Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Teems, 
i a Year. 10 Ots. a Copy. 
Bex Months, $2. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, AUGUST 25, 1894 
YOL. XLHL — No. 8. 
1 No. 318 Broadway, New YorA. 
CONTENTS. 
Editorial. 
Range of the Sbarptail Grouse- 
Shotguns and Citizenship, 
Snap Shots. 
The Sportsman Tourist. 
Forest and Stream Yellowstone 
Park Game Exploration. 
An August— October Reverie. 
The Fetish of the Pipe Bowl. 
At Martha's Vineyard. 
Natural History. 
Ways of the Fisher. 
Tough Toad and Turkey s. 
Game Bag and Gun. 
On St. Lawrence Marshes. 
Nitro Powders Past and Present. 
Proposed Sportsmen's Exposi- 
tion. 
A Dismal Chicken Outlook. 
Sea and River Fishing. 
A Red-Letter Day with Trout. 
Days at Okoboji, 
Salmon of the Tobique. 
At the Miramichi Camps. 
Boston Notes. 
The Jingle of the Salmon Spoon. 
Washington Fishing Memoranda 
Fishculture. 
Degeneration in the Youghio- 
gheny. 
The Kennel. 
Large Pointer Litter. 
A Show for Pittsburgh. 
"Wire-Haired" Cocker Spaniels. 
Points and Flushes. 
Dog Chat. 
Kennel Answers. 
The American Coursing Board. 
Yachting. 
Vigilanfs Races. 
Classification by Sailing Length. 
The British Races. 
Racing Measurements. 
Club Race3. 
Yachting News Notes. 
Rifle Range and Gallery. 
Zettler Rifle Club. 
Club Scores. 
Rifle Notes. 
Trap Shooting. 
Jack Parker's Joke Tournament 
Knoxville May Tournament. 
Drivers and Twisters. 
Answers to Queries. 
For Prospectus and Advertising Rates see Page viii. 
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RANGE OF THE SHARPTAIL GROUSE. 
Among the Western game birds whose introduction 
into Eastern covers has been recommended the sharp- 
tail grouse has often been named, and in two or three cases 
the experiment has been tried. What measure of success 
has attended these efforts cannot now be told. 
The sharptail grouse — the "prairie chicken" of a good 
portion of North America — has an extended range, ex- 
pending from Michigan and Wisconsin on the east, 
through the mountains of the Pacific on the west, and 
from the Plains of the Yukon and the Great Slave 
Lake on the north, south to Colorado or northern New 
Mexico. It is thus a bird of very wide range, equally at 
home on the plains and in the valleys of the high moun- 
tains, being often found quite up to timber line. Although 
generally regarded as a bird of j the prairies, its range is 
by no means confined to open country, and it seems to be 
more adaptable than any of our grouse, being found not 
only on the high, dry ^sage-brush plains in the same 
country with the sage grouse, but also in timbered regions 
with the ruffed and the dusky grouse, as well as on the 
prairie with the pinnated grouse. 
Some years ago there was a great deal written about 
the westward extension of the range of the pinnated 
grouse, and statements were made that the species had 
followed the cultivated areas along the railroads west- 
ward, and had been taken in Utah, Nevada and elsewhere 
on the Pacific slope. There is no doubt that all such ex- 
treme statements were erroneous, and that the birds 
taken were not pinnated grouse, but sharptails, the error 
arising from the common English name applied to both 
species, the observers not knowing that more than one 
Bort of "prairie chicken" existed. ' 
At the same time there is a grain of truth in these 
statements, and it is certain that the range of the pin- 
nated grouse has spread westward with the cultivated area, 
but — so far as we know — only about tq middle Nebraska 
and western Minnesota and eastern Dakota. With the 
advent of the pinnated grouse, there appears to have been 
also a diminution in the numbers of the sharptail, though 
there are many localities where both are abundant. In 
Texas and the Indian Territory, where "prairie chickens" 
are still very numerous, a form of the pinnated grouse is 
the prevailing — if not the only — species. 
Statements have been made recently to the effect that 
the sharptail grouse is extending its range eastward 
from Manitoba — where it is abundant— along the line of 
the Canadian Pacific R. E., it being claimed that they 
are now fairly abundant about Port Arthur on the North 
Shore of Lake Superior, where formerly none existed. 
If this is true there should be no difficulty in establishing 
the fact. Matters such as this possess special interest 
for readers of Forest and Stream, and there seems a 
v peculiar fitness in their lending their aid to settle any 
question as to the distribution or range of the birds or 
mammals which they pursue. We should be glad to re- 
ceive from observers in the West any notes on the distribu- 
tion of either the pinnated or the sharptail grouse. Such 
observations ought to be verified by specimens, and we 
will gladly identify all such that may be sent in to us. It 
will not be necessary to send complete skins for this pur- 
pose, unless it is quite convenient to do so, a head, wing 
and tail being sufficient to determine the species beyond 
a peradventure. 
The sharptail grouse is a bird of the North. Stout and 
hardy, fearless of snowstorm and blizzard, it has little to 
dread from the weather, and would certainly be able to 
survive the severest winters of our Northern States, and 
if introduced in the East, given time to establish itself 
and then an adequate protection, it might for a long 
time be able to hold its own. On the other hand, if the 
season in which this bird could be shot were made as long 
as that for our native birds, it is quite certain that it could 
never gain a foothold among us. 
SHOTGUN AND CITIZENSHIP. 
Emulous of the extended fame of the District Attorney 
of New York as an interpreter of the game laws, the At- 
torney-General of South Dakota has been trying his 
hand at the same business; and has given out an opinion 
that the prairie chicken season should open on Aug. 15, or 
two weeks before the time designated in the statute. 
The shooters appear to have accepted the dictum as giving 
them license for August chicken shooting. They have 
adopted the time-honored principle of every man for him. 
self; and are in for the general scramble. What with the 
destructive work of the market trappers, and the f usilades 
of the out of season shooters, precious few chickens will 
be left for the sportsman who bides his time and awaits 
the legal opening of the season. If the reports which 
come to us of the extent of prevailing disregard for the 
law are not exaggerated, there will need to be few birds 
left then, for there will remain few shooters who will not 
already have shot their shots and bagged their share. 
What is the significance of such a condition, of affairs 
as that presented in the prairie chicken country of South 
Dakota and adjoining States? Does it not go to substan- 
tiate the theory, which is sometimes advanced, that in 
certain sections of the West, largely peopled by recent 
comers from Europe, the community is impatient of all 
game laws, because they are thought to savor of the 
restrictive game systems of the Old World? If there be 
anything in this view of the case, if the provisions for the 
protection of game and of fish are thus ignorantly re- 
garded as obnoxious and oppressive, the remedy lies not 
in the more stringent warden system, called for by our 
correspondent, but is to be discovered rather in popu- 
lar enlightenment and education to a more reasonable 
and truer understanding of the nature and purpose of 
game protection. In this country, the new comer should 
be taught, fish and game are protected not for the benefit 
of any one favored class at the expense of any other; but 
in theory and practice for the common good of all. Each 
is required to respect the law, not that others may profit 
thereby, but that he himself and his children who come 
after him may reap the advantage. The new comer 
finds in America a land rich beyond the countries of 
Europe in the variety and worth and natural abundance 
of its game and its food fish. There is no other civilized 
land on all the globe where the supply is so abundant, 
and the privilege of taking it so free. There is no other 
land where the obligations of good citizenship demand 
more imperatively of the individual that these privileges be 
conserved and perpetuated; no other where such obliga- 
tions should be recognized more cheerfully, nor where the 
rewards of such recognition are more generous and 
certain. 
Rightly comprehending the purpose of game protection 
and the benefits which follow from it, the Western home- 
steader from the Old World should of all men show him- 
Belf zealous in its support. To give him such comprehend 
sion, to promote popular education respecting the game 
laws and thus to insure appreciation of them, is a task 
which may well engage the attention and the efforts of 
sportsmen's associations — the attention and the effort of 
all good citizens, it might be said, for the time ' L has come 
when in this country we should leave off thinking and 
speaking and writing of the conservation of our fish and 
of our game as if it were something that concerned alone 
a class termed sportsmen; for it concerns the community 
and the commonwealth. The duty imposed upon the in- 
dividual citizen to respect the common interest of all, as 
embodied in the game and fish statutes, is a duty quite as 
binding as are other obligations of. good citizenship. No 
one, whether of longest lines of native descent or fresh 
from the other side, may ignore this principle, set up 
shooting and fishing license for himself, and yet make claim 
to good American citizenship. If there are entire com- 
munities where the disregard of the game law is general* 
their citizens are not in this respect Americans, though 
hey live in America. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
It will be recalled that a demand was made for a duty 
on imported birds' eggs, on the ground that the destruc- 
tion of wildfowl eggs in the Northwest for import into 
this county for commercial products was affecting the 
game supply. Under the new tariff the eggs of birds> 
fish and insects are on the free list; but a specific pro^ 
vision is made that ' 'this shall not be held to include the 
eggs of game birds, the importation of which is prohibited 
except specimens for scientific collections." If the ini* 
portation of wildfowl eggs from the Northwest ever had 
anything to do with duck shooting, we may look for 
larger flights when the new tariff shall have been running 
long enough. 
Some one out in Indiana has sent us from a local paper 
a story of Farmer Sutherland of Muncie, who went 
dynamite fishing, attended by his faithful dog. Mr. 
Sutherland, it is related, having lighted the fuse of a 
stick of dynamite, pitched it into the water. The dog, 
taught to retrieve from water, plunged in, seized the 
explosive in his mouth, swam to shore, and hastened 
to return the prize to his master. The man fled, 
the dog pursued, the dynamite exploded, the dog dis- 
appeared, and Mr. Sutherland started post-haste for 
the nearest newspaper office, to publish his determination 
henceforth to fish with hook and line. It is a pretty little 
story; we printed it long ago as having started in Maine 
with a local hero and his dog; it has come to us from Cali- 
fornia with another local hero and his dog; and now we 
have it from Indiana. 
If ever one should keep a diary it is while in camp, for 
there so many things are seen and done worth noting as 
promptings of memory in the after days. A camp diary 
need not be prolific nor detailed. The briefest mention 
and barest record will be sufficient to revive recollections 
of woods scenes and incidents, to snatch one up from the 
surroundings of every-day life and transport him back to 
the stream, the field and the mountain. There are sports- 
men's diaries, scores of them, that money could not buy, 
and which are more precious now than ever before. 
Keep a notebook of your outing; it will aid you to live 
the woods life over again. 
If you hear a gunner bragging over a tremendously 
long shot, and on the strength of it taking to himself 
credit as a mighty sportsman, you may put him down 
either as a novice, or, if experienced, as one not entitled 
to much credit in the craft, For one who has done much 
shooting understands perfectly well that extraordinarily 
long shots are chance shots, and for that reason not neces- 
sarily indicative of skill; while the well-trained sportsman 
will hesitate to make such shots, knowing full well that 
they are more likely to wound than to kill. A long shot 
is often a wanton shot. 
Most folks bent on duck shooting in Ontario would 
rather pay the required license fee and enjoy peace of 
mind, than to play the game of dodging wardens, after 
the manner related by a correspondent to-day. 
