Forest and Stream; 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun, 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER B, 1896. 
TsRMS, |4 A Ykab. 10 Ots. a Oopt. I 
Six Months, p. f 
i VOL. XLVn.— No. 10. 
I No, 346 Broadway, Nkw York. 
For Prospectus and Advertising Rates see Page x. 
AUDUBON BIRD PLATES. 
The most famous bird pictures in the world are those by 
America's great artist-ornithologist John James Audubon. 
Devoted as he was to the study of birds, Audubon was first 
of all an artist — ardent, sensitive, poetic — and it was this 
artistic temperament, united to the painstaking fidelity of 
the naturalist, which made his paintings of birds fai' 
surpass any others ever painted. The great work in 
which the plates are contained is now so extremely 
rare that, although we have all heard much of 
these Audubon pictures, few of us have had the 
privilege of seeing them. It is with decided satisfaction 
then that the Foeest and Stream announces that a series 
of half-tone reproductions of selected Audubon bird plates 
will be given in lorthcoming issues. The plates have been 
photographed especially for this purpose from a copy of the 
original double elephant folio edition of. this work, 1887- 
1835, in the possession of a member of the Forest and Stream 
Publishing Company, and the results will be seen during the 
next few months by our readers. 
The birds chosen for the illustrations include several 
species of ducks — ^including the beautiful plate of the 
canvasback — two species of grouse and several of the 
waders. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
It is needless to say that the letter of Dr. Morris telling of 
the appearance of a mysterious wanderer on the Labrador 
coast and suggesting that his description answered to that of 
the Lost Man excited lively interest. That after having sur- 
vived hardships almost incredible the unhappy creature 
should have met his end at last by tumbling from a snowed 
over and unsuspected house roof was quite in keeping with 
all that we had been told of the Lost Man's adventures. It 
appealed to the imagination as a fitting close of the history, 
because it was the last thing in the world any one would 
have thought of as a climax of a story of truth stranger than 
fiction. In reply to our inquiry, Mr. Scott, the Hudson's Bay 
Co. 's factor at Mingan, Quebec, tells us that the man de- 
scribed to Dr. Morris pasted through Mingan four years ago, 
and was evidently of about twenty-two years of age. As the 
Foeest and Stream's Lost Man was seen in the New 
Brunswick wilderness by Mr. Irland in 1895, the Labrador 
stranger was another person ; and thus in place of the orig- 
inal mystery solved we have a new one. The Lost Man did 
not end his wanderings by falling oif the roof at Ford's Har- 
bor; shall we ever solve the problem of his fate? 
A meeting of Texas sportsmen will be held at Waco to- 
day to devise measures for the better protection of the fish 
and game of that great State. A subject of particular con- 
sideration will be the usefulness, desirability and practi- 
cability of limiting the traffic in game. Whatever may come 
of the conference this much will be sure, that those in attend, 
ance will have had presented to them the precedents set by 
other States as to the limitation of game markets, and in 
many instances as to the absolute prohibition of killing 
game for market, Texas herself must come to this eventu- 
ally, and the sooner the remedy is applied the more quickly 
will the cure be wrought. The market hunters are barrel- 
ing Texas game for the New York and Boston and other 
markets, and no game supply under heaven can stand that 
strain without extermination. 
We trust that the Waco meeting may be the opening of a 
successful campaign of earnest and definite work. The 
sportsmen of Texas must understand that if their game is 
preserved they themselves must do the hard work. They 
have before them three things to accomplish: they must de- 
vise an adequate law, provide an executive warden system 
to make the law amount to something, and create a public 
sentiment which shall back up the executive agents in their 
execution of the law. These are three absolute essentials to 
an efficient game protective system, and they are in demand 
nowhere else to-day more urgently than in the great com- 
monwealth of the Southwest. 
for a black bass of more than a certain weight ; he would 
like to know the precise weight the bass must attain to win 
the $500. We have never made any such proposition. 
Why should we? It is not conceivab!(- that any black bass 
in existence, unless it had diamond eyes, could be worth 
$500, not even if it weighed a ton. The big bass whose 
head has long been among the curiosities of this office 
weighed SS^lbs. He was a monster, and up to date, we be- 
lieve, holds the record for weight. Gur Canadian corre- 
spondent's fish would have to go above 23ilbs, to win the 
$500, if there were any $500 to win. 
There are men tvho fish for the sole purpose of breaking 
the record in size or number. They ' 'count that day lost 
whose low descending sun sees" them returning to camp or 
to the hotel with a lighter load of fish than some other angler 
brings in or has brought in. There is no question that among 
such fishermen more than one might be found who would 
very willingly give $500 and esteem it a small price to pay 
for the fame of having taken the record bass of the country. 
But why should anyone ask for a money recompense for 
the biggest fish? Is not a big fish, like virtue, its own 
reward ? 
A correspondent writes from Baldwinsville, in Worcester 
county, Massachusetts, that several deer have been seen in 
the vicinity this season. This recalls the fact that the Massa- 
chusetts law omits protection of deer altogether, except in 
the counties of Plymouth and Barnstable. This law was 
permitted to lapse, we presume, because it was thought that 
outside of the Cape there were no deer to be benefited. Now 
that the game is appearing again Massachusetts should follow 
the example of Connecticut and provide needed legislation. 
Inquiry fails to develop anything reassuring as to the re- 
sults of the experiment made by the Massachusetts Fish and 
Game Protective Association a few years ago of importing 
game birds from the West. The sharp-tailed grouse have 
vanished, and few if any of the pinnated grouse have re- 
mained. The imported quail, however, appear to have done 
well in almost every case where the locality in which they 
were put out afforded adequate food supply. The unusual 
numbers of quail reported in many quarters may without 
question be credited to this restocking by the Association. 
Read that report of what has been done by the St, Louis 
County Association of Minnesota. It is a record to be 
proud of, to arouse emulation, to demonstrate that the way 
to enforce the law is to enforce it. 
Of late years a practice appears to have grown up in the 
shooting world which deserves sharp rebuke. An individual 
who is interested in shooting, and has much to do with 
shooters, writes to manufacturers of guns, shells, wads or 
powders and requests or demands that the manufacturer 
shall supply him with his product without charge. It is 
hinted— or openly stated — that the equivalent for this gift 
will be the recommendation of the product, perhaps to 
friends, perhaps to the members of his shooting club, or even 
in reports of tests made or supposed to have been made by 
the recipient of the goods. We are told that this practice 
has become very common and is on the increase. It is 
alleged that secretaries of gun clubs are frequent offenders in 
this regard, and that certain persons who write for the sport- 
ing papers obtain all their ammunition in this way; that by 
some persons the request for the goods is made politely and 
argumentatively, and by others in a very positive manner, 
and if denied the response contains scarcely veiled threats 
that the product will be decried in revenge for the re- 
fusal. 
Of course such demands are mere blackmail, and should 
be resisted from the very start. There is no reason why 
writers or club secretaries or any other class or nrofession 
should be supplied with free ammunition. Manufacturers 
do not make their goods from pure benevolence and do not 
expect to part with them except for a fair price. Happily, 
the matter is one where the; firms preyed upon have the 
remedy in their own hands. If they will refuse all such re- 
quests and notify their fellow manufacturers of names of 
persons who make such, demands upon them the practice re- 
ferred to wiUoome to an immediate atop, as it should. 
to take out a part of the purchase price in a commendatory 
notice which the purchaser undertakes to smuggle into his 
next contribution to a sportsman's journal. Then the writer, 
who has accumulated a new gun under these conditions, 
spreads himself. In his hands the wonderful arm, as he 
writes of it, is good for game anywhere on the horizon or 
above the clouds, and is altogether more of a prodigy than 
the fabled gun which went off of its own volition and killed 
the deer while the hunter slept on the runway. The buyer 
who bargains thus should as a rule have credit for the per- 
fect honesty of his intention ; he means to do all that the 
agreement calls for. That he so often fails is simply because 
not every editor is a fool, and the waste basket intervenes. 
Dr. Geo. W. Massamore, Sec'y-Treas. of the Maryland 
State Game and Fish Protective Association, advises us that 
under the new system of a State game warden control the 
laws are being enforced. There have been a number of con- 
victions, and the deputy wardens are doing good work. 
Commissioner Stanley sends us an interesting note about 
the black bass, which is an introduced species in Maine 
waters. In certain lakes which were formerly stocked with 
trout and into which pickerel had been put, the pickerel de- 
stroyed the trout. Then bass were introduced and they de- 
stroyed the pickerel, whereupon the trout came back again, 
and now trout and black bass are thriving in the same waters. 
This should entirely reconcile those persons who have 
opposed the bringing of bass into Maine. 
Here is a man who writes from Canada to know about the 
Poij^EST AiiD Stream's standing offer of a reward of |oOO 
We of course are not uninformed of the bargains which 
are sometimes chtigrfully entered into by manufacturer or 
dealer and^customer, by the terms of which the seller agrees 
The triple victory of Canada over the States is of a sort 
not to be depreciated or discounted by explanations and ex- 
cuses ; in each case Canada has had the best boat and in each 
event the handling of the Canadian crews has been of the 
very best. In the Canada- Vencedor match the Canadians 
have shown from the start the best judgment in making the 
match, in providing a yacht and crew and in sailing the 
races. In the races for the Seawanhaka cup, the challen- 
ging club has shown most commendable energy in setting 
afloat a trial fleet under many disadvantageous conditions, 
and the crew of the winning yacht have shown themselves 
equally skillful in the three branches of designing, construc- 
tion and handling. In the canoe races the Canadians were 
represented by a thoroughly modern canoe, of excellent 
model, construction and outfit, and sailed boldly and skill- 
fully. 
There is nothing to be gained by excuses, or by attributing 
to a solitary mischance Canada's victories afloat; they bear 
on the surface every evidence of sturdy and hard work on 
the part of all connected with them. Not many years ago 
Canadian yachtsmen were held in small favor in the United 
States, so much so that the privilege of competing for the 
America's Cup was taken from them by nothing less extrat 
ordinary than the tampering with the terms of a permanent 
trust deed. Though thus shut out from all competition for 
the great yachting trophy of the world, Canada has gone on 
quietly and steadily in the face of many serious obstacles; 
with no famous designers or building yards, with compara- 
tively little money for such an expensive sport as yacht rac- 
ing, and in many cases hampered by adverse local conditions 
Those who are familiar with the Lake Ontario and St. Law- 
rence Eiver fleet of a dozen years back will realize the pro- 
gress made in the construction of such modern yachts as 
Canada, Zelma and Glencairn. 
We congratulate most heartily our neighbor upon the 
progress she has made, and we welcome her as a rival even 
more dangerous than England, in that she is naturally far 
better acquainted with those local conditions which are de- 
termining factors in most yacht races. We recognize her 
triple supremacy this year, not grudgingly or even regretfully, 
but as something that will prove to the best interests of sport 
on both sides of the line. 
The Rod and Gun Club of Massachusetts is a new institu- 
tion with headquarters in Boston. It has been organized, 
we are assured, strictly for business, and is now ready for 
work. A game and fish warden has been appointed, and is 
equipped with a commission from the State ; other wardens 
will be employed as funds shall warrant. We print elsewhere 
the notice just sent out to members that complaints made 
by them will be investigated; but the work of the warden 
will not be confined to complaints coming from members; 
any person having knowledge of a violation of the fish or 
game laws is requested to communicate the facts to the club 
secretary, Mr. Henry J. Thayer, State Street ExcaM«i 
Boston. 
