Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, $4 a Y-ear. 10 Ots. a Copy. 1 

 Six Months, $3. ( 



NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 24, 1892. 



j VOL. XXXIX.-NO. 31. 

 1 No. 318 Bhoadtvat, New York 





Editorial. 



The New YorV Association. 

 New England Fish Commig- 



sion Conference. 

 Deer on Long Island. 

 Snap Shots. 



The Sportsman Tourist. 



Rustlings from the Selkirlis. 

 Another Explora tion. 



Natural History. 



Prairie Chicken Migration. 



A Mink Tragedy. 



Swamp Rabbit vs. Mink and 



Wildcat. 

 The American Ornithologists' 



Union. 

 Camp-Fire Flickerings. 



Game Bag and Gun. 



Bear Hunting in New Mexico. 

 A Recollection of Golden 



Plover. 

 The Cuvier Banquet. 

 Chicago and the \Vest. 

 A Boston Game Report. 

 New York State Association. 



Sea and River Fishing. 



Camps of the Kingfishers.— XV 

 A Gar's Vulnerable Point. 

 With a Fly- Rod. 



CONTENTS. 



Sea and River Fishing. 

 Colorado Game and Fish. 



The Kennel. 



Brooklyn Dog Show. 

 Western Massachusetts Fox 

 Club. 



Brunswick Fur Club Trials. 

 Beagle Trials for New Eng- 

 land. 



Anierica.n Field Trial Club's 

 Tri als. 



Mitchell Kennel Association. 

 Central F. T. C. Entries. 

 Points and Flushes. 

 Dog Chat. 



Answers to Correspondents. 

 Yachting. 



Scarecrow. 

 Canoeing. 



American Canoe Association. 



The Cruise of the Elsa. 



Rifle Range and Gallery. 



Zettler Rifle Club. 

 Trap Shooting. 



Smith-Willey Match. 



Big Tournament in Nebraska. 



Matches and Meeting?. 



Answers to Queries. 



For Prospectus and Advertising: Rates see Page v. 



THE ^NEW YORK ASSOCIATION. 



The constitution which was adopted last June by the 

 New York State Association for the Protection of Fish and 

 Game provides for the complete separation of the trap, 

 shooting and the deliberative purposes of the organiza- 

 tion. The game and fish protection interests are in- 

 trusted to an executive committee made up by a 

 representation of one delegate from each club, and this 

 committee meets four times each year. 



The first quarterly meeting of the executive committee 

 was held in Syracuse last Thursday; and we are not say- 

 ing too much in declaring that gathering to have been 

 the most important in the recent history of the Associa- 

 tion. For it was the Syracuse meeting of Nov. 17 which 

 was to determine whether or not there was in the Asso- 

 ciation itself material for an efficient protective organiza- 

 tion, whose members would gather in a business conven- 

 tion devoid of any shooting or other outside attractions 

 whatever. The event more than justified the faith of 

 those who were at the Syracuse meeting last winter 

 and were determined to restore the State Association to 

 its original purposes and activity, rather than to form a 

 new society. 



The meeting of last week was attended by delegates 

 representing twenty-four clubs. The gathering was of 

 mature, substantial, solid-looking men. The two sessions, 

 morning and afternoon, were marked by interest, earnest- 

 ness and harmony. For the initial meeting under the 

 new order of things it was a grand showing of strength. 

 In character and results the occasion gave the refutation 

 direct to those carpers who, after the June meeting with 

 the adoption of the new constitution, prophesied that we 

 should see the same old purposeless and barren delibera- 

 tive sessions. No one who was present and listened to 

 the speeches of one after another, representing so many 

 widely separated sections of the great State of New York, 

 could longer doubt that the Association is rapidly getting 

 into trim for a career of useful endeavor and achieve- 

 ment. 



The time is certainly promising for such a renewal of 

 effort, devotion and activity. There is no State in all this 

 great Union where the conditions are richer in possibili- 

 ties and promise. New York has in large measure passed 

 beyond the stage of ignorant thoughtlessness and of crim- 

 inal wastefulness as to her great natural resources of 

 field and wood and stream and lake. The public has had 

 a vast amount of wholesome education and enlighten- 

 ment since the State Association was organized as the 

 "Sportsmen's Club of the State of New York" in 1859; 

 and since 1869 and 1879, and even 1889. Game pro- 

 tection, and more especially fish protection, have been 

 growing in popular understanding and approbation, and 

 they are, slowly it may be, but none the less surely, 

 coming to have their right place in the public economy of a 

 wisely administered commonwealth. At such a time and 

 under such conditions, the new Association has had its 

 birth, and the outlook for the future is most auspicious. 



The keynote of this first Syracuse meeting was har- 

 mony and cooperation of sportsmen and sportsmen's 

 clubs with the game protectors and the fish commission- 

 ers. And this must be taken as the keynote of the suc- 

 cess of th§ Association. 



There is in New York an admirable system of State 

 Game and Fish Protectors. The system, it is true, is of 

 human institution and cannot be perfect; but those who 

 have given it the most careful and intelligent study are 

 convinced of its possibilities. If game and fish are to 

 be protected in this State, the work must be done by the 

 State game protective service. The Association then has 

 before it a very definite practical and practicable field of 

 effort— to give aid, encouragement and support to Chief 

 Pond. and his deputies, and to develop and perfect the 

 efliciency of the service. 



A reading of the reports made by members of the Com- 

 mittee last Thursday will show that the clubs which have 

 accomplished most are those which have called to their 

 aid the district game i^rotectors, or have secured the ap- 

 pointment of local protectors whose work they have di- 

 rected and whom they have upheld in the discharge of 

 duty. 



While there is thus a practical mode in which every 

 local protective club may accomplish its purpose, the con- 

 ^'erse is no less true, that in the Association and its con- 

 stituent clubs the protectors have powerful allies. In- 

 deed the aid rendered to the protectors by local clubs 

 was gracefully and cordially acknowledged by Chief 

 Protector Pond; and it must have occurred to every one 

 present at Syracuse that such public gatherings of their 

 friends and supporters will have a quickening and en- 

 couraging effect upon the protectors. It is a declaration 

 to them that they are not fighting the battle alone. 



The problem of New York game and fish protection is 

 less complex than it was. The way to a solution appears 

 to us to be clearly pointed out. It is to be found in the 

 harmonious and co-operative working of the State pro- 

 tective service and the State Association. 



It would be difficult to overestimate the possibilities of 

 such a cooperation. The opportunity is an unusual one. 

 But opportunities bring with them responsibilities. If 

 the opportunity now inviting the New York State Asso- 

 ciation for the Protection of Fish and Game is such as it 

 has never had before and such as no other organization 

 of similar aim has ever had, the obligations which go 

 with that opportunity are no less unusual and momen- 

 tous; nor are they the less binding because they have been 

 assumed voluntarily. 



The spirit shown by the delegates who met in this first 

 meeting gave unmistakable and abundant assurance that 

 the Association is now in the control of those who ap- 

 preciate its opportunities and will not seek to evade its 

 responsibilities. 



DEER ON LONG ISLAND. 



The autumn of i692 will long be remembered by Long 

 Islanders and those who go there to gun for the abund- 

 ance of its game. Deer are said to be especially numer- 

 ous and many of them have been kiUed. Ducks, too, are 

 much more plenty than usual, and the Great South Bay 

 is said to be fairly covered with broadbills and other 

 fowl. About the abundance of the quail not so much is 

 said, yet a great many birds are found — great, strong- 

 winged, stout fellows, that rise with a rattle like half a 

 dozen snare di"ums, dart away like so many ruffed grouse, 

 and plunge into the densest cat-briers, whence it takes a 

 plucky dog to start them again, and a quick eye and 

 hand behind the double-barrel to stoji them. 



Of all the accounts of Long Island game which we re- 

 ceive, perhajis the most interesting is that which tells of 

 the abundance of the deer. A dozen years ago these 

 animals were supposed to be almost exterminated, and 

 not long after this the Legislature established a five-year 

 close time, which was reasonably well observed and gave 

 the deer a chance to increase. At the expiration of this 

 close time a large number of deer were killed, for the 

 animals were numerous and tame. Various changes in the 

 law have taken place, and at present the legal time for 

 killing deer is limited to seven days in each year, or from 

 the 10th to the 16th of November inclusive. Even in this 

 short time many deer are secured, for they are very tame. 

 One observer reported recently that in his locality, from 

 Nov, 10 to Nov, 15, no less than thirty-eight deer were 

 killed in the Long Island woods. It is but a few days 

 since the passengers waiting at a station on the line of 

 the Long Island E. E,. saw a wild deer feeding on a lawn 

 but a short distance from the station. 



That deer still exist, and in considerable numbers, on 

 Long Island is due not to the law— though, of course, this 

 ' helps to preserve them— so much as to the existence of large 



preserves at that point on the south shore where the deer 

 are most ntimerous. The extensive ground of the South- 

 side Club, and of Messrs, Cutting, Vanderbilt and Fraser 

 furnish a feeding ground and refuge where the animals 

 feel safe from molestation. No shooting is allowed on 

 thfese estates, and the result is at present the deer are 

 holding their own if not increasing. Hunters will under- 

 stand that they cannot pursue game here. This fall a 

 man wounded a deer, which ran on to Mr. Vanderbilt's 

 place and fell dead on his lawn. The hunter followed it 

 until he came within sight of the house and saw the deer. 

 Then, realizing that the game had escaped him by dying 

 on another man's property, he left for parts unknown. 



It may be doubted if anywhere on Long Island condi- 

 tions prevail like those about Islip. If there were more 

 of these large preserves there would be more deer within 

 one hundred miles of New York, 



NEW ENGLAND FISH COMMISSIONERS. 

 The Fish and Game Commissioners of New England 

 met at the Parker House, Boston, on Wednesday, Nov. 

 IGth, There were to have been present of the Massa- 

 chusetts Commission, E, A. Brackett, of Winchester, 

 E. H. Lathrop, of Springfield,, and J, C. Young, of Well- 

 fleet; of the Maine Commission, E. M, Stilwell of Bangor, 

 Henry O, Stanley, of Dixfield, and E. W. Gould of Sears- 

 port; of the Ehode Island Commission, J, M. K. South- 

 wick, of Newport, Henry T. Eoot, of Providence, and 

 Wm. P, Morton, of Johnston; of the Connecticut Com- 

 mission, James A, Bill of Bill Hill, and Wm, S. Downs 

 of Birmingham ; of the New Hampshire Commission, 

 E. B, Hodge, of Plymouth, Willard H, Griffin of Ken- 

 niker and G, W, Eiddle, of Manchester; of the Vermont 

 Commission, John W, Titcomb, of Eutland, and F. H. 

 Atherton, of Waterbury, But several of these gentlemen 

 were hindered from being present, though a good dele- 

 gation was at hand, Hon, E, M. Stilwell was taken sick, 

 soon after reaching Boston, and could not be present. 

 United States Fish Commissioner McDonald happened 

 to be in Boston on his way from Washington to Glou- 

 cester, and was made the honored guest of the occasion. 

 The desirability of a uniform code of game laws was dis- 

 cussed, but no decisive conclusion was reached. The 

 Gilbert trout bill, which was presented to the last Massa- 

 chusetts Legislature, and which provides that reared 

 trout and other edible fish, raised and grown in private 

 ponds, may be put on sale during the closed season, was 

 talked over, and many of the gentlemen present were in 

 favor of this measure, but no action was taken toward 

 furthering it. Indeed this proved to be a rather inharmo- 

 nious feature, since the Maine Commissioners, with Com- 

 missioner Hodge, and several others, are very pronounced 

 against any measure so dangerous to the wild trout of 

 the several States, 



SNAP SHOTS. 

 In the work of awakening public sentiment on the 

 forestry question in New Hampshire, Rev. J, B. Harrison 

 writes in the Critic, a poem is needed, and he calls for 

 some one to put into the "swinging movement of verse" 

 the truth and the sentiment that shall appeal to the popu- 

 lar heart. "Let me make the songs of a nation and I 

 care not who makes their laws." Mr, Harrison is right. 

 The theme is worthy of our poets, and to aid in such a 

 'campaign of education" were no mean ambition for a 

 maker of verse. 



At the Syracuse meeting of the New York State Asso- 

 ciation last week, a resolution was adopted calling on 

 District Attorney Nicoll to bring the Delmonico woodcock 

 case to trial. This may not move the District Attorney, 

 but it will be quite likely to move public opinion, and 

 public opinion will do the rest. 



The date of the annual dinner of of the Massachusetts 

 Fish and Game Protective Association has been set for 

 Thursday evening, Dec. 8. President Harrison, Presi- 

 dent-elect Cleveland, Governor Eussell, and other distin- 

 guished guests, have been invited. 



There is a possibility that a special building may be 

 provided for the angling exhibit at the World's Fair. 

 The plan heretofore adopted has been to make the angling 

 display a part of the fisheries division. 



We are told that the Vermont proposition to license 

 netting in Missis quoi Bay is of the nature of a retaliatory 

 measure against Canadian fishermen. The Vermont bUl 

 has passed both houses. 



