Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
} NEW YORK, SATURDAY, DECEMBER IB, 1894. 
Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $2. 
VOL. XLnL-No. 24. 
No. 818 BaoADWAY, New Yokk. 
CONTENTS. 
Editorial. 
New York Fish Commission. 
The New York Game Protectors 
A Christmas Week Guarantee. 
Retain Agent Andrus. 
Cup Committee and the New 
Deed. 
Snap Shots. 
The Sportsman Tourist. 
A Perfect Nimrod. 
Notes by the Way. 
Natural History. 
A Useful Bird Book 
What Was This Owl and What 
This Bear / 
Game Bag and Gun. 
A Congress of Wild Bucks. 
Stop tlie Sale of Game. 
Chicago and the West. 
Oregon Notes. 
On Little River. 
Boston and Maine. 
Running Down Something Alive. 
Michigan Deer. 
Sea and River Fishing. 
A Week with the Grayling. 
Angling Notes. 
Let Connecticut Wake Up. 
The Kennel. 
Brighton Tobe and International 
Field Trial. 
Rabbit Hunting with Horses. 
Ch. Frank Forest vs. Ch. Royal 
Krueger. 
Points and Flushes. 
Dog Chat. 
Yachting. 
Large Naphtha Cruisers. 
The Dunraven Challenge. 
Valkyrie-Vigilant Matches. 
Yachting News Notes. 
Canoeing. 
A Panacea. 
New York 0. 0. 
Rifle Range and Gallery. 
Amateur Revolver Champion- 
ship. 
Club Matches and Meetings. 
Rifle Notes. 
Trap Shooting* 
Control of Trap-Shooting. 
Effect of Wadding Material upon 
Performance of Shotguns. 
Dropping for Place. 
Drivers and Twisters. 
Answers to Queries. 
For Prospectus and Advertising Rates see Page iii. 
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. 
A CHRISTMAS WEEK GUARANTEE. 
A fortune would conie, and all of a sudden, to the 
dealer in Christmas goods, who could guarantee that 
every gift purchased from him would be certain to please 
its recipient more than any other could. That is a guar- 
tee which unfortunately cannot be given, for while the 
gift may be worthy and fit and chosen without regard 
to cost, there is yet the possibility that it may not be the 
one thing most potent to please. 
But there is a Christmas time guarantee which we 
propose to put at the head of the outside front cover of 
the Forest and Stream next week; and it runs some- 
thing like this: 
Our Guarantee —We guarantee that every person paying 10 cents 
for this paper shall have more thau ten times 10 cents worth of enter- 
tainment. 
That might have been put on the cover to-day, or last 
week, or any other week; and for that matter it might be 
kept standing there. It shall be used this time to empha- 
size the store of good things in the Christmas number. 
THE NEW YORK FISH COMMISSION. 
Commissioner Coxe, the latest addition to the New- 
York Fish Commission, is reputed to have been offered 
the place in order that he might be made ' 'solid" for the 
political wing in power; and he is also reputed to have 
accepted it because he was under the delusion that a salary 
went with it. Now that he is in, his chief anxiety 
appears to be to provide snug, warm and well-paid 
places for the smaller political fry. And so on, as the 
poet sings of the fleas, ad infinitum. Of the five commis- 
sioners, then, two are politicians, a third is a joke, a 
fourth is noted as a commissioner chiefly for his frolics at 
one of the hatcheries; and a fifth, the president, does the 
work. 
The time has come for a radical change in the organiz- 
ation of the Commission. It is time to have done with 
jokes, frolics and politics. It is time to come down to 
business— the fish business of the people of the State of 
New York. If the people understood this thing as it is, 
they would say just that. They should understand it, 
and they should demand action at Albany next month. 
The first thin* to do is to cut down the Commission, as 
was suggested in our issue of Nov. 17, from five to three; 
or better, to one. One man can do the work of five men 
better than five men can do the work of one. Make the 
Commission single headed. 
Retire the jokers and politicians to the rear. To ad- 
minister the fishing interests put in a person thoroughly 
informed as to fish, fishing and fishculture; that is to say, 
one who knows something about these interests and how 
to administer them. 
Being competent to perform the duties of his office, 
let him be held responsible for their performance hon- 
estly, intelligently and effectively. 
For his services pay him an adequate salary. 
Cut off the shellfish department of the Fish Commission . 
Turn the oysters and clams over to a special and inde- 
pendent shellfish commissioner, or put them under" con- 
trol of a bureau of the land board or the Comptroller's 
office. 
Separate the State game and fish protective force from 
the Fish Commission. There is enough for the Fish 
Commission to do without the protective work. The pro- 
tective work can be done more efficiently if it be un- 
hampered by the Fish Commission. Moreover, by 
having taken from it the appointment of protectors, the 
Commission will be relieved from political embarrass- 
ments. 
The time is ripe, too, for a radical change in the admin- 
istration of the work of the Commission. We want a 
vastly increased output of fish and at a vastly less cost. 
An honest, intelligent and capable single-headed Commis- 
sion would effect this by first reducing the force of 
employees. There are too many superintendents now, 
one at each hatchery. One general superintendent is 
enough for all the hatcheries combined. The position of 
hatchery superintendent should be abolished. A simple 
care-taker could take care of the stations. A force of 
experienced men, under the supervision of the general 
superintendent, might be organized to do all the work of 
fish hatching, going from one station to another as the 
spawning seasons demanded, devoting their time in turn 
to the trout at Caledonia and the Adirondacks, the white- 
fish and ciscoes at Clayton, the pike at Oneida Lake and 
Three-Mile Bay, and the torn cods and smelt at. Cold 
Spring Harbor. In summer the entire force could be 
employed in shad hatching, and in such repairs as might 
be required at the general stations. Two-thirds of the 
present force could do all this work, and do it better and 
more cheaply than it is done now. 
But first, preliminary to effecting any changes of admin- 
istration, let us have a new organization, a single, comj- 
petent, efficient and accountable Commissioner. 
The New York Commission is not the only one that 
should be reorganized and reformed. Fishcultural in- 
terests are at loose ends in several other States, where an 
application of business principles to the work of fish- 
culture would most decidedly be to public advantage. 
THE WATER-KILLING OF DEER. 
A correspondent, who has just received a handsome 
deer head from the Adirondacks, sends us a letter written 
by one of the men who killed the deer. When the hounds 
were heard driving the game to water, the writer of this 
letter, not having a gun at hand, grabbed a club and 
started for the lake. Others closed in with guns and 
rifles; and dogs, men, clubs and guns, all together beset- 
ting the beast in the lake, it was eventually done to 
death. 
Some persons might not joy in the possession of a 
head, no matter how magificent, secured in that way; 
but judging from the popularity of water-killing deer in 
the North Woods and the scores of hunters and green- 
horns who take part in it, such finical sportsmen would 
be in a minority. 
Nevertheless, the killing of deer in the water should be 
prohibited in the Adirondacks. We do not care for the 
argument that the supply is so great that the deer stock 
can stand the decimation. It is not altogether a question 
of supply; it is just as much a consideration of sportsman- 
ship. Should not the practice be forbidden? We would 
like to hear from those who are familiar with Adiron- 
dack deer conditions and are interested in them. Our 
columns are open for both sides to have their say. 
RETAIN AGENT ANDRUS. 
The cause of game and game protection in Minnesota is 
popularly associated with the name of W. P. Andrus," the 
Executive Agent of the Fish and Game Commission. 
The Minnesota scheme of protection and its successful 
application and enforcement are in a very large measure 
due to the sagacity, activity and honest devotion of Mr. 
Andrus. His term will expire Jan. 1, His reappoint- 
ment would be taken as an assurance that the good work 
is to go on. For the sake of the public interests at stake 
the Forest and Stream trusts that it may record the 
retention of Mr. Andrus for a new term of usefulness. 
THE CUP COMMITTEE AND THE NEW DEED. 
In openly abiding by the new deed of gift the Cup com- 
mittee of the New York Yacht Club has taken a position 
which, because of its frankness and definite character, is 
likely to be indorsed by all American yachtsmen. That 
position is, however, peculiar and anomalous. The com- 
mittee is engaged in the work of upholding and enforcing 
something which has been condemned by yachtsmen the 
world over, and which is no less condemned by the 
excuses and evasions of its friends. In carrying out this 
thankless task, however, they have been at least open and 
consistent, and have avoided the many blunders of the 
previous Cup committee of 1892-3. 
While maintaining sturdily the fairness and legality of 
the deed, this former committee virtually admitted all 
that was urged against it by omitting some of the most 
vital requirements, and thus throwing open to question 
the legality of their acceptance of a challenge. 
The one fair and manly course now open to the New 
York Y. C. is the complete repudiation of the discredit- 
able document forced on it by a few men. So long, 
however, as the club is not prepared to go so far as this, 
and still insists on the legality of the new deed, it is at 
least a satisfaction that through the Cup committee it is 
prepared to stand by the whole deed in toto and not by a 
mutilated and distorted version of it. 
We wish we could congratulate the club on making 
the only reparation in its power for the gross act of in- 
justice perpetrated in its name in 1887. Failing this, we 
can at least congratulate it in a much lesser degree in 
that it possesses the courage of its convictions, and is 
at least prepared to stand squarely and openly by what 
it has once accepted, bad though that may be. 
THE NEW YORK GAME PROTECTORS. 
The game and fish protectors force should be divorced 
from the Fish Commission. The duties of the State 
Commission of Fisheries are properly those set forth in 
the resolution under which the Commission was first 
created, i e., the propagation and distribution of fish and 
game and investigations into the causes, should there be 
necessity, of the decrease of the supply of fish and game. 
The Commission might properly recommend to the Legis- 
lature laws for the protection of fish and game; but the 
enforcement of such laws should be in charge of the 
State department of justice, the Attorney General's 
Office. 
The chief protector should be appointed by the Gov- 
ernor, upon the recommendation, perhaps, of the Fish 
Commission. He should hold office during good behavior, 
and should be removed only for cause. He should have 
the power of appointment of the members of his force, 
but should be required to select from an eligible list sub- 
mitted by the Civil Service Commissioners. He should 
also have the power of removal, but only for cause, and 
after trial. The game and fish protectors should receive 
a salary of at least $800 per annum, with an allowance 
for actual traveling expenses. No part of the fines 
imposed or penalties collected should be paid to them. 
There is always a prejudica in the minds of a jury against 
the evidence of an informer who receives part of the fine 
or penalty recovered on conviction. The entire amount 
received from fines and penalties should be paid in to the 
Attorney-General's office, to be kept in a separate fund, 
and used for the payment of expenses incurred in the 
prosecution of offenses against the game law, 
THE CONTROL OF TRAP-SHOOTING. 
The letters printed in our trap columns last week and 
to-day, with more to come, are noteworthy indorsements 
of the Forest and Stream's suggestion that there should 
be some central representative and governing body to 
define the ethics of trap-shooting and to secure their 
observance. The plan possesses certain inherent diffi- 
culties, but none so serious, we believe, as to preclude the 
successful organization of a body which shall have the 
co-operation and support of the shooting public. The 
association cannot do everything, nor reform all that 
should be reformed, but it can do so much for the good of 
the interest concerned that its formation is surely well 
worth working for. 
Some yarns are founded on fact, but the foundation is 
so slight and the superstructure so massive that the little 
fact at the bottom is somewhere down in the bowels of 
the earth. 
