1875 . 
r •' 
103 
cent; so long as be was good in the field be would do. 
For me he would not do; I no longer have any room in 
my kennel for a dog simply because he can find a bird 
in the field. This, of course, is an es.sential cjuality, 
but to please me be must have others. Very ordinary 
dogs, both in breed and everything else, can by persever 
ance be made very fair dogs in the field, but for looks, 
for breeding or anything out of the field tliey are not 
worth a cartridge to blow them out of existence. Now 
that American sportsmen nave turned their attention to 
importing and procuring dogs of blue blood, let them 
also study the shape, make, and poi.n ts of sporting dogs. 
Anyone who loves a dog can do this. Lavcrack, Id- 
stone, and Stonehenge second edition, are the modern 
authors who represent the ideas of the British sportsmen 
of the present day. True, these authors differ on some 
minor points, but not on essential ones, and they one 
and all know a good dog when they see it, simply be- 
cause they know the points that constitute a good dog. 
In this country we have reversed the order of merit of 
our dog. We want field qualities first, looks second, 
and as for blood, we have never cared anything about 
that, whereas it should stand thus: Blood and pedigree, 
first; shape, make, anc points, second; and field quali- 
ties, third. For this reason, blood and pedigree will 
beget beauty and] field qualities, but the latter will not 
always beget their own like. As an illustration of this, 
4t is only necessary to say that in England many good 
dogs are bred from unbroken parents, thus showing 
clearly that their breeders rely more on blood and ped- 
igree than on field qualities. It is a well known fact 
the noted breeders in England would not breed from a 
dog no matter how good he was in the field unless he 
had a faultless pedigree. With us it has been just the 
reverse; we have cared nothing for pedigree so long as 
the dog pleased us in the field. This accounts for so 
man}^ worthless brutes as we have. Now that bench 
shows and field trials are established among us, our 
sportsmen must follow iu the wake of our English sport- 
ing brethren. We have been careless in breeding our 
dogs, while they have been careful; the consequence is, 
we have woke up to the fact that they have got the start 
of us, and we now have to pay them our gold in large 
sums to obtain their blood to catch up to them. W''e 
acknowledge our error, and are willing to pay the pen- 
alty, but we cannot be too careful that we are not com- 
mitting other errors and worse ones, too, by doing thin. 
Nearly every American sportsman appears to think it 
quite sufficient to say of his dog to prove he is a good 
one. “O, his sire or dam was imported.” Now to my 
mind, the very fact of a dog’s sire or dam, or even him- 
self, being imported amounts to nothing at at all. 
I would not give one cent more for him for that, there 
are as many worthless curs in Great Britain as in any 
country in the world and a passage across the Atlantic 
does not make a bad dog a good one. this shows how 
essential it is for our sportsmen to read and study the 
thing up, and make themselves acquainted with the dif- 
ferent strains of dog in England, and the names of 
those which are winners at the bench shows and field 
trials, then couple with this the knowledge of points, 
and we have all the information we ean glean on this 
side of the Atlantic, and it will be found quite sufficient 
for one to know the value of an imoorted dog. I con- 
sider no sportsman’s library complete without Idstone 
on the dog; Stonehenge’s Dogs of the British Islands, 
2d edition; and that father of all breeders, Laverack on 
the Setter; also the Kennel Club Stud Book, just pub- 
lished by Frank Pearce, a son of Idsioue. I will guar- 
antee if one will read these carefully and make due al- 
lowances for the dilTernces of opinions of the authors he 
will learn more about dogs than by talking and breeding 
dogs on the heretofore American style all his lifetime. 
I am afraid there have been some dogs sent to this side 
of the Atlantic whmh should have been left at home. 
I am sure there have, but that there have been some 
of the very best dogs of Britain sent here, lam just as 
sure of, and I now myself know where there are iu dif- 
ferent sportsmen’s hands, nearly a dozen dogs of as fine 
strains as Britain can prodnee. And as this article will 
be read by some sportsmen in'England, I would say to 
them, we want your good dogs, the best blood you have 
in your kennels, and for this we are willing to pay you 
good prices, but culls of culls, and mongrels we don’t 
want, we already have too many of those. You know', 
if we do not, good dogs from poor ones, and you we 
shall blame, and justly too, if you send us poor ones; 
whose fault it may have been that some have been soul 
J>ere which yteie not up to the mark, I am not going to 
say, maj'be the importer would not pay the price for 
what he wanted, oritmaj' be the exporter did not send 
him what he bought. Whatever may have been the 
cause, this is certain, it will bring disgrace on what, if 
properly done on both sides, will result in a permanent 
benefit to rhe sportsmen of America, and no injury to 
those who sell us their dogs. 
THE .IWERK AX ELK. 
BY ALASKA. 
Of all the deer tribe, none appear to better physical 
advantage than does the subject of this sketch when it 
is surprised by the hunter on the mountain slopes or 
valleys of the northwest; of imposing size, of most 
shapely curve and proportion and of free gracefal ac- 
tion, with a short whistle and flash of its big brown eye, 
how nobly it moves off, disappearing as though it were 
some pleasant excitement of the brain, in the dense 
cop.ses or jungles of its chosen haunts ! No one, we 
will venture to say, has ever stumbled upon a herd of elk 
as they may have been feeding on some little grassy 
opening, without feeling his heart leap to his mouth 
with exhilaration, for the sight of the handsome animals 
just before they gather themselves up for the final 
plunge out of his sight, will be one that will indelibly 
stamp itself on his mind and days afterward as he may 
travel or scout along, it will recur to him again and 
again with undimmed satisfaction. We do not write in 
this strain altogether as hunters alone, for such exclu- 
sively, we are not, and as such we did not see alone, 
but as travelers, who were pushing across the great di- 
vide of the Continent between the waters of the Mis- 
souri and tho.se of the Snake or Columbia, and while 
traversing this wild country, we were constantly emerg- 
ing from dense pine forests into beautiful little grassy 
savauas, in which were occasional lakes fringed with 
reeds and gravelly beaches, where herd after herd of the 
“wapiti” were surprised as the}’ were peacefully feed- 
ing on the soft shade ripened grass or cooling their 
bright brown and gray flanks in the clear w’aters, caus- 
ing those elaborate pictures of deer parks in the old 
world, to rise often in memory. Scenes, enchanting 
like these, far away up here in the solitudes of the Rocky 
Mountains, might have served as studies for those grand 
old artists of earlier times who have delighted especially 
in depicting the forms and surroundings of these ani- 
mals and their kind, so perfect is the finish and refine- 
ment of these little characteristic natural meadows with 
here and there a carele.ss, pretty cluster of firs and pop- 
lars standing out by themselves above the rich, rank 
growth of grass and flowering annuals at their feet, 
while a dense forest invariably walls in all sides of these 
wee prairies, into which the deer vanish with the ra- 
pidity of thought when alarmed. 
Yet, charming as is the natural landscape of the elk’s 
habitat here, still it must be borne in mind that these 
beautiful spots in this wilderness, where the sun has its 
onlj' chance to reach and warm the cold soil, have a 
great many thorns for the deer. Swarms of mosquitos, 
myriads of small black venomous gnats, and huge buzz- 
ing gad-flies swoop down during the summer upon the 
unhappy creatures and torment them night and day; so 
much so that no matter how high or rugged the access- 
ible mountain tops and ridges may be; the trail of the 
elk will be found all over them, where it has traveled .so 
as to get up into the wind which will, if fresh, drive 
their enemies away from them and bury the plagues, for 
the time being, in the grass aud moss under foot. There 
are districts in Oregon, large swampy lakes, where 
these animals will congregate in numbers more or less, 
and spend the heat of the day immersed iu the water, 
for they wade in until they cover all but their heads and 
necks, which they ever and anon sou.se under, the slap- 
ping of their hand.somc antlers making a noise that will 
betray their iiosiiiou to a keen ear a long way oil 
through the woods and thickets th.it environ them. 
The morbid watchfulness and sensitive iqiprehension 
of danger shown by the female when alone with her 
fawn or fawns is really touching; the furtive grass crop- 
liing, every mouthful taken stealthily, with backward, 
forward, and all around glances of the eyes, accompa- 
nied by a corresponding sympathetic movement of the 
nervous ears, comes out in strong contrast indeed, with 
the indillerent, playful altitudes of the progeny as they 
listlessly mouth here and there tender stalks ot”the w ild 
liea or beat dowu with heads and feel the large leaves 
of the Indian parsnip; but let the mother sound an 
alarm the little fellows are ;it once nerved up and |)Ound 
Oft like titreaks Jighl iu the vauishiug wuko 
of the old one. When, however, the elk herd 
together along in July, August and September, as 
we have seen them, they lead a much less restless life — 
have in their numbers and consequent confidence, 
much less apprehension, and speedily grow very fat. 
They arc wont to congregate by tens and twenties, 
rarely in much larger bands, and keep well together un- 
til the end of the season for snow falls on these fragrant 
mountain pastures in November, and drives the deer 
down into the lower vallies before it, but the elk gain by 
this seeming discomfort, peace from their insect tor- 
mentors which disappear for the year, with the told 
winds and frost of autumn. 
On the slopes of a bold head of land at the foot of 
the Yellowstone lake, we surprised early one morning 
in August, 1871, a small herd of elk that were standing 
at the brink and in the steamy fumes of several hot sul- 
phur springs which bubbled, hissed and boiled furiously; 
the deer clattered back and forth over the white calca- 
reous floor deposited by the overflowing waters, and 
struggling one with another to monop jlize the positio"^ 
where the clouds of vapor were favorably carried by 
the slightly stirred air. A few moments of quiet ob- 
servation satisfied us that the motive of the animals was 
to get rid of the humming millions of mosquitoes hov- 
eringall around, and their instinct carried them here 
where it could be done most effectually, in spite of the 
repulsive odor and noisy character of the place: one of 
the herd was conspicuous by reason of its great size 
and the comically satisfied manner in which it -stood 
with its antlers thrown back and mouth wide open in 
the warm dripping clouds as they were carried over; 
the eyes were half closed, and its animation only be- 
trayed by a nervous jerking of the short tail up and 
down or from side to side. We became deeply inter- 
ested, on this occasion, in watching the fine play among 
them of their subtle intuition of danger, for we had ap- 
proached from the leeward, without the slightest noise 
of word or whisper, and under perfect cover, to within 
three hundred yaras, where we were obliged by 
the open character of the ground, to halt, but 
this was near enough to see them well in their 
individuality, and we reached this point of obser- 
vation without giving them at first the least 
alarm, but at the expiration of four or five min- 
utes the air seemed to “bang heavy” about them and 
first one then another would crane its neck up, sniff and 
snort toward every point of the compass, and their ears 
and tails began to twitch about as though electrified for 
a minute or so, when all, by common impulse, broke 
into a light canter aud disappeared in the spruce thick- 
ets opposite. 
Buook Tkoct.— T he fisli wliich afford the most deliglit, both to 
tlic epicure aud .sportsman, of any wliich arc found in the waters of 
our State is the brook trout. 'I'heir value consists in the fact that 
they haunt the shallow mountain brooks, which could not be made 
to yield any other variety of lish. Their gamey qualities, and the 
picturesqueness of the scenery generally surrounding the waters 
iu which they are found, have made them eagerly sought 
after by those in search of their health or pleasure, to such 
a degree, that in waters which once abounded with them, 
they are now found with great difficulty. The trout is not a fruitful 
lish, they neither multiply nor grow rapidly. This species, while 
they do nat exercise the care for their spawn or their young, do not 
yield near the quantity of eggs that the bass do. A mature or full- 
grown pair of trout will yield from eight hundred to three thousand 
eggs, while a like pair of bass will yield from twenty-live to forty 
thousand eggs. The work of restocking the large number of 
streams throughout the Commonwealth, which were or have beeff 
the natural haunts of the troi t is a work of such great magnitude, 
that we do not deem it ^ldvisable at this early period of our labors to 
undertake it. M'e would recommend, however, the enactment of 
such laws as will give a greater amount of protection than lliose now 
npou our statute books. It is well known among those who have 
given the subject any attention, that iu early spring the fish are al- 
most rayenous from hunger, and take with avidity any bait which 
may be thrown to them, so that by persistently fishing the narrow 
mountain streaais, it is possible to utterly exterminate them; at this 
season of the year, too, they are hardly lit for food; they are weak 
and thin on account of their winter starvation. We would urge, 
conesciuently, the adoption of such legislation us wiil confine the 
fishing for them to a later and a shorter peiiod. 
.\uother caiase of their decrease besides that of their being so 
much sought after is the establishment of tanneries and saw-mills 
upon the banks of the streams which are inhabited by them. Tan- 
neries utilize the niouutain streams by converting them into sewers 
to carry off their refuse. Lime and ammonia, which are largely 
used in the process of tanning, are both virulent poison to the fish. 
The lesull is that wherever upon our trout streams a tannery is once 
established the lish very rapidly disaiipear. This destruction is 
wanton and nnnecessary, as by making surlace pools or by sinking 
wells in a manner similar to that which our iron ui ners adopt in or- 
der to gel rid of the sulphurous mine water, it is possible lor these 
liuinerres to so conduct their operations us to leave the water of the 
si ream upon w hose b:iiiks they are erected, iiniiolluted by their ref- 
use, and to thus enjoy their rights without inlringiiig upon those of 
othiirs. Wo consianily reconiineud the eniietiuoul of u atutiiiu that 
will iiiaUc it illegal for proprietors of tanneries to pollute with their 
refuse not only trout stteaius but any of the waters of tho CopimOU- 
wealth ~-J{eporl u/ IM i'citit, 
