72 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



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NEWTOBK, THUBSIUY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1874. 



To Correspondents. 



All communications whatev 



address. 



whether 



o The F< 

 to letters of 

 is intended for publication mm 

 inty of good faith. Names w 

 lonymons contribut" 



ing.to bnsi 



r literary 



nd Str 

 course excepted, 

 t be accompanied with 

 ill not be published if 

 ill be regarded, 



oorrespondi 

 usttwa Company. 



AH commmiicatii 

 real name, as a gua 

 objection be made. _ . . 



Articles relating to any topic within the scope of this paper are solicited. 



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, as it is the aim of this paper 

 to become a medium of usefnl and reliable information between gentle- 

 men sportsmen from one end of the country to the other ; and they will 

 find our columns a desirable medium Tor advertising announcements. 



The Publishers of FoMST and Strkam aim to merit and secure the 

 patronage and countenance or that portion of the community whose re- 

 ined intelligence enables them to properly appreciate and enjoy all that 

 is beautiful in Nature. It will pander to no depraved tastes, nor pervert 

 the legitimate sports of land and water to those base uses which always 

 tend to make them unpopular with the virtuous and good. No advertise- 

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

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Vlv-rtiseuients should be sent in by Saturday of each week. If possible. 

 OHAKLES HALLOCK, Managing Editor. 



WILLIAM C. HARRIS, Business Manager. 



CALENDAR OF EVENTS FOR THE CUR- 

 RENT WEEK. 



Friday, September 11th.— National Sportsmens' convention, Niagara 

 Falls. N. Y.— Seneca Lake regatta, Watkins, N. Y— Trotting meetings 

 at Heading, Pa„ Boston, Mass., St. Paul, Minn., and Etna, N. Y. 



Svtitumy, September 12th.— National Sportsmens' convention, Ni- 

 agara Falls, N. Y.— Practice day. boat clubs, Harlem, N. Y.— Practice 

 day, cricket and base ball clubs, Ninth street, Hobokcn, N. .T. 



Monday, September 141 h.— Trotting moetinga at Kansas City, Mo., 

 and Waverly Station, N. J.— Chicago vs. Boston B. B. C. at Boston— 

 Uhletic vs. Hartford, at. Hartford. 



Tubsday. September loth. — Ureat. stallion race, Mystic Park, Med- 

 ford Mass.— Trotting meetings at Munkato, Wis., Jamestown, N. Y,, 

 Pittsburg, I'a., Troy, N. Y.. Des Moines, Iowa, Cleveland, Ohio, White 

 Plains. N. Y., and South Norwalk, Conn.— Athletic vs. Hartford, at 

 Hartford. 



Wednesday. September Mill.— Bowing regatta, Lake Sebago, Port- 

 land, Me.-Trotting meetings at Mankato.Wis.,. Jamestown, N. Y„ Pitts- 

 burg Pa,, Troy. N. Y.. Des Moines, Iowa, Cleveland, Ohio, White Plains, 

 N Y South Norwalk, Conn., Keono, N. II., Burlington, Vt., Lancaster, 

 Pa., Chatham Village, N. Y„ Peoria, 111., Providence, R. L, X—"" 

 Maea., and Norristown, Pa 



TatmSDAT, Septemher 17th.— Trotting meeting 

 Mankoto, Wis., Jamestown, N. T., Ptttsbnrg, Pan 

 MoineB, Iowa, Cleveland, Ohio, White Mains, N. 

 Conn., Keene, N. H„ Burlington, Vt„ Lancastar, 



N. Y.'! Peoria', III., Providence, K.I., Lawn 

 Pennsylvania. 



it Florence, Ky., 

 Troy, N. Y„Des 



i South Norwalk, 

 Chatham Village. 



ce, Mass., and Norristown 



THE NATIONAL SPORTSMEN'S CONVEN- 

 TION AT NIAGARA FALLS. 



AS we are going to press the National Sportsmen's Con- 

 vention is holding its meeting. It would be out of 

 place did we anticipate the results. Let us sine m < ly trust 

 then that the convention will be the first to give proper and 

 due attention to the great question of the preservation of 

 came. 



It is fitting that such a reunion should be one where ac- 

 quaintance is made between all the various sportsmen in 

 our wide section of country. Bui men have different, 

 tastes. The question tit prowess or skill with a particular 

 weapon is of course an important one. But giving this all 

 weight, we are forced to consider pigeon shooting but in 

 an unimportant light, and every way subordinate to the 

 great object of the convention. U may be. the lire works, 

 the baud of music, the excitement, the sensation, which 

 tends to draw a portion of the audience. But certain men 



in this good country of ours, as they follow the grouse in 

 the. prairies of the West, or track the deer over the moun- 

 tains of tin- East, Or who whip the floods of the North for 

 trout or salmon, think less of their skill with gun and rod 

 than of the future of the game. They ponder over thoughts 

 of this kind; The benificent Creator has peopled this 

 world of ours with creatures which we are killing for oui 

 sport, pleasure, or profit. Shall we lavishly squander all 

 this multitude of life He has given us? Are we to be selfish 

 enough to slay and destroy ruthlessly, without let or hind- 

 drance, all that comes before us? Shall we not care for 

 those who may come after up, in ten or twenty years? 

 When age has stiffened our limbs, and our eyes are dimmed, 

 so that then we must place in our children's hands the guns 

 and rods which now delight us, and in our chimney cor- 

 ner must listen to the stories of field and flood told us by 

 younger, fresher men, will there be that abundance of 

 game we now see around us? 



As far as the eastern and northern hunting grounds go, 

 and even for a certain distance beyond the Mississippi, our 

 game is becoming limited. We have arrived at that par- 

 ticular crisis, when we may expect to see, with each suc- 

 ceeding year, a diminishing quantity of game. Even the 

 era of the perfect, extinction of certain birds, beasts and 

 fishes, can almost be foretold. 



It behooves us, then, to make special and carefnl laws 

 for the preservation of our game. So far such ordinances 

 as have been passed were necessarily, from the spasmodic 

 character of the Legislation, made without system or judg- 

 ment. 



We have advanced certain suggestions for a system of 

 general game laws, founded on a perfectly rational and 

 geographical plan, and endorsed by naturalists and the 

 leading sportsmen of the country. We believe that if these 

 laws are framed and carried out, by their means the game 

 of the whole country will be preserved, and that litigation 

 and trespass will cease. We have slated ourpoints, clearly 

 and fairly. Our object is to care for game, not only for 

 to-day but for to-morrow and for all time. These laws 

 have nothing capricious about them. While Nature is the 

 same, while the identical birds, animals or fish dwell in 

 certain ideographical zones, we want the laws to be the same. 

 The whole plan is simplicity itself, and is as easy of com- 

 prehension as it must be to carry out. 



TYNDALL AND MATERIALISM. 



IT is from the German Vorstellungs Kraft, or the ability 

 to understand oneself, or from molecules, nodules, or 

 conservative energy, that we are to seize the grand, the 

 ever impenetrable secret of our being, past, present and 

 yet to come? Professor Tyndall's inaugural address before 

 the British Association for the advancement of science, 

 powerfully as it is written, leaves us just in the same 

 doubt as when Lucretius, Democritus, Epicurus, Socra- 

 tes, Plato or Aristotle first grappled with human thought. 

 Pew men will understand the force of this paper, the 

 strongest, strangest and most powerful production of the 

 century, Many appreciating but half of the spirit of the 

 address, will sneer at it and loose their tempers. A ma- 

 jority of people of timid temperament, to reverse somewhat 

 Tyndall's own expression, "accept if the choice be forced 

 upon them, stagnation before commotion; the stillness of 

 the swamp, to the leap in the torrent," and refuse the men- 

 tal effort necessary to work over the debatable ground, 

 even deeming it irreverent to think over such subjects. If 

 Mr. Tyndall pays a merited compliment to Professor 

 Huxly's wonderful clear npercu of Darwin's speculations, 

 immense credit is due to himself for his lucid analysis of 

 the theory of "selection," for it has never been before so 

 sharply defined. 



But "after all, what does it amount to? Can the human 

 mind ever discriminate between the self working molecules, 

 independent of themselves, knowing no master, and the 

 creative power which runs parallel with them? Can an apos- 

 tle of tliis materialism in ages yet to come, count on more 

 than a handful of followers? lie who credits Tyndall with 

 irreverence, takes up a weapon which recoils on himself. 

 How grandly the greatest thinker of the age speaks of that 

 inate reverence, which some (not all) men, possess. 

 "There is," he says, "that deep set feeling, which since the 

 earliest dawn of history, and probably for ages prior to all 

 history, incorporated itself into the religions of Ihe world. 

 You who have escaped from these religions in the Itigh-aud- 

 dry light of the understanding may deride them, but in so 

 doing you deride accidents of form merely, and fail to touch 

 the immovable basis of the religious sentiment in the emo- 

 tional nature of man." 



For ourselves, our mind refuses to accept the idea of mo- 

 lecular action independent of itself, and materialist re. We 

 sec in it the action and guidance of an immortal Creator, 

 whom we reverence. No ostentatious song of triumph 

 marks Tyndall's discourse. Itsconclusion has a saddening 

 strain in it, when he says: "And if, still unsatisfied, the 

 human mind, with the yearning of a pilgrim tor his dis- 

 tant home, will turn to Ihe mystery from which it has em- 

 erged, seeking so to fashion it as to give unity to thought 

 and faith, so long as this is done, not only without intoler- 

 ance or bigotry of any kind, but with the enlightened re- 

 cognition that ulimale fixily of conception is here unallaiu- 

 aljle, and that each succeeding age must be held tree to 

 fashion the mystery in aceorauee with its own needs- then, 

 in opposition to all the restrictions of Materialism, I would 

 affirm this to be a held for the noblest exercise of what, in 

 contrast with kuowing faculties, may be called the creative 

 faculties of man. Here, however, I must quit a theme too 



great for me to handle, but which will be handled by the 

 loftiest minds ages after you and I, like streaks of morning 

 cloud, shall have melted into the infinite azure of the 

 past." 



OUGHT SETTERS TO RETRIEVE? 



Prom the programme of the Tennesee State Sportsmen's 

 Association which lies before us, we quote: — 



We return our thanks to the editor of the Forest and Stream, whose 

 valuable paper has given ns great assistance in getting up our rules and 

 scale of points. In one tiling we have differed from him, /. ,.. iu not giv- 

 ing points for retrieving; and we will endeavor to show, bristly, one or 

 two of our principal reasons for bo doing. Having gone thoroughly into 

 the matter, and discussed nil the points, |Y„- and against, we decided ns we 

 have. 



First: As two or three of our (thought to be) Best dogs would have 

 lieeti withdrawn from the Field Trial, being non-retrievers, if we had -,1 

 lowed points for retrieving; and as the principal use of B ■!,! Trials is [a 

 find out our best dogs, and to breed to them for the purpose pf improving 

 the breeds of pointers and setters, we considered thai ill i withdrawal of 

 all non-retrcivers would be a great blow to the chief object to be gained 

 by Field Trials. 



Second: It was considered that, nine out of ten dogs would gain their 

 points for retrieving too easily; and the tenth, though, perhaps, a hcttfex 

 dog at all points than the winner, might lose the prize through failing to 

 retrieve what, perhaps, no other dog in the Held would have been able 

 to do had it been bis time to retrieve. 



Third; And (this, we. think of great importance) we considered i.liut it 

 would, if taken as a precedent, create great dissatisfaction among the 

 minority (certainly, we think) of sporting men, by ruling out from Field 

 Trials those who do not believe in retrieving pointers and setters, and 

 that there are many who believe, so. we cunnot dispute: mite Turf, Fifkl 

 and Fann, and also Fokkst ind Stuk.wi. Furthermore, we see no rea- 

 son for allowing [altering?] the points as heretofore used, for every bodi is 

 satisfied with them as they are, and if changed many would lie de-satis- 

 fied; and. therefore, we consider it would lie doing harm to the sporting 

 interests generally should we allow points for retrieving as suggested by 

 the editor of the Forest and Stream. 



Before giving the points iu Foivest and Htukam for lield 

 trials to suit American-bred setters, and allowing fpr 

 retrieving as a special mark of merit, we wrote to some 

 fifty practical field sportsmen, occupying the hcs.l positions 

 in the several clubs in the United Stated, an regards Lftt 

 mode and style in which a setter should be hunted, and 

 personally called on the most influential field sportsmen in 

 New York and Brooklyn, requesting them to answer the 

 following questions : Is it necessaiy for the setters to 

 retrieve ? Aus. Certainly, we want a dog that will save us 

 the trouble of picking up and walking long distances after 

 our dead birds. Would you buy a setter that did not 

 retrieve? Ans. No; unless it was a young tiog that could 

 be taught to fetch . 



The International field trial would never have ended as it, 

 did, if the English sportsmen would have conceded points 

 to our American-bred setters for retrieving. What is the 

 object of destroying one of the greatest characteristic- in 

 the setter ? The ancestors of this animal were retrieving 

 spaniels, and it was their first propensity to fetch and carry. 

 In England most of the gentlemen who patronize riokl 

 trials state that the birds should not come in loo close eon- 

 tact with, the dog's nose, as it injures the seem. Sun],. • -.., it 

 does, which we are inclined to disbelieve. To talk plainly, 

 the majority of our sportsmen do not wish to be tii.tlietcJ, 

 nor have they the time, inclination or estate to keep a large 

 kennel of dogs. As we tiave stated before iu these columns, 

 that what is required in our country for the field sportsman 



is a good ail round dog, an animal that will he si fcl i 



ruffed grouse, woodcock, quail and snipe; not that he 

 would be particularly grand on either game, but his action, 

 ranging and nose should he fair, and give help, amusement, 

 and a medium bag to the shooter. When gentlemen talk 

 of pedigree, blood, performance, grand Jiigh-headed action 

 in the field, it is a very different kind of animal to the ordi- 

 dinary sportsman's dog (we should all wish to own this 

 style of setter, but how few there are.) This dog on ac- 

 count of his rarity and great value, is only to be found iu 

 the hands of the careful breeder, and is usually kept wholly 

 and solely as a stud dog or brood bitch. We should advise 

 the breeder not to handle his breeders to retrieve, but when 

 the progeny have been sold, il is the business of the field 

 sportsman to train, break, and develope his retrieving 

 qualities. The yearling of the above description should lie 

 thoroughly brofan in one long season's shooting. 1 low ma ny 

 seller.; could be sold to-day, however well trained and 

 broken if the" were deficient it retrieving 



The pointer we should never teach to retrieve u, a rule, 

 nor have we in these columns altered the English points 

 for pointers at field trials. 



Pointers as a general rule are or ought to be used 

 for open field shooting only, as their delicate organi- 

 zation, thin skin, slight coat, and having no hair between 

 their toes, prevents them retrieving successfully through 

 scrub oaks, thick cover, swamps and water. Nine times 

 ,out of ten a shooter will tell his pointer to charge after he 

 has just fetched a snipe or cock out of a heavy watery 

 swamp, to the m„tmty notwithstanding^ the dog having 

 comparatively little clothing will take cold. It is true ilmt 

 a. high-blooded pointer will go anywhere, but not without 

 ill effects to his person, such as drawing blood nnd other- 

 wise materially injuring his physique. We think il is 

 quite sufficient, for the pointer to stand his dead bird, 

 Poi it let's do not make as good retrievers as setters for ihe 

 reasons slated above, and moreover if most of the ecleorated 

 retrieving pointers be Iraced back one or two generations, 

 it, will very likely be found that the grand ilum or grand 

 sire was n seller, which will account for this inherent 

 retrieving propensity. 



—In our nexr issue will be given a full and accurate ac- 

 count of the National Sportsmen's Convention, held at 

 Niagara Pulls on the 9th of September and following days. 



