Forest and Stream; 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
TSRMS, f 4 A YKAR. 10 OlS. A CoPT. 
Six Months, fS. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, AUGUST IB, 1896. 
i VOL. ZLVn.— No. 7. 
( No. 846 BB0ADWA7, Nkw fOBK. 
J^or Prospectus and Advertising Rates see Page x. 
Forest and Stre^Water Colors 
We have prepared as premiums a series of four artistic 
and beautiful reproductions of original water colors, 
painted expressly for the Forest and Stream. The 
subjects are outdoor scenes: 
Jacksnipe Coming In. "He's Got Them" (Quail Shooting) . 
Vigilant and Valkjnrie. Bass Fishing at Block Island. 
The plates are for frames 14 x 19 in. They are done in $ 
twelve colors, and are rich in effect. They are furnished ] | 
to oIq or new subscribers on the following terms: 
Forest and Stream one year aiid the set of four pictures, $S. 
Forest and Stream. 6 months and any two of the pictures, $3. 
Price of the pictures alono, $1,50 each ; $5 for the set. 
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^ t 
FOREST AND STREAM OFFICE | 
346 Broadway i 
NEW YORK LIFE BUILDING 1 
Present Entrance on Leonard Street 
Readers acaustomed to buying the Forest and Stream 
at news stands, and who are going out of town to 
points where they cannot purchase from newsdealers, may 
have the paper mailed from this office for any length 
of time at the rate of forty cents per month. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
On Broadway the otlier day, some two hundred feet 
from the Forest and Stream's front door, an old man 
Bet out to board a cable car, and a funny show he made 
of it. He raised both elbows as high as his head and 
flopped his arms forward, pranced on his toes, made a 
wild grab at the oar, fell, and was hoisted aboard by the 
conductor, while a small boy yelled, "Go it, old rooster." 
He was evidently and unmistakably from the country, 
and was unused to boarding street care. His antics were 
ridiculous, and those who observed him could not be 
blamed if they smiled good-naturedly at the country 
greenhorn in the city. 
But by and by, we may be sure, it will come his turn 
to laugh, if indeed he has not had the occasion many a 
time already, at the verdant ways of the city greenhorn 
in the country. For greenhorns, though their name be 
legion, are to be divided into two classes, one of the 
country and the other of the town. Each is the natural 
product of its surroundings. For while in town and 
country there is an inseparable community of business 
intereste, and in a lesser degree of social interests, there is 
not the same common associations of action, of commu- 
nity of thought, of policy or of occupation. Country and 
city life being thus in parts separated by the peculiar con- 
ditions governing them, each in time comes to have a 
special education, a necessity imposed by their distinctive 
environments. And these conditions in turn produce the 
greenhorn. 
When the city man goes into the country he enters an 
environment with which he is unfamiliar, and his trivial 
blunders being apparent to all the native observers, they 
bestow on him a good-natured, homespun ridicule, and 
mirthfully gossip over his ignorance of country matters, 
small or great. It is assumed that the "city feller" is the 
same ineflBLcient man in the city that he is in the country. 
To the country resident his gloved hand, jrolished 
boot and natty costume are not indices of a refined 
calling, but rather a parade of effeminacy and an insignia 
of idleness. The city man who tramps through the coun- 
try with rod and gun is the favorite theme of the country 
man who desires to ridicule the residents of cities. The 
more costly Hiq rod, or gtm, or dog, the ^more elaborate 
the city man's costume, the greater is the detail in show- 
ing his finicky attempts and his failure; then the story of 
how the old muzzle-loader of the country resident killed 
right and left, and the old birch pole and hook and line 
pulled out the big fish, make a fitting climax to the ornate 
failure of the city man. 
But the country man comes into the city, and all is 
changed. He then himself is in the midst of strange 
things. He betrays his xinfamiliarity even more than 
does his city brother in the country, for he is in the midst 
of much more rapid and dangerous action. He is in a 
confusion of noises and activity. There is the roaring of 
heavy traflSc, with the clang of rushing cable cars, high 
buildings, higher than he ever saw before, and people in 
crowds hurrying to and fro without the slightest thought 
of him or ^y one else, so far as their expression or action 
indicates. He feels utterly helpless and bewildered. He 
now is the greenhorn. 
Let the greenhorn of the city or country of the East 
visit the "Western country, and both are in a strange en- 
vironment; then they acquire a new soubriquet, that of 
"tenderfoot." It again denotes a man who is not 
trained to the thought, manners and action of the en- 
vironment. 
Instead of evoking a mild contempt, the mistakes of the 
city man in the country or those of the country man in 
the city should be treated with broad tolerance and kind- 
ness. It requires but a short time to correct either. The 
country man will soon learn, if he be patient and observing, 
that the toy rod of the city man is a killing instrument, 
with which the fish-pole cannot compete, and that the 
city man can quickly learn coxmtry customs and ways. 
The city man will learn, if he be properly considerate, 
that it is an easy matter for his country brother to put on 
city ways correctly and with indifference, and that the 
brethren of city and country, no matter how much they 
may be greenhorns when they exchange visits, have their 
hearts in the right place. The lines of demarkation are 
less sharp between country and city sportsmen, and let 
us hope that in time they may disappear in the bonds of 
common fraternity. 
"We shall be glad to send specimen copies of Forest 
AND Stream to such addresses as readers may give us for 
that purpose. If you have a shootiag or fishing friend 
who would be interested in seeing the paper, give us his 
address. 
We referred the other day to the generous offer by a 
sportsman who enjoys desirable shooting privileges to 
share them with some less fortunate brother whose time 
given to sport must of necessity be short. The offer is 
still open, but the person making it advises us that we 
neglected to note two qualifications required of the one 
accepting it, namely, that he must be a good wing shot, 
who can get the^birds after they are shown to him; and 
second, that he must be of those who can afford to spend 
but little money for shooting. We may add that the per- 
son making the offer lives in the eastern part of New 
York; and that his invitation is just what it purports to 
be, and is prompted by a generous desire to share his own 
opportunities with another. 
"Now, ladies and gentlemen, please come up where 
you can hear. My voice is not very strong to-day, for 
yesterday we had a Simday crowd and I had to do fifty 
turns; fifty turns means eating twelve pounds of cotton; 
and if any of you think it isn't weakening to eat twelve 
pounds of cotton in a day, try it. Now watch me, ladies 
and gentlemen, as I eat." And the gaping crowd saw 
the world-renowned champion cotton eater of Coney 
Island cram a double handful of cotton into his mouth 
until his cheeks bulged; and then they saw him, not with- 
out dire grimaces and gulpings and jugular contortions 
extraordinary, swallow the wad; and saw him take an- 
other mouthful, and another, A hundred or more men, 
women and children were wUling to testify that they had 
seen the man swallow the cotton. It was perfectly plain 
to them. If his audiences should fail to see the cotton 
swallower swallow the cotton, the swallower of cotton 
would no longer swallow cotton; his occupation would be 
gone. He lives upon it, not upon cotton, but upon the 
people who see him. eat it, or think they see him eat it. 
owe their existence to the testimony of eye-witness^ 
who have beheld their wonderful doings. But while the 
cotton eater courts publicity and shouts to the multitude 
to draw nigh and look closely upon him, the hornsnake 
shuns crowded haunts, retires to woodland retreats and 
reveals himself scantily and for the most part to solitary 
observers, as to an old darky woman at nightfall, or to a 
farm hand bringing home the cows. Very rarely does it 
happen that a specimen is seen under such favorable 
conditions, at such close quarters, as was the case with 
the one which is described to-day by our Mississippi cor- 
respondent, Coahoma. This snake was captured alive. 
Two negroes saw its sting; so likewise did three white ob- 
servers. Here then were five witnesses who actually saw 
for themselves the horn and sting on the captured snake. 
This should be testimony enough to convince the most 
skeptical, and if Coahoma had been minded to handle the 
evidence with anything like the enterprising aasurance of 
the Coney Islamd cotton eater, he might have given the horn- 
snake a new lease of life. Instead of doing this, however, 
he aflSrms that in spite of the credulous reception given 
the creature by the rest of the party, he contumaciously 
squeezed its horn and proved it to be stingless. The five 
persons who saw the sting were mistaken, he teUs us; 
they did not see what they thought they saw. And he 
hopes that now the stinging snake myth has been finally 
disposed of. Not a bit of it. If the world was built after 
that fashion, what would become of the cotton eaters? 
Man likes to be deluded; he will have his cotton eaters and 
his sting snakes. Coahoma may squeeze the horns of a 
thousand reptiles and prove them as innocent of harm aa 
the babe at the mother's breast; but the hoop snake will 
go on rolling, the hornsnake stinging, and the joint 
snake, smashed to flinders, will link itself joint by joint 
together again. You may scotch these serpents, but you 
shall not kUl them. 
The Canadian authorities appear to be quite as in- 
efficient in their protection of the wood buffalo of the 
Northwest as the United States have been with the buffalo 
of the West. In the Northwest Territories buffalo are by 
law protected at all times, and in the Unorganized Terri- 
tories, which comprise all the Northwest Territories not 
included in Assiniboia, Alberta and Sasketchewan, they 
are protected until 1900, The law as to the Unorganized 
Territories, which goes into effect for the first time this 
present year, would practically be worthless even if en- 
forced, for it provides that "Indians and inhabitants are 
exempt, and travelers, explorers and surveyors in need of 
food," A game law which exempts Indians and inhabi- 
tants is no game law worth enacting. As a matter of 
fact, since the protective laws were provided more wood 
buffalo hides and heads than before have been received at 
Edmonton, the great receiving and shipping center of the 
fur trade of the Northwest, 
As with the cotton eater so with the hornsnake. Both 
The failure of the law in the Northwest Territories ap- 
pears to be due to conditions similar to those which have 
rendered laws unavailing elsewhere. There is no one to 
enforce them; they will not enforce themselves, nor will 
they ever do the least good until an official shall be provided 
to put them into operation. A game warden at Edmon- 
ton, to overhaul the furs received there and to confiscate 
buffalo hides and heads, would soon put a stop to the 
slaughter of what is practically the last remnant of this 
species on the continent. Canada is in many respects so 
efficient in the protection of her game reserves that this 
condition in the Northwest Territories is all the more a 
reproach; and we cannot believe that the authorities will 
permit it to continue. 
In the names of those to be included in Mr. Fred 
Mather's charming sketches of the men he has fished with 
is that of "Uncle Dan" Fitzhugh, of Bay City, Mich., who 
died on June 26 of this year, at the age of seventy. Mr. 
Fitzhugh was by personal qualities endeared to his 
angling friends. Of him Mr. Herschel Whitaker well 
says: "He was one of nature's noblemen, a true sports- 
man, a brave spirit, with a heart as gentle as a woman's." 
We may now venture to consider the New England 
copperhead question as settled. Our California corre- 
spondent has found out that copperheads are a Connecti- 
cut and Massachusetts institution. He has also discovered 
that our Natural History columns have a trans-continental 
range, and that by recourse to them a seeker for knowl- 
edge may peer from his stand on the Pacific coast into 
the crevasses and snake dens of New England cliffs. 
