April, 1919 
FOREST AND STREAM 
175 
When I get up these April mornings 
and walk down back of the house I hear 
the robins tuning up, I hear the crows in 
the air uttering their harsh caw as they 
always do in the mating season, and song 
sparrows are beginning to tune up for 
their final effort as soon as a glimmer of 
light shows in the East; the hens are 
still in their house but the rooster crows 
and I stand there and think of thirty and 
thirty-five years ago when I used to get 
up at the same time and take my ever- 
ready Gordon setter “Dash” and get on 
to the snipe grounds. Old “Dash” knew 
where to go; he would lead me to 
every pond-hole and swale, stopping 
once in a while to see that I was not 
getting absent minded. If he scented 
birds he told me by wagging his tail and 
looking over my way. Those were times 
I enjoyed myself. Many times have I 
walked over the fresh meadows from the 
Prince Bay light to the Kills, and hardly 
ever without something to show for it. 
In those days there were numerous ponds 
in the woods and fields and often teal and 
pintails were added to the pocket re- 
served for the zig zagging snipe. Most 
of these little ponds contained gold fish, 
shiners, etc.; now most of them are 
drained off because someone had his old 
scrofulous blood vessels tapped by a mos- 
quito. There are just as many mos- 
quitoes here on Staten Island as ever, 
but some one has more dollars in his 
pocket on account of some one’s whim. 
Last Sunday I took a walk over the old 
spring shooting grounds. In one low-lying 
pasture where there is a clear little pond 
that has not been drained off I saw three 
black or dusky duck and around the 
edges of the pond I put up six or eight 
English snipe. I felt in a way as if I 
would liked to have broken the law. How 
I wished my old companion “Dash” was 
with me so he could do his part; but 
no, times have changed — thanks to the 
law and those who observe it. I walked 
along toward Great Kills for two or three 
miles, going over the old places and I 
should judge I put up 25 birds in my 
morning’s walk. There must have been 
not a few that escaped my notice. It was 
a pleasant walk. I heard but two shots 
fired, usually there is more or less 
shooting on this end of the Island on 
Sundays. Coming home I came through 
the old woodcock grounds, but only put 
up one pair of these birds. They evi- 
dently had a nest in the sprouts nearby, 
but our field and forest fires are so nu- 
merous that birds that nest on the 
ground have little chance to propagate 
their kind. 
H. L. Allen, Staten Island. 
FROM AN OLD SUBSCRIBER 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream: 
I AM sending you by parcel post the 
A copies of Forest and Stream. I think 
I am one of your oldest subscribers or 
readers, as I have several hundred copies 
on my shelves, some of them dating back 
to 1875 when the buffalo ranged the 
plains and wild Indians camped where 
now are towns and cities. I have always 
been interested in outdoor life, but being 
a working man could indulge in it only 
to a limited extent; a few days off occa- 
sionally; but Forest and Stream has 
kept me in touch and I like to look back 
and thnk of those men who could so well 
write up those scenes and times of the 
open and the wild, and in my mind I 
seem to be fishing with Fred Mathew, 
snow shoeing in New Brunswick with 
Emerson Hough, listening to the stories 
in Uncle Liska’s shop, camping with the 
king fishers, gathering specimens with 
Fred Beverly in the tropics, fishing for 
black bass with Dr.Henshall, and scores 
of others who wrote so interestingly. To- 
day I have been reading of Mr. King 
and his party and their trip along the 
West Coast, and yet it does not seem 
such a long time since the day of muzzle 
loaders and when prairie schooners were 
the only means of transportation across 
the plains, but it is a big jump from 
those days to the electric car and the 
pump-gun. I am an old man now, well 
past the three score and ten, and in the 
natural course of events it will not be 
long before the Phantom Drummer beats 
his last tattoo, yet I look for Forest and 
Stream every month and hope I may be 
able to read it for some time to come. If 
you find this too tedious to decipher chuck 
it in the waste basket and believe me your 
well wishei' and one of the old timers. 
S. E. Hurlburt, Conn. 
SHADES OF THE DEPARTED 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream: 
F ollowing the keen enjoyment of 
hooking and landing his fish, the 
dearest wish of the average sportsman 
is to preserve a record of his achieve- 
ment. 
Of course the taxidermist affords the 
ideal method if he and his art are avail- 
able but he is usually far from camp and 
an expensive luxury at best. A tabu- 
lated list of weights, dates and cap- 
tors is only partially convincing and fails 
to bring to mind the actual appearance 
of the catch. Photographs are good but 
usually fail to do full justice to the sub- 
ject. 
At my camp on a New Hampshire lake 
I have tried the following scheme with 
good results. Placing the fish on a sheet 
of paper and holding the fins and tail 
wide spread by means of pins, I mark his 
outline. I then cut this out, tack it to 
the wall and mark around it with a soft 
pencil. Removing the paper, I follow the 
outline in black point with a fine brush. 
This done, the space within is painted 
black and the silhouette stands out 
against the white pine boarding in vivid 
contrast. Lastly the weight, date and 
initials of the captor are added. 
It is especially easy to recount the 
capture of this or that specimen looming 
so black again the wall. Here is the 
three pound bass with his spiney dorsal 
fin spread in fighting style. Yes, he 
gave me a grand battle! There is the 
four pound pickerel — strikingly graceful 
as compared to the chunked bass. Sorpe 
sport catching him on a light fly rod and 
landing him unassisted! Occupying a 
proud place is the two and one-half 
pound bass — my nine year old son’s first 
prize. Will he ever forget how his rod 
bent as he played him into the landing 
net? 
One of the best yams is about the big 
bass over the door next to the fireplace. 
He was one of the family for some time 
before he was added to the food supply 
and contributed his form to the mural 
decorations. He would hover (I suppose 
fish do hover) around us while we bathed, 
taking a position in about three feet of 
water at the inner end of the diving 
board and watching with interest (may- 
be with amusement) our diving and 
swimming stunts. Apparently devoid of 
fear, he would allow us to approach 
within a yard of him before taking an 
unhurried refuge beneath the board. For 
a long time all efforts with all kinds of 
lures failed to interest him, but there 
came a fatal day — and here he is. 
Here and there are the fish taken by 
our guests who, when they return next 
season, will greet the evidence of their 
skill with renewed enthusiasm and, as 
Jerome K. Jerome says, “the thrilling 
tale will be told again — with fresh ex- 
aggerations each time.” 
Edward P. Hendricks, Mass. 
We are especially glad to have received 
the above letter and trust that more of 
our readers will take advantage of this 
department in our journal and send us 
such interesting suggestions as ma/y oc- 
cur to them, accompaning their letters 
with photographs if possible. — [Editors.] 
A novel way to preserve a record of your fish 
