FOREST AND STREAM 
1047 
The Den at Camp Buckshaw, Showing Mollie the Setter and Part of Dr. Breck’s 
Collection of Weapons and Things Ancient and Modern. 
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|| THE DEN I| 
UNCLE NED BUCKSHAW INTER¬ 
VIEWED-THE USUALLY AMIA¬ 
BLE DR. BRECK FREES HIS MIND 
ON A NUMBER OF TOPICS IM¬ 
PORTANT TO THE SPORTSMAN 
By An Occasional Contributor 
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U NCLE Ned is hard at work at Camp Buck¬ 
shaw, Novia Scotia, having laid off the 
toga of orator to the Navy League of the 
United States, and donned a costume more ap¬ 
propriate to our idea of the old chap, consisting 
mostly of moccasins, woolen shirt and knickers. 
Ned kindly allowed us to sink down in a com¬ 
fortable arm chair before the big fire-place where 
many interesting individuals had warmed them¬ 
selves, including Albert Bigelow Paine of “The 
Tent Dwellers,” Nigghy, the calf-moose and a 
hundred other wild or semi-domesticated pets. 
We were going fishing, but Ned vowed that 
he was no longer an angler, though he angled 
nearly every day. 
“I don’t think our uneducated trout take much 
to the dry fly, but I use it mostly here, all the 
same, for, though the wet fly gets five where 
the dry lures one, the use of the dry is far 
more fascinating. The best luck I have had 
with some flies made for me by that finest of 
all anglers, the late Theodore Gordon. These 
were tied by Gordon from insects, well pre¬ 
served, that I sent him from here, and were 
beautifully wrought. I shall tell you more about 
Gordon some time, for though I never clapped 
eyes on the man, I knew him pretty well, on 
account of a years-long correspondence. There 
was nothing of the sensational about him; he 
had no ‘punch.’ You didn’t see his stuff much 
in the so-called up-to-date magazines, for it 
wasn’t at all juvenile enough. But it was 
real literature, and simply breathed the woods 
and fishing. Gordon was a writer for the aristo¬ 
crat among anglers and nature lovers. It is one 
of the glories of Forest and Stream to have 
had such a contributor for so many years. 
“The news? Well, can’t say that I have much. 
Lou Harlow tells me that he saw a young bull 
moose with its antlers still on the morning of 
Good Friday, which was April 21, about a rec¬ 
ord for lateness, so far as I am concerned. On 
the other hand, the this year’s moose calves are 
coming early. On May 20th a couple were seen 
by a friend of mine. This is, of course, not 
abnormal, though they come a week or so later 
mostly. 
“The moose are reported very thick by the 
lumbermen and trappers. The protection of the 
cow has done wonders for Nova Scotia, and 
moose are now found in places that never knew 
them twenty years ago. The fact that the num¬ 
ber of bulls killed has increased every year is 
the best sign of the times. A moose hunt here 
costs much less than in New Brunswick, and, 
though the spread of antlers is smaller on an 
average perhaps (though that is disputed), a 
man is pretty sure of his bull if he takes a 
good guide along. 
“Yes, I like moose hunting more and more 
every year. I don’t much care about killing, 
though I sometimes do if we need meat, but 
the whole game is the most fascinating thing 
within my experience. 
“I begin to plan for my next hunt the day 
after I get back from the first! 
“Partridges? Yes, I chased one off my porch 
just before you got here. There’s a nest over 
yonder somewhere, and there are four other 
nests of different species full of eggs within 
twenty yards of my cabin, not counting those I 
haven’t found, for I really haven’t looked at all. 
Any quiet day you can hear at least three her¬ 
mit-thrushes singing. One female is nesting 
right in that bunch of stuff there. There’s a 
gull’s nest (black-backs) on that big rock in the 
lake, and on the other side of it a loon’s nest. 
A lake without the cry of the loon is robbed 
of much of its witchery. 
“No, I haven’t seen the latest woodcraft books. 
No doubt they are all right, but most things are 
written just to fill space, and these books are 
too apt to be a lot of articles thrown together to 
form a volume, and they show it, too. 
“Curious what funny things you often find. 
A man named Crossman, who writes well about 
rifles, tells of throwing away a knife in its 
sheath, which he carried slung from his belt 
at his side, because it caught on things in travel¬ 
ing. If Mr. Crossman would imitate us woods¬ 
men, and sling his knife further round, even at 
the very back, he would not be troubled by its 
catching the brush. 
“These youngsters are constantly discovering 
new things. I have just read about a chap'who 
says that red is a good color to protect hunters 
of deer from being shot by their companions. 
How original! Gordon and I have been using 
the dry fly for these many years, but about five 
years ago a lot of New Yorkers discovered that 
it existed! I have been trying for many years 
to persuade the manufacturers to make several 
things needed, amongst them dry flies tied after 
American insects (I believe Rhead is now doing 
it), a head-net of black veiling, a front-sight 
protector for sporting rifles, etc. The sight- 
protector has not yet been turned out, though 
a manufacturer once wrote me as follows: 
‘Your sketch for a protector arrived this morn¬ 
ing, and by noon we had perfected it,’ or words 
to that effect. Nevertheless I have heard noth¬ 
ing more about it. 
“Are people getting to be better sportsmen? 
In a way I should say yes. I mean that the 
fish-hog and the game-hog are in deeper con¬ 
tempt nowadays. And the Audubon Society 
(of which everybody should be a member) and 
other bodies have done much to make folks 
understand that creatures should not be killed 
indiscriminately. But there is still a whole lot 
to be done, for people are, in the main, very 
ignorant. 
“Do not talk to me about the humanity of the 
world as long as our laws permit the use of the 
steel-trap and the live bait. For the trap there 
is more excuse, as the general public cannot 
know personally the awful cruelty connected 
with its use. But how a man of any bringing up 
or decency can deliberately attach to his gear a 
living frog or small fish, and drag it through the 
water is simply astounding. But they do it, and 
the magazines are full of advertisements of ap¬ 
pliances for the use of live bait. One of them, 
in a this month’s magazine (June) gives a cut 
of the ‘harness,’ with the live frog hooked 
through the snout. The words are, ‘Holds the 
bait securely without the slightest injury’! No 
injury, perhaps, to the feelings of the brute who 
would use a thing of torture of this kind, but 
has the manufacturer ever inquired the frog’s 
opinion about it? 
“Another magazine, in the west, publishes a 
letter from a correspondent, showing how to fish 
with ‘mad-toms,’ i. e., small cat-fish. Listen to 
this: 
“‘Take Mr. Tom in your hand (careful of his 
prongs), and with your sharp knife skin about 
a quarter of an inch of hide from the back of 
his head. This will keep him out of weeds, 
rocks, etc. * * * The idea is this: Suppose 
you had a wound on you-r hand * * * and in 
some way the skinned surface came in contact 
with a board or your coat. You will pull it 
away, wouldn’t you, and mighty quick, too! Well, 
so will the mail-tom.’ 
“Just analyze this a moment and get the full 
meaning of this delicious treatment of a live 
creature! But the inventor goes further and 
says, in closing: ‘Try this, boys, and if you don’t 
have more pleasure ( !) with less swearing and 
catch more fish, then—I am stung!’ 
“Is this the limit? And yet it appears in a 
so-called respectable magazine. It is one case in 
a thousand. The public is quite indifferent. The 
superintendents of Sunday Schools go on dis¬ 
puting whether certain Bible rules and images 
should be taken literally or not; but they never 
pay any attention to the foul cruelty going on 
right under their noses by the use of the steel 
trap and the live bait devices. 
“No, I haven’t time to talk about the trap. 
Besides it makes me too ‘hot.’ I shall not let 
up until every state and- province on this con¬ 
tinent makes the use of the steel-trap illegal. 
A Canadian monthly has just started a depart¬ 
ment of trapping. Shame to it!” 
