90 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
IJas. so, 1897. 
and an organ of the interests of that region, ridicules the 
whole scheme and winds up its criticism with: "Bahl we 
want none of Itl" The Bangor papers have, some of them, 
scathed the measure unmercifully. Boston sportsmen 
whom I have met are decidedly against the bill. I met a 
gentleman to-day who annually spends his vacations in 
Maine, going twice a year, when possible. Formerly a 
citizen of that State, he goes to his native town. An old 
friend accompanies him on his fishing and shooting trips. 
He does not pretend to be a guide, going with his "friend 
from Boston" mainly for love of the sport. His Boston 
friend pays him something for his time, because he can- 
not afford to leave his farm for nothing; has to hire a man 
in his place. Who shall decide in such a case as to 
whether the country friend is a guide? Must he take out 
a license or be subject to a fine, under Commissioner 
Carlton's bill? There are many just such cases. Indeed, 
the guides who make a business of guiding are not many. 
They work a little while in the spring and fall, accom- 
panying one or two parties for a couple of weeks or more. 
Must they take out licenses? "Make the best of the guides 
wardens," the sportsmen say, "and nobody will object. 
But a sweeping law that every man working for hunters 
and fishermen must be licensed will not go down." 
The very latest reports from Augusta say that the 
friends of fish and game protection are getting so many 
remonstrances against the guide license measure, already 
introduced into the House, that they are seeing that it 
will be of little use to pass such a bill. They are reported 
to be ready to consider a compromise measure, and for 
that reason will propose a hearing where the interests of 
the guides may be represented. They know that a meas- 
ure to which the guides and everybody working for 
sportsmen are hostile can be of very little use. They 
begin to see the folly of attempting to tax the guides 
without any returns. Special. 
Rhode Island Game. 
Providence, R, I., Jan. 25 — Editor Forest and Stream: 
Sportsmen report a scarcity of water fowl in Narragansett 
Bay and its tributaries this winter, and the cause of the 
non-appearance of the bird is attributed to the fact that 
the weather has not been cold enough so far this winter 
to drive the wildfowl from their Northern haunts to lower 
latitudes. Nearly every winter from Dec. 1 until early in 
the spring Narragansett and Mount Hope bays are fairly 
alive with black ducks, bluebills, coots and whistlers, 
and sometimes these water fowl are seen in large flocks, 
often covering several acres of water surface about the 
bays and harbors. The birds find good feeding places in 
Narragansett Bay, and they would undoubtedly have 
made their appearance here in as large numbers as they 
have in recent years but for the fact that the winter has 
not been severe enough in higher latitudes to prevent 
them from obtaining food necessary to exist. Sd few 
wild ducks have been seen here so far this season that 
sportsmen feel that it is a sure sign of a mild winter. 
A local sportsman of nearly a quarter of a century's ex- 
perience, and well informed on the subject, reports that 
with the close of the shooting season rabbits and quail are 
more plentiful than for several previous years. Qaail, 
he says, were especially plentiful, and with an open win- 
ter next season's shooting in Bristol county and contigu- 
ous sections of Ej'iode Island and Massachusetts should be 
good, Partridges are scarce, and there is but little pros- 
pect of much of this ga,me next year. 
The trout hatchery at C*rolma recently supplied the 
Pennsylvania Forest Brook Tfrout Association with 100,0C0 
trout fry. 
While walking along a suburban road on Jan. 3 I 
thought I heard the note of a bluebird, and was soon 
gratified by seeing the welcome visitor flitting about 
among some scrub cedars. Bluebirds and robins were 
reported from Pawtuxet Valley on the 8th. The weather 
was unusually warm for several days. On the 15fch I 
noted several small flocks of fox sparrows. Others were 
seen on the 1,6th, as well as snowbuntings. W. H. J^, 
The Cheat Mountain Club. 
The annual meeting of the Sportsmen's Association of 
Cheat Mountain for the election of officers was held at 
Hotel Daquesne at 8 o'clock Monday eveninsr, Jan. 18. 
The election resulted as follows: President, W. M. Km- 
nedy; Vice-Presidents, U. Baird. Nathaniel Ewing, W. S. 
Edwards, W. G. Brown, S. B Elkins; Secretary, Dr. W. 
F. Robeson; Treasurer, Theodore Sproull; Naturalist and 
Surgeon, Dr. W. J. Riggs; Board of Directors, C O. 
Scaife, Gaorge Shiras, 111; H. P. Pdars, James H. 
Stewart, A. P. Tallman, J. M. Ball, M. C. Miller. 
The report of the treasurer showed the corporation to 
be in an excellent financial condition, with a larger sur- 
plus than at any previous time. It was decided to pur- 
chase several hundred acres of land oonliguous to the club 
house at Cheat Bridge, West Virginia. A survey will 
also be made with a view to converting certain swamp 
lands into a lake. The Association voted to indorse the 
efforts of the Pennsylvania State Sportsmen's Association 
to have a State game commission created on the lines of 
the State Fish Commission for the better protection of 
game in this State. Chinese pheasants introduced upon 
the preserve have thrived and multiplied. Tne club will 
place 3,000,000 trout fry in the waters of Cheat River 
during the coming season. 
The Association intends to fix a date for some time next 
summer when a recaption at the club's preserve will be 
tendered to the brethren of the fraternity not members, 
and the sportsmen's press, of which occasion Forest and 
Stream will receive due notice and its representative a 
cordial invitation. Deacon. 
riTTSBOKs, Pa., Jan. 30. 
Deer, Pheasants and Hares in Connecticut. 
East Haddam, Conn., Ja,n. 20 —It is $100 fine to shoot 
deer in Connecticut. A says that if a deer gets into a field 
of youag corn and destroys it, or any crop, you cannot 
shoot him or collect damage, but must let him keep right 
on and suffer the damage. B holds thai you can either 
shoot the deer to save the crop or collect damage from 
the State, as no law is constitutional that obliges a citizen 
to suffer damage with no means of recovery in such a 
case. 
If you will kindly put us right on^this subject we shall 
be very thankful. 
Pheasants are becoming quite numerous in this local- 
ity; also Canada hares, which have strayed from the pre- 
serves of F. C. Fowler, of Moodus. In Westchester, just 
north of Moodus, pheasants were so numerous the past 
season that they did serious damage to the crops, and 
the farmers were obliged to shoot many of them. 
F, A. 0. 
[There is nothing in the Connecticut deer law which 
provides, as some other game laws do, that game may be 
killed if it destroys crops. You might save your corn 
from the deer by building a fence around it, or by ex- 
ploding giant firecrackers and waving a red flag to fright- 
en the deer away, or by erecting as a scaredeer a sports- 
man's effigy with a gun, or by a dozen other devices and 
expedients not necessarily fatal to the deer.] 
Pheasants in Vermont. 
North Ferriseubo, Yt— Editor Forest and Stream: 
The pheasants of which I spoke in my note in your 
issue of Jan. 23 are called golden pheasants here, and 
were imported by W. S.. Webb, of your city, from Eng- 
land, for stocking his Shelburne farms, situated about 
eight miles from here on the shore of Lake Champlain. 
He has also imported (from Michigan, I think) several 
hundred, quail, which are doing well and are already 
scattered^er this part of the State. 
I saw by a State paper a short time since that he 
had delivered to the gamekeeper here three different 
kinds of game birds, the largest of which when mature 
weighs 14lbs. and is much the same as a wild turkey. 
He has furnished a large number of pheasant eggs to 
parties, that these birds might be started in diff erent lo- 
calities. Too much cannot be said in Mr. Webb's praise 
for his untiring efforts in trying to build up the game 
supply of the State. 
I am very glad to see that our paper is doing all it can 
to stop the sale of game, and surely I think that could 
every man who uses a gun read the Forest and Stream 
for a year we would have many less poachers and pot- 
hunters than now. Ferris. 
§m mid §w^r fgisliing. 
Proprietors of fishing resorts Will find it profitable to advertise 
them in Forkst and Stream. 
A MEMORABLE TROUT SUPPER. 
Charlestown, N. H. — Editor Forest and Siremn: I Lave 
followed up Fred Mather's reminiscences with great pleas 
ure, and particularly enjoyed his graphic sketch of our old 
friend Chas Hallock, whose photograph will make an ad- 
mirable frontispiece for the gallery of "Old Forest and 
Streamers'* which you propose to give us in a "New Year's 
number »ome day " 
I have been still more delighted with Mr. Haoitnond's de* 
scription of old days in Holland, for it has recalled to m5'- 
mind old scenes and old friends, long passed to "the happy 
hunting grounds," or in other ways lost sight of. Geo. 
AshmuD, Frank Bowles, D. B Wason and "Uncle" Aaron 
Howe I can see again now, and of George Ashmun I have 
particular memories. I never shot with him, though he once 
gave me a handsome black setter, which unfortunately would 
not stay given and insisted on returning to his old master; 
but he was one of "the men I have fished with," and 1 
well remembsr his splicing the tip of a rod for me up at 
Greensboro, Yt., said tip. having been broken by a fall in 
climbing down from the top of an old-fashioned stage 
coach to the slippery steos of the country tavern. 
Another of my recollections is the eating of some superb 
trout, of his catching, in the taking of which I did not share, 
as follows: . . 
In the spring of 1854 Col. Hazard, the proprietor of the 
celebrated powder mills at Fnfield, Conn., discovered some 
large trout feeding iu the pond which supplied his mills, and 
invited Mr. Ashmun and Chester Hardmg,, the artist, who 
was also an expert angler, to come down and catch them, 
and also asked several other Springfield gentlemen to come 
down at 6. P. M. and eat them, feeling justly sure of the suc- 
cess of the fishermen. Both feats were duly performed, and 
I remember those trout yet. 
It is so long since that 1 cannot recall all the guests, but I 
think that the coach in which I went down contained also 
Hon. David A. Wells, the well-known writer of political 
economics, now of Norwich, Conn. ; Samuel Bowles, the 
founder of the Springfield EepiMkan; and Mr. John L. 
King, a son-in-law of Mr. Harding. It was a dark and 
rainy night, and we went down in a covered coach, but the 
cheerful house, the warm welcome and the delicious dinner 
are things never to be forgotten. I believe Mr. Wells and 
myself are the only survivors of the party. 
I was very busy in those days building and operating 
a large cotton mill at Indian Orchard, one of the suburbs of 
Springfield, and did not get much time for either shooting or 
fishing, though I managed to slip off for a few hours once 
in a while with my rod to the North or South Branch of 
Mill River, which supplied the water shops of the Springfield 
Armory, and in which there were a few good trout left, 
though it was severely fished. 
Then the little Bircham Brook, which was entirely in 
Springfield and fell into the Chicopee River, between Indian 
Orchard and Chicopee Falls, usually gave me a few good 
breakfasts, and some sport for an hour or two in the after- 
noon every spring; and there was another little brook on the 
noith side of the Chicopee River, in the town of the same 
name, and one in Ludlow, which yielded fair toll on an 
annual visit. There is a great stretch of level "plain land" 
on the north side of the river, stretching over Wilhmansett 
and South Hadley, which was a favorite resort for upland 
plover in August, and I occasionally got one or two of them, 
and have shot them so fat on grasshoppers as to burst open 
when they struck the ground in their fall if I had dropped 
them from a high sweep overhead, as they circled round. 
They are a hard bird to approach, though, and hardly pay 
for the trouble of looking up. 
So much for recalled reminiscences. Von W. 
The Forest and Stream is put to press each week on- 
Tuesday. Correspondence intended lor publication 
should reach us at the latest by Monday, and as Timch 
earlier as pratticable. 
MEN I HAVE FISHED WITH. 
XXX.-Francis Endlcott. 
Ten years ago there was no sportsman more widely known 
in New York city and vicinity than the genial gentleman whose 
name heads this article. He was then in his fifty fourth 
year and was a strongly built man of medium height, with a 
stamp of sorrow on bis face from a domestic afliiction the 
year before, from which he never recovered. He had fished 
with all the clubs that have their great houses on the islands 
in Martha's Vineyard, shot bay birds at every beach aboilt 
Long Island and was one of the most frequent guests at Bill 
Chad wick's famous resort on Squan Beach, N. J., since 1850, 
when Tom's River was the moft famous place for fish and 
game within 100 miles of New York 
Having said this, I hardly know how to say more, for he 
was the most intimate companion I ever had, and my love 
for him was greater than that of a brother. To strangers he 
was rather cold and dignified, always wearing a "Prince Al- 
bert" coat and a high hat, but rare old Jack Falstaff said: 
' Thine, -sf * * Jack, with my familiars; John with my 
brothers and sisters; and Sir John with all Europe;" and it 
was my privilege to be a familiar and call him "Frank." 
With Rosaline I could say: 
' 'A merrier taan. 
Within the Hmit of becoming mirtih, 
I never spent an hour's lalk withal." 
In the sketch of ex-President Arthur it was told how I 
fished with him and Mr. Endicott in 1862, but the exciting 
events that followed, when we were making volumes of his- 
tory every day, obliterated, or a', least dimmed, their names 
on memory's tablet; but chance threw us together nearly 
twenty years later, and it seems strange how it came about. 
His father died iu 1848, and before he was twenty he became 
head of the firm of Endicott & Co., lithographers, which did 
that fine work for the twenty volumes of "The Natural History 
of New York," in 1842, of which De Kay's volumes of Birds, 
Fishes, Reptiles, etc., are well known. 
There had been annual contests at fly-casting at the New 
York State Sportsmen's conventions since 1866, but they 
were small beginnings with only two entries in each until 
1871, when there were five contestants. Two years later 1 
attended the meeting at Batavia to see what such a contest 
might look like. Four men entered, and the judges had 
no way of measuring the casts, but awarded the prizes as 
they thought best. The nest year, 1874, at Oswego, they 
measured the lines after the casts, and on this false basis 
made the first report of distance cast, I attended many con- 
tests and made notes, which are now before me. In 1881 
the State tournament was to be held at Coney Island, and 
the president, Mr. Abel Crook, asked me to superintend the 
fly-casting. I would, if permitted to carry out my ideas 
of reform and make the affair a perfectly square contest, 
which I plainly said had never been held in the State. Per- 
mission was given and we went ahead, to the utter dismay 
of some casters of great reputation. It was the first great 
contest where there were six classes and twenty eight entries. 
In the bass casting, "Cattyhunk style," appeared the name 
"Frank Endicott, Richmond County Protective Associa- 
tion," and the record iu Forest and Stream of June 30, 
1881, says: "Mr, Endicott was awarded the fourth prize for 
the accuracy with which he cast, in addition to the third 
given him for distance." 
After the labir of the day was completed I said to Mr, 
Endicott: "This is the first time I have ever seen a weight 
or bait cast from the reel, and it was very interesting." 
"You've never fished for striped bass then?" 
"O, yes, at Albany, with sturgeon spawn bait for small 
bass, and at the Great Falls of the Potomac with fly and bait 
for larger fish, and fine, gamy fish they are." 
"Yes," said he, "but for grand surf fishing, for bass weigh- 
ing from 10 to 401bs., you should go to the islands in 
Martha's Vineyard, or down to Montauk Point." 
And I met him frequently for a year afterward, and the 
pleasure of his company grew on me, and somehow we man- 
aged to meet frequently, oy accident. One day in a ram- 
bling talk of fishing he mentioned losing his rod and rations 
at the Great Falls of the Potomac, and how a soldier from a 
neighboring garrison had saved his life with hardtack and 
salt horse. 
1 looked him over. There was the man who had slipped 
on the rocks twenty years ago, of whom I told of in the iasl 
sketch ; the same sad eye, erect figure, silky hair and the long 
"dildalls," as we called long side whiskers in those days, to 
distinguish them from the short "iJurnsides." I asked: 
'When did this happen?" 
"In the fall of 1862. Why?" 
"Nothing, only I heard a story like that from a man who 
served in a regiment there; he was a sergeant at that time. 
Would you know his name if you heard it?" 
"No, I don't think I would, although I met him later and 
he dined with my friend and me in Washington, Those old 
times are so long ago and events came so fast that one can t 
remember every chance acquaintance." 
"The serg<=ant's name was the same as mine, and I went 
down from the falls in the hack with you to Fort Alexander, 
and afterward met you and your friend at the regimental 
su ler's, when swords weie substituted for corkscrews." 
"No!" 
"YtrSl" 
"Shake!" 
And there began a friendbhip with one of the most lovable 
men ihat I ever knew, a man of whom the late Martin B, 
Brown, printer of the N. Y. City Record, and a member of 
the CuUyhunk Club, once said; "A man who could not love 
Frank Endicott couldn't love anybody." And I mcst heart- 
ily agree with him. He became my alter ego. 
As an all-round genial sportsman he knew more anglers 
and shooters in New York city than any man in it. A walk 
with htm on any street was a continued interruption of 
salutations and chats on fishing or shooting. Under the 
nom de pkam of Ted Grayson he contributed charming 
sketches to Porter's Spirit of the Tiraes, then the only journal 
in America which touched field sports. In the early day 
when Old Bill Chadwick was younger than he is now 
his hostelry on Tom's River, N. J., was the most famous 
of all nearby resorts for sportsmen from the great city, and 
arcund its fireplace the events of the day were discussed. 
There was grand fishing in Barnegat Bay, ducking and bay 
bird shooting along the sandy beaches, and brant were 
plenty in season. In the later days when I accompanied 
him to Chadwick's there was still good sport there, but over 
it hung the pall of tradition. "You should have been here 
thirty years ago, when George Gelson killed thirteen brant 
with one barrel," etc, I knew Gelson slightly, a man then 
of eighty years, who still shot an 8 bore and was known in 
New York city as "the bald eagle of Currituck." 
