Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, $4 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy. 1 

 Six Months, $2. ( 



NEW YORK, AUGUST 6, 1891. 



( VOL. XXXVIL-No. 3. 



i No. 318 Bboadwat, New Yohk. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 

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CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



August Days. 



Snap Shots. 

 The Spoutsman Tourist. 



A Loneli" Pilgrim in the 

 Rockies.— n. 



MiDnetonka, the Queen of 

 Lakes. 

 Natural History. 



The American Association. 



Good-Natured Rattlesnakes. 



What Porcupines Eat. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



Six Years Under Maine Game 

 Laws.— XI. 



Prairie Chickens and Ducks. 



Chicago and the West. 



Connecticut Birds. 



New York Woodcock Season. 

 Sea and River. Fishing. 



Along the North Shore and to 

 Isle Royal.- 1. 



Fishing in Little River. 



Kentucky Notes. 



Chicago and the West. 



Angling on Mammoth. 



Forest and Stream Nursery 

 Rhymes. 



Angling Notes, 



FiSHCUUTURE. 



American Fisheries Society. 



The Kennel. 

 The Blue Ridge Kennels. 

 Painless Death. 

 Imperfect Teeth Development 

 Power of Specialty Clubs for 



Evil. 

 Beagle Training. 

 Dog Chat. 

 Kennel Notes. 



Answers to Correspondents. 

 RiFiiE AND Trap Shootinu 

 Range and Gallery. 

 The Bisley Shoot. 

 The Revolver at Bisley. 

 Another 20- Yard Target. 

 Rochester Tournament. 

 The Trap. 



The Onondaga's Tournament. 



Union Gun Club. 



Miltoid Tournament. 

 Yachting. 



A Trip to Hei-ring Gut. 



Steam Yachts and Launches. 



New York Y. C. Cruise. 

 Canoeing. 



A. C. A. Meet Camp Rules. 



The A. C. A. Year Book. 



"Are You Reads ? Go!" 



Business in Camp. 



Who May Come to the Camp. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



AUGUST DAYS. 



WITH such unmistakable signs made manifest to the 

 eye and ear the summer signals its fullness and 

 decline, that one avfakening now from a sleep that fell 

 upon him months ago might be assured of the season 

 with the first touch of awakening. 



To the first aroused sense comes the long-drawn cry of 

 the locust fading into silence with the dry, husky clap of 

 his wings: the changed voice of the song birds, no more 

 caroling the jocund tunes of mating and nesting time, 

 but plaintive with the sadness of farewell. 



The bobolink has lost, with his pied coat, the merry lilt 

 that tinkled so continually over the buttercups and daisies 

 of the June meadows; rarely the song sparrow utters the 

 trill that cheered us in the doubtful days of early spring. 

 The bluebird's abbreviated carol floats down from the 

 sky as sweet as then, but mournful as the patter of 

 autumn leaves. The gay goldfinch has but three notes 

 left of his June song as he tilts on the latest blossoms and 

 fluffy seeds of the thistles. The meadow lark charms us 

 no more with his long-drawn melody, but with one sharp, 

 insistant note, he struts in the meadow stubble or skulks 

 among the tussocks of the pasture and challenges the 

 youthful gunner. What an easy shot that even, steady 

 flight ofl'ers, and yet it goes onward with unfaltering 

 rapid wing-beats, while the gun thunders and the harm- 

 less shot flies behind him. The flicker cackles now no 

 more as when he was a jubilant new comer, with the 

 new-come spring for his comrade, but is silent or only 

 yelps one harsh note as be flashes his golden wings in 

 loping flight from fence stake to ant hill. 



The plover chuckles while he lingers at the bounteous 

 feast of grasshoppers, but never pierces the August air 

 with the long wail that proclaimed his springtime 

 arriv il. After nightfall, too, is heard his chuckling call 

 fluttering down from the aerial path, where he wends 



his southward way, high and distinct above the shrill 

 monotony of crickets and August pipers. The listening 

 sportsman may well imagine that the departing bird is 

 laughing at him as much as signalling his course to com- 

 panion wayfarers. 



The woodland thrushes' flutes and bells have ceased to 

 breathe and chime, only the wood pewee keeps his pensive 

 song of other days, yet best befitting those of declining 

 summer. 



The trees are dark with ripened leafage: out of the 

 twilight of the. woodside glow the declining disks of wild 

 sunflowers and shine the rising constellations of asterg. 

 The meadow sides are gay with unshorn fringes of golden 

 rod and willow herb, and there in the corners of the gray 

 fences droop the heavy clusters of elderberries, with 

 whose purple juice the flocking robins and the young 

 grouse, stealing from the shadowed copses along this belt 

 of shade, dye their bills. 



The brook trails its attenuated thread out of the wood- 

 land gloom to gild its shallow ripples with sunshine and 

 redden them with the inverted flames of the cardinals 

 that blaze on the sedgy brink. Here the brown mink 

 prowls with her lithe cubs, all unworthy yet of the trap- 

 per's skill, but tending toward it with growth acceler- 

 ated by full feasts of pool-impounded minnows. 



Here, too, the raccoon sets the print of his footsteps on 

 the muddy shores as he stays his stomach with frogs and 

 sharpens his appetite with the hot sauce of Indian turnip 

 while he awaits the setting of his feast in the cornfields. 



The hounds are more impatient than he for the opening 

 of his midnight revel, and tug at their chains and 

 whimper and bay when they hear his querulous call 

 trembling through the twilight. They are even fooled to 

 melodiou&ly mournful protest when their ears catch the 

 shriller quaver of the screech owl's note. 



The woodcock skulks in the bordering alders, and 

 when forced to flight does so with a stronger wing than 

 when a month ago his taking off was first legally author- 

 ized. Another month will make him worthier game; 

 and then, too, the ruflfed grouse need not be spared a shot, 

 as full grown and strong of pinion he bursts from cover; 

 nor the wood duck, now but a vigorous bunch of pin 

 feathers, be let go untried or unscathed, when from his 

 perch on a slanted rock or out of a bower of rushes he 

 breaks into the upper air with startling flutter of wings 

 and startled squeak of alarm. 



Summer wanes, flowers fade, bird songs falter to 

 mournful notes of farewell; but while regretfully we 

 mark the decline of these golden days, we remember 

 with a thrill of expectation that they slope to the golden 

 days of autumn, wherein the farmer garners his latest 

 harvest, the sportsman his first worthy harvest, and that 

 to him that waits come all things, and even though he 

 waits long, may come the best. 



SNAP SHOTS. 



WHEN Mr. Charles F, Franzee, of the Keystone 

 Sportsmen's Association of Pittsburgh, Pa,, sent 

 out notices of a trap-shooting tournament the other day, 

 certain newspapers refused to print his card, holding that 

 the offering of prizes in trap-shooting was equivalent to 

 gambling, and to print notices of the same would render 

 the publishers liable under the Anti-Lottery Law. Mr. 

 Frahzee referred the question to the Post Office Depart- 

 ment, and Assistant Attorney-General Tyner has ruled 

 that trap-shooting for prizes is not a lottery scheme 

 within the meaning of the law. The winning of the 

 prizes, says Judge Tyner, depends not on the element of 

 luck or chance, but on skill. The ruling is undoubtedly 

 sound; trap-shooting is not to be classed as a game of 

 chance. Nevertheless the element of luck has much to 

 do with the sport and can never be wholly eliminated. 

 If trap-shooting were not very much a thing of chance 

 we should never hear of many of the matches for big 

 wagers. 



The Massachusetts Legislature this year adopted a reso- 

 lution directing the Fish Commission to confer with the 

 proper authorities of the States of Maine, New Hamp- 

 shire, Vermont, Rhode Island and Connecticut, with a 

 view to securing the adoption of uniform laws to protect 

 the food fishes of the States named: and to report the 

 result of their conference to the Legislature of 1893. 



The Ontario Game and Fish Commission, appointed 

 last winter to take evidence on which to base a revision 



of the game and fish laws of the Province, sent out cir- 

 culars asking for the views of sportsmen, dealers, hotel 

 proprietors and other classes interested in the subject. 

 Secretary A, D, Stewart advises us that the committee has 

 received several thousand answers, and after classifying 

 them and taking a concensus of the opinions expressed 

 the results have been very satisfactory, and much infor- 

 mation has been elicited. The only matter upon which 

 unfavorable comment could be made is that numbers of 

 the papers have been answered by people calling them- 

 selves sportsmen, but who evidently look at the subject 

 from a very selfish standpoint; but of course the good and 

 the bad answers must be weighed together, and a balance 

 struck. The intelligent Commission may safely be trusted 

 to use the acquired data as a basis for wise legislation. 



A Montana genius, mindful of the number of grizzlies 

 that get away because the tenderfoot's gun wobbles, has 

 invented a little contrivance to overcome the difficulty. 

 It is a gunner's rest, to support the extended left arm 

 when holding a gun in position. The rest consists of a 

 straight bar, at the upper end of which is an U-shaped 

 bow. The shooter's elbow or forearm rests in this bow, 

 and the lower end of the bar is fastened to a waist- 

 belt. This gives a "hip-rest," affording a firm support 

 and permitting the arm which holds the gun to be ex- 

 tended straight from the shoulder. The bar is capable of 

 extension, to give greater or less elevation; and as illus- 

 trated in one of the patent journals it appears to be a 

 capital thing, provided the game encountered by the 

 man in harness can be induced to stand still until the 

 intending shooter shall have adjxisted the ratchets and 

 spring keys and bar and belt and his elbow into the U- 

 bow-. 



North Carolina is away ahead this year on the game 

 and fish law tinkering record. The last session of her 

 Legislature passed forty-one separate and distinct bills 

 on the subject. Of these, thirty odd are of merely local 

 application, and relate for the most part to fishing in 

 certain creeks. Amendments of the general laws have 

 been made so often and in such a slip-shod style that it 

 is in many cases extremely difficult, if not absolutely 

 impossible, to make out what the law actually means. 

 We trust that a study of the Book of the Game Lmvs 

 may not be without advantage in demonstrating the 

 absurd and unintelligible complexity of the statutes Of 

 some States and the simplicity, directness and clearness 

 of others. 



Our long-time contributor "H. P. U." suggests that 

 there should be a reunion of the old friends and contribu- 

 tors to Forest and Stream during the World's Fair at 

 dhicago in 1893. A day or a week might be set apart, 

 for such as can do so to register at the Angling Exhibit, 

 where Dr. Hensball will be in charge; and by means of the 

 register one could find the address in the city of those 

 whom he cared to see. It may be quite practicable to 

 carry out this happy thought. What say "Wawayanda," 

 "f*odgers," "Awahsoose," "Kingfisher," "Piseco," "Yo," 

 "Reignolds" et al? 



Senator Edmunds, who is an enthusiastic sportsman 

 with rod and gun, is declared to be a charming camp 

 comrade, "His unruffled good humor, ready wit and apt 

 repartee, and an inexhaustible fund of anecdotes, grave 

 and gay," says one who has camped with him many sea- 

 sons, "make him the most companionable of men under 

 broiling sun or lowering skies, by the fitful light of camp- 

 fire or on the long miles of fruitless tramp," 



WiUs have frequently been made in favor of cats or 

 dogs for which the testators have special affection; and 

 just now the papers are reporting the contesting of a will 

 among whose provisions is a legacy of eight dollars per 

 week for the maintenance of a pet dog. It may be 

 assumed that the brute beneficiary is the least concerned 

 about it of all the parties in interest. 



The "Forest and Stream Nursery Rhyme" jingles have 

 caught the eye of half a dozen rhymesters, and bid fair 

 to become popular if not famous. 



Any subscriber may supply a friend with a copy of the 

 current issue of the Forest and Stream by sending us 

 on a postal card the name of that friend. 



