The Canadia 



ahp Hatur^li 



No. 4. 



MONTKKAL, APRIL, 1882. 



Vol. II. 



WILLIAM COUPER, Editor. 



fl@* In order to dispose of an accumulation 



of matter, we have increased the number of 

 pages in our present number. This enlargement 

 we would like to retain permanently, and tru-i 

 that before the end of the present volume, our 

 subscription list will have increased to such 

 an extent as to enable us to do this without 

 suffering pecuniary loss. We have had many 

 difficulties to contend with — much doubt 

 expressed with regard to our longevity — and 

 some fault found with the limited form of our 

 publication. These difficulties have not 

 proved insurmountable. Our subscription 

 list has steadily increased. We have en- 

 deavoured to profit from the well-meant 

 criticisms of our friends, and have quietly 

 ignored the forebodings ot those who did no^ 

 predict our , success. We now ask the co- 

 operation of our subscribers — of all lovers of 

 field sports and Natural History — and with this 

 assistance, in a country so extended as the 

 Dominion of Canada, and in which there is 

 such a diversity and abundance of sport, we 

 feel quite confident of the prosperity of the 

 Canadian Sportsman and Naturalist, which 

 we claim is the only publication in the 

 Dominion, devoted exclusively to legitimate 

 field sports and the Study of Nature. 



WHY ARE GAME ANIMALS BECOMING 

 SCARCE ? 



When Bartram, Audubon, Bachman, Wil- 

 son and Bonaparte wrote on American Natural 

 History, the quadrupeds and birds which are 

 classed as game on this continent, were then 

 abundant. The above writers bad no difficulty 

 in obtaining material to describe and illustrate 

 their works. But a gradual change has been 

 going on as regards the abodes of American 

 animals. Man, in opening up the soil, destroys 



or presses bark aim 



habiting hie immediate .kea. 



The al>origen<-s an- n« <• 

 n- now living, can rememl 

 Indians were settled on I 

 Lake Ontario; one tril*; called 

 Indians," wen- frequently seen al thai 

 selling their wares in the 

 Their stay was of short duration 

 neighbourhood of whiskey and th<- white man- 

 being compelled to seek anothi 

 gradually disappeared — the weaker homo had 

 to succumb to the stronger. In lik 

 combined with the achievement in 

 and use of heavy arm.- of lati also 



a visible force pressing on the wild animals 

 from their former haunts in prairie and 

 forest, and in order that they may retain 

 their balance amongst the nativi 

 they, like the weak aboriginal tribes, hai 1 

 to retreat to new localities to fin I 

 In 1842, many of the large Canadian ma- 

 were teeming with S and 

 plover indigenous to the country. Toronto 

 marsh was then a good shooting ground, aud 

 many birds which regularly visited it at that 

 time, are considered of rare occurret 

 A large Black Bass (lluro niljns. 

 then had it? habitat in Aflhbr . and 

 many a fine 201b. fish of this P] Joe 

 Lang spear in its surrounding mar- 

 there has been a change; the building of the 

 esplanade forced back the water in 

 Bay, resulting in a breach in the sandy penin- 

 sula opposite, therefore destroying the old 

 marshy grounds lying east of the I 

 thus finishing the historical hunting and fish- 

 ing resorts of Toronto sportsmen. An inca 

 ing rural population annually clearing the 

 woodlands, and the extension of railr 

 are powerful agencies to frighten and CS - 

 the removal of wild animals, whicl . 



