Forest and Stream. 
m- 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Terms, S4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $2. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1897. 
j VOL. XLVin.— No. 8. 
( No. 346 Bboadvay, New Yovx, 
For Prospectus and Advertising Rates see Page ili. 
Forest and Stream^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. 
Vigilant and Valkyrie. 
'He's Got Tliem" (Quail Shooting:). 
Bass Fisbing: 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 ola or new subscribers on the following terms: 
Forest and Stream one year and the set of four pictures, $5. 
Forest and Stream 6 monifts and any two of the pictures, $3. 
Frtee of the pictures alone, $1,60 each ; $5 for the (et. 
Remit by express money order or postal money order. 
Make orders payable to 
FOREST AND STREAM PUB. CO., New York. 
Many pleasures leave a sting; beliind them. Not 
so this fasdnatingf pastime. It is as harmless as it 
is invigoratingf, and as healthful as it is harmless. 
Thete are many things for which I am 8:rateful, 
but for few things more than for my passion for 
angling:, and the reasonable leisure always vouch- 
safed me to gratify it. George Dawson. 
RICH IN PROMISE. 
Theke is rich promise of good iMngs for Fokest ajsid 
Stream readers in the weeks that are to follow. Here is a 
partial list of some of them: 
The FIying=Fish Fleet. 
A graphic and picturesque description of fishing for flying- 
fish beneath the tropic sun, off the island of Barbadoes in the 
Caribbean Sea. This will be given in our next issue, and in 
the same number will be found the conclusion of Mr. 
Hough's 
Tramping and Camping in the Sandhills. 
To discover this wild country^ close at hand for midwinter 
exploration was real genius; not less happy was the spirit to 
make exploration of it and to describe it for these columns. 
In the same number will be the first of two papers descrip- 
tive of 
The Elkhorn, 
the black bass stream frequented by the anglers of Frank- 
fort, Ky. The writer is "Old Sam," of the Kingfishers; and 
his chapters deal both with the fishing which has made the 
Elkhorn famous for generations, and with the fishermen 
who have done their part in making it renowned. 
In subsequent issues will be given, among others, the fol- 
lowing: 
The House by the Lake. 
Some winter pictures of a boyhood home in the far-away 
woods of a Northern State. By Frederic Irland, 
Canoeing in South America. 
Adventures on the Parana Elver, one of the largest in the 
world. By .1 G. King. 
Hunting on the Spanish Main. 
A natiu-alist-sportsman on the line of the Nicaragua Canal. 
By J. F. Le Baron, late engineer in charge. 
riud Turtle. 
A day in camp with Uncle Lisha, Sam Lovel, Joseph and 
Antoine. By Eowland E. Eobinson. This is to be enjoyed 
best by those who have read in these columns or in book 
forui Mr, Eobinson's "Uncle Lisha's Shop," "Sam Level's 
Camp" and "Danvis Folks." 
The Florida Everglades. 
Describing a visit to a Seminole village on the occasion of 
the celebration of the Hunting Dance. By J. W. Stranahan. 
A THBIFTY CONCERN. 
There is one chapter of the history of the New Jersey 
non-resident game law system which should not go unre- 
corded. It has to do with a "game protective" association 
of thrifty individuals who worked their game covers for 
what was in them in a way that would have m.ade a politi- 
cal henchman swell with admiration. 
They applied the spoils system to game protection with a 
logical thoroughness that has rarely, if ever, been equaled. 
Quick to grasp the opportunity for exacting tribute from 
New York sportsmen afforded by the non-resident law, they 
imposed the customary fee for non-resident membership in 
their association; but this was only a formal preliminary. 
Game as known to the statute books was scarce in their ter, 
ritory, and they realized that few real sportsmes could be 
induced to contribute to their funds by purchasing member- 
ship. They had nothing to offer that would tempt such 
men. They knew, however, that New York', as every great 
city, has a large class of shooters to whom the game laws 
are a nuisance, and on this class the association resolved to 
prey. They let it be undei-stood that non-resident gunners 
who joined then- organization would be exempt from arrest 
for shooting song and insectivorous birds, a privilege, by 
the way, always enjoyed by their local members. 
This inducement for a time worked satisfactorily for the 
spoils protective association, but after a while the novelty 
wore off, and their friends, the licensed lawbreakers from 
New York, ceased paying their assessments, 
Confronted by this emergency, the association resolved on 
new tactics. There is nothing so characteristic of true 
genius as the ability to turn apparently disastrous events to 
personal profit, and this illustrious organization, instead of 
being cast down by their threatened loss of revenue, used it 
as a stepping-stone to new success. 
They stopped issuing non-resident memfeerships, which 
insured exemption from arrest, and instead issued ©rders to 
their constables to "lay for" any and every non-resident 
shooter who killed robins or other birds in defiance of the 
ingectivorous and song bird clause in the game laws. 
This might have seemed like reform to persons ignorant 
of the real intention of the measure, but it was only another 
shrewd scheme of the spoils game protectors for exacting 
tribute. The law had long been so openly disregarded that 
shooters who came into the territory of the association had 
come to regard it as a dead letter. Consequently there was 
rich plunder for a time from the element whose sacrifice 
had been decided upon. These men were given free rein 
to shoot all day in company with members of the association, 
who openly disregarded the law, but at night the sheep 
were separated from the goats at the ferry to New York, 
and while one set of shooters were fleeced for large sums, 
the other set laughed in their sleeves and congratulated 
themselves on their shrewdness. 
Naturally this state of affairs could not have continued 
forever, and it is interesting to speculate what new plans 
this admkable society might have devised for plucking their 
friends across the river, had not their charter been revoked 
by the repeal of the New Jersey non-resident laws. 
Certain it is that, while they had it, they worked their 
franchise for all it was worth from a financial standpoint, 
and that it was generally understood that the association 
was not in business for its health. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
There is one passage in the report of th« New York Fish 
Commission which will be read with decided sutisf action. 
It is the paragraph in which the Commissioners urg« the 
repeal of Section 249 because it puts a premium upon 
crimes in sister States and is a menace to the game of New 
York. This vicious proviaion was incorporated in the law 
by trickery, and New York cannot permit it to remain as a 
part of her game code without injury to her own interest 
and her disgrace among other States affected by it. There 
is a bill now before the Legislature, introduced by Senator 
Sanger, for the repeal of the section. It should have the in- 
stant and unhesitating indorsement of the Legislature. "We 
trust that every reader of this paragraph resident in New 
York may make it his business this week to do his part 
toward securing the repeal of this section by communicating 
with his representative at Albany. 
the common quail-on- toast appears in the menu'^cards as 
"English quail sur omiapi" or as "royal birds," 
to shield the illicit serving in close season or in what 
was the close season when there was one. In 
these times there is no particular reason why all game, no 
matter where killed, nor when, should not figure on bills of 
fare under its preper name; there is not the most remote 
probability that a restaurateur or hotel proprietor would 
ever find himself involved in trouble with a game protector. 
For instance, the Waldorf Hotel's supplies of ruffed grouse, 
shipped in hundred lots by a market hunter, of SmithviUe 
Flats, up in Chenango county, would never be interfered 
with, whether they appeared as New York] partridges or 
Dahomey pheasants. 
"Mountain mutton" is a name often used for veaison, 
when it is served out of season. "Albany beef is a Hudson 
Biver name for sturgeoa. Eabbits in Maryland are often 
called "Charles county pork" because of the large number of 
them there killed for market. In New York city restaurants 
In our game columns is reported the death of a Khode 
Island fox hunter at the ripe old age of ninety- two, We 
have before now commented upon the relation of sports of 
the field t» longevity. The annals of sportsmanship are 
filled with instances of sportsmen of ripe years who have 
maintained their strength, health and activity far beyond 
the allotted span; such men are found in every country. 
One of Mr. Gladstone's friends is a Mr. Stivens, now in his 
seventy-eighth year, who for sixty years has been collecting 
birds which he has preserved to the number of i,800 speci- 
mens, and with every specimen a story, so that one 
might go far t© find a richer fund of gun talk. In 
France last year a certain farmer named Haniu took out 
his seventieth annual shooting license. M. Hanin is ia his 
eighty-eighth year and claims to have been a sportsman for a 
longer period than is indicated by the numbers of his 
licenses, for he went shooting long before such a thing as 
licenses were known in France. We have frequently had 
occasion to allude to the hearty old age of venerable sports- 
men in our own country, notably those two companions who 
for so many decades have made their annual expeditions into 
the Maine woods. Many more years of field and stream tQ 
them all! 
We commend to the ^ides of Maine our report of the 
Adirondack Guides' Association, whose annual banquet was 
held last week. In the presence of such an attendance of 
guests not less than in its own membership the Association 
makes a powerful appeal for general recognition and in^ 
dorsement The purpose of the Adirondack organization is 
to secure precisely the ends sought by those promoters who 
would establish a license system in Maine. Both movements 
are indicative of the growing magnitude of the guiding in- 
terest. This going of men into the woods for fish and game 
involves an annual expenditure enormous in the aggregate 
for the services of helpers of various sorts; and the 
army of guides, packmen, axemen, boatmen and 
laborers, as Mr. Colvin has classified them, is 
growing with every year, so that before long we may expect 
it to equal in numbers, even if it shall not surpass, the 
European force of gamekeepers, gillies and beaters. Every 
movement undertaken by the guide* to improve the person~ 
nd of their membership, to increase their etficiency and to 
add to the satisfaction of their patrons, will have the hearty 
indorsement aad co-operation of those who owe to the 
woodsmen so much of their nuecess and pleasure while in 
the wilderness. The time is none too soon to lay broad and 
deep the foundations for permanent systems for the control 
aad improvement of the guide service in Maine, the Adiron- 
dacks, the St. Lawrence River and every ©ther popular 
reaort. 
A correspondent eemplains that more and more nar- 
rowly with each recurring season he finds the lines drawn 
which bound the opportunity of the shooter who has not 
privileged access to posted fields. His complaint is well 
foundad as to the main fact that the practice of preserving 
lands is growing. This is, however, not always and every, 
where an unmixed evil. In many sections the trespass sign 
keeps off the shooting rowdy, yet works no hardship to the 
sportsman, who readily fiads permission to shoot the grounds. 
Courtesy of bearing is an open sesame to fair fields 
where the truculent gunner finds his way barred. The same 
rules apply here as in other walks of life. Most men grant 
favors where favors are appreciated. And as for the cur- 
mudgeons who warn off gunners out of pure cantankerous- 
ness, they too have their place and use in the economy of 
nature; their very contrariness works to the ultimate benefit 
of the sporlaman, for birds will fly across boundaries, and 
the overflow from Surlyman's farm will keep stocked the 
whole country round. 
