Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Ots. a Copy. ) 



See Months, $2. j 



NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JUNE -9, 1894. 



( VOL. XLIL— No. 23. 



| No. 818 Broadway, New Yobki 



CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



Pro Bono Public*. 

 Buffalo Migration. 

 Snap Shots. 



The Sportsman Tourist. 



Abenaki Gabe. 

 Stories of Ezra— 1. 

 Forest and Stream's Yellow- 

 stone Park Game Exploration. 



Natural History. 



Buffalo . Migrations. 

 Mild and Touchy Battlers. 

 The Suicide of a Serpent. 

 Lynxes and their Names. 



Game Bag and Gun. 



Sharptails on the Big Horn River 

 In Iowa Marshes. 

 Chicago and the West. 

 Elorida Twenty Years Ago. 

 Pennsylvania Law. 

 Game Notes. 



Sea and River Fishing. 



Tarpon and Turtles. 



We Went Fishing. 



Angling Notes. 



American Anglers in Canada. 



In Defense of "Rodster." 



On the North Shore of Lake 



Superior. 

 Chicago and the West. 

 More About the Whiteflsh. 

 News from Fishing Waters. 



Camp-Fire Flickering^. 



Fishculture. 



Outlines in the Susquehanna. 



Fishculture. 



Pound Fishing as Seen by a 



Pound Fisherman. 

 Norway Exhibit at the World's 



Fair. 



Sunday Shad Netters. 

 The Kennel. 



Field Dogs, Their Present and 



Future. 

 The Beaufort's Prince Case. . 

 E. F. T. Derby Entries. 

 Flaps from the Beaver's Tail. 

 Dog Chat. 



Yachting. 



Memorial Day, May 30. 

 Vigilant and Atalanta. 

 The Spring Regattas. 

 Club Races and Regattas. 

 Yachting News Notes. 

 Model Yachting. 



Canoeing. 



International Canoeing. 

 Eastern Division Meet. 

 Major S. T. Fairtlough. 



Rifle Range and Gallery. 



The Rifle in Texas. 

 Club Scores. 

 Rifle Notes. 

 Trap Shooting. 

 E. N. Y. League Tournament. 

 Central New York League. 

 Interstate and Michigan Shoot. 

 Club Snores. 

 Matches and Meetings. 



Answers to Queries. 



For Prospectus and Advertising Rates see Page vii. 



The Forest and Stream is put to press 

 on Tuesdays. Correspondence intended for 

 publication should reach us by Mondays and 

 as much earlier as may be practicable. 



PRO BONO PUBLICO. 



Fish Commissioner John W. Titcomb sends us the 

 year book of the Vermont Fish and Game League for 

 1894. Mr. Titcomb was the father of the League; he has 

 always been its secretary, and largely to his individual 

 activity in undertaking and doing, the people of Vermont 

 owe the League's steady success and growth in useful- 

 ness. We say the people of Vermont, and we mean all 

 the citizens of the State, for the benefit of the League is 

 by no means limited to those who are its members, nor 

 to sportsmen. In his preface to the hand-book Mr. Tit- 

 comb writes: 



Many people of Vermont think the fish and game laws are made 

 entirely in the interest of sportsmen. While this belief may be natural, 

 it is a mistaken one. Many citizens are prone to consider all fish and 

 game protective associations are organized for selfish purposes only- 

 While this imputation is a natural one, it is untrue in the case of the 

 Vermont Fish and Game League. Of its large membership only a 

 small majority shoot and fish, and of those who do, many go to more 

 favorable localities for their sport. 



This is well said, and it might be urged with good reason 

 for every organization designed to uphold game and fish 

 protection, whether or not it be composed wholly of 

 sportsmen. What is true of Vermont is true of every 

 other State. Game protection is for the public good. 

 The very fact that the community, through its repre- 

 sentatives in the legislature, assumes to provide game 

 laws is an admission and recognition of the principle 

 that game protection is for the common advantage. If 

 this be so, then the club, society, league, association or 

 what-not, designed to enforce these laws, is likewise in 

 its purpose for the common good, and should have 

 public indorsement ?nd support. The support" should 

 not be limited to sportsmen. Every public-spirited, yes, 

 every common, every-day, well-intentioned if easy-going 

 citizen, who makes no claim to public spirit, should do 

 his part in upholding the voluntary associations of indi- 

 viduals who are banded together for game and fish pro- 

 tection, and are willing to do their part. 



The time is coming when this will be more clearly 

 understood and when the proportion of non-sportsmen 

 members in protective associations will be more consider- 

 able than it is at present. We shall then not have the 

 spectacle of otherwise intelligent men holding themselves 

 aloof from protective effort, and perhaps even combating 

 it under the mistaken notion that the interests involved 

 are of the few against the many. 



This thought should give comfort to the pioneers in 

 the cause, and if it ever penetrates the noddles of the" 

 grouse-snarers and trout-netters it should suggest that 

 for them the writing is on the wall. 



BUFFALO MIGRATIONS. 



The remarks on buffalo migration printed in another 

 column from the pen of "Forked Deer" are entitled to 

 respectful consideration, for the writer is an old hunter 

 whose experience goes back many years. There is not, 

 and never has been, any question that seasonal migra- 

 tions of the buffalo took place, but these migrations have 

 been greatly exaggerated. It has often been asserted 

 that the buffalo summered in Manitoba and wintered in 

 Mexico, a statement which is manifestly absurd. Of 

 course no one believes that on the Fourth of July all the 

 buffalo of the continent were gathered together north of 

 the United States boundary line in Canada, nor on Jan. 1 

 all these buffalo were to be found in Texas or Mexico. It 

 is possible that at certain seasons of the year no buffalo 

 were found in Texas, but it is certain that there was no 

 time of the year when buffalo were not found in what 

 are now the Northwest Territories, Montana and North 

 and South Dakota. 



Their migrations were no doubt governed in a measure 

 by the seasons of cold and heat; but many other causes 

 gave rise to their movements. As has been stated in a 

 recent article on the buffalo, in Montana and the North- 

 west Territories the bands in winter moved up close to 

 the mountains and in summer moved further out on to 

 the plains. 



Most plainsmen believed that at certain seasons of the 

 year all the buffalo moved to a certain range of country. 

 This was naturally enough inferred from the fact that at 

 such times all the buffalo to be seen were moving in one 

 direction, and the further fact that at certain other times 

 great stretches of country were absolutely barren of buf- 

 falo. There were migrations of the buffalo, and they 

 were often on a vast scale so far as numbers go; but in 

 the matter of distance covered, we believe that they were 

 much less than has been commonly represented. They 

 were not in any sense to be compared with the migrations 

 of many species of birds, but were more like those of our 

 Western deer, elk and antelope, which migrate, indeed, 

 in the sense that they change their ranges with the 

 seasons, but not in the sense that they necessarily go 

 south at the approach of winter and north in the spring. 



SNAP SHOTS. 

 During the first month in which the Society for the 

 Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has had control of the 

 licensing of dogs in New York city, 10,059 were licensed, as 

 against 7,000, the largest number ever issued by the 

 Mayor's Marshal. This does not show an increase of dogs 

 in the city, but it proves that owners have confidence in 

 the new arrangement, and are ready to cooperate in it. 



In the June Seribners Dr. L. M. Yale draws from defi- 

 nitions of a game fish by Dr. G. Brown Goode these 

 distinguishing characteristics: "A game fish should have 1 

 beauty, sapidity of flesh, and a certain degree of rarity to 

 excite the desire of the angler, as well as courage^ 

 strength, nimbleness and cunning to test his skill in a 

 contest rendered the more even by delicacy of tackle." 



A Constitutional Convention is now sitting in Albany 

 to consider proposed amendments to the State Constitu- 

 tion, and advocates of various desired reforms are making 

 themselves heard. If some one would get under way a 

 "petition with boots on" for an amendment forbidding 

 all legislative tinkering with the game] and fish laws, 

 other than at fixed intervals of twenty-five years, he would 

 find himself uproariously supported, and would deserve 

 well of his grandchildren. 



In his report the other day of the work of the Massa- 

 chusetts Fish and Game Protective Association in defeat- 

 ing the Gilbert trout bill, Secretary H. H. Kimball pointed 

 out the necessity of organization for protecting the inter- 

 ests of the public in its fish and game supply. It was 

 good doctrine. If Mr. Kimball should go out into New 

 Jersey to promulgate his views, he would find at Green- 

 wood Lake a capital field for missionary enterprise. 

 There are hotels at the lake which depend for patron- 

 age largely upon the fishermen who resort to 

 those waters for fishing. Under such conditions 

 it might be taken for granted that the hotel keepers 

 would join together and look to it that Greenwood Lake 

 fish were protected thoroughly and at all seasons against 

 the netters and snarers. Every bass is so much stock for 

 the common advantage. If Greenwood Lake fishing is 

 good, that means that scores and hundreds of fishermen 

 go from New York and Brooklyn and Jersey City and 

 Newark and other cities and towns. Each and every one 

 of this multitude expends money for traveling, for hotels, 

 for boat, for guide, for incidentals. In their fishing 

 Greenwood Lake residents have a gold mine. But 

 the multitudes do not flock to Greenwood Lake 

 for the fishing, not after they have once been there 



and have found the fishing poor. The fishing is poor 

 because the fish are not protected. The fish are not pro- 

 tected because the very people Whose self interest it would 

 be to protect them are lacking in enterprise and common 

 sense. Some of the hotel people have themselves taken 

 part in the foolish netting of game fish; last week we 

 reported the conviction of two of them by Game Warden 

 Shriner and to-day we note another suit pending. 



Such is the ideal game fish perhaps, yet many which 

 are counted game do not answer to all of these condi- 

 tions. A muscalonge is neither beautiful to look upon 

 nor is its flesh a delicacy, yet we should like to see any 

 one presume to read it out of the list. A tarpon is beau- 

 tiful, but no one pretends to esteem it for food. The 

 skate has sapidity when served by a French chef, but it is 

 not one of the beauties of nature. Black bass and trout 

 are both beautiful and good to eat, but in many localities 

 they have not in any sense a "degree of rarity." 



An Asbury Park correspondent recorded his disap- 

 pointment last week because after long and valiantly 

 playing a big bass in the surf it turned out to be a 

 shark. But if we exclude from the list sharks because 

 they are deficient in edible qualities, should we not to 

 be consistent exclude as well, for instance, sheepshead 

 in salt water and black bass in fresh, when they are 

 caught by count-fishermen and after due display on 

 hotel verandahs are dumped out on to the compost heap? 



Here is a definition of a game fish: One which 

 affords fun in the taking and satisfaction in the having. 



Secretary Edward] Banks of the Pennsylvania State 

 Sportsmen's Association sends us a letter printed in an- 

 other column relative to the proposed action of the Asso- 

 ciation toward revision of the game laws. One topic 

 upon which the views of sportsmen of the State are in^ 

 vited is the prohibition of the sale of gamew We know 

 that there are in Pennsylvania those who holdj.the opin- 

 ion that the prohibition of the sale of game would be 

 three-fourths of the battle for protection. They are on 

 the right road. The more thoroughly this subject is dis- 

 cussed the more clearly is shown the sound reason in 

 Fokest and Stream's platform plank — the sale of game 

 should be prohibited at all seasons. 



The angler who is cunning enough to cast his lines in 

 fished out" waters at the proper interval after every one 

 else has become disgusted and given them up, is likely to 

 be rewarded. In such waters, given the go-by for a few 

 seasons, the fish multiply and grow big, and then the first 

 earner is the lucky one. 



From many districts come reports of excellent trout 

 fishing this year; and although the weather has been cold 

 and unfavorable for fishing, the season promises to be a 

 capital one for all kinds of fish. 



The case of Fish Commissioner Follett, of Connecticut, 

 who was found guilty of having netted trout in Massa- 

 chusetts waters, has been settled, the defendant abandon- 

 ing his appeal to the higher court. 



Our San Antonio correspondent wires under date of 

 June 5 that a band of fifty buffalo were seen last week in 

 Val Verde county, Texas, among them a number of 

 calves. The first duty of Texas is to provide safety fot 

 this remnant against the hunters who will beset them. 



The notes on pound fishing printed elsewhere merit 

 attention because they come from a practical man ac- 

 tually engaged in that mode of fishing, and because 

 they show intrinsic evidence of having been written with- 

 out passion and honestly. 



Just as we go to press word comes to us that the new 

 United States Fish Commission's hatchery will be located 

 at Cape Vincent, New York. 



