t)EC. 31, lS9i.l 



FOREST AND STREAM 



469 



Turtles with Nine Lives.— On a recent visit to the 

 World's Fair exhibit of the U. S. Fish Commission, at 

 Washington, D. C, we found Mr. Denton at work upon 

 casts of two terrapin, which had been obtained from the 

 carp ponds. The artist was obliged to kill the animals be- 

 fore attempting to make the casts, and in order to do so 

 he inserted a knife blade under the skin of the neck and 

 completely severed the neck with its blood vessels and 

 nerves, leaving the head attached to the body by the skin 

 only. They were then put in the ice chest, where they 

 remained five days. When we saw them seven days had 

 passed since the above operation and yet both of the ter- 

 rapin were alive and one of them was able to crawl. It 

 may be that the low temf)erature in the ice chest during 

 the first five days after the necks were severed kept them 

 in a state of suspended animation, but for the two days 

 prior to our visit they had been exposed to a temperature 

 of about Go deg. or more. We have never heard of a 

 more striking illustration of the tenacity to life in this 

 class of animals. The species are the painted tortoise 

 (Ch rysem ys p icta) and the red- bellied terrapin (Pmuiemys 

 ragosa). 



When the grouse flies down from the steep hillside into 

 the woodland contiguous, he not only alights in a straight 

 line, but afterward may sometimes be seen standing in 

 an opening among the trees with his tail directly toward 

 the hunter. The grouse also at times, instead of flying, 

 runs down the wooded hillside, when alarmed by some- 

 thing on the top. While at other times he may be seen 

 to run a little way and then stop, precisely as the American 

 robin does. The grouse also on rare occasions walks oE in 

 plain sight. Frequently the grouse may be seen to sail 

 down in a straight line, and at times to strike the leaf- 

 covered earth like a clod, with a sound "chuck," that may 

 be heard many yards. There he will remain motionless 

 for a time, lying flat on the ground, and trusting for 

 security from detection to the similarity of the surround- 

 ing color to his own. When the bird flies of his own free 

 will he almost invariably alights without circling. For 

 a short time he will remain standing unsuspicious, per- 

 haps, of danger, and yet looking all about, as his wont, 

 to take in the surroimding, when he will usually walk 

 slowly away. — Dorp. 



Our Natural History Columns —Tod morden, Dec. 

 .22, —Editor Forest and Stream: Having read your pleas- 

 ant paper since 1874, 1 take advantage of your announce- 

 ment of a further improvement and enlargement of it, to 

 congratulate you on the success which has made this 

 step possible. I may also say that I found your Natural 

 History columns of great service, the extracts and records 

 from it which I have cut out and kept now form of them- 

 selves a valuable work for reference. — C, W. Nash. 



The Linnjban Society of New Yoric.— Regular meet- 

 ings of the society will be held at 8 P, M. at the Ameri- 

 can Museum of 'Natural History, Eighth avenue and 

 Seventy-seventh street, on Jan, 6 and 20. Jan. 6, Mr. 

 Jonathan D wight, Jr., will present a paper. Paper for 

 Jan. 20, Definite vs Fortuitous Variation, by Dr. J. A, 

 Allen.— Jonathan DvsaGHT, Jr., Secretary (2 East Thirty- 

 fourth street). ^^^^ 



'hmb md ^m\. 



Antelope and. Deer of America. By J. D. Caton. 

 Price SS.50. Wing and Glass Ball Shooting with the 

 Rifle. Bii W. C. Bliss. Price 50 cents. Rifle, Rod and 

 Gun in California. By T. S. Van Dyke. Price 31.50. 

 Shore Birds. Price 15 cents. Woodcraft. By "Ness- 

 muJs.'' Price $1. Trajectories of Hunting Rifles. P^iee 

 50 cents Wild Foiol Shooting; see advertisement. 



The full texts of the game laws of all the States, Terri- 

 tories and British Provinces are given In the Boolt of the 

 Game Laivs. 



BOSTON NOTES. 



OV. RUSSELL, of Massachusetts, has made another 

 T gunning trip, this time it has Ijeen "down on the 

 Cape," and he is reported to have had excellent success 

 with the bluebilla. Other gunners have been after the 

 birds all the fall and winter thus far, and it is reported 

 that ducks have been unusually plenty for so late in the 

 winter, Christmas day was spent on the Cape by several 

 Boston gunners, and generally with good success. Reports 

 froai Portland, Me., say that Casco Bay has been unusu- 

 ally full of ducks this "winter, the winter being so mild 

 that the birds have not found any occasion to seek a more 

 southerly clime. But within a day or two large flocks 

 have been seen ail along the shore headed southward, 

 A gentleman from Portland informs me that between the 

 Brothers and Clapboard Islands a flock of about a 

 thousand bluebills have been hovering nearly all the fall, 

 and he believes that the birds would doubtless be there 

 now but for the treatment they have received. The local 

 gunners had been after them a good deal, as they had an 

 honest right to be, but the gunning the gentleman com- 

 plains of is of another sort. It seems that some sailors, 

 from a passing schooner, or a schooner that worked on to 

 the ground for the piu-pose, landed on the Brothers, 

 taking a howitzer with them. This they loaded with 

 several pounds of buck shot, all the gun would carry, 

 with a heavy charge of powder to force the charge. They 

 waited till there were thousands of birds in range, when 

 the howitzer was fired. The shot was repeated several 

 times till there were no flocks of bluebills in sight. Then 

 they commenced to pick up the birds, chasing and killing 

 the wounded birds with a shotgun. Actual boatloads of 

 ducks are reported to have been picked up, more than 

 100 birds having been killed and wounded by one of the 

 more successful shots. On board the schooner that night 

 high carnival was held over a game supper, with many 

 guests invited, most of whom carried home gifts of 

 ducks. 



Comment on such shooting is unnecessary. Game 

 birds and game animals cannot stand up under such 

 slaughter; whereas, with reasonable shooting, it is plain 

 that our shore birds would last for many years to come. 

 If one desires to butcher, there is genial "employment for 

 such dispositions in the slaughter houses and the butcher 

 sliops. 



Mr, J. S. Clark, of Boston, has returned from the 

 Rangeley (Me,) region with three fine deer. With him, 

 on the same train, was Mr. Will Thompson , of Livermore 

 Falls, in that State, who had the heads of two fine bucks 

 of his own killing. Three caribou and one deer have 

 lately been brought out from the Dead River region by 

 Messrs. H. M. Pierce and E. W. Whitcomb, of Farming- 

 ton, The kill of big game in Maine since the open season 

 begun has been much greater than ever before, in spite 

 of the assertion that all the earibou and deer had been 

 destroyed by the summer hunters. The wonder is where 

 so many deer come from. Deer ha ve been found and 

 killed further down toward the settlements in the south- 

 ern part of iilaine than ever this fall. In locations where 

 deer are not remembered to have been seen for many 

 years, they have been seen this year. One day last week 

 Messrs, L.' M, Sanborn and Joseph Shaw, of East Sebago, 

 were out gunning when they came upon a deer track, 

 which they followed some distance. They caught sight 

 of the deer times enough to fire six;or eight shots, neither 

 of which brought the animal down. Night came on and 

 they were obliged to give up the hunt. But they were 

 early on the ground the next morning. They had gone 

 but a short distance before they drove up the wounded 

 deer, which they finished with a couple of better directed 

 shots, Down in the town of Mason, in Oxford coimty, 

 many miles south of what would have formerly been 

 considered the southmost habitat in Maine, Mr. Walter 

 S, Butters has killed two deer this faU, Mr. E. E. God- 

 ing, station agent of the Maine Central Railroad at Liver- 

 more Falls, has lately killed three deer in the town of 

 Madrid, a few miles above Phillips. Special, 



CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 



CHICAGO, 111,, Dec, 22.— The cold, hard, dismal jolt 

 which Forest and Stream gave its dead or aUve, 

 or rather its dead and-alive, contemporaries in trap mat- 

 ters last week has attracted a good deal of attention and 

 occasioned a good deal of amiisement out here. Western 

 people love enterprise. They follow it. They go where 

 it is shown. They enjoy it.' They insist on having it. 

 The large and growing hold which Forest and Stream 

 has in the West is due to this fact. 



The paper has enterprise enough to get the news for its 

 readers. Therefore it does its duty and fills its function, 

 and deserves its title as a journal for the sportsmen of to- 

 dav, and not for those of ten or twenty years ago. 



In much of the above there is cause for reflection upon 

 some of the features of current sporting journalism, 

 although in anything of thati should dislike to bethought 

 as animadverting upon the character of any other paper 

 specifically, which wotdd be an undignified and unneces- 

 sary thing, since the public draws its own inferences 

 more rapidly and surely than a writer can. The fact re- 

 mains, however, that the journal of ten years ago will 

 not do for to- day. A decade of time covei's history in 

 newspaper methods as well as in anything else. The 

 paper first to realize that, and to keep the fact in mind, 

 is the one for the hearts of American sportsmen. 



Time was when loose-jointed, ill-fed, puerile shooting 

 stories, of more or less fabulous nature and ill- concealed 

 advertising tendency, would do for the bulk of the letter 

 press in a sporting journal. That was years ago. It will 

 not do to-day. History has swept by that. English, 

 facts and editing, these are three things which an Amer- 

 ican sporting paper must have to-day. The day of the 

 egotistic, the selfish, and the prevaricating story-teller is 

 fading. The day comes on apace when the writer and 

 the man with facts will have their day. The man who 

 unfairly "works" the sporting goods trade thi-ough his 

 hold on a sporting paper is a ^^arasite whose hold is nearly 

 gone. Clean methods a,nd clear discernment are essen- 

 tial now in a sporting paper, as well as in a daily paper. 

 The public will go to the cleanest, ablest, honestesfe paper 

 to-day. It will not have clap-trap and humbug now. 

 The grade of the material in demand has advanced. In 

 the character of its field stories Forest and Stream has 

 been with the times at every step. Its columns hold lit- 

 erature of no ignoble sort. Its writers have, many of 

 them, gone up higher in the literary world. Moreover, a 

 fairer paper never was, even though fairness meant busi- 

 ness loss. 



Time was when unrestrained personal abuse and re- 

 iterated accusations of any sort soever made a large part 

 of the so-called reading matter in a certain type of sport- 

 ing journalism. In kennel matters especially this was a by- 

 word and a reproach on the name of journalism of that 

 class. The time for that is gone. History has swept by. 

 The paper which clings to such low and humiliating 

 methods has dug its own grave, and soon the walls 

 thereof will close upon it, without even the helping hand 

 of competition. If I find contention in Forest and 

 Stpeam, I find it gentlemanly. Forest and Stream has 

 elevated, it never debased, sportsmanship in this country. 



Time was when news had no value in our sporting 

 in-es3, but was replaced by slop and Billingsgate, Again 

 history. News rules now. The story of a cross-road 

 turkey shoot, held four months before publication, is not 

 now offered to the public as an equivalent for money in 

 search of current information. At least, this is not the 

 case in Forest and Stream. News, plenty of news, 

 fresh nevrs, and news selected and balanced by an editor 

 who knows the newspaper husiness — this is what the 

 public expects to-day, and what it has a right to expect, 

 and what it is going to buy. If you seek this, look about 

 you. 



In other words, the sporting journal of to-day must be 

 built on newspaper lines, and must be a journal in more 

 than the name. The old ways will not do now. There 

 have been sporting papers unworthy of thetinips in which 

 they lived, but that is changed and they must go. Bright, 

 comprehensive, built up each week at an expense of which 

 the public does not know or dream, the genuine and typi- 

 cal journal of the honorable sports of the field ia to- day a 

 stable fixture and one of credit in the field of journalism. 

 What Forest and Stream is by that example is more 

 than guaranteed by its promises, all too modest, but con- 

 fident, as to its future plans. It even foreruns the day, 

 for in efEect it lowers its price. Newspapers of to-day do 

 not raise their prices, they lower them. That is the ten- 

 dency of the times. 



All these things I have no call, beyond that of impulse, 

 to say, but the impxtlse for that is sti'ong, especially in 

 view of the promises of the coming year, and in retro- 

 spect also of those days whereto still cling those papers 

 which could not stand the gait of modern history. 



Dec. $4.— -Bull times, except for om- friends the trap- 

 shooters, who continue to make merry and to mock at 

 one another. The Milwaukee men are anxious to shoot 

 the final match with the Ft, Dearborn Club of this city. 

 In short, they are altogether too anxious to suit the latter 

 club, which remembers the wide gap by which the Cream 

 City team won in the last contest. It is suggested, how- 

 ever, that the Milwaukeeans come over to Clucago and 

 shoot the final on the grounds of Cumberland Club, on 

 Washington's Birthday, they having expressed a disin- 

 clination to encounter the J. Watson brand of pigeons. 

 Ft. Dearborn team is not favorite in the odds on this 

 event. 



The time for the annual meetings of the Kankakee 

 and Fox Associations draws on apace. At that time will 

 come up the question of the organization of the pro- 

 posed State League for fish, and po^'sibly game, protec- 

 tion. That will be a good time to discover whether or 

 not the men from the lower Illinois country are in earnest 

 about it, as they proclaim at present they are, and whether 

 or not they expect Chicago to furnish all the motive 

 power of energy and work and also all the cash. There 

 ought to be thirty to fifty men from the lower country 

 present at this joint meeting, Wednesday, Jan, 13, I 

 understand the Wisconsin Central Railway, thoroughfare 

 to the Fox Lake country, is much interested in this project, 

 and offers to further it substantially. That would be very 

 appreciable and commendable enterprise. 



Early in January there will also be called the second 

 meeting of the new Chicago Fly-Casting Club, at which 

 time a fuller organization will be perfected. Mr. A. H. 

 Ilarryman will be in the chair for the next meeting. 



Last week I spoke of the possibility of securing the 

 privileges of the 1st Regiment Armory for occasional 

 practice at fly -casting by this club. This could not be 

 done for a large club, though for a small and select one it 

 might be arranged. Last night, by means of a dark, mys- 

 terious "pull" in military circles, Mr. Chas. Antoine and 

 myself got access to this vast hall, and had some practice 

 in fly-casting by electric light. It was delightful. A hat 

 placed on the floor made a good enough fish, and there 

 was no bush to spoil the back cast. We did manage, 

 however, to foul one of the electric light globes, and in 

 fear of a shock sacrificed some yards of a good enameled 

 line. Winter fly-fishing in an arsenal is good fun and 

 good practice. 



There seem to be no unusual plans abroad for Christ- 

 mas festivities this year among the shooting fraternity, 

 but on Saturday there will be quite a house party at 

 Watson's Park, no less than five matches being arranged, 

 as see trap columns. On that day there will be present 

 from Milwaukee Mr. Fi-ank Mfixner, Mr. R, Merritt, Dr. 

 J. P. Carmichael and Mr. H. B. Tafft, The former will 

 test his skill- against Mr. R. O, Heikes, of this city, and 

 the latter with Mr. J. O. Wilcox. Mr. Meixner shoots a 

 match with Mr. Mussey and Dr. Carmichael with Mr. 

 Dicks. 



A Chicago firm, Messrs. Rand & MoNally, has issued 

 an interesting book, "Sweden and the Swedes," by W.W. 

 Thomas, Jr., American Minister to Sweden. Mr. Thomas 

 is much of a sportsman and writes entertainingly of 

 sport in that little known country. Some of the most in- 

 teresting chapters in the book have in times past been 

 contributed to ForesT" and Si ream. He says of the 

 great grouse, the capercailzie and also of the black game 

 of that country that they could doubtless be naturalized 

 in this country and should increase and thrive. His re- 

 marks on this head, the estimates of experts, etc, are so 

 interesting that it is hoped Forest and Stream, which 

 has already discussed them, will refer to them again. 

 Another ciaapter originally published in Forest and 

 Stream is that devoted to the Swedish "reporting" dog, 

 which finds and points the birds and if the shooter is not 

 at hand leaves the point and goes back after him, then 

 taking him up to the game which, by bis actions and 

 dumb speech, the dog announces that he has found,- 

 These "reporters," Mr, Thomas says, are not uncommon 

 in Sweden, though not all pointers and setters there have 

 the instinct, and it seems to be impossible to train one in 

 which the original disposition to "report" is absent, Mr. 

 Oscar Blomgren, of this city, who visited Sweden last 

 year, says he spent some time in the neighborhood where 

 Mr. Thomas found his capercailzie, and describes that as 

 a very romantic and beautiful country. 



Mr, M, R, Bortree, game warden for Chicago, has often 

 told me that he would like to see an effort made to im- 

 port and naturalize certain foreign game birds, thus 

 adding to the range of our sport in the field . This would 

 bo a fine idea, but how practical is it, except as applied 

 to closely guard^^d preserves. If two capercailzie were 

 turned down in the heart of the Wisconsin pine wilder- 

 ness, and if one shooter of a certain sort got wind of it, 

 it would be dollars to cents he would go after them and 

 get them, and sell them, too. We can't protect our own 

 native game birds yet, let alone any new and singular 

 ones. 



In case of birds turned down in a close preserve, how- 

 ever, some results might be looked for. The Koshkenong 

 flock of wild turkeys, kept by the Peck brothers in Wis- 

 consin and mentioned long ago in these columns, is a 

 good instance of that, I am inclined to think that the 

 wild turkeys mentioned last week as having been seen 

 near Hennepin, on the Illinois River, are colonies from 

 the Koshkenong herd, perhaps 200 miles to the north. 

 Many bunches have strayed away from the main body 

 from time to time, and these have always been heard 

 from to the south, many miles below the Illinois line. 

 The origmal start of this great flock was a half dozen 

 birds brought from Mexico. E, Hough. 



Michigan Deer, — Central Lake, Mich., Dec. 17. — There 

 were good tracking snows toward the last of the deer- 

 shooting season, which closed Nov. 2o, but few were 

 killed hereabout, only eight, as far as I could learn. 

 Some hunters had better success in the great forests of 

 Montmorenci and Presque Isle counties, but the deer grow 

 scarcer every year. Most hunters of my acquaintance 

 favor a close time of three or five years for' the deer in the 

 Lower Peninsula, and I think the ruffed grouse ought 

 to have the same chance, for they are nearly as scarce as 

 ostriches, The same is true of ducks, of which few have 

 been seen in our lakes this fall. My house overlooks 

 Central Lake, and we have not seen a duck for weeks. 



I The first two weeks of December were delightful — almost 

 Indian summer. The weather has changed and we again 



I have a little soow.-'Kblpib. 



