Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, ! 



4 A Year, 10 Ots. A Copy. 1 

 Six Months, $2. ( 



NEW YORK, DECEMBER 22, 1892. 



( VOL. XXXIX.-No. 25. 

 (No. 318 Broadway, New York. 



CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Fatniliar Acquaintances. 

 Snap Sliots. 



The Sportsman Tourist. 



Meigg^'s Cabin. 



On tbe Pampas of Entre Rios. 



Chat from tlie Florida Coast. 



Natural History. 



Vermf^nt Deer and ShaTk, 

 Anotlier Pantlier Experience. 



Game Bag and Gun. 



Adirondacli Deer Hunt ing. 

 DucIj Sliooting from a House- 

 bnat. 



Is this Case Correctly Stated? 

 "A Standing Menace." 

 Those Vermont Qaail. 

 Colorido Game Interests. 

 Chicago and the West. 



Sea and River Fishing. 



Game Qualities of the Pilie- 

 Perch. 



Crystal Lake Fishing Club. 



By Sea and River. 



With a Fly-Rod. 



The Maine Black Bass Law. 



Fishculture. 



Californin. Fishculture and 



Protection. 

 Caledonia Hatchery. 



The Kennel. 



Central Fie'd Trials. 

 Southern Field Trial Club's 



Entries. 

 Manitoba Field Trials Club. 

 Natural Fond. 

 Mastiffs at Brooklyn. 

 Points and Flushes. 

 Dog Chat. 



Answers to Correspondents. 



Yachting. 



The Registration of Yachts 

 and Mercantile Flags. 



A Good Word for the Fin Keel 



Florida Yachting. 

 ^ Moiel Competition and Exhi- 

 bition. 



New Yachts. 



Lake Y. R. A. 



Canoeing. 



Psyche. „. , 



A Chat About Scotch Fishing 

 Boats. 



Do You Sail a Canoe? 



New \ork C. C. 

 Rifle Range and Gallery. 



Geo. E. Jantzer. 

 Trap Shooting. 



Harry Smith Wins the Purse. 



Fulford— Elliott. 



Drivers and Twisters. 



Answers to Queries. 



For Prospectus and Advertising Rates see Page v. 



If you have a friend, good and true, whom you 

 would like to remind of /tis friend, fifty-two times 

 in the year — once every week — why not ask us to see 

 that a Forest and Stream wrapper has his name 

 on it, with your initials in the corner of the address 

 label ? 



THE AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHS. 

 This is the last month for receiving work submitted in 

 the Forest and Stream Amateur Photography Competi- 

 tion. All photographs must be mailed to U3 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 533), 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. 



FAMILIAR ACQUAINTANCES. 



THE VARYING HARE. 



It is wonderful that with such a host of enemies to 

 maintain himself against, the varying hare may still be 

 counted as one of our familiar acquaintances. Except in 

 the depths of the great wildernesses, he has no longer to 

 fear the wolf, the wolverine, the panther and the lesser 

 Felidos, but where the younger woodlands have become 

 his congenial home, they are also the home of a multi- 

 tude of relentless enemies. The great hawk, whose keen 

 eyes pierce the leafy roof of the woods, wheels above him 

 as he crouches in his form. When he goes abroad under 

 the moon and stars, the terrible shadow of the horned 

 owl falls upon his path, and the fox lurks beside it to way- 

 lay him, and the clumsy raccoon, waddling home from a 

 . cornfield revel, may blunder upon the timid wayfarer. 



But of all his enemies none is more inveterate than 

 man, though he is not, as are the others, impelled by 

 necessity, but only by that savagery, the survival of bar- 

 barism, which we dignify by the name of the sporting 

 instinct. 



Against them all how slight seeqa the defenses of such 

 a weak and timid creature. Yet impartial nature, hav- 

 ing compassed him about with foes, has shod his feet with 

 swiftness and silence, and clad his body with an almost 

 invisible garment. The vagrant zephyrs touch the fallen 

 leaves more noisily than his soft pads press them. The 

 first snow that whitens the fading gorgeousness of the 

 forest carpet, falls scarcely more silently. 



Among the tender greens of early summer and the 

 darker verdure of mid-summer, the hare's brown form is 

 inconspicuous as a tuft of last year's leaves, and set in 

 the brilliancy of autumnal tints, or the russet hue of 

 their decay, it still eludes the eye. Then winter clothes 



him in her own whiteness so that he may sit unseen upon 

 her lap. 



When he has donned his winter suit too early and his 

 white coat is dangerously conspicuous on the brown leaves 

 and among the misty gray of naked undergrowth, he 

 permits your near approach as confidently as if he were 

 of a color with his surroundings. Is he not aware that 

 his spotless raiment betrays him or does he trust that 

 he may be mistaken for a white stone or a sci-oll of bark 

 sloughed from a white birch? That would hardly save 

 him from tbe keener sensed birds and beasts of prey, but 

 may fool your dull eyes. 



In your summer wanderings in the woods you rarely 

 catch sight of him though you come upon many faintly 

 traced paths where he and his wife and their brown, 

 babies make their nightly way among the ferns. 



Nor are you often favored with a sight of him in your 

 more frequent autumnal tramps unless when he is fleeing 

 before the hounds whose voices guide you to a point of 

 observation. He has now no eyes for you nor ears for 

 anything but the terrible clamor that pursues him wher- 

 ever he turns, however he doubles. If a shot brings him 

 down and does not kill him, you will hear a cry so piteous 

 that it will spoil your pleasant dreams of sport for many 

 a night. 



After a snowfall a single hare will in one night make 

 such a multitude of tracks as will persuade you that a 

 dozen have been abroad. Perhaps the trail is so in- 

 tricately tangled with a purpose of misleading pursuit, 

 perhaps it is but the record of saunterings as idle as your 

 own. 



As thus you wander through the pearl-enameled arches, 

 your roving glances are arrested by a rounded form that, 

 though as white and motionless as everything around it, 

 seems in some way not so lifeless. You note that the 

 broad footprints end there, and then become aware of 

 two wide, bright eyes, unblinkingly regarding you from 

 the fluffy tuft of whiteness. How perfectly assured he 

 is of his invisibility, and if he had but closed his bright 

 eyes y ou might not guess that he was anything but a 

 snow-covered clump of moss. How still and breathless 

 he sits till you almost touch him and then the white 

 clod suddenly flashes into life and impetuous motion, 

 bounding away in a halo of feathery flakes as if he him- 

 self were dissolving into white vapor. 



Happy he, if he might so elude all foes, but alas for 

 him, if the swift-winged owl had been as close above 

 him or the agile fox within leap. Then instead of this 

 glimpse of beautiful wild life to treasure in your memory, 

 you would only have read the story of a brief tragedy, 

 briefly written, with a smirch of blood and a tuft of 

 rumpled fur. 



A NEW SERIES OF ANIMAL PORTRAITS. 



There have been published four supplements of draw- 

 ings of American wild animal life by Mr. Ernest E. 

 Thompson, as follows : Sept. 18— The Panther ; Oct. 6— 

 The Ocelot ; Nov. 8— The Canada Lynx ; Dec. 1— The 

 Bay Lynx. They have been received with so much 

 favor that we have provided a new series for 1893, The 

 drawing of the new illustrations will be much more 

 elaborate and even more effective than the first set ; and 

 the portraits will admirably sustain the reputation 

 of Mr. Thompson's work as spirited and faithful delinea- 

 tions of our wild animals in their haunts. The new pic- 

 ture supplements will be : Jan. 5— The Wolf ; Feb. 2— 

 The White Goat ; March 2— The Coyote ; April 6— The 

 Antelope ; May 4 — The Fox. 



SNAP SHOTS. 



Among the vagaries floated in anticipation of the 

 World's Fair is the ancient scheme of a National Sports- 

 men's Association, this one to meet and organize in 

 Chicago some time next year. The circular letter re- 

 ceived at this office announcing the project sets forth: 



Prominent among the benefits to be derived by organizing a 

 National Sportsmen's Association are the following; the better 

 protection of fish and game during the breeding season, greater 

 uniformity ia the game laws, the preservation of our now rapidly 

 disappearing forests, and establishing in each State as far as pos- 

 sible a public park, where the destruction of trees and the killing 

 of fish and game would be strictly prohibited, thus furnishing 

 natural game preserves from which there will te a constant over- 

 flow, as from a fountain in the wilderness. 



This catalogue of "benefits" is certainly enticing, and 

 if all of them, or if any one of them, could be attained 

 by a Chioage convention, by all means the convention 

 should be held, But the cold fact is that no one of the 



interests named would be advanced a whit by such an as- 

 sociation. So far as any practical game or fish or forest 

 protection goes, the National Sportsmen's Association 

 scheme is a delusion. It has been tried, and has failed, 

 as in the very nature of things it must fail if tried again. 

 The time may come when something practical ought to 

 be accomplished by a national organization, but that time 

 will not be in the year 1893. 



"A Native" of Wisconsin, who writes of two classes of 

 game killers, puts a pertinent question; btit his case 

 would be more effective if it were not so manifestly a 

 bit of special pleading. In America, that many-sided 

 being, full of contrarities, known as the "true sports- 

 man," does not sell his game in the market; although we 

 believe that some of the Southern Atlantic coast shooting 

 clubs do send their ducks and geese to Baltimore game 

 dealers. On the other hand, a "true sportsman" does not 

 waste his game, as "A Native" intimates was done in the 

 instance cited by him. Nor is the average individual 

 styled "game hog," one who sells game to eke out the 

 expenses of an outing. It is readily conceivable that a 

 case might be made out — as this Wisconsin one— where 

 the so-called market-hunter stands on a loftier plane than 

 does the shooter dubbed a sportsman. 



In Great Britain a different code obtains. There it is 

 quite the correct thing to slaughter game by wholesale and 

 send it to market. The cable reported last week that in 

 a three days' battue at Witley Court the Prince of Wales 

 and eight others killed 4,000 birds, and we may assume 

 that, after the British custom, the Witley birds went to 

 London game stalls, 



British sentiment is opposed to American sentiment in 

 this, and each may be explained as reasonable enough for 

 the country where it is held. In Great Britain game is 

 "preserved," i. e., reared, in such supply that there is no 

 necessity of restraint of destruction for reasons of econ- ■ 

 omy. The shooters, who slaughtered their 4,000 birds, 

 killed in effect so many domestic fowl, reared expressly 

 to provide a battue, and the killing of which in nowise 

 diminished the game supply, nor restricted the sport of 

 any one else. The stock being artificially maintained — 

 and maintained for a privileged class — no consideration 

 of a diminished suj)ply comes in to restrict killing. Un- 

 restricted killing involves a larger bag than those engaged 

 in the shooting can take care of, and the surplus is sent 

 to market. In short, the marketing of reared game in 

 Great Britain does not mean game diminution or exter- 

 mination; and is not, on that score, to be reprobated. 



In America, on the contrary, different conditions ob- 

 tain ; and these have bred the perfectly sound and reason- 

 able prejudice which here prevails against killing game 

 for market. Shooting is free to all classes. The game 

 supply is limited. There is barely enough for the tem- 

 perate and reasonable supply of those who pursue shoot- 

 ing for recreation, and who can themselves utilize what 

 they secure without sending any surplus to market. 

 There is not enough game to go around, among sports- 

 men, for sportsmen; and under these conditions it is 

 quite reasonably argued, from the sportsman standpoint, 

 that the individual should be content with supplying his 

 own personal needs; and should not go beyond this, to 

 supply the markets, and thus to deprive some other 

 sportsman. This, we take it, is the ground of the pre- 

 judice against marketing game in America. It is a per- 

 fectly reasonable sentiment, and is rendered none the less 

 so because certain sportsmen act the part of Greedy, and 

 slaughter game in excessive quantities, to be left to rot. 



The supervisors of Onondaga county have just appro- 

 priated $500 to be expended under direction of the Dis- 

 trict Attorney, for the enforcement of the fish protection, 

 laws and the stocking of public waters. This action is in 

 recognitiou of the grand work done by the Onondaga 

 Anglers' Association, whose members have spent thous- 

 ands of dollars in public-spirited and highly successful 

 fish protective efforts. 



The Mexican Government has just made a fifteen-years 

 concession to a Gen. Mario Martinez of exclusive fishing 

 and hunting privilege for a coast line of from 250 to 300 

 miles. The dispatches say that the grant includes all 

 kinds of shellfish, pearls, alligators and sea-birds. Which 

 means perhaps that the millinery feather (jusiness is to 

 boom. 



