Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, 84 a Year. 10 Ots. a Copy. 1 

 Six Months, $3. ) 



NEW YORK, DECEMBER 8, 1892. 



( VOL. XXXIX.-No. 33. 



I No. 318 Broadway, New York . 



CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



The Amatexir Photoeraphs. 



Snap Sbots. 



A Standing Menace. 



The Sportsman Tourist. 



Marooning in High Altitudes. 



Natural History. 



Gilbert White. 

 Another Mink Tragedy. 

 Pheasants in ConhQeinent. 



Game Bag and Gun. 



Chicago and the West. 

 A Panther on a Ledeje. 

 Notes from the Peninsula 



State. 

 Boston Deer Hunters. 

 The Breechloader and How to 



Use It. 



Sea and River Fishing. 



Potomac Notes. 



Playing Your JBish. 



Angling Not-ps. 



Witb a Fly-Rod. 



Spawning Seasons and Hibits. 



Vermont Fishing Interests. 



Sharks of the Southera Sea. 



The Kennel- 

 Interstate Coursing Meet at 



Merced. 

 Philadelphia F. T. Club's 

 Trials- 



Robius Island Field Trials. 



The Kennel. 



The World's Fair Show. 



Central Pield Trials. 



It Cost $26.66 a Word. 



Flaps From the Beaver's Tail. 



Brunswick Fur Trials. 



The Field Trials at Chatham. 



Coursing English Bares in 



New Jersey. 

 Canadian Kennel Club Affairs 

 Auotlier Distemper Cure. 

 A Good Coursing Country. 

 Points and Flushes. 

 Dog Chat. 



Answers to Correspondents. 

 Yachting. 



The Royal Yacht Squadron 



Chal lenge. 

 The Y. R. A. Measurement 



Conference. 

 Yaclit Measurement in France 

 News Notes. 



Alloys Used in Yacht Building 

 Canoeing. 

 The Cruise of the Elsa. 

 News Notes. 



Rifle Range and Gallery. 



The Revolver Championship. 

 Trap Shooting. 

 About Handicapping. 

 Chicago Traps. 

 Drivers and Twisters. 



Answers to Queries. 



For Prospectus and Advertising Rates see Page v. 



THE AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHS. 

 This is the last mouth for receiving work submitted in 

 the FOBEST AND STREAM Amateur Photography Competi- 

 tion . All photographs must'be mailed to us not later than 

 Dec. 31. Nothing bearing a later post mark will be re- 

 ceived. 



Full details respecting the terms of the competition are 

 given in another column (page 491), and these instructions 

 in circular form will be sent on request to any address. 



The collection of views already received is most inter- 

 esting; and we shall give the readers of this journal the 

 privilege of seeing many of the views reproduced in its 

 columns. 



SNAP SHOTS. 

 November shad have been>eported in the Hudson this 

 year. Although only a pair were taken, the capture is 

 unusual. We published, Jan. 8, 1891, an account of shad 

 lingering in Maine as late as October, and making holes 

 in soft mud and sand in flats which are uncovered at 

 low water. Another curious circumstance was re- 

 cently discovered by Mr. L. G, Harron in the U. S. Fish 

 Commission water tank at the Bryan's Point .hatchery on 

 the Potomac. A shad about 3in. long was caught when 

 the tank was emptied to prevent freezing. It was in 

 company with a young alewife, a white perch and a 

 gudgeon, or^so-called smelt. A number of fish of several 

 kinds were observed swimming about when the water 

 had been drawn low, but most of them escaped. These 

 fish have lived through the summer and fall in a tank 

 without change of water, subjected to temperatures vary- 

 ing from nearly 90° to almost freezing point; yet the 

 shad brought home by Mr. Harron is as large as its 

 brethren which passed the summer in the Potomac. 

 Truly there is something to be unlearned even about shad. 



"Bon Ami" gives elsewhere an account of some large 

 "salmon" (pike-perch or wall-eyed pike) in the ;Upper 

 Susquehanna. We expected to hear of these big fish for 

 the species grows enormously large in waters [north of 

 Pennsylvania. There are a good many expert anglers in 

 Harrisburg and points further down the river who will 

 scarcely agree with "Bon Ami" in his estimate of the 

 game qualities of the "salmon," which is a great favorite 

 and, fortunately, increasing in numbers. 



Now that the prolonged negotiations between the New 

 York Yacht Club, party of the first part, and Lord Dun- 

 raven and the Royal Yacht Squadron, party of the sec- 

 ond part, have brought the two parties to a point where 

 a match seems possible, it would be a relief to all yachts- 

 men to know that contention and argument were finally 

 to give way to real sailing, Under the present condi- 

 tions, however, it is too much to expect that this most 

 desirable consummation will follow, as it is most evident 

 that the challenger is repeating the identical mistake 

 made three years since, in sending a challenge under the 

 impression that it was not under the terms of the new 



deed. His retreat on that occasion was by no means a 

 graceful maneuver, but it was a far easier task than that 

 which lies before the Royal Yacht Squadron if it ever 

 learns sufficient about Cup matters to understand the 

 position which it has just assumed, and to wish to with- 

 draw again, as in 1889. 



We would be glad to receive for publication notes of 

 meetings and of work imdertaken and accomplished by 

 game and fish protective associations in the United States 

 and Canada. Reports of methods which have proved 

 successful would be of special interest and value for the 

 information of others who might adopt them. 



The "pheasant" of the new Vermont law, several cor- 

 respondents tell us, is the English pheasant. An impor- 

 tation of these birds was put out on the farm of W. S. 

 Webb, of Shelburne, and the overflow has stocked the 

 covers of the vicinity. Secretary John W. Titcomb, of 

 the Vermont Fish and Game League, sends us a copy of 

 a special act adopted by the last Legislature protecting 

 pheasants and EnglisTi partridge for two years from Jan. 

 1, 1893. We shall watch with much interest the un'der- 

 taking to provide new game for Vermont. 



The present organization of the New York State Asso- 

 ciation for the Protection of Fish and Game makes a 

 wise provision for individual membership, that persons 

 who are not connected with any club, but who are inter- 

 ested in the purposes of the Association, may give it 

 their adherence and support. The membership fee is 

 merely nominal. Doubtless many individual sportsmen 

 will welcome such an opportunity to declare themselves 

 on the side of protection. The secretary is Mr. .J bhn B. 

 Sage, of Bufl'alo, who will on request send copies of the 

 constitution and application blanks. 



Bills are now before Congress which provide for the 

 segregation of a part of the Yellowstone National Park 

 and the granting a right of way to a railroad through it, 

 and to-day we print a plea for the preservation of the 

 Park and against these two propositions. This article 

 will be issued in pamphlet form, and we shall be glad to 

 supply copies of it in quahtities to those sufficiently inter- 

 ested in the Yellowstone Park to be willing to distribute 

 them among their friends who are not readers of Forest 

 AND Stream. We ask the cooperation of every one of 

 our readers. The pamphlet will be furnished without 

 charge. 



The Forest and Stream's office rattlesnake— of which 

 the entire force was so proud — which might have shed 

 light on many a vexed and venomous question of ophid- 

 ian lore — for which our fond fancy had pictured a career 

 of usefulness, scientific achievement, distinction, honor 

 and renown rarely won by a reptile of his inches— and 

 whose rattle sounding in our ears might have prompted 

 many a day dream of mountain heights and reverie of 

 mossy ravine — our rattler is no more. When poked at 

 with a pencil last Friday he failed to respond; his skin is 

 now tacked on a board to dry. The Forest and Stream 

 is not so proud as it was last week. Science is tempor- 

 arily retarded. Winter has set in, and the office snake 

 den must go untenanted. 



Field trials, coursing meets and bench shows have 

 multiplied of recent years beyond the most sanguine 

 expectations of those who took part in the affairs of 

 ten years ago. The growing number and importance of 

 kennel events have come to demand at this particular 

 season an amotmt of space in our pages, to supply which 

 compels us to restrict the several other subjects. The 

 due balance will shortly be restored, however, and an 

 increased number of pages will be devoted to the shooting 

 and angling departments. 



With the enlarged opportunities afforded by the in- 

 creased number of pages, dating from last January, we 

 have given a more generous supply than ever before — 

 and than has ever been given by any journal — of good 

 reading in all of the special fields to which this journal is 

 devoted. For 1893 the columns will be no less bounti- 

 fully supplied. The Forest and Stream will maintain 

 its well-established reputation as an entertaining, instruc- 

 tive, outspoken, independent, progressive and clean 

 journal for sportsmen. With the initial number of the 

 year an entire new outfit will add to the typographical 

 beauty of these pages, but no radical changes will be 

 made in the features which have become so familiar. 



A STA.NDING MENACE. 



COOKE CITY vs. THE NATIONAL PARK. 



Statement of the Case. 



Cooke City is a small mining camp located just without 

 the northeast coi'ner of the National Park. Its promoters 

 claim that it is the center of a region of vast, though un- 

 developed, mineral wealth; that it is kept in a backward' 

 state solely on account of its inaccessibility, and that this 

 inaccessibility is due to the existence of the National 

 Park, which includes the only practicable railroad ap- 

 proach. They claim that Cooke City is in the same case 

 with a land owner whose property is entirely hemmed in 

 by another man's possessions; and that as the land owner 

 has in law an easement over his neighbor's land to enable 

 him to get out and in, so Cooke City has an indefeasible 

 right to be allowed to use the only practicable outlet 

 which nature has given her. They claim that the refusal 

 of the Government to concede this right is working ruin 

 to the interests of Cooke City and in j ury to hundreds of 

 investors. 



The United States bases its action in rejecting the de- 

 mands of Cooke City upon the purposes for which the 

 Park was created. The Government holds that the grant- 

 ing of these [demands and the fulfillment of these pur- 

 poses are incompatible objects; that railroads must not 

 be permitted to enter the Park,iand that whatever, not 

 absolutely necessary for the comfort of travelers, tends to 

 disturb the natural state in which the Park was discov- 

 ered, must be strictly excluded. 



The map discloses the geographical features of the 

 question. The proposed route enters the Park where the 

 Yellowstone River crosses^its northern boundary; ascends 

 the river to the mouth of the East Fork (or Lamar River); 

 ascends the latter to the mouth of Soda Batte Creek: and 

 ascends the Soda Butte valley to Cooke City. The right 

 to use this route is sought by two distinct measures, all 

 bills for the relief of Cooke City falling under one head 

 or the other. One measure seeks to secure a simple right 

 of way to build a railroad, and is represented by House 

 Bill 4 545. The other measure, in order to evade the 

 technical objection of having a railroad within the Park, 

 purposes to cut off and restore to the public domain all 

 that portion of the Park including and lying outside the 

 proposed right of way. This is the so-called segregation 

 project, and is represented by House Bill 2,373, establish- 

 ing the bouudaries of the Park. 



The case of Cooke City is clearly that of a few indi- 

 viduals against the general public, and the burden of 

 proof rests upon her to show that her case is one of such 

 extremity as to justify the sacrifice of the interests of the 

 many to those of the few. An examination of the ques- 

 tion point by point will show how far she has succeeded. 



I.— Wealth of the Cooke City Mines. 



It is not intended to go out of the way to say anything 

 to the prejudice of Cooke City property. But when the 

 public is asked to make a great sacrifice for the promo- 

 tion of private interests, it is both its right and duty to 

 inquire if those interests are of such magnitude as to 

 justify the sacrifice. In this connection there are a few 

 highly significant facts. 



(1) It is generally conceded, even by those most inter- 

 ested, that the ores of the Cooke City mines are of very 

 low grade. It matters not that a few tons of picked ores 

 have been shipped to a distance and there reduced, yield' 

 ing a margin above all expenses. It is an undeniable 

 fact that the vast bulk of the ore is not of this quality. 



(2) The Northern Pacific, the only railroad system any- 

 where near Cooke City, has steadily refused to build 

 there, basing its refusal on purely business grounds. 

 Thomas F. Oakes, President of the Northern Pacific, said 

 in his evidence before the House Committee on the Park 

 investigation last winter, "There is nothing in the Cooke 

 City mines, and we did not want a railroad there." 



Question by the Committee: "Your conclusion was 

 arrived at after investigation?" 



Answer: "Y'^es, sir. We had a report upon it by ex- 

 perts. There is a very large quantity of exceedingly low 

 grade ore. The maximum value would not exceed twenty 

 dollars to the ton, and most of it would not be over six 

 dollars to the ton. If there had been one-tenth of the 



