THE AMERICAN SPORTSMAN'S JOURNAL. 



[Entered According to Act of Congress, in the rear 1879, by the Forest and Stream Publishing Company, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.] 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, APRIL 1, 1880. 



CONTENTS. 



. 164 



AXSWECS TO OORHESPONDENTS 



AllcnntlY : 

 'lUio Aim ami Value nl the .Vatinnal Assooiatton; New 

 York iv. .Viiil h Side: Brooklyn : Multnomah Archery Club 180 

 CRICKET : - 



Miii-hiiii-Ara.il- Howlers, Wicliet-Kecpers Mild I.ong-Stops : 

 Cricket m I'm i Hope in ISIS : The Australian Eleven ; The 



Cricketer'.- a - ,,i ei:u inn ; Notes 



. 188 



tun 



As; 



, Association : Hie Angler's Anni- 

 l'e iioili i-y The American Fish Cul- 

 TrooLOpemng; American Ci-toket- 

 u ; Notes 1 



id a Foil - Cfel 



FtBH CULTI'lvr :- 



James Wood Milner 1 



fi.MIE HAH AND GUTS : 



Shinneeo. I. '•;,- i'i -.i -nil i Newark :DuoIt Hunt on Elk 



Utah 



TnuKi 



Kennel Notes. . 



1 nilipe 111 IMIIi'll! f. , I -lieu iuiiii, uu t,ui 



o Guns; A Dismal Story of Currituck ; 



i i : i I i-.'.iii.r-Liioii ill the New 

 illlle Oel-liV : SBll lor Dlsteiu- 

 ■ Mango; A Plea in His Ear; 



Miscecuasi : — 



in, Ireland ; A Day at Lane's: Scien- 



Vov 



: ,t \. ■«- Species o[ Bled, the ManiM-ops Dumin- 



e.iitis; White-Blue Herons ; 



iii.lpeeker; Ucuilla; Spring in Northern New 



aoi Spring 1»3 



flic Illiis'traleil it'oek nl' the Hug; Van Nostrand's Magazine ; 

 Tic Taxidermist's Manual 176 



PtnUVtSH is ks' Oecabtment 



Thti BTPt/r. :— 

 Bange and Gallery 



Sea and Hives FisniNc : - 



. I coo" in Trimble : Wicoussoo Shooting Association ; 



"New Discoveries in Natural History" 166 



YACHTING USD CAUOBWai-^: 



All Eastern Branch of iho M. It. \.-r ; I M the Fish- 



ne' i.i ws; i ; ■ -i ii r' or Wfre'l Measurement; The Canoe Cou- 



!fiv; ■ Va. nil ii' .Wivs let 



3 §®g$ l tolii SPtttis in Sh&tfi 



PICTURE to yourselves, long- fleeced and much- 

 enduring victims of American hackrnen, the face of 

 one of these unsurpassed]extortionists, on being handed 

 12 cents for the conveyance of yourself and baggage on 

 a dark night the distance of one mile illto the country 

 from a railway station in the respectable time of 5.30. 

 The same unsophisticated Paddy, that one April night, 

 two or three years ago. landed me at my friend Jack's 



hospitable door hi County, Ireland, is possibly now 



mounted in state upon the box of a gorgeous New York 

 chariot. Waiting wearily at the Ounard lauding stage for 

 the occasional and unsuspecting Briton who, in the in- 

 nocence of bis heart, calls lightly " for a cab." 



Many of my reader's have Been in Ireland, and will re- 

 member that the rapidity with which they were con- 

 veyed at Cd. per mile along the. excellent highways of 

 that interesting island was as a rule in inverse ratio to 

 the progressiveness of the country through which they 

 passed. This, however, is a ticklish topic. The political 

 state of Ireland, Mr. Parnell and the famine will be 

 upon us if we do not, in the words of my friend Jack- 

 who is a. shining light and a "first-flight man " 

 Hie thunder and tttri' hunt — " haste back" 

 the shelter- of that hospitable roof where he himself 

 keeps bachelor hall,, as the last representative of along 

 line, of worthy Irish gentlemen, who in due succession 

 " pinked " and " winged " their neighbors or made tar- 

 gets of themselves : performed unparalleled exploits 

 among the claret bottles and bumpers of rum shrub; 

 kept or supported the county hounds, and in old days sat 

 in the Irish Parliament to the detriment of then - purses 

 and then - paternal acres. 



One of these gentry was so passionately devoted to the 

 field of honor that it is said, on one occasion when acting 

 as second he was reminded by his vie d, «ts, a personal 

 friend of his own, that his principal's spare pistol which 

 he held in his hand was, contrary to etiquette, cocked, 



" Well, cock yours and be d d, and let's have a slap 



at you in the meanwhile," was this bellicose individual's 

 Teply, aud tradition says that shots were actually ex- 

 changed, pour passer le temps, between the seconds. 



More pacific thoughts, however, circled round the time- 

 honored mahogany upon that April night. Anyt hin g 

 but gouty limbs were stretched beneath it, and the grim 

 gentry from their canvas on the walls must have looked 

 down with contempt at the dull circulation of the de- 

 canters upon the table, under which doubtless during life 

 they used to fall with nightly regularity, hopelessly and 

 gloriously drunk. Contempt would certainly have been 

 the uppermost feeling in their manly bosoms had they 

 been able to listen to the enthusiasm with which their 

 degenerate representative and his guest discussed old 

 angling experiences and planned expeditions to the banks 

 of streams that to them had been but landmarks of the 

 chase. 



The Irish squire is for some reason or other not nearly 

 so much addicted to trout fishing as his English or Scot- 

 tish brother. It may be that the abundance of salmon 

 has generated an indifference to the capture of smaller 

 fry, or more probably tlvat the impulsive nature of 

 the Hibernian character finds in the hunting-field and 

 the race-course something more congejiial than in the 

 contemplative sport of the angler. Our side of the At- 

 lantic can offer something of a parallel to this in the al- 

 most total obscurity under which fly fishing south of the 

 Potomac, till the last few years, remained, 



When old times bad been f idly discussed and old scenes 

 in other lands had been revisited, we laid our plans for 

 the following day, or rather Jack did, and a river, as 

 every brook in Ireland is called, was fixed upon, lying 

 some seven or eight miles distant from the house. April 

 maintains perhaps its traditions more consistently in the 

 south of Ireland than in more fickle, latitudes — I should 

 say its English traditions— for what do the anglers of 

 Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, of the White Moun- 

 tains and the Adirondacks, of Michigan and Minnesota, 

 : nl that balmy, sweet-smelling month that Trans- 

 atlantic fishers love? We in Virginia are among the 

 Srivilegod few upon this side to whom the long, gradual 

 awn of spring gives, in common with our British 

 cousins, an ideal April, or even a superior one to theirs 

 for angling purposes. 



As the dog-cart rolls along the smooth and well-graded 

 Irish turnpike everything bodes well for a successful day. 

 Soft showers fall, spa riding in the fitful sunbeams that 

 burst now and again through the rolling clouds, and 

 light Up the vast expanse of soft green sward that rolls 

 uninterrupted save by still greener banks, bristling With 

 yellow gorse. to the low-base mountains whose swelling 

 outlines cut the horizon ; a landscape in which the shades 

 of green vary only with the shadows of the clouds that 

 flit across them. The red or brown fallows, over which 

 the harrow drags its slow course, hidden among clouds 

 of dust that in the springs of other lands form such a 

 prominent object to the angler's earlier pilgrimages, are 

 here scarcely to be seen. 



The ivy hangs in thick clusters and festoons from gray 

 stone bridges, hoary with age, that lift us over sparkling 

 streams whose amber color bespeaks their boggy source. 

 An occasional mill-dam, skirted by velvety meadows and 

 fringed by willows, reflects on its broad surface the 

 changing "skies. We miss the stalwart teams, whose 

 bells go tinkling down the roads of the sister island ; but 

 in their stead pass long rows of donkey carts, which (par- 

 don the '•'bull") represent the one-horse system of agri- 

 culture here in vogue. 



Now we are rattling through the streets of the little 

 market town, where Jack officiates in the dignified posi- 

 tion of a Justice of the Peace, to the chagrin of the in- 

 surance company who are interested in his life. Here, 

 too at the outskirts of the town, rises the Church of Eng- 

 land, proud and forlorn— a relic, Mr. Parnell, 1 suppose, 

 would say, of the tyrannies of the past, and where on 

 Sunday mornings Jack unfailingly takes Ms solitary seat 

 in a great square pew beneath rows of marble tablets on 

 the chancel walls that commemorate the sainted deeds 

 (Heaven save the mark I) of those illustrious progeni- 

 tors who transmitted to him, as he says, with a peculiar 

 comic, expression, the undoubted blood of Brian Boruhm, 

 Jack was educated across the channel, and, unlike many 

 Of his neighbors, is able to judge of social importance 

 from a national rather than an obscurely provincial point 

 of view, and is fully able to appreciate the strained ideas 

 of the untraveled Irish gentry as to their own impor- 

 tance, so inimitably satirized by Thackeray. 



The rector himself, whose congregation may on fine 

 days number thirty all told, is one of the. now scarce cler- 

 icals whose performances behind the hounds or round 

 the mahogany are more brilliant than when clad in his 

 sacerdotal robes. He is standing at the rectory gate as 

 we pass, and 1 can see the old gentleman's eyes sparkle 

 as Jack shouts out an invitation to di finer in the evening 

 —not that it is by any means the rarity of a good dinner 

 that causes those clerical orbs to kindle, for our parson 

 is not only an aristocrat (being first cousin to Lord Balli- 

 e-mnv the ex-Patron of the living), but also well clothed 

 willi" this world's goods, both by property and by the 

 defunct Church of Ireland, .No; it is that famous old 

 port laid down years and years ago by Jack's father, aud 

 over which the parson and the squire have bad many a 

 pleasant evening. He waves his stick as we leave him, 



and shouts out an injuncf 

 the color of the seal and t 

 his hand upon the treasu 

 courtly gentleman, Jack's 



to his old friend's son as to 

 xaot spot in the cellar to lay 

 Well do I remember that 

 :her: as a lad 1 dined with 

 bun on lour dillerent occasions, at the A.lolplii Hotel, in 

 Liverpool, in as many years. He took- to drinking port 

 instead of claret strangely enough in his old age, and 

 accompanied the peregrinations of the bottle with a look 

 that amounted in the case of guest almost to compulsion. 

 I don't mean to say it was a fierce look. Not. at all — kind- 

 liness and hospitality beamed in his eyes — but there was 

 something in that stately old gentleman's manner of 

 starting the decanters on their round which seemed una- 

 ble to comprehend even the idea of a half empty glass, 

 and the rapidity with which those decanters circulated 

 was to a modern stomach something too awful to con- 

 template. 



But here we are at our destination, a stone bridge — a 

 famous meet of the thunder and turf hounds— and the 

 old horse, once, a hunter, pulls up of his own accord and 

 pricks up his ears as if in quest of the gay cavalcade h 

 has in former days so often upon this spot awaited th 

 approach of. 



Before us the mountains swell gradually upward, col- 

 orless, except for the bright green patches of grass that 

 here and there dash their sides, amid the waste of dead 

 heather and ferns. Beneath us the river, in splendid, 

 fishing order, dashes against the buttresses of the bridge, 

 its gravelly bed being just visible through three feet of 

 clear amber water. 



Looking up stream a long, wide. level valley stretches 

 — a valley one would expect to see traversed* bv a dull 

 canal rather than a sparkling trout stream— and leaving 

 Jack to begin at the bridge I walk a mile or so up the 

 bank, so as to give myself plenty of water before coining 

 on his leavings. 



Fishing down stream was always a mania of Jack's. 

 All Irish fishermen, I believe, do fishdown stream, while 

 Englishmen and Scotchmen hold the reverse as their 

 creed, though they do not always follow it. With dis- 

 colored water early in the season and open banks, I have 

 not much choice, and feeling a trifle lazy gladly gave in 

 to the national custom on this occasion. 



The surroundings would in January, i ttmst confess 

 have been somewhat dreary : more so in mam- ways than 

 the must savage highland glens ; more, so than the. drear- 

 iest of lowland moors or W elsh 1 1 1 on 1 1 tains. The verdant 

 flush of spring, however, softened to a great extent the 

 harshness of those patches of rushes and s( retches of bog- 

 through whoso wiry grasses even the April zephyrs 

 whistled. The yellow gorse, covered with gorgeous dress 

 the broken and dilapidated fences, while the triumphant 

 strains of the skylark counteracted the sad cries of the 

 curlews that circled round our head. Civilization had 

 invaded tli eso solitudes at one time, but apparently had 

 "gone West;" not altogether, though, for here by tin- 

 side of a solitary grove of Scotch firs is a son of Erin, 

 with a long-handled shovel, throwing up a turf bank 

 around one of the very " humblest cots" it has evev 

 been my lot to see inhabited by man. and 1 have seen 

 some tolerably humble ones among our mountains, (j 

 Wordsworth had come across such a cot he would hare 

 written pages upon pages on it. If Mr. Parnell had been 

 able to exhibit it to us this winter, lie might have i.. 

 a success as an agitator — who knows'.' 



But I must stop this, as I am upon the properly of 

 one of Jack's cousins (which is a state of matters, 

 however, apparently normal during my peregrinations 



in County), and that worthy angler will M 



accuse mc of a breach of hospitality. His resid, , 

 methinks, must be somewhere iu the neighborhood - 

 and on appealing to the bog-trotter, already immortal- 

 ized, his astonishment at my ignorance of the where- 

 abouts of such a famous domicile is so genuinely in- 

 tense, that he has apparently only just presence of 

 mind to jerk his thumb in the direction of a clump of 

 woods, through which the outline of a large square house 

 ..... be descried. The woods in question put a. stop to the 

 open character of the fishing, as on approaching I fi ni < 

 the river enters or rather emerges from their shades. 

 So having plenty of forest fishing at home, I feel inclined 

 to make the most of the luxury of open water, and deter 

 mine, to make a start at this point. My readers Will 1 

 am afraid, think I have been a long time in getting under 

 weigh, and that the heading of this paper is a fraud and 

 a delusion. Still further delay is occasioned bv having) 

 owing to a miscalculation of the supplies of my fly-book, 

 to sit down on the bank and tie a cochy-bondu, a fly that', 

 upon principle, has been mj permanent leader upon every 

 water and under every clime, While doing so, recollec- 

 tions of stories I bad heard Jack tell about the particular 

 cousin in question came into my head, and I remembered 

 that he was a "Sunday man." This, gentle reader, does- 

 not imply that ha has any particular veneration 1'ov tho 

 Sabbath day, as he has so much f or the bailiffs, and had. 

 for twenty years held them in such constant awe, thai 

 the first day of the week was the only on? on which II, . 

 laws of Ireland rendered it sale for Men union ,,,, - 

 tleman " to take his walks abroad. Judging from an 

 English standpoint, on which model his establishment 



