814 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
paunch, or anything fleshy that will leave a scent, so that 
animals in their roamings about, on crossing this trail 
will be attracted by the smell and follow it up to the trap. 
The trappers manufacture a scent for this purpose by 
placing small fish in a bottle and letting them decay in 
the sun until a strong oil is formed that when rubbed on 
the drag, and a few drops placed on the bait or anyvrhei-e 
in the back part of the fall, will prove an attraction irre- 
sistable to a mink. For wolf or fox it is better to mix 
with the above a little assafretida and oil of anise. The 
trappers general}’ go two together (rarely more, as two can 
do the work, and the profits are greater,) sometime in 
September or early October, and having found a Suitable 
region for trapping, built their shanty or shanties, and 
got in their supplies, they blaze their line and construct 
their deadfalls to locate their traps. This takes them un¬ 
til about November, when the fur begins to become good. 
The trapping season last until about April, though otter 
skins are good, 1 believe, somewhat longer, The most 
favorable time for trapping is in the fall and early spring. 
The months of November and March are the best. Of 
course it varies in different seasons. 
The best bait for mink is any part of a fish, even the 
head is good, or a piece of muskrat flesh or a bird. The 
fisher the same; for marten or sable any paid of a fowl, 
a duck or partridge head or a red squirrel, or a hare's leg, 
in fact they will take about the same thing. 
I have but: little faith in deadfalls, and few trappers 
now-a-days, I believe, rely on them to any extent. They 
use them sometimes of course on the mountains when 
they are Bhort of traps, but I would no more think of go¬ 
ing’on a fur expedition without a set of steel traps of dif¬ 
ferent sizes, than 1 would of going without my gun or axe. 
Deadfalls will only operate (and then not always success¬ 
fully) with mink, marten and sable; neither otter, heaver 
or fox, and rarely a wolf, will enter them. Fisher and 
wild cat are sometimes caught in them, but oftener they 
tear them down and carry off the bait, and also the marten 
or any smaller animal you may have previously .secured. 
A good steel trap properly set and attached to the right 
kind of a spring pole, is much neater and surer, as it se¬ 
cures your prize from the devouring propensities of the 
larger animals. 
For otter, the trap should be set on their slides either at 
the top or, as I prefer, at the bottom, about two or three 
inches under water. It leaves no scent there and wiil 
drown your animal before he has time lo perform any 
act of amputation. As for the other animals you can 
generaly find a hole in a stump or log or in the bank of 
sufficient depth to place the bait, then set the trap at the 
opening lightly covered. A first rate place to set a trap 
for fox, wolf or wild cat is near where you have killed a 
deer. It should be thoroughly though lightly covered over 
with earth, rotten wood or leaves. Traps should be 
thoroughly and often smoked orrubbed with fresh blood to 
remove the smell of the human hand, and it pays a trap¬ 
per to always wear a buckskin glove when handling these 
traps. 
Along the watercourses, lakes, etc., the trapper looks for 
mink, otter and beaver ; the fisher, marten and sable are 
found only in the heavily wooded and hilly regions. 
Wolves range all over. It is very difficult to catch an ot¬ 
ter in a deadfall, as they rarely touch bait. 
The life of a trapper is a life of hard work, with a rough 
time, not a little interspersed, to be sure, with incidents 
of adventure, often of danger, in their encounters with 
the larger animals, the bear, the lynx, and more especialy 
the catamount, or the American panther, but fortunately 
the latter is not often met with now even in our wilder 
regions. Jacobstaff. 
The Skunk-skin Harvest in Indiana.— While stroll¬ 
ing along Pearl street yesterday afternoon, between 
Meridian and I l lin ois streets, a News reporter, in a 
dusty cob-webby window, saw a piece oi cardboard, 
four"or five inches square, in which was written ; “Pure 
skunk oil and coon oil.” A moth-eaten, weather-beaten 
coon skin hung above the door, which the reporter enter¬ 
ed, following his nose, which immediately put itself on 
the defensive. “ AVhat do people buy skunk oil for ?” said 
the proprietor, in his answer repeating the question. 
' ‘ Why they buy it for rheumatism, and, I say it never 
fails to cure.” 
The reporter desired to see some pure skunk oil, having 
heard that there were many worthless imitations abroad, 
and was shown a pint flask of an oily liquid of the color 
of liuseed oil. He applied his fingers to the cork, and 
his nose rose in apprehension. The fluid had no more and 
no worse odor than lard oil, and the alarmed organ came 
down again. “We sell it to all sorts of people, white, 
black and yellow, the richest and the poorest,” the pro¬ 
prietor continued. “This oil we get from the skins — 
that's as much of the skunk as I get—and the yield is 
usualy about four ounces to the skin. Sometimes we get 
half a pint, and sometimes, though seldom, as much as a 
pint to a pelt. There’s not more than one skin in a thous¬ 
and that’ll yield a pint of skunk oil. The animal is thin 
in flesh in summer, but very fat in winter. Skunk hides 
last year, the best quality, were worth from $1.75 to $2 
each. They will not be worth more than half as much 
this year. I handled 30,000 skunk skins last year, nearly 
all of which were caught in Indiana, The animal abounds 
in Southern and Central Indiana. There are a few in 
this country, not many. The skins have been worth as 
much as $3.50, but they will never see that price again — 
not very soon at least. 
“ How are the skins classed ?” 
“ Well, first comes the A No. 1 star skunk, selling at 
$1.75 last winter. Tins skunk has a star-shaped white 
spot on top of the head, and no more white about him. 
Tire next quality', $1.25, we call the ‘short stripe.’ This 
has a white stripe running from the white star along 
each side of the head down the ueck to the shoulder. The 
next is the ‘narrow stripe.’ This has a long, narrow, 
white streak that runs along each side of the backbone 
(which has a black stripe) to the root of the tail. This 
sort of skin brought forty cents. The fourth grade has a 
broad white stripe on each side, the entire length of the 
body, three inches or more in width, and is worth only 
twenty cents.” 
“ Is there any danger of the skunk crop in this State 
becoming exhausted V" 
“Not at all, A skunk will have from three to seven 
young at a litter—usually about five. I’ve been a fur 
buyer for forty-two years, and there are more skunks in 
this State now than ever there was. There is a prejudice 
against the animal which makes it necessary to sell the 
fur to the ladies, who wear it under several pretty aliases, 
among which are ‘flitch’and ‘American sable.’ Be¬ 
sides being made into muffs and trimmings, skunk skins 
are extensively used in making fine carriage robes.” 
Mr. Lewark said there hadn’t been a skunk in the 
house for months, the trade only continuing through the 
winter, but the mephitic odor, like the scent of the roses 
round the shattered vase, clung lovingly about the place 
during the entire year .—Indianapolis News. 
Hunting on the Miramichl— Having sent out two 
men about the 6th of August last to explore for beaver 
and endeavor to secure live ones, and also to prepare for 
the winter’s trapping on Clear Water and other streams, 
branches of the Southwest Miramichi in the Province of 
New Brunswick, I learned from them on their return to 
the City of Fredericton, a few days since, preparatory to 
commencing actual operations, that they had found fif¬ 
teen or twenty beaver-dams at present occupied by these 
animals, each dam holding about two houses. They had 
set traps with the expectation of securing some small 
beavers alive, but only succeeded in catching six old 
animals, which as they were unmanageable they had to 
kill. Only the young beaver can be tamed with any sat¬ 
isfaction, the older ones being dangerous to tamper with, 
as their bite produces a fearful wound. The hunters 
abandoned them trap-setting for the present, as they 
found that they were in danger of frightening away the 
heavers from their generally incomplete dams and houses, 
which are seldom in a thorough state of repair until the 
last of this month. 
The hunters report large quantities of game, such as 
bear, moose, caribou, otter, mink and sable. When trav¬ 
elling about thirty miles up Clear Water, at a dead water 
stream near the upper lake, these hunters suddenly came 
on the dead body of a young moose, which had been 
lulled by some wild beast the day before. It was lying 
jn the woods in sight of the stream ; its skin was torn and 
scratched in many' places, and a hole was eaten in one 
side. The moss and hushes for several yards around 
where the body lay were tom to pieces and scattered 
around. There had evidently been a fearful struggle be¬ 
tween the parent moose and the bear, which had ended 
in the discomfiture of the former. About 300 yards be¬ 
low where these persons found the body of the young 
moose they saw a female of that species of animal feed¬ 
ing on the lily leaves in the dead water. This they sup¬ 
posed to be the mother of the dead calf, which still, with 
a mother’s affection, lingered about the dead body of the 
slain offspring. Henry Braithwaite, 
Fredericton, Oct. ISfft. 
^aUomil ffnsfimes. 
—Capt. Daft and his team of English cricketers arrived 
safely at Liverpool on Nov. 3d, after a very delightful 
passage. 
Daft’s English Cricketers vs. Eighteen Base-Ball 
Players. —We journeyed to Brooklyn on Oct. 15th to see 
the long-talked of match between the English profession¬ 
als and eighteen selected base-ball players. As it was a 
gate-money exhibition, and the meeting had not been 
properly advertised, there were only about 200 persons 
to witness the uninterestingjffaseo. "The Union Grounds, 
the aren a of so many famous, genuine, and ‘ 1 put up ” ball 
games, had been chosen for the play', and as it had never 
been a cricket ground a great deal of time was occupied 
i t trying to select the most even wicket. Many' years 
had passed since we visited these grounds, and the first 
glance illustrated to us, more plainly than words could 
speak, the wane in the metropolis of what is called 
11 America's national game.” Instead of the trim and neat 
appearance of the inclosure as we used to remember it, 
the once beautiful green turf had changed to a roughish 
field of long, dead grass, rank with weeds. The grand 
stand was a dismal ruin. The few old benches, prolific 
with ruBty nails, that remained, were only traps on which 
to tear one’s coat and trousers. The sheds had a leaky 
look, and the heaps of old lumber and scrap stuff piled 
about reminded one of a junk yard on a gigantic scale. 
Even the peanuts that an old woman hawked about had 
a shabby look ; and the face of England’s greatest bowler. 
Alfred Shaw, which appeared at the sashless window of 
the pagoda, had a most lost and woe-begone expression. 
The scene was actually depressing. 
It was somewhat late in the day before Capt. George 
Wright got his base-ballers together, the eighteen being 
composed of the following well-known players : George 
Wright, Gross, Farrell, O'Rourke, Mathews, Ward and 
Hines, of the champion Providence B. B.’Co.; Sam. 
Wright, Captain New Bedford B. B, C.; Brientnall and 
Williams, old Eureka B. B. C. of Newark ; Hicks, Ged- 
ney and Hatfield, old Mutual B. B. C.; Sprague, old Eek- 
ford B. B. C.; Booth and Clinton, Jersey OityB. B. C.; 
Letts, old Hoboken B. B. C., and Robinson, old New York 
B. B. C. More than half of the above-named eighteen 
are well known as cricketers, especially George Wright, 
who for years was the professional of tlie St. George and 
Philadelphia Clubs; Hicks, S. Wright and Hatfield, of 
the St. Georges : Sprague, of the Staten Island, and Will¬ 
iams and Brientnall, of the Newark. It was not a bona 
fide match between base-ball players and cricketers, any 
more than the games played in New England were in 
1874. 
As the full score is annexed we will not allude to the 
individual play', but will simply say that although neither 
Shaw or Morley were put on to howl, and that Oscroft, 
who had made 94 in Philadelphia, the two days before, 
was sent in as last man, with but little exertion (lie 
English team not only out-bowled and out-baked the 
base-ball men, but out-fielded them. The cricketers made 
the hardest and longest hits made in the match, in the 
face of the really good bowling of George Wright. For 
the ball players George Wright obtained the only double 
figures. His 20 included a 4, 3 and four 2s. Gedneymade 
a fine drive over the club-house, Hatfield a quick one- 
hand oatch at point, and Mathews fielded splendidly at 
long on. 
The positions taken by several of the base-ball men at 
the wicket were rather amusing. They had evidently 
heard of “leg-hits” in oricket, and this caused them to 
stand as far away from the guard as possible, with their 
bats stuck out in front of them like hoes. Now that the 
match is over we are rather glad that it took place, for 
it shows the absurdity of such contests, where nothing 
is to be learned or any conclusion arrived at. One 
might as well be expected to be interested and in¬ 
structed in watching Bogardus and Hanlan shooting a 
pigeon match or rowing a five-mile race. The score 
will show that the English team won by an inning and 
18 runs:— 
First Innina. Second Innina. 
BASE-BALL EIGHTEEN. 
O’Rourke, e. Selby, b. Bates. 4 o. Lockwood, b. Bates_ 4 
Williams, run out. 1 runout. 1 
Hicks, b. Bates. 0 c. Pinder, b. Bates. 2 
S. Wright, e. Oserolt, b. Em¬ 
mett.-. 7 runout... .. 3 
Letts, st. Pinder, b. Bates.... 3 st. Finder, b. Emmett. 0 
Brientnall, b. Bates. 1 b. Emmett. 0 
G. Wright, b. Bates. 20 e. Ulyett, b. Emmett. 2 
Sprague, b. Emmett. 3 e. Emmett, b. Bates. .... 0 
Hatfield, 1. b. w., b. Bates.... 0 c. Oscroft, b. Emmett... 2 
Matbews, c. and b. Emmett .. 0 st. Pinder, b. Emmett. 0 
Farrell, c. Morley, b. Em¬ 
mett... 4 runout. 3 
Ward, e. Shrewsbury, b. 
Bates . . ■ - 7 st. Pinder, b. Emmett.. o 
Booth, b. Emmett. i b. Bates. 0 
Hinee, hit w., b. Emmett. 0 b. Emmett. 1 
Robinson, b. Bates. 0 c. Daft. b. Bates.— 3 
Gross, not out. 4 e. Emmett, b. Bates. 3 
Gedney. c. Emmett, b. Bates 5 c. Lockwood, b. Bates.. B 
Clinton, b. Emmett. . U not out.. 0 
Byes, 3; leg-bye, J. 3 
Total.. 03 Total.37 
FALL OF WICKET. 
First liming. 4 5 6 IS 16 34 34 40 40 40 40 51. 51 52 54 61 B2-62 
Second Inning. 1 2 4 5 II 6 8 8 8 8 13 14 16 20 25 25 37—37 
Total ... . . 
ENGLISH (.TUCKETEliS. 
Clyctt, b. Ocorgo Wright. 
Bates, c. O’Rourke, b. George Wright. 
Shrewsbury, c. and b. George Wright. 
Daft, e. Booth, b. George Wright. 
Lockwood, c. Hatfield, o. George Wright. 
Solby, e. Booth, b. George Wright,. 
Barnes, b. Sprague. 
Emmett, o. Hatfield, b. George Wright. 
Shaw, b. Goorgo Wright.. 
Pinder, c. Ward, b. George Wright. 
Oscroft, not out. 
Byes. 
Total..107 
FALL OF WICKETS. 
First Inning. 32 30 47 53 75 88 98 88 100 107—107 
ANALYSIS OF BOWLING. 
Emmett. 
Bates ... 
Emmett. 
Bates.... 
ENGLISH. 
First Inning. 
Overs. Maidens. 
. 14—5 5 
.14 1 
Second Inning. 
. T 3 
. 6-3 1 
BASE-BALL PLAYERS. 
Elms. Wicket*. 
33 7 
36 9 
G. Wright.24 5 38 9 
Sprague. .18—2 3 42 1 
O'Rourke ..« 1 20 0 
Umpires—G. Lane, for English; F. Norley, for Base-Bailers. 
Richard Daft’s Complimentary Benefit. Notting¬ 
hamshire vs. Yorkshire. — This match was tendered by 
the Philadelphia cricketers to Capt. Daft, on account 
of the falling through of the English-Irish match. It was 
played on Oct. 23d and 24th on the Nicetown grounds 
under the auspices and management of the Germantown 
Club. The weather was cold, and this in addition to the 
great many matches that have been played this autumn 
in the Quaker City, prevented a large number of specta¬ 
tors from being present. The full receipts, however, 
were presented to Mr. Daft. This match was arranged 
that the cricket public might see the English players lint 
their own bowling. The seven Nottinghamshire players 
were assisted by Lane, the Staten I slan d Club’s profes¬ 
sional ; and the three brothers, Hargreave, of the Ger¬ 
mantown Club. The Yorkshire five, were also aided by 
Harry and George Wright, of base-ball fame ; Pearson, 
of the Chestnut Hill Club ; Braithwaite, professional of 
the Merion Clnb, and Sharwood and Smithson, new 
comers. The annexed score will show that the Notts’ 
men were the easy winners by 10 wickets : — 
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE, 
First Inning. Second Innina, 
Oscroft, b. Ulyett.22 
Selby, b. Emmett.0 not out... 
Shewsbury, run out.51 not out. 
Barnes, b. Ulyett. 8 
Daft, b. Bates. 1 
Shaw. b. Ulyett.. 3 
J. Hargreave, st. Pinder, b. 
Emmett.13 
Lane, l.b. w., b. Emmett.... 7 
T. Hargreave, b. Emmett.. 2 
Morley, b. Bates.11 
H. Hargreave, not out.15 
Byes, 13; leg-byes, 2; wides,1.15 
Total. 148 Total.. 
YORKSHIRE. 
First Inning. Second Inning. 
Lockwood, c. Selby, b. Mor¬ 
ley ... 0 b. Lane .... 
Ulyett, c. Barnes, b. Sbnw... .11 o. 11. Hargreave, b. Shaw. 
Bates, b. Sbaw. . 2 c. Oscroft, It. Morley. 
Pearson, st. Selby, b. Sbaw.... 0 1. b. w., b. Barnes. 
Emmett, not out...84 b. Lane. 
Braithwaite, b. Shaw..0 not out . 
Pinder, o. Selby, b. Money.... 1 c. Daft,b. Morley. 
G. Wriglit, retired hurt...0 did not bat... 
Sharwood, run out. 0 c. Oscroft, b. Lane. 
H. Wright, b. Morley,, . 6 e. Oscroft, b. Shaw. 
Smithson, e. H. Hargreave, b. 
Shaw. 3 b. Shaw.. .. 
Byes. 4 Byes, 5; leg-byos, 1. 
Total.. 
.51 Total. 
ANALYSIS OF BOWLING. 
Bates. 
Emmett. 
Ulyett 
Braithwaite. 
Bates. 
Lookwood. 
YORKSHIRE. 
First Inning. 
Overs. Maidens. 
. 45 37 
3 0 
. 3 2 
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE. 
First Inning. 
22.1 H 
23 U 
Buns. Wickets. 
40 3 
53 t 
31 3 
9 0 
19 0 
3 0 
21 5 
36 3 
