Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, $4 A Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. I 

 Six Months, $3, f 



NEW YORK, OCTOBER 13, 1892. 



1 VOL. XXXIX.-No. 15 

 iNo. 318 Broadway, New Yobk. 



CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Maintaining the Affirmative. 

 Rois de Vaches. 

 With a Fly-Rod. 

 The Yellowstone Park Report. 

 Oolnmbia River Investiga- 

 tions. 



The Sportsman Tourist. 



' The Big Boulder." 

 TroTiting in the Coast Range. 



Natural History. 



Another Tame Moose. 

 The Panther's Scream. 

 Migration of Hawks. 



Game Bag and Gun. 



Shot Velocity Tests. 

 A Hunter's Moon. 

 Some Adirondack Deer, 

 Ducking in the Rideau Coun- 

 try. 



Maine Grouse and W^oodcock. 

 Huntinsr Rifles Again. 

 In New England Woods. 

 North Dakota Game. 

 Game in Moose River Basin. 



Sea and River Fishing. 



Fishing Lines. 

 Hfrr Max von dem Borne. 

 "Favorite Flies." 

 Casting Lines Again. 

 Tlie Kekoskee Fish Story. 



The KenneL 



Danbury Dog Show. 



The Kennel. 



New England Field Trial Club 

 Meeting. 



American Pet Dog Club Meet- 

 ing. 



Flaps from the Beaver's Tnil. 

 Should Judges be Their Own 



Critics? 

 Wlilppet Racing at Trenton 



Fair. 

 Dog Chat. 



Answers to Correspondents. 



Yachting. 



New York Y. R. A. 

 Cruising and Cruisers. 

 Measurement in the 21ft. Class 

 Alva. 



International Racing. 



Intrepid. 



News Notes. 



Canoeing. 



The Barnega*- Cruiser. 

 Red Dragon C. C. 

 (;amp Dues at Division Meets. 

 A Very Large Canoe. 



Rifle Range and Gallery. 



Matches and Meetings. 

 Trap Shooting. 

 Riverside Gun Club Tourna- 

 ment. 

 Indianapolis Shoot. 

 Chicago Traps. 



Answers to Queries. 



For Prospectus and Advertising Rates see Page v. 



OUR COLUMBUS NUMBER. 

 Owing to pressure of news at this season, the special 

 "Columbus Number" of the Forest and Stream has of 

 necessity been deferred. The date will be announced in 

 due season. 



WITH A FLY-ROD. 

 It will not be many weeks before the season will come 

 for the appearance in our advertising pages;of announce- 

 ments by our fishing tackle friends of this tenor: "Trout 

 and bass rods make excellent Christmas presents." And 

 it is just as certain that many a fortunate fisherman, his 

 father or mother, or wife or daughter, or son or cousin, 

 or angling friend, having noted the suggestion tin the 

 Forest and Stream, will be given a fly-rod for Christ- 

 mas, and with it a presentation note of affection and 

 well-wishing. 



Now, if you were going to give such a holiday gift 

 yourself, what would be your note to go with it? 



A sentiment to accompany a fly-rod, what should it be? 



The Forest and Stream believes that suggestions in 

 this line would prove timely and acceptable, and that a 

 column in its angling pages made up of such notes 

 would be capital reading. They are invited. 



BOIS DE VACHES. 



This is what the old French trappers called it— cow 

 wood. The phrase is expressive, and the plains men of 

 more recent times roughly translated the term when they 

 called it the "buffalo chip," 



No object seen by the traveler over the plains is more 

 humble and more unobtrusive than the buft'alo chip. Its 

 creator was the greatest, the most striking feature of the 

 old prairie, but the relic which he left behind, and which 

 has so long survived him, is the least. It is dull in color, 

 and inconspicuous in size and shape. Like the violet, it 

 is modest and hides itself beneath its taller neighbors, 

 the tufts of bunch grass or the scraggy sage brush. 

 It shuns observation, simulating the stones, bits of wood 

 and lumps of dirt which surround it. No one would sus- 

 pect that so inconspicuous an object hap been a benefactor 

 to humanity. Yet it has saved many a life, has given 

 food and warmth, sustenance and strength to many a 

 suffering mortal. This it has done modestly, quietly. 

 The buffalo chip makes no boasts, but in time of need its 

 lovely qualities shine forth like a good deed in a naughty 

 world. 



The buffalo chip has done much good, yet it cannot 

 always be relied on to exert its beneficent powers for the 

 suffering and the sorry. Meteorological conditions appear 

 to affect its willingness or its powers for good, and it may 

 safely be predicated of the chip that after a week of rain 

 or the melting of a heavy snowfall, all effort to induce it 

 to aid man — no matter how wretched his condi- 

 tion — will be vain, On the other hand, when the fierce 



sun of summer blazes down upon the plains, when the 

 water in the old wallows is dried up, when the withered 

 herbage rattles above the parched soil, and stones are hot 

 to the touch, when the heated air rising from the ground 

 quivers and dances, then the buffalo chip is a power. Or 

 when the blasts of winter whirl over the plain, ruffling 

 the coat of the prowling wolf, tossing the sand into air, 

 chasing the tumble weeds mile after mile, and even pick- 

 ing up pebbles and carrying them on their strong wings, 

 then too the chip does good work. 



In the bitterest hours of a biting blizzard, at the bot- 

 tom of a deep ravine partly sheltered from the wind, we 

 have looked on a curious spectacle. Three shapeless, 

 hide-covered lumps rested upon the ground, and from the 

 top of each lump curled a little smoke. They were 

 strange objects, not natural, yet unJike anything artifi- 

 cial. They looked like three hybrids between a tiny 

 lodge and a tiny sweat house. They were like neither, 

 yet the smoke suggested humanity. A nearer view 

 solved the mystery. These lump? were men seated on 

 the ground, covered with their robes, hair side in. Be- 

 tween the legs of each man burned a fire of buffalo chips 

 which they and their robes completely covered. It was 

 as if each one sat in a tiny lodge with his head sticking 

 out of the smoke hole. And the buffalo chips were keep- 

 ing them from freezing to death. Composed of the 

 finely divided woody fibre of the prairie grass, they made 

 the best of fuel. 



A well-known naturalist has studied the history of the 

 buffalo chip, and his graceful pen has recorded his obser- 

 vations and reflections. It is fortunate that this history 

 has been written, for like the great beast which preceded 

 it, the chip is passing away. Grand is the struggle which 

 it has made against the disintegrating forces of almighty 

 Nature, but the contest was too unequal. Its issue cannot 

 be doubtful. The buffalo chip must yield, must be van- 

 quished and disappear; but at least we can say that the 

 human race is better for having known it. 



MAINTAINING THE AFFIRMATIVE. 

 ''Resolved, That anticipation is better than realization." 



That was the question of debate. And do you not recall 

 it now, clearly and vividly as all those long years ago— 

 The snowy, blustering night, the little red school house 

 shaken of the winds, and your own knees shaken of a 

 nameless trepidation as you stood forth courageously to 

 maintain the affirmative; and did maintain it, too? 



How many times since then, in life's succession of an- 

 ticipation and realization and disappointment, and 

 striving and triumph and defeat, have your eyes beheld 

 once more that scene in the old debating society, and your 

 lips parted in a grim smile as you have summoned all your 

 resolution again to maintain the affirmative. You know 

 more about it now. The proposition you defended in the 

 debating society has come to be the accepted philosophy 

 of life, and there is comfort in it, and balm. 



It is the right philosophy to have in the house, along with 

 a fishing rod and trout flies — the flies one sends off to a 

 Forest and Stream advertiser for before spring has 

 come; and looks over again and again, and sorts out, and 

 plans the campaign over. This one for the favorite pool 

 just below the big rock; that one for the swirl by the 

 stump; one for this and another for that; and with every 

 one a trout. They are wonderful dream makers, these 

 dainty bits of feather and tinsel, each one a parti-colored 

 talisman by whose magic your room is flooded with the 

 glory of Adirondack sunlight; the walls stretch away to 

 mountain slopes; the rumble of the street becomes the 

 rush and tumble and roar of woodland waters ; your eye 

 catches the elusive iridescence of the spray, and your 

 heart jumps at the gleam of a living iridescence in the 

 foam. Yes, a wonderful thing to dream over— to gild 

 the joys of anticipation is one's fly-book. 



But as you dream the days go by, and the weeks 

 run into months; and then before you know it the sum- 

 mer has passed away, and the trout flies lie all unruffled 

 and unwet, as fresh and as new and unused as when 

 they came from the maker. They are phantom flies of 

 phantom fish. Then all of a sudden you realize that 

 vacation time has passed; there is no longer anything to 

 dream of— and straightway yoa are in the little red 

 school house once more, defending the old familiar affirm- 

 ative. 



It is not all of fishing to fish, say you. Sometimes 

 there is more in the anticipation of fishing. You have 

 proved it so for 1893, and in your philosophy has been 



jound the comfort of the reflection that it is better to 

 have had your dreams of fishing without the fishing, than 

 to have had neither the anticipation nor the realization. 



That is good philosophy for a disappointed, stay-at- 

 home, chained-to-business fisherman. Is it not good 

 philosophy for all of us, and in other things than fishing? 



As the years shall bring the silver to the hair, the 

 well defined and growing deliberation as to flights of 

 stairs, the inclination to fish the pools nearest 

 camp, and the preference for the large type in Forest 

 AND Stream, time bring to you -with these, if not 

 fewer occasions for maintaining the affirmative, a fuller 

 faith and a stouter heart to maintain it with fortitude and 

 grace and serenity. 



THE YELLOWSTONE PARK REPORT. 



The report of the superintendent of the Yellowstone 

 National Park, which we print elsewhere, is an admir- 

 able document, comprehensive yet concise, Capt. Ander- 

 son's management of the Park has besn characterized by 

 energy and force, and he has infused the heedless, happy- 

 go-lucky tourists who desire to carry away everything 

 they see, with a wholesome respect for the law, while the 

 deliberate law-breaker is mightily afraid. As has been 

 the case ever since the Park was established, the fact that 

 there is no law providing for the punishment of offenders 

 within the Park ties the hands of the officers of the law, 

 and evil-doers can laugh at the Government, which has 

 the power only to expel offenders from the reservation, 

 and not to punish their crimes. 



It is interesting to note that Capt, Anderson's estimate 

 of the number of buffalo in the Park agrees closely with 

 that made by persons who have for years devoted much 

 attention to the subject of the increase of these protected 

 buffalo. The buffalo are doing well, and are seldom dis- 

 turbed, and the same is true of all other species of wild 

 animals. 



The proposition, so often repeated, to cut down the 

 Park on the northeast, would cut off a considerable part 

 of the wintering range of antelope, mountain sheep and 

 black-tail deer, and would thus prove a grave injury to 

 the reservation. It is only to be considered as the lesser 

 of two evils. To have Congress authorize railways to 

 pass through the Park would be worse than to lose much 

 of its game. The preservation of its forests is of more 

 importance to the country at large than conserving its 

 game supply. 



COLUMBIA RIVER INVESTIGATIONS. 



The exploration of Clark's Fork and other tributaries 

 of the Columbia Eiver, by a party sent out by the U, S. 

 Fish Commission, is completed for the season. Dr. 

 Gorham, who has charge of the expedition, after a visit 

 to the portion of the Pend d'Oreille lying in British 

 Columbia, went to Newport, Washington, to see the 

 Albany Falls, of the same stream. Mr, B. A. Bean 

 obtained some good photographs of the falls, which are 

 not a barrier to the ascent of fish. Prof. Woolman was 

 obliged to return to his university at the end of Septem- 

 ber, and the work of collecting fish and other aquatic 

 animals was continued by Mr. Bean. 



From Newport, Dr. Gorham started down the Pend 

 d'Oreille to look at Box Canon, which contains the great 

 falls in the United States near the British line. The little 

 steamer which had been running between Newport and 

 the falls having been laid up for repairs, the Doctor was 

 obliged to make the voyage of fifty miles in a rowboat. As 

 the distance includes fifteen miles of rapids, the labor in- 

 volved in the return trip was very great. 



In the meantime Mr. Bean was engaged in river seining 

 at Newport, Chattaroy and Spokane, 



The investigation of the Columbia is being carried on 

 with a view of determining its needs and possibilities for 

 fishcultural operations. 



We are pained to learn of the death of Mr, George 

 H, Wyman, of Boise City, Idaho, known to readers of 

 this journal as a frequent and valued contributor, in 

 particular to the natural history columns. For many 

 years one of the foremost members of the Cleveland bar, 

 then seeking restoration of health in the far West, and 

 after the working years of a useful life finding well 

 earned leisure to devote to the pursuits of the field and 

 study of Nature's page, Mr. Wyman was a type of the 

 best class of American sportsmen. 



