Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



NEW YORK, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1893. 



Terms, $4 a Tear. 10 Cts. a Copy. I 

 Six Months, $2. j 



J VOL. XLI.— No. 13. 



) No. 318 Broadwa'Y, New York. 



CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Fame and Song Bird. 



Forest Destruction in the 



Bockies. 

 Snap Shots. 



The Sportsman Tourist. 



The White Goat and his Country. 

 Natural History. 



A Summer's Day in Iowa. 

 Eagles and Other Things. 



Game Bag and Gun. 



In Massachusetts and Maine. 



A Not Very National Convention. 



Spring Reed Birds. 



It Was Long Ago. 



A Retriever on Two Legs. 



A Report from Maine. 



Two Blacktail Bucks. 



A 'Long Shore Accident. 



A Ranchman's View. 



Sea and River Fishing. 



Angling Notes. 



Chicago Fly-Casting Tourna- 

 ment 



Maine Angling Notes. 

 The Steel- Head Salmon. 

 Fishing Postals. 



Fishculture. 



Pennsylvania Fishculture. 

 The Kennel. 

 Manitoba Field Trials. 

 Canadian Fox- Terrier Club Meet- 

 ing. 



Rhode Island Dog Show. 



The Kennel. 



Mount Holly Dog Show. 

 U. S. Field Trials Club's Derby. 

 Points and Flushes. 

 Answers to Correspondents. 



Hunting and Coursing. 



National Beagle Club Trials. 

 N. E. B. C. Derby Entries. 

 Death of Greentick. 



Yachting. 



Royal Victoria Gold Cup. 

 British Racing and Racing 



Courses. 

 Valkyrie. 



New York Y. R. A. 



Beverly Y. C. Championship. 



News Notes. 



Canoeing. 



Canoeing as an Amateur Sport. 

 The A. C. A. and Racing. 

 Newton B. C. War Canoe. 

 News Notes. 



Rifle Range and Gallery. 



German-American Prize Shoot. 

 Zettler Club Shoot. 

 Rifle Notes. 



Trap Shooting. 



Interstate Association at Wor- 

 cester. 

 A Day at Springfield. 

 Indianola Tournament. 

 Drivers and Twisters. 

 Answers to Queries. 



For Prospectus and Advertising Rates see Page IV. 



FAME AND BIRD SONG. 



In a paper read before the Lianaean Society, of this 

 city, Mr. Tappan Adney gives an interesting list of bird 

 names current among the Melicete Indians, who occupy 

 the valley of the St. Johns River in New Brunswick. 

 Many of the names have reference to some habit or the 

 character or song note of the species to which they are 

 applied, and show that savage and civilized man follow 

 much the same methods in making language. Thus our 

 "whippoo,rwill," which is in mimicry of the bird's note, 

 has its equivalent in tlie Melicete Jiwipolis; and the pied- 

 billed grebe, which baffled shooters have nicknamed 

 "hell-diver," is called by the Melicetes azops, akin to 

 zobeyu, meaning smooth or slippery; for, the Indians say, 

 it is a bird "sartin, very hard to hit." The name nana- 

 miktcus, "rocks-its-rump," answers to the white boy's 

 "teeter" and "tip-up;" and the "hammer-head" wood- 

 pecker becomes in Melicete abakwises, "bird-that-butts- 

 its-head." Catbird in English is catbird in Melicete, 

 though Mr. Adney suggests that the name could not have 

 been given before the white man brought cats to America. 

 Another name which has been adopted since the coming 

 of the whites is that of the wainokteis, "little- white-man," 

 applied to the winter wren. There was once a certain 

 little white boy, who used to whistle like the wren, so 

 that in time, hearing the bird, the Indians used to ex- 

 claim, "The little white man." 



But the most interesting of all the Indian bird names 

 here recorded is that of the hermit thrush, with the in- 

 terpretation of its call, Tanelain — " Where -are -y on- 

 going?" Tanelain, Nikola Deni-Deni— "Where are you 

 going, Nicolas Denys?" 



Who is or was this Nicolas Denys? Only an Indian 

 answers to the name now, an Indian who has inherited 

 it through many generations from an ancestor who ap- 

 propriated it from the original Nicolas Denys of America, 

 a white man, a Frenchman. He came to New France in 

 1632, and in time advanced to the governorship of the entire 

 St. Lawrence territory, over which floated the fleur-de-lis 

 of France. Trading posts were established by him, whither 

 the tribes resorted to barter; and here the Melicetes be- 

 came familiar with that name which ever since their 

 thrush has been calling in the woods, for three centuries 

 and more. It must have been an honored name in New 

 Brunswick in those days when the Indians adopted it for 

 themselves and heard it in their bird songs. Good gov- 

 ernor and slirewd trader that he was, Monsieur could 

 never have dreamed of the immortality his patronymic 

 should achieve thus set to bird music, so that never a her- 

 mit thrush should call to its brooding mate without utter- 

 ing that name anew. Verily, for secm-ity of fame Nicolas 

 Denys were a good name, and rather to be chosen than 

 great riches. 



But what is in a narne, and what is fame itself when 

 only an empty name prated by wild birds in New Bruns- 

 wick forests? For Mr. Adney tells us that the Nicolas 

 Denys known to the Indians is not the Frenchman who 

 was a great man in the Seventeenth Century, but the 

 Melicete of to-day. For all that there is in it of reminder 



of the original bearer, the thrush might as wellcall it in 

 remote solitudes unheard of human ear. 



Equally empty and quite as meaningless is the procla- 

 mation heard in our own fields, when the quail whistles 

 his call and pronounces the name of Bob Wliite. For 

 while the Melicete has forgotten the original Nicolas 

 Denys, his white brother too has ceased to remember that 

 Robert White, whom his friends knew as "Bjb," and 

 whose name was so familar to them that, like the Meli- 

 cetes they recognized it in the cry of a bird. The first to 

 hear the quail call Bob White, told it to a friend, he to 

 another and the third to a fourth, until aU the neighbors 

 knew it, all the quail in the settlement called it, and Mr. 

 Robert White awoke to find himself famous; all the 

 quail of the continent were calling Bob White. More 

 than this, from time immemorial, remote, prehistoric — for 

 generations back of generations — the quail had been piping 

 the name uninterpreted until, Robert White — this one 

 particular individual special baby White, was born and 

 was- baptized Robert and nicknamed Bob. For genera- 

 tions after generations the quail will continue to call it. 

 Robert White's fame is assured. He has a security of 

 the recognition of posterity more enduring than stone 

 or brass. But his fame too, like that of the Canadian 

 Frenchman, will be only the empty and unmeaning repe- 

 tition of a name. Who Bob White was, when and where 

 he lived — this is already forgotten. Of the original 

 Robert White we know as little as we do of that Will, 

 whom one bird calls Poor-Will, for whose chastening 

 another exhorts whip-poor-will, while yet a third unfeel- 

 ingly cries Chuck- Will's- widow. We know as little of the 

 original Bob White, indeed, as of the original Katy, and 

 whether she did or she didn't. 



FOREST DESTRUCTION IN THE ROCKIES. 



In the early days of the settlement of this continent, 

 when the Americans were few in number and the conti- 

 nent stretched away unknown and uninhabited to the 

 illimitable West, it was thought that there was no need 

 that any one should be careful in his use of the natural 

 products of the country. There was land enough and to 

 spare for every one; there was timber enough, the forests 

 were best cut down and burned; there was game enough, 

 let each one kill what he pleased. Perhaps it is the sur- 

 vival of this old idea which leads the average American 

 to view with equanimity the plundering by individuals of 

 the general Government. This is done in a thousand 

 ways, and by many people is considered entirely legiti- 

 mate. In no form is it more common or more far-reach- 

 ing in its evil effects than in stripping the Government 

 timber lands of their trees. This has taken place on a 

 vast scale for many years, and its evil efl:ects have long 

 been seen in the East and in the West. 



In the East our mountain sides, no longer protected by 

 the roots and branches of trees and underbrush, are torn 

 and guttered in spring by the rush of waters down their 

 slopes. The spring freshets which so often spread death 

 and destruction along the banks of our great rivers, also 

 deposit in the beds of these same streams the soil torn 

 from field and hillside, making their channels each year 

 more shallow and more difficult of navigation. The 

 tributaries of these rivers— the brooks and creeks, once 

 forest-shaded and fed by springs and swamps — now dry 

 up in summer, as soon as they have served to carry off the 

 melting snows of spring. 



In the Western mountains things are even worse, for 

 there the timber growth is more scanty than in the East, 

 and the work of destruction proceeds more rapidly. The 

 mountains of New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming and Cal- 

 ifornia have in many sections been stripped of their for- 

 ests with a rapidity and a thoroughness which is almost 

 beyond belief, and as a consequence of this denudation 

 the water so much needed by the farmer for irrigation 

 on the dry plains becomes each year scarcer and more 

 difficult to obtain. 



In the northern Rocky Mountains on their western 

 slope lies the beautiful Flat Head Valley, a region of 

 abundant rainfall, of pleasant lakes and of swift-flowing 

 brooks and rivers, abundantly fed from vast fields of 

 snow and ice far up among the mountain peaks. Tliis 

 valley has only recently been opened up by the build- 

 ing of the Great Northern R.R., and is now dotted with 

 new towns and with the ranches of new settlers. • Here 

 in this lovely valley the work of timber destruction is 

 now going on as recklessly and as wastefuUy as it went 

 on years ago further to the south. Fires set by careless 



travelers, by homesteaders who wish to clear their claims, 

 or by hunters red or white; shingle mills set by every 

 stream, contracts for railroad ties or for snow-shed tim- 

 ber are destroying the vast forests of the Flat Head Val- 

 ley at a rate which, to the experienced judgment, makes 

 the end of the timber there seem near at hand. 



The protection of these forests lies in the hands of the 

 General Land Office, and from time to time its inspectors 

 pass through the country, gather in a very general way 

 what information they can about the forest and make 

 their report to headquarters. As has elsewhere been the 

 case, so here, action can seldom be taken in time to stop 

 any particular piece of destruction. After the ruin has 

 been accomplished, suits may be instituted to recover 

 the value of the timber, but even if the value be recov- 

 ered, this does not restore the great trees which shaded 

 the mountain slopes, in summer and winter, which pro- 

 tected the springs and retarded the melting of the winter's 

 snows. Decades must elapse before nature can replace 

 what man destroyed in a few brief months. 



The present system of forest protection by the Land 

 Office is entirely inadequate and inefficient, because it 

 sends out strangers to gather information about a country 

 of which they know nothing. In many localities a few 

 local agents at small salaries with some allowance for ex- 

 penses could, while pursuing their usual avocations, col- 

 lect definite and detailed information with regai'd to 

 forest destruction, and when the traveling inspector 

 presents himself, would be able at once to inform him as 

 to the condition of affairs, to show bim their evidence 

 and to let him see with his own eyes how matters stand. 



If our forests are worth preserving — and about that 

 there is no question — the antiquated and inefficient 

 methods of the Land Office, which have nothing to re- 

 commend them except their age, should be discarded. 

 The Land Office should get out of its rut and make a vig- 

 orous and determined effort for real forest preservation 

 in the Rocky Mountains. 



SNAP SHOTS, 

 With his remarks on spring reed birds as food, Mr. 

 Fred Mather sends us the menu on which these birds are 

 entered as one of the courses, and from it we learn that 

 the hotel where the dinner took place is one that has since 

 failed and been seized by the sheriff. Some enthusiastic 

 game protectionists may look on these two events as 

 cause and effect, and may conclude that the failure is due 

 to the hotel's disregard of the game laws. We fear that 

 there is no connection between the two, for if all the 

 hotels in this city which violate the game laws should 

 fail, there would be very little accommodation here for 

 the strangers who have occasion to visit New York. No 

 class of citizens stand more in need of active missionary 

 influence, so far as game laws go, than hotel proprietors 

 here and elsewhere, and no class — if they could only be 

 induced to rigidly respect these laws — could do so much 

 good protective work. 



As promised last week, we print in this issue the fiLrst 

 half of Mr. Owen Wister's graphic contribution to the 

 "Book of the Boone and Crockett Club." Those who have 

 never followed the shaggy white goat among the rocky 

 fastnesses which he inhabits cannot fail to be interested in 

 the vivid account which Mr. Wister gives of this strange 

 animal and his home, while to those readers who have 

 hunted it the article will be not less enjoyable, for it will 

 call up to the mind a hundred memories of toilsome but 

 happy days spent among the rugged mountains of the 

 Main Range or of the Pacific Slope. Mr. Wister is keenly 

 observant, has abundant humor and deep sympathies, and 

 a most happy gift of painting a picture so that his readers 

 can see what he himself has seen; so he writes easily and 

 well, and we are glad to be able to present this contribu- 

 tion from his pen. 



The "national convention of sportsmen" met in Chicago 

 last week, six strong. Four of the six were from Chicago, 

 the two others came from Wisconsin. The meeting was 

 a convention only in name, and was national only in the 

 imagination of the individual who originated the scheme 

 and has been its chief promoter. The committee ap- 

 pointed by the Illinois State Sportsmen's • Association to 

 call the convention appears to have done what it could to 

 make the movement a success, but the fiasco which has 

 resulted was from the first seen to be inevitable, for rea 

 sons which have already been pointed out in these 

 columns. Nothing further may be expected from the im* 

 practicable and futile scheme. 



