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FOREST AND STREAM. 



[April 15, 



A WEEKLY JOURNAL, 



D e vote d to Ftold ajjt> Aquatic Sports, Practical NATtntAl. 

 History, Fish Culture, the Protection of Game, Preserva- 

 tion or Forests, and the Inculcation in Men and WohbnoV 

 a Healthy Interest en uut-Duoh Becheation amd Study i 



PUBLISHED BY 



FOREST AND STREAM PUBLISHING COMPANY. 



— AT— 



NO. Ill FULTON STEBET, NEW YOBK. 

 [Post Omoi Box 283&! 



TERMS, FOTTB DOLLABS A TEAE, 8TBICTLT IN ADVANCE. 



THE IRISH-AMERICAN MATCH. 



Advertising Bates. 



Inside cages, nonpariel type, S5 cents per line : outside page, 40 

 cents. Special rates for three, six and twelve months. Notices in 

 editorial column, 50 cents per line— eight words to the line, and 

 twelve lines to one inch. 



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

 possible. . 



All transient advertisements must be accompanied with the 

 monev or they will not lie inserted. 



,i. i : i.; m- business notice of an immoral character 

 will bo received on any terms. 



**+Anvpubi - : -above one time, with 



.* NEW YORK, THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 1880. 



To Correspondents. 



All communications whatever, Intended for publication, most bo 

 Mobmpanie s aguaranty of good 



faith and bo addressed In Forest and Stream PuhusuingLom- 

 pasy. Nameswill not. be published if objection be made. Anony- 

 mous communications will not be regarded. 



We cannot promise to return rejected manuscripts. 



Secrouiries of Clubs and Associations are urged to favor us wtih 

 FU-ief notes of their movements and transactions. 



Nothing will be admitted to any department of the paper that 

 may not.be resil wi Hi propriety in the home circle. 



ponsibleforderelietion of mailservicerf money 



reiniled to ns is lost. 



0T" Trade supplied by American News Company. 



Advertisements. — All advertisements should reach us 

 on or before Tuesday morning of each loeek. An ob- 

 servance of this rule will insure satisfaction to all con- 

 cerned. 



F Removal.— On or before May 1st the Forest and 

 Stream will remove into its new offices in the Times 

 building, Nos. 39 and 40 Park Row. 



Long Island. — The claims of Long Island as a sum- 

 mer residence for New Yorkers have been again and 

 again set forth in these columns ; and we are pleased to 

 note that these claims are beginning, year by year, to be 

 more generally appreciated. One important evidence of 

 this fact is found in the increased attention paid to the 

 facilities of travel, particularly by the Long Island Rail- 

 road, which, under the able management of Mr. Thomas 

 R. Sharp, seconded by Mr, W- M. La din, General Passen- 

 ger Agent, is fast acquiring both favor and confidence. 

 The road-bed has recently been put into the most perfect 

 order, and the comfort of the cars themselves vastly im- 

 proved. Another sign of advancement is the constant 

 improvement in real estate carried on along the East and 

 South shores ; especially in the vicinity of Bay Shore, 

 Oakdale, Sayville, Bellport, etc. At Oakdale and Say- 

 ville, We noted the other day, large wooded parks are 

 being laid out, and many acres of land are now newly 

 cultivated. This is right in the center of a trout coun- 

 try ; within a circuit of five miles are no less than six 

 streams; and then there is the Bay fishing forbluefish, 

 Spanish mackerel, Bb.eepab.ead, king fish— and sharks. 

 Ducks, geese and snipe are abundant, with rabbits and 

 quail, if one knows just at here to look for them. 



—Records; of successive long-distance pedestrian trials 

 show the same ad ranee to the character of the perform- 

 ance that has been exhibited in every branch of newly 

 stimulated athletic exercise. In the match which 

 closed at Madison Square Garden, this city, last Sat- 

 urday night, Frank Hart, one of the negro competi 

 tors, scored for the six days 565 1-10 miles, being twelve 

 miles more than the score of Blower Brown, made in 

 London last February. Hart has at least demonstrated 

 that in a long-distance race the black man may some- 

 times lead. The second man, Pegram, was also a repre- 

 sentative from the Dark Continent, his score being 543} 

 miles. The other records were : Howard, 534 miles ; 

 Dobler, 530 ; Allen, 525 ; Krohne. 516; Williams, 509, and 

 Hanwaker, 450. 



Long-distance walks would appear to have lost none of 

 their attraction for the New York population. The cash 

 receipts are reported to have been $27,030, 



IT seems assured now that an American team will visit 

 Ireland during the present season to renew once 

 again that charming Irish-American match over the 

 longranges. The Palma match, from all appearances, 

 must lapse for yet another year, with very good chances Of 

 its resumption in 1881. as according to the letter received 

 by Col. Bodine within the past three days from Sir 

 Henry Halford, the opinion is conveyed that there is but 

 the slightest probability of a match in 1880, and in the 

 same letter tho Knglish rifle leader says he will set about, 

 securing the team of 1881 at once. For the present, then, 

 the National Rifle Association has the single task of get- 

 ting together six men, with the necessary reserve, who 

 are willing to go over to Ireland, undergo the tempta- 

 tions of Irish hospitality before the match, shoot there 

 with the eyes of all America upon them, and come back 

 with a good account of themselves. The men can be se- 

 cured, and if the right men are chosen the result is as- 

 sured. It does not appear that the Irish riflemen have 

 either forgotten anything or learned anything, and woe 

 betide the American team who should now permit any 

 break to come in the series of American victories with 

 the rifle. With our rifles, beyond argument the best now 

 made, and a team system which should equal if not 

 excel that shown in previous years, there should be no 

 sort of doubt of the result as against the each-man-for- 

 himself style of the Irish team and their muzzle-loaders, 

 beautiful samples of workmanship though they may be, 

 With, then, the result'so well assured, if the men from 

 the United States be properly presented on the Irish 

 range, the work now is to select and equip the team. 



There is a ring of fairness in the open-competition- 

 style of sorting the men which is very popular and very 

 problemetical. Theoretically it should produce the best 

 men, but this survival of the fittest does not always fol- 

 low here, however it may do in other spheres of action. 

 Flukes are constantly occurring, and one which may send 

 a poor man to the front in a competitive selection would 

 bind the committee to him if they took the risk of selec- 

 tion by a certain round of scores only. This may pro- 

 duce the best men and it may not. When all the men 

 are untried and it becomes a groping among a lot of un- 

 knowns, then this plan is as good as any, but we here 

 have passed that stage. We couldname a dozen men, off- 

 hand who could be molded into a team which would 

 beat a foreign team with the certainty of fifty to one. 

 Our columns each week spread to the world the doings 

 of our riflemen, and a man is good for his average either 

 in or out of a match. When a marksman swings along 

 at 300 and over, and can, in a series of contests, aver- 

 age well up in the teens, he is a safe man to put on a 

 team surely, against one who can, according to his own 

 statement, run up a score of 224, and then, when brought 

 into an immediate prospect of a trial of his merit in 

 open competition, turns tail and runs off. 



The steady shooter is worth more than the skyrocket 

 shot in a match of moment, and a strong team pulling 

 together is almost sure to vanquish a company of meteors 

 and sticks. With this principle in view, the selection of 

 the American team seems to take the character of a par- 

 tial competition and a partial selection, and there are no 

 better ones to make the selection than the men who 

 have won for themselves places on the team already. It 

 is not to be supposed that they will take team fellows 

 who are not lit in their opinion to bear their share of 

 the contest. In former years the mixed plan was tried 

 with good success, and with the limited time for the 

 gathering together of the team at this time it would 

 seem specially desirable that some such plan should be 

 adopted in this case. 



Another pait of the work of the committee having 

 the matter in hand is the provision of a sum of money 

 sufficient to cany the team to Ireland and return. The 

 sum total for this work is not a large one, and the 

 committee of the Association should find no difficulty 

 in raising that sum. The plan proposed of having each 

 man pay Ids own expenses, or even of looking to the 

 club or section from which he comes to take charge of 

 his financial backing, is a false one, and sure to produce 

 discord and break up that unanimity which is essential 

 to a perfect team system. The men should go out from 

 these shores as the representatives of the nation, and it 

 is the duty of the National Rifle Association to see to it 

 that they go ouo properly organized, with a measure of 

 accountability to that Association. The opportunities 

 should be given, if need be, to every American citizen 

 to assist in sending this team to Ireland. It is a plan 

 which may be kept up year after year, and it will be 

 a bad precedent to have a team of independent gentle- 

 men going over simultaneously and whose only bond of 

 union is a°similar desire to win the match. They should 

 be recognized abroad as direot agents of the United 

 States, or from its people, sent there by its people and 

 on their behalf, and this can be done most thoroughly 

 by placing the financial conduct of the team in the hands 

 of its captain, and in that way giving him the complete 

 control necessary, if he is to be held fully accountable 

 for a good record of the trip. The Forest and Stream 

 will do what it can to help on the work, but will feel 



itself free when called upon at all times to criticise fully 

 and sharply what may appear to be amisB in the aims 

 and work of the committee. 



Niagara as a National Park.— For the benefit of 

 the individual tourist, as well as for the credit of the two 

 Governments concerned, it is to be hoped that the scheme 

 of rescuing the Niagara Falls from the pitiable condition 

 of their present surroundings, may be put through, until 

 we shall see the river and the Falls as they were before 

 the era of mills and board-fence obstructions and patent 

 medicine desecrations. This plan was first broached by 

 Lord Dufferin, when Governor-General of Canada, and 

 was approved by Gov. Robinson, who brought the pro- 

 ject before the attention of the New York Legislature. 

 The Commissioners of the State Survey, to whom the 

 task was intrusted, have just made their report, which 

 recommends that the State of New York and the Do- 

 minion of Canada respectively acqu ire possession of the 

 banks of the river above and below the Falls, clear them 

 of their present obstructions, and so restore them that 

 the observer shall see nothing but tho water, the sky, the 

 earth and the vegetation. That means to abolish the 

 paper mills and disgraceful buildings on Bath Island, 

 and the long-standing eye-sores on either side of the 

 stream. Among the names wlvich are appended to the 

 memorial on this subject are those of Buskin, Carlyle, 

 Lonfellow, Emerson, Lowell, Parkman, Sir John Lub- 

 bock, Lord Houghton, Max Midler, Alexander Agassiz, 

 Horatio Seymour, ThurlowWeed, Charles Francis Adams, 

 and a powerful array of the chief dignitaries of America 

 and England. 



We have the Yellowstone and the Yosemite insured to 

 ourselves and to our children's children ; with the Niagara 

 Falls likewise set apart, America would possess a trio of 

 the most magnifient parks in the world. 



"Good in Everything."— So seemingly an unpeetic 

 thing as the sting of an insect was long ago utilized by 

 the poets in the Greek story of Io, metamorphosed 

 through the jealous wrath of Juno into a heifer, and 

 driven hither and thither in frenzied flight over the earth, 

 pursued and tormented by the unrelenting onsets of a 

 gad-fly. And now it appears that even the maligned and 

 universally execrated black fly may yet hold a dignified 

 place, if not in the tales of the poets, at least in the phi- 

 losophical systems of the day. Discussing the origin and 

 development of barbaric customs, in his new book, 

 " Ceremonial Institutions," Mr. Herbert Spencer comes 

 to the discussion of the question why savage races paint 

 their bodies and faces ; and he accounts for the practice 

 as follows : — 



"In tropical countries the irritation produced by flics is 

 a phief misery in life ; and sundry habits, which in our 

 eyes are repulsive, result from endeavors to mitigate this 

 misery. In the absence of anything better, the lower 

 races of mankind cover their bodies with films of dirt as 

 shields against these insect enemies. Hence, apparently, 

 one motive for painting the skin. Juarros says : ' The 

 barbarians, or unreclaimed Indians of Guatemala . . . 

 always paint themselves black, rather for the purpose of 

 defense against mosquitoes than for ornament.' And 

 then we get an indication that where the pigment used, 

 being decorative and costly, is indicative of wealth, the 

 abundant use of it becomes honorable." 



According to the time-honored story of the school- 

 books, Sir Isaac Newton was led by observing the fall of 

 an apple to investigate tho law of gravitation, It may 

 not be hazardous to suggest that Mr. Spencer wrote this 

 passage in his discussion of sociology after an after- 

 noon's battling with the pests of the trout stream. How- 

 ever that may be, the Adirondack angler, who linds tar 

 and oil unavailing, may forget the sting of the fly in the 

 consolation afforded by philosophical speculations upon 

 that insect's proper place in the development of the race. 



Woodcock Oct of Season.— There is much indigna- 

 tion in Hartford, Conn., at the flagrant violation of the 

 game laws of Connecticut, and the defiance of public 

 opinion in the matter as exhibited by some of the mem- 

 bers of the leading social club in the city, the Hartford 

 Club. Report has it that some twenty-two woodcock were 

 sold to and bought by Sherman & Cook, of Hartford ; 

 that a part of these were bought and served at the Hart- 

 ford Club, and others were used at private tables. The 

 proof is said to be ample. Tlds is about as wicked and 

 senseless a violation of law and decency as can be in such 

 a matter. The shooting of woodcock on the spring-flight, 

 preparatory to nesting, is a new and outrageous proceed- 

 ing, anyway ; and the eating of the birds at a season 

 when they are absolutely unfit for food, heavy with eggs 

 (as some oftheee birds were said to be), or devoid of fat, 

 due to the nesting season, is an offense against the table 

 as great in the view of an epicure as was the violation of 

 law in the killing or purchase of the birds. 



If there is now opened a warfare on these birds on 

 their passage north, as well as the illegal killing in the 

 summer, to be followed by the more legitimate but se- 

 vere depletion in the fall, then good-bye to these birds 1 

 This whole thing is an outrage on law, decency and appe- 



