Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Tehms, $4 A Ybab. 10 Ots. a Oopt. ! 



Six Months, $2. f 



NEW YORK, AUGUST 26, 1892. 



j VOL. XXXIX.— No. 8 



I No. 318 Broadway', New York. 



CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Familiar Acquaintances. 

 Snap Shots. 



The Sportsman Tourist. 



As the flours Pass. 

 The Open Air Life. 

 An Exploration. 



Natural History. 



Hummingbirds. 

 Making Poison Arrows. 

 Wild Rice. 



Game Bag and Gun. 



Hunting Rifles and Bnllets. 

 An Aroostook Reminiscence. 

 A Hunt in the Rockies.— in. 

 Three Beauties of Nature. 

 Chicago and the West. 



Sea and River Fishing. 



Blueflsliing in Old Times. 

 Buzzard's Bay. 

 Forest and Stream Postals. 

 Fishing Rods from the Hub. 

 Chicago and the West. 

 Angling Notes. 



The Kennel. 



Psovoi. 



Ottawa Dog Show. 

 Northwestern F. T. All-Aged 

 Stake Entries. 



The Kennel. 



Flaps from the Beaver's Tail. 

 Should Judges be Their Own 

 Critics? 



Is Scoring Dogs Possible and 



Feasible? 

 Rochester and Hamilton 



Dates. 



Fox-Terrier Importation. 

 That Beagle Challenge. 

 Dog Chat. 

 Kennel Notes. 



Answers to Correspondents. 

 Canoeing. 

 The A. O. A. Meet. 

 News Notes. 



Yachting. 



Mattapoisett Regatta. 

 Sippican Y. C 

 August Regattas. 

 News Notes. 



Rifle Range and Gallery. 



New Jersey Rifle Shooting. 

 Excelsior Rifle Club Shoot. 



Trap Shooting. 



Central Iowa Tournament. 

 Western Chips. 

 Drivers and Twisters. 

 Matches and Meetings. 

 Answers to Queries. 



For Prospectus and Advertising Rates see Page v. 



Why They Need It. 



Court House, Hamilton, Aug. 11.— Editor Forest avd Stream : 

 I have much pleasure in informiDg you that at the last meeting of 

 the board of Ontario Game and Fish Commissioners it was unan- 

 imously resolved that in future the Commissioners should be sup- 

 plied regularly with copies of the Forest and Stream. 



Your paper has reached such a standard of excellence, treating 

 as it does, both, popularly and scientifically, all that appertains to 

 the protection, preservation and propagation of game and fish on 

 this continent, that the Commissioners feel that they cannot be 

 without it. 



You will therefore be good enough to place on your subscription 

 list the following names, to whom you will send your paperregu- 

 larly until further notice. [Here follow the names.] 



A. D. Stewart, 

 Sec'y Ontario Fish and Game Commission. 



ILLUSTRATIONS OF WILD LIFE. 



We have in preparation a series of illustrations of 

 American wild animal?, to be published as supplements 

 of the Forest and Stream. 



The drawings are by Mr. Ernest E. Thompson, whose 

 previous work in this line is well known; and we are 

 confident that the merits of his successful delineation will 

 be recognized. The subjects already drawn are of the 

 Felidse, and they will be published as follows. See that 

 your newsdealer has the numbers: 



Sept. 8. The Panther. 



Oct. 6. The Ocelot. 



Nov. 3, The Canada Lynx. 



Dec. 1. The Bay Lynx. 



In connection with the illustration of the panther will 

 be given some notes of observation of that creature by 

 Mr. George H. Wyman, and Mr. O. O. Smith's story of 

 bow he won his cougar skin trophy in Oregon last year. 



OUB COLUMBUS NUMBER. 

 The Forest and Stream of Oct. 20 (the day before the 

 Columbus celebration) will be a special Columbus 

 number. The contents, both text and illustrations, will 

 relate largely to the age of Columbus, and will be as in- 

 teresting as unique. 



What is a "family paper?" Certainly not every one 

 which flies the term "family" at its mast-head can rightly 

 be classed as such. There are so-called "family" journals 

 which one would never permit to get into his home, 

 rather let the house burn down first. And then there are 

 journals which not one man in a hundred, unfamiliar 

 with them, would class as "family" papers, but which 

 are such indeed. The Forest and Stream, for instance. 

 A "sporting" paper it is called, yes, but — &fin de siede 

 phenomenon — a "family" "sporting" paper. And why 

 not? The subjects it treats of , are they not of interest 

 to all, old and young? And the manner of then- treat- 

 ment, is it not acceptable to the most exacting ? As a 

 matter of fact — and we rejoice in it — this is a "family" 

 paper which goes into thousands of homes every week in 

 the year, and no one ever thinks of scrutinizing its con- 

 tents before laying it where all may read. The subscriber 

 soon comes to have faith in this quality of the Forest 

 AND Stream; and — on our aide—the faith is never broken. 



FAMILIAR ACQUAINTANCES. 

 VI, — the fox. 



Among the few survivals of the old tmtamed world 

 there are left us two that retain all the raciness of their 

 ancestral wildness. 



Their wits have been sharpened by the attrition of 

 civilization, but it has not smoothed their characteristics 

 down to the level of the commonplace, nor contaminated 

 them with acquired vices as it has their ancient contem- 

 porary, the Indian. But they are held in widely differ- 

 ent esteem, for while one is in a manner encouraged in 

 continuance, the other is an outlaw, with a price set upon 

 his head to tempt all but his few contemned friends to 

 compass his extermination. 



For these and for him there is an unwritten code, that, 

 stealthily enforced, gives him some exemption from uni- 

 versal persecution, They, having knowledge of the un- 

 derground house of many portals where the vixen rears 

 her cubs, guard the secret as jealously as she and her 

 lord, from the unfriendly farmer, poultry wife and 

 bounty-hunting vagabond. Confiding it only to sworn 

 brethren of woodcraft, as silent concerning it to the 

 unfriendly as the trees that shadow its booty -strewn jjre- 

 cincts or the lichened rocks that fortify it against pick 

 and spade. They never tell even their leashed hounds 

 till autumn makes the woods gayer with painted leaves 

 than summer could with blossoms, how they have seen 

 the master and mistress of this woodland home stealing 

 to it with a fare of field mice fringing their jaws or bear- 

 ing a stolen lamb or pullet. 



They watch from some unseen vantage, with amused 

 kindliness, the gambols of the yellow cubs about their 

 mother, alert for danger, even in her drowsy weariness, 

 and so proud of her impish brood, even now practicing 

 tricks of theft and cunning on each other. 



They become abettors of this family's sins, apologists 

 for its crimes, magnifiers of its unmeant well-doing. 



When in palliation of the slaughter of a turkey that 

 has robbed a field of his weight in corn, they offset the 

 destruction of hordes of field mice, they are reviled by 

 those who are righteously exalted above the idleness of 

 hunting and the foolishness of sentiment. 



At such hands one fares no better who covets the fox, 

 not for the sport he may give, but for the tang of wild 

 flavor that he imparts to woods that have almost lost it 

 and to fields that lose nothing of thrift by its touch. 



You may not see him, but it is good to know that 

 anything so untamed has been so recently where your 

 plodding footsteps go. 



You see in last night's snowfall the sharp imprint of 

 his pads, where he has deviously quested mice under the 

 mat of aftermath, or trotted slowly, pondering, to other 

 more promising fields, or, there, gone airily coursing 

 away over the moonlit pastures. In imagination you 

 see all his agile gaits and graceful poses. Now listening 

 with pricked ears to the muffled squeak of a mouse, now 

 bouncing upon his captured but yet unseen prize, or 

 where on sudden impulse he has coursed to fresh fields, 

 you see him, a dusky phantom, gliding with graceful 

 undulations of lithe body and brush over the snowy 

 stretches; or, halting to wistfully sniff, as a wolf a sheep- 

 fold, the distant hen-roost; or, where a curious labyrinth 

 of tracks imprint the snow, you have a vision of him 

 dallying with his tawny sweetheart under the stars of 

 February skies; or, by this soft mold of his furry form 

 on a snow-capped stump or boulder, you picture him 

 sleeping off the fatigue of hunting and love-making, with 

 all senses but sight still alert, untouched by the nipping 

 air that silvers his whiskers with his own breath. 



All these realities of his actual life you may not see ex- 

 cept in such pictures as your fancy makes, but when the 

 woods are many-hued or brown in autumn, or gray and 

 white in winter and stirred with the wild music of the 

 hounds, your blood may be set tingling by the sight of 

 him, his coming announced by the rustle of leaves under 

 his light footfalls, or unheralded by sound, he suddenly 

 blooms ruddily out of the dead whiteness of the snow. 



Whether he flies swiftly past or carefully picks his 

 way along a fallen tree or bare ledge, you remark his 

 facial expression of incessant intentness on cunning de- 

 vices, while ears, eyes and nose are alert for danger. If 

 he discovers you, with what ready self-possession he in- 

 stantly gets and keeps a tree between himself and you 

 and vanishes while your gun vainly searches for its 

 opportunity. 



If your shot brings him down, and you stand over him- 



exultant, yet pitying the end of his wild life, even in his 

 death throes fearing you no more, he yet strains his dulled 

 ears to catch the voices of the relentless hounds. 



Bravely the wild freebooter holds his own against the 

 encroachments of civilization and the persecution of 

 mankind, levying on the flocks and broods of his enemy, 

 rearing his yellow cubs in the very border of his field, 

 insulting him with nightly passage by his threshold. 



Long ago his fathers bade farewell to their grim cousin 

 the wolf, and saw the beaver and the timid deer pass 

 away, and he sees the eagle almost banished from its 

 double realm, of earth and sky, yet he hardily endures. 

 For what he preserves for us of the almost extinct wild, 

 ness, shall we begrudge him the meagre compensation of 

 an occasional turkey? 



SNAP SHOTS. 



The condition of things prevailing on Salt River, as 

 described in our columns last week, is fairly typical of the 

 state of fishing interests in all parts of Kentucky, With 

 abundant opportunities for a generous supply of food 

 fish, the waters have been rendered comparatively un- 

 productive by unwise and improvident methods of fish- 

 ing. It is discouraging to note that there is little pros- 

 pect of reform. The Legislature has again failed to pass 

 the fish bill, and the practices it was intended to suppress 

 will continue. The measure forbade the damming of 

 streams without providing suitable fishways, the employ- 

 ment of set-nets, seines, bush-drags, drugs and dynamite: 

 and gigs. In this effort made by the enlightened part 

 of the community to reform fishing methods there is 

 not a whit of sentiment; the impelling force is common 

 sense. A time must come when forethought and wisdom 

 must prevail. If some of the money and time and elo- 

 quence devoted to a political campaign were to be spent 

 in educating the masses in fishery economy, a change 

 would come in short order. Keep up the ' 'campaign of 

 education." 



It aijpears that in the Sunday fishing case alluded to 

 last week, the defendant, charged with fishing on the 

 Sabbath, contended that he was guilty of no offense, be- 

 cause according to a decision (in the case of the People 

 vs, Denin), "to constittite the crime the act must disturb 

 the repose of the commimity." It was not shown by the 

 prosecution that the fishing disturbed anybody, nor in- 

 deed did it attract any attention, nor was it witnessed by 

 any other than the complainant. 



But Judge CuUen held that since the statute prohibited 

 "all shooting, hunting and fishing," this applied to private 

 fishing as well as public fishing, and the disturbance of 

 the public repose was not involved. It is well worth 

 noting in this connection that the complaint in this case 

 was made out of spite. The same thing happened last 

 year when some Jamaica Bay net fishermen out of spite 

 complained of certain Sunday line-fishermen. This New 

 York fishing law is a practical and absolute dead-letter 

 except as an engine for spiteful prosecutions. 



A writer in Oztr Animal Friends holds tip the sports- 

 man as a bloody-minded creature whose enjoyment in 

 the field or on the stream consists wholly in the killing 

 of game or fish. This is not in line with our knowledge 

 of the American sportsman of this generation as we 

 know him. If, as the writer declares to be the case, the 

 essence of sport with the gun were "the enjoyment of 

 death and bloodshed," few gunners wo\ild tramp fields 

 and force their way through brush, when the poultry 

 yard at home would supply all the "bloodshed" they 

 wanted ; and fewer still would cross plains and climb 

 mountains when a visit to an abattoir would sate them 

 with "enjoyment of death." The fact is that the writer 

 who sets out to depict sportsmen as bloodthirsty monsters 

 must shut his eyes to the truth and evolve a fancy pic- 

 ture. And it would be so much better to tell the simple 

 truth. 



We print to-day a valuable resume of information 

 about wild rice, by Mr, E, E. Thompson, The cultiva- 

 tion of this food cereal has been successfully accom- 

 plished in numerous instances; and wild-rice planting is 

 one of the most sensible and satisfactory enterprises open 

 to wildfowlers. The frequent requests which come to us 

 for information on the subject give evidence of wide- 

 spread interest, and Mr, Thompson's text and draw- 

 ings must j)rove of practical use. 



