488 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
[Dec. 8, 1894. 
A LAKE VIEW TOAST. 
Topeka, Kan., Nov. 24.— Editor Forest and Stream: 
The Lake View Shooting and Fishing Association was 
organized in 1891 as a stock company to maintain a fish 
and game preserve and for the recreation of its members. 
In its preserve of Lake View, situated along the line of 
the A., T. & S. F. R. R. , five miles west of the city of 
Lawrence, Kan., it has one of the best bass preserves in 
the "West. The original membership consisted of fifty 
stockholders of the city of Lawrence and fifty of Topeka, 
but the shares soon went to a high premium, and a few 
of them have been scattered from Chicago on the east to 
Denver on the west. 
For the purpose of cementing good fellowship among 
the members of the Association, in March of 1894 the 
- members residing at Topeka gave a banquet at the club 
house on the grounds as a, surprise party to the Lawrence 
members, and on the evening of Oct. 23 the Lawrence 
members gave their return banquet to the Topeka mem- 
bers and other invited guests. The club house was decor- 
ated with bunting and evergreens and the famous heads 
of game belonging to Prof. Dyche, of the State University , 
as the Kansas State University furnishes of its professors 
five members of the Lawrence contingent. The banquet 
was all that could be desired. 
I inclose a programme of the toasts and responses, but 
owing to the departure of the train conveying the Topeka 
membership home, it was somewhat abridged; and after 
the address of welcome and its response, Profs. "White, 
Robinson and Dyche, of Lawrence, were called, and 
Messrs. McNeal, Ware, Baker and W. F. Rightmire, of 
Topeka; but the event of the evening was the response of 
the Rev. Dr. Roberts, of Kansas City, Mo., to "Missouri's 
Greeting to Kansas," at the close of which the Topeka 
members, with three cheers for the Lawrence member- 
ship and the invited guests, took their departure. I send 
you Mr. Rightmire's response to "The Gun and Rod." 
Observer. 
"The Gun and Rod." 
We can all remember in our childhood the popular 
poem of the "Old Oaken Bucket," in which the poet sung, 
"How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood," 
so at this time in responding to those magic words that 
have been assigned as my subject, permit me to say that 
if that poet had. ever felt the thrill of the communion 
with nature that comes to every true sportsman afield 
and afloat, instead of singing of "The Old Oaken Bucket" 
he would have sung of the sports of his childhood, and 
then we should have had embalmed in song the love of 
nature's enthusiast for those true companions of his hours 
of leisure, the gun and rod. 
May I express it as the desire of every sportsman that 
the poetic gifts of Whitcomb Reily or our own "Ironquil" 
will yet choose this live subject; and then what joy it will 
give us to sing their choice meters of our early love for 
that old family relic, the old gun. In your fipeaker's 
case it was an old flint-lock that had been changed to use 
percussion caps, that had been carried by his mother's 
grandfather at the siege of Louisberg, when the colonists 
captured that stronghold of France in the New World. 
It was known as a Queen Ann's musket, and with it he 
used at least to frighten the chipmunks, squirrels, crows 
and woodchucks upon his father's hillside farm in cen- 
tral New York, and to produce a lameness in the region 
of the right shoulder. But in spite of all its imperfections 
that old gun held such a warm place in our youthful 
affections that the improved guns of our maturer years 
have never caused us to forget it, and 'to make a confes- 
sion, I do not believe that my first deer, a five-pronged 
buck, gave me half as much pride and self-satisfaction as 
did the death of the first chipmunk brought to bag with 
the old musket. 
The rods of our childhood of which we all have clear, 
distinct, and sometimes tender>ecollections, were of many- 
kinds, but principally of beech, birch and iron wood, used 
while we toed the line, and were the ba ; t that was 
whipped upon the line, while irate parents and school- 
masters wielded the rods. But even such misapplied use 
of the rod did not cause a final separation and absolute 
divorce between the rod and ourselves, for we all lovingly 
remember those halcyon days, when with bent pins for 
hooks, wrapping twine for line, and ash or hickory sprout 
for a rod, and worms for bait, we strolled along the banks 
of brooks for chubs, dace and the beautiful brook trout, 
or perched upon the remains of old trees that had fallen 
into ponds or lakes, caught strings of perch, suhfish, gog- 
gle-eyes and bullheads far more satisfactory than we have 
ever caught of bass and trout in our maturer years. 
The joy of those early days with gun and rod will ever 
linger as the brightest on memory's pages, and ought to 
be embalmed in holiness, because we were then too young 
to know anything about that satire upon fishermen, in- 
vented by some fiend incarnate, who said, "All fishermen 
will lie," and at that period of our lives we knew nothing 
of the license granted to "fish stories," and innocently 
tried to tell the truth about our exploits on land and 
water. 
"What sportsman present but cherishes the memory of 
the time he felt the thrill that came along his line, caus- 
ing every nerve to tingle with emotion, as by a deft turn 
of his wrist he hooked the king trout of the pool, or the 
tackle-smashing bass of the pond or lake, and how eagerly 
yet carefully he tried to land it; and when the fish, 
through its own innate energy, or the lack of skill on the 
part of the angler, gained its freedom, oh, the disap- 
pointment! and how you blamed yourself, if alone, or 
laid the fault upon your tackle, if you had a compan- 
ion. And when you afterward related the incident, what 
person present will make an affidavit that you gave your 
friends a veritable account of the transaction, and did not 
tell a "fish story?" 
How pleasant the recollection of that picture hung'on 
memory's wall of the time when we approached our first 
big game, upon a still-hunt. How many-colored the 
leaves of the forest were on that most beautiful day of 
the early fall. How the gold of the hickory, birch and 
beech harmonized with the red and purple of the maple 
and oak, and the dark green of the pine, spruce and hem- 
lock. What a joy it was to breathe the crisp morning 
air. How the pulse throbbed and the heart thumped as 
we carefully crept up the hillside to deal death with the 
rifle to the deer in the vale beyond the hill. And how 
when out of breath we reached the crest of the hill and 
tried to sight our rifle, we had the^buck fever injsuch an 
intense form that we could not have taken a'good aim at 
a mountain. 
Such are the pleasant pictures that furnish the bright 
pages of a true sportsman's memory, and each one of you 
will agree with me that it is not the capture of fish or 
game that gives the zest and charm to the ramble afield, 
or the float upon the water, but the pleasure of the com- 
munion with nature that such occasions afford, and the 
joyous recollections that linger around such trips in after 
years. 
If we consider the effects the gun and rod have upon 
their users we find that the patience, inculcated while 
still-fishing and waiting for a bite, is forever afterward a 
characteristic of the sportsman. The skill, caution and 
alertness that come from the proper use of the gun in 
still-hunting, are by their possessor put in daily use in all 
the business vocations of life. We adopt as an axiom the 
rule that the use of the gun and rod for recreation will 
make of their users better and more successful men; and 
the villain who was the author of the saying, "Too lazy 
for anything but a fisherman," was a base slanderer. Let 
him learn the lesson that each one of the members of the 
Lake View Association has so well been taught by experi- 
ence, that "It takes a great amount of hard work to be a 
successful fisherman." 
"While we are willing to verify the statement that the 
sportsmanlike use of the gun and rod makes better 'citi- 
zens of their owners, yet there are some prejudiced per- 
sons so benighted that they will deny this and boldly 
affirm the contrary. It was my. fate to attend a lecture 
given by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to 
Animals, where the lecturer had such a great love for the 
animal kingdom that he was willing to lecture for the 
Society in their behalf at a large annual salary, and at 
the lecture he uttered this libel upon sportsmen^ he said: 
"You may take your most upright, truthful Christian 
citizen in any community and make him a present of a 
breachloading shotgun, a jointed rod and reel and a 
hunting dog, and in two weeks' time he will become such 
a liar that none of his friends will believe anything he 
says, and he himself will soon come to the conclusion that 
it is impossible for him to tell the truth." 
Let me express the wish that every lover of the rod and 
gun may have such joyous use of them, that as his head 
grows more snow-like, his footsteps fewer and halting, 
he may look back upon a life enlivened by the joys of 
the chase; and as he dozes away his few short years may 
his dreams be happy ones of ranging the fields and woods 
of dreamland, and may he float down the river of Lethe 
accompanied by those most joyous companions, "the 
gun and rod." 
WOMAN AND FIELD SPORTS. 
It is a cause of wonder and surprise to me when I am 
off on my summer vacations in the forests that so few 
women manifest taste for shooting and fishing. Not so 
much that there is a certain accomplishment in the use 
of the rod and rifle, but rather for the athletic benefits 
which come from their use, for either develops muscle, 
the stability of which is in large degree the mainstay of 
health. Such practice also trains the eye and mind by 
concentration, for an expert with the rifle must have 
abandoned unsteadiness of sight and thought, and the 
nimble rod is no leas exacting of that equipoise of its 
holder, which is required to deftly cast a fly and recover 
the object for which it was sent out. No flighty person, 
of either sex, can shoot or cast successfully; but by prac- 
tice a steadiness of thought and nerve can be acquired 
which will stand out in singular contrast with previous 
frivolity. There is discipline in it which is not found in 
any pleasure or in any vocation, 
Physically, there is in these great opportunity for recre- 
ation and development, for either the rifle or the rod offers 
Borne incentive for a tramp or a boat pull. Not that 
women may hunt the forests or rivers as men hunt them, 
through thickets and over rapids unattended, but with 
proper observance of the rules of decorum and comfort, 
always with some object in view when Bhort or long ex- 
cursions by land or water are contemplated. 
"Women who will trait, themselves and accept sugges- 
tions from experts, almost invariably become accom- 
plished in both shooting and fishing. The most perfect 
fly-casting I ever saw was by a highly cultured lady, and 
I know several who can clip off the head of a linnet at 
twenty paces almost unerringly, and who will also kill a 
deer at long range as stoically as an old hunter. 
There is a growing tendency among women to give 
more attention to outdoor sports, trampling underfoot 
those old notions which would permit her no liberties 
outside of the parlor. Under such restraints, for want 
of wholesome, proper exercise, she began to deteriorate 
in both health and physique, and the necessity of such 
manner of life as would restore to her her health, form 
and beauty, so impressed itself upon her that innovations 
upon old customs and prudish notions naturally followed. 
So it is in these days that the "summer girl" no longer 
looks disdainfully upon an expert use of oars, or Under 
proper escort hesitates to follow the longest or most ob- 
scure trail, or climb the highest mountain, or do any of 
many things which were once shocking to "good society." 
The true American girl of to-day has her head bent in the 
right direction, and in time will practice those arts for 
building up a strong constitution during the summer 
time which will secure to her the comforts which good 
health and development command. When she has a 
proper woods costume and finds pleasure as well as profit 
in the sports from which she has long been debarred, 
there will be a stronger and better generation of women 
to distribute more joy and sunshine among mankind. 
D. H. B. 
From Florida's West Coast. 
Tarpon Springs, Fla., Nov. 25.— Fishing is good. R. 
W. Clemson caught a 16 -pound tarpon in the Spring last 
week. He said it was quite a lively fish for a 6 -ounce 
rod. Quail have been fairly plenty this fall. Deer not 
many, but turkey— why the woods are full of them, and 
we have had so many that we have lost all relish for 
Thanksgiving. We are having glorious weather. We 
have only one trouble— our Mayor went out and got a 
bear last week, and he is now too big for the town. I was 
glad to hear of "Dan vis Folks" in book form. I don't 
know when I have read anything that touched me like 
the closing chapters of "Danvis Folks," Tarpon, 
Foxes in Trees. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
When I read the article in a recent issue of the Forest 
and Stream by Tappan Adney, describing how he fouml 
a fox snugly housed in a nest in a treetop, I felt very 
much like hunting the gentleman up and giving him a 
bear hug. 
Up in the Berkshire Hill country I have been looked 
upon for a long time as a past grand master in the art of 
lying, simply because I stated in a public place in North 
Adams that in fox hunting in the Ozark Mountains of 
Missouri the pack of hounds I followed ran a fox until 
the animal took refuge in a treetop. When I told the 
story every one shook their heads and one or two left 
the room. But all the same, while following old Doc. 
McGregor's pack, about two miles southwest of Dixon. 
Mo. , the hounds ran a beautiful red fox up a tree, and 
when we arrived upon the scene the hounds stood at the 
roots of the tree looking at the snug and safe perch of old 
Reynard. 
On other occasions during my stay in that region I wit- 
nessed several similar incidents. Whether locality has 
anything to do with the habits of the fox I am not pre- 
pared to say, but when any one claims that foxes do not 
climb trees it is due to ignorance. Fenton Samuel. 
Wild Pigeons. 
Rome, N. Y., Nov. 26. — Editor Forest and Stream: On 
reading the article which appeared in one of your late 
issues in relation to the return of wild pigeons to central 
New York and to the fields once so prolific of these most 
beautiful birds, I was fearful that D r - Kidd had been 
misinformed in relation to the facts in the case. 
On making inquiry of truthful sportsmen who know 
whereof they speak, I would say for the benefit of the 
Doctor and all others interested, that many flocks have 
been seen in their flights over the highlands north of us 
and that on the pine plains, five miles west of our city, a 
few flocks have baited and some have been trapped. 
Should they return next season we will see that the 
poachers do not murder or frighten them from the roosts 
they have this fall pre-empted. 
In the days when these game birds were so very plenti- 
ful was it not sport right royal to pop them on the wing 
as they were encircling the buckwheat Stubble? Then 
roasting their plump and fat flesh by the camp-fire, serving 
them with rashers of bacon and corn-bread, a dish was had 
to be relished by the boys of my day. J. B. McH. 
Gray Squirrel Variations. 
Rome, N. Y. — For the benefit of Mr. Comstock who 
would like information in relation to squirrels, let me 
relate that owing to the past very mild winter many of 
these beautiful little "varmints" pulled through slick and 
fat. 
The gray and the red species have been quite plentiful 
throughout central and all northern New York, yet not a 
black one have I seen nor heard of. At least two litters 
of albinos of the gray family have been "hatched" on 
Floyd hill a few miles north of us. Some of them have 
been shot and offered for sale in our city. Slick, full- 
fledged and fat, they found ready market at one dollar 
each. J. B. McH. 
The Iiinnsean Society of New York. 
A REGULAR meeting of the Society will be held at the 
American Museum of Natural History, Seventy-seventh 
street and Eighth avenue, on Tuesday evenings, Dec. 11 
and 25, at 8 o'clock. Dec. 11— R. L. Ditmars, "Notes on 
some Species of the Genus Orotalus, with a brief Review 
of the Genus." Dec. 25— Walter W. Granger, "Remarks 
on the Mammals of the Black Hills and Vicinity." 
Walter W. Granger, Secretary. 
mr\t §ag at\d 0nn, 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
The Present arid Past in the Wilder West. 
r r 
[Prom a Staff Correspondent] 
BUTTE, MONTANA, 
The Chicago of the Mountains. 
Chicago, HI., Oct. 18. — In earlier mention of the Mon-^ 
tana cities I have spoken of the strange contrast pre* 
sented in the blending of the mountain life of the past 
With that of what we may call the new civilization of the 
West, fhe conflict of the broad-brimmed hat; and the 
Derby is nowhere more in evidence than in these large 
Montana towns. This, however, must be said under 
qualification, for in the very largest city of Montana the 
contrast no longer exists. The past is gone and nothing 
remains but the present, a very utilitarian and material 
present. At Butte City you may, it is true, occasionally 
meet with an old-timer, whose individuality will suggest 
the flavor of the frontier, but he is apt to be regarded as 
a curiosity, even by those who rejoice in the title of the 
oldest inhabitants of Butte. There are occasionally In- 
dians in Butte, but they pay railroad fare and wear hats, 
and where you will see one Indian you will meet a 
hundred Cornish mining men with dress and dialect un- 
couth as that of the Indians, but still showing nothing to 
suggest any American or Western past. Butte has no 
ancient history and is glad of it. Butte is dirty, rich, 
busy, progressive, enterprising and materialistic. It 
is the Chicago of the mountains, a city with a bigger 
reputation for its size than probably any city in the world. 
There is hardly any civilized land in which the name of 
Butte City is not regarded as a synonym for wealth and 
energy coupled with a broad-gauged generosity in matters 
of business, pleasure or morality. Butte is the "red hot 
town" par excellence. The city government is doing its 
feeble best to change its reputation, but the reputation, 
I fear, will go marching on for many and many a day to 
come. 
