Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



T-KHMS, $4 A YBAB. 10 OtS. A COPY. I 



Six Months, |3. f 



NEW YORK, JULY 14, 1892. 



j- VOL. XXXTX.-No. 2. 



1 No. 318 Broadway, New York. 



CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Barter. . 



Roaring Fisli for Distribution. 

 Familiar Acquaintances. —iv. 

 Snap Shots. 



The Sportsman Tourist. 



Camps of ihie Kingfishers.— tv. 

 Kellnp's Canoe, 

 RanibleB in the Rockies. 



Natural History, 



Birds and Bonnets. 

 Rare Birds' Nests. 

 Breeding Budgerigar-?. 



Game Bag and Gun. 



A Day Witti the Grouse. 

 Indian Dove Moose 

 Old-Titnp Hunting in Ohio. 



Sea and River Fisiiing, 



Izaak Walton. 



South Side Sportsmen's Club. 

 SouthPTn California Fishing. 

 The Angling Exhibit. 

 American E'ishermen in 



Canada. 

 Sale of Trout in Close Season. 

 Jugging fo'' Cattish. 



Flshculture. 



Loatr Island Sound Striped 

 Bass. 



The Kennel. 



Color, Type and Retrieving. 



The Kennel. 



The Pearl of Pekiu Protest. 

 Rptrieving at Field Trials. 

 Not''s anri Notioue. 

 National Beagle Club Meeting 

 ITlaps from the Beaver's Tail. 

 Points and Flushes. 

 Dog Chat. 

 Kennel Notes. 



Answers to Correspondents. 

 Canoeing-. 

 A. C. A. Meet 



A. C. A. Measnrement Rule. 

 News Notes. 



Yachting. 



The Anaerioa's Cup. 



New York Y. R. A. Cruise. 



Southern Y. C. Cruise. 



Misliaps Afloat. 



.July Rpgaltas. 



News Notes. 



Rifle Range and Gallery, 



National Rifle Association, 

 New Jersev Rifle Shooting. 

 The Miller Rifle Club Team, 



Trap Shooting. 



Atlantic City Tournament. 

 Drivers and Twisters. 

 Matches and Meetings. 



Answers to Queries. 



For Prospectus and Advertising Rates see Page 43. 



BEARING FISH FOR DISTRIBUTION. 

 In OTJE. comments upon the papers and discussions re- 

 lative to fish distribution brought before the American 

 Fisheries Society, we had no desire nor intention to profit 

 by Mr. Mather's misplaced decimal point. It was our 

 purpose merely to show how an earnest but prejudiced 

 advocate of a certain disappointing system of stocking 

 may let his fancy outrun his judgment and actually de- 

 ceive himself by figures based upon theories not facts. 

 It has been clearly shown, by actual trial in several local- 

 ities at least, that yearling trout can be produced at a cost 

 of about one cent each. In order to ascertain as accur- 

 ately as possible the cost of attendance and transportation 

 in the distribution of fish by the United States, we have 

 applied to the Commissioner of Fisheries for data upon 

 the subject. The appropriation for this work during the 

 year ending June 30, 189 L, was $50,000, nearly one- half of 

 which was paid for salaries of employees in this branch 

 of the work. The cars and detached messengers traveled 

 about 180,000 miles (nearly 462 times the width of the 

 State of New York) and five-ninths of the mileage was 

 paid for. The distribution included about 152,000,000 

 eggs, 285,000,000 fry and upward of 2,000,000 fishes rang 

 ing from fingerlings to yearlings and older. If the trans- 

 portation of those yearlings had cost one-tenth as much 

 as Mr, Mather's estimate in our issue of June 80, the 

 balance of the appropriation available for carrying 

 437,000,000 eggs and fry would have been only about 

 $6,000 Evidently there is still something seriously wrong 

 with the calculations of the fry-planters, and it will re- 

 quire more than talking to convince the people that a fish 

 which they can see and count for themselves is not better 

 than a score of fry which a sculpin can destroy in a 

 minute. 



FAMILIAR ACQUAINTANCES. 



IV, — "DRAW YOUR WEASEL." 



A chain that is blown away by the wind and melted 

 by the sun, links with pairs of parallel dots the gaps 

 of farm fences and winds through and along walls and 

 zigzag lines of rails, is likely to be the most visible sign 

 that you will find in winter of one bold and persistent 

 little hunter's presence. 



Still less likely are you to be aware of it in summer or 

 fall, even by such traces of his passage, for he is in 

 league with nature to keep his sectets, "When every 

 foot of his outdoor wanderings must be recorded she 

 makes him as white as the snow whereon it is imprinted, 

 save his beady eyes and dark tail-tip. When summer is 

 green and autumn gay or sad of hue she clothes him in 

 the brown wherewith she makes so many of her wild 

 children inconspicuous. 



Yet you may see him, now and then, in his white suit 

 or in his brown, gliding with lithe, almost snake-like 

 movement along the lower fence rails, going forth hunt- 

 ing or bearing home his game, a bird or a fat field mouse. 

 In a cranny of an old licheu-scaled stone wall you may 

 see his bright eyes gleaming out of the darkness, like 



dew-drops caught in a spider's web, and then the brown 

 head thrust cautiously forth to peer curiously at you. 

 Then he may favor you with the exhibition of an acro- 

 batic feat; his hinder paws, being on the ground in the 

 position of standing, he twists his slender body so that his 

 fore-paws are placed in just the reverse position on the 

 stone or rail above him, and he looks upward and back- 

 ward. 



He may be induced to favor you with intimate and 

 familiar acquaintance, to take bits of meat from your 

 hand and even to climb to your lap and search your 

 pockets and suffer you to lay a gentle hand upon him, 

 but he has sharp teeth wherewith to resent too great lib- 

 erties. 



While he may be almost a pet of a household and quite 

 a welcome visitor of rat-infested premises, he becomes 

 one of the worst enemies of the poultry-wife when he is 

 tempted to fall upon her broods of chicks. He seems 

 possessed of a murderous frenzy and slays as ruthlessly 

 and needlessly as a wolf or a human game butcher or the 

 insatiate angler. Neither is he the friend of the sports- 

 man, for he makes havoc among the young grouse and 

 quail and the callow woodcock. 



The trapper reviles him when he finds him in his mink 

 trap, for all the beauty of his ermine, a worthless prize 

 drawn in this chanceful lottery. 



When every one carried his money in a purse, the wea- 

 sel's slender white skin was in favor with country folk. 

 This use survives only in the command or exhortation to 

 "draw your weasel." When the purse was empty, it 

 gave the spendthrift an untimely hint by creeping out of 

 his pocket. 



In the primest condition of his fur he neither keeps nor 

 puts money in your pocket now. He is worth more to 

 look at, with his lithe body quick with life, than to pos- 

 sess in death. 



BARTER. 



There was hint of a scheme in "Esau's" note last week, 

 which might be put to the test in a small way. He sug- 

 gested that as the Indians of the Northwest, who capture 

 beaver for their fur, take everything that comes to hand, 

 old and young, the State might well afford to pay the 

 savages for the uncaught beaver to be left uncaptured. 



The system is capable of expansion. For instance, in a 

 certain village amid the hills of eastern Connecticut lives 

 a young fellow who pots for the market practically all 

 the game killed in the vicinity. There are others in the 

 village who would like to have at least a chance to im- 

 prove an occasional opportunity to try to capture some 

 of the game for themselves. This chance of an oppor- 

 tunity they might acquire by treaty with the Connecticut 

 savage. Thus: "How many quail and partridges do you 

 expect to shoot and snare this year? How much do you 

 expect to realize for them? Will you sell them all to us 

 at that price, we to pay you in advance now? Here is 

 the money. Now the birds are ours. You need not 

 capture them for us. We will do that for ourselves. And 

 if we fail to get them all, to the last feather, we shall not 

 expect you to refund. But, remember, we have bought 

 the game; it is ours; you are not to interfere with it." 



Or, take a trout stream: "How many trout do you ex- 

 pect to 'snake out' this season? At so much a pound that 

 comes to so many dollars. Here is the money. The fish 

 are mine. You need not trouble to catch them." As 

 every fisherman expects to catch twice as many fish as 

 he actually takes, the man who is paid thus in advance 

 on a basis of his great expectations is paid twice over. 



Such a plan of compromising with the powers that be 

 would not work in cases where the shooter or the fisher- 

 man is not a simon-pure pot-hunter, but is impelled by 

 other than mercenary motives. The expert, who shoots 

 or who fishes partly for money and partly for fun, might 

 readily enough anticipate his money returns for quail, or 

 ducks, or trout, or bass; but his fun he will not sell; or, 

 if he would, the price put on it would be beyond reach. 

 Game and fish have a market price; but who is ever to 

 estimate the money equivalent of the satisfaction of the 

 making a grand shot? or the worth per minute of playing 

 a big trout? or the price for which one would sell the 

 present transient delight — making no account of the 

 precious memory — of a successful day afield? 



There are some things in this world we cannot buy, 

 and there are some things in this world that the poorest 

 and roughest and most prosaic of mortals— even an Indian 

 —would not readily barter. 



SNAP SHOTS. 

 In the distribution of animal life nature employs many 

 agencies which at first seem mysterious, but admit of 

 easy explanation. Forest and Stream has contributed 

 its share toward the fund of information upon the spread 

 of species. A recently made and Ashless pond becomes 

 stocked with fish without human intervention and the 

 result is a source of wonder until inquiry shows that 

 winds, water birds and insects are the distributing agen- 

 cies in some cases, while in other localities, notably in 

 Florida, subterranean communication with bodies of 

 fresh or salt water is capable of demonstration. Fish are 

 "rained" down in the streets of a Nebraska city, or 

 "snowed" down in a city of -Tennessee. Crabs fall in the 

 streets of San Francisco. Crawfish cover the ground 

 near Union Depot at Cameron, Mo., after a heavy rain. 

 These are results of cyclone action and have come under 

 observation in localities widely remote. Frogs and woi-mg 

 are often carried in the same way, but for the most part 

 these are simply brought out from hiding by rain and do 

 not "drop from the clouds." 



The picture on another page entitled "In a July Wood- 

 cock Cover," was taken of an old woodcock shooter who 

 was well known to many of our readers. He is no longer 

 living, but in his life he was a good shot and a good fel- 

 low, and had followed the dogs in many fields. No one 

 ever enjoyed summer shooting more than he, yet no one 

 strove more earnestly to have it forbidden both by law 

 and public sentiment. If ever there was a pleasure which 

 was labor, it was this summer shooting. Who does not 

 recall its tortures, its suffocating heats, its thick brush, 

 its swarms of mosquitoep. How laboriously one used to 

 break through the brambles and alders, and pull himself 

 through the mire, while with one hand he wiped away 

 the sweat and the insects, and with the other kept leaves 

 and branches out of the eyes. It was hard work, but 

 when one heard the ringing whistle and after the shot 

 the rustle of the bird as it fell through the leaves, and the 

 light thump as it struck the ground, he forgot all his suf- 

 ferings. 



"Didymus" has been prompted by "Podgers" [what 

 names !] to utter a note of protest on the song bird mil- 

 linery abomination; and he suggests that the lan- 

 guage he uses may be intemperate. On such a subject 

 virility of expression is in order, and the pity of it is 

 that, however vigorous may be such denunciations of the 

 atrocity, because aimed at the general public they are 

 likely to prove as ineffective as did the remarks of the 

 enraged Scotch lawyer who addressed no one in particular, 

 but "just stood in the middle of the road and swore at 

 large." If "Didymus" and "Podgers" had needed further 

 proof that birds' feathers were still worn, they might 

 have found it by studying the Christian Endeavor hosts 

 who took possession of this town last week. There were 

 some 35,000 of them, a large majority of the fair sex, and 

 one noticeable characteristic, as observed by the Forest 

 AND Stream, was that most of them wore birds' feathers 

 in their bonnets. 



Poetry is all right enough in its place; and it may serve 

 a practical purpose when it voices humanity and a regard 

 for bird life; but what shall be said of Mr. John Robinson's 

 apostrophe in the Witness to the sportsmen to spare the 

 birds? 



Then, sportsmen spare the birdsl 



Still let the welkin ring. 

 And feathered songsters symphonies 



To their Creator bring. 

 Inviolate be the nest 



Beneath the verdant shade, 

 Nor may the wanton, ruthless hand 



Peace and content invade, 



Mr, Robinson's appeal is a work of supererogation. 

 Sportsmen do not shoot birds in the spring, and the birds 

 the sportsman does shoot are not of the species that join 

 in symphonies. 



The lawyers' year has closed, and according to the 

 Evening Post the litigating lawyers of the great profes- 

 sional syndicates are off fishing. The Delmonico wood - 

 cock case is still untried. The records of the courts show 

 that it is easier for a red-haired servant girl to get dam- 

 ages from a red-haired mistress for pulling her hair and 

 blackening her eye, than for a game protector to get 

 judgment against Delmonico for serving woodcock in 

 July. 



