THE ADIRONDACKS 



AST summer the New York Times published an ar- 

 % ^ tide deprecating the " ruinous pnbhcity " given by 

 '*^'* Eev. W. H. H. Murray to the sporting attractions 

 of the Adirondacks, and lamenting that this excep- 

 tional region should have " fallen from that estate of 

 fish and solitude for which it was originally celebrated." Eail- 

 roads, stages, telegraphs and hotels, it says, " have followed 

 in the train of the throng who rushed for the wilderness. The 

 desert has blossomed with parasols, and the waste places are 

 filled with picnic parties, reveling in lemonade and sardines. 

 The piano has banished the deer from the entire region, and 

 seldom is any one of the countless multitude of sportsmen 

 fortunate enough to meet with even the track of a deer." 

 The writer rejoices, and with reason, that Canadian forests 

 are yet undesecrated, and are likely to remain so, " unless 

 some malevolent person writes a book upon the subject, giv- 

 ing to the indiscriminate public the secrets that should be 

 reserved for the true sportsman and the reverent lover of 

 natm'e." 



It is not without a careful consideration of the question in 

 all its aspects, that I have ventured to pubhsh my Eeference 

 Book. Jealous as I am, in common with all sportsmen, of 



* See Harper's Magazine, Vol. XLI., page 321. 



