THE CORBIN GAME PARK. 419 
Mr. Corbin is sure his park will not in any way interfere with the 
rights of legitimate sportsmen. — 
Here is this tract of woodland with only enough cleared land on it 
to afford meadows over which the animals would like to wander at 
times, are gathered 25 buffalo, 60 elk, over 70 deer, half a dozen each 
of caribou and antelope, 18 wild boars imported from Germany, and an 
unknown number of moose,—perhaps a dozen. He had 4 reindeer 
brought from Labrador, but all died. He expects to have a community 
of beavers, for the lakes and streams of the park are admirably adapted 
for these beautiful animals. 
Quite as interesting as any description of the park and its inhabit- 
ants is the story of the gathering of the specimens. It is too long to 
tell in full, but room remains for enough. The agent employed to 
gather a large part of the animals from Canada was Thomas H. Ryan, 
who has served Mr. Corbin in a number of capacities for the past twelve 
years. Along in October last Mr. Ryan was commissioned to go to 
Canada to see what could be done about getting “any wild animals 
there except bears, panthers, wolves, and foxes.” 
At Sherbrooke he met a friendly newspaper man who said one Dan. 
Ball, of Megantic, knew all about the deer of that country, and so to 
Megantic posted Mr. Ryan. He met Ball and found him able and 
willing to get the deer. 
Mr. Ryan went 50 miles to North Bay, 200 miles west, and from there 
to Mattawa, on the verge of a region where moose abound, deer are 
plentiful, and beaver possible to obtain alive. A contract was made 
with a trapper, whose name Mr. Ryan does not wish to mention, for a 
supply of all these animals—at least twenty of each if that number be 
possible. 
Meantime Dan Ball had gone to work at Megantic by selecting a few 
friends and looking over the woods to see where the deer were yard- 
ing. Along in December the snow became 5 feet deep in the woods, 
and Dan knew of one yard where at least 500 deer were gathered 
together. 
Then he and six others went on snowshoes, with buckskin thongs, 
and one gun loaded with powder only. Locating a bunch of deer in a 
thicket, six of the men crept up as near as possible to the leeward with- 
out alarming them. Then the seventh came tearing down with the 
wind and with a wild yell and the discharge of the gun scattered the 
bunch like a flock quails before a cur pup. Some of the fleeing beauties 
plumped into the snow, that was so deep and so fiuffy that they sank 
out of sight at the first struggle, nor could they escape till Dan and 
his friends kindly lent a hand. In all adozen were captured thus, and 
with legs bound with soft leather thongs were carried to an old shanty 
in the woods some distance from Megartic. 
In January Mr. Ryan went away to bring the deer to the park in 
New Hampshire. Megantic is on the Canadian Pacific road. A box 
