152 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
A WEEKLY JOURNAL, 
Devoted to Field and Aquatic Sports, Practical Natural History, 
Frsu Culture, the Protection of Game, Preservation of Forests, 
and the Inculcation in Men and Women of a healthy interest 
nj Out-door Recreation and Study : 
PUBLISHED BY 
IT CHATHAM STREET, (CITY HALL SQUARE) NEW YORK, 
[Poet Office Box 3832.) 
123 SOUTH THIRD STREET. PHILADELPHIA. 
Terms, Five Dollars a Year, Strictly in Advance. 
A discount of twenty-five percent, allowed for five copies and upwards. 
Advertising Hates. 
In regular advertising columns, nonpareil type, 12 lines to the inch, 2J 
Cents per line. Advertisements on outside page, 40centsperline. Reading 
notices, 50 cents per lino. Where advertisements are inserted over I 
month, a discount of 10 per cent, will he made; over three months, 20 
per cent.; over six months, 80 per cent. 
NEW YORK, THURSDAY, APRIL 13,18J6. 
To Correspondents. 
All communications whatevor, whether relating to business or literary 
correspondence, mast be addressed to The Forest and Stream Pub¬ 
lishing Company. Personal or private letters of course excepted, 
All communications intended for publication muBt be accompanied with 
real name, as a guaranty of good faith. Names will not be published if 
objection be made. No anonymous contributions will be. regarded. 
Articles relating to any topic within the scope of this paper arc solicited. 
We cannot promise to return rejected manuscripts. 
Secretaries of Clubs and Associations are nrged to favor us with brief 
notes of their movements and transactions, as it is the aim of this paper 
to become a medium of useful and reliable information between gentle¬ 
men sportsmen from one end of the country to the other; and they will 
ttnd our columns a desirable medium for advertising announcements. 
The Publishers of Forest and Stream aim to merit and secure the 
patronage and countenance of that portion of the community whose re¬ 
ined intelligence enables them to properly appreciate and enjoy all that 
s beantifnl 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¬ 
ment or business notice of an immoral character will be received on any 
erms; and nothing will bo admitted to any department of the paper that 
may not, be read with propriety in the home circle. 
We cannot he responsible for the dereliction of the mall service, if 
money remitted to ns is lost. 
Advertisements Bhouldbo sent in by Saturday of each week, if possible. 
CHARLES HALLOCK, Editor. 
WILLIAM C. HARRIS, Business Manager. 
A Scottish Concert. —The gallant 79th Highlanders 
give a concert this evening at Steinway Hall. Wo observe 
from the programme that our fair correspondent Mrs. 
Jennie Young, takes a prominent part, singing many of 
those delightful thrilling old Scottish airs, such as “Jack 
O’ llazeldean” and others. A. well qualified critic, Mr. Mil¬ 
ford of the British Consulate has declared Mrs. Jennie 
Young’s descriptions of Scottish games which have at vari¬ 
ous limeB appeared in onr paper, as the most correct and 
graphic of any which have been published in tbis country. 
—Col. J. B. Oliver, our General Agent and Correspond¬ 
ent for the South and Southwest, put in au appearance at 
our office yesterday, with a look as genial and energetic as 
the lively city to which he belongs—Jacksonville, Fla. A 
prominent Florida paper, making recent personal mention 
of tbis gentleman, says: “He is worth his vreight.in gold 
in any enterprise that engages him.” We are pleased to 
welcome Colonel Oliver to our great metropolis. 
Water-Proofing.—I f there is one boon greater to the 
sportsmen than another it is the possession of an outfit and 
appurtenances that shall be perfectly water-proof and im¬ 
pervious. Any careful reader of our columns of Answers 
to Correspondents will have noticed that among the more 
numerous of inquiries is the one relating to water-proof 
tents and canvas coverings for boats: It is with pleasure 
that we call attention to the advertisement of Mr. C. Tap- 
pan, who, having discovered and patented a method of 
waler-proofiog which appears infallible, has made arrange¬ 
ments with manufacturers in Philadelphia, Baltimore, 
Boston, and New York to receive orders for goods, such 
as tents, boat covers, awnings, suits, etc., to be 
water-proofed by his process. Wc have seen a boat cover 
prepared after this formula, which, after five years of ser¬ 
vice, was as impervious and as free free from mildew as 
when new. The fishing lines now sold by Messrs. Brad¬ 
ford & Anthony of Boston, are water-proofed under Mr. 
Tappan’s process, and have been found to he stronger and 
proof against mildew and rot, the texture, being thorough¬ 
ly impregnated with the preparation. For salt water fish¬ 
ing it is invaluable, as a good linen line will last for years 
without being in danger of giving out at a critical mo¬ 
ment. 
EDITORIAL NOTES OF SOUTHERN 
RAMBLINGS.—No. II. 
W E believe in the “eternal fitness of things,’’ The 
year has its various seasons, arid each season its pe¬ 
culiar attractions. All the good gifts of life, all its sports 
and pleasures, are so wisely apportioned and adjusted as to 
harmonize not only with llie recurring seasons, but with 
our changing moods and desires. Strawberries ami water¬ 
melons aro enjoyed most in midsummer; the jingle of 
sleiglibells would lose half their charm under a tropical 
sun; flowers look dreary in winter, and the voice of the 
song bird is mournful. Even the full December moon 
wakes no emotions in the lover’s breast. A blazing wood 
fire on the open hearth is twice as potent. By like economy 
of nature it is ordained that the summer shall be the sea¬ 
son for fishing, and the winter for hunting. In hot weather 
violent exercise brings lassitude, but in winter health and 
vigor. Wherefore the indolent pursuit of the angler is a 
more congenial pastime under a July suu than a swelter¬ 
ing tramp after woodcock. Wherefore, also, the frosts 
of October, and the “smell of the field,” stimulate the 
hunter to take to the woods. In welliug contemplation of 
the crisp and rustling leaf and the golden hues of autumn, 
he is seized with a “mania akin to that of a wild turkey 
hatched under domestic influences.” (A valued corres¬ 
pondent has furnished us with this simile, and we give him 
due credit). When the hazy dreamy days of Indian summer 
come, and the leaves rustle, and the beechnuts and acorns 
begin rattling down, an instinctive desire comes upon thegob- 
bler for the woods! He mounts the restrictive fence aud 
drops over into the adjoining copse. The trembling 
leaves and rattling mast bring back his wonted nature. 
He feels that “Jiis foot is on his native heath.” He gives 
one gobble, and is gone! 
Instinctive desires exist in man. Nature demands rota¬ 
tion, for rotation is rest. The birds migrate to the south 
and return periodically, and the hunter may elect to follow 
them in their going and returning; hut he will not only 
find himself enervated by his labor under the southern sun, 
but cloyed by too much sport—pampered by inordinate 
indulgence, so that when the northern sport begins, all zest 
is gone, and “the how to amuse himself” becomes a bore. 
Too much sport is like too much prog; it cloys and stupe¬ 
fies. I do not speak for every one, but I have alwaj's 
found it so in my own case. As the year is divided into 
summer and winter, so the sportsman’s cycle is divided 
between hunting and fishing, and I think the angling rod 
becomes much more a thing of beauty and a joy, after 
having been laid aside for six months, than if it had been 
in constant service a and companion to the gun everlastingly. 
I do not mean to inveigh against the delectable land of 
Florida, or against the practice of going there for a winter’s 
sport. I am only describing my own feelings after a two 
mouths’ vacation, and I cannot but think that the business 
man who labors not too assiduously throughout the winter, 
enjoys with a keener relish the early spring vacation beside 
the stream than he who, having no employment, is con¬ 
stantly seeking fresh fields and pastures new, restive aud 
unsatisfied wherever he goes, and happy only in the novelty 
of new situations. The gun and rifle should be laid aside 
by the 1st of February at the very latest, and from that 
time until April at least, (May is better), should follow an 
interval of hard work and earnest application to dutieB 
that dignify and enrich. Then take down the rods and 
landing nets! 
Hunting at the extreme south is quite a different busi¬ 
ness from hunting in the northern Stales; for the character 
of the country is different throughout, as are also most of 
its products, animal and vegetable. Looked at from a 
sportsman’s standpoint, with a view to determine eligible 
localities for hunting, the section in question is divided, 
physically, into dry pine land, swamp, eanebrake, and prai¬ 
rie, with marsh and keys on the sea coast. 
Swamp, so designated, is an aggregation of huge cy¬ 
presses interspersed liberally with cabbage palmcttoes, 
magnolias, oaks, maples, ash, hays, gums, and other trees, 
draped with long pendant gray moss, and bedecked with 
mistletoe and parti-colored air plants; trumpet creepers aud 
clinging vines ran from bottom to top everywhere and in¬ 
terlace; while an undergrowth of cypress knees, dogwood, 
yellow jasmm.e, rhododendron, cal briars, brambles, pal¬ 
metto scrub, ferns, and soggy mosses chokes up the space 
below; the whole luxuriant mass grows from and out of an 
uncertain depth of water and quagmire, and is impenetra¬ 
ble, except to the myriads of wild creatures, scaled, furred, 
and feathered, that inhabit its fastnesses undisturbed. 
Cattle which stray in here from the neighboring dry ham¬ 
mocks, that are interspersed throughout the swamp like 
oases, frequently get mired aud die, thereby supplying 
meat to the panthers that abound, and a satisfying repast to 
the buzzards and other scavengers that gather about the 
remnants. While hunting in this tangle is not absolutely 
impracticable to the bush-rangers, herders, and crackers 
who were cradled and abide here, yet it can hardly he re¬ 
garded as a choice resort for the sportsman in pursuit 
of pleasure; and inasmuch as a great portion of the South, 
aud especially of Florida, is of this character, his field, 
it is obvious, is comparatively circumscribed. 
Canebrakes, which often cover large areas, are even 
more impenetrable than the swamps. Growing, as they 
do, on river bottoms, and most frequently in water, the 
canes towering twenty feet high, stiff and bristling, 
scarcely six inches apart, they utterly forbid passage, ex¬ 
cept where narrow paths traverse them. These paths are 
numerous and intricate, and aa most of them are the run¬ 
ways of wild animals, one is liable to meet a hear at any 
point; and as the hear has no space to turn in, the hunter 
must either face the enemy or retreat. Should the “enemy” 
happen to he peccaries, as in parts of Texas and Louisiana, 
the hunter's predicament becomes precarious in the ex¬ 
treme; for these lough little hrutes can dasli through the 
huts of the canes with marvelous facility; they will never 
run except toward the intrnder, and their onsets arc made 
with such pig-headed and vigorous persistency as to leave 
them victors of a gory field, should immediate escape be 
impossible. Deer habitually ran through here, and a choice j 
of stands can readily he made when the hounds are out, I 
with excellent chances of success. Excepting these oppor¬ 
tunities, however, the sportsman has no field whatever for | 
sport iu a canehrake, and all this kind of ground may i 
therefore he regarded as so much more subtracted from his 
territorial range. 
Throughout the entire section of which I write, prairies 
of various extent are scattered at intervals without appar¬ 
ent regard to ecological formula. One is apt to emerge | 
from a vast swamp into a prairie of thousands of acres, or 
he may ride out of a piney woods upland into one of ap¬ 
parently unlimited area. These prairies are comparatively 
dry, hut, except in spots where an isolated tree or small 
hammock stands, or a stream runs through, are covered I 
with “saw grass” so sharp and serrated as to lacerate a j 
horse and cut a man’s hoot like a knife. One can ride | 
down llio wind with tolerable impunity, just as he can i 
draw his fiDgers down the trend of a porcupine’s quills; j 
but the reverse is distress and demoralization to horse, ri¬ 
der, and dogs. Some hounds are so plucky that they will 
run a deer into aprairie, hut the record of their exploits is 
written on their ears, which I have seen worn half away 
and ragged at the edges! Of course hunting here is out of 
the question, and therefore this additional slice must be 
subtracted from the sportsman’s domain. 
Reduced to its minimum, only the pine land and marsh 
are available. The latter is made accessible by intersecting 
creeks, which boats may traverse; and the islands and • 
keys, especially on the Florida coast, are reached in like 
manner. The pine land, so called, yields also oaks and 
nut-woods. It is generally so clear of undergrowth that a 
wagon may he driven anywhere, hut is interspersed with 
thickets, copses, small swamps, and canebrakes, which af¬ 
ford the best cover to deer, bear, turkeys, and quail, and to 
numerous animals not strictly regarded as game. Some of 
these places offer most favorable stalking ground for 
the still hunter; hut in general they are far removed from 
civilization. There are also, since the war, many old 
fields and abandoned plantations, which afford delectable 
feeding grounds fov game; hut these, as well as planta- • 
tions and settlements that are occupied, are generally " 
separated by “magnificent distances.” 
A summary of these observations will make it obvious 
that a large area of the Southern tier of Slates is impene¬ 
trable to the sportsman, while the conditions that apply to 
the remainder are such as to make the use of a hoise, even 
for ordinary requirements, quite indispensable. Conse¬ 
quently, hunting is almost wholly done from the saddle, 
excepting for coons, rabbits, squirrels, and the like, which 
are left to the negroes. The pine lands offer a clear run 
for deer, hound, and horseman, and often the hunter is 
able to “jump” a deer before the dogs have scarcely taken 
the scent; in the swamps there aro sure-footed ponies, 
known as “tackies,” which will pick their way where a . 
man would be embarrassed. Snakes and venomous crea¬ 
tures abound, except in mid-winter, and the hunter, being . 
on horseback out of their reach, is protected. Turkeys i 
are hunted without dogs, and there are no grouse. Quails ; 
are most easily approached on horseback, and as they in¬ 
variably fly into the thickets when flushed, where dogs 
cannot follow, pointers and setters are in small request. 
All these facts are important for a Northern man to 
know, and will answer many natural queries which arise 
when one is ignorant of the locality he proposes to visit. 
If he desires to take dogs, the sportsman must know in 
advance what the character of his hunting ground is to be; 
if he is no rider, he must learn horsemanship to qualify 
him for the sport he wishes to pursue. If he prefers the 
sea coast, his outfit will have to he adapted to his require¬ 
ments there, and the same outfit that is suitable for the 
east coast of Florida will not do for the Gulf of Mexico, 
or for the St. John’6 River. Of some choice localities I 
propose to speak in my next; also of the fluvial system 
and the fish of the South. Hal. 
Nichols & Lefeveb, Syracuse, N. Y.—The business of 
manufacturing the celebrated Lefever gun has passed into 
the hands of a new firm, as above. In justice to Mr. Le¬ 
fever it is proper to state that his connection with the firm 
lately manufacturing guns under his patents was confined 
to superintending the manufacture of the “Lefever guns," 
and not as a partner. Mr. Nichols is a practical sportsman 
and brings into the firm abundance of capital, whereby 
every facility is offered to fill orders on 6hort notices. The 
extensive machinery and tools of the old house has been 
purchased, and we feel confident that the new firm will 
receive a full share of public patronage, for which the 
Lefever gun is eminently deserving. 
—D. Hodgman & Co., of No. 27 Maiden Lane, have one 
of the most complete assortments of rubber goods for 
sportsmen to be found anywhere, consisting of coats, 
pants, boots, stockings, blankets, aud camping outfits, all 
at bottom prices. They sell everything from a divlDg 
dress to a tube for filtering water. Onr friends will do 
, well to call on them. 
