Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1899, by Forest anp Stream Pobushing Co. 
ERMS, $4 A Ybak. 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $i. j 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 1899. 
[ VOL. 1,1 1. -No. 9. 
I'No. 846 Broauwav, Nbw York. 
The Forest and Stream is the recognized medium of entertain- 
ment, instruction and information between American sportsmen. 
The editors invite communications on the subjects to which its 
pages are devoted. Anonymous communications will not bt re- 
garded. While it is intended to give wide latitude in discussion 
of current topics, the editors are not responsible for the views of 
correspondents. 
Subscriptions may begin at any time. Tenns: For single 
copies, $4 per year, $2 for six months. For club rates and full 
particulars respecting subscriptions, see prospectus on page iv. 
A wise Philosoplier, noting the sundry desires of divers men, 
writetli, that if an Oxe bee put into a Medowe hee will seeke 
to fill his Bellie with Grasse, if a Storke bee cast in shee will 
seeke for Snakes, if you turne in a Hounde hee will seeke to 
start an Hare. Hakluyt. 
THE RUNNING DEER TARGET. 
Among the devices of the modern rifle range is a mov- 
ing target, known as the running deer, a sheet of metal so 
shaped as to present the broadside of a deer, and moved 
across the range by an arrangement of wires and pulleys 
in such way as to simulate the motion of the running 
game. Shooting matches at the running deer target are 
favorite forms of competition in Switzerland. An account 
of a typical meeting of this character in the Tyrol was 
printed in our columns a year or two ago. We have spo- 
ken of the moving target as a contrivanc,e in modern use; 
but it is by no means modern in origin; it goes back to 
the early dawn of history, to an age prior to written his- 
tory indeed, when the feats of mighty marksmen were 
perpetuated in song and legend and so handed down from 
generation to generation. For the flying target is men- 
tioned in the Maha-bharata, one of the great epics of 
ancient India, and celebrating the exploits of heroes 
who contended at the butts in the fourteenth century 
B. C. 
On the banks of the Ganges, the Maha-bharata tells 
us, thirty-three centuries ago, the monarch Dhrita-rashtra, 
King of the Kurus, gave what would in our day be 
known as an invitation champion shoot; that is, it was a 
tournament to determine who should have the name of 
amateur champion of the Kuru land, but only the one 
hundred sons and the five nephews of the monarch were 
invited to enter the competition for the distinction. So 
they measured out the tourney ground on a meadow clear 
of jungle, with a crystal fountain playing hard by, and 
built the altar for the sacred gifts, and erected the grand- 
stand white and stately; 
And the people built their stages circling round the listed green, 
And the nobles with their white tents graced the fair and festive 
scene. 
Then to the shooting ground repaired the spectators, 
men from stall and loom and anvil, Brahmans and priests, 
old and young, high and low, fair Gandhari the Queen, 
white robed Drona the priest and prophet, and the mon- 
arch himself, sightless, to whom was described the prog- 
ress of the contest as it was fought. Then came the com- 
petitors, who, we are to understand, then, just as now. 
paid each his entrance fee, got his number in the squad, 
stepped to the score in his turn, twisted himself into his 
characteristic posture and called "Pull" when ready. 
Each behind his elder stepping, good Yudhisthir first of all, 
Each his wondrous skill displaying, held the silent crowds in 
thrall. 
And that there were in those distant times, as well as 
in these later days of Wild West shows, marksmen who 
could ride and shoot, the epic further attests: 
Mounted on their rapid coursers oft the princes proved their aim, 
Racing, hit the targe with arrows lettered with their royal name. 
The crack shot of those invited to the tournament was 
the King's nephew Arjun, who, as he stepped forth 
gauntled and jewel-girdled, and clad in golden mail, 
with carriage proud and stately, and bearing his mighty 
bow, created a sensation on grand-stand and bleach- 
boards, so that a great shout went up from the people as 
they beheld him, and well it might. 
Now the voices of the people died away and all was still, 
Arjun to his proud preceptor showed his might and matchless skill. 
Towering high or lowly bending, on the turf or on his car. 
With his bow and glist'ning arrows Arjun waged the mimic war; 
Targets on the wide arena, mighty tough or wondrous small. 
With his arrows, bright, imfailing, Arjun pierced them one and all I 
Cow-horn by a thread suspended, and by wings unceasing swayed. 
One and twenty well-aimed arrows on this moving mark he laid. 
Wild-boar shaped of solid iron coursed the wide-extending field, 
In its jaws five glist'ning arrows sent the archer wondrous-skilled. 
Here we have the moving target, the coursing boar 
prototype of the running deer. And here we have the 
marksman who could hold on it as it coursed. Nor was 
he the only one; for then came Kama, uninvited to this 
championship shoot, an intruder, an interloper, an un- 
known, a dark horse; and this was the "bluff" he made: 
"All thy feats of weapons, Arjun, done with vain and needless 
boast, 
These and greater I accomplish — ^witness be this mighty host!" 
Thus spake proud and peerless Kama, in his accents deep and 
loud. 
And as moved by sudden impulse, leaped in joy the list'ning 
crowd. 
Moreover, he could shoot as well as talk — 
Drona gave the word, and ICarna, Protha's war-beloving son. 
With his sword and with his arrows did the feats by Arjun donel 
This was of course bitter chagrin for the golden-mailed 
Arjun; for then, as sometimes even now, the worsted 
champion took defeat with ill grace. There were jeal- 
ousies and heart burnings, a war of words followed, and 
then real war. Out of that shooting match on the Ganges 
grew a conflict of tribes and peoples so fierce and so 
stubborn, and waged so long that the chronicles -which 
record it, as the epic has come down to us, growing with 
the centuries as shooting stories are apt to grow, extends 
to not less than 180,000 lines of verse — ^more, perhaps, than 
the entire product of spring poetry in this year of grace 
1899. 
So much of the antiquity of the moving target, and of 
the mighty men of old whose skill delighted to master it. 
Little did those contestants in the invitation champion- 
ship shoot on the Ganges dream that they were shooting 
for a meed of enduring fame to be sung through the 
ages. And as for the marksman of to-day, wearer of the 
medals of the moment, holder of the cup of the hour, 
the moral for him is that the art of shooting did not come 
first into this world when he took to practice; there were 
champions of old, whose record, emblazoned on the rec- 
ords of thirty-three centuries, he well may emulate. 
OLD TIMES ON THE PLAINS. 
The scene represented in our supplement this week 
tells a story of the past. It is nearly twenty years since 
the buffalo ceased to be the support of the red people of 
the Northwest. Before that time they had already been 
exterminated over the middle plains from northern Ne- 
braska south to the northern line of Texas; but in Mon- 
tana they were still found, as they alway had been, 
crowded together in great herds, and people still said that 
the buffalo would never be all killed off. Traders and 
travelers over the Northern plains still spoke of them as 
found here or there by millions; and yet. four years later 
there were none. If the vanishing of these great multi- 
tudes came with a shock of surprise to the white hunter, 
how much more amazing must it have been to the Indian 
who had always regarded these dusky hordes as his own 
property, on which he could forever draw for food, for 
shelter and for clothing. To him it was simply incredi- 
ble that the buffalo should have disappeared, and for 
years afterward he would not believe that they had done 
so except by some supernatural means. 
But Mr. Deming's picture is of the old days — the buf- 
falo days — and it represents a scene familiar to those who 
knew the Primitive American Hunter and had part in 
the hunts of the people. In a wide valley, not far from 
the mountains, a herd of buffalo was feeding. The night 
before it had been discovered by the keen-eyed scouts, 
who had brought the news to the camp, and the chiefs 
had ordered the old crier to announce through the vil- 
lage that the next morning the people would go out and 
kill food. All were warned to bring in their horses; the 
men must whet their arrow points, the women must shar- 
pen their knives. Very early in the morning the camp 
started; first the men, and then the women with pack 
animals and travois to bring in the meat. Under strict- 
est discipline the force of hunters moved forward until 
they reached the point from which the charge was to be 
made, and then, at the word, swept down on the unsus- 
pecting animals before them. Confused, surrounded, 
turned back, most of these soon fell before the keen ar- 
rows propelled from the powerful sinew-backed bow, un- 
til many brown carcasses lay upon the prairie. Then, as 
the men dismounted and let their horses go and began to 
skin the game, the women and children, with the pack 
animals, appeared over the swell of the prairie and hurried 
down to assist in the work, to butcher, to cut up the 
meat, pa^k it on the animals and transport to the camp. 
He who took part in such scenes still sees in memory 
the parched yellow plain quivering in the hot air, the distant 
mountains, their sides dark with pines, and their peaks 
white with snow; the little groups of men and women and 
children and dogs and horses clustered about the brown 
spots on the prairie, which near were big and buffalo, and 
far off were mere dots surrounded by pigmies. And when 
the work had been completed, and the laden animals 
started to return to the camp he calls to mind the univer- 
sal gladness that pervaded every individual of the motley 
throng. The babies could not cry, for they were busy- 
sucking pieces of the meat, the older children were stuffed 
almost to stupor, while the women and the men knew that 
for a time at least the camp would be free from the fear of 
starvation. It was pleasant to take part in such a hunt, 
and not less pleasant at night, after the day was over, to 
sit in your lodge -and listen to the cheerful sounds that 
rose from the camp, 
SNAP SHOTS. 
Mr. Charles Hallock calls our attention to an interest- 
ing personal item in the Calais, Me., Times, recording 
that "George A. Boardman, Esq., celebrated his eighty- 
first birthday at his home, on Lafayette street, Sunday, 
Feb. 5. Callers tendered their most hearty congratula- 
tions, and all expressed the wish that they might call upon 
him next year and find him enjoying good health and his 
usual cheerfulness." 
That which gives point to the paragraph is the fact, 
noted by Mr. Hallock, that Mr. Boardman's was the sec- 
ond name on the list of subscribers among the patrons 
of Forest and Stream when it was begun in August of 
1873. The first subscriber was Gov. Horat'io Seymour; 
and Mr. Boardman therefore enjoys the unique dis- 
tinction of being the Nestor of Forest and Stream 
readers; and he may defend his claim to the record even 
against those correspondents who occasionally aver- 
either through lapse of memory or by fisherman's license 
— that they have been reading the paper for thirty or forty 
years. Mr. Boardman has been a frequent contrib- 
utor to our columns; we print to-day some notes from 
his pen on the queer ways of bears. 
The worthless dogs infesting many sections of the 
South are a devouring curse, which costs the community 
hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. An endeavor 
was made in the Georgia Legislature the other day to 
levy a dog tax of one dollar, to apply throughout the 
State at large, and Mr. Dews, of Randolph county, the 
promoter of the measure, asserted that such a tax would 
exterminate thousands of worthless curs and put $100,000 
into the State treasury. It was a wise economic meas- 
ure, but the Legislature, each member mindful of his own 
cur-infested district, lacked the moral courage to approve 
the measure, and it was defeated. Georgia will continue 
to breed dogs when she might breed sheep. 
The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art has re- 
cently received, as an addition to its collection of arms, a 
handsome specimen of the old Purdy muzzle-loading 
shotgun, the gift of a sportsman of this city. As a' work 
of art, the weapon is in every way worthy of a place 
among the Museum's treasures, and it would be a happy 
supplementing of the gift if owners of other guns deserv- 
ing of such a disposition should follow the example of 
the giver of the Purdy and add to the collection of arms 
here preserved. 
To one not versed in parliamentary practice, the out- 
look for the combination Hoar and Lacey bird bill in 
Congress is somewhat obscure. A report of the progress 
of the measure is given in our shooting columns. In Mr. 
Irland's letter is one paragraph which records a great vic- 
tory for the cause of game protection in this country. 
The Washington market, so long open for the traffic in 
the game of the several States out of close season, has 
now been by act of Congress shut up.' 
That paper on Massachusetts trout hatcheries, written 
by Mr. C. C. Wood, a practical trout culturist of Cape 
Cod, read before the Massachusetts Association the other 
evening, and printed in our fishing columns to-day, ought 
to mark the beginning of a new era in the Common- 
wealth's fish-cultural administration. The logic of experi- 
ence and of the facts related in the paper cannot te over- 
come. 
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