A WEEKLY JOURNAL, 



Devoted to Field and Aquatic Sports, Practical Natural History, 

 Fish culture, tue protection okUamk, Preservation of Forests, 

 and the Inculcation in Men and Women of a Healthy Interest 

 in Out-Door Recreation and Study : 



PUBLISHED BY 



potest mi ^tresnj fflubHshing fflnmyatig.. 



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NEW YORK, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1878. 



To Correspondents. 



All communications whatever, intended for publication, must be ac- 

 companied with real name of the writer as a guaranty of good faith 

 and be addressed to the Forest and Stream Publishing Company 

 Names will not be published it objection be made. No anonymouB com- 

 munications will be regarded. 



We cannot promise to return rejected manuscripts. 



Secretaries of Clubs and Associations are urged to favor us with brief 

 notes of their movements and transactions. 



Nothing will be admitted to any department of the paper that mav 

 not be read with propriety in the home circle. 



We cannot be responsible for dereliction of the mail service if money 

 remitted to ns is lost. No person whatever 1b authorized to collect 

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 undersigned. We have no Philadelphia agent. 



IT Trade supplied by American NewB Company. 

 CHARLES IJAI.LOCK, Editor. 



New Direct Steamship Link from New York to Jack- 

 sonville. — The Jacksonville Yacht Club, the Artillery Com- 

 pany and the City Council of Jacksonville, Florida, have ar- 

 ranged a suitable reception for the first incoming vessel of 

 Mallory's new steamship line from New York to Jacksonville 

 direct. Her name is the Western Texas, and she will probably 

 sail on the 30th iost. The officers of the vessel will be en- 

 tertained by the Yacht Club at their club-house. This line 

 will d« ubtless prove to be most serviceable to sportsmen 

 going to Florida, as they can ship their boats, dogs, decoys, 

 tents and other impedimenta direct and cheaply. Ammuni- 

 tion, fixed and loose, can be obtained at Pitman's in Jackson- 

 ville as cheaply as anywhere at the North, and carefully se- 

 lected to suit the game to be found there. He is supplied by 

 Schuyler, Hattley & Graham, of this city. 



—The Delevan House, at Albany is the favorite stopping 

 place of sportsmen returning from the North Woods. The 

 Messrs. Leland are the kind of gentlemen that sportsmen like 

 to meet. The reputation of this house is founded upon its 

 liberal management, excellent cuisine and the constant efforts 

 of both Messrs. Chas. E. and Warren F. Leland to make their 

 guests comfortable and satisfied. Their latest enterprise is 

 the manufacture of their own gas from crude petroleum, by 

 What is known as the " Hanlon Process." Thisgasis of fully 

 double the illuminating power of ordinary coal gas at about 

 one-fourth the coBt. DbL. 



Duok Shooting at Niagara Faixb.— A correspondent in 

 our game column to-day gives some interesting facts about 

 Bhooting ducks in the great gorge below Niagara Falls, where 

 they become bewildered by the noise and the spray. 



—A poultice of biuited pcsch leaves, applied twice a day, 

 is said to be a magic cure for wounds of nails in the feet of 

 man or beast. 



LORD DUFFERIN. 



ON tho 19th inst. there sailed from the Canadian shore the 

 most popular representative that Great Britain has 

 ever sent to one of her dependencies. With great executive 

 ability Lord Dufferin possessed in an eminent degree the rare 

 faculty of making himself universally beloved and respected 

 by the people over whom he was sent to rule. Probably the 

 great secret of his success was that, coupled with his inti- 

 mate knowledge of men, he possessed in a remarkable degree 

 a versatility that makes him at once author, statesmen, trav- 

 eler and sportsman, together with a sympathetic tempera- 

 ment and the faculty of attracting popularity, while retain- 

 ing all the dignity attendant upon his rank and official posi- 

 tion. We think it was in 1859 that a pleasant book, bearing 

 the title of "Letters from High Latitudes," appeared with 

 Lord Dufferin's name attached as author, and immediately 

 achieved great popularity. The book was a gossippy narra- 

 tive, describing a yachting expedition to Iceland and Jan 

 Meyen, but the account was so graphic and the story so well 

 told that it stamped the author as a man of no ordinary 

 genius er capability. To us who were so familiar with this 

 book in those days, and who had watched his career with in- 

 terest, it seemed as though an old friend had been appointed 

 when, in 1872, the Gladstone administration nominated him 

 as Governor. General of Canada. 



Lord Dulferin's success in Canada was immediate and 

 thorough. The people loved him none the less that he identi- 

 fied himself with their lives, their pursuits and their amuse- 

 ments, while the country recognized his policy of government 

 as one which was to, and did, harmonize party dissensions 

 and confer great and lasting benefits. Leaving Canada as 

 he did with the good will of all, was evidence of the tact and 

 skill with which he had governed. 



In his capacity as sportsman and traveler Lord Dufferin 

 commands our highest admiration. As the former, he has 

 tracked the moose through the pathless forests of Manitoba, 

 and has caught the lordly salmon in the river which be rented 

 for his personal use, but which he was always ready to place 

 at the service of his friends. His wife, the Countess, is also 

 an expert with the salmon rod and, we believe, with the rifle. 

 During his term of office Lord Dufferin visited every portion 

 of the Dominion from Prince Edward's Island to British Co- 

 lumbia, and made himself thoroughly acquainted with the 

 products and peculiarities of each province and with the 

 wants of the people. Everywhere he met with the same 

 hearty reception aDd endeared himself to the people. His 

 social qualities added largely to his popularity. His lavish 

 hospitality and the splendid entertainments given at Rideau 

 Hall were in strong contrast with the mode of life of his pre- 

 decessor in office, and established a court which brought back 

 to the memories of those of the ancient regime the splendors 

 of the days of the old French governors. Almost a cosmo- 

 politan himself, Lord Dufferin was well calculated to meet 

 the peculiarities of Canadian society, and during his first 

 winter became proficient in curling, snow-shoeing, skating 

 and tobaganlng. He was also, we are happy to say, a reader 

 of Forest and Stream:, as are many of the highest officials 

 of Canada. It will be long before the Dominion will again 

 have so popular a Governor, and as the steamer which bears 

 him home plows its way through the waters, thousands of 

 hearty God-speeds follow her and her precious freight. 



IS THE SLOOP SEAWORTHY? 



' ' TS it not really a shame that even our largest sloops cannot 

 J- make a match at sea ?" This was the remark of a gen- 

 tleman, made within our hearing, upon reading the report of 

 the recent attempt of Vision and Grade, two sixty ton sloops, 

 to test their sailing qualities in a slashing breeze and sea. 

 Their object was praiseworthy enough, but to any one ac- 

 quainted with rough-water sailing, and tbe requirements of a 

 thoroughly capable sea boat, the probabilities of successfully 

 accomplishing a twenty-mile course dead to windward and 

 return, in a tumble of a sea outside the Hook, looked problem- 

 atical enough. However, the sloops in question put in an ap- 

 pearance after a full overhauling and as thorough preparations 

 for the rough weather expected as shipcarpenters, riggers and 

 skippers knew how. When they found a single reef-breeze 

 and a moderately steep sea awaiting them it turned out a rather 

 discomfiting experience, as they learned that no amount of 

 preparation and care could possibly atone for a radically faulty 

 model and inadequate rig for the work the craft were to be 

 put through. Hardly had the sloops settled down to their 

 task, when away went Oracle's iron work, and spare blocks 

 being a scarcity abroad, the boatswain's locker evidently hav- 

 ing been poorly looked after, it became unfortunately a matter 

 of necessity to ease off for home. This was to be regretted, 

 as her excess of depth and what meagre claims she possessed 

 in a very moderate degree to being considered good at outside 

 work, never even had a chance of coming into play. 



But if Grade was thus early out of the match and bound 

 for the doctor's shop, Vision had all the better show, and one 

 might have expected that under easy canvas she would have 

 readily made the course. However, her unseawortby model 

 and rig proved a much more serious obstacle than Grade. 

 Of course there was some sea on, but nothing like what those 

 aboard this smooth-water crack imagined ; nor was there any- 

 thing in the weather to justify the notion that the sloop " was 

 too small" for the work cut out. Imagine an English 60 " too 

 small" for a single-reef breeze 1 Such a craft across the seas 

 would soon be cut up for firewood. Vision went at it in 



business-like style, smashing her head into the green ones as 

 they came along, making a terrible fuss over it and very little 

 headway. Talk of cutters being diving bells, we never saw 

 one take such solid water aboard as did this sloop. To watch 

 her labor was almost painful, and ere long it became evidently 

 a question of time when something had to give way. Finally 

 she put around, unable to stand it any longer and with a free 

 sheet was scudded for shelter, her bowsprit gone cloEe to the 

 knightheads, and this in spite of bobstays as numerous as the 

 strings on Erin's harp. 



Such is the record of our two largest sloops in their latest 

 venture in open water, a repetition of many a similar one be- 

 fore, fraught with like results. To characterize Vision's per- 

 formance in this and other such miscarried attempts to keep 

 the sea, in the mildest term, is to call it farcical. The exhibi- 

 tions in rough water of this and other sloops— for Vision is, 

 after all, a representative of the smooth- water racer— would 

 be disappointing in the extreme were it not for the hope they 

 instill that sooner or latter the crying shortcomings of our 

 -present style of craft will lead— force, weBhould say— yachts- 

 men into a course more creditable to themselves and their 

 craft and more in consonance with the higher aims of the 

 sport. 



Strange that among the larger sloops progress in direction 

 of the snug cutter -rig should be so slow, a good deal like a fly 

 backing out of a molasses jug ; first one leg, then the other, 

 and so on. When Vision came out she cruised in the sloop- 

 rig in all its primitive clumsiness and lubberly unhandiness. 

 Then we see a housing topmast shipped aloft in place of the 

 hideous broom-handle pole of the oyster smack, and this sea- 

 son still another step in advance : her big jib cut up into fore- 

 sail and jib, as it should have been the first; day she left the 

 ways. Is it too much to expect that after all the exasperating 

 disappointments, with her and others of the kind, with so 

 many slips between Ibe cup and the lip, we may see them out 

 next spriug with a running stick over their nose and shifting 

 jibs, so much preferable to the heavy standing spars now in 

 vogue, without particular aim, hampering and dangerous in 

 spite of multitudinous bobstnys? With a running bowsprit 

 Vision could have made the course in her match wilh Grade 

 and would have landed a fine piece of silverware for her en- 

 terprising owners with safety, perhaps, even if not with com- 

 fort or speed. Change your rig to the cutter, go to sea, and 

 an abler model will very soon follow. 



Substitutes foe Currency:. — In certain sections of the 

 United States and Canada coin and currency are very scarce, 

 and many substitutes are used in barter and traffic. For in- 

 stance, in the mining regions bags of gold dust are used ; iu 

 the fur bearing districts, beaver pelts ,- on the coasts of Labra- 

 dor and Newfoundland, fresh, pickled and smoked salmon, 

 mackerel, cod oil and seal skins ; on the plains, buffalo robes, 

 ponies and beads ; in East Tennessee, bars of iron; in Maine, 

 bunches of shingles, called cedar coin. To illustrate — 1 gal. 

 Ion of cod oil equals 50 cents ; 3 gallons, 1 fresh salmon ; 8 

 salmon, 1 barrel of mackerel ; or 1 beaver pelt is $1 ; 8 pelts, 

 1 buffalo robe ; 2 robes, 1 pony ; 4 ponies, 1 squaw. And 

 the same with the other substitutes specified. The natives 

 adapt themselves to the necessities of the case and the hour, 

 although indifferent to greenback or fiat money arguments 

 and squabbles. 



Trained Horses.— No better example of the extent to 

 which the natural intelligence of the horse may be carried by 

 tuition and careful training can be found than in tbe exhibi- 

 tion at the Aquarium in this city. Here are nearly a dozen 

 horses, all thoroughbreds from the best stables of Kentucky, 

 who, in the short space of five months, have been taught the 

 moat difficult tricks. The credit of this experiment is due to 

 Messrs. Keiche Brothers, proprietors of the Aquarium, who 

 Bent to Kentucky, with carte blanche to buy what he pleased, 

 Mr. Oscar, who will be remembered as the exhibitor of the 

 trained Trakene Stallions when they first appeared with Bar- 

 num's circus. The horses being purchased and brought here, 

 they were taken to Coney Island and traiued. They are well 

 worth a visit. 



Trained horses are the rage now. WithBarnum's " Great- 

 est Show on Earth," now at Gilmore's Garden, there are 

 some fifteen or twenty trained stallions. A feat which at- 

 tracted much attention when it was first brought out in Paris 

 — Count Pattrizio catches with his hands a cannon ball as it is 

 fired from a veritable cannon. Fish, the champion bare-back 

 rider of the world, is also with the Baraum troupe, and, from 

 the crowds which visit the Garden nightly, it would seem as 

 though Mr. Barnum's high-sounding title for his show was 



warranted. 



. ■ «. . 



Ootobeb on Long Island.— Let none of our readers ne- 

 glect to read the beautifully descriptive idyl of the now ven- 

 erable Isaac McLellan, which appears in our issue this week. 

 The writer's style is similar to Whittier's, while nothing could 

 be more literally true to nature than his marvelous word 

 painting. Besides, each of his poems contains more informa- 

 tion of the habits of creatures and animate objects than some 

 volumes of natural history do. 



—The Poultry World, of Hartford, Vt., is publishing some 

 exquisitely colored lithographs of domestic fowls of all breeds. 

 The set will well repay the trifling cost of purchase. 



—And pretty soon we shall begin to hear of the Eddys'on 

 Liglit-liouse oa this Bide of the Atlantic 1 



