Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JANUARY 6, 1894. 



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

 Six Months, $2. f 



I VOL. XLIL— No. 1. 



I No. 318 Broadway, New York. 



CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



The Virginia Deer. 

 Biltmore Forest. 

 Snap Shots. 



The Sportsman Tourist. 



Paddling Down the Patuea. 

 A New Year's Greeting. 

 Hunt of the Catawainpus Club. 

 "Forest and Stream" at the Fair. 



Natural History. 



A New Alaskan Pika. 



Game Bag and Gun. 



Foreign Birds for America. 

 The Moose of Mattawa. 

 Chicago and the West. 

 Bill Chadwick's Book. 

 That .22 Question. 

 Boston and Maine. 

 Deer and Turkey in West Vir- 

 ginia. 



Sea and River Fishing. 



Angling Notes. 



Coast Fishery Conference. 



The Kennel. 



Westminster K. C. Show. 

 Points and Flushes. 



The Kennel. 



Dog Chat. 



Answers to Correspondents 

 Hunting and Coursing. 



A Hunt with the Genesee 



Hounds. 

 Cooning in Hector, 1893. 

 Hunting and Coursing Notes. 



Yachting. 



Shifting and Fixed Ballast. 

 A Cheap Cruise. 

 News Notes. 



Canoeing. 



The Log of the Frankie.— rv. 

 News Notes. 



Rifle Range and Gallery. 



The Rifle in California. 

 Rifle Club Doings. 

 Rifle Notes. 



Trap Shooting. 



Live-Bird Contests of 1893. 

 Christmas on the Union Grounds. 

 Holiday Scores. 

 Drivers and Twisters. 



Answers to Queries. 



ILL US TEA TION S UPPLEMENT. 



This number contains as an illustrated supplement a 

 portrait of the Virginia Deer, drawn by Mr. Ernest E. 

 Thompson. This is the last in a series of four. Those 

 printed previously were: The Moose, Oct. 14, 1893; Wood- 

 land Caribou, Nov. 11; The Coon, Dec. 2. The dates of 

 the former series, of which copies can be supplied, were 

 as follows: Sept. 8, 1892, The Panther. Oct. 6, The Oce. 

 lot. Nov. 3, The Canada Lynx. Dec. 1, The Bay Lynx. 

 Jan. 5, 1893, Gray Wolf. Feb. 2, White Goat. March 3, 

 Coyote. April 6, Antelope. May 4, Fox. 



THE VIRGINIA DEER. 



Of the wild animals of North America none is better 

 known than the common deer. Its range is as wide as 

 the continent, and in one or other of its slightly varying 

 forms it is found from Canada far down into Mexico. 



Unlike many of our best known species of wide distri- 

 bution, the deer has but few common names. In most 

 sections it is known simply as deer — the only deer. But in 

 the books and in cases where there is a possibility that it 

 may be confused with other species — as in the West — it is 

 known as Virginia deer or white-tailed deer. By the old 

 trappers and explorers, and by the voyageurs of the 

 Northwest, it was called the jumping deer or long-tailed 

 deer, to distinguish it from the mule deer and the elk, 

 which last was in the Northwest called red deer. 



Every boy knows more about this deer, its habits and 

 the modes of hunting it than we have space to print here, 

 but perhaps every one does not know of the persistency 

 with which the species clings to oldtime haunts, no mat- 

 ter how much they may have been encroached upon by 

 settlements. 



In 1877 Judge Caton, in his work on the "Antelope and 

 Deer of America," said: "It may be found to-day in 

 every State and Territory of the United States. It 

 inhabits alike the dense woodlands and open prairies, the 

 high mountains and the lowest valleys, the arid plains 

 and the marshy swamps." Almost the same thing is true 

 of this deer to-day. While there may be no deer in Dela- 

 ware and only an occasional stray or some introduced 

 deer in Rhode Island and Connecticut, there is probably 

 no other political division of the United States, except 

 the District of Columbia, where this species does not exist 

 in the wild state; and this notwithstanding the fact that 

 the game is persistently hunted by men and dogs wherever 

 it is found. 



How it may have been in the beginning we do not 

 know, but it is certain that to-day the Virginia deer is the 

 wariest and most cunning of any of his tribe, and while 

 hundreds of these animals are annually killed by novices 

 and picknickers with the aid of boats, dogs and jacks, 

 there is no task of greater difficulty than to take up the 

 track of a whitetail deer and kill it by fair stalking. 



There is a wide range of individual variation in this 

 species. The deer of the Adirondacks are much larger 

 than those of North Carolina, while those of Florida are 

 smaller still, and a still smaller form is found in Mexico. 

 On the other hand, those of the northern plains and the 

 northern Rocky Mountains are often very large, but not 

 invariably so. We have killed in the Rocky Mountains 

 on the same day two bucks, one of which a man could 

 readily lift on to his horse's back alone, while the other 



taxed the strength of two strong men to put in the same 

 position. 



Albino specimens of this deer are by no means uncom- 

 mon. Individuals are quite often killed that are more or 

 less spotted with white, and occasionally those that are 

 pure white. As is well known, the young are always 

 spotted, and we once killed a giant buck which had run- 

 ning the length of his back on either side of his spine a 

 row of dappled spots about as large as a nickle five cent 

 piece. The effect was given by a circle of black-tipped 

 hairs about the spots. We have heard of one or two 

 similar individuals, killed, we believe, in Montana. 



A number of specific names have been given to forms of 

 this deer, the characters being usually based on size or 

 the length of the tail. There is no doubt that there 

 are well-marked geographical races. To this species 

 apparently belongs the so-called gazelle or fan-tail deer 

 of which the hunter in the northern Rocky Mountains 

 hears now and then. This supposed variety is said to be 

 characterized by small size, small but massive antlers, 

 with many points, and a long and wide tail. It is not 

 known to naturalists, though firmly believed in by many 

 intelligent hunters. 



The supplement which we print to-day gives an 

 admirably faithful picture of the male and female Virginia 

 deer. 



THE BILTMORE FOREST. 



It seems a singular thing that, although for a dozen 

 years past so much theoretical interest has been taken 

 in forestry in this country, no practical application of 

 the principles of forestry has ever been made by Gov- 

 ernment or individual until within a very short time. 

 Notwithstanding all that has been written on this sub- 

 ject, notwithstanding the establishment of a Bureau of 

 Forestry in Washington and of similar bureaus by a 

 number of the State governments, absolutely nothing 

 has ever yet been done in this direction. 



It was left for a private citizen to take up this sub- 

 ject and to apply these principles to a nearly ruined 

 forest. This gentleman is Mr. George W. Vanderbilt, 

 who recently purchased an extensive estate near Ashe- 

 ville, N. C. Its area is over eleven square miles, or, in 

 acres, 7,282, and of this somewhat more than one-half 

 is woodland, and constitutes Biltmore Forest. Up to 

 the time of its purchase by Mr. Vanderbilt, this forest 

 was owned by a number of different individuals, who 

 treated it in the usual American farmer's way. They 

 cut all the timber that was salable either for saw logs, 

 fence rails or cord wood, and turned the cattle into the 

 forest to graze, often burning the wood over for the 

 sake of the pasturage. The evil results of such a course 

 are sufficiently obvious, and the woodland — never in its 

 best days very good — grew steadily worse. 



The timber which grows in it is composed for the most 

 part of deciduous trees, the white oak outnumbering other 

 species, and there being much inferior oak, short-leafed 

 pine, chestnut, hickory and other trees. There are about 

 seventy species of trees growing naturally on the estate. 



This forest was put in charge of Mr. Gifford Pinchot, as 

 consulting forester, and in a little pamphlet printed in 

 Chicago, in 1893, he gives an account of the treatment of 

 the forest and the result of the first year's work. This 

 first year's work began to be planned in February, 1892, 

 but the first actual cuttings took place in May, 1892. An 

 account was kept with the forest and the statement of 

 receipts and expenses for the year, running from May 1, 

 1892, to April 30, 1893, shows a loss of less than $400 out of 

 total expenditure of $9,900. This, while perhaps the least 

 interesting part of the story from the forester's point of 

 view, is given in order to show how nearly the work of 

 reclaiming this forest was made to pay for itself, even in 

 the first year when expenses would naturally be largest 

 and receipts light. 



Two plans for the improvement of the forest have been 

 undertaken at Biltmore, one of them the regular high 

 forest system, by which greater returns are to be had in 

 the future, but nothing immediately comes back, and the 

 other a selection forest system which entails more labor 

 and less satisfactory ultimate results but quicker returns. 

 For the details of the way in which Mr. Pinchot has 

 treated this forest the reader must be referred to the 

 pamphlet which accompanied Mr. Vanderbilt's forestry 

 exhibit. 



In addition to the forestry work done at Biltmore, a 

 very interesting collection of trees and shrubs has been 



made under the direction of Mr. Frederick Law Olmstead 

 with the intention of planting them when the proper 

 time shall have come, along the line of a road five miles 

 in length which will run through some of the most beauti- 

 ful portions of the estate. There are already at the 

 nurseries at Biltmore more kinds of trees and shrubs 

 than there are in the botanical gardens at Kew, and the 

 number is constantly being increased. A record of the 

 treatment given to each species is being kept and a forest 

 botanical library to aid in study is being formed. It is 

 also intended at a later day to make considerable plant- 

 ings of forest trees, in order that something may be 

 learned of the silvicultural character of American and 

 foreign trees, a subject about which little or nothing is 

 as yet known. 



On the whole the forestry work at Biltmore is being 

 carried out in the most intelligent and broad-minded 

 manner, and it is a matter for congratulation that Mr. 

 Vanderbilt has become so interested in this subject as to be 

 willing to make experiments, and to carry on work which 

 promise to yield results of the utmost value to the general 

 public. | 



SNAP SHOTS, 

 If that rabbit relief scheme, originating in the large 

 heart and ever fertile brain of our Chicago staff corres- 

 pondent in chief, shall be carried into effect, the grateful 

 beneficiaries may fittingly give voice to their feelings in 

 the well known rabbit rhymes of Jonathan Swift. The 

 Dean had been invited to dine with two elderly maiden 

 ladies, who having been told that their guest was fond of 

 rabbits; served up the dish to him in generous variety of 

 forms. At the conclusion of the repast Swift gave thanks: 



Rabbits young and rabbits old, 



Rabbits hot and rabbits cold, 



Rabbits lean and rabbits tough, 



I thank the Lord I've hs J enough. 



If the shooters to whom Mr. Hough's suggestions are 

 specifically directed shall show the dexterity and deadli- 

 ness displayed by Emperor William in a hare hunt in 

 Prussian Saxony, the other day, we may look for immense 

 train loads of rabbit meat rolling into Chicago. In this 

 hunt, the dispatches report, the Emperor had a detach- . 

 ment of troops to serve as beaters, and six men followed 

 him handing him loaded rifles as required. In two hours 

 he scored 385 hares, an execution at the rate of three per 

 minute. 



A million of them. That is the estimate the Secretary 

 of the State Board of Agriculture makes of the Mongolian 

 pheasants in Oregon, sprung from the eleven birds im- 

 ported by Judge Denny. A trifle exuberant perhaps, but 

 it is enough to know that the birds are past computation 

 in the Northwest, and that they are making their way 

 wherever put out, West or East. The latest report of suc- 

 cess with them comes from a point on Long Island, only 

 a few miles from this city. The Wyandanch Club, which 

 is the new named Brooklyn Gun Club, with preserves at 

 Smithtown, procured in the spring of 1893 five pairs of 

 pheasants and a number of eggs. The original eggs and 

 those laid by the birds were hatched under bantams, and 

 the stock at the end of the season numbered 150. Last 

 month, in December of the same year, forty-two cocks 

 were turned out on the club's 800 acres, on a Tuesday, and 

 on the following Saturday the members had their first 

 pheasant shoot, twenty birds being brought to bag. The 

 magnificent plumage of the game and its size and flight 

 aroused much enthusiasm among the participants; and 

 the result of the club's enterprise demonstrates anew the 

 ease and certainty with which a district may be stocked 

 with the imported species. In our game columns to-day, 

 Dr. W. O. Blaisdell, of Illinois, tells an instructive story of 

 his experience with the chuckor partridge, and suggests 

 that from India may be brought this and other species 

 which would thrive in American covers. 



The first installment of Secretary Doyle's official report 

 of. the Coast Fishery Conference is given to-day. It will 

 be followed by the remainder in our issues of January 13 

 and 20. This full presentation of the proceedings will be 

 welcomed ; and the papers and remarks are likely to con- 

 stitute a mass of testimony for reference in all future dis- 

 cussions of the subject. 



The paper of Mr. Madison Grant, printed to-day, shoula 

 be read in connection with his interesting illustrated arti- 

 cle on the Moose, in the January Century Magazine^ 



