282 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



The wombat and kangaroo houses were of interest. In 

 the latter, the pranks of its inmates amused us exceed- 

 ingly. A whole family was assembled in one of the parti- 

 tions, and were raised in the Garden; this feature of the 

 reproduction of the animals in the gardens having the 

 greatest attention paid to it, and in most instances with the 

 most flattering success. Part of the "fowl-house" was ten- 

 anted with several hundred inmates; for this Hamburg 

 Fowl House comprises both domesticated and wild birds. 

 We halted a moment on our way at the "beaver house." 

 Here two of the inmates had begun to build their dam as in 

 nature — great attention having been given to an exact re- 

 production of their natural elements, water and seclusion. 

 United with the fowl house is the "monkey house," where 

 the apes of the Old and New World are plentifully as- 

 sembled. Then we passed to the camel and elephant houses 

 and the "Terrarium" where tortoises, lizards, snakes, 

 among which the only poisonous continental snake, the 

 Pelias Berus — frogs and salamanders, in hideous assembly do 

 congregate. A special plot is given to the agoutis, porcu- 

 l pines, viscachas, marmots, bobacs, and the like. Suddenly 

 a bend in the road brings us to a truly sylvan scene, the 

 lake for the water birds — one of the most attractive features 

 of the Garden. Here we find the whole family of ducks, 

 geese, swans, and pelicans in seemingl}'- innumerable con- 

 gregation. Here the children and the nurses, young and 

 old, assemble. From the German opera, the "Freischutz," 

 the name " Wolves' Den," has been given to a rocky and 

 wild portion of the Garden built of rock; and here we find 

 fine specimens of the wolf and the lycaon pictus, ever walk- 

 ing to and fro in silent discontent. Past the sheep stable 

 we come to the " gallery for smaller beasts of prey," such 

 as the civet cats, the jackass, crab wolf, foxes, and corsacs. 

 That noble beast, the wild boar, is the most notable speci- 

 men in the "pig sty." A beautiful feature of the Garden 

 is the "owl's castle," an artificial ruin in which the night 

 birds of prey are kept; and which is built upon an artificial 

 eminence some one hundred feet in height, with a tine 

 tower, having a special staircase, from whose top is a most 

 enchanting view of the whole Garden — the rich and popu- 

 lous city with its many spires in a long semi-circle closing 

 the view. One of the most interesting galleries is the 

 "gallery for beasts of prey," immediately below the 

 castle, in which that terrible family of cats, beginning with 

 the lion, is well represented. The Hamburg lion is a native 

 of Western Africa, one of the finest animals now existing in 

 any collection; his mate is no less distinguished; the three 

 cubs born shortly before our visit, all males, were being- 

 tended with great care by their mother. Tie pair of tigers 

 is one of the most celebrated features of the collection. In 

 this principal gallery there is a fine puma, a jaguar, a leop- 

 ard, and a panther. The ' ' ostrich house " is well provided ; 

 and in the " bear's den " we found an ursas arctuSj ill" tanas, 

 and an exceedingly fine Polar bear. Next we visited a 

 house for flamingos, ibis, curlews, ruffs, plovers, and rails; 

 also special preserves for the cranes — among which was a 

 grus antigone and storks. There is a house for the tapirs, 

 one for the buffalos, and the otter basin. A very large 

 house with extended plat in front, is built for the giraffes, 

 gnus, antelopes, elands, gazelles, kevels, and springbocks; a 

 special hut is for the yak and zebu. Another lake gives 

 free play ground to the seal; near it are housed the lamas, 

 the. asses, the mouflons; ai'oliere for all sorts of parrots is 

 not wanting. Another artificial mount with a Swiss chalet 

 brings us to the " Chamois Mount," with very fine speci- 

 men of chamois, ibex and angoras, with several other res- 

 ervations containing lesser animals. Forty or more differ- 

 ent buildings have been required for the five hundred or 

 more inmates of this Garden. 



While we were thus visiting the Garden, the writer tak- 

 ing a few notes, a merry throng moved to and fro through 

 the Garden, where everything which can interest and charm 

 both mind and eyes is so happily united. Our survey end- 

 ed, we emerged from the shrubberies and intricate walks of 

 the large Park to an open place fronted by a very large and 

 elegant restaurant, where a band of excellent musicians 

 were playing to an assemblage of thousands of Hamburg- 

 ladies and gentlemen. The most exemplary order and de- 

 corum were universally preserved. F. S. 

 ■♦*♦. 



Ward-Buuton's Magazine Rifle.— We received a 

 visit from Mr. Bethel Burton, the inventor of the Ward- 

 Burton Rifle. The rifle shown us was a magazine gun 

 on the bolt system, shooting eighty grains of powder, 

 a perfect beauty, but differs materiallyfrom those of 

 other inventors on the same system. The special mark 

 of merit, which is claimed by the inventor, is its sim- 

 plicity. The rifle is light, stiong, serviceable, easily 

 handled, fires v/ith rapidity, and with slight recoil. To 

 give a mechanical description of a rifle in a newspaper 

 article, would be almost impossible; the rifle must be seen, 

 handled and used before a decided opinion can be passed 

 upon it. If Mr. Burton will make all his sporting rifles 

 precisely equal in every respect to the one shown us, we 

 predict it will be especially acceptable to sportsmen. Its 

 shooting qualities cannot be gainsayed, as at Creedmoor in 

 shooting for a prize, five rounds off hand at 200 yards, it 

 made two bull's eyes, two centres and one outer, and in 

 private practice, has made many bull's eyes in succession, 

 at 200 yards. The gun has been tested in Europe, and 

 passed through the trying ordeal of the Board of Ordnance 

 Officers of the United States with the greatest merit as a 

 most efficient arm. The St. Louis Army Board say " the 

 arm is serviceable and cheap, the breech action simple and 

 easily understood; the gun has a low trajectory and slight 

 recoil-, any cartridge can be used if of the same calibre as 



the rifle; the stock is in one piece, is capable of rapid firing 

 without having but seldom to be cleaned. The gun invent- 

 ed by Bethel Burton, with its details, satisfies all the re- 

 quirements of a military arm. Besides, it is impossible to 

 blow out the movable breech, which is suited to any calibre. 

 The piece weighs but eight pounds and its penetration is 

 great." Mr. Burton will make any kind of rifle required, 

 any size, bore or weight; the magazine can be shortened to 

 carry any number of cartridges from two to eight. 



We propose publishing very shortly a very thorough and 

 exhaustive series of articles on the breech-loading rifles 

 manufactured and in use in the United States. These 

 articles will be furnished to us by the makers themselves, 

 and will be illustrated with numerous cuts. We will thus 

 supply a want, and the subject so treated will undoubtedly 

 be of great interest to our numerous readers at home and 

 abroad. 



Mpartitig J fems fr om ^h\mA. 



N our last review of English sports, we may have spoken 

 somewhat unreservedly in regard to Her Majesty's stag- 

 hounds, and the peculiar character of this chase. The last 

 recorded run by those hounds was, according to our ideas, 

 even less worthy of being called sport than the first one. 

 This time the stag appears to have been let loose from his 

 box in the midst of a mob, his head pointed in the direction 

 the huntsmen wanted him to go, and then a rush was made 

 for him, and he was finally forced to run, by having missiles 

 thrown at him. "Near the top of a hill some ruffian, (a 

 correspondent of the Field is our authority), set a greyhound 

 on the stag and drove him into a thick hedge, when another 

 ruffian belabored him with a thick stick." Finally the stag 

 took to an out-house, and very wisely stayed there, and so 

 the hunt ceased. We affirm that this is not sport. The 

 fact of boxing up any animal, and letting him go again, to 

 be chased b} r men, horses and dogs, must ever remain an 

 anomalous thing in sport, even though that animal be a 

 tiger. To seek the. fox in his covert, to beat the gorse to 

 track him in his lair, calls upon both men and dogs to dis- 

 play in every way their hunting instincts, but to select a 

 stag from a park, where he has been pampered, and let him 

 loose, to be followed to the death in the woods or in a lady's 

 greenhouse, is an absurdity, no matter whether the start be 

 at Salt Hill or at Foutainbleau. Men may ride fifty miles 

 after the stag, may break their own necks, or kdl their 

 horses, when in pursuit of a boxed up stag, but, as a sport, 

 it is ridiculous, and here in the United States, most people 

 think with us, and in England, conservative as they may 

 be, every year we hear of good sportsmen who decry the 

 Royal Stag-hunt. 



— There is an article in one of ourEuglish contemporaries, 

 in regard to hunting tigers, which if true, is quite curious. 

 A tiger hunter in India begs that "members of the Civil 

 Service be forbidden from killing tigers," for this reason, 

 that the Civil Service men monopolise all the tigers in their 

 district, and will not allow any other people but Civil 

 officers to shoot them, and that they thus actually preserve 

 tigers for the sole purpose of killing them themselves, and 

 that in this way the tigers, which could be killed by any 

 one and soon be exterminated, were positively allowed to 

 increase for the amusement of a priviliged class. It is hard 

 to find out the truth of a charge of this character, for 

 grumbling is an inherent English taste. 



— Henry IV., of France, who was a gallant hunter, took 

 once into his service the chevalier d'Andrezzi with his pack 

 of dogs, and made him his Grand Wolf hunter or Louvetier. 

 That wolves are still found in France is well known. In 

 the OJiasse Tllustree of the 22d of last month, we find the fol- 

 lowing: — " Brittany is a privileged ground for wolves. In 

 this department of France, notwithstanding the attention 

 paid to wolves by Messieurs the Lieutenants of the wolf- 

 exterminators, these animals live, thrive and prosper, and 

 bring up a numerous progeny doubtless with much prcfit 

 and pleasure to themselves, but certainly to the disadvan. 

 tage of the neighboring farmers, who are forced to furnish 

 the wolves with their daily repasts. But the time occasion. 

 ally does come when the farmers get tired of paying for the 

 keep of these hungry rascals. Complaints of depredations 

 pour into the Prefect, who transmits his orders to the wolf 

 killers and to the agents forrestiers. Battues are arranged, 

 which generally conclude rather disadvantageous^ for the 

 wolves. The neighborhood of Chateaulin is particularly 

 infested by wolves, and the peasants, aware of the losses 

 they suffer, wage constant war with them. Besides pre- 

 serving their sheep when anybody kills a wolf, he receives 

 quite a neat amount of money for their destruction, the 

 Conscil General of Finistere having decided to augment 

 quite largely the reward for wolf killing. Among the most 

 conspicuous wolf slayers is Michael Cornec of Kerjeau, 

 who recently killed five wolves, two of them last week. 

 The Marquis de Kerne, an indefatigable hunter, with Lord 

 Douglas du Plessis, wage incess ant warfare with these 

 beasts.. Nevertheless, they are so abundant, that it seems 

 impossible to exterminate the wolves. We trust that more 

 efficacious measures will be adopted in order to encompass 

 the entire destruction of these animals." 



— One morning, says the. Field, a woodcock alighted at 

 the feet of a cabman on the stand facing the Eyre Arms, 

 St. John's-wood, London. The man threw his hat over it 

 and caught it, and afterwards sold it to a poulterer in 

 Circus-road. It was a very fine bird, in good plumage and 

 condition. 



— We notice in La Chasse Illustree, that in the depart- 

 ment of Somme (a portion of the old Picardy) a sportsman 

 had killed two Ibis These birds are rarely found out of 

 Egypt, or at the mouth of the Danube. 



— There is every reason to suppose that the British Gov- 

 ernment will send out this coming spring an Artie Expedi- 

 tion. An exhaustive memorandum has already been 

 drawn up and submitted to the Council of the Royal 

 Society for their approval, each section of which has been 

 prepared by the most distinguished authorities in England. 

 To the Royal Society the Geographical Society have also 

 given their aid in bringing the matter before the Govern- 

 ment, and the Dundee Chamber of Commerce, from com- 

 mercial reasons have added their influence. Mr. Gladstone 

 and Mr. Goschen will be shorly interviewed, and the full 

 importance of Artie research will be placed before them. 

 It was Mr. Gladstone, who, when he was on the Select 

 Committee of the House of Commons on the occasion of 

 Sir John Ross' proposed expedition to the North Pole, 

 made use of these remarkable words, which are worth re- 

 cording: — "A public service is rendered to a maritime 

 country, especially in times of peace, by deeds of daring, 

 enterprise, and patient endurance of hardship, which ex- 

 cite the public sympathy and enlist the general feeling in 

 favor of maritime adventure." 



The Baltimore Oystee Trade. — The panic and the 

 depression in all business of late has had an effect on the Bal- 

 timore oyster trade. There are fifty odd packing houses in 

 Baltimore, employing a capital of $6,000,000, who ship an- 

 nually f idly twenty millions of gallons of oysters. At present 

 the oyster business is so slack that none of the houses are 

 working on fulltime. The largest house, Kennett&Co., who 

 at this time "of the year usually employ fully 500 hands, have 

 now hardly 100 people at work. In busy times no less than 

 10,000 people open and pack oysters, but to-day 2,500 or 

 3,000 is about the total count. It seems then that prosper- 

 ity and the bi-valves go hand in hand in America, and not 

 poverty and oysters, as Sam Weller once remarked. 



GAME IN SEASON FOR DECEMBER. 



Moo*', Alces Malchis.) 

 Elk or Wapiti, Germs Canadensis-.) 

 Rabbits, common Brown and Grey.) 

 Wild Turkey, Meleagns gallopato.) 

 Ruffed Grouse, Bonasa vmbellus,) 



Caribou, Tarandus liangifer.) 

 Red Deer, Carious Virglnianm.) 

 Squirrels. Red Black and Gray.) 

 Quail, Ortyx Virginiartus.) 



Pinnated Grouse, Oupidoria Cupido.) 



All kinds of Wild Fowl. 



[Under the head of ''Gome, and Fisn in Season'" we can only specify in 

 general term.8 the several varieHes, because the laws of States vary so much 

 that were we to attempt to particularise we could do no less than, publish 

 those entire sections tl tat relate to the kinds of game in question. This 

 ■would require a (treat amount of our space. In designating game we are 

 >; 'tided by (he laws of nature, upon which all legislation is founded, and. 

 'our readers would do well to provide themselves with the laws of their re- 

 spective State-' for constant reference. Otherwise, our attempts to assist them 

 will only create confusion.'] 



— Six black foxes have been caught in Cumberland Co., 

 Nova Scotia, this fall. These animals are very rare and 

 their skins sell at fabulous prices. 



— Old Phin. Teeple, of Preston, Wayne county, Pa., is 

 seventy years old, though remarkably vigorous and looks 

 hardly fifty. Since eleven years of age he has killed 2,985 

 deer and 438 bears. His favorite hunting ground is in Potter 

 county. 



— Many gentlemen complain of the unserviceableness of 

 their decoys. If one is handy with tools he can make those 

 that will give him much better satisfaction than the ones 

 he buys at the stores; but if he can't tell an adze from a 

 jacknife he had better not try it, and by abstaining save his 

 fingers. Here are some directions that may assist the stool- 

 carpenter: Select a clear stick of timber of cedar or pine, 

 (cedar is the best) about five by seven inches. Cut it in 

 pieces twelve inches long; make a pattern of pasteboard 

 the shape of a duck, viewing it from above. Mark out the 

 pieces of wood by the pattern, and rough them out with a 

 hatchet. Make another pattern of the side view of a duck's 

 head, and neck when shortened or drawn in, and mark out 

 some heads on a piece of inch and a half board, so the 

 grain of the wood will come lengthwise of the duck's bill. 

 If a saw mill is near have them sawed out, but if that can- 

 not be done, saw them out by hand with a keyhole saw. 

 Cut a square place in the body of the decoy about three 

 quarter's of an inch deep to receive the base of the neck. 

 Fit a neck to each body, and bore a hole lengthwise 

 through the head and neck into the body; make the joint 

 of the neck with glue, and fasten the heads on the decoys 

 by driving a pointed tight fitting piece of wire through the 

 hole already made. By putting the heads on in this man- 

 ner they are not liable to be easily knocked off. When the 

 heads have been fastened, shave them in forn- with a draw 

 knife, rasp them off smooth, put the finishing touch on the 

 heads and crook of the necks with a jack-knife, and sand- 

 paper them thoroughly. Buy some white lead, boiled oil, 

 and dry colors, and paint them as near as possible like the 

 ducks that are to be hunted. Old cedar rails are good ma- 

 terial for the bodies of decoys. They may be made to look 

 more natural by putting glass eyes in the head, set in holes 

 in plaster. The plaster should be mixed in clean water. 

 When used anchor them from a small staple driven into 

 the fore part of the body, so the ducks will always head to 

 windward, as live ones are in the habit of doing. 



— We shall print in our next issue an exhaustive article 

 on the grous~ and quail of North America, from the pen of 

 Prof. Robert Pudgeway, of the Smithsonian Institution. 

 This paper will be especially valued by those whom local 

 names and questions of variety have puzzled from time im- 

 memorial. Now, with the species fully determined, the 

 nomenclature once fixed ought to be universally adopted 

 throughout America, so that we may know when a par- 

 tridge is not a quail, and a pheasant not a partridge. 



