Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Cory. ) 
Six Months, $2. j 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, APRIL 2 3, 18 9 8. 
J VOL. L.-No. 17. 
I No, 840 Broadway, New York," 
PRACTICAL FISHING PAPERS. 
The chapters on fishing written by Mr. Fred Mather 
are intended to give practical instruction for beginners 
in the delightful art of angling. They are now dealing 
with trout. Others to follow will discuss black bass and 
other game fish. 
Mr. George A. B. Dewar's description of dry fly fish- 
ing as practiced in Great Britain will excite lively in- 
terest in this country, where this mode of fishing is for 
the most part little more than a name. The use of the 
dry fly calls for the highest accomplishment in the an- 
gler's art. It combines the skill of fly-casting and rod 
handling with the patience and circumspection and per- 
severance of the still-hunter for deer. 
Taken by and large the fishing columns of the 
Forest and Stream contain a generous store of reading 
for those whose chosen recreation is with rod and line. 
During the months -to come anglers Avill find in these 
pages a sustained interest. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
The St. Mary's Lake country, so long a portion of the 
Blackfeet Indian reservation, is such no longer. Tuesday, 
April 12, the mountain strip on the west side of the 
reservation, in which stand the Chief Mountain, Mts. 
Gould, Blackfoot and many other superb peaks, to- 
gether with several great glaciers and the famed St. 
Mary's Lakes, was opened to occupancy and settlement 
under the mining laws of the United States. It had 
been expected that this opening would be an occasion 
of great excitement, but it's proved a very tame affair. 
Winter still holds its grip upon those rugged mountains, 
and the snow lies from lo to 50ft. deep over the ground 
that the miners and boomers intend to prospect, and 
then — ^to sell. It is not likely that the mineral wealth 
in these mountains will at all come up to the expecta- 
tion of those who were so anxious to have the region 
opened to settlement, yet the irruption of prospectors 
cannot fail to have a disastrous efifect on the game and 
the forests here. Both will be in a measure destroyed, 
and so one of the loveliest regions in America will lose 
a part of its charm. Yet not even the white man can 
level the mighty peaks which here seem to pierce the 
clouds, and the St. Mary's Lake country will long con- 
tinue to attract the mountain climber. It is a region of 
surpassing natural beauty, and at some future day will 
become a great resort for travelers. But to some men — 
those who were among the first to penetrate to the heads 
of its narrow valleys and to scale its towering mountains 
— the opening of this region to the public and the build- 
ing of trails and roads through its once lonel}' and silent 
fastnesses seems a desecration. 
The New York Zoological Society has recently un- 
dertaken an inquiry into the extent and causes of the de- 
struction of animal life in this counti-y; and the result 
of the investigation is giv.en in another column. Summed 
up in two words, the verdict is : Shot ofT. And the rem- 
edy suggested may be as briefly stated in the injunction: 
Stop shooting. 
One chief factor not usually taken into account by stu- 
dents of the game supply is the growth of population. 
While the quail is a species which belongs with civiliza- 
tion, and of which the range has been extended by the 
settlement of the country, a reverse principle holds with 
other species. Man and brute may not possess the earth 
in common. The wild life must give way. The whole 
story of the game supply of the North American Conti- 
nent may be read in the census returns of the population 
of the United States. In 1790 the total population was 
3,929,214; in 1810 it was 7,239,881; in 1890 it was 62,- 
622,250; and in 1900 it will be somewhere around 75,- 
000,000, This means that the game, in one of the phrases 
of the time, must "get off the earth." 
Game reduction and extermination — ^by game we mean 
all wild life — is moreover not distinctively a phenome- 
non confined to this continent. It is world-wide in ex- 
tent. An English writer has just published a book deal- 
ing with lost and vanishing birds, in which he points 
oi4t that a large percentage of the species which have 
been obliterated from the British Isles could not have 
been preserved even under the favorable circumstances 
of the most elaborate means for their protection. They 
simply could not persist when brought into contact with 
civilization and the conditions attending it. 
As in America and Europe, so too in Africa, that con- 
tinent whose vast wildernesses were once thought to be 
game preserves of inexhaustible supply. Several species 
of African antelope are threatened with extinction, and 
sportsmen-naturalists are pleading for their immunity 
from further pursuit. This condition is due chiefly to 
the activity of the record maker, the hunter who shoots 
for "bag," and whose highest ambition it is to see his 
name above all the rest as a mighty slaughterer. The 
curse of killing for brag is upon the wilds of Africa, ju.st 
as it is upon the prairies and the mountains, the marshes 
and the rivers of America. 
The braggart hunter has been developed the world 
oyer; and he is everywhere the product of like condi- 
tions, which are those of a superabundance of game. 
Where the original indigenous supply is sufficient to 
withstand for a time the tax upon it, a growth of the 
practice of shooting for count is inevitable. When be- 
cause of its abundance game is easily secured, no spe- 
cial credit is popularly attached to moderate bags; on 
the contrary, it js the big score that attracts attention, 
excites remark, and provokes emulation. Restriction, 
temperance and moderation are afterthoughts. They 
rise into the realm of recognized virtues only after a 
threatening diminution of the native store prompts men 
to say to themselves: "If these butchers kill so much 
of the game, there will be none left for us and for our 
children." Thereupon sentiment changes. Where be- 
fore a big brag bag was envied, it is now condemned; 
and with an observance of the newly established code 
of ethics the sportsman ambitious to shine in the esteem 
of his fellows lays claim to the exercise of moderation 
as a field virtue. He recounts with pride not how he 
killed the last animal in sight, but how having taken 
his legal share he voluntarily let the rest escape. 
The sway of sentiment controlling shooters in any 
given country at any given time, whether approving or 
disapproving big game scores, may thus correctly be 
predicated upon a knowledge of the condition of the 
game supply; and vice versa, if we know the sentiment 
concerning big scores, we may infer from this the con- 
dition of the game supply. If we hear deprecations of 
the killing of a long list of antelope in Africa we may 
know that African antelope are growing scarce. If the 
sentiment of sportsmen condemns the scoring of great 
bags of ducks or praii'ie chickens or quail in certain sec- 
tions of our own country we may deduce from this a 
diminution of the native wild game to a point where one 
may no longer kill recklessly without regard to the rights 
and privileges of others and still presume to hold up his 
head as a decent member of society. In Great Britain 
and some other parts of the world, on the contrarj^, 
where battues are held on artificially reared pheasants, 
moderation based upon a regard for the conservation of 
the supply has no place in the code of shooting ethics; 
and so we hear heralded the record of Lord So-and-so's 
bag; and the bigger it is the more creditable an achieve- 
ment it is held to be. In short, shooting prodigality is 
bred of abundance; moderation of scarcity. And the 
fact is that human nature being human nature the world 
over, realization of the necessity of moderation comes 
tardily. The stable door is locked after the horse has 
been stolen. 
This rule that when the objects of pursuit grow scarce 
protection is demanded for them applies the world over, 
and extends to all wild animals which are pursued for 
sport. Thus we have the curious spectacle of certain 
species hunted from time immemorial as vermin and 
outlaws transformed into game animals and elevated to 
the rank of those deserving the protection of close sea- 
sons and restrictions as to modes of capture. Grizzly 
bears, alligators and tigers are now subjects of earnest 
discussion as to the wa^s and means of conserving the 
stock. 
if indeed the idea of fairness could be entertained at all 
with respect to a grizzly. But within the last few years 
a sentiment has been growing up that the grizzly may be 
hunted only in a sportsmanlike way, according to rules 
and regulations laid down for the guidance of the craft. 
So with the alligator in Florida. Twenty years ago 
he would have been laughed at who should have asked 
quarter for it; but to-day the people of the State who 
have seen the alligator practically exterminated from 
wide areas are beginning to think about restocking and 
protecting; and the wanton tourist rifleman who for so 
long was a disgrace and a curse of the State, with his 
alligator butchery, has been compelled by force of public 
opinion to curb his brutal propensities. 
The advanced sportsmen of India are demanding that 
the immunity now enjoyed by the females and the young 
of animals counted in the sportsman's list shall be ex- 
tended to tiger and bear cubs. The ground upon which 
this is urged is that same consideration of supply and 
demand which is cahing for the protection of our griz- 
zlies and alligators. It is to preserve the stock. From 
any other than the sportsman's standpoint the fewer the 
tigers and grizzlies in the world the better; the lay mind 
would regard their extermination with equanimity and 
gratitude. But the tiger hunter and grizzly hunter are 
not as other men; or to state the principle more accu- 
rately, they are precisely like others in demanding that 
their own interests shall be protected. To hunt the 
game they must have the game to hunt; and to have 
the game they must give it a chance to survive. If com- 
mon sense provides seasons and modes of quail shoot- 
ing, it is nothing else than common sense to adopt cor- 
responding restrictions on the pursuit of bears and tigers. 
If when you are strolHng through the woods you 
come upon a spring and find there scattered about on 
the ground pieces of a cardboard box, egg shells, the 
bleached shells of lobster claws, a cork and pieces of 
string, these circumstances are taken as evidence that 
some one has eaten lunch there. If further on you come 
to a wire slip-noose attached to a bush, the noose en- 
circling the neck of a ruflfed grouse, with the skeleton 
and a few feathers still in place, this is circumstantial 
evidence that the grouse snarer has been there. Just such" 
a relic of snaring was the skeleton which is pictured in 
our shooting Columns -to-day. It was found by the effi- 
cient detective employed by the Massachusetts Rod and 
Gun Club to break up the illicit business of snaring in 
the grouse covers of that Commonwealth. By the ac- 
tivity of the club's agent many miles of snares have been 
destroyed. This snare with its victim is one of the ex- 
hibits in the possession of Mr. Henry J. Thayer, the 
club secretary. 
The Vermont Fish and Game League has a member- 
ship of over 550, distributed throughout the State; and 
it is building up a public sentiment which will make im- 
possible a repetition of an experience related in the cur- 
rent League report as having happened in Essex county. 
Not many years ago a man was tried for killing a deer. 
The justice of the peace called the jury for a trial; there 
was no hotel in the place, and when the jury adjourned 
for dinner the men were distributed around the village. 
Two of the jurymen and the lawyer who defended dined 
with the respondent. They had venison for their din- 
ner. After dinner the trial proceeded. At the close of 
the trial the jury announced that the man was not guilty. 
The fourth chapter of Mr. Burnham's Yukon Notes 
is descriptive of the dogs used for packing, and it makes 
an exceedingly interesting story from start to finish. 
The presence of a trick poodle harnessed with a New- 
foundland and in the intervals of his arduous task caper-is 
ing about and "doing his turn," as he may have gone 
through his part in some music hall, is suggestive of a 
veritable romance of dog life. What a story Ouida could 
make of it. 
Once in the West a grizzly was looked upon as a foe 
to whom no quarter was to be ishown; he was classed 
with the Great Adversary of mankind, and might be 
fought against and destroyed by any device f^ir or fou}— 
A few brief seasons ago there was universal com- 
plaint that the bluebird had disappeared from the land; 
and it was predicted that his epitaph was to be written; 
Then, after a season or two of scarcity, his grateful re- 
turn was heralded, and to-day the bird is back in its old 
haunts and in the supply of former days. At best, while 
the people who are interested in birds are full of theo- 
ries, the actual circumstances which control the supply 
are hut imperfectly understQ^dr , . 
