Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, $i a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. ) 



Six Months, $3. ) 



NEW YORK, JULY 7, 1892. 



r VOL. XXXIX.-N0. 1.. 



(No. 318 Broadway, New Yobic; 



CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Familiar Acquaintances.— in. 

 An Erratic. 

 Snap Shots. 



The Sportsman Tourist. 



Camps of the Kingflshers.-m. 



Moose Hunting. 



In a Wisconsin Camp. 



A Side Issue, But No Trout. 



Old Pete. 



A Disastrous Trip to the Park. 

 Natural History. 

 Snakes. 



Bonasa Umbellus, Rex. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



"lb This Good to Eat?" 

 Uncle Aik's Woodcock. 

 The Almighty Dollar. 

 Adirondack Notes. 

 Ontario Game and Fish Com- 

 mission. 



Sea and River Fishing. 



Salmon Feeding in Fresh 



Water. 

 Ohio River Mascalonge. 

 Angling Notes. 

 Sale of Trout in Close Season. 

 Pike County Streams. 

 Texas Tarpon and Jewflsh. 



Fishculture. 



Eastern Fish in California. 



Fishculture. 



Minnesota Protective Work. 

 The Kennel. 

 Retrieving at Field Trials. 

 New England Field Trial Club 

 Flaps from the Beaver's Tail. 

 Points and Flushes. 

 Dog Chat. 

 Kennel Notes. 



Answers to Correspondents. 



Canoeing. 

 Around Lake Champlain. 

 News Notes. 



Yachting. 



The America's Cup. 

 Seawanhaka Corinthian Y. 0. 

 Larch mont Y. C. 

 July Regattas. 

 News Notes. 



Rifle Range and Gallery. 



Revolver Championship. 

 New Jersey Rifle Shooting. 

 Chicago Rifles. 



Trap Shooting. 



Shoodog at Morristown. 

 The Retired Trap-Shooter. 

 Drivers and Twisters. 

 Matches and Meetings. 



Answers to Queries. 



For Prospectus and Advertising Rates see Page 21. 



ROD AND GUN AND CAMERA. 



As a recognition of the important place of amateur photography 

 in its relation to sports of the held and prairie and mountain and 

 forest and stream, the Forest and Stream ofEers a series of 

 prizes for meritorious work with the camera. The conditions 

 under which these prizes will he givea are in brief as here set 

 forth: 



There will he ten prizes, as foUowi: First $35. Second $30 

 Third $15. Fourth $10. Six of $5 each. 



The competition will be open to amateurs only." 



The subjects must relate to Forest and Stream's field— game 

 and fish (alive or dead;, shooting and fishing, the camp, campers 

 and camp life, sportsman travel by land or water. 



There is no restriction as to the time when the pictures may 

 have been or may be made— whether in 1893 or in previous years. 



Pictures will be received up to Dec. 31, of this year. 



All work must be original; that is to say, it must not have been 

 submitted in any other competition, nor have been published. 



There are no restrictions as to make or style of camera, nor as 

 to size of plate. 



A competitor need not be a subscriber of Forbst and Stkeam. 



All photographs will be submitteed to a committee, shortly to 

 be announced. In making their awards the judges will be in- 

 structed to take into consideration the technical merits of the 

 work as a photograph, its artistic qualities; and other things 

 being equal, the unique and difficult nature of the subject. 



Photographs must be marked only with initials or a pseudonym 

 for identification. With each photograph should be given name 

 of sender, title of view, locality, date, and name of camera. 



The photographs shall be the property of ' the Forest and 

 Stream. This applies only to the particular prints tent us. 



From time to time we shall reproduce by the half-tone process 

 samples of the work submitted, and should the interest in 

 Forest and Stream's Amateur Photography Collection prove 

 to be what is anticipated, we may ask for an expression of opinion 

 by a vote of all our readers after the manner of the successful 

 and famous "Camp-Fire Flickering Vote." Such popular vote 

 w ill be quite distinct from the award by the committee. 



he disappears you may yet hear the smothered chuckle 

 wherewith he continues to tickle his ribs. When in a 

 less scornful mood, he is at least supremely indifferent, 

 deigning to regard you with but the corner of an eye 

 while he rasps a nut or chips a cone. 



Ordinarily you must be philosophical or godly, to 

 suffer gibes with equaiiimity, but you need be neither to 

 endure the scoffs of this buffoon of the woods and way- 

 sides. They only amuse you as much as they do Mm, 

 and you could forgive these tricks tenfold multiplied if 

 he had no worse, and love him if he were but half as 

 good as he is beautiful. 



He exasperates you when he cuts off your half -grown 

 apples and pears in sheer wantoness, injuring you and 

 profiting him only in the pleasure of seeing and hearing 

 them fall. But you are heated with a hotter wrath 

 when he reveals his chief wickedness, and you catch 

 sight of him stealthily skulking along the leafy bypaths 

 of the branches, silently intent on evil deeds, and plot- 

 ting the murder of callow innocents. Quite noiseless 

 now, himself, his whereabouts are only indicated by the 

 distressful outcry of the persecuted and sympathizing 

 birds and the fluttering swoops of their futile attacks 

 upon the marauder. Then when you see him gliding 

 away, swift and silent as a shadow, bearing a half -naked 

 fledgeling in his jaws, if this is the first revelation to 

 you of such wickedness, you are as painfully surprised 

 as if you had discovered a little child in some wanton 

 act of cruelty. 



It seems quite out of all fitness of nature that this 

 merry fellow should turn murderer, this dainty con- 

 noisseur of choice nuts and tender buds, and earliest dis- 

 coverer and taster of the maple's sweetness, should 

 become so grossly carnivorous and savagely bloodthirsty. 



But anon he will cajole you with pretty ways into for- 

 getfulness and forgiveness of his crimes. You find 

 yourself offering in extenuation of his sins, confession 

 of your own offenses. Have not you, too, wrought havoc 

 among harmless broods and brought sorrow to feathered 

 mothers and woodland homes? Is he worse than you 

 or you better than he? 



Against his sins you set his beauty and tricky man- 

 ners, and for them would not banish him out of the 

 world nor miss the incomparable touch of wild life that 

 his presence gives it. 



AN ERRATIC. 



FAMILIAR AOQXTAINTANGES. 



III.— THE RED SQUIRREL. 



A HAWK, flashing the old gold of his pinions in the 

 face of the sun, flings down upon you a shrill, husky cry 

 of intense scorn; a jay scolds you like a shrew; from his 

 safe isolation in the mid water, a loon taunts you and the 

 awakening winds with his wild laughter; there is a jeer 

 in the chuckling diminuendo of the woodchuck's whistle; 

 a taunt in the fox's gasping bark as he scurries unseen 

 behind the veil of night; and a scoff on hunters and 

 hounds and cornfield owners is flung out through the 

 gloaming in the raccoon's quavering cry. But of all the 

 wild world's inhabitants, feathered or fmTed,none outdo 

 the saucy red squirrel in taiints, gibes and mockery 

 of their common enemy, man. 



He is inspired with derision that is expressed in every 

 tone and gesture. His agile form is vibrant with it 

 when he flattens himself against a tree-trunk, toes 

 and tail quivering with its intensity of ridicule as fully 

 expressed in every motion as in his nasal snicker and 

 throaty chuckle or in the chattering jeer that he pours 

 down upon you when he has attained a midway or top- 

 most bough and cocks his tail with a saucy curve above 

 his arched back. 



When he persistently retires within his wooden tower, 

 he still peers out saucily from his lofty portal, and if 



From a high hill which gives a wide outlook may be 

 seen, far off, on the very verge of the horizon, where 

 the sky bends down to meet the earth, a tiny speck. 

 Traveling onward , it grows clearer and nearer. At first 

 it seems a haystack, then a cabin, then a wagon, at last 

 a buffalo; but it is none of these. 



Still riding on over the yellow, rolling plains, where 

 the short stems of the prairie grass quiver with a con- 

 stant motion, where little ground squirrels flash across 

 the horse's path and hide behind tufts of grass, and shore 

 larks rise with sweet, soft notes and swing away with 

 tmdulating flight, where dainty antelope slowly walk to 

 the tops of the hills on either side and look about with 

 curious eyes, the object draws nearer. Sometimes from 

 the crest of a hill it seems close at hand, again, de- 

 scending into a little valley, it is lost to view behind a 

 swell of the prairie. At length it is close by and its 

 nature can be seen. 



In those ancient days when the vast ice sheet was melt- 

 ing, a great mass of stone was floated from the distant 

 mountains. Carried on some huge berg, parted from the 

 glacier which gave it birth, this rock journeyed from the 

 west, and at length, falling from its long-time resting 

 place, sank to the earth, and when the waters disappeared, 

 remained here, a landmark on the prairie. 



Here for ages it has stood, steadfast, immovable. The 

 winds of winter buffet it; the heats of summer scorch 

 and bake it. Behind it the storm piles up a long white 

 drift of snow; spring floods collect about it in a little 

 lake, soon dried up. Under its lee, perhaps, the chilled 

 Indian, returning alone from his unsuccessful war jour- 

 ney, has stopped to seek shelter from the bitter blasts 

 which sweep over the prairie, bearing death on their icy 

 wings; or in summer the panting wolf has stretched him- 

 self for a moment in its grateful shade. The birds have 

 visited it. Eagles and hawks have perched here and 

 with watchful eye surveyed the prairie, alert to see the 

 slightest movement of grouse or hare or ground squirrel. 

 The little birds, too, have rested here for a moment; spar- 



rows and the titlark with sedate walk and gravely turn- 

 ing'head. A mountain rat has made it his home, and in 

 the crevice of the rock has built his nest. 



Though it has traveled far on the ice the boulder 

 shows little wear. Its knobs and roughnesses are still 

 sharp, but each protuberance and angle is polished and 

 covered with a bright brown gloss, like the corners of 

 fence posts in a barn yard , against which cattle have 

 rubbed their sides. 



For ages this great erratic has been the buffalo's scratch- 

 ing post. Here in passing, the dark herds have turned 

 aside and halted, and mighty bull, sleek young cow and 

 playful yearling have sidled up to this massive rock, and 

 with grunts of contentment have pushed their rounded 

 bodies against it, and been jostled and crowded and 

 struck by the horns of others, eager to take their turn. 

 About this stone they have walked to and fro and cut up 

 the soil witli their hoofs and made it fine dust, which the 

 unceasing wind has carried away and scattered far over 

 the prairie. So, after the lapse of centuries of time and 

 the passing away of many generations of buffalo, a deep 

 trench has been worn about the erratic, and it stands on 

 a pillar of the soil, the top of which is level with the 

 prairie. 



Never again will the boulder witness the sights that it 

 has beheld in the past. It stands in its old place as firm 

 and steadfast as of yore, but the friends that used to visit 

 it have passed and are passing away. In these latter 

 days no Indian crouches behind it for shelter from the 

 storm, nor do buffalo crowd about it. No graceful 

 antelope sweep by in rapid flight, seldom does a wolf 

 approach it, or an eagle from its top look with unblench- 

 ing eye toward the sun. 



The life of the old prairie has passed away. 



SNAP SHOTS. 

 How to get the better of the "Yorker" appears to be the 

 chief aim of some of the New Jersey game protective 

 societies. The Plainfield society exacts a tax of |3, for 

 which it gives a membership certificate entitling him to 

 shoot and fish anywhere in the State. But there is 

 another society at Fort Lee, which refuses to recognize . 

 the Plainfield certificate, and calls for $10 more before a 

 New York man can shoot or fish in the Fort Lee territory. 

 And up to a late period — if not now — there was no shadow 

 of authority under heaven for either one of these societies 

 collecting a dollar from a non-resident of the State of 

 New Jersey. Every dollar they ever exacted from a non- 

 resident, who paid it under thej belief that the law de- 

 manded it, was secured from him by false pretenses. 



Ontario has a law limiting the fishing of the "tourist" 

 or "summer visitor," these terms being defined to include 

 "all persons who may, during the spring, summer or 

 autumn months, be temporarily visiting, boarding or 

 lodging in any locality at a distance of over five miles 

 from their usual place of residence other parts of the 

 year." This, it will be seen, includes Canadians as well 

 as Americans. The restrictions forbid a tourist or sum- 

 mer visitor taking more than twelve black bass in one 

 day, or any bass of less than ten inches in length; or 

 more than fifty speckled trout (or fifty pounds), or any 

 trout of less than five inches in length. 



One who writes history that amounts to anything — 

 that pictures the life, the men, the human nature of 

 the past — must write with a certain gift of imagination 

 by which he puts himself among the people and in the 

 times whose deeds are recorded. So the writer of natural 

 history must in a sense possess the same sympathetic in- 

 sight into his subject. It is this quality which explaiins 

 in part the charm of such a chronicle of bird life aa is 

 Dr. Morris's paper on the ruffed grouse. 



And now the Delmonico case — illicit sale of wooc'icock 

 in July — has gone over to next October, That ipj what 

 they tell you down in the City Hall; but whether "£)istrict 

 Attorney NicoU honestly intends to have t"he Fifth 

 avenue July woodcock purveyor tried in October is 

 something nobody can tell anything abor.,t. The public 

 has learned not to take much stock in V\r. NicoU's prom- 

 ises in a woodcock case. 



You may measure a man's intr^j-est in the rod and gun 

 by the thoroughness with whic' \xe reads the advertising 

 pages of the Forest and Stkf ^^m. 



