202 



FOEEST AND STREAM. 



^gortiqg $£ew8 from ^ibt[oad. 



' OME time ago, enthusiastic as we were after seeing 

 Mr. Reiche's collection of English pheasants, in 

 Chatham street, we ventured to expostulate against calling 

 shooting pheasants as practiced in England — sport. If the 

 pheasants are as tame as canary hirds, and petted and cared 

 for up to a certain point, we declared it in our humble 

 opinion to smack something of brutality, all of a 

 sudden to turn into the aviary with cruel breech- 

 loaders and treacherous dogs and blaze away at 

 the poor birds without a moment's warning. But 

 all things have their remedies. In this case the cure 

 does not come from the fact that every bird of the pheasant 

 species can be shot off from the ground and the race destroy- 

 ed for the season, (for with their perfect method of preserving, 

 the English game keeper ought to know to a bird how many 

 there are on the preserve), but from the exceedingly rational 

 reason, that such is the press of sportsmen, the mitraille of 

 shot, all converging to a certain centre in a well arranged 

 battue, that it is quite as often that the sportsmen get loads 

 1 of No. 8 sent point-blank into their precious selves, as into the 

 poor birds. It must be something amusing in a thick copse 

 for the timid man when the game-keeper cries: "mark 

 cock," to notice the element of self-preservation displayed 

 on the part of the sportsman, and his taking to a tree in 

 order to get out of the way of the fire. If direct man- 

 slaughter does not arise in these coverts, very certainly 

 many a man's legs get riddled, and as a leading English 

 paper expresses it: "Of course shooting in a covert 

 even with beginners, is attended with less danger 

 than making a railway journey ; indeed sportsmen 

 are safer as a rule in the field than they are in cros- 

 sing London streets." But our contemporary goes on 

 to say: "It might not be a bad notion for a host who 

 entertains on a big scale for the coverts, but who leaves to 

 fortune and good luck the lives of some of his guests 

 through the incompetence of some disguised Winkle, to 

 supply each of the party with a suit of leather similar to 

 the coais of protection worn by some of the Cromwellian 

 troops. A stout rhinoceros jerkin, a pair of double buck- 

 skin breeches, a thick vizor with a small aperture in it to 

 me through, would compose a striking and lively-looking 

 costume for a covert shooter." In fact, as is intimated, 

 shooting parties in England, like dancing parties, have be- 

 come too large and extensive in their proportions, and just 

 as there is a crush of dancing men who clutter the stairs, 

 so we may suppose every field at certain seasons to be 

 thronged by sporismen until even to bring a gun to one's 

 shoulders can only be accomplished at the inconvenience 

 of somebody else's comfort — of course the risk of life is a 

 secondary consideration. 



— What a vast amount of dogs they must have in Eng- 

 land. When one notices the net duty on dogs, which end- 

 in g on the 31st of March last, produced the handsome 

 amount Of £302,017.153, about $1,500,000, there is no wonder 

 why Mr. Lowe is so proud of the surplus in his budget. 

 Onus of course, or the right to carry them, must bear a 

 certain proportion to the dogs, and the Chancellor of the 

 Exchequer rejoiced last year in the neat amount of £03,363 

 produced from this service. xVs to the price of that rare 

 animal the dog, there is no limit to it, for we notice 125 

 guineas offered and refused for a dog, the winner of a late 

 cup. Practical are our English friends, and admirably so. 

 After the pointer and setter trials at Bala, full accounts of 

 which we gave our readers in our last number, they have 

 had on the same grounds a sheep-dog trial. Substitute 

 sheep for grouse and the matter is understood. Not only 

 was it a trial of dogs but of shepherds and of sheep. There 

 was a prize for good looks, and a prize for good behaviour, 

 and one collie combined most of all these qualities. 



—It is now the close of the rod fishing, and on the Tweed' 

 the Forth, the Yore, Swall, Tay and Spey, all streams 

 familiar to us, the fish have a chance for another year. On 

 this Spey the sport before the closing must have been 

 grand, as we read of salmon innumerable, of good size, of 

 thirty-five pounds and upwards having been caught. Last 

 season a salmon of seventy -five pounds was caught near 

 Taymouth Castle, on the outlet to Loch Tay. The Scotch 

 rivers, thanks to better preserving of the salmon, have 

 aff • rded admirable sport this season. 



— A human skull is reported to have been found near Osage 

 Mission, Kansas, embedded in a solid rock, which was 

 broken open by blasting. Dr. Wiley, of the mission, com- 

 pared it with a modern skull which he had in his office, and 

 found that; though it resembled the latter in general shape, 

 it was an inch and a quarter longer in greatest diameter, 

 and much better developed in some other particulars. He 

 says of the relic: "It is that of the cranium of the human 

 species, of large size, embedded in conglomerate rock of 

 the tertiary class, and found several feet below the surface. 

 The piece of rock holding the remains weighs some forty 

 or fifty pounds, With many impressions of marine shells, 

 and through it runs a vein of quartz, or, within the cranium, 

 crystallized organic matter, and by the aid of the micro- 

 scope, presents a beautiful apearance." 



-♦♦-&. 



Sharp birds rooks and crows are. In Munich, where sev- 

 eral cases of cholera have occurred, these birds, which be- 

 fore flew about the steeples and thronged the trees of the 

 public promenades, have all emigrated, and the same thing 

 is said to have occurred during the cholera seasons of 1836 

 and 1854. The faet, if it is a fact, may be worth noting. 



%e Mlmnd. 



— A hippopotamus, which escaped from a menagerie, is 

 is sporting in Savannah river, and the farmers are turning 

 out by scores to capture him. 



— We have seen wonderful precocity in dogs, both at pub- 

 lic exhibition, and at home, but never intelligence so nearly 

 akin to reason as was possessed by poor " Mac," who died 

 in Brooklyn last week, aged 7 years, weight 20 pounds. 

 Mac was of the black and tan var.ety, and in early infancy 

 was picked up an outcast and nearly dead with hunger and 

 cold. His assiduous nurse in those days, and his constant 

 companion ever since, was a negro dwarf, classically named 

 " Romeo, " wno is now in his twenty-second year, stands 

 thirty-eight inches high in his stockings, and is about the 

 same weight of a three years old grandchild of his master 

 living in the same house. It was by the care of Romeo 

 that the dog survived, and it is quite probable that by sub- 

 sequent daily contact the full measure of the intelligence of 

 the one was imparted to the other, and so, in this way, Mac 

 came to be the very extraordinary dog he was. Certainly, 

 if Mac did no t know fully as much as Romey, both under- 

 stood each other perfectly, and communicated their ideas 

 by processes familiar only to themselves. 



Of course our readers expect to hear that Mac was a lithe, 

 active dog, fully up to the most remarkable of the tricks 

 we are accustomed to read of and see. He could find 

 articles hidden, follow his tail backwards and reverse, sit 

 on his haunches and stand on his hind feet, pick a piece of 

 biscuit from the back part of a mantel-piece without touch- 

 ing his paws, catch and retrieve balls, run up a perpendic- 

 ular wall to the height of nine feet and pick up a ball placed 

 there; and in one instance he ran fifteen feet, up the trunk 

 of a tree and brought down a piece of paper which he had 

 been told to get. Then he would meet the carriers at 

 morning and evening and bring in the newspapers, and 

 once when his master was sick in bed for many days he 

 never left his room, but watched carefully until he im- 

 proved, and when he was convalescent, brought spectacles, 

 newspapers, handkerchief or whatever else he was desired 

 to do — for it was the most remarkable feature of this dog's 

 intelligence that he seemed to distinguish words when 

 spoken to in ordinary tones. He would take any place on 

 table, chair, or floor, where designated, would lie down, or 

 stand, leave the room and enter, go up stairs and down, call 

 Romey, or indicate his understanding of any ordinary want 

 or word with the quickest intelligence. That he was a good 

 watch-dog may be supposed. 



One Sunday morning, about one o'clock, he heard some 

 one prowling about the house; he first went to his master's 

 bed and woke him — then tried to get out of the door. As 

 soon as he was let out, he jumped a five-feet board fence 

 into a vacant lot adjoining, gave chase to, caught, and trip- 

 ped up a negro who had attempted to enter the house l.y 

 the rear, and then stood over him until a policeman arrived 

 and took him to the station. Of course he was a great 

 favorite; with the police ever afterwards. 



Moreover, as a bird or rabbit dog, Mac was equal to any 

 pointer or setter, which is remarkable for one of Ins treed. 

 He would stand on a bird as well as any dog, and retrieve 

 from the water as well as on land, never mouthing a bird, 

 and in one instance bringing a winged snipe from a pond in 

 such condition that it lived for some weeks after as a pet at 

 the house of his master. As a pet among the children he 

 was equally famous, and it was interesting to see him sit- 

 ting side by side with his master's grandchild in a little 

 wagon drawn by a white goat, with the redoubtable dwarf 

 Romeo for charioteer. 



Ordinarily, Romey stood by, a quiet but intensely sym- 

 pathetic observer of Mac's traits and antics, but the gleam 

 of pride that beamed from his great Avhite eyes when the 

 performances were concluded, showed how much he felt 

 his own reputation to be involved in the success of his 

 friend. It was not often, however, that an exhibition of 

 the dog's qualities was called for, for Mac was not ostenta- 

 tious of Ins own endowments, and his master, (a modest 

 thoroughbred sportsman by the name of Dan Hughes, who 

 keeps a quiet chop-house and billiard room in a three story 

 brick house with vine-covered verandah and well-kept 

 flower garden in front,) did not often call them into requisi- 

 tion. There was a role, however, in which both Mac and 

 Romey appeared together, and which gentlemen in the 

 neighborhood got wind of, and at last it became quite a set 

 thing to take a stranger in to see it. It was no less than an 

 imitation on a small scale, of the sports of the ancient 

 arena, when gladitor met wild beast in deadly encounter 

 — though no more than a half dozen spectators were allowed 

 at a time. When the floor was cleared, the dwarf took 

 position in one corner of the room, and with foot and fists 

 advanced, sleeves rolled up, and grim determination por- 

 trayed on every feature, awaited the onslaught of his op- 

 ponent who was held between Dan's legs, bolt-upright 

 and paws presented. At the signal both met in the centre 

 and then came a sparring match and struggle for vantage 

 which would bring tears to eyes most stolid. At last the 

 dog would get his lock on Romey's legs and never let go 

 until he threw him. Then came the tussle, sometimes one 

 on top and sometimes the other, with scarcely a sound per- 

 ceptible except the labored breathing of the dwarf, until at 

 last the dog would invariably retire the victor, leaving his 

 opponent to pick up the quarters and dimes from the spec- 

 tators, not the least bit injured by the fracas, but with an 

 exchequer considerably improved. 



Recently, after repeated offers from exhibitors of less 

 note, the merits of this wonderful pair came to the notice 

 of the irrepressible P. T. Barnum, and an engagement was 

 closed at the rate of $3,000 a year, to have begun on the 

 very Monday before the dog died. It is needless to say 



that there is mourning in the house of Hughes. All the 

 doctors could not avert the catastrophe, though many 

 were summoned at highest rates. After ten days of suffer- 

 ing from malignant sore throat, the dog choked in a spasm, 

 and his stuffed body now looks down on the disconsolate 

 Romey from its glass case above. 



— The Harrier, as its name implies, is used for hunting 

 the hare, and is nothing more nor less than a small fox 

 hound and would be found a very useful animal for track- 

 ing rabbits. The American rabbit is a someAvhat different 

 animal from its English cousin; the latter in a wild state live 

 together in warrens in immense numbers. The warren is a 

 series of burrows or holes in the ground, of extremely 

 irregular construction, and often communicate with each 

 other to a remarkable extent. The American rabbit, so 

 called, on the contrary live together in couples, bring forth 

 their young on the surface, and when their offspring are 

 able to take off to themselves they quit the parental roof 

 and forage on their own account. The scent of the 

 American rabbit is much stronger and holds to the ground 

 as it were for a longer time, and in this respect bears a 

 marked similarity to the English hare. The points of a 

 good Harrier are similar to those of the fox-hound. There 

 are necessary points in the shape of a hound which ought 

 alwaj^s be attended to by a sportsman, for if he be not of a 

 perfect symmetry he will neither run fast nor bear much 

 work. Keep in mind that the hound has much tedious la- 

 bor to undergo, and should have strength proportioned to 

 it. Let his legs be straight as arrows, his feet round and 

 not too large, his shoulders well back, his breast rather 

 wide than narrow, his chest deep, his back broad, his head 

 small, his neck thin, his tail thick and bushy, and if he 

 carry it well so much, the better. Many of our friends will 

 say it is impossible to procure such a dog, so perfect in all 

 his points. Get one so nearly like the description as pos- 

 sible, and such hounds as are weak from the knee* to the 

 foot — mongrel breeds of pointers and setters — shoot them at 

 once. To use the expression "shoot them," would perhaps 

 seem cruel, but we can suggest no other method to 

 rid the country of a breed of puny, miserable dogs general- 

 ly found in a litter of whelps, which if allowed to grow 

 and subsequently breed from, are sure to propagate animals 

 as worthless as themselves. Attention to the proper weed- 

 ing out of bad stock is the only way in which good staunch 

 strains can be bred. 



Lost, a Black- and-Tan Dog. — If anybody has seen a 

 black-and-tan dog, answering to the name of "Judge" 

 going down street in company with a hard-shell-turtle, that 

 won't answer to anything, and certainly won't answer to 

 tackle, as the dog can tell you if you can get him to stop 

 long enough, please halt the eloping pair, as they are the 

 property of the editor of this paper. We are fondly at- 

 tached to the dog on account of his vagabondish Bohemian 

 ish habits. He knows every dog in Peoria by name, and is 

 on speaking terms with nine-tenths of the granger dogs that 

 come in under the wagons, and he knows more of the in- 

 habitants of this city than the tax collector does. The 

 turtle is a more recent acquisition. It was placed in the 

 back yard yesterday, and the dog spent an hour and a half 

 hying to entice h to come out of its shell and be sociable. 

 The old iron-clad maintained his reserve, however, until 

 the dog crammed his nose against the forward part and be- 

 gan to' sniff. The pair seemed to come to some sort o* un- 

 derstanding at once, for the dog made an impetuous remark 

 on a very high key, and they both started immediately on 

 a tiip after Donaldson's balloon. When the dog jumped 

 over Fisher's barn we thought he had struck the eastern 

 current ami would go right through, but we learn since 

 that he landed and was seen sauntering along like a whirl- 

 wind, the turtle staying right by him. We should be very 

 sorry to lose the dog now, as he has acquired another im- 

 portant and valuable quality. He knows more about turtles 

 than any other dog in the country, and it's mighty hard to 

 find a real good turtle dog. — Peoria Review. 



Boy Rescued by a Dog. — Stories of boys saved by dogs 

 are perhaps more numerous than well authenticated. Here 

 is one, however, from the Glasgow Herald which we feel 

 certain is truthful: — 



"Yesterday morning, about ten o'clock, a most exciting 

 affair happened at Kilean river, about one mile fromTar- 

 bert, by which a little boy aged about eight years, named 

 John McOallum, son of Donald McCallum, road-contractor, 

 Killean, nearly lost his life, and was only saved as it were 

 1 by the skin of his teeth ' from a watery grave, by the ex- 

 traordinary sagacity and fidelit}^ of a collie dog belonging 

 to the boy's father. It appears that the boy was at the 

 time along with an elder brother, amusing himself near the 

 river by leaning over a wire fence on its banks and endeav- 

 oring to catch the small pieces of wood and other waifs 

 borne down by the flood, when suddenly the wire on which 

 he was leaning broke, and he was precipitated into the an- 

 gry flood below, and borne along with the current towards 

 the sea. His brother, unable to save him, ran to the house 

 and alarmed his father and other of the neighbors. His 

 father immediately rushed away along the banks of the 

 stream, closely followed by his faithful collie dog. For a 

 time no trace of the boy could be seen, but after proceeding 

 about a quarter of a mile along the bank towards the sea, 

 the dog apparently saw the object of their search coming to 

 the surface, for he bounced into the stream and in a few 

 moments was seen struggling to regain the bank with what 

 seemed to be the lifeless body of the poor boy. Seeing that 

 the noble animal had succeeded in securing his son, the 

 agonized father, greatly at the risk of his own life, sprang 

 into the torrent and seconded the frantic efforts of the dog 

 to bring the boy to the bank, and in this way he was ulti- 

 mately successful. When taken to the bank the boy was 

 perfectly lifeless; but after he had been handled in the 

 usual way for restoring animation by an old 'salt' named 

 Neil McAllister, he gradually recovered consciousness, and 

 is not much the worse for his dip. The little fellow was 

 carried along by the current for nearly half a mile at a very 

 rapid rate. 



«♦«» 



— A gentleman having his hair cut, was asked by the 

 garrulous operator: " How he would have it done " " If 

 possible," replied the gentleman* " in silence/' 



