Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Tebmb, U a Ybab. 10 Cts. a Copt. I 

 Six Months, $3. f 



NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 3, 1891. 



J VOL. XXXVII.-No. 7. 



( No. 318 Bboadwax, New York. 



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Forest and Stream PnbUshlnc Co. 

 No. 318 Bhoadtvat. New Yobk Cut. 



CONTENTS. 



EnrroHiAii. 



On the Enelish Ranges. 



Ottawa and Creedraoor. 



Death Before the Trap. 



Snap Shots. 

 The Sportsman Toubist. 



A Colorado Outing.— ii. 

 Natdbal Histobt. 



Rearing Game Birds. 



Some Hydraulic Ensineers. 



Ways of the Ruffed Grouse. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



Cuioago and the West. 



Two Weeks Out of Purgatory. 



Wild Rice. 



Safe'v of Hammerless Guns. 

 Camp Fibe Flickkhings. 



Sea ANij RlVEIi H ISHING. 



"OntheN rth Snore." 

 The Blue Pike. 

 Chicago and the West. 

 Fishing Rights. 

 Angling Notes. 

 Big Catches. 



A Pnhlic-Spirited Angler. 



FiSHCULTUEE. 



Am-rican Fish in England. 

 The Kennel. 

 Notes anrl Notions. 

 Tne Irisli Setter Field Trials. 

 Canker of the Ear." 

 "Importalion of a Noted Field 

 Dog." 



The Kennel. 

 Noted Irish Setters Change 



Owners. 

 Dog Chat. 

 Kennel Notes. 



Answers to Correspondents. 

 Rifle and Tbap Shootino. 



Range and Gallerv. 



An American Team for Bisley 



New Jersey State Shoot. 



The Piifle in Canadfi. 



The Trap. 



(5oney Island, O. 



Worcester ^Iportsmen's Club. 



Trap-Shooting in the Father- 

 land. 



Death at the Trap. 



The Buffalo Inter-State. 

 Yachting. 



Bangor Corinthian Y. C. 



Lake Champiain Y. C. 



Eastern Y. O. Cruise. 



Corinthian Midsummer Series 



The Mosher Launch Norwood. 



Yachts as Dutiable Merchan- 

 dise. 



Yachting Notes. 

 Canoeing. 



N. Y. C. U. International Cup. 



Lactiine Boating and Canoe 

 Club. 



Pa«saic River Races. 

 Answees to Cobbespondents, 



OTTAWA AND CREEDMOOR. 



DURING the present vpeek the big meetings of riflemen 

 at Ottawa by the Dominion Rifle Association, and 

 Creedmoor by the N. R. A. of America, are on with good 

 attendance, plenty of enthusiasm and every prospect of 

 success in the gatherings. Each in its own field is 

 working on the same lines. It is for the cultivation of 

 the military spirit, for the encouragement of a love of 

 firearms, and for the itnprovement of accuracy in their 

 use among the civilian soldiery as distinguished from the 

 regular army work, that the two associations are striving. 

 The Northern one may be more distinctively national in 

 scope than the gathering at Creedmoor, but it is only be- 

 cause the United States is too vast, and its several sections 

 too great in their local ambitions to join in such a national 

 display as that of Ottawa and Bisley. 



The any-rifle civilian shots cannot complain that they 

 have not been given abundant chance for competition. 

 The management is rarely found laggard when there is a 

 demand for this or that form of competition. Ic is put 

 on the list and the attention of competitors invited to it. 

 If there is really a demand for a match under those con- 

 ditions it Lives, if not the subsequent meetings miss it. 

 In this way the matches now embody everything on 

 which the management think they can command the 

 support of shooters up to the full limit of the ability of 

 the ofiicers in charge. Neither Ottawa nor Creedmoor 

 offer such a magnificent prize list as that at Bisley, but 

 each is doing as great a work in its field, and if the time 

 should ever come for anything more than the pleasant 

 rivalry of fall meetings, each will render fuU return for 

 every doUajr ajid evpjry hour spent in their maintenance. 



ON THE ENGLISH RANGES. 

 'T^HE suggestion made by our correspondent " W. W." 

 -*- in the Rifle columns is a most excellent one, and it 

 is a surprise that it has not long since been acted upon. 

 We have had teams go abroad, long-range teams to carry 

 victory, military teams to suffer defeat, and there have 

 been American riflemen as individuals who have won 

 honors on the Wimbledon Common; Farrow gave points 

 on ofi'-hand work and Hyde played a lone hand as a long- 

 range shooter.. In each case they fought with American 

 arms, and it is just at this point where, as our correspond- 

 ent indicates, they missed the chance for the largest hon- 

 ors and the richest returns for their work. At present 

 the bulk of the shooting at the great meetings there is 

 done with the Martini rifle, and to gain the .greatest 

 showing at the prize list the visitor must adopt the arm 

 with all the provisions of the conditions strictly adhered 

 to. The rifles are very cheap and may be had at any one 

 of a dozen dealers. Any American gun dealer will take 

 an order for one of the pieces, and by plenty of practice 

 in the most beastly weather he can select, the American 

 having attended to his entry card, etc. , will feel perfectly 

 at home on Bisley ranges as the weather generally strikes 

 it. "W. W.," a champion of champions at the Bisley 

 meetings, and an old-time Wimbledon winner, though 

 not as a rifle shot, but a revolver expert, knows fully 

 whereof he speaks when he points out to his fellow coun- 

 trymen here what a chance there is for glory and well- 

 paid rivalry, with a Martini weapon particularly and 

 finer arms as well at the great meets of the N. R. A. of 

 Great Britain. 



DEATH BEFORE THE TRAP. 



A FRIEND lying dead at his feet, a widow and orphans 

 rendered such by his hand, and a lifetime of regret, 

 deep and bitter. Such is the calamity which in the 

 twinkling of an eye fell upon James W. Cropgey at the 

 recent meeting of the Atlantic Rod and Gun Club at 

 Coney Island. He had a couple of cartridges in his 

 hand, slippped them into his gun, snapped it shut and — 

 bang! his friend lay dead. Chastisement to one careless 

 gunner has come at one sharp swoop, and should he ever 

 touch a gun again, it is very certain that it will be with 

 a full realization of what a dreadful engine of destruc- 

 tion it is. 



Again and again the list of "Don'ts" in connection 

 with the gun is brought home to the vast army of gun- 

 ners. "Don't load except at the score," is one of the 

 prime directions of a well ordered meeting— one of the 

 cardinal points of faith and practice on the part of the 

 gunner worthy of his arm. Violate the rule, and though 

 luck may again and again lean on the side of the careless, 

 the time will come when the efiicacy of the rule is 

 brought home in a startling fashion, and such an occa- 

 sion was the tragedy at the Coney Island range. 



SNAP SHOTS. 



THE chief ambition of fishermen at some of the popu- 

 lar resorts appears to be to make a prodigious score. 

 The strings are duly displayed to admiring groups on 

 hotel verandahs, weighed, recorded, and then passed over 

 to the kitchen servants, to be cooked or thrown on to the 

 compost heap. There is no sense in trying to correct this 

 on the score of angling sentiment; if a man is by nature 

 fond of fishing for count, and finds satisfaction in display- 

 ing a bigger string than his competitor, no denunciation 

 of his fishing practices will effect a change of heart or 

 modification of taste. We cannot gain anything by 

 quarreling with another person because his fun in fishing 

 is of a different texture from our fun in fishing. But 

 because of the economic considerations involved, since 

 fishing for count almost inevitably means an undue 

 diminution of the general supply, no effort should be 

 spared to discountenance and abate the practice of fishing 

 for a score. 



A handsome gun is interesting as a specimen of artistic 

 handicraft; and there are men for whom firearms have 

 the fascination of paintings. One of Forest and 

 Stream's contributors is happy in the possession of a 

 collection of more than, two hundred arms. On the walls 

 of his "den" are displayed rifles and shotguns and pistols, 

 illustrating the development of sporting weapons from 

 flintlock to hammerless. The collection has cost more 

 than $3,500, and our friend contends that in addition to 

 the pleasure of using these arms in the field during a 



quarter century, he has been more than repaid for their 

 cost by the satisfaction of looking at them. It is not 

 given to every ardent gunner to invest so much money in 

 guns; and it may be consoling to reflect that the degree 

 of one's enjoyment of shooting is not to be determined by 

 the wealth and variety of his armament. Certainly no 

 owner of a hundred arms can feel the affection for any 

 one of them that his more modest brother has for "the 

 old gun," the tried and true companion of so many days 

 together. To hear some gunners tell of the performances 

 of their favorite weapons, one might almost imagine these 

 contrivances of wood and metal to be sentient and reason- 

 ing beings; they recall the old story of the lucky shot 

 made by the accidental discharge of a gun while the 

 hunter slept; the proud possessor ever afterward con- 

 tending that the gun went off of its own accord when the 

 game came into range. 



We publish to-day an interesting collection of notes on 

 the rearing of native and imported game birds. Efforts 

 in this direction are in line with the changing conditions 

 of shooting in America. We have reached a stage of 

 game depletion, and a stage too of the game-preserve 

 system, where artificial propagation and rearing are re" 

 sorted to in a growing degree; and every fragment of 

 such experiences as are here detailed in our Natural 

 History columns is use.%1 for instruction or warning. A 

 note from Mr. Verner de Guize, received too late for pub- 

 lication to-day, assures us of that gentleman's perfect 

 success in pheasant rearing at Mahwah, N. J. Breeding 

 can be conducted in this country, he assures us from his 

 own experience, quite as successfully as in Great Britain; 

 and the birds have shown themselves well adapted to 

 their new surroundings. We hope to supplement what 

 is printed to-day with further notes relating to the suc- 

 cesses or failures of other enterprises in the same direc- 

 tion. 



We are not at all surprised to learn that the Maine 

 Fish and Game Commissioners have appointed "Jock" 

 Darling a game and fish warden ; and there is no reason 

 in the world why the appointment may not prove a wise 

 one. Darling has set the law at naught in the past, and 

 has declaimed against the officers appointed to enforce 

 it. For this we have blamed him ; and blame him now. 

 On the other hand, the man possesses certain traits of 

 character that will admirably fit him for duty as a. 

 warden. The newspaper despatch reporting Darling's 

 appointment adds that "it took a small army of officers'' 

 to arrest him last year. This is pure nonsense, as every- 

 body knows who read Miss Hardy's account of the facts 

 in our columns — an account which, by the way, went 

 far to enlist sympathy for Darling in that affair. 



A man forty-five years of age is not too old to take up 

 shooting as a recreation, even though he may never have 

 handled firearms and is totally ignorant of their use. 

 There is health to be found in shooting, and strength to 

 come of days in the field; and cheerfulness and lightness 

 of heart and a braver spirit to be won in the fields and 

 woods tramping. When by rational indulgence in such 

 manly pastimes mental and physical upbuilding may be 

 gained, it is a moral obligation resting upon every man to 

 avail himself of them. And it is not too late to begin 

 even though one be on the shady side of fifty. 



The man mistaken for a deer has already been shot in 

 the Adirondacks this season ; and a like fate has over- 

 taken the unfortunate companion of the man who did 

 not know that his rifie was loaded. With all the handling 

 of firearms by inexperienced handlers in the Adirondack 

 season, the mystery is that the chronicle of accidents 

 should not be ten times more extensive. 



Albert Barnett, of Clayville, N. Y., who died last week 

 at the age of 100, was a remarkable specimen of a well 

 preserved sportsman. Until he was injured in a run- 

 away accident in his 97th year, it is said, he handled rod 

 and gun almost with the ardor and expertness of his 

 prime, and he did not finally give up field sports until lie 

 had entered his 100th year. 



The Nebraska prairie chicken crop is said to be unus- 

 ually abundant this year, and 1891 may be remembered 

 as a season when law-abiding sportsmen had a chance to 

 bag a few birds left over at the beginning of the open 

 season after the disgraceful scramble between market 

 hwnters and sportsmen before the law was up, 



