56 
-A^pril 24r 
Wilbur F. Parker, - - Editor and Proprietor. 
THE ONLY JOURNAL PUBLISHED IN THE UNITED STATES 
Devoted Exclusively to 
SHOOTING, FISHING. NATURAL HISTORY. FISH CULTURE, 
and THE PROTECTION OF FISH AND GAME. 
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THE ROD AND THE GUN. 
West Meriden. Conn. 
We earnestly request all our contributors to adopt the plan in 
regard to the use of scientific names which some of them have 
already adopted, viz; to PRINT all such names legibly in the manu- 
script, as tins will prevent error by giving the compositor plain copy 
to follow. Above all things we say, do not venture upon the use 
of scientific names at all omess certain of their accuracy. 
SATURDAY APRIL 24, 1875. 
CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBEE. 
Page. Page 
The De Peyster Badge 49 Canine Life in the Frigid 
Duck Shooting a Cheval 49 Zones 55 
Habits of the Mourning Sport a la Cook 56 
Warbler 50 How a Brook Trout makes 
Recollections of Marajo its nest 56 
Island 51 Bird Murder -S. Portlandica 56 
The Rifle 52 Annual Meeting of N. H. 
Pigeon Matches 53 Game and Fish League 56 
Sporting a la Cook 53 Avi Fauna — A Correction 57 
Wild Goose Shooting on the Western Items 57 
Western Prairies 54 Sportsman’s Library Table. . 68 
Wilderness Sketches — No. 5. 51 Letters from Sportsmen.. . .58-59 
The Index and title-page to Vol. V are ready. Those 
subscribers who desire them will please notify us. 
SPORT A LA COOK. 
The title of cook is familiar enough to most of our 
readers who can take pleasure in good dinners and a 
quiet digestion. There is however a Mr. Cook, who is 
famous as the purveyor of another style of entertain- 
ment. He contracts to take parties of excursionists on 
trips round the world, or for shorter distances for a 
lump sum — to show them everything, to provide them 
with guides and to keep everybody in good spirits and 
in good humor with each other and mankind in general, 
so long as the round trip lasts. Mark Twain’s “ Inno- 
cents Abroad ” was the happy issue of one of these 
Cook trips. Mr. Cook’s idea was also grafted on Field 
sports, and the result was the programme of a mon- 
strous expedition to our western country, with a train of 
sporting artillerj’, a commissariat, bands of music and 
all the make believe of Hippodrome sports, on the 
plains instead of under canvas. 
A few weeks ago we took occasion to call attention to 
the scheme and to enter our protest against it as an un- 
dertaking likely to come to grief, and as not calculated 
to advance the true interests of American gentlemen 
sportsmen, but on the contrary, to lead to disappoint- 
ment. "We took but slight interest even in exposing the 
scheme, which we saw would fall through of itself, but 
we did take earnest and strong exception to its advocacy 
in the columns of a sporting contemporary. Our lead- 
ing sporting papers The Turf, Fiekl and Farm and 
T he Spirit of the T imes, have always been deservedly 
held in high esteem not only for the brilliant complete- 
ness with which they are conducted, leaving no room 
for any rivals, but for a not less important quality, the 
high honor they inculcate and the scatning denuneia- 
tion which they visit upon all schemes that tend 
to bring “sport” into disrepu*te, or convert that 
which was meant for recreation, into a dollar grinding 
machine, for which succe.ss is the one and only thing 
needful We regretted to see a departure by another 
paper from these high principles and mUdly rebuked 
the offender for its error in judgment, fearing at the 
time that had the paper in question held higher position 
it might have injured us all in the estimation of gentle- 
men sportsmen abroad, just as non-payment of divi- 
dends b}’ wild cat companies aflects the whole charac- 
ter of American securities. 
The consequence we feared, has come to pass. The 
London Sporting Gazette has “ sat down on” the Big 
Hunt — not only on the Big Hunt, but in the most cut- 
ting fashion it shows up the sporting journal which 
sought to boost the grand scheme which, the English 
paper plainl}’ suggests, was only a Yankee assault on the 
pockets of Cockney tourists. We can only repeat our 
regrets over our contemporary’s egregious blunder, but 
we trust that the Sporting Gazette and other Enelish 
papers will place the blame where it belongs, and will 
recognize that the Rod and Gun, the Turf, Field and 
Farm and the Spirit of the Times, were coldly indifferent 
about th-- Big Hunt, and that American sportsmen gen- 
erally were indignant or contemptous over both the 
scheme and its advocate. 
The article referred to, will be found in another 
column. 
How A Brook Trout Makes its Aest. 
BY A. S. COLLINS 
However little romance may be attached to the nest 
of a trout, there is certainly an adaptation of means 
to the end which may welt excite our admiration. In 
the fall of the year, somewhere about tbe month of 
October, the female trout begins to explore the stream 
in which she lives for a proper place in which to de- 
posit h. r eggs. Such a place is by no means easily 
found, since it must possess certain well-defined charac- 
teristics. it must be near a bed of gravel, in order that 
the eggs may not only be covered, but be covered with 
a substance affording sufficient openings for the free 
circulation of water through the mass It must be near 
the spring head of a stream so that no sediment shall 
accumulate to smother the eggs, and that the tempera- 
ture of the water may be maintained at a point suffic- 
iently high for the purpose required. It must be in a 
swift current of water in order that the proper circula- 
tion may be kept up, without which the eggs would 
die; and it must be in shallow water, because there only 
in trout streams are the other conditions found 
The fish very soon settles these points to her own sat- 
isfaction; whether she does it by reason or instinct may 
be an open question. But it seems to require a greater 
stretch of the imagination to believe that these things 
are settled by instinct, than by a process of reasoning. 
Suppose now the proper place to have been found; 
the trout is lying over a bed of gravel, fins and tail in 
quick motion to keep her place in the rapid current. If 
the eggs are dropped here they will be carried away be- 
fore they can be either impregnated or covered. 
A \ / A 
D ^ 
B 
Knowing this the trout commences at B and scoops out 
with her Uiil a hole in the gravel, which is heaped up 
at C above the natural boltom line A, A. She is never 
so foolish as to throw the gravel up stream, but lets the 
current do its full share of the work. Mow then, she 
has a depression at B, in which there is very little cur- 
rent and in which the eggs can be laid with safety. 
Then being impregnated in the usual manner the eggs 
fall along from B to C, and generally but few are car- 
ried over. Touching the gravel, they adhere to it for 
about twenty or twenty five miuute.s and during this 
time the trout goes above the nest and throws gravel 
over it until it assumes the appearance of the dotted 
line D, D, D. The conformation of the nest is now 
such that the water strikes against the outside and is 
continually passinj. through the instertices of the gravel, 
which openings are large enough to shelter the young 
fish until the sac is absorbed, and then to permit it 
easily to escape into the open water. 
Enfokcing the Fish Laws.— The English enforce 
their game laws, and in this, if in nothing else, our 
Sportsmen can do well to follow their example. There 
is but little use in having laws on our statute books if 
they are to become dead-letters, by being put to no prac- 
tical use. Better by far that they did not exist, as they 
come in time to be held in contempt when not enforced, 
and what is indifference or neglect on the part of those 
whose interests it is to use them for the object for which 
they were instituted, is regarded as puerility by those 
whose desire it is to violate them. Recently at the Cock- 
ermouth court, England. Thomas Ashworth was fined 
£oand costs for taking an unseasonable salmon from the 
river Derwent. Two others were also fined £3 and 
£3, 11s, fid, and costs for a similar offence. 
BIRD .MURDER— STERAA PORTLAXDICA. 
BY C. J. MAYNAKD. 
Although not in the habit of finding fault with neigh- 
bors, as you well know, I must now say a few words 
upon an article which appeared in a recent Sportsman 
under Zoological Gleanings. It is a quotation from the 
Calais Times to which I allude. I commenced to read 
this article with considerable interest, and I found some 
facts recorded which were new to me, but my interest 
in the record soon changed to disgust at the brutality 
of the man who could commit such a deed. Thirty 
loons killed, and without doubt left to decay where they 
fell; w’hy. even hawks and owls will not kill any living 
thing if they are not in need of it to satisfy their hun- 
ger. They are too wise thus to destroy the balance of 
Nature. But there are many men in the world who, 
had they the opportunity, would without compassion or 
thought exterminate the whole feathered race at a blow. 
Now I am upon this subject I may as well go a little 
farther and state that I know some who even pretend 
to be ornithologists, but who are far from being lovers 
of this noble science, who make boasts of the number 
of birds that they have kil'ed in a day, and left where 
they fell ; indeed some, whom I forbear to name, have 
even kept a record for months of such waste, and have 
showed it as an evidence of skill; boasting that they 
have killed 50 or more birds in a few hours. 
I make no comments on this, but simply state facts as 
they are ; neither have I been personal, but I am cer- 
tain that this coat will fit on quite a number of backs, 
but I trust it will pinch sadly when they next attempt 
any work of the kind. Many of our larger species of 
birds are either becoming extinct or are being driven 
away from the haunts of man, and it is just such men 
as I have been writing about who do the mischief. 
Now a w(ird on Sterna portlandica. I am exceed- 
ingly interested in this history as I have long made a 
specialty of this branch of ornithology. The fact of 
the Marsh Tern being taken at Portland is of interest, 
for I know of but one instance of capture in New Eng- 
land; one being taken at Ipswich some years since. 
While assuming that “W. F. S.” is correct in his inves- 
tigation of the species in question, {S. pottlandiea),! 
shall take great pleasure in seeing the specimens for I 
know that written description of such obscurely marked 
species as Sterna portlamlica are necessarily very decep- 
tive and might be applied to more than one species, es- 
pecially if you did not have the birds in hand for com- 
parison 
,«» « 
A\.\UAL MEETI.VG OF THE X. H. GAME AXD 
FISH LEAGUE. 
The N. H. Game and Fish League held their annual 
meeting April 6, at Manchester, N. H. John B. Clarke, 
President; W. W. Colburn, Secretary. 
The Secretary’s report showed that the League was 
organized on the 7th of April, 1874. How rapidly it got 
to work was .shown by a record of the proceedings. 
On the 21st of the same month the executive commit- 
tee proceeded to appoint detectives and to offer rewards 
for information of illegal acts. A powerful committee 
on restocking the Merrimack and Connecticut rivers 
was appointed. This committee met on the 11th of 
Ma}' and ai pointed a deputation consist-ing of .John M. 
Hill, Dr. E Spalding, C’ol. Bellows, and Judge Minot, 
to communicate with the Legislature as to the feasibility 
of restocking the rivers with shad and salmon. Special 
commissioners were appointed in the counties to look 
after the fish interests. 
A committee on bird laws was appointed and had re- 
ported elaborately, bn the protection needed, the result of 
which was the draft of a bill by the Attorney General 
and its adoption bj' the Legislature, but not without op- 
position. The principal changes made by this law 
were the termination of the close season for woodcock 
on the 4th of July, instead of the 15th of August as 
formerly; the omission of the Wilson’s snipe from the 
list of protected birds; the clause relating to the snaring 
of ruffed grouse, and the one against the exposing of 
poisons for any purpose. Care was taken in the pre- 
paration of this bill to guard the interests of landholders. 
The kind of opposition which this bill met, and which 
an 3 ’ proposed changes of this nature are liable to incur, 
are thus sketched: Some oppose any laws favorable to 
sportsmen because the dogs used in hunting sometimes 
kill sheen. Others object to any protection to ruffed 
grouse, because it consumes the buds of their apple- 
trees in winter, therebj^ in their opinion, injuring the 
crop of apples for the ensuing season. A very few 
would prohibit the use of the gun during the latter part 
of summer aud the earlier half of autumn, in order that 
they may net a few pigeons in some portions of the 
State. Still others assert that all laws for the protection 
of game are a species of monopolj’ in favor of city sports- 
men. Others again, among w’hom were some members 
of the L^ue, did not approve of shooting woodcock -■ 
