270 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[May 6, 1880. 



A WEEKLY JOURNAL, 



Devoted to Ftuld and Aqtjatio Spouts, Practicai, Natttrai. 

 History, Fish Cut ..F GAME, PRESERVA- 



TION OF FORESIS, AND THE INCULCATION IN MEN AND "WOMEN OF 



A Healthy Interest in Out-Door Kecreation and Study : 

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NEW YORK, THURSDAY, MAY 6, 1880. 



To Correspondents. 



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 cerned. 



WHO GOES WITH YOU? 



A POPULAR Boston lecturer, who has visited almost 

 every important Mecca of the European tourist, 

 once gave as his advice concerning the choice of a trav- 

 eling companion : "First, be sure to select a person whose 

 pocket book is as deep as your own and no deeper ; second, 

 select a man whose tastes are similar to your own, who 

 will wish to go where you wish to go, and to see what 

 you wish to see ; third, select one of the same mental 

 caliber as yourself; and fourth, select one possessing 

 culture equal to your own. I always travel alone." 

 That last sentfince is not so egotistical as it may appear ; 

 for it probably epitomizes the lesson learned from a 

 series of wearisome trials of experimental traveling com- 

 panionships. The experienced tourist is shy of untried 

 fellows. 



The hints just given are also applicable to sporting ex- 

 cursions. Whether the man who goes fishing, shooting 

 and camping shall go alone, with a single friend or with 

 a party, depends upon such a multiplicity of "its"' and 

 "ands'' in each individual caso that it is impossible to 

 formulate any general rule which shall apply to each 

 particular case. Upon the choice of comrades, however, 

 quite as much as upon the selection of place and time, 

 depends the enjoyment of the trip. Genial companion- 

 ship will brighten up the most dismal fortnight of cloudy 

 days ; and, on the other hand, just as surely will an un- 

 sympathetic association convert into jarring discord all 

 the. melody of rustling leaf, singing bird and falling 

 water. It must be remembered that two persons, who 

 each profess a taste for camp life or sporting excursions, 

 may yet differ very much in the particular way in which 

 they would gratify such a taste. 



For one there is pleasure and profit to be gained by 

 withdrawing from his fellow creatures for a season, to 

 dwell in solitude and retirement amid the influences and 

 studies of the silent forest arches. The old anchorites of 

 the deserts were lunatics in their way, and doubtless de- 

 served their self-imposed austerities. But there was 

 after all a spark of common sense in their creed and 

 practice ; and scores of business and professional men 

 to-day, who are constantly thrown into sharp contact i 

 with their fellow- men. and who have a very I .• . . 



of the cares and troubles of others thrust upon them, 

 might with great profit to body and soul assume 

 for a brief season the tunic of the hermit and 

 his fare of lentils and leeks. There are two ways 

 in which the benefit of such a retirement may 

 be rendered naught : a man may bear unto the woods 

 with him all the perplexing details of his business, and 

 there revolve them over and over again, and so return to 

 his home without once having surrendered himself to 

 the healing influences of the wild woods ; and again, tho 

 unfortunate pleasure-seeker may be bored beyond endur- 

 ance by the constant annoyance of an uncongenial and 

 irritating companion. Fortunate is he who has for his 

 coming excursion a friend tried and true, who lias been 

 tested of old. "With such a comrr.de the pleasures o* the 

 camp are trebled, and about the fire at night one may 

 live again the summers o^ the past. 



It is an almost universal experience, when viewing 

 alone an impressive scene of nature, to feel a longing for 

 the presence of another to share the emotions aroused by 

 the occasion. Only as we grow o n dev do we learn that 

 were that visionary kindred spirit to draw near, the in- 

 spiration of the moment would be dispelled. Some men 

 never see anything in the changing glories of a sunset. 

 There are souls so bemanacled in this earth lypiisonhotroe 

 that they can never appreciate a higher gratification than 

 that afforded by plenty of good, cold corned beef and 

 beans — and plenty of mustard. He who does stand cdent 

 before the trailing cloud? of glory will ?je a wise man in 

 his day and generat'on. if he leave the corned beef and 

 beans wight to bis disb. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON AND IRISH 

 WOLF-HOUNDS. 



THOSE who read the letter of John Quiney Adams, 

 published in our issue of March 25th, will be inter- 

 ested in the following letter, written by George Washing- 

 ton, about the Irish wolf-hound. We are indebted to Mr. 

 R. T. Greene, of Jersey City Heights, N. J., for the copy of 

 the same. It will be remembered that about a year ago 

 there was quite an animated discussion carried on through 

 the medium of the sporting papers, here and abroad, in 

 regard to the extinction of the type of dog called the 

 Irish wolf-hound. 



" B. St. George," in his letter which appeared in the 

 Forest and Stream of March 13th, 1879, states in the 

 first part of that communication, that it was generally 

 accepted as a fact that these dogs had ceased to exist ; 

 although, a little further on, he writes that there still 

 exists sufficient of the true breed, both in the race still 

 known in Ireland as the Irish wolf-hound, and in our 

 modern deer-hound, to allow of the complete recovery 

 of the breed. Interested parties at once made an effort 

 to create a class in the Dublin Show, and the Irish Ken- 

 nel Club and others were successful in recuscitating the 

 breed, as twelve were entered, and eleven put in an ap- 

 pearance. This certffinly was a good beginning toward 

 renewing an extinct type, although, according to " I. 

 D.'s " letter in the Forest and Stream, of April 17th fol- 

 lowing, they were a slightly mixed class. 



It may interest the readers of the Borest and Stream 

 to know how nearly extinct they were considered a hun- 

 dred years ago, and, at the same time, have the pleasure 

 of reading a copy of a letter written by George Washing- 

 ton. By the way, our friends, who have been abused for 

 selling and buying dog flesh, may find some comfort in 

 the evidence below that so eminent a man as our first 

 President did not consider it beneath his manhood to act 

 as a party to dog sales. The individuals who are inclined 

 to write down all dealers in dog flesh as knaves, might 

 profitably examine the records of the past, and possibly 

 turn their discoveries to political ends. 



The letter is addressed to Charles Carter, of Ludlow 

 Farm, Fredericksburg, Va., and reads as follows :— 



Mount Vr.RNON,Peb. 5th, 1788. 



Tjeae Sm-.-At length I have got some answer to my applica- 

 tion for "Wolf Dogs. I wish it was more satisfactory ; but such as 

 it is, I give it, as suspenso of our situation is the most disa- 

 greeable.' 



The information comes from Sir Edward Newenham, a gentle- 

 man of family and fortune in Ireland, and is in these words :— 



"I have just received a letter irotu your noble and virtuous 

 friend, the Marquis de la Fayette, in which he communicates 

 your wish to obtain a breed of the true Irish Wolf Dog, ami desires 

 mo to procure it. I have been these several years endeavoring to 

 get that breed without success. It is nearly annihilated. I have 

 heard of a dog in the South, and a bitch in the North of Ireland 

 but not of a couple anywhere. I am also told that the 'Earl of 

 Altermert' has a breed that is nearly genuine; if he has, I will 

 procure two from him. The Marquis also wants some at his. do- 

 main, where be is troubled by the wolves. If Mastiff would be 

 of any service, 1 could send you some valuable large ones, which 

 are our guard dogs. Tou will honor me with your commands 

 about them. They are very fierce, faithful and long-lived. ' ' 



If upon this information you think I can be further useful, I 

 shall be happy to render any service la my power, Mastiff I con- 

 ceive will not answer the purpose for which the Woif Dog is 

 wauled. They will guard a pen— which pen maybe secured by 

 its situation, by cur dogs and various other ways — but your ob- 

 ject, it I have a right conception of it, is to bunt and destroy 

 wolves by pursuit, for which end the Mastiff is altogethi i m 

 If the proper kind can be had, I have no doubt of their being sent 

 by Sir Edward, who !ms sought un occasion to be obliging to me. 

 I am, dear sir, 



Your most obedient and affectionate servant, 

 Gbokok Wash 



Spring Fever. — There is a peculiar disease, not treated 

 of in general therapeutics, and yet one so prevalent when 

 the season opens and the game law becomes inoperative, 

 when the spring bursts forth renewing ils lusty life and 

 inspiring poet and artist, that it becomes a subject of 

 serious inquiry why the medical profession has so en- 

 tirely disregarded it and ignored its claims to a place in 

 the catalogue of human ailments. When the robins and 

 the meadow larks return. ; when the sparrows commence 

 to mate and the ground birds look about for building 

 sices ; when the pansies and the violets emit their per- 

 fume and display their charms, there comes stealing over 

 such as are susceptible to it the inevitable spring fever. 

 It comes with the ides of March. Here in New York it 

 begins to appear when the Governor's Island gun booms 

 sundown at (i o'clock. It comes with the snipe and shad, 

 and cases over its viojrimsan intense and irresistible yearn- 

 ing to visit some favorite trout stream — a yearning so 

 keenly developed that it transforms the. best of us into 

 lazy, useless beings, in our own way and in the way of 

 everybody else. 



Icis Dot attended with the dangerous characteristics 

 that diatinguish typhoid, intermittent, yellow and other 

 fevers, It is not provocative of a desire to die and be 

 done with bodily suffering ; but it is attended by a deli- 

 cious languor, an elegant stupidity, and a lazy worthless- 

 ness refreshing to behold. Spring fever does not crowd 

 the liospuals, nor call physicians at the midnight hour, 

 not fill the heart with alternating hopes and fears. It 

 only makes one an annoyance and hindrance that ought 

 to be banished to the woods, and the woods and the 

 waters are the sovereign remedies, the panacea for it 

 when it assumes its most aggravating form. 



The principal symptoms are indicated by fondly ca- 

 ressing your rods, eveiy joint of which is a reminis- 

 cence ; overhauling and taking account of your flies, 

 in which you evince more interest than ever a girl did 

 over a piece of pretty ribbon ; studying maps, telling 

 fish stories and altogether acting as irrational as a man 

 on the verge of marrying. It incapacitates a man tot- 

 any serious work, and something must be found to relieve 

 it. Be sure that your diagnosis is correct, and that the 

 .symptoms indicate an attack of spring fever, then con- 

 sult the physician, who will prescribe about as follows : — 



Bamboo rod, 3 joints, Soz. 



Assorted flies, C doz. 



Vacation, 2 to -1 weeks. 



Pure oxygen, wild woods, 009999990 gallons. 



Eat regularly 3, 4, 6, or 8 times a day. To be taken in the open 

 air. 



Be sure of your physician, and do not stifle your 

 chances of living by following the advice of any one 

 who prescribes differently from the formula above. There 

 is nothing else in the pharmacopoeia half so emoicacious. 



Millard. 



A Brace op Geese. — The season in which it is law- 

 ful to kill wild geese in this State closed last Sat- 

 urday. The sport has been excellent at many of the , 

 most popular grounds, and gunners have had all the fun 

 they could reasonably ask for. Many a man who has 

 been taught that the saying, "as silly as a goose," as a 

 sufficient index to the true character of the wild bird, 

 has learned the fallacy of such an opinion. 



Proverbs and folk sayings are crystallizations of wis- 

 dom and native wit. A proverb cannot live if it has no 

 deep tap-root in the common experience of mankind. 

 No man can sit down and write a book of original prov- 

 erbs. Solomon did not originate all the wisdom credited 

 to him. 



Many of the popular sayings of different peoples, espe- 

 cially among Bavage and primitive races, are founded 

 upon their observations of the characters and habits of 

 the different members of the animal world ; and much 

 of the unwritten literature or folk tales of these races is 

 made up of animal legends and stories of birds and 

 beasts. Their wisest saws have reference to the sillines* 

 of some animals and the subtle cunning of others. So 

 full of wisdom and truth are some of these fable3 that 

 they have lived for centuries and thousands of years, 

 transmitted from generation to generation by word of I 

 mouth, perpetuated in parchments, and disseminated in 

 varying forms over very wide portions of the world. 

 Since the investigation of the race relations of different 

 peoples has been stimulated by the study of comparative 

 philology, these legends, myths and proverbs have as- 

 sumed importance, and such eminent scholars us Max 

 Muller, Ralston, Thorns, Daseiit, and others have recog- 

 nized their value as links in tho chain of historical in- 

 quiry. 



This is wandering away off from our gease and stools 

 and batteries, and we must return to bag our brace OS 

 birds, or rather our brace of proverbs. The man who has I 

 been cramped up in a warm battery hoar after hour. 

 patiently and persistently fritting hia oLiIi against the. 

 waiy cunning of a goose, only to betake himself home W 

 last still-legged and sore, as best he can, is probably in g 

 suitable stale of mind to appreciate the truth contained 

 in tbe expression. " a . wild-goose chase." 



We are not disposed to argue with those who think 

 that the other expression, ' 



roneouB one, and who would have us 



