2UU 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



A WEEKLY JOURNAL, 

 Devoted to Field and Aquatic Spobts, Pkactical Natural History 

 Fish Culture, the Protection of Game, Presrvation of Forests' 

 and the Inculcation in Men and Women of a healthy inters st 

 ln Out-boor Recreation and Study : 



PUBLISHED BT 



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 extra. Where advertisements are inserted over 1 month, a discount of 

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 months, 30 per cent. 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, NOY. 6, 1873. 



To Correspondents. 



♦ 



All communications whatever, whether relating to business or literary 

 correspondence, must be addressed to The Forest and Stream Pub- 

 lishing Company. Personal letters only, to the Manager. 



All communications intended for publication must 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 Names will not be published if 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 are solicited. 



We cannot promise to return rejected manuscripts. 



Ladies are especially invited to use our columns, which will be pre- 

 pared with, careful reference to their perusal and instruction. 



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 



become a medium of useful 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 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- 

 fined 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 

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

 ment or business notice of an immoral character will be received on any 

 terms ; and nothing will be admitted to any department of the paper that 

 may not be read with propriety in the. home circle. 



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

 money remitted to us is lost. 



This paper sent gratuitously to all contributors. 



Advertisements should be sent in by Saturday of each week, if possible. 



CHARLES HALLOCR, 



Managing Editor. 



Calendar of Events for the Current Week. 

 , » 



November 7th.— Trotting at White Plains, Westchester County, New 

 York. 



Noeember 8th.— Athletic Tournament, Academy of Music. . . .Billiards 

 at Chicago, Maurice Daly vs, Slosson. 



November 10th.— State Auxiliary Joint Stock Company, Columbia, 

 South Carolina. 



November 11th.— Wilmington Fair, Cape Fear, North Carolina.... 

 State Auxiliary Joint Stock Company, Columbia, South Carolina. 



No. ember 12th.— Wilmington Fair, Cape Fear, North Carolina. .. . 

 State Auxiliary Joint Stock Company, Columbia, South Carolina. 



November 13th.— Wilmington Fair, Cape Fear, North Carolina, . . . 

 State Auxiliary Joint Stock Company, Columbia, South Carolina. 



WOOD COLORS. 



t 



RUSKIN, in a clever book, expatiates on the beauty of 

 a landscape, laying special stress on the harmony of 

 the soil colors. Rosa Bonheur, when she painted her hap- 

 piest picture, shows you a field through which a plow 

 drawn by patient oxen tills the ground. Are you the least 

 bit critical you can see that the furrows beyond were up- 

 turned early in the morning, for tney are now faded, the 

 rich umber tint is gone; but where the steers now drag the 

 plowshare the upturned earth is full of warmer color. 



Buskin, while he may with the most exquisite word 

 painting make you feel what is the scale of colors, and* 

 their harmonious blending, somewhat drops you down 

 from your poetry when he dryly tells you that all of na- 

 ture's most charming effects in soils are solely due to iron 

 and the amount of oxidation. 



Our forests this month have changed their dress. Now 

 they are clothed in 



"Green and yellow and crimson and gold, 

 Out of the loom of the Infinite rolled, 

 In wild luxuriance fold on fold. 1 '' 



The walnut turns to dainty shades of auburn, as lustrous 

 as a woman's hair, and to marroons and russet browns, 

 running to rich chocolate, while the wild honey-suckle as- 

 sumes palid ghostly shades of white. The poplar, horse- 

 chestnut and lime take at times a buff, a saffron, a crocus, 

 a sulphur hue, from delicate straw to golden lemon. These 

 arc the more quiet, the subdued tones of nature. Now 

 Hashes out the rose, the ruby, the crimson, the wine hues, 

 the blood-clot reds of the sumae, the wild ivy, the dog- 

 wood and the creeper, as they Hush and Haunt and blaze 

 with garish, gaudy, gorgeous, and burning hues of lurid 

 splendor. 



Chlorophyll Is it to its absence that is due this meta- 

 morphosis,' this harlequinade ? Must some learned botan- 

 ist as did Buskin in regard to soil, tell us that in the fall of 



the year the sap in the trees is acid or alkaline, and so has 

 changed the colors ? 



It is nature dying, but dying in a halo of light, as the sun 

 sets. It may be oxidation of the leaves, but what we see in 

 this protean change recalls to us the coming spring, when 

 " the melancholy days" are past, and nature will again 

 deck herself in all her budding beauty. It is but the fore- 

 tokening of a resurrection. 



.*.*.*. ■ — ■ — - 



POSSIBLE CHANGES IN THE ENGLISH 

 GAME LAWS. 



(< TT may be said indeed that at the present time, those 

 JL persons who for political objects are striving by 

 speech or print to sow enmity between the owners and the 

 occupiers of the soil, find no arguments so ready to their 

 hand or so persuasive as this excessive increase and 

 effeminate pursuit of game. It may be said that in several 

 of our English shires, the rabbit is now the best ally of the 

 English radical." 



The above lrom Earl Stanhope, and found in an admir- 

 able book of his, comes uppermost to our mind, in reading 

 the account of the Report of the Game Laws, as it appeared 

 in a late issue of the London Times. 



In 1845-46 Mr. Bright's Committee on the Game Laws, 

 held their meetings, and the result was a voluminous book 

 of 1,578 pages, containing no less than 25,003 questions and 

 answers. 



Last year, at the instance of Mr. Carnegie, a measure was 

 brought forth in England to make game property, and ac- 

 cordingly a second committee was formed, whose labors 

 we must now consider. With commendable regard to ob- 

 taining " the truth and the whole truth and nothing else," 

 witnesses were called by the committee and they examined 

 persons learned in the law, tenants, farmers, game-dealers, 

 agents, factors, laborers, foresters, and those peculiar per- 

 sonages unknown to us, designated as "retailers of shoot- 

 ing " — that is persons who hire a moor in bulk and under- 

 let it in smaller lots to various parties. 



The attack on the present Game Laws made by the 

 farmers, arises not only from material grounds but as affect- 

 ing the laborers' morality, and they as the producers of food, 

 claim to represent the interests of the whole community. 

 The opposition to the Game Laws as emanating from the 

 English farmers, is tame when compared with the violent 

 attacks made on it by the Scotch. 



There are some strange and peculiar anomalies about 

 English Game Laws, which would drive a Philadelphia 

 lawyer crazy; for instance, game when alive is legally no- 

 body's property, the right to shoot it is however a valuable 

 property, guarded by severe laws, and of the kind known 

 as an incorporeal hereditament, 



The disparity of customs in leasing land in England and 

 Scotland makes a wide difference between the'good "feeling 

 which should exist between landlord and tenant in the two 

 countries. In Scotland the exactions of the landlord appear 

 to be much more severe than in England. His power of 

 control over the crops and animals oi the lessee, have 

 the strongest retrospective action. If rent is not paid a 

 landlord has the right by law of even reclaiming the price 

 of cattle sold by the farmer to other parties a year before. 

 Exactions of this character, taken in connection with the 

 peculiarities of the Scottish disposition, necessarily make 

 th3 Scotch unwilling to allow the least infringement of their 

 rights, and the more bitterly to resent any encroachments. 

 The right of shooting in absence of any agreement in Eng- 

 land belogs to the tenant, but it is customary in a lease to 

 reserve this right to the landlord. The trouble seems in- 

 variably to arise from the selling of this right to outside 

 parties, who having no vested interest in the land, who only 

 buy the license to shoot over the grounds, invariably are 

 looked upon as interlopers by the tenant. 



The presence of rabbits and hares is the great Ix.ne of 

 contention. Instances are cited where the right to shoot 

 over a property was sold by the landlord for £200, Avhile the 

 losses occurring in wheat fields alone from the rabbits and 

 hares amounted to £300. In regard to general winged 

 game and their preservation, excepting pheasants, the ob- 

 jections made by farmers were very few. As to partridges, 

 one important witness said that he considered the partridge 

 "as one of the best friends the farmer had." 



It is the rabbits and hares which come in for all the 

 abuse. Some farmers declared that the presence of these 

 animals, absolutely forced them to plant only such crops as 

 these creatures would not eat, and that because they did 

 not like oats, but would eat up all the young wheat, they 

 were obliged to grow only oats year after year. 



The present agitation against the Game Laws in Great 

 Britain dates from Aberdeen, and the returns of the Aber- 

 deen Game Conference showed that on an average of 184,211 

 acres, the direct damages caused by game amounted to no 

 less tlian £19,000. Tenants in Scotland taking the law into 

 their own hands, have formed Trapping Associations. One 

 of such associations caught on 56 acres in one year 1,000 

 rabbits and another 400 hares in 75 acres. One most absurd 

 fact which must strike the American reader is this, that the 

 landlords, on a point of dignity, will not aliow their 

 tenants even by purchase, (notwithstanding that they may 

 offer the same amount of money as would be taken by the 

 landlord from another party), to have the right to shoot the 

 game on the lands they have rented. This is carrying out 

 ad absurdum, a question of privileges, and is incomprehen- 

 sible; much as we are in favor of game preserving, this 

 seems to smack of barbarous feudal times. 



The English Chamber of Agriculture, an important and 

 influentiafbody, partly composed of proprietors, have taken 

 the matter under consideration and have recommended that 



hares and rabbits should wholly be taken out of the pro- 

 tection of the Game Laws; secondly, 1 ' that tenants and land- 

 lords should have a joint right to kill the ground game 

 (bares and rabbits), and that it should be impossible for 

 either party to part with this right. The Scotch Chamber, 

 having previously voted the same joint and inalienable 

 right to ground game, at last, in 1871, " put itself right 

 with the country" and with " the Radical boroughs" by 

 petitioning Parliament for the total abolition of the Game 

 Laws. 



-<£♦•*- 



RESEARCHES AFTER THE BIRDS OF 

 PARADISE. 



SINCE Mr. Wallace's account of the Papuan Islands, 

 some eight years ago, in search of new varieties of 

 that most gorgeous family of birds, the Paradiscide, Signor 

 D'Albertis' late travels as a naturalist into the interior of 

 New Guinea are particularly interesting. 



The expedition of this Italian naturalist was undertaken 

 last year, and he has been able to add quite a number of 

 specimens of Birds of Paradise to the already quite large 

 collection. At 3,600 feet above the level of the sea he 

 found the superb Bird of Paradise (Lopharina atra), and at 

 a higher level was able to obtain seveial of them. Arriving 

 at Corono, Signor D'Albertis found a fine young male of 

 the Six-shafted Bird of Paradise (Parotia sexpennu) which 

 has never yet before been secured by an European. Sig- 

 nor D'Albertis says it feeds on fruit and a kind of fig, 

 found in quantity upon the mountain ranges. To clear its 

 rich plumage it scrapes a round place clear of grass and 

 leaves-, where the ground is dry, and rolls itself in the dust 

 like all other gallinaceous birds, elevating and depressing 

 its plumage, and raising and lowering the six wonderful 

 plumes on its head, from whence its name is derived. Be- 

 ing in want of food, Signor D'Albertis skinned his bird 

 and found it delicious eating. Imagine a dish of roasted 

 Birds of Paradise ! During his month's residence at Coro- 

 no Signor D'Albertis obtained 122 specimens of birds, and 

 a large collection of insects, besides some mammals and 

 other specimens. 



To track the Bird of Paradise in his native wilds must be 



the dream of many an ornithologist. A correspondent of 



Nature, in Avriting in regard to Signor D'Albertis' travels, 



says ' ' this interesting narrative serves to show us that the 



dangers and difficulties of penetrating into the interior of 



New Guinea, though considerable, have been somewhat 



overrated." The inhabitants seemed to be kind to the 



traveler, the only drawback was the pestilential character 



of the country. 



, -*•*- ■ 



SYBILLINE LEAVES.— I I I. 



HINTS TO SPORTSMEN. 



N the second paper of this series we were surprised to 

 read this sentence in type : 



"Fires should be built so that the smoke should not 

 blow into the tent or shanty." 



How that "not" came in there is a question too knotty 

 for us to determine; but whatever the explanation, it en- 

 tirely reverses our intended meaning. Certainly there is 

 no quicker or more effective mode of clearing a tent of flies 

 and mosquitoes then by letting the smoke of the camp fire 

 blow into the door. 



One great point gained in learning woodcraft is tc acquire 

 a habit of close and continued observation. All dense 

 woods look so much alike that the novice without a guide 

 is almost helpless. In travelling it is important to turn 

 frequently and survey the ground behind, especially if one 

 intends to retrace his steps. A locality looks entirely dif- 

 ferent from different points of observation. Hence it is 

 always prudent to blaze the route by occasionally scoring a 

 tree or breaking the top of a bush or limb. Where small 

 spruces are frequent, the broken tops of these are most 

 easily seen. In passing through alder brush, cut them well 

 down toward the buts with a hatchet, remembering to bend 

 them well over with the left hand and giving a smart clip 

 on the bend. A greenhorn will be surprised to see how 

 easy it is to cut brush in this way, and how much hacking 

 is required to cut even the smallest sapling in any other 

 way. Alder brush makes a good ' 'blaze," as the under sides 

 of the leaves are much lighter than the upper, and show 

 distinctly. In following a blind trail, the eye should always 

 run casaully in advance. If it is cast doivn directly in 

 front, the sign is lost; but if raised, the trail can usually be 

 traced quite distinctly. In all cases where a man discovers 

 himself, lost, he should stop short and carefully consider 

 the situation— the position of the sun, direction of the 

 wind, character of adjacent prominent objects, &c, and 

 then retrace his steps as nearly as possible. It is senseless 

 to plunge headlong into trackless uncertainty, when it may 

 be quite possible to go back on one's own track to the point 

 started from, which though a loss of time in reaching a 

 desired destination, is better than a loss of way and an in 

 voluntary bivouac in the woods. The writer remembers 

 having once tracked back through a laurel brake with 

 such nicety of calculation as to pick up a handkerchief 

 which had been pulled out of his pocket, and v as clinging 

 to a bush. As a general thing, a man does not go far off 

 his course before he discovers his mistake. A quarter of a 

 mile in a jungle or strange forest seems a great distance. 

 It is not impracticable either, when one is in doubt, to 

 climb a tall tree and take a survey from the top. Caribou 

 hunters often adopt this practice Avhen looking for barrens 

 where game are likely to be found. Pavers and streams^ 

 are certain highways to deliverance provided a person has 

 previously some idea of the general lay of the land. 



