is no 

 reason why the case, dating from July of 1890, should 

 not have been tried months ago, had Mr. Nicoll displayed 

 any willingness to prosecute the Fifth avenue restaurant 

 concern. If one case like this is to be refrigerated by 

 the District Attorney, we have no assurance that he will 

 not treat others in the same manner. Under these con- 

 ditions the protector should be empowered to take his 

 evidence and his papers elsewhere. With this provision 

 of the law stricken out, and with New York District 

 Attorneys who would refrain from woodcock case prose- 

 cutions, Delmonico's might go on year after year serving 

 birds to its guests out of season, with a snap of the 

 thumb to game protectors and the sportsmen of the 

 State. 



SNAP SHOTS. 

 A REPORT has been going the rounds that the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture was about to introduce the mon- 

 goose into this country to make war on vermin. We are 

 enabled to state on the best of authority that the Depart- 

 ment has never contemplated the introduction of this 

 pest into the United States. The introduction of exotic 

 species in general is contrary to the policy of the Depart- 

 ment, and has been for many years, as appears in the 

 published reports of Dr. C, Hart Merriam, Chief of the 

 Bureau of Ornithology and Mammalogy. The newspaper 

 article which stated that it was intended to introduce the 

 mongoose was based on the vivid imagination of a re- 

 porter. 



The Pottsville (Pa.) Game and Fish Protective Associ- 

 ation is an enterprising organization, whose members, 

 not content with arresting illegal shooters and planting 

 trout fry, are bent on following the lead of such societies 

 as the Massachusetts Association in the good work of 

 putting out game birds. There is also on -foot a move- 

 ment to join forces with other associations in the county 

 in the formation of a county league. We hope to chronicle 

 the success of the plan. We trust that the society may 

 flourish and expand and attain to a green old age, as full 

 of years as the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of 

 Slavery, the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in 

 Bondage, and the Improvement of the African Race, 

 which has this year held its 117th annual meeting, and 

 reported a good balance in the treasury. 



Illinois has been paying a bounty of two cents per head 

 for English sparrows. The period fixed was from Jan. 1 

 to March 1. During those three months the county 

 treasurers have paid out in round figures $9,000 for 450,- 

 000 sparrows. It is reported that there is no perceptible 

 diminution of the pests, and that the campaign has been 

 a failure. The sparrows keep right on multiplying. The 

 beauty of a bounty law is that nobody can begin to esti- 

 mate the expenditure of public funds its operation will 

 entail. California provided a coyote bounty of $5 per 

 scalp a year ago, and the warrants issued for payments 

 for the year 1891 count up $99,070. 



The Game Bill in the New York Legislature is not per- 

 fect; certain of its provisions cannot be approved; never- 

 theless, as a whole the bill is vastly better than the 

 present law. For that reason, every person genuinely 

 concerned with the protection of New York fish and 

 game should use his best endeavors to promote the 

 passage of the bill. The principal sections are printed in 

 our game columns. Immediately upon the Governor's 

 signature, if the bill shall be sent to him, we shall pub- 

 lish the full text of the law as a supplement to the Book 

 of the Game Laws. 



Because of his rare fund of information about fish and 

 fishing, and his known active and practical interest in 

 fishculture and fish protection, Mr. A. N, Cheney of 

 Glens Falls, N.Y., would make an excellent Fish Commis- 

 sioner; and his appointment to the office would bring to 

 the board an accession of decided strength. 



These lines, ascribed to Whyte-Melville, struck a re- 

 sponsive chord when repeated by Mr. A. D. Stewart, of 

 Hamilton, Ont., at the Syracuse convention of New York 

 sportsmen: 



When sportsmen meet, in cold or beat, 



No matter what the weather. 

 No feuds are heard, the thing's absurd, 



They're always friends together. 



