THE CORBIN GAME PARK.* 
By JOHN R. SPEARS. 
ip 
Here is an ‘nteresting study in human nature; a picture of the incep- 
tion and growth of an enterprise of great moment to the naturalist and 
the sportsman, and of interest to everyone. Six years ago a friend 
presented to Austin Corbin, the well-known railroad man, a few young 
deer. Mr Corbin accepted them, and having a great country seat that 
included many acres of woods as well as cleared fields out on Long 
Island, he caused a part of the woods to be suitably fenced, and turned 
the deer into the inclosure. Mr. Corbin, at that time, was neither a 
sportsman nor a naturalist, in the sense in which these terms are gen- 
erally understood. He had no especial interest in wild animals of any 
kind. Nevertheless, asa lad he had lived 0a a farm in New Hampshire, 
among the foothills of the White Mountains, and had trapped wood- 
chucks, and shot partridges and chased foxes, and the good healthy 
delights of those days lingered in his memory. Small wonder then that 
the gentle pets his friend had given to him won their way into his affec- 
tions from the moment they became his. It was a new pleasure—some- 
thing he had never known before,—to go and watch their graceful 
motions and gaze upon the beauty of their forms. Moreover, Mr. Corbin 
had a son, and Austin junior was as much delighted with the pets as 
his father. ; 
There was ample room on the Long Island farm for more than the 
few deer, and the Corbins decided that more should be had. This led 
to the examination of sundry books on the subject of deer culture, if one 
may use the term, books like Judge Caton’s, for instance, while the 
Forest and Stream, and other periodicals were necessarily read regu- 
larly. Certainly the love of nature grows with what it feeds upon, if 
any emotion of the heart does. If deer could be kept, why not deer’s 
cousins, the elk, the moose, the antelope, and the buftalo,—especially 
the buffalo? 
*From Forest and Stream, for March 12, 1891, and May 26, 1892. 
417 
H. Mis. 334, pt. 127 
