Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, U a Tear. 10 Cts. a Oopt. 1 

 Six Months, $2. ) 



NEW YORK, OCTOBER 22, 1891. 



J VOL. XXXVII.-No. U. 



■j No. 318 Beoadway, New YOhk. 



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Forest and Stream PnbllBblnK Oe, 

 No. 318 Bboadwat. New Yobk City. 



CONTENTS. 



BDITOBIAIi. 



Vach'ing St-atistics. 

 Are Kennel IniereBts Advanc- 

 ing? 

 Snap Shots. 

 The Spohtsman Toubist. 

 Tne Adir.>ndacks m 1853. 

 Tlie Sac and Fox Opening. 



NATTiaAL HiSTOBT. 



How to Oolltct Birds— HI. 

 Srme New Varieties of Bird 

 Song. 



Game Bag and Gun. 



Fire-Lignting. 



Weapons for Game. 



A Sora Hunt on James River. 



Fur Br edmg. 



Jlame Wardeng. 



Ohio Deer Hunterf. 



Adirondack Ueer. 



Notes From the G^m<^ Fields. 

 Sea anu Riveb Hishing. 



Sharks aud Their VVajs. 



Prepara'Jou for Tarpon Fish- 

 ing. 



Fi&h of the Mackenzie Basin. 

 Tne Tail Ply. 

 Tapeworm in Trou^. 

 Around Lake MictiigaB. 

 Chicago jiDd the Wes"". 

 Ba 8 m the Adirondacks. 

 The C-'mmodore Club. 



FlSHCULTCBE 



The Tench m Missouri. 



The Kennel. 

 Philudelphia Withdraws. 

 When O'd .lack Died. 

 Notes and Noti'^n«. 

 Eastern Field Trials Club En- 

 tries. 



An Appeal to Lovers of St. 



Bernards. 

 Iri.<h Setter Trials, All-Aged 



Stake. 

 Carthage Dog '^how. 

 Katiotial Beagle Club Meeting. 

 Dog Chai. 

 Ktnuel Notes. 



Answers to Correspondents. 



tllEIiE AND TBAP BHOOTINU. 



Range and Gallerv. 



The Revolver Championship. 



The Trap. 



Dayton Kennel Club Annual. 



PenPsylvHiiia Traps. 



Brooklyn Trap Doings. 



Woodside Gun Club. 



Cortland County Sportsman's 

 Cluh. 

 Yachting. 



Yacht Racing in 1891. 



Government Yacht Despatch. 

 Canoeing. 



Outawd C. C. and Aylmar B. C. 



Limitations of Racing Canoes. 



Modern Mythology. 



British Canoe Rules. 

 Answbbs to Cobbespondents. 



ARE KENNEL INTERESTS ADVANCING 9 



RELAXATION from business cares leads many men to 

 take up some hobby which, in nine cases out of ten, 

 has in it some element of sport. A love for the gun 

 naturally leads to the ownership of a dog, and the pos- 

 session of one often paves the way for another, until a 

 kennel is formed. Then the breeding that necessarily 

 follows entails either the selling or giving away of the 

 produce, their training for the field, and so on. All this 

 is continually increasing from year to year; new kennels 

 devoted to the breeding of high-class field dogs are crop- 

 ping up in every direction, till the capital invested in 

 field dogs must be treble that of a few years ago. 



A glance through the list of the entries of the Eastern 

 Field Trials stakes, in our kennel department, will show 

 that some of our brightest business men and shining 

 lights in the social world are devoted to field sport. 



The Englibh setter has long held the first position in the 

 minds of many sportsmen, but the signs of the times show 

 that the pointer is also receiving that care and attention 

 at their hands which their fine qualities entitle them to. 

 The success of the pointer in the trials last year was very 

 marked. 



Specialty clubs have been formed within the past 

 few years devoted to the improvement of the several 

 breeds they are interested in. The Irish and Gordon 

 setter clubs are working hard to bring their favorites 

 prominently to the notice of sportsmen and to induce 

 them to lay out money for their proper education for the 

 field. 



The present year has seen the largest and most success- 

 ful dog shows ever held in this country. With few ex- 

 ceptions and contrary to past experience the show com- 

 mittees have been able to show a balance on the right 

 side. This is due to a great extent to the increased in- 

 terest taken by the public in dogs, The daily papers 



have devoted columns of space to chronicle the merits of 

 the exhibition in their towns and have educated the gen- 

 eral public to a desire to see what a good dog looks like. 

 In former years the shows would generally have been 

 passed over with a brief paragraph. 



We Americans have always been renowned for our 

 go-aheadedness, and in the matter of dog breeding this 

 trait is very apparent, for the prices that Americans have 

 paid for dogs of the best field and show qualities have 

 astonished the world. A few years since $1,500 for a St. 

 Bernard was looked upon as the acme of extravagance. 

 Now, however, it is a very ordinary sum to pay, when 

 we find that Sir Bedivere cost $6,500, Scottish Prince 

 $5,500, Prince Regent $3 000, Lord Bute $4,000, Watch 

 $4 000, Hepsey $3 500, and only this last week Princess 

 Florence was purchased at about $4,000. No argument 

 that we can advance can better prove the growing inter- 

 est in kennel affairs in this country than this very tangi- 

 ble one of dollars and cents. 



YACHTING STATISTICS. 

 'T'HE tables and figures which we print this week on 

 another page are, we believe, a novelty and, although 

 far from complete, serve to bring out clearly a particular 

 phase of yacht racing, one that is quite important, 

 though perhaps hardly interesting. While one would 

 hardly expect to derive from dull columns of figures the 

 amusement and excitement afforded by a lively discus- 

 sion of the question of measurement or type, or the in- 

 spection of a new design, th re is at the same time much 

 to be learned from such a compact digest of yacht racing 

 as our figures present. 



Had it been practicable to have carried our researches 

 still further, to have included the many smaller clubs 

 which are on the whole just as important as the few 

 larger ones, and to have summed up the smaller classes 

 as we have the larger, there would have been much more 

 ample data for our conclusions; but such a summary 

 would have involved almost endless labor. The figures 

 as they stand show that the season, though by no means 

 a brilliant one in popular estimation, and marked by no 

 special features such as yachtsmen have become accus- 

 tomed to through the America Cup races, has neverthe- 

 less afforded a very fair amount of sport in the larger 

 classes, more by far than in the two preceding years. 



Outside of the 46Et. class there have been no yachts 

 whose performances have been specially notable. Even 

 the presence of C mstellation and Volunteer among the 

 larger schooners has failed to spur either class to any 

 remarkable displays, and the latter class has certainly 

 retrograded, so far as sharp, keen racing is concerned, 

 since the days when Grayling, Sachem and Sea Fox were 

 out under racing flags. At the same time, the general 

 racing among the schooners shows a great improvement 

 on 1889 and '90; on the New York Y. C. cruise, and in 

 the races in the East, a very fair turnout of schooners 

 has been seen, and some very good races have been sailed. 

 In the singlestick classes, also, although there has ha.rdly 

 been a race of note outside the 46ft. class, there has been 

 a very promising amount of general racing. In the 46ft. 

 class the racing has been something phenomenal; over 

 fifty separate events have been open to the class, though 

 some have not filled and some have been decided on the 

 results of other races: at the same time our list includes 

 thirty -seven days of racing. 



A peculiar feature of yacht racing is the sympathy 

 which exists between widely different branches of the 

 sport, an international race between a few large yachts 

 leads directly to an increase of general racing in all 

 classes; and similarly a season of general racing in the 

 classes included in the tables is accompanied or followed 

 by renewed activity among the smaller boats that make 

 up the great total of local racing. 



This season has been a specially active and prosperous 

 one among the yacht clubs in all parts of the country. 

 Not only has the local racing been close and keenly con- 

 tested, but very material evidences of general prosperity 

 are visible in the shape of new club houses and basins, 

 and of new yachts. The two years, 1886 and 1887, when 

 the victories of Mayflower and Volunteer followed that of 

 Puritan, were notable ones in yachting, as the interest 

 and enthusiasm awakened by the success of American 

 yachts found vent in the establishment of new clubs ar d 

 the strengthening of old ones. 



The cessation of international racing was seriously felt 

 in 1888 ^lid t889, p-ud its disastrous effect is still evident; 



but the condition of yachting in those years has brought 

 in a new factor. The clubs, both large and small, have 

 awakened to the necessity of helping themselves, of ex- 

 erting all the influence they possess for the encourage- 

 ment of racing, and this season has witnessed a general 

 effort in this direction. While many specific attempts 

 can how be pointed out as failures, there still remains a 

 large balance on the side of racing in 1891 as compared 

 with 1890, and even more if the figures were given for 

 1888 and 1889. This balance may be credited largely if not 

 entirely to the active work of the clubs through their 

 regatta committees, and whether the good results are due 

 solely to the special measures adopted, or as is more pro- 

 bably the case, in a great part to the general agitation of 

 the subject which preceded these measures, there is every 

 reason for satisfaction at the favorable showing, and 

 every inducement to continue the same line, especially 

 as the indications of renewed business prosperity give 

 strong hopes of more building and racing next year. 



The great influence on yachting of the financial con- 

 dition of the country which is popularly summed up in 

 the term -'Wall street," is generally recognized, but at 

 the same time yachtsmen do not consider how differently 

 this factor acts in its upward and downward movement. 

 A panic or business depression in Wall street is instantly 

 and disastrously felt in yachting circles, but it is not 

 always the case that prosperity in the "street" will be 

 immediately apparent in yachting. Men cannot raOe 

 yachts unless they have money, but a great many can 

 and do have money without the idea occurring to them 

 to expend it largely in yacht racing rather than in other 

 directions. In order that yachting shall reap the fuU 

 benefit of good times when they do occur it is necessary 

 that the sport should be kept prominently before the 

 public by some such means as international racing. 



While as yet there are no brilliant promises of new and 

 large boats for next year, everything points to a prosper- 

 ous season in yachting at large, if not in the few large 

 classes, and a continuation of the present work by the 

 clubs will in all probability bring about still more satis- 

 factory results. What is most needed, however, at this 

 time, is the resumption of international racing for the 

 America Cup, if the holders are willing to throw it open 

 to the world on such fair terms as those originally indi- 

 cated by its donors; if not, for some other trophy which 

 shall bring American and British yachts together in 

 friendly contest^ 



SNAP SHOTS. 



COL. WALTER L. STEELE, whose pen name of 

 "Wells" was familiar to readers of this journal, 

 died at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore last 

 Friday, aged sixty-nine years. Col. Steele was President 

 of the Pee Dee Manufacturing Company of Rockingham, 

 N. C. He was a member of Congress from North Caro- 

 lina a few years ago, and was one of the most influential 

 men in the State. He was a graduate from the Univers- 

 ity of North Carolina, and recently had the degree of 

 LL. D. conferred upon him. Col. Steele was a type of 

 that large class of busy men, who in later life take up 

 again the field sports of their youth to find in them relax- 

 ation from workaday life; and he possessed in an unusual 

 degree, perhaps, the happy faculty of extracting genuine 

 enjoyment from field experiences which really had in 

 them little of "moving accidents, by flood and field." 

 His pleasantly written letters to the Forest and Stream 

 contained no exciting accounts of "hairbreadth's 'scapes"; 

 rather were they the relations of uneventful and even 

 commonplace happenings; and being such they reflected 

 the experiences of nine-tenths of us, and as frequent 

 comment gave assurance, were for this reason well re- 

 ceived. 



Readers of the October Atlantic have a treat in the 

 story "Gran'ther Hill's Pa'tridge," told by Mr. Rowland 

 E. Robinson, and if the Atlantie reader be also a Forest 

 AND Stream reader of Mr. Robinson's "Uncle 'Lisha's 

 Shop" sketches, he will find an added pleasure in the 

 story because of familiarity with the characters. 



Another national park has been provided by the Presi- 

 dent's proclamation setting apart 1,350,000 acres of land 

 in the White River Plateau in Colorado. 



Any subscriber may supply a friend with a copy of tha 

 current issue of the Forest akd Stream by sending 1^9 

 on a postal card the name of that f riepd. 



