Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



NEW TORK, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1893. 



Christmas Books. 



This year we urge those who contemplate sending to us 

 for their Christmas gifts to forward their orders at once, 

 so that they may be sure to receive in time whatever it is 

 that they desire. About Christmas time all business 

 people are pushed to their utmost to fill their ordere; the 

 mails and express companies are overwhelmed with par- 

 cels; transportation is slower than at other times, and 

 mistakes in the delivery are likely to occur. It will, 

 therefore, be a real advantage to our customers as well as 

 a great help to ourselves if orders can be sent in at once. 



FOREST AND STREAM PUBLISHING CO. 



PORTRAITS IN INK. 



III. — THE SHOEMAKER. 



The old shoemaker, grizzled, unkempt, slovenly clad, 

 warped with many years over last and lapstone, is a 

 figure in as strong a contrast to the Major as is his untidy 

 siiop to the orderly display of the other's. 



But you will be more at your ease here among the 

 clutter of leather scraps, worn footgear and lasts, with 

 the battered old gun in the corner beside the worn rod 

 whose term of service is still extended by many bonds of 

 waxed ends. 



Here you may sit at your ease or your peril on the rough 

 little counter or on one of the half dozen rickety chairs, 

 weak but hospitable even in the decrepitude of age. 



Here you wiU find more genial companionship and get 

 more useful information in an hour spent with this un- 

 assuming craftsman than in a day with the pretentious 

 Major. 



You discover that it is not altogether greed for fish and 

 game that entices him abroad in the few days wherein 

 are conjoined an allurement of propitious weather and 

 slackness of work. 



He admits with a laugh at himself, that he killed noth- 

 ing in his last day's outing, but asserts that he had never- 

 theless a right good time. He got a fortnight's kinks out 

 of his back and, shoulders, a heartening smell of the woods, 

 a feast of fresh, air, and caught some of the wood folk at 

 a new trick or uttering a heretofore unheard or unrecog- 

 nized note, or he has seen some strange freak of nature. 

 If you are interested, he imparts to you his small discov- 

 eries, a poor but hospitable host sharing his meager fare 

 with a hungry wayfarer. 



Or, you may find him just returned from a stolen half- 

 day's excursion, rejoicing over a lucky shot, never claim- 

 ing it to be more, and he relates with the particulars of 

 circumstance and place, the finding of his grouse and how 

 he brought it down, as it whirred and clattered almost 

 unseen in the haze of brush. 



When you desire a sight of the finest bird he ever 

 killed, he bashfully confesses that he left it at a sick 

 neighbor's on his way home (a mile out of it though), but 

 as he knew the sick man would not care he stuck one of 

 the tail feathers in his hat, and this he displays with 

 great satisfaction. He sticks it up on the waU beside the 

 dried head of a big bass and the plumy tail of a gray 

 squirrel, and you know by the far away look in his eyes 

 that it will need but a glance at these when the days of 

 toil are long unbroken to conjure up the pleasant, restful 

 loneliness of the woods, the glint of clear waters and the 

 music of their voices. 



He does not consort much with men in his outings, but 

 of choice with boys, whom he delights to instruct in 

 woodcraft and the mysteries of the gentle arc. He baits 

 the small boys' hooks with infinite care and unhooks the 

 horned pouts and thorny-backed perch for them, un- 

 tangles lines and recovers snagged hooks for them; he 

 mends the big boys' tackle, is uncle to them all and re- 

 joices in their luck as if it were his own. 



As you listen to his kindly and interested discourse con- 

 cerning the wild world and its sports that he so unaffect- 

 edly loves, and look at the liomely, genial face in setting 

 of grizzled hair and beard, beaming with genuine enthu- 

 siasm, you realize that it needs something more than an 

 eminently respectable presence and learned talk of high- 

 bred dogs, fine guns and fancy tackle, or even the posses- 

 sion of them, to make a true sportsman, for here is one in 

 patched raiment and leather apron, who scarcely knows 

 a pointer from a setter, nor ever owned a high-priced gun 

 or rod, and yet is a true sportsman in the best sense of 

 that abused title. 



For is he not an ardent lover of honest sport, appreci- 



ating something in its achievements beyond skillful 

 slaughter and the making of heavy scores? Is it not a 

 privilege to have the confidence of this honest man and 

 to associate with this simple and enthusiastic lover of 

 nature? 



BEARS OF NORTH AMERICA. 



Mr. Brown's article on the different species of North 

 American bears printed in another column will be read 

 with equal interest by sportsmen and naturalists. Per- 

 sons who have traveled much through the central Rocky 

 Mountain region will not have failed to notice that, 

 among the captive bears so frequently seen chained up at 

 stations, saloons and ranch houses, there are but few 

 which are black in color. At the same time these bears 

 are almost always short-clawed animals and thus are not 

 of the grizzly type. No doubt many of those who have 

 noticed this preponderancy of pale, short-clawed bears 

 have wondered why the brown form of Ursus americamis 

 is so much more common than the black in this region, 

 for all who have noted these facts have taken it for 

 granted that these bears— though not black in color — 

 were really black bears. At the same time the speculative 

 traveler will have observed that many of these captives 

 are red in color, as a red cow is red, or rather even paler 

 still, almost the color of a yellow dog. He will have ob- 

 served too, that some of them seem unusually flat-faced 

 and have not the cast of countenance which is noticed in 

 the dead bears which have fallen to his rifle, or in the liv- 

 ing ones that he has seen in cages. Mr. Brown's discovery 

 in the Rocky Mountains of a third species of bear which 

 is red in color, would account for some of the puzzling 

 facts that we have referred to. 



The paper is in its own field one of the most important 

 that we have published for a long time, but additional 

 material is needed far the confirmation of some of Mr. 

 Brown's conclusions and for the establishment of his 

 hypothesis. It may well enough be within the power of 

 some of our western readers to supply skins, skulls and 

 observations which would be welcome to the author of 

 this paper, and we are sure that he would be glad to re- 

 ceive communications on this subject. 



SNAP SHOTS. 



. The decisions of the lower courts in the Moses Sunday 

 fishing case have just been sustained by the New York 

 Court of Appeals. Mr. Robert H. Moses, of this city, is a 

 member of a club which controls the fishing of Clark's 

 Lake, in Orange county. In the spring of 1892 the club 

 caused the punishment of certain trespassers, and in return 

 the trespassers instigated the prosecution of Mr. Moses 

 for fishing in the club waters on Sunday. He was convicted, 

 but on the ground that the statute did not apply to private 

 waters carried the case to the highest court, only to have 

 the conviction stand. It is unlikely that this finding wfll 

 have any appreciable effect upon Sunday fishing in the 

 State. The law will continue to be practically a dead 

 letter, resorted to only at rare intervals as a spite measure 

 for revenge, as it was in this case, and in the case of the 

 net fishermen's prosecution of the Sunday fishermen at 

 Jamaica Bay a year or two ago. 



The circumstances attending the death of Wallace E. 

 Blackford of Brooklyn, at the early age of 23 years, were 

 pathetic in an unusual degree. It was only on the previous 

 Monday that Mr. Blackford had been married; while re- 

 turning from the chvu-ch where the ceremony had taken 

 place he was prostrated with illness, grew rapidly worse 

 and died on Monday, Oct. 11. Wallace was the only 

 son of ex-Fish Commissioner Eugene G. Blackford, and 

 was associated with him in the responsible management 

 of their establishment in Fulton Market of this city. 

 He was a yoimg man of proved business ability, 

 esteemed for his sterling traits of character, and by his 

 winning ways endeared to hosts of friends. In this 

 sudden bereavement by the death of one in whose 

 bright future a father's hopes were so fondly centered, 

 ex-Commissioner Blackford will have the deepest sym- 

 pathy. 



Ex-Fish and Game Commissioner Elliott B. Hodge of 

 Plymouth, N. H., who died last week, will long be re- 

 membered as one of the pioneer workers in the public 

 interests of fish and game protection. When Commis- 

 sioners Powers and Webber were exploring the State in 

 1877, in search of a suitable sjjot for a trout and salmon 



hatchery, they discovered Mr. Hodge photographing at 

 Plymouth, and he put them on track of the springs at 

 Livertaore Falls, where the first hatching house was 

 started. He was of the greatest assistance to the Commis- 

 sion for several years, and when Mr. Powers resigned, 

 from iU health, was selected to take his place, which he 

 filled with great success for several years, until he was 

 attacked with the insidious disease which has finally car- 

 ried him off. A native of New Brunswick, his early life' 

 was spent in that province and Canada, among the sal-^ 

 mon waters, and he was wonderfully familiar with all 

 the habits and characteristics of the Salmonidce. He also 

 proved an admirable game protector, • and probably 

 brought more men to justice for violating the laws 

 than was ever done before in New Hamj)shire. After his 

 retirement from the Fish and Game Commission he still 

 retained the charge and direction of the hatcheries, 

 which, now ten in number, were responsibility enough 

 for any one man. 



When Mr. Edmund Day, of the Salvini Company, who 

 is known to Forest and Stream readers as "The General-," 

 sent an invitation to the staff last week to spend an even- 

 ing at the Star Theatre, he wrote: "As we are indebted to 

 Forest and Stream for locating the sections of the coun- 

 try where good shooting is obtainable, it will afford us no 

 end of pleasure to unravel the mysteries of the romantic 

 drama before the staff." It is interesting to note that 

 of the players who unraveled the mysteries, two others 

 besides Mr. Day are sportsmen. Alexander Salvini is 

 very fond of quail shooting, and Miss Eleanor Mor- 

 etti, his leading lady, devotes much enthusiasm to trout 

 fishing. Sportsmen are to be found in all occupations and 

 vocations of life, but the stage has produced one of the 

 very finest brands. Members of this profession have un- 

 usual opportunities for observation, and are never loath 

 to communicate what is of interest to brothers in the 

 craft. May their writing long add charm to the pages of 

 Forest and Stream. 



The wholesale destruction of eggs of wildfowl, on the 

 breeding grounds north of the United States, is an abuse 

 which has often been commented upon in these columns,, 

 and for the correction of which it appears difficult to de- 

 vise a sufficient remedy. The Indians gather the eggs for 

 food; and vast quantities also are collected for the white 

 XDart, or albumen, which is used extensively in tne arts. 

 Under the present tariff, while eggs are taxed five cents per 

 dozen, albumen is admitted free. The Wilson Bill will 

 make the whole egg free. President W. R. Huntington 

 of the Ohio Fish and Game Commission sends us a letter, 

 in which he contends that this proposed change of duty 

 will stimulate the destruction of wildfowl eggs for com- 

 mercial purposes. Just how it is to have this effect we do 

 not clearly understand; but every one will agree unre- 

 servedly with Jlr. Huntington's proposition that the im- 

 portation of game bird eggs should be prohibited, if a 

 practicable measure can be devised for accomplishing that 

 end. 



Our game columns this week contain three news items 

 which are fuU of suggestion. One reports the coming of 

 Em-opean red deer to an American game park; a second 

 records the importation of foreign game birds contem- 

 plated by the sportsmen of Maine; and a third chronicles 

 a movement to bring to Pennsylvania quail from the 

 West. These game stocking entei-prises are as yet in large 

 degree experimental and tentative; but as increasing at- 

 tention shall be given to such work there will soon be 

 abundant experience to furnish safe guidance. This is 

 the day of small beginnings. Such movements grow with 

 tremendous rapidity in America. It is certain that we 

 shall make test of oae expedient and another, until in one 

 way or another an abundant game supply shall be as- 

 sured. 



Special interest will be taken in the projected importa- 

 tion of black game and capercailzie into Maine. A full 

 account of the habits and game qualities of the species, 

 from the pen of Hon. W. W. Thomas, .Jr., our Minister 

 to Sweden, has been printed in the Forest and Stream. 

 Many persons who are familiar with the home of these 

 birds and with the northern portions of the United States, 

 have testified that American covers are suitable for the 

 game. Their introduction on an adequate scale is surely 

 most desirable; we trust that the promoters of the Maine 

 movement may have support. 



