[Forest and Stream 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. ( 

 Six Months, $8. ( 



NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 2, 1893. 



J VOL. XL;— No. 5. 



j No. 318 Broadway, New York. 



CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



The White Goat. 

 The Big River. 

 Snap Snots. 



The Sportsman Tourist. 



Hunting in Greenland. — II. 



A. Tramp Thi'ough the Mountains 



Two Bachelors' Vacation. 



Natural History. 



A Remarkable Deer. 

 The New Mexico Collection. 

 A Toad's Supper. 

 On thePampasof EntreRios.-IV 

 I Some Woods Notes and Queries, 



Came Bag and Gun. 



Boston and Maine. 

 Eider Shooting on the Maine 

 Coast. 



Some New Brunswick Ti-aps.— V 

 Our Bluenose Budget. 

 A Reminiscence of "Nessmuk." 

 An Amateur Breaking In, 

 The Use of Accidents. 

 Albany Game and Fish Bills. 

 The Last Woodcock of 1892. 

 Pennsylvania Seasons. 

 Chicago and the West. 

 Game and Fish Pi-otection Notes. 



Sea and River Fishing-. 



On the North Shore.— IV. 

 Weights and Sizes of Fish. 

 "Just One More." 

 The Schoharie Creek Salmon. 

 Indian Ocean Shark Shooting. 

 Boston and Maine. 



Fishoulture. 



The Mississqiioi Bay Nets. 

 Curiosities of Trout Spawning, 

 Massachusetts Trout Spawning. 

 United States and Canada. 



The Kennel. 



Pacific Coast ]<'ield Trials. 



Boston Terriers. 



Classification of Pointers by 



Weight. 

 Mr. Mulcaster's Ride. 

 St. Bernard Club Specials. 

 Flaps from the Beaver's Tail. 

 Points and Flushes. 

 Dog Chat. 

 Kennel Notes.. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



Yachting. 



Speed Records of American 



Yachts.-n. 

 The Bouncer Type. 

 A Cheap Ice Yacht. 

 To Florida in a Cape Cat. 

 Yachts at Chicago. 

 News Notes. 



Canoeing. 



News Notes. 

 Rifle Range and Gallery. 



Port Chester Riflemen. 



Trap Shooting. 



That Powder Test Challeufje. 

 Hints on Handling Live Bu-ds. 

 Drivers and Twisters. 



Answers to Queries. 



JF'or Prospectus and Advertising Rates see Page V. 



ANIMAL PORTRAIT SUPPLEMENTS, 



We print to-day the second of a series of five Ameri- 

 can animal portraits by Mr. Ernest E. Tliompson. These 

 are given as full page supplements, with the first issues 

 'Of the months as foUoAvs: 



Jan. 5.— The Wolf. 



Feb. 2.— The White Goat. 



March 2. — The Coyote. 



April 6. — The Antelope. 



May 4.— The Fox. 



The dates of the former series (of which coijies can be 

 supphed) are as foUows: Sept. 8, 1892— The Panther. Oct. 

 6— The Ocelot. Nov. 3— The Canada Lynx. Dec. 1— 

 The Bay Lynx. 



FEATHERS AND SNOWSTORMS. 



It is generally believed that the present winter has been 

 unusually severe on game birds, the most destructive that 

 has been known for a long time. Intense cold, varied 

 by frequent and heavy snowstorms, has made the obtain- 

 ing of food very difficult for Bob White, the hardy little 

 fellow who, to the average gimner, stands for a type of 

 our feathered game. From many quarters we hear ac- 

 ciyimts of birds frozen and starved, covered by deep snows 

 w hich afterward crusted so as to imprison the birds be- 

 yond hope of relief, and to confirm such accounts we 

 have had sent to us from Long Island two or three im- 

 purted quail wdiich really had starved to death. 



There can be little doubt that so far the winter has been 

 a very hard one, and yet perhaps its dangers to the game 

 lia ve been exaggerated. While the cold has been bitter, 

 and the snows deep, and food hard to find, there have 

 Ijet-n none of those much more dangerous storms, which, 

 l-H'^iuning with a heavy snow, turn into a cold rain and 

 fiiim an impenetrable crust over the whole comatry. 

 Ftiud was abundant last autitmn, and the birds entered 

 thft winter in splendid condition. On the stubbles the 

 en ip of ragweed was luxuriant and its stems high; down 

 ill the sNN'amps the spathes of the skunk cabbage bore 

 lieavy clusters of the fleshy berries, and the swelling buds 

 (jf witch hazel and birch still oft'er abundant food. 



While there has been suffering and some death among 

 t l]t^ quail, we do not beheve that as yet it has been serious, 

 iiureover the birds nowadays receive much more care 

 iiuDi man than formerly. Wherever tliere is much shoot- 

 ing, some careful gunner is hkely to sow buckwheat in a 

 narrow strip along the hedgerows, and this, left standing, 

 iiunishes a food supply which will support a bevy of quail 

 tlirough almost the whole winter. 



Wliatever the loss among game buxls, it is the quail that 

 liave suffered most, as they always do. Who ever heard 

 of a ruffed grouse starved to death? He is better able to 

 take care of him.self , both as to food supply and danger 

 truiu crusted snows. He does not always roost on the 

 grriund as do the quail, and often, in damp or snowy 

 \\ father, while making your way homeward through the 

 w ijuds at evenmg, you may start him from among the 

 bl anches of a low cedai', and if there is light enough and 

 you are curious, you can take his back trail and see wliere 



he has been feeding here and there until the darkness be- 

 gan to fall and lie determined that a perch on a limb 

 would suit him better for that night than his more usual 

 resting-j)lace on tlie ground. The grouse, too, takes more 

 readily to the branches for food than does the quail, and 

 keeps liimself ahve and fat on the buds of the apple, 

 alder, birch and willow, when his lesser brother is still 

 striving to pick up a hard living on the gi-ound. 



The waterfowl have had a hai-d time this year. Many 

 of those slowly force<l south by the freezing of streams 

 and bays have sought the coasts of Georgia and Florida, 

 but the black ducks are loth to go, and will stay on, half 

 starved and constantly shot at, so long as any open water 

 remains. We remember one season of intense cold when 

 hundi-eds of black ducks congregated in a little warm 

 spring hole, and how, on shooting two or three, they were 

 found to be mere skeletons incased in feathei's. 



It is worth the while of every man who shoots to make 

 a special effort at this season to see that the birds are sup- 

 plied with food. A little time given to this work by the 

 tnen who live near shooting grormds, a letter or two and 

 a few dollars sent to farmers and shooting companions by 

 men who five ia the city, may yield next autumn an 

 abimdant return of pleasure. The example of Mr. Polk 

 Miller, president of the Virginia Field Sports Association, 

 is well worth following. 



THE ''NESSMUK" MEMORIAL. 



The friends and admirers of "Nessmitk" who knew him 

 through his writings in Forest and Stream, have imder- 

 taken to provide a mommient for his grave, Avhich is now 

 unmarked, in the 'tillage cemetery of Wellsboro, Pa. De- 

 tails of the plan were given in our last issue. AH persons 

 who may feel disposed to Join in the movement and in 

 this way to testify to their regard for "Nessmuk's" mem- 

 ory, are cordially invited to subscribe to the fund. The 

 minimum amount to be provided is |200, of which, as re- 

 ported last week, $131 was then in hand. 



Subscriptions received since last Thursday liave come 

 from 



Yankee Friend, Lowell, Mass. 



Mr. Rollin J. Treat, Lima, Ohio. 



Mr. William Pollard, Lawrence, Mass. 



The total of the subscriptions to date is $145. 



"Piseco" sends us, printed in another column, a charm- 

 ing note of his first meeting with "Nessmuk" m the 

 Adu'ondacks. Next week we shall prmt some appreci- 

 ative comments on the memorial plan by others, and 

 with them will be given a portrait of "Nessmuk." 



THE WHITE GOAT. 



The Alpine antelope, which we know as the white goat, 

 has been often described in FOREST and Stream, and in 

 fact more has been put on record ^vith regard to its char- 

 acteristics and its ways of life in these columns than in all 

 the other books and papers that have ever been printed. 

 As is weU known, to those who have studied it, the 

 animal is an antelope, allied to the chamois of Eurojie, 

 and closely related to one or two species of rock-inhabit- 

 ing antelopes found in Asia. The only reason for caUing 

 it a goat seems to be that it lives among the rocks and has 

 a beard, but it differs widely from the goat in its physical 

 characteristics. Such erroneous names are constantly 

 giA^en in popular nomenclature, and the differences 

 between the white goat and the domestic one are not 

 greater than those which exist between the American- and 

 European robins or hedge hogs, or elks, or many other 

 animals which bear like names in the two continents. 



To one unacquainted with its habits the white color of 

 the goat might seem to be a very serious disad s'antage to 

 it in exposing the animal to the attacks of its enemies. 

 Nothing is more conspicuous tlian a patch of white against 

 a summer landscape. In traveling over the prairies a 

 bleached buffalo skull upon a distant hill will attract the 

 ej^e long before a similar object of any other color. On 

 the other hand, we know that animals which live in Arc- 

 tic or snow-clad regions are protected by their color, 

 which renders them invisible at a little distance. The 

 ptarmigan, the snowy owl, some hares, a fox and the 

 polar bear are examxjles of this, and in our own chmate 

 some weasels and some hares turn white in winter. The 

 goat's color is protective, and it is not easily discovered on 

 snow-clad mountains or where the snow lies through most 

 of the year in patches and drifts. 



Several years ago a map was published in Forest and 

 Stream giving the approximate range of this species and 



showing that it occm-red abimdantly all through the 

 mountains of the West as far south as Mohtanaj Idaho 

 and Oregon. South of these States it is not abundant, bilt 

 it occurs in a few isolated localities such as Mts. Whitney 

 and Kearsage, a peak or two in Colorado, and perhaps one 

 or two ijlaces in Wyoming. 



S(",ories are often heard of two species of goats found in 

 the mountains of the Northwest, but beyond the vagtte 

 account of hunters Ave know of no evidence to show that 

 there are two kinds. It must liowever be admitted that 

 among individual goats there is qiute a difference in ap- 

 pearance. Usually they are quite small, not much largei' 

 than one of the largest of the domestic sheep, but every 

 now and then monsters are killed Avhich wovild weigh two 

 or three times as much as those of the ordinary size. The 

 goats of the main chain of the Rockies are very much 

 more shaggy and heavily coated than those of the Coast 

 Range, where the temperature in winter is so much milder 



As is Avell knoAvn, the goat usually lives very high up 

 among rocks, above timber line in summer, but in wintel', 

 especially on the Avest coast, it works doAvn nearer to the 

 sea level. In the main chain of the Rocky Mountains, 

 however, they seem to live about as high at one season as 

 at another. 



The goat is an animal of great strength, but of rather 

 slow movements. It seldom runs, unless very badly 

 frightened, and very seldom lifts its head with any ap- 

 pearance of alertness such as is common with deer, ante- 

 lope and mountain sheep. Usually the head is carried low 

 — beloAv the level of the back, Avhich seems higher than it 

 really is on account of the long dorsal spines and the 

 heavy roach, or mane, along the middle of the back. An 

 examination of the bony frame Avork of Mazama shows 

 that the bones of the legs are short and extremely stout; 

 that the dorsal spines of the dorsal vertebra are unusually 

 long, and that the animal is formed for strength and long 

 continued exertion, rather than for great bursts of speed. 

 So it is that the goat seldom attempts to escape by rim- 

 ning, but when alarmed almost ahvays points its nose 

 toward the top of the mountain and climbs out of danger. 



Readers who are interested in this animal can find a 

 great deal of interesting information about it in past issues 

 of the Forest and Stream, especially in the volumes for 

 1888, 1889 and 1890. 



SNAP SHOTS. 



A note in "Dog Chat" tells us that a stag, a cart, a 

 huntsman and a ijack of hounds have been imported from 

 "the other side," and they are to have carted stag hunting 

 at a New Jersey summer resort. This is one of those 

 ridiculous institutions of Great Britain which Americans 

 have always contemplated Avith derision, and haA^e re- 

 garded as being peculiarly foreign and un-American. 

 Now that the carted stag is to be installed — or stabled — in 

 the United States, the derision AviU break into a guffaAv, 

 if indeed the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to 

 Animals shall not interfere, as it did once with sundry 

 caged fox hvmting exploits at Newport. 



Our Fishculture columns record the provision of an in* 

 ternational fisheries commission appointed by the United 

 States and Canada, to investigate the fisheries in waters 

 common to the two coimtries, and to agTce upon recom- 

 mendations for legislation to control the fisheries. The 

 representative of this country is Mr. Richard Rathbone, As- 

 sistant Commissioner of Fisheries, in charge of the Division 

 of Scientific Inquiry; Avhile Canada wHl be represented by 

 Mr. WiUiam Wakemau, It is the pm-pose of the commis- 

 sion to make a tliorough and exhaustive investigation, 

 particularly of the fisheries of the Great Lakes. The work 

 wiU j)robably extend over two years. Upon their reports 

 Avill be based agreements between the two countries as 

 to Avhat legislation should be adopted, and this Avill then 

 form the subject of ti-eaties. This is a most important 

 movement, and one which, if it shall be wisely and suc- 

 cessfully carried out, cannot fail of sectu-ing immeasur- 

 able benefit to both counti-ies. Aside from the apathetic 

 attitude of the States and Provinces and their incompe- 

 tent and inadequate treatment of the fishery jjreservation 

 of the Great Lakes, international complications, jealous- 

 ies and contrary pulling and hauling have been effectively 

 working for the deterioration and ruin of the fisheries. 

 The tAvo countries should have come together decades ago 

 to do this very thing they are noAV setting about; it will 

 require decades in the future to restore the fisheries to the 

 condition they should have been in to-day. 



