182 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



breakfast. Patiently I waited, and the sun climbed high 

 up in the .heavens, and I thought feelingly of the breakfast 

 I was losing, when suddenly there appeared over the river 

 a swiftly approaching bird. Nearer and nearer he drew, 

 till I could hear the whistle of his wings. Sweeping now 

 above, now beneath me, he finally seemed convinced that 

 the coast was clear, and close beneath the cliff and up. with 

 a sudden rush, alighted upon the dry branch. Scarcely 

 had his wings folded when his sharp eye espied me; but 

 'twas too late! As he launched into the air I fired; and the 

 report was followed by a cloud of feathers, nry only sign 

 that I had struck, so sharp was the incline of the precipice. 

 Any naturalist can imagine my feelings as I descended the 

 mountain and climbed again to the base of the cliff and 

 found my bird. 



Three hundred feet had he fallen and nearly every bone 

 was injured; but there he lay, ? duck hawk — a true falcon. 

 t stuffed him and he is in my cabinet to-day. A few years 

 afterwards I procured an egg from Mr. W. S. Street, the 

 kind-hearted keeper of the Eyrie House at Mt. Torn. Allen 

 of the Museum, Comparative Zoology, gives the best des- 

 cription of the eggs and bird, extant. Its range is from 

 Greenland to the West Indies. It is closely allied to, if not 

 identical with the European falcon of the same name. It 

 preys upon ducks and smaller game of all kinds. The old 

 residents near the mountain call it the "Black Hawk," and 

 relate many stories of its prowess. One old man said they 

 had bred there for forty years; if one was killed another 

 took its place. I know that the widow of my bird had 

 another mate in less than two weeks. Once a bird of this 

 species met with a horrible death : Swooping down upon a 

 email bird perched upon the sharp point of a stake, it was 

 securely impaled, the stake passing through the body. 



Fred. Beverly. 



fiie Mennel 



Overworked Brains. —The nearest thing to an indica- 

 tion that the brain has been working rather more than is 

 good for it, is the persistence in the mind, during the period 

 of rest, of the thoughts which have engaged it during its 

 condition of activity. After a good spell of hard work, the 

 brain-worker is often tormented by finding it difficult, all 

 at once, to turn off the steam. His work-day thoughts will 

 intrude themselves, in s ite of every effort to keep them 

 out. Each worker has usually a way of his own of en- 

 deavoring to get quit of these unwelcome guests. Thack- 

 eray generally succeeded in exorcising the creatures whom 

 he had been calling into existence by the simple expedient 

 of turning over the leaves of a dictionary. A gi eat lawyer 

 was in the habit, in similar circumstances, of plunging into 

 a cold bath, and averred that a person never takes out of 

 cold water the sauie ideas that he took into it. Perhaps I he 

 best mental corrective of this condition is to employ the 

 mind for a short time in a direction most contrasted to that 

 in which it has been overworked. In this way a mathe- 

 matician might find advantage in unbending his mind on a 

 page or two^of a novel while the novelist could chase away 

 thephantons which haunt him by dipping into a discus- 

 sion" on the " Quantification of the predicate." The cure, 

 in fact, must, be sought for on a principle the very opposite 

 to that of the famous homeopathic doctrine of "similars." 

 —Chambers'' Journal. 



«**V> 



X 



European Antelopes.— Eilropc can, at the utmost, 

 reckon but two antelopes among her ruminants, the chamois 

 (Antelope rupicapra), and the saiga (Antelope coins). The 

 name rupicapra (rock goat), applied to the former, suggests 

 the difficulty which naturalists have felt in classing this 

 creature of the Alpine peaks. We Will, however, admit it 

 amono- the antelopes, and this will give one species of the 

 family to western Europe, leaving the saiga to the regions 

 of the Lower Danube, and the hills of Caucasus. Neither 

 species can be deemed a good examr-le of the antelope form 

 and beauty, the rough coai of the chamois, and the heavy 

 sheep-like' body of "the saiga, exhibiting little of elegance 

 or grace. But either animal may be taken as a good spe- 

 cimen of the wonderful activity and amazing watchfulness 

 which distinguish the whole family. The skill of the 

 keenest rifleman is often baffled when tracking the chamois 

 alon" the edge of the avalanche or up the ice covered peaks. 

 Far off the daring animal stands, on some projection of a 

 rock where no hunter's foot can tread, or bounds from crag 

 to era"- as if endowed with supernatural energies. No 

 finer specimen of brute skill and courage can be witnessed 

 in Europe The muscular power by which the brave crea- 

 ture balances itself on the narrow ledge of rock, and then 

 springs from this across a fathomless gulf to a mere shell ot 

 the opposite precipice, may well excite the envy of the 

 most faring and best trained hunter. The contest between 

 human power and animal energy is here seen in its highest 

 forms The saigas, or antelopes of eastern Europe, are 

 often seen in flocks many thousand in number when mak- 

 ing their autumnal migration from the barren plains of the 

 north to the sheltered valleys of the south. Man keeps a 

 sharp look out for their approach, and destroys vast multi- 

 tudes not for the sake of the venison, but to enrich himself 

 bv the sales of their horns and skins. The belles of Europe 

 and Asia wear ornamented combs made from the transpar- 

 ent substance of the saiga's horn while the skins may ap- 

 pear as elegant gloves in shops of London and Paris, Ihiib 

 far this antelop,: may claim to be a promoter of civilization, 

 and to share with the tortoise the honor of adorning beauty s 

 hQ&d.—CasseWs Popular Educator. 



—The following prices were given for various animals 

 ind birds many of them bred in the Antwerp zoological 

 SS'S ghaffe, £360, hyena £18 elands, £80, 

 &ama antelope, £30, pair of llamas, £60 red kangaroo s £40 

 black faced kangaroo, £29, two lion cubs, £60. Pheasants 

 brou -ht high fibres, one couple of Amherst pheasants 

 nTierstke) £160. and a ringle male brought £o0. 



its ( 



itabl 

 lUsBeevesn) having bred fully - 

 prices, they brought £100 a pair. It seems as if the breed- 

 in- of animals and birds in Europe, may be made to be i e- 

 mSnerative. But of course any such ideas ot profit to be 

 made by zoological societies, is entirely a secondary consid- 

 eration. 



The Boar Hound. — This strain of hound will be found 

 useful in hunting wild pigs in Louisiana, and is derived 

 from a mingling of the mastiff with the grej'hound, crossed 

 afterwards with the largest sized English terrier. Our 

 friends who own and breed dogs will at once see the neces- 

 sity of using these three animals, in order to get at the best 

 strain to hunt the Wild Boar or the less ferocious Wild Pig. 

 The greyhound element is required in order to give the dog 

 sufficient speed for overtaking the boar, which is much 

 swifter animal than is generally supposed, from his 

 unwieldy piggy form. The mastiff is needed to give 

 it the requisite muscular power and dimensions of 

 body, and the terrier is introduced for the sake 

 of obtaining a sensitive nose and a quick spirited ac- 

 tion. To train this dog property is a matter of some diffi- 

 culty, because a mistake is generally fatal, and puts an end 

 to further instruction by the death of the pupil. It is com- 

 paratively easy to train a pointer or setter, because if he 

 fails through eagerness or slowness, the worst consequence 

 is that the shooter looses his next shot or two, and the dog- 

 is easily corrected. But if a Boar-hound rushes too eagerly 

 at the bristly guarry, he will in all probability belaid bleed- 

 ing on the ground by a rapid stroke from the boar's tusks, 

 and if he should hang back he would be just as likely to be 

 struck by the infuriatad beast. The only good breed of 

 boar hounds known to us is a strain owned by Di . Slack, 

 of New Jersey, which has turned out remarkably well. 

 The limbs are long and exceedingly powerful, and the head 

 possesses the square muzzle of the mastiff, together with 

 the sharp and somewhat pert air of the terrier. It is a very 

 large animal, measuring thirty inches to. the shoulder. 

 Wild boar hunting, next to lion and tiger shooting, is a 

 , dangerous sport, and the most destructive to hounds that 

 the travelled sportsman will encounter. The boar is a most 

 fierce and savage animal, and when irritated or disturbed 

 by hounds will rush at any man or animal and attack them 

 with his tusks. In fact, a boar has been known to turn 

 with such terrible effect upon a pack containing fifty dogs 

 that only ten escaped scatheless, and six or seven were ripped 

 up and killed on the spot. The speed of this beast is 

 no less remarkable, as when fully aroused he puts the met- 

 tle of the swiftest and staunchest horse fairly to the test, 

 even on ground where the horse would have the advantage 

 he frequently gets away from the sportsman to regain his 

 haunt, which is usual-y in a cane-brake. The spear is gen- 

 erally employed in Algeria in boar hunting or pig sticking, 

 as the sport is familiarly termed, and is either thrown from 

 the horse's back, or is held like a lance and directed so as 

 to receive the animal's charge. When driven to bay the 

 African boar is as savage an animal as can be imagined (to 

 which some few gentlemen residing in the city can restify), 

 as with flashing eyes and foaming mouth he dashes at one 

 and then another of the horsemen, sometimes fairly driving 

 them from the spot, the boar often remaining master of 

 the field. Another cross or breed o~ the Boar-hound which 

 would suit our Southern friends (as thoroughbred mastiffs 

 and terriers are a rarity), may be derived from the mingling 

 of the Southern hound and grey-hound, which would an- 

 swer every purpose for wild pig shooting in Texas and Lou- 

 isiana. 



—If we have strictly no wild boar hunting here as 

 in the Ardennes, or pig sticking as in Africa and India, 

 we have the peccary in Texas, a sport by no means to be de- 

 spised, and to which we would call the attention of our 

 northern sportsmen. In the cane-brakes of southern Texas, 

 in the dense thickets, the peccary is found, and he requires 

 for his capture exactly the kind of dog we have described. 

 The planters do not like the peccary. He destroys the 

 crops, mutilates stock at times, and sometimes makes the 

 sportsman take to the trees Along the Brazos Bottoms, 

 the peccary is found in quantity. He is at times a most 

 pugnacious little rascal, and will charge at a man, as 

 straight as an arrow, and his sharp curved tusks cut like 

 knives. To meet him is no easy task, as the cane brakes 

 are close and a path has sometimes to be cut through them. 

 One would think from the size of the peccary, for he is 

 rarely more than eighteen inches high, by two and a half 

 feet in length, that he Avould be hardly a match for a dog, 

 but such is his quickness, his strength, and valor, as to 

 make him a most dangerous foe to the staunchest hound 

 ever bred. As quick as lightning, all the strength lying in 

 his head, neck and shoulders, with his lancet-like tusks, he 

 will disembowel a dog in a trice, Being gregarious, pec- 

 caries have a shocking bad habit of all doing exactly the 

 same thing, at the same time, and they frequently charge 

 en masse, and scatter the dogs. 



Webber in his wild scenes of hunting life, thus describes 

 the peccary. A bear has been wounded and the clog are 

 fighting him, when a troop of peccaries enter and charge 

 headlong on bear, men, dogs and all. "Such yells, ancl 

 and screams, and roars of pain, and such a medley helter- 

 skelter rout as now occurred, would be difficut to describe. 

 The wounded dogs, with tails between their legs, came 

 sulking towards us. The bear, frantic with pain, rolled 

 his great carcass to and fro, and gaped his read mouth, as 

 he struck blindly about him here and there. The grunting 

 and rushing patter of an addition to the herd coming in be- 

 hind us, Avaked us from the sort of stupor this unexpected 

 scene had thrown us in for the instant. "Run, run!" shouted 

 my friend, with a voice half choked with mingled rage 

 and laughter, and such a scurrying on all sides, for the 

 other hunters had just come in, and the cry of "Peccaries! 

 Peccaries! run! run!" and the popping of our guns all round 



at them, as we urged our horses to escape through the cane 



closed this eventful scene, of my first introduction to the 



peccaries!" 



*»*^ 



Dog Law.— Difficult cases of dog ownership of ten crop 

 up in the police courts, the magistrates generally allowing 

 doggy to decide the quarrel. One lady we remember re- 

 covered her pet by making him die at her command. A 

 very satisfactory instance of sending a case to the dogs for 

 settlement was reported in a Jersey newspaper in 1857: "A 

 few clays since a son of the Rev. Mr. Bellis was passing 

 along the street, holding in ids arms a pup-dog, of which 

 he had been made a present; when a French dealer came 

 up to him, took the animal from him, declaring it to he 

 her own. Mr. Bellis complained to M. Centemer du Jar- 

 din, whom he assured that the pup had been given to his 

 son by Mr. Cornish, the owner of the animal's mother. The 

 Frenchwoman insisted that the pup was hers, and said she 

 had given its mother to an innkeeper in* Hillgrove Lane. 

 M. Centenier caused the two mothers- to be "brought to- 

 gether at the innkeeper's, and the pup to be placed equi- 

 distant between them. The pup immediately ran to its 

 mother, owned by Mr. Cornish, and was instantly covered 

 by her with caresses. Of course it was forthwith ordered 

 to be given up to its rightful owner." A less successful 

 result attended the experiment tried by Judge Cush in the 

 belief that a wise dog must know its own master. Finding 

 himself getting bothered altogether by the conflict of evi- 

 dence adduced by the rival claimants for the possession of 

 the animal, the judge cried, "Stop ! we'll settle this very 

 quickly. You, Mr. Plaintiff, go into the far corner of the 

 room out there. You, Mr. Defendant, come into this cor- 

 ner up here. Now both of you whistle; and Mr. Clerk, let 

 loose the dog." His orders were obeyed; plaintiff and de- 

 fendant whistled their loudest, the dog made a bolt of it 

 and ' scorted ' out of court. "Very extraordinary !" said 

 the judge. "I can't understand that. Mr. Clerk, as the 

 plaintiff could not prove his case when 1 gave him the chance, 

 you may enter judgment for the defendant." It would 

 have been in stricter accordance with the evidence to have 

 declared the dog a free clog, belonging to neither.— Cham- 

 bers' Journal. 



-^-».&* 



A New York Times correspondent tells this story: "In 

 one of Landseer's early visits to Scotland he stopped at a 

 village, and took a great deal of notice of the dogs, jotting 

 down rapid sketches of them on a bit of paper. Next day, 

 resuming his journey, he was horrified to find dogs suspend- 

 ed in all directions from the trees, or drowning in the 

 rivers, with stones round their necks. He stopped a weep- 

 ing urchin who was hurrying off with a pet pup m his 

 arms, and learned, to his dismay, that he was supposed to 

 be an excise officer who was takining notes of all the dogs 

 he saw in order to prosecute the owners for unpaid taxes; 

 so the people were all anxious to get rid of their dogs. y 

 -*«-«9~- — r 



Hydrophobia. — Dr. Luke in his work entitled " In- 

 fluence of the Mind upon the Body," supports the hypo' 

 thesis that hydrophobic symptoms are often developed 

 without previous inoculation. In illustration, he relates a 

 notable instance of a physician of Lyons, who, having as- 

 sisted in the dissection of several victims of the disorder, 

 imagined that he himself had become inoculated. On at- 

 tempting to drink, he was seized with spasm of the 

 pharynx, and in this condition roamed about the streets for 

 three days. At length his friends succeeded in convincing 

 him of the groundlessness of his apprehensions, and he at 

 once recovered. Dr. Marx, a German physician, writing to 

 The, Clinic, regards hydrophobia as a morbid affection of 

 the imagination induced by fear, and, in support of his 

 opinion, cites some interesting cases in which persons un- 

 aware of the superstition have escaped the spasms.— 



Tribune. 



-«ih»^*— 



— The following appears in Land and Water in regard to 

 cross-bred grey-hounds: — 



I was surprised to see stated, that you were of opinion 

 that a cross-bred greyhound would catch the fastest ante- 

 lope living. I do not exactly know what is meant_ by a 

 cross-bred greyhound, but as I think your information is 

 likely to mislead your correspondent, f take advantage of a 

 leisure hour to give a little of my own experience in regard 

 to the antelope tribe. In the first place, 1 must inform you 

 that I resided in the Bombay Presidency in the East Indies 

 for about twenty-three years, and was employed in Can- 

 deish, the Deccan and Province of Guzerat. There are 

 two kinds of antelopes which are common enough there, 

 vie., the black buck species, which are nearly, if not, quite 

 as large as a fallow-deer, and a much smaller kind, known 

 by the name of chinkarra, goat-antelope, or hill deer. The 

 former are seldom to be seen any where except in the plains, 

 but the latter are met with in the open country pretty fre- 

 quently, especially in Guzerat, Now, I kept greyhounds 

 n^self manjr years ago, some of the pure English, bred some 

 Persian, and I think I can assure your correspondent, that 

 to the best of my belief, Master *McGrath himself would 

 net have much more chance of catching a healthy full- 

 grown buck or doe of either of the species mentioned, under 

 ordinary circumstances, than he would of catching a wild 

 goose. My dogs were as good as any I ever saw ir India, and 

 used to catch foxes and hares in very good style, but neither 

 I nor any other person who knew anything about the mat- 

 ter, would have thought of slipping them at a fullgrown 

 animal or even at a wellgrown fawn. They used some- 

 times to break away in pursuit of one by itself or after a 

 herd, but I never thought of riding after them; they ran 

 till they were tired or the antelope disappeared, and came 

 back again. 1 have seen my djgs have a good long course 

 before they could catch one after I had broken a hind leg 

 with a rifle-ball; ancl on one occasion a strong Persian grey- 

 hound had such a severe run after a large black buck, 

 when I had put a ball in its body, and which he caught at 

 last, that I fancied that the dog was never himself again 

 afterwards. There are other small antelopes in the B jm- 

 bay Presidency, but I never met with them except in jungle 

 or hills, and there may be some in the plains in Bengal or 

 elsewhere that a greyhound may have a chance with for 

 anything I know "to the contrary. I am only giving my 

 own experience. I never heard "whether a greyhound can 

 catch a roe-deer. 



—The aborigines of Utah feared a Manitou. The pres- 

 ent inhabitants are not afraid of a woman or two. 



—When is a twenty-four pound trout not a twenty-four 

 pound trout? Ans.— When it is weighed, 



