Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, 84 A Ybab. 10 Cm a Copy. 1 

 Six Months, $3. f 



NEW YORK, JUNE 16, 1892. 



( VOL. XXXVIII.-No. U. 

 '{ No. 318 Broadway, New York. 



CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



The Npw York Association. 

 A National Salmon Park. 

 Old Acquaintances. 

 The Photographic Competi- 

 tion. 



The Sportsman Tourist. 



Sport in France. 

 Minnesota Bass Waters. 

 Hunting the Sea Otter. 



Natural History. 



Does the Rattlesnake Spit? 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



When Minnesota Game was 



Plenty. 

 The California Bear Supply. 

 The Snipe a Waterfowl. 

 Game Warden Darling. 

 New York State Association. 



Sea and River Fishing. 



The Shadow of a Life. 

 A National Salmon Park. 

 Transplanting Landlocked 



Salmon. 

 Habits of the Quananiche. 

 White Perch Fishing. 

 A Head Waiter. 

 Virginia's Defective Laws. 

 Angling Notes. 



The Kennel. 



Retrieving at Field Trials. 

 The Beagle Standard. 

 U S. Field Trials Club Derby 

 Entries. 



The Kennel. 



The Mercer Case and "Mount 



Royal." 

 Dogmatics of Dogdom. 

 Flaps from the Beaver's Tail. 

 Points and Flushes. 

 Dog Chat. 

 Kennel Notes. 



Answers to Correspondents. 

 Canoeing. 



Oanvas Canoes. 

 New York C. C. Sailing Races. 

 Prize Flags for the A. C. A. 

 News Notes. 



Yachting. 



New York Y. C. Regatta. 

 N. Y. Y. R. A. Cruise. 

 Hudson R'ver Y. C. 

 Yorkville Y. C. 

 Lake Ontario. 

 Pavonia Y. C. 

 Rocbester Y. C. 

 News Notes. 



Rifle Range and Gallery. 



Revolver Championship. 

 "Forest and Stream" Tourna- 

 ment. 



New Jersey Rifle Shooting. 



Trap Shooting. 



Illinois State Shoot. 

 Interstate at Brooklyn. 

 Drivers and Twisters. 

 Matches and Meetings. 



Answers to Queries. 



For Prospectus and Advertising Rates see Page 582. 



potent force in fish, game and forest protection in the 

 State. That this declaration does not involve in any de- 

 gree an encroaebment upon the interests of those who 

 participate in the annual "State shoot" gives all the more 

 cause for satisfaction. 



THE NEW YORK ASSOCIATION. 

 It was pointed out in these columns last week that the 

 Syracuse convention of the New York State Association 

 for the Protection of Fish and Game would afford to the 

 members of that body a magnificent opportunity for 

 effecting a more adequate organization for game and fish 

 protection and for dedicating the Association anew to the 

 purposes for which it was founded ; and it is an occasion 

 of sincere satisfaction now to record that the opportunity 

 thus presented has been improved, and improved with a 

 heartiness and earnestness which are full of promise for 

 the future. No one, who was present in the convention 

 hall last Monday night and witnessed the close attention 

 with which the report of the committee was received and 

 the sincerity of the indorsement with which the new con- 

 stitution and plan of organization were adopted, could 

 have mistaken the sentiment which animated the dele- 

 gates. The event has demonstrated that the Association 

 contains within itself the material for carrying into effect 

 the purposes implied in its title; and the readiness with 

 which the overtures of the committee were received has 

 amply justified their faith in the inherent possibilities of 

 the Association if only those possibilities should be given 

 freedom of expression and development. 



The problem with which the committee found them- 

 selves face to face was not slight nor easy of solution. 

 Here was an organization, fish and game protective in 

 name, but in empty name only; and given in practice 

 year after year to sport at the trap only. The task was 

 to convert this organization into a protective body once 

 more, but without disrupting the Association, without 

 alienating the support and co-operation of those now in 

 its control, and without abridging in the smallest meas- 

 ure the interests and privileges of the trap -shooters. It 

 was a problem which required careful thought and 

 extended consideration for its successful solution. How 

 adequately the plan finally submitted by the committee 

 and adopted by the Association shall prove to have at- 

 tained this desired end, time and the test of experience 

 alone can determine. In their scheme the committee 

 have the utmost confidence; and of the details of the plan 

 as set forth in the report printed on another page, care- 

 ful and critical consideration is invited. 



The Forest and Stream has not hesitated in years 

 gone by to call the Association sharply to account for 

 maintaining the empty professions of its name, while 

 utterly neglecting any practical devotion to fish and game 

 protection. The opinion here expressed has been sincere; 

 and has echoed the conviction of most earnest sports- 

 men of the State. Not less sincere is the congratulation 

 we now extend to the New York State Association for the 

 Protection of Fish and Game on the action taken by it last 

 Monday night; and not less sincere than their past 

 censure, we feel assured, will be the approval, support 

 and co-operation accorded to the Association by those 

 who have hitherto held aloof from it. 



The adoption of the new constitution is a public dec- 

 laration that the Association will be henceforth an active, 



A NATIONAL SALMON PARK. 

 Under this title Mr. Livingston Stone has ably pre- 

 sented the need of taking prompt steps for the preserva- 

 tion of the Pacific salmon and trout by declaring a part 

 of the Government reservation in Alaska closed against 

 fishery and other occupations which involve the extermi- 

 nation of the fish of the salmon family. He sketches the 

 rapid decline of the salmon streams of California through 

 the destructive march of improvements and shows that 

 the steadily increasing demand for canned salmon will 

 surely lead to the capture of the last fish unless measures 

 are at once taken to prevent this extermination. 



The plan of setting apart AfOgnak for the purpose in- 

 dicated seems to us entirely feasible, and especially so 

 since the canneries located on the island, when in opera- 

 tion, depend for their supply upon the salmon in Karluk 

 Bay. This bay is not, as Mr. Stone apparently believes, 

 the collecting ground of salmon which ascend the Kar- 

 luk only, but here the great schools of fish coming in 

 from sea remain for a short time prior to their distribu- 

 tion in numerous rivers of the Peninsula and Cook's In- 

 let. The run into the Karluk is small compared with 

 the masses of salmon that crowd into the bay near the 

 mouth of the river. 



The subject treated by Mr. Stone is a very important 

 one, and its consideration cannot safely be deferred even 

 for a few years, unless we are willing to assume the task 

 of restoring depleted waters and meantime feed the 

 natives whose very existence is threatened by cutting off 

 their principal food supply. 



OLD ACQUAINTANCES.— I. 



Chancing to pass a besmirched April snowbank on the 

 border of a hollow, you see it marked with the footprints 

 of an old acquaintance of whom you have not for months 

 seen even so much as this. 



It is not because he made an autumnal pilgrimage, 

 slowly following the swift birds and the retreating sun, 

 that you had no knowledge of him, but for his home- 

 keeping, closer than a hermit's seclusion. 



These few cautious steps, venturing but half way from 

 his door to the tawny naked grass that is daily edging 

 near to his threshold, are the first he has taken abroad 

 since the last bright lingering leaf fluttered down in the 

 Indian summer haze. 



He had seen all the best of the year, the blooming of 

 the first flowers, the springing of the grass and its growth, 

 the gathering of the harvests and the ripening of fruits, 

 the gorgeousness of autumn melting into sombre gray. 

 He had heard all the glad songs of all the birds and their 

 sad notes of farewell to their summer home, the first and 

 last droning of the bumblebee among the earliest and 

 latest of his own clover blossoms. 



All the best the world had to give in the round of her 

 seasons, luxuriant growth to feed upon, warm sunshine 

 to bask in, he had enjoyed; of her worst he would have 

 none. 



So he bade farewell to the gathering desolation of the 

 tawny fields and crept in to her warm heart to sleep 

 through the long night of winter till the morning of 

 spring. Then the wild scurry of wind-tossed leaves 

 swept above him unheard and the pitiless beat of autum- 

 nal rain and the raging of winter storms that heaped 

 the drifts deeper and deeper over his forsaken door. 



The bitterness of cold that made the furred fox and the 

 muffled owl shiver, never touched him, in his warm 

 nest. So he shirked the hardships of winter without the 

 toil of a journey in pursuit of summer, while the starved 

 fox prowled in the desolate woods and barren fields and 

 the squirrel delved in the snow for his meagre fare. 



By and by the etherial but potent spirit of spring stole 

 in where the frost-elves could not enter, and awakening 

 the earth, awakened him. Not by a slow and often im- 

 peded invasion of the senses, but as by the sudden open- 

 ing of a door, he Bees the naked earth again warming 

 herself in the sun, and hears running water and singing 

 birds. No wonder that with such surprise the querulous 

 tremolo of his whistle is sharply mingled with these 

 softer voices. 



, Day by day as he sees the sun-loved banks blushing 



greener, he ventures further forth to visit neighbors or 

 watch his clover or dig a new home in a more favored 

 bank or fortify himself in some rocky stronghold, where 

 boys and dogs may not enter. Now, the family may be 

 seen moving with no burden of furniture or provision, 

 but only the mother with her gray cubs, carried as a cat 

 carries her kittens, one by one to the new home among 

 the fresher clover. 



On the mound of newly digged earth before it, 'is that 

 erect, motionless, gray and russet form, a half decayed 

 stump uprising where no tree has grown within your 

 memory? You move a little nearer to inspect the strange 

 anomaly, and lo it vanishes, and you know it was your 

 old acquaintance, the woodchuck, standing guard at his 

 door and overlooking his green and blossoming domain. 



Are you not sorry, to-day at least, to hear the boys and 

 the dog besieging him in his burrow or in the old stone 

 wall wherein he has taken sanctuary? Surely, the first 

 beautiful days of his open-air life should not be made so 

 miserable that he would wish himself asleep again in the 

 safety and darkness of winter. But you remember that 

 you were once a boy and your sympathies are divided 

 between the young savages and their intended prey, 

 which after all is likelier than not to escape. 



He will tangle the meadow grass and make free with 

 the bean patch if he chances upon it, yet you are glad to 

 see the woodchuck, rejoicing like yourself in the advent 

 of spring. 



THE PHOTOGRAPHIC COMPETITION. 

 The great interest taken by the public in the Forest 

 and Stream's photographic competition is very gratify- 

 ing. Already a goodly number of pictures have been 

 submitted, and many more are promised during the year. 

 It may safely be predicted that the amateur photograph 

 crop for 1892 will be the largest ever gathered, that the 

 subjects chosen will be more interesting than ever, and 

 the pictures taken will be better from an artistic as well 

 as from a mechanical point of view than ever before. 



The number and character of the views sent to this 

 office since the competition was announced justifies this 

 conclusion. Besides the photographs of strange and 

 unusual scenes, of which there are a number, there are 

 also bits of scenery which are familiar to every one who 

 is much out of doors. Such a picture is one of an orni- 

 thologist, well known to all the readers of Forest and 

 Stream, who is examining the nest of a red-eyed vireo 

 found during a winter's walk in the woods. The naked 

 tree trunks rise from the expanse of white snow, the deli- 

 cate tracery of the undergrowth shows against the white, 

 and the central figure of the man is bent over examining 

 the old nest. Four pictures taken while a man is quail 

 shooting will quicken the sportsman's heart. They show 

 the dog working ahead of the gun, the point, the moment 

 when the shooter is passing the dog to start the birds, and 

 the shot at one of the bevy. An equally happy picture 

 is one showing the reedy margin of a river bank. A 

 wild duck has just risen from the water and a fair Diana 

 is in the act of bringing her gun to bear on it. At her 

 feet stands a retriever watching with pricked ears 

 the bird, alert if the shot is successful to bring the game. 



There are many pictures of camp scenes, the tents 

 standing amid the trees and horses feeding near, or boats 

 lying on the shore. Other views show travelers among 

 the mountains, pack trains on the march, boats and 

 canoes under sail. Of pictures devoted entirely to scenery 

 there are many, and some of them very beautiful. Ragged 

 mountain peaks, deep, narrow gorges, pine-dotted hill- 

 sides, far-stretching prairies and wonderful glaciers, all 

 have their place among the views already submitted. Of 

 pictures of living game there are as yet not very many, 

 but we are told of a number which are to come. A beau- 

 tiful portrait of a mule deer fawn which has been re- 

 ceived deserves especial mention. 



The time is at hand when many of our readers are 

 starting off on their summer trips, and it is worth their 

 while to make especial efforts to bring back with them a 

 series of photographs which shall be worthy a place in 

 this competition. The little time and effort required for 

 this will be amply repaid by the satisfaction which the 

 pictures will give, and this satisfaction will be a perma- 

 nent one, since for years the pictures will give pleasure, 

 recalling delightful memories of happy days. 



The Kentucky fish bill has passed the Senate and strong 

 hopes are entertained that it will go through the House. 

 The local club is giving it all possible support. 



